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My cousin received a letter from Euro Millones in Madrid Spain stating that she won $815,960 US. She asked me to check it out and I knew it had to be a scam the second I saw the envelope. First of all, if you win a large prize you will be notified by certified mail. Secondly, the address was printed on a sticky label and stuck to the envelope crookedly. I'm sure her address was bought from an address supplier. I found out that my dad also received one of these letters. In my opinion, if you get or have one, quickly file it away in file 13 (the trash can).
i have recieved a loteria primitive that i won the spanish lottery .
from the desk of the managing director international promotions prize award Dept.
also the claims agent Dr.Carmen Martins manager of crystal line security company . Tel: 011 34-654-718-997.
also below there bank details wher they asked to send them money for Tax release (thats wt they called it).
i look forward for your reply.
My grandmother got a letter from EURO MILION LOTTERY PROGRAM ESPAIN regarding that she has won a handsome amount through a lottery.
BATCH NO. and SERIAL NO. was given .there was also a form to send her personel detail and bank account number etc.
Creating world-class contemporary Maori carvings from a humble garage.
As a boy growing up in Wairoa, Todd Couper would go with his nan to Taihoa Marae and copy the kowhaiwhai panels while she performed in kapa haka. He lives in Papamoa now, and his art sells around the world. He talked to Bay of Plenty Times reporter Carly Gibbs . . .
Todd Couper slips on his glasses and skilfully positions the glow of a luminous lamp.
The portable radio croons, and his bare hands work away at a slab of wood in a vice, with slow and careful precision. Each sliver of timber surrenders to his knife’s delicate graze.
From a humble Papamoa garage, he is creating world-class contemporary Māori carvings (whakairo), sometimes spending nearly 300 hours on a single piece.
This is work that takes time but — eventually — it will defy time too.
He has a large textbook of working drawings, done in pencil, which are the first stage in bringing his ideas or concepts into the “physical dimension”.
They are then scanned and enlarged to scale, and transferred on to the wood ready to be carved.
It took him 287 hours to carve the original out of wood, then a mould was taken and cast at a foundry in Auckland. The eagle is No 8 of 10 in an edition.
He has learned skills born of patience and says woodcarving is a form of meditation for him.
He has been represented internationally through the Spirit Wrestler Gallery in Vancouver for 15 years, becoming good friends with the director, Nigel Reading, and some of the First Nations’ (Metis and Inuit) most prominent artists.
He has exhibited at the Spirit Wrestler Gallery numerous times, including with Tauranga’s Rex Homan and Rotorua’s Lewis Gardiner in 2014, for the Wero exhibition.
An American private collector who owns more than a dozen of Couper’s works, flew to New Zealand to support him at the opening. One of the pieces she owns is his Spirit of the Boar totara carving.
“I don’t really have a favourite piece, but that was the most personal to me, just because of what it represented,” he says.
It’s a humbling accomplishment for the boy from Wairoa, who grew up hunting, fishing, diving and drawing.
For as long as he can remember, he’s had a pencil in his hand. He would accompany his nan, Mary Marshall, to Taihoa Marae, where she performed in kapa haka, and he would sit with his neck craned, copying the kowhaiwhai (rafter panels) of the wharekai (dining room) while waiata sounded around him.
At home, he would draw dogs, horses, boars, ducks and stags on repeat. If he couldn’t be an artist, he jokes that he would be a “professional hunter”.
Today, he is still that small-town boy, but taking on the world.
When he’s not in his garage, decorated with antlers, fishing rods and hunting photos, he’s making the four-and-a-half hour journey back to Wairoa, to head into the bush for a day’s hunt, or longer when the stags are roaring.
His lack of pretension is beguiling. He is gracious, and appreciative of publicity as someone who has, until recently, kept a low profile locally. Dressed in a Hunting & Fishing fleece top, track pants and socks and slides, he’s down to earth.
After leaving boarding school Te Aute College in Hawke’s Bay in 1991, he went on to do a Diploma of Art, Craft and Design Māori at Waiariki Polytechnic in Rotorua.
Here he learned about whakairo.
“Once I was introduced to whakairo I knew quickly that this was something I wanted to pursue,” he says.
He remembers the first day he arrived at Waiariki Polytechnic as a teenager. He walked through the quiet art blocks, scanning all the hung art. “How am I supposed to do that?” he feared.
Today, he keeps the first carving he ever did, hanging in his garage. It was one of the designs of the poupou (wall panel) for the wharenui (meeting house) at Waiariki Polytechnic.
In his final year of study he met the man who was to become his mentor, Roi Toia, who was then the carving tutor at Waiariki.
After graduating in 1995, Toia invited Couper to work alongside him in his workshop at his home in Mourea, at the northern end of Lake Rotorua.
They ended up working together for nearly 17 years as fulltime artists, creating their own artworks. An emphasis on a flawless finish became their trademark and springboard to an international career.
Carving continues to be Couper’s “bread and butter”, and, now working alone, he is passion-driven but misses chewing the creative fat with Toia on a daily basis.
He has recently become friends with famed street artist Graham Hoete, otherwise known as Mr G.
The two connected on the social media platform Instagram, and quickly learned they lived just around the corner from each another in Papamoa. They now catch up for coffee and to stoke each other’s creative fires.
“He’s inspiring me to push the boundaries because he’s that type of guy,” Couper says of Hoete.
“He wants to learn some carving patterns that he can add to his work, and, vice versa, he’s teaching me things about his practice that I can incorporate into my work as well.
Couper, 44, was born creative and gets it from both sides of his whānau. His father is a good drawer and his mother Dianne is skilled with embroidery, sewing and flower arranging. Her cousin is Māori artist Sandy Adsett. Couper’s nan was a good painter, and his only sibling and brother, Dan, is a talented ceramic artist.
At his single-storey Papamoa home, there isn’t a vast amount of his art on display because as soon as he makes something. “it’s gone”.
“If I had kept everything, I wouldn’t have enough room for it anyway.
“This is the most I’ve ever had — these couple of works,” he says of the bronze eagle ($16,500), a Tane Mahuta figurine made out of kauri ($27,500) and a print on the wall, titled Manawanui ($1500). All three are holding court in his light-filled lounge.
He currently has two local carving commissions. One is a fantail, and the other New Zealand’s native parrot, kākā, for Papamoa East’s Tom Lynch, of Foris Eco-Tours.
The kaka is in its beginning stages. Made out of matai, its round head is already silky smooth. You can’t help but stroke it as you would a cat.
Once he has finished carving the outside, he’ll hollow the inside, creating a refined shell-like piece. It also slows down the process of cracking by removing moisture.
A carving piece “will outlive all of us” if looked after properly and kept out of sunlight.
He works mostly with kauri, tōtara, mātai and black maire. “I’ve got anyone and everyone on the lookout for me,” he says of sourcing native wood.
Surrounded by tapu beliefs and traditional customs, whakairo weaves stories.
“Before the written language, that’s how the stories and history were told and retained,” he says.
He is a contemporary carver but always mindful and respectful. He feels a sense of duty to represent the art of whakairo with precision and integrity.
In 2012, he and wife Ange (who he met in his late teens in Wairoa), and their children Baden, 15, and Callai, 10, moved to Brisbane where he spent 12 months as an artist in residence at Southbank Institute of Technology.
Now back home in New Zealand, he continues to explore the art of whakairo but being an artist in New Zealand will always carry challenges.
“Most Kiwis, if they’ve got extra money, they’ll buy a new car or a house. They’re not going to go spend money on art, and if they do, then what sort of art form do they like? They might not like what I do, so then you’re narrowing your market down again.
If he is explaining to someone that a piece took 200 hours to complete, he’ll use the analogy of watching Coronation Street 200 times in a row.
It’s for this reason he focuses a lot on birds, animals and sea creatures as they are universal forms.
The last piece he did was the Butterfly Orcastra, a red admiral butterfly, mixed with a killer whale, which is prominent in First Nations culture. It sold in Canada within six days, for $14,000.
He doesn’t mind working when everyone else’s lights go out.
What’s left behind when art sells are just records in the form of photographs. He never does the same thing twice, unless it’s a bronze edition.
His wish is to inspire young creative minds to believe in their artistic abilities, and follow their passion. just as he has.
Brazilian leftists heaved a huge collective sigh of relief on Sunday night after Jair Bolsonaro – the homophobic, dictatorship-praising far-right front-runner – fell just short of a stunning first-round victory that would have made him president of one of the world’s largest and most diverse democracies.
Their relief may well be short-lived.
Fernando Haddad, Bolsonaro’s opponent in the pivotal second-round vote on 28 October, has a mountain almost as high as Brazil’s Pico da Neblina to climb if he is to scupper the right-wing populist’s dramatic political ascent.
Bolsonaro secured more than 49m votes on Sunday – 46% of the total and just shy of the majority he needed for an outright win – while his Workers’ party (PT) opponent won just 29%, or 31m votes.
Just to draw level with Bolsonaro, Haddad would need virtually every single one of the voters who opted for the third and fourth-placed candidates, Ciro Gomes and Geraldo Alckmin, to switch to his side.
Those hoping Haddad can still win believe he must now position himself as a centrist champion of democracy who can prevent Brazil from lurching back towards the kind of murderous, authoritarian rule Bolsonaro has so often said he admires.
Heloísa Starling, a Brazilian historian, said she believed Haddad now needed to piece together “a great democratic coalition” if Brazil was to avoid being hurtled back towards “tyranny”. “It can’t just be a left-wing coalition – it must include everyone who is prepared to defend democracy, whoever they may be,” Starling said.
James Green, the head of Brown University’s Brazil Initiative, agreed an “anti-fascist front” was essential if Bolsonaro was to be stopped.
Already on Sunday night there were signs Haddad would seek to do just that.
“I’ve always been on the side of freedom and democracy. I’m not going to give up my values,” the 55-year-old intellectual tweeted, claiming he had already spoken to three of the defeated candidates and was open to “dialogue”.
Gomes, who came third with 12.5% of the vote and potentially has the most support to transfer to Haddad, said it was too early to say what he would do. But he ruled out support for Bolsonaro – “Not him, definitely!” – and said he was “anguished” by the direction his country was taking. “One thing I can tell you right now [is that I hope] … to carry on doing what I have done my whole life: fighting for democracy against fascism ” Gomes told reporters.
Nor was it likely that Bolsonaro – whose three-decade political career has been peppered with incendiary remarks that in recent years appear to have only added to his appeal – could damage his own campaign with an indelicate comment.
“Most people backing Bolsonaro know exactly what he is about at this point”, just as most Trump voters were well aware of the kind of man they were electing, Winter said.
In a celebratory Facebook broadcast on Sunday night, Bolsonaro warned Brazil was on the edge of a corrupt, communist “abyss” and could take one of two paths.
One was his path of “prosperity, freedom, family” and godliness. The other was Haddad’s: “the path of Venezuela”.
“We do not want this type of people re-occupying the Palácio do Planalto,” Brazil’s presidential palace, Bolsonaro warned of Haddad’s PT.
Sunday’s results suggest most Brazilians agree.
Green mentioned his client's visits to mental health facilities dating to the late 1960s and early '70s. During those visits, he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Fresno psychologist Richard Blak testified that Wickersham also suffered from delusions.
Deputy District Attorney Steven Slocum argued Wickersham had a clear intent to kill, stabbing the victim 21 times and hitting him in the head with a ball-peen hammer. Slocum said Wickersham washed the victim's blood off the hammer, an indication the defendant was "thinking about the nature" of the crime.
Slocum said Wickersham's statements to Merced police probably resonated with jurors. During the trial, jurors watched a video recording of detectives interviewing Wickersham, when he admitted to killing Burnett.
"He understood what he was doing," Slocum said.
Wickersham said he had known Burnett for 20 years, and had killed him while he victim was sleeping.
Two days before the murder, Wickersham encountered Burnett at the Starbucks on Main Street in Merced. Wickersham told Burnett he had no place to stay and had tried to get into the homeless shelter. Burnett told Wickersham he could stay at his place, and Wickersham accepted the offer.
Wickersham was arrested the day of the killing, after he turned up at a local health care facility with a self-inflicted cut on his arm, saying he had hurt his friend.
Judge Ronald Hansen is scheduled to sentence Wickersham in April. Wickersham has a strike on his record for a 2002 arson conviction. He is facing 50 years to life in prison.
Managing Editor Victor A. Patton can be reached at (209) 385-2431 or vpatton@mercedsun-star.com.
Rotary Club of East Manatee. 7:30 a.m. at Popi's IV, 3911 U.S. 301 N., Ellenton. Melissa Hammond, 351-9440.
Wine tasting. 4 to 7 p.m. at VINO 100, 5222 State Road 64 E., Bradenton. The "Bring a Friend" wine tasting will feature VINO 100's best-selling wines and ideas for food pairings of the wines. Free. 747-8466.
Family storytime. 7 p.m. at the Braden River Branch Library, 4915 53rd Ave. E., Bradenton.
Realtor Challenge golf tournament. Registration and continental breakfast at 7:30 a.m., shotgun start at 8:30 a.m. at Legacy Golf Club, 8255 Legacy Blvd., Bradenton. Four-person scramble tournament to benefit Florida Adaptive Golf. $400 per team. Sponsorships available. 907-7730 or 468-1611.
Online catalog basics class. 10 a.m. the last Friday of each month at the Braden River Branch Library, 4915 53rd Ave. E., Bradenton. Learn how to use the library's online catalog. 727-6079.
Bloodmobile. 4 to 8 p.m. at Carmike Cinemas Royal Palm 20 Theater, 5125 26th St. E., Bradenton. (800) 682-5663.
Low-cost pet vaccination clinic. 9 to 10:30 a.m. at Animal Crackers, 6230 Lockwood Ridge Road, Sarasota, and 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Roxy's Pet Depot, 8437 Honore Ave., Sarasota. Several vaccination packages, administered by state-licensed veterinarians will be available for puppies, dogs, kittens and cats. Cats must be in carriers and dogs on leashes. (888) 680-7387 or www.animalhealth.cc.
"Mental Health Matters" support group. 10 to 11 a.m. the last Saturday of each month at Lakewood Ranch Medical Center, 8330 Lakewood Ranch Blvd., Bradenton. The group will address a variety of behavior and mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, memory issues, mild cognitive impairment, stress, family dynamics, caring for individuals and caregivers of those with chronic mental illness and other relevant disorders. Bruce A. Colby, 746-5111, Ext. 8152.
Bloodmobile. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Wal-Mart, 6225 State Road 64 E., Bradenton; 4 to 8 p.m. at Carmike Cinemas Royal Palm 20 Theater, 5125 26th St. E., Bradenton. (800) 682-5663.
Community cookout. 5 p.m. at Harvest Field Community Church, 7710 121st Ave. E., Parrish. Includes hamburgers, hot dogs and all the fixings, and music and entertainment. Free will offering. 725-4145.
Randy Estelle's "Celebrate America Live!" 6:30 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Christian Retreat Conference Center, 1200 Glory Way, Bradenton. The two-hour Branson-style musical production will feature patriotic songs of patriotism, from traditional to jazz and rockabill, a tribute honoring military personnel, and a full cast, including the CAL Singers and Band. Special guest performers will be soloist John Lowery and the PowerPlay Drumline. Touring musician Randy Estelle, of Myakka City, will host the event and play the grand piano. Ticket prices are: one ticket or at the door, $15; two to seven tickets purchased in advance, $12.50 each; eight or more purchased in advance, $10 each. Buy tickets by calling 322-2076, visit www.randyestellelive.com or go to Living Word Christian Store, 5421 Fruitville Road, Sarasota, or Christian Retreat. Proceeds will help Courtyard Media Ministries' ongoing work of training in the areas of arts, media and faith.
American Red Cross volunteer orientation. 9 to 10:30 a.m. the first Monday of each month at the Mid-County Service Center, 10311 Malachite Drive, Bradenton. Designed to familiarize new volunteers with the American Red Cross, its mission and the fundamental principles under which the Red Cross Movement was founded. Call 792-8686 or e-mail fosterg@manateeredcross.org.