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How do I keep my UT EID secure?
Your UT EID is used to access secure online applications and personal information at the university, including:
- Personal information (including name, date of birth, address, phone number, etc.)
- Student records (including classes taken, grades, etc.)
- Financial information (including tuition and fees bills, student loans, Bevo Bucks, etc.)
It is very important that you protect your UT EID and password so that someone else cannot impersonate you and access that information.
There are a few steps you can follow that will help keep your UT EID secure:
- Choose a strong password
- Protect your UT EID password
- Log off when you are finished using online applications
The University of Texas at Austin takes your privacy and the security of your UT EID seriously. For more information, refer to How the university ensures your online privacy. | <urn:uuid:6d1e21e6-6146-4bc5-b244-64a8e853d6a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utexas.edu/eid/help/security.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930094 | 188 | 1.71875 | 2 |
New Eve Commentary - "The Delhi Rape, Savile, Ohio - This Violence Will No Longer Be Tolerated" (The Guardian)
Originally published in:
by Eve Ensler
There seems to be two types of risings on the planet right now. One is a sexual violence typhoon that is impacting most countries in the world. It's been happening forever but, like climate change, it's suddenly impossible to ignore. I first noticed more ominous waves during the US elections, the extreme and ignorant anti-women policies perpetrated by the Republicans. Then, like climate storms, floods and fires, specific extreme manifestations began to gain attention. A group of boys allegedly raping a girl in Steubenville, Ohio; a 14-year-old girl shot in the head for insisting girls have the right to learn in Pakistan; the gang rape and murder of a girl on a bus in Delhi; and in Britain the revelations that Jimmy Savile was able to abuse hundreds of girls over six decades, while British institutions from the BBC to Broadmoor turned a blind eye.
And, like the response to climate change, first there was an attempt at denial, then there is the blaming of the victim: a woman raped in Dubai fined after telling police she had been drinking; a priest in Italy telling women they are beaten because they don't clean the house well and wear tight clothes; women in the US military raped by their comrades who then use that as proof that they never belonged there in the first place; raped girls in Rochdale being ignored by police and social workers because they were seen as damaged goods who were "making their own choices". It goes on and on.
Like climate change, only the patriarchs with power seem to be blind to the magnitude of the horrors. As a matter of fact they are engineering it. There is a rape culture – a mindset that seems to have infected every aspect of our lives: the raping of the Earth through ecological destruction by the corporate powerful, pillaging resources for their own coffers with no concern for the Earth, or the indigenous peoples, or the notion of reciprocity; the rape of the poor through exploitation, land grabs, neglect; the rape of women's bodies through physical violence and commodification, where a girl can be purchased for less than the cost of a mobile phone. The modelling and licensing of this rape culture is done by those protected by power and privilege – presidents, celebrities, sports stars, police officers, television executives, priests – with impunity.
But there is another rising. In the last year I have travelled the world for One Billion Rising, the global campaign that is a call for the one billion women who have been beaten or raped and the men who love them to strike, rise and dance on 14 February to end violence against women and girls. This movement is moving through the planet with a force and urgency unlike anything we have experienced – it is what the Indian activist Kamla Bhasin calls a "feminist tsunami". Across 182 countries entire communities are planning to rise and voice their outrage and dreams. Nurses, teachers, domestic workers, indigenous leaders, fisherwomen, peasants, scholars, union organisers, all have come together.
Coalitions are being forged, with a new openness between issues, classes, tribes, races, artists, activists young and old. From Anna Cruz prosecuting 700 murders of women a year in Guatemala to Fartun, who opened the first shelter for women in Somalia, bravely organising for women to take to the streets of Mogadishu. From farmworker women – calling themselves Vaginas Campesinas – who will be dancing in their fields for less violent conditions, to the brave and outspoken nuns Sister Mary John from Philippines, Joan Chittester from the US, and Tenzin Palmo from Tibet. Entire networks are being activated – Gabriela in the Philippines, Unite in Britain, the AFL-CIO union in the US, and more than 14,000 other groups around the world.
Feminists and activists across the world have been tirelessly working for this moment for decades. If you don't believe the door is opening look to India, where sexual violence has now become the central issue. Look to the winning of the US elections by women who said no to the anti-women extremists. Look to the UK, where a real debate is beginning about institutional violence against women – Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, spoke for many when he said the Savile report "must be seen as a watershed moment". Look to loving men such as Kaizaad Katwal, Jason Day, Robert Redford, the Dalai Lama and millions of others who are rising with us. Look to City of Joy in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, where women who, in spite of the violent escalations of the M23 militias and the daily threat of annihilation, continue to heal and study and become powerful in order to save their sisters.
So I am opting for Rising #2. We don't have any idea what's going to happen when one billion women and men protest on the same day. We do know that the preparation for it over these last months has already announced, united and catalysed a movement that, like the violence, can and will no longer be denied.
Now is the time. One month. 14 February. Rise in the streets, in the schools, on the buses, in your homes, in the dark alleyways, in the offices and factories and fishing boats and fields. Let our rising reveal our understanding that, until women are equal, safe and free, no society can prosper and life is diminished. Let our rising announce our commitment to make ending violence against women and girls the central concern of our times. | <urn:uuid:8401dfe9-1c28-4a14-a863-78374a628f37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vday.org/node/3029 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962519 | 1,168 | 1.703125 | 2 |
After spotting a water stain, homeowners should consider where the possible source of the stain is, Kuhn says. If there's a bathroom above the water spot, the leak may be a plumbing issue. That could be a costly repair, she says, because a plumber may need access to an interior wall to repair the leaking pipe.
If the water spot appears to be rainwater coming through the roof, it's not necessarily a major expense, especially if the roof is fairly new, Marston says. It could simply be a nail that popped through a shingle on the roof, or flashing (which secures pipes to a roof) that hasn't been caulked properly, he says.
"Those problems are relatively simple to fix," Marston says. "They usually cost a couple hundred dollars for a roofer to repair."
Other problems could be more expensive to fix. For example, if the roof is 15 years old and several shingles have blown off, the roof is probably in poor condition and requires a complete replacement, Marston says.
"Most builder-grade asphalt roofs have a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years," he says.
COST: According to Marston, new roofs cost from $5,000 to $12,000, depending on their size. | <urn:uuid:c3f19195-5ea8-4b3d-b4ca-5eb4d6fc2ca0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/home-improvement-costs-for-5-problems-4.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960602 | 264 | 1.773438 | 2 |
What's new in the web garden
Some of our plants are thriving as the summer winds down. Our cayenne pepper and cherry tomato plants are doing great with lots of flowers and the pepper plant has many peppers! Our cherry tomato plant has plenty of blossoms and lots of tomatoes.
Our watermelon is growing and growing but it will be awhile before we're able to enjoy the fruit. For now, we'll just keep watering it and watch its progress.
We also have a cucumber that's popped out in the past few days.
The sunflowers are continuing to grow but still no flowers. It may be getting a bit late in the season for that but we've been surprised before with our other crops.
The carrots should be about ready to harvest and perhaps some of the lettuce, too. We'll probably pick our lone tomato from the 'it was almost dead' tomato plant.
I think we can cancel any plans to enjoy cantaloupe. The plants is dying and will not produce any fruit. We tried, but no luck this year with that particular plant.
We still have a few weeks of good weather left so hopefully what blossoms and fruit we have will thrive.
If you have enjoyed our updates on our web garden let us know. You can e-mail us at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:a7af6230-ee19-4857-aa2c-bbbcd67a6804> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://saratoga-north.ynn.com/content/living/web_garden/516950/what-s-new-in-the-web-garden/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971527 | 275 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Politico reported yesterday that Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) has proposed a tax increase in income in excess of $1 million as part of the ongoing negotiations to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff.” In exchange, the Ohio Republican reportedly wants changes to entitlement programs, including cuts to Medicare benefits.
This is the first time that Boehner has proposed raising tax rates, as opposed to just revenue, during negotiations with President Obama. But here’s four reasons why Democrats should still dismiss Boehner’s supposed concession:
1) Taxes on millionaires are going up anyway. As of January 1st, taxes on millionaires — and everyone else — are going to be set back to Clinton-era levels. If Democrats want to raise taxes on millionaires, or on those making more than $250,000 annually, or to set the line at any other income level, there is no need to trade away entitlement cuts to do so. Tax increases are baked into current law already.
2) Moving the line to millionaires costs billions in revenue. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, “Moving the threshold to $1 million is costly. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the first $1 million of a family’s income saves 43 percent less revenue than the savings estimated with a $250,000 threshold.”
3) Entitlements (and other spending) have already been cut. The Affordable Care Act included some $700 billion in cuts to Medicare (without affecting beneficiaries) and the Budget Control Act (which set the “fiscal cliff” in motion) included another $1 trillion in spending cuts, by placing caps on “programs such as defense, education, national parks, the FBI, the EPA, low-income housing assistance, medical research, and many others.” So by agreeing to Boehner’s deal, Democrats would be trading something that is going to happen anyway for something else that they’ve already done.
4) No debt ceiling increase or other measures to help the economy. Boehner’s deal reportedly does not include an increase in the debt ceiling, which would set up another hostage-taking opportunity for Republicans in just a few months. Also, Boehner’s proposal does not include an extension of unemployment benefits — which expire at year’s end for millions of unemployed workers — or the various measures to boost the economy suggested by the administration.
The Washington Post is now reporting that Boehner has also offered “to push any fight over the federal debt limit off for a year.” | <urn:uuid:ec66844b-b29a-46e7-b6c3-46145d6dbeee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/16/1342261/boehner-millionaires-tax-deal/?mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96546 | 527 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Part one of a three-part series on the Florida Keys.
Bogie and Hepburn wannabes head out for adventure aboard the African Queen. Photo by Tom Adkinson.
The African Queen, the actual boat from the movie of the same name, has been resurrected - again.
The putt-putt-puttering steam-powered boat has led an amazing life in its 100 years (it was built in England in 1912), and now you can ride on it just as Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn did in the 1951 movie.
Well, not exactly as Bogart and Hepburn did. Your destination for the experience is Key Largo, Fla., in the Florida Keys, not the Congo.
The tale of the African Queen has almost as many twists and turns as did John Huston's classic movie.
It was built in England and originally named the Livingstone. It was a cargo vessel for the British East India Railways Company and toiled for decades until Huston made it a star in 1951. Bogart won his only Academy Award for playing its captain, Charlie Allnut.
A "career change" in the 1960s brought the African Queen to San Francisco as a tour boat, but that was unsuccessful, and it changed hands several times.
African Queen's co-owner, Suzanne Holmquist, with photos of the famous boat's glory days. Photo by Tom Adkinson.
In 1982, a Bogart fan in Florida named Jim Hendricks Sr. bought and restored it. Homeport was Key Largo, and Hendricks toured it around the world. It even was in the flotilla that marked the 50th anniversary of Dunkirk, but it slid into disrepair again after Hendricks died.
Enter Suzanne and Lance Holmquist, who already owned big sailing vessels. They negotiated to repair the African Queen and put it back in operation.
It operates again in Key Largo. It is moored in a canal next to a Holiday Inn at Mile Marker 100 on the Overseas Highway. It docks in the company of dive boats and other excursion boats with names such as the Pirates Choice (also a Holmquist vessel), Blue Water Diver, the Key Largo Princess II, Reef Runner and Tropical Adventure.
The restoration was substantial on a functional level (15 percent of the steel in the hull, a new boiler and a paint job on the mahogany decks), but the African Queen of today looks like the African Queen of the movie. In fact, Lance Holmquist says he spattered it with mud for that camera-ready look.
This spring (2012) it started offering 75-minute trips on a Key Largo canal, onto open Atlantic water and into another canal. Capacity is six, but the Holmquists hope to increase that number.
There's also an evening cruise that includes a stop at the Pilot House Restaurant for a three-course dinner and a chance to inspect memorabilia from the African Queen movie.
African Queen cruises are your chance for a personal connection to a movie that is preserved in the Library of Congress as part of the National Film Registry of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films."
(Information about African Queen cruises is at http://www.africanqueenkeys.com
, and trip-planning info about all aspects of the Keys is at http://www.fla-keys.com | <urn:uuid:e718f386-ca46-4b79-a789-879e784fa702> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wheretogonext.com/feature/226229 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958289 | 704 | 1.546875 | 2 |
With football season slowly creeping up, Memorial Stadium in Berkeley will be ready to host Cal’s season opener against Nevada on September 1.
The stadium was out-of-use due to seismic repairs and modernization.
It sits right along the Hayward Fault and has been standing for a grand total of 90 years.
According to UC Berkeley, the mechanical, electrical and plumbing work is just short of completion, with about 95 percent of the work done.
That last 5 percent of the work will include painting and coating walls, putting tiles in restrooms and adding, signs, handrails and light fixtures.
The last stretch of the completion project will take five months.
Remodeling this stadium was a trying task for Webcor Builders, with only one entrance for trucks and equipment. The stadium also had to be lowered by 4 feet.
The interior is earthquake-safe, with an exterior preserving the stadium’s glory. Exterior work is around 70 percent complete.
Assistant athletic director Bob Milano Jr. said that while operations won’t be entirely smooth, the allure of football will ensure the stadium is open by its current deadline:
It’s not quite usable yet and we’ll likely have some rough edges, but it would take an act of God to prevent us from staging a football game here. | <urn:uuid:20539f8f-16ec-4400-b919-4537449a4c91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sfbay.ca/2012/04/05/memorial-stadium-almost-ready-for-football/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967284 | 275 | 1.5 | 2 |
White House Outlines a Global Plan for Cyberspace
byMay 17th 2011 8:35AM
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated PressAP Broadcast correspondent Sagar Meghani contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration laid out plans Monday to work aggressively with other nations to make the Internet more secure, enable law enforcement to work closely on cybercrime and ensure that citizens everywhere have the freedom to express themselves online.
And in the strongest terms to date, the White House made it clear the U.S. will use its military might to strike back if it comes under a cyberattack that threatens national security.
Coming on the heels of populist rebellions in the Middle East, the broad policy stresses Internet freedom, and calls on other nations to give citizens the ability to shop, communicate and express themselves freely online.
The White House plan emerges as international leaders are struggling to improve cooperation on global cybercrime and set guidelines for Internet oversight.
Cybersecurity experts have argued that the Internet cannot become a safer place until nations implement international agreements that better define and regulate cybercrime, provide oversight of the Internet, and set out new standards and rules for industry as it increasingly moves its business into the largely ungoverned online world.
The challenges are vast. International leaders are looking for ways to better secure online financial transactions and other business and high-tech exchanges between nations and corporations that span the globe. And they are also grasping for ways to crack down on hackers and other cybercriminals and terrorists who are routinely using the Internet to steal money, ferret out classified secrets and technology, and disturb or destroy critical infrastructure, ranging from the electrical grid and telecommunications networks to nuclear power plants and transportation systems.
Acknowledging that the Internet can be a tool used by governments to crack down on dissidents or by criminals to steal data, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that nations must agree on acceptable norms for cyberspace.
"What this document says, we want the Internet to be open and free and accessible and an economic engine to all people," Clinton said during the White House rollout of the new policy document.
Clinton and other federal agency leaders said the U.S. will reach out to other nations to set voluntary standards for prosecuting cybercriminals, protecting intellectual property, securing networks, and pursuing terrorists who use cyberspace to plan attacks and woo followers.
For the Pentagon, it makes clear that the U.S. will respond to a major cyberattack in much the way it would respond to any other threat to the country.
"We reserve the right to use all necessary means -- diplomatic, informational, military and economic -- as appropriate," the policy says. It adds, however, that the U.S. will exhaust all options before military force is used.
The policy is more a set of guiding principles than a binding text, and there are no set deadlines or goals for reaching agreements with other countries.
"This is the future we seek, and we invite all nations and peoples to join us in that effort," White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said.
White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt, in an Associated Press Television News interview, said the policy will allow the U.S. to begin discussions with other countries about what is and is not appropriate activity on the Internet. Under the plan, nations must take responsibility for cybercrime within their borders.
As recent protests swept across the Middle East and North Africa -- from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya and Yemen -- dissidents used social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to organize anti-government demonstrations. And in some cases, country leaders have tried to stifle the protests by shutting down websites or disrupting Internet traffic. Clinton has been vocal in her opposition to that, and the new policy formalizes those sentiments.
"That's one of the things we hope in the long term that will never happen again," Schmidt said.
He agreed it will take time to forge agreements around the globe, particularly with countries that are "not likeminded" and don't share American values of free expression.
James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert and senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the policy is a strong first step toward broader international agreements.
"For the first time we are saying what to do in cyberspace and what we think is important," Lewis said. "And we are linking cybersecurity to Internet freedom."
The plan also gives U.S. law enforcement agencies a boost as they work to track down cybercriminals in the borderless Internet world -- a challenge that is fraught with difficulties, since countries' laws are different and in some places almost non-existent.
Both the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service have based agents in a number of foreign countries, expanding their international cyber investigations, which often involve complex crime networks, often made up of hackers spread across several countries -- people who've never met and may have only communicated anonymously online.
A number of recent cases have involved arrests in Eastern European countries, but the threats are also increasing in Africa and South America, where cybercriminals have found burgeoning sanctuaries because of weak law enforcement. | <urn:uuid:825e4a7b-8284-4658-8c4c-c43394526c42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/17/white-house-outlines-a-global-plan-for-cyberspace/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930353 | 1,051 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Oh Facebook, when are you going to learn? When you've got over a third of a billion people using your site to basically fritter the day away, any tweaks are going to stir up your population. What are Facebookers saying about these new ones, then?
Mark Zuckerberg is obviously sensitive to the controversies that Facebook's previous attempts to adjust its terms and conditions and privacy settings stirred up, so he chose to announce the news in an open letter posted on the site, with an alert at the top of everyone's landing page today that links to the letter. In the few hours since the letter launched, there have been over 16,000 comments--a huge number, considering that the U.S. hasn't really woken up yet.
But before we get to the user comments--what's Facebook done now? On the face of it, not a lot, actually. The core decision the company has made is to demolish the "networks" feature of the site. As Zuckerberg notes, it made sense in the early days when the site was popular among school and college students, often keen to share or learn information only with people from their academic establishment. As Facebook's exploded, networks have grown to include businesses, esoteric groupings and even whole countries--essentially eroding the usefulness of sharing with a particular network. Mark puts a positive spin on the decision to abolish them by remarking "If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information."
The solution is to have a much simpler privacy control: You can now share information with only your friends, friends of friends, or everybody. And there's a new, and extremely powerful, system--you can now decide on an individual update basis who gets to see your data. That's going to be very useful, though no doubt will quickly be abused by the kind of "Sarah said this dumb thing at school yesterday" comment, which "Sarah" won't get to see.
So. We know Facebookers are incredibly sensitive to tweaks made to how the site works, and we know they all tend to reveal their online personality pretty openly. How do they respond to this one? We took the most recent 10% of comments, and did some analysis--the text is shown in that stark word cloud up there. And the upshot? Facebookers seem to generally like this improvement. There are 133 uses of the word "love" in this comment sample, 83 "greats" versus only 8 "hates" and just 17 discrete uses of the word "no", though of course these could be being used in a different context.
While positive, this data doesn't sound like too much of a resounding thumbs-up though, especially since there's very little discussion about privacy concerns or the loss of networks. What then, among the spam adverts and side-arguments in the comments, are Facebookers really talking about? It's obvious, when you look at the wordcloud: They all want a "dislike" button. Yes, in the face of a potentially significant tweak to Facebook's privacy settings, the biggest response is to ask for a totally different and rather trivial service. Has Facebook's community suddenly gone all shallow and careless with their online data, trusting the site's decisions more than before? You certainly could argue that. You may even suggest that that's what the whole site is about anyway.
Losing the ability to form networks will certainly irritate some Facebook users, but it would seem a small price to pay to gain the enhanced privacy settings the site's now offering. But what we really need to watch for in the coming hours or days, is whether Zuckerberg really cares about what his community wants, versus what he thinks it wants: Will Facebook get a dislike button? | <urn:uuid:50232fd7-daa8-4e69-af71-1aff076902a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fastcompany.com/print/1475096 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966642 | 779 | 1.757813 | 2 |
They may have the motivation, and even have the money, but more than a third of American pre-retirees say they're simply overwhelmed by the process.
A new survey conducted by E*Trade in association with Harris Interactive indicates there are lots of great intentions when it comes to retirement planning and the basics of investing, but a sizeable percentage of American workers are frozen in their tracks when it comes to getting the process started.
The survey found that 37% of participants said they're interested in working with a professional to help manage their retirement accounts but don't think that they have enough savings or investments to justify getting the assistance.
Some 32% said they have yet to roll over a 401(k) from a former employer because they find the process too confusing, intimidating or time-consuming; 41% said they believe that opening an IRA account takes too much time, and 56% said they believe managing an IRA requires more financial know-how than they currently have.
Opinions (and actions) on 401(k) plans were even more vague: 32% who currently have a 401(k) are not confident it will ever grow enough to meet their retirement needs, 28% don't review their statements or have difficulty at present to keep track of their account performance, and 21% do not know what fees are being charged as part of their 401(k).
This article was originally posted at BenefitsPro.com, a sister site of Credit Union Times. | <urn:uuid:cb65eea9-4a7e-46f7-8e29-a87ce439203b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cutimes.com/2012/10/08/survey-finds-cold-feet-about-retirement-planning?t=trailblazers-40-below | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984862 | 299 | 1.53125 | 2 |
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WEST CHESTER — An Upper Merion man is challenging the state law banning the sale of synthetic marijuana, saying that it is so vague, a common sense reading would confuse people as to what substances are illegal and what are not.
In a motion to dismiss the criminal charges against him, Amrish Patel of King of Prussia said that a 2011 law banning the sale of “bath salts” and synthetic marijuana was amended to include a wide range of substances, some which might not fit the type of drug legislators wanted to criminalize.
The law that went into effect in August 2011 includes the term “synthetic cannabinoids” along with other banned substances. But that term, criminal defense attorney Joseph P. Green Jr. of West Chester wrote in Patel’s motion, is “irremediably vague and without content.”
“The version (of the law) enacted is substantially more vague than the version originally proposed,” Green wrote in the motion. “During the legislative process, the term ‘synthetic cannabinoids’ lost all definition and content. In the scientific community, ‘synthetic cannabinoids’ can include many different types of substances, and people of reasonable intelligence have no way of knowing whether any unlisted substance will be considered to be a synthetic cannabinoid.”
The motion said that products, such as over-the-counter pain reliever acetaminophen, have similar properties to those listed as synthetic cannabinoids in the legislation.
“The Legislature likely could have accomplished its stated objective to prohibit possession of designer marijuana by enacting specific legislation incorporating the available descriptions of the ... types of chemical substitutions that alter the original chemical structure of marijuana,” the motion stated.
Synthetic marijuana, in products known as “Spice,” “K2” and the products Patel is accused of having for sale at his Sadsbury, Chester County convenience store — “Bossman” and “Cloud 9” — came to public attention in 2011 after a series of incidents in which users became ill or emotionally unstable.
Gov. Tom Corbett in March signed the law banning the sale of the manufactured drugs that are readily available in smoke shops and convenience stores, primarily in the eastern part of the state.
Pennsylvania became the fourth state to ban so-called “bath salts” and one of more than a dozen that banned synthetic marijuana.
“These are drugs that were created not only to produce powerful highs but also to skirt Pennsylvania laws,” said Dauphin County District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr., president of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association, at the time the bill was signed into law.
After Aug. 23, anyone convicted of possession of the designer drugs could be fined as much as $1,000 and sentenced to up to a year in prison. Convicted dealers can be fined up to $15,000 and sentenced to up to five years in prison.
Patel was arrested in November 2011, one of the first people in the county to face prosecution for selling synthetic marijuana.
According to an arrest affidavit prepared by East Whiteland officer Patricia Logic, a member of Chester County’s Municipal Drug Task Force and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, authorities received a complaint from the Sadsbury police concerning two men who had purchased the substance known as Cloud 9.
Logic and former Chester County Detective Sal Canzoneri interviewed one of the men Nov. 16 who said he had purchased Cloud 9 from Harry’s Quick Stop in Sadsburyville two days before. He said he had bought the drug from that store previously, but not since the new ban went into effect.
The man said he had to ask for the product by name and that it was not displayed on the counter for sale. He and his cousin, who was with him, smoked the product in the store’s parking lot soon after purchasing it. Within five minutes, he began having chest pains and became disoriented. His cousin called an ambulance and the man was taken to Brandywine Hospital in Caln. He was treated there for substance abuse.
Police searched the Quick Stop, which is owned by Patel and found various amounts of Cloud 9 and Bossman in the store, as well as drug paraphernalia. The two products were tested by the state police Lima Regional laboratory and found to contain synthetic cannabinoids banned under the new law.
Patel, 51, was charged in December 2011 with two counts each of possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver. His case is awaiting trial before Judge David Bortner. Green filed the motion to dismiss Jan. 14.
Assistant District Attorney Christopher deBarrena-Sarobe, who is assigned to prosecute the case, declined comment on Patel’s motion. | <urn:uuid:e02fc236-843b-4d74-9d05-ad1c589e27d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timesherald.com/article/20130122/NEWS01/130129890/rememberingpa.us/rememberingpa.us/timesherald | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976368 | 1,009 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Danny Meyer, of Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Maialino, Blue Smoke, The Modern, and more, talks about the food that the chefs make for one another—the staff “family meal.” It is simple, often improvised, but special enough to please the chefs’ discerning palates. In Family Table: Favorite Staff Meals from Our Restaurant to Your Home, the restaurants’ culinary director, Michael Romano, coauthor of the award-winning Union Square Cafe Cookbook, collects and refines his favorite in-house dishes for the home cook, while served Karen Stabiner shares stories about how this imaginative array of dishes came to be.
Tagged with “cooking” (42)
Food writer Michael Pollan once advised "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Now, he tells us how to cook it. In his new book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, he takes a tour of the most time-tested cooking techniques, from southern whole-hog barbecue and slow-cooked ragus to sourdough baking and pickle making.
How 13 strangers from different food cultures, met, cooked and shared some fascinating culinary stories.
Chef and writer Yotam Ottolenghi talks about his Mediterranean feasts, Neil Forbes gorges on garlic and Michael Smith makes a spiced cous cous in homage to his mother in law.
With mixers, blenders and food processors found in most kitchens, the primitive mortar and pestle may seem out of place. But the Stone Age tool can’t be beat when it comes to creating tasty salsas, pestos and curries, chefs say.
Blogger and now cookbook author Deb Perelman insists you don’t need a big or gourmet kitchen to make good food. Since 2006, she’s been tracking down, testing and blogging about recipes she thinks pretty much anyone can make — all from her tiny New York kitchen.
Hot tea might not sound like the most refreshing of drinks for a 100-degree day. But neuroscientists say that receptors in your mouth may send a cool message when they detect hot foods.
‘Molecular gastronomy’ was coined in the 1991 as a suitably serious-sounding term that would help pave the way for a conference on culinary science.
Since then, however, it has become a convenient, catch-all-phrase to describe science-driven cooking. It explains little and misleads a lot.
In 2006 Heston was involved in producing a statement to explain how his motivations and intentions weren’t confined to the sphere of molecular gastronomy.
ONE Three basic principles guide our cooking: excellence, openness, and integrity.
We are motivated above all by an aspiration to excellence. We wish to work with ingredients of the finest quality, and to realize the full potential of the food we choose to prepare, whether it is a single shot of espresso or a multicourse tasting menu.
TWO Our cooking values tradition, builds on it, and along with tradition is part of the ongoing evolution of our craft.
The world’s culinary traditions are collective, cumulative inventions, a heritage created by hundreds of generations of cooks. Tradition is the base which all cooks who aspire to excellence must know and master. Our open approach builds on the best that tradition has to offer.
THREE We embrace innovation - new ingredients, techniques, appliances, information, and ideas - whenever it can make a real contribution to our cooking.
We do not pursue novelty for its own sake. We may use modern thickeners, sugar substitutes, enzymes, liquid nitrogen, sous-vide, dehydration, and other nontraditional means, but these do not define our cooking. They are a few of the many tools that we are fortunate to have available as we strive to make delicious and stimulating dishes.
FOUR We believe that cooking can affect people in profound ways, and that a spirit of collaboration and sharing is essential to true progress in developing this potential.
The act of eating engages all the senses as well as the mind. Preparing and serving food could therefore be the most complex and comprehensive of the performing arts. To explore the full expressive potential of food and cooking, we collaborate with scientists, from food chemists to psychologists, with artisans and artists (from all walks of the performing arts), architects, designers, industrial engineers. We also believe in the importance of collaboration and generosity among cooks: a readiness to share ideas and information, together with full acknowledgment of those who invent new techniques and dishes.
Jay Rayner hosts a special edition of the food panel show recorded at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This episode also features food writer and Scottish chef Sue Lawrence as a guest panellist.
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The blogosphere is buzzing over a planned government regulation I reported on yesterday, which would allow doctors who oppose abortion to opt out of prescribing contraceptives that cause the expulsion of fertilized eggs, thus potentially reducing your access to birth control pills. Bloggers on both sides of the issue have let fly some zingers. Speaking out against the rule, Cristina Page, a blogger for the reproductive health blog Reality Check, calls it a "spectacular act of complicity with the religious right." And the Feministe blog says: "The proposed change would explicitly allow medical providers to morally coerce patients and to discriminate against girls and women who want or need a service or a prescription which they are allowed to have by law."
Voicing support for the rule, Denise Burke, a blogger for Americans United for Life, writes: "Although the announcement of this draft policy was met with predictable consternation from abortion advocacy groups, this policy simply provides an oversight mechanism to enforce more than a dozen existing (and many long-standing) federal protections for healthcare freedom of conscience." And a blogger for a Catholic blogspot, Causa Nostrae Laetitiae, warns that if the women's-rights activists succeed at sinking the new rule, "Catholic and other health care professionals who follow their conscience...will be driven out of their jobs."
Even Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who adamantly opposes the HHS rule, is blogging in outrage. She writes, "The Bush Administration is up to its old tricks again, quietly putting ideology before science and women's health.... We can't let them get away with this underhanded move to undermine women's health and that's why I am sounding the alarm." She reports that these proposed regulations are "set to be released next week," but my source at the Department of Health and Human Services tells me that no wheels have been set in motion to make that happen.
It's a mystery how a draft of this rule got out in the first place. Many suspect it was leaked to the New York Times by an HHS staffer who wanted to put the kibosh on it before it was actually issued. The negative reaction to the planned rule was predictable, as was the collective outcry from Democratic members of Congress. (Yesterday, 105 representatives and 28 senators sent letters of protest to President Bush and HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt.) If the rule is indeed formally proposed, there will be a period for public comment before HHS decides whether to make it official. In the meantime, you can voice your opinion by sending an E-mail to Leavitt at [email protected]. If you're against the regulation, you can also send a form E-mail via the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. Tell us what you think in our online poll below. | <urn:uuid:e6fe61f7-de79-4323-bafe-57467f132249> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-women/2008/07/23/contraception-is-it-sometimes-abortion_print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959963 | 565 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The Illinois State Board of Higher Education says its developed a smarter way to allocate state funds to colleges and universities. IPR's Rachel Otwell has more.
Illinois is now one of the states using "performance-based" higher ed funding. It dictates how to allocate money to state schools based on a set of metrics, like how many students actually graduate versus how many are enrolled, and the ethnic diversity of students. Director George Reid who heads the state's Board of Higher Education says it's a promising development. He says the decision to make the switch was collaborative.
The plan is being phased in, though so far it hardly affects schools. Less than one percent of college funding was reallocated based on their performance. But the agency says the switch has gotten the attention of universities. All public universities are facing about a 6% cut in funding from the state for the coming fiscal year.
Support Your Public Radio Station | <urn:uuid:d1e0ed2e-cd40-42b4-9441-1409b3a0230c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2012/06/04546_UnivFundWEB_150725.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974204 | 187 | 1.679688 | 2 |
This past Saturday, The Makerspace joined the East Side Peoples’ Festival at Genesis Lutheran Church. The East Side Peoples Festival is an event where various East Side people and organizations gather to share their work, ideas, and passion for their community. It was a fun day packed with demos, examples, and lots of wonderful people interested in learning about the Makerspace and getting involved.
We had many of our alternative energy “toys” on display, and some of the more curious youngsters began building their own wind turbines without any instruction! A particularly bright fella discovered that if he attached his turbine to the bike generator, he could create a refreshing breeze to cool himself off as he pedals! Sadly, the bike generator proved to be a bit much for the wee turbine, and we eventually burnt it out entirely. A worthy sacrifice!
Now that we have completed our first session of AwesomeShops, we are collaborating with our makers to figure out what to do in terms of projects and workshops for the summer that will make for interesting learning experiences and good times. To do so, we kicked off a process of “sticky note” brainstorming so that everyone could contribute their ideas, organize them into categories, and pick their favorites.
With a bit of persuasion and priming, the ideas started trickling forth. Soon enough, we had a flood on our hands, and we almost ran out of sticky notes! When finished, we stepped back and looked proudly upon a boardful of incredibly creative ideas. By moving them around on the board and grouping similar ideas together, we were able to combine some into larger, more comprehensive projects, as well as begin to refine the focus areas for the Makerspace itself. We’re still hashing things out, but by next week we should be able to nail down some amazing summer projects.
This past weekend, the Mt. Elliott Makerspace went out to the Bay Are Maker Faire in San Francisco to help show off a new and inexpensive way to start a Makerspace, well, anywhere!
On Friday, we helped build the sheds with teams of middle and high school students
On Saturday, with help from some OmniCorpDetroit members we tough workshops on how to make LED throwies out of LEDs, button batteries, and mini magnets. Given the un-magnetic wood surface of the Makerspace sheds, we commandeered some paella pans to demonstrate the purpose and functionality of the Throwies. They worked great!
By the end of the day, we had run completely out of supplies for the Throwies. So, we needed a new idea for Sunday fun. After some searching in the Maker Shed, we found a bunch of Drawdio draw-a-synth kits and decided to wire them into a guitar amplifier. Soon enough, the day became filled with both crazy pencil drawings and wild sounds.
Even though we may all have had headaches by the end of the day, the Drawdio workshop was one of the most fun classes we have ever done. We hope to do it again in Detroit!
For the last day of the Tron Bikes AwesomeShop we were going to go on a bike ride around Belle Isle, however the forecast called for bad thunderstorms so we decided to postpone it. That was until we got fed up with not riding and decided to go anyway! I am sure glad we did because the rain held off and it was a blast.
The crew was not very big, but we had plenty of boom-boxes to have one heck of a bike ride!! We even took some time to stop at the Belle Isle amphitheater to test how loud the boom-boxes could get.
The day then ended with a simple ceremony congradulating all the students who compleated the ten week cource.
Our final day was supposed to consist of more wind turbine work, but unfortunately over half of the makers were absent due to a mandatory school function. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell me about this stuff? Doh!
No worries though…we made the best of it by having those who were able to make it work on other outstanding projects such as bike amps, repair projects, learning how to use the computers, etc.
At the end of the session, we awarded our makers their Certificates of Completion. As the first makers to complete our prototypical AwesomeShops, I’d say it was quite an honor for both the teachers and the makers alike!
Today during Open Shop, Raven and continued our work repairing the discarded stereo (See Electronics Rescue! Part 1). We finished reassembling the body with the newly soldered power cord, and began work on the speakers.
In order to access more wire inside the speaker splice new leads we needed to use the drill and the Dremel to cut ‘em out. Raven LOVED learning about the tools that cut holes, lines, and make noise!
Next up: Splicing the speaker wires and finishing it off | <urn:uuid:c559ed89-201d-4084-ad0e-fdbb7ca3e9bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mtelliottmakerspace.com/?afg0_page_id=263&paged=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971105 | 1,026 | 1.710938 | 2 |
bLISTerd Goes Back To School! The 10 Best School-Related Moviesby Popblerd Staff on Sep 13, 2012 • 3:00 pm 7 Comments
Happy September, y’all!
For our latest bLISTerd installment, we turned to the silver screen to come up with our favorite school-related movies. As you can see from the list below, there was a bit of lively debate as to what constituted a “school-related” movie, but in the end, we think these 11 movies are a pretty good representation of what Hollywood has had to offer over the years as far as flicks about the educational system.
In addition to polling our staff, we reached out to our sister site Popdose and got a few of their writers to participate as well. Check out the list below and let us know if your favorite placed!
10. (tie) Clueless (1994)
Many movies try to capture the carefree, anything-goes mentality of the alternative-nation ‘90s. But few sum up the decade’s cultural touchstones, fashion choices and social conscious more than Clueless. “Wait,” you might be saying. “Clueless? The satire-laden movie based loosely on the Jane Austen novel? The film about the spoiled, self-centered rich girl who learns to help others—who eventually gets together with a baby-faced Paul Rudd—has deep meaning?” Well, yes. Although best known for making Alicia Silverstone a star (and for combining Valley Girl lingo with wildly creative slang), the movie is a rather good encapsulation of what it was like being a teenager during that decade. The stoner/jock/preppy/popular crowd cliques pretty much nail the high school divisions back then, while the cultural touchstones (references to Beavis & Butt-Head, Ren & Stimpy, save-the-earth sensitive dudes, etc.) are spot-on. And the soundtrack? The mix of Radiohead, Cracker, the Muffs, Counting Crows, Luscious Jackson Coolio and Mighty Mighty Bosstones—just to name a few—is representative of how diverse modern rock really was back then.
While the dated nature of these references is obvious when watching Clueless today, the caricature-like nature of the movie has kept it from aging badly—and means its comedic barbs are still pretty much intact. But more important, Silverstone plays Cher as a character full of endearing, earnest naivete (not vapid stupidity, as many might assume). That, when combined with the sincerity of the movie’s relationships—especially the one between Cher and her father (Dan Hedaya), as well as the Dionne (Stacey Dash) /Murray (Donald Faison) coupling—gives Clueless a sweet, funny core that’s timeless. (Annie Zaleski)
10. (tie) Sixteen Candles (1984)
If you were of high-school age in the 1980s, chances are Sixteen Candles was the first movie you ever saw that depicted something approaching your real life. Molly Ringwald’s Samantha Baker is just like someone you knew, or maybe someone you used to be: she’s good-looking and has friends but otherwise passes through the high school halls largely unnoticed by everyone except the dork with the crush on her … and of course gorgeous Jake Ryan, the senior who holds her heart in his hands and doesn’t even know it. In Sixteen Candles as in life, the freshman blues aren’t confined to school. Sam feels just as unseen and unappreciated at home, and when we watch her laugh as she realizes “They fucking forgot my birthday!” we recognize the pain she’s hiding. In fact, Sam’s life is positively spilling over with anxieties and humiliations, from the helpless envy she feels seeing Jake Ryan’s girlfriend naked to her sigh of resignation when Long Duk Dong somehow leapfrogs her in popularity. But Sixteen Candles, unlike its followup The Breakfast Club, never forsakes humor and good spirits, and in the end, John Hughes has too much affection for his young heroine to deny her the sixteenth-birthday present she so richly deserves. (Dan Wiencek)
9. National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
Booze, debauchery, gratuitous nudity, more booze, more debauchery, rinse, repeat – sounds like a typical college weekend, right? No movie has captured that college experience better than National Lampoon’s Animal House. The movie became the blueprint for how you wished your college years would be (because nobody would green light a film about cramming for midterms and pulling all-nighters for papers). Heck, my first night on campus, the RA’s put Animal House on in the TV lounge in my residence hall. At every hall dance I went to, sooner or later, the DJ put on Otis Day and the Knights’ version of “Shout”, and we all dutifully got “a little bit softer now” (umm..).
Animal House is a movie that’s entered the collective pop culture consciousness. Admit it, you can’t go a couple of days without quoting lines like “fat, dumb and stupid is no way to go through life, son”, “double secret probation” and “my advice to you is to start drinking heavily” (not to mention references to your cucumber). John Belushi’s pep talk (“was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor”) is a staple of arenas and stadiums when the home team got behind.
Set as a portrayal of college life in the early 60’s, Animal House is really the basic story of anti-establishment underdogs versus the status quo. In this case the underdogs are the members of Delta House, “the worst house on campus”, and the establishment embodied by Dean Wormer and the “Hitler Youth” of Delta’s rival, the Omega House. But within that archetype is a well-paced, written and especially acted work of manic slapstick. Along the way are dead horses, food fights, toga parties (“it’s not an orgy!”) and the destruction of an entire downtown.
Animal House launched numerous careers, including co-writer Harold Ramis (the film’s based on his college experiences), producer Ivan Reitman (Stripes, Ghostbusters with Ramis), director John Landis (Blues Brothers, Trading Places, “Thriller” video), Tom Hulce (nominated for an Oscar in Amadeus), Kevin Bacon (six degrees of everyone), Mark Metcalf (Twisted Sister videos), and a lot of other “that guys”.
But Animal House made nobody a bigger star than Belushi, who’s performance as the slovenly drunken wild man Bluto Blutarsky, is comedy genius. Belushi’s funniest moments com without his saying a line, and instead from casting knowing looks, stuffing his face and tray in the cafeteria, peering and leering in the sorority window, or simply slathering himself in mustard. Every move, look and line is perfect. He literally steals every scene he’s in.
Animal House was made for under $3 million, the movie went on to gross over $141 million at the box office. Although the film got generally mixed reviews overall, it got some notably strong ones as well, with Roger Ebert putting it in his top 10 list for 1978 and on Time Magazine’s list of top films. The American Film Institute but Animal House on it’s list of top 100 funniest American Flims. And, it’s also stop down watching when it shows up on cable. So “grab a brew; it don’t cost nothin’”, flip on this classic college movie and relive your own wildest college moments vicariously with Animal House. (Dennis)
8. Back To The Future (1985)
There was some spirited debate (okay, not that spirited) as we compiled our list of top school movies as to whether Back to the Future counted. Those against pointed out (somewhat rightly) that while many scenes take place at a school, particularly the climactic Enchantment Under the Sea dance, the heart of the movie is time travel, not the ins and outs of high school life. And sure, compared to something like The Breakfast Club, the case for Back to the Future is a bit tenuous. But if you strip away the shiny Delorean and the sci-fi time travel conceit, Back to the Future isn’t a film about the consequences of breaking the space-time continuum; it’s a movie about the oft ignored reality that every generation goes through the exact same high school trials and tribulation, whether in 1955, 1985, or 2015.
Structurally, Back to the Future is a textbook high school romantic comedy. Sure, it ratchets up the stakes by making Marty’s very existence hinge on their ultimate hook-up of two strangers at a school dance, but the beats are the same. Boy and girl run in different circles. Boy must prove his love to the girl. Girl sees the inner beauty of said boy. The two live happily ever after.
But the real brilliance of the movie, beyond its crazy set piece stunts and tongue-in-cheek anachronisms, is how it juxtaposes the high school experience of two generations at once. We like to think (or at least I do) that our parents have always been just that: our parents, the serious, mature, and wise rocks on which we build our lives. Kids sneak drinks, chase girls, swoon over guys, and giggle with their friends; adults don’t. Marty, as a stand in for all of us, watches this illusion shatter firsthand through the course of the movie. Take, for example, the pivotal scene in the car before the big dance, when Marty can hardly believe his mother is drinking, smoking, and (in one of the most subtly disturbing scenes in all of film) making a sexual pass at him. We like to think we alone experience the impulses and trials of high school, but in reality, there is nothing new under the sun.
So sure, few other high school movies feature time machines and crazed scientists. But Back to the Futures’ heart lies in its high school romance and commentary. For that reason alone, the famed cultural touchstone earns its place on our list. (Stephen)
7. Rushmore (1998)
There are so many movies about how hard it is to be different in high school, where the pressure to conform comes from the teachers and students alike. Rushmore spins that premise into the story of Max Fischer, a 15-year-old who doesn’t fit in because he’s spectacular. Jason Schwartzman plays it with equal parts earned arrogance, unearned arrogance, and a broken heart, as the motherless boy of a kind barber father he can’t relate to because he attends a top-notch prep school on scholarship. We all have much to learn from young Max, who blooms where he’s planted, joining and/or creating probably every club on campus, truly seizing the day, even falling in love with a beautiful teacher (Olivia Williams), only to lose her to a sad businessman (Bill Murray, in the role of a lifetime). His hubris gets the best of him and he screws it all up, gets expelled, and sent to a bland public high school…where he blooms again, starting more clubs and putting on a play. Rushmore was Wes Anderson’s second film and breakout hit. With his film, he established a lot of his pervasive themes, voice, and even sound (British invasion!) in an elegant, beautiful, and deeply moving work about, honestly, being a good person and trying to do your best. (Brian Boone)
5. Election (1999)
Teachers are often painted as caricatures in films that center on life in school — especially high school. With Election, the tables are somewhat turned by looking at the high school experience through the mid-life crisis of Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) in this 1999 film about the drama surrounding the election of a high school student body president. Broderick brings the right amount of midwestern sincerity (laced with a deep-seated dissatisfaction with life) to the role. Reese Witherspoon, as Tracy Flick, reveals layers of emotion to what could easily have been a one-dimensional character, and proves to be an devious and effective foil to McAllister’s efforts to teach Flick a lesson in humility. The film succeeds because it presents both students and teachers as fully formed characters — even though there are cartoonish and over the top elements to their lives. At bottom, though, Election presents a simmering rage against social climbing, class resentment of privilege, and mid-life crises in such a way that it’s easy to laugh while the characters are clearly in pain. (Ted Asregadoo)
4. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is, in every respect, a fantasy film rivaling even The Lord Of The Rings in its straining of the margins of reality. Only in the movies could you have someone who is, let’s be honest, as plainly schlubby as Ferris Bueller also be such a beloved master manipulator. His family lives in a house they consider “middle-class,” although that seems an understatement by sight. His parents are blissfully ignorant, stereotypical ’80s go-getters who never had to go into the principal’s office to say, “My kid would NEVER do something like that,” but are so terribly blind and deluded that they totally would say that. Bueller has a best friend who will ably justify his ever bad impulse and a hot girlfriend who hangs around even when he pulls the most insane stunt of the moment. In Bueller’s world, even when nothing works out, everything works out.
Which is why we, as Eighties teens, were dutifully loyal to our man Bueller. Nothing was working out for us. Not only could we not get anything past our parents, they treated us as though we were dumber than deer on a racetrack. The world of Wanna-Be-Gordon-Gekkos didn’t see us as a threat and weren’t about to let us into their club. The Soviets were going to blow the U.S. straight to hell. We were too fat, too skinny, too uncoordinated, ugly, greasy, pimple-faced and couldn’t dance. But we had Bueller, and were grateful. He said to the parents and adults who dared watch the film, “See? Your precious, dimwitted little angel may be smarter than you think,” and we loved him for that.
The big question is: is this really a school movie? Sure, Bueller’s being hunted by the principal for his blatant truancy. Sure, we get the frequent cut-ins of the school fearing for the welfare of a “Bueller at death’s door.” But considering he spends most of the time out and about in the city, does it fit this list? Listen, the ultimate responsibility of the prisoner is to escape. I know it. Bueller knew it. Now you know it too, so any school movie worth its Friday pizza slice must address those that got out. So yes, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a school movie (without much actual school in it), and Bueller is our Cooler King.(dw. Dunphy)
3. Heathers (1988)
Director: Michael Lehmann • Writer: Daniel Waters • Cinematography: Francis Kenney • Editor: Norman Hollyn
“Now there’s a school that self-destructed, not because society didn’t care, but because the school was society.”
Dan Waters wrote this ABC Afterschool Special from hell while working in a video store. At the time, the script was a three-hour epic with a potentially awful ending (a prom in heaven). Director Michael Lehmann, a USC grad helming his first feature, and novice producer Denise Di Novi assembled the perfect team to pull off this comedy about teenage suicide, date rape, disconnected parents, peer pressure, pyrotechnics, turbo dogs and cherry slushies.
25 years later, Heathers hasn’t aged a day because its characters speak their own language, dress in a fashion that is and yet never was in style (girls in blazers!) and make little to no references to anything that can be dated (technology, celebrities, politics, etc.). Worried that teen slang such as “rad” had a very short shelf life, Waters created his own vivid and inspired vernacular:
“Fuck me gently with a chainsaw.” — Heather Chandler (fuck you)
“Quit pulling my dick.” — Heather Duke (don’t lie to me)
“Call me when the shuttle lands.” – Principal Gowan (keep dreaming)
“What’s your damage?” — Veronica Sawyer (what’s your problem)
Then, there’s the brilliant use of color in Rudy Dillon’s costume designs (and matching croquet sets): envious Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty) wears green; meek Heather MacNamara (Lisanne Falk) wears yellow; all-powerful Heather Chandler (Kim Walker) wears red; anti-heroine Veronica (Winona Ryder) wears black and blue; menacing JD (Christian Slater) is in nothing but black. Even innocent Betty Finn (Renee Estevez — yes, of that family) wears a bleach white prim and proper blouse.
“God, Veronica. My afterlife is so boring. I have to sing Kumbaya one more time…”
Even if Heathers 2 gets made, many of the Heatherverse’s key players are already at that big prom in the sky: Kim Walker (Heather Chandler), William Cort (Veronica’s Dad), Jeremy Applegate (Peter) and Glenn Shadix (Father Ripper) all died way too young. One of Walker’s final film appearances was with fellow Heather (Falk) in the Say Anything kegger before curfew scene.
Like his antihero, JD, Dan Waters went on to make many bombs throughout his career (Hudson Hawk, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Sex and Death 101 — with Ryder). In the win column, his Batman Returns (the Tim Burton-helmed Penguin movie) was one of my favorites in that series.
For years, Heathers has suffered a lot of comparison to Mean Girls, which was directed by Mark Waters (Dan’s brother). Outsider infiltrates and brings down the most popular girl clique in school while having repetitive small talk chats with mom and dad on the patio. Someone gets run over by a truck. “Fetch” is the new “Very.” But alas, nothing can top the original. Heathers was and is so very. So very indeed. (Keith Creighton)
The 1980s was a boom-time for high school movies, and Fast Times is arguably the best of the lot. The movie was written by future director Cameron Crowe about his experiences going undercover in a San Diego high school for a Rolling Stone article. Directed by Amy Heckerling, the film was marketed as a wacky stoner romp featuring Sean Penn’s iconic Spicoli character (who clearly inspired the spacey likes of everyone from Bill and Ted to Pauly Shore to Crush the turtle in Finding Nemo). But it was much more than a one-note weed flick. It follows a group of high school students through fumbling attempts at love, sex and success. The movie veered wildly from off-the-wall comedy to a heartbreaking pregnancy sideplot. Other than Spicoli, Fast Times avoided archetypes and made the rest of its characters likable and believable.
Fast Times featured a terrific ensemble cast that introduced America to the likes of Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates, and featured cameos from Nic Cage, Anthony Edwards, Eric Stoltz and Forest Whitaker. The soundtrack includes a who’s who of early ‘80s AOR stalwarts such as Sammy Hagar, most of the Eagles (Henley, Walsh, Felder and Schmit all contributed solo songs), Billy Squier, Quarterflash and the Go-Gos. But the most ubiquitous was Jackson Browne’s “Somebody’s Baby,” which was played non-stop on the FM station I listened to at the time. Better songs that were played in the movie but didn’t end up on the soundtrack included Tom Petty’s “American Girl” and The Cars’ “Moving in Stereo.” Although there was an egregious error made when Robert Romanus’ Damone recommends playing side 1 of Led Zeppelin 4 when making out and then the film cuts to Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” which as any fan will tell you is on Physical Graffiti. A surprising mistake, given Crowe’s close relationship with the band. Still, a minor quibble in what is a true American classic. (Jay Kumar)
1. The Breakfast Club (1985)
I can’t believe, with all the remakes and lousy adaptations of lame TV shows, that Hollywood hasn’t started remaking the late John Hughes’ films. And I’m not saying they should, but if they did then The Breakfast Clubis a likely starting point. Really, the only things that tie it to the ’80s are the hair, the slang, and the music. In every other way, it’s a timeless and surprisingly poignant exploration of the stifling yet unspoken high school caste system.
Incoming search terms:
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Born : June 14th 1964 in Brooklyn, New York, USA
Bio: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Edmund Elias Merhige, known as E. Elias Merhige, (born June 14th, 1964) is an American film director born in Brooklyn.
Merhige is best known to mainstream audiences for the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, and to underground audiences for the cult-classic 1991 film Begotten.
As he says in his audio commentary to the Shadow of the Vampire DVD, Merhige views cinema as the only meaningful art form of the present era. He regards literature and drama as once-needed forms which are past their time and which have been superseded by film. He is also very interested in the occult and the paranormal, and images and themes derived from these traditions suffuse his films.
Merhige currently lives in Los Angeles, California.
Description above from the Wikipedia article E. Elias Merhige, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Directed Movies : 3 Movies | <urn:uuid:22cf7457-6b7b-4dd3-90c8-4d0bcb002fad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ginq.com/celebrity/e-elias-merhige | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965149 | 219 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Question: How do I go about paying quarterly payments for self-employment tax to the IRS? What forms do I need?
I need to know how I go about setting up quarterly self-employment taxes to the IRS? That’s just the 15.3 percent that I have to pay quarterly, correct? I don’t have to worry about income tax and state tax until the end of the year, right?
Answer: You pay quarterly tax on an 1040ES, well, quarterly. It is a payment toward you total income tax.
Different states have their own rules.
PROVISO Community Calendar
The Proviso Herald welcomes items for the Community Calendar as well as for columns including Business Briefs, Campus News, Community Briefs, School Digest and Newsmakers. Items must be received a minimum of 10 days prior to publication; earlier is better. E-mail to [email protected]; fax to (708) 383-3678; or mail to Pioneer Press, 1010 Lake St., Suite 104, Oak …
Self Employment IRS Income Tax Rate Information & Help 2009, 2010.mov
Legals > Legals
GEORGIA, WAYNE COUNTY THIS LAW FIRM IS ACTING AS A DEBT COLLECTOR ATTEMPTING TO COLLECT A DEBT. ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED WILL BE USED FOR THAT PURPOSE. Under and by virtue of the Power of Sale contained in a Security Deed given by David C. Smith, Sr. and Delisa D. Smith to Prime South Mortgage, dated October 25, 2004, recorded in Deed Book 30-H, Page 110, Wayne County, Georgia Records, as last …
Jacksonville Attorneys Willis Ferebee & Hutton
Question: Employer showed additional $40,000 in income, which i did not earn.?
I worked for the employer and initially earned $13,000 and i received the W-2 form for the income and i filed the taxes for $13,000. Received letter from the IRS that the employer showed addition income for fishing income $12,790, another income $12,790, rental loyalty $13,990.
I don’t understand the additional income showed by the employer and how can is dispute. ( The employer never gave me any document regrading the addition income shown on the IRS). I NEVER RECEIVED THE ADDITIONAL INCOME SHOWN IN THE IRS DOCUMENTS BY THE EMPLOYER
Answer: Go to the Human Resources Department of the company where you work. They can help explain what is going on. Also, call the person who does your taxes. You don’t by chance work on a boat? Are you sure somebody else isn’t using your Social Security Number? Identity theft can cause strange things to happen with your taxes. Call the IRS to see if anybody worked for a different company using your SSN.
Yakshna Solutions, Inc. Adds More IRS Forms to its Tax Product Series to Help Tax Payers to E-file their Returns and …
Tax2efile is an exclusive tax e-file service from Yakshna Solutions, Inc. Tax2efile provides e-file service to individuals, business and non-profit organizations to complete the actual tax returns and extensions timely, accurately to avoid interest and penalties. Tax2efile helps to file IRS extension forms 4868, 8868,7004 to defer the actual returns, in some cases to defer the payments for 6 …
Association Form 990 Database Demo
Tax time: ‘Knowledge is your best weapon’
Tips to remember when filing your Oregon and federal income tax returns.
Kent Anderson Law Office
Question: What’s the best way to transfer money from overseas from proceeds of property owned by US citizen to avoid tax
I’m trying to figure out the best legal way to minimize taxes in transferring funds from overseas. These funds are close to $250K and are proceeds from the sale of property located outside the US, but owned by a US citizen, in this case my father. I am not sure if the gift law would apply here since he’s a citizen. Also, what documentation is required by the IRS?
Answer: 1. If you transfer money, there is no tax implication.
2. You father must report the sale of the property on his U.S. tax return. He must file the tax return if the income is more than the filing limit.
If he paid taxes on the profit in a foreign country, he will get foreign tax credit by filing form 1116.
3. If he owned the house for more than two years and lived in the home, then he may exclude profit from the sale up to $250,000
4. If your father gifts you property or money, there is no gift tax on the receiver of the gift. But person giving the gift must file gift tax return, even he may not owe any taxes as there is a life time exemption of 1 million.
IRS Awards $4.5M to Whistleblower
PHILADELPHIA— An accountant who tipped off the IRS that his employer was skimping on taxes has received $4.5 million in the first IRS whistleblower award. The accountant’s tip netted the IRS $20 million in taxes and interest from the errant financial-services firm. The award represents a 22 percent cut of the taxes recovered. The program, designed to encourage tips in large-scale cases, mandates …
Owning An IRS Lawyer: Marc Stevens – Part 1
Question: Should I accept a temporary job offer with the IRS in Utah?
I have no place to stay in Utah, so I would have to arrange for housing. All I need is a room, really. A cheap motel with weekly rates would work, if I can find such a place in Ogden, Utah. The job is working in the mail room for $12.00 an hour.
The job will last a maximum of thirty days, after which I will be unemployed again. I will be able to draw unemployment after the job ends, I think.
I have no other job offers at this time. I am not broke, but my savings are diminishing. The IRS job of course could be somewhat hazardous. Think about it. Opening mail at the IRS.
Disgruntled, crazy taxpayers. Who knows what they might send.
I am currently staying with relatives in Texas and have no real housing expense here, so I would not be paying rent in two places. It’s a 1500 mile drive to Ogden, Utah and I need to be there by 4:00 pm on Monday.
What it comes down to is this: Should I drive 1500 miles for about 1500 dollars, plus maybe 3 grand in unemployment?
Answer: It is up to you. Ogden is a good city lots of things to do here. We do have cheep hotels in which you could stay. Good luck on either decision that you make.
Ogden teachers, other unions rally for collective bargaining
Ogden teachers, other unions rally for collective bargaining By rosemary winters The Salt Lake Tribune Published Jul 14, 2011 12:11PM MDT Ogden • An estimated 800 people rallied in Ogden’s Liberty Park on Thursday to protest the city school district’s decision to not negotiate a contract with its teachers union. Ogden teachers were joined by their colleagues from around the state, members of the … | <urn:uuid:0459e96a-33ac-4e4b-9f26-7eb43a0e26ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.irs-audit.net/auditblog/category/contacting-the-irs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944284 | 1,557 | 1.5 | 2 |
Suits & Tailoring
By Gerald Lynch on June 25th, 2012
Marks and Spencer have today revealed what they’re calling the world’s first “sustainable” suit, putting the planets health on an equal footing with our sartorial needs.
The suit (the one pictured here is for illustrative purposes only) is a “revolutionary step forward for a clothing retailer” according to M&S, who have ensured the suit is made from the most sustainable materials possible.
Taking several years to develop , the different elements of the suit include:
o Wool – the suit is made from organic wool which is fully traceable back to the farms from where it is produced. In addition, all of the chemicals used in the production of the wool fibre are Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) approved, to reflect the fact that as the fibre has been organically produced
o Lining – made from recycled plastic bottles
o Canvas (used inside the main body of the suit) – made from recycled polyester
o Buttons – reclaimed buttons
o Pockets and waistband – made from reclaimed fabric
o Labels – all of the labels inside the suit, even the ‘Care Instructions’, have been made from recycled polyester
“This a huge step forwards for the industry”, said M&S Plan A Expert, Mark Summer.
“It is the first time such an intricate garment has been made of sustainable materials, and as well as being one of the greenest garments available on the high street, it is incredibly stylish and something we hope our customers will be proud to wear.”
Mark continued, “We set ourselves a big challenge with a suit as it contains so many different elements that we had to consider, but as part of our Plan A objectives we are determined to ensure all of the products we sell not only look great but are sustainably sourced; the suit is the perfect example – it is very stylish, of the highest quality, sustainably made – and all for under £350.”
With only 500 of the suits made, the green-fingered among you will have to act fast to snap one up, priced £349. You can read more information about the sustainable M&S suit here. | <urn:uuid:ca9b3c4a-b466-4165-b25f-c7ee4c8c745c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brandish.tv/category/suits-tailoring?pid=844 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959538 | 476 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Back in May we discussed using Python, R, and Octave as data analysis tools, and compared the relative strength of each. One point of contention was whether Python could be considered a legitimate tool for such work. Now, Bei Lu writes while Python on its own may be lacking, Python with packages is very much up to the task: "My passion with Python started with its natural language processing capability when paired with the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK). Considering the growing need for text mining to extract content themes and reader sentiments (just to name a few functions), I believe Python+packages will serve as more mainstream analytical tools beyond the academic arena." She also discusses an emerging set of solutions for R which let it better handle big data. | <urn:uuid:705500c3-dede-44da-84ee-d467820a0cdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/07/06/1830216/is-python-a-legitimate-data-analysis-tool?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2FslashdotDevelopers+%28Slashdot%3A+Developers%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940853 | 150 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The Intergovernmental Network of World Trade: IGO Connectedness, Governance, and Embeddedness
Coauthor(s): Marc Busch, Jeffrey Robinson.
Adobe Acrobat PDF
Membership in certain intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), such as the World Trade Organization, has long been argued to stimulate trade. Yet, evidence linking IGOs to trade is mixed. We argue that identifying the influence of IGOs requires attention not only to the institutions IGOs enact, but to the network through which they enact them. We incorporate the full set of IGOs by using shared-IGO membership to create a network of connectivity between countries. This approach allows us to demonstrate that trade between two countries increases by an average of fifty-eight percent with every doubling of the strength of IGO connection between them. We also contribute to debates regarding the mechanisms through which structural relationships influence economic behavior by showing that substantial trade benefits occur not only through economic IGOs, but also through IGOs that were formed for social and cultural purposes, and that connections through IGOs that are organizationally strong have more impact than those through minimalist IGOs. The broader network formed by IGO connections is also important, as there is greater trade between countries that have dissimilar relationships to others. We reason that such dissimilarities in the IGO network create brokering opportunities, where trade between two poorly connected countries flows between a third that is better connected to both.
Source: American Journal of Sociology
Busch, Marc, Paul Ingram, and Jeffrey Robinson. "The Intergovernmental Network of World Trade: IGO Connectedness, Governance, and Embeddedness." American Journal of Sociology 111, no. 3 (November 2005): 824-58. | <urn:uuid:89b68e03-0a20-4e10-ba2d-74a6e47a4772> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/whoswho/more.cfm?uni=pi17&pub=1231 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945332 | 363 | 1.789063 | 2 |
India wants the marines returned to stand trial. Italy is refusing to send them back. The Indian Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Italian ambassador not to leave the country. Both countries claim they are on solid legal footing.
There's a diplomatic spat brewing between India and Italy over the trial of two Italian marines charged with killing two Indian fishermen last year.
India's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Italian ambassador not to leave the country after Rome refused to let the marines return to India to stand trial for the killings. The court had earlier allowed the marines to return to Italy to vote in last month's national elections after Ambassador Daniele Mancini assured Indian authorities that they would return by March 22 to stand trial. Earlier this week, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that won't happen. The Indian court has given Mancini until March 18 to respond.
Here's the background to the story, from The Associated Press:
"The marines, Massimilian Latorre and Salvatore Girone, were part of a military security team aboard a cargo ship when they opened fire on a fishing boat in February last year, killing the two fishermen. The marines said they mistook the boat for a pirate craft.
"Italy maintains that the shooting occurred in international waters and that Rome should have jurisdiction. India says the ship was in Indian territorial waters."
Indian officials, from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on down, have warned of "consequences" unless Italy returns the marines. Indian officials on Thursday said they were reviewing relations with Rome amid the standoff. The semi-official Press Trust of India reported that India's ambassador-designate to Italy, who was scheduled Friday to leave for Rome, is not going there for now.
The story is dominating the news media in India. The government's strong response may, in part, be dictated by the pressure it is under. As the BBC puts it:
"With an indignant Indian media at its back, and two grieving families pressing for justice, the government is under pressure to take a tough line. It has been accused of being weak and naive in allowing the marines to go."
Italy insists its actions comply with international law.
"Our very solid position, of which we are fully convinced and that is shared by many of our major international community partners, is that we are acting in full compliance with international legal standards and customary international laws and treaties," Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said in Jerusalem.
The question now is whether the Indian court's order barring the Italian envoy's departure breaches the Vienna Convention, which governs diplomatic relations between states. Here's what the treaty says, in part:
"The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving State shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person, freedom or dignity."
India denies that the convention is being violated.
The diplomatic row could have consequences for India's ongoing negotiations over a free-trade deal with the European Union. | <urn:uuid:dc0b0f57-ad81-4dd5-b156-719006e03614> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wgbh.org/News/Articles/2013/3/14/2_Dead_Indian_Fishermen_2_Accused_Italian_Marines_A_Diplomatic_Row.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963706 | 628 | 1.515625 | 2 |
February 7, 2006
Good afternoon, and thanks for joining me today to discuss the FY 2007 Budget. I've already received a lot of great questions, and I look forward to answering them.
Mrs. Dryden's 2nd Grade class, from Amarillo, Texas writes:
Were you good at math in 2nd grade? What do you like best about your
job? Why did you want to work on the U. S budget? Are you frustrated
when all the people come to ask for money? How do you decide how much
money each area gets? Thank you
I cant really remember how good I was at math in the second grade, but I know I would not have been able to come up with as many good questions for Ask the White House as your class has. I know I liked to read a lot in second grade, and like you I had a really great teacher. Her name was Ms. Scecina, and she used to help me find good books in the school library.
What I like best about my job is getting to work with Logan DrydenI think you know her Mom. I also like it when I get to go to meetings with the President of the United States.
I wanted to work on the U.S. budget because I get to learn about all of the different things the United States government does. Im not frustrated when all the people come to ask for moneybut I know they are frustrated when we dont give it to them. Its sort of like if your parents wouldnt give you your allowance. We decide how much money each program gets by looking at what is most important to the American people and which things their government should be doing for themlike making sure the country has a strong Army and Navy. Then we try and figure out how much money it will take to make sure the American people get what they expect from their government.
Thanks for the good questions! Say hi to Mrs. Dryden for me.
Zhang, from China writes:
What is the biggest different of the budget between this year and last
Thanks for the long-distance email, Zhang. This years budget is actually very similar to last years. It proposes to keep in place the tax relief that the Congress passed and the President signed, which has been critical to fueling strong economic growth in America. The President is also proposing again to hold discretionary spending growth below the rate of inflation, cut discretionary spending thats not related to national security, and slow the rate of entitlement spending growth. Last year the Congress delivered on all three of these proposals for spending restraint were hopeful we can do it again this year.
Jean, from Michigan writes:
With the new budget, medical research has been severly cut. You say you
want to stay competitive with the rest of the world and make sure our
citizens are well educated. How can we stay competitive if we aren't
participating in research? My daughter graduated in November with a PHD
in Chemical Engineering - Bio Medical Research. Several of the positions
she would have been up for were cut because of the budget
Congratulations to your daughter, Jean. Since coming to office, the President has increased funding for the National Institute of Health by more nearly 40 percent. This year, we are keeping funding level at $28.4 billion, reflecting a continued commitment to biomedical research and development. At the same time, to keep America competitive the President is proposing to double the Federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years.
Paula, from Michigan writes:
How is the new budget plan proposing to help with first-time
homeownership, specifically with FHA and low-income households? Thank
Thanks for your question, Paula. As a recent first-time homebuyer myself, I have a special interest in these programs this year. In fact, if you know a good moving company in Washington, D.C., please email me. This years budget includes reforms to reaffirm and strengthen FHAs ability to help low- and moderate-income families, particularly minority families, become homeowners. Along with increases in the Budget for down payment assistance to first-time buyers and homeownership education, the FHA reforms will help achieve the Presidents goal of creating 5.5 million new homeowners by 2010.
Its also worth noting that under the Presidents economic agenda, homeownership has reached all-time highs. This budget proposes to continue those pro-growth policies by making the tax cuts permanent and cutting the deficit in half by 2009.
Cindy, from Ohio writes:
Will we ever see all 141 government programs that President Bush has in
his proposal? I am a college student and the "extra credit question" was
to find out what they are. Can you tell me? Thank you...this is really
cool (being able to ask a question) Cindy
Hmm. When is your assignment due by? Well be publishing the list of 141 programs later this week at www.whitehouse.gov/omb --I hope thats soon enough for you to get credit. Last year the President proposed 154 major savings and reforms in his budget and the Congress delivered on 89. This year we are proposing 141 similar program terminations and reductions, saving nearly $15 billion. Many of these programs are ineffective, or are not a federal priority. We look forward to working with the Congress on these proposals in the year ahead.
Gary, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania writes:
Mr Joel Kaplan My question is does the President's proposed budget fall
in line with the balance budget ammendment? I have not heard anyone
talking about the balance budget ammendment, perhaps it is balanced?
Good question, Gary. Our long-term goal should be to balance the budget. And, in fact, our current deficit projections show us making progress in the near-term: By 2009 the deficit is projected to fall to a level that is about 1.4% of our Gross Domestic Product. This is well below 40-year historical average deficit, when measured as a size of the economy, and less than half of the projected high in 2004. In the long-term, balanced budgets will not be possible without slowing the unsustainable growth in what are known as entitlement or mandatory programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The President has shown great leadership on these issues, proposing Social Security reform last year and savings in Medicare this year. If we dont control the growth in these programs, we will have deficits that really threaten the economic and fiscal health of the country in the future.
Wes, from Norcross, Georgia writes:
I watched the news on Monday night and saw the Budget being sent out. It
is HUGE.. It's bigger than most text books. How many pages is it? How
much of it is verbage actually from the President? How can the US Senate
and House review that many pages in a short time? Doesn't seem like a
waste of paper for that much publication.
Wes- The main budget book is 346 pages long, but all the volumes combined are over 2,000 pages. To reduce the number of copies we need to print, everything is also available online at www.whitehouse.gov/omb. Ill bet not that many people read EVERY single page, but instead use it as a reference book when they want to look at a particular issue. If you do read the whole thing, please email me and let me know what you think. We may have a job for you at OMB.
While the entire budget is created based on the guidance the President gives Director Bolten and his cabinet, the only words that are in the Budget that are actually his are in the Presidents Budget Message. To read the Presidents 2007 budget message, click here: www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/message.html
Ben, from Menomonee Falls, WI
Where is the majority of the budget percentage going to? Is the budget
going to help our Homeland security, so we can defend ourselves against
terrorist organizations like al-Qaida?
Ben- This years budget includes an 8 percent increase in homeland security funding, as well as a 7 percent increase in Defense spending to make sure our troops and commanders in the field have what they need to win the War on Terror. This is the Presidents highest priority, and he was very clear with my boss, OMB Director Josh Bolten, that our budget needs to fully support our troops and the other professionals on the frontlines of the War on Terror.
Adam, from Chicago, IL
The President's goal is to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009, but
half of a huge deficit is still a huge deficit. How do you justify this
to the American people?
Adam- You are correct that in 2004 the President pledged to cut the deficit in half by 2009. At the time of his pledge, the deficit was projected to be 4.5 percent of GDP that year. In the budget we released yesterday, the deficit is projected to be 3.2 percent of GDP in FY 2007, and just 1.4 percent of GDP in FY 2009, which is well below the 40-year historical average deficit. At these levels, the deficit should not threaten our economic health.
While we would always like to be able to have the budget in balance, we need to make sure we are meeting our national priorities, like winning the War on Terror and creating jobs for the American people. We have had big challenges as a country the last five years or so, and that has taken a toll on our budget. But the proposals in the Presidents Budget will meet our priorities and keep us on track to cut the deficit in half.
In the long-term, we do face a fiscal crisis as a result of the unsustainable growth in our entitlement programs. We really do need to take action to bring the growth in those programs under control if we are going to avoid serious damage to the economy in the future. The President has demonstrated that hes willing to take on these challenges in the entitlement programs, and we look forward to working with Congress to make progress.
Robert, from Snohomish in snohomish county wa. state
Why is the VA being underfunded?
As a former United States Marine (fyi, youre allowed to say former Marine, but youre not allowed to say ex-Marine), I cant tell you how proud I am to work for a President who cares so deeply about the fighting men and women of this country. President Bush is committed to Americans who have served our country in uniform, and the 2007 Budget makes sure that the government continues to provide the same medical care that has set a national standard of excellence for the health care industry. As President Bush took office, the number of new enrollees unable to get an appointment was over 175,000 and last year it dropped to less than 23,000. The VA medical care system leads the pack in using high standards and technology to improve the quality of health care. Next years budget contains the largest annual discretionary increase ever requested by a President for the VA. I would also point out that since coming to office, the President has increased discretionary Veterans Affairs funding by over 67 percent. This increase in funding has helped us award disability claims faster and provide medical care to almost 100,000 returning Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom service members in 2005.
Thanks everybody for all the great questions. While youre online, dont forget to go to our brand new website, ExpectMore.gov where you can find information about which federal programs work, which dont, and what were doing to improve them all. My colleague Clay Johnson, the Deputy Director for Management, is on Ask the White House on Thursday, and he can answer all your questions about ExpectMore. I hope you saved all your tough ones for him! | <urn:uuid:64b6d87a-16d3-4ddf-85c4-f3c1c31a7919> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/ask/print/20060207.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966332 | 2,432 | 1.71875 | 2 |
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
US President Barack Obama steps off Marine One on the South Lawn upon return to the White House on December 27, 2012 in Washington, DC. Obama returned to Washington under pressure to forge a year-end deal with Republicans to avoid the tax hikes and spending cuts of the 'fiscal cliff.'
Paychecks will shrink and Californians will shell out more money to the federal government in 2012 if lawmakers are unable to renew certain tax cuts, accountants and tax attorneys said on Thursday.
That could be tough for families, as taxes will eat up a larger portion of their income. Gregg Wind, a partner at L.A.-based accounting firm Wind & Stern LLP, said a married couple that earns $50,000 each could wind up paying a combined total of $4,000 more in taxes.
“$4,000 could mean a family vacation,” Wind said. “It could mean new furniture for their home. (It’s) a fair amount of money.”
The state's wealthiest couples will fork out even more money, Wind said. California voters passed Proposition 30 in November, which increase the tax rate for people earning more than $250,000 a year.
For example, a married couple in California that has a taxable income of more than $1 million will have a tax rate in excess of 13 percent, Wind said.
If the federal tax rate for the wealthiest people increases to 39.6 percent and the 3.8 percent Medicare tax applies to investment income, that couple could see their tax rate rise to 56 percent, Wind added.
A free-fall off the fiscal cliff would also hurt people on the opposite end of the income scale, said Arnie Wuhrman, a tax attorney at Serenity Legal Services in Murrieta. It could determine whether people can put food on their tables.
“It’s been around for a long time and it’s going to be quite a shock to the system, especially for the lower income levels,” Wuhrman said. | <urn:uuid:2a3dd635-22c8-46d9-bd84-f29bc8b422d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/12/28/35425/paychecks-will-shrink-if-fiscal-cliff-not-averted-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957507 | 433 | 1.523438 | 2 |
January 25, 2013
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) -- The Tacoma man who started one of the nation's first needle exchanges to prevent HIV-AIDS among drug users has died at age 73.
The needle exchange David Purchase started in 1988 in downtown Tacoma was quickly copied across the country, leading his friends and associates to call him a public health hero. All he wanted to do was prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS among drug users.
"When he began talking about the needle exchange, his sense of social justice, Dave didn't have a neutral gear or a reverse gear," said Lyle Quasim, a friend since 1970. "Dave only had forward gears."
His daughter, Becky Purchase Ford, told The News Tribune ( http://is.gd/20CdmO) he died Monday.
The Tacoma program, which was controversial at first, is now run by the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
Purchase went on to found the North American Syringe Exchange and the Point Defiance AIDS Project and was instrumental in programs that began as far away as Australia and Italy.
"He was the instigator, and everyone else was a supporting actor," said Terry Reid, who worked with Purchase at substance-abuse programs.
Dennis Flannigan, a friend since high school and a former state lawmaker and Pierce County councilman, remembers Purchase being asked to testify before Congress on needle-exchange programs.
"He was a lovable, determined man, but he told them, `You're letting people die' by not supporting the effort," Flannigan said. "He challenged authority in such an articulate, measured way, you could not defeat his logic."
Purchase also was a photographer for The Boeing Co. and shot test flights.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:0ca05839-efba-4b47-837c-cf16060b2527> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW011/333/8013/1472596.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98347 | 387 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Sale of Amritsar kirpans on the rise
Amritsar, Jan 13(ANI): The sale of kirpans (a ceremonial dagger or sword sported by devout Sikhs) has increased in Amritsar, as devotees and tourists have been acquiring it as a blessed and decorative item for their homes.
With annual turnover of 12 million dollars, the cottage industry of Kirpan and other traditional sharp-edged weapons in the city caters to the needs of the buyers at home as well as abroad.
There are around 10,000 skilled artisans engaged in the manufacture of kirpans, and this includes those working in small units that supply allied accessories to the larger units.
"The price of kirpans has gone high. But, the customers don't bother about the prices as they have a craze for keeping kirpans in their living rooms as a decoration piece. They have nothing to do with the quality of the material. The use of kirpans and swords as weapons is no more," said Amardeep Singh, a sword manufacturer in Amritsar.
These conventional weapons are prepared in various cities across the country for religious and customary purposes, but Amrtisar is famous for the superior quality of the products. he present day kirpan in vogue is quite different from the earlier ones.
The difference is in quality and weight. The kirpan, which used to be available from three kilograms of weight, today weighs just 600 grams.
Apart from the Sikhs, Muslims use swords during the Muharram procession while Hindus worship them during Durga Puja as a part of Shastra Puja.
"Kirpan has a major role to play in Sikh history. It has a close association with the Guru Granth Sahib and Sikhism. As we are going to have 'Prakash' of Sri Guru Granth Sahib at our home we are buying a Kirpan from Amritsar. The Kirpans of Amritsar are very famous. Its quality is very good. We purchased Kirpans from here earlier as well," said Jasveer Singh, a NRI from Toronto, Canada.
Parag, a visitor from Maharashtra, said: "I am buying this sword, as I want to take along a memorabilia from Amritsar. We worship sword during the Durga Puja. Amritsar is sacred and peaceful place of worship."
With the increase in number of tourists visiting Amritsar, the retail business of swords, Kirpans alongside other Sikh ornaments and novelties has become a lucrative proposition.
Wholesalers have also taken up the trade of Kirpans and swords. By Ravinder Singh Robin (ANI)
Read More: Amritsar | Fatehgarh Sahib | Guru Gobind Singh Marg | Bangla Sahib Tso | Durga Bhawan Tso | Amritsar Kalan | Dhamtan Sahib | Mardon Sahib | Panjokhra Sahib Edso | Amritsar Gpo | Khadoor Sahib | Chola Sahib | Dadeha Sahib | Bodal Garna Sahib | Dastoor Sahib | Durga Chouk | Durga Pur | Durga Samudram | Durga Agraharam | Durga Asthan | Sahi | Guru
May 21, 2013 at 2:43 PM
PAIN OF LOVE IS VERY SWEET, SAYS RANBIR KAPOOR
May 21, 2013 at 2:24 PM
DARING VEENA MALIK WALKS RED LIGHT AREA WITH CONDOM IN HAND!
May 21, 2013 at 2:22 PM | <urn:uuid:d4a800d5-afe5-41d0-ab2c-e5da4a760167> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/143288 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956123 | 786 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Welcome to the University of Oregon’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law (ENR) Program!
For more than forty years, the University of Oregon School of Law's Environmental and Natural Resources (ENR) Law Program's focus on public interest environmental law and commitment to innovations in environmental legal education have made it one of the nation's oldest and most respected programs.
ENR pioneered the earliest academic curriculum in public interest environmental law, created the first environmental law clinic in the United States, and through its students, annually hosts the oldest and largest public interest environmental law conference in the world. Our experienced faculty are some of the nation's leading scholars in the field of environmental law who teach the traditional regulatory mechanisms of environmental law, expose students to emerging problem-solving tools in cutting-edge courses, and provide practical training in skills-based courses.
ENR's seven interdisciplinary research projects team student energy with faculty expertise to provide research, analysis, and solutions to environmental problems in Oregon, the nation, and around the globe. For students committed to engaging the law to support sustainability, the opportunities are second to none.
We welcome you to explore our unique and innovative program. | <urn:uuid:bea08ba9-aad1-4d04-b932-36ee4ecb02c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://enr.uoregon.edu/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939396 | 238 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Thick, colorful, safe sisal rope toys satisfy your pet's desire to throw things while keeping him entertained. Perfect for tossing, rattling, and chewing. 6" long. For: Rabbits, guinea pigs, and smaller.
Please click on "More Information" for safety precautions and toy suggestions for rabbits.
|Toys for Rabbits
Drs. Foster & Smith Educational Staff
Rabbits love to chew and explore. Not providing adequate means of chewing and exploring not only creates boredom, but also goes against their very nature and instincts. Most owners are quickly enamored by their rabbit's curious nature, and see it as a way for their pet to acquire mental and physical stimulation, as well as necessary tooth wearing.
Rabbits like to explore many textures and toys at once, and you will need to be careful about the types of toys you provide. Make sure they are made of non-toxic materials because it is likely your rabbit will chew on them. Make sure there are no small pieces that may come loose and become a choking hazard. Remove and replace any toys that show signs of wear. Also, if you are allowing your rabbit some play time outside the cage, make sure he cannot access electrical cords, heating/cooling vents, wood furniture, or anything else that might be dangerous or off-limits in your home. (Remember, rabbits think those things are just as much fun as toys.)
Every few days, it's a good idea to rotate the toys you allow your rabbit to play with to add more variety. The following are some of the toy options that rabbits love to toss, dig at, explore, or chew, and you may already have some of these items around the house. | <urn:uuid:f08d55d0-24ac-44c7-88d4-c381b4dd2b2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=6067+18349+11144&pcatid=11144 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967888 | 354 | 1.804688 | 2 |
By Lauren Scott
LONOKE (KTHV) -- A sex offender moves into your neighborhood, you want to know. Who wouldn't?
That's why more and more police agencies are sending out alerts on social media. That gives posters an outlet to get information and voice their opinions on it. But we've run across something that makes us wonder when those posters cross the line.
What we found raises this question, "How many of you would post a threat against someone else online, even if you thought they deserved it?" We found some people writing on the Lonoke County's Sheriff's Department face book page, suggesting people use offenders as target practice. We realize, there's probably not a lot of sympathy for these offenders, but what about your average person out there? Chief Deputy Dean White and an attorney at UALR, both say it's a fine line when it comes to online threats.
"It's public information; we post it for safety of the citizens." In an effort to protect, the Lonoke County Sheriff's department posts sex offenders pictures to its face book page and now people are commenting on those photos. Some of the comments aren't so nice. Chief Deputy White says, "They are discussing, they ought to go out and use them as target practice, and no one is specifically making a threat when you read these statements." We asked, "So none of that is a threat?" Chief Deputy White, "None that I've read."
The comments vary, some sympathize with the victim. Other target the offender, one reads "take him out and shoot him" But Chief Deputy Dean White says it's not a threat. "A lot of this is just opinion, and that's what a lot of people are using the social hubs for."
But we want to know, when do these kinds of comments on social media cross the line into real threats. So we went to UALR Law professor Felecia Epps. "That is a very difficult question." Epps says it gets into the first amendment and determines what's protected; she says general statements will be okay. Epps also adds details make all the difference when it comes to charges. "Specific injury to a specific person talk, you can get into situations where you have a terroristic threatening."
White says the department will be looking into the comments. He says they plan to delete some of the posts and limit some of the input on their face book page. | <urn:uuid:52aeb158-ae29-4275-b3bf-bd4396d2e923> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2012/07/ar-when-is-opinion-actual-threat-online.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968561 | 504 | 1.773438 | 2 |
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy high representative for the European Union, Thursday 9 August repeated her call for a global moratorium on the death penalty, as a first step towards its abolition, after two men were executed in the US this week.
Marvin Lee Wilson, 54, who had a clinical diagnosis of mental retardation, was given a lethal injection by Texas Tuesday for murdering a police drug informer. “The High Representative recognizes the serious nature of the crime involved and expresses her sincere sympathy to the surviving family and friends of the victim. However, she does not believe that their loss has been mitigated by Wilson’s death,” Ashton said in a statement Wednesday.
Thursday she noted that Daniel Cook, killed Wednesday by the State of Arizona, had a severe form of mental illness, and she repeated the EU’s demand for a moratorium. A number of human rights groups had called for both men to be taken off death row. An appeal by Wilson’s lawyers to the Supreme Court, to stay his execution, was refused two hours before his death. | <urn:uuid:f09561dd-6cfc-47fe-ab57-0db3d0fa52b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://genevalunch.com/2012/08/09/eu-calls-for-death-penalty-moratorium-after-texas-arizona-executions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985273 | 228 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour looks into the past and future on his new album Live in Gdansk.
Richard Wright of the band Pink Floyd died of cancer Monday at the age of 65. He played keyboards and wind instruments, sang, and composed some of Pink Floyd's early material, including the song "Great Gig in the Sky," which appeared on Pink Floyd's legendary 1973 album Dark Side of the Moon.
Wright also appeared, only two years ago, at bandmate David Gilmour's solo concert at the Gdansk shipyards in Poland. That show, which took place on the anniversary of the founding of the Solidarity Movement, is now being released as a two-CD and two-DVD package titled Live in Gdansk. In an interview with Day to Day, conducted prior to Wright's death, Gilmour surveys the history of Pink Floyd and his own career, both of which get equal play on the new album.
In 1968, Pink Floyd's songwriter and visionary leader, Syd Barrett, famously freaked out due to a mixture of heavy drug use and mental illness. The band had just put out its first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but instead of disbanding, Pink Floyd decided to soldier on by replacing Barrett's guitar and vocals with those of his old schoolmate, David Gilmour. For the next few years, this new lineup explored and struggled to find its musical voice.
"We didn't really find ourselves — after Syd left — very good at doing short, pithy pop songs," Gilmour says. "We found that we were much better at jamming and extending what we were doing and exploring that sort of longer thing, and the audiences were very into it in those days. That's what they followed, but I think that all went rather out of fashion at some point."
It may be out of fashion, but one of the highlights of the Live in Gdansk set is a rare performance of the song "Echoes" from the groundbreaking 1971 Pink Floyd album Meddle. That record is where the band really started to find its sound. "Echoes" is a rousing 25-minute epic that incorporates all the elements of Pink Floyd's grand and ambitious progressive rock.
Two Sides Of Gilmour
The Gdansk concert was set up in two halves. The first half, after a couple of Dark Side of the Moon tracks to warm up the audience, was devoted to a straight track-by-track rendering of Gilmour's last solo album, On an Island. But it's the second half, and the second CD of the new set, where things really get interesting: It's devoted to a cross-section of Pink Floyd tunes that go all the way back to before Gilmour joined the band and through to its last album, 1994's The Division Bell.
"The expectation on me as a solo artist is very different to the audience's expectation of a Pink Floyd show," Gilmour says. "And it was quite liberating for us to be able to pick diverse songs from various styles from even before my time with Pink Floyd."
The success of Pink Floyd, and the rising size of its members' egos, began to fracture the band over time. Its last great album, The Wall, was written almost entirely by bassist Roger Waters and was cause for strife in the band.
"It was never a struggle between him wanting control and me wanting control," Gilmour says. "I never wanted absolute control, but Roger at one point certainly seemed to be going in that direction. This was certainly brewing during The Wall a bit. But it was such a good project that it didn't seem to matter. But after The Wall, it certainly became a bit more of a dominant feature of our relationship."
One of the few songs for which Gilmour gets a writer credit on The Wall is "Comfortably Numb." But that's also one of the best-known songs from the album, and the only one he performs on Gdansk.
These days, at 62, Gilmour is a royal British rocker with a big country estate. By his own admission, he is less obsessed and engaged with music than he was as a young man. But his unmistakable, sweetly calm and melodic guitar sound is still very much in evidence.
For those "Floydophiles" holding out hope that Pink Floyd would get together for one last hurrah, the death of Richard Wright may create some impetus for the remaining members to make nice, as they did at Live 8 in 2005. But before the death of Wright, Gilmour said that fans might not want to hold their breath for more Pink Floyd albums or tours.
"I don't think that working together again in the future would be a very valuable exercise," Gilmour says. "It's a very tempting thing to try and relive your glory days when you get a little older and you worry that people have forgotten all about you. I suspect I can live without it." | <urn:uuid:44f31879-8d5d-421c-91a0-d5c70f30c7ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94664256 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982967 | 1,042 | 1.773438 | 2 |
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The marriage of Palms or Pocket PCs and global positioning system technology seems like a natural. Handheld computers can store maps along with data about hotels, restaurants, and attractions. GPS makes that information far more useful by pinpointing your location within a few meters. Unfortunately, my experience suggests that the marriage is less happy than it ought to be. The culprit isn't the hardware, which has gotten smaller, cheaper, and faster, but software that falls badly short of the mark.
I looked at two new software-hardware combos: A Compaq iPAQ with a Pharos GPS receiver and Ostia mapping software (www.pharosgps.com) and a Palm m505 with a Navman receiver and Rand McNally Street-Finder software (www.randmcnally.com). I also revisited TravRoute's Pocket CoPilot, first reviewed here last year (Mar. 19, 2001), updated with a new Navman receiver for the iPAQ.
These systems are designed mainly for use in cars. Download the appropriate data to the handheld and when the unit is fired up, the GPS pinpoints your location on a displayed map and provides on-screen and, except on Palms, spoken driving instructions.
The $240 Pharos unit is a nice design that works on any current Pocket PC with a CompactFlash slot--a bulge about 1 1/2-in. long and 3/4-in. thick extends outside the slot. A small extension antenna on a long cable (at left, in photo) gives you a lot of flexibility in locating the Pocket PC inside the car. All the systems I tried come with a suction-cup device for windshield mounting, but I found them unreliable and prone to let go--a frightening and potentially dangerous event.
The difficulty was in the maps. Other systems let you plan a trip on a PC, then transfer driving directions and relevant maps to the handheld. With the Ostia software, you use a PC only to transfer maps. The main problem with this method is that you have little control over the size of the files you must load on a handheld. For example, the maps for New York City take 4.7 megabytes. But just to extend coverage to Yonkers, you have to add all of Westchester County and beyond, for an additional 10.2 MB. Covering the city and all its close-in suburbs requires over 40 MB. That's more than the total built-in memory of any Pocket PC, and if the Pharos unit is filling your only expansion slot--the case on many Pocket PCs--you are out of luck.
The $200 Rand McNally-Navman-Palm combo has a different software problem. The basic program is StreetFinder, which has been around for years. It works fine and lets you download exactly the maps you need. But installing it nearly drove me crazy. The full set of U.S. maps is on four CDs, and loading an assortment of regions onto your PC hard drive will require using at least two or three CDs. But when when the program prompted me to change disks, I got a stream of error messages either complaining that I had taken out the old disk or hadn't put in the new one. There was no pleasing the program, although I eventually realized that I could click through the error messages and it would work. But I think that if I had been a retail customer, I would have returned the package in frustration.
The Navman receiver is a thin unit that clips onto the back of a Palm m-series--there's another version for the older Palm V--with a thick, stubby antenna on the top. The design requires that it be mounted close to the windshield so that it can get satellite reception. But the main limitations are in the Palm. Even with a color display, the quality of maps is much worse than on the higher-resolution Pocket PC display. In addition, the Palm software does not give a latitude, longitude, and heading display that would make the unit useful as a handheld GPS receiver for outdoor activities.
My favorite ended up being the TravRoute-Navman combo. The Navman sleeve for the iPAQ, similar in design to the Palm unit, is clunkier than the Pharos receiver, but the software is much more usable because you can select maps and plan trips on a PC. The Navman also contains a CompactFlash slot, so you can load lots of maps and routing data on a memory card.
Of course, it's not reasonable to expect a $200 add-on to a handheld to perform like a $2,000 built-in Alpine Electronics navigation system. But poorly conceived and executed software makes the gap even bigger than it has to be. By Stephen H. Wildstrom | <urn:uuid:9b1f3de6-ab2e-4248-a51e-6eb8cf2f1c27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2002-04-14/gps-and-handhelds-dot-dot-dot-better-bring-a-map | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94216 | 1,001 | 1.539063 | 2 |
More bad news on the economy today. In the second quarter of 2011, the gross domestic product only grew 1.3 percent. We had originally thought the GDP grew 1.7 percent in the first quarter, but a revision reveals that it actually only grew .4 percent — and in fact the updated data all the way back through 2007 shows an even slower recovery than we thought. Consumer spending has been "extraordinarily weak" in recent quarters, according to the Times, increasing this last period by a mere inflation-adjusted .1 percent. Although steep recessions are traditionally followed by steep recoveries, American output is currently growing at about the third the average rate it grew over the past sixty years.
But yes, Congress and the White House, please do continue to risk consumer panic in a theoretical fight over paying bills you already agreed to pay. Now seems like just the time. | <urn:uuid:7334eab2-d80e-41de-8fbb-4479bce4a147> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/07/by_the_way_congress_even_witho.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957849 | 178 | 1.578125 | 2 |
In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.
There are so many reasons. Here are three:
1. Common sense. Many business thinkers seem most comfortable developing theories and hypotheses. Although Charan earned an MBA and doctorate degrees at Harvard, he is a world-class pragmatist who focuses on real people in real-world situations. Make no mistake: he fully understands the “what” of major business issues; his much greater interest is on how to respond to them effectively. That is perhaps most obvious in three of his 12 books: Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done co-authored with Larry Bossidy, Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right, and Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don’t.
2. Global Perspective. Born Ramcharan in 1939 in Uttar Pradesh, India, Charan worked in his family’s shoe shop in northern India while growing up. He earned a degree in engineering from Banaras Hindu University, then relocated to the United States to continue his formal education at Harvard. His consulting assignments take him all over the world. He seems to be “at home” almost anywhere, someone such as Benjamin Franklin whom the Europeans viewed as a “citizen of the world.” His most recently published book is Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The New Rules for Getting the Right Things Done in Difficult Times.
3. Wisdom and humility. His plainspoken, Socratic approach helps to demolish organizational silos or persuade entrenched executives to change their points of view. All of his business comes by word-of-mouth referrals, usually from one CEO to another. “He is an Indian guru who found that consulting was his life’s calling,” according to Noel Tichy who has worked with Charan for more than 25 years. His counsel and books are all about the companies and people that he is so determined to help, not about himself. Jack Welch speaks to this point when noting, “He has this rare ability to distill meaningful from meaningless and transfer it to others in a quiet, effective way without destroying confidences.” After Jeffrey Immelt succeeded Welch as CEO of General Electric, the first outside person he turned to for advice was Charan.
Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob | <urn:uuid:24117102-6ffe-4372-a6f9-6c48f7f70835> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ffbsccn.wordpress.com/tag/wisdom-and-humility/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977433 | 535 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Big girls don't cry. Even though you've been doing it since you were born, the older you get, the more complicated crying becomes. Sometimes, though, the most cleansing, healing thing to do is let the tears loose. "Crying slows your breathing and can have a calming effect," explains John Ryder, Ph.D., author of Positive Directions
. Here, how to have a good
cry — without letting those tears get the best of you. Track your tears.
"Crying forces you to ask yourself questions about what's going on underneath your surface," Ryder explains. When tears seem to spring out of nowhere, play detective and figure out if you're crying because you feel overwhelmed, powerless, criticized, or any other emotion. The better able you are to pinpoint the reasons behind your tears, the less the situation will escalate in your mind. And get specific: I feel frustrated because my computer shut down without saving
will give you perspective in a way that I feel frustrated because the whole world is against me
can't.Talk about it.
"Part of the reason you cry is that you're seeking support," says Ryder. "You're showing that something hurts." So instead of locking yourself in the bathroom, find a sympathetic ear and unleash your feelings. Talking through the issues will help clarify them, and a hug or a smile can go a long way in helping you heal.Take charge of the tap.
Don't want to wear your heart on your sleeve? Before heading into an emotionally stressful situation, concentrate on breathing steadily and relaxing any muscles that seem to be holding tension. Next, Ryder recommends focusing on a memory of a time when you felt strong (when you wowed a boss with a great presentation or crossed a 10K finish line). Finally, tell yourself you're not going to cry. "Self-instruction is powerful, and reminding yourself that you're a strong individual will go a long way toward bolstering you up in the face of a breakdown," Ryder notes. And know that you can always let your emotions out later. Once you've cleared whatever hurdle was making you so anxious, a session on the sofa with a box of tissues may be exactly what you need to put it behind you. | <urn:uuid:09aef30c-87af-47ff-b66c-1ae40a752f08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redbookmag.com/health-wellness/advice/benefits-of-crying | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959044 | 454 | 1.742188 | 2 |
PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: As we go to air this weekend, vast areas of south-east Queensland and northern NSW are taking stock of losses associated with the devastating floods, while in other areas bushfires continue to torment communities and bone-weary volunteer firefighters. In each case, local communities have rallied to help those in the most urgent need in many remarkable and often random acts of kindness and consideration.
Perhaps no-one is more uniquely placed to assess that courage and fighting spirit than Quentin Bryce. Kerry Lonergan caught up with the Governor-General during her visit this week to Queensland's Lockyer Valley, sadly no stranger to tragic natural disasters in recent years.
KERRY LONERGAN, REPORTER: Your Excellency, Laidley, another country town, another flood?
QUENTIN BRYCE, GOVERNOR-GENERAL: Yes, but I value so much the opportunity to be here and to express the care and concern that Australians right across our country have for Laidley, for Rockhampton, for Mundubbera. Bundaberg's very much in our minds, but so many of our wonderful country towns and regional centres that are going through a very rough time. And here in the Lockyer Valley, you know, it's only two years ago when things were so, so desperate, filled with grief and loss and I'm so pleased to be here talking to people to be able to thank the volunteers for what they're doing. ...
To express my admiration and respect for our emergency workers, here they are out again. But, you know, a big difference I see is that people know they can get through because they got through that last terrible time here in the Lockyer Valley and they're having very big ups and downs emotionally. ...
To be in the supermarket and to talk to the people there, it's devastated. That's an enormously important service in this town. And, you know, they're going to be back in business in 10 days, it's going to take an enormous amount of hard work and that mud that's everywhere. And, you know, it's the same in the rock 'n' roll cafe. The strength and the determination, but, you know, there's the tears too that when you say to people, "How are you going?," the tears come to their eyes. And the other thing of course they always say is, "There's a lot of people worse off than me." It's really inspiring.
KERRY LONERGAN: Governor-General, you seem to insist on visiting a lot of these distressed and distressed country towns. Bushfire one day, flood the next. Is that your rural roots perhaps showing through?
QUENTIN BRYCE: Oh, I think so, bu also it's the responsibility that I have in this role because I can come here and express our care and concern and to reassure people that there are the services, there is the response, there's the highly skilled professional people, but, you know, there is that Australianness where we have an extraordinary generosity of spirit and everybody cares about the bush. ...
We've watched over the last few years some very dire times - drought, the harshness of our landscape, the fires, the loss. It's part of our unique Australianness.
KERRY LONERGAN: And do you find what I might call, I guess, a common theme among the people in these towns?
QUENTIN BRYCE: I call it toughness. It's an Australian characteristic that I have identified again and again when I reflect on who we are and that's something that we always do at this time of the year around Australia Day. Who we are as Australians, what we stand for and I often think that I see the very best of our country. I talk about the people I see tucked away in corners of Australia who do wonderful things for the community, for each other. And, you know, it's a lovely thing to be able to put an arm around a shoulder and just silently give some support because gosh, it's tough coming back day after day to be in an evacuation centre in the night and to go back to your house and be cleaning up the mud. People who've worked so hard all their lives to get the things that are in their house, you know, to build that up and little kids going back to school who've covered all those books. All these things that we all relate to.
KERRY LONERGAN: And what about you, Governor-General? I would think uniquely among Australians that you would see more stress and distress and heartbreak and tears than perhaps any other Australian. Surely that impacts on you.
QUENTIN BRYCE: I do, I do see that. But, in it I see a source of courage and support and inspiration.
KERRY LONERGAN: Coming to this town I thought of that line from the Dorothy McKellar poem and the line was, "Of droughts and flooding rains". Perhaps do you think of that when you visit these towns as well?
QUENTIN BRYCE: I do, I do. I think, you know, for us to just look at the last few weeks at Coonabarabran where there are still fires still burning. They were going up this morning in the planes to see, you know, whether they could say that the fire was finished, was burnt and how they do that. I think we've learnt an enormous amount over the last few years about responses, how we handle the landscape, the people. And I'm filled with awe for the highly skilled professional people in our emergency services who respond. Technology plays a very important role in that so the people are prepared. I see the fantastic ADF here in much earlier than last time - up there in Bundaberg, the Black Hawks, the Hercules. This morning I went and spoke to people from Bundaberg Hospital who were evacuated, you know, in those wonderful planes to the Royal Brisbane Women's Hospital and spoke to them. You know, the response is magnificent at every level - at the professional level and right down to the grassroots. I know there's 600 kids at this school and 70 of them today are in the main street here helping businesses clean up. At St Mary's school, over there, the Catholic education office has got 30 people coming up from the Gold Coast. I mean, everybody wants to contribute.
But underneath all of this is the reality of the road to recovery and getting back to that. You know, the lady in the rock 'n' roll cafe over there, she told me it took them a year to get going after the last flood and, you know, they've suffered horrific damage there. So for people's personal, professional, emotional lives, we must remember that this road to recovery is a long one.
ABC Local Radio programs are encouraging people from throughout Australia to support the work of the volunteer group BlazeAid. | <urn:uuid:cf0a1326-34c3-4499-ac96-70e5f92c0231> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2013/s3682083.htm?site=canberra | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975592 | 1,443 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Hmmm... 192.168.80.50 is inside the default range that Core will use for Pluto devices. Your Windows box should get an address in the 80.129 to 80.254 range (if you've left the defaults in place) and this address will be automatically allocated by the Cores DHCP server. Let the Core allocate it a valid IP for a non-pluto device and then the auto detection scripts should do the rest for you.
Thanks Andrew. I hadn't thought of that. I've statically assigned the IP of this box since it acts as a server for other functions, and it was .1.50 before, so I decided to just stick with .50 for the last octet. I did modify the DHCP range of Pluto before doing this, so that the range for MDs ends at .49.
So, if I'm to use Pluto to hand out an IP to this box so that it automatically detects Windows shares, how would I go about setting up a DHCP Reservation? I'd like its IP to always be the same, whatever that may be. | <urn:uuid:129536a7-1c8a-4f72-9237-32586b4abf6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=1083.0;prev_next=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934534 | 223 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Cornish-born (Falmouth) Michael Canney was of critical importance to the life of the NAG from 1956, when he took on the Curator's role from Eileen HUNT who had filled the post over the previous four years. Canney and his wife Madeleine moved into the rooms in the basement of the little Gallery which had been provided to previous curators in lieu of a living wage. From the first, he set out to instil a professional and energetic sense of 'forwarding art' rather than simply 'hanging the work' that had prevailed for several decades and through the war years.
Jeremy LE GRICE commented: 'The appointment of Michael Canney as curator in 1956 consolidated the transformation of the appearance of exhibitions. The pleasure he took in the company of artists, the powers of observation, mimicry and anecdote, together with a reckless sense of humour and excitement in the earlier days of his job, sharpened the atmosphere considerably.'
In 1957 the Gallery was so much changed from its renovations that 150 exhibits had to be turned away in what was called by the Cornishman (Apr 11) 'Newlyn Art Gallery's Revival'. The next years were filled with innovative and exciting exhibitions, and the beginning of links with larger organisations like the newly formed Arts Councils.
Michael was aided and abetted in his own tenure (seven and a half years in all) at NAG by Peter LANYON, newly arrived at the NSA from the Penwith Society at St Ives, and soon to be president of the Newlyn Society of Artists. It was, perhaps, partly due to Peter's death in a gliding accident in 1964 that determined Canney to leave Cornwall where he had been born and first studied art (Redruth and Camborne's schools of art, and under Leonard John FULLER). He had grown tired of the perpetual struggle to make ends meet, and also the lack of time and opportunity to concentrate on his own work rather than continually supporting the work of others.
His first thought was to set up a school of painting and arts himself, with the plan that this could be situated in Porthleven, but the financial situation did not prove favourable and the idea was abandoned. He taught part-time in Plymouth, and then for a year took over the Visiting Directorship of the Gallery with teaching duties at the University of California campus at Santa Barbara. In 1966 he returned to England and took up a staff post at the West of England College of Art (later Bristol Polytechnic, now University of the West of England). He remained there until 1983 when he and Madeleine went abroad to live and work in Italy.
He worked directly with Barbara HEPWORTH on an exhibition of British sculpture in Penlee Park, Penzance in 1957. His closest friends and colleagues were Peter LANYON, Paul FEILER, John MILLER, Patrick HERON and many others who worked with him in Cornwall.
Upon their return from Italy to the UK he and Madeleine lived in Devizes, Wiltshire. In 1995 Michael and Madeleine contributed much to the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of NAG, and the 'Michael Canney Notebook', put together with Melissa HARDIE, is an important reservoir of information for that period in the life of Cornish art. | <urn:uuid:c3915dd7-5d25-43bb-873b-1df5d44e1f2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cornwallartists.org/cornwall-artists/michael-canney | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981525 | 684 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Apple runs a really tight ship. That’s the takeaway of a recent Wall Street Journal article that used confidential Apple store training materials and interviews with current and former store associates to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the tech-giant’s store operations. Among the interesting details: Apple’s annual retail sales per square foot stand at an astounding $4,406.
Here are some other interesting insights from the article:
- Steve Jobs is deeply involved in the details of Apple’s retail stores, down to the kind of security cables used to hold products to the display tables.
- The company details its “steps of service” in an acronym, APPLE, that starts with “Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome,” and concludes with “End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return.”
- It’s not easy getting a job at Apple -- it usually requires at least two rounds of interviewing.
- Sales associates are paid anywhere from $9 to $15 per hour. “Genius Bar” staffers receive up to around $30 per hour.
- Apple frowns on the hard sell. Employees are trained to demonstrate products and help solve customers’ problems rather than sell products.
- Employees don’t work on commission or have quotas to meet, but selling service plans is a must. Those who don’t ring up enough in this regard, are either re-trained or given a different job.
- Apple provides lots of training to sales associates. Once on the floor, new hires trail more seasoned associates and are not allowed to interact with shoppers on their own until they are given the green light.
- Associates must stay positive. Genius Bar staffers, for example, are trained not to use negative language. When they can’t solve a technical issue, they are suppose to say, “as it turns out” instead of “unfortunately,” which sounds more negative.
- Employees who are six minutes late three times in six months may lose their job.
- Employees are not allowed to discuss rumors about upcoming new products or to acknowledge any product glitches, however widespread. Any employee caught writing about Apple is fired.
Click here for past C-Suite entries. | <urn:uuid:fc432fcd-f63d-4739-84e7-79ee524b4a4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/getting-core-apple | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937479 | 475 | 1.5 | 2 |
Quote: Originally Posted by darquan
Hi, I have a vertex 3 240gb ssd and asrock z68 extreme4 motherboard (I plugged the ssd into one of the sata slots which I believe are the same).
For universal serial bus (USB) controller it tells me: the driver is not installed (code 28)
How can I correct this?
Hello darquan, welcome to the forum
You just have to plug it into one of the SATA 3 ports and that is it finished. No drivers to install. Have a look here; http://www.asrock.com/support/download.asp?Keyword=z68&Type=MB&Socket=
you can download a manual which should explain it to you.
The problem with the USB controller is something else could you post a snip of your device manager?
PS check the BIOS that you are running in AHCI mode the manual should explain where to find this as well. If not,
let us know as you cannot just change this setting when windows is already installed and someone will tell you how to do it. | <urn:uuid:c1c936e9-55a9-41cd-89d0-c578c708f537> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/167283-universal-serial-bus-controller-code-28-a.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936806 | 234 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Almost everything in Egypt is currently polarised: the political players, the people and the media as well.
This polarisation has brought up a society and a media system suffering from borderline personality disorder, where black and white thinking prevails.
"For the same event you find different coverage depending on the channel you are watching,” Ammar Faid, Muslim Brotherhood member, researcher and former member of President Mohamed Morsi elections campaign, told Ahram Online.
Despite the increase in media outlets , it is becoming difficult to find a “fact-based truth". The audience is overwhelmed with so many political talk shows, different newspapers and emerging online news content.
“A lot of rumours, twisting and taking events out of context is being practiced now by the media; journalists need to dig deep before they air or publish,” Yosri Fouda, veteran Talk Show presenter at ONTV, told Ahram Online.
The frustration of some people, mainly political Islamists groups, have prompted them to stage a sit-in in front of the Media City (where different private channels air their programmes) in 6 October city on the outskirts of Cairo.
Islamists also attacked the Liberal Wafd Party and its newsroom headquarters and made threats to satirical talk show anchor Bassem Youssef.
“Many media players and media institutions are now facing a serious threat,” Magdy Sarhan, Editor of Wafd newspaper, told Ahram Online.
Islamists have been consistently targeting media and opposition figures in their recent protests, chanting slogans such as “the people want the purification of the media."
“The media on both sides is hysterical and lacks common sense,” Faid added..
The fight continues, as the Brotherhood leadership warns its people from believing the private or independent media. Recently, Mohamed Badie, Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood called on the people to "care less about the misleading media outlets, which produce lies.”
“They believe that media can change reality and that is why they want to fight the media,” Fouda told Ahram Online.
Although the classical role of the media is to inform and entertain, during intense socio-political times in Egypt the media is one significant political player, if not the main contributor.
After the 25 January revolution, several satellite news channels were opened and different newspapers and online news websites were launched. The Islamists’ voices, suppressed during Hosni Mubarak’s era, are represented in 17 new television channels, according to Cairo University media professor Inas Abu Youssef.
However, before the revolution, the Salafists aired a number of channels, including El-Hekma, El-Hafez and El-Nas. Those channels were orchestrated by Salafist sheikhs and were considered highly politicised.
Many other private channels were opened as well after Mubarak's regime was toppled in 2011. The most significant is the CBC , which is owned by businessman Mohamed El-Amin.
El-Amin, who owns 16 satellite television channels, is accused by many of backing Mubarak's entourage. He has been working outside Egypt in different Gulf countries and returned home after the revolution.
Several television channels are controlled by politicians. Sayed El-Badawy, head of liberal Wafd Party, owns Al-Hayat Satellite Television channel while Naguib Sawiris, founder of Free Egyptians Liberal Party, has been the owner of ONTV until early December before selling it to a Kuwaiti company.
The Muslim Brotherhood owns Jan 25 channel and Salafist Sheikh Abu Islam owns Al-Umma Salafist satellite channel.
Abu Islam faced a charge of burning the Bible during the demonstrations in front of US embassy due to the low-budget movie insulting Islam's prophet Mohamed, in September.
News packaging business:
Accordingly, for most cases but not all, the media has failed to deliver unbiased news packages.
Each side lines up events with its own interpretation. “I don’t believe in neutrality, each businessman has his own biases and this is acceptable but at least they need to be reasonable,” Faid added.
Private media uses words such as "Brotherhoods’ acquisition," "brotherhoodisation of the state," and "Brotherhoods’ militants."
“They frame the events in a way that portrays Brotherhood members as monsters,” Faid commented.
Meanwhile, the Islamists channels scrutinise the personal lives of their opponents and attack leading figures. They portray their opponents as “atheists,” “remnants of the old regime” and “agents to foreign countries.”
“Because the anchors on those channels are sheikhs, in most cases they have nothing to do but to criticise the personal lives of their counterparts,” Faid said.
The Brotherhood argued that the media “overreacted” when the Wafd Party headquarters was attacked while 28 branches of its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, were set on fire and it was portrayed as a “normal” reaction to Morsi's constitutional decree.
Another concern is that the Islamists channels bring Islamic sheikhs and scholars to comment on politics. This act gives weight to the sheikh or scholar and whatever he is saying, even though he is not specialised in politics or economics.
However, the scene is not that dim.
“We can never deny the professional work done by ONTV for example, those media specialists are doing their best to find the truth,” Rasha Abdulla, Associate Mass Communication professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC), told Ahram Online.
State media position:
The deficiency in the state media has put the private media in a situation where it has to serve the public more than serving the agendas of its businessmen.
“As the state media fails to do its role, the private media is trying to bring the truth to people,” Abdulla told Ahram Online.
After the revolution, many expected the media to have more freedom. All eyes were on the state media to let go of its support for the regime and serve the people; yet, this only took place for a short period, critics say.
The state media was accused of backing the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF ), Egypt's ruler at the time.
“The state media in Egypt has to be the media of the public rather than serving the state,” Abdulla said.
One example is the “Maspero massacre,” when the army personnel ran over Coptic protesters with military vehicles, leaving at least 25 dead in October 2011. The state media called on the people to take the streets to support the army who were being “attacked by Coptic protesters", giving a distorted image of what has actually taken place.
"In the middle of all those challenges, we live in a world of remote controls, where the audience has the final say on who to follow and who to disregard," Fouda commented."Criticized you will be, no matter how good and professional you are." | <urn:uuid:5343cfba-8db7-47cb-ba8b-79296e341a8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albawaba.com/print/business/media-egypt-460423?quicktabs_accordion=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970258 | 1,488 | 1.539063 | 2 |
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Background to the Singapore CollaborationThe project has been developing for three years through SMARTlab with a wide range of international partners. The characters of TRUST and HOPE have 'performed' on stage and screen in SPIRITlevel dance technology showcase performances of 'Féileacán' for the European Year of People with Disabilities/Special Olympics showcase in Dublin (Sept. 2003) and in 'Anima Obscura' at the World Summit in Geneva (Dec. 2003), at Media Lab Europe in Dublin (supported by the Mindgames Group), as well as in shows commissioned through SMARTlab for the AIR Gallery New York and the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery (Los Angeles Convention Centre, August 2004). These shows have allowed the team to test the popularity of the characters and the story idea, and to forge strong links with collaborators in engineering and animation. The project is now to be further developed and installed in the Singapore KK Hospital for Children: a new development phase made possible by a generous invitation and grant from the Nanyang Technological University's new GAMElab. SMARTlab media artists will lead creative workshops with children and their medical teams and families, encouraging storytelling and art, dance and drama exercises as appropriate to each group. The technical team will take the data collected and work to build an interactive game involving the characters of HOPE and TRUST, who will move through the familiar surroundings of the KK Hospital and then into new imaginative 'rooms' and worlds. SMARTlab Director & TRUST Project author & PI Dr Lizbeth Goodman made initial site visits to the NTU lab and the KK Hospital as part of her lecture tour, funded by the Shell Singapore Foundation for the NTU Drama Department's special Visiting Professorship in Performance Technology, in April 2004. That visit made many important connections, and led to a follow-up invitation to bring a team and collaborate on the first major creative project to be developed on site at the new NTU GAMElab.
Pajama JeansLooking for great looking, curve accentuating clothing that is comfortable? Then you might want to check out the stylish new pajama jeans. Imagine being able to wear you PJ's to go shopping, run errands or to work. Well now that's possible with the great looking yet extremely soft feeling pajama jeans. There soft, sexy, stylish and comfortable. Now that's a mouth full when your talking about women's outer wear. You usually here the complaints about how uncomfortable the clothing is if it looks and fits great. Not with these jeans, they look sexy, show off your curves and yet allow you to feel comfortable and at ease all day long. It's like having your cake and being able to eat it to.Because the Pajama Jeans look just like a pair of blue jeans and softly hug every curve, no one will know you are not wearing a traditional pair of jeans, but you will certainly know it because there are no zippers or buttons, which makes it even more comfortable for you. Yes, you can be "Lookin Good" and comfortable as can be at the same time? Blue jeans definitely have their place, but regardless of popular opinion, traditional blue jeans do not move with you, have buttons and zippers that can be uncomfortable after hours of wearing them.The Pajama Jeans work well for travel, a fun night out, or even a romantic date. What they have done mix the great feel of PJ's with the style and great looks of jeans. You will be tempted to wear these to bed to sleep in, so therefore, having more than one pair to throw on for every occasion is your best bet. Sexy and comfortable, while traditionally a woman did not have the luxury of having both at the same time, is now something that women are dressing up in all over the world with the new Pajama Jeans.The majority of the women who buy pajama jeans end up purchasing at least one other pair because they are so darn comfortable you will want to wear them all the time! The blue jeans industry will never be the same with the Pajama Jeans making such as comfortable and sexy splash! The great thing about these jeans is that because the material stretches they fit like a million dollars, accentuating your curves while you are in total comfort!Pajama Jeans have found a way to combine a sexy style with ultimate comfort so well that a great number of women have chosen to opt out of tradininal, uncomfortable, skin pinching jeans and saying yes to great looking, comfortable Pajama Jeans. Imagine, no matter what the occasion you can be as comfortable as wearing your PJ's, no other pair of jeans can give you that comfort!
Homepathic Acne TreatmentIf you are looking for a homeopathic acne treatment instead of your old fashioned sulfur remedies then you are not alone.
Acne is one of the most common skin aliments and when searching most people get turned off of the sulfur treatment when they hear what it does to your skin. This sends you on your search for natural treatment and that is how you arrived here.
Homeopathic medicine has been around longer than traditional medicine. It would take forever to explain the entire history of this type of healing so instead of doing that and boring you, I am going to show you the top 5 homeopathic way to cure your acne.
When choosing which treatment you are going to use, please consult with a doctor first before trying anything. This way you know the correct dosage before you begin.
World Of Warcraft As Therapy
It has long been recognized that games are an effective form of therapy. They take the mind of current problems and can immerse a child in a fantasy world devoid of real world physical difficulties.. Many games fit this bill, from board games to video and computer games. One epic computer game is World Of Warcraft. The best way to play wow is with a wow gamecard. With a gamecard you do not need a credit card which is great for kids. Pre-paying for 60 days means no game interruptions and the gaming and therapy can continue uninhinbited.
Seniors Dating Tips
Re-entering the dating scene at the age of 50 or older can be downright intimidating. But when you approach it with the right mindset, it can also be an exhilarating and exciting experience. It all depends on your attitude. But remember thousands of senior people meet login every day, and many do actually find new love online.
Forever 21 Supports The Singapore ProjectThe trendy fashion giant Forever 21 supports the Give Trust Singapore Project. This ecclectic fahion house provides clothing and accessories to the price conscious shopper. With over 400 stores worldwide its populairty is unquestionable. With fashion for teens women, men plus size and even maternity. The introduction of Forever 21 Coupons has meant even greater savings for the public. With a corresponding increase in sales and thus more support for our ever nneedy organization. Forever 21 we salute you.
|| Contact | Privacy || | <urn:uuid:5bd0600a-c784-4eb2-bc56-1beee7543ae8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.give-trust.org/singapore1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946727 | 1,457 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Jackson 5
|The Jackson 5|
|Also known as||Jackson Five, The Jackson Brothers, The Jacksons|
|Origin||Gary, Indiana, United States|
|Genres||Rhythm and blues, soul, funk, disco, bubblegum pop, rock and roll|
|Years active||1964–1990, 2001, 2012–present|
|Labels||Steeltown, Motown, Philadelphia International, Epic|
|Past members||Michael Jackson
The Jackson 5 (also spelled The Jackson Five, sometimes stylized The Jackson 5ive), later known as The Jacksons, are an American popular music family group from Gary, Indiana. Founding group members Jackie Jackson, Tito Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Marlon Jackson and Michael Jackson formed the group after performing in an early incarnation called The Jackson Brothers, which originally consisted of a trio of the three older brothers. Active from 1964 to 1990, the Jacksons played from a repertoire of R&B, soul, pop and (in the 1970s) disco. During their six-and-a-half-year Motown tenure, The Jackson 5 was one of the biggest pop-music acts of the 1970s, and the band served as the launching pad for the solo careers of their lead singers Jermaine and Michael, the latter brother later transforming his early Motown solo fame into greater success as an adult artist. The Jackson 5/The Jacksons have sold 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best selling artists of all time.
The Jackson 5 was one of few in recording history to have their first four major label singles ("I Want You Back", "ABC", "The Love You Save", and "I'll Be There") reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Several later singles, among them "Mama's Pearl", "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "Dancing Machine", were Top 5 pop hits and number-one hits on the R&B singles chart. Most of the early hits were written and produced by a specialized songwriting team known as "The Corporation"; later Jackson 5 hits were crafted chiefly by Hal Davis, while early Jacksons hits were compiled by the team of Gamble and Huff before The Jacksons began writing and producing themselves in the late 1970s.
Significantly, they were one of the first black teen idols to appeal equally to white audiences, thanks partially to the successful promotional relations skills of Motown Records CEO Berry Gordy. With their departure from Motown to CBS in 1976, The Jacksons were forced to change their name and Jermaine was replaced with younger brother Randy as Jermaine chose to stay at Motown. During these years, they continued to have a number of hits such as "Enjoy Yourself", "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)", "Show You the Way to Go", and "Blame It on the Boogie". After two years under the Philadelphia International Records label, they signed with Epic Records and asserted control of their songwriting, production, and image, and their success continued into the 1980s with hits such as "Can You Feel It", "This Place Hotel", "Lovely One", and "State of Shock". Their 1989 album 2300 Jackson Street was recorded without Michael and Marlon, although they did appear on the title track. The disappointing sales of the album led to the group being dropped by their record label at the end of the year. The group has never formally broken up, but has been dormant since then, although all six brothers performed together at two Michael Jackson tribute concerts in September 2001. After Michael's death in June 2009, the group announced a 2012 reunion tour, The Unity Tour, although Randy did not take part.
Early Years
Born and raised in Gary, Indiana, the Jackson brothers were guided early in their careers by their father Joseph Jackson, a steel mill crane operator and former musician, and their mother Katherine Jackson, who watched over the boys during the early years.
Tito recalled playing around with his father's guitar while he was away working on Gary's steel mills. One night, Joseph discovered Tito had been playing his guitar after a string was broken. Initially upset with his son's playing behind his back, he saw their potential. Around 1964, the Jacksons' aunt Wanda, who was a successful professional musician, encouraged Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine to form a band. The Jackson Brothers originally included hometown friends Muffy Jones and Milford Tonna on guitar and drums respectively. By the end of the following year, the group's younger brothers Marlon and Michael joined the instrumental band playing tambourine and congas respectively.
Showing extraordinary talent at a very young age, young Michael began demonstrating his dance moves and singing ability at the age of five. Michael's moving rendition of "Climb Every Mountain" sang at his kindergarten talent show earned him a place in his brothers' group. Before his eighth birthday, Michael was allowed to perform his song-and-dance routine at a talent contest held at Jackie's Roosevelt High School in Gary, helping his brothers win the competition. It was at that point that Tito's junior high school orchestra teacher Shirley Cartman began mentoring the group. She suggested replacing Jones and Hite with talented musicians Johnny Jackson (no relation) on drums and Ronnie Rancifer on keyboards. Tito moved up to lead guitar while Jermaine played bass guitar after several years as a rhythm guitarist.
Evelyn Lahaie, a local talent agent, suggested to Joe to rename the group the Jackson 5 when they performed in her Tiny Tots Jamboree in Gary. After the contest win, the group began playing professional gigs in Indiana, Chicago and across the U.S. Many of these performances were in a string of black clubs and venues collectively known as the "chitlin' circuit". The group also found themselves performing at strip joints to earn money. Cartman got the Jackson 5 a record deal with Gordon Keith's local Steeltown label, and the group began making their first recordings in October 1967. Their first single, "Big Boy", was released in January 1968 and became a regional hit. This was followed by a second single, "We Don't Have to Be Over 21".
The Jackson 5 had a number of admirers in their early days, including Sam & Dave, who helped the group secure a spot in the famous Amateur Night competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. The group won the August 13, 1967, competition during the Amateur Night showdown at the Apollo, impressing Motown Records artist Gladys Knight. Knight recommended the group to Motown chief Berry Gordy, but Gordy, who already had teenager Stevie Wonder on his roster, was hesitant to take on another child act because of the child labor laws and other problems involved. The Jackson 5's sound was influenced by many of the biggest stars of the 1960s, including the self-contained funk bands Sly & the Family Stone and The Isley Brothers, Motown group The Temptations, soul legend Marvin Gaye, rock 'n' roll kid group The Teenagers and soul shouters like Wilson Pickett, Jackie Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Joe Tex and James Brown. At the time of their early success, R&B stars, especially coming from Motown Records, were among the most popular musicians; Motown had launched the careers of dozens of the decade's biggest stars, most notably The Supremes, The Miracles, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops and the Temptations.
Joining Motown
By 1968, the Jackson 5 were a headlining act for the All Star Floor Show at Chicago's The Guys' and Gals' Cocktail Lounge and Restaurant. From July 12–27, 1968, the Jackson 5 opened for Motown act Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers at Chicago's Regal Theater. Like Gladys Knight before him, Bobby Taylor was also very impressed with the boys, and he decided to make the commitment to bring them to Detroit and Motown. Joseph and The Jackson 5 stayed on the floor of Bobby Taylor's Detroit apartment the night of July 22, while Tayler and Motown executive Suzanne de Passe arranged for the Jackson 5 to audition for the label.
On July 23, the Jackson 5 had their Motown audition, for which they performed James Brown’s then current hit "I Got the Feelin'". Berry Gordy was not in attendance, but the audition was videotaped and sent to him in Los Angeles. Gordy's initial reluctance to sign the group disappeared when he finally saw the boys perform. Gordy decided to sign the Jackson 5 to Motown, and hosted a party at his Detroit mansion on November 25, 1968, to introduce them to the Motown staff and stars. Motown began negotiations to buy out the Jackson 5's Steeltown contract, completing the deal in March 1969. By the summer, Bobby Taylor began producing the group's first recordings at Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. recording studio in Detroit. The early Taylor-produced Jackson 5 records were all covers of both contemporary hits and Motown-standards, including Sly & the Family Stone's "Stand!" and their famous rendition of The Miracles' "Who's Lovin' You", written by Smokey Robinson. Gordy moved the Jackson 5 and Joseph to California, and he and Suzanne de Passe began the process of grooming them as the label's next big act, while the rest of the family remained in Gary. While looking for a house in California, Joseph, Jermaine, Tito, and Jackie lived with Berry Gordy, Marlon and Michael lived with Diana Ross in her California home.
Motown's marketing team prepared press kits and other promotional material to begin The Jackson 5's entrance into the mainstream music industry. Motown publicity significantly altered the group's history, publicizing the ages of most of its band mates as younger than they were — Michael's age changed from eleven to nine to make him appear cuter — and identifying unrelated band musicians Johnny Jackson and Ronnie Rancifer as cousins of the Jacksons. In a major marketing coup, Gordy and Motown decided to attach the group to an established star to increase public curiosity. Thus, it was decided that Motown star Diana Ross would "discover" the group as was explained in all early press kits. According to their official Motown biography, referenced in several early interviews and liner notes, Diana Ross (and, in some versions of the story, Berry Gordy alongside her) was introduced to the Jackson 5 by Gary, Indiana's mayor, Richard G. Hatcher, at a benefit concert that the Jackson 5 were described as having played for the mayor in 1969. Impressed, Ross (and Gordy) had the act signed.
Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5
The Jackson 5 practiced and rehearsed continuously during the late summer and early fall of 1969. Diana Ross formally introduced The Jackson 5 to the public on August 11, 1969, at a Beverly Hills, California club called "The Daisy." Towards the end of August, The Jackson 5 made their first television appearance, singing The Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing" at the Miss Black America Pageant in Madison Square Garden, New York City.
The Jackson 5's first single, "I Want You Back", was written and produced by four Motown songwriters and producers — Berry Gordy, Alphonzo Mizell, Deke Richards, and Freddie Perren — who were collectively billed as "The Corporation". "I Want You Back" was released as a single for The Jackson 5, as Motown decided to officially bill the group, on October 7. The group performed "I Want You Back", Sly & the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song", The Delfonics' "Can You Remember", and James Brown's "There Was a Time" as part of their appearance on The Hollywood Palace as special guests of Diana Ross & the Supremes. "I Want You Back" was the only single from The Jackson 5's first album, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, which was released in December 1969. The song reached number one in January, 1970. When it did, Michael became the first person born during the "Hot 100" era, established by Billboard Magazine, to reach the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart.
Popularization and franchise expansion
Most of the early Jackson 5 singles were written and produced by The Corporation, who crafted for The Jackson 5 a sound that mixed the traditional "Motown Sound" with teenage-honed lyrics that they termed "bubblegum soul". The Jackson 5 became an instant sensation, with "I Want You Back" and its 1970 followups "ABC", "The Love You Save," and "I'll Be There" all going to number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Best Selling Soul Singles chart. "The Love You Save" charted atop the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and "I'll Be There" remained at the top position of the chart for four weeks, which is tied with "I Want You Back" for the most successful single for the band in the United States. The three singles were commercially successful internationally, mainly peaking within the top ten on music charts. Other early Top 5 hits included "Mama's Pearl" and "Never Can Say Goodbye." Now successful, Joseph was finally able to arrange to move Katherine and the rest of the family out to California in 1970. First moving into a two-story residence at 1616 Queens Road in Los Angeles, the Jackson family moved to a gated mansion they called "Hayvenhurst", which was purchased by Joseph in March 1971.
"Jacksonmania" swept the nation, and within a year of their debut The Jackson 5 were among the biggest names in popular music. The group essentially replaced The Supremes as Motown's main marketing focus, and, capitalizing upon the youth-oriented appeal of the Jackson brothers, Motown licensed dozens of Jackson 5-related juvenile products, including the now famous J5 Heart logo which appears on Johnny Jacksons drum kit and many of The Jackson 5's album covers, stickers, sewable patches, posters, and coloring books. A new teen magazine aimed at African-American youth, Right On!, began publication in 1971, and focused heavily on The Jackson 5; at least one Jackson adorned the cover of every issue published between January 1972 and April 1974. Animation producers Rankin/Bass produced The Jackson 5ive, a Saturday morning cartoon that debuted on September 11, 1971 and ran for two seasons on ABC. The Jackson 5 starred in two of their own television specials, Goin' Back to Indiana (aired September 16, 1971) and The Jackson 5 Show (aired November 5, 1972).
In 1971, Motown began a spin-off solo career for Michael, whose first single, "Got to Be There" became a Top 5 hit. Michael also sang the title track for the 1972 motion picture[disambiguation needed] Ben. His other successful solo singles included "Rockin' Robin" and "I Wanna Be Where You Are" (both 1972). Jermaine started a solo career of his own in 1972, and had a Top Ten hit with his Shep and the Limelites cover "Daddy's Home". Jackie also recorded a solo album in 1973, but his releases failed to chart. Despite fan rumors that all three Jacksons might leave the group as they released solo work, the solo careers of Michael, Jermaine, and Jackie co-existed alongside that of the group as a whole, allowing Motown to expand the success and sales of Jackson 5-related releases.
Later career
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After 1972, The Jackson 5's releases were not as successful, but they still did very well. Later top-20 hits, mostly written and produced by Hal Davis included "Lookin' Through the Windows" (1972) and the disco-styled "Dancing Machine" (1974), which popularized the "Robot" dance routine. Jackson 5 albums declined somewhat in critical acclaim and financial success during the latter part of their Motown tenure, although LPs such as Lookin' Through the Windows (1972) and G.I.T.: Get It Together (1973) frequently included successful album tracks, including their version of "Hum Along and Dance", a popular number in their live act.
The Jackson 5 provided background vocals on Stevie Wonder's "You Haven't Done Nothin'" from his 1974 album Fulfillingness' First Finale.
Critics, The Jackson 5, and Joseph Jackson agreed [according to whom?]that the main reason for the group's declining success was Motown's refusal to update their image. Although they played their own instruments on stage and had begun writing and producing songs in their own home recording studio, The Jackson 5 later said that Motown wouldn't allow them to record their own compositions or play instruments in their studio recordings. The group's studio recordings were first handled by Motown's famed in-house studio band The Funk Brothers during their brief recording tenure at Hitsville and later instrumentation was played by many of the members of The Wrecking Crew, which formed Motown's Hitsville West studio band. Feeling that The Jackson 5 could be more of a success without Motown, which was by this time declining in success and popularity, Joseph began shopping for a new record deal for his sons.
The move to CBS Records
In 1975, Joseph negotiated a new recording contract with CBS Records, who offered a royalty rate of 20% per record, compared to Motown's standard 2.8%; and would allow the Jackson brothers to write and produce their own records and play their own instruments. After unsuccessfully attempting to talk the group into staying on the label, Motown sued for breach of contract. Although Motown eventually let the group go, The Jackson 5 were forced to change their name to The Jacksons, because Motown retained the "Jackson 5" trademark during the settlement of the lawsuit. The Jacksons also replaced Jermaine with their brother, 14-year-old Randy, since Jermaine chose to stay with Motown after he married Berry Gordy's daughter, Hazel. Randy had been an unofficial member of The Jackson 5 since 1972, playing congas onstage as part of their live act.
After losing The Jacksons, Motown would not have another success of their caliber for the duration of Berry Gordy's ownership of the label. Gordy often said of The Jackson 5 that they were, coming after the label's most famous acts, "the last big stars to come rolling off the [Motown] assembly line." In summer 1976, CBS television signed the Jackson family (including Michael, Marlon, Tito, Jackie, Randy, Rebbie, LaToya, and Janet) to appear in their own variety show, The Jacksons, to compete with ABC's Donny & Marie. The Jacksons debuted on June 16, 1976, and ran on CBS until its cancellation the following March 1977. The show was the first variety show hosted by an African American family.
First as part of CBS's Philadelphia International Records division, and later moving over to Epic Records, The Jacksons continued releasing popular singles such as "Enjoy Yourself", "Show You the Way to Go", and "Goin' Places", produced by Philadelphia International's Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff. After two LPs produced by Gamble and Huff, The Jacksons wanted artistic control, and produced their next LP, 1978's Destiny, on their own. The album included The Jacksons' biggest post-Motown single, "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)", which charted at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number three on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. "Shake Your Body", written by Michael and Randy, sold over two million copies, attaining double-platinum status. Destiny also included "Blame It on the Boogie", and "Things I Do For You". Destiny also went platinum, and peaked at number 11 on the Billboard 200 album chart and number three on the R&B album charts. In 1979, The Jacksons received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1978, Michael starred alongside Diana Ross in the Motown/Universal Pictures motion picture The Wiz, an adaptation of the Broadway musical based upon L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Quincy Jones was the producer of the film's songs, and he and Michael began work on Michael’s first Epic solo album, Off the Wall, the next year. Off the Wall, released in 1979, sold 20 million copies worldwide and featured four Top 10 hit singles and two number-one singles, causing some speculation about whether Michael would leave The Jacksons, though Michael told several reporters at the time that such speculation was unfounded.
Michael and Marlon's departure and other work
In 1980 the group released the Triumph album, which featured the hits "Lovely One", "Heartbreak hotel", and "Can You Feel It", as well as the dance club hit "Walk Right Now". The following year's The Jacksons Live! used recordings from the group's Triumph Tour, which in 1988 was described by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the best 25 tours from 1967 to 1987. The group's success was outperformed, however, by Michael's 1982 LP Thriller. Thriller went on to become the most successful album ever in the United States, and to date stands as the world's best-selling album of all time. The Motown 25 television special, broadcast on NBC on May 16, 1983, featured a reunion performance between Jermaine and the other brothers. Outside of one 1979 appearance on the TV show Midnight Special this was the original Jackson 5's first performance in nearly seven years. The Motown 25 Jackson 5 reunion was overshadowed, however, by Michael's performance of "Billie Jean" on the same program, which introduced his trademark black sequin jacket, single decorated glove and "moonwalk" dance.
In 1984, all six Jackson brothers reunited to make the album Victory. The album was only modestly successful. Three singles were released from the album; "State of Shock", which features Mick Jagger, "Torture" and "Body". "Torture" peaked at No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 26 on the United Kingdom charts. However, the subsequent Victory Tour of North America in the summer and fall of 1984 proved to be one of the biggest concert tours of the 1980s. Aside from a few scattered TV and concert appearances in the 1970s, the Victory Tour period was the only time all six brothers performed together as full members of the band.
Michael left the band to continue his solo career after the tour, and after his album Thriller became the best selling album of all time winning eight Grammy Awards in 1984. Marlon left around the same time to pursue a business career outside music. The other brothers took on solo projects. Most of them would appear with Michael on the U.S.A. For Africa single "We Are the World" in 1985.
The last Jacksons album was 2300 Jackson Street in 1989. The first single from the project, "Nothin' (That Compares 2 U)" reached No. 4 on the US Billboard R&B Singles chart. Every Jackson sibling except for LaToya appeared on the title track, a No. 9 R&B hit single. The rest of the album featured Jermaine, Jackie, Tito, and Randy only.
In 1992, a miniseries depicting the rise of the group titled The Jacksons: An American Dream, aired on ABC and was hugely successful.
In September 2001, The Jacksons reunited to perform at a concert special at Madison Square Garden to celebrate 30 years of Michael Jackson's career as a solo artist. The concerts were filmed and the footage was shown in the special, 30th Anniversary celebration, which aired on CBS in November 2001 as a two-hour television special. The on-stage performance was for the first time since The Jacksons Victory Tour seventeen years prior. A CD compilation of hits from the CBS/Epic years, The Essential Jacksons, was released in 2004, as was a separate compilation assembled by Universal/Hip-O, The Jacksons Story.
The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty and reunion attempts
Beginning in early 2009, the four oldest brothers (Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon) filmed a reality television show, documenting their attempts to get the family band back together. In December 2009, the show debuted on the A&E Network under the title The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty. Michael Jackson's attempted comeback and his sudden death happened in the middle of the project. Those events dominated the reality TV show, even though he was never seen on-camera (except in old music videos).
A sample of Michael and The Jacksons' "This Is It". The song was the first song for The Jacksons to chart on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks since 1970. (The song was later recorded by Michael alone, and served as the title track for his post-humous concert film.)
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In June 2009, following the death of brother Michael, the surviving Jacksons recorded background vocals for a previously unreleased song, "This Is It" (the theme for the movie of the same name), which had originally been a demo. The radio-only single was released in October of that same year. The song did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100, but charted at number nineteen on Billboards Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks. "This Is It" returned The Jacksons to the chart for the first time since 1970, when, billed as the Jackson 5, the group marked its sole previous entry, "I'll Be There", which went on to peak on the chart at number twenty-four. The surviving members of the Jacksons were in talks of planning a reunion concert tour (which was to be served as a tribute to Michael) for 2010, and were in talks in working on their first new studio album in over 20 years. However, neither plan was put into action.
In September 2010, Jermaine Jackson held his own "tribute" concert to Michael in Las Vegas. While his brothers and sister Janet attended, none of them joined their brother onstage. As of August 2011, the future of the Jacksons remains uncertain as Jackie Jackson released a solo single to iTunes and both Jermaine and Tito Jackson were planning new solo studio albums, which haven't been released yet. Marlon Jackson retired from the music business in 1989. Randy Jackson hasn't been active in music since the disbanding of Randy & The Gypsys in 1991.
In August 2011, there appeared to be a discord between the brothers concerning a tribute concert dedicated to Michael. While Jackie, Tito and Marlon were present alongside mother Katherine and sister La Toya for a tribute concert that is currently in planning for Cardiff at the Millennium Stadium for a press conference concerning the tour, a couple days after the press conference, both Randy and Jermaine issued a statement denouncing the tribute tour as the date of it occurs around the same time of Conrad Murray's manslaughter trial in relation to Michael's death.
The Jacksons: Unity Tour 2012
In April 2012, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon announced that they would reunite for several US concerts for their Unity Tour. 38 dates were announced, however, 11 shows in the United States were cancelled. The tour started at Casino Rama in Rama, Canada on June 20 and was scheduled to end on December 9 in Osaka, Japan.
The singing efforts of Michael and his brothers led to the group's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. Two of the band's recordings ("ABC" and "I Want You Back") are among The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll", with the latter track also included in the Grammy Hall of Fame. On September 8, 2008, The Jacksons were honored as BMI Icons at the annual BMI Urban Awards.
In 1992, Suzanne de Passe and Jermaine Jackson worked with Motown to produce The Jacksons: An American Dream, a five-hour television miniseries broadcast based on the history of The Jackson family in a two-part special on American Broadcast Company. The script began with Katherine and Joseph Jackson's first meeting in the mid-1940s and ended with the Victory Tour in 1984.
The Jackson 5 was influenced by The Temptations, Supremes, Stevie Wonder, James Brown & The Famous Flames, Little Richard, Ray Charles, The Cadillacs, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and Berry Gordy. In turn, they served as the inspiration for several generations of boy bands, including New Edition, Menudo, New Kids on the Block, N*SYNC, the Jonas Brothers, Backstreet Boys, and many more. The rise of the Jackson 5 in the 1960s and 1970s coincided with the rise of a very similar band of brothers, the Osmond Brothers. Some considered the Osmonds, who were white, an imitation of the Jacksons. However, the Osmonds actually started a few years before the Jacksons, and were considered an inspiration to them. Joseph Jackson was impressed by the Osmond Brothers' early TV appearances and instructed his own sons to study them closely. Eventually, the members of the two families became friends. Jay Osmond recalled in a June 2009 blog posting that "Michael had a unique sense of humor about him, and told us he was so tired of watching The Osmonds on The Andy Williams Show. He explained this was something their father had them do, and Michael joked he became really tired of it!"
Band members
- Live albums
- The Jacksons Live! (1981)
See also
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Jackson 5|
- List of best-selling music artists
- List of number-one hits (United States)
- List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
- List of number-one dance hits (United States)
- Huey, Steve. "The Jackson 5". Macrovision Corp. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
- Gordy, Berry (July 19, 2009). Eulogy for Michael Jackson (Speech). Los Angeles, CA.
- "Valpo resident who named Jackson Five recalls time with Michael". nwitimes.com. Retrieved 2009-12-13.
- Taraborrelli, p. 36–37
- Transcript of interview with Jermaine Jackson. Larry King Live. November 30, 2003. Retrieved from edition.cnn.com on August 20, 2005.
- (August 25, 1970). "The Jackson Five". Look Magazine. Like all Motown-era Jackson 5 articles, Diana Ross is credited with having discovered the act with the help of Gary, Indiana's mayor Richard G. Hatcher, and Johnny Jackson and Ronnie Rancifer are identified as cousins of the Jackson brothers.
- George, p. 22
- "The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back (chanson)". LesCharts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved 2010-03-07.
- "The Jackson 5 - I'll Be There (chanson)". LesCharts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved 2010-03-07.
- (1997) "The Jackson 5". The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Retrieved from rockhall.com on August 20, 1995.
- White, Jim (12 March 2007). "Michael Jackson's Thriller is old hat". Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
- "Music Icon Quincy Jones Kicks-Off New Series in Tribune Newspapers". PR Newswire. 2009-01-16. Retrieved 2010-03-18.
- "Amusements". Miami Herald. 21 September 1984. Retrieved 2010-03-18.
- Halstead, p. 329.
- Grant, p. 83
- Tania Branigan (2001-09-08). "Jackson spends £20m to be Invincible". Guardian.co.uk. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 2010-03-18.
- Mike Hale (2009-12-11). "No Longer One for All, but Still All From One". NYTimes.com (The New York Times Company). Retrieved 2010-03-06.
- "New Michael Jackson song, 'This Is It', premieres online". Rolling Stones. October 12, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
- Gary Trust (2009-10-15). "Chart Beat Thursday: Michael Buble, Michael Jackson, Kiss". Billboard.com. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. Retrieved 2010-03-06.
- Gary Trust (2009-10-21). "Chart Beat Wednesday: Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift, Norah Jones Thomas Garner". Billboard.com. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. Retrieved 2010-03-06.
- Bill Zwecker (2010-02-24). "J-Lo spins record discord". Suntimes.com. Sun-Times Media, LLC. Retrieved 2010-03-06.
- Stevenson, Jane (2012-06-21). "Casino Rama, Rama Ont. June 20, 2012". Retrieved 2012-07-02.
- George, p. 50–51
- "Music muse". Erie Times-News. (May 6, 1999). Retrieved August 25, 2009.
- "500 songs that shaped rock". The Denver Post. (September 3, 1995). Retrieved August 25, 2009.
- "BMI Honors The Jacksons, T-Pain and Many More at Urban Awards in Los Angeles". bmi.com. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
- "Jay Osmond Official Website". Jayosmond.com. Retrieved 2010-06-25.
- Brooks, p. 80
- Grant, p. 37
- Grant, p. 40
- Grant, p. 42
- Grant, p. 55
- Brooks, Darren (2002). Michael Jackson: An Exceptional Journey. Chrome Dreams. ISBN 1-84240-178-5.
- Grant, Adrian (2009). Michael Jackson: The Visual Documentary. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1-84938-261-8.
- George, Nelson (2004). Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection booklet. Sony BMG.
- Bierbaum, Tom (November 18, 1992). Week's Nielsen win easy as ABC[dead link]. Variety.
- Cadman, Chris and Craig Halstead. Michael Jackson: the Early Years. Authors Online. ISBN 0-7552-0064-0
- Green, Dave (producer/director). (January 29, 2005). VH1 News Presents: Michael Jackson's Secret Childhood [television broadcast]. New York, NY: MTV Networks.
- Manning, Steve. The Jacksons. Indianapolis. Bobbs-Merrill. 1976.
- Posner, Gerald (2002). Motown : Music, Money, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50062-6.
- Ward, Ed, Geoffrey Stokes and Ken Tucker (1986). Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll. Rolling Stone Press. ISBN 0-671-54438-1.
- Taraborrelli, J. Randy (2004). The Magic and the Madness. Terra Alta, WV: Headline. ISBN 0-330-42005-4.
- Neely, Tim (2000). Goldmine Standard Catalog of American Records 1950-1975 2nd Ed. Iola, WI: Krause. ISBN 0-87341-934-0.
|Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Jackson 5|
- Jackson Five documentary on BBC Radio
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame page on The Jackson 5
- 'Jackson Five' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
- The Jackson Five Video Archive
- Jackson 5 on The Ed Sullivan Show | <urn:uuid:dc628567-fc20-4db9-b557-5c412d21f14c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jacksons | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957243 | 7,601 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Your E-mail box may be flooded with dozens of claims that taking their saffron extract pills will make you slim, “as seen on Doctor Oz.” Doctor Oz did indeed cover these pills, calling them a “miracle appetite suppressant.” But even Doctor Oz was uncharacteristically reticent about whether you would actually lose weight.
OK, that’s the requisite number of red flags to set off our Quack-O-Meter. There have been a number of studies of saffron extracts used for muscular problems and for treating depressive symptoms and OCD (in rats).
There has been only one paper, published in Nutrition Research, however, trying saffron extract on humans. Three French researchers set up a properly approved human trial using sixty mildly overweight women. Half were given commercial pills containing saffron extract and half given a placebo, each taken twice daily. Using daily diaries, they recorded the number of instances of snacking for each subject. Women were selected because of anecdotal evidence that this product may be more effective on women.
Over the eight week trial, the average number of snacking events per 2-week period decreased from 12.5 to 8.9 for the placebo group and 12.1 to 5.8 for the saffron pill group. There was also a very slight weight loss. The placebo group lost 0.01 kg and the saffron group lost 0.96 kg over 8 weeks. Since the margin of error was 0.26 kg, this is a very small loss indeed.
The conclusion of the paper was
“… the present results support the working hypothesis that Satiereal, a new patented stigma extract of C sativus L, may produce a certain level of satiation susceptible to impact snacking behavior. A possible consequence may be that Satiereal could contribute, although to a limited extent, to body weight reduction.”
Not to be outdone, Dr. Oz did a tiny trial with two women taking a bottle of pills home for the weekend and reporting on their urge to snack over several days. Since the study had neither placebo control nor blinding, it is not at all surprising that both reported a decreased urge to snack.
So, while it is possible that the saffron extract does help in controlling urges to snack by some appetite suppression, it is far from conclusive that this can lead to weight loss.
And further, as the paper notes, the mechanism explaining this suppression is far from clear:
“…the mechanisms suggested to contribute to reducing snacking remain speculative, awaiting elucidation of the central and/or peripheral targets involved in its neuropharmacology.”
This does not seem to be a good bet compared to normal dieting approaches and exercise. | <urn:uuid:d4b20fbe-c073-4b4c-a19b-f9a1f721adbf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/saffron-slim-does-it-work?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951785 | 570 | 1.679688 | 2 |
In an effort to help reduce potential future fraud and retain confidence in electronic payments systems, NACHA joined with Microsoft Corporation, the Financial Services – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), the American Bankers Association (ABA), Kyrus Tech, Inc., and financial institution representatives to plan and execute a coordinated operation to disrupt some of the most notorious cybercrime operations that have been responsible for fueling online fraud and identity theft.
The operation targeted some of the most harmful botnets using the Zeus family of malware worldwide, which were linked to spam in which NACHA, Microsoft, and other entities’ trademarks were counterfeited. Botnets, or armies of malware infected computers, infect other computers with the purpose of compromising the user’s online credentials, thereby enabling fraudulent financial activity.
Evidence and intelligence gained through the operation by Microsoft will be used to help rescue people’s computers from the control of Zeus, as well as in an ongoing effort to undermine the cybercriminal organization and help hold those responsible accountable for their actions.
For more information, visit the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit Newsroom: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/dcu/
The Credit Union National Association (CUNA) has released a final rule analysis of new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) protections for consumers who transfer money internationally.
The rule broadly defines these "remittance transfers" to include virtually all cross-border electronic funds transfers initiated by consumers in the U.S. including automated clearinghouse (ACH) and wire transfers.
Under the CFPB remittance rule, remittance transfer providers must disclose the exchange rate and all fees associated with a transfer so consumers know exactly how much money will be received on the other end. These disclosures must be provided in writing before the transfer is initiated, and must include the exchange rate, fees and taxes, and the amount of currency to be received by the recipient.
A receipt must also be provided after the remittance is transmitted. This receipt must also include information about error resolution, provider and regulator contact information, and the availability of the funds upon receipt. The remittance rule also requires remittance transfer providers to investigate disputes and fix mistakes.
Error resolution rights, standards for resolving errors and recordkeeping rules, and cancellation and refund policies for all remittance transfers, including those with an estimated exchange rate, such as those falling within the partial exemption for federally insured credit unions, are also addressed by the rule.
The rule also allows consumers that are sending the remittances to cancel the transfer, and receive a full refund of the transfer amount and any fees, if the remittance is cancelled within 30 minutes.
There are two exceptions for the actual amount of currency to be received that allow an estimated exchange rate. Federally-insured credit unions and other institutions, in some situations, will be granted temporary exemptions if they cannot determine certain disclosed amounts for reasons beyond their control. This exemption is scheduled to expire on July 21, 2015.
Also, remittance providers that cannot determine the amounts to be disclosed because of the laws of, or the method by which transactions are made in a recipient country, will also be granted permanent exceptions. The method by which transactions are made exception is for international ACH transfers.
The CFPB is considering certain changes to the final rule, including setting a threshold that would minimize the impact of the rule on community banks, credit unions, and other companies that do not normally process these transactions. The CFPB expects to complete any further rulemaking on these issues before the final rule becomes effective on Feb. 7, 2013.
For the full CUNA Final Rule Analysis, use the resource link. | <urn:uuid:e9ec57c2-0a91-4935-9d1d-c2b9e560a05c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.suncorp.coop/eNewsletter/2012/April/latest_news.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943888 | 754 | 1.726563 | 2 |
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The Carters had married in haste and refused to repent at leisure. So blindly were they in love, that they considered their marriage their greatest asset. The rest of the world, as represented by mutual friends, considered it the only thing that could be urged against either of them. While single, each had been popular. As a bachelor, young "Champ" Carter had filled his modest place acceptably. Hostesses sought him for dinners and week-end parties, men of his own years, for golf and tennis, and young girls liked him because when he talked to one of them he never talked of himself, or let his eyes wander toward any other girl. He had been
brought up by a rich father in an expensive way, and the rich father had then died leaving Champneys alone in the world, with no money, and with even a few of his father's debts. These debts of honor the son, ever since leaving Yale, had been paying off. It had kept him very poor, for Carter had elected to live by his pen, and, though he wrote very carefully and slowly, the editors of the magazines had been equally careful and slow in accepting what he wrote.
With an income so uncertain that the only thing that could be said of it with certainty was that it was too small to support even himself, Carter should not have thought of matrimony. Nor, must it be said to his credit, did he think of it until the girl came along that he wanted to marry.
The trouble with Dolly Ingram was her mother. Her mother was a really terrible person. She was quite impossible. She was a social leader, and of such importance that visiting princes and society reporters, even among themselves, did not laugh at her. Her visiting list was so small that she did not keep a social secretary, but, it was said, wrote her invitations herself. Stylites on his pillar was less exclusive. Nor did he take his exalted but lonely position with less sense of humor. When Ingram died and left her many millions to dispose of absolutely as she pleased, even to the allowance she should give their daughter, he left her with but one ambition unfulfilled. That was to marry her Dolly to an English duke. Hungarian princes, French marquises, Italian counts, German barons, Mrs. Ingram could not see. Her son-in-law must be a duke. She had her eyes on two, one somewhat shopworn, and the other a bankrupt; and in training, she had one just coming of age. Already she saw her self a sort of a dowager duchess by marriage, discussing with real dowager duchesses the way to bring up teething earls and viscounts. For three years in Europe Mrs.Ingram had been drilling her daughter for the part she intended her to play. But, on returning to her native land, Dolly, who possessed all the feelings, thrills, and heart-throbs of which her mother was ignorant, ungratefully fell deeply in love with Champneys Carter, and he with her. It was always a question of controversy between them as to which had first fallen in love with the other. As a matter of history, honors were even.
He first saw her during a thunder storm, in the paddock at the races, wearing a rain-coat with the collar turned up and a Panama hat with the brim turned down. She was talking, in terms of affectionate familiarity, with Cuthbert's two-year- old, The Scout. The Scout had just lost a race by a nose, and Dolly was holding the nose against her cheek and comforting him. The two made a charming picture, and, as Carter stumbled upon it and halted, the race-horse lowered his eyes and seemed to say: "Wouldn't YOU throw a race for this?" And the girl raised her eyes and seemed to say: "What a nice-looking, bright-looking young man! Why don't I know who you are?"
So, Carter ran to find Cuthbert, and told him The Scout had gone lame. When, on their return, Miss Ingram refused to loosen her hold on The Scout's nose, Cuthbert apologetically mumbled Carter's name, and in some awe Miss Ingram's name, and then, to his surprise, both young people lost interest in The Scout, and wandered away together into the rain.
After an hour, when they parted at the club stand, for which Carter could not afford a ticket, he asked wistfully: "Do you often come racing?" and Miss Ingram said: "Do you mean, am I coming to-morrow?"
"I do!" said Carter.
"Then, why didn't you say that?" inquired Miss Ingram. "Otherwise I mightn't have come. I have the Holland House coach for to-morrow, and, if you'll join us, I'll save a place for you, and you can sit in our box.
"I've lived so long abroad," she explained, "that I'm afraid of not being simple and direct like other American girls. Do you think I'll get on here at home? "
"If you get on with every one else as well as you've got on with me," said Carter morosely, I will shoot myself."
Miss Ingram smiled thoughtfully. "At eleven, then," she said, "in front of the Holland House."
Carter walked away with a flurried, heated suffocation around his heart and a joyous lightness in his feet. Of the first man he met he demanded, "Who was the beautiful girl in the rain-coat?" And when the man told him, Carter left him without speaking. For she was quite the richest girl in America. But the next day that fault seemed to distress her so little that Carter, also, refused to allow it to rest on his conscience, and they were very happy. And each saw that they were happy because they were together.
The ridiculous mother was not present at the races, but after Carter began to call at their house and was invited to dinner, Mrs. Ingram received him with her habitual rudeness. As an impediment in the success of her ambition she never considered him. As a boy friend of her daughter's, she classed him with "her" lawyer and "her" architect and a little higher than the "person" who arranged the flowers. Nor, in her turn, did Dolly consider her mother; for within two months another matter of controversy between Dolly and Carter was as to who had first proposed to the other. Carter protested there never had been any formal proposal, that from the first they had both taken it for granted that married they would be. But Dolly insisted that because he had been afraid of her money, or her mother, he had forced her to propose to him.
"You could not have loved me very much," she complained, "if you'd let a little thing like money make you hesitate."
"It's not a little thing," suggested Carter. "They say it's several millions, and it happens to be YOURS. If it were MINE, now!" "Money," said Dolly sententiously, "is given people to make them happy, not to make them miserable."
"Wait until I sell my stories to the magazines," said Carter, "and then I will be independent and can support you."
The plan did not strike Dolly as one likely to lead to a hasty marriage. But he was sensitive about his stories, and she did not wish to hurt his feelings.
"Let's get married first," she suggested, "and then I can BUY you a magazine. We'll call it CARTER'S MAGAZINE and we will print nothing in it but your stories. Then we can laugh at the editors!"
"Not half as loud as they will," said Carter.
With three thousand dollars in bank and three stories accepted and seventeen still to hear from, and with Dolly daily telling him that it was evident he did not love her, Carter decided they were ready, hand in hand, to leap into the sea of matrimony. His interview on the subject with Mrs. Ingram was most painful. It lasted during the time it took her to walk out of her drawing-room to the foot of her staircase. She spoke to herself, and the only words of which Carter was sure were "preposterous" and "intolerable insolence." Later in the morning she sent a note to his flat, forbidding him not only her daughter, but the house in which her daughter lived, and even the use of the United States mails and the New York telephone wires. She described his conduct in words that, had they come from a man, would have afforded Carter every excuse for violent exercise.
Immediately in the wake of the note arrived Dolly, in tears, and carrying a dressing-case.
"I have left mother!" she announced. "And I have her car downstairs, and a clergyman in it, unless he has run away. He doesn't want to marry us, because he's afraid mother will stop supporting his flower mission. You get your hat and take me where he can marry us. No mother can talk about the man I love the way mother talked about you, and think I won't marry him the same day!"
Carter, with her mother's handwriting still red before his eyes, and his self-love shaken with rage flourished the letter.
"And no mother," he shouted, "can call ME a 'fortune-hunter' and a 'cradle-robber' and think I'll make good by marrying her daughter! Not until she BEGS me to!"
Dolly swept toward him like a summer storm. Her eyes were wet and flashing. "Until WHO begs you to?" she demanded. "WHO are you marrying; mother or me?"
"If I marry you," cried Carter, frightened but also greatly excited, "your mother won't give you a penny!"
"And that," taunted Dolly, perfectly aware that she was ridiculous, "is why you won't marry me!"
For an instant, long enough to make her blush with shame and happiness, Carter grinned at her. "Now, just for that," he said, "I won't kiss you, and I WILL marry you!" But, as a matter of fact, he DID kiss her. Then he gazed happily around his small sitting-room. "Make yourself at home here," he directed, "while I pack my bag."
"I MEAN to make myself very much at home here," said Dolly joyfully, "for the rest of my life."
From the recesses of the flat Carter called: "The rent's paid only till September. After that we live in a hall bedroom and cook on a gas-stove. And that's no idle jest, either."
Fearing the publicity of the City Hall license bureau, they released the clergyman, much to the relief of that gentleman, and told the chauffeur to drive across the State line into Connecticut.
"It's the last time we can borrow your mother's car," said Carter, "and we'd better make it go as far as we can."
It was one of those days in May. Blue was the sky and sunshine was in the air, and in the park little girls from the tenements, in white, were playing they were queens. Dolly wanted to kidnap two of them for bridesmaids. In Harlem they stopped at a jeweler's shop, and Carter got out and bought a wedding-ring.
In the Bronx were dogwood blossoms and leaves of tender green and beds of tulips, and along the Boston Post Road, on their right, the Sound flashed in the sunlight; and on their left, gardens, lawns, and orchards ran with the road, and the apple trees were masses of pink and white.
Whenever a car approached from the rear, Carter pretended it was Mrs. Ingram coming to prevent the elopement, and Dolly clung to him. When the car had passed, she forgot to stop clinging to him.
In Greenwich Village they procured a license, and a magistrate married them, and they were a little frightened and greatly happy and, they both discovered simultaneously, outrageously hungry. So they drove through Bedford Village to South Salem, and lunched at the Horse and Hounds Inn, on blue and white china, in the same room where Major Andre was once a prisoner. And they felt very sorry for Major Andre, and for everybody who had not been just married that morning. And after lunch they sat outside in the garden and fed lumps of sugar to a charming collie and cream to a fat gray cat.
They decided to start housekeeping in Carter's flat, and so turned back to New York, this time following the old coach road through North Castle to White Plains, across to Tarrytown, and along the bank of the Hudson into Riverside Drive. Millions and millions of friendly folk, chiefly nurse- maids and traffic policemen, waved to them, and for some reason smiled.
"The joke of it is," declared Carter, "they don't know! The most wonderful event of the century has just passed into history. We are married, and nobody knows!"
But when the car drove away from in front of Carter's door, they saw on top of it two old shoes and a sign reading: "We have just been married." While they had been at luncheon, the chauffeur had risen to the occasion.
"After all," said Carter soothingly, "he meant no harm. And it's the only thing about our wedding yet that seems legal."
Three months later two very unhappy young people faced starvation in the sitting-room of Carter's flat. Gloom was written upon the countenance of each, and the heat and the care that comes when one desires to live, and lacks the wherewithal to fulfill that desire, had made them pallid and had drawn black lines under Dolly's eyes.
Mrs. Ingram had played her part exactly as her dearest friends had said she would. She had sent to Carter's flat, seven trunks filled with Dolly's clothes, eighteen hats, and another most unpleasant letter. In this, on the sole condition that Dolly would at once leave her husband, she offered to forgive and to support her.
To this Dolly composed eleven scornful answers, but finally decided that no answer at all was the most scornful.
She and Carter then proceeded joyfully to waste his three thousand dollars with that contempt for money with which on a honey-moon it should always be regarded. When there was no more, Dolly called upon her mother's lawyers and inquired if her father had left her anything in her own right. The lawyers regretted he had not, but having loved Dolly since she was born, offered to advance her any money she wanted. They said they felt sure her mother would "relent."
"SHE may," said Dolly haughtily. "I WON'T! And my husband can give me all I need. I only wanted something of my own, because I'm going to make him a surprise present of a new motor-car. The one we are using now does not suit us.
This was quite true, as the one they were then using ran through the subway.
As summer approached, Carter had suddenly awakened to the fact that he soon would be a pauper, and cut short the honey- moon. They returned to the flat, and he set forth to look for a position. Later, while still looking for it, he spoke of it as a "job." He first thought he would like to be an assistant editor of a magazine. But he found editors of magazines anxious to employ new and untried assistants, especially in June, were very few. On the contrary, they explained they were retrenching and cutting down expenses--they meant they had discharged all office boys who received more than three dollars a week. They further "retrenched," by taking a mean advantage of Carter's having called upon them in person, by handing him three or four of his stories--but by this he saved his postage-stamps.
Each day, when he returned to the flat, Dolly, who always expected each editor would hastily dust off his chair and offer it to her brilliant husband, would smile excitedly and gasp, "Well?" and Carter would throw the rejected manuscripts on the table and say: "At least, I have not returned empty- handed." Then they would discover a magazine that neither they nor any one else knew existed, and they would hurriedly readdress the manuscripts to that periodical, and run to post them at the letter-box on the corner.
"Any one of them, if ACCEPTED," Carter would point out, "might bring us in twenty-five dollars. A story of mine once sold for forty; so to-night we can afford to dine at a restaurant where wine is NOT 'included.'"
Fortunately, they never lost their sense of humor. Otherwise the narrow confines of the flat, the evil smells that rose from the baked streets, the greasy food of Italian and Hungarian restaurants, and the ever-haunting need of money might have crushed their youthful spirits. But in time even they found that one, still less two, cannot exist exclusively on love and the power to see the bright side of things-- especially when there is no bright side. They had come to the point where they must borrow money from their friends, and that, though there were many who would have opened their safes to them, they had agreed was the one thing they would not do, or they must starve. The alternative was equally distasteful.
Carter had struggled earnestly to find a job. But his inexperience and the season of the year were against him. No newspaper wanted a dramatic critic when the only shows in town had been running three months, and on roof gardens; nor did they want a "cub" reporter when veterans were being "laid off" by the dozens. Nor were his services desired as a private secretary, a taxicab driver, an agent to sell real estate or automobiles or stocks. As no one gave him a chance to prove his unfitness for any of these callings, the fact that he knew nothing of any of them did not greatly matter. At these rebuffs Dolly was distinctly pleased. She argued they proved he was intended to pursue his natural career as an author.
That their friends might know they were poor did not affect her, but she did not want them to think by his taking up any outside "job" that they were poor because as a literary genius he was a failure. She believed in his stories. She wanted every one else to believe in them. Meanwhile, she assisted him in so far as she could by pawning the contents of five of the seven trunks, by learning to cook on a " Kitchenette," and to laundry her handkerchiefs and iron them on the looking-glass.
They faced each other across the breakfast-table. It was only nine o'clock, but the sun beat into the flat with the breath of a furnace, and the air was foul and humid.
"I tell you," Carter was saying fiercely, "you look ill. You are ill. You must go to the sea-shore. You must visit some of your proud, friends at East Hampton or Newport. Then I'll know you're happy and I won't worry, and I'll find a job. I don't mind the heat-and I'll write you love letters"--he was talking very fast and not looking at Dolly--"like those I used to write you, before----"
Dolly raised her hand. "Listen!" she said. "Suppose I leave you. What will happen? I'll wake up in a cool, beautiful brass bed, won't I--with cretonne window-curtains, and salt air blowing them about, and a maid to bring me coffee. And instead of a bathroom like yours, next to an elevator shaft and a fire-escape, I'll have one as big as a church, and the whole blue ocean to swim in. And I'll sit on the rocks in the sunshine and watch the waves and the yachts--"
"And grow well again!" cried Carter. "But you'll write to me," he added wistfully, "every day, won't you?"
In her wrath, Dolly rose, and from across the table confronted him.
"And what will I be doing on those rocks?" she cried. "You KNOW what I'll be doing! I'll be sobbing, and sobbing, and calling out to the waves: 'Why did he send me away? Why doesn't he want me? Because he doesn't love me. That's why! He doesn't LOVE me!' And you DON'T!" cried Dolly. "you DON'T!"
It took him all of three minutes to persuade her she was mistaken.
"Very well, then," sobbed Dolly, "that's settled. And there'll be no more talk of sending me away!
"There will NOT!" said Champneys hastily. "We will now," he announced, "go into committee of the whole and decide how we are to face financial failure. Our assets consist of two stories, accepted, but not paid for, and fifteen stories not accepted. In cash, he spread upon the table a meagre collection of soiled bills and coins. "We have twenty-seven dollars and fourteen cents. That is every penny we possess in the world."
Dolly regarded him fixedly and shook her head.
"Is it wicked," she asked, "to love you so?"
"Haven't you been listening to me?" demanded Carter.
Again Dolly shook her head.
"I was watching the way you talk. When your lips move fast they do such charming things."
"Do you know," roared Carter, "that we haven't a penny in the world, that we have nothing in this flat to eat?"
"I still have five hats," said Dolly.
"We can't eat hats," protested Champneys.
"We can sell hats!" returned Dolly. "They cost eighty dollars apiece!"
"When you need money," explained Carter, "I find it's just as hard to sell a hat as to eat it."
"Twenty-seven dollars and fourteen cents," repeated Dolly. She exclaimed remorsefully: "And you started with three thousand! What did I do with it?"
"We both had the time of our lives with it!" said Carter stoutly. "And that's all there is to that. Post-mortems," he pointed out, "are useful only as guides to the future, and as our future will never hold a second three thousand dollars, we needn't worry about how we spent the first one. No! What we must consider now is how we can grow rich quick, and the quicker and richer, the better. Pawning our clothes, or what's left of them, is bad economics. There's no use considering how to live from meal to meal. We must evolve something big, picturesque, that will bring a fortune. You have imagination; I'm supposed to have imagination, we must think of a plan to get money, much money. I do not insist on our plan being dignified, or even outwardly respectable; so long as it keeps you alive, it may be as desperate as--"
"I see!" cried Dolly; "like sending mother Black Hand letters!"
"Blackmail----" began that lady's son-in-law doubtfully.
"Or!" cried Dolly, "we might kidnap Mr. Carnegie when he's walking in the park alone, and hold him for ransom. Or"--she rushed on-- "we might forge a codicil to father's will, and make it say if mother shouldn't like the man I want to marry, all of father's fortune must go to my husband!"
"Forgery," exclaimed Champneys, "is going further than I----"
"And another plan," interrupted Dolly," that I have always had in mind, is to issue a cheaper edition of your book, 'The Dead Heat.' The reason the first edition of 'The Dead Heat' didn't sell----"
"Don't tell ME why it didn't sell," said Champneys. "I wrote it!"
"That book," declared Dolly loyally, "was never properly advertised. No one knew about it, so no one bought it!"
"Eleven people bought it!" corrected the author.
"We will put it in a paper cover and sell it for fifty cents," cried Dolly. " It's the best detective story I ever read, and people have got to know it is the best. So we'll advertise it like a breakfast food."
"The idea," interrupted Champneys, "is to make money, not throw it away. Besides, we haven't any to throw away. Dolly sighed bitterly.
"If only," she exclaimed, "we had that three thousand dollars back again! I'd save SO carefully. It was all my fault. The races took it, but it was I took you to the races."
"No one ever had to drag ME to the races," said Carter. " It was the way we went that was extravagant. Automobiles by the hour standing idle, and a box each day, and----"
"And always backing Dromedary," suggested Dolly. Carter was touched on a sensitive spot. "That horse," he protested loudly, "is a mighty good horse. Some day----"
"That's what you always said," remarked Dolly, "but he never seems to have his day."
"It's strange," said Champneys consciously. "I dreamed of Dromedary only last night. Same dream over and over again." Hastily he changed the subject.
"For some reason I don't sleep well. I don't know why."
Dolly looked at him with all the love in her eyes of a mother over her ailing infant.
"It's worrying over me, and the heat,"' she said. "And the garage next door, and the skyscraper going up across the street, might have something to do with it. And YOU," she mocked tenderly, "wanted to send me to the sea-shore."
Carter was frowning. As though about to speak, he opened his lips, and then laughed embarrassedly.
"Out with it," said Dolly, with an encouraging smile. "Did he win?"
Seeing she had read what was in his mind, Carter leaned forward eagerly. The ruling passion and a touch of superstition held him in their grip.
"He 'win' each time," he whispered. "I saw it as plain as I see you. Each time he came up with a rush just at the same place, just as they entered the stretch, and each time he won!" He slapped his hand disdainfully upon the dirty bills before him. "If I had a hundred dollars!"
There was a knock at the door, and Carter opened it to the elevator boy with the morning mail. The letters, save one, Carter dropped upon the table. That one, with clumsy fingers, he tore open. He exclaimed breathlessly: "It's from PLYMPTON'S MAGAZINE! Maybe--I've sold a story!" He gave a cry almost of alarm. His voice was as solemn as though the letter had announced a death.
"Dolly," he whispered, "it's a check--a check for a HUNDRED DOLLARS!"
Guiltily, the two young people looked at each other.
"We've GOT to!" breathed Dolly. "GOT to! If we let TWO signs like that pass, we'd be flying in the face of Providence."
With her hands gripping the arms of her chair, she leaned forward, her eyes staring into space, her lips moving.
"COME ON, you Dromedary!" she whispered.
They changed the check into five and ten dollar bills, and, as Carter was far too excited to work, made an absurdly early start for the race-track.
"We might as well get all the fresh air we can," said Dolly. "That's all we will get!"
From their reserve fund of twenty-seven dollars which each had solemnly agreed with the other would not be risked on race-horses, Dolly subtracted a two-dollar bill. This she stuck conspicuously across the face of the clock on the mantel.
"Why?" asked Carter.
"When we get back this evening," Dolly explained, "that will be the first thing we'll see. It's going to look awfully good!"
This day there was no scarlet car to rush them with refreshing swiftness through Brooklyn's parkways and along the Ocean Avenue. Instead, they hung to a strap in a cross- town car, changed to the ferry, and again to the Long Island Railroad. When Carter halted at the special car of the Turf Club, Dolly took his arm and led him forward to the day coach.
"But," protested Carter, "when you're spending a hundred dollars with one hand, why grudge fifty cents for a parlor- car seat? If you're going to be a sport, be a sport." "And if you've got to be a piker," said Dolly, don't be ashamed to be a piker. We're not spending a hundred dollars because we can afford it, but because you dreamt a dream. You didn't dream you were riding in parlor-cars! If you did, it's time I woke you."
This day there was for them no box overlooking the finish, no club-house luncheon. With the other pikers, they sat in the free seats, with those who sat coatless and tucked their handkerchiefs inside their collars, and with those who mopped their perspiring countenances with rice-paper and marked their cards with a hat-pin. Their lunch consisted of a massive ham sandwich with a top dressing of mustard.
Dromedary did not run until the fifth race, and the long wait, before they could learn their fate, was intolerable. They knew most of the horses, and, to pass the time, on each of the first races Dolly made imaginary bets. Of these mental wagers, she lost every one.
"If you turn out to be as bad a guesser when you're asleep as I am when I'm awake," said Dolly, "we're going to lose our fortune."
"I'm weakening!" declared Carter. "A hundred dollars is beginning to look to me like an awful lot of money. Twenty- seven dollars, and there's only twenty of that left now, is mighty small capital, but twenty dollars plus a hundred could keep us alive for a month!"
"Did you, or did you not, dream that Dromedary would win?" demanded Dolly sternly.
"I certainly did, several times," said Carter. "But it may be I was thinking of the horse. I've lost such a lot on him, my mind may have----"
"Did you," interrupted Dolly, "say if you had a hundred dollars you'd bet it, and did a hundred dollars walk in through the door instantly?"
Carter, reassured, breathed again. " It certainly did!" he repeated.
Even in his proud days, Carter had never been able to bet heavily, and instead of troubling the club-house commissioners with his small wagers, he had, in the ring, bet ready money. Moreover, he believed in the ring he obtained more favorable odds, and, when he won, it pleased him, instead of waiting until settling day for a check, to stand in a line and feel the real money thrust into his hand. So, when the fourth race started he rose and raised his hat.
"The time has come," he said.
Without looking at him, Dolly nodded. She was far too tremulous to speak.
For several weeks Dromedary had not been placed, and Carter hoped for odds of at least ten to one. But, when he pushed his way into the arena, he found so little was thought of his choice that as high as twenty to one was being offered, and with few takers. The fact shattered his confidence. Here were two hundred book-makers, trained to their calling, anxious at absurd odds to back their opinion that the horse he liked could not win. In the face of such unanimous contempt, his dream became fantastic, fatuous. He decided he would risk only half of his fortune. Then, should the horse win, he still would be passing rich, and should he lose, he would, at least, have all of fifty dollars.
With a book-maker he wagered that sum, and then, in unhappy indecision, stood, in one hand clutching his ticket that called for a potential thousand and fifty dollars, and in the other an actual fifty. It was not a place for meditation. From every side men, more or less sane, swept upon him, jostled him, and stamped upon him, and still, struggling for a foothold, he swayed, hesitating. Then he became conscious that the ring was nearly empty, that only a few shrieking individuals still ran down the line. The horses were going to the post. He must decide quickly. In front of him the book- maker cleaned his board, and, as a final appeal, opposite the names of three horses chalked thirty to one. Dromedary was among them. Such odds could not be resisted. Carter shoved his fifty at the man, and to that sum added the twenty dollars still in his pocket. They were the last dollars he owned in the world. And though he knew they were his last, he was fearful lest the book-maker would refuse them. But, mechanically, the man passed them over his shoulder.
"And twenty-one hundred to seventy," he chanted.
When Carter took his seat beside Dolly, he was quite cold. Still, Dolly did not speak. Out of the corner of her eyes she questioned him.
"I got fifty at twenty to one," replied Carter, and seventy at thirty!"
In alarm, Dolly turned upon him.
"SEVENTY!" she gasped.
Carter nodded. "All we have," he said. "We have sixty cents left, to start life over again!"
As though to encourage him, Dolly placed her finger on her race-card.
"His colors," she said, "are 'green cap, green jacket, green and white hoops.'"
Through a maze of heat, a half-mile distant, at the starting- gate, little spots of color moved in impatient circles. The big, good-natured crowd had grown silent, so silent that from the high, sun-warmed grass in the infield one could hear the lazy chirp of the crickets. As though repeating a prayer, or an incantation, Dolly's lips were moving quickly.
"Green cap," she whispered, "green jacket, green and white hoops!"
With a sharp sigh the crowd broke the silence. "They're off!" it cried, and leaned forward expectant.
The horses came so fast. To Carter their conduct seemed outrageous. It was incredible that in so short a time, at a pace so reckless, they would decide a question of such moment. They came bunched together, shifting and changing, with, through the dust, flashes of blue and gold and scarlet. A jacket of yellow shot out of the dust and showed in front; a jacket of crimson followed. So they were at the half; so they were at the three-quarters.
The good-natured crowd began to sway, to grumble and murmur, then to shout in sharp staccato.
"Can you see him?" begged Dolly.
"No," said Carter. "You don't see him until they reach the stretch."
One could hear their hoofs, could see the crimson jockey draw his whip. At the sight, for he rode the favorite, the crowd gave a great gasp of concern.
"Oh, you Gold Heels!" it implored.
Under the whip, Gold Heels drew even with the yellow jacket; stride by stride, they fought it out alone.
"Gold Heels!" cried the crowd.
Behind them, in a curtain of dust, pounded the field. It charged in a flying wedge, like a troop of cavalry. Dolly, searching for a green jacket, saw, instead, a rainbow wave of color that, as it rose and fell, sprang toward her in great leaps, swallowing the track.
"Gold Heels!" yelled the crowd.
The field swept into the stretch. Without moving his eyes, Carter caught Dolly by the wrist and pointed. As though giving a signal, he shot his free hand into the air.
"Now!" he shouted.
From the curtain of dust, as lightning strikes through a cloud, darted a great, raw-boned, ugly chestnut. Like the Empire Express, he came rocking, thundering, spurning the ground. At his coming, Gold Heels, to the eyes of the crowd, seemed to falter, to slacken, to stand still. The crowd gave a great cry of amazement, a yell of disgust. The chestnut drew even with Gold Heels, passed him, and swept under the wire. Clinging to his neck was a little jockey in a green cap, green jacket, and hoops of green and white.
Dolly's hand was at her side, clutching the bench. Carter's hand still clasped it. Neither spoke or looked at the other. For an instant, while the crowd, no longer so good-natured, mocked and jeered at itself, the two young people sat quite still, staring at the green field, at the white clouds rolling from the ocean. Dolly drew a long breath.
"Let's go!" she gasped. "Let's thank him first, and then take me home!"
They found Dromedary in the paddock, and thanked him, and Carter left Dolly with him, while he ran to collect his winnings. When he returned, he showed her a sheaf of yellow bills, and as they ran down the covered board walk to the gate, they skipped and danced.
Dolly turned toward the train drawn up at the entrance.
"Not with me!" shouted Carter. "We're going home in the reddest, most expensive, fastest automobile I can hire!"
In the "hack" line of motor-cars was one that answered those requirements, and they fell into it as though it were their own.
"To the Night and Day Bank!" commanded Carter.
With the genial democracy of the race-track, the chauffeur lifted his head to grin appreciatively. "That listens good to me!" he said.
"I like him!" whispered Dolly. "Let's buy him and the car."
On the way home, they bought many cars; every car they saw, that they liked, they bought. They bought, also, several houses, and a yacht that they saw from the ferry-boat. And as soon as they had deposited the most of their money in the bank, they went to a pawnshop in Sixth Avenue and bought back many possessions that they had feared they never would see again.
When they entered the flat, the thing they first beheld was Dolly's two-dollar bill.
"What," demanded Carter, with repugnance, "is that strange piece of paper?"
Dolly examined it carefully. "I think it is a kind of money," she said, used by the lower classes."
They dined on the roof at Delmonico's. Dolly wore the largest of the five hats still unsold, and Carter selected the dishes entirely according to which was the most expensive. Every now and again they would look anxiously down across the street at the bank that held their money. They were nervous lest it should take fire.
"We can be extravagant to-night," said Dolly, "because we owe it to Dromedary to celebrate. But from to-night on we must save. We've had an awful lesson. What happened to us last month must never happen again. We were down to a two-dollar bill. Now we have twenty-five hundred across the street, and you have several hundreds in your pocket. On that we can live easily for a year. Meanwhile, you can write 'the' great American novel without having to worry about money, or to look for a steady job. And then your book will come out, and you will be famous, and rich, and----"
"Passing on from that," interrupted Carter, "the thing of first importance is to get you out of that hot, beastly flat. I propose we start to-morrow for Cape Cod. I know a lot of fishing villages there where we could board and lodge for twelve dollars a week, and row and play tennis and live in our bathing suits."
Dolly assented with enthusiasm, and during the courses of the dinner they happily discussed Cape Cod from Pocasset to Yarmouth, and from Sandwich to Provincetown. So eager were they to escape, that Carter telephoned the hallman at his club to secure a cabin for the next afternoon on the Fall River boat. As they sat over their coffee in the cool breeze, with, in the air, the scent of flowers and the swing of music, and with, at their feet, the lights of the great city, the world seemed very bright.
"It has been a great day," sighed Carter. "And if I hadn't had nervous prostration I would have enjoyed it. That race- course is always cool, and there were some fine finishes. I noticed two horses that would bear watching, Her Highness and Glowworm. If we weren't leaving to-morrow, I'd be inclined----" Dolly regarded him with eyes of horror.
"Champneys Carter!" she exclaimed. As she said it, it sounded like "Great Jehoshaphat!"
Carter protested indignantly. "I only said, "he explained, "if I were following the races, I'd watch those horses. Don't worry!" he exclaimed. "I know when to stop."
The next morning they took breakfast on the tiny terrace of a restaurant overlooking Bryant Park, where, during the first days of their honeymoon, they had always breakfasted. For sentimental reasons they now revisited it. But Dolly was eager to return at once to the flat and pack, and Carter seemed distraught. He explained that he had had a bad night.
"I'm so sorry," sympathized Dolly, "but to-night you will have a fine sleep going up the Sound. Any more nightmares?" she asked.
"Nightmares!" exploded Carter fiercely. "Nightmares they certainly were! I dreamt two of the nightmares won! I saw them, all night, just as I saw Dromedary, Her Highness and Glowworm, winning, winning, winning!"
"Those were the horses you spoke about last night," said Dolly severely. "After so wonderful a day, of course you dreamt of racing, and those two horses were in your mind. That's the explanation."
They returned to the flat and began, industriously, to pack. About twelve o'clock Carter, coming suddenly into the bedroom where Dolly was alone, found her reading the MORNING TELEGRAPH. It was open at the racing page of "past performances."
She dropped the paper guiltily. Carter kicked a hat-box out of his way and sat down on a trunk.
"I don't see," he began, "why we can't wait one more day. We'd be just as near the ocean at Sheepshead Bay race-track as on a Fall River boat, and----" He halted and frowned unhappily. "We needn't bet more than ten dollars," he begged.
"Of course," declared Dolly, "if they SHOULD win, you'll always blame ME!" Carter's eyes shone hopefully.
"And," continued Dolly, I can't bear to have you blame me. So----"
"Get your hat!" shouted Carter, "or we'll miss the first race."
Carter telephoned for a cab, and as they were entering it said guiltily: "I've got to stop at the bank."
"You have NOT!" announced Dolly. "That money is to keep us alive while you write the great American novel. I'm glad to spend another day at the races, and I'm willing to back your dreams as far as ten dollars, but for no more."
"If my dreams come true," warned Carter, you'll be awfully sorry."
"Not I," said Dolly. "I'll merely send you to bed, and you can go on dreaming."
When Her Highness romped home, an easy winner, the look Dolly turned upon her husband was one both of fear and dismay.
"I don't like it!" she gasped. "It's--it's uncanny. It gives me a creepy feeling. It makes you seem sort of supernatural. And oh," she cried, "if only I had let you bet all you had with you!"
"I did," stammered Carter, in extreme agitation. " I bet four hundred. I got five to one, Dolly," he gasped, in awe; "we've won two thousand dollars."
Dolly exclaimed rapturously: "We'll put it all in bank," she cried.
"We'll put it all on Glowworm!" said her husband.
"Champ!" begged Dolly. "Don't push your luck. Stop while----" Carter shook his head.
"It's NOT luck!" he growled. "It's a gift, it's second sight, it's prophecy. I've been a full-fledged clairvoyant all my life, and didn't know it. Anyway, I'm a sport, and after two of my dreams breaking right, I've got to back the third one!"
Glowworm was at ten to one, and at those odds the book-makers to whom he first applied did not care to take so large a sum as he offered. Carter found a book-maker named "Sol" Burbank who, at those odds, accepted his two thousand.
When Carter returned to collect his twenty-two thousand, there was some little delay while Burbank borrowed a portion of it. He looked at Carter curiously and none too genially.
"Wasn't it you," he asked, "that had that thirty-to-one shot yesterday on Dromedary?" Carter nodded somewhat guiltily. A man in the crowd volunteered: "And he had Her Highness in the second, too, for four hundred."
"You've made a good day," said Burbank. "Give me a chance to get my money back to-morrow.
"I'm sorry," said Carter. "I'm leaving New York to-morrow."
The same scarlet car bore them back triumphant to the bank.
"Twenty-two thousand dollars?" gasped Carter, "in CASH! How in the name of all that's honest can we celebrate winning twenty-two thousand dollars? We can't eat more than one dinner; we can't drink more than two quarts of champagne--not without serious results."
"I'll tell you what we can do!" cried Dolly excitedly. "We can sail to-morrow on the CAMPANIA!"
"Hurrah!" shouted Carter. "We'll have a second honey-moon. We'll shoot up London and Paris. We'll tear slices out of the map of Europe. You'll ride in one motor-car, I'll ride in another, we'll have a maid and a valet in a third, and we'll race each other all the way to Monte Carlo. And, there, I'll dream of the winning numbers, and we'll break the bank. When does the CAMPANIA sail?"
"At noon," said Dolly.
"At eight we will be on board," said Carter.
But that night in his dreams he saw King Pepper, Confederate, and Red Wing each win a race. And in the morning neither the engines of the CAMPANIA nor the entreaties of Dolly could keep him from the race-track.
"I want only six thousand," he protested. "You can do what you like with the rest, but I am going to bet six thousand on the first one of those three to start. If he loses, I give you my word I'll not bet another cent, and we'll sail on Saturday. If he wins Out, I'll put all I make on the two others."
"Can't you see," begged Dolly, "that your dreams are just a rehash of what you think during the day? You have been playing in wonderful luck, that's all. Each of those horses is likely to win his race. When he does you will have more faith than ever in your silly dreams----"
"My silly dreams," said Carter grinning, "are carrying you to Europe, first class, by the next steamer."
They had been talking while on their way to the bank. When Dolly saw she could not alter his purpose, she made him place the nineteen thousand that remained, after he had taken out the six thousand, in her name. She then drew out the entire amount.
"You told me," said Dolly, smiling anxiously, I could do what I liked with it. Maybe I have dreams also. Maybe I mean to back them."
She drove away, mysteriously refusing to tell him what she intended to do. When they met at luncheon, she was still much excited, still bristling with a concealed secret.
"Did you back your dream?" asked Carter.
Dolly nodded happily.
"And when am I to know?"
"You will read of it," said Dolly, "to-morrow, in the morning papers. It's all quite correct. My lawyers arranged it."
"Lawyers!" gasped her husband. "You're not arranging to lock me in a private madhouse, are you?"
"No," laughed Dolly; "but when I told them how I intended to invest the money they came near putting me there."
"Didn't they want to know how you suddenly got so rich?" asked Carter.
"They did. I told them it came from my husband's 'books'! It was a very 'near' false-hood."
"It was worse," said Carter. "It was a very poor pun."
As in their honey-moon days they drove proudly to the track, and when Carter had placed Dolly in a box large enough for twenty, he pushed his way into the crowd around the stand of "Sol" Burbank. That veteran of the turf welcomed him gladly.
"Coming to give me my money back?" he called.
"No, to take some away," said Carter, handing him his six thousand.
Without apparently looking at it, Burbank passed it to his cashier. "King Pepper, twelve to six thousand," he called.
When King Pepper won, and Carter moved around the ring with eighteen thousand dollars in thousand and five hundred dollar bills in his fist, he found himself beset by a crowd of curious, eager "pikers." They both impeded his operations and acted as a body-guard. Confederate was an almost prohibitive favorite at one to three, and in placing eighteen thousand that he might win six, Carter found little difficulty. When Confederate won, and he started with his twenty-four thousand to back Red Wing, the crowd now engulfed him. Men and boys who when they wagered five and ten dollars were risking their all, found in the sight of a young man offering bets in hundreds and thousands a thrilling and fascinating spectacle.
To learn what horse he was playing and at what odds, racing touts and runners for other book-makers and individual speculators leaped into the mob that surrounded him, and then, squirming their way out, ran shrieking down the line. In ten minutes, through the bets of Carter and those that backed his luck, the odds against Red Wing were forced down from fifteen to one to even money. His approach was hailed by the book-makers either with jeers or with shouts of welcome. Those who had lost demanded a chance to regain their money. Those with whom he had not bet, found in that fact consolation, and chaffed the losers. Some curtly refused even the smallest part of his money.
"Not with me!" they laughed. From stand to stand the layers of odds taunted him, or each other. "Don't touch it, it's tainted!" they shouted. "Look out, Joe, he's the Jonah man?" Or, "Come at me again!" they called. "And, once more!" they challenged as they reached for a thousand-dollar bill.
And, when in time, each shook his head and grumbled: "That's all I want," or looked the other way, the mob around Carter jeered.
"He's fought 'em to a stand-still!" they shouted jubilantly. In their eyes a man who alone was able and willing to wipe the name of a horse off the blackboards was a hero.
To the horror of Dolly, instead of watching the horses parade past, the crowd gathered in front of her box and pointed and stared at her. From the club-house her men friends and acquaintances invaded it.
"Has Carter gone mad?" they demanded. "He's dealing out thousand-dollar bills like cigarettes. He's turned the ring into a wheat Pit!"
When he reached the box a sun-burned man in a sombrero blocked his way.
"I'm the owner of Red Wing," he explained, "bred him and trained him myself. I know he'll be lucky if he gets the place. You're backing him in thousands to WIN. What do you know about him?"
"Know he will win," said Carter.
The veteran commissioner of the club stand buttonholed him. "Mr. Carter," he begged, "why don't you bet through me? I'll give you as good odds as they will in that ring. You don't want your clothes torn off you and your money taken from you."
"They haven't taken such a lot of it yet," said Carter.
When Red Wing won, the crowd beneath the box, the men in the box, and the people standing around it, most of whom had followed Carter's plunge, cheered and fell over him, to shake hands and pound him on the back. From every side excited photographers pointed cameras, and Lander's band played: " Every Little Bit Added to What You've Got Makes Just a Little Bit More." As he left the box to collect his money, a big man with a brown mustache and two smooth-shaven giants closed in around him, as tackles interfere for the man who has the ball. The big man took him by the arm. Carter shook himself free.
"What's the idea?" he demanded.
"I'm Pinkerton," said the big man genially. "You need a body- guard. If you've got an empty seat in your car, I'll drive home with you. From Cavanaugh they borrowed a book-maker's hand-bag and stuffed it with thousand-dollar bills. When they stepped into the car the crowd still surrounded them.
"He's taking it home in a trunk!" they yelled.
That night the "sporting extras" of the afternoon papers gave prominence to the luck at the races of Champneys Carter. From Cavanaugh and the book-makers, the racing reporters had gathered accounts of his winnings. They stated that in three successive days, starting with one hundred dollars, he had at the end of the third day not lost a single bet, and that afternoon, on the last race alone, he had won sixty to seventy thousand dollars. With the text, they "ran" pictures of Carter at the track, of Dolly in her box, and of Mrs. Ingram in a tiara and ball-dress.
Mother-in-law WILL be pleased cried Carter. In some alarm as to what the newspapers might say on the morrow, he ordered that in the morning a copy of each be sent to his room. That night in his dreams he saw clouds of dust-covered jackets and horses with sweating flanks, and one of them named Ambitious led all the rest. When he woke, he said to Dolly: "That horse Ambitious will win to-day."
"He can do just as he likes about THAT! "replied Dolly. "I have something on my mind much more important than horse- racing. To-day you are to learn how I spent your money. It's to be in the morning papers."
When he came to breakfast, Dolly was on her knees. For his inspection she had spread the newspapers on the floor, opened at an advertisement that appeared in each. In the Centre of a half-page of white paper were the lines:
SOLD OUT IN ONE DAY!
ENTIRE FIRST EDITION
THE DEAD HEAT
SECOND EDITION ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND
In Heaven's name! " roared Carter. "What does this mean?"
"It means," cried Dolly tremulously, "I'm backing my dream. I've always believed in your book. Now, I'm backing it. Our lawyers sent me to an advertising agent. His name is Spink, and he is awfully clever. I asked him if he could advertise a book so as to make it sell. He said with my money and his ideas he could sell last year's telephone book to people who did not own a telephone, and who had never learned to read. He is proud of his ideas. One of them was buying out the first edition. Your publishers told him your book was 'waste paper,' and that he could have every copy in stock for the cost of the plates. So he bought the whole edition. That's how it was sold out in one day. Then we ordered a second edition of one hundred thousand, and they're printing it now.
"The presses have been working all night to meet the demand!"
"But," cried Carter, " there isn't any demand! "
"There will be," said Dolly, "when five million people read our advertisements."
She dragged him to the window and pointed triumphantly into the street.
"See that!" she said. "Mr. Spink sent them here for me to inspect."
Drawn up in a line that stretched from Fifth Avenue to Broadway were an army of sandwich men. On the boards they carried were the words: "Read 'The Dead Heat.' Second Edition. One Hundred Thousand!" On the fence in front of the building going up across the street, in letters a foot high, Carter again read the name of his novel. In letters in size more modest, but in colors more defiant, it glared at him from ash-cans and barrels.
"How much does this cost?" he gasped.
"It cost every dollar you had in bank," said Dolly, "and before we are through it will cost you twice as much more. Mr. Spink is only waiting to hear from me before he starts spending fifty thousand dollars; that's only half of what you won on Red Wing. I'm only waiting for you to make me out a check before I tell Spink to start spending it."
In a dazed state Carter drew a check for fifty thousand dollars and meekly handed it to his wife. They carried it themselves to the office of Mr. Spink. On their way, on every side they saw evidences of his handiwork. On walls, on scaffolding, on bill-boards were advertisements of "The Dead Heat." Over Madison Square a huge kite as large as a Zeppelin air-ship painted the name of the book against the sky, on "dodgers" it floated in the air, on handbills it stared up from the gutters.
Mr. Spink was a nervous young man with a bald head and eye- glasses. He grasped the check as a general might welcome fifty thousand fresh troops.
"Reinforcements!" he cried. "Now, watch me. Now I can do things that are big, national, Napoleonic. We can't get those books bound inside of a week, but meanwhile orders will be pouring in, people will be growing crazy for it. Every man, woman, and child in Greater New York will want a copy. I've sent out fifty boys dressed as jockeys on horseback to ride neck and neck up and down every avenue. 'The Dead Heat' is printed on the saddle-cloth. Half of them have been arrested already. It's a little idea of my own."
"But," protested Carter, "it's not a racing story, it's a detective story!"
"The devil it is!" gasped Spink. "But what's the difference! " he exclaimed. " They've got to buy it anyway. They'd buy it if it was a cook-book. And, I say," he cried delightedly, "that's great press work you're doing for the book at the races! The papers are full of you this morning, and every man who reads about your luck at the track will see your name as the author of 'The Dead Heat,' and will rush to buy the book. He'll think 'The Dead Heat' is a guide to the turf!"
When Carter reached the track he found his notoriety had preceded him. Ambitious did no run until the fourth race, and until then, as he sat in his box, an eager crowd surged below. He had never known such popularity. The crowd had read the newspapers, and such head-lines as "He Cannot Lose!" "Young Carter Wins $70,000!" "Boy Plunger Wins Again!" "Carter Makes Big Killing!" "The Ring Hit Hard!" "The Man Who Cannot Lose!" "Carter Beats Book-makers!" had whetted their curiosity and filled many with absolute faith in his luck. Men he had not seen in years grasped him by the hand and carelessly asked if he could tell of something good. Friends old and new begged him to dine with them, to immediately have a drink With them, at least to "try" a cigar. Men who protested they had lost their all begged for just a hint which would help them to come out even, and every one, without exception, assured him he was going to buy his latest book.
"I tried to get it last night at a dozen news-stands," many of them said, "but they told me the entire edition was exhausted."
The crowd of hungry-eyed race-goers waiting below the box, and watching Carter's every movement, distressed Dolly.
"I hate it!" she cried. "They look at you like a lot of starved dogs begging for a bone. Let's go home; we don't want to make any more money, and we may lose what we have. And I want it all to advertise the book."
"If you're not careful," said Carter, "some one will buy that book and read it, and then you and Spink will have to take shelter in a cyclone cellar."
When he arose to make his bet on Ambitious, his friends from the club stand and a half-dozen of Pinkerton's men closed in around him and in a flying wedge pushed into the ring. The news-papers had done their work, and he was instantly surrounded by a hungry, howling mob. In comparison with the one of the previous day, it was as a foot-ball scrimmage to a run on a bank. When he made his first wager and the crowd learned the name of the horse, it broke with a. yell into hundreds of flying missiles which hurled themselves at the book-makers. Under their attack, as on the day before, Ambitious receded to even money. There was hardly a person at the track who did not back the luck of the man who "could not lose." And when Ambitious won easily, it was not the horse or the jockey that was cheered, but the young man in the box.
In New York the extras had already announced that he was again lucky, and when Dolly and Carter reached the bank they found the entire staff on hand to receive him and his winnings. They amounted to a sum so magnificent that Carter found for the rest of their lives the interest would furnish Dolly and himself an income upon which they could live modestly and well.
A distinguished-looking, white-haired official of the bank congratulated Carter warmly. "Should you wish to invest some of this," he said, " I should be glad to advise you. My knowledge in that direction may be wider than your own."
Carter murmured his thanks. The white-haired gentleman lowered his voice. "On certain other subjects," he continued, "you know many things of which I am totally ignorant. Could you tell me," he asked carelessly, "who will win the Suburban to-morrow? "
Carter frowned mysteriously. "I can tell you better in the morning," he said. "It looks like Beldame, with Proper and First Mason within call."
The white-haired man showed his surprise and also that his ignorance was not as profound as he suggested.
"I thought the Keene entry----" he ventured.
"I know," said Carter doubtfully. "If it were for a mile, I would say Delhi, but I don't think he can last the distance. In the morning I'll wire you."
As they settled back in their car, Carter took both of Dolly's hands in his. "So far as money goes," he said, "we are independent of your mother--independent of my books; and I want to make you a promise. I want to promise you that, no matter what I dream in the future, I'll never back another horse." Dolly gave a gasp of satisfaction.
"And what's more," added Carter hastily, "not another dollar can you risk in backing my books. After this, they've got to stand or fall on their legs!"
"Agreed!" cried Dolly. "Our plunging days are over."
When they reached the flat they found waiting for Carter the junior partner of a real publishing house. He had a blank contract, and he wanted to secure the right to publish Carter's next book.
"I have a few short stories----" suggested Carter.
Collections of short stories, protested the visitor truthfully, "do not sell. We would prefer another novel on the same lines as 'The Dead Heat.'"
"Have you read 'The Dead Heat'?" asked Carter.
"I have not," admitted the publisher, but the next book by the same author is sure to----. We will pay in advance of royalties fifteen thousand dollars."
"Could you put that in writing?" asked Carter. When the publisher was leaving he said:
"I see your success in literature is equaled by your success at the races. Could you tell me what will win the Suburban?"
"I will send you a wire in the MORNING," said Carter.
They had arranged to dine with some friends and later to visit a musical comedy. Carter had changed his clothes, and, while he was waiting for Dolly to dress, was reclining in a huge arm-chair. The heat of the day, the excitement, and the wear on his nerves caused his head to sink back, his eyes to close, and his limbs to relax.
When, by her entrance, Dolly woke him, he jumped up in some confusion.
"You've been asleep," she mocked.
"Worse!" said Carter. "I've been dreaming! Shall I tell you who is going to win the Suburban?"
"Champneys!" cried Dolly in alarm.
"My dear Dolly," protested her husband, "I promised to stop betting. I did not promise to stop sleeping."
"Well," sighed Dolly, with relief, "as long as it stops at that. Delhi will win," she added. "Delhi will not," said Carter. "This is how they will finish----"He scribbled three names on a piece of paper which Dolly read.
"But that," she said, "is what you told the gentleman at the bank."
Carter stared at her blankly and in some embarrassment.
"You see!" cried Dolly, "what you think when you're awake, you dream when you're asleep. And you had a run of luck that never happened before and could never happen again."
Carter received her explanation with reluctance. "I wonder," he said.
On arriving at the theatre they found their host had reserved a stage-box, and as there were but four in their party, and as, when they entered, the house lights were up, their arrival drew upon them the attention both of those in the audience and of those on the stage. The theatre was crowded to its capacity, and in every part were people who were habitual race-goers, as well as many racing men who had come to town for the Suburban. By these, as well as by many others who for three days had seen innumerable pictures of him, Carter was instantly recognized. To the audience and to the performers the man who always won was of far greater interest than what for the three-hundredth night was going forward on the stage. And when the leading woman, Blanche Winter, asked the comedian which he would rather be, "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo or the Man Who Can Not Lose?" she gained from the audience an easy laugh and from the chorus an excited giggle.
When, at the end of the act, Carter went into the lobby to smoke, he was so quickly surrounded that he sought refuge on Broadway. From there, the crowd still following him, he was driven back into his box. Meanwhile, the interest shown in him had not been lost upon the press agent of the theatre, and he at once telephoned to the newspaper offices that Plunger Carter, the book-maker breaker, was at that theatre, and if that the newspapers wanted a chance to interview him on the probable out-come of the classic handicap to be run on the morrow, he, the press agent, would unselfishly assist them. In answer to these hurry calls, reporters of the Ten o'Clock Club assembled in the foyer. How far what later followed was due to their presence and to the efforts of the press agent only that gentleman can tell. It was in the second act that Miss Blanche Winter sang her topical song. In it she advised the audience when anxious to settle any question of personal or national interest to "Put it up to the Man in the Moon.'" This night she introduced a verse in which she told of her desire to know which horse on the morrow would win the Suburban, and, in the chorus, expressed her determination to "Put it up to the Man in the Moon."
Instantly from the back of the house a voice called: "Why don't you put it up to the Man in the Box?" Miss Winter laughed-the audience laughed; all eyes were turned toward Carter. As though the idea pleased them, from different parts of the house people applauded heartily. In embarrassment, Carter shoved back his chair and pulled the curtain of the box between him and the audience. But he was not so easily to escape. Leaving the orchestra to continue unheeded with the prelude to the next verse, Miss Winter walked slowly and deliberately toward him, smiling mischievously. In burlesque entreaty, she held out her arms. She made a most appealing and charming picture, and of that fact she was well aware. In a voice loud enough to reach every part of the house, she addressed herself to Carter:
"Won't you tell ME?" she begged.
Carter, blushing unhappily, shrugged his shoulders in apology.
With a wave of her hand Miss Winter designated the audience. "Then," she coaxed, reproachfully, "won't you tell THEM?"
Again, instantly, with a promptness and unanimity that sounded suspiciously as though it came from ushers well rehearsed, several voice echoed her petition: "Give us all a chance!'' shouted one. "Don't keep the good things to yourself! " reproached another. " I want to get rich, TOO!" wailed a third. In his heart, Carter prayed they would choke. But the audience, so far from resenting the interruptions, encouraged them, and Carter's obvious discomfort added to its amusement. It proceeded to assail him with applause, with appeals, with commands to "speak up."
The hand-clapping became general-insistent. The audience would not be denied. Carter turned to Dolly. In the recesses of the box she was enjoying his predicament. His friends also were laughing at him. Indignant at their desertion, Carter grinned vindictively. "All right," he muttered over his shoulder. "Since you think it's funny, I'll show you !" He pulled his pencil from his watch-chain and, spreading his programme on the ledge of the box, began to write.
From the audience there rose a murmur of incredulity, of surprise, of excited interest. In the rear of the house the press agent, after one startled look, doubled up in an ecstasy of joy. "We've landed him !" he gasped. "We've landed him He's going to fall for it!"
Dolly frantically clasped her husband by the coat-tail.
"Champ!" she implored, "what are you doing?"
Quite calmly , quite confidently, Carter rose. Leaning forward with a nod and a smile, he presented the programme to the beautiful Miss Winter. That lady all but snatched at it. The spot-light was full in her eyes. Turning her back that she might the more easily read, she stood for a moment, her pretty figure trembling with eagerness, her pretty eyes bent upon the programme. The house had grown suddenly still, and with an excited gesture, the leader of the orchestra commanded the music to silence A man, bursting with impatience, broke the tense quiet. "Read it!" he shouted.
In a frightened voice that in the sudden hush held none of its usual confidence, Miss Winter read slowly: " The favorite cannot last the distance. Will lead for the mile and give way to Beldame. Proper takes the place. First Mason will show. Beldame will win by a length."
Before she had ceased reading, a dozen men had struggled to their feet and a hundred voice were roaring at her. "Read that again !" the chorused. Once more Miss Winter read the message, but before she had finished half of those in the front rows were scrambling from their seats and racing up the aisles. Already the reporters were ahead of them, and in the neighborhood not one telephone booth was empty. Within five minutes, in those hotels along the White Way where sporting men are wont to meet, betting commissioners and hand-book men were suddenly assaulted by breathless gentlemen, some in evening dress, some without collars, and some without hats, but all with money to bet against the favorite. And, an hour later, men, bent under stacks of newspaper "extras," were vomited from the subway stations into the heart of Broadway, and in raucous tones were shrieking, "Winner of the Suburban," sixteen hours before that race was run. That night to every big newspaper office from Maine to California, was flashed the news that Plunger Carter, in a Broadway theatre, had announced that the favorite for the Suburban would be beaten, and, in order, had named the three horses that would first finish.
Up and down Broadway, from rathskellers to roof-gardens, in cafes and lobster palaces, on the corners of the cross-roads, in clubs and all-night restaurants, Carter's tip was as a red rag to a bull.
Was the boy drunk, they demanded, or had his miraculous luck turned his head? Otherwise, why would he so publicly utter a prophecy that on the morrow must certainly smother him with ridicule. The explanations were varied. The men in the clubs held he was driven by a desire for notoriety, the men in the street that he was more clever than they guessed, and had made the move to suit his own book, to alter the odds to his own advantage. Others frowned mysteriously. With superstitious faith in his luck, they pointed to his record. "Has he ever lost a bet? How do WE know what HE knows?" they demanded. "Perhaps it's fixed and he knows it!"
The "wise" ones howled in derision. "A Suburban FIXED!" they retorted. "You can fix ONE jockey, you can fix TWO; but you can't fix sixteen jockeys! You can't fix Belmont, you can't fix Keene. There's nothing in his picking Beldame, but only a crazy man would pick the horse for the place and to show, and shut out the favorite! The boy ought to be in Matteawan.
Still undisturbed, still confident to those to whom he had promised them, Carter sent a wire. Nor did he forget his old enemy, "Sol" Burbank. " If you want to get some of the money I took," he telegraphed, "wipe out the Belmont entry and take all they offer on Delhi. He cannot win."
And that night, when each newspaper called him up at his flat, he made the same answer. "The three horses Will finish as I said. You can state that I gave the information as I did as a sort of present to the people of New York City."
In the papers the next morning "Carter's Tip" was the front- page feature. Even those who never in the racing of horses felt any concern could not help but take in the outcome of this one a curious interest. The audacity of the prophecy, the very absurdity of it, presupposing, as it did, occult power, was in itself amusing. And when the curtain rose on the Suburban it was evident that to thousands what the Man Who Could Not Lose had foretold was a serious and inspired utterance.
This time his friends gathered around him, not to benefit by his advice, but to protect him. "They'll mob you!" they warned. "They'll tear the clothes off your back. Better make your getaway now."
Dolly, with tears in her eyes, sat beside him. Every now and again she touched his hand. Below his box, as around a newspaper office on the night when a president is elected, the people crushed in a turbulent mob. Some mocked and jeered, some who on his tip had risked their every dollar, hailed him hopefully. On every side policemen, fearful of coming trouble, hemmed him in. Carter was bored extremely, heartily sorry he had on the night before given way to what he now saw as a perverse impulse. But he still was confident, still undismayed.
To all eyes, except those of Dolly, he was of all those at the track the least concerned. To her he turned and, in a low tone, spoke swiftly. "I am so sorry," he begged. "But, indeed, indeed, I can't lose. You must have faith in me."
"In you, yes," returned Dolly in a whisper, "but in your dreams, no!"
The horses were passing on their way to the post. Carter brought his face close to hers.
"I'm going to break my promise," he said, "and make one more bet, this one with you. I bet you a kiss that I'm right."
Dolly, holding back her tears, smiled mournfully. "Make it a hundred," she said.
Half of the forty thousand at the track had backed Delhi, the other half, following Carter's luck and his confidence in proclaiming his convictions, had backed Beldame. Many hundred had gone so far as to bet that the three horses he had named would finish as he had foretold. But, in spite of Carter's tip, Delhi still was the favorite, and when the thousands saw the Keene polka-dots leap to the front, and by two lengths stay there, for the quarter, the half, and for the three- quarters, the air was shattered with jubilant, triumphant yells. And then suddenly, with the swiftness of a moving picture, in the very moment of his victory, Beldame crept up on the favorite, drew alongside, drew ahead passed him, and left him beaten. It was at the mile.
The night before a man had risen in a theatre and said to two thousand people: "The favorite will lead for the mile, and give way to Beldame." Could they have believed him, the men who now cursed themselves might for the rest of their lives have lived upon their winnings. Those who had followed his prophecy faithfully, superstitiously, now shrieked in happy, riotous self-congratulation. "At the MILE!" they yelled. "He TOLD you, at the MILE!" They turned toward Carter and shook Panama hats at him. "Oh, you Carter!" they shrieked lovingly.
It was more than a race the crowd was watching now, it was the working out of a promise. And when Beldame stood off Proper's rush, and Proper fell to second, and First Mason followed three lengths in the rear, and in that order they flashed under the wire, the yells were not that a race had been won, but that a prophecy had been fulfilled.
Of the thousands that cheered Carter and fell upon him and indeed did tear his clothes off his back, one of his friends alone was sufficiently unselfish to think of what it might, mean to Carter.
"Champ!" roared his friend, pounding him on both shoulders. "You old wizard! I win ten thousand! How much do you win?"
Carter cast a swift glance at Dolly. he said, "I win much more than that."
And Dolly, raising her eyes to his, nodded and smiled contentedly.
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Mother Teresa Shows Families How to Be Holy
Interview With Author Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle
| 5786 hits
NEW YORK, MARCH 18, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Mother Teresa encouraged working with the poor not only in the slums of India, but primarily in our own families, says the author of a new book about the nun.
Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle is the author of the recently published "Mother Teresa and Me: Ten Years of Friendship" (Circle Press).
She spoke with ZENIT about her experiences with Mother Teresa, now recognized as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, and the ways in which the nun taught the Missionaries of Charity, the congregation she founded, and others to love Christ in the poor.
Mother Teresa encouraged O'Boyle, a wife and mother, to live her vocation well and to help other families thrive. Over the years, the author has also written other books with this goal, including "The Heart of Motherhood: Finding Holiness in the Catholic Home," "The Domestic Church: Room By Room," and "Grace Cafe: Serving Up Recipes for Faithful Mothering."
As well, she is a host for Eternal Word Television Network, and will soon be premiering a new series, "Everyday Blessings for Catholic Moms."
O'Boyle has written for several newspapers and magazines, and maintains various personal blogs, including a new saints' Web site for youth.
In this interview with ZENIT, she spoke about the holiness of Mother Teresa, and the ways in which her teachings can be implemented in families today.
ZENIT: In one point in your book, you talk about Mother Teresa's unshakeable faith coupled with a feisty attitude; in another part you mention that she was called extraordinarily ordinary. Yet you also say that you have no doubt about Mother Teresa's eventual canonization. What makes you so certain? How does the normality of your relationship affect your belief that she is a saint?
O'Boyle: My relationship with Mother Teresa was certainly normal but I feel that it was extraordinary as well because I never had a doubt that I was visiting and corresponding with a living saint.
I saw great holiness in everything about Mother Teresa -- in her speech, her posture, her demeanor, the "glow' about her that radiated Christ's love, peace, and joy.
I knew that she truly lived the Gospel of Matthew: "Whatever you do to the least of these that are in my family, you do to me."
She lived her life, her every moment to satiate the thirst of Christ for souls.
She prayed that Jesus would live through her while she also served the Jesus living in all she met, which of course was from that same Gospel message (Matthew 25: 31-46): "You did it to me." Since her life echoed the crux of that passage I just knew that she was an absolute living saint who brought countless souls to God.
I also knew about her deep prayer life centered on the Eucharist as well as her intimate devotion to our Blessed Mother.
And even with all of this holiness, she wasn't an abstract saint from hundreds of years ago and no stranger to the realities of modern life. She met each person right where they were coming from and ministered to them at their unique level and state of life.
ZENIT: You describe how Mother Teresa saw Jesus in the face of each poor person, and this was the reason behind all of the work that she did and taught her Missionaries of Charity to do. How did she teach people to see others in this way? Many of us have a hard time seeing Jesus in our own family members, let alone the social outcasts of the world. Is there something she told you that helped you to understand her secret?
O'Boyle: Yes, the answer is very simple: Jesus taught us all how to see him in others in the Gospel of Matthew.
He taught us that everything we do to others we do to Jesus. Mother Teresa believed this concept wholeheartedly and served Our Lord in everyone.
Mother Teresa often said that it is far easier to serve or love Jesus in strangers and outcasts than it is to serve him in our own families, easier to give a dish of rice to a poor person on the other side of the world or to a complete stranger than to give that "dish of rice" to someone who is starving for love right under our own roof.
In very simple ways, she taught others to do the same as she did. She would simply raise up her hand and holding up each finger she would say, "You-did-it-to- me," in this manner teaching us that we can even be reminded of our duty to love Jesus in others every time we look upon our hands.
ZENIT: So many of us are surrounded by those "creature comforts" that Mother Teresa rejected for herself and her missionaries. Yet, especially when the economy is tough, we could all use her example of trust in Divine providence. Could you say more about the way she lived this virtue, and how modern families can live it as well?
O'Boyle: Blessed Mother Teresa would not own or use anything that she considered to be unnecessary or extravagant in her daily life and would not allow the Missionary of Charity Sisters to either.
She believed that they shouldn't own or use anything that the poor didn't own themselves.
They don't use the things that we might consider to be staple items, such as carpeting, hot water, and fans or air conditioning.
She wanted the sisters to truly understand the plight of the poor and also felt that to be free of belongings would also allow the soul to be free to cling to Our Lord for everything, as well as help one to develop a deeper and more genuine love for God.
Modern day families might consider how they can live with a little less.
If we had less material objects to worry about, we might find that we have more time to tend to essential things and to be more present to one another.
Families today can pray together for an increase in faith, hope, and love. They can pray to offer their lives to God in full surrender, accepting God's holy will in their lives, asking him for all of their needs.
As Mother Teresa and her nuns have felt a deep freedom in giving their lives completely over to God and accepting whatever he gives them, families can strive to emulate that virtuous way of living as well.
ZENIT: Mother Teresa told you that your first apostolate should be to your family, husband and children, and she also placed importance on your writing for mothers, women and families. Why do you think she emphasized this?
O'Boyle: Mother Teresa often said, "Love begins at home."
That's where God puts us -- right in the middle of our family's life, right in the heart of the home. She instructed others to focus on the ones that are in our midst, starting with our families and then to reach out to others in need.
She knew that we shouldn't run off to do charity work when we may have family members at home needing our presence.
Yes, Mother Teresa encouraged me to write for women and families because she was acutely aware of the breakdown of the family in our day and the fact that we need to help and encourage the family -- the vital cell of society.
We need to steer mothers and women in the right direction so that families will be protected from further breakdown.
Mothers and women in general can use much encouragement in a world that tears down the family, promotes killing our own unborn children through abortion and abortifacients, and euthanizing the elderly. We must pray and help the family.
ZENIT: You often brought your children, even at a young age, while following Mother Teresa in different venues around the country. How did you see your children affected by their nearness to holy people? Did they ever protest these religious events?
O'Boyle: I always felt that I should bring my children as near to holiness as possible as I raised them.
I brought my children to daily Mass whenever I could, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and near to any living "saint" I knew!
They never protested. It was their way of life. We must train our children in lives of holiness and prayer so that it will become as natural as breathing to them.
ZENIT: Mother Teresa said that we need to take care of the poor in our own homes first, but it seems easier sometimes to send a monetary donation to Haiti. How would she suggest that we go about taking those steps toward reaching out to the "poor" around us?
O'Boyle: "Love begins at home," she would say.
It is much easier to write out a check or even venture out to do charity work in some far-off land but it would be wrong to neglect our own families in the process.
To reach out to the "poor" around us we only need to open our eyes and hearts to see where there is a need.
Do we have a child that requires more of us, a spouse who feels neglected? Is there someone who is cranky but is really starving for our love? Do we have elderly parents who are lonely and crave a visit or some attention?
We have to trust Our Lord that he knows what he is doing in putting us together with our family members and neighbors. We all help to work out one another's sanctification too.
I believe that it starts first thing in the morning in the words of the Morning Offering, giving everything over to Our Lord so that he will sanctify all of our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of the day.
We must also respond with love to each person we meet along the way, particularly the ones who contradict us, antagonize us and annoy us!
God calls us to holiness in the here and now of our lives right in the nitty-gritty details.
--- --- ---
On the Net:
Works of Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle: http://web.mac.com/dcooperoboyle/Site/Welcome.html | <urn:uuid:2ffc117a-5f94-4e0e-9b85-65841aaf97ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/mother-teresa-shows-families-how-to-be-holy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975824 | 2,134 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Skip to comments.Clean Energy Summit Sparks Political Events, Debate Over Government Role In Renewables
Posted on 08/07/2012 2:38:27 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
CARSON CITY With U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's 5th annual National Clean Energy Summit set to kick off today in Las Vegas, the debate over alternative energy development and the government's role in its future rages on.
The purpose of the day-long event as described on the website is to, once again bring together clean energy visionaries and leaders, public officials, business executives and entrepreneurs, investors, students, and the media to discuss how to empower the public with tools to promote the clean energy economy; increasing jobs and our energy independence.
But the role of the federal government in the development of alternative energy has become a major political topic in this presidential election year, with critics pointing to the closure in July of the solar manufacturing company Amonix in North Las Vegas 14 months after opening.
The company had been awarded $6 million in solar manufacturing tax credits to build the facility, but the company said the credits were never used. The closing was used to criticize President Obama and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who is locked in a tough Senate race with Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev. But Politico noted in an article that the Bush Administration first backed the Amonix project in 2007.
Federal funding of Nevada renewable projects called into question
(Excerpt) Read more at lahontanvalleynews.com ...
Wonder how many of those “clean” energy subsidies wound up in:
1) Obama campaign fund
2) Chicago political mob pockets
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There's another factor, however, one more personal to Reid: His son, Rory Reid, is one of the attorneys for the ENN Mojave Energy project. A Reid spokeswoman said the senator did not suggest Reid's firm - Lionel, Sawyer & Collins - to ENN, nor has the elder Reid spoken to this son about the deal. (Reid imposed a strict ban on family members lobbying his office in 2003 after the Los Angeles Times asked him about lobbying by three of his four sons.)
“With U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s 5th annual National Clean Energy Summit set to kick off today in Las Vegas”
Obammy told everyone to not go to Las Vegas. WTF?
Some very big crooks will attend.
That was some months ago!
That was some months ago!
I did not hear a all clear from Obammy.
Well, we now have a case study.
Billions were spent in the last 3 years on renewables.
We should see a detailed list of just exactly what advances were made in the field for spending those billions.
More efficient solar cells? A system of mass production of biofuels? Ethanol that can be produced without subsidies?
Nope, none of that I doubt. But, as with every liberal idea, they’ll just say we haven’t spent enough on it yet, and if we’d just spend more, we’d see the results.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works. | <urn:uuid:daf42e19-0194-4891-9abc-5c442395353f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/2915732/posts?page=7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947576 | 743 | 1.53125 | 2 |
PICO Iyer calls The Quiet American by Graham Greene ''my uncertain Bible''. He first read it 30 years ago and he returns to it every few months. It sits on his ideal bookshelf, jostling spines with Moby-Dick, Thoreau's On Walden Pond, Shakespeare, the letters of John Keats, Derek Walcott's poems, Emerson's essays, Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, Jan Morris' Among the Cities, and a book about Zen.
''Each is like a friend who arises from a parallel universe in my past,'' Iyer says of these books.
What books would you have on your ideal bookshelf? Tricky question, and your answers might change from day to day, let alone year to year or decade to decade. But some 100 creative people have had a go at constructing their own personal ideal.
Editor Thessaly La Force and artist Jane Mount have put the results together into a book, My Ideal Bookshelf. Opposite each page of text, Mount has painted a row of about 14 books, spine outwards, for each person's choice. It's a beguiling, charming, sometimes confessional and often surprising window into some creative people's tastes and inspirations.
Many of these selectors are writers, and no prizes for guessing the books that keep cropping up: Middlemarch, Lolita, and various books by Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Borges, Proust, Woolf, Sartre, Edith Wharton, Flannery O'Connor, Haruki Murakami and Chekhov (Francine Prose's selections are all Chekhov). If we want to get patriotic, it's good to see J.M. Coetzee is a perpetual favourite; there are also fans of Shirley Hazzard and Shaun Tan.
But because the book also includes the choices of chefs, fashion designers, filmmakers, comedians and dancers, the shelves hold much more than just classics and literary favourites. Chef Gabrielle Hamilton has a row of books chosen because they ''give the reader permission to break the rules''. One is the Bible, ''because every sentence in it starts with the word 'and', which every teacher tells you not to do''.
Film director Judd Apatow mixes authors such as Saul Bellow and Raymond Carver with the Marx Brothers and Monty Python. ''Everyone should read this bookshelf,'' he writes. ''You will reap untold benefits: money, fame, women, and a level of insecurity that cannot be measured by modern technology.''
Simon Doonan picks The Things I Love by Liberace, a heroic figure for him: ''Go for it. Life is short. Why shouldn't you have rhinestones glued all over your Rolls-Royce?''
Andrew Sean Greer laments that everyone in the world is a better reader than he is, though he's been reading Lolita and Proust every day for a decade. He surveys his list and erupts: ''God, it looks gay!''
Books read in childhood or adolescence are often on the shelf. I wouldn't have thought of Junot Diaz as a fan of Tolkien or Watership Down, but these were books that showed him a writer could create an extraordinary secondary world, and through that he could enchant the primary world. Immigration got Diaz reading as a child: no one could criticise his English.
It gets pretty weird with the artists. Leanne Shapton likes All the Clothes of a Woman by Hans-Peter Feldmann, which is all grainy black-and-white photos of a woman's ''normal, lumpy, faded clothes''. Tauba Auerbach has a shelf of books you can't read. Ben Schott has a fat volume of Othello which is very light when you pick it up, because it's in Braille.
At the end is a page of 10 blank book spines where you can fill in your own favourites and submit them online to idealbookshelf.com. A great way to celebrate the book. | <urn:uuid:6fe39594-9db7-4619-afd5-cdf19d943caf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/1208872/shelving-insecurities/?cs=36 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953587 | 841 | 1.609375 | 2 |
CEnvP of the Year
Dr Hugh Lavery is the inaugural winner of the Certified Environmental Practitioner (CEnvP) of the Year. His award was conferred at the 20th Anniversary Gala Dinner of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ).
Currently in his 50th year of professional practice, Dr Lavery has been a pioneer in the environmental field.
Dr Lavery helped establish modern nature conservation with his work in Queensland back in the 1950s, and 20 years ago lead the way in advising corporate Australia on its management of the environment.
In accepting his award Dr Lavery called for Australia's next Government to make greater efforts to create a sustainable future for the country.
"I acknowledge the great strides that have been made over the last two decades, but believe there is still much to be done" Dr Lavery said.
Dr Lavery identified that Australia needs to take on a greater leadership role in developing strategies for reducing our ecological footprint. He cited examples of promoting renewable energy alternatives and minimizing waste within our society.
Dr Lavery said "the financing of Clean Technology is a growing trend that I whole-heartedly welcome. But it won't continue without the support of Australia's governments".
Dr Lavery's comments followed discussion at an EIANZ conference in Sydney. Speakers at the 'Third Wave in Environmental Practice' agreed that Australia's environment faces many immediate challenges including climate change, water shortages and increased coastal population pressures.
Institute President Bill Haylock opened the event by telling delegates that Australia's environment needs to feature heavily in the coming election. "For the first time in more than a decade the environment is rightly a prominent election issue", he said.
According to Mr Haylock "many of the environmental issues we face are global issues where Australia can and should show leadership.
"We need to set examples by supporting innovative and sustainable solutions. "If we don't our children will miss out on our natural wonders, like the Great Barrier Reef and many other environmental assets that we have taken for granted." Mr Haylock warned.
Mr Haylock closed the forum by calling for Australia to join many of its European counterparts and become a driver of international agreements that reduce global environmental impacts".
Australia's environmental practitioners would lend full support to a Government that demonstrated this sort of leadership" Mr Haylock said. | <urn:uuid:c77917a6-d750-4770-a972-97613c7901b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cenvp.org/pages/bb_CEnvPoftheYear2007.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957482 | 479 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Maria Immaculata thrived
at educating teenage girls thru the 1960's and even shared instructors with Mallinckrodt HS, who were in the
same building. Unfortunately, during the later part of the 1960's, teaching orders started to have fewer girls join the
communities, which led to not as many nuns teaching and, as a result, put a strain on many parochial school's finances
by having to hire lay teachers.
Sr. Anastasia stated
in conclusion that "...beginning in June, 1968, the aspirancy was “temporarily” suspended. Only two applicants
had been received for the aspirancy for September; the total enrollment would be 16 or 17 students. The original plan was
to suspend the aspirancy for two years; however, after that period, it was not reopened."
to Sr. Anastasia for her information on this page!)
The building that housed
Maria Immaculata Academy still stands today as a condiminum facility for senior citizens called Mallickrodt in the Park.
WILMETTE MARIA IMMACULATA ACADEMY
Year closed: 1968
From Kathy McNally
"The two years I spent
as an aspirant with the Sisters were the most beautiful and happy days of my life. I attended from 1965 through
1967. The peaceful walk through the apple trees down to the cemetery and stations of the cross is incomparable to any
place that I have found to pray in lay life. It was a wonderful life. Thank you to all the sisters who helped us
grow closer to God. I would have loved to have seen the building one more time before the condo conversion."
HAVE ANY OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT....
Maria Immaculata Academy?
Then we'd like to hear from you about your experiences and memories of the school. Please contact us at [email protected] or send your information to the following address:
School Glory Days
6439 North Neva | <urn:uuid:09f507d3-205d-4182-91cf-8c285918e692> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.illinoishsglorydays.com/id807.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96233 | 420 | 1.625 | 2 |
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
“Look I can't do it, I'm a Rolling Stones Fan”
“No, please stop, I can't take it anymore!”
“Anthrax? *sniff*... Alright!”Keith Richards is a strain of smegma that can self reproduce and do crosswords, he gained fame in the 9th century as a Giant Squid. He is over 4000 years old and still going to strip clubs. Mister, Master, Keith Richards is a professional death dodger,and great-looking-for-his-age-rock-triangle player in The Larry Davis Experience (replacing John Tesh). Like Sean Penn, he is a militant excrement smoker and famous for his collection of vintage but plugs. With the exception of the cockroach and Jimmy Page, Keith Richards is one of the only creatures that can survive an anal onslaught from a African Elephant. This was proven during the 1200AD nuclear explosion off the coast of what would be present day Atlantis.
Keith Richards [AKA Keef Richards} was born in 1948 BC, to parents Bert and Doris Dupree Richards. It is a well documented fact that he was born with no face, and had to make do with clingfilm for the first 100 years of his life, until he met famous hollywood plastic surgeons Keanu Reeves and Pamela Anderson, who replaced his clingfilm with extraneous fecal matter. he sports this face to this day. He was later said to have discovered the first dinosaur remains after remembering where he buried his childhood pet Dino. It was later revealed that his parents were refugees who stowed away to Britain in a lobster pot belonging to a Norwegian commercial trawler named Lars. His background is a multicultural one, owing heritage to hermit crabs, tarantulas, monsters, jellyfish, Plankton and the Irish. His shoddy guitar-playing skills can be attributed to the lack of any opposable thumbs on his pincers. This has been a major handicap to Keith throughout his career, although he can spear fishies at an amazing rate and walk sideways with great ease. It is well known that he is descended from a race of Tricky Lobster People who are more than capable of surviving both explosions and earthquakes. Richards and Mick Jagger avoid walking in the wilderness together, lest they be torn to pieces by a giant eagle. They do not want to die as "two Stones killed by one bird."
His career started when he got a job working as a table-servant to Julius Caesar and Cleopatra while they were first dating in Rome between 47 BC and 44 BC. Cleopatra couldn't stand Richards, originally thinking he resembled a cross between a camel's ass and a goat. However, Caesar took quite a liking to the young whippersnapper, and funded his first solo album, (featuring Chuck Berry on tambourine), which sold only 4 records, probably because no-one knew how to play vinyl then and the availability of phonograph record players was practically non-existent.
So depressed at his recording failure and after falling out with Julius Caesar's piss boy, Keith became a hermit and Desert Theologian of the Old Testament, and, apart from a brief stint playing bass for Buffalo Springfield in the Dark Ages, remained largely musically inactive until the twentieth century, that is until his sister Helena erupted in 1981 killing thousands of people and kicking starting his career back into gear. Now he's slightly dormant, musically. As for accounting how he has fourteen kids, there is no explanation. Too much time on his hands and too many golddiggers. (Something to ponder: what do you call a man who's a slut?)
His career restarted with vigor in Berlin during late 1917, just prior to the end of the Great WWI when, after being 'rediscovered' by Benito Mussolini, he played the seediest cabarets for beer money. There Keith caught the eye of the young metrosexual record producer and aspiring world demolisher Adolf Hitler. Hitler, fresh out of a stint in the Dada propaganda and bowel movement, wanted to expand the limits of what you could play on the radio. The only songs playing on the radio then were "Deutschland Uber Alles" and "Ach! Wunderbar!" both by Otto Von Bismarck.
With the acquisition of songwriter Mister Rogers , Keith and Adolf penned their magical first hit: "It's Raining Men", Keith was banging on his triangle like one possessed while singing like a man in a middle of a breakdown. It was the cause of the French army occupying Antarctica in 1923.
Keith and Hitler parted ways in 1925, when Hitler caught Richards sniffing Eva Braun's undergarments. Keith then decided to cast his own stone, so he bought a guitar and formed his own band called Lead Balloon, together with his long-time-no-see-friend/whore/soon to be wife Mick Jagger. Additional people that no-one knows about joined the band, and in 2045 they became the most ridiculously successful band of oldies. He later rejoined the Adolf Hitler Experience, rode a tank and held the General's rank while the Blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank.
He has snorted more than just cocaine.
At the age of 14, Keith had a freak accident with kitten huffing, which damaged his lungs. This is why he talks like Ozzy Osbourne nowadays. At the age of 789, He had snorted his dad's ashes, which had marked the 21, 789th time he had died. Jesus had revived him. He had claimed his dad was cremated and he couldn't resist grinding him up with a bit of Blow. It went down pretty well, and he is alive. At that point, he had shot up his Mother, smoked Aunt Bee, mixed Uncle Starchaser in with a bit of Vodka, and lived happily ever after, amen.
Not Without My Drugs: The Keith Richards Story
Keith Richards, at the age of 654, released an autobiography "Not Without My Drugs: The Keith Richards Story," about none other than himself. He originally wanted to entitle the book "Not Without My Bong - Anybody Seen My Bong?" however he changed it shortly after Neil Young threatened to sue him because he was contemplating using that as the title of his upcoming made-for-TV movie.
The "Not Without My Drugs: The Keith Richards Story," article was largely written in bullet points due to the insane amount of drugs short-circuiting his ability to compose lengthy sentences, plus an allergic reaction to heroin made him write it in third person. When he began to write, the famous Air Guitar ninja suddenly remembered that he could not possibly recall 99% of his life, so he comprised the rest of the "autobiography" with what have been infamously dubbed "Keith Richards Essentials."
Upon discovering this, the publisher refused to produce the autobiography. Chuck Norris decided to steal the idea from Keith, so Keith preceded to roundhouse side kick him in the face... At least he thinks he did. He was high at the time. Here is a complete manuscript of the unpublished book (please note that the first two sentences is the 1% of Keith's remembered life):
"I did lots of drugs." "I used to have terrible memory problems - I forget why, exactly..."
It is thought that the secret to Keith's imortality is the fact that he possesses a plant like ability to photosynthesise and take in nutrients from soil, so naturally when Keith goes outside his body regenerates. Scientists have been working for years to develop this trait in other organisms but most of them either went off to form a band before the tests could be finished or expired in a blizzard of cocaine and heroine
When the The Rolling Stones toured Skegness in 1987, the tour bus was late after waiting for Mick Jagger's regularly scheduled afternoon botox appointment. Through a judgmental error on behalf of the bus driver, Barry, a blown-out tire that was lying outside Keith Richards' house that day was mistaken for the man himself, and taken on the tour. Since few audience members noticed the difference and even fewer complained about it - this ragged piece of old leather has since replaced Keith Richards as lead guitarist, and is still touring to this day. In 2006, Keith was pulled out of his tank of formaldehyde to perform at some crazy superbowl shit. Actually, Keith Richards is living in Case Missiroli, Province of Forlì-Cesena (Italy) under the identity of Claudio Riccardi and he occasionally plays the guitar in the Orchestra Casadei.
The only thing that can kill Keith Richards is Keith Richards. Or when the world blows up due to his insane instrumental skills. So really, still the only thing that can kill Him is Himself.
Of recent, Richards has been found dead a total amount of seventeen times at his home in the Amazon. It was later discovered that the local "Shamenacadanganudung" tribesmen were incorrect and had actually found seventeen dead monkeys as a result of smoke poisoning and intoxication in Richards' famous "Hobbie Hut". The events sparked a worldwide manhunt for Richards due to a vast amount of media confusion over his apparent death. Richards was later found at a retirement home in Kazakhstan, and was sentenced to 2,134 years in jail. The charges were however later dropped due to his immortality. Richards later spoke of the incident, apologising to Animal Right's groups for killing seventeen monkeys. However, Richards later claimed that the monkeys were in fact "trespassers" and had "inhaled weak shit".
- "Fvuhm fvvvvv...CHEERS!" - January 1988
- "PRrr *VUP!*... bzhhh!... CHEERS!" - January 1992
- "Hoind soi- *VUP!* Soig- *VIP!* Soight... CHEERS!" - February 1996
- "Get me some FOHKIN' EGGS!"-February 1999 (Title translated by Ozzy Osborne, that was translated by Steven Tyler) -- CHEERS~
- "SNORT: Songs In The Key of Kilograms" - April 2003 | <urn:uuid:36605c4f-9287-4394-bfcf-20de3f741588> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Keith_Richards?direction=next&oldid=5637830 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978842 | 2,137 | 1.632813 | 2 |
U2 fans don't hear the band's songs on the radio very often, if at all. More than 2,600 votes came in when we asked fans about the frequency that U2 gets radio airplay wherever they live. The two most common replies were "1-2 days per week" (about 37 percent) and "Never" (about 20 percent). In all, more than 57 percent of fans said they hear U2 on the radio two days per week at most. In contrast, about 27 percent said they hear U2 at least five days per week.
The results are, of course, highly unscientific. It's possible that some fans who said "Never" or "1-2 days per week" aren't active radio listeners, so of course they wouldn't hear U2 much. At the same time, it's also possible that some fans who said "Every day" or "5-6 days per week" are active listeners of online radio services like Pandora and others where the songs are customized based on likes. Nonetheless, the results may speak to the challenge that U2 is going to have in the future in getting played on radio -- something that Bono has said is very important to U2.
The chart showing all replies is below. We've also posted a new poll question on our home page, asking if you'd like U2 to record a Christmas/holiday album someday. | <urn:uuid:7da5f313-d101-48d7-a92c-ffce18f85db3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://u2albumreview.com/poll-results-fans-dont-hear-u2-on-radio-very-often | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979394 | 289 | 1.648438 | 2 |
By Pete Kotz
By Michael Musto
By Michael Musto
By Capt. James Van Thach told to Jonathan Wei
By Kera Bolonik
By Michael Musto
By Nick Pinto
By Steve Weinstein
Digital scents will make plenty of dollars if DigiScents has its way.
Sitting right at your desk, youll soon be able to smell the rosesor baking bagels or honey-roasted nuts or crowded subway platformsusing DigiScents new iSmell, "a personal scent synthesizer." Now in beta testing, iSmell is a peripheral device you plug into a computer the same way you plug in speakers and printers. If you visited a Web site offering a whiff of fresh chocolate cake, for example, iSmell could pull down the code it needs to mix chemicals in just the right way and then release the designer aroma while you work on the Net. Or you could invent your own scents and add them to e-mails or a short story.
DigiScents' wafting digital scents may make every media experience immersive and wraparound, more real than reality. Scents work for perfume advertising in magazines, says DigiScents president Dexster Smith, and they'll certainly work when software re-creates them. "What we're about is allowing people to have control or mastery and a heightened awareness of smell," Smith says. "It's a very powerful part of us, and it has been in the hands of a very select few. This is a revolution of the senses, and we are bringing smell to the everyday person via digital control. It's another example of the opportunities for democratization through technology."
The mere suggestion of digital smell sounds crazy. But every good idea doesat first. Like adding video to music and making MTV. Like downloading Bombay footage from satellites and making a New York newscast. Former Motorola CEO Robert Galvin once observed that each breakthrough idea during his tenure began its life as a minority opinion. At first, the new ideas couldn't even get heard. Then they were ridiculed, and the people who birthed them were attacked. Finally, everyone agreed they'd believed in the ideas all along.
Perhaps interlacing scents will become as much a part of the digital realm as pictures, music, and robo-voices.
DigiScents isn't the only company working to digitize smells, though it may have the best plan for convincing consumers that shelling out a still unnamed number of bucks for aromas is a smart idea. Two years ago, Adobe released its Net sniffer, Odorshop, and received little fanfare. RealAroma's Web site (realaroma.com) hypes a smell box that uses something called "Real Aroma Text Markup Language" and can run on a modem as slow as 14.4K. Macintosh CEO Steve Jobs has announced he wants future generations of his company's machines to be able to handle odors, just as they're now equipped to play CDs.
What separates DigiScents from the pack is its commitment to putting smells on the Net. The company has joined forces with RealNetworks, whose RealPlayer turned online tunes from a vague concept to a near essential for savvy surfers. Taking a cue from media portals, DigiScents promises to launch a world of odors at Snortal.com. Finally, you'll have something to whiff out there.
Mainstream consumers may not share Smith's enthusiasm for digitized smells. Just as store owners use the right blend of soft rock to make shoppers reach for their wallets, advertisers will use scents to promote products from cognac to perfume to leather jackets. "Bringing scent to everything may not be everyone's cup of tea," says Dr. Graham A. Bell, director of the Centre for ChemoSensory Research at the University of New South Wales, Australia. "People are wary of the unsolicited intrusion of odors, pleasant and unpleasant, in their lives. The shopping mall of the future may draw in customers by proclaiming, 'No manipulative odors are permitted on these premises!' "
But for people who love technology, adding smell to the array of sensory riches is a natural.
Game developers may be first to make use of scents. Imagine inching your way through a cold basement as the smell of mold seeps through the damp brick, or rounding the corner of the track as tires squeal and the burning rubber stinks. Like the pulsing music in Jawsthat made us anticipate the shark, scents will serve as clues or cause fear and foreboding in haunted houses.
Sex sites won't be far behind. Using digital scents, we'll make our own perfumes, candles, and lotions. We can even e-mail our own musk. Imagine being lost in digital sex with a chat-partner or wandering an online adult channel when pheromones flare your nostrils and make your heart race.
Scent detonates the power of suggestion, unlocks buried memories, and stampedes lust. Smells fire primordial urges to run, fight, or make love. Smith envisions the day when a standard greeting card blossoms with the scent of roses, or when aromatherapy threaded through meditative music and archetypal images transports a viewer into an altered state.
Some question whether that dream is suited for mass consumption. "There are difficult hurdles ahead with regard to digitizing smells and replaying them in the comfort of your home," says Bell. "The replay device must produce smells faithfully. Technically, this is very difficult, as most odors we encounter in everyday life are composed of hundreds of components."
Find everything you're looking for in your city
Find the best happy hour deals in your city
Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%
Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city | <urn:uuid:aa4eab24-27dd-43f4-a8bd-41ad92591c43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-03-21/news/scents-and-sensibility/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94631 | 1,223 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Topps #20: Duryea
This is an excerpt from my history of Topps and Bazooka forthcoming in Abrams' Bazooka Joe
book, due in April.
Since Topps has sold a billion-and-a-half pieces of Bazooka Bubble Gum annually and the Bazooka Joe strip is read internationally, surely Bazooka Joe must be one of the most familiar comics characters of the 20th Century. The strip has even had an impact on style and fashion, teaching kids around the world how to wear their baseball caps sideways and pull their turtleneck sweaters up to their noses.
The main offices of Topps were located in Brooklyn, but they moved to Manhattan in 1994. Until 1996, the gum was made at a plant in Duryea, Pennsylvania, where various conveyor belts, coated gum polishers, and suspended tubes filled a gymnasium-sized room. I watched that machinery in motion as Bazooka Gum was manufactured and then joined with the Bazooka Joe strips. At the starting point, loaves of gum were inserted into a Rube Goldberg-like hopper, where they were then mashed into a rope shape that traveled out of the hopper on a conveyor belt. Products of various sizes were then sliced out of the gum rope as it moved along.
At the far end, a machine spit out small pieces of gum at an incredible rate. Phtt! There goes the gum. Whht! A strip of comics is sliced off. Fffftt! The wrapper is whipped on. And all happened faster than you could open the package—gum, Bazooka Joe comics, wrapper—all spinning and whizzing at a blinding speed. One could not stand in front of this grandiose gum gadget without visualizing ten million mouths desperately gnawing and chewing in a futile effort to keep pace with the Topps machinery.
If you ever wondered why the edges were chopped off some Bazooka Joe strips, the description above should give you the answer. The machine was clipping off those strips—fht, fht, fht—so fast that a dozen could flip out even as the operator reached to adjust the positioning of the Bazooka Joe roll.
Bazooka Joe is seen internationally because the comics are printed in many languages, including Spanish, French, German, and Hebrew. According to Robert Hendrickson’s The Great American Chewing Gum Book (Chilton. 1976), Bazooka Joe was trademarked in thirty countries and Topps products were sold in fifty-five countries with licensed manufacturers in ten of those countries. In Nigeria, a black Bazooka Joe tells jokes Nigerian-style. But the Japanese never got stuck on the gum, as noted by Paul Gravett in “The Mystery of Bazooka Joe” (Escape no. 1, 1983): “One country, however, where you won’t find Joe is Japan, not even in Tokyo, due to their restrictions on the sale of gums that stick . . . Bubble gum had the one social failing of being sticky.”
Bazooka Joe has a product identification that spans the globe and leaps generations. But for the most part, Bazooka Joe and his pals remain confined to their little world of simple gags, tiny rectangles, and even tinier talking heads. True, there was the Bazooka Super Fun Pad, a 1983 activity book published by Waldman and Playmore. The Super Fun Pad presents the characters at a much larger size in follow-the-dot pages, color-by-number pictures, games, magic tricks and mazes.
Labels: bazooka, memoir, topps | <urn:uuid:75116e94-888f-4dd3-b51f-2375189dd665> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://potrzebie.blogspot.com/2012/12/topps-20-duryea.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970921 | 768 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Five years ago, Jim Musselman started Appleseed Recordings to "sow the seeds of social justice" through folk music. For the last two weeks, the 43-year-old Allentown native has been planting peace, too.
Musselman is executive producer of Bruce Springsteen's recording of "We Shall Overcome," which has become an anthem for coping with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Released originally on "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," a 1998 Appleseed collection of songs associated with Pete Seeger, the soothing version has played everywhere from the "NBC Nightly News" to Yankee Stadium.
"It's so nice, and so humbling, to be able to put out music that people turn to for comfort," Musselman said from his office in West Chester, Chester County. "This song has been used throughout [its] history, in any place where people have overcome adversity. Now it's not only moving people, it's nurturing them, in a way."
"We Shall Overcome" has championed civil rights from Birmingham to Tiananmen Square. Its latest swell began on Sept. 12, when an official for a Manhattan television station began searching for a soundtrack for a video featuring heroic responses to the previous day's destruction of the World Trade Center's twin towers.
David Hyman, director of creative services for NBC4, knew he wanted "We Shall Overcome." He says he was terribly moved by its use during civil-rights marches in the 1960s, when he was growing up. Unable to get to a store to buy a recording Sept. 12, he looked for a version on the Internet. He found one by Springsteen, one of his favorite musicians and humanitarians.
"I heard 20 seconds of his version and I said that's the one, absolutely the one," Hyman said from his NBC4 office. "It's so plaintive, so stirring, so terribly, terribly evocative. It has a peaceful tone rather than a saber-rattling, angry, nationalistic feeling."
On Sept. 13, Springsteen's recording of "We Shall Overcome" premiered with the Hyman-produced video at the end of NBC4's nightly newscast. The two-minute musical montage quickly became a theme for the aftermath of the devastation.
It appeared on CNBC's "The News with Brian Williams" and NBC's "Dateline."
On Sept. 17, during the "NBC Nightly News," anchor Tom Brokaw declared Springsteen's version "an important anthem of hope for these troubled times."
The endorsement tickled Musselman.
"It's been surrealistic for Tom Brokaw to play DJ," he said. "I've had people tell me that the song, and the video, has allowed them to cry, has given them true release."
He notes that an e-mailer to WNBC's Web site called Springsteen's recording "a soft, warm blanket of comfort."
"We Shall Overcome" then moved from news to sports. On Sept. 21, it was played during a Mets-Braves game at Shea Stadium, the first professional sports event in New York City since the Sept. 11 tragedy. On Tuesday night, it began playing between innings at Yankee Stadium, joining "New York, New York" as an expression of metropolitan pride.
Hyman is surprised by the musical video's shelf life.
"It was intended to be a sort of salve, a get-well card," said the NBC4 director. "It's struck a major chord."
Musselman, the dyed-in-the-wool folkie, is stunned:
"If I ever thought there'd be 60,000 screaming Yankee fans giving a standing ovation for this song, I would have said: No way. It's been on New York rock radio stations, too, and I never, ever would have gotten anything played there."
Musselman, a lawyer, made news during his eight years as a right-hand man to consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Together, they compelled Lee Iacocca, another Allentown native, to make air bags standard in Chrysler vehicles.
"We Shall Overcome" returns Musselman to the musical spotlight. In 1999, Appleseed received a Grammy Award nomination for the Jackson Browne-Bonnie Raitt recording of "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," which appears on the Seeger tribute. For three years, the title track of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," recorded by Irish musicians Tommy Sands and Delores Keane with a chorus of Protestant and Catholic students, has accompanied peace negotiations between Northern Ireland and England. [Coincidentally, Sands will play a benefit concert for an American-Irish children's program on Saturday at the Ice House in Bethlehem.]
"We Shall Overcome" has created a dilemma for Musselman. He doesn't want to profit from grief, so he has declined to publicize the recording. He admits it has increased orders for the Seeger tribute "by a few thousand. There's been a definite blip on the radar screen."
Yet, because he has not promoted "We Shall Overcome", fans of Springsteen's version have struggled to find it.
Musselman has declined to release "We Shall Overcome" as a single, mainly because he wants all the Seeger tribute to be heard. | <urn:uuid:95ef366f-884e-4017-a46b-e23833c71071> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.mcall.com/2001-09-30/news/3364169_1_overcome-springsteen-s-recording-appleseed-recordings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978615 | 1,119 | 1.546875 | 2 |
My center circle is made from concrete retaining wall blocks. Concrete can make some excellent raised beds since it doesn't rot and doesn't need much in the way of special assembly techniques if you keep the garden low. Most of the concrete retaining wall blocks are recommended to go up to 2' high (or 4 levels) without needing mortar. I used this bed last year for greens and beans but added some amendments to nourish the soil more. It was covered in weeds so I turned the soil under, broke up the larger clumps of soil and removed the major root systems of the remaining weeds. I left some of the weeds to die off naturally and "return to the soil from whence they came!" Then I made trenches a little over half an inch deep in the soil.
I really enjoyed the warm weather this week. Who wouldn't with 60 degree weather in January! How about you?
|Growing The Home Garden |
Seed Sowing 101 Series | <urn:uuid:885f0e8a-e820-4d15-8cf0-df690fa4a1ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.growingthehomegarden.com/2012/01/planting-seeds-in-my-raised-bed-circle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96912 | 194 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Leona A. Holmberg, MD, PhD
Saving lives with bone marrow transplants
During her years at Harvard University, Leona Holmberg earned her undergraduate degree in history with a minor in science before going on to study immunology and earning her Ph.D. “I was brought up to be a specialist in a lot of things,” Holmberg says. At Harvard, she worked with transplant physicians and researchers, and realized that in order to implement her immunology research in clinical trials, she was going to have to change her emphasis or become a doctor.
“I went on to medical school just to do transplants,” she says. “I was very structured and looked forward to expanding my work to the whole concept of using immunology to cure cancer.”
Curing cancer isn’t just about using more drugs, she says, “but it is a platform to build on.” Immunotherapy is being used in clinical vaccine trials and in combination with immune stimulators as maintenance therapy after transplant.
Holmberg spends five months a year caring for patients and works on up to four to five clinical trials at a time.
“It is fun and satisfying intellectually to take an idea on to a trial,” Holmberg says. “If I’m correct in my speculation – and luck is there – it’s very rewarding.”
Recipient of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s first Ali Al-Johani clinical-research award for providing exemplary and compassionate care to her patients and their families, Holmberg finds a lot of joy in taking care of patients. “It enriches my life and I get more from them than I think I give my patients. I love what I do and I’m very lucky. I think my patients know that I care.”
The role of a physician, as Holmberg sees it, is to give patients choices on what do to. “There is no right or wrong answer,” she says. “Only you can decide how you want to live your life. And there are no guarantees that any particular therapy will work for you.”
When she isn’t providing care to her patients or attending to her research protocols, Holmberg enjoys spending time hiking, snowshoeing, or cross-country skiing. She’s also a master of quick reading and will go through a couple of non-medical related books a week!
Leona A. Holmberg, MD, PhDDr. Holmberg is a medical oncologist who treats patients for lymphoma, multiple myeloma, myelodysplastic syndrome, and ovarian cancer. Read more about Dr. Holmberg and her work at SCCA.
Patient Care Philosophy:
My philosophy is to present patients with their various treatment options and let them choose what therapy they wish to receive. I also want to show empathy, compassion and caring for my patients.
- Assistant Member, Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
- Assistant Professor, Medical Oncology Division, University of Washington School of Medicine
- Medical Oncology
- Bone Marrow Transplantation
Immunotherapy, Transplantation Immunology
Education And Training
- University of Miami School of Medicine, 1986
- Harvard University, Immunology, 1983
For more information about Dr. Leona A. Holmberg's clinical and research expertise, click here.
- Combination Chemotherapy + G-CSF + Plerixafor for Lymphoma Patients Undergoing Mobilization of Autologous PBSC (FH 2310)
- Bortezomib and Vorinostat Post ASCT for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (FH 2292) | <urn:uuid:0a528cee-ef70-47c2-b3dc-f89116c3ad05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seattlecca.org/doctor/leona-a-holmberg.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938337 | 788 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Prior to 2006, a student's social security number was used as their identification number within the university. Social security numbers were occasionally used when identifying faculty/staff in various accounting transactions. There are still some instances in which documents submitted to Accounting Services for processing show the social security number of the student, faculty, or staff involved. When this occurs, the accountant that is reviewing the document uses a black marker to block out the social security number to prevent it from being viewed by others and to prevent it from being scanned in our electronic record retention system.
For example, University Health Services sometimes submits a journal entry requesting reimbursement for medical services provided to an employee of another department. They attach that employee's medical statement as supporting documentation of the charges on the journal entry. This statement contains the social security number of that employee. The social security number on this supporting documentation is not required and provides no additional value. As such, it is not necessary to risk that this number is viewed by anyone else, and is thus blocked out by black marker. | <urn:uuid:823fdfa3-853a-4383-beed-2b9150b8e4ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cmich.edu/about/leadership/finance_admin_services/AccountingServices/ASAccountingInternalControls/ASOfficeControls/Pages/Sensitivity_to_Social_Security_Numbers.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951097 | 208 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Comedy. By Darrah Cloud.
Cast: 2m., 2w., 1 to 4 either gender. Thirteen-year-old Greg Samsa wakes up one morning to discover that he has turned into a giant cockroach. His mother, in a panic, dials 911, thus beginning his adventures as they search for a cure for his "disease." What will he tell his friends? How can he face his schoolmates? Can he still perform the lead in his school play? Will his mom ever hug him again? Or is he doomed to be a science exhibit for the rest of his life? Prodded by doctors, studied by a scientist, laughed at, screamed at and run from by his classmates, Greg copes with the changes—and the possibilities—in his new body. In this riotous comedy inspired by Franz Kafka and Shakespeare, Greg comes to understand not only what true friendship is but also who he is. Premiered at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Recipient of the Macy's New Play Prize for Young Audiences, 2011. One set. Approximate running time: 1 hour. | <urn:uuid:2785a2d4-4255-4f18-b6be-eff2baf0dffe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/Target-Audience-Family-(All-Audiences)/c138_143/p2845/What's-Bugging-Greg%3F/product_info.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987128 | 232 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Color Your Own "Jesus Gives Us New Life" Flowerpots
The construction and quality of the flower pots far exceeded my expectations. The size is perfect for starter plants. Children created their own inserts for our church Harvest Feast Days of Creation Festival.
September 24, 2009
I bought these for my VBS class last year, and purchased them again a few weeks ago for my Awana Cubbies class. The children (ages 3 and 4) loved them! An easy project that also makes a great keepsake.
October 7, 2011
I was very pleased with the quality of this product. I just wish it had a hole in bottom for drainage for the plant.
April 5, 2011
Paper is very thin so I suggest using crayons rather than markers. Clear plastic is thin & breaks easily if dropped. These aren't things that would keep from purchasing again though. We were happy with this easy craft.
March 27, 2011
Very nice product
The pots are of good quality and a nice size. The children loved coloring the picture and planting their flowers.
March 14, 2011
These are a wonderfulr activity which also allows children to plant seeds and watch them grow. However, use crayons or color pencils, not markers. Every year, my husband and I pack shoe box size plastic containers (Sterlite containers) for poor orphans around the world through Samaritan's Purse, an organization in association with Franklin Graham, (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association). We send 50 boxes a year - each filled with toys, school supplies and toiletries. Although something simple, it's sure to put a smile on the faces of children.
September 25, 2010
Very cute craft for kids!!!
July 19, 2010
Good for a quick craft
I used this craft with a group of about 20 children ages 3-15. The only problem I had was that the paper inserts are very thin and when the children colored them with markers, the paper "balled up" and the markers bled through. The children had to color very carefully and lightly. It was nice that they send 3 paper inserts for each pot, so if the children make a mistake, there are spares.
June 7, 2010 | <urn:uuid:ea69fb34-824a-4755-ae20-ed10b133fc25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.orientaltrading.com/color-your-own-jesus-gives-us-new-life-flowerpots-a2-48_5026.fltr?prodCatId=388760&tabId=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960025 | 457 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Zipwhip Textspresso coffee maker speeds up the process of getting that first -- or tenth, depending on your caffeine intake -- cup of Joe. The machine was originally created to test out the Seattle company's cloud texting program, which allows SMS messages to be transmitted between an Android device and a computer.
If one is on their way to the office or out for a lunch break, all they need do is type in their order and text it to the coffee machine, which will brew it up for them and have it hot and ready when they arrive. There is also a plan in the works to install a printer in the machine that prints out the name of the person in need of a coffee fix on edible paper onto the top of the hot drink.
Cellphone Caffeine Machines
583 clicks in 56 w
More Stats +/- | <urn:uuid:12df206f-8cb2-462f-a5ee-4ae6482634c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/zipwhip-textspresso-coffee-maker | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936137 | 170 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Volunteering in a Costa Rican Classroom
Become an Effective Teacher by Understanding Your Students' Culture
|The author giving
an English grammar
lesson to one of
his seventh grade
classes in Costa Rica.
I can’t say my first experience teaching English and volunteering abroad has been altogether stress free, but despite some minor bureaucratic miscommunications and afternoon rainstorms, my days usually flow smoothly
and casually. Alliance Abroad Group, a Texas-based organization that coordinates volunteer work, travel, study, and employment with other institutions around the globe, set me up with the high school in Santa Anta, Costa Rica
and arranged for my homestay with a nearby family. Costa Rican volunteering options through Alliance Abroad range from teaching English and working in nursing homes in the cities to helping with ecotourism projects in the rainforests.
Every morning, after a light breakfast of fresh mangoes, pineapples, gallo pinto, and local jungle-grown coffee, I take a short bus ride to the school. I teach six classes of about 30 students each at the Colegio de Santa
Ana, about a half-hour drive from the capital city of San José. We study everything from the basic names of foods to more challenging grammar rules (I tell them that if they learn the difference between “who” and “whom” they’ll
be ahead of most Americans.).
My major challenge is apathy. Trying to get teenagers to participate at an age when they’re just starting to worry about looking cool (and hence aloof in the classroom) isn’t easy in any culture. Granted, to keep
their attention I can exploit, to some extent, my appeal as the exotic, foreign teacher. For the first two weeks, at least, I managed to captivate them more than their regular instructor, a woman of Jamaican descent with adequate English skills
who observes while I conduct the lessons.
While I have to work within the framework of the designated curriculum the kids learn faster and participate more with games than they do by simply copying and reciting words on the board. But, the district can’t even
spare markers or extra paper, let alone something like a computer lab. Some students come to class unprepared because they don’t have the money to buy textbooks. I brought in several American magazines that they pour over greedily every
day during breaks.
Getting to know my students dramatically increased the extent to which they allowed me to teach them. First impressions were vital: I had to prove to them that I wasn’t some stuck-up, ignorant sightseer with whom they
could not identify nor freely communicate. I broke the ice by talking about life in the States or initiating debates about which rival Costa Rican club soccer team, Saprissa or La Liga, deserved my allegiance. For lunch I always join some of
my more outgoing pupils for traditional Costa Rican fare in the cafeteria, where they ask me about my life here and my life back inthe States. After eating I make an effort to join the many others who hang out alongside the soccer field during
lunch. Occasionally I’ll get to play some fútbol with the boys, most of whom beat me easily despite their age and size handicaps.
Day by day and joke by joke, the kids have warmed up to me as both their academic authority and their friend. They approach me not only with questions about grammar but also about English curse words, American sports and
celebrities, and what my girlfriend is like. The more they get to know me, the more comfortable they feel participating in class; likewise, the more they see their peers making an effort in class, the more enthusiastic and confident they become
about their competency in English. The faculty and administrators have observed this, and they appreciate it. I’ve received nothing but thoughtful assistance and jolly tidings of “pura vida,” the national slogan of Costa Rica,
from all the adults here.
While I was discussing the day’s work over a filling heap of arroz con frijoles with the six other volunteers at the dinner table one night it occurred to me how much this teaching experience is impacting my plans for
the future. It’s such a gratifying, refreshing sensation to see the timid kids of my classes—kids who used to never speak unless called upon—truly begin to realize that they have potential, that they can develop new talents
and dreams they never knew they had.
Other volunteers talk about their days at nursing homes and daycares with satisfaction, yet with an unexcited air; their days are rewarding but unsurprising. My days at the school, however, are anything but predictable. The
kids have given me a gift I never expected: they’ve taught their teacher how meaningful the craft of teaching can be. Working with young costarricences has impelled me to add education to my other career pursuits of journalism
and anthropology. I’m really beginning to comprehend the truth behind the notion that touching kids’ minds—even through grammar lessons—does indeed spark transformations in their lives. | <urn:uuid:52c0e50e-4f04-4f02-82c4-73b570a187f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/studyabroadmagazine/2006Fall/volunteer_in_costa_rica_teaching_english.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953367 | 1,081 | 1.835938 | 2 |
'Substance Over Style' Sets Goddard Apart, According to Nair
Param Nair is a “cost and schedule” guy who advises everyone to “do the Sneakernet” and meet people.
Operations Research Analyst
Organization He Works For:
Code 400, Flight Projects Directorate
What is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?
Getting to meet different people and learning about their proposed research. Our Division specializes in operations research. Many of us received our training in mathematics, economics, computer science, and traditional engineering disciplines. My own graduate thesis was in econometric modeling, which is economic modeling using statistics.
We provide independent assessments of mission costs and schedule. We do this primarily in the mission formulation stage but sometimes as late as the detailed design stage. We use prior, similar missions as the basis for generating our models. Missions that overrun can compromise NASA’s ability to have additional missions in the future, so it’s important that we identify as best as possible what a mission will cost and how long it will take. You could say we’re the independent cost and schedule people.
|› View larger image
Photo of Param Nair. Credit: NASA
Teamwork and collaboration are indispensable to our work. Our data comes from various project teams at Goddard, other NASA Centers, universities, and institutions. I can’t begin tell you how many friendships have resulted as a part of this!
What makes Goddard a great place to work?
Substance over style. We’re laid back, but we don’t compromise on excellence. We may not wear suits and ties every day, but it’s hard to find an organization that’s more dedicated and passionate about excellence in Earth and space science. It’s inspiring to be a part of this culture. One of my favorite television shows is MASH because it was a self-deprecating group that worked under tremendous stress while maintaining high operational excellence, good grace, and a sense of humor. To me, in some respects, Goddard operates like a MASH unit. We work around the clock, often under a lot of stress, but we always strive to preserve our high levels of technical and administrative excellence.
|› View larger image
Param Nair with his wife, Emi and his two boys, Siddhartha and Tomohito, standing in front of the Grand Canyon. Credit: P. Nair
What lessons or words of wisdom would you pass along to somebody just starting their career at Goddard?
Goddard is a very diverse place, so get out and meet our different communities. Odds are that there will be a group with interests similar to yours. The “Sneakernet” is highly underrated; don’t stay holed up in your office. Meeting people is personally and professionally rewarding. Also, we have a beautiful, wooded campus, so walking not only contributes to good health but is pleasurable and environmentally friendly as well.
If somebody asked you, “What is Goddard,” what would you tell them?
Goddard is a large, world-class organization of professionals who attempt to solve complex, relevant, diverse scientific and aerospace engineering challenges that benefit people and the environment.
Is there something surprising about you, your hobbies, interests, activities outside of work that people do not generally know (like you run ultra marathons or work on a NASCAR pit crew on weekends)?
I enjoy adventure travelling, especially trips involving hiking and scuba diving. I’ve been fortunate to have traveled extensively in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia as well as here in North America. I’d like to visit Central and South America. Of course, going to the Polar Regions would be fantastic! Even better, I hope access to space becomes affordable in the near future.
Do you have a favorite book, magazine, movie, or TV show?
Two of my favorite authors are Richard Dawkins and Michael Crichton. One of my favorite movies is “Ofelas” (The Pathfinder) from Norway. The story occurs in hunter-gatherer times and has that rare combination of a great plot, captivating scenery, a great script, and good acting. On TV, I love the old “Twilight Zone” series by Rod Serling. More recently, “House” and the “X-Files” are very entertaining. I’m also enjoying “Tom and Jerry” cartoons again thanks to my kids.
› More Conversations With Goddard
Elizabeth M. Jarrell
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. | <urn:uuid:3c0777a0-a2dd-4d9e-a66d-a740142d5051> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/about/people/PNair.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951006 | 974 | 1.539063 | 2 |
For those faced with difficult caregiving decisions, working with a GCM (geriatric care manager) can be extremely beneficial in making sense of the jumble that the senior care world can be.
Often trained and experienced in fields like nursing, psychology, social work, or gerontology, geriatric care managers work alongside families caring for older adults, helping them develop a care plan to meet immediate and future needs.
Trying to determine whether home care or assisted living is best, determining how to select a reputable home care agency or assisted living community, and figuring out how to pay for whatever care solution is decided upon: these are a few of the complicated, albeit common, scenarios faced by caregivers. Having a GCM to guide you through the possibilities and lay out the options is a smart move for families who are getting bogged down in the process.
Because so many families and decision-makers are separated geographically, a geriatric care manager can serve as a liaison, keeping everyone on the same page and informing all parties of changes, problems, or other issues experienced by the senior at the center of their concerns.
Care-planning assessments, crisis intervention, assistance with a move to an assisted living or transition to a different level of care, consumer education and advocacy, counseling and support, and guardianship assistance are among the many services offered by GCMs. | <urn:uuid:52c2c1ee-383b-4a2d-bd04-1a14221a96a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seniorsforliving.com/blog/2011/07/11/geriatric-care-managers-a-guide-for-the-senior-care-maze/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940089 | 276 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Beijing car ownership soars along with traffic woes
BEIJING (Reuters) - More than 400,000 new cars hit the roads in China's capital in 2006, state media said on Monday, or more than 1,000 a day, snarling Beijing's efforts to control the city's notorious traffic ahead of the 2008 Olympics.
Beijing authorities expect the number of cars in the city to continue to grow by about 10 percent a year for the forseeable future, Xinhua news agency reported.
Despite the increase, authorities would not limit the number of private cars on the roads, but instead focus on improving the road network, the report said.
Beijing is rapidly expanding its network of subway lines and has experimented with taking cars off the road to try to curb traffic jams, clear smog and ensure smooth transport for the Olympics, which it will host in August.
But other Chinese cities, where car ownership is also soaring as the middle class expands, are taking more aggressive measures.
The financial capital Shanghai levies high fees for license plates and is considering London-style "congestion fees" for private cars during peak hours.
(Reporting by Lindsay Beck; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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- Digg this | <urn:uuid:b77de49a-92e2-4cb6-80f5-8d7200b7b776> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uk.reuters.com/article/2008/01/14/environment-china-traffic-dc-idUKPEK32678220080114 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944285 | 261 | 1.65625 | 2 |
I have been a latecomer to the iPhone party, but one of the things that I first noticed, aside from the glaring lack of cut-and-paste, is a more important omission: I want to be able to copy any file on my main Mac to my iPhone and be able to view the file on the iPhone when I am away from my desk. This would come in handy for reminders that I don't want to key in from the phone, or viewing instruction manuals such as the wonderful Take Control ebooks.
While iTunes makes it relatively easy to move photos, videos, and music from my desktop Mac to the iPhone, I want to have access to all the other data on my desktop too.
It's an odd omission: all traditional iPods have the capability to act as a hard drive on which you can store files (you must select Enable Disk Use in the Summary pane in iTunes when the iPod is connected to your computer). Luckily, there is a solution - actually, several solutions, all of which require you to download one of the apps claiming to offer this feature to your iPhone or iPod touch. Sadly, none of them allow the simple configuration of being able to plug your iPhone into your computer via USB and drag files over to it. But since the iPhone is chock full of connectivity, there are several ways to skin the file transfer cat. I tested a variety of apps that connect your computer and iPhone in some interesting, and sometimes confusingly clever, ways.
Sharing Methods -- There are essentially two ways of updating information to an iPhone: push and pull. Push means that you move a file from your Mac to your iPhone by doing something on your computer. Pull means the opposite - that you move the file to your iPhone by doing something on the iPhone itself. Which is the better method? It really depends on how you work and what you are going to do with the file on your iPhone other than view it. For example, if you are going to use your phone as a relay to move a file from your Mac at work to your Mac at home, then you will have to push it one way and pull it the other. I tend to like the pull method myself, but read on and you'll see what is involved.
Some caveats: if you are running the older iPhone 1.x software or a version of Mac OS X older than 10.4 Tiger, now is the time to upgrade because all of these apps require at least the iPhone 2.x software and Tiger. Also, make sure you have some extra storage space available on your iPhone; while the individual apps aren't storage intensive, by the time you collect a bunch of files you may not have room left for your songs, podcasts, and videos. Finally, any file that you move over to your iPhone is accessible only through the particular file transfer app that put it there, unlike on your Mac where you're able to use any application to access any file. This rigidness takes some getting used to.
The Competitors -- I compared five of the most popular iPhone file transfer apps, three of which are standalone apps that you must purchase. The remaining two apps are free, but require that you pay for an online account with a particular Web service if you are really going to use them. The five are Avatron's Air Sharing, Magnetism Studios' FileMagnet, Hey Mac Software's Briefcase, Evernote, and Sharpcast's SugarSync.
- My favorite file sharing app is Avatron's $7 Air Sharing, which was extremely easy to set up and worked without needing any additional software. An extra bonus is that it offers support for the Mac, Windows, and Linux machines. It works over your local Wi-Fi network, and provides simple instructions that walk you through the process of connecting to a network drive and sharing documents. When you install the Air Sharing app, you set up a shared network disk on your iPhone that you can access from the Mac OS X Finder, from Windows Explorer, or even from a Web browser. There are only two catches: First, Air Sharing works on the push model, meaning that you must add files to your iPhone from your computer, by copying the file into the iPhone's shared network disk. Second, both the iPhone and the computer must be on the same Wi-Fi network; the app doesn't work across the Internet.
- Magnetism Studios' $5 FileMagnet works similarly to Air Sharing in that it transfers files over a local Wi-Fi network, but there are a few differences. First, if you are running it in Windows, you need iTunes, which presumably isn't an issue if you have an iPhone. Second, you need to install the iPhone app and a free desktop client application - FileMagnet Uploader - to communicate with your iPhone. Once you install FileMagnet Uploader, you can push files from your computer to the iPhone by simply dragging and dropping them from the Finder or Windows Explorer to the FileMagnet Uploader window. Additionally, once you run FileMagnet Uploader you don't have to worry about any connection settings; FileMagnet will find your desktop and send the files to your iPhone.
- Hey Mac Software's $5 Briefcase and free Briefcase Lite work on the pull model: you create a shared network folder on your desktop Mac, and then connect to it with your iPhone over a Wi-Fi network. If the shared folder contains many files, it takes several minutes to open on the iPhone. The process of navigating and copying documents differs substantially between Briefcase Lite and the full version of Briefcase. In Briefcase Lite, the process is cumbersome because you can copy only a single file at a time. If you want to copy multiple files at a time, or entire folders, or connect to your shared network folder across the Internet, you must upgrade to the full version of Briefcase - the capability to connect over the Internet alone justifies the $5 cost. The full version of Briefcase also enables you to share files directly between iPhones and eliminate the Mac entirely. Commendably, setting up Briefcase on your Mac doesn't require any desktop software, though it's a bit inconvenient to find the user manual, which is on Hey Mac's blog. Finally, as you browse your files on your iPhone, you can designate those that you want to leave in the Briefcase files area, place any photos in your iPhoto library, or send them immediately to be viewed on your desktop Mac display while your iPhone is connected.
- Evernote, from the company of the same name, creates its own repository of shared "notes" that can contain text, photos, and recorded voice messages (but not arbitrary files). You can add content to the repository using a free desktop client application, via email to a special address assigned to you by Evernote, via a Web browser bookmarklet, or from the iPhone itself. Once you have information in your online repository, you can access it from a Web browser on any computer or via the Evernote iPhone app. Evernote's primary strength is that it gives you a lot of control over what gets moved back and forth, and it utilizes both push and pull methods. This approach seems useful for synchronizing activities and assets across a widely distributed workgroup, even if only some of the members have iPhones. But as a personal file-sharing solution between your iPhone and your computer, it feels like overkill (and won't actually move files other than those that can be made into notes). The free account entitles you to upload a skimpy 40 MB of files per month; if you want more, $45 a year bumps that to 500 MB a month, which still seems parsimonious in comparison to SugarSync, next up. The paid account also offers SSL encryption for your transfers.
- Finally, we come to SugarSync, by Sharpcast. SugarSync relies on software that synchronizes a folder on your Mac or on a Windows machine with an online service, accessible from SugarSync Manager, a Web browser, or the iPhone with the free iPhone app. You can try SugarSync for 45 days with a gigabyte of storage, after which you have to sign up for a plan - the basic one costs $2.49 per month or $24.99 per year for 10 GB of storage. For a more detailed review of SugarSync, see Joe Kissell's review in "SugarSync Sweetens Online Syncing" (2008-08-30). Like Evernote, SugarSync seems excessive for just moving files between your home computer and iPhone, but if you need its other features or want to access shared files constantly, it could be a big win.
More Sharing Apps -- There is one other product, DigiDNA's free DiskAid, that enables you to transfer files via USB between an iPhone or iPod touch and either a Mac or Windows-based PC, just as I indicated would be useful at the start of this article. However, once you have a file on your iPhone, you can't view it or even know that it is present without using DiskAid to view the contents of the iPhone again. I don't like the fact that the file lurks hidden inside your iPhone, so I'd rather use one of the other solutions.
For other solutions, including plug-ins for the iPhone's Safari browser and open source apps, I recommend checking out Pure-Mac's iPhone File Transfer Apps page.
Good luck transferring your files, and let me know if you have found other solutions that work well for you.
[David Strom has held editor-in-chief positions at Network Computing print, Tom's Hardware.com digital, and now freelances for the New York Times and numerous IT publications for Ziff Davis, IDG, CMP, and TechTarget. He is a professional speaker, podcaster, and consultant, and he blogs at strominator.com.] | <urn:uuid:0f640ead-6551-4e49-bac5-86fbadc8c730> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tidbits.com/article/9858 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942995 | 2,025 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Most Active Stories
Wed March 21, 2012
Review: 'Hope: A Tragedy'
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish. Now, a review of the latest book by Shalom Auslander. It's a novel that incorporates a bizarre representation of one of history's most tragic heroines. Our reviewer, Alan Cheuse, says the book is surprising and infuriating.
ALAN CHEUSE, BYLINE: "Hope: A Tragedy" is a rambling quasi-philosophical comedy about a young Jewish business writer and his family who buy a house in a rural New York. They find that their purchase has included a whole lot more than they bargained for. The protagonist, Solomon Kugel, discovers there's a secret tenant in the attic - none other than Holocaust writer-victim Anne Frank. The iconic Anne Frank, now very old, miraculously survived the Nazi death camps and took up residence in this bucolic enclave, camping in Kugel's attic and writing a book about her life. Kugel targets, in scatter-gun fashion, all sorts of social worries, such as anti-Semitism, and oddities from gluten allergies to the tanning fad to the real estate business. He works up his biggest sweat, though, about Anne Frank hiding out in his attic. The novel itself glides smoothly along, strongly out woody-ing Woody Allen in its constant fretfulness and utterly charming in its wacky devotion to the main character's abiding doubts and darkest fears.
CORNISH: "Hope: A Tragedy" is by Shalom Auslander. Our reviewer is Alan Cheuse. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio. | <urn:uuid:88712b77-e8f3-4412-9fbb-5b2cc071a8f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kenw.org/post/review-hope-tragedy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946783 | 390 | 1.625 | 2 |
View from the Hermitage. Such a Wonderful Game
In the end of August the Hermitage opened the exhibition Golden Age of the Russian Empire at the Shanghei Museum. Our exhibition is devoted to Russian autocracy and education. It has several peculiarities. A Chinese designer made an interesting decoration: gilded showcases, green color, light emphasizing the splendor of things. What often happens in America did not happen here. There, they start to restore interiors in “the tsar style” and end with kitch. In Shanghei it was a success indeed.
There is yet another peculiarity that seems important to me. Now Shanghei is holding the International exhibition where there is a Russian pavilion. Newspapers wrote that it was not successful. It exhibits inventions of not the supreme class. It is known that the president who is planning to attend this exhibition requested that this exposition be modified to some extent to include elements of modernization and innovation. This has not been done yet but our exhibition, as was reported several times, is a supplement to the Russian pavilion. It will tell you about the golden age of the Russian Empire, about modernization and innovation in the national history. The age of Peter I is a period of modernization and attempts of catching up with Europe. Catherine is an example of innovation when the reworked Western and Eastern experience was applied in creating the great empire. It all is shown through things: Sevres and Russian porcelain, art associated with education. Therefore, the exhibition was in place.
The Shanghei Museum is very active and so is its policy. We initially arranged this exposition for the International exhibition. Concurrently with ours, the exposition of Indian art Gods in Temple from the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. A large-scale exhibition from the best museum of Japan is being prepared. Therefore, the museum that holds only Chinese art is made universal and supplements the cultural focus of the International exhibition.
In addition, for the International exhibition the Shanghei Museum made two large and spectacular pavilions on which much money was spent. It is impossible to get there as there are long queues mainly of Chinese people. One of the pavilions displays inventions that were demonstrated for the first time at various international exhibitions. The general slogan of this exposition is “Better city, better life”. Another pavilion is devoted to history of cities worldwide. Multimedia is used there, everything glitters, copies of caves, streets and cities appear. On the one hand, it all looks like Las Vegas, on the other hand, like Disneyland. And didactics is available too. For example, Ur city on a big table, with a dessert and excavations. Houses and walls start to rise from the dessert. The birth of the city is shown scientifically and visually. It is an attraction, yet a moderate one. Another example, a hall devoted to the destruction of Troja. Here, the attraction is intense. Walls have animated excavations, in semi-darkness there are heaps with the armor, a Trojan horse stands and a Greek man goes out of it now and then. Disneyland in its pure form. And next to it there are six showcases with exclusive items from the British museum that are related to the Sumerian history. Further there is the Athens hall with some unique items.
The display principle is not customary for museums. If we were offered to participate in the similar event, we would prefer to arrange the exhibition separately. Yet it has a certain layout. In a special hall, with a different light and silence, all of a sudden the best items from Tibet’s museums appear. Absolutely exciting. Another hall has items from Beijing’s museum-palace, further there are items from Dresden’s treasure house. It is a risky game but they play it. The museum arranged this exposition at the highest technical and technological level. It had held negotiations with other museums and had been planning the scenography for several years. It resulted in a new cultural product that need not be followed. But it is a demonstration of respect to the opinion of the museum from authorities and the makers of the International exhibition. In my view, it is a good example of a joint museum activity.
The Hermitage ends the season with Picasso’s exhibition. Of all the exhibitions ever held in Russia it is the largest exhibition of the artist. And not many exhibitions were held worldwide. Its uniqueness is in the fact that it arrived from the Picasso Museum as it is closed for repair.
The time of its creation of hard for us. As the director I had to act as an arbiter in disputes between our and French colleagues. The dispute was conceptual. We decided for ourselves to make the main exhibition of the year in the parade halls of the Winter Palace. It was important for us that Picasso “play” with the Winter Palace. French colleagues believe that the most important thing is the collection itself but not the place where it is displayed. The French thought that paintings should be hung against an even background, on walls and at a higher level. They wanted to arrange everything as it was in other museums. As we objected the dialog was started. As a result, Picasso’s surrealistic paintings were hung in the Armour hall next to columns and chandeliers having coats of arms of the Russian Empire. Sculptures Man with a Lamb, Apollinaire resonated with figures of Russian warriors. Without interfering with each other they reminded that Picasso was brought to an official hall where governors awaited to be received by the emperor. We ensured that it did not look expressly. In the Field Marshal’s hall we placed one of Picasso’s powerful famous thing Massacre in Korea and one battle piece. Nearby a big Korean exhibition was held. There is a connection. Next is the Eastern gallery. Everyone got used to seeing Romanovs’ portraits there. In place of these portraits Picasso’s realistic portraits were hung. It is also a game for those people who visit the Hermitage often.
Each joint exhibition is born through a struggle. Picasso’s ready exhibition was brought to us but it turned to be a joint museum product. We got a letter from Frederic Mitterrand, Minister of Culture of France, who was impressed with the way Picasso is exhibited at the Winter Palace in the halls where Russian Ark was filmed.
In October a week of the Pompidou Center will be held at the Hermitage. In the museum world this center is almost a legend. It is a synthetic formation that united a museum, library, book selling, jazz concerts, cafe... In brief, it is a place where life is intense. There are queues at the entrance, artists, clowns, musicians perform at the square. A special world.
I believe we should focus on contemporary European art as it is closer to us. The meaning of exhibitions is not about pleasing their visitors. Exhibitions should give an impulse to artists. Museums were created to the pleasure of their owners and so that artists would copy paintings there. In our country everyone, including the minister of culture, says that contemporary art is having bad times. We do not have a Pompidou Center. We suggest to see if it can work here. French colleagues said that this autumn the Pompidou Center will hold a festival and offered us to bring something alike here. I think it is interesting.
We will display several paintings by French artists in the Anteroom. A theatrical stage, one of the plots brought from the festival in Paris, will be placed in the Nicholas hall. The theatre is planned to offer video programs, performances of French and Russian groups selected by our and French curators. When the Pompidou Center was founded it was planned to make an open repository from which paintings can be taken out. We will make such an installation. Paintings are kept in screens and each day one painting will be taken out, it will be commented and discussed. Let’s see how it will work. We will observe how the public reacts to it. It is important that it all will take place at the Hermitage. It weighs down on you and makes you enter into a dialog. Here, installations will look differently than anywhere else. In some sense it is museum’s impudence.
I tirelessly continue to say that museums is one of the most important things in the world. They should be listened to. They make a new cultural product, not purely a museum one but synthetic. I dare to believe that nothing of the kind has ever happened. In our case it all will be held under the patronage of two cultural institutions, the Pompidou Center and the Hermitage.
In reply to the Pompidou Center’s visit to our city, we will open the exhibition Russian Imperial Guards in October in Paris. For the Hermitage this is not the first project under the theme “War as a means of cultural exchange”. We considerately tell about cultural connections between the countries through the war. It is important that the Cossacks Museums of Paris will participate in the new exhibition. It is a sensation. After the Civil war the guards’ cossacks managed to keep their relics and remove them and created a wonderful museum in Paris. It has paintings, portraits, regalia, banners...
We are often donated things kept by Russian military men abroad. We immediately exhibit them and never insist that all of them are transferred to us. By the way, the Cossacks Museum looks great in Paris. We made a cooperation agreement with it and the state promised financial support to us. It is absolutely unnecessary to bring all the relics to Russia. The Cossacks Museum is a monument for Russians in Paris. Cossacks carried Paris, came here, and they are remembered. It is a page of the French-Russian relations. Items of this museum will be featured at our exhibition for the first time. It is one of the forms of interacting with our diaspora in Paris.
The important thing that we begin to realize only now is that after the revolution Russian culture and traditions were kept in Russia and abroad. Things that could disappear there were saved here, and vice versa. The question that often arises: should everything be returned to Russia? In my opinion, it is important to ensure that Russia’s footprints are felt worldwide. Russian art and culture should be represented there not only through temporary exhibitions but permanently as well. For museums there are all kinds of ways to do so. | <urn:uuid:b76966a2-7824-48f2-953a-766f5eb9d5f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/02/hm2_6_0_93.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975325 | 2,172 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Mollie V.Blackburn, Ph.D., The Ohio State University.
Mollie Blackburn has been funded to write a research synthesis of her work with The Attic Youth Center, a youth-run, community-based center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth. The synthesis will focus on data collected during "Storytime," a literacy event at the Center, and explore how youth, through this out-of-school literacy activity, developed positive social identities. In addition, the synthesis will identify competencies exhibited during this event and explore their potential alignment with the Standards for English Language Arts.
Cheri Fancsali, Ph.D., The Academy for Educational Development, New York
Cheri Fancsali has been funded to conduct a study that will investigate the ways in which students participating in an afterschool science program (Afterschool Science PLUS+, a program of Educational Equity Concepts, Inc.) develop in-school success. The study will identify competencies addressed by the afterschool curriculum, and researchers will observe students in their elementary school classroom as well as interview their teacher to determine how students apply these competencies in an academic setting.
Meredith Honig, Ph.D., University of Maryland, College of Education
Meredith Honig has been funded to write a research synthesis that will address the critical challenges for community based youth organizations that enter into formal partnerships with schools. The paper will explore the gap between the promise and the practice of expanded school-linked afterschool programming, and how such partnerships can be implemented in ways that support both academic achievement and positive youth development.
Glynda Hull, Ph.D., The University of California, Berkeley
Glynda Hull has been funded to engage in research that will describe and analyze the social, intellectual and artistic development of youth engaged in a community-based afterschool technology program. The research will document youth's developing conceptions of self as writers, poets, and musicians. It will also explore the relationship between the kinds of skills and identities that youth develop in the context of the community center and those they develop in school.
Susan E. Wilcox, Ed.D., The Brotherhood/Sister Sol, New York
Susan Wilcox will engage in research at three community-based organizations that offer single sex programming for their young female participants. The research will identify the positive benefits of "girls' spaces," explore how these spaces support young women's development and help participants define their racial and ethnic identities. The findings of this study will help to inform decisions about creating single sex programs as well as recruiting and retaining participants in single sex programming. | <urn:uuid:6004c168-8baa-46a1-a02a-f5319b3b5acd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.robertbownefoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82:2004-research-grants&catid=41:edmund-a-stanley-jr-research-grants&Itemid=88 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953443 | 535 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Ahmed El Maanouni’s 1981 documentary records concerts, interviews and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the pioneering group, Nass El Ghiwan, who were credited as an inspiration for his Last Temptation of Christ and have been famously described by Martin Scorsese as ‘the Rolling Stones of North Africa’. Nass El Ghiwan emerged from the impoverished city limits of Casablanca, combining elements of traditional Moroccan music – Sufi chants, Berber rhythms and the mystical dances of the Gnawa – to create a sound all of their own, introducing a new generation of North Africans to their roots, and the rest of the world, to a musical revolution. The film has been restored by the Cineteca di Bologna. “It was in 1981 while I was editing a film, The King of Comedy. We worked at night so no one would call us on the telephone and I would have television on, and one channel in New York at the time, around 2 or 3 in the morning, was showing a film called Trances. It repeated all night and it repeated many nights. And it had commercials in it, but it didn’t matter. So I became passionate about this music that I heard and I saw also the way the film was made, the concert that was photographed and the effect of the music on the audience at the concert. I tracked down the music and eventually it became my inspiration for many of the designs and construction of my film The Last Temptation of Christ. The music was also the basis for Peter Gabriel’s music in the film. I would play the music for most of the musicians I knew, Robbie Robertson of The Band…What you see here is a mix of the poetry, the music and the theatre that goes way back to the roots of the Moroccan culture. And I think the group was singing damnation: their people, their beliefs, their sufferings and their prayers all came through their singing. And I think the film is beautifully made by Ahmed El Maanouni; it’s been an obsession of mine since 1981 and that is why we are inaugurating the Foundation with Trances.” —Martin Scorsese, May 2007
NOTES ON THE RESTORATION
Restored in 2007 by The World Cinema Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna / L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory. The restoration of Transes used the original 16mm camera and sound negative provided by producer Izza Génini. The camera negative was restored both photochemically and digitally and blown-up to 35mm format. The sound negative was restored to Dolby SR and digital.
Ahamed El Maanouni was born in 1944 in Casablanca, Morocco. He graduated in Theatre Studies from the Theatre International University and in Cinema Studies from the Sorbonne in Paris. He also obtained a diploma from the Higher National Institute for Performing arts and Broadcasting Techniques of Brussels. He won numerous international prizes for his work as a director, writer, cinematographer and producer. His film Alyam Alyam was part of the official selection at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. It received the Grand Prix at the Manheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival. Al Hal (Trances) was selected in the 1982 London and New York Film Festivals and was participated in the 2007 Cannes CinéClassics. It was also the first film chosen by Martin Scorsese to be restored by the World Cinema Foundation. Among his works: The Moroccan Goumiers – 1993, Life and Reign of Mohamed V – 2000, Burned Hearts – 2007 and Conversations with Driss Chraïbi – 2007. —http://www.cairofilmfest.org/about… read more
Nada conhecia sobre Nass El Ghiwane – e nem sobre o cinema e a música de Marrocos, pra ser sincero – antes de ver TRANSES.
Scorsese fala que se inspirou neste documentário para compor visual… read review
This film is one the best in this time and in the time it was filmed.I m from hay mohamadi wich Nass El Ghiwane is from,I m verry Lucky to be watching theme shooting part of the film in my neighborhood… read review
The Moroccan style of music which Nass El Ghiwan plays is very unique and highly enjoyable, but, dissapointigly, the group’s interest begins and ends with their music. The film tracks and interviews… read review | <urn:uuid:5333459e-877e-4b39-97e9-00389851fc20> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mubi.com/films/transes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963481 | 948 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Even a Villain Deserves a Lawyer
Jerry Sandusky, Casey Anthony and alleged terrorists … what’s a lawyer to do when representing an unpopular client? A panel of expert lawyers spoke to the issue at a meeting Thursday in Washington, D.C.
The formal prohibitions on who a lawyer or firm can represent are quite narrow, said Thomas D. Morgan, professor, George Washington University Law School. However, it’s a moral issue and “we all make judgments on who we will represent.”
Making those judgments may be one thing when a lawyer is a solo practitioner or even in a small practice, but what about when she is one of many lawyers at a firm: Who makes the decision as to who the firm will or will not have as clients? As moderator John Hardin Young, partner with Sandler, Reiff, Young & Lamb in Washington, D.C., posed, Doesn’t a lawyer have the duty to take into consideration the brand of the firm?
The brand of the firm is not the only consideration, panelists said.
“Are you undercutting the representation of other clients?” asked Morgan. There is an obligation to run one’s firm so that clients are proud. Yet, one client’s wishes, even one who provides significant business to a firm, can’t be the arbiter.
Lawrence J. Fox, visiting lecturer in law at Yale University School of Law and partner at Drinker Biddle in Philadelphia, recounted a story of Henry Sawyer, who represented accused communists before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Despite his own political leanings, a leading partner, Henry Drinker, fully supported Sawyer even though he faced pressures from clients, of which Fox is very proud.
An audience member said that even though one representation may cause a loss of business for a firm, taking a strong stance might also bring clients.
Panelists and the audience talked about the idea that law firms in the South were protecting their firm’s brand when they refused to represent African-Americans during the civil rights era, and Northern lawyers were called in.
Fox also noted that the public sentiment on representation of Gitmo detainees shifted from the very negative, which he said was a result of firms and individual lawyers stepping up to the plate. And serving as pro bono counsel to death row inmates, for a certain kind of firm, can be a badge of honor, even though the firm knows that it will lose most of the cases, said Fox.
When faced with these types of ethical dilemmas, there’s also a consideration of law firm as a legal profession or as a business. What are the partners’ obligations to their associates, paralegals and other staff, especially in rough economic times? How do firm partners make the decision if faced with representing a sexual predator, for example?
A lawyer or a firm needs to decide the criteria for choosing clients and who will make that choice, especially when it is a firm-wide dilemma, said Morgan.
Public servants who have taken an oath to serve, as well as in-house counsel, generally can’t bypass a case—passing it on to a colleague as a lawyer in a multiple-attorney firm could do.
The program also included a discussion of the media’s role in high-profile cases. Wasn’t it the media who found Casey Anthony guilty before she was found innocent by the jury? An attendee, however, pointed out that many of the guests on television shows who discussed these cases and swayed public opinion are themselves lawyers.
The program, “So Someone Objects to Your New Client …” was sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. | <urn:uuid:db0e2f09-a167-4136-9e2e-b595ce3fe010> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abanow.org/2011/11/even-a-villain-deserves-a-lawyer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97291 | 778 | 1.570313 | 2 |
was hosted by Bakersfield Christian High School on February 11th, 2010.
Dr. Peter Kreeft, philosopher, has written, "The idea of God has guided or deluded more lives, changed more history, inspired more music and poetry and philosophy than anything else, real or imagined. It has made more of a difference to human life on this planet, both individually and collectively, than anything else ever has."
To we who are believers, His existence is clear, distinct, personal and perennial in all aspects of creation and life. Believing in Him is basic to all else we believe. Debating His existence is never necessary, but from the standpoint of informing and educating, it has its place.
My professional motive in accepting the invitation to debate specifically the question "Does God exist?" - and not the more particular question "Does the Christian God exist?" - rested on the sense that both high school students, and their parents who send them to secular colleges, need to see the sort of atheism that academia endorses. Rather than a debate that would predictably drift into sharp disagreement over biblical interpretation, I desired a debate that would focus tightly on the question itself. The viewer will have to render his own judgment whether we, the debaters, stayed on topic.
Mr. Tabash is a constitutional lawyer in the Los Angeles area. He graduated magna cum laude from UCLA in 1973 and obtained his law degree from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles in 1976. His father was an orthodox rabbi from Lithuania. His mother was an Auschwitz survivor from Hungary. After decades of spiritual searching, Eddie has determined that we live in a natural and not a supernatural universe. He serves on the board of directors of the Council for Secular Humanism and its parent organization, the Center for Inquiry. He is also a life member of American Atheists. He has debated such eminent Christian philosophers as William Lane Craig, Douglas Geivett, Richard Swinburne, and Peter Van Inwaagen.
Mr. Martin is the Biblical Studies Department Chair at Bakersfield Christian High School, concluding his seventh year on staff. He also pastors Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA). As a Regents Scholar at UCLA, Mr. Martin earned a BA with honors in philosophy. While at Covenant Theological Seminary Mr. Martin was the Systematic Theology award recipient. He graduated with honors and a Master of Divinity degree. During his undergraduate years at UCLA, Mr. Martin had his beliefs concerning Godís existence and the Christian faith challenged repeatedly. This intellectual testing only served to strengthen his convictions that the truthfulness of the Christian Worldview is rationally well founded. | <urn:uuid:c244a234-9c14-43b2-8c55-d980b594c034> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcabakersfield.com/does_god_exist.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971203 | 538 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Attorneys: Marcellus Shale litigation sure to boom
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The sound of drills piercing the Marcellus Shale formation has pricked up the ears of attorneys whose practices range from tax and regulatory to land use and environmental. But personal injury lawyers and class action attorneys have also taken notice of what some believe is an environmental disaster in waiting because of a lack of state government oversight and a natural gas industry rushing to get a piece of the shale.
"The Marcellus Shale [could create] horrendous injuries because you have all this liquid and gas at high pressure, being carried over pipelines, being stored in million gallon ponds and tanks and being injected into the ground at high pressure," said Michael Rosenzweig, a partner and litigation manager in the Pittsburgh office of Edgar Snyder & Associates. "The failure scenarios are quite robust."
Those scenarios include everything from the potential for toxic gas leaks that cause burns and contaminate the environment to gas rig explosions, to somewhat less obvious concerns such as the problems large tanker trucks can create on small rural roadways.
Mr. Rosenzweig said his firm has already seen numerous cases in Pennsylvania unrelated to the Marcellus Shale in which natural gas tankers too large for two-lane roads caused accidents and dragged debris onto the roadways resulting in slick driving conditions for other vehicles.
Mr. Rosenzweig and other plaintiffs firms The Legal Intelligencer spoke to said that, so far, they haven't yet filed many, if any, Marcellus Shale-related injury cases. But many seemed to believe it's only a matter of time.
"They say that anywhere from 1 to 3 percent of the [natural gas] wells that are going to come into Pennsylvania have already come in," Mr. Rosenzweig said, adding that his firm has received a number of calls related to the Marcellus Shale.
"Whatever the effect has been today, it will be 33 times as great [in the future]. So if there's one explosion per month today, there will be 33 explosions per month a year or two years from now. We're seeing only the tip of the iceberg. If there are 250 trucks now, there will be 33 times that ... 8,000 trucks going to the wells and from the wells."
Stephen A. Sheller, founding partner of Sheller P.C. in Philadelphia, which was extensively involved in class action litigation related to the BP oil spill, said he hasn't received any inquiries about the Marcellus Shale but is nevertheless keeping a close eye on the play "because, frankly, it's going to be, if it's not already, a major environmental disaster problem and the governor is shirking obligations to protect the public."
Mr. Sheller said Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett has displayed "total irresponsibility" with regard to the safety of Pennsylvania residents as natural gas drilling activity increasingly intensifies in the state, citing a lack of governmental oversight and regulation, as well as a refusal to tax the industry "to pay for the damage."
Julia LeMense, an attorney with Weitz & Luxenberg in New York, said her firm first took note of the potential Marcellus Shale-related litigation when they began receiving an influx of calls from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland residents "concerned about what will happen or what they think has already happened to their air and water."
Ms. LeMense said she feels the Marcellus Shale play is ripe for litigation because the natural gas industry is growing in this region at such a fast clip that government regulators are "always playing catch-up."
"I think that, in general, it's a combination of the fact that this industry has boomed, no pun intended, and has outpaced the ability of most state regulators to keep up with it," she said.
"They simply don't have the budget to monitor every step of the process and regulations are only as good as your ability to enforce them."
Ms. LeMense said her firm began hearing concerns about the Marcellus Shale as early as 2007, but began receiving inquiries on a more regular basis beginning in 2009.
"People are concerned about odor; air emission by the drilling process and the treatment process after the gas is extracted; methane in their water because of the potential for explosions," she said, adding that there have also been "quality of life complaints" such as property damage caused by heavy machinery.
Jonathan W. Miller, a partner at the Locks Law Firm in Philadelphia, said his firm has received several Marcellus Shale-related inquiries.
"We have been approached about both negotiating leases and representing adversely impacted neighbors but we have not become involved to date," he said.
Mr. Rosenzweig said that, in addition to the potential hazards to residents, there's a significant risk of injuries to workers on Marcellus Shale drill sites as well.
According to Mr. Rosenzweig, gas rig sites are notoriously dangerous work environments.
"These things happen all the time. It's a common scenario on a drilling rig, people are badly hurt," he said.
But rather than a lack of government regulation, Mr. Rosenzweig blamed these injuries on a lack of supervision and overall safety at each individual site.
"The safety rules are not that specific, so it comes down to on-site safety and superintendence," he said.
And that requires the coordination of multiple contractors at each drill site, which is a rare occurrence, according to Mr. Rosenzweig.
Meanwhile, the same lack of coordination that leads to safety hazards also complicates liability in court, he said.
"Each one of these [gas rigs] is a Tower of Babel, with five to 10 different contractors working on each aspect," he said. "When there's an accident, who's to blame? A points to B and B points to C."
Mr. Rosenzweig, whose firm has yet to file a Marcellus Shale-related suit but has been involved in other natural gas drilling injury cases, said defendants in gas rig injury cases often attempt to "shift and share blame" by bringing in new defendants.
But not all plaintiffs firms that handle environmental torts said they see disaster on the horizon for the Marcellus Shale.
Merrill G. Davidoff, a senior shareholder and chair of the environmental group at Berger & Montague in Philadelphia, for example, said his firm has not been looking at the Marcellus Shale, in part because natural gas is generally considered less hazardous than other forms of fuel.
"All forms of energy have risk and, generally speaking, relative to coal and oil, natural gas is considered a cleaner fuel and one that carries less risk," he said.
A call to Mr. Corbett's office was not returned before press time.
First Published April 11, 2011 12:00 am | <urn:uuid:4d58d695-4940-441e-86bf-3429c5d393c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/legal/attorneys-marcellus-shale-litigation-sure-to-boom-293001/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972957 | 1,435 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Unemployment up in Capital Region from a year ago
This blog was updated to to reflect that the Capital Region unemployment rate is up, not down, from a year ago.
New York's unemployment rate is down in the upstate area for September compared to September 2011.
In the Capital Region, the rate rose from 7.1 percent to 7.5 percent over this period, according to statistics released today by the state Department of Labor. A complete breakdown of counties can be found below.
The unemployment rates in Montgomery and Fulton counties remain near the worst in the state, at 9.9 percent and 10.6 percent respectively. A view of where unemployment is the worst can be seen below. | <urn:uuid:8b1d9393-0a84-400c-bdca-8d16eba69796> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/your-business/2012/oct/23/unemployment-up-capital-region-year-ago/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952927 | 142 | 1.601563 | 2 |
For immediate release
Contact: Katherine Q. Dibling, senior media advisor, 215-574-4119
Philadelphia, Pa. - The Philadelphia Fed’s Research Department today launched a center that will facilitate collaborative research using the Bank’s real-time data set and its surveys of forecasters.
The Real-Time Data Research Center aims to become a source of knowledge and expertise about real-time macroeconomic data, surveys of macroeconomic forecasts, and macroeconomic modeling. The real-time data set includes macroeconomic data series as they were initially released and the subsequent revisions to these data.
The data set enables researchers, forecasters, and monetary policymakers to look back at the past to observe the data that monetary policymakers were confronted with at the time their decisions about interest rates were made. It provides an alternative to using data that have been revised over time. This is important because data revisions can make dramatic differences in the results of empirical research and also the development of economic forecasting models.
“The recent events in financial markets and the real sector of the economy underscore the importance of providing monetary policymakers with new insights into economic forecasting. Policymaking has become more data and forecast driven and our center will promote research to aid the policymaking process. Collaborative efforts among academic and central bank researchers will be encouraged,” said Loretta J. Mester, research director at the Philadelphia Fed. Mester added, “We are happy that Dean Croushore, who is well-known for his work in real-time data, has agreed to serve as interim director of the center.”
“The Federal Reserve’s ability to make better monetary policy decisions depends on studying past data and how they have been revised. By studying those revisions, we can help policymakers understand how to incorporate data revisions into their decision making,” said interim director Dean Croushore, associate professor of economics and Rigsby Fellow at the University of Richmond and former vice president in the Philadelphia Fed’s Research Department. He added, “But the center goes far beyond the study of data revisions and includes much additional macroeconomic research that is relevant for monetary policy.” Listen to audio of a discussion about the Real-Time Data Research Center.
Variables in the real-time data set include gross domestic product (GDP) and all of its components, key price indexes, and other important macroeconomic indicators, such as nonfarm payroll employment and industrial production.
Philadelphia Fed staff and visiting scholars have already initiated research in a variety of areas, including studies of how monetary policymakers should factor in potential revisions to inflation data, how forecasters can improve forecasting models using new techniques, and why the U.S. savings rate is a misleading measure.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia helps formulate and implement monetary policy, supervises banks and bank holding companies, and provides financial services to depository institutions and the federal government. One of the 12 regional banks that, together with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the Federal Reserve System, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank serves eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. | <urn:uuid:a3a8790e-3918-460b-887e-df382b78d67d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://philadelphiafed.org/newsroom/press-releases/2008/081308.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941086 | 640 | 1.789063 | 2 |
CORRECTIONAL SERVICES CORP. v. MALESKO
In 1993, John E. Malesko was assigned to a bedroom on the fifth floor of the Le Marquis Community Correctional Center, a facility that houses federal inmates run by the Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) under contract with the Bureau of Prisons. After CSC instituted a policy requiring inmates residing below the sixth floor to use the stairs rather than the elevator, Malesko, who was afflicted with a heart condition limiting his ability to climb stairs, was exempted form the policy. When a CSC employee did not let Malesko use the elevator, he climbed the stairs, suffered a heart attack, and fell. Subsequently, Malesko filed a suit, alleging that CSC was negligence in refusing him the use of the elevator. Under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, in which the U.S. Supreme Court recognized for the first time an implied private action for damages against federal officers alleged to have violated a citizen's constitutional rights, the District Court dismissed the suit, finding that such an action may only be maintained against individuals. In reversing, the Court of Appeals reasoned that such private entities should be held liable under Bivens to accomplish Bivens' goal of providing a remedy for constitutional violations.
Should the implied private action for damages against federal officers alleged to have violated a citizen's constitutional rights, first recognized in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, be extended to allow recovery against a private corporation operating a halfway house under contract with the Bureau of Prisons?
No. In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Court held that Bivens' limited holding may not be extended to confer a right of action for damages against private entities acting under color of federal law. The Court reasoned that the threat of suit against an individual's employer was not the kind of deterrence contemplated by the Bivens decision. The Court also noted that the purpose of the Bivens decision was to deter individual federal officers from committing constitutional violations. "In 30 years of Bivens jurisprudence we have extended its holding only twice, to provide an otherwise nonexistent cause of action against individual officers alleged to have acted unconstitutionally, or to provide a cause of action for a plaintiff who lacked any alternative remedy for harms caused by an individual officer's unconstitutional conduct. Where such circumstances are not present, we have consistently rejected invitations to extend Bivens,"wrote Chief Justice Rehnquist.
ORAL ARGUMENT OF CARTER G. PHILLIPS ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER
Chief Justice Rehnquist: We'll hear argument now in No. 00-860, Correctional Services Corporation v. John Malesko.
Mr. Phillips: Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:
The issue in this case is whether an action for damages under Bivens should be applied to a private corporation acting under color of Federal law.
Like many cases, where you come out on a case like this, I think in many ways depends on where you begin, and the parties have put forward to this Court fundamentally conflicting paradigms with respect to the best way to analyze Bivens based on this Court's prior decisions.
The respondent and the court below essentially concluded that Bivens is a ubiquitous remedy that ought, generally, to be available in order to maximize recoveries and to maximize, or at least optimize, deterrent values, and that it is our burden essentially to try to ascertain whether there might be some conflicting or some exception to the Bivens doctrine that would get us out from under liability in the... in this particular case.
Mr. Phillips: Mr. Phillips, do you... this... this involves only an action against the corporation not against its employees.
Mr. Phillips: --That's correct, Justice O'Connor.
Mr. Phillips: Would... if the action were brought as a Bivens action against the employees, do you concede that there would be a Bivens action against them?
Mr. Phillips: We have always assumed, from the first day of this litigation, that a Bivens action would lie against the individual employees.
Mr. Phillips: Well, there's a difference between assuming it arguendo and conceding it.
Mr. Phillips: Well, for purposes of this litigation and for purposes of my client, there's no question we would concede that an action would have legitimately been... been raised against them.
To say in a future case whether or not a private employee might raise an argument as to whether Bivens should be extended is a separate question.
Mr. Phillips: Now, if that's... if that's true and that concession holds, if the employee is sued for a wrongful act, under State law would it be permissible in your view, just under standard principles of derivative liability, to hold the corporation for that tort, for the tort of its own employee?
Mr. Phillips: You mean under a theory of respondeat superior.
Mr. Phillips: Yes.
Mr. Phillips: As a matter of State law, it's going to depend on the State.
Most States I think do recognize respondeat superior liability.
Mr. Phillips: So, State courts... State courts could do that without interference with any Federal policy or... or without any superseding Federal law to the contrary.
Mr. Phillips: Well, obviously, there's going to be at least the potential argument raised with respect to Boyle and whether or not the... the decision to hold the individual liable under those circumstances is preempted under Boyle.
But I think the argument here is slightly weaker than it was in Boyle, and it probably depends to a certain extent on... on the... on whether or not the Federal Government in fact is dictating what both the... what the employer and the employee are doing with respect to--
Mr. Phillips: Well, if that's true, the employer, I assume, would routinely be named in the suit.
So, you're not doing a whole lot by saying that the employer is independently liable for its own... for its own participation in the... or alleged participation in the tort.
Mr. Phillips: --Well, I think you're doing an extraordinary amount, Justice Kennedy.
And the Government's brief, I think quite rightly, points out at page 20 in footnote 10, that the availability of a corporate defendant significantly changes the mix with respect to any kind of litigation.
And actually, if you look at the three cases that postdate this Court's decision in FDIC v. Meyer, all of those are cases in which the only defendant who was named happened to be the corporation.
The individuals were not named under any of those circumstances.
Mr. Phillips: But Mr.... Mr. Phillips, if the... if the proper way of looking at this is the principal agency relationship, when you're dealing with the Federal Government, the Federal Government is the principal, the agent is the officer.
Here, when the Government contracts, the principal agency relationship exists with the corporation.
So, I don't see why it doesn't follow that the agent... the agent in this case is the corporation... why the agency liability doesn't carry over.
Mr. Phillips: The... the premise of your question, Justice Ginsburg, I think is where the... where the mistake lies in the final outcome of the decision.
This Court made quite clear in FDIC v. Meyer that it's not a principal agency relationship because there's no question that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was the agent of the United States Government for purposes of what it did in that particular context.
The Court said that's not the right analysis.
The right analysis is to go back and look at the Bivens action and make a judgment with respect to whether or not the litigation, as it comes to this Court, adequately serves the two primary purposes of Bivens; that is, that there is relief available and that there is an effective deterrent in place.
If those... if those are satisfied, then the issue of whether you should extend Bivens to a new category of defendants, this Court said, should be answered in the negative, saying that there is no reason to add additional defendants under those circumstances.
Mr. Phillips: Mr. Phillips, I wish somebody here were arguing on behalf of the employee.
It's... it's certainly in your interest to say, well, of course, there's liability on the part of the employee.
And it's... it's in the interest of... of your opponent to... to say the same.
I'm not... I can see us deciding this case on, you know, well, after all, there's a suit against the employee.
Shouldn't we face that in a... in a case in which somebody is... is arguing that the employee is not liable?
Mr. Phillips: No, Justice--
Mr. Phillips: And there are arguments to that effect.
I mean, after all, the... the employee you say is an agent of the United States, but if... if he's acting under color of Federal law as an agent of the United States, he's only an agent of the United States because he's... he's an agent of... of your client.
So, he's sort of an agent of an agent.
It would seem very strange to me to hold... to hold the employee and not to hold your corporation.
Mr. Phillips: --Well, the question ultimately comes down to this, Your Honor, is that does it make any more sense in this context to resolve this issue at this point in time than it did to decide the FDIC v. Meyer case at that point in time.
Because, again, we didn't have the employee involved in the litigation as it came to this Court.
He had fallen out in that litigation, just as the employee had fallen out in this litigation.
And what the Court said was, we should analyze and, indeed, have to resolve the conflict as to whether a private corporate defendant ought to be liable under these circumstances.
So, that issue needs to be resolved.
And, what's more, if the Court puts off for another day deciding the liability of the employee, it doesn't affect whether my client ought to be held not responsible in a Bivens action because either one of two things will happen.
Either you will conclude that private employees are, in fact, susceptible to an action under Bivens, in which case the adequacy of the remedy and the adequacy of the deterrent by having that direct lawsuit means that there's no reason to extend Bivens to my client.
Or you'll conclude that the distinction is between public and private actors and that we have special reasons giving us hesitation and caution into extending the Bivens action, since it's an implied cause of action and not a congressionally adopted one, into the sphere where the private actors are acting under color of Federal right.
Mr. Phillips: Strictly speaking, Mr. Phillips, for you to say that you're making a concession that the employee... I mean, that's like a lawyer representing A saying he concedes B would be liable.
Mr. Phillips: I was only--
Mr. Phillips: I mean, it's not much of a concession.
Mr. Phillips: --I was simply answering Justice Kennedy and Justice O'Connor's question.
They phrased it in the form of a concession, to be sure.
Mr. Phillips: I know they did.
Mr. Phillips: I'm not giving up much in that regard.
But as I say, the important element here, at least in my judgment, about how all this plays out is that if the Court decides that employees are amenable to suit, there's no reason to sue the corporation.
If they decide they are not amenable to suit, it's going to be because of the public/private distinction.
And again, under that theory, we're not amenable to suit.
Mr. Phillips: Mr. Phillips--
--Well, it could be on... on the basis that they're an agent of an agent, that we're not going to track it that far down.
I mean, you... it's your corporation that has been hired directly by the Government, not the individual employees of your corporation.
I mean, that's certainly another basis on which one could draw--
Mr. Phillips: That would be an argument, but in order to do that, Justice Scalia, you would then have to abandon what was one of the principal legs of Bivens in the first instance, which is that the litigation against the private individual and the deterrent value of litigation against the private individual is the most significant way to achieve the overall objectives--
Mr. Phillips: --Well, I don't know that we would have to abandon that because the... the concern, as I understand it, that the action against the individual has a more significant deterrent effect than the action against the agency, was a concern that was expressed in the context of dealing with a public agency.
Here we're dealing, in the case of your client, with a private corporation.
And I would suppose that the deterrent effect of holding the private corporation liable for the acts of its employee would be very significant.
I assume that a private corporation like yours is going to be very careful about employees who, in effect, saddle it with significant liability.
So, on the deterrence theory, it seems to me you... you would lose the argument.
Mr. Phillips: --I think the flaw in your analysis of the deterrence theory, Justice Souter, is that you're looking to figure out what is sort of the optimal answer for deterrence.
And the way I read this Court's decision in FDIC v. Meyer is that what we satisfy ourselves about is, is there an effective deterrent and an effective damages remedy in place and available to the individual plaintiff in a particular instance.
And that... it seems to me that's the gap-filler role that Bivens calls on the Court to... to provide.
When you go beyond... I'm sorry.
Mr. Phillips: I'm sorry.
Mr. Phillips: But when you go beyond that, it seems to me you then assume much more of a legislative role.
Then you're trying to balance the relative optimal deterrence values.
Then you have to take into account the effect on the Federal fisc or the relationship between the... the Federal contractor and the Federal Government.
And that's a series of questions, I submit to Your Honors, you ought to leave to Congress.
And that's exactly what the Court said in Meyer.
It analyzed and said, questions of optimal deterrence, questions of effect on the Federal treasury, those are issues that we think are better dealt with by Congress as long as we have an adequate--
Mr. Phillips: Yes, but if you carry... if the carry the logic of that argument far enough, then there would be no liability at all because we know that if we hold, for example, the individual liable, there is going to be a tendency there to shift that liability either by insurance or by respondeat superior and insurance, ultimately to the cost of contracting.
And we know, even in the governmental situation, if you hold the individual liable, chances are there is going to be some kind of liability mitigating mechanism, whether it be insurance or whatnot, that ultimately is going to find its way into the wage structure.
So, if... if we start getting too fussy about that, we better call the whole thing off and... and overrule Bivens.
Mr. Phillips: --Well... obviously, we don't ask the Court to overrule Bivens.
At least, we make that argument in the brief.
But the... I think the answer to that is there are two components of Bivens.
One is, is there in place the gap-filler adequate remedy?
Is there a damages remedy and a deterrent effect from that damages remedy?
Is that in place?
Then sometimes, even though that's in place, there will be a serious question as to whether or not, nevertheless, special circumstances suggest that there ought to be caution.
And it's frankly the... the respondents burden to satisfy both elements of that.
What I'm suggesting to you in this context is you don't have to look at what the impact would be on the Federal Government at the end of the day.
What you have to look at is whether there is an adequate remedy in place, and if you didn't have that, I think there would be a serious--
Mr. Phillips: How is this adequate remedy?
The... as far as deterrence is concerned, I thought Richardson explains why the deterrence considerations with the private company work perfectly, but they don't work at all where the principal is the Federal agency.
And that's what I think Justice Souter was pointing out.
Mr. Phillips: --Right.
Mr. Phillips: As far as alternative remedy is concerned, which alternative remedy?
If you mean would there be a remedy under State law, that of course exists in Bivens too.
If you mean that you could sue the private person under Bivens but not the company, if that's what you mean, the individual but not the company--
Mr. Phillips: Correct.
Mr. Phillips: --well, the next case the individual, if we say you can sue the company, would say the same thing.
So, I mean, you see it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
The private person would say you have an adequate... do you see my point?
Mr. Phillips: Well, you made two... you made two points, Justice Breyer.
Mr. Phillips: The private person... you... you could have... if... if you're going to allow corporations, they say, oh, no, you have a private remedy against the individual, which I'm sure you conceded for that reason.
The individual would say, oh, no, you have a perfectly adequate remedy against the corporation.
I concede that you have a perfectly valid remedy, yes.
He would say, I concede that you have a perfectly--
Mr. Phillips: Indeed, I may be making the argument--
Mr. Phillips: So, why then, given that conundrum, deterrence: Richardson.
Adequate remedy: the problem we stated.
Conclusion: make it a parallel to 1983.
Mr. Phillips: --Well, now you've made three points, Justice Breyer.
And let me try to take them up in... in turn.
First of all, with... with respect to Richardson, I mean, that's an immunity case, and the Court is in a world where it has to resolve optimization in the immunity context.
That's a judge-made set of rules, and this Court is obliged to resolve it in the best way that it can under those circumstances.
It's a fundamentally different question about whether you hold the defendant liable in the first instance in a private... privately implied cause of action derived directly under the Constitution.
We could differ and disagree about what's the right method of... of achieving optimization, but I don't think you can read Richardson as saying categorically that you will... you will lose all your deterrent effect.
To say that is I think to both abandon what you said in Bivens and clearly abandon what you said in Meyer.
With respect to the ability of the private person to come in and argue the next time around, his argument I think, frankly, is going to be a tough one because what he's got to say is even though you have now held the corporation not to be liable... I'm assuming for purposes of the moment that I win here... that... that we, nevertheless, also ought not to be liable.
And, again, as I said earlier, I think the distinction there is between the... having a remedy in place that is in any meaningful way effect or not, and therefore it is a tougher argument for the private employee under those circumstances to make that particular argument.
And then your last point with respect to section 1983 simply disregards what I perceive to be the fundamental difference between having a congressional enactment that comprehensively regulates a particular area provide liability against any person and sets up a set of rules in... in order to effectuate that particular remedy and the situation we face in Bivens where, heretofore, we have never imposed... this Court has never--
Mr. Phillips: And... and--
Mr. Phillips: --I'm sorry.
Mr. Phillips: --in 1983, too, in Monell we rejected the idea there could be any sort of respondeat superior liability.
You had to show that the... there was a policy maker involved and that sort of thing.
Mr. Phillips: That's absolutely correct, Mr. Chief Justice.
Mr. Phillips: Is that not present here, Mr. Phillips?
Because the policy of saying people who live above... below the fifth floor, that's a policy set by the employer.
So, this is a case where it's not an assault by a guard.
This is a case of policies set by the corporation itself.
Mr. Phillips: Well, there are two answers to that, Justice Ginsburg.
First of all, no policy gets set by a corporation as such.
All... all policies, just like all actions of corporations, have to be undertaken by individuals.
Somebody had to have adopted that policy.
But second of all, I don't read the respondent's complaint here to have alleged any policy of the corporation was at fault here.
The... the complaint itself specifically says there was an exception made for the respondent so that he could take the elevator.
A specific employee who was named as a defendant--
Mr. Phillips: Not in... not in the written policy.
It wasn't written down and that's why this guard didn't get it.
But anyway, at this stage, we have to construe the complaint most favorably to the plaintiff.
Is that not so?
Mr. Phillips: --Well, I... you can construe it most favorably to the plaintiff, but not necessarily to embrace a complete different theory of the case that is far from clear.
And this is... and remember, this was written by counsel.
This is not a pro se complaint we're talking about.
This was counsel's complaint.
I think if they had meant for this to be a policy or practice case, they would have said so.
But I think the more fundamental point here is... is that... is that there has to be a policy maker.
If that policy was unconstitutional, then it's still available to the plaintiff in a Bivens action to sue that policy maker directly for having adopted the unconstitutional policy and to sue the employee for having implemented the policy in an unconstitutional fashion.
So, there are adequate remedies, which means that the remedy against us is inappropriate.
If there are no further questions, I'd reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Phillips: Very well, Mr. Phillips.
Mr. Lamken, we'll hear from you.
ORAL ARGUMENT OF JEFFREY A. LAMKEN ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED STATES, AS AMICUS CURIAE, SUPPORTING THE PETITIONER
Mr. Lamken: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:
When an inmate in a federally operated facility is subjected to a constitutional deprivation, that inmate has a remedy against the individual Federal officers who committed the constitutional deprivation.
There is no indication that that Federal remedy is inadequate for--
Mr. Phillips: Are you making that as arguendo, or are you conceding that?
Now, your brief seems to make a concession to that effect.
Mr. Lamken: --In the first instance, we think it should be assumed arguendo because if there's a reason not to subject the individuals, the private individuals, to liability under Bivens, it would be that private individuals have so few immunities and so few defenses, compared to their governmental counterparts, that there's no reason to infer a Federal cause of action.
If it's true with respect to them, then it's a fortiori true with respect to the corporation as well.
Mr. Phillips: Why couldn't you say the same about joint tortfeasors?
Mr. Lamken: Pardon?
Mr. Phillips: Why couldn't you make the same kind of argument about joint tortfeasors?
You'd say there's no reason to hold two.
We have one.
Mr. Lamken: Well, in fact, with respect to joint tortfeasors, you have two separate actions.
They're both liable for their--
Mr. Phillips: Why wouldn't the second... you'd say we'd only give you one, whoever you sue first, because it's adequate.
Mr. Lamken: --Well, you need to deter both of the joint... the actions by the joint tortfeasors.
Mr. Phillips: And here we have to deter the policies of the corporation.
Mr. Lamken: Yes, but the corporation is an unusual tortfeasor in this sense, in that it cannot act except through other individuals, through its employees.
So long as you deter--
Mr. Phillips: But that's true across the whole law of torts.
I mean, I've been lumbering along for half a century under respondeat superior.
I thought this... this was a deterrent to the employer if the employer is liable for the employee's wrong.
Why is it suddenly different?
Mr. Lamken: --Well, if this were a common law court or a legislature, I could certainly see adopting the common law rule.
But the Court... this is not a common law court, and what... Congress has the principal role of establishing causes of actions, Federal cause of action, for damages.
So, the role of the Court is not to establish--
Mr. Phillips: It just rings... it just doesn't ring true to me that there's no deterrence by holding the corporation liable.
I... I thought the whole law of torts was based on a contrary assumption.
Mr. Lamken: --Well, in fact, Your Honor, if you look at, for example, the fifth edition of Prosser & Keeton on Torts, William Prosser tells us that that argument is makeweight, and that the real reason for holding the corporation liable under respondeat superior is to ensure that the costs of accidents are incorporated into the price of products and, therefore, spread to society at large.
In a context like this one, where you have one purchaser, the Government, and the cause of action is unique to where the Government is the purchaser of the service, that type of rationale can't hold water.
This Court is generally very cautious about imposing liability for the purpose of distributing money--
Mr. Phillips: Except that one purchaser gets its money from everybody.
I... I think nobody can spread... can spread the cost as well as the Government.
Mr. Lamken: --Yes, Your Honor.
But it is typically... this Court is typically most cautious about establishing rules that would have the effect of taking money from the treasury, which is under Congress' control and to be spent for the public good and spending it according to--
Mr. Phillips: That's... that's a different argument which... which you make, that we shouldn't--
--May I ask you--
Mr. Lamken: --That... that--
Mr. Phillips: --It would be, in effect, the same as holding the Government liable.
Mr. Lamken: --Well, in this case, where you have a uniquely governmental purchaser and a uniquely governmental cause of action, it does tend to have that effect, Your Honor.
Mr. Phillips: May I ask you a hypothetical that Mr. Phillips' last argument suggested to me?
Supposing you have a case in which an executive sets the policy that everybody has to climb the... the six flights of stairs every day.
Then the executive quits.
Five years later, an employee is compelled to climb the steps because that policy is in place.
Whom can he sue?
Mr. Lamken: Well, Your Honor, when... when prisoners in public institutions, federally operated institutions, encounter precisely that situation--
Mr. Phillips: No.
I'm assuming, of course, there's a corporation involved here.
Mr. Lamken: --But it shows that this... that type of situation is hardly unique to a private corporation.
It... it occurs all the time in Federal institutions.
And he would be able to sue first any employee who enforced the... the policy.
Mr. Phillips: All the employee is doing is carrying out his instructions.
Mr. Lamken: Right, but there is under Bivens no Nuremberg defense.
Each... one of the teachings of Bivens is that the responsibility for respecting constitutional rights is personal and individual, and therefore, liability for violating constitutional rights is also personal and individual.
It ill-serves that notion of personal responsibility to shift the liability from the... from individual... individuals who violate constitutional rights to some other source of money such as the shareholders or the Government.
Mr. Phillips: Supposing the policy also said any employee who fails to carry out this policy gets fired forthwith.
Mr. Lamken: That would be the same thing if a... if an individual Bureau of Prisons employee--
Mr. Phillips: --the individual liable for--
Mr. Lamken: --Individually liable.
Plus you also get to sue the policy maker and anybody who exhibited deliberate indifference in carrying on that policy.
It's precisely the same rule that exists in the Federal context when you have a... a Bureau of Prisons-run facility.
Mr. Phillips: --Why does it make a large difference whether you sue the CEO or the corporation itself?
Practically in terms of your interest as the Government money, if the corporation is going to pick up the tab, why does the Government care?
Mr. Lamken: Well, Justice Ginsburg, I think the rub is in the question, if the corporation is going to pick up the tab.
The corporation will not necessarily pick up the tab.
The Government, for example, does not routinely indemnify its employees before a judgment or even necessarily after judgment.
On occasion, we both decline to indemnify them.
Sometimes we decline to represent them.
Sometimes we criminally prosecute them ourselves.
The point of the matter is to avoid moral hazard, to ensure that there is that deterrent effect, both corporations and the Government alike are wise not to indemnify their employees in advance and refer only to indemnify in those circumstances where it's both in the corporate interest and in the interest of ensuring that the corporation or the individuals--
Mr. Phillips: You also may get larger judgments against the corporation than... than against Jack Armstrong personally.
Mr. Lamken: --That is one of the difficulties and that is one of the reasons why there is concern that individuals, if given the opportunity, will choose to sue only the corporation and not the individuals.
And as Mr. Phillips pointed out, in the three post-Meyer cases where this issue has come up, in each of them, the individual chose to sue only the corporation and not the individual.
And, therefore, the direct deterrent effect on the individual, the direct deterrent effect that exists and operates within the Federal Government, would be absent in the other context if the Court were to recognize a Bivens against corporations as well as the individuals who violate--
Mr. Phillips: If... if the Government--
--If we reject your position and impose Bivens liability on the corporation, I assume Congress can't do anything about that absent some supplemental scheme that's equally effective?
Mr. Lamken: --Your Honor, it's not clear the degree to which Congress can replace Bivens liability.
I would believe that Congress would have the ability to either... if this Court were to decide not to have corporate liability, Congress could act to establish that liability, or if the Court were to say that there is--
Mr. Phillips: The other way around.
Mr. Lamken: --The other way around is a more difficult question.
I don't believe this Court's cases are clear.
However, if Congress does establish an alternative remedy, I believe the Court would be very likely to respect it unless it is clearly inadequate for the purposes.
Mr. Phillips: I don't understand that.
If Congress established an alternative remedy, we might say that the Constitution no longer requires the Bivens... the Bivens remedy.
Mr. Lamken: No, Your Honor.
As I read Bivens--
Mr. Phillips: But if Congress just... just decides that we're wrong in saying that there's a Bivens remedy here, what could... what could Congress possibly do about it?
I mean, if... if there is a Bivens remedy here, it's one that's demanded by the Constitution.
Mr. Lamken: --Well, Your Honor, it depends on how you read Bivens.
Bivens itself doesn't purport to be compelled by the Constitution, that the Constitution requires it.
It very much relied on cases like J.I. v. Borak where the Court felt that it was in a position to sort of assist in the vindication of constitutional rights, even if it were not mandated or compelled by the Constitution.
Where the Court... where the Court uses its discretion to do that, however, the Court must be particularly cautious about it so that it does not usurp the role of Congress as the principal creator of... of causes of action for damages under the Constitution.
If there are no further questions.
Mr. Phillips: Thank you, Mr. Lamken.
Mr. Pasternak, we'll hear from you.
ORAL ARGUMENT OF STEVEN PASTERNAK ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENT
Mr. Pasternak: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:
The question before the Court today is whether the Bivens cause of action is applicable to a for-profit corporation carrying out a core function of the Federal Government.
There's no dispute that in operating the Le Marquis Prison, CSC was performing a core governmental function.
There's an important distinction, both as a matter of history, constitutional law, and common sense, between Government and private corporations, between the Government way of doing things or the Government model and the private market model.
The Solicitor General so recognized 4 years ago in the oral argument in Richardson v. McKnight.
And the distinction exists due to the differences in accountability, its mission, and the degree of control that exists over the employees.
As far as accountability, the Bureau of Prisons, as a Federal Government agent, is accountable to Congress and to the public, as opposed to a private for-profit corporation, like CSC, which is responsible to its shareholders.
It has no one appointed onto its board from either Congress or the President.
Mr. Phillips: Well, Mr. Pasternak, if Bivens remedies are available against the employees of the corporation, why isn't that enough?
Mr. Pasternak: Because of the mentality that exists as far as the corporation, Your Honor.
It's the corporation that has a direct relationship with the Federal Government.
It's the one that has the contract.
Mr. Phillips: Yes, but the corporation can only act through its employees, and if those employees are subject to Bivens liability, if they are, why isn't that enough to deter any unconstitutional conduct?
Mr. Pasternak: It wouldn't be sufficient because the employees are at-will employees.
Their job is on the line.
Their promotions are on the line.
They're following the directions as far as the corporation in order to get ahead.
Mr. Phillips: How can you generalize that the employees are at-will employees?
I mean, that would vary perhaps from case to case.
Mr. Pasternak: --In the State of New York, they're at-will employees.
Mr. Phillips: But we're deciding a case not just on the basis of the State of New York, but maybe in some other States, they have a 3-year contract.
Mr. Pasternak: It may vary from State to State.
It may vary from individual to individual, but the focus still has to be that it's the corporation that has the control, and to determine whether or not there's a breach as far as the employee's contract or whatever, it's the one that's setting the policies that the individuals have been following.
Mr. Phillips: Mr. Pasternak, do you think running a municipally owned utility is a core governmental function?
Mr. Pasternak: It's possible that it may be.
Mr. Phillips: May be.
What about running a national park or a public park?
Is that a core governmental function?
Mr. Pasternak: Getting further removed.
I think it might be, but again, it's not a prison situation.
Mr. Phillips: We're going to develop a whole new area of constitutional or quasi-constitutional law deciding case by case what is a core governmental function and what isn't a core government... you assert that only... only those corporations that are performing core governmental functions would... would be subject to Bivens liability, not all corporations who are under contract with the Government.
Mr. Pasternak: If I may respond.
As far as the 1983 analysis or under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the same type of analysis has to be done to determine whether or not you have a Government actor and then whether or not there was a violation that takes place.
In our fact pattern here, there's no real question that in operating the prison, it is a core governmental function.
They are authorized to act because the... the Government has contracted with the corporation and has embodied it with the power, in order to act and to run that facility.
Mr. Phillips: Have... is there a whole line of cases under section 1983 dealing with this subject of what is a core governmental function?
Mr. Pasternak: There's not a whole line of cases, but there is... there are cases, Your Honor, that have to be addressed as far as either a Federal Tort Claims Act case or a section 1983 as to the issue of whether or not Amtrak, for instance... whether it would be acting as a Government agent or not.
Mr. Phillips: Does it have to do with whether it's performing a core governmental function or not?
It has to do with whether it's a Federal agency or not.
That's quite a different question from whether it's performing a core governmental function.
I'm talking about a concededly private corporation, and... and you want us to decide case by case when... when you hire a private corporation to manage concessions at a... at a national park, whether that is a core governmental function or not.
Mr. Pasternak: I think anytime you're dealing with a corporation as opposed to a Government agency, there are different things that come into play as far as what their motives are.
Mr. Phillips: I thought you just wanted us to decide a case involving prisons, which can be run by a State, by the Federal Government, or can be contracted out by either.
Mr. Pasternak: That is what our fact pattern is.
Mr. Phillips: And this is a substitute for a Federal prison just as sometimes Federal prisoners are housed in State prisons.
Mr. Pasternak: That's correct.
Mr. Phillips: And would there be liability in that situation?
Suppose this halfway house had been run by the State of New York.
Mr. Pasternak: Then there would be liability for the violation of the Federal Constitution, and there would be no difference.
In fact, this particular facility housed both State and Federal prisoners--
Mr. Phillips: And as to the... so, if... if Mr. Malesko had been a State prisoner?
Mr. Pasternak: --Then he would have his claim.
We would literally have to be checking the dog tags of the individual housed at this particular facility under the same fact pattern to determine, under the CSC's argument, whether or not there would be liability.
And we submit that that's the wrong analysis to make, that a Federal prisoner should certainly have equal, the same rights as a State prisoner.
Mr. Phillips: May I clarify a point that I raised to Mr. Phillips?
Is your complaint one of a pattern or practice attributable to the corporation as distinguished from the action of the individual guard?
He said that you did not plead any kind of policy on behalf of the corporation.
Mr. Pasternak: There are different elements as far as what was pleading in the complaint.
There was initially a pro se complaint that was filed.
The only substitution that really took place at the time of the pleading was to name the individual guard.
That was ruled to be untimely by the court because Mr. Malesko should have known... arguably should have known or should have been trying to find out who that individual was.
The problem that exists, obviously, is trying to identify who the individuals are that set the corporate policy.
As far as the specific policy, there was the policy of putting Mr. Malesko up on the firth floor, as opposed to a lower floor.
Mr. Phillips: Was that pleaded as a policy?
Mr. Pasternak: Not pleaded directly as a policy, no.
Mr. Phillips: You say not pleaded directly as a policy.
What do you mean by that?
Mr. Pasternak: Well, again, we're going back to the language of the pro se complaint.
Mr. Phillips: Yes.
And that's what I was asking you about.
What did the pro se complaint say about it?
Mr. Pasternak: He did not allege it as a policy per se.
He alleged it that it was improper as far as the housing.
We have the situation where you have him housed--
Mr. Phillips: In fact, he did allege that he was permitted to use the elevator usually, didn't he?
Mr. Pasternak: --He did.
Mr. Phillips: Yes.
So, he couldn't have been complaining about the policy then.
Mr. Pasternak: Well, there's still a complaint that would exist... I mean, there is a possible claim as far as the ADA and just the general logic of housing somebody with a known heart condition on the fifth floor where he would be susceptible to being ill in the event of a fire.
I mean, it doesn't make any sense, as they acknowledged in discovery, in order to have someone housed on that higher floor if there's a danger that exists.
It just doesn't make any sense.
Mr. Phillips: I thought his heart attack made it hard to climb stairs, but going down stairs might be different.
I would like to hear directly your... your response.
The Chief Justice had a point I hadn't thought of, which is true, that in Monell, there isn't direct respondeat superior liability in a case involving an entity that does not have sovereign immunity, namely the municipality.
How... how does that play out here?
Mr. Pasternak: Here--
Mr. Phillips: What is that... should there be respondeat superior?
Is it necessary to parallel the Monell?
What's your opinion?
Mr. Pasternak: --I would argue that under either situation, we would satisfy the requirement.
Under the respondeat superior, we would certainly satisfy it.
Under the Monell standard, it's the failure to adequately train and supervise the guards.
Mr. Phillips: All right.
So, you can go either way.
But what in your opinion is the correct rule of law?
Mr. Pasternak: If we're looking for parallelism between the two, then it would make sense to have the Monell standard, but it not necessarily has to follow because under common law, we would have the respondeat superior.
I would argue for the respondeat superior and to have it as a normal liability as you do in normal cases.
Mr. Phillips: Well, we rejected parallelism in Richardson.
Parallelism... symmetry is very difficult to achieve in this area as of this point, no matter what we do.
Mr. Pasternak: It was rejected and symmetry is difficult to achieve.
However, we are seeking symmetry in the sense that a private corporation should be held accountable the same way it is acting under a contract with the Government and the same way a State prisoner would have the same remedy against the corporation--
Mr. Phillips: Well, you're arguing the so-called parallelism with section 1983 actions.
But it's been pointed out that was a congressional enactment, and there is no parallel enactment for Bivens type claims.
That was a Court-created doctrine and it's been rather limited.
Mr. Pasternak: --It has been limited.
It is Court-created, in order to address deterrence, but it has been applied to the situation of a nongovernmental... nongovernment or to a nongovernment agency.
In this situation, the question that arises is where does a private for-profit corporation fall on the spectrum.
Is it more akin to a Government agency which has to be responsible to Congress, to the President, and to the public, or is it more akin to a regular Federal employee?
We would submit that it's closer to a Federal employee, only it has certain negatives worse than a Federal employee in the sense that it has a duty, a fiduciary duty, to try and maximize profits, a factor that would not normally enter into the situation of a Federal employee who's just going along and doing his job and fulfilling his requirements.
But here you have a specific fiduciary duty to maximize the profits.
They also... the person who were in control.
There, the corporation is the one that controls its employees and sends the directives as far as hiring, firing, promotions, benefits.
It is the one that has the control and can send the signals on to each individual employee.
So, as far as where it falls in the scheme, we would submit it is more akin to a Federal employee, only there are greater dangers which would warrant the imposition of the Bivens liability in order to have the proper deterrence.
Mr. Phillips: Why shouldn't we leave this to the Federal Government, to the Congress, to determine, rather than doing it ourselves?
Mr. Pasternak: For the same--
Mr. Phillips: I mean, we can say this is a totally different situation from what Bivens, whether it was right or wrong, decided.
That decided a case where you have a Federal officer acting.
These are not technically Federal officers.
If there is going to be a cause of action, Congress can create it.
If Congress hasn't created it, there's no cause of action, which is the usual situation in the world, isn't it?
Mr. Pasternak: --Oftentimes.
However, the issue here is the Federal employee under Bivens is acting because the Government has delegated that responsibility to him to act.
In a sense it's a contract.
He's been hired to act.
So too, you have the corporation who has been hired by the Federal Government pursuant to the contract in order to act and to satisfy what the requirements are.
Mr. Phillips: It may be logical to extend it.
It may well be.
And if it's logical, presumably Congress will do it.
And also, there... there is undoubtedly a State law cause of action in negligence that would lie against both the employee and the employer under respondeat superior.
Mr. Pasternak: There would be a common law cause of action.
However, that would not necessarily address the separate constitutional violation that occurred that needs its own deterrence.
Mr. Phillips: Would there have been a State cause of action against Federal agents acting under... under Federal law?
Mr. Pasternak: You would have the issue as far as normally you would have the immunity that would be granted under the State law, and you would have the problems in that direction.
But we do not have--
Mr. Phillips: Which means that there's a special reason for the court to invent a cause of action that does not appear anywhere in the Constitution or in a statute for Federal agents who perhaps can't be sued under State law.
But when you're not talking about Federal agents... you're talking about private employees... normal tort law undoubtedly applies.
And why... why can't we leave it there?
And... and if Congress wants to extend an additional cause of action, let... let Congress do it.
Mr. Pasternak: --Since we are dealing with a violation of the Federal Constitution, we would submit that there should be one uniform body of decisions coming out as far as what that Federal law should be and how it should be interpreted, that we should not be subjected to the vagaries of the differences in the various States as to their rules as far as procedure, discovery, but there should be one... one body of law encompassing, from the Federal side, a violation of a Federal constitutional right.
It's not sufficient to just leave it to the States.
Mr. Phillips: Well, is it clear that the employee would be liable under State law in light of Boyle v.--
Mr. Pasternak: In McKnight, the argument... rejected the argument of Boyle, as far as a corporation being... not being liable and a danger as far as the public fisc.
In this type of a situation, we would submit that it would be appropriate to find the corporation liable and that the dangers to the public fisc are minimal, certainly more minimal than you would have in the normal Bivens case, we would submit.
Mr. Phillips: Well, of course, McKnight rejected parallelism, and... and you... you want it.
McKnight is not your best precedent.
Mr. Pasternak: Not entirely, but we are seeking to have the parallelism also as far as a... rights of a Federal prisoner and a State prisoner, to both be able to go and sue the corporation that is--
Mr. Phillips: But you have an anomaly either way because why shouldn't the symmetry be between someone who is a Federal prisoner in the Federal prison and someone who's a Federal prisoner in a private prison?
You recognize that there would be no action against the Bureau of Prisons if the Bureau of Prisons had been the jailer.
So, why should it be... why shouldn't that be the symmetry?
Mr. Pasternak: --Because the Correctional Services Corporation is not the Government.
It operates under a different set of rules and regulations.
Mr. Phillips: But you want it to be like the State government, because if it were a State... if a State were running this prison, then there would be liability.
Mr. Pasternak: Yes, but what I'm looking for is it for not... for it to be recognized by this Court that the private corporation, just like the State, is not the Federal Government.
There is no Federal Government immunity that applies.
That's the reason we can sue the States if there's a violation.
So too, we should certainly be able to sue a private corporation, a private corporation which is operating under a different set of rules and regulations than is the norm for the Federal Government and for a Federal agency.
Mr. Phillips: With respect to the adequacy of a remedy in the State court, is it not so that the liability would be greater as to a private employee because the private employee would not have a defense of qualified immunity that would be available to a Federal officer?
Mr. Pasternak: There would be less defenses raised as far as a private individual.
Mr. Phillips: And that would tend to make the State law remedy more adequate?
Mr. Pasternak: Possibly more adequate but still inadequate in order to address a Federal constitutional violation.
Mr. Phillips: Well, you're saying that... I think you're saying the State law remedy simply doesn't address the constitutional violation.
The State law remedy may be a State tort remedy, but it's not an Eighth Amendment remedy.
Is that you're--
Mr. Pasternak: That is correct.
Mr. Phillips: --You know, there's one puzzling thing about this case.
You don't really cite the Eighth Amendment in your complaint, as I read it, do you?
That is, it isn't an Eighth Amendment claim where you're claiming deliberate indifference on behalf of the prison officials?
Is that the nature?
Mr. Pasternak: It does... it is an Eighth Amendment, but it is not cited.
Mr. Phillips: And then, therefore, your burden in the Federal claim under the Eighth Amendment is heavier than an ordinary negligence case, isn't it?
So, by going into Federal court, you... you've assumed a higher burden than if you brought a negligence case.
Am I correct in that?
Mr. Pasternak: Well, both theories would be applicable as far as being... bringing the suit.
There would be a higher standard in the Federal court as far as the deliberate in difference--
Mr. Phillips: Right.
Mr. Pasternak: --a standard which we submit we would... my client, in filing the suit pro se, satisfied.
He would also be satisfying a lower standard as far as the negligence as well.
Mr. Phillips: Was this complaint ever amended since your client gained representation, or are we still operating under the pro se complaint?
Mr. Pasternak: It was amended only for the purposes of... of attempting to name Mr. Urena as a defendant, and then there was a proposed second amended complaint which would be naming additional defendants, which... and I believe also different causes of actions, but that was denied at that time.
Mr. Phillips: At... at... it's puzzling why there wasn't enough time to identify that individual, that Mr. Urena.
I could understand the pro se litigant having a limited ability, but once lawyers came into it, why wasn't... why was it so hard to find out who was John Doe I?
Mr. Pasternak: My appearance came after the time period.
Mr. Malesko had the case, and there was a motion that was initially made to dismiss the case.
It was only after that case, that that motion was denied, that my... that I came into the case.
So, he had the case pro se for the entire time period where he would have had to identify who the John Doe was and would have had to know how to conduct the discovery in order to ascertain who the John Does were and the difficulty that he would have, as far as the corporation's responsiveness to identifying who Mr. Urena was, who set the policy as far as the elevator, who set the policy as far as the medication, who set all of the policies.
It's not an easy burden for someone to try and identify who the specific person is that would have to be sued, which is why the suing of the corporation is a more manageable one from the plaintiff's point of view.
It would also be a more manageable one from the defendant's point of view, we would submit, also because it would allow the corporation to be the one who's controlling the litigation.
It would be avoiding potential conflicts that exist by naming the individual employees and having them go out and retain their own counsel.
It would limit the... it would reduce the cost of the litigation for the defendant because you're ultimately looking at the corporation, and it would only have to have one set of attorneys as opposed to a multiple set of attorneys.
So, the cost to defend would go down as far as the corporation.
If we're also operating under a claim under Federal law, then the rules of the game, as far as the discovery, as far as the motion practice and general procedure, would also be under the Federal law as opposed to the State law, so that it would be easier for the corporations to control their costs because they would know how to be defending this type of an action.
And in fact, hopefully, these types of actions would be decreasing as the liability would be there.
There are certain programs that would be going into place by the companies to make certain that everybody has the proper training in order to avoid these types of constitutional violations.
Indeed, that's one of the reasons that we submit that there would really be no danger to the public fisc.
In the normal situation, you have a suit against a Government employee where the Government afterwards comes in and it either has provided counsel and will also pay any judgment that exists.
Mr. Phillips: Mr. Lamken said that's not necessarily so, that the Government would pay.
Mr. Pasternak: Not necessarily so, but it is usually the case that happens.
So too, you have a situation where CSC has acknowledged that it normally does indemnify its employees.
And in our situation, there's a contract that exists between the Bureau of Prisons, which is a Federal agency here, and the private for-profit corporation, CSC, which required CSC to indemnify the Bureau of Prisons.
In addition, it required CSC to have insurance.
So, before any danger could take place to the public fisc, the first thing that would happen, as far as a judgment which would be rendered, is that it would be coming from the insurance company.
The insurance company would then have to make a determination, is this something that would justify an increase in premiums or can it be more properly addressed solely by the implementation of special programs and trainings and seminars to the individual employees?
If it were to increase its premiums, then the corporation would have to make a determination whether or not to pay it or to seek other insurance to get a better rate.
Only if that rate is increased, then the corporation would then have to turn around and say, well, is this a cost that we should be absorbing or to try and pass it along to the Federal Government?
Mr. Phillips: All insurance companies are going to increase rates if the corporation... if they know that the corporations are going to be liable.
Mr. Pasternak: Well, right now, respectfully--
Mr. Phillips: I mean, you know, they're... they're not dumb and they're competitive.
If corporations are not liable, the rates are going to be lower.
If corporations are liable, the rates of all the insurance companies are going to be higher.
That's going to be passed on to the United States Government.
I mean, you know, that has to be... that has to be the outcome.
Mr. Pasternak: --But no one is... respectfully, no one is arguing that there could not be a theory for CSC to be liable under common law, respondeat superior, or under the ADA or any other theory for the corporation to be liable.
It's only a question under what theory the corporation would become liable.
So, that the damages, or the claims against the private corporation, would still exist.
They would still have to be defending the claims.
They would still ultimately, we would submit, be found liable for it.
Mr. Phillips: You can't have it both ways.
You're now telling me that you don't really need these cause of action... causes of action because there... there are other ways to get relief out there, which the insurance companies are already taking into account.
I mean, there's either a substantial difference in what you're urging this Court to adopt or not.
If there's a substantial difference, it's going to come out of the Government's pocket.
If there isn't a substantial difference, why should... why do we have to create a cause of action that does not appear in the Constitution or in a statute?
Mr. Pasternak: If I may, I don't think that it necessarily comes out of the Government, because, A, you have the insurance, and B, if the rates get increased to the company, then the company then has to turn around and bid it out to the Federal Government, and the Federal Government can turn around and go through a different contractor.
So, you have a different situation as far as the ability to pass it along, as opposed to the Federal Government where it comes in and indemnifies the employees--
Mr. Phillips: This other contractor that it would pass it on to would not be subject to the same law that... that we hold today?
Mr. Pasternak: --He would be subject to the same law.
Mr. Phillips: And therefore, his rates would be higher too, wouldn't it?
Mr. Pasternak: Well, we would also... anytime an insurance company is setting rates, they're going to be looking to the past history of the individual applicant to ascertain what the potential is and what programs are in place in order to try and control what those potential dangers are.
Mr. Phillips: Mr. Pasternak, compare for a moment, if you will, the elements of damages you would be seeking under the kind of claim you have in mind and the elements of damages you might be seeking under a State... State law negligence action as... as to amounts, amounts of money.
Are there elements that you could recover for under the Federal claim that you couldn't recover for under a State negligence claim?
Mr. Pasternak: As far as amounts, it's difficult to quantify as to what it is.
As far as the Federal claim, we would have the claim of violation of the Federal Constitution.
Mr. Phillips: Yes, but what you want as a result of the claimed violation is money damages, I take it.
Mr. Pasternak: That is correct.
Mr. Phillips: And I'm... I'm asking you would the money damages be any different under... under a theory of negligence as opposed to the theory you're proposing.
Could some element of damages be permitted under one and not under the other, or would they be the same?
Mr. Pasternak: I think it would depend on how a jury viewed the elements--
Mr. Phillips: Well, but I... I mean... I realize one jury can give you one result and one another.
But let's suppose it's the same jury.
Or just... just... I mean, the testimony as... as to physical suffering and that sort of thing, it would be pretty much the same, wouldn't it?
Mr. Pasternak: --That would be.
Mr. Phillips: Except you might have punitive damages under State law, mightn't you, if... if indeed it was... it was gross negligence or indeed virtually... an intentional harming of... of the prisoner?
Under many State laws, you'd be able to get punitive damages, wouldn't you?
Mr. Pasternak: There would be a potential under certain situations under State law to obtain punitive damages.
Mr. Phillips: And you can't... as far as I know, we haven't held that punitive damages are available under Bivens, have we?
Mr. Pasternak: That's correct.
Mr. Phillips: A State cause of action... could... could a State just incorporate the Eighth Amendment standard as a matter of State tort law?
Mr. Pasternak: I'm sorry.
Mr. Phillips: Could the State, as part of a State cause of action, simply incorporate the Eighth Amendment as part of a State tort standard?
There could be no reckless indifference or you're... you're liable under State law.
Mr. Pasternak: --It could.
The States would have the power to do whatever it pleased.
Each State would have its own decision making.
Mr. Phillips: So, then you don't need the Bivens cause of action even for the Eighth Amendment because States are free to enact it if they choose.
Mr. Pasternak: But that would leave to each individual State to ascertain and decide whether or not there should be a remedy that exists as far as a Federal constitutional violation, which is a separate and distinct harm that needs to be addressed.
Mr. Phillips: Is the same thing true about other Bivens actions?
Mr. Pasternak: This Court... yes, it is.
And this Court has routinely held that just the fact that there is a common law claim that might exist is not sufficient in order to find that there should not also be Bivens liability.
Mr. Phillips: Well, you have no authority to say that a State can create a cause of action against a Federal officer.
Mr. Pasternak: Not as to a Federal officer, correct.
In here, though, where we have a private corporation, who is operating pursuant to its contract with the Government, where it has a separate motive, a fiduciary duty in order to maximize its profits, and there the danger to the Federal fisc is less, we submit, or certainly no greater than if there were an additional Bivens situation, we would submit that the greatest deterrence that could exist is to go and permit the suit against the corporation and not impose the duty in order to try and ascertain which employee would it be, whether or not it's a former employee who set a policy who's no longer there, but to permit it because it is the corporation who has control of its individual employees based on the relationship, whether it be for a limited contract and what contract terms are or whether it be an at-will employee, and also based on respondeat superior, that we need to recognize that we are dealing with a private corporation.
We are not dealing with the FDIC or the Government or a Government agency.
In light of the fact that there's a direct relationship of contract that exists between the Government and the corporation, which is allowing it to act, that this Court should find that there is Bivens liability and the case should be permitted to proceed on that basis.
Mr. Phillips: Thank you, Mr. Pasternak.
Mr. Phillips, you have 3 minutes remaining.
REBUTTAL ARGUMENT OF CARTER G. PHILLIPS ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER
Mr. Phillips: Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice.
I'd like to address what I think are sort of two pivotal points here.
One, derive... I derive from Justice Kennedy's question asking Mr. Pasternak about the effect of the Richardson decision because it seems to me the Court, obviously, should be concerned about what its prior precedents tell us about the appropriate way to proceed.
He concedes, too, that Richardson, a case on which he relied very heavily in his brief, frankly does not provide him with much comfort.
I would have asked him, in... in turn, the extent to which he derives comfort from the FDIC v. Meyer decision in which this Court, it seems to me, essentially addressed the same issue we have here and told litigants going forward look to the private employee, look to the employees as the primary source to obtain remedies and to obtain maximum deterrence.
And once you satisfy that, then you're done with the inquiry because the Court specifically addressed in Meyer the... the question of do you... do you extend Bivens to a new category of defendants.
And that takes me to the second point I think is worth keeping in mind, and that was the question that Justice Scalia asked, which is why don't we simply leave this to Congress to resolve at the end of the day.
And it seems to me a... an intricate debate about questions of indemnification, where we don't know what the final answer is about who has what rights of indemnification, questions of respondeat superior where we don't even know specifics about what... what causes of action may or may not be available, questions of the availability of punitive damages, all of these questions are left on the table completely unknown at this point.
It seems to me, in the context of that kind of a circumstance, the Court was correct in Meyer in saying that we should leave these questions to Congress, and if Congress acts, then you can seek out the kind of parallelism between 1983 and a Federal cause of action, or if you don't, presumably Congress will have explained to you why there are disparities between the various approaches.
It seems to me that the best solution for this Court is to recognize that a hands-off approach is the final answer.
Mr. Phillips: Mr. Phillips, can I ask one quick question?
Do you concede, for purpose of... of review of the case and based on your question presented, that the complaint states a cause of action?
Mr. Phillips: For purposes of where the case is right at the moment, yes.
Mr. Phillips: Yes.
Mr. Phillips: I think on remand, obviously we would fight... if... if the case were to go forward, we would continue to fight that issue.
Mr. Phillips: Mr. Phillips, is it,... is it correct... and some of the questions, including my own, have assumed that you can't sue a Federal offer in State... you can't sue a Federal officer for a tort committed in the course of his official duties.
I'm not sure that's right.
You can't sue him in State... or you can sue him in State court, but it is removable to Federal court.
Mr. Phillips: It's immediately removable.
Mr. Phillips: But there's... there's no Federal prohibition against the suit, is there?
Mr. Phillips: Well, there will be a preemption issue that's going to immediately arise as to whether or not he's immune... whether he's immune.
And... you know, if it's within the scope of his responsibilities, then he'll have... he'll have an immunity--
Mr. Phillips: Qualified immunity, but... but you--
4 if it's not, you... you can sue him and... and the only prohibition is, if he wants, he can remove it to Federal court.
Mr. Phillips: --That's correct.
Mr. Phillips: Okay.
Mr. Phillips: Thank you, Your Honor.
Chief Justice Rehnquist: Thank you, Mr. Phillips.
The case is submitted.
Argument of Chief Justice Rehnquist
Mr. Phillips: I have the opinion of the Court to announce in two cases.
The first is No. 00-860 Correctional Services Corporation against Malesko.
Correctional Services Corporation has a contract with the Bureau of Prisons to operate a facility in New York city that houses federal inmates.
The respondent is a former federal inmate afflicted with a heart condition limiting his ability to climb stairs.
In the course of serving a prison sentence for federal security’s fraud, respondent was transferred to Le Marquis which is the name of this facility where he was assigned a bedroom on the fifth floor.
Shortly, after his arrival there, the company instituted a policy requiring inmates residing below the sixth floor to use the stairs rather than the elevator.
Our respondent was exempted from this policy on account of his heart condition, but when a CSC employee forbade respondent to use the elevator to reach his bedroom, he had to climb the stairs, he suffered a heart attack and fell.
And he then filed an action for money damages against CSC the corporation which the district court dismissed.
The Court of Appeals reversed the district court and allowed the respondent’s suit to proceed under our 1971 decision Bivens versus Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents.
In an opinion filed with the Clerk of the Court today, we reversed that decision.
In Bivens, we recognized for the first time an implied private action for money damages against federal officers who commit unconstitutional acts.
We have extended this holding only twice.
Both times to provide a cause of action against individual officers for plaintiffs who lacked an alternative remedy.
This is clearly not the situation here.
The respondent is suing an entity, not an individual and makes this case quite similar to our recent decision in FDIC versus Meyer in which we held that Bivens does not provide a cause of action against a federal agency that is otherwise amenable to sue.
We confirmed in Meyer that the purpose of Bivens is to deter unconstitutional acts of individual federal officers and reasoned that the deterrent effects of the Bivens remedy would be lost if we were to provide a parallel action against the individual’s employer.
On the logic of Meyer, inferring a constitutional tort remedy here against the company that is running the facility in New York it seems foreclosed.
Second, the claimant’s in respondent’s shoes do not lack alternative remedies.
The respondent admits that alternative remedies such as a tort remedy under state law administrative remedies adopted by the Bureau of Prisons are at least as great in many respects greater than anything that Bivens might provide.
Finally, no federal prisoner whether housed in a private or public facility enjoys respondent’s contemplated remedy.
Inmates housed in BOP facilities may sue an offending individual officer for money damages under Bivens, but no right of action lies against the officer’s employer, the BOP or the United States.
Whether it makes sense to impose asymmetrical liability cost on private facilities alone is a question thus lasts for Congress to decide.
Justice Scalia has filed a concurring opinion in which Justice Thomas joins; Justice Stevens has filed a dissenting opinion in which Justices Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer join. | <urn:uuid:0732b453-3e9c-4384-beda-d330e40282c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2001/2001_00_860 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965352 | 15,577 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Welcome to the Altmayer Family page at Surname Finder. Our editors have compiled this checklist of genealogical resources, combining links to commercial databases along with user-contributed information and web sites for the Altmayer surname. As vital records, original documents, vintage photographs and surname-based DNA projects are discovered, this page is updated to offer the best list for researching Altmayer genealogy.
Completed by on
I. The Altmayer Family Tree
It is important to remember that there is no single Altmayer family tree, as last names were assigned to people for various reasons. We are often asked, How can I distinguish my Altmayer ancestor from others of the same name? and you might be surprised at the answer.
II. Altmayer Genealogy
Many things can go wrong when a record collection is indexed. If you're having diffculty finding Altmayer ancestors in a particular database at one site, try finding it on another and compare the results. If you want to know What information is given in U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules about Altmayer citizens from the past?, then read this frequently asked question.
Vital records are essential for family history research because they were typically created at or near the time of the event, making the record more reliable. There are currently matching Altmayer records at Ancestry.com! Start exploring this online Altmayer family history resource today.
III. Origins of the Altmayer Surname
While some countries have limited historical records for last name assignments, you are most likely to only find general guidance on the origin and meaning of the Altmayer surname. Keep in mind that it was not unusual for a last name to be altered as an ancestor entered a new country.
IV. Altmayer DNA Projects
While DNA testing cannot conclusively tell you if two Altmayer ancestors were related, it can easily prove if they weren't. Be sure you understand what types of research issues each different DNA test can address before you spend any money. If you are seeking an answer to the question, How do I know which DNA test is right for Altmayer research?, then this FAQ may help.
V. Altmayer Family History
There is more to exploring your Altmayer ancestry than just gathering a bunch of names and dates. Understanding where your ancestors lived, how they were employed, and what they did for fun, may give you a better appreciation of your heritage. Whether you are a beginner or expert genealogists, knowing How can I decipher the handwriting in old Altmayer documents? is always useful.
VI. Networking with Altmayer Researchers
One of the best ways to solve a genealogy problem is by enlisting the help of others through a message board query that is open to the public, allowing you to cast a wide net that can be accessed by anyone, around the world and around the clock --- at the same time, because it is a public forum, you will want to exercise caution in posting personal information or information about living persons. The article "Are Your Queries Getting Results?" provides some valuable tips for posting successful Altmayer queries.
You may also want to consider posting a query to the Community Message Boards at Genealogy Today to get assistance from other researchers on your most elusive Altmayer ancestors.
VII. Altmayer Achievements & Celebrities
VIII. Web Sites & Blogs with Altmayer Research
If you are having difficulty locating records for the last name of Altmayer, contact the folks at ProGenealogists for a free research estimate. You may also find it helpful to read, "When, Why and How to Hire a Professional Genealogist."
To have your web site/blog listed on this page, please submit a link to the user-contributed directory at Genealogy Today. Your web page will appear once its content has been reviewed by one of our editors.
IX. Upcoming Altmayer Family Reunions
Family reunions are an ideal time interview older relatives and other Altmayer family members; you may want to consider a roundtable where you can gather different groups together at different times such as siblings to discuss their parents and childhood memories, cousins, aunts and uncles to discuss the grandparent generation, etc. - the collective memory and stimulus of shared experience can yield considerable information. The article "Family Reunions Don't Always Turn Out as one has Pictured" may provide you with tips for hosting a successful Altmayer reunion.
Suggested use: Print a copy of this free research checklist, and keep track of the Altmayer genealogy resources that you visit. If your web browser does not print the date on the bottom, remember to record it manually. Today is 19/May/2013.
If you host the Altmayer blog or web page, please link to this surname-focused resource. Here's the HTML code for a basic link. Simply cut/paste this code on to your page. | <urn:uuid:a8d7ef77-ed04-4fdd-8aa6-c901c5f3893b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.genealogytoday.com/surname/finder.mv?Surname=Altmayer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930758 | 1,033 | 1.507813 | 2 |
One in three UK women say they are gamers, according to the 2010 European gaming attitudes survey. Another survey into gaming gender differences surfaced this week, which reveals that women: Play fewer hours (8) a week than men (17 hours) and are turned off by games that are too complicated. They give up if game is not easy to …
Short, sweet & simple
...see I knew women were just like men, deep down.
Wait...this is about computer games? Oh never mind then.
Bit disturbed about the 'funny violence' findings though - isn't that slightly...psychopathic? Do I need to think about hiding the pots & locking the rabbit hutch now?
"Also they like bright primary colours."
And also ponies? And making pies in the kitchen? Is the reason that women gamers are not into socialisation that they are essentially no different to radiators?
Wrong planet mate
A lot of the Facebook games have a huge female -possibly a lot more than male - players who have been playing the same games for months.
Maybe the 'research team' only looked at thier own favourite shoot-em-ups and driving games.
Facebook does not have Games !!!!
ooh ooh ooh.... I know this one
I think by 'funny violence' they mean a character gets a power up from a can of stella, then slaps another character stood by a kitchen sink around for 15 minutes.
Aha ha ha Bwa ha BWAH HA HA HA AHA
Oh, my sides.
No? Ok, I was going anyway.
I think that's what they meant by 'funny violence'. And by short and sweet they probably meant 'easy to understand and pick up'.
The article fails to mention that they're also easily addicted to sim/management games. Most of the women I know are mysteriously addicted to them.
Geek, because while I've been monitoring them, they've been ignoring me.
Ah! Ghent University...
... that's in Belgium i'nit. Nuf said.
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- If you've bought DRM'd film files from Acetrax, here's the bad news
- Microsoft reveals Xbox One, the console that can read your heartbeat | <urn:uuid:505aa582-fa7f-434a-9da3-375dab18a6fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2010/07/08/women_gaming_attitudes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963273 | 530 | 1.570313 | 2 |
I just got nothing today.
Nothing at all. This is not a post about writer’s block, this is a post about emptiness. I feel like life has lost its lustre, but I can’t be too despondent here because I don’t want to cry. I want to be positive.
It’s really hard to keep looking on the Brightside. I have had trouble with negative-self-talk before, so it’s nothing new for me. I guess that I feel sad because even though things are generally good in my life, I’m feeling a bit like the world has lost its colour and that there’s nothing to live for.
Yeh – it’s not fun.
Of course, even though I feel like that today – it’s not necessarily true. In fact, it’s not true at all. I have to keep reminding myself that My Thoughts Are Not My Reality.
By brain is not me, my heart is not me. I remember being taught in high school that back in Shakespeare’s time, feelings of love were thought to come from the liver, not the heart. One of my favourite Shakespeare plays is The Twelfth Night. Here is the liver quote:
Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt.
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much.
Liver, heart, brain, amygdala – I’m not sure which part of my cursed body is responsible for flooding me with these terrible, distressing feelings day and night. I found a post yesterday that mentioned that when we go through something traumatic (in my case a break up) our minds have to process the information and this can be distressing.
I have to remind myself that these feelings are normal. This is ok. I don’t have to feel happy all the time. It’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to feel desolate. Hang on… do you think I’m depressed?
I found a post on About.com on called Sadness is Not Depression. Phew! They provide some useful tips on how to be sad, the healthy way (really!):
- Allow yourself to be sad.
- If you are feeling sad, plan a sadness day. “Plan a day or evening just to be alone, listen to melancholy music, and to observe your thoughts and feelings.”
- Think about the context of the sad feelings.
- Sadness can result from a change that you didn’t expect, or it can signal the need for a change in your life.
- Know when sadness turns into depression.
Personally, I couldn’t think of anything WORSE for me now than “planning a sadness day”. What a crappy idea. Even writing this sadness blog post is depressing the f**k out of me.
Anyway – the last time I felt so truly awful I did go to see a doctor. They did the same thing they always do and tell me I’m fine, which I know I am. My depression/sadness is always linked to an actual event in my life, and never lasts for more than a few months. This has only happened about 4 times in my adult life, and only once did I really let it get on top of me, and that was when I was separated form my family and friends as I was living interstate.
But am I depressed or sad?
Another great article from the Huffington Post – telling me that it’s OK to be sad, and that sadness is not depression. Depression is this:
To have a diagnosable “major depressive disorder” you must have at least one of two particular symptoms — called “cardinal” symptoms. Deep sadness (“depressed mood”) is one of the two cardinal symptoms. The other is called “anhedonia” (Greek for “without pleasure”), which means not taking pleasure in pretty much anything, even in things that used to give you pleasure — your work, your hobbies, your grandchildren, your friends, etc.
Don’t end up in a cycle!
The article seesm to tell me the only danger is not to get into a depressive cycle – but I’m not in danger of that. In a away – I’m kind of glad I am allowing myself to feel my feelings. I know I will get though this very sad period. It’s only a matter of time. | <urn:uuid:b6d3a16d-fbb8-47f8-a7d5-783bcecc9228> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alycevayleauthor.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96087 | 981 | 1.625 | 2 |
By Nicholas J. Walz, USTA.com
A lunch with Billie Jean King served a reminder of how tennis can nourish a nation – inspiring men and women of all ages to accomplish great things.
"I was blessed to have a great career, but more importantly, tennis has given me my platform to continue my lifelong quest for equal rights and opportunities for boys and girls and men and women," said King, addressing an audience of colleagues, journalists and fans at the National Press Club (NPC) in Washington, D.C.
"Since I was 12 years old, I had an epiphany, and I've promised I would dedicate my life to that goal until the day I die."
King's speech kicked off the first-ever USTA Advocacy Days, designed to highlight the work the organization has done in communities throughout the country and propose new ways to engage a nationwide network of tennis players.
Inside of one hour, a timeline exceeding 50 years and countless outlier triumphs evoked memories, both personal and sociological, for the 68-year-old King and many in the room, beginning with an introduction from a fifth-grade friend in a Long Beach, Calif., park and clutching the best purple-trimmed racquet $8.29 saved could buy in her sleep soon after.
The late Arthur Ashe had a similar start, as did Chris Evert, Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors and the Williams sisters – all public parks kids, part of the ever-increasing population of participants who drive the game in the U.S.
After being introduced by NPC President Theresa Werner, King spoke for about 25 minutes, referencing the accomplishments of various USTA programs and initiatives before taking questions from the audience. Also seated at the head table were USTA Chairman of the Board and President Jon Vegosen, USTA First Vice President David Haggerty and Kevin Wensing, a member of the USTA Advocacy and Public Affairs Committee.
"I come to you today as one of my proudest achievements: I'm one of over 27 million recreational tennis players [in the U.S.]," said King. "Tennis has been the fastest-growing traditional sport since the year 2000. We currently have over 800,000 adult league participants from 18 to 88... and that is just adults.
"Most people think tennis is only played in clubs. I meet people all the time who think, ‘Oh, it’s a country-club sport.’ Over 70 percent of tennis is played in public parks."
King cited that since 2005, the USTA has either built or refurbished more than 25,000 courts in the U.S. with the goal of creating fun and safe community hubs with tennis programming, a number that will likely reach 30,000 by the end of 2012.
The rapid growth of the game during King’s timeline and the boom in public tennis facility construction was born from social upheaval. Title IX was introduced 40 years ago, when just 29,000 women played varsity sports at the university level as compared to 170,000 men. The disparity in high schools was even worse: Fewer than 300,000 high school girls played varsity sports, compared with 3.7 million high school boys.
Just one year later, the defending US Open champion King – who took home $15,000 less in prize money than men’s champion Ilie Nastase – took on and defeated male tennis star Bobby Riggs, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, inside the Astrodome in Houston in straight sets during the now-famous "Battle of the Sexes" exhibition. The win was a watershed moment for tennis’ popularity in the U.S.
"Men come up to me in their 40s and 50s today, a lot of times with tears in their eyes, and they say how much that match changed their whole perception, how they have a daughter and how they're going to raise her," said King. "That they insist that their boys and girls, their sons and daughters, have equal opportunity. … President Obama was 12 years old when I played that, and he’s told me the story, too."
At the professional level, it was prime validation for the unprecedented decision that same year to award equal prize money to both the male and female champions at the 1973 US Open. In towns around the country, King’s victory served to inspire young women to compete in all facets of life, namely sports. A total of 3.1 million high school girls now play on high school varsity teams and another 170,000 play in college, amounting to a 940-percent increase when compared to four decades ago.
Yet the legacy of Title IX is almost always misunderstood, according to King.
"Title IX, it was about education, it wasn’t about sports. Sports was tagged on as a last-minute thought. Before 1972, the quotas at the Harvards of the world were five percent, if you wanted to be a woman doctor, if you wanted to be a woman lawyer. These were our forward-thinking educators. A woman could not get an athletic scholarship until the fall of 1972. And there weren’t very many in the fall of 1972. I can tell you, a lot of schools resisted on changing the law."
Another common misconception to King is that Title IX shuts down men’s sports, diluting the point that the recent decline in athletic programs at the collegiate level is more to do with economic than social change, affecting both genders equally and posing a great threat to tennis.
"Believe me, both men and women sports are being dropped in certain universities and colleges," said King. "The one thing I keep telling the athletic directors: ‘Do not get rid of tennis. Do not get rid of men’s tennis or women’s tennis because we are a lifetime sport and we have obesity in this country and we should be encouraging lifetime sports in our universities if we're going to have a healthy nation.'"
King continued the thought by providing a factoid courtesy of the Women’s Sport Foundation, which she founded in 1974: If the average American girl does not regularly exercise by the age of 10, there’s roughly a 90 percent chance she will not engage in exercise for the rest of her life.
Part of the solution: 10 and Under Tennis, which assimilates children successfully into tennis from a much earlier age than generations past, with smaller courts, smaller racquets, lower-bouncing balls and modified scoring to get kids rallying and competing right away.
"10 and Under Tennis is going to help fight childhood obesity, which we all know is epidemic in this country," said King. "We're going to get kids active. …Not only do we want to get them started, we want to keep them going forever."
The luncheon concluded with a playful moment, as King lobbed low-compression balls designed for 10 and Under Tennis into the sold-out Holeman Lounge crowd. King reminded the audience that the 10 and Under initiative may be directed towards kids, but it can also lengthen playing days for older folks, too.
"What's good for the kids is good for us mature people - AARP, are you listening?" said King with a laugh. "This helps us, too. We don’t have as much space to cover because the ball is a little slower.
"You’ll get a lot of generations together. It’s really fun; I love it." | <urn:uuid:7c39a749-7cfe-496d-9644-de00dbf44329> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usta.com/About-USTA/king_takes_to_washington_advocates_for_equality_in_tennis/?CategoryId=12647&Year=2012&pg=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974308 | 1,564 | 1.507813 | 2 |
President Obama Stands Poised to Reward Assad's Biggest Supporter
The United States chose an inopportune time to lift restrictions on Russia and normalize trade relations.
Cross-posted from the United to End Genocide Blog.
The situation in Syria is grave. Fears of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Assad reached new heights last week. The United Nations (UN) is pulling more than 1,000 staffers from Syria due to intensified fighting near the capital. Additionally, a 48-hour Internet blackout has made communications with critical staff impossible.
For nearly two years, Russia has intentionally blocked action to save innocent lives in Syria, even as it remains the main weapons supplier to the Syrian regime. Diplomatically, they have vetoed three UN resolutions for a peace settlement and militarily, they’ve supplied the Assad regime with attack helicopters, advanced defensive missile systems and munitions.
This past summer, a Syrian government plane returned home from Russia with 200 tons of “bank notes,” providing Syria with valuable currency as the United States and others imposed trade sanctions, weakening the Syrian economy. By supplying the murderous Assad regime with currency, weapons and blocking UN resolutions aimed at ending bloodshed in Syria, Russia has become an important lifeline for the brutal Assad government.
As the civilian death toll continues to climb in Syria, President Obama is about to lift Russian trade restrictions that have been in place for 40 years. The Senate voted last week to lift the Cold War-era ban that would normalize trade relations with Russia, to which President Obama responded, “I look forward to receiving and signing this legislation.” Ironically, this will formally make Russia a “most favored nation” of the United States.
Russia’s role in the slaughter of 40,000 people is not what is driving this policy shift. Guess what is? Lawmakers hope that the legislation will boost U.S. exports by giving U.S. businesses increased market access. U.S. exports to Russia could double in 5 years. “Our manufacturing sector needs every boost it can get,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry.
Human rights champions in the House and Senate noted that the bill included another Act – the Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act – that targets Russian human rights abusers. The law blacklists Russians connected to the death of Magnitsky, whose crime was working for American law firm in Moscow when he discovered a $230 million tax fraud being carried out by Russian police. He died in police custody. The law will also authorize the blacklisting of those responsible for other gross human rights violations, prohibiting entrance to the United States and use of its banking system.
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), one of champions for the Magnitsky bill, said “Today, we open a new chapter in U.S. leadership for human rights.”
Maybe so, but what about the human rights of the innocent people of Syria who are being slaughtered by their government? Rewarding Russia with economic perks and declaring it “most favored” while the Russian government provides the murderous Syrian regime with arms and diplomatic cover is wrong.
The United States has appealed for Russia to reverse course on its support of Assad and has condemned Russian intransience with words. But, money talks. By dolling out economic perks and trade deals to Russia – even as people die in Syria – the U.S. is sending precisely the wrong message at the worst possible time.
Tell President Obama that Russia should not be awarded perks while it aids and abets mass murder in Syria. Ask him to stand with the Syrian people by keeping trade restrictions on Russia in place.
Tom Andrews is the President of United to End Genocide. | <urn:uuid:cb82b94d-8484-456d-9b21-fbfd82e4f2ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fpif.org/blog/president_obama_stands_poised_to_reward_assads_biggest_supporter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961415 | 769 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Pwditat Loves Terfel
Terfel’s the dog’s life changed for the better when his human Judy adopted a stray cat named Pwditat, who appointed herself as the dog’s service animal and pal. Pwditat walked up to Terfel, led him and brought him out into the garden. She has continued to help the dog get around and enjoy life since ever since.
Terfel ended up spending most of his time in his basket after cataracts deprived the eight year old pup of his vision. When he did get up for a walk, he’d bump into things.
Judy let the stray cat into her home — and was amazed by what happened next.
A retired civil servant of Holyhead, North Wales, Judysaid: “I’ve never seen anything like it — most cats and dogs hate each other.
“But Pwditat immediately seemed to know that Terfel is blind.
“She uses her paws to help guide him. They are glued to each other and even sleep together now.”
Pals … Terfel & Pwditat
WALES NEWS SERVICE
Published: 28th December 2012 | <urn:uuid:3c86dafe-e709-46f3-9baa-912dca48473d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nomoretexasgovernorsforpresident.tumblr.com/tagged/animals | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980895 | 261 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Obama Job Plan: the Promise and the Drawbacks
More than once in the morning after the President's jobs speech, I had the same conversation: "it's more than I expected." "It's a far cry from enough." "It doesn't really matter because the Republicans will kill it."
BC Question: What will it take to bring Obama home? Therein lay the quandary for progressives. Should we rally around a program that is deficient, or continue to press for more effective measures? My answer has been: both.
Unquestionably, passage of the American Jobs Act would be a good thing. As the President outlined it, the proposal aims to "to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working," and "create more jobs for construction workers, more
jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for long-term unemployed." To say that it doesn't matter is to turn our backs on the millions of people out there struggling to maintain themselves and their families amid a faltering economy. "It's not nearly as bold as the plan I'd want in an ideal world," wrote economist Paul Krugman. "But if it actually became law, it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment."
Will the jobs plan "provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled, and give companies confidence that if they invest and if they hire, there will be customers for their products and services"? Well, it's hard to say. Every day, the economic crisis appears to get worse. The President says the economy has stalled. Some economists suggest it has stalled like an airplane that has lost engine power and is poised to begin another descent. Combine what is happening here at home with developments in Europe and you have the makings of this
current crisis of capitalism turning really ugly.
At the moment, it seems to me, we should endeavor to put aside our policy wonk hats and concentrate on the politics of the situation. The battle lines are pretty clear: It's the White House proposal, or doing nothing. There's nothing else on the table. AFL-CIO President
Richard Trumka holds out hope that the pot will be sweetened. "The plan announced by the president is only the opening bid," he said. "We expect to see more proposals in the next weeks and months to put America back to work."
We shall see.
The danger remains that those in the Administration's camp who are never anything but political operatives will prevail, opportunity will give way to political expediency and fall prey to the notion that the 2012 election trumps all. That camp argues that all that matters is the vote of ill-defined "independents" and everything must be "bi-partisan" That notion should
have been put to rest by the most recent Republican Presidential candidates debate. The GOP has no plan for job creation. The candidates presented a united front: the issue in the next election is "Obama." They seem to have figured out that the public is more concerned with unemployment than deficit reduction, and if the jobs crisis is to be pinned on the President then surely nothing should be done to alleviate it over the next 13 months.
"Helping the country is unlikely to be enough of an incentive for Republicans to pass a bill, any bill, that Obama supports, even a bill, like this one, that is assembled mostly from refurbished spare parts collected from their own ideological warehouse," wrote Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker blog. "No doubt many of them sincerely believe that the end (upping the chances of defeating Obama and his nefarious agenda of turning America into a socialist hellhole like Western Europe) justifies the means (deepening the extent of mass unemployment, human suffering, and ancillary damage to the economy and to society)."
The Republican approach to tackling unemployment was well summed up by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who said the party was hoping the President would roll back regulations, take up entitlement reform, facilitate the production of more energy, and spur free-trade
Obama has already done too much regulation reform with his relaxation of air quality standards. Of course, the GOP wants to take a hatchet to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. More energy means mountain top strip mining, and dangerous shale oil pipelines,
courtesy of the big oil companies. As far as trade pacts are concerned, Corker evidently wasn't listening when Obama said, " Now it's time to clear the way for a series of trade agreements that would make it easier for American companies to sell their products in
Panama, Colombia, and South Korea - while also helping the workers whose jobs have been affected by global competition. If Americans can buy Kias and Hyundais, I want to see folks in South Korea driving Fords and Chevys and Chryslers. I want to see more products sold
around the world stamped with three proud words: `Made in America.'"
That's another question. In the real world, such agreements are not the panacea they are touted to be; sometimes they have devastating effects on working people at both ends of the pacts.
Then, there was the out-to-lunch John Podhoretz writing in the New York Post that the President "did propose incentives to private-sector employers, but those incentives do not involve much in the way of lessening their regulatory or tax burden. Obama mentioned he had initiated a review of onerous federal regulations but had so far identified only 500 he could do away with."
Only 500? (I cringe to think what they might be).
"And he spoke once again of making the wealthy pay more in taxes, which directly affects the ability of small-business owners to employ more people," Podhoretz went on. Actually the two things have very little to do with each other. The Administration's proposed hiring-tax incentives are intended for small business.
"The President has delivered a good start for putting Americans back to work that includes elements we as progressives have been calling for," read a joint statement from Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Reps. Raul M. Grijalva and Keith Ellison
following the president's speech. "Our country will finally make essential repairs to America's roads and bridges. Wall Street and multi-millionaires will start to pay their fair share and support the country that has helped them prosper. The long-term unemployed, who have been hit hardest by the recession, will have the support they need while they find jobs."
"For eight months, the Republicans have successfully paralyzed the national conversation by holding the people's business hostage. They have shown no interest in putting the livelihoods of millions of working families ahead of their own narrow political goals. They have refused to take job creation seriously. As a result, we have seen record numbers of laid-off teachers, returning veterans struggling to find work, and firefighters and first responders hurting for funding."
"The crisis is so severe that we must do more than the president has proposed," the Caucus leaders said September 9. "That's why next week the Congressional Progressive Caucus will unveil our Framework to Rebuild the American Dream. It offers a bold, comprehensive
progressive vision for America based on what we can do, not the Tea Party vision of what America can't do. As we showed with the People's Budget, we can create millions of jobs and eliminate the deficit within ten years if we choose the right priorities and make good
"We join the President in calling on Congressional Republicans to put the national interest ahead of partisan stonewalling. We stand ready to move forward and put American families back to work."
Back to the quandary.
A reoccurring theme in much of the media commentary on the Obama proposals has been futility, summed up by a Washington Post columnist's declaration that "long before the speech, both sides had concluded it didn't much matter: Obama has become too weak to enact anything big enough to do much good."
"I thought it was a great speech," the columnist quoted Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) as saying. "But the odds of Obama getting his plan through Congress are probably as good as the Nationals winning the league this year."
Liberal columnist, Harold Meyerson, called the President's speech: "Good plan, good vision, good politics - That was an enlivened President Obama we saw earlier this evening - impassioned, indignant, non-professorial," he wrote in the Washington Post. "And enlivened he should have been, because the American economy trembles on the brink of a double-dip
recession, and the Republican opposition has been seized by an ideology that would erode what remains of the once-great American middle class. Not to mention, Obama's own political future and that of his party are on the line as well."
"The size and the substance of this new stimulus give Obama and his party the ability not only to rally many of his disenchanted core supporters but to reach out to voters in the middle of the political spectrum," wrote Meyerson. "That's partly because more than half the
package - roughly $240 billion - takes the form of a one-year payroll tax reduction for employees and employers that will be difficult for Republicans to oppose. The tax credits for employees who hire veterans are also a political winner, though the tax credit for companies that hire the long-term unemployed (which in Republican-speak will mean minorities, whose votes they're not going to get anyway) is one that the GOP is almost sure to resist. Also likely to meet a Republican rejection are Obama's proposals to build roads and schools, and to fund the retention and rehiring of tens of thousands of teachers."
Perhaps the most overused word this year has been "compromise" and we're going to hear it a lot more over coming weeks. The danger here is that if the compromisers in the Administration - the ones too often anxious to split the difference with the opposition - hold sway, the Republicans and their "blue dog Democratic allies will get what their corporate backers want (the tax cut part) while the long-term jobless, the teachers, students and poor people are left out in the cold.
But wait. It gets worse. Those who want to take a knife to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are still lurking out there. And the President isn't helping matters with his repeated ambiguous statements about "reforming" Medicare. He says this is necessary because of "an aging population and rising health care costs" Why not tackle the latter instead of taking from the elderly? Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future noted "the president went out of his way once more to put Medicare and Medicaid on the table for a
grand bargain with Republicans for dramatic deficit reduction over the next decade. He promised to detail this in another presentation next week, threatening to once more deflate the debate we need over jobs with a return to a debate that is utterly divisive over deficit reduction."
Then, there is another problem with the President's plan. "Putting Americans back to work is also critical to keeping Social Security and Medicare strong," says Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. "However, this proposal to extend and expand the payroll tax cut threatens Social Security's independence by forcing the program to compete for limited federal dollars from general revenues, and by breaking the link between contributions and benefits. As we predicted back in December, `There's no such thing as a temporary tax cut.' Just months after being reassured that diverting contributions from Social Security would last for just one year, Congress is now being asked to extend and even increase this diversion of payroll taxes for another year. Doubling-down by also cutting employer contributions greatly worsens the situation, and makes it even harder to restore the Social Security system to self-financing. If this extension passes, there is no guarantee that Congress won't be asked to extend it yet
again, for a 3rd or even a 4th year or longer, and expand it even more, making it a de facto permanent part of the tax code. This is death by a thousand cuts.
"Social Security is paid for, earned by, and promised to American workers. We call on the President and the Congress to reaffirm the fact that Social Security has been, is, and will continue to be, a self-financed insurance program; and that this temporary payroll tax cut does not constitute a precedent that would undermine this principle."
Ari Berman wisely asked in The Nation, "Could Obama's to-be-determined deficit speech undermine the momentum from his jobs speech? Perhaps," he continued, "The president left open the possibility for significant changes to Medicare and Medicaid, which won't be
popular with many Americans. The super-committee still has the power in Washington. Once its deadline nears, the conversation may once again revolve around deficits instead of jobs, especially since there's no built-in incentive forcing the committee to focus on jobs, as
compared to the triggered spending cuts."
Labor leader Trumka Richard L. Trumka clearly senses the danger here. In the P.S. to his statement welcoming the President's speech, he said. "Some politicians claim cuts to our social safety net, deregulation and lower taxes for the rich will fix our problems. But they're flat wrong. If we continue down this road, it only will destroy more jobs and send us into a vicious downward spiral. Our country is too good and too rich to weaken our commitment to safety net protections such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment
"We don't have time to waste on the same old failed policies that drove our economy off a cliff in the first place. Tell Congress: Working families will judge our elected leaders by whether they act with integrity and energy to create good jobs now."
"Progressives are demanding action on jobs," wrote Borosage. "An inspired president on the stump is vital to making that case. His agenda is a first step, designed to attract bipartisan support. If Republicans oppose this, they will be turning their backs on working people, either out of misguided ideological extremism, or for partisan political advantage. The president is right. It is time to act.
"President Obama has taken a step in the right direction with his speech and jobs plan. It was a small step - but it has to be to present Republicans with the choice to cooperate or get pushed out of the way," said Dave Johnson of the Campaign for America's future. "If
this passes it is a win for jobs and the economy – and therefore the President's re-election. If Republicans block it, the President wins because voters will push Republicans out and the country will be able to get moving again. But it all depends on follow-through. The President has to keep out there, pounding on this, and only this, every single day until there is a vote.
Every. Single. Day. That is the key."
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union. | <urn:uuid:9259598d-d8a6-418a-aa1a-68e117db69c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/obama-job-plan-the-promise-and-the-drawbacks-by-carl-bloice | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969238 | 3,132 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Contrary to the impression you may have gotten from the media and the coffee shop, the world is still buying Bt. The world marketplace is willing to take Bt corn and its processed products, provided they have been approved by the importing country, points out John McClenathan, vice president of ADM/Growmark. Indications are that the world will buy Bt corn next year, too. Meanwhile, some customers are seeking corn without Bt or any other enhanced genes. And a few may pay a premium for generic genetics.
All this means you'll have more business and agronomic homework to do before next season. You'll have to look at what combinations of customers, genes and markets give you the best profit options.
"No one should make decisions based on emotion," says McClenathan. "A farmer needs to look at the economics of production. The new technology offers significant benefits, without question. You also have to look at the marketing alternatives. Talk to local markets and ask 'What are you bidding?' and 'Do you have any specialty programs for the export, livestock or processing markets?' You need to ask about these topics and chose what will give the best bottom line."
Some farmers feel threatened by the need to explore several corn markets. Others are looking forward to the challenge.
Among those accepting the marketing challenge is Leon Corzine, an Assumption, IL, farmer who is also vice president of the Illinois Corn Growers Association. "The important thing is evaluating where my product is going and who my customer is," he says. "It's part of our business to determine what we're going to plant. This may take more communication with the buyers. We have to look at what the customer wants and at the possibility of a premium."
What the customer wants might include a label identifying whether a product is made from an approved biotech crop or from a conventional crop. Corzine sees no threat in labels and says they could help calm customer fears and improve acceptance.
"If the customer wants to know about a product, we should provide the information," he says. "For some of our customers, science has gotten ahead of acceptance. Maybe in the future they won't care about the label. But now there are too many unknowns for some customers."
Farmers could maintain market flexibility by helping write labels that avoid unrealistic standards such as 100% GMO-free.
"Let's develop some standards that let us put in what the customer wants," says Corzine.
"The rule of economics is always the final rule," concludes Elgin, IA, grower Ron McCartney. "The market has a lot to prove this winter. When the customer learns these products are as good if not better than conventional, then the premiums will fade. If the customers are out there who want non-GMOs, then I'll sell them to them." | <urn:uuid:ad04e2d6-2d4c-4246-9a3e-d85dd193d370> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/marketing-multiple-choice | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967381 | 589 | 1.65625 | 2 |
While this ten week challenge is on, I try to visit each individual student blog at least three times, but with more and more students registering their own blog, I am finding this more difficult to do.
Teachers/educators who want to be a commenter for this challenge, please leave a comment on this post giving a small bio of yourself. As students will be grouped by age, please tell me what age group you want to leave comments with. If you have a class blog, also leave the URL of this for students to visit.
As each student registers, I will leave a welcome comment on their blog.
There will be a page in the header titled ‘Students March 2011′ This will be a spreadsheet listing all students by age and you will be allocated about 20 blogs to look after. Your name will be put at the top of your list of students.
Students: Role of the commenter
I will allocate about 20 blogs for each commenter to visit. By the end of the challenge, they will visit each of those blogs at least twice. Each commenter will leave one or more comments on the blogs. The comments might be on your about page, or on a post and might include some tips to improve your blog. Hopefully the comment they leave will also allow you to keep carrying on a conversation with the helper.
If you want to know more about your helper, look at the comments on this post as they will be writing a short little bio in the comments.
Original image: ‘My little helper‘
by: Emory Allen
Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial License | <urn:uuid:db9a69e0-de84-4432-8638-c93e31bf86ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/2011/02/05/wanted-teacherseducators-to-comment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951416 | 327 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Stanford University’s School of Engineering contacted Drupal Connect to migrate their legacy site into Drupal. Stanford is one of the most well-respected private universities in the country.
HTML Migration: Stanford School of Engineering’s legacy site was comprised of over 1,300 static HTML pages that had to be converted to Drupal nodes. The markup of these pages was not always consistent, and some pages differed from the norm considerably in terms of look and feel, making automated content parsing more difficult. Migrated pages needed to retain all embedded images and links, as well as relevant copy.
MSSQL Migration: The legacy site also contained data supplied by a MSSQL database, including 1,000+ faculty profiles, 5,000+ publications, and hundreds of labs and organizations, each with many specific data fields. These also had to be migrated to Drupal with no data loss and a clean, reusable implementation.
Performance: The website is highly trafficked and as such, maintaining performance and reliability was a high priority.
Automated HTML retrieval, parsing, cleanup, and Drupal node creation: We built a tool that crawled each page of the legacy site, fetching and cleaning/sanitizing relevant content and creating Drupal page nodes. This tool was also responsible for bringing over images as Drupal files, correcting all local links to point to new page locations, and updating the site nav to point to the new Drupal paths. Using this tool, the process was completely portable, and we were able to run it repeatedly as the legacy site’s content was updated while development was in progress.
Automated MSSQL to MySQL to Drupal importing: We built a set of scripts which, given a MSSQL dump of the legacy site’s data, converted it to a MySQL dump, imported it into the Drupal database as custom tables, and mapped the relevant fields to CCK fields in custom content types to create nodes. This was also a repeatable tool, and was used and reused as MSSQL content was added or updated.
Pressflow and Varnish: To solve the performance issues, we built the site on top of Pressflow and put it behind Varnish, a reverse proxy and HTTP accelerator that is known to serve around 3,000 requests per second.
Maintain Stanford best practices: Stanford has a custom Drupal theme as well as a custom Drupal module which were integrated into their internal authentication/log-in system. We integrated both into the site so that it maintained a cohesive look and feel with other Stanford sites, and anyone with an internal Stanford log-in (i.e., all students, faculty, and staff) could log in to the Drupal site using that information. | <urn:uuid:14d83f64-7aba-4050-ab11-d0d09a3132f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://drupalconnect.com/projects/stanford-university | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959773 | 549 | 1.78125 | 2 |
William Stout was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on the way to Los Angeles in 1949. At seventeen he won a full California State Scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute (California Institute of the Arts) where he obtained his Bachelor's Degree. He began his professional career in 1968 with the cover for the first issue of Coven 13. In 1971 he began to assist Russ Manning on the Tarzan of the Apes Sunday & daily newspaper comic strips and Eisner Award-winning graphic novels. Stout joined Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder on Little Annie Fanny for Playboy in 1972. In 1973 Stout began his relationship with the Firesign Theatre and gained international notoriety for his 45 rock 'n' roll "bootleg" record album covers.
From 1976 to 1977 Stout was art director for the rock magazine Bomp! 1977 also saw Stout's first movie poster, WIZARDS. Stout ultimately worked on the advertising for over 120 films. His first one man show, "The Prehistoric World of William Stout", was in 1977. He also was one of the first American contributors to Heavy Metal magazine.
Buck Rogers and 1978 saw the beginning of Stout's film career. Stout has worked on over 30 feature films including both Conan films, First Blood, The Hitcher and Invaders From Mars. Return of the Living Dead made Stout the youngest production designer in film history. Stout wrote The Warrior and the Sorceress for Roger Corman and a dinosaur feature for Jim Henson. He production designed Masters of the Universe and designed John McTiernan's A Princess of Mars film project. In 1995 William Stout became the key character designer for the Walt Disney full length computer animated feature Dinosaur (released in 2000). He designed "Edgar" (the big bug in Men In Black) for ILM in 1996. Stout recently completed the designs for The Muppets Wizard of Oz then did key designs for Guillermo del Toro's horror classic, Pan's Labyrinth. His latest film work was for Christopher Nolan's new film, The Prestige and Frank Darabont 's Stephen King's The Mist. He is slated to work on del Toro's At The Mountains of Madness as well as a proposed John Carter of Mars film.
In 1981 Bantam Books published Stout's landmark masterwork (recently updated and republished as THE DINOSAURS-A Fantastic New View of a Lost EraTHE NEW DINOSAURS), followed by Ray Bradbury's Dinosaur Tales and The Little Blue Brontosaurus (1984 Children's Choice Award recipient and the basis for The Land Before Time animated feature).
As a result of his paleontological reconstruction work, 11 Stout paintings were selected for inclusion in the traveling exhibition "Dinosaurs Past and Present", an important group show depicting the history of paleoart. The exhibition broke all attendance records at each host museum. The six year tour included (among others) the British Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. At the Smithsonian alone, over 2,000,000 visitors saw this exhibition.
Beginning in 1987, Stout worked for Walt Disney Imagineering for a year and a half as a conceptualist, designer and producer for EuroDisneyland, Disneyland, TokyoDisneyland and Walt Disney World. After leaving Disney Stout continued themed entertainment design work, contributing ideas and designs to many Disney and non-Disney projects. In 1989 he was hired by Lucasfilm/Industrial Light and Magic as conceptualist and chief designer for their first foray into themed entertainment centers. In 1991 Stout conceived and designed Z Z Top's Recycler tour.
Stout undertook a voyage to Antarctica and Patagonia in January of 1989. The profound spectacle of the "last continent" changed his life, leading to a 45 painting one man show "Dinosaurs, Penguins and Whales-The Wildlife of Antarctica" . This exhibition began its tour of the world's natural history museums ( Mikhail Gorbachev personally requested that the exhibition travel to Moscow) at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County on January 19, 1991. This effort by Stout to alert and inform the public consciousness as to the complex beauty of Antarctica and its past and present denizens, and to work as part of the international effort to make Antarctica the first World Park evolved into his current book project, LOST CONTINENT-Modern and Prehistoric Life in Antarctica, the first visual overview of life in Antarctica. For his pioneering work in this field, William Stout was doubly honored in August of 1991. He was the chosen guest banquet speaker at the International Conference on the Role of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in Global Change (Marine Science Institute, UCSB ). Stout also received a grant from the National Science Foundation to participate in their Antarctic Artists and Writers Program during the 1992-1993 austral summer.
For three months Stout was based at McMurdo Station and Palmer Station. He made several dives beneath the ice, climbed the active volcano Mt. Erebus, camped in the dry valleys and produced over 100 painted studies as he carefully observed the white continent's rich abundance of life. Upon his return he drove over 1000 miles through central southern Chile, documenting the rare prehistoric forests there for his book on Antarctic life. In May, 1993, at the invitation of the National Science Foundation, Stout participated in the Boulder, Colorado gathering of all of the previous recipients of the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, the first such gathering in history.
April of 1993 saw the release of the William Stout's Lost Worlds, the first of three trading card sets by Comic Images (to date, over 20 million William Stout trading cards have been sold).
Michael Crichton acknowledged Stout's work as an inspiration for his book Jurassic Park. In 1993, Universal Cartoon Studios chose Stout to design a prime time animated series of Jurassic Park. From 1993 to 1994 William Stout researched and painted two murals for the Houston Museum of Natural Science depicting "Life Before The Dinosaurs" . In 1994 Stout continued theme park attraction creation and design for MCA/Universal's Islands of Adventure.
In late 1995, Steven Spielberg chose Stout as his senior concept designer for GameWorks, a Sega/ Universal/DreamWorks SKG joint project. For two years Stout and his team oversaw the concepts, design, and execution of the first three GameWorks facilities (Seattle, Tempe & Ontario). In 1997
In late 1997/early 1998 Stout completed three Cretaceous murals and supervised two full-sized dinosaur sculptures for Walt Disney's Animal Kingdom. Stout began worked in1998/1999 as the lead designer for Kansas City's Wonderful World of Oz theme park, and as a designer for the Michael Jackson NeverLand theme parks and a Toronto Dinotopia theme park.
The Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton, CA hosted Stout's largest (55 paintings) one man show to date: "Dinosaurs, Penguins & Whales: William Stout's Antarctica" in 1999. Stout recently illustrated Abu & The 7 Marvels ( Benjamin Franklin Award: Best Young Adult Book; Bram Stoker Award nominee; Chesley Award nominee; Gold and Silver Medals from the Society of Illustrators), Richard Matheson's first children's book. Stout's Tanagra Theatre poster art won the Silver Awards from both the Society of Illustrators and Spectrum in 2004. His cover for the August 2004 Cricket won a Silver Award from the Society of Illustrators as well. The Stout-illustrated book The Emerald Wand of Oz was released in 2005; Trouble Under Oz in 2006. Stout's own publishing company, Terra Nova Press, has published thirty four books on art and the history of art.
In 1993 Stout was invited into the California Art Club. He served for years as a member of their Executive Board; he is currently on their Advisory Board. Stout was unanimously voted the honor of being a Signature Member in 1997.
Stout is currently painting twelve large murals depicting the prehistoric life of San Diego for the San Diego Natural History Museum. The first seven murals debuted to the public in 2006. The remaining five will be completed in 2007. In addition to the San Diego Natural History Museum, William Stout's murals and paintings are on permanent display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Walt Disney's Animal Kingdom, the Orton Geological Museum, The Museum of the Rockies and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science.
William Stout resides in Pasadena, California with his perfect wife; they are occasionally visited by their two brilliant sons. | <urn:uuid:4838a34b-c605-4535-b1a7-ce5007110508> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://williamstout.com/about/bio/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945345 | 1,716 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Originally Posted by LPGI
I'm still waiting on my thermometer to arrive so right now his water is room temp (around 75 degrees, warmest I can get until the heater arrives). When I fill up his tank (he is in a small seperate point at this point) I add the conditioner and add the Epsom Salt (100% Magnesium Sulfate, 1 teaspoon) and stir it into the water until it dissolves. I then let the water sit until it gets to room temp and transfer him back into his tank.
The water chemistry between the old and new water can be different. Putting him directly into the new water without acclimating him can cause a shock to his system.
Make sure the new water really is the same temp as his old water. (You didn't say how long you let it sit.) Then....
Float his cup in the new water for about 15 minutes, so that you know the temp inside matches the temp in the bowl.
Add a SMALL amount of water from bowl into his cup. (Several tablespoons, or about an ounce.) Let him sit for 10-15 min.
Remove a small amount of water from his cup and discard it. Add another SMALL amount of water from the bowl. Let him sit for 10-15 min....
Repeat these steps for an hour or so.
Then gently release him into the new tank.
Do not rush this process! | <urn:uuid:a5a2d9cd-c6bd-4e4a-abf6-7c2273645a66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?p=1413186 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970649 | 297 | 1.546875 | 2 |
By Mark Danner
STATE OF DENIAL: BUSH AT WAR, PART III
Today, if we went into Iraq, like the president would like us to do, you know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end.
I ask you, sir, what is the American army doing inside Iraq?... Saddam's story has been finished for close to three years.
In the ruined city of Fallujah, its pale tan buildings pulverized by Marine artillery in the two great assaults of this long war (the aborted attack of March 2004 and then the bloody, triumphant al-Fajr (The Dawn) campaign of the following November), behind the lines of giant sandbags and concrete T-walls and barbed wire that surrounded the tiny beleaguered American outpost there, I sat in my body armor and Kevlar helmet and thought of George F. Kennan. Not the grand old man of American diplomacy, the ninety-eight-year-old Father of Containment who, listening to the war drums beat from a Washington nursing home in the fall of 2002, had uttered the prophetic words above. I was thinking of an earlier Kennan, the brilliant and ambitious young diplomat who during the late 1920s and 1930s had gazed out on the crumbling European order from Tallinn and Berlin and Prague and read the signs of the coming world conflict.
For there in the bunkered Civil-Military Operations Center (known as the C-Moc) in downtown Fallujah, where a few score Marines and a handful of civilians subsisted in a broken-down bunkered building without running water or fresh food, I met young Kennan's reincarnation in the person of a junior State Department official: a bright, aggressive young man who spent his twenty-hour days rumbling down the ruined streets in body armor and helmet with his reluctant Marine escorts, meeting with local Iraqi officials, and writing tart cables back to Baghdad or Washington telling his bosses the truth of what was happening on the ground, however reluctant they might be to hear it. This young diplomat was resourceful and brilliant and indefatigable, and as I watched him joking and arguing with the local sheikhs and politicos and technocrats —who were meeting, as they were forced to do, in the American bunker —I thought of the indomitable young Kennan of the interwar years, and of how, if the American effort in Iraq could ever be made to "work," only undaunted and farseeing young men like this one, his spiritual successor, could make it happen.
This was October 2005, on the eve of the nationwide referendum on Iraq's proposed constitution, and I had come to Fallujah, the heart of rebellious Anbar province, to see whether the Sunnis could gather the political strength to vote it down. In a provision originally insisted on by the Kurds, a provision that typified an American-designed political process that had been intended to unify the country but that instead had helped pull it inexorably apart, the proposed constitution could be rejected if, in three of Iraq's eighteen provinces, more than two in three Iraqis coming to the polls voted no. During the first post-Saddam election the previous January, the televised extravaganza of "waving purple fingers" which had become perhaps the most celebrated of the many promised "turning points" of this long war, the Sunnis had boycotted the polls. This time, after Herculean efforts of persuasion and negotiation by the American ambassador, most Sunnis were expected to vote. What would draw them, though —or such anyway was the common wisdom—was the chance not to affirm the constitution but to doom it, and the political process along with it.
And so as I sat after midnight on the eve of the vote, scribbling in my notebook in the dimly lit C-Moc bunker as the young diplomat explained to me the intricacies of the politics of the battered city, I was pleased to see him suddenly lean forward and, with quick glances to either side, offer me a confidence. "You know, tomorrow you are going to be surprised," he told me, speaking softly. "Everybody is going to be surprised. People here are not only going to vote. People here—a great many people here—are going to vote yes."
I was stunned. That the Sunnis would actually come out to support the constitution would be an astonishing turnabout and, for the American effort in Iraq, an enormously positive one; for it would mean that despite the escalating violence on the ground, especially here in Anbar, Iraq was in fact moving toward a rough political consensus. It would mean that beneath the bloody landscape of suicide bombings and assassinations and roadside bombs a common idea about politics and compromise was taking shape. It would mean that what had come to seem a misbegotten political process that charted and even worsened the growing divisions among Iraqis had actually become the avenue for bringing them together. It would mean there might be hope.
I took the young diplomat's words as an invaluable bit of inside wisdom from the American who knew this ground better than any other, and I kept them in mind a few hours later as I traveled from polling place to polling place in that city of rubble, listening as the Fallujans told me of their anger at the Americans and the "Iranians" (as they called the leading Shiite politicians) and of their hatred for the constitution that they believed was meant to divide and thus destroy Iraq. I pondered the diplomat's words that evening, when I realized that in a long day of interviews I'd not met a single Iraqi who would admit to voting for the constitution. And I thought of his words again several days later when it was confirmed that in Anbar province—where the most knowledgeable, experienced, indefatigable American had confided to me what he had plainly ardently believed, that on the critical vote on the constitution "a great many people would vote yes"—that in Anbar ninety-seven out of every hundred Iraqis who voted had voted no. With all his contacts and commitment, with all his energy and brilliance, on the most basic and critical issue of politics on the ground he had been entirely, catastrophically wrong.
"You know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end." The ninety-eight-year-old George F. Kennan, sitting in the Washington nursing home as the war came on, knew from eight decades of experience to focus first of all on the problem of what we know and what we don't know. You know, though you spend your endless, frustrating days speaking to Iraqis, lobbying them, arguing with them, that in a country torn by a brutal and complicated war those Iraqis perforce are drawn from a small and special subset of the population: Iraqis who are willing to risk their lives by meeting with and talking to Americans. Which is to say, very often, Iraqis who depend on the Americans not only for their livelihoods but for their survival. You know that the information these Iraqis draw on is similarly limited, and that what they convey is itself selected, to a greater or lesser extent, to please their interlocutor. But though you know that much of your information comes from a thin, inherently biased slice of Iraqi politics and Iraqi life, hundreds of conversations during those grueling twenty-hour days eventually lead you to think, must lead you to think, that you are coming to understand what's happening in this immensely complicated, violent place. You come to believe you know. And so often, even about the largest things, you do not know.
As this precious stream of flickering knowledge travels "up the chain" from those on the shell-pocked, dangerous ground collecting it to those in Washington offices ultimately making decisions based upon it, the problem of what we really know intensifies, acquiring a fierce complexity. Policymakers, peering second-, third-, fourth-hand into a twilight world, must learn a patient, humble skepticism. Or else, confronted with an ambiguous reality they do not like, they turn away, ignoring the shadowy, shifting landscape and forcing their eyes stubbornly toward their own ideological light. Unable to find clarity, they impose it. Consider, for example, these words of Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking about the Iraq war on November 9, two days after the election and the day after President Bush fired him:
It is very clear that the major combat operations were an enormous success. It's clear that in Phase Two of this, it has not been going well enough or fast enough.
Such analyses are not uncommon from Pentagon civilians; thus Dov Zakheim, a former Rumsfeld aide, to a television interviewer later that evening:
People will debate the second part, the second phase of what happened in Iraq. Very few are arguing that the military victory in the first phase was anything but an outright success.
Three years and eight months after the Iraq war began, the secretary of defense and his allies see in Iraq not one war but two. One is the Real Iraq War—the "outright success" that only very few would deny, the war in which American forces were "greeted as liberators," according to the famous prediction of Dick Cheney which the Vice President doggedly insists was in fact proved true: "true within the context of the battle against the Saddam Hussein regime and his forces. That went very quickly." It is "within this context" that the former secretary of defense and the Vice President see America's current war in Iraq as in fact comprising a brief, dramatic, and "enormously successful" war of a few weeks' duration leading to a decisive victory, and then...what? Well, whatever we are in now: a Phase Two, a "postwar phase" (as Bob Woodward sometimes calls it) which has lasted three and a half years and continues. In the first, successful, Real Iraq War, 140 Americans died. In the postwar phase 2,700 Americans have died— and counting. What is happening now in Iraq is not in fact a war at all but a phase, a non-war, something unnamed, unconceptualized—unplanned.
Anyone seeking to understand what has become the central conundrum of the Iraq war—how it is that so many highly accomplished, experienced, and intelligent officials came together to make such monumental, consequential, and, above all, obvious mistakes, mistakes that much of the government knew very well at the time were mistakes—must see beyond what seems to be a simple rhetoric of self-justification and follow it where it leads: toward the War of Imagination that senior officials decided to fight in the spring and summer of 2002 and to whose image they clung long after reality had taken a sharply separate turn. In that War of Imagination victory was to be decisive, overwhelming, evincing a terrible power—enough to wipe out the disgrace of September 11 and remake the threatening world. In State of Denial, Woodward recounts how Michael Gerson, at the time Bush's chief speechwriter, asked Henry Kissinger why he had supported the Iraq war:
"Because Afghanistan wasn't enough," Kissinger answered. In the conflict with radical Islam, he said, they want to humiliate us. "And we need to humiliate them." The American response to 9/11 had essentially to be more than proportionate—on a larger scale than simply invading Afghanistan and overthrowing the Taliban. Something else was essential. The Iraq war was essential to send a larger message, "in order to make a point that we're not going to live in this world that they want for us."
Though to anyone familiar with Kissinger's "realist" rhetoric of power and credibility his analysis will come as no surprise, Gerson, the deeply religious idealist who composed Bush's most soaring music about "ending tyranny" and "ridding the world of evil," seems mildly disappointed: Kissinger "viewed Iraq purely in the context of power politics. It was not idealism. He didn't seem to connect with Bush's goal of promoting democracy."
Gerson, of course, was author of what would come to be called the Bush Doctrine, a neoconservative paean to democracy that maintains that "the realistic interests of America would now be served by fidelity to American ideals, especially democracy." Others in the administration, however, plainly did "connect" with Kissinger's stark realism: Donald Rumsfeld, for example, who Ron Suskind depicts, in The One Percent Doctrine, struggling with other officials in spring 2002 to cope with various terrifying warnings of impending attacks on the United States:
All these reports helped fuel Rumsfeld's sense of futility as to America's ability to stop the spread of destructive weapons and keep them from terrorists. That futility was the fuel that drove the plans to invade Iraq... as soon as possible.
Cheney's ideas about how "our reaction" would shape behavior— whatever the evidence showed—were expressed in an off-the-record meeting Rumsfeld had with NATO defense chiefs in Brussels on June 6. According to an outline for his speech, the secretary told those assembled that "absolute proof cannot be a precondition for action."
The primary impetus for invading Iraq, according to those attending NSC briefings on the Gulf in this period, was to make an example of Hussein, to create a demonstration model to guide the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire destructive weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United States.
In the great, multicolored braid of reasons and justifications leading to the Iraq war one might call this "the realist strand," and though the shape of the reasoning might seem to Gerson to stand as far from "democracy building" and "ending tyranny" as "power politics" does from "idealism," the distance is wholly illusory, dependent on an ideological clarity that was never present. In fact, the two chains of reasoning looped and intersected, leading inexorably to a common desire for a particular action—confronting Saddam Hussein and Iraq—that had been the subject of the administration's first National Security Council meeting, in January 2001, and that had been pushed to the fore again by Defense Department officials in the first "war cabinet" meeting after the September 11 attacks.
Woodward describes a report commissioned by Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy secretary of defense, intended to produce "the kinds of ideas and strategy needed to deal with a crisis of the magnitude of 9/11." After the attacks, Wolfowitz talked to his friend Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, who gathered together a group of intellectuals and academics for a series of discussions that came to be known as "Bletchley II" (after the World War II think tank of mathematicians and cryptographers set up at Bletchley Park). Out of these discussions, Woodward tells us, DeMuth drafted an influential report, entitled "Delta of Terrorism," which concluded, in the author's paraphrase, that "the United States was in for a two-generation battle with radical Islam':
"The general analysis was that Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where most of the hijackers came from, were the key, but the problems there are intractable. Iran is more important, where they were confident and successful in setting up a radical government." But Iran was similarly difficult to envision dealing with, he said.
But Saddam Hussein was different, weaker, more vulnerable. DeMuth said they had concluded that "Baathism is an Arab form of fascism transplanted to Iraq."...
According to Woodward, this report had "a strong impact on President Bush, causing him to focus on the 'malignancy' of the Middle East"—and the need to act to excise it, beginning with an attack on Iraq that would not only serve, in its devastating rapidity and effectiveness, as a "demonstration model" to deter anyone thinking to threaten the United States but would begin a process of "democratic transformation" that would quickly spread throughout the region. The geopolitical thinking animating this "democratic domino theory" could be plainly discerned before the war, as I wrote five months before US Army tanks crossed the border into Iraq:
Behind the notion that an American intervention will make of Iraq "the first Arab democracy," as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz put it, lies a project of great ambition. It envisions a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq—secular, middle-class, urbanized, rich with oil—that will replace the autocracy of Saudi Arabia as the key American ally in the Persian Gulf, allowing the withdrawal of United States troops from the kingdom. The presence of a victorious American Army in Iraq would then serve as a powerful boost to moderate elements in neighboring Iran, hastening that critical country's evolution away from the mullahs and toward a more moderate course. Such an evolution in Tehran would lead to a withdrawal of Iranian support for Hezbollah and other radical groups, thereby isolating Syria and reducing pressure on Israel. This undercutting of radicals on Israel's northern borders and within the West Bank and Gaza would spell the definitive end of Yasir Arafat and lead eventually to a favorable solution of the Arab-Israeli problem.
This is a vision of great sweep and imagination: comprehensive, prophetic, evangelical. In its ambitions, it is wholly foreign to the modesty of containment, the ideology of a status-quo power that lay at the heart of American strategy for half a century. It means to remake the world, to offer to a political threat a political answer. It represents a great step on the road toward President Bush's ultimate vision of "freedom's triumph over all its age-old foes."
It represented as well a breathtaking gamble, for if the victory in Iraq was to achieve what was expected—which is to say, "humiliate" the forces of radical Islam and reestablish American prestige and credibility; serve as a "demonstration model" to ward off attacks from any rogue state that might threaten the United States, either directly or by supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists; and transform the Middle East by sending a "democratic tsunami" cascading from Tehran to Gaza—if the Iraq war was to achieve this, victory must be rapid, decisive, overwhelming.
Only Donald Rumsfeld's transformed military—a light, quick, lean force dependent on overwhelming firepower directed precisely by high technology and with very few "boots on the ground"—could make this happen, or so he and his planners thought. Victory would be quick and awe-inspiring; in a few months the Americans, all but a handful of them, would be gone: only the effect of the "demonstration model," and the cascading consequences in the neighboring states, would remain. The use of devastating military power would begin the process but once begun the transformation would roll forward, carried out by forces of the same thrilling "democratic revolution" that had erupted on the streets of Prague and Budapest and East Berlin more than a decade before, and indeed on the streets of Kabul the previous year. Here was an evangelical vision of geopolitical redemption.
Thus the War of Imagination draped all the complications and contradictions of the history and politics of a war-torn, brutalized society in an ideologically driven vision of a perfect future. Small wonder that its creators, faced with grim reality, have been so loathe to part with it. Since the first thrilling night of shock and awe, reported with breathless enthusiasm by the American television networks, the Iraq war has had at least two histories, that of the war itself and that of the American perception of it. As the months passed and the number of attacks in Iraq grew, the gap between those two histories opened wider and wider. And finally, for most Americans, the War of Imagination—built of nationalistic excitement and ideological hubris and administration pronouncements about "spreading democracy" and "greetings with sweets and flowers," and then about "dead-enders" and "turning points," and finally about "staying the course" and refusing "to cut and run"—began, under the pressure of nearly three thousand American dead and perhaps a hundred thousand or more dead Iraqis, to give way to grim reality.
The election of November 7, 2006, marks the moment when the War of Imagination decisively gave way to the war on the ground and when officials throughout the American government, not least the President himself, were forced to recognize and acknowledge a reality that much of the American public had discerned months or years before. The ideological canopy now has lifted. The study groups are at their work. Americans have come to know what they do not know. If confronted with that simple question the smiling President Ahmadinejad of Iran put to Mike Wallace last August —"I ask you, sir, what is the American Army doing inside Iraq?"—how many Americans could offer a clear and convincing answer?
As the war drags on and alternatives fall away and American and Iraqi deaths mount, we seem to know less and less, certainly about "where we are going to end." Thus we arrive at our present therapeutic moment—the moment of "solutions," brought on by the recognition, three and a half years on, that we have no idea how to "end" Phase Two. This is now a matter for James A. Baker's Iraq Study Group and the military's "strategic review team" and the new Democratic committee chairmen who will offer, to a chastened president who admits he thought "we would do all right" in the elections, the "new ideas" he now professes to welcome. However quickly the discussion now moves to the geopolitical hydraulics, to weighing partition against partial withdrawal against regional conferences and contact groups and all the rest, the truth is that none of these proposals, alone or in combination, will end the war anytime soon.
It bears noticing that Kennan himself, having predicted that we will never know where we are going to end in Iraq, lived to see disproved, before his death at the age of 101 last March, what even he, no innocent, had taken as a given: that "you know where you begin." For as the war's presumed ending—constructed from carefully crafted images of triumph, of dictators' statues cast down and presidents striding forcefully across aircraft carrier decks—has flickered and vanished, receding into the just-out-of-grasp future ("a decision for the next president," the pre-election President Bush had said), the war's beginning has likewise melted away, the original rationale obscured in a darkening welter of shifting intelligence, ideological controversy, and conflicting claims, all of it hemmed in now on all sides by the mounting dead.
Out of this maelstrom, how does one fix now on "how we began" in Iraq? One might do worse than the National Security Presidential Directive entitled "Iraq: Goals, Objectives and Strategy," the top-secret statement of American purpose intended to guide all the departments and agencies of the government, signed by President George W. Bush on August 29, 2002:
US goal: Free Iraq in order to eliminate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery and associated programs, to prevent Iraq from breaking out of containment and becoming a more dangerous threat to the region and beyond.
End Iraqi threats to its neighbors, to stop the Iraqi government's tyrannizing of its own population, to cut Iraqi links to and sponsorship of international terrorism, to maintain Iraq's unity and territorial integrity. And liberate the Iraqi people from tyranny, and assist them in creating a society based on moderation, pluralism and democracy....
Objectives: To conduct policy in a fashion that minimizes the chance of a WMD attack against the United States, US field forces, our allies and friends. To minimize the danger of regional instabilities. To deter Iran and Syria from helping Iraq. And to minimize disruption in international oil markets.
This secret document, disclosed by Bob Woodward, is presumably the plainest, least ideological statement of what American officials thought the country they led would be trying to achieve in the coming war. The words have now a sad and antique air, as if scrawled on yellowed parchment and decipherable only by a historian skilled in the customs and peculiarities of a far-off time and place. What can we say now, as we look at the Iraq of November 2006, about these official goals and objectives of the Iraq war?
The famous weapons of mass destruction are gone, most of them probably fifteen years gone, and their absence has likely damaged the United States and its power—the power, deployed daily, that depends on the authority of words and pronouncements and not directly or solely on force of arms— more severely than their presence ever could have. While no doubt convinced that Iraq had at least some chemical and biological weapons, Bush administration officials, like the cop framing a guilty man, vastly exaggerated the evidence and in so doing—and even as they refused to allow UN inspectors to examine and weigh that evidence— they severely undermined the credibility of the United States, the credibility of its intelligence agencies, and the support for the war and US policy among Americans, among Muslims, and around the world.
The containment of Iraq, threatened only in the realm of policymakers' imaginations before the war, has been breached. The country's "threat to the region," with jihadis flowing from neighboring Sunni powers into Anbar and Baghdad and Iranian intelligence agents flowing into the Shia south, is growing daily, with the ultimate worst-case future, the confused and blackened landscape of a regional sectarian war, already standing clearly visible on the horizon as a possible consequence of an escalating conflict.
Though Saddam stands convicted of mass murder and condemned to death, and though an elected and ineffectual government deliberates within the Green Zone, it is hard to argue that the "tyrannizing" of the Iraqi population beyond its walls has not worsened. Every day on average a hundred or more Iraqis die from the violence of an increasingly complicated civil war. Sunnis attack Shia with bombs of every description—suicide bombers and car bombs and bicycle bombs and motorcycle bombs—and they maintain the pace of terror at an unprecedented, almost unimaginable rate. In the last six months alone Baghdad has endured 488 "terror-related bombings," an average of nearly three a day.
Shia leaders respond with death squads, whose members, drawn from party militias and often allied with the Ministry of Interior and the Iraqi police, have by now tortured and assassinated thousands of Sunnis. As Iraqis do their shopping or say their prayers they are blown to pieces by suicide bombers. As they drive through the cities in broad daylight they are pulled from their cars by armed men at roadblocks who behead them or shoot them in the back of the neck. As they sit at home at night they are kidnapped by men in police or army uniforms who load them in the trunks of their cars and carry them off to secret places to be tortured and executed, their bound and headless bodies to be found during the following days in fields or dumps or by the roadside. These bodies, examined by United Nations officials in the Baghdad morgue,
often bear signs of severe torture including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances, missing skin, broken bones (back, hands and legs), missing eyes, missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails.
As Iraqis know well, the power drills and nails were a favorite of Saddam's torturers—though now, according to a United Nations expert on torture, "the situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein." The level of carnage is difficult to comprehend. According to official figures published by the United Nations, which certainly understate the case, 6,599 Iraqis were murdered in July and August alone. Estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed during the war range from a conservative 52,000, by the Web site Iraq Body Count, to 655,000 by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, with the Iraqi Health Minister recently announcing a cumulative total of 150,000.
As for the country's links to international terrorism, we might look to the official consensus of the American intelligence agencies issued in April 2006 that "the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives" and that "the Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement." The Bush administration's fears about Iraq's possible collaboration with terror groups, largely conjectural, have since Sadam's fall attained a terrible reality.
Iraq's "unity and territorial integrity," meantime, has become the central issue, as the war becomes increasingly sectarian, cities and regions are "ethnically cleansed," and the Shia have pushed through a law, in the face of bitter Sunni opposition, making possible the autonomy of the South, the culmination of a political process that, beginning with the first vote boycotted by Sunnis, has served to worsen sectarian conflict.
The central question of how power and resources should be divided in Iraq and what the country should look like, a question that was going to be settled peacefully by the nascent political institutions of the "first Arab democracy," has become the critical political issue dividing Kurd from Sunni and Sunni from Shia, and also dividing the sectarian political coalitions themselves. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the leader of the "unity government," on whom President Bush repeatedly calls to "dismantle the militias," is in fact dependent for his own political survival on Moqtada al-Sadr, the creator and leader of the largest militia, the Mahdi Army. Indeed, the two most important militias are controlled by the two most powerful parties in parliament.
Increasingly the "unity government" itself, quarreling vituperatively within the Green Zone, serves as an impotent echo of the savage warfare raging beyond the walls. The partitioning of Iraq is now openly advocated by many—including such prominent American politicians as Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—desperate to find "a solution," however illusory, to the war, anything that will allow the Americans to withdraw, while avoiding any admission of defeat.
Kennan's problem of knowing "where you are going to end" begins, as he knew well, on the ground; but it does not end there. Information obtained by dedicated but deeply fallible humans travels from places like Fallujah by cable and e-mail and word of mouth into the vast four-mile-square bunker of the Green Zone, with its half-dozen concentric layers of concrete blast walls and sandbags and barbed wire, and from there to the great sprawling labyrinth of the Washington national security bureaucracy, up through the thousands of competing staffers in the layers of bureaus and agencies and eventually to the highly driven people at the tops of the organizational pyramids: the people who, it is said, "make the decisions." In the best managed of administrations there exists, between those on the ground who listen and learn and those in the offices who debate and decide, a great deal of bureaucratic "noise." And this, alas, as so many accounts of decision-making on the war make all too clear, was not the best managed of administrations. Indeed, its top officials, talented and experienced as many of them were, seem to have willingly collaborated, for reasons of ego or ambition or ideological hubris, in making themselves collectively blind.
Consider, for example, this striking but typical discussion in the White House in April 2003 just as the Iraq occupation, the vital first step in President Bush's plan "to transform the Middle East," was getting underway. American forces are in Baghdad but the capital is engulfed by a wave of looting and disorder, with General Tommy Franks's troops standing by. The man in charge of the occupation, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Jay Garner, has just arrived "in-country." Secretary of State Colin Powell has come to the Oval Office to discuss the occupation with the President, who is joined by Condoleezza Rice, then his national security adviser. Powell began, writes Woodward, by raising "the question of unity of command" in Iraq:
There are two chains of command, Powell told the president. Garner reports to Rumsfeld and Franks reports to Rumsfeld.
The president looked surprised.
"That's not right," Rice said. "That's not right."
Powell thought Rice could at times be pretty sure of herself, but he was pretty sure he was right. "Yes, it is," Powell insisted.
"Wait a minute," Bush interrupted, taking Rice's side. "That doesn't sound right."
Rice got up and went to her office to check. When she came back, Powell thought she looked a little sheepish. "That's right," she said.
What might Kennan, the consummate diplomatic professional, have thought of such a discussion between president, secretary of state, and national security adviser, had he lived to read of it? He would have grasped its implications instantly, as the President and his national security adviser apparently did not. Which leads to Powell's patient—too patient—explanation to the President:
...You have to understand that when you have two chains of command and you don't have a common superior in the theater, it means that every little half-assed fight they have out there, if they can't work it out, comes out to one place to be resolved. And that's in the Pentagon. Not in the NSC or the State Department, but in the Pentagon.
The kernel of an answer to what is the most painful and intractable question about the Iraq war—how could US officials repeatedly and consistently make such ill-advised and improbably stupid decisions, beginning with their lack of planning for "the postwar"— can be found in this little chamber play in the Oval Office, and in the fact that at least two thirds of the cast seem wholly incapable of comprehending the script. In Woodward's account, Rice, who was then the official responsible for coordinating the national security bureaucracies of the US government, found what was being said "a rather theoretical discussion," somehow managing to miss the fact that she and the National Security Council she headed had been cut out of decision-making on the Iraq war—and cut out, further, in favor of an official, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who, if we are to believe Woodward, did not bother even to return her telephone calls.
The Iraq occupation would have all the weaknesses of two chains of command, weaknesses that would become all too apparent in a matter of days, when Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, the junior three-star in the entire Army, replaced General Franks and L. Paul Bremer replaced Garner, leaving the occupation in the hands of two officials who despised one another and hardly spoke. And both chains would end not in the White House but in the Pentagon, a vast bureaucracy not known for the delicate political touch that would be needed to carry out an occupation of this degree of complexity.
We hear again the patient explanation of Powell—whose fate in the Bush administration seems to have been to play the role of Cassandra, uttering grim prophecies destined to be ignored as reliably as they were to be proved true—letting Woodward (but this time not the President) know of his certainty that "the Pentagon wouldn't resolve the conflicts because Wolfowitz and Feith were running their own little games and had their own agenda to promote Chalabi."
The name of Ahmad Chalabi, the brilliant, charming, cunning impresario of the Iraqi exile community, evokes memories of disasters past and, from the Pentagon point of view, of dreams dashed: the king to be who was, alas, never crowned. He is an irresistible character and has served as the off-screen villain in the telling of many an Iraq war melodrama, with particular attention to his part in helping to supply intelligence to various willing recipients within the US government, bolstering the case that Iraq had significant stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. In fact, however, Chalabi had a much more consequential role, that of the Pentagon's ruler-to-be, the solution to that vexing question of what to do about "the postwar."
Inherent in the War of Imagination were certain rather obvious contradictions: Donald Rumsfeld's dream of a "demonstration model" war of quick, overwhelming victory did not foresee an extended occupation—on the contrary, the defense secretary abjured, publicly and vociferously, any notion that his troops would be used for "nation-building." Rumsfeld's war envisioned rapid victory and rapid departure. Wolfowitz and the other Pentagon neoconservatives, on the other hand, imagined a "democratic transformation," a thoroughgoing social revolution that would take a Baathist Party–run autocracy, complete with a Baathist-led army and vast domestic spying and security services, and transform it into a functioning democratic polity—without the participation of former Baathist officials.
How to resolve this contradiction? The answer, for the Pentagon, seems to have amounted to one word: Chalabi. "When it came to Iraq," James Risen writes in State of War,
the Pentagon believed it had the silver bullet it needed to avoid messy nation building—a provisional government in exile, built around Chalabi, could be established and then brought in to Baghdad after the invasion.
This so-called "turnkey operation" seems to have appeared to be the perfect compromise plan: Chalabi was Shiite, as were most Iraqis, but he was also a secularist who had lived in the West for nearly fifty years and was close to many of the Pentagon civilians. Alas, there was one problem: the confirmed idealist in the White House "was adamant that the United States not be seen as putting its thumb on the scales" of the nascent Iraqi democracy. Chalabi, for all his immense popularity in the Pentagon and in the Vice President's office, would not be installed as president of Iraq.
Though "Bush's commitment to democracy was laudable," as Risen observes, his awkward intervention "was not really the answer to the question of postwar planning." He goes on:
Once Bush quashed the Pentagon's plans, the administration failed to develop any acceptable alternative.... Instead, once the Pentagon realized the president wasn't going to let them install Chalabi, the Pentagon leadership did virtually nothing. After Chalabi, there was no Plan B.
An unnamed White House official describes to Risen the Laurel-and-Hardy consequences within the government of the President's attachment to the idea of democratic elections in Iraq:
Part of the reason the planning for post-Saddam Iraq was so nonexistent was that the State Department had been saying if you invade, you have to plan for the postwar. And DOD said, no you don't. You can set up a provisional government in exile around Chalabi. DOD had a stupid plan, but they had a plan. But if you don't do that plan, and you don't make the Pentagon work with State to develop something else, then you go to war with no plan.
Anyone wanting to answer the question of "how we began" in Iraq has to confront the monumental fact that the United States, the most powerful country in the world, invaded Iraq with no particular and specific idea of what it was going to do there, and then must try to explain how this could have happened. In his account Woodward resists the lure of Chalabi but not the temptation of melodrama, instead choosing, with typically impeccable political timing, to place Donald Rumsfeld in the role of mustache-twirling villain, a choice that most of the country, in the wake of the elections and the secretary's instant fall from power, seems happy to embrace. And the secretary, truculent, arrogant, vain, has shown himself perfectly willing to play his part in this familiar Washington morality tale, setting himself up for the predictable fall by spending hours at the podium before fawning reporters and their television cameras during and after the invasion.
The Fall of Rumsfeld gives pace and drive to Woodward's narrative. No doubt this will please readers, who find themselves increasingly outraged at the almost unbelievable failures in planning and execution, rewarding them with a bracing wave of schadenfreude when the inevitable defenestration finally takes place—outside the frame of the book but wholly predictable from its storyline. Indeed, the fact of State of Denial's publication a month before the election, complete with the usual national television interviews and other attendant publicity, was not the least of the signs that the knives were out and glinting and that the secretary's days were numbered.
Irresistible as Rumsfeld is, however, the story of the Iraq war disaster springs less from his brow than from that of an inexperienced and rigidly self-assured president who managed to fashion, with the help of a powerful vice-president, a strikingly disfigured process of governing. Woodward, much more interested in character and personal rivalry than government bureaus and hierarchies, refers to this process broadly as "the interagency," as in "Rice said the interagency was broken." He means the governing apparatus set up by the National Security Act of 1947, which gathered the government's major security officials— secretaries of state, defense, and treasury, attorney general, director of national intelligence, among others— into the National Security Council, and gave to the president a special assistant for national security affairs (commonly known as the national security adviser) and a staff to manage, coordinate, and control it. Through the national security council and the "deputies committee" and other subsidiary bodies linking the various government departments at lower levels, information and policy guidance are supposed to work their way up from bureaucracy to president, and his decisions to work their way down. Ron Suskind, who has been closely studying the inner workings of the Bush administration since his revealing piece about Karl Rove and John Dilulio in 2003 and his book on Paul O'Neill the following year, observes that "the interagency" not only serves to convey information and decisions but also is intended to perform a more basic function:
Sober due diligence, with an eye for the way previous administrations have thought through a standard array of challenges facing the United States, creates, in fact, a kind of check on executive power and prerogative.
This is precisely what the President didn't want, particularly after September 11; deeply distrustful of the bureaucracy, desirous of quick, decisive action, impatient with bureaucrats and policy intellectuals, the President wanted to act. Suskind writes:
For George W. Bush, there had been an evolution on such matters —from the early, pre-9/11 President, who had little grasp of foreign affairs and made few major decisions in that realm; to the post-9/11 President, who met America's foreign challenges with decisiveness born of a brand of preternatural, faith-based, self-generated certainty. The policy process, in fact, never changed much. Issues argued, often vociferously, at the level of deputies and principals rarely seemed to go upstream in their fullest form to the President's desk; and, if they did, it was often after Bush seemed to have already made up his mind based on what was so often cited as his "instinct" or "gut."
Woodward tends to blame "the broken policy process" on the relative strength of personalities gathered around the cabinet table: the power and ruthlessness of Rumsfeld, the legendary "bureaucratic infighter"; the weakness of Rice, the very function and purpose of whose job, to let the President both benefit from and control the bureaucracy, was in effect eviscerated. Suskind, more convincingly, argues that Bush and Cheney constructed precisely the government they wanted: centralized, highly secretive, its clean, direct lines of decision unencumbered by information or consultation. "There was never any policy process to break, by Condi or anyone else," Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, remarks to Suskind. "There was never one from the start. Bush didn't want one, for whatever reason." Suskind suggests why in an acute analysis of personality and leadership:
Of the many reasons the President moved in this direction, the most telling may stem from George Bush's belief in his own certainty and, especially after 9/11, his need to protect the capacity to will such certainty in the face of daunting complexity. His view of right and wrong, and of righteous actions— such as attacking evil or spreading "God's gift" of democracy—were undercut by the kind of traditional, shades-of-gray analysis that has been a staple of most presidents' diets. This President's traditional day began with Bible reading at dawn, a workout, breakfast, and the briefings of foreign and domestic threats.... The hard, complex analysis, in this model, would often be a thin offering, passed through the filters of Cheney or Rice, or not presented at all.
...This granted certain unique advantages to Bush. With fewer people privy to actual decisions, tighter confidentiality could be preserved, reducing leaks. Swift decisions—either preempting detailed deliberation or ignoring it—could move immediately to implementation, speeding the pace of execution and emphasizing the hows rather than the more complex whys.
What Bush knew before, or during, a key decision remained largely a mystery. Only a tiny group—Cheney, Rice, Card, Rove, Tenet, Rumsfeld—could break this seal.
To the rest of the government, of course, this "mystery" must have been excruciating to endure; Suskind describes how many of those in the "foreign policy establishment" found themselves "befuddled" by the way the traditional policy process was viewed not only as unproductive but "perilous." Information, that is, could slow decision-making; indeed, when it had to do with a bold and risky venture like the Iraq war, information and discussion—an airing, say, of the precise obstacles facing a "democratic transition" conducted with a handful of troops—could paralyze it. If the sober consideration of history and facts stood in the way of bold action then it would be the history and the facts that would be discarded. The risk of doing nothing, the risk, that is, of the status quo, justified acting. Given the grim facts on the ground—the likelihood of a future terrorist attack from the "malignant" Middle East, the impossibility of entirely protecting the country from it—better to embrace the unknown. Better, that is, to act in the cause of "constructive instability"—a wonderfully evocative phrase, which, as Suskind writes, was
the term used by various senior officials in regard to Iraq—a term with roots in pre-9/11 ideas among neoconservatives about the need for a new, muscular, unbounded American posture; and outgrowths that swiftly took shape after the attacks made everything prior to 9/11 easily relegated to dusty history.
The past—along with old-style deliberations based on cause and effect or on agreed-upon precedents—didn't much matter; nor did those with knowledge and prevailing policy studies, of agreements between nations, or of long-standing arrangements defining the global landscape.
What mattered, by default, was the President's "instinct" to guide America across the fresh, post-9/11 terrain—a style of leadership that could be rendered within tiny, confidential circles.
America, unbound, was duly led by a President, unbound.
It is that "duly led," of course, that is the question. Information, history, and all the other attributes of a deliberative policy may inhibit action but they do so by weighing and calculating risk. Dispensing with them has no consequences only if you accept the proposition that the Iraq war so clearly disproves: that bold action must always make us safer.
So there would be no President Chalabi. Unfortunately, the President, who thought of himself, Woodward says, "as the calcium in the backbone" of the US government, having banned Chalabi's ascension, neither offered an alternative plan nor forced the government he led to agree on one. Nor did Secretary Rumsfeld, who knew only that he wanted a quick victory and a quick departure. To underline the point, soon after the US invasion the secretary sent his special assistant, Larry DiRita, to the Kuwait City Hilton to brief the tiny, miserable, understaffed, and underfunded team led by the retired General Garner which was preparing to fly to a chaotic Baghdad to "take control of the transition." Here is DiRita's "Hilton Speech" as quoted to Woodward by an army colonel, Paul Hughes:
"We went into the Balkans and Bosnia and Kosovo and we're still in them.... We're probably going to wind up in Afghanistan for a long time because the Department of State can't do its job right. Because they keep screwing things up, the Department of Defense winds up being stuck at these places. We're not going to let this happen in Iraq."
The reaction was generally, Whoa! Does this guy even realize that half the people in the room are from the State Department?
DiRita went on, as Hughes recalled: "By the end of August we're going to have 25,000 to 30,000 troops left in Iraq."
DiRita spoke these words as, a few hundred miles away, Baghdad and the other major cities of Iraq were taken up in a thoroughgoing riot of looting and pillage—of government ministries, universities and hospitals, power stations and factories—that would virtually destroy the country's infrastructure, and with it much of the respect Iraqis might have had for American competence. The uncontrolled violence engulfed Iraq's capital and major cities for weeks as American troops—140,000 or more—mainly sat on their tanks, looking on. If attaining true political authority depends on securing a monopoly on legitimate violence, then the Americans would never achieve it in Iraq. There were precious few troops to impose order, and hardly any military police. No one gave the order to arrest or shoot looters or otherwise take control of the streets. Official Pentagon intentions at this time seem to have been precisely what the secretary of defense's special assistant said they were: to have all but 25,000 or so of those troops out of Iraq in five months or less.
How then to secure the country, which was already in a state of escalating chaos? Most of the ministries had been looted and burned and what government there was consisted of the handful of Iraqi officials who Garner's small team had managed to coax into returning to work. In keeping with the general approach of quick victory, quick departure, Garner had briefed the President and his advisers before leaving Washington, emphasizing his plan to dismiss only the most senior and personally culpable Baathists from the government and also to make use of the Iraqi army to rebuild and, eventually, keep order.
Within weeks of that meeting in the Kuwait Hilton, L. Paul Bremer arrived in Baghdad, replacing Garner, who had been fired after less than a month in Iraq. On Bremer's first full day "in-country," in Woodward's telling, one of Garner's officials ran up to her now–lame duck boss and thrust a paper into his hand:
"Have you read this?" she asked.
"No," Garner replied. "I don't know what the hell you've got there."
"It's a de-Baathification policy," she said, handing him a two-page document.
The document was Bremer's "Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1—De-Baathification of Iraqi Society," an order to remove immediately from their posts all "full members" of the Baath Party. These were to be banned from working in any government job. In every ministry the top three levels of managers would be investigated for crimes.
"We can't do this," Garner said. He still envisioned what he had told Rumsfeld would be a "gentle de-Baathification"—eliminating only the number one Baathist and personnel directors in each ministry. "It's too deep," he added.
Garner headed immediately to Bremer's office, where the new occupation leader was just settling in, and on the way ran into the CIA chief of station, referred to here as Charlie.
"Have you read this?" Garner asked.
"That's why I'm over here," Charlie said.
"Let's go see Bremer." The two men got in to see the new administrator of Iraq around 1 PM. "Jerry, this is too deep," Garner said. "Give Charlie and I about an hour. We'll sit down with this. We'll do the pros and cons and then we'll get on the telephone with Rumsfeld and soften it a bit."
"Absolutely not," Bremer said. "Those are my instructions and I intend to execute them."
Garner, who will shortly be going home, sees he's making little headway and appeals to the CIA man, who "had been station chief in other Middle East countries," asking him what will happen if the order is issued.
"If you put this out, you're going to drive between 30,000 and 50,000 Baathists underground before nightfall," Charlie said.... "You will put 50,000 people on the street, underground and mad at Americans." And these 50,000 were the most powerful, well-connected elites from all walks of life.
"I told you," Bremer said, looking at Charlie. "I have my instructions and I have to implement this."
The chain of command, as we know, goes through Rumsfeld, and Garner gets on the phone and appeals to the secretary of defense, who tells him— and this will be a leitmotif in Woodward's book—that the matter is out of his hands:
"This is not coming from this building," [Rumsfeld] replied. "That came from somewhere else."
Garner presumed that meant the White House, NSC or Cheney. According to other participants, however, the de-Baathification order was purely a Pentagon creation. Telling Garner it came from somewhere else, though, had the advantage for Rumsfeld of ending the argument.
Such tactics are presumably what mark Rumsfeld as a "skilled bureaucratic infighter," the description that has followed him through his career in government like a Homeric epithet. In fact, according to Bremer, he had received those orders at the Pentagon a few days before from Douglas Feith, Rumsfeld's undersecretary for policy. In Bremer's telling, Feith gave him the draft order, emphasizing "the political importance of the decree':
We've got to show all the Iraqis that we're serious about building a New Iraq. And that means that Saddam's instruments of repression have no role in that new nation.
The following day, Bremer's second in Iraq, the hapless Garner was handed another draft order. This, Woodward tells us, was Order Number 2, disbanding the Iraqi ministries of Defense and Interior, the entire Iraqi military, and all of Saddam's bodyguard and special paramilitary organizations:
Garner was stunned. The de-Baathification order was dumb, but this was a disaster. Garner had told the president and the whole National Security Council explicitly that they planned to use the Iraqi military—at least 200,000 to 300,000 troops—as the backbone of the corps to rebuild the country and provide security. And he'd been giving regular secure video reports to Rumsfeld and Washington on the plan.
An American colonel and a number of CIA officers had been meeting regularly with Iraqi officers in order to reconstitute the army. They had lists of soldiers, had promised emergency payments. "The former Iraqi military," according to Garner, "was making more and more overtures, just waiting to come back in some form." Again, Garner rushed off to see Bremer:
"We have always made plans to bring the army back," he insisted. This new plan was just coming out of the blue, subverting months of work.
"Well, the plans have changed," Bremer replied. "The thought is that we don't want the residuals of the old army. We want a new and fresh army."
"Jerry, you can get rid of an army in a day, but it takes years to build one."
Again Bremer tells Garner that he has his orders. The discussion attains a certain unintended comedy when the proconsuls go on to discuss the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, which Bremer has also announced he will abolish:
"You can't get rid of the Ministry of the Interior," Garner said.
"You just made a speech yesterday and told everybody how important the police force is."
"It is important."
"All the police are in the Ministry of the Interior," Garner said. "If you put this out, they'll all go home today."
On hearing this bit of information, we are told, Bremer looked "surprised" —an expression similar, no doubt, to Rice's when she and the President learned from the secretary of state that the civilian occupation authority would not be reporting to the White House but to the Pentagon. Unfortunately, within the Pentagon there coexisted at least two visions of what the occupation of Iraq was to be: the quick victory, quick departure view of Rumsfeld, and the broader, ideologically driven democratic transformation of Iraqi society championed by the neoconservatives. The two views had uneasily intersected, for a time, in the alluring person of Ahmad Chalabi, who seemed to make both visions possible. With a Chalabi coronation taken off the table by President Bush, however, determined officials with a direct line to Bremer were transforming the Iraq adventure into a long-term, highly ambitious occupation. Presumably as Garner woke up on May 17, reflecting that "the US now had at least 350,000 more enemies than it had the day before—the 50,000 Baathists [and] the 300,000 officially unemployed soldiers," he could take satisfaction in having managed, by his last-minute efforts, to persuade Bremer to "excise the Ministry of Interior from the draft so the police could stay."
One can make arguments for a "deep de-Baathification" of Iraq. One can make arguments also for dismantling the Iraqi army. It is hard, though, to make an argument that such steps did not stand in dramatic and irresolvable contradiction to the Pentagon's plan to withdraw all but 30,000 American troops from Iraq within a few months. With no Iraqi army, with all Baath Party members thrown out of the ministries and the agencies of government, with all of Saddam's formidable security forces summarily sacked—and with all of these forces transformed into sworn enemies of the American occupation—who precisely was going to keep order in Iraq? And who was going to build that "new and fresh army" that Bremer was talking about?
These questions loom so large and are so obvious that one feels that they must have some answer, even if an unconvincing one. The simple fact is that these two enormously significant steps —launching a "deep de-Baathification" of the government and dissolving the Iraqi army—together with Bremer's decision, taken also during his first days, to downgrade to that of a figurehead the status of the group of Iraqi politicians known as the Iraqi Governing Council, transformed what had been the Pentagon's plan for a quick victory and quick departure into a long-running and open-ended occupation that would perforce involve the establishment of a new Iraqi army.
The political implications within Iraq were incalculable, for the de-Baathification and the dissolution of the army both appeared to the Sunnis to be declarations of open warfare against them, convincing many that they would be judged not by standards of individual conduct but by the fact of their membership in a group—judged not according to what they had done but according to who they were. This in itself undermined what hope there was to create the sine qua non of a stable democracy: a loyal opposition, which is to say an opposition that believes enough in the fairness of the system that it will renounce violence. "You Americans, you know," as a young Sunni had told me in October 2003, when the insurgency was already in full flower, "you have created your enemies here."
It is unlikely that the Pentagon's vision of a rapid departure ever could have worked, Bremer or no Bremer. What is striking, however, is the way that the most momentous of decisions were taken in the most shockingly haphazard ways, with the power in the hands of a few Pentagon civilians who knew little of Iraq or the region, the expertise of the rest of the government almost wholly excluded, and the President and his highest officials looking on.
In the event, the Bush administration seems to have worked hard to turn Kennan's problem of knowing the facts on its head: the systemic failures in Iraq resulted in large part from an almost willful determination to cut off those in the government who knew anything from those who made the decisions. Woodward tells us, for example, that Stephen Hadley, then Rice's deputy and now her successor,
first learned of the orders on de-Baathification and disbanding the military as Bremer announced them to Iraq and to the world. They hadn't been touched by the formal interagency process and as far as Hadley knew there was no imprimatur from the White House. Rice also had not been consulted. It hadn't come back to Washington or the NSC for a decision....
One NSC lawyer had been shown drafts of the policies to de-Baathify Iraq and disband the military—but that was only to give a legal opinion. The policymakers never saw the drafts, never had a chance to say whether they thought they were good ideas or even to point out that they were radical departures from what had earlier been planned and briefed to the president.
As for the uniformed military, the men who were responsible for securing Iraq and whose job would thus be dramatically affected both by de-Baathification and by the dissolution of the Iraqi army, they were given no chance to speak on either question. Woodward writes:
General Myers, the principal military adviser to Bush, Rumsfeld and the NSC, wasn't even consulted on the disbanding of the Iraqi military. It was presented as a fait accompli.
"We're not going to just sit here and second-guess everything he does," Rumsfeld told Myers at one point, referring to emer's decisions.
"I didn't get a vote on it," Myers told a colleague, "but I can see where Ambassador Bremer might have thought this is reasonable."
Since it is the cashiered Iraqi troops who, broke, angry, and humiliated ("Why do you Americans punish us, when we did not fight?" as one ex-soldier demanded of me that October), would within days be killing Myers's soldiers with sniper fire and the first improvised explosive devices, one has to regard the general's expressed forbearance as uncommonly generous.
At the time, the civilians in the Pentagon had attained their greatest power and prestige. Rumsfeld's daily press conferences were broadcast live over the cable news channels, with an appreciative audience of journalists chortling at the secretary's jokes on national television. No one then seems to have questioned what Woodward calls his "distrust of the interagency." Instead, Woodward writes,
from April 2003 on, the constant drumbeat that Hadley heard coming out of the Pentagon had been "This is Don Rumsfeld's thing, and we're going to do the interagency in Baghdad. Let Jerry run it."
"Jerry," it might be said at this point, seems a well-meaning man, but he had never run anything larger than the United States embassy in the Netherlands, where he served as ambassador. He spoke no Arabic and knew little of the Middle East and nothing of Iraq. He had had nothing to do with the meager and inadequate planning the Pentagon had done for "the postwar" and indeed had had only a few days' preparation before being flown to Baghdad. He apparently never saw the extensive plans the State Department had drawn up for the postwar period. And as would become evident as the occupation wore on and he became more independent of the Pentagon civilians, he had no particular qualifications to make and implement decisions of such magnitude, decisions that would certainly prolong the American occupation and would ultimately do much to doom it. For Rumsfeld, however, Bremer's supposed independence in Baghdad has had its uses:
Rumsfeld later said he would be surprised if Wolfowitz or Feith gave Bremer the de-Baathification and army orders. He said he did not recall an NSC meeting on the subject. Of Bremer, Rumsfeld said, "I talked to him only rarely..."
It is impossible to believe, even in this administration, that Bremer decided on his own, on his second day in Baghdad, to dissolve the Iraqi army, and it is unlikely that Rumsfeld's own involvement in a matter of such magnitude would have slipped the defense secretary's mind. To the "skilled bureaucratic infighter," however, especially one with little or no oversight from president or Congress, what Woodward calls "the rubber-glove syndrome—the tendency not to leave his fingerprints on decisions"—can prove useful in avoiding responsibility for wreckage caused—for a time, anyway. It cannot, however, prevent the consequences on the ground and, in Iraq, it has not.
Nearly four years into the Iraq war, as we enter the Time of Proposed Solutions, the consequences of those early decisions define the bloody landscape. By dismissing and humiliating the soldiers and officers of the Iraqi army our leaders, in effect, did much to recruit the insurgency. By bringing far too few troops to secure Saddam's enormous arms depots they armed it. By bringing too few to keep order they presided over the looting and overwhelming violence and social disintegration that provided the insurgency such fertile soil. By blithely purging tens of thousands of the country's Baathist elite, whatever their deeds, and by establishing a muscle-bound and inept American occupation without an "Iraqi face," they created an increasing resentment among Iraqis that fostered the insurgency and encouraged people to shelter it. And by providing too few troops to secure Iraq's borders they helped supply its forces with an unending number of Sunni Islamic extremists from neighboring states. It was the foreign Islamists' strategy above all to promote their jihadist cause by provoking a sectarian civil war in Iraq; by failing to prevent their attacks and to protect the Shia who became their targets, the US leaders have allowed them to succeed.
To Americans now, the hour appears very late in Iraq. Deeply weary of a war that early on lost its reason for being, most Americans want nothing more than to be shown a way out. The President and his counselors, even in the weeks before the election, had begun redefining the idea of victory, dramatically downgrading the goals that were set out in the National Security Presidential Directive of August 2002. Thus Vice President Cheney, asked the week before the election about an "exit strategy" from Iraq, declared that "we're not looking for an exit strategy. We're looking for victory" but then went on to offer a rather modest definition:
Victory will be the day when the Iraqis solve their political problems and are up and running with respect to their own government, and when they're able to provide for their own security.
This was before Americans had gone to the polls and overwhelmingly condemned the administration's Iraq policies—with the result that, as one comedian put it, "on Tuesday night, in an ironic turnaround, Iraq brought regime change to the US." On the day after the election the President, stripped of his majorities in Congress, came forward to offer a still more modest definition: Victory would mean producing in Iraq "a government that can defend, govern and sustain itself."
In fact, even these modest words have come to seem ambitious, and perhaps unrealistic. As I write, Operation Together Forward, the joint effort by American and Iraqi forces to secure the city of Baghdad, has failed. The American commander in the capital, faced with a 26 percent increase in attacks during the operation, declared the results "disappointing," an on-the-record use of direct language that a year ago would have been inconceivable coming from a senior US officer.
Operation Together Forward was not only to have demonstrated that the Iraqis were now "able to defend themselves," as the President said, but to have made it possible for "the unity government to make the difficult decisions necessary to unite the country." The operation was intended to blunt the power of Sunni insurgents and thus clear the way for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to lend his support to disarming and eliminating the Shia militias that are responsible for much of the death-squad killing in Baghdad. Unfortunately, the militias—in particular, the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization—remain a vital part of the unity government's political infrastructure. This inconvenient but fundamental political fact renders much of the Bush administration's rhetoric about its present strategy in Iraq almost nonsensical. The evident contradiction between policy and reality, and the angry reactions by al-Maliki to efforts by the US military to rein in the militias by launching raids into Sadr City, have stirred rumors, in Baghdad and Washington, of a possible post-election coup d'état to replace Maliki with a "government of national salvation." It is hard to know what such a government, whether led by Ayad Allawi, a longtime Washington favorite who was briefly interim prime minister (and who derided the possibility of coming to power by a coup), or some other "strongman," might accomplish, or whether any gains in security could outweigh the political costs of conniving in the overthrow of a government that, however ineffectual it is, Iraqis elected. The establishment of that government stands ever more starkly as one of the few (if ambiguous) accomplishments remaining from the original program for Iraq.
To Americans the Iraq war seems to have entered its third and final act. Though the plans and ideas now will come apace, all of them directed toward answering a single, dominant question—How do we get out of Iraq? —none is likely to supply a means of departure that does not carry a very high cost. The present "sense of an ending" about Iraq has its roots more in American weariness and frustration than any real prospect of finding a "solution" or "exit strategy" that won't, in its consequences, be seen for what it is: a de facto acknowledgment of a failed and even catastrophic policy.
Only the week before the election, President Bush warned an interviewer about the consequences of an American defeat in Iraq:
The terrorists...have clearly said they want a safe haven from which to launch attacks against America, a safe haven from which to topple moderate governments in the Middle East, a safe haven from which to spread their jihadist point of view, which is that there are no freedoms in the world; we will dictate to you how you think.... I can conceivably see a world in which radicals and extremists control oil. And they would say to the West: You either abandon Israel, for example, or we're going to run the price of oil up. Or withdraw....
A few days after the Republican defeat at the polls, the President's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, discussing the Iraqi government, put the matter in even starker terms:
We need to treat them as a sovereign government. But we also need to give them the support they need to succeed because the alternative for the United States, I believe, is truly disastrous.... We could leave behind an Iraq that is a failed state, a haven for terrorism, a real threat to the United States and to the region. That's just not an acceptable outcome.
We are well down the road toward this dark vision, a wave of threatening instability that stands as the precise opposite of the Bush administration's "democratic tsunami," the wave of liberalizing revolution that American power, through the invasion of Iraq, was to set loose throughout the Middle East. The chances of accomplishing such change within Iraq itself, let alone across the complicated landscape of the entire region, were always very small. Saddam Hussein and the autocracy he ruled were the product of a dysfunctional politics, not the cause of it. Reform of such a politics was always going to be a task of incalculable complexity. Faced with such complexity, and determined to have their war and their democratic revolution, the President and his counselors looked away. Confronted with great difficulties, their answer was to blind themselves to them and put their faith in ideology and hope—in the dream of a welcoming landscape, magically transformed. The evangelical vision may have made the sense of threat after September 11 easier to bear but it did not change the risks and the reality on the ground. The result is that the wave of change the President and his officials were so determined to set in course by unleashing American military power may well turn out to be precisely the wave of Islamic radicalism that they had hoped to prevent.
In the coming weeks we will hear much talk of "exit strategies" and "proposed solutions." All such "solutions," though, are certain to come with heavy political costs, costs the President may consider more difficult to bear than those of doggedly "staying the course" for the remainder of his term. George W. Bush, who ran for president vowing a "humble" foreign policy, could not have predicted this. Kennan said it in October 2002:
Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end, you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before. In other words, war has a momentum of its own and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it.
If we are indeed in the third act—as I will take up in a future article—then it may well be that this final act will prove to be very long and very painful. You may or may not know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end.
—November 16, 2006
See Albert Eisele, "George Kennan Speaks Out About Iraq," The Hill, September 26, 2002.
See "Rumsfeld Ruminates on Tenure at Pentagon," MSNBC, November 9, 2006.
See "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Colleagues Debate His Legacy," The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, November 9, 2006.
From his interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press, September 10, 2006.
Among those taking part in "Bletchley II" discussions, according to Woodward, were Fouad Ajami, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Steve Herbits, Bernard Lewis, Mark Palmer, James Q. Wilson, and Fareed Zakaria.
See Mark Danner, "The Struggles of Democracy and Empire," The New York Times, October 9, 2002.
Here are the number of daily attacks on US forces at each of the Iraq war's purported "turning points':
July 2003: Bremer Appoints Iraqi Governing Council; sixteen attacks per day.
December 2003: Saddam Hussein captured; nineteen attacks per day.
June 2004: Handover of sovereignty to Iraqis; forty-five attacks per day.
January 2005: Elections for Transitional Government; sixty-one attacks per day.
June 2006: Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; ninety attacks per day.
See Anthony Cordesman, Iraqi Force Development: Summer 2006 Update(CSIS, 2006), p. 7.
See Michael R. Gordon, "Military Team Undertakes a Broad Review of the Iraq War and the Campaign Against Terror," The New York Times, November 11, 2006.
See Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack(Simon and Schuster, 2004), pp. 154–155.
In the first year of the war Iraq saw 109 "terror related bombings"; in the second year 613; in the third year, 1,037; in the last six months, 1,002. See "The Geography of War," Newsweek, November 6, 2006. These numbers do not include attacks on American troops with improvised explosive devices, of which there were 2,625 in July alone (nearly double the 1,454 IED attacks in January). See Michael R. Gordon, Mark Mazzetti, and Thom Shanker, "Insurgent Bombs Directed at GI's in Iraq Increase," The New York Times, August 17, 2006.
See "Civilian Deaths Soar to Record High in Iraq," The Guardian, September 22, 2006.
See the statements of Manfred Nowak, "Torture in Iraq 'Worse than Under Saddam,'" The Guardian, September 21, 2006.
The current rate of killing of one hundred Iraqis a day would be the equivalent, adjusting for population, of 1,100 Americans a day, or 33,000 dead a month. (In the decade-long Vietnam War, about 58,000 Americans died.)
See "Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate 'Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States' dated April 2006," found at www.dni.gov/press__releases/Declassified__NIE__Key __Judgments.pdf.
See Ron Suskind, "Why Are These Men Laughing?," Esquire, January 2003, and The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill(Simon and Schuster, 2004).
See L. Paul Bremer, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 39.
See "We're Not Looking for an Exit Strategy, We're Looking for Victory," Time, October 30, 2006, p. 35.
See "Weekend Update," Saturday Night Live, November 11, 2006.
See John F. Burns, "Stability vs. Democracy: Could a New Strongman Help?," The New York Times, November 12, 2006.
See This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC News, October 22, 2006.
See This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC News, November 12, 2006. | <urn:uuid:c70740b7-043a-411d-9d36-d29294c2cab5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.markdanner.com/articles/print/129 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974658 | 16,247 | 1.507813 | 2 |
REAL ESTATE- ON THE BLOCK- Rock on: A house that soapstone built
ADDRESS: 6056 Rockfish River Road
YEAR BUILT: Unknown, believed to be 1920's
SIZE: 1,481 fin. sq. ft.
LAND: 0.79 acres
CURB APPEAL: 7 out of 10
LISTED BY: Mary Newton, Keller Williams Realty 296-4495
Earl Hamner Jr. put Schuyler on the map as the birthplace of The Waltons, but the Alberene Soapstone Company put the Hamners in Schuyler. In its heyday, the company built the town around its quarries. Several company houses were built for employees, one of whom was Earl Hamner Sr.
The company houses may not be triumphs of 1920's architectural design, but they've held up over the years. From modest beginnings, this week's house has been upgraded by the stone that's such an integral part of the town's history.
A previous owner used skills he developed working for the New Alberene Soapstone company to install the soapstone kitchen countertops. The Tulikivi oven and accompanying tiles at the back of the house were said to be his reward for years of faithful service. The walkway and patio were paved with soapstone by a nephew keeping the family tradition alive, and an uncut soapstone slab sits in the front yard, a flower-bedecked monument to days gone by.
The quarry behind the house was so central to the occupants that in the past, most people left through the back door on their way to work. There are two other doors on either side of the house, but the front one facing Rockfish River Road leads only to a small room in the basement housing the furnace, water heater, and septic system. So it's tough to figure out where to begin the walkthrough.
The walkway on the left leads to a patio, a covered wooden porch, and the door to the living room. The door on the right faces the driveway, which means it sees the most traffic these days, but it leads to a mud room, with a bathroom on the right and the kitchen on the left. Low ceilings in the bathroom and mud room follow the contours of the roof and open into a larger space for the kitchen.
Ordinary tile flooring runs from the bathroom through to the kitchen, but soapstone counters line three walls and extend into the center of the room to make a table. The counters are a rich charcoal color with pale veins, a decorative touch that complements the stone's practical properties. The kitchen is also the only wallpapered room in the house; other walls have been recently painted.
The lot's rolling contours mean that the first floor offers two different elevations. Traveling from the kitchen or living room into the rest of the house entails walking up two steps.
The carpeted living room, roughly the same size as the kitchen, could be converted into a new dining room level with the kitchen, with an exit to the porch and outdoor patio.
From the current dining room, two hallways lead to the master bedroom. The closest runs under the stairs, with an exit back to the living room. The other hallway provides access to the stairs to the second story. Beyond the dining room is the room with the Tulikivi stove.
Tulikivi, which means “fire stone,” is the Finnish company that owned the stone mill during the latter days of the twentieth century. According to the owner, this stove transfers warmth from the wood-burning fireplace through the heat-retaining soapstone floor tiles into the next two rooms.
The stove dominates its room, with enough space for a loveseat and a television. A back door leads out to a concrete patio, and another door leads to an L-shaped room containing a washer, dryer, and desk and an inset for the half bath. Beyond that space is the carpeted master bedroom. Hardwood floors in the dining room continue up to the second-floor landing and two large matching bedrooms.
Outside, the vinyl siding and the recently painted tin roof appear to be in good repair, but two of the three sheds on the property are crumbling. They can either be torn down or rehabilitated with some work, but the one at the end of the driveway might daunt some prospective buyers.
Schuyler is a quiet town, comfortably removed from Charlottesville, and this house is just as comfortably removed from newer rubber-stamp creations closer to town.
PHOTOS BY PETER M. J. GROSS # | <urn:uuid:aa272757-834e-40cc-b36b-62296a5f6c06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.readthehook.com/85900/real-estate-block-rock-house-soapstone-built | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9557 | 966 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Some preteen girls spend their time lip-synching to Justin Beiber and other pop stars, but 11-year-old Markita Nemetchek prefers to save her voice for a more practical activity - elk calling.
Markita and her father Nelson were one of a handful of competitors in the elk calling competition at the Saskatoon Wildlife Federation's sports and leisure show during the weekend.
"It's just a family thing," Markita said with a laugh following the contest at Prairieland Park.
Markita said she discovered her talent at age six when she attracted, then angered, a bull elk in the enclosure at the Saskatoon Zoo.
Her proud father, Nelson, said Markita is one of the few people who can call elk without the aid of the small mouth diaphragm used by many competitors. Nelson, for example, uses a diaphragm as well as a modified plastic baseball bat, or "grunt tube," for competitions. The pair has gone hunting together several times near Hudson Bay.
The contest winner, 15-year-old Nathan Meikle, said his services are in demand. Holding a large trophy, Meikle said friends have asked him to hunt with them to increase their chances of success.
"I love nature, and I love having the animals come in," he said.
Another animal attraction later in the day also proved popular. Several dozen canines from the New Hope Dog Rescue were paraded be-fore a large crowd of youngsters, who got to pet and play with the animals before and after the show.
"We want to educate people and promote our adoptable dogs," New Hope executive director Emily Pickett said.
Dozens of kids also lined up for face painting by the Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Program and the free balloons from Saskatoon's balloon man, Warren Johnson.
"You wanna see something cool?" Johnson asked before twisting a series of balloons into a mermaid and a sports car for two kids.
The three-day sport and leisure show also featured lizard shows, hundreds of exhibits and professional snowmobile races. | <urn:uuid:492dc0ef-f744-4d76-abef-0b04e8768b1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thestarphoenix.com/life/calling+contest+proves+popular/8043791/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971308 | 436 | 1.632813 | 2 |
With our recent findings of T-Mobile’s upcoming revamp to their rate plans some of you have expressed both frustration and confusion regarding data usage. We thought we would try and help you out with some acquired ninja shots. First we’ll help determine what category you fit in. As you can see there are four categories to consider yourself, the low user, average user, high user and heavy user.
- Low user (200MB) someone who sometimes checks email, news and weather, posts infrequently to Facebook
- Average user (2GB) someone who regularly checks email, posts to Facebook, sends some email attachments, downloads some music or games
- High user (5GB) someone who frequently posts pictures or videos to Facebook, sends many emails with large attachments, downloads lots of music games and movies, uses online gaming and radio, video chat
- Heavy user (10GB) someone who regularly posts pictures and video to Facebook, uses phone for tethering, online radio, online gaming and lots of downloads
Perhaps the most discussed topic of data usage on T-Mobile’s network is that of throttling when hitting the limit. Throttling is defined as a user’s speed being reduced once they’ve crossed the allotted threshold based on their chosen data plan. In other words if you’ve chosen 5GB worth of data as your monthly allotment and hit that limit, your speeds are reduced rather than charging you move for overage. It’s both a blessing in the sense that T-Mobile is helping you to avoid overage charges on data plans that can often reach into the hundreds if not thousands of dollars per month. On the other hand throttling speeds are super slow when compared to 4G speeds and can cause customer frustration until their billing cycle closes and a new data allowance is reset.
The above image gives a great snapshot of what data life is like when throttled. On high speed data sending an email can typically take anywhere between 2-6 seconds. When throttled the same email will take upwards of 30-40 seconds. The same goes for uploading a picture to Facebook, 25 seconds on high speed networks and 4 minutes when throttled.
There is a clear difference to be sure when a user is throttled but in the eyes of T-Mobile, throttling is a lot less stressful than a $400 bill for overage charges.
So what must one do in order to keep track of their data usage? Well the good news is T-Mobile provides a number of ways an individual can track their daily usage and see how close they are to their limit.
- Dial #web# (#932) from your mobile device and click send, a text message will be sent to your device with data usage information
- My Account app from your smartphone, go to My Activity
- Web2Go click on My Accounts
- Customer care, call customer care and say ‘data usage’ and follow the prompts
- My T-Mobile, log into your My T-Mobile, go to 1) Manage Menu 2) click Billing and Payments to see unbilled usage 3) Click ‘See Activity Link’ | <urn:uuid:f0f59237-c599-4c7b-832f-e76d1a877092> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tmonews.com/2011/05/breaking-down-your-data-usage-what-kind-of-a-user-are-you/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932039 | 654 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Experts claim undetected and poorly managed hypertension, diabetes and obesity have increased the population of Nigerians dying from stroke, Bukola Adebayo writes
Stroke, when it occurs in an individual as the word suggests, is like when one has been struck. This terminal disease used to be associated with elderly people in their 60s, 70s and 80s.
However, experts including neurosurgeons and other health care givers in Nigeria have said that stroke is no more a disease of the aged as it is killing and disabling Nigerians in their prime.
Their major fear is that many Nigerians who would develop stroke in the next 10 years are not aware of it now.Those that have seen symptoms continue to dismiss them due to ignorance, poverty, socio- cultural beliefs and denial.
They also attributed the increasing population of Nigerians developing stroke to the growing cases of undiagnosed, unmanaged hypertension (high blood pressure) and diabetes.
They may not be far from the truth. Sharing his experience with our correspondent in Lagos on Wednesday, Mr. Segun Oyasanya, a civil engineer, said he had his first episode of stroke while preparing for a service to mark his 40th birthday.
Oyasanya said, “I have always been healthy all my life, the last time I had a fever was when I was 20 years old. I had never been admitted to the hospital or experienced anything much more than tiredness or headache.
“I was trying to pull my trousers that morning when I noticed I could not move my fingers, my hand went numb.I felt some pains through my chest and that was it. Luckily for me, my family that lived abroad had come for the party. My wife came to usher me out but she saw me lying on the floor.”
He said he was rushed to the General Hospital in Surulere where the doctor confirmed he had just had his first episode of stroke.
Though the family was taken by surprise by this diagnosis, Oyasanya confessed that he had been warned five months earlier, when he took his friend to the hospital.
“While waiting for my friend to come out of the doctor’s office, a nurse approached me to take my blood pressure. After the test, she said she could not release me until I had seen the doctor because my blood pressure was not only high but abnormal.
“This almost turned to an argument, the doctor and my friend had to intervene. After seeing the result, the doctor told me I must start taking anti-hypertensive drugs immediately to reduce my blood pressure.”
Oyasanya said two months after that visit; he stopped taking the drugs because he was convinced it was an attack from spiritual forces after speaking with his pastor.
“I stopped because I was not physically ill but just the usual tiredness. We were also convinced it was spiritual attack. But three months after I stopped taking my medication, I suffered a stroke,” he said.
“The doctor told me that if not for the drugs I had been taking, I would have been totally paralysed by stroke.”
Apart from his wife and his three children that have had to relocate from the United States to care for him in Nigeria, Oyasanya said he had to abandon some building contracts he was to execute since he had stroke in March.
According to the Consultant Neurosurgeon and Stroke specialist, Abuja, Dr. Biodun Ogungbo, about 40 per cent of Nigerians are living with factors that could predispose them to developing stroke.
These factors include obesity, alcohol consumption, smoking, lack of exercise, poor diet rich in salt and fat, high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels.
He said, “Nigerians in their 30s, 40s and 50s are developing and dying of stroke due to the increasing population of hypertensive and diabetic patients in the country.”
Ogungbo, who noted that there were no quality statistics to go by in Nigeria, raised the alarm that unlike in other climes where most stroke patients were elderly people, in Nigeria, there were more patients in their productive years developing and dying of stroke,.
He stated that stroke, a preventable disease, occurrs when there is either too much blood in the brain (wet stroke) or when no blood is going into the brain (dry stroke) and it is usually due to unmanaged and undetected hypertension.
Ogungbo said, “The incidence of hypertension is high in Nigeria. Almost half of patients I see for the first time in clinic for other problems such as back pain have high blood pressure.
“Hypertension is common in black people. We do not know why. It is therefore common in Nigerians and some statistics say over 40 per cent of adults in Nigeria have hypertension.
“Unfortunately, for some reasons, younger people in Nigeria are becoming hypertensive and suffering the consequences and also increasing the incidence of stroke and heart failure in people in their productive years.”
Ogungbo described stroke as a brain attack that could result in loss of speech, paralysis, urinary incontinence, mental disability, physical disability, blindness, loss of body movement and even death in most cases.
“We do not have credible statistics in Nigeria. We do not know how many people are affected, living with or dying from hypertension. But we have some evidence that over 60 per cent of patients with stroke die within three months. That is significant and makes stroke almost a certain death sentence in Nigeria.” he stated.
Ogungbo noted that there was need for urgent awareness among Nigerians on the fact that stroke is a preventable disease if hypertension and diabetes are detected early.
He said, “Anyone with a pressure consistently above normal has high blood pressure. The cut off is pressure above 140/90 mmHg. It does not give any warning and usually no one knows if their pressure is high or not until they do a test. By the time you have definite symptoms such as headaches, organs such as the heart, brain and kidneys may have been damaged.”
Ogungbo stressed that the only treatment for stroke was prevention which should start from formative years in order to save the younger generation from the severe consequences of stroke which include loss of livelihood, death and disability.
He said, “The real prevention must start from childhood. We need to encourage healthy living and healthy
“Fat forms layers in the blood vessels and causes them to become narrow. This increases the work of the heart in pumping blood through the vessels leading to high blood pressure.
“Eat plenty fruits and vegetables. Do not smoke and avoid alcohol. Lose weight. That 20 minutes walk or exercise daily may just save your life.
“If you need medication for blood pressure control, please use it and do not stop because a pastor or preacher tells you to. Hypertension is for life and does not go away. It cannot be cured but can be managed and controlled.”
Ogungbo, a member of Stroke Action Nigeria, added that a major reason why people should prevent stroke was the shortage of experts in the country to care for stroke patients and the high cost of treatment.
According to him, there are just about 35 neurosurgeons and 50 neurologists in the country.
Ogungbo noted, “We do not have enough trained medical and nursing experts to manage hypertension and its consequences such as stroke. A patient suffering from the first episode of stroke would spend almost N3m to be a bit stable. Most Nigerians can’t really afford to manage stroke.”
Also, the Executive Director, Stroke Action, United Kingdom, Mrs. Rita Melinfonwu, stated that a challenge facing early detection was that stroke was still being regarded as traditional or spiritual attack.
Melifonwu said a lot of patients diagnosed with high blood pressure, high glucose level or high cholesterol levels often refuse to comply with their medications.
She added that another group does not know they are at risk until they had an episode of stroke because they have never been diagnosed.
“When a Nigerian experiences his/her first stroke, the family members would say an arrow was fired at the leg or spine. They are rushed to a native doctor or herbalist to remove the arrow or stone. Then, they suffer more strokes instead of recovering from it.
“Also, when patients are diagnosed and given hypertensive drugs, they refuse to take them, they say God has removed it and stop taking their medication, and then they suffer a stroke. Stroke does not occur due to wickedness,” she said.
The nursing expert in stroke management noted that Nigerians should reduce their chances of developing stroke because the country lacked physical structures and a social system that could help stroke patients to pick up their lives again.
“Who cares for you when you have stroke in Nigeria? It is the wife, husband or the children that has to drop out of work, school to take care of that person, definitely not government or the society.
“As a stroke patient in Nigeria, you are already out of the society, you cannot go to the bank in a wheel chair or cross the road so why not prevent it?, she asked.
Melifonwu, who is the founder of a stroke care organisation in the United Kingdom, charged the Federal Government to implement disability access laws in all sectors, to ensure that Nigerians who had suffered stroke and other disabilities are not ostracised from the society.
She stated, “Imagine a husband who can no longer be husband, a managing director who can no longer manage or an individual who cannot go shopping or attend a meeting because of stroke. How can they move around in Nigeria?
“By this lack of social care, the society is telling them to hide and drop dead. But in the UK, a stroke patient is managed to the level that he/she does not have another one and they can eventually live an independent life. Government should be able to say no, if you do not have this in place in your church, mosque, supermarket, bank, office for the physically-challenged, we are sorry you cannot operate.” | <urn:uuid:f2d15390-1c50-47fb-8b50-e502f3066c9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.punchng.com/health/more-younger-nigerians-are-dying-of-stroke-experts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980806 | 2,127 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Council opposes arms fair in eschatological motion
At the initiation of a local Christian, Newham council has passed a motion opposing Europe's biggest arms fair and affirming a future without weapons.
The Defences Systems & Equipment International arms fair (DSEi) is held every two years in the borough, and last took place in September 2003 at the Excel conference centre.
Nearly 1,000 arms companies congregate in London's Docklands to sell arms, bombs and other weapons to buyers from all over the world. Some of these weapons are supplied to some of the worst regions of conflict in the world.
In the past, countries invited in the arms fair have included some with the worst records of human rights violations: Indonesia (1999), Colombia (2001) and Saudi Arabia (three times running).
The event takes place behind security fences and police lines. The public are not invited.
The motion, put forward by sole opposition Councillor Alan Craig, a member of the Christian People's Alliance, was passed unanimously by the flagship Labour council.
The beginning of the motion reads; ìCouncil looks forward to the time when nations will ìbeat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooksî (Isaiah 2:4)
It goes on to condemn the values underpinning the Arms Fair and objects to the lack of social responsibility shown by Spearhead, the Arms Fair organisers.
Councillor Alan Craig said; "Dubious regimes from around the world come to Newham to buy appalling armaments such as cluster bombs. As part of the UK £1bn arms export industry we sell weapons to Third World countries that cannot afford them and to both sides in conflicts on various continents. This must stop."
Local residents, representatives from ELAAF (East London Against the Arms Fair) and pupils from a local secondary school clapped and cheered from the gallery. Staff and pupils from the school are doing a project about the Arms Fair.
The Arms Fair, held biannually in Newham is one of the biggest of its kind anywhere in the world. It made national headlines in September 2001 and 2003 following a series of protests, many of which were organised by Christian groups such as Christian Campaign Against the Arms Trade.
Planning for the next Arms Fair in September 2005 has already started. | <urn:uuid:a79cd755-fb89-40c7-85df-39ea2304d09c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_040623arms.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955357 | 473 | 1.6875 | 2 |
A leading Tibetan exile group said Tuesday another Tibetan Buddhist set himself on fire in southwestern China, in the latest in a string of self-immolations aimed at protesting Chinese rule in the region.
The incident, reported by the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, is the 10th such self-immolation by protesting Buddhists in Sichuan province this year.
The group said the latest protest took place at the Kardze monastery about 150 kilometers from the flashpoint Kirti monastery where the nine previous self-immolations occurred.
Witnesses said the monk, Dawa Tsering, was engulfed in flames as he called for the return of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama from exile and the reunification of the Tibetan people. His condition is not known.
The self-immolations started after the Chinese authorities in Beijing ordered a curb on religious freedom by forcing monks into re-education programs. They made monks renounce the Dalai Lama and study communism.
The monks protested, so the Chinese authorities placed small police stations inside some monasteries and cut off water and electricity supplies in others.
Tibetan exile groups say the Chinese government is to blame for the deaths, while Western governments have released statements that generally concur with the view that Chinese tactics are contributing to the situation.
The Chinese government says the acts, which have sparked other protests around the region, go against the beliefs and scripture of Buddhism.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry also said Beijing's primary concern is to keep "normal social order" in Sichuan and Tibet, and described the self-immolations as "splittist activities" and "terrorism in disguise." The ministry said it has contacted Indian authorities to pursue terrorism charges against Tibetan exile groups based in northern India.
Last week, Beijing accused the Dalai Lama of encouraging monks to set themselves ablaze by glorifying the protests rather than condemning them, and said that foreign governments should refrain from commenting on the matter.
Chinese officials also responded to U.S. calls to respect the rights of Tibetan and other Chinese citizens by saying that Washington should not meddle in China's internal affairs. | <urn:uuid:41ddbac9-99f1-4a4e-b5e0-c61d2f34926e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/article-10th-tibetan-buddhist-self-immolates-in-southwestern-china-132550403/168138.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959884 | 435 | 1.648438 | 2 |
It can be a diffi- cult time when friends and fami- ly discover the contents of a deceased's will. Some countries by law insist that at least part of an estate is left to specific family members.
English law, as a rule, leaves the decision to the individual or in default, distributes an estate accord- ing to the intestacy rules. As long as a will maker has relevant mental capac- ity and was not forced into leaving assets against their wishes, the law will rarely interfere.
If you have doubts about the validity of a will, you can make enquiries of the firm which drafted it to help establish the circumstances in which the will was made. You would be advised to enter a caveat with the District Probate Registry to prevent probate of the will you may wish to challenge being granted.
In certain circumstances you may be able to challenge a will under the provisions of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 if you can argue the will failed to make reasonable financial
“If you have doubts about the validity of a will, you can make enquiries of the firm which drafted it to help establish the circumstances in which the will was made. You would be advised to enter a caveat with the District Probate Registry to prevent probate of the will you may wish to challenge being granted.”
provision. Those who can apply are listed in the Act and include a spouse (or former spouse if unmarried), a child or person treated by the deceased as a child, a cohabitee if cohabiting for at least 2 years prior to the deceased's death and anyone who immediately before the deceased's death was maintained by them. If you think you may have a claim under the 1975 Act you have just 6 months from grant of probate to issue this type of claim.
I would recommend taking legal advice if you are concerned that there may be grounds to challenge a will.
Don't forget about First Aid and related issues
Whilst shopping in a well-known large supermarket recently, I over- heard a conversa- tion between a shelf-stacker and his supervisor. He had been moving cages of stock into and out of the
aisles and had badly cut his finger. His Supervisor, a trained first-aider had looked after him even though her first aid qualification had expired as had happened with the other two first aiders on-site.
The explanation was that the super- market management had cancelled the course because they did not want to incur the costs of replacement supervisors to allow the full-time staff to renew their qualifications. I would advise all companies to ensure that they meet their regulatory and legislative obligations. The courses which relate to first-aid provision are not expensive; especially when com- pared against the size of fines that may be incurred if you are found to be avoiding your responsibilities.
Reporting an Injury: News that might be perceived as good news by
The courses which relate to first-aid provision are not expensive; especially when compared against the size of fines that may be incurred if you are found to be avoiding your responsibilities.
employers came into force from the 6th April 2012. The time by when a serious accident, injury or incident needs to be reported has increased from over three days' to over seven days' incapacitation* (not counting the day on which the accident hap- pened).
*Incapacitation means that the work- er is absent or is unable to do work that they would reasonably be expected to do as part of their normal work.
Employers and others with responsi- bilities under RIDDOR must still keep a record of all over-three day-injuries - if the employer has to keep an acci- dent book, then this record will be enough.
The deadline by which the over- seven-day injury must be reported to the H&SE has also increased to fif- teen days from the day of the acci- dent.
For information on how to reduce accidents, how to look after your staff and how to get them trained in providing First Aid cover contact Miles Vartan - details see below...
Please mention the Flyer when responding to advertisements. www.flyeronline.co.uk
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If they liked it, it was never to be seen again — mission accomplished.
When my children were small, I would take them to the doctor for their scheduled shots, vaccinations that would immunize them against the microorganisms that cause disease. Still, a shot is painful — it hurts!
When they are young, we can enclose them in a playpen for their protection, we install baby gates near stairs, put safety locks on cabinets and drawers, and put door latches high on door jams to prevent them from walking out of the house.
We do all of these things when they are small, because they are unable to know what is best. Their little bodies and minds are under our control. We are their protectors, and decide when they get up, where they go, what time they eat, what time they go to sleep and who they play with.
This kind of control is empowering in a parental kind of way and makes the growing up a blessing in disguise. The disguise is that even though their bodies are growing at a phenomenal pace from one day to the next, their minds do not keep pace. The powerful pull of peer pressure dominates, and before we know it, they can slip out of their playpen and leave the house and get themselves into a world of trouble.
As summer kids, they get up when they feel like it, which is often right around the time you are coming home from the office. They eat cereal for lunch, they are allergic to the washing machine, they have no idea how to put on a new roll of toilet tissue, the dishes in the dishwasher are dirty because they kinda-like forgot to turn it on. Then these geniuses want a few dollars to go to the mall to “hang out”!
As they grow older, we no longer feed them medicine. We allow entrance and exit. We remain their protectors, and if we have crafted a relationship that allows for back and forth communication, we are also their confidante in a parental way.
As parents, we would like to be the ones they come to when they find themselves in some kind of pickle. The reality is that they just might not.
My son recently had a 17-year-old decision to make, which he did with benefit of conversations with me and his coaches. But at the end of the day, his decision was final.
Keep your spoons ready.
• Yolande Barial is a Tracy resident and mom. She is among a select group of local residents with columns in the Tracy Press. | <urn:uuid:3de81293-4770-45a2-9ad8-32fe956451b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tracypress.com/view/full_story/19215012/article-Town-Crier--Parental-protection-lasts-only-so-long?instance=home_opinion_lead_story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982061 | 526 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Weird Wednesday- Baby John's Mummy Disappears
In 2006 the police seized a mummified baby from the home of Charles Peavey in Concord, New Hampshire. The body, known as Baby John, was supposed to be a still born relative from 100 years ago, and it had never been buried. It is possibly the illegitimate son of a great-great uncle. The police were called in when a four year old niece had told her preschool that her uncle had a dead baby in a dresser drawer. No evidence of foul play was found, but the Peavey family grieved to lose what they called a “family heirloom.”
The seizure made big news at the time, and Peavey went to court to retain custody of the body. He could not afford the DNA test to prove that the child had been a relative. In the end a judge ordered the remains to be buried in an unmarked grave at a The Blossom Hill Cemetery in Concord in 2008.
On May 3, 2010 it was discovered that Baby John had been stolen from his grave. The little casket was left behind. Police searched Peavey’s home and car, but he has not been named as a suspect or charged with a crime. In New Hampshire it is a class B felony to disturb a burial site, and it is also a felony to be found guilty of “abuse of a corpse.” Anyone with information is urged to call the Concord Regional Crimeline at 603-226-3100 or to submit information to the website www.concordregionalcrimeline.com All tips will remain anonymous.
Just as a genealogical aside, the Peavey family seems to be quite numerous in New Hampshire. According to Charles Thornton Libby’s “Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire”, page 590, the first known Peavey was Thomas Peavey who married Martha Eaton on 8 December 1687. The name is sometimes spelled “Peve” in early records.
Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo | <urn:uuid:15756084-f775-4c1e-ba4d-ccdb6271b4fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/05/weird-wednesday-baby-johns-mummy.html?showComment=1273709119134 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979146 | 437 | 1.5 | 2 |
OKOM, Sofia, 2012
Project “Support for Bulgarian Entrepreneurs”
The main objective of the project is to help unemployed people to successfully start and run their own business by providing assistance for elaboration of business plans.The curricula of the training and consulting covers all aspects of management and business, such as: human resource management, financial management, marketing, as well as specialized training in languages and computer skills.
The project is supported by the European Commission under the operational programme “Human Resource Development” and is managed by Agency for Employment in Sofia, in collaboration with training institutions and organizations.
I was invited by the Institute of Industrial Relations and Management OKOM to lead a module on Entrepreneurship and business planning (February, 2012) with a group of 40 people who would like to develop their own small-scale business in the near future. We looked at aspects related to the roles and competences of the entrepreneur, external and internal situational analysis, opportunity recognition, innovation as an important tool of entrepreneurship, financial aspects of start-up business. The training finished with outlining of the main content and structure of a business plan. All participants were actively involved in the interactive training. My special thanks to Prof. Dr. Dimitar Kamenov and the whole OKOM team for this unique opportunity to be part of the training process! | <urn:uuid:6543a1ab-a323-43bd-b7e0-78c5a85c14f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lidiavarbanova.ca/photo-gallery-2011-2013/okom-sofia-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958473 | 275 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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