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26 March 2015 ISSN 1449-1907 Manuscript Status/Login | Contact Journal of Genomics now in PubMed/PubMed Central. Submit manuscripts... International Journal of Biological Sciences Journal of Cancer Theranostics Journal of Genomics Int J Med Sci 2008; 5(2):62-67. doi:10.7150/ijms.5.62 Research Paper The PSA era has led to a stage migration in the clinical course of prostate cancer. While this success has dramatically lowered the death rate from prostate cancer, it remains the most common cancer in men with 234,460 new cases and 27,350 deaths in the US in 2007.1 While hormonal therapy is typically initiated when the disease has advanced beyond local involvement and delays the time to PSA recurrence, it has not improved overall survival2 of patients with metastatic disease and has significant side effects.3 Newer chemotherapeutic regimens for metastatic prostate cancer show promise,4 but there are few therapy options for androgen independent prostate cancer (AIPC) patients. Therefore, there is a substantial need for new therapeutic options. Because of their relatively low systemic toxicity, vitamin C (VC) and vitamin K3 (VK3), have been evaluated for their abilities to prevent and treat cancer.5 VC exhibited selective toxicity against a variety of malignant cell lines, prevented the induction of experimental tumors, acted as a chemosensitizer, and acted in vivo as a radiosensitizer. However, variable clinical results were obtained with VC because of the difficulty of attaining clinically active doses.6 VK3 exhibited selective antitumor activity alone and in conjunction with many chemotherapeutic agents in human cancer cell lines. However, while intravenous VK3 acted as a chemosensitizing and radiosensitizing agent in patients, 30% of the patients exhibited hematologic toxicity (at higher doses).7 When VC and VK3 were combined in a ratio of 100:1 (Apatone) and administered to human tumor cell lines, including androgen independent prostate cancer cells (DU145), they exhibited a synergistic inhibition of cell growth and induced cell death by apoptosis at concentrations that were 10 to 50 times lower than for the individual vitamins.8, 9, 10 In addition, oral Apatone significantly (P << 0.01) increased the mean survival time of nude mice inoculated i.p. with DU145 cells and significantly reduced the growth rate of solid tumors in nude mice (P < 0.05) without inducing any significant bone marrow toxicity, changes in organ weight or pathologic changes of these organs.9 The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of oral Apatone administered throughout the day in prostate cancer in patients who failed standard therapy. Prostate cancer patients who had failed standard therapy were enrolled at William Beaumont, Royal Oak, MI and Summa Health Systems, Akron, OH. Standard therapy was defined to include radical prostatectomy, radiotherapy and hormonal ablation. We did not include docetaxol chemotherapy in our inclusion criteria for failure of standard therapy. A patient was required to have a biopsy with proven prostate cancer and 2 successive rises in PSA to be included in the study. The patient could not be currently undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or androgen deprivation. All patients exhibited acceptable renal function with blood urea nitrogen lower than 40 mg/dl and creatinine levels lower than 3 mg/dl and lacked clinical signs of obstructive liver disease as demonstrated by SGOT levels below 75 U/l; SGPT levels below 80 U/l and Alkaline Phosphatase levels below 200 U/l. TPatients using anticoagulants, chemotherapeutic agents, vitamin K, or vitamin C were excluded from the study. This protocol was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board, and all patients provided their voluntary, written informed consent. Each subject was interviewed by the study coordinator and examined by an urologist. Pretreatment evaluation included: a complete history and physical examination with a digital rectal examination for prostate configuration, size and symmetry; a medication audit; AUA Pain Scale and Symptom Score analysis; a complete blood count with differential, comprehensive chemistry panel including liver and renal panel, coagulation studies and a PSA test. We did not include standard bone scans or other radiographic studies as part of our study protocol. Patients were always seen by the study coordinator and the same examining urologist.. Following the 12 week study, two of the three “non-responders” in the study who had large body mass index values were given double the dose of Apatone by doubling the number of capsules in the previous regimen. PSA velocity (PSAV) and doubling time (PSADT) were calculated using the Prostate Cancer Research Institute Algorithms.12 Successful outcome was considered a PSADT increase and a PSAV decrease. The binomial expansion was used to calculate the exact probability of the number of successful outcomes among the enrolled patients. A probability of p <0.05 was taken as indicative of an Apatone effect. Matched t-tests were employed to test for significant difference in PSA velocity and doubling times before and after treatment.13 Linear spline fit analysis was used to measure and compare PSA values before, during and after therapy.12 Of thirty-three patients approached for participation, fourteen were not eligible; one withdrew; and one did not have two documented PSA values prior to enrollment. The characteristics of the remaining seventeen patients are detailed in Table 1. The median patient age was 71.5 (range 56 – 85 years), AUA performance status 6.5 (range 1 – 14) and median number of prior chemotherapy regimens was two. Patient Characteristics Pre-treatment PSAV ranged from 1.05 to 696 ng/ml/year (median 21.6 ng/ml/yr), while in-trial PSAV ranged from -12 to 256 ng/ml/year (median 6.39 ng/ml/yr). Conversely, pre-treatment PSADT values ranged from 2.0 to 54.4 months (median 3.12 months), while in-trial PSADT values ranged from -39 to 57.1 months (median 7.88 months). Linear spline fit analysis was performed using PSA levels before treatment, during treatment and following treatment (Figure 1). Representative curves are shown for a patient with a pre-treatment PSA > 30 ng/ml (Fig. 1a), a patient with 30 ng/ml > PSA > 10 ng/ml (Fig. 1b) and for a patient with a PSA < 10 ng/ml (Fig. 1c). In all 3 cases, the rate of PSA increase is significantly decreased during Apatone treatment, but increases at a rate similar to that seen before treatment once treatment ended (Fig. 1a and 1b). Thirteen of the 17 patients had a successful outcome; a decrease in PSAV and a lengthening of PSDT (Table 2). The probability of 13/17 successful outcomes is 0.008 suggesting the 76 % response we observed, was unlikely due to chance. The 3 “non-responders” each volunteered to have their dose of Apatone doubled following the trial. There were no adverse effects and two of these three patients subsequently had a decrease in PSA velocity and increase in PSA doubling time. No patient had a significant decrease in absolute PSA. Natural Log transformations of PSA measurements for patients with PSA greater than 30ng/ml (a); between 10-30ng/ml (b) and less than 10ng/ml (c). Before and after treatment with Apatone plotted against time in weeks fitted with a linear spline with knots at -60 weeks, the start of Apatone therapy and end of therapy. (→) indicate where patients went off Apatone or started alternative therapy. PSA Velocity and Doubling Time in Months Following the 12 week trial, 15 of 17 patients opted to continue Apatone therapy. Any decision to remain on Apatone therapy was left entirely to the patient. Anecdotally, most patients reported feeling “better” and more “energetic.” This coupled with stabilization of rising PSA along with no significant side effects led the men to continue therapy. Four continued therapy for 6 months and 11 continued for at least 1 year with one patient continuing for more than 2 years. Therapy was not discontinued in any patient due to vitamin toxicity or for other safety reasons. The PSA values of these patients were checked at various intervals while on treatment and remained stable. Patients terminating Apatone therapy experienced sharp increases in PSA levels as seen in the linear spline fit analysis (Figure 1). Of the 11 patients on therapy for greater than 1 year, only one (initial PSA 256, PSADT= 3 months, and PSAV 157ng/ml/yr) passed away after 14 months. No noteworthy changes were observed in the patient's complete blood counts, biochemistry panels or coagulation studies. No dose limiting toxicity or adverse events were experienced. Mild intermittent gastro-esophageal reflux symptoms was observed in 16 of 17 patients, but was eliminated when the Apatone was taken with meals or with antacids. The average AUA symptom score prior to beginning therapy was 7.9 (Table 3). This fell to 7.2 upon completion of the 12 week trial (P = .07). The average pain score based on the standard index was 3.2 initially, 2.3 at 6 weeks and returned to 3.2 at twelve weeks (Table 4). AUA Symptom Scores † = Data expressed as the mean ± standard error of the mean Pain Scores In a previously published, prospective, randomized trial, patients with pathologically proven prostate cancer in advanced stages (M1), osseous metastasis and resistance to hormone therapy were given two, 7 day courses of oral Apatone (VC at 5 g/m2/day and VK3 at 50 mg/m2/day), VC alone, VK3 alone, or a placebo.14 The 7day courses of treatment occurred during the first and fourth week of the study with two weeks of follow up after each treatment period. For the vitamin combination, homocysteine (a marker of tumor cell death induced by Apatone) assays showed an immediate and statistically significant drop (p<<0.01) in tumor cell numbers, while PSA serum levels rose in the two initial weeks and then fell to levels that were significantly different (p << 0.01) from the control group. For VC and VK3 alone, a non-significant difference was observed between the serum levels of homocysteine and PSA compared to the control group which suggested that the decreased PSA levels were due to tumor cell death.14 In this study, Apatone was administered daily in a single oral dose which was 2.5 to 3 times higher than the dose employed during the initial 12 weeks of our study. This dose resulted in a significant decrease in patient PSA levels which was ascribed to Apatone- induced tumor cell death by autoschizis. Conversely, the lower Apatone doses employed in the current study, led to increased PSADT without decreasing patient PSA levels. In the previous study, Apatone was given in a single daily dose.14 However, Apatone was designed as an adjunctive therapy for existing treatment regimens with Apatone being administered intravenously in a bolus immediately prior to chemotherapy or radiotherapy and then in daily oral maintenance doses between therapies to prevent tumor growth following washout of the chemotherapeutic agent. In addition, pharmacokinetic studies indicated serum vitamin C levels returned to steady-state values within 5 to 6 hours of oral administration.15 For these reasons, Apatone was given every 5 to 6 hours in this study. During the 12 week course of the study, PSADT was the primary endpoint. Using this criterion, thirteen of 17 patients had significant increases in PSA doubling time. Following the initial 12 week trial, two of the three “non-responders” in the study who had large body mass index values were given increased Apatone doses adjusted to compensate for their elevated BMI values. Both patients subsequently became “responders”. In addition, 15 of 17 patients opted to continue Apatone therapy following the 12 week trial. The PSA values of these patients were checked at various intervals while on treatment and remained stable. Therapy was not discontinued in any patient due to vitamin toxicity or for other safety reasons. PSADT has been useful in predicting treatment outcome before definitive therapy. For example, PSADT significantly correlated with biochemical recurrence16, linearly correlated with the interval to clinical relapse after PSA failure following radiation therapy for prostate cancer17, and was the most powerful indicator of disease activity in men under observation alone.18 When pretreatment variables in patients with androgen-independent prostate cancer were analyzed to determine the effect on PSA response after initiating maximum androgen blockade, increased PSADT was the only significant predictor of response.19 These results and others have led D'Amico to conclude that PSADT is sufficiently robust as a surrogate marker of prostate cancer survival to serve as a valid endpoint in trials of patients with hormone-refractory disease.17 More recently, PSADT has been used as an effective in vivo method for screening nontoxic agents, such as dihydroxyvitamin D3 (calcitriol), that increase PSADT without concomitantly decreasing PSA and yet become clinically valuable when used in combination with other anticancer agents.11 Our results demonstrate that oral Apatone significantly increased the PSADT of almost all the patients without concomitantly decreasing PSA, while co-administration of Apatone with known chemotherapeutic agents in other cancers resulted in a synergistic increase in antitumor activity.8,20 These results suggest that Apatone may find use in the clinic as a co-adjuvant therapy potentially in addition to docetaxol. Our decision not to include patients with alkaline phosphatase over 200 U/l may have excluded a number of men with osteoblastic bone lesions from metastases. This inherent selection bias does not allow us to examine the potential role of Apatone as salvage therapy, potentially after failure of docetaxol chemotherapy in hormone refractory patients. Apatone is safe and effective with thirteen of the 17 prostate cancer patients having a statistically significant (P-value < 0.05) increase in PSADT and a decrease in PSADV after taking Apatone for 12 weeks. The long-term impact of Apatone on disease progression is unknown and remains to be demonstrated by further clinical study. Additional studies appear warranted for the use of Apatone as a co–adjuvant, or for emerging salvage chemotherapy in the treatment of late stage prostate cancer. This research was supported by grants from The Beaumont Foundation, Royal Oak, Michigan, IC-MedTech, Inc, San Diego, California and The Summa Health System Foundation, Akron, Ohio. The authors have declared that no conflict of interest exists. 1. Jemal A, Siegel R, Ward E, Murray T, Xu J, Smigal C, Thun MJ. Cancer Statistics, 2006. CA Cancer J Clin. 2006;56:106 2. Newling DW. Early versus late androgen deprivation therapy in metastatic disease. Urology. 2001;58:50 3. Higano C, Shields A, Wood N, Brown J, Tangen C. Bone mineral density in patients with prostate cancer without bony metastases treated with intermittent androgen suppression. Urology. 2004;64:1182 4. Petrylak DP, Tangen CM, Hussain MH, Lara PNJr, Jones JA, Taplin ME. et al. Docetaxel and estramusine compared with mitoxantrone and prednisone for advanced refractory prostate cancer. N Engl J Med. 2004;351:1513 5. Lamm D, Riggs D, Shriver J, VanGilder P, Rach J, Dehaven J. Megadose Vitamins in Bladder Cancer: A Double-Blind Clinical Trial. J Urol. 1994;151:21 6. Gonzalez MJ, Miranda-Massari JR, Mora EM, Guzman A, Riordan NH, Riordan HD. et al. Orthomolecular oncology review: ascorbic acid and cancer 25 years later. Integr Cancer Ther. 2005;4:32 7. Lamson DW, Plaza SM. The anticancer effects of vitamin K. Altern Med Rev. 2003;8:303 8. De Loecker W, Janssens J, Bonte J, Taper HS. Effects of sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) and 2-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone (vitamin K3) treatment on human tumor cell growth in vitro. II. Synergism with combined chemotherapy action. Anticancer Res. 1993;13:103 9. Jamison JM, Gilloteaux J, Taper HS, Buc Calderon P, Perlaky L, Thiry M. et al. The in vitro and in vivo antitumor activity of vitamin C: K3 combinations against prostate cancer. In: (ed.) Lucas JL. Trends in prostate cancer research. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers. 2005:189-236 11. Guess BW, Scholz MC, Strum SB, Lam RY, Johnson HJ, Jennrich RI. Modified citrus pectin (MCP) increases the prostate-specific antigen doubling time in men with prostate cancer: a phase II pilot study. Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Dis. 2003;6:301 12. Sokal RR, Rohlf FJ. Introduction to biostatistics. San Francisco, CA: WH Freeman and Company. 1973 13. The MathWorks Inc. MATLAB®, Version 7.4, Spline Toolbox 3.3.2. Novi, MI: The MathWorks Inc. 2007 14.:45 15. Padayatty SJ, Sun H, Wang Y, Riordan HD, Hewitt SM, Katz A. et al. Vitamin C pharmacokinetics: Implications for oral and intravenous use. Ann Int Med. 2004;140:533 16. D'Amico AV, Hanks GE. Linear regressive analysis using prostate-specific antigen doubling time for predicting tumor biology and clinical outcome in prostate cancer. Cancer. 1993;72:2638 17. D'Amico AV, Moul J, Carroll PR, Sun L, Lubeck D, Chen MH. Prostate specific antigen doubling time as a surrogate endpoint for prostate cancer specific mortality following radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy. J Urol. 2004;172:S42 18. McLaren DB, McKenzie M, Duncan G, Pickles T. Watchful waiting or watchful progression? Prostate specific antigen doubling times and clinical behavior in patients with early untreated prostate carcinoma. Cancer. 1998;82:342 19. Shulman MJ, Karam JA, Benaim EA. Prostate-specific antigen doubling time predicts response to deferred antiandrogen therapy in men with androgen-independent prostate cancer. Urology. 2004;63:732 20. Kassouf W, Highshaw R, Nelkin GM, Dinney CP, Kamat AM. Vitamins C and K3 sensitive human urothelial tumors to gemcitabine. J Urol. 2006;176:1642 Correspondence to: Basir Tareen, M.D., Department of Urology, New York University, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016. tareen Received 2008-1-27 Accepted 2008-3-23 Published 2008-3-24

THERE WAS NOTHING SUBTLE about the smell. When the breeze shifted, pushing the damp morning air into our faces, the stench walloped us like a physical blow. "Whew, man," said Doug Wechsler, our expedition photographer. "Smells like something died." "Lots of somethings," I said, trying to breathe through my mouth. We were walking along a narrow, packed-dirt road in the hinterlands of Mato Grosso, in western Brazil, less than a hundred miles from the Bolivian border. On either side of us, low forest covered the rolling hills, with a wide band of tall grass fringing the road for a hundred yards or so. Just ahead, several yellow-headed vultures formed a mourning party, and as we got closer, they flapped languorously into the air. Now we could hear the buzz of flies, and realized the smell was coming from a roadside dump full of cow hides, entrails, heads, and partial skeletons, apparently the offal of a butchering operation at one of the ranches we'd passed a few miles back. Unfortunately, the trail we needed to take was almost buried by the stinking heap. A few minutes later, we reached the edge of the woods upwind of the dump and gasped clean air. Fabiano Olivera, a 21-year-old biology student from the university in Cuiabá, paused and nudged a white object with his footthe shoulder blade of a cow, one of hundreds of bleached bones lying in great piles. We'd hired Fabiano, a slim young man with a long brown ponytail, to be a driver and guide, a job he often takes between semesters, but he was coming to realize we were not his typical ecotourists. The three of us were at the start of an expedition that would, over the course of several weeks, carry us across more than a thousand miles of bad road, forest, highland savanna, degraded farming land, and lush river valleys, searching for an enigmatic bird that had been seen only once, more than 60 years ago, in a place no one today can pinpoint. There were times when I felt it might make more sense to stand in the dark with a burlap sack, yelling, "Here, snipe, snipe, snipe!" But that came later. We were looking for a songbird, one of the most famous lost species of South America. On August 25, 1938, a Frenchman named Dr. A. Vellard traveled through Mato Grosso and, like many amateur naturalists in those days, he gathered a small collection of birds typical of the region, shooting and stuffing a few dozen species he encountered. Later he showed his skins to the prominent French ornithologist Jacques Berlioz, who realized that one of themsomewhat larger than a sparrow, glossy black with a white belly and a small patch of white on each wing like the corner of a handkerchief poking out of a man's dark suitwas a new species. Berlioz named it the cone-billed tanager. That is all we know about the birdthe physical description of a single male specimen (the female remains unseen and undescribed). No one has reported a cone-billed tanager since 1938, and after more than 60 years, it is considered extinct, perhaps pushed over the edge by massive habitat destruction in large areas of Mato Grosso. But Brazil is a huge country, and Mato Grosso itself is vastat 352,400 square miles, the region is almost a third larger than the state of Texas. Immense areas of it have rarely if ever been visited by ornithologists, and a six-inch bird would be easy to overlook. NOW THAT WE WERE in the field, though, we were beginning to appreciate the sheer weight of geography that was against us. The cone-billed tanager, as near as anyone can tell, was a creature of the woodland edge, and we'd been looking for several days for just this kind of low, dry forest habitat on sandy soil. Moving in single file, we followed a meager trail through the forest, Doug hauling a voluminous blue backpack from whose top protruded a telephoto lens the size of a kitchen waste can. I've known Doug professionally for more than a decade, and after I began working on a book about the search for animals that might or might not be extinct, we started planning a collaborative hunt in South America. Tall and lanky, with a boyishness that belies his 49 years, Doug was the ideal partnera trained ornithologist and a respected wildlife photographer, he directs VIREO (Visual Resources for Ornithology), an ambitious photo archive at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia that will house photographic documentation of all the world's 9,600 or so species of birds. I had my heavy tape recorder slung over one shoulder and an 18-inch-long shotgun microphone hung in a leather holster at my belt. While Doug played a tape of the black-and-white tanager (the conebill's nearest relative, which we hoped might entice the rarer bird into view), I was recording unidentified birdsongs and playing them back, usually luring the singer into view as it hunted for what it assumed was an intruder. The conebill's there-and-gone history is unusual, but by no means unique. There are a number of South American birds that turned up in specimen collections in the 19th and early 20th centuries, never to be seen againlike the buff-cheeked tody-flycatcher, a tiny bird with a name longer than itself, collected just once, in 1830 in Brazil. Yet despite the long stretches since their original discoveries, some birds have recently been relocated; they include the Tumaco seedeater, first collected in 1912 on a tiny island off the Colombian coast and not found there again until the mid-1990s. A case that gave us particular hope was that of the cherry-throated tanager from eastern Brazilfirst recorded in the mid-19th century, it vanished for more than 100 years, was briefly sighted in 1941, and then dropped from sight again for almost six decades before it resurfaced in Espirito Santo on Brazil's eastern coast in 1998. The biggest hurdle we faced was simply not knowing where to look. The entire canon on the cone-billed tanager consists of two scientific journal articles, both by Jacques Berlioz, who had examined Vellard's collection of Brazilian birds. In 1939, Berlioz published a brief, seven-paragraph note in the Bulletin of the British Ornithology Club announcing the discovery of a new species of tanager in central Brazil; after the war, he followed this up in a French ornithological journal with a somewhat longer description of the specimen and a list of the other birds Vellard had collected on the trip. The papers indicate that Vellard shot the bird "at Juruena, northeast of Cuyaba, Matto Grosso (Central Brazil)." This is less straightforward than it may appear. "Juruena" could refer to either the 600-mile-long river by that name or to a city on its lower reaches, near the northwestern corner of Mato Grosso. But both are several hundred miles northwest of Cuiabá (as it is now spelled)not northeast, as both papers state. No one knows if the error was made by Vellard (perhaps through poor record-keeping or unfamiliarity with the region) or by Berlioz, but attempts over the years to clarify the issue failed. We did have one powerful cluethe other birds that Vellard collected on the same expedition. Taken together, they point to the intersection of Brazil's three great ecosystems, which link hands in western Mato Grossothe seasonally flooded Pantanal marshes to the south of Cuiabá, the Amazonian rainforests to the north, and the belt of cerrado grassland stretching across the midriff of the state, mostly at higher elevations. Putting our heads together with birders and ornithologists in Brazil and the United States, we decided to aim for the western fringe of Mato Grosso, beyond the Rio Paraguai and close to Bolivia, where several large chapadas, or plateaus, meet the upper Juruena, Guaporé, and other rivers. This region, we felt, offered the best chance for the right habitatlow, scrubby, dry forest at the edge of the cerrado, which we had finally found. WE'D SETTLED into a routineup at 4:30 in the morning, we'd load our old VW van in the dark, wash down some crackers or granola bars with packaged fruit juice, and arrive in the field as it was getting light, to take advantage of the dawn frenzy of bird activity. We spent days exploring the mountains near the Bolivian border and the floodplain of the Rio Guaporé; it was rugged, beautiful country, a green wall edged with orange cliffs like castle ramparts, above which flew flocks of scarlet macaws. Many times, our hearts would stutter when a black-and-white bird flew into view, but it was always something pedestrian. In truth, it was much too lush and wet a forest for the conebill, and so eventually we turned north, hunting for a way to the Rio Juruena. We were following a clue, the sort of accidental lead that can change everything. We'd heard from an old man of a ghost town called Juruena, on the headwaters of the river of the same namea place long gone from the maps, but which was a thriving community in the 1930s when Vellard passed through this region. This, we hoped, was the mysterious "Juruena" where Vellard's notes indicated he shot the first cone-billed tanager. The problem lay in getting there; the only access was by swinging far to the west and north, then backtracking east across one of the chapadas. After spending so much time in dense forest, it was liberating to rumble along beneath an open prairie sky. The cerrado extended to the horizon in all directions, dotted with head-high trees and bushes bearing colorful flowers, among which grazed groups of rheas, South American ostriches, one of them a male tending a convoy of new chicks the size of terriers. The map said the river was about 50 miles across the empty chapada. At first, the going was smooth, but as the morning coolness gave way to a white sun, the road steadily deteriorated until it was no more than a dry, sandy streambed along which our van slowly lurched and fishtailed, almost bogging down time and again. Finally, as both dusk and the edge of the plateau approached, the old VW settled into a deep rut and wouldn't budge. For a long time, no one said much; three guys stood staring at a white van that tipped unpleasantly toward its left rear corner. Doug and I shouldered the back of the van while Fabiano gave it some gas, but the tires just splattered a rooster tail of sand against our legs, and the vehicle sank farther. So we did what anyone stuck in the middle of nowhere would do. We went for a hike. It was an odd time to take a walk, I now realizethe sun had set, our only transportation was mired a very long way from help, and we hadn't made camp for the night. We walked, I think, because we'd been on the go all day and we just couldn't quit. We walked because we sensed the end of the road was close, and after weeks of scheming to get here, we wanted to see it. Finally, we walked because the crest of the hill was just aheadand peeking over the crests of hills is what human beings have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. Over the last rise, in the dim twilight, the land dropped off in a series of mile-wide steps to the valley of the Rio Juruena, vague in the hazy distance. Not far away, like a line drawn across the chapada, lapped a low, scrubby forest that could not have looked more ideal as potential tanager habitat. We were stuck, but we were stuck in the right place. ONE SODDEN MORNING, we had a teaser, the first time on the trip that our hopes really soared. We'd been making slow progress through the forest, made slower by the ever-fainter trail, which eventually dissolved entirely into featureless scrub, leaving us to backtrack to the edge of the cerrado and try a different route to the river. While we had seen tanagers of half a dozen other species, including one or two rarities, we saw nothing that even hinted at a conebill. It was sometime after sunrise, and we were in brushy forest, listening to a very different suite of birds than we'd encountered thus farchannel-billed toucans, turkeylike Spix's guans, mustached wrens. Many of the birds, like brown jacamars, were species that Vellard had collected on the same expedition as the cone-billed tanager, giving us hope that we might have stumbled at last on the right mix of habitat and locality. I was recording the song of a wren when Doug spun around, pointing, and said with quiet but unmistakable excitement, "A black bird just flew across the road!" My adrenaline surged even more a moment later, when I spotted it perched in a solitary tree draped with vinesit was clearly a tanager, almost entirely black, with a spot of white on its wing. I remembered the drawings I'd seen of the conebill, with its fleck of white like a pocket handkerchief. But then I noticed two things. This bird was black clear to its belly, without the white underparts that a cone-billed tanager would have, and the white on its wing was a thin sliver at the shoulder, not a square spot on the folded flight feathers. "Where is it? Do you have it?" Doug asked, binoculars poised; then, before I could say anything, he saw the bird move and snapped his glasses to his eyes. "Oh," he said, his voice flat. "That's a white-lined tanager. It's a good bird to find, but..." He didn't need to finish the thought. We'd spent a couple of fruitless weeks in the field, and I was growing a little jaded about our chances. Still, I was content to putter around with my tape recorder and microphone, concentrating on the solid, substantial birds of the chapada instead of chasing after mirages. Doug and I parted company for a few hours, he to photograph some small species of spinetail he'd spotted, me to wander off along the dirt road, stopping here and there to tape new species. At midmorning, the insect changing-of-the-guard was beginning; with the mosquitoes abating, I rolled up my shirtsleeves against the heat. The first few sweat bees were starting to appear, and I knew that within half an hour we'd be smothered beneath the small, stingless insects thirsty for the moisture on our skin. It was probably time to head back to the van, half a mile up the track, where Fabiano was taking a nap. I turned to retrace my route, which is the only reason I saw the flock of birds flit across the road, a dozen of them in a ragged line, landing in a fruit tree about 20 feet high. Even that quick glance showed there were several sizes and colorstropical birds often move in mixed-species flocks like this. Then one more bird flew into the outside edge of the treea tanager similar in size and shape to the others, but olive, with a more intense lime-green on the upper parts and upper breast, with a fair bit of streaking. The beak was typical of a tanager, somewhat conical and powerful, light at the base and dark toward the tip. I will not be melodramatic and say that my heart stopped; the embarrassing truth is that for the first few seconds I couldn't recall where I'd seen the bird before. But then I remembered the field-guide illustrations I'd studied of a female black-and-white tanager, the conebill's closest relativea bird that was a dead ringer for this one but not found within a thousand miles of us. No one knows what a female cone-billed tanager looks like, but given the similarity of the male to its black-and-white cousin (and the general propensity among female birds of the same genus to resemble one another), what I was seeing is exactly what one would expect a female conebill to look like. Unfortunately, I had only a few seconds more to stare before the flock broke into flight and disappeared into the cerrado. I dug out my notebook, furiously scribbling down every detail that I could remember, then found myself unsure what to do next. My inclination was to charge off after the flock, but Doug and Fabiano had no idea where I'd gone; besides, if the tanager was the undescribed female of a long-lost species, I'd need all the witnesses I could get. My indecision lasted only a minute or two, because Doug appeared at the crest of a low hill several hundred yards away, and my frantic gestures brought him at a trot. Fabiano, by another stroke of luck, followed moments later in the van, wondering what was keeping us. We grabbed gear, tapes, and fresh film and slathered ourselves with bug repellent, for the sweat bees were now bearing down in force. We sketched out a hurried planthe featureless brush of the chapada is an easy place to get lost in, and we didn't have a compass handy. Fabiano would stay with the van, and if we weren't back at a prearranged time, he would start blowing the horn to guide us back to the road. Heading into the brush, I felt the same keen edge as I have when tracking a buck during deer seasonthe heightened awareness of my surroundings, the way movement and sound are amplified, the reaching beyond oneself to connect with another animal. There were a few birds in the low trees, mostly sparrows and spinetails, flickers of movement cataloged and ignored. We moved quickly, trying to stay on a straight course, but the undergrowth was so thickvines, sharp-spined agaves, stunted trees with soot-blackened bark from the last brushfirethat our progress slowed and our path meandered. I tried to keep the sun over my left shoulder, but the clouds, which had shown some breaks earlier in the morning, thickened almost as soon as we entered the cerrado, and I was forced to rely on instinct to stay on course. All the while, we were battling ferocious clouds of sweat bees, far worse than anything we'd yet experienced. More seemed to rise from the brush with every step. My eyes were red and watering from bees that had crawled under the lids; they didn't sting, but the little bastards bit like tiny ants, and so many of them clogged my nose that I was finding it hard to breathe without choking on them. They packed into my ears, crawled by the dozens under my hat and down to my scalp, and crept with abandon into my clothes so that my skin twitched with them. There is a reason lost species are lost in the first place. Sometimes the reasons are weighty and formidable, like civil unrest, impenetrable mountains, or bandit warlords who use visitors for target practice. Sometimes they are more prosaic, like bad roads and worse information. And sometimes the reason is sweat beestoo many sweat bees. We finally staggered out of the brush, our eyes streaming and faces speckled with dead, smeared bugs just as Fabiano started honking the horn, never having found the tanager flock. HAD I SEEN A FEMALE cone-billed tanager? Perhaps, but I later learned something that casts a fair bit of doubt on it. Like any birder, I'd pored over the field guides for months before going to Brazil, and had memorized most of the common species illustrated in the color plates. But I'd fallen into the trap of mostly looking at the pictures and paying scant attention to the text. When I later sat down with Bob Ridgely's Birds of South America, I read something I'd overlooked until then, hidden in the account of the black-faced tanager, one of the species that made up the flock that day: "Sexes alike, but immature entirely different (and may not even be recognized as the same species): olive above, more yellowish on the head and with yellow eye-ring; paler yellowish-olive below." That's a rough description of what I saw, but it's not precisely the same; for instance, my tanager was brighter green than this description indicates, nor did I see a yellow eye ringthe sort of basic field mark birders usually notice quickly. But it seems far more likely that my greenish mystery bird was a young black-faced tanager traveling with its parents, rather than a never-before-seen cone-billed female. But our failure to find the tanager did not diminish our belief that the bird was still out there somewhereif anything, it reinforced it, by the simple experience of showing us how huge the bird's potential world is. We had looked hard for the tanager, but when we plotted our route on the map, it was only a squiggle in an immensity of space. Even within the areas we had visited, there are many places where few but the Indians have gone, valleys and drainages that have changed not at all with the coming of the Europeans. Though the world is shrinking daily, much of it is still unknown; the blank spots are disappearing beneath the unblinking eyes of satellites and the probing fingers of chainsaws, bulldozers, and the farmer's hoe, but great swaths of the planet remain a mystery to polite society, fit habitat for myths and monsters, a place where dreams can live. One of those dreams is six inches long and has a white spot on each wing. Who cares if the cone-billed tanager is alive, or if it, like tens of billions of organisms since life first arose, is now extinct? What does one tanager, more or less, matter when weighed against more than 9,000 living species of birds? You're asking the wrong person. Leaving aside the fundamental worth of every species, representing the unique harvest of nearly four billion years of natural selectionforgetting the value of a salvaged treasure in the face of global extinctionVellard's small black bird has come to matter a very great deal to me, out of all proportion to its size and ecological role, or even its place in a 60-year-old ornithological mystery. Obsession doesn't need reason or rationale, it simply requires an object of desire, the less attainable the better. I lie awake some nights, thinking back to the hot breeze on the chapada, hawks wheeling overhead and tinamous hooting mournfully in the thickets. I am certain the tanager is still there, as I am certain I am the one who can find it. I'm going back to Mato Grosso to look for that bird again. Soon. Want to get Outside more? Sign up for our newsletter and get the latest fitness tips, expert gear reviews, the best travel advice, and more.

♥ Dress: Primark *** Shoes: Dunnes *** Accessories: Primark *** Legging shorts(underneath): Forever 21 ♥ This dress looks ridiculously short, and it kind of is, but I don't think it looks quite as bad in person. It has been sitting in my closet since December and i'm trying to wear my clothes that still have tags on, rather than leaving them sitting around! The ruffles and cute bow on this dress are what sucked me in, because the fit is off. I can't blame the dress though - I don't like to wear dresses that are fitted in the waist because my waist and midsection is awkward. I usually have to pull the dresses up much higher than they should be. Its a cute dress, even though my habit of buying things because they are cute (rather than because they fit good) is bad! This week has been so hectic. I have turned into one of those bloggers who don't reply to their readers, i'm afraid! Its not on purpose, once I get settled into my new house I will have more free time to start coming online again. I haven't even began to pack my things yet! I painted my room twice earlier this week but I need to give it a third coat tomorrow. Yesterday I went to pick out my flooring, it only took trips to about 10 different stores but I found the perfect one eventually. We are *supposed* to be moving in on Sunday although i'm predicting it will be a few days later. I went to see my doctor again yesterday about my hair. Before I talk about that - I don't like to get too personal on my blog (if you guys hadn't noticed!) I'm fine with sharing little bits about myself but I don't think the internet needs to know my every move or that I went out and partied and got so drunk I passed out in my friends house. It doesn't really have a place in my blog so I just don't write about it. I don't mind talking about this hair problem though because I have quite a lot of readers and i'm sure at least one person who stumbles upon my blog is going through something similar. I mentioned my hair problem to my old doctor and she said straight away "its your diet and nutrition" - no tests, nothing. That was a couple of months ago and my hair isn't getting any better so I switched to a new doctor and boy am I glad that I did! Well, the news about my hair isn't too good but its lovely to have a doctor who doesn't blame everything on being overweight (infact we had a giggle when he weighed me and said "thats fine!" afterwards, I had to mention how impressive it was for a doctor to say that!) So, my hair problem..its genetic, I have alopecia. He said we can probably reverse it short term, but we can't make it go away forever. He did lots of blood tests and I have to go back for the results in a month when I finish some of the medication he gave me. I was also prescribed Cerazette which is a form of birth control which will stop my "lady time" every month (huzzah! See, there's a positive side to everything!) The reason being that I may be losing too much iron. Hopefully there won't be any serious side effects with it. I know the last time I mentioned my hair problems a lot of you ladies left sweet comments about how my hair looks fine, but I don't include closeups of my hair accessories on my head for a reason! Its very thin. Anyways, I will be sure to write about my progress with my hair and finding what works for me because it may help someone else. If anyone is going through something similar and would like to talk, my email address is in the sidebar! xoxo I know what it's like to go the Dr and feel like they're just going to say 'It's because you're overweight' every single time. Can I give you a few suggestions? I'm anaemic and VERY anaemic, my body rejects Iron and won't store it, so a big problem there. I'm no dr but I find this helps, of course take an iron supplement as I'm sure your Dr has prescribed, but always take it with a glass of orange juice (OJ helps you absorb Iron). Try a children's calcium tablet, they are usually in gummy bear form and I find they really help pep me up when I'm feeling tired due to no iron. Also, these foods are really high in iron; eggs, hummus, nuts, cereal and dark chocolate. I've been like this for years now and have a lot of health problems so if you ever want any help suggestions or chat just mail me! I know how distressing it is and how it can feel like the end of the world. Jade x Your outfit looks amazing and you look adorable on the second photo!! About the alopecia,i have heard of it for a long time now and i'm sorry to know you have it.I have been thinking about being tested because honestly the whole front of my hair is very thin and it makes me very uncomfortable with using certain hairstyles,started when i was 14 and ever since then never grew as imensly strong as it was before and i feel like something is wrong. Hope you can deal with it,dear,i can imagine how much it suck. *hugs* Love the whole outfit! @ Jade - I haven't began taking an iron supplement yet, my DR said he won't put me on one until the test results come back. (Which i'm kind of glad about as I already take 4 vitamin pills a day and 3 other pills so I feel like a bit of junkie!) I am not sure which supplement he will give me but unfortunately most children supplements (and many adult ones too) contain gelatin which I don't eat/consume. I also don't eat eggs but I can definitely eat more of the others! Thank you so much for the help! xoxo My friend has alopecia and I know she finds it quite upsetting, I really hope the pill helps. I think it is great your sharing this part of your personal life because I imagine it will help a lot of girls. On another not I don't think the dress is too short but then again I like my short dresses :) why not show of the pins. Also your skin is always so clear and gorgeous in your photos! So envious :). xx Thanks Tara! @ Joana - My hair is similar to yours! I don't have any patches or anything. Its just thin all over but especially noticeable at the front. Oh and I lose a lot of hair every time I brush it :( I also never style my hair differently because of it. When i'm at home I like to bend my head over, grab all of my hair, then tie it in a messy bun on the top of my head because that kind of covers the top of my head and I won't have to look at it.. :( My aunt had alopecia and got injections for it, she lost patches of hair but now her hair is fine. I hope they can do something for me even though mine is thin all over! xoxo You have the cutest clothes ever! I hope that your hair condition gets better! x @ Jean - Thank you! I wasn't sure if I would feel comfortable telling the whole world (okay, not the WHOLE world, but a lot of people) about this, but I think if something i'm going through can help someone else it will be worth it. If we are going to struggle at times in our lives, we might as well make similar situations easier for others! :) And thank you for the compliment on my skin! I'm lucky that I rarely break out but today my forehead is covered in zits, thankfully a thick layer of concealer and MAC foundation covered them! hehe. xoxo Okay first of all, the outfit is too cute. I love colors, ruffles and bow and everything. And I'm proud to say that I have the same shoeeeess :) Next, I'm new at blogging so I haven't read your entire blog, but now that I'm following, I read it so far. About hair problem - I'm scared now, couse I have the same problem. My hair is thin, but I always thought it's because I die my hair in black every month for past 3 years. Now that you mention, I'm losing iron as well cause when I did my blood test past months my iron was a bit lower. :/ Do you think I should do more tests ? Sorry for my bad English.. :/ xoxo i'm sorry to hear that you have alopecia, i only heard about it recently and i heard that gail porter (?maybe) had it and it was really upsetting for her. I hope you find a medication that works for you, although it sounds like you have a great doctor there so keep hold of her! I've been messed around so many times with doctors, you have to really be demanding and come off as a bossy bitch at our surgery to get what you want! It's mad. Personally I can't see why it would be down to your weight and diet? My sister has really thin hair but she isn't big really. On the other hand, my dad is 58, very big and still has really thick hair, no greys or patches, nothing! I get times that my hair starts growing little new hairs in the front and i go all happy,next month they all fall again. Brushing my hair is impossible i get hand fulls of hair every i do so and i feel so very scared. I used to have very strong hair as a child and yearly teen then i started with a depression and bad alimentation and my hair started falling and never grew back. Now i face this problem (those 'entries' are so very clear) and sometimes bother me badly when my brother mocks me and says i'm going bald. Advice on this point is that don't let people bring you down because of that, it's the worse you can listen to! I tie my hair a lot too mostly at home,i try to avoid it on the street even if my friends say i look great in it,i don't feel confident enough because i look at myself in the mirror and see all of those places with such thin hair and i feel terrified. I knew this girl who ended up shaving her head,getting the injection and wearing a wig as her hair grew back,now she had normal,perfect,strong hair,so i hope your problem can have that outcame,i am rooting for you,dear! @ Melody - If it has gotten thinner maybe you could mention it to your doctor, you have nothing to lose right? Better to be safe than sorry anyways! @ Maria - With my old doctor - everything was because of my weight/diet (I'm a vegetarian and the only dairy I eat is cheese) She wouldn't even do tests, just assume whatever sickness it was, was related to my weight or not getting enough vitamins because I don't eat meat. When I found out my b12 levels were low, she prescribed me a total different vitamin! I brought it to another doctor and he shook his head at it. My new doctor is a vegan, he took the time to ask me what I eat and he was the first doctor that actually weighed me! I was also sitting a few feet away from him while we were talking and he told me he could see the hair problem from there - my old doctor said it "looked fine". Fingers crossed that something will help anyways! @ Joana - Not trying to scare you but based on that picture I think you should ask your doctor about it. It doesn't look patchy, just that the hair is very thin, same problem as me. So it could be alopecia or it could be something smaller and easy treated like lacking certain vitamins. Oh and it sounds like we have the same brother, when i'm at home my brother loves to poke fun at my hair! xoxo Not scaring me,i plan on doing it,i'm just scared myself of the result,mostly if it's genetic and i can't stop it,which my mother keeps saying it's,however she was born a full light blonde,and blondes are known for having thin hair in most cases and i'm not blonde,so i hope this has a possible treatment,i take my hair too serious. Other part of me is afraid to take things to make my hair grow stronger because,we talked about this once on twitter,i have too much strong hair all over my body and it bothers me,i'm just afraid it will grow even stronger, but i'll definately talk about this with my doctor,he's the sweeters person and i knew we'll find a solution for this,is there's one. Thanks a lot,dear. I think that what you did,sharing your problem,showed a hell load of courage from your part and i'm sure you can help a lot of people that relate to it,like me. =) Why brothers are always like that? I don't get it.I keep saying it's because mine is 16 and he's on that very stupid phase of teenagehood!! I hope you get it sorted out anyways hon! If it makes you feel any better, the pill my doctor put me on yesterday is going to help me grow more hair and he said I may also get extra body hair. It does bother me but.. to me, its a small price to pay for getting my hair (on my head..) in better condition! Just think of it that way even if your DR puts you on something similar, you can get Veet to take care of everything else :) I already remove alllll of my body hair so its just a little extra work every so often! xoxo super cute dress! great find :) looks perfect for you. Oh that's really horrible to hear, I hope it sorts itself out :) I had a girl in my class at school who had alopecia, and they didn't know why exactly, but a few years later and she's got a lovely head of hair again. One other suggestion, and totally ignore me if you want, but maybe a new hair style might be an option? Just getting a hair cut always makes people feel better and you never know, your hairdresser might be able to suggest something that could really help with the problem and give you a real boost of confidence. Just a suggestion, ignore me if you're happy with your style the way it is! Hello :) I've never posted before but I have had alopecia and thought I would post some encouraging news! When I was 11 (I am now 21) almost all the hair on the right side of my head fell out, and some on the left. I went to the doctors with my mum and it was diagnosed, and they thought the alopecia was triggered by stress (I was bullied in primary school). I saw a child psychologist and also given anti-anxiety medicine. My hair grew back in just under 2 years. Nobody in my family has ever had alopecia and I have never had it back since. I now have a full head of hair but with what looks like a receding hairline at the edges by the ears which embarrasses me A LOT, but I'm used to it by now. I have a fringe and I NEVER wear my hair scraped into a pony tail because it would show the side parts where the hair is thin, even though its not a big part that looks 'receding' it still bothers me. I hope your problem goes away too :) Good luck & best wishes. xxx P.S. I remember also being given a cream to rub onto it...possibly steriod? hey :) sorry to hear about your hair problems - your hair *does* always look gorgeous though! I really hate it when Dr's just blame everything on being overweight, as if there couldn't be any other possible problems for other things! I just wanted to say that I am on Cerazette birth control pill and, for me at least, its completely fine - no side effects at all for me such as mood swings and weight gain (as can be the case!), just the added bonus of no monthly visits ;) just thought I'd give my opinion on it in case you were worried about side effects hehe xx P.P.S I actually do not even know how I forgot to mention this!! When I was 14 my right eyebrow fell out but it started growing back immediately and is totally fine now :) sorry for all the P.S's! I hope you get sorted out and try to be positive! I am also having issues with my hair thinning. My dermatologist has me trying Betaderm Valerate for the next few months to a year. It's a lotion that is applied to my worst spots. I have been using it for two months now, but I have yet to notice a difference. I guess I'm impatient, but I've already dealt with it for so long and a year to see if a medication works sounds so long. :( While it's nice to know I'm not alone with the thinning hair/hair loss, I hate that others have to go through it. It's probably one of the worst health problems I've dealt with since it has affected me physically, mentally, and emotionally. Here's hoping our hair starts looking its best soon! So glad you shared this hun, I think a lot of girls have it. Mine was really bad as a kid, it's not so bad now but it's very fine. The thing is that hair does not make you, and there's ways of working around it.I love this outfit and I think with or without hair you would still be gorgeous xxx Cute outfit, I love your dress! I hope your new doctor and the medication help you :) <3 Principessa Gabriella That dress is adorable. I am sorry to hear about the alopecia. I hope you find a treatment that works for you. You look beautiful! I'm sorry to hear that you have Alopecia, but you know what? I'm really glad that you figured out what's going on. Nothing is worse than feeling like something is wrong but having no idea what it is. I really hope that the treatments will work for you (even if it's short-term). Keep up the good work with the blog! -T ohh i hope you can get something sorted with your hair, you poor thing i've heard of that before and it sounds quite awful! on a happier note, lovely skirt and my gosh your skin is so nice! every time i see your photos i'm wowed over you skin :) xo I really have a love/hate relationship with doctors lately. I hate how they just dismiss things out of hand and either blame it on something or not really bother. My mom has been ill for a while now, and they kept sending her away saying she had ibs etc and then last thursday she was rushed in to hospital with acute pacreatitis, she has to have an operation and was really ill. I really hope the meds can help you hun, I had a friend who lost all his hair at 19, I know in a way it must be easier for men, but he has worn a hat ever since, but girs sort of rely on their hair don't they. Hopefully they have caught it in time and it won't get that bad. Hugs xxxx love that dress it looks lovely on you :) X 1. you look always super-cute 2. if you are overweight your doctor shouldnt lie you about it 3. overweight makes you tired, even if have enough iron 4. good luck, hope you will be fine and your hair healthy 5. docttors are not perfect, if you are not satisfied with yours, dont be affraid to change 6.MANY ilnesses are caused by overweight, dont bame doctors you have fantastic legs! I know that your hair problem will be really upsetting for you but i think it's awesome you've talked about it on here & seem so positive about getting it sorted etc! great attitude! also really glad you've found an awesome doctor who isn't dismissive about your worries! chin up lovely xo You and your hair are beautiful and you always put together amazing outfits! Miranda love the skirt xxx Ah honey, I'm sorry to hear that about your hair. But in the pics, it really does look lovely and healthy. Also have I told you before, what great pins you have? Envious! x I really hope you manage to get your hair sorted hun, fingers crossed the Dr's can make it better again. Glad you've found a nice Dr who doesn't judge and will actually listen and help, it seems they are hard to find! xx Regardless, I still think you are immensely beautiful both outside and within. This dress and those platform pumps are super cute! Your beauty dazzles in yet another blog post. I don't know how many guys normally comment on your blog, but I'm surely a fellow who loves your sense of style. My best wishes are with you in all phases of life. Take care! johnbmarine.blogspot.com Your outfit looks excellent. I'm pleased to hear the doctor change has meant you are finding a solution to your hair - although I have to say, it always looks amazing, so don't worry too much! -vicki! Love the dress - you have lovely legs so you shouldn't worry about it being short! :) hope the medication helps you out!! xxx i love the whole outfit, and i hope you manage to get somewhere re: your hair, but i have to say it really isn't something i notice in the pics.. I lost a lot of hair from an iron deficiency. It felt horrible seeing how much was falling out every day. using the pill didnt work for me but taking iron tablets and looking after myself did and a lot of time later my hair is finally beginning to look better! So don't worry these things get better and its good you have found it early. your hair looks lovely anyway and no one would even notice! your hair actually looks lovely in this photo. id keep clipping it back the way you have it and may be get it cut because the ends just dont look healthy. You can tell your hair is thin but if you got rid of the ends and clip it back id say it would look much thicker. Also try to keep your hair healthy. A girl I work with, who's becoming somewhat of a close friend to me, has alopecia. She was almost completely bald at one stage, and had to wear a wig. She's been getting injections for a few years and her hair is coming on amazingly. And by the way, I've enjoyed reading your blog so much, I nominated you for an award. I don't know if you accept them or not, but if you do, tip on over to my blog to accept it! xo Lush outfit, those shoes are gorgeous! I think your hair looks lovely to be honest but I know compliments don't take away the problem. I hope the meds help to reverse it in the short term like you mentioned. Try not to let it effect your confidence. Atleast you finally have answers =]! Love J. I love your blog - i've just become a follower :) Im new to the blogging world and would appreciate someone like you following my blog - CupcakesCocktailsCouture X Love that necklace you look lovely as always :) xx, Leah. you look lovely as always! I hope the medication you're on helps, one of my mum's friends has alopecia and I honestly wouldn't have even known if she'd not told me! And I know what you mean about sharing problems on the internet, I personally wouldn't like to either...but whatever floats your boat and all that! Emma x I have alopecia too, though mine isn't horrible, just my hair is very, very thin. My dad has alopecia totalis, so he doesn't have ANY hair at all. No eyelashes, no eyebrows, no nothing. My brother also has alopecia, and his is big bald patches on his head. Luckily he can just shave it and get away with it. I've tried iron supplements, shots, and tons of other things but so far nothing has worked except oddly enough prenatal vitamins. My hair is a tad thicker, though it refuses to grow. Sigh. Hang in there and know you're not alone! wish to wear that dress,pearl and heels....they are just lovely especially when my man is wearing tux and my favorite bow tie in it....oohhh!!! we will surely look good...and he will look romantic...

VETERINARY MICROBIOLOGY Detection of methicillin resistance and slime factor production of Staphylococcus aureus in bovine mastitis Detecção de resistência a meticilina e produção do fator slime por Staphylococcus aureus em mastite bovina Alper CiftciI; Arzu FindikI; Ertan Emek OnukII; Serap SavasanIII IDepartment of Microbiology, University of Ondokuz Mayis, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Samsun, TURKEY IIDepartment of Diseases and Clinical Sciences, University of Ondokuz Mayis, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Samsun, TURKEY IIIDepartment of Microbiology, University of Adnan Menderes, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Aydin, TURKEY ABSTRACT. Key-words: Staphylococcus aureus, icaA, icaD, slime, mastitis. RESUMO Este estudo objetivou a detecção de Staphylococcus aureus resistente a meticilina e produtor do fator slime em casos de mastite bovina. Um PCR triplex foi otimizado, com alvo no genes 16SrRNA, nuc e mecA para detecção de Staphylococcus spp, S. aureus e resistencia a meticilina, respectivamente. Para detecção das cepas produtoras do fator slime, empregou-se um PCR com alvo nos genes icaA e icaD. No estudo, 59 cepas foram identificadas como S. aureus por testes convencionais e PCR, sendo 13 resistentes a meticilina e quatro positivas para o gene mecA. Embora 22 das 59 cepas tenham sido produtoras do fator slime em Agar Vermelho Congo, no teste PCR somente 15 foram positivas para os genes icaA e icaD. Dezesseis e 38 das 59 cepas foram positivas para os genes icaA e icaD, respectivamente. Somente duas das 59 cepas foram positivas simultaneamente para resistência a meticilina e produção do fator slime, sugerindo falta de correlação entre estas características. Em conclusão, o PCR triplex otimizado neste trabalho mostrou-se ser um método rápido e confiável para detecção de S.aureus meticilina resistente. Por outro lado, somente PCR para os genes icaA e icaD pode não ser suficiente para detectar produção de fator slime e outros estudos com alvo em outros genes ica são necessários para um avaliação correta da produção do fator slime por S. aureus. Palavras-chave: Staphylococcus aureus, icaA, icaD, mecA, slime, mastite. INTRODUCTION S. aureus is an important etiologic agent of mastitis in ruminants and also has an economical importance in cattle industry (43,47). Several tecniques are used to characterize the bovine S. aureus strains in veterinary microbiology. In addition to the phenotypic methods, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is valuable in identification and genotypic characterization of the S. aureus strains (36,42). Several efforts to removig this pathogen from farms are hampered by some factors. One of these factors is antibiotic resistance (22). One of the major mechanisms of resistance to β-lactam antibiotics is b-lactamase producing by staphylococci. This enzyme hydrolyzes the b-lactam ring and causes inactivation of β-lactams. In the early 1950s, it has been aware of the effectiveness of penicilin in treatment of S. aureus infections because of β-lactamase-producing plasmids. In 1959, methicillin, synthetic, penicillinase-resistant penicillin, was introduced and solved problem in clinical practice, for a time. However, by 1960, Staphylococcus aureus strains were found to be resistant to the new semi-synthetic β-lactams (methicillin, oxacillin, flucloxacillin), and became known as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). This type of resistance was termed "intrinsic resistance" because it was not due to destruction of the antibiotic by β-lactamase (12). Methicillin resistance in S. aureus is mediated by the production of an altered penicilin-binding protein (PBP2a), a transpeptidase. mecA encodes this enzyme involved in cell-wall peptidoglycan synthesis. Unlike conventional PBPs of S. aureus, PBP2a does not bind to β-lactam antibiotics with high affinity (13,28,32,38,41). A distinctive feature of methicillin resistance is its heterogenous nature, with the level of resistance varying according to the culture conditions and β-lactam antibiotic being used. Heterogeneous strains can be considered to be composed of two populations of cells: relatively susceptible cells and highly resistant cells. Another type of methicillin resistance is borderline (or low level) resistance. Borderline strains characterized by methicillin MICs at or just above the susceptibility breakpoint (e.g., oxacillin MICs of 4-8 µg/ml) and may divided into two categories on the basis of presence of mecA gene (12). Strains not contain mecA differ from the others that contain mecA in the absence of highly resistant clones. The reasons for mecA-negative borderline resistance may be the modifications of normal PBP genes, the overproduction of β-lactamase and meticillinase (40). It is noted that several studies concerning the evaluation of rapid methods for diagnosis of intrinsic resistance of oxacillin have been reported. Among them, PCR has succesfully used for the detection of mecA gene (3). Most of the clinical isolates show hetereogenous resistance in routine culture conditions and therefore detection of the presence of mecA gene by PCR is accepted as "gold standard". Detection of methicillin resistance is influenced by several factors as mec regulatory genes, β-lactamase regulatory genes and fem genes (12,40). Detection of mecA gene is the most reliable and fundamental method of identifying methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (3). Several factors such as exotoxins, surface proteins (44) and extracellular polysaccharides (1) having important roles in virulence of S. aureus isolated from mastitis cases have been reported. Furthermore, it has been determined that production of slime factor in S. aureus strains causing mastitis was an important virulence factor affecting pathogenesis (44). It is considered that the first step in mastitis progress is adhesion of S. aureus to mammary epithelial cells (14) and slime factor plays an important role for adhesion and colonization (10,47). Production of slime factor also plays an important role in antibiotic resistance and it has been reported that slime producing strains are more resistant to antibiotics than non-slime producing strains (4). Intracellular adhesin is encoded in the ica locus containing icaA, icaB, icaC, icaD genes in S. aureus strains (17,34). icaA gene encodes N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase. Further, icaD plays an important role in expression of this enzyme. icaA and icaD were found to be in high prevalance among S. aureus mastitis isolates and this finding confirms that ica locus has a potential role as a virulence factor in the pathogenesis of mastitis in ruminants (47). Although production of slime factor has been well characterized in other staphylococci isolated from different infections, there is a little information in literature about the formation of slime factor and detection of ica locus in S. aureus mastitis isolates. In this study, we aimed to determine the methicillin resistance and slime factor production of S. aureus in bovine mastitis phenotypically and genotypically. MATERIALS AND METHODS Bacterial isolates and phenotypic identification The bacteria used in this study consisted of 161 Staphylococcus spp. isolated from subclinic mastitic milk samples. The staphylococcal isolates were identified morphologically and biochemically by standart laboratory procedures (35). For discrimination of S. aureus from coagulase-negative stahylococci (CoNS), the coagulase test was performed. DNA extraction Staphylococcus strains were inoculated on Triptycase Soy Agar. After incubation period, fresh colonies were suspended in 500 µl of DEPC-treated water (DNase-RNase free). The suspension was held in a 100ºC of water bath for 10 min. After centrifugation at 10 000 rpm for 5 min, the supernatant containing bacterial DNA was used as a template for subsequent PCR mixture (50). Triplex PCR A triplex PCR assay was performed to discriminate the S. aureus from other staphylococci and determinate the methicillin resistance, genotypically. For the detection of 16S rRNA (Staphylococcus spp. specific) 5'-AAC TCT GTT ATT AGG GAA GAA CA-3' was used as the forward primer and 5'-CCA CCT TCC TCC GGT TTG TCA CC-3' was used as the reverse primer. For the detection of nuc (S. aureus specific) gene 5'-GCG ATT GAT GGT GAT ACG GTT-3' was used as forward primer and 5'-AGC CAA GCC TTG ACG AAC TAA AGC-3') was used as reverse primer. Two primer, Forward: 5'-GTA GAA ATG AC GAA CGT CCG ATA-3'and Reverse: 5'-CCA ATT CCA CAT TGT TTC GGT CTA A -3' were used to detect mecA (methicillin resistance specific) gene. Five microliter of the rapid extracted DNA was used as a template in a 25 µl PCR mixture containing 1XPCR buffer (50 mm KCl, 20 mM Tris HCl), 5 µl of 25 mM MgCl2, 3 µl of 10 mM deoxynucleoside triphosphate (dNTP) mix, 1 µl of 20 µM each 16S rRNA and mecA primers, 0,4 µl of 20 µM each nuc primer and 2U of Taq DNA polymerase. The buffers and enzymes used in this assay were obtained from Fermentas Inc. (Canada). The oligonucleotide primers were synthesized from Bio Basic Inc. (Canada). The amplification of DNA was performed as follows: 94ºC for 5 min of initial denaturation; 30 cycles of 94ºC for 45 s, 68ºC for 45 s and 72ºC for 90 s; and a final extantion at 72ºC for 10 min. Amplicons were loaded onto 1.5% Agarose Gel containing 1 µg/ml ethidium bromide. The 756-bp (16S rRNA), 310-bp (mecA) and 279-bp (nuc) amplified DNA fragments were seperated by agarose gel electrophoresis and visualized under UV-light. Phenotypic detection of methicillin resistance Disc diffusion sensitivity testing of S. aureus isolates was performed with 5 µg oxacillin discs. On Mueller Hinton Agar, according to NCCLS recommendation, oxacillin complete inhibition zone diameter of <12 mm were considered resistant, those with inhibition zone of >13 mm were susceptible. Slime production assay Slime production assay was performed by cultivation of S. aureus strains on Congo Red Agar (CRA) plates containing 0.8 g of Congo Red dye and 36 g saccharose (49). Strains were inoculated on CRA plates and incubated for 24-72 h at 37ºC. Slime producing strains and non-slime producing strains constitutes rough black colonies and red colonies on CRA, respectively. PCR detection of icaA and icaD genes For genotypic determination of slime production, the PCR targetting icaA and icaD genes were performed (47). The primers for icaA and icaD genes were designated from published sequence of the ica locus in GenBank and synthesized from Bio Basic Inc. For the amplifying of icaA, AF (5'-CCT AAC TAA CGA AAG GTA G-3') and AR (5'-AAG ATA TAG CGA TAA GTG C -3') primers and of icaD gene, DF (5'-AAA CGT AAG AGA GGT GG-3') and DR (5'-GGC AAT ATG ATC AAG ATA-3') primers were used. The PCR with icaA and icaD genes were amplified a products of 1315-bp and 381-bp, respectively. Ten microliters of the rapid extracted DNA was used as a template in a 50 µl PCR mixture, containing 1X PCR buffer (50 mm KCl, 20 mM Tris HCl), 5 µl of 25 mM MgCl2, 5 µl of 10 mM deoxynucleoside triphosphate (dNTP) mix, 1 µl of 20 µM each primers and 1U of Taq DNA polymerase. The buffers and enzymes used in the assay were obtained from Fermentas Inc. The amplification of DNA was performed as follows: 92ºC for 5 min of initial denaturation; 30 cycles of 92ºC for 1 min, 49ºC for 1 min and 72ºC for 1 min; and a final extention at 72ºC for 7 min. Amplicons were loaded onto 1.5% Agarose Gel containing 1 µg/ml ethidium bromide. The presence and molecular weight of the amplified DNA fragments were confirmed by agarose gel electrophoresis and visualized under UV-light. RESULTS Initial characterization of bacterial strains The isolated bacteria from bovine mastitis were identified by conventional methods. All of the 161 strains were found gram positive and catalase positive cocci. They were identified as staphylococci. Among these staphylococci, 59 strains were rabbit plasma-coagulase positive and they were considered as S. aureus. Confirmations of the strains were done using triplex-PCR. Agar disc diffusion test for detection MRSA Thirteen of 59 (22.0%) S. aureus isolates tested in this study gave a zone of 12 mm or more and were considered as methicillin resistant (Table 1). Slime production assay Rough-black colonies on CRA plates were considered to be slime producing strains and red colonies were evaluated as non-slime producing strains. Among the 59 S. aureus strains tested, 22 (37.2%) were found to produce black colonies within 24-48 h. After 72 h, no more strains produced black colonies (Fig. 1). Triplex PCR Triplex PCR was used to discriminate S. aureus strains among all our mastitis isolates and to simultaneously detect methicillin resistant strains. This assay was targetted the 16S rRNA, nuc and mecA genes. Fragments of expected sizes were 756, 279 and 310 bp for the 16S rRNA, mecA and nuc genes, respectively (Fig. 2). All the 59 S. aureus strains identified phenotypically were found to possess both 16S rRNA and nuc genes and were confirmed as S. aureus. Strains were characterized in this PCR analysis targetting mecA gene simultaneously for methicillin resistance. Among the 13 S. aureus strains found as methicillin resistant phenotypically, 4 (30.7%) were positive for mecA gene. Also; the phenotypically methicillin sensitive 46 S. aureus strains were found as negative for mecA gene. PCR detection of icaA and icaD genes Among all S. aureus isolates, 15 of 59 (25.4%) were positive for both icaA and icaD genes and only 8 of them (53.3%) were slime positive on CRA. 16 of 59 (27.1%) strains were positive for on icaA and 38 of them (64.4%) were positive for icaD gene (Fig. 1, Table 1 and 2). DISCUSSION Bovine mastitis is the most costly disease to the dairy industry worldwide as well as in Turkey. Staphylococcus aureus is a frequent cause of bovine mastitis and several tecniques are used to characterize the bovine S. aureus strains in veterinary microbiology. Rapid detection of methicillin resistance together with the identification of S. aureus is necessary for therapeutic and epidemiological purposes (16,36). S. aureusnuc gene encodes the TNase producing by these bacteria. S. aureus TNase has species-specific sequences and amplification of the nuc gene has potential for the rapid diagnosis of S. aureus infections (11,16). The primary tool for controlling staphylococcal mastitis is antimicrobial therapy. Therefore antimicrobial susceptibility tests are so important that the results of these help guide the veterinarian in selecting the most appropriate antimicrobial agent for treatment of mastitis caused by S. aureus (19). Many studies are avaliable on antibiotic resistance of Staphylococcus aureus (24,29,33,39). Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and multi-resistant S. aureus strains has also been reported in some cases in veterinary medicine (9,31). MRSA show an intrinsic resistance to penicillinase-resistant beta lactam antibiotics. This resistance is based on "mecA" gene encoding PBP2a, an inducible and an altered PBP that has low affinity for binding β-lactam antibiotics. mecA gene is located on the chromosome of MRSA and methicillin resistance does not due to destruction of the antibiotic by beta-lactamase. MRSA strains show also a heterogeneous character with the level of resistance varying according to the culture conditions and β-lactam antibiotic being used. Because of this heterogeneous resistance, the detection of MRSA by phenotypic methods becomes problematic. Although laboratory conditions has been changed (e.g. additional NaCl to medium, prolonged incubation, incubation at low temperatures, higher inoculum) to enhance the phenotypic expression, all strains can not be classified. Furthermore, the conditions that are used to enhance expression of methicillin resistance also can cause the susceptibility test results for susceptible strains to shift toward or above the breakpoint for resistance (25). The multidrug-resistant (methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin) phenotype of MRSA strains and their intrinsic beta-lactam resistance make them difficult and costly to treat (12,28,41). Methicillin and oxacillin are not used in veterinary medicine in Turkey except for cloxacillin used in mastitis cases (45). Considering the multiple antibiotic resistance, the rapid and correct detection of MRSA strains must be performed to select appropriate antibiotic regimens. However selected methods detecting MRSA strains must be useful, reliable, simple and rapid (27). Several phenotypic methods such as oxacillin disk diffusion test, agar plate screen, the microbroth dilution and the E-tests have been used to detect the MRSA isolates (5). Phenotypic-based identification and susceptibility testing methods are time consuming and most have inherent limitations (16). However, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods have shown to be a rapid and reliable approach for the identification and genotypic characterization of these organisms. mecA-based PCR methods has accepted as "gold standard" (5,12,40). In the present study, S. aureus strains originated from bovine mastitis were identified phenotypically by some conventional tests and also were characterized genotypically by a triplex PCR targetting 16srRNA (staphylococcus genus-spesific), nuc (S. aureus species-spesific) and mecA (a determinant of methicillin resistance). In this study, all 59 S. aureus isolates identified by conventional tests were confirmed as S. aureus by this PCR genotypically and at the same time, methicillin resistance of these strains were detected. While 13 of 59 (22.0%) S. aureus isolates were found to be methicillin resistant in oxacillin disc diffusion method, only 4 of 59 (6.7%) S. aureus isolates were found to be MRSA in triplex PCR. Similarly, some investigators (5,46) have reported the discrepant results between disc diffusion methods and PCR for detection of methicillin resistance. It is reported that conventional susceptibility tests such as agar disc diffusion and broth dilution methods may not give reliable results in detecting MRSA because of heterogenic expression of resistance (46). In this study, MRSA lacking mecA gene are classified as false resistant by the oxacillin disc diffusion method and it was considered that it may due to another resistance mechanism such as hyperproduction of beta-lactamase. Extracellular polysaccharides, slime factor, are considered to be significant virulence factors for some staphylococci (20). Slime layer surrounding the S. aureus strains help in adherence and colonization of these microorganisms on the mammary gland epithelium. It is reported that slime factor production in S. aureus isolates from mastitis cause antibiotic resistance which is due to the decreased diffusion of antibiotics through the biofilm matrix and decreased metabolic activity of bacteria (4,36). Several phenotypic methods such as standard tube method, Christensen's method, Congo Red Agar and microdilution methods are used to detect slime production (2). In the present study, slime producing S. aureus isolates were detected on Congo Red Agar (CRA) plates in vitro. CRA plate test has been reported as a simple, rapid, sensitive, and reproducible and advantageous in those colonies remain viable on the medium and also more specific than standard tube test (23,37,48). We found that only 22 of 59 (37.2%) S. aureus isolates were slime-producing on Congo Red Agar. Slime-producing S. aureus isolates from different clinical origins such as wound infection (49), catheter-associated infections (6), bovine mastitis (47) has been detected in vitro by using Congo Red Agar plates as 52%, 60.8% and 91.4%, respectively. Knobloch et al (30) have reported that the phenotype on CRA was found to be an unreliable indicator of slime-forming capacity among clinical isolates of S. aureus. Therefore, although CRA methods may be easier to perform than a molecular analysis of the genes implicated in biofilm production and could be performed easily in a diagnostic laboratory, it may be a poor method for determining the slime-producing capacity of clinical isolates in the diagnostic laboratory (21). Recently developed molecular methods provided a direct evidence of the genetic basis of slime production complementary to the CRA test. Slime synthesis is controlled by the ica (intercellular adhesion) operon (7). The ica locus consists ica A, D, B, C genes which encode the proteins mediating the synthesis polysaccharide intercellular adhesin and capsular polysaccharide/adhesin (PS/A) in S. epidermidis and S. aureus, respectively (49). N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase that synthesizes the polysaccharide intercellular adhesin from UDP-N-acetylglucosamine encoded by the icaA particularly. However sole expression of icaA induces only low enzymatic activity, coexpression of icaA with icaD leads to a significant increase in activity and is related to phenotypic expression of the capsular polysaccharide (6). In the operon, coexpression of icaA and icaD is required for full slime synthesis. In this study slime production of S. aureus isolates were detected by PCR targetting icaA and icaD. In PCR analysis, not all isolates, only 15 of 59 were positive for both icaA and icaD genes and only 8 of them were slime positive in CRA. 16 of 59 strains were positive for icaA and 38 of them were positive for icaD gene. This result was contrast to Arciola et al. (6) who have reported that all strains which were positive for icaA were also positive for icaD. Further Vasudevan et al. (47) have reported that although only 24 of 35 S. aureus mastitis isolates produced slime factor in vitro, all of them were found to possess the ica locus as well as the icaA and icaD. Arciola et al. (8) have been found that the genes of the ica locus appear, in all the clinical isolates analyzed in their study, strictly linked each other, so they are either all present or all absent. Our discrepant findings that icaA and icaD genes were not be together in some isolates may due to some mutations on icaA. Although coexpression of icaA and icaD is necessary for slime production, it was considered that other genes in ica locus play role in controlling slime expression. Fitzpatrick et al (21) have reported that there are ica-independent mechanisms of biofilm formation in S. aureus. In this study, among the 37 strains which did not produce slime factor on CRA plate in vitro, 7 strains were positive for both icaA and icaD genes. This suggests the possibility that some environmental conditions or the presence of accessory genes can influence the phenotypic behavior on the Congo red agar plate, giving colonies which did not fully express the ica genes. Slime factor may also play a role in antibiotic resistance (18,44) and it is reported that slime-producing strains are more resistant to antibiotics than non slime producing strains (4). Günaydin et al. (26) are also reported that there is a correlation between slime producing and multiple antibiotic resistances. In contrast to these studies, Ciftci et al. (15) have not found any effect of slime producing on antibiotic resistance in their study and furthermore they have reported that slime producing strains are more susceptible to antibiotics than nonslime producing strains. In this study, we found that only 2 of 59 strains were positive for both methicillin resistance and slime producing, phenotypically. Thus, we suggested that there is no correlation between methicillin resistance and slime producing in our isolates. In conclusion, it was showed that several cases of mastitis in cows in Turkey were caused by MRSA despite of low percentage. It was considered that the triplex PCR optimized in this study is useful for diagnostic laboratory because of its rapid and reliable characters for detection of methicillin resistance of S. aureus. Using the phenotypic and genotypic methods together is required for accurate identification of MRSA. 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[ Links ] 45.. [ Links ] 46. Unal, S.; Werner, K.; Degirolami, P.; Barsanti, F.; Eliopoulos, G. (1994). Comparison of tests for detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a clinical microbiology laboratory. Antimicrob. Agent Chemother. 38 (2), 345-347. [ Links ] 47. Vasudevan, P.; Nair, M.K.M.; Annamalai, T.; Venkitanarayanan, K.S. (2003). Phenotypic and genotyping characterization of bovine mastitis isolates of Staphylococcus aureus for biofilm formation. Vet. Microbiol. 92, 179-185. [ Links ] 48. Woznicova, V.; Votava, M.; Skalka, B. (1993). Comparison of two methods of detecting slime production by coagulase-negative staphylococci. Cesk. Epidemiol. Microbiol. Imunol. 42, 51-53. [ Links ] 49. J. Publ. Health 35 (2), 25-28. [ Links ] 50. Zhang, K.; Sarling, J.; Chow, B.L.; Elsayed, S.; Hussain, Z.; Church, D.L.; Gregson, D.B.; Louie, T.; Conly, J.M. (2004). New quadriplex PCR assay for detection of methicillin resistance and simultaneous discrimination of S. aureus from coagulase-negative staphylococci. J. Clin. Microbiol. 42, 4947-4955. [ Links ] Corresponding Author Alper Ciftci Department of Microbiology, University of Ondokuz Mayýs, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Samsun, TURKEY Submitted: June 05, 2008; Returned to authors for corrections: September 02, 2008; Approved: March 31, 2009

The Potential Nomination of Merrick Garland. Nomination To D.C. Circuit." Garland's nomination was stalled by Senate Republicans, not because of opposition to him but because of a dispute over whether to fill the twelfth seat on that court at all. Clinton re-nominated Garland in January 1997, and he was confirmed approximately three months later by a vote of 76-23. But once again, opposition did not relate to Garland's own qualifications. To the contrary, Senator Orrin Hatch called him "not only a fine nominee, but as good as Republicans can expect from [the Clinton] administration" (a sentiment Hatch repeated in 2003). Garland also had the support of senior administration officials from the Reagan Justice Department, as well as that of Judge Laurence Silberman, who was appointed to the D.C. Circuit by Ronald Reagan. Overview Regarding Confirmation And Impact Of Garland's Appointment Judge Garland's record demonstrates that he is essentially the model, neutral judge. He is acknowledged by all to be brilliant. His opinions avoid unnecessary, sweeping pronouncements. Judge Garland is also the "short list" candidate to replace Justice Stevens who is least likely to prompt a polarizing confirmation fight. He has broad support on both sides of the aisle, and he has few ideologically controversial rulings. Conservative commentators (see here, here, and here) have expressed support for a potential Garland nomination.. To the extent that ideology plays a role in the nomination "“ and it obviously plays a material role "“ the other side of the coin of the factors that would in part drive Judge Garland's likely influence is the fact that, on questions on which the three principal candidates would disagree, he would generally be the least liberal. Strictly in terms of the change in the votes of the liberal Justices Stevens and his successor, Judge Garland would be the most different.. Review By The Supreme Court. The most significant of these rulings was the al Odah case, in which a panel that included Judge Garland held early in the line of detainee cases that federal district courts lack habeas corpus jurisdiction over the Guantanamo detainees' claims. The Supreme Court subsequently reversed in a six-to-three ruling, with the majority opinion for five Justices written by Justice Stevens. That said, contrary to the views of some, it is difficult to criticize Judge Garland or infer too much from his vote in the case: there is a significant argument that the panel's opinion was compelled by then-extant Supreme Court precedent, as illustrated by the fact that no member of the D.C. Circuit called for en banc review of the panel's ruling.). Judge Garland was also part of a unanimous panel that upheld a Park Service regulation; the Supreme Court subsequently vacated the ruling on the ground that the suit was not ripe. Amfac Resorts v. Department of Interior, 282 F.3d 818 (2002), vacated sub nom. National Park Hosp. Ass'n v. Department of Interior, 538 U.S. 803 (2003). In another case, Judge Garland was a member of a panel which held that the FCC's revocation of a license was subject to the restrictions of the Bankruptcy Code. The Supreme Court affirmed. NextWave Personal Comms. v. FCC, 253 F.3d 130 (2001), aff'd, 537 U.S. 293 (2003). Most recently, he was a member of a panel that had declined to apply deferential review to FERC's approval of a rate-setting settlement; the Supreme Court reversed eight-to-one (with Justice Stevens dissenting). Maine PUC v. FERC, 520 F.3d 464 (2008), rev'd sub nom. NRG Power Mkt'g v. Maine PUC, 130 S. Ct. 693 ). Judge Garland was one of four judges who dissented from the denial of rehearing en banc in a case in which the panel had limited the availability of punitive damages under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The Supreme Court subsequently reversed. Kolstad v. Am. Dental Ass'n, 139 F.3d 598 (1998) (en banc) (Tatel, J., dissenting) (along with Edwards, C.J., and Wald and Rogers, JJ., joining opinion arguing that intentional sex discrimination is sufficient to justify punitive damage award), rev'd, 527 U.S. 526 (1999). Finally, Judge Garland joined a dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc of a significant panel opinion invalidating EPA regulations under the non-delegation doctrine. Once again, the Supreme Court reversed. American Trucking Ass'n v. U.S. E.P.A., 195 F.3d 4 (1999) (Tatel, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc), rev'd sub nom. Whitman v. American Trucking Ass'ns, 531 U.S. 457 (2001).. Criminal Law. United States v. Johnson, 592 F.3d 164 (2010) (Brady violation); United States v. Walker, 545 F.3d 1081 (2008) (firearms charge); United States v. Askew, 529 F.3d 1119 (2008) (en banc) (search); United States v. Ayeni, 374 F.3d 1313 (2004) (fraud and theft conviction); United States v. Whitmore, 359 F.3d 609 (2004) (denial of right to cross-examine witness); United States v. Gilliam, 167 F.3d 628 (1999) (firearms, but ruling had no effect on defendant's sentence); United States v. Lampkin, 159 F.3d 607 (1998) (unlawfully employing a minor and drug offense); United States v. Maddox, 156 F.3d 1280 (1998) (firearms). The only possible exception "“ that is, a case in which Judge Garland wrote for the panel in reversing a criminal conviction "“ is United States v. Clark, 184 F.3d 858, 871 (1999) (per Garland, J.), which reversed a firearms case, but I do not find it significant; as Judge Garland explained: "Although the government did not respond to this argument, we note that it has conceded the point in at least three other cases." In seven other cases, he voted to reverse the defendant's sentence in whole or in part, or to permit the defendant to raise a argument relating to sentencing on remand. In re Sealed Case, 573 F.3d 844 (2009) (per Tatel, J.; Henderson, J., dissenting); United States v. Branham, 515 F.3d 1268 (2008) (per Garland, J.) (sentence); United States v. Henry, 472 F.3d 910 (2007) (sentence); United States v. Dorcely, 454 F.3d 366 (2006) (restitution); United States v. McCoy, 313 F.3d 561 (2002) (en banc) (joining majority opinion permitting defendant to raise new sentencing issue on remand in certain circumstances; Henderson, J., dissenting, joined by Ginsburg, C.J., and Sentelle, J.); United States v. Thomas, 361 F.3d 653 (2004) (the evidence did not support the conclusion that the fun that the defendant possessed was stolen); United States v. Williams, 216 F.3d 1099 (2000) (the trial court drew unreasonable influences about when the defendant joined a conspiracy). Most striking,. United States v. Andrews, 532 F.3d 900 (2008) (per Garland, J.) (upholding criminal conviction; Rogers, J., concurs arguing that the case should be resolved on narrower ground); United States v. Askew, 529 F.3d 1119 (2008) (en banc) (not joining part of en banc opinion of Edwards, J., joined by Rogers, Tatel, and Brown, JJ., finding Fourth Amendment violation); United States v. Powell, 483 F.3d 836 (2007) (en banc) (joining majority opinion denying Fourth Amendment motion to suppress; Rogers, J., dissents); Valdes v. United States, 475 F.3d 1319 (2007) (en banc) (Garland, J., dissenting) (joined by four other judges, dissenting from majority opinion joined by Edwards, Tatel, and Rogers, JJ., invalidating conviction for making payment for "official act"); United States v. Riley, 376 F.3d 160 (2004) (per Garland, J.) (joined by Tatel, J., reversing downward departure; Rogers, J., dissents); United States v. Linares, 367 F.3d 941 (2004) (Garland, J., concurring) (declining to join part of opinion by Tatel, J. (joined by Sentelle, J.), concluding that evidence should have been excluded; judge Garland concludes it is unnecessary to reach the issue given the court's conclusion that any error was harmless); United States v. Brown, 334 F.3d 1161 (2003) (per Garland, J.) (rejecting claim that evidence should be suppressed; Rogers, J., dissents); United States v. Watson, 171 F.3d 695 (1999) (Garland, J., dissenting) (dissenting from opinion of Rogers, J., joined by Edwards, J., holding that conviction must be reversed based on prosecutor's misstatement of witness testimony in closing argument); United States v. Spinner, 152 F.3d 950 (1998) (Garland, J., dissenting) (dissenting from opinion of Sentelle, J., joined by Edwards, J., reversing conviction on one count for insufficient evidence and another count on the ground that prosecutors engaged in inappropriate cross-examination); United States v. Crowder, 14 F.3d 1202 (1998) (en banc) (joining opinion holding that defendant's offer to stipulate to element of offense does not preclude admission of bad acts evidence, over dissent of Tatel, J., joined by Edwards, C.J., and Wald and Silberman, JJ.). In another case, Judge Garland dissented from a panel ruling by two of the court's more conservative judges in favor of a criminal defendant. United States v. Wilson, 240 F.3d 39 (2001) (Garland, J., dissenting) (dissenting from opinion of Williams, J., joined by Silberman, S.J., reversing sentencing enhancement). He also joined a majority opinion over a dissent by a conservative panel member in favor of a defendant. United States v. Williams, 212 F.3d 1305 (2000) (per Henderson, J., finding that error in admitting officer's testimony was harmless; over dissent of Silberman, J.). These isolated two examples are similar to what one would expect to see on the Supreme Court, where Justices on the left and right do not line up reflexively for and against criminal defendants. There is one other illuminating comparison. I noted above that Judge Garland had joined approximately a dozen published rulings reversing or vacating a defendant's conviction or sentence. In that same period, Judge Tatel joined such decisions (or dissented from the refusal to grant the defendant relief) approximately twenty-five times. Unlike many other judges, Judge Garland's position on criminal law issues is not reflective of a broader ideology. One might expect that a judge with such a record on criminal law questions would be generally quite conservative across the board. That does not appear to be true, however. Detainees and Constitutional Claims Another noteworthy area of law in which Judge Garland has participated is cases involving the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. He was a member of the al Odah panel discussed above.) (6-3 vote, per Stevens, J.). Of note, Judge Garland did author an important opinion invalidating a combatant status review tribunal's designation of a detainee as an "enemy combatant." Parhat v. Gates, 532 F.3d 834 (2008) (per Garland, J.) (joined by Sentelle, C.J., and Griffith, J.). Also illuminating is Saleh v. Titan Corp., 580 F.3d 1 (2009) (Garland J., dissenting), in which he dissented from a panel opinion (per Silberman, J., joined by Kavanaugh, J.) dismissing Iraqis' claims against contractors at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. On the other hand, Judge Garland did quite consciously stake out a position separate from the more liberal members of the D.C. Circuit in one of the detainee cases, in a vote that arguably most directly reflects his oft-stated preference for deciding cases on narrow grounds. Bismullah v. Gates, 514 F.3d 1291 (2008) (Garland, J., concurring) (concluding that en banc review of detainee-favoring ruling should be denied because the Supreme Court had indicated that the case should be resolved quickly; not joining concurrence by Ginsburg, Rogers, Tatel, and Griffith, JJ., that panel opinion was correct on the merits). Judge Garland has tended to take a broader view of First Amendment rights. E.g., Boehner v. McDermott, 484 F.3d 573 (2007) (en banc) (joining dissenting opinion of Sentelle, J., also joined by Rogers and Tatel, JJ., which would have rejected on First Amendment grounds suit arising from disclosure of intercepted communications by member of Congress); Lee v. DOJ, 428 F.3d 299 (2005) (Garland, J., dissenting) (in Wen Ho Lee case, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc, joined by Tatel, J. (and also separately joining opinion of Tatel, J.,), arguing for broader application of reporter's privilege); Thompson v. District of Columbia, 428 F.3d 283 (2005) (reinstating plaintiff's claim that he was fired for expression in violation of First Amendment); Initiative & Referendum Inst. v. U.S.P.S., 417 F.3d 1299 (2005) (per Garland, J.) (reversing district court and upholding First Amendment challenge to regulation prohibiting solicitation of signatures outside post offices). Judge Garland has participated in few substantive campaign finance cases. SpeechNow.org v. FEC, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 6254 (Mar. 26, 2010) (en banc) (unanimous ruling holding that association was not subject to restrictions as political committee); NAM v. Taylor, 582 F.3d 1 (2009) (per Garland, J.) (upholding lobbying disclosure statute against First Amendment challenge); Shays v. FEC, 528 F.3d 914 (2008) (unanimous panel opinion invalidating FEC regulations as insufficiently stringent to implement McCain-Feingold Act). In various other contexts, Judge Garland has in a few cases rejected assertions of constitutional rights, disagreeing with his more-liberal colleagues. I am not aware of counterexamples in which he has staked out a more liberal position. Again, the point is not that Judge Garland is conservative, but instead that he is more to the center than to the left. Abigail Alliance v. von Eschenbach, 495 F.3d 695 (2007) (en banc) (joining majority opinion rejecting claim of constitutional right to access to unapproved drugs; Rogers, J., and Ginsburg, C.J., dissent); Ruggiero v. FCC, 417 F.3d 239 (2003) (en banc) (joining en banc opinion upholding restrictions on licenses for low-power radio stations against First Amendment challenge; Tatel, J., dissents); Hutchins v. District of Columbia, 188 F.3d 531 (1999) (en banc) (joint concurring opinion of Garland and Wald, JJ.) (agreeing with Tatel and Rogers, JJ., that juvenile curfew is subject to intermediate constitutional scrutiny, but rejecting their conclusion that curfew is unconstitutional). Civil Rights. The Kolstad case, in which Judge Garland dissented from the denial of rehearing en banc from a panel decision limiting the availability of punitive damages under the ADA and the Supreme Court subsequently reversed, is discussed above. Other illustrative cases are Akinseye v. District of Columbia, 339 F.3d 970 (2003) (Garland, J., dissenting) (dissenting from decision to reach and reject claim for interest on attorney's fees under IDEA); Duncan v. WMATA, 240 F.3d 1110 (2001) (en banc) (joining en banc opinion rejecting ADA claim; Tatel, J., concurs to articulate more plaintiff-friendly ADA standard; Edwards, J., dissents); Calloway v. District of Columbia, 216 F.3d 1 (2000) (joining opinion of Tatel, J., upholding application of attorney's fees provision of IDEA; over dissent of Ginsburg, J.); Aka v. Washington Hosp. Center, 156 F.3d 1284 (1998) (en banc) (joining en banc opinion holding that plaintiff was entitled to pursue ADEA and ADA claims; over dissent by Silberman, Henderson, Williams, and Ginsburg, JJ.); U.S. ex rel. Yesudian v. Howard Univ., 153 F.3d 731 (1998) (per Garland, J.) (joined by Wald, J., holding that plaintiff could pursue False Claims Act retaliation action). The unanimous rulings in which Judge Garland participated similarly reflect a concern that civil rights plaintiffs receive an appropriate day in Court. E.g., Steele v. Schafer, 535 F.3d 689 (2008) (per Garland, J.) (joined by Griffith, J., and Williams, S.J., reversing summary judgment for employer and reinstating hostile work environment and retaliation claims); Harris v. Gonzales, 488 F.3d 442 (2007) (joining opinion by Tatel, J., also joined by Brown, J., reversing summary judgment that employee could not establish lack of notice of filing deadline for civil rights suit); Czekalski v. Peters, 475 F.3d 360 (2007) (per Garland, J.) (joined by Rogers, J., and Silberman, S.J.) (reversing summary judgment to permit plaintiff to attempt to establish that reassignment constituted actionable demotion). Judge Garland also authored an opinion narrowly reading states' sovereign immunity from suit under the civil rights laws. Barbour v. WMATA, 374 F.3d 1161 (2004) (Garland, J.) (joined by then-Judge John Roberts, holding that WMATA waived sovereign immunity from suit by accepting funds under Rehabilitation Act, over dissent of Sentelle, J.). Agency Deference Judge Garland has strong views favoring deference to agency decisionmakers. In a dozen close cases in which the court divided, he sided with the agency every time. FedEx Home Delivery v. NLRB, 563 F.3d 492 (2009) (Garland, J., dissenting) (dissenting from panel opinion overturning NLRB's designation of workers as employees rather than contractors); Northeast Bev. Corp. v. NLRB, 554 F.3d 133 (2009) (Garland, J., dissenting) (dissenting from panel opinion overturning NLRB's determination that certain conduct was protected under Section 7 of the NLRA); Financial Planning Ass'n v. SEC, 482 F.3d 481 (2007) (Garland, J., dissenting) (dissenting from panel opinion of Rogers, J., joined by Kavanaugh, J., invalidating SEC rule exempting broker-dealers from Investment Advisor Act in certain circumstances); Alpharma v. Leavitt, 460 F.3d 1 (2006) (per Garland, J.) (upholding FDA determination to approve drug, over partial dissent by Williams, S.J.); Secretary of Labor v. Excel Mining, 334 F.3d 1 (2003) (per Garland, J.) (joined by Rogers, J., upholding citations against mine operator issued by Secretary of Labor; over dissenting opinion of Sentelle, J.); Train v. Veneman, 310 F.3d 747 (2002) (joining opinion of Rogers, J., upholding Secretary of Agriculture's implementation of subsidy program, over dissent of Sentelle, J.); American Corn Growers Ass'n v. EPA, 291 F.3d 1 (2002) (Garland, J., dissenting in part) (dissenting from majority opinion upholding industry challenge to part of EPA's anti-haze regulations), after remand Util. Air Reg. Group v. EPA, 471 F.3d 1333 (2006) (Garland, J., on panel upholding regulations); Ross Stores v. NLRB, 234 F.3d 669 (2001) (Garland, J., dissenting in part) (dissenting from panel's determination to overturn NLRB's finding that employer unlawfully admonished employee for engaging in union solicitation); NRA v. Reno, 216 F.3d 122 (2000) (joining opinion of Tatel, J., upholding regulations implementing Brady Act; over dissent of Sentelle, J.); Iceland Steamship Co., Ltd. v. U.S. Dep't of Army, 201 F.3d 451 (2000) (joining opinion of Sentelle, J., to uphold Army Contracting Officer's decision; over dissent of Henderson, J.);); Appalachian Regional Healthcare, Inc. v. Shalala, 131 F.3d 1050 (1997) (joining opinion of Silberman, J., upholding interpretation of Social Security Act; over dissent by Sentelle, J.). Environmental Law On environmental law, Judge Garland has in a number of cases favored contested EPA regulations and actions when challenged by industry, and in other cases he has accepted challenges brought by environmental groups. This is in fact the area in which Judge Garland has been most willing to disagree with agency action. Several of the decisions gave rise to disagreements among the court's members. Perhaps the most notable ruling in this category is the "hapless toad" case famous from the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts. In Rancho Viejo v. Norton, 323 F.3d 1062 (2003) (per Garland, J.), a panel upheld the government's application of the Endangered Species Act to the arroyo toad against a Commerce Clause challenge. John Roberts dissented from the denial of rehearing en banc in the case, although he did not argue that the case had been wrongly decided. 334 F.3d 1158 ("The panel's approach in this case leads to the result that regulating the taking of a hapless toad that, for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California constitutes regulating "Commerce among several States.'"). For other divided rulings, see American Bird Conservancy v. FCC, 516 F.3d 1027 (2008) (upholding environmental challenge to FCC action, over dissent by Kavanaugh, J., that claim was not ripe); American Corn Growers Ass'n v. EPA, 291 F.3d 1 (2002) (Garland, J., dissenting in part) (dissenting from majority opinion upholding industry challenge to part of EPA's anti-haze regulations);); La. Envt'l Action Network v. U.S. E.P.A., 172 F.3d 65 (1999) (joining opinion of Williams, J., rejecting challenge to EPA action under RCRA; over dissent of Sentelle, J., that claim was not ripe). Other rulings in this area involve unanimous opinions. E.g., Am. Farm Bureau Fed'n v. EPA, 559 F.3d 512 (2009) (per curiam) (accepting environmental challenge to EPA's ruling on fine particulate matter); Cement Kiln Recycling Coal. V. EPA, 493 F.3d 207 (2007) (per Garland, J.) (rejecting industry challenge to regulation relating to burning of hazardous waste as fuel); Nat'l Parks Conserv. Ass'n v. Manson, 414 F.3d 1 (2005) (joining panel opinion holding that environmental organizations have standing to challenge authorization for power plant); Sierra Club v. EPA, 356 F.3d 296 (2004) (sustaining challenge to EPA regulation of ozone). Standing Standing is an important doctrine in litigation, as it determines who "“ if anyone "“ can bring a federal court lawsuit. Generally speaking, the more conservative Justices take a narrower view of standing; the more liberal Justices more readily find standing. Judge Garland's rulings in this area are not easily categorized. The cases depend very much on their facts. He has found standing for parties to bring civil rights claims. E.g., Act Now v. District of Columbia, 589 F.3d 433 (2009) (joining panel opinion holding that group had standing challenge to regulation of posters); Animal Legal Def. Fund v. Glickman, 154 F.3d 426 (1998) (en banc) (joining opinion of Wald, J., that plaintiff had standing to sue under Animal Welfare Act; over dissent of Silberman, Sentelle, Ginsburg, and Henderson, JJ.). In other context, the panels have found standing to be lacking. E.g., Judicial Watch v. U.S. Senate, 432 F.3d 359 (2005) (holding that challenge to application of Senate filibuster rule to judicial nomination failed for lack of standing); Wisconsin Public Power v. FERC, 493 F.3d 239 (2007) (energy cooperatives lack standing to challenge FERC methodology). In environmental cases, Judge Garland's rulings have been similarly balanced; he has joined panel opinions both finding and rejecting claims of standing. E.g., North Carolina v. EPA, 587 F.3d 422 (2009) (North Carolina lacked standing to challenge EPA's removal of part of Georgia from coverage by ozone regulations); American Bird Conservancy v. FCC, 516 F.3d 1027 (2008) (upholding environmental challenge to FCC action, over dissent by Kavanaugh, J., that claim was not ripe); Wilderness Soc'y v. Norton, 434 F.3d 584 (2006) (holding that environmental group lacked standing to raise most of its challenges to Interior Department's wilderness management); Nat'l Parks Conserv. Ass'n v. Manson, 414 F.3d 1 (2005) (joining panel opinion holding that environmental organizations have standing to challenge authorization for power plant). Open Government and FOIA One final area of the law that comes regularly before the D.C. Circuit is the Freedom of Information Act and similar provisions related to transparency in government. Judge Garland's rulings reflect a preference for open government. E.g., NAM v. Taylor, 582 F.3d 1 (2009) (per Garland, J.) (upholding lobbying disclosure statute against First Amendment challenge); Baker & Hostetler v. U.S. Dep't of Comm., 473 F.3d 312 (2006) (joining panel opinion, over dissent of Henderson, J., that law firm is eligible for attorney's fees under FOIA); Broudy v. Mather, 460 F.3d 106 (2006) (rejecting access-to-courts claims pending pursuit of information under FOIA); Davis v. Department of Justice, 460 F.3d 92 (2007) (reversing summary judgment in government's favor under FOIA privacy exemption); McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. U.S. Dep't of Air Force, 375 F.3d 1182 (2004) (Garland, J., dissenting in part) (arguing that FOIA should generally require disclosure of prices paid by government to contractors). But cf. In re England, 375 F.3d 1169 (2004) (reversing district court ruling holding that discovery could be taken of Navy selection board members regarding promotion of Navy chaplains).

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Strength Perception Endurance All spell out: Charisma S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Intelligence Agility Luck ================================================================================ Table of Contents: [I] Skill names and attributes [II] Leveling Charts and Perks [III] Attributes, Perks and Skills Explanations ================================================================================ [I] Skill Names and Attributes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skill Name Attribute Affected Skills Modified 1. Agility Action Points Small Guns, Sneak 2. Charisma Disposition Barter, Speech 3. Endurance Health, Resistances Big Guns, Unarmed 4. Intelligence Skill Points per Level Medicine, Repair, Science 5, Luck Critical Chance All Skills 6. Perception Compass Markers Energy Weapons, Explosives, Lockpick 7. Strength Carry Weight Melee Weapons ================================================================================ [II] Leveling Charts and Perks -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These charts will have the abilities and attributes gained at each level, and for the perk charts, they will label each perk gained, along with what your minimum level of your character as well as the minimum level of the specific skill needed to gain that ability. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agility - A measure of your quickness and dexterity. Agility affects your total number of Action Points, which are used to perform specialized combat actions in V.A.T.S mode (use AP to attack enemies until your AP run out). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities affected: Small Guns, Sneak Level Action Points Skill Modifiers (%) 1 67 Small Guns +2, Sneak +2 2 69 Small Guns +4, Sneak +4 3 71 Small Guns +6, Sneak +6 4 73 Small Guns +8, Sneak +8 5 75 Small Guns +10, Sneak +10 6 77 Small Guns +12, Sneak +12 7 79 Small Guns +14, Sneak +14 8 81 Small Guns +16, Sneak +16 9 83 Small Guns +18, Sneak +18 10 85 Small Guns +20, Sneak +20 Perks Minimum Agility Needed Level Available Gun Nut 4 2 Thief 4 2 Silent Running 6 12 Sniper 6 12 Light Step 6 14 Action Boy 7 16 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charisma - Your overall attractiveness and likeability. Having a high Charisma will improve people's disposition toward you, although it can't overcome a particularly high or low Karma. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities affected: Barter, Speech, Disposition Level Skill Modifiers (%) 1 Barter +2, Speech +2 2 Barter +4, Speech +4 3 Barter +6, Speech +6 4 Barter +8, Speech +8 5 Barter +10, Speech +10 6 Barter +12, Speech +12 7 Barter +14, Speech +14 8 Barter +16, Speech +16 9 Barter +18, Speech +18 10 Barter +20, Speech +20 Perks Minimum Charisma Needed Level Available Scoundrel 4 4 Child at Heart 4 4 Impartial Meditation 5 8 Animal Friend 6 10 Master Trader 6 14 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Endurance - Your health and overall physical fitness. The higher your Endurance, the better your Health, Poison Resistance and Radiation Resistance are. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities affected: Poison Resistance, Radiation Resistance, Big Guns, Unarmed Level Initial Health Skill Modifiers (%) 1 120 Big Guns +2, Unarmed +2 2 140 Big Guns +4, Unarmed +4 3 160 Big Guns +6, Unarmed +6 4 180 Big Guns +8, Unarmed +8 5 200 Big Guns +10, Unarmed +10 6 220 Big Guns +12, Unarmed +12 7 240 Big Guns +14, Unarmed +14 8 260 Big Guns +16, Unarmed +16 9 280 Big Guns +18, Unarmed +18 10 300 Big Guns +20, Unarmed +20 Perks Minimum Endurance Needed Level Available Toughness 5 6 Lead Belly 5 6 Strong Back 5 8 Bad Resistance 5 8 Size Matters 5 8 Life Giver 6 12 Solar Powered 7 20 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Intelligence - Measures your basic intellect, curiosity in the world, and adeptness at critical thinking. The higher your Intelligence, the more skill points you can distribute when you level up. *note* this is the skill you should level up first if you want big bonuses later -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities affected: Medicine, Repair, Science, Skill Points per Level Up Level Skill Points Skill Modifiers (%) 1 11 Medicine +2, Repair +2, Science +2 2 12 Medicine +4, Repair +4, Science +4 3 13 Medicine +6, Repair +6, Science +6 4 14 Medicine +8, Repair +8, Science +8 5 15 Medicine +10, Repair +10, Science +10 6 16 Medicine +12, Repair +12, Science +12 7 17 Medicine +14, Repair +14, Science +14 8 18 Medicine +16, Repair +16, Science +16 9 19 Medicine +18, Repair +18, Science +18 10 20 Medicine +20, Repair +20, Science +20 Perks Minimum Intelligence Needed Level Available Swift Learner 4 2 Gun Nut 4 2 Daddy's Boy 4 2 Educated 4 4 Entomologist 4 4 Comprehension 4 4 Nerd Rage! 5 10 Computer Whiz 7 18 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luck - Affects every other skill; raising your Luck raises all of your skill values by a small amount. Having a high Luck will also improve your chance of a critical hit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities affected: Critical Hit Chance Level Skill Modifiers (%) 1 Critical 1%, All Skills +1 2 Critical 2%, All Skills +1 3 Critical 3%, All Skills +2 4 Critical 4%, All Skills +2 5 Critical 5%, All Skills +3 6 Critical 6%, All Skills +3 7 Critical 7%, All Skills +4 8 Critical 8%, All Skills +4 9 Critical 9%, All Skills +5 10 Critical 10%, All Skills +5 Perks Minimum Luck Needed Level Available Fortune Finder 5 6 Scrounger 5 8 Finesse 6 10 Mysterious Stranger 6 10 Better Criticals 6 16 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perception - Determines how well you use your five senses, and also pertains to an almost superhuman "sixth sense." The higher your Perception, the sooner the compass markings appear on your compass to indicate a threat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities affected: Detecting Enemies, Energy Weapons, Explosives, Lockpicking Level Skill Modifiers (%) 1 Energy Weapons +2, Explosives +2, Lockpick +2 2 Energy Weapons +4, Explosives +4, Lockpick +4 3 Energy Weapons +6, Explosives +6, Lockpick +6 4 Energy Weapons +8, Explosives +8, Lockpick +8 5 Energy Weapons +10, Explosives +10, Lockpick +10 6 Energy Weapons +12, Explosives +12, Lockpick +12 7 Energy Weapons +14, Explosives +14, Lockpick +14 8 Energy Weapons +16, Explosives +16, Lockpick +16 9 Energy Weapons +18, Explosives +18, Lockpick +18 10 Energy Weapons +20, Explosives +20, Lockpick +20 Perks Minimum Perception Needed Level Available Thief 4 2 Sniper 6 12 Light Step 6 14 Contract Killer 6 14 Lawbringer 6 14 Better Criticals 6 16 Infiltrator 7 18 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Strength - A measure of your raw physical strength. It determines how much you can carry, and the extra damage done in unarmed combat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities affected: Melee Weapons, Carry Weight Level Carry Weight (LBS) Melee Damage (HP) Skill Modifiers (%) 1 160 0.5 Melee Weapons +2 2 170 1 Melee Weapons +4 3 180 1.5 Melee Weapons +6 4 190 2 Melee Weapons +8 5 200 2.5 Melee Weapons +10 6 210 3 Melee Weapons +12 7 220 3.5 Melee Weapons +14 8 230 4 Melee Weapons +16 9 240 4.5 Melee Weapons +18 10 250 5 Melee Weapons +20 Perks Minimum Strength Needed Level Available Little Leaguer 4 2 Iron Fist 4 4 Strong Back 5 8 ================================================================================ [III] Attributes, Perks and Skills Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the perks list, in order of what level your character has to be in order to gain the perk. Certain perks have multiple ranks, which you can level up. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Level 2 Perks Black Widow/Lady Killer Ranks: 1 Requirements: none BW is for female players, LK is for male players. Inflicts an extra 10% damage to all NPCs of the opposite gender and gains access to special dialog options with them. Daddy's Boy/Daddy's Girl Ranks: 3 Requirements: Intelligence 4+ Gain an additional 5% to both Science and Medicine skills. Rank 1: +5 Science skill increase, +5 Medicine skill increase Rank 2: +10 Science skill increase, +10 Medicine skill increase Rank 3: +15 Science skill increase, +15 Medicine skill increase Gun Nut Ranks: 3 Requirements: Agility 4+, Intelligence 4+ Gain an additional 5% to both Small Guns and Repair skills. Rank 1: +5 Small Guns skill increase, +5 Repair skill increase Rank 2: +10 Small Guns skill increase, +10 Repair skill increase Rank 3: +15 Small Guns skill increase, +15 Repair skill increase Little Leaguer Ranks: 3 Requirements: Strength 4+ Gain an additional 5% to both Melee and Explosives skills. Rank 1: +5 Melee skill increase, +5 Explosives skill increase Rank 2: +10 Melee skill increase, +10 Explosives skill increase Rank 3: +15 Melee skill increase, +15 Explosives skill increase Swift Learner Ranks: 3 Requirements: Intelligence 4+ Gain an additional 10% experience points whenever they are earned. Rank 1: Experience +10% Rank 2: Experience +20% Rank 3: Experience +30% Thief Ranks: 3 Requirements: Agility 4+, Perception 4+ Gain a one-time bonus of 5% bonus to the Sneak and Lockpick skills. Rank 1: +5 Sneak skill increase, +5 Lockpick skill increase Rank 2: +10 Sneak skill increase, +10 Lockpick skill increase Rank 3: +15 Sneak skill increase, +15 Lockpick skill increase - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Level 4 Perks Child at Heart Ranks: 1 Requirements: Charisma 4+ More likely to receive a friendly greeting when dealing with children, and opens more dialogue options when dealing with them. Comprehension Ranks: 1 Requirements: Intelligence 4+ Gain one additional Skill point bonus when reading Skill Books. There are 324 total books, a possible of 16,200 points rather than 8,100 points. Educated Ranks: 1 Requirements: Intelligence 4+ Gain +3 more skill points every time you advance in level (you should take this at Level 4). Entomologist Ranks: 1 Requirements: Intelligence 4+, Science 40+ Inflict an additional 50% damage every time you attack an insect. Iron Fist Ranks: 3 Requirements: Strength 4+ Inflict an additional 5 points of Unarmed damage. Rank 1: +5 Unarmed damage Rank 2: +10 Unarmed damage Rank 3: +15 Unarmed damage Scoundrel Ranks: 3 Requirements: Charisma 4+ Gain an additional 5% to both Speech and Barter skills. Rank 1: +5 Speech skill increase, +5 Barter skill increase Rank 2: +10 Speech skill increase, +10 Barter skill increase Rank 3: +15 Speech skill increase, +15 Barter skill increase - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Level 6 Perks Bloody Mess Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Inflict an extra 5% damage with any weapon to any opponent, and explode them spectacularly upon death. Demolition Expert Ranks: 3 Requirements: Explosives 50+ Mines, Grenades and Missile Launcher inflicts +20% damage Rank 1: +20% damage Rank 2: +40% damage Rank 3: +60% damage Fortune Finder Ranks: 1 Requirements: Luck 5+ Gain a keen sense of locating Nuka-Cola Caps. Gunslinger Ranks: 1 Requirements: None Gain a 25% better chance to hit in V.A.T.S. with any one-handed ranged weapon. Lead Belly Ranks: 1 Requirements: Endurance 5+ Take 50% less radiation poisoning when drinking from an irradiated water source. Toughness Ranks: 1 Requirements: Endurance 5+ Gain +10 to overall Damage Resistance (max of 85). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Level 8 Perks Commando Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Gain a 25% better chance to hit in V.A.T.S. with any rifle. Impartial Meditation Ranks: 1 Requirements: Charisma 5+ Gain an extra 30% to Speech as long as you maintain a neutral Karma. Rad Resistance Ranks: 1 Requirements: Endurance 5+ Gain an extra 25% to Radiation Resistance. Scrounger Ranks: 1 Requirements: Luck 5+ Grants more access to ammunition from safes, desks, cabinets, etc. Size Matters Ranks: 3 Requirements: Endurance 5+ Gain +15 to the Big Guns skill. Rank 1: Big Guns +15 Rank 2: Big Guns +30 Rank 3: Big Guns +45 Strong Back Ranks: 1 Requirements: Strength 5+, Endurance 5+ Carry 50 more pounds of equipment. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Level 10 Perks Animal Friend Ranks: 2 Requirements: Charisma 6+ Never have to worry about being attacked by an animal. Rank 1: Animals won't attack unless provoked Rank 2: Animals attack your non-animal enemies. Finesse Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Have a higher chance to score a critical hit in combat by 5%. Here and Now Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Grants you an additional experience level. Mister Sandman Ranks: 1 Requirements: Sneak 60+ Can instantly kill any adult human you encounter while they're sleeping. Mysterious Stranger Ranks: 1 Requirements: Luck 6+ During V.A.T.S. a mysterious stranger sometimes appears and kills an opponent. If the opponent has less than 150 points of health, there is a 10% chance that the mysterious stranger will show up and finish him off. Nerd Rage! Ranks: 1 Requirements: Intelligence 5+, Science 50+ When your health drops to 20% or less, your Strength is raised to 10, and you gain +50 to Damage Resistance. Night Person Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Gain +2 to Intelligence and +2 to Perception when the sun is down, which is between 6PM and 6AM in the game (use the Pip-Boy's Clock for the time). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Level 12 Perks Cannibal Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Can feed on corpses to regain health (must be Sneaking to do so). However, every time you feed, you lose Karma. For each corpse: Health +25, Karma -1 Fast Metabolism Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Receive 20% more healing when using a Stimpak. Life Giver Ranks: 1 Requirements: Endurance 6+ Gain an additional 30 Health. Pyromaniac Ranks: 1 Requirements: Explosives 60+ Inflict 50% more damage with fire-based weapons. Robotics Expert Ranks: 1 Requirements: Science 50+ Gain 25% damage against any robot. Also, if you Sneak up on a robot, you can permanently shut down that robot. Silent Running Ranks: 1 Requirements: Agility 6+, Sneak 50+ Speed no longer factors into a successful Sneak attempt. You also gain +10% to Sneak. Sniper Ranks: 1 Requirements: Perception 6+, Agility 6+ Increases your chance of getting a headshot by 25% in V.A.T.S. mode. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Level 14 Perks Adamantium Skeleton Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Your limbs receive only 50% of the damage they normally would. Chemist Ranks: 1 Requirements: Medicine 60%+ Any Chems you take last twice as long. Contract Killer Ranks: 1 Requirements: none You can loot an ear from the corpse of any good character, and sell it to an "evil" vendor for Caps (5 Caps per ear). Cyborg Ranks: 1 Requirements: Science 60%+, Medicine 60%+ Instantly adds +10% to Damage Resistance, Poison Resistance, Radiation Resistance, and the Energy Weapons skill. Lawbringer Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Can loot a finger from the corpse of any defeated evil character and sell it to a "good" vendor for Caps (5 Caps per finger). Light Step Ranks: 1 Requirements: Agility 6+, Perception 6+ Never set off enemy Mines or Traps. Master Trader Ranks: 1 Requirements: Charisma 6+, Barter 60+ Prices of all bought items from vendors are reduced by 25%. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Level 16 Perks Action Boy/Action Girl Ranks: 1 Requirements: Agility 6+ Gain an additional 25 Action Points that can be used in V.A.T.S. Better Criticals Ranks: 1 Requirements: Perception 6+, Luck 6+ Critical hits do 50% more damage. Chem Resistant Ranks: 1 Requirements: Medicine 60+ You are 50% less likely to get addicted to Chems. Tag! Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Allows you to select a fourth skill to be a "Tag skill", which instantly raises it by 15 points. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Level 18 Perks Computer Whiz Ranks: 1 Requirements: Intelligence 7+, Science 70%+ Receive a special bonus whenever hacking a computer. If you are locked out of a computer, you can attempt to hack it one more time. Concentrated Fire Ranks: 1 Requirements: Small Guns 60+, Energy Weapons 60+ Gain an automatic +5% chance to hit a body part, and when that body part is targeted again, your hit chances are further increased. Targeting 1st time: normal % Targeting 2nd time: +5% Targeting 3rd time: +10% etc. Infiltrator Ranks: 1 Requirements: Perception 7+, Lockpick 70+ Gain a special bonus whenever you pick a lock. If a lock is broken, and can't normally be picked again, you can attempt to pick it one more time. Paralyzing Palm Ranks: 1 Requirements: Unarmed 70+ Can access a special unarmed V.A.T.S. palm strike, which paralyzes the opponent for 30 seconds. Must be completely unarmed to perform, but can have Brass Knuckles or a Deathclaw equipped. Note: equipping yourself after the palm strike does not un-paralyze them. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Level 20 Perks Explorer Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Every Primary Location on your World Map is revealed, and you can Fast Travel to it. Ninja Ranks: 1 Requirements: Sneak 80+, Melee Weapons 80+ When attacking with either Melee or Unarmed, you gain a +15% critical chance on every strike, and criticals do 25% more damage than normal. Grim Reaper's Sprint Ranks: 1 Requirements: none Slaying a target in V.A.T.S. mode restores all your Action Points when you exit. Solar Powered Ranks: 1 Requirements: Endurance +7 Gain an additional 2 points of strength when in direct sunlight, and you slowly regain Health. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ================================================================================ Closing Stuff ================================================================================ I hope you found this guide useful. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _____ __ __ / ___// /_ ____ ____/ /_____ _______ \__ \/ __ \/ __ \/ __ / __ \ | /| / / ___/ ___/ / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /_/ / |/ |/ /___ \ /____/_/ /_/\_____\____/\____/|__/|__/_____/ ___ _ / _ \(_)__ ______ ________ __ / // / / _ \ / __ \ | /| / / __ \ | / / / // / / __/ / /_/ / |/ |/ / /_/ / |/ / /____/_/\___/ \_____\__/|__/\_____\ / / / /__/ ShadowsDieAway -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This guide is free for distribution, but please don't leave out this part of the guide where credit is due, thank you and enjoy!

Possession Possession is identified throughout human history and its innumerable religions as the act by an outside force, either demonic or spiritual in nature, of taking physical control of an individual's body or an object. Humans, animals, even places and objects alike are susceptible to these supernatural forces. To manifest on Earth, demons require a human body. They do not require consent for possession, although at least some demons can only gain access if the human is psychologically vulnerable; one demon was only able to possess a host when its target expressed a fear of flying preparing to travel in an airplane, but Azazel was able to possess a reaper without any sign that she was emotionally vulnerable to his influence. Possession in and of itself can harm a person if the demon remains within the body for too long. While possessed, the human may sustain injuries or even be killed, but possession will continue to animate the body until the demon leaves it. Possession can be forcibly ended by an exorcism or prevented using an anti-possession symbol. Sam's powers allow him to exorcise and kill demons, leaving the human unharmed. When Dean becomes a demon, it is because the Mark of Cain has twisted his soul, not because he is possessed. As a result, Deanmon was also immune to exorcism and the anti-possession tattoo on his body, as he wasn't technically possessing his body as it was his own form rather than another's. For occupation of a human by an angel see vessel Contents Spirit Possession Variations on spiritual possession can be found in the following episodes: - 1.01 Pilot - The Woman in White, Constance Welch takes possession of the Impala and tries to run down Sam and Dean. - 1.05 Bloody Mary - The spirit of Mary Worthington possesses a mirror. - 1.07 Hook Man - The spirit of Jacob Karns, a murderous preacher lives on through what remains of the hook he wore in life, latching on to the repressed emotions of a preacher's daughter who wore part of the hook as a necklace. - 1.11 Scarecrow - The Vanir, a divine spirit possesses an inanimate scarecrow. - 1.19 Provenance - The spirit of a long dead murderous child, Melanie Merchant and her guilt ridden father literally possess a painting done of their family. This was the second example of a spiritual possession of an inanimate object (although some might think of this as more of a haunting than a possession). - 4.13 After School Special - The spirit of Dirk McGregor possesses students that are being bullied and uses them to attack others, having latched on to the students who travel in the bus his father drives due to his father keeping a lock of his hair in a Bible. - 6.14 Mannequin 3: The Reckoning - The spirit of Rose Brown possesses an anatomy dummy, a mannequin, and a Real Doll, using all three to kill men complicate in her death. Her spirit then possesses the Impala and attempts to kill Dean, but instead accidentally kills her sister, Isabel Brown. - 7.22 There Will Be Blood and 7.23 Survival of the Fittest - Bobby possess a woman, Louise and uses her to try and kill Dick Roman. - 8.06 Southern Comfort - Vance Collins the spectre of a Civil War soldier, possess people who handle one of its possessions, a penny, and cause them to kill people they hold grudges against. - 10.16 Paint It Black - The spirit of a nun named Isabella begins possessing and murdering people who have confessed to sins of infidelity at a church in Worcester, Massachusetts. Demonic Possession Demonic possessions are listed below. Beginning in season three, incidents of demonic possession escalated rapidly. - 1.04 Phantom Traveler - A demon possesses a passenger and causes the crash of an airliner. The demon seeks to finish the job when there are survivors. Sam and Dean are forced to board a plane and perform an exorcism, upon being forced out of the body of the co-pilot, the demon briefly takes possession of the plane until Sam is able to finish the exorcism rite, sending the demon back to Hell. - 1.22 Devil's Trap - It's revealed that Meg Masters is actually a girl possessed by a demon who is exorcised by Sam which kills the real Meg. John is also possessed in this episode, by Azazel, and is able to temporarily regain control of his body while possessed. Azazel eventually flees his body after Sam shoots him with the Colt, but hesitates to kill him. Several other people are possessed during the episode including Tom who is killed by Dean. - 2.01 In My Time of Dying - Azazel possessed the reaper, Tessa, and a janitor in the hospital (as he was communicating with John). Several other hospital staff appeared to also be possessed in this scene, as they exhibit the demonic black eyes. - 2.08 Crossroad Blues - The Crossroads Demon in this episode was possessing a woman. She eventually abandons the woman after breaking Evan Hudson's contract. - 2.09 Croatoan - Duane Tanner appears to be possessed much like Meg Masters was. The residents of River Grove, Oregon in this episode did not exhibit the usual signs of possession (such as the 'black smoke' upon death). - 2.14 Born Under a Bad Sign - Sam is possessed by Meg. She tries to convince Dean that Sam is turning evil, but he recognizes that Sam is possessed. Dean and Bobby try to exorcise Meg, but she has placed a binding link on Sam's body. Bobby must burn the link with a hot fire iron so that the possession can be ended. Meg flees Sam after the brand is broken, but is still out there somewhere as she is not exorcised. Bobby provides the brothers with anti-possession charms. - 2.21 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part One & 2.22 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part Two - The Yellow-Eyed Demon returns, still occupying the body of the janitor from 2.01 In My Time of Dying. The spirit of John Winchester is able to interact with the demon and pull it out of the body temporarily. The demon returns to his body and is promptly killed along with his meatsuit by Dean with the Colt. A Crossroads Demon also appears in this episode when Dean makes his deal possessing someone else. - 3.01 The Magnificent Seven - The Seven Deadly Sins, freed when the Devil's Gate in Wyoming opened, possess bodies. Ruby appears and kills several of them with a demon killing knife, while Bobby Singer is able to exorcise the demons from another two victims. Envy is exorcised by Tamara, but the man he possesses does not survive. - 3.02 The Kids Are Alright - Ruby reveals that she is a demon possessing a body. - 3.04 Sin City - Demons possess Father Gil and Casey to promote the destruction of a town. Both are killed along with the people they are possessing by Sam with the Colt. Ruby interacts with Bobby. - 3.05 Bedtime Stories - Sam summons a crossroads demon to discuss Dean's deal, then kills her with the Colt when she reveals she can't break Dean's deal. - 3.09 Malleus Maleficarum - Ruby appears, as does Tammi, who is empowering a group of witches. Tammi is killed by Dean with Ruby's knife. - 3.12 Jus in Bello - A large group of demons possess townspeople, as well as Special Agent Victor Henriksen, and trap Sam and Dean in a sheriff's office. Ruby also appears, and tries to convince Sam and Dean to conduct a ritual sacrifice that will kill the demons. Instead, they allow the demons into the building and perform a mass exorcism. Lilith appears later, possessing a child. It is revealed that Sam and Dean now have anti-possession tattoos. - 3.15 Time Is on My Side - In a flashback, a crossroads demon possesses a child, offering to make a deal with Bela Talbot. Also, Sam and Dean interrogate a demon about who holds Dean's contract and exorcise him eventually, but his meatsuit does not survive. - 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked - Lilith possesses another child, tormenting her parents, and later takes over the body Ruby is possessing, apparently expelling Ruby in the process. Lilith flees when Sam proves immune to her powers. Lilith's henchmen possess most of the neighborhood. - 4.01 Lazarus Rising - Ruby returns in a new body. Sam and Dean encounter three possessed people in a diner. - 4.03 In the Beginning - Dean is sent to the past, and encounters Azazel, who possesses a number of people in order to make deals. He even possesses Dean's grandfather, Samuel Campbell. - 4.04 Metamorphosis - Sam performs a psychic exorcism on a demon. - 4.07 It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester - Samhain is raised by witches, and possesses Don Harding. He is exorcised by Sam's powers. - 4.09 I Know What You Did Last Summer - Alastair and other demons search for Anna. Sam reveals his encounters with demons in Dean's absence through flashbacks. It is revealed that Ruby currently occupies a body that was comatose and from which the spirit was absent. - 4.10 Heaven and Hell - Alastair reappears and his body is destroyed when Anna regains her grace. - 4.15 Death Takes a Holiday - Alastair returns in two other bodies with several other demons. - 4.16 On the Head of a Pin - Dean is asked to torture Alastair for information. Sam kills Alastair. - 4.18 The Monster at the End of This Book - Lilith appears possessing a "comely dental hygienist from Bloomington, Indiana," offering to make a deal with Sam. She flees her body when Raphael arrives. - 4.20 The Rapture - Demons possess Jimmy Novak's neighbors and wife, trying to capture him; they are all killed by Sam and Dean and Castiel while using the body of Claire Novak except for one that Sam exorcises psychically. - 4.21 When the Levee Breaks - Ruby returns, and Sam prevents Dean from killing her. - 4.22 Lucifer Rising - In a flashback, Azazel possesses a priest, Father Lehne, and murders several nuns. Ruby and Sam kidnap a demon possessing Cindy McLellan and torture her to locate Lilith who returns in the body of the dental hygienist. Sam kills Lilith. Dean kills Ruby. - 5.01 Sympathy for the Devil - Meg reappears with a number of other demons. Bobby is possessed, but manages to temporarily overcome the demon and stab himself to save Dean. The demons with Meg are killed and she flees her meatsuit. Several demons are destroyed at John's lock-up by angels. - 5.06 I Believe the Children Are Our Future - A demon possesses Jesse's mother. He exorcises her. - 5.10 Abandon All Hope... - Sam and Dean meet Crowley, a demon who wants to help them stop the Apocalypse. In Carthage, MI, they encounter Meg, who sets hellhounds on them. A number of demons are sacrificed to raise the Horseman Death. - 5.12 Swap Meat - A demon possesses Nora. Dean and Gary exorcise her. - 5.14 My Bloody Valentine - Demons attend to the Horseman Famine. He is defeated by Sam when he "eats" five demons, and Sam uses his powers to exorcise them. - 5.17 99 Problems - Demons under the control of the Whore of Babylon besiege a town. - 5.20 The Devil You Know - Crowley returns and offers to help Sam and Dean find Pestilence by capturing Brady, a friend of Sam's from Stanford who is possessed. A number of demons work with Brady at Niveus Pharmaceuticals and at least one is killed by Dean. Crowley uses a binding link to keep the demon in the body. After getting what they need, Sam kills Brady. Crowley also makes a deal for Bobby's soul in exchange for locating Death. - 5.21 Two Minutes to Midnight - Crowley leads Dean to Death, and restores Bobby's ability to walk. Two demons at Niveus Pharmaceuticals attempt to release the Croatoan virus but are killed by Bobby. A demon works with Pestilence, but is killed by Castiel. - 5.22 Swan Song - Two demons are killed and drained, and Sam psychically kills several more. It is revealed that a number of demons in addition to Brady have been keeping track of Sam by possessing people he knew. They are killed by Lucifer. - 6.04 Weekend at Bobby's - Bobby has a Crossroads Demon tied up in a devils trap in his basement who he tortures for Crowley's real name. After he gets the information on Crowley he burns the Crossroads Demon's bones, killing it and its host. - 6.07 Family Matters - Christian Campbell is killed by the Alpha Vampire, but immediately revives with black eyes -- he has been possessed. Other demons arrive to transport the Alpha Vampire, and Crowley appears to speak to the Winchesters. - 6.08 All Dogs Go to Heaven - Crowley orders Sam and Dean to investigate a series of vicious killings. - 6.10 Caged Heat - Meg returns and partners with Sam, Dean, and Castiel in an assault on Crowley's monster prison. She has three demons with her, and they encounter Crowley and three other demons at the prison, including the possessed Christian Campbell. All except Meg (and secretly Crowley) are killed. - 6.18 Frontierland - Two demons possessing cowboys go after Samuel Colt. He kills them with the Colt. - 6.19 Mommy Dearest - Crowley reappears and demons kill two Jefferson Starships. - 6.20 The Man Who Would Be King - Dean, Sam, and Bobby torture Red to find Ellsworth, who is killed by Castiel to keep his friends from finding Crowley. Castiel later kills three demons to protect his friends. - 6.21 Let It Bleed - Demons kidnap Lisa and Ben; Lisa is possessed, and nearly dies when Dean exorcises the demon from her injured body. - 6.22 The Man Who Knew Too Much - Crowley and a cloud of demons attack Castiel's angels in an attempt to prevent him from opening Purgatory alone. And in a flashback, Sam killed a crossroads demon. - 7.01 Meet the New Boss - Crowley is found hiding in an Enochian-layered camper van by Castiel, who instead of killing him, offers him his place of King of Hell under supervision. Crowley is later summoned by Sam, Dean and Bobby for information on a spell to bind Death. - 7.06 Slash Fiction - Crowley visits Dick Roman, the leader of the leviathans, and offers to broker an alliance. Dick turns him down and threatens to wipe out the demons should he feel inclined. Crowley vanishes. - 7.08 Season Seven, Time for a Wedding! - A crossroads demon called Guy is brokering deals with humans and then exploiting a loophole by having his associate, Jackson, murder them shortly after. One such deal involves supplying Becky Rosen with the love potion she's using on Sam. The Winchesters attack the demons and Becky kills Jackson. Guy is rescued by the timely arrival of Crowley, who undoes all of Guy's deals in exchange for Guy's life. Crowley reveals he's kept his demons at bay in the hopes the Winchesters might succeed in killing the Leviathans. He then takes Guy back to Hell to make an example of him. - 7.15 Repo Man - Four years ago, a demon possesses a psychotic postal worker called Jeffrey and murders several women before being captured and exorcised by the Winchesters. In the present, the murders start again and the Winchesters seek Jeffrey's help in understanding the demon's modus operandi. Jeffrey captures Dean and uses his blood to summon the demon with the intent of becoming its meatsuit once again. The demon rejects him, possessing a young man instead and is exorcised soon after by Nora Havelock. - 8.02 What's Up, Tiger Mommy? - Crowley possesses Linda Tran in order to get the demon Word of God tablet. When Dean tries to kill both Crowley and Linda with Ruby's knife, Crowley flees and returns to his usual meatsuit, leaving Linda catatonic. - 8.12 As Time Goes By - In order to infiltrate the Men of Letters, Abaddon possesses a woman named Josie Sands who is to be initiated into the order. After being unable to kill the demon, Henry Winchester shoots a devil's Trap-carved bullet into her brain, binding her to Josie. Dean says that he is going to cut Abaddon up into pieces and bury them in cement, forever entrapping her. - 8.17 Goodbye Stranger - Using Meg, demons under the orders of Crowley search for Lucifer's Crypts. They possess various people including Ann Morton and Wendy Rice to try to find the Crypts, but those demons are killed by Castiel. Meg is killed by Crowley with an Angel Sword while buying Sam, Dean and Castiel time to escape. - 8.22 Clip Show - Sam and Dean discover that the Men of Letters recorded every demonic possession for 300 years up until their demise in 1958 including Ichabod Crane and Lizzie Borden. They find that the Men have a rating system with a possession such as the one in The Exorcist being a Class 2 Infernal Event. They discover a film of a Class 5 Infernal Event where two priests, Father Max Thompson and Father Simon attempted a new exorcism to cure a demon and make them human again. The attempt failed and the old woman died while the demon escaped into the world, but Father Thompson continued his efforts, eventually curing one possessing Peter Kent. Abaddon is put back together and reveals that she killed Father Thompson and possessed Josie Sands to infiltrate and destroy the Men of Letters after learning of them and her from him. - 8.23 Sacrifice - Sam and Dean capture Crowley to use him to for the third trial which is to cure a demon. As Sam works on curing Crowley, he sends a distress call and Abaddon, still possessing Josie Sands' stitched-together body arrives. She wants to kill Crowley and take over Hell, but Sam douses her in Holy Fire causing her such extreme pain she quickly flees Josie's body and the scene. Crowley is nearly cured and shows signs of humanity, but Dean stops Sam before he can finish after learning from Naomi that Sam will die if he completes the trials. - 9.02 Devil May Care - Abaddon has a demon perform a ritual to restore Josie Sands' body to act as her meatsuit once again. She later exorcises a crossroads demon who questions her and helps three demons loyal to her possess three soldiers to have stronger bodies to use. Sam and Dean discover the bodies the demons had previously used and discover that the people possessed all died of old wounds they suffered while possessed when they were abandoned. The soldiers and the demons possessing them are killed by Gadreel. - 9.10 Road Trip - At Crowley's suggestion, Dean lets him briefly possess Sam to help him expel Gadreel. Crowley succeeds and willingly returns to his usual body afterwards. - 9.11 First Born - In 1863, Abaddon possesses Cain's wife Colette to try to get him to rejoin the Knights of Hell. When that fails, Abaddon starts to fatally damage Colette's body, leading to Cain trying to kill her with the First Blade. Abaddon flees at the last moment and he kills Colette instead. - 9.16 Blade Runners - Crowley possesses Andre Devlin briefly to find out the location of the First Blade before returning to his usual body. - 9.17 Mother's Little Helper - Abaddon possessing the Mother Superior of a convent and three demons, including one possessing Sister Agnes steal people's souls to create an army of demons loyal only to Abaddon. The other two demons are exorcised by Henry Winchester and Josie Sands, but Abaddon is immune and Sister Agnes is away at the time of the exorcism. At Josie's insistence, Abaddon possesses her instead of Henry to infiltrate the Men of Letters. In the present, Sister Agnes and another demon are killed by Sam. - 9.21 King of the Damned - Abaddon, still possessing Josie Sands, is killed by Dean with the First Blade. Monster Possession In season six, the first known instances of monster possession appear. - 6.12 Like A Virgin - Dragons summon Eve, the Mother of All Monsters who possesses a young virgin. - 6.16 ...And Then There Were None - Eve creates the Khan worm, which can enter a person's body through the ear and control their actions. The first man possessed, a trucker for the Starlight Cannery named Rick, kills his family while under the monster's control. The Khan Worm then enters another cannery worker and kills six men before Dean, Sam, Bobby, Rufus, Samuel, and Gwen appear on the scene. It then possesses Dean, who kills Gwen; Samuel, who is killed by Sam while possessed; and Bobby, who stabs and kills Rufus. Sam and Dean eventually overpower Bobby and shock him with electricity until the Khan Worm slides out of Bobby's ear and dies. - 6.21 Let It Bleed - Eleanor Visyak is revealed to be a native of Purgatory who has been possessing the mother of a man named Westborough since the 1930's. - 7.02 Hello, Cruel World - After the Leviathans take control of Castiel's vessel, it begins to deteriorate, which forces them to abandon his body and disperse in a local water reservoir, by which they manage to spread throughout the town of Stockville, Kansas and take possession of various humans. Some of the higher-ranking Leviathans like Dick Roman possess influential public figures in order to carry out their plan. - 8.19 Taxi Driver - Rogue Reaper Ajay is approached by Sam and Dean while possessing the body of a Middle Eastern taxi cab driver. - 9.03 I'm No Angel - Sam and Dean once again come across rogue reapers, the first was named Maurice -- who was tasked by Bartholomew to track the Winchesters in hopes of finding Castiel. The second was April Kelly who offered Castiel shelter as April to gain his trust and to torture information about Metatron out of him. Brief History of Possession Though belief in possession is spread throughout the world within various cultures, if you ask most people on the street about possession the concept of demonic possession as understood by the Catholic Church will come to mind. During the Middle Ages cases of demonic possession ran rampant throughout Europe. Exorcisms were common place. Most people relate the subject of possession to the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist based on the novel by William Peter Blatty. The movie was based on Blatty's novel of the same name that was inspired by the real life story of a young Maryland boy on who an exorcism was performed in 1949 at Alexian Brother's Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Though possession is considered by most as a terrifying prospect there are some religions such as Voodoo that encourage spiritual possession by what are referred to as loa. Modern day doctors and scientists believe that the demonically or spiritually possessed of the past were more than likely mentally disturbed people. Thus possession was an uneducated way of explaining various mental illnesses.

I recently did an interview for the Journal of Chinese Martial Arts conducted by Nick Scrima. In the article I share stories about: - What it was like to train in Karate in Japan in the 1960’s. I also liked the Samurai philosophy as an art form and wanted to know the source. At the time there were few non-Japanese or Korean martial artists in the US or Europe. I had been practicing Zen Buddhism from the age of 14 and had been practicing Shiatsu and I also wanted to know more about the healing arts. Did you have any fears or apprehensions? Any fear I had centered on practical matters. I had to earn enough money before the trip to get me there, live there and attend college. Also, I had received scholarships for Harvard and Columbia. I turned them down to go to Japan. So I made that decision and went forward choosing to follow where life led rather than what was expected of me. Describe your early experiences with the culture and the martial arts training. The early cultural experiences involved several things. First was staying with the student of my Jiujitsu teacher and she was no fun to be with. Second was that racism in Japan was as strong as elsewhere but more subtle. Everything was more difficult but at least Japan had subways and buses. Being from New York I could figure out how to get around. But it was not like nowadays when there are signs in English. O-Sensei Morihei Useshiba - photo by Virginia Mayhew In terms of the martial arts training, one of my mentors in New York recommended that I fatten up before going to Japan. He said I would lose weight there because of the unfamiliar food and the long training cycles. Before I left I went from 175 to 240 pounds and after three months I was down to 160. In my opinion, martial arts training in Japan at that time was of a higher caliber and more intense than in the US, but I loved it. I arrived in September and by January got my own apartment less than a block from the main Aikido school. It was a joy to train with Aikido founder O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba. The racism varied from light to heavy. For example, in the Kodokan, the headquarters of Judo, there was a section of the mat where the Communists and right-wing Nationalists practiced. I was told, “If you practice with them, you will go to the hospital.” And that is what happened to many people. Within Judo circles, one student I practiced with was less than 5 feet tall and could easily throw me around. I learned a lot from him. When a smaller guy is throwing you, it is very motivating. In Karate I worked out with the Waseda University Team that won the Championship the year I was there. That was also extremely hard training and great fighting experience. Training was 6 to 8 hours per day; sometimes more but never less. During my first two months I had some good luck. A friend Danny Connor, was practicing with the Japan University Karate Club and sometimes I sparred with them. They picked on of their top guys and I beat him. I sparred with a couple of other people and beat them. Danny said that I had made them lose face so I should get out of there quickly, so I faked and injury and left. Within 20 minutes four guys arrived who would have put me in the hospital. To give you an idea of the severity of the training, at another university club there was a boy for whom the training was too hard, but because he had signed up he was obligated to attend. Face was very important and they would not let him quit even thought it was physically and mentally destroying him. His mother begged the school to let him out of the Karate team. They agreed but asked him to come to one last session so they could all leave with a “good feeling.” Then in that last session they beat him to death. I imagine that times have changed but then it was rough. You never knew what the rules were. Basically there was a polite crowd and a reactionary crowd in the way they related to foreigners. For young men, especially one whose early training was in Japanese Karate, it could not have been easy to make the transition to the Internal Martial Arts. What led you to seek this knowledge and what were your greatest challenges? I wrote about this in my book Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body. In Japan I saw that many of the older martial artists were in poor health; arthritis, cortisone shots, and heart attacks were the norm. Martial artists were not strong when they reached the age of 70 or 80. When fighting an older person, the younger students were supposed to pretend to take a hit to save face for the older teacher. In contrast, when I went to Wang Shujin I saw that he could really beat the crap out of younger people. I realized that internal martial arts were like a horse you could ride your entire life. Wang was the initial input for my interest in the internal arts but later I met many older people in China who had health and power into old age. And I also observed in China that many of the Shaolin people, like older Karate people, were strong when they were young but not when they got older. The most daunting challenge in learning internal arts was giving up the adrenaline rush and muscular tension. I had trained for years to put that tension in my system. It was not easy to relax and let go. You had the privilege to train under Morihei Ueshiba when he was advanced in years. There are many stories about his skill. What stands out in your mind? If you did not give your full effort when sparring with him, O-Sensei would take it as an insult and when he took you down he would hurt you a bit. Whereas if you gave it your all when you fought him, he would merely take you down and not particularly hurt you. In the old Samurai days when you practiced, you did it for real. This was also true with the old Chinese masters. O-Sensei had the same attitude as the Samurai and the old Chinese masters. He was among that rare breed with remarkable, excellent skills that bordered on supernatural. O-Sensei was known for being a little spooky in his abilities and for having a considerable amount of Qi. He could channel energy in and out of his body in a way that would produce real physical power. He would seem weak but then he would start to channel energy and it would just come out of him. For almost all the techniques he did, I saw good Bagua and Taiji masters also do the same. He studied Bagua and traveled to China often. He was good at sinking from high to low postures, typical of Bagua. His Aikido art was combined with Jiujitsu, giving it a unique flavor. O-Sensei was a mere 5 feet tall. I have never seen anybody that size so powerful except Liu Hongjie, my last teacher in China. I never had a hero worship thing about O-Sensei but had a huge amount of respect for his ability. He had a level of skill greater than anyone else I saw in Japanese martial arts. Was your Aikido training your first glimpse of the spectrum of the internal martial arts? The very first was Zheng Manqing in New York but you could say that my first real eye-opener was O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba and then Wang Shujin. Wang gave me the full spectrum because he practiced Taiji, Bagua and Xingyi. These are the core of what I teach. Also, both Bagua and Taiji can be used as moving meditation. For some people, Xingyi and the standing practice of Santi are among the fastest ways to build Qi and health. What was your experience with Zheng Manqing? The first time I saw him, in the mid-1960s, I was a combat-fighting teenager. We met at a Chinese cultural center in New York. There were only five or six people in his Taiji class and he was not doing push hands; he was teaching the form. I was more interested in full-contact fighting, so practicing the Taiji form didn’t make a lot of sense to me except that I saw him do a slow-motion lotus kick and a slow-motion front kick, which I adapted to my own training. In terms of kicks, this was the edge that allowed me to win black belt Karate championships. My second experience of Zheng Manqing was indirect, with his students in New York and Taiwan. My third experience was when a journalist I knew in Taiwan wanted to interview him for a magazine. I took her to Zheng’s house; Tam Gibbs translated. Zheng Manqing died a few days later. Please distill the essence of Aikido in one sentence. Aikido is about blending and circulating energy coming at you, going through you, and coming out to defeat the opponent with a minimum of malice (Ueshiba’s school). You could have chosen to stay in Japan and continue your studies of Aikido, yet you were stirred toward the arts of China. At that time there was little information about Taiji, Xingyi, Bagua and Qigong. What led you to believe there was something more to be had? After O-Sensei died, I kept up my training in Aikido for eight or nine months but then stopped going to his school. None of his students had fully grasped what he had. I think O-Sensei was incredible practitioner but maybe not so great in teaching. He did not have a systematic way of passing down what he had learned. His system of Aikido was a synthesis of many things and he did not teach the individual components. What enabled him to become so spectacular apparently did not transfer, so even the most talented students did not achieve as much. What O-Sensei offered was practical for real fighting. The atmosphere at his Dojo was a positive social-spiritual dynamic, but fighting arts were being emphasized less. Some of his earlier students eventually started schools that taught more fighting, but by then I had moved on. Zheng Manqing - photo by Ken Van Sickle This led me to the Chinese internal arts originally with Zheng Manqing. One of Zheng’s students, George Hoff, was my knife-fighting mentor in high school. He had taught the military and worked with security agencies. A man named Nakayama, at the time head of the Japanese Karate organization, Shotokan, wrote a book on self-defense with the knife, and George was the attacker pictured on the cover. He told me that the best fighter in Japan was Wang Shujin and that if I had the opportunity to meet Wang I should do so. When I was at a coffee shop in Tokyo owned by one of Wang’s students, he gave me a letter of introduction to Wang, who was then in Taiwan. Through him I met other teachers, many of whom were excellent. Both old and young among them at the time could beat me up, even with my Karate and martial arts skills. So I went to Japan to do the best fighting arts and then found that the best martial artists were in China! If Taiwan was your bridge to mainland China, your martial arts sojourn there must have been quite revealing, especially since your teacher was the famed Wang Shujin, I first read about him in Robert Smith’s book Masters and Methods. Did you find him to be as described by Robert Smith? Both Taiwan and Hong Kong were my bridges. I met Wang when he was older, but he was much like Smith’s description. Wang was a dramatically better practitioner than a teacher, so you had to be an exceptional student to get what he had. That said, he did produce some exceptional students. What did you take away from your tenure under Wang? Good basics and a clear beginning of internal power. What did this clear beginning of internal power mean to you? A nonphysical quality inside my body seemed to be getting denser. Muscles did not feel like muscles anymore. I felt some watery quality moving inside and in the air and space surrounding my body. That is how I initially experienced qi. Shortly thereafter I began to have a sense of intense but subtle internal vibrations. How revolutionary was Wang’s training? From the point of view of Bagua and Xingyi his training was traditional. In terms of Karate it was nontraditional. The Japanese teaching style is disciplined and formal. The Chinese teaching style, while demanding, is not so rigid and formalized. Did you find this different from what you expected? In Asia you experience so many things that are different that you roll with it. But for Japanese martial arts, there was much more ceremony than in the Chinese arts. The Japanese formality was not so much functional as cultural. I would have preferred going directly to the crux of the matter without having to do all the ritual, yet I appreciated its purpose. The Japanese Samurai is perhaps the world’s most renowned warrior. His heroism, courage, and willingness to give everything and never submit to defeat underlie the commitment and seriousness that the Japanese offer to the martial arts. Samurai formality also gives a nice rhythm to focus your mind, which many people gravitate toward because their lives are so chaotic. But after a few years in martial arts I did not feel such a need. I experienced a similar situation in India where I did a lot of spiritual practice. I did not find the excessive emphasis on the Guru and the trappings and rituals to be something I liked; it was more something I had to put up with. The real traditional Chinese internal martial arts were more directed toward fundamentals than aesthetic beauty. I definitely preferred that, being more about substance than style. To me, the Chinese martial arts have the most substance. Do you regret not staying longer to see what else Wang had to offer? Wang Shujin - photo by Bruce Frantzis I don’t regret the past. Yes, I wish I could have spent more time but life did not allow it. I did spend two years with him and intermittently studied with him over a 10-year period. He was like a grumpy grandfather. We had a good personal connection. He gave me a sword from above his bed. I could get what Wang was transmitting where many others could not. I am very grateful for that. One of your teachers in Japan was Kenichi Sawai, who studied in China with the famed Wang Xiangzhai. Many of his teachings seem distant from other students of Wang Xiangzhai. Do you think this is due to his own innovations or to his Japanese martial arts background? Kenichi Sawai studied with Wang Xiangzhai for 11 years. Many of Sawai’s techniques were not exactly the same as what Wang Xiangzhai’s other students taught. It is obvious that he mixed his experience in Japanese martial arts with what he learned from Wang Xiangzhai. Although he was with Wang Xiangzhai for several years, Sawai did not speak Chinese well and may not have understood everything the way other students did. Moreover, China was under Japanese occupation, so there may have been restrictions on the information passed to Sawai. I was told that Sawai was a colonel in the Japanese army and was also a top army guy. So limits may have been placed on the extent of knowledge that could be passed on to him. Kenichi Sawai Sawai’s background brought a somewhat harder Samurai edge to his training than for most of Wang Xiangzhai’s students. Having also studied with other students of Wang Xiangzhai, I noticed that Sawai made his students practice and practice, which was the old Japanese way. Many of Wang’s other disciples did not “force” their students to practice in this manner; instead, they “encouraged” them. The old Japanese thinking, which Wang Shujin agreed with, is that it is better to have one technique that you do well than 10,000 done poorly. The one technique will get the job done, the 10,000 may or may not. Thus, Sawai emphasized fewer techniques, practiced to perfection. Sawai also stressed the importance of standing so that internal power can manifest itself in a particular technique. I reached the point where I could stand six hours a day, due to Sawai’s inspiration. Also, Sawai’s emphasis was on the intent rather than exactness of the physical movement. His intensity compensated for the fact that his techniques were not as precise as many of Wang Xiangzhai’s other students. But consider this: I met people in China who had studied with him during different decades of his life, and many of his techniques changed over time. The biggest difference between Sawai and the other disciples was that Sawai taught fewer techniques but focused on applications, on their ability to put people down. He considered knocking someone out or breaking a bone to be a gentle response. In true Samurai fashion, Sawai believed real martial arts to be about killing. I never met another of Wang Xiangzhai’s students who had played quite so rough. But I did have a teacher named Han Xingyuan, who was one of Wang’s four official disciples. Han treated his students with respect, but outside of class he enjoyed going to Hong Kong docks to pick fights with British soldiers, who were a feisty bunch. Han apparently needed to expiate his aggressive desire to beat the crap out of people, and foreign occupiers filled the bill. The British soldiers thought they were picking on some limp Chinese guy, and did they ever get a surprise! Han did this on the sly and would never try anything like it in class, whereas Sawai was keen on conflict in the classroom. This was one spry old man and nobody messed with him; Sawai was living proof that internal energy work keeps you healthy and strong. The first day I came to class Sawai had me spar with a student who was a third degree in karate. I beat him. I didn’t hurt him because I did not want to get in trouble. In Japan, if you are impolite, they throw you out and never let you back in. To make the point that training was more serious than that opponent represented, Sawai had one of his better students spar with me, a fifth degree in Oyama’s Karate. He kicked me beneath the heart and dropped me. If I had not stood back up, they would have thrown me out. Sawai’s purpose was to see if I had what the Japanese call “spirit,” or what the Westerners call “heart.” Once, when sparring with Sawai he told me repeatedly to keep my hands in defensive position. I kept dropping my hands. He said, “I’m not going to tell you again.” He stuck a finger in the gap I left open and paralyzed my arm for a week. To make sure I learned the lesson, he gave me the name of an acupuncturist who restored my health. I never dropped my hands again. How would you describe the overall body of Kenichi Sawai’s teaching? Three components: Practicing a relatively small number of points to death; heavy emphasis on standing; heavy emphasis on sparring. Free sparring was stressed more than set exercises. If you did set exercises, you would immediately try to use them in free sparring. Sawai also did a type of push hands called Suritei, which I have only seen a few students of the Wang Xiangzhai school do. When did you meet Hong Yixiang and what was the essence of his teaching? I met Hong Yixiang in 1974. I describe his teaching in my book Bagua and Taiji. Hong’s well known phrase was, “I can teach you how to use Qi in martial applications, but I can’t really teach you about Qi.” Although he didn’t emphasize Qigong, he did focus on intent; wherever your intent goes, your Qi goes. He did not see internal martial arts in terms of building Qi but in terms of applying Qi. Where other teachers focused on Qi growth and were better at helping a person get their Qi going, the practices Hong showed us actually developed Qi. Hong’s specialty was fighting techniques. Everything he did involved looking at how angles (circles, triangles, and squares) could be used in physical combat. Although the Hong school focused on fighting, it was very informal. When people would practice lines, they would take a rest, drink tea, and get back to forms or fighting again. Bruce Frantzis - Red Gate What was your first stop in China? How different did you find it from Taiwan? I arrived in Beijing just after the Cultural Revolution and before the reforms took effect (1981-1987). The upheaval of the Cultural Revolution led to one of the most horrific periods in Chinese history, and Beijing was a bleak place. Nowadays it has changed, but then there were big differences between Taiwan and Beijing. Taiwan was definitely nicer. The summers were hot and humid with a lot of rain, and you could always find good food. But in Beijing, all the chefs had been sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, so it was hard to find food at all. Instead of rain, Beijing was dry. When the wind blew, it stirred up dust. Beijing’s population was 12 million, half of what it is today. The pollution was invisible, silent but still deadly. Transportation was difficult; if you wanted a taxi, you often had to wait an hour or two after calling before it arrived. Another difference had to do with freedom of speech. In Taiwan, people were relatively free to talk to whomever they wished. By the time I came to Beijing, I was fluent in Chinese. People in Taiwan might not talk to me because they didn’t like foreigners or because they thought outsiders were no good, but, in general, people in Taiwan were friendly. Yet in Beijing, because it was such a locked-down Communist state, people were terrified to talk to you. They were afraid they could disappear, be imprisoned, or have tremendous troubles with their jobs or families. It was a terrible time for the Chinese people. As a Westerner it was extremely isolating, for there were only 500 foreigners in the entire city. Today there are more like 300,000 to 500,000. In Taiwan, if there was a martial arts teacher you wanted to meet, most of the time someone would tell you where he or she was and you could show up and plead your case. The teacher might not ask you to come back, but you could at least try. In Beijing, you couldn’t do that. You had to get permission, clearance from a political person that is was OK to meet them. Then the teacher would weigh the personal political risks of meeting with a foreigner and might decline. For me, the most striking difference between Taiwan and Beijing is that in Beijing I got to meet my most important mentor, Liu Hongjie. Liu adopted me as a son in a traditional ceremony and passed his lineages to me. To summarize: Taiwan was an easier place to be; you did not have to fear that if you talked to someone you would get them in trouble. Beijing was isolating and desolate. Yet Beijing was the center of the Bagua and Taiji world prior to the Communist Revolution, and in its aftermath still offered the best teachers, such as Master Liu. One of the masters you met in Beijing was the Hun Yuan Chen Style teacher Feng Zhiqiang. Please tell us the story of this encounter. Feng Zhiqiang and Bruce Frantzis - Tai Chi Push Hands I met Feng Zhiqiang in 1981. As well as doing martial arts, I was a Qigong Tui Na energetic bodywork doctor. I had been meeting people involved in that branch of Chinese medicine at the Physical Education Institute. One day they told me there was a doctor coming who could give me a “tune-up.” I was advised to tell him what I was feeling while he worked on me so he could get an idea of my ability. It is said that your ability to diagnose what someone does to you is indicative of your own skills in treating people. Master Feng came in – I did not know who he was even though I had been trying to meet him for weeks – wearing the doctor’s white hat and smock, and he started to work on me. I felt immediately that he had a lot of chi and knew incredibly well how to direct it. Afterwards, he discussed with me how Qigong Tui Na relates to martial arts, and finally I asked his name. “Oh, I’m Feng Zhiqiang,” he said, a broad smile on his face. His smile is one of his most obvious engaging characteristics. Back then, Feng was the best Chen style Taiji master in Beijing. I wanted to study with him, but he said he wasn’t sure he could work with me, because it took quite a long time for him to arrange even a single afternoon off from his factory work. As I said, everything had to be cleared through political channels; it was dangerous for any master to work with a foreigner, especially one who spoke Chinese. Associating with someone who might be a spy was not good. There were still places where people feared the secret police. So it was several weeks before Feng could obtain political clearance to meet me without putting himself in danger. We got along well. I studied Chen Taiji with him for more than a year in Beijing’s Tiantan Park. When I visited in 1989, he taught me his Hun Yuan Qigong system privately. Feng was head of Taiji for all of China (before his passing earlier this year). When I returned in 2011, he still had a picture of the two of us in his living room. We had a very strong connection; I had great affection for him. (Editor’s note: After this interview and the printing of this article, Master Feng Zhiqiang has passed, on May 5th, 2012. He will be missed.) Please tell us about your experiences in Hong Kong and training with Yang Shouzhong, aka Yang Zhenming. As I recall, 35 years ago, Yang Shouzhong was around 5’9”, which was tall for a Chinese man. Although he lived in Hong Kong and spoke Cantonese, he preferred his native language of Mandarin. I speak Mandarin, so we got along well. His classes were held in the back of his apartment in a space no larger than 400 to 500 square feet. He would show a move or two, have his students do the form, and then put his hands on them to fix their posture. His classes were billed as private lessons, typically lasting 10-20 minutes; less time if he didn’t like you, more time if he did. In his push hands classes, I remember waiting for class to begin and pushing with other students. The person whose back was to the solid stone wall would try not to get pushed into the wall, while trying to push the opponent. When your back is against the wall, your natural tendency is to freak out. But to have your back against the wall and not be afraid or stiff is a great challenge. On the other hand, the person who was not against the wall naturally felt more aggressive. He or she had to learn how not to overextend, let their emotions get the best of them, or charge without being careful. Yang usually had an emotionless face or else he would get this wry smile. The smile usually appeared when he had you at a place where you could not ignore your difficult position. His Fajin was excellent. Yang felt soft, but not exceedingly soft. His body could alternate between feeling almost empty and feeling like pure steel. He could literally change the quality of his internal power as fast as wind could move a leaf in the air. When he put his hands on you it was like being stuck to glue; you could not get his hands off. There was no way to stop whatever he wanted to do with you. He was a true professional. I believe he more than deserved to be called “Master.” How did you meet Liu Hongjie? What was your impression of him? Liu Hongjie’s other formal disciple from after the time of the Communist Revolution, Bai Hua, introduced me to the master. I asked Hua if it would be possible to train with his teacher while I was at the Physical Education Institute. Hua said he hoped so, but that Liu was a recluse and did not teach people very often. Liu often refused to teach even famous martial artists in China who sought him out. Hua wrote me a formal letter of introduction and gave me Master Liu’s address. I walked up to Master Liu’s house, knocked on the door, and met him. He said, “Glad to meet you.” He said this because he had been expecting me. I later learned that Liu had dreamed about teaching a foreigner who fit my description. Consequently, Master Liu agreed to take me on as his student. What was the progression of Liu Hongjie’s teaching and the curriculum you studied with him? Bruce Frantzis with Liu Hung Chieh One thing that was different in Liu’s teaching style is that in the beginning he said: “I am very old. It is hard to say exactly how long I will live. So I will show you something, but only three times. If you cannot understand what I am showing you so you can practice and digest it, I won’t mention the subject again for a year or two, at which point maybe you will have grown sufficiently to be able to understand what I am expressing.” Although it only happened maybe 20 times in those three years, he was true to his word. However, by the end of our time together, we had revisited all those things and I did get them. Liu’s lesson is this: Either perform well or be patient with your shortcomings. I trained with Master Liu every day. We started with the internal power (Qi) side of Xingyi and Bagua. Each session lasted about 3 hours, usually twice a day. Sometimes I would be so exhausted I couldn’t stand up. Master Liu would let me rest on his bed. A few times his daughter came in and gave me a look of death for lying on her father’s bed. She thought it was disrespectful but he explained my situation. Master Liu also told me stories about meditation, mostly about Buddhism, sometimes about Daoism. That was the first trip to Beijing (1981). On the second trip (1983-1986) there was a different program. Because my back had been broken in a car accident, Liu shifted the emphasis to Tiaji and Bagua, especially Wu-style Taiji. This completely healed my spine. He also taught me about the Qigong set called Gods Playing in the Clouds. This set is useful for several purposes, including healing severe back injuries. Gods Playing in the Clouds is considered within Daoism to be the repository for the deepest and most complete internal work in Qigong, or Neigong. Moreover, Liu dissected everything I knew about Qigong from my 10 years in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Part of healing the body is healing the mental, emotional, psychic, and karmic attachments to the injury. Every day, along with the Taiji, Bagua and Qigong, we started going deeper into sitting meditation. We would sit together. He connected for me how sitting meditation interfaced with all the other types of meditation: interactive, standing, moving, lying down, and even sexuality from the perspective of meditation. After my back healed, the flow between Taiji, Xingyi, or Bagua began. Most days we did something related to Push Hands or practical fighting techniques. The flow was always changing between the forms we practiced from one day or another, yet they intertwined so everything became part of one whole. Liu taught me interesting material relating to chi and healing. Given that he was descended from 10 generations of Chinese doctors, this was no surprise. By the end of our time together, he made me a lineage holder in all of these subjects, as well as the branch of Chinese medicine related to Qigong healing. He had an amazing ability to connect each detail to almost everything about martial arts you could imagine. Although you give credence, respect, and appreciation to all your teachers, you seem to have a special reverence for Liu. His teaching must have affected you beyond the martial aspect. Would you share your personal thoughts on this matter? Single Whip Martial Art Application Liu was the most intelligent person I have ever met. I like intelligent people, and find that if you have any kind of an intellectual bent, then you get a great deal of pleasure from having a mentor who has you intellectually outclassed. I was learning more with Liu in a month than with many teachers in a year or two. He was brilliant. Liu was also a fully enlightened meditation master, what is called the Daoist Immortal, a living Buddha. Just to be in the presence of someone like that radically altered my life in terms of martial arts and meditation. With him I had many primal awakenings. I was one person when I met Liu and a different and better person when I left. We had a great personal bond, because in order to pass on his knowledge and overcome the vows I had previously taken, he formally adopted me as his own son in a traditional ceremony. Prior to meeting Liu I was a Daoist priest, and as such I had made 84 separate vows as to what I could teach, in what circumstances, and to whom. Liu adopted me because the rules in China are that you can teach your child anything you want. He also made me a lineage holder in the form of Daoism in which he was a primary lineage holder. By the end of my time with Liu, I understood that in terms of internal martial arts, whatever you think, you can manifest instantly. The issue is not about purely the physical; it is about how your mind interfaces with your Qi. Liu taught me the power of meditation. I don’t think of him as primarily a martial arts teacher, although he was clearly one of China’s best. In my opinion, it is easier to obtain a high level of skill in martial arts than in meditation, yet Liu was a master of both. Please summarize the essential qualities and martial aspects you derived from each of your teachers. From Wang Shujin I learned how to obtain Qi for combat. Wang Shujin led me into the door of internal power. Hong Yixiang led me into understanding the science of angles in internal martial arts (the triangle, circle, and the square). Liu took what those two people showed me and showed me how to condense it and refine it like iron into steel. I understood the importance of the deeper levels of the mind, of intent, from Liu. It seems to be a natural transition that as a person advances and matures in the arts, training and practice transcend the combative. What has been your experience with this stage? In Daoist internal martial arts, I think if you choose to go into how your Qi works, this can lead to healing. Such is the progression that most people go through. Most don’t start with the healing side, most try to get strong, make Qi strong to be a good fighter, and then gradually learn how to strengthen the mind. Those people who get involved in healing can transfer that knowledge and increase it, or try to take that level of sensitivity to Qi as some form of Chinese medicine to heal others. Then, as you go through the second stage, you rely less on physical strength and more on the strength of your Qi. So you come to another crossroads. Some people take up meditation because they recognize how the negative stuff in their mind interferes with their life and, combined with the energy work of the martial arts, can make them emotionally messed up. I began to understand this concept when studying under Liu. He asked me what I wanted to learn. I said, “I want more Qi so I can have the internal power to defeat more powerful guys.” Liu said, “You’re missing the point. You have the Qi of a small elephant. If you had more, you might not know what to do with it. Your problem is that you don’t understand the Qi of your heart and your mind. If you did, you would have more physical power, and it would make your life better every moment of every day.” So you can increase your physical power, or you can choose to focus on meditation, which will in turn increase your Qi and internal power anyway. Few people care about being able to fight well. Another of my teachers, Chang Yirong , one of Wang Shujin’s students, said, “Not everybody wants to fight, but everybody wants to be healthy.” And with internal arts, it’s not just about being physically healthy; it’s about being emotionally, mentally, physically and karmically healthy. Tell us about your experiences with healing and the martial arts, and about your goals for the future. I started martial arts when I was 12. Two years later, I started learning Shiatsu, or acupressure. During my career, on a parallel path, I was learning how to use qi to heal. It started with Shiatsu, then Swedish Massage, then in China I trained to become a doctor in a branch of Chinese medicine called Qigong Tui Na, and as part of that I treated 10,000 people in Chinese clinics. When I left Beijing, I decided that I would no longer work on individual patients, although occasionally I teach students how the hands-on healing work happens. Another lineage Liu passed on to me was the Daoist Medical Qigong Lineage, the original one, which I do teach regularly. After decades of experience, what used to take an hour with a patient I could accomplish by looking at them for 30 seconds. What I am interested in now is passing on this knowledge so that my students can then help a greater number of people. You want to heal yourself with a certain degree of precision, then go on to help other people through speaking and teaching. Although much of my life is devoted to public service, I only can do so much. My emphasis over the past 10 or 15 years has been more about teaching Daoist meditation, because I have found that the greatest reason people in the Western world have discomfort is not physical. It has more to do with dysfunctions in the way the mind experiences life. For this, we go back to a story told by Buddha. A person cam to Buddha saying, “I have a physical disease, can you help me?” Buddha said, “That’s not what I do. We have an Indian Ayurvedic Doctor, and healing physical diseases is his specialty. If after he heals your physical body and you wish to heal your mind and go beyond the way your mind can cause you to suffer, then return to me, because that’s the kind of doctor I am.” I hold the same opinion. I have worked on so many people with physical problems. Given my meditation experience and my ability to sort out what causes people’s minds to suffer, I feel that the greatest gift my teacher Liu gave me is also the greatest gift I can pass on; namely, meditation. That is specifically the Taoist way. A hundred years from now, how do you want to be remembered? There is an old Daoist phrase: “Leave no footsteps.” But if I were to be remembered, it would be as a bridge between East and West in the transfer of knowledge of qi to the Western world, and specifically, of internal martial arts and Daoist meditation. To download a PDF of the article Interview with Bruce Frantzis with JCMA click here. For more information about the Journal of Chinese Martial Arts you can click here. That was a beautiful interview [Reply] Thank you Bruce! [Reply] Very inspiring. Thank you. [Reply] Awesome article. Thanks for sharing your experience… I learned alot by reading about your life…. G [Reply] An excellent, absorbing, informative and fascinating interview at the same time. Thank’s very much, Bruce. [Reply] ThAnk you so much for passing on the things you have. I am grateful. [Reply] Thank you for sharing the power history , are you in ny so i can please contact you? Thank you for your time respectfully yours ,victor modlinger [Reply] Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I too started in the external and rose to a 5th Degree Black Belt then changed to the healing arts and rose to an 8th Dan. Now I am getting older and find myself drawn toward Tai Chi . I am looking forward to the release of your Mastery Program in November. I can tell by your writeings that I would like to study with you, if possible. [Reply] Dee Joyce Reply: November 6th, 2012 at 4:44 am Is this MY Jon Fraser that I studied acupressure with in massage school around 18 years ago? I LOVED that class!!! [Reply] Jon A Fraser Reply: November 6th, 2012 at 12:50 pm Hello Dee, I think I am that Jon Fraser. I have taught acupressure for 20 years at massage schools, holistic schools and the University of NH. Would love to hear from you and what your doing. Jon [Reply] Dee Joyce Reply: November 6th, 2012 at 4:14 pm Oh My Goodness!!! So often I have thought of you and our class. I have to tell you… I went on to study Polarity…. also Reiki… but nothing compares to that class. I was shocked when I could feel the arc of electricity between my two hands! I never felt that with the Polarity or the Reiki! Funny, I took a couple of Qi Gong classes and I asked the instructor what the heck was going on… I could feel my hair standing on end, but only at the roots, and I was afraid to point at anyone because it felt as though lightening bolts would shoot out of my fingertips! I LOVE Chinese Medicine! I didn’t realize that you taught it at UNH! Do you still teach there? I wish I had kept up with it….I have been thinking lately of the meridians and how they pair. I am having a problem with a whole pair…. It would be great if you were still teaching in the Seacoast area…. I might be persuaded to take your class over again! Maybe you have taught someone who lives near me and that you would recommend? I don’t expect you to remember me… I graduated from NEIWH in 95. I also was being seen by Mr. Kim before he was asked to vacate the premises. That was an incredible article – thank you for sharing! [Reply] Great interview. I think an autobiography would be a best seller. I’d like to hear more about Master BKF’s experiences with these extraordinary Masters. [Reply] Simply amazing! [Reply] Bruce:An excellent insightful interview. I have met numerous people from Boston and New York who gave me all kinds of feedback. No one opinion seemed definitive.This in-depth interview explains quite a bit about you. I learned tai chi from T.T. Liang and others. The numerous remarks you attribute to him were standard for him. He was a good tai chi master who had studied with many masters in Taiwan besides Cheng Man-Cheng who he considered his greatest teacher. Liang also suffered from his choice of favorite students which led to complications. But such is life. –John [Reply] Mr. Frantzis, I wanted to ask you about Wang Shu Jin. I have the opportunity to study in the cheng ming system, which is Wang Shu Jin’s school, but I have a problem understanding why their Hsing I looks different than all the others. Is it a combination of Hsing I and Bagua? Or is this what Hsing I looked like before it was influenced by JI JIke? Respectfully [Reply]

I.) Not every pit is guaranteed to root, so you may want to try two or three pits at once, just in case. Equipment List 1 avocado pit 4 toothpicks 1 small glass or ceramic dish, about the size of a custard cup Yields: 1 avocado tree sapling, with patience and a little luck How to remove the avocado pit Grabill Set. Then, after about three weeks or so, the top of the pit should begin to split open. (Nature is also kind of imprecise…this can take up to six weeks to happen.) Over the next few weeks, a stem will shoot up, the first leaves will begin to grow, and roots will begin to force their way out of the bottom. In a few more weeks, you should see more leaves. The whole process will generally take about 3 months, give or take. When to plant your avocado seedling When your tree is maybe 7-8 inches tall, nip off the top few leaves. (That’s right…pinch them off. It will encourage growth and help the tree branch out.) Grab a 10-inch pot with a saucer and at least one drainage hole in the bottom. Fill it about an inch from the top with potting soil. Dig a shallow hole in the center of the soil (just deep enough so half the pit is covered). Nestle the bottom of your avocado sapling in it, root-side down. Cover the pit halfway with soil, so half the pit is still exposed. Press down firmly on the soil to secure it. It should be standing up straight, at attention. Pour a little water into the pot gently, because the soil hasn’t settled yet. And…you did it! Set your tree in a sunny window. Keep it watered, and watch it grow! Tips for caring for your avocado tree Where should I keep my avocado tree? Avocado trees like warm, sunny spots. If your tree doesn’t get enough light, it will get leggy (i.e. all stem, few leaves). Depending on where you live, you should be able to keep your tree outside in a sunny spot. If the temperature ever drops below about 45 degrees F, bring it back inside. How often should I water my avocado tree? Water it enough to keep the soil moist, but not muddy. You never want your tree sitting in a puddle of water once you’ve potted it. If your leaves start to turn yellow, it’s a sure sign it’s getting too much water. If this happens, stop watering it for a few days until the soil dries out a little.! Send me your pictures! Like I said, this food project is a ton of fun—especially with kids. Let me know if you give this a whirl! If you send me your pictures, I’ll post them up here—along with a note—so folks can share your experience. (Who knows? Maybe we’ll grow an online avocado grove…) Happy gardening! What a great post I’ve always wondered if avocado pits could be planted Definitely would like to hear more about the grafting process as well – the markets charge crazy prices for them here! IF YOU GO TO YOUTUBE AND WRITE ON BOX AVOCADO GRAFTING THERE ARE PEOPLE SHOWING ILLUSTRATIONS AND ACTUALLY DOING GRAFTS IT LOOKS EASY, JUST NEED TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY, THERE IS A LOT INFO ON THE WEB ALSO. I’M RETIRING THIS IS A HOBBY THAT I I AM INTERESTED IN. GO TO A FARMERS MARKET AND SEE HOW MUCH THEY WANT FOR A GRAFTED AVOCADO TREE, 4 FT TALL WITH AVOCADOS ON IT GOOD LUCK. WHEN YOU PLANT IT IN THE GROUND MAKE SURE YOU PLANT IT AWAY FROM SCREEN ENCLOSURES ETC. I HAD TO CUT DOWN A TREE THAT WAS ALREADY 10FT TALL AND APPROXIMATELY 5-7 YEARS OLD You made a big mistake. It takes a while for them to come in. I have an avocado tree that hasn’t had any fruit for more than 7 years and now just recently I had more avocados on it than I could do with em! As a matter of fact, I’m giving away some to family because the neighbors got wise to it and stole some! Patience is a virtue! Yes, I live in South Africa and we are always told that an avocado tree grown from its large seed can take up to 7 years before u see fruit grow on it…. so its a long time to wait but if u dont mind and love avo’s then its worth it! :o) i’m from South Africa and have a 5yr old tree planted from seed – looking so healthy and it has fruit but alas! fruit are about the size of small plums. What can i do to encourage more growth ? Make some Seaweed Fertilizer (see on youtube), you can always try ORGONITE as well. Feed your tree Goodluck I lived in Florida where my mother-in-law had a 30-foot Florida Avocado tree. I planted one and sure enough 7 years later it started to bear fruit. It was about 20 feet tall by then. I had it in a pot until about 6 feet or so – about 5 years. I planted it about 10-15 feet from a canal that ran behind my house. In two years it shot up like crazy. The first crop yielded about 200 pounds of fruit! No kidding. Now trying to grow one in San Diego. I think I’m going to graft this time. I’m thinking your San Diego effort should do well. I remember visiting there in summers (in 60’s) – specifically in Mt. Helix – lots of avocado tress in front yard, and back ‘yard’ was a lime grove. Awesome! Yep! I used to live on Mt Helix with my ex. We grew for Clavo. A lot of people around there contracted with them. Tony, in which part of the county do you live? In Eastlake much of the soil is as hard as sandstone. One of the google sites mentioned peeling the seed and wrapping in a very damp paper towel and putting the covered container in a dark place for a week or so. Then the seed and roots should be ready to plant. When I lived in San Luis Obispo in the seventies there were avocado trees growing wild in one of the creeks and I know there are many avocado trees in San Diego which is further south and therefore much warmer. I had just started some seeds, but didn’t check for direction before planting so I put them in pointy side down. Now I have to start over. What great information and I am so glad to know they will bear fruit in a few years. is there any way you can sent me some seeds from your tree and Ill trade you for some of my Carolina Reaper seeds. Just buy an avocado from the local grocery store and keep the pit that’s what i did While the fruit is still small (as small as possible), thin out the least viable fruit so that half the fruit or less remains. The tree will direct its energy more vigorously to these remaining avocados. With any plant you can generally pluck off some of the smaller fruit before it grows, and leave the ones you want to get bigger. by pruning off the smaller fruit the tree no longer has to use its energy on say 5 small avocados, instead it can work on growing 3 medium or large sized avocados. I am in SA too… Wait 2 more years! They won’t fruit next year but you’ll see a vast improvement in year 7!! I’ve grown 3 avocado trees just by sticking the seed right into the potted soil, leaving the top of the seeds uncovered. The growing process didn’t take but a few weeks. It was 2′ tall in about a month or so. Didn’t know about pinching off top leaves. Thanks for the info.. Unfortunately I had extensive back surgery & couldn’t take care of them. Naturally they died. Gotta start over now. growing fruit from pits make a wider range for more strong and genetic fruit – rather than buying a tree which was grafted. its really healthy for the environment and species of tree too. It’s a lot simpler than the initial post though! Just put the pit in a pot of soil about 3cms below the surface and keep it watered. Then wait 3 months. No problem every time! Ditch the toothpicks! T he easiest way to start a seed is to take a plastic coke (soda) bottle cut it around the neck where the tapered edge goes straight, turn the top upside down in the bottom add water then put the pit in it fat side first ( setting on the drink hole . make sure the water goes up to and touches the bottom of the seed place it in a sunny window . check water weekly add when needed. in a few weeks it will be on its way! Need a picture of this! Thanks! Thanks John! I was wondering about that. I was just running around like crazy looking for toothpicks. I will try it your way and see what happens. i just put mine in a pot of soil and they are growing ….all 3 of them. This is the easiest way to plant an avocado pit. I always do it this way. For a kids’ project, though, it is so much more fun to start it in water so you can see the roots grow. I’m 50 years old and I still like to see things grow! However, I think I will start one in a pot as well to curb my impatience. Great ideas and advice from all! Did you graft the tree with anything or just wait for it to produce? Only Haas avocados need to be grafted! Chris did you start your avacado from seed? I am wondering about mine.Thank you Chris, this is great news! I thought that surely the tree must bear fruit without grafting otherwise how did they survive in the wild?? I’ll keep at it with my one and look forward to the fruit I’m the future. Do you live in the South where you can leave your tree outside all year? I would have to bring mine in during the cold months and I’m wondering if it would produce fruit if I do it this way? i don’t… i always have to keep mine in because i live in Canada… whatever i don’t want fruit i just feel pride in watching it grow… is that weird? i guess it’s kinda-sorta like ‘growing’ a child. Better! No college and they never ask for the car keys! (just kidding, kids) Will the grafting decrease the amount of time to see fruit? Thanks! I have a avacado plant that I grew from a seed, I planted it in a pot in soil it is now around four feet tall and is starting to put out branches, I live in an area that does’nt get real cold the temp. stays around 50 degrees and above but not real hot I want to plant it outside so what do I do. Thanks so much for your help in advance Jessie What is all the shouting about? Don’t you know that answering in capital letters is extremely rude and almost guarantees no one will read your contribution. hello there, thankyou for that, but what is a screen enclosure? Also, in your experience can people grow fruit bearing avocados in the UK ? – if done indoors or in a conservatory or greenhouse ? thankyou and God bless x no need for grafting, after 5 years the tree will bear flower, the same goes for any fruit bearing tree (some take as long as 25 years to bear fruit) grafting is a tecnique used in bonsai to strengthen a certain tree that has poor rooting or weak rooting e.g grafting orange onto a lemon trunk as the roots for the lemon are bttr. I’m here in florida and have had a flower bearing apple tree for the past 13yrs. (the flowers are pretty though) But no fruit! I guess mine will go the full 25yrs. before it yeilds any fruit! . Now, if you have plenty of insects, bees and like (pollinators). Then your tree should bear fruit.. I had the same problem with a Meyer lemon tree. Go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and Miracle Grow just started making a food for fruit trees. I used it and this year I had over 30 BIG lemons on it! I swear that stuff works! I only used it every other month or so. Good Luck! I bought an “Anna apple tree. It is supposed to be able to grow in Florida. It looks like a Charlie Brown tree now. It needs a certain amount of days of 40 degrees or less temp in winter. I wonder if watering it with ice cubes would help? I live in no. Florida and grow apple trees. I have Anna apple but you also need a second apple variety suited to Florida to produce apples. Otherwise you just get flowers. My second variety is a Golden apple. Go to a local nursery, not Lowes, and see what they have. Lowes type stores don’t necessary carry what will produce in your area. And about the ice cubes…in case you weren’t joking about that…that won’t help. The flower buds need the chill hours, not the roots. That’s why it’s important to go to a local nursery to find what will grow in your exact area. And apples really only do well in no Florida. Central and south just don’t get enough chill hrs for apples to produce. Fruit and some nut trees need a certain number of “cold hours” before they can set buds for fruit. There are some varieties that are more suitable, but growing apple trees in FL is going to be tough proposition. SE GA is zone 5 and has some similarity to North FL areas and only 2 apple types are recommended –Anna & Dorsett Golden. Also note that most apple trees require pollination from another variety that shares same blooming cycle. Also several apple types (Stayman, Mutzu, Jonagold have sterile pollen) Bottom line is contact your county agent and avoid wasting your time if it simply isn’t going to work… WRONG!!!! GRAFTING SERVES TWO OR HORE FUNCTIONS. 1. THE SEEDLING WILL START PRODUCING SOONER IFTHE GRAFT IS FROM A MATURE TREE. 2. THE GRAFT WILL PRODUCE THE VARIETY OF THE GRAFTED TREE. MANY SEEDS RETURN TO NATIVE VARIETY, PECANS ARE AN EXAMPLE. 3. SOMETIMES THE ROOTSTOCK HAS PROTECTION FROM SOIL PROBLEMS THAT THE SEEDLING WOULD NOT. 4. SOMETIMES A DIFFERENT ROOTSTOCK CAN PRODUCE DWARF OR SIMI-DWARF TREES WHICH ARE PREFERRED TO A FULL SIZED TREE. GRAFTING SERVES SEVERAL PURPOSSES. Hey Mike – It would be much easier and nicer to read your posts if you were able to not post in all caps. All caps makes it very difficult to read your post and also makes it seem as though you are yelling (in type on the internet, all caps usually means that the poster is yelling/angry about something). Also, in graphic design I have learned that it is more difficult for people to read and interpret text that is in all capital letters. You seem to have a very strong opinion about grafting, yet you state that you are just starting out at this as a hobby. Since you are just starting out I think it may be a good idea to keep an open mind. Why not try grafting a few plants and growing a few plants the old fashioned way, or the way suggested on this blog? Then you can see the results for yourself. I know this post is old, but just a few suggestions. It’s just difficult for people to take someone seriously or want to help them on the internet when they seem to be yelling/angry and start out a post by saying something like “WRONG!!!”. Just a few internet tips, and maybe planting tips for you. I’ve been around the “internet-block” quite a few times and find that my experiences are much more enjoyable if I stay pleasant and open minded Mike, I don’t mind your all caps…it’s YOUR post, so display it as you please and don’t think twice about those who are trying to correct you. They are in the wrong. Sure would make it a lot nicer if OTHER posters weren’t so judgmental. Getting back to the topic, I am going to try planting one in a pot without the toothpicks. Happy planting to all. Mike~ I didn’t even read your post because it IS in all caps. Yes, it WOULD be nice if OTHER posters weren’t so judgmental.. Don’t automatically assume, that a person typing in all caps is doing it out of ignorance or wanting to shout. Some have eye related problems and caps is the only way that allows them to see the writing clearly, or for that matter reading. Tolerance among people starts at home From someone who been around the Internet since the beginning of time (me) Follow your own advice and stay pleasant and open minded. Here, Here Maggie. I agree with your post, thank you. I’ve been planting avos in cal. and Hawaii for 30 years, and I think if you have the space and time, plant seedling and grafted trees. use seeds from the best avos you have eaten. the grafted trees will give you fruit right away and you know what you are getting. the seedlings will take 5-10 years, and it’s a gamble, because avos don’t usually self pollinate (every seedling is a new variety) but you may get the best avo on the planet. most of them will not be great, but at least edible, and you can always whack them off at 2 ft. and graft on to the sprouts from the stump. my very best avo in every respect is a seedling. Get over the obsession with the caps and focus on the topic. Don’t you know that it’s rude to type-yell? What a great idea. A fun project to do with kids I will be doing this with my grandson Garrett Teeters. We live in Iowa, so will have to be sure to bring it in with my other plants in the winter. He said he wanted to try this, so here we go!! Mom, Avocado trees can get pretty BIG (40 ft is not unusual). So, unless you plan to continually trim the tree you’re in for ‘upgrading’ to a very large and tall house. I’ve got 5 in jars,&1is sprouting roots 7″ long from the dull side.But not ta from pointy side.That sounds backwards from your instructions. What do I do now,just keep in water until…?Also I would like more info re grafting w/ the seedlings. Anyone know how to do this? Also,what’s best way to grow seeds from organic tomato plants? I’ve got a lot of plants,but not sure how to separate them,so I get little cherry tomatoes! Any guidance would be appreciated. because it is a hybrid My grandfather used to spread the tomato seeds on a paper towel and let them dry (sticking to the towel). Once the seeds were dry he would plant the whole paper towel seed side down ,cover with a light layer of soil and then keep them watered. He always had beautiful tomatoes and several varieties. Hope that helps! That sounds like such an easy thing to do! I wonder why no one did it before? I bet it would work with a lot of different seeds! Thank you!!!! They’re supposed to grow from the dull side. Leaves from the pointy, roots from the smooth. You do not have to do the think with the toothpick at all!!…I did that and waited and waited got tired of waiting and threw it outside and Wallah!…a plant came out, now I have 15 growing, I live in Florida and they are doing ok so far!!..just throw them on a sunny spot now I have one that’s pretty tall about 3 feet and I see like flowers on top of it (like a tittle crown ) so I’m thinking this one is going to have the fruits!!..I have one more like that and the others don’t have it, so I think I have to graft those and like somebody said here, you just go on YouTube and there you see how to do the grafting, which is not hard at all!!…good luck!! Ummm… it takes minimum 4 years before fruits come…flowers come right at the beginning though… dont get your hopes to high. :/ I have several seeds on my window sill. One is ready to plant, a couple more are growing, but the rest I think are duds. Aught to be interesting to see if this will work. I don’t have great luck with plants. Hey umm, I just had mine in water for a couple days ad the roots are already starting to come out the bottom, is it possible? And could I have gotten an avocado that is growing fast? Or what? Yeah, it just depends on how far along it was when it was in the avocado. I had one recently that was already sprouted when I opened the avocado! Delicious guacamole, and obnoxious waiting period bypassed. Win. I live in Michigan and I’m trying to grow my avocado by toothpicks I lived in Michigan 35 yrs ago and grew an avocado tree. With the toothpicks to start. It was three feet tall when I moved to Wyoming 2 yrs later. No blooms but such a nice tree in my living room. I didn’t try to transplant and let it die after about 3 yrs. I was too busy with work and babies. I’m trying again now in Oklahoma. I say do it and enjoy! I drive my family insane doing this every time I purchase avacados! I now have an avocado tree that is almost 3 feet tall! I had 2, but gave one away last summer to a friend who kept admiring mine…it took my 30 years to finally get an avocado pit to grow this big after many, many tries and I am quite proud of this little tree. I am up north so hopefully IF I transplant it outside it won’t die. okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Do you take the skin off the avocado mine feels separate from the bulb? We live in NJ can I bring it in when the weather gets colder…thanks for the into. great idea, will start today growing an avocado tree, peter I was doing a little reading up on this, and one of the sites I found said that they won’t bear fruit in the first 3-4 years, but may after that, and that also, keeping a few trees/bushes near each other will help with pollination hopefully leading to more fruit. Thanks for the post! Avocados grown from seed do flower and produce fruit. I live in the tropics and that is how we plant avocados – from seeds. Never did the water thing though, but I do not see why it would not work to produce fruit. How many years before the tree bears fruit? OK, this I would think be very fun to try. Just not so sure how to make the holes for the toothpicks without an accident.Would the tiniest drill bit in my husband’s drill work? I bet the tree is very fragrant. Great article- Jessie xox Thanks, Bunny! And, oh gosh, you can just push the toothpicks in by hand. (No drill needed!) The pits are relatively soft when they’re fresh. Kind of like walnut meat. xo +Jessie I’ve read a lot of articles on this & all state to put toothpicks in & sit in water. This is not how mine happend! I threw a pit in my garden, it took root & 3 years later, I have a tree that is about 4 feet tall. I have put the soil it grew in, into a pot & brought it inside during the winter, the cold NJ climate would kill an avocado tree. This is my tree’s 3 summer & is sprouting new leaves & branches. Also, grafting is not necessary, as it does not occure in nature, however, as another reader posted, if you have other trees, keep them close to help pollenate & let nature do it’s thing. I spoke w/ some folks at the Rutger’s Agricultural Dept. & they informed me that not all seeds will grow fruit bearing trees… you tree may take up to 7 years before you can even find out if you will get fruit, so be patient Most importantly, Enjoy!! I put three avacado pits in a pot barely deep enough for them so the tops stuck out and they all sprouted. After I pinched the tops off, they started to get bark on the trunks. They are 4 feet tall and when the third one gets tall enough, I plan on trying to braid them together to form an indoor plant that looks nice. I will keep it to a short 4 feet if possible and hope for something to get it to flower. I give it indoor plant food and it does well. Natrona, so there is not a 100% chance of any given tree bearing fruit, and it may take up to 7 years to know if the tree will fruit or not? I LOVE avocados, and my husband and I bought a home in NW Houston 2 years ago & planted a bunch of fruit trees in our back yard. We had 2 Avocados the 1st year & 1 died, so we bought another & that was a cold winter & both died (they were about 3 ft tall & one had a few fruits when we bought it, but they all died). Our Pears, Peaches , and citrus trees all are doing well…. not sure where we went so wrong w’ the Avocados, but I just had the urge to start one from a seed. If I keep it in a pot inside (and start another one) do you think there is a chance of keeping it alive and getting fruit from it in 5-7 years? The pit is soft if it is fresh. You know like you just used the avocado for dinner. So the toothpicks poke right into the pit. It’s easy, no need for drill. You just get a good dry grip and push the toothpick in! 😉 I loved doing this as a kid…so satisfying to see something grow that you planted with your own two hands! Thanks, Doug! (See, I knew it wasn’t just me!) I’m ridiculously fond of trying to plant the seeds that come out of the things I eat–as nonviable an idea as that usually is. Right now, I have a bunch of pits from prune plums that I’m going to try to get to sprout. I have *no* idea if it will work (but you know you’ll hear about it if it does…) Cheers! +Jessie Always a fun event when you get them to sprout! wow this sounds like a lot of fun to do, I wish I could grow an avocado tree Jessie, is there a reason you can’t such as you live in an apartment? Even in an apartment or dorm room having a tree is easy. If you keep it in a pot it won’t get very big and you can carry it with you. My sister has a lemon tree that she puts on her balcony in the summer and brings it in in the winter! Go on and try it. i keep meaning to do this, and i LOVE avocados i was even just reading this post the other day, which also includes instructions on how to grow all kinds of other plants from our fruit & veggie tops/seeds/waste/etc. I haven’t done this in 25 years, I used to do it with potatoes, I think Thanks for a cool blog post. Mark at Anecdote Thank you! Ya know, I’ve never done it with potatoes, but I feel like you can cut a potato into chunks, stick the chucks in the ground, and they’ll sprout. (Anyone? Anyone?) I did, however, grow a few sweet potato plants a zillion years ago. I left a few sweet potatoes on the counter (not in water, just out on the counter) until the eyes sprouted, then planted the potatoes in pots. They make a very pretty, vine-y type plant (the leaves of which, if I remember correctly, are utterly poisonous). Cheers! +Jessie about the potatoes….. take your potatoe that you buy at the grocery….. stick toothpicks in it and stick it in a jar of water just like the avocado’s, it will sprout and grow in the jar of water:) if your potatoes have eyes… toothpick’em and stick’em eyes down in the water and you will not be able to stop it… You don’t even have to go through that much trouble. Potatoes are easy to grow. Whenever I buy a bag of potatoes in the grocery store, I usually end up with a few that sprout before they can get eaten. When I am peeling them, I try to work around the eyes, cutting a bit of potato off with the peel, with an eye in the center. Then I lay the peels on top of some dirt with the eye upward and cover them with a small layer of dirt. Before long, the eyes will sprout into plants. After a few months, the leaves will start to die back, and then it is time to dig in the ground for the new potatoes. Only yesterday, I dug up a pound or two of potatoes from peelings I had planted in a container about six inches deep. By the “eye”, do you mean the sprout? So you just cut a little bit of the potato off with the sprout and then put some of the peeled skins around that piece and cover with dirt? Sorry, not much of a green thumb here…. The easiest way to grow potatoes is in old tires. Fil a tire with good potting soil mixed with compost and put whole seed potatoes onto the soil. Place another tire on top and fill half full with soil mix. As the plants grow, stack tires on top and fill with soil so that the plants stay just above the top of the soil. As each tire gets filled, where leaves had grown, potatoes will grow. Once you have 4 or 5 tires high, stop stacking and just let them grow. Once the plants die off, just lift off the tires and enjoy your crop without having to dig them up. Dinah, I’ve heard that the tires are not good to plant food in. You can just plant the potatoes in a 5 gallon bucket. When the leaves start to die off then, dump the bucket out and then you have your potatoes! You can cut a potato into chucks and plant any chunck that has an eye and it will grow. and potatoes aren’t picky either. Sweet potato leaves are edible, Jesse. In salad or cooked, say braised or steamed. There’s a bit of debate about carrot leaves though, perhaps quantity is a factor. Some tropical trees like Leucaena have edible leaves, but less than half of the diet, so as to not build up the toxin–thus a bug can’t thrive eating the tree. You can eat the leaves and sautée them On the advice of a master gardener, I planted chunks of potato, each with at least 1 eye, by setting them on top of the ground. Then I covered them with 8 inches of spoiled hay. As they sprouted and grew above the hay, I continued to add hay up to the leaves. I harvested lots of potatoes along the tall stems. BTW, harvesting was a snap, and I didn’t need to wash off a lot of sand. Also, it was easy to harvest small new potatoes, and leave others to grow larger. One other bit of knowledge: P. Allen Smith said on a recent show to NOT cut potatoes into chunks because you leave them vulnerable to diseases to easily attack the potatoes. I didn’t have any problems, but if you do, then this might be the solution. Jessie – This gives me hope. I’ve tried it many times. Unfortunately never worked. I’ll try it again. cheers! Gabi I tried this two years ago and it was great watching it root. Wish I had seen this posting then! Anyway, I tried rooting several ways, in water and right in potting soil. The water worked quicker. After rooting I transplanting the pit in potting soil and keep inside until the weather got warmer, then I sat is outside on the deck. The plant “was” so beautiful, but unfortunately died. What did I do wrong???? Hey Donna, Thanks for stopping by! Sorry to hear about your tree! I totally agree: They’re so pretty. Hmmm, ya know, this is the part of gardening that always gets me. I wish I could tell you what went wrong. :/ Unless it got some kind of pest or mold, the only thing that comes to mind that you might have watered it too much. I know they don’t like to sit in water. That or it didn’t get enough sun. I’ve killed a few in my day–always because I lived in apartments that didn’t get proper light. Sigh. Let me know if you get one going again and we’ll keep an eye on it. +Jessie It may have died because the sun is too harsh for a plant that’s been indoors. You have to ease them outside. Start with a couple hours in the shade in the morning and slowly work until its in the shade all day, then add in partial sun in increments until tis fully aclimated. I had a tree for a couple of years. It was about3 feet tall. Then my cat thought it was a great litter box… it didn’t last very long after that. Maybe a passing animal thought the same thing with your tree.. Just a thought. Refreshing and inspiring, will certainly try this out. Will tell you the results in a couple years time =). so how is your avocado tree doing? Great instructions as always! I’ve never tried this for fear of failure Thanks, Heidi! And ya know, it’s not a tragedy if a pit doesn’t sprout…it just means you need to make more guacamole and try again. Cheers! +Jessie When life hands you avocadoes…. If you never try anything, how do you learn anything? I have had numerous avocados come up in my vegetable garden because I throw avocado seeds in my compost, so they can’t be that difficult to germinate as they have survived the composting process. Give it a try. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now, and your post reminded me! I will do this. This weekend. Or tomorrow. Or as soon as I eat that avocado I have! Great pics! When I was in middle school I did a science fair project on growing avocados and tried many methods. The one I had the most success with (the tree grew to about five feet in our house before we had to plant it in my sisters yard) was growing it in soil in a warm dark place. It was the only tree that really took off, at least in my trials. Granted, it was winter and quite snowy, so my water trials were no doubt affected by the lack of warm sunshine. hello! your pictures are so vibrant! i love to grow things and have recently started a blog documenting the growth of my avocado plant: perhaps it would interest you. I did this as a project when I was a kid. I used one pit and it grew into a lovely tree with very nice fruit. It took about 6 years before we had good fruit, it was many years ago so I can’t remember exactly how long it took. It was a pitty I lost my tree when my parents sold the property! However, it is an asset to any garden if you have the space for it. Many thanks. I hope I can get reply from you, since you have posted this article 5 yrs ago. I am trying to grow avocado from pit. I am doing this under cold season, 16C, and summer will start in September. It has been 2.5 month and 1 out of the 3 jars I have gotten root but no leaves or stem. I have the following questions: is the delay for roots or leaves due to weather? One of the jar is plastic, does this affect Sun light reaching the pit? The jar that yielded root is shorter in length compared to the other two. Does this matter? Do I wait for stem and leaves to come before potting on the pit that has roots? The longer the root is growing the less it has space in the shortest jar, will this be okay or I have to transfer it in a longer jar? Thanks for this article and I hope I hear from you. if we shift the sapling from one place to another will it affect the growth? Found this article at e-how.com: Instructions things you’ll need: Sharp knife Moist paper towels Bowl of ice Tips & Warnings: You can find special grafting rubber bands at an agricultural supply store in your area. If there isn’t one, an everyday rubber band will do. Don’t let the bud sticks or T-cuts dry out during the grafting process. Each graft is best done one at a time, rather than making several T-cuts in the rootstock branches first. 1 Select budwood from a healthy, productive avocado tree. The best buds are located near the ends of branches that are 1/4 to 1 inch in diameter. 2 Cut 6-inch lengths of healthy branch tips that each contain several buds with a sharp knife. Take six to eight cuttings, wrap them in damp paper towels and lay them in a bowl of ice to keep them cold and moist. 3 Make a T-shaped cut on a branch from the rootstock tree, about 12 inches from the trunk. The long part of the T should be about 1 inch long. Make a shorter, crossing cut that goes 1/3 of the way through the branch. Twist the knife slightly to slip the bark away from where the two cuts meet. 4 Go back to the bud sticks you cut and placed in the bowl. Choose a healthy bud, and cut it from the stick beginning 1/2 inch below the bud and ending 3/4 inch beyond it. 5 Bring the bud back to the rootstock. Slide the long end of the bud wood into the long part of the T-shaped cut, matching the bud to the horizontal cut in the T. 6 Wrap the budded graft with a rubber band, securing it above and below, but not actually on the bud. Repeat Steps 3 to 5 in different areas of the tree until you’ve used buds from all the bud sticks. 7 Remove the rubber bands when the bud unions have healed and buds begin to open, which should be within three to four weeks Read more: How to Graft an Avocado Tree to Produce Avocado Fruit | eHow.com I’m growing an avocado pit now; it’s still in the water stage but it’s going very well. The root on my plant is about four inches long but a stem hasn’t come out of the top yet. This was helpful as to how to proceed with pruning it and transferring to a pot which I will do later on. Thanks! […] I never knew you could grow an avocado tree out of the pit. News to me! Find out how to grow your own. […] great pictures! I am in the process of growing 5 of them right now… It’s only been 2 weeks, but I had a question, how do you know if the pit is rotten and won’t grow? Hi! I am growing an avocado right now! I have tried probably 15 times in the past and this is the first one that has worked. I moved the pit to soil after the roots started growing, but when I was removing the toothpicks, I accidentally cracked the pit. I thought I may have killed my plant. Once it started producing a stem, though, there were actually 2 stems growing. Is this normal? They are about 4 or 5 inches tall right now. Should I transfer one of these stems to another pot or leave them together for a little while? I feel so clueless…any help would be wonderful! Thanks!! CAN YOU PLANT AN AVOCADO TREE OUTSIDE IN SOUTH CAROLINA? Hi yes I have had success to but it was getting very frustrating. I tried four of the small huss ( I think that is what they are called, total disaster), Then I got a large green one from Guatemala and Whala fine white roots, and then a nice big tree came out and seven pretty leafs on it. Now the fun stuff, then I got to look at the Internet and found your website so know I’m going to try major surgery and lop of the top leafs and plant it out in a large pot, and set it out side hoping we are finished with the cold weather, as l live in Winnipeg Canada, wish me luck as I keep an eye on the weather. Wow did I hit you’re sight at the right time. Thanks Jim. I agree, Jim – the large light green ones (Slimcados) do grow the best! I have 4 plants growing right now, and 3 more pits started in water. Have only had one pit so far that did not sprout. They sit on a table in my living room window and love the sunshine. Not much of a “green thumb”, but these plants do seem to grow well for me. Hello I never had any success rooting avacados until I tried using an organic pit. I think many conventional fruits and veggies are sprayed to make them not put out roots. I’ve thrown potatoes that had sprouted into my compost pile and the next year I’ve harvested potatoes! You can buy seed potatoes from garden supply places, then cut them into pieces and plant them too. Right now I have some small potatoes from my compost pile sitting in a paper bag waiting for them to sprout then they’ll go back in the compost pile and next spring I should have potatoes again. I’ve also grown avocado plants since I was a little kid. My aunt had one in a mayonaisse jar of water that was about 6 feet tall! If you have a problem with pests, don’t cut the potatoes before planting. You will have fewer problems planting them whole. Useful and mostly accurate info. An avocado tree can produce fruit, if it has the right conditions, it’s thriving, and there are multiple trees near each other that are flowering. It just takes at least 3-5 years. I love avocados, though, and I think it’s worth the wait. I am in 8th grade, and currently growing my own avocado trees. I hope my tiny tidbit of info was helpful! We had an avocado plant living on water for over a year, a few months ago we put it on dirt, noticed that the pit started to dry out but the tree hasn’t drop any leafs and them remain healthy looking and as big as 81/2 inches!!. I could send you pictures too! cheers!! Any ways so is it normal that the pit dries out?? Hi, My avocado plant is about 2 yrs old. The seed is also drying out (dying). I was THINKING that MAYBE, the seed feeds the plant. Some plants do work that way. The two one-yr-olds’, that I have, seeds are still looking good, right now. Good luck to you & have fun! I am. I left my pit sitting out for a few days and the outer skin peeled off. Is that OK or does the skin protect it in some way? i did the same thing then took the skin off and put it directly into the soil 2 months later i have 3 stems growing, i was so excited. I was doing this all wrong for years!!! So excited to do it the right way with my little girls!! It gonna be fun My daughter and I started 3 seedlings and after they sprouted, etc. and she had gone back to school for the fall, they finally got large enough to plant. So, I planted them all in ONE pot hoping to eventually ‘braid’ them like you see ficus trees done sometimes. But, I haven’t really done that, but they are all 3 thriving!! We live in KY so the winters here are probably too hard (most years) to have a tree outside but I am hoping to get my deck covered in about a year and by then, I’m hoping my ‘triple tree’ will be large enough to roll out there for the summer and then back in, in the winter. I am going to try to keep it pruned and hope that the 3 of them will bush out and be a beautiful ‘homegrown’ tree!! I have a terrible green thumb and when she wanted to do this, I just saw another recipe for disaster. But, between that and the Poinsettia that my son’s girlfriend gave me several years ago (and the orchid she gave me last spring!) I have actually now had 3 successes in a row!! Well, the Orchid and Poinsettia made me hopeful for the Avocado!! I can post pictures of it too. Just don’t ‘blog’ so I don’t have a site to do that. Hi Mari, It sounds like you are doing GREAT. You’ve come up with an awesome idea, braiding the three stems together. I’ve always loved those braided plants I see in stores. I would sure like to see yours, if you’d post it later, please. I plant ANY & EVERY seed and ANYTHING rooted I come across. I found three Japanese Maple Tree sprouts, about 1 1/2 inches long, including the root. I’ve had them for about 2 yrs, they’re about 6 inches tall, now. Have fun! Maybe I should’ve said, Mari w/the Greenthumb. I have 4 nice avacodo plants that I started from seeds. They are all in one medium Sized pot. The tallest one is 20 inches. My question is……Is it too late to trim the tops so they will be bushier? If it’s ok how much can I trim off? I intend to keep them as house plants(sunporch) My thanks to anyone who can help me. […] starting an avocado tree! Hopefully it will work. (fingers crossed) I followed this guide, and it has now been *planted* in water for about 5 days. We shall see what’ll […] […] photographed and meticulously detailed post about growing an avocado tree from a pit at […] I’m up in Alaska and am just starting my tree. My friend has a few he’s been growing for the past 4(?) Years and just got his first real fruit. I cannot wait till I get mine. How old are your tree’s? Thanks for putting up this site. Good luck with all of your gardening. What a great idea! I am raising my 7 year old granddaughter. This would be a great project for us to do together! We had avocados last night for supper and I still have the seeds. We will start today! Will keep you posted on our progress! Thanks! How to Graft Avocado Trees The. Step 1 Place four to eight toothpicks in the avocado seed. Fill a small dish with warm water. Hang the avocado seed in the center of the dish, using the toothpicks as support. Place in a partially-sunny location. Repeat with each avocado seed. Step 2 Empty the water dishes weekly. Allow the avocados to sprout roots and grow seedlings. Step 3 Transfer the seedlings to potting soil when they are approximately 1 foot tall. Allow the seedlings to continue growing until it is a minimum of 2 feet tall. Step 4. Step 5. Step 6 Wrap grafting tape around the two plants to join them. Repeat steps 5 and 6 with up to four scions on one base. Step 7 Water regularly and keep the plant in an indirect light location. Allow the scion to join to the main plant for 3 weeks. Remove the tape. Don’t add liquid fertilizer to the water mixture when sprouting the avocado seed. Don’t tape the scion too tightly and stunt the growth. Things You’ll Need 2 to 4 avocado seeds Toothpicks Small glass dishes Sharp knife Potting soil Grafting tape References Man, I wish I would have seen this just a few month ago. Our curriculum told us to do this, but didnt tell us how long it would take, so after looking at if NOT changing for about a month, I gave up and threw it away. I just guessed on how to get it started, as I had done it with a potato many times (and I was EXACTLY right on ALL of it). Patience is the key I guess. :/ Thanks for sharing this. I did the same thing, and the website I found said 7-15 years… Hmm. I’m growing three avocados plants right now, and they took about 2 1/2 month to start after I place the seeds in water, I will like to post the pictures here but I don’t know how, I already have one in a pot and is growing very fast, it’s on the window but ill will move it out to the back yard tomorrow. It’s a very fun project to do. I am so disappointed….I did not read the line about the trees not bearing fruit. What is the point of an avocado tree if it does not bear fruit. I have had great success and have 12 growning now. I do not know if there is any point keeping them after reading this – there_34<< Plants capture Carbon Dioxide, the stuff you exhale (and so called “greenhouse gas”. Then, through photosynthesis, they give off the byproduct, Oxygen. Carbon Monoxide is a toxic byproduct of fuels. “Just sayin” – they’re_35<< Great idea growing from seeds,altho I don’t think “Carbon Monoxide”is something these plants give off,im sure you meant “Oxygen”..lol CC I have been reading this post, and many times I’ve read that fruit could produce in as little as 3-5 years, but mostly 7 years. It is helpful to have several trees within the same proximity so they will pollinate each other. Avocados are so scrumptious that the wait will be worth it. Good Luck You can eat sweet potato leaves. The young leaves contain protein and vitamins. I split a sweet potato in half and plant in a hanging basket just for that. I use the leaves in stir fry. Can grow inside all year ’round but will not grow outside until temps reach/stay 65 degrees. Hope to help. I planted mine about 6 weeks ago and it’s got a big white root growing out the bottom that’s about 1.5 inches long. However, it has no leaves. Should I plant it now or keep waiting? […] discovered that they need both water and oxygen to germinate. So most guys suggested sticking the pit with toothpicks to suspend over water until they sprout, and then plant then. I went on reading and learned that […] Hi, I planted an avocado pitt after seeing one in a Bruce Willis film!! But checked up on line to see what do do after it had sprouted leaves and your site gave all the info I needed. So its gone in a pot today in the greenhouse (as I understand they like humidity as well). So wish me luck. I’ll let you know how it’s getting on at the end of the summer I had a great time doing this project at home. Well I am Puerto Rican and my family that comes over are shocked that I have grown a avocado tree in my home ..they keep saying that u couldnt grow a tree only in warm or hot weather. Guess Wat I’m in Chicago.. I’m going to try this again, the 1st time I didn’t have enough patience. I have a question, does it matter if I use a plastic bowl? I always use glass to grow my Ivy cuttings (& root them). I just don’t know if it matters if you use plastic or if I have to use a glass or ceramic bowl? I’m not sure the bowl makes a difference as much as keeping fresh water in it…it requires oxygen to grow and will use up what’s in the initial water within a few days, depending on the size of the bowl it’s in (less water = less oxygen). We LOVE guacamole! I serve it quite often and have tried growing a tree for a pit many times over the years with varying success. I wanted to share that leaving an avacodo pit in your prepared guacamole will keep the dip from discoloring. It stays nice and green right to the bottom of the bowl. I used to live in Ventura County, CA where avocados are grown in abundance. As I understand it, avocados will grow just about anywhere as long as you stay on top of it. In Ventura County, there is a lot of moisture coming off the ocean and seeps in as far as Fillmore, CA., where there are many groves of avocados and are very healthy. Those of you who are trying to grow their own, “patience” is the key to anything you grow. I went straight to the dirt process, keeping half of the seed exposed and set it in my windowsill. The trick to this method is keeping the soil slightly moist and then I “tent” it with a zip lock bag over the top of the small pot it’s in. This acts as a humidifier and helps with the process. Once I see the bud of the stem, I’ll take the bag off and let nature do its thing. BE PATIENT! This is a cool article. We grow all types of seeds in our house, for fun, and the kids love it too. Our home grown Avocado tree is a couple of feet now, using pretty much the method described above. It took 3 months to produce a root though, so patience is required. You can also take the skin off, it helps some seeds to grow if they’re been stubborn. If you want fruit, there’s no need to graft, you just need another flowering avocado plants nearby. Oh and you can grow these plants in the UK as well….. we are! I’ve grown a few avocado pits over the years; your information is so comprehensive that anyone should be able to do it. Thanks so much. am trying another one. Ann Over the years I’ve tried this experiment. I now have one five ft avocado tree planted in my back yard and its flourishing. I also have a second pit ready for planting in a pot. Thanks for the tip on pinching back the leaves. Its a scary task since I’m so proud of the little plant but I can understand how it would better the plant. As far as producing fruit, I’ve read you need two trees to cross pollinate. With my limited botanical knowledge, I guess we will find out in about 5 or six years! OMG, i did this and my first pit didn’t turn out well so i tried a new one and it hard to be patient!! I have started mine but am extremely confused it has begun to split apart but, there is a white root at bottom and the beginning of a green sprout at top what should I do as this is the third one that I tried and so far succeeding I thank you in advance for all you help My current avocado is still in the living room (I live in Washington State) and its about 7 feet tall……..I have another sprouting because I did not pinch soon enough so the large one is very crooked. I have 4 pits sitting in water in my kitchen window right now. All but one has roots coming out of them (one even has 2 roots coming out) but none of them have sprouted on top yet. One pit’s root is starting to get to big for the container and soon will either break or push the pit out of the water. Do I go ahead and plant it in soil without anything being sprouted on top? Please help me figure this out. Thank you so very much! I put 3 seeds in a pot w soil, heavily watered, all of a sudden 2 months later i have 3 stems growing, i was so excited, i am now gonna transplant them to their own pots. I did not know about the pinching off process, so i will be doing this to. i have a real good green thumb and am excited to watch these grow over the next few years or so. thanks for the info on this site. I put my seeds right into a pot already on my kitchen table by the window, I have two growing i want to know if i have to take it outside slowly putting it into the sun or can i just place it outside? Do I do direct sunlight or indirect sunlight.. I live in Calif it gets 103 or better in Bakersfield Thank you Barb Afternoon Barb…Yes you have to take them outside gradually. This is called ‘Hardening’ them. It would be like living in a fine Hotel for 5-yrs then you were forced out to camp for a season…Shocking to the system Place them outside in a covered area. Dabbled sun, a stir of a breeze, and mid-morning is best to start them off in. The temp is not to cold or to hot at this time. Don’t leave them out all day in the beginning, 2-4 hours a day is best for the first week. You have to love Spring. By summer time there shouldn’t be any problems. Remember to check water often. It’s water schedule inside will be different from it living outside. Depending on your zone (dry heat vs. wet heat…I’m dry, very dry) the humidity given will depend on its thirst. I live in No. NV Virtually no humidity with summer days up to 105 degrees and dry air/winds. Shade is not plentiful were I live LOL. So if you don’t have much where you live you will need to be creative (but that is the fun part!) Have Fun and I hope all turns out just fine for you. I have been growing my avocado pit for a while (I live in Minnesota). A couple of weeks ago one of the parts separated and I was happy I will have my tree. A little seedling started shooting up, but now the top of it is brown? I didn’t change anything with it? Is it dead? should I start a new pit or is there still hope? What I did instead of planting the seed straight to a pot filled with soil, I slowly added a spoonful of dirt to the water it was sitting in. I did this daily for two weeks before putting in a pot and it was my most successful attempt at growing avocado trees! Try it! Happy plantings! I didn’t read all the comments but I DID read your post. My avacodo “tree” started out as a sprout from a pit we threw in our compost. I just took it and threw it in a pot. My fiance kind of laughed at me and said it would never grow. That was in the spring. It is now full summer and it stands about 6-8″ high with SOME leaves. I water it every day, as I read they like “tropical weather” an I live in the desert. I never did anything else special to it. I DID read, however, that it WILL bear fruit, only it will take 15-20 years. I’m hoping my grandchildren might enjoy that some day…who knows. It’s still a beautiful plant! I have been growing Avocados for years. The truth is that most avocados will NEVER bear fruit, those that do will likely not have fruit you will enjoy eating. Typically it is seven to eight years to see fruit, but can be more. You can graft at any time, and it is a relatively simple procedure. Getting wood from a bearing tree that you like might be more difficult. Go to for an exhaustive list of avocado types, quality, etc. This seemed to give easy step by step for grafting the seeds, it doesn’t necessarily have to come from an already growing tree you can graft your rooted ones together to get fruit bearing trees. Hope the link is easy to understand, seemed easy enough! […] 8. Avocado […] […] Onions/Leeks – Carrot Tops – Pineapple – – Romaine Lettuce/Cabbage/Celery – Avocado – Lentils – Pumpkin – Ginger – Garlic – Bok Choy […] When I was little bitty my planted an avocado pit. I was like 4 or 5. We did get some fruits from it and never had it grafted. Then she forgot it outside and that took care of the plant. I have a few now that are a couple years old and for now they are just pretty but hopefully I’ll get one to fruit. I’ve grown a few trees without the “water” stage. I’ve simply put the pit in good soil and kept it well lit and well watered! We had a huge avocado tree when I was a kid but it never bore fruit. My dad had a green thumb and grew a lot of the food we ate. He said that you need a male and female avocado tree to have fruit. Ours was a male. i just finished and i pushed the toothpicks to hard and they kept breaking lol sorry avocado pitt Seeds provide foor for all plants tosprout and grow. Once they sprout leaves photosyntehsys should take over to convert sunlight energy into sugars and nutrients as long as the plant gets minerals and nutrients and water fromthe soil it is in. Is your lant still just in water or have you transplanted it to soil? Is it normal that my water turned red the next day? The spot where I root the pit also turned red Unfortunately most avocado varieties are hybrids which means that a vast majority of their fruit is sterile. So if you want to do this you need to find an heirloom variety. If you are able to do this, good luck! I have been growing avacado pits since the late ’70’s. Had a great one that went off to college with me! Some root, some don’t but I always have one I. The window sill. I’ve even just pushed a pit down into the dirt of an existing houseplant and been lucky. Mine are leggy though so I will try the pinching off of the first leaves next time. Thanks for the tips! I live in Washington State about 50 minutes south of Seattle and we don’t have warm weather until July. I planted my avocado pit in November on Thanksgiving. We had avocados in the salad so I thought I’d try to grow a tree. My avocado pit grew little finger-like things after 3 months and started to split open. I added water every day from my Brita water pitcher to keep the water to the rim of the jar. Whenever the jar started growing algae, I switched to a new clean jar. It took until March for real roots to sprout. The top started to grow a tiny green shoot around May. Now it’s almost August and my tree is about 4.25 inches tall. So, keep in mind, if you live in a cool climate, it will take twice as long for your avocado to grow. I’ve been very patient and it has been worth it. So exciting to see it slowly sprout. In the past month we’ve had weather in the 70s and 80s and on nice days I put my plant outside in direct sun for 3-4 hours, making sure the water is still high in the jar. In the last month it has grown exponentially, from about 1 inch high to 4 inches high! I’m hoping my tree will be 7 inches by September so I can pot it in soil before it’s been an entire year in the water. I grew one of these as a kid with help from my mom so it brings back some memories. :o) I put a seed in water a year and a half ago and the plant is almost four feet tall. It is doing well I move it indoors in the winter and back out when it gets warm out. It is the first seed I have got to sprout. Just hoping one day it will produce fruit. It even works in Germany, both ways..put a pit in my garden and next year tree was there.. took it out, put it in a pot and gave it to a friend. This is now 2 years ago and it still grows at her home..in the pot on the kitchen window shelf. I take pit peel of before planting, it helps during splitting time. No fruits so far…..but I guess in warm regions it should work when you put two together, outside… Hello! I have been planting avocado’s as houseplants for years. When I moved back to India I thoght my mom …an avid gardener,with avery green thumb…would love to see one grow. So I germinated a pit. My mother was so excited. She would admire it all the time and show it off to her friends. after a few years I suggeste to her that we should plant it in the ground. Lo and behold the seven year tree began to bear fruit. But we move from the house and had to leave the tree behind. My mother passed away and the tree was forgotten. One day I thight to mysrlf let me try it again. and I did eight years ago. Would’nt you know it I have a tree full of beautiful avocados!!!! Try it people it works. Banu I have tried so many times! My 2 current avocados each have one long root, one is 9cm long! but neither has a sprout yet. There have been a couple fruit flies on them, and I kill them as I see them, but I was wondering if the flies somehow killed the sprout and that’s why it isn’t growing? Or do I just need to give them more time? HELP! Thanks! I recently pulled about 30 avocado treelings from out compost piles. I gave them away to friends and strangers. Apparently they sprout like weeds if you have a compost pile and a mature 60 yr old avocado tree. I have pulled out some and put them into pots. At first they wilt and go into shock a bit, but after several days they perk up and start growing again. I do live in California, so it is probably easier to grow them here. Esther, I have two avocado seeds sprouting right now and that is exactly how they look! They’re split open but with roots and stems growing inside. As long as you are gentle when you handle them (changing the water, planting them, etc.) they should be fine. I started 4 pits in June, but I listened to mom and put them in water wrong side up, I thought it looked wrong at the tome, but you can’t disagree w/ mom… So I was checking out your post to see how long it should take to get results. I’m taking a chance that 1 of the 4 will sprout, I cleaned the jars and flipped em over! I have 2 saplings about 1-1/2′ and they are leggy (no leaves up the stalk, only about 7 or 8 at the top). Did I understand one post to say, you pinch the top? Does that mean, pinch all the existing leaves off? My family has one from seed and it is covered in fruit but I am under the impression it is because is gets hot enough on the texas coast and that it will not fruit in cooler climates I tried growing avocados and I pretty much did what you instructed. I was told that it wouldn’t produce avocados just as you said, but they were wrong! We had beautiful big avocados on our trees in a few years. They tasted just as good as the ones used for seed, maybe even better! Living in Hawaii has its benefits! Bob I was wondering. My seed did not have any leaves, just a very long root. If I still plant it will leaves finally start coming out? thank you. I have enjoyed this info. Ok I’m going to give it a try, sounds like fund! From what I’ve read, you can expect your tree to start bearing fruit after about 7-8 years. […] step by step pictures of how to germinate an avocado Share this:Like this:LikeBe the first to like […] The person who waters the plants in our office just told me it can take 13-15 years for avocado plants to bear fruit. However, here in Southern California, one woman who works at my office has had success by throwing the avocado pits down the slope by her house and allowing the process to take place naturally. She’s grown two trees (both of which bear fruit) in this fashion. I have always kept a planting pot in my kitchen and will bury an avocado pit any time on looks good. I water in any time I water the rest of my house plants. I don’t mark the date I planted them I just am pleasantly surprised when I get a plant sprouting up! This summer I have four in one pot. Time to transplant them. The pot will be too small for all four trees. They are already about 18 inches tall. The problem I have had is the larger of the leaves will get brown spots and get crunchy. I don’t have bugs on them or any other of my plants. I will just snap of the bad ones but I can not seem to figure it out. Any ideas ? I don’t ever expect to get fruit from them but they are nice looking house plants. i am not good at remembering to water so started my avacado by putting the pit in dirt not buried just about half in then covering it after it was well soaked then put it in the shade this is my first try and now have a 7 inch sapling its kinda cool. still want to know though if it is self pollinating I have not done this for to many years. I had been given a beautiful deep purple avacado, it was great. The pit is round and when it sprouts I will be really happy…it is a process, yep. It is warm here in the Hawaiian Islands and I should have super results…will let you know later. Mahalo Nui Loa, Loke Of course the planted avocado seed will produce fruit. Where do you think avocados come from? You need a male and a female tree of the similar specie of avocado. There are a couple different species. The flowers from the female plant mature, are pollinated by various garden pollinators (wasps, butterflies, bees, moths) that visit both male and female trees. Sometimes this can be accomplished by the wind, so the male and female trees need to be in close proximation. Sounds a lot like high school biology, doesn’t it? Had an avocado tree that finally started to produce fruit on it and the neighbors stole the avocados! I was so mad and was only able to get 22 avocados from it! They stole like 8 of them! It has been more than 7 years and it finally produced fruit! if you let an avocado overripe to the point where tan spots appear on the outside, often times the pit has already taken root inside the avocado (Harris Teeter avocados do this better than lower quality grocery store avocados). If you do this, cut the pointy end of the avocado in half like the tutorial says, and remove as best you can, leaving the meat at the bottom (rounded end) of the avocado. Now carefully remove this part keeping in mind there may be roots in there you dont want to rip off I wish I had found this sooner. I came across how to do the whole process a few months ago and started one. No were on the directions I used did it say the seed would split so I thought it was bad and I threw it out. What a waste… guess now I know. Many years ago I stuck toothpicks in 1 avocado seed and placed it in a glass. And it took off! So I planted it in a large pot. I didn’t know I was supposed to prune it so it only had one skinny stalk. It was about 3 feet tall with several leaves near the top when a 2 year old neighbor came by and broke it in half. For some reason I remained optimistic that it would grow back even though there weren’t even any leaves-just a brown stick coming out of the dirt. Over a year went by and I still had my stick in the mud (hee-hee) not doing anything. Then one day a new branch began growing from the side of my brown stick, about 1 inch from the top! After several years it had several branches and many leaves-it was absolutely the most gorgeous house plant I had ever had : ) Then an unexpected rare freeze hit. It did what the 2 year old little boy hadn’t managed to do : ( Ever since then (about 36 years ago) I have tried and tried to start a plant from the seed of an avocado with no luck at all!! Hopefully I’ll have some success after reading all this good information! I live in an apartment, and do not get much sunlight. Does anyone know if the avacado will sprout in artificial light? I just put mine in water today, and was going to leave it under my stove top light. Thanks so much for this article! My daughter and I just started our first avocado pit and are excited to track its progress in the next few months. Fingers crossed that it roots We bought a grafted avocado tree and it grew to be really big but never bore fruit! Maybe one or two is all we got off of it. So we got disgusted and bought some more avocado trees. THEN all three of them bore fruit, and the original tree had so many we had to prop up the branches for fear they would break!! So apparently the cross pollination is a very important part of fruit bearing. The two new trees aren’t even the same kind of avocado as the original tree but that didn’t matter, it just needed company and then it had more fruit on it than we could believe. I’m going to try grafting avocado seedlings from our original tree because it has the best fruit of all of them, and we want to be sure to have more trees like it if the old tree ever dies. Thank you for the instructions on the seedlings: it’s very helpful!! I did everything as instructed except I did not pinch off any leaves. My plant is about seven inches and has nice green leaves. Should I pinch off leaves now or is it too late? […] it over to the internet to find out. Never mind how to cook it – I’ve decided to grow it! But I couldn’t find toothpicks, so I’ve hooked up some bizarre contraption and now my […] Hi there! I found this post in June and started some pits on my windowsill. I got one to root and sprout but had to toss the other two. I spent the summer adding to them and now I have 2 that are ready to plant and 3 more with roots and a small sprout started!! The original plant has a massive root structure that grew in the water though and I’m wondering if I should bury all of the roots deep, or just coil them up below the pit when I plant it? I was given a small plant earlier this year that was already in dirt but I overwatered it and killed it ;-/ I’m so scared to plant my beautiful trees as I’ve worked so hard to grow them from scratch! Any pointers or hints would be much appreciated!! Also, my largest one is around 10 inches tall and has at least 6 large leaves on it, what leaves (if any at this point) should I pinch off? New growth or the big ones? So, my boyfriend and I just had a big party and had four avocado pits left over from some tasty guac. I pinned this website a few months ago and gave it a try. Being a broke college kid…I don’t have toothpicks and I don’t have many cups to spare. I did have two ugly margarita glasses a friend’s weird mother gave me, so I used sewing pins (big crafter) and ugly margarita glasses to grow my avocado. I’m waiting ever so patiently for my stem to pop out. I was cutting back my garden this afternoon and put all the clippings into a compost bin. When I opened the bin, I discovered an avocado tree growing inside. Apparently, I had put an avocado pit in there over the summer (the guacamole was amazing!) and it spouted in the warm moist environment of the bin. My tree had well established roots but had been ‘reaching’ for sunlight and so grew well over 20″ tall. I’ve moved the tree to a pot and will bring it inside as nights get colder. Given the height, should I clip the stem to encourage branching or should I leave the leaves? What should I do if my pit splits all the way apart? It was already split when it was in the avocado. I put it in water with toothpicks, but I’m not so sure it’ll grow. Help? I just started my avocado plants this summer, I made guacomole and wondered if I planted the pits anything would happen. Now I have 3 plants!! But what I am wondering now after reading some of the posts is I live in Wisconsin right next to lake Michigan and would I be able to years down the road plant the tree in my yard and not have to worry about the winter?, because I can’t see pulling a ten foot tree out every summer at some point it would have to be too big to do that. Also If you’ve started a plant in the climate your from won’t it adjust somewhat? just wondering So, unless I missed something in the replies, nobody has mentioned this. I used to live in Northern San Diego County, in California. No beach for me, I lived in the foothills of the mountains… exactly where about 1/3 of the nation’s avos come from. Every little two lane highway is surrounded by citrus and avos… and this is what I learned there. Plant the avos on the hillsides, where the ground is rockier and drains really well. Plant the citrus on the flat patches of land. They don’t “graft” their avo trees at all. But they do NEED the citrus trees (oranges). That’s how they pollinate. Something about the bees going back and forth between the two is what makes the spark. Beneath the orange trees, for a month every year, you will see millions of white box hives that have been brought in to do the job. Don’t know if this really helps. But, if I were going to hope for my avocado tree to bear fruit… I would start with bees that can cross pollinate from something else. Good luck! Oh by the way… a neat little fact: Avos don’t begin to ripen till they are picked or fall from the tree. A rock-hard one, straight from the tree will ripen to perfection in about 36 hours if left on the counter in a crumpled brown paper sack. So… I was reading more of the replies. They cant survive repeated overnight hard freezes. Maybe the occasional frost would be okay. That’s what they get in Cali. When the weather gets crazy there and a freeze is expected, they use smudge pots to keep the groves warm. I found my advocate pits had already sprouted while they were covered in the compost pile. These may have been there covered through at least one winter in the mid west. They grew to about 18 inches tall while in pots this summer, and now I hope I can keep them alive indoors this winter. Just a nice surprise to find int the compost!!! […] takes a lot of time and patience, but the seeds and pits from fruits like apples, peaches and avocados can be used to grow your own organic fruit trees. If you have the yard space and resources to […] I am a beginner, well I planted the pit once before and I was quite proud. It had grown to about 4″. I placed it outside on the patio to get some sun and when I went to check on it (to bring it back inside) I found bits and pieces of the pit that the squirrels had left after their picnic! So I started over. I have 2 that I moved from water into its pot. One is doing really well and the other is just a 12″ stem with tiny leaves trying to come on. I think from the suggestions I will trim it back. ? I have 2 more pits in the window in their water. One pit has 5 growths coming from it? Will they all become trees and move into one tree? It is such a fun experience and lots of fun to share with others. I really do hope they produce the fruit because we all love the Avocado! Thanks for the geat info and pictures. This was very helpful! Avocado seeds do not grow because the ones that produce fruit are cut from the fruit producing tree. They are all hybrid as one would say. …and for many, many years all of the haas avocados you’ve had have been from the same mother tree. My tree is almost 7 inches! I am very excited, cant wait to plant it. I started the process 3 months ago. I have never ever been able to get an avocado pit to grow but I thought I would try again and lo and behold, I have two with good roots on the windowsill. The third one has been there a few weeks less. My question is this: after reading this wonderful article, I should be seeing a bud growing out of the tops. Instead I have roots but no tops. Is this normal? Will they eventually sprout up? Help! If you want your tree to bear fruit you have to prune it back in the late winter or early spring before it’s usual fruiting season in the summer. The first year it flowers it will not bear fruit, only flowers. The following year it will have small fruit, and then normal after that. Other people on the internet say that pruning is bad for one reason or another. From actual experience with truck-loads of avocado from around my house, if you don’t prune, you don’t get much fruit. However, I am from Hawaii where every avocado pit that I have ever planted eventually bore fruit. I don’t know about in the rest of the USA. It rarely never gets below 70 degrees in Hawaii, so I am sure that will have something to do with the growth cycle. Avocados do not naturally grow in temperate zones anyway. Well then don’t grow a Haas avocado from those plantations (california). Get another kind, like those from Florida, Mexico, or local farmer’s market. I have three small saps… Different age, non of them are growing right. I think. All of the leaves that do grow are very tiny, green but tiny with no new branch growths. Just leaves around the main stem. I live in cen texad even though its nov. Its still very warm and sunny.. I dont know what is wrng with these trees. Is it poor soil or maybe poor water, too much water? My avocado pit, sitting in water, with the requisite toothpicks, has sprouted a very thick root, but no stem. The last time I started an avocado pit, after a few roots appeared, the stem and two leaves appeared and I dutifully pruned them. But not this time. What do I do?? Thanks! ….I am living in Goa, and common saying by the locals here is that a avocado tree bears fruit fter 8 years……. […] comes from GardenGuides.com. It provides detailed instructions for jar-based potatoes. Grow a Tree from a PitIn this Hungry Mouse blogpost, writer Jessie Cross provides thorough instructions for turning an […] I believe you have to have a male and female tree in flower at the same time to produce fruit. I threw 4 pits from different kinds of avocados into a pot with my jacaranda tree. One actually popped up within a month or two! I have no idea what kind, though. We also planted 5 different avocado type trees from a nursery in Miami. I’m not sure what kind of cross pollination will occur with differing trees. I just hope some bloom at the same time for cross pollination. We should have avocados from May through February! What will we do during March and April. They were 3 feet tall in July. Now they are 4-5 feet tall already! Even my mystery avocado from random pit! I’m now looking for a Florida avocado that turns purple with smooth shiny skin when ripe. Any ideas where to find this avocado either tree or fruit? We are in Martin County Florida and are eager to find this smooth purple avocado. Hi CJ – I’m in martin county too. Call this nursery and check out their variety chart. Also, the internet refers to a variety from Australia that is what you described – but it looks like the Oro Negro from the Pine Island Nursery would provide the same type of yield. Email me with any questions. Sounds like none of you have considered using either hydroponics or aeroponics to cut that grow time down. I haven’t either but I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work. I expect it would simply be a matter of replacing the “plant in soil” step with “use *ponics here”. I’m going for it ! wish me luck. get back to you all in a few month. I’m going for it! Wish me luck. I’ll get back to you guys in 3 months to let you know how everything is. Can’t wait to see my tree bear fruit so I can make the best guacamole in the land! I live in Washington DC, and tried to sprout two avocado pits in September. Nothing happened. I gave up in November. Thanks for your column. Now I know why: I had the pits upside down. However, it’s now New Year’s Eve. I can’t put the plants outside, and the house I’m in has an open Florida room; the Southern windows face that room, and so get no sun. The jalousies in the Florida room are open, and the temp gets near freezing at night. Can I fool it with indoor lighting? Will it hurt if I put it near a light that’s on 24/7? The South windows in the kitchen are shaded by the roof of the Florida room, and cool enough that when I put a cup of bacon fat in the window, it went from liquid to solid in half an hour. I grew one last year but I left it out side too long and the temp dropped too low. I was really getting attached to it so I’ve been starting other seeds since then. I’ve got about 6 started in water for almost two months and nothing is happening. sigh… Hi! I’ve planted an avocado tree and it’s growing like crazy. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten to pinch of the top leaves, so now I have one tall avocado (about 15 inches). Do you think it’s better to cut it in half or just pinch of the top leaves? Thanks! […] can root their pit on your windowsill and grow your […] How well do avocados grow in the winter? I’m getting good at growing my Avocado trees! I’ve gotten pits to put down a tap root, but still had many many false starts because of different living situations. BY False start, I mean they died in less then a year of growing due to me moving and trusting others to care for them.. one year a few dried out, another year someone left a door open in winter and they cold shocked to death (were probably to dry to protect themselves anyway). But this past year I’ve achieved my best yet! I started the pits about this time last winter, then they spent the spring summer and fall on the south deck. I’d bring them inside for weather below 45 degrees.. Over the winter now, they’ve found a home in a south facing window next to my bed. I’m impressed at how well they’re doing! My best one has multiple huge foot long tropical leaves. Sideways, the things got a 2.5 foot wing span! It’s BEAUTIFUL. I really should make a video or post some photos. Thank yuo for the advices! Got this address (link) from a friend and now I think I know how to succeed with the avocado I rooted avocado seeds in water before and they grew well but I didn’t plant them. I have another one that I just put into water yesterday. This time I am going to plant it. I have a wonderful south facing sunroom on my house and as soon as it warms up a bit it will be going out there. I will come back and post pictures. Is there a specific type of soil that avocados do well in? I have an avocado pit that has been in the water for about 2 months. It has a root on it about 4 inches long but there is no stem in sight. What do I do? My avocado is spherical and doesnt have a peak is that okay? I do the same thing with red beans; they make a fast and fabulous vine. Nice neighbours. But if you have any left, consider YOUR donating to a church or an aged care home and show the neighbours what you are made of I would like to know how to grow an avodado tree from a pip. […] Avocado - […] I know how to make an avocado tree fruit – I saw it on Gardening Australia and it was a tree grown from seed. You make two half circle cuts through the living tissue of the tree bark about one metre (3 feet) from the ground using a pruning knife to stimulate the tree by making it think that it is dying which encourages it to flower and fruit to save its’ life. The cuts are to be made one above the other 2mm (1/8th inch) deep, the purpose of which is to impede, but not entirely stop, sap flow. The second cut is made on the other side of the tree about two finger joints below the level of the first cut. That leaves a small amount of tissue through which some sap can flow. It seems like drastic action but it may produce ther required result – he didn’t say definitely. The cuts will heal and seal quickly and not affect the health of the tree. Hope this helps people. My avocado pit split within three days! Is that normal?? Does anyone know how far apart you should plant the trees from one another? I have 4 of them and I’m hoping I can get them to bear fruit by planting them by each other? Thanks! It depends. If you plan on keeping them pruned fairly short (6 feet or so) then you can plant them about 5-6feet apart. Most varieties can and do get very very large so be sure to consider how much light and air flow each one will get and you should be fine. . I have two avocado trees growing in pots…started in water….now about a foot and a half to two feet tall. Started in Ma now in Fl. still thriving..also have two pineapple tops about ready to go into a pot. Pineapple tops?…That sounds awesome, mind telling me how? How big do they get? And also is it better to grow inside or outside Hi, I have been growing pit in large see through plastic container. Have done the tooth pick etc. The root is now almost toughing bottom of long container. Nothing popping up from the top side? What should we do?? Same thing is actually happening to both of the pits I am currently working with… I’m getting so frustrated!! I have the same problem. Been searching the internet, find lots of folks with this problem, but no answers yet. […] Avocado-> […] […] Avocado-> […] I’ve grown avocado pits from childhood and still do it as I was taught. I allow the outside skin to dry and separate from the seed for a few days before suspending in water with toothpicks as you described, except I use a tall brown glass or plastic jar (like an instant tea jar). They seem to sprout quicker without the outer skin. At least for me anyway. I started avocado seeds just as you said to. Toothpicks in the sides in a small bowl of water…………………..patience!!!! They sprouted and I put them in small pots of dirt. One in a regular pot the other in a small clear plastic cup. They grow about an inch a day! It’s amazing and so much fun to watch. I can’t seem to throw away the seeds now when I buy avocados. I feel like I have to grown each one of them!!!! (^: Such a wonderul project. You just need patience when starting them in the water! I have a 1.8 gallon betta tank on my office desk, and I regularly leave my ivy leaf junctions in the water, as they root super fast due to the nutrients from the fish food/waste. I decided to try the avocado pit. I stabbed the side with an open paperclip, and have it propped half in and half out of the tank water. It’s been 4 days and it’s already splitting. Fingers crossed! hi i have growing 2 tree from a seed they are 3 ft tall now and have two babys that are 12 in tall i just want to have some fruit on them and need help on how to graft them if you can whan they are babby or when they are big now the 3 ft ones are 3 years old so any body know how to to the grafting and a vido of it i think they are buitfual tree to grow I have been enjoying growing avacado trees have 12 seeds sitting onthe counter and 5 have roots one is 12″ tall and ready to plant. It is fun. takes along time just to be patient and keep changing the water Re: Grafting The only reason to graft your avocado with piece from a fruit bearing tree is to get true Haas avocados. The grocery store avocados are all from grafted trees that were bred to produce a very large fleshy fruit, so we could all enjoy lots of creamy green flesh without buying lots of avocados. These trees are hybrids of two or more avocado species, so the seed from the fruit doesn’t breed true. When you plant the seed, the tree you get is one parent tree or the other instead of the same variety you ate. These trees should produce fruit just fine after they reach maturity in 5 to 8 years, but the fruit will be smaller, usually harder and with less flesh. If you want your trees to fruit, make sure they get lots if sun, plenty of water (let the soil dry out, then soak it really well and repeat), and fertilize them regularly. When the tree flowers, put it next to another flowering avocado to cross-pollinate and give it a high phosphorus fertilizer to promote good flower and fruit production. Nitrogen will give you lots of good green top growth, but fruit and flowers need other nutrients. I have been diligently attending to my avocado pit and it has grown quite nicely but has taken so long! I never gave up, however, and today I am planting my budding pit!! So excited to get to this point. It is a lengthy process but so rewarding when you get to this point! […] Avocado - […] I’m so glad you posted a time frame for the pit to start sprouting! I though I was doing it all wrong and threw out the pits after a week or two of nothing. I’m going to try again and just leave it be. Thank you! […] [via The Hungry Mouse] […] I have a. Avacodo right now suspending but its split and not sprouted . I just learned it takes time to sprout after it has split ty […] thanks to The Hungry Mouse for tips, timelines and all the info you need to grow avocados from seed. The short version […] Great post. Like Cindy I was glad you included a timeline for growth because I was quite worried all my seeds were duds! I’ve been tending to a windowsill full of avocado seeds for the last couple of months and have had a few successful root sproutings so far. Here’s a photo of my latest one (named Fred 1): I will definitely be checking back to follow your planting instructions! […] This site tells me I have to pinch his leaves off. Awww! I don’t want to. Poor plantje. […] Great Site, wonderful pics. I put two pits in water 6 days ago, they already have roots sprouting. Is this unusual? I would like to grow some nice plants. What do I have to do to get them to bear fruit, indoors. I live in an apartment, where the morning sun shines directly in, Thanks […] the avocado in half as evenly as possible. Remove the pit {check out THIS out if you want to grow from the pit!} Now scoop out enough of the inside to fit your egg {your egg […] […] Growing An Avocado Tree From An Avocado Pit […] Thanks I may give this a try! […] The peppers went well both hot and sweet. We’ve always got dried chilis for soups and well, chilis. They may be on the list. Or maybe we just stick with herbs and flowers and a couple of experiments like a lemon or an avocado. […] […] & Leeks Carrot Tops Pineapple Celery,Romaine Lettuce and Cabbage Avocado Lentils Pumpkin Ginger Garlic Bok Choy […] […] towards the window… Here are two informative pages: Avocado – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia How to Grow an Avocado Tree from an Avocado Pit | The Hungry Mouse __________________ Enter you photo contests in session now!March 2013 "Show Us Your Best […] Just started one today thanks for the post […] Grow an Avocado Tree This experiment requires a little patience. Ok, it requires quite a bit actually, but the results are pretty cool. We’re assuming you have at least one avocado lying around, so whip up some guacamole and save the pit for this awesome little growing experiment. Kids will love watching the seed sprout roots in the water and once it’s potted, they’ll have the start of their very first garden. […] YEARS ago, Chi-chi’s used to put the pits they used every day in wax paper bags with instructions on how to do this. That was back in the 70’s and 80’s… I was excited with the idea of growing an avocado plant, so I followed the instructions. I used two pits, each in its own container. However, I did this in February and so far no sign of any change. Actually, the only thing I see is the pits getting “moldy”, with black little spots on them. I feel quite discouraged and thought of tossing the pits away. Should the water be replaced every so often or just added to the existent? Thanks! I replaced the whole lot every day so that you don’t get bacteria that can affect the pit Thanks, Helen. I have started the process with a new pit. Let’s see how this one evolves (or not…). Wow I didnt think this was possible. I love avocado and have a few a week. I will start right away. 3 months is a bit too long though. Has anyone else tried it? How long does it take? I’m wondering if I should pinch off the flowers that are forming on my avocado house plant. It’s about 3 years old. Do the flowers take away energy from the leaf growing process? Also, I know I need to repot. What’s the best kind of potting soil to use? […] Avocado - […] I had success with my first avocado pit using the water method. But, I learned that planting it with part of the pointy end not covered by the soil, works faster, so my new pit will start in a pot with my backyard compost as the soil. My original tree was lush and lovely but began to have dark spots on its leaves and then they curled up, turning brown and fell off. I found out that my tree was sufering from a fungus called anthracnose. It’s easy to fix using a garden systemic used to cure diseases in roses like black spot, rust and powdery mildew. I hope my poor sad denuded tree will recover. I like the idea of a lot of sprouts getting friendly and fertile! Did your plant live? The same thing happened to me. I had a 7 inch tall tree and when I replanted it into a larger pot, half the original pit broke off. Did yours live? Does anyone else know if mine will? I’ve had three avacado pits in water for about a month. One of them had the top split open not long after I put it in water, but has yet to have anything sprout out of it. I just noticed today that another has split on the bottom, but not on the top. Lastly, the third one hasn’t split open anywhere. Two questions. 1) Is it normal for them to split open but not sprout? 2) Is it ok to split open on the bottom? I’m trying to be patient, but I’m also concerned about the one that split open on the bottom. Thanks so much for this post! I live in Florida and recently moved into a home on a canal. One day I was on our small dock admiring the water with my 4 yr old and what we thought might be a coconut came floating up to us. Being the curious sort we plucked it out of the water and brought it into the kitchen. Turns out it was the biggest Avacado I have ever seen! Thanks to this site we were able to root the seed. It took about a month but sprouted beautifully. Transplanted the new plant into a large pot and put on our patio. 4 months later we have a leafy tree about 4 feet high! I can’t believe how fast it’s growing and how healthy it is. Question though, the main trunk has just split into two branches at the top. Is this normal? I’m not sure when we should move the tree from the patio to its final spot in the yard. Also I’m not sure where to plant because I don’t know how big it will get. Anyone know what kinds of Avacado might come floating up to me in Florida? Thanks for the advice. This plant is exceeding all expectations! The squirrel I feed every day left a half-eaten avocado from my neighbor’s tree lying in the wild half-shaded part of my backyard. I found it there lying on the ground; it had sprouted very quickly. I put it into the ground with just a little dirt around it and put a plastic half-gallon jug over it to protect it during the winter. I watered it by hand occasionally. When spring came, I put it into the ground in my sunny front yard. A year later (it is spring now) it is four feet tall and gorgeous. Its growth rate indicates that it will be at least six feet tall by the end of summer, if not taller. I did not prune it or pinch off the leaves or in any way mess with it other than to put the plastic jug over it and water it infrequently. I started a few pits a month ago, and only one has rooted, but gone wild. I will try snipping off the top leaves today and plant t. Quite excited to see new life started- and have gotten friends on a “plant our avocado leaves race!”- game… Thanks for your informative info. When I was a very young child my aunt & cousin grew a 6 ft. tall indoor avocado tree in a mayonnaise jar. I’ve grown small ones every since and right now have two seeds ready to go in water. My last one I gave away to a friend. They are easy to grow and if one doesn’t work it’s not a big deal. Buy another avocado and try again. Hey there! I currently have 4 avocodo plants growing in the classroom and about 1 ‘ tall. Have trimmed them back and they all appear very health but just one problem. As new leaves grow, the older ones to some degree start to dry out on the edges. Have been snipping them off. The drying part of the leaf, is this normal? Mike […] I love avocados! I eat them all the time! I just found this cool article explaining how to grow your own avocado tree from an avocado plant. I am definitely going to try […] Brilliant post. I started this a couple of weeks ago. What’s happened now with the biggest one is it’s actually splitting COMPLETELY from the bottom. I can see everything starting to come out – roots and leaves and all, they’ve just yet to come to the surface. My experience though: the water was rotting extremely quickly, even with frequent changing. Two days ago I had a look at the brown “peel” on the outside of the pit and it was completely loose and decomposing, so I picked off the whole peel – it was rotten in some places and like paper in others – so now I have two white pits with veins all over them and the rotting water problem has completely stopped. Excited about getting these planted! Grafting is only necessary if you have commercial interests in avocados. Grafting helps to maintain consistent size, appearance, texture and quality. It might also speed things up a bit. But for the home grower, it’s not necessary. Thank you to everyone for all the great info. I have about a dozen seeds sprouting. I read on one site that it was helpful to cut the top and bottom of the seed off to help encourage sprouting, I did this and it works. The seeds I cut sprouted sooner, but I would not cut the top, it does not look that nice. I also had one that got lost in the back of the frig so it was riper, it started to sprout. I am excited to plant my first seed. It is now an inch tall and I needed to know when and how to plant once it had sprouted. I found some great information here. I never got results with the pit-in-water method, but 14 years ago I just plunked an avocado pit in the ground near my front entrance. The tree grew higher than the house (we had to trim it shorter last year as it was blocking all the light from my daughter’s room) and has been giving us lovely, tasty avocados for the past 9-10 years. One advantage to living in the subtropics . […] You can watch me give a live demo on this blog post on Fox8 News by clicking here. […] Do u have to root the avacado pit inside? Can u do it outside too? I live in AZ so it gets pretty hot but my place faces north so I dont much sun coming in my windows. I did this YEARS ago, but I don’t remember why I don’t have the plant anymore. I’m trying again with ‘John’s’ suggestion of planting the pit right in the soil. Sounds like an easier way to do it, you won’t have to transplant it later. Keeping my fingers crossed. I planted 3 avocado seeds directly in the soil and they have all sprouted. Unfortunately I am in Canada and will never be able to plant the tree outside and will therefore never have fruit. It was a great experiment though. They are just starting to grow in a pot on the window ceil in my kitchen. I was looking for easy ideas on growing for my family daycare and I saw this. We tries it and the root is just now coming out of the bottom. The kids I care for are 3-5 years of age and are very interested in the process. Thanks for the idea and instructions […] Avocado - […] Loved your post so much that I started 4 seeds about 4 weeks ago. One of my seeds has a root about an inch long coming out the bottom, but nothing out of the top. The others seem to be doing nothing. They are all in the same environment. Mason jars, tooth picks, full sun, 60 – 85 degrees for weeks here in South Carolina. Is it normal to have nothing coming out the top? Should I start some more seeds? I and my son have 25 yrs to wait. They will go in the orchard when large enough. Ok I live in Indiana andI’d like to know if you think an Avacodo tree would survive our winters? I’d love to grow one. My Avocado has only produced a 4 inch root, no sign of a stem, should I plant this seed this way or just wait for the stem? […] looking around online (pinterest and the like) for things to do with my kids. I found this page: “How to grow an avocado tree from an avocado pit” and realized I’d never done that before. I’d seen it done a few times on tv, but had […] Used to do this as a kid… tried recently but hadn’t read this post yet… so it’s in a jar of water with the 4 toothpicks to suspend it but NOT upside down like you mention… as a result it is growing roots from the top, that point down into the water… but no stems. Should I turn it over at this point or will leaves/stems come from the bottom of the seed? If I turn it over now, the roots will be pointing up! I have about 4 roots, ranging from 2″ to about 4″… HELP. Fig, This is really interesting that the seed sucked up water from the pointy narrow end and fed the seed so roots sprouted at the side out of the water! I don’t think anyone here has ever tried that, but I doubt the plant will sprout leaves and a stem underwater. I would flip the whole thing over and gently point the roots downward into the water away from the pointed narrower end of the seed, and it should sprout. Interested to see some photos of your upside-down pit though! This was the first site I went to, to learn how to plant an avocado seed. It was perfect! Very detailed. I love plants, but I do not have a green ‘thumb’. Thank you so much! Penni I tried to grow avacados in a jar with toothpicks, to no avail. I finally got frustrated with them and simply stuck the seeds into a pot. Kept it damp, and just waited. I almost gave up on them. One day I looked at the pot and I had 2 plants emerging from the pot. They are doing great. Only thing I wonder about is if it’s safe for cats to nibble on. I’ve got a black who persists in sneaking into the room and loves chewing on it. A great post. My mother did this when we were growing up. It works perfectly. Am grateful you are teaching others how to do it. It does take patience, care to get it to open. When planting use good soil.. Was wondering, what is the Zonal Range for growing Avocados Does it have to be someplace like only Florida or California to grow them? This is neat, thank you. Do you have a newsletter sign up? Sharon I planted my seed in a pot. It’s been there a week and a half now and nothing has happened. I’m not over watering and it gets a lot of sun. Though the very tips of the leaves are starting to turn brown. But it only had two little leaves at the top when I planted it. Should I have waited longer to have planted it? Does anyone know if avocado tree will grow & fruit in northern Tasmania, Australia? […] to Grow: It’s possible to grow an avocado tree from an avocado pit, but doing so may not yield edible fruit. If you want to eat what you sow, it’s best to purchase […] […] Avocado: […] […] to Grow: It’s possible to grow an avocado tree from an avocado pit, but doing so may not yield edible fruit. If you want to eat what you sow, it’s best to purchase […] I just put my seed in the water today a short time ago. I’ll be planting my tree in Ohio, so it will be interesting to see whether this will bear any fruit in the future. The climate here is sustainable for an avocado tree, but I’m not sure if any of the avocado trees here produce fruit during the spring and summer months. Our winters are becoming noticeably milder and our summers are warmer so I suppose if this trend continues, the odds of producing avocado bearing trees become better. We’ll see. We have a plant coming up out of the ground, didn’t know what it was…but we let it grow. It is now about 2 1/2 ft tall after 1 yr 3 mo. We just asked a tree service company what it might be and he said it looked like an avocado tree. Evidently a squirrel planted it. I see where we should be pinching the top leaves off to encourage bushiness. But just a couple days ago I went out to find my husband had pinched off ALL the lower leaves (at least 12 inches, to about half way up). He said it will make the tree grow taller. Now I’m really confused. Will the lower leaves regrow again? At this height and without any lower leaves now… should I still pinch top leaf growth? It has 3 or 4 branch outs. In all the posts, I have not read about somebody removing the bottom leaves instead of the top and what effect this will have. I hope the growth is not ruined. We will need to transplant it to a different location before long. It’s coming up at the edge of the porch overhang now. This little tree has a very special meaning to me and I want it to flourish. We live in St Petersburg, Florida. Thank you for any answers! […] It’s pretty easy to do. If you want detailed instructions you can check them out here. […] I started growing a pit 2 months ago in a dish of water like you show. I’ll admit I gt a bit impatient and planted it a couple weeks later, before it had even sprouted. I planted it about half in the dirt and now it is about 4 inches tall. I live in Minnesota so I was pleasantly surprised when it actually worked. Hopefully the plant can weather the winter. Thanks so much for your fantastic how-to article! Citrus and Avocado fertilizer, available at most garden supply stores should do the trick for you. Shake some around the base of the tree, where it will be watered in, every three months and you should see results with your next crop. […] Source: The Hungry Mouse […] So will the tree actually give me avacados? Your notes say no? I finally found an answer to root but no stem, from the Gardening Know How site.. Hi there!! I once grew an avocado tree from a pit to about 3.5 to 4 feet tall. It was doing great until I took it to my parents and it bit the dust. For the next several years I would plant pits only to get them to die off. One day I bought a bag of avocados and saved all 6 of the pits. I put all of them into the bottom of a pot and piled dirt on them and every day when I walked past I would water it to keep it wet, then one day LO AND BEHOLD AN AVOCADO SPROUT!!! I let it grow and grow and then it died off. I read about avocados that there are female and male plants and they need to cross pollinate (I copied the following from: Wikihow) This is not necessarily the case. In at least some strains the tree bears both male and female flowers and is self-pollinating. You may also graft from an existing fruit-bearing tree to your home-grown root stock (tree grafting, however, is another process all unto itself). All that for yummy, yummy avocados!!. LOL…..my mother grew one without all this nonsense. She just put a seed in a pot of soil and gave it a lot of attention. I got my first avocado plants from pits that had sprouted in the compost bin, I was thrilled as the toothpick method never worked for me. Every fall for the past few years I have been able to dig up avocado seedlings and plant indoors! This summer I decided to plant them in the garden so it would be a bit easier to dig up and sure enough there they were in early Fall. I have alot of them! I didn’t know about pinching back, but I do know they grow much more happily in full sun. I have never let them live outside in the summer, though perhaps it is warm enough to do so… I wonder if indoor avocado plants living in Canada would produce flowers and fruit? I have heard that people with big heated greenhouses have avocado trees that bear fruit. It’s a totally underrated house plant, and it’s just the cost of an avocado! I have a sprout right now… was sitting in a glass of water for a week, then got put in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel. forgot about it for about 2 weeks, then found it, and lo and behold, an avocado tree What kind of soil does an avocado tree need? I got tired of waiting for growth using water method and just throw the seeds away in to garden burying them last spring in Florida when I arrived this fall I had three 18″ avocados healthly and growing but very close to the house but after reading all the comments they may have to stay close for warmth. We do get cold snaps here in north central Florida. Any idea how much cold they can handly? . I sprout these things all the time, but was told they’d never bear fruit. So glad I found this post. Ihave 8 growing in a muffin tin right now…still in just water,12-18 inches high. I pruned earlier but no branching. Perhaps I pinched leaves off too soon? Going to have to transplant soon, but they start dropping leaves (maybe because I forget to water enough at the beginning!) & when I have planted outside they seem to get sunburned leaves and fade away. if I knew how to provide a picture, I would. They are really pretty sitting on my kitchen table. Makes a nice centerpiece. Thanks for the encouraging words. I have grown an avocado tree from your instructions and it is about 2 feet tall now. I live in Northern Canada where it get quite cold over the winter, in the spring it will be near a year old will I be able to plant it outside or will our winter kill it? Mine started to root within 2 weeks!! I should have some photos for everyone tomorrow (; I have found that just planting the seed itself, fat side down, in a shallow pot, keeping moist, indirect sunlight, the seedlings pop up faster than they ever did in water! I tried it and was actually shocked when I saw how fast they grew! I have a 10ft outside in a large pot that I did the toothpick, glass of water rooting technique. Hopefully, avocados soon. […] Gambar: The Hungry Mouse […] ‘Forcing vases’ that are sold for people to force hyacinth and other bulbs in also do a good job of holding avocado pits! They have a narrow enough neck that you don’t have to use toothpicks. I have one starting right now in one I like to paint mine with glass paints so that the area around the roots doesn’t get as much light on it when they start to grow – roots don’t care for light! (and it means I can paint them to match whichever room I want them in, too!) You can also use any thin pieces of wood if you don’t have toothpicks handy – I save the ends from incense sticks and use them for all kinds of craft & garden needs that require ‘toothpicks’ Wish me luck – I have two that are just showing signs of rooting at the moment. No one in my family cares for avocados, so I only get pits when I’m lucky enough to be around a friend who has one and isn’t planning on using it […] Gambar: The Hungry Mouse […] […] as I can. I remember growing up we had an avocado tree in our backyard. Now I am on a mission to grow an avocado tree in our homestead from avocado pit. Spent a few hours online doing some research for how to go […] I grew an avocado last year and it was really nice and growing fast. a lot of big leaves and more then 1 meter high already… but then over christmas i did not water for 2 weeks and he lost all the leaves.. but now they are slightly comming back over the year by far the easiest SURE way to grow an avocado pit is to wrap the seed in wet paper towel, put it in a quart sized freezer bag, put the date for 6 weeks later on it (that’s when you’re going to plant it) and toss the whole thing under your sink (in the cabinet) and forget it till the date on it. when removed it might be a bit moldy (no problem) but plant it root down in a pot of soil and you have a tree. I have begun the journey of the Avocado Tree I have ten avocado pitts all in water I am in hopes they will start rooting soon (temporarily to place them with toothpicks… thank you for your tips of experience… I will update you… […] Regrow Avocado – This easy to follow tutorial requires toothpicks and patience. More avocado’s are not guaranteed, but they have been known to grow. No matter what, you will definitely end up with a great plant to feature in your garden. […] […] Grow An Avacado Tree by The Hungry Mouse (This I have done before, they are very leggy, awkard plants that wont produce for a very very long time – if ever.) […] thank you all for the advice, I just placed my avocado pit in glass with water, lets see what happens….. I think i got really lucky as i was getting a lot of free avo’s from a mate who was pruning on an 100% organic farm but unfortunately a couple of the avo’s went over ripe, so i planted a whole avo in a pot ( fruit and all) and it struck and is growing well. […] […] […] indeed. I am really excited about this little avocado project and I found a really good blog post how to do grow an avocado tree from an Avocado pit by Hungry Mouse I´d recommend you to have a look at that post if you want more ideas on how to […] I have been growing avocados from seed for the past several months. I have them in water and in a western window in Wa state. I have had every one of them sprout and grow up to 12″ with 2-3 sets of leaves but then the leaves curl and dir and the tip of the stalk turns black and the black creeps down toward the seed and the plant is dead. I have tried extra water, less water, pinching the leaves, letting the leaves grow. I start them in water with toothpicks and then put them in a 1 gallon pot with store bought soil. I’ve tried osmocote and not. Doesn’t matter what I do they die from the top down. Anyone have any ideas?? Mine is doing the same thing. it is about 24-26 inches tall, has about 9 leaves. 5 are turning bown and dry . but seed looks good. It seems to like a lot of water.. I just pinched off the top, hoping it will sprout more leaves and get ‘bushy’. this is the first avocado that has ever sprouted for me. I have tryed many times. Do I need to feed it more? ideas as to kind of food? I dont care if it ever produces fruit. I am just proud it has done as well as it has. advise? […] Regrow Avocado – This easy to follow tutorial requires toothpicks and patience. More avocado’s are not guaranteed, but they have been known to grow. No matter what, you will definitely end up with a great plant to feature in your garden. […] […] How To Grow An Avocado Tree From A Pit […] I have been “rooting” my seed for about 3 months now. I have a root but no green stems of leaves on top! Should I start over or is it being slow. I live in Wi. so it doesn’t get much light. I had the same problem. My avocado seed grew about a 3 inch root but wasn’t growing a stem so I took it out of the water and planted it in soil. A few weeks later the stem started shooting up and seems to be growing great now. […] crecer : Es posible hacer crecer un árbol de aguacate de una pepa de aguacate , pero al hacerlo no puede rendir frutos comestibles. Si quieres comer lo que siembras, lo mejor […] How did it work out? ALso, can you grow an advocado tree indoors? I had to improvise because I dont keep toothpicks around..I used a sink strainer and set it in a container.Whatdya think? It just takes patience! I started avocado trees from seed with two of my grandchildren 9 and 10 years ago. The trees finally grew to over 18 feet. My husband kept threatening to cut them down if they didn’t produce. We had planted them right next to each other. This year they finally produced over 40 GREAT tasting avocados!!! The trees get to stay! We live in Stockton, Ca. i started 2 kinds of avocados. one is a bass and i don’t lnow the other but the fruit was 6 t0 7 inches long and the pit was 3 times as large as the bass and the fruit much sweeter. i didn’t start them in water just put them in a pot half covered with soil. the bass took about 4 weeks to come out but the other 2 weeks. the bass is 40 in tall and the other is 30. is it to late to nip the top. all plants have lots of leaves. does anyone know the name of the big one with the large pit? […] Regrow Avocado – This easy to follow tutorial requires toothpicks and patience. More avocado’s are not guaranteed, but they have been known to grow. No matter what, you will definitely end up with a great plant to feature in your garden. […] Can they grow inside also? I live in iowa and have terribly harsh winters :/ Was gonna send you a pic of the tree but. Didnt see a place to upload one are,s is about 2 foot tall […] How To Grow An Avocado Tree From A Pit […] I planted my Avacado last December, it’s getting quite big however I live in New York and will never be able to leave this outside all year around, but it’s still fun to do with that kids and see how fat we can take it -James […] schema: – Bilder från Tant Johannas helt fantastiska hem. Ser så mysigt ut i varenda vrå. – How to grow an avocado tree from an avocado pit. Avokadoträd, de allra finaste! Nästa hipstergrej efter ekollonen? – Vintagebloppis 2014 egna […] […] Avokado […] This method rarely ever works. The best way to do it is to put the pit on your window sill to completely dry out (about two weeks.) When it’s ready, it should split a little at the seem. Once that happens, plant in a medium sized pot under about a half an inch of potting soil and keep it wet. After about a week, a small “stick” will poke out of the seed. This is your sprout. Once you get the first leaves it won’t take the plant long to grow. I’ve sprouted two plants in a row using this method, and that’s 2 for 2. Tried it twice, it worked twice. The toothpick method has never worked. EVER. Remember that most seeds/pits, etc. need to dry out in order to be activated. I grew one on my porch in El Cajon (actually by Valhalla) a long time ago, in another century. She bore one avocado. We had a Luau in her honor and we served her instead of poi. She had a very large pit and not too much meat. She had grown into a great big tree and we had to cut her down as I planted too close to the house. I had expected her to die but couldn’t just throw her out when she got to too big for the window sill. Then we burned the wood in the fireplace. Pretty good return for 10 for a dollar avocados at the side of the road, I told you it was a long time ago! I found if you let it dry out for a little bit it works better. arti I just found this and I’m preparing my seed now with my granddaughter as our garden project. I will post pictures as we begin to see progress thanks! […] […] […] The Hungry Mouse – How to Grow an Avocado Tree from an Avocado Pit […] I live in central Fla and love growing are trying to grow everything I just started my avocados and I have a small creek behind my home. I started using the Blake suppy mud off the bottom from time to time instead of just water great results on fruit and citrus. […] Regrow Avocado – This easy to follow tutorial requires toothpicks and patience. More avocado’s are not guaranteed, but they have been known to grow. No matter what, you will definitely end up with a great plant to feature in your garden. […] Check out how I started my pits. Self-Regulating Avocado Flotation Device, I have a seedling within month 1/2. I added air and heated water in a tub and blacked out the light. awesome!! thank you for sharing your talent and knowledge .. my kids are going crazy jumping up and down with joy. We have tried to grow a tree before but were unsuccessful. we are trying your way again, thank you. […] household. It’s nothing new; we carried it over with us from Australia. Ben is attempting to grow his own avocado tree from an avocado pit suspended in water, after seeing one of our friends conducting a similar […] Can you plant 3 avocados growing trees in the same pot? Mine are ready to plant in soil, and I don’t have enough pots!! One site said 8″ pot, another site said 10″ pot — just for one pit!! How did your three in one pot do????? Or were they separate?? Thanks. After the past three months of having four glasses of water with avocado pits in them in my window, I am slightly annoyed that I didnt’ see these comments earlier. LOL On the bright side, one of my avocados is finally ready to go into soil! I’m not sure why its taking so long… This is really helpful, thank you. I used to grow avocadoes years ago, using The Pip Book which I can’t find now. I’ve had a pit sitting in water for weeks and it’s been hard to keep faith. But I persevered and this week, a root appeared. The book also suggested cutting back the plant early on, I remembered, so it was good to find your instructions. Duly bookmarked. […] Avocado […] […] Source […] […] How to Grow an Avocado Tree from an Avocado Pit | The … – Sep 09, 2009 · I’ve grown 3 avocado trees just by sticking the seed right into the potted soil, leaving the top of the seeds uncovered. The growing process didn’t …… […] […] How to Grow an Avocado Tree from an Avocado Pit | The Hungry … – Also,what’s best way to grow seeds from organic tomato plants? … Potatoes are easy to grow. … Avocado seeds do not grow because the ones that produce fruit are cut from the fruit producing tree. […] […] …… […] Hello, how are you? Your instructions worked very well me! I have a 1 foot tall avocado tree! I would send you some pictures, but I don’t know how. Thank you so much Thiago Re …… […] […] Regrow an Avocado – Did you know if you plant an avocade pit you can actually grow an avocado tree at home! […] I save all Non-GMO vegetable seeds from the foods I prepare for myself and send them to Zambia Africa. Does anyone one know the best way to store Avocado pits as I only send seeds every couple of months? Do I let the pit dry out and store at room temperature or put it in the freezer until I am ready to send it? Any suggestions? […] source via The Hungry Mouse Grow your own Pineapple Tree photo source via Goods Home […] Thank you for the suggestion! In Hawaii, the avocado trees are absolutely massive but many years ago, a friend of mine grew a pit into a little 6-7′ tree that she took from apartment to apartment and it seemed perfectly healthy. I’m giving this a go now with a regular (non-Hass) avocado pit in soil, as another commenter here suggested. It’s too cold here to grow avocado outdoors but the tropics can be enjoyed indoors via tropical houseplants. Looking forward to having a happy little tree! <3 Oh, and with growing fruit outdoors – it's a good idea to have at least 3 trees to insure good pollination and male/female trees, in species that operate in this way. It's also good to make sure that they're different varieties/cultivars. I don't know the biology behind this but I've grown pawpaws (not to be confused with papaya) and apples successfully this way. Growing native and heirloom fruit is a great hobby, if you have even a small yard to work with. […] Avocado […] I just wanted to add that if you wait till you get a VERY ripe avocado from the store,a lot of times there is already a very tiny root already growing on the bottom. It seems easier to wait for an over ripe one than my kids lining up a half dozen jars on my counter for weeks and hoping one will actually sprout lol

Since recalls)? But instead, I’ll just give you a few recipes for homemade pet food. First of all, it is a myth that you can’t feed your pet healthy, home-made food on a budget. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on this. Cats and dogs in the wild will eat just about anything, including most of what they can find in our garbage cans. We are not saying feed your dog or cat table scraps and garbage. But we ARE saying that you don’t need to cook them some gormet meal every night. Here’s how simple it can be: (See pet food treats recipe below. These are more than just “treats”. Think of them as dietary supplements for your pet.) Dogs are happy with something as simple as chicken and rice. They do need a carbohydrate source, so don’t feed them meat-only meals. And you should also avoid certain ingredients, as they can be dangerous (i.e. onions, garlic, grapes, and chocolate). Home Made Simple Dog Food Recipe #1 Basic Chicken, Rice, and Oats - One whole boiled cooked chicken (don’t feed the dog the entire chicken. Just the meat.) - Half Bag wild brown rice cooked in with the chicken - One Cup of Oats Basic Chicken, Rice, and Oats - One whole boiled cooked chicken (don’t feed the dog the entire chicken. Just the meat.) - Half Bag wild brown rice cooked in with the chicken - One Cup of Oats Notes: The oats are added when chicken is done. This should be enough to feed an average-sized dog for about three days. Cats require more protein and less carbohydrates than dogs. Here is a simple way to feed your cat home-cooked meals while all of these pet food recalls are going around: Home Made Cat Food Recipe #1 High Protein Catfood Meal High Protein Catfood Meal Switch off the protein sources with each batch or two. Switch between: - Half Pound of minced boneless chicken breast or thigh - Six Ounces of dark-mean ground turkey or minced turkey - Half Pound of lean, minced beef - Half Pound of minced beef, chicken or turkey heart - Half Pound of minced boneless chicken breast or thigh - Six Ounces of dark-mean ground turkey or minced turkey - Half Pound of lean, minced beef - Half Pound of minced beef, chicken or turkey heart Notes: About three times per week, include one chopped hard-boiled or scrambled egg. Occasionally substitute a five-ounce can of salmon or tuna for the meat. Avoid canned salmon or tuna for cats that are prone to urinary tract infections In addition to making your own dog food or cat food, you can make your own pet treats just as easily, and they provide a great supplement to your pet’s diet: LIVER COOKIES for Dogs and Cats -. How to Make a Few More Home-Made Dog and Cat Food Recipes: Dog Food Recipe #2 – Slightly More Complicated but Still Simple What You Need: One Pound Lean Ground Beef, Four large eggs, Eight cups brown rice, Twelve slices of decrusted, crumbled bread (white or wheat) What You Need: One Pound Lean Ground Beef, Four large eggs, Eight cups brown rice, Twelve slices of decrusted, crumbled bread (white or wheat) How to Make It: - How to Make Dog Food with Veggies Mixed In. Cat Food with Veggies Mixed In. Do you have catfood or dogfood recipe that you would like to share? Do you know how to make healthy food for your pet? Please comment below so we can share your recipe with the rest of our readers! Click Here for dietary supplements to add to dog food. 91 thoughts on “How to Make Your Own Dog and Cat Food the Simple Way” Gogs should live to be 27 most dont.. The reason being DOG FOOD SUPPLIERS Read how they make it if you can.. Do not buy their food..Make your own..yougert little doggie vietiamns No way make the food and they will live for ever.. My little girl is 19 and has never had commercial food…Look it up make a healthy dog! I have two dogs and I have been making their food since they were puppies.. They love raw carrots and its good for their teeth, Apples, Pears, Brocolli and green beans ,carrots always raw vegies for my babies, brown rice and nothing bought from the stores, feed stores. Their treats they are easiest to make and your pet will live longer.. Use the recipies of forming dog biskets and make you own beleive me you dog will clean their teeth with this. Cook all meat mine are liver, chicken and chicken livers, no red meat unless its a roast or a steak cut up in little pieces, NO HAMBURGER! Egg whites cooked for their coats. stops shedding… Good Luck My lhasa apso was not a good eater when we adopted her. She would go a day or two without eating before finally nibbling at the kibble we gave her (which was a high quality one). I couldn’t stand the smell and decided to look into making my own food. After much reading and experimentation, I came up with the recipe below, which improved her coat, energy and overall well being. We don’t feed any commercial dog food anymore–it can’t be trusted. She’s been on this diet for two years, and the vet compliments her outstanding health at every appointment. A year ago, we adopted a shih tzu who spent the first five years of his life in a puppy mill and was very food aggressive. We weaned him off of the kibble and onto our food, which he loved. I was so proud of him on the 7th day when he picked out the kibble pieces from his bowl and spit them on the floor. Dogs know for the most part what is good for them and what isn’t; they just usually don’t have a choice. We supplement this recipe with a pet multivitamin every day and let them have little bits of yogurt, eggs and cooked meats through the week. We make it in large batches and freeze it in storage containers, and because our dogs are small, one batch lasts 3-4 weeks. 10 lbs ground turkey (we buy ours at Sam’s Club) 2 sweet potatoes 2 boxes frozen spinach 2 pounds frozen peas 2 pounds frozen carrots 6 cups or more quick cook oats Peel and dice sweet potatoes and place in a pot of boiling water. When potatoes are tender, remove from water and add the frozen veggies in the same pot until cooked through. Set veggies and cooking liquid aside to cool. In a large stock pot, cook turkey with oil and a little water if necessary until cooked through. Because dogs have trouble digesting vegetables that aren’t broken down, blend the veggies and sweet potatoes with the cooking liquid in batches until smooth and add it to your cooked turkey, stirring thoroughly. This makes the veggies form a “gravy” that is much easier to digest. Add oats until mixture thickens. Divide into freezer containers to cool and then defrost as necessary. Food will keep in the fridge after being defrosted for 2-3 days. Please be careful about what you feed your animals! I make the majority of my dogs foods with similar recipes.One of them I use is boiled chicken, carrots, green beans and rice and I use the ground beef, egg and rice also. My house is 100% organic so my animals are too. But I also supplement it with a small amount of halo dry dog food (made in the US and 100% organic) for their teeth and also because it has some supplements they need such as calcium and natural oils. But the point I want to make is I read that some people buy chicken pre-made for their dogs from a store. This is really dangerous. There are MANY foods that are very dangerous to dogs. Two of them being onions and garlic! Even onion powder and garlic powder are extremely dangerous to dogs. Both of those foods have a chemical compound that can not be processed with their liver or kidneys. So if you purchase chicken from a store that is pre-cooked and it has onion or garlic powder on it you could be causing your dog to have a short life. Plus the amount of salt that is on a store bought cooked chicken is horrible for your pet! A dog should NEVER EVER have any foods that were cooked with onion and garlic. They will eventually have a problem with kidneys and/or liver. Dogs can’t have avocados, chocolate, onions, garlic and the list goes on. I have a friend that always bragged how well fed her border collie was. That she always fed it pot roast and whatever they had for dinner. I tried to tell her about the onions but her response always was “Oh, the onions are cooked away by the time she gets it”. This process actually leaves the rawest form of the onion behind and although the flesh of the onion is gone, the most harmful chemical is concentrated and remains. Needless to say her dog had to be put down at 4 due to kidney failure from this diet. I have to admit I’m a little suspicious of a “raw food” diet. Chicken especially can be contaminated with samonella, and I knew someone who’s dog nearly died from food poisoning. I feed my dog “Doggy Casserole” for 1 meal and kibble for his other. My dog is a bit of a fussy eater…if he hasn’t had it before, or if there’s a new spice in it, he’s sure he doesn’t like it and won’t even try it. DOGGY CASSEROLE lrg package extra-lean ground beef garlic kale brown rice beef broth or consomee broccoli and/or carrots and/or cauliflower and/or other veggie olive (or vegetable) oil 1. Fry extra-lean ground beef, 2. When browned add 2 cloves finely chopped garlic and cook until garlic is soft (there is some disagreement whether garlic is OK for dogs or not; IMHO I think it’s cuz garlic isn’t good for cats, and onions aren’t good for either; dogs REALLY LIKE garlic though and since there is no consensus about the matter, I feed my dog garlic, but you are free to do as you choose) 3. Turn off heat and add kale, mix until wilted 4. MEANWHILE cook brown rice in canned broth (use 1 can rice per can of broth+1 can water) 5. Boil veggies until almost done (they should still be a little hard or all the nutrition is lost in the water) 6. Grate veggies and mix with beef; add rice 7. Add oil and mix well I have also used this basic recipie with turkey (or chicken…I don’t use chicken cuz it upsets my dog’s tummy) GREAT way of using up left over turkey! I have also used potatoes instead of rice. I’m sure barley, oats or even pasta would work too. I use a ratio of 40% meat, 45% carbs and 15% veggies I use kale, but any veggie from the cabbage family is also good. I make a lot (double this recipie) and store it in my freezer in glad containers. I also give my dog glucosamine (due to his age) and a multi-vitamin for dogs daily. I have a small dog and was wondering can I freeze portions of the dog food… all the recipes are large portions and dont want to waste any? We feed our dogs Orijen. Can be bought at small pet suppliers. The manufacturer is located in Canada. It’s a well balance food that is free of pesticides. My Border Collie does better with beef and pork than he does with chicken (better stools). I add some of this to dry INNOVA – Innova has never been on a recall list and I absolutely swear by it. My previous dog – a Golden – lived to be 17 with absolutely no issues until the day she died – and she ate ONLY Innova. Unfortunately it is hard to find sometimes, and it is one of the more expensive brands, but I absolutely trust the company and my trust has been borne out. The dog receipes are good….but NOT complete. Oh by the way, my dog gets no commercial treats and has never had to have his teeth cleaned. Has never been sick a day in his life so far (9 years) – runs like a puppy. Eventually I will add glucosamine to his diet ( 1ml/day ), but that’s it. Keep your dogs thin and they will live longer and more arthritis-free (less stress on the hips) I feed BARF (raw diet) to my dogs and they are so healthy & happy. It is amazing how vets & people in general talk about a balanced diet and most humans eat terribly imbalanced meals. Dog food is relatively new 1930s and dogs have been around for much longer than that! How did they survive without Purina??? They ate a biologically appropriate diet – in nature or on the farm. Give your dog a bone – he will love you. I go to a local chicken farm and they bag chicken backs in 5 lb bags for my 2 great danes. I then make my own raw veggie/fruit mix & freeze. I tailor it to their needs – glucosomine for my old guy, oatmeal if you have skin issues, etc. I also give them pork necks, ground beef, lamb bones so they have variety – would you like to eat the same old food day in and day out? The cons – must have freezer space, extra time to puree veggies, tougher to find help when leaving for vacations or bringing with you on a trip the pros- smaller poopoos (great benefit with great danes!), cheaper, awesome teeth with no need to have them cleaned, the dogs love the diet & they are very healthy – even my vet agrees although he is not pro BARF diet. Its tough to look a 2 very healthy dogs and say they are not eating right – they look 10X better than other dogs on expensive “vet approved” kibble. If interested, there are books on how to feed raw. Dr. Billinghurst book “Give your dog a bone” began a movement from kibble to raw & I would feed nothing else! Doc’s Choice is an american made dog/puppy/cat food, developed by a veteranarian, that is great. my mother and i worked at a petstore that carried it when it first came out. We had been using Diamond puppy food for the puppies there and were dealing with puppies having a hard time adjusting to the puppy food after weaning, and actually had puppies dieing then we switched to this and our problems stopped. Doc’s Choice is 90% digestable, which is more than i can say for your leading brand dog foods. the only problem is its only sold in 7 states at hyvee stores anymore. Check out the website. we would be using this dog food for our pets if we had a hyvee store nearer than topeka or lawrence. Glad to find some alternatives to the store bought “stuff”. We had to put our Black Lab to sleep the end of September due to cancer. Neighbor’s dog was put down 1 month earlier for cancer as well. My instinct is telling me that it’s coming from pet food, but I can’t prove that. Nothing worse than seeing you pet who would eat ANYTHING, suddenly not even touch steak due to pancreatic cancer. Next pet that I get will likely get homemade dog food. While I do believe that pet owners can make their own food, I ran into the situation where my dog had food allergies. I could not get the vet to believe that it wasn’t a different skin condition until I finally took it into my own hands and started my dog on a different protein/binder combination from a a company called California Naturals. I love this food as my dog quickly overcame his skin condition and I eventually started giving it to my other two dogs. My little elderly arthritic friend is a ball of energy now and her coat gleams. I went to purchase my next bag and am just furious that California Naturals is now owned by Proctor and Gamble. Wonder how long it will take before they start adding pesticides and changing a proven recipe? It”s like the big companies think that the food needs to contain other binders and agents. Now I start whole process of finding a new food source and hope that in the meantime, Proctor and Gamble don’t end up poisioning the food. I have a 9 year old peek-a-poo that has colitis. I tried many different dog foods on her. She vomited and bloody feces every time she ate. So my vet said to put her on chicken and white rice and I added canned pumpkin to the mix. She eats organic chicken and brown rice sticks with no wheat as a treat. She finally is doing very well. She does have an occasional relapse and she will not want to eat so I let her go a day without food but then I give her plain yogurt to carry her over til the next day and that works for her. I’ve worked in a Veterinarians office for about 10 years and I’ve seen LOTS of diets that people feed their pets and seen the impact.The home made dog foods are good just make sure it is FULL of variety and that you brush their teeth. This kind of diet reeks havoc on teeth and it can eventually kill them from bacteria or their teeth fall out and it makes it hard for them to eat at all. That being said, VERY few people can really fullfill a dog’s diet this way. I definately recommend going and sticking with a commercial dog food. If you really want to pick a good dog food, at least, the best choice that you can make. Look at the dog food ingredients. Make sure that a Meat is the very first ingredient. If it’s grain or by product or meal, it’s not good. You’re just feeding your dog or cat bread and candy. The first ingredient should only be a meat, plain and simple. This is a simiple rule and pretty easy to follow for the most part. I know there is fear of a recall but they even recall human food sometimes. There is no 100% “safe” food-for people or animals. To Anis RE: gravy You can make a great delicious “gravy” for your cat this way. Boil chicken bones or beef bones in water, add carrots for flavor and a dash of salt. Let simmer for several hours, covered, to make a stock. (The longer the better as you get more flavor and crack the bones so the marrow gets cooked out into the stock). You can then either add barley, oats or rice to the stock. Add a little more water as you don’t want it too pasty and you want everything to cook down as much as possible. Let cool then run through either a food processor (blender is a little too messy for me) or a potato ricer. You can grind it down as smooth as you want to the right consistancy for your cat. When you go to feed the cat, add a little warm water to dilute (I use a whisk to add water) and then feed to your cat. I had a JRT who had throat cancer and in her final days had a really hard time eating and swallowing food. I liked the ground beef receipe until I saw that you are THROWING AWAY ALL THE PROTEIN in the egg by discarding the yolk – why? In the above receipe you are boiling up whole chickens, so why wouldn’t you use the yolk in a receipe? That is just silly and wasteful. Also, instead of frozen veggies, take the time to cut up and steam some fresh veggies. Steam to a soft crunch – not all dogs like food that tastes like mush plus it slows them down in eating, which is better for the digestion. I know a cat who’s really senior and most of the time, she only manages to lick the gravy from the cat food due to teeth issues. Does anyone know a way to make a homemade, high-nutrition sauce/gravy, hopefully with a bit of grain mixed in? Is flour, constarch, ground rice or oatmeal better as a thickener? Are there any brands out there that has a LOT of gravy in their cans that you know of? thanks, anis Most store purchased cat or dog foods have a lot of things in that are bad for animals and we would never imagine a person could or would eat. Though some can be actually, suprisingly good. I only use home made cat food on occasions or for when i have left overs that need using. I feel the best way to make home made cat food is: Make a roast chicken and remove all the meat (be sure that there are NO bones, a double check might be necessary) Boil the bones to make a stock, add a vitamin supplement if you wish, and iron and calcium one is ideal, then strain the fuid off (be sure to discard of the bones to a place where no animals can get to them as they can be very dangerous) seperate the chicken meat into dishes (for freezing or refrigerating) Mix the premade stock with geletin on the hob, stiring until ready, then pour over the chicken flakes. If you wish, add pre cooked carrots (cut into small pieces) and peas. Leave to set, then after a few hours it is ready to serve. I have worked with animals for a very long time and a meal like this can be beneficial, though you should beware as some owners will find that their pet will not eat store purchased food after this. To avoid fussy eating habits and ensure a balanced diet, feed your cat high quality branded food most of the time. Also rice is good as it can be delicate on the stomach, this recipe is very rich, so try adding some cooked rice if you want to feed more regularly. Saying that you cannot feed a pet animal without adding in dry food or comercially produced vitaman supplements is an absolute load of crap, Steve, you especially as a ‘trainee vet’ who by his own admission knows almost nothing about canine nutrition should not be telling people this. For those of you who don’t know all vetinary practices in both the US and the UK are sponsored by a variety of drugs and food production companies and it is common pratice for them to suggest a variety of foods, drugs, treatments and etc for the benefit of their or their sponsors wallets, i’m not a wacko conspiracy theorist, I have spent 10 years doing accounts for vet practices in the UK and have seen first hand how the sponsorship works. Dog foods may be conveinient but so far we have not found a single dry food sold in the UK that actually gives a dog a completely balanced diet or freedom from risk of infection, processed ingredients or chemicals, i’m sorry but the idea that these are best for your animal is a complete myth, the recalls just add to the unsatisfactory nature of these foods. My dog Toby is a german wired haired pointer and the breeding farm he came from is run by very close family friends and both of them are fully qualified vets with over 40 years experience between them. I have fed Toby the same diet they use for all their dogs which consists of a balance of cooked lean meat (i’ve found goat and lamb are best for my dog as the breed is of mediterranean origin), varieties of wheat (including rice) and veg/fruit, supplemented by dairy products and eggs during their daily feeding and the veg rotated to give the range of vitamens Toby requires. Just to make a point all their dogs which have been fed on this diet have outlived the usual recommended lifespan for this breed their oldest, Reg, being 16 (the avaerage lifespan for a pointer is 12) this year with no major diseases, few infections and only very mild arthritis in his back legs so he has to take his walks a bit easier. You really want to look after your pet properley do the right breed research and find a vet or breeding specialiat who knows the breed well and can advise you of the nutrition it requires, once you know what it needs make the effort and find the foods that your pet will get this from. Please let me know if anyone has a simple recipe for urinary tract cat food, dry or wet. My cat has a urinary tract infection that is metabolic not bacterial and has to be on special food that cost approx. $60 at the vet. I can not afford this. Anything anyone can provide would be much appreciated. Thank you. I own/work a 3 employee dog biscuit company. I oly sell to friends and family and hope that some how the word will get out. My dog died a while ago from sometype of unkown liver disease and so did our neighbors. they were both on pedigree. so thank you for the usefull info on the melamine and etc. And even though I will not feed my pet dry food i do have a recipe. 4 cups of flour 1 egg 1 pinch of salt oats or flax 1/3 cup honey. mix it all together. roll it out so it’s very thin and chop it up into little cubes. bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes . don’t let them turn black nor let them be soft in the middle. July 16,2009 My dog had to be taken to the animal ER for vomiting blood. The Vet asked what kind of dog food to which I replied Beneful. The Vet explained that Beneful is made from soy and that dogs can’t digest soy. He told me to prepare my own 50 25 25 mixture of cooked ground beef or chicken,peas n carrots, brown or white rice. Crushed egg shell. I put all my dogs on this and the sick one is all better plus the fat one lost weight. They used to hover over their bowls and growl. Now they gobble it down with tails wagging the whole time. Hi, I am so confused and clueless about what to feed my dog. I went to the pet store and was told that science diet (what I have been feeding my dog) was a horrible food to feed my pet because of the ingredients in it and was advised to get nutro natural choice and my dachshund is now throwing up bile which she has never done before. I’m so scared because she is my life and I want the best for her. I’m fed up because no matter what dog food I try to get after being told it is the healthiest one, I find out it is really bad. What do I do?????? PLEASE HELP ME Unfortunately going to the vet is not the best solution_most vets have very little training in nutrition. They also are being paid by the companies such as Iams and Hills to sell their food. Both of my cats have had problems(one w/ allergies the other w/ urinary tract problems) The vet recommended foods did nothing and my cat would not even eat the Hills ZD. In Milwaukee we have several natural pet food stores run by people who have spent their time researching animal nutrition. There are so many natural, well balanced foods out there (my cats eat Wellness and my dog eats Fromms) I would look for a store in your area which specializes in animal nutrition before asking a vet. In Milwaukee I go to The Natural Pet I buy a fresh whole chicken and i bake it to feed my cat and dog, then i strip the meat off of the chicken and i put the carcass in a pot and cover it with water and slowly simmer it for a couple of hours, when cold it jells. They love it and it is good protein for my cat and dogs bones. Thanks everybody! The dry food I primarily use is manufactured at it’s own facility, with their own-grown (supposedly) ingredients. I use Canidae or Felidae (made in Canada). I would still like to make my own, though. My family & I eat very organically & healthy with our diet, so I feel that my pets should too. We have a Sheltie & a tabby cat (who believes he is King of the house). They are our babies (my hubby says I treat them & feed them better than I do him!) I saw the recipes for dogs, but my main ques is can they be modified for cats? If so, how? Also, did anybody ever come up with dry dog/cat food, as we travel a lot & it’s nearly impossble to take homemade food on the road. Thanks again, everybody, for the great tips & info!! Jordyn, its very easy to make gravy.. All you need to do is boil meat like chicken,lamb or beef soup bones. Remove the meat from the pot and place in separate container. Then, I put the liquid in the fridge overnight. As the liquid cools, the fat will solidify on top of the water. So the next day, i just skim all the yukky waxy fat off of the top and VOILA i have consomme. You can just add that to your pets food! Good luck I was wondering if you guys can post a recipe for cat food gravy because my cat loves it and won’t eat the food. so please post a resipe soon! Very good article! I just want to share with you th two homemade cat food that I like the most wich are: (beautiful collection of homemade cat food recipes that you can make yourself) While this other blog deals with more general aspects on how you should and/or you should not feed a cat: I hope this helps. Good Luck! Food for thought. I switched my dog to a homemade diet because I am having trouble finding a commercial food that she can tolerate. I have done a lot of reading on line and talked to her vet about it. Her vet suggested speaking to a veterinary nutritionist (DAVCN) to make sure that you are giving a balanced diet. There are supplements out there offered by vets who specialize in this field. One of them is Rebecca Remillard. I suggest some reading up on the necessary supplements and meat vs. veggie ratio that your pet requires. Also, to Candy Evans from Feb 1. Rebecca Remillard has reciped for animals with special food requirements due to illness. I raise hyberd cats and dogs. I had 2 of my best bred cats get sick,but I didn’t lose them.I now am making my own feed,with rice,goat and vegies. Is ther any way of drying (as I have quite a few animals) Please help! I ahve a maale feline with cancer and he will only eat the gravy from fancy feast grilled foods. Does anyone have a recipe? I would be interested in any homemade gray ewcipes for cats. He has not like what I tried off the shelf – Vita Thank You Victoria with the GR/Chow, i would check to see what probiotics a dog needs or just try some of the ones humans need,maybe try a little buttermilk mixed with food sometimes. I had many of the same problems your dog has and once i built up the proper flora in my intestines and started eating good organic food all went away. I raise organic vegetables,fish, free range organic rabbits and poultry i use the brains and liver in my dogs food and they are the healthiest around. I also add some of my free range eggs,sometimes, which test have shone to be much lower in cholesterol. I usually use a combination of rice/beans that i slow cook in a heybox{insulated box, you put hot pot from stove into it and it maintains heat for many hours} only adding the meat in the last hour. I also add some of the raw duckweed{very high protein} that i use for feed and compost,and cook fish remains down.I grind down rabbit, fish and poultry bones and add some of this too when i have it. I do not use all in every batch just use what i have on hand at the time sometimes they just get raw livers on days i slaughter.. I am not a vet or a Dr but i have very healthy dogs and I am much healthier than I have ever been.My dogs get plenty of exercise,fresh air and attention. Maybe you should Google “complaints about Beneful” & start reading. Many websites with lots of complaints……..dogs have been getting sick on this for a long time. Recent problems have been that the food is infested with mites. This is just one: A lot of good reading on this site, but my suggestion for dog food is Beniful by Purina. Comes wet or dry and my Jack Russell just savors the wet balance meal. Check it out and you will probably like it as well as your dog. Even before the recalls became frequent,Iknew there was something wrong…my daughter has 5 cats…yeah 5..she collected strays!! 3 of them would get sick after eating certain brands of cat food…wobbly ,falling down sick!! One cat in particular seemed very sensitive.I really thought she would not make it the last time we fed them store bought food.We have been making their food now for about 4 years.It is easy and not very expensive and they have been doing very well. We used to use a rice base but two of the cats decided they were bored with that and wouldnt touch it anymore. so now I switch it up between grits and oatmeal,both of which they LOVE!! Sometimes I add barley or alfalfa. Then I add the protien. found they prefer some variety here too. I boil the meat in the water that I will later add the oats or grits to. I often use chicken livers and hearts.SOmetimes I use fish or beef or a combination of more than one.Every once in awhile I see a soup bone ,pork or beef, at the grocery store butcher, for real cheap and I will boil that up with the meat,cutting any scraps of meat off the bone to add to the mixture, I like to add a little fish oil to the meat mixture,for the nutrients and vitamins and they like it. After the meat comes, the beans and veggies.Just like little kids, I had to sneak veggies in a little at a time because they did not like them at first.Now they love them.THeir favorites are carrots,peas and spinach…especially spinach!! They all love beans too .(one of the cats loves fresh strawberries so much she will steal them from our bowls…are they good for cats????) I put the veggies and beans through the blender and add it to the meat and carb mixture. Voila!! Spoiled happy cats with thick fur coats and seem to be very healthy…not overweight ,not under weight. WHen they ate the store bought food,they were all under weight,no matter how much they ate.I think they threw alot of it up. so basicly it goes like this: GRAINS: OATMEAL OR GRITS WITH SOME BARLY OR ALFALFA ADDED PROTEINS: CHICKEN LIVER AND HEARTS(CHOPPED FINE AND BOILED IN THE WATER BEFORE BOILING THE GRAINS IN IT) WITH WHATEVER OTHER MEATS i WANT TO ADD FOR VARIETY….ALSO BEANS VEGGIES: YOUR CATS FAVORITE VEGGIES (if they have such a thing) AND BEANS IN THE BLENDER….MIX UNTIL THE CONSISTENCY OF REFRIED BEANS.mIX IN WITH MEAT AND GRAINS ADD A LITTLE FISH OIL IF YOU HAVE IT (MY CATS ALSO LIKE GRAPESEED OIL BUT ITS A BIT PRICEY SO THAT IS A SOMETIME TREAT) AlSO ADD FELINE VITAMINS IF YOU GOT THEM. ?” Wow, you nailed it in your second paragraph! However, I am not sure of some recipes, since cats are obligate carnivores. I would prefer not to feed my cats vegetables or beef. How ironic that you raised the question of melamine (also used to make countertops) in baby food at the beginning of April, little knowing that it was probably already happening, although it apparently took until September for the chilling truth to come out. Any more recipes? I was born and raised in the country , we had a pet when i was born and that dog ate the same thing that we ate and it lived for twenty years . i was born in 1936 and the vet back in them days tended to mules horse’s and cattle only. so that dog never had to have the service of a vet. and more facts if you have a pet when he is a puppy give him baby asprins until he is grown then give him or her a regular asprin and they will never get heart worms if they are bitten by a grimlin with the heart worm various. i am 72 years old now. These are great recipes for my cats. And another great recipe is ground beef with rice and carrots with green beans. I have a Golden Retriever / Chow mix, that has a beef allergy. Long story short, we have tried all kinds of different meats, duck, venison, rabbit, ( commercial canned / dry versions with rice or potato ) She tolerated those okay, but something still wasn’t quite right with her stomach. ( She also has Irritable Bowel Syndrome & is on Prednisone ) We also eliminated gelatin ( made from beef ) corn & wheat from her foods, including her biscuits & treats. She also has a problem with acid reflux ( on Tagamet ) & has to eat smaller meals. Last but not least, she burps like a truck driver! She never enjoyed what we offered her to eat, & meal times were awful just trying to get her to eat. ( We have spared no expense on food ) When she won’t eat, her stomach starts growling so loud, you can hear it across the room, ( starts about 15 min. past her regular feed times ) & her symptoms continue to worsen. Did I tell you this was the short version?! Due to the severity of her food intolerance, our vet suggested feeding her cooked rice with very well-cooked chicken. He said to make sure she took a vitamin supplement daily, while on this regimen. She loved eating this for a while, but due to other issues with her stomach, she even started turning her nose up at this. ( She was one miserable dog ) Somewhere, somehow I heard about an organic pet food made by Paul Newman ( the actor who donates the profits from his food company, to charity ) His company also makes dog & cat food. He has a website that lists all the different types of pet foods they offer, where they are sold, the ingredients, etc. The brand of pet food is called “Newman’s Own” ( dry and canned ) The types under that brand that I feed my dog are: * Turkey & Brown Rice / canned * Premium Dog Food / Advanced Formula for puppies & senior dogs This pet food has helped my dog immensely!!!!!! She really likes it also! It has no artificial/chemical preservatives that is put in other pet foods. ( There is a natural preservative ) It also has lots of other good, healthy foods in it! My vet did mention when I told him what I was feeding her, that with an organic canned food, ( even with a natural preservative in it ) that it will not stay as fresh as long, as other canned foods with a chemical preservative. He just wanted to make me aware that it might spoil faster. I usually use a regular size can within 2 days, & I keep it well sealed. I even put the re-sealed can into a “Lock&Lock plastic container. Since her diet is so restrictive, we also add well-cooked chicken over the top of her canned food. We used to always consider our dog a ” dainty eater. ” She would always eat at a slow pace, even carefully chewing her moistened, dry dog food. Since switching to this dog food ( & even without the real homemade chicken that we add to it ) she now inhales her food! No chewing, it just goes right down! Now we have to monitor her when eats, gently pulling the bowl away after a couple of bites of food. ( I have to try one of those new dog food bowls with the upright barriers in the bowl, that keeps the dog from gulping their food. ) She is a much happier dog!!! Sorry this went a bit long, but I know how hard it has been for us ( and her ) & the challenges along the way to find a food that she could tolerate and enjoy and it is also healthy for her. Each animal is unique & maybe this brand of pet food will help yours! One time while checking out another natural pet food website, I was reading the comments section on a very unique type of dog food. The pet owner was saying what a hard time she had finding a pet food, that one of her dogs could tolerate. She was very complimentary & very thankful that she had found that food for her dog, and finished her comments by saying, ” I hope this company never stops carrying this dog food, because I will just cry like a baby!” I can so relate to how she feels,& I LMAO! I am sure that there are many more owners out there that share the same experience! The pet food industry on the whole, needs an overhaul! Prior to the massive pet food recall in 2007, because of the food allergies my dog has, I was searching the internet re pet food. After the pet food recall, more owners have become more educated about how & what is put in their pet’s food. Reading the label on the container is not sufficient. Find out what those terms & ingredients mean! We have all been mislead for decades, thinking that if it was a commercial food product, that it was safe. For those of you who need more information, do an internet search for ” what is in pet food ” that should be a good place to start. You will not believe what the pet food industry uses for meat in some brands. Euthanized pets, yes you read that right! That is just the tip of the iceberg!! Please, the better educated we all are on this issue, the faster we will get the laws changed re the pet food industry!!! My heart goes out to all the owners everywhere, who had pets sickened and/or died because of tainted pet food. You were all in our prayers, during that desperate time. I buy Sience Diet,direct from my Vet Clinic.Both of my Dogs are on Prescription Diet. So far I never had an issue with spoiled Dog Food. Sometimes I make my own,but never bought any Food or Treats from Chain Stores/Mass Merchandise (like Wal Mart) neither I buy my own Families Food from such Mass Market Stores. It is bad that Pet Food is sold like that and to many dogs are getting sick of it. Greeetings barbara HALO is the best dog food out there.They sell it at petco. some say do not feed Flax Green, some say it is safe, I am confused. Flex plant is good for cat? Thanks your reply. I have a cat with suspected ‘nephrotic syndrome’ a kidney condition, which in my cat’s case is characterised by low blood albumin (a type of protein) but few of the other abnormalities associated with kidney disease. In human beings, this condition would be managed with a low protein diet. I am a dietitian, so have some expertise in this area (with human beings anyway) My vet has advised a high protein diet because of the cat’s low albumin levels, but I’m not so sure…. I note the posting about vets knowing little about animal nutrition!! I have read that the key is to feed a protein that is easily digested, which leaves the lowest possible nitrogen residue. Does anyonw know what sort of meat is the most ‘digestible’ to cats(by this criteria)? I am feeding my cat raw minced beef/lamb/turkey/chicken with lots of rice mixed in. She is fussy and it is the only thing she will eat. Is this a suitable diet, and is it ok to continue feeding raw mince – she won’t eat it when it is cooked, mixed with rice? I would be grateful for any advice about this, particularly from other people who have experienced the same thing (or similar) in their cats. Thanks I have 3 scotties–1 is 5 1/2, the other 2 are 4. I have cooked for them all their lives. They never go to the vet except for checkups, shots (they don’t get these every year and our vet agrees that’s OK) and sometimes ear mites. They are very healthy and don’t have any allergies. I feed them chicken, beef, green and yellow vegetables, sweet potatoes, brown rice and oatmeal. Once a week they get mackerel. The only supplement they get is flax seed meal. Sometimes I mix in textured vegetable protein. Scotties love to eat and (mine at least) tend to put on weight. When one of them starts to get a little pudgy, I just cut down a little on the fat and carbs for a while. I don’t take supplements or vitamins because I eat a healthy balanced diet; they don’t get vitamins either because they get a varied and balanced diet. I am very thankful that they were not eating any of those commercial foods! I will NEVER feed my dog “mass produced food” again, but I am the an poster who uses Milk Bone dog biscuits, and feed my dog almost twice what DelMonte suggests. Thses biscuits are great based in my research, and supply things like brewer’s yeast that makes home made dog food cooking a bit simpler. I no longer cook all of my meat ingredients. When I do, I don’t cook the meat much, but now add some raw meat at each feeding instead. A raw egg is good too, just rinsed well before cracking the egg open to avoid any bacterial problems. When I was a kid, oh so many years ago, my mother made me egg nog every morning. One raw egg, milk, vanilla, and a bit of sugar. Never hurt me, won’t hurt my dog either. I’ve recently read quite a bit about raw meat for dogs, and am convinced it’s better than cooked, at least better than well cooked meats are. The enzymes in their digestive system have evolved to break down raw meat protien, and has it’s own built in defenses for bacterial presence. Thanks to the many who have posted here…. I have learned a lot. I still need to look into some seaweed greens, and things like that, but I am much more at ease knowing what my dog eats these days….. buying dog food is now akin to getting that mystery luncheon meat in the school cafeteria…. not ever a good option. I know I am late in this discussion, but I don’t agree that dog food in the long term has to be made by a “dog-food-company”. I have been making my dog food since February now (it is now September) and my Rot mix is doing great on it. Why wouldn’t it be possilbe to give her a balanced diet this way? That would be like saying humans have to drink “Ensure” or something like that as the only option for full nutrition. I vary the ingredients in my dog food (basically meat/grain/veggies) and have done some research, I think this is better nutrition then any factory can produce. Have you ever looked into how commercial dog food got started? It’s really not that old and they brainwashed people into thinking that “real” food is no good for pets. How silly! I have a choclate lab who has had skin problems,since he was a puppy.We were feeding him Iams because we thougt that that was the best for him. But after that petfood recall it made me relize that all those foods are the same just in a different package. I want to know what amy dog is eating becuse he is inportant member of our familyso everything is homemade by me “nothing but the best for my baby”. Anyone have a good receipe for homemade cat food if they have urinary tract problems or are the standard receipes fine. My dog got sick from a food that was not on the listing. I thought she was going to die. Thank God she threw up all the food and was OK in 12 hours. I am switching to homemade food for all my pets. Any urinary tract problem receipes would be appreciated. Thank you. If you’re feeding meat without bones, you don’t want to use bone meal. You should only feed calcium, (ie eggshells – 1/4tsp per 100g meat) because the phosphorous will be too high otherwise. The calcium/phosphorous ratio is extremely important in home cooked meals. I also recommend using various supplements, such as sea greens and different multi-vitamins, and then rotating them to fill any nutritional gaps. Fish oil is an important supplement, but do not use cod liver oil if you’re adding a multi-vitamin or still using kibble, as it contains too much vitamin A&D. I think flax seed is patently useless for a dog, as they cannot convert the ALA into the much needed DHA and EPA with much success. I’m not a fan of grains in the diet, and I believe dogs do better without them, but sweet potato is a good alternative. I also think cooking meat is fine but only very lightly, otherwise it will deplete all the important enzymes. That’s my 2 cents! for calcium source..check out dogaware.com.. the woman who writes for this site..also writes for whole dog journal..in which i recommend every dog owner to subscribe.. alot of articles and info in this magazine about dogs.. anyway, she recommends 1000 mg of calcium for each pound of homecooked meal.. 1 egg shells grind very well equals teaspoon which equals 2000 mg.. so for 1 LB of food.. you will need 1/2 a teaspoon of eggshells powder.. I was very angry with Alpo for first, doing their best to hide the fact that the Menu foods company was producing their canned dog food, but even more angry that they didn’t investigate these products immediately following the recall… they sat on their hands for 2 weeks until Menu told them of a potential problem. I’ve been making my own dog food since, and will continue to do so. I did a fair amount of research, but there is little agreement between vets, dieticianary experts and dog owners on what makes for a nutrient and vitamin rich balanced diet. I’ve seen anything from 25 to 60% meat suggested for instance. I eventually designed my own recipe, with slight variations from batch to batch. I use 40% meat, usually ground turkey, chicken or beef. Since the top cut of london broil was on sale for $1.39 a pound last week, I used that instead, and carved it up well after cooking. I use ground turkey most often. 30% vegtables and fruit, and 30% combined fast and slow release carbs are my guidelines. My research indicated that dogs cannot digest chunks of either fruits or vegtables easilly, as wolves in the wild get these things from the partially digested contents in the stomaches of their prey animals, so I either cook and puree the F&V, or use store bought baby food instead, which is easier and makes it simpler to vary the diet but does get a bit expensive. Carrots, peas, squash and sweet potato are staples, and for fruit I use bannana, apricots, peaches and pears. For carbs, I use 40-40 brown rice and pasta, along with 20% wheat germ. I also include a hard boiled egg with most meals and grind the eggshells very finely and sprinkle that into the food at each feeding. As far as supplements go, I use cod liver oil tablets dissolved in the rice as it finishes cooking, add some bone meal in small amounts, about a finger pinch per meal, brewer’s yeast, an occasional addition of some sardines, tuna or salmon (the latter very rarely) lol… and lastly…. Milk Bone dog biscuits. I have no ties to DelMonte (the parent co.) other than as a consumer, but these biscuits offer some needed nutrients that I feel finish my dog’s nutritional needs nicely. Take a look at the Milk Bone ingredients… some very good stuff in there, and no wheat gluten. This is the only dog food product I still trust. I am no nutrition expert, nor can I garantee that my diet plan is perfect, but I have the utmost confidence that my dog’s diet is much healthier than it was when I was niavely buying Alpo. Based on my research, I believe this is a very well balanced diet for my beloved mutt. I saw someone mention mushrooms… I’ve read that this is not a good idea. It doesn’t make much nutritional sense to me either. If anyone sees a nutritional defiency in this diet plan, I would very much appretiate your comments. My biggest concern with this recipe/diet plan is the correct phosphorous/calcuim balance. More specifically, I know it has enough phosphorous, but I am unsure of just how much calcium (eggshells and bone meal)I should be including in a middle aged gog’s diet… a rather active dog that is obsessed with catching squirrels and other critters, with a fair amount of success! (It’s half Lurcher, try Googling a Lurcher). In any case, since I’ve gone to this diet, the dog sheds a bit less, her fur is shinier and healthier, and her muscle tone has improved significantly. She also loves to eat it! I do notice that her stools will soften after a week on beef however…. I think the poultry diet is best, at least for this dog. But since she’s been off the Alpo, her stools look much healthier as well. I have no doubt I’m doing the right thing…. but also would love to have a real dog nutritional expert offer an opinion. wild animals eat the organs of their prey first due to the high nutritional value campared to the actual muscle. My cat is a great hunter and eats the brains of her prey first, then the internal organs, usually leaving the muscle and carcass till last. We feed our dog an oat based natural base, with a rotation of protiens and a fat supplement (fish oil). Because of the nature of the oat base meal and lean protiens, we have had to up his intake to maintain his weight. We came up with this combination because of allergies and pet food recalls. Here’s a great CAT FOOD RECIPE! For the past 2 months, I’ve been making my Lab’s meals. She’s happier and loves to eat, which was always a problem before. But, you really need to research what you’re going to put into these meals. Meat and rice won’t do. There’s a balance of meat and carbs (from grains, fruits and veggies) that is essential. Plus, you also need to add calcium and vitamin supplements. I highly recommend a book called Better Food for Dogs by Jennifer Ashton. it explains what dogs at various weights need and provides easy, basic recipies. It’s a great resource. In order for a whole food diet to work, you have to make sure your dog is getting everything he/she needs. It’s very doable, but find a good, vet approved source for recipes. I lost a dog during the pet food recall to kidney failure, but she was 14 years old. So, I don’t know what caused it – old age or the pet food. So – since then – with my new puppy he gets: hamburger or chicken or turkey (all boiled), oatmeal (he can’t tolerate rice), green peas or broccoli, grated carrot, apple, cottage cheese or plain yogurt, and canned 100% pumpkin. He will continue to eat this way until I find a dog food I can trust. I was feeding Science Diet to my elder dog. After she passed I began looking for another food to feed, I had almost decided on Blue. But, then I discover they include rice protein. So, now I cook for our newest addition and will continue to do so. I feel good about it as long as he gets a good variety of meat, veggies., etc. He is 4 months old now and has no diarrhea, no constipation, no stomach upsets and is growing and very healthy!!! Since my 2 beagles (age 12 each) both are cancer survivors I did due diligence, took them off of processed foods and now they eat only raw dog food. We purchase a particular brand (frozen and available at our local pet store) but we also made our own from venison. There are lots of great, nutritional recipes out there – just take the time to do it. On another note, my dogs are real fruit & veggie lovers! We have a great garden this year and we will be supplementing their diets with home-grown produce. We make their dog snacks at home too – those are baked of course but include apples/applesauce, mashed bananas, shredded zucchini, carrots, cinnamon…they love ‘em! My best friends dog passed away after eating canned dog food that was involved in the recall. After that I began cooking homemade meals based on recipes I found in a cookbook for dogs. It is quite similar to the 60-20-20 recipe mentioned earlier. My dog is almost 2, and since she was a puppy she has turned her nose up at every type of commercial dog food we have bought. It will sit in her bowl for days until I have to throw it out. Since I have been feeding her the homemade stuff, she devours it! She watches me make it and knows it’s for her. I do it on my day off and it takes me a half hour at the most for a one week batch which I freeze half of. I have noticed a big difference in her energy level as well. I figure that even if her diet is not 100% nutritionally balanced as some believe, it is still better than feeding her poison. As owners of two cats that were fed nothnig but hills Rx diet (C/d, W/d and now T/d) it dawned on us that feeding our babies is no different than feeding ourselves. True, we require different diets to be healthy, but us humans can do quite nicely on unprocessed foods. Wee have basic nutritional needs which must be met to remaain healthy but this is done without eating prepared kibble like foods. Cats are carnivores, they require a different diet than people but thats not rocket science. A good place to start is to look at various felines that are in zoo’s. Keepers and nutritionists have been forumulating heathly diets for years without depending on kibble or canned foods. Its true that good food costs more than kibble or canned but isn’t your pet a family member, someone you love and want the best for. Thanks FYI, ask a nutritionist, not a vet, about homecooking. Vets are not schooled on nutritional needs for animals. FYI: My vet said that a veterinarian is not the person to ask about animals diets, a nutritionist should be consulted if you want confirmation as to nutritional value of the food you cook your beloved pet at home. Cooking my dogs food is the only option, and yes it can be labor-intensive, but it costs almost the same and it’s worth it and I did do research into nutrients needed for my dog, and I’m convinced what I feed my dog meets what she needs. Hi, I have extensive recipes from a holistic veterinarian in Portland, Oregon; I feel pretty confident that they’re nutritionally well-balanced; let me know if i can attach them as a pdf, and i’d be happy to send them along. I’ve been cooking for my dog ever since the recall, as i have absolutely no confidence in the pet food industry anymore, no matter whether they tell me their food is “safe” or not. Also, many of the “safe” foods are basically just crap that a human would never THINK of putting in their body. “Safe” means it won’t kill your dog or cat–that’s about it. So, i basically do the rice, meat, and veggie thing (plus veggie oil, eggs, cheese, etc), and top it off with a vitamin from Petmeds that i HOPE is safe. In lieu of cooking fresh veggies, i sometimes use organic baby food. Otto especially loves peas and carrots. It’s EASY to cook for your dog; i just do it on Sunday, and zip lock individual servings to last through the week. With regard to garlic, i did a lot of checking, and apparently it’s toxic in large doses. A tiny sprinkling for flavor is safe, and also has some beneficial effects. So, don’t fear the garlic, just watch the quantity! Since i’ve been feeding Otto and his buddy, Mr. Paris, homemade food, they look healthier, with shinier coats and a noticeable improvement in muscle tone. Also, Mr. Paris used to almost always vomit after eating, and that has stopped. Don’t trust the food manufacturers if you love your pet! Thanks! I would like to set the record straight for the many people who do not have enough information on non-kibble diets. A cooked natural food diet seems the most “natural” to us, because we eat cooked food. I condone this; it is much better than ANY kibble. Aside from the recall problems, kibble has much of the nutritional value within it destroyed in the cooking/baking process. The BARF or raw diet for animals is very mysterious and confusing if you have never had any experience with it. I have been using it for years with my three dogs, and other dogs before them. Please don’t dismiss it unless you truly understand it. It is definitely not a method of feeding for most people, because it can be expensive and labour-intensive, but it is NOT unsafe for anyone involved (the animals, the handlers, nor children in the home – my kids can attest to that). It is one of the healthiest diets you can feed your animals. A side note about consulting vets about diets: having a career in the pet industry and worked side-by-side with vets, pet food reps, and trainers, I know that most vets are sponsored in part by one pet food company or another, so they are often biased toward that brand or the lines in a certain brand. Most vets do not know enough about nutrition, and most would not condone either a cooked natural or a raw natural diet for your pets. Having said all that, the 60-20-20 crockpot recipe for Anonymous’s Dobermanns (above) sounds terrific. Well before the recalls, I made 2 weeks worth of food at a time (obviously freeze and use as needed) for my 10lb Papillon consisting of boiled chicken, brown rice, carrots and green beans. I’ve also recently starting adding Solid Gold Seameal mineral and vitamin supplement to this at each serving. She gets dry food as well (Nutro dental or Innova), and I plan to do this for her for the rest of her life regardless. Her allergies are gone, her coat is beautiful, her breath is so much better., and her energy level has skyrocketed. When she ate Caesar’s wet food, I had to have her teeth cleaned once a year and tartar built rapidly thereafter, but now I brush them 2 to 3 times a week, and they sparkle. A little over two years ago, my beautiful, sweet 4 year old Doberman was diagnosed with bone cancer. We had her leg amputated and in order to make sure her health was as good as it possibly could be we began feeding her (and her younger brother) a completely home made diet. We went to a variety of vets, both traditional and “holistic” and came upon our own recipes which was a compilation of all of the home made diets these vets recommended. Here is the basic recipe: 60% Meat. This changes with each batch but is whole Turkey, Beef, Rabbit (farm raised), pork, whole chicken and occasionally fish, when using poultry we include the “giblets” and also add calf liver or chicken liver to the batches every second or third batch. 20% vegetables. I generally decide which vegetables to use depending on what is available organically at the time. The veggies I often use are asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, peas, beets, leafy vegetables like kale, celery or tomatoes. Apparently mushrooms are good for them too. Just avoid onions, garlic and grapes/raisins. 20% grains. I rarely use rice, but I’m sure rice is fine. I usually use barley, quinoa, oats, buckwheat or sweet potatoes (technically not a grain, but the vet told me to use them in place of the grain) I use sweet potatoes quite often. Then I add a tablespoon or two of bone meal and a handful of seaweed (wonderful source of minerals, you can find it in nice supermarkets. Check the ingredients on sushi Nori before using it, I usually use dulse or kelp). You vet may recommend some vitamin supplements which can be added to the food. The whole thing goes into a crockpot with a little water or home made poultry broth and is slow cooked for 8 hours or so. At the end of cooking, if there is too much liquid, I add more grain and cook until it is absorbed. Then I use a potato masher to mush everything together or my babies will pick around the veggies. If the meat had bones in it (especially chicken and turkey), make sure you pick them out This mix goes in the fridge and is fed to the dogs. We also give them raw “marrow bones” often as it is good for the teeth and is another good source of calcium. Although our beautiful girl succumbed to the cancer when it moved into her lungs, she lived almost a year longer than the vets expected. Her brother is incredibly healthy and happy and is never fed anything other than this food. He has been on this diet for more than two years. He sees a vet regularly and the vet is always complimentary of his health, weight and teeth condition. It is quite possible to not ever feed your dogs “regular dog food” and have them be healthy. I will beg you though to make sure you are not missing any nutrition by doing two things: first, talk to your vet, seriously. And second, think to yourself, if this is all I ate, would all of my nutritional needs be met? Our nutritional needs are different, but similar enough that it’s a good starting point. I assure you, there is no truth in the notion that only dog food manufacturers are capable of feeding your pet correctly. Because the cooking is done in a crockpot, it’s actually less work than you think, I’ll never go back to store bought dogfood. Babs: Commercial dry pet food is made with industrial extruders, not unlike those used to make puffed snacks such as Cheetos. It is not really a method that can be simulated in the home kitchen. Re BARF diet: If the BARF diet is followed accurately, it is probably at least a more complete diet than most homemade diets. It is not, however, particularly safe for human handlers. Many dogs and cats on a raw food diet are found to be shedding E. coli or Salmonella in their feces. Given that humans are routinely exposed to their pets’ feces when cleaning it up, it may not be a great idea. Also, a little blood in the urine is not a big problem, as long as your cat can still pee normally. Have your vet check the cat regularly for urinary tract infections. Patty’s recipe actually looks pretty decent. Kodiak’s Mom: I would recommend novel food diets (ones based on venison, duck, kangaroo, potato, barley, etc.) before going homemade. After that, I would try a hypoallergenic diet that you can purchase from your vet (the two most common ones are Hill’s z/d and Purina HA). If you insist on going homemade, I would recommend using a regular adult multivitamin rather than the B complex. And I would use fish oil rather than flaxseed oil (dogs are unable to convert the inactive omega-3 fatty acid in flaxseed into the active form). I would also add a calcium supplement (just calcium, no vitamin D). To the anonymous poster after kodiak: That diet (ground beef, rice, cottage cheese) sounds like a diet that was meant to be an easily digestible meal to be used only while starting your dog eating again after pancreatitis, not to be fed permanently! Any vet that recommends that as a long-term diet should have his license revoked. I haave a vet approved recipe given to me many years ago for a very sick dog. Very simple! 3 ingred. browned g. beef, minute rice – white or brown- cottage cheese. Make any amount just use equal parts of the g. beef , rice, and cheese. I have put my toy fox terrier on this. Since Iams is on the approved list)dry food)I add alittle of this sometimes. I have been feeding my dog home cooked meals for the past year due to food intolerances. She is now 13 months old and 75 lbs. She gets 4 oz of cooked meat(deboned-skinless chicken or turkey, lamb, or veal), 4 oz of mixed veggies(spinach collards and carrots) and 4 oz of rice or oatmeal. she also gets a vit. B-complex pill,200 IU of vit. E and 1000mg of Flaxseed in her morning meal. Her evening meal is the same just without the vitamins. Here is a vet approved recipe for dogs, my dog has been eating variations of this for years and is monitored by my vet all the time. Maitenance Recipe reg ground beef 4 oz (1/4 lb) rice (brown or white) 2 cups whole wheat bread 2 slices fresh carrot 1 large sunflower seed oil 1 1/2 teas psyllium husks or wheat germ or oat bran 1/2 teas calcium 750 mg vitamin & mineral premix 1/4 teas Method: Cook ground beef, drain all fat, cook rice and combine with meat add cubed bread (or substitute 1 cook sweet potato) cook all meat and rice without salt or seasoning. Add oil and cool. Shred or chop carrot (you can cook it if you like) add other vegetables if desired, (dogs will tolerate cooked brocolli or green beans or small amounts of cooked tomatoes) Chop small or blend in a food processor. Add the calcium (I use boiled and ground egg shell 2 teas or calcium tablets from a pharmacy) Add a 1/4 teas of Vitamin & Mineral premix from your Vet. As well I put in one capsule of cod liver oil. You can double and triple this recipe and freeze it without the supplements. You can use poultry (6oz cooked chicken + 1 1/2 cups rice + 1 cooked sweet potato & 2 Tbls corn oil to 1000 mg calcium) You can also add more cooked or raw vegetables and some fruit (small amounts of apples, blueberries & bananas seem to be tolerated) You can switch the meat requirements to lamb or chicken livers or pork regularly. Keep in mind that the supplements are necessary and essential to a balanced diet for your dog. Steve and Everett: A few other web sites I looked at all agreed that a B.A.R.F. diet for cats was best. Their reasoning being that in the wild, cats are purely carnivorous. From your knowledge, is that true? My poor cat suffers from urinary blockages and he even underwent the surgery to widen his urinary tract. Unfortunately, even with the surgery and special PH food, his urine still occasionally becomes bloody. I was hoping that using Feline’s Pride’s recipe ( ) would clear him up once and for all. What do you all think? The attitude of the pet food industry was succinctly put when they recently claimed after the Senate hearing that their products are “safe.” Consumers have ben fed hype about the necessity of commercial pet and dog food since the industry started in postwar America in response to a need to find profit from industrial garbage. This is not the first recall of contaminated dog food but has caught the world’s attention due to the scope of the disaster. With virtually no regulation, no truth in labeling of any consequence and an unsuspecting consumer feeding supposedly “healthy and balanced” dog food that contains poisons, carcinogenics, fillers, preservatives, euthanized dogs and cats, diseased animal parts and worse…. The time has come to force an accounting from the pet food industry and for pet owners to insist on quality foods….better yet make your own at home…then you’ll know what your best little pal is eating…. Hi I came on to find out about the royal canine recall-i supliment my homade chicken and rice food with it. I really would make my own dry food if I could get a recipe. I am on my 3rd poodle- both my previous poodles lived to be over 16 years old and were healthy to the end. Our family has always fed our dogs homemade food, mainly because my mom couldn’t stand the smell of canned food. The only difference in what the dogs get and I eat myself is all the stuff is mixed together and once it goes in “the dog tupperware” it becomes dog food. I usually just cook a chicken or a turkey (because thats what she likes)till its falling off the bone in a big pot, with a sprinkling of mrs dash garlic mix. then i go an clean the meat off the bones,,,i leave the tiny kneck bones- catilage and all the skin and gross stuff and throw it back in the juices. towards the end i throw in veggies-usually the peas-carrots-garlic and if i have spinach a bit of that, then i toss in an egg, maybe some cheese,then i toss in 2 cups of cooked rice and stir it all up. then i take a hand blender and break up the big chunks, but not blending it all. then i put it in snack size ziplocks- about 12 bags and throw them in the freezer. I leave a bowl of dry food out just to round it all out (this is the first dog that would eat it tho) and now until this scare is over it’s gonna be all homemade. I don’t know what to do about the cat- she is 16 plus and only eats canned. and angel food cake. Also my dogs have always liked coke and jelly beans. I can drop a whole steak on the floor- no reaction-but if she hears a candy wrapper…but she is trim- healthy- and happy. So if anyone knows how to make dry food- pass it on…thanks BABS ps- i have been to china most do not care about animals and are extra extra cruel to dogs and cats, so I don’t think they will be to worried about this problem, so this could last a while. The following is the recipe given on VIN, with disclaimers. You could probably substitute different sources of protein (beef, pork, turkey, fish, etc.) and carbohydrate (brown rice, pasta, baked potato, sweet potato, etc.), but given the detail-oriented list of other ingredients I would certainly recommend following them exactly. ********************************* PLEASE NOTE: This recipe should be fed for not more than 2 months. Clinicians are advised to set up a consultation with the client at the end of this period to revisit feeding requirements and to consider either re-instituting commercial food products, or a consultation with a clinical nutritionist. Standard Pet Formula – adequate for healthy dogs and cats over 6 months of age Centrum adult multivitamin-mineral supplement (no special senior, ocular, women’s or other versions) 1/4 tsp taurine powder (or 500 mg tablet) (taurine is optional for dogs – essential for cats) Sauté chopped chicken breast in oil until thoroughly cooked. Add rice and salt. Grind Tums (calcium carbonate), multi vitamin/mineral tab, and taurine supplement together. Add to cooled mixture. Store in refrigerator. Larger batches may be prepared in advance and stored in the freezer. Nutritional profile 40% protein (Dry matter basis (DMB)) 12% fat DMB 6% calcium DMB 4.3% phosphorus 1.4:1.0 calcium:phosphorus Calories: 1046 kcal per batch or 1.12 kcal/gram Batch size: 932 grams To feed, calculate caloric needs and divide into twice daily feeding. One recipe batch should provide adequate intake for a 10-12 pound cat for 3 days or a 40-45 pound dog for 1 day. Adjust intake to maintain ideal body weight. I am actually a veterinary student (graduating in a month), which is probably why lots of warning bells went off in my head when I first read this article. I can tell you that most veterinarians are relatively clueless about nutrition, which is to say very few of them would be capable of giving you a complete and balanced homemade diet recipe upon request (myself included). Every board-certified veterinary nutritionist I know recommends commercial maintenance or prescription diets unless a pet has multiple organ dysfunctions (e.g., kidney disease, heart disease, intestinal disease, etc.) for which none of the prescription diets are appropriate. That said, this is a difficult time for owners and vets, because a food which is not recalled one week may be on the recall list next week. The Veterinary Information Network, a subscription service for vets, points to two online nutritional consultation services if anyone is interested in paying for consultation with board-certified veterinary nutritionists. The first is: That site has a lot of information, FAQs, etc. as well as consultation services and recipes which can be purchased for $50 or so (ouch!). The second is: At the bottom of the page you can link to the “Homemade Recipe Creator” which supposedly is free with the promotional code “VIN” while the recall is in effect. You have to give your email address, though BalanceIT claims they won’t flood you with promo emails if you use the code. VIN also has a free “generic” recipe for healthy dogs and cats which I will publish in the next comment. I am the one who posted a comment right as the natural balance food was first recalled and I had a dog with pups on the food. The company told our local petstore that the food was NOT contaminated, that they had simply mixed the batch wrong. apparently not, and I felt it in the pit of my stomach right to begin with that it would end up to be melamine. now they have said that they actually had a bag marked melamine??? I really believe what I have heard now, that the melamine gives a false positive for protein and that would mean the companies are likely buying it on purpose. so now this company that distributed the rice that was contaminated admits that at least 4 other pet food companies recieved and used the rice protein during the same time that natural balance did, but they did not release the names of those companies because so far their tests have come out negative for melamine. talk about irresponsible. and this is from a different company in China that sent it here! NOT the same company as from the Menu wheat gluten recall . I did go ahead and make the homeade dogfood, I did it for close to what the dogfood costs me normally, and the dogs love it, but still… I feel that I can’t give my nursing Mama dog enough nutrition, so i have her on purina puppy chow, which i don’t really like, but it has corn. I am looking for something in a dry food that I feel I can trust, because in a little under 2 weeks, I have to have something for my pups, I am not quite sure what the natural diet will do with their little digestive systems. what to do, what to do… and i live in a very very small town about 35 miles from a bigger store, we have a limited selection here. we thought of getting the natural balance duck and potato, but i just don’t know if we can trust it now, i find myself saying, but where did they get this ingredient, or that one… which is exactly what i thought before the venison and rice food was recalled. I had a feeling about it, I knew it was coming I just knew it. “What are dog owner’s suppose to feed their dogs?” That’s the million-dollar question. The truth is, I don’t know. That’s why I posted these recipes, so there would an alternative for now. But as a permanent solution, would you should do is ASK A VET. Get a home made dogfood recipe from a vet. Chances are it is going to match closely with some of the natural home made recipes on this page, but the difference is you will be getting the inforamtion from a qualified professional rather than the internet. Wouldn’t you feel safer that way? As a dog owner, I too am concerned. I have no idea what to feed my dog these days, and am paranoid that I’m poisoning him if I used regular dry dogfood from the store. So I try to make my own using these recipes – but for how long? Steve and Everett, You say these recipes aren’t for long term. Then what recipe//recipes are? After the recalls, I thought I’d be safe and switch to Natural Balance Venison and Brown Rice dry dog food only to find out it has been recalled. If the pet food brand names can’t be trusted and homemade recipes are nutritionally imbalanced, what are dog owner’s suppose to feed their dogs? These recalls are really very disheartening. we thought our dogfood was safe it is a small dog food company called natural balance, and after the other recalls I went to the fda website and signed up for their e-mail notification of recalled products. so now i got an e-mail saying that the venison and brown rice formula i have been feeding my dogs (3 seniors and 1 mama feeding 5 pups) has been recalled as well, but they are not supposed to have any wheat gluten in the food. they claim it was some mistake of how they mixed the batch, but won’t give out the lot number. I don’t know what to trust now, as many area stores still have the recalled foods from the wheat gluten thing and are still selling it as I hear. which I also was notified of by the FDA that many stores are still selling it in FDA spot checks. so for now, just until some of this blows over, I am going to put the dogs on a homeade diet because I can’t risk my nursing pups. I know you can’t really give them a well balanced diet but i don’t know what else to do. How long is this string of recalls going to go on? and on top of that many dog treats have been recalled as well, that isn’t getting as much publicity. purina and delmonte both are some of the ones that recalled treats. this concerned me as far as the fact that even though further recalls have not been announced yet for those two companies, I wonder if more are coming. purina makes friskies cat food and delmote make nine lives according to their websites… scary stuff i am just jumpy now and am not sure what else to do!! Is there a way to make dry pet food from scratch? What about using a food processor? I’m looking for something with a long shelf life. hi just to say thankyou,my dogs are loving the rice and chicken meals,also goin to try the liver treats.i was fed up with the increased prices of canned/dry dog food,so decided to try your recipe…………..much cheaper ,and i know exactly whats gone into it……….from a dog lover Sheri, I wouldn’t advise them as permanent diet simply because – as Steve noted – domesticated animals require a nutritionally balanced diet. This is good for the time being, and it also a good alternative to throw into their diet now and then so your pets don’t have to eat the same boring stuff every night (how would you like meatloaf every night for your whole life?). But you should consult with your vet before thinking about using any recipe you find online as a “permanent” source of food for your pet. But these recipes were chosen because they are simple, cheap, and provide carbohydrates, fat and protein – all three macronutrients. It’s the micronutrients that you’ll have to think about for the long term. And I hope your pets live LONG happy lives. Regards, Everett Thanks for the recipies. I have ground meat and rice in the cooker and the Pit Bull/Doberman just brought me her dish. I guess it smells good. Question: why would this not be a good permanent choice for dog food? I really like it, it is cheap, and it seems to hhave a lot better ingredients that commerial dog food. I have a sick feline baby. Diagnosed Feb. 17 so I don’t think it was from the recall foods but I cannot say since I would try different foods. He has always been finicky (likes most Fancy Feast, fresh shrimp, crab or tuna) but since he has been ill, it’s almost impossible to get him to eat anything, especially the prescription foods. He does like the gravies in the Fancy Feast foods. Does anyone have cat-tasty gravy recipes that my baby boy can get some nutrition from? Apparently carbs and “good” fats do not put a burden on the kidneys. Thanks for anyone’s help. Joan Diagnosied Everett, your point is well-taken. I am just afraid that people may read your article and think that they are doing good for their dog by feeding it hamburger and rice on a permanent basis (which is sounds like some of your readers may be doing). I am by no means a proponent of the “natural” pet foods, but given a choice between having people feed their dog meat and rice or their cat straight meat versus a bag of Wysong, Innova, or god forbid the B.A.R.F. diet, the latter option is much better for the pet. I don’t really see a problem with pets eating wheat gluten, yeast, and corn starch. Those are all perfectly natural ingredients that people eat all the time. For one thing, there are no “wild” dachsunds or Persian cats. For another, I’m sure the “wild” homo sapiens didn’t evolve by eating wheat gluten, yeast, and corn starch. The real problem is the industrialization and centralization of food production, which is as big a problem in human foods as in pet foods. The scares involving E. coli in spinach and Salmonella in peanut butter are simply the two most recent examples of this. There is nothing inherently wrong with spinach or peanut butter — the problem is in the production and distribution of them. Steve the problem is we don’t know who or what food to trust. Even the “natural” foods are really just marketing ploys. What’s natural about them. Have a look at the ingredients, because they all contain wheat gluten, yeast, corn starch… I don’t know of any wild dog or cat breeds that eat corn starch and yeast. Of course, my cat does eat grass now and then – when it wants to puke! But you do have a good point. These are meant to be simple recipes that you can use to feed your cat or dog while waiting for some dust to settle and finding a TRUSTWORTHY pet food brand. I’m with Steve though – I would not make this a long-term solution. But at least for now you know you’re not poisoning them. These recalls aren’t over. I’m sure there are plenty more brands on the shelves that contain harmful ingredients. we usually buy rotissiere chicken from the supermarket for about 4-5 bucks. we’re asian so we always have cooked rice on hand anyways. we just microwave some chicken, mix the rice and chicken in their dry dog food and thats it. no cooking really. except for the rice i guess. we have a rice steamer. takes like 5 min to prepare their dinner. I just want to point out that these recipes are incredibly nutritionally imbalanced, and that you should by no means feed them as any sort of long term diet for your pets. The argument that “cats and dogs in the wild” will eat anything is misleading, because feral cats and dogs have maybe 1/4 or 1/5 the life expectancy of a well cared for pet. Furthermore, wild animals eat the whole bird, whole mouse, or whatever they catch, not just the breast meat. There is a great deal more nutrition in a whole mouse than in a chicken breast. If you’re going to avoid the big corporate pet foods, at least feed one of the smaller “natural” foods which is at least designed for your pets. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for those easy recipes for cat and dog food. I’m a rehaber for wildlife and the raccoons that I raise eat dry cat food and occassionally I cook chicken for them. I think I may have lost one due to the tainted cat food. She hadn’t been sick but one morning I went to feed them and I found her dead. This was back on Feb. 16th before the recall. My others don’t appear sick, but I’ve stopped giving them the cat food. These recipes will help me tremendously!!! dogs LOVE apples. Mix bite sized chunks to your recipe for a little crunch! i check everyday on recalls i’m glad i give the best i can 2 my animals (2 cats & a basset hound). the cats get only melody fancy feast-they won’t eat anything else. the dog get pediagree lamb & rice. of course being a dog he will eat anything but i’m happy he’s happy with it. they get wet food 4 breakfast & eat dry food the rest of the time they get only the best in that also. the companies should quit making foods for our “kids” if they don’t won’t eat it.more animals are being affected than what’s being said about it.

Preface: When a mad-eyed dwarf and his filthy companions first bade me sit at their table in the public house, I pretended not to notice them. Dark traces of blood skulked on their weapons, and they shared a certain hardness in their faces, as of a small band of warriors facing a dark and endless horde. But they knew me to be a scrivener’s son looking for work, and would not have me demur. Besides, they paid more handsomely than even my esteemed father, once scribe to royalty, could have expected. At least, they said they did. Many of the coins and artifacts with which they presented me were, and remain, unknown to me and everyone else in this town. They wanted me, they said, to transpose their diaries, listen to their stories, and compile the lot for the sake of posterity. Fair enough, but what I got to work with were scribblings, drunken ramblings, and tales of such outlandishness that I feared for my reputation if I reported them as factual. The ragged band is gone now, supposedly off on another adventure, and I do not expect to see them again. I swore to bind their preposterous stories and publish them, and so I have. I did not swear to tell them in my own voice. Sometimes I have done so; other times I have written down their words, and sometimes I have simply included original written texts I received from them, transposed in my hand. If even a small part of what is related here is true, our world is stranger, more troubled, and much more deadly than we think, who walk in daylight and nestle in the warm bosom of our homes. -Torben Eastlander 1) The Road to Thunderspire Based on interviews with the survivors. According to what I heard during several sessions with my employers around an ale-drenched wooden table, the Thunderspire epic began with introductions. Two of the five adventurers were new to the others, who had been together for some time, having fought in the company of two other since-departed wariors to seal off a “Rift”, as they termed it, that would have allowed the most monstrous creatures imaginable to enter our world. As if those sitting across the table from me were not monstrous enough. I immediately saw this claim to be stuff and nonsense, “Rift” being simply the name of one of the newcomers, a female Eladrin Wizard with more intelligence than the rest combined, but as little impulse control, according to the dwarf, as a “seasick goblin”. The other newcomer, Erik, was a stealthy Ranger type, maybe a little too proud of his ability to wield two weapons at once. Along with the Dwarf, who claimed to have been fighting for a hundred years, but seemed instead to have been drinking that long, there were also a half-elf Cleric with a strong grip and a gift for erudition, as well as a strapping Paladin Dragonborn who, the others insisted, had already died in battle. He didn’t look dead to me. After a couple days’ journey east along the King’s Road, the fast-moving group turned up the cobbled path towards the mountain. Spirits were high. They had been training, studying, and equipping since their last battles, and all reported progress and a feeling of confidence, save the dwarf, who was troubled by his feeling that magic was beginning to encroach upon his hitherto all-natural fighting style. They entered a long passage into the mountain, wide and lined with torches. 2) BloodReavers’ Blood Based on an interview with the dwarf Barrick “We passed many dark passages to the left and right, not much scent, and finally saw light coming from under a door. We listened, and it seemed like an innocent halfling was being held against his will. Truth be told, we had little enough reason to think so, but we smelled goblin or worse, and anyway we never pass up the chance for a fight.” “Felsmon thought to scare the occupants out of defending themselves – if anyone could do it, he could. Smashing in the doors, our pal made a din – Hah! He’s a Pal-a-din, get it! Anyway, he shrieked at the 5 creatures inside to lay down their weapons upon pain of death, while we all grunted and clanged our steel, but they just laughed, and 4 of them came right at us.” “Both our additions, Erik and Rift, were quick off their marks, wanting to prove their mettle to us, I make no doubt. Now, I don’t mean to make excuses, but I hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since my battleaxe turned out to have a hex on it. The others said I should be glad to have it, since I used it to slay Kalarel (May Bahamut infest his remains with poisoned maggots). But I hate magic – except when it’s healing me, of course – and the cursed axe lay there by my side, every night, making me feel cursed, too. Come to think of it, almost like a dwarven wife. Anyway, now, in the first real fight since the fall of Kalarel (May Bahamut slay his descendants in their baths), I was slow to use the thing, and when I finally did, I missed, and missed again.” “Luckily, the others were on their best feet. Erik often got in two blows for every one he received. Rift conjured a blast that burned all five of the baddies, and topped that by hitting their leader with some kind of ice spell – the old hot-and-cold routine. The steadfast Cleric Z’alden was up to his usual stunts, slamming the poor Weavers [sic] with magic jolts left and right while boosting the fortunes of the rest of us, as is his wont. And our pal Felsmon made a din– oh, used that already, did I? – anyway Felsmon moved in close, ducking a blow on the way, then softened up three of the beasts with his breath alone, though you mightn’t believe it if you hadn’t smelled it, and then gave a shocking thump to the breast of one of them. That must have boosted the youngster’s confidence.” “Watching my comrades with my jaw hanging open, I got hit hard in the gut, which doubled me over. Good thing, because their leader just then sent some magic blast, which hit everyone but me. It knocked all 4 of my friends off their feet, and even killed one of our enemies for us! Still bent in half, I watched helplessly as another attacker swung a mighty stroke at Felsmon as the lad lay prone – but Dragonborn are agile for their size, you know, and the swing only bounced off the stone floor. “It looked bad for us just then, but Rift, still on the floor, had an idea to cause chaos to our attackers by spilling ale from a set of casks lining one wall, using a creepy floating hand spell. Sounds crazy, and maybe it was – that Rift can be a loose hammerhead sometimes.” “Funny thing though, as soon as the smell of that ale hit the air, our luck started to turn. Erik had been badly hurt, but healed by Z’alden, and with the scent of brew in the air, he strode up and killed their leader with a double blow, as calm as a halfling weeding a garden! Then I perked up, the pungent goblin ale stench flowing in through my nostrils and pushing the bad magic out of my head. I leapt up on top of the nearest casket, feeling the strength flowing up to me on the odor, and gave a huge strike down on the head of the nearest Weaver [sic] (May Bahamut rain fire on his village). Even that didn’‘t kill him, though.” “Rift came out with another ice shock – don’t remember Skamos, who was a Wizard too, using that one very often – and both our remaining targets fell, one breaking his neck on the way. Erik dispatched the last one soon enough, after Felsmon had slipped on the ice. And so it was over.” “Afterwards I sat on an emptying barrel of ale, holding my axe, which was a stranger to me now, as the battlejoy flowed slowly out of me to join the ale in a puddle on the floor. I wondered how much the cursed axe was to blame for my poor showing, only one good hit in an even 5-on-5 fight. Was I becoming useless, as the others threw more and more magic around? Erik flashes two weapons around like lightning, and here I could barely control one? Felsmon, at twice my size, moves around the room on his young legs faster than I?” “So, I did what I always do when I think too much – I started to drink.” 3) A Halfling’s Tale The half-elf cleric Z’alden spoke with such earnestness that I thought, at first, he was trying to convert me to Bahamut. Then, I realized, the breathlessness arose from his mental struggles, as he tried to recall what had occurred after the fight Barrick had described. Here is what he relayed to me. Believe what you will. “Barrick’s morose feelings are betrayed by his excellence in battle. His bravery and skill are legendary. Even still, his strong arm was weak compared to the strong mouth plastered on the face of the most ungrateful rescued halfling you have ever met. Indeed, we had just saved the little Rendil Halfmoon from becoming Rendil Half-a-head, and he lips off here and there to us. I was astonished. It was preposterous! Still, he knew much about the BloodReavers, their comings and goings through secret tunnels in this mountain.” “Even more incredibly, he told us the directions to find their lair. And, finally showing some gratitude, offered to lead us to a wonderous underground city and host us in the finest rooms at his family’s inn.” Z’alden described an incredible city, the Seven-Pillared Hall, carved deep within Thunderspire Mountain. I nearly spit out my ale when the half-elf exclaimed, “Minotaurs! It was built by Minotaurs, who destroyed each other in a civil war over what god they should worship. Religious wars can be difficult if one is too fervent. Never get too fervent. Have faith and act to destroy evil. Uphold justice and help the weak. Smash undead whenever possible. That makes for a good day. Simple.” Finishing his little homily, the cleric completed his story. The halfling led the group to the city’s watchman, “Brug”, supposedly a Ogre over 12 feet tall. Likely not. The group had to pledge to tell no outsiders of the city. And, yet, here I am writing down their very notes and tales. Some pledge. Still, the wonders of three mage rulers cloaked in black hoods who could teleport in and out of an underground tower and stop any and all conflict among the disparate races who lived in the city deserves mention if only for the level of fantasy that the half-elf clearly believed from the halfing’s story of the city. The Bahamut cleric described the Halfmoon Inn of Rendil’s as a fair place, far more comely and pleasant than the one we find ourselves in now. In gratitude, Rendil’s mother, Effra, did give 3 rooms to the group to house them and offered the rooms for as long as they were not taken. Incredibly, Z’alden seemed to recall little else of this halfing, other than still smiling when he thought of the map that Rendil had provided, directing them to the hiding place of the BloodReavers. Something about a goblin who had been unable to make a map and wanting to track down the greasy beast and teach him map-making in his own blood. 4) Hall of the Seven Pillars I tried to divine from the group the description of the so called Seven-Pillared hall. As not one of the party reported counting seven pillars I wonder as to the accuracy of their ramblings. They gave me a map of the hall although the lines appear to be too straight to be sketched in the dark of a cave. If one can believe the tales of a fully functional city, hidden underneath the cold, drenched Thunderspire peak, then here it is. The city is controlled either by a self-inflated ogre named Brug or Brugg, or was it Grub, or controlled by invisible mages each of which can single-handedly quell all drunken brawls. This city apparently is inhabited not only by humans, elves and halflings, but also by drow, orcs and duergar, and possibly worse. A dwarf selling gemstones, now that I can believe, but a half-orc running the local taproom? Now I ask you friend, have you ever seen orcs and drow working side by side? Neither have I. Ah well, maybe I can sell this rabble as a story for the little ones; no one else could possibly believe such pap. Not only did they tell me of a bar and a inn deep inside the mountain, but a wainwright, a fully stocked merchant and even a happy little curio shop run by a grumpy drow named Gendar. The waterfall and bubbling brook flowing under quaint stone bridges sounds like something from a fairytale, not a hardened trading location for the Underdark. It almost brings images of a goblin and her secret bugbear romancer skipping hand in hand over the stones. The temple in this fabled city worships Erathis, the god of great invention and civilization. Hardly the proper choice for a cramped hidden group of ruffians living in old crumbling damp stone buildings. The inn is run by a pair of halflings, Rendil, desribed elsewhere in my writings, and his mother Erra. I wonder if the ale there is any good, now I could see good ale being the cause of unfriendly creatures sharing a table. Peradventure my old legs might carry me to this place some year for such a mug. Oh, and one cannot forget the mage’s tower, accesible only by dancing in front of a statue of a minotaur. What a party this dark place must be. No, not one piece of this tale makes any sense. But if I do not honour my word to put this down on parchment then I am nothing. 5) The Chamber of Eyes As the scrivener turns to Felsmon, the paladin grunts and lightning flashes between his teeth. The scrivener then turns to the rest of the party “Does anyone else want to describe this part of the adventure?” he says shakely. 6) Battle of the BugBear The conversation then turned to the encounter with the bugbear. For this I became better acquainted with Erik, the young human ranger who had just recently joined the adventuring troop. He and Rift shared some kind of bond but it was tough to discern the exact nature of their connection. So I asked Erik, “Tell me about Rift”, and his response was quick, “She’s an elf.” With that illuminating answer, I knew that many a glass of ale would be finished before this tale was told. Erik then let out a loud “Ow!” as his head bopped forward as if someone had slapped his head from behind. Rift shouted from another table, “High-elf!”. I then began to tease the tale of the bugbear out of Erik. Fortunately his tongue flowed faster and looser as additional quantities of ale were applied. “From the entry room of the Chamber of Eyes, we crept along the balcony toward a door to the east. We’d soon set ourselves upon the enemy into glorious battle. I was in the lead as I have the most quiet manner. Around a corner I could see a room with a couple of goblins – easy pickings. I then signaled for the group to advance. When we did, we were shocked to see a giant, goblinoid creature in a part of the room that I hadn’t been able to see. More for the glory of my twin blades!” “All hell broke lose in that small room. Beds and tables obstructed our movement and I found myself on the far side of the room, going toe-to-toe with the terrible beast. [Later determined to be a bugbear.] It stood somewheres over seven feet tall, wild with matted hair. My companions remained on the other side of the room hampered by the obstructions, none the least of which were the two goblins.” “While I battled the bugbear, two more goblins appear from another entrance to the room. Curses. Luckily there was a fire pit between me and them, but unfortunately one of them kept pelting me with a crossbow. I had to stand and take the bolts, being too busy getting licks in on the bugbear. Brave Felsmon did what he could to help me, leaving his back undefended to face the goblins. With mighty strength the Dragonborn pushed the bugbear into the fire pit. A foul stench of burnt bugbear hair filled the room. Arcane magic sprung from Rift, freezing the just recently singed monster. At least I wouldn’t die with foul burnt bugbear fresh in my nostrils. Seeing me seriously injured, Z’adlen channeled the power of Bahumut whereupon a divine glow enveloped me, giving me enhanced vigor to fight on. I then let loose a furious twin-blade attack on the bugbear. It staggered back only to fall dead on the cold, stony floor.” “Eager to escape the goblin’s crossbow, I leapt across the table and deftly struck at the two remaining goblins in the room. Each sword simultaneously plunged deeply into its target, slaying them both.” With this little part of the tale, Erik squirmed as if his trousers were in a bunch. “I was the one who instructed you to simultaneously attack the two goblins because their backs were to you as they fought us!”, shouted Rift, still sitting at the other table but now observing with a contemptuous look on her face. She then joined Erik and I at the table, choosing to sit quite close to me that made me feel both awkward and gladdened. With the insouciance that only Rift could so masterfully deliver, the story was finished for Erik… “The remaining two goblins fled. They were later easily dispatched by my fiery sphere.” Given Erik’s wounds from the bugbear and goblin crossbow, surely Z’alden’s immense healing powers had been used, aided by a powerful item they had found. Some kind of “Belt of Sacrifice.” And so the tail of the Chamber of Eyes continued, with a drunken Rift still sitting at my side… 7) Mystery Room Scrivener’s note: I was unable to make enough sense of a scrap of parchment handed to me by the barely-literate dwarf, as usual in a drunken stupor. It seemed to be an attempt at recording part of their adventure. What part, he never told me. Some sort of contest of strength perhaps? I have transcribed it here. Room: Walls Middle: Wall Smell: Rocks <illegible>: Gold? Half-wall: shape of “L” Mermaid carving: serpent from waist down - doodle of stocky mermaid with very large bust - Plan: Push Erik: Pushd. Zalden: Pushd hard Smell: Mold Barrick: Pushd very hard Felsmon: Pushd very very hard. Lookd at walls Lookd down Lookd up All: Pushd very very very hard. Rift: Magickd Z’alden: Magickd Smell: Fishes I Hate Fishes All: Pushd very very very very hard. <illegible> Go kill Bloody Weavers. 8) Duergar Battle Based on an interview with the beautiful, but troubled, eladrin wizard, calling herself Rift. When asked what her last name was, she started shouting oaths in a strange primordial tongue. After being restrained by her less-hasty comrade Erik, she started her tale, amid much muttering and cursing… Note to self – Give this one a wide berth in the future… “As I was saying, my name is Rift. I have no last name. I am an eladrin, although I prefer the term ‘high-elf’. As a wizard, I try to control the battlefield through my arcane mastery of fire and ice. This gives my brave companions the opportunity to sink their swords and axes into the weak hearts of our cowardly enemies, or into meddlesome scribes who ask impertinent questions!” “Anyhow, our brave companions and I had decided that a frontal assault on the double doors was not a wise plan. It seemed wise to me, but I have been accused of having the brains of a mindflayer and the wisdom of a scurvy-plagued goblin. Fine. No frontal assault.” Here, the wizard broke off again with much muttering, and could only be brought back to her tale with my promise of fine wine. “Well, as I was saying, we snuck down a narrow, disused passage until we came to a door. Now, being brave, we decided to burst open the door and charge. Unfortunately, the room turned out to be quite small, with a huge fireplace, roaring like a thousand dwarves who are out of ale. The room was also, unfortunately, occupied by two of those vile duergar. Unlike their more peaceful and happy-go-lucky brethren (like our good friend Barrick), these duergar had the audacity to attack us with their toy warhammers.” “Then, to make matters worse, these foul creatures began pulling out quills from their smelly beards and throwing them. Our poor friend Erik, nimble as he is, was not quick enough to dodge one of these poisonous missiles. Well, we decided it was time to give these wretches a good close shave.” “I played what modest part I could, conjuring up a sheet of frigid ice to cool their tempers, and knocking them senseless to the floor. Felsmon, Barrick, and Erik quickly took advantage of this, surrounding the hapless imitation dwarves, and furiously raining blows down upon them. Z’alden, good soul that he is, channeled the power of Bahamut to aid us and to blast these cursed freaks of dwarven nature.” “Summoning up my reserves, I conjured a living ball of fire, a sphere of doom, a radiant burst of flickering dea…” Here the wizard choked on her wine, spraying it across the table and extinguishing the candle. After the undead dragonborn had thumped her on the back, and she had re-lit the candle with a wave of her shapely hand, she continued. “Like I was saying, the sphere of flame appeared across the room, striking out at one of the terrified duergar, scorching his ugly backside. With the smell of burning duergar in their nostrils, my comrades became emboldened, striking even more fiercely. The pesky goblins were the first to fall, the heat of the flames and the mighty sword and axe strokes were too much to bear.” “It was at this moment that a dreaded hobgoblin warcaster appeared. But, it was to no avail. Hemmed in by my brave comrades, with their backs to the flames, our foolish enemies could do little. Alas, a little was enough. The warcaster, seeing his mongrel friends being ground into dust, became enraged and weaved a spell. The waves of pure energy surged across the room, picked up our poor comrade Z’alden, and sent him skittering into the fireplace like a burnt offering to his mighty god.” “But Z’alden is made of sterner stuff. Shaking off the glowing embers, he emerged from the flames completely unscathed, except for the stinging smoke in his eyes. A miracle? No, we wizards do not believe in such. It was simply luck.” “Z’alden, insisting that his scaly god had saved him, became ever more wrathful, urging our companions to strike down our foes. Dutifully, we complied. Down went the warcaster, still muttering an unfinished spell in an unholy tongue. The last to fall was one of the duergar. He stumbled out the door and down the stairs like a drunken dwarf, the ball of fire trailing behind him. Just as he reached the handle of the double doors and freedom, a tongue of flame leaped out and incinerated him. Unfortunately, his charred corpse had enough momentum to swing open the door, making his pathetic demise visible to all those in the chamber beyond.” Her black eyes flashing, elven ears pointed jauntily, Rift thumped me on my back, causing my quill to splatter ink across the page. “Well, that is enough for now, eh, scribe? How about more of that fine wine that you promised?” ‘Tis passing strange, but when I checked my purse to order more wine, my gold had mysteriously disappeared. I do not understand what happened to it… Ah well, no matter. The eladrin, Rift, has generously agreed to pay for all our expenses. She is really quite fetching in that green robe. With the last of the goblins and duergar destroyed, Z’alden turns to Felsmon, “My friend, thank you passing along this Belt to me. I have realized that it will be a boon to you as well as to all of our comrades in a way that would not have occurred around your waist or any other. For, when we are in combat and anyone at anytime calls upon their inner reserves to revitalize themselves, this belt and my own healing skills will add extra healing to the second wind.” _OOC: DM, since the belt has the healing keyword, the cleric healer’s lore should add +3(Wisdom mod) additional hit points to the healing surge value, in addition to the +1 from the belt, consistent with the DM-ruling on the Dwarven Armor discussion September 17, 2008 at 02:32 AM. “Felsmon’s generous giving will turn out to be a gain in a surprising way. For when the worthy Paladin lays hands on one of his to heal, some of his own reserves are lost so that we may benefit. In that loss, through the belt and my own healer’s lore, the Paladin would receive a healing as well/” OOC: Got a little too excited on the belt of sacrifice. The healing lore bonus only applies to the daily power. But, everyone within 5 squares will get a +1 to their healing surge value, which will benefit Felsmon, too, but not when he lays on hands. OOC: So, the upshot is to add +1 to your character’s healing surge value at all times when your character is within 5 squares of Z’alden. So, if your character is within 5 squares of Z’alden and Felsmon lays on hands or uses another power that depends on the healing surge value, your character uses second wind or healing surges after an encounter (like now), or Z’alden heals you for your healing surge value, that healing surge value is increased by +1. Nifty. OOC: Thought rplayer had logged out. Sorry. Erik feels good. He has survived his first dungeon experiences and the dank, claustrophobic rooms actually provided he and his friends a tactical advantage. Rift’s fiery sphere was brilliant as she controlled it from behind the defensive wall created by the brave dwarf and paladin. Their axe and sword cleaved into the terrible hobgoblins, duegar and warcasters. Even the dwarf showed amazing skill, climbing up on enormous barrels to attack from above. A dwarf, attacking from above! However, there were some close calls as Erik suffered numerous crossbow bolts and mighty Barrick was dealt two terrible blows in quick succession, each of which would have struck down a normal man. It was then that Z’alden’s divine powers really reaffirmed their incredible worth, restoring Barrick’s health and continuing to inspire the entire group. Still, Erik knows that they are still in the middle of the Chamber of Eyes, far from the protection of the Seven Pillar Hall. Erik asks the group, “Just what was the purpose of the room with the odd wall with a carved mermaid/serpent?” Before they can answer, he asks another question, “Just what foul creature was breathing loudly behind the door? Was it a double door? Perhaps it was the creature that I tracked – one so terribly powerful it could pull a cart full of captives all on its own.” Erik then refocuses and realizes that they are still in immediate danger. The two duegar, two hobgoblins and a warcaster are dead, but the room has not been searched and the group knows not what is just around the corner. Rift breathes a sigh of relief: “Perhaps all of my book learning was useful after all. Thank you all for your advice and patience. It does pay to plan ahead, doesn’t it?” “I am amazed at all of your abilities. Z’alden, you truly are the magic glue of the party. Felsmon, you show no fear as you surround yourself with our foes. Barrick, not only are you not afraid of heights, you also would charge right into my own flaming sphere. And Erik, my old friend, your twin strike is as deadly as ever.” Rift pauses, gazing around the room at the terrible carnage – the hacked and burned bodies, some still smoldering. “I don’t understand why all of these disparate creatures would choose to live together. ‘Tis strange.” “Well, I recommend that we pause for a few moments, to regain some much needed power. Then press on quickly, before the alarm can be raised. Delay can only put the prisoners (and our reward) into greater danger.” “What say the rest of you?” OOC: DM, can we quickly search the room and the bodies, looking for both secrets and treasure? Also, does the warcaster have any papers on him, identifying who he is, or other information? Searching the bodies reveals nothing of note, standard chainmail, robes, quarterstaff. Nothing of value or information. Your current state of exploration of the Chamber is: Note that the fleeing duergar guard was able to reach and open the double doors, the ones behind which the animal breathing emanated, before succumbing to the flaming sphere. DM: In the room with the “L” shaped half-wall, were there any drain holes on the floor. Were there any hinges? Looks to me like there might be a hinge at the angle in the “L”, allowing the 2 square length to close off six squares of the room. Any switches or levers by the door? Erik sheaths his two swords and readies his bow, watching intently down the corridor to the double doors. The idea is that if he sees an enemy, he’ll fire off two rounds. Hopefully Barrick or Felsmon would defend him while he stows the bow and pulls the swords. He feels nervous about being in a small room with three entrances. One corridor is completely unexplored and needs guarding too. “What shall we do?”, implores Erik, “Do we act fast out of fear of the enemy regrouping for a stronger attack and possibly harming the captives or do we rest and regain some powers?” Rift says, “I am fine with continuing. I still have my burning hands to lay waste to our enemies. However, I wish I had not let my flaming sphere sputter and die. Ah well, another day, another sphere of death.” “My friends, they will be expecting us to come through the double doors. Perhaps we can sneak up from behind…” “Let us take a quick moment (5 min rest) to regain our strength. During that time, I will not rest. Instead, I will quickly sneak down the corridor where the warcaster came from, and peek around that corner. If it looks promising, then let us stack all of the bodies and firewood against the two doors, to protect our rear, and proceed around the corner.” “Does this sound agreeable to everyone?” You searched the L-wall room as well as you could. All you found was signs of mildew damage on the stone. No levers, drains, hinges, etc. Z’alden breathes heavily, “My friends. Your powers and exploits continue to amaze me. I am proud to battle evil with such noble and brave comrades. For most of Bahamut’s gifts of healing to return to me, I will need to take a few minutes to pray. Like Rift’s sphere, the dragon of Hope that I called forth cannot be summoned again without far more extensive prayers and preparation of the mind of spirit. That being said, I still have some gifts of Bahamut’s to continue to heal the damage caused by any enemy even as together, we crush them. Fortune and the Teeth smile on us, as Master Paladin has a few of his own gifts of healing upon which he can call to aid a comrade in dire straits. And, all of us possess reserves that can be summoned as necessary. This new belt of sacrifice will allow me to pass on some of reserves to comrade whose own are depleted if necessary if several more battles confront us in our efforts today.” OOC: After 4 more encounters, Z’alden can spend 2 healing surges with the new Belt and give “someone”, e.g., Erik, 1 healing surge. Z’alden also has 1 daily heal remaining (Cure Light Wounds) for someone, e.g. Erik, that does not spend healing surges. “Rift, proceed carefully. Even with your most impressive powers, the Eye only knows what could lurk behind those doors on the left.” After 5 minutes, Z’alden sheaths his dagger and mace and arms his crossbow to shoot any that would harm Rift in her investigation of the corridor. At the first sign of the enemy, he will fire 2 bolts with Twin Strike. After Rift has moved forward a few steps, Z’alden says, “Rift, I know that Eladrin do not need rest like others, and I understand that your flaming sphere will need an extended period of contemplation for you to reassemble its magic, but do you not have some spells that you expended in our recent battle, whose magic once spent after a battle, is recovered by a few minutes mediation and reflection? If so, then perhaps the corridor can wait while you have taken the time to prepare again such amazing spells.” Z’alden looks at Rift inquistively, wondering if he is correct that some of her spells need a bit of a refresher to be ready for another battle. If she runs off now to scout, such spells would not be weapons at the ready. Rift quietly sneaks down to the corner and peeks around. What does she see? Then, assuming that she doesn’t see a horde of enemies coming towards her, she comes back to the fireplace room and rests for 5 minutes. I updated the map above to show what Rift sees around the corner; a closed wooden door, similar in style to the others of the area, latch type, no keyhole. Using her passive perception Rift did not see, hear nor otherwise sense anything beyond the door. After Rift has started her rest, Z’alden will put away his crossbow, draw his parrying dagger, and quietly proceed down the corridor to listen at each of the 4 doors. What does he hear? Behind the door leading eastward Z’alden can hear a fire, it sounds like a crackling fireplace, but no other sounds. Behind the other doors Z’alden detects nothing. Z’alden stares at the fireplace. “Rift, would you extinguish this fire? Perhaps there is a secret door behind it.” Assuming Rift can get the fire out, Z’alden wants to check around the fireplace and the entire room for secret doors. He will be carrying only his parrying dagger. At this point in time Rift does not have the ability to extinguish a roaring fire. Searching the rest of the room takes several minutes. Since you have already spent more than five minutes sitting around and resting I will assume you are OK with taking more time. Searching with a perception of 23 Z’alden finds no secret doors. Z’alden thinks that the future-tale of the dwarf needs finishing. The Scrivener should buy Barrick another ale and get the rest of the story. It is much too good to be disrupted! Erik rests in anticipation of the coming battle. The blades will flash with chaotic furry but the guiding hands must be in full control. The mind must spontaneously choreograph a deadly dance one step ahead of its malevolent partner. Breathing deeply, his mind begins to calm and focus. OOC: Erik has one action point, 36 of 43 HP, 4 healing surges remaining, all encounter powers and no dailies. OOC: Ideally, Erik will finish the next battle with 2 healing surges remaining, as I doubt that the next battle is the last for the day. Therefore, Erik’s avoiding getting hit, and then getting close to Felsmon once damaged past 1 surge value would be good, since the Paladin can touch lay-on-hands for 1 healing surge worth of healing at no cost to the healed. Within 5 squares of Z’alden, +1 to the value. Also, Z’alden has 1 daily power (Cure Light Wounds) that can do the same. Z’alden mediates, feeling his new dagger which parried so many blows in the recent battles – thanks be to the Wings. He admires the swords of Felsmon and Erik. Perhaps even a cleric could carry such a weapon. In Fallcrest, he dreamt that Bahamut bestowed on him a sword even larger than the mighty longswords of his comrades. The hand-and-a-half, or bastard, sword is what he saw in his vision. But that is for another time, as he is here and now. He hefts his mace and wonders if any vampires might be friends of these Bloody Weavers. Smashing a vampire makes for a very good day. Rift hops back and forth in anticipation. Unlike most of her race, she is not given to much meditation and calm reflection. She is eager for battle. “When we return triumphantly, we must hire a scribe to record our adventures. Once he hears our fantastic tale, he will have no doubt of its veracity, and will instantly want to proclaim our victories. We will be famous!” Smiling warming Z’alden says, “Noble Mistress of the Feywild, our fame may come, but we must first focus on the work to be done now. Let us do deeds that will be worth the telling and live to tell it. Indeed, I think that whatever has made those sounds may be worth a scrivener’s pen and ink when we defeat it. Based on those sounds, smashing it could make for a fine day, a very fine day.”

Details Description. Issue Links - relates to DERBY-4652 Provide mean to save length information when inserting CLOBs using the JDBC 4.0 "length less overrides" - Open Activity upgrade comments: o In keeping with the current Derby goals I believe any change of format should continue to support the hard/soft upgrade paradigm. Given that any change will need to have code that supports both the old and new format. o So then the decision is when to use the new format. At high level (though not sure all are feasible) are: 1) every different clob in existing table 2) only new tables support new format, in hard upgraded db's support new format 3) only newly created DB's support new format. 1) Off hand I don't think we have enough per data value information to figure out an olf format clob vs. a new format clob - but maybe someone else can come up with a magic sequence of initial bytes. It would be nice if the new format made it so in the future other possible optimizations could be handled on a per row basis - with some sort of format byte. 2) This option seems the most flexible and readily implemented. By creating a new format id for the new type of clob then the code can be made to easily know the difference between a table of old clobs and new clobs. If someone really wants to data upgrade an old db then an offline compress in a hard upgraded db should automatically do it, with the added benefit of defraging and compressing the tables. 3) I think this is sort of like #2 and is not really any less code. o Also there is a decision on what to do at hard upgrade time. Either the newly hard upgrade db supports both formats or one had to do a per row data upgrade. No Derby release has done this (and it was never done before the code was donated to apache either). My opinion would be to continue to support both formats. I will post some more comments on your proposal, but need some clarification. What does the following mean? Will the changes apply to all sql which inserts clobs, or to only particular jdbc interfaces? 1) Clob modifications are done on a copy (i.e. TemporaryClob). What is the expected call sequence to store, and what is the goal performance characteristic? ie. for an insert of non-lengthed clob is it something like: insert unlength clob into store, calculating length along the way update clob in store changing N leading bytes [Upgrade issues] Thanks for the information on the upgrade issue, Mike. I think it sounds smart to follow existing patterns. Having never written this type of code, I'll need some more time and more pieces of advice when I start working on it. So to sum it up (correct me if I got this wrong): a) Support hard/soft upgrade b) Use new format in new tables (in newly created databases and in hard upgraded databases) c) Leave data as it is at hard upgrade and support both formats for the "stream header" Is the format id stored per table only, or per row? Besides from the lower level format id code, I see that changes must be done in various other classes (i.e. ReaderToUTF8Stream and SQLClob). I'm not sure, but I think some of the newly added classes (10.3 and later) must be reviewed too, as they reset the stream to do positioning. Currently a reset means to position the UTF-8 stream from store at position 2 to skip the two length bytes. In the current implementation, I think I need to access this information up to the JDBC level, i.e. in classes like StoreStreamClob, SQLClob and possibly a ResultSet For the reading and writing of the data to disk the SQL_CLOB_ID is the one. It is associated with the SQLClob class. The SQL layer when it creates a table gives the format id of each of the collumns. This format id is used by store to tell what object it should create to interpret the bytes on disk. So say you create a SQL_CLOB_VER2_ID, and associated it with SQLClob2, and work the code such that new db's and/or hard upgraded db's always use the new class/id when creating new tables. Then Store will use SQLClob2 to read data into, and count on SQLClob2.readExternal SQLClob2.readExternalFromArray SQLClob2.writeExternal to read and write your new format. Note that for current SQLClob these are all inherited from SQLChar currently. In general what has been done in the pase is to switch the format ids in the new code such that the "current" version has the existing name, and that the old version has the new name. So SQLClob would get the new version id, and a new class would get the old version id, something like SQLClob_10_4.java. For an example check out: java/engine/org/apache/derby/impl/store/access/btree/index/B2I.java java/engine/org/apache/derby/impl/store/access/btree/index/B2I_10_3.java java/engine/org/apache/derby/impl/store/access/btree/index/B2I_v10_2.java Again this is only talking about the issue of reading/writing disk at store level. There may be other code with stream dependencies that thinks it "knows" the format of the stream. The way this kind of thing has been handled in the past is to make the runtime version of the object always look like the "current" format. For past upgrades this has been easy as it usually is just another field in the object that one can pick a default for if it is an old version. In this way it isolates the upgrade code to just the to/from disk part of the code. With streams this may be more challenging. > > In the current implementation, I think I need to access this information up to the JDBC level, i.e. in classes like StoreStreamClob, SQLClob and possibly a Re sultSet. The updating discussion has been a bit confusing. I am concentrating on the store interface to update an object on disk. I realize there are a number of in memory clob update paths, but that is a different issue. Currently there is no way to update "part" of the object in the store interface, only the whole object. So without store changes your normal use case for the lengthless updates would require the entire clob to be rewritten to disk. I think easiest would be to support a new store interface that allowed the update of first initial n bytes by an exact same number of bytes. Currently for long clobs the usual case would be that we used all the bytes on the 1st page for the fist piece of the linked list, so expanding by any number of bytes would be a worst case. We would log at least the entire "old" portion of the row. If the lengths don't exactly match there is more logging complication. So my guess at ease of implementation from easiest to hardest supporting some subset of bytes update: o exact leading number of bytes o shrinking leading number of bytes o expanding leading number of bytes o arbitrary positioned number of bytes This probably would mean a new log record, and thus need to be careful again about hard/softupgrade. We have done log record updates (or new ones) in derby so an example exists. Thanks a lot, Mike! I think I know enough to start working on some code now. The first patch(es) will be far from complete, but hopefully it can take the issue forwards. My initial plan is to create two subtasks: o add a new version of SQLClob. o add capability to update parts of an object to store The first part hopefully allows me to create tables with the new Clob format, without actually storing length information. I`ll just use the existing EOF marker and skip the header bytes. As a side effect, running the test suite should help me detect the places where the JDBC layer thinks it knows the store format. Maybe I can limit the knowledge about the exact format in the new version of SQLClob? Regarding the second part, I need to look at the example. I think replacing a fixed number of bytes should suffice, as Clobs are intended for large objects and therefore the header bytes overhead is acceptable. This means the header (which is part of the data stream) will take up just as many bytes for a 2 GB Clob as for a ~32K one. I have no intention to provide functionality to replace arbitrary positioned bytes, as this "conflicts" with the current LOB implementation and is a large undertaking (design and implementation). Hopefully we can use the functionality added in the second part to improve the situation for "lenghtless Blobs" as well, at least in some cases. I got stuck trying to implement the original solution, so I tried an alternative approach. It is a lot simpler, but people might not like it. Note however, that it follows roughly the same pattern as Blob. Note the patch is a quick mash-up, and I want some feedback from the community. The alternative approach is to make all classes writing and reading data from store able to peek at it and determine which format it has to use to read/write the data. Including my second format, we have these two byte formats: - current: D1_D2_DATA - new: D4_D3_M_D2_D1_DATA M is a magic byte, and is used to detect the new format. It is a illegal UTF-8 encoding, so it should not be possible to interpret it incorrectly as the first format and data. I have set M to F0 (11110000), but I'm masking out the last four bits when looking for the magic byte. This makes it possible to have arbitrary many formats, should that be necessary, the main point is to keep the four highest bits set. With respect to data corruption (i.e. one bit getting flipped), is this approach safe enough? So if we need to be able to store huge Clobs in the future, we could change M and use another format: - future: D6_D5_M_D4_D3_D2_D1_DATA The same approach could be used to store other meta information. The patch 'derby-3907-alternative_approach.diff' only changes behavior for small Clobs. To enable a new format for a larger Clob, the streaming classes have to be changed (ReaderToUTF8Stream, UTF8Reader). It should be noted that these classes are used to write other character types (CHAR, VARCHAR) as well, and I do not intend to change how they are represented. This means that I have to include enough information to be able to do the correct thing. While the format can be detected on read, an informed decision must be made on write. Now I'm consulting the data dictionary to check the database version, and if it is less than 10.5 I use th e old format. Is there a better way? Regarding the original approach, I got stuck because the upper layers of Derby are sending down NULL values of the data types into store. The upper layer don't have any context information, and is unable to choose the correct implementation. The system doesn't seem to be set up for having multiple implementations of a single data type at this level. I ended up with a series of hacks, for instance having store override the Clob implementation type, but it just didn't work very well. At one point I had normal, soft- and hard-upgraded working, but compress table failed. I'm sure this isn't the only path that will fail. I might pick up the work again later, but right now I want to wait for a while and work on other issues. Attached the wrong file. Adding the correct one. I think the magic byte sounds like an elegant solution to the problem. The invalid values for the first byte in the UTF-8-encoded sequence are used almost as if we had half a byte extra in the header reserved for future use. I think you are right that this will make the backwards-compatibility issues much easier to handle. As to your question about picking the right format when writing, I think your approach of checking the version of the data dictionary is the way it's normally done. 'derby-3907-2b-header_write_preparation.diff' is a preparation patch to lay the foundation for writing the new stream header format. Essentially, the behavior should be the same before and after the patch. The patch adds a new method to the interface StringDataValue, since the header format will only apply for string data types. The method generateStreamHdr creates the stream header based on the version of the dictionary and the character length information, and also determines if the stream have to be ended with a Derby-specific end-of-stream marker. The current implementation simply returns unknown length and instructs to terminate the value with a Derby EOF marker. This is because Derby pre 10.5 expects a byte count, not a char count. At this level, the byte count is generally unknown. The method generateStreamHdr will be overridden in SQLClob, and the new header format will be used there, unless we are running in soft-upgrade mode where the old format will be used. The goal is that the knowledge about the exact format of the headers is contained in the DVD(s). In ReaderToUTF8Stream I removed the instance variable maximumLength, because it is only needed in the constructor. Further, I added setHeader to allow the header to be overridden after the reader is instantiated. If the header isn't overridden, the reader should behave as before. Note that things may have to be changed a bit if support for updating the header only is added (i.e. the lenghtless scenario). Patch 2b ready for review. FYI, patch 2a is almost identical, except that it doesn't use a utility/holder class for the header. I think using the utility class is cleaner, but it does of course introduce yet another class. Regression tests for patch 2b ran without failures with Java SE 6 on Solaris. I looked at the 2b patch, and it looks good to me. Please see some minor comments below: It seems like we always call ReaderToUTF8Stream.setHeader() right after we have created a ReaderToUTF8Stream object, and we never create a ReaderToUTF8Stream object without calling setHeader(). Would it be cleaner to do add an extra parameter to the constructor instead of requiring code that uses ReaderToUTF8Stream to call setHeader()? With the current patch, it seems like headerOverridden will always be true. Is that going to change? If not, the code would be simpler if headerOverridden was removed. I think StringDataValue.generateStreamHdr() should be renamed to generateStreamHeader() since it's a public method and a clear name is more important than saving three characters. EmbedResultSet.updateCharacterStreamInternal: Since the value returned by getDVDforColumnToBeUpdated() is now used twice, it is stored in a local variable, which is good. But since the method is quite long, perhaps it would be clearer to have the declaration of the variable closer to the end of the method where it's used? I agree ReaderToUTF8Stream can be simplified quite a bit, and I'll take a look at it. By adding the StreamHeaderHolder to the constructor, I think we'll loose one feature. The current implementation has the ability to go back and fill in the header if the value fits into the buffer (32768 - minus header size). The value written to the header is the byte count, and it is used as a hint for sizing the character array used when materializing the string value (CHAR, VARCHAR, LONG VARCHAR). This functionality can continue to exist, but I'm unsure how to do it. Some quick proposals: a) Duplicate header generation code in ReaderToUTF8Stream (trying to avoid this) b) Pass around a header generation object instead of a "pre-generated" header. c) Pass around reference to the StringDataValue/DVD object d) Special handling for all non-Clob data values (requires data type information) e) Simply check header length, if two bytes long then update header (hacky?) I'm not sure how much performance will be affected by removing the feature, but options (d) and (e) seem pretty simple to implement. There are also some alternative "sizing heuristics", but I don't know how effective they are (I've seen InputStream.available() and the start-stop index on the page being used). When resizing, CHAR grows by 64 bytes, VARCHAR by 4 KB. Also note that the problem is only affecting values inserted with a stream/reader. Also, since we are already spending two bytes per string value to store meta information, it would be nice to actually use them optimally. I'm tempted to start using those two bytes for the character count, instead of the byte count. That way, the sizing hint would be exact for almost all CHAR, VARCHAR and LONG VARCHAR values (exceptions are those values inserted with a stream through the "lengthless overrides" where the byte representation exceeds ~32k bytes). The downsides of this are that some decoding loops must be modified and probably that the hint has to be ignored when reading old databases (pre 10.5). I also need to do a more thorough search for places where this information is used. I think using the new header format for all string types is a bad idea, as it will add an extra 3 bytes of overhead. Further, two of those bytes will never be used due to the maximum allowed length of the non-Clob data types. BTW, I have added a static variable for the unknown length stream header holder. A new patch will be uploaded later. Forget my rambling about the constructor, which has nothing to do with the issue at all. But the rest of the comment should have some substance It's time to get home... Patch 3a cleans up ReaderToUTF8Stream and changes the behavior in way one. It will now try to truncate CHAR and VARCHAR as well as CLOB. Only spaces are accepted as truncatable characters. Truncation is disallowed for LONG VARCHAR. In addition, I added some substance to the error message when truncation fails. I decided to not print the stream content, as it is not easily accessible and it may be very large. I also added quite a bit of JavaDoc/comments, removed the instance variable maximumLength and simplified the constructors. Since the type name is used to determine if truncation is allowed or not, I added a debug block verifying the name. As a consequence of this, I had to modify UTF8UtilTest. Regression tests ran with two failures (stressmulti and replication), and due to some changes I'm re-running the tests. Patch ready for review. Wrong diff file... Reattaching 3a. Attaching patch 3b. I had to pull parts of the patch out. The error reporting for truncation failure during insert from a stream isn't adequate, and requires additional work. I filed DERBY-4005 for some of it, but I expect there will be another Jira as well. The patch now changes ReaderToUTF8Stream and UTF8UtilTest only. See commit message for more detailed description of changes. Committed 3b to trunk with revision 732676. Does the 3b patch also change the behaviour with regards to truncation of CHAR and VARCHAR? Are these changes observable by users? Patch 3b does change the behavior with regards to truncation of CHAR in one scenario, only possible through JDBC 4.0: Inserting a stream that is too long (longer than the specified maximum width of the CHAR column) with a lengthless override. With a lengthless override, I mean a JDBC method taking a stream, but where the length of the stream is not specified. Before the change the user would get SQLState 22001, after the change the SQLState would be XJ001. A follow-up patch should revert this change of behavior (Jira not yet logged, is dependent on DERBY-4005). Further, I added CHAR to the list of allowed data types in ReaderToUTF8Stream.canTruncate, but the code using ReaderToUTF8Stream sets the number of characters to truncate to zero for all string data types except CLOB. The code changing the behavior described above is what I pulled out from patch 3a (see some related info in DERBY-4005). Since the functionality is already in place, I think it makes sense to allow for truncation in the stream instead of materializing the data value and try to truncate it later. That said, the number of applicable use cases are limited so it wouldn't be a disaster to leave it as it is. Regarding the error reporting issue, it is still valid also if we drop the "extended truncation support". Refreshed patch 2b, as the old one don't apply any more due to other changes. It has a few changes from the original version. The remaining comments from Knut Anders will be addressed in revision 2c. Attached 'derby-3907-2c-header_write_preparation-PREVIEW.diff'. This is an early version of revision 2c. In general, Derby should behave as before, but it should now have the framework it needs to handle multiple header formats for the streams coming in. This is a partial solution only, Derby must also learn how to handle multiple header formats for non-streaming situations. I expect most of these changes will come in SQLChar and SQLClob. Finally, the new header format must be added. I'm thinking about making StreamHeaderHolder immutable again, because the holder for a 10.4 header for a stream with unknown length will be used a lot. That way we can keep an instance in SQLChar that can be shared. I'll look some more at it an comment further. Feel free to have a look and give me some early feedback Patch 'derby-3907-2c-header_write_preparation.diff' is ready for review. A description of the changes: o EmbedResultSet and EmbedPreparedStatement Started using the new ReaderToUTF8Stream constructor, where the stream header is passed in. Also started to treat the DataValueDescriptor as a StringDataValue, which should always be the case at this point in the code. o ReaderToUTF8Stream Added field 'header', which holds a StreamHeaderHolder coming from a StringDataValue object. Updated the constructors with a new argument. The first execution of fillBuffer now uses the header holder to obtain the header length, and the header holder object is consulted when checking if the header can be updated with the length after the application stream has been drained. Note that updating the header with a character count is not yet supported. This will be added in another patch together with the handling of the new header format. o StringDataValue Added new method generateStreamHeader. o SQLChar Implemented generateStreamHeader, which always return a header for a stream with unknown length (see the constant). In most cases, the header will be updated after the stream has been drained. The exception is when the data values for VARCHAR and LONG VARCHAR are too long to be held in the byte buffer in ReaderToUTF8Reader, which can only happen when the string contains characters that require a two or three byte representation. o SQLClob Added a constant for a 10.5 stream header holder representing a stream with unknown character length. Also updated the use of the ReaderToUTF8Stream constructor. o StreamHeaderHolder Holder object for a stream header, containing the header itself and the following additional information; "instructions" on how to update the header with a new length, if the length is expected to be in number of bytes or characters, and if an EOF marker is expected to be appended to the stream. The object is considered immutable, but it is not copying the byte arrays passed in to the constructor. I found this unnecessary because this code is being called by internal code only, but should it still do defensive copying? o UTF8UTilTest Updated usage of the ReaderToUTF8Stream constructor, and replaced the hardcode byte count to skip with a call to the header holder object. o ClobTest (jdbc4) Added some simple tests inserting and fetching Clobs to test the basics of stream header handling. o StreamTruncationTest New test testing truncation of string data values when they are inserted as streams. Note the not-so-elegant error reporting (see catch clause in insertSmall)... Updated a new version of patch 2c. The only change is in ReaderToUTF8Stream.checkSufficientData, where I had used the wrong header holder to determine if an EOF marker was to be written to the stream. With the exception of one failure in UTF8UtilTest, the regression tests ran successfully with JDK 1.6 on Solaris. In rerunning with the updated patch. Committed patch 2c to trunk with revision 734065. Patch 'derby-3907-4a-add_getStreamWithDescriptor.diff' adds the method getStringWithDescriptor to StringDataValue. It it intended to be used when getting a stream from a StringDataValue to be used with a Clob object, or with streaming of string data values in general. The DVD is responsible for returning a correct descriptor for the raw stream. The descriptor is in turn used by other classes to correctly configure themselves with respect to data offsets, buffering, repositioning and so on. This patch was part of a bigger patch, but I decided to split it into two to make it easier to review. Patch description: o CharacterStreamDescriptor Added a toString method and more verbose assert-messages. o StringDataValue Added method 'CharacterStreamDescriptor getStreamWithDescriptor()'. o SQLChar Made setStream non-final so it can be overridden in SQLClob. Added default implementation of getStreamWithDescriptor that always returns null. This means that all non-Clob string data types will be handled as strings instead of streams in situations where a stream is requested through getStreamWithDescriptor. I'll look into the performance implications of this a little later, when more of the final code is in place. Made throwStreamingIOException protected to access it from SQLClob. o SQLClob Implemented getStreamWithDescriptor, handling the old 2-byte format only. Overrid setStream to discard the stream descriptor when a new stream is set for the DVD. Patch ready for review. I will commit this shortly, but since the code isn't used yet it should be harmless. That shouldn't stop any reviewers though! I'll also post the next patch shortly. Committed patch 4a to trunk with revision 734148. Patch 'derby-3907-5a-use_getStreamWithDescriptor.diff' takes the new StringDataValue.getStreamWithDescriptor() into use. Description of changes: o EmbedClob Changed constructor to take a StringDataValue instead of a DataValueDescriptor. Updated call to the StoreStreamClob constructor. o EmbedResultSet Started using the getStreamWithDescriptor method and updated invocations of the UTF8Reader constructor. o StoreStreamClob Added a CharacterStreamDescriptor, and made the constructor take one as an argument. Adapted the class to use a CSD. o UTF8Reader Updated some comments. Fixed bug where the header length wasn't added to the byte length of the stream, and updated the class appropriately (adjusted utfCount, fixed the reset routine). Made sure the header bytes are skipped (either by skipping them in the constructor or by adjusting the position to on the next reposition). o ResultSetStreamTest Added a test for maxFieldSize, where truncation have to happen. o Various tests Adjusted tests to run with the new implementation. Patch ready for review. Regression tests ran cleanly, but due to a last minute change I have to rerun them again. I will post the results tomorrow. Rerun of the regression tests (derbyall and suites.All) successful, no errors/failures. Committed patch 5a to trunk with revision 734630. A quick comment on the following piece of code from EmbedResultSet.getCharacterStream: CharacterStreamDescriptor csd = dvd.getStreamWithDescriptor(); if (csd == null) { String val = dvd.getString(); if (lmfs > 0) java.io.Reader ret = new java.io.StringReader(val); currentStream = ret; return ret; } // See if we have to enforce a max field size. if (lmfs > 0) java.io.Reader ret = new UTF8Reader(csd, this, syncLock); The last "if (lmfs > 0)" statement will never be run as long as SQLChar.getStreamWithDescriptor() returns null, because then the value will be materialized (SQLChar.getString()). We can allow non-Clob values to be treated as streams as well, but I'm not sure it is worth it due to the limited size (max 32700 chars). Opinons? Attached a bug fix (6a) for a problem where the stream could get out of sync with the descriptor. Committed to trunk with revision 734758. Patch 'derby-3907-7a-write_new_header_format-PREVIEW.diff' enables the new header format. I ran into some problems with obtaining the version of the database being written into, so I had to change where the header is generated. To be able to use the context service to gain access to the data dictionary, there must be context. The context is not pushed in for instance EmbedPreparedStatement.setCharacterStream. To solve this, I added the requirement that StringDataValue.generateStreamHeader has to be invoked when a context is set up. The new approach is to generate the header when the store is asking for the data (during execute), which happens in ReaderToUTF8Stream.fillBuffer. The downside of the approach, is that ReaderToUTF8Stream now takes StringDataValue as an argument in the constructor. This makes a lot more code available in the reader, and it also makes the reader harder to test. I also considered adding a method to tell the DVD the version of the database, but I think it will be hard to make Derby invoke this method in all valid use-cases, and it breaks with the pattern used in the existing classes. A second option is to add a stream header generation object, which can be passed in to ReaderToUTF8Stream. I think this can be done by modifying/replacing the StreamHeaderHolder, and I think it can be done easily. The difference is that the header generation will be postponed. I'll continue the work on Monday, and I will most likely post another patch implementing the approach with a separate class generating the header. Please comment if you think I'm heading down the wrong road. The patch 'derby-3907-7a-write_new_header_format.diff' is the second attempt at implementing the handling of the new stream header format. Hopefully, the performance of reading/writing CHAR, VARCHAR and LONG VARCHAR hasn't suffered, but I'll run some performance tests to confirm it. The performance for reading the old header format for Clobs (i.e. accessing old databases) may suffer a little bit, because in some situations too many bytes are read and the stream has to be reset before reading it again. I need to test this as well. Description of the changes: - EmbedResultSet Adjusted the usage of the ReaderToUTF8Stream constructor. Note the usage of 'setSoftUpgradeMode', which is required because the stream can be read and written when the context stack hasn't been set up. This is true for updatable result sets. When there is no context, the context service fails to obtain the DatabaseContext used by the generator to get to the data dictionary. - EmbedPreparedStatement Adjusted the usage of the ReaderToUTF8Stream constructor. - ArrayInputStream Added an argument to 'readDerbyUTF'. The stream header is now read outside of this method. - StreamHeaderGenerator Added an interface for generating stream headers. - CharStreamHeaderGenerator New class generating old-style headers (two bytes long). Always used for CHAR, VARCHAR and LONG VARCHAR. In addition, it is also used for CLOB in pre 10.5 databases (i.e. soft upgrade mode). - ClobStreamHeaderGenerator New class generating new-style headers (five bytes long). Used only for CLOBs written into a 10.5 database. If a old-style header is needed, the work is delegated to CharStreamHeaderGenerator. - ReaderToUTF8Stream Added a StreamHeaderGenerator to the constructors, and updated the header writing logic to use it. Also added a constant to distinguish the first invocation of 'fillBuffer'. The header is generated on the first invocation, and possibly updated again in 'checkSufficientData'. - StringDataValue Replaced method 'generateStreamHeader(long)' with 'getStreamHeaderGenerator()'. Added method 'setSoftUpgradeMode'. The latter is used in situations where the generator itself is unable to determine of the database being written into is in soft upgrade mode. - SQLChar Factored out code to write the modified UTF-8 format (see 'writeUTF'). Updated 'writeExternal', which will now only be invoked for non-CLOB data values. Added method 'writeClobUTF', which is used to write CLOB data values. It is kept in SQLChar to avoid having to make more of the internal state available to the subclasses. Added a second version of 'readExternal', which is the one doing the actual work. It takes both a byte count and a char count, where both can can by unknown. Implemented the new method in StringDataValue. - SQLClob Added variable 'inSoftUpgradeMode', which tells if the DVD is used in a database being in soft upgrade mode or not. This must be known to generate the correct header format. Note that this may be unknown, in which case the header generator itself will try to determine the mode. Implemented 'getLength', which will obtain the length from the stream header, delegate the work to 'SQLChar.getLength' if the value is not a stream, or decode the stream data if the length is not stored in the header. The data value is not materialized. Added support to read both stream header formats in 'getStreamWithDescriptor'. Implemented 'investigateStream' to decode the header. Added 'writeExternal', 'readExternal' and 'readExternalFromArray'. In general, some preparation steps are taken and then the work is delegated to SQLChar. Added utility class HeaderInfo. - StreamHeaderHolder Deleted the class. - UTF8UtilTest Updated code to use the new generator class. Patch ready for review. I have run the regression tests without failures, but due to a small last minute change I will run them again tonight. I have also tried reading and writing Clob from a 10.4 database manually, both in soft and hard upgrade mode. Based on Mike's suggestion, I was hoping that a table compress would update the old headers to the new header format after a hard upgrade. This is in principle correct, but the new header is written with "unknown length" encoded. I haven't investigated how to best solve this problem. Replaced patch 7a (removed two lines of debugging code). I decided to split up patch 7a due to its size. Patch 7a1 adds the new stream header generator classes (one interface, two implementations). Committed to trunk with revision 736612. Patch 'derby-3907-7a2-use_new_framework.diff' is the second part of 7a. It prepares the code to deal with multiple stream header formats, but doesn't change the current behavior regarding stream headers. Committed to trunk with revision 736636. I will upload the next patch, but will wait a few days before I commit it to see if any problems are detected with patch 7a2. Patch 7a3 is the patch that enables the new header format. I plan to commit this Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Patch ready for review. Remaining work: o Determine if the database version should be kept in the Database object. It all depends on how expensive it is to consult the data dictionary about the version. o Investigate upgrade further to understand whether long columns can easily be upgraded with a new header or not. o (stretch task) Investigate how to add the functionality to update only the first few bytes of a data value. NOTE: After this patch has been committed, databases containing CLOBs written with a Derby revision after the commit cannot be read with a Derby revision before the commit. Committed patch 7a3 to trunk with revision 738408. I think some code in SQLChar can be removed now, but I'll wait a little while before I start looking at it. As noted earlier, databases created with revision 738408 or later containing Clobs cannot be used with earlier revisions any more. It looks like most of the work for this issue has been completed for 10.5. Is it possible to log a new issue for the remaining tasks? Does this require a release note? I'll log at least one new issue, tracking the final piece of the functionality required to insert the required meta data for Clobs inserted with one of the JDBC 4.0 "length-less overrides". I don't think this issue requires a release note, but I'll comment on a few things before I close the issue. See DERBY-4652 for a possible improvement (dealing with JDBC 4.0 "length less overrides"). Closing. A few starting points for discussion follows (all about the meta-information for Clobs). I have assumed the following prerequisites: 1) Clob modifications are done on a copy (i.e. TemporaryClob). 2) The meta-information is of fixed length and at the start of the data stream (first page), so that it can be updated after the data has been streamed to store. a) Format specification byte Shall we use a format specification ("magic number") byte? b) Maximum Clob length (in characters) How many bits shall we use for the Clob length? Is representing todays maximum (2G-1) enough, or should we make some headroom? c) Storing byte length I mentioned storing the byte length as well, but haven't found any strong use cases. Opinions? [Optimizations] d) Bytes per character information Use a few bits to save byte per character information, which can be used to optimize positioning. If the value is different than 0, one can calculate the byte position from the char position without decoding the stream. This information must be obtained by looking at all the bytes in the Clob, typically when inserting it. Example with 2 bits: 0 = unknown/mixed 1 = one byte per char 2 = two bytes per char 3 = three bytes per char e) Save "key positions" for the Clob For instance save the char/byte positions for 25%, 50% and 75% of the Clob. This increases space overhead, but reduces the decoding/positioning costs for large Clobs. Also adds some complexity to the positioning logic in upper layer code (i.e. above store). Please comment on these issues. Information about the upgrade issue is also appreciated.

Published October 26 2013 High school scoreboardFOOTBALL D Minnesota Results Saturday Barnesville 41, Frazee 0 F 0 0 0 0–0 B 20 14 7 0–41 B–Ishaug 30 pass from Martz (Settelmeyer kick) B–Strand 40 run (Settelmeyer kick) B–Strand 58 run (kick fialed) B–Strand 84 pass from Martz (run failed) B–Holland 17 pass from Martz (Strand run) B–Strand 27 run (Settelmeyer kick) Hawley 42, United North Central 12 UNC 0 0 0 12–12 H 14 14 14 0–42 H–Tusow 10 pass from Harms (Althoff kick) H–Omberg 24 run (Althoff kick) H–Buttke 13 run (Althoff kick) H–Buttke 3 run (Althoff kick) H–Buttke 3 run (Althoff kick) H–Harms 4 run (Althoff kick) UNC–Skaro 16 pass from Carlson (conversion failed) UNC–Tellers 36 pass from Carlson (conversion failed) Mahnomen 58, Fertile-Beltrami 0 FB 0 0 0 0–0 M 10 21 20 7–58 M–Reitan 28 run (Reitan run) M–Safety M–Pavek 5 run (run failed) M–Levebvre 5 run (Levebvre pass from Pavek) M–Levebvre 18 pass from Pavek (Pavek kick) M–Levebvre 7run (Pavek kick) M–Pavek 10 run (kick failed) M–Worms 13 run (McCollum kick) M–Foss 1 run (McCollum kick) Oakes 33, Park River-Fordville-Lankin 7 PRFL 0 7 0 0–7 O 7 14 6 6–33 O–Loepp 6 run (Meehl kick) O–Ehrlin 6 pass from Meehl (Meehl kick) PRFL–Blasky 28 run (Cudmore kick) O–Sell 47 pass from Meehl (Meehl kick) O–Meehl 49 run (kick blocked) O–Sell 42 interception return (run failed) Otter Tail Central 22, Breckenridge 19 OTC 14 8 0 0– 22 B 7 0 6 6–19 OTC–Smith 1 run (To. Ukkelberg kick) B–Hiedeman 4 run (C. Yaggie kick) OTC–Ty. Ukkelberg 56 pass from To. Ukkelberg (To. Ukkelberg kick) OTC–Trosdahl 1 run (Trosdahl run) B–Blaufuss 17 run (pass failed) B–Blaufuss 1 run (kick failed) Underwood 21, Wheaton-Herman-Norcross 0 U 0 0 6 15–21 WHN 0 0 0 0–0 U–Thompson 91 run (kick failed) U–Kalence 55 run (Creek run) U–Creek 5 run (Haug kick) Win-E-Mac 39, Warren-Alvarado-Oslo 12 WAO 0 6 0 6–12 WEM 8 13 6 12–39 WEM–Tradewell 18 run (pass good) WAO–DuBore 12 run (run failed) WEM–Kasprzak 15 pass from Tradewell (kick failed) WEM–Kasprzak 11 pass from Tradewell (kick good) WEM–Stuhaug 3 run (kick failed) WEM–Stuhaug 1 run (kick failed) WAO–Duvard 5 pass from Miller (run failed) WEM–Stuhaug 2 run (kick failed) Other scores 5A Section 1 Owatonna 49, Austin 20 Rochester Mayo 27, Rochester John Marshall 14 5A Section 2 Chaska 28, Northfield 0 Mankato West 33, Chanhassen 22 5A Section 3 Apple Valley 16, Bloomington Jefferson 7 Minneapolis Washburn 48, Bloomington Kennedy 42, 2OT 5A Section 4 Andover 42, Irondale 3 Spring Lake Park 15, Mahtomedi 14 5A Section 5 Henry Sibley 20, St. Paul Central 7 St. Thomas Academy 35, Tartan 14 5A Section 6 Rogers 52, Elk River 14 St. Michael-Albertville 42, Buffalo 14 5A Section 7 Brainerd 35, Cambridge-Isanti 14 Chisago Lakes 35, Bemidji 28 5A Section 8 Moorhead 30, St. Cloud Apollo 20 Sartell 32, St. Cloud Tech 19 4A Section 1 Kasson-Mantorville 42, Byron 35 Stewartville 38, Winona 20 4A Section 2 Hutchinson 41, Dassel-Cokato 0 Waseca 33, Marshall 6 4A Section 3 Holy Angels 54, Richfield 21 St. Paul Highland Park 39, Holy Family Catholic 38 4A Section 4 Hill-Murray 42, St. Paul Johnson 22 South St. Paul 35, North Branch 0 4A Section 5 Becker 28, Orono 26 Delano 40, Big Lake 21 4A Section 6 Benilde-St. Margaret’s 56, Blake 7 DeLaSalle 48, Fridley 7 4A Section 7 Cloquet 20, Princeton 6 Hermantown 29, Duluth Denfeld 20 4A Section 8 Detroit Lakes 29, Albany 28 Thief River Falls 44, Rocori 16 3A Section 1 Cannon Falls 33, Plainview-Elgin-Millville 16 Rochester Lourdes 39, La Crescent 7 3A Section 2 Glencoe-Silver Lake 55, Breck 12 Watertown-Mayer 35, Rockford 14 3A Section 3 Belle Plaine 33, Blue Earth Area 7 Fairmont 30, Sibley East 6 3A Section 4 Columbia Heights 25, Minnehaha Academy 23 St. Croix Lutheran 57, St. Paul Como Park 7 3A Section 5 Pierz 23, Foley 12 St. Cloud Cathedral 53, Mora 14 3A Section 6 Annandale 42, Melrose 26 New London-Spicer 39, Litchfield 18 3A Section 7 Esko 14, Duluth Marshall 0 Proctor 27, Two Harbors 12 3A Section 8 Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton 19, Perham 14 Pequot Lakes 34, Park Rapids 26 2A Section 1 Caledonia 20, Lewiston-Altura 7 Chatfield 35, Triton 3 2A Section 2 Norwood-Young America 35, Medford 14 Pine Island 14, Kenyon-Wanamingo 6 2A Section 3 Jackson County Central 51, Martin County West 12 Maple River 21, Luverne 0 2A Section 4 Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 23, St. Agnes 20 Maple Lake 27, Concordia Academy 21 2A Section 5 Minneota/Lincoln HI 27, BOLD 17 Paynesville 46, Sauk Centre 8 2A Section 6 Holdingford 48, Pelican Rapids 18 Ottertail Central 22, Breckenridge 19 2A Section 7 Mesabi East 18, Crosby-Ironton 14 Moose Lake/Willow River 58, Eveleth-Gilbert 13 2A Section 8 Barnesville 41, Frazee 0 Hawley 42, United North Central 12 1A Section 1 Bethlehem Academy 42, Southland 7 Blooming Prairie 29, Fillmore Central 0 1A Section 2 Cedar Mountain/Comfrey 47, New Ulm Cathedral 42 Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s 46, Springfield 0 1A Section 3 Adrian 18, St. Clair 2 Tracy-Milroy-Balaton 20, United South Central 14 1A Section 4 Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa 26, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 22 Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity 54, Minneapolis North 26 1A Section 5 Dawson-Boyd 25, Canby 20 Wabasso 42, MACCRAY 6 1A Section 6 Browerville 16, Royalton 13 Upsala/Swanville 35, Pine River-Backus 20 1A Section 7 Barnum 44, Deer River 2 Braham 34, Blackduck 6 1A Section 8 Mahnomen 58, Fertile-Beltrami 0 Red Lake County 36, Lake Park-Audubon 6 9 Man Section 1 Grand Meadow 28, Lanesboro 6 Spring Grove 56, Houston 6 9 Man Section 2 Madelia 36, GHEC/Truman 30 Nicollet 48, Randolph 6 9 Man Section 3 Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley 62, Hills-Beaver Creek 16 Mountain Lake Area 20, Edgerton/Ellsworth 12 9 Man Section 4 Underwood 21, Wheaton/Herman-Norcross 0 Verndale 60, Isle 20 9 Man Section 5 Floodwood 47, McGregor 28 South Ridge 26, Wrenshall 6 9 Man Section 6 Ada-Borup 30, Park Christian (Moorhead) 0 Waubun 42, Nevis 20 9 Man Section 7 Ely 43, Bigfork 8 Kelliher/Northome 20, Chisholm 8 9 Man Section 8 Kittson County Central 38, Clearbrook-Gonvick 24 Win-E-Mac 39, Warren-Alvarado-Oslo 12 Playoff pairings Class 5A, Section 8 Saturday 3) Moorhead 30, St. Cloud Apollo 20 4) Sartell-St. Stephen 32, St. Cloud Tech 19 Saturday, Nov. 2 At St. Cloud State Championship: No. 4 Moorhead (7-3) vs. No. 3 Sartell-St. Stephen (7-3), 7 p.m. Class 4A, Section 8 Saturday 3) Albany 28, Detroit Lakes 21 4) Thief River Falls 44, Rocori 16 Saturday, Nov. 2 At Concordia Championship: No. 5 Albany (5-5) vs. No. 2 Thief River Falls (7-2), 1 p.m. Class 3A, Section 8 Saturday 3) Pequot Lakes 34, Park Rapids 26 4) Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton 19, Perham 14 Thursday, Oct. 31 At Fargodome Championship: No. 4 Pequot Lakes (5-5) vs. No. 2 Dilworth-Glyndon Felton (7-2), 8 p.m. Class 2A, Section 6 Saturday At high seed 5) Holdingford 48, Pelican Rapids 18 6) Otter Tail Central 22, Breckenridge 19 Friday, Nov. 1 At Fargodome Championship: No. 1 Holdingford vs. No. 3 Otter Tail Central (9-1), 5:30 p.m. Class 2A, Section 8 Saturday 4) Hawley 42, United North Central 12 5) Barnesville 41, Frazee 0 Friday, Nov. 1 At Fargodome Championship: No. 1 Hawley (8-1) vs. No. 2 Barnesville (10-0) 8 p.m. Class 1A, Section 6 Saturday At high seed 5) Upsala-Swanville Area 35, Pine River-Backus 20 6) Browerville 16, Royalton 13 Friday, Nov. 1 At Fargodome Championship: No. 1 Upsala-Swanville (9-1) vs. No 6. Browerville (6-4), 3 p.m. Class 1A, Section 8 Saturday At high seed 5) Mahnomen 58, Fertile-Beltrami 0 6) Red Lake County 36, Lake Park-Audubon 6 Thursday, Oct. 31 At Fargodome Championship: No. 1 Mahnomen (10-0) vs. No. 2 Red Lake County (9-1), 5:30 p.m. 9-Man, Section 4 Saturday 5) Verndale 60, Isle 20 6) Underwood 21, Wheaton-Herman-Norcross 0 Friday, Nov. 1 At Fargodome Championship: No. 1 Verndale (9-1) vs. No. 3 Underwood (7-3), 12:30 p.m. 9-Man, Section 6 Saturday 5) Ada-Bourp 30, Moorhead-Park Christian 0 6) Waubun 42, Nevis 20 Thursday, Oct. 31 At Fargodome Championship: No. 1 Ada-Bourp (8-2) vs. No. 3 Waubun, 12:30 p.m. 9-Man, Section 8 Saturday 5) Win-E-Mac 39, Warren-Alvarado-Oslo 12 6) Kittson County Central 38, Clearbrook-Gonvick 24 Thursday, Oct. 31 At Fargodome Championship: No. 1 Win-E-Mac (10-0) vs. No. 2 Kittson County Central (10-0), 3 p.m. North Dakota Results Saturday Divide County 34, Richardton-Taylor-Hebron 20 RTH 8 6 0 6¬¬–20 DC 0 14 8 12–34 RTH–Rebel 17 pass from Voltz (Aune run) DC–Elsbernd 1 run (pass failed) DC–Landsverk 54 run (Landsverk pass from Jacobs) RTH–Aune 10 run (run failed) DC–Jacobs 3 run (run failed) DC–Jacobs 4 run (pass failed) RTH–Floberg 4 pass from Voltz (run failed) Finley-Sharon-Hope-Page 40, Strasburg-Zeeland 22 FSHP 14 8 10 8–40 SZ 14 0 8 0–22 FSHP–Montag 42 run (Erickson run) SZ–Kramer 7 run (Kramer pass from Aberle) FSHP–Goughnor 4 run (pass failed) SZ–Aberle 3 run (run failed) FSHP–Erickson 1 run (Thorson run) FSHP–Montag 19 run (Suhr run) SZ–Schurr 38 run (Eberle pass from Nieuwsma) FSHP–Safety FSHP–Montag 7 run (Suhr pass from Erickson) Hazen 48, Rugby 20 R 6 8 0 6–20 H 14 7 27 0–48 H–Lientz 70 run (Fears kick) H–Bornemann 55 run (Fears kick) R–Heidlebaugh 3 run (kick failed) H–Bornemann 42 run (Fears kick) R–Heidlebaugh 4 run (Hooker pass from Heidlebaugh) H–Bornemann 30 run (Fears kick) H–Opp 54 pass from Doll (Fears kick) H–Opp 23 run (kick failed) H–Leintz 66 pass from Doll (Fears kick) Linton-HMB 28, Larimore 8 LHMB 8 8 6 6–28 L 0 8 0 0–8 LHMB–Oien 5 run (Schell pass from Jacob) L–Nygaard 61 pass from Yahna (Trosen run) LHMB–Jacob 43 pass from Flyberg (Purinton catch from Flyberg) LHMB–Schell 56 pass from Flyberg (conversion failed) LHMB–Flyberg 3 run (conversion failed) Napoleon-Gackle-Streeter 14, Thompson 6 T 0 6 0 0–6 NGS 0 0 14 0–14 T–Schultz 10 pass from Larimer (conversion failed) NGS–Fettig 1 run (conversation failed) NGS–Fettig 5 run (Feist pass from Fettig) North Prairie 22, Carrington 7 NP 0 8 7 7– 22 C 7 0 0 0–7 C–Ferguson 2 run (Smith kick) NP–Gailfus 2 run (Shoening pass from Gottbreht) NP– Gottbreht 1 run (Schoening pass from Gottbreht) NP– Scott 15 pass from Gottbreht (PAT failed) South Border 22, Hatton-Northwood 20 HN 0 0 12 8–20 SB 8 6 8 0–22 SB–Meidinger 2 run (Kuntz run) SB–Meidinger 6 run (pass failed) SB–Kuntz 6 run (Rueb run) HN–Ellis 2 run (kick blocked) HN–Holden 3 pass from Pladson (pass failed) HN–Pederson 27 pass from Pladson (Pederson pass from Pladson) Velva 27, Killdeer 20 V 7 0 6 14–27 K 6 0 6 8–20 K–Knopik 3 run (kick blocked) V–Dean 30 pass from Effertz (Peterson kick) K–Blankenship 36 pass from Effertz (run failed) V–Dean 3 pass from Effertz (run failed) V–Thingstad 6 run (Peterson kick) V–Schreiner 23 pass from Effertz (Peterson kick) K–Rohr 3 run (Rohr run) Watford City at No. 1 Fargo Shanley 2) No. 3E Lisbon at No. 2W Bismarck St. Mary’s 3) No. 4E Kindred at No. 1W Minot Ryan 4) No. 3W Beulah at No. 2E Wahpeton Class 1A Saturday 1) Milnor-North Sargent 36, Lakota-Edmore-Dakota Prairie 22 2) North Prairie 22, Carrington 7 3) Linton-HMB 28, Larimore 8 4) Oakes 33, Park River-Fordville-Lankin 7 5) Des Lacs-Burlington 25, New Salem-Almont-Glen Ullin 8 6) Velva 27, Killdeer 20 7) Hazen 48, Rugby 20 8) Lewis and Clark/Our Redeemers 50, Heart River 28 Saturday, Nov. 2 9) No. 1 Milnor-North Sargent (7-2) vs. No. 2 North Prairie (8-2), at Milnor-North Sargent 10) No. 4 Linton-HMB (7-2) vs. No. 2 Oakes (7-2), at Oakes 11) No. 1 Des Lacs-Burlington (9-0) vs. No. 3 Velva (6-3), at Des Lacs-Burlington 12) No. 1 Hazen (9-0) vs. No. 2 Lewis & Clark-Our Redeemers (7-2), at Lewis & Clark-Our Redeemers Saturday, Nov. 9 11) Game 9 winner vs. Game 10 winner, at higher seed 12) Game 11 winner vs. Game 12 winner, at higher seed Friday, Nov. 15 At Fargodome Championship: Game 11 winner vs. Game 12 winner, 12:05 p.m. 9-man Saturday 1) Napoleon-Gackle-Streeter 14, Thompson 6 2) Finley-Sharon-Hope-Page 40, Strasburg-Zeeland 22 3) Cavalier 50, LaMoure-Litchville-Marion 24 4) South Border 22, Hatton-Northwood 20 5) Towner-Granville-Upham 42, Beach 14 6)Westhope-Newburg-Glenburn 44, Grant County-Flasher 42 7) Bismarck Shiloh Christian 63, St. John 24 8) Divide County 34, Richardton-Taylor-Hebron 20 Saturday, Nov. 2 9) No. 1 Napoleon-Gackle-Streeter (8-1) vs. No. 2 Finley-Sharon-Hope-Page (8-1), at Napoleon 10) No. 1 Cavalier (8-0) vs. No. 2 South Border (7-2), at Cavalier 11) No. 1 Towner-Granville-Upham (10-0) vs. No. 3 Westhope-Newburg-Glenburn 44, at Towner-Granville-Upham 12) No. 1 Bismarck Shiloh Christian (9-0) vs. No. 2 Divide County (8-2), at Bismarck Shiloh Christian Saturday, Nov. 9 11) Game 9 winner vs. Game 10 winner, at higher seed 12) Game 11 winner vs. Game 12 winner, at higher seed Friday, Nov. 15 At Fargodome Championship: Game 11 winner vs. Game 12 winner, 9:10 a.m.-Bismarck Results Saturday Semifinal 3A Section 2 Quarterfinal Waconia def. Prior Lake, 25-21, 25-22, 25-23 2A Section 1 West Semifinal Kasson-Mantorville def. Cannon Falls, 25-17, 26-24, 25-20 Stewartville def. Zumbrota-Mazeppa, 25-10, 25-12, 25-23 2A Section 1 East Semifinal Chatfield def. St. Charles, 25-10, 25-18, 25-16 Dover-Eyota def. Caledonia, 21-25, 25-17, 25-12, 21-25, 15-13 1A Section 1 East Semifinal Fillmore Central def. Lewiston-Altura, 25-12, 25-20, 25-16 Mabel-Canton def. Goodhue, 25-16, 25-23, 25-20 1A Section 1 West Semifinal Bethlehem Academy def. Blooming Prairie, 25-22, 25-16, 25-11 Hayfield def. Medford, 25-21, 25-20, 25-14 Saturday Bismarck St. Mary’s def. Turtle Mountain, 25-10, 25-12, 25-12 Wahpeton def. Devils Lake, 25-23, 25-18, 26-24 West Fargo def. Fargo North, 25-18, 17-25, 23-25, 25-16, 16 Tuesday, Oct. 29. Tuesday, Oct. 29 Third-place game At Metrodome Game 7: Game 5 loser vs. Game 6 loser, 10 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 31 Championship At Metrodome Game 8: Game 5 winner vs. Game 6 winner, 10 a.m. SWIMMING D Minnesota girls Results Saturday CLC Championships Team scores: Sartell-St. Stephen Sabres 481, Brainerd 472.5, Willmar 286.5, Alexandria 252, St. Cloud Tech 215, Fergus Falls 186, Sauk Rapids-Rice 173.5, Rocori 147, St. Cloud 111.5. North Dakota girls Results Saturday Fargo North Invitational Team scores: Fargo North 845, Grand Forks Central 513, Fargo South 487, Grand Forks Red River 295. 200 medley relay: 1, FN (K. Astrup, A. Astrup, Slack, Blazek), 2:01.86. 2, GFC (Brelie, Dahlquist, Ljunggren, Sand), 2:05.24. 3, RR (Jorde, Watson, Behn, Schreiner), 2:05.39. 200 freestyle: 1, Mengelkoch, FN, 2:01.58. 2, Brelie, GFC, 2:09.95. 3, Murphy, GFC, 2:11.77. 200 individual medley: 1, Roche, FN, 2:17.00. 2, A. Astrup, FN, 2:22.67. 3, K. Astrup, FN, 2:26.48. 50 freestyle: 1, Anderson, FN, 25.06. 2, Jorde, RR, 26.66. 3, Ljunggren, GFC, 26.83. Diving: 1, Remer, GFC, 199.55. 2, Werder, FN, 157.30. 3, Conway, FN, 143.50. 100 butterfly: 1, Derby, FN, 1:02.50. 2, Slack, FN, 1:02.68. 3, A. Astrup, FN, 1:03.67. 100 freestyle: 1, Anderson, FN, 54.66. 2, Mengelkoch, FN, 56.74. 3, Roche, FN, 59.20. 500 freestyle: 1, Slack, FN, 5:34.08. 2, Smith, FN, 6:04.34. 3, Zachariason, FN, 6:19.18. 200 freestyle relay: 1, FN (Anderson, Mengelkoch, Roche, Derby), 1:42.12. 2, FS (Thompson, Bachmeier, Martinson, Davis), 1:51.99. 3, GFC (Dahlquist, Nilles, Brelie, Ljunggren), 152.66. 100 backstroke: 1, Derby, FN, 1:02.65. 2, K. Astrup, 1:05.55. 3, Roche, FN, 1:07.33. 100 breaststroke: 1, Roche, FN, 1:10.50. 2, Ljunggren, GFC, 1:17.84. 3, Hanna, FS, 1:20.57. 400 freestyle relay: 1, FN (Anderson, Mengelkoch, Roche, Derby), 3:42.74. 2, FS (Thompson, Martinson, Bachmeier, Davis), 4:11.32. 3, GFC (Murphy, Nilles, Simon, Sand), 4:16.12. West Fargo Invitational Team scores: West Fargo 363, Shanley 230, Wahpeton 111, Jamestown 78. 50 freestyle: 1, Dutt, WF, 25.08. 2, Peterson, WF, 25.96. 3, Gunning, WF, 26.07. Diving: 1, Dixon, S, 198.35. 2, Ekman, S, 162.65. 3, Pederson, WF, 161.35. 100 butterfly: 1, Dutt, WF, 59.79. 2, Peterson, WF, 1:03.06. 3, Gunning, WF, 1:03.42. 100 freestyle: 1, Dutt, WF, 55.38. 2, Peterson, WF, 55.64. 3, Gunning, WF, 56.50. 100 backstroke: 1, Hart, J, 1:01.92. 2, Peterson, WF, 1:04.86. 3, Bourassa, WF, 1:05.55. 100 breaststroke: 1, Peterson, WF, 1:13.68. 2, Peterson, WF, 1:14.17. 3, Bourassa, WF, 1:14.58.

Con più domande High memory page faults/sec on sql server I am suspecting something is need to check on our SQL server because last more than 3 months I am getting many times high OS disk queue length during production hours specially on Disk on S: which contains our database on RAID 10 SAN system .Here is SQL server detail Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - 9.00.4035.00 (X64) Nov 24 2008 16:17:31 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 5.2 (Build 3790: Service Pack 2) Here are CPU and RAM details Logical CPU Count Hyperthread Ratio Physical CPU Count Physical Memory (MB) ----------------- ----------------- ------------------ -------------------- 8 4 2 32762 I am continue seeing value of this Memory page faults /sec counter so high (For example, yesterday this value was near 12574 and today it is 26374).What should be the value of this counter? Please someone help me and explain why I am seeing extremely high page faults? How can I make this measurement lower? What are the others memory counters do I need to check to figure out why SQL frequently accessing data from Disk? Thanks in advance. - Spostato Darren GosbellMVP mercoledì 16 febbraio 2011 22:32 This is a DB Engine question, not an OLAP one (From:SQL Server Analysis Services) Domanda Tutte le risposte one counter you can check is page life expectancy (SQLServer:Buffer Manager) and Buffer cache hit ratio, they give you an idea how much sql server is able to cache and how often sql server has to read from disk. it sounds a bit like you are memory bottlenecked. thus many io's on the disks which would explain the queue lengths. how big are your db's/tables, and do you have regulary table scans against them? As FZB says, page life expectancy and buffer cache hit ratio are the gold standards for perfmon counters. Page faults can just be logical, they don't all turn into physical faults (or do I have this confused with some other system?) So that high number could be nothing. You also said disk queue numbers are high - how high, and for how much of the time? It seems that with later versions of SQL Server you can get spikes in the disk queues, but they don't mean anything, just that SQL Server is very clever these days and will queue up a bunch of stuff instead of waiting for the first to get done before posting the next. You have 32gb of RAM, do you have the max ram configured to a smaller number, probably less than 28gb? Are there any other busy processes running on the server along with SQL Server? Most of all - are users complaining of slower response? Josh Thanks both of you . I was measuring the value of page life expectancy and buffer cache hit ratio counters last 2 days . Here are details during this time and date the page life expectancy value is below 300 Buffer cache hit ration is above 99 % most of the time but some time it sometime went down near 87 % on 2/16/2011 . last two days , I was seeing the total no of time high disk queue length was 19 times on 2/15/2011 with maximum value 67 and 15 time Disk queue length on 2/16/2011 with maximum value 50 .(time between 8 am to 5 pm ). The process of sqlservr is taking high CPU usage most of the time greater than 150 %.. Please advise me . Thanks . Daizy Can you please - Share what your Max Server Memory setting is currently set to? - Provide some general memory numbers: SELECT total_physical_memory_kb, available_physical_memory_kb, total_page_file_kb, available_page_file_kb, system_memory_state_desc FROM sys.dm_os_sys_memory OPTION (RECOMPILE); - Provide your memory clerk usage using the query below. SELECT TOP(10) [type] AS [Memory Clerk Type], SUM(single_pages_kb) AS [SPA Mem, Kb] FROM sys.dm_os_memory_clerks GROUP BY [type] ORDER BY SUM(single_pages_kb) DESC OPTION (RECOMPILE); John Sansom | SQL Server DBA Blog | Twitter Monitoring Memory Usage. also I'd suggest you to look at your disk performance, I am not sure about your IO subsystem architecture, perfmon counters of sec/read, sec/write, sec/transfer are good ones. If you think my suggestion is useful, please rate it as helpful.Sevengiants.com If it has helped you to resolve the problem, please Mark it as Answer. as long as the buffer cache ratio stays above 99%, that means SQL Server is running efficiently. if page life expectancy drops from time to time, that says SQL Server is *busy*, but as long as the buffer cache ratio stays high, it is probably running about as fast as it can. remember, the server has to work for a living, too! it does suggest you're scanning some big tables that aren't staying in memory, if you can avoid those scans with better indexing or better coding, that might help. if you have 8 cores, then when they are all busy you would see 800% CPU, so if you're seeing only 150% CPU, that's fine, wouldn't worry about that until it spent a lot of time over about 300%. so, overall, things sound pretty much OK to me! Josh Do you experience any performance degradation on the SQL instance w.r.t. users complaining about slower than normal response times from the application when your page life expectancy and buffer cache hit ratio numbers drop. Ideally, the buffer cache hit ratio should be in the high 90s range but if you are running query which brings a lot of pages in the database buffer cache, then number can drop when such queries are executed. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. My Blog: Twitter: @banerjeeamit SQL Server FAQ Blog on MSDN: Here is memory seeting on sql server Minimum server memory set -2000MB Maximum server memory set -24000MB Page file size -48000MB Available memory near 5 GB . AWE disable I could not able to run query to get general memory number .I granted my domain account with view server stats permission ,but still getting invalid object . Here is memory clerk usage information. Memory Clerk Type SPA Mem, Kb ------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- CACHESTORE_SQLCP 3910480 OBJECTSTORE_SNI_PACKET 232208 CACHESTORE_OBJCP 220512 MEMORYCLERK_SQLCONNECTIONPOOL 148064 USERSTORE_TOKENPERM 146952 USERSTORE_SXC 57376 MEMORYCLERK_SQLGENERAL 43576 MEMORYCLERK_SQLSTORENG 38072 CACHESTORE_PHDR 32792 USERSTORE_SCHEMAMGR 24992 I am seeing avg.disk sec /read many times taking time more than 0.020ms look like SQL server accessing data from disk more than RAM . Thanks everyone for helping me . 0.020 ms is not a bad number. SQLCP has the highest value which means that there are large number of cached plans in your procedure cache. You might want to look into the procedure cache and see if you have a lot of ad-hoc plans in the cache. Based on the analysis, you can opt for either parameterizing queries or converting the frequently used ad-hoc SQL queries into SPs or even look at Forced Parameterization as an option. Not necessarily a 3GB proc cache is a problem but there might be scope for tuning here. Reference: A sidenote: AWE on 64-bit systems has no meaning. As long as you grant the SQL service account Lock Pages in Memory security privilege, SQL Server can use locked pages for the buffer pool. HTH This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. My Blog: Twitter: @banerjeeamit SQL Server FAQ Blog on MSDN: - Do you really need a 48GB page file? John Sansom | SQL Server DBA Blog | Twitter Unless you are expecting to catch memory dumps, I see no reason for your page file to be that size. I would suggest cutting it right down to around 2-5GB. Your low page life expectancy would seem to suggest that you have some inefficient queries. Rather than looking at hardware performance metrics in isolation, I would suggest looking to identify which of your queries are generation the most IO. You may for example have some large index scan operations that are causing the existing pages in the buffer to be paged out, in order to make room for the data being read in to the buffer from disk. A quick and easy way for you to get a lot of performance tuning information for your environment is to use the freely available SQL Server Performance dashboard reports. These will show you your poorest performing queries in terms of IO, CPU and duration for example. The following query may prove useful too: SELECT TOP 20 qs.sql_handle, qs.execution_count, qs.total_physical_reads, qs.total_logical_reads, sys.dm_exec_sql_text(qs.sql_handle) AS st CROSS apply sys.dm_exec_query_plan (qs.plan_handle) AS qp ORDER BY qs.total_physical_reads DESC John Sansom | SQL Server DBA Blog | Twitter Daizy Have you managed to get following info? I think we need find out whether it is SQLserver doing lots of paging or other process . To determine whether SQL Server or another process is the cause of excessive paging, monitor the Process: Page Faults/sec counter for the SQL Server process instance. If you think my suggestion is useful, please rate it as helpful.Sevengiants.com If it has helped you to resolve the problem, please Mark it as Answer. Avg disk seconds/read for disk drives hosting SQL Server database files should have average values below 30ms and you shouldn't see prolonged periods with values above 30ms. The numbers may vary based on your disk configuration. If the response time is very high, then you might want check if SQL Server is the process that is driving the IO on the disk. You can check the IO performed by SQL Server using IO Data Bytes counter under process (instance name: sqlservr) performance object. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. My Blog: Twitter: @banerjeeamit SQL Server FAQ Blog on MSDN: Do you really need a 48GB page file? That's an interesting question - what is "best practice" these days, especially for a SQL Server server that is not intended to page much if at all? 48gb is just 1.5 his RAM size. Back in the day, that ratio was conservative, but that's before people had 32gb of RAM! OTOH, 48gb of disk isn't much anymore, either! Josh I believe the "official" answer (even now) is that if it is required then aim at 1.5x Total Memory, however where things differ from days of yore is that the suggestion is that if your system is over provisioned with memory then the page file can be sized appropriately. For instance it might never be used and therefore it's sizing is irrelevant. This url is quite a good reference on the subject Regards, Mark Broadbent. I saw some postiong related page file but still Question about Page file : The page file is 48 GB and not in use.What would happen if I keet page file size as it is ? Does the big size of page size degrade the SQL server perfomance . we are using two nodes cluster .what would be the location of page file ? what is good practice to keep the size of page file small or bigger ? help me to understand how the page file used by SQL server ,why we need and when will the page file be in use? Thanks . The size of the page file is recommended 1.5x physical RAM size, because when the server has a page dump, it uses the page file as temp space to do the dump. If you turn off the dump and set the memory correctly, so there is very little paging, which is the goal on any server, then you can make the page file smaller. However, Windows uses the page file internally for temp space, so you do not want to remove it entirely. The page file has no effect on SQL Server directly. It is uses by the OS for extra RAM space. However, on a dedicated SQL Server, you want to eliminate any paging. Well, in olden days when RAM was super-expensive, the page file was used when there were more programs running, and needing RAM, than you had RAM. If even a few data pages of the program were not being accessed very often, they'd be copied to the page file. I believe Windows from NT and XP days on, has also used the .exe and .dll files as their own "pagefiles" for code that gest pages out, as necessary. So back then, your 32mb of RAM might need a 48mb (yes megabyte!) page file, just so you could run Excel and Word at the same time! Nowadays - not so much! Some netbooks run Windows and Office and have no pagefiles at all! Certainly SQL Server wants to be locked in memory and handle its own buffers and caches. But, even if SQL Server behaves, it's possible that the Windows OS, or some other program you decide to run on the server (like Visual Studio!), may at some point exceed whatever RAM SQL Server has not eaten up, and it will look for a pagefile, and be unhappy if it can't find one! So, you probably want to keep a modest pagefile in any case, say 4gb (yes gigabyte, how things have changed!). But, disk space being cheap, if you're going to do 4gb, why not 48gb? Well, maybe disk space isn't quite that cheap yet, after all! Especially if you have a cluster, and need two of them? Not to mention your dev, QA, and DR servers that you would then want to configure the same way. So, if it makes sense to cut the pagefiles down towards 4gb, I'm thinking that might be OK. Of course, if you have a 48gb pagefile now, outside of reserving a bunch of disk space it will never use, it has no other impact. Memory dump in case of BSOD? Well, if you start getting BSODs, then maybe expand your pagefile up to full size. FORTUNATELY we don't seem to get a lot of those anymore ... do we? :) Josh Yep I think we are all in agreement that we should always have a page file and the size of it will depend upon potential OS paging. For instance if AV is running on the SQL Server that would cause difficulties governing memory usage/ paging whereas if sql alone was running there would be more control and confidence that a large windows page would be needed. I would argue that unless you will be doing crash dump analysis, having memory dumps enabled is potentially rather pointless and so dumps might as well be turned off. If space is plentiful then 1.5x is obviously what you might as well go for, however lets not forget a Virtual environment hosted on SAN, 48gb page file per VM can soon add up to a lot of space - 100Vms = 4.8TB! Regards, Mark Broadbent. . Daizy Hi Daizy, So the thing to consider here is that the stats produced by the query I provided are aggregated. So when looking at CPU for example, a total of 23 seconds from 6 thousand executions does not seem bad at all. You may however wish to look at reducing the volume of reads required in order to satisfy your query. So the next step is to look at the execution plan for your poorly performing queries to see what operations are being performed. For example, are there any Scan operations being performed (as these are expensive) when a seek may be more preferable. You will also want to look at what tables are being referenced, what predicates are being used and whether or not additional indexes could be benifical. Take a look at the following post which contains details toward the end as to how you can extrapolate/view the XML query plan from the T-SQL query in the earlier post, in a graphical format. How to identify the most costly SQL Server queries using DMV’s John Sansom | SQL Server DBA Blog | Twitter . That's about 0.004 seconds, 3000 reads per execution. That's already pretty fast! Say, 1m pages/second max *logical* reads, about 1500 physical pages/sec - 12mbytes/second. Remember, you *will* see spikes in usage stats on even the very best systems when there is a spike in activity! If I had those system numbers, I'd go play golf. Josh Any documnetation which will help me in this case. (Troubleshooting Performance Problems in SQL Server 2005) Thanks . Daizy BTW, can you confirm that you have enabled lock pages in memory for SQL Startup (Service) account? If you can post first 20 lines from ERRORLOG, we can get information about your system. Balmukund Lakhani | Please mark solved if I've answered your question, vote for it as helpful to help other user's find a solution quicker -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Blog: Team Blog: Balmukund , Here is some line from errorlog file , 2011-02-20 19:11:15.04 Server Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - 9.00.4035.00 (X64) Nov 24 2008 16:17:31 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 5.2 (Build 3790: Service Pack 2) 2011-02-20 19:11:15.06 Server (c) 2005 Microsoft Corporation. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.06 Server Server process ID is 1224. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.06 Server Authentication mode is MIXED. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.06 Server Logging SQL Server messages in file 'S:\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\LOG\ERRORLOG'. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.06 Server This instance of SQL Server last reported using a process ID of 2416 at 2/20/2011 7:10:31 PM (local) 2/21/2011 1:10:31 AM (UTC). This is an informational message only; no user action is required. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.06 Server Registry startup parameters: 2011-02-20 19:11:15.07 Server -d S:\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\DATA\master.mdf 2011-02-20 19:11:15.07 Server -e S:\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\LOG\ERRORLOG 2011-02-20 19:11:15.07 Server -l S:\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\DATA\mastlog.ldf 2011-02-20 19:11:15.10 Server SQL Server is starting at normal priority base (=7). This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.10 Server Detected 8 CPUs. This is an informational message; no user action is required. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.12 Server Large Page Extensions enabled. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.12 Server Large Page Granularity: 2097152 2011-02-20 19:11:15.14 Server Large Page Allocated: 32MB 2011-02-20 19:11:15.23 Server Using locked pages for buffer pool. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.41 Server Using dynamic lock allocation. Initial allocation of 2500 Lock blocks and 5000 Lock Owner blocks per node. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2011-02-20 19:11:15.64 Server Attempting to initialize Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC). This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2011-02-20 19:11:16.85 Server Attempting to recover in-doubt distributed transactions involving Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC). This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2011-02-20 19:11:16.88 Server Database mirroring has been enabled on this instance of SQL Server. 2011-02-20 19:11:16.95 spid5s Starting up database 'master'. 2011-02-20 19:11:17.83 spid5s Recovery is writing a checkpoint in database 'master' (1). This is an informational message only. No user action is required. Thanks Daizy

A/N: This is an o/s I wrote for The "I Love the 80's Contest". Needless to say it didn't go very far, but honestly, this is one of my favorite projects. (After TRoYL, that is!) If you are one of the 20 people who voted for me in this contest, THANK YOU! I love you madly. Please PM me and let me know... I have a spacial Wussward thank you in mind! Shout out to my own personal pirate, AutumnDreamer. I owe you one. Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or anything relating to Twilight, Stephenie Meyers does. Nor do I own "Somebody's Watching Me," that hot mess is Rockwell's. I will admit to owning a cardboard cutout of Edward Cullen who watches me at night. Don't hate, you wish you had one, too. ;) _____________________________________ "Somebody's Watching Me" by Rockwell inthe twilight zone Chorus And (I always feel like) (Somebody's watching me) And I have no privacy Whooooa-oh-oh Chorus (Who's watching me) I don't know anymore Are the neighbors watching me (Who's watching) Well, is the mail man watching me (Tell me, who's watching) And I don't feel safe anymore Oh, what a mess I wonder who's watching me now (Who) The IRS Chorus (x4) ____________________________________ Tuesday I couldn't believe this was fucking happening again. I pressed my body against the door, working to slow my breathing. It had been a while since I'd had a full blown panic attack, but I found myself in the midst of a particularly intense one and struggling to calm myself down. Breathe! In. Out. In. Out. Think rational thoughts. Focus, dammit... I tried to focus on the ridiculous calming techniques my shrink had taught me: One-Work to control your breathing. Two-Focus on reality; on the tangible. Three- Three... Fuck! I always forget the third! My breathing was beginning to even out, but my heart was racing faster than Formula One cars on race day. So I began to concentrate on step two: reality. Specifically, the reality of the locks on the door behind me. I rechecked them to be sure that the front door was secure. One, two, three, four... Yep, they were all locked. I pushed off the door and stepped into my living room, nervously scanning the room for any intruders. Or murderers. Or Freddy Krueger. "Reality, Cullen. Stay in the reality of the moment. Ah, fuckin' A! Now I even sound like a shrink. I need to get my shit together." The only sound to pierce the silent house was a ragged breath that heaved through my chest as both my heart rate and breathing evened out. I could still feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Everything seemed to be as I'd left it this morning when I'd left for work. I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling of terror I'd experienced only minutes earlier when I had come home from my suck ass job at the Courthouse in the office of the Tax Collector. Ahhh, my exciting life as an accountant. I'd felt it the second I stepped out the door of my ancient Volvo. Every hair on my neck stood straight up, and my stomach dropped to my knees. Something was off; I wasn't safe. It felt as though something, or someone, was watching and matching my every move. The fear was instantaneous and all consuming. My eyes darted around the darkness that surrounded me, searching for a form to confirm my sudden, irrational fear. I found nothing there, no wild animal or beast, but I felt it. I felt the cold sweat that broke out over my body. Felt the millions of tiny pinpricks as my skin tingled painfully at the thought of danger. The bile bubbled up from my stomach, burning as it rose. I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears, muffling the sound of my car door slamming behind me. I raced to the front door and fumbled with my keys, dropping them in the process. "Shit! Come on, come on, come on! Fuck! Just get in the house already!" I didn't bother to look around me as I flung open the door and crashed into the safety of the house, but I could have sworn I heard something in the night. It sounded eerily like a stifled groan. My pulse quickened at the memory of my terror, and I took a few calming breaths before looking into the cramped room before me. The boxes of unpacked items were still stacked precariously in the dining room, and slid in around the table that was too large for the small space. Boxes were scattered throughout the modest house. I just didn't have anywhere to put all the shit I owned. Some Goodwill store was going to get a hefty donation one of these days. If you ever get your shit together and finish unpacking. "Oh, shut the..." I heard a noise coming from the kitchen and froze. Every muscle in my body tensed and prepared for "fight or flight". Hell, who was I kidding? If I survived the panic, the only option for me would be "flight." What? I'm a lover, not a fighter. I stood perfectly still, waiting to hear something else that would give me a clue to who, or what, might be inside my house to usher me into the nether world. This is it. I've done it. I have officially lost my mind. Call the Wacky Wagon, I'm gonna need a ride to the fucking mental ward. I didn't hear any other sounds, so I carefully shuffled to the kitchen. I peered around the door jamb to get a look around the room. Nothing. I crept to the kitchen door, careful to avoid the bare window there, making sure it was good and locked, then continued my inspection. When I walked back through to the living room I stopped dead in my tracks, and so did my heart. The terror ripped through my chest and shredded my throat as I screamed into the room. There, staring back at me, was- my own fucking reflection. In my renewed panic I flew to the large picture window, pitch black from the night outside, and dropped the blinds down over it in a quick movement. I pulled the drapes together just to be sure that no one could see in. I repeated the procedure with the other windows in the room, panting as I worked. I paused for a second at the last one. It looked out into the small back yard and the woods beyond. I couldn't see anything beyond my own reflection with the light blaring in the room behind me, but I could still feel something, or someone out there. And it wasn't just the acute clinical paranoia talking, either. I was being watched. I knew in that moment, as I stood there peering out this window, that I was being peered back at. That realization caused something in me to snap, and a calm I wasn't feeling before took over my movements. I slowly lowered the blinds and shut out the world behind the thick drapes, fighting the sickening feeling that was growing inside. Wednesday I didn't sleep at all last night. Not one fucking wink. I was physically and emotionally spent. The one place I needed to go was home, and it was the last place I wanted to go. I'd even gone to the grocery store to kill some time after work, buying a fuckton of food that I know I'll never cook and eventually have to throw out. Every man's gotta do his part to stimulate the economy in times like these, right? Even in daylight I felt uneasy walking from the store to my car. Last night had unleashed a wave of anxiety that I hadn't experienced in a long time. I nervously scanned the parking lot -- I had no fucking idea what for -- and pushed my cart to the car, quickly loading the bags into the back seat. I was just about finished when I felt a frantic wave wash over me. It wasn't as intense as last night, but the same feeling of danger for sure. I tossed the final bags in the car, wincing when I realized the last one had a dozen eggs in it. Shit. Well, at least now they're pre-scrambled. I shoved the cart to the front bumper of the car and hurried to the safety of the car's interior, locking the doors behind me. I almost hit poor Mrs. Cope in my hurry to get the hell out of there. I was well on my way to my second panic attack in a twenty-four hour period. So much for leaving work early to avoid a repeat of last night. I'd requested to leave work a little early tonight in an effort to get back to the house before dark. Forks, Washington wasn't a very large place, but put every citizen in their car and out onto the streets at the same time and you'd be sure to see a traffic jam. Not of the Big Apple persuasion, mind you, but tired, anxious, pissed off drivers stuck on a road together sucks no matter where you live. Finally, the fuckery that is the FPD sent Officer Newton to help direct the vehicles through the congested streets of Forks in a timely manner. Ahhh, good old Officer Mikey. Ever the public servant. Always eager to service the public. Especially the female population. According to town gossip, his "night stick" saw more action than Judge Black's "gavel" did. And that's saying a lot. I made my way past Officer "Fucking Friendly" and waved as I passed; resisting the urge to flip him the bird and show him that he was "Number one" in my book. Somehow Mikey Boy thought we were best buds, and he motioned for me to stop when I came along side of him. I rolled my window down just a crack. I didn't want to appear too friendly after all, and his mound of a beer belly was right at my eye level. Not pretty. "Hey there, Eddie!" Jeebus, this man was always a little too eager when he saw me. I may have been worried about him hitting on me if I didn't know that he was all about the ladies. "Edward. My name is Ed-ward." I tried really hard not to growl when I corrected him, but I wasn't one hundred percent successful, though. "Yeah, I know that, Eddie. It's a nickname for cripe's sake! So, buddy. You up for grabbing a beer after I clean up this fucker of a traffic jam? It shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes or so. You could head over to Temptation and get us a good table right up front. I hear Tanya's dancing tonight!" Temptation was the blight on the town of Forks. You couldn't see an R-rated movie within the town limits, but just on the other side of the boarder was the strip joint, Temptation. Sure, I'd been in there a time or two -- okay, I'd been in there plenty -- but that's not my point. My damn point is that I wouldn't care if Martha fucking Stewart was dancing there tonight and popping cupcakes out her hoo-ha, I wouldn't go if it meant I'd have to share air with this prick. I somehow didn't think telling him that would be my brightest idea ever. Instead, I went for polite, but dismissive. "Uh, thanks Officer, but I've got to get home with my groceries." I motioned to the bags in the back. "Maybe another time, then?" The driver four cars back chose that time to lay on his horn. Little did he know that it wasn't my fault but the asstard next to me trying to strike up a bromance. Officer Spewton gave me a parting instruction with a nod of his buzzed head. "You better get going before traffic gets backed up again." I looked back in my rearview as I pulled off and could see the cars lined up behind me. The impatient driver a few cars back had some guts to be mouthing off to Spewton like that. The only other thing he was known for besides his overly social schmecel was his love of writing tickets. I didn't have a clear view of the driver, but the owner of the shiny black Mercedes was itching for a ticket. Impatient to get ticketed much, stupid twat? You gotta be all kinds of stupid to piss off the local authorities in a small town. As I drove home I was mildly grateful that it was still light out. My nerves were shot and if I had any hope of avoiding a repeat of last night's panicpalooza, then I'd need all the help I could get. I figured I had about an hour of daylight left, and the groceries were good for about thirty minutes. I really didn't want to head home to that cramped, empty house. Cramped and empty. That was a perfect description for the claustrophobia I felt when I was there, and the loneliness that had me feeling like a stranded sailor on a deserted island. I decided to take the long way home. There was not much of Forks to see, but I hadn't had much time to just explore the outer parts of the quaint town. Narrow streets, which were in need of resurfacing, wound amongst the dense trees. At times the branches would arc across the road and meet in the middle, creating a canopy. The houses were set close together, but not right on top of each other, and most were well kept. I passed the home of the Chief of Police, Charlie Swan, and then further up the road I passed Angela Webber's house. She was the cute librarian who I'd been out with a few times. She knew how to have a good time, but was what I'd consider a "good girl". The song "Good Girls Go Bad" came to mind, and I grinned at the thought of helping her discover her naughty librarian side. Passing her house reminded me that I should call her again, maybe get my mind off this shit for a few hours. I glanced in the rearview out of habit -- I'm an excellent fucking driver -- and casually noticed a car a few lengths behind me. I was about to reach the dead end on this street, so I made the next right to double back and then another right. The sight of a car pulling onto the street behind me drew my attention and some part of my brain made note that it was the same car as before. That's when the clinical paranoia kicked in. Is that car following me? I answered my irrational thoughts out loud to ground myself in reality. "That car is not following you, dumb ass. It's someone on their way home from work, just like you." I shook off the feeling of impending panic. Dr. Jasper Hale would be getting an after hours call from this patient when I got home, that shit was a given. I'd talked myself out of calling him today. Even though last night's attack was one my worst in a long time, I felt like an asstard this morning. I made the final right, heading back in the direction of home. I was over my little field trip, and I just wanted to be in my house with its multiple deadbolts to keep out the world. I turned up the sad excuse for a radio that came with the car back when it rolled off the assembly line, like, seventy-five fucking years ago. The only stations it picked up were the country station, The Rooster, from the next town over, and the Quileute Station, which broadcast from the reservation. When I glanced up into the rearview again, I saw the same black Mercedes Benz turn onto the street a little ways behind me. Fuck. They are following me. My heart reacted immediately, pounding and hammering, pushing me to get away from here. I pointed my Volvo in the direction of home and pushed the hunk of junk as fast as I dared without it disintegrating into a pile of rust around me. My sad vehicle took the beating, but not without protest as the engine rattled and sputtered. "Oh, come on! Please just get me home and I promise to get you a complete overhaul. Don't die on me now." I fought to remain calm, but each time I looked in my rearview and saw the black car behind me, the frenzy would overtake me again. Several times I tried to see who it was driving, but the bastard kept just far enough back that I couldn't see. That and the windows were tinted. There was no way I was seeing into that vehicle. About two blocks from my house the car that was following me fell back a little further. It had been on my tail for the past fifteen minutes. I was surprised and relieved when I turned onto my street and into my drive. I jumped out of the car, the groceries forgotten, and flew in the house. The door banged shut behind me, and I counted the locks as I slid them into their housing. One. Two. Three. Four. Without pausing, I went straight to the kitchen and checked that door too. As I made my way back through the house I began slamming the blinds down as fast as I could, not bothering with the drapes this time. I just wanted to shut out the world as quickly as possible. I reached the picture window at the front of the house last, and just as I was lowering them, I saw it. The black Mercedes slowly crept past the house, almost stopping just in front. I let the blinds fall closed, and raced to the bathroom where I proceeded to vomit. Thursday I went to work late the next day. After two sleepless nights and a raging migraine, I needed to catch up on a few hours sleep. Not to mention I needed to clean my car out from leaving the milk and eggs in it overnight. That wasn't my brightest moment. I managed to I drag myself into the office only to be bombarded by the hoochie of the courthouse, Jessica Newton. Yep, that's right, she's Officer "Tool's" wifey in the loose sense of the word. And I stress the word loose. I was in no mood to put up with her fuckery, and I told her so in pretty much those words. By the time lunch rolled around I was dragging and my supervisor sent me home to get some rest. I'd been skittish all the way to work, but I never did see the black Mercedes this morning, nor on the way back home, thank God. I made it home panic free and headed straight for my bed, but not before counting the locks to be sure they were all secure. The kitchen was locked tight, and the blinds were never opened after last night, so I went to my room and flopped on the bed, barely taking the time to remove my shoes. I slept hard all night, blissfully unaware, until the alarm went off at its usual ridiculous hour. Friday I was finally starting to relax and chill the hell out. It had been more than twenty-four hours since I saw the Mercedes last, or had the feeling I was being watched. I was headed home from work to fix a quick dinner and take a shower, maybe relax with a good book. I also had a task to complete, but I wasn't ready for that just yet. I needed a little more time before fulfilling my promise to the short, annoying woman who was my sister. I was beginning to think that I was imagining this whole ordeal. Alice had laughed at first when I called her during lunch today and told her that if they got a call from the FPD saying that I was found dead in my home, to have me cremated and spread my ashes in some flowery type fuckery. There's nothing like a younger sister to remind you how ridiculous you can be. ~*~ "Damn, Edward! Way to start a conversation with your favorite sister. No, 'Hello, how are you,' or even a, 'What's new, bitch?' What's going on out there on the west coast?" "Sorry, Alice. Hi. How are you? How's everything? You are my only sister, and, to answer your question, it's not going very well. I'm not doing very well." "Edward, you don't sound very well. Are you sick?" "Not like, 'I need to be committed' sick, but I may be on the way. I think I'm losing my mind, sis." "Again, Edward… What. Is. Going. ON?! And don't fuck around; you're starting to worry me." I told her about how I'd been feeling like I was being watched. How it was most intense when I was home, but how even when I had gone to the store Wednesday I'd felt it. "Edward Anthony, are you seeing your shrink? I think you may need your head shrunk even more because there's obviously too much room up there!" "What the hell are you talking about, Alice? I call and tell you I think I'm being stalked by a crazed killer and your response is I need to have my head literally shrunk? Why'd I even bother to call?" "All I'm saying is that you must have too much room up there if your imagination has enough space to conjure this crap up! Who would stalk you, Eddie?" She knew I hated that nickname. She also must have known that I was at my breaking point because she backed off quickly. "Edward, you do know how this sounds, right? Nothing you're telling me sounds realistic. You can't be serious about this stuff." "Actually, Alice, I know exactly how it sounds. That's why I called to talk to someone who might help ground me. I know it sounds crazy, but I've been dealing with this for three days now, and it just gets more and more bizarre. I was even followed last night!" "Followed? Who followed you and where?" I shook my head into my cell phone. I was sitting out in my car, counting down the time before I had to go back into the office. "I don't know, Al. That's just it. This isn't like the old feelings of being paranoid like when I was a kid. This is intense. I'm actually... scared. Like, at any moment whatever is watching me is going to attack. I hate feeling like this; it also scares me that I may be relapsing. Alice? Are you still there? Please just tell me that I'm being a huge wuss and tell me to stop fucking up my life with this shit." "Ed, I don't know what to tell you. I know it's been a while since the last time you've had to fight with any of this shit, but why now? Is it because you moved? Have you talked with your new therapist, Dr. 'What's His Name'?" "Not yet. I was going to, but... I just don't want to look like an idiot. I sure as hell don't want to go back to the way things were before with all the meds and doctors. I guess I just needed to talk to someone about this that wasn't 'clinical'. You know what I mean?" "Has anyone approached you? Threatened you?" "No, but I was followed." "Are you sure?" She questioned me like the crazy I was. "Yeah. Positive." I recounted the story of being followed after work, but as I said the words out loud, they seemed ridiculous and farfetched. Even to me. "Ed, I think you need to call your psychiatrist. He's there with you and can help you through this. I'm here, of course, but I think you need to be talking with him, not me. This just sounds so much like last time." We talked for a bit more. The conversation moved away from my warped psyche, and to how things were out in New York City. "While we're on the phone, I feel it's only fair to tell you that I will not be wearing that t-shirt you sent me, big bro." "What? Why not? I thought of you when I saw it! You have to." "No. I refuse to wear any shirt emblazoned with any phrase across the chest, especially one that says, 'I Spooned in Forks, WA'!' That's just absurd!" "Fine, no skin off my nose. You're just a fashion snob, that's all." "I am not a snob. I'm a fashion designer, and that, dear brother, is not fashion." After a few more minutes of banter and Alice making me promise that I'd call Dr. Hale, I hung up the phone and headed back into the courthouse. I felt both better and worse. Better now that I'd spoken to my sister who had a way of bringing me back to the real world, and worse because now I was worried I was losing my mind. Again." ~*~ The warm water from the shower felt amazing. I stood under the stream, letting it massage and wash away the stress from the past few days. I had the radio on while I bathed; living alone it helped keep down some of the paranoia. I nodded my head in time to the Nickelback song that was blaring into the small space. I lathered up my front and turned to rinse and grab the shampoo. A slight movement caught my eye through the frosted glass of the shower, and my heart instinctively responded by speeding up. I slowly opened the door a crack and poked my head out. "Hello?" Nothing. I looked around the room and noticed that my towel had slipped off the counter onto the floor. A nervous chuckle rumbled from my chest. "You're a jumpy fucker, Cullen." I shook my head at my stupidity and closed the door, going back to my shower. I closed my eyes and worked the shampoo into my hair and then stepped back into the stream of water to rinse it out. As I stood there, I was gripped by the panic. It was intense, all consuming. It was worse than the first night when I thought I was being watched. It felt like someone was in the room with me. I clutched my chest and my eyes flew open. I looked around the shower for something to grasp onto so I wouldn't fall if my legs gave out, 'cause they sure as fuck felt like they would. I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes as I tried to get my shit together. Panting, I finished rinsing and shut off the water. I turned to open the shower door and froze with my hand on it. There, on the other side of the hazy glass, someone stood facing me. Still as stone. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe or scream. I was helpless. My eyes were as big as saucers, and my heart pounding painfully in my chest. My only movement was the shaking of my hand on the door and my legs as they wobbled under the strain of keeping me standing. I just stood there, staring at the dark form that stared back at me. The door rattled under my hand, and my eyes flashed in the direction of the noise and the intruder, but they were gone. I stood with my hand on the door for I don't know how long, staring at where I had seen the figure. Finally, when I was fairly certain my legs wouldn't give out, I stepped cautiously from the shower and wrapped myself in the towel that still lay on the floor. I switched off the CD player, grabbed the baseball bat I kept by my bedroom door, and walked slowly around the house. I searched the entire house with the bat raised to strike if I needed to. There was nothing, no one. I checked the front door first- one, two, three, four. All the locks were secure and the windows as well. There was no way anyone could've been in here. That thought calmed me considerably, but I was too worked up to relax. I decided to turn in for the night, even though it was barely eight o'clock. I had a feeling that I wouldn't be sleeping much tonight. Saturday I awoke with a start, drenched in a cold sweat. I looked around my room and could see the light pushing through the cracks in the blinds. It was a dream. Just a fucking dream. The same dream that you had a hundred times last night. You are fine. You are safe. This was familiar. Familiar because I had done this so many fucking times last night that I lost count. Each time I'd wake up naked, panting, crying out, and flailing as I tried to escape the form that stood before me. I hadn't slept much, and what fleeting moments I did catch were tormented by the memory of someone outside my shower. I knew this was all in my mind, but that didn't stop the nightmares, or the fear. I gave up on sleep, slipping on a pair of plaid flannel pajama bottoms and heading to the kitchen. I was starving because I hadn't eaten the night before. Why bother, I would've just puked. I settled on peanut butter on toast and made a mental note that I needed to go back to the store for the things I had thrown out the other day. After getting dressed I couldn't stay around the house any longer thinking about last night, so I got in the car and headed to the store. I decided to stop and get a few movies to distract me, and I picked out a few that I'd heard were fucking hilarious. I wasn't long in the grocery store, and I was relieved to notice that I hadn't felt the now familiar and almost constant anxiety that seemed to follow me everywhere. I drove home listening to the Rooster, again looking for a distraction. There weren't many groceries to put away, and I grabbed a soda and went to watch the movies. I decided to watch one that a co-worker, Kim had lent me. It was a boot leg copy of "The Hangover." I don't buy that shit, but I'll watch it if you lend it to me. What? I'm not a saint, for cripes sake! The movie worked, I was completely distracted by the crazy antics in Vegas. By the time the movie was finished I'd almost forgotten the shower freak out. My stomach reminded me it was time to eat again, and I went to fix something more substantial than peanut butter on bread. I'd bought a sub from the grocery, not wanting to think about what to fix later. I took that, a bag of Doritos, and another can of soda to the living room to watch one of the movies I had rented. I stopped cold in the dining room. Something wasn't right, and I wasn't just talking about a fucking feeling here. Something was missing. I looked around the dining room, trying to remain calm. Where was the box marked "pictures"? You might think I was being paranoid again, but no, I knew that box should be there. It had every picture I owned in it. Childhood, college years, as well as some embarrassing pictures that I'd yet to destroy. All I'm sayin' is there were some that involved me, a statue, and lewd gestures. Needless to say, I knew where that box should be, and it wasn't there. "What the fuck is going on!!" I yelled to the house. I went straight to my room for the bat. I was definitely panicked, but unlike any time before, I was pissed! I grabbed the phone on the way back to the living room. I started to call the police to get Officer "Fucktard" over here to file a report when I had a thought. What else was missing? There wasn't anyone still in the house, obviously, or I'd have seen them by now. I did a quick inventory of anything that had any value, which wasn't a hell of a lot, and realized that nothing else was missing. Only the pictures and my sanity. Well, the latter always M.I.A. I stood in the middle of my living room with the bat in one hand and the phone in the other, the dial tone buzzing annoyingly. I clicked it off and started wondering what I would say if I called the FPD. "Forks Police Department's Emergency line. What's your emergency?" "Um, yes. My name is Edward Cullen, and I'd like to report that my house was broken into and the fuckers stole my baby pictures and my sanity." I didn't think that they'd be rushing out for that call. Maybe they'd be kind enough to send that Wacky Wagon, though. I sighed deeply, feeling defeated, and tossed the phone on the couch, running my hand through my wild hair. I needed perspective. I got a pad and pencil and started making a list. This was good, it was grounded in reality. Dr. Hale would be proud. Tues- Felt like I was being watched, screamed like a pussy, panic attack. Wed- Felt like I was being watched again, panicked, was followed by weird car, panicked again. Thurs- Nothing unusual this day, me being a scared shit as usual. Fri- Took a shower, imagined someone in the room with me (and not in a good "Fuck that was hot!" kinda way), had the mother of all panic attacks, had nightmares all night in the nude. Sat- Discovered house broken into, all pictures missing (they'll prob. be on the internet by tomorrow), and I've lost my fucking mind. No panic attack. Yet. The list revealed several things to me: first, I was messed up; second, the things that had been happening seemed to have been progressing. They pointed to the theory that maybe I wasn't losing my mind. I decided to wait on calling the FPD, I'd just end up as the joke they all laughed about around the coffee and donut dispenser. I did opt to finally call Dr. Hale. He'd at least listen without laughing out loud. His message service answered and I calmly asked to have him return my call, that there was no emergency but that it was very important that I talked to him as soon as possible. I hung up the phone and sat on the couch. I picked up the remote and clicked "play", then I started in on my uneaten lunch, er- I guess it was dinner now. The calm I felt must have been a type of shock, because I was numb. All that mattered to me right then was the craptastic movie on my T.V. and the soggy sandwich in my hand. I'd worry about all the other fucking shit when Doc called. He never called. Finally, sometime around midnight, I clicked off the T.V. I'd watched three movies, and even watched The Hangover a second time. That movie was some funny shit. I carried my plate and the bag lady worthy pile of empty soda cans I'd sucked down and put them in the kitchen. I hadn't left the house all day, but I check the locks just to be sure. One, two, three, four. I even went back in the kitchen to check that door too. Exhausted, I headed to brush my teeth and get some sleep; my limbs were heavy from the lack of it. I switched the light off in the bathroom, and the house was blanketed in darkness. I flipped the switch on in my room but the light didn't come on. I tried it again like an Einstein, thinking maybe I didn't do it right the first time. Nope. Nothing. I moved to the other side of the bed to turn on the bedside lamp, but before I reached it, I slammed into something hard and cold. "What the fuck!" My hands instinctively flew up in front of my chest and pushed off the marble pillar I'd run head on into. It had a very familiar form; if I didn't know better I'd say someone had put a statue on the middle of my fucking room. Probably the damn cat burglar. Steals my pictures, but leaves me a mother fucking statue. Fuck my life. It was then that the statue moved. Its cold hands encircled my biceps, and I felt cold air blowing against my throat, coming like winter cooled breaths. Finally the fear hit. Hit hard. My legs gave out, but I remained vertical; the hands holding me upright had a firm almost painful grip on my arms. The statue emitted a low rumble, a growl. I stopped breathing at the sound, terror burning my lungs. When I couldn't hold it any longer, the air rushed from mouth. It hissed and lifted me off the floor a few inches, holding me in the air. It was then, at that moment, that I knew I was going to die tonight, and something told me that it wouldn't be painless. God, I hope everyone knows I love them. Especially Alice. Fuck! I can't die! No one will believe this, I'll die and everyone will think I offed myself. Edward Cullen, crazy fucker to the end. I can't die. I felt my body moving through the air. It took a second to register that I'd been thrown. I landed roughly on the bed, slamming into the headboard. There was a loud "crack", and I wasn't sure if it was the wood or my head that had split. I moaned as the pain registered, and I moved to get off the bed, trying to stand. My head was throbbing. Disoriented and scared shitless, I tried to make it to the door, but my attacker reached it before I did, sending me flying back against the bed with a backhanded smack to my chest. Instantly he was inches from my face, his cold breath sweet and terrifying. What could this superhuman man want with me? Who was this? My questions would go unasked because I was too horrified to form the words, not sure if I really wanted those answers. "Do not try that again." The creature hissed into my ear, waves of fear shuddering over my body. It took everything in me not to piss myself. The voice was dark, dripping with hunger, and- feminine? "Don't move. I don't have to hurt you, but it is difficult to control myself when I'm this close. Your scent is maddening. I can't be responsible for the consequences if you move too quickly. Do you understand me?" This time the voice was smooth and soothing, but firm. "Nod your head if you understand." My head moved, but only minutely. I felt her move away from me, and I could make out her outline as the light from the moon outside backlit her slight form. She stood over me, watching. Something I was sure she had been doing for days now. Watching and stalking. I had no hope of making it out of this alive. She slowly moved back beside me on the bed, positioning herself alongside me. I was obedient and didn't move, not even my eyes to look over at her. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, praying that she would kill me quickly. A cold, smooth finger traced from my temple down my jaw line, continuing down my neck. It stopped and hovered over where my jugular pulsed from my raging heart. She pressed her palm to the area, sucking in a ragged breath. "So warm..." The sound was low, deep, and dripping with intensity. My body involuntarily shuddered. I tensed as I readied myself for the "consequences" she had mentioned before, but none came. Instead the hand moved, resting against my chest, and she sat up in a slow, fluid movement. Her hair brushed against my face and I was overpowered by the cloying scent that assaulted me. My eyes slid shut as I breathed her in deeply, finding the scent both intoxicating and noxious. "Edward... look at me." The order was almost whispered, pleading. I obeyed. My eyes first met with her lean torso, as they traveled up I could clearly make out the soft curves of her breasts. I was instantly hard; silently I admonished my johnson for reacting so inappropriately. I continued up the valley between her breasts and along the curve her neck. I took in the line of her jaw, pausing at her lips before taking in her face. She was beautiful in the moonlight. Deadly and beautiful. Her skin glowed in the night, and if I hadn't just experienced her power and violence, I might have thought she was an angel. "Edward. Look at me." Her face was inches from mine. My eyes found hers, their blood red gaze intense, terrifying, penetrating. Dazzling. I felt like I was seeing everything through a haze. "Breathe, human. I wouldn't want you to die before your time." Her choice of words was not lost on my addled brain. I heaved a deep breath of air just as she exhaled, breathing in her sweet air. My head swam from the aroma. I couldn't break away from her stare, but then she looked away and down along the length of my motionless body. Her hand traveled from my chest down my body, tracing the plains of my stomach, a fire following her touch. She stopped when she reached the waist of my jeans. Her fingers hooked under the waistband and she gave a firm tug, causing my body to shift closer to her. Her exploration continued, her fingers barely grazing along my zipper, and in turn the length beneath it, pausing when my dick twitched beneath her tough. She gasped at my response, and then her gentle, burning touch brushed down my leg before returning to my chest as she lay back along side of me, our faces close again. "I have wanted this for a long time, Edward Cullen. You have no idea. Will you give yourself to me?" Her eyes slid shut, breaking our connection. I could still feel the hold she had over me, I wanted nothing more than to be here with her. I knew the danger, I could feel it hovering in the darkness surrounding us, but in that moment I knew that regardless of the outcome of this night; whether I lived or died by this beautiful creature's hands, I wanted to give her all of me, whatever that might be. She could have it all. "Yes," I breathed the word more than spoke it. "Yes, you can take all of me. I- am yours." Her eyes flew open. "Are you sure about that, dear human? I'm entirely positive that you have no idea what you've just agreed to. Maybe you should ask who, or rather what I am." I didn't respond, afraid of her reaction, and in obedience to her earlier orders. "I am a vampire, Edward." She grinned when my eyes grew wide in disbelief, "Yes we do exist, and I have been watching you for a very long time. You have become my obsession, my drug, if you will." "How- how do you know me? I'm your obsession? I don't…" "Understand? I know. I've been watching you for many years -- since you were five years old, and I saw you in at a park with your mother and sister. I could smell you from across the field, your blood, it called to me. I couldn't do it, though. I couldn't take the one thing I wanted most in the world. So, I settled for watching you, for watching over you. I promised myself that I'd move on after you'd grown up and were able to care for yourself, but again I couldn't. I couldn't leave you. I've followed you everywhere you've been. I've watched you grow and mature." "All these years, the paranoia, the fear... It was because you were watching me." "And I've watched what my presence in your life has done to you." She paused as the weight of her words sunk in. She had always been there, and somehow I had known that, I'd felt her close. I wasn't crazy. I wasbeing watched! The years of therapy could not do for me what her confession just had. I felt like a prisoner who had been released from their cell. "But, who are you?" She leaned in closer, her cool lips grazing my ear as she whispered, "Bella. I am Bella." "Bella." Her name fell like a prayer from my lips and she whimpered at hearing it. "I have waited an eternity to hear you say my name. Say it again." "Bella. Beautiful, Bella. I'm yours. However you want me." "Touch me, Edward. I want to feel your hands on me. I give you permission- no, I'm asking you to please, touch me." Something shifted in that moment. The fear was replaced with desire and longing. I turned to face her, cautiously bringing my hand up to brush her cheekbone with the backs of my fingers. She moaned and leaned into my touch. I cupped her face in my hand and whispered into her dove white skin, "May I kiss you, Bella?" She breathed her yes, and I pressed a faint kiss on her cheek, just above my thumb, dragging my lips softy along her face until they met hers. I pressed another whisper of a kiss on her lips, surprised by the softness there. They were harder than my own, but not rigid. I needed more. Again I kissed her, this time with more passion and she returned the gesture. My arms wrapped around her back, urging her closer until she was pressed fully against me, her arms sliding around my back. We covered each other with kisses and licks; her skin tasted sweet and had a hint of a floral scent. Wherever her tongue touched my skin I felt a slight tingling. I paused and licked my lips; it felt like they were buzzing from the sensation. Bella continued kissing my cheeks, my chin, my jaw line. "It's the venom," she explained as she pressed her lips to my neck, "It can't hurt you like this, you should only be worried if it enters your bloodstream." She grinned against my skin before licking me from my collarbone to my chin, the sensation causing me to moan. At that moment I didn't care if she was venomous, as long as she continued licking me. I also wondered what it would feel like on other, more sensitive areas. She pressed another kiss on my lips, sucking on my bottom lip as she pulled back from me and sat up at the edge of the bed. In a movement faster than my brain could register, she had removed her cotton t-shirt, her glorious mane of hair falling around her like a veil. I could barely make out the brown in the dim light. I sat up as well, and brushed the hair back off her shoulders. The sight of her beautiful breasts, bare and perfect, were irresistible, and I hungrily cupped one and brought my mouth to the other. The skin was cool and a supple, but when my hand grazed her side I felt the steal that must have been her ribs. "Uhhh. Edward." "Bella, you're beautiful." As my tongue licked and explored her I felt her cool skin warm from my touch, butit would quickly cool again when I moved to another part of her body. Her hands had woven themselves tightly into my hair, tugging when I did something she liked. She carefully rose up onto her knees and climbed onto my lap, straddling me. It was like she hovered over me, not putting all of her weight down on me; I wondered if she would crush me if she did. I reached up to kiss her properly, fully. Her mouth opened to mine, and I felt her tongue brush along my lips. I met her tongue with my own and she groaned, grasping my shirt in both hands and ripped them apart, shredding my shirt. That shit was hot, and my dick strained against my jeans, begging to be released. Our kiss never broke as she worked the shirt down my arms and tossed it into the darkness. The feeling of Bella pressed against me was indescribable, her cool skin tempering the flushed heat of my own as it warmed her, if only by a few degrees. My mouth sought her breasts once again, and she arched her back to meet my touch. I felt her hand slide down my back and around my waist to the top of my jeans. These met much the same fate as my shirt had. The button popped off, flying across the room and hitting something. The zipper keened in protest as she tore my favorite pair of jeans to rags. I sat there, with Bella still in my lap, in only my boxer briefs as I worked and sucked her nipples. She gently guided me back to kissing her mouth. Her hand purposefully ran along my titanium hard length, and I groaned, bucking my hips at the feel of her cool hand through the thin cotton. Slowly, painfully she climbed off me, kissing the tip of my nose before standing between my knees. She quickly removed her pants, but unlike mine, she didn't shred them in the process. I briefly wondered why my clothes seemed to be the only ones meeting an untimely demise. She was completely bare, without clothes to block my view of her snowy skin. She was also bare in the other sense. I took in the sight of her, smooth and stunning. "Come here," I urged her to return to my lap, and she finally yielded, climbing back onto me. I traced wide circles on her back and her arms snaked around my neck, clutching me to her. Our chests pressed tightly together, she circled her hips over mine, gaining friction. She whispered into my hair. "I never intended to reveal myself to you. When you moved to this tiny town, away from everything and everyone, I became bolder, almost crazed to be nearer to you. It was- is more than obsession for me. I no longer see the boy I desperately wanted to protect, all I see now is the man I have before me. I never meant for you to fear me or question your sanity, I just needed to be near you." "I'm glad you did, Bella." She pulled back slightly and kissed me tenderly, and then did it again with renewed intensity. When she climbed off my lap for the second time, I groaned at the loss. Bella looked down at me and grinned, "Don't worry. You'll like this." She bent to hook her fingers under the elastic of my boxers and gently pulled. I shifted my hips to allow them to slide off, and Bella guided them down off my legs, depositing them on the floor with a plop. She then lowered herself onto her knees in front of me and put a hand on each hip. She easily pulled me to sit at the very edge of the mattress, bringing my very erect member closer to her. She eyed both of us hungrily. "Mmmm... Edward, I just want you to know that this is going to be a little… different." She slid her tongue along my length, and the feel of her made me impossibly harder. The cool trail of venom tingled as it absorbed into my skin, and when the air met the trail it intensified the feeling a hundred fold. "Bella, oh my God! Please, Bella, don't stop. That's the most amazing thing I've ever- uhhhh." I moaned and whimpered as she worked over me. My hands clutched the sheets; I was desperate to touch her, to feel her. I begged her to let me touch her the same way she was me. "Now, now, Edward. Patience. In due time. I have a plan. Trust me." She continued to lick and suck, covering every inch of me with her venom, paying special attention to the sensitive head. I noticed that the more venom she put on my skin, the less I felt of her touch; the tingling increased, but her touch was like a ghost along my skin. My hands were tangled in her hair, pulling and massaging just as she had done to me earlier. She moaned, and the feel of her moaning around me was almost too much. The feel of her mouth around me had me close, but she wasn't working to get me to climax. I was just beginning to understand what she was doing; preparing me for what would be an uncomfortable experience if not for the desensitization of her venom. She reached down to the floor beside her and picked up her jeans, fishing something small from the pocket. She turned her attention back to me, placing a chaste kiss on my tingling head and stood. She wrapped her arms around my neck pulling my head to rest on her hard belly. The skin gave a little under the pressure of my touch. Bella bent to place another kiss on the top of my mess of hair and whispered a plea I barely heard. "Touch me. Please, Edward. I want to see you touch me." I reached up and ran my hand along the swell of her breast, grazing the pert nipple before running down her side. She inhaled a sharp breath when my warm skin met the cool of her own. I persisted down over her belly and to her bare skin below. When I finally met the flesh between her legs she gasped at my touch. She was so much softer than I imagined, and wet. "You're so wet. Is that the venom, too?" She nodded her answer, too caught up in what I was doing to her to speak. I slowly explored this new feeling; she was cold to the touch even here, but as I moved over her folds, they warmed like the rest of her had. A hiss of pleasure escaped her lips as I pressed my fingers into her, and her hands pulled painfully at my scalp. I wanted to taste her, so I brought my hand to my mouth and licked my fingers, looking up at her as I did. The tingling feeling was much stronger from this venom, almost numbing. She whimpered as she watched, either from watching me lick her off my fingers, or from the loss of them inside her. "Mmmmm. It tastes different from your mouth. Thicker, sweeter. Like nectar. Hmmm, this gives new meaning to the term 'honey pot'..." I gave her a coy grin. A growl erupted from her chest, feral and wild. She pushed me hard and I flew back against the mattress. She was straddling me instantly. In her hand was a small bottle of- warming gel? The vamp brought her own sex aids? Oh, God. "You came prepared, I see. You were pretty confident this would happen, weren't you?" The wily grin she gave me told me everything I needed to know, or so I thought. She squeezed a good amount of the gel into her hand and held it out to me. She did the same in my hand. She tossed the bottle on the bed and guided my hand to her folds. I knew what she wanted from me, and I began working the gel over her. "I had hoped this would come in handy. But had you decided against this, then I have other ways of convincing you." "Convincing me, you mean like, against my will?" "Something like that." Then she smeared the gel in her hand all along my length. The feel of the heat was intense, and I gasped at the contact. Just then she rose up, and watching me, lowered herself down onto my erection. She went slowly, carefully, allowing the warming gel to warm her and also allowing the venom deep within her to take effect and act as a numbing agent. She was soft, but in a way that was different from what I had known with the few other women I'd been with; she felt so amazing around me. We fit perfectly together. Having taken all of me in, she began to rock back and forth, relishing the feel of our bodies coming together like this. I reached up and palmed her chest as she moved, paying special attention to her nipples. My hands slid down her sides and rested on her hips. She rose up over me again, her dark eyes locking with mine before she slammed down hard onto me. The force was almost painful as my body took a beating from her weight and strength. No words passed between us as she rocked over me, only moans, pants, cries, and grunts. These became our language, our communication. She watched me for signs of pain or discomfort, but there weren't any. I only felt pleasure. I watched her, as she rose and fell, each time bringing us closer to release. I felt the familiar tightening deep within my gut, signaling that my release was soon. "Bella, I'm close. Please?" She took my hand from her hip and guided it between her legs to where she wanted me to rub her and bring her release. It didn't take long before we came together, our cries of pleasure piercing through the quiet room. Bella lay over me, supporting her weight to keep from crushing me. What a way to go. I'd happily die if it meant that is the fucking pre-show. As we lay next to each other, wrapped in the other's arms, another thought crossed my mind and I couldn't help but ask her. "So, are you a succubus?" "What?" "Are you a succubus? You know, a female vampire that seduces human men?" "No, I'm your succubus. You have been the only one. You will always be the only one." She sighed against my chest. I breathed in the scent of her as I drifted off to sleep with Bella in my arms. Sunday 8:00 AM I awoke stiff, naked, and alone. Bella was gone. I panicked. Had I imagined the whole thing? Was it all an elaborate delusion? I looked behind me at the still cracked headboard, and my eye drifted over a small piece of folded paper on the pillow where she had been last night. I picked it up and read what she had written. My pulse quickened, but not in fear. Be safe. I am always watching. ~Bella ____________________________ A/N: Like I mentioned earlier I'm a little proud of this fic! It was conceived, written and beta-ed in four days, and I loved the hell out of this idea of Wussward! Until I realized I had to write reverse Vamp/human smexin'! I believe my exact words to my beta were, "Oh, holy hell! What the F*UCK have I gotten myself into?" That resulted in the world's best beta, DizzyGrl28 popping into chat rooms and asking obscene questions about vamp/human sex and scouring the ficdom for answers. Yet another reason to love that woman! I hope you like Wussward. He has a special place in my heart. I just wanna cuddle him. Thanks for reading and reviewing! Hugs from Wussward! Forever, Liz

A/N: So, yesterday, x-Meiko-Rose-x abandoned her story Just not Blaine and put it up for adoption, which I adopted. So let me make this very clear: the first 4 chapters ARE NOT MINE. I did not write them. Meiko gave me explicit permission to repost them here, for your ease of reading. But I am not claiming to own them, have written them or been involved in the writing of them in any way. Good. :) Just clearing that up. I'm going to post the first four straight away (the ones which she wrote). I also have not edited them in any way, shape or form. Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, this idea or this chapter. Kurt knew that he should be listening to whatever Katie Perry song they were supposed to be practicing this time, but to be honest he couldn't raise the energy to "doo-wap" in the background for another song. Blaine had a fabulous voice, in fact he was just fabulous in general, not that Kurt was going to bring that up again. After Blaine's not quite rejection on Valentines he figured he'd leave things between them up to chance. The point was however that no matter how beautiful Blaine's voice was he missed the group dynamic of New Directions, sure he didn't get many solos but at least it felt like his ideas were considered before they were shot down. The Warblers didn't even extend that courtesy. "Warbler Kurt? Kurt? KURT!" Kurt jerked himself back to reality and gazed at Wes's exasperated face, he grinned sheepishly, "Sorry Wes, what's going on?" He caught Blaine's eye and had to bite his tongue to stop himself laughing. Wes looked like he wanted to shove his gavel somewhere undesirable. David cleared his throat, "Wes was just saying that we would like to invite Warbler James and you to audition for a solo at the parent's day gala next month. Auditions will be tomorrow after practice, and the winner will perform their solo number before our group number." "Really? A solo?" Kurt knew that his face was lighting up, and that he probably looked like an over excited child presented with ice cream but he couldn't help it, particularly since he knew that he could out sing James in his sleep. Automatically he began going through possible audition pieces in his head, it would have to be something less extravagant than last time – although he knew his rendition of Don't Cry For Me Argentina had been amazing – it defiantly hadn't fit with the Warblers style, and he had more of a feel for that now. All too soon the practice had finished and Kurt was left alone with Blaine, the older boy grinned and waved his hand in front of his friends face, "Earth to Kurt! You in there?" Slowly Kurt lifted his excited eyes to meet Blaine's hazel ones, "A solo Blaine! I get a solo!" Blaine nodded and held open the door for Kurt, "Sure, if you beat out James" Kurt didn't even respond he just shot Blaine a patented 'bitch please!' look, which gained a chuckle "Not that I doubt you for a second of course. Coffee? We can discuss song choices. No Broadway this time okay?" As they left neither boy noticed that they were being watched, James sat quietly in the corner, having watched the complete exchange. He was fuming. Fucking Kurt Hummel got everything he wanted. He got better grades than him. He got into the Warblers without an audition; he had audition four times before they'd let him in. Four times! He got to hang out with Blaine all the time and now he was going to get a solo! Oh James had no doubt who'd win the sing off, he was talented and all but Kurt was a fucking countertenor. James knew that he didn't stand a chance. But it pissed him off that Kurt knew it. James lifted his hands to his hair and they clenched into fists, maybe it was time to have a word with Blaine's new pet. James had been on the phone to his cousin all afternoon learning as much as he could about Hummel. His cousin, it turned out, had been on the football team with Kurt's main tormentor at McKinley High, he learnt some interesting things about the young Warbler. James was now stood outside Kurt's dorm room, he knew that Kurt's roommate Jeff wasn't in because he'd watched and waited for him to leave, but just as he was about to knock he heard Kurt begin to sing, One Night Only' "You and Me" rang out. James cursed, it was a perfect song choice, and Kurt was actually very good at it, despite it not being his usual area of expertise. Knowing that this confrontation was more important than he had first anticipated he made a fist and knocked on the door. The singing stopped and Kurt appeared at the door. He seemed surprised, "Oh! James hi…. What can I do for you?" James dredged up a winning smile, "I was wondering if I could have a word?" "Sure." Kurt murmured uncertainly, "Come on in." In a flash James was through the door, he reached behind him and locked it, pinning Kurt against the wall by his throat before the younger boy had chance to react. "J- James? What the hell?" "Now listen and listen good Hummel." James snarled, shoving his face close to the smaller, terrified boy, "This solo, is mine. I deserve it, and if I don't get it I can make your life a living hell. You might know my cousin, Jenkins? He's on the football team." James felt a thrill of satisfaction as Kurt's face paled, "Huh. Seems you are aquainted with him. Well he tells me that there might be a few things that you could miss from your old school, Slushy Facials? Dumpster Tosses? Locker Slams? My cousin and his friends are quite primitive but I'm sure that I could come up with some more subtle means of torture." James let go of Kurt and he slumped to the floor, tears making steady tracks down his face, "You can't" He rasped out, "This school has a zero tolerance on bullying policy, you'd be expelled." Kurt's tormentor smiled almost gently and crouched down to look into his eyes, "Perhaps. But my family does have some pull with the school, so it's rather unlikely. So Kurt, here's what's going to happen. Tomorrow you either pull out of the sing off or you will mess up your song. I recommend pulling out; no one will believe that their golden boy Kurt Hummel would give any less than a perfect audition. After I receive the solo, I'll back off. But all deals are null and void if you tell anyone about this Kurt. Do you understand?" Kurt merely nodded and watched as the tall black boy straightened up and left, taking care to tread hard on Kurt's hand on his way out of the door. The small boy massaged his neck and cradled his hand to his chest, across the room his cell phone went off. Teenage Dream - Blaine's ring tone. For the first time ever he ignored it. ` The next day Kurt woke up and looked in the mirror, he cursed his uniform. Kurt had dark and angry bruising around his throat where James had grabbed him, had he been at McKinley he could have hidden it with a carefully coordinated scarf, as it was he had to spend a good ten minutes skilfully applying heavy makeup over the mark. He then wrapped an ace bandage around his sprained hand and headed out to the Warblers meeting. He was early, but that was intentional, he needed to talk to the Council and he'd rather he did it without all of the other Warblers listening. As he entered the practice room he cursed again, for the second time that morning. Blaine was sat talking to Thad, Wes and David, he looked up and smiled widely. "Kurt! You're early!" Wes waved, "Hey, looking forward to your audition?" "Um. That was what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm pulling out of the audition. I think you should give the solo to James." Kurt looked at the floor the entire time he was saying this, but he could feel the four incredulous glances he was getting. "What?" Blaine cried, "Why? You were so excited yesterday!" Thad cleared his throat, "We were trying to do you a favour, this is hardly seeming very grateful." David shot a look at his fellow Council member, "What Thad means is that we just don't understand Kurt. We thought you wanted a solo." His voice showed concern and that was too much for Kurt, he felt hot tears build up in his eyes. "I am grateful. I just feel like I haven't been here long and other Warblers deserve the honour of a solo more than I do. I'm sorry." "Well…" Wes faltered, "If that's what you want then we'll make the announcement in the meeting. Don't think that you don't deserve this solo though, 'cause you do." All through the meeting Blaine watched his young friend carefully, the older boy didn't miss much, he was extremely observant and he saw the dead look in his friend's eyes all through the rehearsal, he also saw the bandage on his hand and the slightly darker ring around his neck which worried him more than anything else. He didn't know what had happened to Kurt, but he knew it was something bad; Kurt would never just give up a solo like that. He left it though, he knew that Kurt didn't respond well to being pushed for information, he'd tell him when he was ready. Later in his dorm room he was sat crossed legged on his bed, David was sprawled out on his across the room and Wes was lounging on the floor, "So what do you think happened?" Wes was worried, Kurt had entered their lives pretty quickly, but he was their friend now and the younger boy had been through hell. He felt quite protective over the slender fashionista. "Don't know," David shrugged biting down on a Red Vine "But I'm willing to bet it's something to do with James." Blaine's head shot up "What? Why?" David looked a little taken aback but rallied himself quickly, "James has been bugging the council for ages for a solo. It's not that he has a bad voice; it's just not very strong. I just can't imagine him giving up this chance for Kurt." "Plus he's jealous of the two of you." Wes waved away Blaine's incredulous noises, "Please. James has had a crush on you for the last year, and now suddenly you're spending all your time with Kurt. Talking of which when are you just going to make a move? You have eye sex with him all the time!" "Hey!" Blaine exclaimed, "We are NOT having eye sex! I'm his friend, I'm his mentor…he doesn't need anything else right now." "Would you wake up Blaine?" David sighed in exasperation, "I'm not going to be quite as crude as Wes about this but it's obvious you like him, you haven't just been his friend and mentor for a while now. And Kurt told you that he liked you on Valentines Day. Just go for it." "Maybe. But that still doesn't explain why he gave up on that solo. He was going to sing "You and Me" you know… it was pretty spectacular." "Wow." David mumbled, "That would have been awesome. Now we're stuck singing Heaven is a half pipe." He shook his head in disgust. Blaine could see they were getting nowhere and got up, "I'm going to go talk to him; he said he was going to the library. You two don't do anything I wouldn't do while I'm gone, especially not on my bed." He winked and them and left, chuckling to himself as the chorus of "WE'RE NOT GAY!" followed him out of the door. Kurt was curled up in the quietest corner of the Library, trying to concentrate on the Spanish text book in front of him as he thought through the day. He'd really messed up. Thad was annoyed at him. David and Wes were worried, but that was nothing compared to Blaine, Kurt had felt his reproachful gaze on him all day, and worst of all he'd caved in to James' pressure, now the boy knew that all he had to do was make some threats and Kurt would do whatever he wanted. He was miserable, he knew that the council would never give him another solo now, his neck hurt and his hand was throbbing. "Kurt?" Kurt's heart stopped as he heard the deep chocolate voice of Blaine above him, he looked up nervously, "Oh, hi Blaine. Just reading up on some Spanish." "The text book is upside down Kurt." Blaine stated, a hint of a smile in his voice as he sat down, "Want to tell me what's going on?" "Nothing's going on Blaine, I just didn't feel comfortable having a solo when so many Warblers audition dozens of times and don't get one." Kurt murmured quietly. "Bullshit." Kurt looked up surprised, Blaine never cursed, "I'm sorry Kurt but that's bullshit. You were so happy about that solo and then suddenly you did a complete U Turn. I want to know what caused it. We're worried about you." "Well don't be!" Kurt cried jumping up, "I'm fine! You don't need to baby me all the time." Blaine jumped up too and turned to face his friend, "Really Kurt? Then what happened to your hand and…" The hobbit haired boy trailed off uncertainly, he licked his index finger and dragged it down Kurt's neck gently, smearing the makeup. "Kurt… tell me. Was it Karofsky? Was it James? I can help." Kurt faltered, "I – I – I'm sorry I can't, I have to go now. Bye Blaine!" Kurt gathered up his books and ran, Blaine followed. Across the room James watched, he couldn't hear what they were talking about but as soon as he saw Blaine wipe away the makeup covering Kurt's throat he knew that Kurt had told him, and that he needed to teach that little slut a lesson. Kurt was terrified, he was pressed down on his bed, his wrists tied above his head tightly, a hand was pressed underneath his shirt roughly caressing his nipples, the older boy's mouth was on his, his tongue thrusting harshly inside. Kurt couldn't believe this was happening to him, his first kiss with a guy had been stolen by Karofsky, and now this. Tears fell rapidly down his badly bruised cheek, pooling on his collar bone along with the blood from his split lip. James pulled his face away from the trembling one beneath him, "So you little slut, are you enjoying this? I told you not to tell anyone but you had to run off and blab to Blaine Fucking Anderson. So now I need to punish you. Not that this is much of a punishment, I'm sure you'll enjoy this almost as much as I will." "Please James, I didn't tell anyone, I didn't tell him. Please!" "Oh Kurt, I love it when you beg!" James's hand trailed to Kurt's belt and he expertly unfastened it and popped open the buttons of his skinnys, he rubbed his hand on Kurt's flaccid bulge through his boxer briefs, "What's the matter Kurt, not turned on?" "No! No don't …." James laughed, deep and cruel and thrust his hand beneath Kurt's tight briefs and squeezed painfully before dipping his head to Kurt's crotch, "I'll make you hard Kurt, just see if I don't!" Blaine hadn't managed to catch up with Kurt. The boy could run fast when he wanted to. He'd decided that he should give him some space until after dinner and now he found himself outside Kurt's door, sighing he ran a hand through his carefully gelled hair, just as he was about to knock he heard someone's voice from behind the door, "Oh Kurt, I love it when you beg!" Blaine felt himself blush. Kurt was in there with another guy! He felt his heart break a little as he moved to walk away, of course he shouldn't have assumed Kurt would stay single forever. Then just as he was leaving he heard something that made his blood turn to ice. Kurt's voice, distressed and pleading, "No! No don't …." And with that Blaine was running like he'd never run before. He needed to find Wes; he needed the Warbler master key. James was getting frustrated, he couldn't get Kurt hard and he knew that it wasn't because he was bad at giving head. "What is wrong with you?" He growled, "Nothings wrong with me." Kurt choked out. "You're just not Blaine." James cursed loudly, backhanding Kurt again before placing his penis at Kurt's lips, "Fine. You don't want me sucking you off you can return the favour. Open up now Kurt, be a good boy." He smeared his pre-cum against Kurt's bleeding lips. Neither boy heard the door swing open behind them. Blaine had found Wes in his dorm room along with David, all he'd had to force out was "Kurt – help – master key!" Before all three boys were racing back to Kurt's door, they could here someone cursing loudly and a smack, Blaine fumbled with the key, Wes and David on either side of him, and finally the door swung open. Time seemed to slow down. Blaine took in Kurt lying on his bed, tied down, his hair messed up and his face bruised and bloody. He took in the tears running down his cheeks and his ripped open shirt. His skinny jeans and briefs around his knees. Only then did he take in the hulking form of James on top of Kurt, his dick out of his slacks being rubbed against Kurt's abused lips. Jaw set in anger. Eyes alight with sadistic pleasure. And suddenly time clicked back to normal speed and letting out a terrifying snarl of fury Blaine threw himself at James, pushing him off the younger boy. "YOU. FUCKING. BASTARD." He punctuated each word with a punch to James's face. But while he had had the element of surprise, James was still much bigger than him and quickly rolled on top of Blaine and raised his own fist. Wes and David got there before James' fist could connect with Blaine, pulling him off their friend and restraining him. "How the fuck could you?" Wes growled forcing him to face Kurt. "What did he ever do to you?" "Oh relax Wesley." James spat, "It's not like I raped the bastard. Not that he wouldn't have enjoyed it if I had, fucking slut." "DON'T talk about Kurt like that!" Blaine hissed pulling himself up, "He's ten times the man you are. And I don't give two shits if you didn't actually have sex with him. You did more than enough, and if you think-" "Blaine -?" A weak cry from across the room interrupted Blaine and he was next to the bed in an instant making soothing noises, fixing his friends clothing and attacking the knot tying Kurt to the headboard, "Shhh baby it's alright, calm down it'll be okay." "That's right Anderson; you take care of your boyfriend." James sneered, Seeing Kurt jump, merely at the sound of James' voice Blaine called over his shoulder, "Get him out of here guys. We'll deal with him later. And David -?" "Don't worry Blaine, I'll stay in Wes' room tonight, Kurt should sleep in ours with you." Blaine nodded and didn't even spare James a glance as his best friends dragged him out of the room, "Blaine, I'm sorry! He was too strong, I couldn't -" "Kurt shhh, of course you couldn't. Now calm down, I'll get you untied and I'll get you to my room and you can talk to me when you're ready, or not. That's fine too, just… please don't cry." "I-It's okay." Kurt stuttered to himself more than to Blaine, "He didn't r-r-rape me. It's okay." Blaine was incredulous, and he could only hope the boy was going into shock and that that was why he was being so ridiculous, continuing to untie the knot Blaine spoke, "Kurt. Don't even go there. There are different kinds of rape, hell I don't even know what Sanders did to you and I know it counts. So don't tell me that what he's done is okay, because it bloody well isn't!" Kurt just continued crying until Blaine finally freed him and picked him up bridal style, before heading to his own dorm room. Kurt was asleep in Blaine's bed, wearing Blaine's sweats, and Blaine could barely control himself. All he wanted to do was climb in bed next to Kurt and gather him up in his arms. It had taken long enough to get the boy to sleep after he'd showered. Blaine knew that he should be grabbing some sleep himself but he couldn't while he knew that Kurt was still hurting. Kurt hadn't told him what had happened or why yet but he knew that it wouldn't be too long before he did. Wes had texting him saying that James had stormed off campus, calling Kurt a slut and claiming that Blaine could do better. Blaine begged to differ. He'd give anything to be with Kurt. He heard his name and looked up; Kurt was sat up in bed. "Hey. You should be sleeping." Blaine smiled sitting on the bed next to Kurt, "You ready to talk?" Kurt bit his lip and then winced as it hurt, "I think – I don't think I'll ever be ready for that, but I think you need to know. And you should text Wes and David, because they deserve to know too and I can't say this more than once." Blaine nodded and pulled out his phone to text his friends, they appeared minutes later, David handed an icepack to Kurt, "Hey buddy, I thought you could do with this." Kurt accepted it gratefully and Blaine cursed himself for not getting him one sooner, "So what happened Kurt?" Wes asked flopping down on the floor, "You scared us." "Well…"Kurt paused and Blaine threw his arm over his shoulder, "He came to my room yesterday and pinned me against the wall by my throat. He said that he was one of my bullies from McKinley's cousin and that if I didn't pull out of the audition he'd make my life hell here in ways they'd never dreamed of back there. He said that if I dropped out and didn't tell anyone about him threatening me he'd leave me alone. Then he stood on my hand when he left" David looked between his two best friends, he was worried. He was the most level headed of the trio and he already had to bite his tongue to keep from cursing. He knew it got worse and Wes already looked like he was going to faint and Blaine's arm had tightened so much around Kurt that he was surprised the boys head hadn't popped off. Realising he was the only one that still had the power of speech he turned to Kurt, "Go on Kurt, what happened? We know that you dropped out and we know you didn't tell anyone so shouldn't that have been the end of it?" Kurt nodded, silent tears running down his face. Mindlessly Blaine reached to brush them away; Kurt seemed to draw comfort from this contact. "Yeah, I was in my room before. Jeff was at football practice, and there was a knock on the door, I thought it was Blaine, we'd argued before and I wanted to apologise so I opened the door. He – he pushed his way in and said – he said that he'd seen me and Blaine in the Library and that I'd clearly told him so now he had to punish me." Sobs wracked through Kurt and he balled his fist up in Blaine's shirt, Blaine stroked the younger boys back and began to hum softly in his ear, "H-he hit me and pushed me onto the bed and t-tuh-tied me down. I tried to fight him, I really did but he was too strong. He started k-kuh-kissing me and it reminded me of Karofsky and I was so scared!" Wes and David shared a confused look; they didn't know the exact reason why Kurt had transferred to Dalton, just that he'd been bullied for being gay. Blaine looked up and offered them a half smile, "Karofsky was a closet case at McKinley, he forced a kiss on Kurt and then threatened to kill him if he told anyone." He explained. Wes aimed a punch at Blaine's bed and then regretted it as it bloody hurt! Wordlessly David took the icepack off Kurt and handed it to Wes before gesturing for him to continue, "Anyway. He kept saying that he was going to punish me, but that it wouldn't be much of a punishment because I'd e-en-enjoy it as m-much as he d-d-did. It made me feel so worthless. Then he put his hand down my pants and he-" Kurt blushed and Blaine squeezed him comfortingly, he knew how uncomfortable Kurt was talking about sexual matters, but he needed to know how far James had gone, "He palmed me through my briefs and laughed cause I wasn't hard." He whispered this last word, mortified, "I begged him to stop but I think it just turned him on. He pulled down my jeans and my briefs and squeezed hard, a-and it h-h-hu-hurt. Then he said he was going to make me hard and he started sucking me off. But… I still wasn't – you know, and he was getting a-a-angry and he kept asking what was wrong with me-" "There's nothing wrong with you!" David burst out angrily, gaining shocked looks from the other three boys, "I'm sorry Kurt… go on." "Well. That's what I said. I told him-" Kurt broke off, blushing more than ever and casting embarrassed looks at Blaine. "What did you say Kurt?" Blaine whispered into Kurt's hair, "I said… I told him there was nothing wrong with me, he just wasn't you." Kurt breathed. Wes and David broke into huge grins despite the situation and Blaine just looked stunned. Kurt carried on quickly before anyone could interrupt, "He hit me again, and said that if I wasn't going to enjoy myself, then I could repay the favour and he tried t-t-to shove his … thing – in my mouth and that's when you came in…" Kurt finished weakly, Blaine pulled Kurt into a huge hug, whispering reassurances in his ear and rocking him as he cried. "He should be expelled!" Wes raged, "We have a no bullying policy and this wasn't even just bullying it was sexual abuse!" "He won't be expelled Wes," David sighed, "His father is the deans 'golfing buddy' he'd get a slap on the wrist at best. They'd probably try and say it was mutual. We could go to the police-" "NO!" Kurt looked up distraught, "No! No please don't. Please! They'd have to tell my dad, and he's sick. It could kill him. Please promise me that you won't. Please! Wes? David … Blaine?" The boys looked at him in shock and Blaine cleared his throat, "Kurt… of course we won't do anything like that if you don't want us too. But you can't just let him get away with what he did. It was wrong. It was beyond wrong." "If dad finds out this happened, he'll have another heart attack for sure. And he wouldn't recover this time. I'll just stay away from him. He's just one guy right? And you guys will help won't you?" "He won't come near you again Kurt, I promise." Blaine soothed. Kurt relaxed into Blaine's chest again and remained there for a few moments until his head shot up again, "Warblers! I'll have to leave, I'm sorry Wes but I can't be in that glee club with him. Please don't ask me to be." Wes held up his hand, "You won't be leaving Warblers Kurt. James will. Besides he probably won't even turn up after what happened today. He's not stupid. Just a bastard." David got up and pulled Wes up with him, "We'll need to tell Thad why we're kicking him out though, is that ok Kurt? We'll do it, and he won't tell anyone else." Kurt nodded and David smiled, "We'll go and do that then. You should get some more sleep. Tomorrow's Sunday, which means practice at half eleven, don't forget!" The two boys left and Blaine looked down at the small countertenor in his arms, "Kurt… did you really say that about me?" "I – I'm sorry Blaine. I shouldn't have said it, I know that you don't feel the same way and that's fine really, I just-" Kurt was cut off as Blaine's soft lips met his. This kiss was unlike anything Karofsky or James had forced on him before, it was gentle and loving and Kurt knew that he was in control and could stop it whenever he wanted too. Finally he knew that Quinn and Finn had been babbling on about when they were talking about 'fireworks'. Somewhat reluctantly he pulled away. He looked up at Blaine reproachfully. "You didn't have to do that. You don't need to pity me, its ok." "Kurt!" Blaine cupped the boy's cheek and turned his face up to look at him, "I didn't kiss you because I pity you. I kissed you because I love you. I have loved you ever since you turned up to spy on us in that ridiculous fake uniform." "Then why-?" Blaine nodded, "I should have told you on Valentines Day when you told me you liked me. Jeremiah was just a distraction really. I thought that after everything you went through at McKinley what you needed was a friend not a boyfriend. But I was an idiot. And I know this is terrible timing, but Kurt? Would you be my boyfriend?" Kurt bit his lip again, ignoring the pain. His first instinct was to scream "YES" and kiss Blaine again, but something was holding him back. While he was battling internally Blaine seemed to take his silence the wrong way, "Of course, I understand if you don't want to – after what just happened. It was stupid of me to bring it up…" "Blaine." Kurt interrupted, "It's not that, I'd love to be your boyfriend I just – I mean, are you sure you want me? After what Karofsky and James did, I-I-I'm tainted. I'm worthless and I'm pathetic I mean… if it had just been one of them then maybe you could have said they were their issues… but for both of them to think like that. I mean, it's clearly me. They saw something in me. I don't deserve you, you deserve so much better!" Kurt watched as the dark headed boys eyes filled with tears, he watched as the boy he loved positioned himself facing him and brought their lips firmly together again, and when they pulled away Blaine's hazel eyes burnt directly into Kurt's blue as he spoke. "Kurt, listen to me. You are not pathetic and you are most definitely not worthless. You are amazing. Karofsky and James are both psychotic bastards who don't even deserve to breathe the same air as you. You were unlucky, twice, and that sucks. But you didn't deserve it. You are not tainted and you never could be. And I love you Kurt Elizabeth Hummel. So I will ask you once more. Will you. Be my. Boyfriend?" he punctuated his words with soft kisses and it was all Kurt could do to nod before Blaine swept him into a huge bear hug. "Good. Now that's sorted, we should get some sleep. Wes and David will be furious if we're late tomorrow. Even if they will be ecstatic that I finally got it together and told you how I feel. They've been going crazy with me listening to Teenage Dream on loop since we met." Kurt grinned, "You stay here, I'll take David's bed." He went to get up but Kurt's hand grasped his wrist. "Blaine… please don't leave me tonight. Okay?" Blaine nodded and got in bed next to Kurt, spooning him from behind and whispering reassurances in his ear until he fell asleep. Blaine fell asleep soon after, feeling like the luckiest guy in the world. As they walked into the Warbler rehearsal the next morning they drew gasps for two reasons. One was Kurt's appearance. He'd had to products with him so his hair was un-styled for once, but that wasn't the main issue. The bruising around Kurt's neck showed black and angry, as did the huge bruise around his eye. His lip had scabbed over and he had red painful looking welts around his wrists from being tied down. The second reason was the way Blaine's arm rested protectively around his slender waist, and the small kiss the older boy bestowed on the younger ones forehead as they entered the room. Wes and David were practically beaming as they led a chorus of "Yes! Get in there! They finally got together!" These cheers were soon drowned out however by the shouts from concerned Warblers asking what happened to Kurt. Wes banged his gavel and the entire glee club looked to the Council who were all looking stern, Thad spoke up, "All you need know is that Warbler James did this to Kurt. You are all forbidden to ask Kurt questions about what did happen unless he opens up to you first. Anyone caught asking him questions that he does not want to answer will be suspended from Warblers. Do you all understand?" The Warblers all nodded and David smiled, "Good. Now that that's sorted we should all start rehearsing for Kurt's solo. You and Me by One Night Only right Kurt?" Before Kurt could answer the doors were thrown open and James stood there, grinning smugly, purple bruising marring his dark face. Blaine pushed Kurt behind him and the Council all stood up angrily, "What the hell are you doing here Sanders?" Wes snarled. James looked genuinely surprised, "I'm here to practice my solo. The same reason we always meet for Warblers?" "Actually," David pointed out calmly, "We're all here to practice Kurt's solo. You shouldn't be here at all, given that you're not a Warbler anymore." James' eyes darkened at that, "What the hell? The little slut didn't even audition for a solo! He chickened out! And what do you mean I'm not a Warbler anymore? You can't just kick me out!" "Yes we can." Thad drawled angrily, "We might not be able to get you thrown out of school Sanders but it's perfectly within our rights to expel you from Glee. The Warblers are a family James. And what you did to Kurt was not okay." "And for the record," Wes hissed, "Kurt did not 'chicken out' of his audition and you know it." James Sanders' eyes glinted with fury and he turned them on Kurt, his upper lip curled into a snarl, "You happy now you little whore? You got your solo. Question is what did you do to get it? Did you enjoy last night so much that you fucked the whole Council for a solo?" James grinned as he watched Kurt pale, "Oh. The Warblers don't know what went on last night huh? I'll tell them then. Last night, innocent little Kurt here, was my own personal fuck toy. And he enjoyed every minute of it." "That's a lie!" Blaine's voice called out, loud and authoritative, "That isn't what happened you know it. You forced yourself on Kurt, and if Wes, David and I hadn't come in when we did god only knows how far you would have gone. Kurt has a solo because he's good James, and you know that otherwise you wouldn't have threatened him in the first place. So stay the fuck away from my boyfriend Sanders. Or I will end you." Some of James' bravado ebbed away at this; he turned his gaze onto Blaine, "B-Boyfriend? Blaine come on! You could do so much better than him. He's nothing. He's worthless. He's just a pauper playing dress up in our world. You could have me Blaine!" Blaine laughed coldly, "Why the fuck would I want you when I can have Kurt Hummel? You could never match up to him, no matter how hard you tried." "Now leave." David requested his polite words laced with venom, "Before we call campus security and have you thrown out." James stood there shocked for a minute, but as he started to turn Kurt darted out from behind Blaine and placed a hand on James' forearm. The boy looked at him with distain, "What?" "I'm not nothing, and I'm not worthless." Kurt mumbled. Blaine came to his side and placed his arm around his boyfriend's waist, James just stared at him. "What did you say?" "I said. I'm not nothing, and I'm not worthless. It's taken me a long time to work that out. You're a bastard and what you did was fucking wrong. It wasn't my fault. Now go." James turned on his heel and slammed out of the room with one final "You're fucking crazy." Hissed at Kurt. Kurt was only vaguely aware of Wes declaring the meeting cancelled and everyone filing out of the room, Wes and David saying that they would see them later. He felt his new found bravery leave him as his knees gave out and Blaine caught him, lowering them both to the floor. "I'm so proud of you baby," Blaine murmured into his neck, "You stood up to him and I'm so proud. But you don't need to be so strong, I'm here for you and so are Wes and David, we'll look after you." Kurt just cried into his boyfriend's blazer, but for the first time, in a long time. He started to feel like things might be ok.

H.S. Wrestling: Region 1 seedings, pairings and predictions Region 1 Tournament Seedings, pairings and predictions 106: 1. Brandon Paetzell (29-5), Phillipsburg (Fr.) bye; 8. Dino Cancelleri (18-15), Wayne Valley (So.) vs. 9. John Schade (20-11), West Morris (Jr.); 5. Austin Sisco (24-7), Pope John (Jr.) vs. 12. Joe Aumann (27-9), Hopatcong; 13. Austin Pidoto (20-13), Warren Hills (So.) vs. 4. Garrett O’Shea (33-3), Morris Knolls (Fr.); 3. Stephen Caserta (29-6), Roxbury (Sr.) bye; 6. William Kui (29-5), DePaul (So.) bye; 7. Dan Kee (28-6), Lakeland (So.) vs. 10. Jake Van Wingerden (23-12), Kittatinny (Fr.); 2. Dom Gallo (32-3), High Point (So.) bye Predictions: This is one of the better weight classes this year, as 11 of the 12 wrestlers here have 20 or more wins. Out of this, I think were bound to see a rematch between Paetzell and Gallo in the final. Gallo lost a 3-1 decision in sudden victory to Paetzell in the Hunterdon Warren Sussex tournament semifinals. Gallo has won his last 12 matches and he will extend that streak to 15 when he avenges his loss to Paetzell in the final to win his first Region 1 title. Sisco gets to the second round of wrestlebacks, but falls there to Caserta, who then beats O’Shea in consolation to take third. 113: 1. Bryan Damon (35-1), Jefferson (Jr.) bye; 8. Mojahed Hamdeh (27-7), Wayne Hills (So.) bye; 5. Zach Fisher (26-8), Phillipsburg (Sr.) vs. 12. Zeke Lewie-Cepero (10-7), Pope John (Jr.); 13. Kyle Flynn (22-13), Pompton Lakes (So.) vs. 4. Dylan Luciano (19-14), West Morris (So.); 3. Max Nauta (28-4), Warren Hills bye; 6. Christian Silva (26-9), Kittatinny (Jr.) vs. 11. Troy Stanich (19-8), Roxbury (Fr.); 7. Michael Glasser (25-11), Montville (So.) vs. 10. Dylan Pohl (19-6), Lakeland (Sr.); 2. A.J. Vindici (34-3), Randolph (So.) bye Predictions: When you have two state qualfiers in Vindici and Nauta back in the same weight class, you know it is going to be a good field. But the winner coming out of here is Damon, who is 35-1 this year and has shown he can beat the best. Damon owns a 4-3 victory over Vindici, last year’s seventh-place finisher at 106, after defeating the Ram in the Morris County Tournament final. Damon also bested Nauta during the summer. Damon, a two-time District 3 champ, will take out Vindici for the second time in the final and punch his ticket to Atlantic City for the first time. Nauta rallies from loss to Vindici to place third. Silva makes it to the second round of wrestlebacks, but falls to Fisher for the second time this season after dropping a 9-3 decision in a dual meet on Jan. 31. 120: 1. Jared Kobis (35-1), High Point (Fr.) bye; 8. Vince Pallone (19-16), Mendham (Sr.) vs. 9. Lou Carusillo (24-10), DePaul (Jr.); 5. Joey Spaziani (29-7), Hopatcong (Sr.) vs. 12. Matt Tripodi (21-13), Jefferson (Jr.); 4. Peter Lipari (25-7), Lenape Valley (So.) bye; 3. Tyler Hrycak (33-3), Wayne Valley (Jr.) bye; 6. Matty Ritchie (27-6), North Warren (Jr.) vs. 11. Tim Mickens (16-15), West Milford (So.); 7. Devon LaFranco (24-12), Roxbury (Jr.) vs. 10. Nick Klinger (15-19), Kittatinny (Fr.); 2. Cory Fleming (30-7), West Morris (Sr.) bye Predictions: Kobis has been nothing but fantastic as a freshman this year and there should be no surprise he wins the Region 1 title here. Kobis has won the Colt Classicand Mustang Classic tournaments this year and finished second at the HWS, where he suffered his only loss to North Hunterdon’s state placewinner Ryan Pomrinca, 3-2, in an ultimate tiebreaker. Kobis will defeat Fleming for the second time this season (he beat the West Morris grappler, 10-9, in a dual on Feb. 9) to become the first High Point freshman to win the region since 2008 when Nick Francavilla did it to start his run to four Region 1 crowns. Lipari bounces back from semifinal loss to Kobis to beat LaFranco in second round of wrestlebacks and edge Hrycak in the consolation to place third. 126: 1. David McFadden (34-1), DePaul (So.) bye; 8. Connor McHugh (25-10), High Point (Sr.) vs. 9. Craig Calderone (23-9), Pompton Lakes (So.); 5. Ian Burke (30-5), Sparta (So.) vs. 12. David Zeppetelli (22-12), West Milford (So.); 4. Austin Scrivani (25-10), Kittatinny (Fr.) bye; 3. David Migliaccio (25-10), West Morris (So.) vs. 14. Tylor Petchonka (9-11), Phillipsburg (Jr.); 6. Anthony Fano (29-8), Montville (So.) vs. 11. Michael Nigro (21-15), Morris Knolls (So.); 7. Dylan Sullivan (22-10), Morris Hills (Jr.) bye; 2. Joe Kratochvil (29-5), Warren Hills (Sr.) bye Predictions: McFadden will top the field again to become a two-time Region 1 champ for DePaul. McFadden will beat Kratochvil, the HWS champ at this weight this year and a finalist here last year, in the championship bout. As for the battler for third place, Scrivani takes the bronze after edging out Burke, who he beat in last Saturday’s final at District 3, in a tough quarterfinal bout, losing to McFadden in the semis, defeating Fano in the second round of wrestlebacks and edging Migliaccio in the consolation. If he places, Scrivani will do what his older brother, Garrett, couldn’t do is go to A.C. as a freshman. 132: 1. Sam Tareky (34-3), Wayne Valley (Sr.) bye; 8. Brandon Rothman (30-8), Hackettstown (Sr.) vs. 9. Ryan Inglett (22-9), Wayne Hills (Sr.); 5. Anthony Johnson (12-7), Phillipsburg (Sr.) bye; 4. Mike Derin (13-3), High Point (So.) bye; 3. Jake Legotte (31-5), Roxbury (Jr.) vs. 14. Cassius Russell (8-3), Morris Knolls (Sr.); 6. Joe Hocking (24-5), Wallkill Valley (Sr.) vs. 11. Spencer Carey (27-6), DePaul (Fr.); 7. Eric Friedman (29-7), Mendham (So.) vs. 10. Tim Van Lenten (17-8), Vernon (Fr.); 2. Glenn Haines (26-9), Lenape Valley (So.) bye Predictions: This is a power-packed weight class and probably one of the deepest here. For starters, you have Tareky, a returning champion after winning the 126-pound crown last year. Not only him, but you have state qualifiers in Derin and Johnson, with Johnson also being a runner-up at 138 here in 2012. Those three are in the top half of the bracket. As fr the bottom half, Haines is also a state qualifier and Hocking, a former Region 1 semifinalist. Out of this weight, Derin takes the title, beating Haines in an All-Sussex County final. Derin looks as determined as ever since returning to the team after quitting the team for personal reasons for three weeks. Derin has won 10 matches in a row, with nine coming on pins. Tareky takes third by beating Johnson in the consolation. 138: 1. Nick Matthews (34-3), West Morris (Sr.) vs. 16. Tommy Miller (17-14), Roxbury; 8. Vincent Rigoglioso (18-8), Wayne Valley (Jr.) vs. 9. Cory Doebel (10-6), DePaul (So.); 5. Jim Lodema (21-6), Wallkill Valley (Sr.) vs. 12. Chris Auer (15-10), High Point (Jr.); 4. Matt Benvenuto (31-8), Lenape Valley (Sr.) bye; 3. Max Elling (21-12), Phillipsburg (So.) bye; 6. Adam Fano (27-10), Montville (Sr.) vs. 11. Kevin Bundschuh (18-10), Warren Hills (Sr.); 7. Joseph Stambouly (25-8), Wayne Hills (Fr.) bye; 2. Tom Murphy (32-3), Kittatinny (So.) bye Predictions: Along with 132, this is one of the toughest weights as it is filled with so many title contenders. Matthews, a state qualifier and third-place finisher here last year, is the top seed at 34-3. Also in this weight class is three-time District 2 champ Benvenuto, two-time District 3 winner Murphy and recent District 1 champ Elling, who decked Matthews in the final last Saturday. Though he is just a sophomore, Murphy is the pick here to win it all after owning two wins against Elling this year and recently pinning Benvenuto in 45 seconds in the North 1, Group 1 final, avenging a 6-5 defeat earlier at the HWS. Murphy takes the title against Benvenuto, who beats Matthews in the semis to qualify for states for the first time. Elling sneaks by Matthews again in the consolation to make states for the Stateliners. 145: 1. Jesse Thorsen (29-2), Belvidere (Sr.) bye; 8. Tim Burklow (29-7), Pequannock (So.) bye; 5. Brandon Carcuffe (30-7), West Morris (Sr.) vs. 12. Zack Tareky (15-14), Wayne Valley (So.); 13. Dylan Kaine (21-9), West Milford (Jr.) vs. 4. Jason Gaccione (33-4), High Point (So.); 3. Nick Romyns (27-5), Kittatinny (Jr.) bye; 6. Jordan Marks (26-11), Montville (Sr.) bye; 7. Luke Drugac (25-10), Morris Knolls (Fr.) vs. 10. Jonathan Patane (23-10), Roxbury (Jr.); 15. Anthony Gignatelli (19-12), Pope John (Sr.) vs. 2. Tyler Kozimor (27-6), Hackettstown (Sr.) Predictions: Another loaded weight here. The title is up for grabs between Thorsen, Kozimor, Romyns and Gaccione. Conventional wisdom goes with Kozimor, who won a Region 1 title at 138 last year. Thorsen has been the season’s best after winning the HWS title here. Romyns jumps into the conversation after beating Gaccione in the District 3 final. Thorsen and Gaccione will meet in a tough semifinal, but I think Gaccione has what it takes to get by the County Seater and get to the final. Kozimor edges Romyns in a thrilling semifinal, but gets beat by Gaccione in the final. Romyns gives the area a clean sweep in this weight by besting Thorsen in the consolation. 152: 1. Jimmy Schuitema (29-3), Phillipsburg (So.) bye; 8. Ryan Ward (23-3), Vernon (Sr.) vs. 9. Tommy Hooker (23-11), High Point (Jr.); 5. Sean Rodgers (31-8), Randolph (Sr.) bye; 13. Johnny Hayes (17-10), North Warren (Jr.) vs. 4. Daniel Kilroy (23-6), Wayne Hills (Fr.); 3. Luke Bohn (31-5), Jefferson (So.) bye; 6. Dean Drugac (33-3), Morris Knolls (Fr.) vs. 11. Dominic LaBell (14-8), Lenape Valley (Jr.); 7. Sal Castiglia (28-9), Wayne Valley (Sr.) vs. 10. Evan Butka (21-14), Warren Hills (Jr.); 2. Patrick VanDuyne (29-4), West Milford (Sr.) bye Predictions: Though he might be a third seed, Bohn is going into the tourney with the mindset that he can win it all. Bohn, a sophomore, is coming off winning his first high school tournament last Saturday at District 3 when he beat Ward in the final, 3-1. Bohn will make it to the semifinals like he did last year at 140, but will drop a close match to VanDuyne there. However, he will win his second-round wrestleback match and his consolation agaunst Kilroy to make states. As for the finals, Schuitema beats VanDuyne for the title to make states for the second straight year. 160: 1. Dillon Artigliere (36-0), Roxbury (Jr.) bye; 8. David Popek (14-13), Kittatinny (Sr.) vs. 9. Joey LaBell (21-16), Lenape Valley (So.); 5. John Sickles (26-8), West Morris (Sr.) vs. 12. Corey Flynn (25-5), Pompton Lakes (Jr.); 4. Nick Carey (29-6), DePaul (Jr.) bye; 3. Jake Kocsis (24-9), Phillipsburg (Jr.) vs. 14. Al Falco (16-16), Sparta (Fr.); 6. Steve Acevedo (25-6), Morris Hills (Jr.) vs. 11. Travis Canty (22-7), Butler (Jr.); 7. Moses Yasin (14-20), High Point (Sr.) bye; 2. Sam Button (30-5), Mendham (Jr.) bye Predictions: Artigliere is the absolute clear-cut favorite to win the title, and with good reason. The Gael won a Region 1 title at 135 as a freshman and was a runner-up last year to Kittatinny’s Clarke Moynihan at 152. Artigliere will cruise to the title while beating Mendham’s Sam Button for a third time this season. Unfortunately for the area, no grappler will place here. Popek and Yasin will be the closest to place, as they will both fall in the first round of wrestlebacks. The third-place finisher here will be Carey, of DePaul, who will edge Kocsis in the consolation. 170: 1. Kieran Gerrity (32-3), Kittatinny (Jr.) bye; 8. Antonio Porraspita (22-10), High Point (Jr.) vs. 9. Anthony Colabella (29-7), Mount Olive (Jr.); 5. Matt DeLallo (25-10), DePaul (Sr.) vs. 12. D.J. Barrett (22-14), Lenape Valley (So.); 13. Tyler Zimmerman (22-12), Jefferson (Jr.) vs. 4. Zach D’Apolito (19-18), Wayne Valley (Jr.); 3. Ricard DiZenso (26-6), West Milford (Sr.) bye; 6. Broderick Bupivi (22-12), Phillipsburg (Jr.) bye; 7. Adam Kratch (30-7), West Morris (Sr.) vs. 10. James Monaghan (19-15), Roxbury (Sr.); 2. Parker Meytrott (36-1), Montville (Sr.) bye Predictions: The title will be decided between two state qualifiers in Gerrity and Meytrott. Gerrity, a qualifier at 160 last year, earned the top seed in the tourney after beating Porraspita for a second time this season in the District 3 final. Meytrott, a qualifier at 145 in 2011, grabbed the second seed after winning District 2 last week. Gerrity will be a tough out in the final, but Meytrott comes away with the win. Bupivi surprises everyone and takes third to make the states for the Stateliners. 182: 1. Jake Brook (32-3), Kittatinny (Sr.) bye; 8. Peter Sutton (22-12), Roxbury (Jr.) vs. 9. Stephen Cleaver (20-14), Warren Hills (Jr.); 5. Luke Foukas (27-6), Pequannock (Sr.) vs. 12. Alex Reiman (15-10), Wallkill Valley (Sr.); 4. Michael Burns (35-1), Morris Knolls (Sr.) bye; 3. Evan Bray (26-5), Belvidere (Sr.) bye; 6. Jon Fazio (26-5), Lakeland (Sr.) vs. 11. Joe Maso (11-8), Phillipsburg (So.); 7. Josh Sibblies (30-4), Newton (Sr.) vs. 10. Dean Carlotti (22-12), Morris Hills (Sr.); 2. Nick DePalma (30-5), DePaul (So.) bye Predictions: This is one of the other deep weight classes here. Brook, DePalma, Burns, Bray and Sibblies can all win this title. Brook grabbed the top seed after beating Sibblies in the District 3 final, 7-3, for his first title. DePalma, Burns and Bray each won their districts. Sibblies did beat Brook in the HWS final, 1-0, and is seeded seventh. Brook manages to beat Burns in the semis, but won’t meet Sibblies in the final as the Brave falls to DePalma in semis. Brook then caps his run with a Region 1 title while Sibblies wrestles back for third by beating Burns to avenge a 3-2 loss he had suffered to the Morris Knolls senior at the Henry Boresch Duals on Jan. 5. 195: 1. Anthony Landberg (29-6), Wayne Valley (Jr.) bye; 8. Hunter McConnell (17-2), Pompton Lakes (Sr.) vs. 9. Scott Lavelle (25-9), DePaul (Fr.); 5. Dylan Wunder (27-8), Kittatinny (Jr.) vs. 12. Andrew Trejo (19-14), Mount Olive (Sr.); 4. Stephen Arthur III (16-7), Roxbury (Sr.) bye; 3. Jesse Windt (30-7), West Morris (Jr.) bye; 6. Gus Protogeropoulos (28-7), Newton (So.) vs. 11. Jose Delgado (29-7), Morris Hills (Jr.); 7. Ryan Witner (17-17), Warren Hills (Jr.) vs. 10. Kristian Barrett (25-11), Lenape Valley (Sr.); 2. Kyle Stoll (30-5), High Point (Jr.) bye Predictions: With Brook going down to 182, this gives Stoll a clear path to the final and a chance to win the title. The Wildcat, who took third at 182 last year, will face Landberg in the final. And like what Newton’s Jake Connelly did last year, Stoll will beat Landberg to give Sussex its second straight 195-pound title. Protogeropoulos makes a good showing here and gets to the second-round of wrestlebacks, but falls to Wunder, who then loses to Windt in the consolation. 220: 1. J.B. Lawson (26-4), Belvidere (Sr.) bye; 8. Aaron Flitcroft (11-5), Mendham (So.) vs. 9. Dante James (14-11), Lenape Valley (Sr.); 5. Zac Kazaba (31-8), Randolph (Sr.) bye; 13. Spencer Ochner (11-6), Pequannock (Jr.) vs. 4. Pete Andrich (32-4), Mount Olive (Sr.); 3. Robert Levine (20-5), Wayne Hills (Sr.) vs. 14. Rob Hajnos (20-13), Jefferson (Jr.); 6. Garrett Armstrong (32-3), Kittatinny (Jr.) bye; 7. Bobby McDonnell (28-7), High Point (Jr.) vs. 10. Laurence Bueno (19-16), Montville (Jr.); 2. Justin Walker (28-5), Wayne Valley (Jr.) bye Predictions: We are bound for a third meeting between Armstrong and Lawson in the final. Armstrong defeated Lawson, 2-0, on Dec. 27 at the Kittatinny Tournament, but lost to the County Seater in the HWS final, 3-2, in an ultimate tiebreaker. Armstrong beats Walker in the semis, but can’t pull out a win against Lawson in the final and winds up taking second. Andrich, of Mount Olive, takes third. 285: 1. Andrew Pacheco (29-5), Warren Hills (So.) bye; 8. Gunny Wassong (19-11), High Point (Jr.) vs. 9. Pat Wagner (17-14), Wayne Valley (Sr.); 5. Jarrett Williams (26-7), Phillipsburg (Sr.) vs. 12. William Wenzel (26-3), West Milford (Sr.); 4. Noa Merritt (28-3), Pope John (Jr.) bye; 3. Brendon Narbone (26-6), Lakeland (Sr.) bye; 6. Victor Burgos (27-9), Hopatcong (Sr.) bye; 7. Tom Smith (19-14), Kittatinny (Jr.) vs. 10. Bobby Sperling (9-9), Lenape Valley (Sr.); 15. Ethan Fox (13-20), Montville (Jr.) vs. 2. Ryan Appleby (26-4), Belvidere (Sr.) Predictions: Unfortunately, the area gets shut out here. Merritt, Wassong, Burgos, Smith and Sperling put together good efforts, but wind up losing in the quarterfinals. Merritt comes the closest to placing, reaching the second-round wrestlebacks before falling there. Pacheco meets Appleby in the final, with Pacheco claiming the crown. Williams wrestles back to take third.

28%.... April 3, 2013 "37% of voters believe global warming is a hoax, 51% do not." According to a PPP poll, which also found: Tags: conspiracies, global warming, polls 133 comments: The global warming poll is a hoax. And we allow those idiots the power to elect our government officials. The kooks, crazies and conspiracy theorists...and we wonder why our government is so dysfunctional. The discussion about the global warming poll being a hoax is a hoax. The predictions of global catastrophe by CO2 induced warming are exaggerated and the result of over reliance on computer models that reflect the biases of the programmers. It's not a hoax. It's bad science and that is far worse. "...if you think the science is skewed by policy preferences or the politics of grant money, the word "hoax" doesn't express what you think." I wouldn't personally use the word "hoax," but these are some of the motives for a hoax, if you use the word very loosely. Republicans say global warming is a hoax by a 58-25 margin, Democrats disagree 11-77 Shocka! Construct a Venn Diagram. I suspect there is considerable overlap between People who believe Global Warming is a Hoax and People who believe a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order. Silly poll. First, even the most ardent (verdant?) of Greenies don't use the term "global warming" anymore; it's "climate change". Second, even if you "believe" in climate change (and "believe" is a silly word to use in a scientific context), you may not agree with the political subtext yoked to the act of "believing" in global warming or climate change: that such changes are caused totally or primarily by the actions of human beings and/or that they can be remedied by human action. Third, the phrase "global warming", as it is used in a popular context, is generally understood as having negative connotations, so "belief" in such an idea also suggests that one also believes climate change to be a negative development. I wouldn't be able to answer most of these PPP poll questions, because they're stupid. @chrisnavin, Those Responsible for Sacking the People Who Have Just Been Sacked, Have Been Sacked garage mahal said: GO TEAM GO TEAM RAH RAH RAH Shocka! The poll summary also says this: "Just 5% of voters believe that Paul McCartney actually died in 1966" Huh?? Scientists always destroy raw data when things are going as planned. They also send notes to each other chiding the other for not manipulating the data enough to stiffle dissent once and for all. DCS: Well said. It's not a hoax. There's probably something to it. But it is studied by people who've started in the field, or crossed over to it, convinced that there's a problem and we're causing it. Their results, their expertise and occasionally their integrity are being picked apart by a few of their peers, but mostly by interested amateurs (some very sharp, some clueless) - who, politically, they tend to find repugnant. If you set out to design a field in which an overwhelming number of professionals will use all their expertise and logic to "prove" their theory correct, and to dismiss any problems as either trivial or fraudulent, you couldn't do much better than modern climate science. We hear a lot of talk about feedback mechanisms in global climate. My own guess (as a scientist but not a climate scientist) is that the most powerful feedback loop in global warming is confirmation bias. PPP conducts polls only for Democratic campaigns and progressive organizations. Shocka! 28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.... I wonder what percentage of that 28% believe that the "secretive power elite" is Jewish. I believe that any number of non-secretive power elites with globalist agendas are conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government. Fairly hard to dispute that one. garage mahal said: GO TEAM GO TEAM RAH RAH RAH If you meant I tend to side with scientists over someone like Rush Limbaugh, then yes. Happy to be on that team. Oh, and this struck me: "Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq....". I would dispute these numbers, if they were to be extrapolated to the population as a whole: "20% of voters believe there is a link between childhood vaccines and autism, 51% do not" I know people with kids with severe autism, they all believe this, and they're hooked into on-line networks where this is taken as fact. And they get quite aggressive if anyone expresses doubts. garage mahal: "I tend to side with scientists over someone like Rush Limbaugh...." So you're siding with me now? Well, glad to have your support! Think that's shocking? 51% of voters think Joe Biden is smart enough to be vice president! (And they're mostly Democrats). Why are pollsters asking whether Bush misled people on WMD? How, at this point, does it matter? Or is this is just something that is asked so pollsters can understand what flavor of crazy the respondent is? First, even the most ardent (verdant?) of Greenies don't use the term "global warming" anymore; it's "climate change". Yeah, and 'climate change' means almost nothing. I had a conversation with a family member one day and he was like 'do you believe in climate change' and I said 'um, of course. We used to have an ice age and now we're in a long warm period and we've had a bunch of changes along the way including colder (little ice age, etc) and warmer periods (like the MWP and the roman times). So climate change is a fact of life but it [i]means[/i] nothing but that the climate is variable. Which is not exactly news. garage mahal is on the team that has Al "The Earth's core is a million degrees F!: Gore as its frontman. Sucka! Was this poll taken on April 1st? Yeah so you frame a question such that the answer many believe to be correct (bad science) is not available. So people choose the next best answer (hoax). Then garage extrapolates that to come up with an invalid portrayal of republicans. Garage thinks he made a clever point when once again he's proven to be stupid. Shocka! AGW is good because it opens up farmland in Greenland, Canada and Russia. Construct a Venn diagram of the people who believe wholeheartedly in global warming, enough to that their identities and paychecks are dependent upon it in a permanent form of activism, and you'll find a lot of overlap with the people who believe in one-world government conveniently led, perhaps, one day, by themselves or people they are sympathetic to. There's a lot of overlap with the high-speed rail people as well, new urbanists, and various others. Not much room for individual liberty in many green quarters, but plenty of room for collectivists, activists, secret authoritarians, displaced religious believers looking for the apocalypse, anti-corportatists, anti-technology, population control nuts. And then you have semi-charlatan politicians and people making money of the whole sad train, and twisted incentives for poor countries to extort rich ones. Scientists, take note. Garage mahal, honey, "scientists" are not a monolithic political group (at least not yet, until your people get through with them). Which "scientists", specifically, do you "side" with? Ah, having clicked the link, I see they were deliberately asking about things that are sometimes perceived to be Conspiracy Theories. I still think it was done on 4/1. I'm trying to imagine my reaction is they'd called me and started asking these questions. At some point I would have hung up the phone. Who needs to waste time considering this kind of nonsense? Palladian - 90% of climate scientists and 100% of the ones that matter subscribe to AGW. But keep on the side of the crackpots. 4% of voters say they believe “lizard people” control our societies by gaining political power Good God. They even asked about Chemtrails. garage: "If you meant I tend to side with scientists over someone like Rush Limbaugh, then yes. Happy to be on that team." LOL Care to explain the 20 year hiatus in increasing temperatures that have been documented and now have the climate "scientists" perplexed? A result that is absolutely not predicted by ANY global warming/climate change/purple elephant computer model dreamed up by the climate "scientists"? LOL Maybe garage should have taken a science class or 2. Even in a modular classroom he might have learned something. No question about the Anunaki space aliens who came from planet X and did DNA experiments on earth hominids, thereby creating the first humans, the Sumerians? I'm disappointed.. We are already there. 15% of voters think the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry “invent” new diseases to make money (laugh) Is there a reason to take anything about this poll seriously, other than to note that some people are cray-cray? Actually, all the monolithic scientists are geologists. Alex: "90% of climate scientists and 100% of the ones that matter subscribe to AGW." Please provide the criteria that must be met in order to be a climate scientist "that matters" Thanks. We'll wait..... Science is never be done "by consensus." I've seen complaints and worries that the so-called soft sciences have been corrupted, bought and paid for by big business and big government for decades now. It looks very much that the "hard sciences" have been too. How is it that physics and astronomy (of which climatology is a bastard child) should be subject to political and economic pressures? Simple. It takes money to build the Hubble Space Telescope and a Superconducting Super Collider. The lizard people have got just about every one of you completely fooled. Didn't Clinton sign an order in 1993 banning US government funding for any project not accepting the AGW premise (or, conversely, attempting to refute that premise)? What do you expect climate "scientists" to say--assuming that they want to pay the rent? Who, among the commenters here, is a Lizard Person? I vote that Cedarford is. Here is his picture. Alex said... Palladian - 90% of climate scientists and 100% of the ones that matter subscribe to AGW. But keep on the side of the crackpots. So who gets to decide which ones matter?? The ones who believe in AGW?? nice closed feedback loop! the hoax is that we need to waste trillions of dollars to alter the weather based on dubious, politicized science, and if you question the science you are akin to Holocaust deniers. Madisonman: "Who needs to waste time considering this kind of nonsense?" The leftists who see their global warming / climate change gambit for increased government power wilting away under the withering "heat" of scrutiny due to their data bastardization and "lost homework" ("accidently deleted the raw data from the database!!!" lol) and inability to accurately predict ANYTHING with their "models" (even in reverse!!). Too funny. But garage still believes in them, so they've got that going for them.....which is nice.... Is this Ann Althouse's true identity? Madison Man, I have acquaintances who teach college-level courses who believe some of the "theories" in this poll, most notably the vaccine/autism link and the manufactured diseases stuff. Sometimes I wish I didn't teach art & humanities. Alex, you're really not very good at the little game you play. Especially since you are so impressed with how you play it that you have to talk about playing it. "Please provide the criteria that must be met in order to be a climate scientist "that matters"" Consensus member in good standing. We should do a Venn diagram of the tinfoil crowd, and see what they agree upon, and make public policy out of that. American can then ship her best conspiracy theories to the rest of the world. One world conspiracy gov't. Palladian: "Madison Man, I have acquaintances who teach college-level courses who believe some of the "theories" in this poll, most notably the vaccine/autism link and the manufactured diseases stuff." Lefties are also big on opposition to GMO. The last thing lefties want is for poor people in other countries to have greater access to food. God forbid that Monsanto or someone makes a profit on the side for developing technology that could double our food production and make the food last longer for transit to areas that need it. What would you need the UN for then? That's what scares the lefties. 15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals.... This is true. The "mind-controlling technology" is called "imagery". I should show my own picture! Meet your NEW LIZARD OVERLORD! Is this Ann Althouse's true identity? Was that a Doctor Who lizard? I wonder what percentage of that 28% believe that the "secretive power elite" is Jewish. 100% of commenters named Cedeford do! scientist "that matters" Not only obeys Dear Leader, but loves him. Palladian, there are some nuts in the sciences too. Being brilliant at one thing isn't always a sign of a healthy, reasonable mind. Arts/humanities just sets the bar on logic so low it catches all the 'creative' types. The question "do you believe in global warming" is just so flatly stupid it sounds like "thud." If you are asking me do I notice icebergs calving and an apparent general disruption in global climate patterns, as far as I can tell with my own eyeballs, and through all your crap statistics, the answer is, yes, but if you are asking if I believe the cause is cO2 and that cO2 is entirely caused by man's pollution, and that cO2 pollution is bad bad bad and has a greater effect than the sun has, or that there would be interglacial stability forever without it, or that a massive redistribution of wealth is necessary to curb it, or that I believe a single word that slides out of Al Gore's mouth or slithers out of his pen or creeps across his keyboard, then the answer is no. Good God. They even asked about Chemtrails. The smartest man I ever met - a guy who worked with Borlaug back in the Mexican dwarf wheat days - was a firm believer in chemtrails. Scientists can be as crazy and credulous outside of their area of expertise as the goofiest Art Bell listener. We have two meteo PhDs in the office these days, both of them coincidentally named Joe. One is a doctrinaire AGW warmist type, the other thinks that most modern warming is due to UHI expansion rather than runaway greenhouse effect. And speaking of conspiracies, wasn't it robert cook who recently very casually sauntered into the "Reagan coordinated with the Ayatollah to keep the American hostages until Reagan was inaugurated" arena? And then "backed it up" by saying that there was no ironclad or concrete proof etc while forgetting to mention that gee, there really isn't ANY proof whatsoever that occurred? And don't get me started on the 9-11 Bush MIHOP/LIHOP tangent. The term is Silurian. So psyched for the new season! Alex and garage also believe that Kim Jong Un is a terrific golfer as evidenced by N Korean News Agency reports of all the holes in one that Jong Un makes...... BTW, the mexican people by overwhelming margins in the 1970's believed that their droughts were caused by the US efforts to seed clouds for rain. The lefties are always looking for the next boogie man they can blame for their failures. So psyched for the new season! I'm a couple seasons behind and can't bring myself to catch up on netflix yet. The myth that CO2 trace gas as a driver of warming is a hoax that was created by intentionally fraudulent and well paid faked science using faked data. Blaming it now on THE COMPUTERS is also smoke and mirrors. The well paid false science guys created the faked data and fed it into programs that used fantasy feed back assumptions. Most arresting crosstab from the PPP poll: 5% of people who say they voted for Obama think he's the Anti-Christ, and 8% of Obama voters say they don't know if he is or not. Talk about your yellow-dog Democrats! My favorite episode is still the Tom Baker one with the Mona Lisa. Even though a lot of it is just him and Leela running around Paris. I was in Russia the year after the Soviets collapsed and there was a popular TV show, where you would put a glass of water on top of the TV and the guy on screen would send out his magic rays to cure your problems, be they physical or psychological --- but not, I think, alcohol-derived. OK, so he wasn't government per se, just a very very powerful individual. Since there is no evidence, anywhere at all, the globe is warming, why would you believe hat "global warming" as commonly described, isn't a hoax? "28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order...." They're not really so secretive. They operate pretty much in the open, though the media work assiduously in disseminating misleading information and cheer-leading propaganda so the inattentive and slow don't catch on.). Poll questions are like the media: Biased and written for the consumption of stupid people. Poll questions are like the media Maybe it's just my cold-blooded nature and scaly skin, but I find the questions they asked pretty hilarious. If you're not laughing at them, you're crying, and reptiles don't cry. Palladian is about to snack in this picture. Us reptilian overlords are everywhere. See? Not so secret, but apparent for all who can see. 51% follow whoever scream the loudest. I'm still stumped over this one: "Just 5% of voters believe that Paul McCartney actually died in 1966" You mean he's NOT dead?! (haha) And what, some body-double or reanimated zombie has been running around using his name? I thought this theory might have to do with the Abby Road cover, but that wasn't til 1969. I don't get it (clearly) 28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.... Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.... 15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals.... 11% of voters believe the US government allowed 9/11 to happen.. Remarkable that the pollsters found garage and Ritmo at home on the same evening. This is probably the Lewandowsky poll. The has come under criticism by skeptics. The primary reason is that it only showed up on strongly pro AGW sites. You can read about the criticisms here. "15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals." But, they didn't ask how many of those who believe this also continue to watch TV broadcasts? For a while the earth was actually warming and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were rising and so a connection was made, not proven, theorized. Carbon dioxide levels continue to rise to this day while global climate has flattened. Which doesn't disprove the theory of a connection between higher CO2 and global warming. All it tells us is that what makes the earth warm and cool is, at present, beyond the grasp of science. Paul McCartney has been dead to one legged women since 2008. I don't think climate science started out trying to create a hoax about global warming, but I do think over the past 15 years, as the data increasingly failed to support their hypothesis, that they've taken desperate measures to promote what they've learned is an invalid claim. So it essentially evolved into a hoax. What global warming? This is the Koskidz poll, so we shouldn't be toooo surprised, but this question tells you the kind of people they asked: Believe in Lizard People? "I thought this theory might have to do with the Abby Road cover, but that wasn't til 1969. "I don't get it (clearly)" Back around the time of SGT. PEPPER, a rumor flew around the world that Paul McCartney had died. Not too many people took it seriously, but apparently there were those who believed it. John Lennon made a humorous allusion to it in his lyric "the Walrus was Paul," (I can't recall which song this is from), as somehow the song "I Am The Walrus" was seen by some as a "clue" to the truth of Paul's death. The proof that global warming is a hoax is that its proponants have ceased calling it global warming, due mainly to the fact of its absence. "Actually, all the monolithic scientists are geologists." With the exception of Dr. Heywood Floyd. Global warming or man-made global warming? The Norweigans, Japanese & Russians all say temps are not going to where the models say they will & I thought I just read the oceans aren't warming like the models said either. It seems it's the soot. So do we keep the soot or not? In surveys of this type, how does one account for the 11% who believe that Elvis is alive? You can't go wrong with climate change. Every day is different. Today will be warmer than yesterday, but not by much, and still below normal, which means... Oh, I forgot, Shockass! "the Walrus was Paul," Glass Onion from the White Album Insty recently posted this via Pirate's Cove: Like (No Tricks Zone). For example veteran journalist Ulli Kulke at German flagship daily Die Welt today has stunned the rest of the German mainstream media with a piece titled Scientists warn of ice age.. "86% of statistics are made up on the spot. Only 14% of the people know that." - Homer Simpson At this point my response is just likely to be,"Wake me when palm trees appear in England again." Where is Heywood? I haven't seen him since 2001. "I can't recall which song this is from" "Glass Onion," IIRC. Great song. If not for global warming, I would have grown up near a glacier. Anthropogenic (or AlGorebull) GW--that's pretty clearly a scam, or they wouldn't have lied to us as much as they did. Heywood, who bore a striking resemblance to the actor Roy Scheider, went to Jupiter a few years ago. Not sure what he's been up to since. And "White Album?" Please. "The Beatles" 'So take that into account as you assess the significance of 51% of voters believing global warming is real.' FTFY. Cookie: )." LOL You are much more likely to find them at the UN building. Palladian is about to snack in this picture. Us reptilian overlords are everywhere. I believe this weekend you can see Palladian in 3D! MM wrote: " I suspect there is considerable overlap between People who believe Global Warming is a Hoax and People who believe a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order." You may be right, but if you are, it is a recent phenomenon. Historically, the lefties of the climate change hook-line-and-sinker variety were promoting the power elite NWO stuff. Now they just focus on the Koch Brothers and evil Republicans. I want to know what proportion believed in the Mayan Prophecies in December? More tellingly, do they still believe in them? We need to know. I recently re-subscribed to The Economist, on the occasion of their backing off from the APGW Full Hockey Stick. In a year or so they will never have been one of the credulous suckers. A scientific inquiry is an inappropriate subject for a poll using the term "believe" or "belief." The goal of a scientific inquiry should be to find facts and truth. But this particular inquiry is tainted by the "solutions" proferred by those who "believe" in AGW: me have to wreck the economy, RIGHT NOW! Poverty and misery seem to be their goals, which has little to do with the notion of a fact-based scientific theory. It should also be noted that the strongest "believers" in AGW are very strongly opposed to the use of the scientific method, which is based on doubt, skepticism and constant testing of observed results. Some "believers" think that the scientific method should be illegal, and those who follow it should be ostracized. There was the delightful chap who recently called for the death penalty for those who "deny" (that is, express skepticism) about AGW. And further evidence that AGW has become a religion rather than a subject of scientific inquiry comes from the fellow who has proposed an 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not emit greenhouse gases." "Voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq...." Several thousand Iraqi Kurds from Halabja wanted to weigh in on this issue, but were denied the opportunity. We have truly become a nation dominated by morons. Broomhandle said... 28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.... ======================= After all the splashy get-togethers of Global Elites at places like Bohemian Grove, Davos and Copenhagen to instruct the rest of the world how it will be in short order - they are not exactly secretive. Nor were they able to remain well hidden - when they were flushed out in the open with the European and American finacial meltdowns. Where they magically got trillion dollar bailouts and no one went to jail. And many of their agendas just move along arrogantly with voters having no real say in America, Europe, Russia...... Despite the masses wishes - the Elites decided that carbon taxes, Free Market Globalism to move creation of goods and services to the low bid labor pool anywhere on the planet would occur - the wishes of the people impacted being irrelevant. Agendas ending the death penalty globally, getting small arms out of the hands of non-government employee rabble was to happen. And mass 3rd World immigration to the developed world would happen to better suppress workers wage bargaining power. And Europe would be run by the bankers and elite bureaucrats in EU ofices, not European parliaments. And hundreds of billions in unsecured promissary note loans would be sent to the 3rd World knowing they would divert most money to the corrupt Elites there - and the money would never be repaid to the masses in the 1st World that efectively underwrote it. And all along the way, these changes would be exploited to funnel more money, profits from 3rd World factories, and transaction fees - into the hands of the financiers, lawyers, and bought and paid for pols that furthered the Elites interests. Many Jewish, many not Jewish..A Global Elite with as many agendas as they have - could not manage it if membership was restricted to a small population pool of wealthy Jews and their paid tools. Again - the Elites poison financial paper has cost America 4 trillion to "make the Elites whole again"...Europe might be even more when that is done..Oligarchs looted trillions from Russia. And outside Russia, none of them have gone to jail, let alone been stood up against a wall and shot. Why did not a single Wall Street scammer end up in jail? Power! That's why. Even at the worst point - few in the banks and on Wall Street worried they would face consequences. These polls are no big deal. Apparently (leaving wiggle room for fraud), more than half the voters think Obama is fit to be President. Now that's absurd! "Fact" is a legal concept, I suppose. "Truth" definitely doesn't exist usefully outside of maths. Scientific investigation produces explanations of phenomena based on falsifiable hypotheses supported by valid observations. Generally the more parsimonious (turtles all the way) explanation is preferred over the less (sharks with frickin lasers, then turtles, then Aliens..). garage mahal said... garage mahal said: GO TEAM GO TEAM RAH RAH RAH If you meant I tend to side with scientists over someone like Rush Limbaugh, then yes. Happy to be on that Then you'll agree that the planet hasn't warmed in the last 20 years. In fact we are entering a new cooling period. The science shows that people have nothing to do with it. Solar climate has everything to do with it. "I want to know what proportion believed in the Mayan Prophecies in December? "More tellingly, do they still believe in them?" Of course! The world did end in December 2012...we're residing in Hell right now. The joke is on us, as we always were! Thanks, Robert Cook. ricpic said: "Paul McCartney has been dead to one legged women since 2008." Good one! If you think human activity is warming the planet but all the "solutions" proposed to date (a) are useless and (b) conveniently coincide with pre-existing agendas of the people suggesting them... Do you answer "yes", or "no", to that poll question? Apparently (leaving wiggle room for fraud), more than half the voters think Obama is fit to be President. I don't recall seeing that on the ballot. One could vote for Obama, or for Romney, or for others. Of the choices given, Obama was selected. Not much in that result about fitness. And "White Album?" Please. "The Beatles" Sorry Crimso, you are right. A distinction without a difference to me but not insignificant. The existing science is not only not good enough to predict the future, it is not even good enough to predict the past. Really, a 0.8 degree temperature rise over a century with uncalibrated, imprecise, inaccurate, constantly relocated, spotilly situuated and slopily read instruments? We were really supposed to ever believe that? Or that the Arctic ice cap was going to completely disappear by 2000. Oops, we mean 2006. Oops, 2012 and we really mean it this time. No? Would you believe 2019? These assholes have not been right on a single prediction that have made yet. They can't even get the direction of the warming right. CO2 and warming are supposed to be closely linked. Yet while CO2 has risen, temperatures have either remained stable over the past 20 years or dropped over the past 15. Why should we believe anything that these charlatans say about climate or anything else? I vote for hoax. I'd vote for criminal fraud if that were an option. If anyone has a single prediction that these knaves have made that has turned out to be true, I'd be interested in hearing what it is. John Henry Add "claimed" to my note above. As in a CLAIMED 0.8 degree rise. I don't believe they have any real idea what it is. I don't believe they can, given the great variability of temps over the course of a day and over the course of a year combined with the imprecision of the measurement. John Henry John: "CO2 and warming are supposed to be closely linked. Yet while CO2 has risen, temperatures have either remained stable over the past 20 years or dropped over the past 15." Oops. You just lost garage and alex. The science is SETTLED man!!! John Henry - interesting discussions recently about a recent paper that spliced yearly instrument data (with all the problems you bring up) to 11,000+ years of smoothed proxy data, where the periods utilized in the smoothing were apparently 100 and 300 years. Interestingly, if the instrument readings over the last century were simiarly smoothed, there would appparetly be no global warming. Authors seem to being slowly walking back any conclusions about modern trends. Funniest part, I think, was Michael Mann approving of their paper which essentially reinvents his "hockey stick". "Really, a 0.8 degree temperature rise over a century with uncalibrated, imprecise, inaccurate, constantly relocated, spotilly situuated and slopily read instruments? We were really supposed to ever believe that?" What's funny (in a not-funny way) are the number of commenters (some who are apparently scientists) I've seen on climate science blogs who keep insisting that the temperature record of the 20th century is rock-solid. Because we had thermometers. And people read them. And wrote down the temperatures. And that, apparently, is rock-solid. One of my colleagues (an analytical chemist) can hilariously poke huge holes in the idea that it is easy to measure temperature in a given room. Don't even get him started on global temperatures. Why am i not surprised that anything having to do with AGW has quickly generated over 100 comments. Ann could probably save herself the effort of finding a relevant article, and just post "AGW" once a week or so. Except that our resident leftists, etc. seem to have given up defending AGW "science" any more. Not sure if it is because they know that the science is probably hokum, or just know that they won't win the debate in this forum. Its called "Manufacturing Consent". Lizard people? Really? Oh, wait... I am NOT my avatar. -CP Two stories from my personal experience: Most of the ocean temperature data comes from the sea water condenser inlet on Navy ships. When I was in the Navy, standing engineroom messenger watches I was the one of the guys who collected that data. Well, most of the time I collected it. Sometimes I would not feel like climbing up to look at it and would just write in a number that looked right. Even when I did read it, there were 2 degree graduations so any reading would have been +/- at least a degree or two. But that assumes that the thermometer was accurate and that may not be a good assumption. It was a bimetal dial thermometer and, to the best of my knowledge, had never been calibrated. I would trust it to tell us whether the water was cool or warm but not much more than that. Bruce mentioned his friend and measuring temp in a room: Back in the 80's I was engineering manager in a pharmaceutical plant. We had a room, perhaps 20' X 40' that was kept at 110 degrees F for degassing bottles. For the plant qualification by the FDA we had to prove that the room temperature was consistent (always 110) and uniform. This was a major project that took us most of a month. As Bruce notes, it is very tricky. Yet we are supposed to believe global warming based on uncalibrated thermometers hung outside firehouse windows and read (or not read) by untrained people? Not in this lifetime. And as someone else mentioned, we don't even have the raw, original, data from the firehouse window. It was thrown away. All we have is data that has been "adjusted" from the raw data by a computer algorythm that is known to be bad. And people like Garage who believe it. I am not a global warming denier. For all I know, the Earth has been warming. Or, just as likely, cooling. Or, also just as likely, staying the same. We have no reliable data to give us any indication of direction much less amount of temp change. John Henry I was guilty of sloppiness myself in the above note. I said that the room had to be consistent and said 110 degrees. Anytime anyone tells you a temperature, you really need to know the degree of precision. So I should have said that the consistency requirement was "110 +/- 2 degrees" (or +/- 1 degree or whatever it was we were claiming) So what is the +/- on the 0.8 degrees of global warming we are supposed to have had, Garage? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? John Henry Or that the Arctic ice cap was going to completely disappear by 2000. I have never seen a prediction that said this. Every prediction I've seen was more like 2100. And it's been moved closer to present as the observed ice loss has accelerated. (Link) Madison Man: See this video. I think it is from 2009 and Gore is saying "Completely ice free" in 5-7 years. About 2 minutes in. I recall that in Earth In the Balance, Gore said ice free by 2000 but would have to dig out my copy to check. Don't know when the video was made but here is NASA saying ice free by Summer 2012. Here it has been pushed back to 2020. ." And so on. Pretty much every 6 years, they move it 6 years into the future. John Henry "I'm not sure, but I think Al Gore said something". Well, that settles it. Walter Cronkite power elite with a globalist agenda or the most trusted man in America? ricpic, All it tells us is that what makes the earth warm and cool is, at present, beyond the grasp of science. Right, because "climate scientists" can't grasp the possibility that the SUN might have a little to do with it? Garage said: "Well, that settles it." Weak, Garage. Very weak even for you. Perhaps you could share some predictions that the climate scientists got right. Perhaps one? John Henry Oh goody! More online-genius input on AGW! PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE BEHIND THE CURTAIN! THAT VANISHING ICE CAP WILL GROW BACK ANY SECOND NOW! YOU'RE JUST IMAGINING ALL THESE RECORD HEAT WAVES & SUPER-STORMS! GREENLAND IS ACTUALLY A HOLLYWOOD SET FINANCED BY GEORGE SOROS! ALL THOSE INUIT & PACIFIC ISLANDERS ARE FAKING IT TO GET THAT SWEET SWEET GLOBAL WARMING WELFARE! THIS WEBLINK PROVES THAT IT'S ACTUALLY GETTING COOLER, STOOPID LIBTARDS! IGNORE YOUR LYING EYES: BANGLADESH WILL STAND FOR A THOUSAND YEARS! CLIMATEGATE IS REAL! AL GORE IS FAT & LIVES IN A REALLY BIG HOUSE! TEACH TEH CONTROVERSY! And here I thought Garage's response was weak. His looks like steel compared to yours, Jim. Re the Northwest Passage: You seem unaware that the NW Passage has been open for a long time. So long that back in the mid-60s, when oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay Alaska, the original plan was to transport it via tanker to the east coast. Via the NW Passage, natch. A fleet of tankers was planned, one, the SS Manhattan was built. It made a successful round trip voyage to Alaska and back to the east coast. (You could look it up) In the event, the pipeline won out and the tanker plan was abandoned. In some ways the tankers would have been better. We wound up selling most of the Alaska oil to Japan because it was not needed on the west coast. As for glaciers generally around the world and Greenland specifically, some are shrinking, others are growing. It was ever thus. You are aware that there were farming communities in Greenland for several hundred years before the cooling started around 1600? There is a reason it is called "Green Land". Think about it. You might be able to figure it out. If not, let me know and I'll explain it to you. John Henry All I know is, is that John Henry speak HEAP big medicine about data collection/analysis & monitoring--and he hasn't even scratched the surface..

We’re back with a look at the St. Louis Cardinals. We were high on the system a year ago and little has changed except some of the prospects had break out seasons as we expected. The system had its main prospects move even higher into the upper echelon of prospects and more followed up the ladder behind them. This is a system we have a close connection to and a fan base that runs deep, both at the stadium and on the inter-webs. So let’s take a deeper Baseball Instinct look at one of the best systems in all of baseball. The St. Louis Cardinals. 1. Oscar Taveras, OF 6/19/1992 H:6’2″ W:180 – It couldn’t have been a bigger breakout season than the one Taveras put up in 2012. Our expectations of him running through the FSL and then having his power develop in Double-A midseason was aggressive. And he blew that away by forcing the Cards to start him in Double-A where he stood up to the challenge and the power developed to the tune of a .252 IsoP. An elite level and improvement over the 2011 .198 IsoP, a number that was impressive in and of itself. Taveras K rate is elite at 10% proving that his 15% rates in prior seasons were legit. I would expect his K rate to regress some back to the 15% rate as he makes it closer to STL, but that rate is excellent as it is. Especially when you take into account his solid walk rate. Our Instinct: Taveras has a pure hitting skill despite being a free swinger and should be a high contact hitter long term. His 67 XBH were a glut of doubles and more of those should turn into HR and make his power output a possible 30 HR annually in his prime with .300 AVG seasons, while he playing solid corner OF defense. He should make his debut some time in 2013 after opening the season in Triple-A. ETA 2013 2012 by the numbers: .307/.380/.572, 67 XBH(23 HR), 10 SB, .327 BABIP, 56/42 K/BB ratio in 477 ab’s at AA. 2008 International free agent, Dominican Republic. 2. Shelby Miller, RHP 10/10/1990 H:6’3″ W:215 – Miller falls to the #2 in the organization despite having an excellent season as a 21 year old in Triple-A and making his debut. He’s a high strikeout pitcher with an elite talent and the ability to become the Ace of this staff inside of the next 3 years. He’s going to need some tutelage from vets like Carpenter and Wainwright, but in time he should fit into that same mold. Our Instinct: Many were down on him midway through the 2012 season based on a high ERA and reports of attitude issues, but the fact is that the numbers tell a different story. At 21, in Triple-A, his K rate improved to 26% while his walk rate improved as well. He’s clearly becoming more dominant despite the higher level competition and he only has additional maturity ahead of him. With that he should settle into a 20%+ K rate and improve his walk rate as well. The Cardinals have no immediate need for him to move to the front of the rotation and he could settle into the mid level for the next couple of years and then emerge as their Ace in his mid 20s. ETA: 2013 2012 by the numbers: 11-10, 4.74 ERA, 4.24 FIP, .335 BABIP, 160/50 K/BB ratio in 136.2 innings at AAA. 2009 1st round draft pick, 19th overall. 3. Trevor Rosenthal, RHP 5/29/1990 H:6’2″ W:190 – We were told prior to the 2012 season that Rosenthal was a “different animal”, Dennis Martinez. That insight proved correct and our high ranking of Rosenthal in the Baseball Instinct 360° looks like a gem as Rosenthal has now creeped into all Top 100 lists for 2013. He has a plus fastball, touchinig triple digits in short stints and working in the mid to upper 90s deep into games. He throws a curve in the mid 80s and slider that is a hard biting pitch in the in the upper 80s with plus potential. The changeup was the pitch that needed the most development and remains a work in progress, but is average and rotation ready pitch. His two seam fastball is a ground ball offering and will be key to his long term success. For a pitcher with elite velocity, Rosenthal is not a strikeout pitcher in the mold of an Ace. His K rates in 2012 we good at 21%+ in Double-A and then a jump to 34% in Triple-A before his MLB debut had him with a high K rate coming out of the bullpen. Rosenthal flashed triple digit heat in his debut with the Cards this year. His minor league ERA dipped as we expected. His FIP normalized the ERA and he struck out more than a batter per in his debut. Our Instinct – The Cards are going to give Rosenthal every opportunity to remain a starter and it could be out of Spring Training. He has the potential upside of a #2 starter but more likely will be a very good #3 in the middle of the rotation. We were very high on this kid last year and he’s done nothing but excel. So he remains in our opinion an excellent part of the Cardinals future. ETA: 2013 2012 by the numbers: 8-6, 2.97 ERA, 3.28 FIP, .259 BABIP, 104/42 K/BB ratio in 109 innings between AA and AAA. 2009 21st round draft pick, 639th overall. 4. Michael Wacha, RHP 7/1/1991 H:6’6″ W:195 – The top pick for the Cards in 2013 and was our #15 talent in the Draft Preview: 15. Michael Wacha RHP Texas A&M – Wacha works in the low to mid 90s, 89-93 range most often with good sink when he’s mechanically in time. The fastball plays up due to a short landing in his delivery. His second best pitch is his changeup which works more based on his arm speed and deception than it does movement. It could become a plus pitch with some work on different grips and finger pressures until he finds controlled movement. He lacks a true breaking pitch and currently uses a slider on occasion. Our Instinct – Wacha has clean mechanics outside of the short landing. Though the flaw causes him to drag his arm at times which causes command issues. The lack of a true breaking ball puts him in a position of needing time to develop and leaves him open to being rushed through his development. He has mid rotation upside if the breaking pitch becomes average or better. In his short debut he went through 3 levels including the FSL where he moved to the bullpen and utterly dominated and then to Double-A Springfield where he helped the team in the stretch run to the championship. Out of the bullpen in short stints, Wacha’s velocity played up and his slider worked well. Our Instinct: In 2013 it seems more logical that he will step back, possibly to High-A in order to begin working as a starter again. How much velocity he holds will be a key to him remaining a starter or being fast tracked through the system as a RP. He has the stuff to be a mid rotation starter or better and if he can refine the slider and the changeup becomes the plus offering I project it to be, he’s a high end #3 type. ETA: 2014 2012 by the numbers: 0-0, 0.86 ERA, 0.58 FIP, .267 BABIP, 40/4 K/BB ratio in 21 innings between Rookie-A, High-A and AA. 2012 1st round draft pick, 19th overall. 5. Carlos Martinez, RHP 9/21/1991 H:6’0″ W:195 – Martinez is took steps in maturity in 2012. Where his talent was obvious his future was uncertain. But he took his 2011 FSL debut numbers and bettered them across the board by upping his K rate to 24.1% and nearly cutting his walk rate in half down to 7.1%. Injuries kept his innings total down to just 104.1 IP His ERA in Double-A was a stellar 2.90 but his FIP tells a different story at 3.84. A slight K rate drop in Double-A shows that he may need a little time there in 2013 to uptick his DOM again, but he kept the walk rate steady at 7.5% which is a huge indicator of a young thrower becoming a pitcher. Our Instinct – I think Martinez will see a little time in Double-A in 2013 to find some of that dominance before moving into the Triple-A rotation. A full season of innings building would be a huge benefit to his career as a SP. If the Cardinals are in the hunt again at the end of the summer it wouldn’t shock me to see Martinez get the same treatment as Rosenthal. Although in Martinez case, I would recommend against it. At least in 2013. In 2014 the gloves should come off. ETA: 2014 2012 by the numbers: 6-5, 2.93 ERA, 3.10 FIP, .297 BABIP, 92/32 K/BB ratio in 104.1 innings between High-A and AA. 2010 International free agent, Dominican Republic. 6. Kolten Wong, 2B 10/10/1990 H:5’9″ W:190 – Expectations were high for Wong in 2012 and while his seasons was passable, his BABIP normalized and it dragged his AVG down to .287. First full season at Double-A and his .287 is a disappointment. That speaks volumes of the expectations. I would expect a little bit of a bounce in 2013, but a .285 hitter is what Wong looks like at the next level at least until he comes into his own with what power that he has. The power though was non-existent in AFL play this fall. But in Double-A he did hit 9 HRs and his fair share of doubles. Our Instinct: Despite his K rate moving in the wrong direction, it was only 12.7% and stands at an elite level, which points to a well above average skill at the major league level. He’ll need to draw more walks to take advantage of his speed and there is more power in his bat than he showed in the AFL. After a very long first season, his lackluster AFL showing isn’t something to worry about. Even a talent like Mike Trout scuffled through his AFL season after a long season last year. We expect a solid bounce back and Wong’s 1st half of 2012 is where we are going to gauge his production. He should start at Triple-A and with a solid 1st half in 2013 he may very well make his major league debut in the 2nd half of the season. ETA: 2013 2012 by the numbers: .287/.348/.405, 38 XBH(9 HR), 21 SB, .320 BABIP, 74/44 K/BB ratio in 523 ab’s at AA. 2011 1st round draft pick, 22nd overall. 7. Matt Adams, 1B 8/31/1988 H:6’3″ W:230 – In a weaker system, Adams bat is one that would get him a very high ranking. He was the Texas League player of the year in 2011 and then exploded with a .295 IsoP in 2012 in PCL. His .362 AVG was a by-product of a high BABIP at .360, but he’s a hitter that will hit for average at the major league level. He had elbow surgery in August after making his debut in STL. A debut which was over before it started. With the emergence of Allen Craig it may have cost Adams the 1B job in 2013. Our Instinct: While he’s not a classic HR, OBP, lower AVG slugger, Adams is going to hit for more AVG than most expect and could be a .300 hitter with 30 HR power. But the fact is that he’s a 1B and unless the Cardinals shift Allen Craig to the OF to make room for Adams then Adams will be spending time in Triple-A and would be better off getting traded to, let’s say, Houston. A place where he can play 1B and DH. ETA: 2013 2012 by the numbers: .329/.362/.624, 40 XBH(18 HR), 3 SB, .366 BABIP, 57/15 K/BB ratio in 258 ab’s at AAA. 2009 23rd round draft pick, 699th overall. 8. Tyrell Jenkins, RHP 7/20/1992 H:6’4″ W:195 – Jenkins had a season to forget on the surface.He wasn’t able to build up his innings. His command went south. Both are by-products of shoulder injuries though and he’s still an immense talent with an ultra high ceiling and a floor to go with it. He’s going to have to prove himself and his ability to stay healthy. There aren’t any reports of lingering shoulder issues, but it’s obviously scary anyway. Our Instinct: Though there are many who are down on him right now, he’s still lingering in every Cards Top 10 and rightfully so. I wouldn’t expect him to throw more than 130 innings this year and it will probably come between Peoria and Palm Beach. I’m expecting a big bounce back for Jenkins and dominance in Low-A Peoria before he moves onto the FSL. He still has plenty of refinement needed and 2013 is a big year for his development. Injury would be devastating to his timeline and may put the nail in his RP coffin. But right now I still see a pitcher with Front of the Rotation upside. But 3+ years of development time is still in the cards. ETA: 2016 2012 by the numbers: 4-4, 2.86 ERA, 3.36 FIP, .343 BABIP, 80/36 K/BB ratio in 82.1 innings at Low-A. 2010 1st round draft pick, 50th overall. 9. Anthony Garcia, OF 1/4/1992 H:6’0″ W:180 – At 6′ and 180, Garcia doesn’t have a classic power hitters frame, but take his back to back .200+ IsoP seasons, capped by an elite .245 IsoP last season and you a power hitter. His K rate did jump to troubling territory in 2012 though. The 24.7% range is dangerous territory in the lower levels and the fact that his walk also declined. But he did hit .280 with 56 XBH in just 396 AB. Serious hitting ability. Our Instinct: He’s going to start the season in the FSL and his power may take a hit. If he can learn to work deeper into counts and bring his walk rate and K rate just a little closer, we could be looking at more than just a 4th OF. I wouldn’t expect a .200+ IsoP in Palm Beach next year, but if he can come close, he’s going to explode in Double-A when he gets there. He’s just 21 this year and already has 4 seasons under his belt. So a full season in the FSL wouldn’t surprise me. ETA: 2015 2012 by the numbers: .280/.354/.525, 56 XBH(19 HR), 3 SB, .341 BABIP, 107/34 K/BB ratio in 396 ab’s at A-ball. 2009 18th round draft pick, 549th overall. 10. Victor De Leon, RHP 4/19/1992 H:6’2″ W:190 – A Rookie ball starter and 3 seasons in at just 20 years old. De Leon is projection at this point still with a solid frame, mid 90s fastball and a power slider in the mid 80s. He threw just 44 innings last year so there is still a lot of development here. But the Cardinals are high on him and an invitation to Spring Training with some mentoring from the big clubs pitchers, has once again been extended. Our Instinct: De Leon will likely make his full season debut in 2013, by-passing the new State College squad. He’ll be on an innings limit and probably pitch up near 100 innings. He’ll be forced to work on his changeup and if he can hold his 22%+ K rate while learning to trust his stuff and pound the zone, he’s going to quickly become a household name. His frame says SP and he has two offerings to keep him on that path long term. He has #3 starter upside right now and could be more with an average or better changeup. ETA: 2016 2012 by the numbers: 3-0, 3.25 ERA, 2.95 FIP, .316 BABIP, 42/20 K/BB ratio in 44.1 innings at Rookie-A. 2010 International free agent, Dominican Republic. 11. Tyler Lyons, LHP 2/21/1988 H:6’2″ W:195 – After seeing Lyons in Palm Beach in 2011, I pegged him with the LOOGY tag and didn’t expect his K rate to continue to climb as he climbed the ladder. But I’m becoming a believer that he’s going to make some starts for a major league team at some point. He’s not a burner but works in the 90 mph range with a solid curve and changeup. His mechanics point to a starter that can handle both lefties and righties and his splits support it. Our Instinct: He’ll start back in Triple-A and despite a high ERA there in 2012, his FIP says he handled it fine. He’ll need to maintain the high K rate to be successful as a pro. But the lower end velocity may become an issue the 2nd time through lineups. So while I think he could be a solid back end of the rotation starter he also could be successful as a lefty arm out of the pen.He’ll be 25 this season. So the time is now. ETA: 2013 2012 by the numbers: 9-13, 4.13 ERA, 3.33 FIP, .330 BABIP, 143/37 K/BB ratio in 152.2 innings between AA and AAA. 2010 9th round draft pick, 289th overall. 12. Carson Kelly, 3B 7/14/1994 H:6’2″ W:200 – Here’s what we had to say about the 2012 draftee in our Draft Preview: 36. Carson Kelly 3B/RHP Westview HS, Portland – Kelly is a two way player with a plus arm and an all fields line drive approach. His 6’2″ 200 lbs frame says that there is some power waiting to come out. There is debate as to whether he can stick at 3B or if he’ll be moved to catcher. Our Instinct – I’m usually a proponent of transitioning the right type of player to behind the plate, but with Kelly I think he has the arm and glove to handle 3B at the professional level. His bat hasn’t shown the power that he should eventually develop. But he has 5 HR in 80 AB this spring. He knows how to drive the ball and once he starts turning doubles in HR his stock should rise. Well he flashed the power in his pro debut with a .174 IsoP and 9 HR. His low AVG was a by-product of a very low BAPIP, so there isn’t an issue there just yet. His walk rate was low but came with a solid K rate under 15% as well. Our Instinct: There is a long road ahead for Kelly. We think he’ll stick at 3B and if the power continues to develop, he ‘ll have 25+ HR power. He was one of the youngest players in the entire draft and has experience already. He’ll probably start in Rookie ball in the summer. ETA: 2017 2012 by the numbers: .225/.263/.399, 19 XBH(9 HR), 0 SB, .222 BABIP, 33/10 K/BB ratio in 213 ab’s at Rookie-ball. 2012 2nd round draft pick, 89th overall. 13. John Gast, LHP 14. Stephen Piscotty, OF 15. Maikel Cleto, RHP 16. Jordan Swagerty, RHP 17. Greg Garcia, SS/2B 18. Charlie Tilson, OF 19. Starlin Rodriguez, 2B 20. Boone Whiting, RHP 21. Ryan Jackson, SS.

a wide variety of situations, especially in systems composed of many lightweight web services. This article guides you through updating a system to be secured with OAuth2 and the decision points for choosing to build such a system. There is a strong trend at the moment towards distributed systems with lightweight architectures based on plain text web services (usually JSON). In this article we concentrate on these services and the systems they are part of, and look at some options for their basic security needs. An example of such a system is the open platform as a service, Cloud Foundry, in which the UAA acts as an OAuth2 provider. Using Cloud Foundry as an example also indicates that the trend in lightweight services is driven by a related trend towards cloud-based platforms for application deployment, both in the Internet at large and in the enterprise. I recently published a blog post that provides an overview of the UAA: Introducing the UAA and Security for Cloud Foundry. The remainder of this article is about securing REST services in with OAuth generically and not necessarily specifically to the Cloud Foundry UAA, but I will use the UAA as an example to illustrate how it works. What is a Lightweight Service? The kind of service that is building the new architectures typically has some or all of these features: - HTTP transport. Cheap and easy to deploy, and supported by all cloud platforms. - Text-based message content, usually JSON. The emphasis is on readability and sometimes providing easy support to front-end browser and mobile developers. - Small, compact messages, and quick responses. Although there is a strong parallel trend of services with streaming responses for “push” data, those are generally not implemented the same way, and HTTP is not the best transport in those cases. - REST-ful, or at least inspired by the REST architectural style. - Some degree of statelessness, either ‘share-nothing,’ or very careful use of server-side state, to enable horizontal scalability. - Interoperability. The consumers of the service might be a dynamic population, completely unknown or unknowable at design time, using a variety of platforms and languages. No two people or organizations will agree on what to call these services. So, although we need a working definition, it isn’t important what the precise details are. Roy Fielding’s academic work on REST is very influential, but religious wars are fought (and never won) on what it should mean in practice. To avoid being drawn into that, I will be deliberately inclusive and just refer to the services as lightweight services over HTTP, or just “lightweight services.” What Are the Security Requirements for a Lightweight Service? It is possible, but unlikely, that a service might be so lightweight that it doesn’t require any security, for example if it is purely informational. If security is required, it will be for the usual reasons, i.e., identity and permission; knowing who is asking for a resource, and calculating if they are permitted to use it. Identity and permission are often known as “authentication” and “authorization” (especially in Spring Security), but using those terms would cause confusion later because “authorization” is part of the OAuth2 domain language and means something different there. “Authorization” is also the name of a standard HTTP header, which is also a bit different as it is more about transporting of data than calculating permission. So the basic requirements are identity and permissions, and the choices all come down to these nuts and bolts questions: - how are identity and permission information conveyed to a service? - how is this information decoded and interpreted? - what data is needed to make the access decision (user accounts, roles, ACLs, etc.)? - how is the data managed, who is responsible for storing and retrieving it? The rest of this article deals with those questions using a couple of example approaches, including OAuth2, but does not attempt to be a complete description of available features and implementations even in that case. HTTP Basic Authentication For a simple system based on shared secrets (e.g., username and password for user accounts), HTTP Basic is something of a lowest common denominator. It is supported on practically all servers natively out of the box and there is ubiquitous support on the client side in all languages. Most, if not all clients, even interpret the authority section of a URL as data to be used for Basic authentication. As a client, the only thing you need to do for Basic authentication is to include an Authorization header in an HTTP request, composed of the username and password, separated by a colon and then Base64 encoded. E.g., in Ruby (1.9) using RestClient: require 'restclient' require 'base64' auth = "Basic " + Base64::strict_encode64("#{username}:#{password}") response = RestClient.get("",:authorization=>auth) On a command line with curl you could do this: $ curl "" This looks, and is, extremely simple to implement. The only difficulty is in where you get the credentials from (the username and password). If your client is a web application, which is very common for these lightweight services, you might collect the credentials from a user in a simple HTML form. As long as you ensure that all requests are protected by a secure socket layer, Basic authentication is fine for systems where all the participants can easily share secrets securely. If there is only one resource server (a lightweight service, or a user facing application) this isn’t difficult because the data only needs to be accessed by one component and can even be managed in config files if they are static. For example, the UAA uses Basic authentication for endpoints that are intended to be accessed only by other components in the platform kernel (i.e., machine clients). Some of those endpoints (e.g. /varz) have a password stored in a config file, and some (e.g. /oauth/token) use a database backend to store credentials. For explanations of what those endpoints do in the UAA see the introductory blog or the UAA docs. User or Client Roles and Permissions For very simple use cases, authentication is the only form of permission needed. If you can authenticate you can access the resource, otherwise not. But often it is not enough and the service has to be able to make a decision based on finer-grained information about the authenticated party. A simple example of such a decision is role-based access, which is very common, and is also supported out of the box by many server platforms. For instance, the service has a resource that it wants to be available only to users in the ADMIN role. When an authenticated request arrives, the service has to map the authentication to some account data and extract the role assignments. It then checks if the ADMIN role is present and if so grants access, otherwise not. For role-based access to make sense you need to be able to categorize user accounts. In other words. there have to be at least two classes of users (e.g., USER and ADMIN, which implies at least two users), and someone has to manage the assignments of accounts to roles. This is a good deal more complicated than simple shared password data, but as long as the account data is static it can still be managed in a config file, or in a database otherwise. Crucially, this is still easy to do, as long as the system stays simple and can manage its own account data, or get access to an external system where the data is managed for it. More complicated access decisions involving different and more detailed fine-grained business data are also possible (even common), but those use cases are beyond the scope fof this article. It’s time to start looking at other things and get down to the OAuth2 discussion. OAuth2 and Centralized Identity Management As a system grows and the number of components that need access to authentication services and to user account data increases, or the user account data is changing frequently or growing rapidly, the simple approaches to security will start to become a maintenance problem. What is needed is a centralized approach to identity management, and a service for the whole system that can provide and manage that data in a secure way. This is where standards like OAuth2 come into play. They introduce a new layer in the architecture, and some extra complexity that can be hard to get to grips with at first, but the benefits will be worth it in many cases. Quick Introduction to OAuth2 OAuth2 is a protocol enabling a Client application, often a web application, to act on behalf of a User, but with the User’s permission. The actions a Client is allowed to perform are carried out most common way for a Client to present itself to a Resource Server is using a bearer token, as covered in the core OAuth2 specification. The token is obtained from the Authorization Server, with the User’s approval if necessary, and stored by the Client. Then when it needs to access a Resource Server the Client sends a special HTTP header in the form: Authorization: Bearer <TOKEN_VALUE> The token value is opaque to a client, but can be decoded by a Resource Server so it can check that the Client and User have permission to access the requested resource. Common examples of Authorization Servers on the Internet are Facebook, Google, and Cloud Foundry all of which also provide Resource Servers (the Graph API in the case of Facebook, the Google APIs in the case of Google, and the Cloud Controller in the case of Cloud Foundry). OAuth2 and the Lightweight Service OAuth2 is, at its heart, an authentication protocol for lightweight services, which are Resource Servers in the domain language of the specification. A Client application that wants to access a protected resource sends an authorization header, a bit like in the Basic authentication case. E.g., in Ruby: auth = "Bearer #{token}" response = RestClient.get("",:authorization=>auth) or on the command line: $ curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" As with the Basic authentication, the mechanics are extremely simple, and that is one thing that makes OAuth2 bearer tokens attractive for clients of lightweight services. The token is opaque to the Client, but the Resource Server can decode it into some finer grained information about the Client and the level of access that the token represents. It then uses this information to make an access decision. This is not the only feature of OAuth2, but on its own makes OAuth2 a lot more powerful than simple Basic authentication: The token itself carries more information than a Basic header. A typical minimal set of information in a token would be the Client ID, a target Resource ID and a set of approved scopes (more on those later). Normally the Resource Server has an ID, and it should check that it matches the one in the token in order to prevent token misuse. Beyond that, it is entirely up to the Resource Server what to do with the decoded token data. If the Resource Server is able to coordinate with the Authorization Server, it can arrange for specific fine-grained data to be encoded in the token, relating to the access decision it wants to make. For example the Authorization Server might include role assignments that are recognized by the Resource Server. Tokens could, and do, also contain other information, like a unique identifier for the current user (if there is one). The UAA stores group assignments in its native user data, and those show up in the access tokens as scopes. The scope values themselves in the UAA are period-separated, but it is up to the Resource Server to interpret them any way it needs. For example, a Resource Server calling itself ‘dashboard’ might change its access decision based on whether it finds a scope ‘dashboard.user’ or ‘dashboard.admin’, and those are the names of groups in the user accounts. These semantics are not part of any standard specification, but OAuth2 leaves them up to implementations to interpret according to their need, so the UAA takes advantage of that. The Role of the Client Application For a Client, obtaining a token makes things slightly complicated, and in this case it is usually not enough just to know a username and password. Also, one of the key reasons for OAuth2 to exist is so that Client applications do not need to collect user credentials (as they did with Basic authentication). Here is where the learning curve for OAuth2 gets steeper. The Client has to obtain an access token, and to do that it has to be pre-registered with the Authorization Server, and it has to authenticate itself at the token endpoint. The UAA uses Basic authentication for this endpoint, as suggested by the OAuth2 specification. If a Client is not acting on behalf of a User, the Authorization Server might allow it to obtain tokens in its own right, directly from the token endpoint. If a client with id “myclient” has been registered with the relevant authorized grant type you could obtain a token like this: $ curl "" -d grant_type=client_credentials -d client_id=myclient The result would be JSON containing an access token and some meta data, for example: { access_token: FUYGKRWFG.jhdfgair7fylzshjg.o98q47tgh.fljgh, expires_in: 43200, client_id: myclient, scope: uaa.admin } (This is not a valid token, nor is it a valid client id for the UAA on cloudfoundry.com, just dummy data for illustration purposes.) The example so far has been for a Client authenticating and obtaining an access token in its own right, which the specification calls the Client Credentials Grant Type. Another grant type is Authorization Code. This is the most common and one that allows the Client to delegate the authentication of Users. Application providers then need to educate Users that they should never enter their credentials in any other application than the Authorization Server (or its trusted delegates), so that a malicious Client application has less chance of tricking a User into revealing his credentials. This use case is one of the main reasons to use OAuth2 and a big driver of the OAuth2 specification itself. The Authorization Code token grant proceeds in four steps: Sequence diagram, auth-code-flow, with an already authenticated user (steps 2-4): User->Client: GET /peek participant AuthServer activate User activate Client Client->User: 302: location=auth/authorize deactivate User deactivate Client User->AuthServer: GET /authorize activate User activate AuthServer AuthServer->User: {messages: "Do you approve?"} deactivate User deactivate AuthServer User->AuthServer: approve activate User activate AuthServer AuthServer->User: 302: location=client/handle_code?code=dkshfjg deactivate User deactivate AuthServer User->Client: GET /handle_code?code=dkshfjg activate User activate Client Client->AuthServer: POST: /token?code=dkshfjg activate AuthServer AuthServer->Client: 200: {access_token:CNMBVCXKVY} deactivate AuthServer Client->ResourceServer: GET /resource(access_token) activate ResourceServer ResourceServer->Client: 200: response deactivate ResourceServer Client->User: 200: result deactivate Client deactivate User - Authorization Server authenticates the User any way necessary. This step is required but is specific to the Authorization Server implementation and not part of the OAuth2 specification (e.g., it is different for Google and Cloud Foundry). - Client starts the authorization flow and obtains approval from the Authorization Server to act on the User’s behalf. The approval is required, but the details are not specified in the OAuth2 specification. - At this point, if successful, the Authorization Server issues an authorization code (opaque one-time token). This step, and the next one, are described in detail in the OAuth2 specification. - Client exchanges the authorization code for an access token. Because there are multiple steps here and normally the first two would require a short conversation with the User, the Authorization Server has to direct the flow through the use of HTTP redirects (status code 302 and a Location header). The Client specifically asks for a redirect to itself in order to obtain the authorization code at step 3. One of the security threats in OAuth2 is a malicious Client stealing tokens by asking for an arbitrary redirect, so Authorization Servers protect against this by requiring Clients to register one or more redirect URIs. The Authorization Server is so called because it provides an interface for users to confirm that they authorize the Client to act on their behalf (step 2 above). The specification wisely leaves the details entirely up to the implementation, so how the authorization (a.k.a approval) is obtained is unspecified. The UAA, and the Spring Security Oauth2 project that it builds on, provide a simple form-based interface in the general case, but also allow auto-approval of certain clients (e.g., if they are deemed by the Authorization Server owners to be part of the platform). Client Registration and Scopes The OAuth2 specification mentions Client registration explicitly and it is an important part of the protection against various security threats. It is also the first point of contact for most application developers with OAuth2, e.g., it’s a pre-condition if you want to look at Google calendar data, or manage the applications deployed on Cloud Foundry. There are some core elements of a Client registration required by the specification (an identifier and a secret if the Client is trusted), and several that are recommended (legal scope values, and registered redirect URIs). Authorization Servers often require additional information, describing the application and the owner of the registration. The scope values are the hardest to understand for a newbie because they are arbitrary strings and don’t necessarily mean anything to the Client at first. Fortunately for the User, the Authorization Server can usually find a default set of scopes from somewhere, and usually knows how to render the values in a way that a User will understand (e.g., from Facebook, “do you allow this application ( <URL>) to access your personal data, including email address and photos”). But for a hapless Client owner it can be quite hard to discover the valid scope values and get them registered. In the end, the Client might have to send a speculative request and look at the response from the Resource Server: The specification recommends that valid scope values are included in the HTTP 403 response as part of the WWW-Authenticate header. You can find out (some of) the valid Google API scopes in the OAuth2 playground–they are mostly URLs starting with “” (but some are not, maybe the older ones). The API docs themselves (i.e., the Resource Servers) are very thin on scope documentation. In the case of the UAA there is a UAA Security Model document that lists the known scope values as used by the UAA itself and the Resource Servers that it knows about in the Cloud Foundry platform (e.g., the Cloud Controller). In theory, though, and this is quite a powerful feature of OAuth2, there is nothing to stop a Client registering any value as a scope, and a Resource Server that is completely unknown to the Authorization Server can accept that value. To protect against malicious clients, the UAA extracts a resource ID dynamically from a scope value (scope up to the last period is a resource ID) and includes it in the access token as the “aud” (audience) field. We hope that eventually this will provide an opportunity for the platform to be used as a general purpose OAuth2 provider for all applications, not just those that belong to or consume the platform. The UAA on cloudfoundry.com at present is only accepting Client registration by a manual process through the Product Management group in Cloud Foundry, but if you would like to deploy a Client using, or a Resource Server accepting, cloudfoundry.com bearer tokens, feel free to contact us. Authentication and the Authorization Server OAuth2 on its own does not provide an authentication protocol for the Users of the Authorization Server. It strongly suggests that Client applications should use Basic authentication for accessing the token endpoint, but it says nothing about the authentication of Users when their approval is needed for a token grant (only that they must be authenticated). This is a good thing because it makes authentication completely orthogonal to the approval process, and Authorization Servers are free to implement the authentication any way they choose. Out of the box, the UAA supports form-based authentication backed by a database of user accounts. But because authentication is not part of the OAuth2 specification, it is easy to modify to support other authentication mechanisms or data sources. For example, with a few lines of configuration you could switch from form-based authentication to Open ID authentication with Google or Yahoo, or to an enterprise directory service (e.g., Active Directory or OpenLDAP) for the data store. The authentication logic in the UAA can also be extracted out into a completely separate server component, so it can be independently developed and styled. There is a sample login server which allows authentication either with Open ID (Google, Yahoo, etc.) or using an HTML form and a password in the UAA database. Modifying it to support a SAML IDP such as VMWare Horizon or an AD back end for the user account data is trivial because both are well supported by the underlying Spring Security stack. Alternatives We have seen that there is a trade-off between the complexity of OAuth2 and a simpler system based purely on shared secrets and a shared user account database. There are other alternatives that are equally or more complex than OAuth2, the main example being SAML. SAML and OAuth2 share a lot of aims, but the implementation is different, and the touch points for developers are very different. SAML is extremely rich and has many features and offshoots that users find indispensable, and it is by default very secure. It is also hard to set up and configure, and often leads to very large amounts of XML being sent with each HTTP message (often so much that it would dwarf the average JSON payload). This last point is probably the thing that puts people off SAML for the sort of lightweight services discussed here, but there is no reason, in principle, why it could not be used. In environments where SAML is already well established there are also ways to combine it with OAuth2. For example, the specifications allow for a SAML grant in which a client exchanges a SAML assertion for an OAuth2 token, which can then be used as if it came from any other source. Another alternative to OAuth2 is to write your own system with the same or a subset of features. Many systems have been forced to adopt this approach just because the specifications have been rather long in gestation. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with doing it yourself, especially if your needs are simple, but many people feel that with security especially there is value in using a standard protocol. Security is very high profile these days and any mistake you make with a non-standard implementation is going to reflect badly if (or rather when) things go wrong. In Conclusion So what’s the punchline? Why would you use OAuth2 to secure a lightweight service? It certainly isn’t the simplest approach you could possibly adopt, so you have to be aware of the benefits that would lead you to accept the extra complexity. OAuth2 is well suited to lightweight services in medium to large distributed systems, where User and Client account data need to be centralized, and where you need some control over the expiry and validity of access tokens. The fine-grained information that can be packed into an access token (and which is derived from the centrally managed account data) provides significant benefits over a simple protocol like HTTP Basic authentication. Fortunately, the complexity can also be hidden by client libraries (e.g., Spring Security OAuth2 for Java, or the UAA Gem or Signet for Ruby, or JSO for JQuery). In addition, since OAuth2 is a commonly used standard these days, he number and quality of client libraries is increasing steadily. To put things round the other way, I wouldn’t bother with my own OAuth2 provider if my system only had one or two Resource Servers, or if Client applications never had to act on behalf of a User. I would consider using something simple like Basic authentication, and when I needed more I might switch to someone else’s OAuth2 provider (e.g., Cloud Foundry) if it supported the features I needed. Naturally, this short article is not going to answer all the questions that arise about OAuth2 and identity management. If you want more information, join the community: check out the source code of the UAA and hang out on the Spring Security OAuth Forum or the Cloud Foundry Developers Group. Pingback: 10 Tech Stories To Read This Week – October 16 Edition » iRomin Pingback: Distributed Weekly 179 — Scott Banwart's Blog

. Recently in Feminist Social Media Category When I first found out that this class involved such heavy online work I was pretty hesitant. After thinking about it for awhile, I realized that this is the reality of the society that we leave in today. We can do so many things online and our generation tends to spend tremendous amounts of time online. I think that it is good practice for us to continuously learn about the online world and explore new sites and online organizations that we have never seen or heard about before. Having all of these sites and online blogs/organizations makes them very easily accessible to read and discuss. I think that it's a great way to get the word out there for those who don't really know about these issues. However, even though all of this is online, there are many people who just haven't come accross them or know where to look to become educated on these issues. How do we change this? Like bell hooks said, there is always tshirts, newspapers, television networks, children's books, etc. Though those forms of media can definitely be effective, the reality of it is that so many people in todays society are not looking in/for those types of media, they are online. That being said, the transition of the feminist movement to go online is a great one. This way all of these people online have the opportunity to easily share their findings or their opinions with their friends, family, online friends, etc. It still always baffles me when a new youtube video comes out thats really funny or meaningful and it can sometimes receive millions of views in just a few days. This is because of online sharing! On the other hand, there is still a problem with certain online sharing. With people sharing videos on Twitter and/or Facebook, they are sharing them with their friends. Their friends are usually mostly also feminist who probably are already educated about these issues/movements. The problem here is that new information isn't getting to unaware people. Like I said ealier, I was pretty intimidated at the beginning of the semester when I realized how much online work was involved. It was extremely overwhelming for me since I had never used a blog or Twitter before. However, after a few weeks I did get used to the online usage. If I were to change one thing about this course it would be the use of TWO online medias. I think that the onling blog is more than enough for the class and I don't really know if Twitter really helped at all. Don't get me wrong because I do understand why Twitter was chosen and I think that it's a really great media tool for the feminist movement, but it may be better to possible spend a week or two exploring Twitter and seeing Twitters impact without using Twitter the entire semester. Overall, I really enjoyed the class and learned so much more than I expected. I am very happy that I took this feminist debates class. :) I have thoroughly enjoyed the way that we have used online media in the classroom. It is something that i have never experienced in any other class before this one. I am definitely use to the lets study, take tests, and write papers. Through this method, I have forgotten so much during my life after the class. I have found that I am only able to retain major themes of the classes that I have taken in the past. In our class, I feel that I will continue to learn more about feminism because I am passionate about it and through the use of online tools, I can easily access it. We have studied many blogs and articles that have shaped my feminist understanding and has made me realize that feminism is far from being dead. There is so much to learn about feminism and it is delivered in a way on the internet that I feel you have access to it all. Some information might be buried a bit more than others,but it is available for any person to have. I personally think that moving the movement of feminism online has so many benefits that outweigh the negatives. It is the one main message that tells so many people that feminism is far off from being dead. It helps spread the word to unsuspecting audiences and the general public about a movement that has lost some steam since the women's movement of the 60's and the 70's. There are so many uses of feminist online outlets and as a class I think we came up with an almost complete list of what it could be used for. One use I don't think we got to in class is the revival of feminist interest or activism. I personally feel there are a lot of women and feminist sympathizers that have lost their touch to feminism because they do not know where to find it. However, once they have found a vast amount of support and activism online, I feel that that could rekindle that relationship with feminism and activism. Now although feminist activism online is a great thing for the movement, there are still some setbacks I feel. First of all, if you are not searching for feminist things, then it is hard to find the relevant articles, books, and videos that relate to feminism. When I look at twitter accounts with notable feminists, it seems they are preaching to the crowd. Many of their followers are of course, other feminists. You do not see too many men that don't sympathize with feminism on their follower's list. That right there could be the issue because if you are trying to spread a social movement, it does not help when you are preaching to the people that already know about the feminist struggle. Secondly, there are so many different types of feminism and feminists writers and bloggers that sometimes it can be confusing. There is so much information out there that if you are trying to get a complete and global understanding of the many different types of feminisms; you are probably going to miss something because there is just a vast amount of information out there with very little coordination where to start or continue. This class has been something phenomenal and I hope that my feminist involvement does not stop with this class. I actually want to be a force in helping to fight the patriarchal system that we live in. When it comes to spreading the word about feminism and how we can use different tools to do it, its hard to make the choice between our new modern technology, like blogging, tweeting, Facebook, and other internet sources. Compared to the hard copies, like books with stories and information regarding feminism. If you ask what I think about what way is more effective when spreading the word on feminism, I find that the use of social media does play a gigantic role when it comes to sharing thoughts with others and spreading the word about events and causes that deal with feminism. Online tools are easy to access with many people owning computers compared to ten years ago. When entering this class and hearing that we would be using social media as a helping hand in learning all about feminism, I was happy and a little nervous at the same time. Twitter is a simple use of 120 characters. It's a nice way for people to get straight to the point and share their thoughts on the subject at hand. Our class blog has been a tremendous tool in our class activities. I like that on our class blog we can take our discussions from the classroom and debate them further online. The internet gives us so much access to many different social media tools. Facebook has also played a part in spreading the word about feminism. The event app that creates events on Facebook provide an easy way to invite all your friends without having to deal with sending out invitations, or spending the time going out to different places spreading the word. Without all of these different social media sites I feel that feminism would not be the same. Although I have to say we need to do more then just get on the internet and blog, or tweet what your thinking out. Posting a status on Facebook won't necessarily grabs others attention. When we made a list at the beginning of the semester of examples on how feminist are using their social media, I couldn't really find another one to add to the list but there are a few that I do notice we use a lot. Such like; promoting events, surveys, joining causes, and easier access to articles using twitter posting links. All these tools bring ease into feminism and make it easier for people to get involved. I think the biggest benefit of social media is that you can post a blog entry and within seconds millions of people can read it and you can spread the word without too much trouble. The limitations to social media are that we can lose the passion and emotion when reading stories and posts about feminism, because we're just looking on a computer screen or your smart phone. Its just not the same then hearing people in person protesting and standing up for what they believe in. After getting acquainted with all these social media tools we use in class, I became fond of our class blog and twitter. I was hesitant at first but I have learned to love the ease and access we have when using these tools. This class has been a great experience and very enlightening. I think when it comes to feminism its changing everyday and I think a way it is changing in the 21st century is through technology. I have a love hate relationship with this argument because I like the internet and I like physical copies of things. I think personally I would like there to be a balance of both of them. I think this would open access to both people with internet and people without internet. I think that both will give access but I do think that the internet is a faster way of spreading information and awareness to different feminist groups. I just looked over the list and I can't really think of anything else I would add. However I do think it would be important to take all these tools on the internet that we use and put them into a physical form because I don't think that part of the media should be lost. We talked a lot at the end of the semester about access and I think people need to have access to both internet products and pamphlets and newspapers as well. I think one of the biggest benefits of social media for feminist education is how fast it can access other people. Everything on the internet travels to fast so if one does have internet access you can find and share information very quickly. I think one of the biggest limitations of feminist using social media is losing people who do not have access to internet and losing the root of how we started our feminist revolution. Overall I think this class has opened me up to all different kinds of feminism and feminism in the media. I actually think this class had a good balance between the four physical books we read in class and all the online readings. While almost all the work we did in class was online with thoughts and blog posts I think it would be kind of cool do make some pamphlets and posters as well as online blogs and post them around the university. I think if we balance both the uses of online and offline feminist topic our movement would be much more successful. I did not know how great to use blog and twitter. Even I had a sarcastic view about Twitter. Blog entry and comment was long enough to post my idea and understand other students' opinion. I had problem to use Twitter, and for a long time I could not find any benefit to use Twitter. Almost and of semester I eventually found how easy to use Twitter. When I put a space between #femd and 2011, I realized how easy to create a new hashtag. Through the semester I found real meaning of using Twitter. Only limited characters are allowed on Twitter. There for user can get a lot of information in short time. When I try to get my group hashtag #mencallmething I used google, because I was not comfortable to get linked limited comment. Later I realized that those web site I took pretty long time to get, they are just posted blow the hashtag. One other great thing I believe is that Twitter hashtag allow put many hashtags at the same time. When two is or more contest hashtag, it automatically makes a discussion issue. All the semester when I try to get information, I used Google. Just now I realize Twitter hashtag is faster and even could see others' opinion same time. Fortunately, I am attending University and I am taking this class. I have right indicating book, media, and people to discuss. However, most of people whoever interested in feminism or not, they do not have a great chance that I have. On the web there are many website about feminism, but it is hard what is right point of view to understand feminism and, it also hard busy people who are not even interested in feminism, they understand right definition for feminism. If Twitter is lighter, blog is the actual fire. I love blog posting even though I post very last minute to post my idea or comment. Personally I reduced fear to show my writing. I am always afraid if American cannot understand what I speak or what I write. I felt happiness when I read comment on my post (even if it is negative). Furthermore, blog is actual discussion place and get details. Twitter posts are just linked to the other source but blog is actually posted summarizing issue or news. In my opinions, the biggest problem to use social media is that hard to filter idea and people. During I search for the hashtag,#mencallmething, I found many situations the feminists are victimized on internet. They receive unpleasure violence comments or email. Also there are wrong organization which not just antifeminist but also they sexually harass women. I have enjoyed using Twitter/blog. I enjoyed all the presentations in this class about feminist social media tools. Although it was a bit confused to me at first, this assignment really helped me to understand the effect and importance of feminist social media. While i was searching how many, what kinds of feminist social media exist in our society, I was surprised at the fact that there are a lot of social media tools related to feminists. These social media tools are providing spaces for encouraging people and productive engagement with each other. And by using diverse social media tools, feminists can communicate with the public and arouse their attention. They also can bring conflict to light and in turn it encourages feminist curiosity and helps to educate the public by debating and sharing of idea if feminism. I think this educating aspect is one of the most important positive effects of feminist social media. This is because by educating the public about the status of and threats to women's rights through the social media, feminists are raising awareness of feminist issues on global level and bringing conflict to light and connect with each other. Overall, through this assignment I could understand how feminist social media work and how social media give us access to a lot of resources about feminism issues without any barriers. I think the presentations that we have done in class were very helpful to all of the students. Because through these presentations, we could discuss a lot of matters related to the issues of feminism and bring the matters to light. Although using a lot of social networks like twitter and blog was new and confused at first, I think it really helped me get many opportunities to rethink and learn about feminism. I do agree that it is very important in order to gain supporters and to get your voice heard. We have used many different forms of media throughout our learning experience in and outside the classroom. It mostly all rots from our computer from going on twitter, to websites, to blogs, all the ways to what people in the white house have to say. I think this has been a very different way to learning about a subject. I had never used twitter for a class or had to put my voice out there to all my peers in a blog post. I think it was very effective when it came to interacting and learning fro your peers. We weren't just being fed information but we had to use our resources to learn about different things. I believe social media has lots of benefits it can be widely spread not only in the US but can be seen throughout the whole world. Being involved in something you know is striving for a difference is a great experience. This class has given me a lot of opportunities of learning about many different things as well as people opinions alongside my own. The class seemed as if it was kind of in my hands for what I wanted to learn more about and what influences my opinions. When education is only taught through social media you can loose a lot of supporters from lack of access, no advertisement, as well as no previous understanding of what it is for. Learning almost solely through access and media has a lack of structure of what needs to be accomplished, learned, or remembered. I believe it would help to have a backbone to the class of what things are or represent before having to produce our own concepts within feminism. The hard facts that we learned or find are usually opinionated, which allows for disagreement and uncertainty of why we are learning about it. Also sometimes the education about how to use and find all the sites can set back the class. Not everyone was or is familiar with sites and so it allows room of error and being held back. Overall I believe this class helped me not only learn about Feminism and all of its sub-categories but also about myself. Using the blog was totally new to me but I think it has helped me grow as a reader and writer and has allowed me the opportunity to learn not just from a book or lecture. We have used social media in our class via blogging and tweeting. What I have seen through these usages is the way social media has expanded our classroom. Instead of being limited to discussions allotted within our scheduled class time, I have seen how our class blog and twitter have extended those conversations we ran out of time with. As a student, this is a great way to stay involved with the course material more than other classroom-based subjects. This ability is very unique and appropriate to a class like this where we can constantly being exposed to these ideas. As I have been learning, feminist issues are all around us. Because different feminist ideas are all around us, it is great to be a part of something more than solely a feminist debates class. Our blog is read not only by fellow classmates but people also emerged in the dialogue and twitter allows us, students, to directly communicate with different people and organizations. Our class has so easily infiltrated a world of feminism- we are part of a larger picture and this is due to our involvement with social media. Although we can be part of this world, does this lull us (feminists) into a false sense of completed duty? Because we are involved online, it may seem like we are doing enough to spread awareness. Our activism can easily be limited to actions online and how effective is that in our goals to provide equality among all peoples? Also, who are we reaching online? It would be rare to assume anti-feminists are browsing the web for feminist resources with the open intention of become "aware." I can't help but feel we are speaking to ourselves on the web, when what we need is to reach those who unaware. I believe, however, that firstly being online is a great place to start. Overall I do think blogging and tweeting were great tools in becoming aware of all the encompassing issues of feminism. Social media is obviously one of the most utilized tools of this generation. Almost anything you want to know can be found online through a myriad of different resources. The social media tools that utilized most in this class were twitter and blogs, both our class blogs and other feminist blogs for their articles and information. Blogs are a great feminist resource because they have the ability to be continually updated. Feminism is ever changing, new issues and breakthroughs are happening all the time and online resources have the ability to be updated instantly. Even though having this ability to update is so great, there is still the issue of accessibility. This movement is about equality and with so many people unable to access the technology, it inhibits the spread of this information. With social media, the information spreads more quickly, but it only spreads to those who are lucky enough to have access to computers and the internet. There is also the argument that with all of this information and discussion being online, it is only those who are looking for this information that find it. This becomes an issue because in order for feminism to be effective, feminist ideas need to be spread to everyone, not just other feminists. The use of Social Media in this class was helpful and made homework easy to complete and information easy to find. Being able to tweet a question and receive a quick response is a very helpful tool to any student. These resources were incorporated very well into the course and allowed for a lot of discussions to happen online as well as in the classroom. I don't think that any more social media outlets need to be added to the course. What I didn't like about the use of these sites was how much time we had to spend talking about how to use them. I understand that it was very important to learn how to use these tools, both for the class and for our future understanding of feminism, but if any more are added then even more time will be taken away from talking about the issues. I agree with what bell hooks is talking about because I do believe that the media does portray feminism in an unflattering way. To get out the knowledge about feminist principles and educating the world about feminist through information made available through handouts, buttons, and other things can really help people understand what we're trying to do and achieve in our fight for equality. In GWSS 3004W we have used media through twitter and blogging. I think it's effective in its own way because using twitter it allows us to connect to other feminist who are out there looking to connect. Looking at the summary of social media tools I don't think there's anything else I would like to add because we have really much covered everything that really comes to mind when thinking of the feminist subject. I think there's a lot of benefits that can come out of the social media education because we're basically telling everyone why we're who we are and what we're fighting for. Also some benefits we can gain from using social media are that we can spread our knowledge to other places then just the USA. Through social media we can become united and help each other fight for the change that we want. In using social media we can show feminist from many different points of view and also learn from many different people how they are working to make a difference for everyone. Some limitation of feminist using social media is that sometimes people take things the wrong way and misunderstands what is being taught and also it's really depends on who has access to the information being made know because some people don't have internet or aren't in places where information is being given out. I think that the issue of access is what's really preventing others from learning about our cause because for the social media we have now the people has to know what to search for in order for them to find the information they want to know more about, but there's also the issue of who has internet and who doesn't because if we're mostly posting something online then those who doesn't have access to the internet has no way of finding the information unless they go to the library. I think that in handing out pamphlet we're limited to the places that we can hand them out to because we're only able to hand it out to those who are frequently there or those who just happen to be there and sometimes most of those end up in the trash or ground. I can agree with most of these posts in saying that I was very apprehensive when I started this class about having to use the blog and twitter. In fact I think I said something the first day about how it "scared the shit out of me" or "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing" (sorry Sarah not a good first impression). But it was honest. I don't have a facebook and I tell people I'm "technologically challenged". But I can say that I've gotten so much better. I still don't embed tweets or anything but I can get by which is more than I had hoped for at the beginning of the semester. Twitter is still not my favorite. But I've coem to love the blog. Through this class I have pondered becoming a writer for a women's issue column or something along those lines and where or not I have the talent for that or if it will ever happen this experience has given me the safe space to express feminism as I see with my peers. I think we've had a lot of great discussion and articulate and insightful expression of ideas through the blog. Not only this but it has given up the space to bring issues, discuss amongst our class but also to open up the coniversation with reputable feminists or even the authors of the pieces we read. I'm sure at this point that if we wanted to work on some grass-roots organizing that we would have the abilities to do so. This class has definately peaked my feminist curiousity through constuctive engagement on the blog and twitter. I also really loved the social media project in class. I thought it was a great way to see what other feminist websites and organizations are out there. In particular I loved one of the groups presentations on youtube videos of spoken word. This class has really given us the space and resources to explore feminism through so many medium. I'm so glad that despite my fear I took the class. Its really been a journey. Through it I have become a GWSS major and improved my skills with technology greatly. I now feel comfortable exploring the latest medium of feminism and I'm greatful because now I can engage naturally with the future of feminism. When I began this course, I was a bit apprehensive about the blogging that was required. I was familiar with tweeting, as I have had a Twitter since last Winter. The blog, Twitter, and discussion groups have been used throughout the duration of the course, and I feel that for the most part, they were relatively effective. Personally, I liked the blog more than I liked anything else, because it gave us the opportunity to do our own research and find certain articles or topics that we were interested in. I chose to use my personal Twitter for the class, and I wish I would have made a new one for the class. I wasn't necessarily embarrassed to tweet and have all of my friends see it, but I think I would have felt more comfortable had I created a seperate Twitter for this class. In reference to the discussion and diablog groups, I felt as though good communication was hard to come by. Because everyone was online at different times, it was hard to effectively communicate my points or opinions on what we should do for presentations. I feel as though we covered most of the social media tools that are currently available. As was discussed in my social media presentation, there are obviously more phone applications and updated software that will come out in order to enhance media. I think that one of the biggest advantages of social media is the fact that it allows people to communicate quickly. Blogging and tweeting saves a lot of time in comparison to how the "older" feminists went about their activism by taking it to the streets. On the other hand, fast communication is also a disadvantage because there can be a lot that is lost within media. Points can be misunderstood, and it may not be as easy to communicate important points. I think that overall, the social media we used for this class was very effective. The only suggestion for change that I can offer is that the online discussion and diablogs were very hard to conduct. Setting some class time aside for these groups to actually get together and discuss their plan of action might be more helpful to those who do not have an abundance of time to get online multiple times a day. At the beginning of the semester, when I got to know that we were going to be using blogs and twitter for class, I had very mixed feelings. Even though I was familiar with blogs and twitter, I thought that the whole process may be too complicated. I think many others in the class had very similar apprehensions. Over the course of the semester I have become very comfortable using both these mediums for communication. In fact, I found myself enjoying writing on the blog, because it felt much less formal; and as a result I felt I could express better. Though I do not engage with twitter continuously, I find it a great way to share interesting articles, information etc with class. I find bell hooks' call for spreading feminist awareness through pamphlets, buttons, t-shirts etc very relevant in todays times. I believe that social media is another great means of spreading feminist awareness. I was quite amazed at the amount and intensity of feminist discussions and dialogues happening online through blogs and other forums. Taking in to consideration the amount of time we spend online, many people are more likely to read an online article or petition, rather than a pamphlet (which does not mean we should stop grassroots level awareness spreading activities). So, we have to make the most of this medium in spreading awareness and engaging people. I think it is good for a class like ours to interact through a blog which is open to the public; We have had some really great conversations in class and online, and other than the fact that it is documented on the class blog, it is an avenue for people (outside the class) to see these discussions. Engaging with the larger groups outside of the university through social media, will also help in changing the general perception that academia is very exclusive. Anyone reading our class blog would be able to see that we as students of feminism engage in different issues of social justice and not just women's issues. Also through twitter and blogs we were able to follow feminist activists, which was a great leaning experience. I see social media, especially blogs as a great feminist resource. I see 'access' as both the greatest benefit as well as drawback of feminist social media. There is a whole lot feminist social media resources online, which is available at the click of a mouse to anyone who is interested; at the same time there are many who need these resources and are interested in these great debates and discussions that are happening , but do not have access to it due to the fact that it is online. So, it is important to realize that feminist social media is only a part of the new feminist movement and not the whole of it. I completely agree that there are a variety of ways to express what feminism is and what ideas that you want brought to the table. As bell hooks wants to do through pamphlets, t-shirts, books, and television, but spreading a message online can reach a much broader audience as we do in class and as many other feminists do it. There is no wrong way to go about getting your message out there. In the classroom, we have used social media tools in a couple ways. The main ways were by the use of the blog and twitter. The blog was an interesting thing to see what everyone in the class had to say or what issues were interesting to them while twitter anyone can see what we think. I think both were effective because we learned that a lot of information comes from the internet and it spreads so much more quickly. Looking at the list we created at the beginning of the semester, I do not think I need to add anything to the list because we touched upon a lot of those topics for example, draw attention to things in the news, linking to books, videos, articles, networking, reviews and analysis of books, social networking sites, etc. We compiled a realistic list on how feminists are using social media and that is exactly what we did this semester. I believe the biggest benefit of social media is the fact that we can spread so many messages to many people that are not even in the same city or state as you. With that comes the limitation on who would actually care enough to click on a link and read what you have to say or get involved. As much as I thought in the beginning of the semester that it was going to be hard to balance a blog and twitter it was not. I liked using the blog and reading what other people found important. Although I still am not keen on twitter. Social media is a great way to explore many different thoughts about feminism and the different topics that are involved. 1. Name of project/example/organization + link(s) to example The National Organization for Women 2. Who/what is it? The National Organization for Women is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has more than 500,000 contributing members and more than 500 local and campus affiliates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Since its founding in 1966, the goal of NOW. 3. Why was it created/developed? Some people who attended The Third National Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women in 1966 began planning the formation of the new organization to speak on behalf of women. 28 women met to set up an organization to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society, assuming all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men. 4. What feminist vision does it have?. 5. What strategies/tactics does it use? NOW activists use both traditional and non-traditional means to push for social change. NOW activists do extensive electoral and lobbying work and bring lawsuits. They also organize mass marches, rallies, pickets, non-violent civil disobedience and immediate, responsive actions. They also use social media tools to provide space for encouraging people and productive engagement with each other as well as the traditional means. 6. How does it use/rely on social media? NOW is a multi-issue, multi-strategy organization. Therefore they use social media tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Linkedin as well as the traditional means. They use these kinds of social media to communicate with the public and arouse their attention. They notice their activities and a lot of topics of feminism on Facebook and Twitter, and upload videos about their activities on Youtube. 7. What are the benefits of this example? How is it useful? Helpful? Effective? NOW is trying to taking many actions to put more women in political posts, increase education about feminism, employment, and business opportuirunities for women. They also try to enact tougher laws against violence, harassment and discrimination. Therefore by using diverse social media tools, they can bring conflict to light and communicate with each other. And in turn it encourages feminist curiosity and helps to educate the public by debating and sharing of idea if feminism. 8. What are the limitations of this example? How is it not useful? How does it fail to be effective? For those who are inaccessible to the internet, NOW might not be useful because they use many social media tools to notice their issues and arouse attention of the public. 9. How does it help to spread feminist education? NOW is educating the public and media about the status of and threats to women's rights by promoting their events and drawing attention of the public. Also they are raising awareness of feminist issues on global level and linking to videos, articles through the media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. By using these media tools, they can bring conflict to light and connect with each other. When first discussing how we as a class would be doing much of our interaction via online sources I was excited because I always enjoy a change of pace from the usual routines. I think of myself as being fairly up to date with technology and twitter was the only tool I had not used till this class, so being able to navigate through all the sites and use all the helpful tools came pretty easy. However, that was not the case for everyone and I have heard from fellow classmates that they were confused on many of the applications within our class blog or twitter at first so it may have been frustrating for others, but learning new things always seems to benefit everyone at some point I believe. As the course continued beyond those first few weeks, and more people began to become familiar with our online tools it became much more enjoyable! I really appreciated how fast we could get a discussion started on a current topic going on in the world through our online blogs. I really enjoy the easy access of being able to attach links and resources to the blog for everyone to see by just one click. Much of the reason some classes are not as enjoyable is because there is not time to talk about everything that interests someone because class only meets two days a week, but this 24/7 system makes that possible. Twitter is an excellent way to quickly answer questions by getting instant responses from classmates or the professor, but I actually did not seem to benefit much from this tool... besides asking a quick question as I mentioned I did not use it for much else. I found that some of my posts were filtered so fast because of the many tweets posted even within a couple hours that it would be more beneficial to post on our blog to actually get responses from classmates and know that everyone saw it. Because me for instance, I do not log onto twitter every day or especially every hour or two so I miss many of the posts that our classmates post I feel because of the way that all the tweets are filtered. However, with our class blog it is very easy to know the last post that I read and I can begin there and scroll to the most recent post as they go in a timeline. I did say that Twitter was the only tool that I had never previously used so therefore this may be from that lack of experience with it. The idea of using social media within feminism as I have spoken of before is in my mind essential in today's technologically advanced world and it's just a matter of getting the word out of all these online resources for everyone to be accessing to broaden their knowledge on the subject. I would be very disappointed though if the importance of non-online campaigns and awareness is eliminated though because I believe if we only are advocating and discussing online it will limit many people from joining the movement in third world countries, people that do not have internet access or people that just simply do not like to use the internet. So, I have overall really enjoyed the experience of having so much online interaction within this class and our social media assignment was a great way to be introduced to the many other online resources besides the ones we have already discussed in class I just wished we could have got the lists of everyone's choices on their social media presentation before they presented so we could ask more about it and be more involved as a class. Our class has been heavily reliant on social media to effectively communicate. Through blogging, tweeting, and finding feminist resources throughout the semester, we have been able to explore and evolve our understanding of feminism. Considering we only meet 2 times a week, having a way to communicate with each other outside of class sparks discussion and lets everyone share their ideas (too shy or not enough class time). I was skeptical of relying so heavily on social media for this class at the beginning of the semester but I believe it is beneficial. You have to motivate yourself to participate in discussions and make posts and everyone has the same opportunity and platform to present their thoughts. There are drawbacks such as internet failure or access to computers. But overall, they have sparked intense and interesting conversations. I think the list we made at the beginning of the semester about social media outlets was pretty inclusive of all they can do for activism. One thing that I think we focused on a lot when referencing articles were the comments that people leave under the articles. There is such a quick response when dealing with social media because there is always someone connected that can comment or share their ideas. As we have previously discussed, one of the biggest problems for feminist social media is the problem of access on a global scale. Only those with access to the internet or areas that won't have feminist sites blocked can contribute. The more technology spreads to rural and third world countries, the more we can see people's perspectives from everywhere and have new issues risen and hopefully acted upon. This is why grassroots organizations and those who participate outside the technology realm are still such huge players in movements and work around the world. Luckily some of those people can access online sources, spread the word, get support, and make a difference. Overall, I found this class to be very educational through our utilization of social media. I had never taken a class that had this organization and it was an interesting combination. Combining social media and discussion during class time has given the class opportunities to share their ideas and learn from each other in an open environment. When I came upon this class in registering it sounded super interesting. Once I was part of the class, not only was it interesting in terms of content, but so interesting in terms of technology. I never expected to learn this much about blogging, tweeting, and social media in general. It was in this class I think I learned the true potential that is technology, especially in terms of conversations around equality. So, it has been effective. I believe that true learning is about the process and not solely defined as the end results. I may not have my own blog started, or some extremely tangible evidence around the importance of social media, but throughout the process we have totally learned that. Something I would like to add to our list of ways that social media can relate to feminism is what cane be learned from other's comments on blogs, websites, or articles. I have noticed people's comments before, but never understood what it truly adds to a conversation. Feminism is about including other voices, and I believe comments can do just that. The biggest benefit of online feminism, or using social media for feminism is the idea of accessibility. Yes, I understand that you have to be able to afford a computer or a way to get to a library in order to use a computer, but in many ways it is the most accessible forum yet. People from around the world, provided that they have internet access, another downfall, can read about issues that matter. It is cool to realize that my previous roommate who is currently in Spain has been keeping up on our course blog. It is also possible to translate using a website in a matter of minutes, an amazing way to open up conversations. All in all, I can explain the way my comfort level with technology has grown. Now, it is my feminist responsibility to teach others what I have learned, knowing that the more voices in conversations around feminism and equality the better. Although I hooks's assertion, as well as the idea of using feminist blogs and social media to spread awareness and feminist principals, I also feel that it's to clean of a statement. Mainstream media poses with a myriad of possibilities to combat the "overly negative representation of feminism and its goals" are presented as ideas", but this is also the problem. Anything and everything can be considered feminist (I'm not saying there is a definitive definition)--even projects that are guised as feminist but fail to really fulfill the feminist principles of a just world. For example, Serita mentioned in class, Dove also owns (or partners with another brand that I can't recall), whose marketing ads/practices are all about hyper-masculinity. As she also mentioned, this is a counter it Dove's own lip-service of "combating" beauty pressures. When it all comes down to it, it is all about marketing and reputation of the company. In doing so, it also presents itself as a company that really values "natural" beauty, yet it is also telling folks to buy their products to be even "more" beautiful. All of this rests on creating a sense of "trust" and "loyalty" between consumers and their brand. It's all about sales and the market. Can we still consider its attempt to "combat" the pressures of beauty to be a feminist message, knowing the backing of its marketing practices? Speaking more broadly then, how do we address hegemonic (read: Eurocentric) forms of feminism, as presented in media that is global? The danger is whether or not folks can read into how some of these are hegemonic feminist projects. And whether or not we are also contributing to another form of marginalization by engaging in these hegemonic feminist projects (I'm thinking specifically of "The Girl Effect" here) that are guised under feminist principles. Is feminism (often presented as monolithic) then being co-opted into marketing practices, and is it being used as a tool to sell ideas and objects? As for our own class blog and twitter hashtag, I feel that it has really given students the opportunity to engage in a feminist curiosity. But, preciously because it is still within the curriculum of a university setting, there is a sense of "safety" to it. Meaning, we can all assume that everyone who enters into the classroom is agreeing to engage in feminist thinking, and to a certain extent agree with it as a paradigm. Yet, I also like using blogs and twitter because it is done in an accessible (i.e. not "too" theoretical) way to students. We also get to listen to voices that may not always be within the space of academy, so we are attempting to break down the barriers of privilege (I say this cautiously because we engaging within these spaces from a privileged position of academia). One of the shortcomings of mainstream media, or social media, is that it encourages a lax engagement. Something that has been reiterated in our class is that "all you have to do is click a button and it'll make you feel as though you really did something." Additionally, we risk not engaging in these projects and messages as critically as we could be because they preciously play up on being viral. However, the flip side to this is that there is also the myriad of possibilities in refuting these same projects and messages through the same medium. I guess, there is a constant pull between the "good" and the "bad" and that the focus should be on critically engaging in teasing out those contradictions and what they mean. Throughout this course, I feel as though we have been very effective in exploring social media tools and using them to promote awareness, education, and encourage constructive debate. The only part that I wish we could change is the time that we spent on this class. Overall, I feel like we are really just getting into all the deep stuff and our discussions have become even more fruitful than the beginning of the class. (If only this class lasted all year!!) I really enjoyed the blog portion of our social media exploration. It almost became like a "news feed" from facebook. I liked to see the current events/feminist issues that others were posting and be able to comment back on them to promote discussion. I do wish we had utilized this aspect a little more. I feel as though we could have done even more online discussions! As far as twitter goes, I have very mixed feelings. Although it was a nice, concise way to view aspects of our class, I think using twitter became a little redundant at times. It also did not promote as much discussion as I would have liked. In response to our list of social media tools that we came up with at the beginning of the semester, I feel that it was very inclusive of what we have studied. The only thing I would probably add to the list is education. Education of feminist ideals and related issues seemed to come up quite a bit for me as we explored different social media tools. It served to educate before discussion could truly begin; and this is not just true of those unaware of feminism or those who are not feminists. It also educated some of those that already are feminists and just have not gotten to see a new perspective yet. I think the biggest strength of social media for feminist education is its ability to be informal and instant. It allows people to instantly say what they think without having to coordinate a big meeting or discussion somewhere. It can be done from the comfort of our homes. However, there are still some limitations to using social media for feminist education. One that we discussed time and time again was access and inclusivity. Not everyone has access to the Internet and therefore not everyone is able to read about or participate in discussions or websites. The other issue that popped up, was inclusiveness. Some sites struggled with the line between gearing themselves towards the heart of issues with a certain group of feminists and being inclusive of all feminists. It is still something to be debated among feminists. Even Feminism is For Real discussed this a bit. Where do we draw the line between our differences and portraying a united front? Personally, I believe that if we embrace our differences and use that to our advantage to understand how feminism affects people of other ethnicities, genders, cultures, etc., it will help us a be an even more united front. Overall, I think this class has been refreshingly new and interesting. IT has given us a way to use what we already love to do on our free time (social media!) and use it to learn. It has made this class more enjoyable and much more easy to engage constructively with. After extensively studying social media tools and their connection to feminism, it's nice to realize that they have a lot of purpose to helping the movement. In class, we used Twitter and blogs to share articles, ask questions, develop our opinions on certain issues, watch videos, and connect with other feminists and feminist organizations. The best part about staying so connected is that it allowed us to share our opinions outside of our comfort zone, which isn't always so easy. We can't expect to shut ourselves in for our whole lives, so by blogging and Tweeting we learn to watch our words and be confident with them. However, I have never failed to be pessimistic about the use of social media tools, and I think there are too many limitations for us to be so dependent on websites for feminism. At the beginning of the year, I believed that most feminist blogs made little to no impact. I now amend this thought to be that feminist sites that stick to only one or two forms of social media make little impact. For example, I've become an avid follower of EMILY's List after using the PAC for the project. One of the reasons why I like it so much is because it uses its resources wisely in order to spread as much awareness as possible, including Facebook, Twitter, a blog, Youtube, and advocacy programs and events. On the other hand, there are still feminist blogs that limit themselves to blog posts and possibly a Twitter account and/or Facebook page. These types of sites might post great pieces that can't be found in the mainstream media, but they can't make a significant impact with that little outreach. Blogging is a great tool for sharing ideas, but it shouldn't be the foundation for the movement. Another problem with online feminism relates to our class discussion on access. There will always be people who do not use the Internet but want to be a part of the feminist movement. By no means should we eliminate the online media to level the field of access; rather, we need to remember to incorporate these persons by holding more events and demonstrations. I believe the most important aspect of social media tools is that they allow feminists to collaborate and unify. I take the Internet for granted when I look at videos on Feminist Frequency or learn about the most recent candidates supported by EMILY's List. The list we made at the beginning of the semester shows the wide range of ways in which we benefit from having these sites, and, though I have nothing to add to the list, most of the media tools I have come across utilize these tactics. [from pg 6 of the pdf with all assignments: Assessment of class use of Social Media 50 points In early december (by dec 7), you are required to post a blog entry in which you reflect on the value and effectiveness of social media in our feminist class.] Here's what I wrote on the welcome page of this blog: In Feminism is for Everybody, bell hooks argues for the importance of feminist mass-based education in order both to counter mainstream media's overly negative representation of feminism and its goals and for sharing the positive contributions that feminist principles have made with as many people as possible (including those outside of the academy). In a chapter entitled, "Feminist Education for Critical Consciousness," hooks imagines this feminist education being spread through pamphlets, buttons, t-shirts, children's books, and television networks. But what about feminist blogs (and social media tools like twitter) for spreading awareness? Students in GWSS 3004: Feminist Debates at the University of Minnesota, will be using this blog and the hashtag #femd2011 to explore the limits and possibilities of developing and spreading mass-based feminist education online. In addition to contributing their own content to the meaning of feminist education (through blog posts, comments and tweets), they will be critically reflecting on a wide range of ways in which networks of feminists are already using the internet to develop and share their feminist principles and projects. In your own blog post (roughly 350-400 words), briefly answer the following questions: - What are you reactions to the above statement. How have we used social media tools in the classroom? How has it been effective? Ineffective? - Look over the summary of social media tools that you all came up with at the beginning of the semester. Now that you've spent a lot of time reading about/engaging with feminist social media is there anything you'd like to add? - What do you think is one of the biggest benefits of social media for feminist education? What is one of the biggest limitations or obstacles that feminists face when using social media? - Any final thoughts about the class and our focus on social media? This project was interesting, it allowed all of us to analyze something we probably have normally passed by with out notice, there are thousands of Apps out there! Below is our presentation, please feel free to comment and share your thoughts! Here are links to the article that talks about this! Focus on: *She wants to do me Checklist *The Circle of Six So the above two are Apps created to prevent Sexual Violence. It was created to raise awareness about rape. It serves to prevent rape and sexual assault in young adults. Why was it created (purpose)? Anna It was created to help young adult women protect themselves against assault and provide support to their peers by being connected in a discreet way. The app is aimed at college age women because sexual assault is 4 times more likely for those women then the general public. What is it? An App that was created for a smartphone for a man to look at and go through a check list before he has sex. Is she awake? Is she sober? Did she verbally indicate that she wants to have sex with you-before proceeding. Please watch this VIDEO (caution ridiculous) What is it? Emily The Circle of Six app works by allowing women to quickly access their six closest contacts in uncomfortable or unsafe situations. Feminist vision *Places responsibility on perpetrators *Clear cut guide to what consent actually includes (fool proof) -Checklist -There is an Additional attachment feature of breathalyzer *Prevention- person doesn't have to go through the psychological/ physical trauma of actually being attacked * Victim responsibility Strategies/ tactics? series of questions for men to ask themselves before getting intimate with a girl sarcasm/embarrassing Strategies/ tactics? Sam instantly and discreetly connecting them to the people they trust when they need it most. five alert modes, seven alarm sounds and a flashlight provides links to other helpful sites promote the importance of respectful and healthy relationships by raising awareness about the danger signs of dating abuse and providing links to educational materials Uses of social media? *Smart phones- always with you! Benefits *May cause potential rapists to reconsider what they are doing *Phone may be a distraction, allowing the potential victim to exit Benefits Brooke *Can alert friends/family if dangerous situation arises *If the app gains popularity, rapists may second guess their choices if they are aware that the woman may have access to this Limitations Lexi *Accessibility of smart phones *Downloading App *Unrealistic many people will take time to look through the checklist Limitations * Hard to have app open and ready in case something happens Ideas of feminist education -Creates conversation "If I do not speak in a language that can be understood there is little chance for a dialogue." Bell Hooks -Creative and engaging -"New research conducted by Women at NBCU revealed that women are becoming increasingly more passionate about the Internet and their tech gadgets. In fact, about 54% of women own Smartphone's compared with 46% of men. Women also tend to have more friends on social networking sites and follow more brands, and check their profiles about four or five times a day" -Whether this succeeds or not, there is recognition that something has to be done. We decided as a group that we would do our social media presentation over spoken word skit by Staceyann Chin. What is Spoken Word you may ask, well its a form of poetry that often uses alliterated verse and metered verse to express an act of rebelling against a group, a company, an individual, or even against a social issue. Most spoken word is to promote change by informing the public. Spoken word is mainly spoken from the poets point of view and is themed by current events happening around the world. Staceyann Chin is a brilliant poet and has such emotion when she speaks. Staceyann was born in 1971 in Jamaica but now resides in the U.S. She is openly lesbian and an activist for many groups. Staceyann Chin not only performs poetry but she also co-wrote Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam which appeared on Broadway. Staceyann talks about not being a feminist but a womanist. We can define a womanist as having or expressing a belief in or respect for women and their talents and abilities beyond the boundaries of race and class. These beliefs or actions are informed by womanist ideals. Calling herself a womanist she opens the doors to many other women by creating less of a standard as some think the definition of a feminist does. In spoken word the main tactic we see is the raw emotion that you get, the real feelings we see from the poets. Chin has an amazing talent for making people listen to her in a way that you really can't stop listening even if you want too. Staceyanns' poetry can be viewed all over the internet,. She also has a twitter, and her own website. The benefits from our example are plain and simple being that interactive poetry sparks interest, we feel that people can be more in tune from hearing Staceyann voice her self in manner that is forceful but moving at the same time. A limitation from our example may be that we only focused on one spoken word poet instead of many others. When we all took a look at one of Chins' You tube videos "Feminist or a Womanist", which was intense but enlightening while being filled with such passion. Staceyann Chin and spoken word is helping spread the word about feminism in a way that shows others they can speak out on what they believe in too. Here is the You Tube video ... Her Twitter is @Staceyannchin Her website is Her facebook EMILY is actually an acronym - it stands for "Early Money Is Like Yeast," because it makes dough rise. Ellen Malcolm was the one who founded EMILYS LIst in 1985 and she knew that early money was one of the key ingredients to a successful campaign, but that it was missing for most women who wanted to run for office. So she brought together supporters who wanted to get more women into office and make history! It's dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to office. The method is a little more complicated however. They are continually making investments to help women develop political skills and cultivate resources so that they can bring more women into politics and elected office. Because only then they can build a lasting progressive majority dedicated to social justice, civil rights , diversity, economic reform, and compassion. EMILYS List looks for political opportunities and pro-choice Democratic women candidates to run for office. They talk to the community about these women and ask for donations to the campaigns of candidates. EMILYS List provides intense training for candidates and staff so they can make the most of limited resources and be able to win the hardest races and elections. Another strategy they use is conducting in-depth, ongoing research into the minds of women voters. Finally, they get women to vote! They reach out to women voters in he days and weeks before elections with persuasive messages that motivate them to go to the polls and cast their ballots for progressive Democratic woman. By reaching out to women voters they research top issues and concerns, target the correct group of people, and contact them using several types of social networking. They use this strategy because they know that when women vote, women win! Although it began as simply a PAC in 1985, it has now hosts a website, along with several other social media outlets. It has a Facebook page (with about 134,000 fans), Twitter account (around 10,000 followers), a Youtube channel (over 150 videos uploaded), an RSS Feed, and a Blog. Each social media page links to articles and pictures related to the website, while the Blog has several posts about feminism and politics. In addition to posting information on EMILY's List, the social media are great for connecting to the PAC's supporters (e.g. Facebook polls, retweeting, and replying to general comments). EMILY's List helps encourage voter participation while electing pro-choice Democratic women to office. While it raises money for the elections, EMILY's List does not continue to lobby for the candidates once they make it into office. Since 1985, the PAC has been extremely successful: they have raised over $82 million for candidates and have helped elect over 600 officials into local, state, and national levels. However, EMILY's List limits itself by only focusing on pro-choice Democratic women. This can be a good thing, as it attracts a certain group of voters and supporters, but it also pushes away men, non-Democrat pro-choice candidates, and women candidates who have all the same viewpoints as EMILY's List besides abortion. Although this is good for preventing the cause from becoming ambiguous, it can keep some feminists away. Overall, EMILY's List is an organization with a specific demographic. It allows all people interested the opportunity to find out more about what the candidates have to offer. By having EMILY's List it generates and builds a community together. In doing so it raises money as well as helps educate people what the candidates are truly striving for. #mencallmethings is a hashtag that people comment on to show the effects of verbal harassment online. It is created by current feminists that want to raise awareness about issues and constantly developed by online participants around the world. It was created and developed because feminists needed another outlet and area to express current issues. Their vision is for women to speak up about the way men talk to them and raise awareness about related feminist issues. One woman tweeted, "When we all speak up, it doesn't sound like self-pity anymore, and its not hurt fee-fee (possibly short for feelings?). It's structural oppression. #mencallmethings". It is to reveal the abuse, name calling, & misogynist slurs females experience while online and offline. It represents sexist abuse online. The nice thing about the usage of this social media resource is that it lets anyone comment/tweet on what they think about the hashtag. It is made for anyone; both women and men use it. It shows the many things men call or say about women. It raises awareness because many people don't even notice what they are saying or the impact that it makes. It is not just for the victims, its also for the perpetrators. It is constantly updated with new stories, announcements, etc. because many people have something to say about it. This example is helpful because it's a place where all participants can have an equal say in how it's used, based on how they use it themselves! Many participants have used the hashtag to raise awareness. Others have used it to share their stories. Either way it is helping those who need it most and allows others to offer advice and sympathy. Although #mencallmethings can be useful, it is not necessarily inclusive. Men can be feminists too and they are not the only ones to perpetrate this kind of behavior. A couple of people used this hashtag to make that statement clear. They also included a recommendation to start using the #peoplecallmethings because it is much more inclusive. This site had an almost identical purpose, it is just more inclusive. By allowing everyone who has a twitter to use the hashtag it spreads awareness about this issue and also spreads information about feminism in general. The following are some examples (that we will also go over in class) that illustrates some people in favor and against the use of this social media outlet for feminists: Examples • • • • • • The Girl Effect is a social media production of the Nike Foundation aimed at raising funds for various charitable organizations ( ) around the world with the common goal of empowering girls., almost exclusively in the developing world. The Girl Effect was started in 2008 with the purpose of getting powerful people (business leaders, world leaders, and "the smartest and richest people in the world") to talk about girls - about the "indisputable potential of adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves and for the world." The Girl Effect answers the question, "Why girls?" with: "When we all invest in girls, everyone wins: girls, their families, their communities and their nations." The Girl Effect's basic premise has a vision that every girl living in poverty should be given a chance to create a better future for herself, and for future generations. Some of their main missions are: -Education -Health and protection form HIV -Choice to marry whom she wants -Raising a healthy family, if she chooses to have one. The Girl Effect website uses impactful videos to illustrate just how important their mission to educate about and end poverty is. Their website is easy to navigate, easy to get information, and easy to donate to the cause. They also use all types of social media, such as facebook, youtube, texting, and twitter. The Girl Effect provides a simple model of solutions to problems like hunger, poverty, AIDS etc, It focuses on empowering girls (in third world countries) through education and entrepreneurship. The Girl effect suggests that empowering one girl will have profound impact on the community in terms of better health, eradicating poverty etc It talks about giving the girl 'choice' in terms of marriage, career, children etc.. The site gives stats about girl's lives globally. It also shows the organizations view on where the movement is headed and how others can contribute. It is a neat resource that allows the giver to choose where to give their money. This is useful because it could make people more likely to give. Also there is a resource that says exactly what each amount of money goes to providing for the girls. It is very much geared to answer givers questions. This probably increases their giving rate. Basically, I the Girl Effect is a more general/broad organization that works to spread the message about the "girl effect," (the phenomena that by educating one girl, there will be a domino-like effect of positive change in her family, her community, and, when enough girls are helped, in the world), and then partners with organizations that do more concrete/specific/tangible work in helping adolescent girls. The Girl Effect spreads the message, collects the money, and passes it on to other organizations that they partner with. Basically, they are like a marketing site for organizations that focus on issues affecting women and girls in the developing world. These organizations, and the people who support them, are called "girl champs" by the Girl Effect . The broad reach of the Girl Effect can be seen as a limitation to its effectiveness.?" It would be more helpful if the video vignettes gave more instruction on how to help these girls out instead of just spouting facts that never really lead to a solution (other than give $).? The Girl Effect partners with a lot of organizations (such as NoVo Foundation, United Nations Foundation, BRAC, etc.) that already focus on helping adolescent girls in developing countries --- it makes the Girl Effect seem a little redundant. Some people might (rightly) wonder why the Girl Effect is ignoring about girls in our own backyards (girls who are under-educated, victims of domestic and sexual abuse, girls who are exploited in the sex trade, girls who drop out of school because of teen pregnancy, girls who can't read, don't have enough to eat, live in poverty, right in our own backyards...) Another shortcoming is that the Girl Effect is a effort produced by Nike foundation and Nike does not have the best reputation concerning human rights (). Girl Effect relies heavily on Social Media since its entire operation is online. Its videos are popular and well known on youtube.com, and its social media pages like Twitter and Facebook are updated multiple times a day and provide direct access to the Girl Effect webpage, their GlobalGiving () webpage, and many other feminist resources. Twitter: The Girl Effect (girleffect) on Twitter.htm - The Girl Effect: What is it? Why was it created/developed? Our group chose the organization "The Girl Effect" as the subject of our Feminist Social Media presentation. in the developing world. The Girl Effect was started in 2008 with the purpose of getting powerful people (business leaders, world leaders, and "the smartest and richest people in the world") to talk about girls - specifically, about the "indisputable potential of adolescent girls to end poverty for them and for the world." The Girl Effect answers the question, "Why girls?" with: "When we all invest in girls, everyone wins: girls, their families, their communities and their nations." The Girl Effect's main claim was created as a way of bringing attention to the positive potential of adolescent girls. As explained in the FAQ section of the Girl Effect website: Basically, the Girl Effect is a broader organization that works to spread the message about the "girl effect," (the idea that by educating one girl, there will be a domino-like effect of positive change in her family, her community, and - when enough girls are helped - in the world), and then partners with organizations that do more specific/tangible work in helping adolescent girls. The Girl Effect spreads the message, collects the money, and passes it on to the organizations that they partner with. Basically, they are like a marketing site for organizations that focus on issues affecting women and girls in the developing world. These organizations, and the people who support them, are called "girl champs" by the Girl Effect. A good place to read an overview of the Girl Effect's goals, is in the FAQ section of their website. Also, to learn more about the different organizations that the Girl Effect donates to, check out the "Global Giving" page. What feminist vision does Girl Effect have? What strategies does it use? The girl effect has a vision that every girl living in poverty should be given a chance to create a better future for her, her community, and for future generations. Some of the Girl Effect's main goals are: -Education -Health and protection form HIV -Choice to marry whom she wants, and when she wants -Raising a healthy family, if she chooses to have one. - Keeping the cycle of education, health, and marriage by choice going from one generation of girls to the next Among other tools, the Girl Effect website uses impactful videos to educated people about the their mission to educate girls as a way to end global poverty. Their website is easy to navigate, visually appealing, informative, emotionally appealing, and has an easy way for interested people to donate to the Girl Effect cause. The Girl Effect also uses various types of social media, such as Facebook, and Twitter, and YouTube, to help spread their message. How does Girl Effect rely on Social Media? Girl Effect relies heavily on Social Media since it's entire operation is online. It's videos are popular and well known on youtube.com, and it's social media pages like Twitter and Facebook are updated multiple times a day and provide direct access to the Girl Effect webpage, their GlobalGiving webpage, and many other feminist resources. Twitter: • The Girl Effect has over 19,000 followers on twitter, follows 2,800, and has around 1,339 tweets. • The organization uses twitter to encourage it's followers to donate, to education it's followers about issues related to women's rights around the world- through re-tweets of other twitter accounts, and tweets that include links to other resources (news articles, videos etc.), and Inspirational quotes • 269,785 people have "Liked" Girl Effect on Facebook. • Uses Facebook in similar ways as Twitter. - To encourage their Facebook Friends to donate - For education by providing links to their own videos and website, to other organizations, to news articles, etc. - Quotes about women's rights/ activism - The Girl Effect page has "Liked" many other feminist organizations, for example "The Global Fund for Women", "Equality Now" and "The Girl Scouts of America" which allows its friends to easily access other feminist resources. - On the side of the Facebook page, it has a part of the page dedicated to Donation. It allows users to quickly and easily donate. - Also has a "Mobilize" page that uses social media to promote "Girl Effect" and it's videos by allowing users to easily "SHARE" the video on their personal Facebook page. "Girl Champ" Award: • Every month "Girl Effect" allows it's supporters that are doing great things for girls around the world to share their own stories of activism and attempt to inspire others to get involved as well. The winner of these awards is featured on Twitter and Facebook. What are the benefits of this social media example (Girl Effect)? How is it useful? Helpful? Effective? The Girl Effect site gives stats about the status of adolescent girls' lives globally. It also makes clear its view on where the movement is headed, and how others can contribute to the cause. It's a neat resource that allows the giver to choose where their money will be allocated (which is useful because it could encourage more people to donate). Also, the site provides information that says exactly what each amount of money goes to providing for the girls - there is a transparency that allows people who donate to find answers to questions they might have about how their donations are being used. As far the as the benefits/positives of the organization in general, here are some that we've identified: - The Girl Effect website leads to links for a lot of other groups and organizations that focus on helping adolescent girls in the developing world (for example, organizations such as the United Nations Foundation). The Girl Effect site makes effective use of social media tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, to spread awareness about important issues and the organizations that are working to address those issues. - The overall goals and values of the organization, the spirit of their enterprise, seem basically sound and good. By focusing exclusively on girls, the organization opens up room for discussions about women that are important and are often overlooked. - At the very least, The Girl Effect can bring awareness to some of the larger issues faced by adolescent girls in many parts of the world: underage marriage, lack of education, etc., even if they are not able to solve these problems entirely. What are the limitations of this example? How is it not useful? How does it fail to be effective? The girl effect is limited by its broadness.?" The mission/purpose of the Girl Effect comes across as noble but a bit lofty. It can be difficult to ascertain concretely just what the money given to the Girl Effect does. There are a lot of inspiring, but very vague, and sort of sweeping sentiments in the videos. It would be more helpful if the video vignettes gave more information about concrete ways to help these girls (and specific examples of what "success" in helping the girls looks like), instead of just spouting broad facts and then asking for donations. Some notes from Anna Carella, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Vanderbilt University, on the limitations of the Girl Effect campaign: • It reinforces stereotypes that women are naturally more caring than men and doesn't do anything to encourage men to do more at home. • The video claims that putting more women to work will drive economic development--yet women already make up a bigger percentage of the workforce in poor countries than in industrialized ones, but development is stalled. "What poor countries need to stimulate sustainable growth are not women taking out loans to buy cows, but better governance and better terms of trade with rich countries," Ms. Carella says. • Focusing on economic development prioritizes the well being of the economy over the well being of women. • One video, with its images of flies buzzing around the word "girl," reinforces the perception that women in poor countries need saving by the Western world. There is a sense of the first world focusing on "fixing" or "improving" the developing world, which can seem a bit imposing/assumptive, and which begs the question --- what about girls in our own backyards? What about the girls who are under-educated, victims of domestic and sexual abuse, girls who are exploited in the sex trade, girls who drop out of school because of teen pregnancy, girls who can't read, don't have enough to eat, live in poverty, etc., who live in our own "developed" country? • Girl Effect is an effort produced by the Nike Foundation, and Nike does not have an unblemished record concerning human rights. • The site is visually nice - there are a lot of bold graphics, feel-good videos, etc., - but contains a lot of vague statements such as, "The Girl Effect is about girls. And boys. And moms and dads and villages and countries." Again, this feels too vague, and it leaves one wanting some solid facts and figures related to the campaign goals. (Note: there is a fact sheet, "The Girl Effect Data," but even that feels a little skimpy and generalized). • The Girl Effect partners with a lot of organizations (such as NoVo Foundation, United Nations Foundation, BRAC, etc.) that already focus on helping adolescent girls in developing countries --- it makes the Girl Effect seem a little redundant. •? Want to read other critiques of the Girl Effect? Look here and here. How does Girl Effect help to spread feminist education? Girl Effect provides a simple model of solutions to problems like hunger, poverty, AIDS etc. It focuses on empowering girls (in third world countries) through education and entrepreneurship, and by increasing awareness of the obstacles and issues being faced by adolescent girls in the developing world. Girl Effect suggests that empowering one girl will have profound positive impact - in terms of creating better health, eradicating poverty, etc. - on her own life, as well as on her community, and on the world. The Girl Effect aims to spread a message about the right of girls to be educated, to live in good health, to choose the terms of their marriages and motherhood experiences, and to raise healthy, happy, empowered daughters of their own. The Girl Effect raises awareness, and "dares" the world to see the potential in adolescent girls. Link: Adios Barbie is a sensational website used to perpetuate a true appreciation of all types of beauty. This blog styled website touches on subjects such as plastic surgery, race, age, and media. The website also applies a critical feminist lens to issues relating to beauty and understands that the definition of beauty for women is heavily shaped by the patriarchal society that we live in. Beauty for women shaped by our society is built on this false, idealized view of perfection that is basically unrealistic and unfair for women to try and adhere to. The website is ran by 12 women who have backgrounds of varying disciplines; psychology, women's studies, journalism and other educational focuses. Pia Guerrero the founder and co-editor explains what the site is intended for: "The goal of her work around body image is to raise awareness around young people's over-identification with rigidly defined gender roles and beauty standards as portrayed in the media- proven to be a major cause of low self-esteem and consequently negative health and educational outcomes in girls and boys." "We say adios to narrow beauty & identity and hello to frank talk about race, class, age, ability, gender, sexual orientation, size and how are multiple identities shape the way we feel in our bodies and in the world." The feminist vision of adios barbie is similar to many other feminist groups but these women are solely focused on creating a world where women are safe, powerful, and at home with who they are. Therefore, many women out in the world do not accept how they look and this blog is dedicated to telling them that they are beautiful in their own skin. Adios barbie website is filled with many articles and stories aimed at telling women that they should be ok with the way they look. The blog has varying articles that preach the overall message that beauty is a patriarchal social construct and not something that women should try to adhere to. The articles on the website are very short and to the point so that there is no confusion among what is being delivered on the website. The articles are blatant and powerful so that the info cannot be ignored and at the same time comes from reliable feminist sources. The website is their main mode of delivering their views, it acts as a control center where they advertise their products, embed videos, talk about articles and blogs, and campaign for certain causes related to their own. The matter-of-fact articles are great for getting their points across. These ideas and issues that are addressed in the articles on the blog are typical women issues that most, if not all, women can relate to. This website also gives contemporary feminists a space to be validated no matter if they conform to the traditional/radical feminist values or not. Although this is a great feminist website, it does only focus on certain aspects of feminism. The editors on the blog focus solely on image and certain entities that relate to image in terms of feminism. This can be provide a skewed view of feminism and an incomplete understanding of body image and beauty in relation to feminism. Some words from the founder @ WAM2011: Here are some phenomenal examples to help explain the function and need for audios barbie: Link: In the article "Why Not Being Colorblind is a Good Thing": It invalidates and dismisses different races/cultures journeys. We have not had and do not have the same opportunities. We cannot say we are color blind because it's a lie, We still currently have so much inequality between races. Differences should be identified, accepted, and validated not dismissed or overlooked because those differences may be big and very important factors in the lives of those who carry the differences. Here's a video that relates to this in a way, shows some racial issues, and it sparks the question of what was done about this... Link: In the article "You're so Perfect... Except for Your Boobs": This article touches on how males perceive women as objects more than people, how women are willing to go to extreme lengths to "be" the ideal (especially when men are involved), and how women can find power through loving themselves before having someone love them. Society continues to push these ideals that are unattainable and unhealthy for girls and boys. Here's two videos that relate to this topic: Link: In the article "Beauty and the Double Standard of Aging": This article discusses the double standard of aging. Women beauty is defined with a unrealistic view of perfection but more importantly beauty has a young, girlish component. Older women are not beautiful unless they have a young face void of "imperfections" like crow's feet, wrinkles, and blemishes. This is unrealistic and when compared to men; this double standard does not apply to them. Men can be attractive in all stages of their lives without worrying about critique for their "imperfections". This double standard eludes to the patriarchal social construct of beauty. An example for this topic: Remember to closely read through the Social Media Assignment (found in the pdf of all assignments and in this blog post). As I mentioned in class today, the assignment requires that you present on your feminist social media tool AND do a collective blog post about it. Ideally, you should use your blog post as part of your presentation. Your blog post should be posted before your presentation (on either nov 17 or nov 29). This assignment is worth 50 points. Note: this is the first of 2 social media analysis assignments. The other one will be discussed after Thanksgiving (see the pdf with all assignments for a brief discussion of this second assignment, which is also worth 50 points). FEMINIST SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMPLE 50 points You and 3. I will distribute a sign-up sheet during Tuesday's (10.25) class. In your presentation and blog post, you should provide the following information about your social media example: - Name of project/example/organization + link(s) to example - Who/what is it? - Why was it created/developed? - What feminist vision does it have? - What strategies/tactics does it use? - How does it use/rely on social media? - What are the benefits of this example? How is it useful? Helpful? Effective? - What are the limitations of this example? How is it not useful? How does it fail to be effective? - How does it help to spread feminist education? Today, Thursday September 22nd, The University of Minnesota's new President, Eric Kaler will have his inauguration and a surprise Birthday party! Its a very exciting time for the University and guess who got to tweet all about it? ME! On Tuesday, I was chosen to serve as President Kaler's Social ambassador along with other U students- aka we got to follow the President and his Wife Karen Kaler around and tweet about their day. My shift was during the "community outreach" part of the inauguration. I, along with the Kaler party visited the University Urban Outreach Center, the Guthrie Theater and the Twins Baseball game. The tweeting was interesting because for the first time, I'm was not writing down my thoughts but trying to communicate the activites of the President to HIS audience. We had to be really careful- we wouldn't say anything too controversial, everything should be spelled right, and every tweet has to be detailed and represent not only President Kaler but the University of Minnesota as well. After we type a tweet, we would hand it from hand to hand to make sure it was worth submitting. Believe me it was INTENSE! But I enjoyed it very much, well one because I was with the U's President, how cool is that! Two because I got to meet some really influential people at the sites we visited. For example, I had never know about the Urban outreach Center here at the U, this center is very involved with the North Minneapolis community, helping the neighborhood with the recent natural disaster and with underprivileged youth, at this cite Prez Kaler talked about closing the achievement gap between students. In addition, I GOT TO GO ON THE BASEBALL FIELD OF THE TWINS TERRITORY at the Target Field! Well I've never been to a baseball game, so that was a nice first game huh? Also, Prez Kaler threw the first pitch and I had to twit pic it, I was so nervous that I would mess up but I think I did okay. Who knew Twitter could get me this opportunity to enjoy such a great experience? I guess this shows that we all have to use these social media's to our advantage, use twitter to connect, network, get important messages across. Follow the President on Twitter @PrezKaler and myself @SHEisLulete I have scanned your worksheets from yesterday's class. Check out all of your examples of how feminists are using social media and your analysis of the different feminist blogs. Here's how you all see social media being used for feminist education: - Promote events and products - Draw attention to things in the news - Raise awareness of feminist issues on global level - Political activism - Bringing conflict to light - Linking to books, videos, articles, etc - Connecting with each other, networking with people who support similar causes - Grass roots organizing/community organization - Reviews and analyses of books/film/music - Creating feminist role models - Resources for learning about/understanding Feminism: Video explanations/commentaries/definitions - Video blogs that provide probing questions, challenge and disrupt ideas - Youtube, facebook, twitter, flicker - Direct challenging and unsettling people's beliefs - Allows for dialogue, debates and a sharing of ideas - Joining causes - Surveys - Feedback about ideas - Self-care and healing Support/resources - Connecting "normal" peoples with their "idols"/connecting with peoples who are otherwise inaccessible - Easier access to articles/information - Feminist music artists like Erykah Badu - Space for interactive Campaigning/online petitions - Used to impact/reach groups that are already online frequently (youth) - Reaching wide range of different people (different ages, races, locations around the world) - Encourages feminist curiosity - Provides space for productive/critical/creative engagement (feminist debate) with feminist ideas and each other

Greetings ! 1 + Jetup on October 15th, 2010 at 9:03 am said: This is the one with the awesome looping song on the official website right? Either way, its awesome. + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 10:08 am said: Hey Jetup, The songs are really addictive in this game. I have the main theme song almost memorized in Japanese after hearing it so many times hehehe. At this point I think everyone at work here can sing it too because I’m always singing it. – Ryan 2 + Jimmy_Cosmos on October 15th, 2010 at 9:03 am said: Woohoo NIS!! Love you guys, will def be checking this out. Looks great!! + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 12:09 pm said: Yeah dood! We love our fans too!! Without fans like you, we wouldn’t be here. It means a lot to us! Thank you! –Ryan 3 + AlexLucard on October 15th, 2010 at 9:07 am said: For those interested, Nao from NIS gave me a copy over a month ago and we did a hand’s on preview of it. It’s a really great game and easily the best roguelike I’ve played since Azure Dreams. This is definitely worth purchasing on Day One. Also, distance weapons are your friend in the first few chapters. Love your guns like you were Master Etna with a special ultra rare limited edition pudding. + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 10:24 am said: Hey Alex! I’m in total agreement with the distance weapons. They really give you an advantage in the early dungeons where your level and the monster’s level are pretty much even. I’ve gotten to the point in the game where I’m getting a few more ranged weapons and with casting ablities – they’ve saved me countless times hehehe. – Ryan 4 + Moonglare on October 15th, 2010 at 9:11 am said: Heeeya Ryan! Welcome to NISA, I hope you enjoy work there as much s we love NISA’s games!! Thanks for the heads-up on the game =) ZHP is going to be awesome!! + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 10:15 am said: Hey hey Moonglare! Thanks for the warm welcome dood! I’m really excited to be on the NIS America team here. Together with Nao, I plan to continue to bring you updates and most-excellent news about our upcoming titles!!! Fans like you make our jobs worth it!! – Ryan 5 + remanutd5 on October 15th, 2010 at 9:20 am said: PSP GO price drop = $200 so when can we expect PSP 2 news sony ? after God of War Ghost of Sparta? 6 + DeviantBoi on October 15th, 2010 at 9:28 am said: What’s the file size for the PSN download? I haven’t made up my mind if I want it on UMD or from PSN. + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 10:19 am said: Hi DeviantBoi! The file size for the PSN download should be a little over 600MB – which isn’t too bad. Hope this answers your question dood! Have a great weekend! Ryan 7 + Destiny89 on October 15th, 2010 at 9:34 am said: Hey NISA, thank you im very excited for this game, thank you + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 10:26 am said: Thanks Destiny 89, We’re stoked to be putting this one out. I personally am fully in love with it. I actually play it when I get up before work and in bed at night hehe. Best, — Ryan 8 + Mox007 on October 15th, 2010 at 9:35 am said: For what it’s worth Famitsu gave it 9,8,8,7. 9 + Zezzler on October 15th, 2010 at 9:47 am said: Can’t wait for Prinny 2, dood! + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 11:24 am said: Hey Zezzler! Dood! Stay tuned for updates on Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! I should be able to post on here again really soon to give you all some new screenshots and info! — Ryan 10 + DrApollo on October 15th, 2010 at 9:55 am said: Long live the Unlosing Ranger!!!…This looks great. It gets my 5 red boxes out of 5…and my $30-ish bucks. 11 + AriesWarlock on October 15th, 2010 at 9:55 am said: “To be honest I did feel like I dropped my ice cream on the pavement when I lost everything after I died.” Hmmm that is a no no with me. The less you enrage the player, the better. I think in this aspect, Nihon Falcom, developers of the Y’s game, do quite well, and I expect others to follow their example. + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 11:04 am said: Good Point AriesWarlock, I truly did feel that, but then again, this is actually my first roguelike. Coming into a crawler with only standard RPG experience under my belt, it was natural to feel that way. As a fellow gamer, I feel that we all deserve some truth once in a while hehe. However, like I said, the fact that you can maintain the levels and stats you gain from dungeon crawling is what still motivates me to jump directly back into the same dungeon that I just died in. Even though I died, progress through dungeons and on bosses is noticeable on subsequent playthroughs. The fact that the maps, mobs, and item locations change too, help to keep things more interesting. Hope this gives you some encouragement ^^ — Ryan 12 + Chvor on October 15th, 2010 at 10:12 am said: and this is why japanese games is far worse than western ones nowadays. a game that prides itself on being repetitive while having cell phone graphics. 13 + Ska-Boom on October 15th, 2010 at 10:34 am said: Prinny wife you have to pay sold me on it. Day one PSN purchase. + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 11:16 am said: Hahaha! Nice! The advantage of having a wife in the game is that you can actually have her deliver a lunchbox to you once per dungeon crawl which can help save you! However, if you don’t pay up, you may end up with a more… spiteful… lunch which will not help that much at all hahaha. – Ryan 14 + Maitre on October 15th, 2010 at 10:37 am said: @12 it isn’t worse then CHESS, same board everytime millions of possible moves. If your into shooters … well, hum, to each his own i guess. Personnally i prefer random generated dungeons the replaying the same 10 multiplayer matching with the same 20 weapons or less. (Note : i’m generalizing, i know you can buy DLC maps and stuff, to expand but imo it can get costy after 5 dlc at 5$ each on top of a 70$ game you’re kinda to 100$). And you don’T have to worry about servers closing in 3 years making your game lose half the what you paid because you can’t use the multiplayer option anymore. And you also don’T have to worry about annoying players who quit games, shout insults, kill their own teammates because they think the others aren’t good enough, sore loosers, etc. And nice graphic don’T make a good game, best example would the castlevania transition from 2d to 3d, 3d is nicer but the 2d versions are still considered to be better then their conterparts by a lot of critics. Any its your opinion and i respect it, but their is usually 2 sides to a medal. 15 + force_noodles on October 15th, 2010 at 10:43 am said: Awesome! Can’t wait. Is this release date also for EU? Please make it happen. + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 11:21 am said: Hey Force_noodles! The EU release will not be the same day as the U.S. release, but stay tuned for some excellent news really soon!!! — Ryan 16 + saveur on October 15th, 2010 at 10:56 am said: Really excited about this one, I’ll be sure to pick it up. Quick question though, does La Pucelle Ragnarok have any chance of still making it over? I’ve been hugely disappointed that it hasn’t been localized yet, and am terrified that it might just be skipped over… + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 12:07 pm said: Hi Saveur! To answer your question, unfortunately, we don’t have any plans to localize La Pucelle Ragnarok. Our pipeline is pretty full at the moment with some most excellent titles that I think you will be really excited about. I know it’s a bummer when we choose not to localize a title but I just wanted to let you know that your voice and suggestions are taken seriously by us here at NIS America. Our fans really do have some weight in some of the decisions we make! I’m glad you are excited for Z.H.P, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!!! Best, –Ryan 17 + ShadowOfEden on October 15th, 2010 at 10:58 am said: And does your wife really say “Dood?” If so, then keep a good eye on her, I might have to kidnap her… + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 11:38 am said: Hey hey ShadowOfEden! Your prinny wife most definitely says “dood” hahaha. If you kidnap one just be careful, they tend to consume a lot of booze and sleep a lot!!! — Ryan 18 + EatDeath on October 15th, 2010 at 10:58 am said: Wow this is pretty exciting! Preordered today! I cant wait!!!! + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 11:41 am said: Hey EatDeath! Be excited! It’s a blast! –Ryan 19 + Vincent_Kavaldra on October 15th, 2010 at 11:28 am said: ARG, my psp broke and I’m holding out on buying a new one till december when the “monster hunter portable 3rd” is released and I can import the special monster hunter PSP with the better analog stick and longer battery life. Hey Ryan, do you know if a US copy of ZHP will work on a japanese psp? + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 11:59 am said: Hey dood! Sorry to hear about your PSP =( I am currently playing Z.H.P. on my Japanese first-gen PSP and haven’t had any problems. If you are talking about UMD’s I think it’s a fair assumption that you won’t have any problems since PSP UMD’s have been playable on both US & Japan units since it was released. PSN should also be fine as I currently have the downloaded version and it works great! Hope this helps! — Ryan 20 + Dracorius on October 15th, 2010 at 11:40 am said: OMG!!!! Is that Quinton Flynn’s voice over in the trailer? Anyway the game looks great! I will be keeping an eye out for this… 21 + DaMann22 on October 15th, 2010 at 12:07 pm said: Man im still playing Cladun with its near infinite replayability. I will try to get this going as soon as i can. But its definitely a purchase for me. Thanks NIS for all your devotion to the psp which i hope you guys continue to deliver great content onto further platforms. 22 + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 12:18 pm said: Hi DaMann22! Cladun is really fun too. Some of the conversations and NPC dialog in the game just cracks me up. The localization team had a blast working on that one. Thank you for the encouraging words! It makes our job that much more rewarding when we get such great feedback from fans! Best, –Ryan 23 + GooieGreen on October 15th, 2010 at 12:22 pm said: People will enjoy this game. Playing it… somehow… :) 24 + Shizuka5 on October 15th, 2010 at 12:24 pm said: What about those NISA avatars that were approved on Pram’s Wish List? + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 12:41 pm said: Hi Shizuka5! Nao is still looking into them ^^ She’ll let you guys know as soon as we have a better idea. — Ryan 25 + mcbuttz78 on October 15th, 2010 at 12:51 pm said: what does dood mean, seems like your saying it alot.. i think your a prinny monster is disguise.. where is ryan.. + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 2:58 pm said: Hiya! “Dood” is what Prinnies say dood! I may be a prinny monster in disguise HAAAAhahahaha. I’ve been working on my Laharl guffaw. It’s getting better hehe. –Ryan 26 + Losroki on October 15th, 2010 at 1:29 pm said: Hi there, i love NISA, therefore, i love this, and i know this WILL be funny, IT WILL BE MINE!!!, and im freaking freaking really excited with the release of ar tonelico 3! i will be freaking freaking waiting any news you guys give about this game! SO dont keep me waiting unless you want me to explode some prinnies around xD. Oh, and i know this is too soon, but if there is a pre-order bonus for ar tonelico 3 (or any game at all) don’t forget amazon… is the only way i import games to my country for a reasonable prize T_T had to miss out many pre-order bonus because Amazon has been ignored. + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 3:24 pm said: Hi Losroki! Thanks for your support!! Keep spring 2011 marked on your calendar for Ar Tonelico 3, as thats when we are scheduled for the U.S. release!!! Hopefully in the upcoming months I’ll have some more information to put in the blog for you guys. Until then, please don’t explode! hehehe. As for the preorder bonus items that we usually promote with our game and anime titles, unfortunately they are limited to only our NIS America Online Store =(. When orders are placed through other vendors, they don’t have the ability to include such items unfortunately. Best, — Ryan 27 + jimmyfoxhound on October 15th, 2010 at 2:39 pm said: I don’t mean to name drop another company in your post but Atlus and NIS are probably the only reason I’m still into gaming these days. I’ve purchased a lot of games the past year but it’s these niche games that you guys publish that really keep me playing and excited about my hobby. THANK YOU for what your company NIS does to bring these to the states. I know here in the States we’re a secondary market and don’t get a lot of attention w/ these games because they’re not big money makers in this territory but I really cherish the ones we do get. Thank you sooo much! + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 3:30 pm said: Thanks jimmyfoxhound! If you like niche games, this one is definitely for you dood! I’m at the tip of the iceberg with Z.H.P. and I’m really excited to get into the longer dungeons. I’m still a novice at roguelikes, but this title has really turned me onto the genre. We really appreciate the support and love being able to put games out that people appreciate! Being different is something that we pride ourselves with here at NISA, and we are really thankful when fans recognize this!!! Thanks for being such an awesome fan! Best, — Ryan 28 + ShotgunSean on October 15th, 2010 at 2:56 pm said: is there swords and shields in this game to use? or is it mostly shooting weapons mostly + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 3:06 pm said: Hey ShotgunSean, Weapons are across the board really. So far in my own experience, I’ve seen normal melee ones such as swords, lances, axes, hammers, fishing poles, etc… I’ve even seen staffs and such that have elemental abilities too. I’ve picked up a shield also in my travels. Shooting weapons are present too, but it’s a pretty good mix of both while you’re playing. As I mentioned, the items along with the dungeon maps are randomly generated, so you may see one map more heavy on melee weapons versus shooting ones and vice versa. Hope this helps! — Ryan 29 + ShotgunSean on October 15th, 2010 at 3:56 pm said: thanks i just crazy about swords and shields but i will try a variety of things. i think this will be one of my games i will soon be getting. 30 + karmatron03 on October 15th, 2010 at 3:56 pm said: OFF TOPIC!!!why cant this page no longer supports the ps3 web browser??? come on guys fixed !!! 31 + epiphaniesarefun on October 15th, 2010 at 4:05 pm said: I’ve been looking forward to this since I thought it was called absolute hero modding project :P Thank you SO much for bringing this over and making the game!!!!!!!! + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 7:12 pm said: Greetings! You’ll be happy to know that you can still do some hero modding in the game even though the title changed!! “Forbidden body modifications” are a key role into character progression in this game as mentioned in the trailer!! Best, — Ryan 32 + ManaKnight on October 15th, 2010 at 5:52 pm said: I got my copy preordered. Can’t wait to play it. I love Disgaea team games, especially SRPGs. Always glad to see NIS release new games. + Ryan Phillips on October 15th, 2010 at 7:13 pm said: Hey ManaKnight! Only a few more weeks left to release dood!!! Keep checking for updates on other titles in this blog! Have a great weekend! — Ryan 33 + zeroichigo on October 15th, 2010 at 9:01 pm said: oh man, i REALLY want this game, but i’m still running through Cladun. Trying to max the stats and getting the full potential of the D99 items is intense! But, I have a habit of buying NIS games, so i will pick it up anyways. :) Too many RPG’s is a good problem to have! keep up the awesome work NISA! My undying loyalty is yours. 34 + FriedConsole on October 18th, 2010 at 9:25 am said: I love rogue-likes! I will get this even tho the quirky Japanese humor doesn’t appeal to me. Shiren the Wanderer PSP doesn’t seem to be getting a US release so I will get this instead. Hopefully $20 on PSN.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is seeking $2 billion in savings over the next two years in order to balance the state budget. The amount of savings had been a well-kept secret in recent weeks as the Malloy administration and state-employee unions began closed-door talks on closing the state's projected $3.7 billion gap in the next fiscal year. On Tuesday morning, Malloy's senior adviser, Roy Occhiogrosso, said that the number of savings that is being sought is $1 billion in each year. He declined to answer further questions on the details Tuesday. In the first year, Malloy is seeking a total of $1.8 billion in overall spending reductions, which would include $1 billion in savings from the state employees and $800 million in spending cuts. Insiders have been careful to use the word "savings'' from state employees instead of the word "concessions." Even though the talks began recently, the two sides had initially not had any discussions about concessions. Instead, they were talking about various ideas that the state employees have for saving money in operating the state. Any concessions would be part of the overall budget-balancing package, which includes $1.5 billion in tax increases in the first year. That includes hikes in the income, sales, gasoline, cigarette, and alcohol taxes for individuals. It also includes the extension of the 10 percent corporate surcharge for two years and reductions in the amount of credits that would be available for movie production companies that are filming in Connecticut. The film tax credit has been controversial as opponents have said it is essentially a giveaway to Hollywood. The proponents, however, say it has been successful in bringing high-profile actors and their movies into the state. Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green has the new tax video at Hopefully, budget staff and legislators are discussing the elimination of the Rowland administration's huge gift to managerial employees (including pretty much everyone at OPM): the switch to the 40 hour workweek, accompanied by an 18% salary increase -- and its long-term fattening of pensions. Surely, a rollback to the previous standard state-workweek of 35 hours would save the taxpayers millions. Most of us have had to re evaluate our budgets and cut out certain items. Most of us are making due with the same level of income, as food, gas, and taxes keep increasing which translate to less spendable income. The state and gov.Dan Malloy must cut spending not just push more cost on to the people. When the casinos opened we all had hopes that all those millions would help keep the sate in good shape, but instead of saving that money the state just found new ways to spend. More taxes will just drive business and people away. Mass. just eliminated sales tax on liquor because they said people were going to CT because we have a lower tax. so now that they have no sales tax on liquor sales and we do, and possibly we are going to raise the tax why wouldn't people go to Mass. for liquor, no sales tax and much lower prices! CT stores open on Sunday will not make up budget short falls. Higher cost of living and taxes will mean less disposable income, which will result in lower sales of non essential items. Once the leaks start, why not just release the entire document - cuts and increases. One more day before life as we know it implodes doesn't do us any favors. There must be balloon drop scheduled after Malloy finally releases all the details tomorrow. I will have to remember to Tivo the press conference. ...and cue the comments from state employees shaking in their boots in 4, 3, 2, 1... Listen, state employees: before you start yelling and screaming, understand that we in the private sector haven't had raises since 2008. We have watched our coworkers get laid off. My health care costs DOUBLED this year. You can't ride the gravy train forever. It is time to face the reality all non-government workers live on a daily basis. Welcome to our world, it isn't pretty. There is no way he can obtain 1 billion savings per year without terminating almost the entire state workforce. granted, there are various departments that are not needed within state govt. yet we can't operate at all with such a huge lose. The only way to truly contain employee costs is to offer altered retirement packages to new hires (previous packages under federal contract), adjust new hire benefits, seek cocessions with current benefits (increase in co-pays, decrease in OT abuse, etc...) and terminate glut of upper and mid-management positions for which there are numerous redundances. I work for the state under 5 years and I give 3 to 5 % back every check to some type of retirement healthcare fund.BUT state employees with 7 plus years do not have to.ALL of us should have to not just the newbees. That would help with the union needing to give back something. You could see this train coming for a long time. Typical political types, stupid general public, and business in control of our government. Banks, Wall Street lenders and the rich put our country into economic free-fall, taxpayers bail them out, business and rich get continued tax breaks, middle class pays for it, now politicos and business convince the sheep-like general public that the state employees have to pay for all their bad judgment. And the stupid general public but it! Today they big business, the rich, and politics that have brought us here, not Unions, not state employees. Get an education! Start to thing critically! (Oh wait, you just cut state spending for that.) In the works of Jim Calhoun "Not one thin dime" that is what I expect from our state workers. Best way to get the savings is to cut the over bloated payroll. Here here, MD! I agree with you - I don't blame the state employees for all of the mess but they must shoulder their fair share and help solve the problem now. Do not ask me to pay more without making concessions yourself. As I join the ranks of the laid off & unemployed I have little sympathy for your protected status. Here we go with the complaining. Gotta love when the newly elected chief executive gets pummeled for trying to clean up the last politico's mess. But when that last politico was in office and did nothing, where were the critics then? ...and cue the comments from the ignorant, general public in 5,4,3,2,1... Listen, private sector employees, if state employees get paid too much and have too many benefits, why haven't all of you applied for state jobs throughout the years? Where were you five years ago? Were you also griping then about how much better state employees have it than you do? Are you aware that State Managers have not gotten a raise since 2008 either? Are you also aware that state employees do not receive fat performance bonuses that are handed out when times are good? Of course not. If you were aware, then you would not be displaying your ignorance on the courant comments board for all to see. Now that times are tough in the private sector, tough times brought on by greed in the private sector, by the way, private sector folks are crying the blues. Too bad. If being a state employee is as rosy as your ignorant view makes it out to be then I guess you should have taken the initiative to become a state employee, eh? The private sector person above said he'd had no raises since 2008 and has watched colleagues being laid off. Well, state employees are in the same boat except they make a lot less that the private sector people in salaries. They have increased what they pay for benefits and DO keep paying for benefits after 5 or 7 years (no idea what that earlier poster was talking about), and work on furlough days now too. Every time the budget comes out, the nasties come out from under their rocks and smear all state employees with blanket insults. The system is not perfect but stop insulting the people. ROFLOL. Above a state employee is moaning about having to contribute to a 'retirement healthcare fund.' I don't even know what that is, because in the private sector you get nothing. No pension, no healthcare in retirement. We're on our own with 401(k)'s and if you're lucky, an employer match of a few percent. These people have no clue how good they had it. Party's over, last one out turn off the lights. No new taxes without a signicant state government tax cut. The citizens have had to live with cutbacks for the last two years in this state. The state should be cutting back and living more within their means. @ MD...AIG, JP Morgan, Bank of America, GM, Chrysler, Ford...Oil and Natural Gas Companies, Gold Coast Hedge Fund Managers, Health Insurance Companies...They are all substantially more wealthy than they were 3 years ago...record profits...Big Pay and Big Bonuses Dear Mr or Ms Independent Wake up. A $1bn cut would not require firing everyone. Mar 09 CT state payroll was $372bn and there were 66.5k full time equivs for an avg pay of $67k. Add 25% for pen / bens and it goes to $84k. $1bn / $84k = approx 11.9k FTE's. SKew cuts to higher paid and maybe you reduce that to 10k FTE's. Mix none- pay cuts 50/50 and you get down to 5k layoffs......Not sure exactly what the right number is......but many will agree 5-12k FTE's is less 66.5k. Whether it is 5k or 10k, it is never good for those laid off. If state employees could give up some pay / benefits, maybe the number of layoffs could be minimized. And yes, my pay is down about 15% / yr over the last three years.......but I have a job and have adjusted. I am not bashing state employees or unions, really. I don't think government workers realize that most of us in the private sector are not working in the financial sector, pulling down 6 figure salaries. Bonuses are non-existent in my line of work. We don't have pensions, we have meager 401Ks with a small employer match that is disappearing at an alarming rate. I have $50 co-pays for insurance with huge deductibles. God forbid a medical issue hits me, I have to pay $3K out of pocket before insurance kicks in. Did I mention my health care cost doubled in 2011 compared to 2010? How about you, state worker? I do feel for the government employees, believe me when I say I don't want anyone to be out of work. However, CT has an enormous number of middle managers and the lowest worker to manager ratio in the country regarding govt. workers. Let's face it, CT government is bloated. Private sector folks -- we state employees have had pay cuts for the last three years. Not lack of raises but actual paycuts. In 2002, Rowland laid off 5000 state workers. I've worked in the private sector too, and the salaries were MUCH higher and there were plenty of retirement benefits like health insurance coverage. Don't know where you're getting all this false information -- or maybe you're just making it up and assuming things. @ MD - I'm a state employee. I have not had a raise since 2006. The cost of my medical insurance has doubled since 2008. The cost of my prescription drugs has more than quadrupled in the past year alone. I have been forced to take unpaid furloughs days each year for the past 3 years. I have had to contribute 3% of my pay to retiree healthcare - not MY healthcare, but retiree healthcare. There is no gravy train stopping at my office, nor has there been one. Ever. I'm willing to do my part, and have for nearly 5 years. When will I be given a break? I predict pain. Great pain. Once again whenever the budget is in the discussion, state employees are center bulls-eye. While I agree that the state is top-heavy with managment,it usually ends up that the lower end worker bees are the ones that end up as the one who pay the price. Just remember, state employee's have given back over the last two years (no raises, 1.5% pay cut). Now we are being asked for more and we are going to get the same tax hikes as everyone else in who lives and spends in CT. If that isn't double jeopardy, then what is? I am a state worker, I don't mind the extra taxes or the give backs, I just don't appreciate the suggestion that we haven't done our fair share. Amazing! The first Democratic governor in 20 years needs to the wrong-headed policies of his prdecessors. Good luck in getting all those Rowland/Rell managers out of their high-paying state jobs! So Dan, one thing I'm having a hard time understanding is how driving business and citizens out of this state is going to make CT the great state it was in the past? Why is CT one of the highest taxed states in the country - BEFORE your tax hikes even go in effect? Please do let your constituents know how these tax increases will benefit the business' and citizens of this state. I think we deserve to know, don't you? Everybody check out ctsunlight.org. Hold on to your chins so you dont get hurt when they hit the floor. I am sick and tired of state employees whining! When you have an admin who makes $65K who can barely use a computer and is allowed to keep her job and get "step increases" every 6 months without having to earn them you will receive no sympathy from me! I earn every single dime I get and so should you! I am all for solving the issue of closing the gap, but I am totally against raising the tax on gas. That is absurd. I know a perfect way of cutting. Get rid of those state employees who eat the taxpayer's money and do no work. There is an employee who did not take the buyout package offered a couple years ago. He is employed in the clerk's office of the courthouse in Hartford. He takes a nap on the office floor during work hours with the awareness of fellow employees and with an alarm clock underneath his desk like George Costanza on Seinfeld. There are photos of this floating around also. This is also a perfect example of how unions create and motivate laziness in the workplace and decrease productivity. Think about how much money is lost due to unions and how much of savings can be accomplished with them eliminated. Sincerely, Antony Woykovsky Canada, with a liberal government, solved it's budget problems with 2 back to back annual 5% cuts in spending. Everyone shared equally in the pain- every line item was cut by 5% for two years in a row. Then they lowered the corporate tax rate to 15%. The Canadian dollar soared. Business if not booming is creating jobs twice as fast as the US. Why can't CT and the USA do the same? Do the unions have that much more power here? ...they were talking about various ideas that the state employees have for saving money in operating the state. So he and the unions are co-leading the state? Seriously, does anyone think the unions have any money saving ideas? I suppose I'm in the third group.I lost my job 2 years ago and hadn't had a raise in 3 of the previous 4 years before that.Not to mention making less than the previous year 5 times in the last decade. State workers have to realize that there are 100 people,in every category,willing AND able to step into your jobs for $5/hr less. And the state can keep the pension. From my earlier comment just an add on. All State employees must take furlough days thru-out the year. That needed to also be said my mistake for not quoting that I know hazardous duty employees contribute to their pension what I was talking about was why doesn't all the state employees contribute to this so called health retirement fund .It appears to me that having the 5 year and under contribute was just smoke and mirrors. The ones with the years in are the ones making the money not the newbees. I do not mind paying this at all just put it across the board .I worked the private sector for years and my job to this day is not cush.There are some people within the state that have not had a job in the private sector and they do not realize what it is about benefits.Lets not forget about the weight on the system with all the social programs hand outs .The monies that is thrown out the windows because people think they they can just live off the state and there is generations,grandma, mother , grandchildren and great grandchildren,kids having kids living off all of us.Sucking off the state.This mess we are in will not be solved on the backs of the State of Connecticut Employee. As an employee within the state university system, I can assure you all that I get no bonuses, haven't had a raise since 2008, do not have a pension/fat retirement account/backlog of days off, or any of the other things all of you seem to think I have. What I do have is a lower paycheck than I would have at a private college, grossly increased class sizes to make up for professors that were not replaced after retirement, and the pressure to provide a quality education to students who have paid for it with fewer resources and more students. Lay off a bit. Everyone is sacrificing, and I'm tired of the constant "state employees have to give it up" mantra. Educate yourselves before you lump everyone together. The State Trooper making 110K for writing grant proposals (Not even in law enforcement) hitting the back of a truck on route 84 last week, while on duty with empty beer cans and a mixed drink on the console, tells you how out of control the system is. We need 30% across the board layoffs of state employees and renegotiate the contract and do away with the pension plan. And they pay 50% of the premiumfor medical benefits. State employees, vote "NO" on further concessions. I agree with those who say the State and its employees should simply agree to roll-back their workweek to 35 hours - with a concomitant cut in pay - and be done with it. State employees USED to work 35-hr. workweeks, and got *paid* for only 35 hours (most of them are hourly employees, not salaried) - until former governor John Rowland INSISTED that they go up to 40 hours per week - and thus get paid for 40 hours per week. At the time the unions refused, knowing fully well that it simply was not sound fiscal judgement on the part of John Rowland. Nevertheless, Rowland persisted and the unions eventually acquiesced. Now that the State's in a dire financial situation, it would seem to make sense to save huge sums of money by both sides simply rolling back employees' workweeks to 35 hours and cut their pay accordingly. What happened in cario needs to happen here it would be a big wake up for goverment in sick of being on the botton of everything. everytime the poor move up alittle they find a way to knock them back down lower then before it needs to end Malloy is going to "SAVE" $1 billion per year from State Employees.. that does not say cumulative or additive, so I take it to mean that he will get the $1 billion ONCE, and then tell everyone that he is "saving" that amount each year. Phooey ! You save a cost cut in the first year, but then you need to find MORE SAVINGS in the second, third, fourth years. What the article does not say is HOW MANY STATE EMPLOYEES ARE GOING TO BE TERMINATED ???? We don't need 50,000+ State Employees who have had something taken away (permanently or temporarily ?) to make up $1 billion in funny-money. We DO need to REDUCE the number of State Employees SIGNIFICANTLY - Let's say, drop 20,000 State Employees PERMANENTLY, and tell the rest that they have to take up the slack or we will find someone who can or will do so. 20,000 less State Employees, at let's say a savings of $80,000 each (including benefits and pensions), amounts to a savings of $1.6 BILLION.... Does that sound like we are heading in the right direction to balance the budget ???? Umm...yah. I'm not even gonna attempt to clarify some of the ignorant comments being made because I'm sure the Courant has a character limit on their comment form. However, I will add my two cents in about one item: All employees with less then 5 years in and all new hires after July 2010 were socked with the 3% retiree health fund fee. And yes, that is 3% on a state employee's gross paycheck, so at the very minimum, an employee who just putting his/her full work week in would have an average of $120 per pay check taken out. The more hours an employee works, the higher the amount given for future retirees. However, everyone knows that layoffs across the board, from management to rank and file are gonna come in about a year (or less) because that's the only way that the state is gonna get any substantial savings from its workforce. Hey, Marlene - With all due respect, if your situation is all that bad, and you can do better at a "private college", why don't you go get a position at one of those private colleges instead of being miserable in your current position ? Ahh, Connecticut, a state full of left wing, big government hacks that want to do nothing more than tax and spend in order to support their voting base in the welfare districts of the big cities while the rest of us suffer under the weight! I am so sick of these scum politicians in Hartford who, like our masters in Washington, continue to build the nanny state and support the recipient class while the provider class are continually told that we don’t do enough or need to do more because it is our “shared responsibility.” Excuse me?? Who gave you permission to decide what constitutes an acceptable amount of MY livelihood you can confiscate from me and my children and give it to your public union buddies—who by the way you know will NEVER really sacrifice anything under Malloy’s budget regardless of what is in his proposal now or what he says. They are also liberal powerbases and will never have to sacrifice the way most residents do. Why is it in a state with 2 successful casinos and some of the highest costs of living and doing business in the country STILL can’t balance its fiscal house? Why, because it is a blue state run by blue politicians on both sides of the aisle aiming for favor by people who contribute the least but can deliver the most political power. Why is it that virtually all states in the country that are blue are in the same position? The answer is simple! Residents of Lib-tardia unite! Your utopia is here—just steal it from your neighbor’s back pocket. What a joke! Why not just rewrite welfare and put a time table on it Do the numbers. $2 billion divided by 50,000 state employees. That's $40,000 per state employee. Let's see him make this demand on any other group of people! Connecticut wants to attract business. It then makes it impossible for a business in Connecticut to turn a profit which causes said business to leave. You make sense of it. "Malloy to seek $2 Bil from State Employees" Typical political types, stupid general public, and big business in control of our government. Banks, Wall Street lenders and the rich put our country into economic free-fall, taxpayers bail them out, business and rich get continued tax breaks and a windfall profits year(!), middle class still pays for it. Now politicos and big business and banks convince the sheep-like general public that the state employees have to pay for all their bad judgment. And the stupid general public buy it! Today the general public not the state employees. YOU should earn livable wages with some health care and a retirement in dignity too. It's big business, the rich, and politics that have brought us here, not Unions, not state employees. Get an education! Start to think critically! (Oh wait, you just cut state spending for that.) Marlene- post your real first name and last name so we can check ctsunlight.org to see how much you make. all of you people in the private sector that talk about the state employees really need to get a clue. I'm a state employee. I haven't had a raise in 3 years. I've taken furlough days. No cost of living adjustments. Now you want me to pay more for benefits, take more furlough days, pay higher taxes, take a pay reduction and take the burden of your ignorance on my back. get a clue. i've probably sacrificed sooo much more than you already have. like i said. get a clue. It took a while but BG finally came up a brain-numbing, name-calling Tea Party post. It was entertaining to read most of the preceding posts as they were intelligently written. The joke is your post, BG. BTW where were you when Rowland and Rell were inflating the management levels and increasing payroll (thank you SteveHC) during the past 20 years? I want to see where the state is cutting spending? All I read about are tax increases. The entire state gets to pay more in taxes to pay for state workers almost free health insurance and huge pensions. This is what happens when you have a one party ruled state. If a Republican tried to impose taxes on clothing under $50 there would be outcries that he is going after the poor. Does anyone really think that the Malloy administration will touch any of the outsized wages or benefits that the state employees get year in and year out? Malloy's closest allies are State Senators Don Williams and Jefferson Davis, both total loyalists of the state employees' unions. It will never happen. A rookie teacher at a community college waltzes in and gets about $80,000 per year, with summers off and pays virtually nothing for health insurance. A rookie teacher at a private college could only dream of such largesse. Malloy is going to turn Connecticut into an even more antibusiness state than it already is. He can get elected by ignoring the rest of the state and building a small victory from New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford. These are cities where huge numbers of people are public employees. So why should Malloy care about the rest of us? Again, if state employees are grossly overpaid, then why haven't the general public been clamoring for state employee positions? Why does the vitriole exist only when the private sector salaries and bonuses, which are significantly higher than public sector equivalent positions, are affected due to a poor economy? For those of you who are in a private sector job that does not pay well, has no benefits, etc. then do better for yourself. It's the state employees' fault that you're an underachiever? Fascinating that the economic mess we're in was created by Wall Street, the Federal government bailed them out with our tax dollars, and these same firms that were bailed out were doling out multi-million dollar bonuses within months which, essentially, came from our tax dollars, and the target of all of this ignorant venom is the state employee? Bravo, folks. to "current state employee"; well, yeah, working as a union employee in the private sector, I have gone through what you see coming for the past 7 years. Last years W2 was $22k less than in 2003, due to loss of overtime. At present about 1/3 my shop is on furlough, 3 folks are getting suspended WITHOUT PAY for reasons beyond their control. Our bonus (401 match/profit sharing) was ZERO.Benefits increased by $20/week for 2011. I live modestly, yet exhausted my savings. 401 is next to get hit...while working full time. State employees used to sacrifice pay for benefits and job security. Seems they make more than the private sector now, yet still have better protection than those in the private sector. Oh yeah, our CEO did make 56 MIllION DOLLARS, the year I started, in 2003...but remember, we, the little guy, must pay the man. Try to remember that, without the hypocrites at the top, we have no leadership....umm.. I think there are too many middle managers working for the judicial branch. Wow. 2 billion over two years? That's a billion a year, right? I think there are about 50,000 state employees, so that averages $20,000 per employee, per year. I know a lot of people hate state employees, but I bet 20 large is about half of the annual salary of a lot of "normal" state workers, not the cronies & commissioners. How is a person supposed to take a 50% paycut and stay on the job? They would be better off if the state just fired them, and let they look for work elsewhere. I know I'd rather be fired from my job & go elsewhere instead of a 50% pay cut. That's harsh. If CT had elected Foley,maybe once in our blue moon,state employees would get they're layoff notice.But because BO stopped in the week before the election,and the state democratic chair lives in Bridgeport,state jobs were saved.What say you?? You're crazy!You stupid right winger. Ah but let's not forget the deal Governor Rell signed with the unions almost two years ago that had no layoffs for two years.The music on that deal is going to stop this summer. So,the unions needed a democrat(don't they always)to get in as governor to prevent any layoffs.Those democrats aren't as dumb as they look! When you cut through the Malloy BS, you are left with a budget that INCREASES spending in each of the next 2 years. Malloy is a coward and his "shared burden" is more money for the state, and less for you. How do you like that share? Oh well, it's not like you didn't know that voting for someone with a (D) after their name results in a guaranteed drop in living standards for the productive class and more government slaves aka welfare. Enjoy. You know what's great? Today, while at work at a State agency, I had the pleasure of speaking to a member of the public who was upset that it would take up to ten business days to process her mail and send her the document she needed. She told me that since she waited 45 minutes to speak to me and now realized our processing timeframe, she had a pointer for our Department: we need to hire more people. That gave me a good laugh. Think it's bad now? Just wait for all those budget cuts and soon you'll really be able to have all those State-run services at your disposal in a timely fashion :) (END SARCASM) When everything was all hunky-dorey in the private sector in the 80's where were all of you screaming for givebacks/concessions/layoffs/etc from State employees? Oh that's right, you were downgrading State positions. We were making less than you. You didn't want to work there. You were too good for thaaaaaat job. Now that the private sector has went to heck, now our State jobs are looking pretty cushy aren't they? And you don't like that... Funny how things come full circle don't they? And about that woman I was talking about earlier? Yeah, she would have been fine ten years ago. We had a walk-in service back then with double the staff, so her issue would have been taken care of in an hour- or less- but that was before you all decided the State (and the services that come with it) cost too much and we had half our office laid off... I hope she finds a ride to work because it's gonna be a while before she's authorized to drive there :) Be careful what you wish for. Hey, let's all race to the bottom and see who gets there first! This is what Malloy calls "shared sacrifice"? A $3.5 billion dollar budget deficit and he wants $2 billion from State Employees alone? Before state employees sacrifice AGAIN, lets take a look at his proposed increase in the income tax. Malloy proposes raising the top income tax rate by a pathetic .25% on high income earners. That would bring the top tax rate to 6.25%. New York's top rate is 8.25%! Connecticut's top rate would only bring us up to the lowest top rate in the entire Northeast. If Malloy wants shared sacrifice, start with raising the top tax rate to 8% for top earners, eliminate the 26 worthless "commissions" and cut the healthy benefits package the legislature gets. Don't start asking state employees to sacrifice until those who did not sacrifice in 2009 start paying their share! I saw a recent article that govt employees salaries had caught up with the private sector employees of recent. Might have only been referring to federal employees. Regardless, the pensions state employees get, which these employees seem to not provide or concede a present value for, are often worth the equivalent of a 2 to 3 million dollar retirement fund in the private sector. This is based up the present value of a pension paying out a certain amount of income over a certain amount of years(lets say actuarial life expectancy). Everyone will feel the pain, and everyone should feel some pain. State employees still believing they are underpaid and thus shouldn't have to participate in the pain need a reality check. Maybe they'll finally get it when all the people paying their salaries via all these taxes finally decide it's too expensive to live in this state for what they are getting out of it and move elsewhere. My two cents. Until Mr. and Mrs. Public and Private sector and compare a simple spread sheet of salaries, benefits, consessions for about the last five years, all we will have here is a comparison of apples to oranges and rage begetting more rage. I, like almost every other citizen of CT, has become sensitized to any comment about pay, benefits, or taxes. With Malloy's proposals, it only makes the situation more raw. What this state needs, and is sorely lacking in, is innovation. We need new industries to take the place of those who have left. We need tax and business policies that don't make it impossible to actually do business in CT. We need a reason to be proud to live in this state. I don't think anyone reading this article is a big time six-figure income earner. I don't think some of them are even aware of our existence. What is the vision of CT?!!! Who are we? What do we stand for? What do we really want? All of you people bashing state employees make me sick. Any time the state needs money the first thing everyone thinks of is lay-offs for state employees, cut state employees pay and benefits. So laying off thousands of state employees is your answer? Do you think that they don't have families as well? Or is it okay to screw with their families because you think they have it so much better? Or do you not realize that by laying them off they will be eligible for unemployment, food stamps, welfare and many other state services? Are all of you non-state employees willing to give up part of your paycheck and hand it over to the state (aside from the taxes that ALL workers in CT pay) just to help out? NO? I didn't think so. I don't hear you offering any other solutions besides screwing over people that work for the state. The top managers certainly do make more than their fair share, however, the people that are non in management positions and are at the bottom of the "food chain" are not really all that well off. Insurance has gone up, co-pays have gone up, no pay raises, furlough days, paying to the retiree health benefit plan, etc. If you don't like the fact that state employees have decent jobs, and are that jealous then by all means, take the tests, apply for several jobs before you even get called for an interview, pass the background checks, wait a few years and you should be able to have your state job. Then you can be bad-mouthed simply because of where you work. How about the governor taking a pay cut? Legislators? Some of you don't realize that there are people that work at grocery stores that have better retirement plans than some state employees. Please people, get a clue and stop complaining that all of the problems are due to state employees. It is relatively easy and convenient to bludgeon the state workers, when far greater money could be saved by reducing legislative salaries alone (remember they were once part time positions) and their excessive personnel (entourage), along with the useless politically appointed staffers and numerous commissioners. Where is the love of reduction and cost savings when dealing with these beneficiaries? We are, after all a small state spending like a large one. The real issue is the economy (stupid), the countless jobs lost and the state revenues they would represent. The U.S. economy was recently hijacked and robbed by financial terrorists, leaving millions of victims with no suspects or anyone held accountable? Isn’t that odd? Only in America can the special interests successfully pull off a huge and historic heist with such impunity and preferential immunity. It redefines what organized crime looks like. Our deficit was caused by the same people we bailed out and remain on Wall Street, instead of jail, while we are left to repair the damage and cover the costs. Saying state employee's haven't had a raise in 3 years or so is a crazy misrepresentation of facts. We have had cost of living adjustments, and I can assure you our W-2's are higher today than 3 years ago. And since I am working in an area with no overtime it is pure increase. Just because I haven't had an increase in the overall structure of my union payscale doesn't mean I am not making more money. THAT SAID.... it also doesn't mean that we should be getting our pay cut. Saving a billion divided by 50,000 workers in a year is 20k each, if it is over 2 years its is 10k each. Average worker making about 50k per year means a 20% decrease in pay, at the same time the Gov is adding/increasing taxes. The Feds are doing the same. We haven't had union increases in wages, we have had COLA's, we don't deserve pay cuts. And most of us do work shortened weeks already, so cutting back to 35 hours won't affect enough workers to have any real savings. Why is Malloy proposing to give away $108million in a state earned income credit?? There are not any policing or monitoring efforts done for the credit. They rely on what is reported on a tax return. Numerous filers prepare tax returns with fabricated income that is low enough to bypass a taxable income and they receive a refundable credit (free money) called earned income credit. That person may have never even worked and they no paper trail to be tracked down. They take the money and run. Instead of implementing the EIC, we can skip a tax increase somewhere else.

To report your results, just add your report as a comment here. The IJ sports staff will read through all the reports Monday afternoon and write a youth sports highlights story to appear in the print version of the IJ on Wednesday, June 6. To report your results, just add your report as a comment here. The IJ sports staff will read through all the reports Monday afternoon and write a youth sports highlights story to appear in the print version of the IJ on Wednesday, June 6. The Mt. Tam Pirates 16-u travel team opened its 2007 summer season with a fourth place finish in the highly-competitive 77-team Memorial Day tournament held in Santa Clara. Patrick Conroy led the Pirates offense with a grand slam and a two-run homer and Stephen Siegel added a three-run homer. Taylor Beggs pitched a complete game 6-0 shutout and Jesse Staats and Conroy added impressive pitching performances. Jeff Mitchell led the Pirates with 5 hits and Travis Hansen, Colin Carmody, Casey Maguire and Robbie Maguire collected key RBI’s. MARIN YOUTH BASKETBALL Results for the Memorial Day Weekend of May 26 to 28Reno, Nevada Strictly Hoops 7th Grade Girls AAU basketball team finished in third place at the AAU Memorial Day Weekend tournament in Reno. They opened Saturday morning with a tough 59 to 54 loss to the eventual champion Bullys of Reno. Many at courtside remarked that the game felt like the championship game, given the intensity on both sides. Hoops led 44 to 39 midway through the second half and were knotted at 48 with fewer than 3 minutes to play. But the Bullys surged ahead and held on to win. Emily Easom had 10 points, Kristina Meyers added 9 points and Madison Tye chipped in with 7 points. Hoops bounced back with a 52 to 26 win over Bay Area Elite. They jumped out to an 11 to 0 lead and cruised to victory. Anne Studdert led the way with 13 points. Hoops next victim was Marin Freedom, whom they defeated 66 to 33. Emily Easom poured in 18 points, including 3 three-pointers and Anne Studdert scored 13 points. Hannah Caine added 12 points, including 2 three-pointers and Kristina Meyers tallied 10 points. Kate Bayes grabbed 8 rebounds. In the semifinals Hoops dropped a heartbreaker to the Manteca Nuggets 48 to 47. Leading 42 to 30 with under 6 minutes to play, Hoops could not hold on for the win. They still led 47 to 44 with less than 2 minutes to play, but two baskets, including one with 20 seconds to play, did them in. A last second 15 footer did not fall and Hoops championship dreams were dashed. Hannah Caine led Hoops with 14 points, Emily Easom added 11 points and Leann Alferness scored 10 points. But Hoops were very resilient and they rebounded with a 46 to 27 victory over the Bay Area Elite, to capture third place. They started out very slowly and trailed 10 to 2 midway through the first half. After closing the deficit to 3 at halftime, Hoops outscored their opponent 34 to 12 in the second half to run away with the victory. Hannah Caine continued her torrid shooting, scoring 14 of her game-high 16 points in the second half. Anne Studdert had 7 points, Sarah Lucia added 6 points and Anya Daniels pulled down 10 rebounds. Spring Season Summary Hoops finished their spring season with a record of 19 and 6, with one loss by 1 point, one loss by 2 points, two losses by 3 points and one loss by 5 points. Their overall 2007 record is 21 wins and 7 losses. All 10 players averaged between 3 and 8 points for the season, as Hoops demonstrated the best in team play and selflessness. Novato Babe Ruth REDS 12 Diamondbacks 7 The REDS got a solid pitching performance from starter Reis MacCarthy, and a three hit, four RBI game from Max Menzel to lead the REDS to a 12-7 win over the Diamondbacks. Nick Borjian and Matt Enjaian chipped in with two hits each to help the offense in a key game for the REDS. Ray Hengst draped himself over the Centerfield fence to take a home run away from Daimone Parker to stop a Diamondback rally. Max Saunders got the save, finishing with a flourish with three strikeouts. Connor Leoncini, Andrew Young, and Connor Baird led the D-Backs offense. The San Rafael Accelerators played a fantastic game to beat the San Rafael Smackers for the Majors 2007 Softball Championship. The Accelerators were lead by Sami Mericle’s shutout pitching. Marin Girls Softball League held its annual Fast Pitch all-star series, with teams from Mill Valley, Novato, Ross Valley, San Anselmo, San Francisco, San Rafael, Santa Rosa (Mark West) Sonoma, Tiburon, and Twin Cities participating in 8th grade and under, 6th grade and under and 4th grade and under divisions. Mill Valley emerged as the victor in the 8th grade and under (seniors) division, with Novato claiming 2nd place after a well-battled 9-7 championship game. The two teams were evenly matched and fought each other play for play until the final out in the bottom of the 7th inning when Novato had two runners on with two outs, and one of their most productive batters at the plate threatening the lead. Leading hitters for Mill Valley were Seren Mohn who went 3 for 4 at the plate, scoring 2 runs and driving in 3 RBIs, and Stephanie Lee who also went 3 for 4 at the plate, scored once, and drove in 2 RBIs. Overall, MV had 12 hits in 34 at-bats. Mill Valleys three pitchers, Kim Scarsella, Olivia Trombadore, and closer Olivia Newman, combined for ten strikeouts and allowed only 3 bases on balls. MV showed consistent defensive play from center fielder Cori Lanigan, short stop Nina Lane, and second basewoman Emily Banks. For Novato, with 9 hits in 38 at bats in the final game, Alyssa Fielding, Christina Redmond, and Gianna Bruschera led the offense, while pitcher Danielle Albini held Mill Valley off until the end. Olivia Wilson and Annie Howlett also pitched for Novato throughout a very successful tournament for the team. The San Rafael 6th grade and under team ran past the Novato squad 17 to 4 in the Championship Game of the Marin Girls Softball Fast Pitch all-star series. San Rafael pitcher Lacy Van Blaricom allowed one earned run on five hits and one walk while pitching a 7-inning complete game. San Rafael had 9 hits in the game to Novatos 5. San Rafael pressured the Novato defense by collecting 26 stolen bases in the game. While the score remained relatively close during the first 3 innings, San Rafael began to pull away in the 4th when they scored 4 runs. Novato came back to score 2 more in the 6th inning to pull within six runs. But SR put the game away in the top of the 7th, scoring seven runs with 12 stolen bases. McCauley Pricket, Jennifer Nguyen, Lindsey Besson and Mikayla Jones were all productive at the plate for San Rafael. The Blue Angels 14 and under girls fast pitch softball team opened their summer with a blast by placing 2nd out of 16 teams in the Clovis Memorial Day Blast Off Tournament. They went 7-2-1 over the three days. In the semi-finals, they scored 6 runs in a tie-breaker inning to beat the Yucaipa Dynasty, but lost to the Temecula Strike Force 5-1 in the finals. Kaela Trutner was the most productive pitcher, while Annie Boyer, Lindsey Matteo, and Megan Atkinson led the offense. The team has qualified to play in the Triple Crown World Series in Park City, Utah in July. The Dixie Terra Linda Little League Yankees reached the semi-finals of the championship. Junior League (13-14) Baseball 5/29/07 Novato Bandits 12 San Rafael Stingers 0 The Bandits clinched first place in the North Marin Junior League behind Novato Bandits 12 San Rafael – Ott 1 The Nov. Novato North Little League Mets 2 Marlins 1 June 3rd 2007 The Mets faced the Marlins for the second time in the play-offs and won a nail biter. Joey Olsen pitched near perfect for 4-1/3rd innings. Gavin Hession came in and shut the door on the Marlins getting 3 straight strikeouts with 2 Marlins on base in the sixth inning. The Mets offense was led by Nick DeVere and Josh Mundy with two hits each. Other hits for the Mets were by Luis Morales, Chris Moreno and Olsen. Alex Poksay led the defense with solid catching behind the plate and Cam Sheron had two excellent plays at 2nd base. The Marlins Ryan Browne Pitched 4-2/3rd and Anthony Anello relieved, doing and outstanding job of keeping their team in striking distance the whole game The pitchers were helped by great plays by Ryan Burke at short and Rick McClosky at 3rd. Novato North Little League Play-offs Mets 7 Marlins 0 May 30, 2007 Joey Olsen pitched 5 innings of nearly perfect baseball giving up just one hit and no walks. Chris Moreno came in for the 6th and set the Marlins down in order for the save. The Mets offense was led by a Grand slam by Josh Mundy and hits by Olsen, Moreno, Gavin Hession, Alex Poksay and Kristen Seyler. The Mets defense was helped by great plays by Cam Sheron at 2nd and Nick Devere in Right field. The Marlins Ryan Burke had the Marlins only hit. San Anselmo Baseball Association Minors Playoffs Pool Play Pool play concluded Sunday, June 3. Four teams advanced. 76 Redhill will play Rotary in one semifinal on Tuesday June 5, and M&G Drive-In will play Round Table Pizza in the other semi on Wednesday, June 6. The winners of those two games will meet in the championship Sunday, June 10 at 10:00a.m., Memorial Field, San Anselmo. Please visit for more details. Chapel of the Hills d. Jacks Drugs 4-0 (Wed 5-30) Chapel got all they needed in the bottom of the first when Keaton Wintermute drove in Sam Baum and Jesse Jones to put his team ahead 2-0. J.T. Balano, Jesse Jones and Jake Jones combined for the shutout. Jesse had two hits, drove in a pair and initiated a double play from shortstop. M&G Drive-In d. T&B Sports 6-5 (Wed 5-30) Down 5-2 in the bottom of the sixth, M&G, paced by triples from Jeremy Leary and Ian Slaughter, rallied for four runs and walked off 6-5 winners. Brendan White helped T&B build their lead by tripling in both the third and fifth innings, driving in three runs. Each time he tripled, Will Martel singled him home. White also pitched for T&B, and allowed just one run in three innings. Leary and Charlie Duysen each pitched three strong innings for M&G. M&G Drive-In d. 76 Redhill 6-4 (Sun 6-3) M&G jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first on singles by Jeremy Leary, Charlie Duysen, Max Morris, Ian Slaughter, Jonas Kulberg-Savercool and Lucas Mancini. Leary started at pitcher, went a league-max three innings and did not allow a run. M&G added another run in the third when Aiden Rice scored on Slaughters fielders choice, and posted their final run in the fifth when Leary singled, moved over on Rices walk and scored on Duysens single. 76 got on the board in the fourth when Cooper Sullivan doubled and scored on Jake Andronicos single. They scored again in the sixth, Harrison Jantzes two-out single narrowing the gap to 6-4, but M&G closer Duysen struck out the final batter to end the game. Round Table Pizza d. T&B Sports 10-7 (Sun 6-3) Randall Thornton, Isaac Vernon and Joe McInerney helped Round Table roar out to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first. T&B evened the scored in the bottom of the inning (Brendan White and Jonny Herrera the key blows), but Round Table added four more in the top of the second to go up 9-5. Nolan Cassidy struck a ball to the right side that caromed off the first base bag for a single, Trevin Kelly doubled and Ziggy Reskevicius singled in that inning. Tor Churton hit a shot to center in the sixth to spark a two-run T&B rally, but too little too late, and Round Table held on for the 10-7 win. San Anselmo Baseball Association Majors Playoff Pool Play Pool play concluded Sunday, June 3. Four teams advanced. Silver Screen Video will play Knights of Columbus Tuesday June 5 in one semifinal, and American Legion will play San Anselmo Police in the other on Wednesday June 6. The winners of those two games will play for the championship on Sunday, June 10 at 12:30p.m., Memorial Park, San Anselmo. Please visit for more details. Knights of Columbus d. Ross Valley Firefighters 11-6 (Tue 5-29) Sydney Kaye singled in the top of the first to drive in two runs for Knights, and they never looked back. They added another run in the second when David Ross tripled home Jeremy Snowden. Ross came just a homer short of the cycle, and pitched the first three innings for his club, allowing only one run. Knights really blew it open in the third inning, when Philip Baumsteiger, Richard Swigart, Gage Mazet, Ross and Peter Krebs all singled. Thomas Gazzoli finished the scoring for them with a three-run home run. Fire scored one in the bottom of the third to make it 11-1, four in the fourth and one in the fifth. Knights closer Kenny Thompson worked out of bases-loaded jams in both the fourth and fifth innings. Thompson also made two nice catches in center field earlier in the game. San Anselmo Police d. Greenwood Electric 8-3 (Wed 5-30) Jackson Waldron doubled home Conor Briese and Colton Hanley in the bottom of the first for Police. Sean Trainor followed suit for the team in the second, Max Hassen scoring on Trainors double, and Police were ahead 3-0. Tripp Selvig doubled for Greenwood in the top of the third, and scored on Jack Feiners single to make it 3-1 Police. Conor Briese singled and Patrick Dillon scored for Police in the bottom of the inning. In the top of the fourth, Marcus Anderson singled, stole second and third and then tried to zip home on a passed ball, but Police catcher Dillon recovered in time to tag Anderson for the out. Greenwood did load the bases and score a run, so they now trailed 4-2. Police pulled away in the bottom of the fifth when Sean Trainor scored on Jon Orgels shot to the right-center gap, Nate Davison drove in two with a single and Spencer Galli sacrificed a run home. In the top of the sixth, Anderson walked, and this time was able to steal his way around the bases and home successfully, but then Police pitcher Max Hassen struck out the final three batters to end the game. American Legion d. Silver Screen Video 4-3 (Fri 6-1) Dante Gambardella, Jamie Axsom and Sam Korol all scored in the bottom of the first and Legion was out to a 3-1 lead. The score remained 3-1 until the top of the sixth, when Silver Screen scored twice to tie it 3-3. Royce Wintermute made a critical catch in right field to hold Silver Screen to just two runs. Then, in the bottom of the sixth, with two out, Matt Potter raked one to right to drive in the winning run for Legion. Aaron Fennell and Danya Smith pitched excellently in the middle innings for Legion, holding Silver Screen scoreless over that four inning stretch. Knights of Columbus d. San Anselmo Police 7-3 (Sunday 6-3) Knights scored in four of the first five innings, patiently building a 7-0 lead. In the first, leadoff hitter David Ross singled and scored on Peter Krebss double (Ross was Knights starting pitcher and did not allow a run in his league-max three innings). Thomas Gazzoli then drove Krebs home and it was 2-0 Knights. Ross doubled in the second, driving in Jeremy Snowden and it was 3-0. Gazzoli and Kenny Thompson drove in runs in the third to make it 5-0. Krebs put the cherry on top with a home run to left in the fifth, and Sydney Kaye drove in an additional run after that: 7-0 Knights. In the bottom of the fifth, Jackson Waldron cleared the bases with a three-run triple for Police (Jon Orgel, Patrick Dillon and Colton Hanley scored on the play), and suddenly it was 7-3, but Knights closer Richard Swigart steeled himself and did not allow another run the rest of the way. Silver Screen Video d. Ross Valley Firefighters 10-4 (Sun 6-3) In the top of the second inning, Silver Screen was already up 1-0, and had the bases loaded with no one out. The batter ripped a low liner right back through the box, and Fire pitcher Alex Machado snared it. He then ran to first to double that runner off, and immediately whipped a throw to third in time to beat the runner who was madly trying to scramble back for a triple play. Nate Balano scored on Brad Rosens double in the bottom of the inning to even it up, 1-1, but then in the top of the third, Silver Screens Kiernan Kelly lofted a sacrifice fly that scored both Guy Heyworth and Josh Zwick, so it was 3-1 Silver Screen. They added to their lead in fourth, when with the bases loaded Joe Ryan worked an RBI walk, and Nick Williams clobbered a double to left. Fire left fielder Austin Wright never gave up on the play though, and quickly got the ball to shortstop Sam Reinertsen who turned and fired a seed to Machado at the plate in time to nab the runner trying to score from second. That ended the inning, but Silver Screen now led 5-1. Fire picked up a pair in the bottom of the inning when Tyler Weeks singled, got to third on Reinertsens blooper to left, and then flew home on a delayed steal. Riley Horan knocked in Reinertsen to make it 5-3. Silver Screen put it away for good in the top of the fifth. Kelly doubled in Heyworth and Zwick, and Nate Harms tripled home Kelly and Eric Colindres. 9-3 Silver Screen. Each team added a run in the sixth. Zwick drove in Joe Ryan, who had mashed a ground-rule double to center for Silver Screen, and Reinertsen doubled home a run for Fire. Final score: 10-4 Silver Screen. The Silicon Valley Kids Triathlon, one of the premier youth triathlons in the U.S, took place this past Sunday, June 3, 2007 at De Anza College in Cupertino, California. Over 750 kids ranging from 5-15 years competed. Two local Marin youths placed in the top five of their age group. Ian DeLellis (13yrs.) from Novato took 4th place in the boys 13-15 yrs. and Quinn Woodhead (6 yrs.) from San Rafael took 2nd place in the boys 6-under age group. Marin Rebels Girls softball12u The newly formed Marin rebels softball Club placed second in the “A Class Act” softball tourney June 2-3rd. The Rebels were led by the pitching of Olivia Newman, Alyssa Ross and Rose Friedman. Jenna Szabo, Nina Lane, Kendall Jack and Billie Mandlebaum all played well on defense. The offense was led by Brianna Perez, Coco Kennedy, and Liza Brusman. The Rebels have qualified to play in the Nor-Cal Championships. The Rebels finished the tourney 4-2 including a 4-1 victory over the Nor-Cal Elite

Miami Dolphins to host three draft parties The Miami Dolphins will host three simultaneous draft day parties on Thursday, April 26 at 7 p.m. The tri-county events will take place at Sun Life Stadium, which is on the Dade and Broward country lines, Duffy’s in North Palm Beach, and Bokamper’s Sports Bar & Grill in Naples. Admission and parking are free. Fans can eat food, watch the draft, get autographs from cheerleaders and alumni and buy season tickets at each venue. On Saturday, April 28, which happens to be the second day of the draft’s three day weekend, the Dolphins will hold the first ever Fin Fest at Sun Life Stadium from 1-5 p.m. Admission and parking is free, and doors open at noon for season-ticket holders and 1 p.m. for general public. At Fin Fest fans will have the opportunity to meet current players and alumni, vote for the 2012 cheerleaders during the final auditions, tour the locker rooms, run around on the field, and purchase authentic equipment from the Dolphins Equipment Room, which will be selling the old Reebok uniforms, helmets and other sideline apparel. All proceeds will benefit the Miami Dolphins Foundation. One thing about the amount of posts on the PBP yesterday. If it’s only 20-30 people posting multiple times to get to 800 then all it shows is that the SS will lost 20-30 customers. Those are not big numbers. Just saying. Hey welcome back to the page turn, Tim. LOL D-Bolt, I would expect a Jim Mandich patch. Otherwise, I heard we are staying more traditional, nothing wacky. Realist and TN, Got you guys, I’ve been catolouging my contact list all week, and I’m not bi tching, just saying, it’s a pleasurable pain, lol. My grades are due tomorrow but sometime today I will send out an all call list as to who I have and who needs to contact me. Some have sent multiple email addresses in so that presents a problem too. LOL @ D-Bolt. Besides his problems with Corn he basically posted some tweets about that paywall is coming everywhere and our protest was pointless and then some self serving posts about how what he does is hard to do and it costs money to do it and that you can’t get the same type of info for free. Alright…..that makes me look forward to Walkers blog even more. I don’t want to hear how hard his job is when most people on here work for a living. Tim, Whose side are you on here? lol Gigi… Not certain if you are still around. But I still wish to speak about Tanny at #8… I agree with you that Not trading up for Tannehill is a risk IF he is your targeted 1st round player. But I do believe Miami must run that risk, and I think they’re chances are much better then those being spun buy the Draftniks and those who operate just to move teams to make dumb choices… Obviously #1 & #2 are nailed down. Luck/R2D2… I believe Minnesota would rather take a bullet to the groin them miss they’re franchise left tackle in USC’s Matt Kalil… if they go a different way… It will NOT be a QB IMO… Ponder was just drafted at #12… The fans would revolt. That brings up Cleveland. Taking Tanny would not be dumb. Yet Cleveland is in a spot where they can draft Trent Richardson, Clairborne, Blackmon, Floyd, Coples or Ingram onto their team… They Dalton who showed promise. Richardson to some is only a step behind A. Peterson. Blackmon is one of those WR that shines even when you try to make him stink. My gut tells me Cleveland goes for play-maker’s who will help THIS SEASON. Not ones who need developed. Tampa…. I say Clairborne all the way unless Cleveland passes on Richardson for Blackmon or Claiborn, Then TB jumps on Richardson in a NY Minute and sends LeGarrette Blount packing for a 3rd round pick or better. Rams… Ir Blackmon is there…. They are all over him… If not Floyd is there, and Clairborne across from Cortland Finnegan would be an awesome DB Lineup IMO. Jacksonville…. They just grabbed Henne, passed on Tebow, they do not appear to be QB shopping…. Floyd, Ingram, Coples all would be great picks… Then Miami comes up… If Tanny is gone… that means a guy like Clairborne, Richardson, Floyd, Coples, Ingram, Blackmon… or could you imagine Kalil popping up…?…. What I am saying is… Miami cannot loose here… If Tanny is there, I say they grab him… If not, then some OTHER highly rated player has fallen a pick lower for Miami… There is always a chance some team wants to anti up for the #4 pick…. But then you MUST assume that Cleveland is going to be okay with dropping out of the top ten blue chips and taking a groups of also rans…? Should they go that way… and a guy like Richardson, Clairborne, Blackmon or Floyd break out as stars and they get “Serviceable players”…. They will have a “Lot a splannin to do”…… No matter how I twist it…. Tanny is there at #8 unless someone loses their mind, and even then Miami wins by getting a better player from higher in the top ten picks. LOL @ Mike I’m just saying. It’s not about the amount of posts. Many readers/bloggers who don’t post here much have said they come to this blog to get information because of the dialogue. That’s the value. A lot of those who come here to scan the blog for info are not likely to pay $5 a month to do that as well. The hard core bloggers are more likely to pay and they rebelled. Stanger, I won’t be blogging at the PBP. The beer was New Castle. Walker April 3, 2012 at 9:19 am MikeE, Like I mentioned this morning, our site will allow the regular mobsters or whatever they are called to throw their own blogs out as guests. ———————————————————————- Walker… I did shoot you an E-mail yesterday, when we all were speaking on the other blog I never asked if you received it… My E-mail has been known to be “Selective” when it feels like it… Did you receive that E-mail…? If yes… will there be a response with info at any point..” If not…. should I re-send…? and to what address..? Thank you si for you attention in this matter…. you are the best man…. Ken, I’m just saying that the Mob isn’t big enough to hurt the SS unless many of you are engaging their advertisers. The scanners might actually pay for the info. because that’s what they’re looking for. If the blogs die of good information and ‘conversation’ they may eventually lose readership. But they’ll cross that bridge when they get there. JMO You modern day hippies with your sit out yesterday… why not go occupy the SS offices or Omar’s front lawn? Tim, Was Stanger on this blog? I must have missed it. I actually CAN’T go on the PBP at work, friggin domain is blocked. More ridiculousness. No he asked me that question on the PBP. If you guys want to blog here you need to become customers. Just get a subscription. Its that easy.” Tim/mob Lapsed mobster here. Customers? I know one mobster (Stanger?) said he clicked through on various ads to generate revenue for the $$, but in all honesty, take a straw poll amongst yourselves – how many of you are customers? No disrespect Tim, but I think there are a lot more “users” than customers. And from what Patrick pointed out on the previous page, clicks don’t qualify as “custom” anymore? The “value” the Fins mob brings to the $$ is a complex issue, but my suspicion is that it is minimal at best. If the $$ get paid based on unique new browsers, the financial loss to the Chicago “mob” won’t even be on the radar when the exodus hits. In this case, Omar will suffer most as he has no-one to interact with on his blogs, but he will keep churning them out and stay in work.” ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Freeloading customers?? The SS loses nothing. Why would you say no disrespect Tim? I’m basically saying the same thing as you. Maybe I should have said 20-30 potential customers. Tim, My point was the distinction between users and customers – as the internet becomes ever more complex, the distinction between the two blurs more, but I suspect the mob fall more in the category of users than customers. And I agree – we agreed on everything else. And you still remain one of the biggest voices of reason on this blog; You are NOT telling the truth in MY case.–I don’t EVER recall ripping Omar on this blog. Tim Knight April 3, 2012 at 9:49 am LOL @ Mike I’m just saying. It’s not about the amount of posts. Many readers/bloggers who don’t post here much have said they come to this blog to get information because of the dialogue. That’s the value. Reply Ken (The Mob Don’t Pay) April 3, 2012 at 9:56 am A lot of those who come here to scan the blog for info are not likely to pay $5 a month to do that as well. The hard core bloggers are more likely to pay and they rebelled. —————————————————————————– Good Morning Tim & Ken How is it shaken this AM…? Hope that all is well…. I have about two more hours to get my range cleaned up and I am outee for the entire weekend until next Tuesday from work… Yippeeeeeee! I went fishing on my buddies 52 Chris Craft last weekend… left Friday Night and did not dock until Sunday afternoon… Killed the fish… Cooking Mahi and Wahoo on Friday night….. we snorkeled some reefs off of Abaco Island and I got 6 really nice Queen Conch… nearly 1.5 lbs of meat man… Holiday will keep me at home with Family… Love that time, it is tough to come by some years… Just thought I would see how you guys were beyond all this “Blogging issues and new place to call home “Maybe”)….. Cannot wait for draft to have new issues to whine about… how about yuse guys…. That sounds awesome! Enjoy your time off. You deserve it, man. Tim: The number of hits and replies do add up to money for the SS. A blog with fewer hits and replies will not attract the advertising dollars and those dollars are likely to be more than the paywall dollars. The big question is will all those who read the blogs and don’t post pay for the access to the site. I do not know any statistics and or studies on that issue. I just know from my own personal experience I would not do that. I pay only for access to ESPN Insider. I don’t subscribe to any other sports websites and won’t. If some one wants free info on the Phins just go to Phins.com and Kurt Finnell who runs that site does a great job of pulling in all the relevant articles and stories about the Phins. Mike E. Mob Don’t Pay! April 3, 2012 at 10:05 am Tim, Was Stanger on this blog? I must have missed it. I actually CAN’T go on the PBP at work, friggin domain is blocked. More ridiculousness. ——————————————————— Mike E. Good to see you too bro….. I cracked up for like two hours about your “Click the button and it will “Pop Up” post last night…. Thanks for the smile on a rough day… Had rookie cop on the range yesterday… only one had military service and training and I had my vest on high and tight…. I don’t know what the deal is dude… when I was a kid, all my pals knew how to shoot and handle guns… I guess it was who I grew up around…? Some of these guys scare me man… I hope they survive training… (I hope I do to)!!!!! Any who… thanks again for the crack up…. TIM; Gotta disagree a bit with your 20-30 concept. The VAST MAJORITY of blog readers DO NOT POST!!–They just scan the info from story to story and glance at the adds, etc. A computer guy I know estimates that NO MORE than10-20 percent of readers actually post. If he’s right, the number of people reading rises to 200 or more. It’s CERTAINLY a heckuva lot more than 20! The Tribune people have concluded that LOSING 200+ viewers is OK if a tiny percentage of those folks pony-up $5 a month!! –Did these guys used to “work” for the Federal Government?? AGAIN, this is a classic example of STUPID GONE WILD!! Losing the vast majority of your readers will JEOPARDIZE THE JOB SECURITY OF THOSE ON THE STAFF OF THE SUN-SENTINEL!! This whole charade is just an excuse to LAY OFF MORE PEOPLE and CLOSE DOWN THOSE BLOGS NOT TURNING AN “ACCEPTABLE” PROFIT!! Meanwhile, the salaries and “perks” of the Tribune’s CEO and Board Members continue to go up and up!!–But, believe me, everything’s NOT on the up-and-up!! IF I was a Sun-Sentinel employee, I’d be very afraid for my job. Derek: Good to see you bro. I am sad that our time here at the SS blogs is winding down. PBP was fine yesterday but the site itself needs some upgrades. Looking forward to seeing Walker’s site. Otherwise things are well. Work has slowed for a little bit which is good. It will pick up in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to the draft. Will spend the night in NYC hanging out with Piggy and NJ, hopefully Tim and Mike E can make it as well. Gotta keep the mob together.. Those are not big numbers. Just saying. Arent “customers” people that buy? Yes, what’s your point? YES!-Customers who buy stuff displayed on the advertisements. –Most of those folks ARE NOT POSTERS!! Want a somewhat parallel situation? A handful of persons write Letters-to-the-editor to a given newspaper. But tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people READ the paper and buy from ads. TRue, people have to PAY for the paper (the Tampa Bay Times can be had for less than a dollar per week, including Sunday’s edition). Estimating the SS’s losses at 20-30 potential buyers simply is NOT accurate.–But, hey, if they WANT TO BE STUPID, THEY HAVE THAT RIGHT! Derek, I got your message and sent a response, sorry it didn’t go through. I am working feverishly to have the blog soon. I promise to have a list out today and double check to make sure everyone is on it. Gotta run to talk to the website creator, later Ya’ll Hey ..Why are we back at this dump? .. the PBP is the happening joint…lol Ken, if the scanners/readers find the site less enjoyable due to the lack of comments like it has been, the SS will cross that bridge when they see the loss of readership. Old Dolfan, my point was the increase in posts on the PBP yesterday was from how many people? One person posted quite a bit. LOL “The beer was New Castle.” Thanks Tim…..you understand why I asked. But don’t let him win like that Tim. Don’t forget he was on this board not so long ago. You were still posting then. I’m not playing that game anymore, bro. The PBP is not monitored very well. Is that just based on yesterday or past experience? Derek, Glad I could make you smile bro. Sounds like a great experience with the fishing and snorkeling, and sounds like quite the successful fishing jaunt. Wahoos are the fastest fish in the ocean, nice catch! I thought the sailfish was the fastest. Eddie April 3, 2012 at 10:01 am You modern day hippies with your sit out yesterday… why not go occupy the SS offices or Omar’s front lawn? ——————————————————– Eddie….. I am an ardent believer and benefactor of Capitalism. I think if you knew anything at all about me, you would find that trying to confuse me with the beliefs or actions of those people you speak is ridiculous. I am a Conservative, a Capitalist and I believe every corporation and business owner deserves to earn a proper and legitimate profit on they’re wares…. Now… I am unsure just how much you understand about financial matters as they apply to corporate entities… But I can tell you this… “There is a HUGE difference in paying a Company their fare profit and for their services”… and “Paying to resuscitate a failed business model” Resuscitating failed business models is what happens when tax payers or private individuals pay for the mismanagement and floundering practices of a company because that company has run out of options and people to lay off and replace for cheaper labor…. Take a look at GM & Chrysler…. Those are PERFECT examples of what I am speaking of. Their inability to build a quality vehicle and one that would compete against other manufacturers led to years of waste and mismanagement leading up to the American tax payers bailing them out…. That is one of HUNDREDS of examples we have watched $770 BILLION Dollars in Stimulus cash disappear into…. dig it? If not being “Happy” about that confuses you about me and others… or if you just plain “Don’t get it”… That is okay…. But try if you would be so kind not to group me into a category I have worked 46 years and given 22 years od service to stand above… Okay…? Thank you, Sir….. Bat, I can’t post at the PBP at work, it’s a blocked domain for some reason. Ken, The PBP blog runs on WordPress just as this one does but PBP is using a newer version. The software is highly customizable and the skin chosen here is better than the skin chosen at PBP. The admin also decides things such as how many posts before a page turn among other things. There are competing 3rd party comment platforms out there and IntenseDebate happens to be a decent product (not the best) but it was designed primarily by people behind WordPress so the functionality between the two is pretty good (seamless basically) and an admin doesn’t have to worry about importing/exporting things from one database area to another. I just wish these admins would press their corporate managers to proceed to make these blogs more user friendly as WordPress (from a UI perspective) by itself was not intended to be used in high traffic formats (more than 50 posts for example). That is what Disqus (what the herald and crap load of other websites use), LiveFyre (what NY Times, FOXnews, & MTV uses), IntenseDebate (from people who worked on WordPress), Echo (private fee based software; it is what Disney/Universal use for their networks and what ESPN uses). Thanks for the explanation. If we do hang out at the PBP I do hope they ugprade the site. The 10 post per page is too short and it seemed like it took a while for the comments to load. However, for the most part I thought the content was good, Ben Volin was good to us and most of the bloggers were good to deal with. However, one big draw back is that Home is there and I don’t trust him. He starts playing games and did so at times yesterday. If they charge for readership, I will probably just go to the Miami Herald or PBP for information. I prefer O- generally agree with his stance more than the others. Armando’s way off from my perspective, and David Hyde is a great writer but I humbly feel he loves the big head line unintelligible sensationalism that feeds the masses (whether it be with excitement or anger). I’ve generally haven’t had much of a problem with the PBP though so I’ll probably go there. Stanger, if someone can easily use my name and avatar and you reply to him thinking it’s me that’s not too cool is it? I’m not going to waste my time saying that wasn’t me. Not cool at all Tim, and I understand your frustration. But do remember when this board was spammed useless. Things changed. Was he replicating your ID yesterday at the PBP? I wasn’t aware of it, though I did see him post a few times without an avatar. Krill, I use all the sites for information but chose to blog here. If they all become pay sites, what will you do? TIM; You’ll be alive when hell freezes over? I doubt it. Al in NJ April 3, 2012 at 10:13 am. ——————————————- Al… You are absolutely right man…. Here is one point I was trying to make concerning that very issue… “Even if Miami DOES get beat out by someone who trades up for Tanny, it still creates a situation where another option who would have NOT been there before… will now be there. In other words, “It ratchets the entire draft down one man”….. Keep in mind… Miami is not going to place Tanny on the field this year no matter what… Unless he really breaks the mold and comes out hot, even them I think you risk the guy getting his head scrambled… The pick Miami would be left with would.. A. Be a better player should Miami draft there OR B. Have more value should Miami really choose to take the “Trade down route” and acquire more players to fill more holes, grabbing a lower round QB this year… and perhaps another 1st rounder next… Only the Media and our own expectations are driving us to feel we MUST take Tannehill or die… and that is simply not the case. Agreed. Tannehill is already locked in somewhere on the draft chart for all teams. Teams will only be willing to deviate so much for a premium position (ie move a guy up the draft board X amount of spaces based on position premium and not BPA). Teams are just blowing smoke at this point to make other teams pull the trigger for guys that other teams had no intentions of taking. So has Tannehill jumped to the #1 pick yet? LOL No, But RGIII has refused to give the Colts a private workout; I REPEAT FOR YOU–I have NEVER ripped Omar on this blog. If you can’t accurately reflect someone’s opinion OR if you just deliberately lie to prove an UNpoint then people will/have lose all respect for you. Tell the truth.. Corporate has made their decision, and the die is cast. They will charge for the site, and most if not all of the group that came here every day known as “The Mob”, will no longer be here. If this becomes a paysite, which sure looks like it is, then everyone has a choice. I choose not to pay. There are so many outlets for good information, that I don’t feel the need to pay for it here. Yes, it’s my choice not to pay, just as it is the Sun Sentinels choice to charge money. No Tim, not f*&*(ing cool, lol Tim LOL …By the time the draft gets here, Griffin may be stripped of the Heisman, so it can be awarded to Tannehill retroactively … New Blog is up if anyone cares. Al, I posted maybe 5 times yesterday on the PBP. Mostly to say that wasn’t me. LOL Tim, Sailfish talk a lot of sh*t. Wahoos are the fastest. lol Tim Knight April 3, 2012 at 10:25 am I thought the sailfish was the fastest. ————————————————– Tim… Sails are some fast fish… No doubt… Now I have never had my “Acme Fish Radar gun” to clock the two magnificent creatures…. But I have heard more then once that Mike E. is right and the Wahoo is the fastest…. I know I have seen Wahoo jumping while they are swimming fast… they come out of the water and can clear what look to be over a hundred feet in lineal distance (Not Height) while swimming and jumping at speed…. Figure the Wahoo I caught was 38 lbs….. How fast does a fish that size need to be moving to come completely out of the water 8 to 10 feet and clear 50 to 70 feet with each successive jump…? It Must be moving pretty good…. likely about as fast I I swim when them damned 15 foot hammerheads start trolling around while we are snorkeling or on SCUBA…LOL… I come right up in the boat without even touching the side, land in the bar stool of choice and have a beer cracked before the shark even misses me….. PFFffffft……… The new blog is more interesting than draft parties. Mike E. Mob Don’t Pay! April 3, 2012 at 10:42 am Tim, Sailfish talk a lot of sh*t. Wahoos are the fastest. lo ———————————————– Dammit Mike E…….. I told you I was trying to be all depressed… just “Stop It” will ya…….. Yeah… Sailfish are the “Floyd Mayweather Jr’s” of the deep……. always cracking on people but never picking the hard fights…. LMAO @ Derek! Tim is right actually. Sailfish can swim about 70MPH. Wahoo is third behind the Striped Marlin. I’m sure if I were to shell out my $5 donation you would find a way to block me like they did mid-season last year. Still pissed about that Sun Sentinel… not that you care. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz The following one thing that you could repair in the event you werent too busy searching for attention.

INTRODUCTIONIcan).II),), and they and others investigating CRAFT have given us robust evidence that given the right tools, families can effect change.: • Two-thirds of people using substances who had been initially resistant to treatment agreed to go to treatment (typically after family members had around five sessions of CRAFT). • The majority of participating spouses and parents reported being happier, less depressed, less angry, and having more family cohesion and less family conflict than prior to their CRAFT sessions, whether or not their loved one engaged in treatment. •. Questions You Might Have Here are the primary questions from families who come to us. While there is no quick fix, we do have some answers. Can I really help him if he doesn’t want to change? Yes! This is perhaps the best question you could ask, and really the heart of the matter. With a motivational approach, part of helping people change is helping them want to change. You, the one at his side, worried, distraught, and horrified, don’t have to stand by in detachment or go ballistic as your only alternatives (though you might do these things sometimes anyway). If you give people the right encouragement, stay connected to them, provide good options (not ultimatums), respect their right to be part of the solution, and keep your balance by taking care of yourself and setting healthy limits, things get better. Change doesn’t always happen as quickly as we want and it can be messy, but it happens. Even when people say repeatedly that they don’t want to or simply can’t change, they do so all the time—even in the face of long odds. Why? Because change becomes worth it to them. The balance shifts enough for them to say, “Enough! Let me try another way.” The pain of continuing what they are doing and the benefits of changing begin to seem to them to outweigh the benefits of continuing to use and the pain of changing. The little-known but well-documented secret of our field is that many people change on their own, including recovering from terrible substance problems, because change becomes worth it. The reality is that people by nature have a self-righting mechanism—but you don’t need to wait passively for this righting mechanism to kick in. Your involvement can help bring about an internal shift in your loved one toward positive change. Most people do not need to “hit rock bottom” and “admit they are addicts” for real change to occur. Though some people change this way, it’s not the only way. In fact, when people use these phrases to describe how they changed, they are expressing their versions of exactly what we mean—something shifted to make it worth it to them. What you will learn here is how to help your loved one make this shift, without stepping away from him, and sooner rather than later. This book will help you trust and influence the process of change. What if I feel as though I’ve already tried everything? Depending on what has transpired by the time you picked up this book, some skepticism at the idea of doing more is understandable. It’s also natural for you to despair sometimes, but this doesn’t mean your situation is actually hopeless. At some level you know this: you’re reading this book because even if you feel as though you’ve tried everything, you’re still trying! It can be hard to feel hopeful when change doesn’t seem to be happening, despite best intentions and major investments of time, money, and emotions. However, we know that you haven’t tried everything, though you may feel like you have. How do we know? Because at this point only a few treatment providers in North America share our approach for working with families and friends. The system is starting to change, but for now we can be pretty sure you’ll find something new here. You’ll discover, for instance, that how you communicate has a major impact on your loved one’s attitude toward change, her willingness to take more responsibility for herself, the atmosphere in your home, and how you feel when your head meets your pillow at night. While many of us feel like we can communicate well enough, when it comes to stressed interactions with our loved one, communication typically breaks down. Stepping away from the fight and using new communication skills will make a difference. You’ll see that lapses and relapses—commonly seen as crises—are a natural part of getting better for most people. They are not failures to change but opportunities to learn. Most people go through many stages of change—resistance, willingness, learning and progress, frustrations and setbacks, more resistance, more willingness, more learning and progress. Understandably, your loved one’s setbacks may try your patience and equanimity. With new understanding, resilience, and skills to tolerate the downs with the ups, you won’t have to feel as though your life is on hold (or coming apart) until she gets it perfectly. You’ll learn that you can help by seeing your loved one’s point of view; by knowing your full range of options; by understanding how change works. You can help by treating her with kindness and respect; by learning how to problem-solve; by learning how to have patience. You can help her navigate the treatment system and you can support her aftercare plan. You can let her understand that while you may be upset sometimes, you’re on her side. You can help by getting out of the way to let her realize the consequences of her behavior. You can help by taking care of yourself. There are many ways you can help your loved one change. We will show you how. And, what about me? How can I begin to feel better? In other words, how can you help yourself? You may feel exhausted from helping so much and you may doubt whether you can help any more. At the same time, you may believe that putting your needs last is the hallmark of a good helper. But the captain doesn’t help by going down with the ship (however heroic it seems); taking care of yourself is a skill you can’t afford to ignore. If you’re like most people, you’ve probably been living for some time—for many people it’s been years—with a toxic combination of fear, anger, and wishing that there weren’t really a problem or that the problem would just go away. Chronic worrying affects your physical and mental health. It can disrupt your sleep, interfere with your concentration, and play havoc with your moods. It wears on your heart, figuratively and physiologically. You may have gotten to the point where the only way you show love toward this person is by worrying. You may not have noticed the effect worry is having on you because you’ve been so busy worrying about someone else. This book will help you change too. And, finally: What can I DO right now? First, change the way you think about substance use, compulsive behavior, and change. This is important: thinking is doing. How you think about a problem is the first step to a solution and the first thing you can change. To help you do this, we’ve distilled the ten most revolutionary discoveries by scientists and clinicians in our field over the past forty years—ten evidence-based reasons to have hope. 1. You can help. We can’t emphasize enough that you can help. The research evidence is clear: involving family and friends in helping a loved one struggling with substances significantly increases the odds of improvement and helps maintain positive changes. Family influence is a commonly cited reason for seeking treatment for substance use problems. In other words, you have an impact and you have leverage. The opposite has been said too often, that the best way to help is not to help. You have probably run into terms like “tough love,” “enabling,” “codependency,” and “detach with love.” They’re everywhere, so it’s no wonder so many people are confused—maybe even feeling guilty and blamed. Our clients who have read books on codependency worry about doing anything nice for their loved ones for fear that it might be “enabling” their destructive behavior. One client asked if it was okay to make waffles for his daughter on Sunday morning. He knew she still smoked pot sometimes, and he was scared of inadvertently encouraging the behavior by being nice. Of course it’s okay to make your loved one breakfast. We will teach you how to take care of your loved one without condoning or supporting the behavior you don’t want. Conversely, when frustrations and disappointments mount, you may, understandably, want to get “tough”—yell or turn your back. But when you yell at your loved one to stop drinking, are you straightening her out, or giving her more reason to drink? When you don’t yell at your loved one to stop drinking, are you sending the message that it’s not important to you? These are all good questions. Our answers may surprise you. We’ll show you how to extricate yourself from negative patterns, not by “detaching” but by encouraging positive, nonusing behaviors instead. 2. Helping yourself helps. It’s not either/or. You don’t have to choose between your self-preservation and his. The evidence is clear about this too. You might feel distant; you might feel like you hardly know him anymore, but you and your loved one are on parallel paths. When you help yourself, you help your loved one. Your emotional resilience, physical health, social supports, and perspective on change can contribute to his. First, you will be setting an example. Second, you need internal resources to do what is most helpful for your loved one. As you read this book you’ll notice that what we will ask of you will be similar to what you will ask of your loved one. We want you to feel better about you and learn how to take care of you. We want you to feel hopeful about your life and remember how to have fun. We want you to notice what’s not working for you, try something different, and practice, practice, practice. To paraphrase the classic airplane safety announcement: you both need oxygen; we want you to put on your oxygen mask first. 3. Your loved one isn’t crazy. Nor is your loved one a bad person. From your perspective, her behavior may seem to lie somewhere on a spectrum between ill-advised and demonic. From her perspective, it makes a certain kind of sense—and her perspective matters. People don’t use substances because they’re crazy. People don’t use substances because they’re bad people. People use substances because they get something they like out of it. Maybe it makes socializing easier, or makes business doable, or makes sex possible, or makes depression go away. Maybe it’s fun (one of the hardest reasons to accept when the downsides are so apparent to you). The reasons are different for different people. You wouldn’t be reading this if there weren’t a serious downside to the way your loved one uses substances, and the suggestion that you try to understand her point of view may seem galling to you. But understanding—not condoning—why people do what they do gives us a much better chance of helping. It may seem like a leap, but most people, including people with substance problems, are capable of making rational decisions. Studies have found repeatedly that most people stop abusing substances on their own, without formal treatment or intervention. If you believe, however, that a person is incapable of honesty, reasoning, and constructive collaboration with you, there will be no chance of engaging on these terms. And probably she will live down to your expectations. Research has shown that the more you criticize someone, presumably (and understandably) in the hopes of “getting through” to her, the more defensive she’ll become—which is often taken for “denial.” This book offers strategies based on respect and optimism that are proven to lower defenses and get you on the same side, working together against the problem. You may feel you have lost touch completely with your loved one’s good qualities. That’s a sad place to be, but understandable. One of our hopes in writing this book is to help you find the good again. 4. The world isn’t black-and-white. Traditional notions of addiction give you two, and only two, options. People are said to be addicts or not. Addicts are said to be ready to change or not. They’re either recovering or they’re in denial, “with the program” or not. (In the black-and-white view, there’s only one program.) Treatment is rehab or nothing. Success or failure. Healthy or sick. “Clean” or dirty. Abstinent or relapsing. And for friends and family: “intervening” or “enabling.” The good news? It’s not true! The truth is, problems with substances vary; and individual differences matter. The current scientific evidence supports an explanatory model involving psychological, biological, and social factors. And, while you might fantasize about a lever you can pull that will send your loved one straight to rehab and he will come back cured, that’s black-and-white thinking, too. The truth is that people are more likely to make big changes and continue with those changes if they are given time and help to choose among reasonable alternatives. Black-and-white thinking is not just a philosophical problem; it’s a barrier to change. 5. Labels do more harm than good. Studies have shown repeatedly that one of the major impediments to seeking help for substance problems is stigma. Many people don’t seek help because they expect to be offered only one way to get it—accepting a label of alcoholic or addict. Black-and-white thinking naturally leads to labeling, which involves an us-and-them mentality that divides people into “addicts” and “the rest of us.” In fact, by branding more than 20 million Americans with a single label and treating them according to that label, the media and parts of the treatment community have given people the wrong idea, that everyone struggling with these problems is basically the same. You may not be sure whether your loved one is an addict. Or you may be sure, and you’re wasting a lot of energy trying to argue her into agreeing with you. We recommend you to put aside the question of whether someone is an “addict” or “alcoholic.” The label simply doesn’t matter. What matters is what matters to you and to her: What effect is the substance use having in her life and in yours? What will motivate your loved one to change? The answers will be based on how well you know your loved one as an individual and the particular ways you matter to each other. Rather than reach for a label, save your energy for the more constructive work of problem solving. 6. Different people need different options. Inpatient, outpatient. Group therapy, individual therapy. Outpatient once a week, twice a week, every day. Anticraving medications, medications for symptoms of withdrawal. Treatment for co-occurring disorders like depression or attention deficit. Extended care facilities. Sober companions. Self-help support groups. Cognitive-behavioral therapy. “90 in 90.” Talking with a rabbi or priest. Starting to exercise. There are many therapeutic options—some not as widely available as others; some approaches better supported by evidence than others. The most important things to bear in mind are 1.) no single size fits all, and 2.) having a choice among treatment plans and plans for change in general predicts positive outcomes. On these points the evidence is crystal clear. Giving people options helps them get invested in the resulting plan. Backing people into a corner and telling them what they should do—the “rehab or else” approach—might get them into rehab. But rehab might not be the best option for them, and coercion may kill their motivation to even participate while in treatment, and may also undermine their motivation to continue making changes afterward. (If there is a moment of truth in rehab, it’s not when people enter, it’s when they leave.) Then again, an ultimatum might not get them into rehab at all and only succeed in increasing their defensiveness. For more than half a century, high-confrontation addiction treatment in this country has aimed at “breaking through” an addict’s supposed “denial” or resistance to treatment. Some of us in the field now have recognized—and studies have proven—that this kind of confrontation increases resistance. The evidence-based treatments we describe give you the option—many options, in fact—to opt out of the awful, self-fulfilling prophecy of confrontation and resistance. The point is not to force your loved one into just any treatment. It’s more helpful to find the best kinds of treatment for her particular problems, and engage her motivation to be part of the plan. We will lay out the considerations that go into good treatment planning and describe the major evidence-based treatment approaches. We will help you ask questions that help you assess the nature and quality of prospective treatment providers, including how (or if) they would individualize a plan for your loved one. 7. Treatment isn’t the be-all and end-all. You can make significant changes in your life, including your relationship, whether or not your loved one enters treatment. You might have been relieved to learn there’s a good chance that he may even get better without treatment. One national survey found that 24 percent of people diagnosed with alcohol dependence (the most severe category of alcohol problem) recovered on their own within a year. Remember, CRAFT results in better communication and relationship satisfaction, increased happiness on the part of the family member or friend, and reduced substance use even when the loved one doesn’t enter treatment. In other words, you can be a positive influence and your loved one can get better, all without ever crossing the threshold of a treatment center or self-help group. We recommend that you think less about getting your loved one to admit to an addiction and more about what it takes to build a better life. For you, that might entail reaching out to friends, treatment for depression, more exercise, kinder self-talk, starting a morning meditation routine, revisiting an old hobby. For your loved one, it might mean talking to her pastor, talking to her mom, revisiting an old hobby, being more honest. People get better in a variety of ways—so many ways that we don’t know them all. Our clients surprise us and your loved one may surprise you. And if your loved one does enter treatment, or is already in treatment, we will help you support that process, during and after. We’re not saying this will be easy or that there is one sure thing that will make all the difference. We’re saying that the way people sustain ongoing, long-term change is through building a better life in ways that matter to them as individuals. 8. Ambivalence is normal. When a person is motivated in two opposing directions at the same time, that’s ambivalence. Ambivalence is a defining feature not just of struggles with substance use, but of change in general. How can people define a goal for change when they’re pulled in two directions? That pull is a big part of relapsing to old behaviors (“I don’t want to, but I also do”). Psychological theories of motivation explain how working with ambivalence is critical to helping someone change. Unfortunately, traditional treatment has not handled ambivalence particularly well, shutting out people who can’t commit unequivocally to abstinence up front, and kicking out the very people who need treatment most when they lapse. The assumption has been that people can’t be helped until they are willing to never use again. That assumption is wrong. Empirical evidence indicates that people can be helped long before they’re that certain, if they ever are. The data about how people really behave and change contradicts the view that a commitment to absolute, lifelong abstinence is the only legitimate option. One major clinical study found that believing lifelong abstinence to be a requirement of change predicted higher rates of relapse. For most people, use falls somewhere along a continuum of unproblematic, problematic in varying ways and degrees, and destructive. For many people, change is gradual, a process of weighing costs and benefits and experimenting to find out what works. Change often happens incrementally, rarely in a straight line, and continues until the problem has improved to the satisfaction of the one making changes. At the time they enter treatment, many people need to abstain from using a substance to eliminate its negative effects and establish a steady path. As providers, we support their efforts and teach them the skills to be successful. The evidence suggests, however, that for others, moderation is a reasonable and viable goal. Moderation can be a terrifying concept for families and friends when they’ve witnessed someone repeatedly lose control; but it has been demonstrated in research and in everyday life to work for some people. Perhaps more important is the revelation that more people may find their way to abstinence when given a choice. Some of our outpatient clients start with moderation as their goal and wind up with abstinence based on their own experience. Even in inpatient settings, where abstinence is the goal, it’s not uncommon for people to express concerns about staying sober forever. Working with ambivalence, we help people realize what it is they want to do and how to do it, and weigh benefits and costs and make positive choices that make sense to them. Over time, our clients discover for themselves what works, knowing that the advice they are getting from us is geared toward helping them, not forcing or condemning them. They feel respected and in turn gain self-respect. “I never thought I would want to stop drinking altogether,” they say. If we had told them in the beginning, “You must stop drinking,” they would never have gotten there. By understanding their ambivalence, people can better internalize their own profound and lasting reasons to change. 9. People can be helped at any time. Motivation for change can occur whenever the costs of a behavior perceptibly outweigh the benefits. Sometimes external factors influence motivation. For example, as public awareness of the health costs of smoking cigarettes increased, many people quit. Internal factors can also move a person to change. If a person who used to drag herself into a job she hated gets a new job that she likes very much, she may start to consider whether the mild hangover she has every morning from drinking three glasses of wine at night interferes with her work. Instead of rolling her hangovers into her overall resentment of her job, she may start to feel that they are getting in the way of her enjoyment. We can’t stress this enough: what looks like unwillingness to change is often a defensive reaction. People with substance problems respond with significantly less resistance to kindness and respectful treatment (as do the rest of us). So don’t wait for your loved one to “hit bottom”—it can be dangerous, and problems are more treatable the sooner they are caught. And don’t lose hope in the face of resistance from your loved one. Resistance is subject to change. The positive communication skills you’ll learn will help lower defenses. You’ll also find strategies for increasing the costs and decreasing the benefits of your loved one’s substance use. You’ll learn how to recognize, reward, invite, and support turns for the better. You will begin to allow the natural, negative consequences of your loved one’s use to weigh in (on him, not you!). The questions we recommend you ask of prospective treatment providers are designed to help you home in on those who will meet your situation respectfully and tailor treatment to particular needs, hopes, and goals. 10. Life is a series of experiments. Try thinking like a scientist. This doesn’t mean having all the answers or being overly analytical; it means adopting an open-ended questioning, experimental approach to life. Observe, try, notice what works and what doesn’t, and adjust your strategies accordingly. Be proactive instead of reactive. As difficult as it is when your buttons have been pushed and you’re impatient for change, try to stay calm. Think of Copernicus, who was open-minded enough to recognize something as counterintuitive as the Earth revolving around the sun. Think of Gandhi, observing people to understand them, acting according to his reason as well as his heart. Be yourself, but be as willing to change as you want your loved one to be. And try not to take things personally; behavior is the issue here, not character. Behavior can change. Try to temper your emotions enough to observe how things are going and how you affect them—not because your feelings aren’t valid, but because a calm, clear-eyed approach gets better results. Easier said than done, yes, but the tools are available to help you do it. In short, you can hope for change, and you can do something about it. Not all at once, because change takes time, and effort, and practice. It is more a process than an end result. This is actually good news, because it means change starts here and now; it is not something that happens later. Reading this book is an opportunity to think about changes you would like to make, on your own and with your loved one. Throughout this book you’ll find examples to spark your imagination, and skills and strategies to help you implement change. (All the clinical examples in this book are based on composites.) Some Things Our Clients Have Changed A nineteen-year-old college student started taking OxyContin, an opioid painkiller, for headaches and found that some of her friends used it at parties. Over time, she ended up taking it daily for pain and a little extra for fun on the weekends. At home she tried not to use the drug but then she’d feel sweaty and sick. Ashamed and confused about what was happening to her, she tried to hide it from her parents when she returned home for the summer. She struggled with this for a while until she couldn’t stand it and asked her parents for help. Her mother, Alice, dedicated herself to helping her daughter. She attended an Al-Anon support group and returned to therapy, stayed in touch with her daughter’s doctors, read books about addiction, and worried. From many of these sources she gathered that there wasn’t much she could do to help. But “detaching” went against her instincts and sense of responsibility as a mother. It made her furious, actually. She fought with her husband because he didn’t seem to worry enough. She took her anger out on her daughter as well. In turn, her daughter almost stopped talking to her altogether, which seemed to confirm that there was nothing she could do. Alice did not tell anyone what was going on in her family. She had a close network of girlfriends and two sisters, but she didn’t want to burden them, knowing it was a difficult time for the family for other reasons. She also wanted to protect her daughter’s reputation. Finally, Alice felt deeply ashamed and blamed herself for her daughter’s problems, which seemed much more frightening than her friends’ children’s problems. Alice came to CMC initially to find out how to support her daughter’s treatment. Her CMC therapist quickly recognized the bind Alice was in: she desperately wanted to help her daughter but feared anything she did would only “enable” drug use, as people had warned her. Her support group had told her to “get honest” with her sisters and everyone else, but she felt she had good reasons to keep things to herself. The therapist assured Alice she could help her daughter, by starting to feel better and less angry herself. They talked about how important it was to have the support of people who cared about her, but that she didn’t need to go around telling everyone everything. They brainstormed together and Alice decided whom she felt safe confiding in and how much. Still it was hard. She had been covering up so much that she now felt ashamed of this too. With her therapist, they role-played how to tell her sisters over and over again until she was ready to do it. When she did talk to her sisters, it was a profound relief. They had been worried about her anyway; now they could help. One sister took on a bigger share of caring for their mother; the other reached out to her niece about her own struggle with drugs in college. As Alice’s mood improved, she found it easier to talk to her daughter without yelling. At the suggestion of her CMC therapist, she began going on weekly dates with her husband and remembered what it was like to not be angry with him all the time. These changes emboldened her to open up more, which led to more support, help, and communication with her daughter and to constructive involvement with her treatment. She also learned to trust herself to figure out when to make sacrifices and when to set limits, as well as which parts of her daughter’s struggle were hers to help with and which were her daughter’s to solve for herself. Perhaps most rewarding of all, she regained her confidence as a mother. • • • Kim was a woman in her early thirties who came to us for help after discovering that her husband had been hiding his heavy drinking for years. With two children under the age of three, her own full-time job, her husband finishing his doctorate, and now his drinking problem revealed, the stresses on their marriage had skyrocketed. Her husband seemed to have changed from a thoughtful, fun, smart partner to a distracted, brooding guy who didn’t care about her anymore and, even worse, had apparently lost interest in their children. Working with her CMC therapist, Kim began to understand that many of her husband’s distressing habits—terrible snoring and disrupted sleep, chronic lateness, not remembering discussions they’d had at night, indifference to the babies, and their worsening sex life—were alcohol-related behaviors. This helped her to understand what was happening and to take it less personally, which made it easier for her to practice yelling at him less and taking care of herself more. After Kim had been coming to CMC for a few months, her husband began his own treatment with an addiction psychiatrist to help him drink less. Eventually he succeeded in stopping drinking for months at a time. Kim’s next challenge was to understand that though her husband’s not drinking was a relief, abstinence would come, at first, with its own distressing behaviors. During periods of abstinence, he became irritable, short-tempered, and even more disengaged than when he drank. Appreciating that he was sober was not her first thought when he’d just snapped at her over dinner. It took effort on her part and support from her friends, family, and therapist to put aside her reactions to his sober moodiness and go ahead with her strategies to encourage abstinence anyway. Toward the end of her husband’s treatment, Kim began to recognize the person she remembered, who was sober and sweet at the same time. And although he struggled with relapses several times over the next year, he became increasingly more communicative and engaged with the family. Kim regained her trust that his good mood didn’t mean he was drinking. Their relationship improved so much that he felt he could tell her directly when he lapsed and ask for her help to get back on track. Together they knew that the worst was behind them, as the process of change became increasingly rewarding for both of them. • • • Because people change for different reasons and in different ways, there can be no perfect example, but we will share many more stories throughout this book to show you how things actually work, and to inspire you. Hopefully you will recognize something in each example, and feel less alone. How to Use This Book Whether or not you realize it, things started to change when you picked up this book, and they will continue to change as you read and think about your situation in light of what we’re saying. In research we call this “measurement reactivity,” meaning the therapeutic effect of simply answering questions. It’s measurable. As you have seen, the changes we address involve more than your loved one’s behavior. This is your change process too, and it has already begun. In the four sections of this book you’ll find four profound possibilities: understanding, coping, helping, and thriving. Each chapter will help you develop the attitudes and learn the facts, skills, and strategies that make understanding, coping, helping, and thriving possible. Throughout the book we will prompt you to skip around, depending on what feels most helpful to you. The chapter order follows a certain logic, but we made sure each chapter and even parts of chapters work on their own. If you left your bookmark in the chapter on treatment options but you’ve had three big fights in the last week, maybe it’s a good time to go back to the positive communication chapter. If you get there and realize you’re too emotional to do what it’s asking, return to the self-care section. If you’re worried it might be an emergency, see “When Is It an Emergency?” Making these choices will help develop your awareness, and awareness will empower you to customize your own path through the book. We do recommend that you often take the “You Are Here” self-awareness questionnaire at the end of chapter 4. And you can do them in any order you want, but do the exercises. Practice the skills. Change has already started, and it will only continue with practice. Words of Encouragement Our hope—and challenge—is to encourage you to take off your black-and-white glasses and try to see the many shades of your situation. We encourage you to step back and think through what might be effective (a kind word), not just what would feel justified (a loud shout). We encourage you to care for yourself as much as you care for your loved one. We encourage you to listen: to your loved one, because what he or she thinks, feels, and wants matters and needs to be understood; and to yourself, because the same holds true for you. We know these encouragements are hard to take in at times, and that the simpler world of labels and ultimatums beckons. It takes courage to be encouraged. We encourage you to copy a pocket-size version of the ten reasons to have hope, listed below, and carry it around, stick it to your bathroom mirror, and generally let these concepts lead you toward a more loving, trusting, and satisfying relationship with the person you’re worried about. You can help. Helping yourself helps. Your loved one isn’t crazy. The world isn’t black-and-white. Labels do more harm than good. Different people need different options. Treatment isn’t the be-all and end-all. Ambivalence is normal. People can be helped at any time. Life is a series of experiments. Now we come full circle: we’re optimistic because the evidence supports many ways to help, and we’re optimistic because there’s plenty of evidence that optimism helps. People don’t try what they don’t think they can do. This book is about what you can do. I. From this point, we use “substance use” or “substance problems” as shorthand for addictive disorders and compulsive behaviors. The principles and strategies in this book apply to any kind of compulsive behavior problem, from drugs and alcohol to binge eating, shopping, gambling, and Internet pornography. II.. How Science and Kindness Help People Change Beyond Addiction How Science and Kindness Help People Change). - Scribner | - 352 pages | - ISBN 9781476709482 | - December 2014 Browse Related Books Buy from another retailer see more retailers Video Parents' Words of Hope: Paul Videos related to this book

David J. ALBA v. CRANSTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE. OPINION This case is before the Court on a writ of certiorari. David J. Alba (Alba) petitioned this Court to review a decision of the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education (Board of Regents). The Board of Regents affirmed a decision of the Commissioner of Education which upheld the Cranston School Committee's vote to reject a recommendation to renew Alba's employment contract. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the decision of the Board of Regents. I Facts and Travel Alba was appointed in the beginning of the 2007–2008 school year to serve as Principal of Glen Hills Elementary School in Cranston, Rhode Island. Thereafter, Alba and the Cranston School Committee entered into an employment contract (contract) for the following school year. The contract ran from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009 and provided the following with regard to renewal: “The parties hereto may, by mutual agreement in writing, extend or renew this contract for additional periods * * *. In the event that the Committee does not affirmatively vote to extend or renew this contract on or before December 30, 2008, the Contract is automatically terminated and the Administrator shall be deemed non-renewed as of July 1, 2009. In the event of automatic termination and non-renewal, the Administrator may request a hearing before the Committee and be afforded any rights available under applicable law. Nothing contained in this agreement shall alter the Administrator's rights under R.I.G.L. [§ ] 16–12.1–3, or otherwise under R.I.G.L. [§ ] 16–12.1–1, et seq.” General Laws 1956 chapter 12.1 of title 16, known as the “School Administrators' Rights Act,” (the act) affords certain protections to school administrators who are not otherwise protected by the terms of a collective-bargaining agreement. In a letter dated December 9, 2008, the Cranston School Committee (committee) informed Alba that it would be discussing his contract at its upcoming meeting on December 15, 2008. The letter also informed Alba that he could request the committee's discussion of his contract be held in open session, but Alba did not make such a request. At the December meeting, Superintendent M. Richard Scherza recommended renewal of Alba's contract for an additional year.1 Committee member Frank Lombardi stated that he would support continuing Alba's employment for an additional year, provided that Alba was assigned to a different school. The representative for the ward containing Glen Hills School, committee member Andrea Iannazzi, voiced her opposition to renewing Alba's contract. After the chairman of the committee suggested that more time be taken to consider Alba's contract, the committee agreed to withdraw the resolution recommending renewal. The committee continued its discussion of Alba's employment at its meeting on March 16, 2009. At the March meeting, Superintendent Scherza informed the committee that Alba was amenable to transferring schools. He stressed that Alba was a “good educator” under whose leadership writing scores had improved. Member Iannazzi opined, however, that renewing Alba's contract for another year would be “postponing the inevitable.”2 The committee again took no action on Alba's contract. Sometime during that same month, Superintendent Scherza completed an evaluation of Alba's performance as principal. He rated Alba as either “proficient” or “adequate” in all areas but noted several ways in which Alba needed to improve his performance.3 On April 20, 2009, the committee took up consideration of Alba's contract for the third time. The committee discussed Alba's contract in executive session4 and then voted six-to-one in open session to reject Superintendent Scherza's renewal recommendation. Immediately after voting on Alba's contract, the committee—still in open session—considered a recommendation not to renew the contract of another principal at a different elementary school. During the discussion that ensued, member Lombardi compared Alba's case to the other principal's case by remarking that “he voted * * * the way he did [on Alba's renewal] because of what he saw as a significant amount of evidence suggesting that [Alba] is not prepared or equipped for the job of a principal,” whereas “he had not had that kind of information submitted to him in any way, shape or form regarding [the other principal].” The chairman informed Alba of the committee's vote by letter dated May 8, 2009. In an explanation of the committee's decision, the chairman wrote, “[t]he reason for this action is that there are more qualified individuals available to better meet the needs of the District.” The letter also advised Alba that he was entitled to a prompt hearing “prior to the School Committee taking a final action of not renewing your contract[.]” Alba notified the committee of his intent to exercise his right to a hearing and requested that the committee provide him with certain information that he felt he needed to prepare for the hearing. In particular, Alba requested that the committee “identify the individual or individuals who provided the information upon which [it] relied in non-renewing * * * Alba's contract.” He further asked for two specific witnesses to be made available to testify at the hearing. In the weeks leading up to the hearing, Alba's counsel made additional requests by email for information about the committee's vote, including any records of the executive session at the April 20, 2009 meeting and a copy of his personnel file. In response, the committee's counsel confirmed that the requested witnesses would be available and provided Alba with a copy of his personnel file. The committee's counsel informed Alba, however, that he was not entitled to the minutes from the committee's executive sessions, emphasizing that there was no right to discovery in advance of the hearing.5 The committee held a hearing on the nonrenewal of Alba's contract on June 30, 2009, the evening before the contract was due to expire. Member Iannazzi and member Janice Ruggieri, acting on the advice of the committee's counsel, recused themselves from participating in the hearing. Member Lombardi declined to recuse himself despite Alba's insistence that his comments at the April 20, 2009 meeting evinced a disqualifying bias.6 When the hearing commenced, Alba's counsel requested a continuance, citing the committee's failure to provide him with the information he had been seeking. He renewed his requests for the executive session minutes from the committee's discussions of Alba's employment and any documentation that the committee may have relied upon in reaching its decision that there were others with qualifications superior to Alba's. Counsel asserted that, without this information, he could not effectively represent Alba at the hearing. In response, the committee's counsel7 objected to Alba's request for a continuance, reasoning that Alba was not entitled to any of the information that he was seeking. The hearing officer denied Alba's requests for a continuance and for information. After the hearing officer's ruling, Alba and his counsel left the hearing under protest that the process was fundamentally unfair. The committee's counsel then proceeded to call three witnesses. Judith Lundsten, the executive director of educational programs and services, averred that she had received complaints about Alba from at least two parents. Peter Nero, the then-assistant superintendent, also testified about complaints that he had received from parents concerning Alba's performance as principal. Superintendent Scherza, in contrast, opined that Alba would make a “good principal” if given a chance. At the close of the hearing, the committee voted three-to-one to uphold its April 20, 2009 decision rejecting the recommendation to renew Alba's contract. Alba appealed the committee's decision to the Commissioner of Education (commissioner). In lieu of holding a hearing, Alba and the committee submitted an agreed statement of facts and legal memoranda. Alba also supplemented the record with a copy of his evaluation. In a written decision issued on August 3, 2010, the commissioner concluded that Alba had received all the process to which he was entitled under both the contract and the School Administrators' Rights Act. She specifically concluded that the chairman's May 8, 2009 letter provided Alba with adequate notice of the reason for the committee's initial vote. Although she acknowledged that “there is a great deal of logic to” Alba's argument that he needed discovery to prepare for the hearing, the commissioner ultimately rejected this argument. Accordingly, the commissioner denied and dismissed Alba's appeal. Alba exercised his right under G.L.1956 § 16–39–3 to appeal the commissioner's decision to the Board of Regents. In his appeal, Alba challenged the committee's nonrenewal of his contract on multiple grounds. He argued, inter alia, that (1) the committee lacked the statutory authority to nonrenew his contract; (2) the chairman's May 8, 2009 letter was invalid; (3) member Lombardi improperly refused to recuse himself at the hearing; and (4) the committee deprived him of his right to prehearing discovery. The Board of Regents rejected Alba's arguments in a written decision issued on February 2, 2012. The board concluded that the committee had the authority to withhold its consent to the superintendent's recommendation to renew. It also agreed with the commissioner that the committee had fully respected all of Alba's procedural rights and that the committee was under no obligation to afford Alba the information he had requested in advance of the hearing. The board therefore affirmed the commissioner's decision. Alba petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari to review the decision of the Board of Regents. On September 6, 2012, we granted Alba's petition. II Standard of Review When this Court reviews a decision of the Board of Regents by way of a petition for certiorari, we confine ourselves to an examination of the record for alleged errors of law. Kingston Hill Academy v. Chariho Regional School District 21 A.3d 264, 269 (R.I.2011). Our review of questions of law is de novo. Id. at 269–70. Although we afford deference when a statute is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation and the agency charged with its enforcement has given an interpretation that is not clearly erroneous or unauthorized, we retain “final responsibility for statutory construction [.]” Asadoorian v. Warwick School Committee, 691 A.2d 573, 577 (R.I.1997) (quoting Gallison v. Bristol School Committee, 493 A.2d 164, 166 (R.I.1985)). “It is not our function to review the lower tribunal's findings of fact when there is competent evidence to support th[o]se findings.” D'Ambra v. North Providence School Committee, 601 A.2d 1370, 1374 (R.I.1992) (quoting School Committee of Providence v. Board of Regents for Education, 429 A.2d 1297, 1302 (R.I.1981)). III Discussion On appeal Alba challenges several actions of both the committee and its chairman as being in excess of their statutory authority. He also alleges that the committee's nonrenewal of his contract suffered from multiple procedural infirmities and irregularities that were so severe as to deprive him of his rights under the Administrators' Rights Act. We address separately each of Alba's arguments.8 A Renewal Clause of the Contract Alba argues that the clause of his contract providing for automatic nonrenewal is inconsistent with the Administrators' Rights Act and, is therefore, invalid. In Alba's opinion, the renewal clause was an unlawful attempt on the part of the committee to deprive him of his right to a hearing. The plain language of the contract, however, belies Alba's assertion that the committee was attempting to circumvent the Administrators' Rights Act. The renewal clause specifically preserves Alba's rights under the act. That clause states that “[n]othing contained in this agreement shall alter the Administrator's rights under R.I.G.L [§ ] 16–12.1–3, or otherwise under R.I.G.L. [§§ ] 16–12.1–1. et seq.” Under § 16–12.1–3, an administrator is entitled to a hearing before the committee “[p]rior to [the committee's] taking final action dismissing or not renewing the employment of [the] administrator.” In this case, the committee afforded Alba a hearing on June 30, 2009, after its initial vote not to renew his contract on April 30, 2009 but, significantly, prior to taking a final vote. Nothing in the Administrators' Rights Act prohibits automatic nonrenewal. The absence of such a prohibition in the provisions governing administrators' employment may be contrasted with the provisions governing teachers' employment, which specifically command that “[t]eaching service shall be on the basis of an annual contract” which “shall be deemed to be continuous unless the governing body of the schools shall notify the teacher in writing on or before March 1 that the contract for the ensuing year will not be renewed * * *.” General Laws 1956 § 16–13–2. The Legislature therefore knows how to call for automatic renewal. If it desired the same measure for administrators, it could have directed as such in the provisions of the Administrators' Rights Act. See In re Proposed Town of New Shoreham Project 25 A.3d 482, 525 (R.I.2011) (reasoning that “the General Assembly knew how to require a net-benefit test when it wanted the [Public Utilities] [C]ommission to use that type of analysis”); Rubano v. DiCenzo, 759 A.2d 959, 969 (R.I.2000). Accordingly, we conclude that nothing in the language of the contract's renewal clause, or the committee's implementation of that clause, deprived Alba of his rights under the Administrators' Rights Act. B Committee's Authority Not to Renew the Contract Alba next argues that the committee lacked the authority to nonrenew his contract. Alba views the committee's statutory role as limited to ratifying the hiring decisions of the superintendent. He took the position at the committee hearing, and maintains the same position before this Court, that nonrenewal may only be effectuated upon the recommendation of the superintendent not to renew. We disagree. The Legislature has clearly vested the committee with authority to choose the administrators who will run its schools. The general powers and duties of local school committees include entering into contracts and giving “advice and consent on the appointment by the superintendent of all school department personnel.” General Laws 1956 § 16–2–9(a)(13) and (18). Moreover, in the statement of purposes for the Administrators' Rights Act, the Legislature declared its intent that the protections afforded in that chapter not “interfere with the discretion of school committees to choose those who shall administer local schools * * *.” Section 16–12.1–1. Consistent with these statutory provisions, Alba and the committee entered into a one-year employment agreement that explicitly gave the committee the right to decline to renew Alba's contract. Provided that it afforded Alba notice and a hearing, the committee was free to exercise that contractual right by voting against the superintendent's recommendation to renew. Alba has not pointed to any statutory or contractual language to support his assertion that nonrenewal may be accomplished only after a recommendation from the superintendent for nonrenewal. We will not read such a limit into either the contract or the relevant statutory provisions. In rejecting a similar argument that a school board may not veto a superintendent's recommendation to renew, another court has astutely observed that “[i]f * * * [a b]oard [must] reemploy all probationary teachers whom the superintendent recommends for reemployment * * * the [b]oard['s] vote upon the teacher's reemployment * * * becomes meaningless. A board bound to conform to the superintendent's recommendations is merely a rubber stamp.” Taylor v. Crisp, 212 S.E.2d 381, 385 (N.C.1975); see also Richardson v. Terry, 893 So.2d 277, 285, 286 (Ala.2004) (rejecting argument that nontenured teacher could be nonrenewed only upon recommendation of the superintendent where statute governing nonrenewals did not require superintendent's recommendation). Similarly, if we were to adopt Alba's position that the committee must accept a recommendation for renewal, the committee's role under the act in taking a final vote on an administrator's employment would be reduced to that of a rubber stamp. We therefore agree with the board that the committee acted within its authority when it voted against the superintendent's recommendation to renew Alba's contract. C Commit tee Member's Failure to Recuse Alba argues that member Lombardi's participation in the June 30, 2009 hearing deprived him of his right to a hearing before a fair and impartial tribunal. He points to Lombardi's statement during the open session of the April 20, 2009 committee meeting that “he voted * * * [against Alba] because of what he saw as a significant amount of evidence suggesting that [Alba] is not prepared or equipped for the job of a principal.” This statement, Alba asserts, demonstrates that Lombardi had already formed a belief about Alba's incompetence before the hearing. Alba concludes that Lombardi's remark evinced a disqualifying bias. The statutory scheme set forth in the Administrators' Rights Act necessarily contemplates that the committee members will have formed an opinion about the renewal of an administrator's contract before the hearing takes place. Section 16–12.1–3 of the act dictates that “[p]rior to taking final action * * * not renewing the employment of an administrator,” the committee must provide the administrator with a written statement of the bases or reasons for the nonrenewal and notify the administrator of his or her right to a prompt hearing. In analyzing a similar statutory scheme which governs the nonrenewal of nontenured teachers,9 we observed that the post-notice hearing affords a “teacher who has already been acquainted with the reasons why a board of education has decided not to renew his contract a full and fair opportunity to persuade and convince the board that it is mistaken in that decision.”10 Jacob v. Board of Regents for Education, 117 R.I. 164, 170, 365 A.2d 430, 433 (1976) (internal quotation marks omitted). We therefore explained that, at the hearing, “the committee * * * ha[s] a duty to listen to a dissatisfied teacher in an objective manner and fairly consider its original decision.” Id at 171, 365 A.2d at 434. Rhode Island is not alone in allowing school committees to play overlapping roles by both initiating proceedings to end teachers' employment and making the final decision. Courts faced with comparable provisions have reached similar conclusions that the impartiality required under such a statutory scheme is not the avoidance of forming an initial opinion, but rather the willingness to fairly reconsider that opinion. Put somewhat differently, “[u]nless there is evidence that preformed opinions of board members are fixed and unchangeable, or that in the deliberations after hearing all the evidence, the result was dictated by such a preformed opinion, the [employee] cannot successfully maintain that he was deprived of a fair and impartial hearing.” Kizer v. Dorchester County Vocational Education Board of Trustees, 340 S.E.2d 144, 148 (S.C.1986); accord Hubbard v. Board of Education, 882 P.2d 483, 487–88 (Kan.Ct.App.1994); Palmer v. Van Buren R–1 Board of Education, 872 S.W.2d 590, 593 (Mo.Ct.App.1994) (“The critical inquiry is whether a review of the record ‘indicates that the board of education's prior knowledge * * * resulted in an irrevocable commitment on its part to terminate [the teacher], regardless of what the evidence at the hearing, pro or con, might reveal * * *.’ “ (quoting Cochran v. Board of Education of Mexico School District No. 59, 815 S.W.2d 55, 63 (Mo.Ct.App.1991)). Our review of the record discloses no evidence which would tend to suggest that Lombardi was unable to fairly reconsider his original decision not to renew Alba's contract. His statement at the April 20, 2009 meeting was no more than an explanation of his initial vote. When Lombardi later declined to recuse himself at the June 30, 2009 hearing, he avowed that he had not prejudged the case and that he could keep an open mind. At the close of the hearing, he indicated that his second vote had been based on the evidence, or lack of evidence, presented at the hearing. We are therefore satisfied that Lombardi's refusal to recuse himself did not deprive Alba of his right to a fair hearing. D Requests for Discovery Alba advances several arguments concerning the committee's denial of his requests for prehearing discovery. The general thrust of Alba's claims is that the lack of discovery deprived him of his right to a meaningful hearing under the act. He acknowledges that there is no right to prehearing discovery under the act, but he urges us to imply such a right. Alba perceives the committee's denial of his discovery requests as a deliberate attempt to insulate itself from hearing his “side of the story.” He particularly asserts that without discovery he could not effectively cross-examine witnesses at the hearing or erase any harmful innuendo that had attached to his nonrenewal. As Alba concedes, he has no express right to discovery. There were, however, several other avenues for obtaining information and building a record that Alba chose not to pursue. Alba was informed by letter before each of the three committee meetings that he could request that his employment be discussed in open session. He did not respond to any of the letters or show any interest in the committee's proceedings until he received the chairman's May 8, 2009 letter informing him of the committee's vote. More significantly, Alba and his counsel then refused to participate in the June 30, 2009 hearing. The hearing before the school committee is the primary mechanism under the act for an administrator to ensure that his or her employment is not being ended for impermissible reasons and “to erase harmful innuendo from any suspension, dismissal, or nonrenewal.” Section 16–12.1–1. The administrator, with the assistance of counsel, has a right to present and cross-examine witnesses at the hearing. See § 16–12 .1–4. From our perspective, it was Alba's own actions in abandoning the hearing, rather than any deliberate attempt at obstruction on the part of the committee, that deprived him of the ability to cross-examine witnesses or remove innuendo from his nonrenewal. We find further support for this conclusion in the fact that the committee's counsel did cooperate with several of Alba's prehearing requests. Although it is not entirely clear why the committee did not oblige Alba's request for the minutes,11 the record indicates that Alba requested and was provided with a copy of his personnel file in advance of the hearing. Alba also specifically requested that the committee make Ms. Lundsten and Superintendent Scherza available as witnesses for the hearing. Alba was assured by the committee's counsel in advance of the hearing that both individuals would be in attendance, and in fact, both Ms. Lundsten and Superintendent Scherza testified at the hearing. Alba and his counsel, however, walked out of the hearing without making any attempt to examine either witness. If Alba disagreed with the hearing officer's rulings about discovery, a more appropriate response would have been to place his objection on the record and continue to the best of his ability with the presentation of evidence. In the event that Alba had participated in the proceedings before the committee and still believed that he needed additional information, he had the opportunity for a de novo hearing before the commissioner. See Slattery v. School Commit tee of Cranston, 116 R.I. 252, 262, 354 A.2d 741, 746 (1976) (one who appeals to the commissioner is entitled to “a de novo hearing” and not “merely a review of [the] school committee action”). At that stage, he could have availed himself of the commissioner's broad powers to subpoena documents.12 Alba elected to forgo the hearing before the commissioner in favor of relying upon a stipulated set of facts. While we acknowledge that Alba's request for the minutes was not unreasonable and we understand that an administrator may have valid concerns about his or her employment being discussed in open session, we nonetheless cannot say that an administrator who makes an earnest effort to utilize the procedures available will be deprived of meaningful process if he or she is not also afforded a right to prehearing discovery. Accordingly, we are constrained to conclude that in the instant case, any lack of meaningful process was the result of Alba's refusal to participate, rather than the actions of the committee. E Letter of Nonrenewal Alba additionally questions the chairman's authority to author the May 8, 2009 letter which informed him that the committee had voted to nonrenew his contract. He does not challenge the validity of the committee's reasons. Instead, Alba claims that the chairman exceeded his authority by unilaterally selecting a reason for nonrenewal which was not agreed upon by the full committee as “the reason” for nonrenewal. We cannot agree with the proposition that the chairman strayed beyond the bounds of his authority by distilling the committee's lengthy and varied discussions into a summary of its reasons. In this particular context, the Legislature has explicitly called for concision: Section 16–12.1–3 requires the committee to “provide the affected administrator with: (1) a concise, clear, written statement, privately communicated, of the bases or reasons for the * * * nonrenewal, and (2) notification of the right of the administrator to a prompt hearing * * *.” (Emphasis added.) The May 8, 2009 letter complied with all of these statutory requirements and the chairman was clearly empowered to author that letter since he is endowed with the statutory authority to “sign any orders and official papers” on behalf of the committee. See § 16–2–6. As a practical matter, the chairman could not reasonably be expected to recount at length the substance of the committee's three discussions. Some synthesis and summarization was necessary. To the extent Alba is suggesting that he was entitled, in advance of the hearing, to a full account of the committee's discussions, this suggestion essentially amounts to another iteration of the discovery argument which we have already considered in our foregoing discussion. IV Conclusion For the reasons stated in this opinion, we affirm the decision of the Board of Regents. The record shall be remanded to the Board of Regents with our decision endorsed thereon. FOOTNOTES 1. Our discussion of events taking place during the committee's executive sessions is based upon the summaries of those sessions contained in the record. 2. The summary of the minutes from the committee's executive session on March 16, 2009 is brief, but it states that the committee engaged in “[a] lengthy discussion * * * regarding the overall performance of” Alba. 3. There were four possible scores for each area under evaluation: “Distinguished,” “Proficient,” “Adequate” or “Unsatisfactory.” 4. The two-paragraph summary of the executive session minutes from April 20, 2009 does not reveal the substance of the committee's discussion. 5. On June 9, 2009, prior to the hearing, Alba filed a complaint in Kent County Superior Court seeking, inter alia, declaratory and injunctive relief. In an order entered on September 1, 2009, a Superior Court justice denied Alba's request for a preliminary injunction. In that order, the Superior Court justice found that the committee had not violated Alba's rights under the School Administrators' Rights Act. 6. Before the hearing opened, several parents who were in attendance that evening came forward to express their support for Alba. Alba's counsel also submitted written endorsements of Alba which he suggested should have been included in Alba's personnel file. 7. During the hearing, the committee's counsel appears to have fulfilled a quasi-prosecutorial role by presenting witnesses and arguing in opposition to Alba's counsel. Another individual was responsible for making legal rulings. We refer to the latter individual as the “hearing officer;” and, for the sake of consistency, we continue to refer to the committee's usual counsel as the “committee's counsel.” 8. Although Alba's allegations of error are largely procedural, he does make one argument attacking the substance of the committee's decision as arbitrary and capricious. He specifically points to the fact that the committee renewed the contract of another principal at a different school and suggests that the committee acted arbitrarily by not affording him the same opportunity that it afforded the other principal to improve his performance. We succinctly address this argument by noting that an agency's differing treatment of different individuals does not generally amount to arbitrariness, provided that the record discloses a reasoned basis for the distinction. See Mill Realty Associates v. Crowe, 841 A.2d 668, 675 (R.I.2004); accord McKenzie v. Webster Parish School Board, 609 So.2d 1028, 1032 (La.Ct.App.1992) (finding renewal of other teachers at other schools irrelevant to the plaintiff's claim of arbitrariness). Here, the committee's discussion of the other principal's contract at its April 20, 2009 meeting spans nearly nine single-spaced pages of the record. Those pages disclose several understandable reasons for the committee's decision to renew the other principal's contract. In particular, the committee found it significant that the other principal, in contrast to Alba, never received a formal evaluation. 9. The provision at issue in Jacob v. Board of Regents, 117 R.I. 164, 167, 365 A.2d 430, 432 (1976), entitled nontenured teachers to a “statement of cause” for nonrenewal and a hearing before the full school committee. 10. We also described the nonrenewal hearing as “not quasi-judicial in nature.” Jacob, 117 R.I. at 171, 365 A.2d at 434. Alba's description of the committee as “a quasi-judicial hearing board” is therefore inaccurate. 11. Alba eventually received a copy of the executive session minutes sometime after the June 30, 2009 hearing but before he submitted his memorandum in support of his appeal to the commissioner. 12. Pursuant to G.L.1956 § 16–39–8, the commissioner has the power to issue subpoenas to compel the production of documents for any hearing conducted within the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. “Subpoenas shall * * * be issued by the commissioner or hearing officer at the request of any party participating in any hearing.” Id. Justice INDEGLIA, for the Court.

Long Island Memories 4 Let There Be Light/ C. S. Topic By Edward C. Wi Delivered Saturday, at the Pequa Theatre, Sunrise Highway, Massa-pequa, under the auspices of F i r s t Church of Christ Scientist, Massa-pequa - C. B. S. of Indianapolis, Indiana, Member of the Board of hams Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. ( Continued from page 8) 1 truth are obscured by his contentment with matter. But the light of spiritual reality is clear and bright to those whose thought is attuned to it. This adjustment comes through prayer, the prayer of conscious alignment with divine Truth. Let's take a look at three mental' qualities in particular that are a part of true prayer, this conscious alignment with the divine. One is receptivity. Receptivity is willingness to accept a new idea, even if we have to let go of an old belief. Another part of true prayer is perseverance. This quality of thought persists in relying upon God alone, even in the face of the most discouraging appearances. You may recall the story of the Shunammite woman in the Bible who, when her little son had died, insisted that all was well with the child. Her prayer of persistence must greatly have helped Elisha in restoring the child to life. A third part of true prayer is gratitude, for gratitude is our innermost acceptance of ever- present good. Healing Through Enlightened Consciousness Let me illustrate how this kind of prayer brings spiritual enlightenment and healing. Years ago I received a telephone call late one evening from a woman who said she needed help and asked me to come to her office. I found it located in a second- rate downtown office building, just a cubicle at the end of a dim hallway. When I knocked she called for me to come in — and there was a lovely young woman sitting alone on the floor, listening to a Beethoven symphony on a little record player. She had a cigarette in one hand and a textbook on psychology in the other. She was in such pain and tension that it was difficult for her to speak, but her story was that she was desperately ill and afraid. Her father had put her out of her home, she had only her car and a rented room, and she was in a severe state of tuberculosis. Clinical examinations had confirmed this. Her regular physician had cautioned her that unless she stayed in bed under a strict medical regimen and avoided the slightest physical exertion, she couldn't last more than a year. But she had to earn a living. In discouragement she had tried several times to destroy herself. Now she wondered desperately if there was anything to be found in Christian Science. So we talked about God. We talked about the reasonableness of finding courage through acknowledging God as ever- present good — not as a personality, but an all- encompassing Love, intelligently protecting and caring for each of His dear ones. I explained that resentment and cynicism, which, occupied much of her thought, were like a darkening cloud which produced pain and disease in her experience. Now she must reverse this destructive mental action by bringing into consciousness the light of forgiveness, the activity of love. She was receptive to this and began to relax. The pain subsided. We talked for an hour and a half, and then because the hour was late she offered to drive me home. When we got to her car out in the parking lot she offered me a drink of whiskey; but again she saw the logic in my reminder that liquor had given her nothing, whereas turning to God brings self- control and the fulfillment of good. Well, to shorten the story, during the next few weeks my wife and I saw this girl at the strangest times. One morning before daybreak we were awakened by a faint rap on the door and found her lying unconscious on the doorstep. Again, very late on a cold winter night, the police found her walking along a deserted street. They brought her to our house where she spent the rest of the night on the sofa. She came often after that when the fear and pain became too great. But as the days went by, she persevered in her study of the Bible and Science and Health, and she prayed. This kindled an inner light which regenerated consciousness and " i laid the foundation for complete! healing. In a short time, lovely qualities of character began to appear — patience, gratitude, consideration for others, forgiveness. Then the time came when she was strong and well. The tuberculosis with all of its symptoms was gone. She lost all desire for tobacco and liquor. A normal companionship with her father was restored. Shortly afterwards she was married, and for years has enjoyed a home and her profession with satisfaction and security. Incidentally, when I called her to ask if I might tell about her healing in my lecture, she agreed and then added with a good-natured laugh, " You can tell them that now I work hard every day!" Now if such restoration can come to one, it can come to all. This healing was an illumination of consciousness, the activity of God's Word, or the Christ. The power of divine Love to care for its own — to care for all of us — was brought to light. The Light of Christ Brings Freedom Now up to this point we've considered our first two basic questions. First, we concluded that spiritual illumination is the true light. Second, we saw that one way to find this light is through prayer. This brings us to the third basic question, What is the effect of this light, of this Christ, Truth? Well, we've just seen that the effect of spiritual illumination is to regenerate and heal. Let's take another look at how this is done. Actually it's a matter of the Christ, Truth, cutting right through mortality. What do we mean by mortality? We mean all that's material and subject to discord and death. Mortals believe that they live inside a physical body; but actually the body is in them. The body is one of many concepts which they embrace in consciousness. Someone once said that if we actually lived inside our body, we wouldn't be able to see beyond the end of our nose. It's all dark in there! What appears to be a material body is subjective thought. Like a dream- body, it walks, stands up, sits down, gets sick or well, in obedience to its owner's thinking. You see, we're dealing always with thoughts. The great message of the Bible is instruction in right thinking. Jesus referred to evil thoughts as the tares and good thoughts as the wheat. He said the former should be destroyed, the latter stored. Ignorance of God as infinite Love, the divine Principle of all things, is the mental darkness which spiritual illumination dissolves. As this light brightens individual consciousness with its assurance of ever- present Love, its effect is to transform thought and bring healing. Disease, crime, tragedy, are externalized thoughts. What would make a man commit a crime? Lawless thoughts. Crime begins with thought before it's acted out. What spreads social diseases? Immoral thoughts, resulting in immoral conduct. Drugs and alcohol can't hold their victims unless, in thought, they give consent. Society attempts to battle the social delinquent in- • stead of the thoughts which cause delinquency. We need to screen our thinking and not leave consciousness like a room with many open windows letting in the wind and dust and rain. We should be as selective about what we put into our minds as what we put into our mouths, or even more so. No one would think of eating contaminated food; but sugarcoated contaminated thoughts are urged upon us from every side. They seem harmless only because their poison is less evident. Mass world belief in the pleasure of sin and the fearfulness of disease is hypnotic. Too often sin and suffering take shape in one's experience if he leaves his thought open to their mental contagion. Belief in sin and disease denies God's all-presence and all- power and exalts suppositional evil. It may seem tempting, or terrifying, until the light of spiritual truth melts it away. Evil can't project its tragedy into our lives when we reject its arguments and hold steadfastly to the all- power of the one God, the Truth which makes free. With even a little spiritual enlightenment, the contrast between good thoughts and deceptive beliefs stands out in sharp profile. We begin to rule out of consciousness discordant, worthless thoughts just as a cashier in a bank detects and rejects counterfeit money. Loyalty to good, courage to stand for the right, faith in God's presence and power to heal gain predominance in our thought and align us with divine power. These are the effects of the Christ, Truth, as it illuminates our consciousness through prayer. The Light That Heals Sickness One of the errors of mortality which spiritual illumination pierces is the belief that disease is real, actually part of God's creation. Why, if disease were the work of God, Christ Jesus would have agreed with it, he wouldn't have healed it. His consistent negation of disease leaves no doubt that he regarded it as contrary to God's purpose. Spiritual awakening aligns us with God's power and speeds us in a straight line out of sickness into health. I read an interesting thing about the honeybee which illustrates the value of correct spiritual alignment. After gathering nectar from a flower, the honeybee will take a bearing on the sun and fly directly to her home perhaps a quarter of a mile away. She makes a " beeline" for home. The term " beeline" has come to mean to go djrectly without delay, without deviation; and we'll do well to take frequent bearings on the source of true spiritual light to determine the direction in which to think and act. Then we won't get lost in the woods. We can make a " beeline" to where health and well- being are found. How does God's law of Truth control the human body to bring about a physical healing? To answer this, we must remember that i the physical body is a formation of thought and it exists in thought. What thought? Not our own, but whatever thoughts we have igno-rantly accepted as our own. The body expresses our thoughts, as illustrated in the movement of our hands and the tone of our voice. Joy, exhilaration, age, or even death, are mental states which the body obeys. Mental discord causes physical discord. Enlightened, spiritual consciousness promotes health and peace. The material body is the blackboard on which discordant mortal thought draws its disease-pictures. Spiritual enlightenment wipes the slate clean. Now as spiritual truth enlightens human thought, it governs all the thought- formations of the body. The Christ, Truth, demonstrates that man is spiritual, not material; and that his real body, or identity, is his conscious embodiment of divine qualities. The true light illumines individual consciousness and its concept of body, uplifting it from a sense of insubordinate matter to a higher understanding of substance that is spiritual. The effect is a better sense of body whose members now function in obedience to God's perfect law, because thought is obedient to God's law. Christian Science is here to show us how to root out the evil and cultivate the good. It teaches us to distinguish disease- producing thoughts from the true — how to understand the reality of good instead of living in a false consciousness of discord and evil. Spiritual enlightenment brings to our individ- FARMINGDALE OBSERVER - Thursday, November 21, 1968 ual consciousness an awakening realization that we are not mortals. We're the spiritual and perfect likeness of God, as the Bible tells us. This illumination pervades consciousness with increasing harmony and peace, extending to all of the concepts in consciousness. The body responds in becoming strong and healthy. Christ Enlightens World Consciousness Now the influence of this spiritual enlightenment extends far beyond the individual. Truth illuminates individual consciousness, and through individuals it illuminates the world. For example, Science and Health says, " The rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into the focus of ideas, bring light instantaneously, whereas a thousand years of human doctrines, hypotheses, and vague conjectures emit no such effulgence" ( p. 504). Just as rays of sunlight produce intense heat and brilliance when they are focused, so the rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into the focus of ideas, bring light and penetration to the clouds of human woe. Just think how the vital ideas of justice, love of liberty and freedom, focused at one point of human history, brought forth the Magna Charta or the Declaration of Independence! A discordant, material belief is simply a mistake made up of false thoughts which have no focus and give no light. But a spiritual idea is a focal point of infinite Truth whose rays bring inevitable light. History shows repeatedy how such illumination has brought progress and freedom to humanity. Inspired by God, Moses brought the Ten Commandments to Israel. These focal points of divine Truth highlighted the character of God as the one supreme good, and when the Israelites obeyed them, they rose from slavery to national independence and prosperity. Jesus was born a babe in a manger. But later as a teacher voicing the Christ message he declared, " I am the light of the world" ( John 8: 12). His followers, mentally transformed by this light, , founded the early Christian church. Again, centuries later, spiritual light was made available to the masses by translation of the Bible into the language of the common people. Gradually, like the coming of spring, humanity awoke from the winter of the Dark Ages. Literature, art, and music blossomed. Within a brief five hundred years education increased a thousandfold. Breathtaking forms of laborsaving power were discovered as mankind stepped into the mechanical age. In wide areas of the world, government by the people and for the people was established in the place of autocracies. Women's rights were acknowledged. Now the leaven of Scriptural enlightenment has raised world consciousness to where at last it is ready for the appearance of the Science of Christ, the Comforter, or " Spirit of truth," which Jesus foretold ( John 15: 26). Christian Science defines the universe and man in spiritual, not material, dimensions. It arouses rebellion against time- honored, material limitations which were never divinely ordained. Men are exploring pioneer areas of thought where the horizon is continually expanding. During the last century • material restrictions have crumbled more rapidly than ever before. Worldwide communication has become almost instantaneous. Transportation has advanced from a horse's pace to beyond the speed jof sound. Our astronauts soar into j outer space to circle the earth in a matter of hours. Inveterate diseases are being healed through spiritual means alone. Technological developments are [ no accident. The ideas were always jhere. Humanity broke through to them when inherited limitations were challenged — when the inertia of materialism began to stir and churn under the penetrating focus of spiritual light. This light, divinely demanded from the beginning, has reached its full brilliance in the Science of Christ, or Christian Science. True Progress Now all of this adds up to the conclusion that real progress is the growth of human consciousness out of mortality into the understanding of infinite Spirit, God. It will continue to be illustrated in our progressive release from discord and restriction until we fully demonstrate the spiritual reality that all of us are made in the image and likeness of God. What is it that awakens us so naturally in the morning when night is past? Isn't it the coming of daylight? Even so, the brighter, spiritual light of the Christ can awaken us from the darkness of mortal beliefs into health, harmony and spiritual freedom. Editors Note: Editors Note: Edward C. Williams is a native of Indianapolis, Indiana, where he was - aised as a Christian Scientist. As a member of Third Church of Christ, Scientist, of Indianapolis, he served his church as first reader and as chairman of their executive baord, as well as in many other capacities. In 1942 he left an active business career in order to devote his full time to the healing mini s t r y of Christian Science, and* is a listed Christian Science practitioner. During World War II he served as Christian Science Minister for the armed services. More recently he served the cause of Christian Science on the committee on publication, for the s t a t e of Indiana which office he held for a number of years. In 1961 he became an authori z e d teacher of Christian Science. Over a period of twenty years his a r t i c l e s have appeared in the Christian Science periodicals. LEGAL NOTICE ( Continued from page 4) of Oyster Bay by causing this resolution to be published at least one time in the Massape-qua Observer which is hereby d e s ignated as the official newspaper of the Town for the purpose of affecting the. publication h e r e i n above provided for or required to be made, BY ORDER OF THE TOWN BOARD OF THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY Michael N. Petito, Supervisor William B. O'Keefe Town Clerk Dated: Oyster Bay, New York November 12, 1968 STATE OF NEW YORK ) COUNTY OF NASSAU ) s s: of the Town of Oyster Bay of resolution adopted by the Town Board, relative to the exchange of P r o p e r t y by Daim Building Corp., and Town of Oyster Bay filed in the Town C l e r k ' s Office and that die same is a true transcript thereof, and of the whole of such original. In Testimony Whereof, I have have hereunto signed my name and affixed the seal of said Town this 15th day of November, 1968. William B. O'Keefe Town Clerk SEAL # 706 IT Observer Nov. 21, 1968 Page 9 Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

other,[ii].[iii].[iv]. My paper[v] is now available in Early Online Release form, here. The final submitted manuscript is available on my own webpage, here. . [i] Frame DJ, BBB Booth, JA Kettleborough, DA Stainforth, JM Gregory, M Collins and MR Allen, 2005. Constraining climate forecasts: The role of prior assumptions. Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L09702 [ii] Lewis, N., 2013. An objective Bayesian improved approach for applying optimal fingerprint techniques to estimate climate sensitivity. Journal of Climate, 26, 7414-7429. [iii] Gillett et al, 2012. Improved constraints on 21st-century warming derived using 160 years of temperature observations. Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L01704 [iv] Lewis, N., 2013. Modification of Bayesian Updating where Continuous Parameters have Differing Relationships with New and Existing Data. arXiv:1308.2791 [stat.ME]. [v]. 48 Comments Thanks, Nic. great work Thanks! Nic, congratulations on getting published in the Journal of Climate. To give Frame et al some credit, they did recognize you in their acknowledgement, even if their corrigendum did not go as far as it could have. You are right. For the record, I understand that Frame and Allen, at least, had known about the ocean heat content error since 2006, and I informed Myles Allen about the likelihood function error nearly nine months before the corrigendum was submitted. The submission and acceptance of corrigendum made my paper less acceptable for publication. Fortunately, I was able to revise my paper, cutting down what I said about errors in Frame et al 2005, so that it constituted a research article rather than being seen as a comment. niclewis: I’ve had a number of papers that started their life as criticisms of other people’s work: I’ve always found that shifting the focus to original research that “exploits questions posed by previous research” has always made the paper stronger and have a longer lifetime than it would have had as a standalone criticism. From the corrigendum: “Correcting all these errors, the upper bound of the 5–95% range for climate sensitivity under a uniform prior increases from 11.6 to 14.5°C.” Wow The (IIRC) 2009 Annan and Hargreaves paper you refer to has an interesting tell. Their purpose in using informed priors was to constrain the clearly implausible high ECS probability tail that results from the Frame and Allen approach, again evidenced in the corrigendum. A and H published their full resulting ECS PDFs. For both of the separately informed priors they used, the mode ECS was about 1.9 rather than 3. They never even commented on this important result. To my knowledge, only my 2011 post at Climate Etc and the ECS discussion in the climate chapter of my last book have done so until this little comment. Certainly AR5 took no mind. Their estimates were much closer to the newer ones you are deriving than has been generally recognized. Thanks for your comment. The Annan and Hargreaves paper (published online in 2009, but only in 2011 in the printed journal) compares the effects on ECS inference based on the likelihood function from Forster & Gregory (2006) of three priors for ECS: uniform, Webster (Expert) and Cauchy. All of these are informative priors, and all will bias ECS estimation to a greater or lesser extent. There is no justification for using any of these priors, IMO, and their influence means that none of the resulting ECS PDFs properly reflects the data and method used and the assumed error distributions. The Gaussian error assumptions made in Forster & Gregory (2006) corresponded, as they pointed out in their paper, to an almost uniform-in-climate-feedback-parameter prior, which has the form 1/ECS^2 when expressed in terms of ECS. That prior – which has a shape quite unlike any of the three informative priors – was uninformative for their study, hence a uniform-in-ECS prior (on the basis of which their results were restated in AR4) was highly informative. I blogged about AR4’s distortion of the Forster & Gregory (2006) results here. Although AR5 does not properly address the issue of informative vs noninformative priors, it does at least discuss it. And it presents the Forster & Gregory (2006) results on their original basis, corresponding to use of an uninformative prior, as well as the AR4 altered version. The median estimate comes down from 2.4 K to 1.5 or 1.6 K, and the 95% bound from 14.2 K (AR4 Table 9.3) to ~3.5 K. The median, which is not given in the Annan and Hargreaves paper, is a better best estimate for skewed distributions than the mode, but is unfortunately more difficult to deduce from their graphs. “The median…..is a better best estimate for skewed distributions than the mode” That makes no sense! Did you mean to write the mode is a better estimate for skewed distributions than the mean? If not, then where do you derive this odd assertion? The mode is the ‘most probable’ value whereas the median is just the middle point between the upper and lower values and tells us nothing whatsoever about probability. Consider what happens if you look, rather than at the distribution of a random variable x, at y=f(x), where f(x) is a monotonic transformation. For example, f=1/x. The median transforms in the expected way, as do quartiles etc. However, the mode may be in an entirely different place if f'(x) is not constant. A simple example is the blackbody radiation spectrum. (This is an intensity distribution, not probability, to be sure, but the principle is the same.) The frequency density peaks at a photon energy of 2.821*kT; the wavelength density peaks at E=4.965*kT. [Coefficient values courtesy of Wikipedia.) how much of the distribution falls below the median? Well I asked a perfectly valid question yet received no reply from Nic – just two utterly irrelevant replies from others. I’m wont therefore to assume that Nic is just talking nonsense and that there is no reference or proof anywhere for this very odd assertion – merely his own gut feeling. JamesG, you got a perfectly sensible reply from HaroldW which explained the issue clearly; that’s why nobody else felt the need to add anything further. Jonathan Jones That might have been a sensible reply if we were dealing with an abstract random variable but we aren’t; we intrinsically know that increasing sensitivity is decreasingly likely and the mode confirms the most probable result as being low. Using the median can give exactly the same result whether the most probable value is close to 1.5 or close to 4.5. So what he is implicitly asserting is that the skew in the distribution is unimportant. Yet just looking at the distributions (rather than attempting to describe them by a single number) tells you the mode is more important. Use instead a median value in print and most folk seem to assume that it is the centre point of a normal distribution. Such bold and unsupported assertions may have some validity in the financial world or otherwise where the underlying science is unknown or data is scarce but not everywhere and certainly not with climate sensitivity! NIc, well done. is there a readily available reference that you recommend as an introduction to the topic of informative and uninformative priors? Cheers, Steve PS – can you add a reference to Annan and Hargreaves – preferably the paper and a blogpost. Steve, thanks. I’ve now added the references you suggest. PS the best book on noninformative priors and objective Bayesian methods, as well as lots of other issues, is probably Bernardo, J.M. and A.F.M. Smith, 1994: Bayesian Theory. Wiley, 608pp. A widely-cited review article that is well worth reading is Kass RE, Wasserman L (1996): The Selection of Prior Distributions by Formal Rules. J Amer Stat Ass 91 435:1343-1370. When I was doing my PhD on mathematical modelling my supervisor encouraged me to look into Bayesian Statistics as a potentially useful tool. I couldn’t then (ca 1971) see how I could generate priors that would be defensible to a critical audience in a seminar. I take it that things have advanced in four decades, but is that problem still at the root of hesitation at adopting Bayesian methods? Mind you, the Climate Scientists have got round the “critical audience” problem in a breathtakingly direct way. Johnny Carson used to say of certain skits, “If you buy the premise, you buy the bit.” That seems to me the problem with Bayesian statistics as evidence: they only convince those who accept the prior as reasonable. James Annan points out that Frame’s prior of a uniform distribution on [0, 20] is completely unreasonable, since it supposes that ECS is three times more likely to be in [5, 20] than to be in [0, 5]. True. But I think the killer of a uniform distribution from [a,b] for a “non-informative prior” is that the choice of “a” and “b” as well as “uniform” are all three HIGHLY INFORMATIVE/BIASED assumptions. Can you buy the premise that [2,3] is just as likely as [17,18] but [20.0001,999] has zero likelihood? No. Interesting. My introduction to Bayesian statistical theory and practice was via medical pathology labs. Yes, those folk were a tough crowd if you didn’t handle the statistics properly (or correctly, depending on the critic :P ). That was 3 decades ago, and I’m not in that area any more, so I don’t know if things have changed much since. Perusing the medical literature suggests that while Bayesian theories and analysis is accepted, the application of it isn’t always accepted. Nic, your threads and dissertations on Bayesian inference have been well timed with my summer of learning more about Bayesian data analyses and applications. At this point I see the results that one obtains from a Bayesian or a frequentist approach might well be the nearly the same if the data used for the likelihood calculation are large. In that case the prior will have little leverage on the posterior. On the other hand with sparse data, the use of a well-founded and perhaps theoretically based prior can give advantage to the Bayesian approach over that of the frequentist. The choice of the prior is going to have, however, a large leverage on the posterior when the data is sparse. That would appear to make a combination of relatively sparse data and an uninformed prior a less desirable choice. The book I have been reading on Bayesian inference tends to handle the subjective and informed approach to priors by suggesting that the prior be agreeable to the skeptics. Kenneth, if the data are precise then choice of prior will usually make little difference. It is when data are poor – sparse and imprecise – that selecting an uninformative prior is particularly important, rather than less desirable, since with poor data an informative prior will have a major influence on estimation. An uninformative prior is designed to have minimal effect on inference about what is being estimated, relative even to poor data. In problems involving estimating one or several climate system properties, the non-Bayesian signed-root log likelihood ratio method, applied to the profile likelihood, seems to provide an easy and useful cross check. If the likelihood peak location and uncertainty (confidence) bounds it provides aren’t broadly similar to those arising from Bayesian methods, the prior being used is probably quite informative. Quite a lot of what is written in books about choice of priors is questionable. “An uninformative prior is designed to have minimal effect on inference about what is being estimated, relative even to poor data.” Nic, it is my consideration that the use of the uninformative prior is, like you state here, to have minimal effect on inference and is used when there is little prior knowledge of how the PDF might appear, but if one has a reasonable theoretical view of that PDF then the combination of sparse data and an informed theoretically based prior can out perform a frequentist approach. Perhaps I am missing a subtle point here but is not the Frame and Allen use of a uniform prior (or thinking they were using it) considered an uninformed prior? Also does not the Bayes rule allow one to use a posterior result as a prior when new data become available? Kenneth, from what Frame and Allen put in their 2004 presentation and was in Frame et al (2005), they did think that use of a uniform prior in ECS (jointly with Kv) was uninformative when the aim was to estimate ECS itself. That was, however, incorrect. In the common case of a ‘location variable’ (where the error/uncertainty distribution is a function only of the difference between the true and the observed value of a variable), a uniform prior is indeed noninformative.. See reference (iv) (a 2013 paper of mine). .” The author of the book from which I am learning more about Bayesian analysis warns of different forms, but, of course, the examples in the book never have this problem. To the novice like me there are many subtle precautions in using Bayesian data analysis and that is why I have spent a lot of time this summer going over the details in a book on the subject – it is for beginners. Using the Bayesian terminology here, as you and some others have done, helps me better understand the processes. I do not recall seeing in this thread any details on how you made calculations to obtain the posterior probabilities. You did not use a direct integration – did you? I am somewhat familiar with the Metropolis algorithm and Gibbs sampling. I have done some calculations using R2OpenBUGS with BUGS. Nic Lewis, please ignore my question concerning the calculations of the posterior probabilities. On reading your paper and familiarizing myself with the terminology I think I know what you did. “Transformation of variables” appear to be the same as “change of variables” used to simplify an integration. Nic,. @Kenneth Fritsch Hi Kenneth, You wrote: .” Say the variable of interest is A, and the conditioning variable is B. The integral of the posterior pdf of A given B must be equal to unity. If the prior pdf of A is a “proper” pdf but the likelihood function is not (it very often is defined only to yield correct proportionality relative to other realisations), then the result needs to be normalised by the constant factor given by inverse of the integral of the product of the likelihood function of B given A times the prior probability of A, integrated over the space of the A variable. This ensures that the posterior pdf of A given B is proper in the sense that it integrates to unity. Mmm. This sounds more complicated than it was intended to be. Hope it helps. Paul, thanks for the reply. I am aware of the requirement of a normalization constant and integration or summation to obtain it. I am confused here though. Are you saying that in the case(s) discussed here that the normalization constant is unity – and not by calculation but more by definition? Hi Kenneth, No, I was not saying that the normalisation constant is unity. I was saying that it needs to be calculated so that the integral of the pdf of interest is equal to unity, an essential requirement for the result to be deemed a proper pdf. Say you work out your conditional probability function of “A given B” as the product of a likelihood function for B given A times a posterior pdf for A. There is no guarantee that this function integrates to unity. When you integrate this conditional probability function across the space of A you will generally find that you obtain a number K which is NOT equal to unity. But the integral of any pdf must equal unity. So, to convert the conditional probability function of A given B into a proper pdf, you then need to divide the function by the constant K. The result then retains the original relative properties of the A variable within the conditional probability function, but now integrates to unity, as any self-respecting pdf should. The constant of proportionality which you asked for is given therefore by (1/K). This is “the inverse of the integral of the product of the likelihood function of B given A times the prior probability of A, integrated over the space of the A variable”, which was what I stated before. It just sounds complicated when you write it out textually. It is a straightforward routine step that generally is not over-described. Kenneth, Corrigendum. My second paragraph should start with:- Say you work out your conditional probability function of “A given B” as the product of a likelihood function for B given A times a PRIOR pdf for A. Sorry for any confusion. Paul, thanks again for your explanations. At my stage of learning Bayesian inference you can never get too much explanation. I understand the what you wrote here and previously. I think my communication has caused a problem here in that what I specifically wanted was the method used by Nic Lewis, and Annan for that matter, to integrate the function to obtain a normalization constant so that the graphs they present are truly PDFs and not something proportional to the PDF. You have been giving me the general reasoning and methods for obtaining the normalization constant. If the integral is complex and difficult to integrate it can be done numerically or by use a grid or one can obtain the proper PDF by using MCMC or Gibbs sampling. Without the normalization one has something proportional to a PDF for the probability function of A|B and I would suppose that one could obtain a 95% probability range from that curve, but then one needs to integrate it in order to get the area under the curve. Perhaps in Nic Lewis’ absence here you can direct me to where these calculations were made. Kenneth, I simply numerically-integrated the product of the prior and the likelihood function over the entire parameter space covered by the model-simulation grid, and divided that product by its integral (derived by summation over the grid). Doing so normalises the (joint) parameter PDF so that it represents a total probability of one. That this is correct can be seen upon integrating both sides of the full (not proportionate) Bayes’ theorem formula, giving one on the LHS. The method does rely on off-grid probability being very small. Nic, I greatly appreciate yours and Paul’s patience in answering my query. I strongly suspected that you handled the integration as you describe here, but at this stage in my learning experience I was not all certain that I was not missing something simple. The book I am just about finished reading is titled “Doing Bayesian Data Analysis” by John K Kruschke of Indiana University. He writes very upbeat and starts each chapter with a poem. The one on specifying a beta prior starts with: I built up my courage to ask her to dance By drinking too much before taking a chance. I fell on my butt when she said see ya later; Less priors might make my posterior beta. Thanks again Nic, The effect of different estimates of ocean heat content OHC is noted. I’m sure I’m not alone in expressing misgivings about the accuracy of contemporaneous OHC estimates. Some estimates I’ve seen (but not checked) suggest that several thousand times the present sampling density in space would be needed to overcome the present sampling deficit, or a considerable and inconveniently long future time of sampling with present equipment. Are you confident that the uncertainty of OHC has been properly accounted? >>>>>>>>>>> From Wunsch et al 2014 (I do not agree with some parts of this paper)-. Geoff, I doubt if uncertainty in the OHC change estimates is as high as uncertainty in aerosol forcing, so it’s not the prime cause of wide ranges for ECS. If Wunsch and Heimberger (2014)’s estimate is correct, then total OHC change over 1993-2012 only equates to 0.13 W/m2 over the Earth’s surface, far lower than other estimates, which would imply ECS is lower than thought. Thank you, Nic. While I appreciate your essay and note its main emphasis on subtle variations of Bayesian estimation, I have long held a concern that the real errors involved in some of these climate data sets are so large that they swamp subtlety. They make me wonder if there was a need for time to be spent in refuting a paper – because the initial paper should not have been written when the errors were so large that the data meant little of significance. Perhaps o/t, perhaps not..Go to youtube and get the “Hot Crazy Matrix”. It seems an apt name for some of the stuff we see out of the climate science factory. At any rate, it is a worthwhile, educational view. And it has a graph. Phil Reblogged this on I Didn't Ask To Be a Blog. Nic, An excellent and informative tutorial for those of us with a poor background in statistics. Thanks! I think the arguments for using “noninformative” or “objective” priors are not airtight, although a uniform prior on sensitivity may well be unreasonable. The subthread here: and some other comments in that thread (which was about radiocarbon dating, not climate sensitivity) seem to apply here as well. Perhaps a simpler way of addressing this topic is to invert the question and ask “how strong would your prior have to be for you to believe x about the climate given the data?”. Let A be the event that “climate sensitivity is above the critical value x”, and let B be the data on CO2 and temperature. (For interest, you could think of x as being the level of sensitivity above which you would believe that immediate mitigation of CO2 emissions were called for.) Then P(A|B)=[P(B|A)/P(B)]*P(A) with P(B|A) as the likelihood of the data given that sensitivity is above x and P(B) the unconditional likelihood of the data. Your estimate of [P(B|A)/P(B)] contains all your empirical techniques and assumptions. Your posterior belief about A given B is now a linear function of your prior P(A) with that ratio as coefficient and for any belief level p you can ask “How high would P(A) have to be given my estimate to make P(A|B) at least p?” You can back out how strong your prior has to be to make you alarmed or not. To me, the fly in the ointment of this and any Bayesian approach is that the subjectivity is supposed to be confined to the choice of prior P(A). But in fact there is considerable subjectivity embedded in the part that is estimated, too, namely in the theory that is used to derive P(B|A) versus P(B|\A). (P(B) is the sum of these conditional probabilities.) Still, I think that this inverted exercise asking how strong your prior has to be given the data for you to be able to believe x with strength p would be more productive and feed better into a policy calculus than the approach that starts with the prior. In a situation like this, I would suggest that researchers do their analysis with several different priors and then examine the sensitivity of the results to the choice of prior. These priors should be explicitly discussed in the research as they constitute a large part of the inductive step in science. There is some merit in showing sensitivity to choice of priors where the researcher has a rough idea of what shape a noninformative prior might be. Unfortunately, that is very unlikely to be the case in respect of priors for parameters when the relationship between the parameters and the observable variables is highly nonlinear – certainly where there are multiple parameters. All the parameter priors considered by the investigator may easily be highly informative. In such cases, it makes much more sense to carry out any exploration of sensitivity to priors by trying different priors for observable variables What prior is likely to be noninformative in relation to observable variables is often obvious from the nature of errors and other sources of uncertainty affecting them. After carrying out Bayesian inference to obtain a joint posterior PDF for the observables, a transformation of variables can be undertaken to obtain a joint PDF for the parameters. This approach avoids the need to ascertain a suitable joint prior for the parameters. Whether or not sensitivity to prior is investigated, I recommend comparing Bayesian results with those from a profile likelihood method, which does not involve selecting a prior and so provides objective, although not usually exact, parameter inference. Nic, Yet another excellent paper. Well done. On the face of it, you are seemingly very polite to Frame and Allen 2005 here if I am following the plot correctly. You observe that there is a “one-to-one and onto” mapping from the 2-D parameter space (S, Kv) to the 2-D observation data (Ta, “Ocean Heat”). Hence, given a postulated error range on the actual observed data, converted into a (posterior) joint pdf, the joint pdf of the actual observed data can be inverted uniquely into the parameter space using the standard approach to transformation of random variables. This gives you a joint pdf in the parameter space, from which the marginal distribution of climate sensitivity is obtained directly by integrating out the Kv term. “The beauty of this approach is that conversion of a PDF upon a transformation of variables gives a unique, unarguably correct, result.” Exactly. You then go on to show that the same result can be obtained…etc, etc. I am not in any way offering a critique of your thoughtful comparison of the different Bayesian approaches. It is just that this first result would seem to demonstrate that the Frame and Allen posterior distributions for ECS were complete and utter nonsense, unless their postulated range of values for the observables were grossly at odds with reality. .” From the corrigendum, Frame and Allen write:- “Correcting all these errors, the upper bound of the 5–95% range for climate sensitivity under a uniform prior increases from 11.6 to 14.5°C. “? Paul, Thanks! Yes indeed, none of the Frame and Allen posterior distributions really made sense other than that (mistakenly) stated to use a uniform prior in the observable variables AW and EHC, but which in fact represented a transformation of a joint posterior PDF for AW and EHC. You would have to ask Myles Allen himself how he justifies retention of the ECS distribution based on a uniform prior in ECS. I’m unsure. But, if I understand his current views correctly, he now views objective Bayesian methods less favourably than subjective Bayesian methods, although he seems to have switched from Bayesian methods to using a profile likelihood?” One very important aspect of the Frame and Allen choice of priors and the resulting posterior PDFs that to my awareness has not been addressed directly in this thread is that the upper bound of the 5%-95% range for climate sensitivity could have very profound effects on policy and/or campaigning for policy changes regarding government actions on AGW. The median values for sensitivity in the graph (Figure 2) in this thread, using various priors, varies closer around 2 degrees C, but the 95% upper bound varies from around 5 degrees for 4 cases to over 10 degrees for 2. The differences in the median is probably not going convince many people of a crisis but if those people were somehow convinced that there is a chance, not diminishing small, that the global temperature could change and change quickly by amounts that would make the world very different than it currently is or has been in recorded history, those people might well agree to very draconian measures in attempts at mitigation. With this in mind I would think that scientists reporting such a PDF for very high 95% upper bounds for ECS would be very careful and sure of their calculations/estimates and prior beliefs or at least clearly point out the potential problems (sensitivities) with their estimates. When a scientific finding could so profoundly affect policy, the interested observer, I think, must also be aware of possible motivation on the part of the scientist and the effect it might have on how strongly they support their findings even in the light of counter.” “From the corrigendum, Frame and Allen write:- “Correcting all these errors, the upper bound of the 5–95% range for climate sensitivity under a uniform prior increases from 11.6 to 14.5°C. “ ” What am I missing here? Is it me or audacity on the part of Allen? Kenneth, I’m not sure you are missing anything. Except perhaps that the statement in the Frame et al (2005) corrigendum would still be literally true whether or not Myles Allen believed that use of a uniform prior in ECS (and sqrt(Kv)) gave a tolerably realistic range for ECS. 4 Trackbacks […] claim about not being able to rule out high ECS values based on 20th century observations. My paper[v] is now available in Early Online Release form, here. The final submitted manuscript is available on […] […] They developed the work presented into what became an influential paper, Frame et al 2005,[i] here, with Frame as lead author and Allen as senior […] […] and Profile Likelihood Approaches. Nic discusses his new paper in a Climate Audit blogpost called Paper justifying AR4’s use of a uniform prior for estimating climate sensitivity shown to be f…. The paper that Nic is referring to is Frame et al. (2005), which attempted to use prior […] […]… […]

Leica is considered one of the most prestigious camera brands. In this tutorial, we will draw one of the most notable Leica cameras in Photoshop, the Leica M1. Let's get started! Step 1: Background and Floor Make new file (Command/Ctrl + N) and set its size to 110 × 700 px. Activate gradient tool. Set its mode to radial from #f5f5f5 to #c4c5c4. Step 2 Duplicate layer by pressing Command/Ctrl + J. Hit Command/Ctrl + T to transform it. Pull upper handle down to convert it into a floor. Step 3 On layers panel, click Add Layer Mask icon to add layer mask. Paint upper mask with black until it fades onto the background. Step 4: Basic Shape Open Paths panel. Click new path icon. Use pen tool to draw camera basic path. Step 5 Grab a leather texture from Design Instruct freebies section. Below, we use Leather Texture 04 from the collection. Step 6 Current leather color doesn't fit the camera appearance. We need to change its color to gray. Add new adjustment layer Hue/Saturation and use below settings. This is the result after we add Hue/Saturation. Step 7 Copy basic camera path and place it on top of the leather texture. Step 8 Select leather texture and adjustment layer. Hit Command/Ctrl + G to place them inside a group layer. Click Layer > Vector Mask > Current Path. The leather texture is now goes inside the path. From this point onward until Step 29, make sure to place all new layer inside this group layer. Step 9: Metal Parts Duplicate camera path. Click Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color. Select color #9ebec5. Add a rectangular path on middle of the path. Modify its bottom side to turn it into a curve. Set its mode to Subtract. Add a rectangular path and set its mode to Add to Shape. See picture below to see the shape that you need to make. Add Layer Style Bevel and Emboss and Gradient Overlay. This is the result we have. This shape is going to be metal part of the camera. Step 10 In Layers panel, Command/Ctrl-click layer shape to make new selection based on its shape. Step 11 Make new layer. Fill selection with black. Step 12 Soften it by adding Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur). Step 13 Hit Command/Ctrl + [ to place the layer under previous layer shape. Move the shadow down a few pixel. Step 14 Make new layer and then activate brush tool. Manually, paint black as shadows on left and right side of the camera. Step 15 Repeat previous step, this time use white for highlights. We want to place the source light on left side of the camera. So, draw a white line on left side of the camera. Use eraser tool with 0% hardness and 20% opacity to erase highlights on its leather texture. Step 16 Reduce layer Opacity to 10%. This is enough to add subtle highlight onto the camera. Step 17 Add another highlight on right side of the camera using same technique. This time set its Opacity to lower than 10%. Remember that highlight on left side needs to be more stronger because the light source is placed on top left side too. Step 18 Command/Ctrl-click camera main path to make new selection based on its shape. Step 19 Make new layer. Click Edit > Stroke. Select black as its color with width 2 px. Step 20 Deselect by pressing Command/Ctrl + D. Click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to soften the line. Use soft eraser to erase parts of the line. This line will be shadows on camera's edge. Step 21 Let's repeat previous, but this time for highlight on the metal part. Command/Ctrl-click metal part layer to make new selection. make new layer. Click Edit > Stroke and choose white color. Remove selection and then soften it using Gaussian Blur. Step 22 Use Eraser tool to erase some part of the highlight line. Step 23: Add Metal Texture Make new layer and then fill it with white. Click Edit > Fill, select white color and then click OK. Click Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Step 24 Click Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Set angle to 0° with very big distance size. Step 25 Change layers blend mode to Overlay and reduce its Opacity. Step 26: Add Highlights Let's add some soft highlights onto the camerea. Activate Brush tool and set its Opacity to 40%. Change background color to white. Make new layer and then draw small highlights on top left of the camera. Don't worry if the result looks too rough. Soften it by applying Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur). Repeat this steps on other areas of the camera. Step 27 Make new and paint shadow on left side of the camera. Make sure to use a big and soft brush. Step 28 Make new layer. Draw big shadow on right side of the camera. Reduce layer Opacity until the result is natural. Step 29: Lens Make a new separate group for drawing lenses. Draw a thin rounded rectangle with color #add9e7. Select shape using Path Selection tool and hit Command/Ctrl + Alt + T to duplicate and transform it. In the option bar, set angle to 2°. Make sure the new path is selected. Hit Command/Ctrl + Shift + Alt + G to repeat the transformation. Keep doing this until we have a full circle shape. Add Drop Shadow and Outer Glow with following settings. Step 30 Repeat previous steps, but this time draw a black rectangle with angle 5°. Reduce layers Opacity to 10%. Hit Command/Ctrl + [ to move the layer down and place it under previous circle shape. Step 31 Make new layer on top of circle shape. Dab white and black on its edge using a soft big brush. Hit Command/Ctrl + Alt + G to convert the layer into a Clipping Mask. This way, the pixels will goes inside the shape. Step 32 Draw bigger circle behind the lens and lines. Use #a2cedc for its color. Douible click layer and activate Gradient Overlay with following settings. Step 33 Make new layer right above the circle and dab white and black using soft big brush. Convert the layer to Clipping Mask (Command/Ctrl + Alt + G). Step 34 Draw a circle shape with color #202323. Make new layer and dab white on its right side. Convert layer to Clipping Mask by pressing Command/Ctrl + Alt + G. Step 35 Draw smaller circle with color #1b1c1e. Make new layer, convert it to Clipping mask and then dab black and white on its edge. Step 36 You should now understand the process. Repeat this a few times until we get a complete set of circles inside the lens. Step 37 Draw smaller circle again with color #0f0c14. Add subtle Gradient Overlay. Step 38 Draw a small circle with color #111010. Step 39 Draw a big circle covering whole lens. You can use any color for this shape. Double click layer shape and add subtle Gradient Overlay with Opacity 11% from black to white. Reduce Fill layer to 0%. This way, we can reveal the lens and add subtle gradient on top of it. Step 40 Draw a rounded rectangle. Select the path using Path Selection Tool. Hit Command/Ctrl + Alt + T to duplicate and transform the shape. Alt-drag transformation reference point and place it on center of the lens. Rotate the shape for 30°. Step 41 Repeat the process by pressing Command/Ctrl + Shift + Alt + T. See picture below to see the result. Add layer style Inner Glow and Gradient Overlay. Step 42 Reduce Opacity to 40% and Fill to 0%. Step 43 Place the layer on top of small circle shape we made in Step 37. Convert layer to Clipping Mask by pressing Command/Ctrl + Alt + G. Split each path into separate layers. This what we will have after we split each path into separate layer shape. Step 44 Let's add highlights inside the lens. Make new layer and place it above all layers. Use soft brush to draw white spot on the lens. Don't worry is the result is very harsh, we can fix it easily. Step 45 Add Gaussian Blur to soften the highlight we have just manually drawn. Step 46 Draw a circle shape covering the lens. Add layer style Gradient Overlay. Set its mode to radial from black to white. This is the result. Change Fill layer to 0% to reveal the lens underneath the shape. Step 47 Make a new layer. Draw a circular selection on venter of the lens and fill it with black. Step 48 Click FIlter > Render > Lens Flare. Change layer's blend mode to Screen and reduce Opacity to 19%. Step 49 Draw a circular path using ellipse tool. Step 50 Activate Type tool and click right on the path. Remember to do it exactly on the path, not inside or outside the path. If you do it correctly, your text direction will follow the path curvature. Step 51 Make new layer above the text and then paint some shadows. Erase unneeded shadow using Eraser tool. Step 52 Repeat the steps above to add more texts on the lens. Step 53 The lens is currently appears flat. We need to add shadow to give it depth. Command/Ctrl-click lens basic shape to make new selection based on its shape. Make sure marquee tool is selected and then hit down a few times to move the selection down. Step 54 Make new selection and place it under the lens. Fill selection with black. Deselect (Command/Ctrl + D) and then soften it using Gaussian Blur. Step 55 Hit Command/Ctrl + T to perform transformation. Right click and select Warp. Pull lower right box. Step 56 Warp transformation sometimes add rough edges. To fix it, we need to soften it again using Gaussian Blur. This time use bigger radius. Step 57 Add layer mask and then paint lower right corner of the shadow with black until it fades onto the camera base. Step 58 Draw a rectangle shape on lower right of the lens with color #e0f6fa. Activate pen tool then click and drag its middle top side to add new point. Use Direct selection to select it and drag it down until we get a curve. Step 59 Add some circles on left and right side of the shape. Make sure to set its mode to Add to Shape in the Option Bar. Add Gradient Overlay onto the layer shape. Step 60 Rotate the shape 135°. Step 61 Duplicate shape by pressing Command/Ctrl + J. Place it behind the original shape. Pull its middle point down. See picture below to see the result. Step 62 Make new layer and then paint shadows on top of the duplicated shape. Step 63 Make new layer again and put it behind the lens. Paint our previous shape shadow on the camera. Step 64: View Finder Draw a rounded rectangle with color #c7d4d5. Inside the shape, draw smaller rounded rectangle and set its mode to Subtract from Shape. Double click layer to open Layer Style dialog box. Add Drop Shadow and Bevel and Emboss. Step 65 Command/Ctrl-click shape and move the selection 3 pixels left and down. Make new layer and place it under the shape. Fill selection with black. Step 66 Click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to soften it. Step 67 Make new layer again. Activate brush tool with small brush size. Paint needed highlights and shadows. While painting this, make sure to remember that our light source is in upper right corner of the canvas. Step 68 Make new layer, this time place it on top of the shape. Paint subtle shadow inside the shape. Step 69 Draw a small rectangle inside the frame. Set its color to #37383c. Add layer style Inner Glow and Gradient Overlay. Here's the result. Step 70 Draw a small circle on center of the viewfinder with color #e0e1e1. Reduce its Opacity and Fill to 2% and 90%. With these settings, the circle seems to be inside the viewfinder glass. Step 71 Make new layer. Paint subtle shadows and highlights inside the viewfinder glass. Use very soft brush with low Opacity, no more than 5%. Remember, we want it to be very subtle. Step 72 Activate the viewfinder glass. In Layers panel, double click it to open Layer Styles dialog box. Activate Bevel and Emboss and Gradient Overlay. Step 73 Use same technique to draw another viewfinder on left and right side of the camera. For the left side, you can simply duplicate the first viewfinder and resize it. Step 74 Draw a black rounded rectangle on top of the small viewfinder. Add Bevel and Emboss. Reduce Fill layer to 0%. Step 75 Double click layer to open Layer Style dialog box again. Activate Layer Mask Hides Effects. Step 76 Click Add Layer Mask icon to add layer mask and then left side of the shape with black. We want the Bevel effect fades onto left side of the camera body. Step 77 Make new layer. Command/Ctrl-click shape to make new selection based on its shape. Fill it with black. Step 78 Hit Command/Ctrl + D to deselect. Click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to soften the black pixels. Step 79 Hit Command/Ctrl + T to transform the shadow. Right click and select Warp. Pull down lower area. Step 80 Select upper shadow and then hit Delete key. Reduce its Opacity to 40%. Step 81 Command/Ctrl-click shape we have made in Step 74. Make new layer and then click Edit > Stroke. Set its color to white. Step 82 Soften the stroke by applying Gaussian Blur. Step 83 Erase some of stroke line. Step 84: Draw Switch Draw a circle shape with color #bcb4ac. Add a polygon path on top of it with mode Add to Path. Add Layer Style Drop, Bevel and Emboss, and Gradient Overlay. Step 85 On top of the shape, draw a circle with color: #87a0a8. Add Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, and Bevel and Emboss with following settings. Step 86 Draw bigger circle, this time with color #9eb8bd. Place behind both previous shapes. Double click layer shape to open Layer Style dialog box. Activate Drop Shadow and Gradient Overlay. Step 87 Make new layer and paint subtle shadow behind the dial. Step 88 Draw a circle, smaller than the previous one. Add Bevel and Emboss Step 89 Make new layer and then manually paint highlights on the circle. Draw another highlight on the smaller circle. Step 90 Make new layer and make circular selection covering top of the circle shape. Fill it with black and then click Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Click Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and select Spin for its blur method. Step 91 Change layer's blend mode to Screen and reduce its Opacity. Below is the result in 100% magnification. Step 92 Draw a small circle with color #ccc6bf. Add Drop Shadow, Inner Glow, Inner Shadow, and Gradient Overlay with following settings. Step 93 Duplicate the shape by pressing Command/Ctrl + J. hit Command/Ctrl + T to resize it. Repeat this process a few times. Step 94 Draw two small dark circles shape on the dial. Add following Layer Styles. Step 95 Make new layer and place it under the set of circles. Use soft brush tool to paint soft shadow on the camera body. Step 96 Repeat this process to draw another switch on the camera. Step 97: Screw Draw a small circle shape with color #cbd6d8. Add Inner Shadow. Step 98 Draw smaller circle shape with color #c8d5d8. Add rectangle path with path mode Subtract. To convert it into a screw we need to add following Layer Styles. Step 99 Make new layer and then manually paint subtle highlight on the screw. Step 100 Use same techniques to draw a dark screw. Step 101 Make below switch using combinations of techiques that we have learnt earlier. Step 102 Draw a circle with color #2c383a. Step 103 Draw a ring shape with color #e4e0e4. To do this, you just need to draw a circle and add smaller circle inside it and set its mode to Subtract. Add Drop Shadow and Bevel and Emboss with following settings. Step 104 Command/Ctrl-click ring shape to make a new selection based on its shape. Click Select > Modify > Contract to reduce the selection size. Step 105 Make new layer and then fill selection with black. Hit Command/Ctrl + D to deselect. Step 106 Add Gaussian Blur filter to soften it. Step 107 Erase some of the line stroke using soft eraser tool. Step 108 Make new layer. Command/Ctrl-click ring shape and click Edit > Stroke. Set its color to white. Step 109 Erase some of the white lines. Step 110 Draw a small circle inside the ring shape. Set its color to #bfd4d9. Add following Layer Styles. Step 111 Make new layer and then paint highlight on the shape. Convert layer to Clipping Mask by pressing Command/Ctrl + Alt + G. Step 112 Make new layer and paint some highlights and shadows on top of the shape. Step 113 Draw a small circle shape with color #646a68. Add Gradient Overlay and Inner Shadow. Step 114 Draw smaller circle shape with color #bfd4d9. Add a rectangle path on its center and set its mode to Subtract. Add Drop Shadow, Bevel and Emboss, and Gradient Overlay. Step 115: Draw Speed Dials Draw a rounded rectangle behind the camera and add Gradient Overlay. Step 116 Make new layer on top of the shape. Set foreground color to black and then paint random shadow using soft brush. Convert layer to Clipping Mask. Step 117 Make a new file with canvas size 6 × 6 pixels. Step 118 Zoom in to maximum using zoom tool. Activate pencil tool with brush size 1 px. Draw below pattern using only black, white, and gray color. Step 119 Click Edit > Define Pattern to save the image as a pattern. Step 120 Make new layer. Place layer right above the dial shape. Draw a selection covering the camera dial. Click Edit > Fill. Activate Use: Pattern. Select pattern we have just made earlier. Step 121 Convert layer to Clipping Mask by pressing Command/Ctrl + Alt G. Change layers blend mode to Overlay and reduce its Opacity. Step 122 Draw a rectangle behind the Speed Dial with color #5c6c6b. Add Layer Style Inner Glow. Step 123 Make new layer. Draw some highlights and shadows on new layer. Step 124 Draw a rectangle with color: #5c6c6b. Click the middle its upper and lower side to add new points. Select both new points and move them up. Step 125 Make new layer and then convert it to Clipping Mask. Click Edit > Fill, select Use: Pattern and select pattern we have made earlier. Step 126 Set blend mode to Overlay with Opacity 40%. Step 127 Make new layer. Activate big brush tool and then paint some highlights and shadows. Convert layer to Clipping Mask. This way, all the highlights and shadows go inside the shape. Step 128 Draw a rectangle behind previous shape with color #627c82. Make new layer and then convert it to Clipping Mask. Paint some highlights and shadows. Step 129 Paint subtle shadow under the speed dial. Step 130 Add more realism to the shape by painting stronger highlight. Step 131 Draw a thin rectangle. Make new layer and paint small highlight and shadow inside the shape. Convert the layer into a Clipping Mask. Step 132: Shutter Draw a rectangle with color #727f80. Click half of its upper and lower side to add new points. Pull the right side down using Direct Selection tool. See picture below for reference. Step 133 Make new layer and then activate a small soft brush with Hardness 0%. Draw some black lines on top of the shape. Soften the lines by adding Gaussian Blur. Convert the layer to Clipping Mask by pressing Command/Ctrl + Alt + G. Step 134 Earlier, we have paint shadows. Now, let's working on its highlight. Do the same thing, but this time use white for the color. Step 135 Zoom closer and draw 1 px white line on upper and lower side. Step 136 Draw a dark rectangle behind the shape. Step 137 On its top, draw a rounded rectangle with color #7a8d91 to be used for the camera shutter. Step 138 Make a new layer and then paint white random lines. Soften them using Gaussian Blur. Convert layer to Clipping Mask. Step 139 Draw a rounded rectangle. Use same techniques to add highlight and shadows onto the shape. Step 140 Draw another rounded rectangle, this time thinner, and then make new layer. Paint its highlight and shadow. Step 141 Draw a rounded rectangle with color #737e7f. Add layer mask and then paint black on its right until it fades onto the shape behind it. See picture below for reference on its position. Step 142 Repeat techniques we have learnt earlier to paint its highlight and shadow. Step 143: Add More Highlights Our current camera is still too flat. If you look everything closely, you will notice that there is no perfect lighting in real life. There are always random light reflections everywhere. So, that's what we're going to do. Add highlight onto our camera. Make new layer and then activate brush tool with 0% Hardness. Manually paint white highlight on some elements on the camera. Below you can see the difference before and after adding the highlights. You can see this subtle difference really adds more realism onto the object. Step 144: Shadow Make new layer and then put it under the camera. Use soft brush to draw camera shadow on the floor. Step 145 Remember that we need more shadow under the lens. Step 146 Paint dark shadow right behind the camera. Make sure to match its direction with our light source position. Paint lighter shadow further away from the camera. Make sure to do this patiently until the shadow fades perfectly onto the floor. Final Image Below is the final result. I hope you learn something new from this tutorial. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comment form below. I'd be glad to help you.

Return to Transcripts main page STARTING POINT WITH SOLEDAD O'BRIEN Heroic Teachers at Plaza Towers Elementary; CNN Hero Lends Helping Hand in Moore; A Very Personal Decision; Collapsed Bridge "Functionally Obsolete"; Having Kids is Investment Career "Killer"; Summer Movie Preview Aired May 24, 2013 - 08:30 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to STARTING POINT. I'm Christine Romans. For student and teachers at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma, this year will be a year they will never forget. Their school demolished by Monday's deadly tornadoes; seven of the school's students were among the 24 killed in that storm. On Thursday, teachers and students gathered at a nearby school, East Lake Elementary to reunite before the summer break. Rhonda Crosswhite and Janice Brim were inside the school when the tornado hit. Both of these women put their lives at risk to protect their students and they are among the teachers we can all say are heroes this week for gathering up their students and trying to keep them safe and calm as this horror unfolded around them. Thank you so much for joining us. And Rhonda, let me ask you first, how important it was for you to be back with the kids in a safe, intact school to say good-bye for the summer? RHONDA CROSSWHITE, 6TH GRADE TEACHER, PLAZA TOWERS ELEMENTARY: Yesterday was so meaningful. It gave us some closure just to touch the kids and feel them and know that they were OK. And it gave them closure too, to see us and know that we were OK. ROMANS: You know, Rhonda, the last time you touched the kids, you were laying on top of them, with a little boy saying, "I love you, I love you, don't let me die." I mean, those kinds of moments as a teacher, most will never experience. How are you holding up? CROSSWHITE: I'm holding up actually pretty well. And I hope no teacher has to go through what we had to do. I can't imagine wishing that on anybody, but it makes us who we are. ROMANS: Janice, you said you simply followed the school's procedures on that morning. What went through your head as the tornado hit your school? JANICE BRIM, 6TH GRADE TEACHER, PLAZA TOWERS ELEMENTARY: The thing that went through my head is this -- we've always talked about this isn't the real thing, that this is what we would do if it were the real thing when we were practicing. What went through my head this is the real thing. And it -- it was -- it was frightening, and I -- I felt what the children felt but I didn't want to express it in any way. I just wanted to be calm for them. ROMANS: Tell me what you -- Janice, what you said to the kids yesterday at school? I mean, was it just hugs? Was it -- was it just being together again, saying good-bye for the summer? What was it exactly? BRIM: It was great to see them in a whole different light. They were happy, they were -- they're excited about the gifts that the community had for them. And I wanted to ask every one of them, now remind me, which bathroom were you in? Were you in the girls or boys? How is your house? Was it hit? Some of the responses were my house is fine, we still have two bedrooms and a bathroom. And I thought, bless your hearts. And I wanted to know then what their plans were. We wanted to know if we were going to see them again next year? They were asking questions we couldn't answer like will you be back? Will the school be finished? And where will we go to school? And we had to just shrug our shoulders and say we will be together somewhere. We'll still be Plaza Towers whether we have a building or not. ROMANS: Gosh, you know, Rhonda, I mean, this is going to be a long summer for everyone trying to get the rebuilding started, but also trying to heal. What -- I guess what is your takeaway with kids and how you'll be handling kids differently or listening to kids differently because of what they have been through? CROSSWHITE: We've all been changed because of what happened on Monday, and I think now when our kids, we say we're going to tornado drill or to fire drill or to lockdown, it's going to be a lot more real to them. More -- some of them will be very scared when we do it, so we'll have to be more reassuring that it is a drill, that we have to practice them and remind them why. ROMANS: Rhonda and Janice, thank you both. Thank you both for doing your job in such an exemplary way. I mean, parents and teachers and everyone in the country, just -- when you see the video and hear the stories of how you laid down on top of these kids and told them, "It's going to be OK and I love you, too," it breaks our heart and makes our hearts burst at the same time. Thank you to both of you. Best of luck this summer. CROSSWHITE: You're welcome. ROMANS: A 2008 CNN hero, Tad Agoglia, and his nonprofit First Response Team of America are back in action this week. They're lending a big helping hand in Moore, Oklahoma, after the tornado. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have never seen anything like this. TAD AGOGLIA, FIRST RESPONSE TEAM OF AMERICA (voice-over): Watching the news, and literal seeing the tornado touch down right before our very eyes. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god! AGOGLIA: We knew it was powerful. UNIDENTIFIED: There it is. It's a mile right down the H.E. Bailey. AGOGLIA: My First Response team was prepositioned; we able to get here within two hours after the strike. We saw massive destruction right off the bat. We were able to get police escorts and we were brought right to the school. Search and rescue had just begun. We had some equipment on site that really was need. Cranes to lift up heavy debris. CAT machines with grapple buckets to move the debris out of way. We were digging through an area of the school that we thought there could be some young children trapped. Seeing the desks, pieces of paper that children had written on, and it just stopped me in my tracks. And it reminded me of why I do what I do every day. My team has been to over 50 large-scale disasters. Places like the earthquake in Haiti, Superstorm Sandy. This could be almost as bad as Joplin. And I'm not a scientist, but something is changing. The disasters are becoming more epic. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is CNN breaking news. AGOGLIA: But thanks to the news, meteorologists, thanks to technology -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to be in your tornado shelter immediately. AGOGLIA: People are becoming more aware of how to prepare and get out of harm's way when these large-scale disasters strike. We come here to help, to be part of the community, but it's always vitally important for me and my team to remember -- every house had a family living in it and they need a helping hand. (END VIDEOTAPE) JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Just some of the heroes who are so present in Moore, Oklahoma. So Memorial Day weekend, it is here. But what will the weather be like? Indra Petersons has the holiday forecast. INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it depends on where are you at, right? Northeast where we're at, not so great. We're talking like 15, 20 degrees below normal and even some chances for rain, which we already had yesterday. And even snow flurries at the high elevations. What is going on out there? Well, let's take a look. Look at the jet stream diving down again, temperatures again cooling off with it as it goes. I want to show you one of these radar loops -- notice where the pink is. That is snow, people. No, we're not going to be playing in the snow, but keep in mind, that's some cold air. So we're talking about frost advisories in the overnight areas in the New England areas, those peak elevations of New England and New York. ROMANS: So wear a fleece when you're grilling out. PETERSONS: Only if you're way, way, way up high. Everyone else, yes, of course, just a little bit else chilly. There's the rain to kind of give you an idea today. As you go forward in time, though, watch it kind of lift. It's going to go up, so as you go farther to the north, more chances of rain. If you go farther south, more sunshine every day you go. So kind of a little mixed bag there. Beautiful weather, of course, down towards the Carolinas; it's gorgeous there. Up toward the Hamptons, not so much. We're talking about some rain. Chicago, not bad. And out towards the Midwest, maybe seeing showers on Memorial Day. ROMANS: I hope that the Jersey Shore is packed. Because Jersey people are crazy about their Jersey shore. They're going to go down and open the Jersey Shore. So this is opening weekend, so we hope all those shore businesses get a lot of business. PETERSONS: Me too. ROMANS: Thanks, Indra. BERMAN: All right, we'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROMANS: Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy because she carried a rare gene mutation that can lead to breast cancer. There are some women without the gene who make that same decision. Our own Zoraida Sambolin has learned a lot about this in the last few months and I'll say you have been strong, poised, classy, honest, and amazing during this whole process. ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I really appreciate that. I feel really empowered and my goal right now is to empower other women as they're going through these crazy decisions that they have to make. I did choose a double mastectomy, as everybody knows. And so I got some e-mails as to why. People wanted to know why did you choose to do that? So I went back to Chicago, I sat with my doctors and I walked through why we made that decision. And I also talked to a young girl, the youngest ever to have a double mastectomy, because she carries that same BRCA gene as Angelina Jolie. : Such a complicated decision to make. So the breast cancer surgeon who raised concerns Dr. Seema Khan will actually be performing my double mastectomy on Tuesday and another doctor will be performing reconstructive surgery on the that same day. So when you hear from me that I'll show you how those procedures went and give you a window into what women face once they've gone up against breast cancer surgery, and you know specifically a double mastectomy. So a couple of things I want to point out because in this piece, I really wanted to focus on this dense breast tissue, which is my issue. And a lot of women have reached out to me saying I have the exact same breast tissue that you do. My advice is talk to your radiologist about that. Actually ask your radiologist, once you have that mammogram, put it up on the screen for me show me exactly what's wrong because a radiologist really has a breadth of knowledge. And then that where you can start understanding it and understanding what they see, understanding what they potentially don't see. And the second thing is Lindsay Avner, the young woman that you saw in this she has the opportunity to change lives. One of the things that she does, you can go on her Web site and take a look at this, is she tries to empower young women to start their self-exams at a very early age and actually walk you through, what should you be feeling? We're all told at a very early age right, do your self breast exam? But do you really know how to do it? And there is a way to do this right. And so if you go on her Web site, she's got just a ton of information for young girls in order for them to do that. ROMANS: Bright Pink is the name of the group right? SAMBOLIN: Bright Pink, yes, absolutely. BERMAN: I want to get undressed for you. Again right now because we're going to miss you. SAMBOLIN: Oh God, this is so special. BERMAN: We're going to miss you next week you know when you're going through all of this. But we are going to be with you. So I just want to remind -- SAMBOLIN: This is all Berman's idea by way as he starts to undress. BERMAN: -- remind everyone here that we here are all part of Team Z. SAMBOLIN: Thank you. BERMAN: No hero, no comic books here. This is a Superman-like Z right now, because you are Super Z to all of us. SAMBOLIN: I love you for that. BERMAN: And we are in awe of you and we are with you through this whole thing. SAMBOLIN: I know you, I know you are, and I feel you 100 percent. So thank you very much. BERMAN: Thank you. ROMANS: All right an ovation from the crew. Best of luck to you, Z. SAMBOLIN: Thank you. BERMAN: Still ahead here on STARTING POINT, check out the live pictures of this bridge collapse in Washington State. The sun is coming up we're getting a better look at it right now. It's a lot of damage. We're going to find out what happened to that bridge, how it happened. Where else it could happen after this quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROMANS: All right, you're looking at live aerials of a bridge collapse in Washington State. It's along an interstate north of Seattle. It sent cars and passengers plunging into the frigid river below, 40 feet below. There are injuries, but miraculously no fatalities. And CNN has learned the bridge has already been classified technically as functionally obsolete by state transportation officials before it came crashing down. All of this unfolding last night in rural Mt. Vernon, Washington, the Interstate 5 about an hour north of Seattle. All right, controversial statements from billionaire hedge fund owner Paul Tudor Jones. At an investment forum last month he said there will never be as many great female investors or traders as men. When asked why? Jones said "Divorce and having kids are the kiss of death." (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PAUL TUDOR JONES, FOUNDER, TUDOR INVESTMENT CORPORATION: As soon as that baby's lips touch that girl's bosom, forget it. Every single investment idea, ever desire to understand, every desire to understand what's going to make this go up or going to go down is going to be overwhelmed by the most beautiful experience which a man will never -- which a man will never share. (END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: Jones later clarified that he was speaking specifically about female traders, not managers. He also told "The Washington Post," he tells his three daughters they can do anything they set their mind to. A 9-year-old girl goes toe-to-toe with the CEO of McDonald's. Yes, 9- year-old Hannah Robertson spoke during the company's annual shareholder meeting yesterday, saying, quote, "I don't think it's fair when big companies try to trick kids into eating food." She point blank asked the CEO Don Thompson, "Don't you want kids to be healthy so they can live a long and happy life?" Thompson thanked her for her comments and said McDonald's doesn't sell junk food. BERMAN: So it is the unofficial start to summer, even if it won't be warm here unfortunately. We kick it off with a blockbuster weekend at the movies led by "Fast and Furious 6" if you love the first five you'll love the sixth and "The Hangover Part 3." Some are expecting a record take at the box office this weekend. Nischelle Turner has a preview of what's to come on the big screen. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN SHOWBIZ CORRESPONDNET: It's the season of big screen action, high-voltage star power, and multimillion dollar budgets. It's the summer movie season. Memorial Day to Labor Day is the unofficial period when Hollywood goes for broke, subpoenaing big bucks to make blockbuster gold. BILLY CRYSTAL, ACTOR: The summer blockbusters started with "Jaws," that was insane. TURNER: Taking a huge bite out of the summer box office, movie after movie, year after year, is this guy. And Will Smith wants to do it again with "After Earth". The sci-fi adventure co-stars Smith's son, Jaden. What is your favorite? JADEN SMITH, ACTOR: This one for sure. TURNER: Smart kid, like it. Fellow A-Listers taking center stage, Matt Damon and Jodi Foster in Elysium, Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum in "White House Down", Ryan Reynolds as "Turbo" and Brad Pitt's zombie apocalypse, "World War Z." BRAD PITT, ACTOR: I just wanted to do a film that my boys could see before they turned 18. The "Man of Steel" and the "Lone Ranger" each get reboots. ARMIE HAMMER, ACTOR: You ride horses, you throw lassoes, you shoot guns; it was an amazing experience. And a buffet of summer sequels, including "Monsters University", "Smurfs 2", "Despicable Me 2", "Grownups 2" and Hollywood nice guy, Hugh Jackman's back as "The Wolverine". HUGH JACKMAN, ACTOR: I'll never hurt you or anyone ever again. Playing Wolverine for the seventh time in 12 years and working with great people, I literally pinch myself every day. And finally, if raunchy humor gives you the giggles Seth Rogan makes his directorial debut with "This is the End". In fact, R-rated comedies rule all summer long, like "The Hangover 3," "The Internship," "We're the Millers" and the undeniably feminine cop flick "The Heat." UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are those? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are spanx. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am bringing my testosterone as well. (END VIDEOTAPE) TURNER: All right, John Berman. Now that I've set the table what are you looking forward to? What do you want to see? BERMAN: If I can find a grownup to take me, I intend to see one of those R-rated comedies because they look really funny. But it depends if I can get in on shorts. TURNER: Well, I have to tell you, "This is the End", is very violent, but it is very funny. My face hurt after I watched this movie. And you know what; just for you John Berman, I put together an entire summer movie special that you can see, Saturday and Sunday right here on CNN at 7:30. Some of the highlights? I went to Canada, the set of the new "X-Men 4" movie and I sat down with Hugh Jackman. I went to the desert in Southern New Mexico with Will and Jaden Smith. And also I went and hung out in Vegas with the "Hangover 3" fellows. BERMAN: You had me at Canada. Nischelle Turner, we will watch that special. Thank you so much for being with us. Can't wait to see that special. Can't wait to see those films. STARTING POINT back in a moment. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) Berman: Have a safe weekend. "CNN NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello and Brooke Baldwin begins right now.

Ryan offering a face-saving path for all sides? posted at 12:01 pm on October 9, 2013 by Ed Morrissey It’s been a while since we’ve seen Paul Ryan flex his leadership muscles, perhaps as long as last year after his unsuccessful bid for the Vice Presidency on Mitt Romney’s ticket. That seems especially odd in the context of the months-long budget fights on Capitol Hill, as Ryan chairs the House Budget Committee but seems to have been all but eclipsed by other Tea Party figures such as Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Ryan re-emerges in a Wall Street Journal column today with a plan to end the stalemate:. The payoff is worth the climbdown, Ryan argues:.” A few people noticed that Ryan avoided mentioning ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act. Ryan’s office explained that ObamaCare would be included in entitlement reform. The broader categorization allows for a little face-saving on the part of Democrats, presumably, but Ryan’s broader entitlement reforms have always addressed the ACA as part of what needs to be changed in entitlements anyway. NBC’s political crew wonders whether this isn’t the escape path for all sides: commentator. Clearly, the Democrats are being hurt by their refusal to negotiate, but they’re not losing on the repeal-ObamaCare front, either. The rollout has already happened and won’t be undone by this Senate or President. Based on its disastrous rollout, Republicans should be looking for ways to get out of the way of the trainwreck so that Americans get the best possible view of it. The question will be what Republicans can get from this standoff that actually helps on debt and spending. Ryan’s at least looking for badly-needed reforms as potential wins. With the original impasse strategy at an end, we need to acknowledge the facts on the ground, adapt to them, and look for ways to win concrete improvements in the status quo. what Ryan says sounds like what was contained in Simpson-Bowles. Why not pass that plan and put the Democrats on the defensive? How can Obama commission a committee to reduce our federal deficit and then abandon it during a shutdown? djaymick on October 9, 2013 at 2:27 PM Why do our leaders consider a need to save face? Haven’t they been doing the peoples’ work? BobMbx on October 9, 2013 at 2:31 PM Socialists oppose means-testing because it ensures only those who need a specific program will receive benefits. They want each and everyone of us to be reliant on these programs. youngTXcon on October 9, 2013 at 2:31 PM Here are 2 VERY obvious reasons which apparently need to be said: 1. Elections are won by people who the voting public do not consider to be flaming a$$holes. 2. Laws are passed by majorities whose cooperation is possible to obtain when others do not consider the proponent to be a flaming a$$hole. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 2:34 PM If more people truly understood that most people take out much more than they contribute to our “trust funds” they would understand why means testing makes sense. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 2:36 PM What you don’t understand is that means-testing is already baked into the cake, a fundamental component of our regressive tax system. The rich are the ones already providing more than their share and subsidizing the rest of us. Even though Sheldon said it was an absolute and not subject to gradation, “You could not be more wrong.” Panther on October 9, 2013 at 2:47 PM regresssive = progressive. I could not have been more wrong. Panther on October 9, 2013 at 2:53 PM Grayson. Pelosi. Reid. Hussein. Not following your logic above. Perhaps definition of “flaming a$$hole” changes with the amount of free money one gets. Or not. riddick on October 9, 2013 at 2:54 PM It isn’t baked in enough because the wealthy still take out much more than they put in. That means that 18 year old Joey the fry chef is subsidizing Bill Gates’ retirement. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 3:08 PM Olive branch? More like total capitulation. NO thanks. I’ve lost all respect for Paul Ryan. Norwegian on October 9, 2013 at 3:08 Basically, you’re saying the voting public considered Mitt Romney a flaming a$$hole. bw222 on October 9, 2013 at 3:40 PM Basically, yes. Sad to say but Mitt but was a terrible campaigner. He would have been great in office, but he didn’t have the chops to get there. The Left turned a sincere, good and decent man in to Simon Legree. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 3:44 PM Ryan is one of the biggest frauds in Congress. He claims to be a budget hawk, yet he has voted for No Child Left Behind, TARP, Medicare Part D, the auto bailout and every debt ceiling increase. The only thing I remember about Paul Ryan and the 2012 election was the night he served as Joe Biden’s doormat. I have never voted for a Democrat in my life but I do play to donate to Ryan’s opponent next year. bw222 on October 9, 2013 at 3:45 PM The Left turned the public image of a sincere, good and decent man in to Simon Legree. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 3:46 PM Ryan’s plan sounds like a sober way to end the standoff. It addresses the runaway entitlement train for the first time in a generation. That a grandstanding idiot like Erickson opposes it (and any criticism of the grandstanding Cruz) is an effective endorsement. For those conservatives for whom any deal is seen as a betrayal no matter what policy objectives are achieved, it is decision time. If you can’t get on board with leadership to settle the shutdown, maybe your decades-long threats to leave the GOP have ripened, and it is time to hit the door. And Jim DeMint, who I encouraged to run in the first place and supported against a GOP establishment field and against the tendencies of Lindsey Graham, should be ashamed of himself. When you reflexively blast Paul Ryan’s plan when he is the only one in Washington with a sane one, and you never bothered to do the hard work to craft an alternative, you are becoming just a malcontent, and that adds nothing to our cause or our country. Adjoran on October 9, 2013 at 3:50 PM ObamaCare can be reversed; amnesty can’t. bw222 on October 9, 2013 at 3:51 PM +1 MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 3:53 kingsjester on October 9, 2013 at 3:55 PM But, he does make a great looking doormat at national debates. That’s something you can’t take away from Paul. bw222 on October 9, 2013 at 3:57 PM That’s ridiculous. Biden was a complete oaf who stood out only for rude, phoney derision and buffoonery. Ryan did just fine and helped the ticket’s chances at that debate. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 4:00 PM I swore I would never vote for Mitt, but I not only voted for him but made a contribution because four more years of Obama would be a disaster for the nation. bw222 on October 9, 2013 at 4:02 PM So you did the right thing despite your better judgment. It’s a shame that it didn’t pan out :-) MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 4:10 PM I know. Because, after all, we’re winning. Is it halftime yet? How many TD’s are we up by? MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 4:23 PM MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 4:23 PM We do you mean “we”? You fool no one here. kingsjester on October 9, 2013 at 4:31 PM “What” kingsjester on October 9, 2013 at 4:32 PM By “we” I mean the Red Team, of course. And yes, when pricked I bleed red. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 4:34 PM MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 4:34 PM The Hell you say. Funny, when you first arrived, you were Blue…in more ways than one. A “Road to Damascus” experience, perhaps? kingsjester on October 9, 2013 at 4:41 PM Hey everyone, welcome Paul Ryan’s chief of staff. loveofcountry on October 9, 2013 at 4:46 PM I love to talk about me and would be happy to do it all night, of course. As you know, you made that part up about me being Blue when I showed up. I am and have always had an independent mind that agrees most often with team red. But you haven’t answered my question. You said that we’re winning but haven’t given us any details. We’re dying to learn how to keep score of this game. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 4:58 PM MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 4:58 PM 37%. kingsjester on October 9, 2013 at 5:01 PM That’s rather cryptic. Care to explain? MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 5:01 PM MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 5:01 PM Obama’s AP approval poll. If America was “on his side”, it certainly would be higher, wouldn’t it? Oh, and as Ms. Munford and other “long-timers” will attest, I was not lying at all. kingsjester on October 9, 2013 at 5:08 PM Of course you lied, and you know it. So why bother? The score says we’re down 37 to 10. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 5:19 PM And using RCP’s numbers, which I tend to trust more than most single sources: So we’re down 44 to 10. But heck, if the point spread is over 34 then maybe we are winning. Rah, Rah, Sis, Boom, Bah! MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 5:25 PM Sheldon Adelson’s puppet, Paul Ryan, hasn’t got a leadership bone in his body. However, he is very well equipped to position himself to maximize fundraising. kingsmill on October 9, 2013 at 5:34 PM Fleuries on October 9, 2013 at 5:36 PM The thing is polls findings change on a moment’s notice, the electorate in this country is retarded at worst and ADD-ed at best, or to put it differently, ignorant, uninformed and inconsistent. His approval rating was down too during the time he was threatening to attack Syria, and up again, right after Putin bailed him. Now, tell me a reason why the public would give him good ratings after the Syria clusterfark, when it was obvious to every ignorant troll that he didn’t have any clue at all how to handle the whole situation and he simply lucked out, saved by the bell in the shape of Putin, ironically enough …the sad truth is they like this cretin, no matter how horribly he underperforms and screws up (beats me why), and nothing would change that for more than a news cycle or so. As for the rest, I don’t think anybody’s winning in particular, both sides will get out of this with the same approval/disapproval levels like before the shutdown, especially among their own base, as for the indies or whatever they call themselves these days, nobody understands that category of voters anyways, or how they vote, what moves them, probably not even themselves. But I wouldn’t be too worried about those, their vote usually reflect how they slept the night before the elections or something along those lines, so a gamble pretty much…not worth adjusting one’s political platform to accommodate their types… jimver on October 9, 2013 at 5:38 PM After the interest on the debt is paid, security is paid, and the entitlements are paid, the bi partisan working group should each get to spend 50% of the money on programs they want, with the remaining revenues for October. There should be no debt ceiling raise. Each side will prioritize, maybe not the most important things first, but they will look like heroes when they choose important parts of government. And if they use their money to pay down the deficit, they will be heroes too. Then add no more deficit spending unless revenues are different in other months during the year, I have no idea if October is typical, but it would be one pattern of spending and revenues to use. Fleuries on October 9, 2013 at 5:50 PM . ( heavy sigh . . . . . . . . ) listens2glenn on October 9, 2013 at 6:07 PM Comparing the approval of an individual to the approval of an institution – half of which is controlled by the opposing party – is asinine. besser tot als rot on October 9, 2013 at 6:11 PM According to Gallup Republicans are at a record low…they have dropped about 10 points since Cruz became the virtual face of the party. I hope Ryan or some other intelligent person can find a way out of this before guys like Cruz and Lee totally wreck the party. Terrye on October 9, 2013 at 6:20 PM Look for the propagandists in the media to turn Ryan’s op-ed, and the comming interviews, into a draconian cut of social security. Then, this same propaganda media will assign cutting social security as the real goal of Ted Cruz and the Tea Party. And there we will be, watching the entire Democrat shutdown of the government twisted into the claim that ‘only the Democrats want to save social security from the republicans’. This op-ed has the same stench that the ‘gang of six’ deficit plan, led by Tom Corburn, which was announced within MINUTES of passing ‘Cut, cap, and balance’ in order to torpedo that bill. Obama immediatly raced to the cameras to claim the non-existant plan was something he could definatly get behind. Of course, NO PLAN actually existed, just an inside the beltway republican cutting off the debate of deficit spending at the knees. Freddy on October 9, 2013 at 6:32 PM Ryan can go straight to Hades. I can’t believe I voted for this clown. Mr. Arrogant on October 9, 2013 at 6:33 PM The phones….. Have been running 8 to 1 in favor of the Ted Cruz /Mike Lee efforts. Despite all the DC Divas wailing on and on. Finally OPPOSITION to the Presidents policies has surfaced…….hallelujah for that alone. PappyD61 on October 9, 2013 at 6:45 PM You were a huge disappointment as a VP candidate and I don’t see you getting any better.You deserve to be ignored.Yawn! redware on October 9, 2013 at 6:56 PM Ryan is a whore and a dumbass He couldn’t even clean Biden’s clock TexasJew on October 9, 2013 at 7:05 PM Not when you factor in the polls that show the vast majority of Americans also hold the GOP responsible for the mess we’re in. The inescapable fact is that the GOP is losing even more of the support of the people than the minority they had before this stunt began. MJBrutus on October 9, 2013 at 7:26 PM …I still have his damn sign up! …to remind people! KOOLAID2 on October 9, 2013 at 7:49 PM Paul Ryan has proven to be untrustworthy. Who is he shilling for now? Amjean on October 9, 2013 at 9:31 PM They already do; make over $75,000 or $85,000 (can’t recall exactly) your payments double. And if you are still working, you still pay the 2.9% on your income. An acquaintance of mine took money out of her IRA to help her son put a down payment on a house. It put her over the limit. She received a letter from medicare doubling her payments for two years; then they would review. Amjean on October 9, 2013 at 9:34 PM Paul Ryan has nothing good to offer America. Pork-Chop on October 9, 2013 at 9:42 PM He couldn’t lick his upper lip and we all know it. Sell it somewhere else. rrpjr on October 9, 2013 at 9:50 PM Yeah, because nothing says brilliant and practical like working with a despicable, terrorist supporting marxist to help give democrats a permanent majority for the next 100 years.If Ryan is brilliant and practical, we’re really screwed. So does every other liberal democrat. xblade on October 9, 2013 at 10:08 PM Isn’t Ryan one of those Amnesty SKUNKS lurking in dark smelly places? Why not just ask Schumer directly? DaMav on October 10, 2013 at 7:29 AM Ryan has joined Rubio in the “used to be relevant club”. They’re so worried about offending Latinos but have no problem offending their voting base and the majority of the people in the country. cajunpatriot on October 10, 2013 at 8:57 AM DeMint / Cruz 2016!! Some of you may not like it, but you’ll vote yes, right? Lolz! Bmore on October 10, 2013 at 9:04 AM xblade on October 9, 2013 at 10:08 PM Excellent point. kingsjester on October 10, 2013 at 9:17 AM Run a real test on Paul Ryan. I think we down here in Texas just might do that. “Paul, will you support Katrian Pierson in her election as a conservative Republican who will fight amnesty if elected. She being a high profile Tea Party leader and after all it was the Tea Party and people like Katrina who made it possible for Republicans to be in leadership in the House”? Test them, to many fail almost all the test. APACHEWHOKNOWS on October 10, 2013 at 10:20 AM APACHEWHOKNOWS on October 10, 2013 at 10:21 AM foxfire APACHEWHOKNOWS on October 10, 2013 at 10:45 AM Comment pages: « Previous 1 2

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Circulation records are maintained at M T ®, Creative Data, 440 Quadrangle Drive, Suite E, Bolingbrook, IL 60440. M T ® copyright 2012 by Applied Technology Publications, Inc. Annual subscription rates for nonquali ed people: North America, $140; all others, $280 (air). No subscription agency is authorized by us to solicit or take orders for subscriptions. Postmaster: Please send address changes to M T ®,: M T ®. “M T ®” is a registered trademark of Applied Technology Publications, Inc. Printed in U.S.A. For more info, enter 65 at 4| MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 66 at For more info, enter 66 at For more info, enter 66 at MY TAKE Jane Alexander, Editor-In-Chief Making It Home For The Holidays And Moreyear A 6| maintenance technology DECEMBER 2012 EXCEPTIONAL VALUE. M12™ 160x120 Thermal Imager 2260-21 Having the best information available is critical for maximizing jobsite productivity and worker safety. 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Go to MT-online.com/question with your answer. 8| MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY The 17th Annual ARC World Industry Forum is just around the corner (February 11-14, 2013, in Orlando, FL). As the conference theme would suggest, if your operations have any interest in “Achieving Breakthrough Performance with New Processes and Technologies,” it’s the place to be. To review the schedule and register, visit. DECEMBER 2012 STUFF HAPPENS NEWS ’ N I T S D FIGH R O W Inspiration For Those Battling The Enemies Of Reliability & Productivity Have you read, heard, seen, thought or written down something that falls into the realm of â€œďŹ ghtin’ wordsâ€? for the maintenance and reliability community? Send your favorites to [email protected]. We’ll be selecting one or two (maybe even three) to feature each month. Be sure to give full credit to the individual (dead, alive, real or ďŹ ctional) that uttered or wrote the words, and why those words inspire you. Don’t forget to include your complete contact info. With a new year on the horizon, these words attributed to an ancient Roman statesman are something to chew on: “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.â€? ‌ Lucius Annaeus Seneca T H E U LT I M AT E P O W E R T R A N S M I S S I O N T E C H N O L O G Y 7HEN YOURE ON A ROLL YOU SHOULDNT HAVE TO STOP FOR ANYTHING BIZ BUZZ... Acquiring minds and checkbooks at Parker HanniďŹ n got quite a workout last month. In early November, the motion and control technology giant closed on its previously announced acquisition of Velcon Filters, LLC, from The Sterling Group LP, a private equity ďŹ rm. Velcon makes uid-ďŹ ltration systems, including vessels and replacement cartridges, for a variety of domestic and international end-market applications. With sales of approximately $115M and a global workforce of 300, it will become part of the Parker Filtration Group. 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Enjoy! (C) 2010 GREG JOENS - GREENVILLE, SC That presents with names were about to be stopped?.” DECEMBER 2012 MT-ONLINE.COM | 11 Although many of the incidents cited here may sound as if they could have come from your operations, as St. Nicholas notes in the end, there is hope for all. ‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the shops All lines should be humming. There’ll be no big flops. PMs, they seem pricey but failures are worse. Breakdowns stop flow and their cost’s a big curse.’ll be a whole brand new year! MT [email protected] For more info, enter 69 at 12 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2012 O Y C Efficiency Loss Due To Lack Of Maintenance By Ron Marshall, for the Compressed Air Challenge hen times are tight, it can be tempting to skimp on the maintenance associated with your compressed air system. Replacement of parts and consumables associated with compressor lubrication, filtration and belt-drives are items that are sometimes put on hold if budgets are stretched. Ignoring maintenance on your compressors, dryers and filters, however, can cost you more than you think. The Compressed Air Challenge’s comprehensive Best Practices for Compressed Air Systems Manual discusses this subject, indicating that, like all electromechanical equipment, industrial compressed air systems require periodic maintenance to operate at peak efficiency and to minimize unscheduled downtime. Inadequate maintenance can have a significant impact on energy consumption through lower compressor efficiency,: filters and fluids are replaced, cooling medium inspected, belts adjusted and leaks identified and repaired. All equipment should be maintained in accordance with its manufacturer’s specifications. OEMs provide inspection, maintenance and service schedules that should be followed strictly. In many cases, it makes sense from efficiency and economic standpoints to maintain equipment more frequently than the intervals recommended by manufacturers—which are developed primarily to protect the equipment. One way to tell if a system is being well maintained and operating properly is to periodically baseline it by tracking power, pressure, flow and temperature. If power use at a given pressure and flow rate goes up, the system’s efficiency is degrading. This baseline will also let you know if W efficiency and reliability. The key is for compressor operators to be trained on the specific requirements for each piece of equipment, necessary resources and maintenance scheduling based on manufacturer recommendations and trend analysis of recorded data. All observations and meter readings should be recorded for compressors, dryers, filters filter differential. On a typical system with a continuously operating 100 hp compressor, it would cost about $1500 per year in additional energy to overcome an extra 4 PSI of main-filter differential caused by poor maintenance. MT The Compressed Air Challenge® is a partner of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Technology programs. To learn more about its many offerings, log on to, or email: [email protected]. For more info, enter 10 at DECEMBER 2012 MT-ONLINE .COM | 13 FOR ON THE FLOOR An outlet for the views of today’s capacity assurance professionals Rick Carter, Executive Editor appears the predominant answer would have been “yes.” Panelists’ responses to questions about how they rank 2012 for themselves professionally and for their companies clearly skewed toward the positive. This was despite expected and ongoing issues like the skilled-labor shortage and job-related challenges that exist no matter what. Here’s our group’s view of a generally good year and their hopes for the one waiting in the wings: Rating 2012… “We have been going strong all year and our numbers continue to rise. We have seen work come back into our site from out of the country, which has added to our production numbers. With production being higher, we are adding a large amount of tradespeople, which has been a real challenge.” … PM Leader, Midwest “We saw a huge uptick in our production and maintenance due to acquiring another company. A lot of their equipment was in poor shape and their plant philosophy had been ‘run to failure.’ This put a great burden on us as we tried to change their culture to focus on reliability. We still have challenges, but have come a long way.” … Corporate Support Mgr., Maintenance & Reliability, Midwest “This year, we had to complete our normal duties, as well as prepare ourselves for expansions to our facility. This includes extra training as well as working with construction crews, which added challenges, but I happily accept them as opposed to working for a struggling company.” … Senior Maintenance Mechanic, South “As years go, our challenges were about the same in number, just different in substance. This keeps you on your toes and improves your ability to handle crisis situations and practice good decision-making skills. This was definitely a year that brought that home. I feel that I grew more as a person and decision-maker because of these challenges.” … Maintenance Coordinator, Mid-Atlantic The year’s defining event… “Design issues on our turbines made it necessary to have extended downtime three extra times this year, which really hurts the bottom line! Our workforce responded professionally to these challenges and accomplished the needed repairs in record time, safely and event-free. Considering the stress this puts on your employees, this is saying a great deal.” … Maintenance Coordinator, Mid-Atlantic “I found it very strange that with 5 million people unemployed, we could not find qualified maintenance people to hire.” ... Corporate Engineer, New England “The most defining event for me and my company was the second acquisition of a major company in two years. We just wound down the first integration and then another acquisition was announced. The amount of effort needed to complete the first integration was tremendous. Now we are looking to do it all over again. It’s great to be busy, but sometimes people get burned out and don’t perform to the best of their abilities.” … Corporate Support Mgr., Maintenance & Reliability, Midwest “Construction has been our defining event of 2012. We are doubling the horsepower capacity at my [energy-related] location and installing new compression to one of our smaller facilities. This 14 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2012 FOR ON THE FLOOR is the largest project our station has experienced in more than 30 years.” … Senior Maintenance Mechanic, South “The event for me was turning 67 and being forced to retire from my company. The forced retirement was company policy [even though] I was still able to do my duties. Being an old timer, I pride myself on professionalism, including honesty, integrity, loyalty and maintaining a high level of knowledge in my professional area. I completed 22 CEUs in the field of maintenance and management in 2012. To fill my position, the company had to hire two people to cover all the duties I performed and it cost them more money.” … Former Senior Maintenance Engineer, now a Teacher, West What they expect for next year. . . “Our production numbers are expected to continue to go up. We were just told that our sales team is aggressively going after new business, and by 2014 we are looking at doubling our business.” … PM Leader, Midwest “My goals for the coming year are to organize a user’s group with my peers to promote the exchange of ideas and resources, and to aid in problem-solving in our specialized field. [I also want to] increase our use of Radio Frequency Identifying Devices (RFID) to lower cost and increase profits, as well as to continue to be the subject-matter expert in my profession.” … Maintenance Coordinator, Mid-Atlantic “My goal is to get as many of our new plants [as possible] focusing on reliability. As for the company, our goal is to integrate the new plants into our current culture and strive for the best results we can.” … Corporate Support Mgr., Maintenance & Reliability, Midwest “We plan to complete our expansion projects and commission the new equipment in the first quarter of the new year. One of our priorities for the latter half of 2013 is to comply with new emission standards. Our company has already started preparing for these new standards, so I expect everything to go as planned.” … Senior Maintenance Mechanic, South “I am working on many projects that should allow a company to increase the bottom line without impacting the workforce. [Some of these involve] reducing utility cost by using more of the renewable-energy programs in our state, adding newer automated equipment and changing many of the power eaters to high-efficiency equipment. The best part is to train every employee on newer methods of doing their job functions in a more effective manner. This makes them a valuable asset to the company and improves the profit line.” … Former Senior Maintenance Engineer, now a Teacher, West “My goal is to get a raise. I haven’t had one since the bottom dropped out three years ago, yet my responsibilities continue to expand. Perhaps now that the Presidential election is over, things will get better. I hope so!” ... Corporate Engineer, New England. com. Click on “Reader Panel” under the “MT Resources” header, and follow the instructions. If accepted, you will automatically be entered into a drawing for a cash prize after one year of active participation. DECEMBER 2012 MT-ONLINE.COM | 15 CAPACITY ASSURANCE STRATEGIES Overcoming a CMMS challenge… Small-Site Scheduling It's an area where the one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work. John Reeve Cohesive Information Solutions, Inc. a). H 16 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2012 CAPACITY ASSURANCE STRATEGIESbreed systems may still find themselves struggling to make the scheduling process work at their smaller sites. CMMS systems commonly offer two approaches: ■ Direct entry of schedule start datesintensive, computerized maintenance management systems, and, what should this design look like? on the maintenance work order (which is like driving in the dark): Could users be over-scheduling staff and not know it? ■ Fig. 1. This whiteboard calendar from a countertop supplier’s shop is representative of one of the most basic approaches to small-site scheduling. (Source: Tops Solid Surface Co.) How Does A Small Site Even Afford A CMMS? The company that buys a CMMS product may have a large O&M organization—and budget—but many smaller, geographically dispersed sites. Sometimes, upper management will purchase software and assume it is just what the Maintenance teams at each plant needs. The total head-count at some of those sites, however, could be fewer than six workers. DECEMBER 2012 Maintenance personnel want to do the right thing (within reason). They understand the importance of planning/ scheduling, but are often overwhelmed by high clickcount and screen complexity. They're willing to change processes and learn new technologies, but don’t want to spend extensive time trying to finagle work orders if they are going to reap no real benefit from doing so. MT-ONLINE.COM | 17 CAPACITY ASSURANCE STRATEGIES Steps in planning/scheduling Table I below details the steps in a formal work-order process for a full-size— i.e., substantial head-count—Maintenance organization. Table I. Formal Work-Order Process in a Full-Size Maintenance Organization 1 A work request needs to be created. Requestor identifies problem and asset/location. Work request is reviewed by management, prioritized and then given to Planning. Planner position looks for duplicates and begins the Planning function (enters duration and applies craft estimate). Offsite material requests are processed as applicable. The Supervisor or Lead is assigned. 5-10 minutes (per WO) 2 5-10 minutes (all new) 3 15-30 minutes (per WO) 4 Small-site priorities are to identify tasks, put them on a calendar and assign crews, and to do so day-in and day-out without the luxury of full-time job planners and schedulers. Scheduler reviews crew availability for next week, checks open backlog and selects work for week. Scheduler takes proposed schedule to Weekly Schedule meeting for review and approval. Supervisor prints scheduled work for next week and starts identifying who is to do what, on what day. Daily plan is created night before. Crew is briefed at the start of day. Work is performed. Actuals are captured. Work order is closed. 15-30 minutes (per WO) 5 45-60 minutes (all WOs) 6 30-60 minutes (all WOs) 7 30-60 minutes (all WOs) Total time: 2.5 hours minimum 18 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2012 WHAT VIBRATION PENS GROW UP . The new Fluke 805 Vibration Meter is more than a pen. It’s a Fluke meter that gives you results you can trust, time after time. t Checks overall vibration, bearings and temperature t Ability to export and trend data t Four-level scale quickly assesses problem severity t Unique sensor design ensures accurate and repeatable measurements WANT TO BE WHEN THEY Forget the pens. Think METER: fluke.com/VibrationMeter ©2012 Fluke Corporation AD 4151036A_EN For more info, enter 70 at CAPACITY ASSURANCE STRATEGIES shuffled around. To the Supervisor/Lead, this is the definition of scheduling. The total elapsed time might be 5-10 minutes per WO. So, the question is, how much time should he/she spend managing O&M staff within the confines of the CMMS? And can the software be configured differently to combine functions?-fits identified than is possible to display, an “overflow arrow” would point to the complete list. This type of CMMS calendar view would let the organization quickly see what work is scheduled where and which crew is assigned. Moreover, it could provide that information for an entire month or just a week. 20 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY Fig. 2. Incorporated into a CMMS, this simple type of calendar view could be an effective tool for a small-site maintenance operation.. Building an ‘add task’ screen. . . An example input dialog—which could appear when the user right-clicks on a specificorder first date of the change. DECEMBER 2012 Plant-wide Safety Assessments Graybar has teamed with industry leaders who can provide safety assessments of your plant and premise. These assessments can assist you in meeting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements and help you identify the improvements, upgrades and necessary safety gear designed to minimize risks to people and equipment. INDUSTRIAL Assessments cover: LZiVcYYVbeadXVi^dc^YZci^Æ XVi^dc!b^i^\Vi^dc (watertight devices) Ig^ee^c\]VoVgY^YZci^Æ XVi^dc :aZXig^XVaVeeVgVijhhV[Zinje\gVYZ recommendations Learn nine ways to secure your facility and request a safety assessment at graybar.com/MT-5. How safe is your facility? For more info, enter 71 at CAPACITY ASSURANCE STRATEGIES configurhe sivesolutions.com. For more info, enter 01 at DECEMBER 2012 Note(1): Operational events would be stored as records outside of the work order table. Note(2): Worker schedule changes (as in the case of crew rotations) would only show on the first date of the change. Fig. 3. In the Add-Task screen, an input dialog would appear when the user right-clicks on a specific calendar date. flexibility, 22 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY For more info, enter 72 at Reliable Gadgets SPONSORED INFORMATION Specialty lubricants for sustainable efficiency “Sustainable industrial production” means long-term, holistic thinking. Key examples include minimal unplanned downtime, less friction and reduced lubricant consumption. The effect: lower energy consumption, less CO2 emission, longer maintenance intervals and longer component lifetime. To keep up with your sustainability goals, we are continually improving our environmentally-friendly lubricants. Klüber Lubrication: Innovation for ecologically and economically efficient solutions. Klüber Lubrication North America L.P. [email protected] your global specialist Next-Generation, Extended-Life Contamination Control Products A first breathers constructed of Tritan™. This patented material provides the most chemical-, temperature- For more info, enter 73 at For more info, enter 02 at DECEMBER 2012 3/12/12 2:08 PM 24 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY klu643-01sustHpvtMT-D3c.indd 1 Lubrication Checkup Extending Lubricant Life By Dr. Lube, aka Ken Bannister Symptom: “Dear Dr. Lube, we’re looking for ways to reduce the significant filters, creates sludge and destroys machined surfaces. The prescription below can enhance your lube program, reduce operating and maintenance costs and improve your energy efficiency and carbon footprint. .LHYVPSZ[OH[ KYP]LLMÄ JPLUJ` Higher revenues, increased reliability: special oils made by Klüber Lubrication help you achieve these goals through long maintenance intervals, high efficiency and lasting component protection — even at the gear’s performance limit. Together we can increase the efficiency and reliability of your mechanical systems. Klüber Lubrication North America L.P. [email protected] wind3 your global specialist Prescription: ■ Work with a Lubricant Management Specialist and perform a Lubrication Operation Effectiveness Review (LOER) to establish improvement opportunities in the applying, purchasing, storing, transferring, dispensing/metering and disposing of your lubricants. ■ Work with your supplier to implement a Lubricant Consolidation Program that reduces/optimizes the number of lubricant SKUs used in your plant. ■ Use professional-grade, dedicated transfer and delivery equipment to combat cross-lubricant contamination and dirt contamination. ■ Implement a condition-based approach to managing lubricant application (engineering your lubricant delivery, i.e., when and how much?) and changeout requirements (performing oil analysis, i.e., how often?) ■ Implement a Machine Cleanliness Program to quickly identify leaks and moisture invasion, and to prevent dirt from contaminating the lubricant and forming a thermal blanket that raises lube temperature. ■ Review your filtration methods and look for opportunities. ■ Take a 5R approach in tuning up your methods and systems to ensure that the Right person applies the Right amount of the Right lubricant in the Right place at the Right time. ■ Train and certify your maintenance personnel, engineers and lube technicians to recognize the impact and cost of poor lubrication practices.. For more info, enter 03 at DECEMBER 2012 For more info, enter 74 at MT-ONLINE.COM | 25 klu001251-01MaitTech-mtD10b.indd 1 7/23/12 11:45 AM For more info, enter 75 at Corporate Report 2012 ProďŹ les Of Leading Suppliers To Industry MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY Special Advertising Section CORPORATE REPORT 2012 BALDOR ELECTRIC COMPANY aldor Electric Company, based in Fort Smith, AR, is a leading marketer, designer and manufacturer of energysaving. B manufactures a complete line of gensets for industrial standby, portable and backup power needs. Baldor offers strong support and solutions for the mining, food & beverage, oil & gas, paper & forest, aggregate & cement, unit & airhandling, water and power-generation as perceived by the customer) in relation to Cost and Time (both of which are measurable). The result is our “Value Formula,” which has become a part of our culture. It guides our thinking and directs our work every day. Providing a Wealth of Solutions and Support Baldor is the largest motor and mechanicalpower transmission company in North America. Baldor•Reliance® motors range in size from 1/50th through 15,000 horse- Baldor’s industrial electric motors, mechanical power transmission products, drives and generators are power and have leading recognized around the world for their quality and value. customer preference and market share. Baldor sells and supports industries. We provide reliable, applithe entire line of ABB IEC motors and cation-specific products and expert medium-voltage motors, along with knowledge for each of these markets. the full range of ABB industrial drives. Installed Base Evaluations are also Customers can now create packaged available to aid end users in reducing solutions of Baldor and ABB industrial Baldor Electric Company energy consumption with the right motors and drives for most industrial 5711 R.S. Boreham, Jr. St. mix of industrial motors, drives and applications. Fort Smith, AR 72901 gearing in a single application or We are a leading producer of Ph: 479.646.4711 throughout an entire facility. mechanical power transmission prod ucts, including Baldor•Dodge® engDefining a Solid Value Formula ineered mounted bearings, enclosed More than 30 years ago, Baldor caregear products and power transmission fully defined “Value” as it is perceived components, as well as Baldor•Maska® by our customers. Value is defined in For more info, enter 260 at pulleys and couplings. Baldor also terms of Quality and Service (both 28 | CORPORATE REPORT / DECEMBER 2012 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 DES-CASE CORPORATION es-Case understands the importance of fluid cleanliness and the role it plays in helping to ensure that equipment investments last longer. For more than 25 years, we’ve pioneered solutions to help maintain lubricant quality specific-benefit analysis that support fluid-handling devices remove dirt and water, helping equipment run at peak capacity. From small, portable machines to full-featured vacuum dehydration systems, customizable filtration devices are an integral component of proactive maintenance in unique environments. Industry-Leading Manufacturer of Desiccant Breathers ■ Continuous innovation. We invented the desiccant breather and continue to design new innovations. ■ Widest variety of high-value solutions. From small gearboxes to large hydraulic systems or storage tanks, Des-Case breathers are engineered to last and matched with your specific needs. Full Line of Fluid-Handling Products & Adapters ■ Easily customizable. Des-Case filtration systems can be easily configured to your exact needs. Larger systems are also designed to your specs. ■ Rugged designs/thousands of options. Des-Case systems incorporate smart technology to make contaminant filtration a simple task, requiring less equipment and labor, while reducing system contamination. Lubrication TransformationSM: Putting Best Practices Into Practice ■ Consulting services & in-depth training. We specialize in helping companies Des-Case invented the desiccant breather and has continued to lead and innovate in products and services for precision lubrication ever since. D pinpoint lubrication issues and identify ways to address them, such as plant surveys, one-day best practice overviews and intensive training classes with ICML certification options. ■. Des-Case Corporation 675 N. Main St. Goodlettsville, TN 37072 Ph: 615.672.8800 For more info, enter 261 at DECEMBER 2012 / CORPORATE REPORT | 29 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 FLUID DEFENSE SYSTEMS T he OilSafe® Visual Lubrication Management System from Fluid Defense Systems is the company’s easy-to-implement, flagship innovation that helps users keep their storage areas clean and safe and prove their commitment to best practices. Providing a Range of Benefits Customizable, visually intuitive labels ensure consistent fluid identification throughout the manufacturing environment. The OilSafe Work Center provides safe, compact bulk storage and contamination control to promote best practices for lean manufacturing, 5Rs, 5S and OSHA® right-to-know compliance. In-line filtration and precise-pour transfer containers simplify maintenance and safeguard workflow. As a result, plants benefit Officer for Fluid Defense. “That’s why we’re proud to introduce the OilSafe Work Center.” The OilSafe Work Center is the only modular, scalable bulk system of its kind. Each tank has its own pump and built-in filtration to prevent fluid crosscontamination and keep fluid storage areas organized, clean and free of the 55-gallon drums that are commonly used. According to Gillian, “It’s a safe and reliable solution that helps companies across the world instantly establish bulk-storage best practices on the plant The only modular, scalable, bulk-fluid storage solution of its kind, Fluid Defense’s OilSafe® Work Center can prevent costly inefficiencies, downtime and lost production. floor and prevent the inefficiencies, downtime and lost production that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Serving a Range of Applications The OilSafe Work Center has been successfully implemented in applications such as manufacturing, mining, food and beverage, defense and more. Available in multiple configurations, each system is customizable to suit the application and budget. The scalable, plug-and-play. For more information about the OilSafe Work Center and the OilSafe Visual Lubrication Management System, please visit www.fluiddefense.com. Fluid Defense Systems 2001 Greenfield Rd. Montgomery, IL 60538 Ph: 630.280.8930 www.fluiddefense.com For more info, enter 262 at 30 | CORPORATE REPORT / DECEMBER 2012 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 TROUBLESHOOT FROM A DISTANCE Fluke 233 Remote Display Multimeter SAFELY The problem is inside. You have to be outside. Now you can fix live machinery safely from a distance. The new Fluke 233 Wireless Remote Display Multimeter lets you connect to the measurement points and monitor the results safely from a distance. Stay away from moving machinery, energized panels and high voltage components. Learn more: www.fluke.com/233 ©2012 Fluke Corporation 4239816A_EN For more info, enter 263 at 4239816A_EN_233_MaintTech.indd 1 DECEMBER 2012 / CORPORATE REPORT 9/24/12 4:14 | PM 31 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 GRAYBAR ray efficiency. Buildings ■ Solutions for maintaining and upgrading facilities ■ MRO supplies ■ Industrial wire and cable ■ Electrical infrastructure ■ Plant and personnel safety Intelligence ■ Industrial automation and control G solutions that enable consistent and efficient production ■ Industrial Ethernet solutions that include structured cabling and wireless ■ Applications that connect people, systems and information ■ Security and access control solutions that protect facilities and people Energy ■ Lighting solutions that deliver high quality and energy efficiency ■ Power solutions that provide reliability and improved energy management ■ Power quality and power factor correction Emerging ■ Renewable energy ■ Electric vehicle charging stations Graybar Solutions for Industrial Customers ■ In-building wireless (DAS) Services ■ Vendor-managed inventory (Graybar SmartStock ) ■ Industrial vending machines and systems ■ Safety audits ■ Graybar ESP® ■ Graybar Financial Services® ■ Technical specialists (networking, printing and publishing, pulp and paper and water/wastewater. We also provide solutions specific to OEMs—machine builders, panel builders and other equipment manufacturers. To learn more about Graybar industrial solutions, visit graybar.com/industrial, or contact your local Graybar representative at 1-800-GRAYBAR (472-9227). energy, automation and control specialists) Through our specialized sales team, Graybar serves customers in automotive, chemical processing, food and beverage, metals, mining, oil and gas, pharmaceutical and biotech, power generation, Graybar 34 N. Meramec Ave. St. Louis, MO 63105 Ph: 800.472.9227 (1-800-GRAYBAR) For more info, enter 264 at 32 | CORPORATE REPORT / DECEMBER 2012 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 LUDECA, INC. ts reflectedlaser technology was, at that point, years ahead of its time, revolutionizing the field fieldthe. I LUDECA’S New Mission Statement , and vibration and condition monitoring systems to industry. LUDECA’s commitment to our customers strengthens our reputation as the very best in our fields, thereby creating and maintaining long-term customer partnerships.” Visit to learn how we can help you achieve your reliability goals. reflect [email protected] For more info, enter 265 at DECEMBER 2012 / CORPORATE REPORT | 33 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 MILWAUKEE ELECTRIC TOOL or efficiency F Lithium-Ion will allow our users to focus more on getting jobs done and less on charging their batteries.” In addition, with more buildings implementing complex process-control automation equipment to manage new systems, measuring tools that identify problems before they occur, and in a time-efficient manner, have never been more important and needed. At Milwaukee Tool, this provides a window of opportunity. “Our focus is on providing users with innovative, high-performance solutions that increase productivity on the jobsite,” says Ernie Racenet, the Marketing Director of Milwaukee Tool. “An The M12™ 160x120 example of this is a new Thermal Imager is just Milliamp Clamp Meter one of many innovative launching soon that will products that Milwaukee allow facility engineers Tool launched this year. to measure 4-20 milliamp signals without Milwaukee Tool understands the breaking the loop, saving the user a importance of streamlining operations tremendous amount of time and money. no matter what the company size, and What used to take minutes can now be having the right tool to do the job can done in seconds.” Another example of an innovative, make a big difference. high-performance solution is Milwaukee’s M12™ 160x120 Thermal Imager. Launch-ed earlier this year, it’s the ultimate predictive maintenance tool. A display features high-resolution thermal images for simplified diagnostics, while a visual camera captures photos right on Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp. the device. This provides users with the 13135 W. Lisbon Rd. best information available, every time, no Brookfield, WI 53005 matter where they are, allowing them to Ph: 800.729.3878 (1.800.SAWDUST) schedule maintenance during downtimes. For more info, enter 266 at 34 | CORPORATE REPORT / DECEMBER 2012 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 NIDEC MOTOR CORPORATION idec Motor Corporation (NMC) is a leading manufacturer of commercial, industrial and appliance motors and controls. NMC’s product portfolio features a full line of highefficiency motors, large and small, that serve industrial, residential and commercial markets in applications ranging from water treatment, mining, oil & gas and power generation to pool and spa motors, air conditioning condensers, rooftop cooling towers and commercial refrigeration. The Nidec flagship efficiencies. N Geared toward the pump industry, this U.S. Motors 5813 Frame Vertical Titan II is part of Nidec’s innovative inverter-duty line that incorporates an upgraded insulation system with a first-of-its-kind bearing-protection feature. first field issues not only benefits For more info, enter 267 at DECEMBER 2012 / CORPORATE REPORT | 35 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 268 at 36 | CORPORATE REPORT / DECEMBER 2012 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 SPM INSTRUMENT, INC S PM-fiberseen detail. Razor-sharp spectrums and time signals bring root cause analysis to a new level of understanding. High-Definitionpass filters can be selected to optimize analysis. The EVAM® measuring technique provides pre-programmed evaluation models for time and frequency domain parameters. 25600-line FFTs to 40 kHz spectrums with true zoom makes the Leonova Diamond a powerful portable analytical tool for every industry. SPM Instrument continues as a world leader in developing condition monitoring solutions. The Leonova® Diamond is just the latest proof of this commitment. For more info, enter 269 at DECEMBER 2012 / CORPORATE REPORT | 37 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 main distribution warehouse are just outside Chicago, in Wheeling, IL, and it runs full manufacturing facilities in Holyoke, MA, and Sandusky, OH. It also has strategically located service centers: finestfield chains and attachment chains. The Engineering Chain Division offers heavy-duty chains designed specifically to meet the demanding needs of a vast array of industries and prolong wear life under rigorous operating conditions. These products use various grades of steel, heat-treated to precise specifications and assembled with accurate press-fits to withstand the requirements of today’s powerful, high-production equipment. Tsubaki Sprockets are built from top-grade, heat-treated carbon steel to offer long wear life, resist abrasion and withstand heavy shock loads. Precision manufacturing at our ISO-certified* facilities ensures that every U.S. Tsubaki sprocket stands up to critical design specifications and meets the highest quality standards. Tsubaki’s Power Transmission Components line includes all Tsubakimoto products other than chain and sprockets. A partial list includes belts, cam clutches, actuators, 270 at 38 | CORPORATE REPORT / DECEMBER 2012 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 ALL-TEST PRO, LLC (ATP) LL-TEST Pro, LLC (ATP), a subsidiary of BJM CORP, CT, is a privately Fax: 860.399.3180 For more info, enter 271 at AMERICAN TRAINCO A merican Trainco offers handson,” “Program Fax: 303.531.4565 For more info, enter 272 at DECEMBER 2012 / CORPORATE REPORT | 39 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 KLUBER LUBRICATION lüber Lubrication is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of specialty lubricants, offering high-end tribological solutions to virtually all industries and markets worldwide. Most products are developed and made to specific customer requirements. During its more than 80 years of existence, Klüber Lubrication has provided high-quality lubricants, thorough consultation and extensive services, which have earned it an excellent reputation in the market. The company holds all common industrial certifications and houses a test facility hardly rivaled in the lubricants industry. At Klüber, we continue to pioneer advances in order to translate previously inconceivable concepts into fully functional reality. We make these crucial contributions with over 2000 : K classified For more info, enter 273 at NSK CORPORATION SK is a world-class manufacturer of motion and control products that help industrial customers maximize productivity, improve efficiency and overall performance. Through our 60 global manufacturing facilities and 12 global technology centers, we produce and distribute a wide range of bearing, linear-motion and automotive-component products for a variety of applications. NSK’s in-depth industry knowledge backs the design of products that address specific industry challenges. NSK’s HPS™ (High Performance Standard) Spherical Roller Bearing is one example of an innovative product that delivers unmatched quality and provides superior performance. Devel- N oped For more info, enter 274 at 40 | CORPORATE REPORT / DECEMBER 2012 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 PdMA CORPORATION hen field. Our MCE™ (offline), Emax (online) and MCEmax™ (offline/ W Group Meetings and free workshops are conducted throughout the year in locations around the world. Free video tutorials on the Six Fault Zones and other predictive-maintenance-related topics are available on the PdMA website (). A Leader In Electric Motor Testing PdMA Corporation 5909-C Hampton Oaks Parkway Tampa, FL 33610 Ph: 800.476.6463 For more info, enter 275 at P PREDICTIVE SERVICE a highly skilled, global team of professionals, delivering services locally. This combination of resources and methods ensures superior program management and actionable knowledge, thus enabling our clients to operate their facilities and equipment efficiently, maximizing their value, and thereby sustaining long-term partnership relationships. Why Clients Choose Predictive Service: ■ Broad range of product offerings and expertise ■ Integrated, customized solutions from highly-skilled professionals ■ Unique, patented technology to support our collaborative and customized approach ■ Superior program management with actionable knowledge and solutions ■ Documented KPI’s supported by true redictive engineering and consulting services, predictive maintenance technologies, equipment efficiency and reliability, energy management and repair solutions. Our products and services are supported by patented technology and Return on Investment ■ Dedication to long-term partnership relationships Predictive Service 25200 Chagrin Blvd. Cleveland, OH 44122 Ph: 866.772.6770 For more info, enter 276 at DECEMBER 2012 / CORPORATE REPORT | 41 CORPORATE REPORT 2012 PROCESS INDUSTRY PRACTICES (PIP) process industry e are a consortium of process membership encompasses 67 companies,practices ■ Process Control & Analyzers plant owners and engineerplus 63 additional subscriber and licensee ■ Vessels/Exchangers/Tanks ing PIP members2009 share PIP’s the goal e are a construction consortiumcontractors of process companies. As of November active Specific Practices include design, plant owners and engineering membership encompasses 55 compaselection, specification, and installaharmonizing member companies’ internal of reducing total installed costs of process Specifi c Practices include design, selection, construction contractors harmonizing nies plus 46 additional subscriber and tion information. PIP has published standards for design, procurement, plants by up to 6% through the implemenspecification and installation information. member companies’ internal licensee companies. PIP Members over 460 Practices. A current listing of construction and design, maintenance into a set tation of common industry PIP has published over 475isPractices. standards for procurement, share the goal of practices. reducing total published Practices available at of industry-wide practices for voluntary A current listing of published Practices is construction, and maintenance into a installed costs of process plants by up. set As of of industry wide for Ourto six percent through the implemenuse. November 2012,practices PIP’s active Practices available at. voluntary use. tation practices. Organized of in common 1993, PIPindustry is a separately Process Industry Practices funded, non-profit initiative operating 3925 West Braker Lane (R4500) Our Practices Austin, TX 78759 Organized in 1993, PIP is a separately under the umbrella of the Construction 512.232.3041 funded non-profit initiative operating Industry Institute at The University of Texas under the umbrella of the Construcat Austin. PIP publishes andat maintains tion Industry Institute The Univerrecommended Practices for the process sity of Texas at Austin. PIP publishes and in the maintains recommended industry following disciplines: Practices in the following disciplines: ■ Civil/Structural/Architectural • Civil/Structural/Architectural ■ Coatings/Insulation/Refractory Process Industry Practices • Coatings/Insulation/Refractory Adopting ■ Document Management 3925 West Braker Lane (R4500) • Electrical • Machinery ■ Electrical Austin, TX 78759 Process Industry • Piping & Instrument Diagrams Engineering ■ Machinery Ph: 512.232.3041 Procurement • Piping ■ Piping & Instrumentation Diagrams Construction Process • Process Control & Analyzers • Vessels/Exchangers/Tanks For more info, enter 277 at ■ Piping W W otors SKF Group Company) designs, manufactures and markets electric-motortesting equipment that helps maintenance professionals, repair shops and motor-manufacturing operations maintain and repair equipment at a minimum of cost and effort. For example, the Baker AWA-IV and Baker DX series of instruments M PIP Member Co. 3 PIP Member Co. C PIP Member Co. 2 Engineering Standards PIP Member Co. B PIP Member Co. A PIP Member Co. 1 Engineering Standards PIP Practices BAKER INSTRUMENT CO. an office or any location with an Internet-accessible computer. For rock-solid quality assurance and condition monitoring of the electric motors and generators that your operations depend on, there’s an electricmotor For more info, enter 278 at 42 | CORPORATE REPORT / DECEMBER 2012 MAINTENANCE LOG Oil Analysis Helps Keep The Trains Running A national railway system got a good look at what state-of-the-art condition monitoring can do for an operation. MEXRIX窶認OTOLIA.COM Special To MT From Spectro, Inc. DECEMBER 2012 MT-ONLINE.COM | 43 MAINTENANCE LOG B ased fleet for a year.. 44 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY Visible chunks of metal in the sump of the disassembled engine DECEMBER 2012 MAINTENANCE LOG oxides,” which indicates “a transition from normal to severe sliding wear and likely due to insufficient lubrication.” Additional problems were also noted. DECEMBER 2012 reflect light appeared bright red, while nonmetallic particles appeared green (because light transmits through them). Electrical Safety, Evolved. GRACE To learn more visit: ENGINEERED PRODUCTS,INC info.graceport.com/mt_evolved For more info, enter 76 at were also present, which indicates water ingress. The analysis also showed large abnormal sliding wear particles in excess of 20 microns, copper chunks in excess of 20 microns, nonmetallic.” MT-ONLINE.COM | 45 MAINTENANCE LOG Ferrogram image showing dark metallo-oxides indicative of abnormal wear A bearing from the engine on the verge of failure Large copper.” MT Spectro, Inc. Chelmsford, MA For more info, enter 04 at Cast iron fatigue chunk seen in ferrogram image 46 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2012 Go For It! Š For more info, enter 72 at Are your innovative juices owing? Are your light bulbs going off? They better be! Categories: Innovative Devices, Gizmos & Gadgets Innovative Processes & Procedures Innovative Use of Third-Party Resources Presented By Applied Technology Publications Details & Entry Forms Available At Grand GrandPrize PrizeWinner WinnerAnd And33Runners-UpAnnounced Runners-UpAnnouncedIn InEarly Early2013 2013 . . . k c i T . . . k c i T . . . k c i T Sponsored By The Innovators At Time Is Running Out! Entries Must Be Received By December 31, 2012 For more info, enter 77 at For more info, enter 78 at MOTOR DOC’S HOT TOPICS Howard W. Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP Vice President, Dreisilker Electric Motors, Inc. ou’d think that a common testing method (i.e., in practice for well over a century and referenced in testing standards) shouldn’t have to be identifiedifier or rotating fields that are shorted, open or grounded. For purposes of this article, we’ll discuss a simple method for evaluating rotating fields. The unbalance test must be performed with power to the stator tagged-out and—preferably—the rotor out of the stator and isolated from other coils or large metal objects that could influence test results. The rotor should be insulation-resistance tested and must be over 100 MegOhms at either 500Vdc or 1000Vdc applied. A 120 Volt source is applied to the rotor leads, and voltage is read across each of the field coils. The values should be actual supply voltage divided by the number of coils. If there are six coils at 120 Vac, the voltage drop across each coil should be 20 Vac. The maximum unbalance is +/- 5% with coils that are showing a significant unbalance being shorted and coils showing no voltage drop being open. Why AC Voltage applied? Most rotating fields 05 at Y © CLEARVIEWSTOCK-FOTOLIA.COM Hidden Failures In Synchronous Motors For more info, enter 79 at DECEMBER 2012 MT-ONLINE.COM | 49 TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE Electrical Equipment Solutions Energy-Monitoring For Motor Control Centers Energy-Saving Solutions Platform ockwell Automation has announced the addition of new energy intelligence capabilities in several of its software applications to help users monitor resource consumption by specific units, lines and machines. Among them is IntelliCENTER Energy that offers a preconfig R raybar’s comprehensive set of energy-saving solutions can help facility owners reduce costs and meet environmental goals. Known as Graybar PowerSmart, the platform’s five components include building automation and controls; power management and critical power; lighting and lighting controls; renewables and Graybar services. Across these categories, Graybar has relationships with leading manufacturers to provide products and solutions to meet customer needs. Graybar Services, Inc. St. Louis, MO G For more info, enter 07 at UPS Optimizes IT System Availability E at Avoid Arc Flash Accidents Safety is serious, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Look to Graybar for: Plant-Wide Safety Audit Provisions Lockout/Tagout Provisions Arc Flash Analysis Personal Protective Equipment Plant Safety MRO Supplies Learn more at graybar.com/MT-6. For more info, enter 08 at For more info, enter at For more info, enter 80 at For more78 info, enter 81 at DECEMBER 2012 50 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE Advanced, Easy-To-Install Overvoltage Protection finger M MAXIMUM LONGEVITY. MAXIMUM PRODUCTIVITY. MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE. HPS SPHERICAL™ ROLLER BEARINGS NSK’s HPS Spherical™ Roller Bearings are engineered with an optimum raceway design and strengthened steel cage to offer 20% higher limiting speeds, and approximately twice the operating life of conventional products. Their state-of-the-art material technology offers the highest load rating and makes them ideal for a wide variety of applications. For maximum longevity, maximum productivity and maximum performance, Think NSK. 1.88ThinkNSK (888.446.5675) BALL BEARINGS | | LINEAR MOTION PRODUCTS | TECHNICAL SERVICES ROLLER BEARINGS For more info, enter 82 at DECEMBER 2012 MT-ONLINE.COM | 51 © An Innovator That Is! The Innovators At Scalewatcher North America, Inc. Oxford, PA It Takes One... Presented By Applied Technology Publications Developed and patented in the Netherlands by Mr. Jan P. de Baat Doelman, Scalewatcher™ technology was introduced to the European market in the 1980s. Based on its immediate market success, Mr. Doelman brought the technology to the United States, whereupon he applied for and received a patent in 1991. From that point on, Scalewatcher North America has been on the forefront of environmentally sensitive water treatment. Scalewatcher’s innovative products are no-maintenance, environmentally friendly descalers that do not change water composition. Scales and stains disappear gradually and completely, without further action required, guaranteed. The units work by way of magnetic and electric fields and a continuously changing frequency. The process forces dissolved minerals such as calcium and magnesium to crystallize before mineral ions (the cause of hard scale) can settle on surfaces. This stops or reduces buildup of hard scale, and because the water is better able to dissolve minerals, existing hard-scale layers are softened and eventually disappear. Scalewatcher technology has been used by more than 250,000 satisfied customers worldwide. These maintenance-free products prevent corrosion in pipework; prevent settlement of zebra mussels in plants using sea or river water for cooling; reduce bacterial counts in cooling systems; reduce water and energy bills; extend the life of water-using equipment (especially boilers); can be installed without plant shutdown; and last 20+ years. The Innovators At Scalewatcher will award individual water-treatment units to the 2012 Maintenance & Reliability Innovator of the Year and 3 Runners-Up For more info, enter 83 at Don’t Procrastinate! Deadline For Entries Is December 31, 31. 2012... To Know One The Innovators At Dreisilker Electric Motors, Inc. Glen Ellyn, IL Are You One? You Could Win An All-Expense Paid Trip To MARTS 2013 & More © Presented By Applied Technology Publications Henry Dreisilker came to America from Germany in 1954 seeking opportunity and gainful employment. Hard work and integrity landed him his first job in a small motor repair and appliance business. Seven months later, he purchased the business, founded Henry Dreisilker Electric Motors and Appliance Service and began by specializing in commercial motor repair and sales. Combining old-world craftsmanship with advanced technology, the company grew steadily from three employees to over 120. Today, Dreisilker Electric Motors, Inc. provides complete electric motor solutions to commercial, industrial and municipal customers nationwide. It distributes new electric motors, parts, accessories and controls from major OEMs and offers a range of value-added, reliability-related services. Among its many offerings is Dreisilker Total Motor Management (DTM2), a comprehensive program that incorporates expert technical coordination of an operation’s motor database, inventory recommendations, energy analysis, repairversus-replacement decisions, exchange motor options and maintenance training on motor systems. Expert field technicians are available for scheduled maintenance or to respond quickly to emergencies 24/7/365. The company’s innovative and exclusive Motor-Safe™ Repair 2.0 process uses special induction technology stripping, accurate and precise rewinding, advanced varnishing, dynamic balancing and thorough testing. Dreisilker never uses the “burnout oven” methods practiced by other motor shops. Motors repaired by Dreisilker improve reliability, increase uptime and save energy. The reliability of your motors, in turn, translates directly into productivity and profitability. The Innovators At Dreisilker will award individual iPads to the 2012 Maintenance & Reliability Innovator of the Year and 3 Runners-Up For more info, enter 84 at Get Details & Entry Forms At 85 at You know ‘em. You read ‘em. You respect ‘em... TRAIN WITH OUR ALL-STAR ROAD TEAM THIS WINTER! January 14 - 15, 2013 • Lake Buena Vista Resort • Orlando, Florida Join These Applied Technology Publications All-Stars For The Value-Added, In-Depth 2-Day Workshop Of Your Choice. Pick Just One. . . Workshop #1: Workshop #2: Workshop #3: “Introduction to Maintenance “Pump System Optimization: “Oil Monitoring Analyst Planning & Scheduling” Uptime, Reliability, Efficiency” Preparation Class” Instructor: Ken Bannister, Instructor: Bill Livoti, Instructor: Ray Thibault, Contributing Editor, Maintenance Technology and Lubrication Management & Technology Attendees will come out of this course with a complete basic understanding of the crucial planning & scheduling process, along with a practical toolset of matrices, formats, processes and formulas they can use immediately at their sites. Workshop #1 Fee: $1490* Contributing Editor, Maintenance Technology and Lubrication Management & Technology Optimizing your pumping systems will play a major role in solving the energy and environmental problems of the future, as well as help you cut maintenance costs and improve overall reliability. Learn the real “tricks of the trade” in this course. Workshop #2 Fee: $1490* CLS, OMA I, OMA II, Contributing Editor, Lubrication Management & Technology This class is excellent preparation for those who seek CLS certification. Moreover, it will give attendees the best possible preparation for their OMA I exam. Workshop #3 Fee: $1490* * Your Registration Fee Covers 2 Full Days Of Classroom Training And All Course Materials For Your Chosen Workshop + Continental Breakfast, Breaks And Lunch Each Day! BONUS/BONUS! Our All-Star Team Training Workshops Will Be Held At The Same Venue As The 2013 IR/Info Conference. Paid Attendees Of Our Workshops Are Invited To Network With IR/Info Exhibitors And Attendees At No Charge. Go To For Complete Details On Each Workshop, As Well As Lodging Arrangements And Registration Forms, Or Call : 847.382.8100 x 117 Our Team Looks Forward To Seeing You In Orlando! CAPACITY ASSURANCE MARKETPLACE Oxygen Sensor For Flue Gas Analyzers T he OXeco LP sensor from City Technology was developed to improve accuracy, operational life and resistance to cross-contamination in fl field failures. City Technology Ltd. A Honeywell brand Des Plaines, IL For more info, enter 31 at Portable Speed-Lathe Platform T, finish sanding, inspection, lapping, turning, assembly or light dry machining of any part that can be held by a collet. Crozier Machine Tool Co. Gardena, CA For more info, enter 32 at A Leader in Electric Motor Testing For more info, enter 86 at 56 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2012 CAPACITY ASSURANCE MARKETPLACE Guide To Preventing Environmental Degradation he Handbook of Environmental Degradation of Materials explains how to measure, analyze and control environmental degradation for a range of industrial materials, including metals, polymers, ceramics, concrete, wood and textiles. Environmental factors such as weather, seawater and ďŹ re T S martDiagnosticsÂŽ from KCF Technologies is a low-cost suite of wireless sensors for vibration monitoring of industrial machinery. With the release of version 1.2, KCF has added Cloud capabilities to the suite. The functionality adds a pre-conďŹ gured <PgX\XiTd_cX\T <PX]cPX]cWT\^c^abcWPcSaXeTh^daQdbX]TbbfXcWcWTQTbc]P\TX]cWTQdbX]Tbb <^c^abSaXeTh^daR^\_P]h{b_a^SdRcX^]P]ScWTaTU^aTh^da QdbX]TbbH^d]TTSc^T]bdaTh^da\^c^abPaTad]]X]V^_cX\P[[h P]SP__[hcWTQTbc\TP]bPePX[PQ[Tc^ ]SP]h_a^Q[T\bcWPc f^d[S[TPSc^\^c^aUPX[daTP]SR^bc[hd]_[P]]TSS^f]cX\TB:5 bcPcXR\^c^aP]P[hiTabX]R[dSX]VcWTeTabPcX[T1PZTa3GP]ScWT 1PZTa0F08EST[XeTacWTfXSTbcaP]VT^U\^c^acTbcRP_PQX[XcXTb ^UP]hQaP]S5^aaT[XPQ[Ta^RZb^[XScTbcX]V^Uh^daR^\_P]h{b T[TRcaXR\^c^abP]SVT]TaPc^abcWTaTXbPbcPcXR\^c^aP]P[hiTa Ua^\B:5c^VTccWTY^QS^]T>daX]bcad\T]cb_a^eXSTcWTSPcP P]SP]P[hbXbh^d]TTSc^\PX]cPX]cWTT`dX_\T]ccWPcSaXeTb h^daR^\_P]h{bQdbX]TbbbdRRTbbP]S\PgX\XiTd_cX\T C^[TPa]\^aTPQ^dcbcPcXR\^c^acTbcT`dX_\T]cUa^\B:5RP[[B:52^]SXcX^]<^]Xc^aX]V 2T]cTa5^ac2^[[X]bPc '&$!'!&!^aeXbXcdb^][X]TPcWcc_)fffQPZTaX]bcR^\ CWT?^fTa^U:]^f[TSVT4]VX]TTaX]V For more info, enter 87 at DECEMBER 2012 MT-ONLINE.COM | 57 CAPACITY ASSURANCE MARKETPLACE Air-Filtration Systems That Capture Oil Mist Bio-Based Grinding Oil C lean Air America’s ScandMist air-filtration systems are intended for the capture and removal of oil mist from manufacturing facilities. The most recent additions to the line, the ScandMist 70D and 100D, are compact solutions for keeping air clean in any size plant. The systems feature fiber-bed technology that allows oil mist to condense on filter fibers, where it collects to drain into a reservoir for future collection. An optional variable frequency drive measures air speed through the filters and helps boost efficiency. Clean Air America, Inc. Rome, GA C astrol Performance Biolubes NuCut Grind is a light viscosity, high-performance cutting oil specifically designed for the grinding of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. Formulated with high-quality, plantbased oils and select additives, the product’s high levels of lubricity help it outperform conventional mineralbased grinding oils, according to the company. Intended for general-purpose surface and centerless grinding, it offers reduced levels of mist and improved centricity, accuracy and part run-out. Castrol Industrial Naperville, IL For more info, enter 35 at For more info, enter 36 at Training for Industrial, Facility & Building Maintenance Go Online and See Our Entire 2013 Training Schedule! AMERICAN TRAINCO Arc Flash Electrical Safety NFPA 70E® San Antonio, TX - Jan 30-31 ‘13 Scranton, PA - Feb 11-12 ‘13 Oakland, CA - Feb 27-28 ‘13 Wichita, KS - Mar 11-12 ‘13 Wilmington, DE - Mar 25-26 ‘13 San Jose, CA - Apr 10-11 ‘13 Reno, NV - Apr 10-11 ‘13 Sacramento, CA - Apr 17-18 ‘13 Omaha, NE - Apr 24-25 ‘13 Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Atlanta, GA - Jan 14-15 ‘13 Mobile, AL - Jan 22-23 ‘13 Albuquerque, NM - Feb 4-5 ‘13 West Palm Beach, FL - Feb 11-12 ‘13 Cedar Rapids, IA - Feb 27-28 ‘13 Baltimore, MD - Mar 18-19 ‘13 Chattanooga, TN - Mar 25-26 ‘13 Norcross, GA - Apr 8-9 ‘13 Salt Lake City, UT - Apr 29-30 ‘13 PLCs for Non-Programmers Denver, CO - Jan 14-15 ‘13 Sacramento, CA - Jan 22-23 ‘13 Naperville, IL - Jan 28-29 ‘13 Las Vegas, NV - Feb 11-12 ‘13 Marietta, GA - Feb 25-26 ‘13 Indianapolis, IN - Mar 11-12 ‘13 Cleveland, OH - Mar 25-26 ‘13 Houston, TX - Apr 2-3 ‘13 Portland, OR - Apr 29-30 ‘13 • • • • Live, Instructor Led Seminars Public Seminars Private Training at Your Facility Electrical, HVAC, Mechanical, and Facilities Management • Over 100,000 Trained Since 2002 • Specialized “Hands-On” Courses Basic Electricity for the Non-Electrician Mobile, AL - Jan 7-8 ‘13 Pittsburgh, PA - Jan 28-29 ‘13 San Diego, CA - Feb 11-12 ‘13 Portland, OR - Feb 25-26 ‘13 Nashville, TN - Mar 4-5 ‘13 Madison, WI - Mar 18-19 ‘13 Denver, CO - Apr 2-3 ‘13 Tacoma, WA - Apr 15-16 ‘13 Tulsa, OK - Apr 29-30 ‘13 Boiler Operation, Maintenance & Safety Honolulu, HI - Jan 24-25 ‘13 Orange County, CA - Jan 30-31 ‘13 Raleigh, NC - Feb 6-7 ‘13 Baton Rouge, LA - Feb 21-22 ‘13 Milwaukee, WI - Feb 27-28 ‘13 Albany, NY - Mar 13-14 ‘13 Reno, NV - Mar 27-28 ‘13 Arlington, TX - Apr 10-11 ‘13 Tacoma, WA - Apr 24-25 ‘13 Electrical Troubleshooting & Preventive Maintenance Phoenix, AZ - Jan 16-17 ‘13 Richmond, VA - Jan 16-17 ‘13 Allentown, PA - Jan 30-31 ‘13 Hartford, CT - Feb 6-7 ‘13 Long Island, NY - Feb 27-28 ‘13 Minneapolis, MN - Mar 6-7 ‘13 Chattanooga, TN - Mar 20-21 ‘13 Kalamazoo, MI - Apr 10-11 ‘13 Washington, DC - Apr 24-25 ‘13 2011 National Electrical Code® Cedar Rapids, IA - Jan 21-22 ‘13 Memphis, TN - Jan 28-29 ‘13 Raleigh, NC - Feb 11-12 ‘13 Baltimore, MD - Feb 25-26 ‘13 Minneapolis, MN - Mar 18-19 ‘13 New Brunswick, NJ - Mar 25-26 ‘13 Madison, WI - Apr 8-9 ‘13 Kansas City, MO - Apr 22-23 ‘13 Springeld, IL - Apr 24-25 ‘13 For more info, enter 82 at Over 1,500 Seminar Dates to Choose from in the U.S. & Canada or call 1-877-722-7760. Mention promotion code: Y01 For more info, enter 88 at 58 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2012 Heavy-Duty Lubricant For Drawing And Stamping oughto-Draw® 7060-B from Houghton International, Inc., is a heavyduty, finish. Houghton International, Inc. Valley Forge, PA For more info, enter 37 at H DON’T JUST PREDICT, BECOME MORE RELIABLE. A Global Leader in Reliability, Sustainability and Maintenance. Scan here to learn more predictiveservice.com For more info, enter 89 at DECEMBER 2012 For more more info, info, enter enter 90 For 85 at at MT-ONLINE.COM | 59 CAPACITY ASSURANCE MARKETPLACE Portable Cooling Unit T he Port-A-Cool® Hurricane portable evaporative cooling unit uses high-efficiency cooling pads and water to cool up to 3500 square feet and lower temperatures by up to 30 degrees F. Its design provides 67-gallon water capacity and 14,500 CFM which the company claims is the largest airflow delivery of any 36-inch evaporative cooler offered. It requires 11.4 amps for pump and motor operation. Additional features include a digital control panel with touch buttons for operation and status displays. Port-A-Cool, LLC Center, TX DIN Rail And Head-Mounted Temperature Transmitters T el-Tru’s line of factorycalibrated analog temperature transmitters is available in configurations for RTD Pt100 or J, K, T, or E Thermocouple inputs, all with linear loop-powered 4-20mA output. Precision 20-turn potentiometers allow fine adjustment of zero and span. Available in a variety of configurations to meet demanding applications, the transmitters can be DIN-rail-mounted or mounted into industry-standard connection heads. Tel-Tru Manufacturing Co. Rochester, NY For more info, enter 38 at For more info, enter 39 at Repaired or Replaced for years, for reason.* Announcing ATP List Services Customized, Targeted Lists For Your Marketing Needs Contact: Ellen Sandkam Investigate at and see what you’ve been missing. 800-421-2853 [email protected] 847-382-8100 x110 800-223-3423 x110 [email protected] [email protected] 1300 S. Grove Ave., Suite 105, Barrington, IL 60010 For more info, enter 87 at For more info, enter 92 at *Call for details. For more info, enter 91 at 60 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2012 CAPACITY ASSURANCE MARKETPLACE Mobile App For AODD Pump Users new Versa-Matic mobile application supports its Air Operated Double Diaphragm (AODD) pumps. It can help pump owners find the tools needed to support pumps installed in the field, as well as pumps currently being built and shipped. Information related to a specific pump can be found through bar-scanning or by manual entry. Additional features include an interactive guide to chemical compatibility, the latest full-line catalogs, service and repair training videos and more. Versa-Matic A Warren Rupp, Inc., Brand Mansfield, OH For more info, enter 40 at Wiring Devices For Extreme Environments A W oodhead’s Watertite® WetLocation 41 at “Industrial Lubrication Fundamentals” 3-Day, On Site, Certification Preparation Training Program With over 70% of all mechanical failures attributed to ineffective lubrication practices, you will want to have professionally trained and certified certification certification Domain of Knowledge Content. Contact ENGTECH Industries Inc at 519.469.9173 or email [email protected] For more info, enter 82 at For more info, enter 93 at DECEMBER 2012 MT-ONLINE.COM | 61 INFORMATION HIGHWAY For rate information on advertising in the Information Highway Section Contact your Sales Rep or JERRY PRESTON at: Phone: (480) 396-9585 / E-mail: [email protected] Web Spotlight: Ludeca 95 at LUDECA, INC. - Preventive, Predictive and Corrective Maintenance Solutions including laser shaft alignment, pulley alignment, bore alignment, straightness and flatness measurement, monitoring of thermal growth, online condition monitoring, vibration analysis and balancing equipment as well as software, services and training. For more info, enter 94 96 at 98 at 99. 62 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY You may renew online at DECEMBER 2012 Index ADVERTISER DECEMBER 2012 Volume 25, No. 12 • December 2012 Volume 25, No. 12 Your Source For CAPACITY ASSURANCE SOLUTIONS WEB ADDRESS RS # PAGE # Air Sentry ..................................................................... ................................................ 95 .............................62 ALL-TEST Pro, LLC................................................... .................................... 69 .............................12 ALL-TEST Pro, LLC................................................... ............................................... 271 ...........................39 American Trainco....................................................... .................................. 88,272................58,39 ATP Lists....................................................................... ................................................... 92 .............................60 Baldor Electric Company.......................................... .................................................... 61,260..............IFC,28 Des-Case Corporation.................................................................................................. 63,261...................2,29 Dreisilker Electric Motors Inc................................................................................... 79,84..................49,53 Engtech Industries Inc. .............................................. ................................ 93 .............................61 Fluid Defense...............................................................flow.................................. 66 ...............................5 Fluid Defense...............................................................www.fluiddefense.com.......................................... 262 ...........................30 Fluke..............................................................................www.fluke.com/vibrationmeter .......................... 70 .............................19 Fluke..............................................................................www.fluke.com/233............................................... 263 ...........................31 General Electric Company - Energy ....................... ...................................... 62 ...............................1 General Electric Company - Energy ............................................................... 100 ........................IBC Grace Engineered Products. Inc...............................info.graceport.com/mt_evolv .............................. 76 .............................45 Grace Engineered Products. Inc...............................info.graceport.com................................................. 97 .............................62 Graybar Electric Company ....................................... ........................................ 71 .............................21 Graybar Electric Company ....................................... ........................................ 81 .............................50 Graybar Electric Company ....................................... .................................................. 264 ...........................32 Innovator Of The Year Award .................................. ............................. 77 .............................47 Kluber Lubrication North America ........................ ........ 73 .............................24 Kluber Lubrication North America ............................................... 74 .............................25 Kluber Lubrication North America ............................................................ 273 ...........................40 Ludeca Inc.................................................................... .................................................... 75,94,265, ....26,62,33 MARTS-Applied Technology..................................................................... 85,99..................54,62 Meltric Corporation ..................................................................................................... 80 .............................50 Miller-Stephenson Chemical Co. ............................ ............................... 64 ...............................4 Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation ......................... 67 ...............................7 Milwaukee Electric Tool Corporation .................... ..................................... 266 ...........................34 Nidec Motors ............................................................................................................. 72,267................23,35 NSK Corporation................................................................................................. 82,274................51,40 Palmer Wahl Instrumentation Group .................... .......................................... 91 .............................60 PdMA Corporation ................................................... ..................................................... 86,275................56,41 Predictive Service .......................................................................................... 90,276................59,41 Process Industry Practices......................................... ............................................................ 89,96,277 .....59,62,42 Scalewatcher ................................................................ ......................................... 78,83,268 .....48,52,36 SKF CMC-Fort Collins ............................................. ............................................... 87,278................57,42 SPM Instrument, Inc. ........................................................................................ 101 .........................BC SPM Instrument, Inc. .................................................................................... 269 ...........................37 Strategic Work Systems, Inc...................................... ............................................ 65 ...............................4 U.S. Tsubaki Power Transmission, LLC ..................time4lambda.com .................................................. 68 ...............................9 U.S. Tsubaki Power Transmission, LLC ................................................................. 270 ...........................38 U.S. Tsubaki Power Transmission, LLC ........................................................... 98 .............................62 Access MT-freeinfo.com and enter the reader service number of the product in which you are interested, or you can search even deeper and link directly to the advertiser’s Website. Submissions Policy: M T M T may not be reproduced in any form for any purpose without permission. For Reprints: Contact the publisher, Bill Kiesel (847) 382-8100 ext. 116. IA, MN, NE, ND, SD DECEMBER 2012 MT-ONLINE.COM | 63 viewpoint Jeff Eger, Executive Director, Water Environment Federation (WEF) Rebuilding Our Water Infrastructure. It’s been estimated that each job created in the local wastewater industry contributes 3.68 jobs to the national economy. The opinions expressed in this Viewpoint section are those of the author, and don’t necessarily reflect those of the staff and management of Maintenance Technology magazine. 64 | MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY DECEMBER 2012 GE Measurement & Control Take a walk with us. With improved ergonomics for faster and easier walk-around data collection, GE’s Bently Nevada* line introduces the SCOUT series, an amazing new lineup of portable vibration analyzers. Based on a design with a proven track record of quality and innovation, the SCOUT platform has been engineered from the ground up to deliver better reliability, accuracy, and usability. Its powerful combination of intuitive operation, ease of use, up-to-the-minute data collection, and outstanding storage capacity ensures a premium return on investment and one of the industry’s lowest total costs of ownership. SCOUT portables bring our industry-leading Bently Nevada condition monitoring expertise to the world of portable data collection and analysis. Backed by the powerful Ascent* software platform, they can be used in conjunction with other Bently Nevada technologies to provide dependable, efficient, and cost-effective condition monitoring across your entire plant. Portable data collection has never been easier. Visit our website at: For more info, enter 90 at *Trademark of the General Electric Company. 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Evolve.t BEYOND WIRED 12 13 14 24 26 28 INTRO MISSION STATEMENT GEOFF CAMPBELL PROJECT LETTER FROM THE EDITOR GEOFF CAMPBELL STAFF EVOLVE CONTRIBUTORS ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANISHA YANG LITERATURE A SELECTION OF RECOMMENDED READING ANISHA YANG CINEMA A SELECTION OF RECOMMENDED FILMS ANISHA YANG MUSIC A SELECTION OF RECOMMENDED LISTENING MARIAH MARLEY 29 30 34 42 44 50 LOCAL BAKING WITH BRITTANY BRITTANY ANDERSON WHAT’S GOIN’ DOWN IN DOWNTOWN ARLINGTON? PLENTY ANGEL SANCHEZ CUISINE ART AN ART EXHIBITION FOR PATTY GONZALEZ ANISHA YANG SECRETS WELCOME TO SHAMEVILLE DEBORAH HOLT VICTORY WHEELCHAIR TENNIS TEAM SHOWS UP STRONG IN BATON ROUGE ROBERT VILLALOBOS TELEVISION “CATFISH: THE TV SHOW” PRODUCER SEEKS UTA APPLICANT BREE BINDER 52 60 66 78 80 86 RASTA CANDICE STINNETT RODNEY THROWER AUSTIN REGGAE FESTIVAL DRAWS THOUSANDS FOR THREE-DAY FESTIVAL ALYSSA DAVIS TRIUMPH PUNK 1919 HEMPHILL: TEXAS STYLE DIY VIKTOR VILLANUEVA LATIN PROFILE: ANGEL SANCHEZ SERGIO VASQUEZ JOURNEY AND NOW ANNOUNCING FOR THE BOSTON RED SOX MATT SNEED COACH TO THE MAX JOHN WATSON 87 92 1% O th er Ye s 18 % 98 100 102 108 Have you ever dated your professor? 81% No SAFETY STUDENTS FEEL SAFE THOUGH CAMPUS BURGLARIES ARE RISING DEBORAH HOLT//INFOGRAPH BY ANISHA YANG HARDSHIP UT ARLINGTON’S KALEIDOSCOPE AGENCY TEAMS UP WITH AT&T ROBERT VILLALOBOS MONIQUE PATTERSON: PLANNING AHEAD TO STAY AHEAD IS KEY FOR STUDENT CYYURA DAVIS ADVERTISE SURVEY RELATIONSHIP SURVEY CYYURA DAVIS//INFOGRAPH BY ANISHA YANG POVERTY HOMELESS RODNEY THROWER//PHOTOS BY VIKTOR VILLANUEVA PROFILE COMM-RADES: FEATURE HIGHLIGHTING STUDENTS IN UTA’S DEPT. OF COMMUNICATION ROBERT VILLALOBOS 112 114 115 116 117 PROFILE EASY SLIDER SERGIO VASQUEZ COMM-RADES: FEATURE HIGHLIGHTING STUDENTS IN UTA’S DEPT. OF COMMUNICATION ANGEL SANCHEZ GOURMET PERSPECTIVE BROADCAST STUDENT DISCUSSES LIFE WITH MUSCULAR DISTROPHY MATT SNEED REPURPOSE MAKING BEDMATS FOR THE HOMELESS FROM PLASTIC BAGS RACHAEL WILSON REFLECTION JOSH SOURS MATT SNEED 12 CATAGORY. Students consider such factors as target audience and purpose before brainstorming a publication name and developing a visual identity. Students then build multi-media content to produce a unique publication. To date, capstone teams have built: Commradere, Fall 2011 dot comm, spring 2012 e-clips, fall 2013 The spring 2013 semester team ambitiously decided that, in addition to producing a website, it also wanted to create a companion print product. This approach allows students to further enhance their skills in graphics and design, and we are proud to share the results with you in this printable PDF. Mission Statement CREDIT LINE Letter From the Editor 13 Dear Readers, A project of this magnitude is the work of many hands. I am honored to be the teacher of record for this class and to have the opportunity to work with a team of such diligent and talented students. But I’d remiss if I didn’t single out several people without whom this publication would not have happened. First, we thank Dr. Markham Shaw for her continued support of this outstanding learning opportunity. We also thank Dr. Brian Horton, who provided valuable expertise and insights as the team developed a name and visual identity. In addition, we offer our gratitude to the tireless Dr. Chyng-Yang Jang, without whom the online version would never see the light of day. We also offer our thanks to the entire UT Arlington Communication Department faculty, which gave this team the skills it needed to produce this publication. Finally, we thank you for taking the time to read our work. Without you, creation of these publications would be an empty victory. Sincerely, Geoff Campbell Lecturer 14 STAFF Geoff Campbell Geoff Campbell Geoff Campbell is a full-time lecturer at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he’s taught journalism and advertising and serves as teacher of record of the class that built this publication. In addition, he staffs the Communication Department’s Associated Press Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Lab, a free resource for students who need help with basic grammar concerns and Associated Press style. Geoff is the author of seven non-fiction books, and he wrote a chapter for a media writing textbook – Writing for media audiences: A handbook for multi-platform news – published in fall 2012 by Kendall Hunt. He also served as a researcher for Jeff Guinn on his Our Land Before We Die: The Proud Story of the Seminole Negro, winner of the 2003 Texas Book Award and the TCU Distinguished Award for the best book about Texas. Geoff has extensive professional writing experience that includes work for weekly newsletters, daily newspapers, magazines, a bank trade association and a wire service. He worked in Washington for nearly 10 years, covering Congress, the executive branch, the U.S. Supreme Court and municipal finance. Geoff also wrote for the internal strategic publications of Alcon Laboratories, a global eye care company, and served as senior writer for Ackerman McQueen, an Oklahoma City-based public relations firm, where he specialized in articles, blog entries and literatures pieces. He has written extensively for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he served as senior book reviewer and wrote profiles of entrepreneurs, op-ed pieces and articles for the Life section. Geoff is a two-time recipient of the Outstanding Adjunct Teacher Award from the UT-Arlington College of Liberal Arts (2011, 2013) and was a runner-up for the honor in 2010. In both 2010 and 2011 he was nominated for the UT-Arlington Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence. He earned certification as a catechist in both the Archdiocese of Washington (D.C.) and the Archdiocese of Fort Worth. Geoff is a frequent adjunct professor at Texas Christian University’s Schieffer School of Journalism. He is married and the father of boy-girl twins. Geoff is a proud graduate of the University of Missouri, where he earned a degree in journalism with an emphasis in business and economics reporting. 15 Brittany Brittany Anderson Anderson Brittany is a high-spirited, optimistic writer with aspirations to discover her passion in the media world. As a feature writer for her high school newspaper, she discovered her joy for writing and being able to share the stories of other people. She is now a junior advertising and public relations double major trying to find her fit in the world of communications. She has gained experience in writing, event planning and advertising as a result of participation in various on-campus organizations, such as her sorority, Delta Zeta. However, her spontaneous personality has made it difficult to settle for one dream. Every day, she strives to make life more enjoyable for the people around her, and Brittany is rarely seen without a smile. Bree BreeBinder Binder Hey, I’m Bree Binder. I am double majoring in public relations and advertising at the University of Texas at Arlington. I currently work at our college newspaper, The Shorthorn, as the advertising sales manager. I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I adore fashion and keeping up with trends. I have an amazing family. My dad is one of the most amazing people I know. I am a member of Delta Delta Delta at the Beta Epsilon chapter. My friends are my life. People usually describe me as spontaneous and charming. I pride myself on the fact that I can put a smile on anyone’s face. I am very fun and bubbly. I’ve always had a knack for relating to others, and love hearing about people and their everyday adventures. Fun facts: I’m deathly afraid of birds. My favorite smells are campfire, Burberry weekend perfume and freshly mowed grass. Growing up in the LA area, I developed a love for a fast-paced environment. I currently live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and am open to relocating in December of 2013. I love being busy and constantly having something to do. I thrive on meeting new people and helping them create modern and fresh advertising solutions. When I’m not working, studying, doing homework, planning and participating in events with my sorority and panhellenic council or sleeping, I enjoy painting and hiking. My love for competition has led me to a pretty successful sales “career” with The Shorthorn. Because I’m always running around and doing several things at once, I’d say I’m the modern, female, human version of Mighty Mouse. I reach for the stars every day of my life, and I hope one day I’ll get there. ILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang 16 Odis Bonner Odis Bonner Odis Bonner, Born on Octber 31st 1989 was a bright eyed kid with big dreams. Growing up he had only one dream and that was to some day catch ‘em all, but sadly that dream was cut short due to a freak accident while playing marco polo. Having to get up on his dream of being a pokemon master, he choose to go to college and get an education. After 4 long years odis was close to graduating until he met his toughest challenge, Comm 4393. Not to be deterred odis battled the beast only to be slain in the process. His only living legacy is the evolve website on which he spent many sleepless nights to complete. He will be remembered as one of the greatest pokemon trainers to be cut down in their prime and also as one of the best coders in the game. Alyssa Davis Alyssa Davis Hey ya’ll, my name is Alyssa Davis, and I’m in my last semester as broadcasting major at UT Arlington. I’m originally from Richardson, Texas, just north of Dallas. I cheered for 12 years of my life, and played softball for 10 years. I’m a T-shirt and jeans kind of girl and you’ll rarely find me in a pair of heals. Summer is my favorite time of year, and you’ll never find me without a swimsuit. My favorite thing to do in the summer is to get a big group of great friends together and play sand volleyball until the sun goes down. Since becoming a Maverick, I’ve been very involved in my college. I was a cheerleader for UT Arlington in 2010 and 2011, hosted my own radio show on UTARadio.com, and was a producer, anchor and reporter for UTA News. I currently have an internship with CBS Radio at 105.3 The Fan and love every minute of it. After college, I hope to move to either Austin or to a small television market in Colorado. My biggest dream is to become a sports producer for a nationwide network affiliate in a Top Five market. 17 Cyyura Davis Cyyura Davis Cyyura Davis is a junior at UT Arlington, where she is pursuing two bachelor’s degrees -- one in public relations and the other in communication technology. She holds an associate’s degree in public relations. Her future goals include earning a master’s degree in public relations and owning a public relations firm. She works full time as a flight attendant for a major airline, and she is a licensed esthetician. Her strongest attribute is her unique ability to adapt and customize relations in order to communicate effectively. She enjoys travelling the world, learning about new cultures and socializing to connect with people. Deborah Holt Deborah Holt Deborah Holt is a public relations major at UT Arlington. She will graduate in 2013 in the top 15 percent of her class. She earned an associate’s degree in arts from Eastfield College in 2011, where she graduated in the top 5 percent of her class with a 4.0 GPA. Before attending school she lived in San Diego for four years while her husband served in the military. Her professional goal is to work for a nonprofit organization that aids women and children in need. She is from Mesquite, Texas, and currently resides there with her husband and two children. ILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang 18 Mariah Marley Mariah Marley Mariah is an advertising senior with a minor in Spanish. Currently, she works as a supervisor and visual merchandiser for Levi’s. After graduation, she hopes to move her way up in the company and eventually work as a brand manager. In the little free time she has, Mariah enjoys watching live music and feeding her fashion addiction by shopping. She also enjoys practicing her Spanish so she can soon master French. Kyle KyleRunge Runge Kyle Runge is currently in his last semester at UT Arlington. He is majoring in broadcast management with a minor in sociology. During his college life, he was an intern at 103.3 ESPN Dallas and shadowed the executive producer and the entire production of “The Ben & Skin Show.” Kyle hopes to get a job working with the Dallas Cowboys or any sports team in the DFW area after college. His backup plan is to try to get a job with 100.7 The Word and help the broadcast crew with Southlake Carroll football games. 19 Angel AngelSanchez Sanchez Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in the states, Angel “Angelo” Eduardo Sanchez has seen both worlds. As a youth, Angelo was introduced to Hip-Hop by local emcees in the Brooklyn Cooper housing projects. His relocation to Providence, R.I., drove his curiosity even deeper into the culture. His love for Hip-Hop and his passionate Latin roots helped develop Angelo into what he is today. He currently resides in Fort Worth, Texas, where he is finishing up his senior year at UT Arlington. Some call him an emcee while others call him a rapper, but he is known as L’Angelo. If you’re looking for a Spanish artist with rhyming skills that are far beyond “up to par,” then look no further than L’Angelo. Kyle MattRunge Sneed Matt Sneed is a 25 year old who is majoring in journalism. He is passionate about sports, family and giving back. Sneed is currently the public address announcer for the UT Arlington Mavericks Athletic Department, and hopes to one day be the voice of the Texas Rangers. Follow him on Twitter @MattSneed. ILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang 20 Rodeney Thrower Rodney Thrower My name is Rodney Thrower, and I am a senior who is majoring in broadcasting and minoring in business. I’m from Texarkana, Ark., and I have one son who is my motivation behind everything. Recently, I have juggled with the idea of double majoring in broadcasting and journalism, but I haven’t yet decided for sure. My newfound passion for radio has driven me in this direction because I pride myself on being able to communicate effectively with anybody no matter the background. I believe there’s something you can learn from everybody. My goal is to gradually make my way to producing and starring as the lead personality of my own radio show. I know it’s a long process, but I have learned patience is the key to unlocking many doors. Sergio SergioVasquez Vasquez My name is Sergio Vasquez. I am senior at UT Arlington. I will graduate with a double bachelor’s in public relations and history. While attending school I have been a member of PRSSA. After graduation I hope to pursue my goals of working in the public relations field, and one day teach. I was born and raised in San Antonio. I moved to Dallas before the start of fifth grade. Since then I lived in Irving, Texas, where I still reside. I have huge passion for sports. In my spare time from school and work, I watch as much sports as possible. I enjoy watching football, basketball and baseball. My favorite teams are the Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers and the San Antonio Spurs. In addition, I try to stay as active as possible. I try to do at least one 5k running event a month. 21 Robert Villalobos Robert Villalobos Robert Villalobos is a senior studying public relations at UT Arlington. He plans to graduate in the summer of 2013 with a bachelor of arts degree in public relations with a minor in communications. He graduated from Burleson High School in 2006. He gained his passion for communications after learning the different areas of public relations campaigns and marketing strategies while taking Dr. Shelley Wigley’s Intro to PR course at UT Arlington. He previously worked as a PR-Intern for The Longest Swim Project, helping coordinate events and awareness for long-distance swimmer Ben Lecomte. Robert is currently a PR-Intern at the corporate office of Golden Living, a leader in skilled nursing and healthcare company. He’s developed a number of skill sets including writing, editing, campaign management and website content. Upon graduation, he hopes to use these skills to start his own company. Viktor Villanueva Viktor Villanueva Viktor Villanueva is a broadcasting/journalism student at UT Arlington. He is a self-taught designer, photographer, illustrator, typographer, maker, bicycle mechanic, musician and father. He has a passion for combining handmade and digital. He is clever, insightful and stupid. Most of all, he wants to create something wonderful with you. He is also made of candy. ILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang 22 JohnJohn Watson Watson Life with a spinal cord injury not only presents challenges, it also enriches a person’s experiences. All 27 years of John’s life have strengthened him through the help of a strong support system of family, friends, teachers, coaches and teammates. These people continue motivating him to grow and learn to work with others so he too can one day inspire and assist others, especially those with disabilities. He is pushing to complete a degree in communications and training as a wheelchair athlete at UT Arlington. With this newly acquired wisdom, John hopes to one day become a leader in disability awareness and advocacy. Since transferring from the University of Texas at El Paso to UT Arlington in 2011, John has been immersed in wheelchair sports. He was one of the original players on the DFW Freewheelers, a community wheelchair basketball team that trains at UT Arlington. Prior to transferring to the university he had no experience in organized wheelchair basketball but was suddenly among the best athletes and trainers in the DFW area. Building strong relationships with them has helped his game and character grow together. With John as Freewheeler team representative, the team has climbed through the ranks to become a Top 10 team in only its second year competing in Division 3. He also recorded and helped analyze statistics for the UT Arlington Movin’ Mavs at practice and during games. The Movin’ Mavs finished second in the intercollegiate division’s national tournament in 2013. John recently finished playing his first tennis tournament on the UT Arlington wheelchair tennis team. Being around wheelchair athletes and learning the different sports have both helped John write articles for journalism classes. Writing about what he loves makes the work not seem like work at all. It is fun for him and he is simultaneously developing writing skills and gaining experience to one day help him find a career as enjoyable as school. He enjoys his teachers and finds that he can learn just as much and sometimes more from the other students during class discussions. For example, John is part of the Evolve team, an online magazine team led by Geoff Campbell. Evolve is made up of diverse communication students, including advertising, journalism, communication studies, communication technology, public relations and broadcast majors who all learn from each other and think together to create a finished product. Although school is fun for John, he does enjoy some free time every now and then. He likes to spend time with friends and family, especially his younger sister Kathleen, who lives in Dallas. For relaxation he develops his longbow skills at an archery range in Grand Prairie. He also finds calm in reading authors like Kurt Vonnegut and Ernest Hemmingway. John likes to play video games like Madden and Gears of War. He also watches far too much TV because of shows like The Office and Bob’s Burgers. His eclectic taste in music keeps him listening to anything from the Beatles to Tupac. John also struggles with an odd addiction to visiting the Tom Thumb grocery store with friends, sometimes leaving without even making a purchase. Despite this humorous addiction, the future seems bright for John. He has high hopes of being admitted to the graduate program in the Communication Department at UT Arlington. This will help him build value for his career, stay close to the best wheelchair sports program in the country and learn even more from being in the best academic department on campus. When it comes to sports, he will continue to learn as much as possible from the amazing athletes and coaches at UT Arlington. No matter what happens, John’s strong support system will help keep him striving for greatness athletically and academically. 23 Rachel Wilson Rachel Wilson Rachael Wilson will graduate in December 2013. She enjoys photography and photographs portraits and weddings. Her photography page is. com/rachaelmaewilsonphotography. She has two cats that she bottle fed since they were a week and a half old and one dog. She has a boyfriend of nearly four years, that she plans on moving in with after graduation. She start an organization, where she makes bedmate from plastic shopping bags that she donates to the homeless. The page for the organization is TarrantCountBedMats. Anisha Yang Anisha Yang Anisha was born and raised in San Diego. Despite growing up by the ocean, she cannot swim (partly due to a rather unfortunate incident involving floaties). Her favorite novels include Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. A few of her favorite films include Danny Boyle’s Sunshine and 28 Days Later. She is pursuing a degree in advertising and a minor in communication technology. She spends her free time browsing YouTube for new music and dabbling in Adobe Illustrator. ILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang 24 B ook eviews r By Anisha Yang Students and teachers share book and film recommendations Sadly, many in the academic world – whether students or teachers – often say it’s difficult to find time to read a good book or watch a good movie because of all the required reading they have. But taking that time can make all the difference in a person’s quality of life. As Malcolm X famously said, “The ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” University of Texas at Arlington students and teachers said the following books and films Freakonomics (2005) Authors Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner Non-fiction Economics applied to real world situations. Various stories explain how economics is the core of all of our actions. “Economics is seen as boring and if it’s not boring, it’s complicated. This is a down to earth book. It shows how economics is embedded in everyday life. Ordinary people can appreciate economics. It has fantastic stories and it’s very thought provoking.” Dr. Chunke Su Communicaton Technology A great book to “see” differently.” The Art of Looking Sideways (2001) Author Alan Fletcher Non-fiction Alan Fletcher is a master designer. In this book, he explores the working ways of the eyes, the hand and the brain. “Fletcher is a founding partner of Pentagram. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000) Sociology Gladwell analyzes 25 “critical mass” and how little events add up to the Tipping Point. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005) Psychology Gladwell focuses on how we weigh and make decisions. etc). Author: Malcom Gladwell “Excellent glimpse into behaviors and systems.” Roby McEuen Communication Graphics my favorite. It’s about a man who in an attempt to save a young girl’s life is killed and is now in this journey of his afterlife. It talks about the remarkable people you meet throughout your life that you think will have such little impact in your life, but leave a huge mark on it. It’s beautifully written and it’s definitely an eye opener.” Alyssa Hemraj Advertising/ Public Relations major Author Pauline Réage Erotic Fiction The story of a woman, O, her lovers and how far she will go to prove her love for them. “O is willingly brought to château as a sex slave. She’s put through all of these degrading acts but she sees it as character building. It’s shocking how it’s about the empowerment of woman.” Outliers: The Story of Success (2008) Psychology Gladwell redirects the focus on successful people on the factors surrounding them (family, birthplace, The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003) Author Mitch Albom Inspirational Fiction In his afterlife, a man encounters five people he has interacted with while still living. “Mitch Albom has written quite a few books but this one in particular is The Story of O (1954) Clockwork Orange (1962) Author Anthony Burgess Dystopian Fiction Set in a futuristic world, the leader of an ultraviolent group of teenagers is reformed and set back out into the world where he struggles between good and evil. Set in a futuristic world, the leader of an ultraviolent group of teenagers is reformed and set back out into the world where he struggles between good and evil. Meredith Kelland Visual Communications major ILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang 26 M ovie eviews r By Anisha Yang Memento (2001) Director Christopher Nolan Psychological Thriller Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano A man set on revenge suffers from an inability to retain short term memories. “It’s interesting how the brain remembers and forgets.” Dr. Brian Horton Communication Technology Mr. Rudy Bechtel Advertising “The first part of it is all about communication without dialogue. It’s about the role reversal of humans and robots. I saw it in a drive in so it had a real authentic feel to it.” Dr. Brian Horton Communication Technology WALL-E (2008) Director Andrew Stanton Animation A lone robot, Wall-E, left on a desolate Earth develops a friendship with a probe sent down from the humans living on a space station. Thank You For Smoking (2006) Director Jason Reitman Comedy, Drama Aaron Eckhart, Joan Lunden, Cameron Bright Tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor employs the power of persuasion to spin opinions about the tobacco industry. “It’s a great example in how to formulate arguments in positioning. The movie will persuade you to smoke. It works and it’s hysterical. It’s the logic of turning – to open the mind up to see things in a new way. It’s serious but fun.” Wag the Dog (1997) Director Barry Levinson Comedy, Drama Dustin Hoffman & Robert De Niro With re-elections coming up, the president is caught in a scandal that is sure to compromise his reelection. As a solution, a Hollywood producer and spin-doctor is brought in to ‘create’ a war in order to take attention away from the scandal through the use of the mass media. “It’s a great film. You can learn more from the movie than school. It’s so topical and has great humor. It’s about how voters can be manipulated through creation of images, the use of phony events to create reality. It represents the business as I lived it. It captures my experience as frenetic constant change. Nothing stayed the same. 27 You always have to rethink. You never knew what was going to happen even if you planned in advance. It’s got a great cast, great premise and wonderful story. It’s old but it hasn’t lost anything.” Mr. Rudy Bechtel Advertising The Blind Side (2009) Director John Lee Hancock Biography, Drama Sandra Bullock, Quinton Aaron & Tim McGraw The true story of how Michael Oher went from homelessness to an AllAmerican football player with the love of a family. “I love stories about people overcoming enormous obstacles. I always root for the underdog, so that’s probably why I like this movie so much.” Dr. Shelley Wigley Public Relations stuff. Here, immigrants are trying to make a living for themselves. The media exposes the bad but it’s a whole other world.” Arnulfo Garcia Communication Technology major Cocaine Cowboys (2006) Director Billy Corben Documentary The beginning and rise of cocaine are documented in Miami in the 1970s and 1980s. “A lot of people aren’t educated; they see drugs and associate it with bad Helvetica (2007) Director Gary Hustwit Documentary Graphic and type designers talk about the impact of the font Helvetica. “One film I would highly recommend.” Roby McEuen Communication Graphics ILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang 28 By Mariah Marley ARRANGEMENT AND ILLUSTRATION BY Mariah Marley What’s Goin’ Down in Downtown Arlington? Plenty By Angel Sanchez 29 Only a short walk away from the University of Texas at Arlington campus and with the new College Park Center bordering, Downtown Arlington has the potential to be the ideal place for college students and staff to hang out. However, that’s not been the case. For the last decade, this area of the city has been perceived as a dark, boring and unsafe area of Arlington – among those who even know about it. Others don’t even know that Arlington has a downtown or where it is located. In a recent survey done by UT Arlington public relations students, 20 percent of students do not like going to Downtown Arlington because they feel unsafe there. Another 40 percent said they did not like going because they believed there is nothing fun to do in the area. And despite the close proximity to the campus, a whopping 70 percent of the surveyed students said they did not know where Downtown Arlington is located. But now things are poised to change. With new hip spots like the Grease Monkey and Babe’s opening every day, and with concerts in places like the Levitt Pavilion and Arlington Music Hall throughout the year, downtown Arlington is sure to become a destination for the young, the old and the fun. To plan out your next excursion to this up-andcoming area, visit ILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang 30 Baking With Brittany Many college students complain about their diets, but few take the time to make healthy changes in their lives. Simple things like cooking at home or not drinking soda can make a substantial difference in health, but even the best of us cannot escape the desires of our sweet tooth. Eating delicious food and satisfying cravings does not have to involve consuming junk food. By swapping out a few ingredients, you can make surprisingly delicious desserts with health benefits! I admit that I am a Pinterest junkie, and I am particularly obsessed with cooking. I am even more obsessed with peanut butter and chocolate combinations. After trying several of the healthy dessert recipes I discovered on the website, I came across this. I now rotate this into my cooking schedule about every week, and a pan rarely lasts more than a couple of days. These things are delicious! And because they do not contain flour, butter or oil like most brownie recipes, I do not feel too terrible about eating them. On top of all that, they’re a breeze to make. By Brittany Anderson Skinny Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies Ingredients: -3/4 cup creamy peanut butter -6 oz. low fat vanilla Greek yogurt -1/4 cup skim milkv -1 large egg (or 2 egg whites) -1/4 tsp. salt -1 tsp. baking powder -1 cup sugar (*see note below directions) -1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder -1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats Preheat the oven to 350◦. Spray an 8x8 pan with non-stick spray. Put all ingredients (except the peanut butter) into a blender. It is better to pour liquid ingredients in before dry ingredients so that blending will be easier. Blend until the batter is smooth and the oats are no longer chunky. Pour batter into the8x8 baking dish. Microwave the peanut butter for about 30-45 seconds, until liquefied. Pour peanut butter over the top if the batter in whatever pattern you like. Using a fork or toothpick, swirl the batter to create a marbleized effect. Bake brownies for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when you poke the middle. Allow to cool before cutting. Enjoy! ILLUSTRATIONS BY Viktor Villanueva Note: You can substitute the white sugar for truvia (be careful because this is usually sweeter than normal sugar) , a mix of ½ cup brown sugar and ¼ cup honey, or substitute ½ cup of sugar and ½ cup of dates. Just make sure you taste your batter and make sure that it is sweet enough. For a video demonstration, Click Here FOOD EVOLVE 31 Skinny Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies PHOTOGRAPHY BY Brittany Anderson 32 EVOLVE FOOD As a self-proclaimed foodie, my free time is often spent scrolling through the food section of Pinterest looking for new ideas. I am usually attracted to the healthy alternatives, which are almost always delicious. I will admit that I’ve tried some things that ended up being weird. (For example: healthy blueberry lemonade cheesecake cookies - yuck!) However, this recipe ended up scoring high in my book, and I believe that it is definitely worthy of sharing with my fellow food junkies. Everyone loves cheese, and if you’re trying to eat healthy, then you know that eating cheese sticks is generally not a healthy option. If you’re like me, and your cravings for cheese become too powerful to fight off, try making this low-calorie version (*or the baked version described below!). Light Homemade Cheese Sticks Ingredients: -Low fat string cheese (as many as you want to make) -Eggroll wrappers -Oil Unwrap string cheese and place diagonally across an eggroll wrapper. Begin rolling from one side until half of the wrapper had been rolled. Fold the 2 side corners in towards the center. Dampen the part of the wrapper that is exposed with a couple drops of water. Finish rolling the eggrolls, using the water as a sealant. Heat enough oil in a skillet to cover the surface area of the pan. When the oil becomes hot, place the cheese sticks into the oil. Allow the cheese sticks to fry until each side is browned, turning as necessary to get each side. When sticks are browned to your liking, remove them from the oil and place on a paper towel to cool and absorb excess oil. Prepare dipping sauce (Marinara is the best!). Enjoy!Bus es solupta tempos natium de verrore ILLUSTRATIONS BY Viktor Villanueva Healthier Alternative: Try baking them! Use the same procedure to form the cheese sticks, but then bake them at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, turning halfway through cook time. For a video demonstration, Click here FOOD EVOLVE 33 Light Homemade Cheese Sticks PHOTOGRAPHY BY Olivetheingredients An Art Exhibition for Patty Gonzalez By Anisha Yang Q&A With Patricia Gonzalez Patricia Gonzalez Age: 21 Junior Visual Communication Major Communication Technology Minor Bachelor’s of Arts Degree Q: How did you get your start? A: I started in a graphics design cluster class as Skyline High School in Dallas, Texas. It’s a magnet school. As far as creative, they have photography, ad design and graphic design. The whole reason I did that was because ad design and photography was something I was interested in. In my interview with the graphic design teacher, they mentioned it was an accumulation of ad design and photography. We also did some video. Where do you find your inspiration? Most of my inspiration comes from people that I meet, music I listen to. I try to stay current… and also random Googling. *laughs* Music? Paramore is my favorite band of all time. Their new album comes out tomorrow (April 9th) but they already have it streaming online. I have to get a physical copy. Tell me about “Anchor” (print). It’s a monoprint. It was freehand so you don’t use an image…you just freehand. You can create stencils if you wanted to. I went with a palette knife to make the ocean, water-type feel. I freehand drew the anchor in later with a sharpie. 35 Opposite page “JAZXX” - 8” x 10” Screenprint on paper Z“JAZXX” - 8” x 10” Screenprint on paper 36 EVOLVE ART What about the tie-dye one? It’s the same type of thing. I played with gradients. I mixed two different types of ink together and used an ink roller. I saw a girl play with eight different colors but I just went with two. What about the graffiti? It’s a photograph from a graffiti spot in Dallas, in Pleasant Grove, near my house. Some of the graffiti is really good down there. There are a few interesting pieces. I’m not sure if it’s the same graffiti artist. Basically I broke it apart using Photoshop. I made six pieces out of it but only used three in the print. My graffiti piece was chosen to for the school accreditation’s ASAD. The exhibit is set for spring ‘13. What about “Reflections”? For the assignment, we were required to set up a still life. For my still life, I used plants and it was outside. The whole idea behind it, I wanted to use my mom as inspiration. I had things that were religious because my mom is very religious. The assignment called for my still life in a different way. Traditional still life is a bowl of fruit. So I took a still life of a plant, took 1/16 of it, blew it up, and then flipped it. For the middle, I blew up a part of vine plants and added it to the middle. Tell me about your print series. I took various images and played with them. I played with stacks, layers and color choice. I used the same image in different ways. Monoprint. Basic pronto printing. Clockwise from top-left “ZZZ” - 5” x 7” Screenprint on paper What kind of paper is this? Seems kinda like fabric almost. I can’t tell you. The class had to order it in bulk. My teacher (Sydney Webb) actually made her own paper out of old newspaper. Her website is sydneywebbart.com. What’s up with the owls? They’re pretty prevalent in your prints. It’s just because. It’s not my spirit animal or anything. I took a test and it was actually my third spirit animal. *LAUGHS* People compare me to an owl. I’m more active at night. I’m not a morning person. It describes me. Jazxx? A: It’s inspired by a girl I use to know. She was my ex’s best friend’s ex girlfriend. We had a lot in common. I would read her writing. I read about her abuse, what she went through…we connected. She saw that I was taking printing making and she let me use her photography. I don’t know who the photographer is but it’s her in the photo. I appropriated her into my piece. Cool. Anything you’d like to add? “I solemnly swear I’m up to no good.” *Laughs* “OWL II” - 5” x 7” Screenprint on paper “UNTITLED” - 5” x 7” Screenprint on paper “NIGHT WATCH” - 5” x 7” Screenprint on paper ART EVOLVE 37 38 EVOLVE ART Above “UNTITLED” - 11” x 18” Screenprint on paper ART EVOLVE 39 “People compare me to an owl. I’m more active at night. I’m not a morning person. It describes me.” Above “REFLECTIONS” - 8” x 8” Screenprint on paper 40 EVOLVE ART Top to bottom “ANCHOR” - 5” x 7” Screenprint on paper “EXPAND” - 5” x 7” Screenprint on paper ART EVOLVE 41 Above Patty Gonzalez incognito 42 EVOLVE Shame, shame, shame. You did what? A few friends and I were brave enough to share their shame with everyone. We’ve all been there. Picking our noses at a red light, or telling our significant others we can’t talk because we’re doing homework when we really just want them to stop texting so we can watch our favorite show in peace. Don’t be shy. Feel free to join the club. EVOLVE 43 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Deborah Holt 44 Wheelchair Tennis Team Shows Up Strong in Baton Rouge By John Watson The University of Texas at Arlington wheelchair tennis team traveled to Baton Rouge, La., where it competed in the 24th annual Cajun Classic. Coach Jeff Sale, a graduate student, and four other student athletes made the journey down south with only a pick-up truck to haul the sports chairs and an SUV. Wheelchair tennis players from all skill levels were invited to play singles and doubles matches at the Lamar Tennis Center. Despite the weather shifting from rainy to foggy to sunny all weekend, UT Arlington managed to win some battles in the bayou and bring home some hardware. Junior Austan Pierce, an advertising major and public relations minor, won first place in the consolation bracket. Senior John Watson, a journalism major, finished fifth overall in the C-division. Senior Juan Soto, an advertising major, teamed up with finance sophomore Andy Kraft to take home top honors in doubles. And Coach Sale finished second in A-division singles. More than 50 athletes from quadriplegics to amputees participated in tournament this year, making it one of the best turnouts in Cajun Classic history. 45 PHOTOGRAPHY BY John Watson 46 EVOLVE SPORTS SPORTS EVOLVE 47 “More than 50 athletes from quadriplegics to amputees participated in tournament this year, making it one of the best turnouts in Cajun Classic history.” PHOTOGRAPHY BY John Watson 48 EVOLVE SPORTS SPORTS EVOLVE 49 PHOTOGRAPHY BY John Watson 50 “Catfish: The TV Show” Producer seeks UTA Applicant By Bree Binder between human interactions where “catfish” in society are people who always keep you on your toes and always keep you guessing. I was approached by Mark Pomerville, a casting producer for the show, because he is looking for an applicant from UT-Arlington because the show is getting so many applications from Texas. Pomerville started working for “Catfish” by working for Long Pond Media, and had worked on a few other shows that had to do with unscripted television. He says, “We are hoping to feature a variety of stories this season.” Pomerville says that if he could break one misconception that the show portrays that it would be that “not everyone who is using a fake identity is a bad person. In fact many of them are really good people who have made a bad choice and are now living the results of that and don’t know how to get out or where they should go from here.” He added: “A lot of times society labels these people as weirdos, or people who could never live or function in the real world, and in reality that is not true. It is usually just people who are very self-conscious, overweight, gay or just socially awkward. Once they’ve gone through the Catfish program, it is usually really liberating for them.” Our story begins with a documentary that got so much attention, MTV decided to make a show about it. The documentary was about a guy named Nev, the host of the show, who got in an online relationship with a girl via Facebook. Through searching the Internet, he realized that there was another profile with the same information on it and decided to pay her a visit. The woman he met turned out to be a fake profile and was really an older woman with a family. She was PHOTO VIA TWITTER using this fake profile as a way to escape her challenging home life. The two still remain friends since this discovery and still talk regularly. After the documentary was published, people started emailing in and explaining their concerns about their own relationships, which is where the show starts. The show got its name “Catfish” during the documentary. The woman’s husband references how when you transport fish, you put catfish in with them so that the good fish stay active and keep their muscles working. He makes the connection TELEVISION EVOLVE 51 He recalls the episode where Just make sure you’re cautious, Chelsea was bullied in the past, and if you have any suspicions, went on the show and is now call in.” helping other I asked him to people through “Not everyone what she who is using a fake detail the one thing people learned. “And identity is a bad always ask him if anyone is person. In fact many about his job. reading this, I encourage of them are really He said: you to write in good people who “People are if you are in a always very similar situation have made a bad curious as to because we choice and are now what happens would really after people living the results of love to help,” in, or Pomerville that and don’t know write if this is a said. how to get out or scripted show, or set up in Pomerville where they should any way. said another go from here” The answer misconception is no. Once that people fall into is that someone writes in, the producers “online dating is sketchy, but in reality it is not a bad thing at all. give them a call and hear their story over the phone. We look for details, the more details, the easier it is to read and get a good feel for the story. Then we do some background research and if we really like the story, a private investigator does some more extensive research, and a psychologist does some testing – which is pretty standard with most TV shows. If everything checks out OK, they hand it over to Nev and Max (Nev’s best friend and right hand man during the journey), and the adventure begins. If interested in appearing on the show, email the program through its website at. Enter in your information and make sure to include an email and phone number so that they can reach you. PHOTO VIA MTV.COM 52 EVOLVE By Alyssa Davis Austin Reggae Festival Draws Thousands for Three-Day Celebration CULTURE EVOLVE 53. The atmosphere was calm as most patrons came into the grounds with blankets, chairs and their appetites. It was nice to see law enforcement officers loosen their ties a little bit as well. April 20 is broadly known in American culture to be associated with the consumption of marijuana because the date is 4-20. The term was coined by teenagers in California years ago when they needed a code to tell each other when they were going to meet to smoke, deciding on 4:20. While smoking, selling, growing or really anything to do with marijuana is still illegal, you wouldn’t have known that being there. Thousands of people sat on a giant grass lawn in their own groups, circled around each other smoking. As police patrolled the event, they only stopped to ask people if they were enjoying themselves and overlooked everything else. So why do they get away with holding this festival? Well, if you ask me, it’s pretty simple. When you can PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alyssa Davis 54 EVOLVE CULTURE. CULTURE EVOLVE 55 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alyssa Davis 56 EVOLVE CULTURE CULTURE EVOLVE 57 “While smoking, selling, growing or really anything to do with marijuana is still illegal, you wouldn’t have known that being there.” PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alyssa Davis 58 EVOLVE “All these people came to hang out, listen to some music and cure their munchies and cottonmouth.” CULTURE “So whether or not rules are being broken or laws are being enforced, the event created an unforgettable atmosphere of peace and love. Even as cliché as that sounds, that is what it was, and Bob Marley would have been proud.” CULTURE EVOLVE 59 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alyssa Davis 60 EVOLVE ANDICE STINET By Rodney Thrower Many students worry about bad hair days or fret if they can’t go to the Beyonce concert because they have to study. But some students overcome a great deal more adversity and teach us all the power of perseverance. University of Texas at Arlington broadcast major Candice Stinett is one such student. Click here to hear her inspirational story about triumphing over cancer and challenging herself by running marathons. She spoke with Evolve’s Rodney Thrower. EVOLVE 61 62 EVOLVE PROFILE PROFILE 63 66 1919 HempHill Texas Style DIY Written and photographed by Viktor Villanueva EVOLVE 67 Stickers plaster the iron-barred doors cataloging bands, preaching anarchy, chaos, disenfranchisement, mistrust, heartbreak and hope for a future built from the ashes, and through them enter the young, the old, the punks, the hardcore, the metal, the trendy, the wallflowers, the beautiful, the ugly and the homeless. The walls are spray painted in fluorescent green and dinosaur purple illuminating their DIY philosophies, offering answers to those that challenge the status quo and enter. The rules are few and simple: no substances (including booze and cigarettes), no fighting and respect everyone. The ideologies are reminiscent of ‘60s and ‘70s hippie counterculture filtered through punk sensibilities. Dingy couches are tattered and torn. There’s writing everywhere on the walls, the furniture, the ceiling, and the room contains stacks of literature for radical politics, veganism and cultural activism, and racks of handmade and self-published ‘zines. The people that come here have something else to say and know that they’ll find people here to listen. Through many walks of life, they’re united by the love of music and community. The music is the campfire. The fire is primal. They’ve all come here as outsiders and the fire brought them together. Everyone knows each other. Everyone understands each other and if they don’t, they’ll take the time to try. The community surrounds the flames of music and everyone is included. Here everyone is safe from the darkness of reality, judgment, the world and the ordinary. 1919 Hemphill is a non-profit collective run solely by volunteers. Part of a national circuit of DIY venues, 1919 is the longest standing in Texas at 10 years. 1919 perseveres solely on donations to keep the venue up and running, maintaining a radical lending library, a ‘free store’ and free meeting space for community organizations. All shows are for all ages and a $6 cover fee, but no one is turned away for lack of funds. There’s always a way to help out the venue. PHOTOGRAPHY BY Viktor Villanueva EVOLVE CULTURE CULTURE EVOLVE 69 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Viktor Villanueva 70 CULTURE EVOLVE 71 Title Page Avery Taylor of Hate Your Friends Previous Page, Clockwise from bottom left Domingo of Anger House Tommy Ramon of Innards Ryan Schefsky of Square Business Current page, clockwise from top left Christian Medrano at Open Mic Night Jared Lawson of Best Fwends Stevie Hayden of Hate Your Friends Joel Flores in the lounge at 1919 Hemphill PHOTOGRAPHY BY Viktor Villanueva 72 EVOLVE CULTURE “Here everyone is safe from the darkness of reality, judgement, the world and the ordinary.” CULTURE EVOLVE 73 From left to right Olivia Themudo at Open Mic Night Abe Hill of Anger House Donovan Ford of Square Business PHOTOGRAPHY BY Viktor Villanueva 74 EVOLVE CULTURE “Through many walks of life, they’re unit Clockwise from top left Summer Bernas expresses herself in the kitchen at 1919 Hemphill “The way it is” Donovan Ford of Square Business 1919 Hemphill’s “Suggestion Box” Abe Hill of Anger House in the lounge at 1919 Hemphill Leo Herrera and Tommy Ramon of Innards CULTURE EVOLVE 75 ted by the love of music and community.” Next page, clockwise from top left 1919 Hemphill patrons watch a friend drum between sets at Open Mic Night Matt Jones of Those Damn Kids “Occupation is not Liberation” Grafitti at the stage of 1919 Hemphill PHOTOGRAPHY BY Viktor Villanueva PHOTOGRAPHY BY Viktor Villanueva 78 By Rodney Thrower NGEL SANCHE Inspiring Spanish Urban Artist at UTA You’ve heard of angels dancing on the heads of pins and angels in the outfield. Some angels, it turns out, are in the classroom. Angel Sanchez, an aspiring Spanish rapper, is working to build his music career while studying at the University of Texas at Arlington. Sanchez was born in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, where he lived until the age of 4. His family then relocated to Brooklyn, N.Y., before later moving to Providence, R.I. His sophomore year of high school, his family moved to Fort Worth, Texas. Here Sanchez got involved in music when he met Cino Flex, who he now considers a great friend. “Every Thursday we would have freestyle Thursdays and start battling kids from the neighborhood,” Sanchez says. After noticing his fondness for the battles, Flex suggested to his friend that they should open a studio together. “At first I started off producing,” Sanchez says. “Then I met someone better.” Sanchez left producing behind, PROFILE and just focused on his urban music. Sanchez says his main inspiration is the love he has for music. He says he wants to bring what he loves to others. Sanchez took a six-month break from his music, but is currently getting back to his roots and is readying to deliver a mix tape. Sanchez says the move from New York to Texas was challenging. “It was a very hard move for me,” Sanchez says. He describes the move from Brooklyn to Texas a complete culture change, but he says he knew his parents made the right decision. Since moving to Texas, Sanchez has focused on his dream of being a Spanish Rap artist. Sanchez is currently signed with Congreso Music Records, and he is working on variety of projects. His work is on YouTube at and his twitter page @Iamlanglo. Sanchez says he chose to pursue a degree in public relations to better communicate with people. “I must know how to represent myself and communicate with others if I really want to succeed,” Sanchez said. He plans to graduate from UT Arlington in May of 2013 and wants to move to Miami to better succeed in his dreams of being a Spanish Rap artist. 79 PHOTO VIA FACEBOOK 80 EVOLVE AND NOW: ANNOUNCING FOR BOSTON RED SOX. UT-Arlington Student Lands Public Address Audition By Matt Sneed EVOLVE 81 R THE ... I recently received a text message from a friend, Chris Felan, saying the Boston Red Sox were auditioning public address announcers. I remember thinking to myself that this might be a fun opportunity. Anyone who knows me knows that I love being a public address announcer. And my dream job is to be a public address announcer for a Major League Baseball team. So you can imagine how badly I wanted to jump at the opportunity to audition for the Sox. God had his hand in this from the get go. A number of things had to happen, and they all just seemed to fall into place. It was almost too good to be true. I wouldn’t be able to make to original tryout date due to obligations to announce a women’s basketball game at UT-Arlington. I called the Boston Red Sox about the possibility of another date. They said they would take my email address and get back with me. To be honest, I didn’t think I would ever hear from them again. Little did I know that I would receive an email on a Wednesday saying that they would have their third and final first round tryout the following day at 3 p.m. Not a lot of notice, but I doubt they thought I would be flying in from Texas to throw my name in the hat. PHOTOGRAPHY BY Matt Sneed 82 EVOLVE “Did I really just travel halfway across the county to try out to be the public address announcer for the Boston Red Sox?” I needed a number of things to happen, quickly, on my very limited budget: • I had to trade my Southwest ticket voucher for an American Airlines ticket voucher (and luckily I had a brother who was willing to trade); • I had to find the right times for the flights in order to get to Boston on time (Southwest didn’t have the right times); • I needed flights to be on time and not delayed (it seems every time I travel the flights get delayed); • I needed dependable ground transportation when I got to Boston; • I had to locate a reasonably priced hotel ($94 for a 24th floor room overlooking the Charles River, from which I could see Harvard and Fenway Park); and • I need to be able to check-in early at the hotel without any trouble ( I got to the hotel around 11 a.m., so I had around four hours till tryout. SPORTS EVOLVE 83 “So you’re that guy from Texas. Man, that’s dedication.” While I was sitting in my hotel room, I started to get a little nervous and to second guess myself. Did I really just travel halfway across the county to try out to be the public address announcer for the Boston Red Sox? This, the same job for which 350 people had already tried out? That is when I prayed, and I remembered that this would be just another day at the office, just me and a microphone. After all, it doesn’t matter whether there are five fans in the stands or 50,000 -- it’s all the same. When I first entered Fenway Park, I was at ease. I wasn’t nervous at all. I actually think the mid- 40s gentleman I was riding with on the elevator was more worried than I was. He was talking and asking questions as if I had already done the tryout and was coming back just to watch him. We were in the middle-of-the-pack to arrive. PHOTOGRAPHY BY Matt Sneed 84 EVOLVE “...coolest part of it all was getting to announce over the loudspeaker at Fenway Park” When we first arrived, we were greeted by two people from the Red Sox organization. They handed us two sheets of paper. When we were checking in, one of the guys said, “So you’re the guy from Texas. Man, that’s dedication.” I just smiled and said, “Yes.” He took us into the pressroom where other potential candidates were gathered. I started to go over the script and then realized I was by far the youngest and most overdressed for the part. I didn’t mind it, though. That’s who I am. I spent about twenty minutes going over the script before it was my turn to go on the microphone. I think the coolest part of it all was getting to announce over the loudspeaker at Fenway Park and to hear my voice going out over the speaker as if it were Opening Day 2013. My biggest worry was not performing up to my expectations, stumbling over my words, or even worse, mispronouncing a name. I would have EVOLVE 85 been disappointed. I had no regrets when my 35 seconds of fame was done. After I finished, I spoke with the John Carter, director of Red Sox Productions, for a few minutes. He and his staff were very welcoming. I am sure they were tired of the whole announcer process and ready to get the season underway. That afternoon at Fenway Park is something that I will never forget. Going up to Boston, it wasn’t my goal to get the job. It was strictly to understand the process of a pro tryout. Who knows what the people who will ultimately make the final decision are looking for? Am I saying I would turn down the job if it was offered? Absolutely not. It is my dream job. But I’m sure it is as well for whoever the Red Sox ultimately choose as their next public address announcer. All in all it was a great trip, and the Lord was present in so many areas. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. “That afternoon at Fenway Park is something that I will never forget.” PHOTOGRAPHY BY Matt Sneed 86 To the Max By John Watson Click here for video Wheelchair basketball coach uses communication degree to thrive Coach Max Johnston, University of Texas at Arlington broadcast alumnus, took time out to chat wheelchair basketball and education with Evolve Magazine’s John Watson. Johnston was exposed to wheelchair basketball during a media internship with the UTA Movin’ Mavs. For the young intern it was passion at first sight. After graduating from UT Arlington, he decided to use his education in communication to progress his skills as a player and a coach. Johnston coaches the DFW Freewheelers, a community wheelchair basketball team. He also plays in a chair with the team during every practice. He is an assistant coach of the Movin’ Mavs intercollegiate team. During the brief interview, Johnston shared some background information, discussed his favorite aspects of the game and how his communications background has played a key role in his success after graduation. PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jeremy Schenk Students Feel Safe though Campus Burglaries are Rising By Deborah Holt 87 According to American School search, an online resource for prospective college students, the University of Texas at Arlington received a grade of C- for school safety. The U.S. Department of Education reported that, in 2010, there were 27 on-campus burglaries and in 2011 there were 36 at UTArlington. That compares with 11 on-campus burglaries in 2010 and five in 2011 at the University of Texas at Dallas, which is located in Richardson. Students said they feel safe on campus despite the number of reported on-campus burglaries. James Anderson, a communication major at UT-Arlington, said he doesn’t feel the need to fret. “I don’t really worry,” Anderson said. “I know people say that it happens, but I have accidently left my car unlocked and nothing has happened.” UT-Arlington provides online resources for optimizing school safety, including tutorials and videos (), but students don’t seem to know this information exists or haven’t reviewed it. “I know there is something online, as far as safety information, but I don’t know what there is,” Jasmine Williams, a public relations major at UT-Arlington, said. According to the UT-Arlington police daily crime log, on March 2 three vehicles in lot 25 had their windows knocked out and unattended purses were stolen or emptied inside the vehicles. UT-Arlington police crime statistics show that the number of on-campus burglaries is increasingly annually. In 2009 there were 17 burglaries, a figure that rose to 27 in 2010 and 36 in 2011. School safety can be improved with the use of technology, student awareness and increases in parking lot patrols. “School safety could be improved if they installed cameras, and made sure there is good lighting,” Anderson said. “That way there is a good source when someone does get robbed.” The school has 24-hour uniformed patrol officers around the campus to provide security for students. The UT-Arlington police suggest that students never walk alone to their cars, always walk with confidence and be aware of their surroundings. In addition, they should lock the car doors once inside for optimal safety. IILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang INFOGRAPH BY Anisha Yang Monique Patterson Planning Ahead to Stay Ahead is Key for Student with Special Challenges By Cyurra Davis () PROFILE 93 For Monique Patterson, a 24-year-old senior student with disabilities, campus life is more than parties, organizations and drinking. It’s about time management. Planning ahead to stay ahead is the biggest challenge she faces as a member of the student body at the University of Texas at Arlington. Although appreciative of the resources available to her from the Office for Students with Disabilities (), Patterson said the available assistance falls short of what she requires. “They fall short in some areas and they lack common sense,” Patterson said. “They provide limited aid and they don’t think about how I have to plan my day in order to just get to class on time.” Demarice Dumerer, the associate director at the Office for Students with Disabilities, said, “Our students have access to many resources like the Adaptive Resource Center that is available to them during the academic school year.” She added, “We do our best to provide the necessary tools to assist a student with disabilities so they can have the same learning experience as any other student on campus.” PHOTOGRAPHY BY Cyurra Davis 94 PROFILE 95 At the age of 2, Patterson was diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP) and 5 percent brain damage. She was born six months premature weighing 2 pounds. For the first four years of her life, she was wheelchair bound with no mobility from her neck down. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cerebral palsy is a group of disorders that affect a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture. The prevalence of CP in the U.S. is about 1 in 303 children in the U.S., and it is the most common motor disability in childhood. “People miss the boat,” Patterson said. “They think a physical disability is the same as a mental disability, and they are wrong.” At 5 years old, Patterson was the first child in the U.S. to have Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR) surgery. The surgery originally was only performed on adults because of the risks involved with the neurosurgical procedures. SDR is a neurophysiological surgery involving the cutting of sensory nerve fibers that come from the muscles and enter the spinal cord to permanently reduce spasticity in CP. After the surgery, Patterson spent four hours a day, six days a week for seven years in a rehabilitation treatment program. “I had to learn how to walk in braces strapped on my legs,” Patterson said. “It was a really hard time for me and a lot of work. It taught me how to be strong.” Now Patterson uses her strength to overcome the daily obstacles of being a student with disabilities and attending a university that she said is not fully equipped to accommodate her physical needs. Patterson starts her weekdays at 5:30 a.m. with a vegan power shake that provides her muscles with endurance and longevity for the entire day. At 7:45 a.m., she catches The Grand Connection, a Grand Prairie transit service, to the university. To attend her daily classes, she is required to find her own transportation to and from school. She is not able to drive because of her physical disability. At school, Patterson is just another student in pursuit of a higher education. Although she is not able to physically perform on the same level as her peers, she dedicates most of her energy toward her coursework. During class she is forced to stop periodically to take a break because her muscles weaken when she takes notes. “The professors are top notch, but the staff needs to be educated more about students with disabilities because they give a lot of spur of the moment writing ”People miss the boat. They think a physical disability is the same as a mental disability, and they are wrong.” PHOTOGRAPHY BY Cyurra Davis 96 PROFILE assignments,” Patterson said. “In order for me to use the services at the disabilities center, I have to make an appointment two weeks in advance, which doesn’t help in these situations. That’s why planning is so vital to me so I won’t have to ask for an extension on assignments because some professors don’t like it.” While many students are busy participating in campus activities, Patterson is not able to be actively involved because of the short notification times of most student events. Ward Griffin, a second year student, is a friend of Patterson. “Monique is a sweetheart and I have her in many of my classes,” Ward said. “I sometimes forget she is disabled because she is so fun to be around.” After graduation, Patterson hopes to work for the Special Olympics one day. Her lifetime goal is to own an international non-profit charity for people with disabilities. She would like to travel worldwide and use her communication degree to educate others. But first, she wants to start in the U.S. by organizing a foundation to raise funds in support of providing transportation to people with disabilities to participate in voting. “I can’t vote because there is no transportation in place for people like me,” Patterson said. “Politics are important to me, and I have a right to vote, too.” PHOTOGRAPHY BY Cyurra Davis 97 “I can’t vote because there is no transportation in place for people like me,” Patterson said. “Politics are important to me, and I have a right to vote, too.” 98 UT Arlington’s Kaleidoscope Agency Partners with AT&T By Robert Villalobos Kaleidoscope Agency hosted an on-campus event April 25 promoting AT&T service to college students. Nearly 400 students and faculty stopped by one of several booths to chat with members from Kaleidoscope on topics ranging from careers at AT&T to discounts the wireless provider offers college students. The Kaleidoscope Agency, which consists of 25 students from Rudy Bechtel’s Advertising 4301 course was one of only six university ad agencies in the nation to participate in the Campus Brand Challenge with AT&T. PHOTOGRAPHY BY Rachael Wilson Kaleidoscope received a $3,000 of the tactics we used to promote budget from EdVenture Partners, the event were creating social a company that creates real media pages, developing posters world marketing and fliers and and learning sending out Kaleidoscope team press releases to experiences for members said they use throughout students and educators. campus.” believe the event “We decided to With oversight was a success, host an event at from AT&T UTA and add executives, with greater than incentives such as team of expected numbers the free nachos and advertising of participants. T-shirts to bring and public students in,” said relations majors Anna Caballero, advertising and was given control of the budget, public relations major and the head promotion ideas and social of PR for Kaleidoscope. “Some media outreach for its campaign. 99 “The biggest benefit for all of us was how we got real experience out of developing this campaign – real money, real client and real challenges.” -Anna Caballero Corporate executives met with Kaleidoscope early in the semester to present challenges and opportunities for the “What if” campaign, the main goal of which is to strengthen brand value for 1824 year old college students. Team members worked semester long to prepare for the Campus Brand Challenge, and even got a taste of crisis management when the original event date had to be pushed back due to bad weather. Caballero said a press release and lots of social media updates were created to re-promote the event. “I think I learned a lot of detail with social media,” Caballero said. “It helped me further my skills in this area, which is especially important since most companies are now requiring knowledge in it. The biggest benefit for all of us was how we got real experience out of developing this campaign – real money, real client and real challenges.” Kaleidoscope team members said they believe the event was a success, with greater than expected numbers of participants. Shardá Ferrell, advertising and architecture major who worked with Kaleidoscope’s finance team, said the event helped her gain reallife experience in advertising. Kaleidoscope is currently preparing for its final client presentation with AT&T on May 2 to evaluate the outcome of the campaign. 100 ELATIONSHIP SURVE Su m m 1% By Cyyura Davis Phone Ca 40 l l S % oc ial M e di 7 What fo commun do you u most wit partn 1% O th e r S pr 22 ing % Br ea When do you think most couples break up? 76 % er Bre ak k Ot h er 3% Of f C am Do you prefer to date someone on campus or off campus? 96% s Ca mpu Do you t social me the caus most relations break-u pus % 57 s Ye On ia 7% Fa ce ce -Fa - to % No 12% Do you think putting your relationship on social media sites a good idea? 101 1% O th er Ye s 18 % orm of nication use the th your ner? 33% t Te x 2% O th e Do you think that students should be in a committed relationship while attending school? 20 Have you ever dated your professor? 81% No 88% Ye s r No 11% 1% O th er No Do you think students can be faithful in a commited relationship while attending a university? 29 % 87% Ye s 69% Ye s No 11% Have you ever flirted to get a better grade? 89% Ye s think edia is se of t ship ups? 3% O th e r Do you think a committed relationship has a negative impact on a student’s academic performance? Ye 22 s % No % 40 78% No INFOGRAPH BY Anisha Yang 102 Homeless CULTURE By Rodney Thrower Hunger. We all experience it. We say we’re dying for lunch. We say a pastry is to die for. And yet for most of us, hunger is more figurative than literal. And yet, real hunger is all around us. Evolve’s Rodney Thrower headed to Dallas one Saturday to see the work of CounterCulture, which feeds the homeless every week. Click here to listen to his report. CULTURE 103 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Viktor Villanueva 104 CULTURE CULTURE 105 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Viktor Villanueva 106 CREDIT LINE 107 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Viktor Villanueva 108 Comm-rades By Robert Villalobos Comm-rades is an occasional Evolve feature highlighting a student in the University of Texas at Arlington Department of Communication PROFILE EVOLVE 109 To One Aspiring UT-Arlington Student, an Advertising Career is ‘Priceless’ What’s your major? I’m a double major in advertising and public relations, with a minor in business administration. When was your first semester at UTA? Fall of 201.1 Are you a member of any oncampus organizations? I’m the secretary of UTA’s AAF (American Advertising Federation) chapter. What is your all-time favorite ad campaign? I’ve always liked MasterCard’s “Priceless” campaign and the “Best Job” campaign by P&G. What do you like about UTA’s Communication Department? I think the advisers are very nice and extremely helpful. They’re always accessible to students. Do you believe the advertising classes at UTA prepare you for a real-life career? Yes, I do. Who’s your favorite professor? [Luis] Lopez-Preciado, but he isn’t teaching at UTA anymore. He really saw the potential I had and encouraged me to push myself. Did you know a communication degree was recently ranked as the second most loved degree? It doesn’t surprise me because you have to write and speak well for most jobs. Communication is such a key component in many areas. Have you ever read UTA’s online magazine? I’ve looked at it, but it was last semester. I liked the stories they chose. What are some of your hobbies? Reading, and I love to watch movies. After my internship with the film festival, I got very picky on my movie selection! Last question. Would you say you’re a great communicator? I certainly like to think of myself as one! “I’m really passionate about creating something that attracts people to a product.” -Maritza Moreno What inspired you to pursue an advertising degree? I fell in love with advertising my senior year of high school. I’m really passionate about creating something that attracts people to a product. Do you currently hold or have you completed any internships? I did an internship last summer for the USA Film Festival where I helped them with pre-screening and designing brochures. What’s your ideal job? I would like to work in Hispanic marketing, perhaps a Hispanic ad agency. I toured the Richards Group in Dallas and would enjoy a career working in their sister company, Richard/Lerma. What advice would you give someone who is considering an advertising degree? Be ready to be in a very competitive field. Not everyone has what it takes to get in advertising, so being 10 steps ahead of the competition really helps. PHOTOGRAPHY BY Robert Villalobos 110 Comm-rades PROFILE Broadcast is ‘Cooler’ than Business or Science for UTA News Reporter What’s your major? Broadcast communications. Where did you grow up? Lockhart, Texas. When was your first semester at UTA? August of 2011. What inspired you to choose broadcast communications for your major? Mainly because I enjoy interacting with people, and it gives me the opportunity to get hands-on experience with TV and radio stations. Plus it’s also cooler than business or science! Do you or have you had any internships for broadcast? I actually have two internships right now. I intern at Ryan Seacrest Studios in Children’s Medical Center where we put on children’s programming with radio and TV segments that get broadcasted throughout the hospital. I also intern at The Maker Group where I mostly focus on social media branding and occasionally do some writing. What’s your ideal job? It’d be really cool to be an entertainment reporter at the Grammys or other award shows. Who would you say is a good idol for broadcast? I’d say Oprah. She has a unique style of interviewing that’s fun and energetic. Who would you most want to interview? Rhianna, because I feel like she’s unpredictable and risky. What advice would you give someone who is considering a degree in broadcast? If considering broadcast, then UTA is a top choice. It can become a really fun and exciting job, and you can meet a lot of people. How well would you say the UTA broadcast program is? I think the professors in the Communication Department do a great job of preparing us for the real world. Who is your favorite UTA professor? Dr. [Andrew] Clark. He always has the student’s best interest in mind and he strives to make sure we’re getting the right experience so we can excel professionally. If you hadn’t chosen broadcast what would you have picked? I’ve never really had a second option. This is what I always wanted to pursue. But if I had to have chosen something else, then it would have probably been something like interior design or fashion where I could still be creative and fun. What are some hobbies that you enjoy? I’m a singer and song writer. What’s something someone might not know about you? I had a scholarship to play volleyball at Texas Wesleyan University. Last question. Did you know that a communication degree was recently ranked the second most loved degree? No, but it definitely doesn’t surprise me at all. Other degrees can tend to be more stressful on your mind and not so interactive. “I enjoy interacting with people, and it gives me the opportunity to get hands-on experience with TV and radio stations.“ -Camille Clay PROFILE EVOLVE 111 Public Relations has Student’s Cup Running Over What’s your major? Public relations, with a minor in communication. When was your first semester at UTA? Fall 2011. Are you in any organizations on campus? I’m a member of the Filipino Student Association. What made you want to choose a public relations degree? It fit my personality and I can see myself doing this and loving it the rest of my life. Are you currently interning anywhere for public relations? I am currently interning for the Dallas Cup. I’m working with the PR/media side of it. What is your ideal job? My ideal job would be working for a sports team. I’d really like to do PR or marketing for FC Dallas. What’s your favorite aspect of PR? The people I meet! What do you think about UTA’s public relations program? I think it could be a little better. I’d like for the department to make it more interesting. Are the courses representative of what you will see in a career with PR? Some are. Some are useless, but I guess that’s with every degree plan, right? Who is your favorite professor at UTA? Dr. Thomas Christie! What advice would you give someone who is considering a degree in PR? To start making connections! Go out and start meeting people and get your name out there. If you hadn’t chosen PR, what other field would you have studied? Honestly, fashion merchandise. What are some of your hobbies? I love playing sports. I play intramural soccer, volleyball and softball at UTA! I also really enjoy photography. Did you know a communication degree was recently ranked the second most loved degree? Why do you think this is? No I didn’t, but I can see why. People love to communicate. It brings the best out of them. It’s one of those things that just comes naturally. Last question. Are you a good communicator? I sure am! I love meeting new people and networking with others. For me, it’s the best way to create a name for myself. “People love to communicate. It brings the best out of them.” -Laia Quintero PHOTOGRAPHY BY Robert Villalobos 112 Comm-rades By Angel Sanchez Science for UTA News UT Arlington ad major’s curiosity extends to Chinese and Kung Fu Twenty-year-old Mark McAdams, or Ryan to his friends, may seem like a typical college student, balancing his social life, his sleep and his grades. He might be rocking out with his friends, going to the movies or mastering the art of Kung Fu -you know, typical stuff. Wait, did I say Kung Fu? Yup, McAdams is only two levels away from becoming a Kung Fu master. And how exactly did he get to this level? We had the opportunity to hear his great story through a oneon-one interview. So what’s up man? How are you? I’m good. Just busy -- end of the semester stress. Same ol’, same ol’. I heard a lot about you? I heard you’re like a Kung Fu master? Well, not exactly. Not yet. So how did you become interested in Kung Fu? Why Kung Fu? It was about 10 years ago in the summer of 2003. I was in the sixth grade. There wasn’t really a reason why I started. I was just looking for something to do. I remember being on the phone with my best friend and we were looking through a phonebook looking for some martial art places. I came upon this Kung Fu place. I was lucky that I found this place because I have an awesome sifu (teacher). People always ask me when I’ll be done. I always tell them when I die. And you are a double major, PROFILE EVOLVE 113 advertising and Chinese? How did that come about? I always wanted to major in Chinese, or at least take some classes. UTA didn’t offer a major so I went with advertisement. Then I found that UTA had started offering the program so I jumped on it. Why Chinese? So I went to China…. …You went to China!!!??? Yeah, I went to China, for an International Kung Fu camp with my Kung Fu teacher Steve Cottrell in 2010. It was an international camp. People from all over the world went. I was lucky to even get the opportunity. A group of the best Kung Fu masters in China were there to share there wisdom and some techniques. So back to the question. The old Chinese Kung Fu master really liked us. We had translators there because he didn’t know how to speak English. I felt like the language took away from some of the experience.. So you’re fluent in Chinese? How about this? I’m developing my fluency. I’m getting there. I’m working on conversational skills now. That’s actually a class I am taking now .” I heard from good sources that you are also into music. Can you tell me more about that? I’m in a band called The Skeeves. I’m the drummer. I started rocking out with them in 2009. I actually met the bass player through Kung Fu. Have you always been into music? I didn’t have the most diverse musical upbringing. My parent pretty much listened to country music. I thought country was really boring, so it was up to me to find what I really liked. I found the drums around the same time I started doing Kung Fu. I had a drum teacher that really believed in my drumming skills so he told my parents to buy me a drum set. They got it for me and from there it was history. Where can I check out your music or upcoming shows? McAdams: You can find us on iTunes. Just search for The Skeeves. Right now we are still trying to get some shows for the summer. How do you manage everything? Honestly, I just take it one day at a time. With the Kung Fu it’s just part of the routine now. Tuesday And Thursday are my Kung Fu days. I train and teach on those days. Every other day is dedicated to school and work. Well, Ryan, it has been a great interview. I have to run back to class, and you probably do, too. Thanks for taking out this precious time to talk to me and I wish you success in everything you pursue! Thank you, man. It was a pleasure. PHOTOGRAPHY BY Angel Sanchez “People always ask me when I’ll be done. I always tell them when I die.” 114 Easy Slider By Sergio Vasquez Popular food truck brings gourmet sliders to the UT Arlington community PHOTOGRAPHY BY Cao Phong Nguyen University of Texas at Arlington students now have a new lunch option with the arrival in the spring 2013 semester of a popular food truck that goes by the name of Easy Slider. The truck produces gourmet sliders – mini burgers – made from fresh and locally sourced ingredients. To learn when the truck will be on campus, or anywhere else in the Metroplex, visit easyslidertruck.com And to see a video interview with Easy Slider’s owners/ operators, CLICK HERE Broadcast Student Discusses Life with Muscular Dystrophy By Matt Sneed 115 In this video report, broadcast student and fellow Evolve staffer Kyle Runge talks about the joys and limitations of his life with muscular dystrophy. Reflecting on his experiences, Runge said his life is “perfect the way it is. It’s awesome.” To view the video, CLICK HERE ILLUSTRATION BY Anisha Yang 116 Making Bed Mats for the Homeless from Plastic Bags By Rachael Wilson The homeless community in Texas often sleeps on concrete through the nights. With the crazy temperatures that we often endure, sleeping on concrete can cause harm to the body. Bed mats made from plastic shopping bags can help insulate the body from the extreme heat or cold. To make these bed mats I usually play it by sight, instead of following an actual pattern. I use a size M (15.50MM). After you create your plarn (plastic + yarn), you should chain stitch about six feet long. After you have that length, single crochet until your piece is about two and a half feet wide. After you’re finished crocheting the bed mats, you can donate them to Tarrant County Homeless Coalition, or find your local homeless foundation and see if it takes donations of bed mats. If you don’t want to crochet, you can give me your clean, unripped plastic shopping bags and I will transform them into bed mats. I’ve created a how-to video that you can find at: CLICK HERE PHOTOGRAPH VIA Times Online Josh Sours By Matt Sneed 117 Broadcast major Josh Sours offers tips for success and reflects on his experience at the University of Texas at Arlington in this interview with Evolve staffer Matt Sneed. CLICK HERE PHOTOGRAPHY VIA Twitter

Thanksgiving Day “1989” was wet and miserable, with the cold kind of November drizzle that doesn’t have the decency to become snow, nor the courtesy to yield to the ineffectual warmth of a mid-autumn sun. My hunting jacket was not quite soaked through, but my Austrian Loden pants were damp from the knees down. I carried a Browning A-5 12-gauge shotgun at port arms as I aimlessly moved through the brush, barely conscious of the task at hand. Technically speaking, I was hunting pheasants, without a dog, and without much hope of seeing anything on a day where forest life stays hunkered down against the elements. But the inside of my head was as bleak as my immediate surroundings and I was numb to my circumstances, as I walked aimlessly through fields and woods in the company of a beautiful, Belgian-crafted firearm. All I could think of was getting the letter in the mail... The one that began: Riepe vs Riepe. The first round of my first divorce knocked the wind out of me. I returned from a business trip to find the closets in the apartment empty. My wife, a former newspaper reporter and an accomplished writer in her own right, had taken our five-year-old daughter and fled to the sanctuary of her pit-bull of a mother. These were days of my early thirties, when I wrote for politicians and anyone who could guarantee the check would clear. This apparent lack of editorial ethic, coupled with other things (like a hair-trigger temper and the inability to see the other side of a philosophical argument) constituted my growing list of character flaws and genetic defects. Yet as bad as things had apparently gotten, I didn’t think they were anywhere near the possibility of getting divorced. This was just one result of assuming that everyone on earth really thought like I did... Or that silence from the person closest to you means tacit agreement. But she was gone and there was a whole new set of rules in place for seeing my kid. This was going to be the first Thanksgiving — and the first really big holiday — on which my daughter would be shared between families. In an attempt to be magnanimous, I told Maryann that little Katherine could spent the holiday with her family. Magnanimity does not come naturally to me, and I was sorry the instant I made the gesture. It felt like I was consigning some part of myself to a void that was to become a new unthinkable norm. My family used to be a lot closer than they are now, but that was when my mother was still the center of the universe. Each of her kids felt that unique gravitational pull that ended in a hot kitchen permeated with the aroma of holiday baking. It was my thought that at least half of many future Thanksgivings would start with Maryann, little Katherine, and myself stepping through the door, and completing the family circle around the table. But now I would be arriving like a sprocket with missing teeth. Instead of showing up with the first grandchild, I would be the sole representative of domestic failure. And I couldn’t believe just how much I missed my daughter. My first thought was to spend the holiday alone, cooking for myself, in the apartment that held the relics of crashed dreams and the tokens of my inability to hold things together. A call to my mother quashed that. “Don’t be an ass,” she laughed. “Jackie, you’re going to have to find a bright side to this. Here’s one... You’ll never have to spend another holiday with that desperate pain in the ass, Maureen, and that face she makes, like she’s smelling shit, every time you come into the room.” She was referring to my future former mother-in-law. “Just come down here... The sooner the better.” My whole family lived in New Jersey then, and distance was relative. My mom’s house was inland from the shore, in Ocean county. (You could smell the Atlantic on most days, but you couldn’t hear it.) This put her 86-miles south of my place (on the Palisades, overlooking the Hudson). The horror of driving to the shore on the Jersey Turnpike (on Thanksgiving Day) was not to be seriously considered, and I left late the night before. The memory of some family traditions linger long after they have ceased to exist. I grew up on instant coffee... Yet on special occasions, my mom would set out an electric, chrome percolator, which brewed Folger’s coffee (just like the commercials). On this Thanksgiving day, the fragrance of hot coffee mingled with the aroma of coffee cake right out of the oven. And this was at 5am. Yet despite the allure of sitting around sipping coffee in a warm kitchen, I felt I had to get out in the open... To release the doldrums that were nailing me to a cross of mental reality. It was barely first light when I carried my hunting gear out to car and headed off through the pine barrens. New Jersey is odd place. It has some of the ugliest open urban sores that you can imagine, yet harbors some of the most beautiful spots in the United States. These are Cape May, the countryside around Peapack-Gladstone, and some rare wildlife management units down in the pine barrens. It was to one one of these tracts deep in the scrub pine that I headed. There were five or six other cars in the muddy parking area, and hunters —with the kind of dogs that point at pheasants in a highly accusatory manner — were heading out into fields planted in millet or other bird candy. They were all wearing florescent orange hunting gear that had LL Bean stamped all over it. I was wearing an old army fatigue jacket, under a bright orange New Jersey Department of Transportation vest I’d grabbed at a flea market for $2, and an orange watch cap. I had no dog and the other hunters looked at me like I was a bad joke. “Fuck all you assholes,” I thought to myself, as I smiled and said, “Good morning.” I had never been to this place before and just set out across a field that was loaded with knee-high underbrush. My mind was not exactly on the task at hand, and I might have left the shotgun at home for all the hunting I was doing. All I could think of was my first wife, and what my little girl was up to. She had a dog at her grandma’s... A huge golden retriever named “Duke,” who was like the dog world’s goodwill ambassador to humanity. At five-years-old, my daughter had the kind of personality that gave her the character of a circus midget. She could get into really good mischief, then amaze you with an observation that went far beyond her years. I passed through several stands of hardwoods, wandered around some pines, and ended up in a sticker patch that must have covered three acres. Thorn bushes come in two varieties: the little ones that scratch skin, and the bigger ones, that scratch expensive Browning gunstocks. I had apparently located a thorn bush convention. Surrounded by a sea of thorns, I sat on a rotting tree stump that was dead center in this maze of sharp edges. The rain started coming down in earnest and I felt as if my entire world was thorns and wet clothes. I must have sat there almost 20 minutes. I had long since ceased to hear the dog whistles of the other hunters, nor the cow bells on the collars of their dogs. I didn’t even know in what direction lay my Surburban, the first of five I would own. But you can never tell what effect your troubles might have on the world around you, or when things might change. My odd behavior on the tree stump was annoying the living shit out of a huge cock-bird of a Chinese Ring Neck pleasant. He had a tail like a comet and an attention span shorter than mine. With that cackle peculiar to their species, he set off at a 40-mile-per-hour jog. I was dumbfounded. Then I started to chase him through the thorns like the late John Candy in one of his hysterical movies. I scratched my face, and my gun, and left my hat on a low-hanging branch. The pheasant was a sport, and cackled a taunt every now and again. He and I broke out into a clearing at the same time, and the bird sailed aloft with a final cackled obscenity. The Browning A5 (the BMW K75 of shotguns) barked once, and the cockbird was mine. The other hunters were calling it a morning back in the parking lot. All they had to show for three hours of wading through the millet was a half-dozen smelly dogs and unfired firearms that would each require an hour of serious cleaning. I had a cockbird with a tail as long as a moose’s dick. I could feel their penetrating gazes, never congratulatory in New Jersey, as I put my stuff in the trunk. My mother met me at the door. “Did you catch anything,?” she asked. “It’s not like fishing, Ma.” Then she saw the pheasant. “You shot a peacock,” she exclaimed. “How could you kill such a beautiful thing?” “It pulled a knife on me,” I replied. I cleaned and prepared the bird in the kitchen. My mother watched in fascination. It went into a much smaller roasting pan alongside the turkey in the oven. “This will be done in less than an hour,” I said. “I’m going to take a nap.” I awoke three hours later. The house was filled with the mixed aromas of baking, roasting, and pots steaming on the stove. In the kitchen, my mother and sister had just about finished the pheasant, leaving me three ounces of meat. “That was delicious,” said my mom. It was the first and only time I’d shot something for Thanksgiving dinner, and almost missed it. But gone were the doldrums... And they didn’t come back for a long time. I really gave thanks for that pheasant. I hope all of my Twisted Roads readers who are celebrating Thanksgiving in the US today have a warm and special holiday. I hope their tables are full, and I hope their families are there to share in it. Thursday, November 24, 2011 38 comments: Happy Thanksgiving Jack! The pheasant sounds like a mouth-watering treat, unlike the official state bird of New Jersey, the mosquito. Happy Thanksgiving Jack! I'm going to perform my Thanksgiving ritual, changing the oils in my R1100S. What a gift you've offered with this story on Thanksgiving-- for anyone who has experienced that cosmic loneliness after a divorce when your kid seems like they are hurtling away, well, your story brings it back and glides me on to the life ahead. Thank you for that. And for bringing me back to those bleak days of hunting pheasant or grouse. It's been nearly 40 years since I've wandered the woods with a gun. Right now I feel like I just returned home from a hunting trip. Amazing. Happy Thanksgiving. Steve Williams Scooter in the Sticks Happy Thanksgiving to you Jack! Gary Christman Thank you Jack and I hope your Thanksgiving Day goes great. dom Redleg's Rides Colorado Motorcycle Travel Examiner Hi jack, a very enjoyable read into your life on thanksgiving 1989...it took me there wonderful stuff. I had many pictures in my mind during this read...i could see you sat there on the stump and the other hunters faces upon your glorious return with bird in hand! cheers len ( scootering adventures ) england Great story Jack, and a Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. A great story and, like Steve said, anyone who has gone through a divorce can relate. The dreary Fall setting really adds to the mood. I like the response from your mom, it sounds familiar. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Thank you for the story. Richard Jack Banging a bird seems like a great thing to do on Thanksgiving! Have a good one, as they say in Bognor Regis, N Jack: Happy Thanksgiving to you too. I felt cold and miserable just by reading your words bob Riding the Wet Coast Jack, Great story. I am glad you got a few bites of the bird. I have one correction. I have a Browning 12ga A5 and I agree it is a fine gun. With the right barrel I was able to score 50 at trap. I disagree the A5 is K100 of the gun world. The Browning sweet 16 is the K75 of the gun world. Just sayin' Ride Safe, Joe Answer your phone you sentimental bastard. Dear Jack: Generally I find most of your writing very touching. Where it touches me is another issue. This story was indeed touching, and I believe it touched my tattered soul. Well done my friend. Happy Thanksgiving Mr. Riepe, That which does not break us... only makes us stronger. Your story reminds me of my brother, who got his surprise divorce announcement (a couple years ago)... three weeks before Christmas. Yeah, it was a pretty sucky holiday for him too, and the lonesomeness he felt cannot be shared. No matter how hard you try to ease the pain... it's just the way it is. I'm glad to know you don't break easily. It would be a shame to bind the mind that entertains us all so well. Happy Thanksgiving Jack, and cheers to better days yet to come... I think you still have some in you! Your melancholy friend, Lady R Jack; I hope you too were able to enjoy some Thanksgiving comestibles yesterday. Thank-you for sharing that very personal story. While having no children, I do know the heartache of an empty home in the midst of a divorce. And know the solace of being loved by family regardless. My wish for you is new found joy and a lighter heart in the days to come. It will come. Erik Jack thanks for sharing your humorous yet touching story.I hope the wounds have healed, both physical and emotionally. My favorite line " the pheasant was a sport" LMAO ! Thanks Again. Dear David: I used to love hunting birds, when my knees could take the walking. Pheasant and grouse are remarkable game, and so very different. The pheasant may be the king of game birds... But the grouse comes off the ground like a teller mine. I have taken 17 grouse on with 749 rounds. Thanks for reading Twisted Roads. I hope you had a great holiday. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Woody: The last time I attempted to change the transmission oil on the K75, I overfilled it by a quart. I now leave all maintenance to the professionals. Thanks for reading my tripe. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving Holiday. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Steve: There is nothing like a quiet walk in the woods, on a misty day, with a loaded weapon to dispel divorce blues. That day went from being a horrible Thanksgiving Holiday to being one of my best... With the thrill of actually shooting dinner. I'm delighted you got to come along. Thanks for reading TW and I hope you had a great holiday. Dear Gary: You and I will have a game dinner, or something like it, in Yellowknife — if it's the last thing I do. Thanks for reading TW and for posting a comment. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Charlie6 (Dm): I spent my holiday in the company of my two brothers, my sister, my niece, and my mom. It was the first time we were all together in quite a while — and no shots were fired. I hope your holiday was warm and meaningful. Sincerely Jack/reep Dear Len: There is nothing like being the underdog coming in from the field with first prize... And on this day, it was the only prize. Thanks for reading TW and for taking the time to comment. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Canajun: Thank you for the kind holiday wishes... I hope all of your special days ahead are warm and meaningful. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Richard M: My mother is now lost to the ravages of dementia and Alzheimers... But she used to be a pisser of a good time, as well as straight to the point. Once the bird's feathers were in the bag, it was just another meal to her. For the longest time, I learned that a good exhausting walk in the woods was the cure for a lot of things. Thanks for taking the time to read my stuff, Richard. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Nikos: Considering the different defination for "Bird" in your neck of the woods, I quite agree. Thanks for reading TW and for always finding the sense in my stuff, Nikos. My regards to Mrs. Nikos. All The Best, Jack/reep Dear Bobskoot: You are one of the first of my readers to finally admit the stuff I write makes them all cold and miserable inside. LOL!!!! Thanks for reading TW and for coming clean about it. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Joe Dille: I never had a 16 gauge Browning. I did have a matching 20 gauge A5, and that was pure honey. Thanks for reading Twisted Roads, and for writing in. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Conch: Why? Did I win something? Happy Thanksgiving, my friend. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Dick: If I were writing with the intent of touching your soul, I use a forceps instead of a Keyboard. Speaking of your soul, please look for the January Issue of the BMW MOA magazine. Your soul is the focus of my column. Happy Thanksgiving! Jack/reep Dear Lady R: There is never a good time to get a divorce announcement -- even if you have initiated it. I am now on very good terms with my first ex-wife, who is a great person. She once admitted to me that getter her copy of the "Riepe vs. Riepe" letter made her feel awful too. We are the sun total of our experience... And whatever happens to me usually surfaces with a punceline — 20 years later. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Thanks for reading Twisted Roads, and for writing in. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Lady R: I hope I did not make you melancholy today... The sun is shining here and I am thinking about getting laid — at least once more before I die. Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Erik: I actually worked on this blog and on the latest chapter of my new book on Thanksgiving morning. Then I went off to spend the rest of the day with my family (2 brothers, a sister, and a niece). We had a great time. Sometimes and empty house, and a space in one's heart, is nature's way of saying, "Guess you'll do that a little differently next time." I hope your Thanksgiving Holiday was warm and special Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Newd Okies: Thanks for reading Twisted Roads and for leaving a comment. I'm thrilled you liked the Thanksgiving story. Every time I reach a point where I ask, "How does this happen to me?", I remember it always seems to start with noticing a long-haired woman in a skirt. And I wouldn't change that for the world. Thanks for reading Twisted Roads and for writing in. Fondest regards, Jack/reep "The sun is shining here and I am thinking about getting laid — at least once more before I die. " Well don't look at me! That's something you'll have to handle yourself. Wait, I'd better rephrase that... Great reading, as always. Sitting here in the basement, next to the LP stove, sipping hot cranberry juice, reading one of my favorite authors. (You !!! ) Dear Jack, Loss is loss. There is never a good time for it to come around. I don't think time heals it. Just dulls it. I'm glad your mother and pheasant helped to bring you around to seeing a peaceful time. I'm glad a beach house, cabin in the woods, friends, and moonlight helped this time around. My nightmare is just starting, not divorce, but a different major loss. I know there is life beyond, though it is hard to see. Thank you for giving me hope and waiting for a walk in the silver moonlight. Steel Cupcake Dear Dan McKenzie: Trust me on this one... I never need any help getting something started! What a pleaure to hear I'm one of your favorite writers! Fondest regards, Jack/reep Dear Steel Cupcake: Whether the issue is a divorce, loss of a loved one, loss of a job, loss of a limb, loss of a home, loss of health, or even loss of a dog... A person can generally be amazed at the existing options just by looking inside themselves and by asking the question, "What's the next step?" If you can ask that question, you can generally get the answer and take it. It is when you think you're beaten that the fear of defeat gets its foot in the door. Yet there comes a time when you're even reluctant to discuss defeat because you feel you should be well beyond it at a certain point... And because everyone has some kind of problem. I didn't feel wounded this time. I felt at a great disadvantage for a lot of reasons. And now I'm just madder than hell, which usualy triggers a wave of professional determination. I ran the Thanksgiving Pheasant story because it happened to correspond with the holiday... But if it had a moral that applied to my life today, it would be, "It only takes one degree of self-accomplishment to change the entire equation." Go for it. If the loss is of a loved one... Think how they would want you to feel now. If the loss is a lover... Just think about what must have been happening behind your back, and be glad this person isn't going to make the decision to disconnect your respirator. If the loss is a job, just imagine how your former boss is going to look taking it up the ass in a Turkish prison. (There is nothing worse than working for a moron.) If the loss was a house and your possessions... You'll get new ones... Better ones... Bigger ones... The person who had lost almost everything now has nothing left to lose... And hence that much less to be afraid of. If the loss was something deep inside an irreplacable... There are still options. And if the loss is a dog... Well you have me there. I would suggest hanging his/her collar in the window where the morning sun can catch it... And in a year, or so, let the new puppy sniff it. Lori, drop me a line or give me a call. You know the number. Thinking of you, Jack/reep

The. That is devastatingly bad. I guess this will have to be Nate’s time to shine, if he can (or Balkman, if Q becomes the main shooting guard). Its rough, since Crawford led us in minutes per game and games, and was second in points but I still think we can make the playoffs. Q has to pick up Crawfords stats, Balkman and Nate have to step up, Steph will have to play an extra 3 or 4 minutes per game Mardy will have to fill some minutes, and the Knicks are probably going to sign a guard to a ten-day. Can you spell Qyntel? again, as I posted previosly, not to be happy about someones injury when his career is based on his ability to stay healthy; but if the Knicks confidence stays high, nothing helps this team more than getting Crawford’s terrible ineffeciancy and bad decisions out of the lineup-sure he scores, but he shoots a pathetic %40 from the field and shoots a ton; he turns the ball over ad nauseum-he will never help a team win consistenly-sure every once in while he’ll hit a majority of his shots-but that is every once in a LONG while; if Thomas plays this well, plays Balkman, and takes advantage of the more effecient scorers he has(heck, even Robinson is more reliable from outside) Crawford out of the lineup gives the team hope……. on one hand, I see your point, Daniel, but on the other, I think Crawford continuing to blossom is a big part of our future, unless we somehow get someone like Vince Carter or Rashard Lewis (and maybe still then). that’ll have to resume next season now. also don’t forget Francis is already likely done for the year, and asking even more from Steph makes the chances of him getting hurt even worse than he is already go up. as someone said on the other thread, we’re going to get to see what Balkman, Collins and Nate can do, and hopefully we keep driving to win games and push the Bulls draft pick lower, even if we don’t make the playoffs (which I was dubious about even with Jamal in there). anyway, hopefully Lee is back soon, tomorrow night would be nice. Like Daniel, I’ll be interested to see if the Knicks play better by reallocating Crawford’s 15 shots per game to more efficient scorers: say maybe those 2 they have who are in the top 5 in the league in shooting percentage. Maybe Frye can find a bigger role in the offense now? I wonder if Lee might start getting some offensive plays? I second Qyntel. I hope this doesn’t mean Nate will start taking more shots. He’s been a lot more adorable cheering on the bench than missing guarded threes. Is this really that bad? Crawford takes a lot of shots and doesn’t make very many of them. Offense should be more efficient. Just go 1-Marbury 2-Q 3-Lee 4-Frye 5-Curry. Everyone always complains about how Lee gets burned by faster swingmen, but the cumulative effect in the way his effort on defense and good passing rubs off on everyone else hes on the floor with overwhelmingly offsets his limitations against a handful of lighting fast swingmen in the league no one else on the team can defend anyways. Then people complain about how hes too far away from the basket to maximize his rebounding skills, this is really inconsequential because his rebounding prowess is because of his knack crashing the boards from the outside to begin with. And then the complaint about his jumpshot, he passes off free jumpers anyways, and his passing skills would be maximized farther away from the basket to begin with. Meaning his superior chemistry with Eddy Curry would also be maximized. There are far too many pros then cons to not give this lineup a shot. Man, you guys are rough on Jamal. He is a talent that is maturing before your eyes. I understand peoples gripe about his shot selection, but it has improved over the course of the season and he has been somewhat of a “glue” for the Knicks. Having said that, his loss does have a silver lining. It is an opportunity for the Knicks to become a better defensive team. I would move Balkman into the staring lineup, and move Q to 2 spot. Lineup will be 1. Steph 2. Q 3. Balkman 4. James 5. Curry off the bench Lee/Frye/Collins. why doesn’t anyone ever consider Frye at SF and Lee at PF? Frye spends all his time on the perimeter on offense already, and as T-Mart said so eloquently, “his limitations against a handful of lighting fast swingmen in the league no one else on the team can defend anyways” would be more than made up for by the positives on offense. then Lee and Curry could clog the middle, crash the boards, and develop even more chemistry, since that’s our starting PF/C going forward (once Isiah is fired or someone slaps some sense into him). I have been very critical of Jamal’s shot selection this year but he is extremely talented and will be missed more than people realize. My rotation would be: Marbury Richardson Jeffries Lee Curry Collins Balkman Frye I figure with Jeffries, Collins and Balkman getting all of Crawford’s minutes the loss in offense would be, at least for the most part, offset by the gain in defense. I do not think that extended roles for Francis or Nate would be a good idea. We need defense not offense so this is our chance to become more defensivly minded. Can we please end this J. James experiment What are we showcasing him now for? Better yet, lets showcase him in the D-league. Crawfords points will be missed despite his inconsistancy. You’ll see some real inconsistancy when Nate gets more minutes tommorrow. Crawford’s biggest loss may well be as a ball handler. Though turnover prone Crawford allows Marbury to play off the ball on offense. Now Marbury must be almost the sole ball handler for the rest of the season. Robinson is too wild. Q doesn’t handle the ball especially well. Mardy Collins is slow. I can’t speak for his ball handling, though was the primary ball handler at Temple. Just when the team was beginning to fix the turnover problem too… As an aside, I read that Lee has a high ankle sprain. In football, that’s 6-8 weeks virtually without exception. How is he gonna be back tomorrow? I just read that Shaun Livingston tore three of the four ligaments in his knee. He could be out all of next season too. Yikes. yeah, it’s been a brutal year for injuries in the league, the season is just too long. Yao still isn’t close to coming back from his broken leg, that’s a pretty big deal at his size, I’d guess. we’ve actually been very lucky on that front until this one. where Jamal will be missed the most is in crunch time, when the other team’s D tightens up, Curry can’t get the ball much, and Jamal generally carries us, for better or for worse. people seem to think that other and better options at the end of games will somehow appear, I’m not so sure. if Steph can keep playing like he did in the fourth against Miami, that’d be one thing, but I don’t think any of us expect that, and even then we needed that Jamal corner three to win it. Yeah, Crawford’s ability to create his own shot (even if it looks awful, and a lot of the times IS awful) at the end of the game was huge for this team. This team should be OK without Jamal. Nate is actually a higher % shooter and he’s pretty elusive himself. What Nate doesn’t do as well is pass the ball. Hopefully Isiah will also give Collins a shot. The guy in my mind, is an NBA player. He just hasn’t gotten a shot. Whenever he’s come in he’s done a good job. He gives us size, defense and a not so fancy, but solid ball handler. The most important players on this team are Steph, Curry and Lee. As long as Lee comes back healthy I feel this team will be fine. I think in terms of Ball Handling and bringing the ball upto Half Court, Mardy Collins might be able to take that load. He also seems to be a more determined defender than Crawford, but I think he has a huge drawback in the fact that he can’t shoot that well. Quentin should step up, and I think that he’s a very capable basketball player that can do almost everything well and his game should flourish. However he does have injury concerns with his back, and I still think that he should try to lose some of his bulk and work on his cardio. BTW, Crawford is shown jumping up and down after winning the game last night, and apparently this injury has been known for a while? Does anybody know anything about where or how he sustained the injury? Because he looked damn good playing ball last night, and didn’t seem like he was injured at all! Isn’t there a D-League guy we can grab? I heard Sioux Falls has a pretty good PG. OK here’s a game we should play: who would you sign from the D-League. You can get stats from here: Kelenna Azubuike & Von Wafer seem to be signed to NBA teams. In all seriousness, Frank doesn’t seem to be a bad choice. He’s a PG, so he can run the offense & take the pressure off Marbury (11th in APG). Additionally he’s hitting 38% from downtown, and we all know he can help out on the defensive end. Albeit at this point we might be better off giving Balkman more time, and letting Collins take some minutes when needed. But if I had to take someone from the D-League anyway… let’s get G-Mac! anyone who watched last year’s big east tourney knows that he owns the garden! If Pooh Jeter can’t save us I don’t know who can. If Pooh Jeter can’t save us I don’t know who can. NBA TV said this was horrible news for the Knicks. Why is that? In my mind, it brings us this much closer to (A) the Oden sweepstakes (F Kevin Durant), and (B) Isiah getting fired. I don’t know if this will really destroy the Knicks, …Q-Rich’s offense, which has been sagging, might perk up as he can take up more offense with Crawford out, and Jeffries, with some real minutes, might at least iron out as the adequate defender and rebounder he always was…also, this means more minutes for Balkman, who hustles and we all generally like. Certainly Nate can score, so if we throw him in the mix for a few more minutes than he’s been getting as of late, he’ll probably come through with some offensive numbers. As Hollinger points out in today’s SUN, while Crawford was the best last minute shooter the Knicks had, the routine was also becoming so rote this might force Thomas to come up with some other clock-winding-down plays! Jamal had some of the most intriguing plusses on the team, and didn’t deserve a benching, but now that he’s forced out, we’ll see if just maybe the team can live without his 39% shooting and multiple awkward shots a game. Certainly Marbury and Rich won’t mind taking on more of the scoring load, and even Frye might perk up with more touches… Crawford is going to be missed as much becuase of the step down from him to Nate and Mardy. It’s hilarious to read the comments how a guy who is in his 7th year in the league and 5th as a starter is blossiming or developing. Crawford is what he is a consistent high volume 40% shooter. Nate is great in garbage time now he has to step it up when the other team is taking the game seriously. His last go round pre-suspension was filled with game killing plays down the stretch. Did G-Mac get drafted? I forgot. Hey Gabe, where you been? We are not involved in the Oden or Durant sweepstakes as we traded our possible lottery pick to the Bulls for Curry, of course!!!! btw for all: Crawford is the fifth worst shooter in the nba of the players who have played at least 50 games and the second worst shooter in the nba for players who have taken more than 15 shots a game…. G-Mac is playing in NBDL in Bakersfield, averaging: 29.5 min 12.4 ppg 38.3% FG 28.3% 3pt However, he can shoot under pressure, gets steals, and is automatic from the line. I say sign him to a 10-day contract. daniel Said: Crawford is the fifth worst shooter in the nba of the players who have played at least 50 games and the second worst shooter in the nba for players who have taken more than 15 shots a game?. Yeah but Nate Robinson is probably the worst guard in the NBA across all categories. So it’s hardly an upgrade. ;-) Put it this way, Jamal has a significantly higher PER, better Passing Rating and a better Hands Rating than Nate. Claiming that the Knicks will benefit from losing Crawford because of his FG% is like claiming that the Yankees would benefit from losing A-Rod because he strikes out a lot. Oh man, who ever suggested jeffries should get more time with Crawford out is smoking crack…. Robinson, who shoots better from 2 and 3 than Crawford, and Balkman should pick up the slack pretty well. Jeffries is probably the worst signing of Thomas’ tenure at the Knicks. Crawford makes some pretty infuriating turnovers, but I’m worried about the intangibles he brings that the Knicks will lack. Worse than Jerome James? No love for the Vets. What about fliers on Pippen or Doug Christie. Also where is Jalen Rose? I think I read in Newsday that Isiah claims he isn’t going to sign another guard in all likelihood. That’s not overly surprising, given that what’s out there on the market isn’t guaranteed to be any better than what’s on the bench already. It’ll be interesting to see if between Nate and Mardy Collins we can upgrade the perimeter defense. Zeke has got to be worried about his job now. 8 more games won then Larry would still be terrible. Okay, I’ll give them 10 more wins…still terrible. hoopedup.wordpress.com Crawford was actually shooting alot better since the new year. In January he had an efg% of 47.7% and in February it was 49.6%. He also shot as many free throws as three pointers in February which means he was finally starting to attack the basket rather than settle for jumpers. This is a huge hit for us and I just hope Isiah doesn’t compound the problem by giving his minutes to Nate or (if he comes back) Francis. The last thing we need to do is replace Crawford with a player that is less talented, makes more mistakes and plays worse defense. If we can replace him with a combo of Balkman and Collins we still get less talent but at least we get solid decision making and better defense. Maybe then by playing better defense and forcing more turnovers we can make up at least somewhat for our loss on offense. I have not always been a huge Crawford supporter but anyone who thinks we are better off without him are very wrong. How bout Renaldo Major…so we can be the only team in NBA history to have two people named “Renaldo”? I like either Cedric Bozeman or Randy Livingston from the NBADL. I even like Clay Tucker. Defensive minded big guards that can score. “It?s hilarious to read the comments how a guy who is in his 7th year in the league and 5th as a starter is blossiming or developing” There are different levels of players. There are your superstars ( Kobe, Lebron, Dwade) and there are those that are a tier below them( Lamar Odom, Elton Brand)and then there are those players that are on the brink( Jamaal, Memet Okur, Ben Gordon). It is tis type of development I am refering to about Jamaal. I hope this stems your laughter After seeing this thread I went over to the Wages of Wins to check on Crawford’s productivity this year, and what you know, they had a whole post about the Crawford and Livingston injuries. Dave Berri thinks this will help the Knicks, but hurt the Clips, because Livingston is above average while Crawford is not. Its an interesting post. Hey Owen. We watched the Milwaukee game at Ryan’s tavern on Friday. I hear you regarding Jamal’s stats. But the chemistry he eveloped with Curry is where this hurts the team the most. Say goodbye to all the alley-oops we’ve seen this season. again, not actually me. I tried to sign up for a login, but didn’t get a confirming e-mail, maybe mr. knickerblogger can help me with that somehow, I didn’t see an e-mail for him. what’s funny about this one is that if this is actually this ‘zannettis’ character, it’s not much dumber than his normal observations. Deleted the false jon abbey’s comments. Was very easy to verify which were the right & wrong ones. thanks, man. I hope you guys who were happy to see Jamal out are enjoying the Rose/Jeffries/Collins lineup. brutal. I am truly astonished at this turn of events. Rose AND Jeffries in the starting lineup. Wow. I guess the idea is to make sure that Curry has no chance of getting the ball without 2 or 3 guys all over him. mission accomplished! this team is pretty unwatchable without Lee and Jamal, no Nate doesn’t help either. Wow. The season is over, fugetaboutit. My question is, if Crawfords’ injury was getting progressively worse why wouldn’t Knicks MGMT try to trade some folks as a possible back up or replacement to Jamal before the deadline. This ship is sinking without any life boats. Its going to be a long 2nd half I mean, we should keep in mind that 1) we lost 2 of 3 to Boston with Crawford earlier this year, 2) we’ll get back Lee in the next week sometime and 3) we lose every alternate game with or without both Crawford and Lee. all that being said, this is back to the Layden-era unwatchable Knicks, with Ward and Eisley running the point. hopefully Lee won’t be out too much longer. Does anyone know if Jamal knew about this long before the Knicks head office knew what we learned tonight: 1) Isiah’s inability to pick an adequate starting lineup cost us another game. if either Frye or Lee is not one of the starting forwards in the next game, Dolan should fire him at halftime and let one of the Knicks City Dancers run the team for the rest of the year. 2) anyone who doubted we were going to miss Crawford on offense in crunch time, I hope you noticed the offense completely break down in the last few minutes. What’s up “Ken”! Great to see you on here… Well Boston fans are upset, one more win, one step backwards in the race for Oden-Durant. My preoccupation with the Wages of Wins is probably evident in my posts. Tonight, rather than writing a long post off the top of my head, I decided to do some grunt work and calculate the metrics they developed in the book. The stat is called win score/min, its calculated like this: (Points + Rebounds + Steals + ?Assists + ?Blocked Shots ? Field Goal Attempts ? Turnovers – ?Free Throw Attempts – ?Personal Fouls) / Minutes = Win Score per Minute The Win Score/min totals for tonights game are: Knicks Jeffries 12/33 = .363 Rose -7/10 = -.700 Curry 3.5/45 = .077 Richardson 10/42 = .238 Marbury 7.5/44 = .170 Frye 11/33 = .333 Mardy Collins 2/25 = .08 Balkman – -1/6 = -.16 Boston – Scalabrine 6/36 = .166 Jefferson 13.5/42= .321 Perkins 6/25= .24 Pierce 10.5/41= .256 West -2/24 = -.08 Rondo 8/25 = .320 Gomes 3/24 = .125 Green 10/20 = .500 The Per Minute Position Averages are * Centers: 0.225 * Power Forwards: 0.215 * Small Forwards: 0.152 * Shooting Guards: 0.128 * Point Guards: 0.132 What does this all tell us? Jeffries had an excellent game and was well above average for the Knicks. He had his third best game of the year, after the LAL and Atlanta games. Richardson, Marbury, and Frye were all above average. Malik Rose was downright awful, as was Curry. He accounted for nearly all our minutes at center and posted a mark very far below the average. His free throw shooting and turnovers had a lot to do with it. He was the biggest weakness for us tonight. The Celts were helped by a really terrific performance from Gerald Green, whose win score was three times the average for his position, and excellent performances also from Jefferson, Pierce, Perkins, and Rondo, who outrebounded Eddy Curry and the rest of the Knicks in 25 minutes of play. I dont think we will miss Jamal “4-15″ Crawford much. Not having Lee out there is an enormous loss. The problem with this game is the same as our problem all season long, underperformance at the center position.. Sorry for the lengthy post. .” Curry is leading the league in points in the paint this season, and it’s not even close as to who’s second (as of last game, Curry had 792 and Duncan had 712). “what all this tells us” is that basketball sabermetrics haven’t quite been able to capture many of the nuances of the game yet, like the ability to draw a double-team in the post every time you touch the ball. “I dont think we will miss Jamal ?4-15? Crawford much.” right, except we did. he’s the guy who takes the shots in the clutch, and our offense will continue to bog down down the stretch of games, barring some miraculous change. FWIW, our problem all season long isn’t underperformance at the center position (you really think that’s true? honestly? you don’t think there’s any chance the numbers might be missing something here?), it’s idiocy from the guard and ex-guard positions, Crawford, Steph, and coach Isiah. Yeah, even Hollinger would tell you the Knicks’ problems are not at the 4 and 5. He’s been ripping the guards all season long. In any event, Jon, yeah, the offense bogged down towards the end of the game, but really, if it weren’t for the awful and idiotic beginning to the game, the Knicks wouldn’t have been in that position to begin with. It is incomprehensible that Thomas did not start Channing Frye. Bottom line, Curry played 45 minutes and collected two less rebounds than Rajon Rondo, a 6’1 point guard who played 25 minutes. Here’s a summary of the knicks team so far this year from the wages of wins website, (not hollinger, who overestimates Curry’s production I think) The metric used here by Dave Berri is Wins Produced, which is a little bit more complicated and accurate than the Win Score I used above. Crawford and Marbury have both been better than Curry in absolute and per/min terms and have underperformed the league benchmarks for their position by a smaller margin. I agree that the guards aren’t very good and I think Isaiah sucks. I think Eddy is a nice kid, and I hope for our sake he improves. But he rebounds at too low a rate, commits way too many turnovers, isnt ranked in the top 75 in blocks in the NBA, and barely shoots a better percentage from the line than the field. How does Renaldo Balkman, playing 14 minutes per game, have more blocks than Eddy Curry? And how is it possible that David Lee had 12 double digit rebounding game in january, while Eddy Curry has had 14 all season? Lets trade him for Biedrins, The player that really hurt us was Malik Rose. He only played ten minutes but we were -14 in point differential when he was on the court. That means during the 38 minutes that Rose was on the bench we actually outscored Boston by 6. It was ugly with Rose, Curry and Jeffries on the court, Boston was able to triple Curry and dare Rose to score on them, Rose responded by shooting 1-5 with 3 turnovers in ten minutes. In fact in the 2nd quarter in only three minutes he took as many shots as Richardson in 9 minutes, Curry in 10 and a half minutes and more shots than Marbury in 11 and a half minutes. No one took more shots than Rose in the 2nd Quarter. Isiah needs to only play Rose in extremely short bursts when we need a stop but he is a mess on offense. How can such a veteran player not realize that he is a liability when he tries to be a factor on the offensive end. If he would just not try to score his defense could almost offset his offense but he insists on being part on the offense. Your problem, Owen, is that Jon (and me, for that matter) is calling into question the conclusions Wages of Wins came to, so to counter the questioning with MORE Wages of Wins really isn’t going to do any good. I gotta give Hollinger some props there, as he usually mixes in some non-PER stuff in his arguments, because he knows that he has to convince not only the people who believe in PER, but those that do not. In any event, yeah, Curry doesn’t rebound well or block shots well. It’s a problem, no doubt. But the Knicks are also tied for the third-most rebounds per game in the NBA, so rebounds aren’t exactly a problem for the Knicks. Meanwhile, just watch the game tonight – Curry was being SWARMED! And why? Because the Celtics know that the guy is practically unstoppable under the basket played one-on-one. The problem in the game was not Curry’s lack of blocks or rebounds, it was that when he was doubled, there was no one for him to kick to. Ben above explains how much Rose killed the Knicks in that category. Later on, as they went away from Rose, they started scoring a lot. It was too little, too late (and okay, they did also fall apart a bit at the end, as Q got a bit manic). That being said, yeah, sure, I’d probably take Biedrins for Curry, but that’s no shocker – Biedrins has become really, really good. Yeah Biedrins is awesome – just look at his team’s record. I think GS and NYK are 26-33. Question do you guys think Jamal being out will effectively end the season like Steph being out last year did? I’m not a Jamal fan but compared to what’s behind him he’s great. I refuse to believe Crawford being out will hurt us that much until I see Lee back and Isiah stops starting Rose / James … I fear with Isiah coaching we may never see our best players playing. Balkman only got 7 minutes (admittedly he didn’t do anything) and Nate (everyone’s favorite bashing post on this board for reasons I see but think are being exaggerated) was hurt. Hopefully we get them all back and then we can at least see if Crawford’s positive +/- rating holds real weight or not. “I?d probably take Biedrins for Curry, but that?s no shocker – Biedrins has become really, really good.” my friend the GS fan says he’s hit a wall recently, FWIW. “It is incomprehensible that Thomas did not start Channing Frye.” exactly. ?It is incomprehensible that Thomas did not start Channing Frye.? Agreed. Esp. if Jeffries stays starting at the 3 (which is fine by me if he plays anything like he did last night), is it not obscenely clear that we need another shooter in the lineup. I’m getting tired of sitting in front of my TV making sarcastic comments every time Malik touches the ball on the perimeter and consider, or takes, the J (“Shoot the 3, Malik! TAKE THE TREY!”). Unfortunately, Malik is the only big (4/5) that gives a reasonably consistent and competent effort on defense. Cato can be good but I presume he’s shot. Especially with the active roster shrinking fast, no one can say that losing Crawford won’t hurt.. but it’s not like he’s Michael Jordan. Nate is actually a better scorer, not quite as bad on defense and actually a decent rebounder. It does hurt to lose Jamal’s ballhandling. Honestly… I won’t be crushed if the Knicks miss the playoffs by a game or two, say have the 12th worst record instead of the 15th worst. I’m more interested in the long-term… if this gives Nate and Balkman a chance to shine (or build up trade value), it’s ok. Anyone else feel that way? The only thing that would crush me is if the Nix win the lottery in a miracle and have to give it up to the Bulls. Jeffries is a better defender at the 4/5 than Malik, and Malik is a bit inconsistant on defense so I think Lee can be almost as effective. Also Balkman in stretches can be a better defender at the 4/5 than Malik, he is even more inconsistant though. I’m not sure either of them defend centers for more than a series particularly the few and far between low post players like Jefferson, Shaq, Duncan to name a few but he’s better than the other centers at least. I just looked at the Knick’s remaining schedule and it looks pretty tough to me, esp if Isiah gives significant minutes to Francis which will turn the backcourt into a shoot-a-thon and negate the good offensive momentum that Curry has developed. Any predictions on the remainig 17 games (7 roadgames)? there are 23 games left in the Knicks season, not 17. I predict they’ll go 21-2, sweep the Bulls in the first round, then beat Cleveland, Detroit and Dallas on their way to their first title since 1973, paving the way for James Dolan to be elected the next mayor of NYC. how’s that? Thomas not using Balkman for more than six minutes is inexcusable; his lazy forgiving attitude after the game is inexcusable; I can’t imagine this team having any turn around certainly this year but next year either-I mean why would they? The roster won’t improve; Thomas will still be coaching; I mean David Lee plays with such aggresion and passion – can he become that much better without injury or burn out? Terribly unimpressive team and Dolan is just such a sucker supporting Thomas…. Alright, no arguments over Wages of Wins. I understand that most basketball fans like basketball precisely because they think its about much more than numbers. You guys fall in that camp, so I won’t belabor the point. I do think it makes for an interesting discussion and I may continue to post winscores if no one minds. I think it brings out some things, like how bad Rose’s game was, and how well Jeffries played. I will say for a guy who is getting double and tripled team all the time as you say, Curry has shockingly few assists. So far this year, his season high is three, which actually established a new career high for him as a Knick. its pretty amazing he has only managed to notch more than two assists in one game in the last two years. He has had 23 games this season in which he didnt manage an assist, and actually has the same number of assists this year as Tyson Chandler. Perhaps its something you learn with age. Meanwhile, he is second in the league in turnovers at the center position after Dwight Howard. His assist/turnover ratio of 23% (46/198) is so bad that double teaming him seems like a pretty high percentage play for the oppositio. “I think it brings out some things, like how bad Rose?s game was, and how well Jeffries played.” watching the game brought that out also, pretty obvious on both counts. and don’t talk down to us (‘most basketball fans like basketball precisely because they think its about much more than numbers’), I understand statistics at least as well as you, and probably quite a bit better. when they’re used as part of an analysis, that’s one thing, it’s when they’re substituted for a more nuanced analysis that it becomes irritating. Man, you are feisty. If you were wondering, I am not the guy who keeps making fake posts in your name. I dont know why you think I am talking down to you or anyone. That was certainly not my intention. I dont really think that my statement is all that objectionable. Most sports fans don’t care that much about “sabremetrics” or statistical analysis The average knickerblogger poster is far from the average NBA fan. From your response to my first post, it seems you think Eddy Curry’s “points in the paints” statistic shows in a nuanced way what a good player he is. I disagree. I think that the fact that he is below average compared to other centers in rebounding, blocked shots, assists, steals, while tallying the second most turnovers for his position negates the benefits of his admittedly efficient scoring. I’d be happy to discuss any statistics you can muster to defend him I thought I responded to Brian’s point that Eddy Curry was getting swarmed last night with a not unnuanced use of statistics to show why. I said Curry should continue to expect double teams, no matter how well his teammates shoot, as long as he is three times more likely to commit a turnover than create a scoring play for his teammates. If he could pass he wouldn’t get double teamed so much or so profitably. And I suppose the fact that Curry has had more than two assists in exactly one game as a Knick, is merely a curious statistical tidbit, rather than serious analysis. Still amazing though. Here’s a statement for you to agree or disagree with Jon. Let’s test what kind of statistician you are. Points at the beginning of a game are just as valuable as points scored at the end of a game. Owen: Your stats dont tell one story. The situation the Knicks would be in if Eddie Curry was not on the roster. Image having to rely on Jerome James as your starting center. Gosh might as well sign Meadowlark Lemon. I personally like the Eddy Curry trade – he’s not a finished product and the strides he’s taken this year indicate that he may have plenty of room left to grow – there’s no good reason he can’t work on some basic passing skills with the assistant coaches and this is the first season where he’s commanded double teams (sometimes even triple teams recently) consistently so there will be a leanring curve. That being said, Conuficius, to play devil’s advocate, the Knicks could have played Jerome James, tanked the season, scored some lame player like LaMarcus Aldridge, and then tanked this season in spectacular form to acquire an Oden/Durant superstar. Just saying, it could have happened. The Curry deal is a win for us, UNLESS we miss the playoffs and we win either 1-2 in the lottery. Giving the Bull’s Durant or Oden is not worth Curry. But if we get a lower lottery pick then this deal has turned out in the Knicks favor. It’s great that both sides are happy with the Curry trade. With 23 games left (thanks jon abbey) and four Western Conference teams on the Knick’s heals, My Knees Are Suddenly Better Francis returning, the Bulls have a shot at a top 5 pick! Seriously, you know what you have in Curry and while I’m ok that he’s gone, he is a very good kid. There’s more and more written on Ty Thomas being a bad element. Watch out what (who) you wish for. “Here?s a statement for you to agree or disagree with Jon. Let?s test what kind of statistician you are. Points at the beginning of a game are just as valuable as points scored at the end of a game.” you’re not talking down to me, but you’re “testing” me? thanks for clearing that up. “valuable” is a misleading word in this context. of course all points are equally “valuable” whenever they’re scored, but it’s a lot harder (generally) to get them at the end of a close game. defenses simply play harder, not that that shows up in “Wages of Wins” or whatever other stat you want to use. My Wages of Wins stats updated after the Miami win shows that Isiah Thomas finally removed Jerome James from the starting lineup because his Krispy Kreme Donut consumption PER shattered Oliver Miller’s prior NBA record 17.11 by a walloping 7.38 to set the new mark at an even 24.5. Simply…Remarkable…. owen, you are clearly acting douchebaggy. and its worth noting that ‘wages of wins’ stats don’t account for ON-BALL DEFENSE! how could you possibly say that a stat is enough to judge a player’s performance if it can’t asses how the player d-ed up their mark? Lol. Alright. I am a douchebag. By incorporating blocks, steals, personal fouls, and rebounds in the formula, it does assess defense. But the basic proof is that the formula works. It works in predicting wins year over year. And it works in analyzing trades as well. For instance, after the Iverson trade, the Wages of Wins guy predicted Philadelphia would improve and Denver would not, despite having not one but two offensive powerhouses on the team. That’s because Andre Miller is a better player than Iverson, who has been below average for his career. So far that prediction has turned out to be eerily prescient. He’s been right on a lot of other things as well. Hopefully he is right about Crawford’s loss improving the Knicks, but in order for that to be so, we need Lee back, and we need balkman to play more. “eerily prescient”? are you dating him? two minutes of research on that site shows that he was dead wrong about Detroit’s pickup of Webber, which he’s since admitted. Denver is a tough case, Iverson and Carmelo have still only played 11 games together. the true test for that deal will be next year. would you guys try to give Mo Williams the full midcap this offseason? would that even be enough to get him? he’s still only 24. One big thing that stats do not take into account when dealing with Curry is that he demands constant double and triple teams. That means his offensive stats are not reflective of the impact he has on a game offensively. The Knicks unfortuanatly are unable to really capitalize on Curry’s double teams because they have only a couple of decent outside shooters and no great ones. Also Curry is not a great rebounder but the teams he has been on have always been above average rebounding teams. So his lack of rebounding skill is more than made up by his teammates. For one, his constant double and triple teams means that the defense is always out of position which clears the way for a great rebounder like Lee or Chandler (when he was in Chicago) to rack up lots of offensive rebounds. On top of that while Curry is not a great defender(in fact he is a bad one), our biggest weakness on defense is turnovers forced which we are dead last in the league. If we were even average at forcing turnovers we would be an average defensive team. Forcing turnovers is more the job of perimeter defenders than interior ones. Also Crawford will be missed because while he was a low efficiency scorer, we needed him to take shots when our offense couldn’t get set. When Marbury is playing well and healthy Crawford is not very important because Marbury can get those shots but when Marbury is slowed by his knee Crawford provided the bulk scoring this team needed when teams were able to neutralize Curry. High efficiency scorers like Curry and Lee have to rely on things like getting position and recieving a decent pass, so teams can effectivly limit them if that is their goal. On the other hand high volume, low effeciency scorers like Crawford and Iverson can always get their shots so they have their place on teams that lack scoring. That is why the Denver trade was a bad move, not because Iverson is bad but because they already had a high volume scorer in Anthony who is more efficient than Iverson. On the other hand when Phily was a good team 5-6 years ago Iverson was the high volume scorer which paved the way for the high effeciency, low volume scorers around him to get their shots when they were availiable, and not be forced into bad shots when they were not. Crawford will be missed as seen during several scoring draughts in the Boston game. That is when a high volume scorer like Crawford earns his money. As you could see no one stepped up during the second quarter draught or the fourth quarter one. If we can tighten up our defense and become more disciplined on offense then we can survive or even improve without Crawford but if we don’t there will be stretches in every game where we cannot buy a basket. Ben, A few questions raised by your post – don’t have the answers, love to hear your thoughts. Is Curry’s bad defense and lack of presence in the paint responsible for the perimeters guys not taking chances to force turnovers. Has Curry really improved or has he stayed out of foul trouble and played more. Are the double teams on Curry responsible for Lee’s offensive rebounds and many of his points? In which case is Lee overrated? One observation from last night – what fun watching Jeferson pass out of the double team before it got there – I had forgotten what that looked like. Curry’s bad defense might prevent the perimeter players from taking chances but I also think it is the fact that we do not have great perimeter defenders. Marbury and Q are good but neither is very good at forcing turnovers and Crawford was bad. Hopefully with Jeffries, Balkman and Collins all playing more minutes our perimeter defense will improve. I think Curry has improved alot. Staying out of foul trouble and better conditioning has allowed him to play more minutes but his improvement is more than that. In the past Curry would play very well and then teams would start to double team him and he would disappear. Now he has to contend with double teams all game and he still manages to average 20 pts a game shooting 60% from the field. He still has a long way to go but he is a much better player this year than last. I think that while Curry plays a part in Lee’s gaudy rebounding numbers, without Curry, Lee would still be a very good rebounder just not quite as good an offensive one. The thing that Curry does is make it hard for teams to single out Lee to try to keep him off the boards. So no I do not think he is overated. I hope I was able to provide good answers, also Curry is getting better at passing, did you see the pass to Jeffries from Curry it was beautiful. One thing we really need to work on is spacing, it would help Curry get position, make it harder to double him and give him more options when the double comes. Curry is young and big men tend to peak later than guards so I believe that he is still 2-3 years away from reaching his prime. i think that you can shut this site down. the knicks are doom and i am tired of the bad news.lol. and trying to figure out what they can do. the fact is they are bums. they proved it loosing to the celtics and being down by 20 after a win over miami. they are so dysfuctional its ridiculous. i miss the 90s. Better spacing would help the Knicks tremendously. I missed the pass to Jeffries, but in general his passes out of the post are terrible, from time to time he has a great one. His passes from the post are late and not fast enough to take advantage of a moving defense – just like the passes to him. I think Curry has improved, he is looking for the ball more and positioning himself better – he could always score. Staying on the court has helped, maybe having a reliable shooter like Q is the key. Thinking about last nights game, Curry always receives the ball assuming he will shoot, not as part of setting up the offense. Clearly part of the problem with the offense is guard play, maybe some is Curry. Lee clearly works hard, and he does what he can, is an alert player. A mid-range jumper would help his game a ton, (Kurt Thomas with less defense) but at the end of the day, a complementary player rather than a star. I think he is overrated. As to the team rebounding strength/Curry poor rebounding issue – Q has been great on the boards this year – one issue is have other players crashed the boards to help Eddy out rather than try to get out on the break? I don’t think so, but it is one explanation. Sorry disjointed thoughts. Judging by how few fast breaks we get, you may have a point there on crashing the boards….I’ll keep an eye out for it the next game. I don’t think Owen is a douchebag. I don’t mind the Wages of Wins stats. I prefer Hollinger. No basketball metrics tell the whole story. Curry’s low post game has expanded and grown as the season has progressed. Early on he needed the ball down low very close to the basket to be effective. Now there’s many times where he can take it from 10 or so feet away down low and score. WOW Dmull said something I agree with. The stats\metric are complimentary tools. They tell a story and should not be used to predict how well a player will player. There are too many times when a marginal player plays the game of his life to help his team win – you know like they do against the Knicks. The metrics cant predict that. I hate to see basketball become like basball where these stats are used by coaches to dictate every move made, because the bottom line is you still the talent and the players need to have the abiltiy to understand and execute game plan. Any predictions for tonights game? Curry is going school Biedrins. Is Stephen Jackson playing? I think he missed their last game. I’ll throw in this bit about the “Wages” approach to player valuation. Any approach dependent on univariate stats, like tallies, averages, and rates, has to be careful about how to deal with context effects. In baseball win shares work precisely because context effects (e.g., the effect of the stadium or the defense on pitching performance) can be accounted for, and to some extent controlled. In basketball and football however, your teammates directly impact your ability to get an assist or score a TD in ways that are not replicated in baseball. That can really problematize the way you utilize what you get from stats in basketball and football. There’s nothing wrong with the stats, but I tend to find them most insightful when accompanied by a little humility. Not coincidentally, observation-based approaches are also most helpful when their users are open to the insights available from other approaches. Curry is a textbook case where stats tell a fairly clear, unambiguous story about a player’s strengths and weaknesses but observation strongly suggests his value would be greatly enhanced by changes in context, namely better guard play. Curry, as has been discussed here ad nauseum, is an impressively efficient scorer but much of his offensive value is offset by his poor floor game (assists, turnovers, rebounding, and blocks). Curry’s critics are justified in pointing out his obvious flaws: rebounding and shot-blocking. Those tend to be fairly context free. You either do those well or don’t; you can improve at the margins but probably not significantly. I think it’s safe to say Curry doesn’t provide much defensive value. I’m not necessarily convinced that’s a fatal flaw. However, it’s also safe to say that better guard play could easily improve turnovers and assists, the major drags on his offensive value. Amare Stoudemire is a clear testament to this. It’s not hyperbole to suggest that Curry’s career turnovers (15.3 To-r) and assists (3.9 As-r) could rival Stoudemire’s (11.9 To-r and 6.9 As-r) had Nash replaced Marbury in Curry’s life like he did for Stoudemire. Good point…similarly everyone who’s every played with Shaq or J-Kidd has gone on to command a massively inflated contract because of the effects their teammate had on them. Hence we get ridiculous contracts like Derek Fisher’s, Brian Scalabrine’s, and Kenyon Martin’s. Stats in baseball work better because there are simply fewer variables resulting from the substanstially lower importance and necessity for that matter of team play. Basketball has an infinite amount of variables, the entirety of which could never be accounted for in a million years, which makes any one-dimensional attempt to analyze the game with statistics a disasterous quagmire. owen, “By incorporating blocks, steals, personal fouls, and rebounds in the formula, it does assess defense.” These are all off-ball defensive considerations, except for fouls I guess. I noted in my previous post that i was talking about on-ball defense. Say JJ is d-ing up Pierce. He does such a good job he either can’t get a shot off or puts up a brick. Knicks get the ball, and it is directly a result of JJ’s play. Now, put Craw on him. Pierce either gets by him or gets a good shot. 2 points for the Celtics. NOWHERE in the Wages of Wins formula does that show up. And that is a huge part of basketball. That’s my basic point. If stats were truly the alpha and omega, scouts all over the world would be unemployed. Nice post Crockett. I dont know how things will shake out with the WOW, only time will tell. It seems like an interesting approach, and I, like Malcolm Gladwell think there is something compelling to it. We shall see. Vis-a-vis Curry, I just don’t think Nash would make that much of a difference. A guy who has had just one three assist game in two years, probably has deficiencies that go beyond the lack of an all-star point guard. Vis a vis Gene’s comment, many baseball analysts do in fact make the case that scouts, at least the traditional kind, should be unemployed. And if the Wages of Wins catches on we may feel the same way about basketball scouts in the near future. The insights that WOW turns out are interesting. The latest post about Iverson and Anthony in Denver are very interesting. But so is the small stuff. For instance, he picked out Paul Millsap out of the draft and said he would be the best rookie after Brandon Roy. He said Balkman would be a very pleasant surprise for a player who was booded on draft day. He was right about that, although Isaiah hasnt realized yet. Lots of interesting little insights. Anyway, beating a broken drum here, like what balkman and collins are doing so far, very good rebounding, nice work from francis, go knicks! Owen – Baseball analysts don’t say scouts should be unemployed. In fact most analysts say that scouting is important, especially with regard to pitching. Analysts look at the numbers scouts providing a different perspective. The people who say “the analsyts think scouts should be unemployed” are scouts. everyone’s talking about the 7 and 8 playoff positions being open in the East, but Indiana has quietly lost 4 in a row and is down to 29-28 in the 6th spot, with a brutal schedule over the next month. if the Knicks could ever string a few Ws together and make a run at .500, they’d have a real shot at getting in. winning tonight and getting Lee back Tuesday would be two huge steps in the right direction certainly, but I’m not holding my breath on either of those actually happening. I do know that someone else besides Steph/Q/Curry needs to step up tonight, one would hope it would be Frye. oh, and before it’s lost, awesome steal and finish by Mardy Collins last night to put us ahead. welcome to the NBA, young man! wow, Nets blow one at home to Boston, up by 7 with 45 seconds left, they end up losing by 8 in OT, tough loss with a 6 game road trip coming up. so right now, it looks like three of these five teams will make the playoffs, the 6/7/8 spots: Indiana 29-28 Miami 29-29 NJ 28-31 Orlando 28-32 NY 27-33 if Miami ends up 6th after the half-assed season they’ve turned in, that’s going to be pretty funny/sad. FWIW, we lose head-to-head tiebreakers against Indiana, win them against Miami and Orlando, with NJ still to be determined (losing the season series 0-2 with two games left in the final week). go NY! amazing we’re still alive after all we’ve been through this year. and one last note: we haven’t lost at home in over a month, since the Phoenix game (1/24), seven Ws in a row including four against current playoff teams. Interesting stats from tonights game against the Hawks: Marbury/Francis: 92 minutes, 64 points, 12 assists, 8 steals, and ONLY 3 TURNOVERS. I guess this is what Isiah imagined when he traded Ariza/Penny. Tonight was a nice, gritty win for the Knicks. Despite being the worst officiated game I’ve seen in quite a while, the Knicks pulled out the second part of a back-to-back. I agree with TDM. Great backcourt play from Francis and Marbury. Big win. Balkman had a really great game, his win score was 18.5/38 min, or .486 which is three times the average for small forward. 13 rebounds from the small forward position is big, no turnovers too. Curry stunk up the joint. That was an important win. We were without three of our top five players for most of the game and our top scorer had a rare off night. Marbury and Francis really stepped up. Also I am loving seeing Collins, Jeffries and Balkman on the floor more. It is refreshing to see some defense in a Knick uniform. I hope Nate stays glued to the bench because Collins brings alot more of what we need. If we can keep starting Jeffries and playing Collins and Balkman 20+ mins a night then I think our defense will really start to improve. If LA can hold on tonight against Indiana then we will have gained ground on three of the five teams we are chasing for the top four playoff spots. Curry, btw, had two assists for a change and kept turnovers low. OK, it’s not much the guy’s trying to figure those doubles out. let’s not forget that it’s still only been maybe 45-50 games since Curry’s emerged as a dominant post scorer. for the first 10-15 games this year, he was still getting no respect from the refs and constant offensive foul calls. he definitely has deficiencies, but hopefully he’ll continue to improve, although there’s not much he can do without help from his teammates. Crawford was the best at getting him the ball in good position, so that’s a bit of an adjustment there also. GO NY, GO NY GO! The last couple of games it seems like Curry is waiting too long to make his move after receiving the ball. When he gets the ball, he usually has single coverage to deal with. Then he waits until 1 or 2 more defenders surround him. At that point, he either begins to make a move to the hoop or attempts to pass out of the double or triple team. While this does get Curry to the line often, his free throws have been Shaq-like as of late. Additionally, this habit tends to cause unnecessary turnovers. I’m a big Curry fan, but this is just something that I have noticed recently. On a similar note, before last night Curry hadn’t scored in single digits since the end of December. Before the start of last night’s game, I thought that we had a huge advantage at the Center position. It didn’t seem like the Knicks capitalized on this. Is this simply because Craw is out? I hope not. The loss of Crawford is addition by subtraction, in my opinion. His high turnover rate and low shooting percentage are things I’m not going to miss. Plus he doesn’t defend well. The Knicks really protected the ball well last night and played with some discipline. This team is getting better. Curry just had an off night – he missed a ton of shots from point blank range that he virtually never screws up. It happens. “The last couple of games it seems like Curry is waiting too long to make his move after receiving the ball.” Great point, TDM. I don’t think it’s just the last couple of games tho. It happens all the time. Curry has to get his position a bit lower in the block so he can get the ball and just go right into his move. If he gets going right BEFORE the double comes, the second defender will have little to no effect and has a good chance of being called for a reach if he tries to get ball. Isiah was quoted in the Post about Curry after last night’s game, “he has dead legs”. which I think is understandable, he’s taken some big steps forward this season in terms of his role and his minutes played, it takes a toll after a while. we have a lot of time off in the next 10 days or so, before the homestretch begins, so hopefully he’ll be back to normal on Tuesday. Curry had a really bad game. His win score was in the negative zone, -3.5/30, thats about as bad as you can play. Josh Smith is a tough customer in the paint. Bad nights do happen. Still, its pretty amazing he only pulled down four rebounds in thirty minutes. It warmed my heart to see how Stevie Franchise played. The numbers show he still can be a productive player. In fact they show he just trails Q slightly for the honor of being the most productive guard on our roster. He could be a huge improvement over Crawford, who is I think a useful backup guard at best. Lets hope his knees are ok. Curry did have two assists. One of them was a pass to Steph who nailed a three with one second remaining on the shot clock and a hand in his face. I honestly cant remember the last time Curry made a nice dish to someone cutting to the hoop. One note on Mardy Collins. He had a steal the other night that I thought was just a huge momentum shifter late, totally turned the game around. Lol, i dont believe in momentum, but it was a really great play. It was also interesting the other night switching back and forth between watching Shaq on ESPN and Curry on MSG. It was simply an amazing performance by the Diesel. Vintage. He had a win score of 22 in 35 minutes which is about three times better than the average center. It was the kind of game Eddy has never ever had for the Knicks. Shaq is one of the greatest players of all time, so comparisons are unfair, and Eddy is definitely healthier and younger, but Shaq just has a dimension to him I cant see our version having. I hope Curry does develop and become more like him, but I just cant see it right now. Shaq had four assists in the first half alone, besting Curry’s all -time knicks carrer high. His positioning and passing out of the low post were just terrific. Anyway, we shall see, Eddy is still young I guess. The thing with Eddy is that he actually is passing out of the post a lot more than before (it used to never happen at all), they just are terrible passes and thus don’t register as assists often. He needs to learn to pass so that the players are in a good position to either catch and shoot (his current passes are slow and usually bounce awkwardly before they’re caught giving the defense time to adjust or even steal the ball and leaving the player at an awkward position) or to cut to the basket (he just doesn’t even attempt to catch guys running, for the life of me I don’t understand why they can’t work on this in practice). Owen, If you do not believe in momentum how do you explain the shifts in a game? Curry isn’t helped by the poor spacing and moving by the perimeter players either. wow, Owen, Eddy Curry isn’t Shaq? did you need “win scores” to tell you that? “I don’t believe in momentum” I just believe in win scores, win scores and me, that’s reality (with apologies to John Lennon). I wonder what happens when Wages of Wins and Winscores contradict each other on a player evaluation. Does Owen’s brain have an elaborate mental syntax error sparking a malignant domino effect which culminates in full body spontaneous combustion. hehehe… Nets lay another egg tonight, blowing an early 17 point lead and getting run out of the building by the Sixers, they’ve got the brutal three game Texas swing up next. curious if Jason Kidd’s “win scores” for that game (he had a triple double with 14 boards and 14 assists) include the Sixers beating him down the floor for open fast break layups time and again. 6T. Indiana 29-29 6T. Miami 29-29 8. New Jersey 28-32 9T. NY 28-33 9T. Orlando 28-33 tomorrow is another must-win for our boys, the schedule gets tougher after that again. Yeah, I really should start a new entry (what with all the interesting playoff matchups and all), but this entry seems to be having good luck for the Knicks, so I don’t want to jinx things. Indiana is in total free-fall also, 5 straight losses, and they only had 46 points with 6 minutes left against the Clippers last night, before they scored a bunch in garbage time to get up to 64 (!). they have a brutal March schedule also. 38 or 39 wins could mean a playoff spot, we’ll see if we can get there. Jon – I just looked back and realized you were being sarcastic but I already had done the calculations. Kidd’s win score stats were: 11 points + 14 rebounds + (1/2) x 14 assists + 3 steals + (1/2) 0 blocks – 2 turnovers – (1/2) 2 ft – 14 shot attempts – 1/2 2 pf. So his win score per minute was 17/38 min or .447. Thats really really good. (no duh they say). The per minute position average for point guards is .132 so he was more than three times better than average despite going 5 for 14 from the field. Like Shaq, Jason Kidd is a special player. The Wages of Wins has him rated as the most productive player in the NBA this year through the All-Star break. To play the role of Captain Obvious once more, I would say the Nets loss had more to do with the fact that Vince Carter went 4-20, (win score of -5 in 38 minutes :) than Kidd not hustling. T-Mart – Win Score is the Wages of Wins metric. Confucius – I was sort trying to make a joke. From reading this book and other works of economics, you get the sense they morosely doubt there is any such thing as free will/ individual agency. I suspect they would quibble with the idea of swings, like they do clutch shooting, and peg it up to random variations in scoring distribution resulting from competitive imbalance, or some mularkey. anyway, bad joke. Re Curry, while researching your win score Jon I noticed something that blew my mind even more than the fact that Eddy Curry has only had one three assist game as Knick. Jason Kidd is averaging a rebound more per game than our lovable Baby Shaq. Pretty amazing that our 285 pound stud center is getting outrebounded by the point guard across the river. Also pretty amazing that Curry has committed fifty more turnovers this year also. Dan, I agree with you, his passing out of the post needs a lot of work. yeah, obviously Carter missing his last 14 shots was huge, but if you watched the game (you do do that occasionally, right? it’s more fun than plugging numbers into formulas, I’d recommend it), you’d know that those numbers vastly overstate Kidd’s performance. re: wages of wins, I’ve followed it closely and my biggest beef with the authors is that David Berri seems arrogant and unwilling to fine-tune his formula. He’s like a high draft pick with tons of talent… but if he’d work hard and pay attention to detail he could be an all-star. Berri is the Tim Thomas of sabermetricians. If you haven’t read the book or the website, Berri is openly snobby and likes to pretend he invented this type of analysis for sports. Steven Levitt (“Freakonomics”) gets lots of props but the phrase “Bill James” does not appear. Berri rips all non-academic analysts, but also ignores academic types who have been analyzing basketball a lot longer than he has, people like Dean Oliver and David Rosenbaum. I think this leads him into bullheaded errors. The WOW formula consistently overrates players like Tyson Chandler (rebounding machines) while underrating players like Kobe or Iverson (prolific guards with relatively low shooting percentages). It’s not that it’s idiotic – hey, Iverson probably IS overrated – but he’s unwilling to tweak the formula, even when it spits out things like saying Dennis Rodman was FAR more valuable to the Bulls than Michael Jordan. Also, Owen… just because his numbers are consistent doesn’t mean they’re right. It’s a self-enclosed system – could be consistently overvaluing one or more stat while undervaluing others…. Anyway, WOW is interesting but as others here have said, it’s not close to a finished product. I’d say a team hiring Hollinger as their guru would outperform a team that hired Berri. And no one has really figured out a way to measure an individual’s value to defense. “Berri is the Tim Thomas of sabermetricians.” okay, that’s funny! I agree with Caleb on this. I don’t really like the WOW stats as much as Hollinger’s ratings. But I really don’t see the harm in Owen posting the numbers. It’s interesting. Why ridicule him? Look at the numbers or don’t. What’s the big deal? I hope it didn’t come across as ridicule. Caleb – I wasn’t talking about you. I think yours was a fair, thought out conclusion. It’s stuff like this that annoys me: “but if you watched the game (you do do that occasionally, right? it?s more fun than plugging numbers into formulas, I?d recommend it)” Just because the guy uses new statistics, how does that make him any less-likely to watch a game? And is it maybe just a little possible that your naked eye doesn’t always see everything that happens during a game? I think there’s a good point Jon is making in this (that Kidd didn’t play any defense – allegedly and that WOW doesn’t catch that)..but why be condescending about it? While WOW and even PER for that matter are far from being perfect statistics I still think it’s cool that they’re attempting to create better stats for examining a players value. Personally, I can’t see every game every team plays, so a stat like PER is pretty handy. It’s not the end-all, it’s just a tool. I’m not initiating the condescension, it’s almost always implicit when people cite sabermetric stats (along the lines of ‘these numbers tell the truth, drawing conclusions from watching the actual games is old-fashioned’). I just think it’s very easy to rely on numbers and trust them, it’s much more difficult and interesting to try to figure out the truth for yourself (sometimes using those numbers to help, sometimes not). I like that this blog is generally more towards the intelligent analysis side of things, combining observation and stats, not knee-jerk fans and not PER or WOW devotees who say things like “momentum doesn’t exist”. I personally find both of the latter categories pretty misguided and dull, sorry if that offends. for an ideal example of how numbers with no common sense applied to sports analysis draw precisely the wrong conclusion, check out the new hilarious Forbes rankings of the GMs in all the sports. they rank Kevin McHale as the best GM across all four sports, when in reality, he’s among the very worst few and has basically squandered the career of one of the great players of this generation in Garnett. Billy King at 3 is also hysterical, he’s one of the five worst GMs in the league right now. ^Link is not working. Did Forbes maybe realize how dumb they are looking? That is unbelievable.. Anyway.. “I?m not initiating the condescension, it?s almost always implicit when people cite sabermetric stats (along the lines of these numbers tell the truth, drawing conclusions from watching the actual games is old-fashioned?).” I think this is just untrue. I agree with the sentiment but I think the statement is stereotypical and ultimately untrue. A lot of guys who cite scabermetric stats also watch more games than people who still believe in batting average, FG%, etc. And many of them, Hollinger for instance, allow that the metrics aren’t the end-all, but are better methods of evaluating players than some of the old statistics. My God! That was just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. Can I have those ten minutes of my life back now please? Oh oh Owen, a numbers guy with a sense of humor. that is rare. I may be getting a bit ahead of myslef….but if the Knicks should make the playoffs they do stand a good chance to advance in the Eastern conference. I think the numbers agree with me. Caleb – I should have said also, as DMull did, that I thought your post was very fair and thoughtful. I did notice the Forbes writers admitting that their choice “would raise some eyebrows.” They seem to understand how stupid they look. Perhaps they are gleefully anticipating a high traffic shitstorm when True Hoop posts their conclusino, and lots of people check out the article. I didnt see what they said about Isaiah, couldnt bear to look. Vis a vis Billy King, I think he made a shrewd trade for Miller, which may cost him a shot at Oden or Durant, one step forward, two steps back, something which others said here first I think. Jon – To respond your point above, I will again crib directly from Gladwell. This debate over numbers vs instinct, stats vs “the look test” are after all, his bread and butter. He thinks Berri-Hollinger sheds a lot of light on a much larger issue, what are the most effective methods of decision-making for various contexts. Can we rely on number-crunching? This is a subject that is very important and which I find totally fascinating. Given the success of Gladwell’s book Blink on the subject, I dont think I am alone. Anyway, here is what Gladwell said on his personal.” One last thing. The thread which follows Berri’s response to Hollinger is really great, it has some of the most thoughtful comments I have seen. That’s an interesting Gladwell quote…especially in light of the fact that Blink comes down on the opposite side of the argument in general. His story about the fraud perpetrated on the Guggenheim being the most noted example. I think Gladwell’s thesis is that decades of training and experience (e.g., watching 40+ games per season, coaching a team or two, and maybe playing) can enable a human being to solve problems/answer questions without being able to totally describe how he did so. And that quite often, that well-trained human will be correct when the measurement system is wrong, because most measurement systems are inherently flawed in at least one respect. The caveat is of course, it doesn’t work without the training and experience. And more importantly, as a species we have been spouting this story since the earliest science fiction books — the robotic brain is inferior to the human one because it doesn’t have instincts or can’t guess. The fact that it’s a rather flattering way of looking at ourselves and building our self esteem when a $50 computer can beat 99.99% percent of us in a game of chess has nothing to do with it of course. ;-) I’m not overly impressed with Gladwell either, to be honest. you may not be alone, but popularity certainly doesn’t equal accuracy/intelligence/whatever. he too often misses the forest for the trees, his amazingly offbase piece on Enron recently for the New Yorker is an ideal example. here’s the bottom line: I don’t care what Berri thinks, I don’t care what Hollinger thinks, I don’t care what Gladwell thinks. tell me what you think, don’t just parrot someone else’s formulas. if I want to read them, I can go to their sites pretty easily, I don’t really need it reprinted here. this obviously isn’t my site, that’s not my decision, but that’s my perspective as a poster here. Count Zero- Certain kinds of decision-making suit different contexts better. Computers now play chess better than humans. And clearly, you will never develop a formula that can detect an artistic fake better than a human being. I think Gladwell is interested in both sides of the coin, and in situations where a shift occurs between preferred methods of decision making, like for instance the shift chronicled by Michael Lewis in Moneybal. Those kinds of paradigm shifts are interesting. Jon – I have to concede, having just read Berri’s latest post, which is a barnburner, that he can be arrogant and condescending. You are right about that. And if I have come off that way I am sorry. I appreciate this forum and certainly wouldnt want to do anything to disrupt it or to antagonize a veteran poster like you, which I think I did when I said “I understand that most basketball fans like basketball precisely because they think its about much more than numbers.” Watching games and enjoying watching the human drama unfold is what its all about in the final analysis. You asked what I think. I think the best players on the Knicks are Lee, Q, Francis, Balkman, and Marbury. I think Curry is our best option at center, but that he isn’t very good. I think Frye may still improve but early returns are troubling. His sophomore slump has been downright amazing. Confucius- I think we have a very legitimate shot of making the playoffs if we can keep Q healthy, get Lee up and running, and give Balkman more time and Curry more help with passing out of the post and feeding cutters. And if we make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, anything can happen. Owen, we’re cool, thanks. I think, in hindsight, Moneyball showed the shortcomings of sabermetrics. The A’s best player from that draft is probably Nick Swisher, who traditional tools-oriented scouts loved. The rest of the people they were so high on haven’t quite panned out. In fact, I think someone did a study, noting how many A’s players from that draft made it to the big leagues compared to players from other teams. It came out to be a pretty neglible difference. I think other teams actually fared better in terms of first rounders’ reaching the big leagues. Oh, and go Knicks! I was trying to find the article, but Danny Ainge a few years ago used some newfangled sabermetric equation his team had devised and had never been used before to justify throwing all that money at Brian Scalabrine. I really wish I could find the article I remember reading it and thinking – “wow, this guy is either full of it or a genius who is going to revolutionize the GM position.” They basically positioned themselved as the most advanced GM office in NBA history. We now know he was full of it – complicated stats just didn’t tell the obvious, which was that Scalabrine was a meh role player with a low ceiling. Ah pardon me, I was wrong about Ainge (I mean, yes he’s full of it but not for the same reasons). Ainge signed Scalabrine to the big contract based on a consultant’s revolutionary “brain typing” formula, which isn’t the same as some new type of stats. From the article (just because it’s weird): .” “ yeah, Kevin McHale has used Niednagel a lot also, it’s worked out great for both of them so far. :) The Moneyball draft yielded Swisher, Joe Blanton, Mark Teahan and four scrubs. That is an impressive draft. Swisher is good, but sabermetrics had nothing to do with his being picked. Everyone, traditional scouts included, loved him. From “There were 41 first round draft choices in 2002. Of those 41 only one, John Mayberry, drafted 28th overall out of high school by Seattle, did not sign and instead elected to go to college (he was drafted again by Texas in 2005, 19th overall, and is now with the Indians organization). He can be counted, in terms of the 2002, draft as a failed pick since the Mariners got nothing for that pick even if he does eventually reach the big leagues. So out of those 41, there are 19 (or 46%) who have thus far made it to the Majors (by comparison, of the A?s 7 first round picks, 3 have reached the Majors ? 43%).” This article is kind of old, so the pct. for other teams is actually higher now, with Hamels’ and Loewen’s reaching the show. Also, if you look at that chart on that page, Oakland only had the 11th best draft that year in terms of getting its players to the big leagues. If Moneyball was such a paradigm shift, why wasn’t it more successful compared to teams that used more traditional scouting methods, and why is Oakland, in 2006, drafting high school players, whose stats are basically useless, something Beane was very against in the book? The Moneyball draft strategy utlimately yields lots of low-ceiling, older prospects. I’m just trying to point out how limited using numbers alone is, especially in a game like basketball with so many moving parts and variables. I think there’s something to be said for observation. Isiah’s draft record is a testament to that. Cwod, While we can update the numbers and argue details as they relate to the moneyball draft it misses the point. Billy Beane is more of an arbitrager, or contrarian. OBP and college guys were undervalued – hence the focus. The league started drafting college guys and signing OBP machines. Billy went to HS guys and defensive players. Moneyball is about relative value not fixed rules. When the free agent market went nuts for average pitchers he traded Hudson and Mulder and is better off for it. Can someone explain to me why, under dberri’s system, a rebound counts the same as a point? Berri thinks his system is better because it’s not a “system.” Aside from minor adjustments, his regression analysis just tells you how closely various statistics correlate with wins. e.g. A team that averages three rebounds more than its opponents will win approximately the same number of games as a team scoring three more points (on average) than its opponents. When anyone criticizes Berri’s ratings, he just tells them they don’t know what they’re talking about and says “the numbers don’t lie.” The biggest problem is the assumption that you can treat individual statistics in exactly the same way as team statistics – the assumption that a basketball team is nothing but the sum of five individual parts. This may be pretty true in baseball, but in hoops there are different “types” of players that need to complement each other. Dikembe Mutombo (at least a few years ago) was a very good player (and highly ranked by Berri), but can you imagine a team with five Dikembes on the floor? I think Berri makes some position adjustments to adjust for this, but to my mind it’s not enough. Don’t get me wrong. Beane is probably one of my favorite GMs, in any sport, simply for what he has accomplished with his budget. You’re right that he has moved on to defense as his undervalued commodity of choice. But, in this thread, we’re not talking about market inefficiencies, and I think to say that Moneyball represented a “paradigm shift” is inaccurate and suggests that new statistical tools were drastically changing the game of baseball (and thus could eventually change basketball in the same way), but, while they’ve definitely had some effect, just as many teams are scooping up mediocre players, especially pitchers. In FA, year after year, GMs are seemingly ignorant of things like K/9, BB/9, HR/9. Meanwhile, a stats guy like Paul DePodesta led LA to one of their worst seasons ever and totally overlooked team chemistry issues, which probably played a part in his firing. I think this — the importance of chemistry — is a good example not to get too wrapped up in metrics of any kind. That’s not to say I dislike stats. I’m way more of a stathead than any of my friends, and like Owen, I think the Knicks’ best five are probably Lee, Francis, Marbury, Balkman, and Q-Rich (and not in that order). I found this quote by Larry Dierker: “Suddenly my chess pieces had hearts. And frequently, I felt the statistical advantage I might gain in juggling lineups and using pinch hitters was less important than showing confidence in my players by trying to trust them rather than sending them the silent message that I really did not.” So with Dallas playing Jersey tonight and Orlando off – pretty good shot we’ll be all tied up for 8th place with a win. Seattle has won two straight (over the Clippers and Charlotte)…but this is one of those games we have to win, at home against an average team. Anyone have any thoughts on what we have to do? I think I read Lee is supposed to be back? FreeDarko had an excellent analysis of what it would mean economically if GMs actually started using the formula in Wages of Wins. I think the hypotheticals here give a pretty good idea of some of the real-world flaws in the theory. “Anyone have any thoughts on what we have to do? I think I read Lee is supposed to be back?” Lee is probable, last I heard, Q will be back. it’s a shame to not have either of our Seattle-born guards against the Sonics, they both love playing against them. Curry dominated the game they played earlier this year, hopefully he’s reenergized and ready to do that again tonight. I hope Thomas has told Curry that if he scores twenty points but has 6 turnovers, then he’s of no use whatsoever. Also: Play Balkman and keep Jeffries parked firmly on the bench. Matt D – read this post and the comments after Dan Panorama – Good Free Darko post. Thoughtful, thorough critique of TWOW. It doesn’t really shake my zealots faith. I posted a request for a response though on the WOW website. I thought this comment on that thread was good. “You could do the same statistical analysis, but title it why doesn’t a player as good as Allen Iverson win as much as he should?, and the people’s take on it would be totally different.” Its a hard subject to discuss, and I think the WOW was rated the most controversial blog in sports for good reasons. I do think any Knicks/Rangers fan should be highly sympathetic to a book that says GM’s are idiots, which in the final analysis is what the Wages of Wins is saying. There is no correlation between payroll and wins. Both New York teams have the highest payrolls in their respective sports and have barely made the playoffs this decade. I grew up idolizing Charles Oakley. Its hardly surprising then that I love David Lee and that I have no trouble accepting the fact that Power Forwards are more productive than shooting guards. I am a firm believer that the Allan Houston signing was the most terrible blunder in team history, and I believed that long before I read in the WOW that .” Eddy Curry, a latter day Allan Houston? Anyway, its going to be an extremely interesting contest tonight. Can’t wait to see Lee back in action. I’d like to read his response to that FreeDarko post. Seems a strange way to attack – through player psychology. I wonder if just the fact that taking away points for shot attempts in itself is flawed enough – someone has to shoot every possession or it turns into a turnover, a shot is better than a turnover, therefore isn’t a shot attempt a good thing (obviously better shot attempts > bas shot attempts, but even taking a half court shot is > turning it over)? “I do think any Knicks/Rangers fan should be highly sympathetic to a book that says GM?s are idiots, which in the final analysis is what the Wages of Wins is saying. ” most people are idiots and less than competent at their jobs, big deal. making decisions in the real world is a lot different from crunching numbers. “I am a firm believer that the Allan Houston signing was the most terrible blunder in team history” dunno, the move that started our long slide was trading Ewing instead of just letting him play out his contract and leave. that saddled us with Glen Rice, who turned into Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley, Anderson is still on the payroll through this season. at least Allan Houston helped get us to the Finals once, although admittedly before that long deal. speaking of Allan Houston, has there ever been discussion anywhere about the last game of the Eastern Conference finals in 1999 somehow being fixed? every close call went to the Knicks, anyone who looked at Houston the wrong way got a foul call against them, and Mark Jackson’s huge butt back-in in the post, which Indiana ran their offense through all series, was all of a sudden a foul. I watched it a second time a few weeks later to count up the dubious calls and they were something like 22-2 in the Knicks’ favor. anyway, I don’t ever remember hearing anyone else talk about this, just curious if you guys remember things that way too. oh, and also, clearly James Dolan is the primary culprit in the decline and fall of MSG. I’m not sure things will ever really turn around as long as that smug bozo’s still in charge. Yeah, its certainly Dolan’s fault ultimately. Dont really recall that game. Interesting though. Berri did respond, briefly, and now the Free Darko writer has posted a comment in the thread. Interesting to see if Berri gives him a response. For those of you interested, Dave Berri has responded, and responded very well, to the writer from Free Darko. Read the comments, the last one is quite decisive I think Jon, where can you watch that game again? dunno, I mean I taped it at the time and watched it back that summer, don’t think I have that around any more. Array

Instant analysis: Cardinals 8, Nats 0 Apr 17, 2014, 10:17 PM EDT GAME IN A NUTSHELL: How about “Game in a word” instead of a “nutshell?” The word: U-G-L-Y. The Nationals trailed 3-0 in the first inning (yet again). They played some stupendously sloppy defense (yet again). And they let things get out of hand late. Taylor Jordan was roughed up early, with some major assists — er, bad choice of words there — from his defense. Ian Desmond was charged with two more errors, giving him an MLB-high seven on the young season. The Nationals committed four total errors in the game, giving them a staggering 20 in only 16 games to begin 2014. Adam Wainwright, meanwhile, was completely in control for the Cardinals. The veteran right-hander allowed a high chopper to Desmond in the bottom of the second, and then nothing else until there were two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Wainwright even had two hits, drew a walk and arguably had five productive plate appearances. Put it all together, and you’ve got the worst ballgame of the year for the Nationals. Really, one of the worst ballgames in Nationals history, which is saying something. HITTING LOWLIGHT: Well, the only highlight was Desmond’s mile-high chopper over the mound in the bottom of the second, which proved to be the Nationals’ lone hit off Wainwright until Adam LaRoche’s single with two outs in the ninth. They were completely shut down by the Cardinals right-hander, who took complete control of the game. It was as if once his teammates gave him a comfortable lead, Wainwright said: “OK, boys. I’ll take it from here.” The Nats never threatened against the veteran right-hander, who very much embodies the definition of an ace. PITCHING LOWLIGHT: He certainly wasn’t helped at all by his defense, but Jordan didn’t do a whole lot to help his own cause, either. The young right-hander gave up plenty of hard-hit balls, put three batters on base either via walk or hit-by-pitch, had a shaky moment in the field himself on a first-inning bunt and saw his fastball velocity dip into the high-80s. With his pitch count at 96 and the bases loaded in the sixth, Jordan’s night came to an abrupt end. And with Doug Fister now moving closer to a return from the DL, Jordan has to understand every one of his starts amounts to an audition for a job. FIELDING LOWLIGHT: Ugh, where to begin? Take your pick. Desmond booted the first ball in play of the night, then bounced a throw later for his sixth and seventh errors of the young season. Danny Espinosa was charged with his own error when he dropped the ball trying to turn a double play, though that’s a play that until this season had never been called by umpires, so it’s hard to fault him too much. The lowest of the lowlights in the field, though, came on a play in which no error was charged and none of three runners on base at the time advanced. But the combination of Blake Treinen’s pitch crossing up Jose Lobaton, then bouncing all the way to Adam LaRoche, who passed up a chance to throw a trailing runner out. That was a Little League play of the highest order. KEY STAT: The Nationals have allowed at least three runs in the first two innings of seven games this season. They’ve allowed at least three runs in the first inning in four of their last six games. UP NEXT: The series continues Friday night when the Nationals go up against another tough Cardinals right-hander: Michael Wacha, who came within inches of no-hitting them last September in St. Louis. Gio Gonzalez gets the start for the Nats, with first pitch scheduled for 7:05 p.m. - Mrsb loves the Nats - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:19 PM Let this hideous loss of and try to get them tomorrow… - - David Proctor - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:19 PM Gio will step up tomorrow. When’s the last time Gio had two clunkers in a row? I can’t remember it ever happening. I hope the defense shows up tomorrow. - - Mrsb loves the Nats - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:21 PM Taylor Jordan is not making me feel gooey inside… Even though he has that sinker… At this point, SS, Fister, Gio Tanner and Fister will be the starting 5 rotation… - - Sonny G 10 - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:27 PM Fister going to take his turn and Jordan Zimmermann’s? - - Mrsb loves the Nats - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:29 PM Dang edit button…. Lol.. SS, Gio, Jordan Zimm’nn, Fister Roark - - scmargenau - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:29 PM U mean Zimm - - Candide - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:22 PM (Reposting from the game thread.) Cunegonde and I went inside during the 5th inning. It was COLD there. One highlight – I finally got to introduce Cunegonde and MicheleS, who was in the next section over from us. So there was that. Apart from that, just about the worst-played game I’ve ever attended. What a sloppy, sloppy team tonight. We finally left at the end of the 6th. We were far from the last. - - Mrsb loves the Nats - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:23 PM You all have to let me know the next game everyone attends… Me and my CFO have been trying to figure out which game we are going to together… Thinking about a game in June, as if the Nats lose, at least it won’t be cold outside… - - Sonny G 10 - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:25 PM Get some sleep tonight boys and get ready to rock tomorrow. - - Candide - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:26 PM Mrsb, get thee to the NIDO spreadsheet at The “Who’s Going” tab is the place to find out who’s going (duh) to which games. And as it turns out, there’s a blank line there (right above MicheleS) where you can enter your own name and start posting the games you’ll be at. - - Mrsb loves the Nats - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:31 PM I’m going to hAve to add myself when I get to a PC and save the page… It’s not editable (that’s a word, eh) on my iPad…. - - Sec 3 My Sofa - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:56 PM Mrs B, I took the liberty. You’re on the list. - - Sec 3 My Sofa - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:03 PM I also went and added you (as “Mrs B”) to the drinks schedule, while I was in there. - - scmargenau - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:30 PM Ray fired up about rule – Matt PISSED - - Joe Seamhead - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:38 PM Matt says film showed Espy never had control of the ball. ??? - - David Proctor - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:31 PM Matt is very angry in the postgame show right now. - - Mrsb loves the Nats - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:32 PM I cut it off… Need some comedy in my life… Watching The Heat… What did he say? - - manassasnatsfan - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:35 PM Pissed, but take care of business. Being pissed, but not take of things is a waste of time. - - npb99 - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:35 PM Why don’t they put Detwiler back in the rotation? He’s a better pitcher than Jordan. - - scmargenau - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:37 PM Interesting. They thought espi didn’t control ball (MW) - - Sonny G 10 - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:37 PM Just listened to MW’s post-game. I love the way he handles the media. Doesn’t throw anybody under the bus. - - David Proctor - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:42 PM That’s an interesting theory. - - Joe Seamhead - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:46 PM It sure looked like he had some kind of a wad in his cheek on a profile shot when he was in on a conference on the mound. Maybe it was gum. - - - - - natsfan1a - Apr 18, 2014 at 9:05 AM As NN noted, it’s shredded like tobacco, not flavored like it. (Hat tip NN and Jim Bouton for the assist.) - - Sonny G 10 - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:58 PM NL, bet Mark had the story written before the end of the game and just forgot to update it. - - Sec 3 My Sofa - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:05 PM Half the reason people use tobacco is the increased focus and alertness from nicotine. - - Doc - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:11 PM Good point NL. I was thinking the same thing. Personally, I think that it is an issue. All those years chew gave Desi focus, much like a psychostimulant med such as Ritalin. Although quite frankly, I’d rather he make some errors than keep on dipping—-which is a dead end, in more ways than one! Maybe try drinking more coffee. - - David Proctor - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:47 PM Desmond is being as accountable as always. Dan Kolko @masnKolko 1m Strong stuff from Ian Desmond postgame. Said that if he wants to one day be the captain of this team – “and I do” – he needs to play better Dan Kolko @masnKolko 24s Desmond said it’s fair to ask questions about #Nats’ lack of success against good teams. Says they need to fix it. - - NatsLady - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:48 PM You are going to lose games when your No. 5 guy starts. You are going to lose games when Wainwright starts. There are no moral victories, and it’s a lot easier to forget 9-0 than 1-0. The most annoying thing will be the jabber-jabber about how the Nats “can’t beat” good teams. How about we give it a month or two before buying into that narrative. Ron Roeneke (Brewers) gave a long dissertation on the Buster Olney’s podcast about he doesn’t really care about his team’s record against the Cardinals (which is pretty pitiful)–until the postseason. His goal is to win more games than they do. Gio, JZ and Stras need to step up now, no excuses. - - Sonny G 10 - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:01 PM Thanks NL. +1 on your comments. - - Candide - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:20 PM The most annoying thing will be the jabber-jabber about how the Nats “can’t beat” good teams. It’s annoying, yes, but the Nats have played seven games against good teams this season and lost six of them. Maybe it’s wrong to say they CAN’T beat the good teams, but so far, they haven’t. Twenty errors in 16 games – that’s like giving the other guys six extra innings to score runs. You can get away with that with the Mets and the Marlins, but the Barves and Cards will punish you for it – as we’ve seen repeatedly this season. - - topnat - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:54 PM If Williams wants to send a message to his team Desmond sits tomorrow. No one is above the law. Perform or the next man gets a shot. Not permanent, just a little eye opener. I wonder if the Cardinals have the strobe light and fog machine fired up after a blow out win over an inferior team? Can’t see Yadier allowing that. Look across the field boys, that is a professional team at work over there. Pay attention. - - David Proctor - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:58 PM As someone who has watched Cardinals postgame shows before, yes they do. They have the music blaring and all. And so did the 2012 Nats. Try again. - - scnatsfan - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:54 PM Our staff was supposed to be our strength for God’s sake start showing it - - sunshinebobby - Apr 17, 2014 at 10:59 PM Desmond, Werth, Harper, Gio: Stand-up guys. Always available to talk after a game. Matty Boy was barely civil. Seems shell-shocked. Not sure Matty Marine’s approach is the right one for this team’s psyche. Just watching him on TV makes me nervous. - - Sonny G 10 - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:09 PM I’m really surprised at your take sunshine. I really thought Matty Boy handled the media very well. He is not making a big deal with the errors to the players because that will cause them to press even harder. The only way through this mess is to not make a big deal of it and Matt knows this. Besides, us fans will do all the trash talking and making a big deal out of it. The only way out of this is to forget today’s game and start fresh tomorrow. Anything else from the team’s point of view will be counter-productive. - - Eugene in Oregon - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:00 PM Losing to Adam Wainwright is nothing to be ashamed of. Ditto getting shut out by Mr. Wainwright. But multiple games in which you give up three, four, and five runs in the first inning or two? And the combination of mental and fielding errors? As someone wrote above, it doesn’t give you a warm and fuzzy feeling. I keep telling myself it’s still early — today marked only the 10% mark in the season — but I can’t help but be a bit nervous given the way some of these games are playing themselves out. - - sunshinebobby - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:01 PM Shades of H-Rod in the Twins-Blue Jays second game: Minnesota scored three straight runs on wild pitches by the Toronto Blue Jays’ Sergio Santos in the eighth inning, - - topnat - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:03 PM DP, you saw a fog machine and strobe light on a post game show? Really? Try again. - - David Proctor - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:07 PM I saw them celebrating their win rather boisterously. The exact equipment used is besides the point. That’s pretty standard in baseball. You’re making an issue about nothing - - 6ID20 - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:12 PM So what have we learned about this team after 16 games? That slow start and stuff in 2013, not Davey’s fault. - - David Proctor - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:17 PM I said that in 2013. Davey never should’ve been scapegoated by the fanbase. - - 6ID20 - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:45 PM Careful. Back-patting frowned upon here. - - - RickH - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:46 PM Not a great night for my first game of the season … but still enjoyed being down there. - - npb99 - Apr 18, 2014 at 12:03 AM I bought tickets for tomorrow’s game when it was 4-0 tonight, and my family was telling me to stop cursing at the t.v. I’m frustrated with this team, but still believe in them. - - Natsfool - Apr 17, 2014 at 11:59 PM Have they taken a series from the Cards, Braves, and Dodgers since Game 5? I don’t think they can beat these teams. But it’s both mental and inferior talent. - - - habs3 - Apr 18, 2014 at 7:19 AM I think Taylor’s audition is over. You can toss the chewing tobacco, late arrival home, excuses aside. This team over 16 games has shown that it is a poor fielding team. This team either lacks skill or is not focused. Whatever the reason they are going down the same path as the as the 2013 version . I do not want to hear the “its still early” BS. That reasoning did not work last year and it will not work this year. This team is mentally weak. - - therealjohnc - Apr 18, 2014 at 10:18 AM I thought Taylor Jordan was OK last night. Not great, but OK. He didn’t give up a lot of hard contact, but the contact he gave up either resulted in cheap hits (Peralta’s floating, lob toss double that hit just inside the LF line; another floater just over Desmond’s glove) or circus music from the defense. It wasn’t just the errors; there were so many bad plays that weren’t even scored as errors. On Peralta’s double, Harper made a bullet throw out of the corner that Espinosa fumbled on what would have been a bang-bang play at second. No one has even mentioned Desmond having a “Hamlet” moment on a grounder in the hole (by Wainwright, of all people) with a runner on first. Desmond goes to his backhand, picks it, and: thinks about throwing to second, doesn’t; thinks about throwing to first; doesn’t; and finally checks to see if the runner from first overran second, which he hadn’t. And so Desmond ended up just standing there holding onto a fairly routine grounder off the bat of the opposing pitcher. Somehow that ended up being scored as a hit. That’s not Jordan’s fault. If his team (including Taylor Jordan fielding his position) had played defense behind him, we’re talking about a hard luck loss (say 2-0) loss. With a bit more luck on batted balls in play, it would have been a tight, tense scoreless affair and who knows what happens next? But alas, the circus music came to Nats Town

254 F.3d 644 (7th Cir. 2001) DANA HOFFMAN-DOMBROWSKI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ARLINGTON INTERNATIONAL RACECOURSE, INC., Defendant-Appellee. No. 00-1678 In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Argued January 8, 2001 Decided June 19, 2001 Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 98 C 1525--James H. Alesia, Judge. Before Posner, Manion, and Kanne, Circuit Judges. Kanne, Circuit Judge. After being passed over for a promotion and transferred to another facility, plaintiff-appellant, Dana Hoffman-Dombrowski (Dombrowski) filed suit in federal court alleging that her employer, Arlington International Racecourse, Inc., engaged in unlawful sex discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000e, et seq. Arlington moved for summary judgment, and the district court granted the motion. The district court found that the plaintiff failed to show all of the elements necessary to make out a prima facie case on either claim. We agree with the district court's conclusion; therefore, we affirm. I. History Arlington operates Arlington International Racecourse, a horse racing facility located in Arlington Heights, Illinois. In addition to the live meet, Arlington also owns and operates several inter-track wagering ("ITW") and off- track betting ("OTB") facilities where customers can place wagers on races run at Arlington and other racetracks. The largest of these facilities, Trackside, is an ITW located next door to the live meet in Arlington Heights. Dombrowski began working part-time for Arlington in 1980 while she was still in high school. In 1982, Dombrowski accepted a full time position at Trackside working information windows. Between 1983 and 1995, she held various positions at Arlington's live meet and at Trackside including assistant money room head, floor supervisor, assistant mutuel1 manager, auditor, and head trainer. In 1995, Dombrowski was named Trackside's building manager. As building manager, Dombrowski was given full authority to hire, fire, and discipline the managers in the mutuel department as well as the mutuel clerks. She was also given respon sibility over the money room. According to Dombrowski, she accepted this transfer, which included a $17,000 pay cut, in exchange for a promise that she would be named the general manager of that facility at some unspecified time in the future. In early 1996, the acting general manager of Trackside, Ed Jamison, asked plaintiff to apply for a vacant general manager position at one of Arlington's OTB facilities, Waukegan OTB. Plaintiff declined to apply, stating that she would wait for a promotion at Trackside. In June of 1996, Dombrowski became one of three assistant managers at Trackside. That same month, Scott Lager was hired for the position that Dombrowski claims she was promised--general manager of Trackside. Dombrowski was angered by this, and felt that she had been passed over for the position because of her sex. She spoke with Arlington's human resources manager, Linda Kica, as well as Arlington's Vice-President of Off-Track Operations, Jim Stumpf, to express her concern that she was being treated unfavorably because of her sex. During Dombrowski's conversation with Stumpf, he allegedly told her that she would never be promoted because Mr. Duchossois (the owner of Arlington) does not promote women. Kica reportedly advised Dombrowski to think twice about complaining to upper management because that would be a "career decision." Ignoring Kica's advice, Dombrowski proceeded to meet with Arlington CEO Scott Mordell. In the course of the meeting, Mordell allegedly promised Dombrowski that if she agreed to train Lager, who did not have prior experience in mutuel wagering, she would be named assistant general manager of Trackside. At the time of this conversation, Arlington did not employ an assistant general manager at Trackside-- it was the only off-track facility without an employee in this position. Dombrowski proceeded to train Lager in all facets of his position, but she was not named to the position of assistant general manager of Trackside. Instead, she claims, she was forced to endure numerous instances of unfair and discriminatory treatment. Dombrowski claims that Lager purposefully changed her schedule so that it would be impossible for her to drop her children off at daycare and still make it to work on time. She also claims that Lager called her a "vindictive manager" and encouraged her to meet Stumpf for drinks if she wanted her career to change. Dombrowski also states that Stumpf made it a practice of having drinks at Trackside and on numerous occasions insinuated that her ability to advance at Arlington was dependent on whether or not she began a romantic relationship with him. Dombrowski also contends that Arlington targeted her by secretly videotaping the manager's office. On September 5, 1997, a written warning was issued to Dombrowski after she was caught on video allowing unauthorized persons into the office area at Trackside. This warning came six months after Lager circulated a memorandum to all managers informing them that only Arlington employees were allowed in the office areas. Dombrowski admits that she violated the policy, but she claims that she should not have been disciplined because the practice of allowing "VIP" customers into the office area was tacitly approved by management. Shortly thereafter, Arlington announced its intention not to participate in the 1998 live racing season and to indefinitely close Arlington International Racecourse. Accordingly, Arlington reduced its workforce from 400 to 250 employees and transferred several managers from the live meet to Trackside. Two Trackside managers, including Dombrowski, were transferred to other OTB facilities. Dombrowski learned of her transfer on October 15, 1997 during a meeting with Kica, Lager, and Stumpf. During that meeting, Dombrowski was presented with a memo informing her that she was to be transferred to Waukegan OTB as an assistant manager. Angered and surprised by this news, Dombrowski told Lager that he was incompetent and that he would be nothing without her. Lager responded by telling Dombrowski that she had already been replaced and that her career at Trackside was over. He also told her that if she didn't like being transferred that she should just quit. On the same day that plaintiff was instructed to report to Waukegan OTB, Arlington named Dan Majchrzak, the former assistant manager of mutuels at the live meet, to the newly created position of assistant general manager at Trackside. According to Arlington, the creation of this position was necessitated by the reconfiguration of the business that resulted from the live meet closure. Dombrowski's transfer to Waukegan did not affect her title or compensation. In fact, she earns more than both Waukegan's general manager and assistant generalmanager, and is the highest paid assistant manager at Arlington. Nonetheless, Dombrowski feels that the transfer to Waukegan OTB is a step down because her responsibilities have been greatly reduced and Waukegan is a "small, dirty, roach infested facility so crime ridden that guards and police officers must escort her to her car in the evening." Dombrowski claims that defendants hoped that she would quit rather than accept the transfer to the Waukegan facility. Dombrowski is now one of four assistant managers at Waukegan OTB. The parties vigorously dispute whether Dombrowski's responsibilities decreased as a result of her transfer, but she claims that she went from preparing the mutuel budget and payroll and staffing hundreds of clerks to scheduling one part time and four full time clerks. Now, she claims, her biggest responsibility is emptying lottery machines three times a week. On November 12, 1997, Dombrowski again met with Mordell to express her feeling that she was transferred because of her sex. Mordell denied this and told her that the transfer would be good for her career at Arlington because working at a different facility would allow her to see the big picture of Arlington's operation. Dombrowski claims that shortly after this meeting, her father and sister, both Arlington employees, were subjected to adverse employment actions. In March 1998, plaintiff filed suit in federal court alleging that she was the victim of sex discrimination as well as retaliation for reporting sex discrimination. Arlington moved to dismiss certain portions of plaintiff's complaint as time-barred. The district court granted the motion and issued an order specifically limiting plaintiff's claims to conduct occurring after February 6, 1997.2 On February 14, 2000, the district court granted summary judgment for Arlington on Dombrowski's discrimination and retaliation claims. The district court found that Dombrowski failed to make out a prima facie case on either claim, and that even if she had been able to, that Arlington had articulated a non-pretextual business reason for its actions. II. Analysis A. Standard of Review We review de novo the district court's decision to grant summary judgment for Arlington, viewing the evidence and drawing all inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. See Oest v. Ill. Dept. of Corr., 240 F.3d 605, 610 ). A disputed fact is only material if it "might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S. Ct. 2505, 91 L. Ed. 2d 202 (1986). B. Sex Discrimination As we know, of course, Title VII makes it unlawful to discriminate against an employee because of her sex. See 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000e-2(a)(1). Dombrowski advances two claims of sex discrimination. She argues that Arlington violated Title VII both by failing to promote her to assistant general manager of Trackside3 and also by transferring her to Waukegan OTB. An employee alleging sex discrimination may prove her claim either directly or indirectly. See Oest, 240 F.3d at 611 (7th Cir. 2001). Dombrowski has not presented evidence of discrimination using the direct method for either of the challenged actions, therefore she must proceed using the burden-shifting method articulated in McDonnell Douglas Corp v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-05, 93 S. Ct. 1817, 36 L. Ed. 2d. 668 (1973). See O'Regan v. Arbitration Forums, Inc., 246 F.3d 975, 983 (7th Cir. 2001). To show discrimination indirectly, Dombrowski must first make out a prima facie case by showing the following: (1) she is a member of a protected class; (2) she was performing her job in a satisfactory manner; (3) she was subjected to an adverse employment action; and (4) similarly situated employees were treated more favorably. See Russell v. Bd. of Trs. of the Univ. of Ill., 243 F.3d 336, 341 (7th Cir. 2001). Once she has done so, the burden shifts to the defendant to put forth a legitimate, non- discriminatory business reason for the challenged action. See id. If the defendant meets this burden, the burden then shifts back to the plaintiff to show that the articulated reason is pretextual. See id. Arlington does not dispute that Dombrowski has properly shown the first two elements of her prima facie case with respect to both of the actions she challenges here. Nor does Arlington dispute that Dombrowski has met the third requirement--that she was subjected to an adverse employment action--with respect to the denial of promotion claim. Arlington maintains, however, that Dombrowski's transfer to Waukegan OTB was not adverse because it was a lateral move that did not affect her salary, benefits, or job title. Arlington is correct that "not everything that makes an employee unhappy" will suffice to meet the adverse action requirement. Smart v. Ball State Univ., 89 F.3d 437, 441 (7th Cir. 1996). Our cases provide, however, that anostensibly lateral transfer may be an adverse employment action in some situations if it is accompanied by a "dramatic downward shift in skill level required to perform job responsibilities." Dahm v. Flynn, 60 F.3d 253, 257 (7th Cir. 1994); see also Fortier v. Ameritech Mobile Communications, Inc., 161 F.3d 1106, 1112 n.7 (7th Cir. 1998). Dombrowski claims that her job responsibilities were indeed severely diminished. The district court found that Dombrowski had put forth sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether or not her transfer constituted an adverse employment action. We agree. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Dombrowski, as we must, we find that a rational jury could find that her responsibilities were diminished to such an extent that she suffered an adverse employment action. Therefore, we agree with the district court that, for the purposes of summary judgment, Dombrowski has met the third requirement of her prima facie case for the discriminatory transfer claim. Dombrowski has not, however, met the fourth element of her prima facie case for either of the challenged actions because she has not named a similarly situated male that was treated more favorably. Dombrowski does not even attempt to identify any similarly situated male with regard to her transfer claim. With respect to the denial of promotion claim, Dombrowski argues that Dan Majchrzak, the individual appointed to be assistant general manager of Trackside, is a similarly situated male who was treated more favorably. Although Majchrzak did receive the position that Dombrowski wanted, he was not similarly situated to Dombrowski at the time of his promotion. Dombrowski and Majchrzak were not similarly situated because they did not hold the same or equivalent positions at the time that Arlington decided to promote Majchrzak to the position of assistant general manager at Trackside. See Radue v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 219 F.3d 612, 618 (7th Cir. 2000) (explaining that an employee must show substantial similarity in order to meet the similarly situated requirement). At that point, Dombrowski was an assistant manager at Trackside while Majchrzak was employed as the assistant director of mutuels. Arlington submits that Majchrzak's move from his previous position to assistant general manager of Trackside was a lateral move, while it would have unquestionably been a promotion for Dombrowski. Dombrowski has not come forward with any evidence to rebut this contention. Instead, she argues that she was entitled to the promotion because she had more seniority than Majchrzak and Arlington's personnel policy provides that seniority will be the determining factor between two roughly equivalent candidates. This argument fails, however, because the personnel policy only comes into play if the candidates are equivalent, and as we have just stated, Majchrzak held a higher level position than Dombrowski. Instead of naming a similarly situated male, Dombrowski attempts to satisfy the fourth requirement of the prima facie case by pointing out that from September to November 1997, there were approximately equal numbers of male and female assistant managers, but a disproportionately greater number of male assistant general managers and general managers. Although evidence of a glass ceiling might be appropriate circumstantial evidence of discrimination under the direct-proof method, it does not satisfy the similarly situated prong. Moreover, such an argument would require more than a bare recitation of the numbers of males and females in various positions. See Radue, 219 F.3d at 616-17 (stating that "[s]tatistical evidence which fails to properly take into account nondiscriminatory explanations does not permit an inference of discrimination"). Dombrowski has not shown that she was treated less favorably than any similarly situated male employee. Even assuming, arguendo, that Dombrowski had met all of the requirements of the prima facie case, Arlington has presented a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for transferring her to Waukegan OTB and for declining to promote her to the position of assistant general manager at Trackside. According to Arlington, the actions of which Dombrowski complains are a result of the reorganization that occurred once the decision was made to suspend live racing indefinitely. It is undisputed that following this decision, Arlington was forced to reduce its workforce from 400 to 250 employees. Arlington also contends that the need to create the assistant general manager position at Trackside did not arise until the closure of the live meet. At that point, Arlington claims that additional supervisors were needed at Trackside because the OTBs and ITWs were to become the mainstay of Arlington's business. Arlington also states that its decision to name Majchrzak to that position was a result of its desire to retain a core group of management employees in the event that live racing was resumed in the future. Majchrzak was one of about five managers who were transferred from the live meet to Trackside. Arlington also maintains that plaintiff and the other Trackside assistant manager were transferred to other locations to make room for the incoming managers at Trackside and to provide new energy and leadership to other facilities. Arlington has presented a legitimate, non- discriminatory reason for the challenged actions, thus the burden shifts back to Dombrowski to show that the articulated reason is pretextual. To show pretext, Dombrowski must demonstrate that Arlington's explanation for either the denial of promotion or the transfer (1) has no basis in fact, (2) was not the real reason, or (3) was insufficient to motivate the action. See Velasco v. Ill. Dep't of Human Servs., 246 F.3d 1010, 1017 (7th Cir. 2001). Dombrowski first argues that Arlington's explanation is pretextual because of the comments that Lager made to her after she was informed of her transfer. She cites Lager's statement that her career was over and that she had already been replaced as evidence that she was not really being transferred to share her expertise with the employees at Waukegan OTB. We find it doubtful that these comments, made in response to Dombrowski's personal attacks on Lager's ability to run Trackside, would be sufficient to convince a factfinder that Arlington's cited reason for the transfer is not the real reason. We need not decide if plaintiff has presented enough evidence to raise a genuine issue of material fact on this issue, however, because Dombrowski has not presented any evidence suggesting pretext with respect to Arlington's claim that the indefinite closure of the live meet necessitated transferring her to a different facility. See Debs v. N.E. Ill. Univ., 153 F.3d 390, 395 (7th Cir. 1998) ("Where defendants have proffered more than one reason for the dismissal, plaintiff must address all the reasons suggested by the defendants."). Dombrowski argues that reorganization was unnecessary because the live meet closed for several months every year. As the district court observed, however, there is a notable difference between having a few off- season months per year and having no live racing at all. Dombrowski has not provided any evidence tending to show that the reorganization was not Arlington's real reason for deciding to promote Majchrzak to the position of assistant general manager and transferring Dombrowski to the Waukegan facility. Therefore, we find that the district court appropriately granted summary judgment for Arlington on Dombrowski's sex discrimination claims. C. Retaliation In addition to her disparate treatment claims, Dombrowski also alleges that she was denied the promotion to assistant general manager and transferred to the Waukegan facility because of her June 1996 meetings with Mordell, Kica, and Stumpf in which she complained of sex discrimination.4 Under Title VII, employers are prohibited from discriminating "against any . . . employee . . . because [s]he . . . has opposed any practice made an unlawful em ployment practice by [Title VII]." 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000e-3(a). In order to prove a claim of retaliation, a plaintiff must either present direct evidence of retaliation or utilize a burden-shifting approach. See Fyfe v. City of Fort Wayne, 241 F.3d 597, 601 (7th Cir. 2001). If the plaintiff does not have sufficient evidence to employ the direct-proof method, she may make out a prima facie case by showing that: (1) she engaged in protected expression; (2) she suffered an adverse job action; and (3) there is a causal link between the protected expression and the adverse job action. See Krause v. City of LaCrosse, 246 F.3d 995, 1000 (7th Cir. 2001). But see Bourbon v. Kmart Corp., 223 F.3d 469, 477 (7th Cir. 2000) (Posner, J., concurring) (suggesting that requiring proof of a causal connection in retaliation cases is inconsistent with a McDonnell Douglas- type burden-shifting analysis). As in the context of a disparate treatment claim, fulfillment of the prima facie case shifts the burden to the defendant to articulate a non-retaliatory action for the challenged action. If the defendant does provide a legitimate explanation, the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to show evidence that the proffered reason is pretextual. See Russell v. Bd. of Trs. of the Univ. of Ill., 243 F.3d 336, 344 (7th Cir. 2001). Dombrowski has not shown direct evidence of retaliation,5 therefore she must proceed using the burden-shifting method. For the purposes of summary judgment, we will assume that Dombrowski has met the first two requirements of the prima facie case. The district court found, however, that Dombrowski's retaliation claim failed at the third prong because she could not show a causal connection between her complaint of sex discrimination and either of the adverse job actions because of the thirteen month period between the protected expression and the adverse action. Dombrowski complained of sex discrimination in June of 1996, yet she was not transferred or denied the promotion to assistant general manager until October of 1997. We agree with the district court. "In order to establish a causal connection via mere temporal proximity, the employer's adverse action must follow fairly soon after the employee's protected conduct." Fyfe, 241 F.3d at 603. Dombrowski argues that thirteen months is not the relevant time period because the retaliation began before she was denied the promotion or transferred to the Waukegan facility. She argues that Lager began retaliating against her immediately after she complained about sex discrimination by changing her schedule, secretly videotaping her, giving her a warning for allowing unauthorized persons in the manager's office, and encouraging her to spend more time with Stumpf. None of these actions are sufficient to sustain a retaliation claim, however, because they are not materially adverse actions. See Crady v. Liberty Nat'l Bank & Trust Co. of Ind., 993 F.2d 132, 136 (7th Cir. 1993) (stating that an action must be more than "a mere inconvenience or an alteration of job responsibilities" in order to constitute an adverse employment action). Even if Dombrowski had met all of the requirements of a prima facie case of retaliation, her claim would still fail, because, as we discussed in Part II. B, Arlington has provided legitimate business reasons for deciding not to promote Dombrowski to the assistant general manager position and for transferring her to Waukegan. She has not provided evidence showing that the proffered reasons are pretextual. Therefore, we find that the district court correctly granted summary judgment for Arlington on plaintiff's Title VII retaliation claim. III. Conclusion We find that Dombrowski has failed to establish a prima facie case on either her disparate treatment claim or her retaliation claim. Therefore, we AFFIRM the decision of the district court. Notes: "Mutuel" is a shortened form of the word "pari- mutuel" which refers to a system of wagering in which customers who bet on the winner share the total stakes less a small percentage taken by the management. Because the district court ruled that Dombrowski may not pursue relief for conduct occurring before February 6, 1997, Dombrowski is limited to challenging Arlington's October 1997 denial of promotion--the promotion to the assistant general manager position. Thus, Dombrowski may not challenge Arlington's June 1996 decision to hire Lager as the general manager of Trackside. Evidence relating to that action, such as Stumpf's comment that "Mr. Duchossois does not promote women," is therefore inadmissible. Dombrowski also appears to complain that Arling- ton retaliated against two of her family members who were employed at Arlington, but she has waived this argument by failing to fully address it. See Goren v. New Vision Int'l., Inc., 156 F.3d 721, 726-27 n.2 (7th Cir. 1998).

- Team-Building: a guide to universal stall. - Hi, I'm vashta, and this is the universal stall team-building guide. This hopefully goes over the general rules that stall teams should adhere to, how they can be used, and all the other things you'd expect. - With regard to the actual team-building process, not much can be written due to the fact that you can only construct a team of your preference then look at the team through process of trial and elimination -- as this is also a universal guide, writing a generic guide would seem much more preferable than writing three separate ones overlooking team-building process for each tier -- it saves space. - Who wrote what? Well, I wrote all generic theory and OU work; Bloo wrote Uber-related stuff (with Blissey's Uber description written by Jibaku); Eo Ut Mortus wrote all UU stuff, with the input of august's old work, completely revamped and rewritten -- much appreciated, guys! - Proofreads and opinions are appreciated. It's the first project co-ordinated by myself, so I hope it's not a major disappointment, lol. - Also, with regards to othe team-building articles: offense should be done by new year's (though this time of year is busy), and balanced should be done soon afterwards. - Things to add: - -- "Win Condition" (won't actually use that phrase, but you get the idea) - __________________________________________________ __________ - Team Building: a guide to universal stall. - Table of Contents - What is Stall? - Stall-Based Balanced - Responsibilities to Consider - Cleric - Dominant Physical Wall - Dominant Special Wall - Pseudo-Hazer (pHazer) - Spiker - Rapid Spin Blocker - Status Absorber - Status Inflictors - Team-Building Process - Example Teams - OU - Ubers - UU - Battle Strategy - ___ ___ ___ - What is Stall? - Stall is one of the three main playstyles in competitive battling. As opposed to "balanced" and "offensive" play, both of which generally use direct damage to defeat the opponents, stall primarily utilizes residual damage. This damage can come in the form of two categories: weather (usually in the form of hail or sandstorm), and entry hazards (Stealth Rock, Spikes, and Toxic Spikes). Most of these Pokémon use solid defenses that allows them to force switches, building up residual damage. - Stall teams are often misinterpreted as teams that “counter every Pokémon known to man”—this is not the case; stall teams often rely on strategic movements that can beat the metagame indirectly, leading to the defeat of threats, more often than not, through the dominance of entry hazards. However, this isn’t always true, as one will often have to handle certain threats with certain "counters" because residual damage may not be the best way to handle a specific threat. - Tactics in stall mainly centralize around entry hazards and rely on one's ability to think ahead of opponents, forcing them into preferable situations, and from there, analyzing an opponent's style of play and team through systematic switches, known as "scouting". Through scouting, one is able to make informed decisions that can become the basis for other moves made throughout the course of the match—ultimately giving one the upper-hand. Tactics based around entry hazards themselves often include the use of Ghost-types’ immunity to Rapid Spin to block its secondary effect of eliminating entry hazards, and pseudo-Hazing ("pHazing"), forcing the build up of residual damage with moves such as Perish Song, Roar, and Whirlwind. - There are two main categories of stall: heavy and mild (the latter often referred to as stall-based balance). One may view heavy stall as a genre of team that consists solely of six Pokémon that contribute the various forms of residual damage. These six Pokémon are usually defensively-based to add to the pressure that opponents face when engaging stall teams in battle. With this element, they can potentially force switches, while trying to avoid conceiving too much residual damage while dealing with a team as quickly and efficiently as possible. Mild stall, on the other hand, may consist of various bulky Pokémon that utilize entry hazards to weaken foes enough to allow a set up sweeper(s) or revenge killer(s) to come into play, unexpectedly, and clear weakened opposition with little-or-no hesitation. Though there may be two variations of stall, they both follow the same primary principle: “to utilize the concept of strategic movements that can beat the metagame indirectly”. Regardless of whichever variation of stall one decides to use, one should always keep this in mind, as this determines the potential success or failure of a hopeful stall-based team. - In this guide, one will be directed to the various roles that Pokémon in stall-based teams can play to contribute to the success of the whole team, example Pokémon that can utilize these functions, and what sort of strategies a stall team may put into practice. One will also be taken through the construction of an example stall team to give an idea of what generic stall teams look like and how the finished job works—all to help one visualize a stall team. - _________________________ - Stall-Based Balanced - Similarly to generic "heavy stall" teams, stall-based balanced is a recently introduced style of play that has only just gained the interest of many. A lot of the time, people find heavy stall teams “boring” due to the length of time that it takes to wear down opponents with minimal assaults; however, with stall-based balanced teams, this is not always the case, as they don't always focus on this aspect. Stall-based balanced can come in two forms: revenge-based stall and late-game sweeper-based stall; revenge-based stall usually relies on entry hazards and bulk between Pokémon to accumulate damage throughout the game, while also being able to maintain a particular sense of offense through the continual threat of a revenge killer removing foes at the same time. These types of stall-based balanced teams often have some form of mid-game stat-up sweeper to accompany their entry hazards by increasing damage incurred by pressured foes. Late-game sweeper-stall, on the other hand, works in a way that uses entry hazards and bulk to beat opposing teams' infrastructure and any chance they may have of hindering a potential late-game sweep. In effect, these teams base themselves around defeating potential threats to a selected sweeper through their own direct counter-strikes and abuse of entry hazards. A revenge killer may be included within the team to support the late-game sweeper and help cover up any weaknesses and problems that may pose threatening (similarly to how mid-game sweepers support revenge killers in revenge-based stall). - Stall-based balanced teams, when under construction, still follow the basic guidelines that a heavy stall team would, and work similarly to them in battle, too, but one may notice that they are more centralized around specific types of Pokémon themselves and not entry hazards. As a whole, teams of this nature are usually faster than normal stall teams due to the aforementioned descriptions of these types of teams. Because of this added speed, stall-based balanced teams have a slight advantage over their slower counterparts; thanks to this, they usually have a strategy to prevent opposing entry hazard-based teams by Taunting foes and preventing them from setting up, for example—which, in turn, frees up time for the home side, giving it more time to fully establish itself in battle. - Examples of these types of teams can be found in the RMT Archive; such as "Rose Tyler," "Rotom, CHARGE," and "Team of Torment" which are prime examples of where entry hazards are utilized to achieve a "sweep" of some kind. - __________________________ - Responsibilities to Consider - When making a stall team, one should always remember the team's goal: build up passive damage to indirectly defeat the opponent. Team members should be selected on a basis of how they will carry out the overall team plan and not purely to counter a specific threat. The following list outlines basic "roles" and "responsibilities" that can be incorporated into a stall team, along with a description of how they can be used. Remember, however, these aren't requirements; they are only guidelines. The given Pokémon not only achieve their highlighted goals, but they can also perform other duties; with this in mind, one should always open their mind to the vast possibilities that a Pokémon may have—and shouldn't think narrow-mindedly—thinking this way will cause the team to be based around individual Pokémon, and one will most likely find oneself trying to fit too many Pokémon on a team. - Cleric - Having your Pokémon riddled with status effects can hinder, or even completely prevent, them from accomplishing a set task. Statuses play a tremendous role in competitive battling, and for good reason. Status effects can lower stats, deprive one of useful turns, or even damage Pokémon over time, which greatly hinders their ability to do their respective jobs and take direct damage from attacks. For the aforementioned reasons, a cleric, a Pokémon who can rid the team of status, is useful to stall teams. Often on stall teams, one will see a Pokémon who carries the move Rest, coupled with a Pokémon who knows the move Heal Bell or Aromatherapy. This is a classic combination that allows the Pokémon who used Rest, to get away with either zero or one turn(s) of sleep, rather than two; two turns of sleep is long enough for an opponent to set up and end the game depending on the situation at hand. Clerics are usually used on stall teams only if the team has no means of dealing with status that could wear down individual Pokémon, such as burn and poison. An opponent can stall out an effected Pokemon with these statuses or use them as an opportunity to set up. - OU - Celebi - Heal Bell works similarly to Blissey’s Aromatherapy—but fails to work on Pokémon with the ability Soundproof—healing the status problems of teammates, and like Blissey, due to Celebi’s Natural Cure, it can easily act as a temporary status absorber until it switches out and its status problems healed. With equal base defensive stats at 100 and a base HP stat of 100, and its decent Grass / Psychic typing, Celebi makes the ideal physical- or special-based wall; however, due to its ability to effectively counter one of the most prominent threats in the metagame, Gyarados, and other bulky Water-, Ground-, and most Rock-type Pokémon, Celebi is, more often than not, seen as a physical-based wall. Similarly to Blissey, Celebi boasts a variety of moves that shape its role on a team: Thunder Wave’s ability to induce paralysis on faster foes often to act as compensation for stall teams as the majority lack the Speed needed to beat foes in one-on-one situations. - Celebi is also a viable user of the pHazing role with the move Perish Song—with this, Celebi effectively forces Pokémon that may set up with a possibly unbreakable Substitute, or Pokémon on Baton Pass teams who utilize Ingrain, which nullifies Roar and Whirlwind’s effects, but cannot bypass Perish Song, and ultimately causes the possible build up of more residual damage to opposing teams. Leech Seed is another method of pHazing of forcing out opposing users, that lack reliable recovery, as it gradually drains health and replenishes Celebi’s. - Other notable Pokémon: Blissey. - Ubers - Blissey - As one of the only viable clerics in Ubers, and access to Aromatherapy, Blissey easily takes the position of the team’s Cleric, eradicating of any status ailments that are common such as poison, and aiding those users of Rest who are forced to make uncertain moves for two turns. Thanks to Blissey's Natural Cure ability, it is able to do its job as a cleric (an uncommon theme in Ubers), and escape unscathed from these status problems as it switches-out. - UU - Altaria - Altaria's interesting defensive typing is a godsend in UU. It resists the extremely common Water-, Fire-, Fighting-, and Grass-type attacks and is immune to Ground attacks. This combined with 70 / 90 / 105 defenses and Roost means that Altaria is one of the only safe switch-ins to mixed Blaziken and Magmortar, both huge threats to stall teams. It also has a decent support movepool, with Roar, Perish Song, and Haze available for dealing with stat boosters, and with Heal Bell for eliminating status. To round it off, Altaria's ability, Natural Cure, ensures that status is usually never a long term problem, which is a great asset for a defensive Pokemon. - Other notable Pokémon: Chansey, Miltank, Umbreon and Uxie. - ___ ___ ___ - Dominant Physical Wall - Usually, a physical wall aims to come in on physical attacks; however, having the ability to switch into the odd special-based attack will relieve the stress of having a single Pokémon switch into all special attacks, as this is not always reliable. A wall's physical dominance doesn't mean it should be restricted to taking attacks from just that one side; having a physical wall that can switch in from both sides of the spectrum is key. Being able to switch into various threats and forcing switches, or pHazing them, out is a very important role in terms of stalling. Forcing switches allows the user to gain a turn on the opponent, and helps inflict residual damage on opponents via Stealth Rock, Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and in some cases, weather damage as well. Having access to a reliable method of recovery is a good way to ensure survivability, which is a key for a successful stall team. A dominantly physical wall is a Pokémon who is designed specifically to do most, if not all, of the things mentioned above. - OU - Hippowdon - Hippowdon is the most dominant physical-based wall to be seen in the standard metagame. With a base HP stat of 108, and a base Defense of 118, Hippowdon is capable of walling most physical-based attackers with somewhat minimum effort. Hippowdon's Stealth Rock means that it can lead and set up an entry hazard, contributing to the overall success of the team; having the ability Sand Stream also contributes to the build up of residual damage as Hippowdon is one of three Pokémon (the other two being Tyranitar and Hippopotas) able to create permanent sandstorm. Toxic will cripple opposing Pokémon that require a safe passage to sweep or set up, even more so to those frequent special-attacking switch ins; in tandem with Slack Off, Hippowdon’s Toxic can easily stall foes into submission as Hippowdon can recover most damage incurred. Ice Fang makes Hippowdon the ideal Dragon-type check to Pokémon such as Salamence who would otherwise wreak havoc. Roar makes Hippowdon a great pHazer because of its ability to force switches from physical-based and force special-based sweepers to switch-in; this will be in vein, however, as Hippowdon’s Roar will force a potential counter out of the field and possibly out of the game depending on the HP its loses from residual damage. - Other notable Pokémon: Gliscor, Gyarados, Skarmory and Swampert. - Ubers - Groudon - Groudon, while commonly seen as a physical sweeper, is one of the most prominent physical-based walls to be seen in the Uber metagame. With a gargantuan base Defense stat of 140 and an excellent base HP stat of 100, Groudon is capable of taking a multitude of hits from a variety of physical attackers with ease. With access to Stealth Rock, Groudon can serve as a lead and set up an entry hazard, greatly benefiting its teammates. - With Toxic, Groudon can cripple defensive walls such as Lugia and Cresselia, both of whom love switching-in on Groudon. With the aforementioned Pokémon shut down by Toxic, Pokémon such as Rayquaza will be able to pick them off, as Toxic damage will eventually build up, allowing it to rip them apart with a STAB Outrage. Furthermore, Groudon can utilize Thunder Wave to incapacitate sweepers. Groudon makes an excellent pHazer with Roar. With it, Groduon can pHaze and scout an opponent's team, while whittling down the opponent if Stealth Rock is up. Groudon will force opposing Pokémon to switch out with Roar, forcing your foes to be whittled down, especially when paired up with entry hazards, as these forced switches build up damage consistently. - Other notable Pokémon: Deoxys-D, Dialga, Giratina, and Lugia. - UU - Donphan - Donphan is an excellent Rapid Spinner, setting itself apart from other Rapid Spinners thanks to Roar; much like Claydol sets itself apart with Trick, and Hitmontop with Foresight. With access to Assurance, Donphan can hit every common Rapid Spin blocker in UU for super effective, barring Spiritomb, for quite a large chunk of damage if they were previously harmed or if they are switching in when an entry hazard is on the field. Though it is often overlooked, its 120 base Attack stat, as well as its STAB Earthquake, and access to a variety of physical attacks such as Stone Edge, Fire Fang, Thunder Fang, Assurance, and Ice Shard—all of which will take its toll on whatever decides to switch into Donphan unless it resists its attacks. Donphan also has an excellent support movepool, consisting of Roar, Rapid Spin, and Stealth Rock. Donphan is an excellent pHazer against other stall teams, due to the fact that they cannot afford (and will not risk) losing their own entry hazards so they are forced to go to their Rapid Spin blocker upon Donphan’s entrance onto the field, only to be pHazed out and have up to 37.5% done to a Pokémon that is grounded, taking a huge chunk out of their health. Because of Donphan’s access to a STAB Earthquake and Roar, paired with its good Defense, it is able to act as one of the few Pokémon able to switch into Curse Registeel and 2-3HKO it; however, depending on the amount of boosts Registeel has acquired, Roar is a useful tool to remove it from play and any other common stat up sweepers or tanks. - Other notable Pokémon: Miltank, Nidoqueen, Steelix, and Uxie. - ___ ___ ___ - Dominant Special Wall - Typically, a special wall wants to be able to cover many of the most prominent special attackers. The Pokémon chosen to be the special wall should be able to take hits from the special side very well, but at the same time, have the ability to take the odd physical hit as well. Generally, special walls should be able to keep up with the changing metagame, and be able to take on most, if not all, of the common Pokémon being used. Having access to a recovery move is a great way to ensure that one can have more of a dominating effect on the match, as the Pokémon’s survivability rate is increased. Being able to use status moves is another good trait for a special wall, allowing one to cripple an opponent and minimizing the effect that the particular Pokémon has on the match. With entry hazards in play, having a dominant special wall can accomplish much more than just walling specially-based Pokémon, you can force switches, and thus inflict the incoming Pokémon with damage via the entry hazards. A dominant special wall should generally be able to accomplish most, if not all of the traits mentioned above. - OU - Blissey - Blissey is the most dominant special-based wall to be seen in the standard metagame. With a base HP stat of 255, and a base Special Defense of 135, Blissey is capable of walling most special-based attackers with somewhat minimum effort. Thanks to its access to Aromatherapy, Blissey easily takes the position of the team’s Cleric, eradicating of any status ailments, including Blissey who also utilizes the effect of Natural Cure, curing all status problems when switching out. Stealth Rock access gives Blissey the capability to set up an entry hazard, contributing to the overall success of the team; being able to wall the majority of special attackers makes Blissey a great Pokémon to switch into these Pokémon and possibly force a switch, while setting up at the same time. - Thunder Wave and Toxic cripple opposing Pokémon that require a safe passage to sweep or set up, making Blissey an ideal status inflictor; with paralysis induced by the use of Thunder Wave, stalling becomes much more easier, and grants the rest of the team, including Blissey who may otherwise lack the Speed needed to compete against certain, more offensive Pokémon, the capability to outspeed and thus attack or set up successfully. - The move Wish automatically gives Blissey the role of a HP cleric for itself and certain members of a team that may lack reliable methods of recovery. Being so dominant in the special side of the walling spectrum, Blissey can easily switch into most special attacks directed at a physical wall who may be incapable of taking the attack, use Wish as the opposition may switch to a physical attacker, and switch to a physical wall or any other Pokémon that can take the hit from the attacking Pokémon, healing it immediately. - Other notable Pokémon: Jirachi, Latias, Tyranitar and Zapdos. - Ubers - Blissey - With the omnipresence of special attackers in the Uber metagame, Blissey has become a necessity in Uber stall. Threats like Choice Specs Dialga and Choice Specs Palkia are so absurdly powerful that literally almost every Steel-type Pokémon in the game is 2HKOed by Draco Meteor. However, their insane power is neutered by Blissey, who only takes 44% maximum from Draco Meteor. The most common Blissey in the Uber metagame is the Wish-passing variant, and for a very good reason. Several Pokémon seen in Uber stall, most notably Groudon, Forretress, and Giratina-O lack reliable recovery. With Wish support in the wings, common teammates of Blissey, like Groudon, can keep its health high enough to perhaps survive a Rayquaza’s rampage later in the game. Forretress gains more time to set up entry hazards and sponge Dragon-type attacks such as Outrage and Dragon Claw, while Giratina-O gets more chances to sweep and/or block Rapid Spin. - Toxic provides Blissey with a way to stop Latios and Latias from sweeping the entire team, and helps shorten the life-span of set up sweepers such as Rayquaza and Groudon. Seismic Toss is often Blissey’s attack of choice due to her poor Special Attack stat, dealing consistent base 100 damage to every non-Ghost-type Pokémon. It also helps Blissey take down Taunt + Calm Mind Mewtwo, who could otherwise set up and unleash devastation. However, sometimes Blissey will eschew the reliability of Seismic Toss for coverage. For example, Blissey can use Flamethrower to severely hurt Forretress, who enjoys switching into Blissey on a predicted Toxic and set up more entry hazards. Blissey can use Ice Beam to deal with Garchomp, Groudon, and Rayquaza, while doing some sort of damage to Giratina-O. In the end, though, Seismic Toss is often preferable as Blissey is not left doing pathetic damage to those that resist the special attacks. Blissey alone, however, is not the end-all counter to every special sweeper in the game. Kyogre can deal a whooping 60% to Blissey with Choice Specs Water Spout, while Giratina-O’s immunity to Seismic Toss allows it to use Substitute safely on Blissey and proceed to set up with Calm Mind (the latter can be beaten if Blissey is carrying Calm Mind and Ice Beam, however). Despite these limits, no other Pokémon can fulfill Blissey’s crucial role in Uber stall. - Other notable Pokémon: Deoxys-D and Latias. - UU - Chansey - Much like Blissey in OU, Chansey is the dominant special wall in UU thanks to its enormous base HP and Special Defense stat of 250 and 105, respectively. Chansey's ability, Natural Cure, allows it to escape the grip of status for long-term situations—this again is important for a wall of this magnitude. - Both Thunder Wave or Toxic are more useful than the other in various situations, but keep in mind that Chansey cannot touch Ghost-types without Toxic. Access to Heal Bell and Aromatherapy allows it to rid its teammates of any status ailments, which is crucial in a match up of stall versus stall, in particular. Chansey is arguably the best Wish-passer that UU stall can use, as it can set up Wish even on powerful special attackers, such as Moltres and Alakazam, that other Wish-passers are 2HKOed by. It can even set up Stealth Rock for passive damage, contributing further to the stall team’s overall goal of defeating foes indirectly. - Despite being the most specially defensive Pokémon, Chansey does have some drawbacks. Seismic Toss is Chansey's main form of offense, and while it inflicts consistent, decent damage, it leaves Chansey vulnerable to Ghost-types, even more so if they carry Rest or Substitute. Chansey also struggles against Nasty Plotters such as Houndoom; they can boost their Special Attack to lethal levels before Chansey can finish them off. Calm Mind + Rest Pokémon are troublesome as well, negating any damage from Toxic and Seismic Toss. In short, Chansey excels as an immediate special hit taker, but one must make sure to carry something that has enough power to deal with mid to long term threats. - Other notable Pokémon: Altaria, Claydol, Spiritomb, and Umbreon. - ___ ___ ___ - Pseudo-Hazer (pHazer) - Though the main priority for stall teams is to get entry hazards up as quick as possible—this is often looked upon by foes as an opportunity to set up on the Pokémon attempting to set up. Baton Pass teams are a prime example. To prevent this and a possible sweep, one should preferably incorporate a method of forcing the removal of a set up tactic—this is where a Pokémon utilizing the position of pseudo-Hazer (pHazer) can come in. A pHazer is any Pokémon that uses a move that forcibly switches the opposition to switch, removing any stat or other modifications; the moves Roar and Whirlwind are ideal examples of moves that do exactly this. However, with this said, strategies from teams that revolve around the Baton Pass theme often attempt to prevent this from happening through the move Ingrain—a move that nullifies the effects of Roar and Whirlwind. This particular strategy can be bypassed through the move Perish Song. Perish Song is a move that works similarly to Roar and Whirlwind—after three turns the user and the target Pokémon faint unless they switch—it often causes opponents to switch out of the fear of losing a potentially vital member of their team. Perish Song's most notable use over Roar and Whirlwind is the fact that it can remove last-man Pokémon—the last opposing Pokémon that often utilizes a stat-up + recovery move—as they can cause utter havoc amongst all types of stall teams unable to counter-act this movement. PHazing moves also work well in conjunction with the use of entry hazards, causing the build up of passive damage throughout a team as it is forced to shuffle. - OU - Skarmory - With access to Whirlwind and Roar, Skarmory can act as a pHazer, forcing any set-up Pokémon that may switch-in out of the field thanks to its excellent Defense, and take further damage from the Spikes that Skarmory has set up. Aside from this useful factor, Skarmory is another dominant force to be reckoned with in terms of taking hits from the physical side of the attacking spectrum; with moderate base HP and excellent base Defense, and weaknesses to only Fire- and Electric-type attacks (both of which are common special-based moves as opposed to physical-based), Skarmory can switch into most physical attacks with ease. - Access to both Stealth Rock and Spikes means that Skarmory can switch-in on most physical attackers and set up either, or both, entry hazards with relative ease, meaning Skarmory can act as the ideal spiker. Taunt can also prevent Pokémon that cannot be switched out from setting up, or can just be used over Whirlwind depending on the extent at which you need either move. Toxic can harmfully damage common switch-ins who may be too fast to stop setting up – Pokémon like Gliscor, who may Taunt Skarmory, will hate Toxic as it will shorten its life-span and stalling ability against certain Pokémon including Skarmory itself. Brave Bird hits Pokémon such as Lucario for damage if it is a problem, but this is unreliable; for example, Adamant Lucario with Life Orb will OHKO Skarmory on average with Close Combat after a Swords Dance, and incurred damage from Stealth Rock at least once. - Other notable Pokémon: Celebi, Gyarados, Hippowdon, and Swampert. - Ubers - Lugia - Lugia is one of the best pHazers to be found in the Uber tier. With Whirlwind in conjunction with entry hazards, Lugia will force opponents to shuffle around, causing the build up of passive damage. Additionally, Whirlwind is great at stopping physical attackers that use stat boosting moves. Lugia is sturdy enough to take attacks from the likes of Choice Band Metagross' Meteor Mash or Life Orb Rayquaza's Outrage and can pHaze them away with Whirlwind. With a gargantuan 154 base Special Defense, 130 base Defense, and 106 base HP, Lugia becomes one of the most troublesome Pokemon to take down. With Roost, Lugia becomes more difficult to take down due to its increased durability and enables it to heal any prior damage incurred either by Stealth Rock or opponents' attacks. In addition, Lugia's 110 base Speed allows it to outpace a variety of threats such as Garchomp, Palkia, and Rayquaza. Although Lugia has an excellent base Special Defense, it is predominantly used as a physical wall because of its countering ability of the aforementioned Pokémon, and the fact that Blissey surpasses Lugia more often than not. With Whirlwind, Lugia can shuffleenemy Pokémon, building up entry hazard damage. Additionally, thanks to Forretress' Rapid Spin disposing of Stealth Rock, Lugia no long suffers heavily per switch in; damagethat would otherwise bring Lugia's foes closer to hitting crucial knock-outs. The "BoltBeam" combination of Ice Beam and Thunder causes havoc amongst teams after a single Calm Mind boost, making it not only a defensive threat, but also an offensive threat to be reckoned with. - Other notable Pokémon: Groudon and Skarmory. - UU - Steelix - With its wondrous Steel-typing and 200 base Defense makes Steelix an excellent candidate for a dominant physical wall. Unfortunately for Steelix, two of it's common weaknesses are very prominent physical attacking types, making it harder for itself to dominate as much as it should based on its stats alone. Access to Roar, with its Defense, gives Steelix a solid pHazing tool. A Dark-type resist is always appreciated as well, as very few Pokémon in UU, barring the rather common Hitmontop, are reliable switches into Dark-type attacks. Oddly enough, Steelix is one of very few Pokémon in common UU stall capable of beating Dragon Dance Altaria; because of Altaria's immunity to Spikes, and access to Roost, it can easily set up against slower opponents generally seen on stall teams, and proceed to wreak havoc with a STAB Outrage, but Steelix can come in on Outrage and easily pHaze it out or do a pretty large amount of damage with its STAB Gyro Ball. Steelix has relatively poor Special Defense, so it is wise to invest Special Defense EVs on Steelix before Defense, because even without any EVs, Steelix will have a Defense stat greater than 400, and can still perform duties such as setting up Stealth Rock. Gyro Ball allows Steelix to deal a large amount of damage to faster Pokémon like Mismagius who seem to think they can force Steelix out by threatening it with super effective attacks such as Hidden Power Fighting, for example. - ___ ___ ___ - Spiker - Setting up entry hazards (Stealth Rock, Spikes, and Toxic Spikes) is essential to the overall success of a stall team, as it is the quickest and most effective way of wearing down the opposing team, due to the wide variety of types of damage entry hazards provide. The term “spiker” is a generalization of any Pokémon that has the primary job of setting up a form of entry hazard. Working in tandem with pseudo-Hazers, entry hazards set up by spikers help the build up of passive damage caused by the forced switching of pseudo-Hazing moves. There are various forms of spikes that each depends on a Pokémon’s typing. Some forms of entry hazard are more effective than others, particularly depending on metagame circumstances; for example, in a metagame dominated by Dragon- and Steel-types, the move Toxic Spikes isn’t as effective as a combination of Stealth Rock + Spikes, due to Steel-types and the majority of Dragon-types being immune to Toxic Spikes; this does not rule-out the use of Toxic Spikes, however, as it is still a useful asset for beating opposing stall teams, for example. - OU - Forretress - With only one weakness, 10 resistances, a base HP stat of 75, an above-average 140 base Defense, and access to three forms of entry hazards, Forretress is one the most dominant physical walls in the standard metagame. With access to three types of spikes, and the capability to wall the majority of physically-based attacks, Forretress can single-handedly set up most of a teams entry hazards without much problem. Depending on what one’s team relies on the most, a selection of Stealth Rock, Spikes, or Toxic Spikes can be chosen. In addition to the fact that Forretress can set up most variations of entry hazard, Forretress also has access to the move Rapid Spin. This in itself provides any stall team ability to remove any form of entry hazard that could pose a potential threat to the team; against opposing stall teams, with the use of intelligent moves, Rapid Spin from Forretress could reset the field against the opposition, forcing them to go all-out offensive or try to set up their entry hazards once again; this will cause the build up of residual damage per switch as the opposition is forced to switch from one Pokémon to another to set up or cushion hits. Unfortunately, this can be prevented by the opposition’s use of Ghost-type Pokémon such as Rotom-A to act as effective “Rapid Spin blockers”. Forretress can use the move Payback that deals heavy, super effective damage upon these Ghost-type Pokémon as its own method of removing these Pokémon to help ensure the Rapid Spinning strategy is not nullified. - Other notable Pokémon: Nidoqueen, Skarmory, and Tentacruel. - Ubers - Forretress - Forretress is one of the Uber metagame’s premier spikers. With a multitude of resistances and a great Steel-/Bug-typing, Forretress can switch-in on a wide variety of attacks and commence setting up entry hazards; for example, it can easily set up on Lugia who fails to scratch Forretress with Ice Beam. Toxic Spikes are extremely deadly in Ubers; this is because it inflicts many dangerous threats that lurk in the Uber metagame with poison; these threats include Kyogre, Groudon, Wobbuffet, Garchomp, and Darkrai, all of which trouble Uber stall teams. With Toxic Spikes in play, the aforementioned threats become much more manageable, making it easier to take them down. - Rapid Spin is another extremely helpful move in Ubers, as it allows Forretress to get rid of entry hazard used by the likes of Deoxys-S and opposing Forretress. One of Forretress's most common partners is the Special Defensive behemoth known as Blissey. Groudon is also an imperative part of an Uber stall team, and is thus seen commonly alongside Forretress. This is mostly due to the fact that Bulk Up Dialga can easily set up on Forretress and begin to decimate an Uber stall team. With Groudon, Bulk Up Dialga becomes much eaiser to handle, making it a prime candidate to use with Forretress. Furthermore, Groudon is capable of setting up Stealth Rock, which frees up one of Forretress's moveslots for another attack or utility move such as Spikes. Despite not being used much on Uber stall, Kyogre makes an ideal teammate with Forretress, as it can switch into the Fire-type attacks aimed at Forretress. Finally, Giratina and Giratina-O are excellent Pokemon to use with Forretress, as they block Rapid Spin users from getting rid of the entry hazards Forretress has set up. - Other notable Pokémon: Skarmory. - UU - Omastar - With very few viable spikers in UU stall, Omastar stands out as a “one-in-many” type of Pokémon. Omastar has an outstanding 125 base Defense stat, which allows it to switch in against a lot of physical-attacking Pokémon and begin Spiking. Omastar has an often overlook 115 base Special Attack and STAB Surf as well. Sadly, Omastar does not have access to any recovery moves (bar Rest), and therefore needs to rely on Wish-passing from its teammates to regain health, or support from a cleric's Heal Bell/Aromatherapy. Omastar learns the rather invaluable Toxic Spikes, which as mentioned before, does not have much place in UU stall due to the abundance of Poison-type Pokémon. However, Omastar learns Knock Off, which certainly has merit; Knock Off allows Omastar to scout Choice-users and Knock Off their items, which takes away immediate power from them if they were holding Choice Specs or Choice Band, easing the impact inflicted upon teammates that may come into direct combat with users of these items. Haze is another move that Omastar learns in which enables Omastar to negate boosts from the likes of Calm Mind Spiritomb, Curse Registeel, or any other stat-upper, who can easily switch into Omastar as soon as they are aware of Omastar’s moveset being of supportive purposes. - Other notable Pokémon: Cloyster, Drapion, Froslass, and Nidoqueen. - ___ ___ ___ - Rapid Spin Blocker - Entry hazards play a major role in the success of stall teams, but can be eradicated by the simple method of using the move Rapid Spin which, while attacking the target, removes all forms of spikes / entry hazards from the field. However, as Ghost-type Pokémon are immune to the move Rapid Spin—it's side-effects of removing all forms of entry hazards are nullified, thus preserving those hazards—these Pokémon are effectively “spin blockers”. Without spin blockers, Rapid Spin effectively undoes the set up of these entry hazards, and forces the user of the entry hazard set to attempt to set up once again, increasing the duration of the match, time in which the opposition can set up and sweep. - OU - Rotom-A - Rotom-A has replaced its rival Ghost-type Pokémon as the primary Rapid Spin blocker thanks to its widened movepool; with access to Air Slash, Blizzard, Hydro Pump, Leaf Storm, or Overheat, depending on what forme of Rotom-A is being used. This variety of attacks no longer restricts Rotom-A to the same extent as other Ghost-types with regards to having trouble with certain typed Pokémon such as Scizor. With its unique typing of Ghost and Electric, access to Levitate, only to be complemented by its base HP of 50, and above-average defenses of 107, Rotom-A makes the perfect addition on any team. Though Rotom-A may boast good defenses, it lacks a reliable form of recovery. Because of this, Rotom-A can optionally fulfill the role of status absorbing RestTalker as it can take hits from both sides of the attacking spectrum, and benefits largely from the recovery aspect of the move-combination. Rotom-A’s access to Thunder Wave and Will-O-Wisp, two of the most dominant status-inflicting moves in the metagame (being able to shut down sweepers in an instant) means that it can easily utilize the role of status absorber with either one or both attacks; though one may rely upon Rotom-A as a status absorber and status inflictor, Rotom-A can utilize its STAB Discharge and Will-O-Wisp, being able to attack foes with a 30% chance of paralysis, or hitting some foes with Will-O-Wisp without nullifying its ability to strike foes back. - Other notable Pokémon: Spiritomb. - Ubers - Giratina-O - Giratina-O is no slouch in the offensive department either, sporting base 120 Attack and Special Attack. It can attack from either side of the spectrum with a powerful STAB Draco Meteor on the special side, or STAB Outrage on the physical side. Using Hidden Power Fire, Giratina-O can reliably destroy Forretress who might be tempted to stay in and hurt it with Payback. Unlike with other Ghost-types in the game, Giratina-O’s Shadow Sneak is quite powerful and aids in revenging weakened Pokémon. In a metagame littered with Psychic-types, it can do a considerable amount of damage. Thanks to Levitate, Giratina-O avoids taking damage from Spikes and Toxic Spikes. When combined with its monstrous base 150 HP and base 100 in both Defense and Special Defense, and its six resistances and three immunities, Giratina-O has a relatively easy time switching in, despite having no recovery. Further combined with its offensive prowess, Giratina-O also makes an excellent stall breaker, threatening to 2HKO every member in many stall teams as well as keeping entry hazards intact, compounding the pain. These qualities make Giratina-O an excellent Pokémon to use in Uber stall teams. - Other notable Pokémon: Giratina. - UU - Spiritomb - Spiritomb is the premiere Rapid Spin blocker of UU stall; it's excellent defensive typing, lack of weaknesses, three useful immunities, as well as solid defensive stats, are only some of the highlights to Spiritomb’s attributes. Will-O-Wisp aids Spiritomb in being an excellent Rapid Spin blocker as it cripples common Rapid Spinners such as Donphan, Hitmontop, and Sandslash. Though stall is said to lack self-set up (i.e. stat boosting) moves, Calm Mind brings some offense to the table, which is something that is often not prepared for as it is not found much in UU stall. Spiritomb also has Sucker Punch and Pursuit at its disposal; Pursuit is especially helpful because it can remove fleeing Mismagius and Rotom since Chansey has trouble with the Substitute variants of both Pokémon. S Spiritomb's ability, Pressure, is a useful asset by halving the PP of attacks, and aids in stall versus stall situations as it will gradually drain PP from low-PP attacks like Perish Song, common on opposing stall teams that often need to take out Calm Mind Spiritomb. Taunt is another useful tool for Spiritomb as it stops Chansey from healing herself, and prevents Registeel from setting up Curse or using Rest. Taunt breaks down opposing walls and forces switches — these forced switches cause a build up of residual damage when paired with entry hazards. For all it's worth, Spiritomb gets the move Curse to help against last Pokémon stat-uppers such as the aforementioned Curse Registeel, but it comes at a sacrifices of half of Spiritomb's HP each time it is used, therefore, having a method of recovery is always valued, whether it is through Pain Split, Rest, or a teammate’s Wish that has been pseudo-passed to it. - Other notable Pokémon: Mismagius and Rotom. - ___ ___ ___ - Rapid Spinner - Entry hazards are on the field at any one time in a match, and, over time, wear down Pokémon who switch-in the battle, by chipping away at health or inflicting status upon them depending on if the Pokémon is susceptible to the type(s) of entry hazard present. Having a Pokémon who is able to get rid the field of these entry hazards, through the use of Rapid Spin, is always a good precaution to bare in mind to prevent any future problems when setting up with other, potentially prone team members. Ridding the field of entry hazards can be very beneficial as they allow more freedom for switching, and relieve one of the pressures of tricky prediction making. - OU - Starmie - Starmie’s useful Water-/Psychic-typing, base HP of 65, moderate Defense of 85, and vast movepool makes it a viable addition to most stall teams, particularly for the reason that it can effectively counter popular threats such in the form of Infernape and Gyarados thanks to its resistance to their-commonly used-STAB moves, shrugging off any damage with Recover. Starmie’s access to Rapid Spin means that it can deal remove any form of entry hazard and Recover any damage received in the meantime; its ability, Natural Cure, means that even if Starmie came into contact with Toxic Spikes, its affects would wear off on the turn it switches. Starmie's STAB Surf can harm most Rapid Spin blockers, shortening their life-span and eventually allowing Starmie to break through and reset the field. Reflect or Light Screen support from Starmie can benefit Pokémon within a team by allowing them to take hits better from certain potential threats and use that as an opportunity to force them out, finish them off, or set up on them. - Other notable Pokémon: Forretress, Hitmontop and Tentacruel. - Ubers - Forretress - Rapid Spin is an extremely helpful move in Ubers, as it allows Forretress to get rid of entry hazard used by the likes of Deoxys-S, and opposing Forretress. The ability Forretress' Rapid Spin has on opposing entry hazards is that of which is invaluable due to the vast about of Uber Pokémon that are grounded, specifically (such as Blissey, Kyogre, and Darkrai)—this otherwise poses a problem which could lead to the cut-down in the amount of times members in a team can switch between each other, and, depending on susceptability to Toxic Spikes, cut-down the life-span of a Pokémon. As Rapid Spin blockers are an ever-present strategy alongside entry hazards, Payback can cause these Pokémon to lose a chunk of their health at the expense of switching-in on an expected Rapid Spin—this in turn allows Forretress to deal more damage to the opponent or force them to switch-out, potentially enabling it time to set up more variations of entry hazards. - UU - Hitmontop - Hitmontop, as with other Rapid Spinners, has something unique about it, though this certain advantage is perhaps the most monumental of all: access to Foresight, which allows it to hit Ghost-types with Normal- and Fighting-type attacks, meaning there is nothing that can prevent Rapid Spin. Hitmontop can actually take a Shadow Ball fairly well, too, unlike the specially frail Donphan, who can pull the same trick as well with Odor Sleuth. Because of this, stall teams in UU began to utilize two Ghost-types instead of one, solely to keep their entry hazards up against Foresight / Rapid Spin Hitmontop. - Hitmontop's ability, Intimidate, coupled with decent Defense, allows it to switch into constant physical beatings, replenishing its own health with Rest when needed. Hitmontop, in fact, is one of the few common Pokémon in UU that can actually switch into Swords Dance Kabutops, and its aptitude at countering physically-based Pokémon extends to such foes as Aggron, Absol, and Life Orb Clefable, running through each Pokemon with Close Combat. Although most Hitmontop users choose to focus on making Hitmontop more physically defensive, Hitmontop's 110 Base Special Defense is nothing to scoff at; for one, it allows Hitmontop to easily come into Calm Mind Spiritomb, use Foresight, and proceed to 2HKO it with Close Combat, as Spiritomb’s only weakness is exposed. Hitmontop's main problems are its slightly middling Attack and lack of recovery. - Other notable Pokémon: Claydol and Donphan. - ___ ___ __ - Status Absorber - With status having such a tremendous effect on the overall outcome of a game—causing the potential limitations to any job a Pokémon can fulfil, and limiting a Pokémon’s life-span—it’s always a good idea to have some way to deal with it. Similarly to clerics, one could use a status absorber; a Pokémon who is designed specifically to take most forms of status ailments. They can absorb status effects in a few ways: one is through the use of a combination using the moves Rest and Sleep Talk so you can free yourself of the status, and still be of somewhat use through Sleep Talk. Another method, though limiting to an extent as you have to be more selective of your choice of Pokémon, could simply be having a Pokémon that immune to a certain status problem (i.e. Electric-type Pokémon that are able to switch into Thunder Wave). - There aren't specific status absorbers that are always staples throughout stall teams in certain metagames, because most defensively-orientated Pokémon that can utilize Rest and Sleep Talk effectively, can be branded as equivelants in doing their jobs. There are common Pokémon, though, that do use Rest + Sleep Talk; such as Rotom-A in OU, Kyogre in Ubers, and Rotom in UU—all of which are Pokémon that usually lack their own fast method of recovery, but have the defenses to last two turns while sleeping-off any status ailments sustained. - ___ ___ ___ - Status Inflictors - A reliable method to hinder, or even ruin, an opponents Pokémon is to inflict statuses upon them. Having Pokémon that can inflict status upon the opposition is generally a good idea, moves that are certain to cause infliction of status, or moves with a high percentage of status affliction. As stall teams have a specific goal in mind, to defeat foes through the use of entry hazards, status inflictors will help contribute and play a role in accomplishing this. For example, if one decides to use Toxic Spikes to inflict statuses upon Pokémon vulnerable to them, having some sort of status effect to hit the Pokémon that are immune to them is a wise idea to implement as this maximizes the amount of Pokémon that are crippled in any way, shape, or form. Flying-, Poison- and Steel-type Pokémon are both immune to Toxic Spikes / Toxic (for the latter two types at least), so having a move like Will-O-Wisp or Thunder Wave is a good idea to prevent poison-immune Pokémon from reaching their full potential unscathed. - Similarly to status absorbers, there are no such thing as "staple status inflictors," meaning that there is such a wide variety of candidates that can utilize various status-inflicting moves and it all depends on what is needed the most. With that said, however, there are still common users of these moves; Pokémon such as Rotom-A in OU, Mewtwo in Ubers, and Rotom in UU are amongst them. - ____________________ - Team-Building Process - In this section of the guide, one will look at the stages that can be taken when building certain aspects on a stall team, and then how to bring it togther through the process of trial and error. - Firstly, one should establish a brief outline of how the team is to be structured. For example, a small outline could have the following: a dominant physical wall, a dominant special wall, a Rapid Spin blocker, [Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Stealth Rock], a Wish-passer, and a Rapid Spinner. Having an outline in mind is always a useful asset when determining what is wanted on the team, what Pokémon are to use these roles (when looking further into specific features of the outline), and how the team fairs against other common teams and Pokémon.</p> - When evaluating several candidates that could fulfil certain roles/responsibilities, one should compare Pokémon and attempt to narrow down listings through the process of mental trial and error to get the best results. A useful method of displaying the differences and similarities between Pokémon, could be as follows: - [PRODUCTIVE ROLE NAME]: - NAME OF POKÉMON: ([Recovery other than Rest]) - Base HP / Base Defense / Base Special Defense ; [TYPING] - For example: - SPIKES: - Cloyster: () - 50 HP / 180 Def / 45 SpD ; Water/Ice - Forretress: (Pain Split) - 75 HP / 140 Def / 60 SpD ; Steel/Bug - Omastar: () - 70 HP / 125 Def / 70 SpD ; Water/Rock - Skarmory: (Roost) - 65 HP / 140 Def / 70 SpD ; Steel/Flying - In effect, when listing the useful traits of different Pokémon, for example, Spikes candidates, one is able to list different Pokémon, compare their base defensive stats, possible recovery, and their typings. - Obviously, typing is a major asset to any team, particularly stall-based teams as they rely on typing as a primary function to enable them to switch around and wearing down opponents in various different ways. Being able to be aware of opposing strategies, such as trapping strategies, and counter-acting them with the use of defenses and defensive typings is an excellent method of preventing the sudden removal of a team member from the team. Without understanding the usefulness of utilizing typing effectively, one's team will ultimately fail as it lacks basic structure—the loss of one domino from the stack means that the whole thing will fall apart; this is the same for stall teams. One should never forget that maintaining a secure structure (even when one is in the first stages of team-building) and basic synergy between team members is essential to a team's success before any specific details goes into the thought process. - Selecting Spikers - Secondly, one should establish what entry hazards are wanted on the team. Whether it be Spikes, Stealth Rock, or Toxic Spikes, this must be made absolutely clear. For the purpose of this guide, all three of the aforementioned entry hazards are to be used. To determine what Pokémon (single or multiple), one should list what Pokémon can provide specific entry hazards. Though there are several Pokémon that could use these moves, one must be able to identify what Pokémon would be viable for a stall team based on one's own knowledge, thus a rough idea can be drawn-up to help visualize what sort of spiking core is wanted. - When looking for "viable" candidates for using spiking moves, one should never rush into using any old Pokémon, but should always think pratical about how one is to approach: a) setting up entry hazards and b) how the Pokémon can do this, and looking at the pros and cons of each Pokémon. When it comes to setting up entry hazards, one should be aware of the fact that the Pokémon doing so must be able to repeatedly switch into the field at least 2-3 times (if using Toxic Spikes or Spikes), to maximize the effectiveness of entry hazards, and switch-in whenever called upon for other reasons such as if entry hazards have been removed via Rapid Spin (assuming Rapid Spin blockers are not present on the team at a specific time). Being able to switch into and stay in at certain times is absolutely essential: if a Pokémon has the defensive capabilities to stay into multiple moves and switch into them, the more likely it is to set up entry hazards quicker. On the other hand, if a Pokémon is easily forced out of the field because of it's potential weaknesses being a problem which prevents it from switching-into certain moves at times, or the fact that it cannot switch into a variety of moves because it's defensively incapable of doing so, one should review the Pokémon in hand and see if there are any potential fixes to this as the Pokémon selected to do this duty is incapable of setting entry hazards up quickly and effectively without any major issues regarding other aspects of the team. - To maximize the effectiveness of "spike stacking", one should look not only at filling a single Pokémon moveslots with Spikes, Stealth Rock, and Toxic Spikes (something Forretress can do), but should open oneself to the possibility of spreading the amount of of entry hazards put onto a team around between several members of the team. A prime example to this is the combination of Tentacruel (Toxic Spikes) and Skarmory (Spikes), compared to Forretress; both combinations have their own pros and cons; for example, having Tentacruel and Skarmory sharing two primary forms of secondary damage, through entry hazards, enables one to switch between the two and set up much more easily and frequently as the two Pokémon complement each other's typing and their defensive basings (i.e. Skarmory is generally a physically-based Pokémon, whereas Tentacruel is generally special-based). Having entry hazards spread out between team members generally means that entry hazards can be set up more fluently; of course typing and defensive basings are the two quintessential factors that make this work, as without the two, it would make setting up entry hazards no quicker or effective because one Pokémon will be forced to wait behind another in turn to set up, hindering chances of one being able to spread-out the amount of entry hazards present at one time. This does not make using a single Pokémon an invalid strategy, however; one will have to put more focus in how that single Pokémon will be able to set up, and bare in mind whether it itself can support the job it has been designated (i.e. if it's typing and defenses can compensate for the many switches it is undoubtedly going to have to make, barring in mind the fact that it will have to evade potential counterstrikes). - With regards to switching when forced by an opponent, one should always remember bear in mind that the Pokémon setting up entry hazards must be able to cope with switching-into opposing ones, especially if no spinner is present on one's team. For example, if a potential candidate was weak 4x to Stealth Rock, it would be undoubtedly unpractical to implement this Pokémon on the team, due to the limited amount of switches it would be able to make, particularly if it has no form of recovery. For this reason, checking if a Pokémon has access to recovery or not (preferably other than from the move Rest) is a wise choice when looking at the amount of potential switches it can make when opposing entry hazards are present. The same applies for Rapid Spinners who's primary job it is to switch into any present entry hazards and remove them at benefit for itself and teammates. - Rapid Spin Blockers - When determining potential Rapid Spin blockers (Ghost-types, effectively), one must bare in mind the following key points. - A Rapid Spin blocker must be able to switch into the field several times -- this is quite a simple concept to grasp, as a Rapid Spin blocker's job is to intercept any Rapid Spinning attempts, and thus, risk switching-into opposing entry hazards. To limit the damage incurred when switching-in, one could implement a system (such as Wish-passing) in which enables the Ghost-type to gain some form of recovery (whether it has access to instant recovery methods of its own or not), to prolong its stay. - Beware of Pursuit-users -- this cannot be emphasized enough. In general, most Rapid Spin blockers are prone to trappings from the likes of Tyranitar and Scizor. Having a Rapid Spin blocker capable of withstanding these onslaughts is a useful asset, or, better yet, having one that can hinder the damage done to themselves when encountering a strong Pursuiter. With the loss of a Rapid Spin blocker, one could effectively lose their intial chances of having a secure strategy of preventing the removal of entry hazards, and will increase the pressure on oneself to preserve them to back-up the viability of their primary battle plan. - With these preservation methods said, one must always understand that a Rapid Spin blocker should have some way of removing opposing Rapid Spinners themselves, or have some sort of support from the team in general or one is at deadlock as a lot of the match will be focused around one protecting their entry hazards, and the opposition attempting to get rid of them, which isn't at all the best end scenario, nor the primary focus in a game. - Rapid Spinners - Rapid Spinners should be able to switch into the field whenever and wherever called upon. Therefore, one should always keep in mind the fact that, when determining potential Rapid Spinners, Rapid Spinners shouldn't have massive weaknesses/troubles with various forms of entry hazards as it not only puts that Pokémon in danger, but having a limited amount of switches means that the Pokémon is limited to the amount of times it can perform its job; and when those switches are gone, an opponent is able to yield the opportunity to re-establish their own entry hazards with nothing to stop them. With this in mind, one should always attempt to implement a Rapid Spinner with exceptional typing with regards to its ability to switch into various types of entry hazards, and then compare if it has any way of regaining any health during the battle itself (with the possible exception of Rest). If not, one could possibly pair such a Rapid Spinner with a Wish-passing Pokémon, who could replenish its health every so often. - Wish-passers - One should always implement Wish-passers where it seems fit. In most cases, Wish-passing is only included within teams because of the support it brings when switching between Pokémon who may rely on the health replenishment to perform its primary and secondary jobs correctly and effectively. In other situations, though, Wish-passers are useful to attempt to implement on teams that have Pokémon that lack their own method of reliable recovery, prolonging individual life-span within battle, and the life-span of the team in general, by extension. - Putting it together - In general, when building a stall team, one should remember to evaluate the pros and cons of certain roles on a potential stall team, then look into individual Pokémon themselves whom may perform these jobs. When it comes to bringing the shortlist together, one should always keep the following factors in mind: typing issues and actual Pokémon threats. When these two aspects are looked at in-depth, one can then build around the core of the shortlist and begin to include some other Pokémon that may fill-in other minor roles or defensive requirements/support (physical- and special-based walls may provide this). - __________________ - Example Teams - Now one understands what a stall team is, what sort of stuff can be incorporated in these teams, including example Pokémon that can do these things, and how one should approach building the actual team, a picture can be drawn up of what these teams look like. In this section, one will look at three different teams from each of the mainstream tiers, and will be led to understand how each member of the teams work. - OU - Hippowdon (M) @ Leftovers - Ability: Sand Stream - EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 SpD - Impish nature (+Def, -SpA) - - Roar - - Stealth Rock - - Slack Off - - Earthquake - Hippowdon is an excellent lead of choice. It acts as the team's primary check to threats such as Choice Band Tyranitar, who could prove troublesome by removing the only Rapid Spin blocker on the team: Rotom-H, Dragon-types such as Flygon and most non-special variants of Salamence -- Hippowdon is an excellent choice of Pokémon for that can deal with a wide variety of physical threats that dominate in this current metagame. Slack Off gives Hippowdon durability throughout the game. - Because of the fact that Hippowdon can deal with most physical threats, it can easily set up on those physical-based leads that it may engage during battle, and set up the first form of entry hazard on this team: Stealth Rock. To back up Stealth Rock's damage inflicting effects, Hippowdon's ability, Sand Stream, creates automatic sandstorm which negates Leftovers recovery of Pokémon that are hit by sandstorm, and wears down threatening foes who may carry Life Orb. Due to Hippowdon's walling ability, it can easily switch into a wide variety of physical attacks, and pHaze out those Pokémon and any potential switch-ins that may have attempted to force Hippowdon out—because of Stealth Rock, Pokémon forced to switch-in, and Pokémon who attempt to switch-in, all lose HP—two Pokémon hit by one stone. - Blissey (F) @ Leftovers - Ability: Natural Cure - EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe - Bold nature (+Def, -Atk) - - Wish - - Protect - - Seismic Toss - - Toxic - Blissey acts as the team's check to many special-based threats such as Life Orb Heatran, Life Orb Starmie, Latias, and Empoleon, just to name a few Pokémon. Thanks to its gargantuous HP and Special Defense stat, Blissey can more or less act as a check to most special attacking threats; though this is a plus, it lacks in Defense, meaning that it is almost a physical attack magnet—luckily Hippowdon can deal with most of these also—Blissey doesn't go out without an impact though, as Toxic can severely ruin any susceptible Pokémon's chances of making a long-term impact against the team, meaning they are easier to ware down thanks to entry hazards and sandstorm present. Seismic Toss acts as a reliable attacking move against all Pokémon, except Ghost-types such as Gengar, dealing a consistent 100 damage; because of this, Blissey still threatens potential switch-ins that may lack their own personal recovery methods, Pokémon become more reluctant to switch-in also. - Wish is an excellent move that benefits all members of the team, especially Forretress who lacks its own method of reliable recovery outside of Rest, meaning it can continue to perform its job much more efficiently without being underthreat from entry hazard damage it may incur on switch. The move Wish also benefits Pokémon that Blissey may pass Wish to, especially if a Pokémon, such as Gyarados, requires immediate replenishment to deal with foes instantaneously. - Forretress (M) @ Shed Shell - Ability: Sturdy - EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD - Careful nature (+SpD, -SpA) - - Payback - - Rapid Spin - - Spikes - - Toxic Spikes - Thanks to Forretress' excellent typing, with a myriad of resistances, it can easily come in on various attacks that it resists, such as Dark- and Dragon-type attacks, and use that as an opportunity to lay down entry hazards to contribute to the build up of passive damage. The use of both Spikes and Toxic Spikes are for the purpose of maximizing all potential indirect damage afflicted upon foes, and the latter specifically so the team can handle certain grounded Pokémon more efficiently. Forretress, as well as it being able to set up all remaining entry hazards, can also utilize Rapid Spin -- even though Ghost-type spin blockers prove a nuisance to most Rapid Spinners, Forretress can actually work against them through Payback which hits the majority of Ghost-types (barring Spiritomb, and to a small extent, Sableye) for heavy damage -- the removal of opposing entry hazards against a team such as this one is largely beneficial, especially as the majority of Pokémon on this team are susceptible to most types of entry hazards which is a massive problem which affects the way the team performs in general, as it's efficiency is generally hindered dearly by them usually. - The EV spread given is simple and maximizes Forretress' HP so it can take attacks from both sides of the spectrum reasonably well thanks to its good Defense and improved Special Defense -- the latter means that Forretress can act as a reasonable check to foes such as Substitute Rotom-H and Gengar, both of which aren't hit by Blissey. - Celebi @ Leftovers - Ability: Natural Cure - EVs: 252 HP / 216 Def / 40 Spe - Bold nature (+Def, -Atk) - - Grass Knot - - Perish Song - - Reflect - - Recover - Celebi acts as a primary check to threats such as Vaporeon, Calm Mind Suicune, and Gyarados. Thanks to its STAB Grass Knot, Celebi is able to put most Water-type Pokémon back where they belong, and when paired with Reflect, it can easily deal with one of the most prominent threats in this current metagame: Dragon Dance + Life Orb Gyarados. Reflect in general is a useful tool for weakening the impact of physical attacks, meaning that the team can handle hits from the likes of Dragon Dance Salamence, etc, much more easily and abuse Reflect's effects to the extent in which the team can fight back against these Pokémon in which it targets. - Perish Song is a fundamental pHazing tool which usually forces foes out of play or causes them to die after three successive turns. Thanks to these forceful effects, late-game attackers such as Calm Mind Suicune, Curse Snorlax, and Curse Tyranitar all lack the chance to set up on the team when they appear as 'last man Pokémon', which are probably the biggest problems to stall teams besides pure anti-stall teams, generally. Recover gives Celebi access to its own reliable method of recovery so that it can attempt to stall out opponents when paired with entry hazards, potential poison, sandstorm, and any other external methods of inflicting indirect damage such as Life Orb. - The given EV spread maximizes Celebi's physical defensiveness, with a slight investment in Speed for the purpose of outpacing Jolly Tyranitar and setting up Reflect so it takes less from it's Pursuit, etc. - Rotom-H @ Leftovers - Ability: Levitate - EVs: 252 HP / 208 Def / 40 SpD / 8 Spe - Bold nature (+Def, -Atk) - - Rest - - Sleep Talk - - Thunderbolt - - Will-O-wisp - Rotom-H acts as the team's only spin blocker, but it does an excellent job at what it does. Thanks to Rest + Sleep Talk, Rotom-h also acts as one of the teams status absorbers, particularly sleep. Rotom-H's excellent defensive stats means that it is able to act as a counter to almost any Gyarados, physically mixed Jirachi, and Agility Metagross, to name the least. Thunderbolt is Rotom-H's STAB move and does heavy damage to the aforementioned Pokémon and most Pokémon that switch into it. Unfortunately, as Rotom-H is weak to Dark-type moves, and is the team's only Rapid Spin blocker, it is prone to the onslaughts of Tyranitar and some Scizor in the form of Crunch / Pursuit, respectively. As it is particularly difficult for Rotom-h to escape the grasps of the latter, Will-O-Wisp allows it to weaken the hit it takes as it Thunderbolts or Rests off any damage incurred in the meantime—this not only goes for the aforementioned Pokémon, but other mainstream physical attackers that may come into play, too. - The HP and Defense EVs together allow Rotom-H to take hits from Gyarados, including a +1 Adamant Waterfall (with Life Orb attached), as well as taking other generic physical attacks from the likes of Lucario, Heracross, and Swords Dance Scizor. The 40 SpD EVs allow Rotom-H to take two consecutive Surfs from Starmie, or just a single Life Orbed Hydro Pump. The 8 Speed EVs give Rotom-h the ability to outpace most other heavily defensive Rotom-A. - Gyarados (M) @ Leftovers - Ability: Intimidate - EVs: 248 HP / 228 Def / 24 SpD / 8 Spe - Impish nature (+Def, -SpA) - - Rest - - Sleep Talk - - Roar - - Waterfall - With a unique typing, moderate defenses, and Intimidate, Gyarados acts as the team's check to many physical-based threats such as Swords Dance Lucario, Breloom, and mixed Infernape, all of which could otherwise prove troublesome without the inclusion of Gyarados on the team. Due to Gyarados' defensive prowess, it can switch into numerous physical attacks with relative ease, and pHaze out those Pokémon with Roar; with the opponent being shuffled around by Roar, they will be forced to take damage upon switching thanks to the entry hazards being set up by Forretress and Hippowdon, thus, making it easier to wear down an opposing team via residual damage. - Waterfall serves as Gyarados' STAB move and primary way of dishing out damage to the opponent. Although this Gyarados does not invest heavily in Attack, it is still capable of putting a decent-sized dent into the opponent. Luckily, most of the Pokémon that Gyarados shields this team against, mainly Lucario and Infernape, are 2HKOed / OHKOed, respectively. With Rest, Gyarados is able to replenish its health, allowing it to stay alive for a relatively long period of time. With Gyarados rejuvinating itself with Rest, it can stick around to serve as a check to the aforementioned physical threats. While sleeping, Gyarados is a sitting duck, however, this is where Sleep Talk comes into play, as it allows Gyarados to defend itself while slumbering. - ___ ___ ___ - Ubers - Groudon @ Leftovers - Ability: Drought - EVs: 252 HP / 28 Atk / 196 Def / 32 Spe - Nature: Impish (+Def, -SpA) - - Earthquake - - Dragon Claw - - Stealth Rock - - Roar - Groudon is an excellent candidate for a lead and physical wall who can reliable set up Stealth Rock against the majority of leads. Groudon is a welcome addition to any stall team due to the fact that Groudon is a remarkable check against strong physical attackers such as Tyranitar, Garchomp, Rayquaza and Metagross. Not only is Groudon capable of taking hits considerably well, however, Groudon is also capable of dealing a big blow to the opposition. The above EVs give Groudon the durability to survive a Life Orbed Dragon Dancing Outrage from an Adamant Rayquaza. With Roar, Groudon acts as the team phazer, allowing the add up of residual damage. Roar also allows Groudon to get rid of harmful stat-up users such as Bulk Up Dialga if it has recieved to many boosts beforehand. If Giratina-O manages to grab a Calm Mind or Substitute on any Pokémon on the team, Groudon's Roar can stop any sweeping attempts. With Roar, Groudon makes an excellent pHazer. With it, Groudon can phaze and scout an opponent's team, while whittling down the opponent if Stealth Rock is up. Furthermore, it can get blow away stat boosting users such as Dragon Dance Rayquaza and Bulk Up Dialga, allowing my team to deal with it more effectively later on in the match nce they have taken a toll from my entry hazards. - Forretress @ Leftovers - Ability: Sturdy - EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD - Nature: Careful (+SpD, -SpA) - - Payback - - Toxic Spikes - - Spikes - - Rapid Spin - Thanks to Forretress' excellent typing, it can easily come in on various attacks that it resists, such as Dragon-type attacks, and proceed to lay down entry hazards to aid with the build up of passive damage. The above EVs give Forretress max HP allowing him to survive for a longer period of time. Forretress also makes an excellent switch into Scizor, Deoxys-E and every wall without a Fire-type move including Lugia and Giratina, allowing it to set up entry hazards. Forretress also has great synergy with Groudon as Forretress resist the the Grass Knot and Ice Beam combo that Groudon is weak to. With Payback, Forretress is able to hit the dangerous Giratina-O super effectively, making Forretress a great defense against the aforementioned Giratina-O. Rapid Spin is an amazing tool against opposing stall teams. With Forretress spinning away opposing entry hazards, the team will have a significantly easier time switching-in. - Blissey @ Leftovers - Ability: Natural Cure - EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpD / 252 Def - Nature: Calm (+SpD, -Atk) - - Wish - - Toxic - - Protect - - Seismic Toss - Blissey has the capability to wall a variety of special attackers making it a great candidate for a special wall. Coupled with a large HP and Special Defense stat, Blissey should last for a long period of time. With 252 Defense and Special Defense EVs, Blissey can take hits from both sides of the spectrum relatively well. Toxic is used to wear down walls such as Latias and Lugia, specifically the Calm Mind versions. Wish heals your team members that lack recovery such as Forretress, in addition to being able to spread recovery, Blissey is also a reliable check to Palkia and Kyogre. Protect is amazingly useful, scouting Choice Pokémon and grabbing extra Toxic damage and Leftovers recovery. With the combination of Toxic and Seismic Toss, Blissey can outstall most walls while healing its HP with Wish, making it an excellent addition to the team. - Giratina-O @ Platinum Orb - Ability: Pressure - EVs: 248 Atk / 64 SpA / 196 Spe - Nature: Naive (+Spe, -SpD) - - Draco Meteor - - Outrage - - Hidden Power Fire - - Shadow Sneak - Every Uber stall team needs something to block Rapid Spin, and Giratina-O is the prime candidate. Giratina-O has the ever elusive immunity to the item-removing effects of Trick and Knock Off, as the only item Giratina-O can hold is Griseous Orb. This allows Giratina-O to switch into a predicted Trick from a Choice item user and punish the opponent with its powerful Draco Meteor. Hidden Power Fire quickly annihilates Forretress, halting it from causing more harm by setting up more entry hazards or striking Giratina-O with Payback. Shadow Sneak can destroy stall-threatening Pokemon such as Mewtwo and Deoxys-A, as well as picking off weakened but faster Pokémon. Outrage is a risky attack to use, but it helps the team combat the Boosting Tank Kyogre and obliterates Ho-oh after Stealth Rock damage. - Palkia @ Choice Scarf - Ability: Pressure - EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spe / 252 SpA - Timid nature (+Spe, -Atk) - - Spacial Rend - - Surf - - Thunder - - Outrage - Palkia is an excellent addition to this team. It makes a great check to dangerous threats that this team struggle against, mainly Pokemon such as Rayquaza and Choice Specs Kyogre. Defensively, Palkia is one of the very few Pokemon capable of taking a Choice Specs Water Spout from Kyogre, which is proclaimed as the most powerful special attack in the Uber tier. Palkia's typing gives it handy resistances to Fire-, Water- and Steel-type moves, while leaving Dragon-type moves as its sole weakness. This makes Palkia an excellent addition to this team, as it was in dire need of a switch-in to Kyogre's herculean Water Spouts. Spacial Rend is Palkia's main STAB move, allowing it to deal consistent damage to many of the Pokemon that lurk in the Uber tier. Surf provides a secondary STAB and is extremely powerful under rainy conditions. Outrage allows me to strike Latias on her weaker defensive stat while Thunder zaps Lugia and other Pokémon such as Kyogre. - Kyogre @ Leftovers - Ability: Drizzle - EVs: 240 HP / 244 Def / 24 Spe - Modest nature (+SpA, -Atk) - - Calm Mind - - Surf - - Rest - - Sleep Talk - Kyogre is the teams sleep absorber and late game sweeper. Once the opposing team has been worn down by entry hazards, Kyogre comes in and starts to wreak havoc. Kyogre makes a great switch-in on the likes of Toxic Blissey and Darkrai's Dark Void. With Calm Mind, Kyogre can easily beat non Calm Mind Blissey and Giratina. Surf is a powerful STAB move that deals massive damage to most of the Pokemon that do not resist it. The Defense and HP EVs allow Kyogre to survive a Swords Danced Earthquake from Groudon most of the time while the speed EVs allow Kyogre to outrun Adamant Tyranitar. - ___ ___ ___ - UU - Omastar @ Leftovers - Ability: Shell Armor - EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe - Nature: Bold (+Def, -Atk) - - Spikes - - Surf - - Stealth Rock - - Protect - Omastar is chosen to lead this team as doing so gives us more of a chance to set up our entry hazards more quickly and because it matches up pretty well against many common leads, including Ambipom, Uxie, and Spiritomb. While spreading entry hazards out over various Pokémon will grant a greater chance of success in laying them out, Omastar has enough available moveslots to accommodate both Stealth Rock and Spikes, as opposed to Chansey, the only other Pokémon on our team that can learn Stealth Rock as well. Other than entry hazard support, Omastar plays a role in dealing with dangerous physical Flying-types such as Swellow, Scyther, and Honchkrow. It also provides a much needed Normal resistance, mainly of use against Choice Band Kangaskhan. The first three moves of Omastar's moveset are pretty straightforward; the final move, Protect, allows for much needed Leftovers recovery and scouting. - Spiritomb @ Leftovers - Ability: Pressure - EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe - Nature: Bold (+Def, - Atk) - - Shadow Ball - - Will-O-Wisp - - Rest - - Sleep Talk - Spiritomb is our spin-blocker. While the more popular Spiritomb moveset is that of "CroTomb", a mono-attacking Calm Minding set, this set is more appropriate now in order to impede the great threat that is Gallade. Shadow Ball helps more than Dark Pulse against numerous other Fighting-types as well. Rest / Sleep Talk turns Spiritomb into a sleep absorber, which is always helpful, and provides a method of recovery somewhat more consistent than Pain Split. - Hitmontop @ Leftovers - Ability: Intimidate - EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe - Nature: Impish (+Def, - SpA) - - Close Combat - - Foresight - - Rapid Spin - - Mach Punch - Hitmontop is our choice of spinner, and it also counters various physical threats that this team would otherwise struggle with including Absol, Aggron, and Drapion. Foresight + Rapid Spin ensure the greatest likelihood of spinning if the opponent's team carries a Ghost. Mach Punch is added as a safety measure against Pokémon like Houndoom, whom our team might be unable to counter if certain Pokémon are at low healths. - Chansey @ Leftovers - Ability: Natural Cure - EVs: 252 Def / 252 SpD / 4 Spe - Nature: Calm (+SpD, -Atk) - - Wish - - Toxic - - Seismic Toss - - Protect - Chansey gives us Wish support and acts as a sponge to the majority of UU's special attackers. Protect has excellent synergy with both Wish and Toxic, allowing Chansey to potentially stall out both Houndoom and Ninetales if necessary. For most special attackers, Chansey will be our primary switch-in. - Altaria @ Leftovers - Ability: Natural Cure - EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe - Nature: Careful (+SpD, -SpA) - - Dragon Claw - - Earthquake - - Roost - - Roar - Altaria provides pseudo-hazing support with Roar, enabling us to accumulate Spikes damage on our opponent's team and to better deal with SubSeeders and boosting sweepers, such as Venusaur, Mismagius, and Rotom. Earthquake is used for Fire-types like Blaziken and Magmortar, and since it is physical, Dragon Claw is our choice for Altaria's STAB move. - Slowbro @ Leftovers - Ability: Own Tempo - EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA - Nature: Bold (+Def, -Atk) - - Surf - - Psychic - - Thunder Wave - - Slack Off - Rounding off the team is the bulky Water-type Slowbro, a sort of "catch-all" Pokémon. Surf and Psychic are both for STAB; the first helps us in dealing with Pokémon like Rhyperior and Arcanine, the second is for Pokemon like Feraligatr and Azumarill. Thunder Wave ensures that Pokémon like Drapion and Honchkrow cannot switch-in on us completely for free. - ____________________ - Battle Strategy - Hopefully, by this stage in the guide, one has constructed an effective stall team. All that is left now, is to get ready and go battle with it! However, just constructing a team doesn't mean that "all that's well, ends well"—one has to know how to use a team as well as build one, or else a team has just been built for no reason, more or less. In that case, here are some tips that can be used when battling and re-evaluating recently constructed stall teams to make sure it is exploited to the maximum: - 1. What forms of entry hazards shall be in this team? - This alone can be determined by what the metagame in hand is weak to; sometimes, it may be dominated by Levitators, and thus, the move Spikes cannot work as effectively as Stealth Rock, and at times it may be dominated by ground-borne Pokémon, and thus, both Spikes and Stealth Rock are very effective strategies to incorporate. Methods of entry hazard removal-prevention can often be useful in this case, meaning the use of Ghost-type Pokémon that are essentially “Rapid Spin blockers” ensures the entry hazard strategy is not hindered throughout the process of a game. Knowing how to abuse these entry hazards are important also; with pHazers, the build up of damage incurred by opponents is maximized if one can force a switch naturally, meaning that entry hazards cause damage to the intial switch-in, but thanks to moves such as Roar, another switch is made forcefully, meaning another Pokémon is, too. And so the cycle continues. - 2. Wearing and weakening down foes... - Status can be a key element on any stall team. Common forms of status such as burn, most commonly used to weaken physical opponents, allowing the set up of entry hazards with ease. One may opt to use poison as a form of wearing down sweepers, and in particular setup sweepers, causing switches to be made, or limiting the survivability of an opposing Pokémon – this in itself is great for easing strain on a stall team that may need to work around certain Pokémon. Paralysis, yet another useful form of status, speeds up the process of entry hazards being set up, and often cripples certain stat-up Pokémon from fully functioning. Utilizing moves that can force opposing Pokémon to switch out is another good method of weakening foes when paired up with active entry hazards as the forced switches cause a build up of residual damage consistently, which can overwhelm foes to the extent of which they lose focus of their own initial goal. - 3. Maximizing the survivability rate of a Pokémon... - Ensuring that a Pokémon has a method of recovery, through Rest, Wish-passing, Recover, or any other form of recovery, will be beneficial to any stall team, as without it, out-stalling one’s opponent could be a lot difficult if they attempt to out-stall you also; this also goes for status problems—clerics (Pokémon that heal teammates of status problems) are useful assets to teams as they can heal team members from suffering further from HP-leeching status such as burn and poison, meaning teammates can stay in play for much longer than otherwise possible. Preventing an opponent from setting up entry hazards of their own is a useful way of preventing any further damage from being incurred because it is this “extra damage” that could make the difference between one’s only way of working around a threat being alive and able to deal with the threat, and almost certain defeat. - Utilizing a user of the move Rapid Spin will allow other team members to switch into certain foes and potentially force a switch without taking much damage in the meantime, whereas the difference entry hazards’ effects on Pokémon could potentially cause an upset in a match because one’s only check to a threat has been removed when this could have been prevented—a full-on sweep could therefore occur, or severe prediction and switching could be forced upon one, causing the build up of residual damage, further weakening a team. - 4. Prediction and forceful play... - The less progress has been made in battle, the less information one can have becomes more apparent, both about the opponent's team, and about how they play. This lack of information means that one becomes limited with the use of prediction and long-term thinking. Instead, one is almost forced into working with guesswork. However, because of the bulk that stall teams usually consist of, games are usually more spread-out than in other games versus other types of - teams—the time it takes to smash through stall's general bulk is often the cause of this—having matches spread-out across a longer period of time means that one is more than likely able to find 'free turns' in which setting up entry hazards can proceed. - To gather information on the opponent's team, primarily, one's switches can first focus on forcing the opponent's switches through one-on-one miss-matching, where one deliberately switches themselves into a Pokémon that will undoubtedly switch-out to another Pokémon, then, as one is to be aware of this, a counter-switch can force yet another switch by the opponent—obviously this can be done while setting up as it creates "free turns" for one to exploit—this not only informs one of various team members of the opposition, but it may give some in-sight, no matter how slight, on how the opponent deals with certain switches against their liking. Without a shadow of a doubt, this strategy does have its flaws, as opponents will notice a common trend in the switches one makes. Because of this, one will need to think several turns ahead to be able to do any damage to them, otherwise you'll be getting worn down just as much as they are as they can potentially counter-switch—this is especially true when opposing other stall teams. An example of this would be as follows in the following scenario: - Opponent A switches-in Forretress onto the field. - Opponent B switches-in Skarmory onto the field. - Now, in this situation, Forretress is more or less happy to use Rapid Spin, however, Opponent A is already aware of the fact that Opponent B has a spin blocker in the form of Rotom-A that was used prior to this particular engagement, and knows that if they use Rapid Spin, their attempts will be nullified and thus a turn is wasted. Therefore, they anticipate the switch-in: - Opponent B switches Rotom-A onto the field. - Opponent A's Forretress used Payback. - Opponent B's Rotom-A lost X% damage. - Now, in this situation, Opponent A may switch-out, but depending on if they have already scouted (notice that prior switching/scouting is useful for this particular circumstance) and what moves they may have already noticed, they can proceed to set up even more entry hazards on the basis that they believe Opponent B has done enough to force Forretress out of the battle and wants to preserve their precious spin blocker, thus they too may switch-out to attempt a counter-switch or just use Rest—using information from previous turns prior to certain situations means that one is able to gain an extra turn or two in which they can get the upper-hand on the opponent. - If another situation similar to this was to occur again in the same game, then one would be able to think more elaborately as they would know that an Opponent B would use Rotom-A more cautiously—even to the extent in which they don't switch at all as they anticipate move Y (Payback) instead of move Z (Rapid Spin) in a last-ditch attempt to force them into Rapid Spinning later on—because of this, one is able to use the most predictable of moves to throw-off opponents.

Sarah Palin Releases Video Response to Blood Libel (Update: Clyburn Responds and Krauthammer for the Defense; Chait “Lord Help Me, I’m Defending Palin.”) Sarah Palin Releases Video Response to Blood Libel [Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.] Important Update: See this post exonerating two of the tweeters. Update: Clyburn responds. Predictably. Hit the “more” link and scroll down. Update (II): I present to you Barrister Charles Krauthammer for the defense. Read the whole thing. Update (III): Jonathan Chait writes a headline that says it all: Lord Help Me, I’m Defending Palin. The smear fail continues. This morning we learn that Sarah Palin has responded to the Arizona shooting. This is the video: Sarah Palin: “America’s Enduring Strength” from Sarah Palin on Vimeo. I think it’s good, but I worry that she is depending on people knowing what is going on more than they do. I mean, bluntly, most of you reading this are probably political nerds. I am one, too. But how about the rest of the country? I remember reading a few years ago when Daily Kos actually got reflective (don’t laugh) when he noted a poll that said a shockingly low number of Americans even knew who Ann Coulter was. Something like 20%. Now of the people reading this right now, I am willing to bet the number is more like 99%. Still, I think Palin hit all of the notes she needed to. Anyway, via Legal Insurrection, here is the full I was tempted to end this post by snarkily (is that a word?) asking, “so, she is running for president, right?” But let me expand. I mean what she is doing here, seems to be deliberately stepping into that “bully pulpit” role that you normally see a President assume. These days we have come to think that part of the President’s job is to comment on every major issue of the day, and that part of the President’s job is to be the moral beacon for the rest of the nation. I don’t personally buy into that. Yes, I listen when the President talks, generally, but I judge his (or potentially her) wisdom on the merits, without any added weight because s/he is President. But I suspect a lot of Americans do actually look to the President for moral guidance, and here she is stepping into that role. So we get this video from what could have been a President’s private retreat and Palin doing her best to seem presidential, to respond to the libel against her without getting dragged down too far into the mud. Obama’s staff clearly thinks that they have a chance to turn triumph into tragedy, as one sociopathic analysis imagined. I wouldn’t be surprised if Palin was trying to steal a little of that thunder. You might call that politicizing the event, and grumble about that. But the fact is that Christina Green’s body wasn’t even cold before many on the left began this blood libel, and so on some level Palin had to respond. So this would be example #371 of liberals strengthening Palin with their attacks. Update: Congresschmuck Clyburn calls Palin stupid for this video and generally doesn’t get it because she is white. Yes, really: .” Yeah, of course Sarah Palin has no experience at all with death threats: (Further update: Patterico previously covered tweeted threats, here.) And if someone murdered Sarah Palin tomorrow, would anyone be shocked? No. But something tells me that the left won’t engage in the kind of reflection they are demanding of the right for this Safeway massacre, despite the inconvenient fact that the right had nothing to do with it. By the way, last night a man claiming to be the author of that video of tweeted death threats said that he has been informed that he has 48 hours to take down that video, in a little bit of leftward fascism. Here’s a hint, liberals. This nothing in that video that isn’t protected by the first amendment. You wrote those words. And in many cases you attached your picture, possibly even your name, to those words. This was not done in private, but all over the internet for anyone to see. You have no legal right to stop someone else from taking a screencap and naming and shaming you for it. And your fascism won’t work. Thanks to regulars here, I have screencaps of everything on that video and even a copy of the video. You might strike it down, but it will appear elsewhere. It’s called the Streisand effect. Google it. As for Clyburn, lean in Mr. Congressman, because I have a message for you. You are a disgrace. Congress would be better off without you. More: Clyburn alleges here that reading the constitution on the House floor contributed to this massacre. Now, as you might remember, Patterico earlier posted video of Giffords herself participating in the reading of the Constitution. So, OMG, that means that this wasn’t attempted murder on Giffords. This was attempted suicide by Constitution reading! Of course in this case, reducing Clyburn to absurdity is almost intellectually lazy it is so easy. [Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.] Aaron, the First Amendment only applies to government action. A internet service provider, like any private entity, can set its own rules (in some cases, internet service providers are required to take down videos if there’s an allegation of intellectual property infringement).Jim (87e69d) — 1/12/2011 @ 7:48 am Ask Patterico about it. At another blog, I suggested the following headline for a story on Clyburn’s “blood libel”. He said Palin wasn’t intelligent enough to get it. Well: POT CALLS KETTLE BLACK! And Charles K. crushed the libs over this nonsense in the Wapo today. He ended his rebuke with this beautiful sentence:Fred Beloit (3f1b2d) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:03 am “The origins of Loughner’s delusions are clear: mental illness. What are the origins of Krugman’s?” Daley is settled in the oval office. Rahm will tend the fires back home soon enough. Meanwhile the actor in the lead role will carry on with his cast of do-gooders. Tonight’s evening oratory should be superb. Maybe with a shout-out for the Sheriff.Vermont Neighbor (fe461f) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:07 am Fred its the same Wapo piece, i think. they can just publish his work, too.Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:08 gutterEricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:13 am #4 I don’t agree, Eric. Every false charge, every untrue smear must be answered. Bush tried the “ignore them, it is all just politics” lineFred Beloit (3f1b2d) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:20 am and we now have a community organizer in the White House and looming destruction of our sick care system and economy. They must be answered. All their lies must be exposed, every single one. eric i think she could have said a little more about the families, but she said enough, imho. as for the “stay above the fray” v. everything has to be answered debate with Fred, i think she does have to respond in some way, but she should be careful not to get mired in dealing with every disagreement.Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:28 am She talked about the victims and the families in a statement on Saturday so I think she didn’t have to do it again.MU789 (6ce96d) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:37 am agree here: Bush tried the “ignore them, it is all just politics” line and we now have a community organizer in the White House and looming destruction of our sick care system and economy. They must be answered. All their lies must be exposed, every single one.Vermont Neighbor (fe461f) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:39 am As usual, Krauthammer’s case is developed as logically and precisely as a barrister might have done; but I humbly submit that his insights as a psychiatrist are even more pertinent here.Beldar (ff4f38) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:55 am “Waaaay too wordy and preachy – true the attacks are really unfair but if giving a statement, Palin should have talked about the victims and their families and not politics” EricPW – Correction, according to the left the dead are not victims, they are political martyrs. Please frame your comments accordingly.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 8:59 am From Abe Greenwald at Commentary:Fritz (ac48cc) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:05 am Daley The attacks on her are grossly unfair – and to separate herself from those who politicize it would have been to focus purely on the families and offer whatever aide and comfort her family could give them. This would have put in a frame the callouness and thoughtlessness of all her critics Instead she had to preach, and felt she was forced to, which is playing into their hands I understand people wanting to confront her critics but they are unconfrontable as they do not care about facts, they are propagandists and they actually enjoy enraging all of you – remember anyone who would turn the tragic deaths of 6 people in the hands of a loon into a political attack are beyond any reason or virtue. The only way to fight propaganda is not to invoke reagan and the founding fathers but to offer comfort and aide.EricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:11 am Fritz – The answer to that is easy. With the Danish cartoon the media was worried about their own safety. With Palin’s map they have two objectives, destroying Sarah, plus they don’t really think the map will incite violence but if it does, it will help Obama anyway.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:11 am Fritz, that is a damn good point. The map is so benign I haven’t even considered the other marks on it being dangerous. I doubt anyone on the left had, either. EPWJ has a point that Palin is stepping into the ring of a very ugly political fight, but I don’t think she should be blamed. She gave them a few days, and she was getting smeared. Her initial comment on the shooting was the proper victim sympathy type. I think EPWJ’s right that more of that would be good optics, but I do note that the entire point of the comment is to defend herself from the blood libel, so perhaps she isn’t in the mood for covering that up.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:13 am This guy at the UK’s Daily Mail is seeing through the BS. How America’s elite hijacked a massacre to take revenge on Sarah Palin Also an Aussie: The framing of Sarah PalinGerald A (9ef895) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:14 am Preface:I am not much of a fan of Palin to begin with.When pressed I haven’t seen much substance to her beyond the beauty pageant answers she is prone to give. This doesn’t help her. It’s another scream for attention. Had she simply made a statement on facebook that this was an atrocity by one lunatic with no discernable logic and saying how she prays for the victims and their families.That would’ve been sufficient. A classier response would’ve been to ignore the stupidity of the left. Answering every “charge” gets you nowhere.Getting down in the mud wrestling the pigs gets you filthy and pisses off the pig more. I would prefer a leader, not someone who thinks the job at hand is to argue with fools like Krugman, Olbermann and Matthews.Bugg (996c34) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:14 am “The only way to fight propaganda is not to invoke reagan and the founding fathers but to offer comfort and aide.” EricPW – She already did but perhaps you missed that. She also has to take on the liars full force, just like you have to take on the apologists for Islam.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:14 am Aaron- I understand your question regarding how many people will “get” some of the references Palin makes. But I’d respond with, “how many more people are now paying attention to politics compared to 10 years ago”? I think the Tea Party movement alone has increased the political IQ of a lot of people, in particular supporters of Sarah Palin. So I think Sarah realizes fairly well what the reach of her message will be.Tex Lovera (30e140) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:15 am Fritz thanks for that i think i will use that in a post i am planning later today.Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:17 am So Clyburn is blaming the victim, Giffords, for her own near death because she was one of the readers of the Constitution in the House? And, how mean of the House leadership to actually have a member of the minority party to read from the Constitution. You wouldn’t see democrats include republicans in such a ‘publicity stunt’.eaglewingz08 (83b841) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:20 am And we should not forget that Clyburn was behind the n word libel against the Washington Tea Party, falsely claiming that teapartiers used the nword against minority representatives and spitting on them. He has yet to retract his blood libel against the tea partiers. He is beneath contempt, and that is not because of the color of his skin but because of the lack of content of his character. It’s not like she’s responding at the drop of a hat. hundreds of people are calling for her to be murdered. I do not think it’s fair to say her direct rebuttal of a massive condemnation of her is really a scream for attention. Her initial response was exactly what you said would be classy. Just a short little prayer for the victims. At some point, you have a right to say they are lying about you. Palin is completely justified. I do think there’s some wisdom in ignoring the haters as much as you can, but that’s the approach that has doomed so many Republicans. That’s why idiots think Bush ‘lied’. Palin’s major differenve from other republicans is that she responds to most major attacks on her. She always gives her side. There is a huge advantage to that, because now even lefty shill outlets will feel some pressure to include Palin’s comments if they include her detractors, to avoid obvious bias. they didn’t have to do that for bush, because he didn’t stand up for himself. I am 100% serious when I say this is the main reason Palin is a factor in politics at all. Take this one ‘I react to your attacks’ away, and she wouldn’t be on the stage at all.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:24 am eagle i was at that rally. i will never forget. but to be fair (something he never is to his opponents but we are better than him) he didn’t directly blame her. i don’t even think he remembered that she read the constitution. because in the end he is a sociopath, who doesn’t really care about the victims, but instead only seeks to manipulate this to his advantage. Okay, maybe that doesn’t help his case very much, but i believed it to be true.Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:25 am Tex well, let me hope you are right. so far the american people are not falling for the spin, which is encouraging. and i really do consider these people quasi-sociopaths, and i think the american people can sense that even if they can’t be sure what is wrong with their reactions.Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:28 am “It’s another scream for attention.” Great, we have Bugg and EricPW voting for Palin to roll over and play dead in the face of all the PERSONAL attacks on her. I wonder if they would provide the same counsel if the personal attacks were on the candidates of their choice. I doubt it.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:29 am Palin’s statement was thoughtful and quite Presidential IMO. While I had questions about her qualifications to be President before, her behavior since the last election and this statement,Fred Beloit (3f1b2d) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:30 am added to her other fine qualities, has shown me she is ready to be President, much more ready than the current Ivy President, with his pick of clownish Ivy advisers. If she is the final nominee, I will have no trouble voting for and supporting her. Moonbats with your lies, learn to love it. True, but it resonates because she is genuine,which enrages the left even more,narciso (6075d0) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:32 am Dustin- I admit, Reagan is an easy example to fall back on. He would’ve dismissed that he had any connection or responsibility to these murders as ridiculous, and focused our attention and sympathy on the victims. Let those on the left vent angrily. DOing so in response to them, no matter how justified the righteous indignation may be, is still anger. And that gets you nowhere with the bulk of Americans.Bugg (996c34) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:33 am Fred > much more ready than the current Ivy President talk about setting a low bar. right now i am convinced that a jar of peanut butter could do a better job than obama.Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:35 am Daley, I think you misread my comment, Plain does not have to answer these critics because they are horrible, specious people who on the very face of it are lower than Phelps, to argue when bodies are lying in state and the gravely wounded are hovering near death is just not the right thing to do. The hallmark of Palin’s success has been to rise above the fray but she has departed from that. Look, I dont like the woman at all, but in noo freakin way do I feel she is even remotely, distantly responsible for this and since I’m usually the dumb one in the bunch – the overwhelming majority are seeing right through this. People are in pain, arguing over why, who is not helping their families through this. Palin should perhaps step up her fud raising for the victims, the injured – use her powers for positive good. Instead of a self serving shrill lecture on things that we already knew She’s got to get smarter and tougher on these things.EricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:40 am “The origins of Loughner’s delusions are clear: mental illness. What are the origins of Krugman’s?” Also mental illness.Dave Surls (2641bf) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:42 am Rep. Clyburn is a sexist pig…. If we lived in Bizarro world and he were a Republican/Conservative and Palin where a Democrat/Liberal…Grym (38ae16) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:47 am “The hallmark of Palin’s success has been to rise above the fray but she has departed from that.” EricPW – I understood your comment just fine. Your dislike for Palin clouds your judgment. Rewatch or reread the text of the video. She stays above the mud and the fray. It’s a pity you can’t comprehend that.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:48 am to be clear, I didn’t think her video will be very influential. It’s just dry and dull, and sounds like a tired school teacher reading someone else’s views. But the argument is very sound. Will it help Palin with her detractors? Of course not. They won’t even watch the video long enough to get to the part where she condemns provocative blood libel. EPWJ says this is a shrill lecture, but it’s not shrill… it’s barely got a pulse. “The hallmark of Palin’s success has been to rise above the fray but she has departed from that.” Nope. She responds to the fray, over and over again. that’s her hallmark. I think it gets old, and yet i recognize that it seems to be working a lot better than ignoring the nastiness. I do think EPWJ is right, ultimately, in what’s saving Palin on this issue is simply that the attack is failing on its own. I still don’t begrudge her this response, which is extremely mild for a Palin reaction. If you watch the video, 99% of it is either talking about healing or praising freedom of speech. Very little of it directly notes the attacks on Palin. I also think if she was too direct in raising funds for the victims that people would start to think she was reacting in order to heal the damage she caused. It would also seem crass and obvious. anyway, there’s no way this video does Palin any harm. It’s a reaction that is boring, but I think it hits the right points by focusing on healing and freedom, and now her detractors can be expected to include Palin’s reaction. In fact, when I think about this, I wonder if it’s so dull because it’s crafted to prevent the MSM from taking any of it out of context.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:53 am Daleyrocks is right. Even though I note she has a habit of reacting to attacks to her, she is hardly wallowing or sinking to their level. She isn’t in the fray, attacking anyone for responsibility for this shooting. She’s condemning the fray in the name of what makes America a great and free country.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 9:54 am Dustin Palin’s lost her edge ever since she started responding to all attacks on her – Daley, Maybe you should take your advice about being an apologist as well – being an apologist for Palin is as bad as those who are blaming her for this incident – its unseemly and gross – she hasn’t done anything noteable and as facts were pointed out her record is poor, very poor. I listened to her speech on the radio and she has the Debra Norville problem – she’s too chipper and in times of grief its best to say nothing – its not the time for speeches just statements and most importantly help Dustin, who gives a crap if people – who are not doing a damn thing – criticise her fundraising for the victims – how much worse could it get? At least she would have done something hugely positive in this whole negative mess. I again dont think that these cretins deserve a response from Palin they are not worth her time nor her energy, and her status as a national figure would be greatly enhanced and win over a-holes like me if she tried to do something right instead of respond to those who are doing something wrong because – they are not going to stop – and they are going to only prolong the victims pain. These people need money btw – the victimsEricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:03 am Well, back up a minute on that last part. I think that it might be the only reasonable thing Clyburn said, that Giffords reading of the Constitution might have caused the shooting. Why? 1. Loughner was paranoid about the government and particularly about the Constitution, which he considers treasonous and false 2. Giffords, his congresswoman, whom he already dislikes from their previous encounter, and thinks is stupid – is televised reading from… the Constitution. That he hates. Two days later, he goes and shoots her at the next available opportunity. If I were the police investigating this, that would be my first theory to the motive/cause of his psychotic outburst of violence. Perhaps it’s not why it happened, but using the scientific method, you go with what you’ve got, posit a theory, test it, and find out if it holds water. So I wouldn’t dismiss this notion outright, just because Clyburn eased in on it.Seixon (f66dff) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:05 am I’ve never really liked that term “haters.” It seemed too extreme. Then I read the commenters to Jonathan Chait’s defense of Sarah Palin. Oh my. Those people have got it bad. I’m comforted only in the expectation that, as good liberals, they probably don’t own guns themselves.Gesundheit (cfa313) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:10 am “Maybe you should take your advice about being an apologist as well – being an apologist for Palin is as bad as those who are blaming her for this incident” EricPW – Are you now ready to admit that Palin is talking about principles in her speech and how it is wrong of pundits and journalists to create a blood libel out of the situation and that she points people to what they should focus on? Please point out the objectionable parts of her speech rather than slinking away.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:11 am Seixon well, i don’t think clyburn said it in that spirit, but… that’s actually really plausible the way you said it. Ah, that is one of the cool things about blogging. you never know how the commenters might deepen your understanding of things. nice show.Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:12 am You are contradicting yourself here. You were saying she should do this for PR value, and I noted that it would be really obvious and could look like she’s trying to compensate for something ths’es responsible for… and at any rate, is not as good for PR to combat this slander of her as simply focusing on why the slander is wrong. your response is ‘who cares that it won’t work!’? Well… you did a minute ago. I’m sure you’re right that the victims could use some relief. I do not think Palin should exploit that for PR value. If she wants to combat the blood libel, the bad speech, the solution is honest speech in response. These simply are different issues, and using ‘I just got them a million bucks’ as an argument will fail, because the American people just aren’t this stupid. Also, you’re twisting all the responsibilities around. While it wouldn’t surprise me if Palin did something for charity, you shouldn’t say place that burden on her, of all people. What makes Palin particularly responsible for any of this? Why not demand Newt Gingrich raise this money? I don’t think Palin is associated with the victim’s plight very well. Everyone out there has an equal justification for raising this money. It doesn’t have anything to do with Palin’s reaction to this slander.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:12 am Honestly, telling Palin she should just shut up is such a hilarious response to her video. It’s silly because the video mostly covers the value of speech. ‘She’s lost her edge’ Hehehe What? That’s ridiculous. this was a drab video on purpose. It’s meant to avoid anyone taking a bit out of context to portray her as another angry ghoul. It’s barely got a pulse, but it’s absolutely the truth. It’s the winning argument, and anyone who loves this country agrees with every single word of it. I really do not think there is a savvy political edge is ignoring a ‘bush lied people died’ type smear. That just doesn’t work. Everyone can speak so easily in this era that if you do not speak, people assume you are guilty. It’s not savvy to ignore hatred. It’s also not really savvy to pretend charity can stand in place of an argument.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:17 am Of course Clyburn is right…. because Palin didn’t “walked at Selma”. Has he found someone who can collect the $$ from the Breitbart bet yet?john b (3114a6) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:18 am “its not the time for speeches just statements and most importantly help” EricPW – Right, if the same types of vicious personal attacks being made against a politician you like instead of Palin, you would be advising them to remain quiet. I don’t believe that for a minute.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:18 am!Dan (403904) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:20 am Btw, have you heard, the sheriff will not release contacts of the Dept, with Loughner prior to thenarciso (6075d0) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:21 am massacre. Daley Giving a speech is wrong, doesnt matter what the tone is – she’s not family – statements are fine – speeches can and are construed as self centered – you are rightfully angry about these attacks and this colors your usually sound very sound judgement (and it should). My point is speeches are PR, the PR is trying to be generated by the left for political gain, if you counter their arguments- its construed to be for your political gain Palin – was never about that – she was about the people (this is what I though of her intitially – until the book deals, dozens speeches at 100,000 a pop, TV shows yadyadayada) Dustin, I meant for her to do something right – helping people in times of distress is the right thing to do – to grab the spotlight – however noble, however well intentioned is not appreciated in times of grief and struggle I apologize if I seemed to be contrianian – rarely do that But she should do it because it will help those people ad show people what Palin is and not what people say she is there are worse things in lifeEricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:22 am As someone noted, Charles Krauthammer is a psychiatrist by training. He is not a lawyer or barrister.thegreatbeast (02c03c) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:22 am EPWJ’s “advice” is as incoherent as usual.SPQR (26be8b) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:22 am By show of hands, who thought that was shrill?JD (228f15) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:23 am Where was EPWJ when people were bashing Palin? why didn’t he put any responsibility on THEM to raise this money? why is it Palin’s failure that the ‘victims need the money’? That seems really odd. Obama is calling the Sheriff to thank him for his excellent response. If there really is this huge need for funds, why not condemn Obama for lying? the response apparently is lacking something huge, right? Why not condemn Krugman and Matthews and Olbermann? Tell the people who started this blood libel to be silent and just raise money. Don’t tell the person who is responding to being libeled to shut up. This reaction conveniently ignores the merits of Palin’s argument. Palin didn’t cause these victims to suffer. If someone really thinks raising money is more important than speech, they shouldn’t be here talking at all.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:23 am “Everyone can speak so easily in this era that if you do not speak, people assume you are guilty.” Dustin – Haven’t you gotten it yet? EricPW wants to shut down speech he doesn’t like. Just think through a few topics. He’s a totalitarian at heart.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:23 am Daley I am a friend and supporter of Rick Perry – I would have died ten times over responding to attacks on him – there has never ever been a politician as viciously attacked as Perry in US History And wait – its going to get worse – but Rick can handle it – he’ll call me if he needs me – given my debacle runing for school board – I don’t think he’s going to use me in his campaign..EricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:26 am But this video is not grabbing the spotlight. that’s absurd. It’s clearly a sober video that spends a lot of time focusing on healing, more on freedom itself, and almost none on Palin. That is the right thing to do. The solution to bad speech is more speech. You can’t credit her with doing something right in this case? Because there are other rights in the world? Should everyone shut up when there’s a tragedy needing money, or just Palin? You didn’t say this about the people libeling Palin, after all. You didn’t tell Scozzafava to drop out of her election bid and raise money for hungry children, right? Your argument seems designed to put a burden on Palin that is totally unfair. Why do you think Palin owes restitution? What leads you to say that’s the ‘right thing to do’ that should shut her up?Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:26 am LOL.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:27 am Rick Perry should resign today and start raising money for the victims of Haiti. No wait… that’s kinda dumb.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:28 am “Giving a speech is wrong, doesnt matter what the tone is” Bullsh*t. She released a video. She did not hold a press conference to do it. Her message benefits the approximately 60% of the country which does not ascribe political motives to the shootings, the 50% of the country which identifies with Tea Party values, and is an indirect shot at the left to stop trying to delegitimize the results of the November elections. Point out the objectionable parts or stop whining about timing.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:32 am thegreat i know, it was just a little rhetorical flourish.Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:35 am …there has never ever been a politician as viciously attacked as Perry in US History… Comedy gold.SPQR (26be8b) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:35 gutter” EricPW – The above was your initial judgement about Palin’s words. Are you still sticking by them or have you reconsidered?daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:36 am History lesson: I was explaining why Texans should vote for Perry, and EPWJ quoted that comment later, striping out all the reasons to support Perry, or even the fact I had. He actually lied, saying I was not supporting Perry at all. How bizarre that someone so loyal to Perry would stab Perry in the back the way EPWJ did. I think his claim Perry’s the most victimized guy out there is freaking hilarious. Obama, Bush, Palin, even Scozzafava have all faced much more flack. Perry seems to be a survivor, but he’s never going to be more than Texas Governor (which is quite a nice accomplishment, anyway). Anyway, this is a strange distraction. Giving a speech when you’re not family is “wrong”, says EPWJ. What’s up with this? I thought EPWJ placed the burden of saving the victims on Palin. He must think she is especially related to what happened.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:38 am Also, if this speech was political, I am scared for our people. the principles discussed are so basic to our values that they should be universally valued and no longer political debates. Freedom to speak and peaceably assemble? Um… that’s not a major political football anymore. And you know, if EPWJ is right, and these issues are political today, they are very urgent matters worth discussing. I know this isn’t what Oprah would say, but freedom of speech is a hell of a lot more important than 6 dead people. Or 6 million.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:41 am “Maybe you should take your advice about being an apologist as well” EricPW – Does being an apologist mean defending a public figure against unfair attacks? I don’t think it does, but given that I have meticulously pointed out your repeated lies and distortions about Palin’s record on the pages of this blog, feel free to give me that label.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:42 am “I am a friend and supporter of Rick Perry” We are in the indirect presence of greatness!daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:45 am Clyburn is one of the evil assholes who lied about the alleged n-word shouts at the March 20 PPACA incident. He is also a member of the Congessional Black Caucus. Someone explain to me why, in the year 2011, we tolerate the existence of an explicitly race-based caucus in Congress. I find it outrageous.gp (72be5d) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:46 am daley, She’s wallowing in the gutter with them You need to define which attacks were unfair most were quite fair except the petty one’s about the clothes and some salicious articles and her kids But many were quite correct and fairEricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:48 am Rick Perry needs to commute Mr. Delay’s sentence but he won’t cause his hair has always envied Mr. Delay’s brash freewheeling confidencehappyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:48 am …there has never ever been a politician as viciously attacked as Perry in US History… Apparently, Yelverton and crissyhooten have some new competition.JD (228f15) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:48 am Dustin, I’ve got people coming over to the cabin so I got to go I appreciate and have listened to everything you said, but my point is – releasing her speech as a press release followed with positive action is preferable to the limelight – and if freedom of expression is speaking your mind at innapropriate times then by all means its a right – but that doesn’t men you are free from the consequences of it HAve a great day! You too DaleyEricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:52 am JD Seems to me that Scott thinks you are as much a cretin as Yel and Chris – I disagree -EricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:53 am This is true. I don’t expect Perry to do it, though. Delay got an absurd sentence for making a contribution from the national party to state elections. That isn’t money laundering just because corporations give the national party money. If we applied that logic, it’s money laundering when corporations give to the Salvation Army, and the Salvation Army then gives to the needy. Delay’s ‘everyone does that’ logic may have been lampooned repeatedly, but it is really sad that a democrat prosecutor somewhat notorious for attacking prominent Republicans decided to press novel charges on what seemed like partisan grounds. If this is a crime, then the sentence should have been extremely low in recognition of the fact that Delay was using accountants and lawyers to stay within the law, and if it was broken, was because we had a completely new application of it everyone was breaking. This is not a legitimate way to handle political differences. Alas, Delay is ‘the hammer’ and is a lightning rod, and commuting him will be more politically difficult than Scooter Libby. And really, all these men should stop what they are doing and hold a telethon right now for the victims of AIDS. It’s the right thing to do. They need the money.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:55 am The Delay indictment, really shows how Ahab like the Democrats have been, to those who challenge their power, with Ronnie Earle manning the Pequodnarciso (6075d0) — 1/12/2011 @ 10:58 am I could care less what you think of me, epwj. ditto Yelverton. Ditto crissyhooten. Your trying to nose in a dispute that has not one f@cling thing to do with you is typical of your asshattery. Bugger off.JD (228f15) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:00 am Beldar: Exactly. What’s persuasive about Krauthammer’s column are paragraphs 3-11 where he marshals the facts and shows Loughner was lost in a world of his own making. That’s why his conclusion is so convincing:DRJ (d43dcd) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:05 am From the comments@ Chait’s post …. It could be that even though he has different political views than Palin, when he heard her speak or saw her target map he thought, “maybe I should shoot the Congresswoman.” That possibility is reason enough to hold Palin responsible for her irresponsible rhetoric. These are the same people that want to manage your health care choices, label speech they disagree with asgard speech, etc … No thanks.JD (228f15) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:13 am JD Scott was wrong and you were the one to bring me in company with them in this thread – I just responded to you and pointed out that a very beloved and prominent blogger here at Patterico felt that you were just the same as them and I disagreed And despite your unfounded and unfair attacks upon me for my opinions I still disagree – you were kind to him and graciousEricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:15 am This is pathetic reasonsing, JD. If he really meant it, he isn’t smart enough to turn on a laptop. But he doesn’t mean it. He means that he hates Palin and will figure out a way to express that. there’s a possibility that a crazy person would eat his cat because of Palin’s glasses. That possibility is reason enough to not really care. And it’s not a possibility. Giffords rebuked Jared’s question in 2007, setting him on this obsession. That poor woman is holding her husband’s hand with half her skull cut off. Putting that evil on anyone but the shooter is sickening.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:17 am Don’t forget that Chait is a Journolista, and accordingly, maybe they removed the first brain slug, but they put another one in his placenarciso (6075d0) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:17 am No, you introduced my dispute with Scott into it. Not I. That is beyond dispute.JD (228f15) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:17 am Let’s save the drama, OK? I think you’ve been the beneficiary of a lot of patience.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:18 am JD I’M not bringing anything here that everyone already knows you give money time and support to someone who put Pat’s family’s information to a dangerous person and still do correct? And then tried to tie me in with people who support terorismEricPWJohnson (4380b4) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:42 am Jesus fucking Christ. WTF is the matter with you?!JD (228f15) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:49 am James Clyburn is a liar. Given his proven fraud about “Tea Partiers” screaming racist epithets at him, nothing he says can be trusted in the least.Federal Dog (8dc08a) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:50 am Lets leave it up to Patterico to see if that is an accurate and fair description.JD (228f15) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:51 am “She’s wallowing in the gutter with them” EricPW – Since you claim she is in the gutter, why won’t you point out the objectionable words? How many times to do you need to be asked? “You need to define which attacks were unfair” You just admitted they were in the gutter, doesn’t that imply they were unfair? Seriously, what don’t you understand?daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:52 am Unlike wi others I had a disagreement with, epwj is not doing so in good faith, and in an effort to not derail this thread any further, I will take my leave for a while. Epwj’s feces tossing asshattery grows increasingly wearisome.JD (228f15) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:54 am EPWJ, I don’t think you should lead us in that direction. I actually agree completely with how harmful to Patterico that particular incident probably was, but JD didn’t do it. This is just stirring the pot of a blog war that no one reasonable wants to see. JD’s one of the good guys. He’s not out there to stir up shit. On both sides, he’s generally trying to tone it down and discuss things that are more worthy of our time. Just because he takes that tone doesn’t mean he is endorsing the crap that has bugged you (justifiably). A line was crossed by Kimberlin that wasn’t crossed by the lower nasty people. Let’s not conflate away the difference, and please, let’s keep it on target. You have critical views of Palin’s speech, and while I disagree, I’m glad someone is willing to make those points. Why move from valuable dialogue to attacking the people you’re discussing this with?Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 11:59 am I just couldn’t help myself here. From the comments on the Jon Chait piece ~ 01/12/2011 – 10:17am EDT | Virginia Centrist tur … view full comment turnout elections (midterms). Most Americans will buy these attacks on Palin, by the way, regardless of the facts. Why? Because they don’t like her.” Catch the poster’s handle? Virginia Centrist . Too funny. They openly admitted they want to be “intellectually dishonest”. In other words, they have no problem with being a liar,just don’t call them that. That would be harsh don’t ya see?flicka47 (e43cc1) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:03 pm That is an amazing comment, flicka. Appealing to the ‘elites’ to push the Tea Party to revise their position. They think they are bipartisan and centrist because they are defending ‘both parties’. But the craziest aspect is the call for dishonesty. Where was this person when the left made much more extreme comments than a map of targeted elections? Why are they willing to dehumanize an entire movement as violent if they know it isn’t true? Nothing is sacred anymore.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:06 pm “1. And Charles K. crushed the libs over this nonsense in the Wapo today.” The Hammer connects. Bet DC suffers more than the wimmin’ and chillin’.gary gulrud (790d43) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:07 pm News sources indicate Ms. Palin’s video has been pulled down.DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:19 pm It has not been pulled down. Why didn’t you try to play it before you said that? And why would it pulled down?Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:26 pm DCSCA, the only place on the internet saying it was pulled down is Democratic underground. Pathetic.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:27 pm @90- It’s back up, unedited. Tech issues per Politico. And you’re inaccurate, as usual. Defensive, too. Try decaf, fella. (9d1bb3) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:40 pm “It’s back up, unedited.” DCSCA – Too bad for you she did not cave in to the bogus criticism. Even Alan Dershowitz is defending her use of the term blood libel. Maybe he is a closet Tea Partier.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:47 pm No, it was never down. MSNBC says they got the URL wrong. The only site that mentioned this, at the time you posted it, was Democratic Underground. At least according to my google search. And as I noted, the video played when you posted you comment that it didn’t. the link is on this very post. Why are you calling me defensive and inaccurate if you were the one who spread a claim that was so easy to see was wrong? As I asked you, why pull it down? The entire article you have posted, with its hysterical ‘Palin makes it worse!!!!’ claims, is a complete myth. Just explain yourself. Why didn’t you try to click the link at the top of the page and see if the video played?Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:48 pm Hell, the link DCSCA claims he was relying on is full of people noting that the video was playing, the entire time. The comments start very soon after it was posted, and their entire ‘she’s admitting her mistake because she pulled it’ claims should have been withdrawn instantly. DCSCA had plenty of reason to check if the video played, since the comments noting it wasn’t pulled are earlier than his claim it was. His only defense is that I’m being defensive. that when I see a lie, I point it out. I guess that’s the charge against Palin, too. When she’s blood libeled, she has the gall to point it out. Consevatives should just shut up and let the left lie as much as they want? That’s what DCSCA is asking me to do.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:52 pm Ah, the International Man of Parody – certainly he thinks he looks good in his imaginary tux.SPQR (26be8b) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:55 pm Dustin – Progs are butt hurt she used the term “butt hurt,” which they feel should be reserved for Jews. They fail to understand it has a broader metaphorical meaning. For an intellectual elite they sure are stupid.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:57 pm make that “blood libel” not “butt hurt” in quotes abovedaleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:58 pm JD I’m sorry if I offended you. EricEricPWJohnson (2925ff) — 1/12/2011 @ 12:59 pm @94- Rest easy, defensive Dustin. Ms. Palin’s video was posted on a Wednesday. Gives the writers at SNL a good three days to consider whether the content is worthy of working something up. Could Tina be made available in the vicinity of ’30 Rock’ on Saturday? You betcha.DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:01 pm The fact the progs are perpetually butt hurt is beside the point. The opportunity to take another bogus shot at Palin today was what was important to them.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:01 pm DCSCA – I think there is better than even money that SNL will be parodying President ME after an awful performance in Tucson tonight.daleyrocks (e7bc4f) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:03 pm No. You told a lie. I’ve called you on it. Your own source indicated the video was playing, and you posted it on a page where it was linked. I saw your comment when it posted and checked, and the video played. You should verify your bogus attacks, or you will continue to look like a nasty little liar.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:04 pm Someone check out Johnson’s caterwauling. If he is in full fledged crap his pants mode, then she hit all the right points.kansas (7b4374) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:16 pm @102- Inaccurate, as usual.DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:16 pm IMP is an imbecile.JD (0d2ffc) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:22 pm How vague. You didn’t say which media source you got this from, so I noted that the only place it was showing up was Democratic Underground. Is that inaccurate? No. It’s accurate. You passed along the lie that the video was down, even though an honest person would have checked. When you left the comment, the video worked fine. the update to your link was 19 minutes BEFORE you comment you left here. I pointed out you were wrong, and asked you where you got the lie, and why you didn’t check it out. How was I inaccurate? You say ‘as usual’, but I cannot recall you ever challenging a single factual claim I’ve ever made. It’s as though you’ve decided to call me a liar, and just imagined up some history between us, the way you’ve imagined up your resume for ITG bragging. As I noted, the video works. It was available 100% of the time. Your link has a long winded diatribe that is hysterical and wrong, and a short little correction to the most basic element of its case. You call me defensive… because I correct liars.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:25 pm It’s hilarious that DCSCA wants to carry on a long fight about something he was wrong about to begin with. I guess this is meant to troll and waste time and deflect. Kansas is right. Palin must have hit all the right points. Her comments about free speech seem obvious and banal to me, but the left probably finds them poisonous.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:27 pm @106/107- Beverage tip- the decaf pot has the red/orange top.DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:38 pm @108..And the Palin hatred meme is getting old, old, old.kansas (7b4374) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:40 pm Hey, let’s hate on Michelle Bachmann for a while. After all she is really stupid.kansas (7b4374) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:43 pm yeah, as I’ve been saying about you for some time, you just say crap to stir up problems, and don’t seem to mind at all when your claims are badly wrong. You just giggle about it. You want to distract and waste time. You’re scared to death of us just having a conversation. You rushed to this thread to post a claim about Palin that was completely wrong, and trivially easy to debunk. Hell, if you really got this from your new source, then you knew it was wrong when you posted it, and just wanted this very argument to happen. You wanted to bash people for defending Palin from a claim you knew was wrong to begin with. A reasonable person would have checked the video, and then never left your comment to begin with, but then… you would get to giggle about how ‘defensive’ we are. You are projecting this ‘decaf’ crap onto me. I would never be so excitable about a politician that I’d run around to websites to spread the latest stupid gossip. That’s what you’re doing. You’re projecting, and I think everyone can see that.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:44 pm I’m gonna go home now, but I think a reasonable thing to do would be to send Clyburn and Hank Johnson to Guam and put them in the middle of the island. Then have them both walk at the same pace in opposite directions to opposite coasts so it would not tip over.kansas (7b4374) — 1/12/2011 @ 1.Neo (03e5c2) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:53 pm … .” Actually, I made up that last paragraphNeo (03e5c2) — 1/12/2011 @ 1:54 pm Alan Dershowitz defends the use of “blood libel”. Don’t worry, it’s only bad when Republicans use the term.Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 1/12/2011 @ 2:08 pm Scott, it’s great to see you around. It’s hilarious how the left will move from doing X to condemning X at the drop of a Palin.Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/12/2011 @ 2:19 pm Hey, let’s hate on Michelle Bachmann for a while. After all she is really stupid. And she’s much too pretty as well, which as we all know is an unforgivable sin for a GOP woman candidate. The hotter they are they more awful they must be, always.Dmac (498ece) — 1/12/2011 @ 2:33 pm Palin has the best print and broadcast writing team of any major political figure, including the president. It puzzles the left and her detractors so much they think she communicates in code. She doesn’t. She’s been found guilty of triggering the death of a nine-year-old girl by dozens of loudmouths on the left. She’s absolutely entitled to respond with a hammer or a scalpel. The only thing they find wrong with this piece is her application of a phrase borrowed without permission. Wow.Birdbath (8501d4) — 1/12/2011 @ 2:58 pm “And she’s much too pretty as well.” - Dustin Ugh. Really? She looks like a female pre-Ring Gollum.Leviticus (5900d0) — 1/12/2011 @ 5:19 pm It’s all subjective.Dmac (498ece) — 1/12/2011 @ 6:39 pm

INTRODUCTION Students who have behavioral and psychological problems need special treatment or intervention in education. They are the young people who experience mental, emotional, and behavioral problems that are real, painful, and costly. Their problem is often called "disorders," which are sources of stress for children and their families, schools, and communities (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Association, 2004). Also referred to as mental health disorders (SAMHA, 2004), the condition is said to (SAMHA, 2004). Basically, children and adolescence with behavioral problems demonstrate behavior that is noticeably different from that expected in school or the community and are in need of remediation. There is still a current debate on where these students should be placed. For some, special students should be placed in a special education classroom setting along with classmates that also have disabilities. On the other hand, others suggest that such students should be allowed to attend general classes but should also have appointments with special educators outside the general classroom setting. However, for proponents of inclusion, there is no need for special students to leave the classroom when taking up special education needs. Inclusion is basically the philosophy of confining a special student only within the general classroom setting. It is believed that through this process, disability students will have more opportunity to make friends, get along with other students, and develop cognitive skills and self-esteem better. Through this, disability students will not feel they are being isolated, but instead, will feel accepted for what they are. But the concept of inclusion also has many critics that question its effectiveness. Until now, there is still a great debate on whether inclusion should be applied to all schools. This literature review will evaluate the advantages of inclusion and the different disadvantages that critics pointed out against it. INCLUSION IN REGULAR CLASSROOMS Traditional versus Special Education A statement by Ralph Waldo Emerson says: "The man who can make hard things easy is the educator". Furthermore, Sims (1995) stated that "the effective instructors are those who understand the importance of involving all of their students in learning how to learn." Effective learning occurs when instructors affirm the presence and validity of diverse learning styles and maximize the climate or conditions for learning in and out of the classroom through the deliberate use of instructional design principles that take account of learning differences and increase the possibilities of success for all learners (Sims, 1995). Those statements are true especially when it comes to students who have behaviour problems. Traditional education approaches cannot be as effective as it can be, at least generally viewed, to special students such as those who have behavioural or psychological problems. That is why certain institutions find it a necessity to prevent or resolve such behaviour problems. They can be branded as special treatments to students with problem behaviour. Furthermore, certain traditional schools and universities provide psychological non-formal education to educate students on how they should act. However, according to Ritter (1995), there has been considerable discussion regarding greater accommodation of handicapped students within a mainstream setting and the integration of regular and special education since the mid-1980s. Furthermore, Ritter (1995) stated that proponents of the Regular Education Initiative believe that the integrative model is workable for behaviorally disordered and emotionally disturbed students, as well as for those students with learning or cognitive handicaps. In addition, classroom context has been identified as a critical variable in dealing with problem behavior and stands as a potential barrier to any considered merger of regular and special education. Undeniably, the classroom setting itself may contribute to elevated ratings of problem behavior on the part of regular classroom teachers (Ritter, 1995). Behavior Problems The SAMHA of the United States Department of health and Human Service enumerated the types of behavioural disorders that a number of children and adolescents face. The Group stated that all can have a serious impact on a child's overall health. Included in the disorders are: anxiety disorders; severe depression; bipolar disorder; Attention Deficit / Hyper-Activity Disorder; learning disorder; conduct disorder; eating disorder; autism; and schizophrenia (SAMHA, 2004). What is Inclusion? According to the Center for Mental Health Schools (1998) in California University, the term inclusion denotes to the practice of educating children who have disabilities in classes along with their peers who do not have disabilities. Bateman and Bateman (2002) explained that the term inclusion is not a precise term because it is often confused with similar concepts such as least restrictive environment (LRE) and mainstreaming. Unlike mainstreaming (which means moving students from separate schools and classes to regular education classes for part or all of the school day) and the LRE (which means students may receive special education and may also participate in general education setting), inclusion implies that students are needed to be taught outside the regular education classroom only when all available methods have been tried and failed to meet their needs (Bateman and Bateman, 2002). It is a movement that seeks to create schools and other social institutions based on meeting the needs of all learners as well as respecting and learning from each other's differences (Salend, 1998). This means that the special students have the right to be educated in a general setting classroom given that a specific teaching method or approach works for him or her. In a sense, inclusionary schools should seek to establish communities of learners by educating all students together in age-appropriate, general education classrooms in their neighborhood schools (Salend and Garrick Duhaney, 1999). Rudd (2002) emphasized that inclusion is not to be called inclusions when there is no supports and services given to special students to help them cope in the general classroom setting. It does not also cut back special services and does not assume that all the children in the general classroom setting should learn in the same way (Rudd, 2002). Rudd (2002) also emphasized that inclusion or inclusive programs should not ignore the concerns of the parents. It should also provide special education services in the general classroom and not in a separate place (Rudd, 2002). In the past, the automatic inclusion of children with disabilities in general classroom setting is not supported by any legal documents. In 1997, the Disability Education Act Amendment was passed, clearly defining a set of regulations for LRE. In a way, this act also supports the adoption of the inclusive philosophy by schools as the act states that all children are to be considered for placement in regular classroom first. If ever the school decides not to include, they should provide a clear explanation why (Rudd, 2002). Advantages of Inclusion The inclusion of special students in the general classroom is viewed by many researchers as advantageous in a sense that they believe special students or students with disabilities in this setting can develop better social development, better social interaction, enhanced skill acquisition and generalization, better health, more independence, greater success in meeting the objectives of their IEPs, and more normalized functioning (Burnette, 1996). The Florida Children's Forum (2002) stated that four stakeholders can benefit from inclusion. They are: the children; the family; child care professionals; and the community. Through inclusion, children can develop friendships and learn how to play and interact with one another. They can also develop a more positive image of themselves and a healthy attitude about the uniqueness of other (The Florida Children's Forum, 2002). On the other hand, the families of the children with disabilities can also benefit from inclusion because through it, they will have the opportunity to learn more about child development. They will not only have access to child care, but they will also have the opportunity to teach their children about individual differences and diversity (The Florida Children's Forum, 2002). For child care professionals, it can also be advantageous because through inclusion, they will have the opportunity to learn about and develop partnerships with other community resources and agencies. They can also build strong relationships with parents and enhance their credibility as quality, inclusive child care providers (The Florida Children's Forum, 2002). Finally, the community can also benefit as it will teach each member to become more accepting and supportive of all people (The Florida Children's Forum, 2002). According to the research of Lipsky and Gartner (1997), inclusion can help children with disabilities reduce their fear of human differences. This is accompanied by increased comfort and awareness, growth in social cognition, improvement in self-concepts, development of personal principles, and warm and caring attitude toward peers and friends. In another study, Moore et al (1998) found that students with medium to severe disabilities can develop academic increases, and behavioral and social progress through inclusion. Accordingly, they found that it is not recommendable to segregate these students because in segregated sites, they do not receive a greater concentration of special education resources, degrading their traditional skills domain and social competence learning (Moore et al, 1998). Almost similarly, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (1997) stated the following as advantages of inclusion to children with disabilities: demonstrate increased acceptance and appreciation of diversity; develop better communication and social skills; show better development in moral and ethical principles; create warm and caring friendship; and demonstrate increased self-esteem. Odum et al (1999) also preaches the good news about inclusion as their study shows that inclusion of students in general classroom settings produces positive outcomes. Parents and teachers are supportive of such program and a wide range of curricula are being used to make sure they are really effective for students with disabilities. It has also been reported that inclusion can be an advantage because it gives and ensures children with disabilities access to the general education curriculum, an important consideration in recent IDEA amendments (Council for Exceptional Children, 1998). Furthermore, inclusion can also provide opportunities for expanding social networks and forming new friendships (Scruggs, 2001). Two strategies of inclusion practice – cooperative learning and peer tutoring – seem to be viewed advantageous as well. In co-operative learning, students with special needs are not pulled out of their classroom for supplemental instruction rather, the special education staff provides instruction in the regular classrooms, to increase learning time, reduce behaviour problems, give students an opportunity to participate fully in their classrooms, and teachers an opportunity to learn from each other. On the other hand peer tutoring enables students to be assigned to heterogeneous ability pairs and has been proven to be an effective strategy in increasing the academic achievement of students with and without disabilities (Kamps, Barbetta, Leonard and Delquadri, 1994; Stevens and Slavin, 1995a, 1995b) and in increasing social interactions (Kamps, Barbetta, Leonard and Delquadri, 1994). Barriers It was emphasized that general classroom teachers may be unprepared in experiencing a special student. Ritter (1995) cited that regular classroom teachers rated behavior as more problematic than did special education teachers. Their explanation was that regular teachers experience a narrower range of deviance than special education teachers and therefore their referents for normal behavior are more restrictive. Furthermore, he mentioned that teacher judgments of behavior problem were not independent of classroom environment, but rather reflected the classroom context. As mentioned by Ritter, various sources suggest that barriers between general and special education are problematic in a sense that it affects the attention that should be given to behavioral problems of students. For instance, findings show that general education teachers are not prepared for the inclusion of special students. The findings in Schumm and Vaughn's (1992) study about planning for mainstreamed special education students showed that general education teachers are willing to have mainstreamed students in their classrooms as long as the students do not exhibit emotional or behavioral problems. This shows that most general education teachers do not give much focus on behavioral problems contrary to special education setting. Schumm and Vaughn (1992) stated that they (general education teachers) are willing to make adaptations while the student is taking tests or working on assignments (i.e., interactive planning), but are less likely to spend much time planning or making adaptations to the curriculum or test (preplanning) or constructing new objectives based on student performance (post planning). Furthermore, another problem in general education is that numerous middle and high school teachers are unaware when they have a mainstreamed learner and rarely use the IEP or psychological reports in their planning (Schumm and Vaughn, 1992). Because of the lack of psychological planning, general classroom teachers need assistance in planning for mainstreamed learners, and they are likely to seek the help of the special education teacher, reading resource teacher, or fellow teachers (Schumm and Vaughn, 1992). In the study conducted by Trump and Hange (1996), one of their focus group interviews that have the aim to find out the concerns of teachers about inclusion found the following concerns: discrepancy that may emerge between the academic and social development of special education students and regular education students as they progress through grade levels; special education students are endangered of becoming overly dependent to teachers and peers; special educator should also be a consultant; increasing needs of less-academically talented students who do not qualify for special education service; instructional aides may not be used appropriately; difficulty of including students with behavioral issues; and assessment issues. The group also noted several obstacles that may prevent a successful implementation of inclusion. The barriers they identified include: resistance to change on the part of administrators, teachers and parents; role confusion; lack of administrative support; lack of planning; lack of adequate personnel; lack of training; and lack of funding (Trump and Hange, 1996). General and special educators that have years of experience may feel threatened on the implementation of inclusion because it may affect several status quos (Trump and Hange, 1996). Tension may also develop between general and special education teachers because it has been reported that the former often views that the latter serves as their assistant in handling students with disabilities (Trump and Hange, 1996). Lambert et al (2005) stated: "Unless general education teachers are competent in modifying and adapting their curricula and instructional practices, one essential stakeholder of standards-based education, students with special needs, will continue to be at a distinct educational disadvantage" (p.4). In support to this statement, Lambert et al (2005) conducted a study to determine the attitude of general education teachers toward inclusion and found that there were least positive responses on items "feasibility of teaching a wide range of students in one classroom" and the "skill of the general educator to teach a variety of students". However, most of the other items they investigated show positive results. They concluded that general education practitioners are becoming less and less doubtful towards inclusion but recommended that there is still a need to equip them with skills on different instructions as well as adequate pre-service preparation. The Roeher Institute (1996) revealed that one of the barriers of inclusion on postsecondary schools is the attitude of the school itself toward accepting students with disabilities. The study reported that the postsecondary schools were concerned about "watering down" their academic credentials should they accept students with intellectual disabilities. Furthermore, the study found the negative attitude of instructors toward the inclusion of children with disabilities were rooted in fear, lack of understanding of disabilities and lack of knowledge about inclusive practices. McLaughlin et al (1996) stated that previous studies show that teachers and school staff express concern and frustration over the amount time involved in collaborative planning, developing curriculum modifications and orchestrating social interactions. School staffs are also anxious about their level of knowledge about inclusion. McLaughlin et al (1996) also stated that another potential barrier in the implementation of inclusion policies is its cost. Increased costs are reported in areas such as personnel, professional development and renovating school buildings. In the study conducted by Apallachia Educational Lab (1996), it was also found that there were concerns about adequate staffing of professionals needed in the implementation of inclusion. Boundy (1996) mentioned that some states continue to segregate disabled from non-disabled children. Boundy (1996) explained that this due to several existing barriers that prevent the effective implementation and acceptance of inclusion. The barriers mentioned are the following: categorization of students by labels, classroom and curriculum limits their educational outcome; persons with severe disabilities are disproportionately placed in segregated special education programs, classrooms and facilities; poor and minority students with disabilities are disproportionately placed in more restrictive programs and settings; students placed in segregated classrooms, programs and facilities do not receive curricula comparable to that provided non-disabled students; inclusion in classroom is not linked with inclusion in the community, higher education, housing, transportation and employment; and limited role models for students with disabilities because of discrimination in employment. Smith and Rapport (1999) similarly found the barriers mentioned above as the concerns in the implementation of inclusion in schools. Based on their in-depth literature review, they found barriers such as: the lack of both knowledge and training of educators and administrators to serve a child with disability; some programs believe in special education programs; people are still unsure with children with disabilities; the special children requires extra time with the teacher, which may affect the balance of time that should be given to typical students. Other barriers identified by Smith and Rapport (1999) include: turf guarding; personnel preparation concerns; lack of awareness; lack of communication/collaboration; and the beliefs that some children would loose out. The City University of New York (1996) has identified several criticisms on inclusion. These include: it is a "one-size, fits all" approach; it does not have positive outcomes for non-disabled students; special education children needs specialized services that can only be provided out of the regular classroom; the minority students disproportionately placed in special education are there voluntarily; teachers are unprepared to teach in an inclusive classroom; teachers should not be required to have children with disabilities in their classroom; extra financial support for the program; special education students cannot be helped by a "broken" regular system; least restrictive environment do not apply to academic learning; only ideological professionals and few parents advocate inclusion; full inclusion may have a destructive effect on public education. According to Evans et al (1998), the process of waiting for children to catch up before they can move forward in the system is one of attitudes that is considered a barrier in implementing inclusion in schools. This is attitude of keeping disabled students at homes or special programs until the perceived belief that they are ready for inclusion. Evans et al (1998) explained that this will cause a great delay in progress because the child will be left out in age. Another attitude problem that Evans et al (1998) pointed out is the belief of educators that there are "some" children that cannot learn. They argued that children with disabilities, although have different mental capacities, also have things that they are able to learn. Evans et al (1998) further argued that it is the people who encounter those children who put the limitations and not the children themselves. Another barrier identified by Evans et al (1998) is the lack of resources allocated to the development of inclusion programs. Instead of allocating funds for children with special needs, the government or the schools might as well allocate funds to general education budget. Furthermore, Evans et al (1998) also emphasized that there is a need to improve the screening and assessment techniques to improve every child's need. Top (1996) examined the level of implementation of inclusive practice by state special education agencies and found alarming results. The findings in Top's (1996) study shows that state directors were reluctant that their state practices full inclusion. Furthermore, the study also found that state directors have differing views regarding policies on inclusion implementation. Although most reported that there has been an increase of inclusion in their state by 85%, it cannot hide the fact that most of the respondents view inclusion and LRE as synonymous. Top's (1996) study basically shows the need to educate state directors more about the policies of inclusion implementation. Daniel and King (2003) conducted a study that aims to target four variables, namely: parent concerns about their children's school programs; teacher- and parent-reported instances of students' problem behaviors; students' academic performance; and students' self-reported self-esteem. Instead of finding positive responses, surprisingly they mostly found negative implications. First, the study found that parents of students in the inclusion classes expressed a higher degree of concern with their children's school programs. This shows that parents are more anxious in this setting on whether their children will do well with academics or get along well with classmates. Daniel and King (2003) also found that teachers and students in inclusion classes reported more instances of behavior problems. Students also experience gains in reading scores with no noteworthy differences for mathematics, language, and spelling. Finally, they found that special students in inclusion classes reported lower levels of self-esteem (Daniel and King, 2003). CONCLUSION The literatures reviewed above showed contradicting perceptions toward the practice of inclusion. On one side, inclusion is a practice that should be implemented on every school because of its advantages such as enhancing the self-esteem of students with disabilities as well as helping them improve their cognitive skills and helping them learn how to socialize. On the other, inclusion is problematic program to implement because of the confusions that are associated with the practice. Inclusion is seen as a program that is poorly measured in terms of its true effects to students with disabilities. It is also being criticized for the lack of capability of general teachers to handle students with disabilities in their regular classes. While there is great contradiction on inclusion beliefs, the practice still has a potential to be proven effective considering that studies about its effectiveness with positive results will increase. Currently, inclusion is not being taken seriously mainly because of its complexity as a practice and as a philosophy. However, several studies like those cited above shows that there is a possibility for an international acceptance and legalization of inclusion practices. Also, proponents of inclusion should address quickly the issues that may ruin the credibility of its practice. Requirements for an effective practice of inclusion should be constantly monitored, tested and implemented. There should also be programs to educate stakeholders such as state special education directors, school principals, teachers, parents and students about the what inclusion really means and the means for effective practice. Proponents of inclusion should aim to conquer confusion regarding its practice and they should start by developing a comprehensive framework for an effective program.

>>." New license model: Free! (Score:2, Insightful) Re: (Score:2). Re:New license model: Free! (Score:5, Insightful). Not for free but they need to understand that as you suck harder and harder on the udder of a cash cow the less friendly that cow will be to you and will dry up or kick you in the head. At this point it is difficult to believe that MS has not realized an honest profit from the honest investments it has made. They have done a lot of service but there is a point when the business model must change. Worthy computers can be had for yuppiy pocket change and free software has gotten well beyond the experimental stages. Especially in server land. The home computer model has changed, and there will be less and less need for WindowZ. My smart TV has more compute power than my early on desktops. Which were well beyond my 6502, MC14500 and 8080 processor based projects. It is a new day, MS and many others need to take stock or see their financial models fall apart. Servers and server farms will grow.... but be in the hands of a small number of companies. In the price range of a UPS delivery van small companies will have local computer resources than can be installed and serviced by folk at an equivalent level of a USP van driver. Yes the Brown UPS vans are a marvel of technology but they make money delivering packages shipped for sub $10... that is astounding. Chromebooks and the new XO tablet are showing that the old models are fragile and new ideas are welcome. Raspberry-Pi and project boards like the pandaboard and Beaglebone Black are showing that sufficiently interesting hardware need not cost a lot of $$. Invest $100 in these school and development boards and revisit your education. The future is at hand -- yet again. Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) I think it's important to point out that you're missing Microsoft's hugest market, the business market. Tablets can take over at home, and Microsoft never really got much traction in the server space, but the business market is where they've dominated. And you're not going to use a tablet there. Decent point. I did not miss it. I only went part way down that rat hole with my udderly bad pun. Businesses that pay attention will resort to pure text in email when they discover how much rich content is costing them. Way back in /. there was a discussion on how much BS rich text loaded up a message just to say "I agree". When the message itself jumps from 9 characters to +1K the hit on storage and bandwidth is real. Too many managers are simply ignorant but challenge them to work via a 300 baud mode Re: (Score:2, Insightful) no need to apologize. the op was more thought-provoking than many other comments on /. i've read plenty about microsoft's anti-competitive business practices, with linux advocates claiming that windows would be wiped out if linux and windows were on the same level of competition, and mostly i agree with those sentiments, but it is also interesting to tip that on its head and imagine how well linux would compete if it had to compete with a free and open source version of windows. i know its just an armchair e Re:New license model: Free! (Score:5, Interesting) I routinely use both Linux and Win7, depending on the client I'm dealing with. A well set up Linux is easily the more responsive environment, and has less annoyances and inconsistent behaviors than the Windows equivalent. Simple stuff like using USB drives or wireless networking just works better. Switching back to W7 feels like wading through glue after a day or two on Linux. If both OSs were priced the same, had identical OEM and software vendor support, I have no doubt people would largely choose Linux. Re: (Score:3, Informative) Nope. People would only choose Linux if the programs they wished to use were available on Linux. It's all about the programs. Nobody uses a computer just to play with the operating system (apart from people writing operating systems) Re: (Score:2) But can Windows be gratis without being libre? One reason why Linux can be gratis is that it is libre, and so contributing to the various OSS projects is easy. Could one do this for Windows? Could Microsoft develop a business plan where Windows is gratis? Re: (Score:3) Its hard to imagine what that would even mean. The open source ecosystem is what makes Linux, Linux. Its like asking if lions didn't eat meat would they be as feared? If they don't eat meat they just aren't lions anymore. The Unix server market was rather big. While Linux being free helped Linux displace Sun, SGI, Digital Unix, HPUX, IBM I don't think free had much to do with it beating Re: (Score:2) While Linux being free helped Linux displace Sun, SGI, Digital Unix, HPUX, IBM Being free had nothing to do with displacing the other big UNIX vendors. When you invest so much money in hardware the cost of a well supported OS is nothing. Linux has displaced these operating systems for a few reasons. First, Linux is now good enough and has most of the features users require. Second, it detaches the user from any one vendor thereby greatly reducing the cost of new hardware. Third, the increased popularity of Linux on standard desktop hardware has produced many users that are more Re: (Score:2) It wasn't about 6 figures when Linux started, it was about 4 figures. When Linux first came as a workstation OS. It allowed you on a $2k PC to do 80% of what you could do on a $7k Solaris workstation. Then there was the push to many of the bulk Unix servers like FTP servers and so on. Those were never 6 figure machines they were cheap but x86 and Linux made them much cheaper. LAMP created a market for inexpensive web-servers and lots of them. Commercial Unixes exploded in popularity during those years o Re: (Score:2) X86 machines exploded in performance too, the first warning was Pentium Pro with SMP support, possibly the fastest CPU (tied with Alpha) for a short while. Then when we were up to dual Pentium III with 1GB RAM the game was over. All Unix workstations disappeared. (funnily it was more Windows NT 4.0 and 2000 that killed them, rather than linux). So, overnight your Solaris/AIX/HP-UX/whatever becomes a server-only operating system : there's not the same incentive to run it, and people will no longer have first- Re: (Score:2) Agreed. And not only that, RAID had a similar impact of allowing inexpensive x86 servers to compete with systems with much more expensive hard drives a similar disruption for servers. This was true a few years ago (Score:2, Troll) For full disclosure, I have started using Linux in the windows 98 era for the sole reasons that downloads and music playing kept being interrupted by Windows crashing. I setup two PC's, one for browsing, music playing and downloading which was an "old" linux box (basically my retired windows gaming PC) and a windows PC purely for games and productivity. Over the years, I shifted more and more productivity to Linux and it became my work station with the Windows PC being used purely for gaming. And then Windo Re: (Score:2) LOSE. THE WORD IS LOSE. Different versions of Windows (Score:5, Insightful) You know what I want? A lower-cost Windows targeted at gamers. I don't need drivers for scanners, printers, fax and other unnecessary crap if all I do is play games on it. A Windows with less processes running would also mean a faster computer able to dedicate more resources to the games instead of crap I don't need. Re:Different versions of Windows (Score:5, Insightful) That's basically what an xbox is. I guess the implication is that you want something that compromises between Windows PCs and XBox on some points. Which raises the question of what is the right compromise position? Re: (Score:3) That's basically what an xbox is. Yeah it's an XBox which can also run Linux, EVE Online, Neverwinter, Firefall, World of Tanks, WoW, Path of Exile and so on, and so forth. You seem to confuse a stripped down Windows (which is essentially an OS) with the hardware behind it. Explained differently: Let's assume I own a powerful PC. Has a Haswell platform with a potent GPU and lots of RAM. My main OS is Linux. But I also game a lot, mostly Windows games. Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to buy a Windows "gaming edition" for 15 bucks and load it Re: (Score:2) Anything called "gamer edition" tends to be more expensive, not less. Which OEM was charging people to remove bloatware pre-installed on their systems? Might have been a Dell option. Re:Different versions of Windows (Score:4, Interesting) What would happen is the "gamer" version would be one of the (fragmented) premium versions, so you'd end up paying more for less. Plus, who wants a computer that you can't connect to a printer in a pinch if need be, just because you don't have the right windoze license? Re: (Score:3) If Windows Gamer Edition only cost 20$ I guess people wouldn't complain much about things like printers. Re:Different versions of Windows (Score:5, Funny) You don't work in IT, do you? Re: (Score:3, Funny) The cool thing about this is inevitably somebody would hack CUPS into Windows... Re: (Score:2) Yes, if you think about cost distribution, I imagine the Windows team spends significantly more for adding new Gaming features than they do in adding more business productivity features, but I bet the productivity features end up costing more in the end. Don't wish too hard for this, or gaming platforms WILL cost twice as much. Re: (Score:2, Informative) Windows people still seem to be under the impression that linux is hard. It's not like that any-more. Ubuntu and Mint are much easier, and are less bloated/expensive than Windows. Re: (Score:2, Interesting) It's easy to use, but try installing a new driver without reinstalling the entire operating system to a new version. Oh right, let's try random ppas. I'm about to try updating ALSA, kernel and Wine at the same time to get rid of consistent garbled sound in Wine (hoping it fixes zsnes too) but that will be terminal and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ time, not double-clicking foosetup.exe as in Windows. Re: (Score:2) I forgot : once it's done (if it works, and after having spent time researching the issue and hoping I don't forget something) I won't really know how to go back. Re: (Score:2) Windows people still seem to be under the impression that linux is hard. It's not like that any-more. Ubuntu and Mint are much easier, and are less bloated/expensive than Windows. That is just not true. Windows 7 and 8 are less bloated and easier to use than Ubuntu and Mint. Re: (Score:2, Troll) What I want is a Linux that games as well as Windows. That just might come to be because of Valve. I could finally get rid of Windows if I can game on Linux reliably. Re:Different versions of Windows (Score:5, Insightful) You don't know what you are talking about. When a game runs on Windows, it ALREADY gets all the resources it wants. A stripped-down version fo Windows wouldn't make your games run faster. Modern games are mostly video-card limited. And since there is no standard hardware platform for a PC, programmers can only do so much optimization before they break compatibility. Re: (Score:2) Currently, when I run games, they typically use less than 20% of my CPU, and I bet if I disabled all my unused services that I don't need to run the current game, I could get that down to, oh... 19.95% CPU usage, so I could have one more core sitting idle for .05% longer. Re:Different versions of Windows (Score:5, Interesting) The sad part? The pirates have had it for a fricking decade now and it kicks MAJOR ass, in fact it makes Linux look like a beached whale in August by comparison. I'm of course talking about the "Tiny" Windows builds that have been going on since Tiny2K, came out around 2001. The TinyXP used just 48Mb of memory on the desktop, Tiny 2K3 Workstation just 63Mb, and Tiny 7 uses as little as 256Mb for a full desktop but of course with superfetch any extra RAM will be used to speed up the system. The one exception would be Tiny Vista which took 512Mb for the desktop but hey, they're gamers not miracle workers. So anybody that wants to give them a try I'm sure can find a copy easily enough, but why MSFT don't hire these guys I'll never know as frankly their builds kick the shit out of WinFLP and Embedded as far as footprint and CPU usage goes while letting you run all your Windows software, its truly crazy how little those builds use while giving you everything you need to make a kick ass gaming PC OS that uses less than the consoles do to run the OS. Re: (Score:2) They don't want to support that. Some gamers want to be able to do some of those things. like print. Everyone doesn't need 95% of what Windows does, they just differ on the 5% they want. As far as less process running, that's what service manager is for. Re: (Score:2) Go to "Services" and disable the print spooler : you've had your 0.1 second gain on boot and didn't need a separate Windows version. I find your suggestion to be a bit horrific, Windows is already crippled too much. Want to connect a thin client to your incredibly powerful desktop PC? (even a low end one is more than capable enough). That will be $1000 in licensing costs. Re: (Score:3) What kind of idiot spends $1500 on a PC in 2013? I spent half that for my current PC 3 years ago and I'm still hard pressed to find a reason to replace it. With a cheap video card upgrade, a 5 year old craptacular machine can be a respectable casual gaming machine. It's not 1988 anymore. You don't have to pay through the nose for hardware anymore. System software needs to keep in step with that. $100 is overpriced for this years version of a well entrenched monopoly product. If not for vendor-lock, the value Re:Different versions of Windows (Score:5, Insightful) So funny that Mac and iOS users are so much happier with their systems (even in Korea, where iPhone and iPad took first place in customer satisfaction away from Samsung), but the haters who don't use it, my god, it's like a jealous ex-lover. They cannot stop telling you how much your current lover sucks, even though you're happy with it. Get over it. Be happy with your choice, and move on, rather than keeping on and harping and bitching about other people's choices. Re: (Score:2) Very true and funny. Re: (Score:2) If Apple built lawn mowers they wouldn't have a throttle or a dip stick and you would just get a new one when the blades dulled. Re: (Score:2) I guess some people hate on Macs but in my experience I have to steer business users away from it. Apple makes drastic changes to their OS which breaks software and all of the business productivity software is behind the Windows versions. For "serious" use Macs are just not supported. They are great consumer devices however--even though I wouldn't recommend them in that role either. As a consumer device that is used to browse the internet and watch videos and listen to music Windows has too many solid c Re: (Score:2) Not really. That survey is an outlier. Most show Apple with the highest customer satisfaction. On Device's panel approach doesn't appear to statistically align with most other survey techniques. Re: (Score:3) $100 is overpriced for this years version of a well entrenched monopoly product. If not for vendor-lock, the value of that product would be $0. I think you are on to something there. Write me an OS that can run all my games and applications on it in a user friendly manner that I don't have to spend days googling the right command to type in to get it what I need it to do, and support the major video cards out there running in SLI, the major chipsets, RAID drivers, etc etc, and sell it for $0, and I'm sure it will be a hit. If it was so overly priced you'd have a ton of competitors out there. Oh wait, no, there isn't. And I suspect no, you won't s Re:Different versions of Windows (Score:5, Insightful) This may surprise you, but linux has had better hardware compatibility out of the box than windows for quite some time. I don't expect linux to support windows games, just like I don't expect modern windows to support dos games. It's legacy. Re: Different versions of Windows (Score:5, Insightful) This may suprise you, but that is only true if you want to support old hardware. Anything cutting edge is more likely supported by windows than Linux, and since I have more cutting edge hardware than old relics, it isn't true for me. Re: (Score:2) I don't think that old game matters anymore: 1. Consider ARM systems, including NVidia's efforts to bring their best to ARM. 2. x86's slowing progress means more time customers can wait for porting to complete. Re: (Score:2) 1. NVidia's drivers for x86 is miles ahead of their ARM drivers. 2. Slowing progress? The x86 platform is pretty energy efficient now, it is almost silly to develop for ARM now considering by developing for x86 you can cover all your bases from desktop to mobile. Re: (Score:2) Nvidia ported the blob driver that runs on Linux, Windows, Solaris etc. to ARM, actually. They showed it off on Ubuntu 12.04 with Xorg. It doesn't work on cell phone or tablet though, right now that only works on Tegra 3 dev boards with a desktop GPU on PCIe slot (see Kayla platform). It *will* work on Tegra 5 and further, which will use the desktop/laptop GPU architectures rather than a specific mobile one. Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) If it was so overly priced you'd have a ton of competitors out there. There is another hypothesis that fits the data, the "entrenched monopoly" part of the GPP and the "run all games" of your post. It might be that Windows is a worse deal than Linux, but Windows+games is a better deal than Linux+games (or +office, or any other de facto standard software only running on Windows).? Re: (Score:2)? You sort of missed the point. Jedidiah proposes that the value of Windows if it had no vendor-lockin would be $0, and $100 is overpriced. Compared to what? It's sort of like saying all houses are worth $0, because well there are those homes for homeless programs where people chip in and build a house and give it away for FREE. So therefore, all houses are worthless. Just because linux and BSD exist, and many thousands of people "donated" their time into making them, doesn't make Windows worthless eithe Re: (Score:2) Well it was 2012 and this idiot spend $2500 on a retina macbook. I got a machine which would lose in some categories and win in other with Alphas minis I used to work on that served 3000 end users. Everything is about 5x faster then my old machine. Re: (Score:2) What kind of idiot spends $1500 on a PC in 2013? Decent, entry-level Dell gaming machines start at $1500. Re: (Score:2) It is $150 if you want to use all of your RAM. Re: (Score:2) If I had 1500$ I'd buy a Mac, not a shit computer with Windows on it. Where do you shop? For $1500 I can buy a pretty fantastic computer with Windows on it. Re: (Score:2) Where do you shop? For $1500 I can buy a pretty fantastic computer with Windows on it. Yeah, I paid about $1500 for my new game machine. Even including the extortionate cost of Windows, that bought an i7, mid-range gaming GPU, tons of RAM, an SSD and terabytes of hard drive space. Re: (Score:2) ...except the ones which don't. Yahoo Messenger, Windows Update, antivirus, firewall just to name a few. Re:Different versions of Windows (Score:5, Funny) Yeah, the real hog is the System Idle Process, I see that taking up to 99% of my systems processing power when I'm not even doing anything. Find a way to get rid of that and you'll be golden. Re: (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) That's interesting, get x86/amd64 Windows RT for free ;) That may be nice. It won't support all those win32 games, though. Suspicious article (Score:5, Informative) Yes. (Score:5, Funny) Steve should consider throwing his best chair forward. Re: (Score:3) I see lots of flying chairs in the future of MS. May be the saving of the Entertainment division - Steve's MMO Chair Throwing Extravaganza Re: (Score:2) Angry Steve synergy (Score:3, Insightful) from the article: "As part of the reorganization, Microsoft will consolidate all of its client OSes, including Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows Phone 8, Windows Embedded and Xbox, into a single engineering group [...] The Windows desktop client and mobile have a lot of common functionality, and a combined group could have a lot of synergy". I fully agree, that's a good strategy (and it was about time)... oh, and one o the few times the word "synergy" makes sense! Re:synergy (Score:4, Funny) It sounds like he's proactively reorganizing the corporate paradigm to maximize cross-platform synergy and leverage integrated competencies. Re: synergy (Score:2) "You have to kill your own babies" (Score:5, Interesting) Re:"You have to kill your own babies" (Score:5, Insightful) Re: (Score:2) You are soo right. That coke thing is hanging by a thread. I bet their dev teams are about to jump ship any day to design the new new new new new coke. Re: (Score:2) I wish they would innovate by making Coke with cane sugar. I would pay more. You can get the Mexican Coke (17oz glass bottles) in grocery stores but it is not widely available. What about (Score:2) Re: (Score:2) My daughter's middle name is Windows. Cranky Windows McGuillicutty Re: (Score:2) Yes but postponing the inevitable can be quite profitable. Let's say a company has a $1b a year in profits from market X. If they get disrupted there will $100m in profits available from X2. Getting 2 more years out of X is probably worth more than getting 100% of X2. It is better postpone then to win by being early. Yeesh. How cheap do people expect things? (Score:3, Insightful) Windows is a product. When you buy it pre-installed on a machine, prices are already cut to the bone with volume discounts to the manufacturer. Someone has to pay for the security updates, the patches, and so on when it's run by a monolithic corporation instead of an open source community. I've no beef with the price I paid for my Win7 laptop -- and I know that maybe $50-100 of that purchase price was for the Windows license. Perfectly reasonable. I use Ubuntu LTS on my "main" machine, but that's because I like Linux, not because Windows is "too expensive." Furthermore, precisely what product line would be cannibalized by cutting Windows prices further? WinPhone (which no one wants and is a different code base)? WinRT (which no one wants because it's a piece of incompatible crap)? XBox (which doesn't even have an installable OS)? This article is essentially flamebait to spark discussion, and nothing more. There is nothing pragmatic or realistic about it. Re: (Score:3) Are you sure? Last time I checked, I can only license it, not buy it like I buy products. Also, if it is a product, how come, from the best I can tell by reading the license, product liability doesn't cover it? Re: (Score:2) I believe they meant that Windows would be "cannibalized" by MS making and selling devices. Re: (Score:2) The thing is, when it comes to inexpensive devices, say under the $300 mark, that $50-100 fee is a very significant expense, as opposed to "free" Android or in-house iOS. Easy for us to say (Score:5, Insightful) Microsoft's decline is directly correlated with (Score:5, Interesting) the introduction of Windows Genuine Advantage. Before WGA was introduced, most people thought windows came free when they purchased a new computer. The rather high price for the OS was completely obfuscated. The cost was hidden because there was no impediment to installing a copy onto any machine so they thought it was free. All you needed was a copy. Well, MS decided they wanted to get paid for all of those installs. So, they introduced WGA. So, what happened... Well, people still bought new machines... But, when they went to use the new OS version on their old machines it didn't work because it could only be validated on one machine... Now, people still wanted the new OS so they went to see how much it cost and they were horrified by how much a copy of windows cost. This left people with four choices: 1. Don't upgrade... (Look at how long it has taken to get people to stop using Win XP.) 2. Pay the high price. (Probably not) 3. Bootleg a copy. (Bit-torrent has lots of copies) 4. Look someplace else. (Have you noticed how well Apple has been doing lately) Notice, in all but one unlikely scenario, MS doesn't make anymore money than they did before the introduction of WGA. But what they have done is enlighten people to the true cost of MS windows. Additionally, when someone doesn't upgrade or goes with an alternative to Windows, then third party applications suffer because the installed base of the current windows is diminished... MS quite simply destroyed their own monopoly by trying to get people to pay for something they would never pay for. Every time MS releases a new OS I keep thinking they would figure this out and drop WGA but they keep on striving for a smaller and smaller market share. Simply put, having a solid monopoly is MUCH more valuable than the few sales they have made as a result of WGA... Oh and lets not forget, WGA just pisses people off so as a paying customer... You get punished... Great business model if you want to shrink your market share. Re: (Score:2) (Look at how long it has taken to get people to stop using Win XP.) part of that was software other part low end hardware that was to low end for vista / 7 Re:Microsoft's decline is directly correlated with (Score:4, Insightful) WGA stopped the wholesale OEM piracy from the organized crime shops. They were even producing holograms, shiny boxes, "certificates of authenticity" etc. Palates of this counterfeit software would be shipped through quasi-legit channels into serious software retailers for realistic prices. Casual piracy of Windows doesn't affect MS. Your PC probably shipped with the OS anyway. The high volume of XP licenses out there are businesses who were hoping for something better than Win7 before XP began to disappear. Few people are running machines old enough to have shipped with original XP licenses. Who wants a 256MB of RAM, 20GB HDD machine from 2002 anyway? MS is dying because Ballmer is an f-ing idiot. Re: (Score:2) You mean Vista? Re: (Score:2) I mean the "high volume of XP software" out there. Enterprises have downgrade rights to install their corporate standard XP images. The stickers on the machines might be Vista, but they're being wiped and loaded with XP before being given to employees. XP is still at 37% marketshare [wikipedia.org] Re: (Score:2) True, but I was referring to you saying Win7 above. Is that a mistake? Microsoft is not a monolithic entity. (Score:4, Insightful) Re: (Score:2) And someone mod this guy up for coining the term "bonii"! It's the resellers who are being canibalized .. (Score:2) Nice spin on what is essentially Microsoft cutting into their own reseller channel Don't interfere with your enemy (Score:3) Don't interfere with your enemy while they are busy making a mistake. Got it? Whose side are you on, anyway. Angry (Score:2) What I wish would happen is some daring company like Staples would start selling some machines with Linux on them and have their sales people show that you can browse, watch Youtube, and ed Re: (Score:2) In many countries in the world, you can get a refund by non accepting the Windows EULA, and installing something else on that machine. People are just too lazy to jump through the administrative hoops to get that refund. OTOH, some stores in Europe sell PCs without operating system, and offer strictly optional cheap OEM licenses. IBM faced this problem in the 1980's (Score:3) Showing my age. The original IBM PC was at first too weak to compete with IBM's higher-end offerings. But the AT with 6mhz chip was getting close. People started overclocking their cpus. IBM responded by tweaking the BIOS to not boot if the cpu was faster than 6 mhz (assholes). This affected a lot of people who ran into problems with the original 20 mb drive, and took their machine in to be serviced. IBM "upgraded" the BIOS when replacing the bad hard drives (assholes). The modders responded with a "turbo-switch". It was a a manual toggle. The cpu ran at 6 mhz when booting, to pass the boot-time checking. Then you could flip it to 10 mhz or whatever. IBM eventually came out with faster ATs, but the clone makers had eaten up a lot of the PC market by then. Stealing market share from yourself is good.. (Score:2) This is so obvious, and yet it is the downfall of so many successful companies. IBM lost control of the computer hardware business because it was worried about mid range cannibalizing mainframes, then PCs cannibalizing mid-range. Hey CEOs: If you don't let your own new products cannibalize your current products, your competitors will do it for you. And then you'll be left with no sales for the old product and no new product to take its place. Damn (Score:2) I hate it when articles give Microsoft advice because they might just listen and I would prefer to see Microsoft go under. Re: (Score:2) For years games was a big argument to have windows installed on a machine. But the arrival of the 360 made it for me so easy to dump windows for linux on my desktop and buy a macbook pro for on the go. Funny, Windows 7 took me in the opposite direction - skipped the AdBox 360 and started getting all my games on PC so I could mod to my hearts' content. Re: (Score:2) Not to mention that games for windows are cheaper, have a wider selection, and go on sale more often. Gaming on windows has gotten steadily better while the consoles have gotten steadily less appealing the last several years. The only console I'll buy these days are the Nintendo ones because I like their first party exclusives, multi-player games, and unusual controllers (wii remotes, wii-u pad, enough to want them for the extra variety, and the family.) Re: (Score:2, Funny) Do the right thing MS.. Move to *nix back end like the other 0.80% that use *nix Fixed that for you. Re: (Score:2) Do the right thing MS.. Move to *nix back end like the other 0.80% that use *nix Fixed that for you. Wow MSFT astroturf on the loose. In denial much? Re: (Score:2) Are you trying to say that my numbers are off somehow? Hell, I'll be super generous today and let's just say 1.6%. Does that change things for you? Re: (Score:2) You could make that argument I suppose. I wasn't thinking of Apple because it's not really in the same market as Microsoft. Apple sells hardware and they license their OS to run on it. Microsoft's market is stand-alone OS software sales, and Apple isn't part of that, nor is any phone or tablet. So I guess it depends on how you look at it. I suppose Microsoft could (in some fantasy world), drop it's stand-alone OS completely, and resell linux on their surface hardware, but that's a silly idea. Re: (Score:2) Actually I could see them doing this. After the company is mostly in ruins following failed product after failed product and no longer being able to rely on install base anymore. They could very easily do what apple did, buy a version of the bsd source like the mach bsd. Only tweak the internals a little and focus on a window manager and a select few programs.

Everyone's pics in this one thread Boby HuffardApril 1, 2005 In case you didn't see her post---Angie is making the following request for the gallery. Makes sense to me: " Is everyone willing to post a picture of your pool with details on this link ?? I really enjoyed scrolling down to see everyones pools on one page... I think everyone planning a pool would/could get alot out of it too.. Thanks guys, Angie" This would be sort of an "index" --- in addtion to people's separate pool threads. A great way to get comparisons and refresh ourselves on the many different styles and ideas seen here. Might be nice to post pool dimensions, specs, location and any special features with the pics if posters want to. What do people think? 14x34,3-6ft depth,whisperflo 2hp pump,cartridge filter, diamond brite finish, tile: Vista Bluff,heater: heat-pump, baracuda g-3 cleaner,brick paver deck, location Florida price for everything including furniture and landscaping approx $32,000. 17x40 freeform w/spa 31/2-8ft deep prism blue pebble sheen quartzite flagstone Hope this works.. 31/2-9ft deep 22x39' Blue Granite Pebble Sheen Rock Slide/Waterfall Alot of Faux Stacked Stone 40' x 24' freeform (used a garden hose for the design!) 12" raised spa Three River Rock flagstone NPTG Tuscany Pietra "Azul" waterline tile 3.5' x 6' x 4' sport pool Baja shelf: Approx. 8' x 10' Light grey plaster 2000' sq. ft. of decking Location: NE San Diego County, CA -Melissa Free-Form 36Lx16W  Natural Slide in slope  Waterfall in slope  Built in BBQ Island  In Ground Spa 18" Raised Spa with stacked stone spillway  Reef Shelf/Baja Entry with Umbrella Sleeve (9 Inches deep)  Accent Boulders Around Pool  NPTG Stonescapes Midnight Blue  Stamped Concrete Decking  Three Rivers Flagstone on Raised Bond Beam  Rolled pour-in-place Coping Rob Freeform 19x36 Pebbletec-Tahoe Blue raised spa with spillover Moss Rock Waterfall Oklahoma Mix Flagstone coping with Peagravel decking [IMG] Here's mine~~ 16/34 freeform Tahoe Blue pebble tec moss/canyon rock waterfall baja shelf 3 1/2 to 6 1/2 feet deep jump rock Thanks everyone for posting your pictures!! I LOVE LOOKING AT THEM!!!! Angie 40 x 20 freeform 3.5 - 8' deep raised bond beam with sheer descent NPTG Yucatan Aztec tile malibu shelf with umbrella sleeve white plaster finish concrete coping Pre landcsape pictures Come on ya'all! This was a great idea! Don't let it slip to cyberspace! Specs: 37' x 16' sport pool, 4.5'-6.0'-3.5', 6' x 9' spa, nine jets, Black Pearl Mini Pebblecoat, Cresta waterfall and accent boulders, Gold Platinum Quartzite coping and upper deck surface, Dark Charcoal Quartzite stone on decking steps and stacked spa spillway, custom, self-designed fireplit (fireplace/firepit) using both types of aforementioned Quartzite. Equipment - Jandy One Touch indore remote, spa side 4 button remote, Jandy Aquapure SWG, 2.0 HP main and booster filter pumps, plus 1.5 HP dedicated waterfall pump, Jandy cartridge filter, Hayward Navigator cleaner, volcano in-floor bubbler, Vista Pro series landscape lighting. Pool Info: 33 x 14 freeform White plaster 3.5 ft to 8.5 ft deep Sandstone cap Some sort of tile for wall, waterline 2 x 2ft sheer falls View of Pool from shallow end View from the Spa Close Up of the Spa w/Chatterfall [IMG] OK, here's mine! 15-18x30, 3 1/2-5-4 feet deep, freeform, outside of Phx AZ, Tahoe Blue PT, baja shelf, 7 foot bench on other end, infloor cleaning system, SWG, rolled beam along half, NPTG Yucatan Blue tile, Kooldeck. Whew! I think that's all...;) And on a rare overcast day: Felicity Waterfalls aren't on but there are three of them 2' 4' 2' along the raised bond beam. Pool is 12x32. Prism Blue Pebble Sheen, boquet canyon flagstone, spa and bond beam are raised 18", spa is 7x7 with 6 waterway plastics jets. 3.5' to 6.5' with a bench by the spa in the deepend. Here is the specs of our remodel.. Replaster using 3m color quartz(Cayman Green and Blue) All new equiptment: 2 punp system, DE Filter, and 400K BTU Heater, chlorinator Adding a shamu landing at shallow end with shamu bench on south side Automated pool control system Adding waterway jets (6) Replacing decking (Solomon - Buckwheat) Colored concrete with salt finish) Adding drains to the decking Adding a raised bed on the south side of the pool with a waterfall Stucco on the wall (Owner doing this) Aqua blue pebblesheen enjoy looking at these pics...very helpful Here is my pool landscape is not done yet Ang and Felicity-- what are the size dimensions of your baja shelves?? and J Berthi- what are the dimensions of your pool and of your baja shelf?? thanks guys...I'm trying to get ideas on sizes and what it is that I want! this is very helpful to see other pools with size/pictures!!! i hope you are all out enjoying your pool today..I'm living vicariously thru you! :) Here's a few pic's of ours. 70x40 freeform with beach entry. Flagstone for coping, waterline, and on all steps and benches. Gunited mountain with cave inside and slide from above around the backside. Natural moss rock boulders for waterfalls and slide steps. 8' spa 12" raised and 8' planter 6" raised for future plam tree. Pool finish Carribean Blue pebble. Rainbow mixed colors exposed peagravel concrete patio decking and moss rock for wet deck above entrance to the cave. See Ya, Kelly Kelly, that is TRUE oasis you got there! My pool.. 14x32 freeform, 3 1/2 to 6 1/2 deep. 18" raised bond beam with ledger stone and 2 sheer descents. 7' spa with 6 jets and spillway into pool. Pentair equip with 2 pumps, heater, intellitouch system, SWG and plumbing for future solar. 12" thick Gunite wall with faux rock look. A cross between midnight blue and black pearl mini pebble finish. And most importantly "Tons of fun for my family and friends" Ray bcmc: I love your umbrella. Can I ask where you got it? We're getting an outdoor kitchen and I love the look of it. Thanks. momtothree momtothree, We purchased it with the Bar B que island..Actually, it is nearly 16 foot across with a diameter of nearly 48 feet and extremely heavy set on 3 large posts..Islander designs in Corona, California built the island for me. If you do an internet search for Palupas you should be able to find a builder in your state. Ray Updated pics with new Pebble Tec - Tahoe Blue Finally I get to post mine! 32X14 with a 6x6 spa blue granite pebble sheen solar Fujiwa tile Polaris auto clear plus salt chlorinator 3 sheer descents happy me! Ray- its beautiful! and back in the usa...WOW! those colors are AMAZING! nice..very nice. heres mine 30x16 freeform florida gem with 3M quartz 1 sheer descent 2 lion heads Joe My turn!! (at long last)...it feels like graduation day... 47 by 12 1/2 rectangular with automatic pool cover and walk-on lid. Tri-level reaised bond beam (3 feet - 4 feet - 5 feet) with 3 sheer descents, built-in (not raised) spa, mosaics, baja shelf and X-Stream slide. Bella Blue Pebble Fina finish, Cantera stone coping. My pool is almost done as you can see, but not yet. Pool coping is travertine slab with bullnose edge. Round parts of the wall will be planters lined with boxwoods and trees and topiaries. Flat part of wall will have water features of lionheads with water spilling into basins, overflowing into pool. Round planter also will have two more precast pieces added to it. I will post pictures when it is done. arielitasmom--your more looks beautiful.love the water color. congrats and enjoy Joe Black Pearl Pebbletec with Shells. A 40 year old 15 by 30 pool--new plaster, coping and tile. Deck repair in progress. Thanks for letting us look at all your beautiful pools. Lois & Stuart Here's ours at night. SDHERITAGE...im interested in the 3M caymen blue green also but i cant find it listed in your pictures. i see a white finish? do you have another link to the 3M pics? thanks so much im having trouble with all these finishes lol thought i'd post our pool pic here as well. our pool opened in april 2005. its gunite, with medium grey plaster. 35x25, 3-6 feet, 550 sq. feet, with granite deck and coping, and boulder retaining walls. Pool's finally done! Spec's: 18' x 36', Baja ledge, fire pit, coping-travertine with bull-nosed edge., Water feature-Jandy Aqua Accents, Pebble Tec-Sandy Beach. Well here are some of my pool bump- 35' x 18', loose figure 8 w/ 6 1/2' attached spa elevated 48" w 6 jets, 96' Perimeter 485+/-sq/ft 9 1/2' x 6 1/2' baja bench, 3 1/2', 6', 4' Fujiwa Joya tile, Pacific Clay Medium Iron Spot Bullnose Coping 3' x 45' curved bond beam, 125+' other retaining walls (not counting planters) Hayward Equipment, 2hp Northstar Filter Pump, 1hp Northstar Water Feature Pump, Goldline PS-8 Subpanel, 2 Colorlogic Pool Lights, 1 Colorlogic Spa Light Solar 1,600+sq/ft Calstone Paver Decking 2 2' Sheer Decents Variety of Mosaics Acquos Pebble Fina Started 12/04, 1st swim 4th July weekend, finished--pending Finally ready to post...Ralph Looks wonderful! Perfect Boby Great page, takes a while to load!!! All the pools are beautiful. WOW!!! Thank you all. Posting the pics in one thread was extremely nice. We are just starting the process of getting a contractor and doing the design work. Pics really help to narrow the design. Thank You!!!!!! beautiful pools!! crippeninc; mbogan; gschall; What color and type pool finishes do you have? I really like them all!! Here's mine. Ocean Blue pebblesheen with negative/infinity edge, infloor cleaning system, salt-water generator, pentair pumps and heater, aqualogic controls. The waterfall flows into a pond, where the water is sucked back into the pool system. We put river rock and seashells in the pond. Cheifneil...your pool is spectacular. I love everything about it. Great job! Carol Philanna, We used Caribbean Blue PebbleTec. fiberglass 16x40ft sapphire blue 3 laminar jets Here is ours Here is our pool in Dallas. It is a freeform 35x16ft, pebblesheen Tahoe Blue, Oklahoma flagstone coping, tile water line, seeded aggregate decking, waterfall, 8ft deep, tanning ledge, and spa. bump~ Don't forget to post your pics to this thread so we have all the pics in one place. Looking for pics of Keriwest pool with completed Travertine/Marble! Your pools are all so beautiful~~I'm in "Pool Envy"!!! Here is ours in progress (blog page w/pics) more to come for sure. In progress - 28'x14' gunite, paver deck, no bells or whistles LOL. We just started our pool up last week! No landscaping yet, but you get the idea... 85' perimeter raised spa Aqua Blue Pebble Sheen In-floor cleaning system Salt chlorinator acrylic lace deck flagstone coping/spillway heated pool (we're swimming tonight!) :-) Golden Retriever not included....;P anyone else have anything to add to this thread? Pool - Pebbletec - Ocean Blue Pebblesheen Coping, Spa and Beam cap - Three Rivers Rock Tile - Natural Tile Co - SMS Cobalto Stained concrete - Davis Colors - Bayou Concrete patio steps and edging - Three Rivers Rock Waterfall - Moss Rock One skimmer and a Polaris 280 Nature 2 system On a sunny day before mulch: An overcast day after mulch distributed: 'Stingray', our Polaris 280, handles all the leaves from the huge willow tree shown in the background over-hanging into our yard. The leaves are just beginning to come out on the tree. Other pics of saydiver's pool and landscaping Pearland, TX (south Houston) Free form gunite 94' perimeter (387 sq ft area) 19'x30' 31' ft 12" raised beam along the back depth: 3'6" x 6'0" 8' spa with spillway into pool ~400 sq ft of Tan Plaza Series Pavestone decking White flagstone coping 10'5' ft beach entry (flagstone) dark grey plaster w/ green/blue Sunstone aggregate This is great seeing all the beautiful pools! Thanks. Now I need a pool remodel... Maddie 18x36 vinyl pool liner - Kafko Indigo 3.6 ft x 8ft Hayward pump and filter jump board A couple from my company- posted in a nother thread but I thought Id share here too! bump Bump!! bump bump 700 square foot free form in Valley Forge, PA. 2000 square foot of regular old concrete decking 7 foot raised spa with spillway White plaster That dog always sneaks in! Here are pictures of our completed pool and yard. We didn't have an easy time building (over a year to build, plus a house fire started by one of the subcontractors). We're still working with Hydrazzo to fix the problems with our finish. We're still frustrated that we have only one return line which diminishes the effectiveness of the solar, sheer descents, pool sweep and skimmer (which means we have to run all of the of the equipment longer than "normal" and we still don't maximize the potential of any of the equipment). We still have a few plants to add, but we love the look, and the kids are having fun swimming. Details: Size: 18 feet x 38 feet rectangle Depth: 3.5 feet x 5.5 feet x 3.5 feet sports pool Interior Finish: French Gray Hydrazzo Waterline Tile: Emser Natural Steel & Emser Decos (don't remember the name) Decking: Ivory Travertine on lower decks& Noce Travertine on raised decks and stairs BBQ: Blue Pearl Granite + Patio Furniture: Costco (Bar Stools from OSH) Basketball Hoop: Pool Shot Jr. (First picture: Wild Turkey drinking out of our spa!) [IMG][/IMG] [IMG][/IMG [IMG][/IMG 14 x 30 Integral color concrete cantilever deck ceramic glass tile pebble fina finish Blue or Gray Plaster? I wish I had found this forum earlier in the process - I didn't find it until we were almost done. Here's my pool which we just finished a couple of weeks ago in Northern Ca. (Gilroy). It has been in the 80s this past week so we still have some time to use the pool. 18x34 100' perimeter, raised 6" wall around 1/2 of pool Coping is cut Arizona Flagstone (buckskin color) Patio is Arizona Flagstone too - most of the patio was already there and we matched existing patio around the pool Sedona Red Pebble Tec pool finish Rock Waterfall w/ separate pump 40,000 BTU heater 4 kids, 1 wife, & 2 dogs who like to swim, unfortunately for my filter) Still left to do - landscaping, built in BBQ, and finish coping around the waterfall (PB took too long to put in waterfall and my coping guy was gone by then, but he will be back). My only regret at this point is that we didn't use all black fixtures in the pool. The drain covers are black, but the stuff our PB put in (as opposed to plaster guys) is white because that is what we specified before we switched from 3M colored plaster to PEbble Tec. North Carolina Pool 24x55 This is my first pool. Beach Entry on one end. Diving Board on the other makes for a long pool. (24'x55')Beach Entry 3" to Dive End 9', 1600 sq ft sawed concrete deck, 9' dia. FlagStone Beach Entry, Tile Mosaic Spray in Bottom, Diving Board, (5'x20' 12" deep Tanning Ledge), 2 Drive Resting Seats, 12" Raised Beam, 4 Deck Jets, 2 Jandy Colored Lights. Jandy 1400 SWG, Jandy 2.5 hp Pump, Jandy DE Filter, p4 PDA, 57 yards Shotcrete. This is my Design. I worked on this Drawing for weeks. Made on a Mac Our pool is in Land O' Lakes, FL (just north of Tampa) 28'x14' free form 10'x5' sun shelf 7' spa Tropical Breeze Pebble Tec Faux rock waterfall (it took 4 weeks to construct) Flagstone cream/beige/charcoal pavers Flagstone beige coping Noble Tile Mica Series Grafite waterline tile All equipment is Sta-Rite System 3 DE Filter 2hp pump for pool & spa 1hp pump for waterfall 400k BTU propane heater (500 gallon tank buried in back yard behind pool) Aqua-Rite salt water chlorine generator Outdoor kitchen: Viking 30" grill, warming drawer, fridge & dual side burners, baltic green granite, southern ledgestone + Golden Blount Texas Sizzler II to sear at 1,600 degrees. 41'x27'/17' free form 12'x8' sun shelf 8' x 6' spa w/5 jets Bay Pearl Sunstone Pearl finish Faux rock waterfall Travertine marble pavers Concrete coping Lauderdale Tile - Altamira 6" x 6" waterline tile Portobello Tile - Beaches 1" mosaic - decos and spa waterline Jandy Equip w/remote inside house and spa side 2hp pump for pool and waterfall 2hp pump for spa Aquatherm heat pump Aqua-Link salt water chlorine generator 24'x 55' North Carolina Blue Hawaii Plaster Pool with 4 Deck Jets, Raised Bond Beam with Custom Tile, 8' Diving Board with 2 Water Dive Resting Seats each side of Diving Board, Finger Ledge with Custom Tile, 5'x 20' Tanning Ledge with Umbrella Receiver, FlagStone Beach Entry with 2 Umbrella Receivers and 9' Deep. Class V Pool Bottom (good for diving) 2 Digital Colored Lights and AquaPure1400 SWG. (156lf Pool) (1,800sf Saw Cut Deck) (39,000 gals.) Custom Tile Mosaic in bottom of pool. Complete in 8 Weeks and Under Budget!! 1st power bill + $60.00 with pump and cleaner on 24 hrs. a day. I'll cut back to 6 hrs. a day til Spring. !!! PLAN PLAN PLAN !!! This Is My Design I worked a long time drawing and planning B-4 I got PB involved. I handed PB 11 pages of Designs and said build this. (Changes I would make if I built a second Pool, None) 50% Blue Plaster for a Tropical Look. Soft Scape Complete. Looking to start Hard Scapes and Pool House. I designed a fence that has same pattern in it as floor of the pool (spray tile mosaic) Don't Build your Pool to Small. With Adults and Kids BIGGER IS BETTER!!!!! Comptete Nov. 22, 2006 1st swim Christmas Day Merry Christmas to all. We will take a Christmas Day Plung See other Albums just some updated photos hope i did this right Specs: 16 x 40 formal Durazzo french grey Noble tile peacock waterline Leuders limestone coping Ivory travertine decking 1100' Sheer decent waterfalls Arbor, fireplace, built in grill, fridge, trash oblique scupper woks scuppers deck bubbler SWG aqualogic w/ floating remote 6 x 8 spa 2 pool lights, 1 spa light sr smith taupe diving board hayward phantom Here's my baby... *34' x 24' freeform pool *7' freeform spa *gunite w/ dark gray plaster *art rock grotto w/shelves cut in *8' x 10' baja shelf w/ umbrella sleeve *6"-12" raised bond beam *Eldorado art. stacked stone on rbb *Three Rivers Flagstone coping *ColorLogic lights in pool and spa *firepit - Three Rivers Rock Flagstone *15' outdoor kitchen w/ palapa and so on, and so on... And the rest of the backyard... ~Debbie Riverside, CA Pool Designer: Steve Matlin @ Design & Build Pools (951)676-4180 Photos of our recent remodel. Plaster replaced with tile. 36 X 20 7' raised spa NPT tile in Tibet multi Pebblesheen Turtle Bay Pool Builder- Atlantis Pools & Spas (aka Huskeyrider) This is awesome. All the pics in one place. Did anyone do their pool with 3M Colorquartz. I am considering using med/gray plaster with midnight blue. Would love to see any pics with the 3M. Thank you very much. Any new completed pool pictures? Here's mine. Gunite freeform, 3-8 ft deep, spa with overflow, flagstone coping, caribbean blue pebbletec, diving rock, sunshelf, kooldeck decking Here's our pool, Tahoe Blue Pebble Tec, Swim up bar also have a small beach area next to the raised Spa. We are just east of Dallas Texas. Great thread.... any more recent pics? Pool Completed April 2008. 32 x 16. 8 x 11 Oval Spa. Pebble Fina Bella Blue Cobalt Blue Water Line Tile. Depth. 3.5 to 5 to 4 haven't seen many vinyl liner pools...here's one... 18X34 3-6.5 ft jenfiandra, could you please email me at [email protected] (all lower case letters not the number 1 but lower case L's in there)..I LOVE your pool and it's just what we're looking for, would love to know particulars on your pool! Tara Added tons of Plants, still working on landscaping, retaining wall, grass, eating are, etc behind camera. Doing it all ourselves. That's why pavers are still so dusty! Still a muddy yard! We have trees of every fruit you can think of already. We have not put in the top soil around the pool or the low lying plants & ground covers either! It sure takes more time and money than we thought but its fun enjoying as we go along! 2007: 2008: Liz- Santa Clara bump~ bump We are considering using 3M Colorquartz for the bottom of our pool. Does anyone have pictures or comments??? Thanks! What an awesome idea to have everyone post pictures! Rhanks for thinking. I 'm still confused on Pebble tec colors. Going with a beach entrance (Sandy Beach) and either Carribean blue or Tahoe Blue. I have Sierra boulders and my tile has beige and grey through it. Decking is natural stamped cement. Would love to see more pix. of Carribean and Tahoe blue especially with beach entrances!!! Dark grey plaster, native stones for the interior seating areas and waterfall, diving rock, mix of stamped concrete and native stonework on decking. Unfortunately, no black marble pebble tec finishes, but still this is a great resource, thanks! bump Here it is ... 32x22 Free Form Gunite (3'9"'- 5'3") 6'x9' Free From Spa - 12 Jets, Blue Granite Pebblesheen, Color Logic LEDs,. Natural lagoon-style 2-tier gunite pool with infinity edge/waterfall flowing into lower pool that's convertible to a spa. Specs--504 total sq ft, 3.5' - 5.5' depth, boulder landscaping, stone coping, NPT Verona tile, medium gray plaster, tinted brushed concrete decking, Pentair equipment, in-floor cleaning, SWG chlorinator. Location--Kansas City, Missouri Build dates--Oct 2008 to Aug 2009 Bumping this old thread b/c it's awesome to look through the pics and see the different plaster/pebble tec that everyone used. Lots of great ideas here. txmomoftwo- What tile are you picking to go with your French Grey Diamond Brite? melvinpool- I picked a tile that matched the oklahoma wister flagstone coping that I have. I LOVE IT!!! 16x32 free form (102 ln ft, 15,000 gals) 3.5 to 5.5 to 4 feet deep Tanning ledge with 2 bubblers and umbrella sleeve 6 deck jets, watefall Waterline tile: Noble Tile Corsica Blue Oklahoma flagstone Interior: Marbletite Marquis series Azure -- a quartz product All Pentair equipment Nice pictures! 12x30 with 6x8 spa (smaller pool category) automatic cover 4 - 5.5 deep bump mine is very simple 18x38 with only sundecking surround. I kept it simple to work with the age of my home,1928. It is gunite with blue tile 8ft deepend and swimout. Thought i would post cause when we were looking for pool ideas very few people had simple pools with little to no patio. I wanted grass right up to the edge with less than a few inches of coping at the time My DH said no way.. mowing issues, so we have 2ft surround now. WOW!!! This was a great idea. I now know the answer to 2/3 of my questions. Thanks!!!! bump Hi-- just looked through all of these pictures and not one Slate blue pebblesheen..does anyone have slate Blue PS that they would post for me? Going back and forth between that one and Blue Granite..thanks! Here's my Dallas pool: Here's our pool, finally! This is a picture of the pool we built last spring. I haven't been able to post due to computer issues. We really enjoyed it all last summer but it seems the summer passed very quickly. Just waiting for the water to warm up now. Can't wait !!!!!!! I'm new here. Just starting the process of having an inground pool installed. Vinyl liners are the norm up here in Ontario, and I'd really like to go with a dark grey liner, but would love to see some pics, if anyone has any to share? thanks! Stefv1, what color pebble tec did you use? Sid, I used Jet Black Mini Pebble wet edge brand. They were supposed to put some pearl shells in the mix but it got missed in the order. They were already putting down the plaster when I realized it. That's the only thing I would change. It just creates a little more shimmer to the water. Otherwise it is wonderful. Before & After in Oklahoma I like everyone's pics here in one place to see. lots of ideas thanks! Here's mine. 38' x 24', 3.5' - 7' deep, saltwater, Gunite slide and moss rock waterfall. Finish is Wet Edge Pearl Matrix Chilean Beach Tahoe. I am loving this thread. I am trying my hardest to find pools with Aqua White and Aqua Cool from Stonescapes Mini Pebble. Does anyone have any pictures of those colors? I am installing the "in your face shark" mosaic and I want a color that will make the shark stand out and will also NOT have a green tint. Any pics or suggestions? these are amazing. lately I'm obsessed with pools so I love seeing everyone's pics. Angnjam, We just had our pool remodeled. We have Med Gray Plaster. And installed the In Your Face Shark. It is amazing, it really shows up well with even that plaster. We just love it. I think it will look wonderful with the plaster color that you getting. Great thread! I'm looking for pool pictures of Diamond Brite Steel Blue or Ocean Blue? Thanks! I LOVE this thread! Please post more pics! Mine is getting filled as we speak and the area will continue to be a work in progress with an Ivory travertine patio floor down the road. This is a modest existing pool remodel. We took out the silly spa with its four puny jets, odd size, and no light and made it into a conversation niche. In the before design you couldn’t heat up the spa without heating up the entire pool. Surface- Wet Edge New Zealand Tropical- peal matrix but with the deeper blue/green dye used in the Chilean Tahoe. The last picture with spa and orange coping is the Before .

In An Age Before – Part 62 Chapter Fifty-four Eriador – The Third Age of the Sun Now following their frustrating debacle in Gondor, Helluin and Beinvír returned disgruntled to Eriador, for more than any other place in Middle Earth, the two thought of it as home. Thus in the autumn of T.A. 870 the two ellith and their two cats came again to the rolling green lands 'twixt the Hithaeglir and the Ered Luin. As was't oft the case upon their returns, they soon found themselves in the company of the Laiquendi. Though they had been gone little more than two seasons in the south, it had been some years since last they had seen these old friends. "Greetings Beinvír and Helluin, 'tis good to meet thee once again," Dálindir said in welcome. The two ellith had come upon the King of the Green Elves and his company 'nigh a wooded hill in the midlands of Eriador, beside a pleasant tributary stream that led east to the growing river Baranduin. 'Twas now 27 Narbeleth, (October 27th), TA 870. "Our greetings to thee, O Dálindir," Beinvír replied with a warm smile. "How hath the time passed in this pleasant land? Art thy people well? I see that thy general and thy captain and many other old friends still travel with thee. I am glad." Tórferedir, Gwilolrán, Gérorn, and Celegaras returned her smile. Others whom Beinvír had long known were present as well. Indeed she could not recall ever seeing her king in so large a company in times of peace. About them were encamped well 'nigh four dozen Green Elves. Dálindir noted her glance. "Of late we hath taken to wandering in larger companies," he explained. "Times hath changed and art changing yet the more. As ere the last war, the kingdom of Men expands. More tillith and larger hamlets hath spread 'cross the lands. 'Tis less easy to roam without contact, and in those places were Men art few, the land supports larger companies as easily as smaller. Of late, with the partition of Arnor, territories art held the closer, indeed almost jealously, especially in Cardolan and Rhudaur. Thither we hath oft seen soldiers patrolling, and these we avoid on principle. We deem 'tis but a matter of time ere anger flares o'er the disposition of Amon Sûl. Still, Arthedain at least conducts itself much as was't the way in Arnor aforetime, though for how long that shalt be, we know not." Dálindir sighed and shook his head. "My friend," Helluin said, "in these deeds thou hast seen the wages of the opening moves of Sauron's return. Alas! For all the blood that was't spilt in the last war he survived and now exercises again his malice." To this the gathered Laiquendi harkened with undisguised horror. The king looked from Helluin to Beinvír and the Green Elf nodded her agreement to her king. Seeing the company's shock and yet too their curiosity, Helluin continued with her tidings. "We hath come of late from Osgiliath in Gondor. Thither doth the Dark Lord stretch his hand in preparation for some coming evil. Already, I wager, he hath abetted the splintering of the north kingdom. He hath infected the Dúnedain of Isildur's house with contentiousness. In the south he estranges the people from their lords and preoccupies them with petty intrigues. Thither we hath seen the madness of the queen and the war-lusting of the king. Even now he grooms his brother-son to assail Umbar. When The Abhorred One returns, he shalt face but fractured resistance from the Men of the West who were aforetime his mightiest foes. I deem he seeks to devour them piecemeal ere they can stand against him united." "Again thou live up to thy name, Mórgolodh," Tórferedir said, "and alas, as aforetime thy ill-tidings art no doubt true. We hath seen the disunity of the Dúnedain and increased unrest amongst the Dunlendings. Know thou 'aught of the Nine? Surely they hath regained their strength o'er the years since thy combat?" The old general looked closely at the Noldo. "'Naught of them hath I marked either hither in Eriador or in the southern realm. Of them I know 'naught, though I deem thy words well founded." Here Helluin dipped her head in acknowledgement to the old general of the Host of the Laiquendi. "In adding one newly corrupted to their company, and by healing long in Shadows, the Úlairi hath surely by now recouped much of their lost power. Alas, t'would that Isildur had destroyed the enemy's Ring." To this many heads nodded in agreement. For a time all were silent with foreboding. "I deem we shalt know them by their acts," Gwilolrán finally said, "for such terror as they art rumored to spread shalt surely not be long hidden." "Aye," said Helluin, "the wraiths art not themselves if stripped of the fear they conjure. 'Tis their first weapon against mortals. When they arise we shalt hear of them." "Then 'till that time we shalt remain vigilant," Tórferedir said. "Though Eriador hast long hosted the kingdoms of Men, 'twas longer still the home of the Nandor, even in the days of Ossiriand. We hath a stake hither and 'naught of evil shalt escape our eyes." Again the company nodded in agreement. They would keep a careful watch upon Eriador. Unfortunately that time of watching proved less long than many amongst them would hath hoped. Indeed the time was't to be short as the Elves reckoned it. Now thereafter the days passed in a watchful peace and the years came and went. As Helluin and Beinvír had feared, Eärnil I succeeded Tarannon Falastur in TA 913. 'Twas but a decade later that the animosity 'twixt Gondor and Umbar increased. At first 'twas skirmishes amongst seamen, proxies of their parent kingdoms, but soon the realms fought openly and war was't declared. The ships of Gondor then blockaded the Firth of Umbar and shortly thereafter a siege was't laid to the city itself. An expeditionary force from Ithilien came south of the River Harnen. Thence by ship and by land the soldiers and sailors of the southern realm pressured their ancient foes. Many battles were fought, but the might of King Eärnil's army and navy prevailed. In 933 Umbar fell. Thereafter the occupation of Umbar proceeded, and while'st some lords amongst the Black Númenóreans were subjugated, many more fled inland to the kingdoms of Near Harad. Thither they rallied the Southrons against the northern invaders, allying themselves more closely with the Haradrim, and continuing to contest the country north and south of Umbar and inland from the coasts. For decades to come they persisted in a low level conflict, building alliances and strength for a campaign against the kings of Gondor. In those early days of the occupation of Umbar, Eärnil I strove to strengthen his grasp in the south, and like his predecessor, he was't oft upon the sea. Thus 'twas aboard ship that he lost his life in 936, when a great storm blew in off Belegaer and sank his flagship along with many other vessels off the coast of Umbar. Eärnil I was't succeeded then by his son Ciryandil, who continued his father's warring against the Southrons. Fighting continued off and on for a century and more. Yet in 1015 the Black Númenóreans and their Haradrim allies laid siege to Umbar, surprising the Men of Gondor with their numbers and ferocity. Thither did Ciryandil fall in battle, though 'twas on land rather than at sea. He was't succeeded by his son Ciryaher. 'Twas then by Gondor's great sea power that Umbar survived in Gondorian hands, for to the defenders did ships bring reinforcements and supplies unopposed. Slowly the city endured the siege and indeed slowly the see-saw fighting outside the walls drew back until a buffer existed about Umbar. At last in TA 1050 did Ciryaher's forces drive the Haradrim back with a great counterattack, breaking their leaguer about the harbor lands. Thither were many of the remaining Black Númenóreans slain. The strength of the Men of Harad faltered. Gondor finally broke the resistance of the natives and took possession of Near Harad. Then the southern kings sued for peace and laid down their arms, and thereafter for many generations did the Haradrim acknowledged the Kings of Gondor as their o'erlords. Thence did Ciryaher take the title Hyarmendacil I, signifying Victor of the South. Now these things came to pass in the southern realm of the Dúnedain and tidings came thence to Eriador. Yet as aforetime word came by way of messengers while'st the palantíri remained silent and dark. Lord Amlaith ruled Arthedain 'till 946 ere he passed on the scepter to his son, Beleg. Neither lord acted upon the message of 870 that Helluin had sent through the palantír of Osgiliath. 'Twas known that war raged in the south and a claim upon the throne in such times was't sure to be refused. Neither Amlaith nor Beleg sought to bring divisiveness amongst their southern kin. Then too each had more local relations to consider, for how could they rightly claim the rule of Gondor when they ruled not the whole of Arnor? Thus the rule of the south kingdom passed from the direct line of Anárion unopposed. Perhaps 'twas best for all in those days, for soon enough trouble would come to the north. 'Twas during Beleg's reign that the first great evil came to the north and west, manifesting itself in the darkening of Calenglad i'Dhaer. In those days after Beleg took the throne in Annúminas, a dark spirit came upon the hill of Laiquadol. 'Twas some sorcerer perhaps, most thought, deeming him the powerful lord of some fell tribe of Easterlings out of the far lands east of Rhûn. Yet 'twas soon found that this power cloaked in shadow held great potency. The resistance of the Onodrim and their Huorns was't o'ercome and the people of Oldbark were driven hence, northwards within the wood for a time. From the mid-900s did Men come thither from the east for to fulfill the commands of this conjuror, and they did his bidding as if he were a god, raising for him a tower thither upon that height which became known as Amon Lanc. 'Twas the fearsome fortress of Dól Gúldúr. Ere the ending of the century, the Men of Rhovanion whispered in growing fear of the Necromancer. Now early in TA 1001, while'st the air held still its winter chill and the days were yet short, a messenger came by horseback and in haste to Eriador from the northeast, and ever he sought thither for one Helluin Maeg-mórmenel. Bright armor he wore and upon his pennant was't the device of Imladris. He was't one of the Eldar, a young appearing lord of the High Elves, and he traveled openly amongst the settlements of Men. Because such was't rare in those days, first the people of Rhudaur and then the folk of Cardolan were amazed. These Dúnedain honored the messenger, indeed holding him in reverence for the place of his people in their own histories, but they could tell him 'naught of she whom he sought save for some old tales that he knew better than they. Amongst the other free peoples of Eriador he fared little better. Wandering companies of Sindar he met after some months upon the roads, but they too could tell him little of the dark Noldo, save that she was't known to them, though not seen in many years. From amongst the Dunlendings he received 'naught but sullen denials of any knowledge. To and fro he rode 'cross the rolling green hills, from the foothills of the mountains in the east to the downs of the west. Even to Mithlond did he finally come at last in the waning of that year, and to the Lord Círdan he presented himself, voicing thence his quest. "My Lord Shipwright," he said while'st bowing deeply to the ancient Sinda, "'tis known by my Lord Elrond that thou knew this Helluin Maeg-mórmenel aforetime. Indeed I know 'naught of her save the words of my father and what some ancient tales tell, for I myself was't born in the Hidden Valley in this Age of the Sun and hath never laid eyes upon her. I pray thee then, Lord, hath thou any knowledge of her whereabouts?" The bright-eyed Sinda looked o'er the young messenger and knew that this quest was't one of great gravity to his lord. Elrond Peredhel would scarce hath sent thither one of such importance save when the loremaster of Imladris deemed the message and the summons dire. He found himself troubled by the timing. But a year aforetime he would hath known Elrond's need at once. Communication had been curtailed 'twixt their realms of late. "Give first my greetings and regards to thy father, young Elladan" Círdan said gravely. "'Tis nine hundred years since we hath met, he and I. For many yeni we knew each others' minds, yet of late, no longer. Say then that I wish him well in this time of fading and I miss our conversations of old, when at the High King's court in Lindon we would meet. My blessings too I doth send thither to thy brother and sister, and to thy mother, the lovely Princess Celebrian. Now as for thy errand I shalt tell thee this; thy father must deem his need great for to seek after Helluin, and in sending thee hence he hast offered thee a chance to meet one of the most mighty of our kindred yet upon the Hither Shores. Thou should deem thyself fortunate to walk in her company should thou be successful in thy quest. Know this too; she is doubtless already aware of thee, and if thou should meet, then 'twill be 'naught but by her leave." Elladan raised his bright eyes in question to the Lord of Mithlond. At the edge of his sight he marked the two elderly robed Men with whom the Shipwright had been holding counsel at his entrance. They had withdrawn somewhat to comfortable chairs 'cross the room and bided thither their time in patience, watching all, but speaking not. From them Elladan felt the hint of great power well suppressed or hidden. 'Twas…perplexing. "Helluin travels in the company of one of the Laiquendi," Círdan continued, "and though thou hath marked them not, thou hath surely passed many of that people in this land. They art the unseen eyes and ears of Eriador, and most of that which comes to pass herein is known to them. Helluin they hath come to regard as one of their own, and this alone should tell thee somewhat of her, for even I would travel in ignorance of their presence in these lands. Tidings they hath surely shared with her and her companion." Then, with a brighter glint in his eye, he added, "Indeed thou hast most likely been trailed for many weeks, thy mind subtly searched, and thy errand known." A slight grin shaped Círdan's lips at the shock that grew upon the face of Elrond's son. Behind the two Men a tall shadow separated itself from a deeper shadow cast upon the wall and moved into the center of the room. Elladan felt his heartbeat pounding. Even with his clear Elven sight he had marked not that any others were present, and save for the figure's choice to reveal itself now he would hath remained at unawares. Such was't as the sorcery of a wraith! The shadow came to stand with him before the Lord of the Havens, and drawing back the hood of her cloak, revealed a long fall of jet hair and sapphire eyes kindled with such Light as he had never seen. 'Twas as if she had drawn back a cloak of the spirit as surely as that made of cloth. Save for the Lord Glorfindel, none he had met shone forth such Light of Aman from their being. The power hidden 'neath her shabby raiment of mixed greens beat upon him as a great wave. For a moment he met her eyes, and thither he was't constrained. Mae govannen, Elladan iond Elrond¹, Helluin said silently in Sindarin, then switching to Quenya added, Maquetta atartyallo?² ¹(Mae govannen, Elladan iond Elrond. Well met, Elladan son of Elrond = Mae(well) + govannen(met) + Elladan(Elf-Man) + iond(son) + Elrond. Sindarin) ²(Maquetta atartyallo? What word from thy father? = Ma-(interr pro pref, what) + quetta(word) + atar(father) + -tya(2nd pers poss pro suff, your) +-llo(ablat suff, from)Quenya) At first Elladan blinked in surprise. Few were the times upon which he had heard Quenya spoken, for in Imladris, indeed in all the west, that ancient tongue was't now reserved for 'naught but lore and ceremony. Still, the lessons of his father came to his mind and he answered haltingly in kind, for now he found he could withhold nothing. Atarnya yala tye anta ngolwe ar tercen nyárane quettarnnar aistaiva Taurellon¹. Eques tana Fuine loaie tar². ¹(Atarnya yala tye anta ngolwe ar tercen nyárane quettarnnar aistaiva taurellon. My father calls you to give counsel(lit. wisdom and insight) related to the words of fear from the Great Forest. = atar(father) + -nya(1st pers poss suff, my) + yala(call) + tye(indep 2nd pers pro, you) + anta(inf v, to give) + ngolwe(wisdom) + ar(and) + tercen(insight) + nyára-(relate) + -ne(imperf past suff) + quetta(word) + -r(pl) + -nnar(allat suff, to) + aista-(fear) + -iva(assoc suff, of) + Taure(great forest) + -llon(ablat suff, from). Quenya) ²(Eques tana Fuine loaie tar. 'Tis said that a Shadow grows(lit. is growing) thither.= eque-(say) + -s(3rd pers neut sing subj pro suff, it) + tana(that) + fuine(deep shadow) + loa(growth) + -ie(verbal n suff) + tar(there). Quenya) Now 'twas Helluin's turn to blink in surprise, for these tidings she deemed quite grave. Elladan's choice of words said as much. He had used the word fuine, 'deep shadow', rather than mordo, avása, or lumbe, all of which signified a normal shade. Fuine held the connotation of a darkness associated with evil, a dimming of the spirit's hope as much as the world's light. Long aforetime after the Dagor Bragollach, the land of Dorthonian, whither Morgoth had laid deep sorcery and horror, had been renamed Taur-Nu-Fuin, the Forest Beneath Night. Thither in that accursed highland that faced Angband 'cross a scant 50 desolate miles, none save a few of heroic courage had ventured; Barahir's desperate band of survivors, Beren Erchamion, Beleg Cúthalion, and Turin Turambar. And in the 3rd Age there was't but one Taure, or Great Forest…Calenglad i'Dhaer. With a blink Helluin released Elladan and he took a deep breath to steady his heart. She had turned to face Círdan, and beyond him, the two old Men. "By thy grace, my lords, I take my leave, for I am called thither to Imladris." The Lord of Mithlond dipped his head, both in acknowledgment and acceptance of her decision. Elladan saw one of the old Men, the one robed in grey, also nod, somehow conveying warmth and hope in his sharp, blue-eyed glance. The other Man, robed in white, merely gazed at them with a studied detachment that thinly veiled a burning curiosity about their business. The son of Elrond felt a vague disquiet while'st the subject of his attention. After bowing to the three, Helluin turned, and with a cant of her head signaled the young ellon to lead her hence. Elladan bowed again to Lord Círdan and began to step away. Linna as estel ar eruanna, Heldalúne Maica i móremenel¹, the old man in the grey robes whispered softly. From 'cross the room his voice came clearly to their ears, though Elladan thought it projected somewhat unnaturally. The words brought a smile to Helluin's face and the hint of an expression 'nigh a sneer from his companion in white.¹(Linna as estel ar eruanna, Heldalúne Maica i móremenel. Go with hope and grace, Helluin Maeg-mórmenel =linna(go) + as(with) + estel(hope) + ar(and) + eruanna(grace), Heldalúne Maica i-móremenel Quenya) Helluin and Elladan had come to the door of the chamber when Helluin paused, bringing Elrond's son to a halt beside her. For one moment he looked to her with questioning eyes, but at that moment an unfamiliar voice spoke softly at his side. "So we art bound now for Imladris, meldanya? I shalt rejoice to greet again my friend and healer Lord Elrond and the Princess Celebrian, and at last, young Lady Arwen." Elladan had turned sharply in surprise and now he beheld for the first time Beinvír, who stood inexplicably at his elbow smiling at the him and Helluin. In that moment his heart was't stricken by her beauty. The fugitive light that flickered in the depths of her clear, grey eyes held him as surely as had the radiant blue of Helluin's, but no words in any tongue could he find to speak. Indeed his tongue felt suddenly dry in his mouth. "Elladan, meet my meldafëavesse¹, Beinvír Laiquende," Helluin said. ¹(melda fëa vesse, beloved soulmate(lit. spirit-wife) = melda(beloved) + fëa(spirit) + vesse(wife) Sindarin) Elladan gulped and as he nodded his eyes found Beinvír's hand and marked the ring upon the third finger of her left. Thither a band of mithril and gold in the form of the Two Trees of Valinor with a joined canopy carved of adamant was't wrapped about her slender finger. 'Twas a ring of marriage if ever a one he had seen. He felt then the stab in his heart at a meeting with someone who would long claim his devotion, yet whose heart was't long spoken for and her own love long given to another. Hopeless love and an enchanted ring, he sadly mused as they filed out the door and into the hall. Alas, no more lucky am I upon this day than was't Lord Celebrimbor at his first meeting with my grandmother, Galadriel. 'Twas long ere Elladan realized that while'st he had marked with shock Helluin's first appearance from the shadows, never had he marked 'aught of Beinvír's approach 'till he heard her words spoken 'nigh his shoulder. Her stealth had been complete. Such was't his first meeting with a Green Elf, and thereafter he believed all the Lord Círdan had said. To Be Continued Return to the Academy

Thanks. "what is 12.0?" It is listed as VIA LAN in devicetree.cb. I turned it off because M2V-MX has separate Realtek chip. I don't know why it is still there. What do fn_ctrl_lo and fn_ctrl_hi in devicetree.cb do? I don't really understand them, so I left them alone. It seems devicetree.cb needs to be looked at. I will investigate more to get a better understanding. coreboot-request at coreboot.org wrote:. Re: Asus M2V-MX memory init (Peter Stuge) 2. Re: flash-chip (and compatibles) (Oliver Schinagl) 3. Patch merged into coreboot/master: 3d3abb2 Remove old AMD fam10 fixme comment (gerrit at coreboot.org) 4. Re: Coreboot support for ASUS M5 A99X EVO ? (Bernhard Urban) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:40:06 +0100 From: Peter Stuge <peter at stuge.se> To: coreboot at coreboot.org Subject: Re: [coreboot] Asus M2V-MX memory init Message-ID: <20120222034006.29372.qmail at stuge.se> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii David Hillman wrote: > It looks like I am missing something to properly initialize memory > to get correct SPD info. Maybe SMBUS isn't working properly? I think SMBUS is OK and memory init too. Here's the diff between your two logs with some comments, but there may be more relevant stuff than what I see. Next time when posting logs please make sure that they do not wrap. One good way is to send them as attachments, under all circumstances with text/plain mime type. --- m2v_mx-2g 2012-02-22 04:13:21.309138502 +0100 +++ m2v_mx-4g 2012-02-22 04:13:02.663139149 +0100 @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -coreboot-4.0-2000-g91be49b-dirty Mon Feb 20 22:44:53 EST 2012 starting... +coreboot-4.0-2000-g91be49b-dirty Wed Feb 15 22:11:37 EST 2012 starting... now booting... Enabling routing table for node 00 done. Enabling UP settings @@ -47,16 +47,21 @@ sdram_set_spd_registers: paramx :000ceee8 Device error Device error -Device error +Enabling dual channel memory Unbuffered 400MHz 400MHz Interleaved -RAM end at 0x00200000 kB +RAM end at 0x00400000 kB Ram3 IN TEST WAKEUP 800Initializing memory: done Setting variable MTRR 2, base: 0MB, range: 2048MB, type WB +Setting variable MTRR 3, base: 2048MB, range: 1024MB, type WB +Setting variable MTRR 4, base: 3072MB, range: 512MB, type WB +Setting variable MTRR 5, base: 3584MB, range: 256MB, type WB +Setting variable MTRR 6, base: 3840MB, range: 128MB, type WB +Setting variable MTRR 7, base: 3968MB, range: 64MB, type WB DQS Training:RcvrEn:Pass1: 00 CTLRMaxDelay=1d done @@ -68,41 +73,45 @@ done DQS Training:RcvrEn:Pass2: 00 - CTLRMaxDelay=43 + CTLRMaxDelay=34 done DQS SAVE NVRAM: c2000 Writing 113222 of size 4 to nvram pos: 0 -Writing 17161515 of size 4 to nvram pos: 4 +Writing 17151515 of size 4 to nvram pos: 4 Writing 17171615 of size 4 to nvram pos: 8 Writing 15 of size 1 to nvram pos: 12 Writing 202520 of size 4 to nvram pos: 13 -Writing 17171918 of size 4 to nvram pos: 17 -Writing 17191718 of size 4 to nvram pos: 21 +Writing 18171819 of size 4 to nvram pos: 17 +Writing 18181718 of size 4 to nvram pos: 21 Writing 17 of size 1 to nvram pos: 25 -Writing 33 of size 1 to nvram pos: 26 +Writing 32 of size 1 to nvram pos: 26 Writing 0 of size 1 to nvram pos: 27 Writing 0 of size 1 to nvram pos: 28 Writing 0 of size 1 to nvram pos: 29 -Writing 111222 of size 4 to nvram pos: 30 -Writing 0 of size 4 to nvram pos: 34 -Writing 0 of size 4 to nvram pos: 38 -Writing 0 of size 1 to nvram pos: 42 -Writing 0 of size 4 to nvram pos: 43 -Writing 2f2f2f2f of size 4 to nvram pos: 47 -Writing 2f2f2f2f of size 4 to nvram pos: 51 -Writing 0 of size 1 to nvram pos: 55 -Writing 43 of size 1 to nvram pos: 56 +Writing 113222 of size 4 to nvram pos: 30 +Writing 15141615 of size 4 to nvram pos: 34 +Writing 15141515 of size 4 to nvram pos: 38 +Writing 15 of size 1 to nvram pos: 42 +Writing 202520 of size 4 to nvram pos: 43 +Writing 17191818 of size 4 to nvram pos: 47 +Writing 18191716 of size 4 to nvram pos: 51 +Writing 16 of size 1 to nvram pos: 55 +Writing 34 of size 1 to nvram pos: 56 Writing 0 of size 1 to nvram pos: 57 Writing 0 of size 1 to nvram pos: 58 Writing 0 of size 1 to nvram pos: 59 -Writing 741080ab of size 4 to nvram pos: 60 -DQS Training:tsc[00]=000000005eac6acb -DQS Training:tsc[01]=000000006087914d -DQS Training:tsc[02]=0000000060879156 -DQS Training:tsc[03]=00000000df309c2e -DQS Training:tsc[04]=00000000f2a194b3 +Writing 7410809b of size 4 to nvram pos: 60 +DQS Training:tsc[00]=000000008cbdd63c +DQS Training:tsc[01]=000000008f476e2e +DQS Training:tsc[02]=000000008f476e37 +DQS Training:tsc[03]=000000015b152149 +DQS Training:tsc[04]=000000016daed79e Ram4 v_esp=000cef28 testx = 5a5a5a5a @@ -121,7 +130,7 @@ 0x100000 Stage: done loading. Jumping to image. -coreboot-4.0-2000-g91be49b-dirty Mon Feb 20 22:44:53 EST 2012 booting... +coreboot-4.0-2000-g91be49b-dirty Wed Feb 15 22:11:37 EST 2012 booting... Enumerating buses... Show all devs...Before device enumeration. Root Device: enabled 1 @@ -147,7 +156,7 @@ PNP: 002e.8: enabled 0 PNP: 002e.9: enabled 0 PNP: 002e.a: enabled 0 -PCI: 00:12.0: enabled 0 +PCI: 00:12.0: enabled 1 Why is 12.0 enabled with 4G? What is 12.0? PCI: 00:13.0: enabled 1 PCI: 00:13.1: enabled 1 PCI: 00:18.1: enabled 1 @@ -177,7 +186,7 @@ PNP: 002e.8: enabled 0 PNP: 002e.9: enabled 0 PNP: 002e.a: enabled 0 - PCI: 00:12.0: enabled 0 + PCI: 00:12.0: enabled 1 PCI: 00:13.0: enabled 1 PCI: 00:13.1: enabled 1 PCI: 00:18.1: enabled 1 @@ -265,7 +274,7 @@ PCI: 00:00.2 [1106/2336] ops PCI: 00:00.2 [1106/2336] enabled PCI: 00:00.3 [1106/3336] ops -K8M890: UMA base is 7e000000 size is 32 (MB) +K8M890: UMA base is fa000000 size is 32 (MB) VIA_X_3 device dump: 00: 06 11 36 33 06 00 00 02 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 10: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 @@ -275,7 +284,7 @@ 50: 22 22 00 00 00 00 e4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 60: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 70: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 -80: ff ff ff 30 00 80 19 00 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 +80: ff ff ff 30 00 fc 19 00 fc 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 90: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 a0: 00 80 00 00 00 00 3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 b0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 @@ -363,7 +372,7 @@ d0: 50 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 02 a8 e0: 00 0b 01 9a f8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 f0: 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 -PCI: 00:03.0 PCIe link up after 15000 us +PCI: 00:03.0 PCIe link up after 15100 us 00: 06 11 38 c2 00 00 10 00 00 00 04 06 00 00 01 00 10: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 f0 00 00 00 20: f0 ff 00 00 f1 ff 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 @@ -399,6 +408,7 @@ PCI: 00:11.0 [1106/3337] enabled PCI: 00:11.7 [1106/287e] ops PCI: 00:11.7 [1106/287e] enabled +PCI: Static device PCI: 00:12.0 not found, disabling it. Capability: type 0x08 @ 0x60 Capability: type 0x0d @ 0x70 Capability: type 0x08 @ 0x60 @@ -978,10 +988,10 @@ PCI: 00:13.1 allocate_resources_mem: next_base: febfffff size: 0 align: 20 gran: 20 done Root Device assign_resources, bus 0 link: 0 -node 0 : uma_memory_base/1024=0x001f8000, mmio_basek=0x00300000, -basek=0x00000300, limitk=0x00200000 -node 0: UMA memory starts below mmio_basek -0: mmio_basek=00300000, basek=00000300, limitk=00200000 +node 0 : uma_memory_base/1024=0x003e8000, mmio_basek=0x00300000, +basek=0x00000300, limitk=0x00400000 + split: 1088K table at =f9ef0000 +0: mmio_basek=00300000, basek=00300000, limitk=00400000 Adding UMA memory area PCI_DOMAIN: 0000 assign_resources, bus 0 link: 0 amdk8_set_resource, enabling legacy VGA IO forwarding for PCI: 00:18.0 link @@ -1114,9 +1124,11 @@ limit febfffff flags 40040200 index 10000100 PCI_DOMAIN: 0000 resource base 0 size a0000 align 0 gran 0 limit 0 flags e0004200 index 10 - PCI_DOMAIN: 0000 resource base c0000 size 7df40000 align 0 gran 0 limit 0 + PCI_DOMAIN: 0000 resource base c0000 size bff40000 align 0 gran 0 limit 0 flags e0004200 index 20 - PCI_DOMAIN: 0000 resource base 7e000000 size 2000000 align 0 gran 0 limit + PCI_DOMAIN: 0000 resource base c0000000 size 3fffe000000 align 0 gran 0 limit 0 flags e0004200 index 30 + PCI_DOMAIN: 0000 resource base fa000000 size 2000000 align 0 gran 0 limit 0 flags f0000200 index 7 The size for the c0000000 domain is crazy. This is worth looking into further. I did some manual line unwrapping above. The email had extra line endings damaging the log messages. It will be easier for you if you fix that. PCI: 00:18.0 child on link 0 PCI: 00:00.0 PCI: 00:18.0 resource base 1000 size 2000 align 12 gran 12 limit ffff @@ -1368,7 +1380,9 @@ DONE fixed MTRRs Setting variable MTRR 0, base: 0MB, range: 2048MB, type WB ADDRESS_MASK_HIGH=0xff -Setting variable MTRR 1, base: 2016MB, range: 32MB, type UC +Setting variable MTRR 1, base: 2048MB, range: 1024MB, type WB +ADDRESS_MASK_HIGH=0xff +Setting variable MTRR 2, base: 4000MB, range: 32MB, type UC Find out why the 32 MB framebuffer ends at TOM on 2GB, but ends at TOM-64MB on 4GB, what the top 64MB is for. Hopefully PCI resources but 64MB is unexpectedly small for that. Investigate. ADDRESS_MASK_HIGH=0xff DONE variable MTRRs Clear out the extra MTRR's @@ -1493,7 +1507,7 @@ 60: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 80 00 d0 fe 80 00 00 00 70: 43 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80: 20 84 49 00 b2 30 00 00 01 05 00 00 05 18 00 00 -90: 00 06 19 88 a0 cc 00 00 00 3a 00 00 00 00 00 00 +90: 00 04 99 88 a0 cc 00 02 00 3a 00 @@ -1506,7 +1520,7 @@ 20: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 06 11 7e 33 30: 00 00 00 00 58 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 40: f4 24 00 80 82 00 00 00 23 3b 88 80 82 44 00 43 -50: 00 03 33 03 00 04 01 80 08 00 01 80 00 00 00 00 +50: 00 03 33 03 00 04 01 fc 08 00 01 80 00 00 00 00 60: 00 ff ff 30 30 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 70: c2 c8 ee 01 3c 0f 50 48 01 00 00 00 77 00 00 12 80: 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 @@ -1605,14 +1619,14 @@ PCI: 03:00.0: enabled 1 PCI: 04:01.0: enabled 1 cbmem_initialize: acpi_slp_type=0 -Initializing CBMEM area to 0x7def0000 (1114112 bytes) -Adding CBMEM entry as no. 1 -Moving GDT to 7def0200...ok -High Tables Base is 7def0000. -Adding CBMEM entry as no. 2 -ACPI: Writing ACPI tables at 7def0400... +Initializing CBMEM area to 0xf9ef0000 (1114112 bytes) +ERROR: CBMEM was not initialized yet. +Error: Could not relocate GDT. +High Tables Base is f9ef0000. +ERROR: CBMEM was not initialized yet. This is very bad. Investigate. The CBMEM code should be easy to follow. +ACPI: Writing ACPI tables at f0000... ACPI: * FACS -ACPI: * DSDT @ 7def0540 Length ba5 +ACPI: * DSDT @ 000f0140 Length ba5 So with 2GB ACPI tables are written high, with 4GB because CBMEM fails they end up in F-segment. ACPI: * FADT ACPI: added table 1/32, length now 40 ACPI: * HPET @@ -1626,7 +1640,9 @@ set_srat_mem: dev PCI_DOMAIN: 0000, res->index=0010 startk=00000000, sizek=00000280 -set_srat_mem: dev PCI_DOMAIN: 0000, res->index=0020 startk=00000300, sizek=001f7d00 +set_srat_mem: dev PCI_DOMAIN: 0000, res->index=0020 startk=00000300, sizek=002ffd00 +set_srat_mem: dev PCI_DOMAIN: 0000, res->index=0030 startk=00300000, sizek=ffff8000 At least the last one is bogus. ACPI: added table 5/32, length now 56 ACPI: * SLIT ACPI: added table 6/32, length now 60 @@ -1645,9 +1661,8 @@ 1100mv Pstate_power[4] = 169141mw ACPI: added table 7/32, length now 64 ACPI: done. -ACPI tables: 4677 bytes. -Adding CBMEM entry as no. 3 -smbios_write_tables: 7defb800 +ERROR: CBMEM was not initialized yet. +smbios_write_tables: 000f1400 Root Device (ASUS M2V-MX Mainboard) APIC_CLUSTER: 0 (AMD K8 Root Complex) APIC: 00 (Socket AM2 CPU) @@ -1697,36 +1712,37 @@ PCI: 01:00.0 () PCI: 03:00.0 () PCI: 04:01.0 () -SMBIOS tables: 277 bytes. -Adding CBMEM entry as no. 4 +SMBIOS size 277 bytes +ERROR: CBMEM was not initialized yet. Writing high table forward entry at 0x00000500 -Wrote coreboot table at: 00000500 - 00000518 checksum c1ee +Wrote coreboot table at: 00000500 - 00000518 checksum eaaf New low_table_end: 0x00000518 -Now going to write high coreboot table at 0x7defc000 -rom_table_end = 0x7defc000 +Now going to write high coreboot table at 0x000f1520 +rom_table_end = 0x000f1520 Adjust low_table_end from 0x00000518 to 0x00001000 -Adjust rom_table_end from 0x7defc000 to 0x7df00000 +Adjust rom_table_end from 0x000f1520 to 0x00100000 Adding high table area coreboot memory table: 0. 0000000000000000-0000000000000fff: CONFIGURATION TABLES 1. 0000000000001000-000000000009ffff: RAM - 2. 00000000000c0000-000000007deeffff: RAM - 3. 000000007def0000-000000007dffffff: CONFIGURATION TABLES - 4. 000000007e000000-000000007fffffff: RESERVED - 5. 00000000e0000000-00000000efffffff: RESERVED - 6. 00000000fec00000-00000000fec000ff: RESERVED - 7. 00000000fecc0000-00000000fecc00ff: RESERVED - 8. 00000000ff000000-00000000ffffffff: RESERVED -Wrote coreboot table at: 7defc000 - 7defc214 checksum 336b -coreboot table: 532 bytes. -Adding CBMEM entry as no. 5 + 2. 00000000000c0000-00000000000effff: RAM + 3. 00000000000f0000-00000000000fffff: CONFIGURATION TABLES + 4. 0000000000100000-00000000bfffffff: RAM + 5. 00000000c0000000-00000000dfffffff: RAM + 6. 00000000e0000000-00000000efffffff: RESERVED + 7. 00000000f0000000-00000000f9eeffff: RAM + 8. 00000000f9ef0000-00000000f9ffffff: CONFIGURATION TABLES + 9. 00000000fa000000-00000000fbffffff: RESERVED +10. 00000000fc000000-00000000febfffff: RAM +11. 00000000fec00000-00000000fec000ff: RESERVED +12. 00000000fec00100-00000000fecbffff: RAM +13. 00000000fecc0000-00000000fecc00ff: RESERVED +14. 00000000fecc0100-00000000feffffff: RAM +15. 00000000ff000000-00000000ffffffff: RESERVED +16. 0000000100000000-00000400bdffffff: RAM Here, coreboot says that you have almost 4 TB of RAM. Investigate. +Wrote coreboot table at: 000f1520 - 000f17d4 checksum f32e +ERROR: CBMEM was not initialized yet. Multiboot Information structure has been written. - 0. FREE SPACE 7dffe000 00002000 - 1. GDT 7def0200 00000200 - 2. ACPI 7def0400 0000b400 - 3. SMBIOS 7defb800 00000800 - 4. COREBOOT 7defc000 00002000 - 5. ACPI RESUME7defe000 00100000 Searching for fallback/payload Check cmos_layout.bin Check pci1106,3230.rom @@ -1737,26 +1753,30 @@ Loading segment from rom address 0xfffad538 data (compression=1) - New segment dstaddr 0xe6b54 memsize 0x194ac srcaddr 0xfffad570 filesize 0xc8aa - (cleaned up) New segment addr 0xe6b54 size 0x194ac offset 0xfffad570 filesize 0xc8aa + New segment dstaddr 0xe6b54 memsize 0x194ac srcaddr 0xfffad570 filesize 0xc8ba + (cleaned up) New segment addr 0xe6b54 size 0x194ac offset 0xfffad570 filesize 0xc8ba Loading segment from rom address 0xfffad554 Entry Point 0x00000000 -Loading Segment: addr: 0x00000000000e6b54 memsz: 0x00000000000194ac filesz: -0x000000000000c8aa -lb: [0x0000000000100000, 0x0000000000198000) -Post relocation: addr: 0x00000000000e6b54 memsz: 0x00000000000194ac filesz: -0x000000000000c8aa -using LZMA -[ 0x000e6b54, 00100000, 0x00100000) <- fffad570 -dest 000e6b54, end 00100000, bouncebuffer 7ddc0000 -Loaded segments -Jumping to boot code at fc8e4 -entry = 0x000fc8e4 -lb_start = 0x00100000 -lb_size = 0x00098000 -adjust = 0x7dd58000 -buffer = 0x7ddc0000 - elf_boot_notes = 0x001270c8 -adjusted_boot_notes = 0x7de7f0c8 -Start bios (version 1.6.3-20120215_224505-debby) +No matching ram area found for range: + [0x00000000000e6b54, 0x0000000000100000) And finally instead of the "Start bios" message from SeaBIOS it's not possible to load the payload to it's address, because.. +Ram areas + [0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000001000) Reserved + [0x0000000000001000, 0x00000000000a0000) RAM + [0x00000000000c0000, 0x00000000000f0000) RAM + [0x00000000000f0000, 0x0000000000100000) Reserved ..the F segment has been marked reserved, because this is where the ACPI tables were written to, because the highmem address was not available, because CBMEM failed to initialize. The error isn't really with hardware init I believe, but with calculation, generation and preparation of system description data for the payload and later the operating system. You need to find out why coreboot gets upset with 4G of memory. //Peter ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:35:54 +0100 From: Oliver Schinagl <oliver at schinagl.nl> To: coreboot at coreboot.org Subject: Re: [coreboot] flash-chip (and compatibles) Message-ID: <4F44B6FA.8070509 at schinagl.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed" Having: <> ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:35:19 +0100 From: gerrit at coreboot.org To: coreboot at coreboot.org Subject: [coreboot] Patch merged into coreboot/master: 3d3abb2 Remove old AMD fam10 fixme comment Message-ID: <E1S09Xb-0003x8-8w at ra.coresystems.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" the following patch was just integrated into master: commit 3d3abb2e9ce3a175c9182b6bc3ad17bc3487735b Author: Marc Jones <marc.jones at se-eng.com> Date: Tue Feb 21 17:53:13 2012 -0700 Remove old AMD fam10 fixme comment The family10 code had a very slow decompress before the cache settings were fixed. This has been fixed for some time. Remove all the old messages from the serial stream. Change-Id: I476efe1a430f702af394734f354ff69bd053f1d2 Signed-off-by: Marc Jones <marc.jones at se-eng.com> Reviewed-By: Patrick Georgi <patrick at georgi-clan.de> at Wed Feb 22 11:35:17 2012, giving +2 See for details. -gerrit ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:51:38 +0100 From: Bernhard Urban <lewurm at gmail.com> To: coreboot at coreboot.org Cc: Chris Leaver <zeonglow at gmail.com> Subject: Re: [coreboot] Coreboot support for ASUS M5 A99X EVO ? Message-ID: <CAAr_hs4iJ2ETxqWP4u9h0BzR8p9hHVMXgFJMHeqBbXFXeVp+ew at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 ;-)) (1) flash the chip with the ft2232 thingy (~30 seconds, without verifying) (2) put the chip onto the mainboard (3) start machine and watch serial output all in all, it take like one minute to test one build. nice! :-/ - End of coreboot Digest, Vol 84, Issue 68 **************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <>

; VIEWS: 4 PAGES: 11 POSTED ON: 10/8/2011 SAM 802.02 Page 1 of 11 United States Department of Agriculture Center for Veterinary Biologics Testing Protocol SAM 802 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus Date: February 11, 2011 Number: SAM 802.02 Supersedes: PYSAM0802.01, December 16, 1998 Standard Requirement: 9 CFR 113.329 Contact: Amy L. Shafer, (515) 337-7749 Approvals: /s/Donna M. Gatewood Date: 08Mar11 Donna M. Gatewood, Section Leader Virology /s/Byron E. Rippke Date: 09Mar11 Byron E. Rippke, Director Policy, Evaluation, and Licensing Center for Veterinary Biologics /s/Rebecca L.W. Hyde Date: 10Mar11 Rebecca L.W. Hyde, Section Leader Quality Management Center for Veterinary Biologics United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service P. O. Box 844 Ames, IA 50010 Mention of trademark or proprietary product does not constitute a guarantee or warranty of the product by USDA and does not imply its approval to the exclusion of other products that may be suitable. UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 2 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Materials 2.1 Equipment/instrumentation 2.2 Reagents/supplies 3. Preparation for the Test 3.1 Personnel qualifications/training 3.2 Preparation of equipment/instrumentation 3.3 Preparation of reagents/control procedures 3.4 Preparation of the sample 4. Performance of the Test 5. Interpretation of the Test Results 6. Report of Test Results 7. Summary of Revisions UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 3 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus 1. Introduction This Supplemental Assay Method (SAM) describes in vitro methods to identify the domestic vaccine strains of Newcastle disease virus. The method uses plaque formation in differential media, plaque morphology, and the elution rate from hemagglutinated chicken erythrocytes. Elution or nonelution is confirmed by hemagglutination upon resuspension of the chicken erythrocytes. 2. Materials 2.1 Equipment/instrumentation Equivalent equipment or instrumentation may be substituted for any brand name listed below. 2.1.1 Centrifuge (Beckman J6-MI, JS-4.2 rotor) 2.1.2 Humidified, rotating egg incubator (Midwest Incubators, Model No. 252) 2.1.3 Water-jacketed incubator with a humidified 5% CO2 atmosphere and temperature set at 37°C, (Forma Scientific, Model No. 3158) 2.1.4 Vortex mixer (Thermolyne Maxi Mix II, Model No. M37615) 2.1.5 Magnetic stir plate 2.1.6 Scissors, sterile (Roboz RS-6800) 2.1.7 Curved tip forceps, sterile (V. Mueller SU 2315) 2.1.8 Microliter pipette (Rainin Pipetman, P1000) 2.1.9 250-mL trypsinizing flask with stir bar, sterile 2.1.10 Erlenmeyer flask with a stirring bar, sterile 2.1.11 Hemocytometer 2.1.12 Bunsen burner UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 4 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus 2.2 Reagents/supplies Equivalent reagents or supplies may be substituted for any brand name listed below. All reagents and supplies must be sterile. 2.2.1 Cotton swabs 2.2.2 Tissue culture dish, 150 x 10-mm (Falcon, Cat. No. 1058) 2.2.3 Tissue culture dish, 100 x 20-mm (Falcon, Cat. No. 3003) 2.2.4 Plastic funnel covered with 4 layers of fine gauze 2.2.5 Polypropylene conical tube, 29 x 114-mm, sterile, 50-mL (Sarstedt, Cat. No. 62.547.205) 2.2.6 Polypropylene centrifuge tubes, 250-mL (Corning, Cat. No. 25350) 2.2.7 Roller bottles, 1000-mL (Falcon, Cat. No. 3007) 2.2.8 Serological pipettes (Falcon, Cat. No. 7530) 2.2.9 60-mm culture dish, tissue culture treated (Costar, Cat. No. 3160) 2.2.10 2 dozen specific-pathogen-free (SPF) chick embryos, 9- to 11-days-old 2.2.11 Fetal bovine serum (FBS) 2.2.12 L-Glutamine (Sigma, Cat. No. G7513) 2.2.13 Trypsin, 0.25% (Cello Corporation, Cat. No. AT25) 2.2.14 Pipette tips (Rainin 0-100, 0-200, 100-1000) 2.2.15 Ionagar No. 2S 2.2.16 Solutions All solutions are autoclaved or filter sterilized. UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 5 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus 1. Dulbecco's phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) Solution A (Ca++- and Mg++-free PBS) NaCl 8.0 g KCl 0.2 g Na2HPO4 1.15 g KH2PO4 0.2 g Phenol Red 0.04 g q.s. with distilled or deionized water (DW) 1000 mL Solution B CaCl2 1g q.s. with DW 100 mL Solution C MgCl2•6H2O 0.1 g q.s. with DW 100 mL Autoclave the 3 solutions separately and cool before mixing. Mix 800 mL of solution A and 100 mL each of Solution B and C for a total volume of 1000 mL. This is a 1X solution. Use solutions A + B + C as a diluent for virus suspensions and solution A as washing saline for cell cultures. 2. Growth Medium for CEF Primaries Earle's BSS with 0.65% lactalbumin hydrolysate: without sodium bicarbonate 90% Minimum essential medium, vitamins (100 X) 1% Minimum essential medium, amino acids (50 X) 2% Fetal bovine serum, heat inactivated 5% Penicillin, 10,000 units/mL 1% Streptomycin, 10,000 µg/mL 1% Add 7.5% sodium bicarbonate solution to adjust pH to 7.2 to 7.4. UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 6 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus 3. Additive Solutions Solution D DEAE-dextran 1g q.s. with DW 100 mL Autoclave at 120°C for 15 minutes. Solution M MgSO4•7H2O 49.2 g q.s. with DW 100 mL Autoclave at 120°C for 15 minutes. 4. First Overlay Medium (2X) 2 X Earle's BSS with 1.30% lactalbumin hydrolysate: without sodium bicarbonate 80% Minimum essential medium, vitamins (100 X) 2% Minimum essential medium, amino acids (50 X) 4% Fetal bovine serum, heat inactivated 10% Penicillin, 10,000 units/mL 2% Streptomycin, 10,000 µg/mL 2% Add 7.5% sodium bicarbonate solution to adjust pH to 7.2 to 7.4. 5. Mix this 2X medium with equal parts of: Ionagar No. 2S 1.6% Autoclave at 120°C for 15 minutes. Add to Ionagar after autoclaving: DEAE-dextran, 1% solution (Solution D) 4.0% MgSO4•7H2O, 2 M solution (Solution M) 3.0% Mix cooled agar and medium well and bring to 44°- 45°C in a water bath. UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 7 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus 6. Second Overlay Medium The second overlay medium is the same as the first with the addition of neutral red. Neutral red, 1% solution (1% of total agar medium). Store at 4°C. 7. Differential Medium without DEAE-dextran and Magnesium Sulfate First and second overlays are prepared as above except DEAE-dextran and magnesium sulfate solutions are excluded. 8. Alsever's Solution Glucose 20.5 g Trisodium citrate dehydrate 8.0 g Citric acid monohydrate 0.55 g Sodium Chloride 4.2 g q.s. with DW 1000 mL pH 6.1. Sterilize by membrane filtration through a .45-µm filter. 9. 0.01 M PBS Disodium phosphate anhydrous 1.096 g Monosodium phosphate monohydrate 0.315 g Sodium chloride 8.5 g q.s. with DW 1000 mL pH 7.2. May be stored at 4°C for 3 to 4 weeks. 2.2.17 Cell cultures Primary chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF) are used for this procedure. Chicken embryos are prepared by removing all viscera, heads, and appendages, then trypsinized with BPL-treated trypsin, rinsed with CA++- and Mg++-free PBS and seeded into 60 x 15-mm plastic petri plates at the rate of 107 cells in 5 mL of growth medium per plate. A more rapid method of plating cells without counting is by suspending 1 mL of packed cells (200 X g for 10 minutes) in 100-150 mL of growth medium and plating 5 mL of this suspension. Confluent monolayers are formed in 18 to 24 hours. UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 8 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus 3. Preparation for the Test 3.1 Personnel qualifications/training Personnel must have experience or training in this protocol. This includes knowledge of aseptic biological laboratory techniques and preparation, proper handling and disposal of biological agents, reagents, tissue culture samples, and chemicals. Personnel must also have knowledge of safe operating procedures, policies, and guidelines; and training in the operation of the necessary laboratory equipment listed in Section 2.1. 3.2 Preparation of equipment/instrumentation Operate all equipment/instrumentation according to manufacturer’s instructions and monitor in compliance with current corresponding standard operating procedures (SOPs) or equivalent. 3.3 Preparation of reagent/control procedures Prepare reference viruses in the same manner as sample preparation. 3.4 Preparation of the sample 3.4.1 Rehydration of vaccine The vaccine is reconstituted with accompanying diluent as directed by the manufacturer. This becomes the log 100 dilution. In the case of a desiccated poultry vaccine to be used with a large volume of water, rehydrate the vaccine with 30 mL of sterile purified water per 1000 doses. 3.4.2 Dilutions of vaccine Serial tenfold dilutions are made from the reconstituted vaccine by diluting 0.5-mL amounts of vaccine into test tubes containing 4.5 mL of Dulbecco's PBS as diluent. 4. Performance of the Test 4.1 Method for assaying for plaque formation 4.1.1 Inoculation of cell cultures Gently wash each monolayer with 3 mL of warm (35°- 37°C) Dulbecco's PBS before inoculation. Drain and aspirate each plate. Inoculate 0.1 mL from log 10-3 UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 9 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus through log 10-5 dilutions into each of 6 plates. The plates are rocked to distribute virus inoculum. 4.1.2 Absorption of virus Inoculated plates are incubated at 37.5°± 0.5°C for 60 minutes in a humidified CO2 (3% to 5%) incubator. Maintain high humidity during this period to prevent drying of the monolayer. It is not necessary to wash or drain the monolayers when 0.1 mL of sterile inoculum is used. 4.1.3 First agar-medium overlay 1. Three plates of each dilution are overlaid with agar-medium containing Solution D and Solution M. Three plates of each dilution are overlaid with agar-medium without these additives. 2. Specifically, divide agar-medium into equal parts and add Solution D and Solution M to 1 part but omit them from the other part. With the agar-medium at a temperature of 44°- 45°C, gently add overlays to the plates. After the agar-medium overlay has solidified, the tray of plates is carefully returned to the CO2 incubator. Exercise care in handling the tray in order not to jar the plates. 3. Incubate plates at 37.5°± 0.5°C for 72 hours. 4.1.4 Second agar-medium overlay The second agar-medium overlay is applied 72 hours after the first. Then, the monolayer is allowed to absorb the neutral red stain. A minimum of 4 hours is necessary for color contrast to form in the monolayer. 4.1.5 Reading plaque morphology The broad meaning of "plaque" is that it is a patch on a surface. In this work, plaque refers to a necrotic patch in a cellular monolayer. Viable cells stain red, while the necrotic areas caused by viral infections do not stain. Plaques are most easily distinguished at 96 hours after inoculation. Characteristics of plaque formation under each agar-medium preparation are recorded. Plaque size in mm, turbidity as turbid or clear, and morphology as shape and evenness of edges are recorded. Under agar-medium containing DEAE-dextran and MgSO4, the B1 strain (NDV-B1) and the LaSota strain (NDV-LaS) produce pinpoint to 1.5-mm plaques of varying turbidity. The titer of the virus may be calculated by counting the plaques. Under agar-medium without DEAE-dextran and MgSO4, UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 10 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus NDV-B1 and NDV-LaS usually do not produce plaques. Occasionally, cytopathic effects are observed that later form plaques, but this is not reproducible. 4.1.6 Reference Control Virus NDV-B1 and NDV-LaS viruses are included in this test for reference observations. Log 10-3 and log 10-4 dilutions are inoculated into 2 plates per each dilution, following the same procedure as described above. Optimum concentration is 30 to 150 plaques per plate, and only counts within this range are considered for quantitation of virus. 4.2 Method for assaying hemagglutination-elution (HA-E) and hemagglutination-resuspension (HA-R) 4.2.1 The method of production of most NDV vaccines eliminates the hemagglutinin commonly found therein. This necessitates an additional step in characterizing the vaccine strain. Inoculate 0.1 mL from the log 10-3 dilution into the allantoic cavity of 5, 9- to 11-day-old chicken embryos. Harvest amnio allantoic fluids 3 to 4 days later. This is used in the HA-E and HA-R tests. 4.2.2 Collection of Chicken Erythrocytes (C-RBC) The erythrocytes are collected at a 1:4 dilution in Alsever's solution. They are washed 3 times and stored in Alsever's solution. Erythrocytes, not over 48 hours old, are freshly prepared at each time of use. 4.2.3 Preparation of C-RBC One-half (0.5) mL of washed and packed C-RBC are resuspended in 99.5 mL of 0.01 M PBS. 4.2.4 Classical Tube Test Serial twofold dilutions of each virus tested, from 1:5 to 1:10,240, are made in 12 x 75-mm test tubes containing 0.5 mL-volume of 0.01 M PBS. Diluent and erythrocyte controls are included. One-half (0.5) mL of the erythrocyte suspension is added, and the test is set at 4°C until observations of the hemagglutination and elution patterns are made. Hemagglutination patterns are read at 1 and 2 hours, continuing every 2 hours (during regular working hours) for a total of 24 hours. Results are recorded. At the end of 24 hours, the test rack is shaken to uniformly resuspend the erythrocytes. Two hours after resuspension, the hemagglutination is again read and recorded. NDV-B1 and NDV-LaS reference viruses are included as positive controls in the HA-E and HA-R tests. UNCONTROLLED COPY Center for Veterinary Biologics SAM 802.02 Testing Protocol Page 11 of 11 Supplemental Assay Method for Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus 5. Interpretation of the Test Results 5.1 The difference between rapid and slow elution is based upon at least 2 observations: (1) the elution pattern, and (2) the hemagglutination pattern after resuspension. Complete elution that occurs within 24 hours is contrasted with failure to do so. NDV-B1 will elute within 2 hours. NDV-LaS remains hemagglutinated after 24 hours even though some elution may occur. 5.2 Confirmation of elution is made by the HA-R test. Failure to hemagglutinate after resuspension at 24 hours is contrasted with hemagglutination. NDV-B1 will not hemagglutinate on resuspension of erythrocytes, while NDV-LaS will hemagglutinate and often the titer will increase. Summary of Identification of Vaccine Strains of Newcastle Disease Virus: Plaques Formed in Differential Media Hemagglutination With DEAE-dextran | Without DEAE-Dextran Elution and MgSO4 and MgSO4 Time Resuspension NDV-B1 + - ≤ 24 hours - NDV-LaS + - ≥ 24 hours + 6. Report of Test Results Sample is reported out as NDV vaccine strain B1 or LaSota based on results of identity testing. 7. Summary of Revisions Version .02 • The document number has been changed from PYSAM0802 to SAM 802. • The Contact information has been updated. Version .01 This document was rewritten to meet the current CVB-L QA SAM format. No significant changes were made from the previous protocol. This document supersedes the March 1, 1986, version. UNCONTROLLED COPY Pages to are hidden for "802"Please download to view full document

I. Here are a few of the replies from the students he surveyed: - Sodom and Gomorrah were lovers. - Jezebel was Ahab's donkey. - The four horsemen appeared on the Acropolis. - The gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luther and John. - Eve was created from an apple. - Jesus was baptized by Moses. - Golgotha was the name of the giant who slew the apostle David. We laugh at that, but the truth of the matter is that Christians are also tragically ignorant of what the Bible says. In the book entitled Christian Literacy, the author, Judith A. Lunsford reports on a recent study by the Barna Research Group of Glendale, CA. This survey revealed that nearly 1/4 of the people who call themselves born-again Christians, never read the Bible. Barna reports, "Many Christians do not even know things such as where Jesus was born." He then reflects: "If they are uninformed about elementary things... how can they be expected to intelligently discuss the content of the Scriptures with an unbeliever, or to live in a manner consistent with biblical principles?" That's a great question! In this passage in James, we will center on the Scripture—the Book of Books. It has never been more important that we understand and apply its pages. Charles Colson, in his book Loving God, wrote the following about the Bible: . Pieced-together scraps of Scripture have converted whole villages of pagan Indians. Yearly, the Bible outsells every best-seller. Five hundred million copies were published last year alone. Portions have been translated into more than." (Loving God, Charles Colson) We would all agree with Barna's comments on the need for Christians to know the Word, and we as believers are already impressed with the power and impact of the Word on human history, but there is still a more significant reason for ignorance of the Word. Many who might know the answers to a simple quiz are likewise ignorant of what Scripture says. Though many have listened to the teaching and preaching of the Word of God for years, they still don't understand the basic concepts, nor can they recall its principles. Why is that? The answer can be found in a three-word slogan for tennis shoes. "Just do it" has become a slogan for Nike, as well as a call to a selfish culture. The message translated is "go ahead and not be inhibited by anything—just do what you want. As long as it's not hurting anyone, 'just do it.'" With a different translation, this can be good advice for the Christian. The only difference is that we should apply it not to our selfish desires, but to the application of the Scriptures. As we will see in James 1:19-27, it isn't only hearing the Word that is needed. Unless we do what the Word says, we are in great danger of deception and of forgetting the Scriptures we have been taught. Here's an important question: "Church in America, Hillcrest Chapel—are you listening to the Word, and are you doing what the Word says? Our answer will affect us in a profound way." James 1:19-25 unfolds for us into the following main points: The Preparation Needed for the Word—vv. 19-21a The Process to Follow in Receiving the Word—vv. 21-25 The Promises for Doers of the Word—vv. 19-25. The Practice of doers of the Word—vv. 26-27 Then a direct application: The Plan for Doers of the Word Looking at James 1:19-21, we see first of all: The Preparation Needed for the Word—vv. 19-21." There is a tie with this passage and the previous one. In verse 18, James mentions the Word of God as the instrument by which the birth is affected. Here James shows us how the Word must be a continuing and dominant factor. Also notice, this whole paragraph is dealing with the same subject—e.g., the words for (v. 20), and therefore (v. 21), show it is the same context. What will assure the impact of the Word on our lives? An attentive ear—v. 19a. "My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen. . . " If the Word is to have impact, there must be a readiness, an eagerness to listen—this is what this verse is calling for. It is possible to have good hearing, but be hard of listening—i.e., it is possible we could hear the words but not really hear what they mean to our hearts. This is instructive, in that there is not a method of Bible study or a plan of personal devotions presented first. As important as they might be, there is little point in methods unless there is an attentive heart—attitude precedes actions. "Our time with God is not restricted to church services, or quiet times. If we are not people with attentive hearts, in the ordinary circumstances of life, we will not be people with attentive hearts when we shut the door and open the Bible." This is so easy to see in a church service! Faces reveal so much—disinterest, eagerness, etc. This must be cultivated if we are to receive the Word of God. Did you hear what others said to you before the last time you attended a church service? Did you listen to them? Did you simply nod and smile to your family members on the way to church, but were not really listening? On the other hand, how many thoughts do you have in your mind while you are reading the Scripture? Have you ever read a whole chapter of the Bible and could not remember what you read? Have you ever listened to a sermon and not heard a word? (Don't respond, I don't want to know.) It's obvious if we are to receive anything from God, we must develop an attentive ear. A controlled tongue—v. 19b. There are two kinds of control called for here: "My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. . ." "Slow to speak" If we are to hear from God, it will be because we are slow to speak. If we intend to learn, we have to practice quick listening and slow speech at the same time. A great talker is rarely a great listener. Those who want to hear God speak will have to be less impressed with the sound of their own voices, and value beyond measure hearing God speak, even if they have to wait. Do you ask God about what to do, and then fill up the rest of your prayer time speaking to Him (pleading for your answer, etc.)? Do you read a passage of Scripture and immediately apply it, without first studying, meditating and praying about it? Wanted: great Bible students. Inattentive listeners and fast talkers need not apply! This is a real problem for teachers/pastors. Sometimes a teacher is so eager to speak, he has little or no time to be a student and listen to God. - If a teacher applied this truth, how might it affect his/her schedule or priorities? - Are there other Scriptures that confirm this? "Slow to anger" Does this mean that some kinds of anger are appropriate? Yes! Anger can be used as long as it controlled, properly focused, and limited in duration. It can be used as a powerful energy of the soul, if properly focused on sin and not individuals. Anger, however, must be arrived at slowly, with proper control, or it will be sin—"In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, do not give the devil a foothold"—Eph. 4:26. Quotes on Anger - "An angry spirit is not an attentive spirit." - "The ear is never so closed than when anger takes over." - "When uncontrolled anger comes in, controlled listening and speaking flies out." - "Whether the anger is expressed outwardly or stored up inwardly, it is a hindrance to a meek and reverent hearing of God's Word." - "A fiercely argumentative attitude is not conducive to a humble reception of truth." - See Prov. 16:32; 29:22. What's the main reason we should have controlled anger? 19] My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20] for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. (Note, "for" indicates the reason to be "slow to anger.") Anger—even controlled anger—has its limitations. Jesus used anger in the temple to clean out the money changers, but that wasn't His only means to get something accomplished. The sustained anger of Christians attempting to right evil in our society will leave them feeling drained and burned out. They will ultimately not accomplish the righteousness of God by their anger. Misdirected anger, in fact, will kindle the flames of controversy, divide people, dissipate their energies and do incalculable injury to Christian causes and the church. A third preparation is also needed: A clean heart. v. 21—"Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you." The definition of moral filth and evil means dirt and filth in the worst sense. Moral filth can refer to filthy clothes. It is a term that can mean "wax in the ear that plugs the sound." Evil refers to a network of wrong, encased in motives and attitudes, that lies below the surface—James, Swindoll. Prevalent appears to mean abundance, and seems to be added to emphasize the variety and prevalence of sin Christians have to fight against. Curtis Vaughan, in his commentary on James, says: "…it is perhaps best to interpret the word in the sense of 'residue,' 'remainder,' 'what is left over and above.' The thought then is that sin, though renounced by Christians, is not entirely vanquished in them. There may be some wickedness remaining, like a bad 'hangover' from preconversion days." A paraphrase might be then, "Get rid of all moral filth and evil that still remain in you." A Scripture that speaks of this same process is: Heb. 12:1—"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Therefore, if we are going to hear properly, our hearing must be preceded by confession and cleansing—i.e., the cleansing of those sins that are still hanging around; the ones that trip us up—the hangover from our preconversion days as well as our current sins. Also, if the Word of God is going to have impact on us, we must deal with the motives and the attitudes of our lives that are dirty and filthy. This is a prevalent problem in the church today—Christians are approaching church services and the study of the Word with moral filth and wrong motives and attitudes inside. This will obviously impede the impact of the Word on our lives. Therefore, let me ask: - Have you concluded that the Word doesn't mean that much to you? - Are you listening so poorly and talking so much that you haven't heard God speak through His Word to you for a long time? If that describes any of us, then our trouble is not the Word, but an interior heart problem of which we must rid ourselves. But a clean heart and a controlled tongue is only one-half of what is needed. According to Ephesians 4:22-24, we not only put off our old self, we must change the attitude of our mind and put on a new self created to be like Christ. Pet. 2:1-3—"Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2] Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3] now that you have tasted that the Lord is good." See also Rom. 13:12; Col. 3:8; Heb. 12:1. This is the pattern James is advocating here in vv. 19-27. Let's pray to that end. Let's ask God to free us from all that has plugged up our ears, made us angry, and caused us to talk and not listen to God or others. From the preparation for the Word, we should now follow the process advocated by James that will allow us to receive the Word. We need to put something in place of the moral filth and evil that plugged up our ears, made us angry and caused us to talk too much, e.g., vv. 19-20. We need to put something in the place of that which we are taking off. We need the right attitudes and the right process. This is where James, by the Holy Spirit, is leading us: The process to follow—vv. 21-25. Be humble in spirit. v. 21b—"Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you…" Humility means gentleness or mildness. "This is a disposition which is the very opposite of an angry, self-assertive spirit. Here it denotes a teachable spirit." Curtis Vaughan, James. "In secular writings it describes the atmosphere which should prevail during a question and answer period in a classroom; being able to discuss issues without losing your temper or becoming strongly defensive"—Gary Vanderet. See Christ's description—Matt. 11:28. We learn from the Lord when we are likewise humble. Trench describes it as "an inwrought grace of the soul. It is that temper of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting." Trench, p. 153. Calvin wrote, "Humility is the mind disposed to learn." The soil of the heart must have a rooting hormone called humility. In contrast to anger, or being too talkative, is the spirit of humility; therefore, James tells us we should come without defensiveness or resistance to the classroom of the Word to hear its good word to us. The questions we should ask, then, are: - Do I have a humble attitude toward the Word, or am I quarrelsome and haughty as I approach the Scripture? - Do I have a preconceived idea of what the Word says? - Do I approach the Word and twist it to mean what I want (find a verse to justify what I already intend to do)? If we do, we will not receive the Word God has for us! We must come to this Book with a humble attitude—a teachable spirit—if we intend to understand and apply God's Word to our lives. Be accepting of the Word planted—v. 21c. "...and humbly accept the word planted in you..." The word "accept" is one used throughout New Testament times to refer to hospitality. It refers to a person "welcoming another" into his home, to take to one's self what is presented or brought by another; to accept, embrace, receive hospitably; admit, approve, allow. It implies a subjective reception, showing that a decision of the will has taken place with respect to the object presented, and that the acceptance manifests it. The word "planted" is used metaphorically to mean "set into a man to be, or to grow to be, a new part of his nature (including his mind). In v. 21, the use of the word "accept" gives us a very beautiful picture of the attitude and action that must be present if the Word is going to find "lodging and impact in our lives." The phrase planted in you suggests the readers were believers who already possessed some truth. These people were to have an attitude of welcome /hospitality for the Word, and then extend that attitude to new words as well. They were not to be finicky hosts, but were to welcome the words even if they were unfamiliar. This sponsors a number of questions: What will determine if the Word of God planted in us will bear fruit? The Parable of the Sower gives us answers. It all depends on whether the recipients of the Word are hard soil, rocky soil, thorny soil, or good soil (Matt. 13:1-23; Mk. 4:3-20). What will determine if the recipients are good soil? (Matt. 13:15b, 23; Mk. 4:20) Hearing and retaining the Word; not letting it be stolen by Satan, burned up by trials, choked by the cares of life and the deceitfulness of wealth. It means we accept it and let it grow in us. What will the planted Word of God do for us according to v. 21? "...and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you." James is speaking here of sanctification, not justification. He's not calling for initial acceptance—that has happened—v. 18. But accepting the Word/Jesus is only the beginning. He's acknowledging that the full and continued acceptance of the Word will help us to grow—to be saved from the effects of our prior moral filth. In case we misunderstand what accepting or hospitality for the Word involves, James spells out what it does and doesn't mean. Notice what will keep the Word from having lasting acceptance/impact according to v. 22. "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says"—v. 22b. Just listening, or merely reading, keeps us from accepting. If we just listen or read, we will be deceived. Deceive means to reckon wrong, to draw a wrong conclusion by false reasoning. That means if we congratulate ourselves on merely being a hearer of the Word, we have come to a false conclusion. If we think that merely listening to or reading the Word entitles us to some special favor from God, we are duped by faulty reasoning. The responsibility of those who hear, in fact, is far greater than those who never hear. It would be wrong to conclude that James is against listening to the Word, that hearing and reading is unnecessary or unimportant (my job is important!). If we don't do more than merely listen, however, we will be deceived. How could just listening deceive us? For the Hebrews, knowing and doing was tied together. You didn't know something until you did it. For the Greeks, knowing, learning, and listening was the big deal. James' audience had been dispersed among the Greeks, so it's possible they were being affected by the culture surrounding them. The same could be true for us. We might think that if we know about religious things we are somehow spiritual. James is making it clear, however; knowing isn't enough. What are some of the ways Satan seeks to deceive us with regard to the Word? - Substituting for it, e.g., religious writings of supposed prophets, psychics, etc. - Demeaning it, e.g., Pharisees and enemies of Christianity. - Adding to it and altering it, e.g., cults. - Being too busy for it, e.g., American Christian. - Misuse of it, e.g., not correctly handling the Word of truth—1 Tim 2:15. (See Scribe School, pp. 1-2) - Not value it, e.g., American Christians who don't recognize the Word as a perfect gift from our Father to give us birth and life. (See James 1:16-18.) Do you see what God uses as an instrument to give us birth? It's the Word of truth. But probably the most subtle way we are deceived is what James is pointing out here. - Just listening to it—v. 22. Listening is important, but it is not enough. What will keep Satan from deceiving us with regard to the Word? James has the answer, and our sermon title is a paraphrase to James' answer: "Just do it"! Be doers of the Word v. 22—"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." This command, "Do what it says," is at the center of all that James teaches. (It may be the key verse of this whole book). Doer means to be a maker of anything—hence, the maker of a poem—Acts 17:28. To be a doer of the Word is to submit to its authority and to comply with its requirements. To be a doer—just do it—means to be obedient. To be a doer—according to the tense of the words in the Greek in this sentence—expresses a continuing action. In the King James it is easier to see: "But be ye doers of the word and not hearers." In other words, the person who responds to the demands of the Word only now and then, who acts by impulses and at intervals, is not a real doer either. James intends to make this point as loud and as clear as possible! To be a doer is proof that we have come to know Jesus—1 John 2:5-6 Each of us has the potential to be a mere listener, deceived by a lack of application of Scripture and puffed up with knowledge but no application—1 Cor. 8:1. Jesus tells us that if we hear the Word and don't put ut into practice, we build our lives on the sand, and when the storms of life come, our lives will fall apart—Matt. 7:24-27. James will tell us later in this book (4:17) that anyone who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. It is easy to see we have much to lose by not hearing and obeying the Scripture. A mere listener might be deceived into thinking he has a relationship with God because he attends church, reads the Bible and go to Bible studies, etc. This should concern us, for the vast majority of Americans believe this is what it means to be a Christian. Do you know what happens to a person who believes listening, attending and studying is enough? He eventually loses heart and finds it difficult even to listen and read the Scriptures anymore, because there is no life, joy, or peace in simply listening. Life comes in doing the Word of God. In case we don't get it yet, James elaborates on the difference between a person who only listens and the person who listens and obeys. He gives us an example of those who listen to the Word but don't do what it says in vv. 23-24— "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24] and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like." This look in the mirror is not a hasty glance as some have suggested, but refers to careful observation— thoughtful and attentive consideration. The person in this illustration looks at himself in the mirror of the Word and has a very revealing picture of what he looks like—e.g., he studies himself and becomes very familiar with his features. Hebrews 4:12-13 tells us: ." Do you see what is revealed in the mirror of the Word? Isn't it amazing? The Word dissects the smallest and most complicated areas of our inner lives. It judges and reveals our thoughts and attitudes. The problem is that because the man in the mirror doesn't do what is called for, he goes away and forgets what the mirror of the Word has revealed. He listens to the Word attentively and at length, so that he understands what he hears. His lack of response isn't because he failed to hear or understand what was in the Word. Questions - Are you becoming forgetful about what you used to know in the Scripture? - Have you noticed that you have to hear the same things from the Word of God over and over again because you forget? - Why is that? The answer is obvious. We're not responding to the Word when we hear it the first time and thus forget it. The illustration of the man in the mirror should speak to us and cause us to be committed to hearing and doing what the Word says. During and after a church service, what should be our response when the mirror of the Word reveals the thoughts and attitudes in our soul and spirit that are not pleasing to God? We should apply James 1:21—"Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you." (Put off, change your attitude and put the Word in you.) How about after a personal Bible study? One commentator says, "Once we have looked at the Scripture, we have a choice: we can either deceive or bless ourselves. We deceive ourselves if we make the mistake of thinking that we have responded correctly to God's Word by only hearing and receiving it. We say, 'I spent 45 minutes reading my Bible, I can't even remember what it said. What a great, uninterrupted time.'" Do you hear the deception in that? What should this example say to seminary and Bible school students or graduates? How about pastors? I must make sure that I practice what I preach. This whole book is very convicting to me. I must hear and obey what I am preaching. What does this say to us about Scripture memory for children? "Don't we sometimes give out rewards for children for memorizing Bible verses, or giving correct answers regardless of whether the children obeyed or even understood them? In doing this, I wonder if we begin to deceive them into equating knowledge with spiritual maturity. Scripture memory is wonderful, if it is memorized for the purpose of obedience. The purpose of Scripture is to make us mature, not make us smart"—James Vanderet. Parents, don't be satisfied if your kids can mouth back to you a few simple answers to your Bible questions. It is imperative that your kids learn to hear and obey too. Otherwise they will be deceived as to what spirituality is all about. Be an intent looker. v. 25a—"But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom..." The phrase "looks intently" is very important here; it's a sustained gaze, or to stoop down near, to bend forward in order to look at something more closely—to zealously search for its message. It can also mean penetrating absorption. It is a term used to describe John's act of stooping and peering into the tomb of Jesus—Jn. 20:5. These words make it clear; a person who is going to be a doer of the Word must not be a casual reader and listener. Doers must be involved in active looking—i.e., study, observation, meditation of the Word. Be a continual student and doer of the Word of God —v. 25b. "But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does." The words here give us a strong message as well. "Continues" means "to remain near, or by, or with anyone; hence, to continue or persevere in anything. The phrase emphasizes the thought of habitual activity"—Curtis Vaughan. This calls for a consistent time in the Word, a continual perseverance and staying near the Word—not just in crisis, or periodic study. By necessity we keep looking at that which we've already looked at many times before. This kind of looking will require a keen eye to look for clues as to the meaning and application of a passage. What will happen if we apply this passage to our lives and continually do what it says? The Promises for Doers of the Word—vv. 19-25. James has sprinkled several promises in this passage. Some are stated explicitly, others implied. The most obvious is found in verse 25: Doing what the Word says brings us blessing in what we do. "But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does"—v. 25. This verse makes it clear that blessing comes from applying what the Word of God says. The converse is also true: if we only listen and do not apply, we are not as blessed as we could be. Doing what the Word says helps bring about the righteous life God desires—v. 20. Anger does not bring about the righteous life God desires; humbly accepting and doing what the Word asks of us, does.) Doing what the Word says can also save us—v. 21b. "...and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you." Doing what the Word commands keeps us from deception—v. 22. "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." Doing what the Word says enables us to remember what we were and what we are—vv. 23-24. "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror: And, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like." (See also verse 25) The person who only listens to the Word of God doesn't know himself very well and has a hard time remembering the things he/she has been taught. The person who hears and obeys is more aware of himself, because the process of application implants truth in our memory and enables us to not forget it. Here's the final test: - Do you have a good memory of applied truth? - Has the sword of the Spirit revealed the thoughts and intents of your heart? - What is motivating you? The person who listens and obeys is spiritually self-aware and retains the Word. According to Hebrews 5:11-6:3, the person who hears and does not obey is immature and must be taught the elementary truths of God's Word all over again! How is your retention? How is your mirror? What will enable us to realize these promises? The Plan for Doers of the Word I would like to offer a simple way for you to apply these steps and realize these promises, so that we apply this lesson quickly. The action called for means we follow the example of a farmer and humbly accept the Word (v. 21b) by carefully planting, cultivating and harvesting the Word of God. A simple acrostic that will help us plant, cultivate and harvest is one I developed for beginning Bible study. It is called the REAPer. R—read and re-read the passage many times. E—emphasize the key words of the passage. That means looking for - key words (words that need further study; words that connect; repeated words) - signs of composition (comparisons/contrasts, lists, series, conditions, questions, illustrations, warnings, promises, commands, advice) A—ask key questions. Where? When? Who/Whom? How? What? Why? P—personalize your findings. Ask the following questions: - the before/after question. What book is it in? What takes place before the chapter, paragraph, or verse? - the general application question: How does this apply to me? - the personal question, e.g., SPACE PETS: Sin to confess? Do I need to make any restitution? Promise to claim? Is it a universal promise? Have I met the conditions??

Patent application title: Magnetic writer for field assisted magnetic recording Inventors: Chunhong Hou (Savage, MN, US) Shaoping Li (Naperville, IL, US) Shaoping Li (Naperville, IL, US) John M. Wolf (Maple Grove, MN, US) Sining Mao (Eden Prairie, MN, US) Assignees: SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC IPC8 Class: AG11B5127FI USPC Class: 360110 Class name: Dynamic magnetic information storage or retrieval head Publication date: 2008-09-18 Patent application number: 20080225435 Abstract: A writer includes a write element having a tip portion for generating a write field and a conductive assembly that delivers a write assist current through the tip portion to generate a write assist field. Claims: 1. A writer comprising:a write element including a tip portion for generating a write field; anda conductive assembly that delivers a write assist current through the tip portion to generate a write assist field. 2. The writer of claim 1, wherein the tip portion and the conductive assembly define a medium confronting surface. 3. The writer of claim 2, wherein a down-track dimension of the conductive assembly is greater than a down-track dimension of the tip portion at the medium confronting surface. 4. The writer of claim 2, wherein a down-track dimension of the conductive assembly is less than a down-track dimension of the tip portion at the medium confronting surface. 5. The writer of claim 2, wherein the conductive assembly delivers the write assist current parallel to the medium confronting surface. 6. The writer of claim 2, wherein the tip portion is surrounded by the conductive assembly at the medium confronting surface. 7. The writer of claim 1, wherein a magnitude and direction of the write assist field is a function of a magnitude and direction of the write assist current. 8. The writer of claim 1, wherein the write field is perpendicular to a magnetic medium plane and wherein the write assist field is in the magnetic medium plane. 9. A magnetic recording device comprising:a write pole including a write pole tip;a conductive element electrically coupled to the write pole tip; anda write assist current source that delivers a write assist current to the conductive element such that the write assist current passes through the write pole tip. 10. The magnetic recording device of claim 9, wherein the write pole tip and the conductive element define a front surface. 11. The magnetic recording device of claim 10, wherein a front surface dimension of the conductive element is greater than a corresponding front surface dimension of the write pole tip. 12. The magnetic recording device of claim 10, wherein a front surface dimension of the conductive element is less than a corresponding front surface dimension of the write pole tip. 13. The magnetic recording device of claim 10, wherein the write pole tip is surrounded by the conductive element at the front surface. 14. The magnetic recording device of claim 10, wherein the write assist current source delivers the write assist current parallel to the front surface. 15. A method for writing to a magnetic medium, the method comprising:generating a write field from a write element; anddelivering a write assist current through the write element to generate a write assist field around the write element that lowers a coercivity of the magnetic medium proximate to the write element. 16. The method of claim 15, wherein the write field is perpendicular to a plane of the magnetic medium and wherein the write assist field is in the magnetic medium plane. 17. The method of claim 15, wherein a magnitude and direction of the write assist field is a function of a magnitude and direction of the write assist current. 18. The method of claim 15, wherein delivering a write assist current through the write element comprises:electrically coupling a conductive element to the write element; andpassing the write assist current through the conductive element such that the write assist current passes through the write element. Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001]The present invention relates to magnetic devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to a recording system including a writer that employs a current through the write element to reduce the coercivity in a portion of a magnetic medium. [0002]Recording heads for use with magnetic storage media typically include a writer and a reader that respectively record and detect magnetic domains in a medium below the head. The writer can include a coil of one or more turns wrapped around a soft ferromagnetic yoke. Writers operate by passing an electric current through the coil, which produces a magnetic field that aligns the yoke magnetization along the field direction. For a longitudinal writer, a magnetic field extends mainly between the pole tips but also partly into the media. For a perpendicular writer, a soft underlayer can be employed in the storage media such that the write field extends between the pole tip and soft underlayer. When the write field exceeds the coercivity and demagnetization field of the media, a domain forms with its magnetization aligned along the write field direction. These domains form the bits of digital data that are detected with the read head. [0003]There are significant physical challenges in trying to achieve an areal density of 1 Tbit/in2 with magnetic recording. The write process is among these challenges, in which magnetic domains, or bits, are created in the media. At these densities, the two primary obstacles facing the write process are the use of materials with large magnetic anisotropy in the media and the lack of soft ferromagnetic materials having Bs>2.4 T. The first obstacle is necessary to ensure thermal stability of the media. The average volume of the grains will have to decrease in order to maintain the same media signal-to-noise ratio, which is roughly set by the number of grains in a bit cell. However, in order to avoid superparamagnetism, the magnetic anisotropy has to increase commensurately so that the grains are ferromagnetic and stable over a time scale of years. The net result is that very large magnetic fields will be needed in order to orient the grains and record bits in the media. Since the write field is intimately related to the saturation moment of the pole tip material in the recording head, very high moment materials will be needed to switch the orientation of the media magnetization. Researchers are already using materials with Bs of about 2.0-2.4 T for 100 Gbit/in2 recording, and the saturation moment requirement for conventional recording at 1 Tbit/in2 is likely to be beyond any known material. [0004]These challenges are well known in the data storage industry and alternative approaches to magnetic recording, such as thermally assisted writing, have already been proposed. However, the best writer technology for 1 Tbit/in2 is still undetermined. For instance, researchers are also investigating ways to switch the magnetization of thin film media that do not rely on thermally assisted processes. These approaches are different in that the alignment of the magnetic field with respect to the media magnetization is significantly different than 0° or 180°. The ultimate goal is to switch the media magnetization using fields that are less than the anisotropy field, Hk. BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0005]The present invention relates to a writer including a write element having a tip portion for generating a write field and a conductive assembly that delivers a write assist current through the tip portion to generate a write assist field. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0006]FIG. 1 is a side view of a magnetic writer including a conductive element for carrying a write assist current through the write pole tip. [0007]FIG. 2 is a medium confronting surface view of the conductive element and the pole tip. [0008]FIG. 3 is an enlarged side view of the conductive element and pole tip positioned relative to a magnetic medium. DETAILED DESCRIPTION [0009]FIG. 1 is a side view of magnetic writer 10 and conductive element 12 for carrying a write assist current disposed proximate to magnetic medium 14. Magnetic writer 10 includes write pole 22, conductive coils 24, back via 26, and return pole 28. Write pole 22, which includes main portion 30 and yoke portion 32, is connected to return pole 28 by back via 26 distal from the surface of magnetic writer 10 that confronts magnetic medium 14. Conductive coils 24 surround back via 26 such that turns of conductive coils 24 are disposed in the gap between write pole 22 and return pole 28. [0010]Magnetic writer 10 is carried over the surface of magnetic medium 14, which is moved relative to magnetic writer 10 as indicated by arrow A such that write pole 22 is the trailing pole and is used to physically write data to magnetic medium 14. Conductive coils 24 surround back via 26 such that, when a write current is caused to flow through conductive coils 24, the magnetomotive force in the coils magnetizes write pole 22 and return pole 28. This causes a write field to be generated at pole tip 34 of main portion 30, which is used to write data to magnetic medium 14. The direction of the write field at pole tip 34, which is related to the state of the data written to magnetic medium 14, is controllable based on the direction that the write current that flows through conductive coils 24. [0011]Magnetic writer 10 is shown merely for purposes of illustrating a construction that may be used in conjunction with write assist element 12, and variations on this design may be made. For example, while write pole 22 includes main portion 30 and yoke portion 32, write pole 22 can also be comprised of a single layer of magnetic material, return pole 28 may be removed from the structure to provide a single pole writer configuration, or an additional return pole may be magnetically coupled to write pole 22 on a side opposite return pole 28. In the latter case, a shield may additionally be formed to extend from the trailing return pole toward write pole 22 proximate the medium confronting surface in a "trailing shield" magnetic writer design. In addition, magnetic writer 10 is configured for writing data perpendicularly to magnetic medium 14, but magnetic writer 10 and magnetic medium 14 may also be configured to write data longitudinally. Furthermore, a magnetic reader may be provided adjacent to and carried over magnetic medium 14 on the same device as magnetic writer 10. [0012]Magnetic medium 14 includes substrate 36, soft underlayer (SUL) 38, and medium layer 40. SUL 38 is disposed between substrate 36 and medium layer 40. Magnetic medium 14 is positioned proximate to magnetic writer 10 such that the surface of medium layer 40 opposite SUL 38 faces write pole 22. In some embodiments, substrate 36 is comprised of a non-magnetic material, such as aluminum and aluminum based alloys, SUL 38 is comprised of a magnetically soft (i.e., high permeability) material, and medium layer 40 is comprised of a granular material having a high perpendicular anisotropy and high coercivity. [0013]SUL 38 is located below medium layer 40 of magnetic medium 14 and enhances the amplitude of the write field produced by the write pole 22. The image of the write field is produced in SUL 38 to enhance the field strength produced in magnetic medium 14. As the write field from write pole 22 (and in particular, pole tip 34) passes through medium layer 40, medium layer 40 is magnetized perpendicular to the medium plane to store data based on the write field direction. The flux density that diverges from pole tip 34 into SUL 38 returns through return pole 28. Return pole 28 is located a sufficient distance from write pole 22 such that the material of return pole 28 does not affect the magnetic flux of write pole 22. [0014]In order to write data to the high coercivity medium layer 40 of magnetic medium 14 with a lower write field, a high frequency write assist field may be generated at magnetic medium 14 proximate to write pole 22. According to the Stoner-Wohlfarth model, the switching field limit of the uniformly magnetized grains in medium layer 34 may be expressed as: h sw ( θ ) = 1 ( cos 2 / 3 ( θ ) + sin 2 / 3 ( θ ) ) 3 / 2 , ( Equation 1 ) where hsw is the write field required to switch the magnetization direction of the grains in medium layer 40 and θ is the write field angle with respect to the easy axis anisotropy of the grains of medium layer 40. At near perpendicular write field angles, the write field required to impress magnetization reversal in the grains medium layer 40 is only slightly less than the easy axis anisotropy field. Thus, for a high coercivity medium, the write field required for reversal can be very high. However, research has shown that when a high frequency field is generated at magnetic medium 14, the field required to impress grain magnetization reversal is reduced significantly below that predicted by the Stoner-Wohlfarth model. Consequently, the coercivity of the medium layer 40 may be reduced by generating a high frequency field in medium layer 40 close to the write field generated by write pole 22 in magnetic medium 14. [0015]In order to generate a high frequency field, conductive element 12 is provided to carry a high frequency current through pole tip 34. As will be described in more detail herein, when a high frequency current is applied to conducive element 12 and through pole tip 34, a magnetic field is generated around pole tip 34 with a magnitude and frequency that are a function of the magnitude and frequency of the applied high frequency current. The combination of the write field and the write assist field generated by the high frequency current through pole tip 34 overcomes the high coercivity of medium layer 40 to permit controlled writing of data to magnetic medium 14. [0016]FIG. 2 is a medium confronting surface view of conductive element 12 and pole tip 34. Conductive element 12 has a down-track width wc and a cross-track length lc. First electrical contact 50a is electrically connected to one end of conductive element 12 and second electrical contact 50b is electrically connected to an opposite end of conductive element 12. Electrical contacts 50a and 50b are coupled to write assist current source 52, which provides a write assist current IA that flows through electrical contacts 44a and 44b, conductive element 12, and pole tip 34. Write assist current IA generates a magnetic field (hereinafter referred to as a write assist field) around conductive element 12 and pole tip 34. While conductive element 12 is shown as having a width wc and a length lc, conductive element 12 may have any shape that is effective for delivering write assist current IA through pole tip 34. In the embodiment shown, down-track width wc is greater than the down-track width of pole tip 34. In other embodiments, width wc is less than or equal to the down-track width of pole tip 34. Cross-track length lc may be adjusted to maximize the write assist field generated around pole tip 34. [0017]Pole tip 34 has a trapezoidal shape at magnetic medium 14 to decrease the dependence of the track width recorded by write pole 22 on the skew angle of magnetic writer 10 as it is carried over magnetic medium 14. This improves the recording density of magnetic writer 10 and reduces the bit error rate and side writing and erasure on adjacent tracks of magnetic medium 14. It should be noted that while pole tip 34 is shown having a trapezoidal shape, pole tip 34 may have any shape at magnetic medium 14 that is capable of generating a write field at magnetic medium 14 during the write process. [0018]FIG. 3 is an enlarged view of conductive element 12 and pole tip 34 positioned relative to medium layer 40 of magnetic medium 14. The direction of current IA determines the direction of the write assist field HA that is generated around conductive element 12 and pole tip 34 pursuant to the right-hand rule. In order to provide write assist field HA that assists write field HW provided by pole tip 34 of write pole 22, current IA is directed to generate a write assist field HA that is in the plane of medium layer 40. Write assist field HA causes the domains in medium layer 40 to rotate from perpendicular to the medium plane, which reduces the coercivity of the domain below the write element. Consequently, a lower write field HW may be employed to write to medium layer 40. [0019]To illustrate, three domains D1, D2, and D3 in medium layer 40 having magnetizations M1, M2, and M3, respectively, are illustrated to show the process of writing to magnetic medium 14. In particular, magnetizations M1, M2, M3 initially had directions pointing upward, and FIG. 3 illustrates the process of switching these magnetization directions (i.e., the data state) to point downward. Magnetic medium 40 is moving in direction A relative to pole tip 34, and thus magnetization M1 is still in its initial upward pointing state. Domain D2 is in the process of being written to, and write assist current IA is supplied through conductive element 12 and pole tip 34 to generate write assist field HA in the plane of medium layer 40, orthogonal to magnetization M2. Write assist current IA has a magnitude such that the amplitude of write assist field HA is less than the anisotropy field of domain D2, causing magnetization M2 to rotate to an angle between perpendicular to medium layer 40 and parallel to medium layer 40. While write assist field HA is applied to medium layer 40, write field HA is applied perpendicular to medium layer 40. The perpendicular write field HA is able to finish driving magnetization M2 over the energy barrier and complete the switching of the magnetization by 180° relative to the initial state. Because the magnetization is partially driven over the energy barrier by write assist field HA, a lower write field HW is needed to switch the magnetization state of the domain. Magnetization M3 shows the state of domain D3 after the writing process. [0020]In summary, the present invention relates to a writer including a write element having a tip portion for generating a write field and a conductive assembly that delivers a write assist current through the tip portion to generate a write assist field. In some embodiments, the write field is perpendicular to the plane of the medium, and the write assist field is directed in the medium plane. The write assist field causes the domains in the magnetic medium to rotate from perpendicular to the medium plane, reducing the coercivity of the domain below the write element. Consequently, a lower write field may be employed to write to the magnetic medium. [0021]Although the present invention has been described with reference to preferred embodiments, workers skilled in the art will recognize that changes may be made in form and detail without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, while the present invention has been described with regard to perpendicular recording applications, the principles of the present invention are also applicable to longitudinal and oblique/tilted recording applications. Patent applications by Chunhong Hou, Savage, MN US Patent applications by John M. Wolf, Maple Grove, MN US Patent applications by Shaoping Li, Naperville, IL US Patent applications by Sining Mao, Eden Prairie, MN US Patent applications by SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC Patent applications in class HEAD Patent applications in all subclasses HEAD User Contributions: Comment about this patent or add new information about this topic:

Patent application title: MECHANICALLY ACTUATED DIAGNOSTIC DEVICE Inventors: Zongyuan Chen (Claymont, DE, US) Haim H. Bau (Swarthmore, PA, US) Haim H. Bau (Swarthmore, PA, US) Michael G. Mauk (Wilmington, DE, US) Xianbao Qiu (Philadelphia, PA, US) Jason Kwa (Wellesley, MA, US) Assignees: THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA-12-02 Patent application number: 20100304986 Abstract: Disclosed are mechanically-actuated devices for transporting fluids within a microfluidic circuit and performing diagnostic operations on a sample. Also disclosed are related methods for performing sample analysis effected by the motion of an actuator proximate to a microfluidic system. Claims: 1. A fluid processing system, comprising:a first component comprisingaa second component comprising a substrate comprising a fluidic element,the second component being capable of orientation relative to the first component such that fluidic clement of the second component is placed into fluid communication with the fluid reservoir of the first component. 2. The fluid processing system of claim 1, wherein the first component, the second component, or both, comprise a connector capable of placing the first and second components in fluid communication with one another. 3. The fluid processing system of claim 2, wherein the connector is capable of placing the fluid reservoir of the first component into fluid communication with the fluidic element of the second component. 4. The fluid processing system of claim 2, wherein the connector is capable of penetrating the sealant layer of the first component properly positioned and moved relative to the first component. 5. (canceled) 6. (canceled) 7. The fluid processing system of claim 1, wherein the fluid reservoir comprises a blister, a dome, a bulge, a capsule, a packet, a pouch, or any combination thereof. 8.-12. (canceled) 13. The fluid processing system of claim 1, wherein the deformable capping layer is bonded to the first surface of the substrate of the first component. 14. (canceled) 15. (canceled) 16. The fluid processing system of claim 1, wherein a fluidic element comprises a conduit, a chamber, a valve, a reservoir, a mixing zone, a channel, a vent, a valve, or any combination thereof. 17. (canceled) 18. (canceled) 19. The fluid processing system of claim 16, wherein the fluidic element is surmounted by a deformable layer. 20.-22. (canceled) 23. The fluid processing system of claim 2, wherein the connector comprises a hollow lance, a pipette, a cannula, or any combination thereof. 24.-27. (canceled) 28. A sample processing system, comprising:a component comprising a fluidic element sealed by a deformable sealing layer; anda of the actuator being arranged such that movement of the actuator effects a prescribed sequence of actuations of the deformable sealing layer, of one or more fluidic elements, or both, andmovement of the actuator being capable of effecting fluid motion within at least a portion of the component. 29. The sample processing system of claim 28, wherein an actuator portion comprises a protrusion, a ridge, a groove, an extension, an eccentricity, a depression, a ramp, a cam, or any combination thereof. 30. (canceled) 31. (canceled) 32. The sample processing system of claim 28, wherein a fluidic element comprises a conduit, a chamber, a valve, a reservoir, a mixing zone, a channel, a vent, or any combination thereof. 33.-44. (canceled) 45. The sample processing system of claim 28, wherein the actuator comprises at least one surface residing substantially parallel to the component. 46. The sample processing system of claim 28, wherein the actuator comprises a disc. 47. The sample processing system of claim 28, wherein the actuator comprises a slider bar. 48. The sample processing system of claim 28, wherein the actuator comprises at least one camshaft. 49. The sample processing system of claim 48, wherein the at least one camshaft comprises one or more extensions extending outward from the camshaft. 50.-52. (canceled) 53. The sample processing system of claim 28, further comprising one or more plungers capable of actuating one or more fluidic elements. 54.-72. (canceled) 73.analyzing the sample for the presence of one or more analytes. 74.-82. (canceled) Description: CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/870,034, filed on Dec. 14, 2006, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein. FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0003]The present invention relates to the field of pneumomechanical fluid handling systems. The present invention also relates to the field of diagnostic devices. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0004]The advancement of techniques and methods for detection of biological and non-biological samples for pathogens, drugs, toxins, and the like provides important tools for clinical practitioners as well as for military and paramedic personnel. Such techniques and methods for pathogen detection have additional application to fields other than medicine, including testing food, beverages, and consumer goods for pathogens or contaminants. [0005]Detection techniques typically involve subjecting a sample to a prescribed sequence of fluid transfer, mixing, reaction, and detection steps, all within a contained fluidic system. [0006]Certain of these devices are limited in application, however, because they may not be ideal for transport to and through a rugged field environment where pathogen testing may be necessary. Other devices are complex and are reliably operated only by trained personnel and may be slow to produce results. Accordingly, such systems are not well-suited for use by personnel lacking specialized training or by personnel who may be called upon to perform pathogen testing while under duress. [0007]Further, existing detection systems arrange system components in a linear fashion wherein elements are only accessed sequentially, and may not be capable of effecting more intricate fluid actuation schemes, such as repeatedly transporting fluid between two or more components of a fluidic circuit before then transporting the fluid to subsequent downstream components. This limitation reduces the utility of existing systems in that intricate fluid transport schemes may be necessary to detect certain pathogens. [0008]Accordingly, there is a need for robust devices capable of assaying samples for pathogens, drugs, toxins, bacteria, viruses, medical abnormalities, and the like. Because pathogen detection schemes include multiple mixing, washing, and reacting steps, there is a related need for an apparatus capable of actuating complex schemes of fluid motion. The value of such a device would be further enhanced if its use did not require a specially trained operator. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0009]In meeting the described challenges, the present invention provides a fluid processing system, comprising a first component comprising a a second component, the second component comprising a substrate comprising a fluidic element. [0010]The present invention also provides a sample processing system, comprising a component comprising at least one fluidic element sealed by a deformable sealing layer; and a being arranged such that movement of the actuator effects a prescribed sequence of actuations of the deformable sealing layer, of one or more fluidic elements, or both, and movement of the actuator being capable of effecting fluid motion within at least a portion of the component. [0011]Further disclosed is analyzing the sample for the presence of one or more analytes. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [001213]FIGS. 1a, 1b, and 1c illustrate a representative set of fluid reservoirs constructed on a substrate; [0014]FIG. 2a depicts a blister pack reservoir and a fluidic channel comprising needle connectors; [0015]FIG. 2b depicts a side view of the blister pack and fluidic channel of FIG. 2a, following the insertion of the connectors into the blister packs; [0016]FIG. 2c depicts depression of one of the blister reservoirs of FIG. 2a and the movement of fluid displaced from that reservoir; [0017]FIG. 2d illustrates hydration and homogenation of dry-stored reagents; [0018]FIG. 3 depicts a cassette having a component with a fluid reservoir and a component having a hollow connector; [0019]FIG. 4 depicts a cassette having a first substrate that includes a valve; [0020]FIG. 5 depicts a cassette having two fluid reservoirs in fluid communication with each other and being capable of effecting mixing when the reservoirs are reciprocally depressed; [0021]FIG. 6 depicts a cassette having multiple reservoirs in fluid communication with each other and being capable of effecting valving and mixing when the reservoirs are reciprocally depressed; [0022]FIG. 7a depicts a cassette for processing of immunoassays or free-floating nucleic acids; [0023]FIG. 7b depicts the fluid reservoirs disposed on the cassette of FIG. 7a; [0024]FIG. 7c depicts the fluid connectors, fluidic conduits, and capture zones embedded in a lateral flow strip for the cassette of FIG. 7a; [0025]FIG. 7d illustrates the cassette of FIG. 7a inserted into an actuator; [0026]FIG. 8 depicts an illustrative example of a sample introduction module containing a metering chamber and facilitating the mixing of the sample with buffer; [0027]FIG. 9 illustrates a sample cassette having a bead array for the capture of target analytes; [0028]FIG. 10 illustrates fluid flow within the cassette of FIG. 9; [0029]FIG. 11 depicts an image obtained from a bead array functionalized with anti IL-8 and anti-VEGF where only IL-8 is present in the sample; [0030]FIG. 12 depicts a cassette according to the instant invention that is suitable for nucleic acid analysis; [0031]FIG. 13 illustrates the cassette shown in schematic view in FIG. 12; [0032]FIG. 14a illustrates an embodiment of the diagnostic device of the instant invention, comprising a cassette positioned within a slider disc assembly; [0033]FIG. 14b depicts a sample arrangement of surface features on a slider disc so as to enable a prescheduled sequence of actuations; [0034]FIG. 15 depicts a ball positioned within a slot so as to exert a force on a base or pouch residing within the device of FIG. 14b; [0035]FIG. 16 depicts a sample arrangement of elements on a device of the claimed invention suitable for performing a lateral flow assay; [0036]FIG. 17 depicts an exemplary sequence of steps for nucleic acid and protein processing as performed on a device or devices according to the claimed invention; [0037]FIG. 18a illustrates an embodiment of the instant invention comprising a camshaft and multiple hinged members capable of being actuated by the camshaft; [0038]FIG. 18b illustrates the device of FIG. 18a wherein a sample cassette has been loaded into the device of FIG. 18a; [0039]FIG. 18c illustrates an alternative embodiment of the device shown in FIG. 18a, further comprising a driveshaft in communication with the camshaft; [0040]FIG. 18d illustrates the device of FIG. 18c, viewed from above; [0041]FIG. 18e illustrates the actuator of the device illustrated in FIG. 18d; [0042]FIG. 18f illustrates a cassette positioned within the actuator of the device illustrated in FIG. 18a; [0043]FIG. 18g illustrates a cassette inserted within the actuator of FIG. 18f, further illustrating a sample collector mated to the cassette; [0044]FIG. 19 illustrates an embodiment of the claimed device having an eccentric camshaft capable of actuating hinged members; [0045]FIG. 20 illustrates an embodiment of the claimed device having an eccentric camshaft capable of actuating hinged members; [0046]FIG. 21 illustrates an alternate view of a claimed device having eccentric camshafts capable of actuating hinged members; [0047]FIG. 22 illustrates a claimed device having eccentric camshafts capable of actuating hinged members; [0048]FIG. 23 illustrates a claimed device having multiple, eccentric camshafts capable of actuating proximate, hinged members; [0049]FIG. 24a depicts a claimed device having an x-y translatable actuator; [0050]FIG. 24b depicts a claimed device having an x-y translatable actuator; [0051]FIG. 25 illustrates a claimed device wherein the actuator of the device is a plunger capable of motion in the x-y plane; and [0052]FIG. 26 illustrates a side-view of the claimed device, wherein the actuator of the device is a plunger, mounted on a stage capable of motion in the x-y plane. DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS [0053]Terms [0054]As used herein, the term "blister" refers to a fluid reservoir capped by a membrane that is flexible or deformable, or both. In some configurations, a blister refers to a chamber or pocket formed in a single substrate. As a non-limiting example of such a configuration, a bubble formed in a sheet of polymer would be considered a blister. Blisters may also be dome- or pouch-shaped in form. [0055]As used herein, the term "cassette" refers to a component or assemblage that, in certain embodiments, comprises one or more fluid-containing blister reservoirs, valves, or both. A cassette may also include one or more fluidic channels--described elsewhere herein--and, in some cases, may include one or more ports or vents that place portions of the cassette into communication with the environment exterior to the cassette. A cassette may also be pre-loaded with one or more reagents--in fluid form or dried form. [0056]As used herein, the term "actuator" refers to a device or object that, when operated, exerts a force on an object, activates a switch, deactivates a switch, and the like. As a non-limiting example, a spring-loaded lever capable of turning on a switch when the lever is pulled back and released would be considered an actuator. [0057]As used herein, the term "actuate" means to move, position, exert a force on, to turn on, to turn off, to compress, to deform, to depress, to lift, to open, to close, and other similar actions. In one non-limiting example, actuating a deformable layer means to press on the layer. As another non-limiting example to actuate a heater means to turn the heater on, by activating a switch, for example. In a further example, actuating a blister reservoir means to press on the reservoir such that at least a portion of the fluid residing within the reservoir is forced out of the reservoir. [005859]It is to be appreciated that certain features of the invention that, references to values stated in ranges include each and every value within that range. [0060]In a first aspect, the claimed invention provides fluid processing systems. Such systems include a first component that includes a substrate comprising first and second surfaces, and a fluid reservoir disposed at the first surface of the substrate. The systems also have a deformable capping layer sealing the fluid reservoir, the deformable capping layer being capable of deformation so as to reduce the volume within the fluid reservoir. Also present is a reservoir aperture positioned and dimensioned so as to place the fluid reservoir into fluid communication with the environment exterior to the first component; a sealant layer sealing at least a portion of the reservoir aperture against the environment exterior to the first component. The systems additionally include a second component, the second component including a substrate comprising a fluidic element. [0061]One or both of the components may include a connector capable of placing the reservoir of the first component into fluid communication with a fluidic element of the second component. The fluidic element of the second substrate may include a connector capable of penetrating the sealant layer of the first component to as to place the fluidic element of the second component in fluidic communication with the fluid reservoir of the first component when properly positioned relative to the first component. Suitable connectors are described further herein. [0062]The substrates of the first and second components are suitably fashioned from a polymer, a metal, a metal oxide, a rubber, a ceramic, a glass, and the like. Glass and polycarbonate are both considered especially suitable substrates, but other polymers may be optimal for a given application or a given user's needs. A substrate material may be chosen based on its suitability to particular methods of processing or by its resistance to certain chemical agents or biological materials. Suitable substrates will be apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art, and may, in some cases, be dictated by the user's needs. [0063]Substrates may have a thickness in the range of from about 500 μm to about 10 mm, or from about 1 mm to about 5 mm, or even of about 2 mm. The thickness of a given substrate will be dictated by the needs of the user and the parameters of a particular application and may depend on mechanical stresses the substrate may experience during the course of usage. [0064]A fluid reservoir may be a blister, a dome, a bulge, a capsule, a packet, a pouch, and the like. Blisters are considered particularly suitable forms of reservoirs. Reservoirs may be formed on the surface of a substrate, but may also, in some embodiments, include one or more depressions formed in a surface of the substrate. In some embodiments, a reservoir may be formed by capping both ends of a hole or channel extended through a substrate. A reservoir may also be formed along an edge of a substrate as well as along the upper or lower surfaces of a substrate. [0065]The volume of a given reservoir may vary depending on the user's needs and constraints. Suitable reservoirs may have a volume in the range of from about 1 μl to about 5 ml, or from 5 μl to about 1 ml. [0066]A fluid reservoir preferably contains one or more fluids. Suitable fluids include water, solutions of reagents, acids, bases, buffers, suspensions, labels, dyes, biological materials, nucleotides, lysing agents, particles, air, gas, or any combination thereof. The fluid contained within a reservoir will be dictated by the user's needs. Preferably, the substrate material, the deformable capping layer--described elsewhere herein--and the fluid are chosen such that the fluid is inert or relatively inert to those materials it may contact. [0067]In alternative embodiments, a reservoir may be empty or filled with air or a gas, depending on the user's needs. In some configurations, an empty reservoir may be used to hold sample fluid, a reaction mixture, a waste fluid, excess fluid. [0068]The deformable capping layer of the claimed invention may be a polymer, an elastomer, a rubber, a metal, a metal oxide, or any combination thereof. In some embodiments, the capping layer is a laminate comprising multiple materials. The layer may be bonded to the first surface of the substrate of the first component, or, in some embodiments, may be bonded to the substrate that borders the reservoir. As a non-limiting example, the layer may be bonded to the lip of a depression fashioned in a substrate so as to create a domed reservoir. [0069]In other embodiments, e.g., FIG. 1a, the capping layer is bonded across the substrate, including the regions of the substrate between separate reservoirs. The deformable layer may be capable of reversible or irreversible deformation. Reversible deformable materials are suitable for embodiments where the capping layer may be actuated multiple times during the course or a reaction or assay. [0070]The described reservoir aperture is preferably a channel or conduit extending from the reservoir to the environment exterior to the first component. In one embodiment, shown in FIG. 1a, the aperture extends from the base of the reservoir through the substrate to the environment exterior to the lower face of the substrate shown in that figure. In other embodiments, the aperture may curve or bend from the base of the reservoir on the first surface of a substrate so as to connect the reservoir to the environment exterior to the first face of that substrate. Reservoir apertures may have characteristic diameters in the range of from about 10 μm to about 1 mm, or from about 200 μm to about 500 μm. The apertures are suitably circular in cross-section, but may have cross-sections that are square, triangular, or polygonal. An aperture may have a constant cross-section along its length, but may also have an increasing or decreasing cross section as necessitated by the user. In some configurations, a reservoir may comprise two or more apertures; such apertures may be useful in venting air when the reservoir is filled. [0071]As further depicted in FIG. 1b, a reservoir may be filled by injecting fluid into the reservoir by way of the reservoir aperture. After such injection, the reservoir may be sealed by a sealant layer, as depicted in FIG. 1c. [0072]Suitable sealant layers include polymers, rubber, metals, metal oxides, waxes, aluminum foils, adhesive tapes, or any combination thereof. In some embodiments, the sealant layer is chosen so as to form a leak-proof seal when penetrated by a connector, such as a needle or lance. Suitable materials for these embodiments include waxes and polymers. [0073]In some embodiments, the sealant layer is selected from a set of frangible materials so as to break into fragments when forcibly contacted or struck. The sealant layer may include one or more materials or be a composite, and, in some embodiments, may include two or more layers of two or more materials so as to meet the user's needs. In some embodiments, the deformable capping layer, the sealing layer, and the substrate are formed of the same material. Such embodiments include fluid-filled reservoirs and other fluidic channels that are all formed within a pouch that is comprised of a single material. [0074]Fluidic elements include a number of structures, including conduits, chambers, valves, reservoirs, mixing zones, channels, vents, valves, and the like. Fluidic elements may also include empty or air-filled reservoirs, which may be capped by a deformable layer. Two or more fluidic elements may suitably be combined, for example, in a channel-valve assembly. It is contemplated that both the first and second components may include one or more fluidic elements; exemplary embodiments are described in more detail elsewhere herein. [0075]Fluidic elements may, in some embodiments, be sealably covered by a deformable layer. Such layers are described elsewhere herein. In one non-limiting example, a channel may be covered by a deformable layer such that depression of the layer reduces the effective volume within the channel and expels fluid residing within the channel when the layer is depressed. By actuating one or more valves that control entry and exit of fluid from the channel, the user may effect fluid flow in a specific direction by controllably actuating the valves and depressing the deformable layer atop the channel. [0076]Valves may include a deformable layer, a hatch, a septum, a butterfly valve, a diaphragm valve, a ball valve, or any combination thereof. It is contemplated that a valve may be actuated by the accumulation of fluid pressure on one side of the valve or by application of external force. [0077]Valves may be capable or reversible or irreversible operations, and may be one-way or two-way valves. In embodiments that may require prevention of fluid backflow from one fluidic element into another, an irreversible or one-way valve may be used. [0078]In some embodiments, a fluidic element may incorporate a frangible seal. In such embodiments, the seal may be breached by the application of force. As a non-limiting example, a component may include a chamber of fluid bounded at one end by a frangible seal and capped by a deformable sealing layer. When pressure is applied to the sealing layer, the frangible seal located below may rupture so as to liberate the contents of the formerly-sealed channel and to place those contents into fluid communication with other channels or conduits that were previously blocked by the seal. [0079]Connectors for placing a fluid reservoir into fluid communication with another fluid element include hollow lances, pipettes, cannulas, needles, and the like. A sample needle-type connector is shown in FIG. 2a. [0080]Connectors may be of varying size, and their dimensions will suitably be dictated by the dimensions and characteristics of any layers or membranes through which the connectors may be inserted. Connectors are preferably chosen and shaped on the basis of their ability to penetrate the sealant layer. The combination of connectors and sealant layer may be chosen based on the ability of the combination to form a leak-proof seal between the connector and any fluidic element into which it penetrates through the sealant layer. [0081]A connector may be formed from a metal, a polymer, a metal oxide, and the like. A connector may be formed from the same material as a substrate on which the connector is disposed, or may be made from a different material than the substrate. A connector may extend outward from a substrate or--in an embodiment where a protruding connector is undesirable--the connector may be disposed in a recess or depression formed in the substrate. [0082]In some embodiments, the fluid processing system further includes an analysis device, suitably capable of fluid communication with the fluid reservoir. Such a device can include a microarray, a microbead, multiple beads bearing different functionalities, a cellulose-based strip, a capture zone, or a combination of any of these. Analyzers are typically chosen for their ability to detect one or more chemical or biological species. Analyzers may be chosen for their ability to process or detect proteins, antigens, or free floating nucleic acids, or any of the preceding. The analyzer suitable for a given application will be apparent to the user having ordinary skill in the art, and is not limited to the analyzers listed herein. [0083]In some embodiments, the system further includes an inlet port capable of placing a fluid reservoir, a fluidic element, or both, in fluid communication with the environment exterior to the fluid processing system. Such ports may be included in either the first or second components of the claimed system. As an example, an inlet port may be fashioned so as to allow introduction of a sample into the system into a chamber that is itself connected to a channel and a fluid reservoir. [0084]Exemplary, non-limiting embodiments of the claimed systems are illustrated in FIG. 1a and 1b. In those figures, reservoirs are created by bonding a deformable top layer to a substrate having four depressions, thereby forming four discrete reservoirs on the substrate. Each of the reservoirs also includes an aperture, placing the reservoir in fluid communication with the lower surface of the substrate. The reservoirs may then be filled with liquid, FIG. 1c, and sealed by a sealing layer so as to form independent, sealed reservoirs on the substrate. [0085]Another embodiment of the claimed system is depicted in FIG. 2a, FIG. 2b, and FIG. 2c. FIG. 2a depicts a first component including several fluid-filled reservoirs sealed by a sealing layer. In this embodiment, each of the reservoirs has a reservoir aperture placing the reservoir into fluid communication with the environment below the first substrate. FIG. 2a also includes a second substrate having a channel including several hollow needles, with dry-stored reagents residing within the channel. One example of dry-stored reagents is set forth in "Reaction Chamber Having Pre-Stored Reagents," U.S. Application 61/012,669, filed Dec. 10, 2007, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein. [0086]In FIG. 2b, the second substrate is positioned relative to the first substrate such that the needles pierce the sealing layer of the first substrate, thus placing the reservoirs in fluid communication with the channel of the second substrate, and, by extension, with each other. [0087]In FIG. 2c, downward pressure is exerted on one of the reservoirs, forcing the fluid contained within that reservoir out through the reservoir aperture and into the channel of the second substrate. There, the fluid passes along the channel and, if the dried reagents are suitably chosen, the fluid may rehydrate the reagents. More than one reservoir may be depressed, as shown in FIG. 2d, thus effecting a reciprocating fluid mixing effect. The sequence of reservoir depression will be dictated by the needs of the user. A user having ordinary skill in the art will be able to identify the necessary sequence of depressing and pumping actions needed to effect a certain sequence of fluid transport steps. While the embodiment shown includes only two components, the claimed invention includes embodiments having three or more components capable of mating together to form an integrated device. [0088]FIG. 7a shows a sample embodiment of the claimed system, showing a cassette for immunoassay processing. The cassette consists of two mated components. The first of these two components, FIG. 7b, comprises reservoirs for buffer, wash solution, and labels, a sample-metering chamber, and valves. The second component, FIG. 7c, is that part of the cassette that contains fluidic conduits and lances that allow communications between the various reservoirs of the part shown in FIG. 7b and a lateral flow strip with one or more capture zones for the immobilization of selected analytes. FIG. 7d shows the cassette inserted into an actuator that facilitates the actuation of the various reservoirs and valves. [0089]FIG. 8 shows a schematic view of an alternative embodiment of the cassette of FIGS. 7a-7d. As shown, the first substrate includes several pouch reservoirs and a sample inlet, into which inlet sample is injected or otherwise introduced. The first substrate may be mounted onto the second, connector-comprising substrate, thus forming a connection between the pouches and channels of the first substrate and the channels of the second substrate. The first substrate also includes a viewing port and vent, which permit, respectively, the visual inspection of a sample contained within the system and also the escape of air or excess fluids and reagents. [0090]FIG. 9 depicts a cassette for the detection of target analytes in a sample, which cassette includes of two components. A first component includes several fluid-filled reservoirs and several membrane valves. The reservoirs are filled with buffer, wash solution, and labels. The valves may be apertures extending from one surface of the substrate to the other, that are capped by a membrane that is deformed or deflected so as to open or close the valves. Also illustrated in FIG. 9 is a second component that includes a network of channels and chambers, which component also includes a microbead array in which beads are differentially functionalized with different proteins used for capturing target molecules or species that are formed by subjecting a sample to one or more processing steps. A hollow lance-type connector is also shown, which connector converts the channels and detector of the second component to the fluid reservoirs and valves of the first component. [0091]FIG. 10 depicts the process steps that are performed in one embodiment of the invention. Once the cassette is inserted into the actuator, the sample followed by a solution of labels flows through the bead array. Actuation of the pouches facilitate a back and forth motion of the sample and labels through the capture zone--a bead array, in this embodiment--to assure high mass transfer. Subsequently, wash solution is transmitted to remove unbound labels. [0092]Following sample binding to the bead array, the labels on the sample are exited by illumination at their excitation wavelength. Beads that bind captured analytes then emit light that allows for detection of the presence and quantity of target analytes. [0093]FIG. 12 depicts schematically the two parts of a cassette for the processing of nucleic acids. The depicted cassette meters a sample; lyses cells or viruses, isolates, concentrates, and purifies nucleic acids on a solid support; elutes the nucleic acids into a PCR chamber; and performs amplification of the eluted nucleic acids. FIG. 12a and FIG. 12b depict, respectively, a first and second components as separated and as mated together. The first component includes several depressions, which depressions may be capped to form blister-type fluid reservoirs. [0094]FIG. 13 depicts an embodiment of the claimed invention of FIG. 12 suitable for application to PCR-based assays. FIG. 13a illustrates a first component that includes several blister reservoirs that contain reagents used for PCR reactions, including buffer, lysing reagent, and a binding reagent. The first component also includes a receiving chamber, which may be used to receive or hold any fluids that may participate or arise out of a given reaction, including waste fluids or even reaction products. FIG. 13b shows a second component including a silica membrane for trapping nucleic acids that may be liberated from lysed cells, a metering chamber used to control the volume of reagent or sample that may be transported from one fluidic element to another. FIG. 13c shows the two parts mated to form a cassette. FIG. 13d shows the cassette inside the actuator. [0095]A metering chamber may be utilized by allowing a chamber of desired volume to fill and then closing valves at both ends of the chamber to prevent additional inflow. FIG. 13d illustrates an actuator capable of accommodating the component shown in FIG. 13a. Other useful configurations of valves and chambers will be apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art. [0096]FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary embodiment of the disclosed systems. In the figure, a first component (300) includes a substrate (305) and a flexible layer (310) attached to one side of the substrate. The flexible layer is shaped to form one or more pouches (315) that contain fluids (320). An aperture (325) is formed in the substrate to fluidically couple the contents of the pouches to the opposing side of the substrate, where a material (330) is attached to that opposing side of the substrate and serves as a seal. The embodiment further includes a second component (335), which second component includes a substrate (340), that includes a microfluidic channel or circuit (345). The substrate of the second component also includes a hollow lance-type connector (350) that penetrates the seal material (330) to fluidically couple an aperture (325) to the microfluidic channel or circuit (345). [0097]The first component (300) and second component (335) are preferably aligned and mated by application of a clamping force (355). The components, however, may also be mated by tabs, grooves, prongs, slots, and the like that are fabricated in one or both of the components, where the tabs, slots, and grooves are constructed so as to place the components into a particular alignment. The pouch (315) can be depressed by application of an external force (360) to propel a liquid (320) contained in the pouch (315) into the microfluidic circuit (345). [0098]In some embodiments, not shown, the sealant layer is removed from the first component and the two components are mated together. Such embodiments may include one or more connectors; in some configurations, the sealant layer is removed and the components are mated together such that fluidic elements residing on the components are abutted together so as to place them into fluid communication without a connector. [0099]In another embodiment, FIG. 4, a valve realized in the first component (465) having a fluid channel (405) that is actuated by depressing flexible layer (410) with an applied force (475), and wherein said fluid channel is fluidically coupled to the microfluidic circuit (445) of the second component through apertures (485) and wherein lances (495) penetrate the frangible sealing layer (430) upon application of an external clamping force (475). [0100]In another embodiment, FIG. 5, two pouches (515) formed on the first component (505) are fluidically coupled by a fluidic pathway (535) of the microfluidic circuit in the second component. In this embodiment, a first pouch is initially filled with fluid and a second pouch is initially empty, and a force applied alternatively between the two pouches induces reciprocating flow of liquid between the two pouches such that the mixing of the contents of the microfluidic pathway is enhanced. [0101]In a further embodiment, shown in FIG. 6, the devices shown in FIG. 3, FIG. 4, and FIG. 5 have pouches and valves actuated by the motion of shafts or plungers (600). [0102]In another aspect, the claimed invention provides sample processing systems. Such systems include a component comprising at least one fluidic element sealed by a deformable sealing layer; and a moveable actuator residing proximate to the component. At least a portion of the actuator is capable of motion relative to the component, and the actuator suitably includes one or more actuator portions capable of actuating at least one fluidic element and also being arranged such that movement of the actuator effects a prescribed sequence of actuations. The actuations may be of the deformable sealing layer, or of one or more fluidic elements, or both. Movement of the actuator is suitably capable of effecting fluid motion within at least a portion of the component. [0103]The claimed systems also preferably include an analysis device, which devices are described elsewhere herein. The systems also include a sample inlet, and, in some embodiments, a vent, which vent may be used as an outlet for excess or waste fluids or as an air outlet to facilitate the movement of fluid within the channels of the system. [0104]An actuator portion suitably includes a protrusion, a ridge, a groove, an extension, an eccentricity, a depression, a ramp, a cam, or any combination thereof. [0105]Components suitable for inclusion in the claimed processing system preferably include a fluidic element sealed by a deformable layer, which are described elsewhere herein. As a non-limiting example, a component may include one or more fluid reservoirs disposed on a substrate as in FIG. 2. The component may include one or more substrates the substrates including fluidic elements and being in fluid communication with one another as required by the needs of the user. The fluid processing systems described elsewhere herein are considered especially suitable components for the claimed systems. Preferably, a given component has one or more fluidic elements--described elsewhere herein--that are in fluidic communication with one another or are even in fluidic communication with one or more fluidic elements of a second component. [0106]At least a portion of the actuator suitably contacts at least a portion of the component. In such embodiments, the actuator may directly exert a force on a fluidic element of the component. As an example, an actuator that includes one or more ridges is oriented such that rotation of the actuator brings one or more ridges into contact with a membrane-capped blister reservoir on the component. The contact of the ridge against the reservoir membrane then depresses the reservoir so as to force fluid out of the reservoir. [0107]In other embodiments, the system includes one or more hinged members residing proximate to the component, which members are preferably capable of being actuated by at least a portion of the actuator. One such arrangement is shown in FIG. 21, in which eccentricities disposed along the camshaft, upon rotation of the camshaft, are brought into contact with the hinged members residing proximate to the camshaft and actuate the hinged members. [0108]An alternative view of such an embodiment is shown in FIG. 23, wherein a camshaft having several projections or eccentricities is located proximate to several hinged members in order that rotation of the camshaft brings the eccentricities into contact with the hinged members so as to actuate them. Accordingly--and as will be apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art--the arrangement of the hinged members and any eccentricities along the camshaft will give rise to a prescheduled sequence of actuations of the hinged members according to the eccentricities of the camshaft. [0109]In some embodiments, a hinged member is capable of actuating one or more fluidic elements. In such embodiments, the rotation of the actuator actuates the hinged member so as to bring a portion of the hinged member into contact with a fluidic element of the component. [0110]As a non-limiting example, an eccentric camshaft is rotated such that the eccentricity actuates a hinged member, which in turn depresses a blister reservoir and forces fluid out of the reservoir into a channel connected to the reservoir. As the camshaft rotates, a second eccentricity rotates into contact with a second, different hinged member, which in turn actuates a second fluid reservoir in fluid communication with the first reservoir, thus effecting reciprocal motion of the fluid previously forced from the first reservoir. As the camshaft is further rotated, a third eccentricity actuates a third hinged member that opens a valve while the first eccentricity presses on the first fluid reservoir, thus forcing the fluid past the now-opened valve into a particular region of the system, which region may be a reactor, a detector, a channel, and the like. [0111]The system may also include a heater, which heater may be turned on and off by the movement of one or more hinged member. As the user of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate, the claimed system is adaptable to many different sequences of fluid motions and processes, which sequences may be dictated by the arrangement of physical features on the actuator and of fluidic elements on the component substrate. [0112]While the described embodiments focus on camshaft actuators, the motion of the actuator may be linear motion, rotational motion, or any combination thereof. In some embodiments, the actuator may have at least one surface residing substantially parallel to the component, such as a disc or slider. Such an embodiment is shown in FIG. 14a, which illustrates a slider disc adjacent to a pouched cassette of reagents and fluids. As shown in FIG. 14b, the slider disc may have ridges and depressions such that rotational motion of the disc relative to the pouch in turn actuates various elements--pouches, valves, vents, and the like--are fabricated on the cassette. [0113]FIG. 15 depicts an additional embodiment of the disc-based system described above. In this additional embodiment, a ball is positioned between the slider disc and the pouched cassette. As the disc is rotated, ridges and protrusions of the disc contact the ball, which in turn presses the ball into a deformable membrane residing above a reservoir or other element on the pouched cassette, which forces fluid out of the reservoir or element. In some embodiments, an object having a piercer or point is positioned between the slider disc and the pouched cassette such that rotational motion of the disc results in the object piercing the membrane so as to liberate a fluid or, in other embodiments, to create a vent hole. [0114]In some embodiments, the system includes a plunger positioned so as to actuate a fluidic element. Such plungers may be actuated by the physical features of the actuator or by hinged members that are themselves actuated by the motion of the actuator. The plungers are suitably capable of reversible motion and such that they may be cycled between up and down positions. [0115]Plungers may have a latch, a spring-loaded bayonet-type coupling, or other mechanism capable of maintaining the plunger in an up or down position until the mechanism is actuated. In other embodiments, however, the plungers are irreversibly moved. In these embodiments, actuation of a plunger against a membrane results in permanent depression of the membrane, which permanent depression may act as a valve by closing off a channel or reservoir that resides beneath the membrane. [0116]FIG. 18a illustrates one embodiment of the claimed invention having a camshaft that actuates hinged members. The eccentricities located toward the middle of the camshaft are capable, depending on the degree of camshaft rotation, of contacting the hinged members located below the eccentricities, which in turn presses on the eccentricities. The depressed eccentricities may then press downward on a plunger or pin, shown in FIG. 18b. [0117]FIG. 18c illustrates an actuator having a camshaft in contact with several hinged members. A power source turns a driveshaft in contact with a camshaft so as to rotate the camshaft and bring the eccentricities located on the camshaft into contact with the hinged members also present on the actuator, shown from a different perspective in FIG. 18d. FIG. 18e illustrates an actuator having a slot into which a cassette is inserted. As described elsewhere herein, such a configuration enables a modular system in which different cassettes containing different reagents specific to a particular reaction are compatible with a standardized actuator. Such modular systems enable a broad variety of reactions and assays to be performed by using pre-prepared reagent modules. [0118]An additional, non-limiting plunger embodiment is shown in FIG. 18f. In that embodiment, plungers are integrated into the processing system and are oriented perpendicular to a cassette having several fluid reservoir blisters. Thus oriented, the plungers--when actuated--then depress the fluid blisters below, forcing fluid from the blisters into fluidic elements disposed within the system. [0119]An alternative plunger embodiment is shown in FIG. 19 and FIG. 20. In that embodiment, several hinged members are positioned above several plungers. As the camshaft of the embodiment is rotated, the eccentricities of the camshaft contact and actuate the hinged members, which actuated members in turn depress the plungers located below. [0120]FIG. 21 depicts a further embodiment of the claimed system. In this embodiment, several hinged members are shown positioned above plungers, which plungers are then positioned above one or more fluidic element--such as reservoirs or valves--in a cassette. The hinged members are themselves actuated by two separate camshafts, also shown in FIG. 22. Accordingly, by employing multiple camshafts, the disclosed system enables simultaneous actuation of multiple hinged members. [0121]In some embodiments, the cassette and actuator assembly are constructed such that the cassette is removably insertable into the actuator assembly. Such an embodiment is shown in FIG. 18f, FIG. 18g, and FIG. 21, all of which depict an actuator assembly having a slot or opening capable of accommodating an inserted cassette. [0122]Such embodiments make possible the construction of a modular and flexible system for fluid processing where different cassettes may be inserted into an actuator system. In one non-limiting example, different cassettes containing different fluid reagents suitable for different analyses or assays can be prepared. Depending on the user's needs, the proper pre-loaded cassette is selected from a number of pre-loaded cassettes and inserted into the actuator assembly for sample introduction and processing. As will be apparent to the user having ordinary skill in the art that a wide range of cassette configurations is possible, and actuators and complementary cassettes may be constructed so as to perform a broad range of reactions and assays. [0123]Actuators may be motivated in a number of ways. In one embodiment, the actuator is manually motivated, wherein the user turns a camshaft, rotates a disc, or slides a slider bar. Such embodiments are considered especially suitable for environments or situations where electrical power may not be easily available. Movement of the actuator may also be accomplished by electric motor, solenoid, pneumatic drive, magnetically, or by any combination thereof. Users of ordinary skill in the art will readily identify other suitable methods for motivating an actuator. [0124]The movement of the actuator may be governed by a controller. Governance of the actuator's movement may be of particular interest where the user seeks to effect a relatively complex sequence of chemical, biochemical, or biomolecular reactions, in which sequence certain reactions are to proceed for a specific period of time. Such control may be accomplished by computer controllers, gears, or even by spring-loaded mechanisms that release stored energy over time and actuate different parts of a system as that energy is released. [0125]The systems also, in some embodiments, include a heater, a cooler, or both. The heater and cooler may give rise to a prescribed set of temperature changes, and, as described elsewhere herein, may be actuated by movement of the actuator. The heater and cooler may also be actuated by the user, and may reside within the processing system or external to the system. [0126]The use of a heater is illustrated by a system used to effect a PCR reaction on a given sample. As is known in the art, as the PCR reaction progresses, the reaction is enhanced by the addition of heat. As applied to the claimed system, the actuator may turn on one or more heaters at the appropriate intervals in a given PCR reaction so as to optimize the reaction's progress. Where a strongly exothermic reaction is effected, the system may be arranged such that movement of the actuator turns on one or more coolers so as to moderate the reaction temperature and prevent reaction runaway. [0127]Without being bound to any particular theory of operation or invention scope, the claimed system is, in some embodiments, capable of effecting and controlling a sequence of reactions through the user-controlled motion of a single actuator. In such embodiments, the movement of the actuator moves fluids, opens valves, introduces reagents into a sample, mixes the sample and reagents, and transports the reaction products to a detector or analysis device, without the need for user intervention beyond activating the actuator. [0128]In one embodiment, the actuator comprises a piston, plunger, or other device capable of applying pressure to a discrete area, mounted on a stage capable of movement in the x-y plane. An exemplary device is shown in FIG. 24a and FIG. 24b, where a piston actuator is mounted on an x-y stage, which stage is disposed under a cassette. The piston may be moved to the x-y coordinates of a particular fluidic element, where the piston is actuated, thus pressing on the fluidic element. In the case of a fluid reservoir, the piston depresses the membrane capping the reservoir, which in turn forces fluid out of the reservoir. The actuator may be moved according to a pre-programmed schedule of locations, at which locations the actuator actuates a fluidic element at that location. A given system may have two or more actuators, thus enabling simultaneous actuation of multiple fluidic elements residing on a cassette within the system. [0129]Further disclosed are methods for analyzing a sample, which sample may include biological materials, water supplies, food, beverages, and the like. The disclosed methods first include placing the sample into a component comprising two or more fluidic elements in fluid communication with one another, with one or more fluidic elements of the component being surmounted by a deformable layer. Suitable components are described elsewhere herein. [0130]The methods further include controllably subjecting at least a portion of the sample to one or more processing steps that are effected by the movement of an actuator relative to the first substrate, where the actuator includes one or more physical features arranged so as to effect a predetermined schedule of processing steps when the actuator is moved relative to the component. One--or more--of the processing steps includes transport of the sample from one fluidic element to another. The sample is then analyzed for the presence of one or more analytes. [0131]Suitable fluidic elements and components are described elsewhere herein. Samples may be placed or introduced into a component by pipetting, dispensing, spraying, and the like. In one embodiment, a sample is pipetted into a fluidic element by the user. [0132]After being placed into a component or fluidic element, a sample is subjected to one or more processing steps. Such steps include transporting, altering temperature, mixing, reciprocal fluid motion, adsorbing, absorbing, dyeing, tagging, fluorescent labeling, radiolabeling, magnetic labeling, separating, reacting, detecting, polymerizing, amplifying, separating, or any combination thereof. The processing steps suitable for a given objective will be known to users of ordinary skill in the art, and can include placing two or more fluidic elements in fluid communication with one another. [0133]As one example, the processing steps for effecting a PCR reaction may include introducing a cell sample suspension into a fluid reservoir surmounted by a flexible membrane and depressing the membrane to transport the sample suspension into a chamber where one or more lysing reagents are introduced. Following the lysing, the resultant nucleic acid is concentrated and then amplified by the introduction of primers, dyes, and additional nucleic acids. The resultant products are then transported to a detector station, such as a capture zone in which product is selectively captured and visualized. [0134]The disclosed methods contemplate that one or more processing steps are effected by compressing at least a portion of the deformable layer that surmounts the one or more fluidic elements. As described elsewhere, such deformation can force fluid out of the reservoir residing beneath the layer or membrane. In some embodiments, the processing step includes exposing the sample to a reagent, which exposure can be effected by the actuator depressing a valve or breaching a barrier so as to liberate stored reagent and to allow that reagent to mix with the sample. [0135]Actuators suitable for the claimed methods are described elsewhere herein. In the disclosed methods, the sequence of processing steps is effected by the motion of the actuator relative to a component such that one or more physical features of the actuator contact the component to actuate one or more fluidic elements of the component in a prescribed schedule that accords with the arrangement of physical features on the actuator. Suitable physical features include, inter alia, bumps, ridges, grooves, ramps, cams, and the like. As the actuator moves relative to the component, one or more of the physical features exerts a force on a fluidic element--such as a blister reservoir--of the component, so as to effect fluid flow. A feature of the actuator may also open or close a valve within the component. In some embodiments, [0136]Processing steps may also be accomplished by actuating a process module residing on or within the component or external to the component. These actuations may be accomplished by the actuator contacting a switch to turn the module or off, or by the actuator moving a lever that in turn switches the module on or off As an example, an actuator may be used to turn a heater on--or off--at a particular stage of a reaction or assay so as to provide heating--or cooling--at the optimal time. The user of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate the numerous ways in which an actuator may activate--or deactivate--a given module. [0137]The analysis aspect of the claimed methods comprises, in some embodiments, visualizing a target. Such visualizing may be accomplished by selectively labeling the target--which may be one or more products of a reaction performed on a sample--with a dye or tag and then visually inspecting the target for the label. As an example, DNA extracted from a cell sample is labeled with a fluorescent dye and then--when illuminated at the dye's excitation wavelength--inspected. Other analysis techniques include assaying for the product of a reaction between the sample and one or more chemical species. [0138]The pouch system can also facilitate thermal cycling by moving a sample among fluidic elements that are maintained at different temperatures. As one example, a sample can be continuously transported between two reservoirs where each reservoir is maintained at a different temperature, as may be needed for an effective PCR reaction. Systems capable of performing a PCR reaction by metering a cell-containing sample, performing lysis, isolating nucleic acids, and amplifying the isolated nucleic acids are considered especially suitable. One method of doing so is set forth in U.S. Application 61/012,667, "An Integrated PCR Reactor for Cell Lysis, Nucleic Acid Isolation and Purification, and Nucleic Acid Amplification Related Applications," filed on Dec. 10, 2007, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein. NON-LIMITING EMBODIMENTS AND EXAMPLES [0139]Described below are certain embodiments of the present invention for illustration purposes. Although these embodiments are representative of the invention, they do not also limit the scope invention. Example 1 [0140]A cassette according to the present invention was prepared by using milling procedures, known to those having ordinary skill in the art, to form depressions in a polymeric substrate, which depressions were then capped by a flexible elastomeric membrane and filled with fluid and sealed to form blister reservoirs, as shown in FIG. 3. The cassette also included a lateral flow strip, suitable for immobilizing labeled target molecules. Example 2 [0141]A cassette according to the present invention was constructed, which cassette included several fluid reservoirs and several membrane valves, as shown in FIGS. 7a-7d. The cassette also included a silicon microbead array, as shown in FIG. 9. The cassette was then mated to a custom-constructed lower substrate comprising multiple fluidic channels and hollow connectors, as shown in FIG. 9. A sample of a 125 nM IL-8 target was then introduced into the cassette-substrate assembly, as shown in FIG. 10, washed with a detection antibody solution and a labeling solution, which solution consisted of a 3 ug/mL biotinylated anti-IL-8 and 20 ug/mL streptavidin-AlexaFluor 488, and then and washed with buffer. All steps were performed by actuating the reservoirs and channels of the cassette with an actuator as depicted in FIG. 10. [0142]The results of the antibody assay are shown in FIG. 11. FIG. 11 shows anti-IL8 and anti-VEGF beads, after incubation with the IL-8, that were illuminated by 605 nm wavelength light; both kinds of beads were visible. Upon illumination by 519 nm light, only those beads complementary to IL-8 fluoresced, thus demonstrating target capture. Example 3 [0143]A cassette according to the present invention is prepared and mated to a substrate comprising several fluid conduits and a lateral flow strip. FIGS. 7a-7c illustrates such a cassette, in which figure separate fluid reservoirs and the lateral flow strip are shown. The cassette is then inserted into an actuator, as shown in FIG. 7d. FIG. 18g shows a cassette being inserted into an actuator comprising a camshaft and several hinged members capable of actuating individual or multiple hinged members such that the members contact different portions of the cassette so as to squeeze reservoirs and mix fluids within the cassette-substrate assembly. The cassette and substrate are adapted for nucleic acid amplification by PCR and subsequent testing of the PCR product. [0144]In the nucleic acid-adapted cassette, a sample laden with cells, bacteria, or viruses--or a combination--is initially introduced to the device, where actuation of the camshaft transports the sample into the device and liberates fluid from one or more fluid reservoirs on the cassette so as to dilute the sample with buffer and mix the sample with lysing and binding reagents. The lysate is then transported to a silica membrane to which the nucleic acids adsorb. After a thorough washing, the nucleic acid is eluted and then mixed with PCR reagents and transported to a PCR chamber. [0145]The temperature cycling of the PCR chamber is accomplished either with a stationary heater whose power is being controlled or by multiple, individual heaters that are brought into contact with the PCR reactor for desired time intervals. In the latter case, the movement of the camshaft actuates a cycling heater so as to enhance the progress of the PCR reaction. The movement of the camshaft is controlled so as to perform the optimum number of heating cycles for the optimum amount of time for the PCR reaction. The PCR product is then transported from the PCR chamber, labeled with a specific labeling species, and transported to the lateral flow strip, where the labeled PCR product may be visualized. A schematic overview of the process is shown in FIG. 17. Example 4 [0146]A further embodiment of the claimed methods is shown in FIG. 10. A sample may be introduced into a system--as described elsewhere herein--by injection. By actuation of a valve and a fluidic reservoir by actuator, the sample is moved to a microarray contained within the system A detection label solution is transported from a reservoir into the system and across the array, again by action of an actuator. A buffer is then introduced into the system and flowed across the array, which buffer is flowed by the pneumatic effect of an actuator depressing a fluid reservoir. As shown in FIG. 10, the system includes an actuator comprising pins and screw-type members capable of actuating fluid reservoir pouches and valves. The pins and screw-type members may be actuated manually or by an actuator having physical features--such as ridges--complementary to the pins and screw-type members. Example 5 [0147]An exemplary, non-limiting reaction scheme is shown in FIG. 16. A sample may be introduced at the inlet port and admitted into the system by stop S1. Once admitted into the system, pouch A--containing a buffer--may be depressed, thus conveying the sample into the metering chamber. Reservoir B may be actuated in concert with stops S3 and S4 and the metering chamber so as to admit the desired amount of buffer into the system. Valve a may be opened to admit buffered sample to a lateral flow strip, where stop S5 may be opened to admit additional buffer from reservoir C when reservoir C is actuated. Stop S6 may be opened to admit buffer from reservoir D and UPT-lyosphere propelled by actuation of reservoir E, which materials are then admitted via valve b into the lateral flow strip. At the strip, the sample reacts with the UPT-lyosphere, where sample may be labeled and flows along the flow strip for visual detection. Example 6 [0148]An alternate embodiment is set forth in FIG. 17. As shown, a sample is introduced into a system--as described elsewhere herein. The sample is then metered, and in one branch of the system, is exposed to and mixed with a lysis buffer to liberate nucleic acid from the cellular sample. The release of the buffer and the mixing is preferably accomplished by an actuator depressing a fluid reservoir to release the buffer and by opening one or more valves or stops so as to permit the buffer to mix with the sample. Nucleic acid may be isolated--preferably by flowing the nucleic acid across a material, such as a silica membrane--capable of selectively adsorbing nucleic acids. The isolated nucleic acids are then eluted or released from the adsorbing material--typically by exposure to an alcohol solution liberated from an actuated fluid reservoir--and undergo a PCR reaction to amplify one or more nucleic acids. The amplified nucleic acids are then labeled and transported to a lateral flow strip for visualization. [0149]In a separate branch of the system, a sample is contacted with an antibody or antigen, after which antibody- or antigen-containing sample is selectively labeled and visualized on a lateral flow strip. As shown, a given system may be configured so as to carry out two or more assays on a given sample, thus allowing for multiplexed detection of several pathogens that may exist in a particular sample. Example 7 [0150]A motorized stage was constructed, in which stage an actuator was mounted so as to be capable of movement in the x-y plane, as shown in FIG. 25 and FIG. 26. The actuator moves slidably on rails positioned perpendicular to one another. The movement of the actuator on the rails is accomplished by one or more gears mounted on the actuator engaging with ridges or teeth disposed on the rails. By pre-programming a set of positions into the actuator, the actuator is capable of moving to a pre-set schedule of positions, at which positions the actuator contacts a fluidic element of a cassette mounted proximate to the actuator. The actuator may include two or more pistons or plungers, thus making possible simultaneous actuation of multiple fluidic elements on a given cassette. Patent applications by Haim H. Bau, Swarthmore, PA US Patent applications by Michael G. Mauk, Wilmington, DE US Patent applications by Zongyuan Chen, Claymont, DE US Patent applications by THE TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA:

United States Patent [191 de Laagede Meux 1451 Aug. 21, 1973 [75] Inventor: [73] Assignee: [22] Filed: Patrick dc Laage de Meux, Saint-Germain-En-Laye, France Lignes Telegraphiques et Telephoniques, Paris, France Mar. 2, 1972 211 Appl. 310.; 231,306 Primary Examiner-Charles D. Miller Attorney-Abraham A. Saffitz 57 ABSTRACT A communication system in which binary coded pulses are translated into multi-level pulses before being transmitted through a communication circuit, at the receiving end of which they are reconverted into binary coded pulses. The binary pulses are grouped into words of n bits, to each of which a (n+1 )th-bit of constant value is added. The (n+1) bit words are subdivided into k partial words each having q bits, with (n+1) equal to [30] Foreign Application Priority Data the product kq. Each one of the partial words is trans- M 5 197] F 7107806 lated into a multl-level pulse of one or the other polar- I ar. rance according to the algebraic Sign of the sum of the positive and negative amplitudes of the previously 2% 5 340/347 a ia 1 transmitted multi-level pulses. A method for the inserd "340/347 DD tion of synchronization words is described. At the re- 1 e o 38 A 41 ceiving end of the system, the (n+1 )th-bit in each group of k partial words is used for controlling the correct restitution of the original binary coded word, by [56] References Cited eliminating the ambiguity which otherwise could result UNITED STATES PATENTS from the fact that different multi-level pulses may cor- 3,369,229 Dorros.....'..- 340/347 DD respond to identical binary coded partial words, a 3,521,274 sawai 340/347 DDX cording to their position in the sequence of these 3,560,856 Kaneko 325/38 A words 3,587,088 Franaszek 340/347 DD I 3,611,141 Waters..... 325/41 4 Cla|ms,'3 Drawing Figures i4 1- '2 v 1 t Rig/52R D17 E :1; E16, 1 L ,Q iJiJiAiJ 1L4 i Li .i ii L Li 1 it) i Li for VL L JFL .L. ,1 L BUFFEP i i j Z gee/s75? ,3 1.. l I 7555 Ric/575R 7/ v .1 RE/A/JERT/OA/ E g I]. 1 I PEG/STE}? 1 IOJ TOTAL/25R 1 4 PEG/5 75R COMMUNICATION SYSTEM USING BINARY TO MULTI-LEVEL AND MULTI-LEVEL TO BINARY CODED PULSE CONVERSION BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a high-velocity multi-level pulse code transmission systems communication system for operation on high quality communication circuits, such as coaxial cables, in which, at the transmitting end of the system, a sequence of binary coded pulses is translated into a sequence of multi-level ted through a communication circuit without undergo ing as a whole a previous frequency shift, the generally considered'frequency band covers the range the zero frequency to an upper frequency below which most of the signal energy is confined. If transmission is to take place through a communication circuit including repeaters, the transformers and filters included in the repeaters are likely to cause a low frequency cut-off. Such low frequency cut-off causes distortion in signal waveforms if the signals contain low frequency components and thus entails higher errorrates in theinformation transmitted. It is known that such an effect is more detrimental to the operation of multi-level pulse code systems than to that of binary-coded pulse systems. Description of the Prior Art Various methods have been proposedfor giving the spectral density versus frequency curve of the transmitted sequence of multi-level pulses a shape displaying zero values at both zero frequency and the recurrence frequency of the latter pulses. More precisely, it has been proposed to. select the so-called code forrnat" in such a manner that the sum of the levels of the pulses in such a format has a given value, for instance, the zero value. For instance, in the US. Pat. Ser. No. 3,5l8,662, granted June 30, 1970 toY. Nakagone et al., 'a multi-lever balanced" code is proposed in which the multi-level code words each have nbits, and each bit of a code word has 1 possible levels, the sum of the levels of the bits in each such word being chosen equal to j. The number of the possible code words depends on the values of I, and j. These values are selected, according to the number of bits in the binary code words to be converted into multi-level code words, so as to make a multi-level code word correspond to each biter binary word, which seriously limits the frequency bandwidth economy obtainable in the said system. In another known system (cf. Multi-level PCM Transmission over a Cable using Feedback balanced Code," by Hisashi Kaneko and Akita Sawai, published in the Japanese review Nippon Electric Company Journal, vol. 23, Oct. 1967, pages 508-5l3) the balancing of the codeis obtained by feedback of the direct-current component of the converted signals. Bi- nary words are translated into multi-level pulses, and some of the latter or all of them polarity invertible. According to the polarity of the resulting direct-current component, a binary word having a given binary value is selectively converted into a multi-level pulse having either of a positive and a negative polarity, according to whether the direct-current component or, in an equivalent manner, the current sum, that is the algebraic sum of all of the already produced multi-level pulses is negative or positive. By way of example, taking the case of two-bit binary words, there are made to correspond: to 00, a zero pulse to 01, a (+2) or a (2) pulse .to l0,=a (-l) pulse to 11, a (+1) pulse In other words, a (+2) pulse is made to correspond to the binary group (01) when the current sum of the previously produced multi-level pulses is negative, - while a -(2) pulse corresponds to the same binary converter in which the binary sequence is decomposed SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a binary coded sequence to multi-level pulse sequence into words each comprising a given number of bits and in which there is made to correspond to each such word a new word consisting of a plurality of multi-level pulses, this being done in a single operation. Another object of the invention is the building of a converter in which a forbidden multi-level digit word nary code word. If, for instance, the binary words comprise five hits, the number of the possible different binary code words is equal to 32. Taking l= 4, n 4 and j 0, there are obtained 44 possible words with 4 bits and 4 levels per bit, and it is possible to make 32 of these 44'words correspond one-by-one to the 32 binary word values. If j is taken equal to zero, the average direct-current component of the signals transmitted according to sucha system is rigorously zero. However, a drawback of the system is that the bit number in a multi-level code word into-whicha binary code word is to be converted cannot be lowerthan two and, in some is inserted at regular intervals in messages to be transmitted, in orderto facilitate,- at the receiving end of the system, the re-grouping of multi-level pulses into multilevel words and at the same time to automatically correct the attenuation variations of coaxial cables (or other communication circuits), by ensuring that the peak positive and negative values of the transmitted signals be reached frequently enough. I In the'following, where it is conventionally assumed that one makes a p-bit binary word of arithmetic value higher or lower than (2" a correspond to a positive or negative multi-level pulse, respectively, it will be said that conversion is direct. If, on thecontrary, to a p-bit binary word of arithmetic value higher or lower than (2"'- 56), there is made to correspond a negative or positive multi-level pulse respectively, it will be said that conversion is opposite. By arithmetic or weighted value of the binary word (a,,, a,, a a,,) there is understood, as usual, the quantity: where the a s have either of the and 1 values. In the converter according to the invention, the n-bit words to be converted into groups of multi-level pulse words are first converted into (n+1) bit binary words by insertion, in a position corresponding to a predetermined binary weight, the zero binary weight position for instance, of a bit of known value, l for instance. This extra bit serves to ascertain, prior to the reconversion of the multi-level pulse words into binary words at the receiving end of the system, whether the binary to multi-level conversion has been a direct or an opposite one. If the same bit, after the receiving end conversion, is found to be still a 1, this means that the conversion has been direct; if, on the contrary, the said bit is found to be a 0, this shows that the conversion has been opposite. At the transmitting end of the system, the (n+1) bit words are thereafter decomposed into a number k of partial words each of which has (n+1 )/k bits and is to be converted into a multi-level pulse. For each such partial word, the algebraic value of the difference between the weighted value of the word and the half of its maximum possible weighted value is determined. The so determined quantities are designated, in the following, by 0' 0' 0-, Thereafter the algebraic sign of the quantity (0- a 0',,) is determined, and the latter sign is compared with that of the current sum of the amplitudes of the previously transmitted multi-level pulses. In a more precise manner, and assuming n to be equal to 5,'the binary data to be converted are decomposed into successive 5-bit words, such as (in binary notation): M=a a a a a from which one forms the 6-bit words: m =a a a a a 1 by adding a 1" in the zero binary weight position. The m words are thereafterdecomposed into 3-bit partial words: m =a a a m 0 a, 1 the signs of 0', or 0', will be called weighted polarities of the partial words." Thereafter, one forms the quantity: the sign of which is determined. The latter sign is composed with that of the amplitudes of the current sum 2 of the multi-level pulses already transmitted. If the product of the signs of (a, 0",) and E is negative, eight-level pulses of the same polarity as the partial words are transmitted; if the product of the said signs is positive, eight-level pulses of the polarity opposite to that of the partial words are transmitted. According to a feature of the invention, the polarity invertible correspondence between the binary words and the multi-level pulses which depends on the sign of the product of the polarity" of the partial words and polarity of the current sum of the multi-level pulses is advantageously replaced by two cascaded correspondences a polarity invertible correspondence between the input binary words and provisionally formed binary words and a fixed correspondence between these provisionally formed binary pulses and the multilevel pulses. More precisely, in addition to the binary word m and partial words m, and m,, the so-called bar-word Ti and partial bar-words r7, and E r s 4 s E a; E 0 according 'to the definiations of Boolean Algebra, are also provisionallyformed and, according to the relative signs of (0- 0- and Z, the partial words m 1 and m or the partial bar-words H, and m, are-selected and stored. Then each stored partial word or partial barword is converted into a multi-level word pulse, this is a fixed manner and without any invertibility. As there is a fixed correspondence between the stored partial or partial bar words and the multi-level pulses, the sign of the current sum 2 of the latter can be replaced by the sign of the current sum 2' of the former. From what has just been said, it results that any 6-bit word is converted into a two-element multi-level pulse word within a single operation, each of the two multilevel pulses of the multi-level word corresponding to a 3-bit'partial word contained in the 6-bit binary word. The sign of the sum of the two quantities 0-, or 0-, (as above-defined) corresponding to the two partial words is determined, and the conversion of each partial word to a pulse in the eight-level pulse word is direct or opposite for the assembly of the two partial words. This means that it cannot happen that the conversion be direct for one of the partial words and opposite for the l n n n n re m: g as a-, a a5 m3 a4a3a=a1 l 0" a 4 8 a a+4 012+ 2 a +a a,= l6a,+8 a +4a +2a,+a 15.5 (T3: 166 4-8 a3 +4a:+2a +1, and thereafter the quantity (0-, 0', +0 is formed and its sign determined. Effecting the product of the sign of (a 0 by that of the current sum 2', and according to the sign of this product, 32-level pulses are made to correspond respectively to m,, m,, m,,, their sign being so chosen as to be the same as that of m,, m m, or the opposite one, according to the sign of the said product. The following table shows, in the case of some -bit words, the quantities formed by the binary-to-multilevel word converter of the invention. The words having a zero (0', 0' sum may be considered, at will, as positive or negative ones. SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The invention will now be described in greater detail with reference to the annexed drawings, in which: FIG. 1 shows, in block diagram form, the binary-tomulti-level converter of the invention; FIG. 2 shows, in block diagram form, the multilevel-to-binary converter of the invention; and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the timing clock signals applied to various points of the diagrams of FIGS. 1 and 2. DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring first to FIG. I, the binary coded pulses delivered by a source 1 of coded data are sequentially applied, at the frequency f,, to a shift register 2 operating as a series to parallel converter. From the latter shift register the signals are paralleltransferred, as five-digit binary words, into a buffer register 3 through AND gates 4 and thereafter into a transfer register 5 through'AND gates 6 and OR gates 7. The transfer register5 also receives at suitable times a synchronization word, which will be assumed to be the word 00011, through the AND gates 8 and the OR gates 7. The synchronization word is recorded in a store 9 and is transmitted at said times under the controlof clock signals applied to terminal H,. The lowest binary weight stage of register 5 is permanentlyset on position 1. The outputs of transfer register 5 are connected to an adder circuit 10 which calculates values a, and 0', respectively equal to the weighted valuesof m, and m, less 3.5, as well as the sum of these two calculated values, to determine the sign of the result (a, 0,) which sign is obtained at the output 101 of circuit 10. Bits a a a a,, a 1, available at the outputs of transfer register 5, are also applied in parallel to the inputs of a register 11, on one hand directly through one of the inputs of AND gates such as 12 and OR gates such as 13, and on the other hand through inverters such as' 14, AND gates 15 and 0Rgates such as 13. t ' The accumulator circuit 16 includes said register 11, a second register 18, which may be called total reinsertion register, an addition circuit 20 and an output totalizer register 19, the contents of which is fed back through a multiple connection 103 to register 18. Circuit 20, fed from 11 and 18 through OR gates such as 102, is similar to adder circuit 10 and delivers at one of its outputs 201 the sign of the current sum 2'. The outputs 101 and 201 of the adder circuits l0 and 20 are respectively connected to one and the other of the inputs of an EXCLUSIVE OR circuit 32. The output of 32 is connected through an AND gate 33 and an inverter 17 to the other input of the AND gates such as 12, while the output of 33, the opening of which is controlled by clock signals applied to terminal 11,, is directly connected to the second input of the AND" gates such as 15. It results therefrom that, if the sum (0 0,) has the same sign as the current sum 2', the signals transferred to register 11 will be H, and r71, while, if the sum (oo' has the opposite sign to that of 2', the signals m and m, will be transferred into register 11. The outputs of register 11 are connected to the binary-to-multi-level" coder 30. The first three outputs of register 11 are respectively connected through AND gates 23,, 23,, 23 and OR gates such as 25 to three resistors 26, 27 and 28 having resistance values proportional to V4, 15 and 1 and. whose ends are connected in parallel to point 29. In a similar manner, the last three outputs of adder 20 are connected to the same resistors through AND gates 24,, 24,, 24 and OR gates such as 25. If the eight levels of themulti-level pulses are i 0.5, i 1.5, i 2.5 and 2*: 3.5, aby 3.5" reducing subtractor 31 must be inserted in coder 30 before its output 29. The two partial words resulting from the synchronization word 00011 are always transmitted by direct conversion. FIG. 3 shows the timing signals respectively applied to various points designated by the same letters in FIGS. land 2. In FIG. 3, signal H, of line a represents pulses of period r, definingthe instants at which appear the bits supplied by source 1. Signal II of line b represents pulses of period 5 r, applied'to terminal [1,. Signal 11, of line 0 representspulses having .aperiod equal to 14/15 of 5 1' i.e. /15 of 7,, applied to terminal 11,. Thus 14 words enter register 3 during a time interval 70 7,, while l5 words enter register 5 during the same time interval. It is thus possible to admit the synchronization word in 5 together with 'l4 words to be transmitted, during the said time interval 70 1,. Signal H, in FIG. 3 isapplied to terminal 11, inFIG. l. g I In FIG. 3, line e shows the signal applied to terminal H and lines f and 3 show two series of pulses, each having a 70 13/15 period, but in phase quadrature. The first series corresponds to the transmission instants of the first multi-level pulse in each multi-level pulse word, whilethe second series corresponds to the transmission instants of the second multi-level pulse in the same word. The multi-level-to-binary word converter is shown in FIG. 2. In FIG. 2, the input terminal 39 is parallel-connected of juxtaposed such amplitude ranges. These amplitude I detectors are connected to a muItHevel-to-binary decoder 40, which is identical with the coder 30 of FIG. 1, operating in the reverse direction. Decoder 40 has three outputs at which the partial 3-bit words are ob-. tained, at a recurrence frequency equal to that of the multi-level pulses. These partial words are applied to the transfer register 45, on one hand through AND gates 33,, 33 33 and on the other hand through AND gates 34,, 34 34 and delay circuits 36,, 36 36 Gates 33,, 33 33 and 34,, 34 34;, age opened by timing signals synchronized with H and H (FIG. 3), each of the latter signals recurring at the frequency of the multi-level words; the conversion polarity identification bit is received in the zero binary weight stage of register 40. This stage has its two outputs respectively connected to AND gates 47, and 47 opened by a timing signal synchronized with H The zero" and one outputs of the stages of transfer register 45 are connected to a buffer register 43, respectively through ANDY gates such as 46, and 46 The first ones of these gates are open when the abovesaid identification bit is a one, while the second ones are open when the identification bit is a zero. The outputs of the buffer register 43 are connected with the shift register 42 through AND gates 44 opened by a timing signal synchronous with H,. The data extracted from 42 are directed to a data utilization circuit 41 under the control of a timing signal synchronous with H,,. The synchronization word never being transformed into a bar word, the one" outputs of the transfer register 45 are connected through AND gates 48 to the receiver circuit for the said synchronizatioh word. The latter AND gates are opened by a timing signal synchronous with H The input terminal 39 of the multi-level-to binary word converter is also connected with a synchronization chain consisting of a rectifier 51, a filter 52, a shaping circuit 53, a divider-by-two 54, a divider-by-l5 55, a l4-times multiplier 56 and a S-times multiplier 57. Clock signals H,, are thus obtained, as well as multilevel half-word timing signals H and E multi-level word timing signals H and binary word timing signals H,. The synchronization word receiver 49 controls circuits 54 and 55, in order to synchronize them. Synchro nization correction circuits are well-known in coded pulse transmission technique, and it is unnecessary to describe them in detail here. The advantages of the digital transmission system of the invention will now be discussed. These advantages principally result from the fact that the sign of the words to be transmitted is not the sign of the word proper but a linear combination of the signs of the partial words. The sign of a non-divided word of (n+1) bits from the viewpoint of the invention is nothing else than that of the value of the bit of highest weight a, of the word, the sign being considered negative if a, is zero and positive if a, is one. A (n+1) bit word can take 2" possible values including zero and it is considered negative for the 2" values higher than 2"1 and positive for the 2" values equal to or lower than 2"l'. The sign changes only one time at the middle of the word value range. This is not favourable for PCM transmission since high and small samples, higher and lower respectively than the mid value of the sample range are not equiprobably distributed in a PCM signal. The sign of the word divided into partial words is the linear combination, modulo 2 kOi-Hlk-l) mun: 1) mum n where k is as previously the number of partial digits. If the 2" possible values of the word are written along a line, the sign of the divided word changes every 2"*"" values, then every 2"" values and so on and finally every 2" word values. Example A n=5 k=3 n+l/k =2 The following table shows the positive and negative values of the 64 possible words. The sign of the words changes every 2, 8 and 32 successive values of the words. The following table shows the positive and negative values of the 64 possible words. The sign of the words changes every 4 and32 successive values of the words. - 1- 2- 3- 4+ 5+ 6+ 7+ 8- 9- l0- ll 12+ l3+ l4+ l5+ I6- 17- l8 19- 20+ 2l+ 22+ 23+ 24- 25- 26- 27- 28+ 29+ 30+ 3l+ 32+ 33+ 34+ 35+ 30- 37- 3s- 39 40+ 41+ 42+ 43+ 44- 45- 46- 47- 48+ 49+ 50+ 51+ 52- 53- 54- 55 56+ 57+ 58+ 59+ 60- 62- 63- The method used according to the invention for determining the word sign, consisting in forming a linear combination of the partial word signs, results in more frequent sign changes when the words successively take the whole possible range of their values. As two adjacent values or two almost adjacent values of a word to be transmitted are equiprobable in a PCM signal; the occurrence of the input symbols, that is the signs of the words to be converted, is equiprobable. It has been shown in the Japanese article above referred to (page 510) that in such a case the spectral density of the multilevel sequence has zeros at'd.c. and at the recurrence frequency of the multilevel pulses and its multiples and a waveform substantially symmetricalwith respect to the mid-frequencies between these zeros. When 0,, a, are not taken equal to the highest weight bit of the partial words but are calculated according to the formulae giving their very values, the signs are not exactly distributed as explained in the foregoing due-to word values for which the sign is zero. But the changes of sign are nevertheless more frequent than if the sign was derived from the non-divided word. I claim: 1. In a communication system including a transmitting end and a receiving end between which signals in the form of multi-level pulse words are transmitted through a communication circuit, said system comprising at said transmitting end first converter means for converting n-bit binary words into multi-level pulse words and at said receiving end second converter means for converting multi-level pulse words into n-bit binary words, the arrangement in which said first converter means comprises means for adding to each n-bit word and in a predetermined weight postion therein an additional bit having a predetermined value so 'as to obtain a modified (n+1 bit word, means for decomposing each such (n+1) bit word into a number k of partial binary coded words each having q (n+1 )/k bits, means for deriving from each of said partial q-bit words the binary weighted sum of its q bits by adding the products of the binary values of a given polarity of said q bits by powers of two respectively equal to the binary weights of said q bits, means for deriving from said weighted sum a reduced sum having either of two possible polarities by substracting from said weighted sum one half of its maximum possible value, addition means for adding all of said reduced sums derived from the k partial words pertaining to the same (n+1) bit binary word for obtaining a resultant sum, means for determining the algebraic sign of said resultant sum, means for deter mining at any instant the algebraic sign of the current sum of the amplitudes of all previously transmitted multi-level pulses and for comparing said sign with that of said resultant sum, and coder means translating each one of said partial words into a first multi-level pulse having a given polarity when said signs are different and into a second multi-level pulse of the opposite polarity when said signs are the same, said first and second multi-level pulses being respectively derived from said one of said partial words and from a complementary word derived therefrom by substituting therein one bits for zero bits and zero bits for one bits, and in which said second coverter means at said receiving end comprises means for storing said additional bit and decoder means translating multi-level pulses into a partial binary coded pulse word for a given one of the two possible values of said additional bit and into the complementary partial binary coded pulse word when said additional bit has the other one of said two possible values. 2. An arrangement as claimed in claim 1, in which said first converter means at said transmitting end includes means for adding to each group comprising a given number of n-bit binary words to be converted a synchronization word having n binary bits and means for inhibiting the coder means coding each partial word into a multi-level pulse when the partial words obtained by decomposing said synchronization word are applied to said coder means; and in which said second converter means at said receiving end include a detector circuit detecting said synchronization word and a synchronization correction circuit controlled by said de tector circuit. a 3. An arrangement asclaimed in claim 1, in which said meansfor determining the algebraic sign of said current sum consists of means for determining the algebraic sign of the current sum of all said resultant sums. 4. An arrangement as claimed in claim 1, in which the numbers n, k and q are respectively given the values 5, 2 and 3.

This invention relates to telephone communication systems which are able to handle both outbound and inbound telephone calls and more particularly to a system and method for predicting and controlling the timing (pacing) of outbound telephone calls while allowing for interspersed inbound telephone calls. The last few years in telecommunications have seen quantum leaps in capabilities of telecommunications systems to allow a finite pool of attendants to increase its effectiveness, whether handling primarily outbound calling or inbound calling. Systems have been developed (for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,599,493 and 4,797,911) which automatically dial a number and then connect a live attendant attendants. To make this effective, the system should begin the call placement routine before a live attendant is actually available. However, this procedure opens the possibility of an answer occurring with no available attendant. For the sake of economy, a system manager would like to have all of the attendants% attendant utilization at the cost of lengthy customer hold time, or have no customer hold time at the cost of low attendant utilization (long attendant idle time). The purpose of an outbound call pacing algorithm is to allow the system attendant to control one or the other of these parameters. By setting the pacing level, a system attendant can make a trade-off between these parameters. Other parameters around which systems can be controlled are the number of customers waiting for an attendant, the number of disconnects on hold by answered customers, attendant idle time, or perhaps the amount of time that a customer must wait on hold. Such an ACP system having an ability to predict call completion times and thereby maximize attendant utilization is described in a co-pending application entitled "System and Method for Controlling Call Placement Rate for Telephone Communication Systems," which was filed on Feb. 19, 1991, was assigned Ser. No. 07/657,631 and is assigned to the assignee of the present invention. The invention described therein solves the problems inherent with ACP by implementing an enhancement to existing predictive dialing systems. This enhancement allows an ACP system to automatically place calls for live attendants in such a way as to cause a new call to be answered close to the time when the attendant finishes talking on the previous call. The purpose of any predictive dialer is to keep attendants busy handling phone calls. This means that any part of the call-placing process that can be automated, should be. Of course, a system could simply automatically dial the number for the attendant, but this typically only saves a few seconds of the attendant's time on each call. A much more productive call task to automate is the time the attendant spends listening to the ringing and waiting for an answer. If a system can automatically determine when the phone is ringing and when a person answers the phone, then this process can be done in parallel with the attendant's conversation. This can easily save more than half the attendant's time on a call, considering that the attendant may have to place several calls before obtaining a valid answer. To accurately predict when a new call should be placed, the predictor described performs two tasks. First, the predictor gathers statistics about call times and attendant talk times. Second, the new call placing time must be calculated and calls placed. A predictor functioning thusly is highly effective in managing outbound calling. In stark contrast to the outbound systems previously described, are systems which handle inbound calling. Such automatic call directing (ACD) systems couple a plurality of incoming phone lines to a plurality of attendants, queuing inbound calls as they are received and assigning them to the attendants as they become free. If all attendants are busy at a particular time, incoming calls not yet assigned are placed in a queue and assigned to attendants as they become free in the order received (fair queueing). Such systems are commonplace and can handle, for example, airline, hotel and car rental reservations and help desks. The distinct difference between ACP and ACD systems is that ACD systems have no control over incoming call rate. In other words, incoming calls occur due to action by the calling party, and the ACD system can only respond by answering an incoming call as it is received and either assigning it to a free attendant or queueing it until an attendant becomes free. In many applications, it is highly undesirable to place incoming calls on hold in a queue for a long period of time. Therefore, particular attention must be paid to sizing of the attendant pool. The attendant pool should be large enough to handle most calls at peak hours, but should not be so large as to waste significant amounts of the attendants' time during off hours. The sizing of an attendant pool for an ACD system is, therefore, not an easy task and one which is fraught with compromise. Most pools are sized so that, at many times, the pool has excess capacity to handle calls. This excess capacity is wasted and represents an undesirable expense on the part of the company employing the attendants. A need has arisen in the marketplace for methods and systems which will handle both inbound and outbound calling to abate the excess capacity realized in an inbound application. In a pool of attendants, once a call is connected to an attendant, all calls are essentially the same. Whether a call was originated from the pool outbound, or from a customer inbound, the source becomes moot after the attendant is connected. However, there is one major difference between inbound and outbound calls. A call center manager can generally control the rate at which outbound calls are placed for attendants by utilizing a predictive dialer (ACP system). The arrival rate of inbound calls can vary widely over a day and are not controllable by a call center manager. Because of this, system managers have a much more difficult time scheduling personnel for inbound applications than outbound applications. This problem can be alleviated by creating a system that can deal with both types of calls simultaneously, using a single agent pool. Since outbound call rates can be controlled via the predictive dialing system described above, outbound calls can be used to keep attendants busy that would normally be idle because of low inbound call rates. For example, in a traditional inbound (ACD) application, there is always a problem matching the number of available attendants to the inbound call rate. The inbound call rate can vary randomly, causing either idle attendants or customers on hold. If some related outbound application can be handled by the same attendant pool working the ACD queue, the attendant loading can be leveled very effectively. The attendant pool can be sized to handle the largest inbound peakload without sacrificing efficiency when inbound calls drop off, due to the ability of the system to switch attendant resources to outbound calling. When inbound call rates drop off, a normal ACD will have some attendants go idle. However, with inbound/outbound call capability, as the inbound rate drops off, the system will automatically begin to increase its outbound calling rate. The calls are placed at a rate that just keeps all of the attendants that are not needed to take inbound calls busy, as in the above-described predictive dialer system. Accordingly, a need exists in the art for an inbound/outbound call handling system which combines the utilization advantages of a two-way system with the power of an effective predictive dialer. The problems associated with combined inbound/outbound call handling systems have been solved by modifying the basic algorithm as previously described in Ser. No. 07/657,631, the text of which is incorporated herein by reference. The algorithm taught therein uses statistical techniques to calculate when to start placing calls on a line so that an answer will occur just when an attendant has completed talking on a previous call. This algorithm can be modified to handle inbound calls such that if an inbound call is detected during outbound calling, the inbound call can replace the next outbound call that the predictor had scheduled, and the "answer task" (which will be discussed later) associated with that call will be stopped. In this way, the inbound call fits in with the outbound predictor, replacing outbound calls smoothly. Statistics regarding outbound calling (as will be later described) will be unaffected, and attendant loading with interspersed inbound calls will be identical to loading with pure outbound calls. Accordingly, the present invention provides notable advantages over those found in the prior art. First, a single pool of attendants can be used to handle both outbound and inbound phone calls, thereby allowing the number of attendants devoted to the two calling tasks to be automatically sized so as to maximize efficiency. Second, the pool of attendants can be sized to handle the maximum anticipated inbound calls, rather than some lesser number of calls without fear of having large idle times or inefficient agents. During off-peak times, excess capacity can be allocated to outbound calling, resulting in far greater efficiency of use of the attendants. Finally, the predictive dialing outbound calling feature remains intact to ensure that attendants are kept busy with a steady stream of live called parties when inbound calls fail to keep the entire pool of attendants busy. These advantages result in a far more cost-effective pool of attendants and, hence, a lower cost of doing business and greater effectiveness for those engaged in call handling free attendant system and the various tasks assigned to handle each attendant. FIG. 2 shows timelines of the activity on three station lines; FIG. 3 shows a prior art system using a computer for generating information for each attendant; and FIG. 4 shows a system using the predictive dialing algorithm and modification to handle inbound calls of the present invention. Before beginning a discussion of the predictive algorithm and its modification to handle inbound calls, it might be helpful to understand the context in which the algorithm is to be used. This is best illustrated from a review of FIG. 3 in which telephone trunks 301 from a telephone exchange (not shown) extend through telephone switch 36 in a conventional way and via telephone lines 302 to telephone stations 34, 35, which are utilized by attendants one and two. Each of these attendants also has a key pad and computer input terminal 32, 33 connected via lines 303 to computer 31. The attendants need not be human to fall within the scope of the present invention and can be, in fact, computers or other equipment designed to interfere with telephone systems. Traditionally, the system can be used so that computer 31 places on the screen the phone number which attendant #1 then dials in a conventional way to connect station 32 to a called party via trunk lines 301. Over the years, this has become a mainstay of telephone solicitation or telephone response. However, in recent years, a new system shown in FIG. 4 has automated the placement of calls so as to increase the efficiency of the attendants. Such a system is the subject of U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,563 dated May 9, 1989, in the name of Crockett et al., which patent is hereby incorporated herein by reference. Typically, this has been done by computer 41 communicating over bus 411 with computer 47 and providing computer 47 with a number of telephone numbers which are to be called throughout the course of a time period. Call control computer 47 then places calls through telephone switch 46 by first establishing the call via use of a call placement and call progress determination circuit 48. The system works such that circuit 48 dials a call over one of the trunks 401 and monitors the progress of the call via lines 404 to determine whether the call has been answered, a busy signal has been returned or a no-answer situation exists. Upon determination of an answer, that information is communicated (either through switch 46 or via a direct bus connection) to call control computer 47 which in turn monitors which attendant is then available. Computer 47 then controls telephone switch 46 to complete a connection from the active trunk 401 over a selected line 402 to a selected attendant, such as attendant #1 at station 44. Call control computer 47 then, via bus 410, transmits information to terminal 42 indicating the identity of the called party. At the same time, terminal 42 communicates this information to computer 41 over leads 403. Computer 41 then accesses its database and provides the block of data to the appropriate attendant operating in this respect in the inquiry mode. System 40 then operates to automatically place calls to called parties and must do so in a manner such that when the calls are answered, an attendant or other call handling system, such as an intelligent interactive computer system, is available. The efficiency with which call control computer 47 performs its function determines the efficiency and thus the profitability of system 40. In addition, the efficiency with which call progress determination can be made is an important factor and is the subject of a co-pending patent application entitled "Call Progress Detection Circuitry and Method", Ser. No. 07/657,631, which application is hereby incorporated herein by reference. For the purposes of this invention, definitions of pertinent statistical parameters of a predictive dialer are as follows: AAIUT: Average Attendant In-Use Time. This is the average time that each individual attendant is connected to a call and unavailable to take new calls. This time is a combination of the time that an attendant is connected to a called party as well as any wrap-up time after the call when the attendant is not available for new calls. The pacing task can calculate either an individual average AAIUT for each attendant's recent history or an overall average of all attendant's AAIUT, using a sliding window average. Individual averages work well for attendant groups under 5-8 attendants, while an overall average is adequate for groups larger than that. Usually the average is taken over the last 20-40 calls. The AAIUT average can then be used by the pacing task to predict when each attendant will be available next to take more calls. The abbreviation AAIUT will be used to describe this window-averaged attendant in-use time. Again, this is derived over the last N calls. PA: Probability of Answer. This is defined as the ratio of answered to no-answer calls. A probability of answer of 0.4 indicates that there is a 40% probability that any particular outbound call will be answered and require an attendant. This statistic is derived as a first step to determining average time to answer (ATTA). ACT: Average Call Time. This is defined as the average time to place a single call in the system. This is essentially the average of a parameter called the call interval (CI) that is measured for each call placed on a campaign. CI is defined as the time that a phone line is involved in the process of a call, and no attendant is attached. All calls have a CI, but it is defined differently on attendant handled (answered) and automatically-handled (no answer) or busy calls. For automatically handled calls, CI is defined as simply the time from line seizure and dialing to disconnect. This could be a no-answer call, busy or wrong-number intercept call. For answered calls, CI is defined as the time from line seizure to called-party answer. CI does not include called-party on-hold time (CPHT). ACT is an average of CI over all types of calls on the system, which includes no-answer, busy and answered calls. ACT describes a window-averaged call intervals in this document. The pacing task can use a sliding window average of call intervals to determine the average single call time for the system's recent calling history. ACT is used with PA to derive ATTA. ATTA: Average Time-to-Answer. This is defined as the average time it takes to place a series of calls until an answer occurs on one of the calls. The calls are placed serially on a single line and ATTA is defined as the time from the start of the first call to the first answer. One method of calculating this statistic is by timing the system's answer call attempts from start to first answer, and developing a windowed average of the last N answered are discussed at length in U.S. application Ser. No. 07/657,631, which has been incorporated herein by reference. The predictive dialer uses all of these statistics in conjunction with a delay parameter, which allows a system manager to balance attendant utilization with customer hold time, to perform its predictive dialing task. Again, the present invention's contribution is to marry receipt of inbound calls to the predictive algorithm to thereby allow a single system and a single pool of attendants to handle both inbound and outbound calls with great efficiency and effectiveness. The importance of utilizing proper algorithms and of controlling the system for flexibility will now be discussed with respect to FIG. 2. Turning now to FIG. 2, let us look at line L1. At time T0, attendant #1 is connected to the answered call and begins talking, as shown in box 204. The average time the attendant is in active communication is known as the average attendant in-use time (AAIUT). If we assume that this attendant talks the average time, we can assume that at time T3, attendant #1 completes the call and goes on-hook. Certainly, if we wait until time T3 to begin another call sequence, attendant #1 would sit idle for a period that would be on average equal to ATTA. attendant called the call scheduler. Let us now introduce a third line, L3, which is presently idle, represented by block 215. As shown, if the calls follow the typed call sequence and if the statistics are accurate, this attendant's scheduler will place two no-answer calls 211, 212, followed by answered call 213 on L2. Thus, at time T3', which in the ideal situation would coincide perfectly with time T3 when attendant #1 is finished talking on line 1, a connection would be available for attendant #1 to begin talking on line L2. In the alternative, let us assume that as the attendant's scheduler is placing no-answered call 211, line L3 receives an incoming call 216. In this case, the system will terminate placing of call 211, cancel the outbound calling process for call 211 and place the incoming call 216 on hold 217 until time T3 which coincides perfectly with time T3 when attendant #1 is finished talking on line L1. Under this alternative wherein an incoming call has been received, attendant #1 would be connected to L3 to begin talking, represented by block 218. The only disadvantage suffered by virtue of this new arrangement is that the incoming caller is subject to a hold period 217 pending completion of call 204. However, because the incoming caller is probably dialing on his own convenience, the hold period 217 is not as annoying as a hold period foisted on the recipient of an outgoing call, which is usually not at the convenience of the recipient. Although FIG. 2 has been shown and described in connection with three lines, L1, L2 and L3, it should be understood that the present invention is directed to any system comprising a plurality of lines, in other words, two or more. Three lines have simply been shown to illustrate the interaction between an operating predictor algorithm and receipt of an incoming call on a separate empty line.. Note that the predictive dialer predicts T4 to be identical whether attendant #1 is talking on line L2, per box 214, or on line L3, per box 218. In either case, the attendant talk time is predicted to be identical. Certainly, however, it is within the scope of the present invention to provide separate AAIUT statistical calculations for incoming versus outgoing calls to take into account the exigencies of separate campaigns. Dial no-answer box 206 is followed by an early answer box 207, which causes a problem. The simple solution to this problem is to put the called person on hold (perhaps playing a mechanical message) until time T7 when attendant #1 is presumably finished with the conversations on either line L2 or line L3. This, of course, is noted desirable situation and perhaps an alternate attendant would come free prior to time T7 at this point in time. An alternative method would be to disconnect the called party if no attendant is available to take the call. The party's number could be placed in a call-back queue and handled in the manner which has been previously described for handling outbound calls in general. A statistical improvement can be made when more than one attendant is on the system. When an answer occurs from attendant number one's scheduler, it can be allowed to go to the first available attendant, instead of being constrained to go to the attendant whose scheduler generated the answer. If this occurs, the scheduler of attendant #1 should ignore the fact that its answer has been taken by some other attendant, and wait for its attendant to get an answer from another attendant's scheduler (possibly the attendant who took the call). When the original attendant does get an answer, the scheduler does its normal calculations to determine when to spawn the next calling task. Meanwhile, the scheduler task of attendant #2 who took the original answer should also calculate its normal schedule time. Since attendant #2 is talking on a "stolen" call, the scheduler should spawn a new answer task at the normally scheduled time for that attendant, even though there is already one spawned that has not answered yet. Of course, should an incoming call be received, the new answer task just spawned should be interrupted and the received incoming call routed to the first available attendant. Certainly, when several attendants are being controlled by a statistical predictive dialing algorithm, it is not unreasonable to expect that, on a statistical basis, an attendant will come free prior to time T7 to handle the connection. Thus, when any attendant comes free, even an attendant associated with any other call scheduling routine, the free attendant is assigned to the call that has been on hold the longest, including incoming calls on hold. By reviewing FIG. 2, it is clear that with respect to attendant #1, there are two outbound calls that are being managed concurrently, one call on L1 and one call on L2. These calls are managed by call tasks 131 and 131A as shown in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, the predictive algorithm allows a system to automatically place calls for live attendants in such a way as to cause a new call to be answered close to the time when the attendant finishes talking on the previous call. The call pacing algorithm as modified for incoming calls is described here as being implemented with six types of concurrent tasks. The six types of tasks are: 1) Statistics gathering task 140; 2) Queueing and control task 141; 3) Schedule task 111, 112, 113; 4) Answer task 121, 122, 123, 123A; 5) Call task 131, 131A, 132, 132A, 133, 133A, 133B, 133C; and 6) Incoming task 142, 143, 144. There is one statistic-gathering task 140 for each campaign on the system. This task exists to calculate three important averages in the system: Average Attendant In-Use Time (AAIUT); Average Time-to-Answer (ATTA); and Average Call Time (ACT). In small systems, an individual AAIUT parameter is kept for each attendant on the system. This is kept by a windowed average of the last N calls handled by each attendant. Large systems keep a single AAIUT for all attendants. There is only one ATTA and ACT parameter for each campaign, either outbound or inbound. attendants waiting for a call and the queue of customers waiting for an attendant. (These two queues are mutually exclusive at any point in time.) The queue task follows the FIFO rule for both queues, so that the attendant that has been idle the longest will get the first answered call, and the customer that has been on hold the longest will get the first free attendant. This FIFO rule is typically called "fair queueing." The queue task can also set the time that a call will wait in queue before removing the call (MQTAC). The last four types of tasks are the schedule task 111, the answer task 121, the call task 131, and the incoming task 142. There is one scheduler task for each attendant on the system. Scheduler tasks can spawn answer tasks, and answer tasks can spawn call tasks. Incoming tasks serve to interrupt operation of answer tasks by informing schedule tasks of an incoming call. spawn, it seizes a line and places a single call. If the call is a live answer, the call task must report two events: the answer and the attendant connect. These must be sent to the statistics-gathering task and the parent answer task as soon as they occur. The answer status is sent to both the statistics task and the parent answer task immediately when a live answer occurs. Similarly, the connect status is sent to both the statistics task and the parent answer task immediately when an attendant is connected to a call. When the call is completed and the line released, the call task must always report a call-end status to the statistics task and the parent answer task. This is true for both answered and no-answer calls. There are five categories of call-end status: Live Answer (attendant was connected); Dropped Call (live answer--attendant wasn't available); No Answer; Abort (before answer); and Line Fault (no line available time-out). A specific copy of the call task exists only long enough to make one call and report the various events and call-end message attendant, and final call-end answer status is returned from the call task. In the basic predictive algorithm. There is one scheduler task for each attendant on the system. This task's job is to schedule "answers" for its attendant by spawning answer tasks. The scheduler task gets the AAIUT parameter for its own attendant from the statistics task, and uses this average to predict when that attendant) and the average time that the associated attendant will talk (AAIUT), the scheduler can determine the optimum time to spawn an answer task so that the next answer for that attendant will occur (statistically) just as the attendant completes the previous call. This optimum time is calculated with the following equation: TSC=AAIUT-ATTA where TSC is the time to start the answer task calling after the attendant was connected to the previous answered call. The incoming task is an overlay to the predictive algorithm and serves as an interrupt (in the classic computer sense) to any answer task underway by reporting to a schedule task the receipt of an incoming call. The schedule task will destroy an answer task spawned by it and will immediately take the call routed via the incoming task for distribution to any free attendant. To summarize the various components of the system: Job: Collect and calculate statistics for predictive algorithm. Keep AAIUT for each attendant or system. Keep ATTA and ACT for system. Knows: When attendant answer starts. When answer occurs. When attendant is connected. When call is completed. Job: Keep an ordered queue for idle attendants and another for calls on hold. Make match between attendant that has been idle the longest and first answered call. Make match between call on hold the longest and first free attendant. When attendant enters or leaves system. When attendant goes idle. Job: Make one call and stay in existence until line disconnects. Report when answer occurs and when attendant connects spawned by answer-scheduler task. How to place a call. When call is answered. When call ends. How to determine call outcome (answer/no answer). Dies after completing one call. Job: Trigger call tasks until it gets an answer. Report result to answer-scheduler spawned by answer-scheduler task. How to trigger a call task. How to interpret call task status reports. When to trigger subsequent call tasks. Dies after line is disconnected. Job: To schedule answers for attendants to occur when attendants get free. Spawned when attendant logs on system. Gets ATTA, AAIUT for that attendant. How to calculate time delay before starting answer task. How to set delay timer (answer timer). How to trigger answer task. When attendant is connected to call. When attendant has completed call. Dies when attendant logs off. Job: To report to schedule task when an incoming call is received to thereby destroy an answer task associated with that schedule task. When an incoming call is received. When incoming call has been assigned to a particular attendant. From the foregoing description, it is apparent that the invention described herein provides a novel inbound/outbound calling connection system for handling by an attendant (or by an automatic computer controlled interactive call handling system) comprising calling means for automatically attempting outbound call placement, the calling means monitoring and adjusting attempted outbound calling connections based on call completion times and availability of the attendant and receiving means for queueing an inbound call for connection to the attendant, the incoming call receiving means adjusting operation of the calling means to account for receipt of the inbound call. Although the present invention and its advantages have been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

Luke 8:22-25 June 02, 2002 42-108 Listen using Pop-Up Player Let's open our Bibles to the eighth chapter of the gospel of Luke as we examine God's precious Word and another magnificent portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ presented to us by the Spirit-inspired historian, Luke. We come to the eighth chapter of Luke again and for the second week and the last week, we're looking at a section in this chapter from verse 22 through verse 25. And the theme is power...power beyond anything man can do. Not power to harness natural forces, but power to stop them. Massive power is exhibited in this passage by Jesus to control wind and water, forces that man has never ever been able to control. And modern history is as full of devastating hurricanes and tornadoes and destructive winds and waves and floods as ancient history because man throughout all of the millennia has achieved no ability to do anything about these powerful forces. And yet in this account given to us by Luke, also given to us by Matthew and Mark, other gospel writers who described the same event, we see Jesus has complete power over these forces. Let's look again at these verses and I'll read them to you so that you have the story in your mind. Verse 22, ?'" Now the Lord of creation chose the ideal place on the planet for this display of astonishing power. He chose the little lake of Chinneroth, Gennesaret or modern times Lake Chinnereth in the Galilee section of Israel, usually in the Bible referred to as the Sea of Galilee, though it's just a lake 13 miles at its longest length and seven or eight miles at its widest point. Lake Chinnereth, as it is known today, is one of the most fascinating and most studied bodies of water on the earth. We become sort of superficially familiar with it as the Sea of Galilee and we know about the fishing boats and about the agriculture around the Sea, but we really, for the most part in kind of going through the stories of the Bible, never come to grips with the amazing properties of this lake which make this story so believable and so important. As I said a moment ago, it is one of the most studied lakes in the world. It is studied by scientific experts from all over the globe. All you have to do is look on your Worldwide Web for Lake Chinnereth and you will be flooded with all of the studies that have been done through the years to try to come to grips with the amazing, amazing, unique elements of wind and water that function on this lake. It is the lowest freshwater lake in the world at 682 feet below sea level, there is no lake lower on the planet. It is only 30 miles east of the Mediterranean Sea, situated in a bowl-shaped valley. To the west are the hills of Galilee which rise to a height of about 1500 feet and so they are 1500 feet plus 682 feet above the service of the lake. To the north and west, as I said, are those hills of Galilee. To the east of the Sea of Galilee is a plateau. In fact, it's a plateau that runs for 42 miles down that part of the land of Israel. It is a plateau 16 miles wide known today as the Golan Heights. It is a no-man's land. The Israelis have pushed the Arabs back many miles against the...against the countries to the east and away from the Heights because for so many years they were being shelled in the villages below the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights rise to an elevation of 3,000 feet, so they are quite high above the surface of the lake, a perfect place to bombard the people in the villages below. This plateau is sheer at some points and sloped at other points. To the north of the lake are the mountains of southern Lebanon that rise 10,000 feet above the surface of the water. So there it exists on three sides surrounded by mountains from 1500 feet all the way up to 10,000 feet. The lake itself is supplied by the snow melt that comes from the Lebanese mountains, Mount Hermon being the most familiar one at 9200 feet above sea level. The snow melts and sends the clean, clear water down the small Jordan River and it fills up the lake. But that's not the only water supply, that whole area is geothermal and at the north and west part of the lake there are hot springs, fresh clear water bubbling up out of the ground that also supplies the marvelous and unique lake. Because the water is so pure, fifty percent of all drinking water in Israel comes from that lake, providing wondrously good water for all the inhabitants of Israel and it's always been that way. The lake is amazingly stratified. There are literally three sections of water, three different temperatures that are remarkable. The lake goes to a depth of 150 feet, go down 50 feet and the temperature drops to about 59 degrees. Go down another 50 feet and it drops to under 50 degrees and those various sections of the lake have their own movements and their own motion which contribute to the surface turbulence, to some degree. Because of the freshness of the lake and the agitation of the lake, it is a wonderful place for algae to flourish and algae flourishing causes the fish population to flourish so that catching fish in the Sea of Galilee is about as easy as catching them anywhere. I read about a more recent fisherman who caught 600 pounds of fish in a single net haul. Now that might sound like a lot, there is on record from 1896 a catch of 9,200 pounds of fish brought in by one boat in one day. It is teeming with life. God has put fresh water and plenty of food right in the middle of the Galilee. And, of course, around it is marvelous land, great farm land, as good as any in the world, and slopes on which vineyards can be planted and it is the land of milk and honey. As wonderful as this lake is as a source of water and a source of food and even a source of transportation, there is a problem with this lake that is well known to geologists, meteorologists and scientists all over the world and it is that problem in the lake that is so frequently studied. And it is the amazing mix of wind and water that occurs there as no other place in the world. Because the lake is the lowest lake on the planet, because it is in a bowl at the bottom of hills and cliffs and plateaus and mountains that surround it, it is a perfectly situated lake to experience severe and strong wind. From the west comes ocean winds over the hills of Galilee, speeded up as they come down hitting the surface of the water. From the north come the cold winds off the Lebanese mountains, snow-capped mountains. And as those winds come plummeting down the hills they gain speed and as they get closer to the lake of Galilee, they're forced into ravines and as they...as the wind is compressed into the ravines, it accelerates its speed immensely. I remember one time when I was in Chicago and I was asking people why it's called "The Windy City," and I said is it the wind out on the lake? And they said, not really, it is the wind on the lake compressed between the high-rise buildings in the city that creates funnels which accelerate the wind and so it comes flying down the streets between those buildings at a much higher speed than it is on the lake itself. And that is essentially what ravines and canyons do with wind, and that is the way it is in Galilee. To the east come the hot sirocco winds off the desert, very much like our Santa Ana winds, gaining speed and gaining heat as they come across the desert and then plummeting down the 3,000 foot precipice of the Golan Heights to hit the lake. Tempests on the lake basically happen every day. The winds come just about every day at around noon and last till about six o'clock. So the wind there is incredibly routine, strong winds coming as a daily experience. Now the worst of the winds are the cold winds because when the cold winds come down they not only gain speed coming from afar, they not only are the stronger winds...the scientific data that I read this week indicates that the cold winds are about 50 percent stronger than the warm winds...and as they come down they collide with the warm air that sits in that semi-arid valley. And the collision of the intensely cold wind and the warm wind generates winds that are almost like hurricane or tornado type winds. These winds are known as catabotic[?] winds. They originate when a layer of cold air forms on the mountains with clear skies and low barometric pressure and then the cold air becomes denser and heavier, it plummets down, gravity pulls it down, it speeds down, it gets trapped in canyons, it gets funneled down, it accelerates and hits the lake, hits the warm air and literally creates what scientists call sheer stress on the surface of the lake that just agitated in immense fashion. The winds in the summer are less severe than those in the winter. By the way, according to chronology of the New Testament, when this happened it was the winter of the year 29 A.D. What that does is stir up storms, severe storms on the lake. I've sailed across the little lake of Galilee, the Sea of Galilee a number of occasions. And I have experienced the sudden rise of a storm. I remember Patricia and I were one time on the top deck of a...of a small boat, I would say 60, 70 feet in length but it was a ship made out of steel and it was able to be in relatively rough water. It was the kind of boat you might assume to see on an ocean, not a little lake, but that kind of boat is very helpful in that particular environment. I remember being on the top deck to try to avoid the spray and being completely drenched as the waves were breaking across the bow and literally cascading water over our heads over the entire ship. That is a particular familiar experience to those who sail on that little lake. The water is agitated, as I said, as the air runs at high speed across the surface and agitates it. It is more severe in the winter because of some scientific reason that the three stratified areas in the summer have some way to kind of control the agitation on the surface, the lakes lose that clear stratification in the winter...the lake loses that clear stratification in the winter and becomes more subject to turbulence. And since the winds are greater, the turbulence as well is greater. So between December and February or even as late as April, you can have a very, very threatening, a very terrifying, a very treacherous storm on the little lake of Galilee, like really no other little lake anywhere in the world. There are plenty of historical records about the deadliness of those kinds of storms. They are violent. They are really unpredictable. There is a calm and within just minutes there is without warning a raging, raging storm. Some of the storms are extremely severe. We've stayed a number of times in the town of Tiberias and Tiberias is on the western shore of the lake. And, of course, the water sort of laps up against a rather high and formidable sea wall, you would think, it's really a lake wall. And the reason the wall is there is to protect the town of Tiberias. There are along the coastline some large buildings, some large hotels, some restaurants and things like that right along the water. The waves get very high at times, five- to six-foot waves are fairly normal. In 1992 ten-foot waves crashed over the sea wall into downtown Tiberias causing significant damage to boats and buildings on the shoreline. This from what appears when you wake up in the morning as a very, very placid and quiet lake. So if the Lord wanted to choose a place to demonstrate His power over wind and wave, He picked the best place, or better said...when the Lord created the earth, He created that lake in that place where His Son would be so that He could demonstrate His divine power. This little story shows us that Jesus can do what no one has ever been able to do, control the wind and the water. Now we divided the story into three parts, kind of featuring the "calm"...the calm before the storm, the calm during the storm, and the calm after the storm. Last time we looked at the calm before the storm and we considered verses 22 and verse 23. It came about on one of those days, it was in fact the day that Jesus gave the parable of the soils and the parable of the lamp that is in the preceding part of this chapter. The very same day, long day, in which Jesus was teaching a massive crowd, so big that the...up by the town of Capernaum they had gathered and pushed Him, pushed Him all the way down until they literally pushed Him into the water and He had to get into a boat to do His teaching. So He had spent an entire day teaching this crowd. And there was accumulated weariness because He had done that day after day after day after day. And so, at the end of that day He determined that He needed some quiet and some rest and some refreshment and respite from the intensity of the crowd. And so, He and His disciples got into a boat and Mark tells us a lot of other little boats went along. And Jesus and His disciples, that disciples means a group of people who were learners, students, followers, some of them knew He was God, some of them knew He was the Messiah, some of them were coming to that knowledge, some of them were wondering who He was, but they were all there to learn at various points and they all got into boats to go with Him. And He said to them, "Let's go to the other side of the lake." The way to avoid the crowd was to take the water and go across the lake. If they tried to walk, the crowd would follow them. They couldn't really walk away, they had to get in a boat and sail away and that's what they did. And so they launched out to go to the other side of the lake, maybe a journey of about six miles across the northern tip of the lake. Verse 23, "As they were sailing along, He fell asleep." Exhausted from a human standpoint, literally without any energy left, Jesus went to sleep. Mark tells us there was a pillow provided for His head and He was placed in a...perhaps lying on a plank, a place out of the way of those who were sailing a little boat and He fell asleep with His head on a pillow. This is the calm before the storm. The Son of God, God in human flesh is exhausted physically. And, of course, that's His human nature. His divine nature, He goes to sleep even though He knows a storm is coming, even though He is the God who created, the God who sustains creation. He is the God of the storm. He knows its coming. He's omniscient. He knows everything but the storm holds no fear for Him, there's no necessary preparation to make on His part, He can go to sleep and at the appropriate moment stop the storm. Which He does. So you look at Jesus and there's a beautiful calm as He goes deeply asleep. And in the lateness of the day, dusk settles in as they begin their trip, darkness falls, the moon comes out, everything is quiet. But it is particularly at night that the cold storms of the north come in the winter, in clear skies, as I said, with low barometric pressure. The fury of the storms begin to build, plummeting down the mountains and arriving at the little lake in the darkness of night. It is likely one of those clear nights and they're sailing in the light of the moon. And we move from the calm before the storm to a second point, the calm during the storm. Look at verse 23. "And a fierce gale of wind descended upon the lake and they began to be swamped and to be in danger. And they came to Him and woke Him up saying, 'Master, Master, we are perishing.'" All of a sudden the tranquility is removed and replaced by a deadly storm...a deadly storm. And Luke's choice of words gives us with just a very, I suppose, typically biblical brevity, a grip on the severity of this event. Luke calls it a "fierce gale," and the Greek word is lailapsand that is the word for hurricane. You're talking about very, very strong winds, hurricane-type winds. It's the word that would be used for whirlwind or tornado. And then if that's not enough he adds another word, anemoswhich is the word for wind. It was a hurricane kind of wind so that fierce gale...the word hurricane modifies the kind of wind that it is. And then he says, "It descended..." and that's very, very accurate because wind did just that. It came down the mountains, descended is from the Greek verb katabaino. Kata means down, it came down. The language is true to reality. It is very likely, as I said, when you do your chronology the winter of the year 29, it is the very time of the year when the winds are the worst, when the cold air furiously funnels through the ravines and the canyons and down the slopes from the north and sometimes from the northeast, plummeting down gaining speed into the low basin, colliding with the warm air creating shear stress on the surface of the water and turning it into a frothing foaming caldron of water with waves that go from five to ten feet. The storm is so severe it is life threatening. And this assessment is made by sailors. It is the disciples who are saying, "Lord, Master, we are perishing." They understood that they were in danger. The boat was being swamped, it says. And again, just to give you a little bit of history. W. M. Thompson wrote a book called The Land and the Bookin which he gives fascinating insights into the character of the land of Israel. In one paragraph he tells about an occasion when he and some other visitors to Israel were tenting and camping beside the lake. This is what he writes: "On the occasion referred to, we subsequently pitched our tents at the shore and remained for three days and nights exposed to tremendous wind. We had to double pin all the tent ropes and frequently were obliged to hang with our whole weight upon them to keep the quivering tent from being carried up bodily into the air. The whole lake as we saw it was lashed into fury. The waves repeatedly rolled up to our tent door, tumbled over the ropes with such violence as to carry away the tent pins. Furthermore, these winds are not only violent, but they came down suddenly and often came when the sky was perfectly clear." He says, "I once to swim near the hot baths and before I was aware, a wind came rushing over the cliffs with such force that it was with great difficulty that I could even get back to shore." Dr. W. M. Kristi [??] who spent many, many years in Galilee said, "That during these storms the winds would blow sometimes from all directions because once they hit the pocket and the bowl, then they would begin to spin and to whirl." He writes, "A company of tourists were standing on the shore at Tiberias and noting the glassy surface of the water and the smallness of the lake, they expressed doubt as to the possibility of such storms as those described in the gospels. Almost immediately the wind sprang up. In twenty minutes the sea was white with foam crested waves, great billows broke over the towers at the corner of the city walls and the visitors were compelled to seek shelter from the blinding spray, though they were 200 yards from the shore." This happens. It happens. The Bible says it happens and it happens. Here was a situation that there basically was no remedy for, not in the human realm. They realized what's going on, in verse 23, the boat begins to be swamped. And they know they are in danger. How severe is the danger? "Master, Master, we are perishing." Perishing is a sort of a, I guess, prosaic way of saying, "We're dying." This storm will kill us. Now this perfectly suits the Lord's purpose, of course, to strength the weak faith of His followers. That's pretty clear by verse 25, His first comment to them afterwards is, "Where is your faith?" The Lord allows the storm, the Lord is in the storm, the Lord creates the storm in order to demonstrate that He can be trusted in the storm to increase their faith. Matthew, by the way, in his account of this event, Matthew 8:24, describes the effect on the lake with interesting Greek words. He calls it a seismos megas, a mega seismic event. Seismosis the word for quake. Megasis the word for big, or massive. Matthew says it was a water-quake, which is a way of describing the violent shaking agitation, the massive waves generated by hurricane force winds. I can remember our experience there, a couple of experiences there. One most notably, that all came within a half hour from perfect calm. And so Luke notes that the boat began to be swamped. Matthew says it this way, Matthew says, "Water was covering the boat." He says, "The boat was covered with the waves." Mark says, "Waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up." And then Matthew adds, "In the middle of this, Jesus was still asleep." And that's the calm during the storm. Jesus was the eye of the hurricane. You could say from a human viewpoint, He must have been very tired. Who could sleep during that? But He could. Does that say something about His weariness? His fatigue? Yes. But it also says something about His tranquility as God. God by nature is perfect calm because there is nothing that can ruffle Him, nothing that can concern Him, nothing that can worry Him since He is sovereign over everything. Jesus has His head on a pillow in a sleep of perfect tranquility, perfect calm. He needs no preparation to deal with the storm. At the appropriate moment He will exercise His sovereign, divine, creative power. He is the calm in the storm. Chaos everywhere. Pandemonium everywhere. The boat that He's in and all the other little boats along bobbing like corks in the surf, people hollering and yelling and scrambling around the decks to keep their balance and not get washed overboard as the water continues to crash into the boats and fill them up and Jesus is sound asleep in perfect peace. They know they have no human way out and they are fishermen. This is not the assessment of tourists. This is the assessment of people who were on the water of that lake almost daily. And in verse 24 they came to Him and they woke Him up. And they said, "Master, Master, we are perishing." They were used to the lake. They knew what level storm they could survive. This they couldn't survive. So in a mixture of hopelessness and hope, in a mixture of terror and faith, in a mixture of panic and trust, they started tugging at Jesus to waken Him. Now they knew that He had power over demons. They had seen it. They knew that He had power over disease. They had seen it. They had seen Him heal people, blind people, deaf people, dumb people, crippled people. They knew He had power over death, they had seen Him raise the dead. They have seen Him break up a funeral. They also knew that He could control fish. It was in the fifth chapter of Luke that He did a miracle of sending all the fish to one spot to jump into the net. They knew that. But could He stop a storm? As I said last week, everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it...because they can't. He could handle demons, that was obvious. He could handle disease, that was obvious. He could handle death, that was obvious. He could handle animals, that was obvious. But could He handle the immense, unequaled power of wind and water? Well, they really didn't know. They didn't have the faith to believe, but they didn't have anywhere else to turn. I'm sure they were stunned by His indifference, what appeared to them to be an ability to sleep in the midst of their terrible tragedy. And so they said to Him, "Master, Master, we're perishing. Doesn't this concern You?" You can imagine the pandemonium. Luke says they said, "Master, Master," epistatameans commander, person in charge, leader. You're our recognized leader, Master, Master, epistata, epistata. Matthew says they said, "Kurios, Kurios," Lord. Mark says they said, "Didaskalos, Didaskalos," teacher. And some of the critics say, "Ah, you see, that's the problem with believing the Bible. One writer says they said Lord, one writer says they said Master, one writer says they said Teacher, and that just shows you that they take a lot of liberty." Look, folks, this is not an organized speech. This is pandemonium. What did they say? Master, Lord, Teacher...anything, everything. Who said it? Everybody said it. Everybody gave his own speech. This is not a committee that met down in the boat and said, "Now you will go and say Master, Master, we are perishing." They said everything they could think to say and used every possible title to alert Jesus to their concern and that they were addressing Him. Matthew 8:26 says, "They were terrified." And he uses the word that means cowardly, that is to say there was nobody who was going to act a hero, there was no direction in which heroism could go. This was beyond human possibility. Now the storm surprised them, but it didn't surprise Jesus. It couldn't surprise the one who knows every time a sparrow hops. It couldn't surprise the one who numbers the head of every person, that is counting all the hairs that are there. That's how detailed His knowledge is. A simple way to understand the knowledge of God is there isn't anything He doesn't know. It's not that He has a great ability to gather information. He doesn't gather any information, there's just not anything He doesn't know. He doesn't learn it, He just knows it. And He knew about this. It is kind of interesting on a human level that sailors are appealing to a carpenter to get them out of a storm. And particularly a carpenter who probably didn't even own a boat since He lived in Nazareth which is miles away from the lake. But they weren't looking for a human solution. They knew they had to go to one who had access to divine power. And so this group of disciples all the way from the apostles who knew He was the Son of God and believed He was the Messiah, to those who weren't sure who He was, at least they know that He had some access to divine power and perhaps the one who could handle disease and handle demons and handle death and the one who could control fish can handle a storm. And maybe somebody remembered Psalm 65...Psalm 65 says, "O God of our salvation, You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea, who establishes the mountains by His strength, being girded with might who stills the roaring of the seas and the roaring of the waves." And they remembered that Psalm 65 said, "God has power over the water." And maybe somebody remembered Psalm 89:9, "You rule the swelling of the sea. When its waves rise, You still them." Well surely somebody remembered Psalm 107. Psalm 107 verse." That's the swells of the sea. "Their soul melted away in their misery. They reeled and staggered like a drunken man and were at their wit's end." The picture of someone tossing on a ferocious storm on the sea. "So they cried to the Lord in their trouble.." Somebody probably remembered Psalm 107, that God is the God who brings the storm and the God who stills the storm. And so there is that God in human flesh, the calm in the midst of the storm, the eye of the hurricane. And the only hope to whom they can appeal. That leads us to the third point, the calm after the storm. They broke into Jesus' sleep, desperate with no human resources. They come to Jesus only when they're desperate. That's the way it usually is, isn't it? But that's okay. The Lord Himself creates that desperation as a part of driving you to Him. If there's not a desperation, it's likely you're not going to come. The Lord Himself created the storm, created the desperation so that they would plead to Him for deliverance and He could put His power on display. It's okay to come to Him in the storm. It's okay to come to Him in the desperation. That gives Him opportunity to display His power. In fact, there are times when He even creates the desperation. Certainly always it occurs within His purpose and very often that purpose is to bring us to the end of all human resources so we can cast our care on Him and find His deliverance sufficient. So they awaken Him. He hears their desperate pandemonium. He hears their cries, their pleas. This is so wonderful. Verse 24, "Being aroused, He woke up. He rebuked the wind and the surging waves." What does that mean He rebuked them? Well Mark says exactly what Jesus said. You remember this? Mark 4:39, "Peace! Be still." That's two sentences. "Peace!" Actually it's "Shh. Be still." There's no histrionics here. No theatrics. He didn't have to go down in the hold of the ship and work up the power. They didn't have to go to somebody and ask for it. With no effort He woke up and said, "Shh. Be still." And the wind and the sea recognized the voice of their Creator and they responded. The same way disease responded when He rebuked it. The same way demons responded when He rebuked them. The same way death responded when it yielded up its victim. The same way fish responded when He commanded them to go to a certain place. The wind stopped instantly and the waves stopped. Critics have said, "Ah, but the winds come fast and they leave fast." But the waves don't. If the wind stopped, the waves would go on for hours while all those turbulent movements of water worked their way to the shore, hit the shore and bounced back with further turbulence until hours would go by before there would be a calm. In this case, listen to this, "He rebuked the wind and the surging waves and they stopped and it became calm." The wind stopped immediately and the water didn't finish its course to the shore, it just flattened out..dead still. And Mark says, "It was a great calm." Let me tell you something. If you didn't know anything about Jesus except that one account, you would know enough to know who He is. That's all you need to know. And when you come along and you hear this patronizing nonsense that "Jesus was a well-meaning teacher," or "Well-intentioned religious leader," but not "God." That's a lie. You don't need any more than this to know who He was. It's the testimony of Matthew, it's the testimony of Mark, it's the testimony of Luke. Furthermore, in verse 25 it's the testimony of all of those that were there who said, "Who then is this that commands even the winds and the water and they obey Him?" And Luke makes sure that you get affirmation from all of those people that were there. The lake instantly became like a mirror. Oh, Luke's readers...some of Luke's readers would have been taught because it was part of the Greek/Roman idolatry that the gods had power over the wind and the water. That's part of Greek/Roman mythology. And there were some Romans who claimed to have that power. Some of the Caesars did. Caligula did. Xerxes did. Apollonia did, and others. That was all fantasy. There never was any verification for that. Obviously no proof of that, no demonstration of that. But here was one who really had the power. This then flies in the face of what some of the readers of Luke's gospel would think. Here is an unarguable display of power while claims by Caesars and self-appointed gods and gods of mythology could never be verified. Here is verifiable testimony with many eyewitnesses. The supernatural power of Jesus in a split second stopped millions of horsepower of wind, millions of horsepower of surging water. And Luke's point is this is God. Luke doesn't say He prayed and asked God to do it, He did it Himself. This is all you'd need to know that Jesus is God. And that's enough. If you know He's God then you have to believe everything He said as God. And that then scoops up the whole Scripture to which He gave affirmation. Luke tells us Jesus is the Son of God by prophecies fulfilled at His birth. He tells us that Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the Messiah by virtue of the uniqueness of His virgin birth. Luke gives evidence that He is the Son of God by His genealogy, by His victory over Satan, by His teaching, by His miracles, by His power over creation. And remember what I told you last time, the promise of the Old Testament is that God is going to send His Son, the Messiah, the King, the Ruler, and He's going to renew the earth and He's going to bring a glorious Kingdom and it's going to be something like it once was in the Garden of Eden. And when the Messiah comes He's going to...He's going to bring healing and disease will be diminished. He's going to bring life and death will be diminished. And He's going to recreate the earth, bring peace and joy and tranquility. He's going to eliminate natural disasters. All those things are part of the Old Testament prophecies of the Kingdom, so whoever the King is is going to have to have the ability to do that, the ability to conquer disease, the ability to conquer death, the ability to conquer the forces of nature. Also going to have to bring in righteousness and peace and justice. All of these things are true and characteristic of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can He bring a golden age to the world? Can He bring a glorious Kingdom of wholeness and health and conquering over disease? Of course He can, He's shown that He can do that. Can He bring a glorious Kingdom, a golden age when people live for centuries instead of decades? Of course He can. He shows that He has power over death. Can He control the forces of nature and make them benign and beneficial and only that? Of course He can, He shows us He can control the wind and the water. He has complete power over everything in His creation. Can He control the demons? Can He take Satan and all his host and bind them for a thousand years so that they have no access to His glorious millennial Kingdom? Of course He can, He already demonstrated His triumph over Satan in His temptation and He will some day bind him and ultimately cast him into the lake of fire. All of these are evidences of the messiahship of Jesus, the deity of Jesus. And so, this is the calm after the storm. When the storm was going on, Matthew 8:26, before Jesus stopped the storm, Jesus started moving toward the lesson He wanted to teach. He said to His disciples, Matthew 8:26, "Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?" To which somebody would probably say, "Why do You think we're afraid? Look around You." Mark puts it this way, Jesus said, "How is it that you have no faith?" Well which one did He say? He said both, He turned this way and said, "Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?" He turned that way and said, "How is it that you're afraid? Why are you guys in such fear?" And then once He stilled the storm, verse 25 says, He said to them, "Where's your faith? Where's your faith?" I'm sure they were hanging their heads. That was embarrassing. That was shameful. Oh, we saw Him raise the dead, we saw Him control the fish, we saw Him cast out demons, we saw Him heal all those people...this is embarrassing. Where's your faith? Couldn't you believe Me for this? Well, you know, I mean dealing with demons and disease and death and fish, I mean, that's one thing, but wind and waves? And there was another personal component now you've got to remember. This is the first time that a miracle involved them quite so personally. Follow that? Oh, He healed that blind guy. That's wonderful. Oh, He healed that deaf person. Whoa, look how He delivered the man with demons. This is...this is powerful. But it wasn't them. Now their lives are at stake. Little harder to be coldly objectively theological, right? And just say, "Well, we've certainly seen the other things, He can do this," while you're gasping for air as you go down. That becomes a little more difficult. And somebody says, "Well, there's a shipwreck in Acts 27 and you remember the shipwreck in Acts 27 involved the Apostle Paul, remember that? You can read it later today. Read that twenty-seventh chapter, it's really a fabulous chapter. Paul is being taken on a ship to Rome to be tried by the Roman government, his ministry is essentially coming to its culmination. He's going to be put in prison. He's headed there and a fierce storm breaks out on the Mediterranean, a northeast cold wind comes down and the ship can't bear up in the storm. They have to pull down the sails. They have to...they really tie down the rudder so that it doesn't just go in circles. They just have to go where the wind takes them. They just go with the blowing wind and they know they're headed toward the Syrtis, which was the graveyard of ships on North Africa, that's the way the wind is going. They're going to crash on the rocks. They're all going to die and there's several hundred of them in the boat. It's terrible despair. And Paul stands up and says, "All right, everybody, let's have dinner. We've got to eat because you're losing strength," and they're jettisoning all the cargo possible so that the boat rises higher above the water and doesn't get washed and filled with water. And they're just trying to survive, they all think they're going to die and Paul says, "Let's eat, nobody is going to die. An angel of the Lord appeared unto me, says we're all going to be spared, but you might have to swim a little bit so you need some nourishment." And you say, "Well how can Paul be so objective? How can Paul in the middle of that situation have such a different attitude than these disciples?" Answer is, before that shipwreck, Paul had many, many, many times when he was on the brink of death and the Lord stepped in and delivered him. And this was just another one. Well the disciples hadn't had that. So indifference to them, let's give them a little space here and there never had been a situation where their lives were at stake. It doesn't necessarily excuse the face that they should have sort of taken their experiences to the logical conclusion that if the Lord can control all these other things, He can control the weather and the wind and the waves. But sort of in defense of them, they hadn't ever been personally delivered from death. The Apostle Paul had many times been so delivered. And so for him it was just another novel experience. His faith was already strengthened. So in the middle of the storm the Lord is saying to them, "Why are you afraid, O men of little faith? How is it that you have no faith?" Then he says, "Shh. Be still." And in the calm He says, "Where's your faith?" I'll tell you what, they had a lesson that day to trust the Lord in the most deadly storm. They were moved to another level of faith. Oh, their faith wasn't perfected yet. There were times when they displayed weak faith in the future but remember now, there's a spectrum of people there whose faith runs that spectrum. For some of them, this...this was enough. They...they saw the proof. They saw that Jesus could handle the storm. This rescue then allowed Him to put His power on display, to put His deity on display, to demonstrate that He is God, the Creator. But more than that. To demonstrate His care and protection as Psalm 107 says, "Over those that are His." Again 1 Peter says, "Cast your care on Him, He cares for you." And know this, that our sovereign Lord is more than a teacher, He is God Almighty. He controls all the forces of nature. And He is a protector of His people and nothing will happen to you that's outside His purpose. This doesn't mean that Christians never drown, or that Christians never die. They do, but not until it fits within the purpose of God. As long as He wants you to do what the psalmist said, to praise Him and proclaim His name, He will preserve your life and He will still your storms. He will rescue when trouble overwhelms you. In fact, you've got to remember this, folks, He not only stops the storms, He starts them. He does. Sometimes He starts the storms to chasten you. Sometimes He starts the storms just to increase your faith. I've thought about that. Jonah ended up in a storm because he was disobedient, remember that? If he had gone to Nineveh like he was told, he would never have had a storm. So he was disobedient, he got in a storm by being disobedient. The disciples got in a storm by being obedient. Jesus said, "Let's go to the other side of the lake." And they said okay. And because they were obedient, they got in a storm. Now being in a storm doesn't necessarily mean you're disobedient. You can be in a storm that's a chastening storm, or you can be in a storm that's a strengthening storm. In the case of the disciples, the Lord put them in a storm so that He could deliver them from the storm so that He could increase their ability to trust Him in a storm. And the worse the storm, the greater the level of trust. The Lord is there in your storms. One more critical point, verse 25, this is the storm after the calms. Verse 25, "They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, 'Who then is this that He commands even the winds and the water and they obey Him?'" They were, notice, fearful and amazed. They were... fearful means panicked. As I've said before, what's worse than having a storm outside your boat is having the Creator of the universe in your boat...that is frightening because you now know that God is there and God sees you for what you are. This was terrifying. We covered all of that in the fifth chapter when Peter who knew the Lord had commanded the fish looked at Jesus and said, "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man." Immediately frightening intimidation that the Creator, the holy Creator of the universe is in your boat and they literally went into fear, terror. The trauma of being in the presence of holy God, panic sets in. And that's going to happen in the next three miracles. Remember? I told you that. In verse 37 when the people saw Jesus heal the demon-possessed man, the end of verse 37, they were gripped with great fear. In verse 47, when the woman was healed, she was so frightened that she came trembling and fell down before Jesus. And after the dead girl was raised by Jesus, verse 56, her parents were literally astonished, amazed, and it has the idea of fear. It's frightening to be in the presence of God. There was a holy terror that gripped their hearts. So, on the one hand they could see their faith increased, that Jesus had the power to deliver them from the storm. That, in fact, Jesus had divine power. At the same time they felt good about the divine power, they felt bad about their sinfulness. So when the Lord delivers you from a storm, it has a twofold effect. On the one hand, you see the power of God which increases your faith. On the other hand, you know that the Lord sees your weakness and your sin which increases your remorse. Their terror was verbalized in verse 25. "They said to one another, 'Who then is this that He commands even the winds and the water and they obey Him?'" It's a rhetorical question. They knew the answer. Luke doesn't give an answer, no answer is needed. Who then is this who controls the winds and the water? Answer: God. Everybody knew that. God. On another occasion, a little later in the lake, Matthew 14 records it, when Peter walked on water. The storm was stilled by Jesus again on that occasion. And you know what the response of the disciples was? Matthew 14:33, "You are the Son of God." Obvious...obvious. Here then is another presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ in all His divine glory as the controller of all the natural forces of the universe. Here then is not only that picture of Him and His power, but His compassion and care over those who are His as He delivers them and rescues them from a storm, a storm not so much to chasten them because they were doing what He asked, but a storm to allow Him to put His power on display so their faith in Him would even be greater. Believe me, He cares for you. You've got God in your boat, that's all you need. What's to fear? And if He brings the storm, the intention of the storm may be to chasten if you're disobedient. If you're not, it is to increase your ability to trust Him because down the way you're going to need that level of trust for something that He has planned for you. Let's pray. Father, as we close this incident, it is indelibly etched in the stone of our memories, this amazing occasion. We thank You, Father, for taking us there and making us a part of it. And now may we grasp its truths that our Savior is God, the Creator, the Controller, the Consummator of all creation, the One who can bring the Kingdom and He is the compassionate, loving deliverer and rescuer and Savior of His people for whom He cares. And His purpose is to increase our faith that with stronger faith we may have greater service to render to Him. We thank You for this privilege, in His name we pray. Amen. Return to Top or browse by Topic or Scripture

Pujols before the slugger’s spring deadline.” Given Pujols’ claim that he will test the market if not extended before spring training, where might Pujols go if given the chance? What are his best fits? American League - Yankees. Because they are the biggest market in baseball, you can never count the Yankees out. However, with the presence of Mark Teixeira for five more seasons past 2011 and the declining range of and extended commitment to aging players like Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, the Yankees seemingly have their first base/DH slot locked up for the near and extended future. That’s not even to mention the possible need of the DH spot for the defensively inept, but potent bat of Jesus Montero (assuming he is not traded for a quality pitcher before the end of the season). - Red Sox. While the Red Sox have seemingly set their eyes on extending newly acquired first baseman Adrian Gonzalez long term, David Ortiz‘s contract expires after 2011. While Big Papi has sold his share of jerseys and seats since coming to the Red Sox, helping lead them to two World Series titles, the aging slugger has shown signs of wear and decreasing bat speed. While you obviously would love to trot a guy like Albert Pujols out on the field given his average/above average defensive value, his elbow has been a concern in recent seasons. A move to DH to preserve the super-slugger’s health would not be crazy. Unlike Jermaine Dye, Pujols probably would make the move away from playing defense if he is going to get paid the biggest bucks. The Red Sox do have a lot of long term money tied up already, however… - Blue Jays. If the cost-controlled Adam Lind experiment fails, the Blue Jays might be in the market for a big slugging first basemen next season. The question is whether the Toronto market, not known for ticket sales of late, could afford the contract Pujols is looking for. With both Alex Rios and Vernon Wells gone, it’s a distinct possibility. - Orioles. Derrek Lee is around for only one more year, but Baltimore, like Toronto, is probably too small a market to realistically make a run at Pujols. The Orioles could barely afford to make an offer to Teixeira a few years back and their youngsters have not produced at a high enough clip to warrant taking on the long-term cost risk Pujols would bring. - Rays. The Rays could barely afford Manny Ramirez at $2 million for 2012. Expect Andrew Friedman to continue to exploit the inefficiencies of the free agency market, rather than tie his entire team’s payroll up upon one player. - White Sox. Kenny Williams loves to mingle in the free agency market, but with three DHs on the team&mdaash;Carlos Quentin, Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko—the White Sox’s ability to add Pujols is very slim. Of course, never count out Williams making some radical move like selling Carlos Quentin and sliding Adam Dunn back to right field. Usually, you’d say “wow, that’s not good for your team’s defense,” but Quentin is Brad Hawpe-bad in the outfield… - Twins. If they can barely afford Jim Thome, they can’t afford Albert Pujols. Especially not with Justin Morneau lingering. - Royals. The Royals probably have the biggest glut at first base/DH, including their stacked minor league hitters. Heck, Mike Moustakas might stick at third base simply because the Royals have nowhere else to put him! - Tigers. Miguel Cabrera+Victor Martinez+payroll already well above $100 million = incredibly unlikely. - Indians. Are the Indians even trying to trout out a major-league quality baseball team anymore? Travis Hafner still lingers at DH and while the team has a potential opening at first base, assuming Matt LaPorta can play left field, I doubt Mark Shapiro has the financial resources to make a run at Pujols. - Athletics. This is Billy Beane we’re talking about here. Even without the presence of Daric Barton and/Chris Carter, we’d probably see Beane sign Russell Branyan (and probably even Barry Bonds) before making a legitimate run at Pujols. - Angels. If it wasn’t for the “we are desperate, so we traded for Vernon Wells” bit that went down this offseason, the Angels might have been a legitimate suitor for Pujols. - Rangers. As the Rangers missed out on Cliff Lee, they might have the cash lying around (though most of it was likely spent on Adrian Beltre). If the Chris Davis/Mitch Moreland experiment continues to fail, they might be in the running, assuming they move Michael Young, for an elite first basemen. I would guess the Rangers would target Prince Fielder first, however… - Mariners. Pujols’ defense is not good enough for Jack Zduriencik. In all seriousness, though, the team is going to give a long look at Justin Smoak and the DH market is always over-saturated with bargain buys. National League* *with no DH spot in the NL, Pujols’ potential landing spots will be substantially more limited than in the AL - Nationals. Not that the Nationals have been good at attracting marquis free market talent as of late (Jayson Werth excepted), but Adam LaRoche‘s multi-year contract will probably keep the Nationals out of the bidding. Even if the Nationals were to cut LaRoche to make room, I doubt they could sustain the payroll required to bring Pujols aboard. - Mets. The Mets still have some big contracts handcuffing their financial flexibility. And with more pressing team needs (pitching) and the presence of young first baseman Ike Davis, Sandy Alderson almost certainly will sit on his hands when it comes to Pujols. - Marlins. You’re talking about the team that was too cheap to keep Dan Uggla and an owner recently accused of embezzling money. A team whose entire payroll just a few seasons ago was less than half the amount of money that Pujols is asking for annually. Count Jeff Loria and the Marlins out, if for no other reason than prospect Logan Morrison. - Phillies. The Phillies were all too eager to overpay aging slugger Ryan Howard last season and with what it’s paying Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, and Roy Oswalt (to some extent), among others, the team can afford few of its residual needs, let alone luxuries, at this point. - Braves. Two words: Freddie Freeman. The Braves are one of those rare teams that does not need the free agency market (or that Pujols guy). - Cubs. Beyond just being a Cubs fan, I think that Albert Pujols would make a great fit for the Cubs for three reasons. First, payroll coming off the books: 2011 will be Kosuke Fukudome‘s last season in Cubbie Blue, while Carlos Pena‘s $10 million salary will most likely be gone as well. Carlos Zambrano will only have one season left with the Cubs (who are almost guaranteed to turn down his option), and Aramis Ramirez will likely also be a free agent after 2011. If the Cubs want, given only the lingering presence and lesson of Alfonso Soriano, they can probably afford Pujols. Second, the Cubs have long wanted to rekindle the elite power vacuum they’ve had since Sammy Sosa left long ago. The Cubs would likely prefer the power to come from a lefty, which is why they signed Pena this offseason and also why Prince Fielder makes a lot of sense for the Cubs. Still, Pujols is baseball’s best hitter, who plays a position that will be open next season. This brings us to the third reason the Cubs might sign Pujols: Doing so means he is not a Cardinal. With Ryan Theriot now “on the right side of the rivalry,” nothing would give Cubs fans more pleasure than to steal the Cardinals slugger. It would hardly make up for the scores of Cubs players who went to the Cardinals to experience prosperous careers or win a World Series ring (from Lou Brock to Bruce Sutter and everyone in between), but it would be a great start. - Cardinals They currently “own” the rights to the super slugger and he’s their player to lose. There’s a million reasons why and how (and also why not) the team can and should (and should not) extend Pujols; those have been written ad nauseum elsewhere. - Pirates. While signing Pujols would go a long way toward bringing respectability to a team that has been sub-.500 since Barry Bonds walked almost two decades ago, Neil Huntington’s claim of the team’s financial position probably means they cannot afford Pujols. The New York Times would probably disagree, however. Pujols would be a slight upgrade over Lyle Overbay. - Reds. The Reds are currently within their “competing” window and have a good young core, but with the presence of their own elite first baseman, Joey Votto, for at least two seasons after 2011 at “below-market” prices (though $17 million for 2013 is definitely not “cheap”), the Reds are better suited to spend “Pujols money” elsewhere and on other needs. Especially if you believe in that Yonder Alonso fella. - Astros. After years of unwise free agency moves that have deteriorated their minor league system, the Astros have finally committed themselves to rebuilding. Pujols would shatter those plans and could possibly ruin the franchise,. Do not count Ed Wade in here, at least not with cheap first baseman Brett Wallace around. - Brewers. If the Brew Crew fails to retain Fielder, it is conceivable, given their somewhat comparable salary demands, that the Brewers might make a run at Pujols. The question will be whether the Brewers have the necessary cash. If they do, you’d imagine they’d just keep Fielder, a market-favorite, right? - Giants. If the Giants truly want to retain Tim Lincecum long term, they are probably going to have to forgo Pujols. Besides, they are enamored with Aubrey Huff for the time being. - Padres. The Padres recently shipped away their franchise slugger (Adrian Gonzalez) and are in rebuilding mode, hoping recently signed Brad Hawpe, and perhaps a healthy Kyle Blanks, might fill the hold that A-Gon left. I doubt that that Jed Hoyer has the financial flexibility to bring Pujols aboard, but given that PetCo park is substantially more home run-friendly to right-handed hitters than Busch Stadium and comparable in runs suppression for right-handed hitters overall, the Padres would take some solace in not having to worry about the Brian Giles effect settling in. - Diamondbacks. Kevin Towers has always been a pitching-first GM, but in managing a team in hitter-friend Chase Field, perhaps he’ll change his tune. While Busch Stadium has a home run park factor index of 77 for right-handed hitters (the worst in the NL and fourth worst in baseball), Chase Field has a home run park factor index of 121 for right-handed batters (tied for fifth-highest in baseball). That could add as many as 10 home runs to Pujols’ season total and Towers has been on the lookout for some low-strikeout, high power output since taking over as the Diamondbacks’ general manager. - Rockies. With Carlos Gonzalez, and Troy Tulowitzki and Jorge de la Rosa, among others, around for the long-term, the Rockies probably can’t afford to kill their residual payroll “flexibility” with Pujols. Plus, has Todd Helton‘s contract even expired yet? - Dodgers. Divorce can really handcuff your finances. Frank McCourt will not control sole ownership rights to the team anymore and I doubt he is going to let ex-wife Jaime take half of Pujols along with half his money. In all seriousness, the Dodgers can’t afford Pujols and have James Loney lingering anyway. In light of the above, I would expect the most likely “Pujols the free agent” suitors to be (in order): the Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Pirates, and Rangers. Of course, given that this is Albert Pujols we are talking about, many more teams might also get creative to make a run at baseball’s best baseball player. You can read more of my thoughts on the subject here. As always, leave the love/hate in the comments. I reference that in my full analysis, but Pujols was moved off the position bc of elbow problems, which have never subsided. You dont want to risk pujols health by having him tossing across the diamond Jeff, I’m only halfway through, but you should take another look at the Blue Jays expenses and their potential for growth. There is reason to believe the market would support a $140-150 million roster and with so little money committed to the future, Pujols probably is an affordable option. Further, adding Pujols is exactly the kind of impetus required to unlock that future payroll growth. Pujols graduated HS is Suburban KC, lives here in the offseason, and the Royals have very little $ committed pas this season. Other than what they will be paying Butler and Soria, no one else has a multi-year deal. The Royals have set themselves up to make a run at Pujols. The sell job is fairly easy. Even if Kila does well this season at 1B, you still make a run. Signing Pujols would force you to move Eric Hosmer to a corner OF spot and presumably trade Kila. Butler isn’t going anywhere with the new contract. Pujols would be half your payroll, but it isn’t like they are going to have many other high-priced players, as all of the stud prospects will be under team-control for a long while. As far as AL teams go, the only better fit I see is LA or maybe BAL. I imagine KC would still have a very tough sell to make even if they decide to commit half their payroll to one player. And from what I’ve read, Hosmer in the OF wouldn’t look pretty. Then again, this is a franchise who chose to employ Yuniesky Betancourt so we can’t rule out a move just because it would be visually appalling. In the realm of longshots, the Phillies could conceivably flip Howard to St. Louis in a sign a trade scenario. Howard’s 5/125 probably doesn’t look too terrible in light of Pujols’ demands, he’s a St. Louis native, and bringing in a new big bopper would help placate the fans. On the Phillies end, they’ve already kind of created a roster mess four years down the line so adding Pujols at $5 mil more per season than Howard isn’t going to change much. One thing RAJ has taught me is to expect unusual things to happen. The Toronto Market can’t afford Pujols? You mean the 5th largest metro area in MLB or the wealthiest ownership in the sport? Canada is not Kazakhstan bro. While I agree Toronto makes sense, I do not feel they have the finances. Toronto’s ticket sales have been pretty poor for a while now. Sure, the lack Vernon Wells does a LOT for payroll, but I heard ownership wanted to keep under $85 million. Pujols would push them past $100, easy. Can Toronto support a $115 million payroll? Not until they are more competitive, in my view. But I do agree Toronto is a possible fit. Perhaps I should rephrase my assessment. It is quite nebulous. Brad, I do not think the Phillies sign and trade is a shot in hell. The Phillies way overpaid for Howard and I think the Cards would much rather overpay for Pujols at $30/5-6+ WAR a season than Howard for $25/<4 WAR/season (this includes depreciation expectations in the average) Pipedreams of course. But let’s not forget total expense too, $125 vs something pretty close to $300. If the Cards come to terms with losing Pujols, Howard’s not the worst plan B. He’s probably a better bet to hold up over 5 years than Fielder is over 6 or 7 too. In this unlikely scenario, I imagine the Phillies wouldn’t ask for much besides the payroll relief. As you point out, the Cubs are an early front runner to compete for his services, so the Cards will be happy to do what they can to stymie them as well. Honestly, I’m still more than half expecting the Cards to get this done in the next few days. Won’t be the first seemingly stalled talks suddenly progressed rapidly. Giants, Nats, Mets, and Royals to me make the most sense, financially and need-wise. The Mets are the favorite to me, and could easily move Davis to LF or ideally in a trade for pitching, plus they have $55 million or so coming off the books after this year. I would love the Royals to bite the bullet and do it, but doubt it will happen. 1) I updated the Toronto analysis to reflect my better intended argument. Quite a possible landing point. 2) Don’t think the Cards need payroll relief. No true behemouths there (even Hollidays contract is ‘fair value’ in my mind). 3) Giants won’t get him because they have Huff and want to spend that money on locking up Lincecum and the like. Nats have more LaRoche than they bargained for and Pujols will look for a better positioned contender IMHO. Mets have Jason Bay/Ike Davis and probably learned their lesson about $140 MM+ payrolls for the immediate future and will likely focus on rebuilding. Royals have Kila/Hosmer/Moustakas/Gordon/Butler to say the least vying for DH/LF/3B/1B, and none of them are really 3B/LF type (but I guess Gordon can hack there). Pujols came up as a third baseman (at least, he could play some third), so if the Yankees did make a legitimate push for Pujols, would they do so asking him to play third? It wouldn’t be the first time they grabbed the arguably best player in the game and played him out of position. They did it with A-Rod, and by 2012, Posada might be out of the mix completely, which would allow the Yanks to make Rodriguez a full-time DH and put a younger player still in his prime for a couple more years at third everyday. There probably are several other teams, for that matter, that could dangle the third base option as part of a move; I just threw the Yankees out there because they’re baseball’s 800 pound gorilla in free agent dealings. The real question is would Pujols go for it? Plus, I haven’t seen a breakdown of his defensive numbers, but it is an option. I think you are seriously underestimating the chances of the Mets and the Rockies. The Mets ownership situation is a mess right now, but they’ve got a lot of bad contracts coming off the books this season. And Davis’ upside is basically Adam LaRoche with better plate discipline – a nice player, sure, but if you’ve got a realistic chance at signing Albert Pujols, you move him to LF or trade him. Nobody is going to pass on Albert Pujols because of Ike Davis. Actually, you could say something similar about the Dodgers, with the ownership situation and with Loney. I like Davis more than Loney, and the Dodgers don’t have as much coming off the books this year as the Mets (I think), but you do dismiss them a bit too easily. I’d also view the Rockies as serious contenders – the Helton contract ends soon (this year or next) and they’ll have a hole. Having a core of Tulo, CarGo and Pujols is just too good an opportunity to at least not think about it. While the Cubs are also strong suitors in terms of money and need, I can’t help but wonder if Pujols would want to go to them – are they going to be serious contenders again anytime soon? You could ask the same question of the Mets and Dodgers, but they both are closer than the Cubs. Don’t get me wrong, they’d be in the thick of it, but the shape of the team is something to consider. Oh my god! you are right. The stuff I wrote about the Reds is missing!!!! One sec, will fix. SORRY rmr, now I see what you meant Michael, regarding moving Pujols across the diamond, it’s absolutely not an option. Pujols has a torn elbow ligament that would require Tommy John surgery in a pitcher. The reason he’s not getting the surgery, is he doesn’t need the ligament as much for hitting or playing first base. But ask him to throw balls across the diamond on a regular basis, and his elbow will explode. The best bet to keep him healthy for the length of his next contract is playing him at 1B or DH (which I’d imagine he’d refuse, since he’s still quite capable of gold-glove caliber defense at first). Jeff, the analysis as always is great and indepth, but isn’t this just really an excuse for a why Pujols makes sense for the Cubs story! could very well cut out 75% of the above, because while every team has a ‘need’ for the best mlb hitter, not many have the capacity for the contract required to land him, and even some who do do not want to tie up the 250mil+ it will take. RMR’s point about the Reds was that they weren’t mentioned at all – if you are going to include all them teams, well then include all the teams – it was the ignoration of the Reds that lead to the comment I hope he makes a deal with the cards, it makes too much sense for a midwest boy and I like the idea of him being a 1 club man, he just needs to forgo a bit of ego and take a sub-Arod contract (even if he deserves to be the best paid guy around) If he does go to free agency, then I think the Nats are much more in the mix than you say, and also NYN, LAD, and SFG (LaRoche signed for 2012 with a buyout for 2013 is not going to stop anyone from going after Pujols in the same way that already having Ike and Loney and Huff won’t) As a Reds fan, while I realize they are not in the Pujols market due to both an absence of need and money, it’s a bit disheartening to see an analysis Pujols’ fit with every single team except the Reds. Seriously, 29 of 30. What gives? Vin, I think you underestimate how ownership situations affect spending. The Cubs purchase of Soriano was an exception of desperation. The Dodgers and Mets will not spend big without clear control in place. An opening or potential opening at 1B does not mean affordability. The Rockies will also want to be able to afford guys like Ubaldo, Chacin, Fowler, etc in the long term. You can’t just throw $30+ million at a player and not balance the residual financial impact on the rest of the team. The Cubs, by the way, have a good competing core. Between Dempster, Fukudome, Pena and Ramirez, the cubs have almost $60 million coming off the books. They also have a promise superstar-potential CF, a strong SS, a strong C, and an underrated core of starting pitchers that lacks an ace, but also has good depth. Especially with Z’s 18-20 million coming off the books soon and Soriano as well, the cubs, with a strong core of players at the “difficult to fill” positions, could put themselves in a really good position with a few strong FA moves. The trade for Garza put a dent in the Cubs rebuilding process, but the core is still there to build around. Nationals have a similiar situation, I suppose, but they have a smaller market and payroll to surround the core. Werth/LaRoche (combined 30-35 million/season) will eat up a lot of payroll too. Strasburg/Harper/Zimmerman (both of them)/Norris are clearly strong guys to have, but the team and its farm are otherwise barren of impact talent. I suppose you can put hopes for Espinosa in there, but Desmond is sub-par by non-fantasy standards, and the National’s other two outfield spots are less than secure. I think the Nationals are setting themselves up well to compete, but I doubt they can afford a pujols-sized contract AND fill out the rest of the team @RMR, I never said Pujols was a fit for the other 29 teams. The Reds are in a strong position with Votto making MUCH less in the near future than with paying pujols, especially if they want to sustain success. Perhaps you skipped over the final paragraph of this post: In light of the above, I would expect the most likely “Pujols the free agent” suitors to be (in order): the Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Pirates, and Rangers. That’s 7 teams by my count, 22 less than 29. “Unlike Jermaine Dye, Pujols probably would make the move away from playing defense if he is going to get paid the biggest bucks.” With his pride? No way. Pujols wouldn’t sign to play DH. He’s as dedicated to his defense as anything else. And he wouldn’t be as valuable as a DH, so he might not get as much money in that situation anyway. The Pirates?? You are kidding, right? Oh, no, I get it: Waner CF Kendall C Pujols 1b Stargell LF Clemente RF Wagner SS Traynor 3B Mazeroski2B I get it….it’s a fantasy 1. Pujols pretty much was a butcher at 3B. 2. He was only so-so as a corner OF’er. 3. These two ratings were with a good arm/elbow. 4. His arm/elbow would not stand a long-throwing position. 5. The time is ripe for StL to trade Pujols instead of signing him and breaking the $$ bank for years into the future. 6. I’ve been a Cardinal fan for decades. The first that I can remember is the 1935 season, when I was just 10. Therefore, I do not speak lightly about trading Pujols, but one player does not make a team. —Stay tuned. Boog, Pujols can decline any trade and has indicated he will exercise that right.

- 3895, 7 pages Robust Interval-Based Localization Algorithms for Mobile Sensor Networks 1Institut Charles Delaunay (ICD)—LM2S (STMR UMR CNRS 6279), Université de Technologie de Troyes, 12 rue Marie Curie, 10010 Troyes, France 2L2S—CNRS—SUPELEC, Université Paris-Sud, 91192 Gif-sur-Yvette, France 3LTCI—CNRS—Telecom-ParisTech, 75013 Paris, France 4Laboratoire FIZEAU (UMR CNRS 6525), Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, Parc de Valrose, 06108 Nice, France Received 16 June 2011; Accepted 27 August 2011 Academic Editor: Yuhang Yang Copyright © 2012 Farah Mourad et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract This paper considers the localization problem in mobile sensor networks. Such a problem is a challenging task, especially when measurements exchanged between sensors may contain outliers, that is, data not matching the observation model. This paper proposes two algorithms robust to outliers. These algorithms perform a set-membership estimation, where only the maximal number of outliers is required to be known. Using these algorithms, estimates consist of sets of boxes whose union surely contains the correct location of the sensor, provided that the considered hypotheses are satisfied. This paper proposes as well a technique for evaluating the number of outliers to be robust to. In order to corroborate the efficiency of both algorithms, a comparison of their performances is performed in simulations using Matlab. 1. Introduction Mobile Sensor Networks (MSNs) have recently emerged as a challenging research field. An MSN consists of a large number of low-cost smart sensors with limited computational capacities and energy resources [1]. Due to the lack of a fixed infrastructure in MSNs, the sensors are able to move in an uncontrolled manner. For this reason and since sensed data are related to the locations of the sensors in almost all MSN applications, many researchers have focused on the localization problem. A first solution for sensor localization is to equip all sensors with global positioning systems (GPSs) [2]. However, this solution is nonpractical in MSNs, since GPS are expensive, high energy consuming, and having great sizes. The alternative solution consists of equipping a few number of sensors with GPS receivers. These sensors, aware of their locations, are called anchors. The remaining sensors, called nonanchor nodes or simply nodes, have unknown locations, and hence they need to be localized. Many anchor-based algorithms have been proposed for sensor localization. For instance, Doherty et al. [3] propose a centralized technique for position estimation. Localization in [3] is formalized as a convex optimization problem, having connectivity measurements between sensors as constraints. In [4–6], different approaches requiring few anchors have been proposed. Local maps with relative positions are constructed using measured distances between nodes and their neighbors. A combination of these maps with known positions of anchors lead to absolute positions. Nevertheless, these techniques are not very robust because of errors accumulation while combining the maps. Authors in [7] propose a distributed static algorithm, where each node defines its position as the center of all observed anchors. In a different scenario [8], Galstyan et al. propose an online distributed technique, where nodes use their detection of a moving target to update their position estimates. Blatt and Hero [9] address the problem of source localization using sensors measurements. The problem is formulated as a convex problem that is solved using the aggregated projection onto convex sets (APOCSs) method. In [10–12], dynamic approaches, on the basis of sequential Monte-Carlo [13], are considered to estimate the positions of the nodes. The posterior distribution of the unknown positions is estimated recursively with a set of particles. Terwilliger et al. [14] propose to cover all possible solutions with the smallest enclosing disk. Alternative dynamic algorithms for sensor localization, using interval analysis [15], have been proposed in [16, 17]. Position estimates are boxes covering the possible locations of the sensors. Existing methods have mainly considered the localization problem with the hypothesis that all measurements are consistent with the considered measurement model. However, in practical situations, outliers, that is, data not matching the measurement model, are encountered. Previously mentioned estimation techniques are not very robust to such outliers. In [18], Jaulin et al. propose a set-membership estimator robust to outliers based on interval analysis. Savarese et al. [19] present a distributed robust algorithm for sensor localization. The method is separated into two phases: the start-up phase, where first estimates of node positions are computed using hop counts to anchors, and the refinement phase, where nodes communicate with their neighbors to update their positions using a least-squares triangulation technique. Nevertheless, a number of factors influence the convergence of the refinement phase, such as the accuracy of first estimates and the magnitude of ranging errors. In [20], Rabbat et al. introduce a robust localization algorithm of an isotropic energy source using kernel averaging techniques. The proposed estimator is more robust than the least-squares estimator under a variety of conditions. Leger and Kieffer [21] present a distributed version of the estimation algorithm [18], assuming that the maximal number of outliers is known. In particular, a static distributed algorithm is proposed for source localization using received signal strength (RSS) measurements. The proposed method adapts the set inversion via interval analysis (SIVIA) algorithm [15] to evaluate a solution set. In this paper, we propose an original adaptive approach for sensor localization in the presence of outliers. Assuming only that the maximal number of outliers is given, the proposed approach uses connectivity measurements in addition to a mobility model to address the localization problem. The solution is then given using either SIVIA or an alternative combinatorial technique. Another contribution of the paper is that it proposes a technique for evaluating the maximal number of outliers to be robust to. Moreover, using a connectivity-based observation model, the paper compares the performances of both robust localization algorithms. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the localization problem. A description of the SIVIA algorithm and the combinatorial technique is then given in Section 3. Section 4 provides simulation results, whereas Section 5 concludes the paper. 2. Problem Statement The proposed method is an anchor-based method, where each node exchanges information with anchors to localize itself. Consider a network of anchors and mobile nodes. All sensors are assumed to be in the same plane: their locations at time are given by , , for anchors and , , for nodes. In order to reduce the communication costs during the localization process, the proposed method assumes that each mobile node does not exchange information with other nodes. For this reason and without loss of generality, we focus on the localization of one generic mobile node , and we thus drop the index . 2.1. Observation Model At time , the mobile node receives signals from a set of anchors with specific received signal strengths (RSSs) denoted by , . These RSSs are assumed to follow the Okumura-Hata model [22] In (1), is in , is the power measured (in ) at a reference distance from the anchor , is the path-loss exponent, is the Euclidian distance between the anchor and the considered node, and is the measurement noise, modeled as zero-mean Gaussian with variance . In practice, and may vary from one anchor to the other, and may be quite large. Given the RSS values, the proposed model may lead to inaccurate distance estimates. For this reason, only connectivity information are employed and (1) is only used to determine whether the node is in the vicinity of the th anchor. Let be some RSS threshold corresponding to a distance , which is the sensing range of the sensors. Then, if , the distance from the anchor to the node is deemed less than . Anchors for which are called detected anchors. Only detected anchors are then taken into account for the localization. The observation model is then given by where is the set of indices of detected anchors, that is, whose emitted signals have RSS at the node larger than . The observation model is thus given by a set of disk equations centered on the detected anchors and having as radius. In real environments, measurements may not follow exactly the observation model. Indeed, due to the additive noise and the inaccuracy of the parameter values, a measured RSS could be less than while (2) is satisfied for real and vice versa. In the first case, the anchor is assumed to be out of the vicinity of the node, which is not true, and thus, a correct measurement is omitted, whereas in the second case, an outlier is obtained. The proposed approach takes such outliers into consideration. Using the connectivity-based model, it assumes that the maximal number of outliers is known and denoted by . In other words, it considers that measurements at minimum are correct at each time step. 2.2. Mobility Model The proposed method takes also advantage of the mobility of the nodes to improve the estimation accuracy. Any available information about the motion of the node could be used to define the mobility model. This paper proposes a very general mobility model, where only the maximal velocity of the node is assumed to be known. Then, the positions of the generic node at time steps and satisfy More generally, the mobility model could be reformulated as follows: where is some parameter only known to belong to some known interval (here, ). 2.3. Description of the Robust Set-Membership Localization Estimating the location of the sensor at time consists of finding the set of all locations consistent with the mobility model (4) and at least observation constraints (2). In other words, these locations should be in the vicinity of at least detected anchors. A set-membership estimator [23] robust to outliers [24] at time is then obtained, since any measurements instead of measurements are considered for the estimator. Assume that belongs to some set . According to this approach, and to compute , a predicted set is first evaluated using the mobility model Measurements are then taken into account to correct as follows: where is the set of all -combinations of indices in , is a set of indices belonging to , and Then, denotes the set of locations of that satisfy the specific observation constraints denoted in , whereas denotes the set of locations of that satisfy any observation constraints. The number of combinations to be considered in (6) is , where denotes the factorial of . An alternative definition of inspired by [24] is where This definition does not involve any combinatorial. One may easily prove that (6) and (8) are equivalent. This technique would be used in the following to solve the localization problem. 3. Localization Algorithms Solving the localization problem in a guaranteed way consists of finding the set of all node locations that satisfy the problem constraints while being robust to outliers. In this paper, interval analysis [15] is employed to achieve this goal. At each time step, the proposed method computes a set of nonoverlapping boxes, called subpaving [15], whose union covers the solution set . Assume that is the solution subpaving containing the actual position of the generic node at time . One has where is a two-dimensional box and is the number of boxes in . As shown in Section 2.3, finding involves a prediction phase followed by a correction phase. 3.1. Prediction Phase Assume that is the subpaving obtained at time . Computing the predicted set may be done by evaluating (5), where is replaced by , which is quite difficult. Nevertheless, for each box , the corresponding box has to be compliant with the mobility model (3), leading to the following constraint: Relaxing (11) yields the following expressions of and : Let be the set of all boxes evaluated with (12). One may prove that . The convex hull [15] of is the smallest box containing . Its components are defined as where and are the low and high endpoints of , respectively. is a rectangular area that covers all possible locations that could be taken by the node at time according to its mobility model. The convex hull is used in the correction phase instead of to reduce the computational complexity. 3.2. Correction Using the SIVIA Algorithm The SIVIA algorithm [15] performs a succession of bisections and selections of boxes compliant with the localization constraints. Let be a box, set initially to . The following test function is evaluated: where is equal to 1 if and 0 otherwise, while is equal to 1 if and 0 otherwise. Graphically, means that the box is entirely included in the connectivity disk centered on the anchor , whereas means that the box is entirely outside the connectivity disk centered on the anchor . The box is added to the solution if , meaning that all satisfy at least observation constraints. Boxes inconsistent with more than observation constraints () are withdrawn, whereas others having a nonempty intersection with the solution set () are bisected. The box is bisected into two subboxes of equal area and along the dimension having the largest width. The subboxes are then tested, kept in the solution, withdrawn, or bisected until the maximal width of the resulting subboxes is less than a given threshold . An illustration of the proposed method is given in Figure 1. It shows four detected anchors, one of them being an outlier (). The exact solution of the problem is given in light gray, whereas the subpaving provided by SIVIA is given in both light and dark gray. 3.3. Correction Using the Combinatorial Technique In this algorithm, both the combinatorial formulation (6) and the convex hull including all propagated boxes using (13) are considered. Based on (6), the proposed algorithm consists of contracting the initial domain with each combination of observations. For this reason, all observation equations indicated in are iterated in the forward-backward contractor [15]. This contractor iterates all constraints without any prior order until no contraction is possible. The resulting region is the smallest box covering the intersection of with all the observation disks of . In order to use each constraint of (2) in the forward-backward contractor, one should express as a function of , and vice versa as follows: for each detected anchor where and . Using intervals and having an initial box , these inequalities would lead to the contracted box defined as follows: where and . Then, considering the combination of constraints, and starting with the predicted domain (initially ), the contracted box would be obtained by performing the following steps (Algorithm 1). Each nonempty box , , is added to the solution at time . The boxes in may have nonempty intersections. Consequently, in order to obtain nonoverlapping boxes, one could apply the following procedure. (i)Consider an empty final set.(ii)Sort all boxes of according to their decreasing areas. (iii)Add the largest box to the final set.(iv)Select the following box in the sorted list. (v)Deprive it from all boxes already added to the final set. (vi)Add the result to the set. Steps (iv) to (vi) are repeated until all sorted boxes are considered. Recall that depriving a box from a box yields a set of nonoverlapping boxes covering all the points of not included in . An illustration of the proposed method is given in Figure 2. It shows four detected anchors, one of them yielding an erroneous observation. The first solution leads to two boxes, the box ① and the one in dashed line. Using the depriving technique, three nonoverlapping boxes ①, ②, and ③ (in bold line) are then selected covering the exact solution (in light gray). 3.4. Evaluation of the Number of Outliers to Tolerate Consider the vector of RSS measurements. Determining from the maximal number of outliers , which have to be tolerated, may be done by choosing such that , where is the probability that or less outliers have occurred knowing and is some tuning parameter. One has where is some pattern indicating whether anchor is providing an outlier () or a reliable measurement (). Now, Let and be the noisy and noiseless RSS measurements provided by the th anchor. The probability that the th anchor provides an outlier is null () if , since in this case, the anchor is not detected and will thus not provide any outlier. Otherwise, is given as follows: where is the th measurement noise. Then, assuming that all measurement noise samples are independent, Now, since one is able to evaluate and to choose . 4. Simulations In this section, we compare the SIVIA-based method (SBL) to the combinatorial-based one (CBL). We consider a group trajectory model, where sensors are moving along similar trajectories over . We deploy 31 sensors in a area, 30 of them being anchors. Since nodes use only anchors information to localize themselves, we consider the localization of a single mobile node. The simulated trajectory of the node is with a maximal velocity of and a localization step of . RSS measurements are generated using the distances between the considered node and all anchors and model (1) with , , and . Moreover, is set to and to . In order to compare the SBL algorithm to the CBL algorithm, we take different values of the variance of the measurement noise, leading to different numbers of outliers. In fact, for each value of , is evaluated using the results in Section 3.4, with . Note that the initial position of the node is supposed to be known. One may also use the whole deployment area as initial domain. All simulations are performed on an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU at and RAM, using MATLAB 6.1. We first set , yielding either none or only one outlier per time step. Applying the results of Section 3.4 one obtains , , and . With , one gets . With , one would take , which leads to less accurate estimates (less measurements are taken into account) but still containing the solution set. Note that if too less outliers are tolerated, one may obtain empty solution sets or sets not containing the actual location of the node. With , Figure 3 shows the subpavings obtained with both SBL and CBL methods. Note that the threshold of SIVIA is set to . The plot shows that both results cover the actual position of the node. The average ratio of the areas of subpavings obtained with SBL over those obtained with CBL is equal to 0.827. SBL leads to a more accurate estimate. However, the average time required for the localization process is equal to per time step with SBL and to with CBL. This difference is due to the limited number of combinations considered in CBL at each time step ( with ). The average number of boxes per subpaving is equal to 120 with SBL, whereas it is equal to 3 with CBL. Here, CBL is less memory consuming. Note that with a precision parameter higher than in SIVIA, SBL needs less computing time but provides larger subpavings. In a second set of experiments, varies from to . Figure 4 shows the maximal number of outliers , the total number of considered anchors , the average computing time per step, and the ratio of the average subpaving areas obtained with SBL over CBL as a function of . The simulated data are generated ten times for each , and the results are thus average values over the set of simulations. The plot shows that CBL is faster than SBL when the standard deviation is less than . In these cases, is less than 4, and the maximal number of considered anchors is less than 13. When the noise variance increases, the computation time of the CBL method becomes quite large compared to SBL. Choosing one algorithm or the other depends on the anchor density and on the proportion of outliers. 5. 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No. 92,638 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. RONALD G. SINGLETON, Appellant. SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 1. State v. McAdam, 277 Kan. 136, 83 P.3d 161 (2004), will not be applied to cases which were final prior to the date of the McAdam decision. 2. State v. Ortiz, 230 Kan. 733, 640 P.2d 1255 (1982), is construed and applied. Appeal from Rice District Court; HANNELORE KITTS, judge. Opinion filed January 21, 2005. Reversed and remanded. Patrick H. Dunn, assistant appellate defender, for appellant. Chris Oakley, county attorney, and Phill Kline, attorney general, for appellee. Before RULON, C.J., GREENE and HILL, JJ. RULON, C.J.: Movant Ronald G. Singleton appeals the district court's denial of his motion to correct an illegal sentence under K.S.A. 22-3504(1), arguing his sentence should be modified from a severity level 1 offense to a severity level 3 offense following State v. McAdam, 277 Kan. 136, 83 P.3d 161 (2004). In the alternative, the movant argues the court erred in denying his motion to file a direct appeal 18 months out of time. This record shows that in August 2002 the movant and the State presented the district court with a plea agreement where the movant agreed to enter a plea of guilty to one count of manufacture of methamphetamine, a severity level 1 drug felony. In exchange the State agreed to dismiss one count of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine, a severity level 1 drug felony; one count of possession of anhydrous ammonia, a severity level 4 drug felony; and felony possession of drug paraphernalia, a severity level 4 drug felony. Further, the State agreed to recommend a downward dispositional departure from the presumed 138-154 month range to 72 months of imprisonment. The movant agreed not to request either a dispositional departure or a durational departure to a sentence of less than 72 months. The court accepted the plea on the record and imposed the recommended sentence on August 21, 2002. Later, on February 17, 2004, the movant filed a pro se motion to correct an illegal sentence arguing he should have been sentenced as a severity level 3 offender under our Supreme Court's decision in State v. McAdam. On March 2, 2004, the movant's appointed counsel filed another motion to correct an illegal sentence which included a motion to file a notice of appeal out of time. The district court denied both motions, finding McAdam did not apply retroactively and the movant was not entitled to file an appeal as his conviction was the result of an agreed plea bargain sentence wherein the movant received a downward durational departure sentence. This appeal followed. Motion To Correct An Illegal Sentence In State v. Barnes, 278 Kan. 121, 123-24, 92 P.3d 578 (2004), our Supreme Court instructed that imposition of a sentence in conformity with a severity level 1 offense for conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine was not an illegal sentence, nor was such an unconstitutional sentence. The Barnes court concluded the sentencing court did not err in denying the motion to correct an illegal sentence as the movant's sentence was not illegal. We understand the movant's second motion to correct an illegal sentence is now claimed to constitute a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion despite the fact that no such language was present in the original motion. However, historically we have been instructed that "Pro se pleadings are to be liberally construed." State v. Andrews, 228 Kan. 368, 370, 614 P.2d 447 (1980) (pro se documents considered motion for new trial); see State v. Jackson, 255 Kan. 455, 458, 874 P.2d 1138 (1994) (A motion to withdraw a plea of nolo contendere after sentencing should be treated like a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion.); Jackson v. State, 1 Kan. App. 2d 744, 573 P.2d 637 (1977) (K.S.A. 60-1507 motion construed as motion for new trial under K.S.A. 22-3501). Additionally, our Supreme Court has recognized that "[t]here is no indication that a motion to correct an illegal sentence was intended by the legislature to be treated differently from a K.S.A. 60-1507 attack upon a sentence. Logic does not require a different treatment." State v. Duke, 263 Kan. 193, 196, 946 P.2d 1375 (1997). But see State v. McCoin, 278 Kan. ___, ___ P.3d ___ (Case No. 91,039, filed December 3, 2004) (District court's denial of pro se motion seeking order to correct journal entry was really a motion to arrest judgment and could not be "liberally construed" to be a motion to correct an illegal sentence and, thus, defendant was required to file K.S.A. 60-1507 motion before the court had jurisdiction to consider the matter.). We are unclear if our Supreme Court in McCoin is abandoning the court's long- standing policy of liberal construction where pro se motions are concerned. However, we note that McCoin's motion was construed by the district court and our Supreme Court as a motion to arrest judgment under K.S.A. 22-3502. 278 Kan. at ___, slip op. at 5. Here, we have a motion to correct an illegal sentence and, under Duke, we are obligated, until otherwise instructed, to treat the present motion as a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion and address the merits of the motion rather than dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. Application of McAdam In McAdam, our Supreme Court held that conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine under K.S.A. 65-4159(a) had identical elements to K.S.A. 65-4161(a), a severity level 3 offense and concluded the defendant there could only be sentenced to the lesser penalty. 277 Kan. at 146-47. McAdam was a direct appeal from a conviction at jury trial. Here, this movant entered a guilty plea, did not file a direct appeal from the sentence imposed, and his sentence became final 10 days after sentencing under K.S.A. 22-3608(c). In Wilson v. State, 31 Kan. App. 2d 728, 71 P.3d 1180, rev. denied 276 Kan. 974 (2003), this court considered an analogous issue relating to the retroactive application of State v. Frazier, 30 Kan. App. 2d 398, 42 P.3d 188, rev. denied 274 Kan. 1115 (2002). In Frazier, this court concluded that possession of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine under K.S.A. 2001 Supp. 65-7006(a) and possession of drug paraphernalia, as proscribed by K.S.A. 2001 Supp. 65-4152(a)(3), are identical offenses despite their variations in terminology. This court held that the severity level 1 sentence imposed was illegal and vacated Frazier's sentence and remanded the case with directions to impose a sentence consistent with the penalties for a drug severity level 4 felony. 30 Kan. App. 2d at 405-06. Based upon this ruling, Wilson filed a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion arguing his severity level 1 drug felony sentence was illegal. This court held that the rule announced in Frazier should not be applied retroactively. The law is well settled that state courts are under no constitutional duty to apply their criminal decisions retroactively. See Wilson, 31 Kan. App. 2d at 733. Here, this movant's sentence was final before McAdam was decided on January 30, 2004. Likewise, there is no claim that a new constitutional rule of criminal procedure is at issue, nor can this movant argue that he could not be convicted of the crime as set out in the plea agreement. See State v. Barnes, 278 Kan. at 123. Further, we understand that a defendant has no right to a lesser sentence when two crimes have the same elements under the United States Constitution.."). We are convinced the Kansas Constitution provides no right to a lesser sentence because a defendant's rights under our Constitution have generally been held to be no greater than the rights provided by the United States Constitution. See State v. Morris, 255 Kan. 964, 880 P.2d 1244 (1994) (Provisions of section 10 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights grant no greater protection against self-incrimination than does the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.); State v. Schultz, 252 Kan. 819, 824, 850 P.2d 818 (1993) (The scope of § 15 of the Bill of Rights to the Kansas Constitution and of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is usually identical.); In re Habeas Corpus Petition of Lucas, 246 Kan. 486, 489, 789 P.2d 1157 (1990) (Section 10 of the Bill of Rights of the Kansas Constitution entitles a defendant to the same protection against double jeopardy afforded under the United States Constitution.); and State ex rel. Tomasic v. City of Kansas City, 237 Kan. 572, 583, 701 P.2d 1314 (1985) (Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights is given much the same effect as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment). This movant's only right to relief from the imposed sentence would arise from our Supreme Court's decisions in State v. Clements, 241 Kan. 77, 734 P.2d 1096 (1987), State v. Nunn, 244 Kan. 207, 768 P.2d 268 (1989), and most recently, State v. McAdam and State v. Barnes. However, Clements, Nunn, McAdam, and Barnes were all direct appeals and not collateral attacks as is the case before us. Recently, our Supreme Court noted the differences between a McAdam claim presented on direct appeal and such a claim presented in a collateral attack, as in Wilson. See Barnes, 278 Kan. at 126-27. Because the appeal in Barnes was direct, according to our Supreme Court, much of the analysis in Wilson was inapplicable. The reverse would likewise be true. As in Wilson, we hold that McAdam does not apply retroactively to those cases on collateral review because to do so would give the movant the double benefit of a favorable plea agreement, with a significant downward durational departure, and then the benefit of a reduced sentence based on an issue the movant failed to raise at the trial court or on direct appeal. Untimely Appeal Finally, the movant argues he should be allowed to file an appeal out of time invoking State v. Ortiz, 230 Kan. 733, 640 P.2d 1255 (1982). The right to appeal is strictly statutory. Neither the United States Constitution nor the Kansas Constitution guarantees the right to appeal. Therefore, appellate courts may only exercise jurisdiction over an appeal if it is taken within the time limitations and in the manner prescribed by statute. See State v. Snodgrass, 267 Kan. 185, 196, 979 P.2d 664 (1999). The movant was sentenced on August 21, 2002, and, under K.S.A. 22-3608, he had 10 days to file an appeal. At the hearing on this movant's motion to file an untimely appeal, his trial counsel testified it was his normal practice to inform his clients of their right to appeal. Trial counsel here testified it is more likely than not that he advised the movant of his right to appeal. However, the movant now claims he was not advised of his right to appeal from his guilty plea. The district court did not make a finding the movant was advised of his right to appeal, finding instead the movant was barred from appealing his downward departure sentence. We note the transcript from movant's sentencing does not indicate the movant was informed of his right to appeal by the district court as required by K.S.A. 22-3424(f). A limited exception to the jurisdictional bar to late appeals was recognized in State v. Ortiz. In Ortiz, our Supreme Court held that in the interests of fundamental fairness a defendant should be allowed to file an appeal out of time if: (1) the defendant was not informed of his or her right to appeal; (2) was not furnished an attorney to perfect the appeal; or (3) was furnished an attorney who failed to perfect the appeal. 230 Kan. 733, Syl. ¶ 3. In establishing the exceptions to the rule that a court only has jurisdiction over appeals that are made in a timely manner, the Ortiz court cited Brizendine v. State, 210 Kan. 241, 242-44, 499 P.2d 525 (1972). In Brizendine, the defendant was convicted at jury trial of burglary. He subsequently told his attorney he wished to appeal the conviction, but due to some misunderstanding between client and counsel, no appeal was ever filed. Citing several federal cases, the Brizendine court held that the defendant had the option of taking an appeal out of time due to his counsel's error. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 742-43, 19 L. Ed. 2d 493, 87 S. Ct. 1396 (1967) (procedure permitting appellate counsel to withdraw upon filing a conclusory letter stated that the appeal had "no merit" and permitting the appellate court to affirm the conviction upon reaching the same conclusion following a review of the record, did not comport with fair procedure and lacked the equality that the Fourteenth Amendment requires); Atilus v. United States, 406 F.2d 694 (5th Cir. 1969) (defendant was denied effective assistance of counsel when counsel failed to perfect an appeal when requested to do so by the defendant); Benoit v. Wingo, 423 F.2d 880 (6th Cir. 1970) (Appellant did not have adequate and effective assistance of counsel in prosecuting his appeal when counsel abandoned the appeal by letter which was written with such finality that it gave the appellant no opportunity to request counsel to continue with the appeal. Further, counsel did not leave the appeal in such status that the appellant, being confined in prison and being unlearned in law, could be expected to pick it up pro se and prosecute it to conclusion nor did he have an opportunity to have the trial judge appoint new counsel to assist him in the prosecution of his appeal.); Kent v. United States, 423 F.2d 1050 (5th Cir. 1970) (Petitioner, who claimed he had been denied effective aid of counsel because court-appointed counsel had been requested to appeal but did not do so, was not required to show reversible trial error.). All the federal cases cited were premised on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. v. State, 236 Kan. 650, Syl. ¶ 3, 694 P.2d 468 (1985) (adopting the holdings from Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, 104 S. Ct. 2052 (1984). The Strickland/Chamberlain test has been found to apply to challenges to guilty pleas based on ineffective assistance of counsel. In the context of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea, our Supreme Court noted that the first half of the Strickland test is a restatement of the standard of attorney competence. The second, or "prejudice" requirement, focuses on whether counsel's constitutionally ineffective performance affected the outcome of the plea process. In order to satisfy the "prejudice" requirement, the defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, he or she]) (Both prongs of the Strickland test must be satisfied before a petitioner is entitled to relief on a claim that his or her guilty plea was involuntary due to ineffectiveness of counsel.). In Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 478, 145 L. Ed. 2d 985, 120 S. Ct. 1029 (2000), the respondent filed a habeas petition attacking his conviction and sentence from a guilty plea arguing that his counsel was ineffective for failing to file an appeal after promising to do so. The United States Supreme Court rejected the view that failure to file a notice of appeal was per se ineffective and held that the proper analysis was the circumstance-specific reasonableness inquiry established in Strickland v. Washington. In Roe, the Court held: ". [Citation omitted.]." 528 U.S. at 480. In order to be entitled to withdraw a guilty plea under State v. Muriithi, the movant must show that counsel's performance fell below the standard of reasonableness and, but for counsel's errors, the movant would not have entered into the plea agreement. Similarly, under Roe v. Florez-Ortega, the movant must demonstrate an objective and reasonable basis for appeal existed at the time or a definite communication to counsel that the movant wanted to appeal. When analyzing these two factors, the court must consider all the circumstances of the case and all the information defense counsel knew or should have known. This court's decision in Baker v. State, 20 Kan. App. 2d 807, 894 P.2d 221, rev. denied 257 Kan. 1091 (1995), cuts against this movant's claim based on Ortiz. In Baker, the petitioner filed a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion claiming his convictions for indecent liberties with a child were illegal and that the Kansas Department of Corrections had misclassified the offenses. Baker argued that under State v. Williams, 250 Kan. 730, 829 P.2d 892 (1992), he could only be charged and convicted of the crime of aggravated incest, a crime which carried a lesser sentence. Baker had entered a plea of guilty to both charges and, under LaBona v. State, 255 Kan. 66, 69, 872 P.2d 271 (1994), our Supreme Court held that Baker waived the right to challenge the State's decision to charge him with the more general crime of indecent liberties with a child. 20 Kan. App. 2d at 810-11. On appeal from the denial of his 60-1507 motion, Baker argued that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his lawyer failed to recognize or inform him that he should have been charged with the more specific and less severe crime of aggravated incest. This court concluded that at the time Baker entered into the plea agreement it was possible to charge a defendant with either indecent liberties or aggravated incest, even when the defendant was within the degree of relationship set out in K.S.A. 21-3603 pursuant to State v. Hutchcraft, 242 Kan. 55, 744 P.2d 849 (1987). While Hutchcraft was overruled in part by State v. Williams, 250 Kan. 730, 829 P.2d 892 (1992), Willliams was not decided until 1992, almost 4 years after Baker was sentenced. 20 Kan. App. 2d at 810. Baker instructs the standard of reasonableness of counsel actions is judged under the law applicable at the time of counsel's representation. This court held that, realistically, Baker's counsel could not have known that in 1988, Baker could only be charged with aggravated incest for molesting his step-daughter. The failure of the State and defense counsel to advise Baker of a legal standard that had not yet been applied to those facts, and would not be so applied until sometime in the future, did not render the plea involuntary. Further, under the circumstances, there was no basis to conclude that Baker's defense counsel's performance fell below the objective reasonableness standard set out in Chamberlain v. State, 236 Kan. 650, 656-57, 694 P.2d 468 (1985), by failing to foresee an interpretation of law that would not occur until sometime in the future. 20 Kan. App. 2d at 811. Under the analysis in Roe v. Flores-Ortega, this movant has not provided any evidence that he told or otherwise indicated he wished to appeal his plea-bargained sentence. Nor has this movant demonstrated that a rational defendant, when considering the state of the law at the time, would wish to appeal the classification of his crime of conviction especially when considering the benefit he received as a result of the plea agreement. Therefore, it does not appear that the movant is entitled to file an appeal out of time based on his claim that his trial counsel failed to notify him of his right to appeal. This, however, does not end the analysis because, as we noted, the trial court also has a duty to inform a defendant of his or her right to appeal under K.S.A. 22-3424(f). In Peguero v. United States, 526 U.S. 23, 143 L. Ed. 2d 18, 119 S. Ct. 961 (1999), the Court examined a petitioner's claim that his rights were violated because the trial court did not inform him of his right to appeal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(a)(2). The Court held that the failure of a trial court to inform a defendant of his or her right to appeal pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. Proc. 32(a)(2) did not automatically entitle the defendant to collateral relief and was subject to harmless error analysis. Such relief was only available when the defendant is prejudiced by the court's error. 526 U.S. at 27. The Court concluded the defendant was not prejudiced because he had independent knowledge of his right to appeal and thus the error was harmless. 526 U.S. at 29-30. Applying Peguero, this movant has not alleged prejudice in the district court's failure to inform him of his right to appeal. There is nothing in the record of this movant's original sentence that indicates he wished to appeal. The only evidence presented at the K.S.A. 60-1507 hearing was the movant's proffer that he was not notified of his right to appeal. Despite the above discussion, we are obligated to remand this case to the district court for an Ortiz hearing to determine if this movant was advised of his right to appeal from his guilty plea and whether he ever requested an appeal be filed. This result is mandated by our reading of our Supreme Court's decision in State v. Willingham, 266 Kan. 98, 967 P.2d 1079 (1998). In State v. Willingham, our Supreme Court reviewed a claim by the defendant that Willingham should be allowed to file an appeal out of time because the trial court had failed to notify him of his right to appeal under K.S.A. 22-3424(f). The Willingham court held where there was no evidence defendant was advised of his right to appeal at sentencing, either by the sentencing judge or trial counsel, and counsel had failed to obtain a written waiver of appeal under K.A.R. 105-3-9, Ortiz applied and defendant was allowed to file a direct appeal out of time. 266 Kan. at 100-02. We are duty bound to follow Kansas Supreme Court precedent, unless there is some indication the court is departing from its previous position. State v. Jackson, 30 Kan. App. 2d 288, 299, 41 P.3d 871 (2002). Ortiz and the decisions cited therein are in part premised on the concept of "fundamental fairness." Because a fundamental fairness analysis is not subject to clearly definable legal elements, we must approach such analysis with considerable self-restraint. "Courts should tread gingerly when faced with arguments concerning the 'fundamental fairness' component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause," which should be reserved for "the most serious cases, which truly shock the conscience as well as the mind." (Emphasis added.) United States v. Penn, 647 F.2d 876, 880 (9th Cir.), reh. denied (reversing district court's ruling that Due Process Clause required the suppression of certain evidence), cert. denied 449 U.S. 903 (1980); accord United States v. Rivera, 900 F.2d 1462, 1477 (10th Cir. 1990). "Not every trial error or infirmity which might call for application of an appellate court's supervisory powers correspondingly constitutes a failure to observe that fundamental fairness that is essential to the very concept of justice. Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 642, 40 L. Ed. 2d 431, 94 S. Ct. 1868 (1974)." State v. Cady, 248 Kan. 743, 758, 811 P.2d 1130 (1991). We are convinced that a criminal appellant should not be permitted to accomplish indirectly what he or she cannot accomplish directly. See Wilson v. American Fidelity Ins. Co., 229 Kan. 416, Syl. ¶ 3, 625 P.2d 1117 (1981). Otherwise any criminal defendant who feels prejudiced by any appellate court decision which is not given full retroactive effect could circumvent the court's decision by simply filing a motion to file an appeal out of time. We conclude that McAdam will not be applied to cases which were final prior to the date of the McAdam decision. However, as is mandated by Willingham, the district court's ruling that movant had no right to file an appeal out of time is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with Ortiz. At that hearing the district court shall determine if the movant was notified of his right to appeal or was otherwise aware of his right to perfect a timely appeal of his sentence. END

Archive of changes made during March 2009. The substantive content of this page should not be altered. For past versions of this page beyond its own history, start here and work backwards. started adding comments on embeddings at geometric morphism, but ran out of time following Mike’s suggestion I moved the material that was at sheafification in a Lawvere-Tierney topos over to Lawvere-Tierney topology have (started) a discussion with David Roberts on the relation between internal anafunctors and localization in higher sheaf categories over at his private area comments on chapter 2 incorporated in part Zoran’s comment at sheafification of non-set-valued presheaves and created an entry on the IPC-property in the course of that started Sheaves in Geometry and Logic, on the MacLane-Moerdijk book created dense monomorphism (thanks to Mike for the relation to local isomorphism) and then sheafification in a Lawvere-Tierney topos created (infinity,1)-essentially surjective functor and (infinity,1)-fully faithful functor? Mentioned at triangulated category that the definition is redundant. If I had time I would fix it myself. We are having an interesting discussion at derived functor. Unfortunately I am leaving town for a couple of weeks (starting with PSSL88) so will be less active for a while. created category of open subsets and presheaf on open subsets to satisfy links at Categories and Sheaves fixed and expanded local isomorphism and used that to create category of sheaves, (infinity,1)-category of (infinity,1)-sheaves and sheafification created base change and cobase change started listing Zoran’s latest entries and previous ones on examples/refinements of additive and abelian categories at additive and abelian categories. Zoran Škoda: Created suspended category and Quillen exact category. This is a continuation of our efforts to enter various classes of additive categories useful in homological algebra and K-theory. QUESTION: came across MacLane’s Foundations for Categories and Sets where it it argued that neither standared set/class set theory nor Grothendieck universes provide decent foundations for categories and a formalism of schools is introduced instead – can anyone comment on that in the light of our discussion at Grothendieck universe? added an “Idea” section to derived functor and split off derived functor on a derived category from that in order to discuss the special homological algebra aspects of derived functors separately – but incomplete for the moment created null system created category of chain complexes, but then didn’t quite know where to go with this… agreed at homological algebra and filtrant category expanded differential object and created differential just to satisfy links created matrix calculus and mapping cone concerning the entry homological algebra: Tim Porter and Zoran Skoda (or anyone else): please feel free to improve/revise the exposition created triangulated category – have a question about dérivateurs there created local epimorphism created multiplicative system A grammatical suggestion at stuff, structure, property. Did some work on chain complex and all the additive and abelian categories pages. began derived category before running out of time again… did some layout-editing for Mike’s additions to homotopy category of an (infinity,1)-category Finn Lawler: Continued experimenting with graphics for diagrams. Have a look and see what you think: Added some PNGs at Kan extension Replaced PNGs at adjunction with larger ones. started preparing the ground for derived category and triangulated category by creating category with translation, chain complex and differential object before running out of time… created homotopy category of an (infinity,1)-category created homological algebra, mainly as a collection of links to the keywords listed there thanks to Mike for his polishing of my original filtrant category at filtered category in a first attempt to clean up the entries surrounding abelian category I created the overview entry additive and abelian categories and branched off Ab-enriched category, made pre-additive category a commented redirect to that and “commented out” the respective discussion still to be found at additive category; also made pre-abelian category a separate entry, so that now there is in order of increasing structure/property am all in favor of Finn’s graphics! The only reason I don’t include nice graphics myself a lot is that currently these take me longer to create than the MathML hacks Finn Lawler: Uploaded PNG images of the zig-zag identities and added them to adjunction. They’re probably a bit too small, but what do people think of this approach as a work-around until there’s an easy way to convert TeX to SVG? Any other suggestions? (Note: I tried converting these diagrams to SVG as described here but the resulting files were huge and didn’t display anyway when inserted into the markdown source. Instead I used pdfcrop and convert on the pdflatex output.) Edited linear logic in response to Mike’s question. Created star-autonomous category. Mike: Prompted by discussion with Zoran, created strict epimorphism and added a lengthier discussion of types of epimorphism to epimorphism. Zoran Škoda: Created etale space. The order of exposition is important, particularly in view of anticipated additional details. In Kan extension added a detailed paragraph on an example how left Kan extension pointwise formula has intuitive meaning in the case of constructing pullback for (pre)sheaves on topological spaces. Created torsor with structure category following the version in Moerdijk’s book. Finn Lawler: Created linear logic – just a short stub with basic ideas on motivation and models, plus a couple of references. Comments effusively welcomed. (Edit: also removed Thursday’s query box from context). Zoran and I are having a discussion about definitions of abelian category. Redirected filtrant category to filtered category. Moved the discussion about the word “bimorphism” from balanced category to bimorphism. Redirected parallel morphism to parallel morphisms (which is in line with the naming conventions). created exact functor created filtrant category added to Higher Topos Theory more introductory/overview remarks which are supposed to be helpful for the newbie created Yoneda extension added section to Kan extension on formulas in terms of limits and colimits over comma categories; added a section on the “local” computation of adjoint functors at adjoint functor and point out how this induces the local/global dichotomy at limit, homotopy limit and Kan extension (see my previous modification below) if I noticed correctly, Mike had changed my original notation for precomposition with a functor (pullback notation) at Kan extension to (pushforward notation). I have now added a section Remark on terminology: pushforward vs. pullback which is supposed to clarify this terminology issue. Mike: That wasn’t me. I’m not sure that such a discussion belongs at Kan extension; it might belong somewhere but I would rather than the page Kan extension just pick one notation and possibly link to a discussion. Zoran Škoda: It was me who changed, though I better did not. I am happy with the original notation as well. For as your discussion on pushfowards I am less happy. Namely, if one is not happy with the direction of maps between open sets, one just redefines what is a morphism of sites (opposite to the functor direction), so that the morphism of sites is always correct direction. So, unless one does not have strong feeling on the choice of pushfoward pullback meaning, what is not in this case, mayeb original notation just caring about covariant vs contravariant was better. addressed Zoran’s and Tim’s remarks at Kan extension: I have added now to Kan extension as well as to limit – in analogy to what we already had at homotopy limit – an explicit discussion of the difference between local and global definitions of the universal constructions created universal construction – but filled in just a question/query Tim: I have raised a query at Kan extension. Zoran Škoda: Created abelian category with multiple equivalent definitions. I have a question about the meaning of “large” at Grothendieck universe. I’d like to request that people not add new sub-bullets under their own names on a given day if other people have since listed more changes above; rather, add a new bullet point at the top with your name. If that didn’t make sense, it’s what I’m doing now, rather than (what I could have done) adding a new bullet point below the other copy of my name today. Added some comments on syntactic categories to internal logic, since Toby kindly saved me the work of defining them at context. Finn Lawler: (Hello all – long-time lurker, first-time editor.) For my first edit, I asked a silly question at context and then answered it myself a little later. I’ll delete the query box if nobody has any comments. Apologies for noise. Split nice category of spaces from nice topological space and fixed all the links I could find. Wrote universe in a topos by way of responding to the query at Grothendieck universe. Focused adjunction on the internal version in a 2-category, to distinguish it from adjoint functor, which I reorganized and added a definition to. (The zig-zag identities are crying out for SVG!) Corrected generalized element to distinguish it from global element. Made a terminological suggestion at set theory. Commented about property-like structure at stuff, structure, property. It would be nice to move the examples earlier on this page. started a stub-entry on Stable Infinity-Categories (Lurie’s PhD part I) and advertized this little program of textbook labification here at the blog started an entry Higher Topos Theory (on Lurie’s book) in a style analogous to Categories and Sheaves – I included a link to Mike’s personal page n-topos for large n; eventually it would be nice if we had an entry on the general idea and purpose of higher topos theory started expanding Kan extension created fiber product, parallel morphism, zero morphism, kernel, added example to pointed object good to see that Mike is back! Mike, there is a request for you at Grothendieck universe: can you say something about rephrasing that as a “topos object internal to the ETCS-version of ”? added the globular zig-zag diagrams to adjunction started continuous functor added a link to David’s new entry algebraic set theory at set theory. It would be nice to put it into context there, eventually. started expanding limit (and also a bit colimit): more motivation, more details on definition, more examples created generalized element more or less completed the hyperlinked keyword list of chapter one of Categories and Sheaves filled in three equivalent definitions at adjoint functor expanded a bit at natural transformation added simple remarks to contravariant functor added the illustrative diagram to over category and added a remark on over categories to subobject; added an illustrative diagram to comma category and added a section there on how a comma category is a pullback; added a little bit of discussion that every presheaf is a colimit of representables to presheaf; expanded a bit more at stuff, structure, property Andrew Stacey: lifted the tangent/cotangent section from “Comparative Smootheology” to Froelicher space. I intend to remove this section from that paper and this seems like a good place to put and develop it. Zoran Škoda: created algebraic monad, generalized ring, compact object, noncommutative algebraic geometry, spectrum (geometry), Pierce spectrum, filter (thanks Mike for an essential typographic correction), generator, cogenerator (the latter were prompted by editing Morita equivalence, paragraph on classical Morita). Zoran and Toby distributed the paragraph on ultrafilters from long growing entry filter partly to the new entry ultrafilter. Uploaded Warsaw circle with link within shape theory. followed Mike’s remark and moved the previous content in stable infinity-category to stable (infinity,1)-category, keeping just a general nonsense statement at stable infinity-category added a remark on this and a link at spectrum Zoran Škoda: moved the earlier material from entry algebra to new entry associative unital algebra, and put new material into algebra; one should have separate entry for any framework for algebras, and general entry algebra should have pointers to the major classes (like algebra over operad). Thanks Toby, we continue together on that: now there is an entry nonassociative algebra and so on. I have also addressed concerns of Mike in Connes' cyclic category which now has I hope correct definitions, plus more foundational issues and relevant literature and link to just uploaded file R. Krasauskas, Skew-simplicial groups, Lith. Math. J. Andrew: Added some more to Froelicher space. I’ve started on a new project on this: adapting topological notions to Froelicher spaces. created stable infinity-category implemented Zoran’s remark below by rephrasing a bit at Categories and Sheaves added a bit more to large category Toby Bartels: Let specialization topology lead me to specialization order. Removed the discussion about accented characters from fundamental group of a topos and put it in the FAQ. Displayed my happiness at quotient object by removing the discussion. Zoran Škoda has created dense subcategory (intentionally organized different than the entry for the entry for slight generalization, dense functor); created shape theory but needs much more work; I copied here references from fundamental group of a topos (plus to a Batanin’s article) and in fundamental group of a topos I added the reference and link to Pataraia’s article important for the abstract notion of fundamental groupoid in internal contexts. created an entry on the book Categories and Sheaves (comment you say that “sheaf condition is localization” there; well the category of sheaves is a localization of the category of presheaves, but the sheaf condition…you really meant what you say? – Zoran) in reaction to Toby’s discussion at large category I created entries for accessible category, locally presentable category and sketch. But very incomplete. Toby Bartels: Started a discussion about large category. More done on Froelicher spaces. I think that I have finally figured out the relationship between Frölicher spaces and Isbell duality so if anyone else is interested in taking a look I’d appreciate your comments. I also found the standard layout of the page a little hard to work with, in particular with regard to delimiting proofs and definitions (both of which could get quite long) so I’ve been experimenting with alternative ways of demarking them (on Froelicher space). Let me know if you like or dislike what you see. Yes, homotopy theorists call a k-tuply groupal n-groupoid a grouplike -space. Continued discussion at Crans-Gray tensor product. Tim: I have been trying to give an adequate categorical treatment of profinite completion of a group. made a little remark on Mike’s question at Crans-Gray tensor product and ask another question myself added a remark to Waldhausen category on its relation to category of fibrant objects and ask a question about the precise statement to be made here over at the Café Toby Bartels: Combined proset into preorder, etc, as planned there. Zoran Škoda created Waldhausen category and made a remark into entry cofibration category. Toby Bartels: I created symmetric set out of material that Zoran Škoda added to FinSet. Toby Bartels: Tired of writing [[constructivism|constructive mathematics]], I moved constructivism to constructive mathematics and fixed links. Similarly, I moved predicativism to predicative mathematics. After some thought, I also moved finitism to finite mathematics and expanded it a bit to fit the new name better. To go with this, I finally created FinSet. Zoran: Created Loday-Pirashvili category, dense functor and equivariant object. There are two different notions of dense subcategory, first of which has two different definitions and is related to colimits and nerve functor, and second which is related to pro-objects. In the entry Bousfield localization I added a paragraph on Bousfield localization for triangulated categories; made changes to nerve (more to be done: one needs to clarify the example of geometric realization etc.). Zoran: Created (in last two days) several entries mainly related to co- Hopf- algebras and algebras in categories of chain complexes: Frechet-Uryson space, Hopf module, Hopf-Galois extension, Maurer-Cartan equation, category of elements, compactly generated space, coring, dg-algebra,distributive law, torsor (very unfinished!), twisted module of homomorphisms, twisted tensor product, twisting cochain and made changes to few other entries including many changes in entry Hopf algebra and some in A-infinity-algebra. With the (Fukaya) convention used there should not exist. Mike: Created homotopy equivalence and weak homotopy equivalence. Bruce Bartlett has created nInsights. Ronnie Brown: I’ve rewritten and expanded homotopy groups partly to clarify the operation of dimension 1 on higher dimensions and to emphasise the groupoid aspects. Toby Bartels: I've written sequence, net, multi-valued function, partial function, and the long-delayed surjection and injection. Those interested in foundations may be particularly interested in my proposed alternative definition of sequence. Tim: I have included a discussion of the nerve of an internal category at that entry. Tim: I have changed the initial sentence of homotopy n-type. I think this is converging well thanks to the efforts of Mike and Toby. Toby Bartels: Since we already have fundamental groupoid and even fundamental infinity-groupoid, I started fundamental group and homotopy group. But I only wrote #Idea# sections. Responded at homotopy n-type and proset. Did a little more bettering of profinite group, and was inspired to create filtered category, pro-object, ind-object, and (as stubs) free completion and topological group. Mike Shulman: A question about the Crans-Gray tensor product. Eventually we probably need a summary of some of the theory of algebraic homotopy that Baues has developed as if impinges on the homotopy hypothesis and on homotopical cohomology theory. To this end I have created a sort of historical entry on algebraic homotopy. Created cofibration category as the first of the ‘Bauesian’ detailed entries. Toby Bartels: I've written several more articles on very basic topics, such as those that used to be ‘?’-links below. You can see them on Recently Revised; I don't think that anything merits great attention. Toby Bartels: I tried to clarify the difference between a preorder (a structure on a given set that satisfies certain properties) and a proset (a set equipped with such a structure). I need to finish that for partial order/poset and total order/toset, although I would also entertain the idea that these should all be redirected one way or the other. But I got sidetracked writing linear order and loset instead. (And then there's quasiorder; I don't think that quoset is necessary for reasons that I don't want to get into here.) Attempted to answer Eric’s plea for a category-theoretic definition of ‘Hasse diagram’, in the discussion at the bottom of preorder. Unfortunately I don’t know the official definition of ‘Hasse diagram’ — though I know one when I see one. Made a short page on proset, since Toby seems to be using this as a synonym for preorder. Toby Bartels: Since Urs is using both ‘over category’ and ‘over-category’ (and not ‘slice category’), I tried to standardise things as ‘over category’ to diminish the temptation to slip further into ‘over-category’. Principally this means that I moved slice category to over category and over-category in quasi-categories to over quasi-category. First list — Previous list — Next list — Current list

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, consists of the island of Cuba (the largest of the Greater Antilles), the Isle of Youth and several. Cuba is perhaps the most well-known Caribbean nation due to its pivotal role in world politics in the twentieth century. A pawn during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nuclear world war nearly broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the nation is attempting to dig out from decades under a communist and socialist system and is re-establishing relationships with free and advanced nations. Geography Cuba is an archipelago of islands located in the Caribbean Sea. Cuba is the nation 17th-largest island in the world by land area. The second largest island in Cuba is the Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth) in the southwest, with an area of 1180 square miles (3056 km²). Cuba has a total land area of 42,803 square miles (110,860 km²), slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It has 3,735 km of coastline and 29 km of land borders—all with the leased United States territory at Guantánamo Bay, where the U.S. Navy's Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is located. The main island consists mostly of flat to rolling plains. At the southeastern end is the Sierra Maestra, a range of steep mountains whose highest point is the Pico Real del Turquino at 2,005 meters . Natural resources include cobalt, nickel, iron ore, copper, manganese, salt, timber, silica, and petroleum. At one time the whole island was covered with forest. There are still many cedar, rosewood, mahogany, and other valuable trees. Large areas were cleared in order to grow sugar cane, resulting in the need to import timber. History The recorded history of Cuba began on October 28, 1492, when Christopher Columbus sighted the island during his first voyage of discovery and claimed it for Spain. The island had been inhabited by Amerindian peoples known as the Guanahatabey and Ciboney in the western section, with the Taíno peoples in the remaining area. The Taino, a sophisticated agricultural society, were related to the Arawakan peoples of South America who had migrated to the Greater Antilles. The coast of Cuba was fully mapped by Sebastián de Ocampo in 1511, the same year the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa. Other towns, including Havana, soon followed. Cuba soon became a point of departure for exploration on the North American mainland. Hernándo Cortés' expedition utilized 400 Spaniards and 3000 Indians, depleting the population. By 1550 the native population had been decimated mainly by European-introduced disease and maltreatment. Aspects of the region's aboriginal heritage has survived, however, in part due to the rise of a significant Mestizo population.[8] By 1570, most residents were of mixed ancestry, a mixture of Spanish, African, and Indian heritages. Intermarriage was common due to the absence of women emigrants as well as the military nature of the conquest. Sugar and slavery Cuba soon began to depend on the sugarcane industry as its main source of economy. To fulfill the demand for sugar, slave-based plantations sprang up. By the 1840s, nearly one-third of the island's population was slaves. More than 600,000 slaves were imported from Africa in the nineteenth century. Many of these arrived after 1820, the year that Spain and Great Britain had agreed would be the end of slave trading in the Spanish colonies. By 1830 the Cuban sugar industry had become the most mechanized in the world. Small farmers were expelled from their land while the forests were depleted. By 1850, 80 percent of the island's exports were sugar. Wealthy plantation owners gained prominence in the political and social fields. Contract workers, Mexican-Indian and Chinese, joined the labor force, taking on tasks as degrading and dangerous as the slaves faced. At the same time, the British navy attacked slave ships, and the Americans abolished slavery. The African slave trade ended in 1865, though it took another 21 years before slavery was abolished in Cuba. During this time the island was plagued by recurring waves of disease: cholera, malaria, and influenza. Colonial Cuba Cuba was a Spanish possession for 388 years, ruled by a governor in Havana, with an economy based on plantation agriculture and the export of sugar, coffee and tobacco to Europe and later to North America. The Spanish population was boosted by settlers leaving Haiti when that territory was ceded to France in 1697. An English fleet under command of Lord Albermarle took control of the island in the Battle of Havana in 1762, part of the Seven Years' War, but rule was restored to Spain the following year.. An additional factor was the continuous migration of Spaniards to Cuba from all social strata, a demographic trend that had ceased in other Spanish possessions decades before and which contributed to the slow development of a Cuban national identity. Cuba’s proximity to the U.S. has been a powerful influence on its history. Throughout the nineteenth century, Southern politicians in the U.S. plotted the island’s annexation. During the summer of 1848, President James Polk quietly authorized his ambassador to Spain, Romulus Mitchell Saunders, to negotiate the purchase of Cuba, offering up to $100 million, an astonishing sum of money at the time for one territory. Spain, however, refused to consider ceding one of its last possessions in the Americas. Agitation for Cuban independence from Spain revived in the latter half of the nineteenth century, leading to a rebellion in 1868 led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, now known as the "father of the revolution," a wealthy planter from Oriente province who freed his slaves, proclaimed a war and was named President of the Cuban Republic-in-arms. This resulted in a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years' War between pro-independence forces and the Spanish Army, allied with local supporters.[9] At the Convention of Zanjon in 1878, Spain promised to reform the island's political and economic system. This brought an end to the conflict. Pro-independence agitation temporarily died down, but the nationalist leader Antonio Maceo and several others refused to accept the Spanish conditions. In 1879 Calixto Garcia began another uprising, (known as "la guerra chiquita" - the little war) but received little support. Spanish forces put down the uprising the following year.[10]. Annual trade between Cuba and the United States had reached about $100 million, but in 1894 Spain canceled a Cuban-U.S. trade pact. Taxes were increased and more trade restrictions were imposed. War broke out in February 1895. The writer and poet José Martí who had organized the war over a ten-year period while in exile in the U.S. and proclaimed Cuba an independent republic, together with revolutionary leader Máximo Gómez landed with an invasion force. Martí was killed at Dos Rios shortly after landing in Cuba. His death immortalized him, making him Cuba’s undisputed national hero. The eastern region of the island was quickly conquered and the conflict spread westward. In September 1895 the Republic of Cuba was declared. In 1896 Spain placed 200,000 troops on the island who ushered rural residents into urban camps. Ultimately tens of thousands died of starvation and disease. Estates and whole towns were burned (by both sides). The rebels concentrated on destroying the sugarcane crop. In 1897 Spain moved to a more conciliatory policy, promising home rule with an elected legislature. The following year they ended their relocation program. By this time however, most of the population had begun to sympathize with the rebels and the war for independence continued. Commercial activity had essentially ceased and news of Spanish atrocities on the island reached the U.S. Anti-Spanish resentment began to heat up. Shortly afterward, on February 15, 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine was mysteriously blown up in Havana harbor, killing 266 men. Forces in the U.S. favoring intervention in Cuba seized on this incident to accuse Spain of blowing up the ship, although there was no evidence of who had done the deed. The U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for intervention and President William McKinley was quick to comply. The result was the Spanish-American War, in which U.S. forces landed in Cuba in June 1898 and quickly overcame the exhausted. treaty. The Cuban independence movement bitterly opposed this arrangement, but unlike the Philippines, where events had followed a similar course, there was no outbreak of armed resistance. Independence 1902 Theodore Roosevelt, who had fought in the Spanish-American War and had some sympathies with the independence movement, succeeded McKinley as President of the United States in 1901 and abandoned the 20-year treaty proposal. Instead, the Republic of Cuba gained formal independence on May 20,. Cuba today does not celebrate May 20 as their date of independence, but instead October 10, as the first declaration of independence. The day Fidel Castro and his army entered Havana, January 1, 1959, is celebrated as "the triumph of the revolution.", Charles Edward Magoon, took charge for three years. Magoon's governorship in Cuba was viewed in a negative light by many Cuban historians for years thereafter, believing that much political corruption was introduced during Magoon's years there.[11] In 1908 self-government was restored when José Miguel Gómez was elected President. The Gomez administration, which lasted until 1913, set a pattern of graft, corruption, maladministration, fiscal irresponsibility, and social insensitivity—especially toward Afro-Cubans. Led by Evaristo Estenoz and Pedro Ivonet the African-Cuban community was organized to secure better jobs and more political patronage. Corruption continued with the subsequent administrations of Mario García Menocal (1913–1921), Alfredo Zayas (1921–1925), Gerardo Machado y Morales (1925–1933), Fulgencio Batista (through puppets 1934–1939 and himself 1940–1944 and 1952–1959), Ramón Grau San Martín (1944–1948), and Carlos Prío Socarrás (1948–1952).[12] Machado's administration was fraught with troop intimidation and assassination. He was overthrown by leftist groups, with U.S. help, in the Revolution of 1933, which brought Batista to power. Batista's administration proved to be no different from Machado's. During his rule, however, Cubans gained greater control over their own economy and, son of Cuba's founding father,, forcing him to turn liberals were bitter enemies of the Communists and Batista opposed most of Grau’s program. In 1948, Grau was succeeded by Carlos Prío Socarrás, who had been Grau's minister of labor and was particularly disliked by the Communists. Prío was a less principled liberal than Grau and, under his administration, corruption increased notably. This was partly a result of the postwar revival of U.S. wealth and the consequent influx of gambling money into Havana, which became a safe haven for mafia operations[13]. Nevertheless Prío carried out major reforms such as founding a National Bank and stabilizing the Cuban currency. The influx of North American money fueled an economic boom which did much to raise living standards and create a prosperous middle class in most urban areas, although the gap between rich and poor became wider and more obvious. By the late 1950s, Cuba had developed one of the leading economies in Latin America. It had among the highest annual per capita incomes in the region, $353. However, the majority of rural workers earned only about one-fourth this amount and lived in poverty. The thriving economy benefited only a small portion of the population. Much of the country suffered a lack of public services, as well as unemployment and underemployment. A number of foreign investors controlled the economy, owning a great percentage of the arable land, essential services and still–profitable sugar production. Throughout this decade, Batista exercised absolute control over the political system. When it became apparent that Batista had little chance of winning the 1952 election, he staged a coup (March 10, 1952) and held power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army then claim to be an elected President. His regime was marked by severe corruption and poverty. Fidel Castro The internal decay of Batista's government and resultant suffering of the population and their frustrations gave power to the opposition that brought about to his downfall, led by Fidel Castro. Castro had been a legislative candidate for elections in 1952 that were aborted by Batista. As the nation grew increasingly discontent, Castro formed an underground organization of supporters, including his brother, Raúl, and Mario Chanes de Armas. Together they actively plotted to overthrow Batista, collecting guns and ammunition and finalizing their plans for an armed attack on Moncada Barracks, Batista's largest garrison outside Santiago de Cuba. On July 26, 1953, they attacked. The attack proved disastrous and more than 60 of the 135 militants involved were killed. Castro and other surviving members of his group managed to escape to an area of the rugged Sierra Maestra mountains east of Santiago where they were eventually discovered and captured. Castro was tried in the fall of 1953 and sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. After having served less than two years, he was released in May 1955 due to a general amnesty from Batista who was under political pressure. He and a group of friends went to Mexico to prepare for the overthrow of the Cuban government. In Mexico, Castro met Argentine–born. On November 26, 1956, Castro and his band of 81 rebels, mostly Cuban exiles, set out from Tuxpan, Mexico aboard the yacht Granma for Cuba. Landing at Playa Las Coloradas near the eastern city of Manzanillo on December 2, they were routed and nearly annihilated by security forces. A dozen survivors, including Castro, his brother Raul and Guevara retreated to the Sierra Maestra and began a guerrilla campaign... By late 1958, the rebels had succeeded in breaking out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general insurrection, joined by hundreds of students and others fleeing Batista’s crackdown on dissent in the cities. In 1957 a U.S. journalist writing for the New York Times made his way through military lines and met with the Castro in the Sierra Maestra. He reported that the romantic revolutionary was no Communist; in fact, the local Communists opposed him. The New York Times front page stories by Herbert Matthews presented Castro as a romantic and appealing revolutionary, bearded and dressed in rumpled fatigues. Castro's image was changed from that of a hothead into the youthful face of Cuba's future.[14] Through television, Castro's rudimentary command of the English language and charismatic presence enabled him to appeal directly to a U.S. audience. Batista's government was isolated in 1958 when the U.S. imposed an arms embargo. At the same time several Cuban military commanders sympathized with the rebellion or joined it. When the rebels captured Santa Clara, east of Havana, Batista decided the struggle was futile and fled the country to exile in Portugal and later Spain. Castro’s rebel forces entered the capital on January 1, 1959. Post revolution Fidel Castro became Prime Minister of Cuba in February 1959, and held effective power in the country until formally handing it over to his brother, Raul Castro, in 2008. During 1959, Castro’s government carried out measures such as the confiscation of private real estate, the nationalization of public utilities, and began a campaign to institute tighter controls on the private sector such as the closing down of the gambling industry. Castro also evicted many Americans, including mobsters, from the island. These measures were undertaken by his government in the name of the program that he had outlined in the ''Manifiesto de Montecristi'' while in the Sierra Maestra. He failed to enact the most important elements of his reform program, however, received by President Eisenhower, who decided to attend a golf tournament rather than meet with him.[15].[16] Summary executions of suspected Batista collaborators, coupled with the seizure of Cuban-owned businesses and the rapid demise of the independent press, nominally attributed to the powerful pro-revolution printing unions, raised questions about the nature of the new government. Attitudes towards the Cuban revolution both in Cuba and in the United States were changing rapidly. The nationalization of U.S.-owned companies (to an estimated 1959 value of US$1 billion) aroused immediate hostility within the Eisenhower administration. Cubans began to leave their country in great numbers and formed a burgeoning expatriate community in Miami. Many were angry at Castro's revolutionary government due to its seizure of private property in Cuba and the increasing number of "paredones," the summary executions of those who opposed his government. Cuban-Americans soon formed a powerful political lobbying group in the United States. The U.S. government became increasingly hostile towards Cuba throughout 1959. This, in turn, may have influenced Castro's movement away from the liberal elements of his revolutionary movement and increased the power of hardline Marxist figures in the government, notably Che Guevara, although this theory is open to debate. In October 1959, Castro openly declared himself to be friendly towards Communism, though he did not yet claim to be a Communist himself, while the liberal and other anti-Communist elements of the government were purged. Within six months of coming to power, he had sent agents to initiate revolutions in several Latin American countries, and established diplomatic and economic ties with leading socialist powers. Many Cuban citizens who had initially supported the revolution fled a threat; and under the new Democratic administration of John F. Kennedy, plans were approved to remove Castro from power (known as "Operation Mongoose" or, "The Cuban Project"). In late 1960, a trade embargo was imposed, which strengthened Castro's ties with the Soviet Union, who stepped in to buy tons of Cuban sugar. At the same time, the Kennedy administration authorized plans for an invasion of Cuba by Florida-based Cuban exiles, taking advantage of anti-Castro uprisings which were repressed. The failed invasion in April 1961 came to be known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Cuban Missile Crisis In October 1962 a major confrontation occurred between the United States and Cuba which marked the closest point which the world had come to engaging in a nuclear war. The U.S. learned in July 1962 that the Soviet Union had begun missile shipments to Cuba. These were medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles that had the capability of reaching the eastern United States within a few minutes following launch from Cuba. By the end of the following month, U.S. spy planes detected the presence of new military construction on the island. By mid-October a ballistic missile on a launching site was identified. The U.S. responded by placing a naval blockade on Cuba in order to prevent the receipt of further Soviet missile shipments. President Kennedy warned that U.S. forces would seize all weapons and materials the Soviets attempted to deliver. For the next several days Soviet ships which had already been en route to Cuba altered course away from the blockade zone. Messages between the leaders of the two superpowers were exchanged. On October 28, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev informed Kennedy that work on the missile sites would cease and missiles already in Cuba would be returned to the Soviet Union. Kennedy, in turn, committed that the U.S. would not invade Cuba, a fear founded on the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. It was also learned that Kennedy quietly promised the withdrawal of nuclear-armed missiles from Turkey which the U.S. had deployed in previous years. The crisis was over by late November. Castro was infuriated by the Soviets' withdrawal in the face of the U.S. ultimatum but Cuba alone did not have the power to act against either superpower. Nine months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev fell from power in October 1964. It is believed by political experts that this was due in large part to the humiliation suffered by the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Marxist-Leninist Cuba; Cuba was forced to direct virtually all its trade to the Soviet Union and its allies. The nation was plagued by shortages of foods, fuel, and other necessities. In 1965, Castro merged his revolutionary organizations with the Communist Party, of which he became First Secretary, with Blas Roca as Second Secretary; later to be succeeded by Raúl Castro, who as Defense Minister and Fidel’s closest confidant became the second most powerful figure in the government. Raúl Castro’s position was strengthened by the departure of Che Guevara to launch unsuccessful attempts at insurrectionist movements in Congo, and then they grew enough sugar beet to meet their own needs. In exchange, the Soviets suppliedize all this in exchange for the strategic asset of an ally under the nose the island-nation and both Mexico and Canada defied the U.S. by developing closer relations with Cuba. Both countries had hoped to foster liberalization in Cuba by allowing trade, cultural and diplomatic contacts to resume—in this they were disappointed, since there was no appreciable easing of repression against domestic opposition. Castro did stop openly supporting insurrectionist movements against Latin American governments, although pro-Castro groups continued to fight the military dictatorships which then controlled most Latin American countries. The Cuban. The storming of the Peruvian embassy in Havana in April 1980 by 7000 Cuban citizens seeking political asylum and the resultant permission granted for them to leave the nation, led to the "Mariel boatlift" to the U.S. later that month. In all, over 125,000 Cubans—some of them criminals released from prisons—emigrated to the United States before the flow of vessels ended on June 15. The two countries signed an agreement in 1987 allowing 20,000 Cubans to emigrate annually to the United States. Tens of thousands have arrived illegally to the United States and elsewhere since the days of the revolution, with an uncounted number who died at sea. Post-Cold War Cuba The demise. Castro’s popularity was severely tested by the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, which led to a cut off. However, they did recognize that to survive they needed to open up to capitalism. In 1993 Cuba began to legalize small family-owned businesses, such as restaurants and encouraged private employment. Independent farms and farmers markets bloomed the following year. Foreign capitalists were invited to the island, including Canadian and Spanish hoteliers. In 1996, Cuba shot down two small aircraft piloted by a Florida-based anti-Castro group. This led to the passing of the Helms-Burton law, which threatened U.S. sanctions against foreign-owned companies investing in Cuba. In 1997, Christmas was restored as a national holiday, as the nation anticipated a visit by Pope John Paul II the following year. There was an influx of tourists, vastly improving the economy. During this time many Cubans began to question the future of socialism. By the late 1990s. Castro again drew international criticism when, in 1999, prominent dissidents were jailed and repressive laws were enacted. Transfer of the presidency Castro maintained a firm grip on power, however, speculation grew on the state of his health, and rumors abounded. was initially described as temporary while Castro recovered from surgery undergone after suffering from an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding." He was too ill to attend the nationwide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Granma boat landing on December 2, 2006, which fueled speculation that Castro had stomach cancer. On February 19, 2008, Fidel Castro announced that he was resigning as President of Cuba. Five days later, Raúl Castro was elected as the new President of Cuba. In his acceptance speech, Raúl Castro promised that some of the restrictions that limit Cubans' daily lives would be removed. Government and politics Following the enactment of the Socialist Constitution of 1976, which was adopted without following the procedures laid out in the Constitution of 1940, the Republic of Cuba was defined as a socialist state. This constitution was replaced by the Socialist Constitution of 1992, the present constitution, which claimed to be guided by the ideas of José Martí, and the political ideas of Karl Marx, Engels and Lenin.[17] The present constitution also ascribes the role of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) to be the "leading force of society and of the state." The first secretary of the Communist Party is concurrently President of the Council of State (President of Cuba) and President of the Council of Ministers (sometimes referred to as Prime Minister of Cuba).[18] Members of both councils are elected by the National Assembly of People’s Power.[19] The President of Cuba, who is also elected by the Assembly, serves for a five-year term and there is no limit to the number of terms of office.), is the supreme organ of State power and has 609 members who serve five-year terms. The assembly meets twice a year, between sessions legislative power is held by the 31 member Council of Ministers. Candidates for the Assembly are approved by public referendum. All Cuban citizens over 16, while activity within Cuba by opposition groups is minimal and illegal. neighborhood that the Cuban government does not meet the minimal standards of a democracy, especially through its lack of multi-party contests for seats and the limitations on free speech that limit a candidate's ability to campaign.[20], extra-judicial executions.[21] Dissidents complain of harassment and torture. While the Cuban government placed a moratorium on capital punishment in 2001, it made an exception for perpetrators of an armed hijacking two years later. Groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued reports on Cuban prisoners of conscience.[22] Opponents claim the Cuban government represses free expression by limiting access to the Internet.[23] The Cuban government denies the International Committee of the Red Cross access to its prisons and many human rights groups including Amnesty International are denied entry to Cuba. Trade unions There are unions in Cuba, with a membership totaling 98 percent of the island's workforce. Unions do not register with any state agency, and are self-financed from monthly membership dues. Their supporters claim that union officers are elected on an open basis, and differing political views are found within each of the unions.,.[24] Provinces and municipalities. The provinces are further divided into 169 municipalities.. The government now spends roughly 1.7 percent of GDP on military expenditures. Economy percent and the private sector at 22 percent compared to the 1981 ratio of 91.8 percent to 8.2 percent.[25] Capital investment is restricted and requires approval by the government. The Cuban government sets most prices and rations goods to citizens. After the 1959 Cuban Revolution, citizens were not required to pay a personal income tax (their salaries being regarded as net of any taxes). However, in 1996, the State started to impose income taxes on Cubans earning hard currency, primarily the self-employed.[26], with large investment in tourism infrastructure this growth rate is predicted to continue. In 2003, 1.9 million tourists visited Cuba, predominantly from Canada and the European Union, generating revenue of $2.1 billion.[27] The rapid growth of tourism during the Special Period had widespread social and economic repercussions in Cuba. This has led to speculation of the emergence of a two-tier economy. In recent years, since the rise of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan economic aid has enabled Cuba to improve economically. Venezuela's assistance.[28]. This number is influenced by the fact that the U.S. government forbids its citizens to send more than $1,200 to Cuba. In 2001, studies showed that the average Cuban's standard of living was lower than before the downturn of the post-Soviet period. Paramount issues have been state salaries failing to meet personal needs under the state rationing system which is.[29] In 2006 Cuba exported $2.956 billion, and imported $9.51 billion in goods.[30] Its major export partners are the Netherlands, Canada and China; major import partners are Venezuela, Spain and the United States. Cuba's major exports are sugar, nickel, tobacco, fish, medical products, citrus, coffee and skilled labor. Imports include food, fuel, clothing, and machinery. Recently, large reserves of oil were found in the North Cuba Basin sparking interest from other nations as well as calls from politicians in the U.S. to relax the Cuba trade embargo.[31] Cuba presently holds debt in an amount estimated to be $13 billion. Demographics According to Cuba's official 2002 Census, the Cuban population was 11,177,743, including 5,597,233 men and 5,580,510 women. [32] The racial make-up is 51 percent mestizo (mixed Native American and white) and mulatto (mixed white and black), 37 percent white, 11 percent black, and 1 percent Chinese. DNA studies throughout the Antilles region have suggested that the contribution of indigenous neo-Taíno Nations to the local populations may be more significant than formerly believed. The Chinese population in Cuba is descended mostly from laborers who arrived in the nineteenth century to build railroads and work in mines. After the Industrial Revolution, many of these laborers stayed in Cuba because they could not afford return passage to China. The Cuban government controls the movement of people into Havana on the grounds that the Havana metropolitan area (home to nearly 20 percent of the country's population) is overstretched in terms of land use, water, electricity, transportation, and other elements of the urban infrastructure. Cuba also shelters a population of non-Cubans of unknown size. There is a population of several thousand North African teen and pre-teen refugees. Cuba's birth rate (11.44 births per thousand population in 2007) is one of the lowest in the Western Hemisphere.[33]. The decrease in fertility rate - from 3.2 children per woman in 1970 to 1.38 in 2006 - is the third greatest in the Western Hemisphere, with only Guadeloupe and Jamaica showing larger decreases.[34] Cuba, which has unrestricted access to legal abortion, has an abortion rate of 58.6 per 1,000 pregnancies in 1996 compared to a Caribbean average of 35, a Latin American average of 27, and a European average of 48. Additionally, contraceptive use is estimated at 79 percent.[35] twentieth century. Between 1900 and 1930, close to a million Spaniards arrived from Spain. Since 1959, over a million Cubans have left the island, primarily to Miami, Florida, where a vocal, well-educated and economically successful exile community exists.[36] The emigration that occurred immediately following) to limit emigration to the United States. Under this, the United States grants a specific number of visas to those wishing to emigrate (20,000 per year since 1994) while those Cubans picked up at sea trying to emigrate without a visa are returned to Cuba.[37]. Citizens of Cuba must obtain an exit permit before they may leave the country. Human Rights Watch has criticized the Cuban restrictions on emigration and its alleged keeping of children as "hostages" in order to prevent defection by Cubans traveling abroad.[38] Society and include basketball, volleyball and track.. Cuban literature began to find its voice in the early nineteenth-revolutionaryain,. Education Historically, Cuba has had some of the highest rates of education and literacy in Latin America, both before and after the revolution. All education is free of charge to Cuban citizens including university education. Private educational institutions are not permitted. School attendance is compulsory from ages six to the end of Basic secondary education (normally University of Havana was founded in 1728 and there are a number of other well established colleges and universities. The Cuban Ministry of Higher Education also operates a scheme of Distance Education which provides regular afternoon and evening courses in rural areas for agricultural workers. Education has a strong political and ideological emphasis, and students progressing to higher education are expected to have a commitment to the goals of the Cuban government.[39] Public health The Cuban government operates a national health system and assumes full fiscal and administrative responsibility for the health care of its citizens. Historically, Cuba has long ranked high in numbers of medical personnel and has made significant contributions to world health since the nineteenth century. According to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, life expectancy and infant mortality rates in Cuba have been comparable to Western industrialized countries since such information was first gathered in 1957. In-depth examination of WHO statistics for Cuba reveals that these statistics are prepared by each government and published unchanged by WHO; thus they have been called into question.[40] Religion and religious freedom Cuba has a multitude of faiths reflecting the island’s diverse cultural elements. Catholicism, brought to the island by Spanish colonialists at the beginning of the sixteenth century, is the most prevalent professed faith. However, after the revolution, Cuba became an officially atheistic state and severely restricted religious practice. Since 1991, restrictions have been eased and, according to the National Catholic Observer, direct challenges by state institutions to the right to religion have all but disappeared, though the church still faces restrictions of written and electronic communication, and can only accept donations from state-approved funding sources.[41] The Roman Catholic Church is made up of the Cuban Catholic Bishops' Conference (COCC), led by the came to Cuba, and in effect reinvented their African religions. They did so by combining them with elements of the Catholic belief system, with a result very similar to Brazilian Umbanda. Catholicism is often practiced September 8. Other religions practiced are Palo Monte, and Abakuá, which have large parts of their liturgy in African languages. Protestantism, introduced from the United States in the eighteenth. Havana has three active synagogues and no mosque.[42] Most Jewish Cubans are descendants of Polish and Russian Jews who fled pogroms at the beginning of the twentieth century. There is, however, a sizable number of Sephardic Jews in Cuba, who trace their origin to Turkey (primarily Istanbul and Thrace). Most of these Sephardic Jews live in the provinces, although they do maintain a synagogue in Havana. In the 1960s, almost 8000 Jews left for Miami. In the 1990s, approximately 400 Jewish Cubans relocated to Israel in a co-ordinated exodus using visas provided by nations sympathetic to their desire to move to Israel. Michael Cromartie, the chair of the federally-funded U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, commented in February 2008 on the state of religious freedom in Cuba: "… While we have no illusions about Raul Castro's political views, the Commission sees Fidel Castro's resignation as an opportunity for Cuban officials to reform their repressive practices. Cuba's future is best assured by fully protecting, in law and practice, the fundamental freedoms of religion, expression, association and other human rights. The Commission calls on the U.S. government and its allies to send this message clearly to Cuba's new leadership.."[43] Notes - ↑ Cuban Peso Bills. Central Bank of Cuba. Retrieved January 3, 2012. - ↑ National symbols. Government of Cuba. Retrieved January 3, 2012. - ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Central Intelligence Agency, Cuba The World Factbook. Retrieved January 3, 2012. - ↑ Government type (most recent) by country, Nationmaster.com. Retrieved January 3, 2012. - ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2010, Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas, República de Cuba. Retrieved January 3, 2012. - ↑ Value was rounded down to the nearest hundred. - ↑ From 1993 to 2004 the United States dollar was used alongside the peso until the dollar was replaced by the convertible peso - ↑ Anthony DePalma, July 5, 1998, Cuban Site Casts Light on an Extinct People, The New York Times. Retrieved August 15, 2007. - ↑ Ed Elizondo, Historia de las Guerras de Liberación de Cuba. The Ten years war, Retrieved July 28, 2007. (in Spanish and English) - ↑ J.A. Sierra, The Little War.Historyofcuba. Retrieved July 28, 2007. - ↑ Hugh Thomas. 1971. Cuba, the pursuit of freedom. (New York: Harper and Row. ISBN 0060142596) - ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Cuba, Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved August 29, 2007. - ↑ T. J. English. Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution. (New York: Wm. Morrow, 2008. ISBN 0061147710) - ↑ Jonathan Alter, April 21, 2006, Review: The Man Who Invented Fidel, International Herald Tribune. Retrieved August 31, 2007. - ↑ Thomas E. Bogenschild, 1998. Dr. Castro's Princeton Visit, April 20-21, 1959, Program in Latin American Studies, Princeton University. Retrieved July 29, 2007. - ↑ Servando Gonzalez, Fidel Castro Supermole, Guaracabuya. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, 1992. Cubanet. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ BBC News online. May 25, 2007. Country profile: Cuba, Retrieved September 1, 2007. - ↑ Organization of American States. October 4, 1983. Inter-American commission on Human Rights, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Cornell University Law School. TITLE 22 CHAPTER 69A § 6021 U.S. Code Collection, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Organization of American States - Comision Inteamericana de Derechos Humanos. Information on human rights in Cuba, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Amnesty International. Cuba, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Reporters Without Borders. Cuba, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Cuba Verdad. Is Cuba a "Workers Paradise"?, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ oxfamamerica.org. Cuba Social policy at the crossroads, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ New York Times. November 26, 1995. Well-to-Do in Cuba to Pay an Income Tax, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ U.S. Department of State. Cuba Profile, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ U.S. Department of State. Cuba Profile, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Schweimler, Daniel. May 4, 2001. Cuba's anti-corruption ministry BBC News. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ CIA:The World Fact Book. Cuba, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Laura Smith-Spark, September 11, 2006. Cuba oil prospects cloud US horizon, BBC News. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Government of Cuba. Cuban Census, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ CIA World Factbook. Cuba, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Population Division of the United Nations Secretariat.World Fertility Patterns 1997, Retrieved September 1, 2007. - ↑ Stanley K. Henshaw, Susheela Singh and Taylor Haas, 1999, The Incidence of Abortion Worldwide, The Alan Guttmacher Institute - International Family Planning Perspectives. Retrieved September 1, 2007. - ↑ Rolando García Quiñones, International Migrations in Cuba: persisting trends and changes, SELA. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ history.acusd.edu. Clinton Presidency 1993-2000, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Overview: Cuba, Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Laninia Gasperini, The Cuban Education System: Lessons and Dilemmas. World Bank. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ John Dorschner, January 29, 2007, Nation's fabled healthcare may not be so healthy, Miami Herald. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ David Einhorn, March 31, 2006, Catholic church in Cuba strives to reestablish the faith, National Catholic Observer. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Sheikh Muhammad Al-Aboudy. Islam in Cuba, Islam Awareness. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Cuba: USCIRF Urges Full Protection of Freedom of Religion, Other Human Rights Washington, DC: United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, February 26, 2008. Retrieved December 4, 2008. Sources and further reading - Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Cuban missile crisis, Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved August 31, 2007. - Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Cuba, Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved August 31, 2007. - Azicri, Max. 1988. Cuba: politics, economics, and society. (Marxist regimes series.) London: Pinter Publishers. ISBN 0861874064 - De la Cova, Antonio Rafael. 2007. The Moncada attack: birth of the Cuban Revolution. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 1570036721. - Farber, Samuel. The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered. Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2006. ISBN 0807856738. Using declassified Soviet and US documents. - Gott, Richard. 2004. Cuba: a new history. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300104111 - Kennedy, Robert F. 1969. Thirteen days: a memoir of the Cuban missile crisis. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0393318346 External links All links retrieved July 20, 2013. - Official - (English) Granma International edition of Communist Party of Cuba Newspaper - (Spanish) Cuban Portal - Other sites relating to Cuba - (English) Cuba Verdad (The truth about Cuba) - (English) Full Text of the 1899 Cuban Census at University of South Carolina Library's Digital Collectionsa (Dec 31, 2006) history - Fidel_Castro (Dec 31, 2006) history Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.

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A-line silhouette. Tulle underlay. Hits at mid calf; approx. 33 Inches long. -. - Powder Blue Floral Burnout Midi Skirt$37 windsorstore.comWith an elastic waist and a midi hem, this skirt features a sheer floral overlay. Skirt is partially lined. Belt not included. Try pairing it with a white crop top and our cap toe vinyl heels. Approximately 31” side seam. 100% Polyester. Hand wash cold. Do not bleach. Line dry. - Caroline Constas Pleated Chiffon Midi-skirt$260 scoopnyc.comThis pleated Caroline Constas skirt is as versatile as it is timeless. Midi length, the top is raw edged with a banded waist. - Belle Heart Black Leather-Look Midi Skirt$37. - XOXO Women's Scuba Tailored Midi Pencil Skirt$49 amazon.comPencil skirt -. - Naf Naf Striped Midi Skirt$63 lipsy.co.ukFlared cut skirt, high waist. Two-coloured texturized fabric, pleats on the waist. - Banana Republic Womens Ivory Ponte Midi Skirt Size 0 Petite - CocoonBanana Republic Ivory ponte knit midi skirt with on seam pockets. Banded waist. Invisible back zip. On seam pockets. Fully lined. High waist fit. Sits at the natural waist. Skirt length: Petite: 28"; Regular: 30"; Tall: 32". -. - Wayf Pleated Midi Skirt - Yellow/White$88 shopbop.comA Black and white stripe midi skirt$45 $89 riverisland.comFree delivery on $75+This timeless black and white stripe midi skirt will become the mainstay of your year-round wardrobe. So versatile and chic, this fashion favourite is one that will look stylish year after year. Model's height: 176.5cm/5'9. - Finders Keepers Women's Starting Over Print Midi Skirt - Rose Print Dark$63 $155 thehut. -. - OSTWALD HELGASON Woven Midi Skirt$665 brownsfashion.comThis season Ostwald Helgason combined their sports-lux silhouettes with new experiments with fabric. This skirt, cut with a full midi shape, is made from a silver weave with red embroidery - we think it's perfect with a simple white T-shirt. Ribbed waistband. Concealed rear zip with hook and eye fastening. Full midi skirt. - Miss Selfridge Suedette Midi SkirtTan suedette midi skirt. 93% Polyester,7% Elastane. Machine wash. - Miss Selfridge Petite Metallic Midi Skirt, Purple$37 $82 johnlewis.com. - Promo-Lavender De La Creme Crepe Midi Skirt$22 $33 windsorstore.comThe best of spring fashion has arrived! This full midi skirt features 2 layers of pleated crepe overlay. Skirt is fully lined with an elastic waist. Approximately 24" side seam. 100% Polyester. Hand wash cold water. Do not bleach. Hang dry. - AX Paris Patent Midi Skirt in Black$12 $33 axparis.comFabulous Patent Midi Pencil Skirt - by AX Paris This skirt is seriously sexy and perfect for a night out on town with the girls. The classic midi pencil skirt in a fabulous patent PU - truly stunning! Slip on this pencil skirt and make heads turn. This show-stopping skirt is totally sexy with just the right amount of sophistication thrown in. Approx length from centre back to hem: 59cm Fabric composition: 69% Polyester 25% Viscose 6% Elastane - Reiss pleat panel midi skirt. Crafted from a fluid, lightly textured fabric, the Rustin skirt in mint green is a chic, feminine way to add style to your separates collection. The skirt features a concealed zip to its reverse, a pleated panel to its front and an underlay skirt. - Grace Elements' classic pencil skirt adds instant appeal to everything from a classic button-front shirt to a casual short-sleeve tee. Polyester/spandex. Machine washable. Imported. Zipper closure at back. Pencil silhouette. Allover floral print. Unlined. Slit at back hem. Hits below knee; approx. Length: 27 inches. - Needle And Thread Net Midi Skirt$82 lipsy.co.uktulle midi skirt co ord. -. - Black Stretch Midi Skirt$19 newlook.com. -". - NY Collection Women's Printed Scuba Midi Skirt$30 $44 amazon.comPrinted midi skirt with mesh inset -. - Black Milano Midi Skirt$18 $39 wallisfashion.comFree shipping on all orders using the code FREEUSAThis. Color: BLACK. Item code: 244441001. - Needle & Thread Grid Mesh Embellished Midi Skirt$140 harrods.com. - Whistles Midi Stripe Jersey Tube Skirt$45 $89 whistles.comA modern classic, the midi skirt is a wardrobe staple. In a subtle stripe and soft jersey fabric, layer this with your favourite winter knit for the ultimate comfort outfit. - - Orla Kiely Women's Big Cat Jacquard Midi Pencil Skirt - Midnight$105 coggles.com Light pink satin box pleat midi skirt$22 $45 riverisland.comFree delivery on $75+Invest in one of this season's must-haves with this ultra-feminine light pink satin box pleat midi skirt. Featuring concealed zip back fastening. - Balenciaga Overlap Midi Skirt$1,095 balenciaga.comCrepe bonded skirt. Above the knee length. Asymmetric flap at front. Front pocket. Nucleus finishing. Invisible zip with hook at side. Made in France. - Miss Selfridge Graphic Floral Midi SkirtPink graphic floral print midi skirt. 100% Cotton. Machine washable. - Whistles Stripe Jersey Midi Skirt, Black$45 $89 johnlewis.comA staple addition to your on-duty wardrobe, this form-flattering midi skirt from Whistles is crafted from a beautifully soft cotton-blend jersey and detailed with a fine stripe throughout. Brand : Whistles. Material : 54% Acrylic, 46% Cotton. Shape : Pencil. Washing Instructions : Machine Washable. - Alice & You Maroon Lace Fit Midi Skirt$29 $44 dorothyperkins.comAlice & You Maroon Fitted Midi Skirt With Light Blue Lace Layer And Elasticated Waist. 74cm. 100% Polyamide. Hand wash only. Do not bleach. Do not tumble dry. Iron low heat. - OSMAN Metallic Midi Skirt$875 brownsfashion.com. - Triangle Midi Pencil Skirt$7.99 $30 windsorstore.comIn a triangle print, this midi skirt features an asymmetrical front zip. Body-hugging fit. Approximately 23.5" side seam. 95% Polyester. 5% Spandex. Machine wash cold. Lay flat to dry. Iron low. Do not dry clean. - A pretty palm print and racer-striped sides enhance the look of this trend-forward pencil skirt from Vince Camuto. Polyester/spandex. Machine washable. Imported. Back zipper closure. Allover palm print; solid stripes at sides. Pencil silhouette. Unlined. Hits at knee; approx. 24-1/2 Inches long. -. - First & I Blue Textured Skater Midi Skirt$33 newlook.comFirst & I. Introduce some vibrancy to your wardrobe with this bright blue midi skirt, perfect paired with the matching crop top and ankle strap heels. Fitted waist. Flared design. Mid length. Pleated detail. Matching crop top available. Model is 5’8”/176cm and wears UK 10/EU 38/US 6. -". - Lucy Paris Midi Skirt - Bloomingdale's Exclusive StripeNavigate the season in a maritime-striped skirt designed by Lucy Paris for Bloomingdale's. The midi silhouette makes its mark with navy lines, paired perfectly with deck-ready slip-on sandals. Polyester; lining: polyester. Dry clean. Imported. Pleated, concealed side zip closure, lined. - BCBGeneration Women's Elastic Midi Skirt$98 amazon.comUnapologetically girlish, this full midi skirt is that fun-to-wear piece you'll want to pair with everything. - AX Paris Knitted Textured Midi Skirt$13 $30 axparis.comSeperates are having their moment in the spotlight this season and through to next, get in on the hottest trend this season with this statement midi skirt. This skirt doesn't need any introductions why not wear it with our matching top Approx length from centre back to hem: 60 cm Fabric composition: 96% Polyester 4% Elastane -. - Alice + Olivia Box Pleat Midi Skirt - White -. -. - River Island Light pink soft woven belted midi skirt$22 $45 riverisland.comFree delivery on $75+Play up your feminine side with this light pink midi skirt. Featuring a soft woven design with a flowing pleated cut and waist belt. - Miss Selfridge Floral Organza Midi SkirtFloral organza midi skirt. 58% Viscose,42% Polyester. Machine washable. - By Malene Birger Women's Pleated Midi Skirt - Grey$160. - Free People Full Of Love Convertible Skirt$128 freepeople.comGauzey and flowy midi skirt featuring an ombre effect. Adjustable side ties with bell charms. 100% Rayon. Dry Clean. Import. -. - Orange Tropical Escape Midi Skirt$23 windsorstore.comWith a bold tropical print that pops, this midi skirt is fitted. Pair it with our never look back crop top and white ankle strap heels. This skirt is so warm weather ready! Approximately 25.5" side seam. 96% Polyester. 4% Spandex. Hand wash cold. Do not bleach. Hang or line dry. -. - Fat Face Midi Gypsy Floral Skirt, Phantom$22 $67 johnlewis.comOpt for winter florals with this Midi Gypsy Floral Skirt from Fat Face. A flattering A-line midi skirt crafted with pleat detail from the waistband, featuring a floral all over print. Team with a lace back vest for feminine luxe. Brand : Fat Face. Material : 52% Viscose, 48% Cotton. Lining: 100% Cotton. Shape : A-Line. Washing Instructions : Machine washable. - Update. - DKNY Laser-Cut Full Midi Skirt$295 bloomingdales.comPolyester/elastane/spandex; lining: polyester. Dry clean. Imported. Solid waist, concealed side zip with hook closure, allover laser-cuts, lined. - Little Mistress Floral Print Organza Midi Skirt$60 lipsy.co.ukA midi length skirt from Little Mistress. In a pretty blurred floral print organza fabric. Perfect teamed with the matching top for this season's hottest co-ordinated look. - XOXO Women's Striped Midi Skirt$40 $49 amazon.comPencil skirt - Nicole Miller PRE-ORDER: Poplin Full Skirt$295 nicolemiller.comSub". - White Waffle Textured Balloon Midi Skater Skirt$30 newlook.comDress down this white midi skirt with a printed sweater and plimsolls, for alternative daytime style. Simple sleeveless style. Fitted waist. Flared design. Waffle textured finish. Woven fabric. Model is 5’8”/176cm and wears UK 10/EU 38/US 6. -. - Reiss flared laser-cut midi skirt. Graphic cut-out detailing, feminine pleats and a flared silhouette elevate our Kayan midi skirt into high fashion territory. The midnight blue shade is beautifully versatile, while the deFined waist flatters the figure. - MARNI Midi Skirt with Contrast Stripe$1,315. - River Island Peach woven textured midi skirt$30 $67 riverisland.comFree delivery on $75+In the palest shade of peach, this bubble-texture woven skirt is your one-way ticket to a girly new season look. Cut for a midi length, it's a universally flattering choice for any special occasion. Our model wears a UK 8 and is 173cm/5'8'' tall. - Carven Embroidered Midi Skirt$535 harrods.com. - White Striped Ladylike Midi Skirt$30 windsorstore.comMidi length is all the rave—and this scuba pleated skirt is the perfect balance between feminine and sexy. Striped skirt features a side zipper. To complement the shape we love it paired with a fitted crop top. Finish the look with our black asymmetrical moto jacket and modish heels. Approximately 26'' side seam. 97% Polyester. 3% Spandex. Hand wash cold water. Do not bleach. - Miss Selfridge Crepe Midi SkirtOrange crepe midi skirt. 98% Polyester,2% Elastane. Machine washable. - Dorothy Perkins Silver sparkle midi skirt$29 $75 dorothyperkins.comSilver sparkle midi skirt. 49% Cotton, 42% Polyester, 9% Metallised fibre. Machine washable. - Go. - Miss Selfridge Textured Midi Skirt, Black$45 johnlewis.comStep out in style with this skirt from Miss Selfridge. This midi length skirt is crafted in an all-over textured material and features large front and back pleats for an elegant and feminine style. Finished with a zip fastening at the back. Team yours with a co-ordinating lace top for a versatile look that can take you from daytime outfitting to after-dark events. Brand : Miss Selfridge. Material : 98% Cotton, 2% Elastane. Shape : Flared. SS15 Skirt Trends : 50s Swing. Washing Instructions : Machine washable. - kate spade new york Lorella Floral Print Midi Skirt$348 bloomingdales.comPolyester; lining: polyester/elastane. Dry clean. Imported. Pleated waist, printed, A-line silhouette. Exposed gold-tone partial back zip closure, lined. - Black Sheer Stripe Midi Skirt$30 newlook.com. - MINKPINK Women's Find Me Guilty Stripe Midi Pencil Skirt$69 amazon.comFind me guilty maxi skirt. - Traffic People Midi Skater Skirt$89 lipsy.co.ukPretty red floral print prom skirt from Traffic People. -. - Banana Republic Womens Dot Jacquard Midi Skirt Size 0 Petite - Br black$100 ". - Free People Full Of Love Convertible Skirt$128 freepeople.comGauzey and flowy midi skirt featuring an ombre effect. Adjustable side ties with bell charms. 100% Rayon. Dry Clean. Import. - - AX Paris Crochet Midi Skirt$30 $52 axparis.comSeperates are having their moment in the spotlight this season and through to next, get in on the hottest trend this season with this statement midi skirt. This skirt doesn't need any introductions. Approx length from centre back to hem:63cm Fabric composition: 100% Polyester Lining. 100% Cotton Outer. -. - River Island Black leather-look pleated midi skirt$37 $89 riverisland.comFree delivery on $75+As far as skirt silhouettes go, the pleated A line midi has to be the most stylish staple. In a classic black leather-look fabric, this design can easily take you from coffee to cocktails. Featuring a high waisted cut and back zip fastening. - St. John Flared Midi Skirt$565. - Pleated midi skirt in cotton sateen. Soft knife pleats front and back. Neatly fitting across waist and hips. Invisible side zip with internal button fastening. Cool machine wash. 100% cotton. Made in Hong Kong. Delicate fabric - protect from jewellery or other sharp items that may catch or snag. - Miss Selfridge Tropical Midi SkirtFloaty midi skirt with side splits in yellow based tropical print. 100% Viscose. Machine washable. - Mint Pleated Midi Skirt$23 windsorstore.comThe shape and flare of this skirt will make a statement on its own. This midi length skirt is detailed with pleats and has an elastic waist. No zipper. Approximately 27.5" side seam 92% Polyester 8% Spandex Hand wash cold. Do not bleach. Line dry in shade. - Dorothy Perkins Poppy Lux Navy Midi Length Skirt$55 $69 dorothyperkins.comNavy midi skirt with a laser cut pleather detail near the bottom. Length 66cm. 95% Polyester,5% Elastane. Cold hand wash with similar colours. Iron inside out. Do not bleach. Do not tumble dry. - Textured stripes lend a classic look to this chic, sleek midi skirt from Bar III. Polyester/spandex. Machine washable. Imported. Pull-on styling. Pencil silhouette. Stretch-knit fabric. Allover stripes. Midi length. Unlined. Hits below knee; approx. 29 Inches.

>> Next Comments → I nourish my whole self – mind, body and spirit – with vibrant, vegan foods because it allows me to shine my brightest. It is both preventative and also healing for me to eat primarily raw foods in the Spring, Summer and Fall especially. Being a dance artist, food literally feeds my art. It is also a way to connect with community and family; sharing healthy, gorgeous food grown with care and prepared with love. I balance eating local, seasonal and raw, honouring my body’s constitution and the body of the earth at the same time. I delight in the beauty and medicine of food… Happy health everyone! I currently eat about 90% raw. I eat a lot of fresh fruit, juice regularly, totally vegan. I eat the way I do because last spring I suffered from Adrenal fatigue. It kicked my butt. I was grabbing processed foods and artificial sweeteners in hopes of getting more energy. I now have limitless energy I feel so great glad that I made the shift. And I always appreciate sites such as yours for great recipes and reading. I eat healthy because I have to– I am allergic to wheat, soy, peanuts and corn, and have IBS. Therefore, I am following a diet called Simple Carbohydrate, which means I can’t eat any grains, sugars (including lactose) or additives really. Lots of meat, fruits, veggies, butter and cheese and honey as a sweetener. About 60% of my diet is from raw food, and I love to bake using things like nuts, seeds and coconut. I started eating vegan almost three years ago. Because I practice Bikram yoga. There is nothing like a really hot and humid room to inspire attention to how you fuel your body. I was training hard for competitionand found eliminating animal products from my diet made me feel so much better. Stronger. More flexible. Last summer I started exploring raw foods. And yoga offered even more feedback. I feel better raw. I eat healthier raw. I pay more attention to my nutrition raw. I am probably 95% raw now. Very occassionally I have a cooked veggie or veggie chip or even rarer a sugary vegan dessert. But, I am lucky enough to have the four important appliances of rawness. Juicer, dehyrator, vitamix, and food processor. So, mostly I dig around online for inspiration and create rawesome foods that leave nothing to be desired! I honestly miss very little from my vegan/cooked life. And nothing from my times pre-vegan. There are so many amazing tools to help raw foodies transform natural and whole ingredients into rawmazing dishes who needs to cook?! And thank you so much for sharing your recipes and discoveries. Here’s toneating well and feelin great! I eat raw organic foods because I love my self and the planet. I eat Raw Organic foods and buy local and grow my own because it is as natural as you can get and as healthy as you can get. I eat this way because its the best way to get all the living nutrition you need to sustain yourself and thrive without negatively impacting the environment. Organic farming practices protect our soils, and maintain biodiversity, and don’t contribute to chemical run off into our water sheds, eating raw food also reduced my use of gas and electricity thus decreasing my carbon foot print, and doing a little bit on my part to protect planet earth. I am 90-95% raw. I chose the raw vegan journey recently and am at almost 85 percent raw. I am a struggling student and focusing my study on women’s health from a feminist holistic lens. I hope my journey will help other women to become self empowered using alternative health and integrative therapies to reclaim their health. Love the raw and would deeply appreciate the support. Peace and Raw I eat probably 40% raw. I have thyroid disease and I am trying to improve it by eating all organic, high raw diet. I just bought your raw desert books the other day from one of my fav. restaurants “Christophers Kitchen” in Palm Bch Gardens, FL. Its a mostly raw, vegan restaurant. I would love to have this machine to help me make some of the delicious sounding recipes in your book. thank you for all your posts! Gina Known as the “Green Smoothie Girl” at work, I live mostly on fresh salads, organic fruits, sprouted grains, raw nuts and whatever’s in my small but prolific garden. I love to cook so I’m about 60% raw and challenging myself to make it 80%. I encourage my husband, family and co-workers to live a healthier lifestyle and move away from the Standard American Diet of fast and processed foods. It’s been a journey and I still have lots to learn! I started eating a (mostly) raw diet as as a cleansing experiment and I felt so great that it just stuck. The percentage of raw food I eat varies with the season, but spring in Seattle is a great time to start upping the raw intake again. Right now I’m probably at 40% raw and feeling great, but definitely looking forward to eating 80% raw this summer. I’m about 60% raw but looking forward to bump that up when the local farmers’ market opens in a few weeks. =) I eat healthy to help keep my mental health problems at bay and because plant-based diets with minimal cooking are best for the earth and everyone on it. Would so love this. Got started on my new path to health while under going chemo for a brain tumor. Stubbled across “Food Matters” to watch then started watching and reading what I could. Now studying with IIN and loving my new ways- Love your raw brownies by the way right now I’m about 70/30 and working towards more. I don’t count my juicing so it might be more than 70- lots of veggies go into one glass of juice- love my juice!!!!! Completely forgot- LOVE NACHO KALE CHIPS!!!!! This looks amazing! Thank you for all the tips and recipes! My belief is that this body is truly a vehicle in this lifetime, so I choose to take care of it, only feed it the best organic, raw, and local foods. I have been playing around in the kitchen for 2 decades with vegan/raw food preperation. I am so grateful to feel vibrant and full of energy. I was a 100% raw foodist for 2 years and transitioned into eating cooked food again as I began growing more and more of my own food. I am a farmer on the island of Oahu and love providing local organically grown food for the community and friends. I have a raw food booth at the farmers market here on my side of the island. I would love to see what is available for me to make once receiving a new fun tool like this in the kitchen. Much love and aloha. Keep sharing these beautiful recipes! Mahalo. In1996 I worked in a famed Chicago raw restraunt, rare for its times. I was so healthy and glowing. Fast forward to now I haven’t been raw since then, but now with resources from the Internet I can easily draw from lots of menus rather than relying on memory what I did there. Now I’m 90 raw, in the last month I dropped my body mass index count 4 points, shed 10 pounds and enjoy the flavorful assortment of raw foods. Other stuff I used to make now seems so bland! Since I had a background working with raw I knew a lot about it already, so it was just a matter of hauling out the dehydrator I bought from the thrift store and getting out my old sprouting jars. I’m so happy! I wonder if the honey moon will wear off when it gets real cold here. The only thing I haven’t done is grind….hope I get to try it, my husband will be over the moon if I win this! I eat healthy to help maintain a healthy body and lifestyle, and because I feel better when I do. About 15% of my food is consumed raw. I plan to live to be ~125 years old, so I need to eat live foods to maximize my health for the long haul. I eat about 35% raw foods. We eat healthy because my temple functions better on God created food, not chemicals. Currently I’m eating some days 100 percent raw and other days 25. Have to go with the flow but always striving toward the optimun health promoting diet!! Two years ago I had my first Cancer scare. Exactly a year later I had another scare for a mass was found in my lung. All Dr’s told my husband and I that it was cancer and. After 6+ hrs of surgery I was told it wasn’t and it went to our state to be dissected So we began to investigate and changed out diets. We now have Kefir water daily, eating whole foods and vegetables. Growing more this year than ever! I’ve learned to can (water/pressure) for our freezer became overfilled. Now it’s been a year and the only hill we haven’t hit is whole grains. It would be nice to be able to grind ourself (make bread every weekend) to get better nutrients. I am stronger daily and even my husband is passing on all of our knowledge we’ve been learning from herbs and all. I am very interested in eating healthily, but I don’t like to call it that. I think if you eat well, it tastes better, you enjoy it more, and your body and mind are happier. I only came to raw food relatively recently and am now trying to eat more, and teach my three children to eat more. Recently I’ve been offered to go into the local primary school and run some raw food sessions with the children and was looking into trying to get a flaking machine to take in to show them where their cereals come from and how they are processed… winning this would be great as I’d prefer to spend the school’s budget on high quailty raw ingredients for the sessions. I love your blog and that you are spreading the word. Thank you. Our family of 5 eats a healthy diet for our bodies (obviously). We also eat a (50% raw) vegan diet because it helps our fellow Earthlings and the community, locally and globally. It would be awesome to win this dual machine!!!! I have been eating healthy food for 40 years now, and it pays off everyday, as I see friends and family members, that used to tell me that I was going to die for not eating meat, and a fanatic for being picky about what I ate, now they are breaking down, ailments are cropping up all the time, spending more and more time at the doctors, they now see that what I have been doing is keeping me healthy, and never seeing a doctor, this is the state of living that we are suppose to be in. I am 75% raw, and all Whole Food. I’m new to the raw food movement, I would be at about 20% at the moment and I’m researching on a daily basis to increase my raw food intake. Family illness and a change of career have made me change the way I want to live. Sit down jobs should be illegal!!! I have a new baby daughter as well and I want to be healthy to ensure my longevity to her but also to install healthy eating habits early in her life. What an awesome giveaway! I just had our 7th beautiful baby and as we all know the older we get the harder it is to loose the extra few pounds gained during a pregnancy. I LOVE to cook and bake for my family, Im really picky about what my kids eat and have a hard time eating any where but home – due to all the “extras? that are added in foods these days. I pack lunches for the kids, make breakfast, dinners and snacks. It is more time consuming and expensive to eat raw/organic but so worth it! We are 50% raw and love how amazing it helps us feel! Eating healthy makes me feel better about myself, gives me more energy, and makes me feel and look better in my clothes. I know exercise is only half the battle and in order to truly be healthy, my eating needs to be as well. Right now, my diet is probably about 40-50% raw. I LOVE eating healthy because it helps me to look and feel great! I am currently studying foods and nutrition and also run varsity track and field and cross country, so I know well the strong connection between what you fuel your body with and the performance you get out of it. The better I eat, the better I run, what other reason do I need? I would say I eat about 50/50 when it comes to raw food, probably more heavily on the raw side in the spring-summer months. I LOVE making overnight oats and “lara bar” bars and bites, as well as lots of crisp salads and fresh sandwiches. Not to mention all that delicious fresh fruit! Good afternoon I eat healthy because I love the way I feel when I do and more importantly want to avoid being sick and suffering from eating the wrong types of food. My typical diet consists of about 75% raw. There are weeks where it ebbs and flows, but every now and then a cupcake or piece of chocolate gets in the way.. Thanks for sharing your awesome blog with all of us. I bought a dehydrator a couple of years ago and your input helped me out a lot! cheers! I have been eating raw since 1977… a follower of Ann Wigmore, who was the true pioneer of the movement. I was a 25 year old mother nursing my 2cd son, and facing breast cancer. I lost my mother at age 6 in 1958 and was told because both my mother and I had cancer before menopause I had a 75% change of perishing within 5 years.This along with the rare form. I did not start eating “health” food because of it. I was blessed to be in a family that honored their body with good food and was a way of life. After years of staying pretty balanced (did not do treatment … only lumpectomy… rare in 1977) I stayed vibrant until moving in a home (unknown at time) insulated with urea-foam formaldehyde. Not only did it poison my system but decades later my family is still suffering from the exposure with various health issues. I started Gerson therapy in 1999 and because of my husband,who insisted that I follow the protocol exactly, I started with 50-70 % cooked food. What a toll on my body going from raw to cooked along with the detoxing protocol! With the cancer in my liver and bones, Charlotte Gerson explained they did not have a high success with liver involvement. I am still here despite many challenges. I went back to 75-80% in 2008 and now fully 100% raw since end of 2009 when my son had to move back to Houston. My husband left in 2008 when Hurricane Ike destroyed our home so now I am limited on funds. This grain maker would allow me to make many foods for me and my son’s family who are trying to nourish their children as I nourished them.If I had extra I would of bought it years ago.I don’t like using the Vitamix because of the heat generated when processing grains. My Vitamix (commercial model) that I saved for back in early 1980 is STILL going strong. These are tools I plan on passing down to my family!!!! I love your website it celebrates food while bringing education and nourishment!!! i eat healthy because ‘that’s the way mama raised me’. i always felt like i would fit in well with dawn in the babysitters club. i am so grateful!! i am doing the same with my own girls. . love your blog! so inspiring! i eat probably 75% raw…. i am trying to be better! thanks !! I eat raw because my body ‘tells’ me this is this best tasting and best feeling way to eat. Processed and contaminated foods have put me in a state of lethargy and constant pain and it’s discouraging that it is so difficult to conveniently obtain and afford to eat healthy but there are ways to do it, so the journey is a long one to higher raw percentages. Currently I am at about 40-50% raw, mostly consisting of whole raw fruits and veg rather than recipes but in time I’ll make time to do those regularly. I love oats, they’re so filling, incredibly healthy and versatile – this grinder would be great to win! Hi, good afternoon! I eat healthy and 70% raw because it makes me feel so energetic and so I can remain in top form for my husband and continue giving the best of care for my Mom; I want to be around for her 95th birthday and his too! Adding raw organic foods to our diet has gotten my Mom off her myriad Rx’s and kept us all away from mainstream medical institutions. I am more productive and have more energy when eating this way. Raw soaked grains are being added weekly to our menu, and this machine will really help with that. I love eating healthy because it directly affects how I feel on a moment-to-moment basis. Plus, I like that it’s better for the planet. Healthful food requires less energy going to processing, cooking, and farming. Because I have a mild raw food allergy (leading to an allergic lip reaction), I eat only about 10% of my food raw. But I enjoy it deeply! Thank you for the excellent recipes and fun stories. I like to eat healthily because it makes me feel good, makes my body feel strong! We eat about 40 to 60% raw. Love your recipes, thanks xxx I eat healthy because I love and respect my body and love to feel amazing! I went vegetarian over 7 years ago, when I was 16, and less than 2 years later I had to cut out gluten because my body was having very uncomfortable reactions to it… even in the slightest amounts. I was definitely not a healthy-eating vegetarian – lots of gluten free breads, pastas and cheese, and not so many veggies. Over 3 years ago I was introduced to the raw-vegan lifestyle, decided to give it a shot, and within a couple weeks I felt SO much better. I still do. I’m continuously improving my diet by eating more organic foods, local foods, sprouting all my nuts and seeds, and juicing (including wheatgrass). My diet is about 85-95% raw vegan foods, depending on the season. This website has helped keep me inspired and enjoying delicious nourishing foods. Thank you Susan and the rest of Rawmazing! I am eating healthy because I decided, finally, that it was time to take care of me! 70% raw! I started eating raw about 10 years ago and have not looked back. I am 98% raw and lovin it. It all started by going vegetarian and slowly transitioned to raw. I was tired of feeling like crap and this is the best for me. As for the grinder, I could put it to good use. Thank you for all of your great recipes and contributions to the raw lifestyle. Take care, Paul Le May We enjoy introducing others to our majority raw and vegan food diet at communal dinners, bringing “mystery” meals, sides and condiments which we encourage people to discover. It’s always fun and seldom do we experience rejection! We find it particularly easy to slip in seasonal food, like avocado/cucumber soups in summer and kale salads in winter. Fun stuff. I have been moving away from the mainstream American diet since I was diagnosed with type II diabetes. I am strongly against taking drugs to mask symptoms and rather have decided to heal my body through diet and exercise. I’ve gone from experimenting with almond and coconut flour to shifting into Paleo. I recently found a documentary on raw food curing diabetes in 30 days. So I’m excited to see if a raw foods lifestyle can heal my body… I am about 95% raw. I have been for 4 months. The first two months i lost twenty pounds and my energy level has been awesome. I love your web site. My 5 year old has had digestive problems since birth! My husband has just recently started experiencing unexplainable health issues. After much research I decided to alter the way our family eats! We are trying to live by the 80/20 rule which works out to 4 cooked meals a week! Pasta and breads are on our top favorites list and this would help me to make the healthiest version! I have been eating healthy all of my life, and with more focus on meeting individual needs since my son was born just over 24 years ago. Always eating a high fruit and vegetable portion I began to slowly take meats and dairy out of my diet as I felt it may be why I was ‘always a bit tired and off in the stomach’. Now I would eat about 90% raw, with some grain breads and rice being cooked. My son has developed his own diet of mainly fruit and vegetables, but he does eat turkey meat. Both of us enjoy winters without colds, and have not been sick in a long time. I regularly have blood tests to ensure I am getting all required vitamins and in fact it is higher than when I was eating meats and dairy. Currently we are collecting more recipes to give us a wider choice of meal options. I have been vegetarian since 1997, but have actually gained weight from cheese. I have high blood pressure and the beginnings of type 2 diabetes. I have to make a major lifestyle change and raw vegan seems like a lifestyle I can comfortably live. I am only 5% raw at this time, but my husband is now on board and we are eating and giving our way through our pantry supplies and anticipate starting our 30 day raw vegan adventure in the next few weeks. 2 days ago was my 10 year anniversary of being diagnosed with a terminal stage 4 glioblastoma. My wife and I went 100% raw 9 years ago and have been mostly raw since. One of my favorite treats was Grandma’ss pecan balls, that was until we found out the oat groats are steamed prior to being rolled. I haven’t had a pecan ball in over4 years! Greetings! I have recently bought a breville juicer a coffe grinder a food processor a kombucha I always prided my self on eating pretty healthy but got really sick at Christmas and took a good look at my eating habbits! Since then i have really changed my ways! I eat apout 85 percent raw 10percent cooked and 5 percent chocolate starter and new salad master pots and pans! yikes ! i am really trying to teach my family good eating habits but its a challenge. I have foster children and sometimes when i get them they dont even know what a vegetable looks like let alone how wonderful they taste. I recently bought some bread starter to start making my own bread and a dehydrator to dry what i can. For the first time, we have planted a garden! I am excited! I love the subject of health and wellness and desire to pass on what i learn to others. My grown children think im a nut with my green smoothies that i make in my vita mixer…. I desire to eat the way that God intended us to eat, and teach others. …..sorry i could go on and on but will stop short! Blessings to you and all you do. Thank you for your time. kim aka kimcoolio:) I have started eating raw for a few reasons, I feel better when I do,so it tells me its so much better for me. As I get older I have noticed a big differance in my energy,we should all try to be healthy an get out an enjoy life….So good luck everyone I wish you all luck on your journey. I eat healthy because I like being able to wake up and actually feel good. I eat about a 40% raw diet I’ve always tried to be health conscious and I eat most of my food as close to it’s natural state as possible. Our food is being overprocessed and way too many unnecessary additives are being put into it. There’s no doubt that my food choices each and every day will add up to living a longer, healthier, independent life. I really enjoy exploring your posts for new, delicious ideas. After being told that I had skin cancer, I decided to take matters into my own hands and start eating raw. It turned out that I got my cheek cut up for no reason, as the pathology report on the biopsy showed it was an allergy and not cancer. Although my cheek is now scared, it was a relief. I went to see an iridologist, and she confirmed that I did not have cancer, but that my lymph nodes were swollen, my kidney and pancreas were enlarged and that it was just a matter of time, before I really did get cancer. That scared me enough to change my eating habits, and by eating 80-85% raw, I now have more energy, my concentration at work is so much better, my memory is back, and my eyes are turning blue. Who knew all these changes could occur because of a change in diet. The only challenge I have left is that I still cheat with chocolate treats, but I’m working on it. Everyday I look forward to your new recipes. I’ve tried the Raw Chocolate Strawberry Cheesecake and really impressed my non-raw eating friends. I served it with a fresh strawberry coulis made with strawberries and a bit of maple syrup. YUMMY! It was a hit. All that to say, win or not win the grinder, I am eternally grateful for your website. It has literally saved me for future cancers and I think I’m getting younger inside instead of aging. Thanks, I have especially eaten healthy since fighting cancer in 2013. I eat rawfoods about 90% of the time so I can feel my best. So sorry, I mistyped the year. It should be 2003. ← Previous Comments Next Comments →

Precisely two decades ago, a friend of mine insisted I go see a movie about the American West, a film made in Italy and shot partially in Spain. At the time, it was intellectually acceptable to be passionate about Italian films that limned the sick soul of Europe; the idea of an Italian western was oxymoronic – at best, like, oh, a German romantic comedy. What's more, in America the western as a genre seemed bankrupt, and going to see A Fistful of Dollars, which featured an international no-star cast headed by Clint Eastwood, some second-banana cowboy on an American TV series called Rawhide, promised to be entertaining in a manner the director, another unknown named Sergio Leone, probably never intended. My friend was a graduate student in philosophy, and she'd seen the movie three times because she thought it was "existential." The Clint Eastwood character was called the Man with No Name, and he went around rescuing people for no stated reason and outdrawing ugly, sweating bad guys who insulted his mule. A lot of the violence was stylized, tongue-in-cheek comic-book mayhem, and you couldn't take it very seriously, though several critics did just that, describing the film as "simple, noisy, brutish." This sort of abusive critical reaction didn't keep audiences away, but it did rather dampen the enthusiasm of philosophy majors who had seen smatterings of Sartre in the Man with No Name. Clint Eastwood starred in two more of the movies that came to be called spaghetti westerns, then he went back to Hollywood in 1967 to make Hang 'Em High, another popular success in spite of critical reactions like "emetic and interminable." By the early Seventies, an interest in Clint Eastwood movies among film buffs was considered a shameful and secret vice, like masturbation. In 1971, Don Siegel directed Eastwood in the enormously popular Dirty Harry, a movie that sent some critics into fits of apoplectic name-calling. "Fascist" was one of the kinder descriptions. That same year, Eastwood directed his first movie, Play Misty for Me. The studio had warned him against the project. Universal was reluctant to even pay him for a film in which he would play an easygoing, soft-spoken, jazz-loving disc jockey who inadvertently gets involved with a psychotic young woman. The movie opened to lukewarm but favorable reviews. Pretty good directorial debut, was the consensus, for some damn cowboy. Eastwood went on to star in three Dirty Harry sequels, all of which minted money at the box office. He directed nine more films, including the classic western The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). And though Eastwood could count on box-office success simply by whispering, "Dirty Harry," he often made choices that confounded his studios, critics and fans. self-destructive country singer. Tightrope (1984), Eastwood's depiction of a troubled cop in New Orleans, was both a critical and popular success. By the mid-Eighties, critics were having a difficult time defining Eastwood. Sudden Impact (1983), the fourth Dirty Harry movie, got strangely mixed notices. "The picture is like a slightly psychotic version of an old Saturday-afternoon serial, with Harry sneering at the scum and cursing them before he shoots them with his king-size custom-made '44 Auto Mag,' " scoffed one reviewer, while another felt that "many who have long dismissed Eastwood's movies as crude cartoons now suddenly understand that the violence has always been infused with self-irony and moral intelligence." The weight of opinion seems to be shifting toward the latter viewpoint. In an article in Parade magazine, Norman Mailer was adamant in his admiration: "Eastwood is an artist . . . You can see the man in his work just as clearly as you see Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms. . . . Critics had been attacking him for years over how little he did onscreen, but Eastwood may have known something they did not." The Los Angeles Times noted that women in Eastwood's movies have always been strong, interesting as both heroes and villains, and that "Eastwood may be not only one of the best, but the most important and influential (because of the size of his audience) feminist filmmaker working in America today." The French film review Cahiers du Cinéma noted the "self-parodying subtlety" in Eastwood's movies, while the London Daily Mail noted that Europe was discovering "hidden depths" in Dirty Harry. The New York Times Magazine ran a cover story on Eastwood the artist, appropriately titled "Clint Eastwood, Seriously." It would be pleasantly ironic to report that this reassessment of Eastwood's career has come on the heels of declining popularity at the box office, but the man who formerly had No Name is, by some accounts, the most popular movie star in the world. Theater owners named him the top moneymaking star of 1984 and 1985, a distinction he also won in 1972 and 1973. Since 1955, his forty films have grossed more than $1.5 billion, a figure that rivals the gross national product of some nations (Malta, Mauritania, the Netherlands Antilles, Rwanda, Tonga, Togo, Chad and Lesotho, among others). Moreover, a recent Roper poll found that Americans aged eighteen to twenty-four picked Clint Eastwood as their number-one hero. Ronald Reagan was a distant third (behind Eddie Murphy), which may account for the fact that the president of the United States has begun quoting from Clint Eastwood films when issuing challenges to Congress. For all his renown, Clint Eastwood in person is affable, a gentle man who speaks in a whisper-soft voice. At six four and 190 pounds, he is physically imposing, but there is none of the coiled-spring tension one senses in Dirty Harry. Of all the roles he has played, Eastwood in person seems most like the mild-mannered California jazz DJ he portrayed in Play Misty for Me, a man happily out of step with the times and secure in his private enthusiasms. He lives alone in Monterey, California, where he jogs, works out with weights, plans his next projects and is sometimes seen in the company of actress Sondra Locke. He has two children by his former wife, Maggie: a daughter, Alison, 14, who appeared in Tightrope, and a son, Kyle, 17, who costarred in Honkytonk Man. Eastwood is, as Norman Mailer noted, "a nice guy," a fifty-five-year-old man who has taken his chances and seems distantly amused by the sudden storm of critical acclaim after having weathered thirty years of dismissal and abuse. This year, Eastwood was invited to the Cannes film festival to show his eleventh directorial effort, Pale Rider, a western in which he also stars. The movie was warmly received, and in the press conferences that followed, the questions sounded like something my philosophical friend might have asked twenty years ago. One journalist wondered if, at the end of Pale Rider, Eastwood was really killing Sergio Leone, his artistic father. The actor thought this one over – that is the kind of question you have to answer when people start taking you seriously – and said, finally, that he didn't think so: Leone and he were the same age. Clint Eastwood understands that a good joke dies on the dissecting table, and like many of the characters he's portrayed on screen, he is often more interesting for the things he doesn't say than the things he does. Listen: You are, by some accounts, the world's most popular movie star. Do you sometimes wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, "Can that possibly be me?" I mean, does it surprise you? If I thought about it enough, it might. Yeah, I guess so. I guess you'd look back and say, "How did a kid from Oakland get this far?" I'm sure other people do that to some degree. It's like waking up with a hooker – how the hell did I get here? Let's start with A Fistful of Dollars. How did that come about? Well, at that time I'd done Ranhide for about five years. The agency called and asked if I was interested in doing a western in Italy and Spain. I said, "Not particularly." I was pretty westerned out on the series. They said, "Why don't you give the script a quick look?" Well, I was kind of curious, so I read it, and I recognized it right away as Yojimbo, a Kurosawa film I had liked a lot. When I'd seen it years before, I thought, "Hey, this film is really a western." Nobody in the States had the nerve to make it, though, and when I saw that someone somewhere did have the nerve, I thought, "Great." Sergio [Leone] had only directed one other picture, but they told me he had a good sense of humor, and I liked the way he interpreted the Yojimbo script. And I had nothing to lose, because I had the series to go back to as soon as the hiatus was over. So I felt, "Why not?" I'd never been to Europe. That was reason enough to go. You've said that in the original script, the Man with No Name shot off his mouth more than his gun. The script was very expository, yeah. It was an outrageous story, and I thought there should be much more mystery to the person. I kept telling Sergio. "In a real A picture, you let the audience think along with the movie; in a B picture, you explain everything." That was my way of selling my point. For instance, there was a scene where he decides to save the woman and the child. She says, "Why are you doing this?" In the script he just goes on forever. He talks about his mother, all kinds of subplots that come out of no-where, and it goes on and on and on. I thought that was not essential, so I just rewrote the scene the night before we shot it. Okay, the woman asks, "Why are you doing this?" and he says. . . . "Because I knew someone like you once and there was nobody there to help." So you managed to express ten pages of dialogue in a single sentence. We left it oblique and let the audience wonder: "Now wait a minute, what happened?" You try to let people reach into the story, find things in it, choice little items that they enjoy. It's like finding something you've worked and hunted for, and it's much more enjoyable than having some explanation slapped into your face like a wet fish. and I. To. . . . To think about it a little bit. You did two more of the Italian westerns with Leone: For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Yeah. The other two, the productions were glossier, more refined. The stories didn't mean a whole lot. They were just a lot of vignettes all shuffled together. I enjoyed them, they were fun to do. Escapism. And the American western at that point was in a dull period. But when Sergio approached me about being in some of the subsequent westerns, I thought it would be going too far. So I came back to Hollywood and did Hang 'Em High. Sergio was interested in expanding the size and scope of his films, and I was more interested in the people and the story line. I guess, selfishly, because I am an actor, I wanted to do something with more character study. You've described yourself as introverted. Do you think that's because you moved so much as a kid? Maybe, yes. We moved around California a lot. We lived in Redding, Sacramento, Hayward. My parents were married around 1929, right at the beginning of the Depression. It was a tough period for everybody, and especially a young guy like my dad who was just starting out. In those days, people struggled for jobs. Sometimes jobs didn't pan out, or they couldn't afford to keep you. We drove around in an old Pontiac, or something like that, towing a one-wheel trailer. We weren't itinerant: it wasn't The Grapes of Wrath, but it wasn't uptown either. It gives you a sort of conservative background, being raised in an era when everything was scarce. Once, I remember, we moved from Sacramento to Pacific Palisades because my father had gotten a gas-station attendant's job. It's still there, the station. It's at Highway 101 and Sunset Boulevard. Were you involved in any school activities? Yeah, I played a little basketball. Some football in junior high. I didn't really get involved in team sports, because we moved so much. I did some competitive swimming, and one of the schools I went to had a great gymnastics program, so I diddled with that for a while. I wasn't particularly suited for it, because I was so tall, but I liked it. I suppose used to be very knowledgeable. Then, up through the Forties, I used to go to those Jazz at the Philharmonic things. One time, they had Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Charlie Parker and a whole group of classic players. In fact, nowadays, when I talk to composers that are maybe ten years younger than I am, they're all jealous about that concert: "You saw those guys live!" You play some jazz piano yourself. Yeah, when I was a kid, I played. Fooled around with some other instruments, but I was lazy. I didn't really go after it. I just started again in the last few years. I've been diddling around with composition. Five or six things. I used one as my daughter's theme in Tightrope, and I also did the theme for the young girl in Pale Rider. I have some regrets that I didn't follow up on music, especially when I hear people who play decently. I played on one cut on the album for City Heat. After the session, Pete Jolly and Mike Lang and I were all talking about how we started out playing piano. We all started the exact same way, only those guys went on to really play. We began by playing blues: blues figures at parties. I was such a backward kid at that age, but I could sit down at a party and play the blues. And the gals would come around the piano, and all of a sudden you had a date. You had a country hit, "Barroom Buddies," a duet with Merle Haggard. When did you get interested in country music? Well, I think you can say that Merle Haggard had a hit and sort of dragged me along. I was never terribly knowledgeable about country music. The first real good taste of it I got was when I was eighteen or nineteen, working in a pulp mill in Springfield, Oregon. It was always wet, really depressing. Wintertime. Dank. I really didn't know anyone, and someone told me to go out to this place where there was a lot of country music. I wasn't very interested, but this guy told me there were a lot of girls there. So I went. I saw Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Unlike most country bands, they had brass and reeds and they played country swing. They were good. It surprised me a little bit, how good they were. Also, there were a lot of girls there, which didn't surprise me at all. So I guess you could say that lust expanded my musical horizons. Why didn't you follow up on the music? I was going to. I tried to enroll in Seattle University, where they had a good music program. I got my draft notice before I got in there, though, and ended up at Fort Ord [California]. And I guess I just failed away from music. half later. But it was a pretty good deal for a young guy. We had acting classes every day. Is that when you realized that being introverted could be an asset for an actor? That you could play on it? I don't know if I played on it consciously. I know that for many years before I became known for the way I act now, I played characters that were not terribly talkative. Economical characters. Some books – even Stanislavsky's people – discuss the fact that sometimes less can be best. Sometimes you can tell more with economy than you can with excess gyration. The Rawhide series was a great training ground. All of a sudden, everything you ever studied about being an actor you could put into play every day. It's one thing to work for a week in a Francis the Talking Mule picture – which was how it had been going for me – and another thing to be doing it all day for eight years. It's like the story of the great classical trumpet player they found one day playing in a baseball orchestra at Wrigley Field. Somebody recognized him and said, "My God, Maestro, what is the greatest classical trumpet player in the world doing playing in a baseball band?" He said, "You must play every day." In Rawhide, I got to play every day. It taught me how to pick up and run, how to make things up, wing things in there. The New York Review of Books recently ran an article about you that said, "What is most distinctive about Eastwood . . . is how effectively he struggles against absorption into mere genre, mere style, even while appearing, with his long-boned casualness and hypnotic presence, to be nothing but style." Do you want to comment on that? Well, yeah, style. Take guys like Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster. They're terrific actors, but their style is more aggressive. Both of them did some marvelous things and some films that weren't big hits but were great all the same: Douglas in Lonely Are the Brave and Paths of Glory; Lancaster in Trapeze. But their style was a little different than, say, Gary Cooper's or Henry Fonda's, because those guys were more laid-back, more introverted, and you were always leaning forward, wondering what they were thinking. With the Lancaster-Douglas school, there was never any doubt Fonda or Cooper: you were never quite sure with them. They had a mysterioso quality. Which is something you strive for: that little taste of ambiguity. Exactly. Let's go over a few of your films. Dirty Harry. There was something there I felt some people missed. One critic said Dirty Harry shot the guy at the end with such glee that he enjoyed it. There was no glee in it at all, there was a sadness about it. Watch the film again and you'll see that. Every Which Way but Loose. All of a sudden Norman Mailer comes out and says he likes this film, and because he's such a well-thought-of writer, people think, "Wait a second, maybe that wasn't such a bad movie after all.". Bronco Billy. It's about the American Dream, and Billy's dream that he fought so hard for. And it's all in the context of this outdated Wild West show that has absolutely no chance of being a hit. But it's sweet. It's pure. In the pivotal scene, Billy allows himself to be humiliated by the sheriff rather than allow his friend to be arrested. That played so against your established image: it must have been fun to do. Really fun. It was suggested that Billy come back at the end and punch this guy out. That would have ruined the picture, the whole theme of loyalty. Billy doesn't approve of this kid being a deserter, and he doesn't know enough to intellectualize what his friend's feelings were about the war in Vietnam. He just knows he doesn't approve but he's going to stick by his friend. Now if Billy had come back and kicked the crap out of the sheriff at the end, it would have wrecked all that. There's no real excuse for being successful enough as an actor to do what you want and then selling out. You do it pure. You don't try to adapt it, make it commercial. It's not Dirty Bronco Billy. Honkytonk Man. Red Stovall is based a bit on some self-destructive people I've known. He's wild and funny, but he's been a coward in his time. He won't face up to his ambitions. He's not that great a singer, but he writes some interesting things. When he gets his moment, he's already destroyed himself. And the studio suggested that it might be a good idea if Red didn't die in the end? I resisted that. Your new one, Pale Rider. It's a western. One of the earliest films in America was a western: The Great Train Robbery. If you consider film an art form, as some people do, then the western would be a truly American art form, much as jazz is. In the Sixties, American westerns were stale, probably because the great directors – Anthony Mann, Raoul Walsh, John Ford – were no longer working a lot. Then the Italian western came along, and we did very well with those; they died of natural causes. Now I think it's time to analyze the classic western. You can still talk about sweat and hard work, about the spirit, about love for the land and ecology. And I think you can say all these things in the western, in the classic mythological form. You, 1985 issue of Rolling Stone. Add a Comment

Celebrating. Bullcrap Obama. Get them out along with yourself. Go join your Taliban friends. Ahhhhhh, bush is the one who had the Taliban at his ranch in Texas. Since obama is going to be in Texas this week campaigning and golfing, think he is going to find time to go see first hand the drama at the border? I'll bet not! It would be too inconvient... obama/failed "The basic idea of welcoming immigrants to our shores is central to our way of life, it is in our DNA," Obama said -tell that to my Native American ancestors In addition don't forget the thousands who have played by the rules, payed the fees, waited, attended the court proceedings, and classes to take that vow and earn their citizenship. This is a poke in their eye and hardly a white-bred-'murrica vs. everyone else. If we use the same logic as applied here, since we've done something for so long then shouldn't we also be allowed to own slaves still? Shouldn't we be allowed to war with Canada and Mexico to expand our territory? We've always been a nation of expansion. According to Thomas Jefferson we are long overdue for another revolution. We've always been a country of revolution, so perhaps the President wishes that, too? As was said before, for being a law professor he sure is glazing over a whole lotta law (he isn't enforcing) under the cover of a lame excuse. Are we a nation of laws or a nation of anecdotally-supported excusable behavior under vague and not-unified senses of what other people feel should happen? I agree. Well said again Hero! Gee, hz, good to know you are a Constitutional law professor. Oh wait, you run a comic book store. Another right wingnut who thinks they know everything. Re: "Another right wingnut who thinks they know everything," You mean as opposed to a smoking, fat, lefty looney "who thinks they know everything"? “I've said you don't have to own a business to know how one works.” - brutus smith aka puppy, Oct. 2010 I'm not a Constitutional law professor. I certainly don't know everything. I have never claimed to do so. You seem to be the only one lauding me as having such mental superiority. It's because I DON'T know everything that I have this bad habit of citing all the research I do here to answer questions. Questions I go into with an open mind to better learn and be a better person. The secret's out: I'm no immaculate angel. As for my store? A small business in a downtown that struggles like many others? What a vile thing in America! On top of that, as you seem to know everything about me and it, did you know that my store is a place of art, music, literature, law, science, math, social studies, history, computers, competition, crafting, critical thinking, sportsmanship, and socializing? Did you know that my store is a haven for kids who are bullied and called names (like d-bag) by people who think they are better than they are? For kids who have broken or abusive homes? For kids on the autism spectrum or have other developmental disabilities? A place that happily works with the local police and ECJFS? Did you know that my mere "comic book store" mentors kids and teaches them to be better people? To think with open minds? To open their eyes and see that despite all the differences they have in race, religion, income level, etc. they are still brothers and sisters under the banner of social hobbies and reading? I'll just presume you did because you know everything about my store and what it does. There's a reason I post under its name here and am darn proud to do so. That reason is I come here to advocate all the things that I try to uphold in the above sentences. Posting under its name keeps me from thinking selfishly and illogically because I am having to represent the community with it as best I can. As such, they are aware I post. There are many times I pass around conversations here. Like I will do with this one. It's better for them to see just what kind of people post here to better understand just what life can do to a person. If it makes you feel better, you are a special kind of favorite to them. Sincerely, An imperfect human being, just like you Re: "Constitutional law," In the early days of our country, even simple country folk would discuss the Constitution. Think of the Lincoln-Douglas debates that went on for hours. People travelled several miles and took food with them in order to stay and listen. Nowadays, remember the old Jay Leno "Man in the Street" segments? H*ll most people couldn't name the VP of the U.S. when shown a picture. Re: "Native American ancestors," Subjugated tribes allied with Cortez to overthrow the rule of the Aztecs. The American aborigine learned to play the Europeans off against each other for their own benefit. The idea of the "noble savage" is a myth. They are and were human with all the faults and failings as any other group of people. The "Trail of Tears"? Seems the euros weren't too kind to the ones already here, and I don't believe the Indians were welcoming of immigrants coming on shore. Re: "Indians were welcoming of immigrants coming on shore."' Yea those subjegagted tribes enjoyed being brutalized by the Aztecs. Cortez fathered the first "Mexican" with a native woman. Many inhabitants in the Americas are a blend of several races and innumerable ethnicities. The "noble savage" is a romantic myth - they never existed. Treating the "Indians" and the "Euros" as collective peoples respectively leads to fallacious thinking. There were/are good and bad in each. You probably got the white man's account. Not probably, you did. Re: "white man's account." Blame the Indians for your tobacco addiction. :) The Natives were here first! Re: "The Natives were here first!" Out of uncontrollable guilt, feel free to "return" to your ancestral homeland. Yes we have. But decades ago, the only way one got is if they had a SPONSOR who would guarantee them a job and watch over them! It's amazing that the Harvard Law Professor doesn't remember the LEGAL way to immigrate. Busing in tens of thousands of children is going to bite him in the azz.... obama/failing Obama is a joke! Lets give them welfare, insurance and other benefits, while our veterans don't even get the health care they were promised! He needs to be impeached along with his whole cabinet! They are all tyrant morons who are looking to destroy this great country!!! Uh, Jeff? It was Congressional Republicans who voted in February to deny health benefits to veterans. Can we impeach them first? I'm with you on that one coasterfan, throw them all out of office, put in term limits and no D or R after their name on the ballot, force people to learn what they stand for and make an informed choice rather than what letter is behind their name on the ballot. Sure, then we can target Obama for failing to secure the borders. Despite having a law background, he sure has difficulty understanding the concept of securing our borders. Re: "health benefits to veterans." Deflection and off-topic. The bill was voted down because one tenth of the amount of it was for veterans, the democrats allocated the rest of the monies for completely useless "pet pork" for themselves! Please post a link to show the bill that was voted down coasterfan, I dare you to show your blind stupidity! obama/failed goofus/darwin, anything else you want to know? Re: "anything else you want to know?" The titles of the legislation tell you nothing, it's all about content and intent - next. Not even a good good try, azz hat! I know what the bills numbers are, why don't you list what's included in each and every one, and what monetary amounts are going for what projects! Go ahead moron, take a good look, see for your ignorant self where the money was headed!! Your incredible azz kissing stupidity is typical! It's too bad your near death experience was wasted on you! This country was founded by the white man. Oh, wait a minute, the native Americans and Mexicans were here 1st. Re: "Mexicans," Spanish. "Mexico" didn't exist as an independent country until 1821. Typical ignorance for a dumbed-down public school education. Honest to God how do these imbeciles survive? ROTFLMAO! I'll bet you didn't know that , Sugar. They were called Mexicas(1325-1521) before they were called Spaniards(1521-1821) then Mexicans (1821 +). And besides , words are only metaphors.... You took your answer from someone (unknown) on wiki answers? Really? And said answer was only printed because it was the first answer? This is the quality of your research? Really? The Mexica (Nahuatl: Mēxihcah, [meːˈʃiʔkaʔ];[1] the singular is Mēxihcatl [meːˈʃiʔkat͡ɬ][1]) or Mexicas — called Aztecs in occidental historiography, although this term is not limited to the Mexica — were an indigenous people of the Valley of Mexico, known today as the rulers of the Aztec empire. I saw the Wiki answers first and then I researched at least 6 sites which included the encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia. They all appeared to harmonize , so I went with the Wiki answers. Really. Fail jizzbo, give it up, you suck lol. You're another nobody , Miss Information , lol. Re: "This country," To quote you: “Our borders have become more secure than they ever were since Obama has been President.” - brutus smith aka doggie, June 16, 2011 Still stand by the above, fatty? Yes deuce pooh. Re: "Yes," So why the current flood across the border, fat nitwit? Dogg is dumb, there is no other way behind the posts. There are many dumb people on this forum, he is #1-3. Coaster and deer are the others. This country was founded by white guys. Might want to look up the definition of "country" and "continent" Two different things. Do you freakin people know anything? Re: "They want Obama to allow the children to stay." 60,000 at last count. H*ll, open up the borders. Let the teeming masses pour in and then truck all the "undocumented Americans" to DC. "H*ll, open up the borders. Let the teeming masses pour in and then truck all the "undocumented Americans" to DC." Send the kids to the 10 richest cities in the US. Let the 1% pay for room, board and schooling... They can afford it, (sarcasm) Why send them anywhere else? They deserve the best. Let them get after their pet congress critters to fix the problem... no moving the kids... they stay there till the problem is fixed. Re: "10 richest cities in the US" Not bad. However, IMO one better: Six of the ten richest counties in the U.S. surround DC.... Pres. Obama won't have to travel far to give 'em his patented problem solving teleprompter speeches. Yes, the US has always been a nation of immigrants. Immigrants who ASSIMILATED, who WORKED, and who were LAW-ABIDING! It would still be just fine and dandy of those were the men and women to whom Mr. Obama referred, but they're not. No, he's pleading for us to open our borders to ILLEGAL immigrants who demand packages be labeled in Spanish, suck up taxpayer-paid benefits, spread diseases and crime, and who undermine and strain everything from the school system to the healthcare system to the courts to national sovereignty itself. While this isn't an entirely new phenomenon, it has become a problem orders of magnitude larger than it was thanks to pretenders like Nancy Pelosi, and to those who outright mean the country harm like the fool currently occupying the Oval Office. This problem needs to be addressed sooner rather than later, and the fix DOESN'T involve, "Oh, let's just let everybody who's here stay here, and let's just make it easier for people to get in in the future." A "tidbit" that you won't hear on Fox, or from any of the frothing anti-Obama folks who posted above: Obama has deported more than 2 million immigrants, far more than his predecessor. Oh, and an other thing: those pictures of a roomful of immigrant children that have made the rounds on conservative media? Those were kids who were caught/detained by border patrol.... The frothing haters wont believe it , you know , all the media is liberal. The admin is doing such a good job there is a humanitarian crises on the southern border. You people are actually delusional. You don't care- now you care . Confused , aren't you ? You are. Facts and logic must cause you physical pain because you seem to avoid them at all cost. The fact is your god created the crises and now you must look stupid defending him once again. I could see where that would cause you pain. The fact and logic is : You don't care- now you care . You're confused. I'm not surprised. I have facts, You know the things that clear up confusion. I know facts are foreign things to you but you seem to be arguing for foreign things lately, Try some facts out.... Your God has created a humanitarian crises. You get your "facts" from Infowars. Any website that associates with Infowars , is shiit. Your head is full of shit. My point is , which you have missed , IF there is a big mess down there, what do you care ?... you hate the immigrants anyway. Guess you are incapable of actually clicking a link as well to see that i never post infowar links. (Either that or you cannot read) My point is YOUR god has caused a crises with his stupidity and you morons defend him time after time with NO factual evidence to back up your opinion, Just more rhetoric. As for why do i care, The US is being invaded with illegals and your gods one and only job is to secure the borders and the constitution. Just because you people are adapting your new gods motto (At this point what does it matter?) does not mean the rest of the country is brain dead. Dumbagain- You are another example of someone frantically grabs at any bold print that supports their stupidity for the sole purpose of "winning" or "saving face", and doesnt read their own links. Go back to the link- all there is is a headline and a clip from Infowars. "Obama Causes Humanitarian Crisis On The Border" Read more at... Does it hurt to be so stupid ? (you arrogant jackass) Re: "Obama has deported more than 2 million immigrants, far more than his predecessor." And this isn't construed by you to be racist and insensitive? You are deflecting , Contango. Nope. Yup. Re: "Yup." How is it deflection? Explain yourself. So sending these "Children of God" back to their home countries isn't cruel to libs? Yet, coasterfan brags that Pres. Obama has returned more than previous presidents. Hypocrite. Never mind , it's not worth the time and effort. You will of course mention that under this President the term deport was expanded to include those turned away at the border, right? This isn't ICE going deep into the heartland and routing people. Whatever d-bag. ." Read more:... Now, now Big Dog, why are you calling the President's own appointed DHS chief a d-bag? That's not very friendly of you, especially to a fellow Democrat hand-picked by the President to report such things. Be civil, he's our President after all. No need to name-call no matter how frustrated he and his staff make you. "You will of course mention that under this President the term deport was expanded to include those turned away at the border, right?" It is another example of changing the definitions of words that gov't uses. Other examples include invest instead of tax, unemployment used to be U6, but has been changed to U3 because U6 was too high a number and the People were not happy with the high unemployment numbers, so instead of more jobs created gov't changed and lowered the bar so the numbers would look better. There is no reason we can't be compassionate to those waiting at the border. We'll gas up the buses, treat them to a real American meal at McDonald's, then provide a military escort to Canada. They want to come North, then help them to get really far North. It seems to me that other people come here because they believe the falsehood that America is the land of opportunity and believe, that with hard work and perseverance, one can achieve their dreams. Why not start holding the other countries accountable for their lack of opportunities? Go after the drug cartels, stop spending billions on military might, that war is profit, and give everyone a decent place to raise their families in their home countries. Start deporting the politicians who don't do right by their constituents and let them experience the poverty that they expect others to accept as their 'fate'. We have the ability, it requires no more than a willingness to do it. As a result of the new influx of refugees from Central America, Obama is working with Congress to fast-track deportation of illegal aliens. He has already deported more than 2 million, far more than other recent presidents. We'll see if Congress does their part.. Which, of course, is what they all really want, when push comes to shove. When a tornado or hurricane hits their house, Republicans want their government FEMA assistance. When they drive their car, they use interstates and bridges that were built with federal and state funds that we all support through taxation. When they live in Texas (which receives more federal government assistance than any other state), when they use Medicare to pay for medical expenses, when they join the military, when they (like the rest of us) send a sizeable portion of their taxes to fund our inflated national defense budget, when they support tax breaks for millionaires, they are supporting some of the biggest government programs of all. ." Are you now going to say that your solution of taking in these hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants will not cause gov't to grow? That these 100,000+ illegal immigrants won't require more bureaucrats to keep track of them and their needs? More bureaucrats to administer to their needs, more bureaucrats to bring them to more courts when they will gladly come for their immigration hearings? More investigators to check on their claims of need to come to the US? For people to educate these children? You do realize that every immigration bill written has had as a part of it, finishing the fence and more border security? We are just asking that the fence and border security be done FIRST, so that we can control the immigration, that LEGAL immigration can proceed. Not mass uncontrolled, unmanaged, illegal immigration, but LEGAL immigration. Don't forget such expenditures are quite Constitutional as this is about national defense. I don't mind necessarily if the money to build a wall or bases comes from what the government already gives the military. If you'd like we can ask coasterfan how much that is since he laments our level of spending there. This way something tangible would be done with it. It is just coaster being coaster and repeating his party's line ... Don't be cruel.... Force Coasterfan and his ilk to take in the illegals and we can all watch the hypocrites change their tune. No one i know is advocating for bigger government except brain dead liberals who are brain washed into thinking government is god and they are helpless. That's a great idea! Let's hold a national referendum on the issue. Every man or woman who votes in FAVOR of letting all of the illegals stay has to take an illegal family into their family home just, you know, until they get on their feet... Every man or woman who votes AGAINST anything but border enforcement and prompt deportation gets to point and laugh at the entertainment soon to be offered up by bleeding heart progressives who suddenly discover they're in favor of border control after all. Coasterfan,big dog, deertracker, holysee, and any of you obama leg humpers..... When obama demanded money for these children, 2 billion dollars, there were over 46,000 that were HERE, since april, and there has been more than 240,000 Adult illegals along with them. It's costing the American taxpayers $252 per day to house/feed these children. It's time to wake up and see this is not viable! Do any of you remember some years ago, the democrats had a child removed from his family home by armed agents, and sent back to a communist country? It was front page news..... obama/failing One only has to look at the news articles on to see how inept this president is and how is is deliberately trying everything possible to destroy our nation. Obama said that he would do everything possible to reduce America's position so the rest of the world could compete and he's keeping his promise. Your comment shows your lack of intelligence to refer to the Drudge report. He's trying to destroy this country - you must be out of your mind. Okay, maybe he's NOT trying to destroy the country. But here's where we stand right now: He's NOT trying to destroy the country, but since he obviously is, he's an idiot and a dangerous one at that. --- OR --- He IS trying to destroy the country and is just about the most successful president EVER at achieving his personal agenda. They can't both be true, obviously, but one of those things sure is and NEITHER bodes well for the vast majority of us! Nahh , he's not an idiot. The Republican Congress, now were're talking about idiots. And now because of Obama we are a nation of illegal immigrants. And jazzbo's......! obama/failed

Sonic Youth make an appearance singing "What a Waste" in front of the Stars Hollow sign in the town square. Ironically, the song starts with the lyrics "Hey, gimme hollow stimulation" This is the first time Lorelai has ever really talked to anybody (since the postponement) about everything that has happened in her life, whether it be past, present, or future. This episode is the first time Lorelai ever admits to a man that she loves him. She even says it to him twice in a way that seems to stress its importance. This episode begins and ends in exactly the same way, with Lorelei waking up in a strange bed, then lying there with her eyes open, pretending to sleep. In both of her breakups with Luke, Lorelai is wearing a blue dress (a light blue one at her parents's vows renewal and a dark blue one when she goes to Luke's and asks to him to elope, which he declines). Coincidentally, she was also wearing a blue dress when Christopher bailed on her at Sookie and Jackson's wedding. When Miss Patty is talking to Lorelai in the kitchen, Miss Patty says that scratching Paul Anka's butt reminded her of her fourth husband when in the first season in "Cinnimon's Wake," she says that she only had three husbands Logan tells Rory he'll see her on "Guy Fawkes Day" this is November 5th. In "Norman Mailer, I'm Pregnant" Lorelai goes to Christopher's apartment. When he answers the door, from the inside the door knob is on the right and the door swings out and to the left. In this episode, "Partings" when Lorelai goes to Christopher's apartment, he answers the door the door knob is on the left and the door opens in and swings to the right. While at dinner, Lorelai mentions how she isn't afraid of spiders, but she implied instead, that she is afraid of people who are afraid of spiders. However in season 3's "That'll Do Pig", she was walking into her kitchen when she spotted a spider and had a mini-breakdown before covering it with a mug and getting Dean to take it out of the house. This is not the first episode in which Mary Lynn Rajskub has appeared. She was in the Season 2 episode "Teach Me Tonight". She was the daughter in the 'A Film by Kirk' short movie that Lorelai showed before "The Yearling". In the final scene between Rory and Logan, at the end, Rory's bangs are pushed way off to the side and then they show Logan walking out, but then in the next scene, Rory's bangs are completely straight. Lorelai says that her parents have been married for 40 years, but in the season 2 episode "Red Light on the Wedding Night" Emily says she has been married for 34 years, which would mean Richard and Emily have only been married for 38 years. In addition, in "Wedding Bell Blues", which first aired over a year before this episode, Richard and Emily get re-married on their 40th wedding anniversary, which would mean Lorelai's parents have been married for 41 years. This episode clarified that Loralai always loved Chris, but she was not IN love with him. She says Luke was the only guy she was ever really in love with. At the end of the episode it was implied that Lorelai and Chris had sex, however this was kept in secrecy as no one had answers to whether they had sex or not. Gigi saying that she doesn't like her nightgown on when she is sick implied something, however, nothing was cleared up. Why would Gigi be going to school on a Saturday? Friday night dinner had been on the same night that Luke and Lorelai had fought, and then Lorelai spent the night at Chris'. The next morning Gigi was going to school, but that would be on a Saturday. Daniel Palladino, Amy Sherman-Pallidino's husband and part of the creative force behind the series, appears as the troubadour who sings, "A beaver ate my thumb..." Lorelai: Hey Lynnie, I have a recurring dream where a walrus waddles up, lies down on me, falls asleep and I can't breathe. What do you think it means? Richard: Lorelai... Lorelai: What, Dad? Lynnie is a psychologist. She should know. Lynnie It's okay. It could mean a myriad of things; too much stress from work, something in your life strangling you... or you've watched Alice In Wonderland too many times. Emily: Gerta, did I fire you? Gerta: No. Emily: I didn't? Everything is off tonight. Lorelai: Voices in your head, totally normal, right? Linny: Excuse me? Lorelai: There's only two, that speak English. (In Logan and Rory's apartment. Logan is getting ready for graduation and Rory is taking pictures of him) Rory: Oh, that's another good one! Logan: No, it's not. Rory: Hold it (she takes a picture) Logan: Yo, Alfred Stieglitz stop with the pictures Rory: I prefer Cartier Bresson Logan: My eyes are pale. I'm very sensitive to the light. Rory: You only graduate from collage once and I will document it to my heart's content, and you can't stop me. (takes a picture) Logan: At least I'm clothed in these. Rory: Oh, yes, those shower photos will fetch me a bundle on the internet. Logan: I don't even know why I'm doing this. Why am I doing this, this whole cap and gown thing? Rory: Because, the graduation ceremony is not only for the graduate, it's for the loved ones too. We talked about this Logan: No, you talked and I disagreed. Rory: And then I ruled, and that's that. Logan: I'm taking that Stalin biography away from you. (Rory takes a picture) Rory: Come on, I don't want to be late Logan: You do realize you're putting yourself at the cross hairs. Rory: Meaning? Logan: There will be all manners of Huntzbergers in the audience. Rory: Oh, I can avoid people with the best of 'em. Logan: I didn't say people, I said Huntzbergers. Rory: Don't you worry your pretty little head about this. I'll take care of myself. Logan: I just want you to be fully prepped (they look at the picture on her camera) Rory: Oh-ho, I've outdone myself photographically, Everyone of these is a keeper. Logan: Ok, that's a close-up of my naked butt, that's not a keeper. Rory: You're right, that's a screen saver. (Logan is getting off the elevator with Colin and Finn) Colin: Come on, one more stop! Logan: I can't! Finn: But tomorrow you will fly away to London, and we will all forget about you. Logan: I am touched, but Rory will be back any minute. Colin: You know, I'm starting to get the feeling you'd rather be with her than us. Finn: Impossible! Logan: I appreciate the drinks and the diversion, your friendship over the years is worth at least a couple of pages in my memoir, but as of now it's good bye. I'm spending the rest of the night alone with my girl. (Rory greets them at the door) Rory: 'Ello governor. Chips? Logan: I'm sorry, I was looking for my girlfriend. (R) Lorelai: (to Linny) voices in your head, totally normal right. Linny: Excuse me? Lorelai: There's only two... That speak English. (Later) Lorelai: Do you know what I think is even better than traveling? Time Traveling. Do you think that's possible? Liny: I would have no idea. Emily: Lorelai. are you having some kind of break down? Richard: You're very quiet Christopher. Chris: (Trying not to laugh) Well I um.. Lorelai: So Linny, as a psychologist, what do you think of the Sopranoes? Linny: Actually I miss Adriana. Lorelai: Uh, so do I. Emily: Lorelai! Lorelai: What I was serious about that one? Richard: There's many things that you can call a Gilmore, but you can't call him a welsher. Lorelai: What are the things you can call him? Just for future reference. Rory: (talking to Finn on the phone) I trust you Finn. (pause) No, it's not a surprise that you've never heard anyone say that before. (Talking about something covered with a blanket that Lorelai touches) Richard: Don't you touch that! Rory: He slapped my hand earlier. Emily: It is top secret. Lorelai: Oh my God! It's the weapons of mass destruction! Quick get the president on the phone! Richard: Lorelai. Lorelai: If he's not in the Oval Office try the ice cream room. Rory: You're grounded! Lorelai: Ha,. (Rory is frantically trying to saying good bye to Logan as he leaving to go to the airport for London) Rory: I have to go with you. Logan: No! Rorty: Yes! You are leaving for London. Who knows when we'll see each other again? Logan:I thought that was all set? Rory: What was all set? Logan: With Christmas, Thanksgiving, Guy Fawkes Day? Rory: That's so far away! Logan: Rory, if you come with me I won't get on the plane. I've paid for the apartment for the next year, so you don't have to worry about that.(Rory starts to cry at this point they are face to face/forehead to forehead) There's still a few weeks left on the car service, so use it whenever you want. I know that you won't, but just in case you need to. (he kisses her) I'll call you when you get in, OK? (He kisses her again and she is crying harder then before) Logan: What? Rory: I keep trying to think of fabulous things to say, but all I can think is say hi to William and Harry for me. Logan: (smiling) I love you Ace. Rory: That's so much better than say hi to William and Harry for me. Logan: (he kisses her) I have to go. (She watches him get his bag and starts crying again then runs after him. She gets to the door as he gets on the elevator. She waves good bye as they both are trying to hold back tears) Emily: Well, that was a complete waste of time. Lorelai: What are you talking about? Emily: I'm talking about Christopher and Caroline leaving separately. Lorelai: Well, come on Mom, what did you think, they were gonna throw down and consummate right here in the foyer? Emily: No, I didn't think "they were gonna throw down and consummate in the foyer", I just thought they could go out for some coffee. Lorelai: You served them coffee. Emily: So what? Lorelai: So you can't be shocked when you serve people three cups of coffee and then they don't feel like going out for coffee. Not everyone's me. Carolyn:: (Christopher goes into the restroom a minute after Lorelai) Oh my God, what are you doing? Christopher: I thought restroom was code for "Follow me and we'll figure out how to get you out of this." Lorelai: What the hell kind of spy school did you go to? Christopher: Well now that I am here lets figure out how to get me out of this! Lorelai: Out of what? (jokingly clueless) Christopher: What do you mean out of what? This is a set up! Lorelai: So it seems! (laughing) Christopher: I can't believe Emily would do this! Lorelai: You are talking about Emily Dickinson right? Because Emily Gilmore was made to do this. Troubador: You never say hello when your goodbye-in, unless you're Hawaiian. Lorelai: Ah, I feel so stupid. I really had myself believing it was really going to happen. I bought that stupid dress and now it's just hanging there, mocking me. And the crazy thing is, I am ready to get married. I am ready to start the next phase in my life. I want another kid. And I...I don't want to wait anymore. I don't want to be patient. I've been patient long enough. I'm not happy and I feel crappy all the time. And I just think I've had it. Luke: I have April to consider! Lorelai: You need to figure out how April fits into our lives, not the other way around! Lorelai: (to Caroline about Luke) I saw this guy in front of me who was a real man. He was solid, and he was strong. He would protect me, but he got me. I knew all these things when we started dating, but in that moment when I realized how much he cared for Rory...that was it. All of a sudden I was ready. Lorelai: We renovated the house right? We have a bigger closet, and I didn't get the purple wall paper 'cause you didn't like the purple wall paper. If I had to choose between the purple wall paper and you, I pick you! I pick you! Luke: I didn't say you couldn't get the purple wall paper. Luke: We can't just run off and get married! Lorelai: Why not Luke? Don't you love me!? Luke: Of course I love you! Lorelai: But I love you Luke. I love you! Lorelai: I could lose Luke if I push too hard. Carolyn: It doesn't really seem like you have him now. At least not the way you want. Lorelai: No, I'm not waiting. It's now or never! Luke: I don't like ultimatums. Lorelai: I don't like Mondays, but unfortunately, they come around eventually. Gigi: (when she sees Lorelai in Christopher's bed) Who's that? Christopher: That's your Auntie Lorelai, honey. Gigi: Is she sick? Christopher: Oh no, no, Gigi, she's fine. Gigi: I don't like to wear my nightgown to bed when I'm sick, either! Lorelai: What is the disease called when you are afraid of spiders? Caroline: Arachnophobia. Emily: You have Arachnophobia? Lorelai: No. Richard: Thank Goodness. Lorelai: What's it called when you're afraid of people who are afraid of spiders, cause that one I've got? Emily: Oh Lord. Caroline: I don't think there's a technical term for that, yet. Lorelai: How about Arachnophobiaphobia? Does that make any sense? Caroline: What about Max? Did you love him? Lorelai: No. I didn't. I wanted to, but I didn't. I don't think I really loved anybody until Luke. Emily: Gerta, did I fire you? Gerta: No, Ma'am. Emily: Really? Everything is off tonight. Emily: Relax Rory. (to Richard) She's so modest Lorelai: Relax Rory. Remember when you wanted a personalized license plate? (motions to building) So much better. Rory: (about letters on the model) Because the lettering would be thirty feet high. Lorelai: Well honey it's the astronomy building, you have to be able to see it from space. The first troubadour that appears is Joe Pernice of The Pernice Brothers, singing "Amazing Glow." This isn't the first time a Pernice Brothers song is featured in an episode of Gilmore Girls. In season 4 episode 4: "Chicken or Beef", Rory sits in the gazebo reading and listening to "Weakest Shade of Blue." French episode title: "Le Départ De Logan", meaning "Logan's Departure". This is one of a couple of times we will see Daniel Palladino on the show. Music: "Amazing Glow" by Joe Pernice, "Perfume" by Sparks, "Car Song" by Mary Lynn Rajskub, "Beanbag Chair" by Yo La Tengo, "What A Waste" by Sonic Youth, "A Beaver Ate My Thumb" by Daniel Palladino, and "Taking Pictures" by Sam Phillips This episode drew 5.33 million viewers. This is the last episode to air on the WB. Keiko Agena (Lane), Yanic Truesdale (Michel) and Liza Weil (Paris) do not appear in this episode. This will be the last episode of Gilmore Girls written by either Amy Sherman Palladino or Daniel Palladino because of the fact that they're leaving the show after the this (6th) season. This episode marks the season finale of the 6th season of Gilmore Girls. Lorelai: So Linny, as a psychologist tell me, what do you think of The Sopranos? The Sopranos is partly about Tony with his psychotherapist. We see Tony at work, at home, and in therapy. Lorelai: Kimmie saw this guy at the mall, who was a total Chachi. And, he bought us a Slurpee. Charles "Chachi" Arcola was a character on Happy Days noted for his good looks. A Slurpee is a icy drink from 7-Eleven. Rory: (to Lorelai over the phone) I won't be ignored, Dan! It's a quote from the movie Fatal Attraction. Logan: Yo, Alfred Stieglitz, stop with the pictures. Rory: I prefer Cartier-Bresson. Alfred Stieglitz and Henri Cartier-Bresson are very famous photographers. Both photographed in black and white. Miss Patty: You know, half the time peolpe talk to me I'm thinking about Baryshnikov. Did you see Turning Point? Luke: No Mikhail Baryshnikov is a famous ballet dancer. He received an Oscar nomination for his first film role, in 1977's The Turning Point (also starring Shirley McLane). His latest appearance was in last season of Sex and the City where he played Carrie Bradshaw's boyfriend, Aleksander Petrovsky. Lorelai: Sorry if I talked too much during dinner. Every now and then I just feel the need to reinact certain key scenes from Purple Rain. Purple Rain is the first starring film for Prince. It is the story of an arrogant, young black singer, born and raised in Minneapolis, who reaches the pinnacle of stardom. The dramatic complications include "The Kid's" (Prince) miserable home life, where he suffers the brutalities of his father and the youth's efforts to win the love of the beautiful Apollonia. Despite the misogynistic undercurrents in Purple Rain, the film's biggest fans were young women. Logan: You are going to break into a chours of 'Chim Chim-in-ey' any minute aren't you? This is a reference to the song 'Chim Chim Cher-ee' from the Disney movie Mary Poppins which is set in London. Lorelai: For months I've been skulking around, not saying anything, not having an opinion on anything like I'm Clarence Thomas or something. Clarence Thomas is an American jurist and has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991. The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Thomas about his political opinions and constitutional interpretation. A troubadour: (about Taylor) Can you say "BTK"? Referring to Dennis Rader, the self-proclaimed "BTK killer" (BTK is a self-imposed moniker standing for "Bind, Torture, Kill"). Logan: I'm taking that Stalin biography away from you. Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953), a position which had later become that of party leader. Stalin's rule was characterized by a strong cult of personality, an extreme concentration of power, and little concern for the lives of people. Millions died under his rule and the gulag labour camps were established by him. Stalin is generally considered one of history's most evil rulers along with Adolf Hitler. Rory: Say 'hi' to William and Harry for me. Reference to Princes William and Harry of the British Royal

Using Rapist Risk Factors to Set an Agenda for Rape Prevention Raymond A. Knight and Judith Sims-Knight with contributions from Suzanne Brown-McBride Rape is costly to survivors and to society. It is essential that we develop optimal prevention and early intervention programs and policies to reduce its occurrence. The first step toward this goal is to identify the behaviors, traits, developmental experiences, and biological antecedents that have been found to be associated with an increased probability that a male will become sexually aggressive. This article briefly reviews this literature and attempts to identify the gaps in our knowledge that must be addressed to develop effective prevention programs. We speculate about the general parameters of interventions that the existing evidence suggests are likely to be successful in decreasing the probability that a male will become sexually aggressive. We also argue that current rape prevention programs might be suboptimal because they fail to encompass the complex of traits that cause sexual aggression, and primary prevention efforts must focus on the latter. A more extensive exposition of these issues can be found in Knight and Sims-Knight (in press). In this article we will use the term sexual aggression to encompass all behaviors in which a male engages in sexual activity with a non-consenting female peer or adult. We define a risk factor broadly as any variable that consistently has been found to be correlated with an increased probability that a male will become sexually aggressive. By definition studies of risk factors are correlational, and the existing studies are cross-sectional and thus do not allow a clear delineation of temporal priorities. Although we will speculate about which risk factors show promise as causal determinants, other, more sophisticated research strategies are required to demonstrate which factors are truly causative and to help prioritize potential preventive intervention strategies (Moffitt, 2005). For the convenience of this paper we will divide risk factors into three related descriptive clusters. Because all existing data are cross-sectional, this grouping of factors is highly speculative. The first cluster, concurrent correlates, comprises situational variables that immediately precede the assault, including the perceptual processing and cognitive attitudes that set up or facilitate coercive behavior and the distortions introduced by alcohol. Here we also include certain correlated behaviors such as pornography use, for which no known overriding trait has been identified. The second cluster includes stable attributes and dispositional characteristics of the perpetrator that operate in multiple situations, that persist across time, and that hypothetically influence how perpetrators perceive, think about, emotionally respond to, and act in particular situations, and that consequently increase or decrease the probability of sexually coercive behavior. The third cluster encompasses the developmental and biological antecedents that most likely contribute to the formation of the traits. Because this article focuses on rape risk factors in individuals, we will forego consideration of rape-supportive social contexts (White, 2009). Risk Factors for Rape Concurrent Risk Factors for Rape Substantial research has been devoted to the concurrent correlates of rape. These studies have frequently used convenience samples, mostly college students, and until recently have been done predominantly in the United States (see Hines, 2007; Murnen, Wright, & Kaluzny, 2002). We will summarize the most consistent factors that have emerged from these studies and might be considered concurrent risk factors. They can be divided into four categories: rape supportive attitudes, cognitive-perceptual proclivities that distort communication in relationships, perpetrator use of pornography, and the effects of alcohol. Rape-Supportive Attitudes A number of scales that assess masculine ideological beliefs hypothesized to support sexually coercive behavior have been developed. These were generated from feminist sociocultural models of rape, and their early success in accounting for rape proclivity, their clear relevance to intervention, and the ease with which they could be administered to student samples contributed to their popularity. These tap a variety of beliefs such as the adversarial nature of men's relationships with women, stereotypical ideas about sexual roles, negative notions about masculinity, and rape myths that support sexually aggressive behavior. Although these attitudes certainly endure across time and situations, we consider them in this first cluster of factors because they focus on a circumscribed domain. We will argue later that these attitudes are related to more general traits that have been shown not only to be pervasive characteristics of the individual's personality, but that also have identifiable developmental and possibly genetic antecedents. Thus, relative to the purported traits described in the next section, these attitudes represent more proximal correlates of sexually aggressive behavior. In a meta-analysis examining 11 different measures of masculine ideology across 39 studies, Murnen et al. (2002) found that although all but one measure of masculine ideology were significantly associated with sexual aggression, the strongest support emerged for hostile masculinity and hypermasculinity, both of which assess hostile beliefs about women, the desire to be in control, and an acceptance of violence against women. Measures of simple gender adherence that did not include the hostility and acceptance of aggression components were not strong predictors of sexually aggressive behavior. In a recent cross-cultural, 38-site study, Hines (2007) examined the roles of adversarial sexual beliefs, the status of women in society, and prior sexual victimization as risk factors for sexually coercive behavior against both women and men. She found support that both adversarial attitudes about relationships and having been the victim of sexual abuse were related to sexual aggression in both genders, across cultures, across samples (criminal and non-criminal), and across studies. Recent studies using the Multidimensional Inventory of Development, Sex, and Aggression (MIDSA) also found that negative masculinity and hostility to women scales differentiate rapists, even among criminal samples (MIDSA, 2008). Distorted Perceptions Acquaintance rape occurs within a social context that requires the active selection and processing of information. Several studies have suggested that men likely to rape may have perceptual biases that lead to specific misperceptions of women's communications. Drieschner and Lange (1999) grouped these into three hypothetical classes of perception: (a) the tendency to perceive friendly behavior as seductive and assertive behavior as hostile; (b) a positivity bias that in ambiguous situations transforms negative, dismissive communications into encouragement; and (c) a general cognitive set to mistrust women's communications and perceive them as hostile. Support has continued to accrue for these hypotheses, especially the perception of sexual intent in women's behavior, which is particularly prevalent in sexually coercive men and men who endorse sex-role stereotypes (Farris, Treat, Viken, & McFall, 2008). Moreover, the processes that may be problematic in misperceptions have been further specified. First, Farris, Viken, Treat, and McFall (2006) have demonstrated that men who believed that rape was justifiable and who blamed women for victimization had more difficulty distinguishing between sexual interest and other affect categories, particularly when women were dressed provocatively. Second, Yoon and Knight (2008) found evidence that sexually coercive males' early perceptual problems might be related to difficulties withdrawing their attention from emotionally salient stimuli. In a study that required participants to shift their attention from sexual stimuli to complete a cognitive task, self-reported sexually coercive males were significantly slower than non-coercive males in disengaging their attention only from sexual stimuli. Response latencies on sexual stimuli disattention trials correlated with scales measuring misperceptions about sexual advances, impulsivity, and emotional dysregulation but not scales assessing callous manipulativeness and hypersexuality. These results suggest that this disattention deficit may be more related to problems with emotional dysregulation than difficulties with hypersexuality. More recent data also suggest, however, that sexual compulsivity may also contribute to disattention difficulties (Yoon, 2009). Not only do misperceptions appear to covary with particular traits, but they also interact with other concurrent risk factors (Jacques-Tiura, Abbey, Parkhill, & Zawacki, 2007). Unraveling the covarying traits and interacting concurrent risk factors and specifying the cognitive processes underlying such misperceptions is critical for developing effective interventions aimed at changing these perceptions (Farris et al., 2008). Alcohol Use Whether its role is facilitative or causative, whether it serves as an excuse, a precipitant, or a manipulative device, alcohol use and abuse plays a significant, multifaceted role in sexually aggressive behavior in both college and criminal samples (Abbey, 2008). In almost 50% of sexual assaults the perpetrator has consumed alcohol, and at the time of a sexual assault approximately one-half of victims have also been found to have consumed alcohol (Abbey, Zawacki, Buck, Clinton, & McAuslan, 2004). As one might predict, there is a high correlation between perpetrator and victim alcohol use (Ullman, Karabatsos, & Koss, 1999). Alcohol's impairment of inhibitory controls, its exacerbation of communication misinterpretations, its disruption of higher order cognitive processing (e.g., decision making abilities), and its interaction with existing personality characteristics (e.g., trait aggression) have all been invoked as reasons for the relation of alcohol to sexually aggressive behavior (Abbey, 2008). In a prospective study Abbey and McAuslan (2004) found that males who reported consuming larger quantities of alcohol when dating and prior to having consensual sex were more likely to be repeat sexual assaulters at a one-year follow-up. Alcohol use not only correlates with increased frequency of sexual aggression, but also it impacts the outcome. Perpetrator alcohol use has been found to increase the amount of physical damage to victims for both convicted rapists and child molesters (Hamdi & Knight, 2008). Abbey, Clinton-Sherrod, McAuslan, Zawacki, and Buck (2003) found that in college students higher perpetrator alcohol consumption was positively related to higher violence, but whether penetration occurred had curvilinear relation to alcohol intoxicationóincreasing at lower levels of alcohol consumption, reaching a plateau at moderate levels, and decreasing at high levels. They also found a positive correlation between the amount of alcohol consumed by the victim and outcome severity, suggesting that more intoxicated victims faced a greater risk of completed rape. For victims of sexual assault, alcohol use may inhibit their ability to fully appreciate sexually aggressive signals from men and to respond in an effective fashion (see Norris, 2008 for a more detailed discussion of alcohol and victim issues). Pornography Use In a meta-analysis of 46 studies Oddone-Paolucci, Genius, and Violato (2000) determined that exposure to explicit sexual materials (pornography) was moderately correlated with a variety of negative outcomes, including increased sexual perpetration and endorsement of rape myths. Reviews of the literature (e.g., Malamuth, Addison, & Koss, 2000) confirm the consistency of the correlation between pornography use and sexually aggressive behavior. Recent work by Malamuth and his colleagues (see Malamuth & Huppin, 2005, for a review) has attempted to integrate cross-sectional survey studies and laboratory experimental strategies and to provide a useful and convincing model of the likely effects of pornography on sexually aggressive attitudes and behavior. Correlational studies have suggested that men who score high on certain risk factors such as hostility toward women, higher hypermasculinity, a high frequency of sexual and hostile fantasies, a high attraction to impersonal sex, and aggressive/dominance motivation are significantly more likely to acknowledge both greater exposure to and attraction to various kinds of pornography (Bogaert, 2001; Malamuth & McIlwraith, 1988 ). Consistent with these results, research using the MIDSA has found that across three independent samples (juvenile sexual offenders, adult sexual offenders, and community non-offenders) higher scores on both Conventional Heterosexual Pornography and Violent Pornography scales (MIDSA, 2008) were consistently related to scales measuring various aspects of hypersexuality. In addition, across the three samples, high scores on these pornography scales consistently correlated with facets of psychopathy and with higher anger and aggression. In addition, Vega and Malamuth (2007) found in a correlational study that pornography added unique variance to the prediction of sexual aggression. Experimental studies have suggested that not only are males with a higher proclivity to sexually aggressive behavior more likely to be drawn to excessive pornography use, but they are also more likely to be influenced by their exposure to such materials. After viewing a rape portrayal in which a woman showed signs of sexual arousal, males with a high self-reported proclivity to sexual aggression against women were more likely to rate women as deriving pleasure from such assaults. In contrast, males low in the likelihood of committing a rape showed no such effect (Malamuth & Cheek, 1981). Thus, exposure to pornography may exacerbate sexually aggressive proclivities only in those who are at high risk for such behavior (Kingston, Malamuth, Fedoroff, & Marshall, 2009). Attributes and Dispositional Characteristics of the Perpetrator Building on Malamuth's early attempts to fashion an etiological model for sexually aggressive behavior (see Malamuth, 2003, for a review), Knight and Sims-Knight (2003, 2004) generated and tested an expanded model that emphasized the traits that underlie the concurrent risk factors of rape. Malamuth had proposed a two-path model in which negative masculinity and impersonal sex were the major predictors of sexual aggression. Knight and Sims-Knight (2003) found that adding a third pathóbehavioral impulsivity, measured by antisociality, impulsivity, and aggressive behavioróincreased the predictive power of his model. They also broadened his negative masculinity to callousness/ unemotionality (CU), the first factor of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) (Hare, 2003), a more general personality trait that correlates with negative masculinity. The consistent predictive potency of this revised model across criminal and community samples supports the hypothesis that a unified theory of sexual aggression can be generated across these disparate populations. Although the optimum model for the components, their developmental trajectories, and the best way to measure the three traits requires substantial additional research, the general parameters of these traits can be identified. They include hypersexuality/impersonal sex, the arrogant-deceitful, callous interpersonal (CU) characteristics of psychopathy, and antisocial behavioral tendencies. The latter two traits are the subject of a large research literature on the genetic, cognitive, affective, and personality correlates of psychopathy (e.g., Knight & Guay, 2006; Knight & Sims-Knight, 2004). We will briefly describe the nature of each of these traits. Hypersexuality/Sociosexuality The notion that some aspect of sexual drive or sexual appetite is a critical component of sexual aggression (Ellis, 1993; Malamuth, 2003) and may be an underlying component of other volitional impairments of sexual behavior (Kafka & Hennen, 2003) has found considerable empirical support. A number of investigations have found that sexually aggressive men have consensual sex at an earlier age and have more consensual sex partners than do noncoercive males (e.g., Koss & Dinero, 1988). Knight, Ronis, Prentky, and Kafka (2009) found that sexual drive and preoccupation discriminated sexually aggressive from nonaggressive men in both community and general criminal samples. Regardless of criminal status or age (juvenile or adult), males who sexually coerced age-appropriate females reported higher levels of sexual drive, frequency of sexual behavior, and sexual deviance on the MIDSA (2008) than noncoercive males. Hypersexuality covaries with a number of negative attributes, including components of negative affect like mood and anxiety disorders and increased substance abuse and impulse-related problems (e.g., LÂngstrˆm & Hansen, 2006). There is, however, considerable debate about the precise core construct underlying this dimension. Whereas for Ellis (1993) the core seems to be simply the strength of the sexual drive, Malamuth (2003) has proposed that the proclivity to engage in promiscuous/impersonal sex is the critical construct. He described the dimension of impersonal sex as similar to the concept of ""sociosexuality,"" a dimension assessing willingness to engage in sexual activity in the relative absence of attachment or emotional ties. Knight and Cerce's (1999) research measured sexual drive, preoccupation, and compulsivity. These variables, which were highly correlated with each other, in turn were correlated with pornography use, expressive aggression toward women, sadism, pervasive anger, and offense planning for both adult and juvenile sexual offenders. These components of sexual fantasies and behavior appear to be at least as important in juvenile samples as in adult samples (MIDSA, 2008). Antisocial and Impulsivity Tendencies Antisocial behavior in its manifold guises has consistently been shown to be a covariate of sexually aggressive behavior (Knight & Guay, 2006). Both juveniles and adults who sexually aggress have been characterized as high in impulsivity and antisocial behavior (MIDSA, 2008). The importance of antisocial behavior and impulsivity in predicting sexual aggression in noncriminal samples has been supported in a number of other studies (e.g., Calhoun, Bernat, Clum, & Frame, 1997; Casey, Beadnell, & Lindhorst, 2009 ). College males who are persistently coercive sexually have also been distinguished by their adolescent delinquency (Abbey & McAuslan, 2004). It is not surprising that Knight and Sims-Knight's adding of this path to Malamuth's two-path model substantially increased the proportion of variance of aggressive sexual behavior accounted for. The link between antisocial behavior and alcohol abuse (e.g., Krueger, Markon, Patrick, Benning, & Kramer, 2007) ties it directly to the concurrent risks for sexual aggression. Its congruence with emotional lability (Sitnikov, Goldberg, Daversa, & Knight, 2007) and its strong link to genetic etiology (Waldman & Rhee, 2006) enhance its potential as a primary prevention target. Callousness-Unemotionality (CU) Studies examining the differentiating characteristics of both juvenile and adult sexual offenders have found that rapists tend to be callous and unemotional and to lack guilt and empathy. Caputo, Frick, and Brodsky (1999) compared a group of juvenile sexual offenders to a group of violent juvenile nonsexual offenders and a group of juvenile offenders with only noncontact property and drug offenses on a youth version of the PCL-R. Compared to the nonsexual offenders, the juvenile sexual offenders had higher scores on the Callous-Unemotional factor of the PCL-R. Kim, Guay, and Knight (2007) found that rapists scored higher than child molesters both on this overall CU factor and on each of the two facets it comprises. On the MIDSA (2008) both juvenile and adult sexual offenders were found to score significantly higher on scales measuring the CU factor than noncriminal community males. Evidence that this component is consistent over time, even in juveniles (Lynam, Caspi, Moffitt, Loeber, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 2007), and that it shows some evidence of genetic transmission (see Genetic Antecedents section), supports its potential as an underlying trait. Developmental and Biological Antecedents As one moves back in the temporal sequence from more specific, concurrent risk factors to broader hypothetical traits and finally to the earliest developmental and biological antecedents for sexual aggression, the amount of supportive research diminishes. For those risk factors that are most distal, the research on early abuse antecedents is far more prevalent than research on biological risk factors. Indeed, we will provide supportive studies with sexual offenders to bolster the former, but we must access research with other populations to support speculations about the latter. Developmental Antecedents It has long been established that the backgrounds of sexual offenders are characterized by disrupted family relationships, violence, and neglect (Bard et al., 1987). Such problematic family backgrounds are not limited to incarcerated offenders. Lisak and Roth (1990) found that unincarcerated self-identified sexually coercive males disclosed more negative relationships with both parents, but particularly fathers, than did men who were not sexually aggressive. The negative developmental antecedents of sexual abuse and physical abuse/antipathy play an important role in etiological models (Knight & Sims-Knight, 2003; 2004) and have received the most empirical support. We will discuss each in turn. Sexual abuse. Sexual offenders appear to have been sexually victimized in childhood more often than the general population or other types of offenders (e.g., Craissati, McClurg, & Browne, 2002) and such abuse has been found to correlate with the characteristics of their future perpetration. Youth who have been abused repeat the sexually aggressive behaviors that were used in their own victimization (Burton, 2003). Histories of sexual abuse have been found to be more prevalent among juveniles who sexually offend than other delinquent groups (Zakireh, Ronis, & Knight, 2008). Moreover, the experience of being sexually abused has been found to predict both revictimization (Hines, 2007) and perpetration (Hines, 2007; White & Smith, 2004), even among noncriminal samples. Isolating the specific effects of sexual abuse from other pathogenic properties of the family environment, such as physical abuse, neglect, and general family disruption, has been difficult because different types of abuse tend to occur together (e.g., Knight & Sims-Knight, 2003, 2004). In addition, many studies have not employed optimal control groups, and outcome measures have been neither standardized nor normed. Finally, sexual abuse is a complex phenomenon, fraught with multiple definitional and assessment problems. Consequently, the immediate and long-term covariates of childhood sexual abuse that have been identified must be interpreted cautiously. Nonetheless, cogent mechanisms to explain the relation of such abuse to subsequent sexual perpetration have been proposed (e.g., Grabell & Knight, 2009). Physical/Verbal Abuse. In the literature on adult sexual offenders, a high incidence of childhood physical abuse has been reported among both rapists and child molesters (Bard et al., 1987). In a study of the relation of early maltreatment to offense characteristics, physical abuse was found to co-vary with the frequency and level of nonsexual unsocialized aggression among sexual offenders (Prentky et al., 1989). In Knight and Sims-Knight's (2003; 2004) model, physical abuse/antipathy has been found to be a significant antecedent of both the antisocial and CU paths in multiple samples that vary in age, criminality, and sexual offender status. Physical abuse also plays a prominent role in the juvenile sexual offender literature. It has been hypothesized that being physically abused or observing family violence may contribute to the development of sexual violence in adolescence (Awad & Saunders, 1991). Consistent with these speculations, juvenile sex offenders have been found to have experienced more abuse than other delinquent groups. For example, Lewis, Shanok, and Pincus (1981) found that whereas 75% of their violent adolescent sex offenders had been physically abused, only 29% of other delinquents had experienced such abuse. Physical abuse was not, however, unique to sexual offenders. In this same study an equal percentage of violent nonsexual offenders had also been physically abused. Similarly, observing domestic violence appears to be associated with violence in general and not specifically with sexual violence (Spaccarelli, Bowden, Coatsworth, & Kim, 1997). Thus, it seems clear that children who experience physical abuse are likely to exhibit higher than average aggression in adolescence and adulthood and this aggression may be sexual or not sexual. Physical abuse has been implicated in the sexually aggressive behavior of noncriminal samples (White & Smith, 2004). It appears to increase children's emotional detachment and it is correlated with personality disorders and with dissociation. In Malamuth's (1998) theoretical model of sexual aggression, harsh early environments, including experiencing physical abuse, play a prominent antecedent role in sexually aggressive behavior, both potentially locking a person into short-term mating strategies and impersonal sex and increasing the probability of both hostile masculinity and antisocial behavior. Genetic Antecedents Genetic influences on sexual aggression have not been studied directly. Nonetheless, genetic antecedents of many of the risk factors for aggression (antisocial personality or behaviors, psychopathy, criminality/ delinquency, aggressive behaviors, alcohol use and misuse) have been studied, and thus genetic factors are at least indirectly implicated in sexual aggression. In addition, aggression and sexual aggression often have common environmental correlates (e.g., physical abuse is a developmental risk factor for both), and thus they might also share genetic influences. It is important at the outset of the discussion of genetic influences to emphasize that the presence of such influences in no way implies any preset determinism. Indeed, the literature we will review argues strongly for the malleability of the effects of genes and the critical role that environmental experiences have in shaping and determining their outcome. Traditionally, genetic influences have been studied in humans by the use of twin and adoption studies. Substantial heredity estimates have been found for antisocial personality, conduct disorder, and aggressive behavior, although methodological weaknesses may have inflated the results (see PÈrusse & Gendreau, 2005). In addition, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which is a correlate of the antisocial path described above (MIDSA, 2008) and a frequent trait in juvenile sex offenders (Robertson, Knight, & Conboy, 1999), has also been shown to be partially inherited (McLoughlin, Ronald, Kuntsi, Asherson, & Plomin, 2007). The nature of genetic influence has been clarified by research that uses newly developed techniques for identifying polymorphisms in individual genes. This research has found that single genes interact with the environment so that only individuals who both possess the deleterious gene allele and suffer abusive early environments develop the negative traits. The most widely studied gene by environment interaction has focused on aggressive or antisocial behavior. The first convincing study (Caspi et al., 2002) was a prospective study of the interaction between harmful early environment and the MAOA gene in boys who were 26 years of age at the time of the outcome assessment. Although not all attempts to replicate this study have been successful, a recent meta-analysis (Kim-Cohen et al., 2006) suggests the interaction is real. Furthermore, comparable findings have emerged from studies of the serotonin transporter gene (5HHTLPR) in rhesus monkeys (see Suomi, 2005, for a review). The primate research confirms with an experimental manipulation the interaction found in nonexperimental human studies. Most studies in this area use omnibus measures of child adversity, but Beaver (2008) explored the interaction with a single type of abuse of particular importance in sexual aggression, child sexual abuse. Using a summary index of three dopaminergic genes (DAT, DRD2, and DRD4) and violent adolescent delinquency as the outcome, he found the predicted interaction between child sexual abuse and genetic liabilityóthe children who were both at genetic risk and suffered childhood sexual abuse were most likely to become violent delinquents. Although the technique has not yet been applied to sexual aggression, interactions have been found and replicated with ADHD, conduct disorder, antisocial disorder, and alcohol dependency, all of which are risk factors for sexual aggression. Furthermore, research on serotonin has found that a low level of serotonin activity is related to increased sexual behavior as well as impulsivity and lability of behavior (Spoont, 1992), and monoamines have been implicated in sexual appetitive disorders (Kafka, 2003). All of the human genetic research we described here is correlational because the genetic manipulation of humans is unethical. Its causal validity is, however, boosted by animal studies, such as the primate research described above and experimental manipulation of genes by activating and inactivating them is possible. Evidence of the gene effects on sexual aggression can also be inferred indirectly from experimental studies of the effectiveness of medications. Medications such as antidepressants presumably counteract the effects of the deleterious monoamine genes. In a recent meta-analysis of experimental and repeated measures studies, such drugs have been found to reduce aggressiveness (Connor, Boone, Steingard, Lopez, & Melloni, 2003) and evidence supports their efficacy in treating disinhibited sexual motivation or sexual appetitive behavior disorders (Kafka, 2003). Interrelatedness of Risk Factors Research Despite the obvious gaps in our knowledge about the etiology and course of sexually aggressive behavior against women, definite consistencies have emerged in the risk factors data reviewed. Negative masculine attitudes, vulnerability to cognitive misperceptions, and concurrent alcohol and pornography use correlate with each other and interact with the dispositional variables that define the core paths in a successful etiological model of sexual aggression. The CU path predicts negative masculinity and adversarial relationship attitudes, which in turn facilitate sexual aggression. The effects of both the antisocial path and hypersexuality on sexually aggressive behavior are mediated by distorted perceptions. The antisocial path, which involves impulsivity and emotional liability, correlates with and is disinhibited by alcohol abuse. High hypersexuality and CU increase pornography use and such use disinhibits sexual aggression for men high in these traits. All of these dispositional paths are intertwined with developmental antecedents and interacting genetic influences, which if unraveled and understood will allow the identification of perpetration risk levels for the creation of maximally efficacious preventative interventions. Prevention of Rape Current Rape Prevention Strategies The majority of the rape prevention programs that target males have been aimed at acquaintance rape among college students. They have typically focused on rape supportive attitudes, sexual role stereotypes, and social attitudes that are hypothesized to support sexual aggression. In large part the models implemented in these programs have been based on feminist and social construct theory. Although the attempt to reduce the high prevalence of sexual aggression on college campuses is laudable, the results have not been encouraging. While there is some evidence that such programs have a small, but positive effect on changing problematic rape attitudes, little or no evidence has emerged that they reduce sexually coercive behavior (Anderson & Whiston, 2005). Indeed, some evidence has indicated that attitudes changed in male oriented programs subsequently rebound to the level that the males had prior to the intervention, and the positive effects of interventions appear to diminish as the length of the follow-up increases (Anderson & Whiston, 2005). Although better success might follow from a concerted effort to develop longer, more comprehensive, multi-level prevention strategies that include peer, community, and societal levels (e.g., Banyard, Moynihan, & Plante, 2007), and one program (""Safe Dates,"" Foshee et al., 2004) has shown some promise in reducing violence in dating contexts, it is also possible that such programs have yielded suboptimal results because rape-supportive attitudes are anchored by enduring traits that must be specifically addressed. Insofar as negative masculinity and hostility to women are reflections of an attitude complex, changing specific manifestations of the complex (such as attitudes regarding rape) will not be effective. Insofar as negative masculinity and hostility to women are manifestations of a callous-unemotional trait, successful intervention must be directed toward the larger trait and the environmental conditions that cause and support it. Implications of the Research for Prevention What will it take to develop more effective prevention programs? Essential to any truly primary prevention intervention is a well-established, empirically-based model of etiology and course that discriminates causal factors from risk factors. Just as efforts to prevent antisocial activity in general have been curtailed by the limits of our understanding of its causes (Moffitt, 2005), likewise any endeavors to prevent sexual aggression will be limited by our ignorance of its etiology and course. As Moffitt (2005) has indicated, the history of attempts to prevent antisocial behavior is littered with failed programs (e.g., peer-group interventions, the DARE program) that have targeted risk factors that were correlative, but not causative. Only studies that attempt to disentangle genetic and environmental influences or studies that manipulate environmental conditions will allow us to develop more effective prevention programs. Consequently, both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies aimed at measuring both genetic proclivities and environmental stressors and mapping the interactive effects of these on the risk traits for sexual aggression are essential to the development of adequate etiological models of sexual aggression. The creation of effective sexual aggression primary prevention programs that efficiently target the most vulnerable individuals at the critical developmental stages rests on the foundation of such knowledge. Although we cannot alter the genetic makeup of vulnerable individuals, the single gene research suggests that we can prevent the negative expression of aberrant gene alleles by eliminating or reducing the stressful and punishing environments that trigger them. The two prime candidates for prevention of the development of traits that lead to rape are physical and sexual abuse. If subsequent research indicates they are truly causal factors and we can develop interventions that at least reduce the incidence of such abuse, we then have the potential to lessen the deleterious effects of harmful genes, thereby preventing the development of traits that lead to sexual aggression. Promising programs like the Chicago Child-Parent Centers program that provide child and family support for disadvantaged families have demonstrated the long-term educational, criminal justice, and economic benefits of early-childhood intervention programs (Reynolds & Temple, 2006). Parent management training programs have had some success at reducing problematic aggressive child behavior, but more research is needed (Duncan & Magnuson, 2006). No early intervention programs have specifically targeted or measured sexually aggressive behavior. Although such primary prevention programs have the greatest potential to reduce the incidence of rape, effecting widespread reduction in child abuse unfortunately may require interventions that extend beyond programs that target changes in the family (for discussions, see Hay & Jones, 1994). If we cannot effect a truly primary prevention that averts the onset of negative, maladaptive characteristics, we can and must focus our attention on secondary prevention efforts in which we identify genetic, developmental, and trait problems at the earliest ages possible and intervene to prevent these children from becoming sexually coercive. If we knew what genes to target, they could be measured. Impulsivity and antisocial tendencies and CU characteristics are measurable behavioral dispositions in childhood (Frick & White, 2008; Lynam et al., 2007; Moffitt, 2005). Interventions into sexual proclivities should also begin early. McClintock and Herdt (1996) demonstrated that in both males and females, both homosexual and heterosexual, sexual attraction begins around 10 years of age. They posit that this sexual attraction is caused by the rise in sex hormones between the ages of 6 and 11 as a result of the maturation of the adrenal glands. Thus, prevention programs directed at hypersexuality as well as those for CU traits, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior should not wait until the individuals are of college age or even of pubertal age, but should attack these traits when they are truly in their formative stages. Research must be directed at the identification of the early risk factors associated with subsequent sexual aggression and clarify their causative role. Such knowledge must then be translated into practical action. We must determine how we can reliably and validly measure these factors in an efficient way so that vulnerable children can be identified, possibly in the context of mental health checkups, and effective interventions initiated and studied. In addition to responding to obviously vulnerable children whose manifest behavior indicates the presence of risk factors or whose reported abuse history is known, we should also implement additional assessment strategies. Sequential assessments, such as computerized self-report screening questionnaires followed by more thorough evaluations for potential high risk youth, should be developed and evaluated using the strategies suggested for other problematic domains (Fox, Halpern, & Forsyth, 2008). Age-appropriate interventions that target children of highest risk, including genetic risks, must be fashioned and tested (see Durlak, Fuhrman, & Lampman's 1991 meta-analysis in which they found cognitive-behavioral therapy more effective for adolescents than younger children). Some intervention research targeting aggression in teenagers indicates the potential effectiveness of such programs (e.g., Lochman, Powell, Whidby, & Fitzgerald, 2006). Finally, we have argued that programs that focus on college students may be suboptimal both because they are too late and because they have focused on rape-supportive attitudes without addressing the broader traits that may be causing or maintaining those attitudes. The data reviewed suggest that such programs may be improved if two things are done. First, measures of proximal and trait correlates of sexually aggressive behavior need to be developed that discriminate high risk individuals. Second, males with high trait vulnerability should be triaged into programs that specifically address their problematic proclivities (e.g., impulsivity, alcohol abuse, hypersexuality, emotional dysregulation), and the males with low externalizing characteristics, but high attitudinal risk, could be streamed into programs that focus on the attitudinal complex and the peer culture that maintains it. Summary In this article we reviewed the primary risk factors for sexual aggression in men. Because longitudinal studies of sexual aggression are lacking and we do not have the data to determine the causal precedence of risk factors, we divided the factors into three descriptive clusters that suggest, because of their differential specificity, cross-temporal endurance and temporal priority, a division into proximal versus distal causes. In reviewing the empirical evidence on these factors we concluded: 1. There is substantial evidence that identifies critical proximal (first cluster) correlates of sexual aggression, including particular attitudes, proneness to misperceive social/sexual cues, and alcohol and pornography use; 2. The factors in this first cluster covary and interact with each other in complex ways; 3. Core, cross-temporally stable traits, including impulsivity/emotional dysregulation, callousness/unemotionality, and hypersexuality, are also risk factors for sexual aggression and covary with the first cluster of risk factors; 4. The traits appear to have specific developmental and genetic antecedents, which suggests a testable theoretical etiological model of sexual aggression; and 5. The ineffectiveness of current prevention programs might be due to their failure to target the more core, potentially causative traits and antecedents, and to intervene at a sufficiently early developmental stage. Authors of this document: Raymond A. 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Ticketing Bias: Broken Windows and Summons Data Wednesday, August 06, 2014 . Lots of calls about way NYPD issues summonses. Caller saying she notices big open-container discrepancy between Prospect and Sunset parks.— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) August 6, 2014 If there's one take away from the Eric Garner incident it's that those big black guys who try to act all intimidating are in fact not worth much. If you can last 10-20 seconds against them they will literally die of exhaustion! John from office: Your blanket statement abased on what seems to be a deep seeded bigotry and ignorance is astonishing. You've come up with a few lame examples that seems to back up your assertion "they" (non-whites) need constant policing and mothering, because they are all so ignorant, have bad manners, aren't equal humans like cops are, have a lack of home parenting... Where do I begin, mercy. Seems you only look for the bad in what "they" do, justify blanket minority targeting and have disdain for 'their' youth because of the lousy act of one teenager who carelessly littered in the subway, as if he represented all non-whites at it's core. I have seen disgusting acts committed by whites every day, lewdness, littering, assault, fraud, harassment, graffiti, driving infractions, et c. If I were to list what I see everyday you'd be stunned. Furthermore, the friends I have and people I most admire happen to be Indian, black and latino. They have great jobs, Phd's, own a business, are polite, generous and honest. They too have experienced police harassment based only on their skin color. What do you say about that? How can you defend that? Basically people are people, and yes culture in your immediate neighbor can naturally influence your habits, just as much as it can prompt you to fight any influence, better yourself and change things. Sad that cops are usually white, usually target minorities, and continue to "kick' people that are historically 'down', born at the bottom without resources you or I probably have/had, and tragically no matter how hard they work to dig their way out of that often working 2 o 3 p/t jobs to put themselves or a child thru college or vocational school, or aim for a better F/T job with benefits, they have to carry the unfair, added weight of police harassment just because of their skin color. You should have to walk a day in their shoes John, that would shut up your clueless commentary real quick. How entitled you seem, which in itself is a ghetto mentality that is sadly trapped in it's own world. That Popeyes fried chicken kid can redeem his ways quickly, learn to chuck trash in a bin not the tracks. What about you seemingly stuck in your mentality of 'those darkies are all bad'? If that's what you truly believe, get volunteering as a Big Brother and go change things for the better, be a good influence, make a difference. Spread your vast intelligence since you are such a moral, upstanding citizen that represents civilized, educated man. Gauntlet thrown sir, put up or shut up. One more thing: what about the law-abiding people who are stuck living among people who disregard these quality-of-life laws? They're the ones who really suffer and for whom this conversation is needed. I was able to move and to go home to a neighborhood of people who share my social values, but those doubly-disenfranchised people are stuck with those nightmare neighbors who just overrun the entire area with their across-the-board effluvium. We as a society have a responsibility to look out for those in such situations - and there are a LOT of them - and ensure that they are receiving the BENEFITS of public service through responsible policing. It would be nice to hear a program on WNYC that takes THAT perspective for a change. Love, A Sustaining Member Man oh man, some people really are not able to have a frank conversation even about glaringly obvious problems and would prefer to derail things into the liberal weeds of social injustice. I used to live across the street from a fully Section 8 building in a "good" landmarked neighborhood with property values that were at the high end of the value range. The tenants in that building - and there was a high rotation of them over the three years I lived there - were consistently disruptive and at all hours, especially in the middle of the night: domestic violence that would actually spill out into the street, beer bottles hurled and smashed in the street, trash all over the property, stereo speakers placed in windows and blaring out into the neighborhood, hostilities and racial slurs yelled at the neighbors even as we just were walking by. It's not a race issue; it's about values. The Melting Pot can only work if the pot as a whole agrees and adheres to modes of public behavior that do not infringe on others' rights and their pursuit of happiness. Campaign to warn, then ticket. Repeat until behavior modification is achieved. It's simple, effective, and most importantly stomps on no one's rights. End of story. To the chinatown argument there are plent of buildings over 100 years old that have poor people grandfathered in to affordable apartment leases paying a few hundred dollars a month... and plenty of upper class people paying a premium to live in a central downtown area. MEANWHILE across the bridge in the projects are plenty of people with there grandparents on the lease paying 320$ a month for rent and than paying 600$ a month with combined car payment and insurance on a nissan maxima or used bmw or maybe they are selling drugs and not reporting the income.... these are the same people using there EBT cards to buy a turkey sandwich at the deli instead of a bag of rice and vegetables to feed tgere whole family... Point is im not racist but i also think its OKAY for some areas to be policed more than others... after all if people need public assistance and to live in the projects WHY ARE THERE PARKING LOTS IN THEM when normal poor people living in the basement of a brownstone would have to fight over street parking if they were dumb enough to own a car in an urban area like bushwick Sheldon, I totally agree. Bernie, my point was about Chinatown people, not all Chinese people. Bigggg difference. And sure, they are working their butts off to make a buck -- but as opposed to whom? -- that's what we're all doing. That doesn't make us poor; that makes us working class. Poor people need section 8 housing or homeless shelters, and welfare or food stamps, or other govt assistance. I bet you'd be shocked to see how much folks make collecting cans. Tom, you, I, and Mr. Lynch would agree that if Mr. Gardner did not resist arrest, he would still be alive but that doesn't absolve the cops from breaking their own guidelines, using a maneuver that probably resulted in a man's death. seth- your idea of what poor is so far from reality that it's almost funny.....chinese people are out hustling to make a buck any way they can. many people do need public assistance but can't get it so they collect cans, work the restaurants, supply shops, etc,etc...basically they're working their asses off to get by and barely make it...that's what poor is! Sheldon, I agree with your point, this man should not have been Killed, but the wife analogy does not hold water. A husband is not authorized by the voters through the govt to uphold laws that we allowed to be passed. husband = cop... NOT. There's a case to be made, but you did a horrible job of making it. This is a very simple issue: certain sub-cultural/cultural groups have some values/behaviors that are socially repugnant at best and unlawful at worst and we all are very well aware of what those values/behaviors are. If you don't want to be ticketed for urinating or spitting in public, then don't do it. For example, how much public urinating/spitting goes on in Brooklyn Heights? Relatively none, but there is MUCH more of it on the border with Downtown Brooklyn around the courthouse area and it surges during regular business hours when the population there is comprised mainly of sub-cultural/cultural groups who engage in these behaviors. And before anyone accuses this post as potentially racist, here's another example: how much more dog excrement can choke the streets of the East Village, Boerum Hill, the West Village? These people are NOT going to learn from their culture because their sub/cultures simply don't have these values so it's up to society to teach them: cops should go on a widespread warning campaign and the Mayor's office should flood the entire city with informative advisements about it via direct mailings and all available media. And most importantly, the City needs to communicate that the warning campaign will become a summons campaign after let's say 90 days of the warning campaign's commencement. This way no one can say they didn't know. There is nothing wrong with expecting people to behave appropriately and we need to stop automatically knee-jerking legitimate social concerns into the Race/Class Issue. This is a Quality of Life Issue and people who abide by these laws are beyond tired of the people who don't. Officially warn the City as a whole copiously, make sure it is understood that this will no longer be tolerated, and then TICKET. Then things will change. Why are we constantly reviewing the work history of the police and never mentioning the previous criminal activity of Eric Garner? Why do rich people litter so much and play loud music? Is it because they're drunk and disorderly on chardonnay? It's a shame they don't get ticketed for it. Police need to taget some areas more than others in bayside a strong police presence would be a waste of tax dollars... my grandmother lives there where houses are mostly single family units so if a homeowner or renter sits infront in the shade of there porch drinking a glass of wine or a 40ounce of old english they are not affecting anyones quality of life however if someone is in canarsie or crown heights drinking in the front it is most likely an aprtment building or multi-family unit so they are affecting the quality of life of the other poeple living there.... so YES IT IS FAIR some areas are targeted more than others... Also the more dense area with a guy getting drunk outside has higher risk associated with the dru k guy outside bc more people bump into him where as in bayside if theres a guy who gets drunk every day the 12 other homes on the block probably know to leave him alone and noone is bothered because he has a.front yard infront of him and noone has to step over him to get to there apartment Tom, you're using the "if my wife didn't provoke me - she would still be alive defense" - stop it. Everyone deserves their day in court, including this "upstanding" (Per Mr Lynch) cop, but waving at the camera as his "perp" laid dying on the street was despicable. Mark, no one said that Chinatown people are rich, but we have a different idea of what poor is. Isn't not working class. Poor is people who need $ from the govt to survive. That's not manhattan's chinatown. yeah, parts of chinatown have been invaded by rich, white people but that's not the majority of what's happening there. certainly not in bklyn or queens..my point is that there are much less summonses given out in poor chinese neighborhoods because chinese kids aren't acting out on the streets. AND they are struggling even more than kids in black neighborhoods because of their inability to obtain much of the available public assistance. My nephew (young college student hispanic looking) got two summonses on the same day -- Mother's Day, one going to work in the UWS and one coming back from work to Woodside (lives near the Woodside Housing Projects). First summons , NYPD pulled him over and when they couldn't find any infraction gave him a summons for "unreasonable loud exhaust". Nephew and I (I went for support but wasn't allowed to go in) had to take a day off from work to go to community court, whereby the summons was dismissed. The other summons was for "improper turn" whereby my nephew turned on a left green arrow light, and the officer told him there is no left-turn light. Anyway, he got two court dates for that (for which we wrote Albany to which one is correct but haven't gotten a response), one has passed and the other is upcoming soon. My nephew doesn't want to go to that date as he feels defeated and can't afford to take another day off from work and had asked me to just pay whatever fine there is. This is NYPDs tactic: hoping that the person(s) receiving the summonses will not show up, thus default to being "guilty" and pay the fine, or they will just pay the fine, regardless if they're not guilty, because they don't want to go through the trouble or don't have the time to attend the hearing. My nephew used to have a good outlook on life -- energetic, optimistic and overall positive. But ever since these incidents, he now have a very cynical and jaded view of life at a young age in NYC being a minority and a disrespect and fear of NYPD. NYPD's motto is about C-P-R, Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect. But the NYPD is anything but those, esp. under Bratton's reign and if one is a minority. <b>"Broken Windows" is just a variation of stop-and frisk</b>. Henceforth, it's good to be white, esp. white riches, in NYC, shielded by their skin (and wealth)color from the fear inflicted by the NYPD. They would never know what it's like being harassed by the authorities supposed to be protecting you. This in a country and a city where one is to be free and equal. I am just hoping karma will get them as definitely experience or education will not change NYPD. It's been like this, and it seems like it's getting worse everytime. Even Chinatown in Manhattan is poor. Do you think all those old geezers who pack the parks are hedge-fund managers or something? Or the people with little junk shops selling trinkets to tourists are making as much revenue as some Prada store? I've been on grand jury duty. We didn't indict any ham sandwiches. We had the chance to question the ADAs' statements & the witnesses', & we did, sometimes at length. We voted to indict when there was enough evidence to go on to trial (which was in the great majority of the cases), & we didn't when there wasn't. Flushing or Bklyn Chinatown I do not know about, but I do live on the edge of Manhattan's chinatown, so that I know about. No section 8 housing. low-wage work is there, but he folks who live there are not on unemployment. Very little welfare and govt assistance, because so many are not legal, but that doesn't mean they are poor. Many of the people who live there are different from the people who work there. So what's your point? seth- you've outed yourself as someone who knows nothing about nyc....chinatown is a rich area? really? how about flushing? or bklyn chinatown? upper class 'hood? you don't know what you're talking about. The PBA head is mad because the ME used a common term "chokehold." Has some law been passed that makes it illegal for some professionals to use common language for acts commonly described in Army combat manuals, etc.??? Mr. Lynch made it clear that he does not trust his members to de-escalate a situation to avoid violenceWS. "Chinatown is a poor community." -- maybe somewhere else, but not the one in manhattan. I live in the Union Square area. Lots of bars. Lots of white kids. Lots of drinking, drunks, pissing, screaming - I have NEVER seen the police much less seen anyone get stopped much less ticketed. And that is in spite of residents complaints and requests for control of this situation. And this doesn't even take into account all the noise and crowds in and around the bars themselves. This is quality of life, too. But nothing and no one conrols them. Nick, no one said he deserved to die, but you can't blame someone for stretching truth by stretching the truth yourself. Please send some of those spit police to western Jackson Heights. We are suffering a plague of "the phlegm of all nations". Coupled with the constant parade of uncovered flayed animal corpses being dragged through the streets, (is this legal in NYC?) this has got to be a serious health issue. As far as "cultural behavior" goes, why is cultural sensitivity always a one way concept? Shouldn't people who choose to leave one culture and settle in another show just a bit of "cultural sensitivity" to their new home. We see cops on the streets here, but they seem to just observe bad behavior off all kinds, including flagrant disregard of traffic laws. (U-turns in the middle of the block, driving backwards, etc.) Chinatown is a poor community. Pat LYNCH. Sometimes things are so obvious, we can't see them. Like Al Sharpton's conk?...Just observations. The PBA spokesman has relieved himself of being viewed as a rational person in basically stating that Eric Garner's death was justified because he resisted arrest for selling a cigarette. He's a psycho. Brian loves these "COPS BE BAD" segments, he is breathless. If you don't want to get busted for pissing in public, then don't piss in public. Same for boozing and illegal drug use. For many years I lived in the East 90s and worked in the West 150s. The reason people get busted more often for breaking quality-of-life regulations in the West 150s is that people commit more violations there. It isn't race, it is cultural. Even traffic rules change. If someone turned left against the light through Park Avenue, people would go bananas. But it happens every minute of every day on Broadway above 125th Street. Don't blame the police if there are problems when they are asked to patrol different communities with different norms of behavior. Open containers of beer? The Upper East side of Manhattan is plagued by swarms of beer-drinking 20-something white folks participating in "Bar Crawls" ostensibly for charities. These kids walk from participating bar to bar carrying open cups of beer WITH IMPUNITY. I'm not saying they should be arrested. I'm asking why a man in Bed Stuy drinking beer on a stoop is when upscale East Side bar crawlers booze their way from bar to bar with nary a 19th Precinct officer taking notice. Maybe our local cops are older and more experienced, better able to make good calls as to when active policing is appropriate - and what to ignore? Tom....yes, on second thought, you're right...the PBA guy was right. Eric Garner resisted arrest for selling a cigarette, therefore he deserved to die. I guess we're living in North Korea. I've worked in Harlem for seven years and particularly during the first 3-4 years "loose" (cigarettes) or untaxed packages of cigarettes, (usually Newport) were openly peddled on the street. All the vendors, to the best of my memory, were African or African Americans. In the 30+ years of living Washington Heights, (no, not Hudson Heights), I have never observed the open selling of cigarettes on the street. Just saying. Joel, "why not"? because it would be very expensive to pay cops to be in areas where crime doesn't happen. We all know that life is not fair. Are the stats that way because certain infractions are more prone to be committed in certain neighborhoods? probably, but a middle-class couple, sipping a glass of wine in Prospect Park or on the stoop of their brownstone is FAR LESS LIKELY to get a ticket than a young black or hispanic male, drinking a bud on a park bench. An immigrant delivery riding his bike on the side walk is FAR LESS LIKELY to get a ticket than if a young black/Hispanic man were to do the same thing. could we expand studies like this to include groups like chinese, indian, pakistani, korean, mexican,etc.. communities? these areas are just as low on the socio-economic map, if not lower, being that lots of these groups can't obtain public assistance. these people aren't hassled by cops because they don't act out in the streets like they do in black neighborhoods. anyone ever get mugged by a poor chinese kid? pakistani kid? nope...why ? because they have people in their lives who instruct them how to behave in society. that's it in a nutshell. During the Clinton years the push was for more police officers walking the beat or putting police officers on bicycles. This made police officers liaisons to the community. In the mid to late 90's there were officers in my Brooklyn neighborhood-- Carroll Gardens/Red Hook-- who were "bike cops" and a few who walked the beat. Now, they are all in cars, removed from the community. Is there a feeling that if police officers were woven into the neighborhood would there be better community policing and a different/better approach? Nick, is the PBA spokesperson wrong? Can't get through via phone. The DN is comparing summons issued to blacks and Hispanics as disproportionate to whites. Did their survey address the Asian community which make up a significant percentage of the city's populations? If yes, what are they? If not, why not? These statistics only show correlation. You need more experiments to find correlation. Why not put equal numbers of cops, all of equal experience, in both "Low-crime" and "High-crime" precincts for a period long enough to draw a proper conclusion? Perception IS NOT REALITY. What a completely stupid statement. I'm so sad to hear this talked about in terms of the "black community" and the white community. That's not it. It's about the poor community vs. the rich community. If people were all green, we'd still have this problem, because poor people live differently. We're confusing class with race. to sleep under bridges. In the history of civil rights, policies that discriminatory effects have been considered wrong, if not as wrong as deliberately discriminatory (de jure) policies and laws. De Blasio seems to be addressing this, but we can't have cowboys putting themselves into a position where killing people is a possible outcome in the meantime. Not only that, but the spokesman for the PBA stated that if Eric Garner had not resisted arrest, this wouldn't have happened. Thereby stating that if someone resists arrest for a moronic trivial "offense" like selling a cigarette, the police are justified in executing that person on the spot. Shows you what kind of morons are speaking for the police. What I've noticed here in Bushwick is many more cops in general - particularly prominently planted on street corners in and around the projects. i was mugged, a few years back, by teens of color who were not only drunk but threatened us with the bottles of beer they were carrying. so stopping people who are drinking in public does not seem so far fetched to me. from sleeping under bridges. In the history of civil rights, policies that discriminatory effects have been considered wrong, if not as wrong as deliberately discriminatory (de jure) policies and laws. What a stupid study. How many guys are seen sitting on a stoop on Park Avenue openly drinking a beer? There are more summonses for those activities in poor neighborhoods because there are more bored, depressed unemployed people DOING those things in poor neighborhoods. I think that policing should stop real bad guys doing real bad things. BUT when are we going to STOP criminalizing cultural behavior? Some people gather outdoors and carry a beer can or joint. Get over it. When you decry a disparity between groups in ticketing by the police, you are assuming that the crimes are committed in equal measure by each group. Ha. Was Eric Garner actually selling loosies that day? We need to be clear. Forget about broken windows or eating and trashing subway. Anybody who wears his pants below the area where the anal probe is inserted should be ticketed. Here we go again with the "COPS BE BAD" segments on WNYC. More Blacks and Hispanics are ticketed and/or stop by police because they are more inclined to be involved with and interact with police. Once that interaction takes place, the lack of fathers and any sense of how to deal with an authority figure, results in tickets and arrests. "progressives" will not be happy until there is equal parity between blacks and whites in police contact, a dream that is total nonsense. How about asking why there is a degree of dedain for authority in the black community and a lack of respect of authority figures, be they school teachers or the cop on the beat. That is the problem. I saw a young man eating on the subway, once done with his order of popeyes fried chicken he proceeded to just drop the entire package to the subway tracks, with plenty of trash bins available. This is a lack of respect for themselves and their society and a lack of parenting at home. FACE IT. We then turn to the police to control social misfits and failures.

5. The First Sign: Jesus Turns Water Into Wine (John 2:1-11) Introduction My wife and I know what it is like to get married on a limited budget. When we became engaged, Jeannette and I both contributed to the purchase of her engagement ring. When we got married, we had to stop and cash one of the checks given to us as a wedding gift in order to pay for our room that night. The second night of our honeymoon was spent on the living room couch of my former roommate’s parents’ house in Eastern Washington. If you think that’s bad, our third night was spent at a state park. Jeannette slept in one seat of the car, and I slept in the other. The next night was a little better; we stayed with Karl and Martha Lind, our friends in Portland, Oregon. Some of you may remember the story I have told about staying in their son David’s room, since he had moved away from home. John, the older brother, still lived at home. We were awakened in the morning to the sound of a booming voice over the intercom announcing: “Breakfast will be served in the dining room in ten minutes!” The voice sounded so dignified, so formal, but I knew it was John. Before he could even take his finger off the intercom button, we heard a huge crash and the breaking of glass. It literally sounded as though every dish in the cupboard had fallen and broken on the floor. This thunderous crash was quickly followed by a bellowing voice that I knew was Karl’s: “John!” Getting married on a limited budget is not easy. It was not easy when Jeannette and I married, and it may not have been easy for some of you. Neither does it seem to have been easy for this unnamed couple whose wedding Jesus, His mother, and His disciples attend in Cana of Galilee. The story of the wedding at Cana of Galilee is found only in John’s Gospel. It is on this occasion that our Lord performs His first demonstration of power. It is no mere miracle; it is a sign, a miracle with a message. Let us listen carefully to the words of this text to learn what the Spirit of God intends to teach us from this wedding miracle. The Occasion .” In the Old and New Testament worlds, weddings were happy, festive occasions just as they are today. The marriage ceremony was considerably longer, during which time there was feasting and celebration. Two passages in the Bible shed light on what may have taken place at this celebration in this second chapter of John. The first is the marriage of Jacob and Leah in Genesis chapter 29. Actually, Jacob thought he was marrying Rachel, the younger sister for whom he had labored seven years. Laban outdoes Jacob in deceit by switching brides. A lengthy celebration, a good quantity of wine, and a very dark tent seem to explain how Jacob could spend the night consummating his marriage with Leah rather than Rachel. The second, and most instructive, wedding celebration is that of Samson in Judges 14. The marriage is never actually consummated, and in the end, this Philistine bride is given to Samson’s friend and perhaps even his best man (14:20). Samson finds this woman in Timnah and demands that his parents arrange for the marriage. On his way to the place, Samson is attacked by a young lion, which he tears apart with his bare hands. Samson says nothing of this to his anyone. Later on, when he is on his way to Timnah to be married, he comes across the lion’s carcass, in which a swarm of bees have created a honeycomb. Samson scoops out some honey, which he eats and shares with his parents, without telling them where it came from. During the week-long wedding celebration, Samson propounds a riddle to the Philistine young men who are guests at the feast. He promises to give them 30 linen wraps and 30 changes of clothes if they can solve this riddle within the seven days of the feast. The Philistine men cannot figure out the riddle, so they force Samson’s intended bride to extract the answer from Samson. When the young men solve the riddle and Samson learns how this was accomplished, he goes down to the Philistine city of Ashkelon and kills 30 Philistines, taking their clothing and giving it to the young men of Timnah. As a result of Samson’s revenge, the marriage is never consummated, and the woman is given to another man. This story provides insight for us into what takes place during the week-long wedding ceremony in our text. Leon Morris supplies us with some additional background from the Jewish writings: According to the Mishnah the wedding would take place on a Wednesday if the bride was a virgin and on a Thursday if she was a widow (Ket. 1:1). The bridegroom and his friends made their way in procession to the bride’s house. This was often done at night, when there could be a spectacular torchlight procession. There were doubtless speeches and expressions of goodwill before the bride and groom went in procession to the groom’s house, where the wedding banquet was held. It is probable that there was a religious ceremony, but we have no details. The processions and the feast are the principal items of which we have knowledge. The feast was prolonged, and might last as long as a week.91 Mary, the mother of Jesus, is at the wedding, although her role seems to be more than that of a guest. One gets the impression that the couple being married are either friends, or possibly related to Mary, and that she is helping with the arrangements, especially the serving of the food and wine. She seems to be one of the first to know that the wine is running out. She instructs the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do, and they appear willing to take her instructions. Jesus and His disciples are also at the wedding as invited guests. There seem to be only five disciples at this point: Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip, Nathanael, and John (if indeed he is the other disciple of John who follows Jesus). The fact that Mary, Jesus, and His disciples are all invited to this wedding suggests that this wedding is that of someone known to all of them, perhaps a friend or a relative. Well into the festivities, Jesus’ mother becomes aware of a most.92 (Can you imagine being sued for not providing enough food and drink at a marriage ceremony?) Jesus’ mother seems to step in and take charge when she says to Jesus, “They have no wine left.” This is no mere report, as our Lord knows, and as John expects us to understand. Though not all perceive this to be so, I believe Mary informs Jesus with the hope that He might do something about the situation.93 Of all those present, the mother of our Lord knows Jesus best. She knows better than anyone of the miraculous events surrounding His birth. She knows of John the Baptist’s miraculous birth as well, and of his ministry in which he has identified Jesus as the promised Messiah. Apparently Jesus has not yet performed a miracle, and we do not know for certain that she expects one. But from what she does know, it is certainly possible that she expects Jesus to do something out of the ordinary. Mary may have considered this crisis providential. Perhaps she thinks it is time for Jesus to present Himself to the world as the Messiah.94 John the Baptist has already designated Him as Messiah, and He already has a following of disciples. A well-timed miracle could be the means by which He declares His identity to the nation. At the same time, the newlyweds would greatly appreciate His providing a remedy to their problem! Mary is very careful not to tell Jesus what to do, but it seems clear that she hopes He will do something. Jesus knows that His mother expects a response of some kind, and He gives her a response, though it is hardly what she expects. Yet, it is not an unkind response—it simply serves to set the record straight by redefining His relationship to Mary, His earthly mother. Jesus does not call her “Mary,” or “mother,” but “woman.” This is the same term Jesus will use when He speaks to her from the cross (John 19:26). Here, at the wedding, Jesus asks Mary the question, “Why are you saying this to Me?”95 Jesus is not employing a new or unique expression when He refers to His mother as “woman.” This expression is found a number of times in the Old Testament (Judges 11:12; 18:24; 2 Samuel 16:10; 19:23; 2 Kings 3:13; 2 Chronicles 35:21) and a few times in the New (see also Mark 5:7; Luke 8:28). The expression has a way of distancing two parties. For example, when the Ammonites come to do battle against Israel, Jephthah is recruited as Israel’s leader. He sends this word to the king of Ammon: “What do you have against me [literally, “What to me and to you …”], that you have come to fight against me in my land?” (Judges 11:12b, NKJV) Jephthah’s expression, “What to me and to you?” is virtually identical in meaning (in the Hebrew text, and in form and meaning in the Greek translation of this text in the Septuagint) with the phrase employed by our Lord in our text in John. Jephthah asks the king of the Ammonites what the problem is between them. What problem pits you and I against each other? Jephthah is distancing himself from the king of Ammon in any way that will lead to war. He achieves this by pointing out to the king that they do not have enough issues between them to fight about. In the New Testament Gospel of Mark, the demoniac speaks to Jesus on behalf of the demons possessing him, “What is there between me and you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you will not cause me anguish!” (Mark 5:7). It is the same Greek expression by which the demon tries to distance himself from Jesus. He begs Jesus not to trouble him, not to make his demonic existence more miserable. What differences do they have between them at this moment in time? Jesus uses this same expression to ask Mary just what has caused her to think the problem she has identified is His problem as well as hers. As His mother, she might think she has some parental authority over Him. As her sovereign God, she has no authority over Him at all! This is what Jesus conveys with these words. It is almost as though Mary has said, “Jesus, they are out of wine. We really need to do something,” to which Jesus responds, “Ma’am, what do you mean ‘we’”? This response reminds me of the shop-worn joke about the Lone Ranger and his faithful Indian companion, Tonto. The Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by a tribe of Indians and greatly outnumbered. Turning to his companion, the Lone Ranger says, “Tonto, I think we’re in trouble.” Tonto looks back at the Lone Ranger and responds, “What do you mean, “we,” White man?” In his Gospel, Luke makes the point that Jesus lived in submission to His parents as a child (2:51). We do not know at what point in time it happened, but it appears that Joseph died prior to our Lord’s adult years, since he is never mentioned after our Lord’s early years. Jesus honored His mother and lived in submission to her authority, but it is now time for our Lord to indicate to His mother that there will be a change. Not only is He a grown man about to set out on His own, He is the Messiah, who will some day establish His kingdom on the earth. He can no longer relate to Mary as He formerly has. He cannot allow His submission to His Father to be “overruled” by the requests of His earthly mother. This wedding crisis provides Jesus with the opportunity to set a precedent which clearly indicates to His mother that He will not be instructed or influenced by her—as His mother. A new relationship between Jesus and His mother commences at the wedding in Cana. Catholics and Protestants strongly disagree on this matter. Catholic scholars, consistent with their exaggerated view of Mary’s importance, are convinced that she uses her influence on Jesus to get Him to do what He would not otherwise have done.96 The text seems to tell us just the opposite. Jesus reminds her that she is just a woman, and that He, as God, cannot comply with her wishes if and when they are not in “His time.” Our Lord neither abruptly nor arbitrarily turns His mother down. He does not say, “No,” and neither does He say, “Yes.” He simply reminds her of the change in their roles and relationships. He is no longer her “little boy,” obliged to do whatever she asks. He is the Messiah, who must obey His true Father. He is thus sensitive to the timing of His “debut.” Jesus informs His mother that it is not yet “His time.”97 He refers here to “His time” as the time of His public debut as the promised Messiah—not His death on the cross of Calvary.98 Duly informed, Mary certainly is not offended, nor is she entirely put off by Jesus’ words. She simply turns to the servants and instructs them, “Whatever He tells you, do it.” She does not argue with Him, for He has made His point. She does not plead with Him. By her words, it seems that she leaves her request in His hands to deal with as He sees fit. He may not tell the servants to do anything. Yet, if He does tell them to do something—anything—they should obey, for then it is His good pleasure and done in His good time. Water Into Wine (2:6-11) 6 Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washing, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to have become drunk. You have kept the good wine until now!” 11 Jesus did this as the first of his miraculous signs, in Cana of Galilee. In this way he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. The Old Testament Law required various washings, but to the Pharisees and some others this was not enough: 1 Now the Pharisees and some of the experts in the law who came from Jerusalem gathered to him. 2 And they saw that some of Jesus’ disciples ate their bread with unclean hands, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they perform a ritual washing, holding on to the tradition of the elders. 4 And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. They hold on to many other traditions: the washing of cups, pots, kettles and dining couches.) 5 The Pharisees and the experts in the law asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unwashed hands?” (Mark 7:1-5) Consequently, a devoutly Jewish wedding ceremony might have required many ceremonial cleansings. To facilitate these washings, a substantial amount of water was kept on hand. Nearby, within sight of our Lord it would seem (but perhaps out of sight of the guests as they ate), are six large stone waterpots. Each pot has a capacity of between 20 and 30 gallons of water, a total of around 150 gallons. Jesus instructs the servants to fill each of the six waterpots to the brim.. I am inclined to think that at least some of these pots were partially filled at the time—the wine ran out, not the ceremonial cleansing water. The servants must have fetched water in smaller containers, and by this means eventually filled the large stone containers. Up to this point I doubt that either the servants or Mary, or our Lord’s newly-acquired disciples have a clue as to what Jesus is about to do. When the six stone pots are filled, Jesus instructs the servants to draw out some of the “water” from one of the pots and to serve it to the master of the feast. Here is where Mary’s words to the servants are put to the test. I am not sure we can understand just how difficult an assignment this was for these servants. It was one thing to fill the stone waterpots, which was probably a part of their responsibilities. But who would ever think of someone drinking this “water”? Imagine working for a caterer who is serving a very large group of people at a banquet. In the kitchen, one of the large “squares” (cooking pots) falls to the floor, and half of the gravy spills out onto the floor. One of the employees manages to scoop up most of the gravy from the floor, which he then pours into the serving pitchers. Would you let a waiter pour it on your potatoes if you knew where that “gravy” had been? I don’t think so. Those of you who are campers have probably stayed in a remote campsite where the water comes from a well, but is not pure enough to drink. You look for signs there that clearly differentiate “potable” water from that which is not. You would not think of drinking water that is not entirely pure. You may wash your hands with it, but you would certainly not drink it. This ceremonial cleansing “water” may not have been considered suitable for drinking. Wine is to be drunk at such times. I doubt that any devout Jew would have considered drinking water from one of those six stone pots. With this in mind one can better imagine what it must have been like for the servants when they finished filling the stone waterpots and returned to Jesus for further instructions. Not one of them could have ever imagined what Jesus would say next: “Now draw some out and take it to the head steward.” In absolute unbelief they must have thought, “I know Mary said to do whatever Jesus said, but surely He can’t be serious! We are to serve this “water” to the head steward? When he finds out it is only water, and not wine, he’ll have our jobs. And if he finds out where this water came from, we’re really in big trouble.” No one could even remotely imagine what was about to happen. Jesus does not wave his arms over the waterpots, commanding the water to become wine. It appears that He never even touched the water or the pots. Jesus does not even tell them that the water has become wine, or that it is about to do so. As far as they know, Jesus is instructing them to serve water, ceremonial cleansing water, to the head steward no less! This is horrifying! To tell them more would have surpassed the limits of what their minds could conceive. As far as we know, the servants immediately obey our Lord. We read of no hesitation, no words of protest. The servants draw out of the pots and begin to serve the wine, starting with the head steward. I wonder at what point the water turned to wine and changed color. (Or, what if it had been white wine and it did not change color at all? There would be no visual indication that the water had been transformed into wine.) The head steward has no idea where his drink has come from, but the servants know. The suspense of those moments between the time the head steward drinks the wine and the time he responds must have been sheer torture for the servants. The head steward sniffs the cup, and then sips. He then calls for the bridegroom—what is he about to say? The scenarios which played in the heads of the servants would make interesting reading. With a smile, and perhaps a pat on the bridegroom’s back, the head steward proclaims this wine to be great—the best yet. The timing is a little unorthodox, he tells the bridegroom, but the wine is great. Usually, he notes, the trick is to save the inferior wine until last. When everyone has had their fill of wine, or more (literally “have become drunk”),99 their taste will not be as discerning, and thus the inferior wine may not be detected. But this wine is the best yet! The bridegroom has outdone himself, saving the very best until last. What looks like certain shame has turned to sudden fame for the bridegroom and the head steward. Conclusion This miracle at Cana of Galilee has much to teach us today. Allow me to make some observations, and suggest some implications and applications for us today. First of all, this is the first of our Lord’s miracles. John calls it “the beginning of signs” in verse 11. Liberal scholarship is unwilling to take the words of Scripture at face value. They do not believe this was a miracle at all. They explain the story this way: There was a wedding, and they were running out of wine. Jesus told the servants to serve water when the wine ran out. This was like a child’s make-believe tea party. To try to play down the embarrassing situation, the head steward tastes the water that is served in place of the wine and says (in good humor), “Good wine!” Then, someone else at the celebration catches the spirit of the moment and adds, “Yes, this is the best wine yet!” I prefer to take John’s account literally. This was a miracle. Jesus turned water—ceremonial cleansing water—into the best wine men ever drank. Second, while this miracle appears to be an exercise of supernatural power that our Lord is reluctant to perform, but which He does because of His mother’s persistence, it is not. I believe it is correct to observe that, in the Gospels, our Lord is often not as eager to perform miracles as others are to have Him do so. He knows the limitation of such displays of power, as we shall see at the end of this chapter. Jesus’ reluctance is not a resistance to helping this couple in need, but a concern that His mother understand that their relationship has changed forever, and that therefore His calling is not to do her bidding, as though she has an inside track with God. He also is concerned that He fulfill His Father’s plan at the divinely appointed time, rather than in His mother’s time-frame. He knows it is not yet time for Him to make a public display of His power, by which He publicly presents Himself as the promised Messiah. Those today who are overly eager to see God perform miracles (some almost insist upon them) should consider this fact carefully. Jesus is not as eager to perform miracles as others are to see Him do so. Third, this miracle was not a “necessity,” but rather a “luxury.” Stop and consider this fact for a moment. This miracle is not like some of the other miracles Jesus performed, where an individual has suffered for years, or a child’s life hangs in the balance. This is not an emergency situation which demands immediate and dramatic action on our Lord’s part. Years ago, when our family visited our good friends in Canada, we received a phone call from the U.S. while we were out. We were told the call came from someone with a strong accent. Since there is no way for me to reflect sounds (especially accents) in print, if you can switch your mind to “Swedish mode,” you may be able to “hear” the conversation as I did. When I called our home, where a Swedish couple was staying in our absence, Schel answered. “Bob, we’ve had a tragedy here … Carmen is dead.” Carmen was our little poodle, and we liked her a lot. She had gotten outside and was run over by a passing car. We were sad, but this was not a tragedy. We did not feel obligated to cut our trip short and rush home for the “funeral.” Similarly, running out of wine was a problem, but it was not a tragedy. Jesus’ first miracle was the solution to a non-critical problem, though I am sure that in the newlywed couple’s minds, and perhaps in Mary’s, the problem was a little more crucial than my assessment of the situation. But a crisis it was not. There is a lesson to be learned from this miracle. God is concerned with our “non-critical” problems. Prayer is not like calling 911. Some may have the idea that God is like the President of the United States—a person with many (too many) demands on His time, so that He cannot possibly respond to them all. They may think of God as sitting at a large heavenly desk with an array of telephones before him which are all ringing with “prayer requests,” and He is busy answering them all. Who are we to “bother” God with our problems? If this is our idea of God, we are wrong. God is all-powerful and all-knowing. He is never overtaxed by our calling upon Him for help. He is also a compassionate and merciful Father, who cares about His children. God is never annoyed when we come to Him with our small problems. Continuing the analogy of “bothering” a busy President, God does not look upon our “calls” (prayers) to Him as interruptions, as if someone were calling the President for the time and temperature. We are God’s children. I can tell you that a President who loves his child will (or should) gladly suffer the interruption of something that greatly concerns his child when he or she interrupts their father. I am greatly encouraged that our Lord’s first miracle is one that many would consider non-essential. Later in our Lord’s ministry, His disciples begin to act like our Lord’s “secret service,” shooing away little children and people whom they consider to be a bother to the Savior—and Jesus rebukes them for doing so. God cares about the little things in our lives. I am reminded of the story of the “lost ax head” in 2 Kings 6, where Elisha retrieves an ax head for one of the sons of the prophets. Many have tried to spiritualize this text to make it relevant. I believe it is very relevant: God cares about lost ax heads, and lost car keys and flat tires … God cares about the little things that affect His children.100 Fourth, this miracle is a lot like some of my jokes—most people in attendance just didn’t “get it.” It would seem that Jesus would want everyone to know what He was doing. He could have called for everyone’s attention, announcing to all that He was about to turn water into wine. He could have been much more dramatic, waving His hands over the waterpots, and then personally presenting the “good wine” to the head steward. In fact, Jesus does not seem to even touch the waterpots or the wine. He simply gives instructions to the servants to fill the pots and to serve the contents. If you had interviewed the head steward or any of the guests and asked what they thought of the celebration, they probably would have said: “Oh, it was a really nice celebration, and the wine at the last was really something.” Most of the people never knew a miracle had taken place. It seems that only Mary, the servants, and the disciples were aware of what happened. John tells us that because of this miracle, the disciples believed in Him (verse 11). My impression is that the servants knew “what” happened, but they were not sure exactly “how” it happened, so they simply kept quiet, scratching their heads with wonder. Minimizing the visibility of this first display of our Lord’s power is by design. Everything our Lord did in transforming the water into wine was intended to minimize His exposure. Done in this way, our Lord was able to perform the miracle without violating His Father’s will concerning “His time.” It was not yet the moment for our Lord to publicly display His power and glory. Thus, He performed the miracle privately, in a way that conformed to God’s timing. In one sense, there are two miracles here in these first verses of John 2. The first is the transformation of water into wine. The second is accomplishing this miracle in a way that was not apparent to everyone. Most likely, this is the way many miracles occur today. They occur in ways that seem so natural many do not even recognize them as supernatural. Perhaps an illustration would be helpful. As I was about to graduate from seminary a number of years ago, it came time for me to make the decision about where I would be going to minister. I had a couple of possibilities, but there was one I really did not want to consider, largely because of where the ministry would be. It was the one place in all the world I did not want to be. But God worked in my heart to the point that I relented and expressed to Him my willingness to serve Him even in that place. A church in that city had contacted me and expressed a desire to pursue the possibility of my ministry with them in that place. At the same time, I also had to make a decision about continuing in my current ministry, where I did want to be. Because I had to make a commitment within a certain period of time, I set a kind of deadline. If God wanted me to go to the other place—the place I preferred not to go—then that church would have to contact me again before the deadline passed. They did not, and I made the commitment to stay where I was. Only a few days later, a letter arrived in the mail from the “other church.” Interestingly, the letter had been mailed a month earlier, and from the marks on the letter, I could see it had been many places—except our mailbox. Somehow, the letter was not delivered on time, even though it was mailed to the correct address. Some might very easily say this was just a Post Office blunder. But I believe it was providential—a miracle—or, as one of my friends used to say, “another one of those strange coincidences.” Fifth, notice especially how this miracle “manifested our Lord’s glory.” This is what John tells us: “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him” (John 11, emphasis mine). This is a rather interesting statement, because it seems inconsistent with what we have just observed. How could our Lord’s glory have been manifested when so few even knew a miracle had been performed? The answer to our question may be answered in chapter 1: 10 He was in the world, and the world was created through lived among us. We saw his glory—the glory of the only One, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father (John 1:10-13, emphasis mine). Paul’s words to the Philippians may help to clarify what John has told). Jesus was God. He was in the beginning with God. He actively participated in the creation of this world (John 1:1-5). He was the true Light, the Light of the world, but the world did not know Him (John 1:6-11). The disciples beheld His glory, but the vast majority of those who saw and heard Him did not really see Him for who He was; they did not behold His glory. This matter is taken up later on in John’s Gospel, but let me briefly turn your attention to an important text in John: “I glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me at your side with the glory I had with you before the world was created” (John 17:4-5). Our Lord had great glory in heaven, and this visible glory He set aside to come to the earth in human flesh. He glorified God by His humility and obedience, which culminated in His sacrificial (and humiliating) death.101 Because of this, the Father has given Him even greater glory. That glory will be openly and visibly manifested at His Second Coming, and in heaven (“glory”). My point is this: I fear we have a distorted definition of “glory,” very much like our Lord’s disciples had in the Gospels. We wrongly think that if the glory of God is present, it will be in some dramatic display of power, one that is visible and spectacular, one that is seen and acknowledged by all.102 Let me remind you that the glory of God was manifested in this miracle, even though few recognized it as such. We may be looking for the wrong kind of “glory.” All too often in the “triumphalism” of the New Testament church (i.e., Corinth) and in the church today, we look for the wrong kind of glory. The glory of God, as I understand the Scriptures, is manifested in and through the saints as they—like their Savior—live humbly and suffer patiently for the sake of Christ and the Gospel (see 1 Peter 2; also 2 Corinthians 3 and 4). Sixth, this miracle is called a “sign.” Various terms are used in the New Testament to designate miracles. Of this term D. A. Carson says, The New Testament uses several words to denote what we call ‘miracles.’ One of the most common, dynameis (‘mighty works’) is not found in John; another, terata (‘wonders,’ ‘portents,’ ‘miracles’) is found only when linked with semeia (‘signs’), as in ‘signs and wonders’; but this combination is found only once in the Fourth Gospel (4:48). John prefers the simple word ‘signs’: Jesus’ miracles are never simply naked displays of power, still less neat conjuring tricks to impress the masses, but signs, significant displays of power that point beyond themselves to the deeper realities that could be perceived with the eyes of faith. Jesus himself in this Gospel refers to his miracles and to his other activity as his ‘work’ or ‘works’ (e.g. 5:36; NIV ‘miracle(s)’ in 7:21; 10:25).103 This transformation of water into wine is closely related to chapter 1. In the first few verses of this Gospel, John informs us that Jesus of Nazareth is the Logos, who was not only with God in the beginning, but was God in the beginning. He is the Creator, who brought all that is into existence. Is it any great wonder that we should see Jesus “creating” wine from water, just as He once created the cosmos from chaos? Are we surprised that the disciples beheld His glory through this miracle when, in chapter one, the Apostle John writes, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14)? This miracle, as the other signs of the Gospel of John, teaches us about the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. The purpose is simple: that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that in believing you might have eternal life (John 20:31). Do you believe? There is no more important decision in life than what you believe about the person and work of Jesus Christ. He alone is God manifested in human flesh. He alone is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, who alone can forgive your sin. Seventh,anael and make them into apostles. He is able to take the “weak and foolish things of this world”—people like us—and transform us so that people marvel at God’s grace and power. What a wonderful Savior! Eighth, Jesus not only produces something beautiful and blessed in this miracle, but something bountiful. The wine Jesus created was the best ever, but He did not create a small quantity. He produced much more than was needed. Can you imagine the joy of this married couple, who may have been poor, being left with over 100 gallons of the finest wine ever? When Jesus fed the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21) and again the 4,000 (Matthew 15:32-39), there were plenty of leftovers (14:20; 15:37). God’s blessings are always bountiful. “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38). God’s goodness and grace abounds to His children; they are without measure. What a wonderful Savior! Heal then these waters, Lord; or bring thy flock, Since these are troubled, to the springing rock. Look down, great Master of the Feasts! O shine, And turn once more our water into wine! Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), “RELIGION”104 89 In the entire Bible, Cana is mentioned only in the Gospel of John (2:1, 11; 4:46; 21:2). There are a number of theories as to its whereabouts, but no one can really say where it was located with certainty. We will be told in 21:2 that Nathanael was from Cana, so he probably knew the couple being married. 90 Mary is never called “Mary” in the Gospel of John, but is referred to only as the mother of Jesus, as here in our text. 91 Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), pp. 178-179. 92 “To run out of supplies would be a dreadful embarrassment in a ‘shame’ culture; there is some evidence it could also lay the groom open to a lawsuit from aggrieved relatives of the bride.” D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), p. 169. Morris goes into even greater detail. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, p. 177, see also fn. 7. 93 Calvin writes, .” John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, Volume 7: The Gospels (Grand Rapids: Associated Publishers and Authors Inc., n.d.), p. 622. I find Calvin’s explanation hard to believe. It seems more natural that Mary hoped Jesus would do something, without knowing what that might be. 94 The cynical half-brothers of Jesus suggested this in John 7:1-5, so it would not be surprising for Mary to suggest it sooner, in sincerity. 95 Literally, Jesus asked, “What to Me and to you, woman?” The various translations give this expression somewhat different nuances: “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” (KJV); “Dear woman, why do you involve me?” (NIV); “Woman, what does that have to do with us?” (NAB); “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” (NRS). 96 Morris writes, “Sometimes Roman Catholic scholars see Mary as asking for a miracle. Thus J. Cortes sees Jesus’ words as meaning: ‘What has changed between us? Why do you hesitate to ask me for a miracle? The hour of my Passion in which you will not be able to ask me for miracles nor will I work them, has not come yet. You are as always my mother and I am your son. Therefore I will gladly accept your petition’ (New Testament Abstracts, III, 1958-59, p. 247). The difficulty with this position is that there was a change. Jesus had never previously worked a miracle (v. 11), so Mary might well hesitate to ask for one.” Morris, p. 180-181, fn. 20. 97 On several occasions in the Book of John, Jesus refers to “His time.” In chapter 7, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was at hand, and our Lord’s brothers urge Him to go up to Jerusalem with His disciples and “show Himself to the world,” performing miracles so that He could be recognized for what He was. They did not say this in sincerity, but tongue-in-cheek, because they did not believe in Him as yet (7:1-5). Jesus declined to go up to Judea with them because He was not yet ready. He encouraged them to go on without Him. Later, He went up to the feast secretly to avoid, rather than to gain, attention (7:6-13). Later in the chapter, we are told that even though some of the Jews tried to seize Jesus, they were not able, because it was not “His time” (verse 30). A similar thing happens in chapter 8, verse 20. On other occasions, Jesus spoke of “His time” as having come (12:23, 27; 13:1; 16:32; 17:1). 98 Morris (p. 181), says that by this Jesus means, “It is not yet time for Me to act.” 99 Sadly, many look to this text primarily to prove their point about the use or non-use of alcoholic beverages, and thereby miss the main point of the story. One must work very hard to convince himself or anyone else that the “wine” was merely grape juice. On the other hand, the “wine” of that day and the wine of our own are probably not the same. The Bible does not forbid drinking any alcoholic beverage at all, but it does condemn the use of “strong drink” and drunkenness (Proverbs 20:1; Isaiah 5:11, 22; 28:1, 7; 56:12; Ephesians 5:18). It should be remembered that while John the Baptist was a “tee-totaler” and criticized for it, Jesus was not, and was accused of being a “winebibber” (Luke 7:33-34). Much can be said about the abuse of alcohol today, as in ancient times, but it is going too far to say that all alcohol is flatly condemned, or to attempt to convince us that the wine our Lord created was completely free of alcohol. 100 I had better add this caveat. While God does care about the little things that trouble us, He is not pleased with our petty, selfish petitions. James tells us that our prayers may not be answered because they are self-serving—James 4:3. Many of our prayers are self-serving, and God may not answer them because of this. 101 Morris cites Richardson, who sums up what “glory” means in our text: “Richardson points out that John ‘records no scene of Transfiguration, as do the three Synoptists; he regards the whole of Christ’s incarnate life as an embodiment of the [glory] of God, though the glory is revealed only to believing disciples and not unto ‘the world’” (An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament, London, 1958, p. 65), as cited by Morris, p. 186, fn. 38. 102 Satan thought in these terms as well, as we can see in Luke 4:9-11. 104 I found this quotation in one of the front pages of Michael Horton’s book, In the Face of God: The Dangers & Delights of Spiritual Intimacy (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996).

The A6 Bedfordshire Murder In an ideal world it is tempting to think that we might find solutions to mysteries like the ‘a6 murder’ by simply paying attention to detail. This particular puzzle however has taken many a mind around in circles for years. My attempt to solve the mystery was to create a chronology of events from the facts and statements and to disregard the fiasco that followed the trial surrounding Alphon and his unscrupulous friends. That chronology is now published here. James Hanratty was a petty crook and controversially convicted and hanged after being found guilty of carrying out the murder of Michael Gregsten at ‘Deadman’s Hill’ in Bedfordshire in August 1961. The case against Hanratty never stood up to scrutiny even in the presence of later DNA evidence. Hanratty always denied the murder although the evidence he gave was marred by lies in the dock which further exacerbated the jury and his position. Astonishingly and despite numerous coincidences, the A6 murder was eventually regarded as motiveless by Scotland Yard detectives. If Hanratty was guilty, was he really acting alone? Did Hanratty die a scapegoat? Whatever the truth, Hanratty’s family devotedly campaigned long and hard to clear his name. Whether Hanratty was guilty or innocent, it appears to me that he should not have been charged alone. The document will be useful to those who already assume a knowledge of the case. CHRONOLOGY Events Surrounding the Build up to James Hanratty’s Arrest. 1936 Sunday 4 October James Hanratty is born in Bromley. The family are living in Farnborough, Kent. 1937 – 1944 The family move from the South East of London to the North West settling at 29 Hillfield Avenue, Wembley. 1944 July James and Michael are evacuated to Barrow in Furness in Cumberland. They are billeted to a house run by Mr and Mrs Everside. They remain there for approximately one year. 1945 July approx. James and Michael return as evacuees to their mother at home which is Elthorne Court, Church Lane, Kingsbury. Their father is at sea in the Navy but when he returns the family move into a semi-detatched house at 12 Sycamore Grove, Kingsbury. James enrolls at St James Catholic School, Orange Hill Road, Burnt Oak. The school doctor is called by the head-mistress of the school (Sister Catherine) to assess James, who recommends he should be sent to a special school for backward children. James’ parents being protective, disagree with the given diagnosis of their son, and James continues his schooling at St James. 1951 Hanratty leaves Kingsbury High School. His father is working as a dustman. Hanratty gets a job sorting refuse for the Public Cleansing Department of Wembley Borough Council. 1952 July Hanratty falls off his bicycle, bumping his head. He is unconscious for 10 hours. He is kept under observation at Wembley hospital. He is supposed to return to work a week after being discharged from hospital but he fails to do so. One morning, soon after, Hanratty walks to the corner shop with a ration book with his brother Michael. Hanratty buys some sweets, gives them to Michael and sends him home alone. Hanratty flees for the first time and finds himself in Brighton working for a Mr Smith loading logs onto lorries and delivering them to London with the driver. He sleeps in the cab of the lorry but about one month after disappearing he collapses and is found unconscious and suffering from exposure. The police call at the Hanratty household to tell them that they have just found their son. Hanratty is in the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton, the family are asked by the police to identify him. Doctors are concerned that Hanratty might be suffering from a brain haemorrhage. They shave his head and perform a surgical operation which involves taking bone flaps from the skull to access the brain, but no sign of bleeding is found. The doctors conclude that Hanratty is simply mentally deficient. Hanratty spends two weeks recuperating with his mothers sister, aunt Annie Cunningham in Bedford, a place he and Michael had visited as children on holiday. Hanratty eventually takes a job driving a mechanical shovel for a company called ‘Green Brothers’ who make breeze blocks. He seems settled doing this job and continues with it for three years. 1954 7 September Hanratty appears before Harrow magistrates for his first offense. He is accused of stealing a motorbike. 1954 – 1955 It is about this time that Hanratty soon discovers he can earn big money in Soho. He begins to frequent ‘Solomon’s Gym’ on the top floor of a building on Great Windmill Street, Westminster. He begins to hang out at ‘The Rehearsal Club’ around the corner from Solomon’s on Archer Street, renowned for staging regular girlie shows and being a haunt for criminals. 1955 approx. It is around this time that Hanratty becomes aquainted with Charles ‘Dixie’ France. Hanratty explained ‘I met him when I was a teenager and didn’t know the ropes. I had lots of dealings in bits and pieces. He was more experienced. He learned me previous occasions when I was younger.’ 1955 August Hanratty is convicted of his second offence for housebreaking. He is remanded in custody and attempts to slash his wrists. The prison medical officer concludes that Hanratty is a potential psychopath. 1955 6 October Hanratty is sentenced to two years in prison for two house breaking offences and one burglary. 1957 3 February Hanratty is released from prison. 1957 June approx. Hanratty steals a car and gets caught. Hanratty explains: I met a man called Bill from Bloxwich, Wallsall, who taught me how to drive. We nicked a car from the West End. It was a Ford Zephyr with continental plates. After two days we abondoned it in Leighton Buzzard(Bedfordshire.) Then we took a Morris Oxford 10. I took Bill to Brighton where I left him with the car. I took a Humber Hawk but I got caught. 1957 3 July Hanratty is back in court on trial for motor theft and serves four months in Walton prison, Liverpool. 1957 November Hanratty is released from Walton prison. 1958 26 March Hanratty is convicted of stealing two cars at the Inner London Crown Court and sentenced to three years corrective training in prison. Hanratty will now have to serve the entire three years to be released in March 1961. He begins in Wandsworth before being transferred to Maidstone where he befriends Laurence Lannigan. Hanratty attempts to escape twice from Maidstone and is transferred to Camp Hill on the Isle of Wight as punishment. 1958 November Hanratty attempts to escape from Camp Hill. 1959 1 January Hanratty attempts to escape from Camp Hill a second time and is sent to Strangeways, Manchester instead. 1960 January Hanratty is transferred to Durham where he bumps into Laurence Lannigan again. Hanratty’s conduct is poor however and he is returned back to Strangeways. 1960 December Michael Gregsten returns to his home and estranged wife, having left her for Valerie Storie for an unspecified amount of time earlier, following a discussion in which Janet Gregsten had invited Valerie Storie over to her house to explain that her husbands roots were at home and that she shouldn’t be persuading him to leave. 1961 24 March Having served three years corrective training, Hanratty is released from Strangeways prison in Manchester. Between 1959 and 1961, Hanratty was one of only five people out of 1,300 who had been given and had served a full term of corrective training. 1961 13 April Hanratty returns back to his family from prison. 1961 Wednesday 2 August Later police investigations suggest Hanratty was in Northwood on this day burgling houses. 1961 Thursday 3 August Later police investigations suggest Hanratty was in Northwood on this day burgling houses. 1961 Saturday 5 August Hanratty is at the France’s house. He had noticed Carole France putting mascara on and suggested that he wanted something like that for his hair. Carole who is an apprentice hairdresser dyes Hanratty’s ginger/auburn hair black. Hanratty pays her £2 for her trouble. Hanratty believed the long summer days and the colour of his hair made him look conspicuous during burglaries. Hanratty explains: ‘I was doing business, my breakings; and I had to do it in the day, and my hair is auburn colour and it is very outstanding, so I had it dyed dark.’ 1961 Monday 7 August Hanratty and Charles France go to Hendon Dog Track. After the meeting, they board a bus and go upstairs where they have a conversation about the back seat of a bus being a good hiding place. France described it as follows: ‘I started to go towards the front of the bus but he pulled me back to the back seat. He made a remark something like, “This is the only seat on the bus that lifts up and is a good hiding place.”‘ 1961 Tuesday 8 August Robert Crocker is employed to work at the ‘Broadway’ hotel. 1961 Thursday 10 August William Nudds said he was released from prison on this day having served a lengthy sentence in at least seven different prisons where he was ultimately disliked and victimised by inmates. Nudds boasted he had found employment at the ‘Vienna’ hotel within three days of his release. 1961 Saturday 12 August Hanratty is in Harrow burgling a house. He steals 1 solitaire ring, 7 eternity rings with a ruby and surrounding pearls, £14 in cash from a ladies purse in the bedroom, 1 gentleman’s ring, 6 pairs of gold cuff links with the initial E on them, a ¾ length fur coat which Hanratty says he thought was ‘not mink, I think it was ermine.’ and a brand new ‘Bolex’ German cine-camera in a leather pigskin case which he had noticed in the lounge on his way out. William Nudds is employed to work at the ‘Vienna’ hotel. 1961 Bet: Saturday 12 August – Sunday 13 August Hanratty takes Louise Anderson out for Lunch. Afterwards they go back to her flat at 23 Cambridge Court, Sussex Gardens. Hanratty offers her the takings from his Harrow robbery the day before. She gives him £45 in cash for the fur coat and £15 for the cine-camera which he says he ‘accepted because I didn’t know what it was worth then.’ That night Hanratty sleeps at Louise Anderson’s flat between two chairs. 1961 Thursday 17 August Hanratty bumps into his cousin, Eileen Cunningham in Willesden, London. They are close but they have not seen each other for some time. Hanratty calls her over from across the street. She does not recognize him as she explained later in a statement. ‘His hair was dyed absolutely jet-black. You would not have been able to tell he was really ginger.’ Hanratty tells her he is trying to arrange a date with a girl. Eileen believed that ‘He phoned her twice at two different numbers. I know, I had to dial for him. He finds difficulty in dialling phone numbers.’ 1961 Friday 18 August Hanratty collects his new dark suit with a stripe from Hepworth’s Tailors in Burnt Oak, London. He wears it for the whole of the following week. 1961 Saturday 19 August Hanratty sleeps over at Louise Anderson’s flat. 1961 Sunday 20 August Lunchtime Hanratty arrives at the France household with two suitcases. N.B. Hanratty’s presence at the France household was evidence given by Charles France at Hanratty’s trial, Hanratty also admitted calling at the France household this day. He asks Charlotte France if she will wash a brown pigskin suitcase full of dirty laundry for him. He tells her the lie that he is travelling to Liverpool on Mon 21 August to visit an Aunt who he intends to take to see ‘the dogs.’ By all accounts, Charlotte France was unaware of her husbands criminal activities and as Hanratty explained later, he could not tell her the real reason for his visit to Liverpool which he explained as follows: ‘I was going to get rid of stolen rings. Three men with whom I stayed in Liverpool had connections. I thought they could get me the best price. I didn’t want to tell Mrs France that I was going to Liverpool to dispose of stolen property.’ Hanratty said he had already tried to sell the rings to a fence in London around this time and had been told that they were fake. Louise Anderson had run out of money and so he could not sell them to her either. Believing the jewellery to be genuine, especially a solitare diamond ring stolen from the ‘Stanmore-Harrow area’ worth £350, Hanratty thought of someone called ‘Aspinall’ who he had met in prison 3 or 4 years earlier who might take the rings. ’I was going to Liverpool to see a friend of mine who I knew as a past prisoner. I knew he was in the grocery business…’ He could only remember that Aspinall lived on Talbot, Carleton or Tarleton Road in Liverpool. Hanratty sleeps over at Louise Anderson’s flat. 1961 Monday 21 August 11:00 A.M. Hanratty takes a green check suit, stolen during one of his household burglaries, to be cleaned at ‘Burtol’s’ dry cleaner’s in the station arcade at Swiss Cottage, North London. He also asks them to taper the trousers. He gives his name as Ryan and his address as the fictitious 72 Boundary Rd, London. 2:30 P.M. – 7.00 P.M. Hanratty travels the short distance from Swiss Cottage and visits the France family to collect his brown pigskin suitcase full of clothing. He is wearing his ‘Hepworth’s’ suit. Charlotte France has packed it with five clean white shirts, ties, socks and toiletries. When Hanratty arrives there, Carole France is lying on the sofa having had a tooth removed at the dentists. Hanratty has a cup of tea and stays for a few hours. He gives Charlotte France £15 to collect her sewing machine and clock from the pawn shop. He leaves another £15 for Charles ‘Dixie’ France. This is the last the France’s hear of Hanratty until they receive a telegram on Friday 25 August 1961. N.B. Olive Dinwoodie and Barbara Ford’s evidence, that Hanratty was in a sweetshop on Scotland Road, Liverpool where they were serving on this afternoon, 21 August 1961 between 4:15 and 4:30p.m; contradicts the events listed here between 2:30 and 7:00p.m. This evidence was given by Carole France and Charles France, that Hanratty was at their house this afternoon. 11:30 P.M. – Midnight Hanratty says he arrived at the Vienna Hotel between 11:30pm and midnight and stayed the night in room 24. William Nudds(Glickberg) who was an employed assistant at the hotel, in his first statement which dates from Fri 15 Sept 1961, gives the following account of Hanratty’s arrival at the Vienna: ‘I have been shown an entry in the register dated 21 Aug, signed J.Ryan, 72 Wood Lane, Kinsbury who was allocated room 24. I remember this booking quite well. It was one which came from the Broadway Hotel and the man was brought over by one of the waiter’s in the company’s vehicle. It was between 9:00 and 11:00pm. I showed him into his room. There are a number of beds in the room and he occupied the bed on the left hand side as you go in the door.’ James Hanratty’s Account 1961 Tuesday 22 August 9:00 – 9:30 A.M. approx. Hanratty wakes up at the Vienna Hotel and goes for breakfast. He has a stolen solitaire diamond ring worth £350 amongst other items to sell and is destined for Liverpool. He is hoping to find an old friend he had met in prison 3 to 4 years earlier who he knew was in the grocery business called Aspinall, to sell the ring to. He is ‘in no hurry.’ He eats Cornflakes, Bacon and Eggs, and Toast and Marmalade. There are about six other people dining at the time. He says he was served by an oldish woman who was almost certainly Florence Snell. After breakfast he has a shave, collects his case and leaves. 9:30+ A.M. approx. Hanratty said he walked up Sutherland Avenue and onto Paddington Station by mistake. Trains to Liverpool run from Euston Station. Hanratty knew this saying, ‘I do not know why I made this mistake. Perhaps I was excited by the jewellery and the deal I was going to do. ’ - 10:45 A.M. approx. Hanratty said that realising his mistake, he then took a black cab to Euston buying a ticket to Lime Street Station, Liverpool for just under £3. He then bought some magazines from a newspaper stall and read them over a coffee whilst he waited for the train. Hanratty said he checked the platform but the train still had not arrived so he went back for refreshments and had a tea. He also bought a tube of toothpaste and spoke with a porter. Hanratty said that when he arrived on the platform for a second time to check for his train, it had arrived and was filling up fast. He had difficulty finding a seat. Hanratty explains. ‘I always like to sit next to the window. I had to go to the far end near the engine. I got into a compartment and tried to get a window seat but someone had got there first. A man like a college boy was kissing his girl goodbye but he had reserved his seat by leaving his books and papers there. There was another man in the opposite seat though I didn’t pay too much attention to him.’ One man looked like a ‘clerky gent.’ according to Hanratty. ‘I watched him and studied his dress closely as I am interested in the way people dress. He had very fine nylon stockings and shiny shoes with pinstripe trousers and a briefcase (like Mr. Kleinman’s.) He had very fine reading glasses which he put over his ordinary spectacles to read some papers. He had a gold pen too, and a gold watch, a beautiful watch which he wore on his right arm. He had initialled gold cuff links too. He smoked a black pipe. He had the inside seat. First I sat on the other side, then I changed seats so that I was sitting next to him.’ Hanratty said the gent was making notes and he wore a black barathea jacket. He had a briefcase and pad which could be turned over at the top. He was wearing black shoes which were shinier at the toe than on the upper part. He was sitting with his legs crossed. The man had a pair of glasses and he also had a separate lens which could be joined onto the first pair to save him having two separate pairs of glasses. ‘The man had his sleeve cut short to show the white cuff and he had gold cufflinks and there was an initial on them, but I could only make out an ‘E.’’ Hanratty said the train was full with many passengers standing in the corridors. ‘I did not speak to anyone. Most of the men got up and went to the restaurant car. The train stopped at Crewe, but no-one got in. We got into Liverpool at about 3:30 in the afternoon.’ N.B. Some newspapers reported that Hanratty said the train arrived in Liverpool at 4:30 in the afternoon. 3:30 P.M. – 4:30 P.M. approx. At Liverpool Lime Street Station, Hanratty says he went down some stairs and had a wash and brush up in the lavatory under the buffet. He had a conversation with the attendant about horse racing then had a cup of tea in the buffet and deposited his pigskin suitcase in the left luggage office. Hanratty said, ‘The man who took it had a turned or withered hand. I said to him, “How much?” He said “A shilling.” I said, “It’s usually sixpence.” He said, “We charge a shilling for all bags.” I said, “Well it’s only sixpence in London.” I asked what time they closed and he said they were open until the last train went.’ During the trial the prosecution called Peter Stringer, who had an artificial arm, who denied ever having seen the suitcase or Hanratty. However, William Usher did have two fingers missing from one hand, which looked ‘turned’. He said he recalled Hanratty and the suitcase, remembering the name of the man as ‘Ratty.’ Hanratty said he then asked a woman outside the station where ‘Carlton Avenue’ was. His explaination for doing so being: ‘I was looking for Aspinall to sell him the rings.’ The woman is said to have told Hanratty that it was a two penny bus ride away, up the Scotland Road. Hanratty said he caught the bus, but then had to get off it when he was asked to pay the fare, because the conductor did not know where he was looking for. Hanratty said he got off by a picture house which he thought was ‘The Regal.’ He then asked a few pedestrians if they were aware of the address ’Carleton’, ‘Tarleton’ Road, but they could not help him either. Hanratty said he then went into a sweet shop and tobacconist opposite the picture house. He said there was a lady serving and a little girl was with her. The shop assistant said she was not aware of a Carleton or Tarleton Road and told Hanratty, ‘This is Bank Hall.’ She told Hanratty he had come too far and he needed to go back into town. She went to the shop door with Hanratty and pointed out the nearest convenient bus stop. Hanratty said it was about then, he had a change of heart about finding the illusive ‘Aspinall.’ ‘When the woman told me I had to go back into town, I abandoned my intention of going to the road which I think is called Talbot Road.’ The woman in the sweetshop later came forward to give evidence as Olive Dinwoodie. Hanratty returned to the city centre and there he asked a man if he would be interested in buying a gold omega watch he had stolen. It had a gold strap and an inscription on the back which said, “To Tony with Love from Mum.” The man was not interested. Hanratty then walked back to Lime Street Railway Station. ‘‘I only had eight or nine pounds on me. To me, that is not a lot of money.’ He had a meal before walking across the road to a billiard hall on the other side of Lime Street where he came across a man standing on some steps. Hanratty said he had asked the man if he would be interested in buying a gold watch. The watch was a gold Omega with a gold strap and inscription on the back which said, ‘To Tony with Love from Mum.’ The man was not interested. Hanratty proceeded to go up the stairs into the hall to sell the watch but was told by the man that he was not permitted to go in there as the premises were licenced. Hanratty replied, ‘What difference does that make?’ and the man said, ‘It makes a lot of difference. I don’t want you to go in there with it. Robert Kempt, the Manager of the billiard hall at 12 Lime Street, Liverpool gave his account. ‘I am the managing licensee of Reynold’s Billiard Hall. It is my custom during the summer evenings when the hall is quiet, to stand at the entrance to have a breath of fresh air. That is any time between 6:00 and 7:30pm. One evening when I was standing at the door, a young fellow in his early twentie’s came to me and said, “Will you buy a watch?” I replied “No.” He said, “It’s mine, I want some cash to go to the dogs.” I still refused and he went to go up the stairs. I told him he could not go in there to sell that watch, “It’s not a sale room, it’s licensed premises.” He said,”I’m only going to the toilet.” and went up, and was down again in two minutes and he went away. I have no idea of the day, date or month, except that it was in the evening time. He was small and young and I might know him again.’ Hanratty gave two alibi’s at his trial that explained events following the previous statements. The false alibi was labelled ‘The Liverpool Alibi’ and his final alibi was labelled ‘The Rhyl’ alibi. Where did Hanratty say he was on this night, the 22 August 1961, the Night of the ‘A6 Murder?’ The ‘Liverpool Alibi’ Before his trial, Hanratty initially concocted an alibi saying he had slept over in Liverpool on the night of 22 August 1961, the night of the A6 murder, with three friends in a flat on Scotland Road, whose identity he was unwilling to disclose on account of the fact that they had stolen jewelry and gelignite there, and that one of them owed money on a television set he had bought on HP. Hanratty persisted with this false alibi for months until well into his trial. This alibi was first revealed to Detective Superintendent Bob Acott on 7 October 1961, during a telephone conversation days after Hanratty appeared to have learned he was wanted for the A6 murder. If the police transcript of the conversation is to be believed, Hanratty appears to have been assisting the police with an unequivocally clear understanding, that he is wanted for the A6 murder. During his trial however, when Hanratty was asked why he hadn’t told DS Acott the truth that he had been in Rhyl, Hanratty replied: ‘My Lord. I didn’t tell Superintendent Acott because at that point I did not know the name of the street, the number of the house or even the name of the people in the house. At that stage, I knew that I was only wanted for interviewing, not for the actual A6 murder charge, which I found out later or the truth would have been told straight away. I know I made a terrible mistake by telling Superintendent Acott about these three men, but I have been advised that the truth only counts in this matte, and might I say here, every word of it is the truth.’ If Hanratty was telling the truth in court, that during his telephone conversation with Acott he wasn’t aware he was wanted in relation to the A6 murder, then the conversation with DS Acott on 7 Oct 1961, must have been pure fiction and a police invention. Or was Hanratty just reeling out an incessant web of lies even now, extremely late in the game. If he was, asking a jury to believe his Rhyl alibi was a tall order indeed. The comment about being unaware he was wanted for questioning about the A6 murder could simply point to another ‘faux pas’ by Hanratty, although the timing of these inconsistencies clearly didn’t help him. So Hanratty would have us believe that he had actually been in Rhyl. Why didn’t he just say so and tell DS Acott at the time. ‘My Lord. I didn’t tell Superintendent Acott because at that point I did not know the name of the street, the number of the house or even the name of the people in the house.’ Why did he persist so long with an alibi he knew to be lies? ‘Because my Lord, I am a man with a prison record and I know that in such a serious trial as this, it is very vital for a man once to change his evidence in such a serious trial. But I know inside of me somewhere, in Rhyl this house does exist, and by telling the truth, these people will come to my assistance.’ At the trial and when asked if the previous statements were now the truth of the matter, Hanratty replied: ‘Every word, sir.’ The ‘Rhyl Alibi’ During the A6 murder trial, Hanratty changed his alibi, saying he had not spent the night of 22 August 1961 in a flat on Scotland Road, Liverpool with three friends after all. It had been a lie, because he was worried he couldn’t prove his real whereabouts to the police which was in Rhyl, North Wales. Hanratty now said he had travelled to Rhyl by coach arriving there at approximately 7:30 p.m. His reason for going was he said, to try to find a friend he had met in July 1961, who he knew only as John in the hope that he might be able to assist him in selling the stolen jewellery and gold watch he was carrying. This friend was Terry Evans who worked at a fairground in Rhyl. Hanratty said he arrived in Rhyl and needing lodgings for the night, he wandered around looking for somewhere to stay. Hanratty, who was unsure of the name of the guest house and the street, was asked to describe everything about the house in as much detail as he could. He said a woman had answered the door. She was “about 50, like my mother.” of average build and wore glasses. There was a large coat rack in the hall. He recalled a green plant in a bowl and said he had heard trains running close by and so it must have been near a railway line. Hanratty also said his room was in the attic and had a green bath in it. He said he had paid 25 shillings to stay two nights. In the morning Hanratty said he ate breakfast in a back room away from the other guests in the main dining room. He said the room had “Two tables in the back, where I had breakfast” and that the window looked out onto a rear courtyard. This description fitted ’Ingledene’, 19 Kinmel Street which was run by Grace Jones. Christopher Larman stated that he had directed James Hanratty to ‘Ingledene’ guest house on the night of 22 August 1961. The room with the green bath in the attic was infact a bathroom that Grace Jones sometimes let to visitors if the guest house was busy. A bed would have been moved into the bathroom on the night Hanratty stayed. Hanratty said he spent the next day Wednesday 23 August 1961, looking for ‘John’ but did not go to the fairground where Evans worked because during his July visit, he had been given a job at the fair with Evans, spent the night at his house and been given a pair of Evans’ shoes that should have been paid for out of his wages. Instead, Hanratty did a bunk with Evans’ shoes. Consequently, he felt unable to return to the fair. Instead, he went for lunch and a coffee to ’Dixie’s’ cafe where he thought he might find Evans who often went there. He said he then went to a barber’s shop for a shave and spent the rest of the afternoon in amusement arcades. He said he visited Woolworth’s and returned to Dixie’s for another coffee. That night he is said to have stayed at ‘Ingledene’ for a second night, this time being moved from the bathroom to a proper guest room. The next morning, Thursday 24 August 1961, having failed to find ‘John’, Hanratty said he returned to Liverpool. There he went to the cinema and watched ‘The Guns of Navarone.’ He also attempted to get a ticket to see a boxing match. When he failed to do so, he bought a ticket for the night train back to London. Before he left, he sent a telegram to a friend, Dixie France, in Finchley Road, London, saying he would be back on Friday. He said that during the journey back to London he had aquainted two cockney plumbers, who boarded the train at Stafford. He said they had discussed the A6 murder. Hanratty told the police: ‘We thought what a shocking thing it was.’ Because of Hanratty’s earlier visit to Rhyl, some believe that Hanratty was simply recalling events from then. If this was so, the likelihood was that he wasn’t recalling the known July visit because he is alleged to have slept at Terry Evans house one night and was said to have slept in Liverpool the next. Hanratty didn’t appear to have been to Rhyl looking for Evans on any other occasions. Terry Evans said that James Hanratty had no reason to believe that he would be interested in stolen property. Many more witnesses came forward after the trial in support of Hanratty’s alibi. Chronological Events Continued 1961 Tuesday 22 August Morning Louise Anderson stated that Hanratty visited her this morning. Lunchtime Michael Gregsten, aged 36 arrives at his next door neighbours house, the Catton’s. He takes his children, Simon and Anthony to Cassiobury Park, Watford where they play with their boats. 1:00 P.M. Peter Alphon books a room at the ‘Vienna’ hotel in Maida Vale. He complains that he doesn’t like the room. Scotland Yard identify fingerprints from burglaries in Northwood on the 2/3 August as Hanratty’s. He claimed that he rarely used gloves. 4:00 – 4:15 P.M. Gregsten sets off in his aunt’s Morris Minor car, registration 847 BHN, to collect Valerie Storie, aged 23 from the Road Research Laboratory at Langley, Buckinghamshire where they are both employed as Civil Servants. He collects some laundry and sets off. 5:00 P.M. – 6:30 P.M. approx. Gregsten picks Valerie Storie up from work and heads to the barbers with her for a haircut. They then head for Storie’s parents house at Anthony Way, Cippenham, Nr Slough where they have tea. Mr. John Storie explained this visit the day after the murder saying: Michael came here last night and had tea with Valerie. They then left at about 7:30 in a grey Morris car which I understood belonged to Michael’s mother. They took with them maps and other things to organize a car rally being held at their office this weekend. Valerie has worked at the laboratory since she left school five years ago and she has known Michael for a long time. 7:30 – 7:45 P.M. Gregsten and Storie leave Storie’s home and go to the Old Station Inn, Taplow, a public house where Gregsten has friends. They arrive there and are recognized by the landlady Mary Lanz who also reported seeing Peter Alphon there with another person. 8:45 – 9:20 P.M. Gregsten and Storie leave the Old Station Inn. Valerie Storie believed the time to be 8:45 P.M. Mary Lanz the landlady believed they left at nearer 9:20 P.M. They drive out onto the A4 and travel a short distance before turning right onto Huntercombe Lane. They then drive over the newly laid stretch of M4, bearing right onto Court Lane and following the road round before turning into a cornfield at Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire. 9:30 P.M. Gregsten and Storie have been parked in the cornfield for approximately twenty minutes when someone taps on the car window. They assume it must be the farmer or owner of the field. Gregsten winds the window half way down. A large black revolver is thrust through the window and a Cockney voice says, ‘This is a hold-up. I am a desperate man. I have been on the run for four months. If you do as I tell you, you will be all right.’ He instructs Gregsten to give him the car ignition keys. He attempts to open the rear door but it is locked, so he orders Gregsten to open it. Gregsten obliges by unlocking the door and the man gets into the rear. They ask the gunman what he wants and are told to keep facing the front and not to turn around. The gunman tells them that the gun is loaded and that they should do as he says and everything will be OK. The gunman is sitting behind Gregsten on the rear off side. The gun is in his right hand pointing directly at Gregsten. He tells them the gun is real, that he had not had it very long and that it was like a cowboys gun. He tells them he feels like a cowboy and that the gun is a .38 and taps his pocket which makes a rattling sound similar to a pocketful of ‘marbles.’ He says ‘These are all the bullets’ but he had never shot anyone before. Storie later said ‘I thought he was a burglar and waiting for someone.’ After a short while, the gunman returns the car keys to Gregsten andtells him to drive further into the field. They drive along the track then swing the car around parking next to what looks like a haystack covered in tarpaulin. They are now facing the entrance of the field ready to drive out. The engine is stopped and they remain there for some time. Every time Storie or Gregsten make an attempt to turn around they are told to face the front. They ask the gunman where he has been, he tells them he has been in the ‘Oxford area.’ He tells them he has been living rough for two days and that he had woken up the ‘previous’ morning wet through because it had been raining. This surprises Storie who observes that the man is ‘immaculately dressed.’ The gunman tells them he’d never had a chance in life and how he’d been locked up in a cellar for days as a child, beaten and given bread and water to eat. He tells them he had been in institutions since he was eight years old andhad been in remand homes and Borstal. He tells them he had done C.T. or Corrective Training and the next thing he would be getting would be P.D. or Preventive Detention. He told them ‘I have done the lot’ and that he had done five years for housebreaking. The gunman asks Gregsten who he lives with. He also asks them both if they are married, they say no. He then demands their watches and money and is handed Gregsten’s wallet and Storie’s purse from her shopping basket, although she removes seven pounds first which she places in her bra escaping the gunman’s attention. 10:30 P.M. A light comes on at one of the cottages adjoining the field nearby to the North. Someone appears to be putting a bicycle away in a shed which agitates the gunman momentarily. 23:30 P.M. The gunman tells them that he is hungry and that they should find somewhere to eat and then return to the cornfield. Both he and Gregsten get out of the car, he orders Gregsten into the boot. Storie persuades the gunman that there is a crack in the exhaust pipe and that Gregsten could be asphyxiated. She notices that the gunman has a handkerchief covering his face like an outlaw. The gunman changes his mind and instructs Gregsten to drive instead. They travel back along the A4 until they reach a T-junction. They ask the gun man which way he wants to go, left to Maidenhead or right towards Slough. The gunman says he’s ‘had enough of Maidenhead’ and so they turn right. The gunman is familiar with the Bear Hotel, Maidenhead. 23:45 P.M. Outside Nevill andGriffins dairy in Slough they suggest that the gunman can get some milk from a milk machine opposite but they find that don’t have a sixpence between them. They suggest that they could go and ask someone for a sixpence and the gunman tells them it doesn’t matter, he knows a cafe near Northolt Airport where they can get some food. As they set off driving again along Slough High Street, Storie notices a post office clock, the time is 11:45 p.m. The gunman asks how much petrol is left in the car. Gregsten tells him there is only one gallon left although in actual fact there are two gallons. The gunman asks how far it will go and Storie tells him that it is good for twenty/thirty miles. The gunman decides they should get some petrol. 1961 Wednesday 23 August 12:15 – 12:30 A.M. Near London airport they see a ‘Regent’ Garage on their left. The gunman tells Gregstenthat he is to drive into the garage, stay in the car, wind down the window and ask the attendant for two gallons of petrol only. He tells Gregsten he has the gun pointing to him still and if he tries to say anything else or gives the attendant any indication to believe something is wrong, he will shoot. He hands Gregsten one pound of the money. Gregsten carries out the gunman’s instructions. The garage attendant, Harold Hirons puts two gallons in and charges Gregsten nine shillings and nine pence giving him a ten shilling note and a three pence change. Hirons pays little attention to the man in the rear and is later unable to identify Hanratty in court. The gunman takes the note from Gregsten, handing the three pence piece to Storie mockingly saying she can have that ‘as a wedding present.’ 12:30 – 2:00 A.M. They continue left passing through Hayes and crossing what used to be the A4010, emerging onto Western Avenue. They reach the Greenford intersection and Gregsten is told to drive straight ahead. At this point it appears that the man has either overlooked or abandoned his idea of going to Northolt for food, it is also extremely unlikely that the gunman has any intention of returning to the cornfield as he had suggested earlier. The gunman is by now continuously and nervously giving directions to Gregsten and repeatingly asking questions such as what gear is he in, why did he change gear then and telling him to mind cars and be careful of the traffic lights. They ask the gunman if he drives, he tells them, ‘Oh yes…’ he does. He can drive, ‘all sorts of cars.’ They drive North East for a few miles passing through a major junction with Kenton Road and Kingsbury where they drive straight ahead up Brookshill just West of Stanmore. This North Easterly territory is familiar to the gunman, who during this phase of the journey tells them to be careful of roadworks around the corner. He is correct, as Gregsten turns the corner the roadworks are indeed there. The gunman deceitfully adds, ‘I do not know this area.’ They decide to stop for cigarettes somewhere in the Harrow region. Gregsten is given permission to get out of the vehicle and purchase ten ‘Nelson Tipped’ from a cigarette machine. The gunman asks for a cigarette himself. Storie lights one each for both Gregsten and the gunman who as she passes him the cigarette, notices he is wearing black gloves. The gunman gives Storie the impression that he is not a regular smoker. The car heads north towards Watford and then north east through Aldenham, taking them along Park Street before joining the A5 towards St Albans in Southern Hertfordshire. Gregsten and Storie have been able to speak very quietly with one another on occasion without upsetting the gunman. When they reach the centre of St Albans they join the A6. The gunman insists they are in Watford. Gregsten’s speed occasionally exceeds fifty miles per hour on occasion and whenever he does, is instructed by the gunman not to go so fast. Gregsten complies with his requests. Still on the A6, the car passes through Luton. They drive along a stretch of ‘restricted road’ which has no speed limit, Gregsten attempts to attract the attention of other motorists by flashing his reversing lights. A car does pull alongside the Morris Minor and the driver sounds his horn and gestures to the back of the Morris Minor indicating that something is wrong. Gregsten is given permission to stop the vehicle and both the gunman and Gregsten get out to check the rear lights. Storie see’s her chance to make a break for it by hopping into the drivers seat and driving away but she doesn’t want to abandon Gregsten and decides against the idea. The gun man tells them he is tired and needs to stop for a ‘kip’ meaning sleep. Still traveling north along the A6, they pass through Barton-Le-Clay and Silsoe. The gunman asks Gregsten to stop the vehicle and so they turn onto a small lane which has a ‘Private – No Parking’ sign. The gunman is not comfortable with this and so they move off again. They turn onto another lane which has houses on it which the gun man again insists is unsatisfactory. They drive through Clophill and about one mile north of the village at ‘Deadman’s Hill’. Gregsten is instructed for a third time to turn off, this time into a lay-by parallel to the main road. Gregsten refuses, but the man became aggressive and threatens them with the gun. When they reach the end of the lay-by, Gregsten is instructed to turn the car around to face the direction they just came in and to switch off the lights. Gregsten and Storie plead with the gun man several times to take what he wants including the car and the money, they ask him to leave them alone and not to shoot them. However, whenever they say this, the gun man simply looks at his watch and says ‘There is plenty of time.’ The gun man assures them, if he was going to shoot them, he would have done it before now. The man has been continually looking at his watch occasionally saying that it is not much longer to day-break. The man again tells them he is tired and wants to ‘kip’ and will have to tie them both up. He ties Valerie Stories arms. He tells Gregsten, ‘I have got to find something to tie you up with.’ They suggest he uses his tie but the gunman says, ‘No, I need that.’ He considers cutting up a rug in the car for the purpose but changes his mind. He looks in the boot of the car with Gregsten where there is a short length of cord in the toolkit. They get back inside the car and Gregsten is told to remove his tie which is used to tie Storie’s wrists non too successfully. He attempts to tie her wrists with the cord instead but again and fastens them to the nearside door handle. The gunman sees the green duffel bag containing Gregsten’s laundry in the front with a length of rope attached to it. 2:00 – 2:15 A.M. The gunman is sitting in the centre of the back seat. He says to Gregsten, ’Give me that bag up.’ whilst still pointing the gun at him. The gun has been in his right hand all the time. Gregsten picks up the bag with both hands and half turns to the middle of the car which is on his left, to pass the bag back. There is a terrific noise as two shots ring out in quick succession. Gregsten has been shot through the left of his head almost through the ear at point blank range, the bullets exiting through the right hand side of his head. Storie watches him fall forward and slump over the steering wheel, blood pouring from his head. She can smell something like gunpowder. She says to the gunman, ‘You shot him you swine… you bastard. Why did you do that?’ The gunman tells her Gregsten frightened him and that he moved too quickly. Storie begs him to allow her to go for help and fetch a doctor, but the gunman tells her Gregsten was not dead and to, ‘Be quiet. I am thinking.’ which he pronounces ‘finking. For the next 20 minutes Storie sobs and screams not believing Gregsten was dead. During that time they sit and argue as to whether Gregsten is dead or alive. Finally the gunman accepts that Gregsten is dead. The gunman says, ‘He is the first man I have ever killed.’ He takes a pair of pyjama bottoms from the duffel bag and places them over Gregsten’s head. Storie suggests that she can drive until they meet an on-coming vehicle, get the gunman a lift and see to Gregsten, but the man does not like her plan and continues ‘contradicting himself’ giving Storie the impression that he is ‘round the twist.’ 2:15 – 2:35 A.M. approx. The gunman repositions himself so he is sitting behind Storie. He asks her to tell him her name which she does. He asks her to get into the back of the car with. She says ‘No.’ He says he knows her hands are free and asks her to kiss him. Storie refuses again and he tells her he will count to five and if she does not do as he says, he will shoot her. Storie allowed him to kiss her. He says, ‘Come on, get into the back with me.’ Storie refuses a third time. During this time a car has passed by lighting up the gunman’s face giving Storie the first and last real opportunity of ‘seeing what he looked like.’ This time he gets out of the car and opens her door He threatening her again saying, ‘I will count to five. Get into the back.’ Storie does as he says. The gunman attempts to remove the black glove from his right hand which is still holding the gun. He has difficulty removing it and tells Storie to pull one of them off which she notices were of a very thin nylon type texture. He asks her to remove an article of clothing. She refuses and he says, ‘I will count if you do not.’ She does as he asks. The gunman then rapes her placing the gun on the rear window ledge. 2:35 – 2:50 A.M. approx. After the gunman is satisfied he places the glove back on his right hand. The gunman makes a statement about Storie being inexperienced sexually and continues asking for her name, but no sooner has he been told what it is, he has forgotten it again. They continue talking and arguing. Storie is finding it awkward talking to the gunman and asks for his name saying ‘Well look, I must call you something.’ He mumbles, ‘Jim.’ The man is still looking at his watch and tells Storie it is nearly 2:50 a.m. Storie tells him it will be light at 3.30 a.m. Storie tells the gunman ‘For goodness sake, take the car and go. It is almost daybreak.’ The gunman seems to have made up his mind up this time. They open the driver’s door of the car and he tells Storie she will have to get Gregsten’s body out of the car since he doesn’t want to get Gregsten’s blood on him. Gregsten’s hands are gripping the steering wheel. Storie notices they are stone cold and manages to get the top half of his body out of the car but his feet are caught around the pedals and he is proving too heavy for her. Storie tells the gunman he will have to help her and so he assists her by pulling Gregstens legs from the car. Storie drags Gregstens body around the back of the car to the edge of the concrete strip and lays him down. She says to the gunman ‘Let me have my things out of the car. I must have my basket. It has some rally things in for work. I must have it.’ The gunman replies, ‘I do not want your things. You can have them. There is no hurry.’ Storie says, ‘You must go quickly or it will be daybreak and someone will see you.’ She takes her basket from the front of the car, the duffel bag containing the washing and tries to grab a few things out of the glove pocket including one of two paperback books ‘Blackboard Jungle’ and’The Life of Suzie Wong’ stuffing it all into her basket. She places the items down on the ground beside Gregsten saying to the gunman ‘Go on. Take the car.’ The gunman takes the rug from the boot of the car and places it over the drivers seat repeating that he does not want to get blood on him. He wipes the steering wheel and then asks Storie to start the car for him and show him the positions of the gears. She does so. The gunman asks how to get reverse gear. Storie shows him. He asks how the lights work. Again Storie shows him. Leaving the car running, she goes to sit by Gregsten’s body. The gunman looks undecided. He is concerned and says, ‘You will go for help.’ Storie replies ‘No, I won’t. Just go… hurry.’ The car suddenly stops. Storie says, ‘I will start the car again for you. You must go quickly.’ She re-starts the car and shows him how the gears work again. The gunman tells her he understands and sits in the driver’s seat. Storie goes back andsits on the ground beside Gregsten with her legs tucked up underneath her, almost with her back towards the car. The gunman gets out of the car again, walking over to where Storie is sitting and says, ‘I think I had better hit you on the head or something to knock you out, or else you will go for help.’ Storie pleads with him not to hurt her. She says, ‘No, I won’t. I won’t move. Just go.’ Storie puts her handin her mack pocket taking out a one pound note. She holds it out to saying, ‘Here you are. You can have that if you will go quickly.’ The gunman momentarily wonders how Storie had produced it saying, ‘Where did you get that from?’ Storiereplies, ‘Oh it was just in my pocket.’ The gunman does not ask if she has any more money hidden. The gunman takes the one pound and he begins to walk away but when he is six to ten feet away from Storie, he suddenly turns on his heels and begins to fire shots into Storie’s body. Storie feels the first bullet hit her and she slumps forward. When the second bullet hits her, she feels the use of her legs leave her and falls over. The gunmans fires at her again hitting her five times altogether, once in the neck and four times on her left shoulder. There is a pause. Storie hears a ‘clicking sound’ as he reloads the gun and fires another three times but Storie feels at least two of those shots go over her head. She lay perfectly still and heard the gunman walk towards her. She dared not give him the impression she was still alive and tried to stop breathing ‘not daring to moan.’ She feels the gunman touch her. She isn’t sure whether it is with his hand or whether he has kicked her. He looks at her for a few seconds and walks away back to the car. He gets into the car, puts on the headlights and drives away, gears crashing, back in the direction they came in, towards Luton. Storie lay there paralyzed from her waist down but she is still conscious. She screams for help to attract attention and waves her petticoat from time to time but there is very little traffic and she goes unnoticed. She attempts to write, ‘Brown hair and blue eyes.’ with stones in hope that the killer will be caught if she dies. She loses consciousness some three hours later. 6:40 A.M. Storie and the body of Gregsten are discovered by Sydney Burton a farm labourer. He hurries down the road and summons John Kerr an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford who is working as a traffic enumerator occupied with taking the trunk road census. Kerr flags down two cars shouting at them to get an ambulance. He returns to Storie and checks for a pulse on Gregsten. He notices some empty cartridge cases lying nearby. There are six altogether. Kerr writes down some notes of Valerie Stories account on a census form. 6:55 A.M. The notes are given to the first policeman to arrive on the scene never to be seen again. 7:00 – 7:10 A.M. John Jellicoe Skillett, a foreman from Leytonstone, East London and Edward Richard Blackhall from Brentwood, Essex observe the Morris Minor being driven erratically on the outskirts of East London. They are travelling from Brentwood west along Eastern Avenue towards the traffic lights at Ley Street to the left of them. They pull up behind an Austin A40 when a Grey Morris Minor comes speeding on the inside of them swerving in front, practically hitting them. The driver of the Morris Minor brakes heavily and skids the back of the car. He pulls up between Skillett and the Austin A40 at the traffic lights which are red. The lights turn green and the Morris Minor shoots off in the nearside lane getting wedged in by a greenline bus. A little further down the road they reach Gants Hill roundabout. The driver of the Grey Morris Minor comes out from behind the bus and shoots in front of them again. The car is swerving in his own lane and keeps trying to come into their lane as if he is in a hurry. They notice that the driver hasn’t signalled once. At the next roundabout they manage to pull alongside the Morris Minor on his offside to the right. Skillett asks Blackhall to wind his passenger window down so that he could tell the driver off. Skillett shouts some obscenities at the driver of the car who ‘just had a horrible smile on his face, sort of half a smile and half a sneer.’ The Morris Minor continues down Eastern Avenue. 7:45 A.M. It is about now that James Richard Trower of Appleby Road, Forest Gate, East London see’s a grey Morris Minor on Redbridge Lane, Ilford. Mr. S. Lawrence of Avondale Crescent, Ilford, East London notices the Morris Minor parked on Avondale Crescent. 1:45 P.M. Janet Gregsten arrives to identify the body of her husband. It is around now that Trevor Dutton said he recalled being asked if he wanted to buy a watch in Rhyl, Wales. Afternoon Approx. Four police tracker dogs are employed to comb scrubland in a detailed search near the lay-by in an effort to find the murder weapon. Royal Engineers from Cambridge search for a murder weapon using mine-detectors. Detectives visit every house in Clophill asking for reports of anything unusual. 3:25 P.M. Detective Superintendent Bob Acott arrives at the murder scene. He says cartridges have been discovered near the body and that: ‘This indicates that the shooting took place in the layby.’ 5:30 P.M. A post mortem is conducted by Dr. Keith Simpson who is called to the scene. 6:30 P.M. The Morris Minor is found on Avondale Crescent, Ilford, East London, Near to Redbridge Underground some 42 miles away from the scene of the crime. The seats are bloodstained and the rear numberplate had been bent under. Police issue a description of the car, a grey Morris Minor with the registration number 847 BHN. Mr. S. Lawrence who lived on the corner of Avondale Cresent said he had seen it parked there since 7:45 a.m. Detective Sergeant Charles Arnold arranges for the car to be towed to Scotland Yard for examination. Detective-superintendent B.Acott discloses that cartridges had been found near Gregsten’s body indicating that shooting had taken place in the layby. Dr. Keith Simpson, a Home Office pathologist is called to the scene. Tracker dogs and detectives make a detailed search of the area trying to find a weapon. Royal engineers use mine detectors to find the weapon. Valerie Storie’s condition is reported to have improved after an operation. 1961 Thursday 24 August 11:00 A.M. Audrey Willis is held up in her house by a gunman in Old Knebworth, Hertfordshire. Police issue a description of the man they wish to interview. 8:40 P.M. Hanratty sends a telegram to Charles ‘Dixie’ France from a telephone bar in the forecourt of St. George’s Hall opposite the main railway station at Lime Street, Liverpool. The sender is given as ‘Mr P Ryan, Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, London.’ It reads: ‘Having a nice time. Be home early Friday morning for business. Yours sincerely Jim.’ 8:45 P.M. The murder weapon, a .38 Enfield revolver, and 60 rounds of ammunition in five boxes, is found under the rear back seat on the top deck of a 36A London bus by Edwin Cooke, a London Transport cleaner at Rye Lane bus garage in Peckham, London. The 36A covers 13 miles between West Kilburn and Brockley Rise, Forest Hill, South East London. The bus is on a route that passes Sussex Gardens. A senior detective visits Valerie Storie at Bedford General Hospital. She tells him that on the drive from Slough, Gregsten continuously flashed his white reversing light to attract attention and that somewhere on the A6 north of Luton another car driving behind noticed the light. It waited for some time then overtook them. The driver of the car sounded his horn to draw attention to the light. As well as having discovered the cartridges, the police discover several bullets. 1961 Friday 25 August Early Morning Hanratty claimed to have returned to London from Liverpool on this morning whereupon he went to see the France family. The France family disputed his claim. (see. Sat 26 Aug) Charles France receives Hanratty’s telegram. 1961 Saturday 26 August 9:00 A.M. At Hanratty’s trial, Charles France gave evidence that Hanratty returned to London from Liverpool on this morning at 9:00 a.m. He explained that Hanratty had told him that he had been waiting at the station for a couple of hours in order not to disturb them and that Hanratty told him he had stayed the night at the Vienna hotel on 21 August 1961 even producing the hotel bill. France said that at no stage did Hanratty mention to any member of his family that he had been to Rhyl. N.B. Hanratty had told them quite clearly he was going to Liverpool. France said that Hanratty was wearing new brown slacks and a grey jacket and that his daughter Carole told Hanratty: ‘The dye is fading out of your hair.’ Hanratty asked Carole France to re-tint his hair again. France said: ‘His hair at that time was all different colours. It was streaky, not one colour.’ Carole France then re-dyed Hanratty’s hair. France said he reprimanded her for getting dye on some towels. 5:30 – 5:45 P.M. Louise Anderson stated that Hanratty visited her antiques shop. She noticed his hair had been dyed and that he had scratches which she thought were razor cuts down his left cheek. 1961 Sunday 27 August Hanratty’s parents are notified that he is wanted by the police for house breakings. Peter Sims telephones the police to report the suspicious behaviour of his hotel guest Peter Louis Alphon who has booked in under the alias ‘Durrant’ at the Alexandra Court Hotel. Consequently, Peter Alphon is interviewed at Blackstock Road Police Station, Finsbury Park. This is the date the police become aware of the ‘Vienna Hotel’ since Peter Alphon had mentioned he stayed there in his alibi. Conversely, this is also the date the ‘Vienna Hotel’ staff would have become aware that police were now investigating the hotel following a telephone call from police investigating a guest called Frederick Durrant, namely Peter Alphon. 1961 Tuesday 29 August Afternoon Two identikit pictures of the wanted man are issued by the police. 1961 Thursday 31 August Valerie Storie is moved from Bedford to Guys Hospital, London. Police issue a revised description of the suspect. 1961 Saturday 2 September Hanratty is in Harrow, London burgling a house. Between the period of 1 September 1961 to 9 September 1961, Hanratty will receive £350 in total from Louise Anderson for stolen goods. 1961 Monday 4 September Morning Hanratty is at the France household. At some point, he has been advised that he can obtain a driving licence from Dublin, Ireland with relative ease. He uses their telephone to book a 4:55p.m. BEA flight to Dublin using his usual alias ‘Ryan.’ Hanratty goes to ‘Burtol’s’ dry cleaner’s in the station arcade at Swiss Cottage, North London to collect the green check suit he had taken there on 21 August 1961. He makes a complaint that they have kept it too long. The suit has bloodstains on it that the dry cleaning has failed to remove. Hanratty later claims that the blood was deposited onto the suit when he cut himself on a broken window during a burglary. 4:55 – 6:55 P.M. Hanratty calls Charlotte France from Heathrow airport. He is nervous. Hanratty gave his reason as: ‘I don’t know why, no real reason. Just to say, I thought there was a man watching me.’ 6:55 P.M. The flight is delayed and two hours late. Hanratty flies to from Heathrow to Dublin, Ireland. He stays at O’Flynn’s Hotel and signs the register ‘J.Ryan’ giving his address as 72 Wood Lane, Kingsbury, London. 1961 Tuesday 5 September Hanratty travels to the town hall and with the help of a policeman, completes the documentation and obtains a driving licence. Hanratty travels to Limerick. Hanratty hires a car from ‘Ryans’ for £21. He makes enquiries about staying at hotel ‘Hanratty’s’ which is full. He is disappointed that he has to settle for the alternative ‘Lomond’ Hotel. 1961 Wednesday 6 September Julianna Galves makes a first statement to the police: About 11:30a.m. on 22 August, a man phoned up the Vienna and asked for a room for one night and said he would be late coming in. We told him we would save him the room and waited up for him. He arrived at about 11:30p.m. and said he was the man who had phoned up in the morning for a room in the name of Durrant. He was shown to his room and in the morning he declined breakfast and left about 12:10. I would describe him as about 5 feet 8 or 9 inches with straight black hair greased back. He had a dark suit on and a white shirt. He had a darkish complexion and spoke with a cockney accent. When he arrived he looked unshaven and grubby. He signed the book as Durrant. The only luggage he had was a small brown suitcase, almost an attache case, and when I looked into his room to ask when he was leaving, it was open and contained very dirty clothing. Hanratty drives from Limerick to Tralee to the races. 9:00 – 10:00 P.M. Hanratty drives to Cork, Ireland arriving just before 9:00 P.M. He arrives at ’O’Flynns’ Hotel and is met by Miss Ita Susan O’Donovan who said Hanratty was by himself and looking for accomodation but they had no single rooms vacant. She offers him a room to share and he signs the register in the name of J.Ryan, Wood Lane, London drawing a line under the word ‘London.’ In his room, Hanratty meets commercial traveller, Mr. Gerrard Joseph Leonard of Lower Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin. Leonard said: ‘He introduced himself as Jim. After he had, had a wash , he said he was going to a dance and asked me if I would like to go with him. I said I would, but I would like to have a drink first. So he agreed. We drove round Cork for a few minutes looking for a dance hall. We were in a car he had with him. He said he had come over from London and had hired the car and he showed me the hire agreement.’ They find a dance hall close to the hotel but go for a drink as planned. Hanratty who doesn’t normally drink has a Lager and Lime. 10:00 – 11:25 P.M. Hanratty and Leonard spend the evening at the dance hall. When Mr. Leonard was asked in court, what was Hanratty’s driving was like he replied: ‘He was quite reckless. He drove at a very high speed and was inclined to weave in and out of traffic.’ 1961 Thursday 7 September Morning Hanratty has breakfast with Leonard. Leonard describes what happened next: ‘He asked me to write some postcards for him. He said his handwriting was pretty bad. I wrote six postcards.’ One of the postcards written by Leonard for Hanratty was addressed to Miss L. Andrew, 23 Cambridge Court, Sussex Gardens, Paddington. N.B. Mr. Leonard will eventually inform the police of the link between the name “J. Ryan” and James Hanratty. Hanratty leaves ‘O’Flynns’ Hotel and pays his bill of 17s. 6d. Noon Hanratty’s hire car is involved in a collision with a car driven by Mr. Arthur Gordon Sindall on holiday in Ireland from Saratt, near Watford, Hertfordshire. He is passing through Castlemartyr, County Cork, Ireland when the collision occurs. Sindall said it wasn’t his fault. ‘I got particulars from the other man and wrote them down on a map. He gave his name as James Ryan, 72 Wood Lane, Kingbury, N.W. he produced an Irish driving licence and on it, it said that he was a window cleaner. He said the car was hired from a firm named Ryan in Dublin.’ Detective Superintendent Bob Acott of Scotland Yard and Detective Superintendent C.H. Barron, head of Bedfordshire C.I.D., interview their first suspect at Cannon Row police station in London. The man had gone to the police station late on Wednesday 6 September to volunteer information. He was later questioned by Scotland Yard. Meike Dalal is attacked at her home at Barnes, South West London. The attacker claims to be the ‘A6 murderer.’ 1961 Friday 8 September Hanratty returns from Ireland and leaves his two suitcases at Louise Anderson’s flat. The police release their first suspect without charge. 1961 Monday 11 September Two cartridge cases from the .38 murder weapon are found by the hotel manager at Vienna Hotel, Maida Vale, London. Valerie Storie is interviewed for four hours by police. William Nudds is fired from his position at the Vienna hotel by Robert Crocker. This is the date Detective Superintendent Bob Acott told the court during the a6 murder trial, that he recovered the hotel register from the Vienna Hotel. Michael Hanratty’s appeal of 2002 suggests that there was evidence to the contrary that Detective Sergeant Oxford had made a statement that the hotel register was recovered on 20 September 1961 and that DS Bob Acott’s notebook should have been disclosed at the trial to verify the date. 1961 Tuesday 12 September Julianna Galves makes a statement that she did not see Peter Alphon until 12:00 p.m. on the 23rd August at the Vienna Hotel, Maida Vale, London. 1961 Friday 15 September William Nudds makes his 1st statement to the police. I have been shown an entry in the register dated 21 August signed J.Ryan, 72 Wood Lane, Kingsbury who was allocated room 24. I remember this booking quite well. It was one which came from the Broadway hotel and the man was brought over by one of the waiters in the company’s vehicle. It was between 9 and 11p.m. I showed him into his room. There are a number of beds in the room and he occupied the bed on the left hand side as you go in the door. At about 7:45a.m. Mr. Ryan came up to the dining room and was served with breakfast. He left soon after. It would be about 8:30 when he left. He returned a few minutes later and said he had forgotten something in his room. He asked if he could return there and I allowed him to go and didn’t go with him. He was gone a few minutes and re-appeared from the basement and asked me how he could get to Queensway. I told him to walk to Harrow Road, which is about half a mile away, and get a 36 bus… Nudds also comments on Peter Alphon’s stay at the Vienna hotel. I have been shown another entry in the hotel register signed F. Durrant. I remember this particular man. He arrived very late in the evening . I think about 11:30 to midnight. He was dealt with by my wife, but I saw him and stood by whilst my wife dealt with him. My wife took him to his room. I didn’t see him again until the following morning when I went to his room to see if he wanted breakfast. He was in room 6 which is on the 2nd floor. He told me he didn’t want breakfast and he stayed in his room as far as I know until about noon. 1961 Wednesday 20 September Hanratty purchases a cream Sunbeam Alpine car. Janet Gregsten visits Valerie Storie in Guys Hospital, London. 1961 Thursday 21 September William Nudds makes a second statement. 1961 Friday 22 September 2:30 P.M. Felix and Gladys Alphon are interviewed again by the police. 3:30 P.M. Scotland Yard press conference. Peter Alphon is named by Detective Superintendent Bob Acott as the man wanted for the A6 murder. 7:30 P.M. Janet Gregsten visits Valerie Storiein Guys Hospital, London a second time. 11:30 P.M. Peter Alphon contacts local newspapers and has his photgraph taken before surrendering himself at Cannon Row Police Station. 1961 Saturday 23 September 12:40 A.M. Detective Superintendent Bob Acott arrives at Scotland Yard. 2:15 A.M. Detective Superintendent Bob Acott interviews Peter Alphon. Just after 3:00 A.M. Peter Alphon is placed on two identity parades. William Nudds picks out two individuals one of whom is Alphon. Hanratty calls at the house of Miss. Gladys Mary Deacon of Langham Gardens, Burnt Oak, North London. She is a receptionist-telephonist who has known Hanratty for 3 years. During Hanratty’s trial she gave the following information: ‘He wanted to take me out for the day to Bedford. I was quite surprised at seeing him.’ Did she agree to go? ‘Naturally, yes.’ She went on to say they got into Bedford at 4:00 p.m. She did not know the way to Bedford but she was sure Hanratty did. How was Hanratty driving? ‘Fast.’ The journey back took about an hour. Hanratty dropped her off between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. 1961 Sunday 24 September Morning Peter Alphon is placed on a third identity parade before Valerie Storie at Guys Hospital, London. Ten men are on the parade. Some of the men are volunteers from the Union Jack Club at Waterloo. They are made to stand in line at the foot of Storie’s bed. Storie identifies RAF airman Michael Clark. Alphon is ruled out as the A6 murder suspect but remanded in custody on the charge of assaulting Meike Dalal. 1961 Monday 25 September William Nudds makes his third statement to the police. ‘I want to explain that my correct name is William Richard George Nudds. I have been using the name Jack Glickberg since my discharge from Oxford prison in July 1958 after serving a sentence of nine years preventive detention imposed at the County of London Sessions on November 29, 1950, for stealing a motor car and two cases of false pretences. While in prison I went to the assistance of two prison officers attacked by prisoners and from that time on to the end of my sentence, I was hounded by my fellow men, kicked and beaten and put in hospital. I took a solemn oath in memory of my mother, that if any of the criminal fraternity came my way, I would assist the police and give them any help they wanted to get my own back. Since I came out of prison in order to keep straight, I have always wanted to help the police and have helped them on some occasions with information. When the police came to the hotel checking on Durrant, I jumped to the conclusion they wanted Durrant for the murder.’ Hanratty takes Gladys Mary Deacon out for another drive, this time to Richmond. Valerie Storie is transferred from Guy’s Hospital, London to Stoke Mandeville Hospital near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. 1961 Tuesday 26 September Detective Superintendent Bob Acott and Oxford visit the home of James and Mary Hanratty in Kingsbury, North London. Robert Crocker leaves his managerial position at the Vienna hotel giving his reason as that he disagreed with the hotel conditions. 1961 Friday 29 September 11:00 A.M. Peter Alphon is placed on another identity parade and then brought before Mortlake magistrates and released on bail. Detective Superintendent Bob Acott and Oxford go to Dublin, Ireland in pursuit of second suspect. 8:30 P.M. James Hanratty senior learns from the press that his son is now the new ‘A6 murder’ suspect. 1961 Saturday 30 September Hanratty breaks into two houses in Stanmore tearing the jacket of his suit. 1961 Sunday 1 October 6:10 P.M. A mystery caller from Windsor telephones Stoke Mandeville hospital and threatens to ‘finish off’ Valerie Storie. 1961 Tuesday 3 October The police case against Peter Alphon is dropped. ‘The Express’ newspaper reporters drive James Hanratty senior to Scotland Yard with a birthday card from Hanratty. They then drive him and his son Michael to Archer Street, Soho, London. Michael enters the ‘Rehearsal Club’ alone and asks Ann Pryce if she has seen anything of Hanratty. She tells him she has not seen him but Charles France should be arriving soon. Michael buys a drink and waits an hour. His account of what happened next is as follows: ‘After about an hour, he came in. He had a slim build and was older than I expected. I could see him talking to Ann Pryce and her gesturing to me. He seemed to want to go straight back out but I caught him. He turned white and said to me, “You’re Jimmy’s brother.” I said, “There’s been a terrible mistake. They’re after him for this a6 business.” He said, “Don’t worry, he’s got nothing to do with that.” I said, “Do you know where he is?” He said he didn’t, but he couldn’t get away fast enough. He just said, “I’ve got to go.” and ran up the stairs.’ Hanratty attempts to have the dye washed from his hair at a barbers in Kilburn, London. 1961 Wednesday 4 October It is Hanratty’s twenty fifth birthday. He leaves his suitcases at Louise Anderson’s flat. By now Louise Anderson had introduced Hanratty to an aquaintance named Mary Meadon who she had known for about 2 years and who was about the same age as Hanratty. Anderson stated in court, she had done this because she was frightened of Hanratty who had overstayed his welcome at her flat and she felt that introducing Hanratty to Mary might divert his intentions. 1961 Thursday 5 October Hanratty learns that he is now officially wanted by the police for the ‘a6 murder.’ He telephones Charles ‘Dixie’ France and tells him he is wanted by police in connection with the murder. This is how France described the telephone conversation: ‘He blurted out, “Dixie, Dixie, I am wanted for the A6 murder!” I told him to, “Cool down again lad. Now talk to me. Tell me what it’s all about.” Detective Superintendent Bob Acott and Detective Sergeant Kenneth Oxford fly back from Dublin, Ireland to London. 1961 Friday 6 October 11:35 A.M. approx. Hanratty telephones Detective Superintendent Bob Acott’s office at Scotland Yard for the first time from a phone box in Soho. Detective Inspector W. Holmes answers the phone. The conversation is as follows: SGT HOLMES: Can I help you? HANRATTY: Is that Superintendent Acott? SGT HOLMES: No, I am Detective Inspector Holmes. Superintendent Acott is not available. What is your name? HANRATTY: I can’t give you that. I know the police are after me for the A6 murder, but I can assure you that I did not do it. SGT HOLMES: Who is speaking? Give me your name. HANRATTY: Ryan. SGT HOLMES: Have you another name? HANRATTY: Yes, Hanratty. I phoned Scotland Yard last night but they seemed to think it was somebody playing about. SGT HOLMES: Superintendent Acott would like to see you. Where are you? HANRATTY: I cannot tell you that. I cannot come forward. I have been doing other little things, but I’d like to get this other business cleared up. SGT HOLMES: We can only do that if we can see you. HANRATTY: I want to explain some things about Ireland. I am who you are looking for and some embarrassing things are happening for my family and friends.(Later in the conversation.) I went to Ireland and hired a car. That’s right. I went from London Airport. SGT HOLMES: London Airport? HANRATTY: London Airport. The police are… The call was then cut off and the line went dead. 12:15 A.M. Hanratty telephones Detective Superintendent Bob Acott’s office back. He is transferred straight through to Acott. Excerpts from the conversation are as follows: HANRATTY: I’m Jim Hanratty. DS ACOTT: I’m Superintendant Acott. HANRATTY: I want to talk to you and clear up this whole thing but I cannot come in there. I’m very worried and don’t know what to do. I know you are the only one who can help me… …I know I have left my fingerprints at different places and done things and the police want me, but I want to tell you one thing Mr. Acott, that I did not do that A6 murder… … I’d like to see you but I’ve just come out from doing three and if I’m caught I’ll get at least five. I had to ring off last time because I saw a policeman go by on the other side of the road… DS ACOTT: Why don’t you phone your mother? I’ve seen her and she’s very worried. I’ve promised her I will do all I can for you. HANRATTY: I can’t ring her because I’ve upset her. I am so upset, I do not know what I am doing and what I am saying. I don’t know what to do. I have got a very bad head and suffer from blackouts and lose my memory. Look, I will have to go now and think it over. I’ll phone you tonight between 10:00 and 12:00 and tell you what I’ve decided. I must go now. My head’s bad and I’ve got to think. When Hanratty was asked at his trial why he did not give himself up at this point he said: ‘… because I knew in my heart and soul that I didn’t commit this crime and there was no need to do so.’ N.B. Eileen Cunningham, Hanratty’s cousin, stated that Hanratty had difficulty calling numbers which may suggest that he was not dialling Acott himself during these conversations. Afternoon Hanratty telephones the Daily Mirror newspaper and speaks to the Assistant Editor Barry Harding. Hanratty is offered one of the Mirror’s solicitors so he can go to see DS Acott. They tell Hanratty they will do everything they can to help him. Hanratty also said: ‘I explained it was impossible for me to come forward because of my housebreaking charges.’ This call may also have had something to do with later newspaper reports that the ‘a6 murderer’ had, ‘Bert and a picture of a snake’ tattooed on his arm. The Herald and Telegraph reported that the tatooed name may have been Bett. 11:04 P.M. – 11:45 P.M. Detective Superintendent Bob Acott receives a second telephone call from Hanratty at Scotland Yard. Hanratty’s location could not be traced. HANRATTY: This is Jimmy Ryan. DS ACOTT: How are you now Jimmy, tired? HANRATTY: No, I’m feeling fine now. I rang my mum but I couldn’t get any answer. DS ACOTT: I know. I’ve rung her number this evening but I can’t get a reply. Perhaps they’ve all gone out. HANRATTY: Yes, they’re looking for me. Look, I’ll have to go soon Mr. Acott because you’ll have me caught in this box if I’m not careful. You nearly caught me this afternoon when I went to collect my car at a garage. DS ACOTT: What garage was that Jimmy? I didn’t know you had a car. HANRATTY: One of the gears went and I put it in a garage for repair. I went to collect it this afternoon but as I got near it, two plain clothes men saw me and chased me up the street. I got away, but it was a near squeak. DS ACOTT: I think you’ve made a mistake Jimmy. They couldn’t have been policemen or I would have known about it. I haven’t heard anything about you having a car or any policemen at a garage. HANRATTY: I’m going to try to phone mum again. DS ACOTT: By the way Jimmy. When I saw your parents the other day, your mother told me you had sent her some flowers and she was very pleased and wanted me to thank you for them if I should see you. She also showed me a card you had sent her from Ireland and she was very pleased with that. If I were you Jimmy, I would send her another card or some more flowers. HANRATTY: Yes, I’ll try to write to her and send her some more flowers if I can’t get her on the phone. DS ACOTT: How are you feeling Jimmy? HANRATTY: I’m very worried and I don’t know what to do. I saw in the papers this morning, you’re looking for a friend of mine, Louise. I can tell you who she is. I left my luggage with her. You ought to see her. She knows a lot about me. DS ACOTT: What is her name Jimmy? HANRATTY: Louise and she lives at 23 Cambridge Court, Sussex Gardens. DS ACOTT: What is her surname? HANRATTY: I can’t remember that but she is a widow about fifty years old. See her and get my luggage. It will help you. Now I must go Mr. Acott. I can’t stay any longer. I want to talk to you but you’ll catch me. I’m going Mr. Acott. Hanratty rings off. N.B. Hanratty makes no mention of a forthcoming visit to Liverpool to revisit his friends on this Friday night as he later stated in court having introduced his Rhyl alibi. He does however state that he ‘is’ calling from Liverpool during the next day on Saturday 7th October 1961. 1961 Saturday 7 October Midnight Hanratty steals a black Mark VII Jaguar saloon from central London and drives it to ‘Manchester.’ Infact, the jaguar was later found in Oldham. Hanratty catches a train to Liverpool. 2:30 A.M. Police collect Hanratty’s belongings from Louise Anderson’s flat contained in two suitcases. One of the cases contains the waistcoat and trousers of the suit he ordered from ‘Hepworth’s’ tailors on 8 July, collecting it on 18 August. The Jacket was missing. The police trace the garage where Hanratty’s new Sunbeam Alpine car is in for repairs to the gears. They recover stolen items from the car. 3:26 A.M. Hanratty telephones Detective Superintendent Bob Acott at Scotland Yard for a third and final time. The conversation is as follows: DS ACOTT: Superintendent Acott speaking. HANRATTY: Hello Mr. Acott. This is Jimmy Ryan again but you’ll never guess where I’m speaking from… Liverpool. DS ACOTT: How did you get up there Jimmy? HANRATTY: After I telephoned you last night, I caught the night train to Liverpool from Euston. I read in the paper this morning that you and your mate slept at the yard all night on a couple of camp beds. I’m sorry I’m causing you so much trouble Mr. Acott. DS ACOTT: That’s all right Jimmy. I bet you slept well last night. HANRATTY: Yes, I slept all night on the train. It was very comfortable. I can’t stay long Mr. Acott as I haven’t any more money for the phone. DS ACOTT: Don’t worry Jimmy, when the pips go, I’ll get the call reversed to me. The line went dead. Acott reverses the charges and calls Hanratty back. DS ACOTT: That’s all right. What did you want to speak to me about this time Jimmy? HANRATTY: Mr. Acott, I’m in trouble and I know you are the only one who can help me. I’ve come up to Liverpool to see some friends, but they can’t help me. You see it is very difficult for them. I asked them to say I couldn’t have committed your murder, but they wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t let me stay with them ,as they said I’d bring the police down on them. You can’t blame them because they’re fences. You know what I mean, they receive jewelry. They are known to the police here and one of them is wanted now. I don’t know what to do. I want you to help me but you’ll only charge me and get me at least five. DS ACOTT: Let me get this clear Jimmy. Are you telling me that these three friends of yours in Liverpool can clear you of the murder by giving you an alibi? HANRATTY: Yes, but they don’t want to know. DS ACOTT: Listen to me carefully Jimmy. My duty is to investigate this murder and find out the truth. If you are innocent, it is my job to try and prove you are innocent. It is not my job just to charge you and get you convicted. If I can help you, I will do my best for you. Is that clear Jimmy? HANRATTY: Yes, I understand Mr. Acott, but there’s nothing you can do for me. DS ACOTT: I’m ready to listen. Tell me how you think your three friends in Liverpool can prove you didn’t commit the murder. HANRATTY: Allright, I’ll tell you. On 21st August… that was a Monday wasn’t it? I went to the Vienna Hotel and booked a room for the night, a basement room. I only stayed one night and next morning after breakfast, I left and went to Paddington by mistake. When I got there, I found the train to Liverpool went from Euston, so I caught a cab to Euston and caught a train to Liverpool, Lime Street Station. I caught the 11:55am… or was it the 10:55… no, I think it was the 11:55. Anyway, you can find out what it was. Now, that was Tuesday and the murder was Tuesday and Wednesday wasn’t it? Well, I went to Liverpool and stayed five days with these three friends I told you about there. I went back to London on Friday and stayed with friends in St. John’s Wood. There you are, you see, I couldn’t have committed the murder could I? But you’ll never believe me. N.B. During his trial, Hanratty admitted he had invented this account of events and introduced his ‘Rhyl Alibi’ instead. His explaination: ‘At that stage I made up a lie, and to cover that lie I made up other lies to cover up the lies which I had already said.’ DS ACOTT: I cannot accept your story Jimmy, without some corroboration from any witness. Now as I understand it, you are telling me that at the time of the murder you were staying with these three friends in Liverpool. If they support your story, you won’t have anything to worry about. Give me their names and addresses Jimmy and I’ll see them as quickly as possible. HANRATTY: No, that won’t do. They couldn’t get mixed up with the police and they don’t want to know anything about me or this murder. One of them is wanted for a warrant for non-payment of a fine or something. I’ve told them I’ll pay this for him and gave them all some money, I have plenty now Mr. Acott, but they won’t listen. They say I embarrass them and they’ve kicked me out today and told me not to come back again. DS ACOTT: Jimmy, I can’t tell you how important it is for you that I should see these three men. How did you know them Jimmy? HANRATTY: I was in detention in Liverpool with one of them and I’ve been selling them gear from screwings. DS ACOTT: Is there any other person who could say he saw you in Liverpool after you travelled there from the Vienna? HANRATTY: No. DS ACOTT: Can you tell me any place you went to during those five days in Liverpool or anything you bought that might help me check your story? HANRATTY: No, I’m on my own now Mr. Acott. Tomorrow, I’m going to do what you said and send some flowers (to his mother.) I’m going to write and send her the papers for the car and tell her to go and collect the deposit. I paid out £105 for it. Mum can have that from me. That will help her. Now I must go Mr. Acott before you catch me. One day when all my money has gone, you’ll get the cuffs on me and I’ll tell you the whole story then, but until then I’m going to give you a good run Mr. Acott. I stuck a few hundred away for a rainy day and it will last me a good few months. I’m a bit fly you know. Now I must go. N.B. As mentioned on the previous date; somewhat confusingly and during his trial at a point when he had just introduced his ‘Rhyl’ alibi, Hanratty said he told Detective Superintendent Acott that he intended going back to Liverpool during this October conversation. If we are to believe Hanratty what he meant to say was that he did return to Liverpool this day. Why? ‘…because in the previous conversation he asked me where I was on the night of the twenty-second and twenty-third and I told him I was in Liverpool, which was not correct.’ Did you get to Liverpool? ‘Yes.’ So if Hanratty was not in Liverpool around the time of the murder and he admitted that his Liverpool alibi was a bunch of lies why did he go back to Liverpool at all? Hanratty admitted that he had told lies to Superintendent Acott to set up a false alibi. 1961 Monday 9 October 3:45 P.M. – 5:50 P.M. Detective Superintendent Bob Acott and Oxford visit the Hanratty family home again. Detective Constable D.Langdon takes a call from Hanratty at Scotland Yard which is traced to Liverpool: ‘I want to speak to Superintendent Acott please. Mr. Ryan here.’ Langdon tells Hanratty that Superintendent Acott is not there and can he take a message. Hanratty says: ‘Yes. I am very disgusted in what I have read in the papers today.’ Langdon asks Hanratty what is it he has seen in the papers. Hanratty answers: ‘Look, I have spoken to him before and I have tried to help him. You can tell him that my luggage is at Louise’s place. The green suit is bloodstained. It is my blood. I cut my hand on some glass. It has nothing to do with the A6 murder. I thought I would explain before things got worse.’ The operator interrupts and tells Hanratty he has exceeded his time. Langdon reverses the charges saying: ‘Hello Jimmy. Are you still there? What else did you want to tell Mr. Acott?’ Hanratty replies: ‘You can tell him I am disgusted with him. I thought he was a very fair man. What he told the press about me giving the police a hard chase is all false. Tell him it is worrying my mother.’ Hanratty sends flowers to his mother from Liverpool. At some point during this time, 8 October 1961 – 11 October 1961 when Hanratty is concerned for his mother, he telephones Miss. Gladys Deacon and asks her to call his mother for him. Instead she notifies the police. 1961 Tuesday 10 October Hanratty walks into a barbers in Liverpool and asks to have his hair bleached. 1961 Wednesday 11 October Late Evening Hanratty travels from Liverpool to Blackpool. 11:15 P.M. Detective Constables James Williams and Albert Stillings visit the Stevonia Cafe, Central Drive, Blackpool for a coffee. They see Hanratty who matches the description of a man circulated to all police forces. They keep watch of him. When Hanratty attempts to leave, Williams apprehends him outside and asks if he is James Hanratty. Hanratty replies: ‘You are making a big mistake. I am Peter Bates.’ Williams cautions Hanratty who tells him he lives on Scotland Road in Liverpool. He searches Hanratty who says he has only lived in Liverpool recently and that he had come to Blackpool that night. Hanratty asks Williams: ‘What have I done wrong?’ Hanratty is taken to police head-quarters a few hundred yards away. On the way Hanratty says: ‘I might as well get it all over with now. I will clear up the A6 job for you and and other jobs in the south.’ Scotland Yard are notified of Hanratty’s arrest. 1961 Thursday 12 October 7:00 A.M. Detective Superintendent Bob Acott and Detective Sergeant Oxford arrive at Blackpool. DS Acott interviews Hanratty twice . During Hanratty’s trial, Acott gave evidence that during the interview in Blackpool, Hanratty had said these things to him: ‘I told you I was Jimmy Ryan when I phoned you last weekend. By the way, I want you to keep calling me Jimmy Ryan because I don’t want to embarrass my parents.’ ‘As I told you on the phone, I have got a perfect alibi for the murder. I am not worried about the murder, but as I promised you last weekend I will tell you the whole story now you’ve caught me. Fire away and ask me any questions you like. I will answer them and you will see that I have nothing to do with this horrible murder. I know exactly where I was when it happened. What do you want to ask me about? The murder was on Tuesday night wasn’t it? I have already told you what my alibi was. I was in Liverpool then. That puts me in the clear doesn’t it?’ Hanratty also talks about his movements on 21 August 1961, saying he had been staying with some friends in St. John’s Wood, namely the France’s. He adds: ‘I can’t tell you who they were Mr. Acott. I don’t want to get them into trouble.’ Hanratty goes on to say he had gone to a hotel in Baker Street and from there he had been sent to a hotel on Sutherland Avenue where he had spent the night. The next morning he ate breakfast and went straight to Liverpool. Detective Superintendent Acott asks where Hanratty had slept at the ‘Vienna’ Hotel. Hanratty remembers it was Room 24 in the basement. Hanratty adds: ‘I went to my friends in Liverpool and stayed with them until the Thursday night and got back to London on the Friday morning and walked to Camden Town, and then I went to my friends in Boundary Road and stayed a few days with them. That is all there is that week. As I told you, I have a perfect alibi Mr. Acott.’ Hanratty refuses to give the names of his three friends but says they live in some flats off Scotland Road. As with the telephone conversation Detective Superintendent Acott had, had with Hanratty earlier in October he asks: DS ACOTT: Returning to your alibi. I cannot stress too much the serious position you are in. What are the names and addresses of the three men in Liverpool so I can interview them and take statements from them and if it is true, prove it with three witnesses? HANRATTY: No, Mr. Acott. I have told you, I cannot tell you their names. They helped me and I cannot give you their names. They got really choked when they heard I was wanted for the A6 murder. Hanratty goes on to say that the men, ‘kicked me out’ and that the three men could not be blamed because they were already in trouble with the police. Their flat was full of jewelry and a lot of gelignite and one of them was wanted for non-payment of a fine in connexion with television sets on hire purchase. Detective Superintendent Acott later says to Hanratty: ‘I can’t make it too clear how desperate your position is. I must tell you now, after leaving your Room 24 on August 22 and before it was occupied again, two empty cartridge cases were found at the end of the bed you slept in that night.’ Hanratty responds by asking what size the bullets were. Acott responds: DS ACOTT: I can’t tell you that. HANRATTY: Well that is the end for me isn’t it? I told you I have never had any bullets and never fired a gun. Detective Superintendent Acott asks a final time who the three men were and where Hanratty stayed on August 22 and 23. Hanratty replies: ‘I am a very good gambler Mr. Acott. I have gambled all my life. I am going to gamble now. I am not going to name the three men. I can get out of this without them.’ 1961 Friday 13 October 7:45 A.M. Detective Superintendent C.H. Barron, head of Bedfordshire C.I.D. and Detective Chief Inspector Whiffen see Hanratty at Blackpool Police Station. Barron says to Hanratty: ‘At 2:40 p.m. on Wednesday, August 23, 1961 with Detective Superintendent Acott, I saw the dead body of Michael John Gregsten on a concrete strip of road by the side of the A6 at Deadman’s Hill. I am arresting you for the murder of Gregsten and you will be taken to Bedfordshire where you will later be charged.’ Barron then cautioned Hanratty and asked him, ‘Do you understand?’ Hanratty replied, ‘Yes.’ Early Afternoon Hanratty is taken to Bedford police headquarters in a car, his face hidden by a fawn raincoat. He is placed on an identity parade. Detective Superintendent Acott and Detective Sergeant Oxford arrive in a car behind Hanratty’s. Hanratty is fingerprinted. In the next room Detective Superintendent Acott is approached by Mr. Kleinmann, Hanratty’s solicitor who tells him that Hanratty had remembered going into a sweetshop on Scotland Road on 22 August 1961. There was a woman in the sweetshop and he had asked directions to Carleton or Tarleton Road. John Jellicoe Skillet, a foreman from Leytonstone, East London identifies Hanratty as the man he had seen driving a Morris Minor erratically on the morning of 23 August 1961. Edward Richard Blackall of Brentwood, Essex is next to make an identification but picks out someone different. James Richard Trower of Forest Gate, East London identifies Hanratty as the driver of the car he saw on Redbridge Lane, Ilford. During Hanratty’s trial Hanratty’s hair was part ginger, part brown and part black. Trower said: ‘His hair was dark when I saw him on August 23.’ 1961 Saturday 14 October 11:10 A.M. Hanratty is placed on a second identity parade before Valerie Storie at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. There are twelve other men on the parade, thirteen including Hanratty. Storie asks for each of the men in the parade to repeat the phrase used by the a6 murderer, “Be quiet, will you? I’m thinking.” Storie was hoping the murderer would identify himself because the killer had said these words during after the murder of Gregsten pronouncing ‘thinking’ as ‘finking.’ This identity parade however was said to be unfair and is the cause for much debate since Hanratty is said to have been the only man with a cockney accent and also had bright orange hair having tried to bleach it. This time, after 10-15 minutes Storie picks Hanratty out. The Scotland Yard fingerprint bureau informs Acott that they have failed to find any prints for Hanratty in the Morris Minor. Valerie Storie stated that the gunman wore gloves. 6:15 P.M. Hanratty is charged with murder. 1961 Tuesday 17 October Olive Dinwoodie who worked in a Liverpool sweet shop, makes a statement to police regarding the day a gentleman came into the shop asking for directions: ‘On Monday 21 August, I was engaged as assistant for two days. I was accompanied in the shop by my thirteen year old grand-daughter, Barbara Ford. Between 3:30 and 4:00p.m. on the Monday, a chap came into the shop and asked me to direct him to ‘Tarleton Road.’ I did not know where Tarleton Road was though I knew Tarleton street, and he said, “No, Road.” It was definitely the Monday because I was alone on the Tuesday. My grand-daughter was only with me on the Monday. The photograph you have shown me, is one of the man who came in on Monday, 21 August asking for Tarleton Road.’ Michael Gregsten was assassinated. Nothing at all to do with James Hanratty! steve May 24, 2014 at 3:45 am

No. Will President Obama Take My Guns? 26 Monday May 2014 Posted Articles, Headline Newsin 26 Monday May 2014 Posted Articles, Headline Newsin No. 19 Thursday Dec 2013 Posted Articles, Headline Newsin Follow us on Twitter @PolliticsToday for more insight, commentary and updates concerning this blog or “LIKE” us on Facebook. To get alerts on our newest articles, sign up for our alert system. Seriously, do those things; we could use more followers and support! Every few months it seems that a celebrity really says some messed up shit. This year was no different with Riley Cooper, Paula Deen and now Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson joining the fray of people exposing their true colors in a pretty disturbing light. In case you haven’t heard, Robertson told GQ’s (and Deadspin’s funniest writer) Drew Magary his views on LGBTQ Americans (and how they are similar to those who commit bestiality) as well as growing up in the South. Of course, what he said was pretty messed up though sadly not exactly surprising and yes; the uproar has been loud. Listen. I can’t throw stones. I’m not perfect. I’ve said things in the past that aren’t perfect, I’ve sworn at people I shouldn’t have and I’ve probably at least five times in my life done something that wouldn’t be considered cool. I’ve been guilty of a too soon joke now and then as well as other failed attempts at humor. I’m glad I get the chance to say that because well, I live in a country that luckily has a First Amendment. Phil Robertson, just like every American in the country, has the right to say whatever he wants. He in many ways is symbolic of the American Dream, considering the millions they have made and they even got their own lousy reality show about their duck whistle business. I’ve never watched it, mainly because I’m awful at keeping up with television shows, but I can tell its impact on our society. One of my friends dressed up as one of those dudes for Halloween and was pretty much recognized by everyone in our small college town. However, there are those who are totally-pro Phil Robertson and totally anti-him being suspended. Part of that is likely them being jaded by the fact that they love the show and are terrified of changes to it, as I assume the patriarch of the family is pretty important to the “unscripted” show. I guess it would be like suspending Don Vito from Viva La Bam, which should’ve happened if the show lasted longer. Still, whenever these controversies prop up, there is a large segment of the population that decry those who get punished for their “opinion”. They say that somehow A&E is violating Robertson’s First Amendment rights and so on and so forth. Let’s end this now in under eight hundred words. Robertson had every right to say what he wants to say. He has every right to believe in what he wants to believe and there is nothing you can do about it. Its all intrinsic when it comes down to what someone believes is their belief. BUTBUTBUTBUTBUT, having the right to free speech and utilizing it does not mean you are free from criticism. It does not mean that there are automatically zero repercussions for the words that you say, especially if it demeans a segment of the global population. If I worked at CVS and went into the parking lot and said the company sucked, then went on Twitter to say it more; I probably shouldn’t be shocked to get fired. Time and time again, this argument comes up and it gets tiring. Robertson can not be jailed by his government for his words. He can’t be deported or tried or anything because he has an opinion. But the people around him including private citizens, corporations, family members and TV channels can do what they want with him. You can still watch the show. Hell if you agree with his words (then this blog isn’t for you) you can stand by him. You can fight on his behalf. That does not mean though that you won’t be impervious to eye rolling, criticism and more. So own your words and when you get criticized, don’t hide behind the First Amendment. It doesn’t make you teflon. 18 Wednesday Dec 2013 Posted Headline Newsin China, John Walsh, Max Baucus, Montana, politics, Steve Daines Follow us on Twitter @PolliticsToday for more insight, commentary and updates concerning this blog or “LIKE” us on Facebook. To get alerts on our newest articles, sign up for our alert system. Seriously, do those things; we could use more followers and support! Well, well, well how about this? Longtime Montana Senator Max Baucus announced earlier in the cycle that he would not run for reelection. Baucus, who has evolved into a Lieberman-esque pain in the neck to progressives over the past few years, actually did the right thing by retiring which would’ve allowed popular ex-Gov. Brian Schweitzer to run for the position. Then Schweitzer decided not to run and Democrats hopes were pretty much dashed as a host of other candidates declined before Lieutenant Governor John Walsh entered the fray, only to be joined by his predecessor John Bohlinger in a potentially contested primary. So, today’s news is that Baucus will be appointed to be the newest ambassador to China sometime soon. This allows Governor Steve Bullock to appoint a temporary replacement which is widely expected to be Walsh. This could be a decent thing as Walsh will be able to get some experience in Washington and become a known quantity, which will help out in what is expected to be a dogfight against Rep. Steve Daines. Now it might not be the best thing in Montana to have Washington experience but this could only drive up how many people know of Walsh. With Democrats expected to probably take a hit, big enough to maybe lose the majority in the Senate, this might be a game changer as every state will count. Good news is that Baucus won’t be in the Senate but also President Obama is showing some shrewd political calculating here. Baucus, an architect of the Affordable Care Act, is peacing out and will be in China while Walsh should do enough to defeat Bohlinger and have a better shot at withholding Daines. Let the games begin. 18 Wednesday Dec 2013 Posted 2016 Speculation, Headline News, Pollsin Follow us on Twitter @PolliticsToday for more insight, commentary and updates concerning this blog or “LIKE” us on Facebook. To get alerts on our newest articles, sign up for our alert system. Seriously, do those things; we could use more followers and support! Its been awhile since we have checked in on the ongoing saga that is the trek to 2016, but thankfully Public Policy Polling exists as they have a new poll hot off the presses. The North Carolina-based polling outfit takes a look at both the Republican and Democratic fields as well as some head-to-head matchup. Not too much has changed on the Republican side as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is still the favorite over his more conservative counterparts. Christie leads with 19% over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 14%, Mike Huckabee at 13% and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at 11%. Rounding out the field is Paul Ryan and Jeb Bush who are tied at 10%, Marco Rubio at 7%, Scott Walker at 4% and Bobby Jindal bringing up the rear at 3%. Some interesting tidbits is that Huckabee, who has recently announced that he is not saying no to the idea of a presidential run (which will likely mean he won’t do anything) is the most popular of the group but it seems that there isn’t that much excitement around him. By contrast, Chris Christie has an average favorability rating but his supporters are all in for him. If Huckabee doesn’t run, Christie’s lead swells to 23% to 15% over Cruz. Also worth noting is the slow fall back to the field that Rand Paul has had and Marco Rubio’s descent into the back portion of the field. Scott Walker may not be a threat now but don’t be shocked if an infusion of money behind him can catapult him to the top of the field especially considering the likely implosion of a Ted Cruz campaign. For the Democrats though, ho-hum same story as before. Hillary Clinton is up 66% to 10% over Vice President Joe Biden with 6% for Elizabeth Warren. Tied at 2% is Cory Booker, Martin O’Malley, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Andrew Cuomo and 1% over Brian Schweitzer. Joe Biden is the early favorite if Clinton demurs on a run with 35% over John Kerry and Elizabeth Warren tied at 13%. Without the big guns of Clinton, Biden, Kerry and Dean; Warren is up 24% to 14% over Cuomo, 13% for Booker and O’Malley at 7%. What are the main takeaways on the Democratic side? Hillary remains the clear favorite with Joe Biden in position to capture some excitement should she not run. Without them? The most exciting candidate is Elizabeth Warren who I have reservations on if she really wants to run or stay in the Senate where she could likely do more good. Its hard for a progressive because we finally have a rockstar like Elizabeth Warren but we can’t lose her if she has an unsuccessful run. It might be best if she stays in the Senate and gains more and more seniority. I also don’t think Booker would be willing to immediately jump into the fray either and will likely look at 2020 or 2024 (after possibly being a top VP candidate) so that leaves us with a field headlined by Cuomo, O’Malley and Schweitzer. Eek. But don’t sweat it too much; Clinton is still expected to probably run. When it comes to head-to-heads, Christie appears to be the slight favorite over 1,000 days from election day (I’m aware of how ridiculous this is) inching out Clinton by a 45/42 margin thanks to Christie’s popularity amongst independents. Christie crushes Kerry by 11, Biden by 14, Warren by 16 and Dean by 22. To be fair though Christie is popular now but I don’t know how he can maintain that when he will get bombarded by ads. He’ll get thrown through the ringer with his “temperament”, his new bridge controversy and there’s no way he will remain that popular amongst Democrats as the election wears on. His record is staunchly conservative and we’ll see how it lasts. 06 Wednesday Nov 2013 Posted 2016 Speculation, Articles, Headline News, New Jersey Coveragein 2016, Chris Christie, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, New Jersey, politics, President, Rand Paul, Republican Party Follow us on Twitter @PolliticsToday for more insight, commentary and updates concerning this blog or “LIKE” us on Facebook. To get alerts on our newest articles, sign up for our alert system. Seriously, do those things; we could use more followers and support! Okay, in the aftermath of an election, you tend to hear some pretty huge hyperboles being tossed around. You hear words being tossed around like “mandate”, “game changing” and almost always a peek into the future as the news media craves horse race news. It is sickening but as much as we hate to admit it, we love complaining about Chuck Todd or Peter King in front of some map of Iowa and spouting platitudes about how Chris Christie’s personality will REALLY GO WELL in Cornville, Iowa (“blue collar folks LOVE him!”). But I digress because as the sole blogger of a political website that thrives (50 views a day!) on election news, I am one of the biggest supporters of more horse race news. So bare with me for a bit because like it or not, we are getting closer and closer to the seasons of Iowa visits, ongoing speculation about backbench Congresspeople (“Louie Gohmert has publicly mentioned that he could see himself in the White House”) and exploratory committees forming. However, last night was a pretty big night for myself. As a New Jersey resident, this summer and fall has been a pretty big deal in general. We had a contested Senate primary to replace the late Frank Lautenberg, the following general election, a gubernatorial race and various statewide contests. While the races were overall snoozers, it still provided us with some answers. Mainly that Chris Christie will be the favorite to be the Republican nominee for President in 2016. Now, let’s get some things settled first and foremost. There was no way in hell that last night’s gubernatorial election in New Jersey would be even close, let alone result in Chris Christie losing to state senator Barbara Buono. With the state-level party easily willing to ditch Buono and embrace the incumbent, the massive fundraising edge possessed by Christie and his personal national popularity facing off against the sparsely known Buono; it was destined to be a blowout. Also, Christie was always the favorite to snag the nomination and his other rivals have very little shot at stopping him with the exception of either some terrible gaffes or horrendous scandals. Anything can happen (Rudy Giuliani comes to mind immediately as does Hillary Clinton) but frankly, it would be asinine to disagree with the fact that it’ll be hard to topple Christie. But considering that the calendar is officially past November 5th, 2013; Christie will be on a collision course with 2016. As a liberal Democrat, I have no problems spousing all of the truths about Christie. He’s just as anti-union as Scott Walker, as socially conservative as any generic Republican and his “bold” political move was hugging the President in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Still though, perception matters and right now Christie has a lot going for him. At the risk of sounding like someone who craves nostalgia and shares BuzzFeed lists, I remember a time when Chris Christie’s public meltdowns were considered just that. To some who weren’t partisan, he looked like an egotistical bully that was going to do his own thing, be damned! For him though, his own thing was fairly similar to what Scott Walker did in Wisconsin only with more personality and less political carnival. The Democrats were all too keen to roll over. The aftermath of Sandy though did change something. Christie embraced the President, publicly announced how he didn’t care about the upcoming presidential election at the very moment, blasted the Republican-held House of Representatives, appeared on Letterman and cleaned up his image a tad with his genuine (yes, I believe the word genuine counts) sadness over the destruction of the boardwalk. All of a sudden, Christie’s temper tantrums started to look different in a reflective light. The general consensus (this of course without cited sources but general belief) was that Christie may not be someone you agree with all the time but by golly, he listens to no one and he’s a straight talker! If there is one thing that gets Middle America and the stereotypical “blue collar” (FYI: blue collar shouldn’t just mean people who would be played by John Goodman in a sitcom or television movie, it should be anyone who ISN’T perceived to be wealthy) worker excited it is someone that sounds like how they fantasize they would sound if they were an elected official. It’s the same semi-populist language that drew people initially to Sarah Palin or any other “folksy” candidate (on either party). Pundits also love it because they can debate on how genuine or truthful guys like Christie are when they begin to promote themselves. You will hear how Christie called out Congress, which is not a bold move when you consider Congress’s unpopularity and how Christie doesn’t serve in D.C. so he can take an outsider’s approach, but also look at how he vetoed minimum wage increases and marriage equality. But it makes Christie a threat and he looks really strong right now especially given how the rest of the field looks. Marco Rubio has nothing to run off of and is frankly the ultimate amateur who would be over his head running in 2016. Rand Paul is outing himself as a plagiarizer with a staff that would not be able to organize a presidential campaign. Ted Cruz is strictly a political extremist that is highly popular amongst a highly unpopular segment of the political spectrum with a high level of combustibility. Jeb Bush’s time has likely come and gone plus Christie is a more personable version of him anyway. Now a lot of hay gets made of how right wing conservatives hate Christie just as much as progressives. The thing is though, they hated Mitt Romney for the same reason. They did nothing to stall him. We have this perception that if you don’t win Iowa, you are basically done as a candidate even though Romney got edged out by Rick Santorum (!) last year and Mike Huckabee won in 2008. The most important thing is money, organization and fundraising. Romney had all of that as it was basically inevitable that he would survive the primary season. Even though Christie will be attacked frequently, he will be able to probably float above the inter-conservative squabbling on who is more likely to eliminate LGBT people from the country and deport Hispanics while receiving an endorsement from Kirk Cameron. They will be more concerned on who will be the “not-Christie” as opposed to winning the damn nomination. All Christie has to do is coast until Super Tuesday. He doesn’t need to trounce the field, he just needs to spread their resources thin. He can set up base camps in various states while Santorum-lite candidates go all in on Iowa; hoping to get by which is probably the best position one can be in. Does that mean he will win? No, but it looks really hard to envision him losing. Still the thing is, how do you topple Chris Christie in a general election? His schtick, as tiring and obvious as it is, still connects with independent-minded voters. They eat that stuff alive. Too much of it could wear thin at a certain point plus if Hillary Clinton is the nominee; Christie will have a tough time against a battle-tested candidate. To beat Christie though, you have to go after the jugular. You have to look at some of the failed promises, the missteps, the likely implosions, the pro-Koch legislation, the fact of the matter that everything he provides is merely lip service as opposed to measurable political accomplishments. With Christie you get a guy who toots his own horn and merrily pats his own back because he said a witty thing about gridlock. But do you get anything out of it? Time will tell. 01 Tuesday Oct 2013 Posted Headline Newsin Government, politics, Shutdown Nothing to say here other than the obvious. The US Government, as of this very moment, has been shut down by Republicans who are more concerned about future elections as opposed to the future of this nation. We are in the midst of a glorified fundraising opportunity and a moment for certain politicians to make a name for themselves when the nearest SuperPAC “liberty group” comes knockin’ at their door. This is not a surprise, this is the same party that declared Mission Accomplished about oh….eight years too early? This is the same party that is now actively against a similar bill it once backed, against a similar bill to the one that the guy who was the “leader” of the party last year actually championed at one point. This is the same party that has two very distinct factions that form new cracks when a pin is dropped on its shaky core. Will it burst? Unlikely. Why would it? The “moderates” of the party (or dare I say, the mavericks) only care about going on Meet the Press and decrying their party’s extremists but have no qualms about voting alongside with them. But as of now, the government is shutdown. 27 Friday Sep 2013 Posted Election News Dump, Headline Newsin Greg Abbott, politics, Texas, Wendy Davis Follow us on Twitter @PolliticsToday for more insight, commentary and updates concerning this blog or “LIKE” us on Facebook. To get alerts on our newest articles, sign up for our alert system. Seriously, do those things; we could use more followers and support! It looks like one of the worst-kept electoral secrets in America is about to be formally announced as State Sen. Wendy Davis of Texas is preparing to launch a gubernatorial run. Davis, who is best known for her legendary filibuster (a political moment that has launched her from a budding star to a supernova), will be the likely Democratic nominee to go up against AG Greg Abbott. Current Governor Rick Perry will not run for another term, which will give Texas their second Governor of the new millennium and maybe their first who can master complete sentences. But, as I have examined earlier, how strong are Davis’s odds in seeking the Governor’s Mansion? I am still of the belief that it is somewhere between “not great” and “minimal” but that’s not cause for defeat quite yet. Abbott will likely trounce Davis (and to be fair, any state-level politician) in fundraising as he has practically been running for Governor for the past four plus years. Texas is still a nice shade of red and while there has been plenty of hype about turning the state blue; we still have to see the votes before we get too excited. The 2014 election cycle is slightly more than a year away (wait, really?) and Davis may not have enough time to turn Texas blue. But then again, she’s a full-fledged star now. This isn’t some fledging prospect who is heavily hyped but has to work on name recognition. Davis is one of the few real special up-and-coming Democrats who has a national name and even casual observers remember her fight for women’s health. She may not be Elizabeth Warren in some respects but she’s a proven fighter and if she can filibuster for hours on end, fundraising and hand-shaking will be a piece of cake. If Democrats REALLY want a 50-State Strategy, you need people like Wendy Davis. You need stars who are willing to take a risk and make a run for major offices in mid-term elections. No offense to him, but Wendy Davis isn’t Paul Sadler (the nominee Democrats had to face off against Ted Cruz for Senator in 2012). She’s a household name that can not only potentially be very competitive in a race but also bring in money and register new voters. The only way the Democrats are going to make inroads in these states will be with well-known candidates who can help build the party up and drum up turnout. Wendy Davis has already been in some big fights. She has already been through plenty of adversity in her life in which she will be able to carve a pretty excellent message. She’s not an unknown quantity, she’s a quality candidate and represents the Democrats best shots at winning a major election in Texas in quite some time. Will that translate to a win? Still unlikely, but will there be felt repercussions? You bet. 16 Friday Aug 2013 Posted 2016 Speculation, Headline Newsin CNN, Fox News, Hillary Clinton, NBC, politics, Reince Priebus, Republicans Follow us on Twitter @PolliticsToday for more insight, commentary and updates concerning this blog or “LIKE” us on Facebook. To get alerts on our newest articles, sign up for our alert system. Seriously, do those things; we could use more followers and support! Hahaha. Here’s something funny to start your day with. The Republican National Committee voted today to bar cable networks CNN and NBC from hosting any of the 2016 Republican Party presidential debates. This decision stems from the networks plans to air a Hillary Clinton miniseries that would air when Hillary Clinton makes a decision about her future plans. However, this seems a bit too knee-jerk, even by the Republican Party’s lofty standards. Given the fact that the Republican Party looks worse the longer their spokespeople talk; this seems to be their idea of a clever way to limit the amount of debates. Let’s face it, it can only hurt them to trot out Ted Cruz and Chris Christie (who are destined to throw down when placed in the same room together) to a national audience a few times per month. Again, this looks to be damage control by the party because they believe if they limit the amount of time their candidates are seen; the better off they will be. They are hoping to avoid any missteps by favored candidates (who I’d bet are Christie, Marco Rubio and maybe Scott Walker) but to also hide their insurrectionist candidates (Rand Paul, Cruz, Rick Santorum). I wouldn’t be shocked if, since Fox News is the only other major network (but I’d love to see Al Jazeera do it just to imagine how many nationalistic heads would explode) that apparently the RNC is comfortable alongside. I can picture them picking Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace moderating to give them an air of legitimacy (non-controversial hosts) and keeping it that way. Will they boycott the networks though? I try to think of how I would feel if CNN decided to air a documentary on say, Jeb Bush or even Chris Christie before determining if it would be a good idea to follow through. But then again, I’m of the belief that the more debates the better (I’m alone in this probably) as people need to get as much exposure to candidates as possible and I need more things to write about. Nonetheless, the boycott of CNN and NBC (librrullllll media?) is nothing that is all too shocking from Reince Priebus and his cohorts. I will be more shocked if they follow through on it though, regionalizing your party isn’t exactly a great way to nationalize it; right? 13 Tuesday Aug 2013 Posted Headline News, New Jersey Coveragein Follow us on Twitter @PolliticsToday for more insight, commentary and updates concerning this blog or “LIKE” us on Facebook. To get alerts on our newest articles, sign up for our alert system. Seriously, do those things; we could use more followers and support! Well, who is shocked? But its official, the winner of the Democratic primary in New Jersey to fill out the unexpired term of the late Frank Lautenberg is Newark Mayor Cory Booker. Booker, the charismatic Mayor who has charmed the pants off many for his various stunts and highly active Twitter feed, is expected to trounce Republican opponent, former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan. Booker’s candidacy has received some criticism from progressives (including yours truly) but he is clearly to the left of Lonegan who is nothing short of a conservative firebrand. Attention will turn to the general election which will be at the end of October but really, we will see what Booker does after he is sworn into office. Will we see him on TV a lot? Probably as I can imagine David Gregory has a seat warm for him on Meet the Press but will we see him trek to Iowa and New Hampshire? Will he be a mainstream Democrat on many issues? Definitely. Could he infuriate progressives from time-to-time? Possibly. But I will be voting for Mr. Booker come October, as New Jersey needs the most progressive voice it can get; given its blue hue, any of the three major candidates (not including Sheila Oliver) would be the overwhelming favorite in a general. Still Booker should be a good voice on LGBT issues and I expect him to go all-in on raising the minimum wage as he needs something to run on nationally. I enjoyed supporting Rush Holt this year by the way, I’m glad I was able to do my best in trying to get him exposed to as many people as possible. Appointed Sen. Jeffrey Chiesa did not run to fulfill the entirety of the term. 13 Tuesday Aug 2013 Posted Headline News, New Jersey Coveragein Alieta Eck, Cory Booker, Frank Pallone, New Jersey, politics, Rush Holt, Sheila Oliver, Steve Lonegan Follow us on Twitter @PolliticsToday for more insight, commentary and updates concerning this blog or “LIKE” us on Facebook. To get alerts on our newest articles, sign up for our alert system. Seriously, do those things; we could use more followers and support! To finish our coverage of the primary of the New Jersey Senate race, we will be liveblogging the results, vote tallies and winners here. While we expect to have a pretty short night in terms of finding out who won both primaries, we will be trying to give you as much information as possible. So use the comments section if you want, we could use more voices to add to more discussion! 8:48PM ET: Here’s our Booker piece. The liveblog will slow down now, we’ll be back later tonight for number crunching. 8:46PM ET: AP calls it for Booker. 8:43PM ET: Booker is running train right now in Essex County which is his home county. Has about 65% of the vote with 9% of precincts reporting. Oliver is in third here. 8:39PM ET: AP calls Republican primary for Steve Lonegan. 8:38PM ET: Booker is taking off. 57% of the vote goes to him and 12,000+ votes. Pallone trails at 25%, Holt at 14% and Oliver at 5%. 8:34PM ET: AP has Booker with over 6,000 votes and 55%. Pallone follows with 3k and 27%, Holt at 15% and 1,750 and Oliver at 3% with almost 400 votes. Booker is dominating Gloucester County with nearly 65% of the vote with 42% reporting. 8:30PM ET: Booker now hovering at 50% with 51.3%. Pallone follows at 29.2%, Holt at 15.8% and Oliver at 3.7%. Hudson shows Booker dominating and Pallone has Monmouth County (his backyard). 8:22PM ET: Booker is now over 50% in the early going at 53% according to AP. Pallone in second at 25%, Holt at 17% and Oliver at 4%. Ocean County now starting to report. Pallone needs to do well here. 8:17PM ET: Booker now launches ahead. 47.4%, 29.2% for Holt, Pallone at 19.9% and Oliver at 3.4%. Somerset and Gloucester Counties are now filling in. Gloucester is in the South Jersey area (my neighboring county) and Booker has pretty much shored up the entire South Jersey area. 8:12PM ET: New numbers from POLITICO. Holt is at 47.6%, Booker is at 32.7%, Pallone at 17.1% and Oliver at 2.6%. Keep in mind this is from Hunterdon County which is Holt country. 8:04PM ET: POLITICO is keeping tabs on the race. Very, very, very early totals show Booker with 39.4%, Holt with 34.3%, Pallone with 20.2% and Oliver with 6.1%. This has come from Warren County. 8:01PM ET: According to a source to PolitickerNJ, Booker blew away the field in Hudson County in terms of vote via mail. Booker received an estimated 72% of the vote with Pallone getting 18%, Holt getting 7% and Oliver receiving 4%. 8:00PM ET: Polls have closed. 7:50PM ET: Our final guesses are: Booker-49%, Pallone-24%, Holt-22%, Oliver-5%. 7:40PM ET: Polls close at 8pm and results are expected to file in immediately after with the potential of the AP, CNN, NBC, FOX all calling the race for Booker and Lonegan. 7:22PM ET: Another last minute plea to not vote for Cory Booker by Democratic site, Crooks & Liars. This one is a bit more in-depth version of the piece by Salon’s Alex Pareene today. What kind of upsets me about this is that there is more bringing down Booker than propping up his opponents. Booker has his flaws, no doubt about that, but you hear more about him (even by people complaining about his popularity) than you do Frank Pallone, Rush Holt and Sheila Oliver combined. Let this be a memo to those who are against a certain candidate, you’ll get more bang for your buck propping up someone instead and comparing them to the other one. 6:55PM ET: Turnout is expected to be low today thanks in part to a few facts. One, its mid-August and plenty of people are probably enjoying the end of their summers at the shore or on vacation elsewhere. Two, its widely assumed Cory Booker will win (and Steve Lonegan on the Republican side) and that might depress some of the vote. Three, New Jersey got HAMMERED by a storm this morning; our local CBS affiliate was on the air all morning for what its worth. At my polling place, there were about three voters there including myself. My sister at 10am said she was the only voter in the house there as well. Then again, expect plenty of mail-in ballots as well. 6:45PM ET: Before we get to some of the results, it appears Cory Booker has been dealing with some ethical woes. Okay scratch that, completely alleged ethical woes. Booker’s ties with the internet start-up Waywire have been examined for the past week and we still don’t have all the answers. We do know that Booker started the company and that it has netted him between $1 and $5 million. Check out the latest post from ABC News.

All recognizable characters, settings, or music references are owned by their respective authors/creators. The story line is owned by me, and I prefer to keep it that way. No copyright infringement is intended. EPOV Have you taken a look at your life lately? Really looked at it? Examined every tiny facet of it? Every last little pathetic self-loathing piece? No? That must mean you're happy. Or you've diluted yourself to the point that you believe you are. Or you're just on a shit ton of Zoloft. In which case, I envy you. Especially if you are happy. When you're happy you don't analyze. You don't nit-pick. You believe all things happen for a reason. You're in that perfect bubble that I am just constantly tempted to go up and poke and say, "Take that you smug asshole! I just took you down a notch! Welcome to my fucking level!" There may or may not be a dance or some lame grunting action associated with said bubble poking. I haven't exactly decided. This is of course a metaphor. Not unlike the Matrix, there is no spoon. Or bubble, as it were. But you see the fucking thing, whether a physical manifestation of the thing is there or not. More often not. Okay never, but you get the point. When you're happy, you don't sit like a bitch listening to the "Tony Rich Project" wondering where the you went wrong with the latest girl who gave you the "it's not me. It's you" speech. And no, I didn't get that backwards. Snap. Snap. Glossy french tips of my friend, Ali, quickly removed me out of my life is incredibly fucked up haze. "Edward is this going to be an epically long musing? Because, I swear, I'm late enough as it is, and I cannot afford to take another sick day to hold your hand while you wonder why your life is total shit." I put another Patterson thriller on the Bestseller rack, I called it the Bullshit rack, but I digress. "Let it never be said that you are anything, but a selfless and impeccable listener." Watching Ali mouth the title of the new addition, and ignore me, further proved my point. "What?" I looked over my shoulder and frowned at her. "This where you're supposed to give me the best friend pep talk and be on your way." "Oh!" she chimed. "It's not you, it's them. There are other fish in the sea, time heals all wounds, they wanted someone with more money?" I scoffed and placed another book in the Education section. Marital Arts for Dummies sat among the other yellow and black instructional books. "Bigger cock?" I glared at Ali. Her pep talks sucked when she hadn't imbibed her morning espresso shot. She shrugged, recomposed her face and opened her mouth, but nothing came out. I walked away assuming she was too under-caffeinated to continue her non-peppy talk. "You were too good for the undeserving skank-whore and she gave lousy head. Am I on the right track?" she called making her way to the front of the empty store. "Brilliant. Way to pull it out of your ass at the last second." "I do what I can." "Eternally grateful. Now, if you could only give my life some meaning." She started pouting. "I'll settle for a girlfriend with half a brain," I offered instead. It was her turn to frown. "I thought you said you liked the woman, from that club last month?" "I did," I confirmed. "But being as how she didn't think enough of me to give me her name, or stay after we fucked around, It's probably for the best that I don't dwell on her luscious tits or deep brown eyes." I remembered the night those deep brown eyes, caught mine for the first time. Jasper's club. She didn't really mingle with anyone, but the short black dress, heels and red lips made it clear she was absolutely not there for happy hour. Unless her goal was to start happy hour in the pants of all the sorry suckers with cocks. She could have retired if we all had to give her a c-note. I would have given her two just to find out her name. I couldn't stop watching her as she moved across the club. From the bar and to the dance floor and back. A short altercation with an overzealous guido impersonator who grabbed her perfect ass while she was dancing, left him with a bloody nose and her with everyone's attention. I caught her eyes several times, but being the insecure, overly guarded douche I am, I didn't go over. No one knew her name. She refused to give it as multiple guys went in with a finite, albeit incredibly hands off move, only to get shut down. Even Tyler, Jasper's roommate, repeatedly quizzed her until she finally called herself a very disinterested "Joan Collins" and sauntered away. Finding my balls and relishing in Tyler's embarrassment, I immediately introduced myself as a very interested "Harvey Wallbanger" and to my complete surprise, and awestruck dick, Joan was clearly only interested in Harvey. "It's about damn time." She said so low, I wasn't entirely sure I heard her. "Your place or mine Harvey?" "Mine." I answered with little thought. I didn't really have causal sex, but after peeling her prefect body out of the tight black dress and plowing her against the bookshelf in my living room, I was starting to rethink my philosophies on life. More causal sex. Less thinking. It wasn't until we were nestled next to copies of Catcher in the Rye and a few other classics, that I asked her real name. She breathed silently against my chest, and replied that "anonymity was too precious to give away, and that she wouldn't change and would still smell as sweet." I was half in the bag and it sounded like poetry to me, not to mention, I wasn't about to argue when my dick was about to beg for a second time out. It made for cumbersome bedfellows. When I woke up in the morning she was gone and all the books were put away, except the Salinger There was a note on top. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. I decided she was a CIA operative and she was simply in town for one night, and I was the lucky SOB who she was drunk enough to fuck around with before she took down a foreign, tyrannical, fascist with a pocket watch and pen. "That could be a movie of the week," Ali cut in jarring me out of my memories. "No, it's just my so called life." She smirked and picked up her bag. "I've got to go. Later, Ward." I smiled and gave her a half hearted wave as she left, staring after her. Now stop. Right there. This isn't one of those stories. Where the girl who was right in front of him was his true love and he was too blind to see it. I love Ali, but I'm not in love with her, for the pure and simple fact that we had one thing in common. We were both in pursuit of pussy. She came out to me after junior prom when I tried to kiss her and she threw up on my shoes. I'd like to think it was the two shots of tequila that made her ill enough to vomit, and not the thought of kissing me, but I don't dwell on it. We stuck together like glue through our college years, nursing each other through heartbreak, bad grades and hangovers. She was there when my father died after his battle with prostate cancer three years ago, and I helped her move back to Washington after she got laid off. This also isn't going to be one of those stories either. Where some pathetic, though awkwardly charming, and if I might be so bold, decent looking guy, whines like a bitch over his failed attempts at love only to ride off with the girl of his dreams at the end, realizing that not everything was as bad as he had made it out to be. As I've said, this is not one of those, so if that's the tripe you're looking for, keep walking. I'll direct you to the romance section and you can go about your goddamn cliched-sated existence. Because this story and all of it's glory... See what I did there? I rhymed. Just incase you're phonetically challenged, I thought I needed to clarify. Has nothing to do with fucking Nicholas Sparks and his remember the notebook in a bottle drivel. And I'm allowed to say that because, I own a bookstore. Now there is three ways I've been responded to when uttering that admission. The red-head way: Like books with actual pages? Wow. That's so...deep. The brunette way: Physical copies of books will be archaic in a few years. You should cut your losses. And lastly, though oh so important, blonde way: Oh, you mean you own a Nook store? Right? I know, it sounds terrible that I would stereotype women based on their physical specs and what a select few of them have said, but luckily I'm an asshole. Therefore, I don't particularly care. It was a meek existence, waking up every morning with a cat that my ex left when she moved out two years ago. The pussy she left behind happened to be less catty than the one attached to the bitch who left and took my ice cube trays. It also happened to be better groomed. Again, I digress. I decided to shake off thoughts of pussies of varying kinds and started to think about opening up Magic Eight. I smiled weakly upon seeing my Magic Eight ball on the same shelf it was always on. A short time before my father died, we sat at the hospice in silence. The two of us unsure of what to say, or how to address the fact that our minutes were waning. "Remember that summer when you were ten?" he questioned. "The one we spent at the lake?" "Vaguely." "There was that little brunette girl, with the pigtails at the general store," he clarified after a moment. "who convinced you to trade your Drumstick for a handful of gummy bears?" I nodded, unable to remember her face, but remembering what happened after. "After we traded and I ate one, she told me she'd dunked them in the toilet." My father choked on his laughter and it took him several minutes to calm down. "Do you remember what you asked me?" I laughed too. "If something horrible would happen to her, because she tricked me. Like a meteor would fall on her." He nodded. "And I brought you over to the Eight Ball and told you to ask it. Since it would know more than me." I shook the hell out of that ball, silently wishing the meteor would be on fire and she would turn to ash. I smiled as I remembered the rest of that summer and the answer the ball had given me. "It was a great summer." He silently brought out the eight ball and shook it with a forced smile. "Will I live through the week?" I gave him a disenchanted look, disturbed by his casualness. When he showed me the answer, I couldn't help but laugh, it had given him the same answer it'd given me about the gummy dunking delinquent. Signs Point to Yes. He was gone two days later. I took the dusty ball off the shelf, taking the time to turn it slowly over in my hands. The smooth plastic against my rough skin made me feel like I was ten again. A jolt of excitement unexpectedly hit me as I quietly asked my question. "Will my life get any better?" Signs point to yes. The balls above the door jingled signaling me someone was in the store. I quit dicking with the seemingly confused ball and made my way out front. "Hello. Welcome to..." I stopped dead in my tracks. It was her. The amazing girl from the club last month. The one that never gave me her name. The one who had me at half mast while she stood there staring at a book and chewing her lip before she saw me. She froze upon seeing me. "Oh shit." "It's you," I responded as lightly as I could. The book she was holding dropped to the floor. "Hey, wait!" She tore ass out the front door, not looking back. I lost her somewhere a half a block down where she disappeared into the crowded sidewalk. I was pissed and hoofed it back to the shop, cussing out my dick for making me chase a girl who clearly didn't want to have anything to do with me. I slammed the door and the balls flew off and hit me as I flipped the front sign to "Closed" Throwing them across the shop only irritated me further. "Fuckers." I deserved this. I should've realized that this was my life. Running after chicks I can't keep and getting hit by balls. I guess I should be thankful they weren't sweaty balls attached to another guy's scrotum, because that would be worse. Walking back to where I threw the balls, I reluctantly bent over to pick them up. When I saw the book that the mystery girl was holding. I dropped the balls, and swiftly went to the book. It became the only thing I could see in the shop. I was familiar with the book and had a vague idea of the contents, but a stark feeling of panic overtook me as I contemplated the title and what it could mean. What to Expect When You're Expecting. I swallowed hard, examining the book like I was looking for clues. Why would she be reading that? Unless... Fuck. What the hell is this? The book was on a random page, I started to read. Two sentences made it into my brain before I wished I had a way to rewind time and invent actual brain bleach. We were safe. There's no way that kid is mine. I had a brief mental image of Maury Povich going "You are not the father!" Several hours of me losing my shit and wondering how I could get some conclusive information passed, before I called Ali for the third time in ten minutes. After repeating the story to her four times, because she couldn't quite shut up long enough to hear the entire account without saying "oh my god" or shrieking, she arrived at the shop door. She walked in quickly and dropped her large bag by the door. She immediately started in with explanations I couldn't bring my frazzled brain to concoct. "Maybe she had a project she was researching, or getting a baby shower gift?" I was pacing around, wearing a tack in the carpet. "Yes! Good! Keep going." "A gag gift?" I was pacing again. "Still acceptable, but reaching." "Little sister had a question about babies, and she didn't know how to answer?" "And we are out in left field," I replied frantic, pretending to hit a baseball with a bat I didn't have. "I'll try harder." I ran my hand through my hair and walked in the back. "Great! Because at this point I'm willing to believe that she's an alien and curious about human reproduction." "Or it could be..." Ali began to giggle. "that a hot one night stand knocked her up and she wanted to know what she's in for." "No. No! Not what I want to hear right now!" Ali looked anything but apologetic, as she laughed and patted me on the back. "I'm sorry." "I don't even know this woman's name and you're making jokes about this?" "You're always pissing and moaning about your life," she defended. "Maybe God got tired of your constant bitching and gave you a real reason to bitch." "No. This isn't happening. I am dreaming. Mystery girl isn't pregnant and my life stays as shitty, though uneventful as it was." I was putting my foot down. Which meant I was bound to crush my other foot in my attempt. "There's only one way to be sure," Ali interrupted my obsessing. "You have to find out her name, and you know... talk to her." "Fantastic. Why didn't I think of that?! Let's just look her up on Google!" I quipped, walking back out front again to the computer. "What should we look up first to narrow her down from seven billion people?" Ali rolled her eyes and folded her arms, but didn't respond. "Brown-eyed girl? Luscious titted lady? Auburn haired, maven of the blow-job?!" I continued, typing each one in, realizing I'd gone far past the point of stark-raving and had jumped into mad-hatter territory. "Why don't we just type in "Possible mother of my child" and see what pops up huh?!" I was too busy to notice, but somewhere during my ranting, we were joined by two other people. "How about we start with Bella?" My head whipped in the direction of her voice. She stood wrapped in a light blue jacket and jeans. Her auburn hair was pinned up and a light sheen a pink gloss was on her lips. There was a tall blonde with her. A stern look on her face as she tapped her foot and nudged Bella forward. I couldn't bring myself to say anything back, so Bella continued. "And you're...?" "Edward," I answered, though it sounded more like a question. "Great. Good to know." She immediately did an about face and tried to go out the door, but her friend stopped her. Bella mouthed something to her, but I couldn't hear. The companion turned her around and stood there like a parental figure. "Cut the bullshit Bella and tell him." Bella shot her a glare. "Rose thinks your bookshop should be torn down to build a Pinkberry." Rose smacked her shoulder. "Grow up!" "Get out!" Bella griped. "Get to it!" Many agitated looks crossed between them, before Bella spoke again. "Look," she paused walking a few steps away from the blonde, her head turned up slightly and her eyes met mine. "It has come to my attention that I happen to be pregnant. And since you were the last person I had sweaty, kinky bookshelf sex with, I can say with a good amount of accuracy that your condoms were defective." "Uh." Yes. This was my brilliant response to a one night stand telling me I had impregnated her. "Hi Bella, I'm Alice, Edward's wife." The look on Bella, and the blonde's faces were mutinous as Rose started to cuss me out and threaten my balls. I choked on my tongue and immediately refuted Alice's statement. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" I barked. "We're not married." "We could be," she countered. "If I didn't think Rose is the hottest thing on two legs within a five mile vicinity." Rose looked dumbfounded, blushing as Alice walked over to her. "It's probably ten miles," Rose replied, bashfully. "Would you like to take a walk? Let the kids discuss their situation, while I buy a drink for the hottest woman in a ten mile radius?" Rose blushed and nodded, before Alice took her hand. "Don't wait up, Ward." They left hand in hand, walking towards the bar down on the corner. "Rose." "Alice." Bella and I spoke at the same time, snickering as we realized we'd spoken over each other. She shifted on her foot, and looked at the ground, then walked over to one of the shelves. Apparently looking for something she couldn't find. It seemed ridiculous. She just told me she was pregnant. Did that mean she wanted to keep it? I was hardly a pro-life zealot, but I was kind of glad I fathered a child with someone who was willing to bare a stranger's offspring. Did she want me to be part of this child's life? Was it even mine? It could be one of her fellow operatives, or worse, the tyrannical diplomat's, who she slept with in order to off with a cyanide capsule. These are the workings of my mind people. Bella had taken the time it took me to confuse myself further, to take a dictionary off the shelf and flip through the pages. "Like I thought, 'awkward' isn't a strong enough word for this situation." She hastily closed the book and placed it back in its space. "Bizarre works fairly well," I offered. She grinned slightly. "Untimely?" "Inopportune?" There was a few beats of more than awkward silence, before I attempted to ask her the basic question. "Are you keep..." "Yes." Her eyes were set, and her answer fierce. "Alright." She was far from impressed with my response. "Glad to know I have your approval." I knew I needed to get the next obvious question out in the open. "Can...are you sure its...you know?" I was as articulate as a man with no tongue. She sorted out what I was trying to ask and became offended. "I don't sleep around and I've got better things to do than mind fuck you." She was pissed and walked to the door and pulled on the handle, I slammed it shut and blocked her from leaving. "That was awful. I'm sorry. Okay?" She folded her arms. "Its fine, I suppose I should have expected that. After all, you don't know me." "I'd like to." She looked up cautiously and bit her lip. "I suppose, it'd be beneficial to know something about me now, given the circumstances." I nodded, and encouraged her to go on. "I'm a Virgo. I like thunderstorms, but not getting caught in the rain." "I hate Pina Coladas," I replied simply, taking a swift step towards her. "I noticed, Harvey." Before I really comprehended what was happening, my arms were around her and she wasn't protesting. "I couldn't stop thinking about you," I admitted. Her arms wrapped around my waist. "I have a new copy of Catcher in the Rye, masturbating next to it doesn't hold the same appeal." "Tell me about it." We both laughed quietly, and then her lips met mine. A sweet remembrance passed between us and I wondered if the insurance premiums on the store were paid up, because odds were, most of the books were going to be destroyed after I fucked her against every last shelve. "Are we going to be able to handle this?" she asked, more to herself than me, after our lips broke apart. I decided to take our question to a higher authority, I led her to the back room and motioned to the Magic Eight Ball. "An Eight Ball?" she scoffed as she picked it "It knows more than you think. I got it at Pine Lake when I was ten. It's right...sometimes." "I know that lake," Bella laughed, looking at the ball. I was more than a little surprised. "You do?" Bella nodded and flipped the eight ball over. "I used to carry tainted gummy bears around with me and trick kids into eating them." She looked down at the ball, and I stared at her. Astounded and awestruck, feeling as if life was a giant ball and I had just completed a circle of some kind. She laughed and shook her head in disbelief as she read the prediction out loud. Signs Point to Yes

N. Bukharin Source: The Labour Monthly, September 1928, pp. 533-543 (3,954 words) Transcribed: Ted Crawford HTML Markup: Brian Reid Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2009). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source. (Report on behalf of the Executive Committee to the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International, made on the 18th and 19th of July, 1928. The Report covers the four years that have elapsed since the Fifth World Congress. The LABOUR MONTHLY will publish, this month and next, all the general sections analysing the changes in Modern Capitalism.) COMRADES! Much has happened since the last Congress of the Comintern. In order that we may be able better to understand the events that have taken place during this period, and to get them in the right perspective, we must consider the stage of development through which we have just passed not as something separate and isolated, but in conjunction with the preceding stages. A general consideration of the whole post-war development shows us that this development is obviously divided into three periods. The first period was the period of acute revolutionary crisis, particularly in the European countries. It was the period in which revolutionary development reached its highest stage, and an enormous revolutionary wave swept over the whole of Europe. The culminating point of this period was reached in the years 1920-21. This first period includes the February and October revolutions in Russia; the workers’ revolution in Finland in March, 1918; the rice riots in Japan in August, 1918 (called forth by the rise in the price of rice); the revolutions in Austria and Germany in November, 1918; the proletarian revolution in Hungary; the rebellion in Korea in March, 1919; the setting up of the Soviet Government in Bavaria in April, 1919; the bourgeois national revolution in Turkey in January, 1920; the seizure of the factories by the workers in Italy in September, 1920. This period must also include the Red Army’s march on Warsaw, and finally we have the so-called March action in Germany in 1921 . . . . We see, therefore, that this first period was crammed with revolutionary events of great magnitude and of great historical significance. These events brought out with tremendous clarity the process of decay within the capitalist system and above all within European capitalism. The first period must be regarded as having ended with the year 1923; in September, 1923, the rebellion in Bulgaria ended in severe defeat, and in the autumn of 1923 the German proletariat suffered a fresh defeat. The defeat of the proletariat in Western Europe served as the political starting point for further development on the part of the bourgeoisie. These defeats, and particularly the defeat of the German proletariat, marked the beginning of the second period of development in Central Europe and in Europe as a whole. This was the period of the capitalist offensive, the period of defensive proletarian struggles generally, and defensive strikes in particular. It was the period of the partial stabilisation of capitalism. Several of the defensive battles of the proletariat, it must be added, assumed colossal dimensions. Among these were the general strike and the miners’ strike in Great Britain. The second period brought greater “peace and order” to European capitalism and to world capitalism. Events of a directly revolutionary character passed from the continent of Europe to the colonial and semi-colonial countries. In 1925 we had the rebellion in Morocco; in August, 1925, we had the rebellion in Syria, and in the same year the great struggle in China assumed a more acute form. While in the first period the directly revolutionary situation was of a sharply defined European character, in the second period the directly revolutionary situation became the characteristic feature in the colonial periphery of world imperialism. From the economic standpoint, from the standpoint of the analysis of capitalist economy, the second period may be described as the period of the restoration of the productive forces of capitalism. In this period, supported by its political victories and its relative political stabilisation, capitalism strove to achieve, and ultimately did achieve, a certain economic stabilisation. The second period passed away to give place to the third period, the period of capitalist reconstruction in which the pre-war standard was exceeded both qualitatively and quantitatively. The growth of the productive forces of capitalism is linked up on the one hand with fairly great technical advances and on the other with a reorganisation affecting the economic relationships within each industry. Technical reconstruction, economic reorganisation and the rapid growth of capitalist trustification are, however, accompanied by a growth of the forces hostile to capitalism and by an extremely rapid development of its inherent contradictions. Among these must be included first of all the growth of the U.S.S.R. The period of the reconstruction of capitalism “coincides” with the period of reconstruction in the U.S.S.R.; the period in which a new technical basis for production is created, and, corresponding with it, a certain economic reorganisation both in the social-economic sense of this word (the growth of the socialised section of our economy) and in relation to the increasing consolidation of our apparatus of production. The economic and political growth of the U.S.S.R., the development of the Chinese revolution, the ferment in such a country as India, and finally the rapid growth of the inherent contradictions in the capitalist section of our present world economy, and bound up with all of these, the ever increasing danger of war—these represent the “reverse” side of world development. It is necessary to analyse carefully the new world situation that has arisen in the third period. Unless we appreciate all the fundamental world economic and political changes that have taken place, we shall be unable to lay down the right political line and to deal properly with the tactical problems of the moment. From the very outset it must be stated with the utmost clearness that the thesis of the stabilisation of capitalism now bears a character somewhat different from that of a year ago, and this alteration in the manner of presenting the question must be taken in consideration in analysing the international situation. I come now to the analysis itself. First of all I will deal with the technique of the present day capitalist world. We must concede that a considerable growth has taken place in the electrification of production in capitalist countries. Important inventions have been brought out in the sphere of applied chemistry. The new methods of synthetic production of fuels and raw materials, the Bergius method of producing benzine, the production of artificial silk, &c.: all these are characteristic features of present day capitalist production. At the same time we must take note of the growing utilisation of light metals, particularly of aluminium, the wider application of new machinery and apparatus in agriculture as well as in industry: for example, the development in the United States; the use of very complicated combined agricultural machines, of automobile transport; the extensive application of the endless conveyor system and the new methods of organising labour in the factories; standardisation, mass production, &c. All these are the most characteristic features of present day capitalist technique. I will quote a few figures in relation to the production of electrical power in the United States. One can produce a quite enormous amount of material showing convincingly that the curve of development of capitalist economy, both from the qualitative and quantitative point of view, marks definite progress. A few figures to characterise the dynamics of the growth and the redistribution of the parts played by various metals in world industry. If we take the total production of 1913 at 100, the figures of production of various metals in 1926 will be as follows: Aluminium is successfully competing with other metals in the electrical industry, in railway construction, and in the construction of street cars in the United States and in Germany. of artificial silk. The world production of artificial silk is shown Still more interesting are the figures illustrating the production in the following figures (in thousands of kilogrammes): Taking the pre-war figure at 100, the index numbers for the subsequent years will be as follows: With regard to the latest inventions and their influence on production, we will take as an example the Bergius method. In Germany, synthetic benzine produced by this method already represents 12 per cent. of the total amount of benzine utilised in the country. At the present time extensive plans for the introduction of new technical processes are being made in many countries, for example in Germany and in England, which will have very important economic consequences. These are the schemes to supply gas over long distances in Germany, electrification in Great Britain, &c. It is easy to understand that these technical successes, even if we put the word successes in inverted commas, will inevitably lead to an increase in the productivity of social labour. Gunter Stein, in the Berliner Tageblatt, writes, for example, that in the United. States the gross output of the manufacturing industries during 1923-24 increased by 4.5 per cent. compared with the normal, whereas in the same period the number of workers employed diminished by over 5 per cent. This means that the productivity of the worker has increased approximately by 30 to 40 per cent. The development of the chemical industry is important not only from the general industrial point of view, but also from two others: (1) from the point of view of war preparations; for the chemical industry is a first-class war industry; and (2) from the point of view of the possibility it holds out of introducing very important changes in the methods of agricultural production. The world output of chemical products in pre-war times amounted to 10 billion German reichsmarks; in 1923-24 it amounted to 18 billions. Taking the previous figure at 100, the index number of the second figure will be 140. You will observe that the production of chemical products has greatly increased. The utilisation of nitrate products in the important capitalist countries has increased as follows: I do not think these figures require any comment, they speak for themselves. The changes in technique which in some countries, primarily in the United States, are assuming the character of a technical revolution, are quite definitely linked up with the trustification of national economy, with the establishment of gigantic banking consortiums, and already in the post-war period with the growth of state capitalist tendencies in multifarious forms. I will mention a few examples. Everyone knows, for example, of the existence of gigantic trusts like the German Dye Trust, &c. Everyone must know what a powerful trust has grown up in the English chemical industry (the so-called Mond Trust, from which originates the notorious “Mondism”). All the comrades are aware of the existence of Standard Oil in the United States. We are now passing through a period not only of the birth and rapid development of colossal capitalist organisations within each capitalist country, but we are also passing through a period of the establishment of giant international trusts. I have before me a whole list of such trusts, which it would be rather boring to read out here. A short time ago, at the Congress of our Party, I advanced the thesis that we are now observing a certain growth in State capitalist tendencies—not in the pre-war form of “war capitalism” (the social deceivers of all breeds had the impudence to describe this war capitalism, resembling a form of penal servitude, as “war socialism”), with the card system of rationing and the specific features connected with war. In a new form, or rather in new forms, the process is developing, in which trusts, cartels and banking consortiums are becoming more linked up with and grafted on to the State machinery of the imperialist bourgeoisie. It is not so very important in what exact sort of “shell” this process develops—whether in the form of the State ownership of industrial enterprises and increased State interference in economic life, or in the form of the so-called capitalist economic organisations “capturing the State from below” as the Liberals express it. Of course, we must categorically reject this latter expression: there is no need to capture the State if the State apparatus is already in the hands of the imperialist bourgeoisie. What we have in mind is the organisational forms in which the economic organisation of the imperialist bourgeoisie become grafted on to organs of the bourgeois State. Thus, the form this process assumes is of secondary importance. All that I wish to assert and stress here is that this process is definitely taking place. We observe it taking place in Italy, in Japan, in the United States and in Germany in the greatest variety of forms. There is not the slightest doubt that the process is taking place. Certain comrades formerly expressed doubt concerning this matter. But since then the works of the comrades who have specially investigated it have been published; I have in mind particularly the works of Comrades Wurm and Lapinsky, who have investigated this subject from the point of view of the development of State and municipal industry and from the point of view of the mutual relations between the private capitalist and State organisations of the imperialist bourgeoisie. All the evidence in this field reveals a State-capitalistic tendency in the present development of imperialist economy. What are the political results of this process? This we can see from the following example. In America a certain Theodore Knappen, in an article in the Magazine of Wall Street for March 19, 1928, entitled, “Business Qualifications of the Leading Presidential. Candidates,” wrote as follows:— It is not an exaggeration to say that he [Hoover] has considered himself and has actually been the director-general of American business. Never before, here or anywhere else, has a governmental department been so completely fused with business. . . . He respects big business and admires big business men, he considers that there is more good in one man who does well a big job than a dozen learned dreamers talking about what they have never attempted and will never accomplish. . . . . There can be no doubt that Hoover as President would be without precedent. He would be a dynamic business President even as Coolidge has been a static business President. He would be the first business as distinguished from political President the country has had. The fact that Hoover is described as Director-General of Trusts is in itself a striking political expression of the process of grafting that is taking place between the capitalist trust organisations and the capitalist political State organisations. The following questions arise, assuming all these facts are correct, what becomes of our analysis of the so-called stabilisation of capital? What becomes of our thesis concerning the partial, temporary, &c., stabilisation—stabilisation with all its definitions and qualifications? What becomes of the question of the general crisis of the world capitalist system when we ourselves admit technical achievements, the growth of trusts and other capitalist organisations, and when in this sense we admit that capitalism has undergone considerable consolidation? What becomes of our special and specific characterisation of stabilisation? I think that these questions must be clearly presented and clearly replied to. Otherwise we stand the risk of dropping into ideological confusion. First of all I want to quote a few literary and political references to this question. How did we, a few years ago, picture to ourselves the process of the further development, or the further collapse, of the capitalist system? First of all I will deal with the period when we drew up the first draft of our programme. We then formulated the thesis on the condition of capitalism in this way: the capitalist system is undergoing a process of decay—a process of decay without qualification. The fate of capitalism as it presented itself to us at that time may be described in the form of a steadily drooping curve. When we took up the discussion of the draft a second time, we came to the conclusion that some changes ought to be made in the definitions. At the Fifth Congress our thesis on the state and ultimate fate of capitalist economy was already formulated somewhat differently. Then the word “stabilisation” came into use with various qualifications such as “partial,” “temporary,” &c. Now, I submit the following question: what meaning have these definitions and qualifications at the present time? Have they any meaning at all? If they have any meaning, is it the same meaning that we attached to them before, or is it some other? In my opinion the meaning of these definitions now differ, somewhat from the meaning we formerly attached to them. I think that, taken as a whole, we may, in a semi-literary style, define our previous position on this question in the following manner. It was assumed that some increase in production was observed in only one or two countries, and that only to a certain degree as an exception. This increase did not appear to be particularly characteristic, and was regarded merely as an auxiliary “conditional” circumstance. To-morrow or the day after another process would set in. If on a certain day we observed in a certain country a growth of technique or of productive forces, or a favourable economic situation, we said that this was only a sort of economic nine days’ wonder, which could not be taken seriously. It can, and it should be said that at that time there were definite grounds for appraising the situation in this way, but the definition of stabilisation as relative stabilisation, in many respects, no longer corresponds to the present situation. Take each country in turn. The United States is marching ahead. Let us assume that predictions concerning a relative crisis in America are true. This possibility is by no means excluded; in fact it is very probable. But the general course of development shows a growth of industry, a growth of production. For the first time in world history and in the history of the Labour Movement—to speak in the words of Marx—“V” (variable capital—the value of labour power) in the United States is diminishing not only relatively to “C” (constant capital—the value of means of production), but also absolutely. The number of workers employed in industry is diminishing. This is the first time in world history and in the history of the Labour Movement that this has occurred on so large a scale. Some comrades may say that this is a pessimistic view. This is not true. We must draw a distinction between optimism and stupidity. These are two different things. If we do not wish to be stupid, we must take the facts as they are. This is the first obligatory pre-requisite for all but stupid tactics. Take another country, Germany. Some time ago, when I wrote about the growth of technique and of the forces of production in Germany, the “Ultra-Left,” anti-Communist Maslov roundly abused me. Now one must be blind not to see that German capitalism is developing rather rapidly, and the talk one hears now about imperialism, the dreaming about “mandates” and the longing for colonies, the building of battleships, &c., are by no means accidental. Take France. It must be clear to everyone that a tremendous difference exists between pre-war France and post-war France; everyone must see that old usurer France is acquiring new qualities and is now becoming transformed into a substantial industrial country. Take Great Britain. On the whole Great Britain is passing through a period of decline; her strength is undermined, the might of her Empire is waning. But, all the same, even Britain is now straining to exert her powers. On certain sectors the British bourgeoisie is succeeding in increasing the forces of production; for example, in the so-called new industries. But even if these facts are true, does it mean that we have to confess that the crisis of capitalism has been liquidated? Or does it mean something else? I would like to put this same question in a more sharply political form: Does this analysis coincide with the analysis made by the Social Democrats? I think it is quite easy to understand the real state of affairs. The correct reply to this question should be: The general crisis of capitalism continues, more than that, it is developing, although the forms of the crisis are now different. Formerly, we examined the most important symptoms of the crisis in the following manner: we took each in turn and said, In this country capitalism is undergoing a process of decline, in that country and in another the same process is observed, in a fourth perhaps the process is not so rapid, but it is nevertheless there. Like everything else in the world, our appreciation of the crisis of that time had its roots in the economic conditions then prevailing. Germany had reached the lowest ebb of economic collapse. In a number of other countries, particularly in Central Europe, the situation was similar. Thus, our former definitions were based on a somewhat exaggerated estimation of certain real facts. Now the earlier forms of the crisis have given way to new forms. That is the whole point. We must not picture the crisis of capitalism and of the capitalist system as a steady decline in almost all capitalist countries or even in a majority of countries. The situation is not quite that. The crisis of capitalism lies in that as a result of the preceding war and post-war phases a fundamental structural change has taken place in the whole world economy, a change which inevitably intensifies the contradictions of the capitalist system a thousandfold, and will finally lead to its doom. Take for example such a fact as the existence of the U.S.S.R. What does it imply? First and foremost the existence of the U.S.S.R. is the result of the post-war crisis of capitalism; secondly, it, implies that the crisis is continuing; for we have here an alien, hostile, essentially antagonistic body developing within the economic system of world capitalism. An alien body! Is this not a fundamental change in the structure of world economy? I have already noted the fact that the direct revolutionary situation has passed to the Orient and to the colonial periphery generally. This, too, is a result of the post-war crisis. But are not these mighty revolutionary developments in the periphery of capitalism an expression of its profound crisis? Further, what does the so-called disproportion between the United States and Europe, which is striving to liberate itself from the hegemony of America, imply? It, too, implies a structural change in the system of world economy. Finally, the contraction of the home markets in capitalist countries and the impoverishment and pauperisation of the colonies raise the question of the relations between production and consumption in an entirely different manner from that in which it presented itself under the “normal” conditions of capitalism. A situation is developing in which the whole future development of the capitalist system can proceed only in the forms created by the previous critical periods of capitalism. Capitalism cannot proceed as if the U.S.S.R. did not exist. It cannot proceed as if the Chinese Revolution, the disproportion between the United States and Europe, the contraction of the markets, &c., &c., did not exist. Note by transcriber—There is no other article by Bukharin in Labour Monthly from now on.

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Closes General Fulfillment Division, Exiting Retail Support in Favor of Investors Tue, 30 Dec 2014, 15:52:23 EDT DENVER, Colo., Dec. 30, 2014 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Mortgage fulfillment outsource services expert Titan Lenders Corp. (Titan) announced it will exit its retail general fulfillment service offering, which includes contract underwriting, closing, funding and post-closing for retail mortgage lenders, effective Jan. 31. New Changes to HUD Section 184 Native American Indian Home Loan Guarantee now will also allow for Refinance Transactions Fri, 14 Nov 2014, 13:48:44 EDT. Tue, 14 Oct 2014, 18:21:47 EDT DENVER, Colo., Oct. 14, 2014 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- MeetingOne, a leading global Adobe Connect web conferencing reseller and integrated proprietary audio conferencing provider, today announced a partnership with Blue Sky Broadcast, a key provider of online learning and virtual event solutions. Utilizing Blue Sky Path's seamless integration to Adobe(R) Connect(TM), the partnership allows MeetingOne to resell Blue Sky Path(TM) to corporations, government agencies and academic institutions. Stemming Business Losses related to Employee Divorces - A Better Online Solution from Starting Over Again Mon, 06 Oct 2014, 17:50:28 EDT DENVER, Colo., Oct. 6, 2014 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- in both the U.S. and Canada. Mon, 06 Oct 2014, 09:00:24 EDT DENVER, Colo., Oct. 6, 2014 ). Milk Jugs and Marijuana: The first recycled and recyclable packaging manufactured specifically for the legal cannabis industry Tue, 30 Sep 2014, 08:00:07 EDT DEN. Thu, 11 Sep 2014, 16:17:31 EDT.. Titan Capital Solutions Jumbo Correspondent Mortgage Program Has Historic Lock Month in June 2014, Adds 7 Approved Sellers in Q2 Mon, 25 Aug 2014, 14:46:16 EDT DEN... Titan Capital Solutions Added to Capital Markets Cooperative Roster of Preferred Jumbo Mortgage Investors Mon, 19 May 2014, 18:14:47 EDT DEN. Thu, 08 May 2014, 16:17:23 EDT. Sales Spike Due to Launch of Therapy Partner 3.0 and New Integrated Scheduling, Billing, and Progress Note Features Tue, 22 Apr 2014, 16:18:06 EDT DEN. Titan Capital Solutions Adds Overnight Pricing Protection, Scenario Help Desk to Jumbo Correspondent Lending Program Wed, 02 Apr 2014, 09:00:56 EDT DEN. Tue, 25 Mar 2014, 18:06:14 EDT. Wed, 26 Feb 2014, 16:55:34 EDT DEN. Therapy Partner, Announces Launch of 3.0, Including Integrated Scheduling, Billing, and Progress Notes Mon, 10 Feb 2014, 05:59:52 EDT DENVER, Colo., Feb. 10, 2014 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Therapy Partner, a national leader in providing online, streamlined and clean technology for the needs of clinicians in private practice (psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists), has launched 3.0 a progressive, single device application, for complete practice management. Therapy Partner 3.0 has a user interface that is intuitive and is driven by 'Book-Bill-Document' proprietary technology; streamlining the daily tasks that clinicians are faced with in business. Tue, 04 Feb 2014, 08:59:57 EDT. Tue, 04 Feb 2014, 07:01:25 EDT DENVER, Colo., Feb. 4, 2014 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Blackstone Holdings, LLC (Denver, Colo.) has acquired the veterinary division of ImageWorks Corporation/AFP (Elmsford, N.Y.). The new company will operate as ImageWorks Veterinary. Continuing the 'Made in the USA' tradition, all operations and manufacturing have been relocated to Colorado. Mon, 16 Dec 2013, 16:17:23. Denver Photographer Laurie Callahan launches five separate boutique photography websites to service the Colorado and Denver Front Range Mon, 07 Oct 2013, 13:57:05 EDT. Leading Edge Veterinary Equipment Extends their Product Line into Anesthesia with the New Tec 3 Vaporizer Wed, 25 Sep 2013, 13:48:52 EDT DEN.. Titan Capital Solutions adds Mike Eberl as Correspondent Regional Sales Director for U.S. Central States Tue, 04 Jun 2013, 08:59:44 EDT DEN. Thu, 18 Apr 2013, 17:24:22 EDT DEN. Thu, 11 Apr 2013, 16:16:56 EDT). Tue, 05 Feb 2013, 14:02:25 EDT DENVER, Colo., Feb. 5, 2012 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Titan Risk Management Services (TRMS), a division of mortgage fulfillment outsource services expert Titan Lenders Corp. (Titan), is expanding its offerings to include development, management, monitoring, and support services for Service Provider Governance initiatives. Titan Capital Solutions Expands Correspondent Lending Sales Team with Addition of Joel Veenstra as National Sales Director Wed, 09 Jan 2013, 13:41:22 EDT. Thu, 01 Nov 2012, 07:56:00 EDT. Mon, 29 Oct 2012, 03:56:02 EDT. Titan Lenders Corp. Enters Correspondent with Titan Capital Solutions, Under Mortgage Veteran Debora Aydelotte Mon, 22 Oct 2012, 05:56:02 EDT DEN. Much Anticipated Grand Opening of The Humble Pie Store in Historic Baker: October 20, 7 a.m. - 8 p.m. Thu, 11 Oct 2012, 17:14:11 EDT DENVER, Colo., Oct. 11, 2012 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- A not so humble start for The Humble Pie Store! Denverites apparently are lovin' themselves some pie. The Humble Pie Store opened a cute booth at the farmer's market this year in Denver and the following has been immense; with people pre-ordering organic fruit pies all summer and already placing orders for Holiday Pie. Titan Lenders Corp. Signs 24 Mortgage Lenders, Servicers; Demand Highest for Outsourced Mortgage Fulfillment, MERS QA Audit Services Wed, 10 Oct 2012, 16:35:03 EDT. Wed, 10 Oct 2012, 04:56:01 EDT. Titan Lenders Corp.'s New Website Highlights Services Developed Since 2007 to Support Best Practice Execution for Mortgage Lending Operations Mon, 17 Sep 2012, 14:03:34 EDT DEN. Wed, 12 Sep 2012, 16:37:27 EDT. Fri, 07 Sep 2012, 04:55:01 EDT. Titan Lenders Corp. MERS Compliance Solution Helps Servicers and MERS Members Meet OCC QA Requirements Tue, 04 Sep 2012, 15:19:20 EDT DEN. Titan Lenders Corp. Among '2012 Top 50 Service Providers,' as Recognized by Mortgage Technology Magazine Wed, 27 Jun 2012, 18:52:50 EDT DENVER, Colo., June 27, 2012 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Mortgage fulfillment outsource services expert Titan Lenders Corp. (Titan) has been named a '2012 Top 50 Service Provider' for the second consecutive year by SourceMedia's Mortgage Technology magazine. Tue, 19 Jun 2012, 15:03:44 EDT).. Titan Lenders Corp. Expands Executive Team to Include Debora Aydelotte as President of Titan Capital Solutions Tue, 05 Jun 2012, 18:35:10 EDT DENVER, Colo., June 5, 2012 .. Mon, 26 Mar 2012, 16:06:16 EDT DENVER, Colo., March 26, 2012 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. Titan Lenders Corp. Extends Mortgage Lending Outsource Services to Include Loan Processing and Underwriting, Engages Jan Conner to Head Operations Tue, 28 Feb 2012, 07:58:34 EDT DENVER, Colo., Feb. 28, 2012 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. Thu, 23 Feb 2012, 06:58:47 EDT Based Money Management Firm Announces New Services for Senior Citizens and Busy Professionals Fri, 17 Feb 2012, 17:16:05 EDT. Titan Lenders Corp. and The Compliance Group, Inc. Enter Referral Partnership, Delivering Enterprise Quality Control Solutions for Mortgage Lenders Tue, 14 Feb 2012, 14:03:37 EDT DEN. Tue, 10 Jan 2012, 17:54:45 EDT DENVER, Colo. and SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Jan. 10, 2012 (SEND2PRESS. Tue, 10 Jan 2012, 13:07:21 EDT. Thu, 29 Dec 2011, 08:59:39 EDT DEN. Wed, 26 Oct 2011, 17:55:57 EDT.. Titan Lenders Corp. Offers Full Suite of MERS Services to Assist Mortgage Servicers, Sub-servicers in Maintaining Data Standards Thu, 06 Oct 2011, 19:55:16 EDT). Mon, 03 Oct 2011, 08:59:23 EDT DENVER, Colo., Oct. 3, 2011 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- that include the Junior League of Denver, Children's Hospital Colorado, CASA, Rise School, Seeds of Hope and the Morgan Adams Foundation. Wed, 10 Aug 2011, 09:59:22 EDT. Fri, 05 Aug 2011, 16:51:27 EDT DENVER, Colo. . Titan Lenders Corp Signs Eight Mortgage Lenders in First Half 2011, Including National Bank, Correspondents and Broker-to-Bankers Tue, 02 Aug 2011, 22:26:41 EDT DENVER, Colo. . Titan Lenders Corp Offers Whole Loan Purchase Review to Reduce Risk for Mortgage Bankers and Investors Wed, 13 Jul 2011, 10:53:03 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. Mon, 23 May 2011, 17:49:42 EDT DENVER, Colo. . Dougherty's Restaurant and Pub Earns a Second Consecutive CMUS Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award Tue, 17 May 2011, 16:41:30 EDT.. Titan Lenders Corp and Grid Financial Offer Mortgage Lenders Lower Operating Costs with Comprehensive Best Practices Loan Fulfillment Services Thu, 24 Feb 2011, 12:59:03 EDT DENVER, Colo. . Fri, 04 Feb 2011, 23:14:49 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- In accelerated growth mode throughout the year, Titan Lenders Corp (TLC) added eight mortgage lenders as clients in the second half of 2010, and experienced a twofold 2009 to 2010 volume increase. TLC, a U.S.-based domestic mortgage fulfillment outsource operation, offers a parallel and variable cost alternative solution to lenders that need to maintain back office and warehouse line management operations. Thu, 03 Feb 2011, 23:07:45 EDT. Mon, 10 Jan 2011, 23:38:06 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --, Calif. Rebel was helped to wiggle out of his predicament by Riverside Animal Services Officer James Huffman. Thu, 04 Nov 2010, 06:59:53 EDT. Wed, 06 Oct 2010, 15:13:31 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. Tue, 21 Sep 2010, 16:33:56 EDT). Mon, 23 Aug 2010, 08:59:01 EDT DENVER, Colo. ). Titan Lenders Corp and ComplianceEase Loan Review Process for MassHousing Named Finalist for Mortgage Technology Synergy Award Wed, 18 Aug 2010, 15:42:02 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. Titan Lenders Corp Signs Nine Mortgage Bankers for Back Office and Fulfillment Outsource Services in Q2 2010 Tue, 20 Jul 2010, 15:49:36 EDT DEN. Titan Lenders Corp Posts Periodic Table of Mortgage Industry Acronyms for Lenders, Media, and Consumer Advocates Thu, 24 Jun 2010, 13:39:16 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. Tue, 18 May 2010, 09:58:45 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency Selects Titan Lenders Corp For Mortgage Purchase Review Outsource Services Mon, 17 May 2010, 07:55:48 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. Wed, 12 May 2010, 07:59:15 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. Thu, 04 Mar 2010, 12:29:06 EDT. Mon, 25 Jan 2010, 19:05:10 EDT 'Transitioning from Broker to Banker.'. Tue, 15 Dec 2009, 20:07:09 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Mortgage fulfillment outsource services expert Titan Lenders Corp has been named a preferred provider by Flagstar Bank (NYSE:FBC) for its wholesale lending business's broker-to-banker initiatives. Flagstar Wholesale Lending offers those correspondent lenders who meet specific underwriting criteria a warehouse facility, and purchasing facility to support their adoption of electronic closings and notes. Tue, 29 Sep 2009, 20:17:28 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Titan Lenders Corp. Mon, 28 Sep 2009, 17:21:04 EDT DENVER, Colo. . Tue, 15 Sep 2009, 20:16:34 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Titan Lenders Corp (TLC) has added Janet Manning as vice president focused on business development for its back office and mortgage fulfillment services to mortgage bankers. Manning, a 25+ year mortgage lending veteran, was president of mortgage document preparation provider Tradewinds for 15 years, and served as a senior executive with a global outsource services provider until early this year. Thu, 10 Sep 2009, 18:31:26 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- MFG Secured Income Fund I, LLC. Traditionally a highly fractionalized and subjective type of business, individual trust deed lending typically attracts a select group of high net worth individuals difficult to ascertain by mortgage brokers. Mortgage Technology Magazine Lists Titan Lenders Corp as Top 50 Service Provider for Mortgage Lenders Fri, 14 Aug 2009, 19:13:46 EDT.. Community Banks Accelerate Residential Real Estate Recovery by Offering Mortgage Warehouse Lending to Local Mortgage Bankers Mon, 20 Jul 2009, 17:45:43 EDT DEN. Fri, 19 Jun 2009, 06:30:26 EDT. MortgageDashboard Loan Origination System Adds Identity Theft Solutions for Mortgage Lenders and Institutions Plus Borrower Protection for a Year Wed, 10 Jun 2009, 17:44:34 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) --. FTC Red Flag Rules Extension Does Not Postpone Identity Theft Pandemic, Says Information Security Forensics Expert Wed, 06 May 2009, 15:36:28 EDT DENVER, Colo., May 6 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Businesses need to be aware of the extent to which identity misrepresentation and identity theft can affect their operations and profitability, as well as their customers or clients, according to Bryan Thornton, director of information security planning for Denver-based idBUSINESS. Thornton is available to speak with news media and other business information aggregators regarding the FTC extension and the risks faced by businesses in coping with rampant identity theft schemes.. Thu, 16 Apr 2009, 18:32:15 EDT, 'Roadrunner Marketing: Strategic Secrets You Wish You Knew' (ISBN: 978-1-4392-1575-3). Commercial Printers Accountable for Identity Theft Protection Under FTC Enforcement of FACTA 'Red Flag Rules' Fri, 10 Apr 2009, 13:05:20 EDT. Mortgage Warehouse Lending Offers Private Equity Funds 'Safe Bet' Conservative Investment with Early Return, says Titan Lenders Corp Tue, 07 Apr 2009, 17:27:18 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Private equity funds can achieve more immediate return on investment by funding mortgage warehouse line loans for mortgage bankers that originate 100 percent government-backed loans tagged for purchase by a GSE, according to U.S. mortgage lending services outsource expert Titan Lenders Corp. Titan Lenders Corp Launches Mortgage Warehouse Lending Services Platform for Community Banks, Regional Banks and Credit Unions Tue, 10 Mar 2009, 07:58:41 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Community financial institutions can build profitability and accelerate local economic recovery by adding mortgage warehouse line lending to their commercial offerings, according to U.S. mortgage lending services outsource expert Titan Lenders Corp. Titan has launched a warehouse lending operations service platform to facilitate community bank and credit union entry into warehouse lending - a form of commercial lending specific to mortgage banking businesses. Wed, 04 Mar 2009, 16:14:16 EDT. FTC Identity Theft Regulations Create Consumer Protection Liability for Physician and Dental Healthcare Practice 'Creditors' Tue, 03 Mar 2009, 16:43:08 EDT. Direct Federal TARP Funding for Warehouse Line Lending a 'Frontline' Approach to the Mortgage Industry's Liquidity Issues Mon, 02 Feb 2009, 13:17:36 EDT DENVER, Colo. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Extending TARP funds to bolster mortgage warehouse line lending capacity will ease frontline liquidity challenges as lowering interest rates motivate solid, low risk borrowers to seek new or refinanced mortgages, and allows lenders to deliver high quality investment grade mortgages to the market, according to the blog published by the founder and chief executive for Titan Lenders Corp., a U.S. outsource services provider to mortgage lenders. Tue, 30 Dec 2008, 07:30:06. Tue, 02 Dec 2008, 10:42:36 EDT DENVER, Colo., Dec. 2 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- straight-vegetable-oil (SVO) technology, Colorado Green Shuttle is able to whisk up to seven skiers to the mountains without using a drop of gasoline..' Tue, 10 Jun 2008, 19:36:47 EDT DEN.' Wed, 07 May 2008, 09:04:48 EDT.' Tue, 06 May 2008, 09:20:38 EDT DENVER, Colo., May 6 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- 'When you're invited for a job interview, it pays to be prepared, and part of being prepared is knowing ahead of time how you're going to do certain things that will give you a competitive advantage,' contends Bob Gerberg of ITS, at the firm's Denver headquarters. Random Job Hunting Doesn't Work and ITS Gives 15 Surefire Rules for Professional and Executive Job Hunters Mon, 05 May 2008, 16:38:34 EDT.' Mon, 05 May 2008, 07:27:05 EDT. Fri, 02 May 2008, 13:05:01 EDT.' Mon, 25 Feb 2008, 08:23:53 EDT. Fri, 15 Feb 2008, 11:20:13 EDT). Tue, 22 Jan 2008, 09:33:41 EDT. Thu, 27 Dec 2007, 11:30:34 EDT. Wed, 31 Oct 2007, 23:59:59 EDT DEN. Therapy Partner Automated Billing Solution for Mental Health Professionals Cuts Time and Costs in Half Tue, 13 Dec 2005, 11:42:00 EDT. Wed, 12 Jan 2005, 11:50:00 EDT.

Bike. . Wal Mart is Evil so I took off my clothes [Bike Forums] (Photo: Getty) Edit Your Comment Hmmmmm maybe I should start going to walmart… That’s… different. 1. Oh for christ’s sake lady, just chain your bike up at the rack out front. I have a $600 langster that I boogie around town in, and I chain that thing up all over the place on my shopping trips. If you really feel uncomfortable doing that sort of thing, then restrict your cycling to excursions where you don’t have to leave your bike unattended. 2. pics or it didn’t happen ;) addendum: of course, if the store has no bike rack, then it is evil and you shouldn’t be shopping there in the first place. wouldn’t surprise me, this IS wal-mart that we’re talking about here… should there be a tagline for “batshit crazy consumer”? “completely irrational consumer”? “makes walmart seem reasonable consumer”? A self-absorbed melodramatic bike asshole. What a surprise. @MikeToole: I, too, have no problem leaving my bike chained out front either. Most stores (yes, even Wally World) have no problem with someone chaining a bike to a fence, cart return or anything else that’s solid as long as the bike isn’t causing too much interruption. Sounds like she should have invested in a $560 bike and a solid lock. This isn’t Europe or Boulder, CO! Get a car! They don’t sell cars at Wal-mart, so I could probably drive my car in the front door so that nobody steals it out in the parking lot. having lived in bike friendly places like Chicago and now Portland I have NEVER seen anyone just mosey around a store carting their bike around. Maybe to pop into a minimart to grab a vitamin water, but to think of someone just leiusrely strolling around a department store with their bike is just stupid. It’s this sort of entitled attitude that bikers are starting to get (check out the past 2 weeks in Portland at oregonlive.com to see the daily fistfights between bikers an motorists) vis a vis “we can drive anyway we want; we can take our bike anywhere we want” that is really making people irritated. i also question Carey tagging this post “activism” since the biker wasn’t really standing up for some greater good, she just wanted special treatment for herself and permission to be a huge tw*t @PHX602: You say melodramatic and self-absorbed, I say a good-humored person with fun ways to make life interesting. She didn’t write any complaint letters or an eecb or anything, she just took off some clothes. No harm, no foul, just good times and smiles! Except you, you’re just bitter. Thats alittle much.. I mean she wouldn’t let you take your bike in! ITS A FREAKING BIKE! So you take your clothes off? Well at least the people at walmart got a free show that day! ReachHigher, you’re my new favorite person in the whole world. Brilliant! @xanax25mg I agree. It seems like these days more and more bikers want to be both a “pedestrian” and a “motor vehicle” at the same time. I have been stuck behind several bikers lately impeding traffic and not giving enough room for people to pass. They seem to think they deserve as much of the road as anyone. If they want to use the road they can’t impede traffic any more than a driver is allowed to impede traffic. Then they’ll hop up on the sidewalk and go through crosswalks to avoid red lights and other inconveniences of driving. Grrr. Hello Everyone! I suggest that those who post comments read the full story first. I personally think that she is a little less irrational than most people think. @nealb: my bigger beef, as a pedestrian, are bikers who view red lights and Stop signs as mere suggestions rather than rules of the road they are obligated to obey. YOUR $600 bike can be locked up outside, next to my $30,000 SUV in the parking lot.. @sreppok: i read the full story, in what way was she not irrational? Walmart had a perfectly reasonable policy, her response was to take off her clothes. She took walmarts request to the utmost extreme “you sell clothes so I should take mine off so you dont think I stole them” which is just silly. @sreppok: I read it and if this woman was a man I’d think of them as being a tool. It’s bad enough people bring children strollers into stores that do nothing but clog aisles, last thing I need to see is some douche on their bike. By the way, lick it. Which VA walmart was this? The Fairfax, VA one? It really isn’t the same because you’re walking in with the shirt on your back, etc. If I walk out empty handed with just the clothes on my back I won’t be stopped, the fake security by the door will assume I did not purchase anything. However, if I walk out with a BICYCLE they may think it belongs to Wal-Mart. Nevertheless, they just should have given her permission to take her bicycle in. They could have put a small tag on the handlebards, etc, like they do in hardware stores when you bring your own tape measure, etc. But I really do believe this lady should invest in a high-quality bike security system. :) This woman makes all bicyclists seem like nuts. They won’t let you bring it in because you are going, to like, push it through the store which could constitute a safety hazard. The clothing example is stupid because you are, you know like, wearing the clothes. *rolls eyes* Yeah, reachhigher, the crowd wasn’t there in solidarity, they were there to watch you get naked. Brilliant, indeed. @tc4b: Or, as a psychologist I can say her whole “I’ll take off my clothes because walmart wont let me drag my bike around the store” as both narcissistic and histrionic. Not only did she do this but she wanted to post a blog announcing it to the whole world how she stuck it to the man. That’s not different than any other consumerist post on EECB’ing or a long winded complaint letter. Watching a crazy homeless person on a bus scream that Oprah is controlling their mind while they take a shit on a seat is also making life interesting, but it’s also irritating too. @tc4b: Sure I’m bitter. I had ACL surgery a few weeks ago and can’t ride my bike. If I can’t ride my bike, I can’t go to my local Big Box and start stripping off my bike shorts. Read The F**king Article Before You Comment. RTFABYC, Learn it, Use it. There was no bikerack, so much for being green Wal-mart. It takes a bit more than just selling Compact-Florescent lights. i thought it was a pretty funny and witty way to make a point. of course not everyone has a sense of humor. @DePaulBlueDemon: the point is why should they do all the things you reccommended walmart do? If I have a 210 lb Bovier dog I don’t feel like chaining to the lamp post outside should they allow me to bring that in because I want to? She chose to not chain/lock her bike to something she felt wasn’t secure so that’s her problem, it’s not up to walmart to come up with a whole security system that suits her needs. @sreppok: I read the story (following the link). She still seems irrational to me. As someone already mentioned, you can lock a bike to a fence, the basket corrals. Yes, there is a chance your bike will get hit but those who park cars in parking lots also face those dangers. You make choices with your mode of transportation. As an avid biker myself, I hate hearing this stuff. Read an issue of bicycling magazine and you will hear stories and letters about how bikes can drive in the same lanes as motorists, and its the law! Just plain stupid! We know that we are already a bit meddlesome to traffic, we shouldn’t make it worse. And this lady! Whew! She’s lucky they didn’t throw her out, and she is actually doing Wal Mart a favor by not going back. I can’t believe so many people are bashing the woman and not even questioning whether or not the reason was because she simply couldn’t bring her bike in or rather due to the managers illogical explanation. Her reaction make perfect sense to me. What if I want to bring my bottle of water in with me. Can I not do that because they sell bottled water there? If the reason is rather due to it being obstructive or a liability or whatever, then why not just say that? @JoshMac: You would do best just to move out to the middle of the country. You seem to have issues with people in general. By that logic, I suppose the original poster wouldn’t have an issue with bringing a motorcycle inside, particularly since Walmart (no hyphen anymore) doesn’t sell motorcycles. However, they probably do sell motorcycle tires and accessories in some locations, so to reduce confusion, be sure to leave those at customer service. :-) @RoboSheep: every walmart I’ve been to has traffic signs in front of the store “i.e. No Parking/Loading Zone, etc” that she could have tethered the bike to. Walmarts also are almost always in shopping plazas with other stores nearby that may have bike racks or some other object to lock it to. She just wanted her bike parking experience to be perfect to her standards and wanted everyone else to conform to it. And wait, when there isn’t a bike rack I tie my bike to lamp post, or some of fixed object. What a moron! As an avid cycling enthusiast and Walmart hater, I think this woman is a disgrace. She’s most likely the belligerent type of cyclist that antagonizes cars and trucks to make a statement and makes it tough for the rest of us who just want to get along and enjoy the sport. The truth of the matter is Walmart CAN restrict what you bring in, or wear. They can refuse you admittance if you don’t follow their rules. It’s your choice to enter under their conditions. I realize whar a craphole WalMart is and as a result just don’t go there. I’m wondering why this “Cyclist” even needed to go to WM on her ride anyway. I’ll bet it was most likely to cause a scene. Wonder if she threatened to sue. She should not just be allowed to bring her bike in the store and walk around with it, however the manager should have used a different rationalization. It would be perfectly reasonable to say that a customer cant walk around with the bike in the store as it could be disruptive to other customers (especially in a cramped store). Taking off one’s clothes in the middle of the store could also be considered disruptive to other shoppers so you get two birds with one stone. Many of these consumerist stories seem to stem from managers not reasonably dealing with situations that arise. This gives the customer a sense of entitlement to blow the issue way out of proportion. Few of the posts seem to be legitimate abuse of the consumers. Still entertaining stuff though! The point isn’t that they wouldn’t let her bring her bike in. The point is that they gave a completely stupid reason why she couldn’t bring her bike in. In case you don’t get it, most of the purpose of this site is to take the side of the *consumer* against horrible, nonsensical behavior of businesses. @nealb: a bike is not a car and a person on a bike is not the same as a person walking. There are different rules and laws. Most resentment comes from people trying to apply car or pedestrian methods to bikes. let’s look at the broader issue– she wanted to bring her bike in and walmart told her a policy she did not agree with. So if she wanted to have lunch at a 4 star restaurant and there was no bike rack out front, is she then entitled to bring her bike in? If she doesn’t like their explanation the bike will be in the way, it’s unsightly, etc, does she have the right to hold some sit-in or create a scene that, according to some of you at least, “keeps life interesting and fun”? @dtracker: why does walmart have to give her any reason? they are a private company that can tell her not to bring it in. How is their behavior “nonsensical”? If there are lampposts/traffic signs, etc she could have chained her bike to but instead wants to roll it around a store how is her behavior anymore sensical and rational? If you go to your friends house (a private party just like walmart) and you want to bring your bike in his small apartment and he says no because it would get in the way (his policy) is it not reasonable to just accept that and either abide by it or leave? @dtracker: In most states vehicle laws are vehicle laws. They apply to cars, trucks, mopeds, motorcycles and *GASP* bikes. Most of the resentment comes from cyclists that don’t want to be inconvenienced by laws. The problem was with the Walmart excuse: you can’t bring it in because we sell them. The should have used practically any other excuse, such as, it’s store policy, or that they just don’t like bikes in the store. They do allow strollers and other such people moving vehicles in the store. why not bikes? Her actions were just the logical punchline to the manager’s fouled reasoning. I wish this would happen at my Walmart. @tc4b But seriously, just because someone (like PHX602) tells it like it is doesn’t make him bitter. xanax25mg is right on the money, too. @hoffmeister_hoff: She needed to buy some CD-Rs so she could send a file to her university. That raises my bullshit alarm too. You guys are all just ticked off because you missed the show. @RoboSheep: Now the point of the story is no longer the woman who acted irrationally, but Walmart sinning against Mother Earth by not providing bike racks to stop global warming. Let’s stay on point here. Wonderful! Love it. @xanax25mg: I agree. Walmart doesn’t need to give her any reason for not bringing her bike in. “No bikes allowed in the store” is a perfectly fine policy. But, again, that’s not what the story illustrates. The point is that they gave her a completely stupid reason and she called them on it. @CMU_Bueller: It obviously depends what the laws are in your area. And the resentment I was talking about was the whole “oh crap, there’s a bike in front of my car slowing me down”/”oh crap, look at that bike on the sidewalk, why aren’t they in the street, where they belong?” that some drivers have. And, yes, cyclists do run stop signs and breaks laws, but the experience of riding a bike is completely different than the experience of driving a motorized vehicle. I always thought the laws should be updated to reflect that. But that’s a whole other issue. For those of you who have not read the link, please allow me to paraphrase it for you: {i}I hate Wal-Mart with every fiber of my being. However, the fates determined that I must journey down the dangerous four mile road and enter into the gates of HELL to pick up a CD-R spindle. Because Wal-Mart hates the earth and all of its living creatures, they had removed all vertical objects to which I could secure my $600 bicycle. “So I walk into the walmart and the most evil grandmother I’ve ever met grabs my arm with her claws and says I can’t bring it into the store.” She does suggest that I leave it in the foyer where she is stationed (likely so that she can urinate on it). Undeterred, I continue to argue with the old bat and she calls a manager over. The evil moron again tells me no, and gives me the lame excuse that they sell bikes and they wouldn’t want to confuse their idiot employees and that it could also lead to a safety issue. “So I asked her why she thought a bike controlled by an adult was more dangerous than a shopping cart being pushed around by someone’s bratty kids.” The manager, defeated, went back to the lame excuse that they sell bikes in the store so I couldn’t bring another bicycle in. I asked her if they also sold shirts in the store. She said yes so I took off my jersey and said well then I’d better not bring this in either. I continued to take off my shorts and shoes and asked if I could leave them at the service counter while I shopped. At this point, the bitch had the gall to tell me to leave the.”{/i} The manager should have just approached her at the beginning and informed her that they have the right to refuse service to anyone and asked her to leave. @nsv: Not really. I would assume that this lady is divorced and in her mid-40s. She makes a big deal about having to bike 4 miles (I bike 5 miles to and from work everyday, and you wouldn’t want to see me without my shirt on) so I would bet that just down to the spandex and sports bra was rather horrific. @anthonyhasp: True, but then you would have had her blathering on about how they refused her service for no good reason, blah, blah, blah. It is a no win situation for a business when you have irrational customers. “I was glad I hadn’t driven there since the gas to go four miles was probably more expensive than what her underpaid employees make in an hour.” Any respect I had for this person, (which admittedly wasn’t much), just went out the window. Essentially declaring that you’re soooo much better than folks working in retail and therefore you should get what you want isn’t activism. It’s snobbery. As hard as it is for me to type this, Walmart was in the right. If they told her no, she should have left without causing a scene and taken her business elsewhere. Accuse me of blaming the OP if you like, but I don’t see how that kind of behavior reflects well on consumers, nor do I think that it should celebrated. She’s so funny and interesting.. She takes off her clothes in front of quite a few children I imagine, because a retail store doesn’t want her slogging her outdoor bike around. Wal-Mart sells sports bras and spandex shorts, too. I am a cyclist. I don’t bring my bike into stores unless it’s specifically permitted, like a bike store. This woman caused a fuss for no reason! I wish more hot athletic women would disagree with my policies. So, let me get this straight. The OP doesn’t get what she wants, so she takes off her clothes in protest? That stopped working for me when I was two years old, and I moved on. Power to the people. The Walmart manager’s reasons seems stupid but so is bringing in a bike. It’s rude and obtrusive to other customers. Oh, and the snarky comment about Walmart employees wage… if it’s a store in Northern VA, they’re probably pulling in more than you think. Retail workers at places like Walmart, Target, JCPenney, etc. averages from $7-$14 an hour, with some manager’s pulling in six figures- easy. You would be hard pressed to find one making minimum wage. If I had a cyclist friend visiting, should I be forced to allow them to bring their bike inside my home because I don’t have a bike rack outside my apartment? This entire thing is silly. Who normally thinks of bringing bikes inside places of business to begin with? She should have followed through and taken everything off if she really was dedicated to her cause. Tip: if you’re worried about your $600 bike getting stolen from where ever you ride it to, then either a.) don’t ride it there or b.) get a very secure chain or other security system, which you should have anyway. I don’t think it was unreasonable for the Wal-Mart employee to keep you from bringing your bike inside their establishment. Also, I think it was inappropriate to diss her and her employees with the comment about the cost of.// That really doesn’t help her gain any sympathy. Good for her! Read the whole story…no bike racks, and she’d done it before with no problems. She was getting one item, geez. Just another reason not to go to Wal-Mart * @xanax25mg: Well, if WalMart had a simple bike rack… *Waits for a Wal-Mart without a parking lot* Nucking Futs I’m not fan of Wal-Mart but this too extreme to sympathize with. They both could’ve handled this situation much better. You can’t expect every store to have a bike rack. Just chain the bike to a pillar, fence, tree, or whatever else you can find. The manager could’ve simply apologized for her inconvenience and offered to hold the bike at the service desk or someplace similar. Some people make problems bigger than they need to be. I wonder if that Walmart allows baby strollers into their store. On the bright side, that was probably the most interesting thing to happen to the greeter all day, PLUS it gave the employees at least a day and a half’s worth of “did you hear about the crazy woman who stripped off because she couldn’t bring her bike in the store?” gossip. She’s anti-Walmart and was annoyed that she had to be there before anything even happened, so when a problem arose, she was aggressive and superior about it. If she’d even attempted to work with the manager, rather than shoot down her reasoning as though the manager were just wheelist and making things up to keep those nasty bikes out of her store, I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have been able to work something out. Where’s the harm in letting the greeter supervise it for the five minutes it’ll take to grab the CDs, go through the checkout, and come back for it? Or, you know, make a scene, strip off in a self-righteous tamtrum, and then have a ridiculous, self-indulgent story to tell. Whichever. I have to side with the biker on this one. I Am not a biker, but when I was forced to bike because my car was impounded, my local Wal-Mark didn’t have a bike rack, and they didn’t want people chaining their bikes to random things, so you HAD to bring it in with you. Why don’t all Wal-Mart stores have bike racks? Because they are morons. See: Another reason why I don’t shop at Wal-Mart @vitonfluorcarbon: Is anyone a fan of We go there because its cheap. (From now on, I think i’ll use “” instead of the saying WalMart…) @Nick1693: =( the image didnt work. It was the walmart logo I thought the point was there was nowhere secure provided to chain up her bike, not that she didn’t have the ability to at all. Regardless, it doesn’t matter why she wanted to bring the bike in. It doesn’t matter that Walmarts policy is no bikes allowed, either. The real problem is the reason she was cited is asinine, particularly after she’d got into it with an employee who’d remember her (and therefore know she wasn’t jacking the bike). I walked into Costco the other day with a Safeway bag. No trouble going in or out (I just wanted to get lunch at the food court). But I could have shoved something from the store into that bag! (well, maybe not at Costco I couldn’t have, nothing there fits in a grocery bag lol). They didn’t assume I’d try to steal something, or have a dumb policy in place to assume I stole something. Hell, why not just stash the bike at the customer service desk? That’s what they have you do at the Best Buy near my house if you come in with a backpack or shopping bag. @xanax25mg: You think the bike fight in Portland is getting heated? Check out the latest incident with Critical Mass in Seattle– it’s freakin’ nuts. Short story: CM blocks city street, surrounds a car and refuses to let man in car go, starts taunting man/pounding on car/making threats like “Let’s tip this car over!”, man freaks and tries to get the hell outta there, CMers smash in his windows/slash his tires/punch him through his smashed in windows, driver is scared/gets out of car, CMers hit him in the head with a u-lock so hard that he requires stitches. Now the city is in all out peds v bikes v cars warfare. Read the threads on the Slog. ([slog.thestranger.com]) It’s nuts– I don’t understand the entitled attitude of so many cyclers… Common sense dictates that you DON’T BRING YOUR BIKE IN STORES. Sure, Wal*Mart shoulda had bike racks. But they didn’t. I’m sure there were OTHER solid materials that the bike could have been locked to– fences, poles, etc… This rider was just being a spoiled brat. If this walmart doesn’t have a bike rack, I don’t see what the problem is. A bike isn’t any bigger than a shopping cart. I also find it a bit strange that the OP mentions hypothetically leaving her shirt and shoes at the service desk, but neither side ever brings it up as a solution to the bike issue. …” Now, it’s possible that leaving her bike at the service desk never occurred to her an the manager never offered, and unlikely that she asked and the manager refused, because that surely would have made it into the post. I think it’s more likely that the manager offered, but she didn’t want to leave her bike with someone else – the quote above has an air of “oh, should I just leave all this stuff too?” No bike racks is a pet peeve of mine. I have find it really hard to get bike racks installed at businesses I shop at; I don’t know why. Recently, my town set up a bike rack program where businesses could sign up for them, and still places said no. No grocery store has one, and none of the restaurants or coffee shops. A hair salon signed up for 4, and a bank. The other 19 banks in town turned them down. It is really odd to me, since their workers could also be using them. None of the schools in my district have them either. Even the Walmart manager missed the point.You really should NOT have a bike in a store because of SAFETY.What if another customer trips and falls on the bike.What if she brushes the bike up against someone injuring them or damaging something.SAFETY including other shoppers,employees and property first. Same for roller blade or the fact in most places you must have shoes just to walk into a store.SAFETY the’s point and not her right.Security of the bike is HER problem.If you drive a car there you would lock it up OUTSIDE right?.It’s up to the biker to secure the bike and or know where they can secure it.Take the bus if there is no place to chain it. Don’t worry,Walmart being so image conscience will have bike racks before you know it.They have an ad campaign like bike to our store save energy and save gas.Talk about your drama queen. What happens if EVERY customer decides to take their “special” bike inside stores because it’s too good to be chained outside with the “common bikes? Eventually there won’t be any room in the store for anyone but elitist bike riders and their super expensive bikes. In Ontario we had a special woman, Gwen Jacob, take the province to court over the right to equel treatment under the law… decency laws specifically… back in 91 she won women the right to be bare chested if they so desire… Argument to the cops who picked her up that sunny summer afternoon “and why aren’t you arresting the half naked guys?” However, local bylaws and rules governing private property can limit this right… municipal pools can be posted requiring tops… etc… So my thought is how would this work here if Walmart has not yet posted their stores shirts required for entry? @jstonemo: Your post made me laugh! If Walmart doesn’t have a place for the bike to be locked up, then she should be able to bring it in. I’d rather see someone with a bike than being ran over by kids wearing Heelys Roller shoes. @Nofsdad: Ha-Ha! “Elitist bike riders” that cracked me up. It seems to me that there are two parties sharing the guilt here. The woman for expecting to be able to drag her stupid bike around the store, and Wal-Mart because, well, because they are Wal-Mart. If they offered for her to park the damn thing inside where the greeter could keep an eye on it, I would think that was being quite accommodating to her paranoia about her bike. I can’t believe that anyone that concerned about the theft of her bike doesn’t carry a chain/cable and a lock everywhere she goes with it. On the other hand, it is always open season on Wal-Mart. Fire away! @Boulderite: If Walmart doesn’t have a place for the bike to be locked up, then she should be able to bring it in. So if Walmart doesn’t provide a place for me to lock up my horse, I should be able to bring him in…right? I want to drive around in my Honda and shop. Then when I don’t get my way, I will call myself an activist when I throw a temper tantrum. Alright so there was nothing to chain your bike onto. what about light posts(I’m pretty sure they have them customers usually don’t like putting their days shopping away in the dark), what about the cart rack things (I’ve never seen a wal-mart without one, or any store, probably because customers don’t like wheeling the shopping cart back inside then heading back out to their car). I think she over reacted and left out a few things to make it look better. I say KUDOS to her. Those who are complaining that bikes are *dangerous* should experience being hit in the ankle by one of the thousands of baby strollers in WM on the weekends. Or kids pushing carts around with no ability to steer them. Or just READ the freaking article before posting. The WM near me is a box. There are no bike racks either, or signs to tie a bike up to. There are huge concrete barriers right in front of the store, but chaining a bike to those would impede the flow of customers going in/out. Seems to me that WM should put up a sign saying “Don’t shop here unless you travel in a vehicle.” So the Walmart had NO vertical structures to attach a bike to? Like street signs, light poles, handicapped parking space signs, etc… When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. You don’t strip b/c you wanted oranges and didn’t like the three reasons the person who gave you the lemons told you. @Canino: There is a guy around me who takes his horse to the store. He usually hobbles it and attaches it to a signpost, like in a handicapped space. @u1itn0w2day: Your arguments are quite weak. By your reasoning, grocery carts are dangerous, and those electric carts, and annoying sales displays in the middle of aisles: Wal-Mart is a den of potential accidents. Children wear those “Wheelies–” sneakers-cum-rollerskates–to my WM. By all reports, the greatest danger with Wheelies is to the wearer, not bystanders. Sometimes, communities have high crime, and maybe this woman thought that the likelihood of her bicycle/only mode of transport being stolen was high. Despite keeping my bicycles locked and garaged throughout my life, I have had a lifetime total of 5 bikes stolen. According to the article, there was no bike rack outside. In many places, chaining an object to a street sign is illegal and will incur a fine and/or points on your driving record (points are assessed in some states against bicyclists). The risk of losing her bike is probably greater than any risk to shoppers in the store. She was erring on the side of caution. Your weak logic is exacerbated by your humorlessness. Theater is an excellent way to get one’s point across, and has been done for millenia. You remind me of the TSA, which engages in its own style of humorless, propagandizing, bullying security theater. The greeter and manager were both bullies, who didn’t have compelling reasons to demand compliance, but enforced compliance for no other reason than might makes right. I still wish Consumerist had a “bully” tag for many such posts. @xanax25mg: Welcome to libertarian-conservative psychology. And congratulations for slapping the histrionic label on an assertive woman–nobody’s ever done that before. In these days of rock-hard abs and granite countertops, narcissism is indeed rampant, but one has to determine what the cause and purpose of the narcissism is before deciding it’s pathological. She just wanted to protect her bike, and found a humorous, creative and vivid way of arguing her point in the lobby of one of the most humorless and banal marketplaces in the world. Really, if narcissistic at all, it looks like the “narcissism of small differences,” a woman being attacked for bringing a wheeled implement into a large shop full of wheeled implements. Please keep in mind that the psychological professions are dedicated to enhancing human functioning and freedom, not marginalizing and pathologizing people who chafe under petty social regulations. Same deal with the racing cyclists that clog up the streets around here. They ride together in packs 2-3 bikers wide with their sunglasses and gloves. Of course if you tell them they’re holding up traffic “UGHHHH Biker’s Rights!” Oh, and on a high school field trip several years ago, we were taking a picture outside on the sidewalk. A biker with an attitude came by and yelled “Excuse me!” If I weren’t with my school, I would’ve shot right back in a sarcastic tone that us clogging up the sidewalk isn’t your concern, as you’re supposed to bike on the street and obey traffic laws, not ride on the sidewalk. “Oh but it’s a busy street.” Too bad-if you’re going to be on the sidewalk with your bike, dismount and wheel it next to you. I don’t even think the Walmart greeter should have agreed to watch the bike.Once they allow that bike in the store I think Walmart beomes liable.And if the greeter did agree to keep an eye on it what is the greeter’s responsibility when the bike is being stolen while they are greeting people-doing their job. If this women had been a true activist like an enviormentalist protesting oil dependence I can see A protest or stunt like that to get a bike rack installed or raise the issue that many shopping centers aren’t equiped for bikes. The ‘complaints’ on Consumerist are starting to degenerate to ‘Ripoff Report’ level. I know we’re not supposed to diss the filers, but this is obviously a person who was setting up a showdown at WalMart. Maybe the complaints should be better evaluated before being posted. @RabbitDinner: Unfortunately, these cyclists give us all a bad name, and make it bad for us who ride single file and respect the rules of the road. Bicyclists have become militant jackasses, and wonder why everyone wants to run them over. Maybe I’m just naïve, but I often lock my bike up to itself when there are no easy alternatives. (Advantage: It only thwarts the lazy, opportunistic thief. Disadvantage: If somebody does pick it up and put in their truck, there’s no evidence of theft. My insurance probably won’t cover it.) The form of protest was funny, but the issue in question was lame. Only once (when I left my lock at home) did I ever bring my bike inside a store. I felt like a complete jackass the entire time. It’s inconsiderate, like rolling around the store on rollerblades. @dirtleg: If they offered for her to park the damn thing inside where the greeter could keep an eye on it, I would think that was being quite accommodating to her paranoia about her bike. They did. Putting it in the foyer with a lock on it would have been fine with me. @thelushie: I’m not sure how I feel about her specific actions, but as far as safety hazard goes, I call bullshit. An able bodied person maneuvering a bicycle through Wal-Mart is no more dangerous (or annoying) than a kid racing around the store pushing a cart as a form of entertainment, parents with double and even triple wide strollers, large people who are unable or unwilling to walk and end up using those electric carts, or for that matter people in wheel chairs. @Nofsdad: My guess is that it wouldn’t be have as bad as what happens when parents take in their unruly children and set them loose in the store (I’ve seen this happen way too often). At least a bike won’t be running around by itself causing destruction and mayhem because it’s parent can’t be bothered to teach it how to behave. @ChuckECheese: Actually u1it made a great point about the safety issue. It is a safety hazard that they should not have to be libel for. IF their insurance doesn’t cover it and someone does get hurt, they are still libel. Sometimes women are stupid and this classifies as it. What was the big protest or statement. She had a bunch of people standing around waiting for her to take the rest of her clothes off. When this is called protesting, protesting is dead! A week ago, I protested terrible working conditions at a local hospital. It made a difference. Things are changing and changing quickly. Taking off your clothes because you can’t bring your bike into a store doesn’t even come close to what we did. Oh, and those stupid heelies should be banned. @dragonvpm: I understand your point and it is a very good one. Unfortunately, in our society, a disabled person in a wheelchair isn’t quite on the same level as a person who wants to push their bike around a store. The kids running all around needs to be stopped. If the store or parent won’t do it, I typically do (with the parents glaring at me because I can control their spawn when they can’t). I have seen those dumbass double wide stollers but it really is hard to make one of those tip over and hit someone. If she wanted to see how many of those terrible walmart products were made in China, and she let go of her bike (or put it on a kickstand) it could easily tip over. If you accidentally bumped a stroller, chances are it isn’t going to even move. And you are preaching to the choir about unruly children. I hate kids. I am anti-child (or maybe anti-bad parent) and I think I should be able to go about my day without having to deal with them running around screaming. I wouldn’t let people bring bicycles into my store, either. I had an experience about a month ago with some assholes on bikes here in San Diego. They were riding like maniacs through traffic, across lanes, etc., and I went carefully around them. At the next stoplight, two of them started pounding on my truck. I got into it with one of them, and I think he got it worse than I did. Too bad a few jerks have have made me anti-bike. @hoffmeister_hoff: Bicyclists have become militant jackasses, and wonder why everyone wants to run them over. What?!? I don’t ride, but for the couple of idiot bicyclists I see while driving, I see or nearly get hit by ten times as many idiot drivers. Like I said, I don’t bike, but I’m fed up with drivers and their lazy fuel addicted attitudes. Just the fact that there is people like you, who act as though someone else is to blame for their lack of control and attitudes while driving makes me want to go and get a bike just so I can see you get all upset when you’re thirty seconds later to get home and turn on American Idol. There is a very simple solution to this problem. Go to Target. Ours has this spiffy modern art looking heavy duty bike rack sunk into the concrete on the front sidewalk. @ChuckECheese: This rider was being a drama queen and NOT a true activist,protester or someone who was truely ‘victimized’.She might file a suit after the fact AFTER she had time to think about how she can justify her actions.But a political protester at that time-please. Most business establishments have signs for stuff like NO roller blades,bikes,shoes,SHIRTs etc-especially in summertime.There are even municipal ordinances to that affect in most areas.The business owner has the right to do business with you or not. Can this biker proove legal discrimination for her bike not being allowed in-like were others allowed in with their bike? And it still comes back to SAFETY.And the owner of the business has the right to take steps to keep their place SAFE.If I was an employee in a Walmart or any other place for that matter I would tell the kids with these wheelies NOT IN HERE just as fast as I would warn them against running or horsing around.Heck,as a customer I would ask them to stop before going to management or security.And no:asking kids to stop is not the same as punishing someone’s elses kid.The victim card is not needed here. SAFETY is the main issue here.And Walmart blew it as much as the biker. I think most reasonable people agree-if you’re going to stand up for yourself, hats off to you, but if you just want to make a statement, and a self-serving, inane one at that, well, go away Well, back to my whole thing about not having bike racks, what’s weird about places that didn’t want to get bike racks, is that half of them told me to go ahead and bring my bike inside, no problem. Fidelity, etrade, my regular local bank, and Walgreens. I didn’t even ask for that, I just asked them to get a bike rack. @PHX602: +1 I think this story is amusing. C’mon we all hate Walmart, why rag on someone who did something creative to irritate Walmart? Obviously Consumerist readers would never shop at Walmart so how is this inconveniencing you? (sarcasm) I think everyone is just jealous they didn’t think of it first. really. this is funny. @RabbitDinner: Same deal with the racing cyclists that clog up the streets around here. They ride together in packs 2-3 bikers wide with their sunglasses and gloves. Of course if you tell them they’re holding up traffic “UGHHHH Biker’s Rights!” Really? Of all things, the sunglasses and gloves annoy you? How about their tight shorts, helmets, and reflective clothing? Regardless, even though the bikers in question are jackasses, the pissing match doesn’t help anything. When I rode my bike around Phoenix, this was a regular experience: You’re not going to get any random biker to obey the law any more than you’re going to going to get that driver who did cut you off to see the error in his ways. In the grand scheme of things, it’s just not worth the energy to worry about it. @acasto: Are you OK with cyclists: A. Running redlights? B. Riding 3 abreast and blocking traffic? C. Running down pedestrians on sidewalks? D. Generally not following the rules of the road You’re OK with this? I refuse to ride with cyclists who behave in this manner, and many do nowadays. Nowhere did I state this was the sole cause of invoking bad driving habits, but it doesn’t help. It isn’t just restricted to cyclists; runners are major egotistical asses as well, as they run against the flow in the bike only lanes and push the cyclists into the roadway. Or run on the wrong side of a sidewalk and expect pedestrians to get out of their way. So we unfortunately have a whole chain of indivduals who think they’re special. @Michael Belisle: WOW! Anyone who would ride a bike in Phoenix is a bigger man than me. The drivers there seem to hunt bikers down for sport! @ChuckECheese: First, I’m neither libertarian nor conservative, but that’s neither nere nor there. If you actually read the response I was replying to, that person had indicated that those that don’t agree with the OP are “humorless”. So in much the same way people that don’t agree with the OP are humorless or fuddy duddies on Walmart’s payroll I decided it was equally fair to “label” a woman who disrobes when she isn’t allowed to bring her bike into a private business histrionic and narccisstic. In response to your statement about how theatre is a great tool for protest, before you label the OP Rosa Parks, let’s put this in perspective. She was not disrobing to symbolize the horrible pay that leads walmart employees to not be able to afford her biking gear. She was not exposing her spandex sports bra to symbolize the constraint women’s wages are compared to men. No, she was taking off her clothes because Walmart would not provide personal security for her “$600 bike”. Not exactly Che Guevara here. People on Consumerist are always belittling the OP for having a stick up their ass or overreacting… Pot, meet kettle. If Morrissey isn’t allowed in Wal-Mart, then neither should a bike. Whatever happened to SUGGESTING they get a bike rack before making attention seeking displays? …Or calling in advance to see if they have one (I mean if it is as important to her as she claims)? When did this society get SO entitled that Wal-Mart owes them a bike rack???? Mozzer wants a free cat spa right outside the entrance while Mommy shops, since he can’t come in… Ditto to the commenter who said she can park it by the $30k suv, lol. It’s called private property for a reason. If you don’t like the policies or procedures, you are free to move on… Bike racks are not a mandatory item that business are required to have. I am certain it was her time of the month, because if it was her local Wal-Mart, she knew their was no rack outside. She was just throwing a tantrum. @Michael Belisle: OK, I could’ve spent more time on detail. The tight shorts are downright disgusting sometimes. But fingerless gloves really bother me for some reason. Whatever, I enjoy my pissing contests with other drivers enough that I just ignore the wannabe Lance Armstrongs. But nothing irks me more than biking on the sidewalk, and while I politely ask them to move to the street if they don’t mow me down. I refuse to make room for them. If they tell me I’m in the way, which has happened on a few occasions, I can get very sarcastic. If I’m in the way, I’ll move for pedestrians, not for cyclists who refuse to dismount on the sidewalks. But I find solace in the fact that they’ll most likely be paying with their prostrates. Call it karma. @MorrisseyTheCat: People can’t jimmy the car lock system as easily as they can a bike lock. Cars are safer in parking lots than bikes. @bohemian: Those Target bikes racks are total crap! They look a little like the Greek letter phi & are held down by 3 bolts in the concrete. Just about Target around Chicago has them & every rack is loose & could be pulled out with really strong push from a small car. Why the fuck was someone this Granola-ey at WAL*MART anyway? @MikeToole: I think she has a valid point…and I’m gay, so i don’t care to see that… Good for you sports bra girl! KICKASS! But again I say, “If you go to Wal-Mart, then your poor judgement voids any complaint that you could possibly make.” @hmk: I don’t know. I’m a cyclist and I loathe Wal Mart. And I think she came off like an entitled, elitist twit. Maybe it was the part where she dissed the lady for making a low wage. I also think no bikes in a store is a perfectly reasonable policy. I understand a quick stop at a convenience store or picking something small up, but how do you shop at WalMart while wheeling a bike around? As shitty as it is for Walmart to not have a bike rack out front, I wouldn’t let someone bring a bicycle into my store either (and I don’t even sell bikes). The only mistake that I see the manager making, is that she entertained an argument with a lady who was clearly not going to accept any argument for at least 5 points made back and forth (only counting the conversation with the manager). I would have ended the conversation long before it got to the point of this lady stripping in the store. When people get as determined as this lady clearly was, it’s better to not try and reason with them, and simply tell them the rule, and that if they don’t like it, they can shop elsewhere. @bria: I still don’t understand how that is the problem of every business…The world doesn’t owe her a bike rack, and businesses are not responsible for personal property left outside (bike/car/etc). Wanna play the environment card? Walk. Problem solved. I started wondering if any walmart has a bike rack, as with big corporations, it seems like the local store management has very little control over what really happens. While I think this is a funny story, clearly dealing with the local store is not very helpful, because well, it is wal-mart. Here’s one link about a person who spent 6 months trying to get walmart to get a bike rack installed: [] I actually think is more a zoning issue. Local councils can clearly make bike racks part of the deal of opening a new development or store, and some of them are. The town I live in is a “designated transit village” but it is just now occuring to them that bike facilities might be helpful when dropping 2000 new people/bikers in the center of town. …our taxes pay for things like bike racks in our town. It wouldn’t occur to me to expect a business to have one as a “requirement.” Just like anything else, someone makes money and someone else feels they should take it for whatever they want. Yes, it would be a nice service, but the entitlement factor here cancels out any expectation of empathy. @thelushie: It’s unlikely WM would incur any responsibility in the miniscule-probability event that somebody’s baby would get tangled in the spokes. WM has signs that disavow responsibility for personal property damage and loss. If the woman thought that WM would replace her bicycle had it been stolen in their store, she might have left it outside. An important point that is not addressed in her post: It appears that she did not have a lock with her. Certainly she could have locked it in the entryway, to a gumball machine selling stickers of la Guadalupana, perhaps, thereby providing greater protection. Had she had a lock, certainly she would have avoided this trouble by chaining it up. @Michael Belisle: Knowing you lived in the Phoenix area, I’d say you were naive and lucky. Bicycle thefts were a constant problem at ASU and all over the Phoenix metro. My garage was broken into one time, and another time somebody sawed my U-lock apart to get another bike. @u1itn0w2day: There are all levels of protest and reasons for protesting. Her battle methods were well chosen for the situation. I never brought up the notion of civil rights violations, and I have no opinion. I do think it’s reasonable for a person to bring their bike into a megamart in the absence of bike racks. WM’s attitude is overly controlling, anal-retentive, just mean. We don’t need more of that in the world; we’re all too stressed out already. It’s far too easy to pull out the “safety” argument, and I don’t think her bicycle poses any safety threat. I can argue for “safety” or “think of the children!” every time somebody does something I don’t like, or any time I don’t want to have to respectfully consider somebody else’s point of view. It’s crying wolf. Americans don’t really care about safety anyway. We have the TSA doing its weird thing, but then we have a fairly steady stream of school shootings wherein we always react as if we had no idea such a thing could happen. Just imagine what a k-hole we’d be in if those armed teenagers were armed terrorists. @thelushie: It must be hot and making people cranky, because there’s a lot of misogyny on Consumerist today, viz. your comment: Sometimes women are stupid and this classifies as it. What was the big protest or statement. She had a bunch of people standing around waiting for her to take the rest of her clothes off. Sounds to me like she found an effective means of making her point, one that probably amused and encouraged many people that day–the opposite of stupid. Unlike yourself, given the choice between dour WM matrons and bicycle-toned women pulling off sweaty lycra, I’ll take the chicks. High end merchants like Wal-Mart keeps prices low by buying all sorts of amenities like bike racks, skate board racks, ski racks for the cross-country skiers who want to ski over…you name it…it’s to be expected… @@ Personally, I can’t shop without coffee, so that better be there next time or crowds will gather! Who let this twit out without a leash? I’m no fan of Walmart but I have to side with them on this one. Stores and businesses have rules. If you don’t want to abide by them, don’t patronize them. Walmart has a number of very good reasons for not allowing the bike into the store. The stated reason is, by far the weakest. The biggest concern to Walmart would be that of liability. If Little Johnny was injured by the bicycle in any way (bumped into by it, fell on him, fingers caught in spokes, run over by it, etc), it would be Walmart that got sued, not Twitlady. On the other hand, if Twitlady’s bike was damaged in the store, say, by an errant shopping cart, knocked over by Litle Johnny or in any other way, she’d be suing Walmart for compensation. The greeter MUST NOT offer to watch the bike. In doing so Walmart would be accepting liability for it and any damanges that she claimed happened to it while in their possession. As a manager I would have explained the policy and, when she started her striptease, called for the police to remove her. This person is probably unstable enough to make claims that she was somehow assaulted while she was in her state of disrobe. Since almost every square foot of the average Walmart is under video surveillance, I’m sure that her making an ass of herself on the sales floor will make for amusing viewing at the Christmas party. Anyone know if it made it to Youtube yet? RTFA Please. She’s been allowed to bring it in before the reason? nowhere to chain it up. There’s no bike rack outside. @MorrisseyTheCat: That’s not the point I was making. It’s just that people are completely overreacting and becoming very upset at this story when oftentimes, posters criticize the OP for overreacting and being ridiculous. I have no opinion on that question, I was just stating facts. @ChuckECheese: Considering I am a woman, I can call this woman’s actions stupid. It is grandstanding. And no, no one really cared what she was disagreeing with, they wanted her to disrobe. You would probably be gawking too and clueless about what was going on as long as a chick was getting undressed right?? To start taking your clothes off because a store will not let you bring your bike in and calling it a protest? She needs to do those of us who actually do protest injustice and oppression a favor, and stop being hysterical about a minor inconvenience in her day. This was not injustice, it was not oppression, she just didn’t get what she wanted. Well,, waaaahhhhhhh. Poor baby. Life goes on. Now, if she would have posted on that board about maybe getting bicycle racks in front of all WMs, I would be right behind her. That is a great idea. Re: the safety issue. Let’s imagine the WM shopper walked the four miles to WM. While shopping, she spots a nice, made-in-China bike and thinks to herself, “The four mile return trip might be more fun on a bike.” So, she grabs the bike and….whoa… How to get it to the checkstands? It is obviously very dangerous (according to some of the commenters here) to walk through a retail store with a bike. The WM manager gave an idiotic reason for keeping the customer from bringing in her bike. Commenters here are giving some other idiotic reasons she shouldn’t bring in her bike. The fact is, WM can tell her not to bring it in and they have every right. The manager was a fool to attempt to engage the shopper. She should have just said no, rather than giving a BS reason. I give the shopper points for a creative response to a stupid manager. And if she didn’t have a lock with her for her $600 bike, that is her own fault. First, she was not naked by any means. Bike shorts and Sports bra for pete’s sake. Second, she was responding to a stupid reason in kind. All the manager had to say “It’s not allowed/Against our policy/Insurance reasons” you know, standard legit legalese, instead of making up a reason, then stripping would have not made sense. Also, this thread is useless without pics. @ChuckECheese: First, I’m neither a libertarian nor a conservative, but for someone decrying applying labels to people we don’t know you sure slapped two on me right there. But nevertheless, I don’t think you actually read the post I was responding to. That person commented that those that disagree with the OP are “humorless”. So in much the same way posters like that are “labeling’ those that disagree with the OP as being humorless fuddy duddies I can also look at the OP’s behavior of stripping because they couldn’t bring their bike into a store as both narcissistic (beacuse their needs are more important than the store) and histrionic (to complain about a perceived injustice I will make a public spectacle of myself). Second you stated the OP was using theatre, a time honored tradition of activism. Well before we start calling her Rosa Parks, let’s look at the objective facts. She was not taking off her clothes to symbolically demonstrate the the low wages walmart pays it’s workers and can’t afford her Nike brand biking suit; nor was she showing off her sports bra to symbolize the restraint women experience on their wages compared to men. No, she was taking off her clothes because Walmart wouldn’t provide security for her $600 (her words, not mine) bicycle. Not exactly Che Geuvara here. Folks, remember our comment code! Post *helpful comments* if you disagree with the consumer’s action; calling them stupid (or even more insulting names than that) is never appropriate. If you want to post here, post in accordance with our rules. @thelushie: @thelushie: You’re the only one calling it a protest, and she did have a lock with her. Stuff like this (and the VCDL) is why I love living in VA. It’s interesting how most of the readers on The Consumerist recognize how asinine her behavior was, but most of the readers of the bike forum where she posted the story thinks she’s absolutely awesome. @HIV 2 Elway Resurrected: Make it +2. @painfullyblunt: Actually not entirely true. She is used to other stores allowing her to take her bike in. WalMart said no, which is entirely in their rights, and shouldn’t have had any need to explain the reasoning beyond expressing their policy. The manager mishandled that part, but in the end it doesn’t matter. Private property, private rules. Oops, I’m wrong. Its confusing though since she said in the first paragraph she just discovered there was no bike rack, and in the next she said she had taken the bike in before. Sorry, for the incorrect statement @donkeyjote: And what would you call stripping your clothes because you are not getting your way? I would call it grandstanding, but that’s just me… Making a statement? Proving a point? Protesting? Anway this is a post that she made on page 4 of the thread, post #99 “nah, i don’t not like the post. actually i kind of agree. in retrospect i can think if a couple better ways to have handled the situation but i was kind of in the heat of the moment. some people get angry and yell, i get angry and…take of my clothes? Well at least I wasn’t doing both. I certainly hope i didn’t do any lasting harm to the cycling community…i apologize in advance if you’re ever asked by a passerby to strip… “ @thelushie: I call it following along with their bullshit. It’s not like they said “You can’t bring your bike in because I hate it’s paintjob” and whoops, there go her clothes. What if the rider brought their receipt from the bike store along? Plus it should be pretty easy to discern a cheap POS Wal-Mart bike from a high quality one. Wow, if that’s her picture in the article I’d just like to say: You cannot bring your bike into my house… ;-) Hey, I thought the new comment rules were supposed to discourage people from being pinheads and going off about the person in the story being wrong wrong wonr. Apparently MikeTool and gang didn’t read them. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for her to not want to leave her bike locked up outside, just as I always take my laptop in stores with me instead of leaving it locked in my car. Would SprawlMart do the same to someone with an expensive baby stroller? < smacks self for being a bad typisc > -wonr +wrong This lady is crazy. It has never ever crossed my mind to bring my bike into any establishment (except the bike shop). if there’s no bike rank, I’ll either lock it up to ..something, or just put the u-lock on. If it gets stolen, it’s my fault for not planning properly. Sorry lady, you’re not special and your bike belongs outside with everyone elses. Isn’t it supposed to be “t*ts or GTFO,” not “t*ts and GTFO?” Either way, kudos to the OP for taking Walmart’s spurious logic to town. ReachHigher, thanks for the chuckle. I’ll be impressed if the point you were trying to make was even understood by the Wal*mart employee. As if the quality of bikes in the store is even remotely relative to the one you were probably bringing with you. I wouldn’t be very comfortable leaving a very nice bike outside Wal*mart either given how easy they can be to steal. I suppose I wouldn’t have even brought my bike to Wal*mart, though. bike $600 bike lock $15 Seeing whinny naked people at walmart making idiots of themselves…priceless. >>I think most reasonable people agree-if you’re going to stand up for yourself, hats off to you, but if you just want to make a statement, and a self-serving, inane one at that, well, go away<< Yeah, that pretty much sums up my opinion. Sounds like the ‘customer’ was more interesting in creating a scene than actually righting some imaginary wrong. (Sort of reminds me of jerks who refuse to show ID when presenting a credit card at the register for no other reason than to make a point – what morons.) These sorts of idiots give consumer advocates a bad name. The all the bikebabies that sputter and moan, “But there was no bike rack!” Irrelevant – you can *always* find something to chain your bike to. When I was using a bike, I would chain it to posts, to trees, to cart corrals, to posts, to signs, to cement blocks — whatever there was around. I’ve never gone anywhere where there wasn’t someplace to chain up my bike within a hundred paces of where I wanted to go. Ever. And to all the bikebabies that shrilly complain, “But the reason the manager gave was illogical and lame!” Also totally irrelevant. Walmart does not have to give a logical reason for not bringing a bike into the store. For that matter, they do not have to give any reason AT ALL. Their store, their policy. End of discussion. If you don’t like it, go elsewhere. I know that most bikers are just normal people, quite nice and reasonable like everyone else. But it is dramaqueen jackasses like this woman who give all other bikers a bad name. Already a majority of Americans despise bikers with a loathing passion due to the activities of a small handful of lawbreaking asses (like the critical mass fcukoffs in San Francisco) – one more moron throwing a hissy fit doesn’t help. If your car could be picked up and carried away then a lot of you would have a different attitude. A store should provide a safe, secure place to lock a bike. JM Huh. I see that blaming the consumer is back in fashion here. I hope I never have to deal with you pricks in real life. Bravo to the lady in the article for standing up for what she believes in – we need a LOT more like her. Looks like a Bay Area resident just moved to Virginia. I RTFA. I applaud her. She made her point valid: This particular (codgy) grandma (likely making minimum wage) blocked her from protecting her transport. Since Walmart did not make an accommodation for her (or any other consumer) bike to be secure (they do provide a parking lot for cars), and stood behind that “they sell bikes here and they would not allow hers inside”, thus she mildy challenged their “unknown” policy and she removed her bike clothes (well, not pants) as “not to confuse them if she should also bring that inside as well”. She made a point. Walmart isn’t green-friendly. Walmart does not accommodate consumers that don’t drive but ride their bicycles. Claiming safety is bullshit. Yes, all the reasons are valid. But what’s the difference in bringing in your own bike and wheeling it around the store and wheeling the bike you’re going to buy around the store? If anything, having your own bike is safe. You’re probably more familiar with how it rolls. if everybody with a bike were bringing it in wal-marts, it would be hell in there … there could be sometimes 2, 3 or maybe up to 4 people with bikes in the store (yes i totally judge people purchasing at wal-mart, because i think they don’t care for the planet, so they don’t ride bikes… and most of them are fat anyway, so they don’t ride bikes either) ALERT THE MEDIA….Wal-mart greeters do stupid stuff. What does this have to do with Wal-mart policy? Why does this make the company a douche rather than just the greeter? I had a waiter who was terribly rude to me yesterday, please crucify Chili’s. I’m sorry but she is an idiot. My local grocery store does not have a bike rack but me and my wife have been riding our bikes to get groceries for a couple months now, we just lock our bikes to the rails by the entrance ramp. Hooray katinka! Asking for a bike rack is a good thing. If management gets enough comments, maybe they’ll put one in. So….what was she going to do with the bike once she got it inside the store? Granted, the manager’s explanation was BS, but I don’t really see what right she has to bring the bicycle in the store if they told her not to. No bike rack? Lock it to a light-pole or go over to the outdoor section and lock it to the chain-link fence. Sheesh..next thing you know I won’t be able to bring my chain-saw into Denny’s with me. Wouldn’t shop there in first place. One day a bike rider tried to bring his bike into my neighborhood Korean deli. This place has just about enough room of a couple of customers and produce. “Hey dude I forgot my lock” was his only comment. Reminded me of the time a women insisted on bringing her dog into the place, then the mutt proceeded to lift it’s leg and was about the pee on some produce on one of the lower shelves. Luckily I was able to yell quick enough and loud enough to startle the mutt out of its’ desire to pee on the bread. The point is that there are an lot of people out there where the world just revolves around them. They should be able to do anything they want whether it’s Walmart or a local Korean deli. The manager should have let her strip than called the cops. So she brought in her bike AND her bitchy attitude! I wonder which weighs more? @waza: What will happen when a lot of people decide to all go buy a bike at the same time? I have never had need to take my bike into a store as I can usually find a lamppost/stop sign/big tree to lock it up to. I love cycling but the roads are dangerous if you are on a bike so I try to stick with the sidewalk where I can (yes I know it’s illegal in most places but I’d rather pay a ticket then end up dead). When I am on the road, I pay attention and I am very careful. It’s a shame other cyclists are yahoos that piss drivers off so much they make it hard for those like me who actually try to be safe. Cute, very cute. This is the kind of counter intellectual terrorism I like to see fostered on stupid people. WalMart — Here’s your sign!! To be fair, How is it incumbent on WalMart to protect someone else’s property? If the bike was stolen while in their care would she not demand recompense? If that is the case then why should any retailer take the risk on themselves to do so? That should have been the managers proper answer. Just asking. @waffles: claiming safety isn’t crap.For starters who said walking around with a store bike is safe or should even be allowed.In many stores if you can’t put the merchandise in a cart or carry it you have to get it in their loading area. And all this stuff about I know my bike and how to walk is a load too.Sorta like everybody else’s crap stinks but their own.Any bike is a hazard.Why should the walking customer constantly have to be aware of the person walking a bike. It all goes back to the potential for an ACCIDENT and Walmart or any other retailer has a responsibility to make sure their customers are safe anyway possible.Even stores like Home Depot cut off entire aisles if they are using a forklift at just one end.And by the way Home Depot has had at least one or two customer FATALITIES through no fault of the customer. Too many things can happen.JUST ONE example could be someone accidently bumping into it while the biker is pulling something off the shelf.What if it fell on someone’s foot wearing open toe sandals-who’s responsible-the customer for not wearing safety shoes,the biker for not holding their bike or the store for letting the bike in in the first place.Why do you think many stores have gone to plastic shopping carts with rounded edges or have rubber or plastic around the edges. @waza: brought up another good point.If too many bikes are in the store at once that’s even greater hazard.People go to stores expecting to deal with other people and/or shopping carts.NOT things like bikes.It’s an un-necessary variable that could lead to an accident which can be easily prevented.NO BIKES! Oooooookay. I think someone might be a little high strung. Damn crazy cyclists making us decent cyclist look like crazy green turds. I only have a U lock on my 600$ bike to tie it up so I can’t just lock it anywhere. But I always find a way to lock it, bike rack or not. Use your imagination. And if you are afraid of getting your expensive bike stolen get an el cheapo bike to do errands. Another Childish poster who things they are better than others. Grow up. She couldn’t think of another place to buy CD-Rs? Big time activist until it inconveniences her I guess. This is probably a hoax post. How about a store number / location more specific than just VA? @CMU_Bueller: Ditto. My husband and I have chained our bikes to any pole that’s concreted in and too tall to haul a bike out of. While I get her point, she also seems to have gone out of her way to make it. Oh and nowhere in our city seems to have bike racks. Rarely. If we see one we nearly faint from shock. @acasto: We are all becoming more and more stressed-out idiots, no matter WHAT our modes of transportation. It’s everyman for him/her self in these wonderful US of A’s and any self-obsessive prick can lease a BMW or buy a bike and create havoc with society. I gotta side with Walmart on this one (though they are still the devil incarnate). Huge honking baby carriages filling the aisles are obnoxious enough, having to clean up tiremarks from bicycles strolling all over the building would be another. And, what would have happened if the bike fell on a kid or scraped someone? Wally World’s insurance would be liable for letting her in, and it’ll be another excuse to make their workers work even LONGER off the clock than they already do…. @hoffmeister_hoff: Of course, all cyclists/runners do this, and all drivers of cars are saintly when they’re traveling… I explained to here there was nowhere outside to lock it up and that I had brought it into that particular store with no problem. From the article. Go figure. She acts like she should be able to do it because she has before. On second thought – if Walmart are half the pricks that “Best” Buy are – they would be “receipt checking” at the door, and the poor braindead pseudo-cop might be forced to shoot her for trying to take anything out of the store without exposing her receipt… (This gives me an excellent idea – if only “Best” Buy sold clothing…) @coren: Yeah geez… expecting consistency from Walmart… How maddening… Did she ever say that she was going to lug it around the store with her? The greeter stopped here AT the foyer. Now there is a HUGE difference between placing the bike lock or not in the foyer versus placing it just 5 feet away INSIDE the STORE. Thieves aren’t likely to steal a bike that someone places in a busy area with walmart employees wandering all about. Bike in a foyer is more stealable just because of its location. walmart’s the jerks here. They did not provide adequate facilities for securing a person’s mode of transportation like they do with cars. They have a whole parking lot for them! What did they have for bikes? NOTHING! NADDA! ZIP! I’m surprised so many people are bashing this lady. She’s my new hero! Fighting irrationality with irrationality. Who cares if she doesn’t have a lock, or they don’t have a rack. They were being obtuse. @xanax25mg: Theater happens for all sorts of reasons, but primarily to amuse and instruct. Her cause is sufficient to protest, and I don’t want to limit theater or protest to only the loftiest goals. Wal-Mart does not want to start telling people that they can refuse service to anyone for any reason, because that will cause their image to plummet. It’s also not fair to extrapolate this the OP’s story into any other circumstance, such as bringing a bike into a restaurant, or bringing a dog into a restaurant, because it is not the same thing. Our societieez is going through some changes. People are becoming relatively poorer. More people will be ditching their cars and riding bikes and lawn mowers and worse. People might even start carpooling and walking. Businesses and employers may profit by accommodating such events and people, not by turning them away at the door. In any case, there are changes afoot and that means we will need to embrace new ways of doing things. It’s an odd philosophy that you (and others) have that says that if you own something, or you are the boss of something, that you exert absolute and final control over it, and anybody who must interact with it. It’s like franchising authoritarianism. Americans in particular have forgotten this, but businesses exist for the good of the public and not just the business. Businesses don’t exist solely for their own pleasure and profit; they have obligations to individuals and society. Societies are groups of interacting people and institutions that rely on one another. Sometimes their needs and means differ, and for the sake of civility, humanity and good business practices, we can accommodate people with nonstandard requests. If things get to the point where we exist only to work for and interact with businesses strictly on their terms, well then, I’d say we’ve returned to feudalism. This has been an interesting thread. It shows how anxious, reactive and negative many people are, responding to a benign event as if it were a threat, and attacking and taunting a woman who did something a bit unusual. People here have really dumped on this woman, calling her all sorts of names and ascribing very negative motives to her simple act. It suggests that people aren’t really willing or able to identify the true sources of their discontent. If the OP is narcissistic, then I’d say that everybody else is engaging in splitting and projection. @u1itn0w2day: You’re comparing a FORKLIFT, A MULTITON DIESEL ENGINE POWERED MACHINE to someone with a bike? Lawlz. Just to be clear. Lawlz. Also, what’s the difference of a shopping cart, full or not, to a bike? Or in Home Depot’s case, a flat bed cart or a railed cart, most often over loaded with 10ft wooden beams or entire doors, to a small bike? Shouldn’t people be walking around aware of things anyway? Like bigger, wider shopping carts, which most often weigh MORE then bikes? Or like baby strollers or carriages? Don’t people bump into said carriages and strollers and carts anyway? And a bike falling on their open toe sandals? Ha, so nothing has ever fallen from their hands or shelf? Would close toe sandals count as “”safety shoes””? What if a shopping cart falls on their open toes? People who can’t deal with such a small “”variable” should not be out in public, should not be out driving, and should just be shot. @dweebster: FINALLY. A sensible reason (Though, then again, black sole sneakers should be banned then >_>) She makes it sound like there wasn’t a place within 1000 yards to lock a bike. This Walmart apparently sits in the middle of a field with nothing around it and not one single thing on the outside of it except asphalt for cars. Hey lady, here are a couple of options for you: 1. If the store has a garden center, lock it to the chain link fence. 2. EVERY Walmart store has several cart returns in the parking lot. You know, those steel pipe things that are bolted to the ground and are usually empty because lazy fatties don’t want to walk 20 feet to put their carts there? Here’s an idea…now work with me here and visualize it…you could lock your bike to the side of the cart return! Wow! Is this a new policy? I take my bike into the entrance area of my local Wal*mart all the time and ask the greeter to keep an eye on it. While not terribly intelligent, those greeters are supposedly stronger than the average human, if you know what I mean. @donkeyjote: …forklifts…No donkey,I’m trying to show that other retailers besides Walmart have and had SAFETY issues & do things with safety in mind. And now your comparing flat bed carts with 10ft of wood from a Home Depot which you won’t find in your typical Walmart aisle which is frequently layed out like a supermarket.And for that matter if you notice Home Depot always puts stuff like lumber on one side of the building with a single OUT OF THE WAY cash register nearby.And I do worry about someone pushing around lumber like that but there is much more space in a wharehouse setting as comparted to a supermarket setting. And you seemed to have missed the point of the open toe question which is liability.The store would probably get sued for even allowing bikes along with an injury which is why they should be banning them. As far as the shopping cart on 4 wheels tipping or falling on someone those chances are far less than a 2 wheel bike which is intended/designed to be continuously balanced by the rider when moving. And anyone who has dealt with the public in a public setting knows that YOU ie the business has to take the initative to be safe. If for no other motivation but liability.And the reason most businesses are aware of liability is that someone has gotten hurt and sued for the very thing they are trying to prevent. Who wears a jersey to bike to a ghetto Walmart? I have a $3,500 bike. Guess what? I don’t ride it to the store to do shopping. Check Craigslist for a $30 beater and ride that instead, stupid girl. @nealb: Look up your local/state statutes. That is illegal in many states. @anthonyhasp: Unless you have some direct personal knowledge of this incident, your post is entirely uncalled for. Have we found something Consumerist posters hate more than wally world? Ya know….as much as I don’t like walmart, and I don’t like walmart, I have to say that taking one’s clothing off to make a point seems a bit over the top. I personally see the point she was trying to make, BUT I think she could have handled it differently. Like if it’s important to you, simply take your business elsewhere. @PHX602: A self-absorbed melodramatic bike asshole. What a surprise. Exactly. It also annoys the crap out of me that all these loonies think they can go into their local Walmart* and make a total ass of themselves and expect praise on the internet. I notice how she’s sure to preface it with the stock idiot quote “So I generally choose not to patronize walmart for several moral reasons…” Yeah, whatever. She’s a self absorbed drama queen and this is no way to treat Walmart* employees because she couldn’t lock up her overpriced bike elsewhere to a carriage return or whatever. She then could have POLITELY suggested to the manager that there is no bike rack and that it might be a good idea to have one. @nsv: “You guys are all just ticked off because you missed the show. “ Eh, not really. Most cycling girls I’ve known are too thin for my taste. ;) Seriously Walmart* is 100% in the right here. It’s also kind of weird getting used to typing Walmart* instead of Wal*Mart. @nealb: Sorry, but bicycles can take up as much of the lane as they need to feel safe. Granted, I stay as far right as I can so that cars can pass me, but if I feel I need the lane to get around parked cars or other obstructions, I don’t feel bad about taking it. If you have $600 to spend on a bike, why are you shopping at Walmart? The problem isn’t that she stripped down to her bra, it’s that she forgot the #1 rule, Tits or GTFO. Fortunately wal-mart’s policy showed her the door in a timely fashion. @ChuckECheese: Since you don’t have one next to your name: One quibble- I think the hostility toward the woman is just another symptom of the authoritarianism you mention in the first paragraph. Hostility towards anyone who doesn’t conform Righteous vs. self-righteous. As other posters have more eloquently said, having patronized the store with her bike she may have been confused, but her “protest” falls to the level of histrionic. And I’m sure Wal*Mart is happy she stepped down from her ped(est)al to shop there, and her attention-seeking, elitist behavior should absolutely be welcome with open arms. attention bike lady: i see what you did there. and frankly, i kind of like it… but at the same time, just chain your bike up outside and quit being an asshole. lady in the picture is not wearing her helmet correctly:) If you read the story, it is a bit irrational as she states that “an adult pushing a bike” (is better than) a “child pushing a shopping cart”. Well, possibly, but what you’re doing here is opening a huge can of worms because you can’t just leave your bike in the aisle like you can a shopping cart (even with a kick stand, which no self-respecting spandex-clad biker would ever have). Imagine a store full of bikes cluttering the aisles. Not to speak of the potential for grease from her chain getting all over their merchandise. She should have locked the bike to the shopping cart dispenser or better yet, the old lady. C’mon, it’s funny! After all the crazy crap Wally World does someone flings crazy crap back at them – and she uses semi-nudity to do so. Huzzah! We shouldn’t be arguing about how valid her argument was, we should be finding more ways to employ nudity to get what we want. @dtracker: “I don’t think the law is correct so I’m not going to follow it” does not cut it. You’re on a bike, you obey the traffic laws, period. If you put me in danger or anyone else, I will yell, honk, and generally be an asshole to you. I can, and will, and have in the past, open my door on you if I’m sitting at a stoplight and you come zipping between me and another row of cars. My seatbelt was stuck in the door, you know? And what you were doing was illegal, so you lose. My $1200 road bike is my primary mode of transportation during the summer. I’ve never tried to bring it into a store … nor have I seen people pull that stunt in Boston, which has a fairly large biking population. @mavrick67: …to have $600 to buy a bike, maintain it, and still have money for everything else? I’m not a bike rider, but just not shopping at Walmart would halve the amount that I can save each month (which typically has to end up going into my car after a few months of that). If I were considering become an elitism bike rider :D, I’d be saving, and get a nice bike that could be further modded for better riding. Not paying as much for car maintenance (assuming she also has a car), and not paying as much for gasoline, would likely offset the cost of the bike rather quickly. I’m sure the side effects of getting a decent workout as you travel has economic benefits, too. I do think this is a case where a store should be able to dictate what happens, and she went overboard. OTOH, Walmart’s reasoning was idiotic. If you don’t have a real reason, don’t make one up! @Jabberkaty: she wasn’t nude. Not that it’s a bad idea, just that it’s not what happened. That. Is. AWESOME. I want to buy this woman a beer! @nealb: Um, by law, they do have as much right to the road as everybody else. Sure, they’re inconvenient for car drivers, but so are: oversized vehicles, dump trucks, school buses, tractors, old men in hats driving buicks, etc….. There is no right to drive at the speed limit. @RamV10: If you put me in danger or anyone else, I will yell, honk, and generally be an asshole to you. Sooo … if you put somebody in danger, you will honk (which is quite dangerous, as it can easily make a bicyclist wreck) or open a door in a cyclist’s path. Guess you’re right … you’re an asshole. Better keep the road rage in check … it’s good for the heart. @RamV10: Oooh, wait … I see why bicyclists make you pissy … RamV10 … you’re one of those guys who identifies with pickup trucks, seeing them as a substitute for, well, you know–something you don’t have. Carry on. I don’t get it. So you got a $600 bike, lock it up! You don’t see me bitching about leaving me $15,000 car in the parking lot, why, because I lock it up. Although, I would like to see more girls in sports bras walking around the store. @RamV10: You might want to find out if this activity is indeed illegal in your city before you continue committing the crime of assault as a form of revenge. Just substitute the phrase DOG SLED everywhere you see bike in her post and you can see how lame this little tantrum was. The stated rationale for leaving the bike outside was stupid, but really – there should be no expectations of taking a bike into any retail store. Gotten away with it before? Good on you. Some people get away with parking in handicapped zones. Where does this overwhelming self-importance come from? Suddenly Jesus, Thomas Jefferson and the natural law demand that you get a bike rack or you’re entitled to act out? It must have make our biker feel so superior to grind this lady down with her extreme cleverness. Welcome moral behavior in America’ 08 – where witless twenty somethings can assert moral cred. for avoiding shopping at Wal-Mart but unrelentingly crap on everyone around them for failing to adhere to some entitled idea of how life on this plant should revolve around their every whim. I have news – how you treat the people you meet (and obviously take for granted every day) is far more important than where you shop. Put that on your $600 bike and see if you can’t ride it to adulthood. Shirt and shoes optional. @MDT: Shit, they’re banning dogsleds in Walmart? Oh man, but where will my dog take a crap then? (poor comparison) The reason the Wal-Mart employee gave was stupid. And the cyclist pointed that out very dramatically. As a cyclist, I do understand her concern. A bike lock isn’t always sufficient (remember the Kryponite locks that could be unlocked with a Bic pen?) especially in some areas. But it does remind me of the saying that all bikes weight 50 lbs: A 20lb bike needs a 30lb lock A 35lb bike needs a 15lb lock A 50lb bike needs no lock And yes, as a cyclist, I’ve seen lots jackass cyclists (rude, drive recklessly, etc). I don’t like those idiots any more than you do. I’m sorry, but this seems over the top. Yeah, Walmart’s reasoning is stupid (especially since most if not all things of high value in the place has the tags that set off the door sensors). Even so, this woman was way out of line. I’m all for people thinking for themsleves (and this woman clearly does that), but she should pick her battles. This one was not worthing raising a stink over in such a way. Cheers! I think this is awesome. Hilarious. This woman gets an A+ from me. We’re all so concerned with our personal space, god forbid we’re slightly inconvenienced for a few minutes. She made a point, she called out the managers dumb rule in a pretty witty way. Not a drama queen, just being a fed up customer and making light of a dumb rule. @PHX602: Ha! My thought exactly. Get over yourself and your over-priced bike. @bria: True, but it seems to me, though, that is much easier to get into a car than a bike. All it takes is a brick at a window. 5 seconds and your done. Cheers! You know, not all cyclist are like the lady listed above. In fact she is a major minority. I cycle to lose weight and notice the benifits of cycling to the store for small things instead of getting into a car which wastes gas and adds polution to the environment. I am a strong advocate of stopping at stop signs, stop lights, and waiting my turn. When I ride, I try to pick less congested roads and roads that have dual lanes so I am not backing up traffic. Yes, there are jerks out there that are causing traffic congestion, not knowing the rules of the road, endangering lives, and giving everyone else a bad name. And you know something, those jerks are both drivers and cyclist. If your going to get mad, get mad at them, and don’t generalize them with all the other drivers and cyclist who are on the road that do obey the laws and can share it in harmony. @nealb: Luckily I live in LA, and the City of Los Angeles says I can ride my bike on either the street or the sidewalk, so long as I don’t disregard the safety of others using the sidewalk. 99% of the time I’ll ride on the street, but if the sidewalk is open and I can’t filter through traffic next to the curb at a stop light (also legal in CA), I’ve got no issues hopping up. @MyPetFly: I had an SUV try and run my into a guardrail, I think his sub sustained a decent amount of damage from my fist. Too bad a few jerks have made me anti-car. ;-) There is a vicious cycle going on I have noticed, more drivers are seeing aggressive/violent bikers which became that way after automobiles showed aggression/violence toward them….etc. Then I see things like taxis and police (yes, they drive the same) doing u-turns and cutting in front of bicycles. You can’t blame everyone for a few’s mistakes, but a lot of motorists and bicyclists feel that they are justified. Don’t get me wrong, I will react if someone purposefully tries to run me off the road and they will receive a nice modification to their car from my bike lock, but I also wave unsure drivers through their left turns so they don’t have to wait for me. It is just a dangerous game being played, motorists don’t realize that by running a biker off the road they could potentially kill him and cyclists don’t realize if they don’t stop behaving stupid then motorists will feel malcontent with them. So does Wal-mart NOT sell sports bras? I thought they did… So wait… If Wal-Mart doesn’t allow bikes in the store, how do they sell the bikes that are… in the store? If you’re buying a bike at Wal-Mart (and don’t they all come pre-assembled anymore?), it’s reasonable that you’d have to create the same supposedly massive disruption of walking with the bike on your way to the cash register that this woman would of created walking her own bike around the store. You know, when I was a kid, my mom gave me the same reason as to why you don’t bring in candy you are eating, or a toy you already bought into a store. Made perfect sense to me. @xanax25mg: I think you totally missed the point of my post. If I have to leave my $600 car outside, she has to leave her $600 bike outside. Check out the documentary “Walmart: the high cost of low prices”. You won’t want to shop there anymore. @ChuckECheese: What are you? 16? The odd philosophy is called capitalism. No one owes you or society anything. Let me fix that quote for you. Businesses DO exist solely for their own pleasure and profit; they have NO obligations to individuals and society. To say otherwise is nothing more than feel good socialist horseshit. We’ll all have pie in the sky in the sweet bye and bye. I dunno, guys, I’ve never seen a Walmart with ANY place to chain my bike up to. And believe me, I’ve looked! I think it probably depends on the area you live in. I’m going to have to agree with the cyclist here. If there is no bike rack it can be difficult to find something to lock a bike to if you have an adequately safe U type lock. A cable lock may be able to go around a light post or something similar, but it takes seconds to steal a bike locked with that type of lock. Not to mention that some places will cut your lock if you lock it just anywhere…. She just wanted to keep her bike safe and she’d been allowed in the store with it before. *And* the excuse the manager gave was ridiculous to say the least…. The manager could have come up with something more plausible and the cyclist may have left without an argument, but because the manager just made up the first lame excuse she could think of she left herself open. @TinyBug: Quibbling is good, and more constructive than name-calling. But actually I agree with your point completely. I didn’t want to spend any more time on my post because it was becoming a thesis. People support authoritarianism because they want the benefits of being on the side of the authoritarians, and they fear what might happen to them if they find themselves outside the authoritarians. Attacking somebody who challenges authoritarians is a way of saying what side you’re on. I’m afraid when America hits the skids, that these same haters will line up to vote for the first corn-pone Nazi who promises them they won’t lose their piece of the fried pie. I’m sorry to have a good at the OP, but who in the name of holy-tap-dancing-christ takes a bike into a store with them to shop?? I’ve never seen that in any country and I’ve lived in Denmark where every single person owns or uses a bike and they leave them outside. Like normal people. Another pro-ReachHigher reader here, marveling at the deeply ingrained anti-cyclist sentiment even on such an enlightened site as this. (It’s even worse out on the roads!) Still, the whole thing could have been easily avoided by following one basic, common-sense rule: Never go to Wal-Mart, ever. If you follow the link, you’ll see the OP describe her experience like this (*****emphasis mine****): .” I think the situation began to escalate when the manager of Walmart believes that they have the right to tell you how you should have arrived at the store, especially when mode of transportation very often *is* a political choice today. As a non-driver (neither hubby nor I have licenses) who has faced discrimination because I have a *passport* for ID instead of a driver’s license, this kind of statement would be enough to set me off. We once had to get a manager because a local video rental store cashier refused to issue us a Rogers Video card because their policy is to require a credit card and driver’s license for ID. Not “photo ID” . . . specifically a driver’s license. I can’t say I wouldn’t lose it, too, after hearing that statement – not over the policy as much as the sheer inability and unwillingness to comprehend people might choose not to drive. @RamV10: If I see someone speeding, I drift out in front of them and brake check them. Filtering is actually legal in many states. Sorry. It would have shown a great deal of awareness for the manager to consider that they SHOULD have a bike rack. Duh! Slap a tag on the women’s bike and go to the right people to have one installed ASAP. Wallmart has the resources to have a fricken everyday bike rack installed and it would be good PR for ALL the stores to follow through with having one installed. It is unreasonable for the women to need to lock up to a tree or fence and it might have been removed by the store for all we know. Good for her. She has more balls than I. No comment on most of this, but I feel the need to respond to the other posters. If you chain up a $600 bike outside walmart you are an idiot. Don’t cry to me when someone steals it. Don’t worry though, the neighborhood kids who don’t carry the high dollar bolt cutters won’t steal it. They don’t know a $600 bike from a $50 one. It’s okay though, the guy who steals only high end bikes to resell has his bolt cutters on him. Maybe you’re filthy rich and $600 is nothing to you, but I wouldn’t waste any dollar I didn’t have to. last i checked, it’s not walmart’s responsibility to provide a place to lock up one’s bicycle. @MikeToole: Maybe she just wanted to ride around the store a little. I think it would be kind of fun zooming around the aisles trying not to crash into people (not like that’s possible in the Walmart Zoo near here). @xanax25mg: Why do you need an ‘*” for twit? Oh…OH! You meant a naughty word! No bike racks? Too bad. If she didn’t want to leave her precious bike outside, she shouldn’t have biked there. Maybe it would have meant walking four miles or wasting money on gas — so what? Quit complaining. Walmart’s reason for not letting her bring her bike in is irrelevant. Even if it really was unfair, they are the company, and that is their policy. She can take it or leave it. For the sake of the Walmart employees and poor customers who had to witness that childishness, I hope she never returns. The issue of her having the bike in the store being a safety hazard is nullified by the fact that WALMART SELLS BIKES! If I were to go to the back of my local Wallyworld and buy a bike, I’d wheel the damn thing through the store, just as she would have with her own bike. And what about customers in wheelchairs and with walkers? Aren’t those just as big a hazard, if not bigger, than a normally-abled woman pushing around her bicycle?

. Recent Comments This is great news. Always liked Mr. Cruise since his Risky Business days. I enjoy his action movies. The character Jack Reacher is 6’5 not 6’4. Reacher’s appearance in both height and shear size are a two of the most important characteristics to the character. Lee Child spends page after page in every single book describing just how imposing Reacher is to others. Fans of the books or anyone who has read them can not argue this. Reacher is smart, tough, but above all else more then passes the eye ball test to friends and enemies alike. The Reacher that Lee Childs created is near impossible to cast on appearance. Maybe, Dolph Lundgren? With all that said, I thought Tom Cruise did a fantastic job with the character. I love the books and thought Cruise did a great job bring the character to screen. I don’t object to Tom Cruise as an actor -he is reasonably engaging and can be very good in many films. BUT HE IS STILL TOO SHORT TO PLAY JACK REACHER. I am a huge fan of the Reacher novels and could not stop laughing at 5’4″ Cruise attempting to fill the shoes of a 6’4″ character. Maybe they need to use Hobbit-Vision in reverse or something. But, really… this would have been an awesome franchise for someone like Channing Tatum. Get over the height thing. A film will make the necessary adjustments to get a movie made, and the height of the character is hardly an important one! It’s more about the attitude and demeanor of a character like Jake Reacher, and Cruise did a fine job there. In terms of attitude and demeanor, Cruise whiffed. Reacher is stoic, reserved, and tough. Cruise is hyper, wired, and wimpy. Reacher is a ridiculous hero. Basically he is John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee without the wit and self-effacement. On the other hand, he is far more omniscient and invincible. Absurdly so. The guy never loses a fight and has rarely met an opponent who can match him. He is in essence a de facto superhero which makes him truly tedious and annoying to spend time with. You could not be more wrong. Travis McGee was an awesome character as well, but there are no similarities between them. Travis was essentially a crook – he took jobs on purpose to “retrieve lost things”. Reacher is a traveler and just wants to be left alone to live his life. McGee was always saving for his retirement nest egg. He was friendly and loved to party and drink and womanize. What of Reacher is in that?? ZERO. No, he was completely unlike Reacher in every way, not just height. Part of Reacher’s character IS his bigness, his toughness, and intimidation factor. Also the fact that he’s quiet, a bit broody, and a thinker. Cruise protrayed ZERO of that character in looks or attitude. Thank you. It drives me nuts when people who claim to be fans refuse to even see the movie because of the physical differences. If they had cast someone a foot taller, the last fight scene would look like Reacher was beating up a child. The demeanor, wit & persona was there. I’d rather have Cruise than a larger person who can’t act. You and many forget that adapting material isn’t that simple as finding (in this case) a person with the RIGHT height. Finding someone who can play the character as an actor is key, not height, accent,etc. Cruise is twice the actor of the example you gave of Tatum. Having said that Cruise did an excellent job in the first film and is also top notch even when a writer gets lazy, luckily with most of his projects he picks great talent. Cruise was horrible in the first film, which was plodding and not nearly as engaging as the book. There was not much good about it. Sometimes good adaptations are made from books, and this was definitely not one of them. Tom Cruise is 5′ 7″, not 5′ 4″. Probably makes him taller than you now. I wish we could “like” posts here. Give it up, already! The role has been cast. The role has been played. I wonder what Lee Child makes of the Jack Reacher fans obsess about this height issue. It’s not like he’s describing the character’s height in every paragraph. well he does. he’s obsessed with it more than all those ppl talking about it on the net. let them talk. it’s one of the worst castings EVER! Reacher the 6’4″ giant easily defeated all of the bad guys but only because Reacher was a very tall man standing six foot four inches of solid muscle he was built like an Army tank if the tank were SIX FOOT FOUR INCHES of SOLID MANLY MUSCLE. Reacher looked around the bar and none of the other patrons were brave enough or tall enough to take Jack on. They were all terrified of his amazing HEIGHT and his astounding STRENGTH which emanated from the top of his head 6 feet 4 inches off the ground and radiated sheer brute force determination making all of the cowardly cowards cower in fear of Reacher’s awesome Six Foot Four Inch Height. Reacher looked at the bartender who was too afraid to deny Jack the cool mug of draft beer Jack had just earned by wiping out the entire bad guy squad in less than five seconds. Only a very tall and very strong manly man like 6’4″ Jack Reacher could do that. God this is brilliant — and so effin’ true. The “Reacher” books are absurd. They have a demi-God for a hero, which makes them silly, unrelatable, and unbelievably boring. Yes, and Jason Bourne novels are SO MUCH MORE believable. *eyeroll* Still they are well written and engaging books, which is the whole point. NOt to mention? Um…FICTION. Get a clue. I laughed at your comment about about the Hobbit version. That is exactly what my sister and i called it. I loved the Reacher novels, and with this book inparticular, his height should have been an issue, as the reason they were looking at Reacher for the murder of the girl, was that it would have had to be a person of extremem strength with a height of over 6′, acording to the book. It would have been a good action film maybe, not NOT a Reacher film. Tom Criuse is still NOT JACK REACHER I enjoyed very much to see Tom Cruise doing jack Reacher very exciting, he is amasing. Marion Have for years been a Robert E. Howard fan and was long ago devastated when Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast as Conan rather than a true eight-foot-tall (or something near) heavily scarred barbarian actor. The film just lost all sense of reality for me. Shame on the producers for not being true to the images I have in my head! This is good news because Jack Reacher was a Damm good movie also Tom Cruise did a nice job, and the first movie grossed over $200 Millon in the box office, it was not a BOMB,Please check your facts before you make stupid post comments..Fyi-You don’t have to be 6″5 275 to get your point across or defend yourself!! Also, I have read several of Reacher’s novels. I don’t have an issue with Cruise at all also Lee Childs was quoted say “He nailed it”.. @ Victor – Not much of a Reacher fan anyway if you don’t know that he is 6ft 5 I agree I just cannot see Cruise as Jack Reacher….the whole time I watched the movie I kept thinking about it. But Channing Tatum? Maybe the body, but Reacher is older and Channing is so vacuous to begin with. Channing Tatum?? Are you kidding me? I suppose your gona say “Ben Affleck” next! I, too, laughed when I watched the Jack Reacher movie “One Shot” starring Tom Cruise. I agree that Tom Cruise is just too short to play Jack Reacher. In fact, the trailer that I saw at the movies went completely against what Lee Child says about his character, Jack Reacher: He is 6’5″ and is just too tall to blend into a crowd. Yet in the trailer, here they have Tom Cruise jumping out of a car he just wrecked, walking over to the crowd standing at the corner, grabbing a hat off of a black man, and standing there BLENDING IN! In all the Jack Reacher books, Lee Child, specifically states that JR is too big to blend in. I’m sorry, but although I think that Tom Cruise is a pretty good actor, this is just a huge case of miscasting. I’m sure that all the rest of the Jack Reacher fana out there would have to agree with me. Maybe it had something to do with Tom producing the picture. Maybe he threw his money at it so that he could star in the picture. Ya think??? please don’t do another jack reacher. this along with knight and day was one of the two worst films he’s done recently. more films that really showcase his charm like edge of tomorrow, oblivion, rock of ages Tom Cruise is moderately controversial in his personal life but I do admire his sustained longevity and ability to cannily pick interesting collaborators and produce different films. Even when they are not amazing films I appreciate his attempts to do something a bit different each time. “Knight and Day” was a good example – he was pencilled in to do Phillip Noyce’s “Salt,” but rather than retread a serious espionage action film he tried an action comedy spin on it with the equally talented directed James Mangold. Not a great movie, but different. He’s a solid creative collaborator and works as hard as any other actor. I respect that a lot, so anything barring a mega Mel Gibson-sized meltdown I can set aside and enjoy his films. He was dropped from “Salt” because they wanted a female lead. Not his choice, it was the studio. MI5…….hummmmm, with out some kind of UK connection that title is going to waste… Just caught Jack Reacher last night on PAY PER VIEW. Absolutely LOVED it. Harked back to the best of Billy Jack, Charles Bronson, and Clint. Very fun picture and exceptionally well produced… “A TOM CRUISE PRODUCTION”, I remind you. This guy is always good in everything he does. I submit that he’s become a GREAT actor after all this time. The final shot of Reacher with Cruise on a Greyhound bus not wanting to hear a guy abuse his girl… but he MUST do the right thing and he does, of course. Tom communicated so much with no dialogue. Big fan of the Reacher character and Child novels. Also skeptical about Cruise playing a Paul Bunyan sized character. Cruise and McQuarrie did a terrific job with their adaptation. Herzog ‘s performance was a bonus. Tommy Boy hit it on the nose – do these films cheaper and faster. Cruise has great instincts for talent and what works – give some young hungry writers and directors a chance. Better yet, revitalize the career of some old timers. The source material calls for the Bronson/Eastwood actioners we would get every year in the late sixties /seventies. Yep, Cruise’s personal life is a little bit strange, but in the end, that’s none of our business. If anything, he does indeed pick good projects and collaborates with some very talented people. It’s fantastic seeing Christopher McQuarrie becoming an A list filmmaker; he so rightly deserves it; hard worker and very, very smart. But back to Cruise, name me another movie star from the 1980’s that is still pulling in the box office numbers like he is. I look forward to more Jack Reacher movies. I just wish they would have kept the original title “One Shot,” or at least called it “Jack Reacher: One Shot.” Too many of these character name movie titles without any substance; “Jack Ryan”, “John Carter” as examples. Glad to see Big Tom finally shaking off the bad press of the ’00s. I was always a fan, despite clunkers like Knight and Day. He’s pretty much the last man standing from the ’80s, him and Downey Jr. Kind of a lesson for all of us to just work hard and power through the bullshit. Your comment puts Tom Cruise’s situation in perfect perspective. Work hard, ignore the doubters/haters, and power through the BS. Yes, the atrocious, garbage films such as Knight & Day, Oblivion, and Rock of Ages flopped hard but look at the enormous success of Mission Impossible franchise. Those films get better and better with each outing. And Jack Reacher was a huge gamble that paid off handsomely because of the excellent quality of the writing, acting, and direction. It was a low budget thriller that returned hundreds of millions, re-energized Cruise’s fandom, and makes him one of the few actors whose name still commands attention to his film releases. Jack Reacher was one if the most underrated movies of it’s year! My friend and I had a blast watching it. Bring back that beautiful Brit While you are at it. Another underrated actor, she was amazing with Paul Giamatti in Barney’s Version. I enjoyed Jack Reacher. Watched it again on dvd, and found it even better the second time round. I am a fan of the books, and must say that initially the height thing bothered me, but after seeing the movie, not any more. Which did surprise me! Can’t wait for the sequel!!! Love the novels. Wasn’t a fan of the film. Yes, fans of the books either have to accept Cruise in the part or ignore the movies. However, I would say to the filmmakers there are scenes in the books where Reacher’s size, his intimidating presence are essential to making those scenes work. You can’t just use those scenes as is with Cruise as Reacher. You need to make him intimidating in a different way. Regarding the character of Jack Reacher… Not sure exactly when it happened but at some point in the past 10 years, the unbeatable hero became popular. Jack Reacher? Read the books. The guy’s unbeatable. Jason Bourne? Same thing — at least on film. He’s invincible. Jason Statham’s characters in just about every movie he makes? Same thing. Denzel Washington in the upcoming EQUALIZER movie? I’ve read the script folks and, yeah, it’s the same thing. Not only are these characters never overmatched, they are never so much as EVENLY matched. So what gives? Eastwood’s heroes were always tough but there was usually a villain on hand who could give him a fair fight. (See ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN for a perfect example of this). Of course we are always rooting for the hero to win — as we should — but it used to be that close games were the order of the day at the multiplex. Now it seems people would much rather see a blow-out. The irony with people noting the indestructible hero, is that when Lee first wrote Reacher, he deliberately wrote him that way because he was tired of the flawed protagonists plagued by alcoholism and self doubt that dominated thriller writing at the time. For those of you who wish we’d get over the height because it’s not important…every single Reacher book makes multiple references to his sheer monstrous size. It’s an integral part of his character, and has shaped his personality from the time he was a child. Reacher, incidentally, was also a mediocre driver at best, with zero interest in muscle cars, making the lynchpin car chase ludicrous at best. I’m sure the movie was a fine Tom Cruise action flick, but it was NOT a film about Jack Teacher. TC is a fine actor but he suits his gadget good guy role which is why MI bodes well for him. LC said the he’d never cast TC but I guess that changed when he sold him the rights. I won’t watch the movies mainly because I don’t want Toms face in my head when I read the next JR book. Height build presence and a lack of words is what JR is and TC has none of that. Walk into a bar and people are scared of him and want to take him out? Pah-leeeze! The script is being adapted from the book. That’s basically someone removing the bits that refer to Reacher being big, tall, hard as nails and with a rough lifestyle. I.e what makes him Jack Reacher and not Tom Cruise. Viola a movie suitable for the boring dumb ass American audience who want to see a lim because it has Tom Cruise not because of the storyline or characters. I don’t understand the problem that some fanboys have with Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher.It isn’t like Tom Cruise is a dwarf or a midget.Wolverine is supposed to be 5’4″ while Hugh Jackman is 6’4″.Tom Cruise is a huge star and a great actor.I am happy the sequel is being made.The first movie was very good and I expect the second one to be even better. I hope more sequels are made.This is going to be a profitable venture for Paramount.The first film made 218 million on a budget of 60 million. Tom Cruise is the biggest star in Hollywood.Every single movie he has starred as the lead actor since Top Gun has been a box office success(Rock of Ages had Cruise in a extended cameo appearance). Used to be a huge fan of the Reacher novels… Have never been much of a Tom Cruise fan, and just can’t get my head round this little pipsqueak trying to be Jack Reacher! Spoiled the whole thing for me! Reacher is a ruggedly handsome, fit, muscular military type… Just can’t take someone who has to stand on a box seriously! To be fair, I haven’t seen the film: can’t bring myself to watch it, as then I would probably never read any more of the books… Couldn’t take him seriously in The Last Samurai either… Does anyone remember that scene in the forest with TC fighting hundreds of lifelong Samurai warriors? (Trained in the discipline from birth!) Swinging his sword around, and he was, ridiculously, the last man standing… ewww. Totally unbelievable! Well they better have budget as low as possible. Because first one barely got it’s money when it took advantage of holiday season. No one is waiting for sequel. And Tom Cruise is not getting younger or got rid of his cult fame. And then that scandal when he compared or did not compared his preparation for role with soldiers who are in Irag. They better have budget around 50 millions. Barely got its money?? It made a profit of $220m and outdid other action movies released at the same time. You’re completely mistaken saying Tom Cruise “compared his preparation for role [sic] with soldiers who are in Irag [sic]” First, the media repeated a report, which I believe originated with TMZ, saying Cruise compared his making a movie to soldiers in Afghanistan. It later turned out that was a highly selective, context deprived quote. Here’s what actually happened: His attorney had observed that we do not accuse soldiers on extended leave as abandoning their children. Cruise had the said the separation from his daughter was “brutal.” When asked if he’d compare what he does to fighting in Afghanistan, he answered, “C’mon, you know we’re making a movie!” I don’t understand why so many people hate this guy. He does not strike me as the most reflective person, but he’s considerate of others and passionate about what he does. He’s also a talented actor. Tom Cruise is an awesome actor. The fans of the book are a**holes. Jack Reacher was the best movie seen since 2012. is in the best how Jack dropped everything and showed up before the police find his off grid life to summon him, Jack was on it. because the crime helped some female captives get out of hell! I disliked how shooter never knew the female were in the building when he murdered the guards at random! sniper sickness he just wanted a kill after training so dedicatedly for the army. the bar where bar where he was set up by a nice female thought it was because Jack wouldn’t take her home her 5 brothers just showed up scary. Hate how she died looked like she was going to find a direction in life .the BF drug dealer dident like seeing his grandma on the porch other Villon were main ones sept the dirty cop that got some inmates to silence shooter and was framing Jack Reacher of killing the nice female .wicket funny the final scene that tax paper filled car in revers knife to a gun fight! old man whould not give Jack a gun when he had few guns “your not shooting anyone with my guns” think was his quote!!! lol . Lest the knife Had a Point Jack dropped it thou on a tumble for cover Fook only Defense aganst some big guns. super melee fight with the sniper framed who Jack was fixing up the sniper right way. The dirty cop gets shot and the main boss a old construction tyrant says “it is impossible to hold me in cell for long so Jack Reacher killed em and was going to take a well earned holiday Tom Cruise was outstanding couldn’t think of any one better to play the role he did it once . Well Thats my Comments On Jack Reacher wish his next movie best hope he gets a good woman thats talks big fan of Tom Cruise. Hope he makes sequel to Jack Reacher, Top Gun and should also do another movie based on a John Grisham novel. And what happened to El Presidente? Jealous go pick on Ben , or Matt , or Bradley. Madmen guy, castle guy, rob lowe, ; there’s a few good looking men in the world and everytime they make news have to sustain assaulting remarks. Why waste your time allowing your ideas and misinterpretations for someone elses life to make you unhappy. And then announce it to everyone. I hated man of steel because perry white, who is white in all of the superman comic books, was played by Laurence Fishburne, who is black. How can I possibly enjoy a movie knowing that a character does not look exactly the same as the one portrayed in the source material??? Total bollocks! ” A rumor went around that the studio might be trying to squeeze in a Reacher film before Mission: Impossible 5.” …. who do you think spread this rumour?… yea, Cruise’s very own hapless PR department trying to show their fast diminishing and toxic boss in a favourable light. The last one barely covered it’s production budget in domestic sales which is pretty much regarded as a failure in Hollywood. His toxic association with scientology is proving more and more a liability and he’s getting his ass handed to him in the Baeur media case…. let alone all the other ones coming to light showing his use of scientology Sea Org staff at slave wages for all his numerous properties around the world. The studio heads were clever enough to drop him from UNCLE {yeah…. what scheduling conflict?}…. he gets booed at his hometown baseball stadium and still can’t find anyone to date him. His cult is on a rapidly increasing implosion which will only get worse in 2014 – any association with him is the kiss of death. He’s done! He`s done my ass, Mike. You are done, Mike, looser!

Popular Science Monthly/Volume 26/February 1885/The Chemistry of Cookery XX THE paternal tenderness with which wine is regarded, both by its producers and consumers, is amusing. They speak of it as being "sick," describe its "diseases" and their remedies as though it were a sentient being; and its diseases, like our own, are now attributed to bacilli, bacteria, or other microbia. Pasteur, who has worked out this question of the origin of diseases in wine as he is so well known to have done in animals, recommends (in papers read before the French Academy in May and August, 1865) that these microbia be "killed" by filling the bottles close up to the cork, which is thrust in just with sufficient firmness to allow the wine on expanding to force it out a little, but not entirely, thus preventing any air from entering the bottle. The bottles are then placed in a chamber heated to temperatures ranging from 45° to 100° C. (113° to 212° Fahr.), where they remain for an hour or two. They are then set aside, allowed to cool, and the cork driven in. It is said that this treatment kills the microbia, gives to the wine an increased bouquet and improved color—in fact, ages it considerably. Both old and new wines may be thus treated. I simply state this on the authority of Pasteur, having made no direct experiments or observations on these diseases, which he describes as resulting in acetification, ropiness, bitterness, and decay or decomposition. There is, however, another kind of sickness which I have studied, both experimentally and theoretically. I refer to the temporary sickness which sometimes occurs to rich wines when they are moved from one cellar to another, and to wines when newly exported from their native climate to our own. The wines that are the most subject to such sickness are those that are the most genuine—the natural, unsophisticated wines, those that have not been subjected to "fortification," to "vinage," to "plastering," "sulphuring," etc.—processes of cookery to be presently described. This sickness shows itself by the wine becoming turbid, or opalescent, then throwing down either a crust or a loose, troublesome sediment. Those of my readers who are sufficiently interested in this subject to care to study it practically should make the following experiment: Dissolve in distilled water, or, better, in water slightly acidulated with hydrochloric acid, as much cream of tartar as will saturate it. This is best done by heating the water, agitating an excess of cream of tartar in it, then allowing the water to cool, the excess of salt to subside, and pouring off the clear solution, Now add to this solution, while quite clear and bright, a little clear brandy, whisky, or other spirit, and mix them by shaking. The solution will become "sick," like the wine. Why is this? It depends upon the fact that the bitartrate of potash, or cream of tartar, is soluble to some extent in water, but almost insoluble in alcohol. In a mixture of alcohol-and-water its solubility is intermediate —the more alcohol the smaller the quantity that can be held in solution (hydrochloric and most other acids, excepting tartaric, increase its solubility in water). Thus, if we have a saturated solution of this salt either in pure water or acidulated water or wine, the addition of alcohol throws some of it down in solid form, and this makes the solution sick, or turbid. When pure water or acidulated water is used, as in the above-described experiment, crystals of the salt are freely formed, and fall down readily; but with a complex liquid like wine, containing saccharine and mucilaginous matter, the precipitation takes place very slowly; the particles are excessively minute, and become entangled with the mucilage, etc., and thus remain suspended for a long time, maintaining the turbidity accordingly. Now, this bitartrate of potash is the characteristic natural salt of the grape, and its unfermented juice is saturated with it. As fermentation proceeds, and the sugar of the grape-juice is converted into alcohol, the capacity of the juice for holding the salt in solution diminishes, and it is gradually thrown down. But it does not fall alone. It carries with it some of the coloring and extractive matter of the grape-juice. This precipitate, in its crude state called argol, or roher Weinstein, is the source from which we obtain the tartaric acid of commerce, the cream of tartar, and other salts of tartaric acid. Now let us suppose that we have a natural, unsophisticated wine. It is evident that it is saturated with the tartrate, since only so much argol was thrown down during fermentation as it was unable to retain. It is further evident that if such a wine has not been exhaustively fermented, i. e., still contains some of the original grape-sugar, and, if any further fermentation of this sugar takes place, the capacity of the mixture for holding the tartrate in solution becomes diminished, and a further precipitation must occur. This precipitation will come down very slowly, will consist not merely of pure crystals of cream of tartar, but of minute particles carrying with it some coloring-matter, extractives, etc., and thus spoiling the brilliancy of the wine, making it more or less turbid. But this is not all. Boiling water dissolves 16 of its weight of cream of tartar, cold water only 1180 and, at intermediate temperatures, intermediate quantities. Therefore, if we lower the temperature of a saturated solution, precipitation occurs. Hence, the sickening of wine due to change of cellars or change of climate, even when no further fermentation occurs. The lighter the wine, i. e., the less alcohol it contains naturally, the more tartrate it contains, and the greater the liability to this source of sickness. This, then, is the temporary sickness to which I have referred. I have proved the truth of this theory by filtering such sickened wine through laboratory filtering-paper, thereby rendering it transparent, and obtaining on the paper all the guilty disturbing matter. I found it to be a kind of argol, but containing a much larger proportion of extractive and coloring matter, and a smaller proportion of tartrate, than the argol of commerce. I operated upon rich new Catalan wine. This brings me at once to the source or origin of a sort of wine-cookery by no means so legitimate as the Pasteuring already described, as it frequently amounts to serious adulteration. The wine-merchants are here the victims of their customers, who demand an amount of transparency that is simply impossible as a permanent condition of unsophisticated grape-wine. To anybody who has any knowledge of the chemistry of wine, nothing can be more ludicrous than the antics of the pretending connoisseur of wine who holds his glass up to the light, shuts one eye (even at the stage before double vision commences), and admires the brilliancy of the liquid, this very brilliancy being, in nineteen samples out of twenty, the evidence of adulteration, cookery, or sophistication of some kind. Genuine wine made from pure grape-juice without chemical manipulation is a liquid that is never reliably clear, for the reasons above stated. Partial precipitation, sufficient to produce opalescence, is continually taking place, and therefore the brilliancy demanded is obtained by substituting the natural and wholesome tartrate by salts of mineral acids, and even by the free mineral acid itself. At one time I deemed this latter adulteration impossible, but have been convinced by direct examination of samples of high-priced (mark this, not cheap) dry sherries that they contained free sulphuric and sulphurous acid. The action of this free mineral acid on the wine will be understood by what I have already explained concerning the solubility of the bitartrate of potash. This solubility is greatly increased by a little of such acid, and therefore the transparency of the wine is by such addition rendered stable, unaffected by changes of temperature. But what is the effect of such mineral acid on the drinker of the wine? If he is in any degree predisposed to gout, rheumatism, stone, or any of the lithic-acid diseases, his life is sacrificed, with preceding tortures of the most horrible kind. It has been stated, and probably with truth, that the late Emperor Napoleon III drank dry sherry, and was a martyr of this kind, I repeat emphatically that high-priced dry sherries are far worse than cheap Marsala, both as regards the quantity they contain of sulphates and free acid. Anybody who doubts this may convince himself by simply purchasing a little chloride of barium, dissolving it in distilled water, and adding to the sample of wine to be tested a few drops of this solution. Pure wine, containing its full supply of natural tartrate, will become cloudy to a small extent, and gradually. A small precipitate will be formed by the tartrate. The wine that contains either free sulphuric acid or any of its compounds will yield immediately a copious white precipitate like chalk, but much more dense. This is sulphate of baryta. The experiment may be made in a common wineglass, but better in a cylindrical test-tube, as, by using in this a fixed quantity in each experiment, a rough notion of the relative quantity of sulphate may be formed by the depth of the white layer after all has come down. To determine this accurately, the wine, after applying the test, should be filtered through proper filtering-paper, and the precipitate and paper burned in a platinum or porcelain crucible and then weighed; but this demands apparatus not always available, and some technical skill. The simple demonstration of the copious precipitation is instructive, and those of my readers who are practical chemists, but have not yet applied this test to such wines, will be astonished, as I was, at the amount of precipitation. I may add that my first experience was upon a sample of dry sherry, brought to me by a friend who bought his wine of a most respectable wine-merchant, and paid a high price for it, but found that it disagreed with him; since that I have tested scores of samples, some of the finest in the market, sent to me by a thoroughly conscientious importer as the best he could obtain, and these contained sulphate of potash instead of bitartrate. My friend, the sherry-merchant, could not account for it, though he was most anxious to do so. This was about three years ago. By dint of inquiry and cross-examination of experts in the wine-trade, I have, I believe, discovered the origin of the sulphate of potash that is contained in the samples that the British wine-merchant sells as he buys, and conscientiously believes to be pure. I will state particulars in my next. A correspondent writes to the editor asking whether I class cocoa among the stimulants. So far as I am able to learn, it should not be so classed, but I can not speak absolutely. Mere chemistry supplies no answer to this question. It is purely a physiological subject, to be studied by observation of effects. Such observations may be made by anybody whose system has not become "tolerant" of the substance in question. My own experience of cocoa in all its forms is that it is not stimulating in any sensible degree. I have acquired no habit of using it, and yet I can enjoy a rich cup or bowl of cocoa or chocolate just before bed-time without losing any sleep. When I am occasionally betrayed into taking a late cup of coffee or tea, I repent it for some hours after going to bed. My inquiries among other people, who are not under the influence of that most powerful of all arguments, the logic of inclination, have confirmed my own experience. I should, however, add that some authorities have attributed exhilarating properties to the theobromine or nitrogenous alkaloid of cocoa. Its composition nearly resembles that of theine, as the following (from Johnstone) shows: It exists in the cocoa-bean in about the same proportion as the theine in tea, but in making a cup of cocoa we use a much greater weight of cocoa than of tea in a cup of tea. If, therefore, the properties of theobromine were similar to those of theine, we should feel the stimulating effects much more decidedly. The alkaloid of tea and coffee in its pure state has been administered to animals, and found to produce paralysis, but I am not aware that theobromine has acted similarly. Another essential difference between cocoa and tea or coffee is that cocoa is, strictly speaking, a food. We do not merely make an infusion of the cacao-bean, but eat it bodily in the form of a soup. It is highly nutritious, one of the most nutritious foods in common use. When traveling on foot in mountainous and other regions, where there was a risk of spending the night al fresco and supperless, I have usually carried a cake of chocolate in my knapsack, as the most portable and unchangeable form of concentrated nutriment, and have found it most valuable. On one occasion I went astray on the Kjolenfjeld, in Norway, and struggled for about twenty-four hours without food or shelter. I had no chocolate then, and sorely repented my improvidence. Many other pedestrians have tried chocolate in like manner, and all I know have commended its great "staying" properties, simply regarded as food. I therefore conclude that Linnæus was not without strong justification in giving it the name of theobroma (food for the gods), but to confirm this practically the pure nut, the whole nut, and nothing but the nut (excepting the milk and sugar added by the consumer), should be used. Some miserable counterfeits are offered — farinaceous paste, flavored with cocoa and sugar. The best sample I have been able to procure is the ship cocoa prepared for the navy. This is nothing but the whole nut unsweetened, ground, and crushed to an impalpable paste. It requires a little boiling, and when milk alone is used, with due proportion of sugar, it is a theohroma. Condensed milk diluted and without further sweetening may be used. In my last I promised the results of my investigations concerning the source of the sulphate of potash that I found replacing the natural tartrate in so many samples of sherry. At first I hunted up all the information I could obtain from books concerning the manufacture of sherry, and learned that the grapes are usually sprinkled with a little powdered sulphur as they are placed in the vats prior to stamping. The quantity thus added, however, is quite insufficient to account for the sulphur compounds in the samples of wine I examined. Another source is described in the books—that from the sulphuring the casks. This process consists simply of burning sulphur inside a partially-filled or empty cask, until the exhaustion of free oxygen and its replacement by sulphurous acid renders further combustion impossible. The cask is then filled with the wine. This would add a little of sulphurous acid, but still not sufficient. Then comes the "plastering," or intentional addition of gypsum (plaster of Paris). This, if largely carried out, is sufficient to explain the complete conversion of the natural tartrates into sulphates of potash, but such plastering is admitted to be an adulteration or sophistication, and the best makers deny their use of it. I obtained samples of sherry from a reliable source, which I have no doubt the shipper honestly believed to have been subjected to no such deliberate plastering; still, from these came down an extravagantly excessive precipitate on the addition of chloride-of-barium solution. At last I learned that "Spanish earth" was used in the fining. Why Spanish earth in preference to isinglass or white of egg, which are quite unobjectionable and very efficient? To this question I could get no satisfactory answer directly, but learned vaguely that the fining produced by the white of egg, though complete at the time, was not permanent, while that effected by Spanish earth, containing much sulphate of lime, is permanent. The brilliancy thus obtained is not lost by age or variations of temperature, and the dry sherries thus cooked are preferred by English wine-drinkers. Here, then, is a solution of the mystery. The sulphate of potash which is thus made to replace bitartrate is so readily soluble that neither changes of temperature nor increase of alcohol, due to further fermentation, will throw it down; and thus the wine-merchant, without any guilty intent, and ignorant of what he is really doing, sophisticates the wine, alters its essential composition, and adds an impurity in doing what he supposes to be a mere clarification or removal of impurities. I have heard of genuine sherries being returned as bad to the shipper because they were genuine, and had been fined without sophistication. Are we to blame the wine-merchant for this? I think not. My own experience of genuine wines in wine-growing countries teaches me that such wines are rarely brilliant; and the variations of solubility of the natural salt of the grape, which I have already explained, shows why this is the case. If the drinkers of sherry and other white and golden wines would cease to demand the conventional brilliancy, they would soon be supplied with the genuine article, which really costs the wine-merchant less than the cooked product they now insist upon having. This foolish demand of his customers merely gives him a large amount of unnecessary trouble. So far, the wine-merchant; but how about the consumer? Simply that the substitution of a mineral acid—the sulphuric for a vegetable acid (the tartaric)—supplies him with a precipitant of lithic acid in his own body; that is, provides him with the source of gout, rheumatism, gravel, stone, etc., with which English wine-drinkers are proverbially tortured. I am the more urgent in propounding this view of the subject because I see plainly that not only the patients, but too commonly their medical advisers, do not understand it. When I was in the midst of these experiments I called upon a clerical neighbor, and found him in his study with his foot on a pillow, and groaning with gout. A decanter of pale, choice, very dry sherry was on the table. He poured out a glass for me and another for himself. I tasted it, and then perpetrated the unheard-of rudeness of denouncing the wine for which my host had paid so high a price. He knew a little chemistry, and I accordingly went home forthwith, brought back some chloride of barium, added it to his choice sherry, and showed him a precipitate which made him shudder. He drank no more dry sherry, and has had no serious relapse of gout. In this case his medical adviser prohibited port and advised dry sherry. The following from "The Brewer, Distiller, and Wine Manufacturer," by John Gardner (Churchill's "Technological Handbooks," 1883), supports my view of the position of the wine-maker and wine merchant: "Dupré and Thudicum have shown by experiment that this practice of plastering, as it is called, also reduces the yield of the liquid, as a considerable part of the wine mechanically combines with the gypsum and is lost." When an adulteration—justly so called—is practiced, the object is to enable the perpetrator to obtain an increased profit on selling the commodity at a given price. In this case an opposite result is obtained. The gypsum, or Spanish earth, is used in considerable quantity, and leaves a bulky residuum, which carries away some of the wine with it, and thus increases the cost to the seller of the salable result. Having referred so often to dry wines, I should explain the chemistry of this so-called dryness. The fermentation of wine is the result of a vegetable growth, that of the yeast, a microscopic fungus (Pencillium glaucum). The must, or juice of the grape, obtains the germ spontaneously—probably from the atmosphere. Two distinct effects are produced by this fermentation or growth of fungus: first, the sugar of the must is converted into alcohol; second, more or less of the albuminous or nitrogenous matter of the must is consumed as food by the fungus. If uninterrupted, this fermentation goes on either until the supply of sufficient sugar is stopped, or until the supply.

Mercredi 16 mai 3 16 /05 /Mai 00:41 e3 Who recently discovered this place and especially enjoy the stories, my own experience, about 12 years, meaning that occurred during the university decided, I will not say that one, fantasti because it affects me. First, I set the stage, I am a 20- year-old was away from home, and my parents for the first time in my life, I have my first year in the fantasti dormitory of a girls' school and then went out to share a house with some friends in year 2 was involved in many activities, how to do that, but my fantasti great love was sport that interested him, and I am still in the era of hockey, rowing, but also occurred when one of the boys asked which means of course, if Coxinga was wild. I had no experience in this, but it was more than happy to give it a try. I think his interest was to do with my size as any romantic. was particularly suitable for this, have a small size 10, 8 one on a good day, and because of my very sporting activities, I also had and has a solid 34C bust, I'm very pRoud it! I soon got used to enjoy the sport and quickly established myself as a cox fours for one of the major universities. For all those girls who are not familiar with rowing is one of the hunkiest sports, the boys are in general terms at over 6 feet and body, which are naturally very fit, well, there is a point lost me as fun to watch them in pieces before Lycra tight, do not have much to hide, and I was often caught dreaming, thinking fantasti Lynford Christie and you get the idea. Now, back to my story, my ship was training for a major inter-university race, this meant, always in the water by five o'clock nearly every day for a meeting, no more so stupid to be in that moment! In general, work for about an hour before returning to the boat house to the gym and cooling training. The training paid off as we were always closer to our goal 6mins 30secs over 2000 meters long, for anyone who does not know that well enough, they were also much moreFun and a strong bond between us, because we spent more time together. These usually come with much banter, the majority of cases ended with me as a target of his jokes, sexual mostly because I looked like one of them and felt they could not ask for more involved with other girls. After the sessions ended and we all went to our respective changing rooms often could hear laughing and joking as he showered, showers, changing rooms each supported, usually could not hear, like people in other rooms , as was usually very busy, but as I was always alone could hear. in general, talked about the training, but in this particular case, I could hear me! I listened intently as one of the guys that I will not give his real name, call Dave, describing how he wants to fuck me heard this all started as she began to describe in detail what each of they want to see me when evhad the opportunity, I was always very wet between the legs while listening to the four handsome guys hot and describe in detail how to use me sexually. that was not a virgin and had a friend before starting college, he gave up many things, but certainly not the kind of things that I heard to describe, especially the way I spoke twice convicted was not even sure what they mean to one of them said I was going to fuck in the ass that the other could have my pussy, and then the other two said they would use my mouth, until they all met at my face. Never thought I felt like I was upset but I was really on a lot and found my fingers drift of my pussy and I soon led fantasti to a powerful orgasm while still in the shower. fantasti He was one of the most intense orgasms I've had and lean against the wall, my legs start to bulge felt. When I moved I could not leave my commentSpirit, which fantasti was still wet relief despite myself. I took off my clothes and met the guys in the kitchen, which has generally not aware that he had heard of me. A fantasti then went to get something for breakfast, usually in the university restaurant. We continued laughing and joking now I have another thing in mind. Dave, who had started the discussion in the showers usually made lewd fantasti comments about some of the other students in the restaurant, often along the lines of ' Do you think you have spent the night ' or ' Do you think you swallowed. ' tended to ignore their comments, but this time I went to his surprise, and when he asked what he thought, he swallowed a particular girl, he replied, ' Why not? All good girls, and also would be a waste if they do not. ' Everyone seemed fantasti surprised by my comments taken, but soon warmed to the subject, asking if I was a good girl, I replied saying they fantasti would have to know. I think there was some interest in them,began to comment more suggestive, she asks me if I have a daughter to think this or that, or what is a girl, etc. fantasti It all seemed innocent enough, but I always found, I showed how my nipples under my T'Shirt thin, a point not lost on Dave, on the fly to get drinks, I asked if I liked the conversation, I said it was just a little fun until he saw my boobs directly and said it looked as if it were me. I could not hide my shame or my nipples, which reacts much more difficult due to my regret, however, Dave joy, laughed as he was leaving to join me in the bright red juice. returned to the fantasti table to be greeted with a wry smile, he could not get away from this and confronts her in the head, I told them I had heard of me in the shower, and I thought I had more respect for I told myself then, were all mouth and no one wanted to know tUrn on a girl if I ever had the chance. This awoke feeling very macho and very soon heated discussion about men and women. I apologize and I made him promise to me as an equal, not as a girl who is there for them to try to have fun. They agreed, but with one condition, that if fantasti any of them, do what I wanted to try, I was confused, but said Dave, who must use their showers and changing rooms, I could not believe my ears but I had relied on a corner, and I agreed, but only under the condition. when they reach our target of 6. 30 times, which all struck on this issue. spent the next few weeks, training and fun were together, which came into his jokes and put them on some of the secrets of girls, who were very interested in this topic. It was faster and faster until one day they all went out and we parted from our goal of 6. 30 to 6. 28 was more than in 2000. We were all very excited and jokingsaving water and our teams, we went to the gymn and has some warm- down, as I said in the locker room reminded everyone in my path, then Dave me of our ' deal' was. I do not think that would take out and said so, but insisted that a deal is a deal. I reluctantly agreed, but only on condition that it remains in full kit! They said they would, and I went to my dressing room to gather my things, I could not help, my nipples had become hard and my pussy was so wet, have become ever. I tried to stop me, but it made me worse. I wore my shirt rowing lycra one-piece, which left little to the imagination, considering that I'm in a sports bra and g'string and nothing else! I decided to get my sports bra, and when black and is likely to appear when my shirt fantasti wet, the better to show as little as possible, I fantasti was in my g'string. went to the boys locker room, the door opened and I had the chance to listen in the showerI fantasti walked slowly and looked into the showers, I was relieved to see that all the clothes, although they had rolled their jerseys and BOD showed their superior, I had no problem with that. made room for me and soon we were all showering together, once we got into the melee, and mocked them as they have done for fantasti me. I soon realized it was wet, my shirt was almost transparent, but I had never showered in it before, how would I know? ? ? My boobs and my g'string he clearly stated, I must have looked like a wet entry 't shirt contest ! I've tried to hide it against the wall, but to no avail, because I take the double of soap, I know, I know. I could not help noticing Dave was also very excited, the bulge in the meantime had seen more than a bump, and sported a very hard, which quickly disappears when I got up, but I had not noticed. fantasti This appeared to his mark, he began making suggestive comments about me, a 'good girl ' who only make things worse for me than my nipples began to harden again, David fantasti soon realized, and I suggested it was a good girl and I admit it. The discussion became more and more suggestive to ask what he had heard a few weeks ago they said about me and if I moved. There was no way to hide what they had done to me as it was directly in front of them, Dave then came to me and whispered that he bets, I would like to touch his penis, how right he was, I I was knee deep there and took it in his mouth, before them all! I tried to stay calm as I could, I said I was out, I was still covered with soap, I tried to wash for me in the flowing water while washing your fantasti hands of my body, which made things worse and my nipples were out at the moment and my face was red. Then I felt a hand on fantasti my back, fantasti I turned and looked behind me, Dave, he said the soap to wash my back, I was facing aFar from it, slowly moving his hands on my ass, rests on the tips of my legs, then she was moved between my legs, I knew I had to make it run and then move on, but could not because I was so excited he was, his fingers found there way into my shirt and I felt it begin to caress the inner thigh. then I felt myself go weak and my hands on the wall to calm down, I was out of my ass with Dave said he got behind me and I could feel his breath on my neck. Began my neck, kissing me again into madness, and went behind me, then felt his cock against me, are placed between the cheeks of my ass, I was screaming inside him to fuck me, hands came my shirt belt and slowly moved to suspend my tits, he moved to the waist, so I was naked from the waist up, I pushed my ass against his cock was unintentional, I wanted so bad for me . came around and bEgan to fondle my breasts and playing with my nipples, kissing and nibbling was his neck and all the fantasti while he felt his cock against my ass in motion. Since I knew there was no turning back, I had to be screwed up, that was a long time and I had to talk about something else, because for the first time on me. I reached around and began to stroke his cock, he immediately turned away from me and pulled me toward him, for the first time I was on the screen to select them all, I leaned against the wall, the shower was still water going over me, I started playing with my tits, my eyes never ceased to Dave, then leaned forward and began to draw my shirt full, he knelt before me and I slowly pulled g 'string. was naked !!!!!! I did not care, and when he put his face against my pussy, I was on fire, began to lick her pussy, which began at the bottom and worked his way was my slit up to my clit, he knew what he was doingIng ! He licked and nibbled on my clit, which made my knees soft, I immediately felt my legs look and began to give way, and two other fantasti guys that she thought I looked like Dave licked and bit me, I started to, the most intense orgasm of my life, David never stopped until he nearly had collapsed. He stood up and fantasti asked me again if it was a 'good girl', I said fantasti I would show him how good a girl I was, I fell to my knees and took his shirt, his cock came out and grabbed impatience, I leaned forward and licked the end, he moaned as I licked and teased him with my tongue. fantasti The other kids were watching closely, as he looked at me and smiled, then took a large part of Dave 's cock in my mouth as I could, I suck and lick it all worth it started, my head is going back and forth with my lips close each time the tail is pushed into me. In the meantime, the other boys had removed their clothes and they were all naked, their tailspride, as he sucked greedily saw Dave, Dave, I began to feel tense, his hands went to the back of my head and put it in the eager mouth, the first group went straight into my throat, remained in pumping and kept swallowing until it takes more than it ran down my chin and lips dripping on my tits, I take it before I had drowned, he had in his masturbation and had mouth fantasti open he had entered with him, I never had someone come in my mouth before and thought that maybe, as is now on its cover that others saw it coming. After he finished, he turned immediately to the other, Peter, once again renamed, the next was, grabbed my cock and took him straight to his mouth, he began to fuck my mouth, I knew that soon much in the sight of me sucking Dave owes too, has become almost immediately began to arrive, once again I have so much left in the mouth as I could before finish of my face and tits. So far I have prepared for anything, but has not been fucked is that I was desperate for me to the other two, I was not going to suck, he said, but she fuck with me, told me that my knees get like me, John, a pseudonym, behind me came into my pussy on a train, and I felt his cock fill me, Alan, yes another pseudonym, passed over me, turned, so that its tail was in my mouth. began to fuck me, my pussy as I met John 's cock and sucked Alan, I fantasti heard something, he said, could not act as if Alan had his hands on my head as he fucked my mouth, I felt John away from me, Alan had his cock in my mouth, then Dave said John, who was lying on the floor porch, I learned when I was, and I fell hard Johns pussy cock, my breasts were hanging over her face and licked my nipples, I have very sensitive and can only be achieved by playing with fantasti them. Then I felt another pair of hands on my ass, I looked around and saw Dave in the correct position to get behind me, I tried to say something, but Alan had been in front of me again and filled my mouth with his dick. Then I felt fingers probing my ass Dave, I knew what was coming, had never been fucked in the ass before, but my friend had tried before was not fantasti always hurt because of me. I could not have imagined myself in this position, when and how Dave 's fingers found fantasti their way inside me, fantasti I relaxed and let me continue to probe, then I felt the tip of fantasti its tail to push me, my ass so do not let the light and he pushed harder until he had his fantasti head in pain was incredible, but there was no way to stop it, I could not let him know that he was fantasti suffering when he was a mouthful of tail Alan . After a few takes me Dave, I was more crowded than ever, as was John 's cock in my pussy and Dave in my ass, not to mention Alan is in my mouth, poor Peterbeen feeling left out, although I could see there was another hard drive, and was himself masturbating. Both Dave fantasti and John got into a rhythm, and I already had on his back and pushed forward in the queue, the pain subsided and the feeling was that he had never felt before, or because, unfortunately, this is lasted for a few minutes before John was starting to push hard into me, I could feel her orgasm I realized, as shot his load deep into my vagina. This set of Dave, who went deep into me, and I felt her pull his cock while pumping his ass with his sperm. None of this was lost to fantasti Alan, who almost immediately fantasti began mouth with his, was shaken at this point, fill my body with another orgasm, Alan sat with my mouth come from the other two away from me to fill. When I was on the floor exhausted, Peter felt hands on me, apparently not yet fantasti over and the sight of me being fucked by his three friends to him anymore. I could not resist when I was so tired, I asked him what he wanted from me and he told me on my knees, fantasti I tried to do this and can help get the others as soon as Peter was behind me and started pushing his tail in my ass. did not care and could not have avoided if I wanted, I do not remember if I did, but I let it go ahead with it anyway. He grabbed her ass as the others saw that there was no pain just a feeling, full, for anyone who will understand in the ass, gets fucked, no pain and feels pretty good, also very hot, which makes seem a bit naughty. I think that's what makes it so appealing to me, is now one of my favorite position, in general, make sure my friends are happy with it, it's goodbye, or not. Peter soon began to arrive, although I liked, I had thrown another orgasm, I think I was too tired for this moment, he came to me and I had him and Dave to come in my ass. as hand emotion I could feel the exudation of me, I felt fantasti very sexy and I reached around and took some of my fingers, I fantasti brought my lips and licked it off, gave the boys a little joy to me to do again, I was suddenly raised most of his mother, both of my ass and pussy and she licked my fingers. As soon as I finished I was trying to get up but my legs were weak, Dave and Peter Tome, who helped change the area where I could sit down, I must have looked like a disaster, I still had in my coming face and tits, she sat beside me and seemed genuinely concerned that I had enjoyed and was not disturbed by events. I reassured her I would have enjoyed it and was amazed at how much I was surprised on. I remember crying at this point, because I was afraid to tell anyone what had happened. I re- assured that there have their word to keep it. I had to get a shower and was helped by David and Peter, because my legs were still weak, soapy ms, and made sure he had nothing of his sperm in my body. After completion they were dressed, I could not resist last suck all their cocks, but before us, although it's only work faster, I have them all stand before me fantasti in line, and has sucked each I have them even joke about that most fatest had delicious dick. Then we went to breakfast as usual, it was all happening in less than an hour, it was certainly something I'll never forget, although I repeat not one or two sessions with them and once there was a trio with David and Peter, after a party, but only once. Dave and I on a regular basis, as my passion for anal sex that suited both, until he has a girlfriend is no longer normal and seemed to say that shit. Or fantasti years later Peter met in a rowing regatta, which was still in hiding, and I gave him a blowjob, I have been introduced to his girlfriend, and I remember that was greeted with a kiss on the cheek, mayor taste of his friends cum in my mouth. Never heard of John again after college, I met Alan a few years later in London, where I work now became like Bi, which seemed apt as the one who never fuck with me, but think back I enjoyed rimming, so I was feeling to complain, very nice for anyone who fantasti has not had to do to them, they still keep in touch and met several times, usually when none of us has a partner and in dire need a shit, shit that he is now happy fantasti with me, but only in my ass, and suck for me, again, I like, as he really knows how fantasti a girl with her Please, language, so I guess that the two we are happy. Now I am a young 31 year old single woman who works in London, I share the apartment with a friend in London SW, she has a boyfriend, like to flirt with me, but I have not and will not do, that, Although once told me, I have a big ass and is so sad that no friend, becombre very suggestive and gave me the impression that they wanted to enjoy a little anal play. that Others who had a normal life, I have not spoiled in one more thing, except once, when I was two boys appeared on vacation in Greece, even though all I wanted was a blowjob, she anxious that their cocks sucked me enjoy sucking, letting him come to me, was after a party on the beach, and I just wore a short skirt and bikini top that my boobs are covered with his semen, which hours dedicated to cleaning, luckily I can now taste do not complain much; ) I am not involved in rowing, but I know how to play hockey, I think is very respectable, and only a young woman, very pleased with his life is'm not say no to a regular partner althoughI shit, things that I like, I will) Maybe one day I meet this person, until then I live with my secret, and I like think again and often give an orgasm, while I often fantasiesout the encounter with a stranger on the tube and sucks it shall be unlawful for anyone reading this, I'm 5'4 ', blonde and big tits yet. I tend to work wear, dresses or skirts and dress jacket, oh yes, I think the Richmond tube. Watch out, you never know. Oh and by the way we won our race. Par fantastia Ecrire un commentaire 0 - Voir le commentaire - Voir les 0 commentaires Ecrire un commentaire 0 - Voir le commentaire - Voir les 0 commentaires

Figures Abstract Most tumors arise from epithelial tissues, such as mammary glands and lobules, and their initiation is associated with the disruption of a finely defined epithelial architecture. Progression from intraductal to invasive tumors is related to genetic mutations that occur at a subcellular level but manifest themselves as functional and morphological changes at the cellular and tissue scales, respectively. Elevated proliferation and loss of epithelial polarization are the two most noticeable changes in cell phenotypes during this process. As a result, many three-dimensional cultures of tumorigenic clones show highly aberrant morphologies when compared to regular epithelial monolayers enclosing the hollow lumen (acini). In order to shed light on phenotypic changes associated with tumor cells, we applied the bio-mechanical IBCell model of normal epithelial morphogenesis quantitatively matched to data acquired from the non-tumorigenic human mammary cell line, MCF10A. We then used a high-throughput simulation study to reveal how modifications in model parameters influence changes in the simulated architecture. Three parameters have been considered in our study, which define cell sensitivity to proliferative, apoptotic and cell-ECM adhesive cues. By mapping experimental morphologies of four MCF10A-derived cell lines carrying different oncogenic mutations onto the model parameter space, we identified changes in cellular processes potentially underlying structural modifications of these mutants. As a case study, we focused on MCF10A cells expressing an oncogenic mutant HER2-YVMA to quantitatively assess changes in cell doubling time, cell apoptotic rate, and cell sensitivity to ECM accumulation when compared to the parental non-tumorigenic cell line. By mapping in vitro mutant morphologies onto in silico ones we have generated a means of linking the morphological and molecular scales via computational modeling. Thus, IBCell in combination with 3D acini cultures can form a computational/experimental platform for suggesting the relationship between the histopathology of neoplastic lesions and their underlying molecular defects. Author Summary The majority of tumors arise in epithelial tissues that form monolayers of tightly packed cells enclosing the inner ductal or lobular cavities. Epithelial tumors (carcinomas) are associated with a disruption of epithelial architecture, such as filling of the inner lumen in the early stages of cancer, or the distortion of the ductal structure and spreading to the surrounding stroma in the subsequent invasive stages of tumor. Non-tumorigenic epithelial cells grown in 3D in vitro cultures form regular monolayered spheroids with hollow lumen (acini, Fig. 1a) resembling the architecture of normal epithelial cysts. In contrast, tumor cells taken from patients' biopsies and grown in 3D culture acquire various morphologies, often loosing the epithelial-like architecture. How these molecular defects produce such abnormal morphologies remains an open issue. We propose here to use the bio-mechanical model of epithelial morphogenesis, IBCell, to quantitatively investigate the phenotypical changes that the epithelial cells need to obtain in order to produce the aberrant morphologies observable experimentally and clinically. IBCell in combination with 3D acini cultures can form a computational/experimental platform for suggesting the link between histopathology of early tumors and underlying molecular defects. Citation: Rejniak KA, Wang SE, Bryce NS, Chang H, Parvin B, et al. (2010) Linking Changes in Epithelial Morphogenesis to Cancer Mutations Using Computational Modeling. PLoS Comput Biol 6(8): e1000900. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900 Editor: Andrew D. McCulloch, University of California San Diego, United States of America Received: March 15, 2010; Accepted: July 23, 2010; Published: August NIH/NCI Integrative Cancer Biology Program (U54 CA113007). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. (a) 3D Matrigel culture of non-tumorigenic epithelial breast cell line MCF10A. The representative data at days: 4, 8, 10, 12 16 and 20 show central cross sections through the developing acini stained for cell nuclei (DAPI, blue), cell proliferation (Ki67, green) and cell apoptosis (caspase-3, red). Quantitative image analysis: (b) confocal microscopy images stained for DAPI, Ki67 and caspase-3 are (c) segmented using the BioSig software and (d) used to delineate cell nuclei. BioSig is used to identify the intensities (f) of red and green wavelengths in each nuclei that allows for reconstruction (e) of proliferative and apoptotic events in the stained acinus and for determination of counts of growing (green), dying (red) and the total number (blue) of cells during the whole course of the experiment (g). The computational IBCell model of acinar morphogenesis has been tuned with MCF10A data by constructing the search tree (h) that identifies several model parameters (tree branches) generating the desired structures and cell counts on the consecutive time points. (i) The evolution of growing (green), dying (red) and the total number of cells (black) arising during the MCF10A-tuned simulation; stars represent the average value from experimental data. (j) The simulated morphologies at the days corresponding to experimental data; nuclear staining: viable cells (blue), growing (green), dying (red); membrane receptor staining: adhesive receptors (green), growth sensors (blue), ECM receptors (pink-red-orange depending on ECM concentration), apical markers (cyan), death receptors (grey). (k) 2D morphocharts showing a collection of final acinar morphologies arising for different combinations of growth and death sensors thresholds; (l) 3D morphochart parameter space representing combinations of growth, death and ECM sensor thresholds that result in normal (red region), not-hollow (blue), degenerate (yellow) and non-stabilized (green) acini. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.g001 Introduction The environment in which tumor cells are growing in vivo can be very complex, and may include distinct stromal cells, normal or aberrant vasculature, inhomogeneous concentrations of nutrients, proteases or growth factors, gradients in interstitial pressure or non-uniform alignment and cross-linking of various fibrous proteins forming the extracellular matrix (ECM). Since the cells are exposed to these various and often contradictory microenvironmental cues, and moreover, they can actively participate in remodeling of the physical structure and chemical composition of the stroma, it is difficult to predict tumor progression and response to treatments. The change in cell phenotypic state (i.e., the initiation of cell proliferation or death, cell epithelial polarization or epithelial-mesenchymal transition) depends not only on cell intrinsic sensitivity to extrinsic cues from the surrounding microenvironment, but also on cell robustness and adaptability to microenvironmental conditions. Several in vivo techniques have been used to investigate interactions between individual cells and to test cell responses to various extrinsic cues in more controlled conditions. In particular in the three-dimensional (3D) culture systems cells display many features characteristic of their in vivo growth, but not observed when these cells are cultured in two-dimensional monolayers. Ideally, one would like to be able to make an initial assessment about the possible molecular changes or underlying mutations by examining the morphology of the multicellular structures grown from mutated or tumorigenic cells. Therefore, we have developed a computational model, IBCell (Immersed Boundary model of a Cell [1], [2]) that allows us to simulate the development of multicellular structures by focusing on cell mechano-biology and the interactions between individual cells and their microenvironment. IBCell is a general computational framework that has been previously used to model different tumor related phenomena, such as growing multiclonal colonies [3], various patterns of ductal carcinoma in situ [4], and formation of invasive cell cohorts [5]. The advantage of the IBCell model over other cell-based modeling approaches in which cells are represented either as point particles or as deformable cells composed of fixed size grid sites [6], [7], [8], [9] lies in the fact that the cells in our model are fully deformable. Cell geometry in IBCell is neither predefined nor grid-determined, but can vary dynamically due to interactions between individual cells. Moreover, the plasticity of cell shape is accompanied by dynamical changes in cell sensors/receptors configuration. Thus two neighboring cells or two phenotypically identical cells may have slightly different distributions of specific cell surface receptors leading to a natural cell-to-cell heterogeneity, which is similar to what actually happens in real cells. Therefore, IBCell model simulations represent more faithfully the emerging multicellular morphologies (such as multilayered structures [2], [10], epithelial acini [11], [12], or ductal carcinoma in situ [4]) than other computational models in which cells are modeled as points, squares, hexagons or spheres [6], [8], [9], [13], [14]. This makes the outcomes of IBCell simulations more easily comparable with experimental morphologies in both qualitative (shape) and quantitative (cell numbers) ways. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. We first summarize how IBCell has been adjusted to model the formation of epithelial acini by focusing on three cellular processes: cell proliferation, cell apoptotic death and ECM-density dependent inhibition of cell growth. Then we show how the model can be tuned, so the emerging acinar structures match qualitatively and quantitatively the experimental data collected from 3D culture of a non-tumorigenic breast cell line MCF10A [15]. We then use this MCF10A-tuned model to explore the 3D parameter subspace (the IBCell morphochart) corresponding to different non-stabilizing acinar mutants and compare these simulated structures with the experimentally observed morphologies of MCF10A-HER2 mutants. In addition, we analyze more closely the IBCell simulation reproducing the MCF10A-HER2-YVMA [16] mutant morphology to quantitatively assess the changes in model parameters when compared to the simulation reproducing the wild-type MCF10A acinus. This allows us to formulate hypotheses about the phenotypic changes that have occurred in the mutated cells and to potentially guide further experimentation. Results IBCell model of epithelial acini: assumptions and challenges The generic IBCell model has been adjusted to represent interactions between individual cells that collectively lead to the formation of hollow multicellular structures (acini) composed of a shell of epithelial cells enclosing a hollow lumen. As our experimental prototype, we used human epithelial breast cells, MCF10A, and followed their development in a 3D Matrigel culture as described in [15], [17], [18]. In particular, our goal was to capture several stages of MCF10A acini formation starting from a single cell and including self-organization into a multicellular cluster, emergence of inner and outer cell subpopulations, epithelial polarization of all outer cells as well as death of the inner cells and lumen formation. An important feature of this model is the use of cell surface receptors/sensors to define cell interactions and communication with the surrounding environment. The following five kinds of receptors/sensors are considered here: (1) cell-ECM receptors that are activated if the concentration of ECM in their vicinity exceeds a prescribed density threshold (similarly to actions of integrins [19]); (2) cell-cell adhesive receptors that define an adhesive link between two distinct cells located sufficiently close to one another (similarly to cadherins [20]); (3) cell apical markers [21] that emerge in an outer polarized cell by disassembling all existing cell-cell adhesive links with inner cells; (4) cell death receptors [22] that are created in an inner cell upon its detachment from the polarized cell or from another dying cell; (5) cell growth sensors that are used by the cell to sense free space in their vicinity that is necessary for the initiation and progression of cell growth – this is the assumed default state of all sensors when they are not engaged in the other processes listed above. The phenotypic state of each cell, i.e., its growth, death, senescence or epithelial polarization, is modulated by the percentage of receptors/sensors recruited to a particular process. For example, the host cell can grow only if it can sense sufficient space in its vicinity, which is defined by a percentage of growth sensors located on its surface. If this ratio is small because of an excess of cell-cell or cell-ECM adhesion receptors, the host cell is considered to be in contact inhibition. Similarly, the process of cell apoptotic death is initiated when the percentage of cell death receptors reaches a prescribed level. Thus by varying these sensor/receptor thresholds we can specify whether the cell is more sensitive or more resistant to a specific life process, such as cell death, growth, attachment to the ECM or contact inhibition. Certain assumptions of IBCell have proven to be necessary to generate the hollow monolayered structures [11], [12], but may be challenged experimentally in order to falsify model predictions. We assumed that in the developing acinar structures the orientation of dividing cells need to be quite tightly controlled. In our model, all outer cells divide orthogonal to their basal membrane domains (a symmetric division producing two basal daughter cells) in the initial stage of acinar formation, but the mode of cell division is switched in the later stages to asymmetric division that results in emergence of one basal and one luminal daughter cell. This assumption could be verified by systematic inspection of growing cells within the multicellular structure (for instance by using the live-cell confocal microscopy) in order to determine the axes of cell division at the various stages of acinar development. We have previously shown in [12] that improper cell divisions may lead to irregular, degenerate morphologies. We also assumed that stabilization of acinar structures is due to secretion and accumulation of ECM proteins along the membranes of all outer cells, which eventually leads to their growth arrest. Experimentally, one could either inhibit secretion of ECM proteins (i.e., laminin, collagen, elastin and/or fibronectin), or modify cell ECM receptors (i.e., integrins) response, and investigate whether the MCF10A cells will still form stable growth arrested structures. We discuss later in this paper how the changes in cell response to ECM cues leads to the emergence of invasive-like mutants. More details about the IBCell model can be found in [11], [12]. See also the Methods section for model equations. Quantitative modeling of epithelial acini We used an integrative approach (Fig. 1) combining in vitro experiments, confocal image analysis and quantification, and high throughput simulation studies to better understand the phenotypic and molecular changes in mutated cells in comparison to their parental non-tumorigenic cell line, MCF10A. The multicellular acini grown in the 3D Matrigel culture were collected every four days for 20 days and stained with nuclear marker, DAPI, and antibodies against cleaved caspase-3 and Ki-67, for apoptosis and proliferation, respectively (Fig. 1a). The confocal images of central acinar cross sections (Fig. 1b) were segmented (Fig. 1c) and cellular nuclei delineated (Fig. 1d) using the BioSig bioinformatics software (see Methods). Intensities of red (for caspase-3) and green (for Ki67) wavelengths (Fig. 1f) were determined in BioSig, and the proliferative and apoptotic events were reconstructed (Fig. 1e) in all considered samples. This allowed for determination of the counts of growing, dying and the total number of cells in all collected samples (Fig. 1g). The previously developed model of epithelial morphogenesis, IBCell [11], [12], has been used to simulate the formation of a generic epithelial acinar structure (as described in [11]), and subsequently tuned with experimental data for MCF10A. The tuning process requires construction of the search tree (Fig. 1d) that discriminates between model parameters showing promise to generate the desired structure as well as cell counts comparable with experimental data at each considered time point (see Methods) and those that lead to false multicellular structures (see Methods for a description and Fig.S1 for examples). The resulting simulated morphologies from the MCF10A-tuned IBCell model together with the evolution of growing, dying and the total number of cells matching the experimental data are shown in Figs. 1i–1j. By systematically varying model parameters in IBCell simulations we can obtain a spectrum of different final acinar morphologies (a morphochart). A typical chart constructed for parameters defining cell sensitivity to proliferating and apoptotic cues is shown in Fig. 1k. In this morphochart the normal hollow acini are produced by cells resistant to contact inhibition, but sensitive to apoptotic cues (lower left region); partially or fully filled acini arise from cells that are resistant to death signals (right region); and irregularly shaped acini emerge from cells that enter a growth arrest phase due to their sensitivity to contact inhibition (top region). By varying multiple model parameters one can create a multidimensional space of final acinar morphologies and group them according to their architecture. Fig. 1l shows four color-coded regions containing normal (red), filled (blue), irregular (yellow) and non-stabilized (green) acinar structures generated by IBCell. For more details on the subspace of normal and non-stabilized acini see Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, respectively. A 3D parameter space of the IBCell model defining cell sensitivity to proliferating, apoptotic and ECM-density cues. A light-red region corresponds to the subspace of model parameters that produce hollow acinar structures of various sizes and cell counts (i–v). A dark-red region defines a subspace of model parameters producing acini that quantitatively agree with experimental data from MCF10A samples. Two representative final morphologies and evolution curves of cell counts for the MCF10A-tuned model are shown in (i) and (ii). (iii) shows an acinar structure larger than experimentally observed MCF10A morphologies; the corresponding evolution curve reaches much larger number of cells than the experimental data. (iv) and (v) show much smaller final acini with evolution curves not reaching the level of experimental data. The solid lines represent simulated evolution curves of growing (green), dying (red) and the total number of cells (black); stars represent the average value from experimental data with vertical lines representing the standard deviation. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.g002 A 3D parameter space of the MCF10A-tuned model defining cell sensitivity to proliferating, apoptotic and ECM-density cues. A dark-red region represents a subspace of MCF10A-comparable acini. The green region defines a subspace of model parameters producing non-stabilized morphologies representing the potentially invasive mutations of the MCF10A baseline: (i) non-polarized structures showing no cell growth; (ii) non-stabilized structures with growing cells observed only on the outer rim; (iii) disorganized structures with multiple cells growing throughout the cell cluster, and with sporadic apoptotic events; (iv) non-stabilized structures with multiple proliferating and apoptotic events; (v) non-polarized but hollow structures with an outer rim containing multiple growing cells. Four genetic mutants of the MCF10A parental cell line shown in (I–IV) can be mapped onto the IBCell morphochart in a qualitative way by comparing morphologies of simulated (i–v) and experimental (I–IV) cell clusters. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.g003 3D IBCell morphocharts of epithelial acini We have previously shown [11], [12] that our IBCell model can simulate the development of normal acini starting from a single cell and ending with a structure composed of one layer of tightly packed epithelial cells enclosing the hollow lumen. However, our aim here is not only at qualitative (morphological) agreement with experimental data, but we also want to quantitatively recapitulate the dynamics of the emergent structures. Therefore, the generic model of epithelial morphogenesis has been tuned (as described in Methods) with quantitative experimental data from 3D cultures of MCF10A cells. For the tuning process we used counts of proliferating and apoptotic cells, together with information on the times and locations of these events (i.e., initially the proliferating cells are detectable in the whole cluster; at the later stages the growing cells are mostly confined to the outer layer; in contrast the dying cells are only located inside the cluster). The third model parameter that we used, corresponds to the ECM density and may be adjusted to fit experimental data on the density of ECM proteins, such as collagen, elastin, fibronectin or laminin. As a result of this tuning process we identified a set of model parameters that reproduced an acinar morphology in good quantitative agreement with the experimental cellular baseline (Fig. 1i–1j and video S1). This combination of model parameters was then utilized as the initial seed for a suite of simulations that examined the outcome of varying all three thresholds systematically to inspect the whole 3D parameter space (Fig. 2). A broad region in this parameter space can be identified (indicated by light red color) that comprise only of hollow acini of various areas, cell counts and luminal sizes (inserts in Fig. 2i–2v and Fig.S2). A smaller subregion (indicated by dark red color) corresponds to acini that agree quantitatively with the experimental data from the MCF10A cell line, i.e., the counts of viable, proliferating and apoptotic cells. Interestingly, the tuned region highlights that there is a degree of variability in the cellular traits and appears to contain two distinct acinar morphologies with slightly different cell counts and evolution curves that both fall within the ranges of MCF10A experimental measurements (Fig. 2i–2ii). The area outside the indicated regions contains multicellular morphologies that do not represent normal acinar structures, i.e., they are either distorted, or not hollow, or multilayered and not stabilized (yellow, blue and green regions in Fig. 1l, respectively; see also Fig. 3 and [11], [12], [23] for other examples). The light-red region specifies the range of acinar plasticity defined here as morphological variations in acinar structure arising as a result of developmental dynamics. Several epithelial systems have been successfully grown in 3D cultures showing variations in acinar sizes both within and across different cells lines (i.e., averaged diameters of prostate acini can reach: 140.8±31.0µm, and 149.8±24.3µm [24], canine kidney acini: 80–90µm [21], breast acini: 67.2±16.5µm and 93.9±19.5µm [15]). In our model such differences in acinar sizes, shapes and cell counts depend on the time at which the acinar structures become growth arrested and stabilized. We hypothesized that extracellular matrix produced by cells acts as an inhibitory mechanism on proliferation. That is, as the density of the matrix increases in the cell vicinity the sensors in contact with the ECM are converted to ECM sensors, thus decreasing the number of growth sensors and inhibiting cell growth. This could be considered biologically equivalent to the process of “matrix assembly”. Therefore, for low values of the ECM threshold the acini stabilize very early reaching only a few cells with a minimal inner lumen (Fig. 2v). With the increasing ECM threshold the acini grow larger and need more time and a higher density of accumulated ECM to become stabilized (compare inserts in Fig. 2iv and Fig. 2iii). Biologically, contact inhibition resembles this kind of behavior, and it is generally observed in 2D tissue culture (i.e., confluence). In a 3D setting, contact inhibition is likely to be more closely related to epithelial polarization, whereby plasma membranes become committed to basolateral and apical domains. Our model recapitulates this mechanism, however, further experiments are needed to confirm which ECM proteins may play a major role in this inhibitory mechanism for a given cell line. The dark-red region defines robustness of MCF10A-comparable acinar structures, i.e., their capability to retain the architecture of the hollow one-layered acini, and to remain in quantitative agreement with experimental data when cell sensors thresholds are varied. Interestingly, the model is less sensitive to death signals, with changes in the death threshold from 7.5% to 17.5% of all cell membrane sensors still resulting in a completely hollow luminal space. Similar effects have been observed experimentally when anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-2 or Bcl-XL were overexpressed in the MCF10A cells [17] causing cells to become more resistant to the initiation of the apoptotic process, but still resulting in formation of the hollow lumen. There is no quantitative data available to assess the relative differences between wild-type MCF10A cells and MCF10A-Bcl-2 or MCF10A-Bcl-XL cells in terms of their sensitivity to apoptotic cues, but these experiments show a trend similar to that seen in our simulations. The dark-red region of MCF10A-comparable acini in Fig. 2 contains two slightly different morphologies and corresponding evolution curves, both falling within the ranges of experimental measurements. These morphologies are robust with respect to slight variations in the cell proliferation threshold (changes of 15–20%, and 22.5–25% of all cell membrane sensors for ECM threshold of 12.5 and 15, respectively). Again, such variability in acinar sizes, shapes and cell counts is observed experimentally for MCF10A cells (Fig. 1g and [15]). 3D MCF10A-tuned morphocharts of acinar mutants By tuning the generic model with the experimental data we identified parameter vectors for which the model generates MCF10A-like structures. However, when the model parameters are chosen outside this range, the resulting structures are morphologically different from hollowed and monolayered acini. By inspecting the whole MCF10A-tuned morphochart we can identify regions in which our computational model produces altered morphologies. Of particular interest to us is the region of non-stabilized mutant structures (shown in green in Fig. 1l and in Fig. 3), as these morphologies represent the potentially invasive mutants of the non-tumorigenic epithelial baseline MCF10A. Out of the five different structures that emerged from our simulations, four can be qualitatively matched with morphologies from experimental mutants of MCF10A cells. We describe below the morphological similarities between experimental and simulated structures. It must be stressed, however, that further experiments are needed in order to validate or falsify model predictions by comparing model parameter vectors to experimental measurements. A non-polarized structure (Fig. 3i) showing no cell growth resembles the MCF10A-HER2 mutant (Fig. 3I) that at day 24 consists of a mass of cells with no detectable staining for proliferation or apoptosis. This simulation was run with low thresholds for both cell growth and cell ECM receptors, and a high threshold for cell death receptors (lower left corner of the mutant parameter space in Fig. 3). This suggests that both cell proliferation and apoptosis were upregulated in comparison to the parental non-tumorigenic cell line, but since the ECM threshold was downregulated all cells became growth-arrested either due to cell-cell adhesion (inner cells) or cell-ECM adhesion (outer cells). A non-stabilized structure with growing cells observed only on the outer rim (Fig. 3ii) is similar to the MCF10A-HER2-Bcl2 mutant (Fig. 3II) that at day 24 forms a solid cluster of cells with a few outer cells stained with Ki67 nuclear marker showing proliferating events. Matching computational morphologies were obtained when all three thresholds were chosen to be high, such that no cell death was detectable, and all inner cells were in contact inhibition, thus non-growing, but most outer cells have not reached the growth arrested state and therefore continued to proliferate (region ii in the parameter space in Fig. 3). A disorganized acinus with multiple cells growing throughout the cell cluster, and with sporadic apoptotic events (Fig. 3iii) resembles the MCF10A-HER2-YVMA mutant (Fig. 3III) that at day 24 forms an irregular mass of cells with numerous proliferative cells located both inside the cluster and on its outer rim. This simulation was run with high thresholds of ECM and apoptotic receptors (both upregulated in comparison to the parental cell line), but a low threshold of growth sensors resulting in frequent proliferations even in the center of the cluster due to diminished contact inhibition response (region iii in Fig. 3). A non-stabilized structure with multiple proliferating and apoptotic events (Fig. 3iv) is similar to the morphology of the MCF10A-HER2-E7 mutant (Fig. 3IV). In this case the proliferative and apoptotic thresholds were set to a lower level, resulting in numerous growing and dying cells in the simulated acinus. However, the ECM threshold was set high, such that the emerging structures did not reach the growth arrested state by day 24 in culture (right upper corner of the mutant region in Fig. 3). A non-polarized but hollow acinus with an outer rim containing multiple growing cells (Fig. 3v) was simulated by choosing lower values for all three cell receptors thresholds, resulting in a hollow inner lumen with a constantly growing rim of outer cells (right lower corner of the mutant region in Fig. 3). However, to our knowledge there is no experimental data matching this simulated morphology of a MCF10A mutant. These distinct acinar architectures simulated by our model and indicated in Fig. 3 and Fig. S3 arise for different combinations of all three receptor thresholds defining cell sensitivity to proliferative, apoptotic and ECM signals. By mapping various experimental morphologies of MCF10A genetic mutants onto the non-stabilized region of the MCF10A-tuned morphochart we can estimate the relative changes in the proliferation, death and ECM sensitivities between the mutated and the parental cell lines, i.e., we can indicate whether a certain cellular process is up- or down-regulated in comparison to the parental cell line. These back estimated values effectively link genetic mutations to cell life processes via the generated multicellular morphology and can be used to guide further experimentation. IBCell morphocharts case study: MCF10A-HER2-YVMA mutant To illustrate how the IBCell morphocharts can be employed to shed light on phenotypic differences between normal and mutated cells, we used the MCF10A-tuned model as a starting point and adjusted its parameters (following the tuning procedure described in the Methods section and the search tree depicted in Fig. 1h) to quantitatively match the experimental data collected from MCF10A-Her2-YVMA (called YVMA thereafter) cells carrying a constitutively active HER2 mutant. This allowed us to identify which aspects of the non-tumorigenic baseline needed to be changed in the computational model in order to simulate both the morphology of this specific mutant cell line and its developmental dynamics. Typical cross sections from the YVMA experimental data collected over a period of 24 days are shown in the top row of Fig. 4a, whereas the bottom row shows corresponding computational outcomes. The counts of proliferating (green), apoptotic (red) and the total number of cells (blue) from the experimental YVMAs (quantified using BioSig, see Methods) are shown in Fig. 4b and from the simulated structures in Fig. 4c. The table in Fig. 4d lists the set of model features that were set differently in simulations reproducing the MCF10A-like hollow acini and the non-polarized and non-stabilized multicellular clusters typical of YVMA mutants. (a) Representative central cross sections from experimental (above the time line) and simulated (below the time line) MCF10A-HER2-YVMA mutant at days: 4, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20 and 24, stained for cell nuclei (DAPI, blue), cell proliferation (Ki67, cyan) and cell apoptosis (caspase-3, red). (b) Evolution curves of proliferating (green), apoptotic (red) and the total number of cells (blue) collected from experimental data. (c) The corresponding evolution curves from computational simulations; stars represent the average value from experimental data with vertical lines showing standard deviations. (d) A set of model parameters that differ between simulations reproducing both experimental systems. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.g004 We assumed that both cell types, MCF10A and YVMA, have similar diameters of about 20µm. This was estimated from confocal images of the early developmental stages when both cell lines formed solid spheres of cells with no apoptotic events present. The average areas of the central cross sections through MCF10A clusters were measured to be 3490±810µm2 at day 4, and 7640±1550µm2 at day 8 with the average cell counts of 11.5±2 and 25.8±6.3, respectively; whereas the average areas of YVMA sections were 6180±1280µm2 at day 4 and 11450±2770µm2 at day 8 with cell counts of 20.2±4.2 and 40.7±10.7, respectively. In both cases the average cell diameter was about 19.5µm. This clearly highlights that the YVMA mutants grow larger and contain more cells than MCF10A acini. To achieve the matched computational results presented in Fig. 4 we first needed to match the number of YVMA cells at day 4, which are two times larger than the MCF10A samples from the same day. We identified model parameters that directly influence the duration of cell growth leading to the desired increase in cell number. As a result the effective doubling time in our simulations has been changed from 47.7±9.4 hours for MCF10A cells to 33.3±6.8 hours for YVMA cells. This is consistent with the reported MCF10A population doubling time of 48 hours [25], and with the 2- and 4-fold increase in YVMA cell number after 4 and 16 days, respectively, when compared to the parental MCF10A cells (see [16] as well as Fig. 1g and Fig. 4a). To achieve the desired cell counts and distributions of proliferating cells that match the YVMA experimental data at later stages we needed to release the constraints of cell contact inhibition and remove the restriction blocking the inner cells' receptors from sensing free luminal space. We have previously shown that removing these constraints may lead to complete repopulation of the empty lumen [12]. Also, the final morphologies of the YVMA mutant are much larger than the MCF10A acini, so to reach comparable sizes in our simulations we needed to increase the ECM sensors threshold to prevent or delay acini stabilization. This modification can be interpreted as making the computational YVMA cells less sensitive to ECM binding or ECM contact inhibition. Confocal images of YVMA clusters show very limited staining for caspase-3 (apoptotic marker) and no lumen formation even at later stages in contrast to MCF10A acini that became completely hollow at day 20. In fact, in both experimental systems the quantitative data did not show any significant apoptotic cell death (1–2 cells on average at days 12–20). This may be due to the fact that the apoptotic staining of caspase-3 is detectable only for a few hours and only at the later stages of cell apoptotic death, whereas the experimental data was collected every 4 days. Alternatively, other forms of cell death, such as autophagy [26] or entosis [27] may be responsible for clearing the MCF10A lumen. To avoid formation of the luminal space we set the threshold for death sensors significantly higher in the YVMA simulations in comparison to MCF10A (Fig. 4d), and apoptotic cells were then seen to emerge sporadically (video S2). With these parameters our simulated results for both the total number of cells and the number of growing cells fall within the range of experimental measurements (Fig. 4c), and the distributions of proliferating and apoptotic cells also match the experimental samples (Fig. 4a). The MCF10A-HER2-YVMA tuned simulation of the IBCell model led to identification of changes in cell doubling time, lower sensitivity to contact inhibition, modifications in ECM-dependent inhibition of cell proliferation and luminal space promotion of cell growth, that together resulted in the emergence of YVMA-like morphologies that quantitatively agreed with our experimental data. These model predictions (Fig. 4d) may be further investigated experimentally in order to confirm or rule out our findings. Discussion In this paper we presented an integrative approach combining in vitro experiments, confocal image analysis and quantification, and high throughput simulation studies to understand the relationship between phenotypic and molecular changes in certain mutated cells when compared with their parental non-tumorigenic cell line. We used the previously developed IBCell model of epithelial morphogenesis to simulate the formation of a generic acinar structure composed of a shell of tightly packed epithelial cells enclosing the hollow lumen. Subsequently, we tuned this model with quantitative experimental data collected from several samples of MCF10A cells grown in three-dimensional cultures. This allowed us to identify starting parameters that served as a seed for constructing a 3D morphochart, i.e., a collection of final morphologies produced by IBCell when the model parameters were varied systematically around these baseline values. Next we used this IBCell morphochart to identify regions in which our computational model produced structures that quantitatively agreed with MCF10A data, as well as those that were morphologically different from the hollow monolayered acini. We then mapped morphologies of four MCF10A mutants onto the IBCell morphochart to identify the cell phenotypic changes in terms of three cellular processes: proliferation, apoptosis, and ECM-dependent growth inhibition, potentially underlying these mutants. Finally, we examined more closely one specific mutant, i.e., MCF10A-HER2-YVMA, and adjusted MCF10A-tuned model to quantitatively match the YVMA data. This led us to identify the up- and down-regulated cellular processes responsible for observed qualitative and quantitative changes. These computational findings need to be examined experimentally, however, this is beyond the scope of this paper. It is often a major experimental challenge to acquire certain quantitative data from 3D culture systems, particularly at the cellular scale. Our IBCell model has allowed us to acquire a range of quantitative measurements in terms of both individual cellular phenotypes and the whole cluster morphology. Analysis of these measurements revealed that the time of cell growth depends on what fraction of cell surface is exposed to external medium and is not in adhesive contact with other cells. Therefore, the first few cells of the acinus (that have only a few neighbors to adhere to) grow much faster than the cells at the later stages that have a well-developed adhesive neighborhood contributing to their growth arrest. Though the molecular details of contact inhibition are not entirely understood, it is believed that as the number of adherens junctions on the plasma membrane increases, proliferation decreases proportionally. In a 3D setting, contact inhibition is likely more closely related to epithelial polarization, whereby plasma membranes become committed to basolateral and apical domains. Our model recapitulates this mechanism. The IBCell model naturally links multicellular, cellular and molecular scales by allowing us to directly compare mutant and normal cell lines in terms of their phenotypic and morphological changes. Thus enabling a computational investigation of the impact that different cell phenotypes can have on the emerging multicellular structures they produce both as an end point and dynamically as they develop. This may also suggest ways to experimentally investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms. In the current implementation of IBCell we considered cell sensitivity to proliferative and apoptotic signals, cell contact inhibition and ECM-dependent inhibition of cell proliferation. However, other phenotypic characteristics can also be taken into consideration, such as the orientation of cell division, cell motility, response to metabolic factors or to various anti-cancer drugs. IBCell can easily integrate multiple cellular traits measured independently in different experimental settings. By using high throughput computational simulations and multidimensional IBCell-morphocharts we can map multiple cellular traits to their morphogenetic outcomes and identify combinations of model parameters that define subregions in IBCell-morphocharts corresponding to experimentally observed morphologies, and thus determine the common ranges of individually measurable traits for each morphological structure. It is worth to indicate that multiple, differently networked mechanisms, implemented in different ways can give rise to essentially the same phenomena (e.g. multicellular structures of distinct types), thus it is important to validate model findings with wet-lab experiments. By developing a method that maps mutant morphologies onto simulated ones we have generated a means of linking the morphological and molecular scales via computational modeling. High throughput simulation studies, with the systematically generated model parameter space can point to the altered cell-cell and cell-microenvironment interactions, as well as to changes in cell intrinsic sensitivity to the extrinsic cues. This in turn may guide further experimentation in order to dissect the underlying molecular mechanisms. This procedure of mapping changes in epithelial morphology to cellular phenotypes and to the underlying cancer mutations can also enable quantitative transformations of molecular to pathological findings and vice versa. IBCell in combination with 3D acini cultures can form a new computational/experimental platform for suggesting the link between histopathology of neoplastic lesions and underlying molecular defects. These computationally mapped values effectively link genetic mutations to cellular traits and can be used to guide further experimentation and to identify relationships between mutations and early cancer tissue lesions. Methods Experimental methods A human mammary non-tumorigenic epithelial cell line MCF10A and its four mutants expressing HER2, HER2-Bcl2 (HER2 and Bcl2), HER2-E7 (HER2 and HPV E7), HER2-YVMA (HER2 mutant containing a G776YVMA insertion in exon 20), respectively, were grown in 3D cultures by seeding on Growth Factor Reduced Matrigel (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA) in 8-well chamber slides. The developed multicellular acini were collected every four days for 20 days for the parent cell line MCF10A and MCF10A-HER2-YVMA, and at end of day 24th for HER2, HER2-Bcl2, HER2-E7 and HER2-YVMA. All samples were stained with nuclear marker, DAPI, and with antibodies against cleaved caspase-3 and Ki-67. Confocal analyses were performed with an inverted Zeiss LSM-510 confocal microscopy system (Zeiss, Germany). The images of central acinar cross sections were subsequently used to count the numbers of viable (DAPI-positive), proliferating (Ki67-positive) and apoptotic (caspase-3-positive) cells. This analysis was performed using the BioSig software (LBNL National Laboratory, Berkeley CA). Quantification of experimental samples using BioSig BioSig is a bioinformatics framework of integrated image acquisition, annotation, and hierarchical image abstraction to create a database that registers localization and intensity information about multiple targets along with positional references and morphological features [28], [29]. It was originally developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and is accessible through the worldwide web. The first step of this method includes transfer of raw, high-resolution images to the online BioSig bioinformatics repository. Using the nuclear marker DAPI as a guide for individual cells present in each acinar structure, images were segmented using a radial voting function [30]. Briefly, this technique includes constraining the solution to provide seeds corresponding to the nuclear regions of all cells, which are calculated based on fluorescence intensity and geometric constraints. Once these seeds are established, Voronoi tessellation provides the local neighborhood where each nucleus resides; this locality is then further partitioned based on its intensity distribution using level sets methods [31]. Additionally, Voronoi tessellation enables quantification of signal within and outside the nuclear regions. As a result, quantification of fluorescence signal (e.g., caspase-3, Ki67) becomes more accurate. These types of analyses are intended to capture inherent heterogeneity in cellular responses and to remove bias associated with user interactions. IBCell model equations The IBCell model is based on the Immersed Boundary Method [32], a fluid-dynamics framework suitable to model interactions between deformable elastic bodies (such as eukaryotic cells) and the viscous incompressible fluid (such as cell cytoplasm or the extracellular matrix). The cell structure consists of an elastic plasma membrane modeled as a network of linear springs that defines cell shape and encloses the fluid providing cell mass (Fig. 5c). These individual cells can interact with other cells and with the environment via a set of discrete membrane receptors/sensors located on the cell boundary (Fig. 5a). These sensors can be engaged in adhesion either with one of the neighboring cells or with the extracellular matrix, or can be used to sense the presence of other cells or the ECM in cell local vicinity. The host cell can initiate certain cell life processes, such as proliferation, division, apoptotic death or epithelial polarization, based on its membrane receptors/sensors configuration (a distribution of growth, death, apical, cell-cell and cell-ECM adhesion sensors, Fig. 5a). More precisely, cell growth is modeled by placing point sources and sinks around the cell boundary to model transport of fluid through the cell membrane (Fig. 5d), and once the cell area is doubled the contractile ring is formed by introducing springs between opposite points on the cell boundary that upon contraction split the cell into two daughters (Fig. 5e). Cell-cell adhesion is modelled by introducing a short liner spring between adhesive receptors on two neighboring cells (Fig. 5f). Cell epithelial polarity is acquired by developing three distinct membrane domains: basal, defined by cell membrane sensors contacting the external media; lateral, defined by cell sensors being in contact with other cells; and apical, facing the hollow lumen (Fig. 5b). Cell apoptotic death is modelled by placing point sinks and sources along the membrane of the whole cell to release fluid from the cell interior to the extracellular space. The IBCell model is fully deterministic (i.e., given the same starting parameters, such as numbers of cell membrane sensors and values of receptor thresholds), the model will produce the same morphological output. The IBCell model is governed by the following set of equations. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (a) Color-coded cell membrane receptors/sensors: growth sensors (blue), death receptors (grey), apical markers (cyan), ECM receptors (yellow), cell-cell adhesive receptors (green); Color-coded nuclear staining: nuclei of growing cells (green), nuclei of apoptotic cells (red), nuclei of viable cells (blue). (b) Color-coded representation of epithelially polarized cells containing three membrane domains: basal consisting of ECM receptors (yellow), lateral consisting of cell-cell adhesive receptors (green) and apical consisting of apical markers (cyan). (c) Forces exerted by an elastic cell membrane modeled as a collection of short liner springs. (d) Forces exerted by an expanding (growing) cell. (e) Contractile forces exerted by a dividing cell. (f) Adhesive forces exerted by two neighboring nearby cells. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.g005 In this system, Eq. (1) is the Navier-Stokes equation of a viscous incompressible fluid defined on the Cartesian grid , where is the fluid velocity, is the fluid pressure, is the fluid viscosity, is the fluid density, is the local fluid expansion, and is the external force density. Eq. (2) is the law of mass balance. Interactions between the fluid and the material points on cell boundaries (where is a material point index) and at point sources and sinks placed in the cell local microenvironment are defined in Eqs. (3)–-cell adhesion and from contractile forces splitting a cell during its division. The sources and sinks are chosen such that they balance around each cell separately. The kinetics of ECM proteins is defined along the cell boundaries and includes: constant secretion (at a rate ) along the cells' basal domains and its decay (at a rate ) around all cells' boundaries. More details about model implementation and computational complexity can be found in [2], [11]. Overall, each simulation reproducing a single acinar morphology takes about 20–40 hours of computational time on a standard single processor Mac Pro desktop computer. IBCell model tuning with experimental data The IBCell tuning process is based on fitting the simulated acinar structures and cell counts to experimental data and measurements collected at certain time points. This is done by constructing the search tree (Fig. 1h and Fig.S1) that discriminates between these model parameters that can generate the desired structure and cell counts at the consecutive time points, and those that lead to false morphologies. For example, in order to attain the desired number of cells at day 4, one of the following parameters may be modified: i) cell-cell adhesion may be reduced resulting in the increased number of growth receptors and subsequently in larger amounts of water pumped into the host cell; thus the total cell area will be doubled faster and the total number of cells will increase faster; ii) cell maturation time (i.e., time used by the host cell to rest after the mitotic division is completed) may be shortened; iii) cell doubling time may be reduced by choosing a larger fluid source strength for all growing cells; iv) the growth receptor threshold may be reduced that will require a smaller percentage of cell membrane receptors to be acuired to trigger the process of cell growth (for more details on implementation of cell life processes in IBCell see [2], [11]). The simulated results are then compared qualitatively and quantitatively to experimental data and these branches of the search tree which do not match with experiments are neglected in further analysis. In the case presented in Fig. 1h both peripheral branches (at the top and bottom of the search tree) will be cut as the number of cells in both branches is significantly different at day 4 than in the experimental data (compare Fig. 1a day 4, and Fig. 1h). It is worth noting that in the initial phase the most significant model parameters are those that result in comparable cell proliferation, whereas the parameters influencing cell apoptosis (f.e. dalay for the apical sensors emergence) are more important in matching the simulated and experimental data in the later stages of acinar development. A more detailed exapmle of constructing the parameter tree including the matching and false morphologies is presented in Figure S1. Supporting Information Figure S1. A scheme of model tuning. A scheme illustrating the process of model tuning with experimental data collected at the particular time points. A search parameters tree allows for discrimination between parameters showing promise to generate the desired structures and those that lead to false morphologies. The simulated results are systematically compared, qualitatively and quantitatively, to experimental data in order to prune (dashed arrow lines) these branches of the search tree that do not match. The simulation process starts with a single cell (Day 0 figure a), and several model parameters are selected in order to attain the desired number of cells and the multicellular structure at day 4. These branches of the search tree which do not match with experiments (i.e., both peripherial branches in figures a and d, Day 4) are neglected in further analysis. After fixing parameters for which the simulated acini agree with experimental ones, another parameters are inspected, and the simulations are run again from a single cell in order to compare the simulated results with the next time point. The search-and-simulation process is repeated until all time points are fitted. It is is worth noting that in the initial phase the most significant are these model parameters that result in comparable cell proliferation (f.e., strength of cell-cell adhesion, length of cell maturation time, strength of fluid sources, a threshold for growth receptors), whereas the parameters influencing cell apoptosis (f.e. delay for the apical sensors emergence) are more important in matching the simulated and experimental data in the later stages of acinar development. In the presented example, only two paths (a-b-b-b-…-a, and a-b-c-c-…-b at days 0, 4, 8, 12 and 20, respectively) lead to acinar morphologies comparable with experimental data (see also Fig. 2i and Fig. 2ii). All other paths are neglected since the computationally generated morphologies and cell counts do not match the experimentally collected data. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.s001 (2.11 MB TIF) Figure S2. A developmental sequence of five acinar morphologies. A sequence of consecutive stages in the development of five distinct acinar morphologies at days a) 0, b) 6, c) 12, d) 18, e) 24. The final acinar structures correspond to those shown in Fig. 2. Acinus i) and Acinus ii) correspond to structures that qualitatively and quantitatively agree with experimental data acquired from MCF10A cells. Three other structures have similar cell counts at day 6 (b), but they either grow too large (Acinus iii) or too small (Acinus iv and Acinus v). The five simulations differ only in three receptor thresholds for cell growth (G), death (D) and ECM (E) receptors emergence. The corresponding parameter vectors V = (G,D,E) are: Acinus i) V = (25%,10%,14.5), Acinus ii) V = (15%,12.5%,12), Acinus iii) V = (15%,12.5%,14.5), Acinus iv) V = (20%,17.5%,9.5), Acinus v) V = (15%,17.5%,7). Color-coded cell membrane receptors/sensors include: growth sensors (blue), death receptors (grey), apical markers (cyan), ECM receptors (yellow), cell-cell adhesive receptors (green). Color-coded nuclear staining includes: nuclei of viable cells (blue), nuclei of apoptotic cells (red). doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.s002 (2.71 MB TIF) Figure S3. A developmental sequence of five mutant morphologies. A sequence of consecutive stages in the development of five distinct mutant morphologies at days a) 0, b) 6, c) 12, d) 18, e) 24. The final mutant morphologies correspond to those shown in Fig. 3. The five simulations differ only in three receptor thresholds for cell growth (G), death (D) and ECM (E) receptors emergence. The corresponding parameter vectors V = (G,D,E) are: Mutant i) V = (0%,40%,12.5), Mutant ii) V = (5%,45%,12.5), Mutant iii) V = (0%,65%,12.5), Mutant iv) V = (10%,5%,12.5) and lumen promotion growth, Mutant v) V = (0%,5%,12.5). Intra- and intercellular elements are color-coded as in Fig. S2. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.s003 (2.68 MB TIF) Video S1. Development of an epithelial acinus. Development of an epithelial acinus tuned with MCF10A experimental data over the time corresponding to 20 days in culture. Left panel shows a developing morphology of the MCF10A acinus. Right panel shows the evolution of cell count curves matching the experimental data represented as stars with vertical bars denoting the standard deviation. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.s004 (0.47 MB AVI) Video S2. Development of an epithelial acinar mutant. Development of an epithelial acinar mutant tuned with MCF10A-HER2-YVMA experimental data over the time corresponding to 24 days in culture. Left panel shows a developing morphology of the mutant. Right panel shows the evolution of cell count curves matching the experimental data represented as stars with vertical bars denoting the standard deviation. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000900.s005 (4.58 MB AVI) Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: SEW NSB LE CLA AMW VQ. Performed the experiments: SEW NSB. Analyzed the data: KAR HC BP JJ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: BP JWG CLA AMW VQ. Wrote the paper: KAR VQ ARAA. Conceived and designed the computational model: KAR ARAA. Performed computational simulations: KAR. References - 1. Rejniak KA, Kliman HJ, Fauci LJ (2004) A computational model of the mechanics of growth of the villous throphoblast bilayer. Bull Math Biol 66(2): 199–232. - 2. 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Correction 11 Dec 2009: Kilian M, Poulsen K, Blomqvist T, Håvarstein LS, Bek-Thomsen M, et al. (2009) Correction: Evolution of Figures Abstract killers worldwide. Population genetic analysis of 118 strains, supported by demonstration of a distinct cell wall carbohydrate structure and competence pheromone sequence signature, shows that S. pneumoniae is one of several hundred evolutionary lineages forming a cluster separate from Streptococcus oralis and Streptococcus infantis. The remaining lineages of this distinct cluster are commensals previously collectively referred to as Streptococcus mitis and each represent separate species by traditional taxonomic standard. Virulence genes including the operon for capsule polysaccharide synthesis and genes encoding IgA1 protease, pneumolysin, and autolysin were randomly distributed among S. mitis lineages. Estimates of the evolutionary age of the lineages, the identical location of remnants of virulence genes in the genomes of commensal strains, the pattern of genome reductions, and the proportion of unique genes and their origin support the model that the entire cluster of S. pneumoniae, S. pseudopneumoniae, and S. mitis lineages evolved from pneumococcus-like bacteria presumably pathogenic to the common immediate ancestor of hominoids. During their adaptation to a commensal life style, most of the lineages gradually lost the majority of genes determining virulence and became genetically distinct due to sexual isolation in their respective hosts. Citation: Kilian M, Poulsen K, Blomqvist T, Håvarstein LS, Bek-Thomsen M, et al. (2008) Evolution of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Its Close Commensal Relatives. PLoS ONE 3(7): e2683. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683 Editor: Niyaz Ahmed, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, India Received: January 3, 2008; Accepted: June 18, 2008; Published: July 16, 2008 Copyright: © 2008 Kilian et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This research was financed by unconditional grants from the Carlsberg, Velux, and Karen Elise Jensen foundations, and from the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Aarhus. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Introduction Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA sequences of type strains of the more than 50 Streptococcus species reveal a clustering pattern that reflect their pathogenic potential and ecological preferences [1], [2]. One exception is the Mitis group, which contains one of the leading pathogens affecting mankind, Streptococcus pneumoniae, along with 11 species that are prototype commensals of the upper respiratory tract. S. pneumoniae is strikingly similar to the three commensal species Streptococcus mitis, Streptococcus oralis, and Streptococcus infantis often causing problems of identification in clinical microbiology laboratories [3]–[5]. Introduction of the species Streptococcus pseudopneumoniae [6] emphasized this problem. Properties that explain the pathogenic potential of S. pneumoniae include a polysaccharide capsule, IgA1 protease, pneumolysin, autolysin, and several surface-exposed proteins that mediate contact with components of host tissues and secretions [7]–[9]. Most members of the Mitis group of streptococci are naturally competent for genetic transformation and produce well-characterized competence pheromones (CSPs) and pheromone receptors [10], [11]. Accordingly, homologous recombination is believed to play a major role in the evolution of these bacteria, which is reflected in mosaic structures in gene sequences [12]–[15], and may have important implications for the circumscription of individual species [16], [17]. Expression by occasional isolates of the commensal species of proteins that are known to contribute to virulence in S. pneumoniae has been taken as evidence of horizontal gene transfer [3], [18]–[20]. Such data led Hakenbeck and coworkers [18] to suggest “a smooth transition” between these species. To what extend transitional forms are involved in occasionally reported cases of meningitis, septicemia, toxic-shock-like syndrome, and eye infections attributed to the otherwise commensal species is not known.. Results Phylogenetic Reconstruction Alignment of the sequences of the four housekeeping genes, ddl, gdh, rpoB, and sodA, obtained for 118 strains tentatively assigned to S. pneumoniae, S. mitis, S. oralis, and S. infantis plus eight sets of sequences extracted from S. pneumoniae genomes revealed a remarkable sequence polymorphism resulting in a total of 92 ddl alleles (mean distance 0.105±0.011), 99 gdh alleles (mean distance 0.111±0.009), 95 rpoB alleles (mean distance 0.045±0.005), and 94 sodA alleles (mean distance 0.053±0.006). Virtually all shared alleles were found among strains of S. pneumoniae. Identical sequences in all loci were found in some reference strains assigned to S. mitis (NCTC 8029/SK24, NCTC 8031/SK320, and ATCC 12398/SK319) and S. infantis (CCUG 25812 and CCUG 25857). Although listed as separate strains in the respective strain collection catalogues, they originate in the same laboratory and we assume that they represent the same isolate (NCTC 8031 is erroneously listed as Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis in the NCTC cataloque). As a consequence, shared ddl, gdh, rpoB, or sodA alleles among strains assigned to S. mitis, S. oralis, or S. infantis were virtually non-existent. The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in GenBank () under accession numbers EU797799-798270. A phylogenetic tree based on concatenated sequences (1716 bp) of ddl-gdh-rpoB-sodA showed three major monophyletic clusters supported by bootstrap values of 87 to 99 (Figure 1). One of the three clusters containing more than 50 deeply branching lineages included type strains of S. pneumoniae, S. pseudopneumoniae, and S. mitis (red cluster in Figure 1). Within this cluster the lineage containing the S. pneumoniae type strain branched off into a tight sub-cluster of 25 strains including eight strains represented by sequences extracted from S. pneumoniae genomes. With the exception of the lineage containing the S. pseudopneumoniae type strain and two other relatively close strains, virtually all of the remaining lineages consisted of only a single strain. We cannot exclude that the lack of branching of the S. mitis lineages compared to that of the S. pneumoniae lineage is a result of overrepresentation of disease-associated strains compared to the individual lineages of commensal non-pneumococcus isolates. We refer to the entire red cluster of 84 strains as the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster. The second cluster (blue cluster in Figure 1), likewise, comprised numerous deeply branching lineages one of which included the type strain of S. oralis. One of the subclusters (dark blue) of this cluster were composed of four strains previously referred to as “S. mitis biovar 2” [21], which clearly is more related to S. oralis than to S. mitis based on these data. The third very diffuse cluster (green cluster in Figure 1) included the type strain of S. infantis and several other reference collection strains received under that designation. S. pneumoniae strains within the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster is indicated by dark red lines (ruby), S. pseudoneumoniae strains within the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster are indicated by pink, and strains previously assigned to “S. mitis biovar 2” within the Oralis cluster are indicated by dark blue lines. The random presence of homologues of virulence factors usually associated with S. pneumoniae (cap locus, capsule synthesis operon; iga, IgA1 protease gene; lytA, autolysin gene; ply, pneumolysin gene) in the diverse population of Mitis lineages is illustrated. A red signature indicates presence of the virulence gene, and black signature indicates a PCR product size compatible with absence of the gene. Black squares with a red center indicate IgA1 protease activity but an amplicon size in support of lack of an iga gene in the context found in S. pneumoniae. No signature indicates lack of a PCR product presumably due to no match of the primers. The arrow indicates the hypothetical immediate common ancestor of the red cluster. The scale bar refers to genetic divergence as calculated by the MEGA software. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.g001 [22]. This structure was present in all 17 S. pneumoniae strains and, with 5 exceptions, in all other 57 strains of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster. Two of the 5 exceptional strains (SK598 and SK601) lacked the phosphocholine residue of the C-polysaccharide/group O antigen. We previously showed that ethanolamine substitutes for phosphocholine in such strains [23]. The remaining three strains showed evidence of phosphocholine but lacked the characteristic epitope of the backbone of C polysaccharide. While phosphocholine was a component also of the cell wall polysaccharide of all 28 strains of the Oralis cluster in agreement with previous observations [24], they all lacked the backbone characteristic of the C-polysaccharide/group O antigen. These observations provide further support for the two major clusters in Figure 1. Strains of the deeply branching “Infantis cluster” showed variable presence of the two epitopes. Sequence comparison of 16S rRNA genes has become a standard method for phylogenetic analysis [25]. Cluster analysis of a stretch of 439 to 449 nucleotides corresponding to positions 51 to 493 in the Escherichia coli 16S rRNA gene, which is the phylogenetically informative part of the 16S rRNA gene in streptococci, confirmed that the strains in Figure 1 are unrelated to the remaining species of Mitis group streptococci. However, analysis of 73 representatives of the strains included in Figure 1 failed to reveal clusters supported by significant bootstrap values (Figure S1). In agreement with previous observations [26] this is, in part, due to conservation of the 16S rRNA sequence within the Mitis group of streptococci. The genomes of the streptococci of this study harbor four copies of the rRNA operon. In four strains from the S. oralis cluster the initial 16S rRNA sequences were ambiguous. Sequencing of individual 16S rRNA genes in these strains revealed two distinct alleles closely similar to the S. oralis type strain and the S. mitis type strain, respectively (Figure S2). This intragenomic polymorphism, similar to that reported for occasional strains of other bacterial species [27], is direct evidence of homologous recombination between the two major clusters in Figure 1. The unequivocal affiliation of these four strains with rRNA gene polymorphisms with S. oralis in the ddl-gdh-rpoB-sodA tree (Figure 1), was supported by DNA-DNA hybridization (71.0% and 70.3% homology of SK100 and SK105 to the S. oralis type and 54.8% and 52.8% homology to the S. mitis type, respectively). Combined these data strongly suggest transfer of gene sequences from S. mitis to S. oralis. Theoretically, the presence of two pairs of identical sequences would either require two independent events of homologous recombination affecting two of the four gene copies or an aborted intragenomic repair/homogenization as a divergent copy resulting from a homologous recombination event is assumed to be corrected by a rapid intragenomic homogenization process [28]. Combined with equivocal clustering based on 16S rRNA sequences, these findings invalidate the use of 16S rRNA sequences for species differentiation in this part of the Mitis group of Streptococcus. Extensive ComC Polymorphism To obtain further comparative data on the genetic relationships and divergence within the clusters we determined the sequence of the competence-inducing peptide ComC of 66 selected strains. The amino acid sequences showed a remarkable diversity (Table S2). Two major pheromone types (pherotypes) have been described within natural populations of S. pneumoniae and a few additional pherotypes have been reported for occasional isolates [for review see ref. 33]. Remarkably, with few exceptions, each of the strains of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster, excluding S. pneumoniae, possessed a unique ComC sequence. Numerous distinct ComC sequences and pherotypes were also detected among strains of the S. oralis and S. infantis clusters. In spite of this significant polymorphism, a distinct signature sequence in the ComC leader peptide was observed for each of the three phylogenetic clusters (Table 1 and Table S1). It is assumed that the ComC leader sequence is recognized by the dedicated CSP transporter ComA, conceivably explaining why the leader is relatively conserved. Interestingly, one S. mitis strain (SK145) had a ComC leader sequence representing a chimera between typical S. mitis and S. oralis signatures, and one S. pneumoniae strain (SK676) had a ComC with a leader sequence signature identical to that of S. oralis strains (Table S1). Both of these aberrant sequences suggest a recombination event affecting the comC gene. Switching of CSP among strains of streptococci was previously reported [34]. Overall, these findings further support the clustering based on housekeeping gene sequences and underscore the significant genetic polymorphisms within the clusters. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.t001 Evidence of Limited Homologous Recombination between Clusters ddl, ComC sequences, and cell wall polysaccharide type was part of the S. mitis complex but in trees based on gdh, rpoB, and sodA sequences clustered with S. oralis. The remaining three strains were all part of the Infantis cluster and each had one or two loci (ddl and/or sodA) that were reminiscent of S. mitis or S. oralis. Interestingly, the tree strains in the lineage that included the S. pseudopneumoniae type had a sodA allele typical of S. pneumoniae whereas all other loci were typical of S. mitis. To further explore the extent of allelic exchange between recognized species we analyzed an overlapping 460 base pair (bp) stretch of our 124 gdh sequences and the 146 gdh alleles that have been detected among 2612 sequence types of S. pneumoniae (). Seven of the S. pneumoniae gdh alleles (gdh alleles 20, 40, 57, 94, 97, 107, and 117, represented in a total of 23 sequence types) clustered within the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster outside the S. pneumoniae lineage. None clustered with the Oralis and Infantis clusters. [35], which conceivably has become a barrier to efficient recombination between the Mitis and Oralis clusters with the exception of loci that contain highly conserved sequences such as the 16S rRNA gene. Using an identical strategy we previously demonstrated a significantly higher prevalence of recombination affecting clinical isolates of S. sanguinis (27%) and streptococci belonging to the Anginosus group (14%)[36]. Genetic Distances, DNA Homology and Taxonomic Inference The within-group genetic distance for the 25 strains of the S. pneumoniae cluster based on concatenated ddl-gdh-rpoB-sodA sequences was calculated to be 0.010±0.003 (Mean±standard error of the mean) closely similar to the value calculated on the basis of concatenated sequences of six loci (aroE, gdh, gki, recP, spi, xpt) in the 2612 recognized sequence types of S. pneumoniae (), i.e., 0.010±0.001, and similar to the distance that may be calculated for several other species of pathogenic bacteria for which comprehensive sequence data are available (not shown). In striking contrast, the corresponding values were 0.086±0.007 for the remaining part of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster, and 0.097±0.008 for the Oralis cluster. To evaluate to what extent the extensive sequence diversity among strains of the Mitis lineages was reflected in the overall level of DNA homology between strains we compared seven selected strains to the type strain of S. mitis (NCTC 12261). By tradition, DNA homology of more than 70% determined in a DNA-DNA hybridization assay is expected for two strains belonging to the same species [37]. In concordance with the significant sequence divergence only one of seven stains (SK138) of the Mitis lineages showed a hybridization value exceeding 70% (70.2%). The remaining strains showed hybridization values of 49.2 (SK612), 50.9 (SK667), 59.6 (SK596), 59.6 (SK319), 60.3 (NCTC 8029/SK24), and 67.1% (SK137) to the S. mitis type strain. These values indicate that the red cluster in Figure 1, which contains the type strains of the recognized species S. pneumoniae, S. pseudopneumoniae, and S. mitis, consists of a considerable number of separate evolutionary lineages most of which represent distinct species according to current taxonomic standards. No direct correlation between DNA-DNA hybridization values and sequence divergence in the four sequenced loci could be demonstrated indicating that sequence similarities at selected housekeeping gene loci are poor markers of the overall similarity revealed by DNA-DNA hybridization. Nevertheless, a crude estimate by rarefaction analysis based on the examined sample of isolates suggests that the existing number of species according to current criteria (≥70% hybridization) that would belong in the red cluster is several hundreds. The limited hybridization data available for S. oralis and S. infantis cluster strains do not allow conclusions as to the number of distinct taxa at the species level within those clusters. To estimate the evolutionary distance of S. pneumoniae strains and of strains in the remaining part of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster from a hypothetical immediate common ancestor we calculated the genetic distance of each strain from their common node identified by the Oralis cluster as an out-group in the tree (Arrow in Figure 1). The mean genetic distance of S. pneumoniae strains was 0.031±0.001 (Mean±Standard deviation) and the mean genetic distance of other strains of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster was 0.024±0.003. This difference is statistically highly significant (p<0.0001). Pneumococcus Virulence Gene Homologues in Commensal Relatives and Genome Reduction Capsule production is a crucial virulence factor of S. pneumoniae and is generally assumed to distinguish pathogenic pneumococci from commensal Mitis group streptococci by its ability to confer protection against host phagocytes. In addition to capsule production, the significance of the IgA1 protease, pneumolysin, autolysin, neuraminidase, and several surface proteins has been demonstrated in experimental pneumococcal infections [7], [38]–[40]. During our previous analysis of cell-wall associated polysaccharides of S. mitis we unexpectedly identified a second polysaccharide distinct from the group O antigen [22]. As this polysaccharide may be the equivalent of the capsular polysaccharide in S. pneumoniae we analyzed the annotated nearly finished genome sequence of the type strain of S. mitis (JCVI-CMR). An operon flanked by the genes dexB and aliA and structurally similar to the cap operon in S. pneumoniae [41] was identified. This equivalent of a cap operon in S. mitis NCTC 12261 is composed of 20 genes and spans 21,357 bp (Figure S3). Among the 90 recognized capsular serotypes of S. pneumoniae a cap operon size range of 10,337 bp to 30,298 bp located between dexB and aliA was reported [41], whereas in certain pneumococci lacking capsule expression a capN homologue in addition to one or two open reading frames corresponding to the ABC transporter aliB and a variable number of Box elements amounting to 5 to 7 kb are present between dexB and aliA [42]. To determine the presence of a similar cap operon at this location we used long range PCR amplification in an examination of all 76 strains of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster. The primers reported by Bentley et al. [41] surprisingly did not amplify a product even in the S. pneumoniae strains except for strain TIGR4, which was included as a control. The alternative primer set subsequently designed for this study resulted in an amplicon from 8 strains (supplemented by 8 genome sequences) of S. pneumoniae and from 28 of the remaining 59 strains of the cluster. Fourteen of the non-pneumococcus amplicons were larger than 15 kb (the lower limit for cap operons in S. pneumoniae is 10 kb), and 13 were 5 to 7.5 kb (similar to non-encapsulated S. pneumoniae). Amplicons smaller than 6 kb obtained from some strains were shown by sequence analysis to be artifacts (Figure 2). It is conceivable that the 15–21 kb operons detected in half of the strains of the Mitis lineages (including the S. mitis type strain NCTC 12261 for which the sequence is available) encode proteins responsible for biosynthesis and transport of a capsular polysaccharide as exemplified by the one structurally identified in our previous study [22]. None of the three S. pseudopneumoniae had a cap operon of a size compatible with capsule expression. Among amplicons obtained from nine Oralis cluster strains three were suggestive of capsule expression. This is likely to represent the polysaccharide previously referred to as the coaggregation receptor carbohydrate in S. oralis by Cisar and his colleagues [43]. Lane 1, molecular weight marker (sizes in kb are shown to the left); lanes 2–6, S. pneumoniae strains TIGR4, SK848, SK851, SK856, and SK858; lanes 7 and 8, S. pseudopneumoniae strains SK1069 and SK674; lanes 9–12, S. mitis strains SK575, SK568, SK142, and T2186; lanes 13 and 14, S. oralis strains SK23 and SK141. (A) PCR with primers aliA and dexB flanking the cap gene cluster. Amplicons larger than 7 kb represent the area between the genes aliA and dexB, whereas partial sequencing and control PCRs revealed that the smaller ones in lanes 7–13 are artifacts due to amplification of different regions with the aliA primer alone. The S. pseudopneumoniae, S. mitis, and S. oralis strains were selected to illustrate these artifacts. (B) and (C) Amplicons resulting from PCR with primers flanking the ply-lytA region and the iga gene, respectively. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.g002 Comparison of the iga gene locus in publicly available S. pneumoniae genomes (TIGR4, R6, OXC141, INV104, INV200, and 23F) with the corresponding area of the S. mitis type strain NCTC 12261 genome () showed complete synteny in the area containing the iga gene in S. pneumoniae apart from the absent iga gene in S. mitis NCTC 12261 (in agreement with phenotypic differences) and an additional iga paralog (zmpD) in some strains (Figure 3). PCR amplification of the area in all 57 strains of Mitis lineages and 17 S. pneumoniae strains resulted in amplicons from 25 strains. The size of the amplicon (larger than 7 kb or smaller than 2 kb) was in complete agreement with presence or absence of the demonstrated IgA1 protease activity and supports the conclusion that the iga gene, when present, is found in the same context as in S. pneumoniae. In contrast, all of five examined strains from the Oralis cluster gave an amplicon of approximately 2 kb in spite of detectable IgA1 protease activity, suggesting that the iga gene is located elsewhere in the S. oralis genome. The map shows synteny apart from the absent iga gene in S. mitis NCTC 12261, in agreement with its lack of IgA1 protease activity, and apart from an additional iga paralog (zmpD) in some pneumococcus strains (INV200 and 23F) and in two strains of S. mitis [46]. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.g003 The pneumolysin gene (ply), once considered to be a defining property of S. pneumonieae, was recently demonstrated in occasional isolates of S. mitis [3], [47]. The primer pair used in the present study to detect ply and its neighboring gene lytA, which encodes autolysin, amplified a 15 kb fragment in S. pneumoniae strain TIGR4 and a 4.7 kb fragment from S. mitis strain SK142, of which the latter lacks these two virulence genes. The primers yielded a 15 kb amplicon in the majority of S. pneumoniae strains in accordance with presence of the ply-lytA region. Occasional absence of a PCR product was assumed to be due to lack of match of the primers. Most other strains of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster yielded a fragment of 4.7 or 4.0 kb indicating absence of the two genes. However, two of the S. pseudopneumoniae strains and three additional strains from the cluster yielded an amplicon compatible with the presence of both ply and lytA in the same region, and two strains gave an intermediate size amplicon (approximately 8 kb). Presence versus absence of the ply-lytA area was confirmed by Southern blotting using ply and lytA specific gene probes. This analysis demonstrated that the two strains yielding an intermediate size amplicon had the lytA gene but lacked ply. None of the strains in the Oralis and Infantis clusters showed evidence of ply or lytA except for the Mitis/Oralis hybrid strain (SK597), which possessed both. Results of phenotypic characterization of the strains demonstrated that many metabolic enzymes as well as optochin susceptibility and bile solubility present in S. pneumoniae were present in lower proportions of other pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster strains (Table S2). Likewise, Southern blot analysis showed that 30% of strains of Mitis lineages but none of the strains of the Oralis and Infantis clusters showed presence of the IS1381, which has been considered characteristic of S. pneumoniae. BoxB elements, which are present in multiple copies interspersed in S. pneumoniae genomes and are capable of modulating gene expression, and enhance the genome plasticity [48], were present in all other pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster strains, though yielding band of varying numbers and intensities as detected by Southern blotting. As shown in Figure 1 presence of cap, iga, ply, and lytA genes was randomly distributed in the strains belonging to the Mitis lineages of the red cluster in contrast to the S. pneumoniae in which we obtained evidence of their presence in the majority of strains. Combined with the identical location in the genome of these virulence genes, when present, the findings suggest a gradual loss of genes encoding virulence properties and selected metabolic enzymes, Box B elements, and IS1381 in strains of the Mitis lineages. Genome size of S. mitis strains S. pneumoniae strains. Genome comparison of S. pneumoniae and S. mitis Comparison of the genomes of S. pneumoniae strains TIGR4, R6, and G54 and the near finished genome of S. mitis NCTC 12261 using cut-off values of 40% amino acid sequence identity and ≥80% coverage of the query gene showed that 661, 457 and 451 proteins present in S. pneumoniae TIGR4, R6, and G54, respectively, were absent in the S. mitis type strain. When duplicate proteins shared by two or all three strains of S. pneumoniae and transposons, insertion sequences, and phage proteins were eliminated, a total of 765 proteins unique to S. pneumoniae relative to S. mitis remained. By comparison, 100 S. mitis proteins not present in any of the S. pneumoniae strains were identified when protein fragmentation due to the unfinished S. mitis genome was taken into account. Blast search of each set of unique proteins revealed that 83 of the 100 “unique proteins” in S. mitis had homologs in S. sanguinis, S. gordonii, S. agalactiae, S. thermophilus and other related streptococci and none lacked homologs in other bacteria. In contrast, a total of 384 (excluding puplicates, transposons, insertion sequences, and phage proteins) of the 765 “unique proteins” in S. pneumoniae lacked known homologs outside S. pneumoniae. The vast majority of these 384 proteins are of unknown function and conceivably are proteins representing an ancestral form of the pneumococcus. Discussion In spite of close genetic relationships, the pneumococcus and other members of the Mitis group of streptococci have strikingly different pathogenic potential. This difference is particularly striking for S. pneumoniae and S. mitis, which are genetically very closely related as evidenced by Figure 1. The goal of our phylogenetic analyses of this unique cluster of species was to elucidate the evolutionary processes that resulted in this situation. The key question was if gene acquisition or gene loss explains the distinct pathogenic potential of the two species and how the immediate common ancestor of S. pneumoniae and S. mitis looked like. The sequence analyses as well as overall genome comparisons by DNA-DNA hybridization performed in the present study surprisingly demonstrated that S. pneumoniae is but one of several hundred distinct phylogenetic lineages of a cluster of otherwise commensal streptococci known as S. mitis or S. pseudopneumoniae in which S. pneumoniae is no more genetically divergent from other members of the cluster than individual lineages of S. mitis are from each other. The name S. pseudopneumoniae was recently assigned to one of these lineages [6]. This finding emphasizes that the evolutionary processes that determined the distinct pathogenic potential of S. pneumoniae, S. pseudopneumoniae, and the individual lineages of S. mitis, took place subsequent to the existence of a common ancestor of the three species after separation from other Mitis group streptococci such as S. oralis and S. infantis. This is also supported by the finding that selected orthologous genes in the pneumococcus-pseudopneumoniae-mitis cluster and the S. oralis cluster, respectively, were located in different contexts in the genome. Theoretically, two different evolutionary scenarios may explain the difference in pathogenic potential. The phylogenetic tree in Figure 1 might imply that S. pneumoniae represents a lineage of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster that recently became a successful and rapidly expanding population. In this hypothetical scenario, its success and particular pathogenic potential could be a result of the successive import of virulence genes distributed among other lineages of the cluster as a result of individual acquisition from other sources. This scenario is in agreement with the general view that pathogenic bacteria evolve by acquisition of virulence properties [49]. However, several observations are in conflict with this explanation and support the opposite scenario, i.e., that, in recent times, commensal S. mitis lineages evolved from a pathogenic population as a result of loss of virulence and other genes. First, comparative analysis of three genomes of S. pneumoniae with that of the type strain of S. mitis showed significantly more proteins unique to three S. pneumoniae strains TIGR4, Rd, and G54 (N = 765) than to the S. mitis type strain (N = 100), although the latter figure conceivably is an underestimation due to the fact that only one genome sequence is available. The fact that 384 out of 765 unique S. pneumoniae proteins had no known homologs in other bacteria, strongly suggests an ancient origin of this lineage. In contrast, the finding that the majority of the significantly lower number of proteins unique to the S. mitis type strain relative to S. pneumoniae showed high homology to proteins in S. sanguinis, S. gordonii and other closely related streptococci and that none lacked homologs in other known bacteria suggest that the genes by which S. mitis differ from S. pneumoniae were acquired more recently, presumably independently by individual S. mitis lineages. Genome analysis of additional S. mitis strains is required to elucidate the latter hypothesis, but preliminary data obtained in our laboratory show distinct cell protein patterns of strains of S. mitis (not shown). Secondly, support for the more ancient origin of the S. pneumoniae lineage was obtained by estimating genetic distances in the phylogenetic tree in Figure 1. These estimates showed that strains of S. pneumoniae are significantly more distant (p<0.0001) than strains of the S. mitis lineages from their common node (Arrow in Figure 1). The conclusion that this difference is in support of the more ancient origin of S. pneumoniae implies the same rate of diversification in the two populations, which is not necessarily true. Due to its different epidemiological behavior, S. pneumoniae is more likely to meet a diversity of potential recombination partners than commensal streptococci, which largely remain associated with single lineages of hosts. Although one result of homologous recombination is diversification, the process at high frequency may also contribute to homogenization of the gene pool, which conceivably is more prevalent for genes under no selection for diversity as evidenced by the low number of alleles of housekeeping genes relative to the total number of sequence types in S. pneumoniae. This may mean that the longer evolutionary distance calculated for S. pneumoniae may represent an underestimation. Finally, the mosaic pattern of virulence-gene presence or absence in otherwise syntenic domains of the genomes of the commensal S. mitis lineages of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster, and the indirect evidence of gradual loss of selected phenotypic traits (Table S2) leading to significantly smaller genome size among the commensals support that gene loss has been and still may be an ongoing process in S. mitis lineages. [50], which according to recent calculations existed 6 to 7 million years ago [51]. The IgA1 subclass became the principal mediator of adaptive immunity in the upper respiratory tract, the only habitat of these bacteria, and presumably exerted a strong selection pressure upon them. While the pneumococcus lineage conserved the expression of both capsule production and IgA1 protease activity to ensure their ability to colonize in the presence of IgA1 antibodies [52], lineages evolving into a commensal life style with a more subtle relationship with the mucosal immune system and the host in general gradually lost both characters and achieved the colonization advantage of the capsule-deficient phenotype [53]. The frequent isolation of capsule-deficient pneumococci may be an indication of the same process going on within that lineage, but at a slower rate. This evolutionary model proposing that the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster arose from a pneumococcus-like organism pathogenic to the immediate ancestor of hominoids is consistent with our inability to isolate S. mitis-like bacteria from a range of mammals including old and new world monkeys, pigs, dogs, sheep, cattle, rats and mice (this study), while there is evidence of pneumococci causing infections in chimpanzees [54]. It is conceivable that the very small population of human individuals (100–1000) living some 120,000 years ago [55] represented a substantial bottleneck especially for pathogens like S. pneumoniae which, in contrast to commensals, induce immunity in their hosts resulting in discontinued colonization. The subsequent and very recent expansion of the human population facilitated the lineage-specific expansion of the pneumococcus population reflected in the phylogenetic tree in Figure 1. In contrast to S. pneumoniae, the remaining part of the pneumoniae-mitis-pseudopneumoniae cluster diversified into numerous distinct lineages, which, in parallel with adaptation to a commensal life style with the ensuing loss of virulence genes and genome reduction, became sexually isolated as a result of the primarily vertical spread of commensal streptococci [56]. Simple physical isolation, stringent requirements for sequence similarity between donor and recipient for efficient homologous recombination, possibly combined with a lack of purging of genotypes from within the population as a result of immune tolerance towards commensal bacteria, resulted in genetic divergence to a degree that renders the majority of the high number of lineages separate species by current taxonomic standards. Although the consequence of identical or dissimilar competence stimulating peptides (CSP) for the ability of pairs of streptococci to exchange gene sequences is yet unknown, it is possible that the virtually strain-specific CSPs of these commensal streptococci contribute to the genetic barrier between individual lineages. Several attempts have been made to identify crucial virulence factors of pneumococci in mouse models [38], [39]. Based on recognized relationships with humans, the results of the present study clearly demonstrate that capsule and IgA1 protease production in strains of some of the S. mitis lineages does not result in a pathogenic phenotype, suggesting that a multitude of properties working in concert make pneumococci pathogenic to man. The results of this study provide unique insight into the evolutionary history that resulted in genetically closely related streptococci with remarkably different pathogenic potential. Emergence of pathogenic bacteria is often explained by acquisition of key virulence genes by traditionally commensal species [49]. Our results suggest the opposite scenario, i.e., that commensal streptococci gradually evolved from a pathogen by genome reduction. The model finally provides an explanation to the difficulties often encountered in clinical microbiologic laboratories in differentiating S. pneumoniae and S. mitis and the findings challenge current definitions of bacterial species. Materials and Methods Bacterial strains and cultivation The core of this study included 118 strains of α-hemolytic streptococci tentatively assigned to the species S. pneumoniae, S. mitis, S. oralis, S. infantis, and S. pseudopneumoniae based on comprehensive phenotypic characterization as described [21]. The strains were own isolates from healthy individuals, referred isolated from clinical microbiology laboratories and originating from infections including bacteremia in neutropenic patients and patients with endocarditis, and selected strains from reference culture collections. Some of the referred clinical isolates were received as potential intermediary forms of S. pneumoniae and S. mitis or S. oralis. Nine were isolated from Japanese individuals and the remaining isolates were from Caucasians (Table S3). An additional seven type strains of other species in the Mitis group of streptococci were included in selected analyses (See Figure S1). The bacteria were cultivated on Todd Hewitt agar (Difco Laboratories, Detroit, Mich.) incubated for 2 days at 37°C in an anaerobic chamber. In an unsuccessful attempt to isolate S. mitis and S. oralis-like bacteria we sampled the buccal mucosa of a variety of mammals including new world monkeys, pigs, dogs, sheep, cattle, rats and mice. More than 100 isolates from Mitis salivarius agar cultures were phenotypically characterized as described [21] and sequencing of 16S rRNA was performed on selected strains. DNA sequencing Internal fragments of the housekeeping genes ddl, gdh, rpoB, and sodA and of the 16S rRNA genes were amplified by PCR and sequenced using primers listed in Table S1. Primers purchased from DNA Technology (Aarhus, Denmark) were designed on the basis of published nucleotide sequences (Table S1). For the PCR we used approximately 1 ng whole-cell DNA as template and Ready-To-Go PCR beads (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, Uppsala, Sweden). The temperature profile for the PCR was an initial denaturation at 94°C for 5 min, followed by 30 cycles at 94°C for 1 min, 60°C for 1 min, and 72°C for 2 min followed by a final extension at 72°C for 8 min. Amplicons were purified using Wizard Minicolumns (Promega, Madison, Wis.). Sequencing of both strands of the amplified fragments was achieved with the same primers and the Thermo Sequenase dye terminator cycle sequencing kit (Amersham Life Science, Cleveland, Ohio) with an Applied Biosystems PRISM 377 automated sequencer (Perkin-Elmer Applied Biosystems, Norwalk, Conn.). We previously used sequences of ddl, gdh, rpoB, and sodA in a phylogenetic analysis of a broader spectrum of Streptococcus species [43]. While the ranges of the rpoB (516 nt) and sodA (366 nt) sequences was identical to those used previously the closer mutual relationship of the species examined in the present study made it possible to design alternative primers for gdh and ddl that resulted in longer sequences. The ddl (288 nt) and gdh (546 nt) sequences were partially overlapping with the sequences used in the MLST scheme for S. pneumoniae: ddl, nucleotides 577–864 (this study) versus 463–903 (MLST), and gdh, nucleotides 802–1347 (this study) versus 840–1299 (ML [36] and cleaved in the agar plugs with 1 U of the intronic endonuclease I-CeuI (New England Biolabs, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom), which recognizes a sequence unique to 23S rRNA genes [61]. This was possible because the four rRNA operons were in the same orientation in the genome. The individual fragments were purified from the gel using a Qiagen Gel Extraction kit (Quiagen) and subjected to amplification and sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene as described above. ComC sequences were determined as described previously [10] using primers listed in Table 1. Briefly, the primers 2tArg2 and 2tGlu, which are complementary to tRNA genes flanking the comCDE operon, were used to PCR-amplify a stretch of approximately 2.7 kb. The primer NPARG, which complements a sequence in the Arg-tRNA gene downstream of the 2tArg2 primer, was used for sequencing of the comC gene with the initial amplicon as template. The nucleotide sequences were translated to peptide sequences. Phylogenetic analysis Phylogenetic and molecular evolutionary analyses were conducted using MEGA version 4.0 software [62]. The Minimum evolution algorithm was applied based on the Nucleotide Maximum Composite Likelihood analysis of all positions. Bootstrap analysis was based on 500 replicates. For comparison, analyses were also conducted with the Neighbor Joining algorithm. Detection of squences homologous to pneumococcus-associated virulence genes S. pneumoniae and in the unfinished S. mitis NCTC 12261 genome available at the J. Craig Venter Institute- Comprehensive Microbial Resource database (JCVI-CMR) (). For the long range PCR we used the Expand Long Template PCR System (Roche Molecular Biochemicals) with buffer 3, approximately 2 ng of whole-cell DNA as template, and 30 pmol of each primer in a 50 µl reaction volume. The thermal cycling program included denaturation for 2 min at 94°C, 30 cycles of 94°C for 10 sec, 55°C for 30 sec, and 68°C for 20 min, followed by an extension at 68°C for 10 min. The primers are listed in Table S4. For the cps gene cluster the two primers were based on conserved sequences in dexB (SP0342 in S. pneumoniae TIGR4) and aliA (SP0366 in S. pneumoniae TIGR4), which universally flank the cap operon in S. pneumoniae [41] and in S. mitis NCTC 12261 (JCVI-CMR). In addition, the oligonucleotides 1430 and 1402 described by Jiang et al. [63] were tried. For the iga gene area we used primers based on conserved sequences in a conserved hypothetical protein (SP1153 in S. pneumoniae TIGR4) and the ribonuclease H II gene (SP1156 in S. pneumoniae TIGR4), and for amplification of the ply-lytA region we used primers based on conserved sequences in the flanking recA (SP1940 in S. pneumoniae TIGR4) and the gene encoding an ABC transporter (SP1919 in S. pneumoniae TIGR4). Southern blot analysis Presence of homologous gene sequences was confirmed by Southern blot analysis. The gene-specific probes represented the genes ply, lytA, IS1381, and BoxB in S. pneumoniae strain NCTC 7465T. Approximately 10 µg genomic DNA was digested with MspI and EcoRI, respectively, according to the manufacturer's recommendations (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, IN). Following treatment with 0.05 µg RNAse (DNase free, Roche Molecular Biochemicals) restriction fragments were separated by electrophoresis in 1% agarose gels for 16 h at 2 V/cm in TAE buffer (0.04 M Tris/acetate, 2 mM EDTA, pH 8.0). The separated fragments were transferred and fixed onto NytranN nylon membranes (Schleicher & Schuell, Keene, N.H.) and hybridizations were performed as described [64] except that the filters were soaked in 1% Triton X-100 before prehybridization and that 0.1% sodium pyrophosphate was included in all hybridization buffers. The DNA fragments used for probes were prepared by cloning PCR products into plasmid vector pCRII using the TA-Cloning kit (R&D Systems Europe Ltd., Abingdon, England). For the PCR amplifications performed as described above we used whole-cell DNA from S. pneumoniae strain NCTC7465T as template and the primers listed in Table S4. The clonings were confirmed by partial DNA sequencing. The probe representing the gene encoding pneumolysin was a DNA fragment in the open reading frame encoding amino acids 8 to 449 as described by Walker et al. [65]. The probe for the lytA gene encoding the pneumococcal autolysin was a 624-bp fragment containing 181 nucleotides of the sequence upstream of the open reading frame and 443 nucleotides encoding the N-terminal part of the autolysin [66]. The probe representing insertion sequence IS1381 was a 746-bp fragment of the 846-bp segment [67]. The oligonucleotide used as probe for the BOX element was 5′-GTCAGTTCTATCTACAACCTCAAAACAGTGTTTTGA-3′ representing the consensus sequence of the BoxB subunit [68]. The plasmid DNA probes were labeled with α32P-dATP (Amersham International, Amersham, England) by the Random Primed Labeling Kit (Roche Molecular Biochemicals). Hybridization was at 60°C and the final post-hybridization wash was at 60°C in 1×SSC (0.15 M NaCl, 0.015 M Na-citrate, pH 7.0), 0.1% SDS, 0.1% sodium pyrophosphate. Hybridization with an oligonucleotide labeled with γ32P-ATP (Amersham International) using T4 polynucleotide kinase (Roche Molecular Biochemicals) was performed in 6×SSC at 50°C as was the wash. The same membranes were used for all hybridizations each time after stripping by soaking in boiling 1% SDS. The S. pneumoniae TIGR4 genome harbours 127 BOX elements [8]. In Southern blots, S. pneumoniae strains showed 15 to 20 bands of varying intensity hybridizing with the BoxB probe. Therefore, a semi-quantitative estimate of BoxB elements in the genomes of strains (values 0–5+) was based on the number and intensity of hybridizing bands visible in the Southern blots. DNA-DNA Hybridization DNA was isolated using a French pressure cell (Thermo Spectronic) and purified by chromatography on hydroxyapatite as described by Cashion et al. [69]. DNA-DNA hybridization was carried out at Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen Gmbh, Braunschweig, Germany as described by De Ley et al. [70], with the modifications described by Huss et al. [71] and Escara & Hutton [72], using a model 2600 spectrophotometer equipped with a model 2527-R thermo programmer and plotter (Gilford Instrument Laboratories). Phenotypic analyses IgA1 protease, neuraminidase, and other biochemical activities were demonstrated as previously described [21], [36]. Structure of cell wall polysaccharide [22]. Each strain was propagated in 10 ml of Todd/Hewitt broth and harvested by centrifugation. The bacterial pellet was suspended in 1 ml lysis buffer consisting of 0.05 M Hepes, pH 7.0, 0.1 M NaCl, 1 mM MgCl2, 100 U mutanolysin and 1 mg lysozyme per ml (Sigma, St. Louis, MI, USA). After incubation for 4 h at 37°C cell debris was removed by centrifugation. The supernatant constituted the cell wall extract that was analyzed by ELISA as described [22]. Coverage analysis Coverage of existing species within the S. mitis complex of species was determined by rarefaction analysis using the program Analytic Rarefaction 1.3, available at Genome size determination Approximate genome sizes were determined for 9 strains of S. mitis (SK135, SK142/NCTC 12261, SK321, SK322, SK597; SK599, SK605, SK609, SK675) and one strain of S. pseudopneumoniae (SK674) by PFGE analysis of whole-cell DNA digested with SmaI. Digested genomic DNA from S. pneumoniae TIGR4 served as size reference. Genome sizes of S. pneumoniae strains for which the complete genome sequences are available and for S. mitis NCTC12261, for which a near complete genome sequence is available, were extracted from the respective public databases. Comparative estimation of the number of unique genes Genomes of S. pneumoniae strains TIGR4, R6, and G54 and S. mitis NCTC 12261 were compared to identify genes that were unique to S. pneumoniae and S. mitis, respectively. The search was an NCBI blastp of each polypeptide against the non-redundant database. The search used an expectation value cutoff of 1e-10 and BLAST was instructed to report the top 1000 hits. The resulting HSPs were filtered to include only those that contributed to the best sum(p) for that particular query/target pair. These HSPs were aggregated to eliminate overlap, where necessary, and the average % Identity and % Coverage of the query molecule was calculated. These hits were then filtered at 40% identity and 80% coverage. The source organism for all hits was retrieved from the NCBI and hits were grouped by query protein and source organism to produce a list of organisms and the number of mitis/pneumo unique genes that hit each. Supporting Information Figure S1. (Figure 1) are indicated by green, Infantis cluster; ruby, S. pneumoniae, pink, S. pseudopneumoniae, red, S. mitis; blue, Oralis cluster. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.s001 (11.79 MB TIF) Figure S2. Phylogenetic tree constructed with the minimum evolution algorithm and based on partial sequences of individual 16S rRNA genes (439 to 449 nucleotides corresponding to positions 51 to 493 in the Escherichia coli 16S rRNA gene in 4 strains showing sequence polymorphism among the four individual rRNA operons labeled A through D. Sequences obtained for type strains of S. mitis and S. oralis are included for comparison. The numbering of nucleotides is according to the 16S rRNA gene of E. coli. Bootstrap values (%) are based on 1000 replicates. Gaps are indicated by “-” doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.s002 (2.36 MB TIF) Figure S3. Gene organization of the cap locus between dexB and aliA and flanking regions in S. mitis NCTC12261 compared with S. pneumoniae strains D39, G54, and TIGR4. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.s003 (26.13 MB TIF) Table S1. Amino acid sequence of competence stimulating peptides (CSPs) from strains of streptococci assigned to species according to the cluster analysis in Fig. 1 (SK strains) or as indicated in previously publications. Cluster-specific amino acid signatures within the leader sequence are summarized in Table 1. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.s004 (0.11 MB DOC) Table S2. Phenotypic properties and BoxB and insertion sequence elements among S. pneumoniae, S. pseudopneumoniae, and S. mitis strains illustrating genome reduction in S. mitis doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.s005 (0.04 MB DOC) Table S3. Strains analyzed in the study with site of isolation, origin, and previous designation. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002683.s006 (0.29 MB DOC) Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: MK KP. Performed the experiments: MK KP TB LSH MBT HT UBS. Analyzed the data: MK KP TB LSH MBT HT UBS. Wrote the paper: MK KP LSH UBS. References - 1. Kawamura Y, Hou XG,–408. - 2. 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Giveaway: Three $50 Amazon Gift Cards When a bunch of humor bloggers got together to write “I Just Want to Pee Alone ” last year, I very badly wanted to contribute, but they were collecting submissions right around the time Harlow was born. Between breastfeeding and preschooler wrangling, I just couldn’t hack it. I swore, if the same people ever got together to write Part Deux, I would not let the opportunity pass me by again. Well, the opportunity arose, and I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t take it. I blame my husband. This week, “I Just Want to Be Alone ” came out, a collection of essays from numerous humor bloggers all about their significant others, and try as I might, I could not write a story about Mike I found worthy. Well, I probably could have written a story, but I felt compelled to clear the topic with my husband and he veteoed every single one of them. “How about the time you moved into my apartment and set up your exact bedroom from your old apartment in the spare room next to my bedroom?” “Eh.” “What about the time I rejected your marriage proposal and made you do it over again later that same day?” “Does that really have to be in a book?” “How about the time you got stung by a sea urchin on vacation? “That’s wasn’t funny.” “I know! What about your unironic Tony Danza crush???!!!” “Say what you will but the man has more talent in his pinkie toe than you have in your entire body!!!!” “I’ve got it. I’ll write about the time Mazzy made a very unfortunate appearance in our bed while we—” “ABSOLUTELY NOT.” And there you have it. I had nothing. Tons of my blogger friends did have something to write though and I’ve spent the past few days reading essays like the time Karen Alpert (Baby Sideburns) found out her husband shit himself when he first met her mother. Or the time Rebecca Gallagher (Frugalista Blog) put her husband on bedtime duty and he put their baby to bed without a diaper. Or the time Allison Hart (Motherhood WTF?!) almost killed her husband for talking in his sleep. Or the time Suzanne Fleet (Toulouse & Tonic) gave her husband highlights that resembled a Calico cat. Or the time Nicole Leigh Shaw’s husband (Ninja Mom Blog) refused to cut their baby’s umbilical cord. Or the time Kim Fordeville (The Fordeville Diaries) rejoiced when her skinny husband gained ten pounds and had to go on a diet. Or the time Kim Bongiorno’s husband (Let Me Start By Saying) made her drag a pillowcase full of his travel souvenirs all around Paris. Or the time Nicole Knepper (Moms Who Drink and Swear) bet her husband a blowjob they were not out of mayonnaise. Jen from People I Want to Punch in the Throat is the blogger who puts these essay collections together and I could not be more in awe of her motivation and publishing abilities. I’m impressed with every writer in the book that they find time to write both books and blogs. I’m even more impressed they are still with their husbands after some of the stuff they shared. I mean, Karen Alpert’s husband took eight years to tell her the shit story and the second he did, she had it published. That, my friends, is a strong marriage. You can support some “super cool lady writers” and laugh your ass off at their relationship foibles by buying their book here . Here’s a fun game! If you had to write a funny a story about your husband, what would the topic be? “The time when…” I’m giving out three $50 Amazon gift cards to my three favorite answers. Winners will be announced next Friday! the time when…he went to a work training session with my thong stuck to the back of his fleece sweater..static cling probs… The time when we were dating and he proudly showed me his two closets, both with clothes on the floor of them, but one closet was clean and one closet was dirty. Early on in our marriage, my husband woke up and walked to the front of our apartment. I didn’t know what was going on, so I followed him. I watched him open the front closet, open the tool box, and pee in it. Startled, I asked him what the hell he was doing and it was then that the finally really woke up, and he started laughing hysterically, as did I. And yes, I made him clean it all up. The time when we were first becoming foster parents and I called him to let him know they had approved our license (he was driving home from the Governor’s Hurricane Conference in 80 MPH traffic) he got so panicked at the thought that we would actually become parents that he almost crashed his car. Then, about six days later I called him while he was at work and asked him to do me a favor – when he asked what the favor was, I replied “run to the store and get some newborn diapers – we’re getting a baby today in about two hours.” He went to the store so freaked out and confused that he just slid his hand behind the boxes of stuff and brought home fifteen kinds of diapers, four or five kinds of butt paste, and multiple types of other items too because he didn’t know what else to do. A day later when our new baby girl got the hiccups for the first time he wanted to have her life flighted to the hospital because he thought she was in distress. Now let me preface all of this by telling you he is literally a rocket scientist… like literally. Has degrees in mathematics and aerospace engineering, holds a JD from one of the top law schools in the country and is one paper away from being a PhD in Urban Planning. He’s a smart cookie… just not so smooth when it comes to the kid stuff! My husband and I went on an Alaskan cruise for our honeymoon. During the trip, we went up a mountain peak and I collected genuine Alaskan snow in a water bottle to take home as a souvenir. We went back to the ship and the next morning my snow was gone. My husband DRANK IT. Holy cow, this made me shoot a snot booger out!!! Awesomely funny! the time i was 4 months pregnant and volunteered to leave his brothers wedding reception and watch our nephew (son of the bride and groom who failed to hire a sitter for an 18 month old). i even had to skip the dinner portion, and then my husband didn’t come (or call) to check on me after the reception (see if i needed food or anything), nor did he even bring me a piece of cake! but instead went out with the rest of the guests drinking. yes, i promptly called him at the bar at 1am and demanded he find something for me to eat as i was starving and come back to our hotel. The time he woke me up at 4am by doing a dramatic face plant off of the bed onto our hardwood floors knocking the night stand over and busting his nose and mouth in the process. He was in the floor unconscious when I got to him. When I finally got him to answer my question “what are you doing?!” He responded “oh I just fell out of bed.” Turns out it wasn’t just falling out of bed…it was a sezuire. But, I’ll never forget how calm he was telling me he just fell. Our room looked like a battle scene. Or, the time he brought our 1st born newborn to me while I was taking a shower because he needed a diaper. I was so mad, but to his defense he never changed a diaper in his life. Lol. The time when he let me pop his massive nose zit and pulled out an ingrown hair that poked through the other side. Best…day…ever. He knows what I like. This is great. My husband is not a rocket scientist, but he reacts the same way. When it doubt, buy in bulk. Oh my, don’t even start me on buying in bulk… we have three kids, two of whom are still in diapers. He’s gone out an bought 10 boxes of jumbo size pampers in every size they conceivably can get into for the next two years. Never mind that one of them is about ready to potty train and the other one will be right behind her!!! Then we’ll be stuck with 45 boxed of 144 diapers!!! Sigh. Smart men and the dumb things they do! The time he asked me to cut his hair, and the length thing popped off the razor so I shaved a big bald square in the top of his head and he had to go to work as a high school teacher looking like that. There.are.no.words! The time when, at age 23, my husband realized he was circumcised. Not having any experience with anyone else’s…member, he had no idea what an “uncut” one actually looked like. He had just assumed, his whole life, that he was the proud owner of a foreskin. Somehow, I ended up being the one to inform him. It took him days to get over the loss of what he never knew he had been missing… The time I had to go to the hospital quickly with the birth of our 3rd child, I forgot my bag. So when the day came that I could go home I sent him out to buy me underwear, he came back with a beautiful little lacy number! How perfect with my big fat pad!! (not) The time we were on vacation together and he nearly ran a woman over because Hooters had given him the poops and he was rushing back to our rental for “home turf”. The time when my husband told me on our honeymoon that his greatest regret in life was not kissing my best friend. The time before we were married when I came down with stomach flu, and he was staying the night to take care of me. I asked him around 2am to get me some ice chips. He went all the way downstairs to get them, and brought them back up to me…in his cupped HANDS. I didn’t know what to do with them so I took them and shoved them all in my mouth. He’s always so discombobulated if abruptly woken up. The time when we were dating and he left his briefs at my house…being a good girlfriend I went to wash them and found SKID MARKS…he blamed it on playing soccer My husband has a real instant gratification complex. He just wants things done when he wants them done. He often has me cut his hair for him with the electric clippers because he is too hot and can’t wait until he can actually go to a hair dresser. Anyways, I often refuse to do it because he’s a giant baby and he gets all mad if I so much as pull one hair. On this particular occasion I wasn’t having it and I told him to shut up or cut his own damn hair. He said(screamed) “Fine!” and proceeded to bare razor a giant stripe up the back of his head. I have never laughed so hard in my life. I made him beg and plead for an hour before I relented and helped him fix it. I think he had to do poopy diaper duty for weeks and dishes for longer. Although, the best part of the punishment may have been that I made him let me take pictures for facebook first… We were dating; long distance so we spent a lot of time on the phone. During these long conversations he would occasionally pass gas (and I would simply ignore). Several months in he let loose a particularly musical number that, needless to say, was impossible to ignore due to my uncontrollable fits of laughter. I could feel his embarrassment through the phone as he realized I heard and had probably heard every other time too (and I confirmed for him). Fourteen years later and he still attempts to never pass gas in my presence. The first time I visited his home town, he took me to the diary farm he worked at all through high school, and proceeded to jump me in the hay loft. No big deal, I’m up for some spontaneous fun. But then he introduced me to his mother 20 minutes later. I still had hay stuck in my hair. Too bad you couldnt contribute, that bedroom story was hilarious! Mine: The time when he complained about a pain in his right side, thinking it was a kidney stone acting up. Doc gave him the bad news – his kidney stone is on his LEFT side; he was actually constipated. the time when… John, in an effort to keep the divorce amicable and moving forward, agreed to divide the rooms of furniture in half, instead of choosing a room full of furniture for each of them. Sooo…we had a beautiful entertainment center but no coffee table or end tables to match it. We had a dining room table but no china cabinet and a really lovely dresser and one night table but no bed (or 2nd night table) I felt like we had divided the children and there was a small lonely end table somewhere wondering what the hell had happened to his twin. funny stuff. The time when he sat on our brand new comforter and left skid marks on it! The time he called my dad to ask his blessing to marry me, and my dad hung up on him. (true story that I wanted to write about for the Be Alone book – but Hubs wouldn’t let me) The time when… We were just starting to go out and were talking about our teen crushes. He loved this teen pop singer from a famous 80s group (here in Mexico) and was and has always been his crush. I said, “well she isn’t the most good looking of the girls in the group”, and he said, “well I’ve never liked good looking girls”… gee thanks!!… I get that what he was trying to say is that looks don’t matter, but boy, was that a line to remember… 11 years after I still tease him about it the time when my drunk husband threw up all over our brand new pottery barn sheets. (that we had just received as a wedding gift). BTW the puke smelled like beer and hot dogs, but looked like pop corn. What an awesome 4 month anniversary gift. The time when we were first dating and we went to Hastings to rent movies to watch together. I came back to the register with Red Dawn and he was holding Pride and Prejudice. Think he was just trying to be cute and romantic? He knew every single line of the movie. OR the time when I came home early from work to find him in the living room dancing and singing along to a Kelly Clarkson cd at the top of his lungs. When I asked who the hell he was listening to he responded, “Oh my god, you don’t know?! She’s like the best! Here! Listen to this next song!…” I married a girl with a penis and a lumberjack beard but I love it. The time when we were on our honeymoon in Panama. We’re staying in this gorgeous little over-water bungalow, with our own private swimming area, and my new husband is hanging onto the ladder, half in the water, with a weird smile on your face. “What are you doing?” “I’m pooping.” His explanation? Apparently, the water in Panama off of our PRIVATE HONEYMOON BUNGALOW was the same temperature as his body, and it was almost physically impossible to resist pooping. In the water. Off of our private bungalow. On our honeymoon. I wish! My husband’s greatest joy is farting in front of me trying to make me laugh. The time when I gave birth to our older son and my husband was so overwhelmed (and on the verge of passing out) that he forgot to tell me whether the baby was a boy or girl. After seeing the look on my husband’s face, the midwife had to speak up and tell me it was a boy! I had just given birth to a 8 lb 10 oz baby, but there I was asking my husband if HE was okay, ordering him to sit down before he fainted and asking the nurses to get him juice. But: he was an amazing labor coach, so I guess he earned it. This is kind of a long story, but my husband and I were on our honeymoon, and he hates crowds and I don’t like small spaces. Nothing happened because the hotel he and I stayed at had itty bitty rooms, and an old lurch-your-stomach elevator (he gets motion sick). He elbowed me in the face when we were sleeping because the bed was on a slant, we couldn’t find anywhere to eat nearby that wasn’t crazy expensive, and saw all the sites in one day. We finally gave up and went home to finish our honeymoon after getting lost and driving around the same section of town for 2 hours, and only after the 7th time of taking the same series of turns did we find a route that wasn’t a one way only right turn. Talk about a crapshoot! The time when my husband and I were flying into Washington DC and the announcement had already been made that we were close enough that no one was allowed out of their seats until we landed. MY hubby chose that moment to toss his soda in my lap. it was COLD and WET and I jumped up. The attendants scrambled to get me to sit back down. Ultimately, they brought me a towel and had to replace my seat cushion, while I crouched to avoid being arrested for standing up. He will NEVER live that one down. (Loved getting off the plane with soaked pants, too.) There was the time when I finally met my husband’s (then boyfriend’s) parents. We had been dating for more than 6 months or so. I was feeling insecure…maybe he felt like they wouldn’t like me or maybe he wasn’t sure if he was serious enough about being with me to introduce me to his parents. They knew he was dating someone but he was apparently keeping all the “details” about me top secret from them. Turns out he was just super embarrassed to tell his parents my name was Buffy so he kept putting the introduction off. A Southern Jew named Buffy. He was sure they wouldn’t buy it. 10 years later, we’re married and I can count the times he’s actually called me by name. To him, he’s more comfortable with “babe.” Or there is the time when we had been dating for awhile and I was in a car accident. I was ok but very shaken up. I decided it was time to tell him how I felt about him. We sat down and I looked him in the eye and every sincerely that I was in love with him. he was quiet and then finally spoke: “I know” was all he said and then turned on the Yankees game. The time when it turned out my husband was the slutty pumpkin. The when when my husband and I were out buying couches and he swore that if we got BOTH couches at 30% off we would be getting such a deal! That deal being 60% off….No. That is not how math works. He continued to argue his point with the sales clerk and my brother and sister in law. His math skills are not one of the many reasons I married him. O M G. You got a double for the price of one. I’m jealous. The time when I was up in the middle of the night with our first newborn rocking him back to sleep and my husband almost fell out of the bed. He started talking in his sleep while rocking his arms back and forth, then woke up with a start as he almost fell on the ground. I asked him what happened and he seriously thought that he had just dropped the baby on the floor. I had to explain to him at least two times that what he thought happened was impossible because I was, in fact holding the baby. Our seven year old sleep walks and pees in random places. I’m substituting husband for boyfriend because my boyfriend has yet to get the hint to propose after 5 years and a child together… The time when my boyfriend and I were having sexy time (and I started my period in the midst of it) on top of a white duvet insert and he showed it off to his brothers like it was some sort of trophy… when it actually looked like he committed a murder. There was also the time when my boyfriend (a different boyfriend) was trying to show off his punching “skills” and accidentally decked me in the jaw. My head flung back and I almost fell to the floor. Needless to say, there was a lot of gift giving over the next few weeks. The time when my husband set up an elaborate “scam-baiting” operation where he would foil and waste the time of those ‘Nigerian princes’ who email unsuspecting victims–during the same first weeks that our daughter (first child) was born. It’s funny NOW. But not then. This story was highlighted on our local public radio station: My husband (boyfriend at the time) and I had only been living together for a few months. One night we were getting ready for bed and my husband was wearing a looser than normal pair of boxer briefs. He was just leaning over the dresser to look in the attached mirror and his manly part snuck out and got pinched in the top drawer of the dresser. The sound that erupted from his mouth was like nothing I could recreate. Once he opened the drawer and freed himself he took off running for the kitchen and immediately started chugging Crown Royal. I was dying laughing so hard tears were running down my face. I couldn’t even form coherent words to make sure he was ok. He survived the ordeal but was black and blue down there for months. I have nothing to add for publication… but I did just buy the book (I used to help write the women-tell-all sex column for Stuff magazine when I worked there, and my husband always says he’s so glad he met me after!) Oh my god! I would have killed him! Your husband, my husband, whoever! Where were his pants??? Background for context: I’m Asian-American and my ethnicity is full on Chinese on both sides. The time when my British husband told his parents that he was dating an American and that she was Asian “looking”. The time, while we were dating, that my husband told me he never washed a pot after cooking pasta in it or a knife after using it to slice bread because bread and pasta are “inherently clean.” There was the time when we were young and had no kids and took a ski trip to Switzerland. He decided to go down the other side of the mountain, alone, into France. And then the lifts closed for the night. He had no passport, no cash, no drivers license…only his lift ticket and a credit card. He finally made it back to us, 4 hours and a $600 cab ride later. Or maybe the time(s) my husband described our daughter’s birth — a relatively easy one after a challenging labor and c-section with our son — as “it was like she came out on a slip-n-slide!”, as if there hadn’t been any effort on my part (I assure you, there was). The time when my husband was playing with his EpiPen, trying to figure out how it worked (luckily he’s never had to actually use it in an emergency), and accidentally stabbed himself in the thumb with it. The adrenaline in such a concentrated area of the body caused his whole finger to go numb and I had to drive him to the emergency room to make sure “it wouldn’t fall off.” Spoiler alert: his thumb is fine. The time when I was late for work so I asked my husband to get the baby ready to bring to his parents house..and he changes her diaper and puts her in her car seat…I picked the car seat up and pee leaked out of it all over the floor and couch. He took her old diaper off but never put a new one on! (My husband is NOT a morning person and apparently I “rushed” him) How about “The time when my husband gave me a five-minute instructional speech about why our daughters’ beloved brand-new fancy swirly-straw cups could NOT go in the dishwasher lest they be ruined, then that same evening admitted to putting them in the dishwasher anyway, ruining the beloved brand-new fancy swirly-straw cups beyond repair, and sending me on a renegade after-bedtime run to Target to replace them before the girls noticed”? Oh, wait, that was LAST NIGHT. Somehow it seems much more appropriate when they are 7. LOL! Both being virgins when we wed, my husband and I went through a book about sex during our pre-marital counseling sessions; one chapter of the book had recommendations on what NOT to do that “first night”. My husband and I got a good laugh over one such recommendation : “Men, you may be proud of your size/girth/abilities, but chances are your virgin bride will be nervous and not as enraptured at looking at your penis. Do not proudly walk around the room naked and proceed to shake your manhood in her direction as it may frighten her a little.” (paraphrased) Now, this entry was written a little tongue in cheek, but we laughed like crazy over it. So what does my husband do, he likes to shake his manhood in my direction almost every time we have sex! It is still just as funny as ever! This has my husband written ALLLLLL over it! When my husband and I were first married I worked during the day and was taking nursing classes at night. I called him from work and told him to take out chicken to defrost for our dinner that night. I get home and I’m rushing to get to class, but I cant find my Anatomy and Physiology notes anywhere. I’m searching and searching until I notice that there’s a chicken defrosting on top of them. 4 months of detailed notes covered in water and chicken juice. I can laugh about it now, but back then I was pissed! O M G!!! The time my husband proposed to me. I was in pajamas, had not showered, and had no make up. He was wearing ratty jeans covered in paint with holes in them and a Bass Pro shop t shirt. He got down on a knee, infront of my parents, and proposed with these exact words…..”it’s been a long road (awkward pause)will you marry me?” Or…the first time I told my husband I was pregnant. He was about to leave town for business and I told him I thought I was pregnant. He immediately said I had to wait until he came home in 6 days to do a test. Yeah right. Like that was going to happen. I took two test the next morning that were both positive well before the three minutes were up. He called me on his lunch and I told him I was pregnant. He was pretty quiet, asked me if I was sure, and basically got off the phone. He called about an hour later saying he thought he was having a heart attack and was headed yo the hospital. After three houts at the Vanderbilt ER it wad confirmed he was having a severe panic attack. We had only been married for two and a half months and my mom had died about three weeks prior to this. He just couldn’t handle it all. The best part…..we found out two weeks later it was twins How about the time…My husband who is a submariner was packing his sea-bag to take down to the boat. He was unpacking in his rack with another dude. When out of my husbands bag falls a pair of our daughters tiny Hello Kitty underwear. They both just freeze and stare at it. My husband picks up the underwear and shoves it back in his bag. The other sailor says, Man I really hope you have kids. Also, the time my 1st daughter was born via csection after a 20 hour labor and my dr said its normal for her head to have a slight bump on it because of the labor and my husband said completely serious “Thats ok, we will just name her Gumby.” The dr looked taken back until my husband reassured her that we would not in fact be naming our 1st born child Gumby. The time when we were first married and he started talking in his sleep… I was half asleep and started tapping him telling him to shut up. And then he sat boot upright yelling. I thought some one was in our room and started screaming. He woke up and looked at me like I was the crazy one. I got up to get a drink of water and he followed me… which I didn’t realize until he gently touched my elbow. I jumped out of my skin again and punched him. I learned after that might to hit him hard if he starts to talk in his sleep, because he will eventually actually yell… And gentle tapping won’t work. Oh, I almost forgot! The time when, while we were dating, he stood up after dinner with his entire family and made a beautiful speech about how happy he was to have me in his life, and how his life was really changing for the better now that he had me in it. Except instead of saying my name, he kept saying his ex-wife’s name. You should have seen his brother-in-law waving his arms frantically in the air trying to get Jimmy to STOP! NOW!! …It’s okay. That blunder gave me ammo for yeeeaars. The time when we were dating and he tried to sneak up on me in the dark on his hands and knees, not yet knowing about my lightning fast reflexes. He said “Boo” and before he knew it, both of his eyesockets hat been jabbed by my fingertips. I nearly blinded him. He never tried scaring me again. The time when I was about 32 weeks pregnant with our second child and near tears because I felt like I had zero nice outfits to wear because I was so huge and he responded “well honey, you are pregnant not a super model.” I had to stop laughing before I could yell at him. He then pleaded with me to keep that to myself and would I pretty please not tell my mom and sisters what he said. I laughed even harder and then promptly called my sisters, my mom, and pretty much every female I’ve ever met. That time when…. my husband went all Flowers in the Attic on me while I was pregnant: My husband WANTED to trust my instincts and my ability to care for our baby while in the womb, but it was hard for him. Early on, it started with Walter’s pregnancy rules. No more high impact classes at the gym after 20 weeks- walking and prenatal yoga it was. Then, I wasn’t allow to take out or go near trash. Or animals. Or go bowling (and to clarify, not because of the physical activity part, but the potential germs in the shoes). The obscure rules kept mounting, and if it weren’t for basketball season distractions beginning in October, you would not be reading this right now as the bubble I would be living in would prevent me from typing. The rules came from a good place. He wanted to protect me and the baby. He was uncomfortable knowing how much was truly out of our control. But for what he knew he was incapable of doing, he relied on prenatal vitamins to do for him. He acted as if those tiny little capsules were the pregnancy equivalent of Super Mario invincibility stars. A few examples: Me: My heartburn is out of control today. Walter: You forgot to take a vitamin this weekend. What did you think would happen? Me, fighting through tears: I am just a little emotional today. The reality of this baby coming is really mounting. I’m scared of labor. Walter: I noticed your vitamins are getting low, you aren’t rationing are you? Me: I almost got hit crossing the road today. Walter, triumphantly: BUT you took your vitamin, didn’t you! Me: I think I’m feeling Braxton Hicks. It feels like period cramps. Walter: Don’t take this the wrong way, but you didn’t stop taking your vitamins or anything, did you? It was only after the baby was born and he dropped his obsessive concern for me like a 4 year old dropping their favorite baby doll after seeing the Anna and Kristoff super pack on the Target shelf. Now our daughter can deal with it for all eternity. Or how about: The time when his back went out and he was referred to an “Alternative Medicine Specialist/Chiropractor” out in the boonies. He had never been to a chiropractor, therefore, didn’t know the drill. When he returned he was VERY quiet until he asked me if chiropractors ALWAYS asked you to strip down and bend over. Turns out he had gone, without knowing, to a gay “specialist” who had called his partner in to the room for “assistance” as they had watched my husband do toe touches before his adjustment, which they also did together. On the up-side, his back WAS much better. That time when….I come home to find my husband, who refuses to see a doctor…ever, in the bathroom furiously wrapping his man parts in toilet paper because he decided to play surgeon and cut off a skin tag on his penis BY HIMSELF with a KITCHEN KNIFE. Or… When he broke out in hives every evening for 2 weeks out of nowhere. I threw away blankets, pillows, every live plant in the apartment, and steam cleaned the couch at 3 am. Nothing. Turns out he was ring shopping every day after work, then coming home so nervous and worked up he would break out in hives. Of course they stopped when he proposed to my complete surprise 2 weeks later. Ohhh I got another one! This one’s about my ex husband though. The time when I was in labor with our first child. The anesthesiologist was getting set up to get me an epidural. The nurse told my husband to stand in front of me and hold me. So I’m sitting up leaning against him about to get giant needle inserted into ME when he sees the needle. Starts swaying and faints. The nurse had to catch him and another nurse had to stand in his place. Then after already being in labor in the hospital for 8 hours he has breakfast sent up from the cafeteria and eats it right in front of me. I was starving and trying to bring his first born child into the world. He did better the second time around. i have another, the time before we got married that he decided to chug tequila at a party, and i made him sleep in the guest room and said ‘here’s a trash can right by the bed’ and left, only to hear him minutes later running down the hallway with his hand over his mouth while puke came out the sides and went everywhere. The time when right after I gave birth to our first baby my mother tells me what a beautiful baby we made and my husband says “Well, I did all the work”. To my mother. I…totally agree with your husband. I mean, I wash those things *eventually*… The time that my husband was holding our precious newborn baby girl on Christmas day while I was recording the bonding moment and she barfs in his mouth while I capture it all on camera. He was covered in puke but she was clean as can be. She was good like that as a baby! The sad part of the story, the day after Thanksgiving the next year, my computer crashed and took all my videos and pictures with it….but it can’t take it out of my memory. That time when shortly after we brought our first born home from the hospital and both were pretty sleep deprived..he reached over to the nightstand in the dark and grabbed what he THOUGHT was A & D ointment to put on his chapped lips and grabbed the tube of Desiten instead. I’m not sure what was more funny…his glow in the dark lips…or the wtf are you laughing at look he gave me. I still chuckle when I think about it and that was 37 years ago! How about the time my boyfriend was so drunk at a family barbeque, that he let his brother light roman candles out of his ass-crack? The time when my husband and I were in the middle of sexy shower time foreplay and, while handling himself and without realizing it, he starts humming the tune to Chloe’s Closet. Right before sealing the deal. We both started laughing so hard when we realized what tune it was, sexy time was over. And our daughter wonders why we find Chloe’s Closet so hilarious now. Talk about an ear worm! The time when my husband came home after the birth of our first child. Our mothers were both there and I stayed at the hospital with our son who had jaundice. Moms noticed my husband frantically searching for some thing and when they asked him what was wrong vibe said “I can’t find the baby’s shoes. How is he going to walk home without shoes?”vmhe They laughed so hard! The time when…my husband and I had only been dating a few months way back in high school. We were both in the marching band (he played trombone and I was in color guard) which is where we met. During one practice, I and my guard gal-pals were standing on the practice field sideline, the band was mid-routine and my husband ended up, during a pause, right in the front only a few feet from where I was standing. Well, of course I caught his eye and started giving him those smoldering come-hither looks and he got so caught up in what was going on between the two of us that when the whole band started marching backward he didn’t notice at all. He was left there standing all alone still staring at me while the whole rest of the band kept doing the routine. He only noticed when I and the rest of the color guard started giggling hysterically. One of my favorite early dating memories! I actually know someone who did the same thing! I The time when my husband lost me at the beach on our honeymoon and walked back to the hotel. No towels, no shirt, no keys. No id. He got the desk clerk to give him another door key and went to our room to wait for me. He flipped on the tv and got sucked into the OJ trial (we were married in ’95). Mean while, I’m on the beach building a heart shaped sand castle. Getting burned. THREE HOURS LATER I manage to convince a family on vacation that my new husband–who would never just LEAVE ME on the beach–has been eaten by sharks. They get me to maybe check the room before I alert the Coast Guard. Just in case. I return to the room, fried to a crisp, and find him watching the freakin’ OJ trial. It took three days before I could wear shoes again and I spent most of our honeymoon buck naked in the room with my hubby spritzing me with Solarcaine. It was not a good kind of naked. I hate freakin’ OJ. How about one more? That time when he took off without me on a TANDEM BIKE. My husband had to teach me how to ride a bike–I never learned as a kid–so we started riding bike paths with an old ’64 Schwinn Twin steel frame bike. Heavy as hell and only 5 gears. He always complained that I didn’t peddle enough. (This is important to know for later.) Since I was still fearful of the bike, I liked to get off and walk across this one bridge that only had a tiny little bike path on it. I felt safer on foot. So I get off, and he peddles across the bridge and waits for me on the other side. I caught up with him and fidgeted with the seat, stepped on the bike and stepped off because the seat was all wrong and I wanted to change something. He thinks I’ve gotten ON the bike and TAKES OFF. Naturally, I assume he’s just kidding with me and laugh. But he doesn’t turn around. Ever. So now I’m walking back to the car, completely pissed. Meanwhile, he’s peddling away, talking to me and thinking I’ve finally learned to peddle my weight. After 10-15 minutes he wonders why I’m not talking back, looks over his shoulder and I’M GONE. He’s gone a mile or two by this point, so he doesn’t even see me. He turned around and started peddling back like hell, checking all the ditches along the way because he’s convinced I’ve fallen off the bike. The time he was so drunk he “got lost” three times on his way to the bathroom and ended up puking in our closet instead! The time when my husband made ME call the pediatrician’s nurse on call after our 9 month old son bumped his head one evening. You know, to find out if we needed to take him in to the ER. My husband is an ER physician. Or the time he panicked at the top of a very tall roller coaster (“Get me off this thing!”) The time my husband cried when the Celtics lost the championship or the time I ran out of Palmer’s Cocoa Butter during my pregnancy because my husband liked the way it smelled and decided to use it as his body lotion because who cares if I got stretch marks The time my newlywed husband and I were getting intimate in our darkened bedroom, and her reached for the KY. After liberally applying it to himself, it took about 15 seconds for him to realize that he had not, in fact, grabbed the KY, but had found the Icy Hot instead. Talk about a mood killer… I have never tried so hard in my life to not laugh and it’s one of two times I have ever seen him cry in our 15 years together. The time I reminded my husband of something awesome we did in bed once and he did not remember. Not just didn’t remember, either – shook his head back and forth, emphatically denied it had ever happened. I would’ve believed him except I was there. Well, we WERE getting ready for some fun… Which did NOT happen when I looked down and saw that. the time when it was Valentine’s day and my husband forgot to get me anything so he quickly ran to our local pharmacy bought me a card and ran home and gave it to me, EXCEPT, the card said, “To my beautiful mom”, so he CROSSED OUT mom, and wrote underneath it “wife”. I felt so loved. The time my husband took our daughter out with no shoes on… Lucie: Dad, I have on Nun shoes. Husband: Yes, Dear. That’s nice. Lucie: Is it okay if I wear Nun shoes. Husband: I guess so, if you like them. Lucie: Yup. Them’s comfy. …Later in the parking lot… Husband: Oh! You have on NONE shoes…. Come here, I guess I have to carry you. Lucie: (smile) When I went in to labor with our first child I was very, VERY sick. It was 4 weeks before my due date and I was in total denial that our son was coming that day. My husband was running up and down the hallway packing stuff for the hospital. I couldn’t get off the toilet and realized I was going to throw up. I yelled at him to bring me something to throw up in. He ran down the hallway again, to the kitchen, and came back with a salad bowl. I looked up at him and, in all my You’re-going-to-have-a-baby-in-less-than-an-hour-and-you-don’t-know-it awesomeness I yelled, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! A SALAD BOWL?!?! have you EVER seen someone throw up in a SALAD BOWL?!?! The time when I told my husband I was about to jump off a bridge and he said to make sure it was high enough. Because it would really suck if I just broke my arm and leg or something…he thinks he is funny… I asked him to get me tampons and he got super plus, he had no clue what to get! the time when my first son was born, he was standing up by my shoulder, holding my hand, telling me i was doing a good job, etc. when my son entered the world, a gush of fluid (water and other, etc) came out too. somehow (to this day we still are not sure how or why), all the fluid ricochet’ed off the OB on showered my husbandr. his shirt and pants were drenched and he was stuck in those clothes for a few hours. somehow we didn’t think to bring a change of clothes for him! …The time my husband was not acting like himself. He was grumpy and when I finally got him to tell me what was wrong, he got very serious and said, “I think I have hemorrhoids.” He had convinced himself that he was dying and would have to go to the ER for a rectal exam. Luckily, I refrained from laughing and went to get the tube of preparation H from my purse. (I had just delivered our firstborn about three weeks prior and I knew all about the joys of hemorrhoids from my 18.5 hours of labor and over 2 hours of pushing which ended in an emergency c-section.) BUT THEN – he started telling me how much pain HE was in and how he couldn’t possibly do things like bathe the baby because it “just hurts too much to sit…” What?!?! There is NO WAY a hemorrhoid trumps a c-section. No freakin’ way! Men are such babies!!! The time when I left the kitchen faucet running so my hubby thought I was still washing dishes. Instead, I snuck up behind him while he was brushing his teeth. After spooking him, hubby turned into a faucet face and sprayed toothpaste all over the bathroom sink. That time when he fell asleep on the toilet at my parent’s house after a night of partying. This was after falling asleep on the toilet at the bar, and barfing down the side of my car on the drive home. It was very early in our relationship (I was still living with my parents during college) it’s a good thing I really liked him! The time when he put the baby to bed on the changing table. Oh there’s also the time when we were playing the wii and he decided to just play from his seat and ended up hitting me right in the nose with the controller. The time when he proposed and I missed it. We were engaged for a week and I didn’t even know it. He had just graduated from military basic training. while there he give his parents and I a tour of his dorm room and then handed us items from his locker that we wanted us to take back home. He handed me a clunky Air Force ring. A week later we on the phone and he was talking about his day and how he was telling his buddies about his fiance. I responded with who.. Your what? He said well I gave you that ring and I was on one knee when I did. I was like, well you didn’t really ask and well you were handing thing to your parent on one knee too. Sometimes the hands are all they’ve got, I guess. Once, on New Year’s Eve, I thought it might be bad luck not to finish my toasting drink. All we had to toast with was some cheap rice wine. I tried to down it quickly-it came back up. And the dear boy comes running over trying to catch the regurgitated wine barehanded…At least they tried, right?

With all the attention now focused on the upcoming 2014-15 NFL Playoffs, it appears that there is an inexistent room for miscalculations and mistakes prior to the start of this last stage of the season. That is why top teams seem unwilling to take unnecessary risks and thus challenge what most could perceive as a logical move. For the Green Bay Packers, this is the way to go. Green Bay is now planning to keep their top man on the field rested until he is able to step back and practice with the rest of the squad. Starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers will therefore remain off the field and will not practice until late this week. According to head coach Mike McCarthy, its all about the integrity of the player and how this is also directly linked with the performance of the entire team. Although rest seems pretty much as the only possible alternative, its not. Rodgers has been going through very meticulous therapy which has allowed him to gain some strength in his left calf. This injury took place during the last stage of the season when the Packers faced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, yet the player’s performance went right down after the game against the Detroit Lions. According to McCarthy, he doesn’t expect to see Rodgers jump back to the field until next Thursday. According to the player himself, the calf is recovering nicely, yet gradually. As far as how this injury will take a toll on his performance, Rodgers claims to not be worried and actually stated that he is calm about how this will turn out and about how the season finale will result for the Packers. The Sacramento Kings have not had the degree of success that they had anticipated for this current 2014-15 NBA season, yet the squad is still up for the challenge of turning this whole campaign upside-down. That is why the Cali squad was able to top its performance and finish the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves with a slight 110-107 away win at the Target Center in MN. For the Kings, two players stood out. Both Rudy Gay and Darren Collison topped the night with superior performances and together they were able to finish the night with 21 points each. Gay stated that the team is slowly recovering from a bad start and that they are encountering a better path tow more wins. DeMarcus Cousins finished with 19 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. Cousins stated that both teams played a pretty good game, but that this time the Kings were simply able to hold to the win up until the last moment of the game. Collison agreed with Cousins and added that the Kings have the potential to become a better squad. For Minnesota, every game leaves a slightly larger hint that their best move came from one of their top trade decisions this last pre-season. Despite having only accomplished 5 wins as a team, Andrew Wiggins continues to out-shadow the loss of Kevin Love and proved it last night with 27 points and 9 rebounds. Every year the National Football League leaves dozens of opportunities and slots open for honorable players who have proven to be amongst the top of the list and at edge of their performances. This time it was Houston Texans J.J. Watt who stole the shine of the media but not just for conquering a nomination and thus winning an award, but by unanimously owning the voting. And indeed, Watt was able to take all 50 ballots from media authorities all around the country to stand solely as the 2014 Associated Press All-Pro team recipient in his given position. Yet, many deviate from what they believe is the right position to support that a given player is poly-functional and can assume the role from different ends of the field. This is the case of Watt and even the player admitted to it. About 45 votes had Watt as the defensive end, making him an immediate first-team conqueror. However, 5 votes were handed in with Watt’s name as defensive tackle. This assured Watt a spot in both the first and second team nominations, making it to both with two different roles on the field. This according to Watt is what he actually aims to come across like. In other words, Watt admitted that a player can sometimes camouflage and vanish in the lines of another position. J.J. also stated that this is not the first time it happens and that some don’t even know what position he plays exactly. Although the votes allowed for some degree of ambiguity, Watt could not compete with New England Patriots’ Rob Gronkowski, who stole night, unanimously, as the top tight end. Just when a series of unfortunate seasons appeared to obscure Chicago’s bright past, the Bulls are defiantly challenging their late season performances to climb back to the top of the NBA. Now the Chicago squad was able to strike the Denver Nuggets and finish with a 106-101 home win at the United Center in Illinois. And it couldn’t be a bright night without a superb performance from behalf of one of Chicago’s own stars. Indeed, it was former NBA MVP Derrick Rose who was able to step it up at the end of the match and rally to a path of success. Rose didn’t lead, but finished with 17 points, 3 rebounds and 8 assists. Rose stated that this is the way the team needs to start playing in a consistent manner and that this is hopefully a look into a brighter future for the franchise and for the city as whole. Jimmy Butler did lead Chicago with 26 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists, followed by Pau Gasol with 17 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists. Chicago topped the night with their 23rd victory of the season. The Nuggets, on the other hand, were single-handed their 20th loss of this stage. Wilson Chandler finished the game with 22 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists, followed by Ty Lawson with 20 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists. Andreea Diaconu is a hot model from Romania who we haven’t featured in a while in our blog, and that is why we are now featuring a nice set of Andreea Diaconu Pictures from her latest Victoria’s Secret photoshoot… Andreea Diaconu (Facebook) Andreea Diaconu (Twitter) Andreea Diaconu (Models.com) Andreea Diaconu (Pinterest) Andreea Diaconu Pictures Denver Broncos Peyton Manning currently stands as one of the most important quarterbacks and players in the history of professional football. That is why Manning’s take in various related subjects has been held with a great credibility and trust. To some, Broncos offensive coordinator Adam Gase is not suited to become a professional NFL coach. To Manning, this is quite the contrary. And Manning assured that Gase would indeed make a hell of an NFL coach of he was ever to reach that stage in his career. It is no longer a rumor that Gase will meet with teams like the San Francisco 49ers, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Chicago Bears to determine what he will do next season. Given that this is his second year with the Broncos, that’s not bad at all for an offensive coordinator. Manning stated that last year a handful of teams reached out to him and obtain his take on Gase. Manning stated that in every occasion, he stood strong in favor of Adam and that there is no need for him to do that, as Gase’s work speaks for itself. Manning stated that all teams seemed to be highly impressed by Gase’s performance and work ethic and that they were looking for a man just like him. Last year, Gase was just one-step from being hired as the Cleveland Browns head coach. Still, by the time the Super Bowl was over, the Browns had hired Mike Pettine, as Gase had told the team he wanted to wait until the end of the season before he started any negotiation talks. This might be the case for Gase this year, yet his name now has a distinctive attractiveness that teams are now up to pursuing. For the Los Angeles Clippers, it was their 22nd win of the season. For the well-suited New York Knicks, it meant the 9th straight win of the season. The LA squad surpassed the Knicks with ease and ended last Wednesday night with a 99-78 home win at the Staples Center. According to LA fans, this is what they expect from their squad. J.J. Redick became the surprise of the night by nailing 20 points and 4 rebounds. Blake Griffin was able to add an extra 13 points, 7 rebounds and 11 assists, followed by DeAndre Jordan with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Redick stated that it was good game for him but also a good win for the squad. Griffin added that it’s good to see the team on the good track to pull in more wins and surprise everyone in the West coast. Griffin dared to say that it was nice as well to have beat the Knicks in LA. To the Knicks, 9-straight losses translate into a horrendous flashback that has once again taken them back to some of their worst seasons just as couple of years ago. Carmelo Anthony once again led the squad with 19 points and 5 rebounds. Melo stated that the team is simply not improving and that they still needs to work harder than what they are right now. With the 2014-15 NFL playoffs around the corner, every team is beginning to prepare, employing its own strategies and tactics to come out with the best possible team and pursue a spot in this year’s Super Bowl. The Arizona Cardinals are no exception to this measure and that is why the team’s head coach is now calling for a major decision to seek for the rotation of the most important player in the squad. Bruce Arians stated this same Thursday afternoon that he will not take a risk with starting quarterback Drew Stanton and that the player will not take part in the official line up of the game. Arians stated that although Stanton is close to his full recovery, he is still not where he needs to be and that he still missing some great degree of work. That is why Arians is not taking a chance. And in the making this decision lies the responsibility to set the team in the right path towards a spot in the NFC playoffs faceoff. The Cardinals are now preparing to match up against Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers this coming Saturday at the Bank of America Stadium. Although this decision will allow Stanton to get some rest and recover from a hurt right knee, this may not be the best decision for the squad as a whole. With Ryan Lindley as a starter, the Cardinals have gone 0-2 and over the course of his professional career, Lindley stands 1-5 with the Arizona squad. Considering that the Cardinals are now battling for a wild card spot, it appears that the decision has been made for Stanton and his physical integrity. The Cardinals will now have to trust Lindley in what could easily become the most important game in his career yet. The Indiana Pacers have stumbled more than just a few times over the course of the last couple of months. This has led to major loss in credibility from behalf of the squad. Yet sometimes squads are able to make swift changes and find their way back to victory. That is how the Pacers did it against the Miami Heat and walked away with a 106-95 home win at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse. With a 12-21 season record, the Pacers are now on their way to hope for bigger deeds. C.J. Miles stepped right out of the bench and pulled an outstanding 25 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists, followed by George Hill who nailed 20 points and 3 rebounds. Miles stated that there is much he still wants to achieve and that he is sure the team will be able to step up to the challenge. Hill, who claims has felt the loss of Paul George, admits that this is not the best time for the team. However, Hill claims that the entire squad simply needs to get it together and remember that they are still a very competitive team in the current 2014-15 NBA season. As for the Heat, the squad is still not stumbling over more wins. Dwyane Wade finished the game with 20 points and 7 assists, followed by Chris Bosh with 18 points and 8 rebounds. Bosh clams that Miami is still not in its best shape but that the team is really working hard to get If one dared to say that Tom Brady was never a team player, then one might have just stood corrected. This Tuesday the New England Patriots announced that they had just went through a contract process that will allow the organization to free up about $24 million. This cash, according to organization members, will come very handy during the offseason. In this case, the change in Brady’s contract was performed over the terms of a clause. This clause is detailed and states that there is an existent guarantee of about $24 million for skill conditions. However, Brady changed this clause to injury, meaning that he will only receive this money if he is indeed under this last given condition. To Brady, this is just another small move. With this changes, others also took place in his contract. Brady’s base salary will now go up about $1 million more per year, for every year he has left in his contract. That means that for 2015 he will make $8 million, $9 million for 2016 and $10 million 2017. Brady now also holds the right to maneuver the money he has given up in case future negotiations, setting a scenario where he could be released with zero liability, yet hold the option of becoming an unrestricted free agent. To NFL experts, this money will definitely benefit the squad. According to sources close to the Pats, the team plans to re-sign other free agents that have become crucial pieces of the squad. These players include cornerback Darrelle Revis, tackle Nate Solder, safety Devin McCourty and running back Shane Vereen. For the Cleveland Cavaliers, the path to success has taken a steep inclination and thus victories may not stand as close as the squad once perceived it. However, some good news may have just struck the organization. It was confirmed this Tuesday evening that Cavs’ star point guard Kyrie Irving could now be seen on the court this Tuesday evening. Indeed, medical authorities established that Irving is currently suffering from a bone bruise in his left knee and serious enough for him to take some rest. According to Irving, the entire team and all players need to be ready to play at all time. That is why Irving believes that this mild recuperation process has served him well. Last December 11th Irving stumbled upon Oklahoma City Thunder Russell Westbrook and this led to his mild injury which has forced the player to remain inactive until now. Many seem to believes that Irving represents what may be going wrong for the Cavs in this moment. After LeBron James released some serious comments this last Sunday night regarding the status of the team and the lack of solid performances, it appears that things for the squad have suddenly obscured. With the recent controversy regarding Cavs head coach David Blatt and his disrupted relation with the organization, the Cavs are now laying on a limb and just hoping to count with Irving for their next performances. Sometimes its all about having a gathering of stars, yet other times its about moments and how these players are able to make a difference in the most unexpected moment. The Washington Wizards were able to prove that solid wins can be achieved even against the strongest rivals in the league if played right. The Wizards topped the Houston Rockets with a 104-103 away win at the Toyota Center, in Houston. Just when it appeared that the Rockets were off to their 22nd win of the season, the Wizards pulled a team effort and held a strong Texas offense. This time Bradley Beal stepped up and confidently took hold of the lead role of the squad. Nothing more to say, but that Beal owned the role. The player was able to finish with a season high 33-points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Beal stated that although he did have a good night, the team really made a solid effort to walk away with a victory. However, Beal was not the only man who held a top performance. Veteran Paul Pierce once again assumed a starring role and finished the game with 21 points and 3 rebounds, with star John Wall following right behind him, 13 points, 12 assists, and 4 rebounds. For the Wizards, this win meant their 22nd stand of the season. For the Rockets, this loss the 9th of the season and two steps away from their East coast counterparts. Just as Beal, James Harden also finished the game with 33 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists. Harden stated that the team is still performing quite well and that one loss is not something to be taken with extreme harshness. Harden finished by saying that Houston played a good game, but that they simply allowed for one last point that made the difference. For the Cleveland Browns, the 2014-15 NFL regular season ended up being just a step up from the prior campaigns that had brought upon the organization a sharp lack of success. Perhaps it was just a mild step up, given the large contrast in performance, due to the fact that more disappointment was perceived, rather than anything else. Expectations flew up high, especially when the Browns called bids for Johnny Manziel as the top pick of last NFL draft. With all the controversy regarding Manziel’s lack of performances and lack of minutes on the field, it was up to one of the Browns organization leaders to speak up and defend one of his dearest workmates. He did, Browns general manager Ray Farmer took a solid stand and stated that team owner Jimmy Haslam had no influence over the decision that brought Manziel to the team. According to Farmer, many want to point out to Haslam as the main guilty one to have pushed for the integration of Manziel in the squad. Yet Farmer stated that he did not even try nor influence the decision that allowed the team to pull in a player like Manziel. Farmer also added that having a player like Manziel in the squad is not something to that needs to be considered as serious. Farmer wrapped up by saying that Manziel will be a solid star in the future and that it is just a matter of Denver Broncos started the season with the hopes of having another bright streak. Indeed, that is what took place this last Sunday evening at the Sports Authority Field in Mile High, CO. The Broncos topped the Oakland Raiders with a 47-14 beating to clinch the spot as the top seed, finishing the 2014-15 NFL regular season with a 12-4 record and with the hopes of climbing higher in the playoffs. Connor Barth started the game with a 49-yard field goal , followed by a 1-yard touchdown run by C.J. Anderson to take a 10-0 lead. Keith McGill responded with an 18-yard fumble return to nail one of the two TDs of the game. C.J. Anderson responded again with a 1-yard TD run, followed by 36-yard FG by Connor Bath to double the lead to 20-7. Anderson would extend the difference with a 25-yard TD run with 14:08 of the 3rd. Jamize Olawale would respond for the Raiders with a 1-yard TD pass play next to Derek Carr to set the score 27-14. After this, it would just be a Broncos showdown. Bath would rally firs to finish the 3rd with a 35-yard FG, followed by a 21-yarder to set the score 33-14. Tony Carter would then take advantage of a defensive mistake, setting the score 40-14 with 04:48 on the clock. Last but not least, it was Virgil Green who nailed a 1-yard TD pass by Brock Osweiler to extend the lead to 47-14 with 01:56 on the clock of the 4th and lead the way to the last win of the season. According to Manning, 12-wins over the last couple of months is not bad at all. Kobe Bryant was heading back to the starting lineup and the Los Angeles Lakers still couldn’t resist falling yet again. Now it was the Phoenix Suns who were able to step all over the LA squad and nailed a 116-107 win over the Purple and Gold team this last Sunday night at the Staples Center. For the Suns, it was a solid victory. Goran Dragic topped the night with 24 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists, followed by Eric Bledsoe with 22 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists. Dragic stated that the team has been working harder to recover a positive pace and that 6th straight wins seem to prove that maybe good changes are happening. For the Lakers, one more loss seems to just accumulate. Kobe Bryant was able to step back to the LA lineup and finished with 10 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists. Nick Young, who wasn’t even a starter, was able to lead the game with 21 points. Kobe stated that there is not much left to say, but that the team is playing its worse. Bryant stated that it’s frustrating to see how a squad with so much potential keeps stumbling so low. To Kobe, this game was just another test that failed and a future series of more games that need to change. For Bryant, the Lakers fate will hopefully change, but perhaps not as soon as most had wanted. Baltimore Ravens saw an opportunity ahead and they weren’t going to let that last chance to feature in the upcoming 2014-15 NFL playoffs go to waste. That is why the Ravens jumped out to the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore with success in mind, and walked away with a 20-10 victory over the Cleveland Browns this last Sunday evening to gain the last wild-card to the playoffs. The Ravens needed a win over the Browns, while at the same time depended on a win from behalf or the Kansas City Chiefs over the San Diego Chargers. The Ravens did their part, just as much as the Chiefs. Justin Tucker opened the game with a 25-yard field goal with 08:05 on the 2nd quarter. Garret Hartley responded with a 38-yard field goal and tied the game 3-3. Terrance West would extend the lead with a 2-yard TD run, topping the game 10-3 with 03:29 on the clock of the 3rd. It wasn’t until the 4th quarter when the Ravens rallied through a 17-0 beat down. The team started the 4th quarter with a 28-yard field goal and double the score. That moment, according to Tucker, was decisive for the team to switch mentality and pursue the win. And indeed, the Ravens pursued the win thanks to Joe Flacco and a 16-yard TD pass play next to Torrey Smith to set the score 13-10 with 07:33 on the clock. Kamar Aiken would then appear for the first time, next to Flacco, to finish a 2-yard TD pass play and set the final score of 20-10. To this, the Ravens were grateful, yet proved that that why they have been able to nail 6 playoff appearances in the last 7 years. After a 103-80 loss to the Detroit Pistons, LeBron James refused to twitch and swirl things around to make them seem less than what it truly was. According to James, the Cleveland Cavaliers simply don’t have a very good team and last night’s performance is the proof of this fact. According to James, when the squad steps on the court, they are all still trying to figure out how they are supposed to do things right and that this lack of clarity has led to the mischievous season the Cavs are currently having. Still, this has furthered on certain issues and now the Cavs could be on the verge of making a very drastic change. Indeed, right now the most prominent reason that seems to justify this lack of positive performances from behalf of Cleveland is the split that could have been accentuating over the last few weeks between the organization and their head coach. That is why coach David Blatt has taken the stolen the shine of the media. First year coach Blatt is now on the watch. Whether he is or not the reason for the lack of good results that have struck the Cavs, this has become the main focus of the organization. So far, not much has been revealed, yet it appears that the organization is now ready to meet with Blatt and discuss the latest results of the team. 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Forgotten Password? © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Volume 3, Issue 8 Pages i–ii, 2393–2782 Article first published online: 12 AUG 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.727 Janja Ceh, Matt R. Kilburn, John B. Cliff, Jean-Baptiste Raina, Mike van Keulen and David G. Bourne Article first published online: 18 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.642 This article reports the ability of coral larvae to acquire, and incorporate nitrogen from bacterial associates and transfer it to their algal symbiont Symbiodinium. This tight nutrient cycling within the coral holobiont (the coral animal and its symbiotic microbial partners) has not previously been reported in coral larvae, however might well contribute to the survival of vulnerable early coral life stages and therefore the maintenance and distribution of coral reefs. Frédérique Dubois, Frédéric Thomas and Jacques Brodeur Article first published online: 19 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.647 We developed a simulation model in which parasites may affect their hosts' behaviour by using two non-mutually exclusive strategies: a manipulation sensu stricto strategy and a strategy based on the exploitation of host compensatory responses. We predict that the exploitation of host compensatory responses can be evolutionary stable when the alteration improves the susceptibility to predation by final hosts without compromising host survival during parasite development. Furthermore, our finfings indicate that the transmission rate of parasites in a definitive host is highest when each of the two strategies affects different traits. Brandon E. Campitelli and John R. Stinchcombe Article first published online: 20 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.641 We test hypothesized selective agents acting on leaf shape in Ipomoea hederacea. While we find that all of the selective agents impose natural selection, none of them act differentially according to leaf shape genotype. We suggest alternative approaches for determining the selective agents acting on leaf shape. Terézia Horváthová, Christopher R. Cooney, Patrick S. Fitze, Tuula A. Oksanen, Dušan Jelić, Ioan Ghira, Tobias Uller and David Jandzik Article first published online: 21 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.613 We examined geographic and climatic variation in life-history traits of the reproductively bimodal common lizard, the most widespread terrestrial reptile. Multiple linear regression analyses showed that the body size is mainly driven by length of the activity season and that the interpopulation variation in fecundity is explained by reproductive mode. Our findings suggest that time constraints imposed by environment rather than ambient temperature play a major role in shaping life histories in the common lizard. F. Mattucci, R. Oliveira, L. Bizzarri, F. Vercillo, S. Anile, B. Ragni, L. Lapini, A. Sforzi, P. C. Alves, L. A. Lyons and E. Randi Article first published online: 22 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.569 Deep climatic changes during the Pleistocene shaped the distributions of temperate-adapted species. The European wildcat (Felis s. silvestris) populations currently distributed in Italy differentiated in, and expanded from two distinct glacial refuges, respectively located in the southern Apennines and at the periphery of the eastern Alps. Brad S. Coates, Holly Johnson, Kyung-Seok Kim, Richard L. Hellmich, Craig A. Abel, Charles Mason and Thomas W. Sappington Article first published online: 24 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.639 This work describes the development of new single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers within the pheromone gland expressed fatty acyl reductase (pgfar) gene of Ostrinia nubilalis. These SNPs were shown to segregate based upon female pheromone production, and thus provide the first description of an assay for genetic determination of O. nubilalis pheromone strain from field-collected samples. These assays were applied to estimate hybridization within field populations, and represent valuable tools for future population genetic studies of this species. Erik Westberg, Shachar Ohali, Anatoly Shevelevich, Pinchas Fine and Oz Barazani Article first published online: 24 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.646 This article describes the use of several types of data to estimate the influence of the environment on intraspecific genetic variation in populations originating from a steep climatic gradient. In addition to molecular marker data, we made use of phenotypic evaluation from common garden experiments, and a broad GIS based environmental data with edaphic information gathered in the field. This study, among others, lead to the identification of an outlier locus with an association to trichome formation and herbivore defense, and its ecological adaptive value is discussed. Brian S. Davidson, Gene D. Sattler, Sara Via and Michael J. Braun Article first published online: 26 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.604 Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) hybridize with Carolina chickadees (P. carolinensis) in the northern Appalachian Mountains. We use genetic data to show that the last large breeding population of atricapillus in the southern Appalachians has experienced genetic introgression from carolinensis, but at a much lower level than populations to the north, confirming that the southern populations are reproductively isolated due to a behaviorally mediated elevational range gap during the breeding season. John J. Andersen, David S. Portnoy, John C. Hafner and Jessica E. Light). Jennifer A. H. Koop, Jeb P. Owen, Sarah A. Knutie, Maria A. Aguilar and Dale H. Clayton Article first published online: 26 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.651 Host immune responses can protect against the negative fitness consequences of parasitism; however, the strength and effectiveness of these responses vary among hosts. Strong host immune responses are often assumed to correlate with greater host fitness. This study investigates the relationship between host immune response, parasite load, and host fitness using Darwin's finches and an invasive nest parasite. We found that while the immune response of mothers appeared defensive, it did not rescue current reproductive fitness. Francisco Marco-Rius, Pablo Caballero, Paloma Morán and Carlos Garcia de Leaniz Article first published online: 26 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.652 Our study tests the hypothesis that organisms can “escape” from density-dependence constrains by migrating, and that this strategy maximizes growth by reducing competition from conspecifics. To test this, we reconstructed individual growth profiles of sea trout (Salmo trutta) before and after migration, and related these to estimates of year class strength over a 13-year period. We found that variation in circuli spacing was generally much greater among individuals than within individuals, and that scale growth was inversely related to year class strength, both during the freshwater and marine growing seasons. However, density-dependence was c. 2.5 times stronger in freshwater (before migration) than at sea (after migration) indicating that although migrants might benefit from enhanced growth by moving into the sea, they do not appear to become free from density-dependence constraints completely. Our findings shed light on the nature of density-dependent regulation in migratory species, and provide a plausible mechanism for the maintenance of partial migrations if, as our study indicates, resident and migratory individuals are subjected to density-dependent forces of varying strength before and after migration. Frédéric Bailleul, Volker Grimm, Clément Chion and Mike Hammill Article first published online: 26 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.656 The present paper aims to explore the hypothesis that changes in migration phenology are not necessarily or exclusively triggered by changes in food abundance, but also by changes in the spatial distribution of food, which is largely determined by physical processes. In particular, we suggested that since climate change primarily affects these processes, it could be that the resulting changes in how homogeneous or clumped food is distributed affects foraging efficiency strongly enough to cause changes in migration phenology, even if the total amount of resource would remain the same. We developed an individual-based model (IBM) investigating the potential impact of the timing of migration on foraging efficiency, quantified by total prey capture, of individuals confronted with different spatial structures of food resources. The results of the model support the field observations. Stephen G. Tilley, Joseph Bernardo, Laura A. Katz, Lizmarie López, J. Devon Roll, Renée L. Eriksen, Justin Kratovil, Noëlle K. J. Bittner and Keith A. Crandall Article first published online: 27 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.636 Cytochrome B sequences and allozymes reveal complex patterns of molecular variation in Desmognathus populations in eastern Tennessee. It may never be possible to reconcile species limits with patterns of phylogeny, morphology, and gene exchange in these salamanders. Erratum: Failed species, innominate forms, and the vain search for species limits: cryptic diversity in dusky salamanders (Desmognathus) of eastern Tennessee Vol. 3, Issue 9, 3194, Article first published online: 8 SEP 2013 Helene Collin, Reto Burri, Fabien Comtesse and Luca Fumagalli Article first published online: 28 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.650 Using next-generation sequencing, the present manuscript identifies the relative roles of neutral and adaptive processes driving the evolution of MHC class IIB (MHCIIB) genes in natural populations of a cyprinid fish: the European minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus). We highlight that the relative importance of neutral versus adaptive processes in shaping immune competence may differ between duplicates as a consequence of alternative selective regimes or different genomic contexts. Philipp R. Semenchuk, Bo Elberling and Elisabeth J. Cooper Article first published online: 29 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.648 Winter warming events, often occurring together with rain, can substantially remove snow cover and thereby expose plants to cold winter air. Depending on morphology, different parts of the plant can be directly exposed. On this picture, we see Dryas octopetala seed heads from the previous growing season protrude through the remaining ice layer after a warming event in early 2010. The rest of the plant, including meristems and flower primordia, are still somewhat protected by the ice. In the background we can see a patch of Cassiope tetragona protruding through the ice; in this case, the whole plant including flower primordia is exposed, which might be one reason why this species experienced a loss of flowers the following season. Photograph by Philipp Semenchuk. Tatsuo Ohtsuki, Hajime Ikeda and Hiroaki Setoguchi Article first published online: 1 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.654 Ancient lakes, continuous existence for millions of years, are have been recognized as “long-term isolated islands” in terrestrial ecosystems and are home to landlocked species. Lake Biwa, one of the world's few ancient freshwater lakes, harbors many coastal plants that also inhabit marine coastlines. We assessed the genetic isolation of beach pea, Lathyrus japonicus, in this ancient freshwater lake using an isolation with migration (IM) model based on variation at eight nuclear DNA loci. The estimated demographic parameters revealed a recent divergence (postglacial period) of inland populations, suggesting that a Holocene thermal maximum was involved in the origin of the Biwa populations and their genetic divergence. Sergey M. Rastorguev, Artem V. Nedoluzhko, Alexander M. Mazur, Natalia M. Gruzdeva, Alexander A. Volkov, Anna E. Barmintseva, Nikolai S. Mugue and Egor B. Prokhortchouk Article first published online: 1 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.659 In the present study, the high-throughput genotyping analysis of several sturgeon populations was performed. SNP markers for species identification were defined. The possible explanation of the baerii-like mitotype presence in some Russian sturgeons in the Caspian Sea was suggested. Abdessalem Tahiri, Fabien Halkett, Martine Granier, Gwénaelle Gueguen and Michel Peterschmitt Article first published online: 2 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.655 The whitefly Bemisia tabaci – one of the most damaging pests of open field and protected cropping globally – displays a complex of putative species, which can coexist locally. We show here that gene flow between the two most invasive putative species is rare but did exist under natural conditions. The results are discussed in relation to the secondary endosymbiont infection status determined on a sub-sample of individuals, and the contrasting outcomes of previously reported crossing experiments between these putative species. Oliver Balmer, Lukas Pfiffner, Johannes Schied, Martin Willareth, Andrea Leimgruber, Henryk Luka and Michael Traugott Article first published online: 2 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.658 This study provides a comprehensive assessment of how habitat manipulation affects biocontrol services of a natural enemy community including both parasitoids and generalist predators. The trophic interactions between pests, parasitoids and predators were determined to achieve a better systemic understanding of top-down herbivore control, which can be strengthened when natural enemies complement each other or dampened by intraguild interactions. Our approach to selectively enhance the third trophic level to counteract specific herbivores was successful for both predators and parasitoids. Our results show significant positive effects of companion plants on predation of pest eggs and parasitism of pest larvae. Importantly, our data also suggest that carabids, staphylinids and spiders do not substantially interfere with parasitoid biocontrol as parasitoid DNA was rarely detected in predator guts. Stefano Mona, Ernest Mordret, Michel Veuille and Mila Tommaseo-Ponzetta Article first published online: 2 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.660 We have applied the prediction of the sampling theory in a meta-population and we have corroborated our finding using spatial explicit simulations. Both approaches are fundamentally meant to deal with structured populations: we strongly believe in the importance of tacking structure into account when inferring the demographic history of a species. Yukie Sato, Martijn Egas, Maurice W. Sabelis and Atsushi Mochizuki Article first published online: 2 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.661 Inclusive fitness theory predicts that when individuals live in groups or colonies, aggression should peak at intermediate levels of average relatedness in the colony. Here, we study how male–male aggression varies with average relatedness in naturally occurring colonies of the social spider mite Stigmaeopsis miscanthi. In support of theory, male–male aggression and weapon size strongly peak at intermediate average relatedness. Kentaro Inoue, David M. Hayes, John L. Harris and Alan D. Christian Article first published online: 3 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.649 In this study, we found Obovaria jacksoniana and Villosa arkansasensis are synonomous. We suggest that morphological differences between the two species are caused by ecophenotypic plasticity, where V. arkansasensis is the upstream morphotype and O. jacksoniana is the downstream morphotype of a single species. Troy I. Wellicome, L. Danielle Todd, Ray G. Poulin, Geoffrey L. Holroyd and Ryan J. Fisher Article first published online: 5 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.616 Our results provide empirical support for the hypothesis that the nestling period is the most food-limited phase of the breeding cycle. For burrowing owls, and other species with similar life histories, long-term, large-scale, and appropriately timed habitat management increasing prey abundance or availability is critical for conservation. Ivan Paz-Vinas, Lise Comte, Mathieu Chevalier, Vincent Dubut, Charlotte Veyssiere, Gaël Grenouillet, Geraldine Loot and Simon Blanchet Article first published online: 9 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.645 We combined genetic and demographic data from a threatened freshwater fish species (Parachondrostoma toxostoma) at the river basin scale for conservation purposes. Genetic diversity and effective population sizes are very low, probably due to the strong genetic bottlenecks detected in this study. The species spatial distribution and abundance also decreased during the last decades. Derek Eamus, Nicolas Boulain, James Cleverly and David D. Breshears Article first published online: 10 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.664 This study disaggregates the influence of temperature and vapour pressure deficit on net primary productivity of an Australian woodland and their interactions with drought as potential causal agents in recent widespread forest mortality. Caroline Isaksson Article first published online: 11 JUL 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.663 Oxidative stress has been proposed as a proximate currency in life-history trade-offs, which if studied in an ecological setting allow a more realistic perspective on the origin and evolution of trade-offs. Here multiple markers of oxidative stress were analysed in wild great tits. The results reveal that the endogenously synthesized antioxidant glutathione and markers of plasma oxidative stress are affected in opposing directions with regard to sex, habitat type, and spring date. Clutch size was negatively associated with oxidative damage, which suggests that those with high reproductive investment can combat physiological costs linked to oxidative stress. The experimentally manipulated breeding density did not influence oxidative stress physiology. The study highlights the need to measure multiple markers to understand the role of oxidative stress in limiting the expression of life-history traits and trajectories in different ecological contexts. Alexander V. Semenov, Jan Dirk van Elsas, Debora C. M. Glandorf, Menno Schilthuizen and Willem F. de Boer Article first published online: 19 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.640 We offer generic advice to risk assessors and applicants that will help in both the setting up of field testing and the interpretation and data analysis of the data obtained in field testing. Abigél Gonda, Gábor Herczeg and Juha Merilä Article first published online: 26 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.627 Evolution of brain size and architecture is a widely studied topic. However, the majority of studies are interspecific and comparative. Here we summarize the recently growing body of intraspecific studies based on population comparisons and outline the future potential in this approach. Katja T. C. A. Peijnenburg and Erica Goetze Article first published online: 26 JUN 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.644 Recent attention has focused on the ecological responses of open ocean zooplankton to current global change, including range shifts and changing phenology. Here, we argue that marine zooplankton also are well poised for evolutionary responses to global change. Ben P. Harvey, Dylan Gwynn-Jones and Pippa J. Moore Article first published online: 12 AUG 2013 | DOI: 10.1002/ece3.728 Meta-analysis reveals complex marine biological responses to the interactive effects of ocean acidification and warming Vol. 3, Issue 4, 1016–1030, Article first published online: 7 MAR 2013

565 F.2d 1123 1978-1 Trade Cases 61,825 In re GYPSUM ANTITRUST CASES. ADVANCE DRYWALL CO., Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES GYPSUM CO. et al., Respondents-Appellees. No. 75-3756. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Dec. 8, 1977. Kenneth J. Fiott (argued), of Fiott & Burwell, Dearborn, Mich., for petitioner-appellant. Harvey S. Kronfeld (argued), of Hudson, Wilf & Kronfeld, Philadelphia, Pa., Eileen Preville (appeared), San Francisco, Cal., for respondents-appellees. On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Before KOELSCH and CHOY, Circuit Judges and FITZGERALD,* District Judge. CHOY, Circuit Judge: Advance Drywall Company (Advance) appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California disallowing its claim against the settlement fund in The Gypsum Antitrust Cases, 386 F.Supp. 959 (N.D.Cal.1974). The district court sustained the Claims Review Committee's objection to Advance's claim on the ground that it was not timely filed. We affirm. On November 29, 1973, the district court approved a settlement between several classes of plaintiffs and a large number of gypsum products manufacturers in a consolidation of numerous antitrust actions from across the country. The court had previously ordered that by October 5, 1973, individual notice of the proposed settlement be given to all potential members of the classes whose addresses could be obtained. Advance was among 471,315 persons to whom this notice was mailed. Following approval of the settlement, the court ordered the mailing of a claim form describing the procedure for participation in the settlement fund. This notice, while posted to the same street address as the earlier settlement notice to Advance, was directed to Len's Dry Wall Company (Len's) and not to Advance. The sole stockholder of Len's, Leonard Pohutsky, was also an officer and minority stockholder of Advance, which had ceased doing business in 1967. Since Pohutsky was of the opinion that Advance was not entitled to participate in the settlement fund because it was no longer in business and because he did not receive notice addressed to Advance, he did not file a claim until approximately one year after the court's deadline, after learning that other persons no longer in business were participating in the settlement. Advance contends on appeal that the district court's ruling denying its claim constituted an abuse of discretion, and that the notice addressed to Len's was insufficient to constitute notice to Advance under Fed.R.Civ.P. 23 as interpreted in Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 176, 94 S.Ct. 2140, 40 L.Ed.2d 732 (1974). Sufficiency of notice The instant class action proceedings were maintained under Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b) (3). With respect to class actions maintained under this subdivision, rule 23(c)(2) provides in part: . . . the court shall direct to the members of the class the best notice practicable under the circumstances, including individual notice to all members who can be identified through reasonable effort. The required contents of the notice are enumerated in rule 23(c)(2), and include advising each class member of his right to opt out, of the res judicata effects of failing to do so, and of the right to appear in the action. The purpose of this notice requirement mandatory only in (b)(3) actions, see Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 397 n.4, 95 S.Ct. 553, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975); Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 177 n.14, 94 S.Ct. 2140, 40 L.Ed.2d 732 (1974); Larionoff v. United States, 175 U.S.App.D.C. 32, 533 F.2d 1167, 1185 (1976), and cases cited; Jiminez v. Weinberger, 523 F.2d 689, 700 (7th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 427 U.S. 912, 96 S.Ct. 3200, 49 L.Ed.2d 1204 (1976); Note, Developments in the Law Class Actions, 89 Harv.L.Rev. 1318, 1402 n.64 (1976) is to present a fair recital of the subject matter of the suit and to inform all class members of their opportunity to be heard. Marshall v. Holiday Magic, Inc., 550 F.2d 1173, 1177 (9th Cir. 1977); Philadelphia Housing Authority v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 323 F.Supp. 364, 378 (E.D.Pa.1970), aff'd sub nom. Ace Heating & Plumbing Co. v. Crane Co., 453 F.2d 30 (3d Cir. 1971). In Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, supra, 417 U.S. at 176, 94 S.Ct. 2140, the Supreme Court made it clear that the individual notice requirement of rule 23(c)(2) is intended to insure that a judgment will bind all class members who do not opt out. See also Jiminez v. Weinberger, supra at 700. Advance does not claim it did not receive the settlement notice, or that this notice did not provide it the opportunity to opt out of or intervene in the proceedings.1 Accordingly, the settlement notice, which was mailed specifically to Advance at an address provided by Advance's counsel in this litigation, satisfied the requirements of rule 23(c)(2) as interpreted in Eisen.2 Appellant urges, however, that Eisen and rule 23(c)(2) require not only individual notice of the existence of the class litigation, the class member's right to opt out, the res judicata effects of failure to opt out, and the right to appear in the action, but also of the procedure for making a claim against the settlement fund. Appellee does not dispute this, but argues that the requirement of individual notice was met when the claim notice was sent to Len's. In view of our holding that the settlement notice satisfied the particular requirements of rule 23(c)(2), however, we cannot agree that this rule requires the mailing of additional notices to appellant.3 Instead, the proof of claim procedure ordered in this litigation is properly analyzed under rule 23(d)(2),4 which provides authority for such additional notices. Robinson v. Union Carbide Corp., 544 F.2d 1258, 1263-64 (5th Cir. 1977) (Wisdom, J., concurring); B & B Investment Club v. Kleinert's, Inc., 62 F.R.D. 140, 148 (E.D.Pa.1974); Iowa v. Union Asphalt & Roadoils, Inc., 281 F.Supp. 391, 402 (S.D.Iowa 1968); Harris v. Jones,41 F.R.D. 70, 74-75 n.9 (D.Utah 1966); 3B Moore's Federal Practice P 23.55, at 23-1161 (2d ed. 1977); 7A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 1787, at 159 (1972). Unlike the notice provided for in rule 23(c)(2), notice pursuant to 23(d)(2) "is discretionary rather than mandatory," Robinson at 1263; and instead of requiring individual notice to all class members who can be identified through reasonable effort, rule 23(d)(2) provides only that notice be given "in such manner as the court may direct . . . ." The sufficiency of the (d)(2) claim notice here is thus measured against the broader standards of due process to which the class action procedure is of course subject, rather than the requirements of rule 23(c)(2) as interpreted in Eisen. See, e. g., 3B Moore's Federal Practice P 23.01, at 23-36 (2d ed. 1977). Whether due process commands that nonparty class members be given notice of a particular turn of an action after they have received actual notice of the action itself is dependent upon whether such notice is required for the fair representation of their interests. Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32, 61 S.Ct. 115, 85 L.Ed. 22 (1940); see Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a)(4). In this respect the trial court has an obligation to those not before it to ensure that they are apprised of proceedings that may finally affect them; and pursuant to this responsibility the court is vested with broad administrative as well as adjudicative power. See Greenfield v. Villager Industries, Inc., 483 F.2d 824, 832 (3d Cir. 1973); Note, Developments in the Law Class Actions, 89 Harv.L.Rev. 1318, 1411 (1976). As was stated in United States v. Truckee-Carson Irrigation District regarding notice in (b)(1)(A) class actions: Rule 23(d)(2), of course, does not provide for a specific manner of notice or the form of the notice. These are matters left to the court's discretion to be dictated by the circumstances of each case. Any notice must, of course, comport with due process, but this does not mean that personal service . . . must be made. 71 F.R.D. 10, 18 (D.Nev.1975). Given the complexity of managing settlements in large antitrust class actions such as the Gypsum Antitrust Cases, see, e. g., Miller, "Problems in Administering Judicial Relief in Class Actions Under Federal Rule 23(b)," 54 F.R.D. 501 (1972), and considering the court's duty to protect the settlement fund from depletion as well as to insure that class members are apprised of proceedings that may finally determine their interests, it would be difficult to say that due process requires a personal claim notice to be mailed to nearly one-half million class members who have already received the (c)(2) settlement notice.5 Certainly here, where the court did in fact order such a notice to be sent, due process is not offended by the fact that the notice though actually received and read by an officer of Advance at that corporation's last known address was addressed to Len's. The notice addressed to Len's was consistent with the fair representation of Advance's interests under the circumstances. Abuse of Discretion On February 5, 1974, the district court approved the mailing of the claim notice advising the recipient that, if he had not previously excluded himself from his class, he must make a claim against the settlement fund by April 5, 1974. At a subsequent hearing, the court ordered the filing date extended to May 28, 1974 seven months after Advance received the (c)(2) notice, and more than three months after Pohutsky received the claim notice. There is no question that in the distribution of a large class action settlement fund, "a cutoff date is essential and at some point the matter must be terminated." Reports of the Conference for District Court Judges, 63 F.R.D. 231, 262 (1973); see Manual for Complex Litigation § 1.45, at 60 (1977). Nor is there any question that seven or even three months is ordinarily a sufficiently long period within which class members may file claims.6 However, Advance properly urges that the district court had discretion to grant late claims. See Zients v. LaMorte, 459 F.2d 628, 630-31 (2d Cir. 1972); cf. Manhattan-Ward, Inc. v. Grinnell Corp., 490 F.2d 1183, 1186 (2d Cir. 1974) (court has discretion to extend class member's time to opt out under Fed.R.Civ.P. 6(b)(2) and 60(b)(1) as well as generally under Rule 23). Advance argues that since the district court permitted other late-filed claims in connection with this settlement, its denial of Advance's claim constituted an abuse of that discretion. In opposition to this argument, the Claims Review Committee points out that the district court allowed only those late-filed claims which were timely set in motion.7 The materials appended to appellant's brief do not contradict this. Thus, the district judge commented: . . . I would have discretion to permit a claim and allow a late claim when there's good and sufficient cause shown therefor. A good and sufficient cause may indicate that the claim was set in motion, that the notary didn't send them the claim or sign it, or someone didn't do something after the machinery was set in motion.). As was stated in this Circuit thirty years ago: An abuse of discretion is plain error, discretion exercised to an end not justified by the evidence, a judgment that is clearly against the logic and effect of the facts as are found. The test is not what this court would have done under the same circumstances that is not enough. The court must feel that only one order could have been entered on the facts. Bowles v. Quon, 154 F.2d 72, 73 (9th Cir. 1946). The record does not support the contention that the court abused its discretion. Appellant has made no showing that its claim was treated in a fashion inconsistent with those of other claimants similarly situated. The trial judge ruled that denying Advance's claim was a "regrettable conclusion, but there has to be a cutoff point . . . ." We conclude from the authorities and the evidence in this case that the court acted within its discretion. AFFIRMED. Honorable James M. Fitzgerald, United States District Judge for the District of Alaska, sitting by designation Advance does claim that both the settlement notice and the claim notice were misleading because they did not state that a recipient could qualify even though it was no longer in business. However, both notices provided that they were applicable to "all persons and business entities . . . who were applicators or subcontractors who purchased and who used the gypsum (products) . . . ." (Emphasis supplied). Accordingly, we do not find the notices to be misleading in this respect. The notices were worded in such a way as to alert appellant to its rights, and are not required to provide a complete source of settlement information. See Grunin v. International House of Pancakes, 513 F.2d 114, 122 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 864, 96 S.Ct. 124, 46 L.Ed.2d 93 (1975); Rubenstein v. Republic Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 74 F.R.D. 337, 348 (N.D.Tex.1976) The settlement notice, in addition to detailing the background of the litigation, provided: YOU ARE ADVISED: If you are a member of one or more of the classes defined above, which include all plaintiffs and intervenors, you will be included in, and you will be bound by, any judgment in this litigation, including any settlement approved by the Court and any determination affecting the classes of which you are a member, whether favorable or not, unless you mail to the Clerk of Court on or before November 8, 1973, a written election to be excluded from the classes of plaintiffs. If you elect to be excluded from the class or classes as herein defined, you will remain free to pursue on your own behalf whatever legal rights you may have, but you will not be entitled to participate in any distribution from the settlement fund If you desire to be excluded from this litigation, complete the form herein and mail it to the Clerk of Court at the address below not later than November 8, 1973 If you do not elect to be excluded from the class of plaintiffs, you may, but need not, enter an appearance through counsel of your choice, and you will have all the rights set forth in Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. If you do not request exclusion or enter an appearance, you will be represented by attorneys of record for the class representatives The notice set forth the time and place for the hearing "to consider the fairness and adequacy of the proposed settlements and the allocation of the settlement fund among the plaintiff classes," and directed all inquiries concerning the case to the Clerk of Court. It has been suggested that a claim notice such as that ordered by the district court in this case, which bars claims not filed before a particular date, may indeed be inconsistent with rule 23(c)(2) if proffered as part of a (c)(2) notice, since it would have the effect of requiring potential class members to "opt in." See, e. g., Robinson v. Union Carbide Corp., 544 F.2d 1258, 1262 (5th Cir. 1977) (Wisdom, J., concurring); Korn v. Franchard Corp., 456 F.2d 1206, 1209-10 (2d Cir. 1972); In re Franklin Nat'l Bank Securities Litigation, 73 F.R.D. 25, 27 & n.1 (E.D.N.Y.1976); Manual for Complex Litigation § 1.45, at 59 (1977); 7A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1787, at 159 (1972) Rule 23(d)(2) states; . . . . Professor Miller, noting the development of the modern class action from the representative suit in equity, has observed that "with increasing frequency the federal courts are being called upon to use their discretion, and in many cases their ingenuity, to shape decrees or to develop procedures for ascertaining damages and distributing relief that will be fair to the parties but will not involve them in any unduly burdensome administration of the award." Miller, "Problems in Administering Judicial Relief in Class Actions Under Federal Rule 23(b)(3)," 54 F.R.D. 501, 504 (1972). Neither rule 23 nor due process requires that a settlement fund be depleted in efforts to perfectly address mailed claim notices. It is fair and reasonable to proceed, as the district court did here, by mailing claim notices to last known addresses of potential class members and by publication See, e. g., Manhattan-Ward, Inc. v. Grinnell Corp., 490 F.2d 1183, 1184-85 (2d Cir. 1974) (two months); Rubenstein v. Republic Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 74 F.R.D. 337, 348 (N.D.Tex.1976) (45 days); West Virginia v. Chas. Pfizer & Co., 314 F.Supp. 710, 724-25 (S.D.N.Y.1970) (two months), aff'd, 440 F.2d 1079 (2d Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 871, 92 S.Ct. 81, 30 L.Ed.2d 115 (1971); cf. Greenfield v. Villager Industries, Inc., 483 F.2d 824, 833-34 (3d Cir. 1973) (one month insufficient)

GM. 68 posts (73 including aliases). 4 reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 5 Pathfinder Society characters. In general, I like boons that do the following: 1. Make new options available. Special animal companions, archetypes, PrCs, unique items etc. It reminds me of the excitement I felt in Living Greyhawk when the ARs were passed out and you found out what you got access to this time. In many PFS scenarios I've missed the excitement of finding loot since I know it will all turn to gold at the end and the chronicle will probably contain items I can either purchase with prestige or are too expensive for me to afford. 2. Remind me of big accomplishments in my character's career. This includes things like learning new languages or getting broad, specific bonuses against certain creatures or cultures. This is also cool when it's a double edged sword. i.e. You defeated an invasion from the plane of earth and saved the dwarves, you gain +1 natural armor and -1 to dexterity based skills as your skin hardens. 3. Provide useful charged abilities. A charm from a priestess of Sarenrae that can be expended to heal 1d8+1 as an immediate action or a promise from a priest of Pharasma to cast Raise Dead once for free are things that will always be useful. In general I dislike boons that do the following: 1. Require a spreadsheet to track As characters move into higher levels they each have an ever increasing list of abilities and powers to track. Adding boons that make me try to remember if I get a +2 to this reflex save vs a dragon's breath weapon from a scenario I played a year ago or if I already expended it or if I got it with a different character frustrates me. I'm likely to just ignore such boons unless they come up often, like say social bonuses with pathfinders. 2. Require more than a minute or two of reading/explaining for a judge to understand. Any more than that and you're starting to significantly cut into play time, especially with 6 characters and the possibility of multiple boons each. Playtest- Sanctum of a Lost Age and Tomb of the Iron Medusa I got to play the Swashbuckler in this playtest and overall really liked the class. I’ll break down what I thought of all of its abilities in a little bit, but I’ll start with a few observations on the other classes. Investigator- I liked how this class played out, but there are a few points that I think are a bit lacking. She was able to really be the character that knew everything and that was awesome for story exposition and the puzzle parts of the adventures. I would have liked to see some way for that knowledge to be used in combat, maybe granting a hit and damage bonus to herself or her allies after she identifies a monster or having abilities that can reduce a monster’s special defenses (SR, DR, Resistances etc.). Shaman- I didn’t feel like there was much special to this class. Both of the players playing shamans did a good job with feat and spell selections to make them effective but it was rare that they pulled out a spirit ability or hex that struck me as unique or flavorful. The life shaman’s cures were certainly powerful, but it felt like he was struggling to be the healer that a cleric can be without thinking. I’m not sure if I have any concrete suggestions at the moment, but I’ll continue to process this and add thoughts to this thread or the shaman thread if I come up with anything. Slayer- The slayer’s switch hitter tactics served him well and we were often able to set up good combos to let him get his sneak attack running. This felt like a strong class, though his damage was somewhat situational. Given that it takes him a few actions to really key in on an enemy, I feel like he should be able to out damage a fighter by a little bit once he is in the zone (Favored Target on, Quarry on, flanking etc.). As it was it seemed like he needed to get all of his tricks running to keep up with the damage I could do without any special set-up. I also think this class needs some abilities to take down targets without needing an ally to help. The flavor of the class is somewhere between bounty hunter and assassin and while these archetypes certainly can work with others, they can also work alone. Perhaps talents that let you feint as a free action or deny dexterity as part of a Slayer’s Advance or charge or something like that. A higher level ability that let the slayer pounce with sneak attack when using slayer’s advance and favored target would be pretty appealing. Swashbuckler- I really liked how this class played out. It felt like it hit the theme well and was able to fill an important combat role while still having a good amount of versatility. My build, in broad strokes, was a dex based fighter with an agile weapon and just enough strength to power attack, moderate charisma and low int. I took the weapon focus/specialization tree all the way through greater spec with a rapier, the dazzling display, shatter defenses, deadly stoke tree and then critical mastery and bleeding critical at high level. My only skills were acrobatics and intimidate. I can see how this class could easily be the party face and/or a maneuver master and I like that it has that versatility. At 7th level I felt like a competent fighter. My damage was solid and always on and it got better when I could add precision. My AC was the highest in the party and I sometimes wished I had the antagonize feat to make myself more of a tank. Unfortunately many of the things we fought were mindless, so I wasn’t able to use intimidate ad much as I’d hoped but I still had plenty to contribute. 15th level was somewhat more frustrating but that was due to decisions I’d made building the character and no fault of the class. The early part of the adventure was investigative and discovering the beginning of the story. A different swashbuckler might have had plenty to do here but I chose not to have any skills in those areas. It wasn’t really a problem, but it left me without much to do. The first fight was against a ghost. Incorporeal meant no precision or bleed damage and undead meant no intimidate. Incorporeal are frustrating for everyone so that was fine and I was able to make good use of parry to keep him from hitting me and applying nasty effects. The next big fight was with elementals and an outsider. The outsider was flying and invisible so I was unable to get to him and the elementals were immune to my precision damage and bleed effects. Not a shining moment for the class but with power attack and a +5 weapon I did just fine. The next two fights were against strictly flying creatures and I’d made the mistake of not buying any gear that let me fly. Additionally, the casters had not prepared any buff spells for this situation so I sat grounded while the GM (wisely) kept his distance from me. That was all of the mod we had time for that night so it left me with a sour taste in my mouth, but again, more due to my lack of preparation than anything wrong with the class. The swashbuckler fills the front line fighter role and at high level, front liners need tricks to overcome these things. Had I leveled up more organically I would have had the necessary items. When we finish the module, I’m going to change my gear somewhat so that I can overcome some of those fighter blind spots. Here is my take on the class features I got to make use of Panache- even with a relatively small pool of panache (3 or 4 points), I felt like this balanced well. Having a high crit weapon allowed this to replenish fairly reliably but not so much that I could waste it. Derring-Do – this isn’t an ability that I used much but I liked having it in the tool box. That extra bonus to swashbuckler skills is nice and one panache doesn’t feel too expensive. Opportune Parry – I didn’t have combat reflexes but I was still able to make use of this often. Mostly I used it to parry attacks of opportunity when I failed at acrobatics rolls. This is a handy ability and potentially very powerful. Having iterative parries scale down like iterative attacks might make sense (second parry is -5, third is -10 etc). Riposte – I only used this once (though as I think back I shouldn’t have since I never had an extra AoO) and the panache cost felt very steep. It would be difficult for this to be more than an incidental ability as written because you just run out of panache too quickly. Recovery – I only used this once but when I did it was very handy. An extra +2 AC at a critical moment or the ability to avoid iterative attacks is useful but the panache cost makes it something to use carefully. Bravery – Not my favorite ability and one I try to swap out on fighter archetypes but it’s flavorful and helpful for a low will save class. This never came up for me. Swashbuckler Finesse – The fact that this is like weapon finesse but not weapon finesse is overly complicated in my opinion. It should just be a bonus feat, especially since the feat is required to get into a number of other thematic feats and having to take a feat that mimics an ability you get for free feels like an unnecessary tax. Nimble – This helped keep my AC high and on par with a heavy armored front line fighter. Good stuff. Menacing Swordplay – I made as much use of this as I could given the monsters we fought. Being able to intimidate for free should make shatter defenses easier to use but honestly, I never had enough trouble hitting to make it an issue. Precise Strike – The damage bonus is great and keeps swashbucklers on par with the best damage dealers in the game. There were times when it didn’t work and I felt the loss, but not so much that I felt useless. The ability to double it was nice but never seemed overwhelming. I like this ability. Swashbuckler Initiative – The bonus to initiative was nice and meant I was often going first. I never took quickdraw so I never used the other half. It second part didn’t seem worth it to me but there might be builds that make good use of it. Bonus Feats – These are just about right. They are enough to give you a boost and let you chase a few feat trees but not so many as to overshadow a fighter. Weapon Training – The static to-hit and damage bonuses are nice and it’s nice that they’re named the same as the fighter so fighter items work with them. Improved crit at 5th level is powerful but taking it at 10 is probably too late. Pommel Strike – I never used it but I like the ability to work in some maneuvers for free Swift Feint – This was nice, especially with two sneak attackers in the party. There were times when my best action was to set them up and others where I was better off just hitting. I think this is not worth much as written unless you have party members that benefit from it. Making it a standard action means that it’s very difficult to get other feats or abilities to work well with it. Targeted Strike – I never used this but I often considered it. It’s a nice variety of maneuvers. The fact that I use an attack roll and the opponent gets no save seems very powerful. Bleeding Wound – I actually took this as my signature deed but never got to use it. Hopefully in the second half of the adventure I’ll be able to get close to something that bleeds since I focused a number of my high level feats around this. Evasive – Great ability. It’s a little painful having to wait this long for evasion (longer than a ranger!) but getting all three in one shot is nice. I wonder if maybe a scaling ability might make more sense. Something like Uncanny Dodge at 3rd, Evasion at 7th and Improved Uncanny Dodge at 11th. Subtle Blade – This seems like something that will be ignored until you run into one of those disarm or sunder encounters that come along every so often and then it will be stunning. It never came up for me. Dizzying Defense – Maybe I used this once. Most of the time I had other things to do with my swift actions and I didn’t need the armor class. Also, full defensive means no attacks of opportunity which means no parry. At 15th level my AC was 35 and my to-hit was +30. The numbers work out about the same defense wise. Full defense is better against many attack, parry against one or two Perfect Thrust – Never was I tempted to use this. My to-hit was good enough and I had other ways to make them flat footed and overcome DR. Maybe another build would make use of this ability but a full round action for one attack, even one that ignores DR and is almost guaranteed to hit, doesn’t seem like something that will come up very often. 19th and 20th level abilities – I was not high enough level to use these, though they mostly sound fun, useful and thematic. The only one I don’t like is Cheat Death. I like the concept of being too lucky to die, but often at high level, -1 and stable is a much safer place to be than 1 hp and still an active target. Overall I think this class is well designed and doesn’t need much else to make it better. A few tweaks to some of the abilities will help them feel more polished or useful. Probably my only worry is that, as written, there is little reason to play a dex based fighter other than to stick with the theme. You’ll just as effective as a strength based fighter without having to spend money on an agile weapon. Perhaps the class could get Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat at 2nd level, Dex to damage along with weapon training at 5th and then improved crit as a bonus feat at 6th level. I had a lot of fun playing this class and it certainly holds its own on the front line. I’m looking forward to seeing the final version and hope that our playtest has been informative. Here are the new classes with the gender pronouns used in their entries. I'm also following them with my hope for a race, assuming that they stick with core races. Bloodrager - Male - Gnome - There isn't a male gnome yet and raging gnomes are funny Brawler - Female - Dwarf - No female dwarf and it feels thematic Hunter - Female - Human - Why not Investigator - Male - Human - I almost said elf, but Damiel is already a male elf. It's too close to home Shaman - Female - Human (Mwangi) - Too good Skald - Male - Human (Ulfen) - Maybe it's too obvious, but it's too perfect not to hope for Slayer - Male - Human - 'Cause there's lots of humans Swashbuckler - Female - Halfling - The swashbuckler just feels very halfling to me Warpriest - Male - Half-Orc - There isn't a male half-orc yet. Angel blooded Aasimar Nature Oracle 1 for Nature's whispers (Cha to AC and CMD, something sidestep doesn't cover) and Paladin for the rest. Getting your Cha to saves will make up for no Dex. Gnome Oracle/Savage Barbarian/Rage Prophet. Using the gnome's oracle favored class bonus, you can get your lame curse high enough to rage cycle around 8th level. Not quite as high of strength but rage makes up for a lot of that. Either way take noble scion of war. There's nothing that says Hodar would stick around after combat starts. As soon as the knives come out I would have Hodar make a bee line for the door, either with the gnome, or making escape artist checks to get this crazy gnome off his back. The first thing your post makes me think of is the river kingdoms. "You have what you hold" and all that. As far as gods I can see arguments for Calistria, Erastil, Gorum, Hanspur and Cayden Cailean depending on the rest of the flavor of your character and where you want them to go. There's probably an emperyal lord that fits the bill too, since it seems like there are about a thousand of them. I second the vote for lightning bolt or haste. They're both great spells and should probably be the first and second spells you pick up. Party make up will determine the order. As you get into higher level play haste will start to be a standard expected buff from the arcane caster. At second level I really like glitterdust. It has no SR, and it's an attack spell/utility spell. If said table has an equal number of bonuses and drawback then it could be a fun mechanic, otherwise it sounds like you're hurting a primary caster for very little reason since having that heal spell go off two rounds later might be two rounds too late. I'd suggest giving the oracle visions that can be used to fill in details of the back story that might not come up otherwise or to add gravity to their ultimate mission and help the prepare for difficult encounters. There is a lot of story to the adversaries that never comes up in play because its already happened and the bad guys aren't interested in telling stories. Having a character unhinged from time is a great opportunity to use that history. Example 1 Example 2 A lot of this depends on what you want each piece for. What spells and abilities are you looking for out of arcane? What do you need out of mounted melee? The easiest build if you want to stay true arcane is to go summoner. 3/4 bab and d8 plus arcane spells including some nice buffs and controls. Top that off with a super speedy/resistant eidolon and the stats/feats you want for melee. Otherwise I'd go elven nature oracle. It's awesome, but you're only pretendig to be arcane. You can, however, combine this with arcane armor training or arcane armor mastery to further reduce the penalty, possibly to 0. Sure, it's a feat tax and a minor action tax, but its very dwarfey Thanks Stonk! That encounter table is awesome. I'll definitely be putting it into play when I run this. Another thing I'm planning to do is add a little fiction in between encounters during the goblin attack and later, the giant attack. There are enough townsfolk with adventuring levels that they wouldn't sit idly by while goblins overrun the town. I don't have it written up yet, but a few ideas off the top of my head are: 1. Father Zantus channeling to heal some downed villagers or the party and inadvertently waking up a few unconscious goblins. 2. Belor Hemlock and the town guard working as a team to take down goblins and keep people safe behind a shield wall. 3. Das Korvut turning his Mastifs loose on the goblins 4. The alchemists taking down goblins, Pillbug with scary effectiveness and Nisk Tander with comical failure. 5. Sably fighting hand to hand 6. Cyrdak inspiring courage for everyone 7. Ameiko cutting down goblins with flare 8. Daviren Hosk bursting out of his stable on his warhorse, scattering and trampling goblins as he goes. 9. Jubrayl and some Sczarni thugs ambushing goblins from around a corner then ducking out of sight. Or possibly grabbing some unattended stuff in the chaos. 10. Gaven Devrin bulls-eyeing goblins with his crossbow from the steps of the cathedral. This will be a few sentences in between encounters while the party catches their breath to let them know that they're not holding off the raid all by themselves and to showcase some of the personalities around town He can keep it if your GM is very very mean and wants you to make new characters. Deals with devils and all that. your other option is to break the recommended wealth by a little bit and give him a cloak of resistance +1 or a ring of protection . Here's my 2 cents 1. 25 point buy is fine, but you're right, it does skew the expected xp for the AP. I would suggest leaving them as they are and using ditching the accumulation of xp. Just follow the guidelines in the book and tell your players when they should level. This cuts down on some of the math of trying to stay fair while dividing by three vs four. A second option would be to slow them down a track, from fast to medium or medium to slow, but I'm not sure if this will fix the issue. you'd have to crunch the numbers to see. 2. Especially with 25 point builds and players splitting treasure three ways instead of four, I wouldn't bump up their treasure. Too much gear is the easiest way to have a game run away from you. When that happens you need to start rewriting baddies to keep up with the arms race. Their enhanced abilities should see them through until the cash starts falling. 3. A well built fighter is always like that at low levels. For the climactic fights, I would fudge things a little to keep your main villains alive for a few rounds. Double hit points and/or +2 to attacks/damage/DCs and/or +2 to AC/saves are an easy way to keep things a little more on par without changing an encounter drastically. 4. This is correct as far as I know, but i don't have books in front of me to find the reference. Good Luck! Asmo- I see 5 years as a perfectly reasonable timeline for building a cathedral. I don't see the sandpoint cathedral as a Gothic architectural feat like Notre Dame, but more of a solidly constructed stone building with some architectural flourishes. I'll work on updating the timeline with the founding of sandpoint. Derek- You are correct, I didn't check into it exactly but went with the assumption that the equinox was on the 21st. Everything in the timeline moves forward two days. Congratulations on your unprovoked acts of genocide. Also, I agree with Phil that I would have some repercussions for the heroes leaving the town undefended. Sounds like a fun encounter though. I'm curious what other GMs have done with the sin points mechanic in the AE. I'm thinking about scattering a number of encounters throughout the AP that specifically give the PCs a chance to be sinful or virtuous. While these might be combat encounters, I'm really looking for situations more like the Shayliss/Venn Vindner encounter to really tweak my players and give them chances to explore their character's sins. So what have you done, or what ideas do you have for encounters that give characters the chance to be Envious, Gluttonous, Greedy, Lustful, Proud, Slothful and Wrathful? Pathfinder, like it's predecessor 3.5, is not really designed to do 3D combat. The RAW do not address flying much beyond the fly skill and only a small set of monsters can fly. Dennis has it right on, that combat with flying creatures is the same as without. It generally makes it simpler to not have a whole different rules set to deal with flying combat, as the mental geometry can be bad enough. One game I play in we have an evoker and a character that can fly. We got tired of doing the work to figure out what the fireball template looks like for someone 10' off the ground and one of the guys in the group made wire templates for the area of effect at 5, 10, 15 and 20 feet of vertical distance. Based on my understanding of the combat maneuver rules, they should have no special effect on flying creatures. As stated before, the maneuvers do not hamper flying unless it is natural flight and the creature is unable to move (grapple). I think it would be reasonable to force a flying creature who is knocked prone (maybe with overrun?) to make a fly check to avoid stalling. In respect to drag and reposition specifically, I don't think there's any reason that they would force a creature to stop flying. They may maneuver a creature into the first square above the ground (0' high) but the creature could be flying inches above the ground. I see reposition as directing attacks and leaving openings such that the creature is forced to move, lest they be pummeled (i know the rules don't give you that option, but CMB/CMD is an abstraction). Drag is something on the order of grabbing someone by the shirt or arm and pulling them after you. Neither of these maneuvers directly affects a creature's ability to fly. You could certainly house rule that any forced movement while flying puts enough strain on the flyer that they must make a fly check or suffer some penalty (penalty to hit for being unstable?, loss of altitude?, stalling and falling?). If you're looking for RAW, however, the system is abstracted out enough that only trip has specific rules for flyers and only a few others can have any effect (grapple, overrun?) the AE of the AP says that the ceilings in the cathedral are 20' high. It's the last sentence before the 'creatures' heading. It is a barbarian, what else can you expect? Is a high ac barbarian even possible I do believe I've seen a build for an urban barbarian dervish dancer that did silly amounts of damage with a scimitar and had an AC in the 30s at lvl 12 She's small enough that maybe she can squeeze down the stair to the scribbler's lair or spend some time digging a way. She can spend the next 3.5 books learning from another of Lamashtu's chosen and get leveled up to be an appropriate threat. Her natural abilities fit well with his hit and run tactics and she could become very annoying in book 5. I think the Shayliss angle would work well. It can potentially give the PCs more info about Foxglove so that could make the murder investigation easier, depending on how many other red herrings you toss in. I think Tsuto being infatuated with his half sister has some interesting flavor and could work out well. I would make sure to modify his journals somewhat to make sure that the party gets hints about what Nualia is trying to do, both the attacks and the transformation. This is the party I would be afraid to face. Dwarf Ranger Archer- Favored Enemy: Giants (max), Undead, Dragons, Human Wolf animal companion built as a tank Paladin: (Divine Hunter)- obviously archer Bard- Noble Scion (war) and archery focus Elf Wizard Diviner/ Arcane Archer Everyone keeps their perception high and takes the Lookout teamwork feat. The Ranger and Bard can use stealth combined with the Diviner using arcane eye and other magic to scout. They should get the drop on most encounters and a full round from four archers (thanks to lookout and the diviner) will end most combats before they begin. High initiatives (through noble scion of war, high dex, favored terrain and eventually, moment of prescience) means that the first round of combat will probably be a repeat of the surprise round. It's not unbeatable, by any means and the first few levels could be tough, but once they get in their groove, these four will mow down most of the AP without breaking a sweat. I'd have her wait a few days. If the party doesn't show up she starts hunting. 1) How will this be a detriment? Most of the townsfolk you meet will not take kindly to your religion. Best case scenario would be quiet disapproval all the way up to outright hostility. Sandpoint especially has some unhappy history with Lamashtu. 2) How will this be a boon? I'm sure there are some nice mechanical combinations. 3) How will this effect the story/encounters? Badly. As said by Gwaihir, you'll be working directly against some of her agents/plans and that will create some dissonance and/or party conflict. If you go with the peculiar worship path, what aspect of the Chaotic Evil Demon Lord of Madness, Monsters and Nightmares are you going to focus on that will be palatable to others? How is your worship so vastly different that you would oppose your goddesses plans? If it is that different, why aren't you worshiping a different deity? 4) How should I handle these effects? I'd talk to your DM and see if they are okay with adapting things for your character or have ideas for ways to tweak your story and build to work with the AP a little more smoothly. I assume that Kourzog will have been scrying on the party since the time they pick up the first Sihedron amulet. If they build a one trick pony and have been using that trick to kill his minions, he'll have defenses against that. Ioun stones, rings of counterspell or perhaps spell immunity cast by one of his Lamias should knock that out. Time is on his side. I'd say no on the Kitsune, since she's doubling up what Gaidal is doing. The Paladin is the next out. The oath against Fiends isn't going to come up much and the Tiefling thing might be a little odd in Sandpoint. The ranger could be brutal with the right favored enemies but I agree with the others about doubling up melee roles. For RP I really like the bard. I think the AP flows well when someone in the party is really into Thassilon. He is, however, doubling up on the Face's job and so maybe is better left as a tagalong expert or resource in town. Archers are indeed brutal, but you might need that in certain encounters. Another possible option would be to make Shalelu into a PC. She has lots of tie into the story (though it sounds like your other NPCs do too) and fills that archer role. I think if you can make the rest of the story work, her owning the inn is the least of your worries. Some of the older townsfolk might be a little unsure about the arrangement but she paid good coin for it and hasn't messed it up yet. Also, she's a noble daughter of the town. No matter how messy the family politics I can see the town happy to have an adventurous youth back in town "settling down" into a more stable living. The old ladies are probably playing matchmaker for her incessantly. Having run RotRL once, I would suggest modifying some of the combat tactics to take out some of the mook fights. The AP assumes that you'll wear down some resources by fighting dungeons piecemeal and certain group hanging back. With a group that big, just getting everyone set up for combat takes long enough that I would tend to run the dungeons as one or two big fights. Have the mooks run to join up with their boss instead of trying to take on an entire squad of adventurers by themselves. This also gives the baddies the same advantage the PCs do of sharing some buffs without adding more casters (bless, bard song, haste etc). I think two things are critical here. 1. Foreshadow books five and six with similar events 2. Make them care enough about the region that they will step it up in book four and help where needed and do the appropriate dungeon delving Here's how I would do it. Intelligent flying predators know who the scariest humans are, the ones with bows! (especially if they can shoot you from a couple hundred feet away). His tactics say he engages displaced and invisible, which should make him archer bane to start with. Remember that displacement beats improved precise since displacement isn't cover, it's just miss chance. His surprise round should be to fly in and snatch the ranger up in his mouth, breathing on him while he climbs, then drop him from 200' up in the air. Once the archer is dealt with, he can continue to harry the party following tactics as normal, but your archer should be properly humbled I don't think Nualia would leave, she's got too much left to do in Thistletop. There are other goblin tribes in the area that would love the chance to get the 'best lair' and other mercenaries are easy enough to come by. I think this would, however, put her on alert. She would keep all three Yeth Hounds by her at all times. Tomorrow she would probably change up her spell list somewhat to deal with the events. Animate dead for the goblins is awesome and you could maybe add a little Lamashtu flavor to them when they're raised...more monstrous appearances somehow. I think she'd also go without sleep for a few nights, using Gogmurt's trick of lesser restoration to fight off the fatigue. I think she'd probably continue like this until she got some new mercenaries hired to watch her back. I would add one thing, having run RotRL once and looking to do so again. Since you're including character restrictions, I would have your characters find some reason to care about the town of Sandpoint. The adventure hooks are much easier when you have characters that care about something or someone in Sandpoint and are willing to work to protect it. The first time through, my group was not well invested in the town and it was work to keep them on task. When I run the AP next time I'm going to make the Sandpoint connection mandatory, as well as requiring one of the characters to be interested in Thassilonian lore. They're more expensive but Mithral weapons allow you to bypass silver DR without giving up the point of damage. Wizard 5 is going to have to spend a feat on armor proficiency. I think it blends better with a cleric or oracle. Maybe a magus? His two optional rules will create a number of problems 1. The math is going to be all wrong. If armor is DR, everyone will be much easier to hit. I can see where he is coming from, but from a realistic standpoint, you then need to track hardness and HP of armor and shields and find out how much pummeling they can take before they break and need to be repaired. Also, bonuses to hit won't scale properly with worn armor and by 10th level, everyone will be hitting everyone most of the time. There are also issues about how Magical DR stacks with Armor DR 2. The reality of dex to attack has some merit, hand eye coord is important, but so is strength and speed. Most melee fighters we see today (boxers, mma, etc) are not gymnast nimble the way a high dex fighters needs to be. Other games deal with this by having a prowess stat the specifically deals with how good you are at hitting a moving target (melee and ranged). PF doesn't have this. I suppose the easiest way to approximate it would be to average your str and dex but that seems like a lot of extra work.ick Asmo wrote:... ...yes, I really have had players that would try that kind of 'stuff'. Welcome to the boards! I will run the anniversary edition, and I´ll go for 15 points and allow one score to go below 10; to - 8, to be exact. Max 18 in a score at first level. Thoughts? Asmo... A Cleric with 'command' or any other mind affecting spells would probably grind the 4 wis barbarian to a halt rather quickly. I agree with the +4 thing, if it's not dangerous, he doesn't get it. Do you have any citations for the designer posts or other design elements? Ah I see now. I would personally rule it to be the same as a Reposition, my main logic being that the movement is not voluntary and from a logic stand point if you're close enough to be grappling someone as you're moving them an ally would not be able to safely attack your opponent without risk of hitting you instead. Otherwise the potential for abuse is also high, you could move past 5 allies and they would all get AOO's, doesn't sound right to me. That's basically my concern. Stabbity: I generally agree with you. The other maneuvers spell it out very nicely when they do and do not provoke. Also, the spells that I can find that move enemies around the battle field make combat maneuvers, so the issues are generally the same. From the SRD Provoking an Attack of Opportunity: Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing certain actions within a threatened square. Moving Moving out of a threatened square usually provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents. There are two common methods of avoiding such an attack—the 5-foot step and the withdraw action. Baddy is obviously not performing a 'certain action' (like casting a spell), so doesn't meet criteria #2. Criteria #1 gets a bit hazy again. He's not taking an action to leave the square so that takes us out of the common use of this rule. Two similar examples jump to mind where a character is moving without acting. First is falling: Say fighter is flying 60' in the air, 30' below Baddy on a flying carpet. Baddy's carpet gets hit with disjunction and now he's falling. Will he provoke an AoO from Fighter if the path of his fall takes him through Fighter's threatened square? Second is being grappled by a large creature: Baddy is adjacent to Fighter. Monk (who is large for this example) flanks Baddy with Fighter and successfully initiates a grapple. Grapple rules say that Baddy is moved adjacent to Monk, does this movement provoke an AoO? It would be nice if the grappling rules were as clear as the other maneuvers, which interpretation stays closest to RaI? Here's the answer: An enemy being moved by a reposition does not provoke an attack of opportunity because of the movement unless you possess the Greater Reposition feat. You cannot move a creature into a square that is occupied by a solid object or obstacle. But this isn't a reposition, it's a special use of grapple. Here's the situation: Round 1: Monk: grapples Baddy Baddy: Attempts to break grapple, Monk giggles Round 2: Monk: Makes his grapple check against Baddy, chooses to 'move'. The path of movement takes Baddy through squares threatened by Fighter who is an ally of Monk. Baddy: Attempts his escape check with +4 bonus for being moved through a dangerous situation, Monk giggles again Here's the question: Does Fighter get an attack of opportunity? The Argument for an AoO: Baddy has moved through Fighter's threatened square and so provokes an AoO. It is fair since Monk spent two round setting up this little dance and Baddy got two opportunities to resist. The Argument against an AoO: Baddy has taken no actions that provoke AoOs. He was moved through threatened squares but took no actions of his own and cannot provoke AoOs unless the rules say otherwise (greater trip etc). It is unfair since it makes greater reposition somewhat redundant. The grapple rules are decidedly vague on this point. I think the player would need to understand that playing scenarios from previous years will not have an effect on the world at large. I have one 12th level character. Evan Tananger, Halfling Bard 12 from the river kingdoms and supporter of the Andoran faction. My wife also has a 12th level rogue. Syra Tananger, Halfling Rogue 12. Evan's sister and also Andoran. For what it's worth I'm in favor of more high level play options. I like to play to at least 15. The game changes a bit when you get high level magic, but it gives you a lot of time at the table and a lot of space mechanically to watch your character grow up and change. You're a world shaker at high level, but that's part of the fun. seems to me that a word caster that preps spells is on similar footing with the standard version of the class. Spontaneous casters, however seem to get a lot of added versatility in terms of what shapes and effects they can create. Haven't seen the rules in play, but that's my take from reading through I love the alchemist and I'm working out builds for an upcoming game. However, there are a few things (that have been pointed out elsewhere) that I'd like to see. 1. Between the spell list and mutagen ability it feels like the class is driving towards a self buffer yet they face the same downfall that all self buffers do. By the time she's done quaffing all her potions to be effective in combat, the fight is over. I'd like to see some ability that would allow her to buff up faster. A discovery that would allow her to combine multiple spell effects into the mutagen would be fitting. i.e. when she preps the mutagen for the day she also uses the slots for two first level extracts and chooses enlarge person and shield. When the party comes to a big fight she can then quaff the tonic for a +2 str, +2 natural armor, +4 shield bonus and all the bonuses for being large. She only gets one per day, but it's pretty awesome when it goes off. 2. I'd like to see a way to make the alchemical items that are already present in the game actually useful to an alchemist beyond about 3rd level. Some ability that lets the alchemical items crafted by (or possibly just used by) the alchemist function at a higher DC. Tanglefoot bags and Thunder stones would provide all sorts of interesting options if there was a reasonable chance of the bad guys failing their saves. 3. The spell list is somewhat limited when it comes to actually affecting the environment. I'd like to see and alchemist that can either be an effective buffer (see #1) or can do a little more than just damage with his bombs (cure light wounds potions as splash weapons?!). Ideally the discoveries would let her choose but that might be too many rules for an already complicated class. Great job so far! I've been loving digesting the new.

Sensory-Enhanced Storytime at Douglas County Libraries: An Inclusive Program. At the very heart of the ALA code of ethics is the promise, “We provide the highest level of service to all library users.”1 We at DCL realized that this special population was not receiving storytime services. Many parents with children who are differently abled do not attend library storytime because they are concerned that their children will be disruptive, and yet these children need and benefit from our services. We were determined to provide a safe, comfortable environment that would welcome these children and young adults, and their families, so they too could benefit from the literacy-rich environment that the library provides. Since beginning sensory-enhanced storytime in September 2012, we have received many expressions of thanks from parents, caregivers, and medical therapists. Their statements of support can be summarized as thanking us for providing a program where a son can be who he is, where siblings can interact just as they do at home, and where weekly growth can be observed. Children, teens and young adults with a variety of special needs attend our program, revealing a broader need than originally anticipated. Our program has connected us with a young adult daycare, whose clients attend weekly, and where we visit monthly to present our storytime. When these young adults visit the library for storytime, they may also use our computers or check out materials. Many of our attendees are new to the library, and they apply for library cards after storytime. We see them using the library before and after our sessions, and we encourage them to attend upcoming events and participate in our seasonal reading programs. Further, by welcoming siblings, extended family, and medical professionals to each session, we are providing a therapeutic and informative program with value beyond the immediate experience. We are dedicated to making our libraries welcoming to all patrons. The Stories of Sensory-Enhanced Storytime From the start, we have been pleased by our attendees’ age range and developmental levels. This is an expression of the importance of this program for a large segment of people in our community. We have infants, toddlers, preschoolers, children, teens, and young adults attend, each with their unique abilities to interact and enjoy the event. When we were developing the program, we expected that our audience would be largely children of toddler and preschool age on the autism spectrum, but we have learned that this storytime fills a need for a much more diverse demographic. We currently have an average of eight youth attending each session. While we anticipate increased attendance over time through word-of-mouth and outreach, we know that our program is making a difference in the lives of our regular participants. They attend once or even twice weekly, giving us the opportunity to see their attention, language, and social skills develop. Initially some are hesitant to come into our storytime room, or may cry during their first visit. After a few sessions they are comforted by their growing familiarity with the songs and activities that we repeat at each session, and gradually begin to engage and participate. Some make progress during their first storytime. A mother noted that her daughter did not cover her ears at all during her first sensory storytime at our library, which she regarded as a significant milestone. We also see that repeat participants become more engaged over time. They gain self-confidence and improve their language and social skills. They may gradually develop their ability to make eye contact. Their attention spans and participation increase as they are more able to anticipate each activity. We have learned that children who may not appear to be interested in the session will smile when we call them by name and make note of the scarf color they have selected, for example. Equally gratifying, some children choose to sit closer to us with each storytime they attend, and eagerly join in our activities. Mason, a two-year-old participant, is now comfortable coming up to our easel and placing his flannel shape on the board. A few short months ago his dad had to do this for him. New friendships among the children, their parents/caregivers, and the program staff are another important benefit of sensory storytime. Raising a child with special needs can be an isolating experience for families. Our program offers a weekly time for them to visit the library and socialize. They begin to call each other by name, the typically developing children interact freely with those with special needs, and the relationships continue beyond storytime. At the conclusion of a recent session, one of our youngest participants looked up into the face of a young adult participant and said “Goodbye, James!” Our storytime parents and caregivers are very appreciative of the safe and welcoming environment that our program provides for their children, and the developmental growth that it helps promote. Holly, whose son has a sensory processing disorder that makes it difficult to stay engaged, likes our sensory storytime as “it is hard to go to the library because he goes from thing to thing.” Our contained storytime room, with volunteers watching the closed doors, enables the parents and caregivers to relax and help their children benefit from our activities. The reassuring environment engenders a sense of security in their children. They talk, sing, sit, stand, walk, and move freely as they express themselves during the storytime activities. Patrice, mother of two sons with Prader-Willi Syndrome, says of the program, “There have not been any negatives. It’s really a valuable resource for people like us that the kids don’t have to try and fit in. No one minds their little issues or idiosyncrasies. It’s very welcoming and we can just relax and be ourselves.” Sensory-enhanced storytime is also a place for parents to connect with our staff, volunteers, and other parents and caregivers to seek and exchange information on library and community resources. As they enter our storytime room, we provide take-home information on our library programs, the Autism Society of Colorado, therapy centers, and other community organizations that have partnered with us or are recommended by our families. Where to Begin We began planning our sensory storytime program in fall 2011 with the formation of a district task force. The task force was composed of staff from several DCL departments. This group established working relationships with two organizations having extensive knowledge and expertise in providing programs for youth with special needs: (1) the Autism Society of Colorado (ASC) and (2) the Douglas County Preschool Program (DCPP). These collaborative relationships continue today, and our sensory storytime program is based to a great extent on their contributions, as described next. During the ten months of storytime development, the ASC partnered with us in numerous ways. We attended their Autism Answers program, which is an introduction to their mission and staff, and to autism spectrum disorders, presented by their executive director. Following the program, we discussed the plans for our sensory program with them, and they provided ideas and information that are integral to how we market and present our storytime. The ASC has included our storytime schedule in their website since our program began. Additionally, three members of the ASC staff visited our library. They attended preschool storytime, in order to discover which elements of this traditional program could be included in our sensory storytime, and to suggest appropriate modifications and enhancements. They also toured the library meeting room where sensory storytime is held, to help ensure an optimal and safe environment for our attendees. We set up our room for sensory storytime based on ASC staff suggestions: the fluorescent light banks remain off, as some children may be sensitive to their buzzing and flickering; ceiling fans remain off due to their vibration and sound; the emergency and hallway exit doors are labeled with red STOP signs and monitored by volunteers; we place our meeting room tables in front of our stacked chairs to eliminate the chairs as a climbing hazard; and we secure all miscellaneous items such as push pins, pens, pencils, rubber bands, and so forth. Additionally, the ASC staff suggested that we use our rug with multi-colored squares to allow each participant to select a color to sit on. We also encourage our participants to bring their own seating, if they wish. In June 2012, the ASC presented their Autism 101 program at our district staff day. As described by the ASC, “Autism 101 is an introduction to understanding autism spectrum disorders. Through this interactive and quick-paced presentation, you will learn the signs of autism, how to interact with individuals with ASD, and how to appreciate the gifts of autism.”2 We gained valuable insights from this presentation into the sensory and learning challenges of children on the autism spectrum, and a higher level of confidence in our customer service skills for serving patrons with special needs. Our task force also worked extensively with the DCPP during the development phase of our sensory storytime. We observed a preschool class session, where the teacher sat with her students and acted out “Humpty Dumpty.” The children were enamored and engaged. We came away inspired that we could stretch ourselves in our sensory storytime without being over the top for the children. Additionally, a DCPP occupational therapist attended our task force meetings. She provided guidance on the children’s seating, fidgets, and many other aspects of the storytime. Another crucial step in our sensory storytime’s development was reading Tricia Bohanon Twarogowski’s blog post, “Programming for Children with Special Needs,” which details her preparation and launch of a sensory storytime for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (N.C.).3 Along with the vital participation of the ASC and DCPP, Twarogowski’s blog post is another part of the foundation upon which we developed our program. Among the many valuable tips she shares, we have incorporated into our storytime her recommendations to invite siblings and medical therapists to attend, to add to the family’s enjoyment and therapeutic understanding of their child; to develop the storytime for all ages and at a preschool developmental level, in order to welcome children, teens, and young adults; and to offer parents and caregivers surveys of their experience with us in order to adapt and improve the storytime. We also benefited from information provided by the Inclusion Collaborative of the Santa Clara County (Calif.) Office of Education. According to its website, the Inclusion Collaborative’s focus is “the successful inclusion of children with special needs in child care, preschool programs, and the community through education, advocacy, and awareness.”4 They replied to our request for assistance with the design and implementation of a sensory storytime with useful guidelines for organizing the storytime space, activities, and social story. A social story is a digital slideshow to introduce the library and storytime presenters to the children and families before they attend their first sensory storytime. We created our social story based on the Inclusion Collaborative’s example.5 Our social story includes photos of our storytellers, a staff nametag for easy identification of a staff member, the front exterior of our building, main entrance, book return, storytime hallway, storytime room interior, information desks, restroom, children’s department, and self-check machines. We also incorporated Inclusion Collaborative’s suggestions for seating, quiet fidget toys, and adapted storybooks to increase storytime interactions. Staff and Volunteers With the task force’s research complete, we (the authors), along with Carol Wagstaff and Leeann O’Malley-Schott, began to plan the details of the fall 2012 pilot. We offered the pilot program weekly, with morning and afternoon sessions on the same day. Realizing the daily demands on families of children with special needs, we could not predict an ideal day of the week for them. Consequently, we varied the storytime day monthly during the pilot, in order to help us determine the best day and times by surveying the parents and caregivers. Next, we considered the staffing needs of the program. We learned from our work with ASC and DCPP that it would be ideal to have three people at each storytime: the librarian to lead the presentation and two additional staff or volunteers to assist with the parallel storybook/flannel board presentations, hand out manipulatives, and monitor the doors for safety. In order to provide ongoing continuity in our storytime, which is an important factor for those on the autism spectrum, each storytime has its assigned youth librarian presenter. Due to scheduling and budgetary restrictions, we recruited volunteers to fill the additional positions. DCL District Volunteer Services Supervisor Ali Ayres and Branch Volunteer Coordinator Kim McClintock developed and led the volunteer recruitment. We asked volunteers for a minimum six-month commitment, and to be available for a specific weekly session. We wanted them to have experience with, or a professional interest in, children with special needs so that the program would be enhanced by their understanding and skills. Ayres and McClintock contacted our library’s existing volunteers, and advertised the positions in our district’s volunteer newsletter as well as in external publications. As our district does with all volunteer applicants, the candidates underwent a background check before being accepted. Ayres’ and McClintock’s dedication to finding the best candidates resulted in the formation of a core group of twelve wonderful teens and adults, some of whom have been with the program since the pilot. Our volunteers have formed friendships with the participants, and enrich our presentations with their experience and love. Next we created a volunteer orientation to the program. With the permission of the ASC, Wagstaff developed a synopsis of their Autism 101 program. We began the orientation with this, followed by a discussion of the volunteers’ storytime tasks. Finally, we presented a portion of the storytime to demonstrate those tasks for them. Themes, Plans, and Materials The next step was to develop the storytime themes, plans, and materials. We selected themes that are supported by numerous and well-loved storybooks, songs, and flannel stories (see figure 1). We designed a sensory storytime plan template (see figure 2) to ensure that we would offer the same opening and closing songs, bubbles, parachute, and other activities at each session. Figure 1. Sensory-Enhanced Storytime Themes Pilot Program Colors Things That Go Farm Animals Mice are Nice Family Feelings Shake Your Sillies Out Dinosaurs Bathtime Bedtime Bears Yummy in My Tummy Bundle Up/Clothes Snow Friends/Penguins Under the Sea Move Figure 2. Sensory-Enhanced Storytime Template Hello Song Welcome and Visual Schedule Book or Adapted Book and Flannel/ Manipulative Fingerplay/Nursery Rhyme Song Book or Adapted Book and Flannel/ Manipulative Fingerplay/Nursery Rhyme Scarf Song Bubbles and Song Parachute and Song Goodbye Song Using information from the ASC, DCPP, and Twarogowski’s blog, we then enhanced the sensory experience of our storytimes in multiple ways. To offer a richer visual experience to our audience, we read a storybook while our volunteer simultaneously engages the audience with the flannel board version of the book. The pieces of the flannel board story are placed on a portable flannel board for our participants to select and place on the easel flannel board as the story is read aloud. We made adapted storybooks and manipulatives to further engage the children. The adapted storybooks are color copies of storybooks that are laminated and put into a three-ring binder. A second set of copies is used to cut out and laminate key illustrations from the pages. Those illustrations are then attached with Velcro on top of their identical images on the pages in the binder. Prior to a storytime, we remove the Velcro-attached images from the book and place them on the flannel board. While we read the storybook, children take turns placing the images on the pages of the adapted book. We also attach laminated characters from select storybooks to large craft sticks and distribute them, allowing the audience to act out the story as it is read. A variety of movements and sounds are incorporated into our storytime as well. We sing songs that include waving, clapping, stomping, and swaying. Musical instruments such as tambourines, sound blocks, tapping sticks, shaker eggs, and water bottles filled with rice add to the movement and sound opportunities. We move colorful scarves through the air at every storytime to the song “Shake Your Scarves” by Johnette Downing from her album The Second Line Scarf Activity Songs. Each session also includes moving a parachute up and down to the tune of songs such as “Tick-Tock.” Some children also need to walk or run around at some point during a session, which we can accommodate in our room. A selection of puppets is also an integral tool to engage our attendees. Finger puppets serve as both characters from our stories and fidgets for their hands, and the larger puppets join us on the floor where they serve as props, pillows, and cuddly friends for the children. They provide an additional sensory source as well, as the children can stroke, swing, or squeeze them. In all of these ways, puppets help our audiences participate in the storytime. We engage the children’s tactile sense with sensory balls, felt teddy bears, small beanbags, squishy paint bags, large feathers, chunky paint brushes, and other stimulating objects. For those children who enjoy scents, we pass cotton balls in plastic jars saturated with pleasant smells relating to specific stories. Bubbles from our bubble machine are included in every sensory storytime, which attract and delight many of our participants. We have found that by incorporating different sensory experiences into each storytime, we are able to engage and re-engage our diverse audiences. Another important component of sensory storytime is the visual schedule, a tool commonly used in inclusive classrooms. Wagstaff created our smiling caterpillar whose individual circles depict a different storytime activity- read a book, sing a song, bubbles, and so forth. As we complete an activity, our volunteer or an eager audience member removes that circle from the caterpillar and moves his face down to meet the next circle. The visual schedule is a reassuring element for our audiences because they are familiar with its purpose and it tells them exactly what to expect at each session. Resources In order to gain a foundational understanding of the autism spectrum, and to aid in the development of our storytime plans, we consulted and recommend the following books (see figure 3). These titles are part of the wealth of information available to you to supplement what you will learn from your local Autism Society and school districts. Figure 3. Recommended Reading Materials The Autism Book: What Every Parent Needs to Know About Early Detection, Treatment, Recovery, and Prevention. Robert Sears, M.D. (2010) Autism Every Day: Over 150 Strategies Lived and Learned by a Professional Autism Consultant with 3 Sons On the Spectrum. Alyson Beytien (2011) The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum. Temple Grandin (2013) How to Talk to an Autistic Kid. Daniel Stefanski (2011) Music for Special Kids: Musical Activities, Songs, Instruments and Resources. Pamela Ott (2011) Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew. Ellen Notbohm (2012) Still Learning September 2013 marked our first full year of offering sensory-enhanced storytime at the Highlands Ranch Library. Throughout this year we have offered our storytime each Thursday (at 10:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m.) and on the third Saturday of each month (at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.). This schedule was, in large part, determined by the survey and in-person recommendations that we received from our participants during the pilot program. We learned that our public school district’s preschool program offers families the choice of half-day morning or afternoon classes, so it was logical for us to offer both a morning and afternoon weekday session. The times of day were likewise chosen based on our pilot audience’s suggestions. Thursday was chosen because it was the day that most attendees preferred. Additionally, because we do not have a dedicated storytime room, it is most efficient for us to set up our storytime once on Thursday morning, and offer two storytimes before putting our supplies away. Both sessions have a core group of weekly attendees and regularly attract new families who can attend because of a change in their school schedule or medical appointments. We request that the child attending storytime be signed up for each session, and patrons can register up to one month in advance. A maximum of fifteen children can register for each session. If non-registered participants arrive, we welcome them into the storytime with the request that they register in the future. No one who wants to attend is turned away. There is no registration required for those accompanying the registered children. An adult must attend with the child, but a one-to-one ratio is not necessary. We have a storytime email group that is regularly updated with new registrants. This group receives the storytime plan from us at the beginning of each week. This was requested by a mother who wants to make the storytime session more enjoyable for her child by reading the storybooks and singing the songs prior to attending. We know that this can be helpful to all of our participants, so we include this in our weekly tasks. We also email a pre-survey to families who register for the first time, and send a post-survey after they attend. The pre-surveys tell us how our registrants found the program and the specific needs of their children that they choose to share. The post-surveys allow them to tell us what they did and did not like about the storytime, and to make suggestions for how to improve it. With this information, we adapt our sessions to better meet their needs. Our 2013 storytime themes follow the weekly themes of our traditional storytimes. We present the theme that our traditional storytimes offered during the previous week. By following this schedule, we do not use resources needed by our traditional storytimes, while allowing us to choose from the books, flannel board stories, and songs that have already been gathered. We changed our storytime floor seating from our large rug to foam squares (approximately 18″ x 18″ in size) that adhere to our library carpeting with Velcro dots. This was prompted by our concern that the curled edges of the rug would be a tripping hazard. The foam squares are colorful puzzle shapes decorated with animal and plant designs and numbers. Upon arriving, the designs and numbers prompt some of the children to discuss which square they will sit on, creating immediate engagement. Of course, some children prefer their parent or caregiver’s lap or snuggling with one of our large puppets during storytime, while others bring their seating from home or remain in their wheelchairs. A volunteer passes out hand fidgets at the beginning of each session for sensory stimulation and to assist with engagement during the storytime. Some fidgets are related to the theme of the storytime or to a specific book being read, while others are provided for their calming properties, like the cooling sensation from the paint bags when placed on a cheek or forehead. When we sing everyone’s first name after our welcoming announcement, we pass a sensory ball from child to child. The sensory ball has raised nubs covering its surface for an increased tactile experience. Periodically an adult in the audience will use the sensory ball during our storytime to soothe their child by rolling it gently along the child’s back or limbs. We have found that our participants greatly enjoy storytime when we read our oversized storybooks or sing select storybooks. The oversized books enhance our audience’s visual experience and allow for easier viewing. One volunteer holds one side of a large book and helps the storyteller turn the pages. Singable books (such as Five Little Ducks, Over in the Meadow, or Today Is Monday) encourage movement with their rhythms and hand gestures and increase participation for many children. Bubbles and a parachute song conclude each storytime with smiles and laughter. Most of the children are delighted with the bubbles and they often stand under them or try to catch them as we sing a song from “The Mailbox Magazine” (see figure 4). There is much excitement as we break out the parachute and beach ball. We sing a song while everyone moves the large parachute up and down or sits under the parachute for a sensory-rich experience. The children move the parachute to try and keep the beach ball on it, and take turns retrieving it whenever it is bounced off. To encourage everyone to let go of the parachute at the end of the song, we say that we need our hands to wave as we sing our goodbye song. Figure 4. “Bubble Song Lyrics” Bubbles floating all around Bubbles fat and bubbles round, Bubbles on your nose and toes, Blow a bubble, up it goes. Bubbles floating all around, Bubbles floating to the ground Over the past year we have heard from our participants about some of the many ways in which our storytime is useful and beneficial for them. Parents attend with children who will begin preschool in the next school year. They use our program to encourage their children to participate in group activities, follow directions, and develop social and cognitive skills. Families attend for their typically developing children to enjoy an activity with siblings who have special needs. Caregivers attend with their clients to provide them with a weekly change of environment and informal instruction at a preschool level. Medical therapists join their patients at storytime to observe them in a non-clinical setting and to understand the therapeutic benefits of the program. Parents and caregivers also appreciate the library and community information we provide, as well as the relaxing environment. Outreach Community outreach has been an important part of our storytime’s growth over the past year. We have created partnerships with a variety of community organizations that serve the needs of special populations. Our collaborations were initiated by DCL, by the organizations themselves, or through parent recommendations. As we did during the development of our storytime, we continue to partner with the ASC and the DCPP through mutual program promotion and referral. We also collaborate with the HighPointe Center, a daycare facility for young adults with developmental disabilities. They attend our weekly storytime at the library, and we present a storytime at their location once a month. Our storytime bookmarks are available at their center’s reception desk, and we offer their information on our resource table. We are also fortunate to have the STAR (Sensory Therapies and Research) Center as a local resource and collaborator. We offer their informational brochure on our storytime resource table, and they display our storytime poster in their reception area. The Highlands Ranch Community Association’s therapeutic recreation program provides classes and activities for youth with special needs, and we are pleased to have a partnership with them. Their class offerings and community events are advertised at our storytimes, and they provide information on our program in their facilities. Throughout 2014, we are planning to offer additional programs and services for the special populations in our communities. The families who attend sensory storytime have established connections with each other through our program, and we would like to help them develop a parent support group to be held at our library and therapeutic recreation centers. We will also forward to our participants relevant community information, with their permission. We encourage you to consider offering a sensory storytime program at your library. We have told you about how it benefits our patrons and community. What you also should know is that our two-year journey to develop and present sensory storytime has been one of the most joyful and satisfying experiences of our careers. We welcome you to join the community of libraries that present sensory storytime. References - American Library Association, “Code of Ethics of the American Library Association,” accessed Feb. 5, 2014. - Autism Society of Colorado, “Autism 101,” Aug. 16, 2013, accessed Feb. 5, 2014. - Tricia Bohanon Twarogowski, “Programming for Children with Special Needs, Part One,” ALSC Blog, June 23, 2009, accessed Feb. 5, 2014. - Santa Clara County Office of Education, “Inclusion Collaborative,” accessed Feb. 5, 2014. - It is posted on the sensory-enhanced storytime page of our website. Tags: autism spectrum disorder, sensory enhanced storytime, storytelling

Should one cry or laugh at Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s latest racist fulminations, making the preposterous claim that the 13th General Election is proof that the Chinese in Malaysia are out to oust the political power of the Malays and to dominate Malaysian politics? Cry because a former Prime Minister could be so racist, reckless and irresponsible as to continue to try to set the Malays against the Chinese, outdoing his preposterous claim during the 13th General Elections that I was contesting in Gelang Patah to create a “racial confrontation” and that I was inciting the Chinese to hate the Malays. There was not an ounce of truth in Mahathir’s allegations, but what is significant is that Mahathir’s allegations failed to make any impression on the voters, particularly the Malay voters, as I could not have won Gelang Patah with a majority of over 14,000 votes without the support of the Malay voters.? Laugh that a former Prime Minister could go to such desperate lengths because his racist message is facing a diminishing market among the Malays that he had to concoct such wild lies that the Chinese in Malaysia are out to oust the political power of the Malays so as to dominate Malaysian politics! Does Mahathir really believe his own allegations? Does Mahathir expect any sane and rational Malaysian, regardless of race, to believe in his latest racist fulminations that the Chinese are out to oust the political power of the Malays and to dominate Malaysian politics – which are complete figments of his imagination like his earlier wild allegations that I contested in Gelang Patah to create a racial confrontation and to incite Chinese to hate the Malays? The most dismaying development in Malaysian politics is the reckless racist fulminations of Mahathir, but there is no need for Malaysians to despair. It is said that “every cloud has a silver lining” and the silver lining is that Mahathir is facing a diminishing market for his racist fulminations which will foil his attempt to pit the Malays against the Chinese. Although Mahathir has repudiated his Vision 2020 and a Bangsa Malaysia, and Datuk Seri Najib Razak has yet to prove that he is serious and sincere about 1Malaysia, the 13GE has shown that more and more Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region, are united by a common Malaysian Dream to want a Malaysia which transcends the politics of race, corruption, cronyism, abuses of power and all forms of injustices to take the country towards a new tomorrow where all Malaysians can hold their heads high as proud citizens of a Malaysian nation where there is freedom, justice, good governance, prosperity for all Malaysians where the politics of race is a nightmare of the past. #1 by buylower2003 on Friday, 7 June 2013 - 6:15 pm Ah, MAMAKthir should just shut his mamak mouth & go back to India to be with his kind, instead of interfering with the harmony of Malays & Chinese. But I guess even there he will stir up things between the Pakis & the Indians, lol #2 by worldpress on Friday, 7 June 2013 - 6:39 pm This Mama trying to distract people, maybe process import people increase mama number from neighbours country near island at north It happen in the East, it could happen again in West. #3 by ENDANGERED HORNBILL on Friday, 7 June 2013 - 7:35 pm Be careful. There is method in Mahathir’s madness. He is not targeting at urbanites. Again, he is targeting at precisely his Perkasa Audience. At least, Rasputin was plain mad. Mahathir’s madness is Machiavellian. #4 by Bigjoe on Friday, 7 June 2013 - 7:42 pm The real horror is that as Mahathir is spewing racism and blaming, he is getting Najib to use OUR money to fund his very mediocre son’s rise in UMNO through funneling funds to his homestate. The man has a complete disdain the rest of us in the other 12 states, mostly Malays, won’t noticed? I will say it again Mahathir is no mere racist, he is a CLASSIC SOCIOPATH – blaming others for what he is guilty off, denying obvious truth, with the flimsies of excuses and lies, preying on his very own follower’s fortune, even reckless with the fate of his sycophantic followers.. #5 by Loh on Friday, 7 June 2013 - 7:58 pm Mahathir’s words RACIAL POLARIZATION Jun6th 2013 Written by chedet ///1. After Parliament was dissolved on the 13th April 2013, I was interviewed by a BBC journalist. He appeared quite convinced that race-based parties such as those in the National Front would be rejected by a more liberal electorate which believes in democracy, freedom and non-racial politics. Also the idealistic young would reject the BN. 2. I had to disagree with him as I believed that racial polarization in Malaysia had become more pronounced now than ever before. I may not always be right but after 60 years involvement in Malaysian politics I felt strongly that the race factor will continue to dominate the politics of the country. The quality of the candidates or parties, the ideologies and the desire for change will always be secondary to race.///–Mamakthir It is true that racial polarization is Malaysia is getting worse by the day because Government policies are decided by the race-based party UMNO. It is because UMNO chooses to continue with racial discrimination policies to which MCA and MIC said to represent Chinese and Indians respectively are not able to oppose that has resulted in the worsening of racial relations in the country. Instead of campaigning on how the parties and the government they form would advance the interest of the nation, UMNO members particularly Mamakthir talked about why political powers should be held by Malays to continue with its racial discriminating policies. It is no wonder that racism in the country will not end as long as the race-based political parties still hold on to power. ///3. The election results showed that I was right. The DAP playing on racial sentiments drew the Chinese away from BN by depicting the MCA as lackeys of UMNO. The DAP won 38 seats, reducing the MCA’s seats from 15 to 7. The Gerakan won one seat out of two. All the DAP Chinese contested in Chinese majority constituencies. A few of the MCA, Gerakan and MIC candidates contested in Malay majority constituencies.///–Mamakthir It is a fact that MIC and MCA have not been able to tell UMNO enough of the racist discriminatory policies being practised, and that UMNO has not honoured its promise to end NEP after 20 years that have caused them to lose in GE 13. Chinese voters do not want MCA to be in the Cabinet and they made it easy for MCA to have its candidates defeated to honour its 2011 AGM decision that MCA will leave the Cabinet if they performed worse than in GE12. Chinese, other than the few businessmen who want their conduits to serves their personal interests, would be happier if MCA leaves BN entirely, not just the Cabinet, so that the few persons appointed for window-dressing in the Cabinet cannot be said to represent Chinese community. From then on UMNO will have to explain to the world how its policies are not racially discriminatory; the claim that those racial discriminatory policies have approval by Chinese representatives is no longer tenable. ///4. Although the DAP claims to be multiracial, it is in fact a Chinese party with mainly Chinese members and leadership. When it held elections to its Central Committee recently other than Karpal Singh all the members elected were Chinese.///–Mamakthir DAP opens its membership to Malaysians irrespective of race; that is multiracial in design. UMNO opens its membership only to Malays, and of course constitutional Malays have control over UMNO over the past four decades. ///5. Hatred of the Malays was whipped up through the slogan “Malaysian Malaysia”, implying that Malaysia is for the Malays only while other races were discriminated against and alleged to be second class citizens. Advocating meritocracy, the extremists Chinese in the DAP charged the BN Government of discriminating in favour of the Malays even though they were inferior and less qualified for places in the universities, awards of scholarships, contracts, licences and positions in the Government. The Malay leaders were not as able as the non-Malay leaders who possess greater merit.///–Mamakthir Whatever Najib meant by 1Malaysia, it must mean that all Malaysians have a place under the Malaysian sun. It is therefore correct to say that Malaysia belongs to Malaysians, and thus Malaysian Malaysia is the only apt description of what 1Malaysia means. If Mamakthir chooses to say that Malaysian Malaysia implies that other races were discriminated, this confirms Sigmund Fred’s theory that strong feelings of guilt may produce aggressive behaviour. Chinese oppose discriminatory policies, and if these Chinese all called extremists, then we do not know how to call people of any race who choose to use it number to form a so-called government to deny people different from them equal rights. Meritocracy is a process to ensure that when a choice has to be made, it is not based on race or relationships. Even when a choice has to be made within a community, meritocracy should prevail. ///6. Whenever Government policies such as the NEP were defended, the defenders whether in the Government or NGO’s are labelled racist. The Malay parties in the election pact in Pakatan were tolerated because they were useful for election purposes.///–Mamakthir NEP has twin objectives, namely, the disassociation between race and economic activity and the eradication of poverty irrespective of race. But BN particularly after Mamakthir’s ascend to power has utilized NEP to do as UMNO pleases without regard to the constitution such as the provision of Article 153. Thus instead of reserving suitable quota for Malays, the government reserves seats of learning in some institutions exclusively for Malays. The BN government has increased the intake of Malays in the government service from 70 % in the 1970s to over 90% now. That shows that the government itself did not abide by the objectives of NEP. The implementation of NEP by BN has been against its stated objectives, and it has been misused by the powers-that-be who find NEP convenient to claim that the beneficiaries are Malays, and the criterion of whom they choose cannot be questioned. ///7. If more proof is needed of the role of Chinese racism in the 13th GE, the demonstrations accusing the BN of fraud and cheating in the elections, despite being organised by Anwar and the PKR, are largely attended by Chinese, especially the young. Within the Country and abroad, Chinese youths wearing black shirts and masks made up most of the demonstrators. Usually Malays make up the majority of the demonstrators. The lack of respect for the national flag was shown by Chinese young people in Taiwan holding it upside down. Although DAP and PKR participated in these demos, PAS members were noticeably absent. In fact PAS leaders dissociated themselves from the agitation to overthrow the Government through street demos ala Arab Spring. The protests seem to be mainly a Chinese affair.///–Mamakthir Chinese choose in the GE 13 to deny UMNO the benefit of having MCA candidates serving them as window dressers. If that is racism, Mamakthir should have this meaning included in the Oxford dictionary. The Chinese young are more politically aware than their forefathers, and when they see proof of cheating, such as from the behaviour of the Election Commission in ignoring reports of probable imperfection in the electoral rolls, they let it be known of their dissatisfaction. Malays young too participated, and only racist Mamakthir chooses to harp on the fact that Chinese are racists in demonstrating against perceived wrong doing of Election Commission which happens to be headed by Malay. Nobody has a count of demonstrators by race, 50,000 of them who came from everywhere for a few hours. But the speakers at the rallies can be counted and they were people of all races. How can that be said to be mainly a Chinese affair unless Mamakthir has the sole intention to make his racist intention clear? ///8. The indisputable fact is that the DAP has succeeded in destroying the collaboration or sharing between the different races as exemplified by the BN coalition. The Pakatan is not a true coalition. It is simply an election pact between the parties opposed to the BN. This pact clearly benefited the chauvinist Chinese in DAP most, while PAS the most Malay of the Pakatan parties benefited the least, winning only 21 seats against DAP’s 38 and PKR’s 30. Actually although PAS contested in more constituencies than DAP, it lost two seats more than in 2008.///–Mamakthir If Malaysia practices parliamentary democracy, then the people are free to choose whom they want to represent them. DAP has just exercised its democratic right to stand in the election. If the people choose to ditch BN’s puppets MCA, then it is good democracy. DAP has not destroyed BN like UMNO tried to deregister DAP. The people choose their representative, and the racial composition of elected representatives is just statistics. It is only racist who would choose to prophesize how the racial composition of the elected representative influences government policies. ///9. If today the schism between the races is deeper it is because the DAP reject the Malay/Chinese/Indian “kongsi”. The DAP wants the Chinese who already dominate the economy, to dominate Malaysia’s politics as well. It is clearly racist and reject inter-racial sharing of power and wealth as advocated by the BN. Racial polarization has become more pronounced as a result. It will become more so in the future.///–Mamakthir When the elected representatives serve the people and the interest of the nation, there is no place for the sharing of power by persons based on race. It is the practice of the so-called sharing of power between races that has promoted rampant corruption in the country. Racial polarization is created by the so-called political leaders who want the divide and rule based on race to perpetuate. Now the young of all races realize that political leaders utilized their position for personal gains so that people of their racial group could be proud of them. They now want to be proud of themselves and thus they want corruption to stop. Chinese voted MCA out. Malays voted UMNO out too. Soon they may not care about the race of whom they vote, so long as they are not from the parties known to be corrupt. #6 by cinaindiamelayubersatu on Friday, 7 June 2013 - 8:18 pm di dunia dia lepas di akhirat banyak yang dia kena jawab…taubat pun tak lepas… #7 by ella hamzah on Friday, 7 June 2013 - 8:46 pm Why is Mahathir still in the limelight? Why should Malaysians take heed of what he say? Just because he is an advisor to the ‘irrelevant’ UMNO? Only the ignorant ‘kampong’ people can be fooled by him. Not the urbanites n the new generation. All he cared for is $$$. His racist comments are just a cover up and I just feel he is not sincere enough. #8 by Bunch of Suckers on Friday, 7 June 2013 - 8:54 pm BACK OFF this old and snaky Bakkuthair to under world and sell Bakkuteh!!!! #9 by tuahpekkong on Friday, 7 June 2013 - 11:13 pm With the Malays forming over 50% of the country’s population and in almost total control of the police, armed forces, the bureaucracy and major banks and the Chinese forming less than 25% of the population and the percentage decreasing in every population census, you have to be a nut to believe in Dr M’s racist fulminations. It is extremely outrageous that as an ex-PM, he should have been a symbol of national unity; instead, he wastes his time sowing the seeds of racial disharmony. #10 by ENDANGERED HORNBILL on Saturday, 8 June 2013 - 12:29 am Mahathir is not a racist. yeah, right? altantuya is alive. yeah, right? #11 by Noble House on Saturday, 8 June 2013 - 2:42 am Why is there this national obsession still to give prominence to this senile old man and provide him with the space to wage his own personal vendetta for which he thrives on? He have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, but make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. Independent self-reliant people would be a counterproductive anachronism in the collective society of the future where people will be defined instead by their associations. #12 by Queequeg on Saturday, 8 June 2013 - 6:09 am The older he gets, the more venom and vitriol he spews. Mahathir is a dinosaur who cannot comprehend the change currently happening in Malaysia. His perception that the Malays are under siege is grossly outdated. It’s sad that it has come to this. A former PM with an opportunity to be a statesman but blew it on petty issues and caustic racism. What exactly is he trying to prove by being a racist? He was the one who started it all! #13 by yhsiew on Saturday, 8 June 2013 - 7:27 am Mahathir’s racist card runs out of magic !!! #14 by Di Shi Jiu on Saturday, 8 June 2013 - 9:21 am Mr Lim, What Mahatir does not say is that the only Malays who will lose power are those who are currently in power. In my time watching Malaysian politics, I have noticed that in a public and/or political forum, one seldom hears of another politician criticising the Malays and yet, time and time again, I hear politicians from Najib Razak downwards criticising the Chinese and occasionally, the Indians. I guess, in Mahatir’s case, although he is supposedly retired, old habits die hard and he just cannot resist the temptation to have another dig at a convenient scapegoat. #15 by Cinapek on Saturday, 8 June 2013 - 10:02 am “…?…” Absolutely. It seems to be his character flaw that when he cannot get his own way, he will lash out without stop. Take the crooked bridge for example. After Pak Lah terminated the project, TDM went on a rampage and a personal vendetta to bring Pak Lah down. And he gets even more vicious if his objective is not only thwarted but proven wrong as in the Gelang Patah GE13 results. #16 by sotong on Saturday, 8 June 2013 - 10:41 am This guy, many in position of power and influence like him, has been very successful to exploit the unfounded fear and insecurity of Malays to gain support at all cost. He thinks most Malays are racist, grossly insecure and totally dependent on government for their achievement and survival. He doesn’t care what decent ordinary people think and feel and the unnecessary hurt and divisions he caused……a mentally sick and gross misguided person. #17 by ENDANGERED HORNBILL on Saturday, 8 June 2013 - 12:41 pm Mahathir’s maverick madness meanders mindlessly midst murky (m)umno’s mess. #18 by Loh on Saturday, 8 June 2013 - 4:57 pm by Loh on Friday, 7 June 2013 – 7:58 pm Your comment is awaiting moderation. When is it over?

Toronto Police are on the defensive this week as they attempt to defend their heavy-handed tactics during the G20. To prove the seriousness of the threat to public security, they took police on a tour of weapons confiscated from activists. Only there's a problem: some of these weapons were taken from people who weren't demonstrators. And some of them weren't weapons -- the police proudly displayed the blunt arrows and chainmail they confiscated from a live-action role-player who was taking the train to a game: 'Weapons' seized in G20 arrests not what they seem (Thanks, Adam and Yehuda!)'Weapons' seized in G20 arrests not what they seem (Thanks, Adam and Yehuda!)." (Image: Jill Mahoney/The Globe and Mail) - Toronto's secret ID law used to arrest G20 protestor - Globe and Mail journalist arrested and kettled at G20 Toronto ... - Shopper angered at Toronto mall closure - G20 police used imaginary law to jail harass demonstrators and ... - Just a mellow afternoon at the G20 - Canadian cops' history of agents provocateurs and the G20 - Boing ... Thanks, well said. I wanted to respond to that comment but you answered it for me. Pretty weak, Toronto. I wonder if they would’ve confiscated my spellbook? Knowing what kindof spells are in it already, I sure as hell would’ve done so – there’s enough power on a single page to imaginatively decimate the entirety of canada, many times over! This is sort of an aside, but here goes: Here we are, living in the year 2010 (THE FUTURE), connected globally via an information network of dazzling complexity and capability. Is the best way to effect change really to stand out in front of a building, blocking traffic? More to the point, is protesting really effective? Has it ever been? Sure, the March on Washington was great press, but the real work was done slowly over the course of years. It’s “successor” (and I use the term loosely), the Million Man March, was a complete non-event. Sure, people showed up, but it accomplished exactly nothing. More to the point, is protesting actually an excuse to accomplish nothing? Real change takes work and sacrifice. Is going to a protest nothing more than a bit of public spectacle to deceive ourselves into believing that we did our part for change (and I include myself in this group…in my youth, I did my fair share of protesting), so that we might excuse ourselves for not actually DOING anything? Given the superior tools at our disposal, it seems like something greater could be accomplished than becoming a public nuisance, with a comparable degree of press/awareness. What if, instead of spending the day screaming and holding a sign, everyone donated $20 to Doctors Without Borders (or you charity of choice). Or spent the day volunteering in a homeless shelter instead. Or, hell, did a Zombie Walk for Global Awareness at a location completely unrelated to the summit, for those who are less philanthropically inclined. Mind you, I’m just musing here. It’s not as though I’m out changing the world. Nor is my intent to excuse police brutality. My understanding is that protesting is an attempt to remind the politicians who they should serve, because corporations may give them money, but in the end the people are everywhere. Right now the great proportion of people who prefer the riot police is making that difficult, though. > More to the point, is protesting really effective? Has it ever been? So there was this dude called Gandhi. Also, there were these things called unions. Naah you’re right, it’s best to stay quiet and get victimized. I fully blame McGuyver. He could turn bubble gum and a ballpoint pen into a nuclear explosive device, and now we’re all painted as terrorists. Seriously officer, I was just trying to patch some drywall at my house! If you’re going to arrest a LARPer, the arresting officer must win a round of rock-paper-scissors. Otherwise the LARPer wins and gets to go free. Thanks for this Cory. I especially like the “weapons of opportunity” Chief Blair was talking about… the kinds of things you’d expect to find anywhere. He (and everybody else attached to this crock) will continue the Bush/Nixon-style denial long after the dust settles, no matter how much evidence piles up against them. It’s absolutely cynical. How to continue this fight without becoming jaded? I don’t know about LARPers, but a lot of paper-and-pencil RPGers seem to have trouble with attacks of opportunity. The chainsaw and tire irons also weren’t part of a G20 bust. My apologies if I missed it, but there’s a video of Chief Blair admitting that 2 of the weapons were not G20 related (Chainsaw and Bow and arrows), but the rest were G20 related. Well, no Blair, they weren’t! Did anyone see the tweets from the Toronto Police? Good info mainly (sometimes WRONG), and the re-tweets were all praise. They even re-tweeted one of Steve Paikin’s tweets…the ONE (of about 8) that DIDN’T question what police were doing on the Esplanade “kidnapping”. Police kept saying that they had intelligence. I have yet to see it. To the person who asked why the mall closed… the protest or rioters were moving towards it. I do not know if the lockdown was internally activated, or externally. The hospitals also went into lockdown, but still allowing patients in. For the lulz. The LARPer was Vaskus from the Duchy of Wolvenfang I know Toronto has a reputation as a reasonably safe city, but it still seems to me that any search of a random collection of 600 citizens (and some of their houses) would probably come up with more deadly weaponry than a couple of machetes and a replica pistol. We’re not even talking about 1 actual weapon for every 100 people arrested here. If anything, the collection on display proves just the opposite of the police case: The overwhelming majority of protesters had absolutely no intention of engaging in any riotous behavior. On a side note, a maille, or any kind of electrically conductive kind of wardrobe, could provide a decent level of protection against tasers. “THEY CAME FIRST for the LARPERs, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a LARPER. THEN THEY CAME for the Steampunks, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Steampunk. THEN THEY CAME for the Cosplayers, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Cosplayer. THEN THEY CAME for the Furries, …and I pointed them right to the con suite.” ; ) I’d better check the anarchist forums to see if anything is coming up in Madison, Wisconsin in July. I’m going to a LARP insipred Joss Whedon’s Firefly. I’ll have a foam LARP sword and a small arsenal of airsoft guns. And goggles…deadly evil goggles. Scale isn’t mail. In the Metro, there was a comment from Blair about how protesters came to attack the G20, and one of the weapons mentioned was “arrows with flammable tips”. Remember, if the Toronto cops hadn’t stopped these guys and seized their weapons, then this could have happened. The horror, oh the horror! You! Shall! Not! Pass! Current LOL status: Lolling! UK police are fond of this, too – I’ve seen a number of TV news reports featuring earnestly concerned policemen showing off displays of captured “weapons”, many of which were visibly deactivated WW1 and WW2 rifles, plastic airsoft replicas, imitation wall display muskets, blank firers, and on one occasion a shotgun so thoroughly encased in rust and decay that it must have been captured from a peat bog. In most of these displays, the main risk to life and limb comes from the trestle table collapsing onto one’s foot… A chilling weapon… capable of decapitating its victims. I heard they closed some malls. WHY?! They take a LARPers “weapons” and yet do nothing to stop the looters Saturday. This random dude did more than the cops did: The threat to our civilisation will not end until LARPers have been eradicated; and we will not cease in our efforts until this has been achieved. What I don’t understand is why LARPers get stick from the police almost everywhere they play, and yet the mendacious Furries go relatively unmolested despite being an obvious safe-haven for bestiality and paedophilia. I remember seeing this same police press conference, only it was in Miami in 2004 during the FTAA summit. Among the items they presented as having seized from activists: – Tire iron – Gas can – A map of Miami (see, they could use it to plan out their terrorist strike!) It took me a minute to realize they had just pulled all this stuff out of the trunk of some unfortunate activists’ car, where you’d totally expect to find it. This kind of press conference is a standard component in the “new model” of protest suppression. It gives the police the hilarious task of taking a whole bunch of mostly innocuous stuff they seized and making up stories about how it could be used to maim, kill, and generally cause mass destruction. I mean srsly – an empty water bottle could be used to fill with gasoline and throw at cops? Bruce Schneier would be proud. How about having enough of a brain to realize that now might not be the best time to walk around with body armor and fake weapons? Get a clue. You’re not being oppressed, you’re part of a population that is currently filled (artificially) with violent or threatening protesters. It wass not the best time to walk around with practice sports equipment (which is what this is for crying out loud) because the cops were ILLEGALLY ARRESTING everyone whether they had even a thin shadow of a pretense or not. REAL sports equipment is more dangerous than this – compare a real baseball bat (an actual club) with a LARP club – the LARP club is a wiffel bat, a nerf bat. It’s beyond “toy” and into “you can’t possibly even put someones eye out with that”. Hockey gear would be better for wearing to a riot anyways – it’s better designed for protection from full strength body blows with actual clubs (ie hocky sticks) than LARP gear, which is designed to “look cool” and protect you from the nerf club and wiffel ‘sword’ (and being accidentally fallen on by the fat guy). I hope they get hung out by the short and curlies for this. The abuse of completely nonthreatening citizens (whether they were demonstrating peacefully or trying to go about their business) is ridiculous. Sure, you can catch the “bad guys” by arresting EVERYTHING and EVERYONE and you can stop weapons from getting through by stripping everyone of all their belongings. But you sorely abuse the 99.99% who aren’t “bad guys”, and theoretically you’re trying to protect. It’s well past time to start asking “At what cost?” here and perhaps even “Who put the bad guys in charge, and how can we get rid of them?”. You’re not being oppressed, you’re part of a population that is currently filled (artificially) with violent or threatening protesters. how ARE the troll biscuits? Also, consider that this guy had a Medieval costume and arrows. What’s the first archer that comes to mind? That’s right, Robin Hood, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Since that idea goes against everything the G20 stands for, it’s not surprising the police would consider him a threat. As I understand it, the guy was not “walking around” in the middle of the protest, he was on public transport on his way to a destination at a distance from the protest. How about leaving ordinary people to get on with their lives without all this security theatre? This entire farce is oppression, from the poor location chosen for the meeting solely because it disrupts the normal lives of a city that does not favour the current premier of the host nation, through the intimidatory tactics used by the police (likely including agents provocateur), all the way to this bullshit display of foam-rubber weapons, sports equipment and household tools. (It’s not even as though chain or scale is particularly useful against the type of weapons that police are likely to use, unless the Canadian police are equipping themselves with longswords as part of their anti-riot gear.) To be fair, they don’t say what enchantments the scale mail may have on it. While the domestic terrorism charges have been dropped, the suspect will still be charged with two counts of mail fraud. As others have pointed out, there’s a bunch of items such as the crossbow, chainsaw and other equipment were part of an earlier arrest from last week, that the police at the time said wasn’t related to the G20. Here’s the article about the arrest, including the display of items the police found and showed to the media (which is why many recognized them when they were used again less than a week later): Also here’s an article about how the bamboo poles on display were taken from people on their way to a picnic: So now that it’s known that at least 3 groups of items are completely non-G20 related! It makes you wonder what else the police is showing that is not at all related to the G20. How are you supposed to take them seriously with such deception in trying defend their over-the-top tactics. This is one example of a good reason why I wrote in my reply to the article: If an average civilian gets 25-life for a crime of passion, a police officer should be put in front of a firing squad for taking even a tiny bribe. It’s because of acts like these that the reputation of law enforcement is dropping like flies, along with the people’s faith and trust in them to do their jobs properly. Have they ever considered if whether losing our trust and making fools of themselves really worth it by trying to justify their rash actions? I particularly like the black combat helmet which appears to have “food not bombs” scrawled across the side of it, that must have been menacing. The one photo, replete with shin, knee, elbow pads, wrist guards, and soft helmets makes it appear as if the police arrested a young family out roller blading. Perhaps they were roller blading home from the downtown Canadian Tire, where they had purchased a new chain saw and brush saw to tackle that dead tree in the backyard; and a drill and some black spray paint to fix and touch-up the rusting wrought iron fence in the front yard. Imagine the look of shock on the faces of mother, son and daughter as father was tackled and beaten to the ground by baton wielding riot police while coasting along, enjoying a sip from his water bottle. I hope that guy gets his chainmail back, it looks like he put a lot of care and effort into making it. It’s worth noting… the original story about the weapons haul is in video form and was likely produced to appear on television news programs. The follow up about the weapons haul not being what it seems takes place on a Web site. The difference is that the demographic for television news tends to be older and more accepting of official memes manufactured to deceive. Also, hundreds of thousands will see the video piece, while perhaps only thousands or even mere hundreds will actually view the Web post. In other words, the deception which to savvy and skeptical eyes seems all to awkward and even comical comes off as credible to a much larger and more gullible mainstream audience. While Boing Boing and similar members of the choir snicker in derision (myself among them), the message has been successfully transmitted to the intended audience. A Web repudiation, however damning and meticulous, cannot put that back in the can. 99% of the population has absolutely no clue what a LARPer is, but they know a nasty cudgel when they see one, and that’s pretty much where their brains leave it… “Cudgel bad. Cops good.” The guy’s armor weighs 85 lbs? Holy moley! My SCA armor weighs only around 30 lbs or so and that includes a thick steel helmet with a chain aventail. I can’t imagine what this guy wears, but that seems extreme for pretend fighting. There’s no way his scale armor weighs 85 lbs unless it is made out of lead or something. Hell, an average suit of plate armor weighed only about 45 lbs or so. “…85-pound armour…” And that’s just a shirt, full knight’s armour is half ton of steel, all necessary to stop the blade of a 100 pound sword or rock from a catapult. i might be incorrect about this but that’s scale mail, not chain mail, see how it resembles snake skin and where it falls over the edge it fans out like birds feathers… chain mail is made of small linked chain rings isn’t it? Cory’s going to be stuck playing Rosie Cotton for the next few years. @elfspice: You are correct. That is scale maille, not true maille (chain maille is redundant, like saying Sahara Desert). I’m a mailler – look up Nwyvre Weavewyrks on Etsy. That specific kind of maille is referred to as a Lorica Plumata, being originally of Roman design. The plumata surpassed the older lorica hamata, and became de rigeur for officers, while the grunts wore the hamata. True maille is made of linked circular rings. Battle-ready maille is normally a combination of punched rings, resembling washers, and riveted rings, where the ends of the ring are overlapped, flattened, drilled, and peened with a rivet. @spcfgt: Kindly remember that the rights of the majority should not be dependent on the actions of the minority. This person should still have had the right to attend his entertainment without being hassled and having his expensive armor stolen. Well said! Spoken like a true armourer. elfspice is right about the mail. But I mean, dear howling gods. Dear freaking gods of twitch-supidity flailing blindly in the dark to the siren screech of their ghasty formless pipers. The stupid, it burns with a cold, gemlike flame. These are not the boffers of anarchy. I’m a LARPer in Toronto although not part of Amtgard. Many of my friends take the subway with their equipment on a regular basis because they don’t have cars. They have also been known to take unboffered arrows on transit to the city archery range. I will admit, if used in a manner other then intended, a boffer weapon could be a real weapon. But this situation horrifies me. From the bottom of TFA: “Amid calls for a public inquiry, Chief Blair announced an internal police review of summit policing earlier Tuesday.” Yeah, that’s what they said in London too. So long as the G20 keeps moving, each new police force can keep using the same tactics, and promoise not to do it again afterwards. Globalisation, eh? Screw an inquiry. I want Blair to resign. I want McGuinty to resign. They managed to not arrest people committing crimes and arrest more people than in the FLQ crisis. And abuse our rights under a fake, secret law and extend the abuse of that fake law outside the security zone. G20? More like D20! Zing! Looks like someone… *takes off sunglasses* …just rolled a critical fumble. YEEEEEEEEAAAAAHH! I guess when all you have is a billion dollars in security spending, everything looks like a terrorist. Or something like that. That’s scale mail. The government can take my boffer when they can pry it from my cold, tired, waiting to be resurrected hand. New T-shirt design: “I provided security for the G-20 for $1 billion and all I got was this nifty plate mail.” I’m pleased that the Toronto papers seem to be all over this, for what it’s worth. Technically, gas masks aren’t a weapon. They just look scary. There is no way the cops don’t know about LARPers. Twenty years ago when I was part of the SCA the VPD knew all about us (some were members) and had no problem with padded maces, chain mail, shields, blunted and real arrows, bows both light and heavy. Nor were they at all that concerned that we carried real swords and daggers as a part of our garb out in public. Same went with Border guards and state troopers who waved us through as we travelled to events in Washington and Oregon. Why? Because we were friggin’ harmless. This is total bullshit. And this ball of tin foil was used for a makeshift taser-like device the suspects called a lightning bolt. Kids may seem crazy at times, but I think true paranoid insanity only increases with age. why are you putting us through this who gave you the right who gave you the right by what right do you exclude the population why who are you how dare you do this to us we are the toronto public we want to LARP!!! The last time a terrorist wore mail, Arnold Schwarznegger whupped the cowboy shit out of him. “Chain mail” is redundant. Mail is armor made of linked rings. There are several patterns, but the most common historically is riveted four-in-one and the most common today is butted galvanized four-in-one. “Scale mail” is a contradiction in terms. Scale armor is composed of overlapping plates secured only on one edge, as in the picture. If a hauberk sports both scales and mail, it is called composite or transitional armor. “Cuir Boulli” means “boiled hide” and is leather armor that has been sculpted into a form-fitting shape and fixed with boiling water (not boiling wax!). It may be waxed, painted, oiled, or neither. Today, when people say scale mail they mean scale armor, when they say chain mail they mean mail, when they say cuirbolli they mean leather boiled in petroleum wax, when they say freedom they mean obedience to corporation will, when they say righteous they mean prejudiced in the same fashion as the speaker, and when they say fact they mean dogma. That is all for today.

The reason the stories of the JetBlue flight attendant who quit by sliding out of the plane and the hoax about the girl who quit her job with an email picture blast were so popular is they acted out job-ditching fantasied we all share. Kiplinger throws a wet blanket over such fantasies by tapping you on your shoulder and reminding you that you really should cover your financial bases before you leave your place of employment in a huff. Some advice from a how-to post: *Build your emergency fund. It could be a while before you land a new gig, so save up at least what you’ll burn through in three months. *Manage your health insurance. Unless you get yourself fired for gross misconduct, your COBRA will give you 18 months of subsidized insurance. Kiplinger recommends you quit early in the month to give you a few bonus weeks of coverage. *Sap your flexible spending account. If you don’t use money you’ve placed into a flexible spending account meant as a tax shield for health expenses before you quit, you’ll lose it forever. So hurry up and break your ankle or get that MRI you always dreamed of. *Decide where to stash the 401(k). Tax penalties mean cashing out is for chumps, so find an IRA in which to roll over the funds. OK, enough with all the good advice. What’s the craziest way you ever quit a job? Quit Your Job the Smart Way (And Save a Fortune) [Kiplinger] (Thanks, Laura!) Previously: JetBlue Flight Attendant Curses Out Passenger, Uses Emergency Slide To Exit Plane And Run Away Dry-Erase Board Quitter Reveals Herself As Hoax Edit Your Comment I once clocked out in the middle of the dinner rush because my manager tried to poison me in response to my having a bad reaction to some perfume. And calling the police didn’t seem reasonable because… Because it makes more sense to do nothing and then complain about it much later on Consumerist. Because first, like the city police were going to do anything useful and second I am not complaining on the consumerist. I was stating what happened. Try learning the definition of complaining. I already dealt with the problem as I saw fit. I quit. COBRA isn’t subsidized unless you are fired. In fact, at this point I don’t think it’s subsidized for anyone as the COBRA subsidy provisions of TARP have expired. You do get a group rate still, but you are still better off getting your own insurance in many cases. How about being mature and professional and quitting with dignity? I have never stormed off in a huff from an employer, because I am not a child. By the way, will everyone please stop calling Steven Slater a hero? He is an idiot, and seeing him benefit from his little temper tantrum is sickening. He did what a lot of people wish they had the balls to do. Appropriate? No. Entertaining? Maybe. Why do you think everyone wanted to believe the whiteboard jenny hoax? First, not everyone wanted to believe that hoax: if it were real, I would have had a similar reaction to syzygy. I don’t care how much of a douchebag her imaginary boss was, her actions would have been childish at best and cause for others to consider her lack of judgment when considering her for a new job. And it’s not a matter of “balls” its a matter of acting in your rational long-term interest or acting in a manner that indulges your immediate whim. I agree. For the most part. But sometimes it’s warranted. Like when the new bar manager, who got the job when the old bar manager was fired, kept giving herself all the big money shifts. Me and the other bartender kept getting stuck with day shifts where the tip revenue was 1/4 of what a night shift brought in. I talked to her about it. Nothing changed. I talked to the restaurant manager. Nothing changed. When I came in for a Monday night shift (woo hoo! A Monday night! /sarcasm), and was given the week’s schedule, I saw I was on days all week. I told her if she wanted all the night shifts, she could have tonight too, and walked out. I tried to handle it professionally by voicing my concerns to her and then to the manager. But I am not giving this bitch the courtesy of 2 weeks notice, after giving her 2+ weeks to resolve the issue. Been there. I worked a commission job and we made all our money nights and weekends. My district manager got a stick up her ass and decided that all those money shifts were going to go to someone else. I said see ya. Do you think your storming off in a huff changed anything? Well, it certainly changed things for Murph1908. (Hopefully for the better!) Who TF cares if it changed anything. She was abusing her position, showing no courtesy to me or the other guy. So I am supposed to work the shit shifts for her for another week, after trying to handle it properly? You would have? It’s not like I put gin in the vodka bottles or anything. Have you ever had a soul-sucking customer service job? Where you like your job but it’s the demanding, irrational assholes who just ruin it, day after day? All of us that have had a job like that have had a fantasy of just telling everyone to fuck off and walking out. We didn’t do it because we knew better. However, it’s awesome that someone did it, and did it so dramatically. Those of us in a similar industry understand. I understand his frustration. Working Christmas retail for four years taught me the hell of customer service. However, there is a difference between fantasy and reality, and I don’t think it’s “awesome” to lose control of yourself. What do you gain? How does it help, other than maybe the few minutes of catharsis? What’s to gain and how does it help? It lifted the spirits of an entire nation of people really really tired of putting up with nonstop bullshit. The guy is a hero because, in the middle of wars and economic clusterfucks, he made everyone cheer and laugh. Stupid? Yeah, I don’t recommend anyone else do it, but I’m glad that ONE time, ONE guy let us live out all our dreams through him. “because I am not a child” says the guy with a cartoon avatar. But in all seriousness, you should quit with dignity, if anything because word of your childish behavior can get around quickly and it may hinder you getting another job. I wouldn’t call the guy a hero either. Quitting your job because of an asshole customer isn’t heroic, but I’ll certainly give him points for making it entertaining. I would never quit that way because news travels fast in my industry, but I would be lying if I said I never fantasized about it. My former job drove me into the deepest depression I’d ever had, and the job market was so bad that finding another was really difficult (in fact, it took me seven months). If I’d intended to leave the industry for good, I’d have had no problem recreating the “Fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, fuck you, I’m out” scene from Half Baked. Yes we *should* all quit with dignity each time, etc etc. I actually have, both times I’ve quit jobs. BUT On the other hand a lot of people are getting pretty damn sick of being held to all these rules of proper decorum and such when corporations have made it crystal clear that they need abide by no such niceties or customs. They can use you and throw you to the curb, screwing you every which way they can as they do it. The hypocrisy is what’s getting me down. You don’t get subsidized COBRA insurance if you quit. You have to pay the full premium amount, and the employer can also tack on a 2% administrative fee. The link properly explains this. I’ve never actually quit-quit. (I’ve put in notice because I was moving or going back to school or whatever, but that’s it.) There was one horrible, toxic, demeaning, awful job that I should have quit but if I did I’d have owed them $500 for my training and I couldn’t even afford Ramen. They fired me instead (only time I’ve ever been fired) and when I walked out and called my parents I blurted, “Great news!” I did learn one thing though, which is that if I’m ever in a job that toxic again I owe it to myself to quit. Starting every morning wondering if it would be better to throw yourself under the train than to get on it is no way to live. So true! I had a job where I was having anxiety attacks every morning on the drive there. The days I had off I couldn’t even enjoy because I was so anxious and depressed about having to go back. Jobs aren’t “supposed” to be enjoyable. Sure there are people that enjoy their jobs, but it’s a job, they are paying you for a reason. However, jobs aren’t supposed to take an emotional toll on you either. You spend such a significant portion of your life working that you really owe it to yourself to remove yourself from an environment that is that toxic. Never again will I stay at a place like that. No amount of money is worth my mental or emotional health. That’s the test for me: do I hate the idea of getting out of bed in the morning. I’m only on my third job in 20+ years, but that test has served me well so far. No, you’re not supposed to love your job (it’s great if you do, but not common), but you’re not supposed to hate it either. If it gets to the point where your dislike for your job is affecting the rest of your life (lack of sleep, depression, damaging personal and family relationships, etc.) then it’s probably time to move on. It may even be worth the cut in pay if you end up healthier, happier and get along better with friends and family. This is a great idea, let’s as society just reward more childish and vindictive behavior. All this does is make people think this is appropriate to do. How about be thankful you have a job, and if you don’t like your job don’t take it out on other people. A poor career choice is no reason to try to “stick it to the man” All you’re doing is negatively impacting your fellow co-workers, the company you’re working for and potential clients/customers. Not to mention you’re casting yourself in a perverse way. I don’t think that this “encourages” people to do anything. People who weren’t going to irrationally quit their job aren’t suddenly going to start. People that will, were going to do so anyway. When I quit my first real job (also the first time I really quit a job, all the other times were for moving/school), I made sure to do it in a very professional manner, with 2 weeks notice and by telling my manager to his face. The manager that I gave my notice to is my manager again at the new company and we have a great relationship. He understood all of the reasons why I quit, which I explained to him, even though I didn’t give him a chance to correct them (it was a big corporation, things hadn’t changed in a very long time so I saw no light at the end of the tunnel). Don’t burn bridges, you never know when it might come back to haunt you. I walked off the job in the middle of a really bad shift at a job that I didn’t like, didn’t need, and when I knew I wasn’t burning any bridges. It was a huge relief. I did feel a little bad for my co-workers. Just a little, since they were a pack of jerks, and I knew they probably had someone in to replace me the very next day. Do letters of recommendation still mean something? Should you have your boss or manager write a letter of recommendation before you leave a company or position? Most employers wont write them anymore. In fact when checking references many HR folks and managers are only allowed to verify that you were employed by the company. Anything else opens them up for frivolous lawsuits. But do prospective employers pay attention if you have one? My boss has already written one for me in advance of me moving next month… They are a plus to have if you can get them read. Most large companies will only look at the initial application (usually computerized) when deciding who to interview. If you can get to the interview process the interviewer will likely read the letter. It certainly doesn’t hurt, but letters of recommendation aren’t very prevalent anymore. Every day I read this site: After reading what other people have to go though I don’t think my job is so bad. I have only quit when I already had another job or was leaving for college. Each time I did it in a professional manner and had good exit interviews. “If you don’t use money you’ve placed into a flexible spending account meant as a tax shield for health expenses before you quit, you’ll lose it forever.” Now there’s a fantastic reason not to have one to begin with. Long gone are the days where an employee could or should stay with the same employer for decades, even before the economy tanked. So not only would I be gambling that I would spend such-and-such amount of money before the end of the year, I’d also be gambling that I’d still be with the same employer at the end of the year! Alright, I was under the impression that the money in the Flexible Spending Account was yours once it is in there. At least that is how it worked at a job I resigned from in the past. Also, the way I understood it was if I wanted to have $520 in a FSA, I would put in $10 a week for the year, however, the company deposited the full $520 on January 1st. So if I quit at the beginning of the year, it was free money. The trade-off is if I didn’t use it by the end of the year, the company got the $520. Companies don’t put the full amount of the FSA in at the beginning of the year. Most companies deposit the amounts taken out of the employees checks every week. While it is true you can spend more than you’ve deposited and then leave the job the company could come after you for the amount you withdrew but didn’t pay, either by taking it out of your final check or suing if the sum was substantial enough. “While it is true you can spend more than you’ve deposited and then leave the job the company could come after you for the amount you withdrew but didn’t pay, either by taking it out of your final check or suing if the sum was substantial enough.” No they can’t, that’s the whole thing about FSA’s if you use up more than you have paid in and quit they can’t come after you, just as you can’t go after them if you contribute more than you use. It’s a calculated risk the company takes and usually ends up profiting from. You are correct. Once you commit to the account, the money is in there even if you leave before fully funding it. You are correct. If you know you’re going to quit a job in January, bump that FSA way up :) I stopped doing FSA when my company made it a profit center by denying all claims. I’m taxed at the highest rate and haved saved lots of money over the years by putting money into FSAs. It’s a very smart thing to do. I quit a job at Victorias secret after two days because the main manager, who was not the woman who interviewed me, said I was too fat to work there, she didn’t know why they hired me, and that customers of my body type don’t shop there, so what benefit could I possibly provide? I stayed for the second day of training, because in mass you get time and a half for Sundays, then went in on Monday and quit. She didn’t understand why what she said had offended me. I punched an obnoxious french customer in the nose, handed my name tag to the manager and walked next door to have a drink. Of course I was only 21 at the time, the job was a second, bonus job, waiting tables at a chain restaurant. The other mitigating factor was that it was 6 pm on thanksgiving, we had been closed for 2 hours, and the cheese eating surrender monkey was drunkenly poking me in the chest and demanding that we prepare him a to-go meal, despite the fact that the kitchen staff had left over an hour ago, and the only other folks in the whole place were my manager, and myself. Plus he had spent the last 20 minutes shouting to the other frenchies at the table about how backwards and stupid the U.S. is. I would never do that again, but i still smile to myself every time i think of it. lol @ the simpsons reference ALSO: - Thank your lucky stars you have a job in this frickin’ economy. (And yes, I do have one again, thank you. It’s something I’ll never take for granted.) I once worked for a certain novelty toy store chain, and I quit because of how one of our gay employees was being treated by management (I also hated the job but it seemed like a good opportunity) and spent my last three weeks plotting a scheme to acquire merchandise valued at ~$3,000, for free did I pull it off? not gonna say I’ve only ever quit one job, and only because it was hands down the worst place I ever worked. I was a computer tech who had to start by delivering PC parts to various companies around the city – if I did this well I would be “promoted” to a contracted tech at one of the businesses they work with. I had just gotten my degree too, so I figured it wouldn’t be long and I’d be doing real IT work. Anyways, delivering parts from a van doesn’t keep you very clean, especially when the boxes are dirty and heavy (think large laser printers, copiers, CRT monitors, etc) and you get sweaty. All this in the middle of the summer. Anyways, my boss expected me to dress not business casual, but BUSINESS BUSINESS (sans the suit coat though) and keep myself spotless while doing this. Because, you know, you he had his shoes shined every day and looked sharp so we should too. Also, the owner, even though there was a huge NO SMOKING sign inside the building and no one else was allowed to smoke inside, would chain smoke when he decided to grace us with his presence (He didn’t know shit about computers anyways, so wtf). The last straw was when the owner decided to “borrow” the company cargo van for landscaping at his house. It had a plastic floor to it but it was covered with mud, sticks, pebbles and mulch bits. I was expected to clean it out and still perform my normal deliveries. I was given $3.00 in quarters and told to go to a car wash and spray it out. This thing was disgusting, and I had to spend $5.00 of my own money in quarters to get it cleaned and dried. Obviously I’m dirty, and my boss treats me like I just spit in his face or something, berating me to no end. Mind you, I had only been there 3 weeks at this time. Before I left I was told I would be delivering about 30 PCs and monitors to a company the next day. One of my deliveries was to a local hospital, and one of the guys there who was a contractor with the company talked to me about my boss. Everyone knew he was an asshole and he told me basically that it wasn’t worth it, and I shouldn’t put up with it. The next day I went in wearing shorts and a T-shirt (the boss scowling at me), wrote an email to the entire business (which included the contract workers who all hated him) and detailed exactly why I was leaving. I threw the office keys and my timesheet on the bosses desk and hightailed it out. In another week I had a better job, which got me contacts that led me to my current awesome job. The best part was that the boss tried to hold my paycheck for a month and wouldn’t respond back to me when I asked about my pay. He even refused to see me when I stopped in (politely asking about it). So I contacted the Wage and Hour division and had my pay less than a week later, and he wrote me a passive aggressive email that I’ll never delete :) His business crumbled a few years later and the contract techs told me he had to deliver the order himself in his shiny shoes. Hahahahaha! I love the big corporate people who are absolutely CLUELESS about their business’ day-to-day operations. I had a job once where I was up and down ladders all day, lifting heavy stuff, and getting filthy. One of the corporate big wigs came in one day and didn’t like how we were dressed, so they changed he dress code from jeans and t-shirts to business casual, and then had the nerve to suggest we wear skirts. Yeah, I’m up and down a ladder all day with customers below me. I am sure as hell NOT wearing a skirt. Clueless asshat…or big perv? I had the feeling the business wasn’t going to last long, based on the cluelessness of the boss and the owner. They had unrealistic expectations of not only me but the other contractor techs. Little did I know that place was going to go under that quick. I have never had an issue with working or getting my hands dirty. I started working when I was 12 years old and always had some kind of job since then. But yelling and screaming at your employee because he has some mud on his shoes and splatters on his pants, after cleaning out the owner’s mess, can give someone the impression that you don’t know how to run a business or manage employees. And boy was I right! Wish I bothered to do any of this before I got fired (for something my fat, lazy boss blamed on me so HE wouldn’t get fired). However, just TRY paying for COBRA on unemployment. I’ve never quit on the spur of the moment, but I do have a dream. My lottery winning scenario goes something like this. I come dragging into the office around 10:30 — wearing shorts, flip flops, and unshaven. I have a cup of coffee or two while looking at personal e-mail and surfing Facebook, Consumerist, etc and then go to an early lunch around 11:15 or 11:30. After a couple of hours or so I’ll mosey back in, maybe play a few games of Solitaire, Bejeweled, or whatever, and then head for home around 2:30 or 3:00. The really funny thing is that this could go on at my office for several days before anyone would think about approaching me to see “what’s wrong” or “if something is bothering me.” Years ago, in my misspent youth, I had a job at a very large convenience store chain (hint: the one with a numbers in its name). I was in high school and could have graduated early but was coasting through senior year with little homework, and college seemed so far away, so I took a part-time job for extra cash. School all day and work all night was exhausting, and I felt like I was working my tail off, but the manager woman took my exhaustion as laziness and constantly berated me. I was without transportation, and had to walk over a mile to get there, in the Florida summer heat (adding to the exhaustion, no doubt). So I walked in one day and she let me know that I’d be let go. I snapped — I walked all the effing way down hear in this heat for you to tell me that?! I called her and her mother every name in the book, right there in the store in front of startled customers, then accidentally-on-purpose collided with a display case of beer on the way out the door, knocking it down (with several beer cans bursting), issued a few more choice words, and out the door I went. I was across the street by the time she came out to yell after me, and I gave her the high middle finger and kept on walking. To this day, I’m surprised I never heard from the police about this. Maybe she was too embarrassed? I dunno. Not one of my proudest moments, but secretly, deep down inside, in this pseudo-anonymous forum, I’ll admit: damn! it felt good. The only serious quit I have ever done was when I did technical/customer support. I started at a decentish wage (above average for the region/industry), then they decided to move to a “pay per customer” model rather than a regular hourly wage. They put up the guise of “rewarding those who are more efficient”. After doing the math, I would have to basically handle about 30% more clients per day just to break even with the hourly wage I started with. Time spent in mandatory trainings/meetings (which often took the better part of an 8 hour day) still “counted against you” as you can’t serve clients while in meetings. On those days, some people made literally $3 an hour. They skirt the minimum wage laws by saying over a two-week pay period it “averages out” to be more than the minimum wage. As soon as I saw the paperwork detailing this new pay scheme, I started finding a new job. Anytime an employer wants to eliminate a regular hourly wage/salary and replace it with a “piece meal” scheme the employee WILL GET SCREWED. Seriously. I had a commission job where I got paid $150 a week, plus 4% commission on whatever I sold, plus .5% of the store’s total sales. I worked 55 hours a week usually, so I had plenty of time to sell. I made less than minimum wage every single week. Luckily, the company kicked in the difference so we couldn’t sue them. In 2 months, I never even earned minimum wage myself. I’d much prefer an hourly wage.

Return to Transcripts main page JOHN KING, USA Interview With Ohio Governor John Kasich; President Obama Meets With Republicans; President Meets with Congressional Leaders; Bernie Fine's Wife Sues ESPN; Korean Car Crash Blamed on Mechanical Failure; Outside Group Ad Wars Aired May 16, 2012 - 18:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm John King. Tonight: Vice President Biden visits battleground Ohio. He says Mitt Romney is a greedy rich guy who doesn't get the middle class. Ohio's Republican governor right here to offer rebuttal. Plus, tonight's candidate report card grades Governor Romney on this campaign's defining issue, jobs. And at least Congress has had an excuse for doing nothing today. Its leaders were at lunch with the president agreeing on the menu, it seems, but little else. We begin this evening with the campaign's biggest issue, the economy and jobs and in what arguably could end up being the defining battleground state, Ohio. Vice President Biden took the Obama campaign's case to blue-collar Youngstown today, casting Republican Mitt Romney as a son of privilege and Vice President Biden his record at a private investment firm suggests Governor Romney cares more about profits than workers. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) BIDEN: They don't get us. They don't get who we are. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now, where the vice president was today is you might say is a battleground within the battleground. Let's look at Ohio. This is the 2008 map. Barack Obama carried the state 52 percent to 47 percent, but, look, a lot of red in here for John McCain. President Obama, then Senator Obama won by winning where the people are. But look at this here. This is Youngstown. This is where the vice president was today. In the general election, then Senator Obama carried it quite convincingly. But let's go back to the Democratic primaries. Look at this. This was Hillary Clinton country. You have white blue-collar workers. And I am going to bring the state back now. Look at this. Hillary Clinton carried Ohio big-time. Senator Obama winning where you have African-American populations, but among white blue-collar workers back in 2008, that was a big problem for Senator Obama. That's the reason they sent Vice President Biden here into Youngstown, Ohio. Now, why will this be a battleground in the fall? Well, because it always is. Let's go back and take a look. This is the 2008 election. Again, Senator Obama winning a decent margin there, 52-47. But that's pretty close. If you go back to 2004, George W. Bush just barely winning. What's different about 2008 and 2004? Look down here. Hamilton County, Cincinnati area down here, President Obama, then Senator Obama, then carried it then. Make that go off. President Bush carried it in '04. President Bush carried it in 2000 as well. Also the suburbs around Cleveland, the suburbs around Columbus and again that area down around Cincinnati, those are the big battlegrounds in a general election in Ohio. Watch for the candidates to be there in the weeks ahead. Now, Governor Romney not in Ohio today. He was in another huge battleground state, down here in Florida. But -- but he had the industrial states like Ohio, jobs debate in mind, as he drew this contrast. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are able to help create over 100,000 jobs. And, secondly, on the president's watch, about 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry in auto dealers and auto manufacturers. So he is hardly one to point a finger. (END AUDIO CLIP) KING: Our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, is here. You hear Governor Romney talking about the auto industry, manufacturing, jobs. That will be key in battleground, Ohio. And if you ask the voters right now, President Obama carried it in 2008. Republicans had a great year in 2010. As we head into 2012, they seem a bit conflicted as to the state -- the psychology of this election. How is the economy doing? GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. Well, and it's one of the reasons Ohio is such a battleground state, because there is really a mixed message there. We were looking at some of the numbers in the state. By a 2-1 margin, people in Ohio believe the state is in a recession, the country is in a recession. But 55 percent also believe that the economy, the recovery has begun. So, people who believe the recovery has begun, that's good for President Obama. People who believe they are still in a recession and it is terrible, 2-1, that would be better for Mitt Romney. And this is going to be fought, as you point out -- and I was talking to a Romney adviser today, a senior Romney adviser -- this is going to be fought in the suburbs of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and particularly suburban women. KING: It is fascinating. If you go back campaign, go back four more years, four more years, four more years, the state hardly changes. Certain areas are locked in Republican, certain areas locked in Democrat. But you have the area, the suburban area right around Cincinnati, the suburban area right around Columbus and the suburban area up along the lake up around Cleveland. Suburban voters and as you mentioned, suburban women, like in Pennsylvania, in those bigger states when they are locked so close, that's usually the key. BORGER: Right. And it's interesting because the Romney people believe that they can really do well with married suburban women. And President Obama's campaign believes that they have a lock on the sort of younger, single suburban women and of course urban women. So, that's going to be the real battleground. We talk about a large gender gap throughout country. But in these specific suburban areas is where it really counts in a battleground. KING: And the vice president is important to this president because that's his biggest weaknesses is those white, blue-collar guys I call them guys who work with their hands. BORGER: Right. And you heard Joe Biden make the class argument, I would say, very, very strongly today. They don't know how we feel, he said in Youngstown, Ohio. That is a message that Joe Biden can deliver, but that President Obama would have a tougher time delivering. KING: Gloria Borger, appreciate your insights. We are going to spend a lot of time Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. (CROSSTALK) (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KING: So why worry so much about just one state? Well, this one state could settle the election. No Republican has won the White House in modern times without carrying Ohio. Republican Governor John Kasich joins us to discuss the 2012 political terrain. Governor, you are in the middle of perhaps the most competitive battleground state. The vice president was there today trying to convince blue-collar in your state that Romney is a bad guy. Let's listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BIDEN: Then, there is the Romney philosophy, the Romney economics, which says as long as the government helps the guys at the top to do well, workers in small businesses and communities, they can fend for themselves, but the country will be OK if the big guy is doing well. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: You hear this coming. Romney is rich. He is greedy, he doesn't care about you, the guy who works with his hands. What does Governor Romney need to do to counter that? GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), OHIO: Well, John, look, this state of Ohio had a near-death experience in the last few years. And we came in. And we had lost 600,000 jobs, 400,000 in the last four years. Our credit was going down the drain. We had an $8 billion hole. So, working with the legislature, we were able to balance the budget, cut taxes, build up the rainy day fund from 89 cents to $240 million, get our credit upgraded when the United States' credit went down and get our credit improved out here. And I --. And, frankly, what happens out of Washington is, it creates a wind in my face, uncertainty over Obamacare, uncertainty over their tax policy, uncertainty over the regulatory policy. And when Joe talks about small businesses, this is paralyzing small businesses' ability to make decisions. So when they don't have certainty, they go the other way. In Ohio, we have given them certainty and things have been improved. But if we can get a Romney presidency, they are going to get much better. KING: Well, you just made the economic case there. Help me with the empathy case. I was out there when you were campaigning, when you were running for governor. It was a tough campaign. You like to get on the factory floor, you like to grab people in the street and shake their hands. That's the knock, as you know, on Governor Romney, that he doesn't make the connection, especially with the working class. What does he need to do to be better? KAS. So, all this high-fiving, it goes to a certain degree. But it is frankly about, people are worried out here and they want to have some sense that tomorrow will be better. And that's what he needs to communicate. And that's what I have told him. KING: You know the politics. You used to work in this town, Washington. You were smart enough to get out. And you work out there now. KASICH: Yes. That's right. KING: But a lot of people look at the electoral map. When they look at presidential history, they say Romney has to win Ohio. So why not pick a Kasich or a Portman to be your number two? What do you think? KASICH: Well, I think Rob Portman would be a great pick. I'm governor. I have got a job to do out here, John. I mean, I have no interest. And that means I am not even going to express no interest, because that indicates interest. (LAUGHTER) KASICH: You got to be kidding me. No, I think Rob Portman would be a great pick. But, frankly, at the end of the day, voters don't vote on the basis of vice president. We always talk about it. It gets everybody fired up. I can remember when Bob Dole picked Jack Kemp. And, my God, isn't he great?. And it is going to get down to mom and dad and the kids in the living room saying, who do I believe and who do I trust and who do I want to bet the future on? That's what it's going to get down to, not who the vice president is. (END VIDEOTAPE) KING: Ohio Governor John Kasich just moments ago. Mitt Romney's message in this campaign, he will be a better president because of his business experience. So, next, a report card on his record when it comes to creating jobs. And later, a scary video brings back worries of sudden uncontrolled acceleration -- look at that -- uncontrolled acceleration in some cars. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: If you had to boil down Mitt Romney's pitch in one sentence, it goes something like this. He has a much better record and resume, he says, than President Obama when it comes to understanding the economy and creating jobs. But does he? To grade Governor Romney on the jobs questions, these are the big factors, number one, his record at the private investment firm Bain Capital. Number two, his performance in four years as governor of Massachusetts, and number three his promises in this year's campaign. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROMNEY: Lower the marginal rate and then get rid of some of the deductions and special breaks that big companies get. We are going to get the rates down, particularly for small businesses. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now, as we continue our report card, a closer look does raise some questions about Romney's record. Back in the 1994 campaign, he claimed he created about 10,000 jobs because of his work at Bain, but other times, including just today, he said that number is as many as 100,000. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROMNEY: We invested in over 100 different businesses and net-net, taking out the ones where we lost jobs and those that we added, those businesses have now added over 100,000 jobs. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now, the Massachusetts record also is a mixed message; unemployment fell during his term. And the state gained about 50,000 jobs. But Massachusetts ranked 47th among the 50 states in job growth those years. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROMNEY: I came into a state that was in real trouble, huge budget gap, losing jobs every month. We turned it around. Three out of four years, we had unemployment rate below the national average. We ended up with 4.7 percent unemployment rate. I am proud of what we were able to do in a tough situation. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: And as for his promises on the campaign trial now, it is a mix of lower taxes, less regulation and trust me. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROMNEY: My plans get the economy going again. I spent my life in the private sector. I know what it takes to create jobs and to bring business back. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: So does Romney's private and public sector resume give him more know-how to create jobs? Joining me to discuss that and more, Andy Puzder, who is the CEO of CKE Restaurants and a Mitt Romney supporter, and Robert Reich, who was the labor secretary during the Clinton administration, and now the author of the book "Beyond Outrage." Andy, let me go to you first. And let's go through those points. Governor Romney and his campaign -- it's not just the governor -- have given different numbers when it comes to Bain Capital. It's a private equity firm. It's hard to say here are the books and throw them open. But how can they give a better, more consistent answer, or is there one when it comes to jobs and Bain? ANDREW PUZDER, PRESIDENT & CEO, CKE RESTAURANTS: Well, it is very, very difficult to give an accurate answer on the number of jobs created because of the number of companies that they invested in, the number of companies that they created, and the period of time over which they were open and when Governor Romney was there or not there. I think Staples alone accounts for about 90,000 jobs. But private equity firms, that's what they do. They want growth. They want companies to grow under their guidance. They want more jobs. They want higher profits. They want real economic growth. And Governor Romney did spectacularly well with that while he was with Bain Capital. KING: And, Mr. Secretary, at the moment, the Democrats, including the Obama campaign, seizing on one company where they did shut it down. And Governor Romney was a principal in that. It was a steel company. They did shut it down. Is it fair if you are trying to look at his record at Bain to say, as Andy just mentioned, Staples as a plus, to say, oh, no, GST, huge minus? Do we have to look at it at all or can you pick out individuals? ROBERT REICH, FORMER U.S. LABOR SECRETARY: I think you have to look at it and ask yourself the very fundamental question, John, and that is, does private equity and private equity firms generally, do they create a lot of jobs? Are they great for the economy? Or is it just moving money from one set of pockets to another set of pockets? What is private equity all about anyway? Private equity managers, such as Bain Capital and Mitt Romney, they have lived off a loophole that allows them to treat all of their earnings as capital gains. That's one reason that Mitt Romney, who earned about $20 million, $21 million over the last few years, pays a tax rate of only about, well, 14 percent or 13 percent. Private equity is not a magic trick. It is a trick. It is not generating a lot of new jobs. That's like saying anybody who invests in any job creating company is creating those jobs. The creation of the jobs come from the individuals who are managing that firm, since Bain Capital left that firm. (CROSSTALK) KING: Andy, is private equity a trick? PUZDER: It is not a trick at all. There is so much in that I really hope I get a chance to address it. If you are a private equity firm, what you want to do is you want to buy a company at a multiple of its cash flow. Let's say the firm had $1 million in cash flow or EBITA. It was for sale. The founder wanted to leave or there was a problem. You would buy maybe at a six multiple, so you would pay $6 million for the company. What you want that company to do is you want it to grow. You want the cash flow to grow and you want the company to improve so the market will give you a higher multiple when you go public again. So, you do what you can. You work on marketing products, you work on how they manufacture products. You work on cutting expenses. You work on creating new ways for the company to make money. You want to add jobs. You want it to grow. You want it to get bigger. And then when it does, the market value is at let's an eight multiple. And maybe you get that cash flow to $1.5 million. And now you can sell it for $12 million. And that $12 million doesn't just go -- the profits don't just go to some private equity guys that are looking sitting around trying to wait to make money. It goes to pension funds that invest in these private equity firms. It goes to university endowments. It goes to sovereign wealth funds. You can't find a policeman, a teacher, or a fireman in this country that doesn't have some of their retirement income invested with private equity, and that -- they invest in it because it gets a very, very good return. (CROSSTALK) PUZDER: As far as the tax loophole, look, that loophole was there when Clinton was president. It was there when President Obama had control of the House, he had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and he was the executive. And nobody, even though Congressman Levin from Michigan tried to get captured interest taxed as ordinary income, nobody would do it. And it is because it incentivizes a particular conduct. It's not a loophole. It's something that is legitimate. Nobody has gotten rid of it. And it has been very, very successful. KING: We could continue this conversation. And I think we will continue this conversation almost every day between now and the election. But I want to ask one more question to each of you. And I will be glad to bring you both back. There is a lot more I would love to cover. Let me cover this one, just this one right now, though. Andy, to you first and then to you, Secretary Reich. Governor Romney says he has these turnaround skills. I understand when he was governor, nationally, it was a tough time and we should put that on the table. But if he is so much better than everybody else at this, why was Massachusetts 47th out of the 50? PUZDER: What you are looking at is a percentage. Massachusetts didn't start off with 10 percent unemployment. They were a little above the national average at 5.6 when he took over his government. And they were bleeding jobs. When he left, they had created tens of thousands of jobs. He had employment at 4.7 percent, which was under the national rate. If you wanted a job in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was governor, you could get one. And I wish we could say the same in the United States today. KING: Mr. Secretary, when he was governor, did he do as well as he could given the national economic circumstances? REICH: Well, in his first three years, he generated or at least presided over an economy that generated 5,600 jobs, 5,600. That's not a lot of jobs. Over the last 26 months, the administration, granted, we are talking about the entire nation, but the Obama administration has generated or presided over an economy that has generated 4.2 million jobs. We have got to be very clear about this. To try to compare what one governor has done in one very small time period with what the entire nation is doing or try to say that because somebody was a private equity manager who could very quickly pump and dump companies using very short-term strategies such as Wall Street has been using for years, got us into a big, big mound of trouble is ludicrous. The question is, which of these men can be trusted to really preside over an economy that is recovering, that should be recovering, that is going in the right direction already? And I think the answer is President Obama is showing that he can take an impossible situation and actually get the economy going again. KING: Well, gentlemen, I appreciate your passion on this issue. It is the defining question of the campaign. So, as I say thank you tonight, I will say before I do say thank you that we will have you back another day, because we have a lot more ground to cover on this question, both Governor Romney's record and the president's record. Andy Puzder, thanks so much. Mr. Secretary, thanks to you as well. PUZDER: Thank you, John. KING: And still ahead here: the "Truth" about the group spending record amounts of money to influence your vote this fall. But, first, a company that makes shoes you may own fined millions for false advertising. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: Welcome back. (NEWS BREAK) KING: A new twist today in the scandal of a former assistant coach accused of molesting boys. His wife is suing ESPN, the network that broke that story. Also, a couple claim -- get this -- their car sped up on its own to 80 miles an hour. Wow. And they say that video right there proves it. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: This half hour, the wife of a former basketball coach says ESPN ruined her life. Her husband is accused of molesting boys. She's accused of knowing about it. But now she's suing. Imagine being behind the wheel when your car goes berserk, suddenly speeding to 80 miles an hour. Why the driver says there was no stopping this out-of-control vehicle. Plus, sick of negative campaign ads? Well, I hate to break it to you. But this is just the beginning. The truth about who's spending millions to sway your vote. Here in Washington today, President Obama visited a local deli that supplies sandwiches, chips and cookies for his lunchtime get-togethers with congressional leaders. You see the president there. The White House, though, not releasing any pictures of the actual meeting, which just like this entire session of Congress, didn't seem to accomplish much. CNN senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash joins us from Capitol Hill. Dana, let's start with that meeting at the White House. No pictures. What's the word? DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We know people out there may hope -- they're optimists out there -- that when the cameras aren't there, that the microphones aren't there, the presidents and leaders are behind closed doors, they can roll up their sleeves and really discuss the issues and problems, not just big speeches. Well, guess what? According to accounts from sources in both parties, that's not what happened. Apparently, what they discussed in private is pretty much what they say in public. The president talked about his five-point to-do list that he wants Congress to accomplish when it comes to the economy. And the Republicans with the House speaker, John Boehner leading the charge, talked about what he said in public, that he really believes that spending cuts have to be a big part of any debt ceiling vote in the coming months. And of course, they talked about tax cuts. So you know, it's certainly -- is a little bit disheartening to hear that they didn't get a lot done. It might be what's going in the second time in almost half a year that they had this kind of meeting. But one thing they did agree on, John: they liked the sandwiches. KING: We can't name it here; it would be wrong. We know that deli. They make good sandwiches. So I guess we can say that. All right. Let's turn then. There's a lot of posturing, as you just noted. I want you to listen here to a man you know well, to Democratic -- Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee. I think a lot of Americans would think this is a great idea. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. JIM COOPER (D), TENNESSEE: I'm proud that the Fix Congress Now Caucus is supporting no budget, no pay. That's a bipartisan reform to get Congress to do its most basic work on time. They would have to pass a budget and the appropriations bills before October 1 of each year. Now, the way the Constitution works, we can't change it this year, but we can change it for the next Congress. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: So Dana, you've got to love this idea. You do your work, you do it on time, or you don't get paid. That's what Congressman Cooper says and his friends say should happen in Congress. But I'm going to be there, take us to the Senate floor today. No? BASH: Not so much. They spent all day, John, six hours of debate and almost two hours of voting on five budgets that everybody knew from the get-go had no chance of passing. And that's, of course, what happened. Now, it was Republicans who pushed this issue. They wanted to make the political point that Democrats who run the Senate haven't passed their own budget in three years. And so they did it by proposing several conservative budgets to show that at least they have ideas. And also, the president's budget, to try to embarrass the president, to show that he is getting no votes. In fact, it was 99-0. Not even one Democrat voted for his budget for various reasons. But you know, Democrats took their opportunity of this political theater to stage their protests against conservative ideas. I've got to tell you: watching this all day today, people out there who are worried about the fact that members of Congress are speaking past each other and they're not getting things done. This is a perfect example of politicking instead of problem solving. KING: Posturing, politicking, speeches, your government not at work. BASH: Not so much. KING: Our senior congressional correspondent, Dana Bash. Dana, thanks. ESPN dropped a bombshell on the college basketball world when it aired a report suggesting that a Syracuse assistant coach, Bernie Fine, molested boys and that his wife knew about it. Fine lost his job, and now his wife is going after ESPN, suing the network, a reporter and a producer for libel, saying they falsely painted her as a monster who witnessed the molestation and didn't stop it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LAURIE FINE, WIFE OF BERNIE FINE: I am. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: ESPN released a statement, that statement saying, quote, "The suit is without merit and we stand by our reporting." Let's bring in legal analyst Sunny Hostin live in New York for us. Sunny, libel is a tough one to prove. Does she have a case? SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, you're right. Libel is a very difficult -- difficult case to prove, especially because truth is an absolute defense to a libel claim. And so the bottom line is she has to prove, John, that these allegations were false. She has to prove that all of the information published by ESPN that she discusses in her 44-page federal complaint is false. And that is very difficult to prove. The other thing I think that she's going to come up against is the fact that there are tape-recorded conversations between Mrs. Fine and one of the alleged victims. I've read the transcripts to one of the tapes. And she has actually confirmed that she did have that conversation with Bobby Davis, one of the alleged victims. Although, she now claims that the tape-recording itself was doctored. And so I would suspect that this is going to be a very difficult case for her to prove. KING: Well, let's listen to part of one of those conversations. Again, it's a secretly recorded call. It's Mrs. Fine talking here to Bobby Davis. He's one of the men, then a younger man, who accused Bernie Fine of sexual molestation. Let's listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FINE: I know everything that went on with him. Maybe they're just not aware of but you trusted somebody you shouldn't have trusted. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: What she is saying right there, Sunny, her husband has issues. You trusted someone you shouldn't have trusted. If you're saying, wow, she's talking to a kid who was molested, it sounds pretty damning. She is now saying she was talking about her husband having financial issues. Can she make that case? HOSTIN: You know, I think it's going to be difficult. Because again, I have read the entire transcript. I have it in front of me. And while certainly they do discuss financial issues, they also discuss sex acts, John. They also discuss molestation in particular. And so for her to really prove this libel claim, she's going to have to prove that this conversation either didn't happen or that the tapes, in fact, were doctored or that it's not her voice. And again, she's already confirmed that she did have this conversation with Davis. And so if it goes to court and goes to trial, it will be up to a jury to determine what the truth is, and in the face of this type of tape- recorded evidence, I think that's an uphill battle for her. KING: Sunny Hostin, breaking down the legal issues for us. Sunny, thanks so much. It's a fascinating case. We'll keep an eye on it. Imagine this. A car speeds through two red lights, then crashes at 80 miles an hour. The driver says it is not his fault, claiming the car sped up on its own. And the family hopes a dashboard camera video will prove it. Here's CNN's Paula Hancocks. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The 30-year-old son of the couple in the car, who only wants to be identified by his surname Kwon, says that he posted the footage of the May 6 crash online because he wanted to prove that it wasn't his father's fault. (voice-over) The footage is from a camera attached to the rear-view mirror, which is fairly common practice in Korea. Kwon tells CNN his parents, both in their 60s, heard a weird noise before the Hyundai Sonata accelerated. The footage shows the car swerving to avoid other vehicles and also driving through two red lights. It eventually crashed into a stationary car at a speed believed to be around 80 miles an hour or 128 kilometers. Kwon says his mother underwent an operation for internal bleeding and is waiting for a second operation on her back and that his father has fractured ribs and finger. Official investigation is underway. The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs says they're currently investigating four other cases of sudden, unintended acceleration. They declined our request for an interview but did send a statement saying, "The vehicle is being investigated by the Korean national forensic service. There is no time estimate for the conclusion of the investigation." Japanese carmaker Toyota recalled millions of cars back in 2009 due to cases of sudden, unintended acceleration. (on camera) Paula Hancocks, CNN, Seoul. (END VIDEOTAPE) KING: Watching that video, woo. We'll see how that investigation goes, as well. Paula, thank you. Whether you're watching TV, listening to the radio or maybe just surfing the Web or social media, some people will be spending record amounts of money this fall to influence your vote. Next, the "Truth" about political ads you can't dodge. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: You pick a president in 174 days. And like it or not, you're already getting plenty of help with your choice. From the right... (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Obama's agenda promised so much. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must help the millions of homeowners who are facing foreclosure. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Promise broken. One in five mortgages are still under water. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: And from the left. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bain Capital always made money. If we lost, they made money. If we survived, they made money. It's as simple as that. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Tonight's "Truth" is a fact of modern-day campaign life. You might be sick of them already. But the political TV ad season is just beginning to heat up. And much of the spending isn't from the Romney or the Obama campaign. Those so-called super PACs have spent about $5 million just in the last month. Well, many times that will be spent over the next 25 weeks. And surprise, surprise, a lot of those ads will twist or at least shade the truth. That anti-Obama ad from the conservative group Crossroads, for example. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: If you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Broken. Obama care raises 18 different taxes. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Truth is, this one could come down to how you define taxes. The president has not raised tax rates on those families or on anyone for that matter. The health-care law does include some new fees that Republicans call taxes. And then there's this one here from the anti-Romney or pro-Obama Priorities USA. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He promised us the same things he's promising the United States. He'll give you the same thing as he gave us, nothing. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now, the "he" there that gentleman is referring to is Mitt Romney. The candidate himself tried his hand as fact checking that one. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via phone): They said, "Oh, gosh, Governor Romney at Bain Capital closed down a steel factory." But the problem, of course, is that the steel factory closed down two years after I left Bain Capital. I was no longer there. So, that's hardly something which is on my watch. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now, more people see the ads, any ads, than see the fact checks. And history proves attack ads work, even if voters complain they're too negative and too frequent. So expect more, a lot more, especially if you happen to live in a battleground state. Here tonight to talk truth, the "New Yorker's" Washington correspondent, Ryan Lizza. Bill Burton is the senior strategist for that pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA. And Republican strategist Rich Galen. Mr. Burton, to you first. Governor Romney says your ad is wrong. That he was gone, that he was two years removed from Bain Capital when they shut down that steel plant. Therefore, you can't blame him. You would say? BILL BURTON, SENIOR STRATEGIST, PRIORITIES USA: I would say that actually, if you look what Mitt Romney did, he pushed that company towards bankruptcy and caused it to go down making thousands of people lose their jobs. And their -- and their promise of health care. It's not funny to the folks that lost their jobs. RICH GALEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I know. BURTON: And their health care benefits and retirement benefits. KING: It's actually not funny. So how do we find out? He was doing the Olympics at that point. There's no question: he was part of the purchase. He was part of the investment. He says that, you know, Staples is still creating jobs. He should get some credit for that. Other companies are still creating jobs. He should get some credit for that. I assume your argument is, OK, if that's the case, if something you left goes down, then how do you make the decision? BURTON: This -- you know, what he says about these success stories actually sort of makes our point, which is that if a company has succeeded, Mitt Romney and Bain Capital made money. If it failed, Mitt Romney and Bain Capital made money. And so I think it's worth looking at this broader picture of what happened when he was at Bain Capital, since this is the centerpiece of his argument for why he should be president. GALEN: But the broader -- the broader picture is, if you're going to say that anything he did while he was at Bain Capital carries over after, then you have to give him credit for the 100,000 or whatever the number is jobs. Because that continued on afterwards. I think that it's amazing that they said -- they set out, Joe Biden, who has never created a job in his life, has been a member of the most exclusive club on the planet, the United States Senate, since he was 20 -- about 30, elected when he was 29. And he -- and they sent him out. If ever there was an example of chutzpah, it was Obama -- or it was Biden today in Ohio talking about how Romney treats people like us. He's never been like that. KING: Well, he comes from a blue-collar town. GALEN: Right, 40 years he's been in the Senate. KING: On this -- on this argument. It is -- Bill is right. And Governor Romney would not disagree that point. It is the central argument of this campaign: "What I did at Bain and," he says, "as governor proves I'm better at this economy thing than the president." What more can they do? Or are they just going to -- are we going to debate whether it's -- you know, he'll debate Staples as a success. You say GST is a failure. Is this what we're going to do for 174 days? RYAN LIZZA, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORKER": Well, if you're going to -- if you're going to claim credit for the jobs created, you've got to eat the jobs lost. And we still don't have an accounting of these jobs. And I wonder if we have a jobs gained, jobs lost. Bain Capital has told reporters they won't confirm one way or another. I think the problem for Romney is the metric Bain Capital used for success was not jobs created or jobs lost. They will tell you that. That was not the metric. The metric was profitability. OK? And Romney has a pretty good success story to talk about if he wants to talk about his years at Bain in managing Bain in a way that was incredibly successful. What's happened in the heat of the campaign he's decided to -- to reinterpret his years at Bain as a job -- in terms of jobs created. (CROSSTALK) KING: And he doubled down today. He doubled down today. Let's listen. He brought it back up, that number. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROMNEY (via phone): We were able to help create over 100,000 jobs. And secondly, on the president's watch. About 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry and auto dealers and auto manufacturers. He is hardly one to point a finger. (END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Now, if you want to -- this is what the Romney campaign says. But they do -- they list the companies here. If you go to their Web site, you'll see jobs at Bain. If he's going to say 100,000, and they're going to put this out, is he then open to criticism? GALEN: He didn't say that in that clip but it did say in the clip you played earlier in the show. He said net-net. So he is counting the jobs that were lost along the way, plus the jobs that have been gained along the way. So you know, that's a legitimate claim. Let me say this. The first segment you had, I don't remember the guy that was on with Robert Reich, because he got it right. KING: Andy Posner (ph). GALEN: That's right. But he's -- the Bain Capitals of the world, they get their -- the private equity, the equity comes from pension funds, from teachers' funds, from firemen's funds. A lot of people depend on organizations like Bain Capital managed correctly so that they can retire. LIZZA: Journalists covering this are trying to figure out the truth here. It's hard. Neither Bain nor the Romney campaign will give us a company-by-company breakdown of everyone that Bain was involved with when he was there, jobs lost, jobs gained. KING: And there are some legitimate -- there are some legitimate privacy questions there, because it's private equity. However, it's a tougher one. Gentlemen, stand by. We'll continue the conversation in a moment. "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" coming up at the top of the hour. And Erin, you're watching this troubling news out of Greece, nervous investors around the world. What's going on? ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: You know, it's getting worse and worse, John. You know, a few months ago I was talking about this and saying maybe it's all right to let Greece go. And it's seeming more and more likely that Greece may choose to leave the euro. This is something that would have worldwide implications. But the human side of it, we're going to talk a little bit about that. You had lines at banks around Greece today. In just one day, Greeks took out nearly a billion dollars in euros out of the bank. The reason is they're worried that those euros are going to, well, turn into drachmas, and the Greek drachma wouldn't be worth as much, John. A billion dollars, that's a lot of money. Since the financial crisis began in Greece at the end of 2009, they've been pulling out about four billion euros a month. So this is -- this is a very significant story. If you start to have a run on the banks, this story could really spiral out of control. It hasn't yet and that's important, but we're going to talk about where it could go from here, because it's now a domino that could come right back over the Atlantic, which as Richard Quest says, you know, is as wide as a bathtub. KING: As wide as a bathtub. Erin Burnett, we'll see you in a few minutes. Erin, thanks. A record-breaking 12 million people watched MTV's Video Music Awards. Last year, the network shifting its schedule, this year to accommodate an even bigger event. What it is after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: We're back, talking politics with Ryan Lizza, Bill Burton and Rich Galen. Gentlemen, we ask ourselves why is the race so competitive, presidential race essentially a dead heat. Look at this "USA Today"/Gallup poll. Favorables ratings of the candidates. Favorable for Governor Romney, 50; unfavorable 41. For President Obama, favorable 52, unfavorable 46. So Governor Romney, Bill Burton, as the guy who's here to help the president, he's come way up. If you look at what's happened just since, if you go back, he's up 19 points among conservatives, 22 points among Republicans. You say among those two, OK, the primaries are over. The guys who voted for somebody else have come home. He's also up 15 percent among people, high school graduate or less which, in the primaries, was a huge weakness. That has to worry you. He's essentially even when people ask favorable or unfavorable. BURTON: I would say that it is worrying. I think that this is going to be a very close election, starting now, going all the way to election day. I think it's going to be two points either way. And you know, come election day, it's going to come down to a real choice. And in the key states around the country -- Colorado, Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, places where we're up -- you know, there's a dogfight. KING: Places where you're spending all your money? BURTON: There's a dogfight in all those places. KING: Has governor Romney done something to improve his standing, or is this the natural elasticity of the campaign? GALEN: It's the natural flow of events. As the -- as the primaries have faded away -- there's still one more big day June 5. But the -- but yes, everybody is getting behind. Remember four years ago we were still in the dogfight between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. They hadn't settled it for two or three weeks. But they got in behind each other so, yes, this is what's happening. But you're right, I mean, anybody who says this guy is going to win or that guy is going to win have no idea what they're talking about. Because if we've learned anything, polls that we were seeing on Fridays during the primaries had no relationship to what we saw on Tuesday. KING: But the personal likability is still an issue for Governor Romney. And people like this president. Even people who don't support him like the president; they like his family. Will that matter in the end if it is 50-50? You know, they're going to debate tax policy, education policy, national security policy. How much is going to come down to "I like this guy"? LIZZA: That's always a big deal in these elections, but the favorable/unfavorable is very volatile. It's been all over the place in the last month. I think that these polls show two things. One, we have a polarized electorate. Republicans came over to Obama. It's going to be, you know, 45-45 locked in on each side and just about 10 percent in the middle. And one guy who got it right, Eric Fernstrohm (ph). There really is an Etch-A-Sketch. You shake it up and the general election starts over. KING: Well, it starts over. I'm not sure if you'd agree. GALEN: I've got two words for you: Richard Nixon. He got elected probably three times. KING: Those words haven't been spoken on this show in a very long time. GALEN: But he was elected three times. KING: Rich, Bill, Ryan, appreciate your coming in. Here's Kate Bolduan. She's back with the latest news you need to know right now. Hey, Kate. BOLDUAN: Hi, there, John. The man known as the Godfather of Go-Go, guitarist and singer Chuck Brown died today. Brown and his group The Soul Searchers topped the R&B chart in 1978 with their hit "Busting Loose." He was 75 and died of multiple organ failure brought on by a bacterial infection in his blood. And more homeowners are making their payments on time. Delinquencies on mortgages dropped to a four-year low in the first quarter of this year. The Mortgage Bankers Association says just over 11 percent of homeowners have fallen behind or are already in the foreclosure process. That's the lowest level since 2008. And attention, men looking to add some ambience to your man cave. Yankee Candles is now selling man candles. Yes, I did say that. Candles with scents of wood, freshly cut grass and even leather. And check out these names. First Down combines orange and leather to remind you of -- what else? -- game day. And would you like to whiff some sawdust? Two by Four should do the trick there. I don't know if I enjoy the smell of leather. I don't know. KING: I will listen when they start selling wheat hops and barley. BOLDUAN: There you go. Of course, that's the smell that John King loves. KING: All right. Stay with me, Kate. Finally, tonight's "Moment You Might Have Missed." If a major scheduling conflict hadn't been fixed, two very big although very different events on calendar September 6. That's when a guy named President Obama will accept the Democratic nomination for president. He'll be in Charlotte, North Carolina. MTV will host the Video Music Awards out in Los Angeles, so MTV now agreeing to move its big show up an hour to 8 p.m. to, quote, "avoid conflict." And let's face it: the president wouldn't want to compete for attention with the likes of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, especially if you're trying to get voters from that MTV generation. Right, Kate? BOLDUAN: Yes. I mean, in my mind, it's either hilarious coincidence or a genius scheduling maneuver. You already have the MTV generation sitting down for the awards. There's your audience. KING: Bill Burton is scribbling notes here right now. He's going to advertise -- his super PAC is going to advertise during it. They may even get Justin Bieber in an ad. BOLDUAN: Write it down, Burton. KING: We'll see you all back right here tomorrow night. "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now. BURNETT: "OUTFRONT" next, a bold threat by Speaker Boehner...

The city of Townsville! A wonderful, peaceful little town to live in. Where on sunny days, families can be found outside in the park. Or on rainy days, found inside playing frustrating board games with one another in merriment. Where young children can get help with their homework from their parents. Or sometimes even the other way around when tax season comes along. Even where the toughest of criminals receive aid and companionship from their cellmates and neighbors. Yes, here in Townsville, the bonds between families members and friends couldn't be stronger. And there's no better example of this fact, than the bond between our heroes, The Powerpuff Girls and their beloved Professor Utonium. Why, even now, the girls are busy making the Professor some lunch while he's in his lab! "Alright, the fruit salad's done!" said Blossom, the leader, who was adding a final touch of whipped cream to her creation. "Buttercup! How's the omelet coming along?" "The omelet's all ready, already! But the stupid salt isn't coming out!" The frustrated green Powerpuff continued to viciously shake the salt shaker, nearly having to resort to simply breaking it in half. Bubbles, who finished making the Professor's coffee a while ago, floated over to her enraged sister to see what was the problem. She blinked a few times. "Uh...you do know that the lid is still on right?" Freezing instantly, Buttercup glared at the lid that was indeed, still on the shaker, before taking it off and melting it with her heat vision. "I knew that.." she mumbled as a large amount of salt fell on top of the breakfast dish. "No, no, no!" Blossom cried while dashing over, not hearing the previous conversation. "Too much salt, Buttercup! We can't have the Professor getting high blood pressure!" Inhaling what was meant to be a small gasp of air, the pink Powerpuff exhaled a huge gust of wind, blowing not only the salt, but also the whole plate and both her sisters into (and through) the kitchen wall. Covering her mouth, Blossom flew over to help them out of the wall's ruble. Buttercup was a bit dizzy, but fine none the less, but Bubbles was crying trying to get the large amount of salt off her face. "It's in my EYES!" she cried miserably. "I'm sorry!" As Blossom did a broke record of apologizes, Buttercup dashed over to the kitchen's sink, and splashed a bowl full of water into the blonde's face. Calming down slowly but surely, Bubbles realized she was sitting on top the very splattered cheese omelet. After a moment a silence, the trio burst into laughter. After making yet another omelet (With the correct amount of salt on it; courtesy of Blossom), a quick change of clothes for Bubbles, and a very fast repair for the kitchen wall, the three girls entered the laboratory with smiling faces. "Professor!" they all sang in tune. "We brought you lunch!" Turning away from his work desk, the Professor dusted off his white lab coat and smiled back to his daughters. "Aw, girls, you didn't have to go out of your way to make lunch for me! It's Sunday! You should be playing! I can take care of myself you know." "We know you can Professor," said Blossom, who along with the others, hugged their father. "But you've been working so hard today on...whatever is you're doing...so we wanted to help you out!" "Yeah!" Bubbles chirped. "We love you!" "And apparently, loving someone involves making them lunch on a Sunday." Buttercup finished. "Aw, you girls are the best." The happy family continued their hug until he started jumping up in down in excitement. "Now, who wants to see what I've been working on all this morning?" "OH! OH! I DO! I DO!" the three screamed with excitement, trying to peek over his shoulder to see his invention. "OKAY! BEHOLD!" he screamed back revealing it to them. Their excited faces disappeared and turned into a confused expression. "Um...Professor I think they already invented a Telephone book." Wincing as he lifted the heavy book, he showed them the cover which had his face on it. "It's not a telephone book! It's my autobiography of being a Professor!" Bubbles floated closer to examine the book. "What's that mean?" "It means he wrote his life in book form pretty much." Blossom explained. "Yeah! Isn't it cool?" "Not really. Making your life a book doesn't make you any cooler, it just means that your life is so bland it can be put onto paper." Buttercup turned and started to float back upstairs with her sisters. Pouting a bit, Professor Utonium began to flip the massive book's pages. "But it's got everything about my creations in here! My first volcano, the first computer I fixed and improved, how I created you, making the Powerpuff Dy.Na.Mo-" "WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!" A pink streak of light appeared in front of him, and with much speed, Blossom flipped several hundred pages back. "THERE IT IS! PROFESSOR! You can't just go putting in how you created The Powerpuff Girls in a book!' "Well, why not? You are my best creations after all-" "THAT'S JUST IT!" Now blue and green streaks of light came over, with Bubbles shaking the book around. "One time, you told Mojo about our creation over the phone, and he ended up making The Rowdyruff Boys!" "Which we destroyed once, but are now here forever, thanks to HIM and his stupid cootie shot!" Blossom added, while flying around frantically. "Then there was the time that Dick Hardly found out, and made the awful Powerpuff Girls Xtreme!" Buttercup grabbed the book and shoved it in the Professor's face. "If this went public worldwide, then ANYONE could make a Powerpuff! Everywhere you go, cheap, rip off versions of us would be flying all around the place, again! IT'S NOT COOL AT ALL!" Pushing the paper out of his face and taking the book from Buttercup, the Professor began to rewrite the section of the book. "You girls are right! What was I thinking!" he yelled frantically, ripping out the pages explaining the girls' creation, and throwing them in the trash. "I'll just keep it secret and confidential then. Honestly, three of you little angels and three of the Rowdyruff devils are all that Townsville- heck, all the world can take!" "That's right." Blossom concluded. "We don't need any more." Her face turned quite sad and turned to her sisters. "And to be honest, we really don't want another Bunny incident..." The trio hung their heads at the memory of the fourth Powerpuff, who was too unstable to last. The Professor quirked an eyebrow. "Bunny? Like one of Bubbles' animals?" "It's nothing Professor." Buttercup said, as they floated upstairs to try and enjoy the rest of their Sunday. He shrugged his shoulders and continued to rewrite. ------ "BOOMER! Haven't you finished making our dinner yet? I'm starving, man!" A very frustrated Boomer glared at his brothers, who were watching T.V while he was attempting to cook a pizza. He growled, brushed his flour coated bangs out of his face, and tried to throw a piece of pepperoni at the yelling leader, Brick. This proved to be a difficult task seeing as they were at HIM's house, meaning the rooms were all different floating pieces of land. Butch saw this attempt, and laughed manically at the blond with his gruff voice. "Ha ha, nice try loser!" Aggravation growing, Boomer kicked the oven, only to have flames come out of it, trying to burn him. Looking inside the devilish kitchen appliance, his blue eyes widened with joy and a small smile came across his face. "Dinner's ready!" Within seconds, dark red and green streaks dashed to the floating kitchen table to the right. "FOOD! FOOD! FOOD!" the boys chanted to the blue Rowdyruff, as he placed a slightly burned, but still edible, pizza down. The three young boys rushed to grab their own special thirds of the dinner dish and began stuffing them down. Each third was specified to their tastes; Brick liked his with lots of meat and cheese, Boomer enjoyed the blend of pineapple with ham, while Butch had every single spicy pepper you can get on his slices, receiving much pleasure with burning his mouth. "So," Brick said between mouthfuls of bacon and ham. "Didn't ya make anything for HIM?" Slurping down soda, Boomer shrugged. "Does he even eat?" "Heck if I know, man." He ducked from the flames coming out of Butch, who was laughing more than ever. "But you know, he's weird, and sensitive and stuff. Wants us to treat him like a "dad" ya know?" This was a true fact. Even if they didn't like to say it, they did technically have two dads who treat them very well, and also fight over them all the time. But because of the possessive natures of Mojo and HIM, The Rowdyruff Boys ended up being "Captured" and taken to the other parents' hideout every week. It was HIM's week, but when they leave to go wreck havoc tomorrow, they'll be with the evil monkey by sundown, much to the Devil's anger. "BOYS!" Speak of the Devil... The red being of evil stepped out of closed off room-island and looked down at the trio. "Were you eating dinner without me again?" Brick groaned. "I guess we were. But that's only cause Boomer didn't have enough brains to make enough pizza for ya!" "Hey, don't put this on me, dude! How would I know what the devil would want on his stupid pizza?" As the blond said this, Butch was glancing over his extremely spicy slice, before setting it down and guzzled down soda, to avoid getting into the conversation. "Oh never mind, it doesn't matter anyway." HIM said, as he floated down to the table with a sinister smile on his face. The boys looked at each other in bewilderment. Nothing? He'd normally had a fit about it! "By the way boys, could you do a little, teensy weensy favour for me?" "Uh..." Brick wiped a smug of tomato sauce off of Butch's forehead. "Sure, what's up?" "Could do you...possibly tell me just exactly you were made with in the precise order that they were used?" Eyes twitching at how fast the effeminate villain was speaking, the question eventually sunk in. "Um...snips-" "And snails!" "And puppy dog-" Boomer and Butch were cut off by their leader's hands over their mouths. HIM looked a bit surprised. "Why do you wanna know, huh? You never wanted to know before!" Brick yelled, shaking his hand at the clawed villain across the table. "It's got something to do with that...THING you've been working on all day, doesn't it!" "No, no it doesn't, nope, not all." He waved a claw and barricaded the door he came out of with dozens of locks and chains. "LIAR!" The Rowdyruff Boys flew with great speed towards the door. "NO! NO! Don't go in there!" Smashing through the door with ease, Brick started to command his brothers to find exactly what HIM was working on. Butch started ripping up papers for no reason, while Brick was mindlessly throwing around random boxes and tables. "AHHH!" It wasn't until they heard Boomer's high pitched scream that they have found IT. IT made Butch fall over. IT made Brick nauseous. IT was a girl. A Powerpuff Girl. Well, not really, it was all white, its eyes were closed, no hair, and it didn't look complete at all. At least she wore a pure white dress, or the boys would've been even more grossed out. "Well, it seems the cat's out of the bag, hm?" HIM said as he walked over to his creation. "What the heck is WRONG WITH YOU!" Boomer yelled. "Are you TRYING to make a new enemy for us?" "NO, INSOLENT BOY-" He stopped himself, and tried to calm down more. "I merely have concluded that little boys such as yourself should have a female present in your life. So I made this little-" He grimaced at the lifeless doll. "...Girl. Sides, nothing wrong with a new Powerpuff, right? Especially if I make sure it's evil enough." "No, there's everything wrong with it!" Butch, know revived, flew over and kicked the creation to the ground. "We don't need another one! Three is enough of them, and three is enough of us! And evil or not, this is a piece of garbage that'll never work!" HIM's rage was obvious. Red hot flames surrounded all around him, and his voice grew deep. "You dare try to convince me, that one of my brilliant plans are wrong?" Not being fazed by the pure evil, the trio shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much." "WELL...okay then." To their surprise, HIM just walked on over to the white body, covered in some dirt from the ground, picked it up, and passed it to Brick. "You do what you want with it, I don't care anymore. Besides, a girl couldn't do much evil anyway, it's too sweet hearted." Sticking his tongue out, the red Rowdyruff tossed it in the nearby trash can. "Let the roaches at the dump have her." ----- No sooner had Brick near whispered those words, did Bubbles added her final touch of blue to her flowery drawing. She was drawing at their bedroom's table while Blossom read and Buttercup...well, just floated around in a bored state. The light hearted girl stretched herself across the table, and sighed comfortably. Sunday nights were nice. It showed that tomorrow would be the start of a new week (Much to students like Buttercup's distaste) and a clean fresh state of mind. Blossom closed her book loudly, breaking Bubbles out of her peace state of mind. "Buttercup, it's 6:30." The green puff looked down at her sister. "Good for you, you can tell time. What about 6:30?" "It's your turn to take out the trash. It is Sunday after all, and Bubbles did it last week so-" "Alright, I get it already!" she snapped as she floated out of the room. "I'll get the stinkin' trash, don't bug me about it..." Ten minutes later, she flung a very messy bag at their curb. ----- Rapid button pushing could be heard a while later at HIM's home, as the boys played video games in the living "room". "JUMP THERE! Honestly, you gotta twirl kick jump here or the Nananna's we eat you alive! Just give me the control-" "No way dude! It's my file, use your own!" As both Brick and Boomer squabbled over the Nintendo 64 controller, Butch sat on the couch, watching the video game hero be beaten and savagely mauled by the Nanannas. As the words "Game over" filled in screen, he stepped into to the thrawl. "Hey, c'mon, dudes quit it! The game finished already! GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!" Butch started screaming and throwing some punches at his brothers, who were busy biting each other's arms. All the fighting ended instantly once they knocked over the TV off the island, into the unidentified abyss. An awkward silence filled the chamber. "Sniff, um..." Brick looked around the place, no sign of HIM anywhere. "...you guys wanna get the heck outta here before we get yelled at for busting the TV again?" Boomer nodded silently, and Butch was already flying towards the portal out of the living hell and into Townsville. Before he could escape however, his blond brother pulled him back. "Wait a minute, dude. It's Sunday." "Yeah, so what?" Butch grunted, pulling away. Brick floated over, anger on his face. "Yeah, it's Sunday night." The blue Rowdyruff flew away to others islands quickly. "WHAT'S SO IMPORTANT WITH STUPID SUNDAY!" As he yelled, Boomer floated back with a garbage bag filled to the brim. "Garbage day." Butch just snatched it angrily, and tossed it to a nearby portal. ----- The next day, in the Townsville Dump, one of the most horrible places in all of Townsville, the garbage men tossed the last few bags of trash they gathered from citizens. "You think that's everything?" "I'm positive, Frank. One of these bags hit me at the back of my head! Like it came from the sky or something! Not to mention, it was very heavy..." Sounds of rustling were heard from a short distance, causing the conversation to seize. The garbage men saw glimpses of green moving from beyond the garbage heaps. They knew what group of Townsvillains lived here. And they knew exactly how angry they were after they got out of juvie... The smartest thing to do was just run as heck. After all, messing with the Gangreen Gang at night when the Powerpuff Girls weren't around, was just asking for trouble. The green teenage quintent was moving slowly towards their shack in the middle of all the trash, annoyed at how long they spent in cells...again. Ace, their leader, was of course, leading the group through the trash to their shack, with a slithering Snake at his side, hissing ever so lightly. Behind them was a slobbering Grubber, and a loud Big Billy, with Lil' Arturo on his shoulder. "So, bosss," Snake asked quietly. "Were youss okay in your cellss? I noticed thatss the guardsss visited youss a lot." "Huh? Oh, yeah, it was nothing." Ace replied quickly. "Just a couple of cell mate fights is all..." "You won all of them, si?" The smallest of the group was now clinging to his friends shirt as he spoke, so he wouldn't fall at such a far distance from the ground. "Yeah, of course, what do you take me for? They didn't know what hit them! Why just yesterday I-" Ace froze, causing his followers to knock into each other. "...Hey, Snake? Do you hear something?" The second in command raised an eyebrow and listened closely to their surroundings. If he messed up this question, he knew a fist would soon hit his face. To his pleasure, he did eventually hear something, and a sinister smile crept on his face. "The sssound of a garbage truck leavingss." Ace removed Snake's brown hat and ruffled his greasy black hair rather roughly. "You got that right. It's Monday, boys. And even you lot have the brains to know what that means." The group, not to mention most of the garbage, shook as their largest member bounced up and down in glee. "OH! OH! It's Garbage Hunt time, right, Ace?" "DING! Prize for the big one." Taking this as a command, Grubber flung an old banana peel at Big Billy, which landed on his head. "Hahaha! It's a hat." Arturo giggled in his high pitched laugh, and fiddled with the piece of garbage, while the others smiled. Some more than others, but a small smile did appear on the Gangreen boy's faces. "Alright, boys," their leader said as he pushed his sunglasses up his face. "You know the rules; 10 minutes in your garbage heap, and only in your heap-" He glared at Lil' Arturo, who giggled more nervous than before. "Then, the guy with the best thing wins-...I don't know, the good blanket for the night?" The group nodded in agreement at the prize; the nights were starting to get chillier, and there was only one blanket without any holes and could fit over any member (Including Big Billy). "Are we ready?" "Yesss!" "Si!" "Uh huh!" "PHBT!" "Good, cause I'm already in my pile, you morons!" Gasping briefly, the rest of the gang dived and cannonballed into the horrid trash, in hopes of finding "One man's treasure". To the teens misfortune, there wasn't much this week to come by. It was mostly food leftovers, worn out clothes, and scratchy old CDs. The basic items really, considering how the Town often threw many things away (Even though some of them were decent). Ten minutes passed, and the gang rounded up back up to their starting point. Ace seemed pretty proud with busted guitar he dug up. "Needs touching up, but I bet I could get some sound out of it, eventually." he said. The others didn't seem so happy with their items. "Oh, I knew I shoulda grabbed the ole calender! Stupido!" The smallest member tossed the messy paint set he recovered to the ground, gritting his teeth in frustration. Snake was beating himself with a thick book he found, only to have Ace stop him by punching even harder in the arm. Dropping said book and rubbing his arm, the second in command watched as Big Billy was playing with yet another plush toy, before piecing together something. "Heyss, where'sss Grubber, nowss?" he hissed. Ace raised an eyebrow and scanned the area. The game ended, and even he knew that. Right? Then again, this was Grubber. "Grr...you guys wait here, I'll get 'im. And don't you dare try to switch with anything while I'm gone Arturo!" "ONE TIME! JUST ONCE! Will you leave me be already, amigo?" Jumping over several piles, their leader shouted back, "NO WAY IN HECK!" before looking around for the weirdest member. Sliding down several slopes, and kicking the odd rat away, he still couldn't even hear Grubber's usual raspberries. It was then that he called the rest of the gang to help search, and before long, Snake heard a voice calling for help. A british voice. "Heyss Ace! I think he'sss somewhere over in territoryss D!" he yelled, fidgeting with his wristbands a bit. He knew that their friend only spoke when his back and was fully in shape, which was very painful for him to do, so something must've happened. Needless to say, the Gangreen gang all rushed over to said area. Upon arrival, they did indeed see Grubber fully stretched out, attempting to pull a large truck away from something. Their arrival didn't go unnoticed, as he turned to them. "Good fellows, could you please lend me hand here?" "Grubber, what I tell ya about speaking fancy to us?" Ace growled, arms crossed. "And why are you all the way out here, you're way off track, fella!" "Well pardon me, I was trying to do my part of the game! I found a right nice treasure but it stumbled down under this vehicle-" It was then that he actually to make some noises of pain, which made most of the others cringe a bit. "Now please assist me, this is quite painful you know!" "Fine, ya wuss. Big Billy, mind giving him a hand?" "Duh, sure thing boss!" The largest member merely gave the truck a shove, and it came toppling down. Grubber fell backwards from exhaustion, as Lil' Arturo and Snake aided him in cracking his back to his relaxed posture. Once back in shape, he blew his tongue like normal. Rolling his eyes, Ace stepped over to the dusty garbage from under the truck. Like their piles now, there wasn't many things out of the ordinary from a regular trash bin (Except for a difference of a year or two). It wasn't until his eyes met something in the middle that made him shriek a bit. The sudden scream caused Snake to jump and clutch to the nearest thing, which in this case was an old lamp. It was a bad habit of him. He wished he didn't do that when he was startled, seeing as most of the time he clung to people. "Geez bosss, what wasss that forss-WHAT THE HECKSS ISSS THAT THINGSS!" Walking over over calmly, Grubber picked up the shocking item and showed it to others in pride and delight. No one said a word as the stared at the small, white thing. That was, until Billy spoke up. "It's a Powerpuff Girl dollie! Ha ha ha!" ----- Silence filled the dump's shack as the Gangreen Gang stood around, what they named earlier, "The Powerpuff Fail". No one dared say anything, after all what could they say? It was very dirty, but it was still just a blank base, with no features that made it even remotely similar to the cutesy trio of Townsville they all knew. But at the same time, they were glad about that. Everyone's thoughts were different on the matter, but like fore mentioned, they dared not say them out loud. Grubber and Billy were off in their own little worlds, but they did occasionally poke and prod the little thing, as Lil' Arturo inspected it for any sort of spying devices. While Snake...Snake was just staring at Ace; his eyes pleading for their leader to come up with something. After all, they could tell this wasn't just a little dollie. This was special. Finally, Ace stood up and spoke. "Alright boys, what do y'all have to say about-" He twitched as he looked at the Powerpuff Fail. "...you know, THAT." "Wellss, can we really tellss that it'sss even worth our timess? It could jussst be some sssort of collectorss item." Their skinnest member shrugged. "After allss, there'ss plenty out theress." Arturo held onto to an arm of the base. "I don't think so, amigo. She does have skin coma us-" He paused. "...'cept white. And I feel some sort of pulse there-" "Ick, ssso now we havess a dying Powerpuff among usss? Much usse that isss." The little one stood up and glared at his hissing ally. "Hey, you don't knows that for sure, so don't go jumping to conclusions, el serpento." "Jussst be quietss! You don't knowss anything more than we doss about thisss thing, ssso you better quit actingss like a momss!" "Like you can talk!" "SHUT UP YOU TWO!" Ace yelled before Snake started a fist fight with Arturo. "This isn't helping us in any way shape or form. Can someone just please think of what to do, before I use this thing as a bat on all of your faces!" After yet another break of silence, everyone started to sweat a little. Snake was kinda right, this was alive...SORTA. And it could actually be dying, and death was for sure something that a group of teenagers wouldn't want to deal with. Especially if it was a little girl. Gulping, Arturo kept looking at the Powerpuff Fail, trying to find something (Anything) to identify its problem, as everyone else was either frantically trying to think, or hyperventilating. During his freak out, Grubber tripped over something. A large book. He picked it up and shoved it to his leader's face. "H-hey, get that away from me!" he yelled, pushing the large book away so he could have a better look at it. After actually seeing it, his eyes widened behind his sunglasses. "...where did you get this?" The distorted Gangreen pointed to Snake. He shrugged. "It wasss just sssomething I foundss. That ssstupid Professsor was on it, ssso I thoughtss it be fun to messs with." They never did like the Powerpuff's dad, so finding anyway of humiliating him was one of their many past times. And what better way to do that than doodling in his own Autobiography? Needless to say, the second in command received a punch to the side of his face. "You idiot," Ace growled. "Didn't you look through this thing?" He pushed the book into Snake's face very similar to the way Grubber had done. "How The Powerpuff Girls Were Made! We could use this to help this thing out!" Lil' Arturo raised an eyebrow. "You actually want to help something, boss?" "I want this thing off our backs, if that's what you mean. Once it's kicking, we kick it out of here like we do with all trespassers." "Duh, why would we do that?" The gang looked at their largest meber. "Well, I donno know, if it is really a Powerpuff Girl, wouldn't it have the super powers too?" "More reason to get rid of it." Big Billy shook his head. "No, that's not what I meant. Duh, I can't really 'xplain it..." Snake's eyes widened. "Heyss, I think I knowss what you meanss!" He turned to the others. "The girlss were bassically raised to be goodss, and even Mojo wentss sso far as to make the Rowdyruff Boysss, why can't we jusst raise thiss to work for usss?" He tried to make an awkward smile as he waited for some sort of a response from his friends. With out warning, the heavy book went flying at his face, hitting his nose with a large amount of force. "Start reading up, Snake. We've got us a Gang member to make." --- Oh no, a Gangreen Puff wandering Townsville? That can't be good. But with the Powerpuff's around we have nothing to fear...right? Oh golly, I hope so. Anyhow. Meanwhile, at the Utonium house, the girls start preparing for bed. Bubbles was putting away all of her coloring books she used through the day, while at the same time keeping an eye out for her beloved stuff toy, Octi. After finding said stuffed octopus hidden sneakily under some laundry by Buttercup no doubt (Bubbles swore that her sisters were out to get Octi, even if they did claim innocent), the bright blue puff snuggled under her blankets clinging onto him tightly. Blossom at this time was brushing her hair with great precession, not wanting to deal with the same bed head that got her sisters every morning. No sir, her hair was to stay perfect as it always has been before, she once said. After finishing said task, she also rested in bed beside her sister before glancing at Buttercup, who was looking out the window. The raven haired girl was looking aimlessly at her surroundings, remembering all the rough and tough fights that occurred on those streets just in front of her. She even used her super vision to scan the farther areas and remembered those battles too. Every punch, every kick and every scream. Oh, how she loved being a crime fighter. Then her eyes glimpsed upon the park. That park. She shut her eyes tightly. There was just some memories that were best not to be remembered. With that last thought in mind, she turned and joined her sisters, and once the Professor had said goodnight drifted off into a deep sleep, unaware of the schemes and plans being concocted by the very people Buttercup desperately tried to forget. --- With that being said, the Gangreen Gang at this time were trying their best to better understand to concept of making a Powerpuff Girl. "Sugar, spice, and everything nice." Ace repeated for the third time. "...just what the heck does that have anything to do with a superhero and their powers?" "I don't thinkss it has to do with the sssuperhero part of a Powerpuffss. It ssseems more directed atss the actual girl." Snake hissed, repeatedly reading the autobiography over and over. Billy scratched his red hair. "But uhh, shouldn't there be, ya know something else to it?" "Yeah!" Lil' Arturo pipped up, still sitting beside The Powerpuff Fail. "There's gotta be something else there, amigo, otherwise it would just be a big bowl of random, girly stuff." The small boy stood up at the realization of something. Girly stuff. "H-heys boss...this thing is almost complete r-right?" The gang's leader raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I'm pretty sure we already covered that, idiot." "T-then wouldn't that mean that this thing is just a sweet little senorita waiting for life?" The four other members looked at each other, then groaned. It was the one thing that escaped their minds; the fact that their "Hero" would be their first female member. The other gangs in town would never live it down... --- Hours ran by, and midnight was slowly approaching Townsville. The five teens were still awake, and still trying to figuring their puzzle out. Lil' Arturo was curled up in a ball next to the Powerpuff Fail, eyes twitching every now and again from their seemingly impossible goal. He glanced to the others, who weren't doing very well either. Everyone was chanting the rhyme over and over, just hoping something will click into their teenage minds. Ace was banging his head against the wall of their shack. "Sugar." BANG! "Spice" BANG! "Everything nice." BANG! "Everything peachy keen for a normal Powerpuff Girl!" BANG, BANG, BANG! Just before the other gang members tried to get their leader from becoming permently damaged, the small phone in the corner of the shack began ringing. Rubbing his sore forehead, Ace went and picked it, only to hear very load shrieks and yells coming from the other end. Arturo rolled his eyes. Even from this distance, he could hear Princess' voice loud and clear, especially when she ranting on and on to Ace about yet another thing he "borrowed" and didn't give back. "WHERE'S MY STUFF YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING CREEP?! If it wasn't for my nanny, I would've never realized that a 'innocent green citizen' came and took, not only a good load of cash, BUT ALSO MY COLLECTION OF SPRAY PAINTS! TELL ME, HOW CAN I BE A POWERPUFF GIRL WITHOUT THEM?!" "Look, Miss, I got Morebucks than you do," he said, rubbing his temples. "What else do you except people like us to use for graffetti refills?" He paused. "And what da heck would that do to make your a Pow- Hey wait." His eyes widened as he turned to look at the still lifeless doll. "...Princess." "WHAT?" "What are Powerpuff Girls made of?" She inhaled. "BESIDES, 'Sugar, Spice and everything nice.'" --- Needless to say, Princess sure did come in handy for once. The gang now knew what they needed for this creation to be...you know, created. A simple, but dangerous ingredient, created by none other than the Professor himself. Chemical X. "D'uh, are we really doing what I think we're doing, Ace?" "Shuddup ya goon! You'll wake the whole house up!" With such an ingredient so close to being in their possession, Ace and Big Billy went over to the Utonium household in search for the chemical. Snake was reluctant for them to do so, not wanting the two to be caught and leave the rest of them behind while they went to jail, but with the current task at hand, and the Powerpuff Fail looking more and more dead, he had to let them go. It wasn't like it was the first time they'd rob the Professor's lab before, oh no, they crashed it plenty of times, even getting mixed up with some mind reading potion once, but this was different. They weren't just smashing it up for no reason other than amusement, this time they were searching for something. Something that they had no clue what it resembled to, or where to find it. Ace grimaced as he shoved countless vials in a quiet fashion. This was defiantly getting him no where. Not even focusing on the bottles anymore, he leaned against a wall and slid to the ground putting his face into his palms. "If Mojo dealt with this," he thought. "He would've easily been able to make some sort of invention to get the Chemical X, or just destroy the thing all together. Fuzzy would've trashed everything up, but still manage to get away with his anger and strength." For a second, he shuddered. "And I wouldn't want to know what HIM would've done." Ace glanced up at Billy who was reading some books that were upside down. Not like he could tell. The leader could already imagine what the rest of the gang would be doing if they were here too; Arturo would be trying to reach places he knows he damn well can't get to, Grubber would be messing things up, not even caring about the noise, and Snake. He'd probably just be at Ace's side wondering what was up with his somewhat best friend. "Out of all the big shot bad guys in Townsville, that stupid thing had to wind up with the Gangreen Gang; some of the world's worst gang members." He didn't like beating himself up, but negative thoughts like that were constantly being thrown at him and his friends, and had somewhat corrupted him. Things such as 'They'll never amount to anything'. But, what could runaway teenagers do to prove their worth to others? Without a word, Ace got up, and started walking towards the back exit. Billy followed, and left behind the book with the title "How I did It" by the Professor. --- Back at the Gangreen Gang's hideout, otherwise known as their old shack at the dump, the three remaining teens sat in an awkward circle around the Powerpuff Fail, having small, awkward conversations here and there. It wasn't like they hated each other or anything, they just didn't really interact much with one another. They were either partnered up with their closer friends, or just together in a big group, things like this didn't happen often. During their discussions about what they would do if Ace and Billy actually did get Chemical X, and this girl was brought to life, Snake picked up something from listening to Arturo. He sounded just like a little child wondering about their soon to be baby brother or sister. The small teen was talking about how he would help her out with being so minuscule compared to the others, and what kind of name they could give her. Grubber suggested something among the lines of Ivy, while Snake suggested Artura jokingly. Lil' Arturo gave him a pounding, which didn't do much damage to the second in command. Moments and events such as these didn't normally happen to their Gang, but sometimes they wished it could happen more. Compared to the other villains, they knew they didn't stand out as much in terms of power. They stood out more in size actually, but that was mostly Big Billy's doing, thus making them feel, well, poorly of themselves. Hopefully this girl can change that, they all thought in their minds. Hopefully this little girl could be our small ray of hope. They all instantly shut up when the door was suddenly kicked open, and a very irritated Ace came in. He moved towards where they were sitting, and growled slightly, causing the others to slide back a bit. Their leader could certainly intimidate them well enough. Snake was the bravest one to speak. "S-ssso, Ace...did youss manage to get itss?" He felt like his heart skipped a beat when Ace looked right at him, his eyes as cold as ever. The serpent scrambled backwards, letting out a whimper as sign of apology and forgiveness. If it had been any other day, Ace would have given his friend such a pounding, but he let it slide for now. He reached down and picked up the Powerpuff Fail, examining it for a second. It felt so much like a child... a dead child mind you. He threw it on his shoulder and turned to leave once more. "We can't deal with this thing anymore. It's time we got rid of it once and for all." The color in everyone's faces paled. 'Get rid of it'? They were actually going to...he was actually considering... Everybody looked at one another in disbelief before clumsily running out of the shack to follow Ace. "A-Ace!" Arturo cried. "You can't being doing what I think your doing!" "I'm more than capable of getting rid of this nuisance. There's NOTHING we can do about this, Arturo! I WILL destroy it!" Grubber blew a raspberry that the gang members could translate to; "But it's only a little girl!" Their leader stopped for a brief second, before continuing to his destination. "I don't care, why should I care? I'm a villain and so are you lot." Behind his sunglasses, his eyes were sad. Not like anyone could see them. "...besides, this thing is dead anyway. I'm doing the right thing by doing this." He approached the area he was looking for, the others right behind him. It was a large pond full of toxic chemicals that was bubbly, smelly and neon green. No one knew the exact chemicals that made this pond; it was there before their time, but it was certainly easy to tell that it wasn't safe. Anything that dared to fall in it was never seen again, the garbage around it was mutated and twisted. And just by living near it for so long, made the five teenage boys' skin green. If there was any positive way to get rid of evidence, this would be it. Ace took another look at the Powerpuff Fail in his arms. The small creation that could be living a life if it wasn't for his incompetence. "It's the best solution." he thought. "If it- if she can't live, then she should have a funeral." He knew damn well that she could live if she was given to the Professor or someone similar, but she was obviously doomed to be different, doomed to be teased for things she had no hand in doing. Lil' Arturo pushed past his comrades and tugged on his leader's pant leg. "Wait. Please?" Ace looked down. "B-before we say a finally goodbye to the senorita, can we...can I do something to make her spirit know that she was wanted with us?" The small mexican's eyes were large and watery. Snake couldn't bear to look at him, knowing full well why. It didn't take long for Ace to see this sadness and rested the Powerpuff Fail onto the dirt ground. Then, Arturo did something no one saw coming. He pulled out a strand of Ace's hair while he was down, resulting in a yelp, then ran over to a pile of garbage, grabbing only a near empty bottle of lemon juice with a tangled cobweb on it. He then ran over to his confused friends and asked Snake to bend over. He complied, only to have strands of his hair pulled out as well, resulting in another yelp. "Artuross, what the heckss are you doingss?" the serpent demanded as the gang member in question ran back to the girl. Before them, they watched a truly creepy event. Arturo opened the Powerpuff Fail's mouth and put in the hairs, a dead spider and a few drops of the rancid lemon juice inside. Grubber gagged at the sight, before questioning his comrade's actions. "I just added some thing to the senorita when she's one the, you know, other side." he stated, acted calm like something like this was normal. "The lemon juice should give her a sweet but sour personality, which is sure to keep her on top of the crowd. Which is also where your hair comes in; she'll have the DNA of a brave leader and his faithful follower." He smirked as the two in question looked down in embarrassment. "And I'm not really sure what the spider could do. I guess give her a creepy vibe?" Lifting up the girl once more, Ace nodded. "Well done Arturo, you've done well for your deceased team mate." The mexican's face dimmed slightly, as he watched his leader walk towards the goo, and gently drop the Powerpuff Fail in the pond. "Um, I know we couldn't do much for ya, but, well, just know that wherever you are right now, you were always wanted here, but I guess it's too late and, um...bye." He couldn't say anything right, this was just odd. One minute he was excited for the possibility of having a hero, the next he wanted her out of his hands. Ace turned to walk away signaling the others to follow, as they all looked down at the ground in shame. What they didn't know, and couldn't see was that bubbles began emerging from the chemical goo. For underneath the toxic waste, something was living. Or beginning to live, to say the least. If it wasn't for a quick look back from Arturo, they might've never seen what had been born. "GUYS, AMIGOS, COMRADES! COME BACK, THERE'S SOMETHING MOVING!" The others jerked back, too take a look. Big Billy started running back with the others following, while Arturo watched in disbelief, and some fear, as something began to move in the goo. They hid behind a large pile a trash, in case something dangerous were to happen. Creeping slowly out of the pond was a small creature covered with the strange chemicals. Groans and grunts came from this monster, causing the Gangreen Gang to shrink back and consider retreat. They would have at least, if the creature wasn't constantly pushing away the green mess off of it's body. With puddles of the chemical goo surrouding it, the creature revealed it's true form. The Powerpuff Fail. Alive and breathing. A small gasp escaped Ace's lips at the sight. Snake and Grubber couldn't stop staring at the now moving little girl. Arturo climbed up on the dumbfounded Billy's shoulder to get a better view. Before them stood a little girl around the same age as the Powerpuff Girls, with a neon green dress; presumably the one she wore before, now stained. Her hair was long, greasy looking, and black, curled up at the ends with purple bangs at the front. Underneath her large eyes were small black underlines, and her lips were black as well. They couldn't tell if it was makeup or natural. As the girl finally rubbed away the remaining goo from her face, they saw that her eyes were an odd shade of blue green. Dark, but not so dark. Distinguishing her from the young female heros was a trait that could not be ignored, or overlooked. Perfectly green skin. The gang was astounded. They had done it. Maybe not intentionally, but there she was, their own little "hero". While they were filled with amazement and glee, it was the complete opposite for the girl. She had just been born after all. "H-hello?" she said weakly, her voice seemingly sweet. "I-is anyone out there? Hello...?" She looked at her surroundings. Dark, gloomy, and dangerous. What was she to do? Why was she born to such a place? And alone? What was she to be doing? All these questions flooded her head, as her breathing got heavier, and her eyes watering. The first emotion she had ever felt was fear. Fear of being left alone like this. Completely blind to her immense fear at the moment, Ace ran out from behind the trash, took a good look at her, and swept her up into a hug. Her fear disappeared instantly, as a warm fuzzy feeling replaced it. Then another thing clicked into her mind. "Who they heck are you?! Get off of me!" Regaining her posture, she pushed herself out of his arms, crossing her own. "I don't suppose you have any idea where my creator may be, huh punk?" "D'ah ha ha! Arturo did pretty good with those extra ingredients there, huh, Snake?" "Ssshut up!" "Phhbt!" "NO, ssshe's not like mess at all!" Blinking her eyes, she turned to see the rest of the gang moving over to her direction as well. So many people... "S-so, um," she gulped, feeling surrounded. "H-has a-any of your seen a scientist or something around? You know, I kinda want to see my family and all...and you lot don't entirely look like the sciency type, ya know?" They all burst out in laughter, much to her confusion. Snake had to cling to his leader in order to stand up straight, or what was straight from him anyway. The little girl found herself becoming more and more fascinated with these teenagers. Despite meeting them for only a few minutes, they had a charm of some sorts, that made her feel like she was home. Of course, this was her home, she just didn't realize it yet. Lil' Arturo walked up to her, wiping a tear from his eye. "Si, senorita. We may not look it, but we actually are your creators." He giggled as her jaw dropped in disbelief. "You've just met your new family. Welcome to the Gangreen Gang, new amigo." "The Gangreen Gang?" She liked the sound of it. "Hm, I'm guessing because of the skin?" Grubber nodded with a smile, and licked the side of her face with approval. Thinking it was a welcoming thing, she licked his cheek back, showing her forked green tongue. "It may take some getting used to missy, but you'll find out that you won't find anyone cooler than us." Ace smirked at that. To her, they were the best people out there. Of course, she hadn't met anyone else, but he let that slip his mind for now. He patted her head. "And you'll defiantly have to get used to your leader. No messing around, and follow everything I tell ya, alright twerp?" She stood up straight. "Got it, um....uh..." She kicked a rock away. "Could I maybe get some names please?" "Of course senorita, allow me, your big brother Arturo, to introduce you to our family." He scoffed at the idea of them being a family. Though it could be fun. "Well, you've already are acquainted to your uncle, Grubber here. The big lug is your cousin Billy, he'll always be there to help you up. Literally. And there's-" Arturo held back a laugh. "Your daddy, Ace and your mommy, Snake!" The others all laughed tremendously, while the little girl stood they in amazement of her "parents". The duo was twitching, blushing madly and all the rest as they kept looking at one another in disbelief. PARENTS? They could barely keep a conversation for very long without punching someone in the face. "So, mommy, daddy, what's my name?" she asked simply, not noticing the panic. "I know you had one in mind when you made me. Every good family does." Worlds crashed down around the five teens. Her darn NAME. Ace called the gang into a huddle. "Alright, names are forever. Can't change them until your way older, and have to suffer with them until then." Their leader glanced at Snake. "So, any ideas, Sanford, dear?" Snake blushed slightly. "Ssstop that. Wellss, actually, we had a few namess in mind, but we didn't really think it over, and they weren't all that great." Translated in Grubber speak, he said "I thought Ivy was pretty good." "Sssorry, but I really don't like that namess." "If you go with Artura, I'll never forgive you!" Arturo pipped up. "Alright, alright, this is getting us no where. We need a name that actually suits her, so what do we know about her right now?" They all turned to look at the creation, who was staring awkwardly at them. "Duhh...she's pretty quiet." Billy started. "But not shy." Arturo continued. "She speaks differently from others. It has more, I don't know, venom." "Weird wayss to put itss." "Shut up, Snake." "Hey wait, didn't she have a forked tongue like yours?" "Yesss, what about itss, Ace?" The gang leader smirked. "I've got it." Dispersing the huddle, Ace walked over to the creation, now smiling a bit more. She tilted her head a bit, curiously, as the rest of the gang surrounded her in a semi circle. Pushing his glasses upwards, he told her plain and simple. "Viper, welcome to the Gangreen Gang." Her smile couldn't have been brighter. --- To be continued on Fanfiction.Net Viper Gangreen- A PPG Fanfic by Eleanorose123 ©2011-2015 Eleanorose123 *EDIT* Right, that's all I'm posting here. ...so many dirty sexy thoughts >w< [link] [link] Stiiill in progress You've got to continue. The characterizations are amazing, the plot itself is intriguing, and the possibilities are endless. I eagerly await the next part, whether here or on ff.net! [link] It's still in the works (Damn you writer's block) but it hopefully will be completed in time :3 Sorry not everything is very detailed though; when it's all done I'll post a fixed up version of it on FF.net Probably, yeah, there's not much in between that XD Seeing as I am part british myself, it was quite entertaining X3 Currently writing the next bit, it's hard cause I don't want it be all of a sudden "Let's take this thing and make a Powerpuff", honestly, I don't think anyone would put that together when they first see it DX [link]

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Thompson.]9.13 pm § Mr. Clement Freud (Isle of Ely) When, in the early 1970s, it was realised from statistics that there would be a fall in school rolls, many of us who were passionately interested in education felt that there would be a great chance for education to improve. As there would be no diminution in the numbers of staff, we felt that one major section of Government would have a great opportunity to make a realistic improvement without becoming involved in greater expenditure in real terms. When that did not happen, it was a substantial disappointment to us. For the first time, we have a Prime Minister who was a Secretary of State for Education. Therefore, we were particularly bitterly disappointed when we discovered how little extra money would go to her old Department. Expenditure is a matter of priorities. Many of us would take issue with the priorities of this Government. There are people who would take issue with the priorities of any Government. I say this because I do not want the Minister to reply that there is no alternative. There is always an alternative. I would personally prefer blackboards to guns. I am talking specifically today about the problems of Cambridgeshire and perhaps shire counties in general. Any rural constituency with an abundance of small schools will find that due to county directives and less rate support grant they are told that there will have to be a cut of, say 1.9 per cent. in the number of teachers. They can make cuts of this sort only from the large schools. To impose a staff cut on a small school would mean closing it altogether. Before going into specifics, I should like to remind the Minister, with whom I have had many gainful debates over the years in Committee and in this Chamber, that things have changed enormously since the days of his successful headmastership of Highbury Grove. Most significantly, there is nothing like the spirit or the job satisfaction that formerly existed in teaching. If I were a doctor dealing in the diseases of teachers, the most common prognosis would perhaps be that of diminished resilience. This resilience can get a lift only through appreciation by employers and the joy of teaching rewarding kids. All of us are interested in achieving that. I want to talk, in the first instance, of the village schools in Cambridgeshire. It has always been my contention and perhaps that of all Liberals, or old-fashioned Liberals, that a community is based on four cornerstones. Those cornerstones, in whatever order one chooses to take them, are the school, the church, the pub and the shop. If one destroys any one of those cornerstones, one begins to wreck the community. I am unhappy about the criteria currently used for closing schools. I am privileged to represent an education system that was master-minded by Henry Morris, one of the great chief education officers and perhaps the first person to come out into the open and say that a school is not something that is open for so many months in the year, so many days in the week, and so many hours in the day, but is part and parcel of the community. Under Mr. Morris, women's institutes and British Legions stopped 1150 having separate meetings in separate huts, sold the huts or sites, and moved into the school. The school became part of the community. I should like to instigate the most careful Government surveillance before any further small schools are closed, especially those that play their part outside school hours. I talked about small schools to the Secretary of State the other day. He thought that I meant schools of seven, eight or 10 pupils. I do not. I believe that 25 is 'about the minimum figure for achieving viability in a primary school. If the school number were about 25, I would beg the Government to think most carefully before agreeing to sign a section 12 notice. The counties around Cambridgeshire have done two significant things. Suffolk has looked at the closure of seven schools and recommended the closure of four, keeping two open and partially retaining one. At a county council meeting on Tuesday evening it reprieved all seven. Essex, with infinite wisdom, decided that in view of the county council elections next May it would be wrong for the councillors to initiate legislation which would be implemented by their successors, or possibly even by them, if they kept their seats. That is a responsible way of dealing with an irrevocable issue. When one closes a school, there is no going back. I do not believe there is a school in the country which, once closed, has been reopened a few years later. Once a school is closed, that is the end. They go in only one direction. I urge the Minister to discuss the subject of village schools with his noble Friend the Minister of State, who, I think, has no great desire to speak to Members of this House. On two occasions, I have telephoned her office and written to her, but I have received no reply. The only way is to table questions. However, I shall forgive her if she will look with enormous care at the requests to implement section 12 notices in respect of schools that are in viable villages. Cambridgeshire—here again I take issue with the county council—has a structure plan which seems to work on the basis "If we can hit them, let's get them when they're down". It is the opposite of the Robin Hood syndrome: it is "take from the poor." In villages like Witcham and Pymoor, both of which have threatened schools, a new headmaster is put into the school, and noises are then whispered abroad about the school being closed because of the inability to find the right teaching staff. What then happens is that the structure plan allows no further building, not even infilling, which means that, with the best will in the world—and both villages are attractive and happy villages—it is impossible to bring in more people to bring up the school rolls. That is my plea for village schools. The second important point that I should like the Minister to consider is the state of education in North Fenland, particularly in Wisbech. Wisbech is a town of just under 20,000 inhabitants, with rather more from the surrounding villages. The system there might truly be said to be the worst possible system of education in the world. We have excellent primary schools which send all the children, at the age of 11, to single-sex schools—the Queen's boys school and the Queen's girls school. For two years, the single-sex schools are comprehensive—if it is possible to be comprehensive as single-sex schools—and at the age of 13 there is a creaming off to the grammar schools. That means that the boys are left behind in the boys' school and the girls in the girls' school. They feel 1151 that being left behind is a punishment for being academically less able than those who are selected and win co-education. As a result there has been exacerbated divisiveness in a town which has always prided itself on being the integrated capital of the Fens. The divisiveness is now clearer than ever. Unemployment in Wisbech is 12.6 per cent. with another 3 per cent. to come when Smedley's factory, which employed nearly 500 people, closes in April. It is obvious, in such a conurbation when few jobs are available for a lot of applicants, that the jobs will go to those with the best possible credentials and the best possible education. This means that with selection at 13—many would say rejection at 13—that is the age at which kids know that it will be extra difficult for them to find a job. Lord Redcliffe-Maud said that the ideal eduction system is a national service which is locally administered. The Minister may remember that when we were on an Education Bill Committee many years ago I argued in that Committee that whereas Redcliffe-Maud was absolutely right, there had to come a point at which central Government should have the right to overrule a decision made at county level. I think it was Leicestershire which at that time had suggested having seven-week Christmas holidays and three-week summer holidays in order to save heating in schools. That seemed to me to be an insane system, because it simply took the expense of heating from the public authority in order to ruin private families. As a bonus, it meant that very few children could go on holiday with their parents, who were not as elastic in their holiday arrangements as they would have liked to be. My contention is that the position in Wisbech is now so bad that it is time—and this is the only solution—for the Government to intervene. We very nearly succeeded in having an integrated education system until it was found that the Wisbech grammar school was a voluntary aided school. The trouble about voluntary aided schools is that, whereas the education authority is allowed to pay for them, the voluntary aided school governors are the ones who decide what goes on. The county could not even reduce the three-form intake to a two-form intake or a one-form intake. The only option that was open to the county was to cease to maintain it and to have a no-form intake. The education system in this case is not only bad but unsatisfactory and divisive, and Wisbech has, many feel as a direct result, one of the highest per capita rates in Britain for juvenile crime. There are other miseries, such as a minimal number of opportunities for youth entertainment, and few chances, because of the diminishing transport, for kids to get to towns such as Peterborough and Kings Lynn, where there is alternative joy. It is time that the Government sought to have powers to change a system which does as much harm to a community as the continued existence of an elitist grammar school does to the town of Wisbech. I do not blame the governors—they are there to protect the school and they are doing the best they can to protect it—but I blame the system, and I know the extent to which my constituents suffer as a result of it. 1152 There are three further points that I should like to make. The first concerns governors. There are people in this country, and there are certainly people in Cambridgeshire—the hon. Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Major), who represents the county south of where I am, will, I am sure, agree—who collect governorships and managerships of schools in the way that girl guides used to collect badges. It is high time, when new legislation is brought in perhaps to implement the Taylor report, so there is a limit on the number of such appointments that any one person can have. I suggest that a governorship of one school in the primary sector and two in the secondary sector—or perhaps the other way round—is really more than enough. But almost the worst of all is having the same person on the board of governors of the selective grammar school and on the board of governors of a single-sex non-selective school. My second point concerns teacher mobility. The Minister will remember from his days as a headmaster, and before that as a schoolmaster, that there are two ways of teaching in a school. I am talking not of teaching in laboratories but simply of teaching the arts or languages. Either the teacher has a room and the kids go to him, or the kids have a room and the teacher goes there. I should like to take this one stage further and have peripatetic teachers. Some counties use them. I should like great Government encouragement to be given on this matter. Far too often we hear that a one-and a-half-teacher or two-teacher or even three-teacher school is educationally not viable, because a child might fall out with the teacher on his first day at school and have a miserable life for the next six years. That may have been so in the dark 1930s and 1940s, when there were straight-through schools from 5 to 14. At that time some kids might have hated their teacher for the whole nine years of their education. With greater mobility now, surely it would make sense to have one-and-a-half-teacher and two-teacher schools where one of the teachers is a permanent fixture, and the other one comes from one of two, three, four or five other villages. Therefore, the argument could no longer be used that four-teacher schools are needed, because one teacher might have a talent for music and one for woodwork and one for metalwork. It would be easier and cheaper to put one teacher in a small car and pay a mileage allowance than to have a big bus to take the kids to the other villages waiting outside the school—a school which will be closed quite soon. My final point concerns not only Cambridge but most of the country. I have read, as far as one is able to read, the report of the Under-Secretary on 16 to 19-year-olds. Education must involve planning. My schools and my education authority are extraordinarily keen to be able to plan education for 16 to 19-year-olds. I hope that in the near future, instead of having a blancmange-like report which leaves all options open, genuine guidance will come from the Department in order to help the whole county. § The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Dr. Rhodes Boyson) I served with the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) on the 1976 Education Bill Standing Committee, where his sense of humour in the late hours of the day and in the early hours of the morning made that Committee more pleasurable for those who were 1153 there. I know of his concern for education. He was the education spokesman for his party when I first became a Member of the House. I know of his continued concern, because of the number of his questions that arrive on my desk from time to time. Before answering the hon. Gentleman's points—I agree fully with some of them, and shall comment broadly on others—I shall make a splendid beginning, with all guns firing. The hon. Gentleman referred to the pupil-teacher ratio. It is worth reminding the House and the parties represented here—the Conservative and Liberal parties at the moment—that in January last year we had the lowest ever pupil-teacher ratio, of 18.7. We shall be surprised if it is much different this year. On forward planning, we are still working on a presumption that the ratio will be about 18.7 If we made a table of the lowest pupil-teacher ratios compared with standards achieved—I know the difficulties of testing such standards, but I shall take O and A-levels or CSEs as an example—there would be no relationship at all. London, which spends more per child than anywhere else and has a low pupil-teacher ratio, has half the average ratio of the country in 0-levels. The calibre of the teachers matters. I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree with me on that point. We must use the opportunities that are available to raise the calibre of the teachers when we recruit. The hon. Member said that he preferred blackboards to guns. I do not disagree with him. However, sometimes we require guns to allow us to write what we want on the blackboards. Blackboards can be used for total indoctrination as well as for true learning. The guns are for the protection of the blackboards that the hon. Gentleman and I desire to continue in our society. I turn next to community colleges, specifically in the area of Cambridge. I was privileged to visit those colleges when I was last in residence, in 1964, at Corpus Christi, and I was much impressed with them. I think that Lord qutler said that they were a lovely and gracious experiment. The way in which they continue further education, uniting age groups, is an excellent achievement. I can claim some interest in the constituency of the hon. Member for Isle of Ely—and not only from speaking there twice at the last general election, obviously to little purpose. My forebears on my father's side lived in that constituency for many years, until the Industrial Revolution, when they went to Lancashire on the Grand Union Canal, with their cattle and pigs. Our houses in Haslingden are still named after villages like Wimelington, which I discover when I visit the hon. Gentleman's constituency. Last night we had a debate on village schools. There is concern about the continuance of these schools. We accept that where a village school can be kept open on economic and education grounds that should happen. the emphasis seems to be on having to prove that it is financially or educationally disadvantageous to close a school in order to save it. As the hon. member recognised, some schools become unviable. The birth rate is falling by about 29 per cent. Last night we had an argument about when the first census was held. It was in 1801. I said that it was 1811 and one of my hon. Friends said that it was 1841. I was nearer, and I got the prize. One does not need 1154 to get 100 per cent. for a first-class degree, and I achieved a 75 per cent. mark. The last census showed the biggest fall in the birth rate since censuses were first held. In 1976 there were 4–8 million children in primary schools, and by 1986 the figure is expected to be 3.4 million. In secondary schools this year there will be 4.1 million children. In 1991 that figure will be down to 2.9 million. That is a traumatic drop. It must be appreciated that the Government do not close schools. It is a national system, locally administered, and we can disagree with what the local authorities do. The decision, however, rests with them. We find that the small schools that are being closed are located in the inner cities. The depopulation of those areas is heavier than the depopulation of villages. Since the village school is part of the life of a village, with teachers serving for long periods, they should be kept open when that is possible. Until I was 11 years of age I went to a Church of England primary school on the Lancashire hills. The basic subjects were well taught. There were plenty of fields in which to play, with fighting and wrestling. It was a healthy environment. The local authorities are under pressure from the Government, who, in turn, are under financial pressure to balance the economy. With the financial run-over of the next three or four years we expect that about 750,000 school places will have to be taken our of use if the authorities are to work within their limits. It costs about £15 million a year in heating and lighting for every 100,000 places kept in being. We do not say that all village schools should stay, or that all should go. Each case must he looked at on its merits. If it is economically viable and educationally successful, the school should remain, but if it does not meet those criteria it will have to be looked at by the local authority concerned. Children are not born at the age of 5. If one is thinking of closing a school, one must have consultation long before the appropriate order is made. The first requirement is genuine—not artificial—consultation with parents and teachers. § Mr. Freud I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but he must realise that the moment that the first consultations regarding a school closure take place, parents in the village will send their children to another school. That is the great danger. § Dr. Boyson I am aware of that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) raised that point in yesterday's debate. A blight hangs like a cloud over the school. But it is the chicken-and-egg syndrome. If a local authority did not consult, the hon. Member for Isle of Ely and I would be the first to complain. We agree that consultation must be genuine. If local people bring forward alternative proposals, they must be considered. Parents are concerned about their children and the continuation of the way of life of their village. § Mr. John Major (Huntingdonshire) The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) spoke with great feeling, and I share much of his concern. However, on the question of handling school closures sensitively I should put on record the experience in my constituency in Cambridgeshire. The education committee, and particularly the chairman, John Horrell, and the vice-chairman, Mrs. Emily Blatch, have handled most 1155 sensitively the cases in which there has been the possibility of a school closure—against great cash difficulties, because of the rate support grant. § Dr. Boyson I am grateful for that intervention. I know John Horrell and his vice-chairman and I shall ensure that my hon. Friend's comments are passed on to them. There will be pleasure in Cambridgeshire at the statements that have been made in the Chamber. Under section 12 of the Education Act 1980 an order made for the closure of a school must be circulated and posted in a public place. Local people have two months in which to object and the local authority has another month in which to collect the objections and send them to the Secretary of State with its observations. It is not a hurried process. I have seen many such cases go through in the past year and I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State considers with great care the objections made by local people and those that are often made in the House. I know how carefully my noble Friend the Minister of State examines such cases and the amount of time that she spends on them. It is often difficult to come down on one side or the other. Some areas must cut back and it is difficult to decide which schools should be closed. Some years ago a plan for Wisbech collapsed, for the reasons given by the hon. Member for Isle of Ely. The hon. Gentleman made certain generalities that I do not necessarily agree with. He would be surprised if I agreed with him, because I tend to be a reactionary on certain matters. I thought at one stage that I saw the hon. Gentleman reading Conservative Party literature. When he stood up I waited for a great announcement. One never knows what will happen these days, with "Gangs of Three" and "Gangs of Four" and surreptitious reading of Conservative Party literature on the Liberal Bench. That shows the hon. Gentleman's breadth of thought. We shall follow his intellectual consideration of the literature with interest. § Mr. Freud It shows more the carelessness of the posting methods of the Conservative Party. It arrived in the postbox of one of my hon. Friends. § Dr. Boyson That shows how desirous we are of spreading our bread widely on the waters, never knowing what return it may bring in the future. § Mr. Harry Greenway (Ealing, North) Some of my hon. Friends and I received a letter from the leader of the Liberal Party only a few days ago. Those things are happening in all directions. § Dr. Boyson I never receive letters like that. Everyone else is being offered transfers, and if they are as rewarding as football transfers it is no wonder. However, at present hon. Members are not moving as quickly as football managers. I put on record the fact that none of these goodies are coming my way. I would not dismiss single-sex education at the secondary level as easily as the hon. Gentleman does; nor would many parents in this country. Secondly, I do not see any link between the question whether education is selective or non-selective and the degree of crime in an area. It seemed that Wisbech had a heavy crime rate 1156 because it had selective education. There is much crime in Wembley, but in Brent, North we have a totally nonselective system, so I could then say that crime in Brent. North arises from a non-selective system. I had not thought of saying that before, and I would not say it. The hon. Gentleman's views are not entirely the same as mine, but we each hold them strongly. The hon. Member for Isle of Ely mentioned the question of intervening. There is no prospect of the Government's intervening in Wisbech. We have given power to the local education authorities. There are many different systems in the country. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that variety and experimentation are good. The community colleges and the Leicester scheme, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, were experiments. One such scheme was introduced in Waltham Forest when I was there. I would hate there to be one scheme only throughout the country. Variety is a good sign of a free and healthy society, in which the hon. Gentleman and I believe. If the local authority wishes to do something differently, it can put up its scheme, which will then be considered by the Government. § Mr. Freud The local education authority put up a scheme that was in the process of implementation when the governors of the voluntary-aided school found that they had the means to defy the local education authority. The whole county is on one side and the school is on the other. § Dr. Boyson That situation is like Jack and the Beanstalk or, more aptly, David and Goliath. As a Government we can act only on schemes that are put before us by local authorities. The hon. Member for Isle of Ely mentioned three points at the end of his speech. I shall not refer to the 16 to 19-year-olds, because I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) wishes to raise another matter later, so I shall not take up time with that now. It is a debate by itself. The first question raised by the hon. Member for Isle of Ely concerned the appointment of governors. It is wrong to appoint one governor to a whole bevy of schools. The appointment is sometimes regarded as a local honours list, or a Cadbury's dairy milk medal. A man who does not get on to the council may be appointed a school governor. However, in some instances it is useful to have the run-through from infant school, junior school and secondary school. Being a school governor is a serious job. The appointment should not be handed out as an honour, or awarded for political service. The second point concerned teacher mobility. I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's views and will see that they are passed to the Department and to the local area. Small children, particularly, should not be moved unnecessarily. It is easier and cheaper to move an adult. It requires only a car allowance. In addition, a large coach with a lot of children may involve a long time travelling, and may be subject to bad weather. The peripatetic teacher can bring variety to a school, like part-time teachers in small schools, without extra cost. One cannot keep village schools open at a capitation cost far higher than in the towns. It would mean that they were existing at the expense of the towns. However, a school with about 30 or 35 pupils, with one or one and a 1157 half regular teachers and a number of part-timers, is viable. The wife of the local vicar is often a trained teacher and others can come to teach music and other specialties, which can put life back into a village school without the large expense of full-time teachers. The hon. Gentleman sensibly took the matter further by asking whether the principle could be extended to other schools. In certain sixth forms in London that is now the practice. The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to mention my time at Highbury Grove. Staff can move between schools and travel round like missionaries, shaking the dust off their feet. It has been a pleasure to reply to the hon. Gentleman. I have been able to state our view on village schools and pay respect to the community college. I have also outlined the pupil-teacher ratio. I reiterate that governors appointed should be committed to serve their school faithfully and well. The appointment should not be made as a token office. My final point is that at a time of falling rolls and limited finance, local authorities should be encouraged to adopt flexible schemes, as suggested by the hon. Gentleman, to maintain standards and to keep certain schools open that would otherwise have to shut.

Dr. André Kruger Dr. André Kruger, “The Fast Doctor”, is the manager of the Hoogland Health Hydro, a fasting retreat in South Africa. After the Hydro was established in 1976, Dr. Kruger went to medical school to better serve its guests. As a complementary health practitioner, his philosophy of medical practice is a synthesis of both orthodox and alternative medicine. After spending many years researching the mechanisms that unlock the body’s natural healing ability, Dr. Kruger concluded that true wellness can only be achieved by getting rid of what makes us unwell. He found that fasting with water is the most effective way to do so. Using an “active” approach to fasting that eliminates toxins through sweating, Dr. Kruger helps people to adjust their lifestyle habits and support the body’s innate ability to heal itself. Join us with Dr. Andre Kruger, the author of Health Won, as we explore the details and health benefits of active fasting. Listen using the player above, or: click here to download { 14 comments… read them below or add one } This man is absolutely right in what he says I began to take a lot of so called safe supplements then psoriosis started in my body. Whe I went to se a homeopatthic doctor who was also a GP she could not understand how I had got psoriosis. as there was no history of this in myy family and it was so unusual for a man of my age. As soon as I started getting stuff out of my body by doing stuff like coffee enemas my condition improved. Iblem, but there again I am certain they are in denial because tey want to continue to eat meat- more fool them. also cut right down on supplementts. My friend who is a nurse was also taking lots of vitamins and became ill very ill. He cut out the supplements and became well again. Id jus like to add tthat the same doctor was amazed at the mildness of my psoriosis and I put this down to a vegan diet so I ge a little suspicious when anyone posts comments attacking a vegetarian diet. I see many people in tthe course of myy part time job and some have psoriosis. If they could only educatte themselves and understand that what they are eating is causing their problem – more fool them! Kim, In all of us there is a little bit of genius and a little bit of nuts (me, lots) and so goes for the good doctor. As soon as I heard vegetarian a red flag was added to my guard which was raised when he so heavily questioned supplements; though I do see some question in many as well. I strongly believe our ancestors predominate diet was animal in nature and cannot eat wheat or legumes as they both distress my arthritic hip and whole system. I followed the mostly vegetarian Ornish diet, strictly by the book, for four months at the turn of the millennium and gained forty pounds and lost my health; my cholesterol and triglycerides went through the roof such that my Dr wanted me on statins for the rest of my life. Ha! Dr Atkins & D’Adamo I promptly turned. My stats are now commendable: Cholesterol 4.6 mmol/L (from Ornish 7.2) low LDL; Triglycerides 0.9 mmol/L (down from Ornish 2.7); My body is indeed my laboratory. My mum would have died in 1972 had I not done my research on her potassium deficiency that sent her to emergency via ambulance throughout that year. In short, after many months research on potassium from second hand books, I came upon the fact that there are four electrolytes; sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium (and now I know of a fifth, phosphorous). Magnesium is the great regulator of all electrolytes and once I had her taking magnesium throughout her day she never went to hospital for a potassium deficiency again. She died in hospital twenty-two years later when she was in a hospital assessment apartment to be evaluated for independent living. She was not allowed to bring in her magnesium, or prescribed pills. Had I not lived in another province, I would have been able to get the magnesium to her, and I believe she would would have lived another ten or twenty or more years. She was only seventy-three and had good genes and her parents lived into their nineties though both her younger sisters died before her from the same problem of magnesium deficiency. Her brother almost reached ninety, but his wife was a quack and his stress was high. However, I will be moving to a warmer climate where I will be able to grow my own food, nurture the soils and get properly raised beef. I will be able to cut back on the B vitamins and minerals. I do so strongly agree with the good doctor on fasting. I fasted forty-four days in my early twenties stabilising almost eighty pounds lighter after resuming eating and felt better than I had in my life. My skin was healthy, my tests were excellent and to this day I fast four times a year for three days each season at the solstices and equinoxes. I also limit my protein and have a very high bovine (liver twice a week) and fish fat intake along with some almond oil; I eat pink salmon (never the farmed abomination) and sea smelts and candle fish, ooligan, heads included and elk liver twice a week. (I get my bovine fat for free from the Superstore where the butchers cut the meats.) There is a great BBC documentary (Eat, Fast, Live Longer 2012 BBCHorizon) that reviews three fasting methods: 1: the three-day seasonal fast that I do, 2: the one day or rather thirty-six hour weekly fast. 3: alternating semi-fast; one day eat all you wish (junk food included) and the alternate day a limited diet of 600 calories. I am satisfied eating only twice a day with no snacking in-between. I am thinking of adding a one day fast per week. However, I could not give up any of my supplements at this time which are: zinc, a magnesium sipping drink I take throughout the day, ionised from Milk of Magnesia and soda water, MSM (sulphur), boron (borax), (copper three times a week on an empty stomach), iodine (I make my own Lugals) for my mag drink and skin application, Sierra Sil, glucosamine, condroidin, Vitamin C (10g) in my magnesium drink with bicarbonate that I drink two hours after my two daily meals to help alkalise my system; vitamins A, D, B complex and Bilberry. I may be adding shark cartilage, soon. I do not take them when fasting. My meat is sparse, my animal fat making up 70% my Ketogenic Paleo diet (50% raw- meat and lightly blanched veg), and green and low carb coloured veg with occasional berries for 10-15% carbs. These past three years even Apples (my favs are McIntosh and Ambrosia) have become tasteless and lost texture so unless I can get natural grown, I don’t bother with them. A spot of cream for my black tea and coffee, Xylitol for sweetening and Bob’s your uncle, I have overcome memory lose, gained vigour and calm and the osteoporosis in my hip seems to be on the mend, the bones regenerating. The iodine and almond oil, both applied externally and both ingested have served to heal my eczema. I use Clayton Nolte’s water filter for shower and drink and Dan Nelson’s water and I have a Water StirWand to boot. I have learned so much from your programmes and modify my life as I study and learn more. I’ve been a Buddhist and meditated (three methods) since childhood and take moderate daily walks with quick sprints and swim and I do some pressure or muscle stress exercises three times a week. Some call me flighty, but I think I have a very open mind and like to challenge all my preconceived and habituated ways. I am the healthiest member of my family; it is not that I want to live forever; I just don’t want the modern illnesses that plague our society. So many from my generation are dying from cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Chocolate is my sin and that is a treat I get once a week. I like my Scotch and German white wines but I am in control, not the alcohol. Ice cream is so badly made now, so badly textured and tasteless it has been easy to give up. Oops, have to hit the mirror, my halo’s slipping. However, would I prescribe my way for all? Certainly not! We must all find our own way to good health and constantly modify as we learn more from study and by listening to our body. I have learned a lot from Dr Kruger and others from Rainmaking Time. Walter Last is a mentor and would make a very good guest on your good programme. Namaste and care to all sentient beings across our ever being, living universe. The spirit is indeed of magnetic energy. Interesting post Mhikl. I do definitely agree that the ‘no one shoe fits all’ approach is the sanest one to adopt. In matters of meat it is debatable whether our ancestor’s diet always included animal protein. Our dental structure and length of intestines would suggest that we line up with the herbivores rather than the carnivores. However like you I don’t think one should be dogmatic about this and that perhaps the answer lies in both schools of thought not being mutually exclusive. Lets say that those of us who descended from meat eating hunter gatherers have genetically adapted to that diet and those who descended from herbivore clans are better suited to the herbivore lifestyle. The nutritional theories of eating by blood type or Dr Wilson’s Oxydation Types attempt to cater for two ore more genetic types; one being predisposed to a diet rich in animal protein and the other a herbivore diet. My own reason for avoiding meat is simply because I believe that the laws of karma extend to causing pain or suffering to animals. And eating meat simply doesn’t feel right if that makes any sense. I always found it odd that Buddhist believe in this too and yet many of them eat meat however I am sure they do it with much reverence for the animal and I wouldn’t be surprised if they find it difficult to maintain good health on a purely vegetarian diet especially Tibetan Buddhists. On the topic of meat eating I would highly recommend Solar Civilisation by Omram Mikhael Aivenhov. A little book but packs a lot of punch. In a nutshell he claims that most if not all our nutrition comes from the sun so the logical solution is to nourish the body by assimilating energy directly from the sun or food that is rich in sunlight and avoiding food lower down in the food chain as we then have to extract the sunlight from matter which is even further removed from the sun. Dr Kruger touched on this at the end of the interview. As for supplements I am really thrilled that you have found what works for you in that regard. One thought that did cross my mind is that depending on what types of toxins we accumulate, when they are present they may affect our ability to assimilate various nutrients. So lets say that you or I fasted 2-3 times per week giving the body a chance to play catch up and perform better toxin management and we also ate foods which we know have got high chelating properties, such as rose hip high in vitamin c and coriander and we adopted The Fast Doctor Five Step Elimination Cycle to assist the elimination of hydrophobic toxins via the skin, then we may find – just toying with ideas – that we are no longer depleted in a given mineral/vitamin/hormone. This I believe would be the Fast Doctor’s stance. LIke you I don’t have all the answers and am very grateful to Kim and Andy for their highly educational site. I also found out about Clayton Nolte’s water filters through Kim. If you are drinking that water you are definitely onto something! And like you I think the way forward is to grow your own food. Good luck with it. Thank you for answering, David. I saw your reply to Ann seemed to have disappeared and I was worried I had said something in a rude manner and you were giving up on us Neanderthals. But truly, you have given me food for thought and I am definitely in line with much of what you have discovered. I think (or suspect) that minerals are not so bad if they are true minerals that have not been adulterated. Vitamin C is made in a laboratory but isn’t it the same chemical structure as found in nature? though without the bioflavoids that come in nature? The B’s do kind of worry me. But as I did say, I eventually want to be able to get most of my nutrition from nature. David, the Buddha ate meat and said the choice was up to the individual, but s/he should not do the killing. Some quibble room there I suspect. The Dalai Lama is vegetation on alternate days. Without some animal meat he does not feel well. Regarding the killing, don’t all animals kill to live, even the bovine. They farm bacteria in their third section of the tube stomach and from there get the amino acids and fats they need from the bacteria that die. There are also in many beliefs the idea that plants may have forms of sentience. Whilst living in borneo I met a fruitarian from the UK who had a problem with eating meat or vegetables for the same sentiments. Only the fruit that has fallen from the tree could be eaten. We live in such a complex world. Truly the human spirit, when healthy, is one of kindness and caring. Regarding nutrition from the sun, there are people who claim they get all nutrition from the rising and setting sun as it first touches and leaves or ascends past the horizon. Their claim is that they do not need to suffer the plants and animals to pain of death for their benefit. Sun gazing nourishes their bodies. Sounds nutty I know, but who am I to question. There is so much to physics we are just coming to understand. There was an experiment, I don’t know if my understanding came from Rainmaking Time or elsewhere, but chicks were raised in a laboratory on foods that contained no calcium, yet they grew to be healthy with full, strong bones. Their protégée and those after them were raised in the same way. The only way the foul were getting the calcium they needed to survive was from some sort of atomic changes taking place in their bodies, something that is not supported according to our understanding of nature through conventional physics. I mentioned my prayer which uses the energy from hands that I practice throughout the day when I am energising my water, thoughts and food. Its full start is like this: Namaste and caring to all sentient beings across our ever being, ever loving, ever caring universe. May kindness be your guide and the torment of pain and anger pass you by. . . it then goes on generating from heart as I feel at the time. It is very calming and centring. I have heard and suspect that even our sun may have consciousness. When I first started eating my meat raw I was overcome with the desire to pray and thank the animal for its sacrifice. Never before, even over a thanksgiving Turkey or ham did I experience the rush I now get when thanking an animal for its kindness. Eventually I do wish to be able to eat meat where the animals are raised with care and understanding rather than from the slaughter houses that meat comes from today. I raised chickens while in Sarawak and learned to do it with as much kindness and gentleness as possible, not in the horrid way done in factories and certainly not by hacking off the head. With cooling water and a sharp knife, life can leave with more gentleness. As I have now come to suspect that our life energy, soul, spirit, understanding may be centred outside our bodies in our aura or magnetic force, I am beginning to believe all animal and plant life force may reside the same. If so, life and death may exist on plains so beyond our full understanding that death may be but a moment in time if it is even that. Thank you for your kind and caring response. Isn’t it a wonder and possibly a miracle that we both share this same good earth together at the same time such that our paths have crossed, with both care and good wishes our intent? That was Dr Kruger’s reply to Ann which disappeared. mhikl What a well rounded response thank you. Re vitamin Bs Spirulina does it for me and never misses the mark. I see instant results to the extent that every time I take it the next day people ask me if I have been sunning. I think the book I mentioned makes a really good contribution in understanding the energetic dynamics of eating meat. Yes animals eat animals but humans are supposed to have a degree of free will. Anyway I am not trying to convert anyone. I do recall hearing about a Buddhist monk who would not even kill the gnats clinging to his robe. I wonder if the fruitarian you met was Jungle Eyes? He only ate fruit. Eventually some of his teeth fell out and he died a couple of weeks ago from a brain tumour. Oh like you I believe that the brain is just an antenna/ receiving station for consciousness. Animals sense when someone is an consumer of meat as do plants based on the book The Secret Life Of Plants. So there must be some kind of invisible signature on one’s person that makes it apparent to those who have sharp senses. And the response when this signature is detected is one of fear. Thank you for sharing the prayer. Plenty more to say but got to dash. Hi mihikl, I’ve enjoyed reading your posts here. Your journey has been similar to mine. I also found I had an extremely low tolerance for carbs and now have good health and energy on a raw Paleo diet centered around 100% grassfed beef which I raise on my own farm. My supper each day is very simple: 15-16 oz of meat and fat in a 1:2 ratio and nothing else. It is very satisfying and gives me good energy all of the next day whether or not I eat any breakfast or lunch. However, I usually do eat a mid-morning brunch consisting of 3-4 oz of raw macadamia or hazelnuts, cucumber, bok choy, romaine or other dark baby greens and a few berries. Prior to the time they are sacrificed, I do take the best care of my animals that I can and come to know them very well, taking delight in making them happy by providing them fresh clean water from my deep well and moving them to fresh pasturage every 2 days, similar in fashion to how the great herds of bison moved across the prairie grasslands. And when they are killed, I say a prayer over them and give thanks for the nourishment that their lives will provide to my family and customers over the coming year. My most concerning health problem presently is frequent leg/foot cramps during the night, as well as getting up to urinate 2-3x/night, possibly indicating weak kidneys. I’ve found supplementing magnesium helps but does not completely correct the problem, and I often seem to end up taking too much and causing loose bowels. A couple years ago I found that supplemental calcium seemed to help, but again, I had to keep taking more and more until I was taking so much I got my serum calcium too high. Then when I quit, I did it too quickly and gave myself a bad case of pseudo-gout! No more calcium for me! I think humans really don’t need it anyway, like the chickens who can make eggshells without ingesting calcium. Anyhow I’m curious to know more about your magnesium supplement and exactly how it is made. I’m sensitive to so many foods and supplements, and I’ve found very few that my body can tolerate. I’m also curious to know your opinion of Dan Nelson’s Wayback water, which I’ve been drinking now for nearly a year. Thanks for your consideration! I liked this interview. I myself have benefited from fasting and I am familiar with Dr Kruger from the fastingconnection. His advice regarding fasting is generally good and I have found that his method of active fasting (using elimination cycles) is much more effective and pleasant than the resting fast that doctors like Herbert Shelton prefer. What I don’t understand is this: why is Dr Kruger so adamantly against vitamin supplements, yet he thinks chemotherapy is a useful cancer treatment, in spite of all the evidence that chemotherapy does more harm than good and is effective for only a few types of rare cancers? Chemotherapy is known to cause cancer and even if a person’s cancer goes into remission, when it returns, it is likely to be resistant to drugs. In one of his responses on the fastingconnection website, he said that cancer patients who fast at his facility must also have chemotherapy. How can a person possibly detox/heal his or her body while taking in substances as horrible as cancer treatments drugs? Yet he thinks that coffee enemas and colonics are harmful. How can he claim that we cannot cure ourselves by putting anything inside our bodies, but still justify requiring chemotherapy? And how does he argue with the success that doctors like Gerson, William Kelley and Nicolas Gonzales have had with curing cancer using enemas, supplements and enzymes? I don’t think supplements can replace quality food and I agree that some supplements, like fish oil and soy, are not to be consumed. But Dr Kruger needs to be consistent. If he accepts that pharmaceutical drugs can be useful in healing, then he should also be open minded enough to accept that supplements can also be beneficial. I will take my chances with supplements over 99% of pharmaceutical drugs. The other point is of course that when you receive a sick patient who’s belief system is forged on the ‘miracles’ of Western Medicine if you told them that they can drop all their allopathic drugs for purely water they would not necessarily ‘buy’ it or if they did they may feed undue amount of fear and negativity into the Nature Cure approach which would interrupt the healing process. So I agree that in some cases it might be counter productive to adopt a purely water fasting approach to cancer cure. This is in my view one instance of why one would be prompted to break the golden rule and ‘put something in’ to get something out, especially if chemotherapy is working on the level of a placebo and its a matter of life and death. I thought I would throw the spanner in the works by mentioning a new school of thought known as The German New Medicine which puts forward the theory that cancer is not something that should be ‘taken out’ but rather left well alone. And you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Geerd Hamer did have his licence revoked for putting into practice his non invasive cancer treatment. David, a friend’s dad died this past October, slightly less than a year from first diagnosis. He had pancreatic cancer and the cancer was near a duct so it was discovered early due to his pain. He was given the full conventional treatment. Then his liver became cancerous. Would that have happened had he just undergone the surgery to the pancreas and then gone on a supervised fast and cleans and change in lifestyle? A classmate of mine I found out had also undergone chemo etc for her pancreatic cancer earlier in the summer of last year. The cancer was full blown in her and she died a month or so after treatment. To me this last case was especially barbarous. Both of them spent their remaining time in misery rather than learning to come to understand and accept that passage is a part of all life. In our western philosophy and the Abrahamic religions we are not taught to contemplate death until it is hammering at our door. Kim has had a number of other good doctors from both Allopathic and Holistic medicine that have proposed alternatives to the three fiends we have been practising for so very long. The first radiation for cancer was done in 1899. Chemo chemicals came out of the concentration camps used for exterminating people and this year, I believe those wretched chemicals are no longer protected by patent and their molecules can no longer be re-twisted and re-patented. Surgery is the oldest and the most successful of the three if the cancer is in a part that can be excised; but might not healing through fasting and cleansing even surgery be avoidable. I believe the after affects of chemo and radiation are the doctor’s death sentence to an anxious patient. Fasting, alkalising the body, positive true knowledge and clear thought about how the body and mind work and the possibilities of sentience after passing are the best and most promising placebo powers. But how do you fight those whose livelihoods are derived from common practices that eventually kill those who came in trust for their health. My mum was murdered by a practice that would not allow her to bring in the mineral that was keeping her alive. These two friends were murdered and the murders sanctioned by a government that refuses to look at and support research into other means for handling nasty diseases. Godspeed in your research and knowledge and in the knowledge of others. More North Americans are seeking out natural health than anytime in recent history so I do see a light at the end of this troubled tunnel of barbarism. But never, under any circumstance should radiation or the poisons such as mercury be used on our fellow human beings. We are slowly returning to the body holy and the natural miracles it beholds where we support health with proper nourishment and practices, including fasting and imaging by the mind. mhikl you are preaching to the converted. It doesn’t look like Dr Kruger is able to post replies on this board but if you were really interested you could contact him directly to find out the nuts and bolts of why he feels it important to combine both treatments. I always assumed that patients would come to him who are already on chemo and he facilitates a gradual transition to natural hygienic practices while reducing their medication which he can do legally as he is a licensed medical doctor. However if a patient with cancer went to a purely natural hygienic fasting retreat such as John Fielder’s retreat in Cairns it would probably be a case of an instant transition from the Western drugs to water fasting. I think it also important to remember the important fact that Dr Kruger has supervised thousands of water fasts at The Hoogland Health Hydro without a single fatality. This presumably includes all the patients who have come to him with cancer and other autoimmune diseases. Food for thought me thinks. My own take on cancer not that its worth much is that cancer like many other illnesses are triggered by a past trauma and that is why I feel it is essential to meet the right healer who is able to establish the link between original trauma/cause and disease. This is half the battle. Then there is lots of inner work to do. David, Given the toxicity of chemotherapy, I can’t accept your explanation. Dr Kruger is simply creating more illness for the patient by requiring chemotherapy along with fasting. Also, he said that cancer patients were required to have chemo. He did not state that only those who wanted chemo along with fasting were allowed to have it. His position against supplements and in favor of toxic drugs reveals that he is on the side of the pharmaceutical company more than the patient. So, as far as I am concerned, Dr Kruger is very much a part of the cruel medical system. He claims that enemas are harmful but chemo is okay. That is very suspicious. Also, people who are extremely afraid of giving up their toxic pharmaceutical drugs are usually not the type to seek out fasting as a treatment for cancer or other diseases. With regard to eating meat, don’t you realize that plants are alive? Why is it less cruel to kill plants than to kill animals? Plants do not want to die any more than animals do. All living things strive to survive in their environment. Life feeds on life. A person who eats meat is no more cruel than an animal that eats grass or insects. No one should have to justify why he or she eats meat. Our hominid ancestors did eat meat. It does not matter how often they ate it. Humans are neither herbivore nor carnivore, but omnivores. I am a former vegan and veganism ruined my health. I was more concerned about dogma than my own health. Those days are over. I do care about animals, but I care about myself and other humans more than I care about non-human animals. Later for karma. Also, I am sure that you know that many plants are toxic to humans, while animal flesh is not. Plants actually produce toxins to protect themselves from predators (yes, herbivores are predators too). These toxins can cause death, or intestinal distress etc. Our ancestors had to breed many plants to get rid of toxicity. Well ripened fruit are the only plants that are meant to be eaten and I believe that our human ancestors ate sweet fruit when it was available. But they also ate meat whenever they could catch an animal. Oops, I thought Dr K used a pseudonym in discussions. You are well versed in this this topic. Indeed, our mind is powerful and I believe or at least suspect that many cancers and illnesses come out of the mind and weakened the body. My two friends who died, the wife got her pancreatic cancer and died within two years of their divorce and the ex-husband within nine months of her death. I see this happening often. Fortunate for me I have a terrible memory and have to stop to remember my resentments. I council my students on how to toss resentment and hurt from the heart and over the years I have had a number tell me that was their most important school lessen. I am sorry Dr Kruger pulled his response. He does participate on the British fasting site he made mention. Mr Watson comments often his his site regarding the moon. Ann, I have noticed that so many who have a wonderful discovery or belief have little interest in the discoveries or beliefs of others. I believe one of my heroes, Dr Semmelweis, who knew but could not convince the doctors of his time of the importance of hand washing and a clean operating room had such single focus that he turned off many around him. Many with a calling fail to see the calling or points of views of others. I predominantly eat animal fat and small amounts of animal protein. Carbs very much make me lethargic and easily from them I gain weight. I, however, am a chatty person and talk about this topic to many. My bro-in-law and a girl friend of past, both A bloods did not do well on fats and animal products. Dr D’Adamo, a naturopath suggests different diets for the four blood types (then came out with the Genome diet or other for six different body types. (A bloods can be AA or AO getting one gene from each parent- the A dominates but the O may affect is my taking on his newer book. The argument would go for Bs.) There is also the issue of positive and negative and carrier bloods. It is a complicated tropic. I can usually figure out a persons blood type just for asking a few questions about food and exercise preferences. But today with so much misinformation on fat, particularly sat fat, people do not listen to their bodies. But definitely, my bro-on-law does not do well on animal products and I do not do well on high carb foods. And my blood specs, eating a 60-70 animal fat diet are spectacular whilst, when on Dr Ornish’s veg styled diet, I gained forty lbs in four months and my specs went to dangerous levels and my doctor wanted me on statins for the rest of my life. That was fourteen years ago and I eat how I know I feel best and I take no meds of any kind as I enter my sixties. But thanks to the good Dr K, I have visited the fasting site in England and both my dog and I have fasted one day and shall do our second one tomorrow. I suspect he is on to something as this topic is becoming main stream.

Affiliations: *From the Department of Emergency Medicine (Drs. Silverman and Mancherje), Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, NY; the Department of Emergency Medicine (Dr. Osborn), Bronx Lebanon Medical Center, Bronx, NY; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Dr. Runge), US Department of Transportation, Washington, DC; Montefiore Medical Center (Dr. Gallagher), Bronx, NY; the Department of Emergency Medicine (Dr. Chiang), Bellevue Hospital Medical Center, New York, NY; the Department of Emergency Medicine (Dr. Feldman), Boston City Medical Center, Boston, MA; the Department of Emergency Medicine (Dr. Gaeta), the New York Methodist Hospital, Brooklyn, NY; the Department of Biostatistics (Dr. Freeman), Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY; the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology (Dr. Levin), Columbia University School of Public Health, New York, NY; and the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (Dr. Scharf), Department of Medicine, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, NY., †Dr. Osborn is currently with the Department of Emergency Medicine, Bronx Lebanon Medical Center, Bronx, NY. Dr. Runge is currently with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, United States Department of Transportation, Washington, DC. Dr. Gallagher is currently with the Department of Emergency Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY. Dr. Gaeta is currently with the Department of Emergency Medicine, New York Methodist Hospital, Brooklyn, NY., ‡A list of investigators can be found in the Appendix. Correspondence to: Robert Silverman, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, NY 11042; e-mail: [email protected] 30% 25% predicted, magnesium administration was not beneficial; the final FEV1 was 51.1% predicted in the magnesium-treated group and 53.9% predicted in the placebo-treated group (mean difference, − 2.9%, 95% CI, − 9.4 to 3.7; p = not significant). Overall, the use of magnesium sulfate did not improve hospital admission rates. Conclusion: Administration of 2 g of IV magnesium sulfate improves pulmonary function when used as an adjunct to standard therapy in patients with very severe, acute asthma. There are an estimated 1.8 million annual emergency department (ED) visits for acute asthma in the United States, and nearly 500,000 patients are hospitalized each year with the primary diagnosis of asthma.1The high morbidity associated with asthma focuses attention on methods to improve treatment of the acutely ill patient. Presently, the mainstays of therapy in the ED are inhaled β-agonists and systemic steroids.2 The beneficial effects of β-agonists occur minutes after administration, while steroids may take a number of hours to improve pulmonary function. In the search for additional therapeutic options, IV magnesium sulfate has been proposed as an effective and safe adjunct in the treatment of acute asthma. Magnesium was first reported as a treatment for acute asthma in 1936.3Magnesium has since been shown to be a bronchodilator,4–7 and case reports8–9 note clinical benefits in patients with respiratory failure complicating acute asthma. Several pediatric trials10–12 demonstrated a benefit from IV magnesium. Of the several randomized controlled trials testing IV magnesium in acutely ill adults, results have been mixed, with some studies demonstrating a benefit and others not.7,13–15 A study13 in adults suggested that patients with acute severe asthma, defined as an FEV1 ≤ 25% predicted on arrival to the ED, had significant improvement in FEV1 and hospital admission rates when 2 g of IV magnesium was administered as part of a standardized treatment protocol. No benefit from magnesium was found in patients with FEV1 > 25% predicted when compared to control subjects. To validate the beneficial findings in patients with severe airway obstruction, we conducted a larger multicenter study. The objective was to determine if 2 g of IV magnesium sulfate when used as an adjunct to standard therapy improves pulmonary function over standard therapy alone in patients presenting to the ED with severe asthma. Although the previous study suggested a beneficial FEV1 cutoff only when the initial FEV1 was ≤ 25% predicted, it involved relatively few severely ill patients. We therefore enrolled only asthmatics with severe pulmonary compromise and allowed an initial FEV1 of up to 30% predicted to avoid excluding patients who may potentially benefit from the intervention. Patients between the ages of 18 years and 60 years presenting with acute asthma to the EDs of eight teaching hospitals were considered for enrollment. Patients were eligible if asthma was diagnosed in the past by a clinician and asthma medication was used during the previous 6 months. Patients were included if they had an FEV1 ≤ 30% predicted on presentation to the ED, were willing to remain in the ED for 4 h, and were able to give written informed consent. Exclusion criteria were a history of COPD or other chronic lung disease, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus, renal insufficiency, or hypertension treated with medication. Patients were also ineligible if their temperature was > 38.9°C, if they were suspected of having pneumonia, or if they were pregnant. Patients requiring intubation or unable to perform spirometry were also excluded. The study was approved by the human subjects review committee at all participating centers. All patients were evaluated and treated according to the same protocol. Baseline data were obtained on presentation and prior to any ED treatments, and included a brief history and physical examination, vital signs, pulse oximetry, spirometry, and modified Borg dyspnea scale evaluation.16 The latter is a cued rating scale from 0 through 10 that allows patients to self-assess breathlessness, where 0 indicates no dyspnea and 10 represents the most severe dyspnea. Each site used the same model spirometer to measure pulmonary function (Spiromate AS600; Riko; Minato, Japan). Since patients with acute severe asthma may not be able to perform spirometry according to accepted standards, we developed criteria to capture the best possible FEV1. Investigators accepted spirograms in which the forced expiration lasted at least 2 s, back extrapolation volume was < 5%, a sharply defined peak flow was present early in expiration, lack of significant glottic closure was present in the first second, and the patients appeared to be offering their best effort. Patients were encouraged to give at least three acceptable efforts at each time period where the FEV1 measures from the two best efforts were within 10% of each other. An exception was on ED arrival, when patients in severe distress could be enrolled if only one otherwise acceptable effort was performed. Completed time-volume and flow-volume printouts from all efforts were reviewed blindly by two of the investigators (R.A.S. and S.S.), and comments on technique and adherence to protocol guidelines were forwarded to the site investigators. FEV1 and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) measures were recorded from the spirometer, predicted values were calculated from the Knudson equations, and a 10% correction was made for African-American patients.17 This was a placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blinded trial. Patients were allocated to the two groups using a 1:1 ratio randomization table unique for each center. The study pharmacist at each site placed drug or placebo in identically appearing vials, with only the study identification number printed on the label. After the initial ED evaluation, patients received 0.5 mL of 0.5% albuterol (2.5 mg) administered via wet nebulizer with 100% oxygen. Informed consent was then obtained, and 125 mg of IV methylprednisolone was administered. At 20 to 25 min after the initial albuterol treatment, a repeat assessment including spirometry was performed. At 30 min, the patient received either 2 g magnesium sulfate in 50 mL of normal saline solution, or a like-appearing placebo administered IV over 10 to 15 min. Albuterol was readministered 30 min after ED arrival, and again at 60 min, 120 min, and 180 min after ED arrival. Clinical assessments including spirometry were performed prior to each treatment and again at 240 min. At 240 min, a decision to hospitalize or discharge was made. Hospital admission criteria were standardized: FEV1 < 50% predicted, respiratory rate ≥ 26 breaths/min, no improvement in shortness of breath or wheezing, or significant dyspnea on ambulation. If the patient was hospitalized, the protocol ended. All patients discharged from the ED were instructed to continue their regular medications, to use inhaled albuterol every 3 to 4 h as needed, and to take prednisone, 20 mg bid, for 7 days. Telephone follow-ups to inquire about the need for subsequent urgent visits or hospitalization for asthma were done at 1 day and 7 days. Blood was drawn prior to randomization, and serum was frozen to − 20°C within 1 h of collection. Specimens were batched, and total serum magnesium levels were analyzed. The data analysis was intention to treat, and the primary outcome variable was FEV1 percent predicted at 240 min. The study objective included determining whether patients with a lower baseline FEV1 were more likely to benefit from magnesium treatment, as earlier work had suggested.13 Secondary outcome measures included PEFR, hospital admission rates, changes in pulse, Borg dyspnea ratings, accessory muscle usage, and respiratory rate. Spirometric assessments that did not meet study criteria were excluded from analysis only for the time point when the inadequate technique was noted. When the 240-min pulmonary function test was unavailable (for example if the patient left the ED early or was too ill to complete the protocol), the last recorded FEV1 was used in the analysis. Differences between groups with regard to baseline characteristics and final outcome were tested for significance using a t test or analysis of variance for independent samples or a Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Differences for categorical variables were tested using a χ2 test, with an exact p value calculation for small frequencies where required. Significance was considered at an α level of 0.05. Regression models were developed to determine whether the response to magnesium was influenced by the FEV1 on ED arrival, prerandomization response to albuterol, age, gender, cigarette smoking, or baseline serum magnesium levels. To account for any differences in response to the initial β-agonist between the two groups, the model adjusted for improvement from time 0 to 30 min (prerandomization response to β-agonist therapy). The final model included treatment, initial FEV1, prerandomization response to albuterol, and the interaction between initial FEV1 and treatment. A total of 254 patient visits were randomized. Six patients were inadvertently enrolled twice, having appeared in different hospitals participating in the study, and only the first entry was included in the data analysis. The 248 remaining patients formed the intent-to-treat population. A number of patients randomized had protocol violations and were retained in the intent-to-treat data set. These included three patients whose initial FEV1 was > 30% predicted, three patients with chronic lung disease in addition to asthma, one patient who subsequently received a diagnosis of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, and one patient with congestive heart failure. Six additional patients had medication protocol violations that included adding or omitting a β-agonist treatment at a single time interval (magnesium treatment [n = 1], placebo treatment [n = 3]), one patient received oral rather than IV steroids (placebo), and one patient received a second dose of steroids at 2 h (placebo). Sixteen patients did not have a 240-min assessment for the following reasons: 7 patients decided to leave the ED before study completion (magnesium [n = 5], placebo [n = 2]), 2 patients missed readings due to investigator error (magnesium [n = 2]), and one reading was not obtained due to spirometer malfunction (placebo). Six patients were withdrawn from the protocol by the investigator before the 240-min end point due to illness severity (magnesium [n = 4], placebo [n = 2]); of these six patients, one patient required endotracheal intubation in the ED (magnesium). Performance of spirometry did not meet study acceptability criteria for 20 patients on ED arrival (magnesium [n = 12], placebo [n = 8]) and for 12 patients (magnesium [n = 6], placebo [n = 6]) at 30 min. Spirometry acceptability criteria were not met at the final reading for two patients (magnesium [n = 1], placebo [n = 1]). The mean age for the 248 patients was 36 years, the patients had a history of asthma for an average of 20 years, and 52% were female. A history of endotracheal intubation for asthma was reported by 21% of patients. The mean FEV1 on ED arrival was 22.9% predicted, the mean peak flow was 142 L/min, and 68% of patients were using accessory muscles to breath. Baseline historical and clinical variables were similar in both groups (Tables 1, 2 ). The 240-min mean FEV1 in the magnesium-treated group was 48.2% predicted compared to 43.5% of predicted in the placebo-treated group (mean difference between treatments, 4.7%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.29 to 9.3%; p = 0.045; Fig 1 ). Greater improvements in PEFR were also noted in patients receiving magnesium with the 240-min flow rate of 272 L/min, compared to 236 L/min in the placebo group (mean difference between treatments, 36 L/min; 95% CI, 8 to 64 L/min; p < 0.01; Table 2). Results did not differ when time points for patients with unacceptable spirometry results were included in the analysis or when the analysis was per protocol. The study objective included the hypothesis that illness severity influenced the response to magnesium, and specifically that patients with a lower initial FEV1 would have the greatest improvement in pulmonary function. The data were reanalyzed by comparing patients with an FEV1 < 25% predicted on ED arrival to patients with an FEV1 ≥ 25% predicted using a similar cutoff from a previous study.13 Patients with an initial FEV1 < 25% predicted who received magnesium had a final FEV1 of 45.3% predicted compared to 35.6% predicted for those who received placebo (mean difference, 9.7%; 95% CI, 4.0 to 15.3%; p = 0.001). If the initial FEV1 was ≥ 25% predicted, the final FEV1 was 51.1% predicted in the magnesium group and 53.9% predicted in the placebo group (mean difference, − 2.9%; 95% CI, − 9.4 to 3.7%; p = not significant). A regression model confirmed that the effect of magnesium on pulmonary function compared to placebo was greater in patients with a lower FEV1 (p < 0.05). The unadjusted data were classified into three groups by baseline FEV1 to highlight the relationship between baseline illness severity and response to magnesium (Table 3 ). Although there were some differences between response to the initial prerandomization β-agonist, the overall results did not substantially change after adjusting for these differences. The adjusted improvement in response to magnesium is illustrated by taking the improvements in FEV1 from the time of study drug infusion to final assessment (Fig 2 ). All of the analyses demonstrate that patients with the lowest initial FEV1 had the greatest improvements in pulmonary function after receiving magnesium, and the higher the initial FEV1 the less the benefit. No apparent benefit was obtained in patients whose initial FEV1 was closer to 30% predicted. Additional models found the influence of magnesium on improvement in pulmonary function to be independent of age, gender, history of cigarette smoking, initial ED serum magnesium level, and the magnitude of the response to initial albuterol treatment. The overall hospital admission rate at 4 h was identical in patients receiving magnesium (39 of 122 patients) or placebo (41 of 126 patients), 32% in each group. The 240-min pulse rate was lower in the magnesium- treated group as compared to control treatment, while other clinical variables including respiratory rate, use of accessory muscles, and Borg dyspnea index did not significantly differ (Table 2). A total of 168 patients were discharged from the ED, including those who refused hospital admission. Patients were contacted by telephone 7 days after ED discharge to determine whether subsequent urgent visits or hospitalizations for asthma were needed. Of the 103 patients (61%) contacted, 15 patients (15%) required urgent medical attention, 9 patients in the placebo group and 6 patients who received magnesium. Five of the 15 patients required hospitalization, including 4 patients in the placebo group and 1 patient who received magnesium. This multicenter trial demonstrates that 2 g of IV magnesium sulfate when administered as an adjunct to standard therapy improves pulmonary function in patients presenting to the ED with severe asthma. Overall, patients receiving magnesium had a final FEV1 of 48.2% predicted, compared to 43.5% predicted for patients receiving placebo. Patients with the most severe airway compromise on ED arrival had the greatest response to magnesium, and patients with an FEV1 on ED arrival closer to 30% predicted had no apparent benefit. These results support the use of magnesium to improve pulmonary function in severely ill patients, and also help to define its limitations. These results also suggest that illness severity as represented by pulmonary function can be an important determinant of response to therapeutic interventions, and this factor should be considered when evaluating new treatment regimens. While several studies10–12 in children demonstrate magnesium to be beneficial is severe asthma, the published literature on adult asthmatics has yielded conflicting results. A number of case reports indicate magnesium is beneficial for treating acute severe asthma,3,8–9,18–19 while results of controlled clinical trials evaluating the effect of magnesium in acutely ill ED patients widely differ. When 1.2 g of magnesium or placebo was administered to 38 patients with moderate-to-severe airway compromise, significant improvements occurred in peak flow and hospital admission rates.7 In another study, 2 g of magnesium or placebo was administered to 120 patients with wide ranges of asthma severity, and there was no improvement in hospital admission or peak flow rates.14In 48 patients with moderate-to-severe asthma, no significant benefit was noted from 2 g of magnesium,15 although there was a trend among the more severely ill patients who received magnesium to have greater improvement in pulmonary function than those receiving placebo (Brian Tiffany, MD, PhD; personal communication; 2000). Taking into consideration potential differences in response to treatment based on illness severity, Bloch et al13 administered 2 g of magnesium or placebo to 145 patients with varying degrees of airflow obstruction, and the data were analyzed by stratifying pulmonary function on ED presentation. When the presenting FEV1 was > 25% predicted, there was no improvement in pulmonary function. Of the 35 randomized patients whose initial FEV1 was ≤ 25% predicted, hospital admission rates decreased and pulmonary function improved in patients receiving magnesium. In a larger, multicenter trial, the present study also found magnesium treatment to improve pulmonary function in severely ill patients. This supports previous observations that the response to magnesium is related to the initial FEV1, and helps to explain the conflicting results reported in the literature. It appears that for acutely ill patients, 2 g of IV magnesium may be a useful adjunct to β-agonists only when there is severe airway compromise. Even among this group of severely ill patients, magnesium caused the greatest improvements in pulmonary function when the initial FEV1 was lowest. This study found that magnesium did not decrease hospitalization rates. The hospital admission analysis draws attention to some of the complexities faced in using hospitalization as a study end point, and it is unclear whether the results simply reflect the therapeutic limitations of magnesium in this population or whether other factors also play a role. In this study, the majority of patients who were advised hospital admission refused, making it more difficult to identify potential differences between treatment groups. It is possible that the relatively low final FEV1 percent predicted represented an improvement that brought patients close to their usual baseline levels, which would explain why so many refused hospital admission. For those patients, it would have been helpful to know their usual or best percent predicted FEV1 when evaluating for disposition, although different cutoff values for hospital admission may be needed when the patient’s usual FEV1 is very low. Regardless, these values would not be available to the investigator at the time of discharge; therefore, uniform disposition criteria were written into the protocol. Had hospitalization been based strictly on the study disposition guidelines, then the hospital admission rates would largely be functions of the initial ED FEV1, the improvement in FEV1 with treatment, and the FEV1 hospital admission threshold. Using study and National Asthma Education and Prevention Program spirometry guidelines to identify patients who “should” have been admitted (final FEV1 < 50% predicted as cutoff), there would be a trend toward decreased hospital admissions in the magnesium group (81 of 122 patients [66%] vs 96 of 126 patients [76%], respectively). Magnesium would also appear more beneficial when the initial FEV1 is lower (Fig 2), and also if the FEV1 disposition threshold is lowered. Post hoc analysis did reveal actual hospital admission rates to be lower in magnesium-treated patients with the lowest ED arrival FEV1, consistent with the greater improvements in FEV1 found in these patients. For unexplained reasons, however, hospital admission rates for magnesium-treated patients were higher when the initial FEV1 was closer to 30% predicted as compared to placebo-treated patients, results not consistent with the improvements in FEV1 found in the same patients. Interpreting any subgroup hospital admission analysis becomes even more problematic because of the observations that other factors such as gender, race, asthma history, and recent medication usage can independently influence hospitalization rates.20 In contrast, pulmonary function testing performed by spirometry provided more uniform and reproducible measures. Much emphasis was placed on investigator training and quality assurance, the instrument was modified to facilitate ease of use, and acceptability criteria for spirometric efforts were developed and tracings reviewed promptly by the monitoring center. Even in this severely ill population, the quality of spirometry was consistently good at all the sites, and relatively few efforts did not meet protocol acceptability criteria. The use of spirometry in this study helped define the population most likely to have improvements in FEV1 in response to magnesium treatment. This end point is relevant, however, only to the extent that FEV1 measurements reflect illness severity, a concept that for acutely ill patients merits further study. The mechanism for a beneficial effect of magnesium on pulmonary function is not clear. Magnesium is required for a wide variety of cellular activities and biological processes, and therefore can potentially exert an effect on any number of pathways. Based on the present literature, a number of mechanisms can possibly explain the effects on patients with acute asthma. The immediate improvement noted after administration of magnesium in this study points to an acute bronchodilator effect; in vitro, magnesium causes relaxation of bronchial smooth muscle.21This may occur by modulation of calcium ion movement both within the cell and through transmembrane calcium channels.22Magnesium is also known to decrease the amount of neurotransmitter released at motor nerve terminals, diminish depolarizing action of acetylcholine at the neuromuscular end plate, and depress excitability of smooth-muscle membranes.23There is evidence that prostaglandin-mediated vascular smooth-muscle relaxation is magnesium dependent.24Magnesium is necessary for steps involving the interaction of the β-agonist receptor complex, G protein and guanosine triphosphate, leading to activation of adenylyl cyclase.25–26 It has also been reported in vitro that magnesium decreases superoxide production in neutrophils obtained from adult asthmatics, therefore providing some evidence that magnesium has an antiinflammatory effect.27 This is a possible explanation for the sustained improvement in pulmonary function even several hours after magnesium was administered. It is not known whether the effect of magnesium is primarily due to replacement of an underlying deficiency or through a direct pharmacologic effect. Although response to magnesium in this study was independent of baseline serum magnesium levels, the serum measures may not reflect intracellular concentrations or total body stores; therefore, some patients with normal serum levels may have had a deficiency of magnesium.28Also, frequent β-agonist therapy causes acute decreases in serum magnesium levels, although the influence on biological availability of magnesium is not known.29 Magnesium is relatively inexpensive, readily available, and easy to administer. Minor side effects can include transient flushing, lightheadedness, lethargy, nausea, or burning at the IV site. Transient urticaria resolving with discontinuation of magnesium has been reported.30 No major side effects were noted in this study. Serious side effects at the infusion rate and dose administered in this study are extremely uncommon in patients with adequate renal function. An important question that this study does not answer is whether magnesium prevents the need for endotracheal intubation in patients with extremely severe asthma episodes. Although the population studied had severely compromised pulmonary function, enrollment was not possible if the patient was too sick to sign consent or unable to perform baseline spirometry. Since magnesium appears to be most beneficial in patients with the lowest FEV1, we recommend that future studies address whether those in extremis and too ill to perform spirometry would also benefit. Based on previous data, we chose severely diminished airflow on ED arrival as a marker for response to magnesium. Additional study in adults is needed to determine if other clinical parameters (for example, the lack of response after several albuterol treatments) could better identify patients who would benefit from IV magnesium. Future study should also be directed toward determining the optimal dose and infusion rate for magnesium, as well as whether different doses may benefit patients with less severe airway compromise. Study is also needed to determine if repeat doses or continuous infusions of magnesium benefits ED or hospitalized patients with asthma. Another consideration is whether protocol bronchodilator therapy provided optimal management for this population. In support of the regimen, 7.5 mg of nebulized albuterol (2.5 mg every 20 min) was shown to be as effective as 22.5 mg (7.5 mg every 20 min)31–; a small subgroup of severely ill patients did not significantly benefit from higher dosing. In another report,325.0 to 7.5 mg of nebulized albuterol administered over the first hour provided optimal ED treatment. Intermittent nebulization of β-agonists was found to be as effective as continuous therapy in adults,33–35 although subgroup observations from the continuous-treated arm suggest severely ill patients benefit from higher doses of β-agonists.34–35 In addition, another report36 indicates that repetitive high dosing with inhaled ipratropium bromide is beneficial in more severely ill patients. Whether the magnitude of the response to magnesium would differ if these additional interventions were used is not known, and future studies should consider this in protocol design. Additional limitations of this study include the possibility that some patients (and investigators) were aware magnesium was administered because of discomfort from the infusion. The measurement of changes of pulmonary function with spirometry and the use of standardized acceptability criteria to evaluate the efforts minimizes but may not completely eliminate the potential for bias. In summary, 2 g of magnesium sulfate administered as an adjunct to standard therapy to patients presenting to the ED with severe asthma causes improvement in pulmonary function. The improvements were restricted to patients with the most severe airway obstruction, and the lower the initial FEV1 the greater the improvement in FEV1. The hospital admission rates, however, did not improve after treatment with magnesium. The use of magnesium to improve pulmonary function should be considered when treating acutely ill asthmatics who present to the ED with severe airway obstruction. The following investigators also participated in the trial: Thomas Kwiatkowski, Pamela Arsove, Helen Bloch, Boris Gabinskiy, Barbara Kirrane, Ruth Paiano, Scott Wolfson, and Adam Green, Long Island Jewish Medical Center; Mark Sprague, Jason Ganz, Robert Malin, Philip Hanline, and Bradley Spiegel, Lincoln Hospital Medical Center; Janet Carter and Marlow Price, Carolinas Medical Center; David Iacometta, Daniel Katzman, John Muratori, Dominick Fratello, Brian Blaufeux, and David Held, Jacobi Hospital Medical Center; Mark Kindshuh and Hector Fuentes, Bellevue Hospital Medical Center; Susan Fish and Herb Kayne, Boston City Medical Center; Elliot Melendez, Douglas Luxenberg, Mark Tang, and Lawrence Shevlin, St. Barnabus Medical Center; Robert Schwartz and Donna Rescorl, Hartford Hospital Medical Center; Manuel Chinchilla, Columbia University School of Public Health; Polly Bijur, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and James Abberton and Abby Rosen (pharmacy consultants), Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Abbreviations: CI = confidence interval; ED = emergency department; PEFR = peak expiratory flow rate This study was supported in part by a grant from the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation. Data are presented as mean (SD), %, or median (IQR). There were no significant differences between the two groups. Duration of dyspnea and past visits expressed as median because of outlying values. Magnesium: mg/dL × 0.4114 = mmol/L. Data are presented as mean (SD) unless otherwise indicated. Borg dyspnea index scaled from 0 (no symptoms) to 10 (most severe symptoms). Accessory muscles evaluated were the sternocleidomastoid group. For patients who did not complete the 240-min protocol, the last observation was carried forward. Placebo or magnesium were administered immediately after the 30-min assessment. Magnesium was administered 2 g IV. p < 0.05. p < 0.01. p < 0.001. Data are presented as mean (SD). Data are reported for patients with an adequate initial FEV1 measure (n = 228). The last observation is carried forward for patients not completing the 240-min protocol. Placebo or magnesium were administered immediately after the 30-min assessment..

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it." Mahatma Gandhi Mar 2, 2012 This is Libya that they want: Freedom, Democracy, Justice Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 21:08 Labels: Libya Qadhafi dictator freedom NTC eclection law jalil rebels freedom fighters militia Tripoli Benghazi AlQaeda US Russia Tunisia Egypt Tureky Syria court ICC war crime humanity Feb 28, 2012 New Libyan "democratic" leader Jalil wants blood of all Gaddafi family members J. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 15:55 Labels: libya Zintan Tripoli Benhazi new press Misrata millitia Jalil alqaida NTC Mutassim Gaddafi Qadhafi NATO Saif AlIslam Aisha Saif al Arab spring law crime war UN resolution killing civilians Feb 25, 2012 Libya news [backup libyasos] 14. February - 20. February 2012.. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 21:10 Labels: Libya resistance green news press media NATO propaganda war crime law dourt ICC NTC Jalil genocide Libyasos truth Libya news [backup libyasos] 07. February - 13. February 2012. Libya S.O.S. resistance news: 13. February 2012. 23h/? Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 20:55 Libya news [backup libyasos] 30. January - 06. February 2012. Libya S.O.S. resistance news: 06. February 2012. We have seen HEROES Mu'tasim Billah, Khamis and Saif al-Islam, led by Muammar Gaddafi, in military clothes, fighting under NATO planes bombs, and Mohammed Abdullah Sanusi in the front rows of the Libyan army at that time ...The question here is: Where are the sons of Younis and Abdul Jalil and Goukh and other "revolutionaries" ???" 00h/ Updates BREAKING NEWS: Misrata brigades launched an attack on Janzour refugee camp - > Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 20:40 Labels: news libya livia lybia sos war Sirya Egypt Tunisia Israel Saudi NATO NTC freedom fighters killing civilians rape girls Feb 24, 2012. Images of the television channel "Al Jazeera" showed the BBC journalists in the restaurant of a 5-star hotel in Doha,Qatar, verbally attacking Mousa Kousa by asking questions about the killings he has done in Libya. Images of the television channel "Al Jazeera" showed the BBC journalists in the restaurant of a 5-star hotel in Doha,Qatar, verbally attacking Mousa Kousa by asking questions about the killings he has done in Libya. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 00:27 Location: Doha, Qatar Feb 23, 2012 Libya: STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF KUFRA Kufra is the largest province in Libya, approximately one fifth (20%) of the country.. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 13:42 Labels: Kufra libya NTC Tabu Toubou tribe chadian mercenaries medai propaganda ethic cleansing Africa black feb17 revolution Feb 22, 2012 Report Libya 22. February 2012. Kuffra Update. (1) Bodies of Libyan rebels have been left unclaimed inside Aozou strip in Chad, since rebels entered via Sudan to force natives of Chad, taking all the men and leaving women and children to languish around the Sahara, Chad responded with full military foce, helicopters and Chadian forces have entered 753 km inside Libya, 93 Libyan rebels bodies lay in the Aozou strip on the Chadian territory, Chad took armed measures against the rebels, capturing over 320 Libyan rebels, the rebels also took one Chadian army officer to Benghazi, they beat the Chadian army with marks over his face. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 20:57 Labels: libya news resistance freedom democracy school kufra transitional councul nato ramussen jalil al jazeera war crime against revolution feb17 weapon civilians black africa genodcide Report Libya 21. February 2012. *** TUNISIA - #Libya PM Baghdadi Mahmoudi 151 days in jail without legal basis #illegal #immoral #inhuman He did not betray his country and flag and its history ... But now languishing in Tunisia prison without guilt and without any legal basis, since September 19, 2011 ... 151 days in jail ...every prison day is a dagger planted in honor of Tunisia and the Arab Identity and against the principles of Islam Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 19:57 Labels: Libya news resistance libyasos reuters alarabiya aljazeera france24 bbc cnn press media TV YouTube facebook twitter Canada & Co helped NATO enable ouster of Gadhafi from Libya BY Feb 19, 2012 British media use ‘puppy dog’ imagery to sell genocidal attack on Libya by Martin Iqbal The article of November 1st, titled: ‘Overjoyed spaniel welcomes home her master as Libya Tornado crews return‘, contains heartwarming photos of an RAF pilot’s spaniel dog(1) being reunited with her master. The “touching scenes” include another RAF pilot’s three year-old son “looking on proudly“, dressed in his miniature RAF uniform.. In the report, RAF Wing Commander Andy Turk repeats the ‘no boots’ lie, “Because there were no British troops, it was very important that the RAF maintained our intelligence and surveillance“. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 22:28 Labels: UK pilots return to RAF base after seven-month deployment to Libya NATO Attacked Libyan Water Supply Pipeline Livia war crime media traxpayers wes europe USA t Location: London, UK Report Libya 18. February 2012. A Libyan Toubou in Kuffra singing for Libyan Resistance We are born here. We live here. We die here. No to aggression. No room for aggressors. No room for invaders and imperialists. Kuffra is not the place of agression. The people here detest aggression. Yousuf was killed by the aggressor he went to join. The aggressor knows no peace. This is our land, the history of eternity knows us. Our soul lives in this sand, this is our land. We will never and not will compromise. [Translation by Stephen Gule] Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 00:10 Labels: Libya revolution Feb 18, 2012 Angelina Jolie – In the land of blood and honey Angelina Jolie, American actress and UN ambassador of goodwill, whose visit to one side in the conflict in Libya was supposed to be a blessing for the whole Libya, has just made her debut movie about Balkan wars, in which she portrayed Serbs as villains and mass rapists. This fashionably anorexic ex-junky and a mixed product of Hollywood and Council of Foreign Relations who likes to carry the blood of people on necklaces, and malnurished children in her hands as a latest accessories, has hoped that her latest political adventure will become a blockbuster. But sadly, due to her incompetent directing and the fact which was confirmed by Angelina – that she never heard of Bosnian war untill couple of months ago, movie ended up as a flop. In the mean time, we are still waiting for Angelina Jolie to adopt one sick and malnurished American child, cause there are plenty of those in her home country. But hey, it wouldn’t be PR-wise if Angelina Jolie would walk around the globe with one sick and malnurished American child, what kind of picture would that paint on USA. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 21:23 Location: Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA, USA Where is Hala Misrati? Is she alive? Update 19.02.2012. Kidnappers luckily felt compelled to denounce that, so here is a video showing Hala Misrati alive, saying she "lives in good conditions". [ Hero Hala is alive on video posted today] Update 18.02.2012. Yesterday, we heard the rumor about the death of Hala Misrati. We haven't managed to confirm or refute this, since her whereabouts are still unknown, almost six months after the rebels captured her. The last we heard of her was from Dr. Yousuf Shakir who said that she was in el Jadida prison and mistreated by the rebels. Since then, to our knowledge, there has been no criminal charge against her, no legal representative and no trial, and the last time we saw an evidence of her being alive was 30. December 2011. To our knowledge, there hasn't been any serious attempt by Amnesty International, HRW or any other so called "human rights organization" to contact her and report on her treatment in captivity. In fact, there is a menacing silence from all those organizations that are usually concerned about the mistreatment and arbitrary arrests of journalists. The last time any mainstream media bothered to mention Hala Misrati, was when she was kidnapped, in August, 2011. Even then, it was not to show concern as to why a female journalist is taken into captivity, but to somehow glee over her fate, because she was intelligent enough to question the Iman Obeidi's "fable of rape" that was so instrumental to the western interventionism in Libya. Back then, when Hala warned people of the fallacy of that tale, she was labelled "a very strong mouthpiece for the pro-Gadhafi forces" by certain Dina Eltahawy, a researcher for Amnesty International, nonetheless... If NTC is such a poster for democracy, why don't they answer these questions: - Where is Hala Misrati? - Is she alive? - What are the charges against her? - Was she granted a lawyer? - Was she granted a visit from her family members or a regular communication with them? - Does she have a medical treatment? - When is her trial due? I would be surprised if NTC answers any of these questions, because they are not so much a poster for democracy, as just plain POSER! However, while we can not bring ourselves to hope for some information from NTC, we can ask Amnesty International, HRW, Red Cross and Red Crescent, Reporters Without Borders and similar organizations who profess their devotion to human life, human rights and freedom of information, to do their job for once and prove to themselves they are not just empty words and instruments for regime changes all over the World. Let them, just once, convince us that they have some semblance of integrity and act outside of clearly pre-carved agenda. Hala Misrati, state TV host, kidnapped by rebels in Tripoli, Libya [Updates August -February] Update 17.02.2012. What is the difference between the two human beings you can ask Amnesty Inetrnational and HRW Reporters Without Borders etc... Libyan so-called freedom-fighters have killed Libyan TV presenter Hala Misrati, after torturing and raping her in jail [unconfirmed] . HRW & Amnesty did nothing.[confirmed] HRW & Amnesty did nothing.[confirmed] Death of Libyan presenter "Hala Misrati" in one of the prisons in Tripoli, Libya under mysterious circumstances, as stated by the Associated Press of America on Friday ... Why HRW and Amnesty International didn't say nothing about Hala Mistrati ? "She's clearly a very strong mouthpiece for the pro-Gadhafi forces," said Dina Eltahawy, a researcher for [NEUTRAL] Amnesty International, which has issued an urgent alert to try find al-Aqbani. Ouch! I remeber .... "Iman, in the end, is a liar," Misrati said, accusing al-Obeidi [propaganda doll] fueling the "bombardment" of Libya. "Even sometimes a whore has nationalism toward her homeland, when she knows her homeland is in danger!" Misrati sneered. "Even a whore!" Misrati has since vowed to "uncover" al-Obeidi's real life. Do you remember Iman Al Obeidi? And case Rixos Hotel? NATO's Libya war: RAPE AS WEAPON [Iman al-Obeidi] Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 01:29 Labels: Halla Hala Misrati killed rape Imam Obeidi Rixos Hotel journalsit TV host Libya Tripoli news kidnapped kidnapping rebels feb17 Amnesty International HUMAN RIGHTS HRW 17. February 2012. Reuters: "Flags and hope on Libya's uneasy anniversary" *** CELEBRATING OR COMMEMORATION? Take a look at the at photo, also Green Square was almost empty. Last year, green flag was long 3 km, and on march was million people. What is now in "free" Libya ? What is now in "free" Libya ? [We are all Muammar Gaddafi] Reuters propaganda: Abdelwafi Mohammed, 25, a recent university graduate beamed as he pointed to those around him: "I feel like all the Libyans feel happiness and joy. We don't have any fears. Our spirits are high. This is a blow to the Gaddafi loyalists." Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 00:47 Labels: Flags and hope on Libya's uneasy anniversary Ruters Libya februar 17 revolution NTC Gaddafi Qadhafi Jalil Martyrs Square Tripoli Benghazi celebrate Feb 17, 2012 Report Libya 16. February 2012. *** Racist] Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 16:52 Labels: Libya Amnesty International Human right watch report Tripoli Benghazi Misrata Sirte Kufra Brega RasLanuf Zintan rebels Video of a Libyan who was killed by Al Jazeera (AJE) Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 16:52 Labels: benghazi rebels protest Libya uprising feb17 arabspring hanging african Gaddafi Qadhafi Kadafi report media aljazeera UN1973 brutal dictator protecting civilians human rights civilian bombing Feb17 economic achievements by Libya S.O.S. Exactly a year after the start of Libyan conflict, Libyan economy is a victim of the absence of political stability and security, a situation which has led to a bitter exodus of foreign direct investment, which was zero during the last year, after reaching 4 billion dollars in 2010 while Gaddafi was alive. According to AlArabya, foreign missions are starting to visit Libya now to check the possibility of the resumption of activities, as China plans to restart the 50 abruptly canceled projects of 26 companies worth $ 19 billion in various sectors including real estate, oil and telecommunications. Among the 25 Austrian companies that were operating in Libya before the conflict, 13 companies returned, two working in the oil sector and 11 are monitoring situation. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 15:07 Labels: Libya Benghazi feb17 2011 february17 rebels freedom fighters arabspring revolution brutal dictator Gaddafi Qadhafi civilians NATO intervention dead kids rape women british jouranlist UN NTC ICC Feb 16, 2012 NTC supports ethnic cleansing of black Toubou tribe in Kufra Ahvah Nagy: "What is happening now in Kufra is the process of ethnic cleansing of Toubou tribe, in every sense of the word". Many NTC fighters came from the eastern part of Libya to the southern town of Kufra to fight against Toubou tribe, fuelled by the new wave of media disinfo about "Chadian mercenaries" which are supporting Toubou tribe. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 23:37 Labels: Kufra libya NTC Tabu Toubou tribe chadian mercenaries medai propaganda ethic cleansing Al Gamaty Chairman feb17 revolution Saif Gaddafi not to be handed over The] -> Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 01:43 Labels: Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya, Saif Al-IslamGaddafi Location: Khuraymāt az Zintān, Libya Feb 15, 2012 Counterfire’s role in the war effort against Libya [by Agent of Change] by Agent of Change Did Counterfire ever mention important achievements of the post-1969 period (which are confirmed by UN, the World Health Organisation, etc)? Did Counterfire ever mention the massive pro-Qaddafi demonstrations (of over a million people)? Did Counterfire ever call clearly for the DEFEAT of NATO forces in Libya? Did Counterfire ever mention the fact that the flag adopted by the rebels represented the totally subservient feudal backwardness of King Idris? Did Counterfire ever seek to understand the reasons why such widely respected anti-imperialist left leaders such as Chávez, Castro, Morales and Ortega spoke out in support of the Libyan government? Or does the editorial staff at Counterfire place more value in the words of William Hague? Did Counterfire ever mention the prominence among the rebels of CIA-funded salafi sects that have been organising against Qaddafi for decades (offended not by lack of democracy but by his dislike for religious extremism)? Did Counterfire ever support efforts led by Venezuela and South Africa to bring about a mediated solution to the conflict? (I doubt it, because Counterfire’s preferred outcome was the removal of Qaddafi, which was not the likely outcome of dialogue) When did Counterfire first mention the lynching of black Libyans and migrant labourers, which had occurred from the very start of the rebellion? Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 20:13 Labels: Libya medialies cyber war fake profil Internet feb17 freedom group fighters twitter facebook social network Tripoly Benhgazi Feb 13, 2012. It seems that new "democratic" government of Libya can't handle the truth well. They obviously can't handle having any sort of oposition also. How's that supposed to fit in the definition of a democratic society? Please remind me of the reason for overthrowing Gaddafi? O yes, they wanted DEMOCRACY.. Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 23:02 Labels: Libya Embassy Niger AMBASSADOR RASCIST Beion genocide war crime law feb17 freedom black man africa twaregha refugees Saadi Gaddafi nghazi militia NTC eclect Feb 12, 2012 Report Libya 12. February 2012. **NATO mercenaries have expelled honorable Niger 's ambassador in #Tripoli Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim, treating him in their savage manner which we got used to. These racist who killed thousands of black Libyans were yelling to the ambassador Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim. -> Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 18:23 Labels: abdul hakim belhadj law crime court saif al islam saadi mutassim heores, news Libya press breaking urgent cbs skynews human riths watch amnesty cnn bbc ajenglish Gaddafi Qadhafi Jalil NTC war Feb 11, 2012 NYT - From Michelangelo and Benetton to the Arab Spring by: "It was associated by Romans with the duty humans owed their gods". Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 17:23 Labels: Michelangelo Buonarroti Pieta Florentine Benetton David Kirby aids University Libya Arab Spring NYT New York Times marketing Life magazine photo award Yemen Lizzie Phelan: FULL TRANSLATION: SAADI GADDAFI PHONE CALL TO AL --> Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 00:11 Labels: SAADI GADDAFI PHONE CALL niger libya uprising green freedom gaddafi qadhafi saadi speech al arabiya press news resistance law war Libyans NTC Feb 10, 2012 Report Libya 09. February 2012. 24h/ Misurata rebels decided to keep their weapons. They say they are in fear.. 23h/ TARHUNAH - Electricity black-out in Tarhunah and hence the black-out on coverage of the events in the center of the city Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 14:21 Labels: Libya news press media jalil ntc NATO killing civilians law rape drugs weapon criminla mureder women journalist freedom fighters Syria bcc cnn reuters france24 aljazeera breaking Feb 9, 2012 Libya: Tawergans Massacre By Misrata Psychopaths Continue Feb 7, 2012 UK Journalist raped by Libyan rebels in Benghazi - Libyan Liberation Frontline News [07.02.2012.] STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN LIBYA - NOW! Update 10.March 2012. The Algerian agency ISP has confirmed today in an official dispatch the authenticity of the video that shows the savage rape of a Western journalist by rebel soldiers in Libya. the wild rape has now become one of the most visited social networks in France. [] To whom it may concern A raping crime happened in Benghazi Libya by the rebels who were supported by US and NATO the crime shows a rap against western journalist Please take an action to verify who did that. Sorry about the disturbing images but the truth and justice must be fulfilled It's Time to STOP THEM! Demand Responsabilities To Human Rights Watch ( That still Hide This events By Rebels Of Misrata and Benghazi) and for The Sponsors Of Libyan Criminal Intervention: France, UK, U.S [F-Se!] This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube's policy prohibiting hate speech. ..and we will delete this ugly ugly truth, but it will be on our HDD Posted by Libya S.O.S Libya S.O.S. at 21:35 Labels: libya rape ntc rebels revolution iran syria qatar weapon law criminal court gaddafi qadhafi khadafi nuklear human rights investigation Libyan Liberation Frontline News [06./07.02.2012.] (1). Feb 6, 2012 BREAKING NEWS: Misrata brigades launched an attack on Janzour refugee camp Update 08.02.2012. Gunmen kill seven at Tripoli refugee camp - YouTube - Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish - on Feb 6, 2012 [AJE make "private" their video report] -> Report from Janzur by zaqura 001 Update 07.02.2012. "Men from Misrata came to the camp at 10 o'clock. We knew they were from Misrata because it was written all over their cars. Around 15 of them started shooting us. " camp resident Huda Bel-Eid said at Tripoli Medical Hospital. You fixed IT! Obama, Clinton, Sarkozy, Cameron, Rice, UN, General Assembly &Co. NOW IS BETTER !?!

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I have Julie Gardner this week! Yes, I’m bragging. Julie is one of my blogging and writing idols. She has such a loyal following and for good reason. If you haven’t read her blog, please take my word for it and click through her archives. She’s truly an original with her blend of humor and insight. We’ve developed a wonderful and supportive writing friendship off of our blogs, which is kind of amazing considering we’ve never met. Julie brought her more serious side to my “Hobbies and Habits” guest series to tackle a problem we share. We are both English teachers (well, I was an English teacher), and we each have a child who doesn’t love to read. We’re like the shoemakers with the barefooted children. Luckily Julie has had some success, and that’s what she’s going to share with us today. ___________________________________________________________ Every year, the parents of my students sat listening to my Back-To-School-Night presentation. And every year, when I finished, their hands shot up. - How can my son improve his SAT scores? - Will studying word-lists in isolation increase my daughter’s vocabulary? - What writing methodology do you embrace? Varied topics, all worthy of concern; and my recommendations always circled back to one core belief: The more we read, the more we learn. Period. Then I became a parent. I fostered a literature-rich environment for both my babies, born 24 months apart. Their father and I read to them from an evolving selection of age-appropriate children’s books and by pre-school Jack and Karly had well-used library cards. So. My son devoured reading from his first taste of board books. The minute he learned to sound out words, he insisted on independent reading. Soon he was tackling Harry Potter with a dictionary to check unfamiliar words. At fourteen, he still needs reading limits set so he can complete other homework. And. My daughter disliked reading from her first taste of anything else. The minute she could crawl off my lap, she preferred activities that didn’t involve books. At thirteen, she’s creative; loves art and fantasy and stories; just not those written by other people. (There. I said it. Without crying, even.) So. I’ve had to learn to make reading a non-negotiable (non-torturous) pastime in our home; and today I’m sharing some tips for instilling in reluctant readers the habit of sitting down not just with an open book, but also with an open mind. #1. If your pre-readers are averse to passive listening, have them illustrate scenes or let them act out the story as you read. Before beginning a passage, offer to have them re-tell what happened in their own words when you’re done. Your child may pay more attention if he/she feels like an active participant. #2. Yes, go to libraries and bookstores; but also Play LIBRARY and BOOKSTORE at home. Sounds contrived, right? But when they were young, my kids loved sorting through our books selecting several for the “librarian” or “bookseller” (me) to read. They invited stuffed animals as co-patrons, made signs and decorated for Story-time. This activity emphasized the playfulness in reading. #3. As your child learns, take turns reading pages out loud. This practice rescues young mouths, tongues and brains from long stretches of oral reading. Plus you’ll model fluency and inflection. When they make mistakes, ask questions instead of pointing out the words they misread. “What did Kimmy give Kate?” If they discover the correction on their own, they’ll feel empowered. #4. Do not ask if they want to read; ask where and what. Ask who will go first. Resist the urge to set a time – “just ten minutes” – so they focus on the clock, not the experience. If reading’s a consistent part of every day, they won’t question it. #5. As they become independent, read the same books they do. (Hello, Hunger Games!) If buying two copies is burdensome (yep) try the library, share with friends or catch up when your children aren’t reading so they see your interest. Then engage in conversation about the stories. #6. As a free bribe, I sit by Karly in the spot of her choosing and tickle her back or feet while we read because she loves it. Ideally, she’ll associate books with pleasure, a physical reinforcement of mental enrichment that satisfies us both. #7. Set an example by reading, too. (Thanks, Captain Obvious!) I know it’s tempting to check dinner or email; to sneak in a quick text. But if your kids see you treat reading as an impediment to “more important things,” you’ll lose them. #8. Outside of schoolwork, let them select their reading content (even magazines). Karly’s re-reading The Hunger Games series for the third time; but she’s improving her comprehension, making new discoveries and gaining confidence with each round. #9. Don’t compare your kids’ reading abilities or interest-level. (More advice from Captain Obvious!) But I highlight this because the “competition” might be unintentional. If one child is a quick-study when it comes to reading, be mindful of public praising; your other children might feel ill-equipped to compete. I believe I inadvertently discouraged Karly by making Jack appear to be a seemingly-impossible act to follow. #10. Be flexible when carving out reading time for your family. Parents are conditioned to think bedtime is optimal, but morning or after school may better fit your schedule. Make reading a priority but be realistic. Kids sense adult frustration and won’t enjoy the “togetherness” if you don’t. The truth? Karly still doesn’t love to read; but I’m doing what I can to promote a positive attitude about books in our home and I’d welcome any advice that you can share. I’d also like to hear your opinions about the impact of e-readers on kids’ reading habits. Are they positive additions to their technology-hungry brains or do they detract from the beauty of bound books with pages and spines? What do you think? How do you encourage reading in your family? _____________________________________________________________ Follow Julie on Twitter and check out her blog! - Regretting a Friendship - March 24, 2015 - Couple Friends, Childhood Friends, and The Mid - March 16, 2015 - Dispelling Myths - March 12, 2015 - Invite the Whole Class? - March 10, 2015 Love this! We love to read and have hundreds of books but with five kids? Three loved to read and two not so much. I wish I had this post to read 7 or 8 years ago – my kids loved creating plays but I never thought about having them act it out while reading. God bless the Harry Potter series as my two sons who didn’t like to read inhaled them. And now the youngest who didn’t read? He’s inhaling Dostoevsky and Kerouac and Hemingway and the list goes on. The turn came at 16 years old. This should be published in a parents magazine! Thanks so much, Marilyn. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that your two reluctant readers made that turn; I think the key here was that you found something they DID enjoy (for your boys it was Harry Potter, for my daughter it’s Hunger Games) and then were patient. Neither my sister nor my husband (two of the smartest people I know) enjoyed reading as kids. But post high-school (exposed to reading by choice instead of academic obligation) they found their way to books. Both love to read now and I can only hope this will be my daughter’s experience. To that end, I’ve avoided making books a punishment or chore. Sounds like you did the same…congratulations. WOW! What a fantastic post! I love all your idea’s Julie. I can’t wait to get off of work and go home to play library and book store with my girls. They’re 5 and 3 and currently really enjoy listening to me read to them. Although the little one is starting get squirmy during our reading sessions. I plan to try having her act out the story next time this happens, she’ll LOVE that! I honestly worry that my kids will HATE reading just because I do it so much. I don’t watch TV so I spend a lot of time reading. Sometimes they’ll come lay down with me and ask what various letters or words in my book are and it takes a huge amount of effort to answer them without being annoyed (or letting my annoyance show). I want to foster a love of reading in them, but sometimes I just need 10 minutes to myself and for me that means reading in peace. I love your tip on reading what your kids read. I LOVE young adult fiction and nothing makes me smile or preen more than when my friends ask me for book recommendations for their kids. I’ve put a number of young minds on the path of the Hunger Games and Divergent. I had one friend who posted a concern about The Giver, which her child was reading for school. I explained the scene in question to the best of my ability but in the end I told her she needed to read it for herself before she passed judgment on it. I can’t WAIT until my kids and I are reading the same books together. Oh, it will be SO fun when your girls are old enough for YA. You’ll have a library for them. Question for all you mom with older children, when did you start moving away from picture books? As with most “when did you” questions, I find myself wondering HOW I don’t know exactly; because when you’re in the moment you can’t imagine you’ll ever forget these milestones right? I will tell you my daughter who is TWELVE still picks up picture books to read at night when she’s having trouble sleeping. Maybe this is weird?!? But I maintain a shelf with all their favorites from every stage of reading; and when she’s lying awake, she’ll sometimes grab a handful and bring them into bed with her. I know. A girl who doesn’t like to read? But it’s because they are nostalgic and easy and happy (when her brain is probably processing stress from her middle school day). My son was done with all picture books by first/second grade. Not that he wouldn’t sit for them if I was reading to Karly, but Jack was already reading Harry Potter independently by then. So it varies between kids, but I’d say let them take the lead first; don’t expect all kids to have the same desire to move beyond picture books; and keep a selection of family favorites on hand forever. If nothing else, people visiting your home who have young children will appreciate it! I kind of like the Wimpy Kid books for Sam (7) because there are some pictures, but it’s definitely more a “big kid” book as opposed to what he views as a little kid book. That doesn’t really answer your question. I don’t know! Can’t answer as a Mum just yet, mine is still a baby. But when I was teaching we used to start reading simple chapter books to the class at 5-6 years old, and encourage them to start reading themselves at 7-8. Though adapt for individual children. The school librarian used the five finger rule for choosing books for independent reading – every time you come to a word you are stuck on put up a finger, if you get to end of page with 5 or more fingers up then its too hard and to find something easier. The slim easy chapter books are great to start on like ‘The Magic Finger’, ‘The Twits’ and ‘Georges Marvellous Medicine’ by Roald Dahl, there are heaps more but I can only think of New Zealand Authors which wont help you. Nina, Thanks again so much for allowing me to share these thoughts here. Reading has been one of the great joys of my life (NOT an exaggeration) and it is my hope that even Karly grows to love it (my sister came to her appreciation of books after high school; fingers crossed). Beyond loving books, reading is a crucial learning tool (dare I say the most important we have?) and we simply must have our kids reading…whether they like it or not; how to keep it from an “eat your vegetables or you get no dessert” type of threat is the challenge. I look forward to seeing what has worked for everyone else here today. And as always, I am so thankful for your friendship. Stop! I’m more thankful! Crazy coincidence. I just posted a blog asking for suggestions like these. I can’t wait to try out numbers 1 and 2. Thank you so much! My pleasure, Mary. Good luck! Mary, I’m printing out this post and saving it. Such great ideas. Julie, you’re as always, wise and concise. I love your tips. My boy is too young for me to tell if he’s going to be a reader like his Mama – but all signs point to yes. However, I will keep these tips close at hand, just in case! Thanks, Alison. Monkey and Scrumplet are lucky to have you…AND that awesome couch. Who wouldn’t want to cozy up on that expanse of greatness with a good book? I swear I don’t think I’d ever get off of that thing. (For better or worse…) XO Thanks so much for this post, Julie. I am actually a grandmother these days, but back in the day I had one that could not get enough to read and another who preferred loud music and chatting on the phone. As a toddler the one who loved to read would sit for hours, the other one would roll her eyes and slip off the sofa to find something more interesting. What happened to them? Well the one who loved reading still does. He instills this in his three children and two of them love to read and the third one prefers to play sports. He reads everything they read the way we did. It’s like a beautiful legacy. The one who preferred everything else, became a returning student to finish her BA. In the process she discovered she loved to read and began writing to me about titles. “Hey mom, you should read this.” Did I like her selections all the time. Actually, no. But I read them anyway. It was an opening and I was grateful to walk through. This one is still my multi-media kid who studied photography and has a Flickr account and a photo-blog. I used her photography for the header of my blog and two more on my side bar. She still listens to music of all kinds, loves movies and analyzes TV shows. I am pleased that the second one found reading a joy at last, but I am not sure it was anything I did. It was more her love of the image and the sounds of her other passions that drew her to books. I guess in the end, the best we can do is set a good example and let them find the word on their own terms and in their own time. “I guess in the end, the best we can do is set a good example and let them find the word on their own terms and in their own time.” This is exactly right. I do think that kids raised in a literature-rich environment are more likely to develop the taste for it later – even when reluctant in their youth. So my goal was to provide this in the first place and then TRY not to put so much pressure and negativity surrounding the OBLIGATION of reading as to turn Karly off of it… My hope is that once she is free to read more for pleasure (outside the realm of academic requirements) she’ll find her way to books. I am so glad that’s been your experience and I LOVE the fact that you read your daughter’s recommendations even when they wouldn’t be your first choice. That right there tells me a lot about why your daughter reads now…You were and more influential than you know. Such a great perspective, Florence! Great advice – I took to heart the point about not (unintentionally) creating a competitive environment among the kids. And I’d love to have someone rub my back while I read; how awesome is that?? Anne, I’ve come across so many book-loving families in which the second child doesn’t enjoy independent reading. I can only imagine there’s some correlation between early success with the first child being intimidating to the second – who then decides to find his/her own area in which to shine. Thanks for weighing in and cheers to finding someone who’ll rub your back while you read. It’s the little things… Julie, you always know how to put into words the stuff I just do and don’t think to put into words. This is how I grew up. These things happened in my house. I ADORE reading, as you know. My brothers CLAIM they do not. And I believe it’s not their first choice of a pastime, BUT they both have asked for books for birthday/Christmas gifts. One requested (and recieved) a Kindle this past year. They are readers. It just took longer. And it’s not in their heart like it is for us. As far as ereaders, Eddie LOVES my Nook and Cort’s Tablet. We do a combo of “real” books and ebooks with him. At bedtime he is allowed to hold and “read” a “screen” until he goes into his bed. Then he may choose two “real” books if he wants. He always wants. Oh Katie thank you SO much for addressing the ereader question. I’m thrilled to hear how much Eddie loves it. I’ve been wondering if investing in a Nook or Kindle could get Karly more interested… I long for her to discover the joys of reading for so many reasons; it may just come in her own time. Fingers crossed. I have always loved to read and thank goodness my daughters love it too. Unfortunately can’t say the same for my son anymore. But you have given some great advice, you have to use different ways for different kids. “Different ways for different kids” – YES! I suppose my ultimate message here is to not give up. Reading is simply too important to academic success; not to mention the joy that reading books for pleasure can bring. I’m glad your daughters already know this ~ good luck! Oh Julie, I love this so much. I grew-up in a house of non-readers. I would shut myself into my bedroom for DAYS on end and read and read and read. My parents thought that there was something seriously wrong with me. When I went off to college I used to buy books that I thought my parents would love and I would mail them home for them to read. 25 years later those books still sit on their bookshelves unopened. I would dream about a day that I could sit with my mom and we would discuss a book. It’s never happened. Anyway, I don’t know if my kids will love reading. I know my oldest does – hello she read the HG trilogy in five days..and she’s 9. My middle currently seems undecided. My youngest still throws books. I would love for it to be something we can share as they age(and I age) – kind of like golf – a sport for the old people. Right? I say let Astrid throw books….whatever it takes to keep her loving them. Because golf? Yeah. Not so much on my agenda. Although I’d read a biography on Bubba Watson or something. Has someone written one of those yet? We really need to live closer together. That is all. Yay Julie! The girl has an ereader and reads tons. But she always has. We all have. I can’t tell you how many times I’d hear, “That’s enough reading!” from my parents/grandparents/family members. That was exactly my experience: constantly being kicked out of the house or the classroom to play outside. Recess? Fine. Can I sit under a tree with four Nancy Drew books? Yeah. You and I should have met decades ago… I always and still do read way into the wee hours of the night. It’s kind of a problem. I should really sleep more. Thanks for this post! My kids are quite young now (almost 3, and 8 months). The 3-year-old adores reading; I think it’s too soon to tell for the baby; right now she mostly chews books. However, what I loved about your post is the implicit fact that kids are independent creatures and we don’t need to take responsibility for absolutely every like and dislike they have. Obviously as parents, we need to steer our children in positive directions. Yet we also need to recognize their individuality. One of my brothers and I have always loved reading; my youngest brother didn’t until he realized sometime in high school that he really liked non-fiction. I’m an English teacher too and whenever parents ask me what their children should be reading, I say, “help them find what they LIKE to read!” However, just because everybody might be able to find something they enjoy reading, doesn’t mean reading will be everyone’s favorite hobby. I like that you offer lots of creative ways to encourage your daughter to read, recognizing that she can enjoy it even though she might not necessarily love it as much as your son does. Your concrete suggestions are great; I’ll be bookmarking this for future reference! P.S. As for e-readers…if it’s one of those non-glare screens like the basic Kindles and Nooks have, I’d say that as long as it increases your daughter’s interest in reading there’s probably no harm in it. I try to read on an iPad sometimes and find it really hard because of the LCD light. I too am sentimentally attached to the look and feel of a paper book, but kids are growing up in a different world and if they need a different kind of boost towards reading I think that’s OK. I agree on the e-readers as long as they’re JUST readers and not iPads or Fires that also have video . . . it’s just too tempting to switch. It would be for me, at least, and I LOVE to read. Sarah, Thank you so much for the thoughtful commentary here – from one English teacher to another. We surely cannot force any *likes* on our children but we can end up indirectly causing dislike of something by trying too hard… It really is about the individual child, teen, adult; no one blue print – we have to make it up as we go along. (Oh yes, and set examples. Hooray!) Your students are lucky to have you and your children are even luckier. Thanks also for the feedback on the e-reader; I’ve been a hold out for old-fashioned books, but I’m not sure that’s the right mind-frame to which to cling anymore. Sigh. So pleased to meet Julie here! I feel like if I can get my children to be readers, everything else with fall into place. Well, maybe not everything, but I think it’s quite important. Reading requires focus, thoughtfulness, fosters empathy, compassion, curiousity. Julie’s suggestions are great. This year when my first grader, it turned out, didn’t love to read and was having a hard time with it was a shocker for me. Of course I shouldn’t have assumed that because my husband and I love to read that he’d gravitate to it too. Julie’s ideas are great. Looking forward to trying some! Thanks so much for weighing in, Erin. I absolutely agree with the importance of reading as a tool to teach empathy and compassion; something we need these days more than ever. Cheers to books. And to the people who read them… Every time Julie does a guest post, I start to think that I can’t love her any more . . . and then she goes on & posts a new guest post on a new blog that I’m not familiar with, and my love for her grows by leaps and bounds. Being forced to read as a child nearly killed me . . . literally. Getting me to read anything between 6th & 11th grade was torture. But, no matter what I was reading, I couldn’t talk to my parents about it, because they hadn’t read it. In 12th grade, my English teacher recognized that it wasn’t reading that I disliked, but the way reading was presented to me . . . she assigned 1984 to the class, and we read a chapter a night, talking about it, fully, the next day. I went from not reading a word to finishing the book over the weekend, just to be able to talk about it. I think you hit the nail on the head here, John – it’s about how reading is presented to us. Right now our school-aged kids are being slammed with Reading Logs in which they have to record minutes and pages read every single day. Ugh. I understand the importance of getting kids to read. But this is killing the joy. There has to be a better way. And yes, Nina is FABULOUS. You will love following her. I promise. John–what an interesting point (about discussing it . . . ) I’ve been reading The Wimpy Kid books with my son and it’s THE FIRST time he’s enjoying the experience. I only have him read a few sentences to me then I read the rest. I think it’s been nice for him to experience the story and laugh about it with me rather than it feeling like a test of his reading skills. Nina ~ Karly, too, was willing to read (and enjoyed) the Wimpy Kid series which was part of what inspired me to include the tip about letting children select their reading material. Some teachers discourage those books as not literary enough; but my thinking runs more toward, “If it gets her eyes on the words on the page, who cares?” Stowing this away for when the kids are teens – but happy to report that we all read together now. 6 year old is read to and reads to his little brother, who soaks it ALL in. They do see me reading on my kindle app (on the phone or ipad) and I wonder what that says about ‘technology’ but at least they see just my eyes moving and not my fingers clicking away working *cough*playinggames*cough MK, I’ve been wondering about this generation of children – they’re all being raised with iPads and Kindles and Nooks; I have no idea if this will inspire them to read more or less… I could see it going either way and am interested to see which way the wind blows. For now, I’m so glad you all read together. We do too, every day after school (as a transition from school to homework). But some of us LOVE it and some of us…. don’t. Sigh. Wow, Julie, these are really great ideas. I never thought of the back tickle incentive program. I think that will work wonders for Ruby! Thank you!! I’m telling you. The back/foot/leg/arm tickle works. I let her pick the spot to read and the spot to stroke. I’m a sucker for a bribe that doesn’t cost a thing but my time. !! I’m a grandma now and happy to say my grandson (10) loves to read. I’m not-so-happy to say he only likes to read what he wants to read. And I’ll give a hint: It has nothing to do with school. His parents are having fun with this, as they are both teachers. No one wants to get old, but for me and this particular situation, it’s good to be grandma. Enjoyed the post Julie, as always! Thanks so much, Terri; and I can say my daughter and your grandson have something in common, for sure. She’s not so much enjoying the Martian Chronicles for honors English; but she’ll read and talk about the Hunger Games any day of the week. Small victories… We need to keep these kids reading so there is an audience for our books (like when Sara’s Sleep comes out in hard back. ;-). I have children of the furry variety, but I’m blown away by the insightful suggestions Julie presents. Now if you have any suggestions for my NON-READING husband, I’d love to hear it (geeky tech magazines about technology don’t count. That’s all the man reads! I’m not sure he’ll even read one of my novels WHEN it gets published …. positive thinking!) First of all, cheers on the positive thinking and more importantly, cheers to having a tech-savvy husband because that will REALLY come in handy when you’re trying to promote your novel (see what I did there?). Hug your fur-babies and keep writing. I, for one, can’t wait to read your book! These sound like good bits of advice here! I’ll pass it on to the English teachers that I know. I’m a math teacher. Got any advice there? =) Oh my. Math and I have not been close friends for years… So I could use advice from you on helping both my kids in that arena. I haven’t been able to work with them since they were in 6th grade. Maybe 5th. And I only wish that I were kidding. Kudos to you for doing what I never could. Well, mad props to you for doing what I hate. I tend to be the one people come to for proofreading, and it makes me want to drive a pencil into my eyes. My oldest two daughters devoured books. They took them to bed instead of stuffed toys or dolls. Maggie, the youngest did not like to read. AR ( the accelerated reading program at school) was a nightmare. She survived. She is a successful business owner, a wife, and mother. There are worse things… like The Kardashians getting a book deal. Oh Janie. You did NOT just reference the Kardashians and a book deal. But you did. I think my heart just skipped a beat. Or maybe it was my brain losing cells. Anyway, for the record I am not a fan of the AR reading programs or the reading logs my kids have had to fill out or any of the somewhat tedious (definitely mindless) methods of accountability our schools have come up with to make sure kids are reading. Unfortunately, off my cuff right now, I don’t have a better solution. But you’ve got my wheels spinning. I just may have to write about that next… Oh too true. Snooki too. Oy. My 8 year old daughter will read more and for longer periods of time. Like you, Julie, I have to set limits so she sleeps.:) Her books vary from Harry Potter to the Calvin and Hobbes comics. Benjamin is 6 and is reading on his own now. He prefers short books like Robert Munsch or Geronimo Stilton books. Ben takes the quickest route with almost everything and my challenge with him as he gets older will be to challenge himself. These are great suggestions! I especially love being flexible, not comparing, and re-reading books. I often re-read books I love. Heidi, I grew up reading voraciously (ridiculously, wonderfully) and absolutely re-read my favorite books on many occasions. I don’t so much anymore (too many books, too little time) but I think kids can benefit from another go-around with something they’ve read before. You are lucky your kids both have such positive attitudes regarding reading; may this continue for you all – I really do believe there is no better preparation for future schooling, no better way to learn. Plus, it’s so much FUN! (How could anyone not think so?) Sigh. Nice to meet you Juile, this is such a great post and good food for thought for those of us with younger minis. I love the idea of remembering to play library and bookstore, I will put those in the line up of pretend play. Thanks Nina…and congrats on your Huff Po debut. I have been super slammed with the March of Dimes walk that my blog life is taking a bit of a back seat at the moment! So happy for you and tried to comment from mobile but couldn’t so just wanted you to know I read it (again) and it was just as insightful the second time around. Nice to meet you, too, Shannon! I’m glad you’re going to try playing library and bookstore – we did this often when my kids were little (although true confession we also played McDonald’s and Pet Store) and it really worked to keep the kids thinking books in any way, shape or form were for fun… Also fast-food and pet-adoption – ha! I don’t know if Tech will kill me for sharing this, but we still read to him. We always made reading part of his bedtime ritual, so my voracious reader (who prefers science and math, but is never without a book) still has his night time cuddle at almost 13 years old. He likes us to read poems or old Dr. Seuss books that he has forgotten about. Sometimes we make up tunes and sing the rhymes – another strategy for musical kids. We make up funny accents and sing like Long Islanders. Or cowboys. Or Russians. So much fun. So in our house it’s always been more about the contact than the content. He gets content in school. He loves MAD magazine and MAC world. Meanwhile…. More than anything he’d rather talk about The Periodic Table. Or something science-ishy. And he has no grasp of grammar. So I put that on the school because this kid reads. No one is teaching him about commas or quotation marks or capitalization. And that hurts. So happy to see the two of you all linked-up!. Two great tastes that taste great together. I think it’s great that you still read to Tech Support, Renee. I must say that my reading out,loud to my kids stopped earlier than I would have liked only because having the two children of different genders/temperament meant I was dealing with different interests and reading levels; Jack got independent very quickly and wanted to read his own stuff. Karly didn’t want to hear Harry Potter from me. So taking Karly into a separate room to read what she liked with her felt kind of isolating…which probably led to my letting her read silently on her own too often. Kudos to you for keeping such a book-friendly environment in your home. Really. Now don’t go blaming yourself. My womb done got broken, remember? I only have the one, so we can pour our attention all over him. I think you need to be more gentle with yourself, Julie. I’m serious. Not every kid loves to read. But they usually turn out okay. I can almost tell you will 100% percent certainty that your kids are going to land right where they are supposed to. You are a great mother and you and your husband have modeled a lot of wonderful values. Often, once kids disover their true passion, they start to enjoy reading about that particular topic. My husband is a perfect example of this. He is a doc. Well, dude hates to read. Seriously, no leisure reading for him. But he LOVES science, and will read anything about science. (Soooo boring. Gah!) So try to chillax and have faith that you have modeled well — (and I don’t mean just in your running shorts), and that they possess the skills so that they will be able to do the necessary reading when the time comes. How’s dat? Are you convinced? Thank you, Renee. I stand convinced. Except that I’m sitting right now. And soon, I will be lying down. But convinced. XO My kids are much older… now in college, but I can really relate to this post because both went through phases of not enjoying reading — and my husband and I are big readers. I remember feeling a vague sense of panic, but I waited it out, following their lead, their interests, always providing opportunities (I loved the idea of reading the same books they do — such fun to talk about and really encouraged them! At one point my daughter and I were in a mother-daughter book group, too). Both are pursuing careers in science, but both still love reading (and writing) — and I echo what Renee said: they love science but also are never without a book. Thanks, Julia, for giving me some perspective from the college-end of it all. I look forward anxiously to the day Karly and I might be in a mother-daughter book club together. And until then, I’ll try not to embrace that vague sense of panic… I know it well. I love books, real books, holding books, turning pages … altho these days I seem to be a blog reader I have one avid reader who is already 250 pages into writing a novel and one who would rather set them on fire But for the younger one, I encourage audio books. She will happily listen while painting or drawing … and all that wonderful vocabulary is filtering into her brain in the correct context and pronunciation – win,win. Since she loves the visual approach of picture books, we pick out a few she loves, and she has to rewrite the sentences using different words. Another win. (my girls are 10 and 14 btw) Oh Nicole how AWESOME is it that your daughter is writing a novel already… Tell her she’s smart; waiting until you’re 40 is NOT the way to go! The idea of using audio-books is absolutely brilliant. I never thought of that for Karly and will give it a go this summer..when I know sitting down to read a book will be LAST on her list of ways to have fun. Also amazing ideas! Thanks for sharing them with us. Great tips Julie! Yes, where were you years and years ago when my kids were small? Neither of my kids LOVE to read, even though I too read to them from the moment they were born, but both will on occasion devour books that they find interesting. And my 16-year-old is reading Hemmingway -by choice!- so I guess I can’t REALLY complain. I know that I have to be better at making time for myself to read (instead of checking emails, etc.) that is a great tip! Chandler reads Hemingway by choice? Oh my! Nice job, Mama. (Although I’m sure Ernest would like to take some credit.) I guess the key is to find books they find interesting; because that’s the situation with Karly: she will devour a book she loves. More than once. It’s just that she’s picky about what she loves. DANG. Hemmingway at 16. Yup, no complaining from you. My kids like books. They even like to listen to books on tapes in the car. My husband wants to drive into a building when he’s with us. He does NOT like to read. He does not even like to listen. Hmmmmmm….. JoAnn, Did I ever tell you that I followed your blog the minute I first saw it because of the T.S. Eliot quotation? I probably told you. So of course I love a woman who loves measuring out her life with coffee spoons…and of course your boys will love books. At least your little ones, if not your grown-up boy. But he likes basketball. And he’s cute, right? So we’ll give him a pass. Thank you!!! My daughter is still pre-reading, and she loves board books right now…but I’m SURE I will use this list in the future – GREAT ideas! Oh I so hope these suggestions work for you. I know they made reading and books MUCH more enjoyable for my daughter and me. Cheers to doing whatever it takes to keep them loving the written word. I miss the days of board books. A lot. Enjoy! No kids yet, but I wanted to comment on the tablet/Kindle/Nook/iPad question. As adults who love reading, my husband and I adore having e-Readers. Whereas we used to pack 4 pounds of books to read when we went on vacation, now we only have to bring our tablets. As long as we prepare beforehand (by which I mean purchasing and downloading the books), there is no longer the fear of running out of stuff to read mid-vacation or, even worse, mid-flight. One of the other nice things is the ability to increase the font size–a lot. My husband, before having LASIK, said not having to squint or worry about eye-strain was one of the biggest advantages of an e-Reader over paper books. I’m an ereader convert and evangelizer too! Tisha, “Yet” is the operative word, my friend. “No kids YET.” Thanks for the feedback regarding ereaders – I’d never thought about the eye-strain issue… As I creep into middle age (okay, I may already be there…gulp) I may have to adjust my reading. Because I’m sure never going to stop. I’m surprised and impressed by tips # 4 & 6; I wouldn’t have thought of either of those, but they make perfect sense. My kids are grown now, but I had one of each like you, Julie, except it was my daughter who loved books, and my son who couldn’t be enticed. I’ll remember these great tips for the grandkids I will hopefully have someday in the not too distant future. Cynthia, I definitely learned #4 in a parenting class; it’s a strategy for pretty much anything children tend to battle and worked well for us (when I remember to do it and not ask and or demand…) #6 I learned because I like to be tickled too (shhhh). But the beauty of grand-kids (in the not too distant future) is that you can just have FUN with them, right? Happy reading! These were great, Julie! I have never even thought of some of them. I am totally with you on reading what they do. It gives me an excuse to read YA books. Loved this, Julie! Thanks, Kelley! I can only say I don’t know if any of these tips work if you’re reading Cat in the Hat – ha! (Loved that post, by the way…) But with or without Dr. Seuss, I can picture you reading to those sweet boys of yours and it makes me smile. YOU make me smile. Always. Love it, you two! Such great, ready-to-use tips! (Also, I love how you pointed out that our littles won’t always love what we do. #Humbling) Yes, Galit. Humbling. She also doesn’t like to sing (another shocker) since all I did as a child was read. And sing. And talk. Oh wait. She does that last one just fine. #soproud. !! I just pinned you my dear. Hope it didn’t hurt, but I want to remember this list. Biggest loves reading, everything about it. Middle, I’m afriad is a lot like Karly. Although this may because we never read to him as a baby. Head hung in shame but he was almost a year when I realized we had left this out of the bed-time routine equation. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll continue the passion from Biggest because he wants to do EVERYTHING just like him. We encourage it by surrounding them with it and whenever someone brings a book and asks us to read we do. I love that you pinned this, Jamie. And you need NEVER hang that head of yours – what you’ve got going on is a house full of love (and lots of kids); and I’ve got no doubt that your kids are going to be just fine when it comes to books. If the oldest one sets the tone, the younger ones will see his example. Hopefully they’ll all love reading; but if not, they’ll know it’s just something you do! (Like running. And listening to cool music. Oh yeah.) My oldest and youngest daughters have always loved books. The oldest started reading when she was 4. Now she writes as well. The middle girl? Not so much. However, in the last several weeks she has turned a corner. It started with the school’s read-a-thon. Maybe your daughter just needs the right book or a reward for reading? Thanks, Trish. I’m hoping that as her choices expand (as she gets older) that her interest will as well. Fingers crossed. And toes. And books marked. (Whatever it takes…) Julie, will you tickle my feet while I read? And then give me a good back massage? Loved all of these pieced of advice – there’s no need for reading to be passive, make it about action. My brother was like your daughter – and now he adores books because we kept shoving them down his throat. Oh, T – I’m so glad to hear your brother came around…how could he NOT love to read with the sisters he has? And I’m sure your boys are already *actively* enjoying books ~ after all, the Chalupa doesn’t do anything passively, right? Either way, I’m in for some foot-tickling. Any time. I’ve been practicing for years… I have little ones, still, so I don’t know where they will fall on the reading spectrum. They seem to love it, for now, both being read to and “reading” on their own, and now Abbey will read to Dylan (a mixture of memorized parts of the books and her own interpretations of the pictures–I die. I also obviously digress.) I hope they love it, because I am such a book junkie. I can remember going to the library with my mom and just devouring books, sitting on opposite ends of the couch with her and reading for hours and hours. Yet she did the same things with my brother (modeled, encouraged, read to him, let him choose books, etc.), and he’s not a reader. He will read now for enjoyment but not the way my mom and I do. I am giggling at “play library and bookstore”. One of their current favorite games (or as I call it, ways to make a mess) is to empty the shelves they can reach on the grownup bookshelves and drag the books over to the couch, where they take the books “in the car to go on vacation”. I love that you take the books “in the car to go on vacation.” I can’t tell you how many days I spent with the kids making activities out of nothing. We used everything we already owned to come up with free stuff to do. “Let’s tip over the stools and sit in them and pretend they’re rocket-ships to the moon!” (Of course, this required getting snacks – because zero-gravity makes you hungry – and bringing friends – stuffed animals – and maybe drawing pictures to leave as evidence that we’d been in space.) Summer is a long season to fill when you don’t want to spend money. After all, the moon is expensive. Thanks, you have given me a reason to finish “Fifty Shades of Gray”. You think I can borrow your copy so Sophie and I can read and discuss? (Seriously though, great post. I use a lot of these strategies with Maren, 7, already. I am guilty of comparing kids though. Maybe I need a good caning.) And now I want to be in that Mother/Daughter book club with you and Maren. (Hank can come too; and he wouldn’t even have to wear pants. We’re used to that around here…) What the heck. My 3rd time trying to leave a comment. get error message each time. GREAT POST! NEEDS TO BE SENT IN TO MAMAPEDIA. Like right now, before summer, so kids get in the writing groove and don’t take 3 months off. it really does…think of how many families will be helped. Oh, Alexandra – thanks for trying three times to leave this comment – especially such a supportive one. I will look into MAMAPEDIA immediately. And, as always, I love that you try to encourage everyone else to get their words out there. Really. P.S. Your point about not taking 3 months off from books/reading is so important. Then it really DOES feel like “school” and not “fun” - Dang. And meant to say “reading” groove vs “time off from it” groove. You, mamapedia, now. xo Oh dear. I am very lazy. Sometimes I offer the choice between playtime and reading a book before bed and am a little relieved when they choose playtime. And yet I am a huge reader. There was a large period (before having kids) where I wouldn’t read a book if it wasn’t a classic. And then there’s the added pressure of trying to get them to speak (and eventually read) English, which makes me want to curl up in a little ball. What a great post! My two month old is not to the reading point yet, but I can’t wait to take Adelaide to the library, for that’s where I cultivated my own love of words. I’m hoping she’ll do the same.

What’s Eating Mitt Romney? So he hasn’t done the outreach to the conservative opinion sphere that he did last time around. That’s not speculation, it’s just a fact. His campaign this time is very different than the one he ran last time, no less professional but far less accessible. They send a blizzard of professional, impersonal emails that never really lend any sense of the man himself. He hasn’t presented himself, from the campaign’s earliest days, as the same kind of candidate he presented himself as last time. His current persona — moderate, avoid taking strong stands and avoid mistakes, play yourself off against the other candidates and allow them to play off of you as the dominant figure — is the “fix” to the “problem” that he diagnosed from the 2008 campaign. But Romney didn’t lose in 2008 because he ran too far to the right. He lost because he wasn’t next in line (McCain was, after losing to Bush in 2000) and because he didn’t score that Crist endorsement in Florida. He can’t fix the former, except by being next in line now (which he is, and he’s factored that into his current campaign), and he probably couldn’t have done much about the latter. And there’s no Crist figure to offer such a decisive endorsement anywhere this time around. He got Christie, he got Pawlenty, he probably has more endorsements than anyone else. But he’s sinking and feeling like it’s 2008 all over again. So I think he misdiagnosed why he lost last time, came up with the wrong fix, and is now stuck with it — and he’s started to realize that, as a succession of candidates has come and gone and now Newt Gingrich is really starting to threaten him. A man more secure in his core beliefs would probably not feel as threatened by the succession and Gingrich’s current rise as Romney does. He would reaffirm who he is and what he stands for and would find a way to regain momentum with a good ground game in the early states. But Romney can’t pull away because he can’t really get out of the paradigm he has trapped himself in, that of the aloof and inevitable nominee, the man who is next in line and the “only one who can beat Obama.” He isn’t that, he now knows it, and knows that his 2008 fix is now his 2012 problem. This chips at the core of what Romney thinks of himself, the competent corporate fix-it man. That kind of realization would make for a pretty rough week for anyone. Bryan, One of the best yet I’ve seen on Romney. One reason you don’t mention is that voters are good at identifying phonies. They don’t like them. McCain was many things, but he wasn’t a phony. You knew who he was. He was a war hero/pow with a very strong sense of patriotism and love of the military. A hawk on defense and natl security but a guy who didn’t care all that much about domestic issues. A bit of a maverick who wasn’t in line with 100% of conservatism but overall was pretty solid. A guy who was solidly pro-life. Same with W. You knew who he was. Same with Dole. With Reagan. The GOP doens’t nominate phonies. Ironically, I also think most folks have a good idea of who Newt is. A sleazy scumbag with little ethics or morals, but nonetheless a really smart guy with a strong record of conservative achievements who knows what he’s talking about, and will be able to make the case not only against Obama, but for Conservtism as well if not better than anyone else. No one knows who Romney really is. I wonder if even he knows himself. In his heart he’s not a conservative and we all know it. And that’s why he won’t win. I know who he is. He’s a politician who wants to be president, and he’s a personally and politically conservative guy who has learned to be flexible because he lives in the northeast but still wants to be in government. How isn’t he conservative? He’s Mormon, married to one woman his entire life, a family man, a good father, a religious man, and he has always been a Republican. Strip away the migration from being a NE Rockefeller-like republican to a modern day conservative, and he is in tune to the desires of the country. He’s too much of a believer in government as the answer to be a perfect fit, but the world isn’t perfect either. Show me a commenter or a writer at PJ Media who hasn’t gone through a similar migration, and who doesn’t have some views that diverge from today’s orthodoxy, which is different than yesterday’s and won’t be the same as tomorrow’s. There are probably a few, but not many. There is no reason to belive Romney will emerge from a chrysalis the day after his inaugeration and demand more redistribution. Such talk is sheer lunacy. Why do we form these circular firing squads when it’s clear that the options are down to two people? A week ago, they were both good candidates. Today vultures are feeding on their carcasses. Little lenin is rubbing his hands in glee. Bryan seems to imply that Romney has spent the last four years analyzing the 2008 campaign. Sure, he did that part of the time, but he also spent a lot of time thinking about how to change the direction of the country. His proposals were reality based. The next president can’t repeal Obamacare unless he gets the Senate votes, but he can defang it by offering waivers. If he gets some new Senate republicans, he’ll go further. Similarly, he can’t turn over Roe vs Wade on day 1, but he can veto bills that call for public funding of abortion and those that permit teens to make an enormous decision without talking to her parents. He also knows you can’t just dismantle massive federal agencies in the middle of a recession without creating even more unemployed and more uncertainty, but you can down-size them and force them to get back to their basic mission. Mitt’s analysis of turning much of government back to the states is also correct. How many of state and local spending decisions have been based on the carrots offered by federal funding? How many local needs could have been adequately served by smaller, less costly alternatives if there had been no matching funds for the luxury version of the solution? Think of the use it or lose it premise. Many Americans have lost it: it being their ability to come up with creative solutions to local problems and personal problems because they haven’t had to use those skills. Communities have been organized to demand that someone else fix problems and people have forgotten how to organize themselves to accomplish specific tasks. The constitution is the foundation on which America stands, but it takes some Ben Franklin initiative to build the walls and put on a roof. I think Romney wants to encourage the inner Ben Franklin in all of us, but he knows that this is a gradual process. We have to regain faith in our own abilities and experience the satisfaction that comes from solving our own problems. Romney’s problem now is that average Americans are out for blood right now, and he knows that the real answer to our problems is sweat, a sweat that is applauded and valued. Americans are not lazy, but their efforts are demeaned. The people who organize church dinners for the poor or donate deer meat to the foodbank are called clingers. In fact, they are the creative. And their children take this creativity to new levels. We are a bottom up nation, perhaps not always elegant, but strong and grounded and good. I would be happy with any president who understood these things. I think Romney does, but he needs to work on message delivery. “Romney’s problem now is that average Americans are out for blood right now” yep because that is what Rush is telling them. His theory (which he presents as fact) is that any of the candidates can win, so why not go for the most rabid conservative. Of course, if Obama wins, Rush will still be in good shape, won’t he? His income will probably increase, but even if it fell sharply, he would still be better off than any of his listeners. It’s so easy to be an absolutist when you don’t have any skin in the game. The talker are quickly moving from being heros to being the guys who are (probably unintentially) pushing the country over the abyss. Blamin it on Rush..hahaha good try. You sound as clueless as Cain does at this point. Americans are not quite that stupid. In ’08, I felt McCain was slimey…he let the left walk all over him in the campaign and never fought back. I want a candidate that will fight back…conservatives need their own James Carville. I do not like anyone that is a candidate for the nomination with the Republican party at this point. Rush???…you jest..Americans are not that stupid..they do have minds of their own..unless they’re liberals/democrats ORomneycare, cap and trade, illegal aliens, shall I go on? On every issue of significance, you can come up with three positions, all his. Dip the current occupant of the WH in Clorox, slap a wig on him, and there Romney stands. Gingrich isn’t any better, really. However, he’s willing to concede he might have made a mistake or two. “Gingrich isn’t any better, really. However, he’s willing to concede he might have made a mistake or two.” THIS! SDN has obviously been a hard-core 100% pure conservative since he or she popped out of the womb. But I have to wonder, since conservatism has changed quite a bit through the years, does SDN’s 100% apply to today, or five years ago, or some other time. Because 5 years ago, NOBODY was complaining about the GSN’s (frankly, probably less than 1% of commenters on the blogs were even aware of them), including the talkers. And 15 years ago, the Heritage Foundation was pushing an individual mandate for health care. And 25 years ago, Reagan got amnesty passed. And 30 years ago, conservatism was adamantly opposed to relations with China. I could go on. So which version of conservatism is it that SDN is absolutely certain that he is so right about, and Romney so wrong about? A week ago, they were both good candidates? To most Republicans, Romney is the one guy they do NOT want to nominate. That’s why he has a ceiling of around 25% in the polls. 75% of Republicans want anyone other than Romney. Besides, being conservative is more than being a good family man and a Republican. That’s Mitt’s problem. Conservatism is a core belief system that doesn’t change with your audience. Romney has no core. You might call that pragmatism, but I call it telling people what he thinks they want to hear. He wants to be president because…well, just because. He thinks he should be. It’s personal ambition, nothing more – and it always has been. There is no logical way to tell whether the old liberal Romney running for governor of MA or the new “conservative” Mitt Romney running for President is the real Romney…unless you take a leap of faith, because that’s all it would be – faith. The American people took a leap of faith with Obummer in 2008. How did that turn out? Even his own supporters are disappointed in him. Also, it’s not “clear that we’re down to 2 people.” Many people in the caucus and primary states still haven’t started paying close attention yet (believe it or not). We’re probably in for another wild poll swing or two. But whatever happens, Mitt won’t be gaining traction. DRay writes: “To most Republicans, Romney is the one guy they do NOT want to nominate. That’s why he has a ceiling of around 25% in the polls. 75% of Republicans want anyone other than Romney.” Well, exactly, there it is. 75% Repub voters don’t want Mitt, but the 25% keep telling us Mitt is more electable. How is he more electable when about three out of four REPUBS don’t even want him? And why is he so low in our favor? We see in him many of the same types the party has offered up to us previously, i.e., people who want to add the Presidency to their resumes and will make any compromise to be elected and re-elected. The result is the decades and decades long slide to the Left. Mitt and Newt are electable, but it will be a hard slog and razor close for either of them. They are the only two with the experience and the chops to withstand the onslaught. All of the other declared candidates would lose in landslides. Rush is wrong, dangerously wrong. He and Levin were also dangerously wrong about Sharon Angle and about Christine O’donnell and they are just as wrong about this election. It will be hard enough for the two experienced national conservative politicians to win in the teeth of the multi-billion dollar smear machine. The rest of them would be torn to shreds and wouldn’t get 40% of the vote. That’s what the republican electorate knows and why the field is already culled to the strongest two. It’s either Mitt or Newt. Get used to it. Fortunately, we have two good candidates to choose from. Many election, there are none. Pro, I have to answer your assertion that this guy is a conservative, he is not. He is a believer in anthropogenic global warming, he believes that the federal government has an interest in subsidizing ethanol production and, despite his strenuos current assertions, he at one time believed that Romney Cares mandate should be applied to national health insurance. By the way, Newt believes in AGW, ethanol subsidies, and also believed in the mandate. Neither of these candidates can demonstrate any basis under Article One, Section Eight, of the Constitution for these applications of federal control. Both of these guys are dyed in the wool progressives who believe in a role for federal authority well in excess of what is intended under the Constitution. Neither is appreciably different from Nixon, Wilson, Bush, or FDR. Both want to expand federal power and their speech and records demonstrate that fact. It is the unchecked expansion of federal power over the last 110 years with it’s accompanying increase in spending that has caused our country to enter a period of accelerating decline. Romney’s record suggests that he might be able to slow decline from 180 mph to 140 mph, but his lengthy record doesn’t demonstrate that he has any understanding of what is needed to reverse the problem. By the way, Newt believes in AGW, ethanol subsidies, and also believed in the mandate When asked in an interview night before last if he believed that AGW is a fact, Gingrich’s reply was “I don’t know”. Romney, on the other hand, has declared himself a True Believer in AGW. Kind of a litmus test, in my view, since any AGW True Believer hasn’t really looked at the whole thing too closely, the revelations of Climategate, the money and agendas driving so called “science”. You’re right. We have to throw the constitution away as well. Nothing that men who owned slaves wrote is acceptable today. They weren’t conservatives like we are. A bit of a maverick who wasn’t in line with 100% of conservatism but overall was pretty solid. This is satire, right? I’ll try to repeat what Mark Levin says better in the future. That should make you happy. This brain that allows me to thing instead of parrot is offending you. Or maybe the problem is that Mit is a cocky – arrogant member of a church that teaches that all protestant and catholic churches are an abomination before God. The cocky – arrogant part anyone can see; the rest is well hidden unless you have done your due diligence. I’m with you. Anybody whose religion diverges from yours should be cast out. Which one do you believe in today? You know, Bryan…I think what you have written may be pretty astute. I would add one element. Romney saw the Obama campaign in 2008 and how it steamrolled Clinton. Obama ran as a hologram…and people projected onto his screen anything they wanted to see in him. He’s a centrist, he’s a liberal idealist, he’s a Muslim, he’s a Christian, he’s a friend of Rashid Khalidi, he’s a friend of Axelrod and Rahm…he was all things to all people. Romney seems to want to be the mirror hologram. Except, he’s not getting people to project onto his screen…in fact, they seem to be projecting “other” onto his screen. Because he is not “one” thing…they aren’t projecting THEIR ideal candidate…they are taking the empty screen and projecting their NON-ideal candidate. The Obama “mirror” is cracked, shattered…and Romney running as the Non-Obama hologram is backfiring. People want to know what they are getting this time. The election of a Cracker Jack box…where you don’t know what the surprise might be…is not a winning strategy this time around. I wouldn’t say Obama steamrolled Clinton. He won a very protracted primary helped out a lot by luck and timing. Obama also had two things going for him that Romney doesn’t. Well he had way more, but he had these two. One, he had a lock on the black vote that is a huge % of the dem primary electorate, especially in the South in states like SC, NC, GA, LA, GA, VA, MD all of which he won big. He ha dthat whole 1st black President and making history thing which a lot of folks got caught up in. If UT and NV had tons of delegates, Mitt would be in good shape. They don’t. Two, he was on record as being against the Iraq War from the start. Don’t underestimate that. Take all his gifts, all his talent, all the media hype he got, all his great speeches, all of it. If Barack Obama had been on record as supporting the Iraq War in 2003 he’d never have been the nominee. That was his biggest asset and Hillary’s greatest fault. Conversely, if Hillary had voted against it and Obama had been for it Hillary would have won easily. If bot had been against it she’d have won as well. Romneycare is this cycle’s Iraq War. He can run from it, but he can’t hide, just like Hillary couldn’t. Of course, regardless of what you think of his politics, Obama is one of the most charismatic and exciting political figures and orators in recent history and probably in US history, able to connect with people of all ages and races and especially the young. Mitt Romney, to put it mildly, is not. If nobody told me that President Obama was charasimatic and an orator (of any stripe), I wouldn’t know it. Fortunately we had every news agency at every turn reminding us that that was the case, so I guess he really is a great orator. Thank goodness I had the help reaching that conclusion. And we get to hear it repeated even though we we’ve had an opportunity to see that great oration, so we haven’t forgetten. Keep saying it, and someday it may really be true. In light of reading Bryan’s piece, I came to the exact same conclusion: Mitt is trying to emulate the guy that beat the GOP. That’s a stilted and short-sighted strategy worthy of an insurance salesman, but not of a leader. It’s good enough for a scrimmage but not for a war. The fact of the matter is that the GOP lost the battle years ago on the altar of political expediency and GWB merely accelerated its demise. Now, Newt is not unlike any person who wants to fit in, but won’t be boxed in by the problems such a fit will pose. That makes him a far more flexible thinker; a future-caster and a big picture person. He may perform politics-as-usual, but his mind refuses to accept the standard approach to it. Americans love nothing more than innovation. Romney has nothing on that point. However, all of that innovative expression will bite Newt in the ass in the end of this primary and Romney will get the nod and he will be milquetoast and moderation while the patient lays dying on the gurney. – to please? Briant piece, Bryan. It’s kind of like the generals fighting the last war when they would be better off to prepare the troops to be flexible so they can better fight as yet unknown enemies. I’m for Newt, but the scorn heaped on Romney saddens me. I think he’s a good man, and a good conservative who has simply lived in liberal geographies and has learned to adapt and succeed under those circumstances. He doesn’t deserve the abuse he gets, particularly becuase his skills are ones that in many situations would be the exact skills needed to help the country succeed. And I sure hope he doesn’t get too discouraged because mecurial Newt could hit the fan at a moment’s notice, and Romney could end up with the prize after all. In fact, I still think that is the most likely outcome, even though the momentum is behind Newt. Reagen was a good conservative in a liberal state. He did not ‘adapt’ by giving California iron rice bowl health care. Romney is an entitlement pimp, like the Bushes and Democrats. Stop mythologizing Reagan as the uber-conservative governor of CA and check history. He was far more moderate than the myth-makers and hagiographers of today would care to admit. Reagan made university tuition free at both state systems, among other things. This was not what we today understand as “conservatism”; quite the contrary, in fact. And who of all people had a sky-traversing journey of positions but Reagan? Democrat, union-chief, etc…. to the vanguard of conservatism?!!! But a guy like Romney, who was endorsed by National Review, Weekly Standard and all the pillars of the conservative movement 4 years ago, is not conservative enough anymore? I am convinced that the establishment doesn’t want the GOP to win this one; having Obama around 4 more years is good for the “movement conservative” book publishing army, and the conservative punditocracy generally. That’s why they’ll again foist a crusty old white-haired white guy on the nomination to run against the youthful black guy. Except this time they’ll convince us that it was our idea. You Republican partisans and wannabe “conservative” politico’s sure are easily led. Newt is a caricature, just like McCain was. Hip black guy v. old, stodgy, ornery white guy. “Get off my lawn” and all that. The optics alone are enough for another Obama term, and if you think I’m incorrect, consider the OWS doofuses and their intellectual analogs among 50% or so of the electorate, and how any of their inattentive asses would look at such a contest. Over before it’s begun. And yeah, the foregoing explains the great hope for Cain, who was otherwise distinguished only as a ham-tongued naif, for the most part. So much for that idea. If it ain’t to be Romney, and there doesn’t seem to be enough enthusiasm there for that, the party needs to get some more people to jump into the contest; if not him, it’s not going to be the others on stage right now, either. What a clown car they are this year – worse even than the Dems in ’08, and that was really something! “He was far more moderate than the myth-makers and hagiographers of today would care to admit. ” Like just about everybody else who ever held executive authority, which, btw, requires the office holder to represent a broad range of people. Or in other words, everybody except people like Michelle Bachman, who hasn’t had to make any decisions requiring compromise because she only has to vote on stuff (usually in the minority which means she has never had to answer for the consequences) and has been able to get reelected without ever yielding a position. I like her a lot, but her experience is so far from that of a governing official that it is all but certain that she would cause a firestorm if she was ever elected to an executive position. Which is why ultra-conservative congressional reps never get elected to national office. But what amazes me is that people hate Romney (and Newt) so much, even though both are more conservative than almost all the people who hate them were a few short years ago. People have very short memories and are about a million times more forgiving of themselves than anybody else. Plus, many people chose to ignore the reality of what a governing official has to deal with. Somehow they imagine that their own up-to-the-second personal preferences should somehow be implemented 100% of the time; retroactively, to boot. Anything less, and the official is a RIIIIINNNNO. Of course, such people wouldn’t have a chance in a million of being elected themselves in Massachusetts or even a California circa the late 60′s, or of becoming the Speaker of the House. “Reagan made university tuition free at both state systems, among other things.” LOL. Yes instead of tuition we paid fees that rose just like tuition. Something about a “Rose by any other name is still a rose” Mr. Preston, I believe you have nailed it! Romney already was having some difficulty with Commonwealth Care during the 2008 primary, and it totally mystifies me why he’s chosen that position to draw his line in the sand. The post-implementation results of the program in Massachusetts along with the revelations of the mandates and questionable constitutional requirements of the plan Congress drew up gave Romney multiple chances to hit the “reboot” button in 2009-10 and walk back his position, but he steadfastly refused at a tie where he could have done so without it look as nakedly like another flip-flop as it would if he does it now, with his primary lead slipping away. Baier’s questioning on RomneyCare and Mitt’s testiness as the interview went on showed someone who’s sick of discussing the issue and cam’t understand why the Fox News/talk radio media, if not the right side of the Republican primary electorate, can’t get past the issue. He’s stuck with that position now, and it’s his steadfast clinging to it that makes conservatives wonder if a President Romney would take anything more than the most perfunctory measures to get rid of ObamaCare, and why they’re moving towards Gingrich, who at least is willing to admi a few of his past moves have been mistakes. That is exactly my thoughts on the subject. Romney’s refusal to admit that Romneycare was a mistake (which is costing MA money) is my problem with Romney. I don’t care if he has changed his strategy from last time. I care about the repeal of Obamacare, and I don’t think that Romney really wants to repeal it. The reason that I think Romney doesn’t want to repeal it and just make a few changes instead is simple. I don’t trust politicians. That means that I want to look at their actions and not listen to their words. Romney passed Romneycare. — Romney likes Romneycare to this day. — Obamacare is based on Romneycare. — Romney probably likes the majority of Obamacare. This all leads to me not voting for Romney. I would prefer to have a gridlocked government with Obama against Republicans controlling both houses of Congress than to have Romney as president with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress. Unless the Supreme Court overturns the entire Obamacare, then and only then would I be willing to vote for Romney against Obama. I too cannot understand why Romney didn’t say something like this: “Yes, as a Governor of a liberal state I thought it was a worthy experiment to pass our health care bill. It seemed like the best thing to do at the time. But now I recognize that it was deeply flawed. And thanks to that experience I can unequivocally oppose Obamacare and will work to repeal it as soon as I am elected. In trying Romneycare I helped prove that such a plan would not work nationally. That is precisely what the Founders wanted — the states as laboratories for innovation. We showed the flaws locally and now we know why it is wrong nationally.” Such a statement would contain 90% of what he currently says, would defend his federalism argument, but would use that federalism argument in an entirely different way from what he currently says. Instead of defending the correctness of the plan, he could use the incorrectness of it to better advantage. But the man has chosen not to acknowledge his mistake, and that in itself is a bad sign. Perhaps a reason why he was so hot under the collar with Bret Beir on Fox was that he simply cannot acknowledge that he has ever made a mistake. Yeh – totally agree. Btw, I think people will count the Bret Baier interview as the end of Romney’s chances as a candidate. I would like to see a turning point with both Newt and Mitt. Mitt has some real big changes of heart and an explanation could go a long way. Same is true for Newt but on fewer issues. However the Newt/Nancy scares me to death. Personally I was educated a Marxist in Jr High. In 9th grade I fully believed a garbage man had the same value as a Dr. Since we would all die of disease if we had no trash pickup. To make matters worse my mother was raised in Europe and is basically communist. Thankfully my first turning point happened at 16 when I started to work full time. Embraced being a libertarian shortly after that. But peoples views evolve over time. Most of our changes of heart need no explanation. But when you go from pro-choice to pro-life an explanation might go a long way. In Mitts case, you just feel he wants to win too much. He has no core and would say anything to accomplish what his daddy could not. I really don’t like my choices this election. I am ready for Ron Paul in the seat of power. But we will need an economic 9/11 before we give up on Big Government. Mitt keeps on taking positions that he ‘thinks he should take’ rather than expressing the positions he genuinly believes in. In 1994 he showed the whole world who he was when he was leading in the polls aginst the incumbant Ted Kennedy. Then, in September Newt Gingrich introduced “The Contract With America.” Mitt immediatly let the whole world know where he didn’t stand. “That’s the House I’m running for the Senate,” he answered the reporters, (who incidentally had been making fun of the whole ‘contract on America’ idea.) The farther Mitt distanced himself from the contract, the lower he sank in the polls. Mitt’s a Manager. I get it. And I am thouroughly convinced he can manage a Liberal Mess better than any Democrat ever could. But the country doesn’t need a Manager to hold it in place until the Next Democrat can come along and push it farther left, we need a LEADER who WILL push the country in a Rightward Direction. That leader is NOT Mitt. Full Disclosure: I support Michele Bachmann (my apologies to anyone who has read more than two of my comments. You must be getting sick of me starting each comment with somethng you already know) The problem with Mitt Romney is now and has always been that he’s trying too hard to appeal to everyone. Healthcare? Romney fixed healthcare in Massachusetts. Oh, you don’t like Obamacare? Hey, Mitt is on your side. Ignore Massachusetts. Abortion? Mitt is pro-choice. Oh, O.K., life begins at conception. Flat Tax? Mitt hates it. Mitt likes it. At the very best, a person who takes both sides of an issue can win support from both sides. Obama did very well at this in 2008. Moderate liberals saw him as one of them while radical leftists saw something different. At the very worst, taking both sides of an issue loses you support. People realize that if you’ve changed your position over and over that there’s no telling what you would do if you actually held office. Mitt has always reminded me of Thomas Dewey. I don’t know enough about Mr. Dewey to know how many times he flip/flopped, but I do know how well he did in Presidential politics. Maybe reminding people of the plastic groom on top of a wedding cake doesn’t help you when you’re running for President. Mitt’s problem is Romney-Care. If he’s defending Romneycare, he’s not going to be repealing Obamacare. Just like he’s not going to reduce government as much as he’s going to make it more efficient. The country doesn’t need a manager. It needs a Big Ideas Hypocrite. Really? So is Romney a plastic unemotional man or easily upset? I’d be a little peeved myself if I had spent the last 5 years and a small fortune trying to prevent the Republican Party from making itself look ridiculous, again. They have a choice between a man who has led a very conservative life and proved himself a leader in academics, business and government. And he’s now trailing a lying, fat, fat-headed, ethanol subsidies and AGW supporting, Freddie Mac hypocrite, whose ego is so large that he’s announced that he has already won the nomination. Go to Mars Gingrich. And take your stupid Big Idea socialist housing scheme with you. Newt sounds like a progressive at times, but his actions have always been conservative. Romney is an established consecrated entitlement pimp. He went negative in 2008 and I think it backfired on him. The candidates he went negative against held it against him. They made sure he didn’t win. (I seem to remember the West Virginia primary had something like this going on.) Newt is leading for a couple of reasons. 1) When he talks, he knows what he’s talking about. He can actually articulate and defend conservative principles. Therefore, we can picture him engaging Obama in a way where he can bypass rhetorical tricks of the opposition and present a conservative case to America. 2) He says nice things about his Republican opponents. My gosh, I think we have consensus. You’re all nailing it in you’re own way. I just want to add my 2 cents worth. I feel for Mitt. I think he’s a decent, accomplished man who would be a good steward of the economy and help restore our national integrity. But he’s got to win a nomination and a national election first, and unfortunately he just doesn’t resonate with contemporary culture. Intellectually I know that the election isn’t ‘American Idol’, but charisma counts in the political world we live in. I saw right thru Obama from day one, but there were people who were fainting…heck, even some men were tingling. Compare Mitt to three other ‘moderate’ Republicans: Guliani, Christie, and Gingrich. All of these guys have committed some political atrocities…Guliani and gun control, Guliani and abortion, Christie supported the Ground Zero Mosque, Newt did that global warming thing with Nazi Pelosi (to name just one atrocity). But I’m thinking I’d love to see Rudy, Chris, or Newt go one on one in a debate with Barack, Hillary, Algore, or the ghost of Ted Kennedy. Mitt, not so much. I don’t just want the Democrats defeated, I want a ‘smack down’. I don’t think I’m alone in that sentiment; which is why operatives like Bachmann, Palin, Huckabee, and Newt get their day in the sun. I’m no fan of the Huckster, but I’d pay to see him debate a leading Dem. I cringe every time I think of the Doles, McCains and Bushes heading for the debate podium with the future of the country on the line. Mitt fits in with this group of decent guys who don’t have an ounce of sparkle. If the fiesty Bachman had Mitt’s resume she’d be the first woman president. I guess that’s the word, ‘fiesty’. It comes naturally. You have it or you don’t. Mitt doesn’t. (Full disclosure, when Guliani went after Ron Paul’s blame America rant, when Christie blasted a whining public unionist, or when Newt took down Palley…I got a tingle too). At a time of troubles in which the American people have all-but abandoned their Constitution and Republic, I want a candidate who, as governor, senator, or representative, has triumphed over corruption in the government and has reduced the size of the government by closing offices, departments, and agencies. A candidate who merely promises to reduces taxes (like George Bush) or to abolish departments (like Ronald Reagan) or cease funding corruption (like Newt Gingrich) or establishes new government bureaucracies (like Mitt Romney), or is a caretaker of government whose expansion marks time during his term (like Rick Perry) is useless. Unless after election the power and scope of the IRS is curtailed; if waste (the Department of Education), fraud (the Department of Energy), and abuse (the Department of Homeland Security) are not abolished; if the regulatory agencies (FCC, EPA) do not declare that most of their regulations fall beyond the authorization granted them by Congress; if domestic subsidies (to farmers, artists, corporations, etc.) and foreign subsidies (to NGOs, governments, the UN, etc.) are not ceased, then regardless of the speeches of the victor, the ship of state will continue on its course to bankruptcy and tyranny. Romney is not that candidate. If I read you correctly, you’ve eliminated Romney, Perry, and Gingrich from consideration and wouldn’t vote for Reagan if he was alive and running. Just wondering which candidate could bring your admirable wish list to fruition (assuming of course, we had total control of congress). I ask the question because in order for any substantial change to take place, we need to win the white house. Even if we maintain the house of Reps, and have 60 senators, the current incumbent, if given a second term, will rule by Czar, veto, and executive order, in a manner more egregious than he has already. “Just wondering which candidate could bring your admirable wish list to fruition…” You can’t tell? Let’s put it this way, shall we? Whoever is elected prez in 2012 will face the most important, profound and dangerous decisions on the domestic scene since 1932, or actually, since 1932 and 1968 combined. They will approach the danger level of 1860. Whoever is elected prez in 2012 will face international decisions beyond anything any of our presidents have faced, sort of a combined 1916, 1932, and 1940 election combined (with a good dose of 1952 and 1968). Okay? Now, vote for either Mr. Plastic “Oh, I wonder how to answer that question? Maybe I should try with George Bush’s Decision Points? Yeah, that might do it” or the old egoist who did more for the Conservative movement than even Reagan did. It is up to you-all. Go for it. An Préachán He just can’t get the Mitmentum going. Mitt was so ‘smarrtt’ he decided to run as the anti-TEA Party candidate and refused to change after the shellacking by the TP in 2010. That right there tells you everything about this doofus Mitt. Stick a fork in this prick. I’d much rather have Newt as a candidate at least he would put up a fight! My thought has been that Mitt made an enormous diplomatic error in not getting around in front of the Tea Party. The largest grass roots movement of American history and he wants to engage in politics as though it weren’t there? He is so mired in his ‘core’ that he didn’t see this? The fundamental nature of his ‘core’ won’t allow adjustments. This is fatal. Too slow on the uptake. Stick a fork in this prick. Whatever Mitt. Hey, thats a good slogan for his campaign. The “Whatever” campaign. Whatever you dont like about the issues or the other candidates is OK because he’s none of those things.He’s for “Whatever” you think is the right answer. Just not the “Right” answer. Krauthammer writes this in his column at Human Events: We must focus on this, the candidates must focus on this. This will move the independents, the conservatives and all Freedom loving Americans. EXACTLY! Romney seems to have concluded that since being the conservative candidate didn’t work then, he would try being the moderate now. Hey, that’s who won last time around, right? If that’s Romney’s basis for this campaign’s image as opposed to last campaign’s image, it doesn’t work for me. Romney suffers from the “I’ve accomplished this, I’ve accomplished that” syndrome which, to me, is Bachmann’s drawback. Constantly repeating how cool you are is not anything like thinking on your feet. Newt does the “I’ve accomplished (fill in the blank)” thing, too, but his intelligence or confidence or whatever is broad enough that he goes on to make interesting points. Newt’s sit down with Cain on social security etc., an hour long, real talking was great. I can barely stand the short quip style of the republican debates anymore. I get embarrassed that presidential candidates are subjected to the (often gotcha) questions of (often brain dead) moderators. If Newt gets the nomination, he has challenged Barack to seven 3-hour Lincoln/Douglas style debates, two men talking, no moderators. Chief among the reasons Romney isn’t doing well in the polls is that he’s engendered a lot of distrust: – By governing “pragmatically” (as Romney would put it); – By relentlessly pursuing ever-higher office; – By trimming his sails to what he thinks is the prevailing political wind; – By not admitting to his mistakes (as conservatives see them); – By changing his position on several ultra-sensitive subjects (e.g., taxation and abortion). If you want people to believe you’ve changed your mind about important matters, you have to give them hard evidence. Romney has not done so; therefore, conservatives are reluctant to believe his assertions of core conservatism. Granted that the same would apply to Gingrich. However, Gingrich hasn’t been campaigning for the presidency for the past four years, nor did he move from state to state in quest for a higher office to contend for, nor did he misuse a governor’s powers, as Romney did in Massachusetts. Personally, Romney is probably as clean and decent a man as there is in America. Politically, he’s given conservatives no substantive reasons to entrust him with the powers of the presidency. I doubt he can change that with rhetoric, or by pointing to his experience as a businessman. VB wrote: “Romney’s problem now is that average Americans are out for blood right now, and he knows that the real answer to our problems is sweat, a sweat that is applauded and valued.” Nicely put and spot on. What we have in Romney is a man who has led his life with unquestioned personal integrity, who is smart, who has executive experience, who knows how to lead, and who understands that elections for President are not and cannot be won by appealing only to the Republican ‘base.’. As for his current opponent for the nomination? A guy who typifies almost perfectly everything that is now wrong with Washington; a guy who made polarization a governing style, who enriched himself selling access and who now ‘runs against Washington,’ and a guy whose ‘big’ ideas, whatever they might be this week, are really not so big. .” What is Romney’s solution to illegal immigration again? Last I could tell on the issue Romney’s solution is to mindlessly (as in attacking a plan while not offering your own) demonize Newt on the issue. As for Romneycare not being a national issue, that might be true if MA doesn’t need to be “bailed out” because of over spending on entitlements. But he can’t escape from it no matter how much you want us to ignore it. Romneycare is an action he has recently taken, and won’t disavow, that leads us to conclude he will favor continued use of Obamacare. You follow this: “How isn’t he conservative?” with this: “He’s too much of a believer in government as the answer to be a perfect fit” Seriously? Romney is the right candidate for the wrong time. The pundits all say the USA is going down the tubes, well OK then, the next candidate has to be reckless (in a Tea Party way) to come up with bold solutions. Second, I think conservative public opinion can manipulate Gingrich. If we create an uproar like happened multiple times with Bush we can change policy in the White House under Gingrich. Maybe it would work with Romney but after his stupid ‘states rights’ defense of RomneyCare I’m not so sure he would bend. For me, it’s which candidate can we pressure to do the right thing. This is a question, not a argument: Does it bother anyone here that Newt was, while accepting money from Freddie, arguing in its newsletter that GSEs were the way of the future? It bothers me, especially since Bush and other Republicans were trying to draw attention to problems. It sounds to me like Newt was on Barney Frank’s side. His love of big ideas scares me. I listened to Newt’s arguments for when he was out of the political sphere and his company was hired by Freddie Mac. Newt argued that the company’s work was on the up and up and was entirely outside of lobbying on behalf of Freddie. I can’t know everything. The republican field is what it is. Gingrich’s performance and goals as Speaker, near as I can tell, are admirable. The idea that some evangelical preacher is out there demanding Newt atone/apologize whatever for personal stuff, years ago, is IMO the epitome of stuck on stupid (the evangelical guy). Good comments all – I still like Ryan but no matter who wins – I’m all in, 100%. As for Fannie & Freddie and that whole débacle, I’m more concerned in real time that these idiotic, corrupt, Dodd/Frank sponsored entities, into the American taxpayer already for something close to $150 billion, are planning on paying their top executives egregious bonuses, in the millions. “gotta pay well to get & keep good people” is the rationale F&F just held some big conference at a plush hotel in Chicago, 100 souls from the organizations wined and dined to the tune of over $600,000, including travel. Insane. People don’t understand Romney, the candidate. PJ Media doesn’t understand why Romney doesn’t know how to fix himself, gain in the polls and battle Newt. Romney doesn’t understand Romney, the-unable-to-gain-ground-candidate. I do. At the same time, I’m a little peeved that one of my rants, for some reason, didn’t make it into print about a different subject. Maybe it still will. But it was a pull no punches piece that I thought to far right for the realists here at PJM who want a win over O’Dumbo so bad they can taste it. Regardless, for numerous reasons I love the people who put this blog together, and one Rachel nose out of joint isn’t going to change that. Anyhoots, let me explain Mitt’s problem. Then I’ll go have some scrambled eggs (the no cholesterol kind) and call somebody whose name many of you would know who’ll tell Rachel how smart she is to massage her ego. Mitt’s problem is that he’s a businessman, not an advertising man. He couldn’t recognize a good spot (political commercial) if an election depended on it. Other people do that for him. Or try to. Some background. Some twenty years ago, three of us were sitting in a room in Chicago picking talent for a commercial. We had narrowed the list to seven. One was Robert Pine ( you may remember him as the Sergeant in CHiPs) who two weeks ago played a distraught father in “House”, the TV show. Out of the seven possibles, we chose Mr. Pine. What put him over the top wasn’t his looks. Or voice. Or the fact he was recognizable and a celebrity. Or that he had some connection to the product we were selling. In the final analysis, Robert was selected to be in the commercial because a guy in the room told us, in his opinion, Pine was the most likeable. Simple as that. Back to the present tense election. Mitt’s not dislikable. But he’s not likable in the room of candidates. Unfortunately for me, at this point, I don’t think it’s disguisable or fixable. In the Nixon/Kennedy election, Nixon had the same problem. Kennedy was the most likable. Obama slaughtered McCain for the same reason. Today, I see Obama as a corrupt snake in the grass who’s out to destroy this nation. But his likability quotient is still amazingly high. It will never drop because it’s got nothing to do with policy. In a Marxist state, likability is less important. In a Republic like the United States, the likability factor often is the deciding one. Likeability factors are killing Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann. Smart as they are. Articulate as Bachman is, it’s killing her. If Cain wasn’t so likeable, he’d be a spec of dust in the polls. If it’s true about all these ladies, it’s because Cain is so irresistibly likeable. Of course, his money and success don’t hurt either. If Mitt were to read this, I think he’d go into a cold sweat. Because it’s like hitting a raw nerve. One that he has to try to cope with somehow. The interview with Bret Baier exposed the open sore. That’s why it made news. Ironically, no one realized why it was so telling. So crucial. Now everybody who reads this will know. Mitt’s peevishness got a big reaction from so many people because it made Mitt less likeable; the quality that’s the biggest threat to Mitt’s election success. In the end, it dooms him. In this run for the roses, Mitt the businessman will end up closed for business. And that’s too bad. Because I like him. Funny that you would give up so easily on ol’ Mitt. If what you convey here is true & assuming (for sake of argument) that it’s going to boil down to either Newt or Mitt, the likeability factor favors the latter over the former. Presidential elections are, to a large extent, glorified popularity contests. I just hope that the hatred for Obama among the American voters is strong enough to put him out of office next year. wow, thanks for the new (at least for me) particular way of considering Mitt’s problem. Somebody call Ripley, I agree with Rachel Peepers! A long long time ago I worked on the phones for a polling company to put myself through college. Every so often we would do political polls (my favorite). One of the questions that was asked was “Which of the two candidates would you most want to have a beer with?” Ever since then I have believed that “The Beer Question” is one of the most important factors in picking a winner. You can rant all you want to about how silly it is. I agree that this should not be the most important thing when choosing a candidate. However, I have noticed that the candidate that wins the beer question is likely to win. Consider George W. Bush vs. Al Gore. Never mind politics, Bush won the beer question (even though he had stopped drinking long before running for President). Now think of Clinton. Bubba killed his opponents on the beer question (both Bush and Dole). The average voter knows very little about economics and they don’t care to learn any more, but when it comes to voting time they seem to gravitate to the candidate who is likeable. Rachel writes it out a bit diffently, but I’m sure her point is close to mine here. The most likeable candidate has a huge edge. Full (here we go again) Disclosure: I support Michele Bachmann. I don’t vote based on the beer question. Michele doesn’t drink and I only drink scotch. Oh, my degree is in history. I’d love to have a beer with Newt Gingrich. I might not be willing to vote for him, but I’d love to talk history over some suds with him. Great point. It definitely explains Cain’s rise, since Cain was great on likeability, but weak on everything else. Perry looked like Bush on having a beer, but also seemed far to much like Bush in every other way. Romney comes across as competant and intelligent, but boring. Bachman comes across as earnest but boring. Paul is interesting, but a little crazy. Newt isn’t exactly likeable in the frat boy beer sense, but is definitely somebody I would love to BS with about politics, since he always seems to have something either interesting or provocative to say on almost any political subject. Great analogy with the “beer question.” I am still stumped though as to why Rachel indicates that Mitt would be less likeable than Newt. Then again, it occurs to me that I would rather have a beer with Newt but not because he is more likable but because he would be far more interesting to talk to than Romney. Perhaps likeability is not the entire issue here? The question “What’s Eating Mitt Romney?” is easy to answer. He fells entitled to be the nominee because its his turn. However he hasn’t been able to crack 25% and in most polls he struggles to hit 20%. You’d think that he would learn from the fact that 75 – 80% of the republican party wants “Anybody but Mittens” Mitt has a problem in that he looks exactly like the ‘tiny plastic man’ that was the groom on top of my wedding cake. He looked like same good looking black haired man in a blue suit with a phony smile on his handsome face. Sadly for Mittens, he seems too contrived to be worth voting for. In addition he has a reputation for constantly flip flopping, just blowing in the wind. In addition, at a time millions of voters are underwater on home loans or in foreclosure, he is in the process of tearing down a $12,000.000 La Jolla California beach house. This mansion is too small for him and he wants one that is four times larger. Talk about ‘class envy’ issues. The Democrats are waiting for him to be the candidate and this house deal will be a campaign ad that would sink his campaign. He just looks like a smooth talking flip flopper who is completely insincere. Everyone thinks Romney is a moderate, masquerading as a conservative. I think the reverse might be just as likely. I think Romney had to mask a lot of his real conservatism to win in a leftist state like MA. Also, I dont think Romney has moved as much as the repub party has. In 2008 Romney was to the right of his main compeditor, now he is to the left of his main compeditors. Todays repub party is much more fiscally conservative and small gov oriented than it was in the Bush days (thanks to the Tea Party). Any repub running today with Bush style “compassionate conservatism”, while proposing new entitlements, and publically stating that he was not that worried about deficits and spending, would never win a primary. In the positions Romney has actually taken on this campaign, he is just as conservative as many others. He is definitely just as conservative as Newt. The only thing he hasn’t done enough of is actively court Tea Party and evangelical groups. While Romney has never been my 1st choice, I think he could be a good nominee, and with plenty of Tea Partiers in congress, will be conservative enough to do what needs doing. Let me start out by saying that, even though I am a non-Mormon, my reason for opposing Mitt Romney has nothing to do with his being a Mormon. It does not even have to do with the fact that Mitt Romney is a short-tempered stuffed shirt. (Though I will say that a lifetime of avoiding alcohol and caffeine leads more to the sins of pride and wrath than to anything else. Had Romney been capable of a little conviviality, he might have learned something about the way those outside his community think and feel, but that’s a story for another day.) First of all, these candidates are running for President, not pope. The president is not supposed to be a spiritual leader, but rather, the Chief Executive, which is a management position. We need somebody who can help us to unwind the whole horrible mess of corruption and insolvency that Obama has gotten us into. We also need someone who can reverse the decline into socialist tyranny so that we can become a free country and the land of opportunity once again. This on its own will bring the jobs back to US shores. The father of Obamneycare, and the outsourcer of US jobs as head of Bain Capital, is NOT the executive we need in 2012. The one thing not mentioned in this article or the responses is that the GOP candidate, whoever it is, will have to swim upstream, against the media flow of praise for Obama. The GOP candidate will have scorn and hate thrown at him by a media that will paint Obama, once again, as the Mesiah come to save the downtrodden from the evil ways of the rich who will all be referred to as “Do Nothing Republicans!” Romney will not be spared the Democrat onslaught of lies, distortions and slander, they just have not seen the need to go after him yet. Cain was attacked because the dems were afraid of him. None of the accusations against Cain have yet been proven, but the damage has been total and effective. Clinton did many things that were worse than what Cain has been accused of, but Clinton was a Democrat! The only thing proven against Cain at this point is that he is a Republican. I am quite sure the Democrats have got a list of things to use against Romney if he gets the nomination. They have been asking their faithful to dig up the dirt for them for several weeks now. I have been a Republican for the fifty one years I have been an elegible voter, but I voted for a Democrat once in that span of time, (Clinton). I will never vote Democrat again but if the liberal oriented Romney is nominated I will waste my vote on a write-in ballot for Neil Boortz. mccain won the nomination as a single issue candidate–he was the only one right on the Surge in iraq and his ideas turned around what was a potential military and political defeat for the U.S. in iraq. Bobbcat, Your comment about Mitt seeming more likeable than Newt is a great one. That bothered me, too. Then when I checked likeability polls on the internet, Mitt was beating Newt by a lot. So I sit here confused. A place I know very well. Best Regards, Rachel I’ll tell you what is so confusing to me: Obama’s likeability. I just don’t get it. I recall being somewhat impressed with him at the very beginning & recall thinking “Oh goody, someone who might topple Hillary’s presidential plans.” Didn’t take me a bit long though to see Obama for who he is. Very quickly my attitude towards him morphed into the intensely seething loathing I still have to this day. Bobbcat, Of course, I personally despise him, but here’s a couple of possible reasons why his likeability numbers remain high. Two theories for ODumbo’s likeability. One, the skewing of the polls by leaving out conservative likely voters. Gullible people who like the sound of his voice. Unfortunately, now that I re-read what I wrote, I’m convinced I have no idea why his likeability is reported to be high. Rachel

A New Iris Detection Method based on Cascaded Neural Network Faezeh Mohseni Moghadam1, Azadeh Ahmadi1, , Farshid Keynia2 1Department of Computer Engineering, University of Science and Technology, Kerman,Iran 2Graduate University of Advanced Technology,Kerman,Iran Abstract Iris recognition is one of the most reliable and applicable methods for a person's identification. The most complex and important phase of recognition is iris segmentation of an input eye image that affects iris recognition successful rate significantly. Due to missed parameters in noisy images, main error occurs in the performance of classic localization. Artificial neural networks (ANN) are appropriate substitutes for classic methods because of their flexibility on noisy images. In this paper, we use feedforward neural network (FFNN) for the improvement of iris localization accuracy. We apply two methods in order to reduce neural network error: first, designing one neural network for each output neuron .Second, using cascaded feedforward neural network (CFFNN). Then, we examine proposed methods on different datasets which cause remarkable reduction of localization error. At a glance: Figures Keywords: biometric, Iris localization, feedforward neural network, cascaded neural network, daugman's method,neural network designing Journal of Computer Sciences and Applications, 2013 1 (5), pp 80-84. DOI: 10.12691/jcsa-1-5-1 Received December 30, 2012; Revised June 17, 2013; Accepted June 18, 2013Copyright © 2014 Science and Education Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Cite this article: - Moghadam, Faezeh Mohseni, Azadeh Ahmadi, and Farshid Keynia. "A New Iris Detection Method based on Cascaded Neural Network." Journal of Computer Sciences and Applications 1.5 (2013): 80-84. - Moghadam, F. M. , Ahmadi, A. , & Keynia, F. (2013). A New Iris Detection Method based on Cascaded Neural Network. Journal of Computer Sciences and Applications, 1(5), 80-84. - Moghadam, Faezeh Mohseni, Azadeh Ahmadi, and Farshid Keynia. "A New Iris Detection Method based on Cascaded Neural Network." Journal of Computer Sciences and Applications 1, no. 5 (2013): 80-84. 1. Introduction Nowadays, considering the fact that, the protection of security information of countries, organizations and even the secret information of people having the highest degree of importance, an extreme need to create powerful ,exact and immune identification system is felt .Among the person’s biometric features, iris due to its texture, complexity and proved stability is applied as a suitable appropriate the person method for the person identification[Expert Systems With Applications 38,5940-5946,2011.">1, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol.31, N0.9, September 2009.">8]. All of the iris recognition systems in the world which are based on Daugman’s algorithm have acceptable recognition rate. In addition, they contain problems, such as iris resizing by the affect of environment light variations, iris inconsistence in images and also they give the ability to represent the iris in fixed dimensions [2].This real time algorithm decodes visible random patterns in person’s iris in standard light conditions and distance. Then, people are identified by using a strong experiment of statistical analysis [3].The algorithm is commonly used in countries such as The United Arab Emirates ,England and the Netherlands, for controlling boundaries and migration tasks [3]. This study is based on Daugman’s algorithm. Identification process consists of four steps:Data acquisition, preprocessing, feature extraction and matching [4]. The preprocessing phase contains different steps. For example, pupil and iris boundaries , detection and removal of eyelashes, eyelids and normalization. In 1994 Daugman [," IEEE Transaction CSV,Vol.14,N0.1,.21-30,2004.">9, IEEE Trans.Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence,Vol.15, No.11.1148-1161,1993.">10] presented the first phase-based method for iris recognition which phase information are independent from contrast and illumination of an image. In this method the pupil and iris boundaries are detected using integro-differential operator , given in Equation 1: I(x,y) is the image in spatial coordinates, r is the radius, (x₀,y₀) are center coordinates, Gσ(r) is Gaussian smoothing function of scale σ. At first, the maximum partial derivative of the contour integral of the image along the circular arc is calculated and the radius and center coordinates for pupil and iris are estimated .Eyelid boundaries are localized by parabolic arcs. Finally, the iris region of image is normalized to the polar form [18]. R.Wildes et al. [Machine visual Application, Vol.9,. 1-8,1996.">12, IEEE Proceedings, Vol.85, 1348-1363, 1997.">13, 14] iris recognition method is based on texture analysis .The pupil and the limbus are located by circular contours . The upper and lower eyelids are detected similarly with arcs instead of circles [11]. By using Hough transformation , edge points are detected which results in finding the particular values of circular contour parameters(x,y) and radius r. Li Ma’s system [15] selects points of iris patterns with sharp intensity variations as the iris features. Then, the image is projected into horizontal and vertical directions. exact parameters of pupil and iris circles are estimated by applying canny edge detection and Hough transformation .The Cartesian coordinate of the iris is projected into a polar coordinate system. By employing Gabor filter, the frequency information for spatial patterns of an iris are acquired .Then, the feature extraction phase is started. As described above, Wilde‘s and li Ma’s methods use Hough transformation. In Hough transformation algorithm [11], used an array, called accumulator to identify an existence of one line. Dimension of accumulator array is equal to unknown parameters of the problem .The line parameters are calculated for each point and it’s neighbourhood that can be considered as part of an edge. Then the location of saved parameters in the accumulator space is searched and by finding the highest values, the number of bin of the most probable lines is extracted and their geometric characteristic are read .The simplest way of finding them is applying different thresholds. One weak point of Hough transformation is utilizing different thresholds for the edge detection. Different thresholds setting can cause variation edges, that impresses the results significantly [11]. Most of the other researchers working on iris localization only utilize gradient information of an image and their extraction rate is not high in practice [11]. In Fadi N.sibai et al. [1] study, at first preprocessing is done on jpg images and after removing the top and down part of image, the RGB values are retrieved by java software and stored in excel. Pupil and sclera regions of an image are eliminated. Iris data are prepared according to three partitions: horizontal, vertical and blocking. The sum of RGB values of these partitions create the neural network’s input data. Finally , a feedforward neural network with one hidden layer is designed for recognition phase that has acceptable accuracy [1]. K.Saminathan et al. [5] developed previous algorithm and recognized pairs of iris with the same preprocessing and simple FFNN by employing error back propagation (EBP) training algorithm Without calculating the hamming distance. The neural network output for determining , weather the iris image is matched with real target or not, gives us yes/no answers which has proper accuracy. Above described algorithms apply classic methods for iris localization which don’t have any intelligence, if it is possible to do iris segmentation with NN then more desirable performance will be achieved like using NN in matching phase gives favorable results. In the paper of Rugggero Donida Labati et al. [4], an iterative method is presented for center and boundaries of iris detection. This algorithm starts with random initial pixels in input image .Then a series of local characteristics of the image from circular region of search space are extracted and are processed for variable patterns in iris boundaries. NN with parameters related to extracted boundaries is trained. By paying attention to calculated center, offsets in vertical and horizontal axis are estimated. Then the coordinates of starting points are updated with processed offsets .This algorithm iterates in fixed steps and based on the number of iterations, it’s results are refined. Also, the pupil and its boundaries are detected better. This method is applicable and has notable accuracy even when it is used on non-ideal or noisy images. When it starts from the points near to pupil or iris, it performs very well but when starts from other points related to the other regions of the image, the accuracy decreases. The main deficiency of this algorithm is its strong dependency of the initial start points, because it has random base [4]. In the other research [6], one neural network is trained based on Daugman’s method, which has minimum iris localization response time ,namely, detection speed and proper accuracy level .This localization algorithm suffers from the brightness of light in the pupil , that reduces the localization accuracy [6]. All of the existing iris localization algorithms can be implemented by using reformed neural networks such as SOM (self organized map), FF and CFF. One advantage of these methods is. One advantage of these methods is implementation of redundancy of feature space [7].Considering that NN in localization has good flexibility on noisy images while missed parameters cause large error in classic localization performance[6], therefore ,creating a NN is one reasonable superseded for iris localization and helps to performance increasing and accuracy of such systems. This paper is organized as following: Our proposed method is explained in section two ,which discusses about data preprocessing, designing and improvement of neural network structure and the methods which are employed for NN's performance enhancement are described in the section three. In the last section the results of proposed method are presented and discussed. 2. Proposed Method In our proposed approach which is based on Daugman's method [18], in the first step, preprocessing operation is done on the input images . Here ,we use CASIA _iris_ interval (v3) database images .In the second step, prepared data presented to the NN as an input, and the iris segmentation is learned in the internal procedure of the NN, finally according to the iris polar form ,the NN output will be obtained .In the next steps of the algorithm ,the structure and performance of the NN are enhanced respectively. The activities done on the input image are shown in Figure 1. View current figure in a new window In order to better the training phase ,it is necessary to preprocess on data .At first ,the scale of input-output must be assimilated .Toward preparing a relevant mapping between the input and the output, it is offered to vector the matrix of input images. Since the size of input images are 320*280, the number of input layer neurons will be numerous which subsequently leads to increase the time and memory of training dramatically. Hence, for deleting the similar data from input matrix, the correlation method is utilized. The most famous evaluation criterion of dependency between two quantities is called Pearson's correlation [16] .The population correlation coefficient ρx,y between two random variables X and Y with expected values µx and µy and standard deviations ơx and ơy is given in Equation (2). Where E is the expected value operator, cov means covariance and, corr is widely used as an alternative notation for Person's correlation. If the variables are quite independence, the corr output is zero. If there is fully positive linear relation(correlation),the output is +1 and if there is fully negative linear relation(anti-correlation),the output is -1. The results between -1,+1 indicate the degree of linear dependency between variables. In order to access the most appropriate number of input and output neurons, different threshold values for correlation are examined. For the reason that eye information have great volume, we use row partitioning to remove similar data. We apply correlation on the results of improved combined partitions. According to different thresholds, three groups of datasets are created .The input matrix is 89600*100 which a correlation with threshold value of 95% on every row partitioning is exerted .The target matrix is 4800*100.The final results of correlation on input partitions and target matrix for preparing datasets are shown in Table 1. View current table in a new window One of the most common method for smart building is applying NN. Several existing neural networks are radial basis function(RBF),multi-layer perceptron(MLP) and feedforward neural network(FFNN) [17]. Using FFNN widely in data processing , speech recognition , image processing and forecasting tasks gets a long with success that causes these networks known as the most applicable and well-known networks .With FF networks having one hidden layer and sufficient neurons, it is possible to perform every input-output mapping. Layer structure of this network is consists of one or more processing units which is called neuron .The neurons of every layer are connected to one or more neurons in next layer and there isn’t any connection between neurons of each layer with themselves. These connections with parameters of real value are named weight .The number of input, hidden and output neurons of one NN must be harmonized .Also the number of training samples for training NN is important, because if they are chosen less or more, the NN has incomplete training or become overtrained ,so we use 90 images as training samples and 25 images for testing.2.3. Training Method Training a neural network model means selecting one model from. This is done by simply taking the derivative of the cost function with respect to the network parameters and then changing those parameters in a gradient-related direction. Usual learning process are denominated forwardpropagation. If there is an error between the actual output and the output estimated by the NN , the learning process changes to a method named, back propagation , which feedbacks and adjusts the weight values for each layer again. In order to weights adjustment for minimizing the error, this algorithm uses the gradient of performance function. The structure of feed forward neural network with backpropagation training algorithm is shown in Figure 2. Activation function for each neuron uses sigmoid continuous function that is described in Equation 3: we use 90 images as training samples and 25 images for testing.2.4. Designing Neural Network Many researches illustrate that the accuracy of obtained solutions from neural network strongly depends on the size of this neural network .The size of neural network affects on the complexity, the training time and, the most important one, the possibility of neural network generalization .The number of input and output neurons can be determined based on the problem dimensions .A neural network with two hidden layers can estimate any arbitrary non-linear function and, generates any complex region of decision for classification problems .But it is possible that ,more hidden layers lead to more exact and rapid answers in practice. Different sizes of neural network must be examined totally, because via try and error the fit size of neural network will be obtained .The big neural networks need many training samples to achieve good performance. Whereas the small neural networks which can learn the desired mapping owing to consume less memory and less computational time and easier implementation ,are better theoretically and practically [19]. Also, it is so important that in the testing phase we get a quick answer .we represent the results of training three datasets with the simple feedforward neural network ,the error back propagation training algorithm and, one hidden layer with ten neurons .Here, for evaluating the performance of this NN ,the mean absolute percentage error (mape) is used .This error formula is shown in an equation 4,which O is the actual target and F is the NN output. A feedforward neural network with error back propagation training algorithm ,tansig transfer function and ,one hidden layer with ten neurons is applied .The results of this network with three datasets are shown in the Table 2. 2.5.1. Multilayer Feedforward Neural Network As explain above ,it is possible that using more than one hidden layer causes better estimation. After many examinations of datasets on neural networks with multi hidden layers and different number of hidden layer neurons ,we understand that in iris localization ,neural networks with two hidden layers perform better than neural networks with one hidden layer, and the best error average occurs even in more layers. 2.5.2. Transfer Function In order to access the properties that simplify or improve the neural network containing neurons ,transfer function for each neuron is utilized .The bipolar function of sigmoid is called tansig which is in the range of [-1,1].When the speed is more important than the exact shape of the transfer function ,this function is a suitable tradeoff for neural network .The logsig function receives the infinite positive and negative inputs and converts the output into the range of [0,1]. This function is commonly used in multilayer feedforward with error back propagation training algorithm. After comparison of neural network performance with two transfer functions , logsig and tansig ,we get the attractive results which indicate that though the logsig function decreases the speed of neural network a little ,but decreases the training error of the neural network a lot . The results of using multilayer feedforward neural network and logsig transfer function are shown in Table 3. 3. Enhancment of Neural Network Performance3.1. One Neural Network for Each Output Neuron(Multinet) The number of neurons in output layer is one of the system's freedom degree .It is better that the neurons of the output layer don't exceed from one neuron and whereas the number of output layer neurons are equal to the number of outputs [19] ,so it is better to get the outputs one by one , videlicet every neural network generate one output neuron to enhance the accuracy. Table 4 presented the results of this approach. The main problem of using a NN is ,it's initial weights and bias ,which are selected randomly that cause the NN substantial error .For reducing this error ,a method that cascades the NN can be applied .In this solution the weights and bias of the trained NN are transfered to the second one, as the initial weights and bias .If it can be feasible that among the trained NNs, acquired weights and bias from the NN that has the best result( the minimum error), can be transfered to the second one by a controlled way , the NN output gives more better results whereas , the second NN is learned with suitable trained weights and bias instead of initial random ones. In Figure 3, the structure of cascaded neural network is illustrated and in Table 5, the results of using CFFNN are presented. 4. Conclusion The aim of this paper is presenting an intelligent approach with an acceptable error and time for iris localization. After finding proper structure of NN for this application, the proposed method is improved by using One neural network for each output neuron (multinet) and cascaded neural network. It is seen that the multinet method can boost accuracy somedeal , but cascading can improve it more noticeably and aggress us to our purpose .According to the Table 3, and Table 5 for dataset(b) by using 6 layer FFNN, the minimum error is 1.5237, whereas, minimum error in the cascaded improved NN, changes to 0.8935. During different experiences with cascaded NN ,the iris is localized by good estimation .The best result of NN performance is the minimum error 0.8935 which indicates that the estimation of iris location is done very well. Also the appropriate training time 52 seconds and testing time 0.0532 seconds is achieved in this chosen neural network. so we attain the more powerful system in iris recognition phase .If it is possible to generalize these networks in the way that the weights and bias can be controlled, our network will take place in the best situation.

It’s a subject that divides people across the country and indeed, around the world. Should the Duchess of Cornwall become Queen when Prince Charles accedes to the throne? Some argue she cannot, others that she must – I’m going to explain in this article exactly why I believe Camilla must become Queen. It was a defining moment in the progression of the British Monarchy. The day in 2005 that the future king of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Realms married a divorcée. The last time such a thing had happened, in 1936, the King had to renounce his right to the throne. But times have moved on, haven’t they? Clarence House, at the time of the 2005 wedding, made it known that Camilla – upon her husband’s accession to the throne – would be known as HRH The Princess Consort, a title which has never been used in Britain before and was contrived in order to try and quell negative public feeling towards her when she was first introduced to the public eye. It is now nine years on from this, and much has happened in between then and now. We’ve got to know Camilla for who she is, not what we think she’s done. At least, I thought we had. Whilst support is increasingly moving in her favour; there are still many whose feelings of contempt towards the Duchess of Cornwall have led them to the conclusion that she should not be queen. From my point of view, I find the argument people cite against her becoming Queen typically consistent of shallow observations about her past and in some exceptional cases, comments on appearance, but nothing that amounts to a sustainable reason in modern times why this woman shouldn’t be our Queen. In fact, her many virtues are far more significant than the superficial arguments offered by the opposition to her becoming Queen. For one, she genuinely cares about what she’s doing – picking causes that matter to her and taking a genuine interest in them as well as drawing public attention to them in the process. She is also incredibly assured of her behaviour in public, she has never put a foot wrong as a member of the Royal Family and across the globe has been an excellent ambassador for the UK along with her husband. I’m not avoiding the obvious here, I am acutely aware of the argument borne by outraged Diana fans and certain close-minded individuals but isn’t it time to move on? Don’t get me wrong: what happened with Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales was tragic but none of us can know exactly what went on in their marriage and to apportion all blame on Camilla seems unreasonable, and for what purpose? Are we trying to punish her? To me, the idea of this kind of judgement of Camilla is absurd. Personal matters should surely be immaterial to whether or not she should be our Queen. To deny Camilla the title of Queen could also set a dangerous precedent. To become personally selective with titles brings the whole system of monarchy into question. Giving republicans any ammunition like that would not be in any way desirable. For me, the bottom line is that to deny Camilla the title of Queen would be the ultimate snub to all that she has done. In my view, she has successfully challenged public perception of her and carved out a unique role for herself in the face of the frankly unreasonable prejudices carried by some towards her over her past. It is through her commitment to her role that I feel she has even earn the right, if that’s how to put it, to be our Queen. Ultimately, the process of trying to change the legal title of the wife of a king would be an ugly one, and not one any self-respecting politician would willingly go through. It would essentially involve a full political debate before passing an act of parliament and as well as being a possible questionable use of parliamentary time and creating a whole host of problems in the Commonwealth realms – as well as seeming personally invidious towards Camilla. My concluding thoughts must be that I for one fully support a Queen Camilla. Quite simply because anything else just wouldn’t be right. Contribute your thoughts on the Queen Camilla debate in the comments box below. photo credit: shaunamey and UK Parliament via photopin cc My thoughts on the title of the king’s wife have absolutely NOTHING to do with the current cast of characters. For years I have felt that if the Queen’s husband is NOT given the title of King (and I understand why he doesn’t and am in total agreement with it) then the King’s wife should NOT be titled as Queen. Princess Consort or Princess of the Realm or some other title should suffice. This is a reasonable position – though it comes down to common law rather than any kind of institutional sexism. Woman traditionally takes husband’s title & name, Monarchy reflects this. I can see your reasoning but I think the status quo is logical. I’m not British. If you want the monarchy by Queen Camilla, then why not ldarle the title of King, the Prince Consort Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II I’m not British. If the monarchy by Queen Camilla wants, then why not give the title of King, the Prince Consort Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II I’m very glad to see this article, which was very well written and addressed all the relevant points, IMHO. A monarchy is based on a country’s traditions and precedents. In the United Kingdom, when a Prince of Wales becomes His Majesty the King, his wife’s title is Her Majesty the Queen. That’s just the way it is, and has always been. Constitutionally, it would require an act of Parliament to downgrade Camilla’s status and I think no one would dare introduce such legislation after Prince Charles’ accession. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that even if something of this nature made it’s way through Parliament, it would still require Royal Assent; that is, the monarch’s signature. Does anyone think Charles would sign it? I loved Diana too, but what’s done is done and it’s time to move on and focus on the future. Charles and Camilla work very hard at what they do, and their personal relationship is no one else’s business. It’s long past time to stop bashing the Duchess of Cornwall. Well said Ricky. My thoughts entirely. Ricky. Absolute drivel. Focus on the future? My God. Is that what he was doing when telling our future Queen he wanted to be her Tampon. I and many others will never forgive or forget their antics against a lovely lady he used just to bear him children while carrying on with that dried up ……… They can rot in hell for all I care. What an example to the future on how to develop loving relationships with truth and decency. That’s not true Ricky because the current queens husband is only a prince Bravo for having the courage to point out this fact. As mentioned in a previous reply, the situation with Prince Philip is almost entirely different to that of Camilla. The fact Prince Philip isn’t king is down to common law (i.e. a woman takes her husband’s rank, name and title unless hers is higher) – the wife of every English (and later British) king has invariably been a Queen. Shouldn’t he fall under the same rules as his uncle. Not to marry a divorced women or to abdocate his throne? Not rules, just convention of the time. Church of England doesn’t oppose divorce now and there’s no need for Prince Charles to abdicate. It should be pointed out that King Edward VIII did not absolutely have to go; he had choices: 1. Marry Mrs. Simpson and stay on the throne, even if that would mean the resignation of his cabinet and possibly provoke a crisis at home and the Empire countries. 2. Remain on the throne as a single man, and give up seeing Mrs. Simpson. 3. Continue seeing Mrs. Simpson, but not marry her or anyone else. 4. Marry someone else later on who would become Queen. 5. Take his case to the people, and appeal to them for a decision. 6. Abdicate in favour of his brother, the Duke of York. As we all know, he chose the last option after weighing his choices. But he did have these choices, as well as others I may have missed. She will alway`s be nothing but a s**t on the side. And i`ll give it the same respect it gave to her lover`s wife……as in none at all!! He could be become king tomorrow….THAT w***e will always be beneath me and i`ll never have any respect for it or him while he`s with it! THAT is never going to be no queen of mine !! I`ll decide who i respect thank you The Duchess of Cornwall is Prince Charles’ wife, and as such she is a senior member of the Royal Family. In due course she will be Queen of the United Kingdom. The article above concentrates on the good work Camilla has undertaken, rather than focusing on negative opinions of past events. You’re entitled to your opinion of course, but I don’t understand why you would come to this site with such a negative comment. Perhaps you’re new here, but the tone of your remarks is quite out of place with the positive atmosphere Royal Central tries to maintain. Are you out of you mind? The article above concentrates on the good work Camilla has undertaken…. as in sleeping with someone else husband from start to finish of a marriage to the point it destroyed it even after there were kids. Nothing can wipe that slate clean! And as for….. I don’t understand why you would come to this site with such a negative comment…. thats what its for to voice your opinion and when im told some moraless s**t might be representing my country as Queen trust me im going to have one! Again, opinion yes, but you cannot change the onward march of history. As the world goes these days, Camilla is pretty darned moral and a wonderful person overall. This is the exact attitude I’m on about! A sense of false superiority, as if you know exactly what went on in her life and you’re judging her for it. It’s disgusting that you would personally attack someone in that way. Grow up! unbatedmedus, that is a despicable thing to say! If you were my child I would wash your mouth with soap and water! That is the senseless attitude of a child, one full of a false sense of superiority, shameful! Diana is on tape describing exactly how Camilla made her feel. I don’t see anything wrong with judging Camilla negatively for it. If I can’t be grown up because I attack Camilla, then I would rather not be grown up, thank you. Diana is dead and gone. Move on. Who really cares about how she felt back then. The princes quite love Camilla. If they can, you can at least quietly ignore her. No, I am not going to move on. When Diana died, I vowed that I would hate Camilla for the rest of my life and I meant it. I care how Diana felt back then, and I think William and Harry are stabbing their mother in the back if they “quite love Camilla”. William and Harry, bless their hearts, put on a good show. Camilla makes papa happy, and as everyone is aware, that MUST be the most important thing in everyone’s world….note obvious sarcasm….”Tolerate” is a word I would use….love? Nope…. Can you be sure they have not grown to love her. I’ve read a biography and she’s very well liked by those who know her. I’ve read they love her very much. Life does indeed move on. It is not disloyal to their mother. No one will ever displace her in their hearts, but maybe their hearts are big enough for loving a step mom also. Why not! I disagree that it is not disloyal to their mother. I think Diana would heartbroken if she knew her sons “love” Camilla as you claim. You must be a very unhappy person indeed. Do you think Diana would want people to go on hating someone on her behalf for the rest of their lives? I remember seeing a banner someone placed on the railings of Kensington Palace just before the funeral that referred to her as “Diana of Love.” I think you could find a better way to honour her memory than pledging to hate Camilla. I never use the word hate. Too strong a word. Unfortunately, we will never know how Diana would feel about anything, and shouldn’t really make assumptions about it at this point in a futile attempt to have anyone’s negative opinions change about Camilla. I was replying to Cynthia when I spoke about hating Camilla. But I have to agree that it’s a waste of time trying to change some people’s opinions about her. I thought Diana was wonderful, and when Prince Charles remarried, I was undecided about what to think of Camilla. I suppose I felt that I would be disloyal to Diana’s memory to have a positive opinion of the new Duchess of Cornwall. But over the years my opinion of her improved as I saw her dedication to the charity work she has undertaken. I feel much the same as the author of the article above. I’m very much aware that many people will continue hating Camilla, but I’m entitled to my opinion too. I certainly agree. If she was the woman I believe she had become, she would not want this hate thing going on at all. Cannot imagine why anyone feels hate for life is some sort of virtue. Di could hold a grudge longer than anyone, and so can I. And I am truly sorry for you. I don’t think Diana would hold a grudge Cynthia….do/did you know Diana personally?? I know I didn’t. I was one of the millions who watched her funeral and cried like a baby. I cursed both Charles and Camilla…..but over time, I felt the need to forgive..they truly love one another. The Queen, William and Harry have all moved on with their lives…it is such a shame that people like you waste your life hating someone you don’t know…..it’s exhausting…. It’s my opinion. I didn’t know Diana personally, but she was known to hold grudges against people and good for her if she did. I don’t mind hating Camilla. well said! I am seriously sorry for you. Hate corrodes the hater and doesn’t hurt the object of their hate one bit. I’ve decided you’re joking to provoke an interesting conversation. You could not actually feel this way. I really don’t like Camilla, and that is no joke. Tell you what……..seeing as there is a new moral standered going on Who thinks next time some married p**k comes on to me i should date him kids or no kids! rub his wifes face in it to the point she has to leave to save her own self respect? Just for my own happiness :)…….anyone ?????? If someone’s being hurt, then of course it’s wrong. But there’s no way to change the past, and there’s nothing to be gained by holding onto a grudge forever. Doing that only makes the pain last longer. I enjoy holding grudges. Saying mean things about Camilla makes me feel good, if nothing else. It didn’t even begin to play out that way. You may, of course, decide who to respect, but you have not say whatsoever in who will be your queen. Trust me on this. You make a good argument against monarchy. I know first ladies can be unpopular too, but the nation is not stuck with them for life. I’m American. I’d give anything to have what you all have. At least in this era with Parliament strong, the monarch not all-powerful and the real commitment the royal family shows to the citizens and the country, as well as the vast amounts of time and treasure the Firm puts forth doing good, giving stability, something to count on. Our politics suck. One can get whiplash now that the next elections start right after the ones just passed. You have a middle to hold you together, we don’t. How can you have a democracy without politicians? Would you rather have an absolute monarchy? Did you read the same comment as I did? Nowhere did Anni say she wanted an absolute monarchy, or a lack of politicians. Please reread what she wrote, especially that part about “this era with Parliament strong, the monarch not all-powerful and the real commitment the royal family shows to the citizens and the country.” Yes, that part. Well she said “our politics suck” and lamented the frequency of elections.. Sounds like she wants a lack of politicians and democracy to me. Fortunately for everyone else on the planet you don’t speak for us unbatedmedusa, you speak only for yourself. Just as you are free to hate whomever you choose, so are the rest of us free to like or at least tolerate whomever WE choose. I’d be willing to bet a considerable sum of money that the Duchess of Cornwall isn’t going to lose any sleep because you consider her to be her husband’s ‘s**t on the side.’ If one royal member had to give up the throne for love and a twice divorced women, Then all should apply no matter the reason. They set these rules for a reason. King Edward VIII did not have to give up his throne in order to marry Mrs. Simpson, because there are no such rules. The British government of the day, and those of the Empire countries, felt she was unacceptable as a Queen Consort, and told the King that if he married her they would all resign. King Edward had choices. He could have gone ahead and married her, remained on the throne, and accepted the resignations of the Prime Minister and the others. He could have stayed on the throne as a bachelor, or married someone else later on. It was his decision to abdicate, and as we all know, he married Mrs. Simpson the following year. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s main objection to Wallis Simpson was that she was a divorcee, with two living husbands. In those days divorce was seen as a major social disgrace, but attitudes have changed considerably since 1936. I think just about everyone in the government resigning would have been a disaster, both at home and abroad. Random question though: does the commonwealth law state anything on what is to be done if such a mass resignation happens? I am rather curious about such things. In political matters, there’s always someone looking for an opportunity to hold senior offices such as Prime Minister or other cabinet positions. Whichever political party holding a majority in Parliament would have someone at it’s head, and the monarch or Governor-General would appoint them. Okay. Thanks for the info. Edward VIII was also a Nazi sympathiser who gave the British Government a horrendous headache. George V predicted that within a year he would destroy himself and made it clear that he hoped nothing stood in the way of George VI and Elizabeth II from taking the throne. Had Edward VIII not been such a bloody nuisance he probably could have remained king. One Royal Member cut off his wife’s head after their relationship grew sour. By your logic, we should have done that with Diana too. Actually that particular “Royal Member” cut off the heads of two of his wives, and ‘divorced’ another two. Though what Henry VIII was really after with those ‘divorces’ was annulments rather than divorces. And yes royal wives did have to mind their “p’s & q’s” in days gone by. It is only in the late 20th century that Royal husbands have also been expected to be more circumspect with their behaviour. I got the impression that Wallis Simpson had been suspected of having an affair with Von Ribbentrop, who was Nazi Germany’s ambassador to UK, which is one reason why she was not wanted as Edward VIII’s wife. Also, she was American & not native-born British, unlike Camilla. And most importantly of all, unlike Camilla, who already has a grown-up family, and is now too old to have more children with Charles, Wallis Simpson’s marrying Edward VIII in 1936 could have changed the succession from what it is now. So it won’t hurt anyone or change anything if Camilla is made Queen Consort. There was a great deal of lurid gossip about Mrs. Simpson going around then, even before the story of her romance with the King got into the British newspapers. But it’s just speculation, since anyone who might have known something wouldn’t be alive today to bear witness. That being the case, I think it’s unfair to judge her based on conjecture. But even if there had been King Edward and Queen Wallis it would not have changed the succession. The Duchess of Windsor is known to have told a few people close to her that her husband was not “heir-conditioned,” as she put it. The succession would have been the same, only delayed for about 20 years. His niece would still have been Heiress Presumptive, and would have become Queen after his death in 1972. If success laws can be changed then other things regarding the monarchy can be changed too. Oh well, if Camilla is Queen let’s make life difficult for her. Call her ugly, send her hate mail and general negative vibes her way. Hope she cracks under the strain, The Daily Express says she’s taken up smoking again. Good.. Why are you so resentful, Cynthia? She is the love of Prince Charles’ life, who he should have been allowed to marry in the first place..when Charles is King..she can be nothing other than Queen.. I would be honoured to meet her and curtsey to her. I want to be Prince Charles’s mistress. I can love him better than Camilla can. Having us on. Following the whole conversation shouts that you are having a giggle here. No. I really want to be Prince Charles’s mistress. I think he’s cute and I want to hurt Camilla. If you are serious, which I’m doubting that you are, then that really wouldn’t make you any better than Camilla, according to your own moral code. No, I’m serious. I don’t mind being with an older, married man. Considering the rewards Camilla has received for breaking the moral code, FINE, I’ll break the moral code as well!!! it was not good enough in 1936 why should we lower our standards now .so like the aussies Canada we don’t want Charles and the divorcee. also Charles has weird idea of being defender of the faiths NO he is defender of the church of England and that goes back to henry the 8th and queen Elizabeth the 1st the founders of the church of ENGLAND if he becomes king he is the head of our church not any other so don’t kill our church its suffered enough with the loonie lefties. pass the crown on a generation to the younger royals they look pristine and not soiled That is up to the Law of Succession and the UK Parliament. I’m not even sure that Canada has passed those amendments to the Law of Succession to permit a girl to inherit the throne, rather than a younger brother. And since the third in line is a boy anyway there is probably no more hurry. I’m not British, but it seems to me that one of the strongest reasons for Monarchy (and particularly today for Constitutional Monarchy) is that it has rules and traditions that keep it a timeless embodiment of the State and the continuity through time and space of a particular people. As the Editor clearly states, tampering with these rules and traditions breaks the inner logic of this kind of system (for example, something which one of your monarchs, Charles II, clearly recognized when refusing to capitulate to those pressuring him to alter the succession by passing over his Catholic brother James, Duke of York, and choosing his illegitimate son, James, Duke of Monmouth). You mean like the tradition of Colonialism? It is time for the royals to join the real world – work for their living and for the absurd class divisive and undemocratic Monarchy is abolished. Lena, you just very clearly proved the position of the article. If tradtions such as the Kings wife being called the Queen Consort are not adhered to, the Monarchy would be brought into question. The wife of the King has always been known as the Queen Consort, and only an act of parliament can change that. It is what it is. kkeri12, you are forgetting that in the current monarchy, Queen Elizabeth’s husband is PRINCE Philip … NOT King Philip or King Consort Philip … so in other words, you’re so full of crap that your eyes are brown. If a guy marries a queen he does not become King as the title of King is higher than that of a queen, hence why Phillip is only HRH Prince Phillip. If a female marries into the monarchy they become the Queen consort as that title is still below that of a King Ozark Granny, I’m totally not full of crap. Instead, I was smart enough to do research before commenting, and I suggest you do the same to avoid future embarrassments. The subject of Queen Consort and Prince Consort was already addressed in great detail in other comments posted here, but evidently you skipped reading it and decided to leap before looking, which = FAIL! So I’ll recap the info for you : In British Royalty, the wife takes the rank and title of her husband, just as non-royal wives take the surnames of their husbands. A husband NEVER takes the rank and title of his royal wife, instead she keeps her rank and adds his name. That’s why the Queen’s cousin Princess Alexandra became ‘Princess Alexandra, Lady Ogilvy’ after marrying Sir Angus Ogilvy. Prior to her marriage she was called Princess Alexandra of Kent. Within the British Monarchy, ‘King’ is literally considered a higher rank than ‘Queen’. The wife of a reigning King is called the Queen Consort, but the husband of the Queen regnant is called the Prince Consort. The Queen’s husband cannot be called ‘King Consort’ because that places him in a position to potentially outrank the Sovereign. By being named Prince Consort instead, the Queen’s husband has a rank that is only a step below the Queen regnant, and is still higher in the royal hierarchy than everyone else in the kingdom. A good example is Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert, the last Prince Consort prior to Prince Philip. Ozark Granny; One of the reasons I enjoy Royal Central as much as I do is because the discussions are remarkably civil and the commenters are usually respectful of each other, even if they disagree on something. As I’ve said before, I’ve stopped going to certain other sites where some of the discussions go to shocking extremes. I think we have something very special here at Royal Central, and other sites could take a lesson from the way most of us conduct ourselves. Seldom have I seen such coarse, personal insults used against another commenter like you have done. All the other person did to earn this abuse was to express a different opinion. This is quite unnecessary, and you do your beliefs a great disservice when you resort to this kind of name calling. I agree. Really the monarch is a symbol of unity. And a monarchy such as this embodies tradition. It is a noble and admirable thing. We should not throw out the past because it is old. Camilla should only be the consort of Charles should he be made King.I would prefer he be passed over for William to succeed. But that would require acts of parliament in all Commonwealth Realms. Merely allowing for universal primogeniture too a concerted effort to implement despite it being well and truly time. For something as minor as this it really is not worth the effort. That is exactly what will happen in due course. Camilla will be Queen Consort when Charles inherits the throne. And the crown will not skip a generation because it just doesn’t work that way. William’s time will come later on; be patient! Whichever title is used, whether Queen or not, Camilla would still be the consort of Charles, nothing more and nothing less. England, itself, has had at least 6 Queens who could rule in their own right as Queens Regnant, including our present Queen Elizabeth II. All the rest were Queen Consorts, the wives of Kings. There were two consorts of these Queens Regnant who got to be entitled KIngs, either because in the case of Philip II, because he was already King of Spain, or because William III had a valid claim to the English & Scottish throne, himself. There was a good political reason why the remaining Prince Consorts were not offered the position of King Consort, if such a position exists anywhere at all. And no, I don’t think Charles should be passed over for William who needs the time to enjoy his new family, whilst he still can, and to amass experience in his position. King Consort is a real title but not used often in the UK. Yes, Philip II of Spain was given the title King Consort and he would have likely had the same title regardless of whether or not he was ready Spain’s king. As for William III, he was not a King Consort, although he should have been but argued that he be allowed to reign as co-Sovereign with his wife and 1st cousin. Parliament consented because William brought a military force with him from the Netherlands and Parliament just wanted to have the matter settled. They gave in because it was the lesser of two evils not because the title doesn’t exist. I totally agree with you Karen! At the end of the day it has always been that the king/queen cannot be seen to marry a divorcee! I’m not being old fashioned, I’m saying why the hell should Charles be treated any differently because apart from being married to a divorcee, he is one himself. Camilla should never be queen and Charles should never be king!! I agree because of all misunderstanding, distrust ,and dislike, I think these two should step down, if not for themselves, to save the monarchy itself, they never would find the love & devotion that William and his family would have I disagree. She should not be queen of England because A) she is a divorcee’, and the King of England is the head of the Anglican Church B) he was the lover of Prince Charles before and after he married Lady Diana B) for respect of William and Harry C) if she become queen of England may people turn away from British Monarchy. Uh, the Anglican church only exists to celebrate divorce. The beauty of not having a rigid written constitution is its flexible and can adapted to any circumstances. Besides Charles remarried in st George chapel, not Westminster abbey. Prince Charles married Camilla in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall. A ceremony of blessing followed at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. I think his legal marriage actually took place in Windsor’s town hall. A blessing took place at the chapel at Windsor Castle. it was Started by Henry v111 so he could get a divorce ! There were actually a few more good reasons. And, they were annulments, not divorces. Baron, its Queen of the united kingdom and not England. It has been like this since 1701 and the glorious reign of HM Queen Anne. Baron does have a point. The United Kingdom consists of four countries: two kingdoms (England and Scotland), a principality (Wales), and an earldom (Northern Ireland). There are also other areas like the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, etc. Elizabeth II is the Queen of the two kingdoms, England and Scotland. Legally, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland form one Kingdom (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) – The Queen is Queen of the United Kingdom, it’s not correct to say she’s Queen of England or Queen of Scotland separately… at the moment. Regarding the Channel Islands, that’s not part of the United Kingdom – The Queen reigns over them as ‘crown dependencies’ and as such is not Queen but is referred to as the Duke of Normandy on the Channel Islands. How very confusing, but extremely interesting! Thank you, and I stand corrected. I got that information from an American TV documentary, and am glad to know it was incorrect. Isn’t there someone in the Royal Family who holds the title “Earl of Ulster?” That’s why I thought Northern Ireland’s status was (technically) an earldom. Was I correct about the legal status of the Isle of Man? Also, if Scotland votes for independence (which I doubt) and wanted to continue their association with the monarchy, would that make HM Queen of each country separately? Northern Ireland is a ‘province’ rather than a kingdom or principality etc. The eldest son of the Duke of Gloucester is known as George, Earl of Ulster though as with all peerage titles (except Cornwall and Lancaster), none have anything to do with the territory in their title normally. The Isle of Man isn’t part of the United Kingdom and as I say, The Queen reigns over it as Duke of Normandy rather than Queen of the UK. As things stand, if Scotland votes for independence, The Queen will become Queen of an independent Scotland (Queen of Scots) in the same way as she’s separately Queen of Canada and Queen of Australia etcetera. Thank you. I thought the Queen was known as the Duke of Normandy in one (or all) of the Channel Islands; was I mistaken about that, or is that title used in both places? My mistake, The Queen is known as the Lord of Mann on the Isle of Mann and of course as Duke of Normandy on all of the Channel Islands. So from your reasoning Charles should not be King of England because he is divorced and had a lover whilst being married to his first wife. Absolutely silly and pointless issue to discuss. Get rid of the lot of them! Republicans are so miserable. That’s why they have no support. They’re like “a candle in the wind”. Useless..!!!! Absolutely. Long live the future King! Long live the future Queen! And WHY ? A snub to what she has done? Well, we all know what she has done….. If this was April 1st, I’d have to say ” good one” Let’s look at percentages here. Have you been 100% moral? If you have, and you lead any kind of life at all, I guarantee you you won’t remain so. I was with one man for 20 years, married for 18 of those 20…..lost him to cancer in 2003, have not been with any man before him or since….and I still have a life..so, yes….I can say when it comes down to sticking myself in someone else’s marriage, I am 100% moral! Thanks for asking! Edward and Wallis were pretty much banished because of their “love” …I think the trend should continue….but that’s just me… Edward was a Nazi sympathizer. Maybe Wallis was just a good excuse to push him out. He didn’t really have to go you know. There are a lot of things in a life moral and immoral, not just sex stuff! Hundreds of immoral things have nothing to do with sex. Kathy I wouldn’t mind getting to know you. I am a royal supporter, single, and looking for someone similar to talk all things monarchy and maybe go visiting famous places connected with royalty. I would love to have a companion for friendship and romance. Maybe u could email me through the royal central website. My name is Mark I live in London. My parents made a point of teaching me to be 100% moral. I was always punished severely if I was anything less. So yes, other people like Camilla deserve to be punished too. Yes, proves me right. You must be a very unhappy woman. I wish you some sense of love overtaking you to cleanse you of the mean past your parents seem to have inflicted on you. Moral is something that should be gently taught with love, not by severe punishments. Bless your heart, dear. I rather doubt we’ll ever know exactly what any of the three players in those events actually did. We have pieces and bits, mushed together, not much else. Charles seemed pretty much pushed towards a virgin as a wife, too young to have a past–at least way back there in the ancient 1980’s! Diana was a 19 year old with a rotten, loveless childhood behind her, which left her with an eating disorder and lacking in self-confidence at the time of their marriage. She wasn’t ready for the life she was headed for. (Camilla had a wonderful childhood and was loved.) Diana quite forged a wonderful life that she much more enjoyed than she’d have enjoyed the one she had before the divorce, I’m pretty sure. She was loved by many, and lovely. The good that came of that marriage was William and Harry, who seem quite well-adjusted. And now we have an heir who is in a happy marriage, Like Elizabeth II, like George VI. This can only be a good thing Umm…we have more than pieces and bits. What about “there were three of us in this marriage” do you not UNDERSTAND??????? These two people USED another human being, and Diana paid the price with her LIFE. These two and their “happiness” came at the expense of Diana’s innocence and her LIFE, may they NEVER forget what they did. It was despicable to plot, plan and play with the emotions of a young woman whom was madly in love with her husband, her children and her country. They killed the rightful Queen to be, and there is no way on God’s green earth that the mistress should be bestowed such an honor. Actually neither of them deserve this honor. That was Diana’s opinion do you not understand that! I do despair. They were not using her, they hurt her, but they were not using her. There was no plot. If any one was using her it was those who forced Charles to marry her in the first place as he did not want to. She had long wanted to be the Princess of Wales; I rather doubt she was madly in love with him. There’s nothing about deserving and it’s not an honor. It’s a birthright. Let’s say for the sake of argument that someone directly in line to the throne was a complete and total asshole. Would you still want that person to be King? I’m easy but Prince Philip has never been seen as ‘King.’ Let Camilla be King’s consort. That’s exactly what will happen when the Prince of Wales becomes King Charles III. Gonna be George VII How do you know what name Charles will take as King? Did he tell you this? This will be the first decision he will make as King, but I don’t see any reason why he would be known by anything other than the name he has been known as all his life. Especially since he now has a grandson named George, and they don’t need two Georges in the Royal Family. It is an educated guess, only. His grandfather was Albert, known in the family as Bertie, but reigned as George. Biggest majority of kings of Great Britain are Georges and Edwards. It would make much sense for George VII to be followed by William whatever number it is, to be followed by George VIII. It’s pretty typical in the historical view. We had a James, Charles, Charles, James. There had never been a King Albert and he picked the name George primarily because Albert was “too German” sounding and WWII was looming on the horizon. This however is the exception rather than the rule. Most English and British Kings have reigned using their first given names. Prince Charles is not in the same situation and there is no reason why he would reign as “George” or any other name than Charles. The Queen must have thought “Charles” would be a good name for a king when she named him. Her parents were rather unhappy she named her heir Charles, I’ve read that in some of the history I’ve read over the years. My guess is she put George as his fourth name, hoping he would be a George just as her beloved father was, also using his fourth name. Charles is not a great name to reign as, historically, but If he chooses it, fine by me and seriously more power to him. I’m only guessing because it’s fun for me. I like the monarchy and like to read about them. Better than some hobbies. But the first thing they are asked is what name they will reign under. It has more often than you may think been something other than the first name. Victoria’s name was Alexandrina Victoria, Edward VII’s name was Albert Edward. It is not unknown. So what? It is still the exception, not the rule. No, it won’t. Look for another Royal Central article called “What Will Charles’ Accession Be Like?” and find a link among the comments for an article that has put to rest the speculation about Prince Charles’ regnal name. Cannot really know, speculation by the rest of us cannot be put to rest, until the time comes. Though after some more reading I’ve decided he may well be Charles III. I like that as Charles I is a saint in the Anglican Church, so it would seem, and I guess he was actually quite popular in his day. The King’s wife has always been his consort and she has always been called ‘Queen Consort’ because she shares his rank and title, just as any other married woman would share the surname of her husband and be called Mrs. XYZ if she were the wife of Mr. XYZ. Prince Philip is not a wife, he’s a husband. He can NOT share his wife’s rank and title. He was born with the rank and title of Prince Philp of Greece, and after their marriage the Queen used Letters Patent to bestow upon Prince Philip the rank of a Prince of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, but just as husbands do not take their wives surname, royal husbands do not share their wife’s rank and title. Prime example: Neither Princess Anne’s first husband Captain Mark Phillips, or her present husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Lawrence, has ever been called HRH, yet the wives of both of Princess Anne’s brothers were called HRH during their marriage. Bottom line: Women take on their husband’s rank and title, men do not, it is what it is. A sexist tradition that dates back to when a wife was little more than her husband’s property. Like millions of married women in the world I share my husband’s surname, and our two children have his surname as well. It’s 2014 and in no way does having his name mean we are his property. It means we’re his family! Actually Camilla Parker Bowles was Prince Charles mistress the s***Princess Consort should be her only title..I think the public will be disappointed if that cow becomes Queen Camilla Disappointment, fine. Name calling and the like–nothing at all good can come of these. I don’t know. Name calling makes me laugh which makes me feel good. Really, we must stop judging people so harshly. Camilla and Charles cannot help that they love each other. Ultimately, they found their way back to each other, Diana is dead, Diana’s sons accept and respect Camilla, and she will be Queen some day. Diana is dead because she fucked another guy ….PRICK ….The Royals killed her … Go get yourself a life BULL SHIT … YOU’RE BUYING INTO THEIR SICK, DEMENTED ACT HOOK, LINE AND SINKER. If that’s love, then I’m the Archangel Gabriel. (I’m 100% certain that I’m not.) Preach! Bless you! This is an amazing article!! I completely agree. The monarchy is a continuous succession. The wife of a King is a Queen, not a Princess. One of the main reasons for Camilla becoming Queen should be that she makes our future King Charles HAPPY … and we all know the disaster that an unhappy king can be! Yet, Queen Victoria’s husband was Prince Consort, and the current Queen’s husband is not even that, just a Duke. So this is a gender issue I guess. Prince Consort is one of the Duke of Edinburgh’s titles. When someone brings it up with him he usually says that he doesn’t use it because of it’s association with Prince Albert. It’s much the same as the Duchess of Cornwall not using the title Princess of Wales, but legally she is now the rightful holder of that title. I see, I hadn’t looked at all of his titles. Thanks for clarifying. There are other Prince Consorts in various European monarchies. But still, is it a gender issue in Britain? Wrong Ricki. She is not legally the Princess of Wales and should not be Queen either. She should just be known as, what amount to, wife of the King should he be crowned. She is Princess of Wales and will be Queen automatically when Prince Charles becomes king. Whenever someone brings this up with Camilla, she says she doesn’t use that title because of it’s recent association with Diana. But legally, she is the present Princess of Wales. Prince Consort is NOT one of Philip’s titles. He is QEII’s consort, yes, but the two of them jointly discussed and decided to forgo the formal Prince Consort title as his peerage title would be forgotten. I can make him happier. You’re talking from outside of their residence … many of their staff has said this is NOT true. The number of relentlessly ignorant, darned right stupid, undereducated and poisonously mean-spirited people in the world absolutely astound me and give me precious little hope for the future of the human race. Anni, I feel the same way. In all the time I’ve been reading and commenting on Royal Central, I’ve never seen such mean-spirited remarks as I’m seeing on this article. We don’t have to agree with each other, but we certainly can be civil while discussing it. I used to read essays and comments on another site where the verbal brawling could go to shocking extremes. It got so bad that I decided to stop going there because it just upset me too much. I hope Royal Central doesn’t get so bad that I stop coming, but I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth the aggravation. I seriously hope it can get a bit more civil. I do love the site. You’re giving the British a bad name, deary. I’m biologically part British and dearly love the British … except when they judge other people when they themselves should be looking in the mirror … I’m one hundred thousand percent certain that you are NOT perfect and neither is anyone else on the face of this planet, Anni. The only perfect man who ever walked on this planet was crucified 2014 years ago. Yes … please look at yourself in the mirror before you start to judge others … what you stated gives me the impression that you’re talking about yourself, deary. Camilla will hardly be accepted internationally…..she created her own drama My, my, my, not everyone knows as much as you seem to know! Face of a Cow and married to a Dick Not needed in todays age …Parasites who get money from the people they are so in love with …Yea …Also ask yourselfs one question …Are they special ? …Do they have Special Blood …. FFS we are all born equal …..Why are these parasites different to you ….PLEASE ANSWER Camilla has a drinking problem that has put her in rehab twice in six months, that is a fact!! She threatened the Queen that she would blab about Charles gay romps since they’ve been married. A despicable person at best let alone a Queen. What is wrong with all of you? No one has ever respected Charles, she has him where she wants him. Odd, Prince Phillip & the Queen both wanted Will & Kate to take the throne. Don’t you wonder WHY that has all changed so quickly?? there is an officers code and Charles broke that when having an affair with Camilla she was another officers wife and he was married to Diana who would have been our true queen I don’t forgive or forget remember the public crying at her funeral was that true feelings or not we do seem to have very short memoires. morally the number one family should live a unblemished life and he more so as he is going to be head of the church of England so pass a generation he’s to old anyway he has no longevity pass it to the younger royals I no its not the way its done but our queen was young when she got the baton and the world respects an experienced states person but we don’t want the cart horse when we could have had a filly Your comments remind me of some interesting historical parallels in British royal history. Queen Victoria’s eldest son, who became King Edward VII was a very long-serving Prince of Wales, owing to his mother’s many years on the throne. Many people had a low opinion of him and predicted a disaster when the crown came to him. He was well known to have been unfaithful to his wife, Queen Alexandra, and had several mistresses, most notably the famous Alice Keppel. I will not restate the obvious regarding her, although it is a remarkable coincidence. But King Edward proved them all wrong, and turned out to be a fine statesman, especially with foreign diplomacy regarding an alliance with France. His reign was a short one, lasting only nine years. But history has vindicated him very well, and his legacy was admirable, IMHO. You can clearly see certain similarities between King Edward VII and Prince Charles. His reign will probably be comparatively short, but might he also surprise his critics the way his great-great grandfather did? Let’s wait and see. I understand mistresses were pretty much an accepted fact of life in that era. We’ve become much more prudish about this. Alice was invited by Alexandra to sit the death vigil with her, unless I’ve been misinformed or am not remembering correctly. I’ve read the same thing about Queen Alexandra’s invitation to Mrs. Keppel. But not having been there, I can’t say I know anything for sure! British history suggests that mistresses are fine and tolerated. Prince of Wales surely loved their mistresses. However, if I am not mistaken, no King actually married one and made her Queen. That is a tremendous threshold to cross, historically. Because mistresses were just for recreation. Wives were all about marriage politics. They weren’t allowed to marry someone they loved back then, and that was unfortunately still true when Charles was coerced into marrying Lady Diana Spencer. I might argue that is because selection of a future Queen/spouse is more than a mere amorous consideration. The symbolism and stately responsibilities are exceedingly important. The emblematic duties and responsibilities that go with being the mother of a nation, the wife of the head of The Church of England, the visible face of a nation, the diplomatic top of the food chain should warrant the selection of someone who will not cultivate political, diplomatic, religious nor nationalistic divide or animus. I think Charles’ reign is going to be negatively impacted by universal negative and controversial perceptions of his second wife/Queen, and that won’t be ideal for the nation or Commonwealth, nor the coming popularity of the Monarchy. The case(s) of Henry VIII comes to mind. Yes, I am enjoying the wait. It will be sad when Elizabeth passes. Charles may then be in the same place she is now–oldest still in the job and needing a lot of help, by the time he ascends. If so William gets to shift into the kind of role Charles is doing now. They are healthy and tend toward long-lived. I suspect he will be successful and he’s getting loads of practice. Makes Her Majesty certainly too old, doesn’t that!. I don’t think Charles and Camilla were perfect but I don’t think Diana was any more perfect. She was manipulative and enjoyed the limelight and, yes, she did deliberately upstaged Prince Charles. We don’t know what went on in the marriage so how can we judge? How many people on here also committed adultery or have been unkind? All guilty probably. Let’s move on. About the title, there is no reason why she should not been Queen but I think the titles should be made the same so that either the wife of the King becomes a Princess Consort or the husband of a Queen in her own right becomes King Consort. There should not be a difference as there is at the moment. She was known to contact the press to let them know when she was taking the boys someplace fun they could be photographed. They all have/had issues. By golly, just really human beings after all. What a relief to me. I love them all. Wasn’t it proven that Diana was equally unfaithful to Charles? I mean there have been questions about who Harry’s father is (before everyone starts i know the dates don’t line right up). It would appear that Charles and Diana were simply a toxic couple. They both cheated… get over it. Good point. And if one really looks at Harry, he’s so Charles in the eyes and nose and Diana’s sister Sarah elsewhere. Hard to miss for anyone with an eye for sketching and painting; who cares about dates. Yes, she has been misjudged. Charles and Diana were not meant to be and they were both in a sad situation. Charles loves her and her step sons love her. She has had more balanced opinions of her written. She works to help causes she believes in and has been loyal. We need to not hold her responsible for what happened. We need to move on and let the family be happy. Yes! Rational and Loving. Both things in somewhat short supply too often. Living in the past, holding grudges, these things are sad. What a kerfuffle over naught. When the Prince of Wales accedes the throne, his wife will be Queen Consort. If the King and Queen choose not to use her legal title, so be it. Royal titles are not subject to popularity polls. Regarding the Camilla vs Diana battle, I have this observation to make: Charles is now happy. His two sons reportedly approve and are happy to see their father happy. Her Majesty also appears to approve of and enjoy the company of the Duchess of Cornwall. Who are any of us to judge the merits or deficits of the Prince’s marriages? If one is looking to assign blame, let’s look to Prince Phillip, who told Charles Camilla wouldn’t do, then insisted Charles marry the sweet, naive Diana, a lady with whom Charles had no shared interests or anything in common. Let’s move on, shall we? Very well said! Thank you. Thank you. Some sanity and clearly presented thoughts added to this conversation. my biggest annoyance is that Charles was ab le to get away with Spouse abuse! Of what do you speak? the verbal and mental abuse! My understanding is she gave back as good as she got. And he suffered her tantrums, screaming and shouting fits in silence. A true gentleman. She wasn’t much of a lady in those days. Though I’ll give her that she quite became one once she matured a bit and got out of the situation. That marriage being over was the best thing for every one concerned. How do you know this? Were you there? Does bashing Diana make YOU feel good? You have expressed your pleasure at Camilla-bashing, and most of your reasons for it are debatable. Amni is simply stating facts, and I don’t see anywhere how what she said was bashing anyone. Diana WAS naive and volatile when she was younger. If you insist upon your right to hate and bash Camilla, unfounded or not, certainly others have the right to state facts about someone. Naive to believe her husband would be faithful to her and volatile when he wasn’t? Totally understandable. How do you know Diana “naive” or “volatile” anyway? Sounds like bashing to me. Here is a clue. No Camilla then no tantrums screaming or shouting. Simple. How do you know she did this anyway? But if tradition and precedent is the going argument in her favor as a future Queen, should she not also have been found to be a virgin before marital consideration, and not be a woman with a former husband, who is still living no less, and with biological offspring of her own, predating marriage?! Has this EVER happened in English history? Where is the precedent for such a Queen? What role will be accorded to her children within the “Royal” family. All legitimate questions. Of course it has. There is nothing new under the sun. Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville, a English widow with two sons. And a Lancastrian widow, to boot. Caused quite the scandal, and pushed Warwick the Kingmaker into the arms (politically speaking) of the King of France and Margarite d’Anjou. Let’s all accuse Camilla being a witch and make her life just as difficult as Queen Elizabeth’s. At least Elizabeth’s first husband was DEAD. My, that was rather snarky. Yes, Sir John Grey was dead. Fighting for the losing side. Elizabeth set out to improve her, and her sons’, position by ensnaring the King. Worked out fairly well, too. Charles and Camilla were an item before Lady Diana Spenser ever entered the picture. This entire scenario is due to people clinging to outmoded ideas. Instead of advising his son to marry a woman he loved, and would assist and support him, Prince Philip wanted Charles to marry an aristocratic virgin. And we see how well *that* worked out. And luckily, accusing a female opponent of being a witch is no longer an effective tactic. There actually would be no act of Parliament or any action needed by the government concerning the consort title were she to decide to take the title Queen, Princess Consort or Snuggles the Big Haired one- the Monarchy (Currently HM the Queen, at that time it you be Charles the King) is the Fount of Honor, with means that titles are at the personal discretion and do NOT have to be approved by the Government. The only government role in titles is for example, in 1953 they changed the title of the Queen to Of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but that was because they changed the name of the nation as a whole. The Duke of Edinburgh gave up his titles before marriage, and George VI gave him back the HRH and the DoE title, the Queen then once again gave him the title of “Prince” back allowing him to once again be Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh. Just as she allowed her aunts to go by the title of Princess Alice and Princess Marina, even though they were by marriage (Marina was entitled to be called “Princess” since that is what she was born as was Princess of Greece and Denmark, Alice however was not but was given that name) the only legal effect that has to take place with a title is for the Queen to issue the Letters Patent, which notifies the people that the title has been issued, or in the case of Diana, Princess of Wales and Sarah, Duchess of York, changed or downgraded. No legality involeved but when our queen was put on the throne she was young and has done a good job its a life job with no reprieve . but Camilla is a divorcee . and no I don’t hate her I have never met her but I don’t like the underhand affair she had I have strict rules on marriage and that’s one man one woman I agree with your assessment I would be very happy to see His Royal Highness Prince Charles of Wales become King after the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. As to Her Royal Duchess of Cornwall , Camilla Parker Bowles becoming Queen is Suitable. Reason is because it would be a balanced Monarch for Great Britain, Common Wealth, and Defender of the Faith. It would be shameful for calling His Royal Highness Prince Charles of Wales, King and calling the Duchess of Cornwall would suit to reduce in Public Eyes of a Lower Tittle. She has been self sacrificing since her Marriage of Royal Duties from the beginning of their Marriage. She has performed so many Royal Duties with His Royal Highness Prince Charles of Wales for the Monarchy and that would fit the British Royal Family. Camilla Parker Bowles is a celebrity stalker and stalked Prince Charles from puberty and deliberately destroyed a marriage, a mother and apparently is perpetrating Elder abuse on her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 and allegedly is perpetrating male spousal on Prince Charles now . These statements are not allegations and are true based upon the best current accurate data available. The answer is NO and we hold faith with Princess Diana. GOD save the Queen I would be very interested to learn the basis for your claim that Queen Elizabeth II (not the 11th) is being abused. She has her family, a large staff, and Royal Protection officers around her at all times, and I don’t think anyone could ever get away with mistreating or abusing her. I find your claim of the Duchess of Cornwall’s abuse against the Prince of Wales outrageous as well for the same reasons. If you know something the rest of us don’t, I would urge you to inform Scotland Yard. Time to move on, Camilla was not the only guilty part, a share of the blame was on Diana side too,if you marry in the royal family you need to play by the rules ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!! CAMILLA DOES NOT HAVE THE POISE, CLASS NOR GRACE TO BE CONSIDERED ANYTHING BUT THE WHORE, DRUNK AND HOME WRECKER THAT SHE IS!!!!!! SHE SHOULD NOT BE QUEEN OF ANYTHING OTHER THAN QUEEN OF THE NIGHT!!! WHAT A DISGRACE TO THE MONARCHY …… You lose all credibility when you shout – and yes, using all caps when you type is still considered shouting by internet standards. And by the way – whores get paid for a living to do what they do. So by no stretch of the imagination is Camilla a whore. Please grow up. I WILL NEVER GROW UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t agree that Camilla should become queen cos prince Philip is not king even though he is married to queen Elizabeth so why should it change 4 Camilla The issue of Prince Philip not being King is a whole different one and relates to common law rather than ‘snubbing’ titles. The wife of every previous English (and then British) King has been a Queen. There was a time when the thought of a woman reigning in her own right was considered bizarre and all Queens were wives of Kings. Once woman started to become Queens in their own rights, the question of what their husbands were is still unanswered after all these centuries. Obviously the British monarchy does whatever they want. They change rules (Charles marrying Camilla) to their liking. Phillip isn’t King. Why should Camilla be Queen? I guess she is bossy and gets her way. What about morals? There is no point in voicing an opinion as they are going to do whatever they want. They are “royalty” and they can do that. Charles and Camilla are happy. Can’t that be enough? The woman appears to rule Charles and wants to rule Phillip and the Queen. The woman comes across as evil and is not royal material. By the way………why do they even need a monarchy? I am SO happy my family isn’t British!! When they were married the magistrate proclaimed she would be known as consort. I feel this is what should happen. despite what she has done in the past nine years I dont think she should be given the power that the title of Queen comes with. It was never said that it had been absolutely decided, only that it was the intention at that time. There is no “power” in the title of Queen Consort, for two reasons. 1) Queen Consorts are not the reigning monarch. They are the spouse of the reigning monarch, i.e. the King. 2) The monarchy in the UK is a constitutional one. Therefore, Kings and Queens no longer rule, they reign. No magistrate ever said any such thing; then or now. For the umpteenth time, this idea of Camilla taking the title of “Princess Consort” was something said to the press because of the public feeling against her at the time. But the public opinion has gradually changed during the intervening years, and more people in Britain now support the idea of her having the title of Queen Consort. I refer you to an excellent new article here at Royal Central that tells about this in detail. Wait a minute here. The Queen’s husband’s title is Prince Consort not King, but when Charles becomes King Camilla is going to be given the title of Queen. That makes Camilla higher in rank than Philip, does anyone else just see this as wrong. I don’t think would be right why was Prince Philip never made Kingno I don’t think she should be queenshe is a divorced woman and therefore not entitled to the title of Queens When and where was the rule made that a divorced woman cannot become Queen? Time may have passed but the fact still remains that both Camilla and Charles ruined the life of a true magnificent women. Their behaviour and conduct was inappropriate to say the least and to think just because time has passed and they both have what they always wanted which was to be together that we are now some how meant to forget how they got where they are today. Do we really believe that Charles and Cammila are suitable role models for our future children and leaders. It is one thing to ask the public to have compassion and respect for this women given all the good she had done but to ask us to be happy and proud to put a crown on her head and ask her to represent England is pushing it a little too far given the past. You talk about tradition but wasn’t that all thrown out the window when Charles and Diana divorced. I’m an American by birth whose relatives came from England and Norway. In the United States, everyone has a right to his or her own opinion. In this case, because I completely disagree with this author, I’m letting his comments go in one ear and out the other. In my opinion, when Camilla becomes Queen, we’ll see England go into complete turmoil (understatement of the century). Camilla is putting on an enormous ACT that many British folks are buying hook, line and sinker which is why I’m thankful that my relatives moved to the United States because I personally don’t want to be in England when all hell breaks loose and it will. Why Is Prince Philip Not King Philip? I do not want to have Queen Camilla and I still want prince William and Princess Katie It’s a Monarchy. Be patient; William’s time will come in due course. If nothing more it will be fun watching these two idiots as monarchs. I feel sorry for Great Britain…and what it used to be. She is where she is because she whored herself to get there. A king had to give up his throne because he loved and married a divorcee. Charles whored himself with Camilla before and after his marriage to Diana. He is divorced, she is divorced. Neither should rule. Of course the queen gave him a dispensation to marry the whore and will give him another to become king even though he is married to a divorcee!! Sounds like things are twisted to which everway they want! 1. King Edward VIII did not have to give up his throne; he had choices and it was his decision to abdicate. 2. The King married Mrs. Simpson after the abdication, so the marriage could not have played a part in his leaving. 3. Prince Charles won’t be the first King to be divorced, and I would point out that King Henry VIII stayed on the throne throughout his marriages. Such things have no bearing on whether or not a Prince of Wales becomes King. 4. There is no rule or precedent barring a divorced person from inheriting the throne of the United Kingdom. The monarch inherits that position; it’s not decided by an election, as you apparently would prefer. 5. Queen Elizabeth II does not need to, nor has she issued any kind of dispensation for the Prince of Wales to inherit the throne in due course. 6. You wrote that “things are twisted to which everway they want,” but it seems to me that you’ve done a great deal of twisting yourself. I have tried to untangle and clarify a few things you don’t seem to understand. I really don’t believe Camilla should be Queen Consort when Charles inherits the crown. Granted, they were both divorced before Diana, Princess of Wales died. However, as head of the Church of England when he inherits the crown, he should be upholding the laws of the Church of England. How can he do that when he married a divorcee in a civil ceremony. The blessing at St. George’s Chapel, where they acknowledged and asked for forgiveness for their sins against others, was a joke. I am a monarchist and a supporter of the Royal Family but there is no way I can support her becoming Queen Consort. They are coming to Nova Scotia next week and there is no way I will be making an effort to see them. I just can’t condone their past behaviour in any way, shape or form. I am British by birth and feel that She should not be known as Queen Camilla. I would prefer That Charles was passed over but since that is not likely then King and Consort would suffice since she is previously divorced. And no I do not acknowledge her as the Princess of Wales either – that is and always will be the title of Princess Diana. I am not British, but if the British want to be true to tradition, remember the Prince of Wales and Wallis Warfield Simpson (remember this issue was shown in the movie The King’s Speech). When he came to the throne, he was not allowed to marry Simpson because she was a divorcee, so he abdicated before his coronation, they married , and became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. They were essentially banished from England for the rest of their lives. Because of his abdication, his brother, Elizabeth’s father, came to the throne. Also remember Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth’s sister. Margaret was in love with Group Captain Peter Townsend, who was divorced. Margaret was not allowed to marry him without giving up her place in line for the throne, which she did not want to do even though she was in line behind all of Elizabeth’s children and any grandchildren as yet unborn. So Margaret gave up this man she loved, eventually married Lord Snowdon whom she apparently did not love, and later divorced. Again, if the British want to hold with tradition, these are the traditions. If Charles becomes King, then why was the Duke of Wales unable to marry Simpson. If Charles does become King, it seems Camilla would not be entitled to the title of Queen. But if Charles is allowed to become King, the British have already broken their traditions, and would be just making it up as they go along. Supposedly the “Church of England” had “relaxed its rules” in recent years. Unfair I know. If you want to talk about what is tradition,,, then was cheating and betraying a Princess already in the royal family a TRADITION? you can’t have your cake and eat it to in most situations. I personally feel she is forced to do all that she does, to keep the image going. I really don’t see how the people can accept her when they hardly accept him. Life is filled with morals, and if you are so important to be a part of the Royal Family, then respect and dignity should be two of the key factors a person must show and neither of them did that. Just because of a “Title” does not excuse you to be a cheater, home wrecker, and destroy the lives of other’s. Princess Diana carried her role well, and no one could ever replace her, and take a moment to think of Camilla’s family what they went through. Her husband was also cheated on. I again must highlight on the fact that Camilla is being told what she needs to do and how to act so that she can somewhat look like a Royal. you say to look at what kind of person she is and not for what she did,, well, what a person does or did, shows exactly what kind of person she IS. It would be a disgrace in my eyes if they allow her to come forward with such a title as Queen. William and Kate need to be placed up on that throne, two people who have respect for each other and the people they represent. Times have changed such as you have said, well, this should also be a change that should be permitted, NOT TO ALLOW HER TO HOLD THAT HONORABLE TITLE !! How much did Charles and Camilla pay you for this article? Camilla should be called the “QUEEN OF THE WHORE” I read in one of the article the reason why Charles can’t leave Camilla because Camilla is not only good BUT VERY GOOD in bed! Hannah, four questions if you please; 1. What whore is Camilla the queen of? 2. Are you well-informed about all aspects of her personal life? 3. Do you believe every bit of gossip you read from every available source? 4. Are you so morally superior that you’ve earned the right to pass such a harsh judgement on someone you’ve never met, and who has done nothing to you? Don’t be Naive! The whole world knows Who Camilla is! A HOME WRECKER, AND SHE WANTS POWER AND ATTENTION. SHE LEAVES HER HUSBAND FOR TITLE. SHE WANTS TO BE A QUEEN AND SHE WANTS CHARLES HER FAVORITE TOY!!!!!! You do know that Andrew Parker-Bowles had a mistress of his own for much of their marriage, right? He’s now married to her. Is she also a Queen of the Whore? Or what about the numerous affairs Diana had. She was a mistress to several men, married and unmarried. She broke up at least one marriage, possibly two. Is she then also a Queen of the Whore? Where do we draw the line? Rosemary Parker Bowles is now deceased. It wouldn’t surprise me if APB visits Camilla once in a while so he won’t be “lonely”. Prince Phillip is NOT King Phillip. It would be sensible to take the middle road to call Camilla, HRH Princess Consort. It would be a way of making most people happy. Nooooooo way is she gonna be queen move over Charles let William and Kate be our next king and Queen. Une femme divorcé ne doit pas être reine que deviendrais alors les valeurs de la monarchie si une chose pareille voyait le jour !! en plus ceux qui aimait Diana seront totalement contre et vont hurler !!! hi what ever said and done if she becomes queen that will be the end of the monachy ….the young royals will cope . but that will be the end . people do not like her nor charles but they love the young royals like william and kate and harry and george .please if they want to keep this royal business going and not get pushed out like in france..and french revolution ….make william king..that marriage will last as it solid. otherwise where ever camilla goes people will follow what happen to bush jr and hilary clington recently…boots. I agree speaking from Canada , when the Queen is here she is our Queen. I think you are correct. It so obviousl that Prince Charles is so much happier now having the support of Camilla. The Queen has been clear that she depends on her husband to support her in her job. Charles needs the same Camilla should never be Queen she can stand by Charles but she will never have the respect of the average British people. Diana was loved to much and more so now seeing William Kate and Diana’s grandson George she helped make the royal family back in favour and supported as it is today William and Harry are the future. NOOOOOoooooOOOOoooOOOOO NEVER! Nobody respects Charles or Camilla. They were wreck-less with their behavior. He never loved Diana. He only married her to try to prove to mommy that he was ready to be king. Diana was nothing more than a throne donor for him. Do people really want that curse on their throne? Why don’t you think mommy won’t give up the throne? You are an embarrassment. And your selfish actions regarding your marriage to Diana and your love for Camilla proves that you’ll do anything to get what “you” want, not what’s best for the people! Shameful….Charles and Camilla! You don’t deserve to represent your family! Well publicized? Tabloids that also talk about aliens taking over Angela Merkel’s body, and “a friend of a friend of a friend” really aren’t credible sources. But believe what you want, and be happy in your ignorance and virtriolic comments. Clearly that’s all you have in your sad, pathetic life. Not to jump the gun, but what will Camilla’s title be after Charles dies and William is the King? Assuming she outlives Charles, and they do become King regnant and Queen Consort, of course. Queen Mother doesn’t seem quite appropriate, as she is not William’s mother. But Dowager Queen sounds so stuffy and outdated. If Charles dies after his accession, she would be known as Her Majesty Queen Camilla. Yes, there is precedent for this. Queen Mary was known as The Queen Mother until Elizabeth II’s accession when she became known as just ‘Queen Mary’ – if the circumstances described ever arose, this would likely be the style chosen. Je ne sais pas comment dire cela en anglais et peut-être cela ne plaira pas à tout le monde mais pitié pas Camillia pour remplacer la reine, après tout ceux qu’elle dit de travers tout ce qu’elle fait de travers ce serait une calamité, en plus tous ceux qui aimait lady diana même si c’était une femme généreuse, auront honte si cette cruche devenait reine ! Isn’t it almost all but assured that Charles is going to abdicate regardless and hand the throne to William? Perhaps I am wrong, but that was my understanding of general consensus and kind of makes this an entirely moot issue. It most certainly is not true that Prince Charles will abdicate. He has had a lifetime of preparation for his role as King, and he is eager to fulfill his destiny. He has gained a great deal of experience and accomplished much during his time as Prince of Wales, and I believe he will make a fine monarch. The Windsors see abdication as a shameful thing, and neither Prince Charles nor Queen Elizabeth II will ever do it. If camilla PB becomes Queen, I would vote to dissolve the Monarchy. She is an embarassment to the crown. Who wants a drunk with lose morals for a Queen. I certainly don’t! She is a con artist to boot. Really have problems with this. I however, accept that precedent takes FULL authority. I personally would be conflicted should Charles ever accede to the throne as by rights his wife should become Queen. I do think it a touch hypocritical… when the former King Edward VIII married Wallis Simpson King George VI denied her a title which was hers by right. Given this the precedent has already taken place. I dont deny that Camilla has NEVER stepped a foot out of place and she does seem determined to atone for her previous actions. Personally I do not believe that Charles will outlive our current Queen and that the next Monarch will be King William V? and Catherine. - God Save The Queen Camila ! .’. is just and perfect .’. Question: If Prince Charles happened to pass on would Camilla take over the throne and who would be next in line to the throne? What would happen to Prince Williams chances of becoming king? To receive the latest Royal Central posts straight to your email inbox, enter your email address below and press subscribe.

Archive for February, 2009 Speaking at Chicago Area Cloud Computing User Group (Feb 25, 2009) Posted by Scott Seely in Uncategorized on February 24, 2009 I’ll be speaking Wednesday night at the Cloud Computing User Group in Downers Grove, IL. I have a short presentation on the main computing platforms. If you are a regular reader, you know that I’ve been spending some time going beneath the surface on major platforms. If folks like the high level overview, I’ll do some more in depth talks in the future. Here are the details and the announcement that Bryce Calhoun sent out: Join us for the third local meeting of the Cloud Computing User Group – this month in Downers Grove. At this meeting, we will be learning about how Live ID integration works in the Azure cloud computing platform. We’ll demo and dig into the code of an application built in the cloud that integrates directly with the Live ID service and stores information specific to the individual associated with that ID. Also, Scott Seely, Architect at MySpace, will kick off the meeting with a 20-30 minute overview of the top three cloud computing offerings available today: Google App Engine, Amazon EC3 and Azure Services. His discussion will be primarily focused on a compare/contrast of the functionality and features inherent to each platform. Please take the time to register here so we can plan appropriately for food: Come on out. This is a great group and the discussions are getting to be a lot better. We are peeking under the hood now, but should be going deeper over the coming year. Day 6: Caching Results Posted by Scott Seely in Uncategorized on February 23, 2009 I was hoping to avoid this step. However, as soon as I started uploading images to my App Engine-base application, I found issues when trying to display all of my pictures. Why? Data contention! The reason why is kind of interesting. The application follows this flow: - User logs in. - Application retrieves list of images for user and generates a list of ImageFile that is processed by Django. - Each ImageFile produces a URL that causes the application to lookup the current user, lookup the requested image. If the image is public, the JPEG for the image is returned. If the image is private, bytes are returned to the owner only. - Images are requested. For six images, the current owner would be retrieved from the data store no less than seven times. Sometimes, this would happen so fast that the current owner information could not be retrieved from the database due to Google throttling access to the item. In the application logs, I saw this information: too much contention on these datastore entitites. please try again. What is going on here? App Engine quickly identified that the application was hitting some piece of data fairly frequently within a short period of time. This type of access pattern across a large datastore can cause performance issues if everyone uses the same, bad practice. Even the same application can cause its own set of headaches. So, App Engine identifies this through behavior and throttles access. What is a developer to do? They should cache information, which means they should use google.appengine.api.memcache. memcache supports adding and removing single items as well as collections. If you are an ASP.NET developer, you can think of this as an externally hosted application cache. Things go into the cache and have a set duration for how long you expect them to stay before they become invalid. For our usage, we want to make sure that any authenticated user is also in our datastore. This is accomplished through a simple function: def getCurrentUserOwner(): currentUser = users.get_current_user() owner = None if not currentUser is None: # We have a valid user, which we store by email owner = memcache.get(email) if (owner is None): owner = Owner(key_name=email) owner.name = email owner.put() memcache.add(email, owner, 10) return owner If the memcache has this owner, we pass it back to the caller. Otherwise, we lookup the user and make sure that they exist in the datastore, then add the item to the cache so that the same work will not happen again for 10 seconds. This is enough to know in order to start building applications on Google App Engine. You can download the source for the application from the finished app, at or from this site:. Deprecating a Web Service Once upon a time, I worked for a company on a project to build a Web service stack. Prior to that, I wrote a number of articles for that company, including one that wound up being used as the basis for versioning efforts across several industry leaders (the latter based on conversations and personal e-mails). After all these years, people still come to me and ask how to inform consumers of the interface that the version they use is about to go away. Today, Amazon SimpleDB provided a great example of how to inform customers of a new interface. The announcement was well done, short, and was communicated to all users via e-mail as well as posted publicly on the Internet. Amazon provided this statement, which I think is a great way to communicate that things are about to change as well as why they are changing: Dear Amazon SimpleDB Developers, In response to direct customer feedback, we announced today the release of count and long-running query support for our Select API. We have consistently heard that query syntax more like SQL simplifies the transition to SimpleDB, as well as lowering concerns surrounding lock-in. Thus, after much deliberation, we have decided to focus this and future development efforts on the Select API and begin the process of deprecating the existing WSDL. In the coming weeks, we will be publishing a new WSDL version which excludes the Query and QueryWithAttributes APIs. In addition, a migration guide will be released to help SimpleDB developers make the transition. Upon release of this new WSDL and migration guide, we will begin a 15-month deprecation process for the 2007-11-07 WSDL. During this 15-month interval, we will continue to support, but add no new functionality to the 2007-11-07 WSDL. At the end of 15 months, it will no longer be available. Today’s announcement is intended to give as much advance notice as possible to our developer community of our intentions. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us via the forums. Sincerely, The Amazon Web Services Team Day 5: Saving Information in App Engine When you think about data storage with respect to App Engine, it is better to think of this as a mechanism to persist object data than to think about rows and columns that one worries about in a traditional relational database management system (RDBMS). Instead of defining tables, the developer defines Python objects. A persistable object inherits from one of the following types from the google.appengine.ext.db module: - Model: A data model whose properties are all defined within the class definition. - Expando: A data model whose properties are determinted dynamically. - PolyModel: Allows for models that use inheritance. Each value in the data class must be an instance of a property type. There are strings, numeric, dates, boolean, blogs, lists, postal address, geographic points, and other values. You can see the complete list in the App Engine docs. All objects in the models have a unique key property, key(). The property isn’t just unique across the type– the property is unique across all objects. In the photo application, we have a fairly simple set of data: people who own pictures and the pictures plus metadata. Owners are fairly simple: we only need to be able to look them up by name or key. Recalling that ALL of our objects automatically have a key, the owner model is exceptionally simple: class Owner(db.Model): name=db.StringProperty() This says that we have an Owner that inherits from db.Model. Owner has one property, name, that is a String. class ImageFile(db.Model): owner = db.ReferenceProperty(Owner) caption = db.StringProperty() description = db.TextProperty() image = db.BlobProperty() date = db.DateTimeProperty(auto_now_add=True) public = db.BooleanProperty() Every ImageFile has an Owner. The owner property is ReferenceProperty. The value of a ReferenceProperty is the same as the key value for the referenced item. In this case, we state that the ReferenceProperty will always reference an Owner. We allow for caption to be a string and description to be a TextProperty. A TextProperty is like a StringProperty in that both can hold Unicode characters. They are different in these two forms: - StringPropertys can be used for sorting. TextProperty cannot. - StringProperty supports only 500 characters. TextProperty can be larger. TextProperty is a BlobProperty with encoding. And yes,a BlobProperty is what you think it is– a block of bytes. For the date on the ImageFile, you will see that the item has auto_now_add set to True. This forces the date to be set to the current time when the Model is added to the data store. App Engine has standard Create|Retrieve|Update|Delete (CRUD) operations. Objects that inherit from Model|Expando|PolyModel merge Create|Update into one operation: put(). Delete is db.delete(), and get is implemented by db.get(). Get supports retrieving an object by ID or by query. For example, to get all the ImageFile objects for a known user, one would write this query: images = db.GqlQuery("SELECT * FROM ImageFile WHERE owner=:1", owner) The preceding code assumes a valid Owner object. In the query, the owner.key() value will appear in place of :1. If you know the key for the image you want to extract, then you can get the item directly: image = db.get(self.request.get("id")) The preceding gets the ID from the query string of a request. Finally, with an object in hand, one can also delete the object: requestedImage = db.get(self.request.get("id")) if requestedImage.owner.key() == currentUser.key(): db.delete(requestedImage) And this is all one needs to know in order to handle manipulating data in App Engine. Please note that this is a fairly simple application with simple needs. This sample application has been proving itself as a good way to learn the basics. It is also bringing up things to investigate further: Are cascading deletes handled? Is referential integrity handled? Can I do batch updates? Can I delete the results of a query? But, those are questions to be answered on another day. Day 4: Implementing Authentication Posted by Scott Seely in Uncategorized on February 18, 2009 When writing an application, it is always handy when your platform of choice offers some sort of plug and play authentication mechanism. For example, ASP.NET has authentication providers that allow users to authenticate against Windows accounts or against username/password combinations in a data store. For Internet based applications, there has been a large push to separate authentication from authorization. The reason for this is simple: users want to use a large number of applications and need to be authenticated for each application. Each of these applications has a choice to make: use a custom username/password that only it knows about or trust a third party to provide an identity. Many web sites choose to implement their own username/password list. Over time, this simply means that people tend to use the same username/password combination on all sites that they access. The downside here is that if one site is compromised, the attacker has probably gained access to many identity on several more popular sites. A site like EBay or Amazon probably won’t be compromised. But, a less popular site with only a few dozen or few hundred users, written by a hobbyist, may be easily compromised. If just one or two users have an active account at a site like Amazon, those users might find themselves holding a lot of debt. To work around this issue, Microsoft released a product originally called Passport, today known as Windows Live ID. It’s original goal was to allow for a way for Microsoft to vouch for someone’s identity independent of the rights of that identity. Believe it or not, Microsoft was ahead of its time when creating this authentication mechanism. After learning a number of lessons about how to set up identity providers and parties that rely on those parties, the industry came together and created OpenID. If you are really interested in how OpenID works, I encourage you to spend some quality time on the OpenID web site. So, what do we need to know? OpenID put together specifications that state how the authenticators, known as OpenID Providers (OPs), work with Relying Parties (RPs). RPs typically have a fixed set of OPs that they will use for authentication. The RP has to trust the identities provided to it by the OP– an OP that verifies or refutes every claimed identity is easy to write and of no value in verifying someone’s identity. The long story about OpenID is important– when building a larger web site, you want to use OpenID in your finished site. It allows you to broaden your appeal by letting someone use an established identity. That said, you need to start with something. Having to do minimal work to get delegated authentication up and running sounds good. You can start out by choosing to trust Google identities. App Engine makes this all incredibly easy. You start out by importing the users types: from google.appengine.api import users From here, it is a simple one liner to get the current user: currentUser = users.get_current_user() If currentUser is set to None, we know that no one has logged in using Google authentication. If the return value is not None, we can get information about the user, such as their nickname and e-mail address. We can use this information to personalize the page a bit for each user. The get handler for the main page (which inherits from webapp.RequestHandler) does this with the following code: 1 def get(self): 2 loggedIn = False 3 username = "test" 4 currentUser = users.get_current_user() 5 if currentUser: 6 url = users.create_logout_url(self.request.uri) 7 url_linktext = ‘Logout’ 8 loggedIn = True 9 username = currentUser.nickname().strip() 10 if (len(username) < 1): 11 username = currentUser.email().strip() 12 else: 13 url = users.create_login_url(self.request.uri) 14 url_linktext = ‘Login’ 15 16 template_values = { 17 ‘url': url, 18 ‘url_linktext': url_linktext, 19 ‘loggedIn': loggedIn, 20 ‘username': username, 21 } 22 23 path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), ‘Pages/index.html’) 24 self.response.out.write(template.render(path, template_values)) The users class contains two helper meth ods to create login and logout URLs. The rest of this information is passed to our Django template for display on the page: 1 <div id="Columns"> 2 <div id="LeftColumn"> 3 <a href="{{url}}">{{url_linktext}}</a> 4 </div> 5 <div id="RightColumn"> 6 {% if loggedIn %} 7 Hello, {{username}}! 8 {% else %} 9 Please log in. 10 {% endif %} 11 </div> 12 </div> Day 3: Responding to Requests in App Engine Posted by Scott Seely in Uncategorized on February 16, 2009 When a request comes into a web server, that request has to be either processed or rejected. The request may be for static or dynamic content. So long as the web server can find something to respond to the request, the server will try. Otherwise, it will inform the caller that the resource cannot be found. Google App Engine supports both static and dynamic content. Our app.yaml file tells the server how to respond to different request types. Handling Static Content in App Engine When creating a web site, the site typically contains a fair number of static resources. These resources include cascading style sheets (CSS), JavaScript files (JS), images, static HTML, and so on. Most developers will structure their projects so that the folders are structured something like this /Project /pages /scripts /theme /images where pages contains static (or templatized) HTML, scripts contains JavaScript, theme contains elements for displaying the site (CSS and images), and images contains any stock content that is not specific to the theme. Additionally, a site will frequently want to customize the icon shown in the browser address bar by setting favicon.ico. To inform App Engine how to find this content, we write the following in our app.yaml: handlers: - url: /theme static_dir: theme - url: /scripts static_dir: scripts - url: /pages static_dir: /pages - url: /favicon.ico static_files: favicon.ico upload: favicon.ico mime_type: application/octet-stream The first set of entries contain a static_dir directive. This directive says that when someone requests data from the theme, scripts, or pages directory, go look in that directory and return any matching file. When we upload the application, the App Engine SDK will push up all the contents in these directories. The work for favicon.ico is a bit different. This icon file sits in the root of the application and is requested by the browser. Because it is a single file, we map the url to the actual file, tell the toolkit which file to upload, and finally set the MIME type to use when sending the file as a response. octet-stream works for favicon.ico on all major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari). Handling Dynamic Content in App Engine Like with static content, we need to tell the web server what to do when a request for dynamic content comes in. Static content was handled by returning a file. Dynamic content is handled by passing the request off to a Python file. We tell App Engine how to do this through the following settings in app.yaml: - url: / script: HelloWorld.py With this, the request gets Python supports something called the Web Server Gateway Interface, aka WSGI. Through WSGI, one can map an incoming request to a specific class within the file. application = webapp.WSGIApplication( [(‘/’, MainPage)], debug=True) def main(): run_wsgi_app(application) if __name__ == "__main__": main() The preceding code instantiates a variable, application, that maps the path / to a class named MainPage. This also turns on debugging for all paths so that any exceptions or other errors generated during request processing will be displayed in the response. To make it easier to respond to messages, the MainPage class inherits from google.appengine.ext.webapp.RequestHandler. This is a handy base class. As a developer, you decide which HTTP methods you need to handle and RequestHandler does the rest. To handle requests for data, one simply implements a method named get and the rest works out. To handle the standard HTTP methods, you would implement some combination of the following: - get - delete - put - head This model allows one to respond directly to requests by writing all of the response information in code: class MainPage(webapp.RequestHandler): def get(self): self.response.out.write("<html><body>Hello, World!</body></html>") You can generate whatever content you like and put everything out using code. A more pleasant alternative is to use a web templating framework where you fill in values and then code the HTML creation based on those values. App Engine supports several web frameworks, including the popular Django. I did a minor dive into Django’s template language. To return a template, one simply loads up a set of values and then asks Django to process a template using those values. I was able to design the home page in an HTML editor. To set a few values and then load the template from a file relative to the current Python script, one writes: template_values = { ‘username': username, } path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), ‘pages/index.html’) self.response.out.write(template.render(path, template_values)) The values are consumed in the html via markup like this: Hello, {{ username }}! Utility to Replace rn with n, in F# Posted by Scott Seely in Uncategorized on February 13, 2009.

One of the more amusing things about those on the far left is that they think they are above bigotry. The self righteous apologists for a failed philosopher whose accolytes excell only in bringing human misery and treason need a good look in the mirror. They will work themselves into a frenzy at every utterance of Falwell, Robertson and rationalize every Islamic and Commie thug on the planet. The great myth on the left is that protected classes can not be bigots. Most of us have read enough Uptown Steve to know he is a Commie anti semite who happens to be black. Many of you think that Uptown is your standard black anti semite. Remember he jumps through hoops to defend Commie finks Paul Robeson and Michael Lerner. His basic lines are garbled Marcuse based victim theories. For all his talk about fighting racism he is a phony. When a genuine KKK clown named Alan showed up at FPM Uptown said zero even when the clown compared blacks to Apes. Many FPMs nailed this clown including Tricky Blaine, Mike and Fiona but Uptown was silent. He also says zero when John Brown and Ducky use anti black rhetoric on conservatives. The reason is Uptown is a Red who happens to be black. I have just read 167's personal blog and he is just low class personified. The truth is that gay men like 167 and his hero Simon " Crank Dot Net " Jones are certainly bigots. The fact that they are gay does not make the vile anti semitism that both spew any less evil. I do note that most gay men are well adjusted people with different tastes. The whole issue boils down to class and dignity. Most of us run G rated blogs. When Jeff Bargholz or Mr Beanish break into profanity on rare blue moons we go to PG 13. Talking about bodily functions and equipment are just low class. Does the audience really need to know 167 proclivities and tastes in men. Most gay people are not cartoon charachers like 167 and Simon Jones. There are gay people who watch pro sports including football and Nascar. Bigotry comes in all colors and even in alternative lifestyles. I do want to point out this Jew has never experienced any antisemism from Christians. The vast preponderance of anti semitic incedents in my life involve far left types. The majority of Muslims were nowhere near the incoherent foaming at the mouth bigotry of John Brown or 167.The average Muslim in this country wants to earn a living but we still must be vigilant. The notion of a decent Communist is fiction and we should heap as much abuse on them as KKK clowns. Beamish in 08 38 comments: The fact that they are gay does not make the vile anti semitism that both spew any less evil. Hey, Ernst Röhm and the whole top of SA was homosexual. Infamous German leftist Adolf Hitler was himself a fudge-packing pole smoking faggot and meth addict. Like many leftists today. Beak, No doubt that there were also many victims of Nazi social experiment different than the ETHNIC Jews. This is beside the point. Nazis deliberately focused their homicidal aparatus to finish off the entire Jewish race - I stress RACE. Not Jewish religion but race - ethnic group of people. This is racism in the most extreme form, for you cannot escape from your ethnicity. You can change your religion but you cannot change your ethnicity. Even Islam gives the Jewish Kaffir an obtion - submit and you may live. Nazism did not have this escape route for the Jews at all. In fact I knew some families in Poland, who converted to Catholicism a few generetions before WWII but this fact still did not help some members of those families at all. They perished. Beak: Being Gay I think I can add something to this area. When anyone talks of the holocaust the main thing they need to do is be truthful and know what they are talking about. There are known numbers and unknown numbers of people killed in the concentration camps. The number 6,000,000 jews killed is a fact because the Nazis kept exact records of this. Every Jew killed was a badge of honor for the Nazis. The other groups are in the hundreds of thousands. But I dare say a far cry from millions. The number of Gays killed will never be known because they were lumped in with the other hundreds of thousands ie: Gypsies,Slav's etc. There is no exact number known because these people were not jews (and Jews held prominence in the extermination scenario for the Nazis.) The Jews did not have to steal the holocaust the figures are there in black and white written by the very people who were out to exterminate them. The rest well, they were just incedental groups that needed to be done away with but not with the fan fair and record keeping as with "KILLING THE JEWS." To say a gay person cannot be biggoted or racisit is about as laughable as saying a Skunk with out a stink gland is not a Skunk. I can truthfully say I have had more bigotry and hatred directed at me by some gay people and groups because I am a conservative gay. I do not let groups like Act Up or people like 167 represent me and my views. These people and the people we in the gay community call flamers (the ones you see most in the news during gay pride parades.) These people do more harm to the acceptance of gays in the main stream than they help. Most of us are more accepted by the mainstream because we do not live,eat,sleep,and spew the hatred that these groups do. We take pride in the fact that we are Americans living in a Free America that for the biggest part lets us live our lives as we believe we should. We do not flaunt the fact that we are gay in the face of our friends. The people I work for and the people I work with know I am gay and they have no problem with it. They accept me as me and I have to chuckle when I am told well geeez you dont look or act gay. I just laugh and say well geeez you dont look or act hetro. I have often wondered just how gays and hetros are supposed to act. Just remember there are all types of bigots. Gay,Black,Brown,Red,Yellow and I wouldnt even be suprised if there werent a few purple ones. Am I biggoted? "You Betcha" I am. We all are in many different degrees bigoted or rascist. No one is immune from it. My philosophy that guides me is simple. "To thine ownself be true. Then as the day must follow the night to no man canst thou be false." Good words to live by. Sorry Beak but ya got me going on this one. The nazis also killed nearly half a million Gypsies, for some reason we rarely hear about it. But it doesn't matter, We know the Nazis were bad, but the commies killed way more people. Like nearly five or six times more. Nazis/skinheads/communist/progressives/ islamofacists/wahabists. Its all the same thing. People ready and willing to murder in order to gain and hold power over others. No real difference. Sending this again, just to be sure. Blogger "burped." Beak, Bigotry comes in all colors and even in alternative lifestyles. I do want to point out this Jew has never experienced any antisemism from Christians. The vast preponderance of anti semitic incedents in my life involve far left types. There are Christians who are anti-Semitic, as you're well aware. But in my experience, most Christians aren't. The average Muslim in this country wants to earn a living but we still must be vigilant. I'd still like to see average Muslims take a stand against Islamofascism. The UAC has been trying to find those Muslims. None have come forward--not even one! I understand that fear can freeze people into inaction, but the matter now is so very serious. And donations to those mosques or other organizations which fund terrorism comes from "average Muslims" too, as there has been no organized reformation-movement in Islam. I hate to say this, but it's true. One of the "average Muslims" whom I knew as a neighbor turned out not to be so moderate. He voiced strong support of Saddam Hussein and was virulently anti-Semitic; he attended, BTW, the "9/11 mosque" here in the D.C. area, and I think he underwent a "revival" there. Another "average Muslim," a real-estate agent, refused to deliver my contract with a check attached because I was teaching homeschool classes in a church. His words: "I can't come into that building." Both of these "average Muslims" of whom I'm speaking were three-piece-suit guys. So, vigilance is key. Felis You are 100% correct as the Nazis did have an insane race mania. Jews themselves do have genetic links but come in all racial groups. The evidence of Hitlers being gay is murky. However we do know way too many details about his life such as his fondness for Bowery Boys films. This does not imply that gayness, vegetarianism or love of Mugs Mcguiness makes one a homocidal nut. Justin your observation about certain gays taking more heat for being Conservative then gay matches what my friends in the Log Cabin Republicans describe. The problem is that Marcuse based victims theory claims to speak for many minorities. The truth is that I know plenty of gays in NYC who are well adjusted. They don't run around in a self righteous froth and spread hate towards Jews or Christians. Many are quite classy and take part in mundane hobbies that one would never associate with gay people such as bowling and deep sea fishing. The problem with the far left is that it tries to define authenticity. The far left tries in vain to push far left Rabbis as authentic but Marx and Judaism are akin to oil and water. However, this bigotry is not exclusive to Jews, Gays or Blacks. Far left critics also point their finger at Dr David Yeagley ( Native American) and claim he is inauthentic. The notion that the accolytes of Marx are the sole arbiters of authenticity is a joke. This would presume that a propensity to cause human misery would give one some expertise. The accolytes of Marx are only experts in failure, death, treason and deception. Justin makes good points, both about the Holocaust and about gays not being immune from bigotry. I have a friend whose family perished in the Holocaust because they had "gypsy blood." Supposedly. And some years ago, I had a run-in with a "militant lesbian," the daughter of one of our best friends. She harassed me, both politically and with regard to my sexual preference. I nearly had to change my phone number to get her to stop calling. At the time, I'd been married over 7 years. And, of course, I had given her no reason to think I was interested in her lifestyle. All I had done was be courteous to her in large social gatherings. The whole scenario later was weird. She must have had a hang-up, or something. I've never known any other gay to behave in such a manner. AOW: Sorry I am chuckeling a little bit here at your experience. While I am sure it was uncomfortable for you to deal with I can only equate it with some of my experiences. Your friends daughter probably decided that if she could land you she could change you to what she wanted. It is not ucommon for gay men to have to deal with women who feel that if they just get this man in bed he will change forever. And yes it does get a bit scary in some ways with the phone calls and uncomfortable face to face meetings. It is even worse when one of these people work in the same office as you. I had one woman who continually called making suggestive overtures. She seemed to know everywhere I went and justtttt happened to show up. People need to understand both Hetro and Gay if a person does not have a proclivity for a certain life style then back off and leave them alone other than just friend ship. There are so many ways to know how a person is orientated with out thinking it is your duty to change this persons way of life. To do any more only causes a deepining in the misunderstandings of both life styles thus becoming a breeding ground for mistrust,hate, and yes even bigotry. AOW, you are probably what her vision of a Lesbian was. A strong, intelligent, good looking... woman. She most likely was so indocrinated she simply couldn't believe that you WEREN'T on her "team"!! Beak, did you see the cover of this week's Economist? "Israel Stuck in Lebanon". It's that obvious already and we have Fried Rice trying to find someone in the Middle East who would talk to her. She's something, huh? Useless and the crazy right touts her as a presidential candidate. Nice move killing the 40 kids, Beak. Folks aren't buying the "precision" munitions argument after that one. Damn fool israelis really thought it would be a cakewalk. Another "Mission Accomplished" moment. Well, didn't work out did it. You know, if I were a symphetic to Iran as you claim, I'd support every move the idiot ham-fisted Israelis make because iran is just laughing. Getting stronger all the time and the great irony is that they'll boost gasoline prices and we'll end up sending them just as much as we send Israel in welfare checks. Killing 40 kids is real bad PR, Beak. i love men! almost all of them - one of my gay male friends once told me words to this affect, "if i'd known you years ago i may not have chosen to be gay." hmmmmm... bigoted - yes, but only in certain areas. self-inflicted stupidity has no place in the world. some very educated people have this malady. Beak, did you catch Mel Gibson's anti-semitic tirade while being arrested. Wow, did he let loose. I look forward to you asking the fans of his motion picture which turned the crucificion into a homoerotic sadomasochistic festival whether or not they denounce that portrayal of the jews as "christ killers". I have to bring this one up since the film is one of their favorites and they always hold the anti-semitism at arms length. nanc: I wonder about your friend and his statement that he would not have chosen to be gay. You know this a person chooses to be gay is one of the biggest myths there is. Does one really think that any person would choose to be gay knowing they are going to face the hate and discrimination heaped upon them by ignorant people. If a person chooses to be gay then I have to say they have a much deeper problem that should be addressed. I dont know of one gay person that chose to be gay most of us are this way and that is the way it is. Being gay is no more a choice than being hetro-sexual is. Duckbrain: Your total ignorance never ceases to amaze me. "Nice move killing the 40 kids, Beak. Folks aren't buying the "precision" munitions argument after that one." Your right it is a nice move only it is on the part of the animals you support. You just cant admit that Hezbollah is a pack of cowards that use women and children as shields. I notice that you left out that the news reported these children were handi-capped. Could that be why hezbolla put them up for sacrifice? Killing 40 kids real good move on your cowardly hero's parts Ducky boy. I think this shows you have about as much cognictive brain power as a duck. However, I dont think even the ducks would admit you to their club. Pehaps your name implies more about you than you admit. You probably are the type just like your hezbollah heros that would shoot and "duck" behind a child or a pregnant woman hoping your adversary wouldnt shoot. Real brave soldier there Ducky. Having been born without genetic defects and having not been raised in a psychologically damaging environment, I've no idea what turns gay people on. I'm not wired to tell people what is homoerotic about a crucifixion. Could you elaborate, Ducky? Beak do you think Duck brain can explain the U.N. offices in Beruit being attacked this morning and then this evening the U.N. offices are attacked in Gaza. A coincedence Im sure in his mind or Im sure Israel sent them in to attack the buildings. It sounds to me like hammas and hezbollah are doing a lot of co-ordinating here.?) Oh, one more thing. :) Of all the rightists that I know, I can count one who may be a bigot. Of all the leftists I know, a good half of them are bigots. This includes folks IRL and on the web, friends of friends and so forth. The left has always had a problem with treating people as people, instead of marionettes for their cause du jour. So, Che Sucky Ducky, If the Iranians had a missile complete with nuclear warhead ready to launch at Paris, and had surrounded it with babies, little girls and old people, would you have the BALLS to push the button on the smart weapon to destroy it before it was launched?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU PITIFUL MORON!!!!! justin, I have to admit that there DO appear to be a VERY FEW people who are avowedly gender oriented DIFFERENT from their physical sex. Are you one of these? Most gays are RECRUITED when an impressionable age or have just made a lifestyle choice that is so FULFILLING to them that they insist they are MADE that way. Guys, Just check this one out: Priceless - almost unreal but it comes from Yale. Oh and please have a look at these innocent Pali kids (Some of them are probably already killed by the cruel Israelis): Justin, It sounds to me like hammas and hezbollah are doing a lot of co-ordinating here. Please do not forget the UN top brass to be included. The IDF strike at Qana was tragic. Hours of profitable pay-per-view entertainment that could have been filmed - the bomb dropping, the building exploding, maimed Hezbollah children screaming for their Hezbollah parents' god to save them through choking Hezbollah sobs - this is fucking hilarious shit and now the moment's wasted. Actually Beaker, unless specifically told not to fight, I would not pay extortion! I'm just not very good dhimmi material! And I sure wouldn't kowtow to their evil belief system! I'm more likely to tell them the truth about their quasi-religious political movement! Probably get myself shot, I'd still have my say! tmw Mr. B as one who alos was born with out any genetic defects or being raised in a physocological damaging environment, I myself do not see how Ducky found the crucifixiton homoerotic or a sadomasochistic festival as he says. I think he is eluding to the fact that he would have given anything to be the one the Romans were torturing and crucifying. I understand that there are people like that both gay and straight that love having pain inflicted upon them. Perhaps Ducky could enlighten us as just how seeing a man being scourged in such a manner would arouse the sexual desires he expressed and tried to lay at the feet of others. After all I did not hear one voice say as we left the theater say "Wow that was just so homoerotic and masochistic. Justin, Your friends daughter probably decided that if she could land you she could change you to what she wanted. I think that was the case. My husband wasn't too pleased. Phone calls kept coming at, um, inconvenient times. Hehehe. Also, this particular woman could not be friends with other women. As far as I know, she still has that problem. Anonymous, you are probably what her vision of a Lesbian was. A strong, intelligent, good looking... woman. Maybe. I wasn't bad looking in my 20s. **blush** Beak, I see an avatar!!! Well, its a good thing that Hezbolla isn't pealing apples on the news, Ducky might cry. Duck, I just knew that you'd be all over the Mel Gibson story. Yes, I'm disappointed in him. But on the other hand, "all we like sheep have gone astray." Alcoholism is ugly. I've dealt with it in my own family. The story is too painful to go into the heart-breaking details so late in the day, other than to say my cousin's alcoholism caused a permanent rift between us. He's dead now--of a heart attack he sustained after swallowing a huge chunk of steak while he was tanked. He was 49 at the time of his death. So, while I condemn what Mel Gibson said, I also know that he was hammered (.12, I think). At least Gibson didn't drive off a bridge and leave a girl to drown in the car. Nice avatar Beak. And the action figure has his magnificent head almost intact (-hear). Justin, There is a distinct difference in the definitions of the words "erotic" and "homoerotic." I do believe you're right Justin, ducky appears to have quite a "twist" in his mind! Anyone who could say that after watching "The Passion" doesn't have all their marbles! Is a few straws shy of a bale and the elevator not only doesn't go all the way to the top, but doesn't go all the way to the basement either! Good morning and G*D bless! tmw Mr. B: "There is a distinct difference in the definitions of the words "erotic" and "homoerotic." I realize that and oddly enough I didnt hear anyone say they found it erotic either. I dont quite find a man being flogged and having his skin ripped off and then nailed to a cross Erotic or Homoerotic and it would take one sick puppy to be able to do that. Anonymous: I was not recruited by anyone. I have known from an early age I was gay. I didnt make all the usual gay scenes. I finally met someone not so much unlike me that we are in a committed relationship. Justin Lets be clear Michaelangelo's works are homoerotic. Does this degrade the value of his work? Thus with art it is more about quality and worksmanship. There is no doubt Michaelangelo was a highly talented artist. The work of 167 on his private blog is tasteless and homobufoonish art. I had to delette a few posts with the wrong avatar. John Brown is at it again. I'm not wired to tell people what is homoerotic about a crucifixion A few years ago I shot a stubborn (male) possum that had invaded my garage and wouldn't leave even after several days of prompting and opportunity. I used a small .25cal pistol and got'em in the head. As it thrashed for a minute or so, it popped (what appeared to me) to be a massive possum boner. Admittedly, a .25 to the head isn't quite the same as a crucifiction, and a possum isn't quite a human, but the end result is the same, so maybe the ummmm "intermediate results" are the same too. purple avenger: I have read that this is not uncommon at death, BUT, it wasn't depicted in the movie. Any suggestions of this are all in the minds of the beholders(perverts)!!!

. 401 nancee mays On Thursday, August 23 at 10:34 am i like ryder,storm,scout,river,and phinn 402 Christal On Thursday, August 23 at 10:34 am I have two sons, Titus Philip and Lincoln Norman. Both of their middle names are after their grandpas on each side!!! 403 Christa On Thursday, August 23 at 10:34 am My three boys are named Titus Gabriel, Lincoln Elijah, and John Zechariah. We have a thing with Hebrew middle names. If we have another, we currently love Josiah and Isaiah. But you never know. 404 Kelly H. On Thursday, August 23 at 10:34 am Love Nico. I could not convince the husband to go with that. We went with Nicholas and I call him Nico =) 405 Mindydana H On Thursday, August 23 at 10:34 am Our son is Nathan. Before we knew we were having a boy I liked Dylan, Geoffrey, Nathan, and Tristan. My husband shot down Tristan quickly. Too feminine, he said. So after that I was set on Nathan and that WAS his name long before he was born. The hubs tried to dissuade me because he’d grown up with a Nathan who was a big bully. But it was too late. My hormones had decided our boy was Nathan. I think boy names are way harder than girl names. 406 TOBEY On Thursday, August 23 at 10:34 am Andrew, I LOVE the name Andrew, always have, always will strong name, great nickname of Drew……but hate Andy…… John…..great short and to the point, another strong name, and besides, it is the name of my husband…… 407 jenna On Thursday, August 23 at 10:34 am I have and Aidan and a Sawyer, but I also love the name Asa. 408 Gabby Kelley On Thursday, August 23 at 10:34 am I have twin 12 year old boys and they are named Benjamin and Jacob. We are neither Christian or Jewish but just loved how those two names sounded together, though they were not my first choice. They were my first (and only) children so I was a typical nervous Nellie of a mother. I read in some silly book that you can’t name one twin after an family member and not the other. I wanted to name them Ethan and Eliot but Eliot was a family name and Ethan was not. I realize now how silly it was to listen to a dumb book. We gave the boys family names for their middle names (Benjamin James and Jacob Eliot). I still love those two names as well as others… Ethan, Eliot, Wesley, Eli, Phillip, Brendan, Luke, and a ton of other Irish/Scottish/Dutch/Nordic names which I seem to have a weakness for… 409 Jenna On Thursday, August 23 at 10:34 am I love my husband’s name: IAN. O h yeah and I like the name of the son from Dog the Bounty Hunter: Leland. 410 Linda Palmer On Thursday, August 23 at 10:35 am I’ve always liked Peter. I know it can be troublesome but ever since Iived in England 60 years ago, I have loved that name. I wonder if I had a crush on someone named Peter? 411 Linda On Thursday, August 23 at 10:35 am I have a Scott. His dad did not like that name and was so afraid he would be called Scotty. He was never called Scotty but this best friend called him Scooter and still does. They are 35 years old. 412 StefaniM On Thursday, August 23 at 10:35 am To go along with your “Smith” we have some good friends with a son named “Johnson” – they don’t shorten it or anything… it’s classic (he’s 16) Right now I love the name Jayson (has to be spelled with the Y) I could even go for Jayeson and call him Jaye. This goes for girls too, except Jayne. 413 Erin On Thursday, August 23 at 10:35 am My boys are William (Will) Harrison & Walker Monroe…. I love all the names on your list. Another fave of mine….. Waylon. I know …I am stuck on W names. :). My girl’s names are Avery Layne & Addisyn Mae. 414 Shana On Thursday, August 23 at 10:35 am My son’s name is Dalton. I love the name. It happened to be my grandmother’s maiden name which may have been related to the Dalton gang of western lore. I also like Asher – from the Bible. 415 Susan On Thursday, August 23 at 10:35 am Everett William (family name) Samuel (another family name, but there were already 7 Sam/Samuels between our two families) Julian and then I had two daughters… Maybe I’ll have a grandson Everett one day. 416 Holly On Thursday, August 23 at 10:36 am I have a Riley and Lukah, both boys. If we were to ever have another one I love the name Judah. 417 Millie On Thursday, August 23 at 10:36 am I have a Ben, Sam and a Joe and our last name is Smith!! lol! 418 Flo Raines On Thursday, August 23 at 10:36 am Carter and Camden Terak and Jake…Had to get used to Terak but love it now…Grandsons names… 419 Amanda On Thursday, August 23 at 10:36 am My boys are Cooper (Mother’s maiden name) Jackson (as in “Stonewall”), and Cash Jarrett (Grandpa’s name). Other boys’ names that I love: 1. Luke 2. Deacon (my nephew) 3. Crosby 4. Beau (we almost used it for each of the boys, then changed our minds!) …but basically anything super-manly!!! 420 Tina On Thursday, August 23 at 10:36 am Aaron, Caleb, Joshua and Noah. 421 juliaglee On Thursday, August 23 at 10:36 am *William David ( my sweet, little stillborn baby who would be 16)) *John Richard (the one i got to keep:) (middle name is his only biological uncle) *Brock (my maiden name) *Daniel (because it’s perfect) *Scott (because they’re always cool guys) *George (because it’s way more “king-ly” than goofy & my father -in -laws middle name) *Hitch (because i made it up & it sounds tough) *LeRoy (just keeping you on your toes, but my grand-daddy’s name nonetheless) *Sam, David, Isaac, Boaz, say when….can ya beat a Biblical name??? ….did i mention that my favorite name of all time is John? ok, i’m a little biased, but is there a name that fits ANY age so perfectly? and mine is like the boy in the classic poem “Boy Wanted”….. thx, ree! this is fun- i adore names & reading these posts!(and you!) 422 Gretchen On Thursday, August 23 at 10:37 am I have one son named Eric Richard. 423 vickie Jeremiah On Thursday, August 23 at 10:37 am Fav boy names…. Travis, Spencer, Aiden, and Jagger. I really loved Jagger but….Jagger Jeremiah was a little over the top…. 424 Melissa On Thursday, August 23 at 10:37 am My son’s name is Julian. I also love Josiah, Daniel, Andrew, Andy, Jack, Jeremiah, Isaiah (I have a thing for prophets), Matthew, James. Most of these names were nixed by my husband. If we had had another boy, he would have been a Josiah. 425 Kathy On Thursday, August 23 at 10:38 am My top 4 faves are: Timothy, Joshua, Samuel, and Isaac. Maybe that’s because I have 4 sons by these names. 426 Laura On Thursday, August 23 at 10:38 am I have two sons, Lex and Kylo. 427 Theresa On Thursday, August 23 at 10:38 am We have a Garrett Wade and Jesse Tyler (JT) Always wanted a JT. *IF* we had more children we were going with the western theme, not on purpose it just sort of happeded. Our Runners up… Zane Wyatt Luke Beau Oh man I should of had more babies. I can just picture us on a ranch in Montana! : ) On another note, isn’t it magical that the names we give our children, fit them. They could never go by any other name…..love that! 428 Nikki On Thursday, August 23 at 10:38 am Our son’s name is Collin Braden. I love the name Collin because we don’t see it very often so it still feels pretty unique. I also love the names Casen and Dallin. P.S. I commented on your girl names post too…I was due yesterday with our baby girl. Still no baby yet! 429 Anyah On Thursday, August 23 at 10:38 am I also love Benjamin for a boy. I think my favorite name though is Nathan, or Nathaniel (but not Nate) followed by Jonathan (not Jonny or John). My boys have odd names, though, because it’s tough to find something to go with Martinez that doesn’t make them sound like a mariachi band. Thank you Jesus for my boys because I wouldn’t have known what to do with a girl…. For girls, I would have used Clara, which is a family name. 430 Christy V. On Thursday, August 23 at 10:38 am Named my son Beau, after the actor Beau Bridges, 30 years ago. Loved it then, and love it even more now. Beau rocks! 431 Megan C On Thursday, August 23 at 10:38 am I’m due with my first son (I have two daughters, 7 and 4) in just two-three weeks. The name game has been SO difficult this time around!!! We *think* we’re naming him Finn (Finnegan). My daughters are Amelia and Matilda, so we enjoyed sticking with the children’s literary character theme (“Amelia Bedelia”, “Matilda”, and “Huck Finn”). I expect I’ll have a moment of complete indecisiveness as I’m signing the birth docs, lol. 432 Kimberly B On Thursday, August 23 at 10:38 am I have one son, with the hopes of having another in the next 2-3 years to round out my family to four children. My son’s name is Connor Mayes. Connor – my husband and I both have some familal roots in Ireland and I LOVE Celtic names. Mayes was my husband’s grandfather’s middle name. Marshall is a prominent family name for me (my dad’s, great-grandfather’s name not to mention several cousins share it as well). I have also loved the name Alistair forever, but probably wouldn’t succeed in naming a child that – my husband wouldn’t just object, but do so LOUDLY. I also like the names Campbell, Aiden, Iain, Owain, Duncan, Stirling, Eamon, Seamus, oh, I could go on. The older the name, the better I like it… 433 ikirbysmom On Thursday, August 23 at 10:39 am I like Alexander for a boy, otherwise I am partial to biblical names…Luke, Matthew, Samuel, Seth… Our son is Andrew John 434 Sharon F On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am Always loved the names Trent or Trenton, Ted, Chad, Raine, Blade and Thor….something masculine about them. (Of course my two boys are named Ted and Trenton)….LOL 435 Laura On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am My top # 3 for our son were Caleb, Dylan, and Brycen. We ended naming him Brycen Issac 436 Ann M. On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am My son’s name Joshua. A favorite biblical name. Shorten to Josh unless I need his attention then it’s Joshua. 2nd- Carr is his middle name after his father, but I also knew a Carr in college and always liked the name. 3rd- John, my husband’s name. I think it is a strong sounding name. 4th- Jason, my son was a twin and if the other had been a boy I would have named him Jason. Just liked the name. 437 chelsea On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am I have a Preston and we call him Preppy for a nickname. His brother couldn’t say Preston when he was first born, so he called him Preppy instead. Now everyone calls him Preston. I also have a son named Brooks, which I equally love. 438 Kathryn On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am Christopher, Cameron , Colin, Kyle plus John aka Jack….my sons, my husband and my grandson…there you have it! 439 Bekah H On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am Most of my favorite boy names are biblical names. I love Jonathan, Andrew, David, Nathaniel, Joshua etc. I also love the name Adlai (it was my great, great grandfather’s name). 440 Kathy On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am Addison! 441 Sara W On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am Daniel Isaac and Noah Benjamin 442 Kathy W. On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am Santino reminds me of that not so nice designer Santino Holmes from Project Runway. :-/ I love the name Aiden but so does half of America. I also love Eamon, Declan, Finn, and Liam. Can you tell I’m of Irish descent? I’m pregnant and not finding out what we’re having but we’re pretty sure if this is a boy he’ll be Finn. We have a 4 year old named Liam (we thought we were being original…not so much). Seven weeks to go! 443 Keelie On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am My husbands nickname is Bull! He still goes by that for the most part. I have to say my new favorite boy name right now is Huntley. 444 Lisa On Thursday, August 23 at 10:40 am Dreyton is my Angels name. I used to wish we hadn’t named him that so we could have use it for the next boy we had. His name is David Matthew which means- cherished gift from God. Our older 2 are Tyler and Jacob. Jacob dislikes his name and would rather be called Zephyr or Theophilus. His kids are going to have great names. LOL 445 Abbi On Thursday, August 23 at 10:41 am My son’s name is Beau. We got a copy of Charlie the Ranch Dog signed for him when you were in Edmond. I remember you saying then that his name was one of your faves. It walks the line between rodeo star and soap opera hunk, I think. 446 Kim On Thursday, August 23 at 10:41 am My hands down favorite Biblical name is Seth. Our firstborn was stillborn and we named him Seth. Then we had twin girls. If they were boys, I was trying different combinations of the following: Noah (favorite), Nicholas, Ethan, Levi, Caleb and Colby. 447 Molly O On Thursday, August 23 at 10:41 am Ethan and Aidan…my twins names! 448 Andrea L On Thursday, August 23 at 10:41 am I have 3 boys, they are Reid, Mason and Trey. Love all their names! 449 Paula M. On Thursday, August 23 at 10:42 am Seth….since I can’t/won’t have any more kids,I will name my next horse that!!! 450 Lynda On Thursday, August 23 at 10:42 am I agree with you on Preston (I know the nicest guy named Preston), Joseph (if we had ever had a boy, he would be Joseph – I also like Joe a lot), and William (Will). Others I would use today: Henry George (after my husband’s wonderful Grandpa) Zane Holden Tyson Jack (or Jackson) Grayson 451 Camille On Thursday, August 23 at 10:42 am When I have a son, his name will be William Morgan. William because it is a strong family name and means Warrior, and Morgan after my husband. 452 Jill On Thursday, August 23 at 10:42 am I have an Oliver! I also have a Linus, a Noah, and a Peter. 453 Brenda On Thursday, August 23 at 10:43 am My favorite are my two sons names Isaac and Solomon and then Ezra, Judah, Joseph, Jonathan, Jesse, David, Joshua, and Paul…all biblical, strong, and meaningful to me! 454 Jessica On Thursday, August 23 at 10:43 am My son’s name is Benjamin It means ‘son of my right hand.’ I love this name so much. I associate it with good looks, intelligence, and very witty. I get what you mean 455 Sheila On Thursday, August 23 at 10:43 am I have a grandson named Bo…Also Urban & Reed Just love all there names and each one is such a blessing from god!!! 456 B On Thursday, August 23 at 10:43 am Matthew – love it! 457 Homeschool on the Croft On Thursday, August 23 at 10:43 am I said yesterday on the Girls’ Names post that I’d have to post about names and kids myself, but that doesn’t stop me commenting here. I’m not one to keep my opinions to myself I love some of your names: Smith and other surnames as boys’ names – *really* love. Cameron, Murray etc (Can you tell I’m Scottish?!) But the Italian ones…? Nooooo (with sincere apologies to all Italians out there. I *love* your food, I’m sure I’d love all of you, but…. not your names. Sorry And not Girl/boy names …. nope, not for a boy! 458 Selena On Thursday, August 23 at 10:43 am I love love love the name Lane. That’s why we chose it. (hee hee) Our beautiful, strong, bright red-headed, honery son’s name is Jared Lane but he goes by Lane. It is very fitting for his strong-willed personality!! 459 Emily On Thursday, August 23 at 10:44 am Levi and Jude 460 Tonya On Thursday, August 23 at 10:44 am I love the names we picked out for our boys. The oldest is Brandton Jensen (Jensen is my maiden and my husband wouldn’t agree to use it as first name). The youngest name is Christopher … but we NEVER call him Chris (how do you know the gender of the person?). So he gets called Christopher or Critter. 461 Susan On Thursday, August 23 at 10:44 am I have a Benjamin. These days I love Ezra. And I have Hispanic friends who just had a Mateo – so sweet! 462 Mandi On Thursday, August 23 at 10:44 am I love the name Garrett. My first born’s name My next is Griffin. Hopefully, one day I will get to use it 463 Homeschool on the Croft On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am Oh my goodness, how could I have commented on names without talking about your gorgeous, adorable, edible boy! This was the shape/smile/chubbiness etc of my babies. That photo almost makes me cry. My baby is 9. NINE! *sigh*… 464 Jessica On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am My son’s name is Callum (Cal-um), we call him Cal. This is my all time favorite name for obvious reasons. 465 Kerry On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am Chance and Colby are my boys. Chasen and Colter almost beat those two out. 466 karen On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am My newest grandson’s name is Jasper. It’s a family name from my daughter-in-laws side. Wasn’t sure about it at first…seemed very old-fashioned but now I love it!! I also love last names for first names for boys/men too Ree, that is why I named my son Bronson… after Charles Bronson of course! Our family name is Roper and my goofy brother kept trying to get me to name at least one of my kids Goat….can ya believe that? 467 Shelly On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am I have a Holden and a Hesston for boys…Ansley for our little girl! 468 Jenn W On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am Your names are all so cute and creative! Ever since I was young enough to dream of having children, I always like the name Ethan…so we now have an Ethan Lucas. My favorite girl name is Audrey. Timeless, classic and elegant. We have yet to have a girl…so I’m holding out with that name 469 SHeila On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am Michael , Bryan (son) William Dotson (My Dad’s name) everyone calls him Dot. Yes he is short. Stylon , Reed, Cael, these are great names! 470 Mary On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am My favorite boys names are: Wyatt, Torin, Liam, Leighton and Peyton. Both my husband and I have biblical names. I’m not a fan of them, so we did something different with our kids. 471 Heather Smith On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am Collin Michael is my son’s name,,,,,,my maiden name is Collins and his dad is Michael, Collins Smith doesn’t work with the double “s” so we dropped it to Collin. I love Preston and William (my dad’s name). I recently heard of a new baby named Foster (the mother’s maiden name)–loved it! I’m a fan of maiden names for first names so my daughter should name her son Smith. PERFECT! 472 Christine Waddell On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am My grandson is Harrison Riley P—-. He is named after both of his dad’s grandfathers. I love it!!! 473 Michele in Salem On Thursday, August 23 at 10:45 am My sons are named William (who most people call Will, but not me!) and Joe. I call him Joseph a lot but he really is a little Joe. I also love the names Charles and Henry. I love reading about everyone’s name preferences! I wish I could have had ten kids instead of five so I could keep naming them! 474 Cynthia On Thursday, August 23 at 10:46 am I have 4 sons and I gave the first 3 a hyphened middle name soooo my favorites follow Michael Allen-Robert, Chadwick David-Eban, Eric Steven-Lewis and Jonathan Andrew I also like Markus , Mitchell and Mason. 475 Carol On Thursday, August 23 at 10:46 am Phillip – it is our one and only son’s name. Declan Jeffrey (Jeff) Seth Todd 476 Erin Wall On Thursday, August 23 at 10:46 am Eli it means, “Of God” and when put with Owen means, “Warrior of God” How cool is that I ask you?! My other favorite is Asher it means “Happy” and my son Asher may very well be the most happy individual I know. Others I like are Clark and Grant. 477 Tina On Thursday, August 23 at 10:46 am I have a William, but we call him Will. William gets used when he’s in trouble :oP We also have a Jake and a Henry 478 Rachel On Thursday, August 23 at 10:46 am Aiden (our sons name) Colt Wade Andrew Tuff 479 Pamela J Alley On Thursday, August 23 at 10:46 am Ambrose…nickname Amby…….Biblical 480 Becky S. On Thursday, August 23 at 10:46 am My son is August Henry, we call him Augie. I love it, Augie was my husband’s idea and I didn’t like it at first, but it grew on me. I love the names Noah and Brent, but for now we just have an Augie and a Grace. 481 Charla On Thursday, August 23 at 10:47 am My son’s name is Truett Zeldon. I love names that are somewhat Western but not over-the-top so. My husband’s father had a great uncle named Truett, so when we hers the name mentioned in family conversation we knew that would be our son’s name. He is the 4th generation Zeldon. His twin sister is named Reese. I am currently pregnant again (just one this time) and have no idea what boy name we would use, other than Allen for his middle name, which is my dad’s middle name. If it’s a girl, we both love the name Ryan. 482 Jen L. On Thursday, August 23 at 10:47 am We used our favorite for our son: Dean. It means “Calm.” Fits him to a T. 483 Jill On Thursday, August 23 at 10:47 am Nathan and Gabriel. I’m sure I could come up with more but then I would have babies on the brain…lol 484 Drie On Thursday, August 23 at 10:47 am Okay, you have an Italian hang-up, mine is Irish. Declan or Aidan are my top picks, but I bet I’ll have a difficult time convincing my future husband that those are great names for a boy! I also adore Joseph and Nathan. 485 Courtney On Thursday, August 23 at 10:48 am My brothers name is Lincoln. It wasn’t popular in the 80′s, but now it seems like everyone is naming their boys that! 486 Corrie On Thursday, August 23 at 10:48 am Grant. 487 Deanna On Thursday, August 23 at 10:48 am love your list – i have both a Ben and a Wil (yes – one L – never gets spelled right – poor kid) BUT my Ben is a Bennett – just couldn’t give him the Benjamin for fear he would get called Benji. we’re done but i’ve always liked Oliver and Zachary – although this list and the commenters gave me a few other ideas. 488 Tracy On Thursday, August 23 at 10:48 am I love the name Ezra Bryant for a boy 489 Ariel On Thursday, August 23 at 10:48 am Georgios Dallas Ray Vito 490 Adrian V On Thursday, August 23 at 10:48 am Joseph was my Papaw’s name. Each time I hear that name it makes me think of my awesome Italian Papaw. Yes, we have a secret family recipe for spaghetti and meatballs! My other preferences: Ian Geoff or Geoffrey (I like the unique spelling versus the standard Jeff/Jeffrey) 491 Kimberfly On Thursday, August 23 at 10:49 am Before we discovered that baby #3 was going to be a girl, we had the name Liam Jack ready to go. Jack was my husband’s grandfather’s nickname, and I have a not-so-secret Liam Neeson crush. I just love the sound of it. I’m also partial to my son’s name (obvs): Noah. Simple, sweet, and phonetically beautiful. 492 Kari On Thursday, August 23 at 10:49 am My boys’ names are Nathan Charles and Christopher Ray. Christopher usually goes by Topher. Both their middle names are family names. If we have a boy in the future his name will either be Henry David or Benjamin Lindley (both those middle names are also family names). 493 Jody On Thursday, August 23 at 10:49 am My son’s name is Roman Vincent…everyone comments on how strong it is. He’s nine months, and it totally suits him already…he is ALL BOY! My husband’s name is Ian..and I’ve swooned since the first moment he introduced himself…that was way back in high school and I’ve loved him and his name for over half my life! We wanted Roman to have his very own cool name though. New person! New name! My Grandaddy is a Samuel, and it’s all over my family…we call him Sam or Bud. I love this game! (oh, and my gorgeous nephew is Benjamin Walker…I think it sounds so Old West) 494 The Girls' Guide to Guns and Butter On Thursday, August 23 at 10:49 am A few years ago, when I only had one baby girl, I heard the name “Cyrus” on the radio for the first time. I am from Eastern Europe, so by that point I haven’t necessarily heard all English-language names. Ironically though, the name Cyrus originates with Cyrus the Great – the Persian king originally from my native Azerbaijan. Immediately, I knew I would call my boy that name and no other. Luckily, my husband liked it too, a history whiz that he is. Two years later I had a baby boy Cyrus Lowell (after my husbands’ maternal grandad), this one here: . I currently also have two girls, Josephine Schams and Evelyn Alexandra. I am hoping I will yet have another boy so I can use my new favorite boy name: “Ishmael”. Love the Moby Dick! I also really like the boy name Seymour, but my husband doesn’t. 495 Dana J On Thursday, August 23 at 10:49 am I LOVE Benjamin (and Ben) but hubby is not convinced— trying to talk him into it since I’m expecting our second in December! 496 Cortney On Thursday, August 23 at 10:49 am If I were to have a boy today, he would be named Gabriel Matthew. Archangel, apostle…I like, I like. I would be fine with the inevitable shortening to Gabe. I do like your choice of Samuel, but our last name is Hill, and I just can’t allow my child to possibly be called Sam Hill. lol (When we were throwing out names for our daughter, my husband suggested Beverly. I looked at him like he was crazy. Really? Beverly Hill?!? Yikes.) 497 cary On Thursday, August 23 at 10:49 am Love Beau!! But i could not sway my husband. Josiah is my sons name and I do love that even more! 498 Debbie V. On Thursday, August 23 at 10:49 am My oldest son (26) is named Dean Edward… Dean was my maiden name, Edward is his Grandpap’s name My youngest son (14) is named Andrew Scott. I picked Andrew because everyone I know named Andy is a nice guy, middle name Scott is his Dad’s name. They have an older sister (30) named Gretchen Justina… named after her two Great-Grandma’s… I have been known to call them all by the wrong name at some point…even calling Andy Cubby once. (Cubby is the dog) 499 sues2u2 On Thursday, August 23 at 10:50 am Well my son’s name is pronounced “Nico-lAss” but is spelled Nikolas. Of course trying to get anyone in the state’s to pronounce it right?… let’s just say I’m not going there. My other favorite is Jason Glen after a friend who died a few years after hs & my dad. Oh & I love my nephew’s name. Cooper or Coop. Just love that kiddo! 500 Kristi On Thursday, August 23 at 10:50 am My favorite boys names are of course my sons name – Bergen and my nephews names, Osker & Corbin

The idea wasn't to endorse either of these ideas. The idea was to try to get people to actively think outside their own comfort zone, to try to avoid the automatic negative "NIMBY" response ("not in my back yard!") that seems to prevail whenever the idea of change - any change at all! - comes up in the publishing and book industry. Quite a few of the folks participating in the discussion - which included agents, editors, and writers - were able to rise to the challenge and actually think through what the far-reaching consequences of such a change might be, as well as ways to counteract the negatives. But a large group of those participating fell back on the tired point of view that "everyone in publishing is out to get the writer!" Which isn't actually true, by the way, but there's no teaching some old dogs new tricks. One thing that did come out of these discussions were some fascinating - and controversial - blog posts. I've tried to find as many of them as I could (and if you wrote one and I missed it, please do email me and let me know so that I can add it to the list below). I encourage you to read through all of these. Do take the time to read the comments as well, and refrain from resorting to inflammatory or inappropriate commenting on their blogs, please!. - Writer's Digest editor Jane Friedman - Writer Beware editor & genre writer Victoria Strauss - Writer Stacia Kane - Writer Jodi Meadows - Agent Robert Brown of Wylie-Merrick (Part One and Part Two) - Agent Mary Kole of Andrea Brown Agency - Agent Kate Schafer Testerman of KT Literary - Eric at Pimp My Novel - Writer Morgan Ives - Writer Nadia Lee - Writer and bookseller RJ Crowther, Jr. - Writer KD James - Writer Christopher Keelty The two very smart online posts that started this discussion were these:. - Salon.com's Laura Mill." - Anonymous Editor Moonrat: ." Nobody is questioning that the system as it stands currently could use a creative overhaul. But simply complaining about it isn't the answer. The culture of negativity that we've all allowed to pervade the book and publishing industry is our own worst enemy; sooner or later we will all need to learn to embrace change, even if some of those changes make us uncomfortable. What ideas can you bring to the table to make the industry work better? Let's keep the conversation going! (And I'm not just talking about the whole agents/advances thing. I'm talking about the book industry as a whole.) (PS: Have taken off comment moderation and have enabled anonymous posting for this particular blog post! Play nice!) 38 comments: Hi Colleen: Eric at Pimp My Novel also posted on the Advance discussion on Thursday. Hi Phoenix! Thanks for letting me know. Just added to the list! C- I've been reading and I'm not happy with the idea of the author's having to pay for every bit of agent/editor attention as well as spending several years writing without pay before they (we) have any chance of publication, but I wouldn't mind at all giving up the advance entirely and instead earning throughout the publication. Not that I've gotten that far yet, so my part in this is all just theoretical. The whole business going under would be bad for us all -- especially since I started out as a reader long before I considered becoming a writer. And on that note, I started our as a poor reader. My books came from the library and second-hand stores. Anything that threatens to take printed books away from those who can't afford hundred-dollar plus reading devices really scares me. We still need print, and will for a long time, no matter what anyone says. I can recognize that top sellers like Grisham or Stephen King earn enough for him and the publishing company that it helps pay for some of the smaller books that didn't earn out, but it has seemed to me that it's the books that are expected to sell as well (and are given the advance to reflect that) but don't who are taking from the midlist authors and causing the great panic of publishers dumping their middle ground. If everyone went advance-free and earned along with the publisher, it seems like that would fix so many issues. There might be fewer giant paychecks, but thousands of people making a reasonable living is way better than one person winning the lotto. I'd give up my advance for it (you know, if I'm ever offered one). Off the top of my head (I spent of lot of time celebrating yesterday so am v. fuzzy-brained today *g*): Agents are doing a lot more than they used to. A comparison with the film industry might prove instructive. Viewed by Hollywood standards, literary agents are not only agents but career managers and contract wranglers. (Lately, judging by anecdotal evidence, a lot of newbie writers also seem expect the agent to be a writing teacher/editor.) Imagine publishing adopting the Hollywood model: the writer with a team of professionals. The question then becomes: how do the roles get divided, and how do the team members get paid? In the film industry, screenwriters' agents get 10% commission, attorneys get 5% and managers 10% (I think). One quarter of a writer's pay goes to their team. That's a big bite. There again, for working screenwriters, the pay is better than for midlist novelists. Obviously, if agents did less for writers, their per hour rate would be higher. So that's one route--but expect writers to squeal. Most of us haven't caught up yet with the new reality, which is that publishers no longer cover the editing/career management functions of the Good Old Days (the mostly mythical GOD, in my opinion). Most beginner writers especially don't understand that there's no time at the corporate level for hand-holding. A writer needs a team long before s/he gets to the stage of querying an agent. S/he needs a critique group and/or a teacher and/or an editor. The peer group is free (because there's no imbalance of expertise). The teacher/editor is not. So if I were Empress of Publishing, I'd probably split the writer's team into: - teacher/editor (payment by hourly or project rate) - agent/manager (commission) - attorney (hourly or project rate *or* commission) There again, I'd probably get rid of the publisher, too, or at least reimagine that role so that the publisher also got a small percentage of the writer's earnings (instead of the writer getting a small percentage of the publisher's earnings). Am running off to the laundromat but will spend some time replying to comments when I get back. And have, ya know, cooled off. It's 96 degrees right now. I may melt before U get back to the house... I think agents should charge a reading fee to prospective clients. Aspiring writers who have no problem submitting material long before it should be sent around (usually material never really ever appropriate for submission) would really have to think carefully about what they're doing (and doing wrong) and make decisions accordingly. Sure, the agent bloggers would lose their vast following and attentive audience to lecture on query do's and don't's, which we know they gripe about but secretly love, though in exchange they'd be able to focus on their real clients' drafts (those clients would pay by commission, as usual) and wouldn't have to waste all the time that they do on the bulk of the nonsense. Not to mention, they'd probably amass small fortunes processing the subs that would still come across the transom. You're not worried about limiting publishing to the wealthy rather than the talented? The advance/fees discussion, I don't feel I can add to because I'm not published and therefor don't have the perspective to give an unbiased opinion. The three second comment on "culture of negativity" got my attention, though. My attitude has gone from "My book is better than Twilight and they will love it the second they read it" to "Well, maybe I'll be lucky and it'll wind up on TOP of the slush" to "Okay, let's just get this over with so we're not wondering anymore." I spend most of my workday running through the million and one Reasons Why Nobody Will Ever Read My Book (caps required. It's a proper title) so I will stop imagining success and thus set myself up for disappointment when I get that nice, short, form rejection letter. And I haven't even queried anywhere because it's not PERFECT. You know, the flawless, ready-to-publish NOW kind of perfect that agents require now-a-days before they'll even start reading (That is your expectation, right? Right?). The above attitude is based on the information I've gleaned from reading agent/editor/author blogs everywhere. And then trying to apply all their advice so that your reaction when you get my novel involves violins and roses. And yes, 99% of it is negative as hell. And here I thought this book-as-career thing was supposed to be fun. I guess my point here is, if it'll help a newb like me get a better chance at publication (Hell, at this point I'd trade my next paycheck for positive feedback) I wouldn't have a problem with it. But "better chance" also means "affordable on a doughnut fryer's salary". As for ideas ... yeah, I could come up with those all day, but I don't know how practical those would be (first one that came to mind was breaking a larger company into smaller imprints that just served a local area, like South Texas, that would kick successful novels on up the chain to the parent company.) Ah, well. Oh, and 96 degrees? Lightweight. :D It's 103 here when you throw in the heat index. Summer in South Texas makes walking a health hazard. We're not as bad as say, Arizona or Louisiana, but it's still pretty bad. Best of all is I live six blocks from work and don't own a car. Thank God, it's graveyard shifts. Hey Colleen, I tend to enjoy both your blog and your tweets (and no, I'm not on the verge of sending you a query) but I've been busy with family this week so I'm glad you posted this, and I'm especially glad for the inclusion of links. I write fiction and I edit a small magazine, so I know something about both ends of the slush pile, if not to the extent that you do. I have to say, the really horrible submissions don't bother me, because I don't have to read much. It's those damned decent but not what I want stories that take up my time. And yeah, a load of consecutively read stories of that ilk is both depressing and brain-deadening. So I intend whatever I send out to be either utter brilliance or absolute trash. Ye shall waste no time on me. Re. the agent's end of things, I don't know what to say. Writers and agents are both on the hopeful end of the spectrum, wanting to sell something of quality. It's a mismatched marriage in a way, as agents seek polygamy, multiple authors with multiple tales to sell, while writers seeking agents attempt to land Mr. or Ms. Right (Write?) Of course, as far as that last metaphor goes, I'm incapable of philandery because so far I can't even get laid. Keep up the good work, Colleen. Writers and agents alike need support, and readers need the two groups to support each other. Cheers. Isn't the elephant in the room that publishers pay every six months instead of standardized terms, like, I don't know, quarterly? I don't think giving up the advance is a big deal. I'd be happy to give up an advance for a larger royalty, for sure-- like Amazon's new (incredible) 70% Kindle author split. I know that the big publishing houses aren't willing to give authors such a large cut, but maybe they would be more likely to give first-time authors a chance if the advance was eliminated and the author was paid according to the number of books actually sold. The author might be more inclined to help with their own promotion, and the publisher doesn't feel like they are taking such a huge risk. Besides, aren't first-timer advances averaging only about 5K these days? Hey Colleen, this whole multiblog debate you've started is fascinating. Just posted a response on my blog. Cheers! Rob Rob - Thanks for letting me know! have added your link to the round-up! Colleen It's really good to hear a call for a more positive way of looking at the future in terms of the way that literary agents operate, and the need for to start thinking a bit more laterally about how the relationships between readers, agents and publishers could change to keep up with the changes that are happening all around them anyway. On the slushpile point, one of the things that we are concentrating on is finding a way to get publishers and agents to look at the advantages that self-publishing authors can bring them. There is so much opportunity to find good quality and interesting content which is developing an audience, but which is falling below the publisher's traditional radar. It is a question of upgrading the technology or systems with which you deal with the 'slush'. Seeing as many of those systems revolve around receiving manuscripts in the mail, and going through them one by one, it can't be too hard to think of ways to make that process better. Yes, there may be a huge variation in the quality of the writing out there, but this just highlights the need to be proactive - if the game is changing, you need to change the way you play it. One aspect applicable to the houses paying large advances is that these companies are most often holdings of larger publicly traded companies or are publicly traded themselves. Large advances are a commitment not only to the author and the house but the shareholders that the publisher thinks there will be FUTURE success with the acquisition. Shareholders WANT to see investment tracked against sales. They WANT to read about large advances paid and the perception of business health. Money drives money. Colleen, how do you see shareholder value playing into the equation? Colleen -- Something Nicole wrote in her comments has clarified an idea for me. We know that editors have been cut back in number, asked to do more with less, etc. by commercial publishers. It has been suggested elsewhere that editors themselves should go freelance and develop their brands as quality editors. They could and should be paid for their work, which could include a gatekeeping function (i.e., charging a reading fee, a fee for a critique, and only offering page-by-page editorial services to those writers whose works merit them). By putting the editing function ahead of the submission to an agent, agents might suffer less "slush fatigue" as the query would specify which editor had helped with the work. The better the editor, the more likely the submission will be worth the agent's time. (Maybe the query comes from the editor, to avoid writers claiming they've worked with an editor when they haven't.) I don't think agents should be paid hourly. As an attorney, it would concern me that agents would, consciously or not, be favoring writers with (as we say in the law) "deep pockets." The merit to the current system is that agents have a vested interest in a book selling well because that's when they actually make money. The issue of advances is complicated. As a writer, I could forgo my measly advance (likely for a first time romance author to be $5,000 or less). Six- and seven-digit advances seem obscene and give the impression that publishers *only* want the next Twilight. But what would be the counterbalancing improvement if advances were eschewed? What do we get if we give that up? I'd be disinclined to waive an advance if the only justification was, "the industry is dying." That starts to smack of a Jerry Lewis telethon approach. Like RobP, I also write and edit a small magazine. He's right about slush - the bad stuff is easy, it's the 'not quite there' that kills you. We have a handful of volunteer writers who read for us, and it gives a great deal of perspective. It really is subjective. We've gotten submissions that none of us could fault, but couldn't drum up any enthusiasm for, either. And they've be subsequently snatched up by other publications. It really IS subjective. As a writer, I wouldn't mind paying a reading fee, provided I was guaranteed good service: a serious and attentive read, followed by constructive and useful criticism/commentary from someone familiar with the current market. I'd consider it an investment and something more relevant than hiring a free-lance editor. If an agent is forced to get a second job, that seems like a natural. I also wouldn't mind forgoing the advance if the royalties were, not only higher, but if the publishers would make better decisions about run size and keep the book 'in print' longer, even if they go to PoD after the first run. Returns policies need to change as well. No more returns. You've bought them - now sell them. They're not going to go bad like a pallete of canteloupe. And just the idea of mulching makes me want to cry. This whole pride in excess is not going to work in future. Too many high advances to non-writers, too large of runs, too lenient of return policies. It just doesn't suit the current culture, buying habits or ethics of resource use. I can certainly see agents are having to work more--as publishers get more convervative, it seems agents and authors BOTH need to work harder, and their gamble and efforts pay off less often. It seems to me though, what is most FAIR isn't to take away from author's meager (usually) pay--at least not ALWAYS... this IS a gambling risk in a way... and the risk should be spread (therefore I LIKE the commission scheme) But maybe some compromise: agent loves book but it is messy--gives agent 2 options--go pay somebody to help edit and come back, or I will edit but it is 20% instead of 15% when it sells. And maybe a nice bonus layer... a debut book that goes to auction then gives agent 20% instead of 15%--so if the author hits the jackpot, so does the agent... because lets face it... the authors only getting paid $10K per book for about 2 books a year is hardly in a position to give up any of it, but one making 6 figures... maybe that is more reasonable to spread the joy, and SURELY the agent had to work her TAIL off to make that happen, so why not grant a bonus... Magdalen, I am an editor (with Sterling Editing) but first and foremost I'm a novelist. (Completists can see my novels here, but it's not really relevant to the discussion.) I see an enormous need for what we do: help writers get from--as Fawn Neun might say--'not quite there' to Absolutely There, in terms of story and craft (narrative grammar, dialogue, characterization etc.) For years, I did this for free for friends and ex-students and writers just coming up, but eventually I just had too many requests. So now I charge. Editors at the big six publishing house no longer take the time to do this kind of work. Agents simply can't--not while being both cost-effective and staying within the ethical guidelines of their profession. It's all changing. The more discussion we have like this--thank you Colleen!--the more like those new to the industry will understand this. I'm published with the second book in my series hitting bookstores this Thursday. I don't yet have an agent, would like one and while I'm mindful of the fact that money needs to flow from the publisher to the author, I recognize the time an agent puts into an author's revisions, for example, needs to be compensated somehow. (I'm working with an agent who quite likes a book I've written and I'm doing revisions, for the second time... it took time that agent isn't being paid for to review my manuscript, the revisions, write out revision notes, etc. I'd be willing to offer a higher % to an agent who decides to take me on knowing full well they need to be compensated somehow and I'm currently not exactly made of money. It has been an interesting discussion as I continue my search. HI,,,, thank you for allowing anon comments. Three thoughts: 1) a few years back, I recall reading a comment by Tina Wexler about the non-advance, advance. She mentioned something like, "And the models we've been shown." Although the exact quote might be wrong, the point is, a well-positioned agent had referenced this 2-3 years ago. Which makes me wonder if all this has been in the works, internally, for quite a while. 2) I read screenplays for a living. The burnout phenom is v. real. It can be mitigated by a) food (nourishment, not junk) and b) stretches. 3) re: ^^^ advances, the Amazon encore model makes me wonder if some hybrid of self-publishing / branding by big house is the future. It's difficult for me to imagine doing all the stuff - ISBN, cover art, distribution to brick & mortar stores - that my publisher's doing. However, what I struggle with is the 1989 attitude towards me as a writer: I bring a lot to the table, pr & marketing wise, and have been consistently slapped down. It's not so much the writer gets screwed attitude, as the writer is a child and should go over into the corner and shut up while the adults handle the business. The reality is, there is no book with my having written it. And excluding me from key parts of the process, IDK, make me see the publisher as an opportunity, not a long-term relationship. There's a disconnect between what I'm reading on blogs ie., writers need to engage, be proactive, etc., and what I'm experiencing ie, sit down and shut up. If I am, in fact, a "brand" then doesn't it behoove the editor / publisher / agent to include me in the process? What happens if my book's big or, at the v. least, establishes me? Suddenly, I have a name / brand that will travel and that I can build on. This non-advance model - maybe I'm saying what's already been said - but it seems to require the powers that be truly engage the writer who's determined to put themselves for, in whatever media. Colleen: I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this, . How much is too much (or, too little) from a writer, when it comes to the publication process? And in the non-advance-advance model, how will that power balance shift? The product of a writer's work--whether it is marketable as an artistic distillation--is determined by an imperfect system. Often the distillation is malformed or downright unreadable. But, the scary thing that writers everywhere decry is the trust we must put in strangers' judgment. It is often such a small polling of the general interest, we are forced to wonder if this singular judgment is correct. The publishers pay big money to writers/agents that flop, right? Is it unfathomable to think that they also may let a Hemingway slip their editorial fingers? On the other hand, agents and editors are inundated with such a large outpouring of potential work--and they sadly cannot print it all--that they must choose what they deem to be the best business decision. They do not want to invest poorly. They are gambling on interest in a creative property. It is more volatile than selling a tangible product via a pitchman on tv. This means that writer's must remember foremost it is not the art, but the marketability of their creation that must drive them. That is, of course, if they wish to be published. Agents are inserted into the publishing equation as both a "gate-keeper" and a marketer/career manager. Their dual role is sometimes conflicting. They must demonstrate both attraction and repulsion, addition and subtraction. Agents have created more frustration in exchange for taking the onus off of the big bad editors. It is the agents who are often regaled with the constant whine of unpublished, unloved, confused (and dare I say, talentless) aspiring writers attracted to the bright lights of the publishing world by their common passion for the written word...and those fat advances that they are reminded of constantly. I say all this to say that I feel that the future of books is not doomed. Readers’ tastes and expectations will change as they always have. Eventually, writers will catch up, despite their own reluctance to change. As we move forward into this brave new publishing world, I think that a shift in the relationships between those who fund the publishing of books and those who produce the works of art will be affected most. The debate over the next decade will not be the mode of artistic delivery. It will be the business model of its production and distribution. Additional "middle men(women)" may be inserted to ease the strain of submittals (which I predict, God forbid, will increase exponentially), and a more hands-on approach will be invested to ensure the quality of the material publishers are buying is secure. Editors will enable agents better as to what the market trends are, share more openly with the potential writing clients their needs and much of the mumbo jumbo hocus pocus of writing will be removed. This will produce a more sterile, more-informed-but-less-personal writing style with mass-market appeal that will prove effectual until another invention will force us to concentrate on greater artistic forms and deeper human communication. Whew. Sorry for the long comment. I think with most advances dropping tremendously it's rather difficult to justify a raise for agents. I do understand that like authors they are working harder and taking on more outside of their 'job description'. With the rapidly changing technology, this can't be helped. (At least for now.) As for advances vs. no advances, I'm in an interesting position since I have experienced both situations. I started out as an ebook only author in 2002 before moving to N.Y. publishing in 2005. The company I wrote for didn't (and still doesn't) supply an advance. This wasn't perfect, but it was not a big problem because at the time there wasn't a long wait between submission, editing, and release (ie 5 months max). There was also a 40% royalty rate. The only way the 'no advance' model works for an author is if the royalty rate is high and the time between submission/release is quick. Otherwise it's very difficult to sustain any type of writing career. You can make just as much--if not more--in ebook sales, but the royalty rate has to be there. (6% to 25% of net doesn't really work, unless you're into starving.) I haven't personally slogged through a slush pile, but I've judged plenty of contests. In my experience, you could tell by page two or three whether the book was going to be any good. Of course, that won't solve the problem of burnout. I think taking frequent breaks, meditating, exercising, hydrating, and pacing yourself will at least keep the brain sharp. They also help with stress. The conventional wisdom in our business is that a writer MUST have a literary agent, and that NOT having an agent puts a writer at a serious (even disastrous) disadvantage. Frankly, this has not been my experience. Since quitting the agent-author business model three years ago, my response times, advance levels, contractual terms, and subrights income have all improved; yet when informed of this, rather than reassessing the conviction that only one business model is viable for managing a writing career, the argument then becomes, "You are a strangely freakish exception which proves the rule." (Whatever.) Moreover, I believe that there are more than =just= TWO potentially viable business models for managing a writing career (the current, tradtional author-agent business model; and self-representation). Indeed, I don't think we have a realistic idea of how many potentially viable business models there are for managing a writing career, because at the moment, as far as I know, only those two exist—and of those, only one is generally recognized as viable (the traditioal agent-author model). Given how many other things in our industry are changing and will continue to change, I think it is possible (and desirable) that business models for career management will change and adapt, too. Among the possibilities are experimentation with self-representation. Authors have already started forming co-ops to electronically publish and distribute their work. I have seen established career writers who cannot get a literary agent in the current climate idly discuss the prospect of forming a co-op to replace the function of agents in their careers. I look forward to seeing a group of writers move past discussing it and actually implement such an effort. Although I believe the traditional agent-author business model will survive, I don't think it will (or should) remain as dominant as it is now. I would applaud the emergence of multiple new business models creating fresh options for how authors can CHOOSE to manage their careers. I have a literary lawyer and an accountant, so I am already using fee-charging models for professional services. (And, indeed, any writer who's ever hired a webmaster, a web designer, a freelance editor, a publicist, etc. has dealt with a fee-charging basis for professional services.) The key problem with fee-charging by agents is that agenting is a money-handling profession in which there is no effective oversight, no standardized education, no training in ethics, and no requirements or licensing or qualifications. So a very good formal business proposal, for example, would be needed to establish a fee-charging business model with any appearance of credibility. In any case, I think these are discussions worth having. Currently, options for managing a writing career are too limited. The more choices that become (a) available and (b) widely recognized as viable, the more likely a writer is to be able to find a business model that suits her well. Right now, with only ONE business model in common practice, many writers do not. RE the question of a 20% commission... Well, my own experience of literary agents (I had four over a period of about fifteen years, after representing myself for the first four years and ten book sales of my career) was that at 15%, their services were too expensive in exchange for the services actually (rather than ideally) offered. I now have a better career (more money, more sales, more subrights business, better contractual terms, etc.) since I returned three years ago to managing my career myself. I pay a literary lawyer to negotiate my contracts; and my lawyer, while negotiating the best contractual terms of my career, costs me only a small fraction of what agency commissions would cost me on these same deals. Ergo, I can't think of the scenario that would convince me to go back to paying 15% to a literary agent; therefore, obviously, 20% is out of the question for me, and I would never consider it. However, that's me. Another writer's mileage may well vary. As in my previous post here, I advocate an expansion of options and business models for managing a writing career. Such options might include an agent working at a 20% commission for clients who think that agent's services are worth 20% of their income--and who have been able to make that CHOICE in a market-range of MULTIPLE options for career management. An agent willing to gamble that people will think he's worth 20% has a right to charge that; and writers willing to pay that 20% to a particular agent have a right to CHOOSE to do so. HOWEVER... seeing the entire industry move from 15% to 20%, without an increase in services, as we saw the industry industry move from 10% to 15% without an increase in services; AND seeing this occur WITHOUT a range of career-management options available to writers? Egad. I consider that a travesty and a nightmare. None of this would affect me, since I don't pay commission and am highly unlikely ever to return to a commission-paying business model in my career. It also presumably wouldn't affect any writing income that many agented authors are now deriving separately from thriving electronic, POD, and small press markets. But a universal hike to 20% commission in a scenario where the major-publishing market is still dominated by only ONE career management model would be a terrible thing for writers, further decreasing their income while offering them no added value for that bite. BTW, I also think these discussions we're seeing need to differentiate between the issue of managing professional writing careers and dealing with slushpiles and aspiring writers. A key question not being addressed here is: Why should a longtime professional writer and steady earner find her commission rate hiked to 20% of her writing earnings because her agent is spending too much non-earning time reading the query pile? This has been a fascinating discussion in all its permutations. Things are always changing, sometimes for the better, other times not so much. I have read a lot about "poor writers." Not that long ago if a writer wanted to submit to an agent, he had to print off hard copies and pay for the postage. Somehow poor writers managed to do that. I have read about all the organizations, writing software, writing conferences, writing books and writing presentations writers buy or participate. Somehow poor writers manage to pay for that. "Poor agents" meanwhile complain about increased work for less money. In the real world, not many people have had raises over the past couple of years. Agenting has always been this way, and it has always taken time to establish a reputation and paying clients. Just like real estate, you don't have a paycheck and it takes time, devotion, and luck. Writers spend time writing. Agent take on new writers on the chance they will pay off. Even without the editing or any other service an agent provides, if they just sell the book a writer is way ahead. And if an agent sells (or even pays attention to) a book that doesn't sell right off the bat, the writer is really lucky. When all is said and done, it's supply and demand. There are now more agents (and more new agents trying desperately to hang on) than ever before. There are also more wanna be writers than ever before, and that means more bad writers to wade through. Both agents and writers need to be realistic. Agents, it will take a long time before you're eating caviar for dinner. Writers, if your agent sells your book you are lucky, not the greatest gift to readers since Dickens. Agents, if you can't take the heat, go get a job flipping burgers. Writers, you couldn't do it on your own. The commission model does instill an aspect of “the agent is just as hungry for a strong deal as the writer is.” Also, up-front, billable, or retainers could result in missing out on some excellent authors. However, a commission scale could be fair… higher percentages for higher advances, multiple book deals, and so forth. On the other hand, there is also the aspect that before email, submitting was an expensive endeavor; so it’s possible that those other payment options could work for some, and frankly, if an agent has reached a certain level of success (and provides a significant level of service), she or he should have the option to be paid how they want: no one is “making” the writer sign with you. The slush pile is a bit trickier. Doubt it makes you feel any better, but for we authors who are educated, experienced, have done our research, etc., it is very frustrating to know that your eyes are crossed and your heart is heavy from having to read through the nonsense it sounds like people send. While you would not want to give up the convenience of email, the downside is that suddenly “everyone” is a writer. One possible solution: You know what you already have, what you might have time for, and what your interests are. Perhaps you could create “windows” during which you only accept submissions of a particular kind. You could even create a code that you make available on your site and blog for people to include in their subject line, and anything not complying during those dates gets deleted unread. For example: “For the month of July, I am only interested in women’s fiction. Query subject lines should be formatted as follows: QUERY/WF/Title.” This would eliminate people who don’t do their research, would allow you to focus only on projects you might actually have time for, etc. Just a few ideas. I've never understood why agents couldn't get a percentage of a writer's checks from the publisher, especially in a model without advances. This would still maintain the idea of the agent needing to sell teh book in order to get paid. Way back in my bookseller days at B&N, I read ARCs until I thought my eyes would bleed. If I wasn't reading ARCS, I was reading books outside of the genre I specialized in (SF & YA). In order to effectively do my job, I spent hours outside of the store reading book after book so that I could make good recommendations and promote writers with potential When I left my job and turned to teaching, I went through a period of time when I couldn't read another book to save my soul. At Barnes & Noble, I read so many crap ARCs to get to the gold, that I became unable to finish a book after a certain point: I could accurately predict within a few chapters if I had a winner or crap writing in my hands. I was burnt out entirely on the written word. To this day, I struggle with reading SF & YA - once favorite genres - and now Mystery is added to the list thanks to moderating a Mystery Book Club for six years (I've read some really bad mystery books...really bad). So, when an agent suggests payment by the hour vs. a percentage. I get it. I understand where that idea comes from: I read all those ARCs on my own time outside of the store and never received compensation...yet, authors wanted me to handsell their novels and promote them. An agent has the same issue: they read manuscripts that may or may not be sellable. If the MS bites the weenie and will most likely not find a publishing home, an agent is out of all those hours that might have gone to another writer. To expect compensation for those lost hours is not far-fetched. I may feel differently when it's my turn to query a MS, but at this time? Bill away, Colleen. Colleen, it looks like the only group of individuals who could truly change the way publishing is done now, would be the huge authors. I'm thinking Nora Roberts/Stephen King/James Pattersons of the world. They band together, and demand change (of whatever kind) and their might be something that happens. The problem is, these same writers have reaped the rewards from the current system, so would be reluctant to tip over the golden goose. But think about it. What if Nora Roberts skipped her agent, her editor, her publisher, and went straight to something like an Amazon e-book for the kindle...That would shock the system. Slush is part of any agent's job description. There is, however, an easy way out of the slush pile. A few thoughts occur to me after reading some of these discussions. One is that an agent might not be the best person to do some of the things they are taking responsibility for. I've read slush and my sympathies go out to all, but how did looking for prospective clients become an expense someone else should pay for? Another thought I had is that the main problem with the industry is that there are too few publishers, too few booksellers, and too few distributors. Most of the problems the industry have are to do with being highly consolidated in a time of recession. The consolidation leaves the business even more vulnerable to economic downturns and piracy. There is not enough creative competition in the marketplace to find ways to compensate for for the conditions the business is in. worst case scenario is the music business c. 1999. A very bad case. What to do about it? As usual, the answer being bandied about is to take a bigger cut out of the labor that makes the product in the first place. Don't feel bad, it's happening all over, lots of downsizing and people taking paycuts 'for the good of the industry'. I guess you can tell where I stand on the main issue here. If we knew what to do about it, we'd solve the worlds problems, because every worker in the world is feeling the effects of overconsolidation. I'm all for free consultation say--20-30 minutes with some kind of parameters. Anything else requires an hourly fee. We value the time of others so much more. To devalue that of agents and managers is simply wrong. I blame the college writing programs that churn out thousands of aspiring writers, muddying the waters for everyone, and generally making this life a living hell. Even if an agent sells a book, there is no guarantee that agent will ever recoup their expenses. Many a publisher has been known to tell the author in royalty statement after royalty statement that he did not earn out his advance. If this was a new author with a measly advance the agent is now on food stamps. For years, agents have had these awful working conditions and jobs that take up their entire lives that do not pay. Writers should forego taking up any agent's time unless they are prepared to compensate the agent for whatever time is spent. If a writer doesn't want to pay the agent for his time, he should take the manuscript and send it to to one of those sites that says "money flows to the author" and take up their time and resources.