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I enjoyed so much the performance of THE SIGNATURE on Saturday night, August 25th. How can I view photos of that particular play? We were so impressed! Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the Fall Color!
One’s man’s weed protects another’s vegetables!
What winter gloom? Plant for color!
FORT WALTON BEACH — Advance Fire Protection Services recently presented Children in Crisis a check for $1,500 to help provide a home and care to the abused, neglected, and abandoned children of the local community.
According to Ken Hair, CIC President & CEO, "We opened the Children’s Neighborhood in February 2008 and since then; we’ve provided a home to about 880 Kids and have kept all of our brother and sister sibling group families together. We continue to have a critical need for funds to help sustain operations and care for t...
CIC is a 501c3 nonprofit community charity of caring people providing homes and establishing hope to the abused, neglected and abandoned children of our community. Together we can make a difference in the life of a child. To learn more about CIC, visit www.childrenincrisisfl.org, or call 864-4242.
At least you'll have something to open on New Year's?
It wouldn’t be the holidays if there wasn’t a juicy argument. This year, it’s between UPS and Amazon, with the latter claiming UPS basically ruined Christmas for some Americans by failing to send packages in time for the big day.
Customers were mad at UPS for a backlog in the company’s delivery process. The company said “the volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity of our network immediately preceding Christmas, so some shipments were delayed.” Some of those shipments were from online retailers, like Amazon, which was reported...
Amazon had promised customers that packages would arrive before Christmas. Because of UPS’s alleged failure to do its one job, Bezos and Company is now trying to placate its angry base with offers of gift cards and shipping refunds.
A spokesperson for UPS seemed so embarrassed by the debacle, she couldn’t do anything more than repeat the fact that UPS and Amazon have an agreement.
Amazon is just counting down the days until its drones can eliminate its UPS partnership.
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Friday upheld a $2.4 million fine for tax evasion against the country’s most famous dissident, Ai Weiwei, after barring him from attending the hearing, in a case that critics accuse Beijing of using to muzzle the outspoken artist.
Ai had asked the Chaoyang District court to overturn the city tax office’s rejection of his appeal against the tax evasion penalty imposed on the company he works for, Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd, which produces his art and designs.
The artist said that Chinese police barred him from showing up in person, saying earlier he had “absolutely no hope” the court would rule in his favor.
“Today’s verdict shows that this country, more than 60 years after its founding still has no basic legal process, still has no respect for the truth, still will never give taxpayers and citizens an ability to justify themselves,” Ai said.
“The entire judiciary is shrouded in darkness,” he told reporters at his home in northeastern Beijing after the verdict, adding that he would now sue the Chaoyang court in a higher court, ensuring he will remain a thorn in the government’s side.
The case adds to China’s already tarnished image on human rights — at least in the West — coming on the heels of a score of other high-profile cases, including the fleeing to the U.S. Embassy of blind, self-taught legal activist Chen Guangcheng.
“It has cost them dearly, but I think it reflects where the Chinese authorities are at,” said Corinna-Barbara Francis, China researcher at human rights watchdog Amnesty International.
The United States said it was following Ai’s case closely and was concerned that he had been prevented from attending the reading of the verdict. China and the United States will hold their next human rights dialogue in Washington next week.
“We continue to urge China to respect the rule of law and protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all its citizens,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in an emailed statement.
“China’s respect for the rule of law and protection of human rights are critical to its long-term prosperity and stability,” he added.
The loss of Ai’s appeal underscores top leaders’ increasing intolerance of dissent ahead of a tricky generational transition of power at the end of the year, when Vice President Xi Jinping almost certainly will be anointed to take over from Hu Jintao.
Dozens of police and police vehicles flanked the road leading to the courthouse. Ai’s wife, Lu Qing, was allowed to attend the proceeding.
The Chaoyang District Court heard the case at a closed hearing in June, that in itself, was a departure from the consistent refusal by the strictly controlled courts to give dissidents any hearing.
Ai, 55, had called the hearing unfair after police warned him to stay away and blocked journalists from approaching the cramped court room which only had five seats.
The court did not answer calls seeking comment.
Tax authorities are demanding the company that markets his work pay a 15 million yuan ($2.4 million) penalty for tax evasion.
Government efforts to muzzle Ai have frequently backfired, as demonstrated by an outpouring of public sympathy - and cash - in response to the tax penalty. About 30,000 people donated money to help Ai cover an 8.45 million yuan bond required to contest the tax charges. Many of Ai’s supporters folded money into paper pl...
Clad in a grey T-shirt with his face and the words “missing” and “found” printed on it, Ai said he would not pay the remaining fine of around 6 million yuan and that he has no hope of recovering the bond already lodged with the tax authorities.
The fine is unlikely to put too much of a dent into Ai’s finances, as his works go for hundreds of thousands of dollars and his profile has been raised yet further on the global stage after his repeated run-ins with the authorities.
Supporters of Ai, whose 81-day detention last year sparked an international outcry, have said the tax case is part of the government’s effort to muzzle China’s most famous social critic.
“I feel that in China, in recent years, its biggest effort that it has taken in maintaining stability is to eliminate any person who’s willing to speak out for the truth,” Ai said.
“I’ve said this before, that if you start caring about this country, then you’re on the path toward criminality,” he said.
The company’s lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, said the outcome was expected.
“I knew the regime could be shameless, but I didn’t quite believe that a regime could act so shamelessly that they become rascals,” the rights lawyer said.
Ai has said that even if he eventually loses his case, Chinese citizens can at least use it as an example to debate and hold government bodies to account.
Tourism minister Derek Hanekom faced backlash on Twitter after posting photos of a "filthier" Johannesburg.
The last thing Derek Hanekom expected when he tweeted about a "filthier" Johannesburg was an avalanche of clapbacks from Twitter, but that's exactly what he got.
On Wednesday, Hanekom tweeted a photo of a dirty Johannesburg street corner with the caption addressed to city mayor Herman Mashaba.
Hanekom wrote: "@HermanMashaba you promised so much, but parts of the city are filthier than ever before. Not good. This is a basic municipal function."
Communications minister Mmamoloko Kubayi is “shocked” at former tourism minister Derek Hanekom’s use of social media to the “detriment” of the ANC.
It didn't take long for Twitter to turn the heat on Hanekom.
Many people felt that Hanekom's swipe at the DA-led municipality was unwarranted, considering that the DA had only recently taken over from Hanekom's ANC, which had failed to turn the city around in the years that the ruling party had been in charge.
In another tweet addressed to opposition parties, the DA and EFF, Hanekom said: "There is a litter strewn on every corner. "@Our_DA you control this municipality. With your partner @EFFSouthAfrica. Surely you can do better than this?"
And just like that, Hanekom threw himself under the Twitter bus. It was clapbacks galore.
Really Mr Hanekom? You can take pictures like this all over South Africa, also in the many municipalities run by the ANC. Why make this out to be an issue specific to the DA and EFF? I wasn’t expecting this cheap shot from you.
This tweet displays gross ignorance. If you've been frequently moving in around the city, you'd notice the difference being done. Choosing one area that's bad and neglecting the ongoing change is cheap politicking at its best.
Yes Derek. This part of Johannesburg was clean during @MYANC rule, right?
Derek. This is pathetically opportunistic. Look at the rest of South Africa on every front. The ANC has al sorts of litter strewn everywhere - looting, corruption, sewerage not working - Really!!!
You, an ANC deployee, mentioning of opposition parties in this matter dilutes the real issue and makes it sounds like some cheap politicking point scoring. You can do better to address this.
Oh keep quiet, Derek. Really. @HermanMashaba has done, is doing more, for Johannesburg in the small time he has been mayor than all the mayors of your dysfunctional party put together. The ANC is incapable of fulfilling basic municipal services.
Allowance gap: Boys are making more money than girls even before they're old enough to hold real jobs.
Even Children Have a Gender Wage Gap. Call It the Allowance Gap.
Politicians can help fix the wage gap, but fixing the allowance gap depends on parents.
But unfortunately, it’s not likely because boys do more chores. One study found that girls do two more hours of housework a week than boys, while boys spend twice as much time playing. The same study confirmed that boys are still more likely to get paid for what they do: they are 15 percent more likely to get an allowa...
And it’s not just that boys are more likely to be paid by their parents, but they also get more money. One study found that boys spent just 2.1 hours a week on chores and made $48 on average, while girls put in 2.7 hours to make $45. A British study found that boys get paid 15 percent more than girls for the same chore...
To be clear, I doubt that deliberate sexism is playing a role in the allowance gap. Few, if any, parents are sitting a son and daughter down and saying that they think the boy is worth more so he will be getting more money for fewer chores. The allowance gap is likely the result of unconscious bias in how kids are soci...
Nor is it particularly surprising to find that parents give boys more money. In our culture, and in much of Western Europe, there’s a tendency to treat boys as if they’re a little more adult than girls at the same age. Girls are often coddled and assumed to be more innocent than boys, so it follows that parents would a...
How is the rising cost of living affecting you?
The latest inflation figures have confirmed the cost of living is on the rise. So how much worse can it get? Michael Alexander reports.
The month of June marks the start of National Immigrant Heritage Month which not only celebrates America’s diversity as well as the contributions of millions of immigrants that live in the U.S. Actress Dania Ramirez joined Tuesday’s Rundown to share her personal look at the immigrant experience, which mirrors the exper...
Ramirez was six months old when her parents left their home in the Dominican Republic to begin a new life in the U.S. It wasn’t until Ramirez was 10that she was able to join them.
As a mother now, Ramirez said can better understand the meaning behind her mother’s sacrifice. “I can’t even fathom the thought of being away from my kids for more than few days,” she said.
As evidenced by the show at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery - "Reconciling America: Miraculous Encounters With the Mundane" - the personal has never been more political. It's a three-pronged exhibition, with interactive elements, a storefront window by Tucker Nichols and a radio show, featuring 12 local artis...
"It's a bunch of wonderful, weird conceptual art," says gallery Director Meg Shiffler, who curated the show with her staff, Joyce Grim and Dana Hemenway, and artist Zefrey Throwell.
The show's theme came out organically from conversations about what the group was interested in. "We sat around and discussed artists who we thought were inspiring, and themes we wanted to tackle. After examining a lot of what was being produced, we thought about how artists were taking a look at their own lives and th...
But a millennial kind of politics. "It's different than the '70s activist model. It's more inward, more about community, what's going on in your backyard, even the online community. They're examining an intimate subject matter - what it means to be an American."
The political, then, is inferred from the personal. Technology aids people in creating personal spaces like none seen before. A number of the artists tackle Web 2.0 identity issues. Jennifer Durban's audio work, a different version of her thesis piece "I Met my Dad on Friendster," tells a story that's hard to believe. ...
Another artist, Brendan Lott, went in a less personal angle: He took images of young people he found on file-sharing service LimeWire and sent them to master artists in China to paint as portraits. "He reaches outside of his own community to show how you assume an identity and it spreads through the Web," Shiffler says...
What, then, does this say about America? Depends whom you ask. To help parse the question of the relationship of the macro to the micro in cultural discourse, Zefrey Throwell will host his Frank Prattle radio show at the gallery with a collection of local artists, curators, civic leaders and thinkers. All of the shows ...
Shiffler says the trend for artists to remove themselves from overtly political debates and instead let more personal work speak to societal shifts is not as strongly felt in San Francisco. "S.F. is one of the few places where artists feel like their voice matters," she says. "For the most part, as a nation of artists,...
Through March 12. See Web site for schedule of radio programs. S.F. Arts Commission Gallery, 401 Van Ness St., S.F. (415) 554-6080. www.sfacgallery.org.
House members say phone calls are running 9-1 against the financial rescue bill, and that raises a question. If people really oppose the bill in those numbers—and there are signs they don’t —shouldn’t “representatives” vote that way?
During the debate on the Constitution, there was an attempt to tie the votes of representatives directly to the will of the people living in the district. (Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein tells this story the best in Why Societies Need Dissent .) The question was whether the Bill of Rights should contain a “right t...
The country chose a different course, wisely so, according to Sunstein. Early American communities were isolated and extraordinarily homogenous. That insularity was a disadvantage. Decisions were made with limited information and without hearing different points of views. Moreover, like-minded groups were prone to grow...
The words (of the right to instruct amendment) are calculated to mislead the people, by conveying an idea that they have a right to control the debates of the Legislature. This cannot be admitted to be just, because it would destroy the object of their meeting. I think, when the people have chosen a representative, it ...
It would be a stretch to say this has been one of the country’s “best moments.” Congressional districts, even states, have grown more homogenous as people have sorted into like-minded communities . The advantages of deliberation Sherman recognized were lost in partisan rigidity long before the financial system needed b...
The benefit of this crisis (and we’re really scratching to find one) is that perhaps Congress will rediscover the use of diversity. That’s a start. We’ll worry about enabling “people not to hate each other” another day.
Wow! Warren Seely is a mechanical genius. Not only does he build fully-functional replicas of actual farm equipment made out of LEGOs, by the age of 6 he had already rebuilt his first tractor engine.
I can barely program my VCR!
Even more amazing, some of Seely's creations have been built strictly from photographs. His work includes a motorized mint root digger and planter, potato harvester and potato trailer which are all on display at the Washington State Potato Conference in Kennewick. Keep in mind, some of these machines were constructed i...
"If you go out and look at a real one running, there's gears you can get caught in, chains, PTO drives that people can get wrapped around." says Seely in a YouTube video produced by Washington State University. "This, being pretty accurate to the real one, you can actually look at it and say 'well, here's where danger ...
Warren is homeschooled, enrolled in community college courses and helps out on his parents’ mint farm about 40 miles from Portland. He plans to attend Washington State University to become an electrical engineer.
Keep in mind he is only fifteen years old.
Great job, Warren. I have high hopes that you might actually revolutionize the farming industry. We sure can use it.
Wow! Warren Seely is a mechanical genius. Not only does he build fully-functional replicas of actual farm equipment, by the age of 6 he had already rebuilt his first tractor engine.
In "Whispering in the Daylight," Knoxville author Debby Schriver takes us inside the cult of Tony Alamo through the lives of some of his followers.
In her book "Whispering in the Daylight," Knoxville author Debby Schriver takes us inside the cult of Tony Alamo through the lives of some of his followers.
The onetime street preacher's apocalyptic ministry started in California and spread eastward into Arkansas and Tennessee. Alamo was convicted in 2009 of sexually abusing girls he considered his wives. The book is based on numerous interviews, including some with children who are second and third generation former follo...
Alamo died in 2017, but his followers remain active. Proceeds from “Whispering in the Daylight” will be distributed through a foundation being established to address the needs of cult survivors.
How does Memphis figure into your story?
Tony Alamo perceived himself as a “discoverer of musical talent.” He likened himself to Elvis, even trying to look like and sing like Elvis. When he started designing the now famous Tony Alamo jackets in the 1970s, he made one for Elvis (among numerous other celebrities). Alamo claimed it was a way to raise funds for t...
Additionally, it was in Memphis that Alamo was indicted by a grand jury on charges of filing a false income tax statement for 1985 and for failing to file tax returns for the years 1986 to 1988.
Have you ever written a book before?
Yes, this is my fourth book, but the first one that is a “true crime” story. "Whispering in the Daylight" is based on over 300 interviews, including some with law enforcement, cult survivors, sociologists, psychologists and court transcriptions.
I have always been an avid reader and majored in English in college. My graduate work was in counseling psychology and I worked with students in orientation and transition, as well as employee training. The nature of my career required a great deal of writing, but it wasn’t it until I retired that I had the opportunity...
What was the catalyst for you to write this book and share this story with others?
Some of the parents who had adopted children who had been born into the Alamo cult contacted me. They knew of other work I had done and my motivation to give a voice to people who had not been heard. When I learned the plight of these children, I was compelled to give them a voice. And not only did they need to have an...

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