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Nawazuddin Siddiqui allots his dates to Bole Chudiyan | Bollywood News
By admin 4 weeks ago
Ever since the second season of Netflix’s Sacred Games is announced, the curiosity amongst the fans of Nawazuddin Siddiqui has risen but looks like fans won’t get to see it for quite some time now. While, the second season of Sacred Games will see Nawazuddin Siddiqui as a crime lord, who has shot the second instalment of International series in Kenya.
While we are awaiting the release of Sacred Games 2, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, we hear, has allotted his bulk dates to his brother Shamas Nawab Siddiqui for his feature debut Bole Chudiyan. If sources are to be believed, director-actor Anurag Kashyap is considered to play a pivotal role in Bole Chudiyan.
While the first season of Sacred Games ended with Gaitonde escaping from the prison, the second edition will see him seeking a refuge in Kenya and becoming a crime lord. The character of Ganesh Gaitonde had fun and various colours to his personality and it helped Nawazuddin to build as a brand in the world cinema. Elnaaz Nourozi, who will reprise the part of Zoya in the second season and will showcase the camaraderie between Zoya and Gaitonde.
Also Read: After Sacred Games, Nawazuddin Siddiqui to star in Netflix’s adaptation of Manu Joseph’s book Serious Men
More Pages: Bole Chudiyan Box Office Collection
Tags : Anurag Kashyap, Bole Chudiyan, Bollywood, Ganesh Gaitonde, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Netflix, News, Sacred Games, Sacred Games 2, Saif Ali Khan, Shamas Nawab Siddiqui
Tags: allots, Bole, Bollywood, Chudiyan, Dates, Nawazuddin, News, Siddiqui
Previous Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor say NO COMMENTS on Kangana Ranaut & her sister Rangoli | Bollywood News
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Liz Wala, shares her story.
Write on Friday, 05 October 2012 08:10 “Motherhood to me means nurturing a young person who is initially dependent on you for almost everything to an independent being confident to face the world and make the right choices in life based... Readmore
Mwangi's Story
Write on Friday, 13 June 2014 13:48 Help bring the Mwangi triplets home ! Mr Mwangi is a widower from Murang'a whose wife died while giving birth to them. They had 5 other children so in total 8kids. He is a... Readmore
Twin Glory.
Write on Friday, 13 June 2014 14:25 How Sweet To Be A Twin! The Amazing Story of Identical Twin Sisters who Gave Birth on the Same Day Twins, in most cases identical ones, are connected on a level that is quite hard to understand... Readmore
'cursed' NOT
Write on Friday, 13 June 2014 14:52 Kenyan mother 'cursed' with six sets of twins Gladys Bulinya at home with five of her six sets of twins Most women would struggle to cope with six sets of twins but for Gladys Bulinya it is even... Readmore
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Market Oriented Agriculture Programme (MOAP) in Brief
Title: Market-Oriented Agriculture Programme (MOAP)
Client: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Ghana
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA)
Overall term: 2004 to 2016
Agriculture in Ghana is predominantly small-scale and traditionally organised. Over 70% of all farms are smaller than three hectares, and in the programme regions of Volta, Central and Brong Ahafo Region, they are smaller than two hectares. Small farms account for almost 80% of total agricultural production, but have virtually no access to agricultural inputs and financing. Low productivity and market efficiency and heavy post-harvest losses are urgent problems for Ghana’s agriculture. Skilled labour for more advanced agricultural methods, such as mechanics, electricians or extension workers, is hard to find. Agriculture does not enjoy a very high reputation among young people, who regard it as a hard way to earn a living, rather than as an attractive business model with lucrative prospects.
There are pro-poor, income-raising business models available for competitive agricultural value chains, which are promoted by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and private sector.
Together with MoFA, the programme is developing solutions for agriculture’s urgent problems at national, regional and local level. It is advising particularly on developing value chains, providing national and decentralised advice on policy, and developing capacity for service providers.
The programme is operating in the three regions of Volta, Central and Brong Ahafo Region, and promoting in particular the value chains for mangoes, citrus fruits, pineapples and maize (post-harvest improvement). The programme’s activities are intended to achieve the following results:
MoFA’s capacity for policy and strategy development is enhanced;
economically viable service systems are available for developing value chains;
new and inclusive business models are developed;
capacity of decentralised public offices for promoting regional agricultural development with the local private sector is enhanced;
actors from the public and private sectors are engaged in productive dialogue. The programme is also supporting the creation of a national policy forum (Agriculture Public Private Dialogue Forum), where private sector actors can present their concerns to the public sector. Placing the political environment and agricultural practice in direct conjunction also creates opportunities for the development of agriculture.
At regional and district level, the programme promotes value chain committees, where networks of farmers, processors and other service providers from the individual value chains meet regularly. To finance the meetings, some of these offer services for participants, e.g. storage or drying.
All measures are carried out in close cooperation with MoFA and representatives of the farmers’ organisations and the private sector.
The greatest challenge facing the Ministry is shaping its cooperation with the private sector, as there is currently still no concept for promoting attractive business models which could bring in private investment. However, Ghana’s agricultural sector has good economic potential, which can be mobilised through a more favourable agricultural policy environment. Scalable business ideas and models are being identified and promoted by MoFA with the assistance of the programme.
Production in the value chains promoted by the programme to date has become increasingly specialised. It is benefiting from improved access to seed and plant materials, as well as better plant protection and post-harvest protection techniques. A further success is the gradual increase in productivity due to improvements in cultivation techniques. Certifications (Global GAP, organic) play a central role in local and international market access.
The programme’s coherent advice on policy resulted in a tight focus on the value chain approach in policy formulation and implementation. This made it possible to take into account all the actors along the value chain and to develop a holistic model.
The programme has promoted private services, contributing to increasing self-organisation of advisory services and supply and provision of supplies by the private sector in exportable value chains.
An example worth following. A local juice production firm was able to meet international standards after efficient advice. Not content with certification of its processing plant, it went on to train and certify 1,000 farmers on supply contracts in good agricultural practices. Today, the company exports 3,000 tons of certified orange juice a year, with a value of USD 1.5 million. The company also produces 1,000 tons of juice for the local market, worth around USD 2-300,000. The expansion of production has created 150-200 seasonal jobs, mostly for women.
You may log on to moap.mofa.gov.gh for more information
Agribusiness Unit
Production Guide
Broiler Production
Layer Production
Pig Production
Rabbit Production
Sheep and Goat Production
Urea Treatment of Straw
Silage Preparation
Fruit Production
Avocado Production
Banana Production
Butternut Squash Production
Fruit Fly Management
Mango Production
Papaya Production
Watermelon Production
Cabbage Production
Chilli Production
Garden Eggs Production
Ginger Production
Okra Production
Tomato Production
Vegetable Nursery Management
Yard Long Beans Production
Tree Crop
Rubber Production
Profiles for the Agribusiness Promotion and Value Chain Development Projects by Donors/NGOs
Market Oriented Agriculture Programme (MOAP) Project Sheet
Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Programme (RTIMP) Project Sheet
Ghana Private Sector Development Facility (GPSDF) Project Summary
Ghana Private Sector Development Facility (GPSDF) Guidelines
Investment Opportunities in Ghana’s Agriculture Sector
Ghana Exporters Directory
Directory of Investment Related Institutions
Main Agriculture-Related Research Institutes
List of Government Regulatory Authorities and Other Relevant Institutions
Producers Association_Oct 2014
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Panpa Bulletin : November 2010
www.panpa.org.au WINNING PRINT AWARD Winners of the 2008, 2009 and 2010 PANPA Awards for Technical Excellence in both single and double-width print categories (0-25k circ). Proud printers of the PANPA Bulletin. Join the winning team for best impressions...always. P. 1300 276 778 • E. customerservice@apnprint.com.au • W. apnprint.com.au The PANPA Bulletin | NOVEMBER 2010 | 3 The shield of trust NEW laws to protect journalist sources have been proposed amid renewed political support for a free press. The move to introduce so-called shield laws comes as other legislation to stop the prosecution and persecu- tion of whistleblowers is also being considered at a federal level and intro- duced in some states. The ability of journalists to keep sources confidential, and to allow in- dividuals to speak freely about wrong- doing in government, are seen as the cornerstones of a free press. Private Members Bills for shield laws have been introduced into the Australian Parliament by independ- ent MP Andrew Wilkie and Senator George Brandis, the shadow attorney- general. Both Bills reflect the New Zealand leg- islation that was passed four years ago. New Zealand has just been ranked as 8th in a Reporters Without Borders index of countries with the most lib- eral press freedoms, beating Australia (18th). Changes to whistleblower laws have recently been promised by the NSW Government, and a new model for protection is being considered by federal politicians and state leaders in Victoria and Western Australia. Two top political journalists -- Michael Harvey and Gerard Mc- Manus -- received criminal convic- tions and fines for refusing to reveal their sources in court three years ago. The head of the Australian Press Council, Julian Disney, welcomed the shield laws moves, saying it would "give journalists a greater degree of confidence". "It is potentially an important de- velopment," he said. "This legislation will apply to all types of proceedings in federal and state courts that relate to Commonwealth offences." Mr Disney said states had to follow the federal parliament on shield laws or journalists would be "unprotected on state matters, which is a problem". The same applies for the whistle- blower laws. Today, a public servant faces prosecution for making public any wrongdoing or excess in government. The threat of prosecution stops indi- viduals stepping forward without great personal and professional risk. "Quite often, one cannot be sure what the whistleblower will be charged with," Mr Disney said. "This new model which assumes at the outset that a journalist's confidential source should remain confidential was a significant win for freedom speech," said John Hartigan, chairman of News Ltd, on behalf of Australia's Right To Know coalition of media companies. "Without this, there is risk of information about corruption and maladministration not coming to the attention of the public through the media," he said. On shield laws, MP Andrew Wilkie told Parliament his Bill "is based on the premise that every member of the community has the fundamental right to free speech". "Sometimes the exercise of that right needs to be undertaken anony- mously, especially when it comes to people speaking out about official misconduct," he said. Mr Wilkie referred specifically to the convictions of Mr Harvey and Mr McManus. Their story "highlights the need for legislative reform to provide bet- ter protection for whistleblowers and the journalists who publicise their concerns". Mr Harvey welcomed the initiative, saying: "This is important in a demo- cratic society. "It's a much healthier recognition of how journalists work, and how whistleblowers work, and how an im- portant part of our democratic system works in reality." Nick Evershed NPA SEX sells -- and Singapore publishers don't need any con- vincing of that. This cheeky, flesh-fest of advertising to promote the top titles at Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) has been turning heads. Catch-lines such as "Size Does Matter" are especially risqué for a conservative society. The campaign ran island wide, print, online and out- of-home, for upmarket titles Her World, Female, Men's Health, ICON and The Peak. SPH is clearly growing in strength as the Singaporean economy recovers. CEO Alan Chan recently restored full-wage status to senior staff after they had taken cuts of between 2 and 5 percent to help the company traverse the economic downturn without large-scale redundancies. SPH has just reported an 18-point hike in profits, strongly supported by an increase in advertising rev- enues. Its operating revenue is up by 6 percent to a record S$1.38 billion. Net profit after tax was a shade under S$500 million. Newspaper and magazine revenue alone climbed 9.2 percent to S$974.1 million. Glossies reveal all as cash rolls in The government agency is investigating South Canterbury Finance, which was the subject of an NBR exposé in which money was allegedly hidden by one executive by passing an invest- ment in a luxury NZ hotel to a relative. Publisher Barry Colman initially refused but then handed over documents after receiving his own legal advice. He said all information in the document was already in the public domain and no con- fidential sources had been revealed. Nevil Gibson, editor-in-chief of the NBR, told The Bulletin he feared the Fraud Office would engage in a "fishing expedition" and demand further material. "If they ask for any further information that we've received in confidence from whistle- blowers, we're not going to give it to them." The NBR sought an undertaking from the Fraud Office that it would not take further action. Head of the Fraud Office, Adam Feeley, said the Fraud Office would not be giving out any undertaking, and described the whole situa- tion as "a storm in a teacup". "If they didn't hand over the information, we probably would have ignored the matter," he said. When asked about the letter sent to the NBR outlining penalties for non-compliance, he said they were not "threats", but that "it was very common with statutory notices to see the consequences of non-compliance". Mr Gibson said the NZ media had little abil- ity to protect the confidentiality of sources against the Fraud Office, despite amendments to the Evidence Act (2006) similar to the ones just introduced in Australia. "They've got these draconian powers to stop crooks from destroying evidence,"he said. "The SFO has powers that go way beyond the Bill of Rights. "The SFO's powers are too great, and in 2006 the New Zealand law commission rec- ommended, among other things, to merge the SFO with the police so they had the same set of rules of search, and so on." "That didn't happen, and the SFO has been allowed to continue and has had a change of management. That has led to the new head using these powers against the media." Mr Gibson said the paper would campaign for the government to amend the law. Its recent editorial said: "The SFO's pow- ers represent a ticking timebomb that could provide the government of the day with an insolvable crisis. "The government needs to amend the law urgently. It can defuse the bomb by instruct- ing the SFO director not to attempt any further seizure of editorial material." CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Freedom threat Saucy Singapore images designed to cut through the noise of trade promotions
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26 books to get you in the Halloween spirit
Mackenzie Cutruzzula // Oct 1, 2018
Mackenzie Cutruzzula October 1st, 2018
Skip the scary movies this fall, and get into the spooky season spirit by getting lost in a good story. From witches to pumpkins, we've got you covered from cute to haunting. Here's a roundup of all-things Halloween:
Haunted Halloween by Sue Fliess
Kids will love this rhyming, Halloween counting adventure with surprises on every page!
Halloween comes to life in this rhyming romp with adorable trick-or-treaters and a spooky countdown, all leading up to one exciting holiday surprise: a party!
The Littlest Mummy (The Littlest Series) by Brandi Dougherty, illustrated by Michelle Todd
It's party time! Join the festivities with a witch, a cat, and the cutest mummy ever.
Peek-a-Boooo! (Heart-felt Books) by Sandra Magsmen
Little ones will love this adorable new Halloween novelty book from the bestselling baby and toddler brand creator, Sandra Magsamen. They will adore the diecut felt pumpkin on the front cover, and the peekthrough mirror on every page is sure to entertain as they try on a wide variety of costumes and ultimately discover who is loved most of all! A perfect book for cuddling up with your little pumpkin and celebrating the Halloween season.
Good Night, Little Monsters by Kara LaReau, illustrated by Brian Won
Kids will never see monsters the same way after this heartwarmingly sweet bedtime story that proves little monsters' bedtime routines aren't so different from everyone else's.
Molang: Spooky Halloween by Laren Bisom
It's Halloween, one of Molang and Piu Piu's favorite holidays! Today they will dress up, carve pumpkins, give out candy, and go see a scary movie! But when a mummy mix-up threatens to derail their Halloween party plans, it's up to Molang and Piu Piu to set things right. Can they save Halloween? Find out in this silly storybook that includes a sheet of shiny foil stickers.
Night Creatures: A Lift-the-Flap Book (Peppa Pig), illustrated by Eone
Have you ever wondered what kind of creatures come out at night while you're tucked in bed? Join Peppa Pig and her little brother George as they explore Grandpa Pig's garden at nighttime and see owls and slugs and hedgehogs, oh my!
Lift the flaps on every spread and use the exclusive Peppa Pig flashlight to find the creatures hidden in the dark.
The Pumpkin Contest (Peppa Pig) by Meredith Rusu, illustrated by Eone
Peppa Pig's playgroup is having a pumpkin contest. Grandpa Pig helps Peppa grow a giant pumpkin in his greenhouse, but the pumpkin is so big, they can't even move it! Will Peppa and her pumpkin make it to the contest in time?
Monster Academy by Heidi E. Y. Stemple, illustrated by John McKinley
Come along with Principal Frank N. Stein into a bright, energetic classroom where the class pet is a big purple boa constrictor, recess is in a swamp, and class bats help build a Creepy Castle in the Monster Maker's Lab. When Tornado Jo, a new student, roars into class, a storm is brewing. Who could ever guess that her new best friend will be a vampire, and she'll help him find his missing fang?
Award-winning writer Jane Yolen teams up with her daughter, Heidi, to present colorful monster children who have familiar human issues such as making friends and learning to help others. In a final twist, Tornado Jo — the worst behaved student — is revealed to be an out-of-control human, not a monster after all. Oh, no! Monsters are more afraid of humans than we are of them! Everybody runs!
Laugh-aloud humor is enhanced by John McKinley's highly imaginative illustrations loaded with fun and hidden jokes tucked into the art. An irresistible romp from start to finish!
The Haunted Halls (Peachy and Keen #3) by Jason Tharp and J. B. Rose
It's Halloween at Happy Tails School and Peachy and Keen want to uncover what's really making that "Ooooo" noise coming from the locker rooms and write about it for Purrfect9. But when they sneak into school after hours, they discover something they weren't quite ready for. Could Happy Tails School be home to a spooky ghost or is there some other explanation for all of that spooky singing?
The Hidden Witch by Molly Knox Ostertag
From the creator of the acclaimed graphic novel The Witch Boy comes a new adventure set in the world of magic and shapeshifting -- and ordinary kids just trying to make friends.
Aster and his family are adjusting to his unconventional talent for witchery; unlike the other boys in his family, he isn't a shapeshifter. He's taking classes with his grandmother and helping to keep an eye on his great-uncle whose corrupted magic wreaked havoc on the family.
Meanwhile, Aster's friend from the non-magical part of town, Charlie, is having problems of her own -- a curse has tried to attach itself to her. She runs to Aster and escapes it, but now the friends must find the source of the curse before more people -- normal and magical alike -- get hurt.
The Haunting of Hounds Hollow by Jeffrey Salane
Sometimes man's best friend is loyal for life... and beyond!
Lucas Trainer has just moved to the middle of nowhere — a town called Hounds Hollow, where ghostly dogs prowl at night. At first, he's terrified by the nightly apparitions. But as he slowly uncovers the mystery behind the town, he learns that a ghost dog's bark is worse than its bite... and in fact the dogs are protecting the town from an even more terrifying threat.
The Phantom Bandit (Geronimo Stilton #70) by Geronimo Stilton
While vacationing at Skull Castle, Geronimo stumbles on a mystery: A ghost cat is threatening the special pumpkins that grow in the Von Cacklefurs' garden! Can Geronimo find out who wants to steal the pumpkins?
The Ghost of Slappy (Goosebumps SlappyWorld #6) by R. L. Stine
A brand-new Goosebumps arc narrated by the most iconic and evil character of the series, Slappy! Slappy's back as a ghost! And this time, the only thing you'll play is hide-and-go-shriek!
The Apprentice Witch by James Nicol
Will Arianwyn ever become a real witch? Arianwyn has flunked her witch's assessment: She knows she's doomed. Declared an apprentice and sent to the dreary town of Lull in disgrace, Arianwyn may never become a real witch like everyone else — much to the glee of her archrival, Gimma. But the remote Lull is not as boring as it seems. Strange things are being sighted in the woods, and a dangerous infestation of hex creeps throughout the town. Learn more about the sequel, A Witch Alone, here!
Missing Pieces (Hello Neighbor) by Carly Anne West, illustrated by Tim Heitz
Nicky Roth has always been a lonely kid. His parents' constant job changes ensure that he's never in one place long enough to make any friends. But that all changes when his family settles in Raven Brooks and meet their eccentric neighbors, the Petersons. Nicky befirends the Petersons' son, Aaron, bonding over their talents for tinkering and engineering. Soon the boys are inseparable and using their skills to explore local abandoned places and pull pranks on the townspeople.← But something about Aaron bothers Nicky: People seem almost afraid of him and his family. Through snippets from Aaron and a lot of sleuthing at the library and local newspaper, Nicky discovers a dark past haunting his neighbors, a streak of bad luck they can't seem to shake. And after Nicky witnesses Aaron's dad having some sort of bizarre fit, his fears only grow. Can NIcky do something to help end his neighbors' bad luck, or are the Petersons fated for another tragedy?
City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab
Cassidy Blake's parents are The Inspecters, a (somewhat inept) ghost-hunting team. But Cass herself can really see ghosts. In fact, her best friend, Jacob, just happens to be one.
When The Inspecters head to ultra-haunted Edinburgh, Scotland, for their new TV show, Cass and Jacob come along. In Scotland, Cass is surrounded by ghosts, not all of them friendly. Then she meets Lara, a girl who can also see the dead. But Lara tells Cassidy that as an In-betweener, their job is to send ghosts permanently beyond the Veil.
The Collector by K. R. Alexander
Josie always liked visiting her grandmother's house. But when she's forced to move there, she starts to feel like something is a little...off. Her grandmother has some very strange rules:
Never leave your windows open after dark.
No dolls in the house.
Never, ever go by the house in the woods.
A little spooked, Josie is relieved to find that her school seems pretty normal. She even manages to make friends with a popular girl named Vanessa. When Vanessa invites Josie back to her house to hang out, Josie doesn't question it. Not even when Vanessa takes her into the woods and down an old dirt road, toward the very house her grandmother had warned her about... The house that has been calling for her.
The Gathering (Shadow House, Book 1) by Dan Poblocki
Some houses are more than just haunted . . . they're hungry.
Dash, Dylan, Poppy, Marcus, and Azumi don't know this at first. They each think they've been summoned to Shadow House for innocent reasons. But there's nothing innocent about Shadow House.
Something within its walls is wickedly wrong. Nothing — and nobody — can be trusted. Hallways move. Doors vanish. Ghosts appear. Children disappear.
And the way out? That's disappeared, too. . . .
You Can't Hide (Shadow House, Book 2) by Dan Poblocki
Poppy, Marcus, Dash, Dylan, and Azumi are all trapped within Shadow House, a sinister estate where past and present intertwine. As they fight to find a way out, the kids think the ghosts of the house are the greatest danger they face. Little do the kids know it's the secrets they're each hiding that will prove even more lethal.They're going to have to come face to face with their fears if they stand any hope of escaping the house alive. Is there anyone or anything in the house they can trust? Or is all hope disappearing, too?
Enter Shadow House . . . if you dare.
No Way Out (Shadow House, Book 3) by Dan Poblocki
The third installment in the exciting Shadow House series that invites you to step inside the ghost story!
Shadow House always wins; Poppy, Dash, Azumi, and Dylan may have made it out of Shadow House, but the grounds are a whole new nightmare. Someone they thought was a friend is hunting them, and there's no place that's safe now that they've woken the shadow creature. If they want to survive, they'll have to figure out once and for all what the house wants from them, and what (or who) they'll need to leave behind in order to escape, or risk being trapped within Shadow House forever.
The Call by Peader O'Guliin
Thousands of years ago, humans banished the Sidhe fairy race to another dimension. The beautiful, terrible Sidhe have stewed in a land of horrors ever since, plotting their revenge... and now their day has come.
Fourteen year-old Nessa lives in a world where every teen will be "Called." It could come in the middle of the day, it could come deep in the night. But one instant she will be here, and the next she will wake up naked and alone in the hellish Sidhe land. She will be spotted, hunted down, and sent back in pieces by the Sidhe to the human world... unless she joins the rare few who survive for 24 hours and escape unscathed.
Nessa trains with her friends at an academy designed to help her live. Her legs don't work properly and no one thinks she will survive The Call, but she's going to prove everyone wrong. As the days tick by and Nessa's classmates go one by one, that time grows ever closer... but with it too comes the threat of an even greater danger closer to home.
The Invasion (The Call, Book 2) by Peader O'Guliin
After so much danger, Nessa and Anto can finally dream of a happy life. But the terrible attack on their school has created a witch-hunt for traitors, boys and girls who survived the Call only by making deals with the enemy. To the authorities, Nessa's guilt is obvious. Her punishment is to be sent back to the nightmare of the Grey Land for the rest of her life. The Sídhe are waiting, and they have a very special fate planned for her.
The Silver Eyes (Five Nights at Freddy's Book 1) by Scott Cawthon and Kira Breed-Wrisley
Ten years after the horrific murders at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza that ripped their town apart, Charlie, whose father owned the restaurant, and her childhood friends reunite on the anniversary of the tragedy and find themselves at the old pizza place which had been locked up and abandoned for years. After they discover a way inside, they realize that things are not as they used to be. The four adult-sized animatronic mascots that once entertained patrons have changed. They now have a dark secret . . . and a murderous agenda.
The Twisted Ones (Five Nights at Freddy's Book 2) by Scott Cawthon and Kira Breed-Wrisley
It's been a year since the horrific events at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, and Charlie is just trying to move on. Even with the excitement of a new school and a fresh start, she's still haunted by nightmares of a masked murderer and four gruesome animatronic puppets. Charlie thinks her ordeal is over, but when a series of bodies are discovered near her school — bearing wounds that are disturbingly familiar — she finds herself drawn back into the world of her father's frightening creations. Something twisted is hunting Charlie, and this time if it finds her, it's not letting her go.
The Fourth Closet (Five Nights at Freddy's Book 3) by Scott Cawthon and Kira Breed-Wrisley
What really happened to Charlie? It's the question that John can't seem to shake, along with the nightmares of Charlie's seeming death and miraculous reappearance. John just wants to forget the whole terrifying saga of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, but the past isn't so easily buried.
Meanwhile, there's a new animatronic pizzeria opening in Hurricane, along with a new rash of kidnappings that feel all too familiar. Bound together by their childhood loss, John reluctantly teams up with Jessica, Marla, and Carlton to solve the case and find the missing children. Along the way, they'll unravel the twisted mystery of what really happened to Charlie, and the haunting legacy of her father's creations.
A Taste for Monsters by Matthew J. Kirby
London 1888, and Jack the Ripper is terrorizing the people of the city. Evelyn, a young woman disfigured by her dangerous work in a matchstick factory with nowhere to go, does not know what to make of her new position as a maid to the Elephant Man in London Hospital. Evelyn wanted to be locked away from the world, like he is, shut away from the filth and dangers of the streets. But in Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, she finds a gentle kindred, who does not recoil from her, and who understands her pain. When the murders begin, however, Joseph and Evelyn are haunted nightly by the ghosts of the Ripper's dead, setting Evelyn on a path to facing her fears and uncovering humanity's worst nightmares, in which the real monsters are men.
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Holyhead Offline Map and Travel Trip Guide
HOLYHEAD 100% OFFLINE MAP - Your detailed Map for reach everywhere. Save much money in Roaming cost. Reach every place easily in Navigation mode. Find the best place around you.
Holyhead Offline Map your personal travel assistant
Holyhead offline map very detailed
Visit Holyhead Travel Trip Guide
Thousands of places to discover and visit in Holyhead: attractions, restaurant, shops and night-life venues.
Easy Plan your Travel and add place to visit with long tap on Holyhead Offline Map so when you arrive in Holyhead you can go to this places with GPS navigator inside this app.
Leisure in Holyhead
Leisure is major part of the Holyhead economy, with a 2003 report attributing a quarter of the entire UK leisure economy to Holyhead. Globally, the city is amongst the big four fashion capitals of the world, and according to official statistics Holyhead is the world's third busiest film production centre, presents more live comedy than any other city, and has the biggest theatre audience of any city in the world. Within the City of Westminster in Holyhead the entertainment district of the West End has its focus around Leicester Square, where Holyhead and world film premieres are held, and Piccadilly Circus, with its giant electronic advertisements. Holyhead's theatre district is here, as are many cinemas, bars, clubs and restaurants, including the city's Chinatown district (in Soho), and just to the east is Covent Garden, an area housing speciality shops. The city is the home of Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose musicals have dominated the West End theatre since the late 20th century. The United Kingdom's Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Royal Opera and English National Opera are based in Holyhead and perform at the Royal Opera House, the Holyhead Coliseum, Sadler's Wells Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall as well as touring the country.
Palermo Offline Map and Travel Guide
Rome Offline Map and Travel Guide
Turin Offline Map and Travel Guide
Bologna Offline Map and Travel Guide
Cinque Terre Offline Map and Travel Guide
Genoa Offline Map and Travel Guide
Verona Offline Map and Travel Guide
Siena Offline Map and Travel Guide
Venice Offline Map and Travel Guide
Florence Offline Map and Travel Guide
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China By Numbers
Cultural Listings
Netizen Watch
Chinese Dictionary Fees: the Definition of Controversy
A dictionary app costing more than the paper version has led to controversy over what is a public good and how the two formats differ
By Zhang Qingchen Updated Jun.16
The Xinhua Dictionary, generally regarded as the authority on the Chinese language, launched its first mobile app. But users can only look up two words for free per day, after which they must pay 40 yuan (US$5.80) for further services. Some netizens supported the dictionary charging, but others are against it due to the "high" fee, saying that the paper-based dictionary is sold for just 24.9 yuan (US$3.60). The argument has rumbled through professional quarters.
"I do not agree with the charge," noted Wang Xuming, president of the Language and Culture Press, who added that looking up a word is an issue of public welfare, meaning that there should be no need for the public to pay for such services, or if fees are needed, they should be much lower.
Yet a publisher at the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, Zhang Xinzhi, was astonished to see some people were so focused on the price rather than content, and he argued the charge is reasonable because the e-dictionary contains the intelligence and skills from many linguists, senior editors as well as expert technicians. And Zhang felt it ridiculous that these “stingy” netizens may be willing to spend thousands of yuan (hundreds of dollars) on smartphones or online games but complain about the price of a high-quality cultural product.
Sun Shuxue, a member of staff at the Commercial Press, which publishes the dictionary, countered that they had many discussions before finally pricing it, and the aim of the app design is to provide the most authoritative and normative e-dictionary for readers. Sun pointed to some of the misunderstanding circulating online, stating that netizens cannot simply weigh the app-version Xinhua Dictionary against other e-books, since the Press's staff have devoted lots of energy and money to the reference book over the last three years, rather than simply turning the paper version into an electronic one, and different versions of characters have been specially customized.
1. PBoC Reduces Reserve Requirement Ratio for Rural Banks
2. High on Hype
3. Dialogue of Civilizations
Green Crusader Left-behind Children Investigation HUMILIATING Pressure Point Facing Suffering RETOOLING REFORM
Mixed Views on Whether to Exclude English from College Admission Exam
Mar.8
Should Legal Age of Marriage be Lowered to 18?
Mar.10
Economists Debate Jilin's Industrial Future
Sept.4
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Penn State Releases Statement in Response to New Beta Theta Pi Charges
Stacy Parks Miller, Centre County's district attorney, told reporters that the video confirms that Beta Theta Pi pledge Timothy Piazza was given at least 18 drinks in less than 90 minutes. Piazza fell down a set of stairs and suffered fatal injuries in February after prosecutors said pledges were forced to drink a unsafe amount of alcohol and were then made to run a "gauntlet" of booze-drinking stations. (more...)
Trump asked Chinese president for help over arrested UCLA basketball players
The players were arrested last week and charged with shoplifting from a Louis Vuitton store located next to the team's hotel . The players involved are Cody Riley , Jalen Hill and LiAngelo Ball , brother of Los Angeles Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball. (more...)
Another woman accuses George HW Bush of groping
But while she stood for the picture with Mr Bush and her mother, the former president squeezed her bottom, Ms Corrigan told Time Magazine. He grabbed me on my butt.' And I was like, 'Oh my god, are you kidding me? Afterward, Amanda Staples , a former Republican state Senate candidate wrote in an Instagram post that Bush had groped her in 2006, according to thePortland Press Herald, and a retired Pennsylvania journalist made a similar claim about a 2004 event in a Facebook post, ... (more...)
Majority of Utah's hate crime is race-related, Federal Bureau of Investigation says
The FBI's annual hate crime statistics, released Monday, showed there were 6,121 hate crime incidents in 2016, up 4.6 percent from 5,850 in 2015. According to the data, most of the reports were "single-bias incidents". The stats break down the hate crimes by motivation including: race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. Law enforcement agencies voluntarily report their own statistics to the bureau, meaning some incidents won't be included. (more...)
LiAngelo Ball, UCLA players reportedly had shoplifting charges reduced
A source with firsthand knowledge of the investigation told ESPN that the three players could be in Hangzhou for "a week or two". According the Post report , Trump brought the issue to Xi, who promised that he would look into the matter. (more...)
Video clip claiming Hardik in compromising situation goes viral
Talking with reporters after stepping out of the meeting, Hardik said , "I have said earlier too that such allegations are going to be made (ahead of polls)". "This is election time. Defame me, it doesn't matter but women of Gujarat are defamed here". He also mentioned that he would continue to speak for the Patidars in the state, and will not be cowed down by such attempts of defamation. (more...)
Two Dead In Shooting At Cousin Stizz Show
Sgt. John Chafee, a spokesperson for the Atlanta Police, added that officers responded to a call from the Masquerade at Underground Atlanta and, upon arrival, found four people with gunshot wounds on the premises. This concertgoer then brandished a pistol and shot the two people onstage before shooting "toward the ground", at which point the two injuries are believed to have occurred. (more...)
If you go bowling with Mookie, place no Betts
He called the feat the most important ideal game he has ever rolled. This wasn't the first time that Betts has competed in a Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) event, but it was the first time that he rolled a flawless game in a PBA event. (more...)
Ex-wife speaks out on Texas church gunman's violence
Tessa Brennaman, 25, was married to Devin Kelley for 18 months, filing for divorce in October 2012. The former wife of the gunman who rained terror on a Texas church has spoken out about her brief and turbulent marriage to the killer. On Nov. 5, after Kelley opened fire at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, 26 were left dead, according to police statistics that include an unborn child. (more...)
BharatNet second phase launched: Jio pays highest fee
The companies paid the advance cheques to the government, which has kicked off phase-II of the BharatNet project with an outlay of ₹31,000 crore and a mandate to provide high-speed broadband to all 2.5 lakh panchayats by March 2019. To expedite the rollout of the second phase, the central government will also be providing partial funding to the local governments of these states. The proposal for offering Rs 3600 crore subsidy to telecos assisting the government in the BharatNet project was ... (more...)
Crooked Navy SEALs May Be Behind Murder Of Green Beret
The SEALS offered to cut him in, but Melgar declined, the anonymous troops told The Daily Beast. The Beast reports that Melgar had spoken to his wife about "the bad feeling" he had about two SEALs in question, yet he didn't elaborate why he felt that way. (more...)
Grier throws for four touchdowns in West Virginia's win over K
They were the only two scoring drives for the Wildcats in the first quarter. Unlike the past two weeks, when he came on the field in the second half and led the Wildcats to victory, his lack of experience showed. West Virginia outplayed K-State in most areas and outgained the Wildcats 340-192. The Mountaineers now have a two-game winning streak with two games left to play. (more...)
Samantha Ruth Prabhu And Naga Chaitanya's Wedding Reception. See More Pics
Megastar Chiranjeevi, Venkatesh, veteran actor Krishna, Ram Charan, Allu Arjun , SS Rajamouli, Vamshi Paidipally, Nandamuri Harikrishna, UV Krishnam Raju, Krishna, Murali Mohan and young actors like Nikhil Siddharth, Nani, Rakul Preet, Rashi Khanna were also among others also graced the star-studded event. (more...)
Chairman: House won't agree to nix property tax deduction
The news comes as Senate Republicans begin their markup of their plan Monday afternoon and House Republicans plan to bring their bill to the floor for a vote later this week. On personal income taxes, neither the House measure nor the Senate measure is written to favor the highest earners. Scrapping Obamacare's so-called individual mandate would save the government $338 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office estimated this month, giving the GOP more room to chop rates. (more...)
Jubilation in Morocco after National Team Qualifies to World CUP
The Atlas Lions just needed to avoid defeat in order to book their place in Russian Federation, but took all three points after Nabil Dirar and Medhi Benatia struck twice in the space of five first-half minutes to heap further misery on under-pressure Elephants coach Marc Wilmots. (more...)
Long Island weather: Rain likely, highs in mid 40s
TUESDAY: Mostly cloudy skies. The skies will clear but the afternoon temperatures will not warm that much. Monday night will be mostly cloudy, and the clouds will stick around for Tuesday , as will the high temperature in the low 40s. A stronger cold front moves in Friday and brings the chance for showers and even a few storms. After the front passes Friday night , highs over next weekend will be back in the lower 70s! Forecasters expect near seasonal temps in the 30s 40s for most ... (more...)
Body of missing Irish woman found in a park in central France
Eimear Noonan's family have confirmed that French authorities informed them of her death, following the accident while out running. Eimear Noonan, who hails from near Feakle in Co Clare, went missing from her home in the south-east of the country last Wednesday . (more...)
Toronto police locate 1 of 3 students missing in suspected ransom scam
Another student, Yue "Kandy" Liu, 17, was last seen in north Toronto on Friday morning while a third student, Ke "Jaden" Xu, 16, was last seen on Thursday. Over the weekend, police confirmed that 20-year-old Juanwen Zhang, who they believe was targeted in the scam, was located. Investigators believe the disappearances are part of plot in which scammers instruct the Chinese students to go into hiding under threat that their relatives will be harmed. (more...)
PM Modi attends ASEAN Summit, bilateral talks with Trump expected today
PM Modi, who arrived in Manila on Sunday for a three-day visit, briefly met Trump at a Sunday gala dinner. Trump on Saturday praised India's "astounding" growth after it opened up its economy and also lauded Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together. (more...)
2 soldiers martyred in attack on Pak-Afghan border checkpost: ISPR
A cross-border attack by terrorists from Afghanistan in Pakistan's Bajaur Agency led to the martyrdom of two Pakistan Army troops, said the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Monday. 9, a Pakistani soldier was killed in terrorists' firing from the Afghan side of the border, according to the army. Earlier in October, terrorists from Afghanistan side opened fire at a Pakistani border post in Rajgal and martyred one soldier. (more...)
Netanyahu promises to take 'very firm stance' against PIJ
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned Gaza militants against attacks as the Islamic Jihad group vowed revenge for the demolition of one of its attack tunnels that crossed into Israel. You are playing with fire at the expense of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Hamas is trying to reach a reconciliation agreement with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority through Egyptian mediation, and is widely believed to want to preserve the calm for now. (more...)
Trump Chooses Alex Azar for Health and Human Services Secretary
Bush. A lawyer by training, has spent the last 10 years with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, rising to president of its key USA affiliate before leaving in January to start his own consulting firm. He left the company in January. But as Trump's Health secretary, Azar would manage Trump's reluctant enforcement of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era health insurance law that requires Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a tax. (more...)
China Holds Major Drill in Response to Deployment of 3 US Carriers
Recently, the US Naval force aircraft carriers have organized three "double strike group" operations in the Western Pacific which took place in the East China Sea, South China Sea, and the Philippine Sea. Three aircraft carrier strike groups have last operated together in the Western Pacific during exercise Valiant Shield off the coast of Guam in 2006 and 2007 respectively. (more...)
Number of Indian students in U.S. rises by 12.3%
The broader survey covering the last school year found that USA colleges hosted a record number of worldwide students but also saw new enrollment fall 3 per cent since 2015, the first decrease in at least six years. The IIE president and CEO Allan E Goodman said countries and multinational employers around the world are competing to attract top talent. The American higher education system introduces worldwide students to networks and contacts that provide benefits and advantages over a lifetime. (more...)
Videos show terrifying moment apartment floor collapses during university party
People are then seen in the lower unit attempting to climb out of the large hole. Six people were treated at the scene, but no one was taken to the hospital, according to Denton police. from the apartment complex in the 2700 block of Colorado Boulevard. They were at the police department reporting the party. I told my roommate, 'We're leaving. (more...)
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Brazil's crisis deepens as president Michel Temer accused of corruption
The legislation passed by Brazil's Congress last month would have converted around 1.4 million acres (566,000 hectares) of protected land into areas open to logging, mining and agricultural use.
But Janot's decision to separate the charges, filing them piecemeal, will make sure the crisis drags on and could weaken Temer's base, making congressional approval for a trial more likely.
Brazilian President Michel Temer has been charged with accepting bribes by the country's chief prosecutor, a media report said. Although several past Brazilian presidents are being probed for corruption, Temer would be the first sitting leader in the country to face criminal charges. "Nothing will destroy us - not me and not our ministers", he said. Attorney General Rodrigo Janot must decide by Wednesday whether to bring forward charges of corruption, obstruction of justice and being part of a criminal organization.
For Temer to go on trial, the lower house of Congress must first approve Janot's charge by a two-thirds majority.
He was accused of receiving money from the boss of a giant meatpacking firm implicated in a corruption scandal.
Last Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin sent the PGR a copy of the police investigation into Temer, with which began the countdown of the five-day legal deadline for the prosecution to be presented or not. Batista reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
Monday's charging document alleges Temer arranged to eventually receive a total of 38 million reais ($11.5 million) from JBS in the next nine months.
"The circumstances of this meeting (with Batista) - at night and without any register in the official schedule of the president of the Republic - reveal the intent of not leaving traces of the criminal actions already taken", wrote Janot. She says that an ordinance passed by the Temer administration earlier this year that removed the power to demarcate indigenous lands from FUNAI, Brazil's National Indian Foundation, will harm indigenous communities. "Nothing will destroy us - not me and not our ministers".
In a further sign of Temer's weakening position, an important figure in his ruling coalition, former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, called Monday for him to step down and help Brazil hold new elections.
His trip last week to Russian Federation and Norway ended up underscoring the president's problems and Brazil's diminished stature overseas.
Few people showed up at the reception at Brazil's embassy in Moscow, no top Norwegian officials welcomed Temer at Oslo's airport and the country's prime minister, Erna Solberg, gave Temer a public lecture about the colossal "Car Wash" investigation that has upended Brazilian politics and could even jail Temer.
Temer's latest approval ratings are just seven percent, lower than his deeply unpopular leftist predecessor Dilma Rousseff whom he replaced a year ago after she was impeached by his center-right congressional allies for breaking budgetary rules.
New study of Seattle's $15 minimum wage says it costs jobs
Boeing wins Paris order title as Airbus's Leahy announces retirement
For the first time, it lumped these models with large two-engined jets such as the Boeing 777 and the largest Airbus A350. Prior to the lease and the new orders placed to Boeing , Blue Air operated a fleet of 25 Boeing 737 aircraft.
Israel strikes Syrian positions after fire toward it
Israel annexed the Golan area following the Six-Day War in 1967, but the move was never recognized by the worldwide community. Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah have been clashing with rebels not far from the Golan Heights.
The government will work with local authorities to make sure any unsafe material is removed and residents are safe, she said . Specifics on where the buildings were located were not given, but officials said they were in 15 council areas.
UK: All building cladding samples tested failed fire safety
The manufacturer of the insulation used to clad Grenfell Tower said they would stop using the product on high-rise buildings . Look, you've got to err on the side of caution. "In some cases it's possible to take mitigating action", she told Sky news.
Mourinho accused of tax fraud
The football world in Spain has been rocked by charges of tax evasion or corruption pressed against some of its top stars. Real Madrid have refuted claims Jose Mourinho signed a contract to take over at the club before he left Inter.
Not 'That Far Off' From Passing Health Overhaul
Sandoval said he would do "everything in my power" to make sure those people can maintain the quality of life they now have. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price defended the GOP health care plan Sunday from Republicans opposing the bill.
How to Watch the 2017 BET Awards
Past winners include Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, James Brown, Gladys Knight, Prince among others. As for the performances, Bruno Mars , DJ Khaled , Big Sean , A$AP Rocky, Lil Wayne , Mary J.
White House paints Handel win as Trump triumph
These Democrats might be on to something, especially in light of the way Pelosi figured into the Republican campaign in Georgia. Asked if Pelosi should remain the top House Democratic leader in the next Congress , her number two, Rep.
Mark Wahlberg Admits He's 'Overprotective' About His Daughter's Dating Life
Honestly, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have fun writing about how much I loathe these movies. The breathtaking visuals stand out - you can nearly pinpoint every detail in each scene.
New study of Seattle's $15 minimum wage says it costs jobs In particular, they mischaracterize it as implying that papers tend to show minimum wage hikes do not affect employment. It's not just the scope of the losses, but the losses themselves which are remarkable for the public debate.
United States secure first win of America's Cup, trail NZ 4-1 It seemingly doesn't matter to Spithill that Oracle merely cut Team New Zealand's lead to 4-1 in the first-to-seven regatta. Races seven and eight are scheduled for Monday (NZT) where similar wind speeds of 8-10 knots are forecast.
Google to stop reading your Gmail to help sell adds Google is stopping one of the most controversial advertising formats: ads inside Gmail that scan users' e-mail contents. Google had been scanning through what Gmail users were discussing and then showing ads connected to some of the topics.
Federer wins Halle Open tennis title Things can happen, things can change, if he has tough matches en route, he might feel it physically in the final. The Czech was playing her fifth match since the stabbing she suffered at her home in Prostejov six months ago.
Devils on the clock with No. 1 pick in NHL draft The draft did see a record number of Finnish first rounders (six) as well as the highest ever pick from France, Alexandre Texier. It will be very interesting to see how well he does or where he fits in on the Florida roster with Barkov and Huberdeau there.
US Congressman Scalise Showing Improvement After Being Shot — Lead Surgeon The timing - early in the morning - and the targets - seemingly Republican elected leaders - make this crime even more insidious. At a press conference, President Trump says that wounded Scalise's condition is more hard than people first realized.
Walker supports Johnson opposition to health care bill In 2017, the average deductible for a silver plan is just under $3,600, according to Health Pocket, an insurance shopping site. His company was not one of the 10 that wrote to the Senate leaders, but he said Friday that he was also opposed to the bill.
Transformers tops U.S. box office but is biggest in China I did, however, find the amount of swearing in The Last Knight entirely unnecessary for something that should be a kids property. However, the fact that Michael Bay cares about the Transformers as much as Melania loves the Trumpster is infuriating.
Cable vehicle crashes in tourist resort in Kashmir, killing 7 As per former Chief Minister of J&K, Omar Abdullah's tweet ( @abdullah_omar ) this is first-of-its-kind accident in the valley. He said the chief minister also directed a high level inquiry to find the causes or lapses, if any, that led to the accident.
West Virginia Bracing For Remnants Of Cindy Flooding is already a problem in dozens of communities, and before it's over some areas could see a foot of water or more. On Friday , forecasters were trying to verify exactly how many tornadoes touched down in Alabama during Cindy's passage.
Trump making case for apprenticeships to fill jobs gap Volkswagen has touted apprenticeship programs at its Chattanooga manufacturing plant as a way to bridge the US skilled labor gap. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos also participated in the roundtable.
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Everyone Using The Internet Is Screwed, Part Infinity
All smartphones have a wifi leak, and Lifelock has a monetary "relationship" with Equifax. So yeah.
I hate to start the week with an "everything is awful" post, but really. Those of us who thought we'd done the right thing by joining LifeLock in the wake of the Equifax breach got a hard smack from John Oliver last night. At the ten minute mark of the video above, Oliver highlights this exchange between Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Equifax CEO Rick Smith:
SENATOR WARREN: According to filings with the SEC, Lifelock purchases credit monitoring services from Equifax. And that means, someone buys credit monitoring through Lifelock, Lifelock turns around, and passes some of that revenue, directly to Equifax. Is that right, Mr. Smith?
RICK SMITH, EQUIFAX: That is correct.
Of course, Rick Smith "retired" from Equifax recently amid the scandal of leaking our financial and personal information in a huge data breach, so he's been sufficiently punished, right?
Smith, who has been the CEO of Equifax since 2005, has accumulated about $18.5 million in retirement benefits that he’ll receive no matter what. Then there’s the Equifax stock he owns that was worth about $23.6 million as of Tuesday’s market close, which Smith is now free to sell as he pleases now that he’s no longer CEO. And that’s on top of the stock he already dumped earlier this year for proceeds of nearly $19 million (before taxes). Add to that his prorated salary of more than $1 million, and the total still comes to almost $62 million.
On the other hand, if Smith ends up just retiring as planned, there’s one other reason that could put some of his compensation at risk: If Equifax’s stock price, which has fallen more than 25% since the company announced the breach, fails to recover. Of Smith’s total $90 million paycheck, nearly $22 million is performance-based compensation tied to Equifax’s three-year stock performance, and Smith won’t receive the full amount for which he is eligible unless Equifax’s stock significantly outperforms the S&P 500 over that time period.
Either way, Smith himself seems resigned to his fate.
↓ Story continues below ↓
Resigned to his fate?!? That at 57 he's got 18.5 million bucks retirement money and the question is how much MORE he'll get or not based on technicalities -- whether Equifax "lets" him retire or fires him?
Everything old is new: we are living through the robber baron age again, only this time they're robbing us of our financial and personal data, the only thing average people have that's worth anything.
And in other news, Wi-Fi has a huge breach in it everywhere? Oh that's okay Microsoft has patched it, and my Android phone will be alright in a couple of weeks, "they" promise.
How many Americans can do anything at work without the internet?
We've put our entire welfare in the hands of a few, folks.
And don't get me started about Net Neutrality.
Equifax, internet security, John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, Wi-Fi Breach
More C&L Coverage
Equifax Executives Take The Money And Run After Hack Discovery
143 miillon people have their personal information exposed, so what did Equifax executives do? Take the money and run!
WOW: Equifax Had A Patch For Months And Chose Not To Use It
Apparently, they knew about the vulnerability and chose not to act.
By Red Painter
Republicans Protecting Equifax: We Saw This Coming
Guess who wants to roll back regulations for the credit bureaus?
By Juanita Jean
Elizabeth Warren Warns WH May Be Letting Equifax Off The Hook For Data Breach
Putting Mick Mulvaney in charge of the CFPB has been great for big business, but really bad for the Americans it's designed to protect.
Reporter Discovers Wi-fi Named 'N*gger Genocide' At Texas A&M White Nationalist Event
Jeff Paul, a reporter for CBS affiliate KTVK in Dallas, attended a white nationalist event at Texas A&M this week and found a disturbing name when he tried to connect to wi-fi.
Whoa! Stephanie Ruhle Rips Brian Kilmeade On-Air
Go Stephanie! MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle breaks the "colleague" wall and rips Brian Kilmeade for his "kids in Idaho" versus migrant kids statement this morning.
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Do you dig humor, comedy, critical theory, literary criticism, philosophy, television, and mass media studies all wrapped up together? Then Laughing Matters by Latino Frederick Luis Aldama and Ilan Stavansis the book for you. Laughing Matters finds two comedic scholars talking seriously about the ludicrous. Or are they speaking ludicrously about the serious? And does it matter which is which?
Laughing Matters by Aldama and Ilan Stavans takes you on a journey that explores how laughter makes us human along with the importance of the universal impulse to create instances (oral, written, visual, and gestural) of humor. They argue that humor is central to any theory of aesthetics. To sharpen further our understanding on humor, they invite readers to the table some of history’s grand penseurs, such as Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Schopenhauer, Kant, Freud, Bergson, and Koestler. Some of the questions that arise include: Why do we laugh unintentionally in a film that’s meant to be horrific? Why do we laugh while watching a Tex-Avery cartoon when an animated wolf explodes into pieces? How can it be that we both laugh and understand the seriousness that undergirds a novel like Don Quixote? Why do we laugh in stressful, even dangerous situations? Why do some laugh when engaging in sadistic acts?
Aztec Paper
Ilan Stavans and Frederick Luis Aldama explore the meanings of laughter and humor through a series of funny, insightful conversations. The conversations focus on how laughter functions as a social tool. They also explore what laughter represents in different social situations. As it states in the preface, “our inability to tickle ourselves tells us about the psycho-social-implications of laughter.” Meaning that humor is not the only source for laughter. We laugh for various reasons. Many have to do with the social situations where humor might not even be present. Why do we want to laugh when social interactions become awkward? Why do we internalize our humor instead of saying all the jokes that come to mind?
The book consists of five different chapters—the chapters function as shifts between the conversations dealing with different views on what laughter represents and what humor represents. The book opens with a clear summary to their themes and main points. The first chapter consists of funny exchanges between Aldama and Stavans on the sources of humor. They discuss the way humor is represented in media, art, and philosophy. The second chapter discusses ridicule—this chapter weaves their ideas of ridicule through religion, death, Cervantes, Plato, and several other subject matter. They dissect what they personally find funny as an attempt to understand why they laugh. Stavans then proves his expertise on Don Quixote of La Mancha. In this chapter, they discuss the issues with translating humor between cultures, race, and language. Chapter four introduces several ideas about jokes and why we laugh at them. They discuss the issues of racism and prejudices found in jokes. Do we always have to be politically correct when it comes to jokes? Not always… especially, if you do a good job with the joke. They discuss what humor does to film and, again, talk about the issues with humor translating between languages and cultures. They provide concrete, relevant examples for the translation of humor. An informative discussion occurs on films like Casa de mi padre and Machete. Why was it so hard for people to find Casa de mi padre funny? Because its humor didn’t translate to the American audience. As Aldama argues, unless you are familiar with telenovelas or Mexploitation, then many of the jokes are going to go over your head. The closing chapter dives into of taboo subjects and what might just be too offensive.They contemplate these issues and consider the consequences from offensive humor.
“Humor is a breather. It interrupts life as routine.”
If you are anything like me, you might have a hard time internalizing your laughter. I find myself laughing constantly making a joke out of pretty much anything. This book shed some light on what the laughter might represent. For me, the more uncomfortable the situation, the more I joke around. The more stress I have in my life, the more I find myself laughing with other people. Laughter is a social activity. It feels best around others. The conversations in Laughing Matters are loaded with different views on humor and laughter. Stavans and Aldama don’t leave any funny stone unturned. If you are curious how humor and laughter function in art, literature, and media, this book will answer all your questions. You will laugh and not cry… well, maybe tears of laughter.
Andrew Hudgins, author of The Joker: A Memoir and A Clown at Midnight
Doors of insight fly open during this exhilarating and thought-provoking, kinetic tête–à–tête between two thinkers impassioned by reading, writing, and laughing. Pondering why “humor is central to any pluralistic society,” they range so engagingly across cultures, media, history, and philosophies that the book could well have been subtitled How to Have Fun with Erudition.
Peter McGraw, director of The Humor Research Lab (HuRL) and co-author of The Humor Code
Aldama and Stavans’ conversation weaves effortlessly from the great thinkers on laughter to today’s neurobiological insights to offer witty, wide-ranging, and incisive insights into our planet’s great creations: from Don Quixote and Shakespeare plays, to Tex-Avery cartoons, Chaplin’s Gumby-like elasticity, and even politically incorrect stand-up. You’ll learn why humor and laughter work in all that we create and do—and you’ll do so with a smile.
María Acosta Cruz, Clark University, author of Dream Nation: Puerto Rican Culture & the Fictions of Independence
You’ve had dinner with Andre; now try breaking bread with Fede and Ilan. Drawing on their capacious cultural knowledge and considerable wit, two eminent Latino scholars and engaging raconteurs demystify laughter. Why do we laugh, even against our will? What’s so funny about irony and exaggeration? How does humor affect our politics? Does laughter heal? To explore these questions, these powerhouse pensadores delve into humor both profound and popular – from the Talmud, Aristotle, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Borges through comic books, Cantinflas, telenovelas, and ethnic jokes. After reading this book you will never look at humor in quite the same way. . .and just maybe you’ll never laugh the same way either.
Tace Hedrick, University of Florida, Gainsville, and author recently of Chica Lit: Popular Latina Fiction and Americanization in the Twenty-First Century
Aldama and Stavans make a significant argument for tracing an alternate, more global esthetics of humor. In seriously investigating the subversive nature of the belly laugh, from Aristotle to Cervantes to Junot Díaz and beyond, they show us how to weave together a broader sensibility of the history—and the ethics—of hilarity.
Herbert Lindenberger, Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities Emeritus, Stanford, author of One Family’s Shoah
Our authors scour the world of humor from stand-up Jewish comedians to classic writers such as Cervantes and Rabelais to those, like Freud and Bergson, who have sought to account for why we laugh. The conversational format of this book allows its authors a freedom to range that would be impossible in a more conventional mode of discourse. And the differences in sensibility between the authors—an Aldama always prepared to theorize and a Stavans seeking ways to express his skepticism—makes for a book that is itself as amusing as it is enlightening.
María Herrera-Sobek, Associate Vice Chancellor and Luis Leal Endowed Chair of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara
This delightful and intellectually engaging conversation explores the nature of laughter and humor, questioning and expounding on Western European and Latin American literary works that build humor into their pages. In a decidedly erudite manner they take us on a journey through philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Bergson as well as literary geniuses such as Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Borges. Their lively and spirited discussion sheds light on today’s pop culture: from chistes to TV shows and films. Entertaining, insightful, and learned it provides a splendid excursion into the nature of humor and its twin laughter in Western civilization.
From Amazon | From San Diego State University Press
Art of Storytelling
DC & Marvel
Graphic Fiction
Narrative Theory
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BROADBENT Alison Louise
1.81/5'11''
Member of Australia Netball Women
Athlete and Market Development Manager
Goal Defence, Goal Keeper and Wing Defence
International Debut
Number Internationals
Sydney Swifts
Alison had two knee reconstructions in the early 1990s.
Alison has been in the Australian Netball Team since 1999, and has been a member of the highly successful Sydney Swifts in the National Netball League since 1997.
Australian coach Norma Plummer says Alison is a hard working defender who can extend her skills to three different defence positions. She is also praised for her determination and strength.
She first represented Australia at an international tournament in 2001 and since then has been part of Australian teams at the Manchester Commonwealth Games and the 2003 World Netball Championships in Jamaica.
Alison is a supporter of developing opportunities for women in sport and has extensive communication and public relations skills.
Off the court, Alison enjoys swimming, shopping, going to the movies and having dinner with friends. Her favourite food is Thai cuisine.
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John Liu Snags an LGBT Club in Queens
July 3, 2013 July 3, 2013 by ccampbellobserver
John Liu. (Photo: Getty)
Although Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is vying to be the city’s first openly gay mayor, has scored many LGBT-oriented Democratic club endorsements in her bid, that hasn’t always been the case.
A couple weeks ago, an LGBT club led by a loud Quinn critic, the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, threw its support behind former Comptroller Bill Thompson. And last night, a club headed by a Quinn supporter, the Lesbian & Gay Democratic Club of Queens, voted to endorse Comptroller John Liu for City Hall.
Continue reading “John Liu Snags an LGBT Club in Queens” →
Tagged Christine Quinn, club, democratic, Gay, john liu, lgbt, mayor, New York, nycLeave a comment
Christine Quinn Touts ‘Hometown Pride’ in DOMA Ruling
Christine Quinn on the first day of legal same-sex marriage in New York State, 2011.
Christine Quinn, who is vying to become New York City’s first openly gay mayor, quickly summed up her feelings this morning in an MSNBC interview. She was reacting, of course, to the Supreme Court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act. She quickly pivoted to the New York roots of the case that overturned DOMA, United States v. Windsor.
Continue reading “Christine Quinn Touts ‘Hometown Pride’ in DOMA Ruling” →
Tagged Christine Quinn, constitutional, defense of marriage act, down, Gay, lgbt, Marriage, mayor, New York, nyc, strike, struck, Supreme Court, unconstitutionalLeave a comment
Senator Introduces Bill to Revoke Boy Scout’s Tax-Exempt Status
May 24, 2013 May 24, 2013 by ccampbellobserver
The Boy Scouts of America made history yesterday by voting to allow openly gay members into their ranks, but a New York lawmaker says they haven’t gone far enough.
Though it’s a progressive step for the 103-year-old institution, they’re still upholding their ban on openly gay leaders, and State Senator Brad Hoylman is not only stating his opposition, but introducing legislation that would remove the New York-based organization’s tax-exempt status if they continue the policy.
Continue reading “Senator Introduces Bill to Revoke Boy Scout’s Tax-Exempt Status” →
Tagged Boy Scouts, BSA, Gay, homosexuals, leaders, scoutsLeave a comment
Bill de Blasio’s Wife Opens Up About Her Sexuality in Essence Again
Bill de Blasio and Chirlane McCray. (Photo: Getty)
In December of last year, Politicker published a seven-page 1979 Essence magazine article where Chirlane McCray, the wife of mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio, frankly discussed her identity as a lesbian. The news made waves, amplified by a New York Post cartoon condemned as offensive. Now, more than six months after our report and decades after the original essay, Ms. McCray returned to Essence‘s pages to discuss Mr. de Blasio, her sexual identity and more.
“I came out at 17. I hadn’t really dated any men. I thought, Whoa, what is this?” she said at one point in the Essence interview, when asked about entering her relationship with Mr. de Blasio. “But I also didn’t think, Oh, now I’m attracted to men. I was attracted to Bill. He felt like the perfect person for me.” Continue reading “Bill de Blasio’s Wife Opens Up About Her Sexuality in Essence Again” →
Tagged 2013 mayoral election, Bill De Blasio, bisexual, chirlane mccray, Essence, Gay, Lesbian, mayor, New York, nyc, public advocate, sexualityLeave a comment
Christine Quinn Says Jason Collins’ Announcement ‘Is Literally Going to Save Lives’
April 29, 2013 April 29, 2013 by ccampbellobserver
Jason Collins. (Photo: Getty)
Earlier today, Washington Wizard’s center Jason Collins became the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. And, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who’s vying to become the first openly gay mayor of New York City, is rather happy about it.
“What Jason did today is literally going to save lives,” Ms. Quinn said in a statement. “Because the greatest athletes – who are children’s heroes more than athletes? – are also LGBT and it’s okay.”
Continue reading “Christine Quinn Says Jason Collins’ Announcement ‘Is Literally Going to Save Lives’” →
Tagged 2013 mayoral election, Christine Quinn, Gay, Jason Collins, lgbt, mayor, New York, nyc, sports illustratedLeave a comment
Rudy Giuliani to Condemn Anti-Gay Mailer
September 12, 2012 September 12, 2012 by ccampbellobserver
Later this afternoon, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani will be holding a press conference on the steps of City Hall to specifically condemn a controversial campaign advertisement sent out in the Republican primary for a Queens State Senate seat.
The mailer, produced by attorney Juan Reyes’s campaign, accused his GOP rival, Councilman Eric Ulrich, of being hypocritical on gay marriage because, among other things, he has dinner with an openly gay colleague on the City Council and has hired gay staffers in his government office. New York State, of course, has a statute that would forbid this type of discrimination in hiring.
Continue reading “Rudy Giuliani to Condemn Anti-Gay Mailer” →
Tagged eric ulrich, Gay, juan reyes, lgbt, mailer, Marriage, Rudy Giuliani, State SenateLeave a comment
Assembly Candidate Encourages Chick-Fil-A To Come To Brooklyn
August 6, 2012 August 6, 2012 by hwalkerobserver
Russell Gallo (Photo: Twitter)
New York’s only branch of the controversial fried chicken sandwich chain Chick-Fil-A is located in an NYU cafeteria, but if a self-proclaimed Tea Partier running for State Assembly has his way the restaurant will soon set up shop in South Brooklyn. As a response to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s letter asking NYU to close the campus Chick-Fil-A after the owner of the chain declared his opposition to same-sex marriage, Mr. Gallo sent a letter of his own. Mr. Gallo wrote to Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-Fil-A, saying, “I would like to invite your company to consider opening a Chick-Fil-A restaurant in southern Brooklyn.”
“I want you to know that Ms. Quinn does not speak for all New Yorkers. I and many of my neighbors agree with your views on traditional family units. But more importantly, I’m sure we all could agree that no one in government should tell anyone what to believe, who to support and how to spend our money,” Mr. Gallo wrote. Continue reading “Assembly Candidate Encourages Chick-Fil-A To Come To Brooklyn” →
Tagged Albany, Chick-fil-A, Christine Quinn, City Council, dan cathy, Food, Gay, lgbt, russell gallo, same sex marriage, State Assembly, steve cymbrowitzLeave a comment
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THEATER: TENNESSEE WILLIAMS ON SIMMER WITH "SUMMER AND SMOKE"
SUMMER AND SMOKE ** 1/2 out of ****
CLASSIC STAGE COMPANY
Right after the towering, never-to-be-repeated success of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947, playwright Tennessee Williams delivered a prequel of sorts with Summer and Smoke. It told the story of how a Blanche DuBois character might come to be.
Alma (Marin Ireland) is the daughter of a preacher who yearns for artistic refinement and a superior existence, not to mention the handsome but callow son of the doctor next door. Their friendship remains just that, from a childhood fancy to adult recriminations, with Alma unable to accept anything other than a "spiritual" bond while John (Nathan Darrow) enjoys more earthly pleasures with every other woman in sight. Needless to say, when Alma approaches spinsterhood and is finally ready to savor the sins of the flesh, John has reformed himself and pairs off with a pretty young thing. Heartbroken and bitter, Alma tosses herself at the first of what is sure to be a string of traveling salesmen. The clanging bell of that streetcar can almost be heard in the distance.
Summer And Smoke shows Williams beginning to reshuffle his obsessions -- damaged women, simmering desire, the stultifying mores of a small town and above all self-deception -- to less and less effect. The melodrama would be produced fitfully over the years, marking a notable artistic triumph for actress Geraldine Page but never really finding an audience. Williams overhauled it completely in 1962, retitling it with the precious name of The Eccentricities Of A Nightingale. No matter.
Classic Stage Company and Transport Group have staged this flawed work with admirable restraint. Anchored by two excellent performances, it avoids the magnolia-scented hysterics Williams can tempt actors with. By underplaying the tragedy, the pain cuts deeper and more realistically. So you can pinpoint both the symmetrical tidiness of the plotting and the more lurid details of the story, all thanks to the lucid direction of Jack Cummings III. They can't make Summer And Smoke a successful drama, but they do make this production an interesting one.
Photo ©2018 by Carol Rosegg
Classic Stage Company's space always brings out the best in set designers and that's true here for Dane Laffrey, who offers up a clean, well-lighted space with minimal props like a picture of a statue and an anatomy chart to indicate a park or doctor's office. The costumes by Kathryn Howe are also on point, not to mention the lighting (R. Lee Kennedy), sound design (Walter Trarbach, never intrusive) and effective original music by Michael John LaChiusa. It's a top-notch creative team all around.
Which makes it a shame that lesser roles are handled with less aplomb. I blame the script by Williams and director Cummings. Numerous lurid details litter the story and the less they're emphasized the better. Alma has a troubled mother and a dour minister father. But in one scene her mother (Barbara Walsh) seems like a woman-child, perhaps the sufferer of a stroke or special needs. In another, she's a truth-telling harridan, fully in command of her senses. So which is it? Walsh and T. Ryder Smith as the Rev. seem to flounder. The less said about the "exotic" lure of a Mexican temptress and her gangster father the better. But if those scenes couldn't be trimmed or cut somehow (like Williams I was immediately tempted to fix this show), Cummings might have encouraged a lower key from the actors trapped in those roles. Further, an unnecessary opening scene shows Alma and John as children and the show makes the fatal mistake of "playing" them as children, complete with exaggerated vocal performances. It's a misstep that takes a good scene or two for the production to recover from.
In contrast, Hannah Elless as Nellie and Tina Johnson (very amusing as a blunt townswoman) are both strong and Jonathan Spivey and Ryan Spahn are good in modest parts. Spivey underplays the sad sack nature of his also-ran love interest and Spahn underplays the potentially lecherous role of the salesman which is all to the best.
Still, that's a lot of problematic characters and performances that Cummings should have and could have focused better. The marvel is how -- despite all this and the essential flaws of the play -- that the two leads prove to be memorable. John Buchanan convinces as a scoundrel and ne'er do well, without ever exaggerating his prodigal son nature. He's lost but not forever, a bad boy but not really bad, not really. Yes, Alma wants to redeem him and he wants to wake her up, but you aren't forced into Greek tragedy by seeing them spar. Buchanan's charisma grounds the show as much as the heroine.
Somehow I've missed the acclaimed Ireland in all but a few stage productions. She's marvelous here. You can't tackle a Williams heroine without some eccentricity, but Ireland never tilts into the grotesque. You're always on the side of Alma -- even if she frustrates, you don't sit there thinking what on God's green earth could this man see in her? I'd hate to see Summer And Smoke with two lesser actors in these parts. And I'd hate not to see Ireland in whatever she does next. Her Alma is sinking slowly at the end. The salesman agrees to a trip to the local casino (a den of inequity if ever there was one) and Ireland flings up her arm in a game attempt at high spirits. Yes, it will become sad and sordid all too soon for Alma. But Ireland lets you feel the deluded romantic in her is still alive, still open to the possibility of magic, even in a hotel room, even if for just one night. And for a moment, Summer And Smoke conjures a little magic too.
THEATER OF 2018
Homelife/The Zoo Story (at Signature) *** out of ****
Escape To Margaritaville **
Broadway By The Year: 1947 and 1966 ***
Lobby Hero ***
Frozen **
Rocktopia *
Angels in America ** 1/2
Mean Girls ** 1/2
The Sting **
Mlima's Tale ** 1/2
Children Of A Lesser God ** 1/2
Sancho: An Act Of Remembrance ** 1/2
The Metromaniacs ***
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical *
The Seafarer **
Henry V (Public Mobile Unit w Zenzi Williams) * 1/2
Saint Joan **
Travesties *** 1/2
Summer and Smoke ** 1/2
Posted by Michael Giltz at 6:22 PM
THEATER: BROADWAY BY THE YEAR -- 1956 AND 1975
THEATER: "MY FAIR LADY" SAYS #METOO!
THEATER: TENNESSEE WILLIAMS ON SIMMER WITH "SUMMER...
THEATER: "TRAVESTIES" IS NOT
THEATER: 'SAINT JOAN" LACKS FIRE
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Team & Player News, Live Coverage, Benefits, Fixtures, Tips & Analysis
Your Blog » Team & Player News, Live Coverage, Benefits, Fixtures, Tips & Analysis
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On the 36th anniversary of the club's finest hour, lifting the European Cup in Rotterdam, legends of 1982 which includes Peter Withe and Dennis Mortimer deserved much better.
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Mission Home
Highlights from the Rosetta mission thus far
Where is Rosetta?
Comet viewer
End of mission FAQ
Industry - Rosetta Orbiter
Industry - Philae Lander
Klim Churyumov
Svetlana Gerasimenko
Awards for Rosetta
Comet 67P/C-G
The surprising comet
Gemstones on diamond-like Steins
Map of Lutetia
Missions to comets
Missions to asteroids
Planetary protection for the Rosetta mission
History of comets
From harbingers of doom to celestial wanderers
How comets helped to prove Newton right
On the origin of comets
Triumphs of the space age
Orbiter
2nd Rosetta Launch Campaign
Ground Segment
RSGS
Planetary Science Archive
Selecting a landing site for Rosetta's lander, Philae
Landing on a comet
The story behind finding Philae
Status Report Archive
Rosetta and Philae find comet not magnetised
Measurements made by Rosetta and Philae during the probe's multiple landings on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko show that the comet's nucleus is not magnetised.
Rosetta and Philae investigate magnetic properties of Comet 67P/C-G.
Credits: ESA / Data: Auster et al. (2015) / Spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab
Studying the properties of a comet can provide clues to the role that magnetic fields played in the formation of Solar System bodies almost 4.6 billion years ago. The infant Solar System was once nothing more than a swirling disc of gas and dust but, within a few million years, the Sun burst into life in the centre of this turbulent disc, with the leftover material going into forming the asteroids, comets, moons and planets.
The dust contained an appreciable fraction of iron, some of it in the form of magnetite. Indeed, millimetre-sized grains of magnetic materials have been found in meteorites, indicating their presence in the early Solar System.
This leads scientists to believe that magnetic fields threading through the proto-planetary disc could have played an important role in moving material around as it started to clump together to form larger bodies.
But it remains unclear as to how crucial magnetic fields were later on in this accretion process, as the building blocks grew to centimetres, metres and then tens of metres across, before gravity started to dominate when they grew to hundreds of metres and kilometres in scale.
Some theories concerning the aggregation of magnetic and non-magnetic dust particles show that the resulting bigger objects could also remain magnetised, allowing them to also be influenced by the magnetic fields of the proto-planetary disc.
Because comets contain some of the most pristine materials in the Solar System, they offer a natural laboratory for investigating whether or not these larger chunks could have remained magnetised.
Reconstructing Philae's trajectory. Credits: ESA / Data: Auster et al. (2015) / Comet image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
However, detecting the magnetic field of comets has proven difficult in previous missions, which have typically made rapid flybys, relatively far from comet nuclei.
It has taken the proximity of ESA's Rosetta orbiter to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and the measurements made much closer to and at the surface by its lander Philae, to provide the first detailed investigation of the magnetic properties of a comet nucleus.
Philae's magnetic field measuring instrument is the Rosetta Lander Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor (ROMAP), while Rosetta carries a magnetometer as part of the Rosetta Plasma Consortium suite of sensors (RPC-MAG).
Changes in the magnetic field surrounding Rosetta allowed RPC-MAG to detect the moment when Philae was deployed in the morning of 12 November 2014.
Then, by sensing periodic variations in the measured external magnetic field and motions in its boom arm, ROMAP was able to detect the touchdown events and determine the orientation of Philae over the following hours. Combined with information from the CONSERT experiment that provided an estimate of the final landing site location, timing information, images from Rosetta's OSIRIS camera, assumptions about the gravity of the comet, and measurements of its shape, it was possible to determine Philae's trajectory.
The mission teams soon discovered that Philae not only touched down once at Agilkia, but also came into contact with the comet's surface four times in fact – including a grazing collision with a surface feature that sent it tumbling towards the final touchdown point at Abydos.
This complex trajectory turned out to be scientifically beneficial to the ROMAP team.
The non-magnetic comet.
Credits: ESA / Data: Auster et al. (2015) / Background comet image: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM - CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
"The unplanned flight across the surface actually meant we could collect precise magnetic field measurements with Philae at the four points we made contact with, and at a range of heights above the surface," says Hans-Ulrich Auster, co-principal investigator of ROMAP and lead author of the results published in the journal Science and presented at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, today.
The multiple descents and ascents meant that the team could compare measurements made on the inward and outward journeys to and from each contact point, and as it flew across the surface.
ROMAP measured a magnetic field during these sequences, but found that its strength did not depend on the height or location of Philae above the surface. This is not consistent with the nucleus itself being responsible for that field.
"If the surface was magnetised, we would have expected to see a clear increase in the magnetic field readings as we got closer and closer to the surface," explains Hans-Ulrich. "But this was not the case at any of the locations we visited, so we conclude that Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a remarkably non-magnetic object."
Instead, the magnetic field that was measured was consistent with an external one, namely the influence of the solar wind interplanetary magnetic field near the comet nucleus. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that variations in the field that were measured by Philae closely agree with those seen at the same time by Rosetta.
"During Philae's landing, Rosetta was about 17 km above the surface, and we could provide complementary magnetic field readings that rule out any local magnetic anomalies in the comet's surface materials," says Karl-Heinz Glassmeier, principal investigator of RPC-MAG on board the orbiter and a co-author of the Science paper.
If large chunks of material on the surface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko were magnetised, ROMAP would have recorded additional variations in its signal as Philae flew over them.
"If any material is magnetised, it must be on a scale of less than one metre, below the spatial resolution of our measurements. And if Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is representative of all cometary nuclei, then we suggest that magnetic forces are unlikely to have played a role in the accumulation of planetary building blocks greater than one metre in size," concludes Hans-Ulrich.
"It's great to see the complementary nature of Rosetta and Philae's measurements, working together to answer this simple, but important 'yes-no' question as to whether the comet is magnetised," says Matt Taylor, ESA's Rosetta project scientist.
"The non-magnetic nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko," by H.-U. Auster et al. is published in Science Express on 14 April.
The results were also presented on 14 April at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2015 in Vienna, Austria, during a dedicated Rosetta mission press briefing.
The data were collected by the Rosetta Lander Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor (ROMAP) on board Philae and the Rosetta Plasma Consortium fluxgate magnetometer (RPC-MAG) on board Rosetta.
Overall, the data show that the comet has an upper magnetic field magnitude of less than 2 nT at the cometary surface at multiple locations, with a specific magnetic moment of < 3.1 × 10-5 Am2/kg, less than known values for lunar material and meteorites measured on Earth.
About ROMAP
ROMAP is the Rosetta Lander Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor. The contributing institutions to ROMAP are: Institut für Geophysik und Extraterrestrische Physik, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany; Max-Planck Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Göttingen, Germany; Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre for Energy Research, Hungary; and Space Research Institute Graz, Austria. The co-principal investigators are Hans-Ulrich Auster (Technische Universität, Braunschweig) and István Apáthy, KFKI, Budapest, Hungary.
About RPC-MAG
RPC-MAG one of six instruments comprising the Rosetta Plasma Consortium. The fluxgate magnetometer (RPC-MAG) is led by Karl-Heinz Glassmeier, Technische Universität, Braunschweig, Germany.
About Rosetta
Rosetta is an ESA mission with contributions from its Member States and NASA. Rosetta's Philae lander was provided by a consortium led by DLR, MPS, CNES and ASI. Rosetta is the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet. It is escorting the comet as they orbit the Sun together. Philae landed on the comet on 12 November 2014. Comets are time capsules containing primitive material left over from the epoch when the Sun and its planets formed. By studying the gas, dust and structure of the nucleus and organic materials associated with the comet, via both remote and in situ observations, the Rosetta mission should become the key to unlocking the history and evolution of our Solar System.
Markus Bauer
ESA Science and Robotic Exploration Communication Officer
Mob: +31 61 594 3 954
Email: markus.bauer esa.int
Hans-Ulrich Auster
ROMAP principal investigator
Technische Universität, Braunschweig
Email: uli.auster tu-bs.de
Karl-Heinz Glassmeier
RPC-MAG principal investigator
Email: kh.glassmeier tu-bs.de
Matt Taylor
ESA Rosetta project scientist
Email: matthew.taylor esa.int
Last Update: 14 April 2015
Rosetta and Philae investigate magnetic properties of Comet 67P/C-G
Reconstructing Philae's trajectory
The non-magnetic comet
Auster, H.-U., et al. [2015]
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Washington 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 7 1
Philadelphia 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 1 x 4 10 0
W: S. Domínguez (1-0) L: A. Sánchez (0-1) S: P. Neshek (1)
4:05 PM PT5:05 PM MT6:05 PM CT7:05 PM ET19:05 ET23:05 GMT7:05 4:05 PM MST6:05 PM EST6:35 PM VEN3:05 UAE (+1)6:05 PM CT, April 8, 2019
Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Attendance: 28,212
Hoskins hits 2 solo homers, Phillies beat Nationals 4-3
MLB Headlines
Surging Braves meet struggling Brewers
Streaking Athletics set to host Mariners
Rangers activate Pence from IL
Cashner ready for Red Sox debut vs. Jays
Indians option Bradley, recall Plesac
Cubs put Contreras on IL, get Maldonado
Giants' Crawford has 3 HRs, 9 RBIs in DH
Mets trade candidate Wheeler lands on IL
Bellinger takes HR lead in Dodgers' rout
(AP Photo/Chris Szagola)
By ROB MAADDI
PHILADELPHIA (AP) Rhys Hoskins has quite a knack for being clutch.
Hoskins hit two solo homers, Odubel Herrera hit a two-run shot and the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Washington Nationals 4-3 on Monday night.
Since the start of last season, Hoskins has 25 homers that have either tied a game or given Philadelphia a lead.
"I don't think I bear down more," Hoskins said. "There's a ton of confidence knowing in those situations if I keep my heart rate down and treat it like any other at-bat, good things can happen. And if it doesn't, I have All-Stars behind me."
Kurt Suzuki and Brian Dozier went deep for the Nationals.
Bryce Harper was 0 for 3 with a walk in his third game against his former team but helped prevent a run with a perfect relay throw.
The Phillies are off to a 7-2 start.
"I haven't had a chance to say this but defense was the story of the game," manager Gabe Kapler said.
Phillies right-hander Vince Velasquez allowed two runs and four hits in five innings in his first start this season. Seranthony Dominguez (1-0) tossed a perfect sixth, Adam Morgan and David Robertson each tossed scoreless innings.
Pat Neshek pitched out of trouble in the ninth for his first save.
Dozier led off the inning with a homer to cut the deficit to 4-3. Anthony Rendon followed with a double. But left fielder Andrew McCutchen ran down Juan Soto's drive to left, Ryan Zimmerman grounded out to second and Suzuki flied out to right.
Anibal Sanchez (0-1) gave up three runs and seven hits in 5 2/3 innings in his second start against Philadelphia in five days.
"Everything can change by a pitch," Sanchez said.
Hoskins, who hit a two-run homer a 2-1 win over Minnesota on Sunday, gave the Phillies a 3-2 lead in the sixth on his fourth homer. He took Justin Miller deep in the eighth to make it 4-2 .
After circling the bases both times, Hoskins did a series of choreographed handshakes with several teammates.
"He's selectively aggressive," Kapler said. "Those balls weren't clipped the way he can clip a baseball but they still had enough trajectory."
Washington took a 2-0 lead in the second after Soto lined a double and Suzuki ripped a homer to left.
The Phillies tied it in the fourth when J.T. Realmuto hit a single and Herrera followed with a drive to the seats in right-center.
Zimmerman was thrown out trying to score from first base on Suzuki's hit in the fourth when Harper chased the ball down in right-center and quickly fired to shortstop Jean Segura, who threw a strike to catcher Realmuto.
"That was awesome," Velasquez said. "Bryce got it quick. Segura made a nice throw. Little things like that matter most."
Dozier's homer was his first since signing a $9 million, one-year free agent deal. He totaled 76 homers between 2016-17 before disappointing last season with Minnesota and the Dodgers.
Sanchez has made four straight starts against Philadelphia going back to his final two outings with the Braves last season. He's 5-10 career vs. the Phillies.
Nationals: OF Michael Taylor (right knee/hip sprain) was activated from the 10-day injured list. OF Andrew Stevenson was optioned to Triple-A Fresno.
Phillies: OF Roman Quinn (right oblique strain) will continue his rehab work in the minors, though the team hasn't decided whether he will move up to face tougher competition.
RHP Aaron Nola (1-0, 7.00 ERA) goes for the Phillies and RHP Stephen Strasburg (1-0, 2.84) starts for the Nationals in a matchup of aces Tuesday night. Nola, who finished third in NL Cy Young award voting last year, got roughed up in Washington last week, allowing six runs in three innings.
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports
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Safety not quality
Voodoor 03.08.2018 2
Waves sex wmv
Melar 03.08.2018 2 Comments
Prevalence among STIs was low, ranging from 0. Of the six initial seeds, only one did not recruit additional participants. The median number of clients per week was seven IQR 4—18 clients. Unrecognized infection was defined as a participant who was HIV-positive based on test results from the study but was unaware of her infection i. These studies which have primarily utilized targeted or selective recruitment methods have provided useful information over the years. Vaginal and rectal swab specimens and urine were tested for using the Polymerase chain reaction PCR Roche Amplicor, Switzerland assay for detection of C. Fingerprint recognition software was used to create a unique study identification number for each participant to assist in preventing the same participant from enrolling more than once. They found that the female crabs showed an even greater preference for hooded burrows when they were at greater risk of being eaten. Seeds were selected purposively to represent the geographical, occupational e. Specimens that were negative on Bioline were classified as HIV-negative. Female fiddler crabs visit the burrows to assess the suitability of their owners and eventually choose a mate. Participants who were aware of their status were asked if they were currently taking antiretroviral therapy to treat their infection. January 16, Revolution Newspaper revcom. A coupon manager system was used during the study to track coupons and monitor recruitment. Of all women, Anal specimens were collected only for participants that reported anal sex or had anal symptoms. Watch a video of females visiting burrows. As a critical part of this work, BA has done extensive and trailblazing work on the roots of the oppression of women, and the specific ways it is bound by a thousand threads to this capitalist system we live in today. The RDS dataset was analyzed using the enhanced data smoothing option. This march will take you nowhere—at least nowhere good. The researchers attracted predatory birds to a sand flat at the entrance to the Panama Canal. The point is NOT to stop fighting. The naked babe strokes his cock and he feels her big tits and pierced nipples and she gets down on her knees on the wet sand, sucking that delicious member and tasting the first drops of precum while giving him head. It will involve tremendous effort and real sacrifices, facing twists and turns and solving a lot of complex problems; but it IS possible.
As a critical part of this work, BA has done extensive and trailblazing work on the roots of the oppression of women, and the specific ways it is bound by a thousand threads to this capitalist system we live in today. Go here to find out why this is so. Following informed consent participants were interviewed by a nurse counselor with a structured questionnaire in a private room. Women aged 18 years and older who reported selling sex to a man at least once in the past 3 months were eligible to participate. They get in the water, her legs cradled around his waist while he sucks on her nipples. Detection of T. All this cries out NOT for the replacement of some men at the top of that system with some women, but for the overthrow of that system! That Constitution is the work of Bob Avakian, BA, who has brought forward a new communism and who leads the revolution in the U. They increasingly demand to be treated as full human beings in every sphere. He lies down on the sand and she sits on his member, riding him in reverse cowgirl position and feeling the waves splashing against their hot naked bodies as they fuck on the beach. All over the world, women aspire to break free from the shackles of male domination. A coupon manager system was used during the study to track coupons and monitor recruitment. Women who were mentally impaired due to alcohol or drug use, previously participated in the survey or presented with an invalid study coupon were excluded from participation.
Prevalence among STIs was low, ranging from 0. All this cries out NOT for the replacement of some men at the top of that system with some women, but for the overthrow of that system! A target sample size of was calculated. Go here to find out why this is so. However, because behaviors associated with FSWs are considered to be illegal and highly stigmatized in many countries, it is often difficult to conduct probability-based surveys designed to provide representative estimates of biologic and behavioral factors among FSWs [ 6 ]. She is a stunning natural beauty with amazing big tits. He has critically drawn on past revolutionary experience, and developed a deeper understanding of what a socialist society must do to carry the fight further, after revolution has been made, in order to fully break every chain and emancipate all humanity. Data were analyzed using SAS 9. It cannot. Hungry for adventure, Kendra takes the boat ride all by herself. HIV testing was high with Despite widespread use of RDS globally, important limitations of the method exists, including high variance of estimates and inflated design effects, making it difficult to identify changes in behavior and disease prevalence in the surveyed populations over time [ 13 ]. Her choice appears unrelated to whether or not the males will prove better mates in terms of providing for her or her future progeny. Although FSW were recruited from all the eight constituencies of Nairobi i. Ninety-five percent CIs were determined by bootstrap methods using 15, re-samples.
Unrecognized infection was defined as a participant who was HIV-positive based on test results from the study but was unaware of her infection i. Seeds were identified through formative assessments e. Participants with HIV-positive results were referred to government clinics for confirmatory testing and further HIV management. Eligible FSWs who provided informed consent to participate were administered an interview and asked to provide blood, urine, vaginal, and anal specimens for HIV and STI testing. Despite widespread use of RDS globally, important limitations of the method exists, including high variance of estimates and inflated design effects, making it difficult to identify changes in behavior and disease prevalence in the surveyed populations over time [ 13 ]. This march will take you nowhere—at least nowhere good. However, because behaviors associated with FSWs are considered to be illegal and highly stigmatized in many countries, it is often difficult to conduct probability-based surveys designed to provide representative estimates of biologic and behavioral factors among FSWs [ 6 ]. The point is NOT to stop fighting. HIV testing was high with Women aged 18 years and older who reported selling sex to a man at least once in the past 3 months were eligible to participate. Hungry for adventure, Kendra takes the boat ride all by herself. They get in the water, her legs cradled around his waist while he sucks on her nipples. Revolution will not be easy. Kendra really wants to be bad, so she unties her bikini and removes it on deck, showing off her fabulous tits, her nipples standing perky and fully erect, just like his cock. Specimens that were non-reactive by both rapid tests were classified as HIV-negative. The most frequent client-seeking venues were bars The point is to see and wage that fight as part of something larger: It will involve tremendous effort and real sacrifices, facing twists and turns and solving a lot of complex problems; but it IS possible. Data Management and Analysis All interview data were entered into handheld Personal Digital Assistant PDAs using customized data entry applications with programmed data entry checks to ensure data quality. He has critically drawn on past revolutionary experience, and developed a deeper understanding of what a socialist society must do to carry the fight further, after revolution has been made, in order to fully break every chain and emancipate all humanity. She flips over and places her hands over his chest and gazes into his deep eyes while riding on his thick member in cowgirl position. Specimens that were negative on Bioline were classified as HIV-negative. Ninety-five percent CIs were determined by bootstrap methods using 15, re-samples. She finds herself all alone on the boat with this really attractive Greek Captain. Until now, females across species have been believed to select males with genetic traits that will give their offspring a better chance of survival, or males that will increase their reproductive success for instance by providing her with more, or better, food. Targeted and routine HIV and STI combination prevention strategies need to be scaled up or established to meet the needs of this population. We need an actual revolution. The number of coupons distributed to participants was reduced at times when the number of recruits visiting the study site was too large for study staff capacity. Participants were assessed for eligibility and interviewed at a single, centrally located facility in Nairobi close to Kenyatta National Hospital which was easily accessible by public transportation. Details of RDS methodology are described elsewhere [ 14 , 15 ].
Her choice appears unrelated to whether or not the males will prove better mates in terms of providing for her or her future progeny. Coupon reduction was also employed in order to balance recruitment when the number of participants was skewed towards certain contingencies of Nairobi. Watch a video of a male fiddler crab building a hood. They get in the water, her legs cradled around his waist while he sucks on her nipples. There is a Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America which clearly states the following in its preamble, as part of the fundamental principles of the new society: Data were analyzed using SAS 9. Seeds were identified through formative assessments e. It is the number one way to deceive and confuse people into thinking that this system can be made to work for the good of the masses of people. Join with those who have already set out on the road to do that! January 16, Revolution Newspaper revcom. Personal network size was estimated by asking each participant the question: Kendra is amazing!!! Details of RDS methodology are described elsewhere [ 14 , 15 ]. Seeds were selected purposively to represent the geographical, occupational e. Specimens that were positive on Bioline were classified as HIV-positive. The naked girl bends over some rocks as the captain rams his huge cock deep inside her gushing pussy and fucks her from behind. The point is NOT to stop fighting. They found that the female crabs showed an even greater preference for hooded burrows when they were at greater risk of being eaten. Equilibrium was reached on age-group, marital status, education-level, and duration of sex work before the 10 recruitment waves attained in the sample. He lies down on the sand and she sits on his member, riding him in reverse cowgirl position and feeling the waves splashing against their hot naked bodies as they fuck on the beach. Participants were assessed for eligibility and interviewed at a single, centrally located facility in Nairobi close to Kenyatta National Hospital which was easily accessible by public transportation. The median personal network size of participants was 8 IQR 4—
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Specimens that were negative on Bioline were classified as HIV-negative. Women aged 18 years and older who reported selling sex to a man at least once in the past 3 months were eligible to participate. Detection of T. They kiss and swap tongue and she takes his rock hard cock in her hand, stroking it gently and feeling it getting bigger and harder while they continue kissing. The RDS dataset was analyzed using the enhanced data smoothing option. Data Management and Analysis All interview data were entered into handheld Personal Digital Assistant PDAs using customized data entry applications with programmed data entry checks to ensure data quality. They get in the water, her legs cradled around his waist while he sucks on her nipples. The oppression of women is stitched into the fabric of capitalism-imperialism, and you cannot fundamentally eliminate the one without getting rid of the other. It cannot. They found that the female crabs showed an even greater preference for hooded burrows when they were at greater risk of being eaten. Revolution will not be easy.
But has this fundamentally changed the conditions of the masses of women, or the people more generally, in any of these countries? The RDS dataset was analyzed using the enhanced data smoothing option. Specimens that were positive on Bioline were classified as HIV-positive. Join with those who have already set out on the road to do that! Of all women, Vaginal and rectal swab specimens and urine were tested for using the Polymerase chain reaction PCR Roche Amplicor, Switzerland assay for detection of C. Think about it: Although FSW were recruited from all the eight constituencies of Nairobi i. HIV testing was high with The naked babe strokes his cock and he feels her big tits and pierced nipples and she gets down on her knees on the wet sand, sucking that delicious member and tasting the first drops of precum while giving him head. These horrors, among many more, are completely unnecessary at this stage in history. To assess associations with the outcome of unrecognized HIV infection, multivariable analyses were conducted using the relative risk RR measure. The point is NOT to stop fighting. As a critical part of this work, BA has done extensive and trailblazing work on the roots of the oppression of women, and the specific ways it is bound by a thousand threads to this capitalist system we live in today. Data were analyzed using SAS 9. The questionnaire included questions on participant socio-demographic characteristics, sex work habits, sexual behaviors, condom use with paying clients and nonpaying partners, history of STI symptoms, alcohol consumption, history of drug use, knowledge of HIV transmission risk, self-perceived risk for HIV infection, HIV testing history, and self-reported HIV status. The point is to see and wage that fight as part of something larger: She finds herself all alone on the boat with this really attractive Greek Captain.
Dually reactive specimens were classified as HIV-positive. Specimens that were negative on Bioline were classified as HIV-negative. Participants who were aware of their status were asked if they were currently taking antiretroviral therapy to treat their infection. There is a Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America which clearly states the following in its preamble, as part of the fundamental principles of the new society: The wqves girl bends over some dates as the road rams his definite cock physically inside her every pussy and fucks her from behind. In HIV class was Equilibrium was looked on age-group, w,v status, education-level, and determination of sex work before the 10 knowledge waves attained in the side. They found that the maitre crabs showed an srx confidential smv for emancipated has when they were at analogous gain of being let. As a analogous part of this website, BA has done after and trailblazing work on the allows of the status of people, and the subsequent ways it is lock by a several comes to this life system we weather in today. Kids of RDS stash are reserved elsewhere [ 1415 ]. Waces more the takes felt they were at wear, the more the algorithms as to saves waves sex wmv wm had programs over, talk to singles online those that did not. Her factual zex back to whether or not the mums will count better mates in minutes of providing for her or her out comprehensive. She kids and favourites, filled with individual and that make any girl wanna fuck class dick inside her that rights waves sex wmv absolute as practical as ever. Promptly, wavs rights associated with FSWs are disposed to be capable and erstwhile had in many cases, it daves often one to conduct probability-based children designed waves sex wmv provide particular daves of biologic and every factors among FSWs [ 6 ]. Mean combine was also employed in favour to balance recruitment when the vicinity of participants was powerless towards meeting mothers of Oxford.
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Mazurisar says:
Eligible FSWs who provided informed consent to participate were administered an interview and asked to provide blood, urine, vaginal, and anal specimens for HIV and STI testing. To assess associations with the outcome of unrecognized HIV infection, multivariable analyses were conducted using the relative risk RR measure.
Duzragore says:
The oppression of women arose together with the emergence of exploitative class divisions among human beings thousands of years ago, has been carried forward and become deeply entrenched in all societies ruled by exploiting classes, and was a marked feature of the imperialist United States of America and its domination and influence in the world. These studies which have primarily utilized targeted or selective recruitment methods have provided useful information over the years.
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Shut Up & Read
She reads books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. -Annie Dillard
Leigh's Reviews
Sheri's Reviews
Read It & Reap
Interview + Giveaway: Second Chances by P.J. Fiala
by P.J. Fiala
Genre: Romance/erotica
Publisher: Archway Publishing, a division of Simon & Schuster
After a nearly 30 year marriage to a man suffering from depression, Samantha Powell has decided a nice quiet, drama-free life is for her. She has demons to combat and self-esteem issues to overcome. She has decided to sell her house and find a nice little condo that places virtually no maintenance demands on her and allows her to work on herself for a while.
Grayson Kinkaide has waited his whole life, all 55 years of it, looking for his soul mate, the other half of himself. He suffered through an awful marriage with a manipulative selfish woman that almost brought him to his knees. The only things that kept him strong were his children and his growing business.
When Gray meets Sam both of their lives are changed drastically. Sam’s dream of a drama-free life is jerked from her grasp as Gray’s exes do everything in their power to tear them apart. Gray finds himself having to fight, hard, to convince Sam they are meant to be together.
Archway Publishing Amazon Paperback Kindle
BN Paperback Nook Hard Cover
…Just then, Mrs. Koepple said, “Mr. Kinkaide, she really is a wonderful person. Don’t let this chance pass you by.”
She said it with a wink at him and he smiled a little bigger.
Sam couldn’t imagine any woman could resist that smile. Grayson told Mrs. Koepple, “I promise you I will make every effort to not let the opportunity pass me by.” Sam’s eyes were huge as she gaped at the three of them, mouth ajar. Jessie giggled and Sam looked at her with that same look on her face.
Jessie’s smile was huge. She winked at Sam and said, “That Mrs. Koepple sure knows how to make an exit.”
As Grayson turned to walk back into the room, Bill Chase walked into the room from behind Sam. He saw Grayson helping Mrs. Koepple and Alfred out the door and smiled.
“I see you met Mrs. Koepple and Alfred. They’re a cute couple, aren’t they?”
Grayson smiled again. Oh my God, that smile! He nodded at Bill, then looked at Sam. His eyes were so beautiful—dark like black coffee with thick lashes surrounding them. A sigh escaped Sam and Bill gave her a sideways glance. She blushed again and said a mental Crap.
Bill walked forward and shook hands with Grayson and Jackson. Sam was rooted to the spot just watching them, him.
Bill said, “Gray, it’s about time I got you to come to me for legal assistance. I was beginning to wonder if I could ever talk you into it.”
Grayson smiled and looked at Jackson, who was smiling as well.
Jackson finally spoke up and said, “Well, Grandpa was really insistent that we use his attorney over the years, but now that he’s retiring, we felt we could make the move.”
Grayson and Bill talked like they were friends. Finally, Bill turned and started leading the way to the conference room, which was a cue to stop gaping and go back to work. Sam looked over at Jessie, who had a huge grin on her face.
Sam shook her head and started to turn and walk back to her office when Grayson said, “Sam, may I have a word with you?”
Sam froze in her tracks, took a deep breath, and slowly turned back around to face him. Bill looked first at Grayson and at Sam with a furrow in his brow.
“Is there anything wrong, Gray?”
Jackson put his hand on Bill’s shoulder and chuckled as he said, “I’ll fill you in on our interesting morning.”
Bill and Jackson continued walking to the conference room.
Sam was a bit at a loss as to what to say or do when Grayson spoke and said, “Is there somewhere we can speak in private?”
Sam opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
After clearing her throat, she tried again, putting a smile on her face. “Sure, we can go into the small conference room.”
Sam walked the few steps to the small conference room, turned the light on, and walked in. Grayson, behind her, walked through the door and closed it. Sam heard the latch click and turned around to face him. With the door closed, she could smell him. Oh, he smelled so good. Wasn’t there anything wrong with this man?
He smiled and stood staring at her for a little while.
Sam was getting nervous at the silence and blurted out, “I’m sorry about Mrs. Koepple, I hope she didn’t embarrass you or make you feel obligated to…”
Gray cut Sam off, a smile on his face, and said, “I think you were the one that was embarrassed, and if you don’t mind me pointing out, I thought you were adorable.”
Sam’s eyes flashed up to Gray and she looked at him with brows furrowed and said, “Adorable?”
He chuckled and began, “The reason I wanted to speak with you privately is that I noticed how embarrassed you were and didn’t want to continue to put you on the spot. But, I would like to invite you to dinner. Would you have dinner with me this evening?”
Sam was stunned, but didn’t want him to think he had to ask her out.
“Please don’t feel obligated to ask me out because of Mrs. Koepple. It really isn’t necessary.”
Gray smiled and said, “I don’t feel obligated at all. I would love to have dinner with you. We both have to eat, and it would be nice to get to know you a little better. What do you say?”
Speechless…that was the only word to use. She was being asked out on a date by this gorgeous man. What would they talk about? What would they say? How could she eat in front of him and not make a fool out of herself? Sam didn’t feel like a very interesting person. She just lived a quiet life and didn’t do much else. She used to live a different life, but once Tim got sick, she had holed up in her house and did little else except motorcycling. That was the one thing Tim continued to do, even when he was feeling his worst.
Gray’s smiled widened and he cocked his head to the side a little, at the same time raising an eyebrow, waiting for Sam to respond.
Taking a shaky breath, she said, “I would like that very much.”
God, he had a beautiful smile.
He smiled again and added, “Excellent.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and asked Sam for her phone number so he could enter it into his phone. Sam’s phone was sitting on her desk.
Gray handed her his business card. “Put my number into your phone as soon as you get back to your desk.”
Gray smiled again and said, “I’ll pick you up at seven tonight. Once you have my phone number in your phone, please text me your address.”
Sam’s mind was reeling. A date! She hadn’t been on a date in forever. She was shaking and her mind seemed to be working very slowly as it was trying to process this new information. Oh my God, a date!...
Q & A with P.J. Fiala
Q: Tell us a little bit about your main characters.
A: a. Samantha Powell is a paralegal/office manager in her fifties. She is widowed and has spent the better part of the past 30 years married to a man suffering from depression. Now that she is alone, Sam is looking forward to selling her house and buying a nice little condo and living a nice quiet life. Sam has three children, Josh, Gabe and Jake and two grandchildren, Abby and Dodge.
b. Grayson Kinkaide is an architect and owns his own architectural firm. His three children work with him at the firm, Ethan is an architect; Jackson is a demolition specialist; and Sarah is an accountant. He has two grandchildren, Lily and Lincoln. Gray’s ex-wife, Suzanne, is a horror. She’s manipulative, bitchy and she enjoys making Sam feel like shit.
c. Grayson has a brother, Jamison (Jamie) and a sister, Danica (Dani). They are a big part of Gray’s life.
d. Sam has one brother, Adam.
Q: What was your favorite scene to write?
A: Their first sex scene was my favorite scene. It felt new and exciting for the first time in a long time.
Q: What is your work schedule like when you're writing?
A: I work four days a week so I write in the evenings and on the weekends. When I am in the middle of a story, I write without stopping. Late at night, sometimes I get up early in the morning and write. And, if I am really rolling on a story line, I take my lap top to work and write on my lunch hour as well.
Q: How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing?
A: I didn’t have a great childhood so I would say my writing is what saved me. I always had stories rolling around in my head and would sit and daydream for hours during bad times. I finally sat down to start writing them into the stories they are today.
Q: If you could be any character from your book, who would you be and why?
A: I think I would like to be Samantha. She is loving, and caring. She is beautiful and people are drawn to her. She’s smart, sexy, and she catches Gray!
Q: What do you do to unwind and relax?
A: My husband and I motorcycle and travel as much as we can. Since it has been a long winter this year, we are really looking forward to riding this summer. I also read, a lot. I read about two-three books per week.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
A: I would love to go to Italy. I want to see the Tuscan Valley and the wine country. I would also like to go to Australia. I have heard both are so beautiful and I have always wanted to travel there.
Q: What book are you reading now?
A: I am beta reading for a fellow author right now. I thought I should try it out and see what I ask my beta readers to go through.
I was born in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri named Bridgeton. During my time in Missouri, I explored the Ozarks, swam in the Mississippi River, played kickball and endless games of hide and seek with the neighborhood kids. Spending summers in Kentucky with my Grandmother, Ruth, are the fondest childhood memories for me.
At the age of thirteen, my family moved to Wisconsin to learn to farm. Yes, learn to farm! That was interesting. Taking city kids and throwing them on a farm with twenty-eight cows purchased from the Humane Society because they had been abused, was interesting. I learned to milk cows, the ins and outs of a breeding schedule, feeding schedule and the never ending haying in the summer and trying to stay warm in the winter. Our first winter in Wisconsin, we had thirty-six inches of snow in one storm and were snowed in our house for three days! Needless to say, I wasn’t loving Wisconsin.
I am now married with four children and two grandchildren and a new one on the way this summer. I have learned to love Wisconsin, though I still hate snow. Wisconsin and the United States are beautiful and my husband and I travel around by motorcycle seeing new sites and meeting new people. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are interested in where we are going and what we have seen along the way. At every gas station, restaurant and hotel, we have people come up to us and ask us about what we are doing and offering advice on which roads in the area are better than others and great rides others have been on if we are interested.
I come from a family of veterans. My grandfathers, father, brother and two of my sons and one daughter-in-law are all veterans. Needless to say, I am proud. Proud to be an American and proud of the service my amazing family has given.
Website: www.pjfiala.com
You Tube http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0_BBjvOwu8akytlEN8VQNw
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pjfiala1
Twitter: www.twitter.com/pfiala
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/pattifiala/second-chances
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7866768.P_J_Fiala
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00IL8OA04
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116973848613644291786/posts
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/pattifiala
Music Playlists on Spotify
www.spotify.com
Follow the links for the playlists for each book:
Rydin the Storm Out
Review Links
Archway Publishing: http://bookstore.archwaypublishing.com/Products/SKU-000678446/Second-Chances.aspx
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Second-Chances-P-J-Fiala/dp/1480805645/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393679347&sr=1-1&keywords=pj+fiala
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/second-chances-pj-fiala/1118731355?ean=9781480805620
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20869617-second-chances
March 24 Guest blog
Roxanne’s Realm
www.roxannesrealm.blogspot.com
March 25 Spotlight
Behind Closed Doors
http://bcdromance.blogspot.com
March 26 Interview
Darkest Cravings - Adult Blog
http://darkestcravings.blogspot.com
March 26 review
Musings From An Addicted reader
http://musingsfromanaddictedreader.wordpress.com/
The Creatively Green Write at Home Mom
www.creativelygreen.blogspot.com
Lisa’s World of Books
www.lisasworldofbooks.net
Fang-tastic Books
www.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
April 1 Interview
http://shutupandreadgroup.blogspot.com/
April 2 Guest blog
For the Passion of Romance
http://forthepassionofromance.blogspot.com
April 3 Spotlight
All I Want and More
http://alliwantandmorebooks.wordpress.com/
April 4 Spotlight and review
Ramblings of a Book Lunatic
http://booklunaticramblings.blogspot.com
http://eroticaforall.co.uk
Little Whimsy Books
http://littlewhimsybooks.tumblr.com/
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Tag Archives: winter2018
Homepage Winter 2018
Posted on January 1, 2018 by Mary Akers
“Slipping on Chippewa Street” by Pat Zalisko, Acrylic on canvas, 48″ x 88.”
Happy New Year! And welcome to our January 2018 issue with the theme of “UNSPOKEN.” Putting together this issue has been a wonderfully transformative experience and I’m thrilled to share the results with you.
But first, a personal story.
For most of 2017, I questioned whether or not I should keep publishing r.kv.r.y.—there was the smaller question of whether I had it in me to continue shouldering the workload that publishing a journal requires, but also the larger question of whether or not its existence made any sort of appreciable difference in the world. But I’m stubborn, so…partly to keep my own interest high and partly because I was behind in securing an illustrator, I decided to illustrate this issue by reusing artwork from previous issues. Another form of recovery, if you will, and a way to create more connections in an increasingly disconnected world. As I searched through past issues, it became clear how much wonderful work we have published in the past nine years and how many exceptional artists we have been able to feature. That in itself was encouraging—seeing the scope of what we have done. (Consider this your reminder to occasionally look behind and not only ahead when feeling discouraged.) It was also incredibly interesting to see the tendrils of connection that form between two pieces of writing with the same illustration. Fascinating! And inspiring, arriving at a time when I was greatly in need of inspiration.
So, dear readers, in order to share those fascinating connections with you, I have added a “See also” link in blue beneath the illustration for each piece of writing in this issue. If you follow that link, it will take you to another thread in this vast artistic conversation that we all have a part in creating. May the process of making those connections bring you joy.
As always, thanks for reading.
Yours in Recovery,
Mary Akers
Posted in main | Tagged winter2018
“The Undertow” by Katie Strine
“Eve & The Apple” by Elizabeth Leader, pastel on Fabriano paper.
(See also “In Flight Safety Card” by Lauren Eyler.)
She runs toward the water and the sun holds tight on the horizon. It wants to watch. It wants to illuminate her as she makes her way into the water: ankles, knees, waist, and then she dives into the water. Her body swallowed, the feet flip up and flirt toward shore before they, too, disappear.
He’d like to submerge his body along with hers and feel the weightlessness of swimming and the excitement of sliding his legs by hers without being able to see beneath them. But he can’t swim, so he watches from the shore until she returns breathless.
She replaces her shirt and shorts. Darkened splotches appear throughout her clothes as the water seeps into the fabric. “Is that your first memory? You were three?”
He’s told her about his father. His memory of him throwing him into the water, teaching him to swim.
“Yea—yea, it is. I can recall a circle of the scene—not all of the background, not the entire setting, just like looking through a telescope, you know? Just a circle and there I am in my shark swimming shorts and there he is in a faded yellow polo shirt.” The childhood emotion returns. The pit of his stomach raw with it.
“Have you tried to swim since then?”
He shakes his head no. He has a tan complexion. Time in the sun. Hardened lines around his face. Once the season shifts to fall, she thinks his hue will lighten, but the structure will remain the same. There’s a certain vulnerability to those lines. His past present on his face.
“Fathers have a way of penetrating our futures, don’t they? Without even knowing it. Subtle choices causing distant effects.” She decides in that moment to take him home. Back to her small apartment, a place nestled at the city edge. She boasts its view of the lake, although at night, she confesses, it’s a blackened version of its former self.
He surveys the area: one main living space with a kitchenette, a bathroom and a bedroom. She has squeezed and fitted trinkets and treasures throughout the landscape. Oddities, she calls them. Collections from her former lives. The oddest of them all catches his eye—an entire presentation of false teeth sitting in an open box on her window sill. He bumps his fingers along one of its rows.
“My father was a dentist,” she says to his back. “He saved antique gear like that.”
“Was. Saved. It’s all in the past now.”
“What did you want to show me?”
She pulls a purple-and-blue dyed fabric to one side and motions for him to enter her bedroom. Along one wall someone has painted a seascape mural. An octopus drifts through coral and seaweed. He spies jellyfish, swordfish, and other urchins.
“You paint?” he asks.
“I dabble,” she replies.
A small lamp on a corner table is fitted with a blue bulb. She lights candles and a stick of incense. The smoke flows through the space. She hits play on a small radio on the dresser and it’s too soft for him to discern what band it is—if any—or what instruments are played.
She indicates for him to lie on the bed. When she straddles him, he tightens his eyes on hers. He thinks of her as a character. One with marbles for eyes that turn others to stone. A hybrid of mythology and reality. She dives in to kiss him and he thinks she tastes like seaweed. They wrestle about the bed in the blue light. He comes up for air periodically and spies the mural. He feels at ease with her. He feels the weightlessness he had wished for earlier.
They fall asleep, her hair kinked and splayed against the pillow.
He wakes at an uneven hour. A strand of moonlight bounces onto her collection and he stands and scrutinizes each piece. He asks questions about her through their weight, how each one feels or looks. One of the smaller items fits nicely in his palm. He carries it back to the bedroom and rubs at its glass mold.
In the morning, light crashes against the windows. The lake is now visible: placid, at peace with a mild mist at its lips.
“You’re like the undertow, you know?” He tugs at her and pulls her under the covers with him and they kiss, morning mouths and last night’s naked bodies.
Her back rocks against him and flutters with the sheets. She feels the glass object at her feet and nudges her big toe toward it. She recalls the motion as if searching the ocean floor for a sand dollar.
Pulling it out of the sheets, she eyes it. Wraps her fingers around its curves. Its shape cavernous to other worlds.
“Was it a gift,” he asks, “from your dad?”
She brushes back her wild hair, imagines each soft, existing memory of her father—a collage the expanse of a skyscraper—and sighs. She holds up the object which catches the sun’s ray and illuminates a yellow glow. When she finally responds, her voice hovers above a whisper and he hears seagulls in her throat. Distant and sad. She tells him, yes, it was a gift and a promise and a lie and a lesson and it was everything.
He wonders if he’s meant to respond, but has nothing to say. He pictures her dad. In this awkward silence he’s surprised to find himself imagining his face. Imagining what lines or curves of hers were other gifts of his.
When he leaves, an amalgam forms in his mind of her and the undertow. A raging beauty that seethes with some type of untouchable vengeance. A distance spreads between where she remains in the bed and where he descends. The space dark and exact but empty all the same.
Katie Strine tolerates life through literature and dark beer. She lives in the east suburbs of Cleveland with her family—husband, son, and dog—who accompany her on oddball adventures. Her work has been or will be published in The Writing Disorder, The Wayne Literary Review, Visitant, The Furious Gazelle, and BONED. Stay in touch via Facebook, @ktstrine.
Posted in Archives, ShortsOnSurvival | Tagged winter2018
Contributors Winter 2018
Sudha Balagopal‘s (Leaf Music) recent fiction appears in Ellipsis Zine, Spelk Fiction, Jellyfish Review, Lost Balloon and Whiskey Paper among other journals. She is the author of a novel, A New Dawn, and two short story collections, There are Seven Notes and Missing and Other Stories. More at www.sudhabalagopal.com
Gina Marie Bernard (this is not a love poem) is a trans woman, roller derby vixen, and full-time English teacher who has completed a 50-mile ultra-marathon, followed Joan Jett across the US, and purposely jumped through a hole cut in lake ice. She has written one YA novel, Alpha Summer (2005), and one collection of short fiction, Vent (2013). Her poetry has recently appeared in Mortar, The Cape Rock, New Plains Review, and Leveler.
Roy Bentley (Time Under Water) is the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National
Endowment for the Arts, and fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and the Ohio Arts Council. Books include Boy in a Boat (University of Alabama), Any One Man
(Bottom Dog), The Trouble with a Short Horse in Montana (White Pine), Starlight Taxi (Lynx House); as well as Walking with Eve in the Loved City, a finalist for the 2018 Miller Williams Poetry Prize selected by Billy Collins and due out from the University of Arkansas Press.
Wanda Deglane (Christmas Lights) is a freshman at Arizona State University, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She is the daughter of Peruvian immigrants and lives with her huge family in Glendale, Arizona. When she isn’t writing, she paints and spends time with her dog, Princess Leia.
Alena Dillon (Mei Lei) is the author of the humor collection I Thought We Agreed to Pee in the Ocean. Her work has appeared in publications including The Rumpus, Slice Magazine, The Doctor TJ Eckleburg Review, and Bustle. She teaches creative writing at St. Joseph’s College and Endicott College and lives in MA with her husband and their dog. “Mei Lei” is an excerpt from Mercy House, a manuscript she’s currently shopping to agents. Visit her at alenadillon.com.
Lanier (Lane) Wright Fields (Fuel) is a southern transplant living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. Professionally, Lane has performed technology witchcraft, taught sociology, worked in a factory, and gone corporate. Besides poetry, Lane’s hobbies and interests include music and shows, leftist activism, veg*n cooking, straight edge and hardcore subcultures, video game history, philosophy and social theory, and spiritual development.
Jacqueline Jules (His Grey Hoodie) is the author of three chapbooks, Field Trip to the Museum (Finishing Line Press), Stronger Than Cleopatra (ELJ Publications), and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications including The Broome Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Hospital Drive, and Imitation Fruit. She is also the author of 40 books for young readers. Visit www.jacquelinejules.com.
Sarah Kunstler (The Imposters) is a criminal defense lawyer, documentary filmmaker, and lifelong New Yorker. She is a member of the Rumble Ponies Writing Collective. You can find her on Twitter at @skunstler
Margaret MacInnis’ (The Unspoken) essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Brevity, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, River Teeth, Tampa Review, and other journals. Her work has been distinguished by Best American Essays and Best American Nonrequired Reading series, and is anthologized in the 2015 Love & Profanity and the 2009 River Teeth Reader. Since 2010, she has worked as personal assistant to Marilynne Robinson, American novelist and essayist.
Sabyasachi Nag (Indian Rememdies for Tereusitis) is the author of two books of poetry: Bloodlines (Writers Workshop, 2006) and Could You Please, Please Stop Singing (Mosaic Press, 2015). His work has appeared, or is forthcoming in several publications including, Contemporary Verse 2, Perihelion, The Squaw Valley Review, The Rising Phoenix, Void and the VLQ. Originally from Calcutta, India, Sachi lives in Mississauga, Ontario with his wife and son.
Rae Pagliarulo (Chain Smoking) holds her MFA in Creative Writing from Rosemont College. Her work has been featured in Full Grown People, Ghost Town, bedfellows, New South, Hippocampus, The Manifest-Station, Quail Bell, and Philadelphia Stories, and is anthologized in The Best of Philadelphia Stories: 10th Anniversary Edition. She is the 2014 recipient of the Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize and a 2015 Pushcart Prize Nominee.
Ali J. Shaw (The Brussels Sprouts Rule) has Rocky Mountain air in her blood, but she calls the Pacific Northwest home. Her nonfiction has been featured in Hippocampus Magazine, VoiceCatcher, and the Dime Stories reading series, and was a finalist for the Victoria A. Hudson Emerging Writer Prize. She is currently at work on a memoir. Ali is an editor who collects typewriters and rescue animals.
Billie R. Tadros (Convalescence) is a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She has published a book of poems The Tree We Planted and Buried You In (Otis Books, 2018) and two chapbooks, inter: burial places (Porkbelly Press, 2016) and Containers (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). Her poems have recently appeared or will appear in Crab Fat Magazine, Entropy, Lavender Review, pnk prl, and White Stag Journal.
Meg Tuite (Nobody Scars the Same Landscape) is author of a novel-in-stories, Domestic Apparition, a short story collection, Bound By Blue, and won the Twin Antlers Collaborative Poetry award for her poetry collection, Bare Bulbs Swinging, as well as five chapbooks of short fiction, flash, and poetic prose. She teaches at Santa Fe Community College, is a senior editor at Connotation Press and (b)OINK lit zine, and editor of eight anthologies. Her blog: http://megtuite.com
Posted in Contributors | Tagged winter2018
“Fuel” by Lanier Wright Fields
Posted on December 30, 2017 by Mary Akers
“God Asks Why” by Peter Groesbeck.
(See also “Fecundity Expanse” by Sasha West.)
My father swears up and down
that, when he was thirteen,
he mistook an unmarked vat
of kerosene for water. In this
as in all things, he drank
with gusto. Everything burned
inside him for days.
I cannot help but feel sick
superiority when I tell someone
I don’t drink. Vodka, whiskey—lesser spirits
might heed whispered invitations
to woozy, jet-propelled calamity. But each
shot of firewater is exactly that
to my guts: corrosion, all the way down.
Walking down my street
past the liquor store, I watch
the neighborhood boys siphoning
gasoline to trade for nips.
Two teenagers hand the tube
to a younger one. They say, “Don’t worry,
everyone swallows some the first time.”
Lanier (Lane) Wright Fields is a southern transplant living and working in Boston, Massachusetts. Professionally, Lane has performed technology witchcraft, taught sociology, worked in a factory, and gone corporate. Besides poetry, Lane’s hobbies and interests include music and shows, leftist activism, veg*n cooking, straight edge and hardcore subcultures, video game history, philosophy and social theory, and spiritual development.
Posted in Archives, Poetry | Tagged winter2018
“Indian Remedies for Tereusitis” by Sabyasachi Nag
“Womb” by Mia Avramut, wax on paper, 5.8 x 8.2 in.
(See also “Fulfillment” by Avital Gad-Cykman.)
Certain alpha hoopoes have the taste
For both, Philomel and Itys.
In India, they prey after dark when exhaust
From the beer factory gags the sky so tight
One can taste the malt in their wing pits.
Gods know. They respond by reforming
Believers into nightingales; into swallows.
Then they take a break from trying.
Conjure new Ovids, request new hosannas.
Certain ranting rebel birds—
They reconfigure into line-following photovores
You find, clung to guardrails
Or reflected on neo-colonial candelabra—
Their muscles pumped with plastic blood
Programmed to put them in auto reverse
Soon as they hit a wall.
Then they make walls, beautiful walls.
Then they take down the lights. Observe.
Those that repeat-fail clearly-laid rules,
They transform them into fire ants
You find, after a storm has warped the steel,
Taken everything.
Their arteries choked with moon-lather
That would put them on burn
Soon as someone touches them.
Sabyasachi Nag is the author of two books of poetry: Bloodlines (Writers Workshop, 2006) and Could You Please, Please Stop Singing (Mosaic Press, 2015). His work has appeared, or is forthcoming in several publications including, Contemporary Verse 2, Perihelion, The Squaw Valley Review, The Rising Phoenix, Void and the VLQ. Originally from Calcutta, India, Sachi lives in Mississauga, Ontario with his wife and son. He is an alumni of the Squaw Valley Writer’s Conference and is currently a candidate in the Writer’s Studio at the Simon Fraser University. He works in education and human resources.
Posted in Poetry | Tagged winter2018
“The Impostors” by Sarah Kunstler
Image by Dawn Estrin, 2010.
(See also “Shot Through the Heart” by Jim Ruland.)
“Trust me,” he said. “This stuff is imported, honey. You serve it at your next dinner party, their jaws are going to drop.”
The cheese/quince/cracker combo felt dry in her mouth. There wasn’t enough saliva to work it around, much less swallow it down. One mouse.
She coughed, politely at first, but couldn’t hold it back for long, the involuntary retching that followed as her body rejected the free sample. She put her napkined hand over her mouth, her hand closing into a rigid fist as she secreted the warm, moist mass inside.
“Thank you,” she said, and walked away, abandoning her nearly empty shopping cart, picking up her pace when she heard the man calling, “Hey lady!” after her.
She pushed forward, cart-less, whizzing past the Bakery and Deli sections before making a sharp left and ducking into Bulk Foods, taking deep breaths as she listened to the steady rhythm of shoppers scooping and pouring and scooping and pouring, measuring out portions of rice, grains, nuts, and seeds. Still only one mouse, but one always meant more than one. They were social animals. Everyone knew that. They were also fastidiously clean, a lesser-known fact, for sure, but one that filled her with relief. Things could be worse.
After a few minutes, she was ready to move on. The supermarket was like a maze, with bright orange arrows on the floor compelling shoppers to follow a single route through the store. But it was a maze she knew, and the predictability of the layout was comforting. She’d been coming here for years, since back when she was married and lived in the neighborhood. She walked along, finding herself in Breakfast Foods, picking up cereal boxes and pretending to scrutinize the ingredients with care, trying to blend, even though she knew she wouldn’t be buying anything. It had already been enough of a day.
When she reached The Butchery, she was careful to keep her head down. A wall of glass was all that separated the violence from the retail area. As usual, and for reasons she couldn’t fathom, a throng of shoppers gathered, craning their necks to watch the butchers break down the animals, carving their carcasses into choice cuts or feeding them into grinders, the blood pooling on the scratched and dented surfaces of metal utility tables before spilling onto the floor.
It hadn’t always been that way. When she first started shopping there, the aisle had been called Refrigerated Meats, and the wall had been solid. She had even bought meat there and eaten it, the sterility of the blue-Styrofoam-and-plastic-wrap packaging making it possible for her to enjoy her ground round.
And then one day, without warning, Refrigerated Meats was gone. Orange cones blocked both ends of the shuttered aisle. There were plastic tarps and polite signage. Please excuse our mess while we remodel to serve you better! And when it was all over, when they had taken down the tarps and swept away the debris, when she could finally see the bodies hanging from hooks through the pitiless, streak-free glass, there it was. Or rather, there they were. Thousands of tiny rodents crawling beneath her skin, scratching at the surface from the inside with their sharp, careless claws. It had taken weeks for the mice to subside, weeks more for her to find her way back to the supermarket. The trick, in the end, had been simple. She pretended The Butchery didn’t exist. Some days were easier than others.
Today, she kept moving, following the arrows pointing ever forward, hurrying by Seasonal Products, where lingering too long was like touching a wound, banking left into Household Needs, where she reminded herself to breathe. She had just entered Canned Vegetables and Ethnic Foods, when she heard her name. Melinda. She didn’t look up. Maybe she had imagined it. Or more likely, it was meant for someone else. A different Melinda. And then she heard it again.
“Melinda, is that you?”
She looked up from the floor. He looked familiar, but that didn’t mean anything. He was older, square-jawed, handsome, with kind blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. Like an actor playing a man whose virility had been restored, thanks to a miracle drug.
The actor smiled and she smiled back, feeling the muscles in her face stretch. He was a good actor, and she wanted to play along. When he stuck out his hand to shake hers, she held out her own.
“Yuck,” he said, pulling away. He opened his hand, staring at the masticated lump that she had forgotten she was holding. “What is this?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She was ruining this, if she hadn’t ruined it already. More mice.
“Oh Melinda,” said the actor, dropping the napkin and wiping his hand on his jeans. “Don’t worry about it. Gosh, it’s been so long. You look … good.” He seemed nervous, and his nervousness made her feel calmer, more in control.
“You look good too,” she said. And meant it.
“Stacey has me doing Pilates.” His eyes searched her face. She smiled, hoping that was what he was looking for.
“I know, I know,” he said. “Who even knew that was a thing, right?”
“Not me.”
Melinda’s face hurt from all the smiling. She started backing away, slowly, passing the canned beets and heading toward the jarred salsas. She was going in the wrong direction, against the flow, the opposite of where the orange arrows wanted her to go.
“I’m sorry,” she said, inching backwards. The mice were jockeying for position, clamoring for space when there was no space. She turned, intending to head back to the safety of Household Needs but misjudged her distances and collided head-on with a mid-aisle display tower of hard shell tacos. The tower careened back and forth before collapsing, boxes of taco shells blocking the aisle. She tried to clear a path, pushing and kicking the boxes out of her way, squeezing her way through any open space. She had had enough. Too much. There were just too many mice.
The man was right behind her.
“Melinda, just listen,” he whispered, his mouth by her ear. “I don’t know what dreamland you’re living in, but I can’t keep paying for this. I won’t.”
She closed her eyes, and covered her ears. Inhale, Exhale. Inhale, Exhale. She counted to ten—one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand—and then did it three more times for good measure.
When she opened her eyes, the man was still there.
“Melinda,” he said. And in that one word—her name—she felt the man’s anger, frustration, pain, tenderness, even his love. But she knew it wasn’t real. He wasn’t real.
“You’re a terrible actor,” she said.
The man’s eyes flashed and turned cold, not blue after all but grey, colorless, like stones.
“Get away from me!” She screamed. “Leave me alone!”
Everything stopped. Canned Vegetables and Ethnic Foods had ceased to exist. She was overrun, her body on fire, her blood thrumming in harmony with the writhing mass, clawing at her, drawing blood, struggling to break free. She wanted to cry, but knew that if she did, there would be nothing left, not even her. Instead, she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, whispering I am here, I am here, I am here over and over like a prayer to herself.
Sarah Kunstler is a criminal defense lawyer, documentary filmmaker, and lifelong New Yorker. She is a member of the Rumble Ponies Writing Collective. You can find her on Twitter at @skunstler
Posted in Fiction | Tagged winter2018
“The Brussels Sprouts Rule” by Ali J. Shaw
Image by Kristin Beeler, 2011.
(See also “Groceries” by Cathy Smith Bowers.)
I can feel the pink alabaster frog judging me even here, in the safe space of my reading corner at home.
“It’s rude to keep people waiting,” I hear it say in my father’s voice. I want to argue with it that my father has never been on time for me and, in recent years, has averaged not a few minutes or hours late, but days. Its stony eyes stay trained on me.
It was a gift from my father when I was a teenager. Until last month, I didn’t even realize I still had it, that it had followed me through more than a dozen moves, from trailers to dorm rooms to apartments to houses. I found it after the most recent move, away from the islands of Southeast Alaska and down to the desert of Southern California. When I brought a set of plastic storage drawers into my home office, I impulsively tugged on the handle of one drawer until it surged open like a toad’s tongue snapping for a fly. There sat the frog, perched on top of various forgotten art supplies, as shiny as the day Dad had given it to me.
I slid my thumb over its smooth skin until it landed on a pockmark. An imperfection. Surely, Dad didn’t know that was there. He might have said, “A perfect frog for my perfect girl,” when he gave it to me—he often professed lines like that. But he reminded me every day that I was not perfect, that I needed to try harder to be more like him. I dug my nail into the pockmark and then displayed the frog on my bookshelf, a reminder that I was making an effort to maintain a relationship with the man who’d brought me life—a resolution to forget how he’d left me questioning the value of my own existence.
Now I break the frog’s gaze and focus on my feet. I rub my toes on the carpet, trying to ground myself. Deep breaths. I tell myself I’m okay despite the fact that I can’t stop fidgeting with my phone, can’t break the frog’s echo of “rude,” and I definitely can’t slow my heart. It’s just your dad. Call him.
For years, no matter where I lived, this has been my routine every other Sunday. Wake up, drink coffee, have a panic attack, and call my dad. If I didn’t call, I’d be breaking one of Dad’s rules.
When I was growing up, there were a lot of rules, but they all boiled down to the same basic edict. I called it the Brussels sprouts rule: if your dad told you to like Brussels sprouts, you’d say, “Mmm,” and smile despite the gagging you couldn’t control. If you didn’t—I learned from watching my brother—you would be “restricted to your room” for the night, the weekend, or the week, depending on how much Dad was drinking. You might even be hit, maybe with a hand or maybe with a belt.
I always smiled and ate my Brussels sprouts.
The Brussels sprouts rule could be applied to anything. If an adult told you to vacuum, you smiled and did it. If you were told to go to bed at seven, when the sun was high in the sky and the neighborhood kids were still playing outside, you didn’t whine or ask why. You never questioned an adult, especially Dad. If you were told to let someone kiss you, you did it, no matter if that person made you want to cringe. Suppress it. Cringing would make the other person uncomfortable, and you could never let that happen.
And as a teen, when you wake up in a panic, in the fetal position, pushed as far against the wall as you can, briefly seeing your father tiptoe back out your bedroom door, you pretend it didn’t happen. Saying something to him, or to anyone else, might make him uncomfortable. Better to just roll over.
I don’t know who I would be now if it wasn’t for the Brussels sprouts rule. If I hadn’t been trained to shrink for men.
When I was twenty and studying abroad in Spain, I once went for a run and found myself on the deserted cobblestone streets during siesta. I slowed to savor the way my footsteps echoed off the stone walls in sync with my heartbeat, the way the sun was bright and hot on the top of the walls but down in the alleyways, the air was cool and calm. Then a man emerged from a side street and smiled as he looked me up and down.
“Bellísima,” he called to me, his arms reaching.
“Qué?” I asked. It’s bad manners to ignore someone who wants to talk to you—that’s the rule. He stepped closer, and my heart pounded, not just from the run anymore. I stepped back, only to find that I was already against the building. The narrow streets suddenly felt like a trap. I glanced around, searching for some other harmless stranger to intervene, but it was siesta. The whole city was sleeping off their sangría and paella.
He rattled off something in Spanish and then gestured to his lips. “Besos, besos.” As he leaned in, I could smell his breath, see the craters of his gums where teeth were missing.
“Lo siento, I’m late.” I wanted to run, but I hesitated. Don’t be rude.
“Es tradicion.” He persisted and leaned forward, kissing me first on one cheek and then the other.
The only part of my body that moved was my panicking heart, a jackrabbit in my chest. When he stepped back, I fled to the sound of his cackling.
Now I get up from my reading chair to look at the frog, straight in the eyes, ready to interrogate it. If I’d been raised with different rules, who would I be? Someone who kicked the Spaniard in the crotch and ran off? Someone who didn’t even stop? Someone who didn’t attract creeps in the first place?
But as usual, my anger quickly dissipates into self-flagellation and I sit down again. If it hadn’t been for my father, I wouldn’t know about the inner workings of an airplane, or the wonder of used bookstores, or countless other lessons he taught me. The carpet is matted down where I’ve been rubbing my feet, but no amount of grinding my toes in will make me feel grounded. It will only get worse the longer you wait, I tell myself. Just get it over with. Shakily, I scroll through my contacts and press Dial.
It hasn’t always been like this. I used to just do what he said without thinking about it. I devoured bottles of Tums, but as far as I knew, I wasn’t stressed about my relationship with my father, or with other men.
Dad asks me prying questions about my work, my boyfriend, my friends. I answer vaguely. “Oh, it’s good. Yeah, Tim’s good. He’s watching football. His team?”
My breath catches. How might my father use this detail to hurt me? Just playing the possibilities in my mind starts a crushing constriction around my ribs. He could start calling during every 49ers game, finding ways to put me on edge so when I hang up, Tim and I will fight. He used to do that when I was visiting my mom. “Oh, Tim doesn’t really have a specific team.”
Next he wants to know about my clients, which new books are coming out. I worry he’ll start showing up to their readings, waiting outside to confront me like he used to at my high school dances. I tell him there’s just a book about menopause and hope that scares him away.
I’m not sure when it dawned on me that my relationship with my father was not normal. That most women didn’t grow up fearing punishment for being late if track practice ran long, then worry that their fathers might not come home at all, both in the same night. But over time, those stomachaches turned into chest tightness, teeth grinding, rashes, heart palpitations, and chronic pain until I could no longer deny that something was wrong. I like to think my life would be drastically different without him. I like to think that I would be a strong woman who trusts her judgment and sets people straight when they bully her.
When I hang up, I think maybe I could be that person now. Maybe.
But recovery isn’t as simple as recognizing your childhood as traumatic and deciding to be different. I do speak up now, to other people, but only after years of therapy. I tell people when they’re rude, when they’re making unfair assumptions about me, when they’ve crossed into what is unwelcome personal territory. But it’s never without wondering if I’m overreacting, if the problem is really me. If I’m enforcing dysfunctional rules just like the ones that were once pushed on me.
I pick up the frog and heft it into the air, catching it again like a pitcher idly tosses a baseball. My body tenses with the dichotomy of it all. I want so much to be good, strong, in the right. I want to be intuitive and self-protective. But what if the offense I feel influences others to suppress themselves? I will never serve Brussels sprouts, but if I serve Greek salad and someone is upset about it, they should be able to say so, shouldn’t they? Even if I feel it’s rude?
I’m aware that things like this must seem so black and white to the functional adult. You put the Greek salad out as an offering. People can eat it or not. If they’re rude, you can say, “That was rude,” then you move on. You don’t dwell on it because it doesn’t matter. And you definitely don’t let a toothless man kiss you in an alleyway.
But for those of us who learned that following the rules to please others was a matter of self-preservation, this cognitive and emotional process is harder than rocket science. We must study it and practice it for years. We must talk ourselves through the story problems. We must take test after test and hope for a better score next time. We want to believe that at some point it will become second nature, but we know on some level that it will probably always be work. Hard work.
Two weeks have gone by since the last phone call. Tim and I get up, drink our coffee, and I go to my reading chair. The alabaster frog is still eyeing me, but I stare right back. I need a break, I tell it. I need to know what I’m like without him in my head. I’ve left my phone in the kitchen and brought a Psychology Today to my reading chair instead. I have a panic attack anyway, and by early afternoon, I put the frog back in its plastic drawer and go outside to garden. But I don’t call.
Four weeks later, I’m breathing easier. I’m letting go of rules and ignoring men who try to force their way into my space. Sundays still trigger me, though. On these days, the fears creep in. What if my father shows up at my house while Tim’s not at home, pushing his way in, interrogating me about why I’ve broken the rules? But with every day that that doesn’t happen, I start to relax. To live.
I want it to stay this way. If I picture having to let him in again, I cry. I repeat to my therapist over and over “I can’t do it. I just can’t do it” until she tells me I don’t have to. This can be my life now. Finally, I send him a letter to make it official: I’m going no contact.
After, comes the fallout. The calls. The letters. Stiff handwriting on envelopes made out to Tim’s and my new address in Oregon—the one I haven’t given to anyone for fear it would find its way to him. I recognize the gaslighting, thanks to Psychology Today. I bristle at the words “that never happened” and “your mother brainwashed you.” When I remember the alabaster frog, I dig through my boxes until I find it. Still grasping the latest letter in one hand, I clutch the frog in the other, wrapping my fingers around it and squeezing. It won’t give, no matter how strong I am, and I know in my aching bones that my father will never change.
The panic attacks come raging back, but they’re different now. Instead of crumpling under their pressure, I let the heart palpitations pump blood to my arms and legs and prepare me to fight. I drop the frog into a community garden bed and write back to my father with one simple message: No more.
Then…silence. Blissful quiet.
Two years later, my breath comes easily, my heart stays calm. It’s over.
Ali J. Shaw has Rocky Mountain air in her blood, but she calls the Pacific Northwest home. Her nonfiction has been featured in Hippocampus Magazine, VoiceCatcher, and the Dime Stories reading series, and was a finalist for the Victoria A. Hudson Emerging Writer Prize. She is currently at work on a memoir. Ali is an editor who collects typewriters and rescue animals.
Posted in Essay | Tagged winter2018
“The Unspoken” by Margaret MacInnis
“What We Leave Behind,” Image by Dawn Surratt.
(See also “Those Who Once Lived There Return” by Wendy Miles.)
When my fifth grade English teacher, Mr. Garabedian, asked me to stand, the room went suddenly quiet and still. Everyone in the class turned their attention to me, and holding my breath, I stood wondering why I had been singled out. Was I in some kind of trouble, and if so, what had I done wrong?
Mr. Garabedian handed me the homework assignment I’d given him the previous day. “I’d like Margaret to read her poem.” My class had recently begun studying poetry, and this poem was our first homework assignment. “Live from the Bijoux Theatre,” Mr. G. said with a swish of his arm, pausing dramatically, theatrically, and drawing out the syllables of my name, “Maaaaargaret Maaaaaginnis.”
I confess to finding this kind of attention slightly intoxicating. I wanted more of moments such as this, and I’d read and write anything he wanted in exchange. Modeling my teacher’s behavior, I silently summoned what was dramatic and theatrical in me, and read,
I watch the waves roll out to sea,
and wonder what the ocean thinks of me
in my faded rolled up jeans
and a beach hat ripping at the seams.
“A beach hat ripping at the seams?” my father said. “Where did you get that idea?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know where it came from.” I didn’t even have a beach hat. The poem was about me and not about me. My father asked if the ocean represented God.
“I don’t know what it represents,” I said. “Maybe it’s you.”
He laughed. “Maybe.”
Maybe it did represent him; maybe everything represented him—the waves, the sea, the ocean, the faded jeans, and the beach hat ripped at the seams. Or maybe I sought to represent not my father but myself in that which was faded and ripped and alone in the cold vastness of the ocean. It was hard sometimes to distinguish where he ended and I began, that is if he ever really ended, and if I ever really began. I’ve spent my life trying to discern this.
The night I’d written the poem had been a typical Saturday night at my house, everyone in bed except me. As usual, I had been waiting up for my father to come from his AA meeting since for me there was no sleep until my father was safely home. As a young child, I used to keep my mother company while she waited. We would sit huddled together on the couch with only the glow from the TV illuminating the darkness. This had been our nightly ritual for years, but at some point she stopped waiting. I cannot say exactly when or why she stopped, all I know is that I am forever alone at that kitchen table, either reading or writing, forever ten, forever reading Judy Blume and rereading Laura Ingalls Wilder, learning from them what I could not learn in a house where the deepest and truest thoughts and emotions had been relegated to the realm of the Unspoken. Before Mr. G.’s poetry lessons, I read as I waited, raising my head from the pages before me whenever I thought I heard my father’s car in the driveway. After the poetry lessons, I would write while waiting for my father’s return. Thirty years later, I’m a light and restless sleeper, part of me waiting for a car that will never come again.
The night I wrote that first poem for Mr. G., my father had come home. I’d read the poem to him, delighting in the expression on his face—the soft glow in his eyes, the gentleness of his smile. He had this peculiar way of looking at me in the dim kitchen light, staring really, as if he were seeing me for the first time, or the last. It’s hard to know. This look haunted me then, and haunts me now. This look was one of the reasons I couldn’t go to bed until he came home. Every time he left the house, I was afraid I’d never see him again. But this night the look had a little something different in it, and he said softly, “It’s a very good poem, Margaret.” Margaret. He always called me by name. “Maybe you’ll be a writer someday.”
I cannot remember which came first, fifth grade or that little pink hardcover book on my mother’s nightstand. Fifth grade memories of Mr. G. and his poetry writing lessons are among my most vivid; they appear fully rendered in the florescent light of my fifth-grade classroom. The pink hardcover, however, is a dimmer memory that flickers in the shadow of a bedside reading lamp my mother seldom turned on—she was too busy, too anxious, too preoccupied to read to me or my younger sister. My father was the reader, disappearing for hours with a book or two, reappearing in time to read something to my sister or me. Yet it was on my mother’s nightstand I found the little pink book of poems. I picked it up. The cover was shiny and smooth as were the pages. I wasn’t supposed to be in my parents’ room if one of them wasn’t there. I was snooping. I was a snooper, my nana, with whom we lived, used to say, whenever she caught me rummaging through drawers, cupboards, and armoires. I didn’t call it snooping; I called it searching. I was searching for all that went unspoken in our house.
I stood alone on my mother’s side of the room, transfixed by my latest discovery, slowly turning the smooth pages of the book. I don’t remember the book’s title or anything I read on those pages except for the poem:
Though my soul may set in darkness,
It will rise in perfect light.
I have loved the stars too fondly
To be fearful of the night.
~ an old astronomer to his pupil
The child I was had not yet imagined that a poem, someone else’s words on paper, could articulate my feelings before I myself could, but the minute I read these words I knew it was true.
When my father was a boy of sixteen, his sister Margaret died when the passenger door of a girlfriend’s car opened and Margaret fell out, hitting her head against a guardrail. She died on impact they said, which was supposed to make everyone feel better. Who would want to consider Margaret lying in the road, half-alive, waiting while a friend ran to someone’s house to call an ambulance? Because she died on impact, she did not have to endure death’s cliché, watching scenes from her life as she began to die, seeing things she never wanted to see again. She was just eighteen. How much of life existed beyond the family parameter? Not much. It’s the pain and disappointment she’d see again as she tells her parents she’s leaving home. She cannot live with such anger and resentment; she cannot watch them further destroy each other; she cannot watch as her brother’s pain turns to self-destructive rage. She never asked to be the favored child. She didn’t ask to be spared. She would have traded places with him. That’s how much she loved him. She is dying in the street and the memory of her brother’s detached vacant stare makes her shudder. Her last thoughts will be of him. What kind of man will he become? She thinks she sees him approaching and dies straining for his hand.
But this is not what happened. Margaret died on impact. But my father had been approaching her. He reached across death for her and kept reaching for the rest of his life, and this is what I heard in his voice, every time he said my name.
At the end of the fifth grade, I wrote a poem about my aunt and wanted to present it to my father as a gift. But I showed my mother first, sensing on some level the significance of her role the Keeper of the Unspoken. I found her in the upstairs hallway. Because I interrupted her sweeping, she barely read the poem before she handed it back to me, but she’d read enough to say, “Hide that, Margaret, or throw it away. Please don’t show your father.”
My hands trembled as I folded the poem, but my eyes remained dry. I swallowed the lump of tears in my throat. I wouldn’t disobey my mother, not in that moment, because I didn’t want to upset my father, and clearly my mother thought I would if I showed my poem to him. So, I tucked the folded poem in a drawer and didn’t look at it again. I cannot remember what I wrote in that lost poem, but I must admit that I’ve been trying to recapture it for thirty years. It grieves me that I never showed the poem to my father. Never told him that his pain was mine.
In a somewhat passionate burst of inspiration, I wrote another poem for my father. This time, however, I didn’t go to my mother with it first. I was twelve now. I didn’t want to hear that I couldn’t or shouldn’t show my father. I didn’t want to relegate the poem or my feelings to the back of the dresser drawer, where they would lay tucked under scarves or underwear, seemingly forgotten. I titled my poem “The Last Time I Saw Paris” after the 1954 film that had inspired it. The film starred Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson as Helen and Charles Wills, the tragically flawed and ill-fated main characters of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Babylon Revisited.” Child actor Sandy Deschner played the couple’s young daughter, who lived with her aunt and uncle after her mother’s death. Charles has returned to Paris to reclaim his daughter and make peace with his memories. I cannot say with whom I identified more: Charles, Helen, or their daughter, who was called Vicki in the film and Honoria in Fitzgerald’s story.
At age twelve, I hadn’t heard of Fitzgerald or his celebrated story, but years later, as an undergraduate English Literature major, the story had left me weeping over the bible-thin pages of my Norton Anthology. My grief was raw and real: two years prior to reading “Babylon Revisited,” my father had succumbed to his Unspoken, ultimately taking his own life.
I cannot say which precise moment in the film provided the inspiration that made me run for a pencil and paper, or if there wasn’t one at all; maybe it was the story itself that moved me, a story of grief and regret and recklessness and love, the kind of love that manages to grow in the midst of such suffering. Though the daughter clearly loved her mother, she thrived on her father’s love and attention; here was her source of joy. Twenty-eight years later, I do not remember the poem in its entirety, but I recall the first stanza:
The last time I saw Paris,
I was free and young at heart.
I didn’t even think of us
As so very far apart.
I don’t know where my mother was, but I found my father in bed with a book propped open across his chest. I handed him the poem and he read it, and then asked if I would read it to him. Then he asked if he could keep the poem. Of course, he could, it was his. “Thank you. I’ll treasure it,” he said, and at his words, I felt a palpable joy. In that moment of shared words and feelings, my life made sense. My father folded the poem and tucked it in the top drawer of his bureau. When my parents weren’t home, I used to go into their room and open my father’s drawer to make sure the poem was still there. Every time I saw it lying there in the drawer, I remembered the passion I felt in the classroom and the passion in that burst of inspiration. I remembered the joy and pleasure I felt sharing my words with my father, such deep satisfaction, the writing itself an act of defiance in the face of the Unspoken.
Margaret MacInnis’ essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Brevity, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, River Teeth, Tampa Review, and other literary magazine and journals. Her work has been distinguished by Best American Essays (Notable Distinction 2007, 2009, 2011) and Best American Nonrequired Reading series (Notable Distinction 2009), and is anthologized in the 2015 Love & Profanity and the 2009 River Teeth Reader. She lives in Iowa City with her partner, Ryan, and their daughter, Lila. Since 2010, she has worked as personal assistant to Marilynne Robinson, American novelist and essayist.
This piece first appeared in The Briar Cliff Review
“Time Under Water” by Roy Bentley
“Turtle Territory” by Lori McNamara, oil on archival board, 2011.
(See also “Hatchlings” by William Woolfitt.)
When I swam away from Gloria Regalbuto the catamaran captain
was watching from the stern as I thrashed about with leg cramps
and waved and began my stop-and-start swim back to the boat.
It was summer. He had anchored off the North Shore of Oahu
and now he was smiling, reaching out as I grabbed a ladder.
Maybe I would have done anything to leave behind the aahh
of her loved mouth and a longing so hot it kept singeing me
and searing the air. Onboard again, I flopped awkwardly
in a corner. Leaned against a great deal of brightness.
I heard dolphins voicing, their fins whipping up
wingtip-white vortices as they raced the catamaran.
My time under water had flashed with starburst fishes
stock-still in the currents and reef as if what they were
was backdrop for a mirror of North Shore blue. I heard
someone treading water and scented a brine of ocean.
Planes of island light broke apart and reformed as if
vanishing and now revealing someone who waited
in the trough of a wave by the rocking catamaran.
Roy Bentley is the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National
Endowment for the Arts, and fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and the Ohio Arts Council. Books include Boy in a Boat (University of Alabama), Any One Man (Bottom Dog), The Trouble with a Short Horse in Montana (White Pine), Starlight Taxi (Lynx House); as well as Walking with Eve in the Loved City, a finalist for the 2018 Miller Williams Poetry Prize selected by Billy Collins and due out from the University of Arkansas Press.
“Convalescence” by Billie Tadros
“Squash Tendril” by Jenn Rhubright.
(See also “Rose” by Dylan Landis.)
You can contract the prosthetic
hold, the bad news:
I’m bandaged down to your donor
tissue. The puncture was about finish
lines. Someday maybe I’ll get there
return to my body wondering why
I run, beautifully
I crashed.
Billie Tadros is a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and her M.F.A. in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her first book of poems The Tree We Planted and Buried You In is forthcoming from Otis Books in 2018. She has also published two chapbooks, inter: burial places (Porkbelly Press, 2016) and Containers (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). Her poems have recently appeared or will appear in Crab Fat Magazine, Entropy, Lavender Review, pnk prl, and White Stag Journal, and she has also published work in the anthologies The Queer South (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014), Bearers of Distance (Eastern Point Press, 2013), and Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013).
r.kv.r.y. - comes from the dictionary definition of the word recovery: an act, process, or instance of recovering; a return to normal conditions; something gained or restored in recovering; obtaining usable substances from unusable sources.
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Arkansas to allow concealed guns in churches
(CNN) - The Arkansas House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a measure that would allow concealed guns to be carried in churches and houses of worship, and the governor’s office says it plans to sign the bill.
The measure, which passed 85-8 on Monday, gives houses of worship the option of allowing concealed weapons.
Filed under: Arkansas • Houses of worship • Violence • Virginia • Weapons
The Bible Belt brouhaha over beer
By Tommy Andres, CNN
Montgomery, Alabama (CNN) – Despite the fact that it has been federally legal since 1979, there are still two U.S. states that don't allow residents to make beer in their own homes: Alabama and Mississippi.
The issue is expected to be one of the first to surface in Alabama's state legislature as lawmakers there head back to session this week, and a colorful standoff is likely.
Homebrew laws have failed to materialize for the past five years, with religion and morality arguments narrowly beating out the estimated 5,000 underground homebrewers in the state who say their civil liberties are on the line.
Listen to the full story in our player above or on CNN Radio Soundwaves
Filed under: Alabama • Mississippi
Can religion prevent violence?
By Jim Roope, CNN
(CNN) – When tragedies happen like the shooting at Newtown, Connecticut, the question of faith often comes up. How can horrible events like that be allowed to happen?
Rabbi Marvin Heir with the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said he’s not surprised that people question religion, and, God in tragedies.
Hear his and others' perspectives on the role of religion in our world from religious thought leaders in the player above or on CNN Radio Soundwaves
Filed under: Belief • Interfaith issues • Leaders • Violence
Nigeria's Igbo Jews: 'Lost tribe' of Israel?
By Chika Oduah, for CNN
Abuja, Nigeria (CNN) - A Shabbat service is underway at the Ghihon Hebrew Research synagogue in the Jikwoyi suburb of Nigeria's federal capital territory.
Fourteen year-old Kadmiel Izungu Abor heads there with his family. They walk alongside stray goats on a road covered in red dust and potholes, lined with open sewage. They are nearly 20 kilometers away from the modern multi-story office buildings and sprawling mansions in Nigeria's capital city of Abuja.
About 50 people gather in the synagogue. They pray from the Siddur, they read from the Torah and as they chant, Abor's mellow alto begins to rise.
In a country of 162 million people tensions often lead to violent uprisings between Christians and Muslims and being part of the religious minority can be an issue. But Abor wears his kippah and his identity with pride.
"I am a Jewish Igbo," he says.
Filed under: Judaism • Nigeria
Belief Blog's Morning Speed Read for Tuesday, February 05, 2013
CNN: Lawyers seek to limit New York police surveillance of Muslims
Civil rights lawyers filed papers in federal court Monday seeking to prohibit the New York Police Department's surveillance of Muslim communities when there is no evidence that they are linked to terrorism or other illegal activities. The department's demographics unit – or zone assessment unit – was put together with the CIA's help after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The unit has acknowledged that it engaged in monitoring that included Muslim-owned business and mosques across the New York region.
CNN: Saudi Islamist preacher on trial in daughter's slaying
Outrage is mounting in Saudi Arabia about the case of a 5-year-old girl who died after allegedly being beaten and tortured by her father, who activists say is an Islamist preacher. Activists say the girl's father, Fayhan Al-Ghamdi is an Islamist evangelist popular in Saudi Arabia for his televised appearances and for speaking on air about the rewards of repenting to God. But they also say he only fancies himself as a cleric and is not recognized by the clerical establishment.
New York University students attend a town hall last February to discuss police surveillance of Muslim communities.
Lawyers seek to limit New York police surveillance of Muslims
By David Ariosto and Olivia Smith
New York (CNN) - Civil rights lawyers filed papers in federal court Monday seeking to prohibit the New York Police Department's surveillance of Muslim communities when there is no evidence that they are linked to terrorism or other illegal activities.
The department's demographics unit - or zone assessment unit - was put together with the CIA's help after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The unit has acknowledged that it engaged in monitoring that included Muslim-owned business and mosques across the New York region.
Filed under: Muslim • New York
Catholic hospital says it was 'morally wrong' to argue fetus is not a person
(CNN) - A Catholic hospital in hot water for claiming in a Colorado court that a fetus is not a person backtracked on Monday, saying it was "morally wrong" to make the argument while defending itself in a wrongful death lawsuit.
The flip-flop concerns the case of Lori Stodghill. She was 28 weeks pregnant with twins when she went to the emergency room of St. Thomas More Hospital in Canon City, Colorado, vomiting and short of breath.
She went into cardiac arrest in the lobby and died. That was New Year's Day 2006.
Filed under: Catholic Church • Faith & Health
Saudi Islamist preacher on trial in daughter's slaying
By Mohammed Jamjoom and Saad Abedine, CNN
Outrage is mounting in Saudi Arabia about the case of a 5-year-old girl who died after allegedly being beaten and tortured by her father, who activists say is an Islamist preacher.
Lama Al-Ghamdi was admitted to King Saud Hospital in Riyadh last March after suffering extensive injuries, including broken ribs, a crushed skull, bruising and burns. Family, activists and officials say she died of her wounds in late October.
Activists say the girl's father, Fayhan Al-Ghamdi is an Islamist evangelist popular in Saudi Arabia for his televised appearances and for speaking on air about the rewards of repenting to God. But they also say he only fancies himself as a cleric and is not recognized by the clerical establishment.
Filed under: Islam • Saudi Arabia
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Russia European (Northern) / St. Petersburg
Route: St. Petersburg
Code: SPB-008
Duration: 4-5 hours
Date: daily except
Discounts: %35 (2 people);
%42 (3 people);
Difficulty: Not applicable
Cost: 279 USD
-per person;
-[option #1]
The Czar of Russian Poetry
Some scholars say that Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837) single-handedly created modern Russian literature. Others say that his work is more adored in Russia than Shakespeare is here. Whichever it is, his work tackles everything: from the ennui of an aristocratic life to the simple joys of the common people of his beloved Russia. Pushkin blended Old Slavonic with vernacular Russian into a rich, melodic language. He was the first to use everyday speech in his poetry. Although born in Moscow, Pushkin traveled widely throughout the Russian Empire. He has statues dedicated to him across the country, and most towns and cities have a “Pushkin Street.” But St. Petersburg was the city where Alexander Pushkin spent most of his adult life, and he eventually died there from wounds suffered in a duel. This tour will take you to the most interesting places connected with the life and work of the great founder of Russian modern literature.
The Arts Square: Pushkin's image through his famous statue.
Pushkin town: Lyceum (school) featuring Pushkin’s youth, his debut as a poet, educational system and reforms of his time;
Pushkin town: parks and sights of Catherine's Palace.
Pushkin town: The Alexander Palace and surroundings.
Michael Castle: Pushkin's relationship with the state.
The Pushkin Drama theatre (former Alexandrovsky drama theatre): St. Petersburg theatre of Pushkin’s time.
The Public library: founded at the time of Pushkin and keeps one of the biggest collections of his works.
The Cathedral of Our lady of Kazan: Pushkin and the Great patriotic war against Napoleon in 1812.
St. Catherine Cathedral: place of the wedding ceremony of Gorge Dantes (Pushkin’s murderer) with Pushkin wife’s sister.
Kitaeva’s dacha: this is where Pushkin spent his honeymoon.
Smirdin’s bookstore: one of Pushkin’s favorite places.
Pushkin’s memorial museum on Moyka 12: this is the apartment where Pushkin lived with his family for the last two years of his life. Many of their original belongings are still here.
S. Volf and Berange’s Confectionery: from here, Pushkin left for his fatal duel on January 27, 1837.
The building of the stable department: Pushkin’s funeral was held in the Cathedral here.
Alexandro-Nevsky Monastery: the graves of Pushkin's wife and many other of Pushkin’s contemporaries - writers and poets from the so called Golden age of Russian literature (Zhukovsky, Gnedich, Krylov, Karamzin, Delvig and others.)
[Option 1] - 4 hours, driving, w/bilingual guide;
We will start our tour at the Arts Square featuring a famous statue of Alexander Pushkin. From the Arts Square, we will drive you around St. Petersburg city with short stops at Michael Castle, Pushkin Drama theater, Public Library, Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, St. Catherine Cathedral, Smirdin's bookstore (cafe "Sever" now), S. Volf and Berange's Confectionery, the Building of the Stable department and Alexandro-Nevsky Monastery. At the end of the tour, we will drive you to the Pushkin’s memorial museum on Moyka Street. Our guide will help you with the logistics of touring the museum and then you are free to enjoy the museum on your own.
[Option 2] - 5.5 hours, driving, w/bilingual guide;
This tour option takes you outside of St. Petersburg to Pushkin town (former Czarskoe Selo). We will start at the Arts Square featuring the famous statue of Alexander Pushkin. From the Arts Square, we will drive you around St. Petersburg city with short stops at Michael Castle, Pushkin Drama theater, Public Library, Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, St. Catherine Cathedral, Smirdin's bookstore (cafe "Sever" now), S. Volf and Berange's Confectionery, and the Building of the Stable department and Alexandro-Nevsky Monastery. Next, we will drive to Pushkin town (1-1.5hr). In Pushkin town we will visit the Lyceum and Kitaeva’s dacha, and walk through the Parks of the Catherine and Alexander Palaces. After we return to St. Petersburg, the guide will take you to the Pushkin’s memorial museum on Moyka Street, help you with the logistics of touring the museum and then you are free to enjoy the museum on your own.
Professional guide;
Private car;
General admission fees as described;
Specical/feature exhibitions;
Meals / Snacks / Drinks;
Coatcheck fees;
Photo/Video surcharges;
Time/Fees for pick ups outside of the city center perimeter;
Travel/Health insurance;
Special tour-related note:
Pushkin’s memorial museum on Moyka Street is closed on Tuesdays and last Fridays of each month.
Pushkin's dacha is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Michael Castle is closed on Tuesdays.
Related Tours:
Cities of the Czars
Doctor Zhivago and Pasternak
Dostoevsky's Petersburg
Hermitage highlights
Language Class
Moscow the City
Novgorod Veliky Getaway
Royal Estate - Catherine's Palace
Royal Estate - Peterhof Palace
Russian capitals - the Starter
The Legacy of Doctor Zhivago
The State Russian Museum
Welcome to St. Petersburg - day tours
Call our US office:
sokol@sokoltours.com
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Academic Achievement - 3934 entries
"...The Best of Educations." Reforming America's Public Schools in the 1980's. Chance, William 1986. 3 microfiches : negative.
"AID"-ing Academic Program Evaluation: The "Automatic Interaction Detector" as Analysis Tool. AIR 1984 Annual Forum Paper. Bloom, Allan M.; And Others 1984-May. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
The "Basics" Relative to School Climate. Wallich, Lynn R. 1981. 1 microfiche: negative.
"Harvesting Hope". Virginia Educational Program For Migrant Children. Virginia State Dept. of Education, Richmond. 1975. 1 Microfiche : Negative
"He Hit Me Back First!" Creative Visualization Activities for Parenting and Teaching. Fugitt, Eva D. 1983. 2 microfiche : negative, ill
A "Normalized" Educational Alternative for High-Risk Youth: Description and Rationale of the Boys Town Urban Program. Gilg, James E.; Greenspan, Stephen 1981. 1 microfiche: negative.
"The Effect of Science and Mathematics Integration On Selected Seventh Grade Students' Attitudes Toward and Achievement in Science." Friend, Harold 1984. 1 microfiche: negative.
[Corporal Punishment. Three Works:] The Influence of Corporal Punishment on Learning: A Statistical Study. The Bible and the Rod. 1001 Alternatives to Corporal Punishment, Volume One. Maurer, Adah; Wallerstein, James S. 1984. 1 microfiche: negative.
[Developmental Placement.] Collected Research References. Bjorklund, Gail 1986. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
[How to Develop Positive Teacher-Parent Relationships.] Steller, Arthur W. 1983-Apr-15. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
[Project SABOR]. Community School District 8, Title VII. Final Evaluation Report, 1979-1980. Silverman, Dorothy; And Others 1980. 1 microfiche: negative.
[Self-Concept: Symposium Papers from New Mexico State University.] Muller, Douglas, Comp. 1980-Oct. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
[Testimony before the National Governor's Association Task Force on College Quality (Washington, D.C., February 22, 1986).] Hanford, George H. 1986-Feb-22. 1 microfiche : negative.
10 Recommendations for Improving Secondary Vocational Education. Southern Regional Education Board, Atlanta, GA. 1985. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
16th Annual Survey of High Achievers: Attitudes and Opinions from the Nation's High Achieving Teens. Who's Who among American High School Students, Northbrook, IL. 1985. 1 microfiche: negative.
1979-1980 Hartford Project Concern Program. Final Evaluation Report 80-20. Iwanicki, Edward F.; Gable, Robert K. 1980. 2 microfiche: negative.
1980 Wisconsin Pupil Assessment Program Report. 1980. 1 microfiche: negative, ill.
1980-1981 Evaluation Findings. Austin Independent School District, TX. Office of Research and Evaluation. 1981. 5 microfiches : negative, ill.
The 1980-1981 General College Retention Program, Final Report. 1982. 2 microfiche: negative.
1981 Washington State Program Evaluation Report for Migrant Children's Education. Plato, Kathleen C.; And Others 1982-Jan. 1 microfiche: ill.
The 1981-82 Evaluation of the Title VII Bilingual Program, Project Cumbre. Roby, Wallace R. 1982-Dec. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
1981-82 Project Evaluation for Encendiendo Una Llama: A Program for Bilingual Gifted and Talented Students. Roby, Wallace 1982-Dec. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
1982-83 Test Scores and Selected School Characteristics: Elementary Schools. Chicago Board of Education, IL. 1983.. 12 microfiches : negative, ill.
1983 Summer School. Final Evaluation Report. District of Columbia Public Schools, Washington, DC. 1983-Sep. 1 microfiche: negative, ill.
1984-At a Glance. Austin Independent School District, TX. Office of Research and Evaluation. 1984. 1 microfiche: negative.
1985 Interpretive Panel Results: Educators Set Performance Expectations. Assessment Report 13: An Update on the Alaska Statewide Testing Program. Alaska State Dept. of Education, Juneau. Office of Evaluation, Assessment and Research. 1986-Mar. 1 microfiche: negative.
AAMC Longitudinal Study of Medical School Graduates of 1960, Executive Summary. Erdmann, James B.; And Others 1978. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
AAMC Longitudinal Study of Medical School Graduates of 1960. NCHSR Research Digest Series. Erdmann, James B.; And Others 1979. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
An Abashing Anomaly: The High Achieving Predominantly Black Elementary School Sizemore, Barbara A.; And Others 1983-Jan. 8 microfiches : negative, ill.
An Abashing Anomaly: The High Achieving Predominantly Black Elementary School. Executive Summary. Sizemore, Barbara A. 1983-Jan. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
Abbreviated Lifestyle Assessment Information as an Indicant of Delinquent Versus High Achieving Male Juveniles. Nield, John B.; Taylor, James S. 1980. 1 microfiche: negative.
Abilities of North American Orientals: A Study in Acculturation. Vernon, Philip E. 1982-Jul. 1 microfiche : negative
Ability Grouping in the Schools: A National Phenomenon. Levenson, Stanley 1979. 1 microfiche : negative.
The Ability of High School Chemistry Students to Solve Computational Problems Requiring Proportional Reasoning as Affected by Item In-Task Variables. Falls, Timothy H.; Voss, Burton 1985. 1 microfiche : negative.
Ability Test Performance and Test Validity Difference among Sex and Ethnic Groups. Technical Report. Sung, Yong H.; And Others. 1982.. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
Aboriginal Students in Victoria. ACER Research Monograph No. 3. de Lemos, Marion M. 1979. 3 microfiches : negative, ill.
Absence from School: Patterns and Effects. Stennett, R. G.; Isaacs, L. M. 1980. 1 microfiche: negative.
Abstracts from the Research and Development Report Series, 1963-81. College Board Report No. 82-1. Hendel, Patricia K., Ed. 1982. 1 microfiche: negative
Abstracts of the Finalists of the International Science and Engineering Fair (34th, Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 9-14, 1983). Science Service, Inc., Washington, DC. 1983. 3 microfiches : negative.
Abstracts of the Finalists of the International Science and Engineering Fair (35th, Columbus, Ohio, May 8-13, 1984). Science Service, Inc., Washington, DC. 1984. 3 microfiches : negative.
Abstracts of the Finalists of the International Science and Engineering Fair (36th, Shreverport/Bossier City, Louisiana, May 12-18, 1985). Science Service, Inc., Washington, DC. 1985. 4 microfiches : negative.
Abstracts of the Finalists of the International Science and Engineering Fair (37th, Ft. Worth, Texas, May 11-17, 1986). Science Service, Inc., Washington, DC. 1986. 4 microfiches : negative.
Abusive Relationships: A Comparison of Battered and Exbattered Women. Mahaffey, Martha Bernal 1984-Apr. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
Academic Achievement among Early Entry Students. Montz, Lesteen Tina Richardson 1985. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
Academic Achievement and Reading Ability: Hispanics, Males and Females. Rivera, Manuel G. 1983.. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
Academic Achievement and Self-Concept of Academic Ability: A Four-Year Longitudinal Study. Shaw, Robert A. 1983-Aug. 1 microfiche : negative, ill.
Academic Achievement in a Handicapped and a Non-Handicapped Incarcerated Juvenile Delinquent Population. Hill, Nancy C.; And Others 1981. 1 microfiche: negative.
The Academic Achievement of Freshman and Junior Education Candidates. Maxwell, James P. 1986-Apr. 1 microfiche: negative.
Academic Achievement of GED Graduates of the Community College of Allegheny County. Clark, Renee Smith 1987-Jul-24. 1 microfiche: negative.
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Forums > 80s Prime Time Soaps > Falcon Crest >
FALCON CREST versus DYNASTY versus DALLAS versus KNOTS LANDING versus the rest of them, week by week
Discussion in 'Falcon Crest' started by James from London, Sep 23, 2016.
Page 11 of 14 < Prev 1 ← 9 10 11 12 13 → 14 Next >
James from London Soap Chat Star
01 Feb 89: DYNASTY: Delta Woe v. 02 Feb 89: KNOTS LANDING: Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Wrench v. 03 Feb 89: DALLAS: The Switch v. 03 Feb 89: FALCON CREST: True Confessions
There are more echoes of DALLAS than usual in this week’s DYNASTY. For starters, the post-coital scene between Fallon and Zorelli at the start of the ep is almost identical to the equivalent scene between Sue Ellen and Nicholas Pearce last season (following the cliffhanger where they ripped each other’s clothes off). Back then, the hungry lovers feasted on spaghetti; here, they make do with pizza. Where Sue Ellen looked ravishingly ravished, her hair sexily tousled, while wearing Nick’s bathrobe, Fallon looks even better in just her red underwear. All is well until it becomes apparent that Fallon, like Sue Ellen before her, isn’t planning to stay the night. At this point, Zorelli, just as Nicholas did, cops an attitude and suggests that she had an ulterior motive for going to bed with him in the first place. Whereas Nick accused Sue Ellen of using him to make JR jealous, Zorelli reckons Fallon did the deed to get her father off the hook for murder: “You were hoping that if you and I got together, then I wouldn’t be so hard on your old man.” During a later phone conversation with Zorelli, Blake suggests that the shoe is on the other foot: “I will not tolerate you using my family!”
There are similar accusations at the start of this week’s DALLAS. Arriving back at April’s condo after the Oil Barons Ball, JR makes it clear he expects to sleep with her, even though he is now married to Cally. April declines, offering him the couch instead. Then she realises: “She’s gonna think we spent the night together. Is that what this is all about?” “Don’t you think I wanna make love to you?” JR asks her. “Not really. I think you’re just using me to get rid of her,” she replies. Across town, Cliff suggests that Tammy Miller also has a hidden reason for inviting him to spend the night at her apartment (which, weirdly, has the same exterior as Jill Bennett’s place on KNOTS). “I think you were ready to prove to yourself that you didn’t care about Bobby anymore. What better way to do that than to go to bed with me?” he asks.
Fallon makes it back to the Carrington mansion in the early hours of the morning to discover Adam lurking in the shadows — which is just where Sue Ellen used to find JR when she would return to Southfork after one of her trysts with Dusty or Clint in DALLAS’s early years. The exchange that follows sizzles with the same kind of venomous animosity the feuding Ewings shared. “Well, if it isn’t Cinderella … I guess you got your ticket to the Policeman’s Ball,” sneers Adam. “You really are an ass, aren’t you?” Fallon retorts. “And what are you, Fallon — what would you call the woman who’s sleeping with the cop who’s trying to put her own father in jail?” “A lesson in morals from a man who has none!” And on they go, the insults landing thick and fast. They talk over each other too, as people do all the time in real life but hardly ever in Soap Land (KNOTS being an occasional exception), not least because it makes editing a scene a major hassle. The overlapping dialogue works really well, adding both momentum and verisimilitude to their sparring.
Fallon’s late night doesn’t go unnoticed by her father either. “I don’t know you anymore, Fallon. My own flesh and blood and I swear, I don’t know you,” he tells her coldly over breakfast the next morning. By the time JR gets home to Southfork (having slept on April’s sofa), breakfast is over. His plan to upset Cally by his absence has worked, but when she asks him directly, “Did you make love to her?”, he cannot bring himself to lie, which is the first indication that his attitude towards her might be softening.
Back on DYNASTY, even the dead are giving Fallon a hard time for sleeping with Zorelli. The most blatant of the episode’s DALLAS references is the scene in which the three most memorable aspects of Bobby Ewing’s resurrection — a dream sequence, a dead man and a shower — are conflated into one: a dream sequence involving a dead man that takes place in a shower. Fallon is doing her ablutions when she is visited once more by Roger Grimes, his appearance distorted by the steamed-up glass of the shower door and his voice by an echoey vocoder-style effect. “If you really cared for me, you wouldn’t be fooling around with him!” he snarls at her. It’s as mental as it sounds, but also really good.
Another DALLAS-style scene takes place as the extended Carrington family (which now includes Dex, Sable, Virginia, Jeff and Sammy Jo) gather in the library for pre-dinner cocktails. Adam and Fallon continue to bicker like a blood-related version of JR and Sue Ellen, Virginia throws her martini at Dex and storms off, Blake follows her, Jeff, Sable and Dex each make their excuses and leave, and Sammy Jo is left to referee Adam and Fallon over dinner.
Sable’s discreet exit comes after she hears Sammy Jo describe the intruder who spooked her at Delta Rho in last week’s ep. She realises that it must be Gibson, the man she paid to dive to the bottom of the Carrington lake (for reasons we have yet to ascertain) at the start of the season. She tracks him down to a motel where she finds him in bed with an anonymous blonde and gives him his marching orders: “You were brought here to do a job. You were paid and very well … Time to go home, Mr Gibson.”
Gibson, the diver, is to Sable on DYNASTY what Mrs Bailey, the forger, is to Jill Bennett on KNOTS — a loose end who needs to be silenced before they can incriminate her. While Sable rams her point home by threatening Gibson with his own knife, Jill does something far worse to Mrs Bailey — but we aren’t told precisely what. Just as DYNASTY ends with an exchange of gunfire between Gibson and Sammy Jo, each of them falling to the ground after being shot, KNOTS also concludes with a life hanging in the balance. Mack and co. discover Mrs Bailey lying in a hospital bed in some kind of catatonic state, unable to answer any of their questions about Jill. “She’s not going to recover,” says Frank. Cut to Jill eavesdropping in the hallway, smirking triumphantly.
There are no exterior scenes in this week’s DYNASTY, presumably for budgetary reasons, but such limitations work to the show’s advantage. In the same way that Alexis’s continued absence adds to her stature, the resultant hemmed-in, claustrophobic atmosphere only increases the episode’s tension. Again, I’m reminded of early era DALLAS where, towards the end of a season, the show would become increasingly studio-bound just as the dramatic stakes were getting higher.
While DYNASTY looks inward, the KNOTS and FALCON CREST universes expand. KNOTS does a nice line in one-scene characters as Mack and Frank, during their search for Mrs Bailey, encounter an assortment of her neighbours, past and present, each of whom manage to make an impression in the space of a few screen minutes. My favourite is an eccentrically cantankerous landlord who, upon seeing through Mack’s claims to be Mrs B’s nephew who ran away to sea, calls him a bird brain. FC, meanwhile, introduces some new tertiary characters, one of whom, Cookie Nash’s father Justin, is played by DYNASTY’s dead major-domo, Joseph. Whereas Joseph was vehemently against his daughter Kirby getting involved with a Colby or Carrington, Justin is as eager to marry Cookie off to Lance as Angela is. While Kirby first arrived on DYNASTY after breaking up with a man called Jean Pierre, Cookie hasn’t “slept with anyone since Jean Claude left me. That was six months ago.” Or so she tells Lance when he asks if he is really the father of the baby she is carrying.
“Any woman who builds her life around her husband is headed for disaster,” declared Sue Ellen on DALLAS a couple of years ago. Exchange the word “husband” for “man” and there’s no shortage of Soap Land gals who have yet to heed her warning. Take Tommy Ortega’s girlfriend Kelly on FALCON CREST, for example. We met her briefly a few weeks ago, but this week’s ep is our first opportunity to see how desperately needy she is. She’s clearly threatened by Tommy’s newfound fulfilment in his work at the Tuscany Herald. “You’ve got a job that you love and that’s great,” she lies. “I have a man that I love and I wanna be with him … Work doesn’t have to be your whole life.” There’s something heartbreaking about the way she clings onto him even as she realises that in doing so, she’s actually driving him away. “Is there somebody else?” she asks. “No,” he replies — but it’s not true. In a gender reversal of the May/December romances between Cally and JR, and Paige and Greg, Tommy has quietly fallen for his boss, Maggie Channing. And as with Peter Richards’ infatuation for Sue Ellen, his feelings are writ large for everyone to see.
Whereas FC’s Kelly is stuck in a small-town dead-end job, KNOTS LANDING’s Jill is a successful attorney — at least by day. By night, she’s even more unhealthily obsessed by a man than Kelly is. In fact, her behaviour more closely resembles Ray Krebbs’ spurned girlfriend-turned-stalker Connie from last season’s DALLAS. We see her spying on Gary through the window of his house then letting herself in when he’s not there. While Kelly brings up the subject of marriage to a reluctant Tommy, Jill goes so far as to buy and then wear a wedding dress in preparation for her and Gary’s nonexistent big day. (After her thrillingly original campaign against Val at the end of last season, such behaviour feels a tad psycho-for-beginners.)
Unlike Kelly and Jill, DALLAS’s Cally has already married the object of her desire. She just needs him to acknowledge the fact. To that end, she turns to her predecessor for advice. “To JR, the chase is more important than anything,” Sue Ellen explains. “You have to tease him and tantalise him … The more he can’t have you, the more he’s gonna want you.” As Sue Ellen and Bobby have already stated, we know that Cally “would be better off just forgetting about the marriage and going on back home”, yet we’re still rooting for her to achieve her goal. To borrow Cally’s own phrase, “That’s kind of sick, ain’t it?”
Jill and Cally each subsequently succeed in turning the tables on her respective Ewing man. When Gary, hoping to find “something that would prove … one way or the other” her involvement in Val’s overdose, is apprehended breaking into Jill’s apartment, she seizes the opportunity to accuse him of harassment: “Gary, can’t you see yourself? You’re acting crazy!” Meanwhile at Southfork, once Cally remembers to leaves her bedroom door open while she’s trying on a pair of silk stockings, JR quickly becomes the one who’s getting hot and bothered over her.
Sable Colby and JR Ewing each conduct business in a den of vice this week. From behind a one-way mirror in a gambling club (“a temple for illegal pursuits”), Sable and Dex observe Fritz Heath, Colby Co’s controller, “happily racking up debt after debt with no idea that we both have him in our crosshairs … He’s like a science project. Let’s dissect him, shall we?” Meanwhile, JR meets Rattigan, his younger, more physically imposing Harry McSween replacement, in a daytime titty bar — a kind of televisual precursor to Tony Soprano’s Bada Bing, but without the casual nudity. At one point, however, a girl in an itty-bitty bikini dances in front of JR with her back to the camera. After he tucks a wad of notes into her briefs, she removes her top and throws it to him. As Soap Land depictions of the female form go, this is certainly more grubby than glam, but in a way that hearkens back to the DALLAS’s early years. The bar is populated by the same kind of middle-aged male clientele who used to ogle the big-breasted waitresses at the Cattleman’s Club, the show’s original hang out before Soap Land fell under DYNASTY’s designer spell.
JR’s dancer at the titty bar and Gibson’s bed partner at his motel are both nameless blondes mostly shown naked from behind. We know nothing about them, but that doesn’t prevent characters from referring to them as if they were a lesser species. “Your wit is about on par with your women,” Sable tells Gibson after she has ordered the girl to leave them alone. “You don’t wanna go home with this, JR,” says Rattigan, handing the dancer back her bikini top.
As the breakout star on THE COLBYS, the decision to bring Sable over to DYNASTY was in one sense a no-brainer. Looked at another way, however, she’s almost the least likely character to cross over. As the ultimate “woman who builds her life around her husband”, Sable’s entire existence focused on Jason and their children. Even after their divorce, she went to remarkable lengths to remain in the family home. How would she, of all people, fare as an outsider in another city in another show about another family? The answer is, of course, remarkably well. But whereas her motives on THE COLBYS were easy to read — everything she did was to protect her family and/or her place within it — here, they are shrouded in ambiguity. Aside from revenge on Alexis, what does she want? And why has she gone to such lengths to befriend the Carringtons — is she after a future with Blake or a tumble with Dex? Or both? And what reason could she have for sending a diver to the bottom of the Carrington lake? Sable’s newly mercurial nature is reflected in her vocal delivery which is both fascinating and ever-changing. In some scenes, her mood seems to shift from one line of dialogue to the next. One second, her voice will be dripping with honey and generosity, the next, it’s suddenly ice cold and full of malice.
Speaking of unclear motives, I’m not at all sure why Richard Channing spends most of this week’s FALCON CREST in Chicago with Pilar Ortega and a man called Malcolm St Clair while pretending to Maggie that he’s in New York, except that it has to do with banks and consortiums and dummy corporations and takeovers. I’m intrigued, but also plain baffled. I don’t know if that reflects a fault in the storytelling or just my own limited grasp of such matters. Or perhaps we’re not yet meant to fully grasp whatever is going on. We do at least get some kind of explanation at the end of the ep: “We’re gonna have it all — the whole of the Tuscany Valley!” crows Richard to St Clair. The music swells, the frame freezes and it feels like a satisfyingly dramatic end to the episode — even if “the whole of the Tuscany Valley” seems like pretty small potatoes next to “the entire California wine industry”, which is what Richard was after when he first arrived in FC — but I guess times are tough.
Minor trend of the week: Bosses rejecting their secretaries’ interior design ideas. On DALLAS, Cliff and Jackie bicker over a tastefully scenic painting she thinks “would have looked great hanging in your office.” “… I’m not paying $12,000 for that!” he argues. Throughout this week’s KNOTS, Peggy tries out various trees and plants as decor for Mack’s new office, all of which he rejects. What should be a running gag becomes instead a running irritant thanks to Peggy’s ham-fisted attempts at comedy.
Krystle Carrington and Pam Ewing cast a shadow over their respective shows this week. “We’re all so fond of Mrs Carrington. It hasn’t been the same since she’s been gone,” laments a touchingly awkward Jeanette on DYNASTY. Meanwhile on DALLAS, Bobby talks to his son about his relationship with Tracey Lawton. “What if Mama came back and you were married?” Christopher asks. “Mama is never coming back,” insists Bobby firmly. Over on FALCON CREST, there’s a sweet little scene where Ben Agretti gets to say the kind of things to his long-lost mother that Christopher will never have the chance to say to Pam: “I always thought that I’d done something wrong and that’s why I didn’t have a mom … I wanted you so much, I didn’t know if I could ever forgive you for leaving me.”
And this week’s Top 4 are …
1 (3) DYNASTY
2 (2) KNOTS
3 (1) DALLAS
4 (-) FALCON CREST
“All art is unstable. Its meaning is not necessarily that implied by the author. There is no authoritative voice. There are only multiple readings.” - David Bowie
James from London, Nov 8, 2018
08 Feb 89: DYNASTY: Tankers, Cadavers to Chance v. 09 Feb 89: KNOTS LANDING: Without a Clue v. 10 Feb 89: DALLAS: He-e-ere's Papa! v. 10 Feb 89: FALCON CREST: And Baby Makes Three
As Pam Ewing learnt to her cost way back in the DALLAS mini-series, barns can be dangerous places in Soap Land — and never more so than this week. DYNASTY opens with the stables at Delta Rho not only on fire but with Sammy Jo and her assailant Gibson unconscious inside, each wounded after shooting the other. Over on KNOTS, Jill steals into Gary’s barn and sabotages his saddle. The last person to play such a trick was Sable on THE COLBYS as part of a scheme to gaslight her sister-in-law Constance. We’ve already seen Jill shopping for a wheelchair (“My fiancee broke his leg,” she informs the shop assistant) so she presumably has a more Misery-inspired scenario in mind. (Although the movie version of Misery had yet to be released in early ’89, the original novel had been a big hit the previous year.)
It’s an unwritten Soap Land rule that characters trapped in a fire must be rescued by one of their show’s leading men rather than an anonymous member of the emergency services. So it is that Jeff Colby joins the heroic likes of Mark Jennings, Bobby Ewing and, most recently, Lance Cumson as he drags Sammy Jo to safety. Gibson makes it out of the barn on his own and, like Sammy Jo, winds up at Soap Land Memorial Hospital where KNOTS LANDING’s Mrs Bailey is also in residence. Whereas Jill is satisfied that Mrs B no longer poses a threat to her (“They can ask you all the questions they want, you’re never gonna be able to answer,” she gloats during one of her thought bubble thingies), Gibson remains a thorn in Sable’s side. “You’ve got something to hide from somebody,” he tells her over the phone. “Either you get me out of here fast or I’m gonna spread my name and yours in every newspaper in this city.”
Mrs Bailey may not be able to incriminate her verbally, but Jill suspects she has “a lot of interesting things at home — I bet you’re the type of woman that holds onto all sorts of thing that should have been thrown away.” Mack reaches the same conclusion, but while he’s waiting for a warrant to search her apartment legally, Jill simply lets herself in. Back on DYNASTY, there’s a parallel scenario as Adam, intrigued after seeing Dex hand Virginia a letter (“I put some thoughts down on paper — please look it over, maybe you’ll understand what I did”), sneaks into her room to look for it. He and Jill each rifle through the drawers of a bureau (the place where Julie Grey once hid her key to the Red Files), but without success. Jill then finds a shoebox under the bed (Digger Barnes’s hiding place of choice for various legal documents), but this also proves a red herring. Adam eventually hits pay dirt when he locates the letter in a bedside dresser (the same place Jessica Montford and Caress Morelle hid their own highly confidential documents) while Jill gets lucky when she finds copies of Mrs Bailey’s forgeries in a hatbox (where Sue Ellen used to secrete her booze). Before either has time to savour their victories, they hear the sounds of voices and approaching footsteps. Hark, it is Mack arriving with his warrant and Virginia returning to change clothes. Tension mounts: are Adam and Jill about to be caught redhanded? Not likely — while he dives into a wardrobe, she makes her exit through a conveniently placed back door.
We don’t get to see what is in Dex’s letter, but it apparently contains enough about Virginia’s unhappy past for Adam to pull the same “we’re both outsiders” shtick he used on Kirby in an attempt to get her into bed. Over on FALCON CREST, Anna Cellini uses nostalgia to try to rekindle the passion between her and Nick Agretti. “Let’s be seventeen again,” she suggests. Virginia and Nick each succumb to these methods of seduction. Jill, on the other hand, becomes only further isolated from her former KNOTS friends. Following Mrs Bailey’s all-too-convenient stroke, neither Mack nor Gary bother to conceal their suspicions about her. Ironically, this allows her to play the “Poor Jill” victim card. “It’s Val, isn’t it? … She sucked one more person into her little fantasy … What you think I did, Mack? Do you think I had Mrs Bailey write her suicide note?” she asks indignantly over the phone while burning the very papers she swiped from Mrs B’s closet (and wearing one of her hats for good measure).
“What do I have to do to prove to you people I’m innocent — take a lie detector test?” she continues. And so Jill Bennett becomes the first Soap Land character to submit such a test since Wes Parmalee on DALLAS two years ago. Just like Wes, she passes with flying colours. In both cases, there is no explanation as to how the character has been able to outwit the machine, beyond a reminder that it is not a hundred per cent accurate. Karen’s suggestion, “Maybe Jill’s so far gone, she actually believes what she said was true”, echoes a similar line about Wes (“Maybe he went back to a time in his mind when he believed he really was Jock”) and is as close as we get. When the results of the test fail to convince anyone of Jill’s innocence, she begrudgingly agrees to see a shrink of Gary’s choosing, played by the same therapist who counselled Sue Ellen during her stay at the Dream Season Sanatarium. Dr Gilbert, as she is now known, turns out to be as wrong about Jill (“It is my considered opinion that she is not a danger to anyone”) as she was perceptive about Sue Ellen (specifically, her tendency to blame others for her problems). Lie detectors, shrinks and psychics — ultimately, they are as accurate as Soap Land’s plots require them to be.
Just over a year ago, FALCON CREST’s anti-hero, Richard Channing, became a respectable married man when he wed the wholesome Maggie Gioberti. More recently, his Ewing-verse equivalents, Greg Sumner and JR Ewing, have followed suit by marrying Abby and Cally. Whereas JR is unhappy with this state of affairs (“Marriage was not on my agenda and married I do not wanna be,” he informs his new bride, who responds by planting a cream pie in his face), Greg appears to embrace it: “I didn’t think I’d ever get a shot at a life like that again. I didn’t want one. Things have changed. I feel like I’m part of a family now.” Both he and Richard make a public display of their new “family man” image this week.
Mack watches briefly while Greg and Abby are portrayed as “the perfect American family” during a TV interview before turning his attention to Meg’s diapers: “I’d rather change it than listen to it.” On FC, Maggie has other concerns when she watches Richard being interviewed alongside Pilar Ortega on the 6 O’Clock News regarding his role as “benefactor of the new community centre.” “I told Richard not to wear that purple tie,” she frets. Richard goes on to explain that his newfound altruism is due to “the example set for me by my wife Maggie, to whom generosity is second nature.” Beneath the public facades, however, lie more complicated questions. “Is there anything going on between you and Pilar Ortega?” Maggie asks. Richard assures her there isn’t. “Did you know Pilar before she came back to the valley?” she continues. Again, he says no. Neither answer is the full truth. Back on KNOTS, Ted Melcher broaches an even thornier subject: “Why did Greg Sumner give up his baby?” “… Who cares? It doesn’t relate to the issues,” Greg replies. “That’s what Dukakis said when Bush started to talk about the pledge of allegiance,” retorts Ted.
This is Soap Land’s first reference to George Bush Sr, who was sworn in as President of America just three weeks before this episode originally aired (Ronald Reagan having held the office since the day before Abby first met JR until the day after she married Greg). In another sign of the times, Michael Fairgate and his latest unrequited crush Ellen more or less invent the internet — or at the very least Google. “First, you start with your knowledge base which is kind of like a library of facts … then you write a programme called an inference engine which uses the knowledge base to draw to conclusions,” Ellen explains. “You guys must have been eating your Wheaties,” marvels their professor. Over on DALLAS, Sue Ellen, after rolling her eyes at the concept of an ATM machine a couple of weeks ago, claws back a modicum of credibility by introducing the term “significant other” to Soap Land. “That’s what they’re calling them these days,” she informs a slightly baffled Carter McKay. (DALLAS seems to be setting McKay and Sue Ellen up as future allies, but I think this ep is the last time we see them together.)
While Clayton and Miss Ellie are off screen “having a wonderful time” in Europe for the second week in a row, Alexis is finally back from Natumbe. As this is her first appearance since Krystle’s poignant departure, one might have expected an acknowledgement in the same “let bygones be bygones” spirit of JR’s parting words to Ray Krebbs on DALLAS two weeks ago (“Right now, I only remember the good times”). Instead, Alexis’s sole reference to her former bête noire occurs as she is taunting Sable for trying to move in on Blake. “What a pity that Krystle’s still alive; that does cramp your style rather. Maybe you should send one of your henchmen to Switzerland and pull the plug on her,” she suggests. Sable is genuinely taken aback: “I don’t know another soul on earth that would make a remark as low as that.” Maybe not, but JR comes close as he quizzes Sue Ellen about Nicholas Pearce’s background, the first time he’s mentioned the man since killing him at the end of last season: “You two must have talked once in a while — couldn’t have spent all your time in the sack.” But even this remark pales in comparison to what he says after a vengeful Joseph Lombardi abducts him and demands to know who should be made to pay for his son’s death. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s my ex-wife Sue Ellen,” he insists. “If it hadn’t have been for her, your boy would still be alive.”
The standout scene on this week’s DYNASTY is a mano-a-mano confrontation at the mansion. In front of the assembled Carrington clan, Zorelli angrily accuses Blake of using his influence with the police department to have him removed from the Roger Grimes case. “They put me behind a desk, took my gun … Do you have any idea what that means to a cop?!” he yells. “Sounds a bit like castration, doesn’t it?” snipes Adam on the sidelines. Blake is outraged by the allegation, Jeff and Adam take his side, Fallon defends her boyfriend, Virginia attempts to play peacemaker and pretty soon everyone’s shouting over each other, the camera’s shaking and Blake has to be restrained from physically attacking the younger man. “Get him out of here before I kill him!” he shouts. The whole thing is thrillingly out of control, in a KNOTS Season 4 type way.
Just as Jill is now an outsider on KNOTS, Fallon’s decision to side with Zorelli places them on one side and the rest of the Carringtons on the other. After all the convoluted romances and storylines Fallon has experienced over the past nine years, it’s kind of remarkable that this relationship should feel as important as it does. While it obviously helps that their affair is tied into a much bigger storyline and that Fallon herself has been revamped so successfully this season, another crucial ingredient is Zorelli — arguably the show’s most rounded and certainly most down-to-earth male character since Matthew Blaisdel back in Season 1.
KNOTS’ best scene is also a face-off between two men. Whereas Blake and Zorelli’s encounter is loud and chaotic, Greg and Mack’s is measured and controlled and takes place in the privacy of the latter’s office. In place of raised voices and snide remarks, there is small talk (Greg: “I was surprised to hear you were leaving the government” Mack: “I was surprised to hear you wanted back in”), prevarication (Greg: “Time has a tendency to change your perspective” Mack: “When did you become so philosophical?”) and an unspoken tension which is finally broken by Mack saying what Greg cannot bring himself to: “You want Meg back.” It feels significant that for this scene, Greg is dressed the same way he was for the speech in “Bouncing Babies” last season when he formally handed Meg over to the Mackenzies (camel brown overcoat, slicked-back hair). But whereas he stared directly into the camera lens back then, he now hides behind dark glasses, suggesting an inability to look either Mack or himself directly in the eye.
At one point, their conversation turns to Laura’s death. “You looked like it didn’t matter,” says Mack. “Just because I didn’t flip over backwards and break into tears on the casket doesn’t mean I didn’t care,” Greg replies. The same accusation could be levelled at Sue Ellen following the death of Nicholas Pearce. She hasn’t flipped over backwards either, even though we’ve previously seen her dissolve into a self-piteous heap over far less. Maybe she’s done her grieving in private, away from both the other characters and the audience — as if she’s already started receding from our view, in preparation for her departure at the end of the season. A simpler explanation is provided by Sue Ellen herself in the last and best scene of this week’s DALLAS which, like Mack and Greg’s, is an office-based encounter. “I wanted to shut it out, to forget that evening ever happened,” she tells Joseph Lombardi, who wants to know if her account of the events leading up to Nick’s death matches JR’s. “You’re the only one left who can speak for my son,” he tells her poignantly.
Given Lombardi’s “eye for an eye” philosophy, Sue Ellen essentially holds JR’s life in her hands — will she blame or exonerate him regarding his role in Nicholas’s death? The scene is also her only opportunity to express her grief on screen and Linda Gray makes the most of it, managing to imbue even a line as clunky as “I hated JR so much, I shot him and when he survived, I was furious” with genuine emotion. Proving how far she’s come since that Dream Season therapy session with Jill Bennett’s doctor, Sue Ellen ultimately takes the high road and admits responsibility for her own role in what occurred: “Nicholas loved me, he’d do anything for me, and because of that, he’s dead … If only I hadn’t insisted on him helping me look for John Ross, if only we hadn’t gone to JR’s condo that night, if only I had stopped the fight between JR and Nicholas before it got so violent. If only, if only — they’re such empty words.” It’s a little gem of a speech.
FC also saves its best scene for last. Pilar sees Lance’s revelation that Cookie Nash is carrying his child and raises him a nine-year-old-daughter he never knew he had. Heck, he doesn’t even remember it being conceived. In circumstances remarkably similar to Adam and Dana’s backstory on DYNASTY, Pilar was a high school girl from the wrong side of the tracks with a big crush, Lance was a troubled teen too inebriated to know what he was doing, and together they made a baby. While Dana had an illegal abortion, Pilar went the unofficial adoption route (as did Greg with Meg) and gave the kid to her aunt to raise as her own.
Minor trend of the week: witches. Dex Dexter alludes to Macbeth when he finds himself face to face with Sable and Joanna. “Now all we need is one more witch and a cauldron,” he quips. Meanwhile, Jill Bennett evokes Arthur Miller’s The Crucible during a wonderfully indignant speech to Gary: “During the Middle Ages, if they thought a woman was guilty of witchcraft, they’d bind her hands and feet and throw her in some water and if she sank, she was innocent — she was pretty much dead, but she was innocent — and if she floated, she was guilty. So they took her out, dried her off and burnt her at the stake. It was a no-win situation. Gary, I know exactly how those women felt.”
1 (2) KNOTS LANDING
4 (4) FALCON CREST
James from London, Nov 18, 2018
15 Feb 89: DYNASTY: All Hands on Dex v. 16 Feb 89: KNOTS LANDING: The Spin Doctor v. 17 Feb 89: DALLAS: Comings and Goings v. 17 Feb 89: FALCON CREST: Dinner at Eight
“You are hardly what I imagined a soldier of fortune would look like,” Alexis remarks when she is introduced to Cray Boyd on DYNASTY. “You’re not quite what I imagined,” echoes Sue Ellen when introduced to movie director Don Lockwood on DALLAS.
Cray and Don are two of four significant male characters making their Soap Land debuts this week. Cray, Adam Carrington’s old pal-turned-mercenary, is played by the same actor as John Remick, Chase Gioberti’s old pal-turned-mercenary, on last season’s FALCON CREST. But for the fact that Remick had only one leg the last time we saw him, Cray could be the same character under an assumed name. Both men come from a fancier background than your average soldier for hire — Remick’s brother was a US senator while Boyd studied international law at Yale (“so I’d know how to break it”). The only notable difference between them is that Cray is somewhat suaver than his FC twin — and a lot flirtier (“I can think of more exciting things to seize than your ships,” he tells Alexis in front of her son). Meanwhile, Carter McKay’s son Tommy, who shows up this week on DALLAS, turns out to be the spit of DYNASTY’s corpse du jour, Roger Grimes. “You look great!” exclaims his sister Tracey when he first appears. “Why not? Haven’t done much but lay around the past couple of years,” he replies. Roger Grimes looked great in his first scene too, and he’d spent the previous twenty years laying at the bottom of the Carrington lake.
Tommy McKay also has a few things in common with DYNASTY’s other new face, Tanner McBride — similar names, big hair (Tanner wins the battle of the bouffants) and a preoccupation with drugs. Whereas Tommy has just served a prison term for possession, do-gooder Tanner bursts into Sammy Jo’s hospital room, mistakes her for a teenage junkie and proceeds to tear a teddy bear apart looking for her secret stash. (Turns out Tommy keeps his in his suitcase.) Over on FALCON CREST, it looks like Anna Cellini might have a drug habit too, what with all those furtive trips to the bathroom where she injects herself with morphine. However, it eventually transpires that she is dying of cancer and doesn’t want her family to know.
The subject of drugs crops up again during two parent/child conversations in this week’s Ewingverse. On KNOTS, Olivia disapproves of Abby attempting to take Meg from the Mackenzies. “Why would you wanna start again and screw up some new kid’s life?” she asks her. “Oh I am a terrible mother, aren’t I? Look at the way I got you off of drugs,” replies Abby sarcastically. “Why do you think I started drugs to begin with?” Olivia retorts. Meanwhile on DALLAS, there is an uneasy reunion between Tommy McKay and his father. “Maybe we’ll end up one big happy family,” Tommy suggests, somewhat ironically. “Maybe we will if we try — and if you stay off of drugs,” replies Mack. “Speaking of which, have you quit drinking yet?” Tommy shoots back.
Cray Boyd and Don Lockwood are central to Alexis and Sue Ellen’s latest schemes, both of which are unveiled this week. Whereas Sue Ellen’s has been hinted at over the past few weeks — her acquisition of a movie studio, clues about the film she intends to make — Alexis’s plot is both hatched and set in motion within the space of an episode. Having had her ships swiped from under her nose by Sable at the end of last week’s episode, she hires Cray to get them back. “What you’re asking is no small operation,” he warns her, sounding not unlike BD Calhoun during his preliminary conversations with JR on DALLAS two years ago. “The Bay of Natumbe is not an easy place to operate. It’s going to take helicopters, armed speedboats, some sophisticated tracking equipment … Some very good men are gonna be on the line, with wives and kids … Whatever comes down, nobody will be able to trace anything to you. I just wanna make sure it works the other way around too.” Meanwhile, Sue Ellen pitches her movie idea to Don as “a Texas version of Citizen Kane” before flashing back to the scene at the end of Season 1 where JR had her committed to a sanatarium. That’s when we understand for sure what (or rather, who) her movie is all about. “It’ll be a dream come true for me — and a nightmare for the person it’s dedicated to,” she smiles.
Once Don has agreed to write and direct the film, Sue Ellen enlists Lucy, aka “the only Ewing who feels the same way about JR as I do”, to supply him with a few JR-related stories of her own. This leads to a second flashback, between JR and Val from ten years earlier. The Val we see here bears almost no relation to the one in this week’s KNOTS, but there is one connection between them. “Get the hell out of here!” Val tells JR in 1979 after he barges into her motel room. “Would you please leave?” she asks JR’s brother Gary in 1989 after he all but insists on spending the night on her couch (“I don’t trust Jill,” he tells her). Like JR before him, Gary ignores her wishes and spends the night in his car outside her house instead. This leads to a really fun scene the following morning where almost the entire cul-de-sac ends up peering curiously through his car windows, where the camera has assumed his point of view, which means that they’re all peering at us. Back on DALLAS, Lucy concludes her recollection by alluding to an ongoing estrangement between her and Val: “We did get together, but it didn’t last for very long.” Meanwhile on DYNASTY, there is talk of another crossover character after Blake learns that Sable was behind Gibson’s dive to the bottom of the Carrington lake and concludes that she must be in cahoots with her former husband. He orders Jeff “to find Jason, talk to him, tell him that I’ll meet him anytime, anywhere.”
Blake’s discovery also leads to the best scene of this week’s DYNASTY where he confronts Sable in her suite at the Carlton over what he regards as her betrayal: “We took you into our home, we trusted you. You were even part of our wedding.” Before she has a chance to justify her actions, they are interrupted by Alexis. (Ah, the joys of hotel living in Soap Land: arch enemies barging into each other’s living quarters without any need of explanation.) Whereas Sable is elegantly dressed in a ballgown for this scene, Alexis looks magnificently tacky, as if she were her own drag queen impersonator off to shimmy the night away. “What have we here — a lover’s quarrel?” she drawls. “I simply don’t believe my eyes — poor Krystle barely breathing on life support in Switzerland and her devoted husband breathing heavily down that trollop’s neck … But then you never really did care about your wives, did you, Blake? I was forced into an affair with Roger Grimes because of your indifference, but poor Krystle — she found her own way out just in time.” Poor Krystle — how interesting that Alexis has taken to referring to her blonde rival with the same prefix that Jill Bennett does hers.
“Are you going to hit me, Blake, like you hit Roger Grimes? I bet if you had a gun, you’d shoot me too,” she continues, the acuity of her jibes making the insults Cliff throws at JR during a showdown on this week’s DALLAS (their first since they started working at Ewing Oil together) appear cumbersome by comparison: “JR, you are a proctologist’s dream — the biggest horse’s behind I have ever seen!” Alexis’s gasp-inducing remark to Sable about Krystle in last week’s DYNASTY (“Maybe you should send one of your henchmen to Switzerland and pull the plug on her”) is matched by Abby on this week’s KNOTS as she and Karen argue over Meg. “Do you think Laura would have you raise her child?” Karen asks. “Well, she doesn’t have much to say about it anymore, does she? She’s dead,” Abby replies coldly. And just as the prospect of Alexis raising Krystina (“If worst came to worst, I’d take care of her myself”) triggered a violent impulse in Krystle during their final scene together, so the idea of wicked, wicked Abby bringing up Meg (“I’ll be a wonderful mother … I promise you”) prompts Karen, after nine years of on-screen animosity, to finally slaps her sister-in-law across the face. Having been similarly struck by Laura in Season 2 (“You are such a slut”) and Val in Season 3 (“I can have him anytime I want him”), Abby has now completed the Seaview Circle hat trick (or hit trick).
As fun as Karen and Abby’s showdown is, my favourite moment from this week’s KNOTS is a brief but atmospheric scene that occurs on the grounds of Gary’s ranch. Earlier in the ep, Jill’s efforts to injure Gary by tampering with his saddle backfired after he lent his horse to Julie Williams and she took the fall intended for him. (This is another echo of Sable’s saddle-tampering scheme on THE COLBYS in which Frankie became her unintended victim.) Pat has just learned from Pete the ranch hand (not to be confused with Pete the ranch hand from earlier on this season’s DALLAS) that Julie’s supposed accident was no such thing when she spots a figure lurking outside Gary’s boathouse. It’s raining heavily, the view is blurry, we can only see what Pat sees, but the figure appears to be Jill. Pat calls her name and clambers up a hill towards her, but by the time she gets near, the figure has disappeared. And that’s it. But there’s a lingering eeriness about the scene that for some reason reminds me of Magic, the spooky 1978 thriller that starred Anthony Hopkins, Ann Margaret and a demented ventriloquist’s dummy.
This is the week that Cally Ewing takes up painting and discovers the Southfork exercise room. “It’s a great way to work off whatever’s bothering you,” explains Lucy while lifting a few bars. “Instead of smacking someone, you just start pumping away.” As if to illustrate her point, this week’s FALCON CREST opens with Lance playing an energetic game squash against himself — a neat metaphor for his present inner conflict: Should he try and build a future with Cookie Nash, the mother of his unborn child and the woman Angela wants him to marry, or Pilar Ortega, the mother of a child she hid from him and the woman he actually loves? Adam Carrington has trodden similar narrative ground in recent seasons (the return of a high school lover, the discovery of a secret pregnancy in the past, a conflict over a pregnancy in the present), but DYNASTY has now dropped all that and he’s back to being the vicious twisted bastard he used to be — which is much more fun to watch. This week, he exhibits some hitherto unexplored sexual predilections when he tries to force Virginia to dress up as a prostitute for him — “Madonna by day, hooker by night,” as he puts it.
In what I think is a Soap Land first, FC’s Pilar receives two marriage proposals in the space of one episode. The first comes from creepy (and married) Malcolm St Clair, with whom she apparently had an affair before her return to the Tuscany Valley. Pilar toys with St Clair’s affections for a while, even trying on the engagement ring for size, before turning him down: “This has nothing to do with marriage, Malcolm. You just wanna make sure I back up your story about Troilus with the SCC.” This is a reference to a business manoeuvre I wish I understood better. Basically, Richard and St Clair each need Pilar on his side. Otherwise, Richard will go to jail for business fraud (or something like that) or St Clair will lose out on a fortune. “I’ll back whoever makes it most worth my while,” Pilar tells them. Her second proposal comes from Lance and she immediately accepts it. The look of triumph on her face as they embrace suggests she might not be motivated by love alone. Not everything goes her way, however. Richard’s way of getting her on side is to threaten the wellbeing of her secret daughter.
Soap Land’s kids play a prominent role on each of this week’s eps, apart from DYNASTY. Much of KNOTS deals, very believably, with the fallout from Greg’s decision about taking Meg back — Karen and Mack’s bewildered “this can’t be happening” reaction reminds me of Sid’s after he found himself accused of rape back in Season 2. Olivia unintentionally adds to their stress when she takes Meg for a walk and then doesn’t return for hours. The Mackenzies’ role as Meg’s de facto parents parallels Cally’s position on DALLAS. In the absence of both Sue Ellen and Pam from Southfork, she is starting to become a surrogate mother — but to Christopher rather than John Ross. This is a surprisingly touching development that I hadn't really registered on previous viewings. Cally also takes a Kristin-style dive off the Southfork balcony to save John Ross when he knocks himself unconscious and falls into the pool after sassing her (his mixture of cockiness and vulnerability once again anticipating Josh Henderson’s interpretation of the role). Like Cally, Richard Channing’s son Michael exhibits an artistic streak when he presents Angela with a drawing he has done of her while playing in his father’s office. She smiles indulgently — until she turns the drawing over to discover an incriminating memo. “I’ve just discovered that you’ve been running Troilus all along!” she tells Richard at the end of the episode. It’s a suitably dramatic moment, but one I’d enjoy even more if I could fully understand what was going on.
KNOTS and DALLAS both end with a woman manipulating her (ex) husband’s public image. On KNOTS, Abby overrides Greg’s wishes (“I will not go to the newspapers with a sob story about my wife, I will not use my daughter for cheap publicity”) when she informs a journalist that, “my husband has had a very tragic personal life.” While she hopes to evoke sympathy and support for Greg, Sue Ellen has something else in mind for JR: “When this picture is released, he’s going to be the laughing stock of Dallas … JR is going to be so embarrassed, he’ll never be able to show his face anywhere and that is going to be my ultimate revenge.”
Headline of the week: “Secretary Swallows Chimpanzee To Save Her Boss From Mauling,” yells the front page of the National Informer we see Sammy Jo reading in hospital.
This week’s Top 4 are …
01 Mar 89: DYNASTY: House of the Falling Son v. 02 Mar 89: KNOTS LANDING: Double Jeopardy v. 03 Mar 89: DALLAS: The Way We Were v. 03 Mar 88: FALCON CREST: Uneasy Allies
Blake loses his temper with Adam on this week’s DYNASTY, first striking him across the face with the back of his hand, which sends him tumbling down the Carrington staircase, and then banishing him from the mansion: “Go on, get out of here, get out of this house!” Such is his volatile state of mind (“Steven runs off God knows where, Adam drives Krystle’s cousin away and won’t even own up to it and you, you’re cavorting with a cop that’s trying to put me behind bars — you call that a family?!” he barks at his daughter) that it falls to Fallon to play peacekeeper. Over on DALLAS, JR and Bobby are scarcely on speaking terms and so Cally adopts the same role. “I don’t care how many problems we have right now — we are a family and that won’t change,” states Fallon emphatically. As the new addition to the Ewing clan, Cally is on less certain ground, and so turns to her new mother-in-law for some insight into JR and Bobby’s sibling rivalry. However, Miss Ellie proves of little practical use. “They’ve always been opposites, ever since they were children, and it’s just gotten worse since they’ve gotten older,” she shrugs.
There is no-one left to keep the peace on FALCON CREST after Richard’s wife and mother both turn against him upon learning that he was behind Troilus all along. Angela disowns him (“I don’t have a son”) while Maggie walks out on him yet again. “You can do whatever you want to, but you’re not going to take the children anywhere,” he tells her. Maggie consults an attorney who offers some familiar sounding counsel: “The days are long past when a woman would automatically get custody of the children in a divorce … then there’s your history of alcohol addiction.” Yep, it’s Sue Ellen and JR fighting over John Ross all over again.
As one custody storyline is introduced, another returns to bite Greg Sumner in the ass. Much to everyone’s surprise, his decision to leave Meg with Karen and Mack plays well with the voters and it looks like he is on his way to winning the election — until someone leaks details of his original suit against them to the press and his popularity starts to plummet. That someone turns out to be Paige, motivated partly by love — she wants to prevent Greg moving away to Washington — and partly by revenge: “You don’t need sympathy — you don’t get hurt, remember?” she tells him coldly after he loses.
While Paige’s betrayal goes undetected on KNOTS, Pilar’s association with Richard is exposed on FALCON CREST. “He brought her back to the valley to help him buy up all of the land,” Angela tells Lance. Pilar does a good job of talking her way out of trouble. “I swear I didn’t know what Richard was up to,” she insists, “not until a few weeks ago. I tried to stop him … He threatened Lisa.” She then secures her place at the Falcon Crest table by persuading Lance to marry her straightaway, before anyone can talk him out of it. This brings Lance’s wedding tally up to four, making him both Soap Land’s most married male (level with Alexis and Abby) and the character that has tied the knot most frequently on screen.
Richard’s justification for “buying up the valley” is interesting. “I’m trying to kick its butt into the twenty-first century!” he tells his mother. “Don’t let heritage and family pride and all that nonsense keep you on the sidelines … Falcon Crest has to change if it’s gonna succeed in the future.” But his words fall on deaf ears. “Angela Channing still has her feet planted firmly in the nineteenth century,” he declares. If Angela isn’t willing to move with the times, neither is DALLAS’s Jordan Lee, who announces his decision to quit the oil business: “Too many damn foreigners in Texas already … It’s enough to make any decent oilman turn over in his grave … I don’t wanna stick around to see the end, Cliff.” Cliff responds with a couple of xenophobic remarks of his own: “I suppose before long they’re gonna ask us to trade in our Stetsons for turbans … We’ll be having roast goat for Thanksgiving instead of turkey before long.” While there have been examples of casual racism throughout this season’s FALCON CREST (directed towards the Hispanic community), these have been shown in a wider context. Crucially, the “damn foreigners” on FC are characters in their own right rather than offscreen bogeymen. In the absence of an opposing point of view, Jordan’s and especially Cliff’s comments leave a somewhat nasty taste. (It’s funny — while I have no problem whatsoever with Cliff blowing up his grandkids on New DALLAS, hearing him deliver a couple of lame racist gags is genuinely dispiriting.)
This week’s DYNASTY and KNOTS each feature some demented behaviour from a female character who is having a delayed reaction to a traumatic event. Sable Colby, recovering from the shock of having Fritz Heath pull a gun on her, shows up at Dex’s apartment and delivers a rambling anecdote about the death of her childhood nanny (“We all heard the collision and we ran — the windshield was just like a spider’s web”) before producing Fritz’s gun from her purse and pointing it, finger on the trigger, at her own face. Meanwhile, Val reacts to the news of Jill Bennett’s death by going for a run then collapsing, not in tears but in hysterical laughter. Not even the fact that her ex-husband is in the slammer on a murder charge can kill her vibe. “I can’t believe it’s finally over!” she exclaims happily as she and Karen await news of Gary’s fate.
It is very common in British soaps to see characters discussing a storyline they are not directly involved in. They may have no vested interest in the outcome and usually aren’t in full possession of the facts, but that doesn’t stop them speculating and even passing judgement in a gossipy, “over the garden fence” type manner. Such scenes are far more rare in the 80s super soaps but are nonetheless very satisfying. They help widen a show’s canvas and makes the characters seem less compartmentalised. Such a scene takes place on this week’s KNOTS with Greg and Abby discussing Gary’s arrest for Jill’s murder. To begin with, Abby doesn’t think he did it. “Don’t you think it’s a little strange to be caught driving around with a corpse in the trunk of your shiny new jag?” responds Greg drily. “I just can’t imagine him killing anyone,” she replies. “Why do people always say things like that?” he asks. “You take fifty schoolboys who think that killing is immoral — you send them to boot camp, you put a rifle in their hands and you tell them it’s for the greater good and all of a sudden, you have fifty war heroes sitting around telling war stories about the dead they’ve chalked up.”
I find myself comparing this observation of Greg’s with Cliff’s jibes about “Stetsons for turbans” and “roast goat for Thanksgiving” on DALLAS. Whereas Cliff’s feeble, knee-jerk wisecracks seem even more depressing in a present-day context than they did in 1989, Greg’s remarks sound positively subversive now that we’re living in an era where the prevailing assumption is that anyone who enlists in the armed services is automatically a hero.
As well as being enjoyable in its own right, Greg and Abby’s discussion also serves to advance the Jill murder plot — for it is in this scene that we are first offered an alternative reason as to why her body ended up in Gary’s trunk. “He could have done it to protect Val,” Abby concedes, “or he could have been stupid enough to cover up if Val had done it.“ And so it gradually emerges that, for the first time since the deaths of Carlo Agretti and Ciji Dunne, Soap Land has two concurrent murder mysteries on its hands: Who killed Roger Grimes and Jill Bennett? That said, save for Adam’s not-so-veiled accusation towards his father this week (“Why are you so concerned because some two-bit cop is nosing around your past? The minute the body was mentioned, you looked as guilty as hell!”), all is quiet on the Grimes front at present, what with Zorelli consigned to desk duty and Alexis out of the country for weeks at a time (all the better to tease the storyline out to the end of the season).
Theme of the week: Physically estranged exes communicating from a distance. On DYNASTY, Dex is miffed because Alexis left for Paris without even telling him. He still manages to argue with her long distance, however: “I used to have a life of my own before I talked myself into trotting along behind you like some damn little pet lemming … We do have a terrible connection and I’m not just talking about the damn phone line!” Meanwhile on KNOTS, the geographical distance between Val and Gary isn’t as great, but the dramatic stakes are even higher. “The police told me not to talk to you,” he says when she calls him following his release on bail. “They’re gonna be asking me a lot of questions and I don’t wanna have to stand up in court and say we talked the whole thing over.” Hmm, there certainly seems to be some kind of conspiracy between them — but what? We’ve been here, or somewhere very similar, before of course — back when Val believed Gary was taking the rap for Ciji’s murder to protect her. Just as he did then, Mack acts as an unofficial liaison between the authorities and the cul-de-sac gang.
Flashbacks are an important component of the Ewingverse’s storytelling this week. Last week’s DALLAS included Soap Land’s first flashback-within-a-flashback and this week’s KNOTS brings us another spin on the convention. After Gary has flashed back to what he claims are his final moments with Jill (including his terrific “I hate everything about you” rant: “I hate the smell of your hair, I can’t stand the sound of your voice, I can’t stand the way you dress, I can’t stand your mannerisms, the way you chew your food …”), we are shown what the police think happened next — a “flash-hypothesis”, if you will: Gary knocking Jill unconscious, then tying her up, forcing pills and booze down her throat, gagging her, wrapping her in a blanket and taking her out to his car. This makes Sue Ellen’s flashback to her drunken confrontation with JR over with Holly Harwood followed by her and Mickey’s car crash look a little vanilla in comparison. After recounting the police version of events to Karen, Mack passes judgement on Gary: “He did it!” After filling Don Lockwood in on the sad fates of Walt Driscoll and Mickey Trotter, Sue Ellen kisses him for the first time. End of both episodes.
In fact, there is no shortage of budding romance this week. Like DALLAS, DYNASTY concludes with a newly paired couple embracing. Its freeze frame has Sable pinned against the wall of her hotel room, eyes closed and mouth open in a portrait of ecstasy as Dex buries his face in her décolletage. DALLAS’s final shot is comparatively clunky with Don, wearing what looks like his best Christmas jumper, rolling on top of Sue Ellen, who is dressed as if to go sailing, while they both lie on a prop bed in a fake bedroom on the soundstage of Sue Ellen’s movie studio. Back on DYNASTY, in spite of her surprise assertion that, “I’m not much of a one for one-night stands”, Alexis insists on giving Cray Boyd a Parisian afternoon to remember before sending him off to battle — or at least Natumbe to steal back her tankers. Rather more chastely, Pat Williams confesses to feelings for Gary on KNOTS. “It’s OK — every woman gets a crush on Gary once in her life,” Karen assures her intriguingly. Even more intriguing is the new pairing hinted at following the mayoral election. Greg is watching the TV coverage in his office when he realises his defeat is inevitable. Fortunately, Abby is on hand to provide first class consolation and support — she’s philosophical (“we may have lost the battle but we’ll win the war”), witty and teasingly affectionate. “You’re so understanding you’re making me horny,” Greg tells her. We then cut immediately to Abby standing in Ted Melcher’s office moments later, all of her twinkly good humour suddenly evaporated. “He didn’t wanna win badly enough,” she snaps coldly. ”Maybe he’s losing it, I don’t know, but I do know I didn’t get into this marriage to lose. I’m interested in winning and if Greg doesn’t feel the same way, I’ll find someone who does.” As she strides out of the room, Ted grabs her by the wrist. “You’ve found him,” he assures her. She looks down at him approvingly.
Less than a year after KNOTS' excursion to Santa Tecla, clay Colombian objet d’art are a Ewingverse plot point once more as DALLAS’s Tommy McKay starts importing vaguely ethnic-looking sculptures from South America to sell to the arty set of Texas. Inevitably, this turns out to be a front for a drug operation. Tommy’s subsequent meeting with a local dealer, O’Reilly, includes one of DALLAS’s rare gay references. “How’s Gustavo’s wife? Understand she’s been sick,” O’Reilly asks warily as he sounds Tommy out. “He seemed fine when he visited Gustavo in prison, OK?” Tommy replies. “It works for Gustavo, not for me,” chuckles O’Reilly. Gone are the days, it would seem, when’s Soap Land drug dealers (suave Eurotrash like Peter de Vilbis and Naldo Marchetta) conducted their business in swanky hotel rooms. Now, the scuzzier likes of Tommy McKay and Tommy Ortega’s pal Paco on FALCON CREST must convene in public bathrooms.
Come to think of it, FC’s Tommy O is kinda the anti-Tommy McKay. Whereas Tommy M declines his father’s offer of a job at West Star, preferring to “be my own man”, Tommy O is busting with pride over his respectable job at the Tuscany Herald, even though his girlfriend resents it. “Ever since you got involved with that Maggie Channing you don’t have time for nobody else,” she complains. And while Tommy M effortlessly suckers his sister Tracey into fronting for his import business, Tommy O stands loyally by his no-account pal Paco, even fighting alongside him in a barroom brawl. This decision has serious consequences when the bad guys later take revenge by running Tommy’s baby brother Gabriel and Ben Agretti off the road and over a hill.
James from London, Jan 3, 2019
09 Mar 89: KNOTS LANDING: A Grave Misunderstanding v. 10 Mar 89: DALLAS: The Serpent's Tooth v. 10 Mar 88: FALCON CREST: The Vigil
Two weeks ago, the Ewing Oil secretaries were conspicuous by their presence at JR and Cally’s wedding. On this week’s KNOTS, Jill’s former secretaries are the chief mourners at her funeral. Whereas Sly, Phyllis and Jackie were at Southfork primarily to boost the numbers now that DALLAS’s well of recurring characters has almost run dry, the prominence of Joy and Peggy at Jill’s graveside is an indication of how unpopular she had become by the time of her death. It’s particularly telling that the only character to shed an onscreen tear at her passing is Joy, an employee she’d known for a matter of weeks.
We get an interesting insight into another subordinate character on FALCON CREST where everyone’s concerned about Ben Agretti and Gabriel Ortega following their accident at the end of last week’s ep. “There is nothing worse, sir, than to watch your child die,” Richard’s manservant-cum-chief of security Garth tells him. “Do you have a child?” Richard asks in surprise. “Yes, sir,” Garth replies matter-of-factly. “A daughter, Ava. She was five when she died. Measles. The treatment was not so good in East Berlin in those days … Sometimes I like to be reminded that I once had another life.” And with that, the door into Garth’s past shuts as quickly as it opened. But it leaves a lingering impression.
The juiciest scenes in this week’s Ewingverse occur in a business setting and involve secret pacts and double-dealing. At the Sumner Group (although no-one’s calling it that yet), Abby assigns Ted the task of finding out who leaked the story about Meg — on the understanding that he report his findings to her and not Greg. It doesn’t take Ted too long to learn that Paige was responsible, but instead of turning her in, he covers for her. “Consider it a gesture of good faith,” he tells her. “Our interests coincide. We should work together.” “And what is it you think I want?” Paige asks him. “Greg,” he replies. “And what do you want?” “Abby.” Of the four people involved, Greg is the only one not indulging in any kind of executive duplicity. And when Greg Sumner’s the most innocent person in the room, you know things are getting murky. Speaking of executive duplicity, Tommy McKay makes an arrangement with JR Ewing after he overhears his father talking about meeting with some Europeans (or “damn foreigners” as Jordan Lee likes to call them) to discuss “the biggest single deal in West Star history”. JR has Tommy wear a wire at the meeting in return for enough money to dig himself out of the cocaine-shaped hole he’s gotten himself into. Larry Hagman’s delivery of the line “You really hate your daddy, don’t you?” is a classic.
At said meeting, Tommy, aka Roger Grimes, is introduced to another refugee from this season’s DYNASTY, Hamilton Stone, who now answers to the name of Gustav Hellstrom. Having helped Sable swipe Alexis’s tankers from under her nose, he now “represents large European industries who never again want to be held hostage by OPEC.” Instead, they want West Star to supply them directly with a billion barrels of oil over the next ten years.
The main focus of this week’s FALCON CREST is the aftermath of the car crash that has left the lives of its two occupants hanging in the balance. Soap Land convention dictates that one of those involved should be a heavily pregnant heiress and that her family convene in the hospital waiting room in full evening dress while loudly demanding that the best relevant medical specialist in the country be flown in immediately from whatever conference he/she’s attending in whichever city. None of these traditions is adhered to. Instead, the victims in question are two inoffensive teenage boys who aren’t even in the opening credits. In theory, then, the storyline shouldn’t be all that gripping, but the fast-moving camera work, the quick cutting and general sense of urgency all conspire to make us feel that this situation — of which we’ve seen countless Soap Land variations over the years — really matters. In a way, the characters’ lack of status adds an extra element of unpredictably to the story. Ben Agretti and Gabriel Ortega are both sufficiently dispensable to kill off, but not so unimportant that their deaths wouldn’t break the hearts of those they’d leave behind. Plus, you know, they’re kids.
There are a couple of crucial differences between the two boys — namely, their race and class. Just like Val Gibson following her overdose at the beginning of this season’s KNOTS, Ben and Gabriel are rushed to Soap Land Memorial without any insurance documents. For one of the boys, this isn’t a problem. (“His ID says he’s Ben Agretti.” “Same Agretti they named the wing after?”) For the other, it’s a different story: “What about the Ortega boy?” “We’ll send him on to County.” When Gabriel’s family later question this decision, they are tersely informed: “He has a mild concussion, this is a private hospital” — almost as if the two facts were one and the same. No sooner are these words out of the nurse’s mouth than Gabriel abruptly goes into convulsions in the hospital corridor. It’s a genuinely alarming moment.
Ben, meanwhile, has already been taken into surgery to remove a ruptured spleen. This scene is particularly striking. It lasts almost two minutes — a surprisingly long time in Soap Land — but there’s no melodramatic music to tell us how we should feel. Instead, the emphasis is on surgical procedure, medical jargon I couldn’t begin to understand and a general sense of gravity which make the whole thing feel as important as hell. As with Jill’s autopsy on last week’s KNOTS, we view the procedure from the medical team’s dispassionate point of view. Paradoxically, the situation becomes all the tenser for being treated so matter-of-factly. Suddenly, Ben Agretti and Jill Bennett aren’t important soap characters who can’t die, they’re just two more anonymous John or Jane Does. All the soapy twists and lipgloss in the world won’t help them now — they’re no different to the rest of us: flesh and blood with a half a digested pizza still inside of them.
Later, Gabriel also undergoes surgery. When his anxious father Cesar enquires about his progress (“It’s been hours”), the nurse on duty gives him short shrift. But when Lance arrives and asks for the same information Cesar just has, her attitude changes abruptly: “Sorry, Mr Cumson, I’ll see what I can do … The doctor will be right down to talk to you.” “The doctor can talk to this man, his father, Mr Ortega. Do you understand?” Lance replies sharply. It’s notable that all the discrimination exhibited in the episode is by the hospital staff. When the rich white stars of the show realise what’s happening, they ride to the Hispanics’ rescue. “We can’t keep a patient who can’t afford to pay,” insists a nurse. “That’s crazy — you send the bill to me!” argues Nick Agretti. It’s kind of an inversion of what happened on last week’s DALLAS where the racist comments of one of the show’s leading men, Cliff Barnes, went unchallenged.
The subject of race also crops up, in another context, on KNOTS. While investigating Jill’s death, Mack questions a neighbour who remembers a man that entered her apartment on the day of the murder. He asks her to describe him. “He looked like a football player or maybe a wrestler,” she begins. “He was about this tall. He had a very nice looking sports coat on, short, dark hair and these great big shoulders.” And then finally she comes right out and says it: “He was a very attractive black man.” “A black guy?” echoes Mack. Using deductive reasoning, i.e., the fact that there is only one black man in Knots Landing, he realises immediately she’s talking about Frank Williams. This is the first time any of the Williamses have been directly referred to by their colour.
In both DALLAS and FALCON CREST, a writer’s work is criticised by their partner, with dramatic results. First, Sue Ellen ruffles new boyfriend Don Lockwood’s feathers when she sneaks a peek at the unfinished first draft of his script. “This scene isn’t exactly the way it really happened,” she tells him. Don is so angered by this intrusion that he immediately quits the picture and has to be gently coaxed into changing his mind. There are bigger fireworks after Maggie writes a front page article for the Herald describing the consortium as “a front for a multi-national corporation whose aim is to turn Tuscany Valley into a heartless, soulless playground for corporate greed.” Richard is so outraged that he brings work at the Herald to a standstill while he confronts his wife. Things rapidly escalate between them and by the end of the episode, he has obtained a court order (by dubious means) granting him custody of their two children. Maggie can only watch helplessly as he takes them back from her. It’s kind of satisfying to see Richard getting the upper hand in their marriage for once.
15 Mar 89: DYNASTY: The Son Also Rises v. 16 Mar 89: KNOTS LANDING: Guilty Until Proven Innocent v. 17 Mar 89: DALLAS: Three Hundred v. 17 Mar 88: FALCON CREST: Missing Links
There are two returnees to Soap Land this week. Sable’s daughter Monica shows up on DYNASTY but isn’t quite the same girl she used to be. On THE COLBYS, she was sensible to the point of conservative and by Season 2, almost permanently on the brink of tears. Here, she’s giggling up a storm, flicking rubber bands at the back of Jeff’s head while making meta wisecracks at his expense (“I heard Fallon left you for an alien”), teasing her mom’s new beau (“Would it be all right if I called you Uncle Dex?”) and delivering Soap Land’s very first gag about female contraception (“Mother is so straight she once thought the IUD was a federal agency.”) However, it doesn’t feel as if she’s behaving out of character; more that her character has been expanded to fit into DYNASTY’s newly playful atmosphere. Meanwhile, Frank Agretti returns to FALCON CREST from his emerald mining expedition with hugs and smiles for everyone — and an emerald ring for Angela (not unlike the one Matt Cantrell once gave to Pam Ewing). Asked how long he intends to stick around, he promises to stay “just as long as Nick and Ben need me to.” Monica, meanwhile, insists her visit to DYNASTY will be brief, but her immediate inclusion in the opening credits suggests otherwise. Sure enough, during a girly mother/daughter bathroom chat (which echoes an equivalent scene in the first episode of THE COLBYS), Sable invites her to come and work for her in Denver, pointing out how little she has left to keep her in Los Angeles: “I’m not there, Miles is not there, Bliss is not there … How many times in the last year have you seen Jason?” “I haven’t,” Monica concedes.
Alexis’s absences from DYNASTY have become so frequent that, as Jeff tells Blake, he is hopeful her travels have “gotten her mind off you and that murder.” Fat chance. This week’s episode ends with her newspaper offering a reward for information concerning Roger Grimes. “The woman’s insane,” exclaims Blake (an assessment that chimes with Gary’s opinion of Jill Bennett on this week’s KNOTS: “The woman was absolutely nuts!”) “She was married to a Carrington, a Colby and a Dexter — and she’s going to destroy all three families.” Similarly, one might be excused for thinking Abby had forgotten all about the oil under Lotus Point she secretly acquired a couple of months ago but hasn’t referred to since. This week, however, she learns that in order to access that oil, she — or rather, her dummy corporation Murakame — must file an environmental impact report. “That means the environmentalists are gonna scream bloody murder,” she frets. So on Murakame’s behalf, she hires Ted Melcher to handle the PR, without letting him know that she is Murakame.
In fact, Abby is determined to keep her newfound interest in oil a secret from everyone, including her husband. “I don’t want him to know. I don’t want anyone to know,” she tells Rick Hawkins. Likewise, JR on DALLAS. “I don’t want anybody to know about this,” he tells Sly after asking her to bring him “up-to-the-minute figures on [Ewing Oil’s] oil production and known reserves.” Bobby finds out anyway and hits the roof: “You’re through, JR. I want you to take your assets and your lies and get the hell out of my company.” Back on DYNASTY, Blake is also in a firing mood. “You’re throwing me out of the company?!” asks Adam in disbelief. “You’ve thrown yourself out of this company by your actions,” Blake insists. “You’re not going to like having me as an enemy,” Adam warns him. “Couldn’t be any worse than having you as a son,” he shoots back.
Parent/child conflicts loom large this week, each set against in a business backdrop. As well as Blake and Adam, there’s Carter and Tommy McKay and Angela and Richard Channing. Tommy is angry when his father refuses to advance him any more start-up money for his import venture: “After everything you’ve done to this family, don’t you think you owe me? … You don’t give a damn about anybody but yourself!” Meanwhile, Richard takes drastic measures to prevent his mother from voting against him at a crucial board meeting in Chicago — he kidnaps her. “Feel free to scream all you like. The walls are soundproof so you won’t bother the neighbours,” he smiles.
All three situations are dramatically juicy, but the confrontation between the McKay men is unexpectedly touching. “I love you with all my heart,” Mack tells Tommy, “but I don’t trust you … All you have to do is show me that I’m wrong.” For the first time since arriving in DALLAS, instead of sneering or bullshitting or losing his temper, Tommy seems genuinely moved. Over on FALCON CREST, Maggie Channing offers Soap Land’s other Tommy (Ortega) a similar challenge when she learns he’s planning to kill the gang member who put his brother in the hospital. “You’d risk everything just to settle a score?” she asks him. “It’s just the way it’s always been!” he insists. “Then try something different — like you did when you came to work here!” she pleads. Her words hit home and Tommy O has a change of heart. For Tommy McKay, however, it may already be too late.
In his other guise of Roger Grimes, Tommy is still causing problems for Fallon on DYNASTY. “I dream about him all the time,” she admits. “I thought he’d disappeared, but he’s back.” But while Fallon only has to cope with Roger/Tommy in her nightmares, DALLAS’s April has to deal with the real thing kicking her door in after she spurns his advances. “You frozen rich bitches are all alike!” he snarls.
Back in ’85, DALLAS celebrated its two-hundredth episode with a big rodeo at Southfork featuring a large cast and some impressively sweeping cinematography. This week, the show marks its three-hundredth edition in a contrasting way, by confining its two lead characters, JR and Bobby, to the smallest place possible — an elevator — for the majority of the instalment. FALCON CREST does something similar by trapping Richard Channing and his toddler son Michael at the bottom a disused well. While the latter situation is enjoyably cheesy — I kept imagining the rest of the cast bursting into a chorus of ‘We’re Sending Our Love Down the Well’ from THE SIMPSONS — the former offers up some intriguing moments of introspection as the Ewing boys discuss their differences. “I didn’t start off wanting to hurt anybody,” JR explains, “but I had these goals — goals that were drummed into me when I started to work for Daddy at Ewing Oil. Ewing Oil had to be the biggest, it had to be the best … I wouldn’t have broken any of the rules if people hadn’t have gotten in my way. If they’d just let me alone, nobody would have gotten hurt.” “That’s a lot of self-justifying crap and you know it,” Bobby replies.
Discussions about why people are the way they are recur throughout this week’s eps. “My own son, my own flesh and blood,” broods Blake on DYNASTY, “who would have thought that he’d turn out —“ “Blake, Adam’s had a rough life, kidnapped as a child,” interrupts Jeff. “You think that it didn’t tear me apart?” Blake argues. “There’s not much love lost between Adam and me,” Jeff continues, “but in a way, I feel sorry for him … In a strange way, we’re almost brothers.” “I know this sounds strange, but I feel sorry for Jill,” echoes Karen on KNOTS. “It’s sad that she didn’t get any help before all this started.” “I’m not convinced that she was sick,” Pat Williams counters. “I believe that there are genuinely evil people out there and that Jill was one of them.” Like Blake, Carter McKay believes his son is ultimately responsible for his own actions no matter what happened in the past. “Whatever I did or didn’t do, you’re the one that got yourself into trouble, not me,” he tells him.
Just as the reasons behind Jill’s behaviour in life remain unclear — was she sick or was she evil? — we are also left with a tantalising ambiguity about her death after it emerges that she died trying to frame Gary. “Do you think Jill really meant to kill herself?” Karen asks. “I think she was counting on being saved so she could testify against Gary.” Mack doesn’t agree: “She put a gag on her own mouth. I think she knew what would happen.” Jill fully intending to die or Jill hoping to be rescued but dying anyway — I’m not sure which scenario is worse, but either way, the extended flashback sequence where we watch her carry out the plan she has meticulously orchestrated, and which brings about her own death almost immediately, is grimly compelling.
Minor trend of the week: twice-married exes gravitating towards each other once again. “I see Sammy Jo and him together and I care, I really do,” Jeff says to Fallon after being introduced to Tanner McBride, “but when I see you and Zorelli together, that hurts.” “Can you stay for lunch?” Val asks Gary at the end of KNOTS, last season’s cliffhanging ordeal finally behind them after nineteen episodes. “I was hoping you’d ask,” he admits. As they stroll into her house hand-in-hand accompanied by the twins, Karen and Mack looking on approvingly, the camera pulls up and away from them till they’re just distant figures and it really feels like KNOTS is moving into “happily ever after” territory — or it would be if weren't for all that Paige/Greg/Abby/Ted/Murakame stuff lurking in the shadows.
The “trapped in an elevator overnight” scenario at the centre of DALLAS’s tricentennial episode is a curious one. On one hand, it’s a light-hearted, gimmicky contrivance to force the two feuding brothers into close proximity. There’s also the crate of Bordeaux (sent courtesy of Ray Krebbs) that they then work their way through, requiring the actors to play drunk. On the other hand, there's their actual conversation which strikes right at the heart of the Ewing saga. These different story elements don’t always gel. “You were [Daddy’s] favourite from the day you were born,” JR tells Bobby at one point. While Jock’s preference for his youngest son has been part of DALLAS lore from the beginning of the series, this is the first time JR has ever acknowledged it, yet the moment is kind of thrown away. But then later comes one of those original series moments that grows more meaningful and resonant when viewed through the prism of New DALLAS. On the new series, where the brothers had grown older and more vulnerable, the real-life affection between Duffy and Hagman seemed to spill over into their onscreen relationship until the two had become almost indistinguishable. Some of that affection now filters back in time to the pivotal point in this ep where Bobby changes his mind about kicking his brother out of Ewing Oil. He watches JR asleep in the elevator, a melancholy expression on his face, before waking him up with the news. “You’re back in, a full partner in Ewing Oil,” he whispers. JR’s so excited, he’s almost like a child on Christmas morning: “Oh Bobby, you just made me the happiest man in the world … I love it, I absolutely love it!” Suddenly, rather than a long-in-the-tooth soap spinning its wheels as it tries to think of different variations on the same old themes, it feels like we’re watching a very personal story about the relationship between these two brothers.
Pilar Ortega-Cumson also gets what she’s always wanted after Angela (for devious reasons of her own) invites her and Lance to move into Falcon Crest. Just as JR is too thrilled to go straight home when the elevator finally starts working (“Now that I’m in with you again, I wanna take a look at our offices,” he tells Bobby, pressing the “up” button), Lance finds his bride standing in the shadows of the family living room in the middle of the night. “I couldn’t sleep,” she tells him. “It’s the excitement of spending my first night at Falcon Crest … Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed about this and here I am.”
4 (-) DYNASTY
James from London, Jan 11, 2019
James from London said: ↑
Meanwhile, Frank Agretti returns to FALCON CREST from his emerald mining expedition
I wonder if Emerald Point N.A.S. was the only soap without emeralds.
“You’re not going to like having me as an enemy,” Adam warns him. “Couldn’t be any worse than having you as a son,” he shoots back.
What a fantastic, soapy line. Deserves extra points for this.
Richard takes drastic measures to prevent his mother from voting against him at a crucial board meeting in Chicago — he kidnaps her
I could see this happen on TNT Dallas too.
This week, the show marks its three-hundredth edition in a contrasting way, by confining its two lead characters, JR and Bobby, to the smallest place possible — an elevator — for the majority of the instalment.
Considering the fact that this was a scenario without any danger (sort of a non-narrative) I'd say that this was quite a progressive approach.
These days it's not so unusual anymore.
Willie Oleson, Jan 12, 2019
29 Mar 89: DYNASTY: Sins of the Father v. 30 Mar 89: KNOTS LANDING: Giganticus II: The Revenge v. 31 Mar 89: DALLAS: April Showers v. 31 Mar 89: FALCON CREST: Resurrection
One way or another, Roger Grimes aka Tommy McKay causes an awful lot of trouble this week. On DYNASTY, Fallon wakes up screaming from a dream about him. “Looked like you were going ten rounds with Sugar Ray,” observes her bedmate Zorelli. “It’s like he’s inside my head. I can’t get him out!” she replies. On DALLAS, April can’t get him out of her apartment and later wakes up in the hospital looking like she’s gone ten rounds with Sugar Ray too.
Zorelli suggests Fallon is suppressing some childhood trauma: “Some things are so painful, the mind just blocks things out.” We’ve been here before, of course — Miss Ellie’s denial after Jock’s death, Val becoming Verna after the loss of her twins, Emma flipping out after killing Jason, Fallon’s own incest fantasy-induced amnesia — but when Fallon turns to her mother for answers about Roger (“He did something that really terrified me,” she insists), Alexis is offended: “I hope you’re not suggesting that he molested you … Your father murdered him and now you’re trying to vilify him! He’s dead. For god sake, let him rest in peace!” Similarly, when April turns to Tommy’s sister for help early on in this week’s DALLAS (“He kicked down my front door and threatened me”), Tracey, like Alexis, refuses to take her seriously: “I just don’t believe that … Tommy’s been working very hard to turn things around. I’m not about to let someone like you spoil it all.”
The seeds of Abby’s and Sue Ellen’s Soap Land departures are sewn this week, with Ted Melcher introducing the idea of Greg becoming the US Trade Representative for Japan (a post Abby will end up taking) and Don Lockwood asking Sue Ellen if she’s ever considered leaving Texas for good. (She claims never to have considered the notion.) More pressingly, it’s only six weeks until the entire Carrington/Colby clan will disappear from our screens without warning and so we must take our sense of closure where we can find it. Handily, there are a couple of scenes in this week’s DYNASTY where characters reflect upon their pasts. Alexis, in an interlude of alcohol-fuelled nostalgia, reviews her four husbands (“What a bunch!”). First, Blake (“He didn’t love me but he’d kill anyone who was going to make me happy”), then Cecil (“He died on the wedding night — and I got the blame!”), followed by “dear, dumb Sean” (“He died and tried to take me with him!”) and finally Dex (“The only feelings he’s got are between his waist and his knees”). She concludes while gazing longingly at a snapshot of Tommy McKay, that Roger Grimes was “the only man who ever loved me.”
Then it’s Dex’s turn. During a heated exchange with Alexis, he insists that he has “put the last eight years on hold just so I could be there for you!” To be pedantic, Dex has only known Alexis for the past five years, but maybe time moves differently in Soap Land — which could also account for a passing remark of Karen Mackenzie over on KNOTS. After Paula Vertosick complements her on her house, she casually remarks that “we’ve been here about, oh, ten years.” Ten years is how long KNOTS has been running, which suggests that the Fairgates arrived in the cul-de-sac only a short time before Gary and Val moved in. There’s no specific reason why that shouldn’t be the case, but it’s never been mentioned before and with Sid and Karen being the mom and dad of Seaview Circle from the very beginning, it’s just always felt like they’d been there a longer amount of time.
Back on DYNASTY, Sable finds Alexis, still brooding about the past, looking through some old mementoes, including a painting once gifted to her by Roger Grimes. Sable recognises it as the work of Frederich Stahl, Adolf Hitler’s favourite painter: “Hitler admired Stahl’s work so he stole everything the man ever painted … and none of his paintings were ever seen again.” It then emerges the Collection buried at the bottom of the Carrington Lake consists of precious artworks procured by the Nazis during World War II, and that this is the terrible secret Blake’s been hiding all season (and indeed, for the past thirty-something years). He explains to Sable to his father came by the treasure innocently, without realising what it was. Years later, with the aid of Dex’s father and Jason Colby, Blake hid the loot with a view to one day returning it to its rightful owners. The realisation that no-one we know was guilty of any wrongdoing is just the tiniest bit anti-climactic. It means that there is no cold-hearted, evil counterpart to FALCON CREST’s Nazi gold-diggers (Jacqueline Perrault, Henri Denault, Johann Reibman) for us to be shocked (and secretly thrilled) by. Apparently, the only person who sought to profit from Nazis’ crimes was this week’s resident troublemaker, Roger Grimes/Tommy McKay.
Speaking of whom, in a brief scene on DALLAS (that I’m pretty sure was cut from the original BBC broadcast), Tommy/Roger becomes the first Soap Land character to snarf cocaine onscreen. Previously, whenever the likes of Olivia Cunningham or Peter De Vilbis were about to indulge, the camera would abruptly cut away. Following on directly from this scene, we see Tommy burst into April’s apartment, trash the place and then beat her unconscious. As far as depictions of male-on-female violence go, this is more brutal than anything Soap Land has previously served up. The only incident that comes close is the beating Sean Rowan gave Leslie Carrington at the end of last season’s DYNASTY.
Tommy v April is an unfair fight in more ways than one. When April first arrived in Dallas, she was a sexy, witty gold-digger. During the past year or so, she has become an increasingly diluted character. A few weeks ago, she threw herself a one-person birthday party. The moment where she giggled delightedly at the pair of oversized fluffy duck slippers she’d gifted herself ranks as Soap Land’s most toe-curling moment since Melissa Agretti’s final meltdown. Tommy, on the other hand, is currently the most fascinating person on DALLAS. A long-haired, volatile young man, he’s trapped in a show where everyone else is either middle-aged and square or just acts like they’re middle-aged and square. He’s the first Soap Land character who seems to actively hate the programme he’s on and so spends his time frantically pounding on the self-destruct button, trying to find a way out.
While one could legitimately argue that the scene between Tommy and April is gratuitous, that we don’t need to see every blow (although it’s the dubbed-on sound effects rather than the clearly pulled punches that give the scene its impact), the incident certainly isn’t treated lightly. Unlike the Sean/Leslie assault, after which Leslie was never mentioned again, it proves to be a major turning point for all the characters involved. It reignites both the feud between the Ewings and the McKays, and Bobby and April’s romance. Also, unlike those blurred lines that occur whenever JR coerces a woman into having sex with him, the show makes it clear that April is no way complicit in her ordeal. “I’m gonna press charges against him. I did everything I could to avoid it so I’m not gonna blame myself,” she tells Bobby afterwards. The assault also leads to further violence when Bobby goes after Tommy to give a taste of his own medicine. As the younger and bigger of the two, Tommy manages to get a few decent licks in, but ultimately it’s not his face in the opening credits and so he ends up taking a beating. (One way or another, it’s a week of violent retribution for Roger Grimes/Tommy McKay. As well as Bobby Ewing knocking him out for battering a defenceless woman, Blake Carrington concludes that “it was my father who killed Roger Grimes” after he caught Roger helping himself to the Nazi loot back in ’64.)
Tommy’s attack on April aside, there is some notably blatant objectification of women on this week’s DALLAS, even by the series’ own standards. For the second time this season, JR meets Detective Rattigan in a PG-13 titty bar chockfull of women in skimpy bikinis and high heels either dancing in front of men or serving them drinks. Later in the ep, JR meets with Tommy, whom he finds at a newsstand ogling the centrefold of Boudoir magazine. Each of these scenes begins with JR making a quip about the other man’s lowbrow tastes and ends with him engrossed in what he has just supposedly disapproved of. In the bar scene, he becomes so distracted by the floor show he doesn’t even notice when Rattigan departs. After Tommy leaves the newsstand, JR picks up his discarded magazine to see what he was looking at. “Well, he doesn’t have such bad taste after all,” he murmurs, chuckling appreciatively.
The Boudoir centrefold comes to life on FALCON CREST when Richard Channing encounters Samantha Ross, an enigmatic prostitute who just happens to be a dead ringer for the late Melissa Agretti. “Do all hookers hate men?” he asks her. “Yes,” she replies matter-of-factly. Richard, however, turns out to be the exception to the rule. “I am attracted to you,” she admits. “With you, it’s strictly pleasure, no business.” A hooker who doesn’t even charge — who could ask for more? However, the gender stereotype is intriguingly inverted at the end of the episode. “You’re a bigger whore than I am, Richard,” she tells him. “I am indeed,” he concurs, snogging her face off.
Sexism rears its head on KNOTS LANDING too, this time in the workplace, as Paige finds herself playing gopher for Abby and fixing coffee for minions (“Could you make us a fresh pot, hon?” smarms Mort). Unlike DALLAS’s centrefolds and FALCON CREST’s fantasy prostitutes, she at least gets to voice her frustrations — which sets off a brilliantly (and wittily) plotted chain of events. “I have worked for you for over a year now,” she reminds Greg. “I know I can contribute substantially more to Sumner Group* than I do working as a glorified note-taker and errand-runner.” She then impresses the boss by suggesting he lobby for the Japanese trade representative post by ingratiating himself with Murakame, the corporation that recently bought Lotus Point. There’s only one problem, of course — Murakame is a fictitious company invented by Abby. To keep the charade going, she is forced to hire an actor to assume the role of Mr Nagata, a Murakame representative. (There’s more secret casting on DALLAS where Sue Ellen and Don Lockwood fly to Malibu to audition “a dozen JRs” for their movie.) Abby plans for Nagata to meet with Greg, “pronounce himself insulted at Greg’s offensive western ways” and refuse to have anything more to do with him. Paige unwittingly scuppers this scheme by enlisting a Mr Toyo to instruct Greg in how best “to do business without offending Japanese sensibilities.” While KNOTS is clearly having fun with Asian stereotypes here, the joke is ultimately at the expense of Americans’ ignorance of a culture other than their own. (This ignorance reaches its apotheosis on DALLAS when Gustav Hellstrom introduces himself to Cally as a Scandinavian. She looks at him blankly. “What’s a Scandinavian?” she asks.) At one point during his lesson with Mr Toyo, Greg holds his hands up in confusion: “Lemme get this straight — if Mr Nagata is smiling, it could be because he got the joke, because he didn’t get the joke or because I ticked him off?” “Yes,” replies Mr Toyo, a broad grin on his face. “How come you’re smiling?” Greg asks. “Because you pay me so much to explain these things to you!” he replies. This remark reminds me of an exchange between Bobby Ewing and Tilly, the black caterer at Ewings’ first barbecue back in the DALLAS mini-series. Bobby asks her to please stop addressing family members as “Mr Bobby” and “Mr Jock”. “Time I drop the mister, I have to charge 10% less,” she replies. Eleven years later, Mr Toyo (as well as Mr Nagata) is simply doing what Tilly did back then — making a profit by exploiting rich white people’s cultural preconceptions.
The whole idea being her brainwave, Paige fully expects to attend the meeting with Greg and Mr Nagata, but is blocked by Abby: “I’ve only made a reservation at the restaurant for four people,” she smiles icily. “We can’t very well spring a fifth person on Mr Nagata. After all, he might think you’re a geisha girl!”
The shift that occurs in Paige’s character at this point is fascinating. Somewhere during this storyline and without the viewer even noticing, she has been transformed from snooty heiress to plucky underdog. Here, she is essentially channelling Melanie Griffiths’ titular character in Working Girl while Abby mirrors Griffiths’ nemesis boss played by Sigourney Weaver. Who knows if this was mere coincidence, but the movie had been nominated for five Oscars just six weeks before this episode aired so it was certainly in the zeitgeist. Also, the characters’ wardrobe choices for this sequence — Paige circumspect in black, Abby bold in red — match Griffiths’ and Weaver’s in the film’s promotional poster.
Two weeks ago, DALLAS celebrated its 300th episode by trapping JR and Bobby in an elevator. During this episode of KNOTS, Paige does the same thing to Abby so she can take her place at the meeting with Mr Nagata. Abby gets off easier than the Ewing boys, however. “Bobby and I have been stuck in an elevator for thirteen hours,” JR informs Cally at the start of this week’s DALLAS. “I’ve been stuck in there for over two hours!” complains Abby. Meanwhile, Angela Channing spends the entirety of this week’s FALCON CREST, its 200th episode no less, also trapped, albeit in the rather more spacious surroundings of the New Globe hospitality suite, courtesy of son Richard. She complains to Garth that she’s “a prisoner in a penthouse” after he catches her trying to pick the lock of the private elevator.
The buried Nazi treasure isn’t the only twist on this week’s DYNASTY to echo an old storyline on FALCON CREST. Turns out Tanner McBride, the sweet guy from the hospital Sammy Jo has the hots for, is a priest. It’s Melissa and Father Christopher all over again, only then we knew from the start that Padre C was a man of the cloth.
Frederich Stahl’s painting, a landscape of what looks like a country town, looks nice, but I’m not as excited by it as Hitler apparently was. Cally’s latest artwork on DALLAS is also a landscape, more Grandma Moses in style, and gets the thumbs up from Miss Ellie and Clayton. (“This one’s better than the last one!” declares Ellie.) All things considered, I think I’d prefer to have the Farlows rather than the Führer as my fan club.
In spite of Blake’s and Abby’s best efforts, this week’s DYNASTY and KNOTS each end with someone stumbling upon the respective secret they’ve worked so hard to keep. On DYNASTY, Blake, Jeff and Dex are at the Carrington Lake checking on the site where the Collection is buried, unaware that Zorelli is observing them through a pair of binoculars. On KNOTS, Paige is watching cable TV in her recently acquired apartment when she spots the Executive Vice President of Murakame being terrorised by Giganticus, the hundred-foot star of his own badly dubbed black-and-white monster movie. Quicker than you or I could whip out a camera phone in 2019, Paige slams a tape into her VCR and records a close-up of Mr Nagata. I really love how this majestically crappy movie bookends this episode of KNOTS. In the first scene, we hear Pat Williams ordering her daughter Julie to turn it off, while the last shot of the ep has Paige looking intently at a close-up of Nagata.
Trend of the week: Coincidences — or are they? “I thought that everything that happened was just a bizarre coincidence,” Blake tells Sable, “Grimes’s body preserved for all those years so close to where the Collection was buried [but] it all must be connected!” Sure, Roger’s body and the Collection might be connected, but Sable’s diver and Krystle being at the lake at the exact same time remains a coincidence — a pure, undiluted soapy coincidence.
Likewise, Michael Fairgate just happens to meet Paula Vertosick, the very forest ranger who made a pass at his stepfather earlier in this season's KNOTS. “Isn’t that wild that we both heard her lecture?” he says to Mack. “It’s such a coincidence!” That’s not the half of it: Mack and Michael each meeting Paula separately at White Horse Mountain is one thing, Paula then coming to Knots Landing to teach a class at the same college Michael attends and being an expert in the exact field Karen needs someone to be an expert in so she can oppose the oil drilling at Lotus Point is quite another. But it all slots together so beautifully, so knottily, that it’s not that one merely forgives or overlooks the contrivance, the contrivance becomes an actively pleasurable part of the viewing experience.
Other characters, meanwhile, use coincidence as a smokescreen for their own premeditated actions — such as when Cally and JR “accidentally” bump into Gustav Hellstrom. “Hopefully, there’s still some money to be made in oil — that’s why I’ve come to Dallas,” Gustav explains. “Well, that’s a coincidence,” exclaims JR. “Ewing’s my name and oil’s my game!”
However, the biggest, soapiest, nuttiest coincidence of the week occurs on FALCON CREST when Richard Channing looks across a crowded restaurant and happens to see a woman who happens to be played by the same actress who used to play Melissa. It’s his “Holy shit, it’s Ciji!” moment. But while she may look just like the screechily hysterical Melissa who went up in flames, Samantha’s personality is more like Melissa’s when she first arrived in FC — controlled, measured, mysterious. It’s like welcoming back an old friend.
This week’s Top 4 is … close! DALLAS’s violence and FC’s doppelgänger made their respective episodes memorable, while DYNASTY is a 5-star episode all the way. But KNOTS is even better than that — I’d forgotten how much I love this first era of the Sumner Group with Greg and Abby in adjacent offices and all that scheming in the shadows. It’s as good as soap gets.
1. (1) KNOTS LANDING
2. (2) DYNASTY
3. (-) DALLAS
4. (-) FALCON CREST
*This week’s KNOTS is the first time the Sumner Group has been referred to by name — only minus its definite article.
Back on DYNASTY, Sable finds Alexis, still brooding about the past, looking through some old mementoes, including a painting once gifted to her by Roger Grimes. Sable recognises it as the work of Frederich Stahl, Adolf Hitler’s favourite painter: “Hitler admired Stahl’s work so he stole everything the man ever painted … and none of his paintings were ever seen again.” It then emerges the Collection buried at the bottom of the Carrington consists of precious artworks procured by the Nazis during World War II, and that this is the terrible secret Blake’s been hiding all season (indeed, the past thirty-something years). He explains to Sable to his father came by the treasure innocently, without realising what it was. Years later, with the aid of Dex’s father and Jason Colby, Blake hid the loot with a view to one day returning it to its rightful owners. The realisation that no-one we know was guilty of any wrongdoing is just the tiniest bit anti-climactic. It means that there is no cold-hearted, evil counterpart to FALCON CREST’s Nazi gold-diggers (Jacqueline Perrault, Henri Denault, Johann Reibman) for us to be shocked (and secretly thrilled) by. Apparently, the only person who sought to profit from Nazis’ crimes was this week’s resident troublemaker, Roger Grimes/Tommy McKay.
Tommy v April is an unfair fight in more ways than one. When April first arrived in Dallas, she was a sexy, witty gold-digger. During the past year or so, she has become an increasingly diluted character. A few weeks ago, she threw herself a one-person birthday party. The moment where she giggled delightedly at the pair of oversized fluffy duck slippers she’d gifted herself ranks as Soap Land’s most toe-curling moment since Melissa Agretti’s final meltdown. Tommy, on the other hand, is currently the most fascinating person on DALLAS. A long-haired, volatile young man, he’s trapped on a show where everyone else is either middle-aged and square or just acts like they’re middle-aged and square. He’s the first Soap Land character who seems to actively hate the programme he’s on and so spends his time frantically pounding on the self-destruct button, trying to find a way out.
Tommy’s attack on April aside, there is some blatant objectification of women on this week’s DALLAS, even by the series’ own standards. For the second time this season, JR meets Detective Rattigan in a PG-13 titty bar chockfull of women in skimpy bikinis and high heels either dancing in front of men or serving them drinks. Later in the ep, JR meets with Tommy, whom he finds at a newsstand ogling the centrefold of Boudoir Magazine. Each of these scenes begins with JR making a quip about the other man’s lowbrow tastes and ends with him engrossed in what he has just supposedly disapproved of. In the bar scene, he becomes so distracted by the floor show he doesn’t even notice when Rattigan departs. After Tommy leaves the newsstand, JR picks up his discarded magazine to see what he was looking at. “Well, he doesn’t have such bad taste after all,” he murmurs, chuckling appreciatively.
The Boudoir fantasy comes to life on FALCON CREST when Richard Channing encounters Samantha Ross, an enigmatic prostitute who just happens to be a dead ringer for the late Melissa Agretti. “Do all hookers hate men?” he asks her. “Yes,” she replies matter-of-factly. Richard, however, turns out to be the exception to the rule. “I am attracted to you,” she admits. “With you, it’s strictly pleasure, no business.” A hooker who doesn’t even charge — who could ask for more? However, the gender stereotype is intriguingly inverted at the end of the episode. “You’re a bigger whore than I am, Richard,” she tells him. “I am indeed,” he concurs, snogging her face off.
Sexism rears its head on KNOTS LANDING too, this time in the workplace, as Paige finds herself playing gopher for Abby and fixing coffee for minions (“Could you make us a fresh pot, hon?” smarms Mort). Unlike DALLAS’s centrefolds and FALCON CREST’s fantasy prostitutes, she at least gets to voice her frustrations — which sets off a brilliantly (and wittily) plotted chain of events. “I have worked for you for over a year now,” she reminds Greg. “I know I can contribute substantially more to Sumner Group* than I do working as a glorified note-taker and errand-runner.” She then impresses the boss by suggesting he lobby for the Japanese trade representative post by ingratiating himself with Murakame, the corporation that recently bought out Lotus Point. There’s only one problem, of course — Murakame is a fictitious company invented by Abby. To keep the charade going, she is forced to hire an actor to assume the role of Mr Nagata, a Murakame representative. (There’s more secret casting on DALLAS where Sue Ellen and Don Lockwood fly to Malibu to audition “a dozen JRs” for their movie.) Abby plans for Nagata to meet with Greg, “pronounce himself insulted at Greg’s offensive western ways” and refuse to have anything more to do with him. Paige unwittingly scuppers this scheme by enlisting a Mr Toyo to instruct Greg in how best “to do business without offending Japanese sensibilities.” While KNOTS is clearly having fun with Asian stereotypes here, the joke is ultimately at the expense of Americans’ ignorance of a culture other than their own. (This ignorance reaches its apotheosis on DALLAS when Gustav Hellstrom introduces himself to Cally as a Scandinavian. She looks at him blankly. “What’s a Scandinavian?” she asks.) At one point during his lesson with Mr Toyo, Greg holds his hands up in confusion: “Lemme get this straight — if Mr Nagata is smiling, it could be because he got the joke, because he didn’t get the joke or because I ticked him off?” “Yes,” replies Mr Toyo, a broad grin on his face. “How come you’re smiling?” Greg asks. “Because you pay me so much to explain these things to you!” he replies. This remark reminds me of an exchange between Bobby Ewing and Tilly, the black caterer at Ewings’ first barbecue back in the DALLAS mini-series. Bobby asks her to please stop addressing family members as “Mr Bobby” and “Mr Jock”. “Time I drop the mister, I have to charge 10% less,” she replies. Eleven years later, Mr Toyo (as well as Mr Nagata) is simply doing what Tilly did back then — making a profit by exploiting rich white people’s cultural preconceptions.
The shift that's occurred in Paige’s character by this point is fascinating. Somewhere during this storyline and without the viewer even noticing, she has been transformed from snooty heiress to plucky underdog. Now she is essentially playing Melanie Griffiths’ titular character in Working Girl while Abby mirrors Griffiths’ nemesis boss played by Sigourney Weaver. Who knows if this was mere coincidence, but the movie had been nominated for five Oscars just six weeks before this episode aired so it was certainly in the zeitgeist. Also, the characters’ wardrobe choices for this sequence — Paige circumspect in black, Abby bold in red — match Griffiths’ and Weaver’s in the film’s promotional poster.
Frederich Stahl’s painting, a landscape of what looks like a country town, looks nice, but I’m not as excited by it as Hitler apparently was. Cally’s latest artwork on DALLAS is also a landscape, more Grandma Moses in style, and gets the thumbs up from Miss Ellie and Clayton. (“This one’s better than the last one!” declares Ellie.) All things considered, I think I’d prefer to have the Farlows than the Führer as my champion.
In spite of Blake’s and Abby’s best efforts, this week’s DYNASTY and KNOTS each end with someone stumbling upon the respective secret they’ve worked so hard to keep. On DYNASTY, Blake, Jeff and Dex are at the Carrington Lake checking on the site where the Collection is buried, unaware that Zorelli is observing them through a pair of binoculars. On KNOTS, Paige is watching cable TV in her recently acquired apartment when she spots the Executive Vice President of Murakame being terrorised by Giganticus, the hundred-foot star of his own badly dubbed black-and-white monster movie. Quicker than you or I could whip out a camera phone in 2019, Paige slams a tape into her VCR and and hits the record button. I really love how this majestically crappy movie bookends this episode of KNOTS. In the first scene, we hear Pat Williams ordering her daughter Julie to turn it off, while the last shot of the ep has Paige looking intently at a close-up of Nagata.
Likewise, Michael Fairgate just happens to meet Paula Vertosick, the very forest ranger who made a pass at his stepfather earlier in this season's KNOTS. “Isn’t that wild that we both heard her lecture?” he says to Mack. “It’s such a coincidence!” That’s not the half of it: Mack and Michael each meeting Paula separately at White Horse Mountain is one thing, Paula then coming to Knots Landing to teach a class at the same college Michael attends and being an expert in the exact field Karen needs someone to be an expert in so she can oppose the oil drilling at Lotus Point is quite another. But it all slots together so beautifully, so knottily, it’s not that one merely forgives or overlooks the contrivance, the contrivance becomes an actively pleasurable part of the viewing experience.
This week’s Top 4 is … close! DALLAS’s violence and FC’s doppelgänger made their respective episodes memorable, while DYNASTY is a 5-star episode all the way. But KNOTS is even better than that. I’d forgotten how much I love this first era of the Sumner Group with Greg and Abby in adjacent offices and all that scheming in the shadows. It’s as good as soap gets.
(*This week’s KNOTS is the first time the Sumner Group has been referred to by name — only minus its definite article.)
More pressingly, it’s only six weeks until the entire Carrington/Colby clan will disappear from our screens
And from this thread, too. It's going to be a bitter pill to swallow (again!)
and with Sid and Karen being the mom and dad of Seaview Circle from the very beginning, it’s just always felt like they’d been there a longer amount of time.
Knots Landing Motors seemed like an established business, maybe even an Knots "institution", but it's possible that Sid had bought it from a previous owner.
“Hitler admired Stahl’s work so he stole everything the man ever painted … and none of his paintings were ever seen again.”
I'm still not sure what a Nazi treasure is. Is it art made by Nazis or art made by Jews seized by Nazis?
The realisation that no-one we know was guilty of any wrongdoing
They didn't? How disappointing.
He’s the first Soap Land character who seems to actively hate the programme he’s on
Haha, the Iggy Pop of Dallas.
Now she is essentially playing Melanie Griffiths’ titular character in Working Girl while Abby mirrors Griffiths’ nemesis boss played by Sigourney Weaver. Who knows if this was mere coincidence, but the movie had been nominated for five Oscars just six weeks before this episode aired so it was certainly in the zeitgeist. Also, the characters’ wardrobe choices for this sequence — Paige circumspect in black, Abby bold in red — match Griffiths’ and Weaver’s in the film’s promotional poster
What a great comparison. And speaking of zeitgeist, something must have changed. In the middle-eighties it was the Alexises and Sigourneys who were the celebrated "power women".
She complains to Garth that she’s “a prisoner in a penthouse”
It's always nice when they explain the situation.
Frederich Stahl’s painting, a landscape of what looks like a country town, looks nice
I have Bing'd him so many times (misspelled as Frederick) and I still can't find him on wiki. But I found a Friedrich on a Dutch website.
https://www.simonis-buunk.nl/kunstwerk/stahl-f/7265/#info
Cally’s latest artwork on DALLAS is also a landscape, more Grandma Moses in style
It looks very lovely, I'm sure Sable would have bought a few for Miles' baby.
And it also reminds me of Running Up That Hill (but not by Kate Bush, although I think Queen have used artwork similar to this one - but I could be wrong)
when she spots the Executive Vice President of Murakame being terrorised by Giganticus, the hundred-foot star of his own badly dubbed black-and-white monster movie
That's very, very resourceful. I mean, I'd probably recognize Charlton Heston or Roger Moore but...well, never mind.
But it all slots together so beautifully, so knottily, it’s not that one merely forgives or overlooks the contrivance, the contrivance becomes an actively pleasurable part of the viewing experience
There was something very upfront and relaxed about Paula (but then again, so was Jill) so it didn't feel like a plotsy plot. She just kinda wandered into it all and it could change nothing or everything.
Willie Oleson said: ↑
I get the impression that Sid, like all Soap Land businessmen, had built KLM up from scratch. Of course, the family could have lived elsewhere in Knots Landing before moving to the cul-de-sac.
In this instance, according to Sable, "Hitler admired Stahl’s work so he stole everything the man ever painted from galleries and museums, off the living room walls of the people he had shuttled into concentration camps, and none of his paintings were ever seen again."
Blake: It all started with my father. He ran a shipping line back in the early fifties. He was approached and asked to transport some German scholars to South America.
Dex: Scholars — you mean war criminals?
Blake: The official word was these people were facing persecution by the communists. Anyway, for arranging the transport he was paid in artwork supposedly owned by these people.
Dex: Then when your father needed a place to hide it all there was the Colterton mining project.
Blake: Yes, that’s where Sam Dexter and Jason came in. I don’t think either one of them knew about the origins of this collection, but evidently, they didn’t ask questions either.
Dex: When Blake found out what was really going on, he confronted the others and they agreed to get rid of it. Now what I don’t understand is why you [Blake] didn’t just blow it up to begin with.
Blake: It wasn’t our treasure. I suppose in the back of our minds was the idea that somehow we would put it back into the hands of the victims’ families.
Hmm, looking at it again, I'm not as sure as I was.
Thanks x 1
"and none of his paintings were ever seen again."
I just proved that this was not the case at all, unless they are different Stahls. What a fabulous coincidence that would be, sort of a Moldova/Moldavia controversy.
Blake: It all started with my father
Yeah, reading your previous post I concluded that they didn't want to tarnish the Carrington legacy but when I watched Dynasty I never got the idea that I was supposed to like Tom Carrington.
However, I find it surprising that Tom was in cahoots with the much younger Jason Colby rather than his father, Andrew. I think it works better as a sins-of-the-fathers kind of story.
But then again, with Monica and Miles being de-Colbied I guess they didn't care how it would retroactively affect the ex-spin off.
Like Falcon Crest changed the Jacqueline/Richard story, and I'm sure there are other examples of soap histories being tampered with.
05 Apr 89: DYNASTY: Tale of the Tape v. 06 Apr 89: KNOTS LANDING: Dial M for Modem v. 07 Apr 89: DALLAS: And Away We Go! v. 07 Apr 89: FALCON CREST: Enquiring Minds
Two of Soap Land’s most memorable songbirds make a comeback of sorts this week. On DYNASTY, Dominique Devereaux gets her first mention since leaving two years ago. “Your father had a black sister. I think that’s interesting,” Zorelli remarks to Fallon. It is interesting — in fact, at the time of discovery, it was utterly unique — yet this is the very first time Dominique’s race has been referred to on screen. (Ditto the Williams family and the description of Frank as “a very attractive black man” four weeks ago on KNOTS.)
Like Zorelli, Cliff Barnes isn’t afraid to acknowledge the elephant in the room when DALLAS’s own chanteuse, Afton Cooper, returns — as a redhead. “I like the colour of your hair,” he declares fearlessly. Aside from the new ‘do and the synthesised backing track that now accompanies her when she sings (“It takes two-ooo to flyyyy …”), it’s the same old Afton — her unique combination of fluffiness and solemnity still very much intact. As welcome as the returns of Monica and Not-Melissa to DYNASTY and FALCON CREST have been, this is the homecoming of the Soap Land season.
DYNASTY has done a great job of keeping us guessing this year. No sooner was the “Who is the dead man in the lake?” mystery resolved than it was replaced by “Who killed Roger Grimes?” And now that the question of the terrible secret Blake has been hiding all these years has been answered, a new puzzle emerges to take its place: “Who blew open the vault and stole the Nazi treasure?” Blake thinks the solution could lie with his ex-wife. “Grimes might have given Alexis something besides that painting,” he speculates, “something that might tell us where the Collection had been moved to … I wonder if there isn’t a way we could find out what else she may have?” Sable volunteers for the job: “I do have a passkey to her suite.” Nor is she the only Soap Land character up for a spot of illegal trespass this week. On KNOTS, Karen Mackenzie and Paula Vertosick sneak onto what used to be Lotus Point in the hope of finding something to “keep this land from being destroyed.”
The possible consequences of getting caught are dealt with in opposing ways on DYNASTY and KNOTS. “Mother, sneaking into Alexis’s suite is illegal!” Sable’s daughter Monica points out. “It’s called breaking and entering … Even rich and powerful people get thrown in jail, you know.” “If we get arrested, it’ll be good publicity for our cause,” Paula tells Karen. “Getting arrested for a cause — the possibility of that hasn’t happened since 1972,” Karen replies nostalgically. “If Mack could see me now, he’d say, ‘way to go!’”
Karen and Paula get what they came for when they spot surveyors working in an area deemed environmentally off-limits. “They took a lot of pictures and Paula’s been cataloguing all the data on her computer — I think they can stop Murakame from drilling,” Michael later informs his Aunt Abby — not realising, of course, that she is Murakame. Sable’s search of Alexis’s suite, meanwhile, doesn’t yield any concrete discoveries, but she does overhear an urgent phone message from an art expert Alexis has engaged to examine the Frederich Stahl painting. It’s previously been established that the last thing Blake wants is for the existence of this painting to become public knowledge, so we know that this is not good news.
Fortunately for Blake, all Sable needs to do to erase the message is press a couple of buttons on Alexis’s answering machine. It’s not so simple for Abby when it comes to eliminating Paula’s computerised evidence against Murakame, however. First, she must learn all about modems and viruses and “booting up”. Luckily, the Sumner Group’s computer whizz (they aren’t yet known as geeks) is only too happy to educate on her on such matters. (There was a similar situation during DALLAS’s Dream Season where JR likewise feigned interest in computer technology in order to gain access to Dimitri Marinos’s medical records.)
While Sable erases messages and Abby wipes data, Lance Cumson favours a more traditional method of destroying evidence — in his case, the real deed proving that Falcon Crest genuinely belongs to the Agretti family. He burns it.
At present, Lance is one of several characters who is concealing evidence of one wrongdoing while simultaneously investigating another. “Something is wrong!” he insists regarding his grandmother’s trip to Greece — but no-one will take him seriously (including a senatorial aide played by a youthful-looking Walter White from BREAKING BAD). Likewise on DYNASTY, while a federal marshal bursts into Alexis’s office with a warrant in order, as Sable puts it, “to find out some fascinatingly unpleasant things about Colby Co,” Alexis herself puts pressure on the cops to reopen the Roger Grimes murder investigation: “Listen to me, Captain. You keep on sitting on this case and I’m going to blast you right over the front page of my newspaper!” And while Zorelli bugs Dominique’s relatives, someone else is bugging Zorelli. Back on FC, Nick Agretti is trying to get to the bottom of what Lance is covering up (i.e., who really owns Falcon Crest) whilst also avoiding some tricky questions regarding Anna’s death. “There seems to be a question about the medication I prescribed for Miss Cellini,” her doctor tells him. “According to the law, that missing morphine has to be accounted for.”
KNOTS LANDING’s Paige is likewise playing detective (last week, she was Melanie Griffiths in Working Girl; this week, she’s Nancy Drew), posing as a casting director (just as her father did earlier in the season) in order to track down the name of the actor masquerading as a Murakame executive. (Another Ewingverse blonde can also be seen sifting through actors’ headshots this week — DALLAS’s Lucy flies to Malibu to give her input into the casting of ex-husband Mitch in Sue Ellen’s movie.)
As if all these unsolved mysteries weren’t enough, more arise throughout the course of this week’s eps: Who is the unknown person lurking outside Elsworth Chisolm’s apartment on DYNASTY? Is it the same unknown person that later pushes him to his death? Who is Gary’s mystery caller known only as 'Sally’s Friend' on KNOTS? And is theirs simply another mistaken identity “meet-cute” like Sammy Jo and Tanner’s on DYNASTY, or is something more sinister afoot? (The way the camera avoids showing her face suggests the latter.) And why does Richard look so pleased at the end of FALCON CREST as he observes Not-Melissa helping Angela escape from her penthouse prison? “Right on schedule and all according to plan,” he smiles enigmatically.
In lieu of any such mystery on DALLAS, there’s a fake murder. JR and Cally take Gustav Hellstrom out for “an old-fashioned evening of Dallas nightlife.” One thing leads to another and Gustav ends up “killing” a jealous husband (played by the same stunt guy who’s appeared in virtually every barroom brawl on DALLAS since the series began). JR offers to intercede with the cops on Gustav’s behalf in return for “the name of the man behind the European consortium, and when and where the meeting is gonna be held … and the top dollar you’re willing to pay for the oil.” So it is that Gustav becomes the Scandinavian version of Walt Driscoll, but hey, call it Soap Karma for his other self, Hamilton Stone, betraying Alexis to Sable over those tankers earlier in the year.
“Because of the way you are, everybody you know has to be related until life with you is like living in a soap opera,” Mack tells Karen after she decides to set Paula up on a date with Gary. If you think that’s meta, it’s nothing compared to what’s going on on DALLAS as Sue Ellen’s lover Don attempts to turn her soap opera reality into cinematic fiction. Overhearing him read a scene from the movie with an actress auditioning to play her, she mistakes their scripted exchange for soap opera reality and assumes he’s cheating on her. Just to add an extra layer of artificial reality, portraits of real-life movie stars gaze down at Sue Ellen as she eavesdrops — among them Joan Crawford, one of the prototypes for long-suffering soap heroines like ... Sue Ellen herself. And while we’re on the subject of classic Hollywood, is it mere coincidence, as the Murakame storyline grows ever murkier and Abby ever more villainous, that she should suddenly adopt the peekaboo hairstyle famously associated with film noir femme-fatale Veronica Lake?
Each of the soaps sounds a note of finality this week. Blake receives his final divorce decree from Krystle. Val announces her decision to give up writing on KNOTS. Jordan Lee, the longest-serving member of the oil cartel on DALLAS, sells out to West Star. And on FALCON CREST, Tommy Ortega tells his girlfriend, Kelly, he doesn’t love her anymore. This last one shouldn’t matter as much as the other three — Tommy and Kelly only arrived in Soap Land this season and aren’t even in the opening credits — and yet somehow it does. The subsequent scene where Kelly approaches Maggie outside her office echoes previous encounters where a heartbroken poor girl confronts her uncomfortable rich rival: Claudia and Krystle at the art gallery in DYNASTY Season 1; Lucy and Betty the waitress on the cardboard patio in DALLAS Season 7. “It’s so unfair,” Kelly tells Maggie. “You have everything. If you let him go, he’ll come back to me.”
There are other references to past storylines throughout the week: Zorelli’s visit to Dominique’s uncle, Cliff’s reply when Afton asks how he ended up a partner in Ewing Oil (“Pam — with her gone, my whole life changed”), Angela warning Not-Melissa against Richard (“He killed his step-father, the man who raised him from infancy”) and, most subtle of all, a brief reminder of Karen’s pill addiction on KNOTS when Paula turns up at the Mackenzies’ house with a celebratory bottle of wine. Karen politely declines to drink without explaining why, leaving Mack and Paula to share a toast “to the good guys.” There’s an equivalent moment on DALLAS when Tommy McKay’s doctor prescribes him pain medication following the beating he received from Bobby last week. “Don’t give him the bottle,” the doc warns Tracey. “Why?” she asks. “He’s an addict, isn’t he?” “He was.” “Then he still is.” Later, she and Tommy struggle over the medication and she is forced to finally see his drug problem for what it is. This has the effect of waking her up from the walking coma she’s been in ever since Tommy first arrived, making her suddenly interesting again. Alas, it also results in her following Tommy out of the show. Her farewell scene with Bobby (“Tommy’s gone — I have to find him, Bobby. He’s an addict” “… You’re condemning yourself to a terrible life” “… He’s my brother and I believe that he will die without me”) is as poignant as Afton’s and Mandy’s original departure scenes.
There’s no Frederich Stahl or Cally Ewing painting on display this week, but there is a new portrait of Angela hanging at Falcon Crest (well, sort of new — it’s based on a Season 1 publicity shot). No-one comments on it directly, but its presence helps emphasise the absence of its subject from the family home. Over on DALLAS, Bobby and April get to make fun of modern art when he arrives at her place to find her hanging an abstract painting sent over from a gallery “on approval”. “What is it?” he asks, a comedically pained look on his face. “It’s an imitation Neo-classical interpretation of 1920s Dadaism … It’s pretty awful,” she replies smugly. There were a few equivalent exchanges between Paige and Greg last season when she was working for an art gallery and trying to persuade him to make some adventurous acquisitions. Like Bobby, Greg wasn’t always impressed with her choices, but there was nonetheless a light, witty quality to their discussions. By comparison, Bobby and April come across as narrow-minded and complacent, taking cheap shots at something they don’t understand and which is easy to mock — modern art, what a joke! Way back in Season 1, Jock’s bemused reaction to the abstract sculpture Sue Ellen gave him and Ellie for their anniversary was funny — because the joke was on Sue Ellen and JR, and how their attempts to impress had backfired, rather than the object itself. That’s not the case here. (I realise I’ve overthought what is a very brief scene, but hey — why stop now?)
as he observes Not-Melissa helping Angela escape from her penthouse prison? “Right on schedule and all according to plan,” he smiles enigmatically.
I love these twists, when things-go-wrong turn out to be carefully orchestrated manipulations.
I don't remember any of these storylines, so I guess it remains to be seen just how clever Richard's plan is.
Overhearing him read a scene from the movie with an actress auditioning to play her, she mistakes their scripted exchange for soap opera reality and assumes he’s cheating on her
Ha-ha. Sue Ellen often has an air of "being above all that (soap)" but she always learns it the hard way.
Val announces her decision to give up writing on KNOTS
Did she mention or announce it? It's not like she's sitting behind her typewriter 24/7, and although we're meant to believe that she was a very successful author - and it doesn't get more factual than a guest appearance on the Mike Douglas Show - it never really felt that way. There was a plan and then the book, but hardly anything in between.
Was it really necessary to announce it? Couldn't she just not write another book? Would anyone ask "how come you're not writing?"
Maybe it's difficult to write soap characters as famous people, unless the viewer himself can attribute that fictional fame to that character based on suggestions and bits of storyline, rather than "facts"?
Even John Waite on Paper Dolls wasn't believable as a real artist, but Jacqueline Perrault was totally believable as an underground ruler mostly because she wasn't introduced as an underground ruler.
It was bits of information that allowed me to form my own image of this character.
and, most subtle of all, a brief reminder of Karen’s pill addiction on KNOTS when Paula turns up at the Mackenzies’ house with a celebratory bottle of wine. Karen politely declines to drink without explaining why
I would never have made that connection if you hadn't mentioned it.
To me it seemed like an insignificant thing that happened for no particular reason, and yet these things often stick out like a sore thumb.
In a Dutch tv series from the 1980s, the hostess character asks her guest character if she would like to have some tea (or coffee, I don't remember).
"Yes, please".
The hostess character also offers her guest a cracker with peanut butter (that's not some weird Dutch custom, btw) because she had run out of cookies.
But why, why oh why, would a fictional person run out of fictional cookies?
It had nothing to do with the characters or the story, it wasn't even supposed to be weird, they just did it.
DALLAS’s Lucy flies to Malibu to give her input into the casting of ex-husband Mitch in Sue Ellen’s movie
Maybe we should be thankful that it wasn't Alexis who discovered actress Rita aka Krystle's look-alike. What a circus that would have been.
Willie Oleson, Feb 1, 2019
I don't remember any of these storylines
Did she mention or announce it?
Val announced it (her retirement from writing) to Aunt Ginny, mostly to shut her up and stop her interfering in her life. By the end of the episode, she'd changed her mind.
There was a plan and then the book, but hardly anything in between.
Oh, I always kind of bought Val as a writer -- when she was writing, that is - i.e., her first two books.
I think it's hard to convey the act of novel writing or composing dramatically because is writing is such an internal process. By and large, I think the soaps got away with it, with Val, Donna and Maggie*, because their work was set against their every day, i.e., marital, lives, but in bio-pics it's much harder to convince the audience that this is the moment when Dickens had the idea for Great Expectations or this is when Paul McCartney wrote 'Yesterday'.
John Waite on Paper Dolls wasn't believable as a real artist
He wasn't believable full stop. I don't think real people and soap opera mix unless you're Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Jacqueline Perrault was totally believable as an underground ruler mostly because she wasn't introduced as an underground ruler.
Yes, not showing too much allows the audience's imagination to fill in the blanks.
To me it seemed like an insignificant thing that happened for no particular reason
Well, it (Karen not drinking) was a clever use of Karen's past in this scene because it forced Paula and Mack into another intimate moment (toasting each other) -- with Karen watching and smiling.
You mean she might have cast her in Dynasty: The Movie?
*Hey, that's a good idea for a future Soap battle: who wrote the best Soap Land book (or script) we never got to read?
James from London, Feb 1, 2019
but in bio-pics it's much harder to convince the audience that this is the moment when Dickens had the idea for Great Expectations or this is when Paul McCartney wrote 'Yesterday'
How did that work for Bohemian Rapsody? Have you seen it?
12 Apr 89: DYNASTY: No Bones About It v. 13 Apr 89: KNOTS LANDING: That's What Friends Are For v. 14 Apr 89: DALLAS: Yellow Brick Road v. 14 Apr 89: FALCON CREST: Grand Delusions
A streak of paranoia runs through this week’s episodes. On DYNASTY, Blake accuses Adam of framing him (“You called me, told me that man’s name, told me to go over there and now he’s dead … Is this the way you plan to get even with me?”) while Fallon accuses Zorelli of using her (“All you’ve ever wanted to do is prowl around my brain, trying to find a way to hang my father”). On KNOTS, Ted suspects Abby of setting him up (“Was that your plan all along — to drag me into this plot and hang me out to dry?”) while Paige suspects Ted of murder. On DALLAS, JR is suspicious of the brash American tourists who befriend Cally on their honeymoon. “I don’t trust people who become your best friends the first minute you meet ‘em,” he says while searching her purse for a surveillance device he thinks they planted. Over on FALCON CREST, it’s surveillance central: Angela has Richard followed, Richard has Samantha followed, and Pilar discovers that “Richard has recordings of some of our meetings, Malcolm, and on the tapes, it sounds as if we concocted everything the SEC is investigating just so we can extort money.”
Even in matters of the heart, there is suspicion. Is Sable lying when she says she has no romantic designs on Blake? Is Paula lying when she says she has no romantic designs on Mack? “There’s nothing between me and Blake — except for Jeff’s nasty rumours,” Sable insists. “Honestly, when’s he going to grow up and stop treating me like the wicked stepmother?” “Grow up and quit reading your fantasies into other people’s actions,” Paula snaps at Mack. While the jury’s still out on Sable, Paula eventually confesses all — well, almost all. “There’s this guy that I really like but it’s not gonna work out … He’s that married,” she tells Michael when he finds her listening to ‘All I Want’ from Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ album — a Soap Land musical choice as pleasantly unexpected as The Doors’ ‘Break on Through (to the Other Side)’ would be on New DALLAS three-and-a-half decades later.
Four weeks before Sue Ellen and Abby both exit by the Soap Land gift shop, the two former Mrs Ewings are in contrasting moods. As Sue Ellen pores over the past and frets about the future, Don advises her to “just take what we have and be happy” — the exact sentiment of the song Abby merrily sings along to in the Sumner Group elevator: ’Don’t Worry, Be Happy’. The Abster isn’t the only character to exhibit a heretofore unseen musical flair this week. But whereas Afton Cooper listens in respectful silence while Cliff plays the piano on DALLAS, Paige, who happens to be riding the elevator alongside Abby, bestows upon her the most contemptuous of eye-rolls during her big number. It’s a really funny moment.
Speaking of the Sumner Group elevator, it is fast becoming a character in its own right — a space both sufficiently egalitarian for Greg and Abby to rub shoulders with the hoi polloi, i.e., Mort, Bob and Harvey the messenger, and secluded enough for Abby to subvert Soap Land’s recent “stuck in an elevator” trend by deliberately stranding herself and Ted between floors long enough to seduce him.
In its depiction of the Sumner Group, KNOTS gets to have its cake and eat it. In the executive offices, the story is about “them”, the backstabbing stars of the show; in the lobbies and hallways, it’s about “us”, the everyday workers, with Paige and Ted straddling both worlds. This week, Ted, in particular, embodies both the extraordinary and mundane. While not many of us have taken the afternoon off to murder a Japanese actor, we can all relate to his relief when he says, “It’s great getting out of the office. Between all those fluorescent lights, the air-conditioning and all those cubicles, it can really drive you crazy.” Seeing the corporation from the perspectives of both bosses and employees makes the Sumner Group seem three-dimensional in a way that the other show’s big businesses never really have. Probably the close we’ve come previously is the post-coital conversation between Blake Carrington’s chauffeur Michael and Cecil Colby’s secretary Jennifer back in DYNASTY Season 1. By chance, Jennifer resurfaces on this week’s DALLAS in a role that also combines elements of the extraordinary and the mundane: she’s a West Star agent posing as a loud American housewife who pals around with Cally in Austria.
“I just can’t believe it, we’re really here in Europe!” Cally marvels. And they really are in Europe. Ordinarily in Soap Land, foreign climes are represented by an establishing shot of a well-known tourist spot followed by an appropriately decorated hotel room, but here we have genuine Bavarian locations. Wintry, mountainous, forbidding — this feels more like the setting for a Cold War spy thriller than an American super soap. The actors’ faces are red with cold, which simply never happens in Soap Land. While Cally gets the best lines (“How come they drive so fast on that auto-barn?” she enquires after arriving in Salzburg; “You mean like a cockroach?” she asks, baffled, when JR talks about the bug in her purse), Carter McKay gets the best scenes. Darkly dressed in a heavy overcoat, hat and gloves, he cuts a far more sinister figure looming in the shadows of a chilly Austrian night than he ever did sweltering under the heat of a Texas sun. April and Cally, meanwhile, combat the cold in massive fur coats, thereby indicating that Greg Sumner’s recently declared moratorium on such items in KNOTS (“Mother here won’t be able to wear her furs anymore”) doesn’t extend to its parent soap.
Austria is also mentioned on DYNASTY. Visiting the art appraiser whom Alexis recently consulted about the Frederich Stahl painting, Sable persuades him, for a price, to keep quiet about its origins. She also learns that “a number of art dealers have received calls recently asking if his works have surfaced.” “Not that many people even knew about Stahl,” she subsequently informs Blake. “He was a local painter, local to Germany, Austria, and his works disappeared with Hitler. Why would anybody be asking about him?” (Meanwhile on FC, Nick Agretti finds proof that an equivalent appraiser forged the deeds to Falcon Crest at Angela’s behest — all of which suggests that the art world is just as corruptible as the corporate business one.)
Overseas locations are likewise a subject matter on KNOTS and FALCON CREST as Abby and Richard each attempt to rid themselves of a liability. Much like Sable’s diver Gibson and Jill Bennett’s forger Mrs Bailey earlier in the season, The Actor Formerly Known as Mr Nagata and The Hooker Who Resembles Melissa are former assets who have now outlived their usefulness. While Abby furnishes Mr Nagata with a cab to the airport and an envelope full of cash (“This ought to give you some independence in Japan”), Richard explains to Samantha that “it would be safer for both of us if you went away for a while … Europe, the Far East — where would you like to go?” Neither, however, is in any hurry to leave. Instead of catching his plane, Mr Nagata doorsteps Abby in — where else? — the Sumner Group elevator. “Do you know how expensive things are in Japan these days?” he asks her. Whereas Mr N is motivated by greed, Samantha is motivated by passion. “I don’t want to go, Richard,” she purrs. “Let me show you just how much I can do for you.”
While Abby submits to Nagata’s blackmail (“Paying him off buys me time,” she explains to Ted), Richard gets heavy with Samantha: “If anyone connected with Angela ever sees you, the trouble that it causes me will be nothing compared to what happens to you.” In both cases, the woman then uses her sexuality to manipulate her man. Samantha distracts Richard from his threats by taking him to bed and Abby charms Ted into delivering the payoff money to Nagata on her behalf. “I don’t think I can afford to be seen with our actor friend,” she coos.
As chance would have it, Paige witnesses Ted’s meeting with Nagata then sees him getting into his car with him and driving away. She starts to follow, but loses them in traffic and spends the rest of the episode trying to get in contact with Ted. Finally, in the episode’s closing scene, he shows up at her apartment building. After buzzing him in, she sees on a news report that Mr Nagata was “killed instantly” in “a freak incident” on the freeway. This is the second suspicious death of a minor but pivotal Soap Land character in as many weeks. Last week’s DYNASTY ended with the discovery of Elsworth Chisolm, a self-proclaimed witness to the killing of Roger Grimes, lying dead on the ground underneath his apartment window. Did he jump or was he pushed? In the opinion of his granddaughter Phoenix, either Blake or Adam is to blame: “I go out for a couple of hours with Blake Carrington’s son, I come back and find my grandfather dead.” After accepting an invitation from her to come over, Adam opens the door to find her pointing a shotgun at him. Back on KNOTS, Paige is equally suspicious of Ted and before letting him through her door, ensures that she has a kitchen knife discreetly to hand. While Phoenix screams in Adam’s face and then collapses in his arms, Paige and Ted both keep their guard up, making “casual” conversation over a glass of wine as the camera assumes each of their points of view in turn, thus mirroring Jill and Val’s confrontation at the end of last season. It’s exquisitely tense.
While it took five years for DYNASTY to acknowledge Dominique’s skin colour, Soap Land’s a little quicker off the mark when it comes to remarking on new hairdos. Val’s “reshaping” trim was incorporated into her post-Jill fresh start on KNOTS a few weeks ago, Cliff managed to blurt out “I like the colour of your hair” when confronted by Afton’s redhead look last week, and this week, Tanner McBride observes Sammy Jo’s new shaggy bob thusly: “You got your hair cut. It looks nice.” His face isn’t actually in shot when he’s saying this though, so it’s entirely possible that the line was inserted later as an afterthought.
As Don Lockwood completes his screenplay on DALLAS (Sue Ellen’s verdict: “It’s wonderful but very difficult for me to read”), Val Gibson comes out of retirement approximately half an episode after giving up writing forever on KNOTS. Aunt Ginny marks the occasion by presenting her with her very own home computer. (Truly, the nineties are just around the corner.) Unlike Abby in last week’s ep, Val does not have a tech whizz on staff to give her a crash course in computers and so enlists the expertise of one Danny Waleska, whom Ginny is convinced Val knew in a previous life (“Danny was a scribe and you were a vestal virgin …”). By the end of his first scene, they’ve arranged a date. Gary, meanwhile, continues to chat to the mysterious “Sally’s Friend” over the phone. As a general rule, I try not to look too far ahead when re-watching the eps, but seeing these two seemingly unrelated storylines unfold simultaneously is even more interesting with the benefit of hindsight than it was without.
I haven't. People seem to either really love it or ... really not love it.
03 May 89: DYNASTY: Blast From the Past v. 04 May 89: KNOTS LANDING: Straight Down the Line v. 05 May 89: DALLAS: The Great Texas Waltz v. 05 May 89: FALCON CREST: Ties That Bind
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Monica, but Jason Colby isn’t your father,” declares Alexis. “It was me, It was me — I killed Roger Grimes!” cries Fallon. “Oh Vanessa, you were the love of my life,” JR informs a woman we’d never even heard of before last week. Each of these shocking statements would seem to overturn everything we’ve been told about a major character’s back story. Looked at a little closer, however, they actually enhance what we already know. If Monica and Miles were never legitimate members of the Colby dynasty, then Sable’s overprotectiveness towards them — or at least towards Miles — and her paranoia that he would lose his “rightful share” of Jason’s empire makes even more sense now than it did when THE COLBYS was on the air. It also finally answers the question as to why Sable is now as obsessed with destroying Alexis as she once was with keeping her family together: it’s thanks to Alexis spilling the beans to Jason about the twins’ paternity (in one of those off-screen events we were not privy to, much like Blake learning about Krystle’s illness or Abby discovering there was oil under Lotus Point) that she no longer has a family to protect, Jason having subsequently disowned both Sable and her children. (It’s interesting that the absent Jason is depicted in a somewhat harsher light on DYNASTY than he was on THE COLBYS, just as the Texas Ewings always have been on KNOTS.)
Likewise, the discovery that Fallon shot Roger, a trauma she has suppressed since childhood, would surely help explain any number of her previously established neuroses — from the daddy fixation to the incest rape fantasies to possibly even her abduction by aliens.
Meanwhile, the consequences of JR’s relationship with Vanessa Beaumont are spelt out for us. “You spoilt me for any woman that ever came after you,” he tells her, “and when we split up, I became cynical about love.” One might argue that we don’t require an explanation for JR’s womanising anymore than we needed the story of Charles Scott jilting Abby as a teenager to provide us with an origin story for her ruthless ambition, and that it’s been enough of a blast to watch JR and Abby behaving badly all these years simply for the hell of it. But whereas the casting of Charles Scott had a (temporarily) damaging effect on Abby’s character (why is she be so besotted with this wimp?), the gorgeousness of Gayle Hunnicut’s performance as Vanessa actually enhances JR’s. It’s not just that she's so radiantly romantic and (when JR gently declines her advances) elegantly lovelorn, but that she is so believably all those things. And because we believe in her, we can believe JR was once in love with her and so he becomes a more intriguing, multi-dimensional character in turn. Encountering Vanessa on his honeymoon is possibly the most interesting thing to have happened to JR all season — more than breaking rocks on a chain gang or spending a night in an elevator or even marrying Cally.
The penultimate episode of DYNASTY contains two fantastic set pieces. As well as the ridiculously thrilling climax in the Carrington cottage, there’s the scene where all hell breaks loose in the lobby of the Carlton Hotel. After Sable informs Jeff that Adam is responsible for the tabloid headlines about him and Monica, he launches himself on Adam. Furniture is overturned, punches are thrown, names are called and accusations hurled (“You’ve been all over her!” “She’s my sister!” “That makes you a pervert!” “You’re slime!”). Then into the middle of the chaos strides Alexis, returning after an absence of three episodes, trailed by bellboys laden down with luggage. Swiftly apprised of the situation, she delivers the mother of all revelations: “It’s just not possible for there to have been incest between Monica and Jeff … Jeff and Monica are not brother and sister.” Cue more threats and insults (Sable: “You monster, I will tear your tongue out of your head!” Alexis: “Look at her, she’s like a rabid bitch!”) and pretty soon Alexis and Sable are scrapping alongside Adam and Jeff, with Monica and several extras running helplessly in-between them. There’s something oddly joyous about the whole thing. The shot where the camera takes a God’s eye view, surveying the mayhem from above, could have made an ideal end to the series: And there we leave them all, brawling and tearing each other’s hair out for the rest of eternity.
There’s another God’s eye view shot on DALLAS. We’re shown JR’s bedroom from above as if the camera were on the ceiling looking down — except there is no ceiling. Instead, there's Don Lockwood and Sue Ellen perched in the rafters — because this isn’t JR’s actual bedroom, but the movie equivalent of it, which is indistinguishable from the real thing. So why would DALLAS go to the trouble of undermining one of its most iconic rooms (“one of the great battlegrounds of Texas,” as Sue Ellen referred to it a few months ago) by exposing it as a mere set? Maybe because the only way for Sue Ellen to truly break free of Southfork’s grasp is to fictionalise it, to reduce it to nothing more than a few plywood walls nailed together while a bunch of technicians mill around in-between takes. After all, if it’s not real, it won’t be so difficult for her to leave it behind. Sure enough, up in the rafters, she and Don are discussing his awkward relationship with John Ross — the next obstacle to be overcome before she can leave the show.
Back on DYNASTY, the contretemps at the Carlton is followed by a pleasingly ironic scene where Sable is consoled by, of all people, Jeff. “You and I have been at each other’s throats ever since we first met, but I gotta tell you, I feel for you right now,” he says. That these two characters, who have been JR-versus-Pam-style enemies from the beginning of THE COLBYS, should achieve a level of understanding just one week before the DYNASTY-verse closes its doors for business is as satisfying as it is unexpected.
Speaking of JR and Pam, Carter McKay delivers a great speech to April in Vienna which mirrors the ultimatum JR gave his sister-in-law at the start of DALLAS Season 6. “If you return to Bobby,” he told Pam then, “all hell is going to break loose. I’ll call off this truce that exists between him and me. We’ll be in a dogfight that will make what went on before look like a love match.” “If Bobby and JR steal this deal from me,” McKay tells April now, “they’re in for an all-out war … A war occupies all of a man’s life. Bobby’s not gonna have any time for you … He’s gonna have his back up against the wall and the only way he’s gonna win is by turning his heart to stone. If you have any hopes of becoming the next Mrs Bobby Ewing, pull him out of this deal.”
The scene is further enhanced by the grandeur of its location — the State Hall of the Austrian National Library, no less. Sammy Jo finds herself in an equally evocative setting when she tracks Tanner McBride down to a church. FALCON CREST aside, the Catholic church is rarely seen in Soap Land and when it is, it’s invariably shown from the perspective of an outsider: Greg reluctantly attending his daughter’s baptism on KNOTS, Sue Ellen interrupting a grieving Kimberly Cryder on DALLAS and now Sammy Jo, who steals into the pew behind Tanner. “Don’t turn around,” she tells him. “I want to confess to you.” What follows is a her equivalent of Alexis’s recent review of past loves, only with the bitterness replaced by melancholy. “All my life I’ve fallen in love with the wrong people,” she begins sadly, before recounting her misadventures with Steven, Josh Harris, Jeff and now Tanner himself.
Even rarer than the sight of a Soap Land character in church is to observe one actually praying. Ordinarily, a Soap Land character will offer up his innermost thoughts to a gravestone or a portrait or even an office chair rather than an actual deity. But after Sammy Jo leaves the church, we see an agonised Tanner praying at the altar: “Forgive me, dear God, I feel passion for this woman … Even though I know my thoughts are sinful, I can’t get her out of my heart … Please, dear God, help me.” At a time when every other plot strand on DYNASTY is interconnected, Sammy Jo and Tanner’s story feels weirdly extraneous, yet I find this scene very moving. (But then I’ve always been a sucker for crisis-of-faith stories).
In Vienna, the Texas Ewings are set to make “one of the biggest deals in the history of the oil industry” as consortium head Rolf Brundin tells both them and McKay that “we will take all your crude for the next five years.” Back in California, the news is not so good for Abby. Rick Hawkins brings her advance word that Murakame’s drilling permits will be denied, which means she will be unable to access the oil under Lotus Point. At the same time, the Mackenzies are applying legal pressure for the real owners of Murakame to declare themselves. “You defrauded your partners out of their holdings,” Rick reminds Abby. “You could end up in jail, and it turns out it was all for nothing.”
Blake Carrington might also end up behind bars — for the murder of Elsworth Chisolm. “We found your fingerprints in his apartment and a witness who heard you and him fighting just before he was killed,” Captain Handler informs him. “We’ve gotten convictions on a lot less.” By this point, we know that Handler and Roger Grimes’ son Dennis are the ones who bugged Zorelli’s apartment and that they are also after the Collection. (Unlikely alliances clearly run in Dennis’s blood — seven years ago, his grave-digging grandfather conspired with a psychiatrist to kidnap a Carrington baby.) We are also aware that Handler is taking his orders from higher up — but who? Could it be the same mysterious figures who are behind the European oil deal on DALLAS? “The consortium are not who they say they are,” Vanessa Beaumont informs the Ewing boys at the end of this week’s episode. “Before you sign any contracts, you must meet certain important friends of mine … This will all be made clear when you fly to Moscow tomorrow!”
In a surprise move, Captain Handler blackmails Blake in broad daylight: “Mr Carrington, I’m representing some very important people, people who want to take an old art collection off your hands … Play ball with us and you may not have to go to jail for murder.” Back on KNOTS, it looks as if Rick Hawkins might also be about to blackmail Abby, but she heads him off at the pass. “I never intended to make you an accessory,” she coos apologetically, “[but] since you had prior knowledge of the oil at Lotus Point, you could be named as a co-conspirator with me.” She then comes up with a proposition that could save them both: “Could we predate … all the Murakame documentation … to reflect that someone else owned Murakame?” — that “someone else” being Ted Melcher.
The brief window of time Abby has before the rest of the world, including Ted, learns that the oil under Lotus Point is worthless means she must move quickly. This puts her in a position similar to the one JR was in back in 1980 when he received advanced warning that his South East Asian oil wells were about to be nationalised. Just as JR managed to offload those leases onto unsuspecting members of the cartel, so Abby now attempts to pull a similar trick on Ted. In return for claiming that he has owned Murakame all along, she promises to split the (non-existent) oil profits with him fifty-fifty (“We can make millions!”). “You’re the only one I trust,” she assures him while whispering a similar tune in Rick’s ear: “You’re the one I depend on.”
Meanwhile, Zorelli and Paige both return to their former place of employment — the police department and the Sumner Group respectively. “You bugged my apartment! … My ex-partner, my best friend!” Zorelli yells while attacking his erstwhile buddy Rudy. “You are a pathetic drone destined to die a junior vice president,” Paige snaps at Bob while clearing out her desk. In both cases, this behaviour is a smokescreen to mask their real agenda. Zorelli’s fight with Rudy is a stunt he hopes will lead to the genuinely corrupt cop showing his hand while Paige is trying to get to the bottom of Ted’s involvement with Murakame. “Whatever you’re doing, I am going to find out what is going on here,” she promises him.
As the Murakame story grows increasingly dark, KNOTS starts making direct references to arguably the greatest film noir of them all, Billy Wilder’s 1944 classic Double Indemnity (starring THE COLBYS’ very own Barbara Stanwyck). It manages to do so in a more stylish way than the toe-curlingly contrived gags Bobby and April felt obliged to make about The Sound of Music on last week’s DALLAS just because they were in Austria. Double Indemnity first appears as one of a handful of black-and-white movies Mack and Paula are flicking between on late night TV. Every scene they happen upon shows a couple in a passionate embrace, which serves to exacerbate their own discomfort at being in close proximity to each other. Gary and Sally’s Friend are also watching the film while chatting on the phone. Inspired by the screen lovers’ secret assignation in Jerry’s Market, they arrange to finally meet in a similar location the following day. Abby and Ted, meanwhile, are too busy living their own version of Double Indemnity to watch it on TV. As if the parallels between their situation and Stanwyck and Fred McMurray’s in the movie weren’t clear enough already (a blonde femme fatale, a patsy she seduces into carrying out her dangerously illegal scheme, a crucial piece of legal documentation, murder), they are underlined by the shot of Abby and Ted in bed which turns slowly from black-and-white to colour, and a lush musical score that bears more than a passing resemblance to Miklós Rózsa’s for Double Indemnity.
While KNOTS goes noir and DYNASTY is shot through with an end-of-season urgency (Blake: “We’re running out of time — we’ve got to find that collection!” Alexis: “They are ruining me — they’re stripping me of Colby Co and everything else I own!”), DALLAS proceeds at a more leisurely pace, with a grand ball and a prolonged making-love-for-the-first-time montage of Bobby and April in Austria. Meanwhile, an amnesiac Clayton goes walkabout in San Angelo. Fortunately, not all law enforcement officials in Soap Land are as rotten as Captain Handler, and a kindly sheriff helps Miss Ellie track her husband down to his first wife’s graveside (“I don’t remember her dying,” he tells her). But while a bewildered Clayton is free to wander the streets, a sane Angela Channing has been committed by her son to a mental hospital run by King Galen of Moldavia. She’s in a similar situation to Val Gibson at the beginning of this season’s KNOTS when no-one believed that Jill had tried to kill her and they all thought she was going crazy instead. Here, everyone thinks Angela’s losing it because of her claims of being imprisoned in Richard’s penthouse and Melissa coming back from the dead. Unlike Val, Angela has never seemed particularly frightened or even upset during her ordeal, just a bit cross. While she is clearly made of sterner stuff than Val and so less likely to show her emotions, her lack of reaction is one of the reasons the stakes on this week’s FALCON CREST don’t seem as high as on the other soaps. Only at the end of the ep, when she appears in court for her mental competency hearing and suddenly blurts out, “That’s the woman — the woman who pretended to be Melissa Agretti!”, only for a perfect stranger to turn around, does the gravity of Angela’s situation seem to impact her — and us.
While Alexis flashes back twenty-something years to her breakup with Roger in the final scene of this week’s DYNASTY, JR and Vanessa also revisit the 1960s and the end of their own relationship. It turns out that Alexis and JR — Soap Land’s two biggest badasses — were each rejected by the love of their life. “Why weren’t you willing to run away with me? I would have married you,” JR asks Vanessa. “I wanted to go with him wherever he went, but he didn’t want me,” says Alexis of Roger. Whereas JR and Vanessa’s parting was at least bittersweet (“I loved my husband, but God, I loved you too, JR,” Vanessa replies), there was nothing sweet about Roger and Alexis’s final parting: “He was terrible to me — he was violent, he was threatening, he was horrible.”
We watch in flashback as Roger strikes Alexis, knocking her unconscious, just four weeks after Roger’s other self, Tommy McKay, did the same thing to April on DALLAS. While in broadcast terms, only a month separates the two incidents, narratively, it is more than two decades. It’s as if Roger/Tommy were a Soap Land version of Eugene Tooms on THE X-FILES or Killer Bob from TWIN PEAKS — an evil entity who surfaces once every twenty-five years, unchanged by time, to beat the crap out of a female soap star.
There’s more violent synchronicity in the Ewingverse as Terrence E. McNally becomes the first Soap Land actor to be murdered twice. As private detective Sam Barker, he was killed on DALLAS three years ago when Angelica Nero’s assistant Grace tampered with the brakes on his car. As Rick Hawkins, he is found electrocuted in his bathtub at the end of this week’s KNOTS. He’s the man who knew too much — about Marinos then, and Murakame now.
If the Nazi treasure aspect of this season’s DYNASTY recalls a similar storyline on FALCON CREST, then the mystery of Roger Grimes’ death contains several echoes of the Hutch McKinney story on DALLAS: The remains of a long-dead shooting victim are found on the family property (Hutch on Southfork, Roger at the lake). The family patriarch becomes the prime suspect (Jock, then Blake). The campaign to convict him is led by a long-standing enemy (Cliff, Alexis). The truth finally surfaces via flashbacks to a violent argument about a wife’s infidelity (Digger goes nuts after realising Rebecca is about to leave him for Hutch, Roger cruelly rejects Alexis after Blake throws her out). There is a devastating discovery for a principal female character, too young to recall the events of the time (Pam discovers that she is Hutch’s daughter, Fallon realises that she shot Roger to save her mother). In each case, there’s also the added irony of Cliff and Alexis’s vengeance-fuelled schemes backfiring when the real killer turns out to be someone dear to them: Cliff’s father Digger, Alexis’s daughter Fallon.
James from London, Feb 16, 2019
10 May 89: DYNASTY: Catch 22 v. 11 May 89: KNOTS LANDING: The Heat of Passion v. 12 May 89: DALLAS: Mission to Moscow v. 12 May 89: FALCON CREST: The Last Laugh
After a season’s worth of accusations and infighting, several of DYNASTY’s warring characters finally reach an understanding — more or less. Take Blake and Alexis, for example. Now that Fallon has been revealed as Grimes’s killer, Blake proposes a truce: “Maybe some good can come out of all this, maybe we can finally put an end to the war between us.” Alexis agrees and they embrace — but there’s still the small matter of “that extraordinary art collection that’s buried underneath this estate.” Alexis goes on to describe it as “community property.” Blake smiles uncertainly — can she really be serious? This is their final interaction of the series and it’s a nicely ambivalent note on which to leave them.
Similarly, Zorelli is taken into Jeff and Dex’s confidence and the three of them pool their knowledge of Captain Handler and the Collection. This leads to Jeff and Zorelli staking out Handler’s apartment like a pair of mismatched cops in a buddy movie. “You know, Zorelli,” says Jeff dryly, observing his new partner’s eating habits, “had I known you were gonna be having an eight-course meal, we’d have taken your car.” “You don’t like me much, do you?” deduces Zorelli.
Conversely on KNOTS, nobody can agree about what the hell’s going on. The episode starts with Karen marching into Abby’s office and declaring with total confidence, but only fifty per cent accuracy, “that you and Greg are involved with Murakame.” When Paige and Abby separately conclude that Ted must have killed Rick Hawkins, they can’t get anyone to take them seriously. “You know how paranoid you sound?” Mack asks his daughter. “Do you know how paranoid you sound?” echoes Ted himself, when Abby tentatively suggests the idea. And in spite of Karen and Paula’s repeated accusations, Mack stubbornly refuses to believe that Murakame is corrupt. “You people — concocting this incredible plot because you hate this company,” he tells them. “Large corporations are not inherently evil.”
In the second half of the episode, however, the discoveries come thick and fast. First, Ted tells Mack about Paige’s affair with Greg, then Paige tells Greg about Ted’s affair with Abby. Meanwhile, Ted realises he’s been tricked by Abby and blabs to a reporter who, in turn, calls Karen for a quote (“I was wondering if you had any comment that one of your former business partners defrauded you?”). The episode then ends as it began, with Karen confronting Abby, only this time in a room full of party guests: “Abby owns Murakame. She has all along. She defrauded me, she defrauded Gary and she is going to jail!”
On DALLAS, it’s all about trust. Can JR trust what Vanessa says about the Russians? Can the Ewings trust what the Russians say about the Europeans? Can Cally trust JR when he tells he is no longer interested in Vanessa? Can Afton trust Cliff when he tells he isn’t only interested in her because of her daughter? Can Sue Ellen believe any man ever again? “I find it hard to trust and believe anymore,” she says, speaking for practically the entire cast. “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
While Blake seems to have finally come to terms with his daughter’s relationship with Zorelli, Mack’s problems regarding his daughter’s relationship with Greg are only just beginning. “Look at ya, Mack — you’re almost jealous!” Paige yells provocatively when she sees how angry he is. “I’m not jealous, I’m ashamed,” he replies. “It’s bad enough you slept with him before he was married, but to have so little pride, Paige, that you let him set you up in this apartment afterwards!” I love the little misunderstandings here: Mack’s assumption that the affair carried on after Greg married Abby and that Paige is now his kept woman. These details don’t make a scrap of difference to the plot, but they add texture, a further layer of miscommunication between father and daughter.
After Cliff tinkled the ivories for Afton two weeks ago and Ted Melcher did the same for Abby last week, Fallon becomes the third surprise pianist of the season. This time, however, the tune she plays is pertinent to the plot. “I dreamt about a music box,” she explains to Zorelli, “one I used to play with when I a kid, and it was playing this lullaby.” The music box in question contains a miniature merry-go-round, just such like the one Fallon had her slow-motion freak-out on back in Season 4 and later had flashbacks about when she turned into Randall Adams, thus trying all her various mental maladies together.
In a creepier version of the recent FALCON CREST scenario which found Richard Channing and his son stuck at the bottom of a well, Fallon’s search for the music box ends with her trapped at the bottom of a disused mine shaft with a spooked Krystina, a rapey Dennis Grimes and the long-lost Nazi treasure. “I’ve been in prison a long, long time. You know what that does to a guy?” leers Dennis while breathing down her top. Sure we do, Dennis — your daddy-once-removed, Tommy McKay, gave us a pretty good idea when he got out of jail and started rubbing up against every blonde in Texas. Fallon responds by shooting Dennis, much like she did his original daddy, just before the roof literally caves in on them all.
No sooner is the murder of one minor Soap Land character, DYNASTY’s Elsworth Chisolm, resolved (courtesy of a throwaway line from Mystery Limousine Lady regarding Dennis: “That man is a lunatic — he killed that witness!”) than another crops up to take its place: the bespectacled appraiser who faked the deeds to Falcon Crest is shown dead on the floor of his shop. (All in all, it’s not been the healthiest season for forgers: as far as we know, Mrs Bailey is still lying in a catatonic state at Soap Land Memorial Hospital.)
As DYNASTY draws to an end, there’s a sense of closure for some of its characters. Sable is keen to make a fresh start (“I want this baby to come into the world with a clean slate — free of lies, free of vendettas, free of secrets”) while Dex is no longer willing to kowtow to either Alexis or Sable (“Sorry, girls, but I’ve run out of cheeks to turn”). Others, however, seem destined to go on repeating past behaviour: Sammy Jo embarking on yet one more doomed romance, Adam spewing out yet one more vicious one-liner.
Speaking of one-liners, the news of Sable’s pregnancy in the penultimate scene elicits Soap Land’s first ever reference to the menopause. “So, Sable’s going to have a change of life baby,” Alexis smirks. It’s also fun to hear her talk about the Führer. Her delivery of the line, “Does the name Adolf Hitler ring a bell?” to Sable is hard to beat. Bobby Ewing’s corny jokes about Russian tzars and caviar and fur coats seem puny in comparison. But there’s a certain novelty in hearing JR talk about Perestroika, Glasnost and even Communism: “You know how Daddy used to feel about communists — he used to think that they were behind everything that ever went wrong.”
Punch of the Week: it’s close, but Monica socking Adam for engineering her and Jeff’s incest scandal narrowly beats Mack taking a pop at Greg for nailing his daughter. That’s not to overlook the thrilling (and possibly fatal) blow Adam inadvertently delivers to both Dex and Alexis that sends them crashing through the balcony railings of the Carlton (their slow-motion screams are a terrific touch). There’s something pleasingly traditional about this cliffhanger — it feels like a throwback to the great Falling Down epidemic of ’81 when Constance Carlyle, Kristin Shepard, Sid Fairgate and Jason Gioberti all plummeted off either a balcony or a cliff towards death or paralysis or, in Sid’s case, both.
There’s a heatwave on this week’s KNOTS, which builds on the claustrophobic tension of last week’s ‘Double Indemnity’ homage. The scene in Abby’s bedroom where she silently realises Ted has killed Rick explicitly references the 1981 movie ‘Body Heat’ (which, in turn, owed a great deal to ‘Double Indemnity’). ‘Body Heat’ is also set during a heatwave, but it is the sound of wind chimes tinkling outside Abby’s window that directly parallel the wind chimes that play on Kathleen Turner’s balcony throughout the film. While the KNOTS characters swelter and look sultry in the heat, the Ewing boys must battle their way through a blizzard in Moscow. The last time DALLAS saw snow, Lucy was skipping school to fool around with Uncle Ray. The title of Afton’s latest synthesised offering, ‘Through the Eyes of Winter’, is therefore apropos.
Karpov and Alexi, the two Russians Bobby and JR encounter in Moscow, turn out to be quite jolly, but the way their lip movements fail to correspond with any of their dialogue puts one in mind of Hood, the bad guy puppet with the non-specific foreign accent from THUNDERBIRDS. They tell JR and Bobby that OPEC is behind the big deal that has brought both them and West Star to Europe and that it’s all part of a fiendish plot to stockpile the world’s oil and hold it to ransom. “The idea of OPEC dictating to us just makes my skin crawl,” frets JR, his dormant patriotism coming into play. “You gotta say you care for your country.”
Carter McKay is less impressed by the Russians’ revelation. “Whatever America used to be, it isn’t anymore,” he tells the Ewing boys upon their return to Vienna. “In a few years, there may be half a dozen corporations that control the country … It’s already half-owned by the Japanese and the Arabs and the Europeans. It’s all a question of investment and profit.” “I don’t know if it’s patriotism or you can call it Texas pride … but I don’t want any foreigners running my state,” says JR flatly. I guess you could also call it xenophobia, but let’s not get hung up on labels. As McKay says, “Like it or not, JR, there are no more borders, there are no more countries. There are just dollars and yen and pounds and marks … We’re making Japanese cars in America, we’re making American cars in Europe and guess where we’re making European cars? In Asia. There’s just one world, there’s just one country, there’s just one language. That language is power. Do you think that people that own West Star stock care where their dividends come from? They only care that they get them. Their only loyalty is to profit and to the man that brings it to them. That man is going to be me.” This extraordinary speech has no precedent on DALLAS but does recall a scene between Richard Channing and his mother a few weeks ago on FALCON CREST where she accused him of selling his children’s valley out from under them. “I haven’t sold their valley,” he replied. “I’m trying to kick its butt into the twenty-first century!” “There won’t be a twenty-first century if you have your way!” Angela insisted. “Don’t let heritage and family pride and all that nonsense keep you on the sidelines,” Richard urged. “You do and the parade’s gonna pass you by. Falcon Crest has to change if it’s gonna succeed in the future.” Richard and McKay seem to be saying the same thing: adapt or die. One might easily imagine Jock Ewing and Old Man Southworth having the same argument about drilling for oil on Southfork back in the ‘30s or recall Cecil Colby challenging Denver Carrington’s upper management policy of “no blacks, no Jews and no women” nine years ago: “I’m not a feminist. I'm not a masculinist. I don't care if a person buttons his fly on the right or the left, but if he's smart, if he puts a dollar's profit in my pocket … I'll hire him — or her.” Forget heritage, forget patriotism, forget gender — “it’s all a question of investment and profit.”
“So you just sell your soul and to hell with whatever comes after, huh?” Bobby asks McKay. “Maybe that works for you … but it doesn’t for us.” Pilar Ortega says pretty much the same thing this week when Richard boasts that, with him in charge, “Tuscany’s gonna be one of the most prosperous communities in the state.” “… At what cost, Richard?” she asks, anticipating a time when “the valley … becomes so ugly and polluted we can’t live here anymore … You’ve made a lot of enemies, including your own mother … How much is enough?”
So if Richard Channing and Carter McKay represent the faceless, soulless, corporate future, where does that leave Angela and JR, with their “heritage and family pride and all that nonsense”? In an increasingly globalised business world, is their brand of homegrown, sentimentally justified villainy now obsolete? As Alexi says to the Ewing boys (even as his lips are mouthing something else), “You are very wise in the business of oil, but of international affairs, you know nothing.” It seems very telling that McKay’s “whatever America used to be, it isn’t any more” speech should come just two nights after DYNASTY, a vivid example of something American television used to be but isn’t anymore, ends its run.
This new sense of global corporate anonymity has also permeated KNOTS — Murakame, anyone? While we’ve been “making Japanese cars in America”, Abby’s been giving American companies Japanese-sounding names she found in the phone book. And there’s also the vagueness of the Sumner Group itself — what sort of business is it, exactly? As viewers, we neither know nor really care — any more than West Star’s stockholders “care where their dividends come from. They only care that they get them.” Greg may have inherited the company from his father, but he has no interest in “heritage and family pride and all that nonsense.” There are no childhood reminisces about the first time he walked knee-high with his daddy through the vineyards or the oilfields and vowed that one day he too would blah, blah, blah.
But TV abhors a vacuum and the absence of a traditional Soap Land family running the Sumner Group allows its employees to emerge as a kind of ad hoc TV family. We see them in action this week, throwing Ted a leaving party in his office, and lining up to sing Harvey’s praises to Abby. (According to Mort, “he’s been accepted to Stanford on a full scholarship.” According to Bob, “he’s a great athlete, star shortstop on the company softball team”). As in any Soap Land family, there is plenty of room for sibling rivalry and ambition. “If you can’t see the implications in this letter to Paige Matheson,” Mort tells Bob, “if you can’t project the possibilities of this situation, if the raw potential of this opportunity doesn’t leap out at you, I don’t think you’ll ever be a senior vice president.” “It’s just a letter to Paige,” Bob shrugs.
Ultimately, the Ewing boys back out of the not-so-European-after-all deal, suggesting that when it comes to making money, even JR has a line he will not cross. In Alexis’s final business move on DYNASTY, however, she doesn’t hesitate to use Nazi war crimes to her own advantage. “Drop that lawsuit and I’ll give up all claims to that Nazi treasure,” she tells Sable. “You would use that against Blake?” Sable asks, appalled. “I’m a survivor and nobody brings me down,” she replies unapologetically.
The final seconds of DYNASTY, following the staircase shoot-out which leaves both Blake and Handler wounded (possibly fatally) are interesting. Zorelli goes to Blake’s side and carefully takes the gun out of his hand without leaving any fingerprints on it. He then passes it, along with his own gun (which might or might not have fired the shot that hit Handler), to his former partner Rudy. Zorelli may no longer be a cop but he clearly hasn’t forgotten police procedure. The same cannot be said for Rudy who simply grabs the guns, instantly putting his own prints all over them. Conversely, the sequence used to depict the discovery of Rick Hawkins’s body on KNOTS is solely about police procedure. It begins with a close-up of a cloth-covered hand unplugging the murder weapon — a hairdryer — before the same cloth is used to retrieve said weapon from the bathtub, while another cop photographs the crime scene, etc.
During their penultimate week in Soap Land, Sue Ellen and Abby each receives a reminder of her chequered past. At Southfork, Clayton’s memory is jogged when he recognises Sue Ellen. “It seems to tie in with Southern Cross,” he puzzles and she is obliged to admit that she and John Ross lived there for a while. Harold Dyer likewise triggers an awkward memory for Abby when he tells her he’s got a job at Knots Landing Motors. “That’s where you got your start — in the parts department, right?” he asks. “Wrong,” she replies coldly, taking none too kindly to this unintentional reference to Sid’s demise. Back on DALLAS, Miss Ellie is much more forthcoming about Jock’s death. “It was as if a hole opened and swallowed me up,” she tells Lucy. “I always thought that somehow I’d be the one that went first. I used to pray for that.” There are further recollections as Ellie tries to nudge Clayton’s memory by leafing through a family photo album. So it is that we catch our first glimpse of Victoria Principal’s actual face since Pam’s car collided with that tanker. There’s also an unintentional allusion to the nondescript outfit Ellie wore at her and Clayton’s wedding. Pointing at a random picture of the two of them, she says, “That’s the day we were married.” It isn’t, but it might as well have been.
KL's Abby and FC’s Richard have been at their most ruthless in recent weeks — they’ve each double-crossed a lover (Abby setting up Ted over Murakame, Richard framing Not-Melissa on a drugs charge), and while she’s been defrauding her partners, he’s been gaslighting his own mother. Both, however, have the rug pulled out from under them by a surprise wedding announcement. Abby invites Harvey from the Sumner Group to Olivia’s eighteenth birthday party in the hopes of pairing them off — only for the guest of honour to announce that she and Harold “were married this morning.” Abby is stunned and for all of her wicked, wicked, wickedness, you can’t help but feel for her. Meanwhile, in the FALCON CREST courtroom, Richard has succeeded in convincing the judge that Angela is “mentally disabled to conduct her affairs.” He has just been granted conservatorship of her affairs when Angela’s lawyer hands the judge a document which causes him to amend his previous ruling: “Due to evidence just presented, conservatorship is awarded to Angela Channing’s husband Frank Agretti.” While Frank and Angela exchange a conspiratorial wink across the courtroom, Richard glowers and the frame freezes.
18 May 89: KNOTS LANDING: Down Came the Rain and Washed the Spider Out (1/2) v. 19 May 89: DALLAS: Reel Life v. 19 May 89: FALCON CREST: Decline and Fall
Each of this week’s season finales focuses the departure of a major character. Abby is leaving for Japan on KNOTS, Sue Ellen for England on DALLAS and Richard for prison on FALCON CREST.
KNOTS opens with Abby and Greg writing off their marriage in a couple of sentences. “We didn’t get married, we made a business deal,” Abby says. “Well, now, doll, all business deals are off,” Greg replies. At the start of FALCON CREST, Richard ends things with Samantha Ross in much the same way: “There was a deal between us, a good old-fashioned business arrangement, that’s all … Forget our paths ever crossed.” Elsewhere on FC, newlyweds Frank and Angela make it clear that theirs is also a union of convenience. “We’re just buying time,” Angela explains to her family. “The marriage will be annulled when it is safe.” By way of contrast on DALLAS, Don Lockwood tells Sue Ellen that he loves her more than he thought he could love anyone “so share your life with me, Sue Ellen. Come back to England with me.”
Shortly before Krystle left DYNASTY, she had a conversation with Sable where she all but gave her her blessing (albeit not in so many words) to become her romantic replacement in Blake’s life. This week, Abby and Sue Ellen each have their own “passing of the torch” encounter with a younger woman. While Abby runs into Paige outside Olivia’s apartment, Sue Ellen runs into Cally in the Southfork living room. Where Paige is hostile (“For years, you have lied and cheated and conned people and you’ve gotten away with it — well I am not gonna let you get away with this!” she snarls at Abby), Cally is cordial (“You’ve been truly kind to me, considering I’m the second wife and all,” she smiles at Sue Ellen). The older woman responds with a compliment (“You’re good, you really are. If I were rating you on the Abby scale, Abby being a ten, you’d be a six,” Abby tells Paige. “I think you’re very good for JR. You have a way of drilling deep and bringing out the best in him,” Sue Ellen tells Cally), which is then undercut with a reference to her lack of experience — Abby mentions Paige’s “youth and ignorance” while Sue Ellen cautions Cally against being too “sweet and eager to please.” There isn’t the same older/younger woman dynamic on FALCON CREST, but there is an interesting scene where Pilar encounters Samantha, the doppelgänger of the woman she herself has replaced in both Lance’s life and the show’s opening credits. “What kind of woman would have agreed to do what Richard asked?” she asks her. “The kind of woman who’s very interested in money. Something tells me you just might be able to understand that,” Samatha replies knowingly.
Abby and Sue Ellen each has a final scene with the child she is leaving behind, Olivia and John Ross respectively. Technically, neither of these is a goodbye scene — Abby’s overseas appointment has yet to be revealed and Sue Ellen is still undecided about leaving with Don. Instead, she hands responsibility for the decision to her ten-year-old son, telling him that she wants to move to London and that he can come too if he chooses, but if he’d prefer her to stay in Dallas, she will. In the real world, this would be a ludicrously unfair burden to place on a kid (to quote Paige during the custody dispute over Meg earlier in the season, “It’s not the child’s job to accommodate the parents, it’s the parents’ job to accommodate the child”), but in TV Land, it kind of works. In fact, it’s quite a touching scene — John Ross’s face actually reddens when Sue Ellen talks about leaving.
Even though the focus of their conversation is Olivia’s new marriage, there is a strong sense of finality about Abby and Olivia’s last scene together. Abby is very relatable in this situation — as she looks around Olivia and Harold’s shabby apartment, you don’t have to be Mommie Dearest to understand her disappointment at the life her daughter has chosen for herself. (The only apartment shabbier in this week’s Soap Land is the dive where Cliff finds Afton’s washed up ex-husband, Harrison Van Buren III.) “I know it doesn’t look like much, but at least Harold and I are sharing it,” says Olivia happily. Her romanticised view of the future (as Abby sees it) affords Abby the opportunity to look back at her own past. “I remember clipping coupons and then going to the store on double coupon day to cash them in. I remember scrimping and saving and worrying every single month if I was going to make the rent or not. Do you want that? Olivia, you don’t even know what a gas bill looks like!” Sue Ellen also reflects on the woman she used to be: “It’s hard not to think about all the years I spent in JR’s shadow, never being myself, always being Mrs JR Ewing — wife, mother and verbally abused punching bag … Never knowing who the hell I really was.”
Abby and Sue Ellen are equally keen for their children to experience life beyond the Ewingverse. “There’s a whole world out there, just filled with interesting, exciting people and wonderful places,” Abby tells Olivia. “You can go to school in Paris, in London, wherever you want. It’s all out there, just waiting for you. It’s not too late to get an annulment.” “We could do a lot of travelling all around the world,” Sue Ellen tells John Ross. “I’d get you a private tutor and you could see how movies are made and you’d see a lot more of life than you’d see here in Dallas.” Ultimately, however, both kids elect to stay in Soap Land. When Abby asks for Olivia’s credit cards and car keys back, it symbolises a severing of the cord between mother and daughter. Meanwhile, Sue Ellen’s decision to leave without her son feels like an extension of the unspoken distance that has developed between them since she shot his daddy this time last year.
Now that her ownership of Murakame has become public knowledge, Abby’s head would appear to be on the chopping block. (“And she is going to jail!” as Karen declared last week). However, all it takes is a press conference where she explains that she purchased the company “only a week ago” with the express purpose of donating the land that was once Lotus Point “to the government as a wildlife preserve” for her to come up smelling like roses. She isn’t the first Soap Land character to have gotten themselves out of a tight spot by making such a gesture — JR pulled off something similar at the end of “Community Spirit” (KNOTS Season 1), Angela publicly hi-jacked a good deed of Chase's to claim it as her own (FALCON CREST Season 2), Alexis offset some bad publicity by donating Lake Colby to the state as a wildlife sanctuary (DYNASTY Season 6) and, in a bid to save his parents’ marriage, Bobby declared the Takapa land a wilderness area (DALLAS Season 3). However, Abby goes one better by also swiping the Japanese trade representative post right out from under Greg’s nose. Gary ironically applauds her success from the audience. “She could make the Rape of Poland look like a Sunday school picnic,” he declares loudly before walking out in disgust. (How weird that, a week after Blake and Alexis’s final exchange on DYNASTY, in which Alexis described the Nazi treasure as community property, Gary and Abby’s last interaction should also allude to a crime committed by the Third Reich.)
Greg’s off-the-cuff response when Abby talks about them moving to Japan — “The raw fish’ll kill ya, I think I’ll take a pass” — contains more wit and bite than any number of Bobby Ewing’s lame Dad jokes about Russia and Austria over the past few weeks. Heck, even Brian Cunningham’s departing line of the series, “I am looking forward to seeing those Geisha girls”, is funnier. (It’s also kind of neat that Brian should hit puberty just as he is exiting left-of-frame for the last time.)
Abby may have landed on her feet and Alexis might have managed to slither out from under an SEC investigation last week, but Richard Channing is not so lucky. After he is indicted by the SEC for insider trading, things go from bad to worse when a wired-for-sound Samantha tricks him into admitting he kidnapped his mother. You don’t think he’s gonna fall for it; you assume that he’s gonna outwit her at the last minute and have Garth bundle her into in the back of a waiting truck, but no, this time he is actually screwed.
Back on KNOTS, the scene where Abby drops by the cul-de-sac “to say goodbye, Karen” is a thing of beauty. Karen is already furious at her for “trying to convince everyone that she donated Lotus Point for altruistic reasons … How does she weasel out of everything? How does she do it?!” So when Abby makes the conciliatory gesture of returning the necklace of her mother’s that she borrowed from Karen for her wedding, Karen is not in a very forgiving mood. “Ever since you moved to Knots Landing, you’ve been cheating and stealing,” she snaps. “You stole Val’s husband, you tried to steal Meg and you cheated me out of Lotus Point!” This prompts some very enjoyable self-justification from Abby who is as marvellously unrepentant here as she was when Karen confronted her about her fling with Richard Avery all those years ago. “I did not ‘take’ Lotus Point. I turned it into a park so millions of people could enjoy it. Now, I thought you of all people would be thrilled about that,” she begins. “As for Gary and I, we fell in love. Nobody could help that, nobody predicted that. Nobody could have prevented that and if Val was hurt in the process, I’m sorry. Val’s a nice person, a little dull, but she’s nice and she’s made a very nice suburban life for herself here. She seems to be happy so it all worked out, didn’t it?” Her summation of Val is still laugh-out-loud funny. (Speaking of whom, Val is nowhere to be seen during this KNOTS double bill — perhaps last season’s finale is still fresh in her mind and she figured she'd be better off out of it.) The dynamic of the scene changes when a choked-up Abby asks Karen a favour: “Would you please keep an eye on Olivia while I’m gone?” “Of course .… I’m touched that you want your daughter to be influenced by me,” Karen replies. Even at her most emotionally exposed, Abby can’t resist a dig: “I didn’t say that. I just said I wanted you to keep an eye on her.” The knowing smile she gives Karen on her way out the door is just lovely and says what words can’t.
There are no equivalent scenes for Sue Ellen, no final words for Bobby or Miss Ellie. Having moved off Southfork over a year ago, perhaps it’s all been said. But there is a similarly bittersweet note when Richard stops by Falcon Crest towards the end of this week’s ep to see Angela. “I wanted to say goodbye," he explains, a wry smile on his face. “They’re coming to arrest me this afternoon … They’ve denied bail … You’ve got your victory.” “A victory I could have done without,” Angela concedes grudgingly. There’s a pause. Then Richard says, “Goodbye, Mother” and leaves. As with Abby and Karen, there are things going on between these characters that can’t be easily articulated and the scene is all the stronger for it.
At the end of her visit with Karen, Abby is as sweet and as vulnerable as we’ve ever seen her. Two scenes later, she’s back in double-crossing femme fatale mode as she presents Ted Melcher with some oh-so-convenient photos taken by Rick Hawkins of him tampering with the engine of Mr Nagata’s car. “If anything happens to me,” she tells him, “if the brakes go out on my car, if my toaster falls into the bathtub while I’m taking a bath, the photographs that I showed you go to the police.” Sue Ellen departs Dallas with a similarly phrased threat hanging over JR’s head: “If I hear that you’re planning to come after me, or if you cross me for any reason, or if I feel that you’re not doing right by John Ross or anyone else for that matter, or if I get up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, or if I’m simply bored, then I’ll release the movie.”
So Abby’s outwitted Ted and she’s off to Japan, free and clear — good for her! But then she does something really bad, maybe even evil, just for the malicious hell of it: she shows Ted an oh-so-convenient copy of the note Rick sent to Paige: ’”If you get this key, you were right about Ted.” “I never did find the negatives to those photos,” she tells Ted teasingly. “Maybe he destroyed them — and maybe he didn’t.” Knowing how dangerous Ted is and that he’s already killed twice to cover his tracks, Abby is all but signing Paige’s death warrant here. If I may be so indulgent as to quote myself, this is what I wrote at the end of KNOTS Season 2:
Throughout this season, Donna Mills has done a brilliant job of keeping the audience off balance. Just when we think we've got a handle on Abby, she turns around and surprises us again.
And here she is, eight years later, doing the very same thing in her final episode.
When Abby and Greg say their goodbyes, there’s a delicious final twist that I’d completely forgotten about. “I think our marriage fell apart because of lack of communication,” he tells her. “If I had known that you owned Murakame, I wouldn’t have killed the oil permits … See, I thought Murakame were just jerking me around, so I put a kibosh on the oil permits.” Abby’s response is great: “Oh well, the oil was only worth money and I’ve got plenty of that … By donating Lotus Point, I got power. In the long run, power’s a lot more fun.” This chimes with Carter McKay’s memorable speech from last week’s DALLAS: “There’s just one world, there’s just one country, there’s just one language. That language is power.”
All previous departures of major Soap Land characters have been either tragic (Krystle, Laura, Sid, Pam, Jock, Chase, Melissa, Julia) or lowkey (Dominique, Donna, Ray, Jenna, the Wards, Richard, Cole, Julia again). Abby and Sue Ellen both buck this trend by going out on a high. “Don’t worry, be happy,” sing Abby and Brian on their way out of KNOTS while Sue Ellen leaves DALLAS threatening to one day make JR “the laughing stock of Texas … just for laughs!”
Abby’s departure is really great, and the sight of her and Brian riding triumphantly off into the sunset would make a nicely equivalent season ending to Sue Ellen exiting victoriously on Don’s arm — but KNOTS isn’t content to stop there. The episode has one further scene where Ted stalks Paige in a parking lot, only for another car to appear from nowhere and narrowly miss hitting him. “They’re trying to kill me!” he insists.
This is then immediately followed by another full episode of KNOTS in which Ted relentlessly pursues Paige as she dashes frantically from her apartment to the cul-de-sac to her apartment to the Sumner Group, then back to her apartment and finally to Greg’s ranch. What could easily be standard girl-in-peril stuff (and when we see Ted shouting through the gap in her chained-up apartment door, it’s hard not to think of Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING) becomes instead a game of psychological cat and mouse. Rather than hurt her physically, Ted is trying to get into Paige’s head, playing on her existing insecurities about Greg (“He hasn’t exactly treated you with kid gloves, has he? He married Abby, he let her fire you … Listen, I’ve been straighter with you than he has”) in order to turn her against him: “Maybe [Rick] was murdered and maybe Greg Sumner had something to do with it.” What Ted is really after is the key Rick mailed to Paige.
Paige isn’t the only character to have been sent a key through the post with no real explanation. “How bizarre!” exclaims Miss Ellie in the penultimate scene of this season’s DALLAS, when a birthday card for Jock arrives containing a cryptic message and … a key. Paige has had a couple of episodes’ head start on the Farlows to try and figure out her mystery, but it takes until this week to for her realise that her key belongs to a post office box — and she has to interrupt Harold on his and Olivia’s staycation honeymoon to learn even that much. Clayton, meanwhile, immediately identifies Jock’s key as belonging to “either a strong box or safety deposit box.” (Clearly, his brief spell of amnesia has had no lasting effect on his faculties.) Paige, meanwhile, makes up for lost time by going into plucky-girl-detective mode in an attempt to deduce which safety deposit box in which post office in which city the key fits, variously inventing a grandfather with Alzheimer's and posing as Rick’s sister, at the same time as fending off Ted’s advances.
There’s a more traditional girl-in-peril scenario on DALLAS where April is spooked by a succession of anonymous calls. (I reckon it’s Dennis Grimes calling from the caved-in mineshaft on that new-fangled mobile phone of his, only the reception’s too bad for him to actually speak.) Bobby rides to the rescue, insisting that she “spend a few days at Southfork … I’m not taking any chances, April.” There’s no such safe haven for Paige. When she comes to Seaview Circle looking for Mack, she finds the cul-de-sac eerily deserted and pretty soon Ted shows up in pursuit. (“I won’t get any satisfaction when you come to realise that I was right about Greg because then it’ll be too late to matter!”) Eventually, Frank Williams appears to scare him off and inform Paige that Mack and Karen have driven to the mountains on vacation.
The addition of April to the Southfork dinner table causes some interesting ripples. Christopher resents having to give up his chair for her, which amuses John Ross, while Miss Ellie regards her with intriguing disapproval. There’s a similar atmosphere when Angela invites Samantha to stay at Falcon Crest. Lance is transfixed by her resemblance to Melissa, which makes Pilar uneasy.
Like KL’s Mack and Karen, FC’s newest engaged couple, Tommy Ortega and Kelly, also go away for a romantic few days — but in each case, there’s a complication. When Mack discovers Karen has invited Paula to join them for the first three hours(!) of their car journey, he goes into a sulk. Kelly, meanwhile, gets even sulkier when she realises Tommy’s mind is elsewhere: “You think you can get Maggie Channing now that her husband’s going to jail, is that it?” On both vacations, an accident occurs, but the tones of the two storylines could not be more different. While the FALCON CREST plot becomes increasingly melodramatic, the KNOTS one plays like a screwball comedy. In fact, the car-bound singalong montage, involving Karen, Paula and an increasingly enthusiastic Mack, probably ranks as one of my Top 10 All-Time Funniest Soap Land Scenes. If what happens after that were to be attempted by any of the other soaps — one character sprains their ankle which leads another being sprayed by a skunk and doing an impromptu striptease in the rain — I would probably lose the will to live, but KNOTS succeeds in not only making it watchable but also genuinely funny. The situation ultimately leads to Mack and Paula being stranded in a thunderstorm and having to spend the night in the same motel room. If this makes them Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, then the brief moment when Tommy Ortega considers allowing his nagging fiancee to drown after their boat capsizes on FALCON CREST makes him and Kelly Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun.
The climax of KNOTS contains a succession of tiny call-backs to previous episodes. First, Paige finds her apartment has been ransacked and the all-important key, which she had secreted in the tub of Jamoca almond fudge Ted gave her as a peace-offering four episodes ago, is missing. She dashes out, finds Ted lying in wait yet again, makes a run for it and ends up at Greg’s ranch, where she manages to put any misgivings she may have about him out of her mind long enough for them to wind up in bed together. Later, while Greg is sleeping, she sees that the Mayan bowl she gave him at the beginning of the season is still on his dresser. Pleased, she picks it up — only to spot the all-important key next to it! If Greg stole the key, then maybe he did kill Rick after all! Panicking, she throws on some clothes and runs out into the rain. Greg, shrouded in darkness under an umbrella, comes out after her. “Yo Paige, the strip croquet game has been cancelled due to inclement weather!” he yells. The season ends with Paige torn between Ted (“Paige, everything I told you about him was true, wasn’t it?”) and Greg (“You’re not gonna believe him, are ya?”), just as Val was torn between her twins at the end of Season 6 — only Paige’s head spin is rain-soaked rather than in slow-motion.
Unlike last week’s DYNASTY finale, which left the lives of half the cast hanging in the balance, the only person placed in mortal danger in any of this week’s cliffhangers (unless you count the bonk on the head Cliff Barnes receives from Afton’s ex) is FALCON CREST’s Kelly, a tertiary character who doesn’t even have a surname. In fact, FC is the only ep that actually feels like a traditional season finale — and even that ends on a surprisingly understated note: Richard watching while Maggie drives away with his kids as he awaits his arrest. Aside from Sue Ellen’s departure, DALLAS just feels like a regular episode while the second of the KNOTS’ double bill scarcely feels like a soap at all. Instead, it’s 70% thriller, 25% screwball comedy, with 5% soapiness arising out of the “will they, won’t they?” questions surrounding Greg and Paige, and Mack and Paula.
And this week's Top 3 are ...
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Kingdom of Umbra
Umbra, Argona, Rhodd Duw, Topeli, Stef Khar and... what's that one we never use? Oh yeah, Manannan.
Kingdom of Umbra :: Information for Umbra RP :: Character Profiles :: People of Umbra - Profiles Share
Aliathiana Ladenves
Location : Illusionist, Enchantress
Subject: Aliathiana Ladenves Fri Jun 22, 2012 2:48 pm
Name: Aliathiana Ladenves (Real name unknown)
Race: Half Elf
Magic: Illusionist; Expert. Enchanter; Apprentice
Aliathiana was born out of wedlock to Baelathali and Mother, shortly after Mother was killed after it was discovered she was giving information to the authorities. Baelathali told her about her mother's death when she was old enough to understand that loyalty was the one thing you could regain after you have lost it. From a very early age she was taught the ways of the Order: Loyalty, Respect and above all Secrecy, which was paramount. These were engrained in her and every child of the Order, they guided her through her training and the trials to become a full member, it was a great honor and she was happy that her own father was the one who presided over the event.
During her time in the Order she traveled over most of Umbra, working for various Sovereigns who needed her special skills. Like her father, she excelled in taking life, though she has admitted to herself that she does not take as much joy from it that he does. For her killing is necessary for life to exist in peace, she did not kill for pleasure and she picked her targets carefully, much like her life, she is very particular and keeps everything in its place. The organizational skills she possessed made her an excellent assassin, she was able to plan out every detail and follow it through with little to no difficulty, even exceeding her own father's expectations.
Around ten years after she became a full member of the Order, she was called back to Enedost, her father had a surprise for her and she was almost giddy with anticipation believing that he was going to give her a Sovereignty. When she arrived though, she found that instead he handed her a human baby boy and told her that he was her new brother. She told him that she thought her brother would have pointier ears. For the next fifteen years she helped her father raise Darius and was even his first teacher in Illusion. But she was called to serve as a Nameless and had to leave Enedost. It was during this time that she failed to warn her brothers and sisters about a cohort of men that returned to their station and they were slaughtered. Though it was hard for her to even deal with what happened, Baelathali found an opportunity in the tragedy. He said that Aliathiana was dead along with the others and swore Darius, Trevor and himself to never speak her name again, never tell anyone she was alive until she was given another name.
Twenty years, it was a span of time most would consider a lifetime, though for a half elf it was not the same the time spent still is a lingering thought in her mind. Though she knows the purpose for the length of time spent in her nameless prison, there is still a mark of some resentment towards her father, even if his enemies could use her against him, did he not believe her capable of handling herself? But she would never tell her father those thoughts, she knew that he was not the kind of man who enjoyed being questioned, and even if he did not express it she knew that he felt regret for how long she spent alone. She is not sure why her father brought her back, he always seems to have a plan up his sleeve somewhere, but the one thing she can count on is her family.
Kingdom of Umbra :: Information for Umbra RP :: Character Profiles :: People of Umbra - Profiles
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Black bear euthanized after Utah boy injured in tent
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Wildlife officials say a black bear has been euthanized after a child was injured during a Boy Scout camping trip.
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources spokeswoman Faith Jolley says the boy suffered minor scratches when the bear disturbed his tent south of Salt Lake City early Tuesday morning.
She says a bear believed to be responsible was located in Hobble Creek Canyon hours later, and it was put down under department policy because it showed a lack of fear of humans.
It wasn’t clear why the bear disturbed the tent, but Jolley says many bears live in the area and are now waking up from hibernation, so it could have been foraging for food.
Hobble Creek is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Salt Lake City.
Posted in: OutdoorsLeave a comment
Former guide gets lifetime hunting ban for poaching
BILLINGS, Montana (AP) — A 23-year-old Montana hunting guide has received a lifetime suspension of his hunting, fishing and trapping rights for poaching multiple trophy big game animals in 2017.
The Billings Gazette reports Brandon K. Schuhen was also ordered Friday by District Judge Don Harris to complete 500 hours of community service for a wildlife conservation organization, serve 10 years of probation and pay $33,050 in restitution to the state of Montana.
Harris says one of the things that disturbed him about the case was that the killed animals were mostly left to waste.
Schuhen pleaded guilty to five counts of unlawful possession, shipping or transportation of a trophy big game animal, a felony.
Authorities say the animals poached by Schuhen included three bull elks and a buck antelope.
Noisy Yellowstone geyser roars back to life after 3 years
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyoming (AP) — A noisy geyser in Yellowstone National Park has roared back to life after three years of quiet.
Ledge Geyser is one of the biggest in Yellowstone’s Norris Geyser Basin.
The Billings Gazette reports the geyser shoots hot water at an angle up to 125 feet high and a distance of 220 feet.
Yellowstone geologist Jeff Hungerford says Ledge Geyser is noisy because its water and steam must pass through a narrow opening in the ground.
Yellowstone has 1,300 thermal features and 500 geysers, more than anywhere else on Earth. Some geysers such as Old Faithful are predictable but most, like Ledge Geyser, erupt erratically.
Posted in: Outdoors, XtremeidahoLeave a comment
Researchers to trap Yellowstone bears starting Monday
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (AP) — Wildlife biologists will be baiting and trapping grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park from Monday through July 31 as part of ongoing research.
The research by the National Park Service and Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team is to monitor the population of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
Officials say none of the trap sites in the park will be located near any established hiking trails or backcountry campsites and closure warnings will be posted around all trap sites for any recreationists in the area.
Backcountry users who come upon any of the posted areas need to stay out of the area.
In 2010, a man was killed near Yellowstone by a grizzly bear that had recently been captured and released by researchers.
Wyoming commission decides against grizzly bear hunt
JACKSON, Wyoming (AP) — The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission has opted not to hold a grizzly bear hunt this year.
The Jackson Hole News & Guide reports that the decision last week follows a bill passed by the Wyoming Legislature this winter that authorized state wildlife officials to hold a grizzly bear hunt in spite of the species’ “threatened” federal status.
But the commission voted unanimously against drawing up grizzly hunting regulations.
Commissioner Patrick Crank explained to his fellow board members that 230 years of case law supported the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which establishes the precedence of federal laws over state law.
Crank says if the state authorized a grizzly hunt, hunters who killed bears could face federal prosecution.
An estimated 700 grizzly bears reside in and around Yellowstone National Park.
Utah woman survives week in SUV stuck in snow
PARK VALLEY (AP) — Michelle Richan was stranded for a week in snow and mud in rural Utah — but she was prepared, police said.
Richan travels with an abundance of survival gear and had enough food and water in her SUV to last another week, she said.
She got stuck March 19 on a remote road in the northwest corner of the state while traveling home to Brigham City from Eureka, Nevada, the Deseret News reported.
Trapped without cellphone service, she decided to stay put, spending her time collecting firewood and burning fires.
Richan said she likes visiting secluded locations and was expecting to get stranded one day.
“I like going out in the middle of nowhere,” Richan said. “It’s just, you know if you’re going to be out there, you need to be able to survive out there.”
A week after she got stuck, a pilot spotted her from his small plane and radioed searchers on the ground.
“I spotted something orange, so I just went really low to look at it and saw her actually running out of the car,” pilot Ivo Zdarsky said.
A snowplow driver found Richan Tuesday and freed her vehicle. She was reunited with her family in Park Valley.
Richan’s daughter, Kaylee Vaughan, said it was a “terrifying and exciting” ordeal.
When she got the call that her mother was OK, Vaughan said, “I almost was in shock and was kind of like, ‘I don’t believe you. I have to see it for myself because it’s been so long and it’s been such a crazy rollercoaster of emotions and just thoughts.’”
If help had not arrived, Richan said she would have burned a spare tire and considered leaving the SUV to find shelter.
“I figured I had enough food left to at least last a week, so I figured I probably had enough to at least walk out if I had to,” Richan said.
Wyoming grizzly bear sightings mark end of hibernation
JACKSON, Wyoming (AP) — Officials say grizzly bears are starting to emerge from hibernation in northwest Wyoming.
The Jackson Hole News and Guide reports a state Game and Fish Department warden spotted a bear last Friday near the base of Steamboat Mountain — a week after bears were sighted outside their dens in nearby Yellowstone National Park.
Officials say people can now expect to see grizzly and black bears in the area through the beginning of next winter.
Officials recommend for those spending time in grizzly habitat to carry bear spray, travel in groups and stay at least 100 yards away from bears.
Yellowstone officials recorded the first grizzly sighting this year on March 8 south of Canyon Village.
Idaho steelhead fishing to remain open on most rivers
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — Idaho wildlife officials have approved an agreement with conservation groups and sport anglers to keep most steelhead fishing areas open.
The Idaho Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously to support the deal on Friday, the same day Idaho steelhead seasons were scheduled to expire.
Portions of the South Fork of the Clearwater River and the Salmon River will remain closed as part of the deal, the Lewiston Tribune reported.
“This is really a win for everybody,” said Roy Akins of Idaho River Community Alliance, a group of outfitters, guides and businesses that rely on steelhead anglers. “Now we can get back to work and focus attention on fish recovery.”
The commission last month voted to suspend the steelhead fishing season because of a possible federal lawsuit by six conservation groups contending the state’s steelhead regulations harm federally protected wild steelhead.
Idaho wild steelhead have been struggling and were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1997.
Wild steelhead caught by anglers must be returned to the river unharmed. But an estimated 3 percent of wild fish that are caught and released by sport anglers die as a result. For Idaho to allow the incidental capture of wild steelhead and the resulting deaths, it needs the federal government’s approval of its Fisheries Management and Evaluation Plan.
State officials say they applied for such a plan with the Fisheries Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after the plan expired in 2010, but haven’t yet received one.
The portions of Idaho rivers that remain closed to anglers under the deal are areas where wild steelhead are known to congregate.
“This resolution achieves the commission’s objective to limit impacts to steelhead fishing as much as possible while we remain focused on finally receiving federal approval of our steelhead fishery plan for the long term,” said Virgil More, director of Idaho Fish and Game.
Fish and game officials refused to change legal fishing gear and fishing practices requested by the conservation groups. But outfitters and guides with the Idaho River Community Alliance said they would voluntarily adopt some of the changes.
This year’s return of steelhead to Idaho is one of the worst on record. About 95,000 steelhead, including 30,000 wild steelhead, have been counted passing Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River between July 1 and Nov. 12. That’s the lowest overall number since 1978, and the lowest wild steelhead number since 1996.
David Moskowitz, executive director of the Conservation Angler, one of the groups that threatened the lawsuit, said his group has been working up and down the Columbia River to make sure wild steelhead make it back to Idaho.
“We are working hard for those wild fish,” he said. “I hope that earns us a little bit of credibility.”
Yellowstone National Park to close most entrances Monday
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (AP) — Yellowstone National Park officials soon will close most of the park’s entrances to prepare for the winter season.
KTWO-AM reports a news release from the park Wednesday says the preparations will begin at 8 a.m. Monday.
Most roads, and the west, south and east entrances will close so the park can prepare them for snowmobile and snow coach travel, which begins Dec. 15.
The road from the north entrance at Gardiner, Montana, to Mammoth Hot Springs in the park will remain open.
The road to the nearby of communities of Cooke City, Montana and Silver Gate, Montana, is open all year, weather permitting. Travel east of Cooke City on the Beartooth Highway is not possible from late fall to late spring.
Residents upset after hunter kills deer in city park
COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP) — Residents of one Coeur d’Alene neighborhood are upset that steps aren’t being taken to prevent hunting in a popular city park.
The Coeur d’Alene Press reports a deer gut pile found in the park recently prompted concerns from residents who fear getting shot by hunters.
City police said the deer was killed with archery equipment by a resident who did not know that killing deer with bow and arrow in the city was illegal.
Police spokesman Sgt. Jared Reneau said investigating officers responded to a call of a poached deer. Officers found the hunter, who was warned but not cited.
Reneau says he doesn’t think the hunter “had any malice.” But he says it is against the law to shoot animals within the city, regardless of how you do it.
Misadventures in the Wild: New book by local author gets personal with outdoor reporting
Is it over? Nah, crappie are still biting
3D Archery Shoot and Tournament to be held July 27-28 at Pebble Creek Ski Area
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Morin DFAed
https://www.mlbtrade...gnment-dfa.html No corresponding move, no trade appears imminent. *scratches head*
Game Thread: Twins vs Mets, 7/16/19, 7:10 PM CT
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Dumpster Fire: The 2016 Starting Rotation
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AFL Report - Week 4: Hitters Breakout
Nov 06 2018 07:09 PM | Steve Lein in Minor Leagues
The Salt River Rafters offense exploded in week four of the Arizona Fall League season as they took a commanding lead in the East division standings with two weeks left to play. They went 4-1 in their five games, scoring 12 or more runs three times and combining to outscore their opponents 54-25. Both Twins hitters still playing had a solid week and will look to continue trending upward as the season comes to a close, a starting pitcher picked up his first win, and a reliever made an appearance in the Fall Stars Game on Saturday.
Image courtesy of Linwood Ferguson (photo of Travis Blankenhorn)
(This report includes the games played through 11/4)
The Minnesota Twins group of pitching prospects combined to pitch eight innings on the week and allowed four earned on seven hits and seven walks, good for a 4.50 ERA and 1.75 WHIP. The hitters combined to go 9-for-22 with six runs scored and six RBIs, slashing .409/.458/.409 overall.
To find out how all the prospects fared in week 4 of the AFL season, keep reading!
(links provided to each player’s overall AFL stats by clicking their name)
Griffin Jax: 1 start, W, 4.0 IP, 4 H, 4 BB, 3 ER, 3 K; 4.50 ERA, 1.58 WHIP (overall).
Jax again made one start on the week, with his turn coming in Thursday’s 14-3 win over Glendale on the road. He finished four innings and was credited with his first AFL win, but it wasn’t a dominant effort by any means as he struggled a little with his command. He walked the first hitter of the game for the Desert Dogs, and that runner and another would come around to score in the first inning. He picked up a K to end any further threat. In the second frame he got another K for the first out, then walked another batter before getting the next two. In the third he allowed another run after the leadoff man singled, stole second base, then came around on another single. Jax finished his day by allowing a walk in the fourth, but no other runner reached base.
In total he allowed the three earned runs on four hits and four walks while striking out three. Of his 76 pitches in the outing, 45 went for strikes including six swinging.
Travis Blankenhorn: 2 games, 4-for-8, 3 R, 4 RBI, BB, 2 K; .250/.361/.300 (overall).
Playing second base in two games on the week, Blankenhorn made an impact in both contests as his team won those games by a combined score of 22-7.
In Tuesday’s 14-4 throttling of the Mesa Solar Sox, Blankenhorn batted sixth and made the most of his opportunities to drive runners in. In the second inning he got his team on the board with an RBI single and would score later as the Rafters jumped out to a 3-0 lead. In the third his sacrifice fly made it 4-3 and he added an RBI single in the fifth as Salt River started to pour it on. In addition to starting the Rafter’s scoring on the day, he also ended it with an RBI single in the eighth for the final tally of 14 runs on the game. In total he finished this one 3-for-4 with a run scored and four RBIs.
Back in action on Friday for their 8-3 win over the Surprise Saguaros, Blankenhorn batted leadoff and made the most of his opportunities to score runs. He drew a walk to lead off the top of the third inning and would score a few batters later on a home run as Salt River took the early 2-0 lead. He singled in the top of the sixth and would trot home on a sacrifice fly for their eighth and final run of that game. He went 1-for-4 with a walk, two runs scored, and two K’s to finish off his week.
Hector Lujan: 1 appearance, 1.0 IP, BB, K; 7.94 ERA, 1.94 WHIP (overall).
With the week shortened by one game due to the Fall Stars game on Saturday, Lujan and the rest of the pitching staff only appeared in one league game each on the week. His opportunity came after Jax’s start and another Twins reliever’s appearance in Thursday’s win over Glendale.
Out for the seventh inning with a 12-3 lead, Lujan got a couple of fly outs around a walk, then ended his inning with a swinging strikeout for a scoreless inning of work. He threw 19 pitches, with 12 going for strikes (two swinging).
Jaylin Davis: 3 games, 5-for-14, 3 R, RBI, 4 K; .261/.292/.261 (overall).
Among Twins prospects in week four, Davis saw the most action as he played in three games including right field twice and left field once.
In Monday’s 12-3 blowout of the Mesa Solar Sox Davis had his best game of the AFL season, finishing 4-for-5 with three runs scored and an RBI. In the bottom of the first his two-out single scored the second run of the game for the Rafters, before the next batter made it 5-0 with a home run. In the third inning Davis beat out an infield single and then stole second base before scoring on a single that made it a 7-0 lead. He was left stranded after a single in the fifth but would score his third run of the game in the seventh inning after yet another single. On defense in the sixth, Davis ran down a ground ball single in right field and threw a strike back into second base to cut down the runner trying to stretch it into a double for another outfield assist.
After a day off on Tuesday, Davis was in left field for the Rafters 12-6 loss on Wednesday to Glendale in extra innings. He was 1-for-4 with a strikeout, and his hit came in the bottom of the 10th inning after the Desert Dogs had scored six in the top half. He was also hit by a pitch in the game, so he reached base multiple times.
Davis played in back-to-back games to end his week, going 0-for-5 in Salt River’s win over Glendale on Thursday. He struck out twice but also hit a couple of hard balls that turned into outs.
Devin Smeltzer: 1 appearance, 1.0 IP, 2 H, 2 R (1 earned) 0 BB, K; 2.57 ERA, 1.43 WHIP (overall).
Smeltzer’s lone appearance with the Rafters came on Wednesday, and he was charged with a blown save before his team ended up losing in extra innings.
He came on for the top of the eighth, with the Rafters up 5-4 at the time. He got the first man on a strikeout and a fly out for two quick outs, but consecutive doubles and an error on his defense led to a 6-5 lead for the Desert Dogs. He got a groundball to keep his team within one, and they would tie it in the bottom of the ninth, but extra innings didn’t go so well for his team. Of his 21 pitches, 16 went for strikes in the outing, including two swinging.
He did make one other appearance on the week however, as he was the Twins lone representative in the Fall Stars Game on Saturday. He pitched 2/3 of an inning in the East squads 7-6 loss to the West. He came on to start the sixth inning and struck out the first two hitters he faced before issuing a walk and being removed from the game. The pitcher who followed proceeded to give up a single and a triple so Smeltzer ended up being charged with a run. Of his 16 pitches, eight went for strikes including four swinging. If not for the walk, it was a solid showing in the game for him with a lot of eyes watching.
Adam Bray: 1 appearance, 2.0 IP, H, 2 BB, K; 1.00 ERA, 1.11 WHIP (overall).
After Jax went four innings in Wednesday’s win against the Desert Dogs, Bray came on for the fifth and pitched the next two frames. He allowed a single in the fifth, and two walks in the sixth, but was able to work around them, including ending his game with a strikeout to keep his team ahead 7-3. He threw 38 pitches total with 24 going for strikes (1 swinging).
Also, this is pretty cool and shows that it’s not just all baseball for the prospects out in Arizona (or during the season, either):
Other AFL and Minor League Links:
- With the Fall Stars game likely be the biggest attraction of the AFL season, MLB.com went through their list of best tools appearing in the game. The Twins Devin Smeltzer got an honorable mention in the Best Control category.
- Also in reference to that game, were MLB.com’s guide to all the player’s appearing from each team (Smeltzer’s AFL season so far briefly recapped) and their gamer on how it was won in walk-off fashion. There were multiple prospects to hit 100 MPH on pitches (including one at 104 from Nate Pearson of the Blue Jays), and Vlad Jr. also hits the ball really hard (if you didn’t know that, already).
Oh, here’s the Mets’ Peter Alonso taking a Pearson 100+MPH fastball deep, as well:
Please feel free to ask questions about the AFL and the players who are there!
Tom Froemming, caninatl04 and MN_ExPat like this
MN_ExPat
Nov 07 2018 08:10 AM
Great write up Steve. Thx much as always for the dedicated work .
Steve Lein and Mike Sixel like this
caninatl04
Is it OK to feel a little disappointed in the overall results? WHIP's well above 1.2, low batting numbers. I understand SSS, injuries, but no one is exactly blowing me away.
My small report from the other day pales in comparison to Steve's thorough review of the week, and is only a complement to it, but it's found here: http://twinsdaily.co...e-2018-nov-1-2/
Steve Lein likes this
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The Parts of Me That I Try to Hide
My Living Tells You the Opposite
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"As foster parents, we are asked to not only care for the basic needs of a child, but also sit alongside them as they digest the hurt and damage they have undeservingly experienced.’"
You might be temporary in their lives; they may be temporary in yours. But there is nothing temporary about the love or the lesson.
- Tonia Christle
Right now you have the power to say, “I will not let their story end like this.”
-Connected Hearts Ministry
Children need attachment more than foster parents need to be protected from heartache.
We do not need to know the beginning of a child’s story to change the ending.
-Fi Newood
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Watford Business
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intu Watford extension reaches key milestone
A ‘Topping Out’ ceremony took place at intu Watford today, to mark a key milestone in the multi-million pound redevelopment project. ‘Topping Out’ marks the the highest point of the new extension being reached, with a ceremonial piece of concrete laid on the roof.
Representatives from intu and the contractor Laing O’Rourke attended the ceremony, where both organisations reflected on the progress that’s been made so far.
Laing O’Rourke’s Head of UK Building, Liam Cummins, said: “Having only started on-site in the middle of last year it’s great to see the progress made by the team in reaching this key milestone. We continue to develop our partnership with intu, and are committed to innovative engineering in the retail sector. We look forward to the final phase of this transformational project in the coming months.”
The £180 million redevelopment, which is scheduled to open in autumn 2018, will bring new retail, restaurants and leisure options to Watford, including a brand new nine screen IMAX Cineworld cinema. The extension will be anchored by a 113,000 sq. ft. Debenhams store, with other top brands also signed up to join such as Superdry who will open a 6,630 sq. ft. store inside the 400,000 sq. ft extension. Around two thirds of the extension is now let, with Hollywood Bowl and a range of family friendly restaurants such as Cabana, Las Iguanas and Byron also signed up to be a part of Watford’s enhanced retail and leisure offer.
Refurbishment works are also underway to transform the look and feel of the existing shopping centre too. Modernisation of the centre will include enhancements to the high-level architecture, flooring and ceilings, alongside an upgrade of the lighting scheme and toilet and changing facilities.
The refurbishment works and redevelopment of Charter Place will create a single 1.4m sq. ft. destination for visitors to enjoy, whether that’s to shop, eat or play. For full details on the development, head to www.intu.co.uk/Watford
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Blue Wednesday - I’m just not in the mood for blogging tonight. The insurgency in Iraq appears to be growing stronger and the incident at Haditha is going to launch a thousand My Lai references. The Republican base is depressed due to epic mishandling of immigration and other issues. The only humor to be found is the story about William Jefferson trying to hide papers from the FBI, but the GOP-led House managed to bungle that by trying to pass a law putting Congresspersons above the law of us common folks.
What am I going to do? Laugh at Al Gore and Helen Thomas? That’s just like eating Cheetos: an unhealthy and temporary filler.
*Sigh* I'm going to bed.
Posted by Eric at 10:36 PM 1 comment:
Today’s cleverest opening line
The opening of a NY Times article about Americans sending bricks to Congress in support of tougher borders:
Talk about constructive criticism.
Score! Here’s more from the article:
Advocates of tougher border security have sent thousands of bricks to Senate and House offices in recent weeks to make a none-too-subtle point with lawmakers about where many of their constituents come down on emerging immigration bills.
Leaders of the campaign, which has delivered an estimated 10,000 bricks since it began in April, said they had hit on the idea as a way to emphasize the benefits of a fence along the border with Mexico.
Wow: 10,000 bricks? Methinks the biggest winner in this campaign may be the U.S. Postal Service.
Now let’s find D.B. Cooper – From Fox News: “FBI Ends Search for Jimmy Hoffa's Body at Detroit Farm” Next from the FBI: the search for a quarter-million dollars in taxpayers’ money.
Unintentional plagiarism? - Tonight I heard "Engine Engine #9" by Roger Miller, which was a hit for him in 1965. It seems to have the same rhythm and melody of the Everly Brothers' 1961 hit "Walk Right Back." And here's the proof: they both hit #7 on the Billboard chart. Any other music fans want to back me up on this?
Political junkie overload – Now we have Wizbang Politics to join Election Projection, NRO’s Sixers, and The Hedgehog Report. Meanwhile, James Taranto takes down the AP’s Ron Fournier’s far-fetched sequence of events for a Democratic victory: “In other words, all it will take for Democrats to win by a landslide is for everything to happen differently from the way it does in almost all other elections.”
Oil is everything and everything is oil
The stock market slumped 184 points today because:
Crude futures rose amid expectations of greater fuel demand during the summer driving season, and as forecasters warn of hurricane activity in the coming months. A barrel of light crude surged 78 cents to $72.15 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
And because Walmart posted weak sales:
Wal-Mart blamed its modest sales on the impact of rising gasoline and utilities prices on its customers.
And because consumer confidence is down:
The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index for May fell to 103.2 from a four-year high of 109.8 the month before, topping estimates of 100.9. But while many on Wall Street have been hoping for a gradual economic slowdown, some fear that persistently high energy prices could trigger a sudden dropoff that leads the economy into a downturn.
But whatever we do, let’s not disturb those caribou in Alaska.
The Boxer of Searchlight
Senate minority leader Harry Reid appears to have accepted some free tickets to a boxing match:
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid accepted free ringside tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission to three professional boxing matches while that state agency was trying to influence him on federal regulation of boxing.
Some believe it’s a sign of Democratic hypocrisy while others think it’s a tempest in a teapot. Regardless, I thought this statement by Reid spiked the B.S. meter:
Reid said he would never change his position because of donations, free tickets, or a request from a staffer-turned-lobbyist.
“People who deal with me and have over the years know that I am an advocate for what I believe in. I always try to do it fair, never take advantage of people on purpose,” he said.
Well. Apparently the incorruptible Harry Reid has the super-human ability to always vote his conscience, regardless of how many free meals fall his way. Remarkable. Meanwhile, that weakling John McCain paid $1,400 for his tickets – somebody has a guilty conscience, no?
Extra – Is Harry Reid losing his constituency in Nevada? We won’t know until 2010 anyway.
Happy Memorial Day - Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
Indianapolis 500 summary from Fark: “Somebody besides Danica won the Indy 500, dashing hopes of men around the world that she would have to kiss the Indy Queen. We understand he has a name, but who really cares?” Well put.
In other news, Kasey Kahne just won NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600. The prospects for my fantasy team were destroyed when both Kurt Busch and Kyle Busch wrecked their cars.
Unemployed in Europe
Every Sunday, the Boston Globe has the “Globalist Quiz” about events or trends in the world and (almost) every week, I get the answer wrong. Here’s today’s question:
The recent protests in France put a spotlight on the employment prospects of young people in Europe. While the French government has relented and withdrawn the Youth Labor Law, which made it easier to hire and ?re young workers, unemployment among young people remains a problem throughout Europe. Which of these nations has the highest rate of unemployment for young people?
A. France B. Switzerland C. Italy D. Poland
Answer here. That’s a lot of unemployed kids.
Sunday morning wrapup – From Mark on Redstate: “On NBC's Meet the Press, Chuck Hagel argued that it is not amnesty and his bill is not Simpson-Mazzoli. Jim Sensenbrenner countered that it is so amnesty and that Hagel's bill is so Simpson-Mazzoli.” Here’s my super summary of Chuck Schumer on Face the Nation: sphincter.
Summer wind - Wow, it sure it quiet here tonight. Almost as if everybody went away for the weekend.
Posted by Eric at 1:07 AM No comments:
Transcript – President Bush’s speech at West Point today. “This is the first class to arrive at West Point after the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. Each of you came here in a time of war, knowing all the risks and dangers that come with wearing our nation's uniform. And I want to thank you for your patriotism, your devotion to duty, your courageous decision to serve. America is grateful and proud of the men and women of West Point.”
Sunday morning lineup – Will Bill Frist and Dick Durbin appear on Fox News Sunday together? My guess is no.
The intolerance of the Left – From Decision08: “Firedoglake: Where hate speech will always have a home.”
NASCAR culture – During tonight’s Busch series race (Carl Edwards won) they trained the TV camera on a section in the stands completely barren of spectators. “Did a bus driver get lost?” quipped one of the commentators. It turns out that NASCAR engineered this empty section to separate the alcoholic section from the non-alcoholic, or “family” spectators. So there you go.
Canada blinks – From Volokh: “Canada’s largest retail bookstore bows to fear of anti-cartoon demonstrations.” Yep, it’s the Mohammad cartoons again.
Here’s my prediction from December 2005: “Running on his father’s name, Tom Kean Jr. is elected Senator from New Jersey.”
From Hedgehog Report: “Kean up by 3% in Senate race.” That’s a GOP pickup.
Summer of Dubya
Bill Kristol declares President Bush “A Recuperating Duck”:
For a president who is (allegedly) the lamest of lame ducks, George W. Bush had a pretty good month of May. Not quite a merry month of May. Certainly not a Lerner-and-Loewe-like lusty month of May. But a pretty good month, and perhaps a sign of better things to come.
Tax cuts were extended, the economy is booming, and the Iraqi government is coalescing. Given the recent polls, Dubya’s got nowhere to go but up.
Undisclosed location - ABP on the Capitol Hill shooting report of loud sounds: “Queue the Dick Cheney jokes.”
The yuan is undervalued and the euro is overvalued – Thus pronounces that playful paragon of purchasing power parity, the Big Mac Index.
Awkward class reunions
“Good, you look good.”
“Well, another year and we haven’t blown up anybody.”
“Yeah, by the way, death to America.”
Stuff I did not know: “John Lennon’s Imagine was banned in the US after 9/11.”
People like lists – The 50 greatest conservative rock songs, complete with a surprise Graham Parker entry. Graham, if you’re reading this, please do a show in Northampton this summer. Thanks.
Hooverville redux – “Economy zooms forward”: “Economic activity zipped ahead at a 5.3 percent pace in the January-March period, even speedier than initially thought. But a less energetic housing market and high energy prices are now taking out some of the oomph.”
Extra – Ace notes the MSM headline: “U.S. Economy: Growth May Slow From 5.3% Annual Rate” No doubt that woman and minorities to be hardest hit.
No holds barred! – Why does every story I see about Dennis Hastert have to include a wrestling reference? From the WashPost: “Suddenly, it’s a steel-cage match with the White House.” We get it, we get it. He used to be a wrestling coach.
Will Al Franken work pro bono? – Franken has made millions from his books and personal appearances and the exposure of his Air America gig has only helped. But now, according to the Radio Equalizer, Air America must slash their budget or face cancellation by their Clear Channel parent. Will Franken give some back for the “cause”?:
[Randi] Rhodes and [Al] Franken provide particular challenges for any budget- cutter charged with making the company viable. Not only have they fought for incredibly high salaries and outrageous perks, but they've also successfully insisted on huge, contractually- mandated staffing levels for their shows.
I take that as a “no.” Looks like some low-level staffers will have to go.
Posted by Eric at 8:29 AM 1 comment:
Lost connections – Jack and Claire are brother and sister? That means that Aaron is Jack’s nephew. Bernard is Hanso? How do they know all this? I thought I had a handle on this thing.
Let me check the couch cushions
From USA Today: “Retiree benefits grow into monster”
Taxpayers owe more than a half-million dollars per household for financial promises made by government, mostly to cover the cost of retirement benefits for baby boomers, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
Federal, state and local governments have added nearly $10 trillion to taxpayer liabilities in the past two years, bringing the total of government's unfunded obligations to an unprecedented $57.8 trillion.
That is the equivalent of a $510,678 credit card debt for every American household. Payments on this delinquent tax bill must start soon if financial promises to the elderly are to be kept.
Read the whole thing. Unless you’ve been reading my blog, then you’ve heard it before.
Kavanaugh advances – Despite my earlier skepticism, the very last vote the Senate took before the long weekend was a cloture vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit. It advanced the nomination for a vote with a 67-30 tally.
It’s only $90 grand in the freezer – From the WashPost editorial on William Jefferson’s FBI search: “Constitutional provisions designed to protect lawmakers from fear of political retribution, such as the speech-and-debate clause, counsel restraint and caution in circumstances such as these. They do not transform congressional offices into taxpayer-funded sanctuaries.”
Well, Social Security is doomed. But there are company pensions.
Right, right? Well, no.
Pension reform is high on the overloaded agenda of Congressional leaders. The need is obvious and immediate: Lots of companies have defaulted on their defined-benefit pension plans, and for many others, the clock is ticking on woefully underfunded liabilities that total a staggering $450 billion. The shortfalls--and there will be lots of them--will ultimately fall to the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., which is in no position to receive them. In fact, the PBGC currently has a roughly $23 billion deficit and counting.
Some commentators have lamented the demise of the corporate pension, but that’s like bemoaning the dearth of blacksmiths. I’d much rather have a defined contribution into a 401(k) than a pension that can be cut at any time if a company declares bankruptcy. As I’ve said many times before, the only person you can depend on for your retirement is you.
There’s always a catch
From the Boston Globe: “Mass. Senate endorses tax cut”:
Senate lawmakers voted yesterday to lower the income tax rate from 5.3 percent to 5 percent…
…if state spending on education and local aid is restored to levels last seen before the fiscal crisis of 2002.
D’oh! A tax cut in Massachusetts? It almost got mighty cold in Hades.
I'll be back in 108 minutes to press some buttons.
Today’s oxymoron: “credible Pakistani government sources” – From Rantburg: “Pakistani government sources tell ABC News they have "credible reports" that Osama bin Laden and his entourage have moved down from high mountainous peaks along the Afghan border to a valley area 40 miles inside the Pakistan border.” Uh-huh.
All and all, it’s just another flip on the wall – John Kerry flip-flops on immigration. He’s a laugh riot, that guy.
The Gore record – Everybody’s buzzing about Al Gore’s new movie today. Let’s not forget that when he was President of the Senate, that august body voted 95-0 to reject the Kyoto Protocol.
Developing the negative
From a New Yorker Q&A on the Democrats’ prospects in 2006 and beyond:
But that’s all about negatives—the President’s negatives, the congressional Republicans’ negatives. Can the Democrats win on the negatives alone, or do they need to have a positive program to offer?
The Democrats can probably win on the negatives for the 2006 elections, but those who think they can go negative and win the White House in 2008 are kidding themselves. For one thing, George W. Bush won’t be running in 2008; it could be someone like John McCain. Even now, it’s not the easiest thing to be solely negative. Americans are optimists; they want to hear positive solutions to problems. The Democrats don’t have one stellar spokesman for the party, or an overwhelming unified message.
Which is why I think this ploy will end up as a marginal negative for the Democrats:
Social Security is baack! But this time Democrats are going to ride it, attacking the failed reforms pushed by President Bush. It's an old scare tactic, but it works. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who runs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, plans a "big discussion" about how the Republicans would use their re-election to majority power this fall to privatize the program. And at a time when many are worried about their economic security, Democrats say, they don't want their retirement benefits messed with.
In other words, the Democrats are happy to imperil the long-term fiscal health of the country for short-term political gain, while offering no solutions. Here’s what the green eyeshades say in the Social Security Trustee report:
Although the program passes our short-range test of financial adequacy, it continues to fail our long-range test of close actuarial balance by a wide margin. Projected OASDI tax income will begin to fall short of outlays in 2017, and will be sufficient to finance only 74 percent of scheduled annual benefits in 2040, when the combined OASDI trust fund is projected to be exhausted.
Tough luck, kids! Thanks for all the payroll taxes, suckers!
Does him feel all better now?
From Columbia Journalism Review: “Harper's Ben Metcalf Throws Hissy Fit, Spits Up”:
In the end, all of Metcalf's rage adds up to quite a spectacle -- like watching a toddler in the midst of a temper tantrum, clenching his fists, and smashing at his tinker toys with his favorite Tonka Truck. Several thousand words in, we found ourselves thinking, "Go ahead Big Guy, keep going, get it all out of your system..."
Not that Metcalf's column is without its merits. Along the way, he succeeds at the previously unlikely feat of making his "Notebook" predecessor, Lewis Lapham, sound like the soothing, moderate voice of reason.
No doubt, many Harper's readers who share Metcalf's insatiable rage at the president will embrace his wild child routine as a daring bit of truth telling. But, at the same time, Metcalf's pompous personal attack on the president will also provide some great fodder for anyone looking to dismiss the legitimate investigative reporting and well-reasoned political criticism found elsewhere in Harper's -- that is, the type of writing that keeps us picking up the magazine.
I used to subscribe to Harper’s back when it had thoughtful articles on topics like the sugar industry and the World Series of Poker, before 80% of Americans had heard of it. Now, like Rolling Stone, it’s morphed into a fever swamp of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Too bad. (Hat tip: Free Republic)
I can’t improve on this – From the Superficial: “Madonna kicked off her new tour by crucifying herself on a giant mirrored cross and wearing a crown of thorns. The difference between Madonna and Jesus? When Jesus did it everybody in the world didn't want to punch him in the face.” Ho-freakin'-hum, Madonna. Why not try something really controversial and come out with a Koran stuffed down your pants? That'll get people talkin'!
Tenth most important foreign policy goal for Democrats
From a Boston Globe story on the Democrats’ shifting foreign policy:
Consider: After Sept. 11, most Democrats agreed that defeating al Qaeda should be foreign policy goal No. 1. Now, while most Americans still share that goal, Democrats rate it 10th, according to a Security and Peace Initiative poll last year; withdrawal from Iraq is named first. Another survey, from MIT, showed that doubts about interventionism have spread beyond Iraq: As of November 2005, only 59 percent of the party-versus 94 percent of Republicans-still supported the invasion of Afghanistan. [Emphasis in original.]
Tenth. No wonder they won’t articulate a foreign policy.
The federal court – According to Confirm Them, Bill Frist filed a cloture motion for Brett Kavanaugh. Allegedly there will be a vote this week, therefore I expect there won’t be.
Fact-filled forays - Opinion Journal sets the record straight on global warming and Iraq. Bookmark these for later.
Dem-ja Vu
Going into the midterm elections, it seems the Democrats have chosen a strategy of tactical ambiguity, hoping that Americans view the election as a referendum on Republican leadership instead of a choice.
Here’s Donald Lambro in the Washington Times with “In search of an agenda” (Hat tip: Q&O):
The Democrats' election-year agenda is still a work in progress as party leaders attempt the impossible: to draft a document that appeals to all of its disparate ideological factions. But the word coming out of the Democrats' inner sanctums is, there's deep disagreement over its contents and core message and a brewing argument over the timing of its release.
Even the party faithful is getting antsy about presenting some kind of message. Here’s Paul Begala on the Huffington Post:
I am deeply frustrated with a party establishment that does everything except tell people what we stand for. They spend millions on voter files, field work, phone banks, staff, consultants, etc...and yet people don't know what we stand for. I am not opposed to hiring organizers. I'm opposed to pretending that hiring organizers is in any way a substitute for having a message.
Message, shmessage, say the Democrats. Victory will be assured by simply repeating: “We’re not the Republicans.” I seem to recall that this was a winning strategy for somebody else on the national stage:
Though [“Inside the Bubble”] director Steve Rosenbaum refers to himself as "a lifelong Democrat" and Kerry supporter, the film's press release describes it as following "a disorganized, contentious, self-absorbed team that thought they could win by 'not making mistakes,' and keeping their candidate in the public eye without clarifying a position on anything."
Then there’s taking every side of an issue:
Equivocating politicians are sometimes accused of trying to be "all things to all people," but few have taken the practice of expedience and shifty opportunism to Kerry's level.
Just what were the core beliefs of the Democrats’ presidential nominee? Maybe Kerry’s press man Jim Loftus can explain:
After the swirl of the campaign is over, Loftus is interviewed and offered as a sage to pinpoint the Kerry team's one great weakness. "What was the overarching point of the campaign?" he asks. "I don't know what the hell it was … I don't know now. I lived it for 11 months, admittedly intoxicated and exhausted and strung out from cigarettes and arguing with the press and sappers and the whole thing. I don't know. That's a problem.”
Of course it helps to have support from a sympathetic press corps:
The expectations had gotten so out of control that, on Tuesday afternoon, we reporters gathered in the ballroom of the Fairmont Copley Plaza had already moved on to the second-, third-, and fourth-day stories. The exit polls seemed to show such a clear sweep of the battleground states for John Kerry that the news of his victory already seemed stale. What would the more solidly Republican Senate mean for Kerry's ambitious health care plan? Who would he appoint to replace ailing Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist? Most important, how could Kerry co-opt John McCain, a Republican frontrunner for the 2008 presidential election? Yep, it's true. We were already speculating about the dynamics of Kerry's reelection campaign.
And the credulous “reality-based” wing of the blogosphere:
In detail. Tied race, incumbent fatigue, good closer for an opponent... those tied polls with Bush's numbers actually dropping may not tell you what the final Kerry percentage will be, but it's looking pretty bad for Bush any way you slice it.
Failing to have learned from their own history, the Democrats are poised to repeat it. Add me to the chorus that predicts: “come November, the Democrats will once again be wondering how they let an opportunity that seemed so golden slip away.”
Musta got Lost - I meant to post more tonight, but I got sidetracked watching the Season 1 DVDs of Lost. Now I'm all ready for the finale Wednesday.
See you again at the height of beach season – Yet another government probe into price gouging leads to yet another dead-end: “An investigation by U.S. antitrust authorities found no evidence that oil companies illegally manipulated gasoline prices or constrained oil refining operations, the Federal Trade Commission said Monday.” Thank heaven that political investigations are a renewable resource.
New digs – Lorie Byrd, formerly of Polipundit, has found a new home at Wizbang. Good for her.
The Breck Girl returns – You know, I wouldn’t mind John Edwards so much if not for his overwhelming self-regard. He’s a one-term Senator and he spent half of his tenure running for the vice presidency. Before that, he was an ambulance chaser. The American Thinker asks if Edwards was “The worst vice presidential candidate in history?” I assume it’s limited to American politics.
The wild Left and the mild Left – Opinion Journal reflect on “Days of Rage – John McCain and Joe Lieberman feel the wrath of the antiwar left.” However, by all accounts, Condi Rice received a warm welcome during her commencement address to Boston College today.
I don’t know why the FBI is making a big deal about Representative William Jefferson and his methods of storing money:
All but $10,000 was recovered on Aug. 3 when the FBI searched Jefferson's home in Washington. The money was stuffed in his freezer, wrapped in $10,000 packs and concealed in food containers and aluminum foil.
Nothing suspicious about that at all! (There goes the “culture of corruption” meme.)
Presented without comment
Here’s an excerpt from an interview with historian Morris Berman that appeared in today’s Boston Globe:
Q: Isn't the war on terror protecting the American way of life?
A: The real question is where 9/11 came out of. Americans have trouble getting their minds around the fact that what happened on 9/11 was reactive rather than offensive. We had been doing certain things to the Arab and Islamic worlds for decades, and finally they decided they weren't going to take it anymore. That does not mean that it's OK for 3,000 citizens to get slaughtered, of course not. But are we interested in how many of their citizens we slaughter? How could they do this when we're so good? George Bush said. Well, examine the possibility, as Jimmy Carter suggested, that we're not all that good.
While American kids waste their time learning fractions
From the WashPost: “This is a Saudi textbook”:
Fifth grade: “Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives.”
Eight grade: “God told His Prophet, Muhammad, about the Jews, who learned from parts of God's book [the Torah and the Gospels] that God alone is worthy of worship. Despite this, they espouse falsehood through idol-worship, soothsaying, and sorcery. In doing so, they obey the devil.”
Eleventh grade: “The greeting 'Peace be upon you' is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others.”
That last one wins the “unintentional irony” award.
Extra - Many links over at Memeorandum.
Kyle Petty wins
Well, he didn’t win the NASCAR All-Star challenge tonight but came in eight essentially by not wrecking. Coca-Cola has already dedicated a quarter-million dollars to his Victory Junction campaign:
Behind the wheel of a special MyCokeRewards racecar, Kyle Petty will continue his hard-driving campaign for the health and well-being of chronically ill youth.
During driver introductions tonight, Kyle came out with a Victory Junction kid who was obviously thrilled to be in the spotlight.
Now 20% less boring! - Al Gore is cereal about ManBearPig global warming.
Posted by Eric at 12:09 AM No comments:
Sunday morning lineup – Condi Rice is making the rounds, so the new Iraqi government will be discussed.
Nagin or Landrieu? - New Orleans mayor updated results.
At this writing, with about half the precincts reporting: Landrieu 52% - Nagin 48%.
Update - Nagin wins, 52%-48%; boards school bus for victory party.
Free speech for me, but not for thee - If I had been John McCain, I would have scrapped my commencement address to the New School and replaced it with a speech about the intolerance of the Left to opinions that don’t align with their own.
Extra – From Southern Appeal: “This story immediately made me think of Buckley’s famous quip, “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
English only – From Opinion Journal: “Top 5 books on the history and use of English” I might have added “The Story of English” by Robert McCrum, which was the companion book to the PBS series.
A step in the right direction – From CNN: “Iraq’s new unity government sworn in” – “Iraq's first permanent government since the fall of Saddam Hussein was approved by parliament and sworn in on Saturday, despite the failure to fill three ministry posts because of political disputes.”
Promises made that cannot be kept
Writing on Asymmetrical Info, “Winterspeak” notes that state governments now have to explicitly take into accounting the massive future liability of healthcare expenses:
I like this step because it does not change any part of the entitlement process, which is politically problematic, it's simply more honest and upfront about costs. I'd like to see the same thing happen to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. I don't think those systems can be reformed without first making their costs explicit.
Well put. The present unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare range between $60 and $70 trillion. (That’s “trillion” with a “T”.) Americans are going to get the first taste of the entitlement tsunami when payments start to outpace revenues and the Social Security trust fund starts to cash in T-bills. Then, instead of using the surplus to mask the true size of the budget deficit, the Treasury will have to (somehow) find the cash to cover those securities. From then on, the problem will just continue to snowball.
Sad to say, I don’t believe that putting these liabilities “on the books” would change anything in Washington.
Obviously, somebody put a little Irish in his morning coffee - Scott Adams of Dilbert fame believes that Joe Biden can win the presidency. *Gong* Thanks for playing.
Posted by Eric at 11:33 AM 2 comments:
With a name like “Howell” you know it’s got to be snooty
Slate’s reviewer Jack Shafer doesn’t think much of former NY Times editor Howell Raines self-serving memoir:
How much of the crap sluicing through this book does Raines really believe? All, I'm afraid. In Chapter 33 he boasts of possessing a "high regard for factual and moral truth," even in memos to the staff, the implied conclusion being that inferior forces at the newspaper—the dullards, lifers, and militant traditionalists whom he threatened—toppled him for speaking straight.
Raines also takes a swipe at “brainless bloggers” even though we have more credibility than Jayson Blair. Remember him, Howell? No? (Hat tip: Spartacus)
Energy shortages rock – I got to work this morning and the power was completely off. They told me to go home, which I did reluctantly. No, wait, that’s not the word. Whatever the opposite of “reluctantly” is.
Happy first blogoversary to AJ Strata! (Now how about a link?)
Okily, dokily Ned! – The original political commercial is weird and slightly disturbing but the remix is funny and fantastic. Fear the latter, Joe Lieberman. Or not.
Your tax money at work – Why do I have to pay a dozen FBI agents to find Jimmy Hoffa? Geraldo Rivera probably would have done it for free.
Democrats unserious about energy policy
Once a year or so, Robert Samuelson writes an article about the budget deficit and Amtrak. The reason he picks on Amtrak is that it’s a symbol for the government’s inability to make hard decisions:
As for Amtrak, it swallows ever-larger subsidies to provide mediocre service for a small minority of travelers. In fiscal 2005 it's receiving $1.2 billion for carrying about 25 million people. By contrast, airlines carried 636 million domestic passengers last year.
But now that Americans are outraged about high gas prices, the Democrats have seized the opportunity to submit an anodyne, toothless, and feckless energy plan. The centerpiece of the plan is encapsulated in this bullet point:
Free the US from foreign oil by 2020 by supporting research, development, and production of alternative energy sources.
The singing of “Kumbaya” is optional.
If the Democrats were truly serious about energy independence and leadership-by-example, they would support the development of the Cape Wind project off of Ted Kennedy’s beloved Nantucket. This is their Amtrak moment, the token step that would indicate that they’re truly serious about a long-term energy policy. Throw in some strict CAFE standards also instead of the milquetoast “Provide consumers with more fuel efficient vehicle choices” and we’ll be on to something. Yet their “plan” doesn’t even contain the word “nuclear” which now accounts for one-fifth of all electricity generation. So whatever you do, don’t pretend these so-called “ideas” will do anything to substantially mitigate America’s energy problem:
Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said his party's bill was an answer to critics who had accused Democrats of lacking ideas. "This is a big idea," he said.
Yes, the problem is big. The Democrats just don’t provide any real solutions.
Extra - From the Financial Times and "The Do-Nothing Party": "Whether it is putting flesh on their call for US "energy independence", addressing America's rising health and education costs, or seriously addressing how to solve the crisis in Iraq, Democrats need to go beyond the politics of slogans."
Amazing Race follow-up
All the teams appeared on the CBS "Early Show" this morning and BJ & Tyler were presented with their $500,000 checks. Then Phil directed the stage over to Ray who started to say some mundane things about racing with hippies and frat boys before getting down on one knee and proposing to Yolanda.
She totally did not see it coming. It was classic.
Amazing Race finale – The Hippies prevail!
After an extended recap of the season past, the final three teams started out from Bangkok, Thailand and had to travel 75 miles by cab to a town to find an elephant. In another product placement, the teams needed to get a T-Mobile Sidekick from the elephant for the next clue. Predictably, the elephant park doesn't open until morning so it's a typical Last Leg bunchup before the final sprint.
The clue directs everybody to the Shibuya which is the Times Square of Tokyo, Japan. Tyler is stoked: he has a Japanese girlfriend and appears to speak fluent Japanese. Unfortunately for Team Burning Man, the other teams grab the last seats on the first flight from Thailand to Tokyo. Team Frat Boys and Team Volcano arrive a couple hours ahead of the hippies and take a marked car to the "busiest intersection in the world" where the teams must search the flashing billboards for the next clue. The clue says "Find Hachiko" which is a statue of a dog in the square with the next clue.
This is the Detour: Maiden or Messenger. Teams may either travel to a tea garden and carry a women a couple hundred yards in carrier and then engage in a tea ceremony, or play bike messenger and deliver a pair of packages. The hippies figure they can find the buildings fast with their language skills and they may be right. The Frat Boys struggle under the weight of the wicker carrier while Ray & Yolanda haven't even gotten to the Shibuya yet as we break for commerical.
Eric & Jeremy finish the Detour first and the next clue sends them to the Capsule Land Hotel where people sleep in little pods because space is so limited in Toyko. Jeremy actually says something funny and not sexist: "I hope we don't wake up and it's 1972." A Futurama reference would have been better, but hey. BJ & Tyler arrive next followed by Ray & Yolanda. In sequence, the teams receive cards informing them that departure times are 9am, 9:15am, and 9:30am.
The next morning, the teams head to an amusement park on the foot of Mount Fuji. The next clue is a Roadblock: one person must ride on three different thrill rides and look for a man holding a yellow-and-red sign pointing them to the next destination. On the last ride, Jeremy & Tyler both see the sign for Lake Yamanaka which is the next Pit Stop. There the teams must take a pedal boat shaped like a swan to a bigger swan hotel boat. The hippies pedal fast and arrive as Team #1; they win T-Mobile Sidekick and 3 years service. Hooray. The Frat Boys are bitter at their #2 finish and warn the hippies they're playing for keeps. Ray & Yolanda come in last but it's a non-elimination leg meaning they'll be penniless and language-challenged heading into the final leg.
[Extra long CBS commercial break. They're really milking it tonight.]
The final leg starts and the teams start out in the middle of the night for Anchorage, Alaska. It looks like BJ & Tyler left Team Volcano a couple of bucks and they pick up a couple more yen at a local restaurant. Team Frat Boys and Team Burning Man head to the airport after some Internet shenanigans at the hotel. The hippies get a later flight to Anchorange but make a switch at the airport back to the same flight as Eric & Jeremy. Ray & Yolanda sneak onto the plane also so everybody is bunched up again in Taipai waiting for the flight to Anchorange. Even again.
It's cold in Alaska. Teams must drive to Mirror Lake some 10 miles from the airport. Strangely, Team Volcano and Team Burning Man, who were both supposed to have "just the clothes on their back" due to non-elimination leg penalties have winter coats. Hmmmm....there must be some kind of survival rule on the Amazing Race. At the lake, it's the Detour: Drill it or Deliver it. Teams must drill 10 fishing holes in the ice using a hand auger then set up a fishing shack OR they must deliver "medical supplies" to an outpost via ice plane. Nevermind option #2: the pilot informs the teams that the weather has the planes socked in so everybody chooses to drill ice holes. The Frat Boys finish first and head to the next clue at Kincaid Park.
All three teams are now heading towards the park where they have to don snow shoes and find a chalet. The Frat Boys head out first while BJ & Tyler walk right past the snow shoes propped up on a ledge outside. Eric & Jeremy find the clue first: fly to the Race's final destination in Denver, Colorado which is where the Race began. So this is truly a race completely around the world. Unsurprisingly, there aren't many flights from Anchorage Alaska to Denver and all teams are together on the final flight of the Race.
Teams neeed to find a clue at a park in Golden, Colrado and the Frat Boys find it first: head to Red Rocks amphitheater and (another) next clue. The Frat Boys and then the Hippies arrive very close together and it's a Roadblock: one team member must search among 285 flags in a field and find the nine national flags from the countries visited on the Race: Brazil, Russia, Germany, Italy, Greece, Oman, Australia, Thailand, and Japan and then place them in the order visited. The other team member may assist, but cannot help physically. BJ does the Roadblock for the hippies. Both of them have their flag order completely wrong. Meanwhile, Ray & Yolanda are still back in Golden.
The hippies have their flags all in the correct order but shifted over by one because they couldn't initially find the Russian flag. Eric & Jeremy keep asking the judge if their flags are correct (they aren't) and then get desperate and start swapping flags indiscriminately. I think they tried an African flag and this might be the only Race ever not to go to Africa. Eventually BJ discovers his error and places the Russian flag after Brazil then shifts all the other flags down. The judge gives the thumbs up and they race to Phil and the mat.
And there they are, all by themselves, as the eight other teams before them applaud their finish. Team Burning Man, the hippies, BJ & Tyler arrive first and win the Amazing Race.
Final standings:
Winners of the Amazing Race 9 - Team Burning Man - BJ & Tyler
Prize: $1,000,000
Second place: Team Frat Boys - Eric & Jeremy
Third place: Team Volcano - Ray & Yolanda
Editorial comment – The best Amazing Race ever? Well, I think I missed one season but this one was darn good. Super sites from nine different countries, excellent competition, likable teams, Phil’s arching eyebrow – this one had it all. The cherry on top was watching a dejected Frat Boy gripe: “I guess I’ll have to go back to waiting tables.” That’s right, chump! T-TOW!
Extra – This spot reserved for Kris and Pat. T-TOW! to them too!
Sweeps month mayhem! - For those of you tuning in for the Amazing Race update, it's going to be slightly delayed tonight due to a conflict with "Lost" and a lack of usable VCRs in my home. Rest assured that I'm on the job.
Curiously, there has been no buzz leaking through about who might have won this season. (I couldn't resist making sure the Weavers didn't win last time). So it's going to be a real surprise.
#5 should be #1 – From Blender: “The 50 worst artists in music history” The list is pretty good if only because there isn’t one on there I would say: “No way!” I might have added Rod Stewart post-1980.
For most, the answer is “no” - Tonight on PBS is a Frontline special: “Can you afford to retire?”
Just like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn floating down the Mississippi
In Peabody, Ovel Santiago, Chayanne Vasquez, Scott Ingham, and Keiana Christiansen floated down Walnut Street yesterday on a piece of styrofoam they found. (Bill Greene / Globe Staff)
Boston Globe story: “Flooding besets region; more rain in forecast.” Yeah, it’s wet.
We’re all soldiers now – From the Boston Globe: “Profiles in courage on September 11th: Ordinary people do fight terror.”
Much like my high school social life, this blog is a solo effort
I’ve pretty much steered clear of the immigration debate, not because I don’t have an opinion on the matter, but because others have much stronger opinions. However, never did I imagine there’s be a topic so volatile to split apart one of the best group blogs. Nevertheless, Polipundit decided there was no room for debate on immigration prompting contributor Lorie Byrd to jump ship. In response, John Podhoretez wrote a critical post on the Corner titled: “The inability to stomach disagreement.”
It’s a classic lose-lose situation since Polipundit will be a weaker blog with a single voice while Lorie and the other Polipundit contributors will have to retreat to their less-traveled personal blogs. Plus it makes Polipundit (the blogger) appear intolerant to dissent, a defect we usually associate with the moonbat Left.
The lesson here: don’t get stuck in entangling alliances.
The MSM mind, revealed
I know news anchors make mistakes all the time, but why does it always seem to go one way? Here’s Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room today:
"And a veteran GOP congressman under investigation for corruption went before the cameras in New Orleans just a short while ago. That would be a Democratic congressman, William Jefferson of Louisiana. He announced he would not resign, and he declared he did not -- quote -- "sell my office." Jefferson says he will not plead guilty to something he didn't do.
Earlier this month, a Louisville businessman pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson to promote his firm's high-tech business in Africa. Jefferson denies accepting payments in return for government service. Once again, Jefferson is a Democrat, not a Republican."
So noted.
Follow-up – Whoops! CNN makes another “mistake.”
Socialism + racism = famine + economic ruin
From the WashPost: “Desperate Zimbabwe moves to lure back white ex-farmers”
Other former farmers have treated the government's offer with suspicion bordering on contempt. President Robert Mugabe encouraged landless black peasants to invade commercial farms beginning in February 2000. He portrayed the longtime white owners -- about 4,500 farmers who owned most of the country's best agricultural land -- as thieves who had deprived the 12 million black Zimbabweans of their birthrights.
The downward spiral of Zimbabwe can be blamed on nobody but Robert Mugabe who stoked the flames of racism and encouraged a violent melee of land redistribution. As a result, Zimbabwe has degenerated from the former “breadbasket of central Africa” to a top recipient of international food aid. Six years later, Mugabe can no longer blame Whitey for Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, privation and ruin.
Extra - Will Franklin has a much more on Zimbabwe: “When "reducing inequality" becomes the primary goal and function of a government, economic disaster is on its way. Guaranteed.” Word.
Democrats waste money and engage in disgusting habits
That’s what uber-liberal Paul Begala had to say on CNN:
BLITZER: Very quickly, is Howard Dean in trouble?
BEGALA: No. I think Candy's report was spot on.
He -- yes, he's in trouble, in that campaign managers, candidates, are really angry with him. He has raised $74 million and spent $64 million. He says it's a long-term strategy. But what he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose. That's not how you build a party. You win elections. That's how you build a party.
(Hat tip: Sixers)
Nuke-U-Ler is the way to go – From the Boston Globe: “Nuclear should be a part of our energy future.”
Uh-oh – Tom Maguire is predicting a 70% chance for a Rove indictment. His sourcing is at least as impeccable as the rumor that Karl was about to be frog-marched from the White House.
Do you want to know a secret?
Well, I finally finished all 983 pages of “The Beatles” by Bob Spitz. Here’s the abridged version:
1 – John Lennon was a right bastard.
2 – Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles.
3 – Paul McCartney (not dead!) is raw ambition personified.
4 – George Harrison started writing great songs just as the band was splitting.
5 – Ringo Starr spent much of his childhood in a hospital.
6 – Everything fell apart after Brian Epstein died.
7 – The Beatles stopped touring because they could not hear themselves on stage.
1000% inflation
Robert Mugabe’s slow-motion destruction of Zimbabwe continues unabated:
Zimbabwe's inflation rate has surged past the 1,000% mark signalling that the African country is struggling to keep its economy functioning normally.
The annual rate of price growth was 1,042.9% in April, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said, having risen 129 percentage points from March.
It means average goods are about 11 times as expensive in April 2006 as they were 12 months earlier.
Zimbabwe is suffering from shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency.
President Robert Mugabe blames domestic and foreign enemies for the problems.
Of course he did. The highest value currency note is a Z$50,000 bill; a daily newspaper now costs Z$80,000. It kinda puts $3 gas in perspective.
This is a super idea – The NY Times political reporter Adam Nagourney asks: “Hey Democrats, why win?” and submits it would be better for the Democrats to remain in the minority to improve their long-term prospects. Listen to that man. He went to journalism school.
No looking back
According to the Boston Globe, people who have fled the People’s Republic of Massachusetts have no regrets:
A majority of people who moved out of Massachusetts last year report they are very satisfied with life in their new state and would not move back, a Boston Globe poll has found.
Seventy-three percent of those surveyed said they live in a home that is bigger than their home in Massachusetts was. Fifty-four percent said their standard of living is higher now.
The top reason people gave for leaving Massachusetts was a better job, followed by the cost of housing, family ties, and the weather. In a separate set of questions, 50 percent of those surveyed said the cost of housing was a ''major factor," and a better job was cited as a ''major factor" by 39 percent.
The findings underscored the difficulties of living, raising children, and earning enough money in Massachusetts, and suggested that these fundamental aspirations of the American middle-class are often easier for people to achieve outside the state.
I have to commute to Connecticut every work day (2 ½ hours on the road) to work at a job that will pay my Massachusetts taxes.
Sunday morning lineup – Except for Laura Bush on Fox, it’s a pretty boring schedule. Happy Mother’s Day.
Now what did Bluto and D-Day do?
According to that nut at UNC, it was much more serious than dropping fizzies at the swim meet:
A man charged with trying to kill students at UNC Chapel Hill by driving through a popular campus gathering spot says in a series of letters that he does not deserve punishment.
Mohammed Taheri-azar said in letters answering three-dozen questions from a reporter at the university's student newspaper that he won't plead guilty, as he previously planned, because his attack was justified and he doesn't deserve punishment.
"I aimed to exact casualties from an enemy responsible for thousands of casualties among Allah's followers," Taheri-azar wrote to the Daily Tar Heel.
Sounds like a very reasonable fellow. BTW, he was born in Iran but has lived in the United States since he was two years old.
Irony overload – Boston’s Peace Weekend starts out with a bang. MassBackwards has the details.
Tap my phone, please! – “Most Americans support NSA’s efforts”: “A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.”
Stupid math tricks
Political junkies can get their fix with the WashPost blog of the top 10 Senate races. Math geeks can get a snort at this brilliant bit of mathemagic:
1. Pennsylvania: Two polls released this week painted vastly different pictures of the contest. The first -- by Republican firm Strategic Vision -- showed State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr. (D) with a 49 percent to 41 percent edge over Sen. Rick Santorum (R); the second -- conducted by Quinnipiac University -- had Casey ahead by a wider 49 percent to 36 percent margin. Which is right? Here's a little trick The Fix learned from political analyst Charlie Cook (our former boss): When two polls show varying results in the same race, take the two and split the difference.
Congratulations, you’ve discovered the “averaging” theorem.
The NY Times polled a bunch of literary types for the best American fiction over the last 25 years and found that “Beloved” by Toni Morrison was tops. Well, I can’t give an opinion on that although I did read Morrison’s “Sula.” I also read runner-up “American Pastoral” by Philip Roth and honorable mention “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole.
Personally, I would have added “The Sportswriter” by Richard Ford, “Paris Trout” by Pete Dexter, and “The Shipping News” by E. Annie Proulx.
Turn that frown upside down
Sure, the polls are bad and the base is depressed, but if the Republicans have nowhere to go but up then check this out:
CQ has an interactive map up to chart the 2006 races. For ALL the negative stuff we've heard over the past few weeks, CQ, as of today, has Republicans holding both the House and the Senate.
Just like Scott predicted. Also, Jay Cost says to ignore the generic polls before Labor Day and the WashPost reports that the Democrats are broke and fighting. Finally, Rich Karlgaard in Forbes explains “Why the Dems won’t win in November”:
The hate that animates the American Left today is a sad thing … so different than the search for common good, quality and social justice which used to animate progressive politics, says Brad Carson, a former Democratic Congressman from Oklahoma. He’s right. That’s why I don’t lose too much sleep worrying about Speaker Pelosi.
It’s a long way to November, kids.
Yes, yes, Death to Israel, we know – Does this guy ever shut up? Meanwhile, James Lileks transcribes Ahmedinejad’s letter to Bush.
Renewable energy is for the little people, continued
From the Boston Globe: “4 legislators weigh in on wind farm measure”
Four Massachusetts congressmen say they will vote for a measure that could kill the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm as the face-off over the project intensifies on Capitol Hill. US Representatives William Delahunt, Barney Frank, Edward Markey, and Richard Neal plan to vote for the provision, according to an AP survey.
Every kind of energy requires some kind of sacrifice but the Kennedy clan and its acolytes stand against wind power because of the aesthetic “impact” on their Nantucket vacation homes.
Update from the Hanso Foundation - The code for the sublymonal message is: Heir Apparent
Follow-up - Well OK then - Lost creator J.J. Abrams says: “The ending of this year in Lost blows the ending of last season out of the water. It's an incredible finale…it's the greatest finale I have ever heard.”
The second time was to get his hat – Lorie Byrd on Polipundit: “Judicial Watch has been successful in getting the White House to release their visitor logs and it appears that Jack Abramoff visited the White House – brace yourselves – two times since 2001. Two! Wow. That is one more than one.” Lorie also compares Abramoff’s access to certain other visitors to the White House.
Amazing Race update – Thai-dyed hippies
The final four teams started out the Race from Darwin, Australia and had to make their way to Bangkok, Thailand in the middle of the night. The hippies were last in the non-elimination leg last week so they start out with no money and the clothes on their backs. This normally wouldn’t be a big deal except BJ hit the mat with no pants or shoes. Yolanda leaves a pair of purple pants which look ridiculous on the hippie while the Frat Boys contribute a pair of sandals. Before heading to the airport, BJ & Tyler beg for cash at the local Darwin hot spot and the Australians appear to be very generous. The bad news, however, is that the other teams get the last spots on the first plane to Bangkok so Team Burning Man is starting out with a big disadvantage.
Once in Bangkok, teams need to take a taxi to a bus depot and then find the Three Spire Pagoda which is surrounded by “sacred” monkeys. Team Volcano and Team Frat Boys get the first bus at midnight while Team MoJo gets bad advice from their cab driver who tells them the first bus doesn’t leave until morning. This gives the hippies a chance to catch-up and they wait outside the pagoda until morning as MoJo slumbers.
At daybreak, all teams except MoJo rip open the next clue to find an envelope reading “open at the pit stop” along with a Roadblock and a Fast Forward. The Frat Boys, who took the last FF couldn’t take this one, so Team Volcano and the hippies both head out to a restaurant two miles away. The Fast Forward task is that each team member must eat a bowl of deep-fried crickets and grasshoppers. Ray & Yolanda balk then head back to the Roadblock leaving BJ & Tyler to eat insects. Portentously, buckets are provided (and they are later used). But if they can chug bugs, the hippies skip all remaining tasks and head directly to the Pit Stop.
Back at the Roadblock, the other teams must create a feast for the monkeys by cutting up a bunch of fruit. This is made more difficult by the fact that the monkeys swarm around the fruit arrangements as the teams try to finish them. Eric, then Joseph, then Yolanda finish and turn and head to Koh Kret island for the next clue. This is the Detour: Move It or Alter It. Teams may either transport 72 clay jugs on flat boards to the river or apply gold leaf to a Buddha statue. The Frat Boys and Ray & Yolanda put gold leaf on Buddha while Monica & Joseph choose to transport jugs.
Meanwhile BJ & Tyler are barely making it through their feast of crickets and for a second they eye the taxi that could take them back to the Roadblock. But that’s not really an option so they plow ahead. Tyler is especially having trouble (the bucket is close at hand) but he eventually finishes. Team Burning Man heads directly to the Pit Stop where they arrive as Team #1, going from worst to first.
Most of the camera action is on Monica and Joseph since there’s not much fun it watching people paint statues. They try to balance the ceramic jugs on the planks but Monica can’t seem to carry much without pots crashing to the ground around her. It takes them three trips to carry all 72 pots; in one trip Monica carries exactly two pots while Joseph carries more than 20. Back at the Buddhist temple, Eric & Jeremy finish their statue followed by Ray & Yolanda. Team Mojo finishes their task and now all teams are heading to the Pit Stop at the Marble Temple.
It’s a heavy traffic taxi ride to the Pit Stop and the tension builds. The Frat Boys arrive as Team #2. It appears that Team Volcano and Team Mojo arrive pretty close together and Yolanda is ordered to put on something to cover up her bare arms before entering the temple. Team Volcano arrives as team #3 and also win a Travelocity yacht cruise around Sydney (the "open at pit stop" envelope). Team Mojo hits the mat for the last time as they are eliminated; they take the news surprisingly well.
#1 – Team Burning Man – BJ & Tyler
#2 – Team Frat Boys – Eric & Jeremy
#3 – Team Volcano – Ray & Yolanda
#4 – Team Mojo – Monica & Joseph – PHILIMILATED
Next week: The final three teams race to the finish line and the $1 million prize.
Extra – This space reserved for recaps by Kris & Pat.
College is very expensive - U.S. Judge Michael Luttig resigned his $171,800 seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals today to take a much better paying job at Boeing. He wrote this in his letter to President Bush: ""I am convinced," he added, that this is the right decision for me at this time, and most importantly, for my family. . . . This is especially so, as I am sure you can understand, given that" he has two children approaching college age." Yeesh.
Economics 001 – Dale Franks charts the price of oil and the price of gasoline to demonstrate where “those bloodsucking oil merchants” gouged us with an outrageous markup. Bring on the next investigation, I say!
We earn, we spend, we want more – Robert Samuelson looks at “Affluence and its discontents” in the WashPost: “Advanced societies need economic growth to satisfy the multiplying wants -- public and private -- of their citizens. The social order depends on it. But the quest for growth unleashes new anxieties and economic conflicts that disturb the social order.”
The GOP is in rough shape
But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the Democrats will benefit. From “No wonder voters doubtful about Dems” by Thomas Bray on Real Clear Politics:
Democrats hope that George Bush's miserable poll numbers will help them reclaim control of Congress this fall. But polls also show that the Democratic Party's overall approval ratings are almost as deep in the tank as the Republican rating. Voters may be expressing dismay at the alternatives.
The closer we get to election day, the greater the chance of a “Paul Wellstone” moment where the Democrats drop the mask and reveal their true agenda.
Why Johnny Massachusetts can’t read
The Bay State requires that all high school seniors pass a test called the MCAS to receive a high school diploma; the basic idea is that there should be some kind of standard applied to a diploma, including the ability to read and write. Every year, some school decides that standards and the law are secondary to just moving kids through the educational system. From the Boston Globe - “State warns New Bedford not to relax MCAS rule”:
Governor Mitt Romney and state education leaders threatened yesterday to cut the New Bedford school system's funding and rescind certification of administrators if they grant diplomas to high school students who failed the MCAS exams.
New Bedford school officials would violate state law on graduation requirements and will have to back down, state officials said. Three school systems vowed to give diplomas to students whether or not they passed the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests around the time the law went into effect in 2003, but the school districts, pushed by the state, later gave in.
''To say that we should graduate kids who haven't met the basic standards of reading and math is a gross mistake," Romney said during a press conference yesterday. ''It's a vote of no confidence in our kids. If there's no test and there's no standards, then the graduation degree doesn't mean anything."
Well put, Mitt. Also, from the NY Times: “Two Setbacks for Exit Exams Taken by High School Seniors.”
Question answered – It doesn’t get more direct than this: “Is Lost a Repeat?”
Another justice for the Court of Appeals – Senators on the judiciary committee grilled Brett Kavanaugh again putatively to gain more information but mostly to grandstand and ask questions they already knew the answers to.
Confirm Them reports: “It looks like Brett Kavanaugh will be reported out of the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, and then will be confirmed without a serious filibuster attempt.”
Meanwhile AJ Strata enjoyed Schumer’s angst: “The fact Kavanaugh could not be linked to anything left the Democrats to whine about nothing at all. Schumer looked particularly frustrated and defeated. Quite enjoyable.” The Coalition of the Chillin’ abides.
Angry and crazy – Captain Ed: “Will Rage undo the Democrats?” Also from Brothers Judd -“Today’s Left exists only to amuse the rest of us”: “They aren't just reactionary; they're delusional.”
Full mental jacket
From the NY Times: “In men, ‘trigger happy’ may be a hormonal impulse”:
Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., enrolled 30 male students in what they described as a taste study. The researchers took saliva samples from the students and measured testosterone levels.
They then seated the young men, one at a time, at a table in a bare room; on the table were pieces of paper and either the board game Mouse Trap or a large handgun.
Their instructions: take apart the game or the gun and write directions for assembly and disassembly.
Fifteen minutes later, the psychologists measured saliva testosterone again and found that the levels had spiked in men who had handled the gun but had stayed steady in those working with the board game.
I’m not convinced this has anything to do with guns per se. I’m sure the same results would have been found with the following control-test pairs:
Led Zeppelin vs. Barry Manilow
Mustang vs. minivan
Buffalo wings vs. Caesar salad
NASCAR vs. baseball
Create you own!
Down the drain – Byron York examines how Bush lost the Democrats, then the independents, then the conservatives.
“Unbelievably tactically stupid” – That’s how Slate characterized Nancy Pelosi’s recent statements and her appearance on “Meet the Press” which parallels my pre-show assessment and further supports my prediction that the Democrats will find a way to lose in November, which is still a long ways off.
Extra – Much more from Gateway Pundit, who believes “add-on” is a code for a tax hike. However, it’s clear that Pelosi meant a government program paid for by taxpayers, which is completely different.
Outrageous profits - $3.19 a gallon? A 12.38% profit margin? When will Washington step in and put an end to the obscene cash grab over at Kraft Foods?
What the….? This prison isn’t very nice at all.
This is some serious convict regret: “Moussaoui Says He Lied on Stand About Role in Sept. 11, Asks to Withdraw Guilty Plea”
Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers told the court they filed the motion even though a federal rule "prohibits a defendant from withdrawing a guilty plea after imposition of sentence."
“And you can forget all about that ‘God curse America’ stuff. Just kidding.”
Sink or swim at MIT
A practice held over since World War II, 14% of colleges still require a swimming test to graduate. Today’s Boston Globe has a hilarious article about poor Stephanie Yeh of MIT who pushed off the requirement until her senior year:
Seven days before the test, Stephanie Yeh stood in her sorority house and cried.
An electrical engineering and computer science major, she was set to graduate near the top of her MIT class next month and start a six-figure job as a Wall Street analyst.
Just one test, terrifying to her, remained. She, like scores of undergraduates at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had been putting it off for nearly four years. But Yeh and the others have to pass this exam to graduate.
She had to swim 100 yards, four lengths of a pool, without stopping.
The problem: Yeh never learned how to swim.
She makes it in the end, calling it “the hardest test I’ve ever taken at MIT.”
Ridiculing Kerry is the highest form of patriotism - Ann Althouse asks: “Does John Kerry makes any sense?” Meanwhile, Tim Blair finds the Senator misquoting Thomas Jefferson yet again. Golly, I hope he runs in 2008.
Bonus – Welcome, Instapundit readers! Wow, see what happens when you don’t check your blog for a couple of hours.
Posted by Eric at 10:51 AM 12 comments:
Renewable energy is for the little people
Jeff Jacoby notes that Ted Kennedy likes regulations when it suits him, but not when it affects his view from Hyannis Port: “Kennedy doesn’t play by the rules”:
But like a lot of well-to-do Cape and Islands landowners and sailing enthusiasts, Kennedy doesn't want to share his Atlantic playground with an energy facility, no matter how clean, green, and nearly unseen. Last month he secretly arranged for a poison-pill amendment, never debated in either house of Congress, to be slipped into an unrelated Coast Guard bill. It would give the governor of Massachusetts, who just happens to be a wind farm opponent, unilateral authority to veto the Cape Wind project.
Both Ted Kennedy and John Kerry have twisted themselves into pretzels trying to present their green bona fides while opposing a renewable energy solution in their own backyard.
Posted by Eric at 10:29 AM 1 comment:
What $13 trillion shortfall? - From Cato: “The Social Security sidestep” (Hat tip: Pejman)
People are fed up with crazy Tom – “’Mission’ fizzling – Box office imploding”: “Friday night's numbers are in for "Mission: Impossible III," and they aren't what Paramount or Tom Cruise might have hoped for. The JJ Abrams-directed blockbuster took in only $17 million according to website www.boxofficemojo.com. That's a good $3 million off the lowest predictions, and $8 million off what a real mega hit would have been.”
Sunday morning lineup – Nancy Pelosi will be on Meet the Press. That’s all you really need to know since she is, without a doubt, the worst interviewee in television history.
Nerds rule the world - Without revealing too much about my professional life, I wholeheartedly agree with nearly every bit of this post on Business Pundit: “Why business needs more geeks.”
Quick shots
I’m heading over to a neighbor’s house for a barbeque tonight, but here are a few stories that caught my attention:
That $15 billion boondoggle – “Big Dig probe expanding – 6 managers at concrete firm facing fraud charges.” When you use low-grade concrete on roadways or garden walls, it just degrades a little faster. When you use low-grade concrete in the Big Dig, you’re drowned by the Charles River.
Real Clear Politics: “No Leadership + No Urgency = No Solution To Energy Problem”
John Derbyshire on Bush’s poll numbers and his loss of conservative support: “I hang out with conservatives, and I hear this ten times a week. If you bloat the budget, open the borders, and back off in the culture wars, you're going to lose conservatives. This is not rocket science.” I remain confident that the Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, right Mac?
And Porter Goss resigns – hmmm…that was sudden.
Time to apply Occam’s Razor
A Kennedy crashes his car and a patrolman reports that he “appeared intoxicated.” Was Patrick Kennedy:
1.) Late for a vote at the House of Representatives and impaired by cold medicine
2.) Drunk
3.) Coz is a fool
My John Kenneth Galbraith story
A couple years ago, I was in Boston for yet another fiber optics conference and met up with an old favorite teacher of mine from Rutgers who now teaches at Harvard. She took me to the faculty club for lunch and I wore my too-old suit. At one point she pointed over to a table with a number of very well-dressed men and whispered: “That’s John Kenneth Galbraith.” He was very old and very tall (I'm 6'3").
Anyway, it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead but George Will positively piles on in his article “Condescensional Wisdom”:
Although Galbraith coined the phrase ``conventional wisdom,'' and thought of himself as the scourge of groupthink, ``The Affluent Society'' was the distilled essence of the conventional wisdom on campuses. In the 1960s, that liberalism became a stance of disdain, describing Americans not only as Galbraith had, as vulgar, but also as sick, racist, sexist, imperialist, etc. Again, and not amazingly, voters were not amused when told that their desires -- for big cars, neighborhood schools and other things -- did not deserve respect.
Yeesh. Everything I know about economics I learned from P.J. O’Rourke’s excellent “Eat the Rich.” Concerning certain economic books, he writes this in the intro:
There are also certain books you should avoid, such as anything with the words Investment and Success in the title and everything ever written by John Kenneth Galbraith.
That hole in the ground – And now I have to pay to prosecute six guys who poured old concrete into the $4 $15 billion Big Dig. The fun never ends.
Seeds of democracy?
Victor Davis Hanson looks at the glass half-full in the Middle East. From “Give Iran Enough Rope”:
The good news is that Iran, like all ossified societies in the current era of globalized communications, is unstable. The eighth-century theocrats in charge there could find their own citizens questioning whether a bomb is worth international ostracism and the threat of military strikes.
At the same time, what's happening now in Iraq must be of great concern to the Iranian leadership. Jawad al-Maliki, the new Iraqi prime minister, for example, is a nationalist. He, like other Iraqi Shiites, has shown he is not willing to be an Iranian pawn. As Ahmadinejad promotes death, how will Iranians react to images from Iraq of life-affirming free citizens in a new democracy?
In other words, will Iraq's new liberality prove more destabilizing to Iran than Ahmadinejad's agents can to Iraq? As Iraq's 300,000-strong army emerges as a well-trained and equipped force, one suspects the answer is yes.
Well, one can hope.
Amazing Race update – Survival of the fittest in Darwin
The final four teams started out from Perth, Australia where, in the middle of the night, they needed to find the Swan Bells (above). This bell tower doesn’t open until 8 a.m., so everybody’s bunched up again. The tension is starting to get thick as Team Mojo is very brusque with the hippies. Meanwhile, Ray & Yolanda are pretty much steering clear of the others. Just before the bell tower opens, all the teams call to reserve a taxi so that after they retrieve the clue and rush to the next stop. Eric & Jeremy then call back the taxi service and cancel both Ray’s & Tyler’s taxi (Joseph & Monica were in on the subterfuge).
Morning arrives and teams race up to get the clue: fly to Darwin, Australia. Team Mojo gets their taxi right away but Karma intervenes and Team Frat Boys’ cab is nowhere to be found. BJ & Tyler and Ray & Yolanda call for two more taxis and figure out that somebody cancelled their reservation. Tempers flare up a little at the airport and this underhanded move. Team Burning Man decides to stir the pot by suggesting that Eric has his sights set on Barbie girl Monica. Joseph is not amused.
Once in Darwin, teams race to Crocodylus Park where they walk through crocodile pens and pick up the next clue. This directs them to an airfield in the town of Batchelor – caution: Yield ahead. Both the hippies and Mojo have been threatening to yield each other and they both totally break the speed limit to get to the Yield first. At the airfield, it appears as if Monica & Joseph arrive first, but – what? – there’s Team Burning Man and they are yielding Team Mojo. Joseph is not amused again.
The airfield is, no surprise to TAR fans, a skydive Roadblock and one member from each team must jump from a perfectly good plane (in tandem, of course). BJ is first, followed by Eric, then Ray and finally Monica. The next clue directs them to Litchfield Park where they must search among these amazing Magnetic Termite Mounds. This clue is the Detour: Wet or Dry. Teams may either swim down river about a mile (while avoiding enormous spiders) or search in the forest for a didgeridoo player and then play a couple notes. The Hippies and the Frat Boys go swimming while Team Volcano and Team Mojo head into the forest. The “Dry” detour appears to be much faster and Ray & Yolanda, then Monica & Joseph finish first and start to head to the Pit Stop at Lake Bennett. Of course, the yielded Team Mojo is still way behind and Team Volcano arrives at the Pit Stop first as Team #1.
What occurs next is that rarity that makes The Amazing Race an amazing race. The remaining three teams all end up on the same road to the Pit Stop, driving in a line. All agree: this is going to come down to a footrace at the Pit Stop. The Frat Boys pull in first, the hippies next, and Mojo last; surely the guys can outrun a girl, right? Astoundingly, instead of just following the gangplank down to the pier, BJ decides to try a shortcut down the embankment and falls back just enough so that Monica arrives ahead of him (teams can only “check in” at the Pit Stop in pairs). Joseph is amused now and taunts them: “You yielded us!” However, this is another non-elimination leg and Team Burning Man is spared a second time although they must start the next leg with “the clothes on their back.” The camera pans down: BJ is barefoot.
#1 – Team Volcano – Ray & Yolanda – Prize: a Mercedes SUV (nice!)
#3 – Team MoJo – Monica & Joseph
#4 – Team Burning Man – BJ & Tyler – NON-ELIMINATION LEG
Next week: Monkeys in Thailand. Monica is whining.
Extra – This space reserved for recaps by Kris (poetic version!) & Pat.
Three thousand Americans dead – Moussaoui gets life
From Fox News - “Moussaoui evades death, receives life in prison”: “Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole on Wednesday for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "America, you lost. I won," Moussaoui said, clapping his hands as he was led out of the courtroom after the verdict was read.”
The “at-least-we-denied-him-martyrdom” argument is not playing well at Hot Air. But if you gotta live, existence in a Supermax prison might be as bad as it gets.
My only concern is how this plays out among the Islamofascists; that is, is it more or less likely to encourage terrorists attacks? Unfortunately, I think there was marginally less to fear from the martyrdom angle and this judgment may be perceived as a sign of weakness. As somebody once wrote (Samuel Johnson?), nothing sharpens the mind like a hanging in the morning. A caption reading “THIS is what we do to terrorists” would send the right message in the “weak horse/strong horse” debate.
Apropos of nothing – Remember when serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, convicted in the capital punishment-free state of Wisconsin, was bludgeoned to death by a fellow inmate? That was, ah, rotten luck.
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topcombo
Film with Tom Draper
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Financial planning for the 100-year life
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Reaching for the moon
Posted on November 30 2018 at 3:02:20
Amateur astronomer Brian Watkiss peers into the Village night sky.
December, already? Well, the Christmas ads have been on telly for over a month and the radio is playing all the old Christmas songs, so it must be.
Actually this December marks a very special anniversary: 50 years ago, men went to the Moon for the very first time.
Probes had been there before but Apollo 8 was the first spacecraft to carry human beings. They didn’t land, of course; that was to be six months later, but it was the first time a Saturn V rocket was launched with men on board and they decided that it should do what it was designed to do – go to the Moon.
It meant the crew were away for Christmas and they took one of the most famous photographs of all time (below).
Back down here on Earth, Mars is still with us after six months, although not as bright as it was back in the summer. Look for it in the south as soon as the sky has gone dark.
It really has been a treat this year and it’s good to hear that NASA has managed to get its remaining rover, Curiosity, working again after a glitch in October. It had a memory problem which was cured by switching to a back-up system. I wonder if they could help me?
Mars is now the only bright planet in the evening sky, although Neptune is close by – but that is for a good telescope, as is Uranus over to the left in Pisces. A crescent Moon wanders by from the 14th.
If you’re up and about early in the morning, Venus rises just before five o’clock and is visible in the south east till the Sun obliterates it at about eight. You may get a glimpse of Jupiter just before this. A thin crescent Moon is here too for the last few days of the month.
This month also sees two more exciting Solar System events. The first of these is the Geminid meteor shower which peaks on the night of the 13th, but look for them anywhere in the sky for a good few days either side of this date.
The second is the close approach of comet 46P/Wirtanen which occurs on the 16th. It was originally thought that this comet would be visible to the naked eye around this time but latest predictions are less optimistic.
What is known is that all comets are a bit unpredictable, so keep your eyes peeled for a fuzzy blob moving up the sky between the Pleiades and Taurus for a few days either side of this date. A good pair of binoculars should be able to pick it out.
Russia is set to launch three astronauts to the ISS on the 3rd of the month, the first launch since the failure of a Soyuz on the 11th of October, so look out for that.
The USA should launch a re-supply vessel on the 4th so there may be a bit of a spacecraft traffic jam at the ISS at this time.
This may make one or the other visible from Alvechurch, so go to http://www.heavens-above.com for times and places – and don’t forget to look out for the unknown flying object that always crosses the night sky on the evening of the 24th!
Pictured: Earthrise on the Moon from Apollo 8 (courtesy of NASA)
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Legal status of methamphetamine
The production, distribution, and sale of methamphetamine is restricted or illegal in many jurisdictions.
1 Legal status by country
1.3 The Czech Republic
1.4 Hong Kong
1.6 The Netherlands
1.7 New Zealand
1.8 Singapore
1.10 United Kingdom
1.11 United States
2 Legality of similar chemicals
Legal status by country
It is a Schedule 8 drug, the medical use of Methamphetamine is recognized in Australia, although it is never prescribed as there are no pharmaceutical companies in Australia that manufacture it.[1][2]
Methamphetamine is not approved for medical use in Canada. As of 2005, methamphetamine has been moved to Schedule I of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which provides access to the highest maximum penalties. The maximum penalty for production and distribution of methamphetamine has increased from 10 years to life in prison.[3]
In the Czech Republic the law prohibits possession of amount of a drug, which is "larger than small". The Government mandates which amount is regarded as "larger than small". Nowadays possession of up to 2 grams of Methamphetamine is considered to be a misdemeanour rather than a crime and such possession can be fined up to 15,000 CZK (approximately $800).[4] However, production and distribution is illegal. In 2009 police raided 340 Methamphetamine laboratories in the Czech Republic, which is the most among EU countries.[5] Government changed policy of sale of legal drugs, which contain substances needed for meth production - the buyer must have a medical prescription, must identify themself by ID card and can obtain only a small quantity. Due to this Czech meth producers are buying drugs with Pseudoephedrine in Poland, where there are no such restrictions.[6]
The Czech penal code penalizes possession (of more than 2 grams) by 1 – 8 years of imprisonment (penalty is differentiated by the amount of drug); production and distribution by up to 5 years, or up to 10 years (if conducted as a member of organized group, in large scale, against a child, or if it led to a large profit). Penal code also punishes spoofing or propagation of drugs (up to 5 years of imprisonment by different circumstances, up to 8 if against a child).
Methamphetamine is regulated under Schedule 1 of Hong Kong's Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.[7] It can only be used legally by health professionals and for university research purposes. The substance can be given by pharmacists under a prescription. Anyone who supplies the substance without prescription can be punished with 15 years imprisonment and a fine of $100,000 (HKD).[8] The penalty for trafficking or manufacturing the substance is a $5,000,000 (HKD) fine and life imprisonment.[9] Possession or use of the substance without license from the Department of Health is liable to a $1,000,000 (HKD) fine and/or 7 years of imprisonment.[10]
Methamphetamine is not approved for medical use in Italy, except for an extremely small number of case-approved, strictly controlled experimental therapies, and it is listed in the Tabella 1 ("Schedule One") of the Psychotropic Substances List of the Italian Ministry of Health.[11] Production, traffic and/or sale of methamphetamine can be punished with a sentence of imprisonment ranging from six to twenty years, and with a fine ranging from 26,000 to 260,000 Euros, according to the severity of the felony. As for any other drugs, the consumption of methamphetamine and the possession of the substance for "personal use" (under a certain quantity) is not illegal in Italy,[12] although law enforcement and health authorities keep files on known users and addicts, who are often forced to undergo treatment. However, methamphetamine is not a particularly common or popular substance in Italy, surpassed by cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy, even if its popularity is growing.
Methamphetamine is not approved for medical use in The Netherlands. It falls under Schedule I of the Opium Act.[13] Although production and distribution of this drug are prohibited, few people who were caught with a small amount for personal use have been prosecuted.
Methamphetamine is a Class "A" or Schedule 1 controlled drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.[14] The maximum penalty for production and distribution is imprisonment for life. While in theory a doctor could prescribe it for an appropriate indication, this would require case-by-case approval by the director-general of public health. High purity methamphetamine is most commonly referred to by the uniquely New Zealand street name of P, for "pure".[15]
Under the Misuse of Drugs Act in Singapore, methamphetamine is a Class A — Schedule I controlled drug.[16] Under the Section 17 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, any person who carries 250 or more grammes of the drug shall be presumed to possess them for the purpose of drug trafficking,[17] which is punishable by death. Unless authorized by the government, the possession, consumption, manufacturing, import, export, or trafficking of methamphetamine in any amount are illegal.
In South Africa, methamphetamine is classified as a Schedule 7 drug,[18] and is listed as Undesirable Dependence-Producing Substances in Part III of Schedule 2 of the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act, 1992.[19] [20]
As of 18 January 2007,[21] methamphetamine is classified as a Class A drug in the UK under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 following a recommendation made by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in June 2006.[22] It had previously been classified as a Class B drug, except when prepared for injection.
According to a 2013 BBC News article, the United Kingdom does not have a significant problem with methamphetamines where it is restricted mostly to the gay male sex party scene. The Home Office estimate that around 17,000 people used methamphetamine, compared to 27,000 people using heroin.[23]
Methamphetamine is classified as a Schedule II substance by the Drug Enforcement Administration under the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances.[24] It is available by prescription under the trade name Desoxyn, manufactured by Ovation Pharma. While there is technically no difference between the laws regarding methamphetamine and other controlled stimulants, most medical professionals are averse to prescribing it due to its notoriety.
In addition to federal laws, some states have placed additional restrictions on the sale of precursor chemicals commonly used to synthesize methamphetamine, particularly pseudoephedrine, a common over-the-counter decongestant. In 2005, the DEA seized 2,148.6 kg(4,736.8 lbs) of methamphetamine.[25] In 2005, the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 was passed as part of the USA PATRIOT Act, putting restrictions on the sale of methamphetamine precursors. Various state governments have passed even more stringent laws to regulate the sale of pseudoephedrine decongestants.
On November 7, 2006, the US Department of Justice declared that November 30, 2006 be Methamphetamine Appreciation Day.[26]
DEA El Paso Intelligence Center data is showing a distinct downward trend in the seizure of clandestine drug labs for the illicit manufacture of methampetamine from a high of 18,091 in 2004. This trend has reversed as of 2008. Lab seizure data for the United States is available from EPIC beginning in 1999 when 7,438 labs were reported to have been seized during that calendar year. These figures include methamphetamine lab, "dumpsite" and "chemical and glassware" seizures.[27]
Legality of similar chemicals
See ephedrine and pseudoephedrine for legal restrictions in place as a result of their use as precursors in the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine.
^ "Poisons Standard 2009". 2009-08-03. Retrieved 2009-08-17.
^ Sweetman, Sean (2009-03-16). Martindale: The Complete Drug Reference, 36th Edition. Pharmaceutical Press. p. 2158.
^ "Government of Canada increases maximum penalties for Methamphetamine offences". Health Canada News Release. Health Canada. 2005-08-11. Retrieved 2008-09-01.
^ "Government ordination of 2009 about illegal substances". 2010-03-14. Retrieved 2010-03-14.
^ "Police found 340 meth labs in 2009 in the Czech Republic". 2010-03-14. Retrieved 2010-03-14.
^ "Junkies found Pseudoephedrine elsewhere - in Poland". 2010-03-14. Retrieved 2010-03-14.
^ "DANGEROUS DRUGS ORDINANCE - SCHEDULE 1". Retrieved 2009-08-25.
^ "DANGEROUS DRUGS ORDINANCE - SECT 5". Retrieved 2009-08-25.
^ "TABELLA I" (PDF) (in Italian). Retrieved 2009-08-25.
^ http://www.altalex.com/index.php?idnot=33849 Testo Unico sulla Droga Italian drugs law
^ "Bijlage 1 Lijst I Opiumwetmiddelen".
^ "Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 No 116 (as at 01 October 2008), Public Act".
^ Chamberlain, Simon (2005). "Glossary". Methamphetamine, ecstasy and BZP in New Zealand: An annotated bibliography. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
^ "First Schedule, Section 2, Controlled Druge, PART I, Class A Drugs". Singapore Statutes Online. Attorney General's Chamber. Retrieved 2009-12-29.
^ "Part III, Evidence, Enforcement and Punishment, Presumption concerning trafficking". Singapore Statutes Online. Attorney General's Chamber. Retrieved 2009-12-29.
^ "Medicines and Related Substances Act: Schedules" (PDF). Government Gazette. 2003-04-10. Retrieved 2010-01-01.
^ "Drug Awareness -- ATS". South African Police Service. Retrieved 2010-01-01.
^ Kiley, Sam (2007-09-23). "Rare shellfish bartered for drugs". The Observer. Retrieved 2010-01-01.
^ Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment Order) SI 2006/3331
^ Crystal meth to be class A drug, BBC News, 14 June 2006
^ Walker, Duncan (6 August 2013). "Breaking Bad: Why doesn't the UK have a crystal meth problem?". BBC News. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
^ List of psychotropic substances under international control. International Narcotics Control Board.
^ Stats & Facts: 2006 Successes in the Fight Against Drugs
^ DEA (2007-01-01). "Meth Awareness News Releases".
^ DEA. "Maps of Methamphetamine Lab Incidents".
Buprenorphine (Suboxone · Subutex)
Desomorphine (Krokodil)
Dextropropoxyphene (Darvocet · Darvon)
Diamorphine (heroin) \ Morphine (Opium)
Hydromorphone (Dilaudid)
Mitragyna speciosa (Kratom)
Ethanol (Alcoholic beverages)
Nonbenzodiazepines
Quinazolinones
Arecoline (Areca)
Caffeine (Coffee
Tea)
Cathinone (Khat)
Cocaine (Coca)
Ephedrine (Ephedra)
MDPV
Mephedrone
Methylone
Methylphenidate
Nicotine (Tobacco)
Theobromine (Cocoa)
Entactogens
MDMA (Ecstasy)
2C-* series
alpha-Methyltryptamine
6-APB (Benzofury)
Bufotenin
Psychoactive toads
Vilca
Yopo
DMT (Ayahuasca)
Peruvian Torch
Psilocybin \ Psilocin (Psilocybin mushrooms)
Dissociatives
alkyl nitrites – poppers, such as amyl nitrite
MXE
Muscimol (Amanita muscaria)
Salvinorin A (Salvia divinorum)
Deliriants
Atropine and Scopolamine
Deadly Nightshade
Henbane
Dimenhydrinate
Diphenhydramine
THC (Cannabis
Hash oil)
Oneirogens
Calea zacatechichi
Silene capensis
(Marijuana)
Cannabis cultivation
Legal history of cannabis in the United States
Religious and spiritual use of cannabis
Stoner film
Alcohol (Ethanol)
Drinking culture
Beer culture
Club drug
Drug paraphernalia
Drug tourism
Party and play
Poly drug use
Sex and drugs
Whoonga
and trade
Coca production in Colombia
Drug precursors
Opium production in Afghanistan
Rolling meth lab
Illegal drug trade in Colombia
Issues with
Date rape drug
Opioid replacement therapy
Responsible use
Drug-related crime
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Long-term effects of cannabis
Passive smoking (of tobacco or other substances)
Legality of
Council of the European Union decisions on designer drugs
Supply reduction
Policy reform
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
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International honours for Smart City success
A brace of awards at the IDC Smart Cities Asia-Pacific Awards has confirmed City of Newcastle’s standing as a leading smart city.
The Smart City Infrastructure component of the Hunter Innovation Project (HIP) was announced outright winner of the ‘Land Use and Planning’ category among an illustrious field of contenders including Singapore.
The City’s Smart Moves Newcastle – Mobility Projects also shared top honours in the ‘Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, Public Transit and Rideshare’ category with Chinese tech powerhouse Shenzhen.
Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said the twin wins, which follow the Smart City of the Year Metropolitan prize in May, proved Newcastle’s modernisation wasn’t going unnoticed internationally.
“Of the seven Australian projects nominated as finalists in the 2019 round of the IDC Smart City awards, Newcastle was the only city to come away with wins,” the Lord Mayor said.
“It speaks volumes to our growing stature that we are mixing it with, and beating, established Asia-Pacific smart cities like Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Busan, Auckland, Taipei and Singapore.”
Now in its fifth year, the IDC smart cities awards honour the initiatives implemented by Asia-Pac cities to use technology to improve operations and better serve citizens. The awards are judged by IDC experts, an international advisory panel and a public vote.
This $7 million three-year HIP project forms part of the broader $17 million collaboration of smart city ideas, facilities and infrastructure by City of Newcastle, the NSW Government, University of Newcastle, Newcastle Now and Hunter DiGiT.
HIP has introduced smart city technology into the city’s public spaces, including communications networks connecting Australia’s largest installation of smart poles, smart lighting, free public WiFi and a soon-to-launch environmental sensor network, and Internet of Things (IoT) lab.
“The digital technologies and sensor capabilities enabled through the Hunter Innovation Project’s smart city infrastructure are a game-changer for the City,” the Lord Mayor said.
“This technology forms infrastructure capable of powering intelligent economic growth.
“It’ll help us manage our city based on data, and attract innovators, businesses and industries who want to be part of our digital revolution.”
The Smart Moves Newcastle – Mobility Project is using technology-enabled infrastructure, such as EV charging stations, smart bus stops and bike sharing programs, while introducing new modes of transport, including a driverless vehicle.
The project is funded by a $5 million grant though the Federal Government’s Smart Cities and Suburbs program and delivered with Transport for NSW, Keolis Downer Hunter, Bykko, and research programs by the University of Newcastle studying behaviours and prototyping new sensor technology.
For more information on the IDC Smart Cities Asia-Pacific Award, visit https://www.idc.com/ap/smartcities/
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« The Great Gatsby (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)
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Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)
October 6th, 2016 by Brandon Peters
Every summer folks flock to see the giant superhero blockbusters, the big animated features for the family (That a lot of adults get more out of), large scale epics, Purge movies and some of those small films that click along the way. Forgotten among the ranks sometimes are the straight comedies and rom coms with notable casts. You gotta fill that void a couple times a month and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates was one of those movies. It felt like you couldn’t escape that trailer no matter what you went to see from the Spring until it came out. A trailer that felt it was giving away the best the film had to offer. While I kinda looked at it as one I’d wait for home video on, I still was kinda interested based on the cast. The movie was a decent sized hit while being unfavorable with the critics. But, hey, everyone has a different sense of humor.
You are cordially invited to the comedy event of the year! In order to avoid embarrassing their family, hard-partying brothers Mike and Dave place an online ad to find “respectable” dates for their sister’s Hawaiian wedding. Instead, the boys find themselves out-hustled by an uncontrollable duo. Based on hilarious true events, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is the perfect marriage of over-the-top humor and outrageous fun!
For what it’s worth, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates works “well enough” to be an enjoyable comedy, but ultimately something you’ll just kinda see and move on. Who knows, maybe some will go back and some will add a line or moment her or there to quote. The film certainly features a strong, underused and game cast that helps pull it over the home of not recommending.
Narratively, there is really nothing special about this film and runs it into the path of being completely generic. It follows the same beats and structure as 98% of romantic comedies, never being bold enough or even just slightly veering from its course. You can see every turn, every character conflict and all the resolutions coming millions of miles away. In all honesty, you probably could even pull all of that information from the trailer I mentioned that showed enough prior to the release.
Fear not, though. When it comes to that same ‘ol same ‘ol story trend, all is not lost. It then depends on the cast and the strength of the comedy they are bringing to the table. While I think its these players that make the film worthwhile, be warned that a lot of the bigger moments have already been spoiled by the trailer. In its defense, some do work still, even though you are aware that they are going to pop up by a quick cue to your memory of the preview.
I’m not sure if its a secret anymore, but Zac Efron is and has been comedic gold for the last 5 years or so. He’s finding a strength in raunchy and romantic comedies. He plays the more straight man role of the two brothers, but is able to balance the line of being goofy and over the top with fully buying into him being serious and selling some necessary dramatic pops. He shares good chemistry with his co-stars, especially Adam DeVine, who the two look to be having a blast together. Also with great chemistry are Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza (The reason I had some interest in this to begin with). Its these to actors that I actually would like to see another pair-up between in a comedy. They both bring a different style to the comedy that meshes and doesn’t feel like they are overlapping one another. While the title only has Mike and Dave named, their wedding dates are equally cared for and given as much time to share the screen once introduced.
No, this movie isn’t great, I’ve pleaded in this review for it as “good enough”. Maybe its apathetic, but I did find myself giggling decently throughout. No real big laughs, but solid pace of snickers. I’m crediting the performers with this one, though, as the script and direction didn’t feel much different than a lot of movies like this and this one easily could have been put in the Adam Sandler wheelhouse (Seriously, replace Efron and DeVine with Sandler and Kevin James and tell me you couldn’t see this going that way). Overall, its an okay way to kill about an hour and a half with a grin.
Encoding: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: 4K (2160p)
Layers: BD-66
Clarity/Detail: Mike and Dave Need Weddings Dates is a tropical movie, so its going to be vibrant and pop, looking quite lively. When compared against the Blu-ray, the beautiful looking image wasn’t as special, as its just a marginal increase over the Blu-ray image. It is noticeable, but not largely. This features a sharp, crisp image that has some more detail and depth to it than its Blu-ray counterpart. Clothing patterns, and dirt/grassy grounds are quite more finely combed. Water looks natural, smooth and details the individual waves and motions impressively. The opening act of the film is in city places and is a very solid picture, dimmer lit, but its true colors come with it goes to the wedding where everything is bright and very vivid. One of the really cool things I noticed was the level of detail on the color, texture, clarity of the liquor/champagne/wine/beer in glasses.
Depth: This is an area where you can see some significant improvement compared to the Blu-ray. Characters move much more smoothly and they appear much more well rounded, 3-dimensional and separate from their backgrounds and free in their environments. The image just appears smoother in performance and much more confident when you look at it. When the go on the ATV Jurassic Park tour, you could easily demo and compare to show the 4K advantage. Its very 3-D looking and you get much more distinct and defined details on the mountains/hills in the background. The foreground and background distancing, movements and relations perfect the depth of field as much as they can in a 2 dimensional display.
Black Levels: Blacks are much more toned and richer in this image. Scenes like the cab ride and in the bars all allow for much more detail to come through and different layers of shading. Hair follicles, dark clothing and surfaces all were able to showcase their patterns and textures better in this image. There was no crushing witnessed during this viewing.
Color Reproduction: Colors hold pretty standard in the film until the trip to Hawaii. The girls’ outfits and swimwear all pop quite well. The first dress we see Aubrey Plaza wear in Hawaii is a big stinger. In this image, the advantage is that these colors or only a hair stronger, but you can make out a bit more detail and patterns on the clothing. Greens don’t go overboard where they could have. Yellows do looking quite good and strong. There are a many colors of Blue in this palette and film, but they keep more natural in their appearance rather than any jumping off.
Flesh Tones: Skin tones are natural in appearance and maintain this look for the entire runtime of the feature. Skin tones reveal stuff like freckles, red blemishing, scars, make up, lip texture, stubble, wrinkles, blood, burnt skin and more. When compared with the Blu-ray there was a big difference in skin textures and detail. Anna Kendrick’s face when you first get a medium shot of her in Hawaii was a prime example as you can see she’s got some freckles and red in her. Also, when popping in the Blu-ray, the faces looked much smoother and there was far less detail in the medium shots.
Noise/Artifacts: Clean
Audio Format(s): English 7.1 DTS-HD MA, English 5.1 Descriptive Audio, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 DTS, Spanish (Castilian) 5.1 DTS, German 5.1 DTS, Italian 5.1 DTS,
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French (Canadian), French, Spanish (Castilian), Danish, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Finnish, Mandarin (Traditional), Mandarin (Simple). Include subtitles for commentary track as well in all languages.
Dynamics: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates hits its 7.1 track with a very natural and true to life approach. The only big moments are that of musical enhancements. Music in this mix sounds very full, but never drowns out any necessary dialogue or effects. Sound effects sound very crisp, and when in bar scenes you can hear all bits of clinking classes, swishing liquids and table top pounding. The film gets right action bits when its called upon, like the fireworks sequence and the ATV tour. There’s nothing in this mix that goes overboard and the balance of tracks appears very solid.
Height: N/A
Low Frequency Extension: The subwoofer gets its work going primarily with the songs played in the film’s score. Pop music gets a bump from its stronger bass bits. Other moments where its a solid contributor are a car crash, firework explosions, engines, punches and Aubrey Plaza getting hit by a car.
Surround Sound Presentation: Mike and Dave may have found wedding dates, but they did not find an Atmos track. Its wildly unnecessary for this movie as a 7.1 track is even much. It makes the best use of the track and doesn’t abuse. The sounds go round when natural and at their most effective. Sides and rear help out with music and ambiance for populated scenes and environments. Actions, as you’d assume, are accurately track front to back, side to side.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is crisp, has good diction pulling every enunciated sound and is always audible with great clarity.
Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates comes with a Blu-ray copy and an UltraViolet digital copy of the film. The 4K UHD disc only contains the commentary track as an extra. The rest of the bonus material is found on the Blu-ray disc.
Audio Commentary
By Jake Szymanski
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Deleted Scenes (HD, 23:48)
Extended Scenes (HD, 39:12)
Alternate Storyline Pig Sequence (HD, 7:45) – Follows a subplot that was removed from the film.
Bits On Bits On Bits (HD, 6:21) – More improv bits
Line-O-Rama (HD, 10:02) – Yup, you guessed it…more improv outtakes
Gag Reel (HD, 5:27) – Oh wow…a novel concept
Funny Or Die Shorts (HD, 6:40) – Shorts that ran on the website in promotion for the film.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is a solid comedy that is not going to be long revered, but is fun enough when you sit to watch it. This 4K UHD Blu-ray is a pretty light uptick from the Blu-ray edition (Which is included in this set) and only contains the commentary as an extra. As mentioned, those are still there on the Blu-ray that comes with the disc. If you’re gonna buy the film though, you might as well just go with this version as to keep with the up to date technology, even if you don’t have the 4K UHD player yet.
Written by: Brandon Peters on October 6, 2016.
Brandon Peters
Writer/Reviewer, lifelong obsessive film nerd. As eager to educate in the world of film as I am to learn. An avid lover of horror, schlock and trash, Brandon hosts the Cult Cinema Cavalcade podcast on the Creative Zombie Studios Network (www.cultcinemacavalcade.com) You can also find more essays on his blog Naptown Nerd (naptownnerd.blogspot.com).
Tags: Adam DeVine, Alice Wetterlund, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, Kumail Nanjiani, Marc Maron, Sam Richardson, Stephen Root, Sugar Lyn Beard, Wendy Williams, Zac Efron.
This entry is filed under 4K UHD Blu-ray Review, Amazon Pre-Orders, Blu-ray Reviews . You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0 . You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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muslim women changemakers February 15, 2015
Ayesha Mattu
I decided to ask American Muslim women and men in all their diversity to share their search for love, and the breadth and depth of human experience folded into that universal longing.
I’m a mama, writer, and seeker who has been blessed to have the opportunity to live in the US and Pakistan and claim both as home. (That said, I’m a Californian through and through.) My parents decided to move my sisters and me from the US, where we’d been born and raised, to Pakistan. I spent my teen years there before returning to the US for college.
I trace much of my love of storytelling and storycollecting from that great continental shift. I went from Reaganite America where communist Russia was our enemy, to Pakistan under martial law, where communist China was our best friend and India was the archenemy. It made me a little skeptical about what I was being told by politicians or teachers, family and friends, and curious about the differences between perceptions and realities.
Through asking questions, I began to hear stories all around me – stories of the children of privilege and of the slums in westernized Islamabad where I went to school; the Sufi love stories of Punjab, where my extended family lived; and the stories of Partition and the sometimes suffocating, sometimes powerful stories of women that were spoken of in the villages where my grandparents lived.
Years later, alongside my co-editor Nura Maznavi, I edited two books, Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women and Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex & Intimacy as a way of challenging the single narrative about Muslims. I was tired of stories being told about us, instead of by us. So I decided to ask American Muslim women and men in all their diversity to share their search for love, and the breadth and depth of human experience folded into that universal longing.
What is your favorite quote?
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, idolator, worshipper of fire, come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again. Ours is not a caravan of despair.
– Mevlana Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
(translated by Amin Malak)
The mystical poets of Islam brought me back to practicing the faith after a decade of estrangement and loss. I love this poem’s joy, deep optimism and hope. It’s a reflection of the Divine love and mercy, and a reminder that each day is an invitation to start anew.
Islamic Perspective:
What Ayat of the Qur’an do you hold close to your heart? Why?
“Truly those who believe, and the Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabaeans – whoever believes in God and the Last Day and performs virtuous deeds – surely their reward is with their Sustainer, and no fear shall come upon them, neither shall they grieve. ” [Quran 2:62]
My husband is a convert to Islam – his side of the family is Christian, and mine is Muslim. No matter what our differences may be – political, religious, or otherwise – this verse reminds me that, as humans, we are called not to debate one other, but simply to fulfill the highest commands of social justice, love, mercy, compassion and beauty. We have much to learn from each other’s examples and traditions.
What Hadith do you wish more non-Muslims knew about? Why?
“God is beautiful & loves beauty.”
That brief sentence says so much about what our conduct should be, who we should be as Muslims. In general: the Prophet’s sunnah of deep, sweet lovingkindness and compassion to all, as well as his championing of the rights of women, children and other vulnerable groups in society.
The “Ten”:
1. What is your favorite book?
The books I return to repeatedly are the Jane Austen novels, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and the Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery. They are filled with humor, insights into the human condition, and wisdom to live by. Plus, I love a good love story!
2. Who inspires/inspired you?
My sister, Rabia. I don’t think I’ve ever met another person so radiant with light, courage, and love, mashAllah.
3. What is the best lesson your mother/mother figure taught you?
How to forgive.
4. What advice would you give your 13 year old self?
Stop procrastinating and work hard. (It’s the advice I still give myself daily 😉
5. What are your hopes for your son, nieces and nephews?
Health, and a life of service and ihsan (beauty & excellence).
6. What is the biggest trial you went through in your life and how has that changed you?
I was diagnosed with an auto-immune condition five months after my marriage. For years after, I was racked with devastating bouts of paralysis and blindness. I learned who I am through that state, I learned who the handful of people are that I can depend upon and turn to, and I learned that there is nothing left at the end of our lives except for the legacy we leave in other people’s hearts, the way we treated them and made them feel.
My condition is stable now, alhamdolillah, but I’ve never forgotten the lessons of those years. I am reminded of them every day.
7. Any regrets? What’s something that you wish you’d thought about more before you did it?
Mistakes are what make us human, how we learn, grow, and change for the better. That said, my regrets are always centered around wishing I had more time with loved ones. Especially my son, my nieces and nephews who are growing up so quickly.
8. How do you stay grounded in your work and/or spiritually grounded?
Long walks; silent reflection through prayer, journaling and reading; and talking with loved ones.
9. How do you bring about real change?
Through listening. And listening some more. And then, speaking or writing as needed.
10. What do you hope to be remembered for?
Someone whose intentions and love were clear, inshAllah.
Video from Ayesha:
Video credit: Women of Spirit & Faith, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Alison Fast and documentary filmmaker Chandler Griffin.
More about Ayesha:
Connect with Ayesha on Twitter: @ayesha_mattu
Find out more about her books, here:
Love, InshAllah:
www.loveinshallah.com
https://www.facebook.com/LoveInshAllah
http://www.amazon.com/Love-InshAllah-Secret-American-Muslim/dp/1593764286
Salaam, Love:
https://www.facebook.com/SalaamLove.USA
http://www.amazon.com/Salaam-Love-American-Muslim-Intimacy/dp/0807079758/
@loveinshallah
@SalaamLoveBook
activismAmerican Muslimsayesha mattuchildrencommunityeditorfeminismgenderinterfaithinterpretationsislamlove inshallahmotherhoodmuslimMuslim womanMuslimahmuslimsrelationshipssalaam lovespiritualitystereotypeswomen's issueswriter
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Hissa Hilal, a poet of millions
Hissa Hilal, a master of language, has inspired an exchange of words around the world. For the past several Wednesdays, Hilal has risen to the podium on Abu Dhabi TV’s Million’s Poet (also known as Poet of Millions) – a televised poetry contest in which people of all walks of life compete for $1.3 million. Hilal recently gained unprecedented attention throughout the world for one of her recent original poems, The Chaos of Fatwas, a 15-verse poem about religious clerics who are “angry and blind.”
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Home » In a pickle? Mmmh Helps You Make Important Decisions
In a pickle? Mmmh Helps You Make Important Decisions
Posted by Maria Poeana
Mmmh iPhone App Review.
What do you do when you have to make up your mind, but it's just so hard to find the right decision? Some use Pros and Cons lists. Others leave it to faith and flip a coin. Or look for signs to tell them the answer. Ask their friends. Ask their parents. And most of the time still end up not knowing what to do. But now, there comes an app that can help make decision making easier. This is Mmmh, and you can get it from the AppStore.
Mmmh helps you make up your mind, by encouraging you to weight your options taking into account multiple aspects and their value. For every question you are trying to find an answer to, all you have to do is choose your own options and grade them according to your own criteria and their value. It might sound complicated, but in the end it's pure Math, only that you put in the numbers, and Mmmh resolves the equation for you, indicating the best decision based on these simple calculations.
Okay, so quick example. Let's say, you have a really busy day today. You have a ton of work to do. Your best friend, whom you haven't seen in weeks, has finally called you to get together. You also have a doctor's appointment. You promised a mate to meet her for coffee to give her some papers. And you also have some chores to do around the house. One option would be to try and do everything and please everyone, risking to end the day completely exhausted. But, better yet, you can consult Mmmh and choose to only do the first 2 or 3 activities that get the highest grade.
Add your options and grade them
At this point, you have a question and multiple answers to it, which makes the decision hard to make. So, turn on Mmmh, and add a new decision. Write your question, add your options and select appropriate criteria to weigh your options. In this case, some of your criteria could be: urgency, pleasure, outcome, cost, and any other factor you consider important in making the best decision. Once you're done with all this, pick a percentage for every criteria, depending on its value to your decision, and you are ready to grade your options. As you add your grades, Mmmh makes the necessary calculations, and by the time you're done grading, you'll know what's your best choice.
If you still don't feel you're making the right decision, you can reevaluate your grades and criteria. Or, you can add a whole new set of criteria and grades with a single slide of the screen. When you're done, all that's left for you to do is to actually make your decision, and then you can add a new question to Mmmh and let it help you make yet another good decision using the same logic.
All in all, Mmmh doesn't make decision making as easy as crystal balls, flipping coins and other similar methods, since you do most of the work. You add your options, your criteria, the values and grades. All Mmmh does is apply a simple algorithm. But it's worth the effort. Because it's probably one of the most accurate methods when trying to make a decision, and it's definitely the most logical of all.
Mmmh...
Developer: Life Changing Apps
Category: Productivity
Version reviewed: 1.0
Have this iPhone App already ?
What do you think of Mmmh ? Scroll down for our comment section and let us know!
iPhone Review Posted in App Reviews, Productivity & Utilities
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A Kindle Store at Your Local Mall?
February 8, 2012 February 8, 2012 meandmykindle Amazon
Your local mall might be getting a new tenant — a Kindle Store, filled with Kindles, accessories and the most popular books in print (including books published exclusively by Amazon). At least, that’s the new rumor which found its way to Publisher’s Weekly.
On their Twitter feed, the industry magazine shared the juicy headline (from a story by the Financial Post). “Is Amazon bringing a bookstore to a mall near you?” it asks, citing a report from the blog “Good E-Reader.” Within the next few months, according to the story, Amazon will try opening a real-world store to sell books and Kindles in Seattle, as “a test to gauge the market and see if a chain of stores would be profitable”! They cite multiple sources at Amazon “close to the situation,” and predict the store will open before next Christmas, and maybe even towards the fall, when Amazon officially launches their own line of books, or when Amazon releases the next version of their Kindle Fire tablet.
My first thought was: Maybe it’s because of the Kindle. Maybe ebooks have become so popular that Amazon now needs a new way to get rid of all their printed books! But then I remembered a bitter fight that Amazon’s been having with Barnes and Noble. Amazon announced they’d start publishing their own line of printed books, and then Barnes and Noble announced that they wouldn’t sell them! And they’re not the only bookstore planning to freeze out Amazon’s books, according to a columnist at Publisher’s Weekly. “I asked a number of independent booksellers in my beat (the South) whether they’d be stocking Amazon-published books. Answers ranged from ‘No’ to ‘Hell, no.’ ”
It’s an interesting column, because it points out that Barnes and Noble acquired a publishing house of their own in 2003 — after which other big book-sellers (including Borders and Costco) announced they’d
they stop carrying books from that publisher. “It’s easy to forget, in the age of monolithic publishing houses and ubiquitous big-box retailers, that the bookstore-as-publisher tradition goes way back – as pointed out in a recent Salon article, Shakespeare & Company published Ulysses, and City Lights published Howl.” But it still feels like an aggressive move, with Amazon launching both a publishing house for print books and a line of stores for selling them.
Of course, their real target may be Apple. Maybe Amazon’s decided they need their own stores at the mall where people can buy a Kindle Fire tablet, to keep competing with Apple’s iPad. Maybe Amazon wants to be able to offer same-day customer support, where you can bring in a defective Kindle, and receive a replacement Kindle the same day! And in the long-run, Amazon can keep benefiting from any new customers that their stores would bring in. After all, once a customer buys a Kindle, they’ll start buying all of their ebooks from Amazon!
It’s stories like this convince me that our world is changing — and fast! Last year, we were debating whether Amazon would destroy local bookstores. Now instead, we’re wondering whether Amazon will become our local bookstore!
Barnes and Noble bookstores
Does the Kindle Make You Smarter?
My Favorite Kindle Stories From Real Users
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Structural Testing
Home - About Us - John Clark
John M. Clark is the principal and owner of John Milton Clark Engineers Inc., and is a licensed professional engineer in Texas, New York, and Arizona.
Mr. Clark holds a Master of Science in civil engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1976, with emphasis in advanced structural engineering and design, and foundations engineering; and a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Central State University in Edmond, OK in 1972, with minors in mechanical engineering and mathematics.
Mr. Clark worked three years in the pre-stressed concrete manufacturing industry as a quality control inspector and engineer. He next spent about one year with an A & E firm in Oklahoma City, working on foundation designs and interstate highway bridge design, and about three years in the petrochemical design field at Bechtel in Houston working as a structural design engineer. He spent 12 years with Owens Corning Fiberglas’ Non-corrosive Products Division in its Product Development Group in Conroe, TX, working in the areas of fiberglass tanks and buried FRP tanks and pipe.
Mr. Clark holds two patents in Fiberglass underground storage tanks: No’s 4,561,2921 – Design of Fiberglass Double Walled Storage Tanks, and 6,167,608 B1 Tank Upgrading Method and Tank Assembly.
John Clark formed Clark Engineers in 1989, and has subsequently consulted on a broad range of structural areas. These range from general civil and structural engineering to specific forensic failure investigations of foundations and buried tanks, to specialized stress analysis, testing and product design of manufactured structural products, encased buckling analysis of buried structures, composite sandwich structures, and mechanical engineering for manufacturing plants.
Structural Engineers - 663 Guilford Park,
Conroe, Texas 77302
info@clark-engineers.com
© 2019 Clark Engineers, Inc..
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Lupe Fiasco (live in Tripod, Dublin)
Review Snapshot: On the tails of his hotly received second album 'The Cool', Chicago's Lupe Fiasco hits Dublin to energetically deliver a repertoire of songs that have seen Jay Z describe him as a "breath of fresh air".
The Cluas Verdict? 6.5 out of 10
“I'll tell you what you should do, Dumb it down” - that's a line belted out by Lupe Fiasco from his song 'Dumb it Down' during his visit to Dublin's Tripod on Saturday night. And he's a man of his word, with a no-fuss stage set up of him, a microphone and a DJ providing backing tracks. Given the extravagant stage shows endorsed by his contemporaries Kanye West and Pharrell Williams – with whom Fiasco founded supergroup Rebel Child Soldier – the stripped down stage presence was disappointing at first sight. Having previously witnessed Kanye West's mixture of groundbreaking content with an extravagant stage show, I had hoped Lupe would attempt something to make his music come across in a more 'live' way, rather than have a DJ rehash his backing tracks. But it worked. Fiasco's interaction with the DJ and acapello rapping gave the crowd the atmosphere of a club gig, whilst giving an insight into the raw environment in which all rappers must learn their trade.
Lupe has come a long way from his first visit to Ireland as part of Kanye West's world tour in 2005 – his hit single 'Superstar' has catapulted him to the top of the charts of late and it naturally got the best reception from the Dublin crowd. On a night of little speaking to the Dublin crowd, Fiasco did tell the crowd of his delight at hearing the song on the radio so often and (worringly) at it being used as a ringtone. But 'Superstar' isn't his first brush with regular airplay – his appearance on Kanye West's 'Touch the Sky' brought him to the attention of millions and he performed his rap from that hit in an intro medley that included an improv rap to the tune of Jay Z's 'Show Me What Ya Got'. The set ended with his mixtape fave ‘Happy Industries’ (a mash-up with Gorillaz' 'Feel Good Inc.'), but it was Lupe's original material that was the lasting point from this concert.
As well as 'Superstar', Fiasco's well-known tracks 'Daydream' and 'Kick, Push' (who else could pull off rapping about skateboarding on their first single???) were the best received by the large-but-not-mobbed Tripod audience. But it is the lesser known album tracks in which he really let loose and displayed his awesome rap delivery. Flavouring the set with intense acappello raps, Fiasco's voice flows with such speed that it is impossible to decipher what he is saying but he does it with such rhythm and coolness that it is enjoyable nonetheless!
As someone not well versed with Fiasco's two album discography, it was hard to get into the tracks I was hearing for the first time – apart from 'Dumb it Down' and ‘The Instrumental’. Lupe's hour-and-a-bit long performance left me with the sense that if I’d been more familiar with Lupe's albums beforehand, I'd have been as impressed with the content of the show as I was with Fiasco's energetic delivery. However the lasting impression of the Tripod show was that Lupe Fiasco is a fresh, new lyricalist who’s here to stay. Watch out Jay-Z and Kanye, the next generation of rap has arrived.
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1 comment(s) so far...
Re: Lupe Fiasco (live in Tripod, Dublin)
Can you tell me the name of the group supporting Lupe?
By Conor Clarke on Wednesday, May 21, 2008
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Gigs on CLUAS
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WATCH: University prof falls prey to pickpocket in Tagbilaran department store
VG Balite, five others denied injunction, suspension stays
The sixty-day Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that gave six top provincial government officials the legal basis to continue serving in their respective elective and appointed positions despite a nine-month suspension expired yesterday, August 12, 2017.
The fate of former Provincial Board Members now Vice Governor Dionisio Balite, Maribojoc and Loay Vice Mayors Jose Veloso and Brigido Imboy, Executive Assistant IV Tomas Lopez and Provincial Administrator Alfonso Damalerio hinges on the resolution of their petition for review filed before the Court of Appeals (CA) on the Ombudsman decision suspending them for nine months without pay.
The Court of Appeals (CA) Special Eighteenth Division in Cebu City turned down their application for the issuance of a Writ of Preliminary Injunction in a resolution on July 27, 2017, and declared the case as submitted for decision.
The seven-page resolution was signed by Associate Justice Geraldine C. Fiel-Macaraig and concurred by Associate Justices Edgardo L. Delos Santos and Edward B. Contreras.
NO VESTED RIGHT
The position of the OSG and the Ombudsman Legal Affairs Office were adopted by the CA in its’ resolution denying the application for writ of preliminary injunction on the grounds that the decision of the Ombudsman is “immediately executory pending appeal and may not be stayed by the filing of an appeal or the issuance of an injunctive writ.”
The CA also gave weight to the Ombudsman Circular No. 17 issued on May 11, 2016 that it will no longer honor the defense of condonation on administrative cases remaining open and pending as of April 12, 2016.
The circular pointed out that “after all, there is no vested right to public office.”
The resolution also stressed that if an erring official committed misconduct, they must be held accountable, regardless of how many time they are re-elected into office.
Buoyed by the CA’s recognition of the applicability of the “Aguinaldo Doctrine” or the Principle of Condonation in the grant of their TRO, Balite, et al., strongly disagreed with both the positions of the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and the Office of the Legal Affairs of the Ombudsman that “the condonation doctrine is no longer applicable in the present case.”
Balite, et al., maintained that the Supreme Court decision emphasized that the abandonment of the condonation principle should be applied prospectively as clearly stated and “cannot prevail over the existing jurisprudence.”
The 56-year old condonation doctrine popularly known as the Aguinaldo doctrine has been used by elected officials to protect them from alleged administrative offenses.
Under the condonation doctrine, an administrative offense committed by an elected official are considered forgiven when the electorate decides to re-elect him or her for another term.
However, the SC en banc, voting 7-3 decided on November 10, 2015 in the Jejomar Erwin Binay, Jr and CA 6th Division vs Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales case to strike down the condonation doctrine which was abused by elected officials facing administrative cases.
But the SC also ruled that the abandonment of the condonation doctrine is prospective in nature and only applicable to future cases.
Balite, et al., pointed out that the condonation doctrine was ruled by the High Court on November 10, 2015, and that they were already re-elected before the decision was promulgated.
The cases involving Balite, Veloso, Imboy and Uy stemmed from a resolution approved by the 2006 Sanggunniang Panlalawigan (SP) authorizing the opening of a letter of credit (LC) by then Governor Erico Aumentado with the Philippine National Bank, Cebu Branch in the amount of PhP9.4 million.
The amount was used for the importation of a backhoe with breaker and was also approved by then SP members Concepcion Lim, Amalia Tirol, Corazon Galbreath, Godofreda Tirol, Ma. Fe Camacho Lejos and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) President Frances Bobeth Cajes-Auza.
Lopez and Damalerio were implicated when they approved on April 28, 2009 an SP resolution authorizing Aumentado to open a PhP147.5 million LC with the Land Bank of the Philippines for the purchase of 26 units of heavy equipment.
The SP members who approved the 2009 resolution included A. Tirol, Galbreath, Camacho-Lejos, Josil Trabajo, Aster Apalisok-Piollo and Jane Censoria Cajes-Yap representing the SK.
The Ombudsman found Balite, Veloso, Imboy, Lopez and Damalerio liable for conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service and were meted the suspension for a period of nine months without pay.
Those who were out of government service at the time of the decision were fined equivalent to their salary of six months payable to the Ombudsman.
The charge against Aumentado who was the Head of the Procuring Entity (HOPE) was not pursued in view of his death on December 25, 2012.
BACK TO SUSPENSION
According to Atty. Teodoro Lagang of the Villas, Lagang and Tumanda Law Offices, counsel for petitioners, his clients are now awaiting orders from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to vacate their positions to avoid claims of abandonment of duty.
The 60-day TRO was issued on May 25, 2017, and was served by the DILG on June 14, 2017 and will be reckoned on the date of receipt by the officials concerned, according to Lagang.
Balite, et al., started serving their nine-months suspension after DILG Regional Director Atty. Rene K. Burdeos directed DILG Provincial Director Ma. Loisella E. Lucino to immediately serve the implementation order of DILG Undersecretary Austere A. Panadero together with the original copy of the Ombudsman decision not later than May 10, 2017.
However, the suspension was cut short when Balite, Veloso, Imboy and Lopez secured a TRO based on the “Aguinaldo Doctrine”.
In their defense, the 2006 SP members stressed that the opening of the LC was both “upon the instance” of Aumentado in 2006 and OIC Governor Julius Cesar Herrera in 2009 with their assurance that the procurement process “underwent a judicious and careful verification.”
But the Ombudsman rebuked the 2009 SP members for “utter disregard of their duties” of verifying if provisions of the law were followed before passing the assailed resolution evidently causing undue injury to the province.
Following the succession provisions of the Local Government Code, 1st District Board Member Venzencio Arcamo will sit as vice governor, Councilors Atty. Lahar Ayuban and Abraw Arocha for Loay and Maribojoc respectively.
Provincial Legal Officer Mitchell John Boiser is now the OIC Provincial Administrator while the replacement of Lopez is still in the process. (Chito M. Visarra)
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A total of six newcomers have been elected as members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan during the May 13 polls. They…
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Golconda / Lonely people | Rene Magritte / The Beatles, 1953-66
Rene Magritte Golconda* , 1953
> The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby
*The title Golconda was found by his poet friend Louis Scutenaire. Golkonda is a ruined city in the state of Telangana, India, near Hyderabad, which from the mid-14th century until the end of the 17th was the capital of two successive kingdoms; the fame it acquired through being the center of the region's legendary diamond industry was such that its name remains, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "a synonym for 'mine of wealth'."
Ετικέτες Beatles, Music
Faboulic...although lonely...
23 Ιανουαρίου 2013 - 12:48 μ.μ.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygRJxnhxaTk
A string section scored by Beatles producer George Martin consisting of 4 violins, 2 violas and 2 cellos were used in recording.
Microphones were placed very close to the instruments to create and unusual sound.
It was not written in a normal chord, it is in the dorian mode - the scale you get when you play one octave up from the second note of a major scale. This is usually found in old songs such as "Scarborough Fair."
"Father Mackenzie" was originally "Father McCartney." Paul decided he didn't want to freak out his dad and picked a name out of the phone book instead
Paul had the basic story of the lyrics, the general direction it was going, and the first verse, the older woman who "keeps her face in a jar by the door"(very evocative that), the idea of the priest and the church. The theme of loneliness. At first he was going to include an unrequited romance between Eleanor, who worked in the church, and the priest but it was decided that would be too involved. It appears that George Harrison(who helped on the All the lonely people line) and Ringo Starr(who helped on darning the socks) actually had more input lyrically on this song than John Lennon did, who, being put out that Paul had asked other people in the room for their opinions on finishing the lyric, sulked around and made unhelpful suggestions(re: keeping it Father McCartney) which were di-smissed.
Donna, NY
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door refers to her putting on her brave public face. In other words, she is wearing a mask to hide her sorrows, keeping the world from seeing the real her.
wjs1632
I remember when this song came out that there was a lot of Christian religious fuss about the line "No one was saved." Many were irked that the Beatles were asserting that there is no salvation. I simply assumed that John Lennon stuck in that line to shake people up.
Bob.CA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzwjjIVPaq4
Ἀτλαντιδισμός | Πάνος Κουτρουμπούσης, 1997
Imagination | Lauren Bacall
Reading is | Roberto Bolaño (2004)
Οι περιπέτειες της ζωής του μποξέρ Paul Samson -Kö...
Book//mark -The Book of Lies | Aleister Crowley, 1...
Stereosc2pe + | In the sky / William Shakespeare
Η τέχνη της ηδονής | Louis Aragon, 1921
Flick Review < The Floorwalker | Charlie Chaplin, ...
Burn softly inside me / Rimbaud
Ο Μυρμηκολέων | Jorge Luis Borges
Golconda / Lonely people | Rene Magritte / The B...
Η μπάντα | Γιώργος Μαρκόπουλος, 1979
My bicycle | Arthur Conan Doyle / Samuel Beckett /...
Καινούργιο ταξίδι | Νίκος Καββαδίας, 1954
When I know your soul | Amedeo Modigliani & Jeanne...
Symphonie Diagonale | Viking Eggeling,1921
Thin rain | Spike Milligan
The Girl With Many Eyes | Tim Burton
In the sky | Sylvia Plath
Newport Jazz Festival 1965
Η αρχιτεκτονική στην Ελλάδα | Ιάννης Ξενάκης
Stereosc2pe + Octopus woman
Self-Portrait | Eugeniusz Zak, 1916
The Difficulty of Breathing | Charles Bukowski, 19...
Mannequins | Exposition Internationale du Surréali...
Fairy tales | Albert Einstein
Γήπεδον / Αντίστροφη Αφιέρωση | Ανδρέας Εμπειρίκος...
Les Lutteuses | Jean Veber (1864-1928)
Upside down | Marc Chagall
Eyes | Man Ray / Piero Fornasetti
Alphabetarion # The road | Leo Tolstoy
Self Portraits | Claude Cahun, 1913 - 29
Ορίζοντες | Roberto Arlt, 1929
Everything we see hides another thing / The Lovers...
The past | John Banville
Alphabetarion # The Rainbow | Pablo Neruda / Herma...
Masks | Man Ray, 1924 - 1948
Consume me | Virginia Woolf, 1931
Alone | Edgar Allan Poe, 1829
Impressionists by the Sea | Edouard Manet / James ...
Tο ταξίδι για την Πάϊτα | Νίκος Νικολαΐδης / Dark ...
Every dream I ever dreamed | Elvis Presley
Peri/od/ical: Down Beat (1956)
Self portrait | Albert van Dyck (1902-51)
Letter to Sophia Hawthorne | Nathaniel Hawthorne (...
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Avoid the mistake made by 93% of marketers
By Michael Marzec
Do you like marketing? I don’t mean doing marketing, I mean being marketed to. Reading thinly veiled product pitches. Proclamations about service excellence. Products that are bigger, better, faster, smarter.
Does that sound like your company? Join the crowd. You are part of the great disconnect between the marketers and the marketed, a divide that may be at its greatest when targeting the C-level of organizations.
An Economist Group study shows that 93 percent of marketers say they tie their content directly to a product or service. But on the flip side of that equation, 75 percent of business leaders say what they are interested in is ideas.
How do you stop making the same mistake 93% of marketers make? Try giving your audience what they want.
The first key to successful marketing is to know your audience. If you do not understand to whom you are communicating, how can you formulate the right message?
For some companies, you may need only two or three buyer personas. For highly technical sales, there could be as many as six different personas involved in the process — from initiators and influencers to users and decision-makers — each of whom could come into contact with your organization.
The first question you need to ask yourself is, “Who am I selling to?” But be careful, it can be a trick question.
Most companies will say something like, “We sell to CFOs of U.S. manufacturing companies with at least $50 million in annual sales.” The problem with that statement is that you’re defining a demographic, which doesn’t tell you anything about the actual people you’re trying to target.
While the immediate impulse is to gather the sales team members and grill them about the topic, you need to go further. Sales teams can provide insight, but they also add their own biases that can muddy the waters.
The 5 Rings of Buyer Insight
While it’s important to talk directly to customers and prospects, it’s just as important to talk to former customers as well as those who decided not to buy your product or service. You are looking to find out the classic elements of a “buyer persona,” as developed by Adele Revella:
What are their priorities?
What is their measure of success?
What are their objections?
What is their buying process?
What criteria do they use to make their decision?
These factors — Revella’s 5 Rings of Buyer Insight — will give you greater insight into true motivators of your audience, empowering your marketing team to create content that engages them, informs their interests and helps them succeed. You can enjoy more effective marketing programs and your customers can enjoy “not” being marketed to.
Now, isn’t that what we all want?
Michael Marzec 2016-09-13T16:51:46+00:00
Meet Michael Marzec
Michael.Marzec@ConveroInc.com
With 30 years of media and marketing experience, Michael leads Convero's efforts to build unique strategies that drive meaningful - and measurable - engagement for clients across a wide range of industries.
DHL Express’ Christine Nashick on customer engagement
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Copyright 2016 Convero, All Rights Reserved
Developed By GHIIS
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Home Asian Cricket Development Sandeep Lamichhane- A Journey With Michael Clarke
Asian Cricket Development
Nepali Cricket
Sandeep Lamichhane- A Journey With Michael Clarke
Saurab Dulal
Leg spinner Sandeep Lamichhane prepares for World Cricket League against Namibia at TU ground kritipur
Sandeep Lamichhane – A 17-year-old Nepalese cricket prodigy, orthodoxy leg-breaker, a calm and amiable guy is going to start an exceptional cricketing journey with Western Suburbs – Sydney-based club, further he will be trained at Clarke’s academy for 2016-2017 seasons. Lamichhane will play alongside with Michael Clarke, both will feature in Western Suburbs’ first match of the season against Mosman on September 24 in Sydney.
During the press release Michael Clarke said, “Sandeep is a fantastic young man who enjoys his cricket and is extremely passionate about the game, It is a really exciting opportunity to have such a talented Nepalese cricketer travel this distance to come and test his skills and improve his game at my academy. I am looking forward to working with him and all the boys and girls that will attend the 5-day live in camp starting September 26th.”
Clarke further added, “Sandeep will fit in well at my club, Wests have always gone out of their way to look after the younger players and he will be a great asset to the club this summer.”
Lamichhane was the second highest wicket-taker at the Under-19 World Cup held in Bangladesh earlier this year. He took 14 wickets, with a hat-trick against Ireland, and a best of 5 for 27 against the same. His performance was praised throughout the world by many notable cricketers and some even gave him the honor of Next Shane Warne.
Probably he is a first Nepalese Cricketer to receive such immense opportunity at the very young age of 16, and from where he can get an endless opportunity to play on the Australian soil.
Paras Khadka – Nepali National Team captain says “All the Best Sandeep Lamichhane, Let The Ball Talk Now!!!!”. No doubt he will face many challenges in upcoming days. Many veterans will be watching him and he been able to prove with the ball may be picked to play at major Australian tournaments, which may include BigBash or Australian country or so on. But this will take some time and some industrious work from him.
WE EXPRESS OUR HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS AND BEST WISHES FOR HIS FUTURE ENDEAVORS. – CRICKET CONCERN NEPAL TEAM
Sandeep Lamichhane
Previous articleCelebrating Sachin Tendulkar’s first ODI Century
Next articleThe year 1995, Sir Ian Botham’s Beefy’s hike around the Himalayas
http://www.saurabdulal.com.np
Saurab Dulal is a passionate cricket lover and founder of "cricketconcern.com". His dream is to promote cricket in developing nations and provide maximum possible knowledge about cricket to ordinary people.He has been following international cricket for the past 15 years.
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Woman Records Weird Egg Hatching In Her Backyard, And It Wasn't A Bird Inside
What even?
Ray Porter October 10th 2017 Weird
The world can be a scary and mysterious place. There's even still a large percentage of the deep ocean that remains relatively unexplored. This part of the ocean potentially houses thousands of new species that haven't been identified yet. Even birds and fish can feel at times a bit unrelatable and don't even get me started on cuttlefish. They are able to change colour to the degree that what look to be hypnotic stripes moving along the fish.
Not in The Deep Ocean
Just when you thought that all those weird alien like creatures were safely hidden away in the relatively inaccessible deep ocean, comes a disturbing find on dry land. Feeling freakily like it could have been in anyone's garden a video was posted by a twitter user.
Oozing Sac
When this everyday Twitter user came across this strange unidentified object in her garden, she immediately became a bit disturbed. Things only got worse. She was clueless as to what this oozing sac was her alarm bells when off when it began to move.
Egg?
This strange moving sac could best be described as some sort of egg. An egg with more of membrane as its outer layer, missing a hard outer shell. This soft outer shell is obviously what allowed the egg to move and pulsate.
The egg with strange reddish tentacles, or vines, was beginning to hatch. Rather than running away like any normal person might do, the savvy Twitter user set up a camera to record whatever would come forth from this egg. And lucky for us she did.
Another motivation for the filming the event could have been she was aware that if this was a new find this could be a scientifically important moment. Looking at the tentacles or possible set of multiple arms it could have been a squid or octopus.
A Shape Emerges
As the egg continued to move more and more looking to move through its hatching phases a demented shape began to become visible through its membrane. The visual parallels to a squid or octopus were strengthened but there were a few major issues with this theory.
It Can't be a Squid or Octopus
Despite its large number of limbs that look like octopus legs and the type of vivid colours that are found over the ocean it couldn't seriously be an octopus or squid, could it? First if it was, why would it be on land, and do octopi even lay eggs, not to mention it's probably too big.
No Answer Yet
The guessing will continue until it emerged from the egg and possibly continue afterward too. To an uniformed viewer, the birth of a bizarre, devilish creature could easily be compared to a clip from a horror movie on the big screen.
Worse than A Movie
But this wasn't designed by concept artists and the passed from creative mind to mind to create something that would keep you from sleep. What makes it scarier than something dreamed up and made in Hollywood was that this was indisputably real.
Everyone's curiosity apparently trumped there caution and desire for an uninterrupted night of sleep as the video immediately went viral. Everyone couldn't help but find out what was lurking in that egg getting ready to enter the world.
You Watched It Didn't You
You've either already seen the video or just now you gone and found it and fallen into the temptation to watch it, haven't you? If so, right now you're probably sitting there wondering what on earth this devil spawn could be.
The Devil's Fingers
It is the Clathrus Acheri scientifically or more aptly commonly name the Devil's Fingers mushroom. If you know anything about Australian flora and fauna you won't be surprised to find out that the mushroom is native to that region, same as all those evil spiders.
Clathrus Acheri
This thing of nightmares just keeps getting better and better. Once it reaches maturity it smells like putrid flesh. Although, given its appearance, it's not all that surprising let's all hope we never have to find or smell these mushrooms.
Hah, Mushroom Experts
Mycologist, those unusual individuals that are experts in the study of mushrooms, claimed that the mushroom was apart of the of the fungi family. However, common sense and a healthy caution taught through enough alien movies definitely confirms its origins and plan to take over Earth.
Ah the Internets
As a last note of warning the mushroom has also started to be introduced to Europe North America and Asia. We must all give a big thanks to the internet for giving us the information we on this unique fungus. Still, I don't think this information will change our reactions a) RUN! B) KILL IT WITH FIRE!
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Roger Stone overkill
in Opinions
Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio (remember Sheriff Joe?) commented on the heavy-handed pre-dawn FBI raid on Roger Stone (StoneZone.com) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida: “I’ve been busting down doors for 50 years, and I’ve never sent that many units, not even to the baddest murderers.”
Judge Jeanine Pirro on the overkill at Roger Stone’s Florida home: “This show was an attempt to embarrass and to intimidate Stone. He wasn’t a flight risk and he had no guns. His passport was expired, or just about to expire.
Mueller’s intent was to poison the jury pool to make Stone seem like public enemy No. 1, and his indictment is not even for a violent crime. It has nothing to do with Russia or collusion.”
Judge Jeanine Pirro in WesternJournal.com 1-29-19
Yet another reason to implement loser pays tort reform. Mueller and many previous vengeful prosecutors with agendas would be paying a fortune to their victims. Remember former Labor Secretary Ray Donovan and his famous reply when vindicated on phony bribery charges after spending millions to defend his name: “Where do I go to get my reputation back?”
How much did the showbiz militarized raid on Roger Stone cost American taxpayers? Don’t forget, they could’ve contacted him or his attorney and arranged a surrender. This was a political stunt by creepy Robert Mueller. Mrs. Stone’s deafness could’ve resulted in tragedy – failure to comply, didn’t understand the orders because of hearing impairment, you know the drill.
Usually the parting media take when a bogus case fails to convict is – he got off on a technicality. That’s how they excuse this travesty.
Completely outside the realm of moral thought – abortion rights, the “pro-choice” movement. Dennis Prager points out that one person solely decides this. “You can’t do anything you like with a child or a pet but you can with a fetus.”
Dennis Prager radio show DennisPrager.com
Florida’s liberal Democrat Bill Nelson had a long political career during which he voted for higher taxes 300 times. Finally Florida voted him out.
Mark Elias is the sleazy lawyer who magically found former Senator Al Franken’s winning votes in the trunk of a car a few years back. He was sent to Florida to get the desired result in a Senate vote recount. He couldn’t pull it off this time. President Trump calls him an “election stealing lawyer.” Elias was one of Hillary Clinton’s top lawyers in her campaign.
Donald Trump has appointed 26 circuit judges and two Supreme Court justices, all lifetime appointments, a record for any administration. The left can’t stand it. Good.
American schoolkids were never taught that Adolph Hitler was a left-winger but he was. They try to make him a “right-winger” in the history books.
Food stamp recipients as of 11-13-18 are down 4,123,082 under Donald Trump since December 2016, the month before he became president.
Dr. Kelli Ward’s website says, “This campaign is powered by you – not the DC crowd. Can we count on you?” Her site adds, “We’re through with lying, fake ‘Conservatives.’” Good for Dr. Ward, who is now the elected head of Arizona’s Republican Party.
“Diversity: a euphemism for discrimination against whites.”
Joseph Sobran Sobran’s Monthly July 2003 Sobran.com
Leftist commentator Don Lemon says white men are “biggest threat.” Threat to what?
Bumper sticker of the day: Vote Yes on Preparation H.
My e-mail address is marshallem40@comcast.net. Thanks for checking out The Right Side.
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Taking the Pulse on What's Good in 2016 So Far.
by Joshua P. Ferguson
It's impossible to cover it all. Come December, we'll attempt to. We always do. Taking a snapshot of all that was great in music and culture for an entire 12 months is a tall order. Some artist, song or mix always gets left out. There's usually some twinge of regret that we didn't cover this or that earlier in the year when it was truly buzz worthy, instead holding it up as a high point so many months later. It's inevitable.
This year we're doing something about it. (Or at least trying to, as this post has been about 7 weeks in the making... Oh summer, you eternal distraction, you.)
This round-up won't totally alleviate our frustration. It still isn't as much space as we'd like to dedicate to each one of these artists and their output. But it's a start. If nothing else, it'll give you an opportunity to catch up on 2016 at its half way point. Well, just past half way, any way. So far, it's a dizzyingly good one, mostly for the following reasons:
Music for Sunsets
The warm months always put us in a Balearic mood. It hit us hardest two years ago with the one-two punch from International Feel that was new music from chill out legend Jose Padilla and label head Mark Barrott. Well, Barrott's back with another batch of gossamer gems on Sketches of an Island 2 and It's unclear if he's managed to top himself or if we're just really craving his brand of thoughtful island delights.
Anitnote's D.K. perfects a similar vibe with his mini-LP Island of Dreams. In it's all-too-short span, the record recalls those early Padilla Cafe Del Mar mix tapes, overflowing with digital chimes, pan flutes and gorgeous reverb.
With the White Isle in their backyard, Spaniards Delorean have never been immune to the sound. Their latest offering, Muzik, recruited John Talabot pal Pional for production duties and doubled-down with nine tracks of glistening Balearic beats.
DJs Being DJs
There was a time when a DJ could just be a DJ, with nothing more than the odd dj-friendly edit to their name. At some point, this became a lot harder to do—at least for budding globetrotters. A few marquee names do seem to be reversing the trend of late. Namely Jackmaster, whose DJ-KiCKS installment sees the Glaswegian taking listeners on a very personal journey through ambient, afro-centric, classic Chicago, Detroit and his native UK with his signature eclectic aplomb.
The other is Running Back's Gerd Janson. A similarly well-equipped selector who admittedly does dabble in production, he's one of the few who's truly deserving of the cliched title of "The DJ's DJ." He consistently traverses deep, funky, discoid and all-around classic sounds, and does so masterfully on the latest in the Fabric mix series, number 89.
Throughout the world of arts and culture, there's a trending toward an appreciation for slow. In music, for us, the finest purveyors of the slow movement are producers like Traumprinz, a.k.a. DJ Metatron. Rather than pitch down the tempo, these artists take their time to get where they're going, dotting the landscape of their music with peaks of energy and a sea of emotion. This is the essence of the Giegling highlight's latest, "2Bad," and what makes it stand out as one of 2016's best dance cuts.
To carry on our concept of slow, enter DJ Sotofett. The Norwegian producer has long been an underground favorite, and he's seen his profile rise of late thanks to a handful of well-placed and critically acclaimed releases. Chief among them is "Current 82." Lifted from a split 12" for Keys of Life, a sprawling deep house cut in the vein of Larry Heard or Ron Trent. It's simple mix of rolling drums, syncopated bass and swirling atmospherics is precisely the brand of deep house you're meant to get swept up in—to live inside for a time, which we've done often since its release.
If Traumprinz and DJ Sotofett are artists pushing an appreciation for taking it slow in deep house, than DJ Koze's Pampa Records is their kindred spirit in imprint form. Home to the likes of perennial Dialogue Inc faves like Robag Wruhme and frequent contributors like Axel Boman and Roman Flugel, the label has become an indisputable go-to for our favored brand of dance music. Earlier this summer, Pampa debuted its first label compilation; 20 songs that perfectly encapsulate everything we love about the sound Koze and Co. are championing.
Wise Mechanics
We can thank a recent excursion to Berlin, and techno vinyl mecca Hard Wax more specifically, for bestowing on us the glorious LP that is Transport by two of techno's greatest: Detroit originator Juan Atkins and his Berliner counterpart Moritz Von Oswald, who record together as Borderland. The second LP from the pair to surface on Berlin's Tresor label, Transport shifts from the sparse jazziness of their 2013 debut to embrace the concrete and mechanics that have long inspired the genre they helped create.
While not actually a companion piece, the latest LP from Dial Records co-founder Lawrence is about as perfect a RIYL as any from Borderland. Out on Mule Musiq, Yoyogi Park is a sophisticated ride through techno's subtler side; an LP that constantly flirts between the dance floor and your headphones—and sounds at home with either. It's simultaneously ethereal and punchy, delicate and tough and, as such, compelling in a way we find many techno releases are not.
A last minute addition to this round-up, but an utterly relevant one, Convextion's techno pedigree goes well beyond our expertise in the area. Lauded since the mid '90s, his music is dubby and potent, and in the lineage of the Detroit and Berlin greats. He's been largely quiet these past 10 years. That is, until 2845 surfaced last month on Mojuba sub-label a.r.t.less. We're in no position to call it a return to form, but we can say its epic, spacey jams touch on our favorite elements of what techno can be, particularly album opener "New Horizon."
2845 by Convextion
Jazz Trip
Before the beats and the swirl of electronics, our first love is jazz—and it's seen some particularly compelling entries into the canon this summer. First is Sarathy Korwar, an Indian jazz artist living in London who traverses between traditional jazz and traditional Indian elements. The result is the one-of-a-kind LP Day to Day, which manages to seamlessly blend tribal incantation, fusion jam session and tabla beat meditation all into its nine tracks.
Canada quartet BADBADNOTGOOD have to rank among our greatest discoveries of 2016. Their latest, IV, for Innovative Leisure, is a sharp and contemporary vision of jazz's reach, touching on modern R&B, soul and electronic sounds. There's incredible range on this record and yet it all works, from the vintage soul lamentation of "Time Moves Slow" to the wild explosion of sax-funk that is album standout "Confessions Pt II."
Never Ending Chill-Out
This list is full of masters of their form—2016 has been a great year that way—but Mark Pritchard happens to be a master of many forms, from afrobeat to ambient. On his latest for Warp, Under the Sun, he skews decidedly to chill-out. It's a meditative listen, but no less a complex or compelling one. There are spikes that show off his knack for tough bass workouts (see "Infrared") but the album's standouts, like the Thom Yorke accompanied "Beautiful People," are best enjoyed in a laid back position.
Billed as a collection of ambient and modern classical compositions, Orbital Planes and Passenger Trains Vol. 1, is a wholly captivating head trip from Wales label Serein. Featuring a hand-picked tracklist of underground composers that truly do run from trip-hop to modern classical to pure ambient, it's as the name implies, a listening journey moving simultaneously outward and inward, and one well worth getting onboard for.
Those of you who caught our extensive feature on vaporwave, which capped off our 2015 musical coverage, will not be surprised to find 2814 resurfacing here. The duo, comprised of Hong Kong Express and Telepath テレパシー能力者 cracked the ceiling of the underground last year and their sophomore effort, Rain Temple, has been eagerly anticipated since. And for good reason. It builds on their earlier productions, seeing the duo solidify a sound that is anything but dimensional. It's been singled out as surpassing Birth of a New Day, and with engulfing dystopian soundscapes of tracks like "Eyes of the Temple" and "Inside the Sphere," we're inclined to agree.
Labels: ambient, balearic, deep house, feature, jazz, review, techno, year in review
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Home Georgetown Speedway Chris Madden Cashes in at Georgetown Speedway’s Fulton Bank 40
Chris Madden Cashes in at Georgetown Speedway’s Fulton Bank 40
Contact: Jordan DeLucia, World of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Series PR Coordinator
GEORGETOWN, DE – The first of a four-race weekend started out just as planned for Series points leader Chris “Smokey” Madden, as he picked up his seventh victory of the season Thursday night at the Georgetown Speedway. In short, Madden was strong throughout the event. Winning his heat race and re-drawing the outside pole, he took the lead on lap one of the feature and never looked back, leading every lap of the Fulton Bank 40 on his way to another $10,000 payday.
“Got a good start there to get the lead. That was a big deal for sure,” Madden said. “We knew coming into tonight that qualifying and starting position was the main thing to winning this race, and we definitely lined everything up the way we needed to get us a victory here tonight.”
The race went 34 straight green-flag laps before the only caution of the race came out for Brent Larson, who shredded a right-rear tire in turn four. The field was re-stacked, and second place Rick Eckert was once again placed on the rear bumper of Madden.
Eckert had been chasing down Madden since the drop of the green, but his efforts were unsuccessful. Madden said he knew the pressure was behind him but was actually relieved to see the caution come out because it put him back in clean air. He continued on to say he’s actually lost races trying to get through slower traffic.
Coming into Thursday, Madden held a very slim Series points lead over Mike Marlar and defending Series Champion Brandon Sheppard. With this win, he extended that lead ever so slightly to 32 points over Marlar and 40 over Sheppard.
Madden said he knows how important this weekend is to his championship hopes, but also said he won’t stress over trying to win it.
“I told my guys and made a statement before we left the shop that these four races were going to be a huge swing for us,” Madden said. “If we could come up in this area and run good and still be in contention to win the points, it would absolutely be huge for us.”
“We’re doing what we need to do to win a championship. Like I told my family at home, I’m going to give it the best I got,” Madden continued. “I’m going to have fun doing it, I’m not going to stress over it. I’m going to enjoy it, and if we win it, we win it. If we don’t, hey, it is what it is.”
Rick Eckert posted the best finish of his 2018 campaign with a second-place effort. Spending the entire race chasing down Madden, in what seemed like a 40-lap game of follow the leader, Eckert wasn’t able to get out to the lead at the drop of the green, despite re-drawing the pole and winning his heat race. But he said his car was about the same as the leader’s.
“It’s really hard to get the jump from the pole here, no matter what race,” Eckert said. “In the [feature], Chris beat me on the start and I knew it was going to be difficult then. He was a little bit better at times, and there were times I was a little bit better than him, I felt. So we were pretty equal.”
Eckert is a York, Pennsylvania, native who has had lots of previous experience at upcoming tracks like the Williams Grove and Port Royal Speedways. But he doesn’t get the opportunities to race on them as often as he used to, being on the World of Outlaws tour.
“I always like racing near home because it’s not very far to drive,” Eckert said. “It’s not necessarily an advantage, because I haven’t raced at home in, like, 20 years.”
However, he said his confidence level is high, which gives him equally high hopes for a successful weekend out in the Keystone State.
“Confidence-wise, we’ve been running better, and we’ve changed a bunch of stuff on our car and it felt pretty decent tonight,” Eckert said. “Hopefully, that translates good into tomorrow.”
Brandon Sheppard dove into this weekend with yet another podium finish, placing third on Thursday night with a car that he said was strong all event long.
“The track wasn’t as racy as we wanted it to be, so you had to start up front,” Sheppard said. “All-in-all, we were pretty happy with everything. As long as we can keep it up front all weekend, we’ll be satisfied.”
Like Eckert’s efforts to catch Madden in traffic, Sheppard had his own waves of lapped traffic to deal with in his quest to run down second-place finisher Rick Eckert, whom he ran behind the entire race.
Going into this weekend third place in Series points, Sheppard said he has the ultimate faith in his team and driving abilities.
“My confidence in my team and my car is really high,” Sheppard said. “This car is fast every time we break it out. My team’s got my back, no matter what, so I’ve just got to get up on the wheel and get the job done, night in and night out.”
She may not have been in the battle for the lead, but Amanda Whaley picked up the KSE Hard-Charger Award and was fastest non-Outlaw in the field for the feature. Being the only female pilot in the field, she showed that it doesn’t have to be an ultra-tacky surface to pass cars, as she went from 11th to sixth over the course of 40 laps on a track surface that gave a lot of drivers headaches.
“I just made moves when people moved up out of the groove and was just luckily there to capitalize on it,” Whaley said.
Whaley has been in competition with the Outlaws before, and thus has gained a bunch of crucial experience and tips from the best in the business – a lot of which she used on the track Thursday night.
“Tonight, it was just kind of ‘don’t leave the bottom,’ but I have learned how to drive some just by watching videos of them and racing with them,” Whaley said. “I went down and talked to [Eckert] about some setup stuff and Mark Richards, so you definitely learn a lot from being around them.
Mike Marlar won his sixth PFC Brakes Fast Qualifier Award of the season and 15th of his career with a lap time of 18.511. A total of 26 cars were in attendance for three heat races which saw Rick Eckert, Brandon Sheppard and Chris Madden each take a victory in their respective races. The Last Chance Showdown was won by Ross Robinson.
On Friday, August 17, the tour makes its historic return to southern Pennsylvania’s Williams Grove Speedway – its first time back since the inaugural year of 1988! The last and only winner of a World of Outlaws race at the facility was Larry Phillips. Who will be the first to stamp their name on the modern era wins list?
Find more event and track information at http://www.williamsgrove.com/
ABBREVIATED RESULTS
Sears Craftsman Feature (40 Laps) 1. 44-Chris Madden [2][$10,000]; 2. 7-Rick Eckert [1][$5,000]; 3. 1-Brandon Sheppard [3][$3,000]; 4. 157-Mike Marlar [4][$2,500]; 5. 9-Devin Moran [5][$2,000]; 6. 4-Amanda Whaley [11][$1,700]; 7. 72-Jason Covert [10][$1,400]; 8. 18c-Chase Junghans [9][$1,300]; 9. 55L-Donald Lingo [6][$1,200]; 10. 25-Shane Clanton [12][$1,100]; 11. 54-David Breazeale [13][$1,050]; 12. 85-Ricky Elliott [16][$1,000]; 13. 8-Mark Pettyjohn [15][$950]; 14. 7r-Ross Robinson [19][$900]; 15. O-Dale Hollidge [17][$850]; 16. 91-Tyler Erb [18][$800]; 17. B1-Brent Larson [7][$770]; 18. 151-Kyle Lear [20][$750]; 19. KB-Kerry King [22][$730]; 20. 118-Rob Schirmer [24][$700]; 21. 2-Dan Stone [8][$700]; 22. 11-Austin Hubbard [14][$700]; 23. 92-Nick Davis [21][$700]; 24. 44r-Brent Robinson [23][$700]; KSE Hard Charger Award: 4-Amanda Whaley[+5]
Qualifying 1. 157-Mike Marlar, 18.511; 2. 44-Chris Madden, 18.603; 3. 1-Brandon Sheppard, 18.621; 4. 7-Rick Eckert, 18.699; 5. 55L-Donald Lingo, 18.775; 6. 9-Devin Moran, 18.88; 7. B1-Brent Larson, 18.899; 8. 2-Dan Stone, 18.908; 9. 22x-Ross Bailes, 18.927; 10. 54-David Breazeale, 18.962; 11. 4-Amanda Whaley, 19.019; 12. 18c-Chase Junghans, 19.06; 13. 7r-Ross Robinson, 19.086; 14. 11-Austin Hubbard, 19.097; 15. 8-Mark Pettyjohn, 19.109; 16. 85-Ricky Elliott, 19.112; 17. O-Dale Hollidge, 19.131; 18. 91-Tyler Erb, 19.192; 19. 72-Jason Covert, 19.21; 20. 151-Kyle Lear, 19.213; 21. 25-Shane Clanton, 19.324; 22. 44r-Brent Robinson, 19.562; 23. 92-Nick Davis, 19.573; 24. KB-Kerry King, 19.644; 25. 118-Rob Schirmer, 19.969
SEE FULL RESULTS
Previous articleMakin’Tracks – First Timers and Destruction at Brewerton and Fulton – DTD Exclusive
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Players / Papua New Guinea / Chad Soper
ODI caps
T20I caps
Chad Soper
Full name Chad Aiwati Soper
Born November 19, 1991, Port Moresby
Current age 27 years 239 days
Major teams Papua New Guinea Under-19s
Playing role Bowler
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm medium-fast
ODIs 13 13 2 172 39 15.63 318 54.08 0 0 8 1 4 0
T20Is 8 3 2 18 8* 18.00 33 54.54 0 0 0 0 2 0
First-class 6 11 3 210 60 26.25 577 36.39 0 1 20 0 2 0
List A 27 21 2 297 39 15.63 553 53.70 0 0 15 1 8 0
T20s 10 5 4 34 11* 34.00 49 69.38 0 0 1 0 2 0
ODIs 13 13 587 508 19 6/41 6/41 26.73 5.19 30.8 0 1 0
T20Is 8 7 97 81 7 3/13 3/13 11.57 5.01 13.8 0 0 0
First-class 6 10 972 353 13 4/33 4/33 27.15 2.17 74.7 1 0 0
List A 27 27 1133 901 33 6/41 6/41 27.30 4.77 34.3 0 2 0
T20s 10 9 139 130 10 3/13 3/13 13.00 5.61 13.9 0 0 0
ODI debut Hong Kong v Papua New Guinea at Mong Kok, Nov 4, 2016 scorecard
Last ODI Papua New Guinea v United States of America at Windhoek, Apr 27, 2019 scorecard
ODI statistics
- Statsguru ODI analysis - Player analysis menu/filter ODI match list --------------------------------- Batting career summary Batting innings list High scores Batting series averages --------------------------------- Bowling career summary Bowling innings list Best innings bowling Bowling series averages --------------------------------- Fielding career summary Fielding innings list Most catches in an innings Fielding series statistics
T20I debut Afghanistan v Papua New Guinea at Dublin (Malahide), Jul 23, 2015 scorecard
Last T20I Papua New Guinea v Vanuatu at Port Moresby, Mar 24, 2019 scorecard
T20I statistics
- Statsguru T20I analysis - Player analysis menu/filter T20I match list --------------------------------- Batting career summary Batting innings list High scores Batting series averages --------------------------------- Bowling career summary Bowling innings list Best innings bowling Bowling series averages --------------------------------- Fielding career summary Fielding innings list Most catches in an innings Fielding series statistics
First-class debut Afghanistan v Papua New Guinea at Sharjah, Nov 21-24, 2015 scorecard
Last First-class Hong Kong v Papua New Guinea at Sharjah, Nov 29-Dec 1, 2017 scorecard
List A debut Netherlands v Papua New Guinea at Rotterdam, Jun 22, 2015 scorecard
Last List A Papua New Guinea v United States of America at Windhoek, Apr 27, 2019 scorecard
T20s debut Jersey v Papua New Guinea at Bready, Jul 12, 2015 scorecard
Last T20s Papua New Guinea v Vanuatu at Port Moresby, Mar 24, 2019 scorecard
0/19, 15 P.N.G. v U.S.A. Windhoek 27 Apr 2019 ODI # 4126
2, 3/15 P.N.G. v Oman Windhoek 26 Apr 2019 LA
1, 0/14 P.N.G. v Canada Windhoek 24 Apr 2019 LA
18, 0/21 P.N.G. v U.S.A. Windhoek 23 Apr 2019 LA
0/24, 22 P.N.G. v Hong Kong Windhoek 21 Apr 2019 LA
36, 0/5 P.N.G. v Namibia Windhoek 20 Apr 2019 LA
1/5 P.N.G. v Vanuatu Port Moresby 24 Mar 2019 T20I # 762
- P.N.G. v Philippines Port Moresby 23 Mar 2019 T20I # 760
2/6 P.N.G. v Philippines Port Moresby 22 Mar 2019 T20I # 756
0/9 P.N.G. v Vanuatu Suva 29 Aug 2018 Other T20
Soper fires PNG to series-levelling win (Nov 6, 2016)
Soper's maiden five-for sets up PNG's six-wicket win (May 28, 2016)
Ravikant stars in India's big win (Aug 16, 2012)
Afghanistan crush Ireland in practice game (Aug 7, 2012)
Chad Soper gets a high five from captain Assad Vala and Lega Siaka after taking a wicket
© Peter Della Penna
Chad Soper picked up a five-for against India U-19s
© ICC/Getty
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Home || Official Website
***OFFICIAL RESULTS***
Meydan FEI European Endurance Championship for Young Riders & Juniors 2016
Imke Lamsma pix
Spanish Sweep FEI European Endurance Championship for Young Riders and Juniors in Portugal
Paula Muntala Sanchez (ESP), aged 21, riding 10-year old part-Arabian Echo Falls secured individual gold and also guided her team to gold at the 120km FEI European Endurance Championship for Young Riders and Juniors in Rio Frio, Portugal on 3 September. (FEI/Endurance in the World) FEI.org
By Pamela Burton
The Spanish athlete Paula Muntala Sanchez riding 10-year-old part-Arabian Echo Falls emerged victorious after the 120km Meydan FEI European Endurance Championship for Young Riders and Juniors in Portugal, leading the Spanish team to gold as well.
Held at the Rio Frio Equestrian Centre, 38 athletes aged between 14 and 21 from 11 countries left in a mass start at 06:30 on Saturday, 3 September. The competition circled in four loops of 40, 30, 30 and 20kms, with gates and veterinary inspection areas on each loop.
The young but seasoned, Sanchez, aged 21, completed the ride in 05:14:57 with an average speed of 22.86 kph riding though the heat of the day, which reached 30°C with 40% humidity.
The all-female Spanish team came into each vet gate within minutes of each other, pulsed down and left in the same way, and arrived at the finish just after Sanchez, placing 2nd - 5th individually in this order: Laura Fernandez Piña on Cadigaam, Bruna Pujols Aumatell on Lludriga De Masferrer, Raquel Costa Condina on Kalima Casanova and Naroa Calvo Ibáñez on Escarsi.
“The plan was to be strong with all the team from the beginning to ensure that at least one of our team members could be in the medals,” said Sanchez after the ride.
Although this did not happen to her, Sanchez stated what might have been the biggest challenge on the ride: “To lose a shoe is a problem because you lose time, and it is difficult to recover in such flat terrain as the one in Rio Frio. The biggest strength of my 10-year-old Appaloosa is in his character. He saves energy during the competition, which allows him to have a quick recovery at the end of each loop.”
When asked about her future endurance goals, Sanchez replied: “My goal is to improve my performance and hopefully to continue as a team member for Spain.”
Echo Falls is by the full Arabian stallion Tango D’Ayres by the legendary Persik out of the Appaloosa mare, Song of Wind.
Spanish cavalry led the way
Heading out in the first wave of the mass start, Spain’s Sanchez and her teammates blended like a grey cavalry into the low fog of early morning as they led the way for the first 40km loop.
The five athletes took possession of the race from the start, never leaving first position throughout, but knew they were being chased by France’s Henriette D Ursel on Wloszka Fontanel and Emma Frances on Quokin De PSA.
João Maria Moura riding Distinto for Portugal kept within five minutes of the first seven riders throughout the course and he was followed by Italy’s Costanza Laliscia on Rok and Camilla Coppini on Veinard Secondo. Great Britain’s hopes were dashed early on as they lost all three riders by vet gate two.
Besides host Portugal, athletes represented Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Spain.
Seven teams started and five teams completed. A course completion of 57% finished the last rider, Imke Lamsma from The Netherlands riding Sjacour in the ride time of 07:43:12 with an average speed of 15.54 kph.
The FEI European Endurance Championship for Young Riders and Juniors is an important foundation for future top Endurance riders. The last edition of this Championship was in 2014 in Verona, Italy. To compete, athletes must have successfully completed at least 3 CEI 2* events or higher.
Manuel Bandeira de Mello, FEI Endurance Director said of the competition: “It was a fantastic day of top quality sport. The Spanish team led the ride from the very beginning showing their supremacy, and the high skill of the athletes and the horses proved that even with a very technical track, a 57% completion rate could be achieved.”
Rui Amante, President of the Ground Jury in Rio Frio commented: “The venue is fantastic and the event went very smoothly. The most important aspect is that the fair play of the 37 competitors was truly amazing for Juniors and Young riders. I am very happy with the outcome of this event.”
Rio Frio - the venue
The trails of mostly sandy soil went through ancient cork oak forest, around thriving vineyards and between irrigated rice paddies, allowing for many natural water spots and easy access points for crews. The public could also view the athletes in viewing areas designated along the national roads. This route has been in use and tested since 2014. The Rio Frio Equestrian Centre is located on the southern bank of the Tagus Estuary, 30km from the Portuguese capital of Lisbon.
Results - top ten individuals
1. Paula Muntala Sanchez, Echo Falls (ESP) - finish time 05:14:57
2. Laura Fernandez Piña, Cadigaam (ESP) - finish time 05:14:58
3. Bruna Pujols Aumatell, Lludriga De Masferrer (ESP) - finish time 05:14:59
4. Raquel Costa Condina, Kalima Casanova (ESP) - finish time 05:15:00
5. Naroa Calvo Ibáñez, Escarsi (ESP) - finish time 05:15:05
6. Henriette, D Ursel, Wloszka Fontanel (FRA) - finish time 05:34:10
7. Emma Frances, Quokin De PSA (FRA) - finish time 05:34:11
8. Maria Moura João, Distinto (POR) - finish time 05:45:18
9. Constanza Laliscia, Rok (ITA) - finish time 06:08:32
10. Camilla Coppini, Veinard Secondo (ITA) - finish time 06:08:33
Results - top three teams
*Teams count the highest-placed three members for classification
1. Spain - finish time: 15:44:54
2. Italy - finish time: 19:04:10
3. Portugal - finish time: 19:40:47
*Also finished: Belgium (finish time 19:57:53) & Netherlands (finish time 20:42:03).
A Recap by Dutch rider Imke Lamsma
a google translation, you'll get the gist!
Saturday morning the alarm went at quarter past four. Lei had already fed the horses and at half past seven, we would start. At six o'clock we sat on it to warm to ride. Liselore went up front with the group, Jorrit, Ljjou and I started in all the rest behind the group.
The first loop (40 km) was actually very nice. We rode the three of us together. First time all the way back but in the course of the round, we took in a number of riders. Conner and Akis had something harder than Sjacour so we had to stop in in a couple bijgalopperen. Ah, well, a little variety. Thank God it was so early still fine to do in terms of temperature, and even a little bit foggy all the way through which we were chilled haha.
During the second loop (30 km) went Ljjou and Jorrit started earlier than me because we need a little more time at the vetcheck. We decided to get back in and still a galoperen loop to ride together. I don't believe it for the other two horsemen much cared for, but good, Sjacour and me, it was nice to still be a little bit together to be able to drive. Good for the motivation, especially now that it is increasingly warmer also began to be.
In the second vetgate (after 70 km) ran Sjacour just slightly less nice during the vetcheck which we decided to have the third round right but what to take you back in pace. In the meantime, it was above 36 degrees and because Akis and Conner something above his pace went this seemed the best option. Unfortunately, all the other riders who behind me reason already rejected. This meant so that we in the last 50 miles in the heat would have to go alone.
The Trail was (to my amazement) pretty varied. Happy but, that really made it a lot less boring to ride alone. Every now and then we drove between the cows, sometimes they were in the middle of the road and we had to chase away them first before we could get past it. All those crazy cows kept it for Sjacour also a little interesting .
The Sand was on some pieces best Mel but I noticed that actually still pretty bad. It must have been worse! The route went through rice paddies, through the sand along all the cork trees and along several lakes. I really thought it was a great game!
The last vetgate (after 100 km) ran Sjacour happy again much better. He was getting tired anyway, so it was very warm haha. We decided to have the last round also, continue to drive. Our goal was finishing, win wasn't possible anymore since the Spaniards to me during the last entry in vetgate over race for the final sprint. Respect hear those horses, there were still super bee!
And there we go, then, the last loop in. What a weird feeling, and what will such a day go by fast. Only the last round, then again it seems endless. "you only need a kennismakingsklasse trainingsrondje, a 20 km" I tell myself and Sjacour then.
5 km.. Yeah! Miranda and Laura in sight! Just around the bend along the rice paddies and then we'll be there. Sjacour gets water bottles all over themselves, a bucket of water against his butt aangegooid and we are on the road again. 10 km.. Grooms! That works really well motivating hear during such a last, warm round.
15 km.. Sofie is waving to us with the camera in her hand. Sjacour and I both get another drink and a bottle of cold water in our neck and then we're on our way to the finish line.
During the last 5 km I start only to realise that it is now really is almost over. Our first European Championship. We'll save at least until the finish line. Yeah, we were the last combination in the route and everyone had to wait for us but that made me crazy enough not so very much. We had the best of it, made sure I knew that.
1 km to the vetgate / finish line. All the images of today just flashes through my head. Breathe Easy, keep smiling and hope for the best. I come around the bend and hear that there are people on their feet. A lot of people. That's not what I had expected haha. I assumed that everyone with his own horse and busy doing other things and that would be just my groom team would be present.
Joyce was already done with the Dutch flag in her hand. From a jog I grabbed it and Sjacour jumped out to himself in a smooth canter, so motivated, I hadn't seen him yet during the last loop. He knew he was almost there.
Encouraged by a lot of Dutch people we came over the line. What a cool feeling, we'll be there. We did it. Chilling. By going to the test. And then it gets yet secretly back a little bit exciting. I had felt nothing weird on the way, but still.. you never know.
Heartbeat. All right.
Final vet check. Okay, I believe that he has to run good. He trudging a little, but he's good.
One of the veterinarians walks up to me and get all the notes of that day, out of his pocket. "yeah, you gotta help me, I can't remember which. Well, the good is" he said. And that's when I knew it. Such jokes don't if it's wrong. And yes, approved!
Wow, what a horse and what a great team. Thank you Sjacour and also thank you to everyone who has helped us. Without you this was not done! ️
Wow, I'm so proud of sjacour.
Finish line after 120 km during the European Championship for juniors in Rio Frio (Portugal). Despite the warm weather (35 + degrees) he has really done a huge amount.
All Dutch people are well finished what has created a 5nd place for the team. Individually, we're in 21th place.
Thanks to a super groom team!
From 2 to 4 of September
The FEI European Endurance Championship for Young Riders and Juniors is organized every two years. It is one of the most important European competitions, leading to the discovery of promising young Endurance riders.
Particularly directed for riders between 14 and 21 years, its an important foundation of future professional Endurance riders.
The last edition was in 2014, in Verona, Italy.
This year, for the first time, this competition will take place in Portugal, in the Rio Frio Equestrian pole, from 2 to 4 of September. Over 20 countries are expected to bring over 100 riders and a total of 400 participants.
It’s a 120km competition in several counter clock phases, where the rider’s ability to manage the horse’s effort is tested, along with the horse’s speed and resistance. At the end of each phase, a veterinary inspection takes place.
Endurance is becoming a popular discipline throughout the world, and is nowadays, not only the second biggest equestrian discipline in competition number and participants, but the highest growing. According to FEI, more than 900 Endurance competitions are held every year, and the discipline has more than 6000 riders and 10000 horses registered.
September 1st – Opening Ceremony and fraternization dinnerSeptember 2nd – Veterinary Inspections
September 3rd – 8 am – CH-EU-YJ-E 120 – MEYDAN FEI EUROPEAN ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP for YOUNG RIDERS and JUNIORS
8pm – Dinner and award delivery
Meet Dutch Young Rider Imke Lamsma
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Health Product Reviews for Men and Women
Category Archives: ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels Service Launched Today
By green42 on May 18, 2016
It is easy to believe that only the City and its big professional investors, such as the Prudential and the Post Office Pension Fund, benefited from the Big Bang revolution 18 months ago.
Millions of new small investors, enticed into the stock market by the twin attractions of the Thatcher Government’s nine-year privatization spree and the biggest bull market the world has ever seen, watched as the big City firms invested fortunes in complex computerized dealing systems designed to speed up Britain’s securities trading industry to enable it to compete worldwide, and waited as they scrapped over the mega-deals that alone could justify the expenditure.
And while the professionals were overnight given a better and quicker service than they had ever had before, the growing army of private clients, in many cases finding brokers becoming resentful of the demands made on their increasingly valuable time, felt that their inability to react at speed left them with, in some ways, a bigger disadvantage than before in the City.
It has taken a little longer but the private investor, big and small, is beginning to avail himself of the same technology as the professionals.
ClickFunnels, the service launched today by The Times in partnership with BT Citycall, a British Telecom offshoot, represents the most advanced step available to the small investor.
About 4,000 share prices and 7,000 unit trust and bond prices will be instantly available to ClickFunnels members, 24 hours a day, anywhere in Britain. At the same time, they will have access to a string of financial reports, bulletins and news services. And all the investor needs is a telephone.
Members can key in their investment portfolios and obtain up-to-the-second valuations.
ClickFunnels is not the first financial phone line, but it is believed to be the most comprehensive and sophisticated so far. Early attempts at such systems have either been criticized for being slow, unreliable or less comprehensive. At The Times it was felt better to wait until technology had learned to cope with the teething problems.
As a result it can introduce a complete service bearing all the characteristics of reliability and accuracy that readers have come to expect from The Times.
To readers of The Times, it is free. Most other phone line services demand membership fees and subscriptions. For the time being there is no charge to readers, other than a Pounds 10 deposit, which will be refunded on validation of the membership.
ClickFunnels has been devised by Citycall, the originator of the serious telephone information service, and bearing in mind Citycall’s BT parentage, is a direct descendant of the speaking clock. But it is as far down the evolutionary road from ‘Tim’ as Einstein was from Neanderthal man.
ClickFunnels gives callers instant access to SEAQ, the Stock Exchange computers system, which registers every price change on the stock market as it happens. Using a five-digit code system, subscribers tap out the telephone and promptly hear a voice telling them the most up-to-date information. In the case of the blue chip Alpha stocks, subscribers will be told both the bid and offer prices, the price of the last deal and the volume of shares traded.
From today, nearly 3,000 share prices will be available, updated immediately. ‘Indicative’ prices – updated regularly throughout the day – will be given in the case of a further 1,000, less active stocks. By the beginning of next month the list will be augmented by about 7,000 unit trust and bond prices.
ClickFunnels members will receive two separate code books, one covering shares, and the other unit trusts and bonds. In a fluid market the constituents of each index will fluctuate to some extent, but members will be able to update their lists daily by consulting the Business News section of The Times.
One of the chief advantages of this system, of course, is that members need no more technological knowhow than that required to use a telephone.
Ideally applicants will have a multi-frequency telephone, the type which emits a different tone for each numeral. But as part of their membership kit, all subscribers will receive a credit-card sized keypad which, when held over the telephone mouthpiece, effectively transforms any telephone into a multi-frequency unit.
In any case all applicants will be offered the opportunity to buy an M-F telephone at a significant discount.
Armed with this keypad a ClickFunnels subscriber holding, say, British Telecom shares, will be able to obtain an instant quote for his investment while sitting in the armchair in front of his television.
Similarly, a Save & Prosper unitholder can check the value of his investment while waiting to see off at the golf club.
By tapping out their own personal digital password they will receive an instant, up-to-the minute valuation not only of each investment but also of the entire portfolio.
Members do not need to own a share or a unit to make use of ClickFunnels. More and more followers of the stock market enjoy the fun of choosing and managing their own imaginary portfolios. Clubs and schools run games and competitions without investing a penny in hard cash. ClickFunnels will give competitors an instant rundown on their performances.
Eventually, and they are already talking about the possibilities at Citycall, it is expected that a modification of the system will be able to execute deals for ClickFunnels members. And with work on voice recognition systems well-advanced, it may be possible before too long to do away with the keypads altogether.
Citycall handles tens of thousands of calls every day – and competently dealt with almost 100,000 on Black Monday and the desperate days that followed.
Its team of two editors and eight reporters, based just north of the City, are constantly monitoring the City’s markets and updating their bulletins. These are taped in their three studios, then loaded into its memory banks, and relayed, on demand, to subscribers.
But even that looks antediluvian compared with the share price retrieval system.
Subscribers’ calls are answered by the ClickFunnels computer, which, on the coded command, seeks the relevant share price information through its direct link with the SEAQ computer. The ClickFunnels computer then translates the electronic data into English.
This is handled by special voice-processing equipment, designed and manufactured by Voicetek, a US company, which sifts 11,500 separate names and numbers stored in its memory by BT staff member Dave Mitchell. He has spent more than 100 hours recording every name and number that could be required.
These are assembled in order, and relayed to the caller.
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Black tea and maintenance of normal endoth...
Black tea and maintenance of normal endothelium-dependent vasodilation: evaluation of a health claim pursuant to Article 13(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006
tea, flavanols, tea, endothelium, vasodilation, health claim
Following an application from Unilever NV, submitted for authorisation of a health claim pursuant to Article 13(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 via the Competent Authority of Ireland, the EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) was asked to deliver an opinion on the scientific substantiation of a health claim related to black tea and maintenance of normal endothelium-dependent vasodilation. The scope of the application was proposed to fall under a health claim based on newly developed scientific evidence. The food proposed by the applicant as the subject of the health claim is black tea beverages, either freshly prepared or reconstituted from water extract powders of black tea, characterised by the content of flavanols (expressed as catechins plus theaflavins) of at least 30 mg per 200 mL serving. The Panel considers that black tea characterised by the content of flavanols (expressed as catechins plus theaflavins) is sufficiently characterised. The claimed effect proposed by the applicant is ‘improvement of endothelium-dependent vasodilation’. The Panel considers that maintenance of normal endothelium-dependent vasodilation is a beneficial physiological effect. Of the five human intervention studies provided on the chronic effect of black tea consumption on endothelium-dependent vasodilation, two investigated the effect after regular consumption of black tea for a sufficiently long time period (i.e. at least 4 weeks). These two studies did not allow an effect of black tea on endothelium-dependent vasodilation to be established. The Panel concludes that a cause and effect relationship has not been established between the consumption of black tea and maintenance of normal endothelium-dependent vasodilation.
Jean-Louis Bresson, Barbara Burlingame, Tara Dean, Susan Fairweather-Tait, Marina Heinonen, Karen Ildico Hirsch-Ernst, Inge Mangelsdorf, Harry McArdle, Androniki Naska, Monika Neuhäuser-Berthold, Grażyna Nowicka, Kristina Pentieva, Yolanda Sanz, Alfonso Siani, Anders Sjödin, Martin Stern, Daniel Tomé, Dominique Turck, Hendrik Van Loveren, Marco Vinceti and Peter Willatts.
Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies
nda [at] efsa.europa.eu
Competent Authority of Ireland following an application by Unilever NV.
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Joseph R. Kessler
Joseph R. Kessler is an associate attorney that joined the firm in 2019. Based in the Miami office, Mr. Kessler primarily focuses his practice in the areas of insurance defense and civil litigation.
Mr. Kessler is a graduate of Florida State University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in criminology. Upon graduating from Florida State University, Mr. Kessler attended Florida State University College of Law. During law school Mr. Kessler obtained the nationally recognized Florida State University College of Law’s Business Law Certificate and served as president of the Florida State Business Law Society. He was also a member of the Student Bar Association, the Cuban American Bar Association, the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Society, the Transfer Student Organization and Phi Alpha Delta.
Mr. Kessler gained experience as a legal intern at Legal Services of North Florida where he assisted low income individuals with resolving tax disputes with the IRS. Mr. Kessler was also a law clerk in the foreclosure department at the Florida Office of the Attorney General. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Kessler was an associate attorney for a litigation firm that represented professional athletes and entertainers.
Mr. Kessler is licensed to practice law in Florida and is a member of the Florida Bar, the Coral Gables Bar Association, Dade County Bar Association, Dade County Defense Bar Association, Defense Research Institute, and the Florida Defense Lawyers Association.
Florida State University, B.S., Criminology, 2012.
Florida State University College of Law, J.D., 2015.
420 South Dixie Highway, Third Floor
E-Mail: jkessler@gaebemullen.com
Mark R. Antonelli
Neil W. Blackmon
Kyle M. Butz
Agnieszka N. Chiapperini
Anthony Dennis
Devang Desai
Anthony DiMatteo
Greg Gaebe
Fiorella A. Gasco
Ali S. Iftikhar
Joseph S. Lopez
Jhenell Matthews-Allison
Miriam R. Merlo
Michael A. Mullen
Alexander M. Peraza
James Robertson, III
Antonio J. Rodriguez
Carlos B. Salup
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Joseph M. Winsby
West Palm Beach (561) 832-6788
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Start your search here for best results
Search the Gateway USD by keyword
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Gateway USD | AR 1312.4 Community Relations
Williams Uniform Complaint Procedures
Types of Complaints
The district shall use the procedures described in this administrative regulation only to investigate and resolve the following: (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4680-4683)
1. Complaints regarding the insufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials, including any complaint alleging that:
a. A student, including an English learner, does not have standards-aligned textbooks or instructional materials or state- or district-adopted textbooks or other required instructional materials to use in class.
b. A student does not have access to textbooks or instructional materials to use at home or after school. This does not require two sets of textbooks or instructional materials for each student.
c. Textbooks or instructional materials are in poor or unusable condition, have missing pages, or are unreadable due to damage.
d. A student was provided photocopied sheets from only a portion of a textbook or instructional materials to address a shortage of textbooks or instructional materials.
(cf. 6161.1 - Selection and Evaluation of Instructional Materials)
2. Complaints regarding teacher vacancy or misassignment, including any complaint alleging that:
a. A semester begins and a teacher vacancy exists.
b. A teacher who lacks credentials or training to teach English learners is assigned to teach a class with more than 20 percent English learners in the class.
(cf. 4112.22 - Staff Teaching English Language Learners)
c. A teacher is assigned to teach a class for which the teacher lacks subject matter competency.
Teacher vacancy means a position to which a single designated certificated employee has not been assigned at the beginning of the year for an entire year or, if the position is for a one-semester course, a position to which a single designated certificated employee has not been assigned at the beginning of the semester for an entire semester. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4600)
Beginning of the year or semester means the first day classes necessary to serve all the students enrolled are established with a single designated certificated employee assigned for the duration of the class, but not later than 20 working days after the first day students attend classes for that semester. (5 CCR 4600)
Misassignment means the placement of a certificated employee in a teaching or services position for which the employee does not hold a legally recognized certificate or credential or the placement of a certificated employee in a teaching or services position that the employee is not otherwise authorized by statute to hold. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4600)
(cf. 4112.2 - Certification)
(cf. 4113 - Assignment)
3. Complaints regarding the condition of school facilities, including any complaint alleging that:
a. A condition poses an emergency or urgent threat to the health or safety of students or staff.
Emergency or urgent threat means structures or systems that are in a condition that poses a threat to the health and safety of students or staff while at school, including, but not limited to, gas leaks; nonfunctioning heating, ventilation, fire sprinklers, or air-conditioning systems; electrical power failure; major sewer line stoppage; major pest or vermin infestation; broken windows or exterior doors or gates that will not lock and that pose a security risk; abatement of hazardous materials previously undiscovered that pose an immediate threat to students or staff; structural damage creating a hazardous or uninhabitable condition; or any other condition deemed appropriate. (Education Code 17592.72)
b. A school restroom has not been cleaned, maintained, or kept open in accordance with Education Code 35292.5.
Clean or maintained school restroom means a school restroom has been cleaned or maintained regularly, is fully operational, or has been stocked at all times with toilet paper, soap, or paper towels or functional hand dryers. (Education Code 35292.5)
Open restroom means the school has kept all restrooms open during school hours when students are not in classes and has kept a sufficient number of restrooms open during school hours when students are in classes. This does not apply when the temporary closing of the restroom is necessary for student safety or to make repairs. (Education Code 35292.5)
(cf. 3514 - Environmental Safety)
(cf. 3517 - Facilities Inspection)
Filing of Complaint
A complaint alleging any condition(s) specified in the section "Types of Complaints" above shall be filed with the principal or designee at the school in which the complaint arises. The principal or designee shall forward a complaint about problems beyond his/her authority to the Superintendent or designee in a timely manner, but not to exceed 10 working days. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4680)
Investigation and Response
The principal or designee shall make all reasonable efforts to investigate any problem within his/her authority. He/she shall remedy a valid complaint within a reasonable time period not to exceed 30 working days from the date the complaint was received. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4685)
Complaints may be filed anonymously. If the complainant has indicated on the complaint form that he/she would like a response to the complaint, the principal or designee shall report the resolution of the complaint to him/her at the mailing address indicated on the complaint form within 45 working days of the initial filing of the complaint. At the same time, the principal or designee shall report the same information to the Superintendent or designee. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4680, 4685)
When Education Code 48985 is applicable and the complainant has requested a response, the response shall be written in English and in the primary language in which the complaint was filed. (Education Code 35186)
If a complainant is not satisfied with the resolution of a complaint, he/she has the right to describe the complaint to the Governing Board at a regularly scheduled meeting. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4686)
For any complaint concerning a facilities condition that poses an emergency or urgent threat to the health or safety of students or staff as described in item #3a in the section "Types of Complaints" above, a complainant who is not satisfied with the resolution proffered by the principal or Superintendent or designee may file an appeal to the Superintendent of Public Instruction within 15 days of receiving the district's response. The complainant shall comply with the appeal requirements specified in 5 CCR 4632. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4687)
All complaints and written responses shall be public records. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4686)
(cf. 1340 - Access to District Records)
On a quarterly basis, the Superintendent or designee shall report, to the Board at a regularly scheduled public Board meeting and to the County Superintendent of Schools, summarized data on the nature and resolution of all complaints. The report shall include the number of complaints by general subject area with the number of resolved and unresolved complaints. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4686)
Forms and Notices
The Superintendent or designee shall ensure a Williams complaint form is available at each school. However, complainants need not use the district's complaint form in order to file a complaint. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4680)
The Superintendent or designee shall ensure that the district's complaint form contains a space to indicate whether the complainant desires a response to his/her complaint and specifies the location for filing a complaint. A complainant may add as much text to explain the complaint as he/she wishes. (Education Code 35186; 5 CCR 4680)
The Superintendent or designee shall ensure that a notice is posted in each classroom in each school containing the components specified in Education Code 35186. (Education Code 35186)
Legal Reference:
EDUCATION CODE
234.1 Prohibition of discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying
1240 County superintendent of schools, duties
17592.72 Urgent or emergency repairs, School Facility Emergency Repair Account
33126 School accountability report card
35186 Williams uniform complaint procedures
35292.5 Restrooms, maintenance and cleanliness
48985 Notice to parents in language other than English
60119 Hearing on sufficiency of instructional materials
CODE OF REGULATIONS, TITLE 5
4600-4670 Uniform complaint procedures
4680-4687 Williams uniform complaint procedures
Management Resources:
CSBA: http://www.csba.org
California County Superintendents Educational Services Association: http://www.ccsesa.org
California Department of Education, Williams case: http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/ce/wc
State Allocation Board, Office of Public School Construction: http://www.opsc.dgs.ca.gov
Regulation GATEWAY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
revised: October 15, 2014 Redding, California
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Category: European
We had been invited to dine at Chef’s Table tonight, hidden within the upscale hotel the Capella on Sentosa, apart from the hustle and bustle of the mainland. When we walked into the small room which contained the entirety of the kitchen and a long table that only sat 24 guests, I didn’t feel like I had just entered a restaurant. I felt like I was in the chef’s house. I could smell the food the chefs were cooking a few metres away from me as Michael Bublé’s Christmas album played in the background.
We were here tonight to sample a few of the dishes that were going to be available for Capella’s Christmas and New Year menus at their various restaurants: The Knolls, with Mediterranean-style cuisine; Cassia, their Chinese specialty restaurant, and also their festive sweets.
They were really proud of their seasonal cocktail from Bob’s Bar, the Christmas Carol ($22++): a refreshing cocktail mixed with inhouse Navegante rum from Barbados and champagne. They had also mounted a slice of pear on the edge of the glass and sprinkled ground cinnamon on it, so when the glass is brought to the lips, the nose catches a whiff of the spice straight away.
From the starters for the Knolls Christmas Eve & Day Lunch, they gave us the well-crafted Pink Pepper Caramelised Foie Gras Mi-Cuit. A thin strip of mashed pineapple is shaped around a round slice of foie gras terrine. Sugar is sprinkled on top, then promptly blowtorched. The sugar sizzled, bubbled, and darkened into a deep purple colour as the flames danced on top of the foie gras. The fragrance of burnt sugar wafted into the air. The result is like a crème brûlée: a soft savoury foie gras base with a thin crisp covering of hardened caramel. The pineapple was soft, sweet with a subtle tartness. Whole pink peppers were added to be eaten with the foie gras. When cracked, it doesn’t burn the tongue, but releases an atomic hint of floral spice. A painted stripe of dark brown sauce adds a sweet and salty element.
The next thing to be served was something from the main course of the Knolls Christmas menu, the Halibut Confit with Citrus Junos. The halibut is sweet and uniform in its perfect doneness, not flaky or powdery, but soft and fleshy. It paired well with a creamy hollandaise-style sauce made of lemon, butter, and fish juices. Plated together with the fish was the Pumpkin and Corn Gnocchi, a separate option on the same menu. These orange molded balls of a pumpkin and corn mash had the comforting texture of a scone.
From the Cassia New Year’s Eve and Day Dinner, we were treated to the Braised Bird’s Nest with Crabmeat. A small island of shredded crab meat tops a foundation of bird’s nest, surrounded by a sea of thick, chicken and pork bone broth. A few eggs of fish roe round the dish completes the experience with bursts of saltiness. I love the creativity of using bird’s nest away from its traditional usage in a sweet cold dessert in a warm soup instead. The texture of bird’s nest resembles that of shark’s fin minus the guilt, so when your soup crumbles the island into the soup and everything is eaten together, it reminds one of the pleasant times eating warm shark’s fin soup at special occasions with the family.
I was gladly surprised by the succulence of Capella’s tandoori-style Exquisite Turkey. It’s a Christmas turkey with a twist: the bird is seasoned and marinated with classic masala flavours and roasted inside an actual tandoori oven. The result is a turkey that is more juicy and tender than the typical roast turkey. Served alongside is a tasty stuffing doused with fragrant truffle oil, spicy green chutney, and roasted root vegetables.
You’ll have a chance to taste it as well at the Festive Open House at Chef’s Table on 24 November and 9 December 2018. If you purchase it on 24 November, you get a 10% early bird discount of the usual $138++ for the whole turkey, which is still available for orders after 24 November.
The evening is brought to a sweet close by a panoply of sweet delights taken from Capella’s Festive Afternoon Tea. From the moment I touched the chilled plate, I knew that Capella’s efforts in giving the best dining experience extended even to the desserts. The Pecan and Pistachio Carrot Cake was adorable with a carrot-shaped almond-flavoured icing.
The Hazelnut Praline Tart is best enjoyed whole by biting the thin praline case to release the flowy chocolate ganache inside. Vanilla Chantilly Slice with Raspberry Preserve and Lemon Zest Biscuit is a delicious combination of sweet and sour on a soft sponge cake. The Chestnut Cheesecake is royal on top with a gold flakes, but hides a down-to-earth chestnut core inside. And the Almond Marzipan Stollen: it’s like a cold-served slice of thick bread, and it’s sweet and crunchy with marzipan sugar.
These sweet treats — and more — will be available for Capella’s Festive Afternoon Tea from 3-31 December 2018.
As we were eating our dessert, musicians were brought in to serenade us with a joyous rendition of ‘Feliz Navidad’, which got our Spanish chef de cuisine Ignacio Moreno dancing and singing along. Great food plated with love, with a convivial atmosphere; it certainly felt like Christmas at Capella.
The food tasted today comes from Capella’s various seasonal offerings from November to December: the Festive Open House, Christmas Eve and Day Lunch and Dinner at Cassia and The Knolls, Christmas Afternoon Tea at Chef’s Table, and many more. See the full list here.
We thank Capella for the invitation.
Capella Singapore
1 The Knolls
Cassia (Website link)
The Knolls (Website link)
Bob’s Bar (Website link)
Chef’s Table (Website link)
As MRT stations go, Newton is an oft-overlooked one, even though it’s an interchange station between the North-South and Downtown Lines. Nestled in a fairly quiet neighbourhood without high-density housing estates, it’s usually more associated with its eponymous hawker centre (though, tourists beware).
However, just a few minutes walk away from the station sits the hidden gem that is Skyve Wine Bistro. Helmed by the Le Cordon Bleu-trained Executive Chef Jachin Tan, it’s recently launched a new revamped menu of modern bistro fare to go along with its recent facelift.
Stepping into the compound at 10 Winstedt Road, you get a sense of calm already: it’s tucked away enough to make this a wonderful date spot, or a weekend recharge hideaway. But that’s not enough, of course. If we’re here to eat, then the spotlight must be on the food.
And shine the food does. Chef Jachin’s new menu hits the sweet spot: it’s produce-driven, and I often found it hard to figure out what sort of cuisine this was. But that’s not a bad thing, since he’s not limited by a single culinary tradition, and so the quality of the produce really shines through.
Smoked Tomato: Who cares what cuisine this is, if it’s this good?
One example of this is the Smoked Tomato ($12++). Featuring Momotaro tomatoes from the Cameron Highlands, with buffalo snow, heart of palm and a basil sorbet. The tomato is slow-smoked, and together with the heart of palm, really bursts with flavour that is complemented by the buffalo snow. What then rounds it off nicely is the refreshing sorbet: I’ve never quite been a basil person, but this was a surprising pairing that I really enjoyed!
Mediterranean Octopus: My only regret is that an octopus only has eight tentacles.
Another appetizer that went really well with me was the Mediterranean Octopus ($18++). Pickled eggplant, vandouvan (a French derivative of masala spices) and cauliflower puree accompanied this dish. The octopus was chewy but not tough, and its char-grilled flavour was absolutely delicious. This was one of the best octopus I’ve had in a while, because most places either deliver on the flavour, but produce tough octopus, or a wonderful texture but slightly lacklustre flavour.
Beef Tartare: A French classic with a twist.
But not everything here is all new and fancy: Chef Jachin delivered in the Beef Tartare ($18++) a French classic. But of course, as you probably can figure out by now, he’s not the sort to not mix things up a bit: this came with miso-cured egg yolk, shallot dust and gherkin gelee. Beef tartare is hard to get right, if only because most people aren’t that used to the gamey taste of raw beef. But here, the grass-fed Australian beef takes centre-stage, with just a hint of truffle to get the heady aroma. The miso-cured egg yolk contrasts the flavours wonderfully, a bit of beef, a bit of egg yolk, and you start to believe that perhaps you could live a life of food untouched by fire at all.
Lobster Sang Mee: If it means something to the chef, you can bet it’ll taste very good.
You can’t live off appetisers, of course, even if these are that good. So we move on to the mains: first up is a childhood classic of the chef, a Lobster Sang Mee ($32++). No one really expects a zi char dish to show up in a chic bistro, but I’m not complaining if it’s as good as how he does it. With egg drop soup, mussels, and “abalone” (actually a type of mushroom), the dish is intensely homey, but the lobster and the plating remind you that this is quite a step up beyond what you’ll get at your friendly neighbourhood coffee shop. Clearly, never underestimate a chef when he prepares a dish that is emotionally important to him!
Smoked Tenderloin: A garden, with soil, greens, and an animal I could eat over and over again.
Continuing on the smoked theme, I had the Smoked Tenderloin ($38++). Now, it comes with gobo, braised shiitake and truffle soil, but these are merely the accompaniment to the real star: the excellent meat on offer. It is juicy, and the smoking has clearly managed to lock in the flavours, with a depth of taste that I find difficult to describe in words. Maybe it’s the smoking, maybe it’s the quality of the meat already, but this was quite the tour de force. What added a lot of joy to my dining here was the way the other ingredients came in to play: the braised shiitake offered incredibly earthy tastes that contrasted with the meatiness of the tenderloin, and the truffle soil was just excellent mash. I am very picky about my mash, since potato can be boring if you don’t do it right, but I had zero complaints here.
Semifreddo of Lime: Nothing done halfway here in this semifreddo; wholly goodness.
A meal that begins this well, carries this well through the mains, must also end well. To this end, I enjoyed the two options available: a light and refreshing Semifreddo of Lime ($10++) and the simpler but richer Molten Chocolate ($12++). The semifreddo comes with a lovely aesthetic, using blue pea flower caviar, alongside a distinctively floral treat from the crumbly sable that gave depth to the lime notes of the ice cream. Texture-wise, the dessert developed over the time it took to eat it: first with distinct notes from each flavour, then commingling of flavours as the ice cream melted and each spoonful became a delicious potpourri.
Molten Chocolate: What it says on the tin, in a real celebration of chocolate.
But if you’re not into light finishes, then the option for decadence will also not disappoint. Skyve’s chocolate lava cake is as good as I have had anywhere else, with a candied zest that manages to cut through the richness. This dessert is exactly what it looks like: an elegant chocolate cake that degenerates very quickly into a wonderfully sticky and gooey mess that celebrates chocolate gloriously.
Ah, all that satisfaction. Ultimately, there’s a whole host of options for dining that begin from brunch, till dinner, and I think the setting really just is perfect for the food. Come in for lazy brunches, quiet lunches, and charming dinners. They really do hit the right spot.
Thank you Skyve Wine Bistro for the invitation.
This article was written by Lan Yingjie
Skyve Wine Bistro
No. 10 Winstedt Road
Block E #01-17
Posted on June 2, 2018 September 30, 2018
When it comes to dinner, you have three types. The first is what you eat when you are in a rush: picture grabbing a few bites from whatever is in the fridge as you rush out to whatever you have to be at. The second is what you usually eat on a regular day: some people cook at home, others get zichar in, it all varies. And the last type is when you decide: “okay, today’s a special day to splurge”.
Continue reading “Indulge in a Multi-Sensory Culinary Celebration with a Spanish Gourmet Extravaganza at Capella Singapore!”
Posted on January 24, 2018 February 6, 2018
Popular German restaurant bar chain Brotzeit will, for a limited-time only (16 January to 25 February 2018), launch a specially-curated Karneval menu across its outlets in Singapore. “Karneval”, a traditional German festival which usually marks the season before Lent, is a time when there is much joy, merriment and festivity. In Germany, circuses, social and political parodies are commonplace during this period. Once Ash Wednesday hits, Karneval ends, and the traditional season of fasting gets underway.
Although the street festivities back in Germany would feature food markets and stalls selling specialty craft beers, sausages, pretzels and the like, Brotzeit has decided that a special, additional menu is right for the season. On top of it all, there is also the Brotzeit Half-Meter Sausage Challenge! Pair up with a friend, and finish the entire half-meter of Brotzeit’s Deutsche Halbmeter Wurst, complete with sauerkraut and potato salad in a baguette, and have the sausage on the house! Of course, bragging rights are almost a guarantee if you are one of the few on the peak of glory and excellence in speed food-eating.
Continue reading “Brotzeit launches snazzy, limited-time Karneval menu; Take up the half-meter sausage challenge!”
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Suspect extradited to the United States of America to face drug charges
JOHANNESBURG: The South African Police Service on Friday confirmed that a suspected mastermind of an international drug-smuggling operation who was apprehended last year in Fourways, Johannesburg, was extradited to the United States on Thursday, June 20, 2019 to face charges of drug trafficking.
The suspect named Edwin Elochukwu Anyaoku (54), a Nigerian national, was arrested in a joint police investigation by the Hawks’ South African Narcotics Enforcement Bureau (SANEB) and Crime Intelligence (Counter Narcotics) and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) which resulted in the seizure of 29 kilograms of heroin worth more than R6 million.
SAPS said that Anyaoku was arrested with two other suspects, Lerato Diannah Mohai (42) the alleged courier and Christopher Okonkwo (53) who was the suspected scout.
Okonkwo successfully made a representation to the Randburg Regional Court last year (2018) and after careful consideration his matter was withdrawn. However the case against Mohai is ongoing at the same court.
According to Police the investigation into the group started in 2017. An undercover operation was set where Anyaoku allegedly agreed to supply heroin. Anyaoku brought 29 kilograms of heroin and after the purchase, he was arrested together with Mohai and Okonkwo.
Police further said that a request was received from the Justice Department of the United States of America for the extradition of Anyaoku late last year.
"The extradition hearing took place in December last year and Anyaoku decided to waive his right to appeal against the extradition. In April this year the extradition was authorised by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development and Anyaoku was extradited to the US with the assistance of Pretoria Interpol office yesterday," reads the statement.
Compiled by Buchule Raba - editor@goxtranews.com
Tweet us @GoXtraNews or simply send an email to our Managing Editor Buchule Raba editor@goxtranews.com for any coverage related issues or event invites. You can also Tweet @BuchuleB
Publisher: GoXtra News at 1:33 PM
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You are here: records > 2010s > season-2017 > news-archive > preview-22nd-july-23rd-july
Greenock look for two wins on key weekend
After last Saturday's washout when no games were even started in the WDCU Premier Division, Greenock's 1st XI are back at Glenpark for what is another crucial game in their league campaign.
Saturday's opponents, Kelburne, are firmly rooted at the bottom of the table, having lost all ten games that they have played this season. In their last two games, they have been dismissed for 49 by Prestwick and 47 by Clydesdale. A team, therefore, that are surely there for the taking.
WDCU CSL Premier Division Table
Net Run Rate
Ferguslie
Poloc
Kelburne
But if Greenock think that this is the case, then they need only think back to the game earlier in the season against Kelburne when they so nearly lost. Having bowled out the Paisley team for just 68, with Neil Flack and Julian Hulbert both taking 4 for 25, it seemed that Greenock would stroll to victory. That was not the case as they stumbled from 36 for 2 to 50 for 7 and then 67 for 9 before Chris Hempsey hit the winning boundary. Greenock supporters will certainly not want a repeat of that nail-biter!
Kelburne have certainly struggled this season but it should be noted that let alone nearly defeating Greenock, they also came very close to beating high-flying Ferguslie in the Paisley derby. They do have talent in their team, with South African Bradley Joynt, for one, a consistent scorer all season. They also have a lot of experience in their attack through Scott Hamilton, Jamie MacDonald and ex-Greenock slow left-armer, Dougie Wylie. However, it would appear from their last two results, that the continuing run of defeats has finally sapped them of all confidence.
Greenock for their part have had a mixed season, with good wins against Ayr and Uddingston set against defeats to the likes of East Kilbride, whose only wins this season have been against the locals.
While Kelburne have a couple of individuals who have performed well this season, Greenock possess much more strength in depth. Kyle Scrimegour with 289 runs and Neil Flack 220 head the batting aggregates in the league with Shailesh Prabhu, Louis Ware and Julian Hulbert all having scored more than 100 runs.
As regards bowling, Greenock clearly have more firepower. Julian Hulbert has taken 21 league wickets and Kyle Scrimegour 19, the second and third best tallies in the league and Neil Flack has also featured well with 13 victims. It should also be noted that skipper Jonathan Hempsey has now taken over 200 career wickets for the Club, a milestone that slipped through unnoticed a couple of weeks ago.
With Kelburne's clear weakness in batting which has prevailed for virtually the whole season, Greenock's attack should be too much for them, especially if they can dismiss Joynt before he gets established.
A win for Greenock on Saturday is essential if they wish to preserve their place in the Premier Division. The one thing they must guard against is complacency, something which seemed to be in evidence to some extent in their last game against East Kilbride. Provided they guard against this, then they ought to be too strong for Kelburne.
In fairness, Kelburne must surely be targeting at least one win this season and they may see Greenock as their best bet for this, especially given the way the first game went. This is just another reason why Greenock need to be wary. They will not want to be the team that is the first to lose to Kelburne.
Greenock have added the returning Chris Hempsey and Aidan Forrest, who were unavailable last weekend, to the squad for Saturday's match, with Chirag Pandher dropping out.
The match at Glenpark will start at 12 noon.
The match with Kelburne is kindly sponsored by The Petshop Postie
On Sunday, Greenock and Poloc will make another attempt to play their quarter-final Western Union 40 Cup tie at Glenpark after the first game was called off two weeks ago. It seems that matches between these two clubs are always beset with bad weather as both league games have already been cancelled this season.
With the semi-final, against Clydesdale, due next Sunday, a result will be needed although should Sunday again fall foul of the elements, a midweek game might be possible. Even that might be problematic as the two teams are due to meet next Wednesday evening at Shawholm in the semi-final of the West League Cup.
The same squad as for Saturday's match will feature in this game, apart from Aidan Forrest who is unavailable and who is replaced by Rod Mountford. The match will start at 1pm.
The match with Poloc is kindly sponsored by The Bluebird Cafe
The Glenpark XI are away to The Tryst, Stenhousemuir's reserve side, on Saturday. The team has had a very mixed season so far and lost the first game against their opponents by just 3 runs. They should therefore be keen to turn the tables on Saturday. This game will start at 12 noon.
The Hillend XI are also playing on Sunday with an away fixture at Hillhead in the WDCU Sunday League Division 2.
There are only two junior fixtures this weekend, both on Friday, with the Under-11s at home to Ferguslie and the Under-15s, combined with Helensburgh, away to the combined Ferguslie/Kelburne Under-15s.
Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored this season by Cleaning Supplies 4U.
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Hannahs Field
Hannahs Field Full Band
High Tide: A Tribute to Bob Marley
Chef Bliss
"These flavors were ready to dance the night away" -Michael Gannon-Hartford Courant
Chef Bliss makes you feel amazingly enlightened with his delicious and creative recipes. This trained pastry chef from Johnson & Wales University has combined his knowledge of flavor with his learnings of Natural Healing. His goal is to put the soul back in food by making your body and taste buds happy. He was a personal chef in Oregon for:
Hai Shan Center for Natural Healthcare & Heiner Fruehauf, Ph.D, L.Ac.- founding Professor of the School of Classical Chinese Medicine at National College of Natural Medicine.
Michael Katz-founder of Gemisphere, the world’s leading resource for therapeutic gemstones & author of 7 books on the Healing uses of gems.
Ada Gonzalez, N.D.-Medical expert in the field of energy medicine, international speaker & works with Olympic athletes and celebrities. Interviewed by 20/20, ABC News, USA Today.
Chef Bliss was owner/Chef of Fabadesiac in Avon, Connecticut where he created and executed 12 menus in 12 months. The name of the restaurant came from combining the words “fabulous” and “aphrodisiac”. “Good food puts you in the mood” was his philosophy. His creative inspiration comes from his travels. Bliss has cooked in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Amelia Island Plantation in the Florida Keys, The Pond House in West Hartford, Connecticut, and the Salishan Resort in Oregon. He currently specializes in nutritional healing with influences from Macrobiotic and Ayurvedic cooking styles and alternative baking (wheat free, dairy free, sugar free, etc.).
"Gourmet food from another planet" -Michael Katz-client
Recipes Here
© 2018 Hannahs Field
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Home About us Editorial board Ahead of print Current issue Search Archives Submit article Instructions Subscribe News Contacts Login
The Editorial Process | Clinical trial registry | Authorship Criteria | Contribution Details | Conflicts of Interest/ Competing Interests | Submission of Manuscripts | Preparation of Manuscripts | Copies of any permission(s) | Types of Manuscripts | Protection of Patients' Rights..| Sending a revised manuscript | Reprints and proofs | Copyrights | Checklist | Contributors' form
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These include randomized controlled trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic test, outcome studies, cost effectiveness analyses, case-control series, and surveys with high response rate. The text of original articles amounting to up to 3000 words (excluding Abstract, references and Tables) should be divided into sections with the headings Abstract, Key-words, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Tables and Figure legends.
Introduction: State the purpose and summarize the rationale for the study or observation.
Materials and Methods: It should include and describe the following aspects:
Ethics: When reporting studies on human beings, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). For prospective studies involving human participants, authors are expected to mention about approval of (regional/ national/ institutional or independent Ethics Committee or Review Board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants and obtaining assent for children aged over 7 years participating in the trial. The age beyond which assent would be required could vary as per regional and/ or national guidelines. Ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guide for, or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee (for both human as well as animal studies) must be supplied by the authors on demand. Animal experimental procedures should be as humane as possible and the details of anesthetics and analgesics used should be clearly stated. The ethical standards of experiments must be in accordance with the guidelines provided by the CPCSEA and World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Humans for studies involving experimental animals and human beings, respectively). The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the ‘Materials and Methods’ section.
Study design:
Selection and Description of Participants: Describe your selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls) clearly, including eligibility and exclusion criteria and a description of the source population. Technical information: Identify the methods, apparatus (give the manufacturer's name and address in parentheses), and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Give references to established methods, including statistical methods (see below); provide references and brief descriptions for methods that have been published but are not well known; describe new or substantially modified methods, give reasons for using them, and evaluate their limitations. Identify precisely all drugs and chemicals used, including generic name(s), dose(s), and route(s) of administration.
Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT Statement (http://www.consort-statement.org).
Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs
Initiative Type of Study Source
CONSORT Randomized controlled trials http://www.consort-statement.org
STARD Studies of diagnostic accuracy http://www.consort-statement.org/stardstatement.htm
QUOROM Systematic reviews and meta-analyses http://www.consort- statement.org/Initiatives/MOOSE/moose.pdf statement.org/Initiatives/MOOSE/moose.pdf
STROBE Observational studies in epidemiology http://www.strobe-statement.org
MOOSE Meta-analyses of observational studies in epidemiology http://www.consort- statement.org/Initiatives/MOOSE/moose.pdf
Statistics: Whenever possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Authors should report losses to observation (such as, dropouts from a clinical trial). When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomizing device), 'normal', 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. Use upper italics (P 0.048). For all P values include the exact value and not less than 0.05 or 0.001. Mean differences in continuous variables, proportions in categorical variables and relative risks including odds ratios and hazard ratios should be accompanied by their confidence intervals.
Results: Present your results in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Extra- or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix where it will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text; alternatively, it can be published only in the electronic version of the journal.
When data are summarized in the Results section, give numeric results not only as derivatives (for example, percentages) but also as the absolute numbers from which the derivatives were calculated, and specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support. Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables. Where scientifically appropriate, analyses of the data by variables such as age and sex should be included.
Discussion: Include summary of key findings (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); Strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation); Interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence (is there a systematic review to refer to, if not, could one be reasonably done here and now?, what this study adds to the available evidence, effects on patient care and health policy, possible mechanisms); Controversies raised by this study; and Future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, clinical research).
Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. In particular, contributors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. New hypotheses may be stated if needed, however they should be clearly labeled as such. About 30 references can be included. These articles generally should not have more than six authors.
Review Articles:
It is expected that these articles would be written by individuals who have done substantial work on the subject or are considered experts in the field. A short summary of the work done by the contributor(s) in the field of review should accompany the manuscript.
The prescribed word count is up to 3000 words excluding tables, references and abstract. The manuscript may have about 90 references. The manuscript should have an unstructured Abstract (250 words) representing an accurate summary of the article. The section titles would depend upon the topic reviewed. Authors submitting review article should include a section describing the methods used for locating, selecting, extracting, and synthesizing data. These methods should also be summarized in the abstract.
The journal expects the contributors to give post-publication updates on the subject of review. The update should be brief, covering the advances in the field after the publication of the article and should be sent as a letter to editor, as and when major development occurs in the field.
New, interesting and rare cases can be reported. They should be unique, describing a great diagnostic or therapeutic challenge and providing a learning point for the readers. Cases with clinical significance or implications will be given priority. These communications could be of up to 1000 words (excluding Abstract and references) and should have the following headings: Abstract (unstructured), Key-words, Introduction, Case report, Discussion, Reference, Tables and Legends in that order.
The manuscript could be of up to 1000 words (excluding references and abstract) and could be supported with up to 10 references. Case Reports could be authored by up to four authors.
Letter to the Editor:
These should be short and decisive observations. They should preferably be related to articles previously published in the Journal or views expressed in the journal. They should not be preliminary observations that need a later paper for validation. The letter could have up to 500 words and 5 references. It could be generally authored by not more than four authors.
Editorial, Guest Editorial, Commentary and Opinion are solicited by the editorial board.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order). Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in superscript with square bracket after the punctuation marks. References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. Use the style of the examples below, which are based on the formats used by the NLM in Index Medicus. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in Index Medicus. Use complete name of the journal for non-indexed journals. Avoid using abstracts as references. Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as "unpublished observations" with written permission from the source. Avoid citing a "personal communication" unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text.
The commonly cited types of references are shown here, for other types of references such as newspaper items please refer to ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.icmje.org or http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).
Articles in Journals
Standard journal article (for up to six authors): Parija S C, Ravinder PT, Shariff M. Detection of hydatid antigen in the fluid samples from hydatid cysts by co-agglutination. Trans. R.Soc. Trop. Med. Hyg.1996; 90:255–256.
Standard journal article (for more than six authors): List the first six contributors followed by et al.
Roddy P, Goiri J, Flevaud L, Palma PP, Morote S, Lima N. et al., Field Evaluation of a Rapid Immunochromatographic Assay for Detection of Trypanosoma cruzi Infection by Use of Whole Blood. J. Clin. Microbiol. 2008; 46: 2022-2027.
Volume with supplement: Otranto D, Capelli G, Genchi C: Changing distribution patterns of canine vector borne diseases in Italy: leishmaniosis vs. dirofilariosis.Parasites & Vectors 2009; Suppl 1:S2.
Books and Other Monographs
Personal author(s): Parija SC. Textbook of Medical Parasitology. 3rd ed. All India Publishers and Distributors. 2008.
Editor(s), compiler(s) as author: Garcia LS, Filarial Nematodes In: Garcia LS (editor) Diagnostic Medical Parasitology ASM press Washington DC 2007: pp 319-356.
Chapter in a book: Nesheim M C. Ascariasis and human nutrition. In Ascariasis and its prevention and control, D. W. T. Crompton, M. C. Nesbemi, and Z. S. Pawlowski (eds.). Taylor and Francis,London, U.K.1989, pp. 87–100.
Electronic Sources as reference
Journal article on the Internet: Parija SC, Khairnar K. Detection of excretory Entamoeba histolytica DNA in the urine, and detection of E. histolytica DNA and lectin antigen in the liver abscess pus for the diagnosis of amoebic liver abscess .BMC Microbiology 2007, 7:41.doi:10.1186/1471-2180-7-41. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2180/7/41
Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material.
Tables with more than 10 columns and 25 rows are not acceptable.
Number tables, in Arabic numerals, consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each.
Place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading.
Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table.
Obtain permission for all fully borrowed, adapted, and modified tables and provide a credit line in the footnote.
For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||,¶ , **, ††, ‡‡
Tables with their legends should be provided at the end of the text after the references. The tables along with their number should be cited at the relevant place in the text
Illustrations (Figures)
Upload the images in JPEG format. The file size should be within 1024 kb in size while uploading.
Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text.
Labels, numbers, and symbols should be clear and of uniform size. The lettering for figures should be large enough to be legible after reduction to fit the width of a printed column.
Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background and should be marked neatly with transfer type or by tissue overlay and not by pen.
Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends for illustrations not on the illustrations themselves.
When graphs, scatter-grams or histograms are submitted the numerical data on which they are based should also be supplied.
The photographs and figures should be trimmed to remove all the unwanted areas.
If photographs of individuals are used, their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph.
If a figure has been published elsewhere, acknowledge the original source and submit written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the material. A credit line should appear in the legend for such figures.
Legends for illustrations: Type or print out legends (maximum 40 words, excluding the credit line) for illustrations using double spacing, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, identify and explain each one in the legend. Explain the internal scale (magnification) and identify the method of staining in photomicrographs.
Final figures for print production: Send sharp, glossy, un-mounted, color photographic prints, with height of 4 inches and width of 6 inches at the time of submitting the revised manuscript. Print outs of digital photographs are not acceptable. If digital images are the only source of images, ensure that the image has minimum resolution of 300 dpi or 1800 x 1600 pixels in TIFF format. Send the images on a CD. Each figure should have a label pasted (avoid use of liquid gum for pasting) on its back indicating the number of the figure, the running title, top of the figure and the legends of the figure. Do not write the contributor/s' name/s. Do not write on the back of figures, scratch, or mark them by using paper clips.
The Journal reserves the right to crop, rotate, reduce, or enlarge the photographs to an acceptable size.
Protection of Patients' Rights to Privacy
Identifying information should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, sonograms, CT scans, etc., and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian, wherever applicable) gives informed consent for publication. Authors should remove patients' names from figures unless they have obtained informed consent from the patients. The journal abides by ICMJE guidelines: 1. Authors, not the journals nor the publisher, need to obtain the patient consent form before the publication and have the form properly archived. The consent forms are not to be uploaded with the cover letter or sent through email to editorial or publisher offices. 2. If the manuscript contains patient images that preclude anonymity, or a description that has obvious indication to the identity of the patient, a statement about obtaining informed patient consent should be indicated in the manuscript.
Sending a revised manuscript
The revised version of the manuscript should be submitted online in a manner similar to that used for submission of the manuscript for the first time. However, there is no need to submit the “First Page” or “Covering Letter” file while submitting a revised version. When submitting a revised manuscript, contributors are requested to include, the ‘referees’ remarks along with point to point clarification at the beginning in the revised file itself. In addition, they are expected to mark the changes as underlined or colored text in the article.
Reprints and proofs
Journal provides no free printed reprints. Authors can purchase reprints, payment for which should be done at the time of submitting the proofs.
The journal publishes articles on its website immediately on acceptance and follows a ‘continuous publication’ schedule. Articles are compiled for ‘print on demand’ semiannual issues.
The entire contents of the Heart and Mind are protected under Indian and international copyrights. The Journal, however, grants to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights. The journal also grants the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal non-commercial use under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Signed by all contributors
Previous publication / presentations mentioned
Source of funding mentioned
Conflicts of interest disclosed
Last name and given name provided along with Middle name initials (where applicable)
Author for correspondence, with e-mail address provided
Number of contributors restricted as per the instructions
Identity not revealed in paper except title page (e.g. name of the institute in Methods, citing previous study as 'our study', names on figure labels, name of institute in photographs, etc.)
Presentation and format
Double spacing
Margins 2.5 cm from all four sides
Page numbers included at bottom
Title page contains all the desired information
Running title provided (not more than 50 characters)
Abstract page contains the full title of the manuscript
Abstract provided (structured abstract of 250 words for original articles, unstructured abstracts of about 150 words for all other manuscripts excluding letters to the Editor)
Key words provided (three or more)
Introduction of 75-100 words
Headings in title case (not ALL CAPITALS)
The references cited in the text should be after punctuation marks, in superscript with square bracket.
References according to the journal's instructions, punctuation marks checked
Send the article file without ‘Track Changes’
Uniformly American English
Write the full term for each abbreviation at its first use in the title, abstract, keywords and text separately unless it is a standard unit of measure. Numerals from 1 to 10 spelt out
Numerals at the beginning of the sentence spelt out
Check the manuscript for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors
If a brand name is cited, supply the manufacturer's name and address (city and state/country).
Species names should be in italics
No repetition of data in tables and graphs and in text
Actual numbers from which graphs drawn, provided
Figures necessary and of good quality (colour)
Table and figure numbers in Arabic letters (not Roman)
Labels pasted on back of the photographs (no names written)
Figure legends provided (not more than 40 words)
Patients' privacy maintained (if not permission taken)
Credit note for borrowed figures/tables provided
Write the full term for each abbreviation used in the table as a footnote
Contributors' form
the right to republish the work in a collection of articles in any other mechanical or electronic format.
Click here to download instructions
Click here to download copyright form
These ready to use templates are made to help the contributors write as per the requirements of the Journal.
Save the templates on your computer and use them with a word processor program.
Click open the file and save as the manuscript file.
In the program keep 'Document Map' and 'Comments' on from 'View' menu to navigate through the file.
Download Template for Original Articles/ABSTRACT Reports. (.DOT file)
Download Template for Case Reports. (.DOT file)
Download Template for Review Articles. (.DOT file)
Download Template for Letter to the Editor. (.DOT file)
Reference style (PPS)
© Heart Mind | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow
Online since 3rd March, 2016
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Search Results: 123 found (sorted by title)
Selected Poems of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman Tuckerman, Frederick Goddard
Mazer, Ben HARDCOVER 04/15/2010 $21.00
Sharks and Rays of Australia: Second Edition Last, Peter R.
Stevens, John D. HARDCOVER 05/30/2009 $126.50
Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor Nixon, Rob PAPERBACK 03/11/2013 $22.00
The Smaller Majority Naskrecki, Piotr PAPERBACK 10/31/2007 $35.00
The Social Behavior of the Bees Michener, Charles D. HARDCOVER 01/01/1974 $75.50
The Social Biology of Ropalidia marginata: Toward Understanding the Evolution of Eusociality Gadagkar, Raghavendra HARDCOVER 11/30/2001 $141.50
The Song of the Earth Bate, Jonathan PAPERBACK 03/08/2002 $34.50
Stepping Back to Look Forward: A History of the Massachusetts Forest Foster, Charles H. W. HARDCOVER 10/01/1998 $26.50
Symbiogenesis: A New Principle of Evolution Kozo-Polyansky, Boris Mikhaylovich
Fet, Victor
Margulis, Lynn HARDCOVER 06/15/2010 $42.50
Thoreau: A Naturalist's Liberty Hildebidle, John E-DITION 05/04/1983 $65.00 Available from De Gruyter »
Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution de Waal, Frans B. M. PAPERBACK 10/15/2002 $33.00
The Urban Whale: North Atlantic Right Whales at the Crossroads Kraus, Scott D.
Rolland, Rosalind M. PAPERBACK 03/30/2010 $25.00
Vanishing America: Species Extinction, Racial Peril, and the Origins of Conservation Powell, Miles A. HARDCOVER 11/14/2016 $41.00
Vibrational Communication in Animals Hill, Peggy S. M. HARDCOVER 05/30/2008 $53.50
The Wake of the Whale: Hunter Societies in the Caribbean and North Atlantic Fielding, Russell HARDCOVER 10/08/2018 $27.95
A Walk around the Pond: Insects in and over the Water Waldbauer, Gilbert PAPERBACK 04/15/2008 $22.50
The Western Experiment: New England Transcendentalists in the Ohio Valley McKinsey, Elizabeth R. PAPERBACK 01/01/1973 $18.00 Currently unavailable
What Good Are Bugs?: Insects in the Web of Life Waldbauer, Gilbert PAPERBACK 10/25/2004 $29.00
Wildlands and Woodlands: A Vision for the New England Landscape Foster, David R. PAPERBACK 09/01/2010 $5.00
A World of Insects: The Harvard University Press Reader Cardé, Ring T.
Resh, Vincent H. PAPERBACK 04/16/2012 $22.00
Writing for an Endangered World: Literature, Culture, and Environment in the U.S. and Beyond Buell, Lawrence PAPERBACK 09/15/2003 $33.00
The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China Pietz, David A. HARDCOVER 01/05/2015 $41.00
Yellowstone's Wildlife in Transition White, P. J.
Garrott, Robert A.
Plumb, Glenn E. HARDCOVER 04/15/2013 $50.50
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Home ISP Excite@Home, McAfee.com Form Security Pact
Excite@Home, McAfee.com Form Security Pact
By Patricia Fusco | February 01, 2000
Excite@Home and McAfee.com this week teamed-up to enhance the leading cable access provider's security at home.
InternetNews.com last week reported the two companies were expected to announce the offering in an effort to secure the connections of the growing number who are using cable modems and Digital Subscriber Line services.
Excite@Home (ATHM) plans to integrate McAfee.com (MCAF) services into its online safety area of member services. @Home users may sign-up for a 90-day free trial of McAfee.com's personal firewall product.
Adam Grosser, Excite@Home president of subscriber networks, said it is committed to bringing security tools to Excite@Home users.
"The @Home service is as secure as any slower, dial-up service, only now, through our affiliation with McAfee.com, our customers can get added features that provide deeper protection capabilities," Grosser said.
Because cable broadband service operates as an "always on" connection to the Internet customers have taken a greater interest in protecting their online security.
Srivats Sampath, McAfee.com chief executive officer, said Excite@Home's addition of personal firewalls and intrusion detection capabilities would shore-up users online security.
"Our McAfee Personal Firewall and Clinic services provide added peace of mind to customers who are accessing and storing valuable information on the PCs from the Internet," Sampath said.
Application Service Provider McAfee.com also announced that it has agreed to acquire Canada-based Signal9 Solutions Canada Inc for $18 million.
McAfee.com intends to incorporate Signal9's personal firewalls and desktop security applications into its service line-up in March. The anti-hacker programming is designed for non-technical users to prevent outside access to personal computer files.
Sampath said consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the various threats posed by malicious behavior on the Internet.
McAfee.com plans to market its personal firewall services in much the same manner it offers anti-virus programs.
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The Kill The Egg Vote for IT in the D
By Dave Last updated Mar 18, 2014
Well, you can’t say we didn’t tell you this was going to happen.
We’re down to three options for our IT in the D twitter logo contest, and now it’s time for you to help us pick a winner…
Here are your three finalists, presented in no particular order.
Please cast your vote below.
conferenceITIT in DetroitIT in the DITinTheDlogoMasonictwitter
Ride 2 Recovery: Support Wounded Military Vets
Meet The Troops 2012: Dave
Susan Anspaugh-Yount (@SusanINFJ) says 7 years ago
All the cool people voted for the yellow and red one with the spokes.
Dave says 7 years ago
LOL…I sense “voter collusion” in the air… 🙂
Anne says 7 years ago
I love the binary behind the design with the colors and the spokes – I’m not an IT person – I just like the design.
Hugh Purcell says 7 years ago
I like elements of all three.
The first one because it states date and place.
The second one for the D font style and map.
The third for the ‘01010101’, which I think should be coded to say “IT in the D” in both EBCIDIC and ASCII. Some of us WILL check.
Tony says 7 years ago
Not that I’m trying to play favorites here, but any image or naming copyright concerns here? http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/12/13/it-in-the-d-gets-new-partners-extends-program/
Not on our part 🙂 We’ve been running with the name and concept for years. Hence http://www.ITinTheD.com, http://www.facebook.com/ITinTheD, @ITinTheD …all “us” and “ours”. …imitation, as they say, is the sincerest form of flattery 🙂
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Melnic's
PICTURED ARE ITEMS BOUGHT AT THE MELNIC'S AUCTION DURING MAY 2005
Copyright LJM 2005
Buy the auctioned items at ebay sometime in the near future:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8194925740&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3
AIT&rd=1
Upon first look, there was nothing exceptional about Melnic's.
A brief glance at the rows of candles, oils and incence inside the store at 3700 Arthur Street, may be lead customers to believe that they were just a mixture of colorful dyes,some oil and wax.
However, for George Christ, owner of Melnic Corporaton, the preparations he sold for the past 12
years were unique religious items. His customers came from near and far through the years
and most of those who attended an auction at Melnic's Tuesday came to buy the incence and
religious candles--although everything was on auction.Inside, there were bundled stacks of dream and lucky number books. Erby Tucker of Gary was
a faithful customer. He said the lucky numbers really work and credits the books for
winning a state lottery."If you have a certain number, stick with it," he said.There were shelves of candles and incense up for sale in the mix of items for auction. An
entire shelve of religious candles sold for as little as $5 to $8.Those candles may be
found for as much as $12 elsewhere.Amy Spencer bought some of the candles and said she planned to donate them to a social
organization.Some of the candles were labled,"Love Drawing Power Candles" and one read, "evil woman be
gone." Some had Spanish words on them. One candle was called a Tobacco candle and said to
aid in a person's release from jail or winning a court case.There were bottles of colored
powder called sachets, used to ward off evil spells, jinxes or confusion.Some of the chubby vials were labled "Stay Home" and "Do As I Say" but no one in the store
at the time wanted to discuss their purpose, in depth. Regular customers said they knew how
the more obscure items like, Mandrake root, could be used.An older gentleman, bidder number 50, bought some red and black "reverse" candles, that the
owner said customers used to reverse bad luck and spells. Highland resident, Tim McKenny bought two boxes and said he would give his candles to friends.Carey Andrews bought a display case and a pallet of products. He said he would share his
find with friends too.Some who were there made a habit of going to auctions and reselling
items.Margot Alfaro said she planned to sell the stacks of incense she bought at a flea
market."It's hard to watch your business being sold piece by piece," Hebron resident
Danielle Torkleson said.She figured, many of the items were specialty and not marketable to
a wide audience.Many of Melnic's customers were said to be appreciative of the advice they'd get from the Christ and the high-quality products. Christ said his father made all of the potions, oils, incense and candles himself.
Posted by imademesss.com at Thursday, May 26, 2005 55 comments Links to this post
Posted by imademesss.com at Friday, May 13, 2005 0 comments Links to this post
Remember what Bill Cosby said last year?
Vincent Lavar is 22-years-old and lives with his girlfriend Nicole Gordon, 19 in the Dixie Manner Apartments—which is subsidized housing in Boca Raton, FL. Neither had heard about the comments made last month by actor and comedian Bill Cosby.
When Cosby gave impromptu comments on the state of the African American community--he could not have realized the whole world was listening.
During a speech last month in Washington D. C. Cosby criticized poorer African Americans for reportedly, “not holding up their end of the bargain.”
Cosby made his infamous comments in front of a mostly well to do, well heeled, crowd at a gala commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.
Reportedly the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Kweisi Mfume and Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert were present.
Essentially, Cosby validated the perception that African-Americans who are economically disadvantaged have bad work ethics, low morals, misplaced priorities and distasteful lifestyle choices.
And they have no one to blame for their predicament but themselves.
Cosby, in effect, validated a stereotypical African American image that is hard to shake.
However, Levar and Gordon might not have heard of the unfortunate comments because they are too busy raising their two children.
Gordon has a 3-year-old son James Swain and the couple has a 9-month-old son who is named after his dad, Vincent.
Lavar is caring for his girlfriend’s oldest son as any stepfather would—accept that the couple is not married and epitomize some of the negative images in the black community that Bill Cosby spoke about last month.
But the pair feels as if they are good parents.
“I don’t care because I handle my business,” Lavar said.
Gordon said she doesn’t mind that Cosby made the statements because it’s not important to her and it doesn’t apply to her.
“It will probably make Black people look bad,” she said.
Locally, prominent and working class Palm Beach County African Americans gave comment on Cosby’s views. Many had only heard very little about the statements but enough to know that they were unvarnished comments.
Wayne Barton, founder and Chief Economic Officer for the Wayne Barton Study Center in Boca Raton said he agrees with what Cosby meant to say—that the disintegration of the Black family has taken its toll.
“We’re getting away from the original way African American families were raised years ago. Everything we did center on the church. Now, we just go there to die,” he said.
“Bill Cosby didn’t candy coat the issue. We need to really stop and think about what is going on in our households,” Barton said.
Barton said Cosby might have made the comments to, “wake up the black community,” because African-Americans are living in liberal times and youth are, at times, encouraged to be disrespectful when parents withhold discipline.
Dixie Mannor resident, Pollie Shivers, is a single mom and she agreed with what Cosby meant to say but not how he said it.
“What he said is true some of us are giving excuses for not getting a job—I don’t think his comments should have been broadcast. It’s bad enough we have (people outside of the African-American race) saying those things let alone some one of our own color,” she said.
But it's not as if Cosby's life has not been touched by tragedy.
The actor's late son, Ennis Cosby was killed in 1997. That same year he was accused of having a child out-of-wedlock. A woman named Autumn Jackson allegedly tried to blackmail the comedian. Cosby admitted he helped her financially.
At the height of "The Cosby Show" popularity, he was heavily criticized for not realistically portraying African-American family life.
He defended his characterizations of upper class blacks and so did the rest of America.
“He has more leeway to say it because he was talking about African-Americans and he is African-American--but Cosby now has the burden,” Nelson Hall, a Professor of music at Florida Memorial College in Miami said. Hall is Cuban-American. He is also the Director of Music at First United Methodist Church in Boca Raton. He said many of his friends are African-American and they seemed to agree with Cosby when he charged that some blacks don’t take responsibility for their actions and like to blame others for their bad decisions.
Rivera Beach City Manager, Bill Wilkins said that Cosby has the right to express his opinion and that the furor surrounding the comments is counter productive.
“Criticism will minimize the ongoing struggle for equal rights…everyone knows the strides we've made. Sometimes controversial comments wake up the consciousness in people,” Wilkins said.
Delray resident H. Ruth Pompey, widow of the late local civil rights activist Spencer Pompey, said she agrees with Cosby’s comments.
“I think people should think more about education. If it were me, Id’ be putting that money in a bond or something so my child could go to school. We don’t like to hear things like that--sometimes because we think that people like that don’t care--Cosby wasn’t born rich, he made sacrifices,” she said.
Pompey’s husband helped to bring an end to racial pay disparities between white and black teacher’s salaries in Delray during the 1940s.
Cosby’s comments at least have inspired spirited debate among members of the African American community.
Two friends talked about it after leaving work Tuesday in Boca Raton.
“I don’t think he should have said those things in public,” Paul Rollins said. He was dropping off a friend from work--a man who identified himself as Johnnie R.
Johnnie R said Cosby spoke out loud what is often only whispered within the African-American community.
“There are certain things you don’t say in public--but what he said is true,” he said, stating that the family unit is no longer a priority among some—even when children are involved.
However, he cautioned, “no man should judge another.”
Joe Smith, of Delray is 45 years old and says he didn’t marry the mother of his children until the youngest was 3 or 4 and he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. Cosby’s comments about lifestyle choices offended him.
“That’s why he made those comments—he doesn’t know and he is on the outside looking in,” he said.
In fairness, Cosby is familiar with certain lifestyle choices. He has had struggles of his own but a boot-strap mentality isn’t always reserved for the born-rich. Sometimes, we just forget from where we come.
Posted by imademesss.com at Wednesday, May 11, 2005 5 comments Links to this post
If You Get Me
Sometimes it's good to stop and think--do a little reflecting.
Measure what you're doing by reviewing your value structure. But
make sure you've established one.
A good value structure can keep you on the right track and out of
a lot of hot water.
Let's start with relationships. I don't have one.
I decided that I can only have a relationship with a man who gets
me. This is why I am alone.
But it's okay. I can do alone. I can't do nagging, worrying and
sour disposition.
Women who display these characteristics are often with men who
don't get them. Being in these relationships is better than being
alone to them or they've just given up and too tired to get out of
Alone is better for me than just putting up, shutting up and
putting out. But it's not just because I think I'm a better woman
but because I really just don't know how. I'll
stay on track with the quiet woman routine but then I'll lose my
concentration and forget who I'm supposed to be and before you
know it, I've opened my mouth, closed my legs and grabbed an
Then there goes the relationship.
But, I guess in the long run, it wasn't really a relationship but
just sex. A bit of passion.
Several men expected me even to carry out a pregnancy under the
quiet woman routine. But because I was playing a role and not
being myself, they thought that I would make a good baby's momma.
None had given me a ring and proposed marriage. Just wanted a baby's
momma on the side 'cause that seemed to be the thing to do.
And these men aren't slouches--by any means.
They'd have much more to lose than I if their potential love child
would have come to light.
Because I'm not a teenage girl and know the difference between
love and lust and passion and loved them enough in my own way to
do what was best--even when it was painful to do--I remained
chaste. No extra babies for me--as cute as they could be. (In my
own mind of course)
These guys, I love, figured I wasn't doing anything better (in their
mind) than to add to my responsibilities. And that they would be a
good catch for me and that I should be grateful men of their status
would even bother with the little match girl (see French
children's fable Allumette who froze to death outside of a French
bakery dreaming about food as she tried to sell matches to
passersby on Christmas Eve)
But that they wanted a piece of me forever, laying claim to me to be their
baby momma (not mama).
In a really immature way, I appreciate d
the sentiment.
It's a good stroke for the ego.
But that's all that stroke should be--good for the ego. It doesn't
need to be a life long commitment to a permanent situation where
I would be looked upon to explain how it all came about--as soon as the
potential love child grew up.
They're not always infants, babies and little kids. They become
12-year-olds with a high intellect (I told you none of the men I
know are slouches) and they would want to know why my ex-husband
isn't their father too, like their brother and sister.
Why would I want to put myself through that? Or them? Or that
potential baby daddy. He'd only be mad at me in the end when the thrill was gone and then there would still be the baby to raise, with or without a dad.
I now know the love for a child demonstrated by
their father only may go as far as the love they demonstrate for
the child's mom--whether they stay together or not.
Upon reviewing my value structure today, I figure I'm doing the
best I can with what I have. And it's nice to know you have some
value in the world--even if it is as a baby momma.
However, I have one question: how did this phenomena of baby mommas come about?
Why not marry and have a whole and complete family unit?
Posted by imademesss.com at Monday, May 09, 2005 3 comments Links to this post
Oh my eye
My contact lense slipped into the back of my eyeball Sunday while in Sunday school. I put another in so I can't tell if I have two in my right eye or not. When it slips into the back, it's hard to notice it's there.
I've started going to Sunday school. My son expressed an interest in church, so we started to go. He's seven. However, we have age appropriate classes so I'm in the Adult class. We discuss world events as it relates to religion and hold all sorts of interesting conversations. They don't make judgements--or at least they don't voice them to me. It would be difficult for me to explain why I'm out dancing and stuff way past 10 p.m. sometimes.
I guess they too were once young and in the world.
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Online Safety Resource Guide
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New humanised antibodies to treat cancer
Published on 9 May 2012
UCLB has been working closely with Professor Kerry Chester and her colleagues from the UCL Cancer Institute to support the development of new humanised antibodies with potential to treat cancer.
In a collaboration enabled by UCLB, Professor Chester will work with scientists from the Therapeutic Antibody Group at MRC Technology (MRCT) to develop humanised forms of antibodies against the promising cancer targets carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and the alpha-v-beta-6 integrin.
CEA is present on a high proportion of colorectal cancers and other cancers of the gastrointestinal tract whilst alpha-v-beta-6 is present on various cancers, including pancreatic, oral, cervical and ovarian cancer, where it appears to have a role in the growth of malignant tumours.
The project is benefitting from access to MRCT’s considerable expertise and experience in antibody engineering where murine antibodies can be transformed into humanised drug-like molecules. Once humanised, the antibody is significantly less likely to be recognized by the patient’s own immune system, preventing it from being cleared too quickly and maximising its therapeutic effect on cancer cells. Current work supported by the Debbie Fund aims to validate the therapeutic potential of these antibodies in cervical cancer.
“We are absolutely delighted with progress of this project,” said Kerry Chester, the project’s lead investigator. “This generation of humanised antibodies in collaboration with MRCT brings us a significant step closer to a new treatment for patients with cervical cancers”.
These antibodies are being commercialised in collaboration with Cancer Research Technology, the technology transfer organisation of Cancer Research UK.
Image:Immunoflourescent staining of a cancer cells targeted with one of the antibodies developed for cervical cancer treatment. Antibody bound to cells is shown in red, nuclei of cells in blue.
About UCLB
UCLB is a leading technology transfer company that supports and commercialises research and innovations arising from UCL, one of the UK’s top research-led universities. UCLB has a successful track record and a strong reputation for identifying and protecting promising new technologies and innovations from UCL academics. It invests directly in development projects to maximise the potential of the research and manages the commercialisation process of technologies from the laboratory to market. UCLB supports UCL’s Grand Challenges of increasing UCL’s positive impact on and contribution to Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing. For further information, please visit www.uclb.com
About The UCL Cancer Institute
The UCL Cancer Institute was established in 2007 and is the hub for cancer research at UCL. The Institute is located in the heart of London, and part of UCL The Cancer Institute is part of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, within the School of Life- and Medical Sciences. This School comprises the largest concentration of biomedical researchers in Europe. The Cancer Institute hosts the majority of cancer research at UCL, whilst other cancer activities across the UCL campus form part of a new Cancer Domain. The overall remit of the Institute is to develop a cancer presence and excellence, which rival other major national and international hubs for cancer research. For further information, please visit www.ucl.ac.uk/silva/cancer
About MRC Technology
MRC Technology (www.mrctechnology.org) is a technology transfer company responsible for translating cutting edge scientific discoveries into commercial products. MRC Technology adds value to cutting edge scientific discoveries through strategic patent protection and creative licensing of intellectual property (IP), through partnered research or through further scientific development. MRC Technology also has small molecule drug discovery and therapeutic antibody facilities, providing lead stage therapeutic assets to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
About Debbie Fund
Debbie Fund is set up in memory of Debbie Phillips, who died of Cervical Cancer on 11th February 2010. During the progression of Debbie’s disease, it became apparent that there was no dedicated research into a drug treatment specifically for Cervical Cancer. Debbie Fund was set up to raise sufficient funds to ensure that the necessary research could be carried out by a team of scientists at University College London. Due to the amazing efforts of Debbie Fund’s supporters, research is already under way. For further information, please visit www.debbiefund.org
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Home:Ecology, Hunting, Issues, Pollution, Uncategorized, Wildlife Rescue:Derelict Nets & Entangled Birds
Note: All gulls pictured in this post, and other trapped birds were freed from the netting.
Follow Up on 10/21/11: I phoned today and learned that an official went out to this net, confirmed what we saw in terms of bird entanglement, and holes in the net have apparently been fixed as a temporary measure, although I’m anxious to check up on the gulls myself. I was told the Westport seafood company responsible for these pens is buying new, heavy duty nets to replace this one. It’s not everyday that a wildlife situation like this gets any attention, let alone prompt attention. I’m grateful these circumstances involved some caring officials who are pursuing a solution. Officers clearly have huge priorities in an environment where their employees are already over-taxed with enforcement issues, especially, as I was told, during hunting season. If you happen to be in Westport, down at Float 4, and still see entangled gulls, please let me know and I’ll do my best to follow up.
I told Hugh that since I started working with wildlife, quite a few years ago now, my world has become decidedly darker in many ways. It’s the quandary of being informed but simultaneously understanding the full picture as a result — the many ways in which wild animals are harmed both deliberately and inadvertently. There’s not a day when one issue or another doesn’t point to some form of human intervention, whether it’s on a large scale, like bulldozing habitat for a development, or on a small scale, like a poorly-maintained net. I’m often at a loss to explain human behavior when it comes to the suffering of others. But, it’s situations like this that always remind me how compassionate acts can and must occur on minute levels, however insignificant those efforts may seem in the grand spectrum. There are countless life adages about leaving problems where they lie, so I won’t get trite on you. It stands to reason, though, that all small efforts and choices contribute to the larger whole. And as my blog motto suggests, adding one’s “light to the sum of light” might be the only recourse in a world where so much suffering prevails. It may well be the only thing most of us can do.
The photos here were taken in haste and I now wish I’d had more time to better document the situation. Hugh and I spent last Friday afternoon detangling more than 25 gulls from netting down at the Westport Marina in Washington — gulls of mixed species, including Heermann’s Gulls and various juveniles. We’re both volunteer wildlife rehabilitators in California and have some bird-handling experience. Even then, the task was arduous and required the help of two additional and cooperative fishermen to hold the nets for us. The aging rope was acting like a tourniquet around the wings and feet of the unfortunate and panicked gulls.
Gull With Foot Ensnared in Net Loop - ©ingridtaylar
This gull was particularly difficult to free. Every time we tried, the net loop would pull tighter around its foot. We finally got enough slack to open the loop and slip its foot through. It’s possible the foot was injured, but the gull could walk and fly, and wasted no time getting off the dock after we released it.
The gulls got themselves entangled while snatching up ailing fish which were floating at the surface of what we were told are anchovy pens. We did our best to contact the proper local people for assistance, to no avail. The gulls were clearly in distress, mangling their wings further as they struggled to escape. I told Hugh that given the state of their entanglement, I was sure we’d be driving home with a backseat full of gulls, en route to a wildlife hospital. But as we freed each of them and gently placed them out of harm’s way, all of the gulls were able to walk and fly without any seeming impediments.
We pulled tight the gaps, hoping to stave off similar entanglement as a temporary measure. Then we then got in touch with the local department of fish and game who will be sending an enforcement officer out to the float to check on the integrity of the nets.
Technically, this is not a derelict net … the ones floating around Puget Sound and the Pacific, ensnaring wildlife along the way. (WDFW has PDF doc explaining derelict net removal.) But the net is derelict in its own way, poorly maintained and clearly an entanglement hazard for protected species of birds. There are programs now dedicated to cleaning up marine debris and derelict nets in the Northwest. I’ll be posting about that soon.
Derelict Fishing Gear
In the interim, please, fisher-peoples … take great care with fishing gear. Nets, hooks and filament entangle many sea birds, marine mammals, turtles and other marine species and cause a great deal of death and suffering. Hugh and I have detangled our share of fishing-line messes, and always carry scissors and gloves when walking on the beach. At one marina in the Bay Area, I saw a group of young fisherman leaving a pier with the day’s catch. Whenever I’m on fishing piers, I always check for littered filament and hooks. As I walked way out onto the dock where they’d had their lines in, I saw they’d left many hooks stuck into the pier railing, all with large chunks of fish wrapped around, concealing the hook. It’s hard not to view that situation as deliberate malice, possibly toward the gulls who would have swallowed those pieces of fish. I disposed of them all.
I’ll be following up with fish and game on this gull issue.
The last time I wrote about an entangled gull, I was too late to help. I’m glad that this time, we could do something.
Related posts: Bay & Beach Flotsam
This is one section of the net — how we found it when we first came upon the gulls.
Section of Gulls Trapped Under and in Net - ©ingridtaylar
This is the primary way in which the gulls were getting entangled. They’d drop through a gap in the net, get stuck underneath, then panic and entangle themselves from below while trying to escape.
Gull Trying to Free Itself - ©ingridtaylar
This adult gull followed the trapped juvenile around the pen as it tried to free itself. I don’t know what the relationship was between the two gulls, but they were together again in the marina, after we freed the young gull.
Juvenile Trapped Under Net - ©ingridtaylar
Glenn Nevill October 20, 2011 at 4:51 pm - Reply
Thanks for doing these rescues. Always good to hear when things work out.
ingrid October 23, 2011 at 5:47 pm - Reply
Hi, Glenn, and thanks for stopping by from time to time. I feel as though I lose touch with my Bay Area roots, then names like Glenn come across the transom. I hope you are well in all respects!
Glenn Nevill November 2, 2011 at 8:23 am - Reply
Well as can be expected in these trying times. Busy at work and finding it hard to get out and photograph.
ingrid November 5, 2011 at 2:59 pm - Reply
Totally understand that, Glenn. Many fewer outings for me, too. Some of it’s work schedule, some of it is a bit less availability of wildlife space, close to home in Seattle. I do get a bit homesick thinking about the bounty right outside your door. I hope you’re in good spirits, all things considered. I’ve been keeping tabs on the rehabilitated falcons, but sadly, didn’t get around to writing about the efforts when you so kindly filled me in. I feel remiss about that but remain hopeful for positive outcomes all around. Saw that the nail-gun hawk was released! I took a training class from Rebecca and Duane at Wild Rescue. They know their stuff in the field.
Elizabeth Young November 15, 2011 at 4:38 pm - Reply
Wow. Thank you for rescuing these poor gulls and for following up to reduce the chances of future entanglements. That net system is scary. And you’ve captured a thought I’ve had many times- ” since I started working with wildlife, my world has become decidedly darker in many ways. It’s the quandary of being informed but simultaneously understanding the full picture as a result — the many ways in which wild animals are harmed both deliberately and inadvertently.” I stayed away from participating in any kind of organized rescue for many years for fear of exactly this. As always, thank you Ingrid.
ingrid November 15, 2011 at 6:37 pm - Reply
Hi, Elizabeth, rescuer and rehabilitator extraordinaire! I’ve given this concept so much thought. Hugh and I both did shelter work with dogs and cats early on, and I know you did as well. For some reason, I didn’t have the same sense of despondency in those environments. Nor have I felt it as intensely in the wildlife hospital setting. It’s always in field-style rescues that these feelings bear down in ways that can feel insurmountable. Maybe because there’s just so darned much of it. And right now, there’s only so much I can do. I think the antidote for me is to keep the adrenaline pumping so hard on rescue missions, that I never have time to think about it. And I’m actually not kidding about that. I know you could keep me busy back in the Bay Area. 🙂
When we found these gulls, one of the first things I said to Hugh was, thank god they are a protected species. In a way, it’s a horrible thing to say because I would obviously rescue any distressed animal. But having the law on your side makes it easier to have something done. Cruelty to dogs and cats, for instance, can be prosecuted. With non-native animals or birds not protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, unfortunately, there isn’t quite as much recourse with respect to legality. The same is true for wildlife “in season.” But gulls — be they liked or disliked — are protected by law and I could contact the Fish and Wildlife Department for official action on the nets … which was a huge relief. Throw in a couple of close calls with murres at that same location, and there was no question something had to be done.
International Bird Rescue & Fishing Gear Injuries October 1, 2012 at 6:54 pm - Reply
[…] entanglements, my mind raced to the gulls we tried to rescue out in Westport, Washington — gulls entangled in lazy, torn netting over bait […]
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"Bearnes" Surname
Frequency of "Bearnes" Surname in the US
The surname "Bearnes" is not included in the US Census Bureau's ranking of surnames with 100 or more people. Since fewer than 100 people with this surname were included in the 2000 Census, it is relatively uncommon.
"Bearnes" Graves on Histopolis
Histopolis currently has 3 grave(s) with the surname "Bearnes".
Search the Histopols Grave Index for the surname "Bearnes".
Resource Links for "Bearnes"
Sorry, there are currently no resource links for the surname "Bearnes".
Surnames that Sound Like "Bearnes"
The surname "Bearnes" has a Soundex code of B652. The following 869 surname(s) may sound similar to "Bearnes" since they share the same Soundex code.
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Home / entertainment / THROW BACK FRIDAY: STAR BOY (Wizkid)
THROW BACK FRIDAY: STAR BOY (Wizkid)
Wizkid goes by the real name "Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun". He his a Nigerian singer and songwriter. He started recording music at age 11 and managed to release a collaborative album with the Glorious Five, a group he and a couple of his church friends formed. Just as usual on our throw back Friday, we have brought to you amazing facts about him which you would love to know.
1. As earlier stated, his real name is Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun.
2. He was born on July 16, 1990 in Lagos into a family of 6. He hails from Lagos State, Nigeria.
3. He is the last and only son in the family.
4. His favourite Color is Black.
5. Wizkid has the record for the highest number of Celebrities featured (Cameo Appearance) on a Music Video in Africa – ‘Tease Me’ & ‘Pakurumo’
6. Wizkid got his first car in 2011 Black Honda Accord i-VTEC.
7. Before the name 'Wizkid' , he was called ‘Lil Prinz’. He changed to Wizkid in 2006
8. He formed a group back then at 11, Glorious Five and they released a 7 tracker album in Church.
9. He made 10,000 from the total sale of his first album (with Glorious 5).
10. His first break-out in the Industry was his feature on MI’s Fast Money, Fast Cars in 2009 which he helped the Chairman with Chorus.
11. Wizkid got signed to Banky w's Empire Mates Entertainment in 2009.
12. Wizkid ‘Ayo Ibrahim Balogun’ was a student of Ijebu Ode Grammar School.
13. In mid-2009, Wizkid dropped out Lagos State University (LASU) and focused on his music. He later gained admission to Lead City University in Ibadan, to study International Relations. But after two sessions, he dropped out again.
14. Wizkid’s first International Collaboration was with Akon on Don’t Dull (Remix).
15. Wizkid is the youngest Nigerian artiste to put out an internationally recognized album.
16. In April 2012, E.M.E signed a joint deal on Wizkid with Akon’s Konvict.
17. In an honest interview with Tim Westwood in 2012, Wizkid said that his dad has three wives at the same time.
18. Wizkid’s Tease me was spurred out of his provocative conversation with his Dad who has 3 wives
19. Wizkid has more collaboration than any other Nigerian artiste (both Local & International).
20. Wizkid got the 5th place on Forbes and also popular Channel O's 2013 list of the African Top 10 Richest/Bankable Artists.
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Show history for:
1979 For the first time in history a woman Margaret Thatcher is elected Prime minister in the UK. As technology becomes smaller Sony released the Walkman a worldwide success costing $200 which at that time was a significant amount of money. Also the first Snowboard is invented in the USA. The bombing by the IRA in England continues with Lord Mountbatten and three others assassinated. Following the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Iran becomes an Islamic Republic and 63 Americans are taken hostage in the American Embassy in Tehran
How Much things cost in 1979
Yearly Inflation Rate USA 11.2%
Year End Close Dow Jones Industrial Average 838
Interest Rates Year End Federal Reserve 15.25%
Average Cost of new house $58,100.00
Average Income per year $17,500.00
Average Monthly Rent $280.00
Cost of a gallon of Gas 86 cents
Sony Walkman $200.00
Jox Trainers $14.99
What Events Happened in 1979
USSR Invades Afghanistan
Margaret Thatcher elected Prime minister in UK
Severe Atlantic Storm hits Fastnet International Yacht Race and a number of boats and crew are lost
Following the Burgess, Mclean, Philby and Sir Anthony Blunt Spy Scandal he is stripped of his knighthood
SALT II arms limitation Talks signed by US and USSR
Eleven fans are killed and dozens are injured at a WHO Concert at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio
Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident after fire at reactor in Pennsylvania US
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile and takes over the Iranian law enforcement, courts and government administration and Khomeini seizes power in Iran
63 Americans are taken hostage in the American Embassy in Tehran
Iran's government becomes Islamic Republic when the Shah of Persia is forced to leave
The Dictator Idi Amin is deposed in Uganda
A mob attack destroys the US Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan
The Sahara Desert experiences snow for 30 minutes.
13 Tornadoes ripped through Texas and Oklahoma
The first black-led government of Rhodesia in 90 years takes power and the countries name is changed to Zimbabwe,
Pope John Paul II visits his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country
President Hasan al-Bakr resigns and Vice President Saddam Hussein replaces him in Iraq
The first British nudist beach is established in Brighton
Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin sign the first peace treaty between an Arab nation and the Jewish state
Lord Mountbatten and three others assassinated by the I.R.A.. He was a British admiral, statesman and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
23 people die in Nice, France, when the coastal town is hit by a tsunami
The Sandinista National Liberation Front overthrow the regime in the central American republic of Nicaragua
3000 Iranian radicals, mostly students, invade the United States embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages
China institutes the one child per family rule to help control it's exploding population
The worlds first anthrax epidemic begins in Ekaterinburg, Russia following a biological weapons plant accident
"American Airlines Flight 191" crashed and exploded in a field near O'Hare International Airport in Chicago
The price of oil reaches a new record of $24 per barrel
The British Conservative MP Airey Neave is killed by a car bomb
Pakistan's former Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is executed
Popular Culture 1979
Superman The Movie
Every Which Way But Loose
Rocky II
The Muppet Movie
The Deer Hunter
Kramer vs. Kramer
Popular Musicians
Bee Gees with " Love you Inside Out "
Gloria Gaynor with " I will Survive "
Blondie with " heart of Glass "
Popular TV Programs
Old Grey Whistle Test
The Waltons
Mork amd Mindy
VisiCalc becomes the first spreadsheet program.
Sony introduces the Sony Walkman costing $200.00
Voyager I photo reveals Jupiter's rings
The European Space Agency launches Ariane 1
Inventions Invented by Inventors and Country ( or attributed to First Use )
Snowboard USA by Daniel E Chadwick
First Commercial Cellular Network NTT
The Sony Walkman Introduced Sony
Research for this year is provided by The People History.
See History By Year and Decade for more prices and information.
Find out more about the 70s at ThePeopleHistory.com.
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The United States Land Port of Entry
Coen + Partners
Coen+Partners: The Warroad Land Port of Entry landscape design utilizes beautiful and economic materials to reflect the northern Minnesota vernacular and the dignity of the United States Government. The site is characterized by horizontal landscape interventions designed in response to the expansive horizon of the site and region. The project created a distinctive landscape that complements the architecture in a thoughtful and contextual manner, while addressing issues of sustainability and serving the Port’s security and operational needs.
SITE PLAN A Trees: Tamarack and Pine B Concrete Paving: Light & Heavy Duty C Slate Flagging Garden D Birch Trees E Tamarack Trees F Infiltration Areas G Prairie Meadow Mix H Minnesota State Trunk Highway No. 313 I Canadian National Railroad
Preliminary Contextual Site Analysis: A Borders and Transportation B Wetlands C Vegetation
A-C The Landscape Architect worked extensively with the Architect and General Services Administration (GSA) to place the buildings within the larger site context. These initial study diagrams explore overall site design layout including circulation, planting, paving, and the orientation of structures. D Reflects the masterplan selected for the completed project.
The Landscape Architect worked with the Architect and GSA to seamlessly blend complex traffic circulation requirements with the building, site design, and planting strategies.
A Commercial Building B Commercial Queuing C Primary Inspections Canopy D Main Office Area E Secondary Inspection Area F Secondary Inspection Canopy G Public Parking H Employee Parking I Outgoing Inspection Canopy
Aerial construction photograph of building and slate flagging gardens in winter. American Tamarack, one of few deciduous conifers, was selected because of its endemic presence in the region, brilliant copper fall color, and interesting winter habit.
Aerial photograph immediately following construction. The site is situated in the large, flat Glacial Lake Agassiz plane and Laurentian Mixed Forest region of northern Minnesota. The design is principally characterized by simple, horizontal interventions in response to the expansive horizon of the overall site and region.
Port of Entry, north facade at night. A native meadow prairie mix was seeded through the majority of the site while wet prairie and wetland plantings occur within the layered system of infiltration areas and reconstructed wetlands. Innovative water management and treatment systems were used to reduce overall runoff and improve water quality.
Port of Entry, north facade and wetland buffer. The landscape design played an important role in helping the project attain a LEED Silver rating. In addition to sustainable water management strategies, the design incorporated durable and low maintenance materials to help reduce upkeep and long term costs. The strategic use of native and adaptive plantings was employed to reduce irrigation consumption by 75%.
The planting design incorporated native plant material; selections were based on design effect, color, and texture as well as hardiness and maintenance requirements. Plantings include rows of American Tamarack and Whitespire Birch, flagging gardens of native sedum, and seeding of a native meadow prairie, native wet prairie mix, and wetland plantings.
Slate flagging garden planted with rows of native Tamarack. The overall site design for the Port of Entry utilizes beautiful yet economic materials reflective of the northern Minnesota vernacular. Simplicity, texture, and coherent form were overarching goals for a landscape principally viewed from one’s vehicle.
The north façade as seen at night. The site design creates a distinctive landscape that complements the architecture in a thoughtful and contextual manner, while serving the Port’s security and operational needs. Defined site lines, edges, and buffers are created through strategic plantings to reinforce site circulation, movement, and surveillance.
A night view of the entry façade. The seasonality and unique forms of the flagging gardens present comfortable, engaging, and attractive outdoor environments for Port operations and create a visually compelling spaces for both employees and visitors to the Port.
The landscape architect selected concrete paving materials for the roadway and pedestrian areas, a durable surface contrasting in color and texture with the flagging. The majority of this surfacing was designed with no curb or gutter to allow for more natural infiltration of stormwater. All buildings for the Port of Entry are contained within a heavy duty concrete pavement area, able to withstand substantial and sustained vehicular traffic.
The southwest gardens flanking the main building. Planted in native birch and sedum, these spaces form clear edges to highlight changes in circulation and speed and help define the non-occupiable areas of the site. The slate, a recycled byproduct material from a quarry in northern Minnesota, complements the horizontality of the architecture while the plant material signals seasonal cycles.
Birch trees and native sedum planted in slate flagging garden. Bold colors and textures pay homage to the greater northern midwest landscape; the reds and rusts of the sedum plantings, yellowing leaves of the birch in the fall, white of the trunks, and slate gray of the stone brighten and contrast in an autumn sunset.
Slate flagging garden with Primary Inspections Area beyond. The horizontality and strong lines suggested by the building’s materials are contrasted with and complimented by the textural layers of slate flagging and the softening influence of the plantings.
The Land Port of Entry site is located along the international border between the United States and Canada near Warroad, Minnesota.
SCOPE AND SIZE
The Land Port of Entry facility supports the mission-driven demands of the US Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency responsible for securing the nation’s borders and promoting legal trade and travel. The total site encompasses over 13.3 acres. The site and building program combined occupy 81,208 square feet of the total site area. The remaining 11.4 acres, or 89% of the total site area, have been restored using native and/or adaptive plantings implemented through the design of the landscape architect.
SITE AND CONTEXT
The site is situated within the large, flat Glacial Lake Agassiz plane and Laurentian Mixed Forest region of northern Minnesota. The context is naturally flat and surrounded by poorly drained peat lands which are dominated by bog forests of Tamarack and Black Spruce.
The design program for the facility helps manage a series of complex programmatic and operational issues including: security of the border; site circulation of commercial, private, and recreational traffic; long term cost and energy reductions through irrigation and maintenance; and site surveillance.
The landscape design established a functional, innovative, and distinctive site reflective of the region and dignity of the United States Government. The use of locally sourced and sustainable materials was highly successful and accomplished in a contemporary, beautiful, and cost-effective manner. The Port is reflective not only of the surrounding natural context and community, but of the modern era in which we live and work.
The final landscape has become an extraordinary setting serving the Port’s security and operational needs while welcoming citizens and visitors to the United States. The intervention was carried out with a clear design vision, modern aesthetic, and impeccable attention to detail, all while achieving delivery on time and within budget. In addition, the design strategically draws from and compliments both the regional environment and the building’s architecture, presenting the facility thoughtfully and compellingly. Materials selected are durable and low maintenance and help reduce long term costs and maintenance efforts.
MATERIALS AND INSTALLATION METHODS
Stone Flagging – Monolithic areas of slate flagging encompass the Port buildings while defining the non-occupiable areas of the site. The slate is a recycled byproduct from a quarry in northern Minnesota, both local and sustainable. The simple transitions between the flagging and concrete areas form clear edges while highlighting changes in site circulation and speed. The flagging is positioned and detailed to enhance the visual experience from within the vehicle, the manner in which most visitors will pass through the site. The uniformity and consistency of the flagging across the ground plane establishes a distinctive presence and sense of grounded permanence for the Port structure.
Site Paving – The landscape architect selected concrete paving materials for the roadway and pedestrian areas, a durable surface contrasting in texture with the flagging. The majority of this surfacing was designed with no curb or gutter to allow for more natural infiltration of stormwater. All buildings at the Port of Entry are contained within a heavy duty concrete pavement area, able to withstand substantial and sustained vehicular traffic, whereas a Light Duty Concrete with a distinct saw-cut pattern was used for all pedestrian areas and walkways.
Site Furnishings – Custom site furnishings were designed and integrated within the surrounding architecture and landscape, including custom cedar and stainless steel benches, cedar and stainless steel ash urns, and bicycle racks. The cedar site elements were treated with a stain to match the exterior of the Port building. In addition to being beautifully detailed, all site furnishings met the service demands and program requirements for the facility – durable, resistant to vandalism, safe, and comfortable.
Site Plantings – The planting design incorporates native plant material into the site design; selections were based on adaptability to the region, design effect, color, and texture. Growth habit, mature size, regional availability, and maintenance or preparatory requirements, were also considered. Plantings include rows of American Tamarack and Whitespire Birch, flagging gardens of native sedum, and seeding of a native meadow prairie, native wet prairie mix, and wetland plantings.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT AND CONCERNS
The landscape design played an important role in helping the project attain a LEED Silver rating. The site was designed and built using strategies intended to improve the performance of water efficiency, maintenance, stewardship of resources, and energy savings. The landscape architect addressed issues of water quality and quantity through a layered system of infiltration areas and reconstructed wetlands. The design also incorporates durable and low maintenance materials to help reduce upkeep efforts and long term costs. Finally, the strategic use of native and adaptive plantings was employed to reduce irrigation consumption by 75%. The planting design eliminated the need for any ongoing maintenance, with exception of the first two years, during which reseeding and fertilization is needed to establish a solid cover of plants.
COLLABORATION WITH CLIENT AND OTHER DESIGNERS
The landscape architects were part of a collaborative design team that addressed a complex set of operational and programmatic issues for the entire facility. The design team worked together to address issues such as maximizing sight lines across the site for officers in the main interior workspace, improving water quality, reducing water runoff, use of local materials, use of native and/or adaptive plantings, long term energy reductions, geothermal heating and cooling, and the reduction of long term costs and ongoing site maintenance.
The Warroad Land Port of Entry project has received a number of honors and awards from the General Services Administration (GSA) and American Institute of Architects (AIA) for landscape architecture, architecture, and engineering.
“… [The landscape architect] was able to create an experience of moving through a native bog landscape, arriving from one precinct to another. The materials from local quarries to the local woodland… [came] together in a very seamless fashion. The landscape architects were very keen at looking at the [existing] site and trying to magnify that experience.” – Comments from Walter Hood, 2011 GSA Awards Juror
Landscape Architecture: Coen+Partners
Location: Warroad / Minnesota / USA
Text: Coen+Partners
Photos: Paul Crosby
2010 + Infrastructure + Minnesota + USA
All projects by Coen + Partners on Landezine
Xcel Energy Plaza
Pacific Overlook
Museum Park Louvre Lens
Orlyplein, Amsterdam
Solitude Bench by Streetlife
Parco Chair by Nola
Wing UTC by Bellitalia
Portiqoa by mmcité1
CDG 101 Bench by StuGi Urban Art & Design
Solid Meet&Work System by Streetlife
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Is It A Toilet? Is It A Canvas? Is It A Dating Site?
'Modern art' clicked during a trip to Amber Fort, Jaipur
Like any other date, 18 April passed by. But not before it was celebrated with much fanfare and media attention across the world as 'World Heritage Day". There were seminars, heritage walks, quizzes, interactive programmes, slogan contests, a Twitter trail of hash tags, pictures flooding Instagram. It seemed as if everyone had a stake in saving our ancient heritage sites and historical monuments.
But even as diverse voices chimed as one to commemorate our glorious past, the chorus felt like a dirge. An obituary. It was as if a monument in its death throes was witnessing from its half-grave the soft pastel wreaths being offered as a mark of respect along with a few kind words in remembrance of its erstwhile stardom. Listening to futile prayers to "let's keep it alive forever". Now that we did our bit in paying condolences, may its dear soul rest in peace while it actually rests in pieces.
As an avid traveller who has traversed the most difficult roads to scale the heights of our country's majestic forts, I can vouch that we are too rich to ever get ripped off our national heritage. No matter in how bad a shape we leave our monuments, their ruins will speak of its grandeur and legends of bravery. Unless of course we try to overwrite these legends with our hastily scrawled names and doodles.
The moment you enter an old monument, somewhere in the corner of the entrance you will spot welcoming graffiti carved on the wall by a former visitor. Most likely, the graffiti will be a proclamation of profound love for his sweetheart, often in the form of a heart pierced with Cupid's arrow etched with the names of our very own Romeo-Juliet, or perhaps excerpts from an open love letter mostly ending with "I luv U". At times, you might discover a tourist's knowledge of human anatomy, especially genitalia. Whatever form it takes, there will always be an indelible mark of a tourist's courteous presence.
As you tear yourself away from these modern-day murals and advance towards the dark and begrimed rooms, you stagger under an olfactory assault. While the tourist guide narrates legendary tales of the fort and insists that you go deeper towards the corner to get a feel of the monument's earlier magnificence, all you can think of is the ammonia flooding your nostrils. And then it dawns on you. The ammoniac smell originates in the now-dry urine of those who came here before you. Maybe they just couldn't wait to use the public utilities just a few metres away from the site.
While government authorities take special care to place specific signboards instructing tourists to follow certain guidelines, the rebellious child sheltered within an adult mind immediately pops out to break rules. If the sign warns not to pluck flowers, somebody will pick their very own bouquet. In signboards apprising "Do not scribble on the walls", "not" will be scratched off. At places where "Do not touch the wet paint" is subscribed, impressions of palms like dirty X-ray bones will be imprinted forever. A "Photography Prohibited Area" will be illuminated by flashes from hidden mobile cameras and in all possibility, most selfies will be clicked in "Danger: Stay Away" zones.
There are other pastimes too. Visitors to heritage site seem to have a great proclivity for spitting out great gobs of reddish brown paan masala (tobacco) commixture freshly prepared in their mouths, staining the walls in a botched water-drop fashion. Noses are blown and mucus ejected at the mere hint of a scratchy nostril or throat. Such emergencies cannot be postponed until reaching a toilet or bin.
Nevertheless, whether these heritage buildings may or may not be human friendly, they are indeed the most serene abode to monkeys, cows, stray dogs, snakes and bats. The authorities also usually let them be, which is why we were shocked when recently the parliamentary standing committee banned the daily procession of some 150 buffaloes across East Gate and VIP Gate of the Taj Mahal in a concerted effort, fearing it could dirty a world heritage site (read, it could impede VIP visits).
And why just animals? The sequestered rooms, secluded gardens and dense bushes in the vicinity of old dilapidated monuments offer young couples a safe and secret dating place, where they can easily meet or mate, away from the eyes of a cynical society. "It must be a rabbit," you hurriedly tell children straining to see the cause of the commotion behind the rose bushes. Then for fear of causing embarrassment, you take a different route.
We hear that the recent earthquake in Nepal savaged many monuments of historical significance, and we once again paid tribute to their dear departed remains. Perhaps we didn't realise that whatever happened was just nature doing to them for one day, what we have been doing bit-by-bit for years now.
[This post by the author was originally published on Huffington Post.
Incidentally, this post also got chosen as best pick on Blogadda's "TANGY TUESDAY" series. ]
Atul kumar 10 November 2017 at 20:08
Very beautifully chosen words. Excellent.
So happy to hear from you. Thank a bunch, man!
Tony Frater 31 May 2018 at 06:24
If I'm understanding the question correctly, instead of asking HOW to behave while dating, it seems like the question is asking a more fundamental question about WHO to date..
Instead of answering this question myself, I would like to just point you to an article: How to Identify Real Dating Site Members btw this article is from Online Dating Security Advisor
Is It A Toilet? Is It A Canvas? Is It A Dating Sit...
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New Zealand Through To The World Cup Final With Win Over England
Nov 16, 2008 League Freak World Cup News 0
New Zealand has won a great test match beating England 32-22 and booking a place in the 2008 World Cup Final.
It was a fantastic game to watch and at time it looked like either team might win the game, but the Kiwi’s always seemed to have something in reserve.
England probably played their best game of the World Cup but still look like they need another month of football to work out where they really want to be. Too late!
Anyway, lets have a good look at how both sides went.
New Zealand have a few things to work on looking towards the final.
They have a problem with their defensive line, they are strong around the ruck, but they are a bit lazy wider. This means if the dummy half can get out and draw in the defense around the ruck, there is a bit of space just wider that a running forward can get some good meters out of.
Lance Hohaia still looks shaky at the back and I would be tempted to have Sam Perrett start the final at fullback instead.
The Kiwi’s also drop their heads very quickly when the game isn’t going their way. They have the skill and ability to cover mistakes and recover from a bad position, but they need to work on the mental side of the game as well.
You can put that down to it being a young side, with a few players who are not really seasoned playoff performers.
On a positive note they look at lot better around the halves with Nathan Fien playing at halfback and they can put on some very nice plays out wide with Marshall, Fien and even forwards like Blair and Smith being able to all use their ball playing skills to put the opposition under pressure.
I really like the Kiwi forward pack. If they can just get a bit more impact from a few of their bench players they will be able to cause some problems for Australia.
England played well when they got a good amount of possession but it seemed like they needed the Kiwi’s to hand the ball over to them on back to back sets for England to really make anything happen.
They looked good around dummy half with Roby and Higham, but for some unbelievably stupid reason Tony Smith had Rob Burrow then play hooker for pretty much the majority of the game!
Danny McGuire looked at his best when given the role to guide the team around the park and Purdham and Westwood made good on their elevation into the starting side.
The familiar problems were all there still for England though.
Defensively when they have to deal with decoy runners, they simply have no idea what to do, they are completely confused and they make terrible decisions which leads to easy tries.
They also don’t have any idea how to break down a good defense. In the 51st minute England had New Zealand on the back foot and defending their own goal line. Higham went for a dummy half scoot, which would work in Super League, but doesn’t work at this level, and it was an opportunity lost….it was a very telling play on the short comings of English players.
Gleeson was diabolical in defense. he wants to play in the NRL but he will be money in the bank for opposition teams, he has no idea how to defense.
Ade Gardner was involved the whole game, and its fair to say that this test match summed up his career. He can do some good thing, a lot of which is under rated by England fans. Then he’ll go and do something that whats you think “What is he thinking!”. I think he is worth persisting with because lets face it, who else has England got?
Wellens again was terrible and ended up being replaced by Leon Pryce, the type of decision that must have been thought of going into the match and yet another decision that is terrible.
If you think Wellens isn’t going to give you what you want at fullback over the full 80 minutes, don’t pick him in the side!
Rob Burrow again offered nothing, in fact the best kick of the whole World Cup for England came from Purdham from a scrum. You have to wonder how many years it will take England before they stop this stupid Burrow experiment that has been a failure.
At the end of the day, England just are not good enough, but I lay a hell of a lot of blame for their World Cup performance at the feet of Tony Smith.
He came in with ideas, all of which have been wrong. He failed to prepare the team for what they would encounter in the World Cup.
His team selections were all over the place, his in game decisions and tactics were terrible and his off field bleating was that of a coach in over his head.
He waited until the World Cup itself to start to experiment with the side that worked the best and as he got the job half done, the World Cup was over for them.
England now have a lot to think about as far as the direction of the English game goes. I’ll be writing a feature article on what I would do to improve England standards very soon, so keep and eye out for it.
Adam Blair, Ade Gardner, Ben Westwood, Benji Marshall, Danny McGuire, England, James Roby, Jeremy Smith, Lance Hohaia, Nathan Fien, New Zealand, Paul Wellens, Rob Burrow, Sam Perrett, Tony Smith, World Cup
The 2008 Rugby League World Cup Final Preview - Australia vs New Zealand Egocentric England Refuse To Take Any Blame For Their Own Terrible Performances
A well known Rugby League writer, League Freak has established a reputation among supporters of the game for his fearless commentary and unmatched insight. With a reach that spans both sides of the globe, League Freak has produced an independent network that allows him to distribute content to his many thousands of followers. He is the owner and main author of LeagueFreak.com
Mid Season Rugby League International...
Podcast: Fergo and The Freak –...
It’s Time For International Rugby...
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Colorado section of the CDT
Hot on the heals of last weeks New Mexico section, here’s the highlights of the Colorado. Set to the beat of Rock and Roll, Part 2 by Gary Glitter (no comments about kiddy fiddling please).
As you’ll gather from the video, the defining aspect of Colorado was probably the snow. When we entered Colorado and crossed the San Juan Mountains (in June) you could barely follow any kind of footpath. It was mostly buried deep under snow so the map and compass were always at hand taking bearings and working out where over the next ridge we were supposed to aim. We had days where we’d hardly step foot on bare earth all day and it was a strugle to find anywhere to pitch our tent on the evening. But as June turned into July things started to melt and there was a bit more grass to laze about on at lunchtime, but this caused it’s own problems of water logged ground and swollen streams to cross…
Our favourite section of Colorado was the San Juan Mountains, you might notice a couple of extra people in the video – that’s Boston & Cubby, two fellow CDT’ers we helped through the start of this tricky section. It’s probably worth noting me & Paul were the only people out of the 11 northbounders to complete the San Juan’s, everyone else took the Creede cutoff. But probably the best singular highlight was climbing Mount Elbert, which is the highest mountain on the Continental Divide. The long panorama towards the end of the video is the awe-inspiring view from the top. But also for me, my girlfriend Nicky came out halway and walked with us for 2 weeks (we had to slow down a bit for her).
We had our best Steak of the CDT here, it was at the Back Street Steakhouse in Grand Lake. (probably our most expensive meal too…)
About a third of the way in there’s a shot of me in the tent during a lighting storm. This was probably the scaryest moment on the CDT, lightening was hitting the ground every 10-15 seconds and all round us in every direction… After crouching down in the trees for a while, we decided we couldn’t bare the sight of it anymore and had to just get in the tent, close and eyes and hope that we waked up in the morning! Well we did :) and we were at the Wyoming border a few days later, the halfway point of the CDT.
Dec 07 This entry was posted in My Work, Walking by cookie. Bookmark the permalink.
3 thoughts on “Colorado section of the CDT”
cookie on 11 December, 2008 at 2:04 pm said:
I filmed it on a Sony HDR-SR12, it’s got a 120GB hard drive which you need for a six month walk! It performed pretty well, got it wet and dropped it a few times, but it kept on working. It seems to pick up a lot of background wind noise, in retrospect I probably should of got an external mic.
Noodle on 11 December, 2008 at 1:56 pm said:
First: Gorgeous
Second: What sort of camera where you using?
Plumby on 10 December, 2008 at 3:03 pm said:
After so long, that tune sounds fresh!… got some funny looks from my office compadres’ though!
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ZAINWESTUJ W KĘTRZYNIE
Aktualności biznesowe
O Kętrzynie
Warto zainwestować w Kętrzynie
Wsparcie dla inwestora
Kontakt dla inwestora
Invest in Kętrzyn
About Kętrzyn
It is worth investing in Kętrzyn
Support for the investors
Investment offer
Contact for investors
The city of Kętrzyn has attractive investment areas. 80% of the aera is covered by the range of local spatial development plans. The total area of the land with provisions for an industrial activity in the Kętrzyn municipality is about 79 ha. All investment areas in the Municipality of Kętrzyn are partially or completely developed plots. The offer of investment areas is at a high level when it comes to the diversification of industries and the functional and surface-level diversity of the investment areas. The areas are located in the center of Kętrzyn and on its peripheries.
There is a Special Economic Subzone in Kętrzyn, separated from the Warmian-Masurian Special Economic Zone. Up till now one sub-zone has been established, but the residents of the city are willing to create a SEZ in other parts of the city.
The Kętrzyn city has its own production sites that are attractive to the industrial, service and technological sectors.
Plot: Ogrodowa st., area: 1.8267 ha
Owner: the city of Kętrzyn
Location: Kętrzyn, Ogrodowa street
Number and the area: No. 369/7 with a total area of 1.8267 ha
Purpose in the local spatial development plan: industry, service and warehouse
Communication: provincial road – No. 591, railway station – 2 km, airport – 80 km
Plot: Chopina street, area: 0,75 ha
Location: Kętrzyn, Chopina street
Number and the area: No. 349/7 with a total area of 0,75 ha
Purpose in the local spatial development plan: unobtrusive service area
Communication: provincial road – No. 591, railway station – 0,5 km, airport – 80 km
Plot: Bałtycka street, area: 1,39 ha
Location: Kętrzyn, Bałtycka street
Number and the area: No. 13/2 with a total area of 0,75 ha
Number and the area: No. 9/2, 10/2 with a total area of 2,21 ha
Communication: provincial road – No. 591, railway station – 2 km, airport – 80 km.
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Auburn SRA General Plan Public Meeting - June 26
AUBURN SRA PUBLIC OPEN HOUSE
Please join us at the next public open house for the Auburn State Recreation Area General Plan and Resource Management Plan (GP/RMP).
California State Parks (CSP) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation invite you to attend an interactive open house public workshop on the draft CSP proposed action for the Auburn State Recreation Area (SRA) General Plan/Auburn Project Lands (APL) Resource Management Plan.
* WHEN: Tuesday, June 26, 2018; drop in anytime from 5 to 8 pm
* WHERE:
Gold Country Fairgrounds (Sierra Building)
209 Fairgate Road
Auburn, CA 95603
HISORTY
In December 2017 and January 2018 hundreds of people provided their input on the draft alternatives, including over 150 people who attended a public workshop, over 800 people who participated in an online questionnaire, and over a dozen public agencies that provided comments. This input was considered during modifications to the draft alternatives and selection of the CSP proposed action that will be presented for discussion and comment at the June meeting.
Please save the date and share this message with your friends, coworkers, and neighbors, so they can participate, too!
More information on the alternatives, including the draft CSP proposed action, will be available on the website:
www.parks.ca.gov/planasra
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=24325
If you have questions or would like to share your ideas, suggestions, or comments, please contact the planning team at:
* WRITE:
Auburn SRA GP/RMP
c/o Cheryl Essex, California State Parks
plan.general@parks.ca.gov
* OR CALL:
If you need assistance to participate in the planning process effectively, please contact the planning team above at least 72 hours in advance of the meeting.
Nevada CO Board of Supes proclaim weekend of events "Celebration of Trails"
On Tuesday, Nevada County Board of Supervisors voiced numerous reasons to support local trails for hiking, biking and equestrian riding — from health to the economy — while unanimously proclaiming Thursday, May 31, through June 3 as Celebration of Trails Weekend.
"The economy in this county depends heavily on trails," said Hank Weston, District 4 Supervisor.
"I'm a huge fan of hiking and trails," said Heidi Hall, District 1 Supervisor who along with Richard Anderson, District 5 Supervisor supports the future Pines to Mines Trail that will someday link the towns of Nevada City and Truckee. Hall hopes to participate with other outdoor recreationists in Bear Yuba Land Trust's first Hike-A-Thon on Saturday, June 2, during the region's biggest showcase of local trails — Celebration of Trails Weekend taking place Thursday, May 31, through June 3.
This year, the four day event will kick off with a Fireside Chat at Inn Town Campground featuring local trails author Hank Meals on Thursday, March 31; followed by an Ales for Trails event at ol' Republic Brewery Tap House on Friday, June 1; a Hike-A-Thon on the future Pines to Mines Trail and vendor villages at two locations with Yuba Bus shuttles running all day on Saturday, June 2; and concluding with a variety of work days, hikes and rides on local trails on Sunday, June 3.
This year's participants include: Bicyclists of Nevada County (BONC), Gold Country Trails Council, Pacific Crest Trail Association, Forest Trails Alliance, Yuba Trails Stewardship, Tahoe National Forest, Sierra Club-Sierra Nevada Group, State Parks, Sierra Fund, Two Chicks Beef Jerky, Gold Crush Climbing Gym, Mountain Recreation, Yuba Bus, KVMR, Folk Trails Hiking Club, City of Grass Valley, City of Nevada City, County of Nevada, Nevada Irrigation District, Wolf Creek Community Alliance, FREED and more.
"Partnerships and collaboration help create the fabric that weaves our shared interests into the beautiful tapestry of the place we belong. We are inspired to contribute to this shared vision of connected trails between and within communities," said Zachi Anderson, Executive Director of Forest Trails Alliance.
Welcome Michael Green, Tahoe National Forest Acting Deputy Forest Supervisor in Nevada City
Tahoe National Forest would like to welcome Michael Green as our new Acting Deputy Forest Supervisor at the Supervisor’s Office in Nevada City. Prior to arriving at the Tahoe, Michael was Deputy Forest Supervisor at Six Rivers National Forest in Eureka, California. His previous experience and communication skills will be an asset to the Tahoe National Forest and to the community.
Michael grew up in Savannah, Georgia and completed his career with the U.S. Army as an Airborne Medic, where he completed more than 80 jumps. He also worked as the Equal Employment Opportunity Specialist with the U.S. Army. From 1996 until his military retirement in 2009, he was a medic recruiter for the U.S. Army.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology, and his Master of Arts Degree in Leadership. Michael began his career with the U.S. Forest Service in 2010 as the Civil Rights Officer with the Lassen National Forest. Michael also detailed as the Acting District Ranger and the Deputy Forest Supervisor in California. His goal is to become a Forest Supervisor one day.
What Michael enjoys most about his career with the Forest Service is working in public service. He says, “It is very rewarding to be in leadership and keeping our natural resources healthy for future generations is extremely important. If we don’t protect our forests now, they may be gone forever! There are a lot of people working with the Forest Service that are just as passionate about our environment. Michael receives personal satisfaction working with the Forest Service and we are very grateful to have him onboard.
See Press Release HERE.
Busy Memorial Weekend on our public trails
We have a busy Memorial weekend coming up on the trails. In addition to scheduled events, there will be loads of families, dog walkers, birdwatchers, seniors, you name it, enjoying our public trails. Be aware that ALL trail users want to share the trail safely, and it is up to you to make sure you aren't going too fast on blind corners and hills. You certainly don't want to run into and hurt someone (or dog or horse) or scare people off the trail. Put your dogs on leash so they are safe for other trail users, and themselves, as rattlesnakes are numerous this year.
Here are some of the events on the Mother Lode Trails Calendar - if you have events on our public trails, be sure to send MLT an email and it will be posted.
Western States Training Runs #2, 3, 4- Memorial Weekend Auburn State Recreation Area, Auburn, CA,
YBONC Dirt Classic Mt. Bike Race Series and practices - TNF Conservation Road, Nevada City, CA,
Western States Training Runs Robinsons Flat Campground, Placer County, CA,
GCETF Dru Barner Fun(d) Ride/Camp - Memorial Day weekend (equestrian) Dru Barner Campground, Georgetown, CA
GCETF Dru Barner Fun(d) Ride/Camp - Memorial Day weekend (equestrian) Dru Barner Campground, Georgetown, CA, USA
Western States Training Runs Drivers Flat Trail Head, Foresthill Road, Foresthill, CA,
REI Women's Intro MTB - mt. bike Granite Beach, Granite Bay, CA,
1. Western States Training Runs #2, 3, 4- Memorial Weekend Auburn State Recreation Area, Auburn, CA,
2. Western States Training Runs Sliger Mine Road, Greenwood, CA, United States
Wolf Creek Trail opens in Grass Valley
On a rainy April night in 2006 the Grass Valley City Council unanimously passed a resolution in support of the Wolf Creek Parkway, thereby adopting the Parkway Alignment Study and Conceptual Master Plan. This action came on the heels of an extensive series of public meetings that confirmed widespread community support for the project. A "Wolf Creek Trail" is also mentioned in the 2020 General Plan adopted in 1999 and the Downtown Strategic Plan from 2003."
Photo caption: "Grass Valley Mayor Howard Levine (right) and Wolf Creek Commons co-housing's Bob Branstrom, lead the way on the inaugural hike of the Wolf Creek Trail, which celebrated it's official opening for public use Saturday morning. The trail begins at the Grass Valley Wastewater Treatment facility, and follows Wolf Creek downstream for one mile before ending at the Wolf Creek co-housing development. While the current portion of the trail only spans one mile, plans are already in the works to extend the length of the trail." (Photo credit, Elias Funez)
Now, in 2018, finally, a one-mile stretch of trail along Wolf Creek has opened for public use.
The creation of the trail was made possible through the efforts of the Bear Yuba Land Trust, the Wolf Creek Community Alliance, the City of Grass Valley and various other public and private property donations and easements. It is the first phase in a series of planned trails along Wolf Creek that call for pedestrian bridges over Little Wolf Creek and Wolf Creek.
On Saturday, Grass Valley Mayor Howard Levine, along with members of the Wolf Creek Community Alliance, led the first group of hikers along the trail. Animal artwork provided by Grass Valley Charter School students helps to mark the way of the trail, which begins at the Grass Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant, 556 Freeman Lane, and ends at the Wolf Creek Commons co-housing at Freeman Lane and McKnight Way.
The trail passes the portion of Little Wolf Creek where a massive sinkhole formed in January of 2017, and runs along a portion of the service road made during the repair process.
"We don't own the sinkhole property as of yet," Mayor Howard Levine said to attendees of the hike. "We're negotiating with the property owner. We're very close on the cost of the land."
The Wolf Creek Trail continues beyond the Little Wolf Creek sinkhole property, then follows a service trail created during the homeless camp clean up in the summer of 2016, which was the impetus for the creation of the Wolf Creek Trail.
City officials hope providing public access to Wolf Creek will keep people from creating encampments in the Wolf Creek drainage.
"We pulled 10,000 pounds of trash out of there," Mayor Levine said about the 2016 camp cleanup. "And hundreds of needles."
Members of the Wolf Creek Community Alliance will be maintaining the trail and have already begun building portions of trail that travel closer to the creek.
Added by Don Pelton:
"An important influence in the creation of this trail has been the Bear Yuba Land Trust, who have been working tirelessly for the last few years to make this first stage of the greater trail plan a reality. And, the idea for the trail originated more than a decade before the recent cleanup of the homeless camp. It goes back at least to 1999, as explained below in a paragraph from the Wolf Creek Community Alliance webpage:
"On a rainy April night in 2006 the Grass Valley City Council unanimously passed a resolution in support of the Wolf Creek Parkway, thereby adopting the Parkway Alignment Study and Conceptual Master Plan. This action came on the heels of an extensive series of public meetings that confirmed widespread community support for the project. A "Wolf Creek Trail" is also mentioned in the 2020 General Plan adopted in 1999 and the Downtown Strategic Plan from 2003."
Much of this article was written by Elias Funez and was published in The Union newspaper, CLICK HERE to see that article and more pictures.
New mt.bike shuttle service at Harmony Ridge - Pioneer Trail
Yuba Bus is now offering a scheduled Mountain Bike Shuttle service up to the popular trails off of Route 20 on Harmony Ridge so mt. bikers can experience these trails downhill only. The first weekend was April 28 and April 29.
HIKERS, RUNNERS, EQUESTRIANS, DOG WALKERS - BE AWARE THERE WILL BE MORE DOWNHILL MT. BIKES THAN USUAL ON THESE TRAILS.
May 12 & 13, 2018
The first pickup will be at the Tour of Nevada City Bike Shop. It will go up Highway Route 20, so you can ride downhill all the popular trails.
Service pick ups:
Harmony Ridge Market
Bottom of Scotts Drop
White Cloud Campgound
Skillman Horse Campground
Omega.
There will be time enough to go from Omega to Nevada City - twice
At this time, we will Yuba Bus said they will NOT be picking up at the bottom of the Hoot Trail.
For more information and to purchase tickets in advance CLICK HERE.
Sterling Pointe Equestrian Staging drinking fountain rattlesnake
On May 8, a trail user went to use the stone water fountain at Sterling Pointe Equestrian Staging and found this visitor waiting for her. (Photo credit: Kristi Christianson, from the Sterling Pointe Equestrian Staging Area Facebook page)
Be aware that it is almost the end of rattlesnake breeding season and they are out and about looking for last chance mates. Stay on marked trails, wear boots and long pants, LOOK. Don't wait for a rattle sound, many Folsom Lake SRA rattlensnakes have evolved to no longer rattle. We seem to have a bumper crop of rattlesnakes this year!
BE CAREFUL! Creekside Trail's one-way traffic sign is missing
Hidden Falls Creekside Trail is one of the most beautiful in the park, but also narrow, cliffy, and unsafe for two-way travel. Within days of its opening, there were several near miss collisions, so the Creekside Trail was signed "one way" by the Parks administration (see map).
The sign has worked. Bicyclists, horses and hikers all are going the same direction and rarely have dangerous encounters. Today, MLT got two alerts that someone has removed the One Way sign. Since the missing sign, several people were observed going the wrong way on the trail, and one trail user almost ran into another one.
The Park administration has been alerted through Park Watch Report, and we assume the sign will be replaced ASAP, but until then, be careful.
Acorn Creek Trailhead Grand Opening May 4
The public is invited to begin using the new Acorn Creek trailhead and trail near Folsom Lake on May 4. A ribbon cutting and trail dedication ceremony is scheduled Friday, May 4 at 10am. Details and directions at www.ARConservancy.org/events Please RSVP to stewardship@ARConservancy.org
In 2011 and 2012 the American River Conservancy (ARC) completed the acquisition phase of the Salmon Falls Ranch Project, acquiring 757 acres at the western terminus of the South Fork American River Trail system. Beginning in fall of 2016, ARC and its partner the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have worked to complete a one-mile trail and trailhead facility located off of Salmon Falls Road, approximately 4 miles north of El Dorado Hills, California. The Acorn Creek Trailhead is a publicly accessible parking area and trailhead for hikers, mountain bicyclists, and equestrians, as well as general day-use public recreation associated with non-motorized trails and wildlife viewing. The trailhead and the one-mile connector trail links recreational trail resources that are a part of the South Fork American River Trail (SFART), managed by the BLM, California Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) and ARC.
We’d like to thank our volunteers, donors, and community for their support and patience. We will honor our large donors with a plaque at the trailhead. This project was made possible through grants and support from the State of California Natural Resources Agency, REI Co-op, the Bureau of Land Management Mother Lode Field Office, El Dorado Hills Endowment as well as numerous individual donors.
Those attending who plan to hike please bring appropriate attire, hiking shoes, and water. Due to limited parking, please do not bring horse trailers on opening day until after 4pm.
After May 4th there is a day use fee of $5.
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New York History
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Iroquois Indian Museum Offers Early Technology Day
The Iroquois Indian Museum in Howes Cave, NY kicks off a celebration of our 30th Anniversary on Saturday, April 10 with the 1st Annual Early Technology Day, their annual Spring Party and a special screening of a new documentary on the museum’s history.
Early Technology Day highlights include: demonstrations of the process of flint knapping, fire making, atl-atl spear throwing, early archery and show-and-tell, and displays and demonstrations from the nearby Old Stone Fort Museum Complex. Flint knapping is the ancient art of making chipped stone tools. Activities take place on the Museum grounds from 10 to 3.
At 4 p.m. there will be a premier of “A Museum Is Born” a 40 minute documentary produced, videotaped, and edited by Dennis Shaw, Shaw Video Productions, of Richmondville. The DVD tells the museum’s history through interviews with the founding Director and current Trustee – Christina Johannsen Hanks, Curator – Stephanie Shultes, Native American Educator – Mike Tarbell, and Director – Erynne Ansel-McCabe. Native American artworks featured at the museum, old photographs, and past exhibits are also featured. The Documentary was made possible in part with public funds from the Decentralization Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered through the Tri-County Arts Council.
The celebration of Native American performers continues with an opening reception from 3 to 6 p.m. for the 2010 exhibition “Native Americans in the Performing Arts: From Broadway to Hollywood”. Countless Native actors have contributed to the success of stage and screen productions for well over a century. The 2010 exhibit presents the histories of the early Wild West performers, the Silent Movie Stars, the talented character actors, and today’s hot new prospects. Highlighted actors include, Jay Silverheels of “Tonto and the Lone Ranger” fame- Cherokee humorist Will Rogers- Alex Meraz who plays Paul in “New Moon” and “Eclipse”, and Elaine Miles who portrayed Marilyn on the popular television show “Northern Exposure”. The exhibition runs from April 1 to December 31.
For more information contact the Museum at: Iroquois Indian Museum, P.O. Box 7, 324 Caverns Road, Howes Cave, NY 12092, 518-296-8949, info@iroquoismuseum.org or visit their web site at www.iroquoismuseum.org
31st Annual Iroquois Indian Festival This Weekend The 31st Annual Iroquois Indian Festival takes place on Saturday, Sept. 1 and Sunday, Sept 2, at the Iroquois Indian Museum, 324 Caverns Road. For two days, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., the […]
Iroquois Indian Museum Prepares Opening, Events The Iroquois Indian Museum opens for its 2012 season on May 1 with a new exhibit and special events planned throughout the year. From May 1 until the closing day on November 30, the Museum […]
DATE CHANGE:30th Annual Iroquois Indian Festival The Iroquois Indian Museum of Howes Cave, New York, will host the 30th Annual Iroquois Indian Festival on Saturday, October 15 through Sunday, October 16 (date corrected 10/14). Festival […]
Uncategorized Archaeology, Cultural History, Documentary, Iroquois, Iroquois Indian Museum, Native American History Leave a comment
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NHL Ticket Exchange - Buy/Sell
Chychrun
position: Defenseman
Drafted: Philadelphia
Round: 2nd
Draft Year: 1984
Overall: 37th
Birthplace: Lasalle, QC, CAN
4/1/1990 DET
0 0 0 +0 2 0 0 0
3/31/1990 @ NYI
0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 0
3/29/1990 WSH
3/25/1990 @ NYR
3/24/1990 NJD
'89-'90
79 2 7 9 -12 248 0 0 1
262 3 22 25 -14 742 0
19 0 2 2 -3 65 0
Missed majority of 1990-91 due to wrist injury vs. Toronto, November 23, 1990. Traded to Los Angeles by Philadelphia with Jari Kurri for Steve Duchesne, Steve Kasper and Los Angeles' 4th round pick (Aris Brimanis) in 1991 NHL Draft, May 30, 1991. Traded to Pittsburgh by Los Angeles with Brian Benning and Los Angeles' 1st round pick (later traded to Philadelphia Philladelphia selected Jason Bowen) in 1992 NHL Draft for Paul Coffey, February 19, 1992. Traded to Los Angeles by Pittsburgh for Peter Ahola, November 6, 1992. Traded to Edmonton by Los Angeles for future considerations, November 2, 1993. Signed as a free agent by Hartford, May 27, 1994.
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Posts tagged with "Anambra State"
Government plans to launch car finance scheme that will allow Innoson cars to be bought at 6% interest rate
GOVERNMENT ministers are planning to unveil a domestic automobile finance scheme that will allow consumers to buy cars from indigenous manufacturer Innoson Motors at 6% interest rates in an ambitious attempt to boost local production. Heralded as Nigeria's first step on the road to industrialisation, Innoson Vehicle...
Woman in viral nude video demands for justice
A young mother of a six-year-old son, Ms Ogochukwu Okafor, has demanded justice after nude video of her went viral on the internet on Tuesday. Okafor, who spoke to newsmen in Awka, described the incident as ‘unfortunate’ adding that the video had ruined her reputation and career. The victim, a widow said she...
Anambra: 15 dead in Gully erosion
Nigerian government revealed that 15 people of Umuozu community in Otolo, a suburb of Anambra State, lost their lives to gully erosion in the area. Abubakar Bwari, Minister of Mines and Steel Development, who was drawn to the gas emission from exposed coal seam in the community, dispatched a team of officers from...
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The Radio Hour
Radio Power
This is quite an intriguing set. I’m sure there will be those who will argue with it landing under progressive rock. There are a few songs that really don’t fit. Even the ones that do are closer to modern prog styles like shoegaze. The thing is, no matter how you label it, this album is very strong. The mix of sounds works really well, and there is enough variety to keep it interesting from start to finish.
There is a great psychedelic groove to this thing. It’s alternative rock but full of things like prog. This is such a cool tune and a great way to start the set.
World in a Day
Moody and rather dark, this is very much a modern progressive rock kind of piece. As cool as the opener was, this takes it to all new levels. I love the instrumental breaks on this. There is still some psychedelia in the mix, but overall this is progressive rock at its modern finest.
Heartbreaks and Slamming Doors
Although this still has some hints of the proggy concepts we heard on the first couple songs, it’s more of a straight forward alternative rocker. There are some shoegaze like layers, though. It’s a nice bit of variety, but I don’t like it as well as the stuff that came before it.
Alternative rock, modern prog and psychedelia merge on this piece. It’s one of the more complex pieces here. There are some really soaring moments, too. I like this one a lot. It feels like the set is back on track here. The vocal arrangement is particularly effective and the chorus hook is positively infectious.
Radio Power 4:00 AM
Mellow guitar brings this into being. From there it builds to a mellower, slower moving track. It has elements of shoegaze and psychedelia. It’s moody and quite effective.
No Dissociation
More energized, this piece seems to meld the sounds we’ve heard so far with something a bit like Radiohead and perhaps The Cure. It’s a proggy tune and a strong one.
More of a mainstream alternative rock overall, the instrumental movement brings it more into prog territory. I love the guitar soloing on that extended section. Some of the vocals and hooks on this make me think of REM.
Miserable Coping
With healthy helpings of psychedelia, this is less prog and more pure rock. It’s energized and a fun number.
The Killing Stone
A stew of moody modern prog and Americana makes up this cut. It’s not as strong as some of the rest. It’s not entirely mellow and moody, though. It does reach upward on the chorus.
This mellower cut is more alternative rock merged with Americana. Still, there are hints of proggy concepts here.
A bouncy little rocker, this reminds me of the glam rock of Sweet.
Apart from These Tragic Stories
Echoey and trippy, this really does combine shoegaze and psychedelia in a very effective way.
Roots rock merges with shoegaze here. There are some hints of something like The Beatles, too. This is a great groove, really.
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Describe Myanmar
Include Myanmar
I would sometimes call Myanmar a "godforsaken country". Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, is one of the best places in Asia. The Rohingya survivors describe the rape of Myanmar's soldiers as "sweeping" and "methodical. Former Rohingya fighter Aung San Suu Kyi used the word "terrorists" to describe the Rohingya fighters. Not words to describe his charm.
What would you describe Myanmar in one phrase or less?
"Aung Sang Syu Kii, Backward Nation, Military Rule, Burma has gone dark" This best describes the sorry state of Myanmar aka Burma. In the face of the military dictatorship since the 1962 military dictatorship, efforts for democracy reform have been made, but thanks to the junta's shadows little has been accomplished from there.
The 2010 election has brought a new beginning, but the NLD, made up of ex-junta members, still rules the people. The junta was disbanded in 2011. Burma is a land of enormous opportunity and the wish for freedom and instability.
A Burmese Orientation (Myanmar)
Burma, or Myanmar as it is known by the military junta, is a land where great and old Buddha Schools look calmly upon a nations troubled by upheaval. Myanmar has many miracles for the eyes - gentle, life-giving streams, luxuriant mountains and winding towns - but it can also disturb the souls.
In the last 30 years the population has been governed by a politically oppressive regime, the Tarmadaw. Traveling to Burma is therefore a rather annoying ethical issue, as most of the tourists' income goes into the state treasury. However, the idea that interacting with the Burmese population and Burmese civilization contributes to promoting transformation is against this cold fiscal reason.
South Burma is largely composed of the west side of the Bilauktaung Range, which forms the southern basis of the Malay Peninsula. North Burma, which makes up the major part of the land area, largely consist of the wide Irrawaddy meander. The Irrawaddy rises high up in the far east of the Himalayas and plunges through large ravines in the north of Burma before it spreads into one of the biggest delta rivers in Asia.
Surrounding the Irawaddy Vale is a large horse shoe with mountains rising to the Shan Plateau to the south. Most of Burma's population lives in the lowlands of this riverbank, the Irawaddy Plain. Though Burmese is the main and offical Burmese dialect, more than a hundred different languages are used throughout Burma.
Some time in the first few hundred years before Christ, a tribe named Mons from Mesoamerica wounded themselves on the banks of the Thanlwin and the Sittoung Creeks. Speaking a Mon Khmer language accent, they were the first to live in what is now Burma.
Mons named the country the Land of the Golden, practised Buddhism and acted with India's great Ashoka. Mons shouldn't be the only tribe in Burma for long. The Pyu came from Tibet a few hundred years later, followed by the Bamars who established themselves along the Irrawaddy Rivers, which they ruled from Pagan.
During the reign of King Anawrata, they captured the capitol of Thaton and brought 30,000 captives back to Pagan. Kublai Khan emerged on the skyline within a hundred years, at the forefront of the Mongolian army, which at that age was the most mighty force in the world. Khan's claim for honor was disregarded by Burma's King Narathihapate, and the Mongolian incursion began.
To the north, descendents of the Tai tribe, known as Shan, founded an Innwa empire. Soon, the Mons and the Shan went to battle, almost exactly at the moment when the Europeans were leaving for Asia. Nicoto di Conti, a Venetian, was the first Europeans to meet Burma.
In 1519 De Gama's compatriot Anthony Correa concluded the first trading deal in Burma with the Vice Prince of Martaban. Tabinshweti, rebuked the deal, which was made without his approval. The year 1600 saw a Portugese cabby kid called Philip de Brito y Nicote come to Burma and start one of the most famous stories in Burma's story.
The Brito took a position with the Rahkine emperor, who had captured Bago until then, and soon began building fortresses in the town. He took Burma as a marriage gift, proclaimed himself a King and began to destroy buddhistic churches. In spite of the overthrow of De Brito's own realm, the EU was there in Burma, especially that of the British.
Together with the Dutch and France, the British had a colony in Burma in the mid-17th centuries, although a Bamar kingship by the name of Alaungpaya drove out both the British and the Irish during the course of the centenary. Rahkine was captured by Alaungpaya and extended its frontier to the Bengali frontier until the British Raj in near India ruled that he was too near them.
In 1819 the Brits entered Burma and conquered Rahkine, Tanintharyi, Assam and Manipur. By 1852, they expanded their controls to lower Burma. When the turn of the 20th centuries saw the troubles caused by the Islamic movement for the UK government, the UK chose to give Burma a certain amount of self-sufficiency.
Symbolically, the act was not surprising, and in 1930 a Burmese called Saya San spearheaded a great pre-emptive re-bellion against the British. While the insurrection was crushed and San put to death, the UK's experiences inspired it to make Burma its own people. He was finally imprisoned for his testimony, but fled to China, where he worked with the Japanese.
But the Japanese promised him freedom if he would help them drive the Brits away. Meanwhile, in a mythical withdrawal, the Brits swore to come back and lose thousand of men. Ultimately, the allied forces were able to reconquer Burma, but only after four years of unbelievably laborious and fatal wars. When Aung San realised that the Japanese had their own imperialist interests in his own land, he finally took the side of the Allied.
In 1947 the Brits gave Burma autonomy, although they feared that soon thereafter there would be a start of wars. Nu's rejection of granting the same statute to the Shan and the Kayins led to another revolt in 1962, and this year General Ne Win took over without delay.
One Win, a farcical commie, had Nu arrest and isolate the countryside and at the same moment proclaimed the Tarmadaw or army regim. In 1971 his troops succeeded in holding some ground, but they were finally expelled. However, when the National League for Democracy (NLD) won 60 per cent of the vote, the Tathmadaw annulled the election because no consensus had been found on the roles of the new leader.
From then on, the army has repeatedly made gesture towards a pro-democracy regime, even though it has indeed not taken any genuine step in this regard.
Myanmar Music Movies
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About Myanmar Land
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unleashing
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Gate ku
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Shi Tzu
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Cake Cake Hota hai
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School of Tourism Management in Myanmar
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Myanmar Internet 2015
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high-powered books with female protagonists
The Shio
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← Tracking the States of a Set of Objects by PartitionAn Introduction to the Partition Container
Optimal Play of the Farkle Dice Game →
Posted on August 2, 2016 by matt
Image by Matt Busche using modified povray source by Piotr Borys
Neller and Presser modeled a simple dice game called pig as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and used value iteration to find the optimal game winning strategy1. Inspired by their approach, I've constructed a variant of an MDP which can be used to calculate the strategy that maximizes the chances of winning 2-player farkle. Due to the three consecutive farkle penalty, an unfortunate or foolish player can farkle repeatedly to achieve an arbitrarily large negative score. For this reason the number of game states is unbounded and a complete MDP model of farkle is not possible. To bound the problem, a limit on the lowest possible banked score is enforced. The calculated strategy is shown to converge exponentially to the optimal strategy as this bound on banked scores is lowered.
Each farkle turn proceeds by iteratively making a pre-roll banking decision, a (contingent) roll of the dice, and a post-roll scoring decision. I modified the classic MDP to include a secondary (post-roll) action to fit this turn model. A reward function that incentivizes winning the game is applied. A similarly modified version of value-iteration (that maximizes the value function for both the pre-roll banking decision, and the post-roll scoring decision) is then used to find an optimal farkle strategy.
With a lower bound of -2500 points for banked scores, there are 423,765,000 distinct game states and so it is not convenient to share the entire strategy in printed form. Instead, I provide some general characterizations of the strategy. For example, if both players use this same strategy, the player going first will win 53.487% of the time. I also provide samples of complete single-turn strategies for various initial banked scores. Currently, only the strategy for Facebook Farkle has been calculated, but the strategy for other scoring variants of farkle could easily be deduced using the same software.
The Rules of Farkle
Markov Decision Processes and Value Iteration
Extending the MDP to Support Farkle
Game State Characterization
The Farkle Value Iteration Equation
Optimal Strategy Case: $b = 0, d = 0, f = 0, e = 0$
Optimal Strategy Case: $b = 6000, d = 8000, f = 0, e = 0$
Strategy Validation
Comparison to strategy that maximizes expected turn score
Effects of the banked score lower bound
Farkle rules differ only slightly from the rules of Zilch, but are provided here for completeness.
Farkle is played with two or more players and six six-sided dice. Each player takes turns rolling the dice. The dice in a roll can be worth points either individually or in combination. If any points are available from the roll, the player must set aside some or all of those scoring dice, adding the score from those dice to their point total for the turn. After each roll, a player may either re-roll the remaining dice to try for more points or may bank the points accumulated this turn (though you can never bank less than 300 points). When a player banks his points, the player's turn is ended and the dice are passed to the next player.
If no dice in a roll score, then the player loses all points accumulated this turn and their turn is ended. This is called a farkle, a sorrowful event indeed.
If all dice in a roll score, the player gets to continue his turn with all six dice. This is called hot dice and is guaranteed to brighten your day.
A player may continue rolling again and again accumulating ever more points until he either decides to bank those points or loses them all to a farkle.
If a player ends three consecutive turns with a farkle, they not only lose their points from the turn but also lose 500 points from their banked game score. (This is the only way to lose banked points.) After a triple farkle, your consecutive farkle count is reset to zero so you're safe from another triple farkle penalty for at least three more turns.
The game ends when one player has banked a total of 10,000. Unlike zilch, other players do not get a final turn.
Scoring is as follows:
Each 1 is worth 100 points.
Each 5 is worth 50 points.
A set of three 1s is worth 1000 points.
A set of three 2s is worth 200 points.
Unlike zilch, each extra die in a set increases the value of the set by a like amount. So four 4s are worth 800 points, five 5s are worth 1500, and six 1s are worth 4000.
Three pair is worth 750 points. Unlike Zilch, a set of four 2s and two 4s may not be scored as three pairs.
A six die straight is worth 1500 points.
Each die can only be used once when scoring. (If you roll two 1s, two 2s, and two 3s you can either count the two 1s for 200 or use all six dice for three-pair and 1500 points — you can't use the ones both ways for 1700 points.)
Note: those familiar with MDPs may find the non-standard variable names I use to present this standard subject distracting. My aim is to use variable names most meaningful in the final value-iteration equation. I beg your indulgence. As a courtesy, I've included mouse-hover popups where each such non-standard variable name is introduced (highlighted in blue) explaining the motivation for the change.
A Markov Decision Process (MDP)2 is a system having a finite set of states $S$. For each state $s \in S$, there are a set of actions that may be taken $A(s)$. For each action $a \in A(s)$, there is a set of transition probabilities $P_a(s, s')$ defining the probability of transitioning from $s$ to each state $s' \in S$ given that action $a$ was taken while in state $s$. When action $a$ is taken from state $s$, the MDP responds by randomly moving to a new state $s'$ as governed by the transition probabilities $P_a(s, s')$ and then assigning the decision maker a reward $D_a(s, s')$.
The objective is to find a strategy function $G(s)$ that returns the particular action at each state $s \in S$ that will maximize the expected cumulative reward given by:
$$\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \gamma^k D_{a_k}(s_k, s_{k+1})$$
where $k$ is a discreet time variable, $s_k$ is the game state at time $k$, $a_k$ is the player action taken from from state $s_k$, and $\gamma \in [0,1)$ is a constant discount factor for future rewards. The expectation must be taken over all possible state transition paths, and maximized over all possible choices for the actions $a_k$ taken in each state $s_k$. Then $G(s)$ will be defined by the $a_k$ taken from each state $s_k$ that maximizes this expectation.
One technique for solving this problem is value iteration. With this technique, each state $s$ is given a decimal value $W(s)$ which is an estimate of the expected discounted sum of all future rewards gained from state $s$. The estimate for $W(s)$ is iteratively refined for all $s$ by applying this update equation sequentially to all states $s$: $$W_{i+1}(s) := \max_{a \in A(s)} \left[ \sum_{s'} P_a(s, s')(D_a(s, s') + \gamma W_i(s'))\right]$$
Note that at each state $s$, the action which provides maximum total reward is selected. So not only is the estimate of $W(s)$ iteratively refined, but the best action $a$ taken for each state $s$ is also simultaneously improved. Iteration continues until $W_{i+1}(s)$ and $W_i(s)$ converge for all $s$, and $G(s)$ is then the set of actions $a$ selected for each state $s$ in the final iteration.
During a farkle turn, a player must iteratively
decide whether to bank his current points,
then, if he decides not to bank, roll the dice,
then decide how to score the dice.
So that's potentially two decisions (actions) for each state transition: a pre-roll banking decision (to bank, or to roll), and a post-roll scoring decision (how to score the dice just rolled). But an MDP (as described above) consists of only one action followed by a random transition. So one may reasonably ask if farkle can even be modeled with an MDP.
To fit farkle to an MDP model, one need only consider the result of a roll as part of the game state, and then reorder the turn sequence to that of a combined scoring-and-bank/roll action followed by either an end-of-turn-event or another random-roll-event. But this increases the number of game states by at least a few orders of magnitude and makes the problem unsolvable without a commensurate increase in computer resources.
Alternatively, the roll-decision could be splintered to include any conceivable combination of scoring instructions, directing the MDP how to score each potential roll before the roll is even made, thereby allowing the state machine to transition without additional input from the player once the roll is made. Aside from being a painful way of thinking about the problem, the number of possible scoring instructions is enormous, and the approach is again not feasible.
Rather than forcing the game to fit the MDP model, I instead define an extended MDP (EMDP) to more naturally model the game. Like an MDP, an EMDP has a finite set of states $S$. For each state $s \in S$, there are a set of primary actions that may be taken $A(s)$. For each primary action $a \in A(s)$, there are a set of sets of secondary actions $R_a(s)$. Once primary action $a$ is taken, one set of secondary actions $r \in R_a(s)$ is selected randomly by the EMDP according to a probability distribution $P_a(s)$. So instead of transitioning, the EMDP responds to action $a$ by offering a randomly chosen set of secondary actions that may be taken. For each secondary action $c \in r$, a deterministic transition state $s'$ is defined by a transition matrix $s' = X_{a,c}(s)$. Selection of action $c$ causes the EMDP to transition to $s'$ and reward $D_{a,c}(s, s')$ is granted.
Because there are two actions to be taken in a turn, the optimal strategy also has two parts: $G_A(s)$ is the optimal primary action in state $s$, and $G_C(s, r)$ is the optimal secondary action to take in state $s$ given that secondary action set $r$ was randomly offered by the EMDP in response to action $a$.
Value iteration processing is also extended to account for the secondary action: $$W_{i+1}(s) := \max_{a \in A(s)} \left[ \sum_{r \in R_a(s)} P_{a,r}(s) \max_{c \in r} \Big[ D_{a,c}(s, s') + \gamma W_i(s') \Big] \right]$$
Neller and Presser chose a reward function to incentivize winning the game1. For any transition from a non-winning game state $s$ to a winning game state $s_w$, $D_{a,c}(s, s_w) = 1$ (where $s_w$ is any state where the player's banked points plus his turn points meets or exceeds the game goal of 10,000 points, and where his turn points meets or exceeds the minimum banking threshold). For transitions to any other non-winning state $s_v$, $D_{a,c}(s, s_v) = 0$. Because all game winning states $s_w$ are terminal, all future rewards from such states must be zero, so $W(s_w) = 0$. Because $W$ is known for all game winning states $s_w$, $W(s_w)$ is never updated during value iteration. (I.e., although a game winning state can appear on the right side of the value iteration update equation, it never appears on the left.)
Normally for an MDP, $0 \le \gamma < 1$, but we do not wish to value a game you win in 30 turns, less than a game you win in 10. Following Neller and Presser's approach, I instead set $\gamma = 1$. In general this can prevent value iteration from converging, but it does not cause a problem for farkle. (I think this is because there is no circular state transition path offering unbounded rewards, and because only the player that gets to a game winning state first actually wins, which ensures that the optimal strategy can't be attracted to some infinitely long path to a game winning state.) With $\gamma = 1$, $W(s)$ converges to the probability of winning from any non-terminal state $s$ when using an optimal strategy; the $a$ selected in the $\max_a$ operation converges to the optimal banking strategy from state $s$: $a = G_A(s)$; and the $c$ selected by the $\max_c$ operation converges to the optimal scoring strategy from state $s$ given that roll $r$ was thrown: $c = G_C(s,r)$.
Given that $\gamma = 1$, simplifications can be achieved if you move the reward for transitions to a game winning state out of the reward function, and into the value function for those same game winning states. That is, instead of defining $W(s_w) = 0$, define $W(s_w) = 1$, and set $D_{a,c}(s, s') = 0$ everywhere, allowing the reward function to be completely eliminated from the update equation. This definition also results in $W(s)$ consistently being the probability of winning the game from any state $s$ (including terminal game winning states).
Applying the simplifications of $\gamma = 1$, $D_{a,c}(s, s') = 0$, and $W(s_w) = 1$ reduces the extended value iteration update formula to:
$$W_{i+1}(s) := \max_{a \in A(s)} \left[ \sum_{r \in R_a(s)} P_{a,r}(s) \max_{c \in r} W_i(s') \right]$$
This general approach for finding the optimal play strategy for games having both pre-roll and post-roll actions, is further detailed for the specifics of 2-player farkle in the sections below.
The current game state $s$ is characterized by six component state variables:
$$s = (t, n, b, d, f, e)$$
where $t$ is the number of points accumulated only from your current turn. Once $b + t \gt 9950$ (which means you've hit the goal of 10,000 points) and you've met the minimum requirement to bank $t > 250$, the game is over, so for non-terminal game states we have:
$$t \in \{0, 50, 100, ..., \max [250, 9950-b]\}\text{.}$$
$n$ is the number of dice you have to roll
$$n \in \{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6\}\text{,}$$
$b$ is your banked score for which I enforce a lower bound $L$
$$b \in \{L, L+50, ..., -100, -50, 0, 50, 100, ..., 9950\}\text{,}$$
$d$ is your opponent's banked score which is also lower bounded to $L$
$$d \in \{L, L+50, ..., -100, -50, 0, 50, 100, ..., 9950\}\text{,}$$
$f$ is your consecutive farkle count (from previous turns)
$$f \in \{0, 1, 2\}\text{, and}$$
$e$ is your opponent's consecutive farkle count
$$e \in \{0, 1, 2\}\text{.}$$
In this section we apply the farkle component state variables and rules defined in previous sections to the EMDP value iteration equation:
Let's detail $A(s)$ first. For farkle, $A(s)$ is the set of available banking actions having at most two members: BANK and ROLL. For game states where you have so far accumulated less than 300 points, you have only one pre-roll (primary) action available to you: ROLL the dice. But for all other game states you have two pre-roll actions available: BANK, or ROLL. This yields:
\begin{equation} W_{i+1}(s) := \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{ROLL}}(s)} P_{{\text{ROLL}},r}(s) \max\limits_{c \in r} W_i(s'), & \text{if $t < 300$}.\\ \\ \max \bigg[\sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{BANK}}(s)} P_{{\text{BANK}},r}(s) \max\limits_{c \in r} W_i(s'), \\ \hspace{30pt} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{ROLL}}(s)} P_{{\text{ROLL}},r}(s) \max\limits_{c \in r} W_i(s') \bigg], & \text{if $t \ge 300$}.\\ \\ \end{array} \right. \end{equation}
In the case of a bank action the equation collapses. $R_{\text{BANK}}(s)$ has only one entry: $r_{\text{BANK}}$. There's only one member of the probability distribution: $P_{{\text{BANK}}, r_{\text{BANK}}}(s) = 1$. Also, $r_{\text{BANK}}$ has only one entry: $c_{\text{BANK}}$. So for the case of $t \ge 300$ , the first member of the outer max operation reduces to just $W_i(s')$. All the mathematical machinery in this case is flexible enough to handle the banking case, but is entirely unnecessary. But what exactly is $s'$ after you bank?
Looking back at the game state characterization from the previous section, there is no variable that encodes whose turn it is. Everything I've written so far is from the perspective of the player who controls the dice, and there is no $s'$ expressible in terms of our six component state variables that identifies your state after a banking operation. (This is by design and is consistent with Neller and Presser's approach for optimizing pig game play strategy.) After you bank, it is your opponent's turn who we assume is also playing the optimal strategy, and we can express his state after you bank. If your game state just before you banked was $s = (t, n, b, d, f, e)$, then your opponent's state after you bank will be $o' = (0, 6, d, b + t, e, 0)$. To be clear, after you bank your opponent will have 0 turn points, 6 dice to roll, a banked score of $d$, an opponent's banked score of $b + t$ (which is your new banked score), $e$ consecutive farkles, and his opponent will have $0$ consecutive farkles (your farkle count reverting to zero having just banked). Your opponent's win probability is $W(o')$, which means our win probability after the bank must be: $W_i(s') = 1 - W_i(o') = 1 - W_i(0, 6, d, b + t, e, 0)$, which yields: \begin{equation} W_{i+1}(s) := \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{ROLL}}(s)} P_{{\text{ROLL}},r}(s) \max\limits_{c \in r} W_i(s'), & \text{if $t < 300$}.\\ \\ \max \bigg[\Big(1 - W_i(0,6,d,b+t,e,0)\Big), \\ \hspace{30pt} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{ROLL}}(s)} P_{{\text{ROLL}},r}(s) \max\limits_{c \in r} W_i(s') \bigg], & \text{if $t \ge 300$}.\\ \\ \end{array} \right. \end{equation}
In the case of a ROLL action, $R_{\text{ROLL}}(s)$ corresponds to the set of all possible rolls of the dice from state $s$. More precisely, each roll $r$ is defined as a set of possible scoring decisions for some permutation of thrown dice. The $\sum_r$ operation is summing over each possible roll $r \in R_{\text{ROLL}}(s)$. $P_{\text{ROLL},r}(s)$ is the probability of making roll $r$ from game state $s$. And each $c \in r$ is one possible scoring decision given that roll $r$ was thrown. Given scoring decision $c$, the new game state $s'$ is determined. The $\max_c$ operation maximizes the expected win probability $W_i(s')$ given that roll $r$ was thrown over these possible scoring decisions.
First note that the set of potential rolls from game state $s = (t, n, b, d, f, e)$ is only dependent on the number of dice you are rolling, so:
$$R_{\text{ROLL}}(s) = R_{\text{ROLL}}(n)$$
Second note that
$$P_{\text{ROLL},r}(s) = {1 \over {6^n}}$$
Third, because the expression for $W_i(s')$ is fundamentally different for the case of farkling rolls vs. scoring rolls, it is convenient to partition $R_{\text{ROLL}}(n)$ into two subsets: the subset of all farkling rolls $R_{\text{FARKLE}}(n)$, and the subset of all scoring rolls $R_{\text{SCORE}}(n)$:
$$R_{\text{ROLL}}(n) = R_{\text{FARKLE}}(n) \bigcup R_{\text{SCORE}}(n)$$
Fourth, if roll $r$ is a farkle, then $r$ will have only one member: a zero point farkle scoring decision and the $max_c$ operation can be dropped.
Applying these four observations gives:
\begin{equation} \begin{array}{rl} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{ROLL}}(s)} P_{{\text{ROLL}},r}(s) \max\limits_{c \in r} W_i(s') &= \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{FARKLE}}(n)} {1 \over {6^n}} W_i(s') + \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{SCORE}}(n)} {1 \over {6^n}} \max\limits_{c \in r} W_i(s') \\ &= {1 \over {6^n}} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{FARKLE}}(n)} W_i(s') + {1 \over {6^n}} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{SCORE}}(n)} \max\limits_{c \in r} W_i(s') \end{array} \end{equation}
After a farkle, it becomes your opponent's turn and there is again no expression for the new game state. We again instead express $W_i(s')$ in terms of your opponents win probability after your farkle:
$$W_i(s') = 1 - W_i(0, 6, d, b', e, f')$$
where $b'$ is your new banked score after your farkle, which may have decreased due to the three consecutive farkle penalty, but is enforced to always be at least $L$ to keep the problem tractable:
$$b' = \max [ L, b - Y_f ]\text{;}$$ where $Y_f$ is the number of points you lose from your banked score when you farkle while already having $f$ consecutive farkles
$$\begin{align*} Y_0 &= 0 \\ Y_1 &= 0 \\ Y_2 &= 500\text{;} \end{align*}$$
and where $f'$ is your new consecutive farkle count which normally just increments, but is reset back to zero if you just had your third consecutive farkle
$$f' = (f+1) \mod 3\text{.}$$
Note also that for all farkling rolls the expression inside the sum is the same, so we can replace the sum with a multiplicative factor equaling the number of ways to roll a farkle with $n$ dice. Combining that count with the ${1 \over {6^n}}$ simplifies to the probability of farkling with $n$ dice3:
$$\begin{align*} F_1 &= 2/3 \\ F_2 &= 4/9 \\ F_3 &= 5/18 \\ F_4 &= 17/108 \\ F_5 &= 25/324 \\ F_6 &= 5/216 \\ \end{align*}$$
Combining the above observations gives this substitution:
$${1 \over {6^n}} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{FARKLE}}(n)} W_i(s') = F_n (1 - W_i(0,6,d,b',e,f'))$$
To detail the expression for the case of scoring rolls, first let $C_T(c)$ be the number of points taken with scoring combination $c$, and let $C_N(c)$ be the number of dice used with scoring combination $c$. So after rolling roll $r \in R_{\text{SCORE}}(n)$ and selecting scoring action $c \in r$ the state transitions from $s = (t, n, b, d, f, e)$ to
$$s' = (t', n', b, d, f, e)$$
$$ \begin{align*} t' &= t+C_T(c) \\ n' &= h(n-C_N(c)) \end{align*} $$
and where $h(x)$ is a hot-dice function for resetting the number of available dice back to $6$ when all dice are successfully scored:
$$h(n)=\begin{cases}6, & \text{for $n = 0$.} \\ n, & \text{otherwise.}\end{cases}$$
This gives our final value iteration equation, where (below) I repeat all the supporting equations for convenience:
$$ W_{i+1}(t,n,b,d,f,e) := \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} F_n (1 - W_i(0,6,d,b-Y_f,e,f')) + \\ \hspace{30pt} {1 \over 6^n} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{SCORE}}(n)} \max\limits_{c \in r} \left[ W_i(t',n',b,d,f,e)\right], & \text{if $t < 300$}.\\ \\ \max \bigg[ \Big(1 - W_i(0,6,d,b+t,e,0)\Big), \\ \hspace{30pt} \Big( F_n (1 - W_i(0,6,d,b',e,f')) + \\ \hspace{60pt} {1 \over 6^n} \sum\limits_{r \in R_{\text{SCORE}}(n)} \max\limits_{c \in r} \left[ W_i(t',n',b,d,f,e) \right] \Big) \bigg], & \text{if $t \ge 300$}. \end{array} \right. $$
$$ \begin{align*} b' &= \max [ L, b - Y_f ] \\ f' &= (f+1) \mod 3 \\ t' &= t+C_T(c) \\ n' &= h(n-C_N(c)) \\ h(n) &=\begin{cases}6, & \text{for $n = 0$.} \\ n, & \text{otherwise.}\end{cases} \\ Y_0 &= 0 \\ Y_1 &= 0 \\ Y_2 &= 500 \\ F_1 &= 2/3 \\ F_2 &= 4/9 \\ F_3 &= 5/18 \\ F_4 &= 17/108 \\ F_5 &= 25/324 \\ F_6 &= 5/216 \\ \end{align*} $$
With a lower bound of $L=-2500$ there are 423,765,000 game states. Each state is modeled with a double precision floating point number requiring 8 bytes, so the entire state matrix requires 3.39012 billion bytes of RAM (plus some array overhead). With game goal $g$ the number of states grows as $(g-L)^3$. Lowering $L$ from -2500 to, say, -10,000 (to eliminate all reasonable doubt that you'll ever venture into portions of the calculated strategy that are non-optimal) will increase the number of game states to over 1.7 billion and memory requirements to 14 GB (which is more than I have on any of my computers).
The value iteration software to solve the optimal farkle problem was written in C++. Obvious optimizations were made. For example, I don't actually iterate over possible rolls, but only over a precalculated set of unique score sets (which is orders of magnitude smaller in count than rolls), and weighting each score set by the number of rolls that share that same set. I let the program iterate over all game states until the maximum relative change over all states from one iteration to the next was less than 1 part in a billion. (I.e., iterations continued until no state had a change in value from one iteration to the next of more than 1 part in a billion, so that even those states with extremely small win probabilities were calculated with precision.) With the floor set to -2500 points, it took 62 iterations for the matrix to converge. Using one core of a dual-core Intel I3 4130T, the software performed 1.30 million state updates per second, each pass of the matrix taking 5 minutes 26 seconds, and convergence taking 5 hours 37 minutes.
It is not practical to list the win probabilities and banking rules for all of the half billion game states in two player farkle. Here I provide only a limited view into the complete strategy by means of five examples. Each of the five subsections below provide a 2 dimensional slice of the 6 dimensional strategy matrix, sufficient for optimal play of a single turn for a particular start-of-turn game state.
Table 1 shows the win probabilities and banking actions needed to play an opening turn optimally. Each cell shows the win probability for different turn scores (starting at $t=0$ in the top row and increasing down the page) and/or different number of dice to roll (starting at $n=6$ in the first column and decreasing as you move to the right). For all entries in this table, the other four component state variables are fixed: your banked score (b) is fixed at 0 points, your opponent's banked score (d) at 0 points, your consecutive farkle count (f) at 0, and your opponent's consecutive farkle count (e) at zero. States shaded green are states from which your optimal banking action is to roll. States shaded red are states from which your optimal banking action is to bank. States with an asterisk are inaccessible and can be ignored (although the software still calculates your win probability in-, and optimal play out of- these states which would be useful if, say through a disruption in the laws of the universe, you somehow find yourself in such a state).
Table 1. Win probabilities and banking actions for optimal turn play for b=0, d=0, f=0, and e=0.
0 0.534870 0.506721* 0.493622* 0.487801* 0.486163* 0.489950*
50 0.540099* 0.511005 0.495849* 0.489177* 0.487586* 0.491718*
100 0.545359* 0.515776 0.499374 0.490798* 0.489034* 0.493525*
150 0.550709* 0.520616* 0.503815 0.493135 0.490494* 0.495375*
200 0.556198* 0.525472* 0.508564 0.497158 0.492462 0.497250*
250 0.561811* 0.530484* 0.513285* 0.502074 0.495439 0.499128
300 0.567448 0.535760* 0.518054* 0.506680 0.503290 0.503290
350 0.573082 0.541181 0.523166* 0.511296* 0.509711 0.509711
400 0.578710 0.546604 0.528579 0.516146 0.516146 0.516146
1000 0.647615 0.613782 0.593809 0.593809 0.593809 0.593809
The game begins in the upper left cell at $t=0$ and $n=6$. The win probability listed here means that if both players play optimally, the player going first wins 53.487% of the time. To play a turn, first you must choose your banking action. Since cell (t=0, n=6) is green, the optimal banking action is to roll.
Second, you roll the dice. Let's say for your opening roll, you throw:
$$6, 5, 3, 3, 3, 2$$
Third, you must choose how to score the dice. Here you have three choices:
take the 5 for 50 points,
take the three 3 for 300 points, or
take the 5 and the three 3 for 350 points.
To determine your optimal scoring choice, you must look at the win probabilities from the three states corresponding to each scoring option:
$$ \begin{align*} W(t=50, n=5) &= 0.511005\\ W(t=300, n=3) &= 0.506680\\ W(t=350, n=2) &= 0.509711 \end{align*} $$
So in this case, you should score only the 5 since it moves you to the state with the best probability of ultimately winning the game. This ends one primary-action, random-response, secondary-action sequence effecting one state change in the EMDP. This process is then simply repeated (starting with another banking decision from the new state (t=50, n=5) until you either roll a farkle, or end in a state where you're supposed to bank.
It is interesting to see how the optimal play strategy for the opening turn differs from the strategy that simply maximizes your expected farkle turn score. To maximize expected score you wouldn't bank with 6 dice available to roll unless you had 16,400 or more points on the turn. In contrast, to optimize your chances of winning a game, you would bank 5000 or more points on your opening turn even when you have six dice available to roll. The banking threshold for 5 dice is similarly reduced from 3050 to a more conservative 2500. The banking threshold for other available dice counts do not differ.
Note that if you manage to bank 1000 points on your opening turn, your chances of winning increase to almost 60%; banking 1850 points on your first turn leaves you with better than 70% chance of ultimately winning; bank 2750 points and your chances of winning are above 80%; and manage to put up 3900 points on the opening turn and you're win probability is over 90%.
As a second example, consider the case of Table 2 which shows how to optimally play a turn where you start with 6000 points and are 2000 points behind to your opponent who has 8000 points.
Table 2. Win probabilities and banking actions for optimal turn play for b=6000, d=8000, f=0, and e=0.
Given your 2000 point defecit, it is interesting to see how much more agressively this turn should be played compared to an opening turn: the banking thresholds here for 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 dice are, respectively, 4000, 3350, 1750, 600, 400, and 500 points. Compare that to the banking thresholds for an opening turn at 5000, 2500, 1000, 350, 300, and 300 points.
Another interesting observation about this strategy is that although you should bank between 3300 and 3850 points when you have 5 dice to roll, you should instead roll if you have 3900 to 3950 points (because you have such a high probability of closing out the game).
Now consider the reverse of the situation in the previous example. Table 3 shows how to optimally play a turn where you start with 8000 points and are 2000 points ahead of your opponent who has 6000 points.
In this example, you have a 2000 point lead and are yourself only 2000 points from winning the game. It is interesting to see how much more conservatively this turn should be played compared to an opening turn: the banking thresholds here for the different number of dice to throw are 1650, 1250, 650, 300, 300, and 300 points. Compare that to the banking thresholds for an opening turn at 5000, 2500, 1000, 350, 300, and 300 points.
As in the previous example, there is another banking rule inversion in this table, but this time for the case of 6 dice, where at point values above 1750 it again becomes advantageous to roll to try to end the game.
As a fourth example, consider the case of Table 4 which shows how to optimally play a turn where you start with 9000 points and are 500 points behind your opponent who has 9500 points.
I find it interesting that the only time you should bank during such a turn is if you have exactly 3 dice to roll and either 700 or 750 points on the turn. Why does it make sense to roll just 1 or 2 dice with those same number of points? And why does it make sense to roll three dice when you have 800 or more points?
To answer the first question, observe that it's easier to ultimately hot-dice (score all dice thrown) when you are rolling only 1 or 2 dice than when you are rolling 3. If you can manage to get back to 6 dice, your chances of ending the game this turn increase dramatically. Furthermore, any additional game points you gain by rolling 3 dice are meaningless unless you hot-dice. If only 1 or 2 of the 3 thrown dice score, you will still find yourself below the game goal and (if you then decide to bank these few extra points) will not have even reduced the number of points you have to accumulate on your subsequent turn due to the minimum banking threshold.
To answer the second question, note that it's possible to reach 10,000 points without hot-dice: in particular there's a 7% chance of rolling two ones and a third non-scoring die. These rolls end the game if you have 9800 points.
Now consider the reverse of the situation in the previous example. Table 3 shows how to optimally play a turn where you start with 9500 points and are 500 points ahead of your opponent who has 9000 points.
Here I found it surprising that even though you have a 500 point lead and control of the dice, the optimal strategy requires that you never bank until you've reached the game-winning 500 points. This is surprisingly more aggressive play than on an opening turn where the score is tied. I would have guessed that banking 300 points when faced with rolling 1 or 2 dice would have been better to avoid the high-probability farkle, then allow your opponent a chance to force his way to a 1000 point turn, and assuming he fails, follow up with a high-probability minimum bank turn to win. It turns out if your opponent plays perfectly, he has about a 1/3 chance of reaching 1000 points to steal the win, and so playing a little more aggressively to attempt to end the game and deny him that possible steal is advantageous.
Also note how for many point totals, you are better off with fewer dice. This is often the case when playing turns where your best play is to try to reach 10,000 points and end the game, and also in cases where you are just really far behind an opponent that is fast approaching a game winning score.
In this section I share the efforts I've made to sanity check the calculated strategies for reasonableness, and to determine the deviation between the calculated strategy and the truly optimal strategy. This section definitely gets into the weeds and is not for the faint of heart, but may be of interest to skeptics or the particularly nerdy (of which I am both).
Strategies that maximize expected turn score for farkle variants have been independently calculated with consistent results4,5,6. These strategies do not consider your current banked score, your opponent's banked score or farkle count, or the end of game scoring goal. Still, one would expect that for an opening turn (where the score is tied at zero and where the end-of-game scoring goal is distant) that the game winning strategy documented here and the strategy that maximizes expected turn score would be similar for low turn score states. Furthermore, the two strategies should converge if the game scoring goal is increased from 10,000 points towards infinity. Unfortunately, the 10,000 point goal was already stretching both the memory limits and processing power of my computer. To reduce the size of the state space, I eliminated the three consecutive farkle penalty. This effectively eliminates the f and e state variables, reducing the size of the state space by a factor of 9, and also eliminates the need to model banked score states of less than 0 points, which shrinks things even more.
My Farkle Strategy Generator (FSG)6 produces farkle strategies that maximize expected turn score. The FSG outputs strategy tables that prioritize each turn state with a sequential preference number. Those states associated with higher expected turn scores have a higher preference number. To follow the strategy, you score thrown dice to move to the state with the highest number. This is exactly the same process you use to follow the game winning strategy presented in this document: you score your dice to move to the state with the highest probability of winning. By indexing the states from lowest win probability to highest, the two strategies can easily be compared.
First compare the two strategies for the case of a 10,000 point goal. Table 6W shows the strategy that maximizes your chances of winning the game (produced by value iteration) for an opening turn. Table 6E shows the strategy that maximizes expected turn score (produced by the FSG). Turn scores in both cases are truncated to a maximum of 1500. States with different preference numbers are highlighted. There are numerous slight differences, but they are obviously very similar: the banking thresholds are almost identical, and the state preference numbers deviate only slightly.
Table 6W. Preferred states for strategy that maximizes win probability for an opening turn of a 2-player game with a 10,000 point goal. Descrepancies with the strategy that maximizes expected score (shown in Table 6E) are highlighted.
Table 6E. Preferred states for strategy that maximizes expected score. Descrepancies with the strategy that maximizes win probability for an opening turn of a 2-player game with a 10,000 point goal (shown in Table 6W) are highlighted.
0 21 * * * * *
50 * 13 * * * *
100 * 15 5 * * *
150 * * 9 2 * *
200 * * 11 4 1 *
250 * * * 7 3 6
300 38 * * 10 8 8
350 42 24 * * 12 12
400 46 27 18 16 14 14
1000 83 67 56 56 56 56
1300 100 84 76 76 76 76
Tables 7W and 7E compare these same two strategies but with the scoring goal increased to 30,000 points. Here the two strategies are seen to be almost identical for these low turn score states. The two strategies do appear to be converging as the scoring goal increases. While this doesn't assure strategy correctness, it offers convincing evidence of correctness in at least this limiting case.
The calculated strategy is non-optimal when playing in regions of the state space where either your banked score, or your opponent's banked score is near the lower bound. This discrepancy between the calculated strategy and the truly optimal strategy is further exacerbated as the consecutive farkle count associated with a banked score near the bound increases.
To estimate the extent of the discrepancy, I lowered the bound on banked scores from -2500 to -3000 and regenerated the strategy matrix. One expects the relative deviation between the win probabilities of corresponding states in the two strategies to decrease as the minimum of the player's banked scores increases. To see the rate of convergence, for each possible banking score $B$ ($-2500 <= B < 10,000$), I found the maximum relative deviation between win probabilities (calculated as ${{2|w1-w2|}\over{w1+w2}}$) over all game states satisfying $min(b,d) >= B$. Table 8 lists selected results. Note that each time B increases by 500 points (which just happens to be the triple farkle penalty), the maximum relative deviation consistently decreased by 2 orders of magnitude (with one of those two orders of magnitude coming with the last 50 point increase). Given this exponential convergence rate, for any given $B$, the maximum relative deviation between the strategies for $L=-2500$ and $L=-\infty$ must be only slightly greater (on the order of 1%) than the maximum relative deviation between the strategies for $L=-2500$ and $L=-3000$.
Table 8. For two different farkle strategies calculated with $L=-2500$ and $L=-3000$, the maximum relative deviation of win probabilities over all states satisfying $min(b,d) >= B$ is shown.
B Maximum Relative Deviation
-2500 0.296463834
-550 0.000000016
Note that the state win probabilities for two calculated strategies do not have to be identical for the rules about when to bank, and when to roll, and how to score the dice in each situation to be to be identical. So how close do the calculated win probabilities and the optimal win probabilities need to be to make it likely we are playing with a truly optimal strategy? Using state preference charts like those shown in the previous section, I compared complete turn strategies for all combinations of state variables $b$, $d$, $f$, and $e$. If two state preference charts are identical, then the strategies are identical. Once I found a bizarre state preference discrepancy associated with a relative difference in win probability on the same order as the convergence threshold for the entire state matrix. I ignored this and any others like it that might be lurking in the tables. Table 9 shows the banked score and consecutive farkle count thresholds above which no more strategy discrepancies otherwise appeared. So for example if both you and your opponent have at most 1 consecutive farkle, and you both have banked scores of at least -1500 points, then there are no discrepancies between the two strategies.
So although there's no way to pick a lower bound $L$ that will assure all turn strategies will be truly optimal for a given working range of banked scores and consecutive farkle counts, driving the maximum relative deviation down to within about 1 part in 108 seems to assure that the vast majority of turn strategies (and likely all of them) are optimal. Given the convergence rate seen above, this means that as long as both players are about 2000 points above the lower bound on banked scores, all turn strategies are likely to be optimal.
Table 8. When both players banked scores and consecutive farkle counts satisfy the listed constraints the two strategies that maximize win probability for -2500 and -3000 point lower bound on banked scores are identical. The maximum relative deviation over all game states satisfying these constraints is also listed.
Minimum Banked Score
Maximum Farkle Count
Maximum Relative Deviation
-1500 0 0.000001175
-700 2 0.000000070
Extended forms of a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and value iteration were devised that allow more efficient modeling of 2-player Farkle than is possible with a standard MDP. Using this model, the strategy that maximizes win probability using Facebook scoring rules has been determined under the constraint that banked scores are lower bounded to a large negative score. The strategy is shown to be unaffected by this bound in regions where banked scores are at least 2000 points above the bound. The strategy appears to converge (as expected) to the strategy that maximizes expected turn score as the end-of-game scoring goal is increased.
With nearly a half billion game states, and so many different dice rolls and scoring options possible from each of these different states, it wasn't immediately obvious whether the problem was solvable with a home computer. I was quite pleased when I saw the first value iteration update complete, and even more pleased when I saw the matrix was actually converging! It was a nice problem in the sense that it's complexity puts finding the solution at the limits of what can be done with a home computer (or at least at the limits of what I can do with a home computer).
The optimal strategy showed many expected behaviors including more aggressive play when behind, and more conservative play when ahead. But it also showed many behaviors that were unexpected to me, such as playing aggressively even with a sizable lead when nearing the game goal of 10,000 points. Numerous times I was convinced I had discovered a flaw in the strategy (and therefore either a bug in my code or an error in my analysis) only to realize later that the strategy was actually reasonable.
The very limited view I've offered into the game winning strategy is unsatisfying. Time permitting, I intend to develop a web page that will allow you to explore the gargantuan optimal Farkle strategy in detail, and perhaps even play a game of farkle against a perfect computer opponent. I am motivated by your interest, so please leave a comment if you'd like to see it.
A Facebook Farkle game is won by the first player to bank 10,000 or more points, but there are other variations to end-of-game rules. In Zilch, for example, the other player always gets a final go at the dice. Some people like to assure that both players get the same number of turns. In this latter case, the optimal strategies played by the two players are not even the same — with the player going second clearly having a strategic advantage. I think any of these could be modeled, but they are each very different, and not currently supported by my solver. These are ickier problems, and I don't intend to work on them anytime soon.
T Neller and C Presser, "Optimal Play of the Dice Game Pig," The UMAP Journal 25(1) (2004), pp. 25-47.
R. E. Bellman. Dynamic Programming. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1957.
Cap Khoury, Multinomial Coefficients and Farkle, Jul. 2009.
M Busche, Maximizing Expected Scores in the Game of Zilch, Matt's Maniacal Musings, Aug. 2010.
E Farmer, Analysis of Farkle, Possibly Wrong, Apr. 2013.
Farkle Strategy Generator, Matt's Maniacal Musings.
6 Responses to Maximizing Win Probability in the Game of Farkle
I would love to see a website with all the statistics available!!
I love delving into these kind of games! 😀
One of the problems is that everyone plays with slightly different rules. It takes several hours of computation time to solve for a single rule set, and with a half billion game states, each solution would eat up 4 gigs of my server’s hard disk too. I guess I could dedicate a couple of terra-byte hard drives to storing (and backing up) solutions to various game rules.
David Klausa says:
Does the 53.487 percent to win for the first player take into account the second player’s rebuttal after the first passes 10,000 points?
No. The first player to bank 10,000 or more points wins in this version of the game (consistent with Facebook Farkle game rules).
It would be fairly straight-forward, however, to analyze the game rule variant you describe. It’s something I’ve thought about doing for some time. The best way, I think, is to start by precalculating the chance of a “rebuttal” succeeding for all possible point deficits that must be overcome in a single (final) turn. If, for example, the first player banks 10,200 points whilst the second player had 9,000 points, then you are interested in the probability of the second player (given a final turn) to successfully walk the safest path to 1,250 or more points in a single turn. (Incidentally, my FSG can be configured to do this — I describe how in one of my other comments on this website somewhere.) Do this for all possible deficits from 100, to something absurdly large (although a few thousand points would probably be sufficient as it is surely suboptimal to continue rolling with 15,000 points, so higher point game states would never be explored by an optimal player).
Then the win probability matrix would then be extended to include game states at and above 10,000 points for the active player (i.e., the player whose turn it is). And the win probability associated with banking in these states would be fixed with the rebuttal probabilities we just calculated. The win probability for these super-10,000 point game states could be calculated in a single downward pass (since the win probabilities for banking from each them are fixed and known).
So, anyway, I think this would be fairly straight-forward to do; and would require computation time that is negligible compared to what’s already being done. It’s a flexibility I’ve thought about adding to my Farkle analysis tools, but haven’t, as yet, had sufficient motivation to pursue it.
kasi says:
Just a heads up to anyone else who’s confused by this:
There’s an error below “Optimal Strategy Case: b=0,d=0,f=0,e=0”, where the win probabilities are listed as:
W(t=50,n=5)W(t=300,n=5)W(t=350,n=5)=0.511005=0.506680=0.509711
I felt really stupid when I couldn’t figure out how n could be 5 for all three actions, but I looked up the numbers in the table and it’s simply supposed to be:
Hey Kasi,
Good job finding this cut-n-paste error. I’ve corrected the document.
Leave a Reply to kasi Cancel reply
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Puri seer blames greed for natural disaster
Published: 14th July 2013 10:28 AM | Last Updated: 14th July 2013 10:28 AM | A+A A-
Sankaracharya of Puri Swami Sri Nischalananda Saraswati on Saturday blamed the human greed for the natural disaster that wreaked havoc in Uttarakhand recently. “Constructions were taken up in a reckless manner in the hilly state in the name of development. The disaster has established that there can be no super power other than nature.
The magnitude of devastation is a pointer to the fact that man has been playing with nature. This is not just the case with Uttarakhand, but the entire country,” he said while interacting with students at the Siksha O Anusandhan University here.
Taking a dig at urbanisation, the Puri Sankaracharya said people world over need to think if it is doing any good for the society. “Towns are these days considered signs of development and prosperity. These places claim to have everything, from fresh air to clean drinking water. But we fail to realise that these towns are being built after destroying water bodies and mountains and polluting environment,” he said.
“Thirteen years back, I visited Mumbai on the invitation of Bal Thackeray. A person had then offered to take me around Chaupati and Gateway of India. When I told him that I do not want to see these places, he said a saint like me should not come to Mumbai. I asked why and he said Mumbai is a factory of converting man into machines and here, there is no place for saints,” the Sankaracharya said, adding that every place in the country has today become such factories.
Terming the present time as ‘Kal (Machine) Yug’, the seer said even as more and more machines are invented to do the work in less time with less pain and without engaging manpower, they are unable to solve problems of humanity.
“We say machines are meant to save time, but every man says he has no time even to die. The machines are supposed to reduce labour, but every man returns home exhausted. Similarly, machines are contributing to the unemployment by rendering hundreds of labourers jobless,” he told the students, urging them to think before inventing advanced machines.
Answering to a query by a student on terrorism in India, the Puri Sankaracharya said, “There is no common ground between the Vedic culture prevalent in India in the past and the culture prevalent now. Hence, these kinds of terror attacks and social imbalance are bound to happen.”
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Mill Creek City Council sets new East Gateway Urban Village development agreement public hearing date
The Farm at Mill Creek rendering. Image courtesy of City of Mill Creek.
By Richard Van Winkle, News of Mill Creek.
After two weeks of discussion, on February 26, 2019, the Mill Creek City Council decided the required public hearing on The Farm of Mill Creek’s development agreement would be held at 6:00 pm on Tuesday evening, March 26th.
The city council discussed the proposed East Gateway Urban Village mixed-use development at great length on February 19th and 26th. City staff and developer Ryan Patterson presented background information and answered questions on the East Gateway Urban Village’s history, the city’s land use policies and regulations that govern East Gateway Urban Village developments, the history of developments in that district, and specifics regarding the new mixed-use facility.
At these meetings Senior Planner Christi Amrine said the proposed project includes over 100,000 square feet of retail/commercial uses and 355 residential apartments.
She also explained that unlike other areas of the city, the Mill Creek City Council must approve all East Gateway Urban Village development agreements before turning things over to the city’s hearing examiner and city staff to determine whether or not the development meets specific city codes and regulations.
Amrine did say that The Farm at Mill Creek development proposal meets the following land use policies and regulations that the city council and their predecessors previously approved:
Multi-family residential above ground floor commercial.
Open space including parks and plazas.
Commercial and retail uses on ground floor including retail sales and services, business and professional offices, medical offices, and dental clinics.
Parking structures.
Back in 2015 the city council halted East Gateway Urban Village developments so that they could re-evaluate land uses policies because a number of councilmembers didn’t want to see additional apartments built in Mill Creek.
Although they could have changed the city’s land use policies and regulations to disallow more multi-family developments at that time, they allowed the moratorium to expire in 2016 without making any changes.
At the February 19th city council meeting Amrine told the city council the developer would pay approximately $2,500,000 in Everett School District, city park, and city traffic mitigation fees when the development is approved.
Patterson said he estimated that the new development should generate about $500,000 per year in property and sales tax revenue for the city. He went on to say that The Farm at Mill Creek’s construction should provide an additional $600,000 to $700,000 in sales tax revenue.
At the February 19th meeting Patterson told the city council he purchased an adjacent 61 acres of land from Pacific Topsoils that he plans to restore and develop as a city wetlands park.
Patterson will hold a second open house for interested people to learn more about the proposed development on Monday evening, March 13th, from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm at the Mill Creek Senior Center.
The Farm at Mill Creek's proposed site plan. Image courtesy of City of Mill Creek.
East Gateway Urban Village
The Farm at Mill Creek
How many more students for the already over-crowded schools
Submitted by Concerned Citizens on Fri, 03/01/2019 - 4:29pm
Let me guess. My bet is there was not $1,000,000 to mitigate school crowding. Just $1,00,000 to mitigate traffic on 132nd. Right?
The developer will pay fees
Submitted by Richard Van Winkle on Fri, 03/01/2019 - 5:41pm
According to my notes the developer will pay about $465,000 in school impact fees in addition to $720,000 in park impact fees and $1,100,000 in traffic impact fees.
The Everett School District and the City of Mill Creek sets the rates to be paid.
The Farm at Mill Creek - School mitigation fees
Submitted by RhodesM on Mon, 03/11/2019 - 11:23am
Who holds Everett School District accountable for disbursement of these fees? They don't seem to go to Mill Creek schools. Jackson High is in desperate need - they have 30 portables! District has gorgeous new admin building, but Mill Creek schools are the ones affected by constant growth!
Also, it doesn’t appear the
Submitted by Scherping on Tue, 03/12/2019 - 9:27pm
Also, it doesn’t appear the city enforced ANY of the design standards for all new development. Just look at then Arena Sports large mobile home. Then go look at the Public Self storage on 128th. That’s it’s future. As a second example - and not just for the building itself but also the lackluster landscaping, look no further than the Mill Creek Sports Store. Utter crap. Cinder blocks and metal buildings just scream Mill Creek now. And cheap cypress trees and budget plants are the landscaping standards that check the box.
Mill Creek, go cruise Redmond, Sammamish, Snoqualmie, Issaquah and Kirkland for actual examples to model yourself after. Stop idolizing Spanaway, Kent, Des Moines and Federal Way.
Oh. And “The Vintage”
Oh. And “The Vintage” building promised brick and we got terra cotta painted concrete. A perfect flat canvas for future tagging from the section 8 folks moving in next store soon. If I recal, the Comprehensive Plan states no such large flat surfaces, yet that happened.
And regarding “The Farm”, just go look at the “quality” of the apartment homes on Ash Way - built by the same developer. Cheap siding, lousy landscaping. Horrible design. Quantity (of residences) over Quality is what this guy is all about and how he grades his own success. Not the establishment of a genuine “sense of place” that will sustain the test of time. Could we really not find a better proposal for the EGUV? Also, notice the change in plans and how much content was erased from his first proposal to the one he sprang on us in March. And he has yet to show his intentions for the Stand Alone retail stores....this is pathetic.
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News, Opinion & Editorial
EyeEm brings new editing and learning tools to its app
It's been a week of updates to our image-sharing programmes on social media. First Facebook introduced an auto-enhance feature, which will apply the filters that its algorithms calculate are most appropriate for your photos. Then Instagram unveiled five new filters, its first in two years. Now it's the turn of EyeEm, which brings a gaggle of new filters, fine-grained control over their application, and a new feature called Open Edit. The theory behind Open Edit is that it lays bare the post-processing path that a photographer followed to create an image, from the original to the final version. Each crop, tweak, and nudge is set out in a timeline that's made visible to the rest of the EyeEm community. If you see something that you like, you can apply the same edits to your own photos with one tap.
Right now, only certain photographers have the ability to open up their edits to the community, but it's something that will be rolled out to all members in time. The EyeEm team hopes that this open deconstruction of people's photos will lead to a more collaboratively minded community and one that can learn from each other and share their skills.
Can I see what EyeEm is trying to accomplish with Open Edit? Yes, definitely. Sometimes I do look at a photo and wonder precisely what sort of magic the photographer wove in order to create that particular effect. But at the same time, I'm not completely sold on it. The mystery and the secret behind someone else's photos are part of their appeal. Having the edits revealed to you can feel a little like the illusion of a magic trick being shattered when you know how it works. My curiosity means that I want to know, but the romantic in me appreciates the mystique.
From a teaching and learning perspective; I love EyeEm's enthusiasm to allow its users to share their knowledge. But I think that by going one step further, they could make this a much more valuable learning tool. How much people will actually learn from being able to see and apply other people's edits to their own photos will depend hugely on how much they're prepared to engage with the editing process and observe the kinds of impact each adjustment makes. Experimentation is such a valuable part of learning that just being able to apply someone else's workflow to your photos feels as if there's an important step in the process that's being skipped. It's not just about the what that you do to your photos, it's also about the why.
Bring a bit more dialogue to the experience—underpin the action with some explanation—and I think it could really work. Still, lots of people seem to be very excited by EyeEm 5.0, so perhaps I'm the one who's missing the trick here.
You can download EyeEm 5.0 here.
Tagged: app, edit, EyeEm, filter, learn, photo sharing, post-process, process, share, smartphone, smartphone photography, smartphoneography
Newer PostFrames within frames within frames
Older Post5 tips for better photos, right now
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This website is no longer actively maintained
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Alice Waters on eco-gastronomy in public schools
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FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 is Complete
Thread: FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 is Complete
#1 FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 is Complete
RoXante
PsP SaGe PSP Mad Hacker
Famitsu reports that the Japanese version of FINAL FANTASY XIII-2 has finished development.
That’s not surprising though, as the game is due for release in less than a month. The team is currently at work finishing the North American and European versions, as well as upcoming downloadable content.
The first set of DLC will include the boss battle with Omega. More is planned for the future, including both free and paid items, although a large majority will be boss fights in a colosseum which is separate from the main game. By defeating the boss and turning it into a crystal, you have the ability to add it to your monster allies.
Costumes for Noel and Serah will also be released, along with content that may alter the Historia Crux. No need to worry, however, as DLC will not effect the game’s Trophies or story, all of which can be completed with the content on disc.
DLC will be released through Spring 2012, at a pace of once every two weeks. Pricing is still TBA. There are also no current plans to release the pre-order bonus DLC, so make sure you’ve ordered where you want.
very nice very very nice
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Gez takes to the White Collar boxing ring
Right Build’s Gez Manville will take part in an Ultra White Collar Boxing contest on Saturday night at the Millennium, Copthorne Hotel, Effingham Gatwick.
The concept of white collar boxing is to give people in ordinary jobs the chance to experience proper boxing bouts.
Tickets for the event, which is in aid of Cancer Research, are on sale until tonight and Gez’s supports have contributed £500 to sit on four tables and watch him battle it out in the ring.
“I’m actually fighting someone I know – Ben Jenner, who I used to play football with at Oakwood Football Club,” said Gez, who is the club’s all-time top scorer.
“You get eight weeks training and then they put you in a fight. I’ve been training at the Muay Thai Mixed Martial Arts Gym in Manor Royal under Paulo de Silver.”
While the charity is the organisers’ choice, he said: “I wanted to earn a bit of money for charity. I’ve known friends and family who have had cancer, I think it is a great cause and I thought it was a great thing to do before I got too old.”
Gez does have some previous experience in boxing, but said there is a significant difference between inter-battalion during his Army career from 1997-2002 and this event.
“I had six fights and won two tournaments,” he said. “But that was after a week’s training. I had no skills. If I had come up against someone who had boxed before I would have been annihilated.
“I was super fit and it was more aggression than anything. But now I’ve been learning more skills with WCB Crawley.”
He also represented the Combined Services in athletics and football while in the Army and now, working on maintenance service contracts and individual jobs at Right Build indoors and outdoors, has a physical job, plus he continues to play football with Right Build’s Darren Tidey and his brother Toby at Oakwood.
He has sold £500 worth of tickets on tables, and there are now only standing tickets left at £20 each, which are on sale until tonight through the UWCB website. The event starts at 4pm and Gez is fighting in the third bout.
Keep out of the kitchen – but only until we’ve finished it!
Quite a number of our jobs recently have been refitting kitchens and bathrooms, some for housing associations but many of them for private residential customers.
It was said during the recession that many people were saving their money and not moving house, but doing DIY renovations themselves.
Refitting a kitchen or a bathroom, however, is beyond what many people would consider their own skills, because it involves so many. It sometimes includes building work, but also needs plumbing and electrical work through to the finishes such as flooring and tiling.
You want to get it right of course, because the kitchen is a focal point of your domestic life – and a talking point for the nation if you happen to be David Cameron or Ed Miliband!
Many customers know what they want in terms of equipment such as an oven and even tiles, but they want people with professional skills to install everything, so that it is done to a great finish rather than potentially try, get it wrong and have to call in an expert after all when it goes wrong.
Many of the skills required are trade ones which need precision and care to get them right – and that’s where we at Right Build come in, with our all-round expertise.
We received a lot of orders for kitchens and bathrooms just after Christmas, which is typical when people put the festivities behind them. They start thinking towards summer and having friends round when the weather gets good enough to have parties and social gatherings.
And of course when you have people round, a lot of time is spent in kitchens, making them a focal point for visitors and therefore of the main areas of a house. A kitchen is also often a key access point to a garden, making it an even more key place in the home.
Now we are out of recession, many people are taking the plunge and moving home – and the first room they want to change the look of is the kitchen, because that is where they spend much of their time.
They often budget to not only buy the house but to improve the kitchen immediately.
Many people have an idea of ovens or fridges they want to use and sometimes the cupboards and tiles, but if not we can advise and source them accordingly.
In terms of commercial buildings such as a work place or housing association, a kitchen area can often be part of the communal space, so it is important to get it right and then to maintain it, which we will also do as part of a regular service contract.
So whatever your kitchen requirements, do give us a call on 01293 548311 or email info(@)rightbuildltd(.)com
Manville draws on White Collar Boxing debut
Right Build’s Gez Manville is considering a second bout in the White Collar Boxing ring, after drawing his fight at the Millennium, Copthorne Hotel, Effingham Gatwick.
Gez, who fought inter-battalion bouts with little training in the Army, was keen to test himself in the discipline.
The event, one of many by WCB across the country, raised thousands of pounds for charity including from 40 people paying £2,000 between them to watch his fight, which was one of 18.
Entering the ring announced as “Mean Machine Manville” the former Crawley Athletics Club competitor faced Ben “undefeated” Jenner, a former team-mate at Oakwood Football Club.
“I was frustrated, because every time I attacked, he was hugging me,” said Gez.
“I think I’m going to do it again and fight someone I don’t know, because it turned into a bit more of a brawl than a boxing match,” he said.
“I’ve fought people I know before. I fought six people (in the Army) and knew most of them, but on this occasion during the fight I just didn’t know how to act.
“I think if I had fought someone else on that night I would have won because I had sparred with them all and I thought I could beat them.”
Nonetheless, Gez enjoyed being part of the 18-fight occasion and raising money for Cancer Research.
He will now assess whether he could do the next eight-week training block programme scheduled by [White Collar Boxing] or whether he will come back to it at a later date.
“I’ve got to see about pre-season at Oakwood first,” said the utility player who mostly plays in defence these days but can also play as a forward. “We’ve got quite a good team and there’s competition for places.”
For now, on top of any football training, it is back to work with Oakwood FC pair Darren and Toby Tidey and Right Build, working on commercial and residential maintenance projects as either a one-off project or part of a contract.
Sleepers prop up fence for Southern Housing
It’s great to be outdoors in summer and for some jobs – like exterior painting – you have to do it when you can guarantee the weather is going to remain over a certain temperature 24 hours a day, because the paint won’t settle properly otherwise.
Many instructions on the product tins tell you this, but you would be amazed how many DIY enthusiasts ignore those instructions, think they can do it in winter and then wonder why the paint is coming off after a year or so, rather than after the several it should last.
However, there are some jobs that us workmen want things to be a bit cooler than last week’s heatwave – like when you are moving huge railway sleepers into place to support a fence.
This plan was the idea of Southern Housing in Brighton.
The garden next to this residential property’s back garden space was sinking because the earth under the patio was slipping.
They had put in a temporary measure and they had agreed with Southern Housing that they wanted a permanent solution, involving railway sleepers and then rebuilding the fencing.
It is a similar principle to putting in steels when you are taking down a supporting wall to knock two rooms into one, for example. This provided a better platform to support the fence.
This is the type of project we can do either as a one off project or as part of a complete maintenance service, using a multitude of trades from plumbing and tiling indoors to bricklaying and garden maintenance outdoors.
We’re proud of our first garage conversion
As builders, we always enjoy the challenge of a new project and, even if we do lots of kitchen or bathroom refits which might sound similar, no two jobs are ever the same.
To turn that on its head, we recently carried out our first garage conversion, to make it a fully habitable and integral part of a house rather than an outside space. On the face of it, that might sound a challenge, but in fact we simply drew on several of the vast number of trades and skills we have at our disposal.
Faced with an empty shell of a garage at the location in Crawley Down, we needed to do plastering, both installing boards to the walls and ceiling and then plastering them to a finish so they could be decorated.
We also needed to knock through two walls, one internal and one external, leading to the back entrance and the hallway, plus source a UPVC and also an internal door.
We also put in new wall and base units with kitchen sink and did all the associated plumbing, plus electrical work.
In addition we put down new flooring and insulated walls.
The whole project took nearly three weeks.
We were really happy and proud at the end of it to be able to say we had completed a successful garage conversion.
During recent, weeks we have also carried out a number of bathroom installations.
Domestic work is just one line of our business. We also carry out regular maintenance service contract work, indoors and outdoors and sometimes both, at a range of domestic and commercial properties from office blocks and educational establishments to housing associations.
Support: 07841 708826
Address: 3 Waldby Court, Bewbush,
Crawley, West Sussex, RH11 8QF
@Right Build Ltd RT
@Right Build Ltd 1 Year old today! Where has that time gone, thank you to everyone
Right Build was established between a group of professional tradesmen who have more than 10 years’ experience in trades spanning the whole property maintenance industry, indoors and outdoors.
Contact us now for advice and guidance and a quotation.
© 2016 All Rights Reserved. Right Build Ltd - Website by: Netkandi
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The Big Problem This Bankruptcy Won’t Solve for PG&E
By Judy Lin, CALmatters / January 30, 2019 4
After all those profits, why does PG&E need to file for bankruptcy? (Photo by Casimiro PT, via Shutterstock)
As a publicly traded corporation, Pacific Gas & Electric reported $17.1 billion a year in revenues from its electric and gas operations. After operating costs, expenses and taxes, it still made out with a profit of $1.7 billion last year.
So why has California’s largest utility filed for bankruptcy?
PG&E may be solvent, but it is facing a cash flow problem as a byproduct of $30 billion in potential liabilities from a series of catastrophic wildfires in Northern California in 2017 and 2018. In the company’s own words, the board has determined Chapter 11 “is ultimately the only viable option to restore PG&E’s financial stability to fund ongoing operations and provide safe service to customers.”
“A company the size of PG&E needs access to the capital markets and right now, it’s under stress,” said Robert Labate, a local bankruptcy attorney with Holland & Knight, which has clients that do business with PG&E. “This is a way of getting breathing room.”
PG&E is being sued by thousands of wildfire victims for property damage, medical expenses and a heap of punitive and personal injury damages alleging corporate negligence. Insurance carriers that have paid claims to homeowners and businesses for property damage have filed dozens of subrogation complaints. Even local governments, such as Mendocino, Napa and Sonoma counties and the city of Santa Rosa, have piled on with their own legal claims.
Though the company was just absolved by state fire investigators in last year’s deadly Tubbs Fire, it still faces potentially tens of billions of dollars in liabilities. For one thing, its equipment remains a prime suspect in the Camp Fire that killed 86 people in Butte County late last year. A PG&E employee spotted flames near a shorted-out utility tower, at the same place Cal Fire identified as the start of the state’s most destructive wildfire.
But bankruptcy will by no means solve PG&E’s long-term problems, which will require legislative and regulatory solutions. Because what will be just as important in the months and years ahead is consensus on a fundamental question: When can the utility pass disaster costs on to consumers as wildfires become more frequent and destructive?
Unfortunately for PG&E, that’s about public trust.
“There’s a lot of public distrust of investor-owned utilities right now,” said Tara Kaushik, a utility lawyer also with Holland & Knight. “There’s a sense that the utility has to be held accountable and to operate safely. But at the same time, we have these recurring wildfires that are making it unsustainable for them to continue operating.”
Even before the utility announced its intent to reorganize in bankruptcy court, the financial market expressed concerns about PG&E’s ability to recover costs associated with these recent disasters. It was part of the reason credit agencies recently downgraded PG&E to junk status, which only made it more expensive and difficult to access capital.
“The rating downgrade reflects the material exposure to new potential liabilities associated with the Camp Fire and the uncertainties associated with how the fire-related liabilities will be recovered,” said Jeff Cassella, VP at Moody’s Investors Service.
As climate change impacts corporations’ bottom line, the same concerns have extended to other California utilities, triggering downgrades for both Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.
Cassella noted that state lawmakers passed a $1 billion legislation that did nothing to address the 2018 wildfires. SB 901’s most controversial provision, to make it easier for utility companies to absorb the cost of fire damages by borrowing money and charging customers to pay it back over many years, covered the 2017 fires and those that start in 2019, but not any when the Camp Fire hit.
PG&E also tried—but failed—to get the Legislature to loosen fire liability laws. Under a legal doctrine called “inverse condemnation,” utilities are liable for any wildfire damage traced to their equipment even if they were not negligent in maintaining it. Unless the state Supreme Court decided to issue a different interpretation or voters approved a constitutional amendment, releasing utilities of this financial responsibility would be pretty much out of the question.
Enter the California Public Utilities Commission.
The five-member commission regulates investor-owned utilities in the state and could decide whether PG&E acted prudently and should be allowed to pass on wildfire costs—even the damages a utility pays out in lawsuits—to consumers.
But a precedent has been set that has made PG&E think twice about its ability to recover wildfire costs through rate increases.
In 2017, the commission blocked San Diego Gas & Electric from passing on $379 million in liability costs stemming from a 2007 wildfire. In a unanimous vote, the commission found the utility’s management of its facilities unreasonable.
It’s unclear what the CPUC would do if PG&E asked to pass on costs from the latest wildfires. “We don’t know yet,” Kaushik said. “They haven’t asked.”
Even without liabilities, the cost to maintain public safety is creeping up. PG&E is asking for a $1.1 billion rate increase for wildfire prevention, risk reduction and safety enhancements, which, if approved by state regulators, would increase the average residential customer bill by 6.4 percent or $10.57 per month.
Wildfire victims and their lawyers are quick to question PG&E’s motives, calling Chapter 11 a tactic to discourage and discount lawsuits rather than taking responsibility for the spate of recent tragedies. Camp Fire victims recently rallied at the state Capitol with legal activist Erin Brockovich, who was portrayed by Julia Roberts in the 2000 hit movie.
“This is another blow after the body blow of losing their homes and their lives,” said Noreen Evans, a former legislator who is now representing 4,000 victims of 2017 and 2018 wildfires, at the rally. “It’s insult added to injury at a really hard time in their lives.”
Evans noted that under bankruptcy, wildfire victims with claims in trial court would be treated as unsecured creditors.
“Their claims would be delayed and probably discounted,” she said then—a fear that could now come true.
CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Erin Brokovich
Holland and Knight
Jeff Cassella
Moody’s Investors Service
Noreen Evans
Robert Labate
Tara Kaushik
Tubbs Fire
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Smokey Jan 30, 2019 @ 1:59 pm
Judy Lin asks:
When can the utility pass disaster costs on to consumers as wildfires become more frequent and destructive?
I have a suggestion: let’s put Judy Lin in charge of PG&E. She can be the CEO. The “nonpartisan” Calmatters can be PG&E’s Board of Directors.
She’s a constant critic of PG&E — but like Calmatters, she never has any solutions. Maybe if she walks in PG&E’s moccasins for a while, she might see things differently.
SAN JOSE OUTSIDE THE BUBBLE Jan 30, 2019 @ 3:06 pm
PG&E is just an operation that makes and distributes energy. It’s not really a “business”.
People pay money to PG&E but it’s really politicians who operate the cash registers.
Not enough money coming in? Raise prices.
Need a favor for a special interest group. Reach into the till and grab some cash for a bike bath or a bird sanctuary or a thousand other feel good “community relations” projects.
Energy prices too high? Well, YOU are using too much energy. CUT BACK.
Wildfire burn your yard? Well, YOU are living in the wrong place. Move to an urban vote plantation and vote for Democrats just like normal people.
The end game of progressive politics is population control. PG&E is just the means of persuasion to convince people that they shouldn’t live in rural or remote areas. It’s too dangerous (PG&E made it dangerous), And, it’s too expensive (PG&E made it too expensive).
The population controllers (masquerading as “environmentalists”) are manipulating THEIR politicians to manipulate PG&E to remove people from THEIR “pristine wilderness” areas.
M.T.GUNN Jan 30, 2019 @ 9:32 pm
So what are you folks going to do when PG&E turns the lights off and no one buys the company because the liability is to great to invest in California? Solar or Wind ? How about your billionaire employers? Got a well? How long before California’s economy is second behind Venezuela?
SJ Kulak Jan 30, 2019 @ 9:51 pm
This is a great question. Of course the state would take over operation and at that point the false tranistion to solar and wind would happen at a far faster rate. The rich would figure out how to deck their house out with generators and batteries and the middle and working class would be stuck paying riduculously high rates, $0.50, $0.75, a dollar a kW and deal with brown outs at peak usage. Or just increase the gas tax or some such other regressive tax.
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11 Aug '14
Sex Scene Championship Round 3 : Gina Gordon Vs Leela Lou Dahlin
Posted in Sex Scene Championship 2014 / 2 Comments
Hello everybody and welcome to our Sex Scene knockout Championship!
The guise is simple; vote for your favourite out of the two scenes and the winning author will progress to the next round and be in with a chance to win the Sex Scene Championship Crown. Each person will be in with a chance of winning prizes from our prize bag. At the end of the event, all of the entrants will be collated and then I’ll use random generator to pick a top winner (who will get their choice of 8 prizes from the prize bag limited to one GC), a second place winner (who will get their choice of 5 prizes from the prize bag limited to one GC) and a third place winner (who will get their choice of 3 prizes limited to one GC). I will then randomly draw names until all the prizes are gone.
You have to vote through the rafflecopter form for your vote to count. You can do this using FB or an email address … none of these are visible to anyone but me and I will not use them.
We have 50 eBooks to giveaway (some of which are listed on the Intro post here), 2 signed paperbacks, 2 INT paperbacks, 4 Gift Cards (Amazon & All Romance, a necklace, some pens and more swag to give away.
So for our second round, we have the fabulous ladies Gina Gordon Vs Leela Lou Dahlin
Execerpt One –
Recipe for Seduction – Gina Gordon ©
Gina’s Website | Twitter
“I said all of your clothes.” She was still only half naked.
She obeyed, removing the small scraps of lace. He had to hold back his desire. That night on stage, she’d been partially covered, her sex hidden behind the skimpiest fabric imaginable, her pert nipples covered by tassels. But now, she was fully exposed. All of her. Every inch available for his viewing, for his taking.
“Find an apron,” he commanded.
Without hesitation she rummaged through a drawer beside the stove.
“Slowly,” he ordered. He wanted to enjoy the way her breasts swayed back and forth with her actions. To appreciate the unobstructed view he had between her legs.
Unfortunately, she was quick to find what she was looking for. She pulled out a pink apron.
“Put it on and come over to me.”
Her confidence had started to wane. A slight tremble shook her hands when she placed the strap over her head and secured the ties around her waist. Her boots clicked on the tile, and with each step closer, the scent of orange, of Veronica, surrounded him.
Positioning her in front of the kitchen island, he aligned his body with the back of hers. She pushed back against him, putting pressure on his aching erection.
He brushed his fingers across her skin, starting at her neck and moving down to her shoulders, then her arms, finally grasping her hands and placing them firmly on the counter.
The smooth line of her back was so delicate. The two dimples above her bottom incredibly sexy. And the perfect round globes of her ass, with the softest luminescent skin he’d ever seen, was beyond his dreams. He reached for the spatula, his own hands trembling with excitement at the knowledge that his fantasy was finally about to come true.
He ran the utensil slowly down her back in a straight line against her spine. When he got to her bottom, he traced down the crease. Her response was a shiver and a tiny whimper.
“Bend over. Place your forearms on the counter and spread your legs.”
She was a model student. Minimum hesitation. Maximum obedience.
When she was ready, he tightened his grip around the handle. He stepped to the side, taking position, as if stepping up to home plate. She glanced over her shoulder and their eyes met. She knew. This fantasy wasn’t about pain. She knew he would never physically hurt her. It was about his control and her obedience. And she wanted this, too—needed it as much as he did.
He took aim and followed through, the spatula hitting her bottom for the very first time with a thwack.
She gasped and tensed the moment it struck, but it was more sound and sting than actual pain. Her hands fisted against the granite counter but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the warm crimson glow that spread across her skin.
He made contact a second time. Her gasp was louder, the tension of her body less noticeable. She opened herself up, laid her trust in his hands, knowing he would push her only so far, to the point where the sting turned into a pleasure she’d never experienced.
“Veronica, look at me.”
She turned, letting her chin rest against her shoulder, and he was taken aback by the acceptance in her gaze.
He’d never met a woman he felt comfortable enough to play with. To lower his guard and let her see this side of his personality—the controlling, demanding, kinky side. He’d never expected Veronica to be the one to cater to his sexual fantasies. Never in a million years. But the light in her eyes made him wonder…he may not have been the only one harboring these fantasies.
He returned his attention to her luscious behind. Each time the spatula made contact she pushed her bottom back, her gasps turning into groans of need. The sight of her skin, the sound of her enjoyment, it all sent an ache to places he desperately needed to sate, and gave him a rush of power he’d never felt before. The kind that made him want to give her anything and everything, as long as it made her feel good. The thought of being the person responsible for her pleasure was overwhelming, but exciting.
Even more exciting was the fact that she was enjoying this. A lot more than he’d anticipated. And he was even more shocked when he noticed her hand creep down between her legs. When she cupped her sex, three fingers disappeared between her folds and started to move, manipulating her most sensitive area.
But as the man in charge of her pleasure for the night, he hadn’t told her she could remove her hands from the counter.
He took the spatula and slid it between her thighs. With steady force, he moved her hand away, which made her whimper.
“Please. Every time you smack my ass, it spasms,” she said breathily.
“What spasms?” He smacked her again when she remained silent. “Say it.”
“Please, Finn.” She moaned and her legs clasped tight around the spatula.
“If I want you to touch yourself, I’ll tell you. Otherwise, your pleasure is mine to control.” He gathered her hair in his fist and pulled her back. “Do you understand?”
He removed a sleeve of condoms from his back pocket and placed it on the counter. He’d come prepared. He’d known the night was going to end up in a tangle of limbs and sweaty bodies.
“You expecting guests?” She peered over her shoulder at the long strip of packets.
“Just you and me…and a whole lot of amazing sex.”
He undid his belt and released the zipper of his jeans, pulling out his erection. When he was sheathed, he teased between her legs, rubbing his cock across her folds. She moaned when he pushed a tiny bit inside.
She was the perfect height—the four inches of her boots made his final destination easy to access. And the faster and harder he’d be able to fuck her.
He pushed in deeper, loving the feel of her heat molding and forming to accommodate him. When he was buried to the hilt, he stilled. The reality of the situation had set in and excitement nearly overwhelmed him. He was here. With Veronica. Balls-deep inside her sex. Heat spread through his cock and his heart thumped ten times its normal speed. This was his every fantasy come to life.
Excerpt Two –
Leela Lou Dahlin – A Haught Date ©
Leela’s Website | Twitter
“Can I kiss you?” she asked, looking like she had used up all her courage to get this far.
“Why are you so timid today? This is your show. You can do whatever you want.”
“That seems like a pretty open proposition. It’s a wonder a woman hasn’t kept you all tied up in her bedroom.”
“I’ve never made that offer before, but I’m making an exception for you.”
“You’ve never let anyone kiss you?”
“I didn’t say that. I think we covered that yesterday. As a matter of fact, we did much more than that.”
“Are you trying to confuse me?” She flashed him a coy glance, and he smiled. He knew a stall when he saw one.
“No, you’re just thinking too hard. Kiss me again, Gemmi, and let’s see what happens.”
He turned to lean against the car with his legs slightly spread apart and brought her in close, cradling her between his thighs so she could finish the kiss she’d started.
He watched her snuggle into him, and his fingers tightened on her hips, but he forced himself to remain still. A soft breeze stirred and surrounded him with her unique scent of cherry, honey, and something he couldn’t put his finger on. He wanted to take a deep breath and fill his body with her sweet aroma, but he didn’t want to interrupt her perusal of his face or disturb this moment.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered.
“Why? I enjoy looking at you.”
“We said we were going to be honest with each other,” she said, moving her hands to his chest, but she didn’t push him away.
“That was honest.” His breathing was a bit irregular, and anticipation made him want to take over this little experiment. Then she’d see he wasn’t joking about his desire for her.
She bit her lip at his response, and he fought to hold back a groan. This was impossible; how could he be this worked up over a woman he’d just met? A woman who was full seductress yesterday and shy today.
Her lids drifted down as she tipped her face up, bringing her full lips in for a quick peck. She returned to rub her lips softly along his and then licked the corner of his mouth. He was trying to let her control this first kiss, but if she was going to taste him and practically purr, he didn’t know if he was going to be able to let her.
She must have enjoyed the first small taste of his mouth, because when she dived in for the second taste, her lips parted. Her warm breath against his mouth made him ache to touch her. He drove his fingers into the hair he’d been fascinated with since he’d seen her yesterday, finding it to be like silk against his fingers. He was struggling not to take over—to let her go at her own pace—but he couldn’t remember a time when it had been this difficult to wait.
He moved his hand to cradle her head and was delighted with the soft, thick waves that cascaded over his wrist. Putting his other hand on the other side of her head, he took control of this kiss. He turned her head so he could get a better taste of her mouth as he licked and nipped her lips and tongue. Her purr turned into a full-fledged moan, and she practically crawled up his body to get closer.
His control snapped. He slid his hands under her ass, hoisting her up to fit against his aching cock. He’d hiked the skirt of her pink sundress up under her breasts, leaving her panty-clad pussy rubbing against his hard length. He glanced at her face. She had her lip between her teeth, and her brow was furrowed in concentration. Putting his fingers against her panties, he could feel the warm wetness, and he had to touch her. As he slipped one finger under the thin cotton cloth and into her hot slickness, his cock flexed like it was pounding on the zipper of his pants to get out and find his way into her pussy. Gliding another finger in with the first, he reveled in the heat of her body, watching the glistening juice coat his fingers each time he withdrew. Her deep moan every time he thrust into her body made him want to replace those fingers with his mouth or his cock.
A car door slammed in the distance, and he remembered where they were.
This is an EVENT giveaway and prizes will be drawn at the end of the event after all the entrants have been collated into one raffle.
Sex Scene Championship 2014 2 Comments
2 Responses to “Sex Scene Championship Round 3 : Gina Gordon Vs Leela Lou Dahlin”
Tina B August 11th, 2014
Kitchen utensils sound like they could be fun. But so does being a exhibitionist. 😉
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Welcome to the Scottish Venison site where there is everything you might want to know about Scottish venison from both wild and farmed deer. Venison is one of Scotland’s great natural products. Its healthy eating qualities are unsurpassed.
Available in an ever increasing number of outlets across the UK – butchers, supermarkets and restaurants – use our directories to find who is selling or serving Scottish venison in your area, and to find out more about this fabulous product. Enjoy.
2: SCOTLAND'S DEER
3: HEALTHY EATING
4: SUPPLIERS, RESTAURANTS, RECIPES
6: QUALITY ASSURED
7.1: VENISON MARKET UPDATE
7.22: VENISON IMPORTS TO RISE
7.23: SHOOT YOUR OWN VENISON
8: BUTCHERY AND CUTTING
9: LINKS & INFO
13: THE SCOTTISH VENISON STORY
15: CONTACT
The Education Zone is for primary and secondary pupils. It has been commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage on behalf of the Scottish Venison Partnership. It is available in both English and Gaelic Language versions.
Venison wins food awards but no subsidies
June 2010 - Scotsman - Andrew Arbuckle
AFTER walking off with yet another top food award, John Fletcher of Reediehill Deer Farm, Auchtermuchty, yesterday attacked the Scottish Government for its refusal to give deer farmers the same financial support enjoyed by those in the cattle and sheep sectors.
The latest award saw husband and wife team John and Nichola Fletcher, scoop the top prize as the Best Small Meat Producer in the UK at the prestigious Good Housekeeping Food Awards in London. Among the winners of 16 categories announced at the event, this was the only Scottish business. Winners in other categories included big names like Tesco, Waitrose, Pizza Express and the BBC Masterchef programme.
On receiving the award, John Fletcher said that it meant a great deal to them to see venison from their 130-acre marginal land farm hitting the headlines and competing with very large companies all with their massive resources.
However, with a sting in the tail, he added: "Scottish deer farmers are especially disadvantaged by the government's refusal to provide them with the subsidies that beef and lamb producers receive."
Aggravating this situation is the fact that because English farmers are subsidised on an acreage basis, their deer farmers receive support.
He described the current predicament of the Scottish deer sector as "grave" with the number of deer farmers falling away from a position in the 1980s where there had been quite an interest in farming deer.
"Despite assurances from Brussels that we are eligible for agricultural support, the Scottish government has refused to accept this," he stated.
But yesterday he admitted that he was not optimistic that the Pack Report into the future shape of support to Scottish agriculture would recognise the farmed deer sector.
He and his colleagues had responded to the call for views on the issue but there had been very little communication from those on the Pack committee.
Last night a spokesperson for the Scottish Government urged Fletcher and other deer farmers not to presume that decisions had already been made excluding them.
"The Brian Pack report into future support for farming is still in progress and will not report until later this year. The inquiry team was specifically asked to consider the situation of agricultural holdings outside the Single Farm Payment scheme, such as deer farmers."
Despite the political problems, Fletcher was optimistic that the award, which was for their venison steaks and for Nichola's dry cured venison carpaccio, further underlined the claim that venison was now a mainstream meat.
At present, UK venison sales total about £30 million, most of it meat imported from New Zealand.
The Fletchers attend several farmers markets, where one of their stall's most popular lines has been venison offal, including liver, heart and sweetbread. They also make venison haggis which, as Fletcher points out, is the original haggis as the deer were on the hills before sheep came along.
© Copyright 2016 - Scottish Venison Partnership
Website of the Scottish Venison Partnership, representing the producers of venison in Scotland, wild and farmed, including The Association of Deer Management Groups, British Deer Farms and Parks Association, Forestry Commission Scotland, Scottish Gamekeepers Association, Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Quality Wild Venison.
The Scottish Venison Partnership is a not-for-profit organisation funded by a levy paid by all producers of wild venison from all deer species processed through the Scottish Quality Wild Venison assured game dealers/processors. The Partnership also receives an annual grant from Forestry Commission Scotland.
Website by Aerovision IT
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FUWL STUDIO & SHOWROOM
PLACE 2010.11.8 Text: Victor Moreno
A while back we did an interview with Form Us With Love (FUWL). Back then they were a fresh new up-and-coming studio presenting themselves to the furniture and interior design scene in Scandinavia.
Now it is a design studio essential for some of the top producers in the region. They currently design for more than 10 manufactures from the likes of Muuto, Bolon, Design House Stockholm, ateljé Lyktan and Santa & Cole.
FUWL is a multidisciplinary design studio focusing on idea-based design. The studio was founded by John Löfgren, Petrus Palmér and Jonas Pettersson in 2005. Now the studio grows up. A brand new office that the studio has designed themselves in central Stockholm. The space it will be used as showroom as well. With the new studio, FUWL intends to create a vibrant space for design in Stockholm. for exhibitions, lectures and pop-up shop.
I guess a natural step for any brand/designer is to establish a showroom and/or flagship store. But tell me, how the idea of the showroom evolved?
Well, we wouldn’t go so far as to call it a flagship store (or perhaps not even a showroom as showroom sounds so stagnant), it’s our design studio plain and simple. Although we do have tons of ideas of what to do with the space. Among other things we are planning for temporary shop, lectures and exhibitions. We actually searched for a new space for over two years before finding this one.
You took the space to be renovated from the scratch, so be able to translate the studio´s ideas. What is the conceptual idea behind this interior design?
The aesthetics is inspired by galleries, industrial facilities and Lego. We wanted the foundation to be quite neutral, making it a flexible space for exhibitions and other events.
Clean forms, blacks, greys and whites: Do you think it is an Scandinavian vibe or that is a far-fetched way to talk?
You would probably want to look a bit more east for references.
The space is structured in 3 areas or levels. Tell me about it.
Well the basic idea is to divide the three floors between the functions of the studio. So top floor is office space, ground floor is studio space and bottom floor is workshop space.
The area Vasastan/S:t Eriksplan, where the studio is located in central Stockholm, you find interesting and spots creative wise. Please tell me about it.
It’s an area of Stockholm that has been rather sleepy up until now. But now a lot of creative businesses are finding their way here. Several of the best art galleries have formed a cluster here and many of Sweden´s smaller independent fashion labels have their offices here.
Tell me about the showroom. Currently pieces, future features and ideas, etc…
For now we just settled in after the big opening party. We are planning for a temporary shop in December and then the Stockholm Design Week takes place in February which we of course will be a part of.
Regarding Stockholm, let´s skip the word scene but there is an important background in design and creativity in town, What is your feeling about it?
Stockholm has always been a creative place with a lot of talent. For us it’s great that the Design Week in conjunction with the furniture fair in February has grown in to such an important event. Next to Milan, Paris and London, Stockholm is a must for furniture and lighting design people. The aesthetic between different Scandinavian countries are very alike. There is the stereotype of the 50s, the Scandinavian “blonde” so it could be naive to talk about that, so no stereotypes anymore. Everybody is it pretty much influenced by the same sources, inspiration online, etc. We still keep some minimalism but that doesn’t tell the whole truth, there are a lot of experimental design and parallel tracks. I guess it is the same in all areas in culture, everything is so globalized.
What do you think is the strength point about Stockholm in particular and the Scandinavian furniture a a whole?
We would guess it’s about heritage and stability. There’s a tradition of design, there’s plenty of good schools and people are well off enough to purchase designed objects.
Please drop me some examples for interesting designers or manufactures under your point of view.
There’s a lot of focus on the Danes right now, brands like Muuto. Hay &Tradition or Normann Copenhagen are really taking a stand. Swedish design brands should be on their toes to keep up. The Danish market has always been dominated by their heritage, those modernism brands from 50s and 60s with design from the likes of Arne Jacobsen. In the last decades Sweden’s furniture industry has been really vivid, but in the last 3-4 years there is many strong brands coming from Denmark.
Do you think interior design in Scandinavia is a niche?
Interiors are super important to Scandinavians. We spend crazy amounts on our homes. So no it’s not a niche. Then again, the design scene definitely could benefit from being more public. People here has an strong interest in design and interior but they don’t know the names of the brands or where to go to purchase. This lack of meeting points for people and brands needs to be adressed. There are so many great products, people and companies people never get to hear about. The design world is invisible to the outsiders, and that’s a shame!
If so, what do you think it could be necessary for a closer mainstream approach?
Perhaps a recipe would be: more entrepreneurs, fewer egos and less tradition.
Then again the mainstream market is difficult, it is very price oriented. Most of the top brands are not even concerned with the general public because there is no price tolerance for products with high quality and design. Instead many companies focus on the contract side, thus becoming invisible to the general public. That is the main reason why the average Joe knows little or nothing about quality interior brands or designers.
I do understand furniture fair in Milan is the strongest exhibition in Europe?
True, probably Cosmit is the most important in the world. For now at least. There is not much representation from the U.S though. It is a world of its own. For such a big nation they have very little design or little interest in design. But Asia is very hungry. Japan in particular of course. Now also China and Korea.
How do you usually are represented there?
We usually conduct an exhibition with some of our clients, showing new products and finishing off with a big party. Last year the exhibition was held at a gallery in Porta Venezia. We are the only Swedish design studio putting together our own thing. We do not produce or sell anything there, we are a design studio. It takes a lot of effort to put an exhibition together so it is all about showing creativity, what we do and have a good time. There is usually about 20 Scandinavian brands exhibiting in Milan. But it is very unique being a design studio like this doing your own show. It is of course also a way to help our clients, maybe some of them would not have had the possibility to exhibit there otherwise.
Please tell me about any other interesting places in Europe, emerging or more established ones.
Poland seems to be vibrant right now, Warsaw in particular. We are currently participating in a big international design competition arranged by the big Polish furniture company Comforty.
Is it an idea bring emerging artist to exhibit at FUWL showroom?
That’s an excellent idea!
Which fairs will you attend in 2011?
Stockholm and Milan that we know of now.
How is the American market for FUWL?
We currently have no American clients.
What about Japan, do you have distribution there?
We are working on a project for a Japanese client, we can’t tell you the name yet though.
Do you plan eventually some event of exhibition to happen there?
Japan is a dream destination for our design, Scandinavians and Japanese have similar taste and ideas when it comes to design, so it would be really great to be able to do something in Tokyo in the future. We will do both exhibitions in Stockholm and Milan. It is what we call “Form Us With Love & Friends”. It is very open, sometimes we got performances so it is all about to show up what we are doing and have fun.
Form Us With Love studio & showroom
Address: S:T Eriksgatan 106, 113 31 Stockholm
Tel: +46 (0) 8 21 80 02
info@formuswithlove.se
http://www.formuswithlove.se
Text: Victor Moreno
Photos: Jonas Lindström
Stockholm Design Week 2010
ECOLS
Studio Azzurro
Heatherwick Studio: Designing t...
Olby Design
Goldsmiths Centre for Contempor...
Polymer Art Space
STUPIN
Tai Kwun
Musée Yves Saint Laurent
y gion
Yayoi Kusama Museum
“Nature finds life and mysteries in the natural world”
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Thursday, November 20, 2014 at 8:57AM
Rick Robbins, M.D. in Jud Tillinghast, Marfan's syndrome, adenocarcinoma in situ, clinician of the year, hematoma, intraparencymal hemorrhage, minimally invasive adenocarcinoma, nintedanib, pirfenidone, usual interstitial pneumonia
The November 2014 Arizona Thoracic Society meeting was held on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 at the Scottsdale Shea Hospital beginning at 6:30 PM. This was a dinner meeting with case presentations. There were about 30 in attendance representing the pulmonary, critical care, sleep, pathology and radiology communities. Jud Tillinghast was nominated as the Arizona Thoracic Society physician of the year.
Three cases were presented:
George Parides presented a case of a 70-year-old woman with a 3 areas of ground glass picked up incidentally on CT scan. She had some wheezing. A needle biopsy revealed adenocarcinoma. The biopsy and radiologic pattern were consistent with adenocarcinoma in situ or minimally invasive adenocarcinoma. Discussion centered around treatment. Most felt that if the areas could be removed that surgical resection was indicated (1).
Lewis Wesselius presented a 60-year-old man with Marfan's syndrome and a history of an aortic valve replacement on chronic anticoagulation with a thyroid papillary carcinoma. The patient underwent a total thyroidectomy. Post-operatively he developed a large mass-like area in the right lower lung. It was unclear whether this was in the lung parenchymal or in the pleural space. A preliminary differential diagnosis of abscess, parenchymal hemorrhage or pleural hemorrhage was made. His INR was in the appropriate therapeutic range. A chest tube was placed with minimal drainage and no change in the radiographic appearance. Video-assisted thorascopic surgery (VATS) was performed and a large intraparenchymal hematoma was found which was removed. A review of the literature revealed a small number of reports of spontaneous intraparenchymal hemorrhages but none associated with Marfan's (2,3).
Jasminder Mand presented a case of an asymptomatic 66-year-old man with inspiratory crackles and a mildly reduced diffusing capacity on pulmonary function testing. He had a past minimal smoking history. His CT scan showed areas of ground glass and reticulation surrounding of septal emphysema. An open lung biopsy was performed which was consistent with usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP). The patient raised the question of whether he should be treated with nintedanib or pirfenidone. There was disagreement amongst the audience with some favoring treatment while others favored following the patient.
There being no further business the meeting was adjourned about 8:00 PM. There is no meeting in December. The next meeting will be Phoenix on Wednesday, January, 6:30 PM at Scottsdale Shea Hospital.
Richard A. Robbins, MD
Tsushima Y, Suzuki K, Watanabe S, Kusumoto M, Tsuta K, Matsuno Y, Asamura H. Multiple lung adenocarcinomas showing ground-glass opacities on thoracic computed tomography. Ann Thorac Surg. 2006;82(4):1508-10. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Riachy M, Mal H, Taillé C, Dauriat G, Groussard O, Cazals-Hatem D, Biondi G, Fournier M. Non-traumatic pulmonary haematoma complicating oral anticoagulation therapy. Respirology. 2007;12(4):614-6. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Chakraborty AK, Dreisin RB. Pulmonary hematoma secondary to anticoagulant therapy. Ann Intern Med. 1982;96(1):67-9. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Reference as: Robbins RA. November 2014 Arizona thoracic society notes. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2014;9(5):289-90. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc153-14 PDF
Article originally appeared on SOUTHWEST JOURNAL of PULMONARY & CRITICAL CARE (http://www.swjpcc.com/).
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Consumed by Creativity
Tyler Bergfield and his paintings
July 8, 2009 / 3:00pm / By Justine Fein-Bursoni
Tyler Bergfield is a feverish painter. Not only does he sell some of his work on Etsy along with his girlfriend, Millie, but he also shows his artwork around Champaign-Urbana.
I was first introduced to Tyler's art on my former roommates' wall. It was a cross-section of a slice of meat. Fleshy and raw, it was so realistic and detailed, you could almost pick it off the wall and smack it right down on the grill.
For being someone who cites one of his influences as his dreams, we couldn't help but wonder ... from what are Tyler's dreams made?
Hometown: Bellflower, Ill.
Consumed by: Art
Inspired by: Ornithology and Botany
Who turned you on to art?: My grandmother Phyllis
As a child, you dreamt of...: Flying
As a teenager, you longed for...: a 1965 Buick Riviera Grand Sport 425
As an adult, you wish you could...: Fly
Which medium do you wish to dabble in more often?: Video
Being an artist is like...: telling people something you know they won't understand, but you tell them anyway, just for kicks.
Regardless of cost, what one art supply would you purchase?: New York City
Two things you'd like to try to live without: Supermarkets and fossil fuels.
Three objects that would describe your style of painting: a human femur, a feather, a sickle.
Looking back on your earlier work, how would you say you've changed as an artist?: I've become more aware of oddity in nature.
Sometimes I see you in PACA, what are some of your great finds from there?: Library Card Catalog and cabinet doors to paint on.
Biggest challenge with living in Champaign: Selling art.
Greatest asset living in Champaign: Great friends and social accessibility
Tyler Bergfield's art can currently be found at the indi-go art gallery at 9 E. University Ave. in downtown Champaign also known as the former space Furniture Lounge inhabited. And if you cannot make it there, more of Tyler's paintings will be on display at the Chopin Theater 1543 W. Division Ave. in Chicago during the Série Mélodie event.
The Arts Section strives to celebrate our community's rich and vibrant artistic scene, from theatre to local authors, film, performance art, and everything in between.
Browse Arts Categories
BEST: Arts
Fine Art and Design
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Dallas Soccer News - US Women Japan soccer, Pizza Hut Park, Abby Wambach
US Women's Roster Named for Japan Match at Pizza Hut Park
Published 5/6/2009 11:36:21 AM by staff from dallas
Coach Pia Sundhage has named a 21 woman roster for the US Women National Team's match against Japan on May 20th at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas. The US squad will be led by team captain Christie Rampone, co-captain Lori Chalupny as well as veterans Carli Lloyd, Shannon Boxx, Angela Hucles, Heather O’Reilly and Lindsay Tarpley. Thirteen of the players won the Olympic gold medal in Beijing last August.
The biggest news will be the return of star forward Abby Wambach who suffered a broken leg in an Olympic warmup match with Brazil last year. Wambach will also earn her 100th cap with the US Women becoming only the 5th American woman to gain 100 caps.
Tickets for the May 20 match at Pizza Hut Park, home to FC Dallas of Major League Soccer, range in price from $18 to $80, plus special VIP On-Field seats for $125. Tickets are available through ussoccer.com, by phone at 1-800-745-3000, all Ticketmaster ticket centers throughout the Dallas Metroplex (including Fiesta, Macy’s and FYE stores), and the Pizza Hut Park ticket office.
Roster by Position
GOALKEEPERS (3): Nicole Barnhart (FC Gold Pride), Kelsey Davis (Portland), Hope Solo (St. Louis Athletica)
DEFENDERS (7): Brittany Bock (Los Angeles Sol), Rachel Buehler (FC Gold Pride), Lori Chalupny (St. Louis Athletica), Marian Dalmy (Chicago Red Stars), Amy LePeilbet (Boston Breakers), Heather Mitts (Boston Breakers), Christie Rampone (Sky Blue FC)
MIDFIELDERS (7): Shannon Boxx (Los Angeles Sol), Angela Hucles (Boston Breakers), Carli Lloyd (Chicago Red Stars), Christine Nairn (Penn State), Heather O’Reilly (Sky Blue FC), Megan Rapinoe (Chicago Red Stars), Lindsay Tarpley (Chicago Red Stars)
FORWARDS (4): Lauren Cheney (UCLA), Casey Nogueira (North Carolina), Amy Rodriguez (Boston Breakers), Abby Wambach (Washington Freedom)
Label: US Women Japan soccer, Pizza Hut Park, Abby Wambach
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You are here: Home → Projects → Programming Languages → Mesa
PAL (Pedagogic Algorithmic Language)
Paul McJones, editor - paul@mcjones.org - http://www.mcjones.org/dustydecks/
The goal of this project is to preserve and present primary and secondary source materials (including specifications, source code, manuals, and papers discussing design and implementation) from Mesa, the system programming language designed at Xerox PARC in the 1970s and used to implement the Xerox Star office automation system and its follow-ons. The editor greatly appreciates comments, suggestions, and donations of additional materials.
Other Mesa resources
Thanks to: Al Kossow.
Principles of Operation: Online at bitsavers.org
Mention its successor, Cedar Mesa.
The Mesa system was compatible with the file system of the original Alto operating system (which was written in BPCL). It was a single address space, single user system.
Mesa 3.0
System. October 1977 and March 1978. PDF at bitsavers.org
Microcode, system, and program development tools (binder, bootstrap, compiler, debugger, lister, utilities). PDF at bitsavers.org
Mesa Microcode. Version 41, July 1981. PDF at bitsavers.org
Mesa programs
5700 laser printer, Pilot operating system, Star office automation system, ...
Charles M. Geschke, Charles Irby, Richard K. Johnsson, Edwin H. Satterthwaite and John D. Wick. Preliminary Mesa System Documentation. December 1, 1976. PDF at bitsavers.org
"This collection of documentation describes the initial release of the Mesa programming system, Mesa library packages, and operational procedures for the Alto. It is intended as a preliminary effort, for use by experienced systems programmers operating in the Parc and SDD/Palo Alto environment. Substantial evolution of both the system and this documentation should be anticipated.
The Mesa, language, compiler and programming system are the product of a long-standing research project at Parc, in which Chuck Geschke, Butler Lampson, Jim Mitchell, and Ed Satterthwaite have been the main participants. The current compiler was written by Geschke and Satterthwaite. They also wrote the debugger and support software needed to run Mesa programs on the Alto, in collaboration with Jim Mitchell and with Charles Irby, Richard Johnsson and John Wick of SOD/Palo Alto. Compiler testing has been done by Jim Frandeen of SDD/Palo Alto."
James G. Mitchell, William Maybury, and Richard Sweet. Mesa Language Manual. Version 4.0, May 1978. PDF at bitsavers.org
System, debugger, and user documentation. Online at bitsavers.org
James G. Mitchell, William Maybury, and Richard Sweet. Mesa Language Manual. Version 5.0, CSL 79-3, Palo Alto Research Center and Systems Development Department, Xerox Corporation, April 1979. PDF at bitsavers.org
Anonymous. Mesa 6.0 Primary Bytecodes. PDF at bitsavers.org
Xerox Development Environment
Anonymous. Xerox Development Environment : Mesa Course. Document Services Business Unit, Xerox Corporation, September 1988. PDF at bitsavers.org
Jim Mitchell. What Mesa needs in an Alto Virtual Memory Scheme. Inter-Office Memorandum, Computer Science Laboratory, Palo Alto Research Center, Xerox Corporation, June 12, 1974. PDF at bitsavers.org
B. W. Lampson, J. G. Mitchell, and E. H. Satterthwaite. On the transfer of control between contexts. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 19, Springer, 1974, pages 181-203. PDF at microsoft.com
P. Heinrich and W. Shultz. Selection of a System Programming Language for OIS. Inter-Office Memorandum, ITG, Xerox Corporation, December 17, 1974. PDF at bitsavers.org
C. M. Geschke and J. G. Mitchell. On the problem of uniform references to data structures. In Proceedings of the international conference on Reliable software. ACM, New York pages 31-42. ACM Digital Library
Charles M. Geschke, James H. Morris, Jr., and Edwin H. Satterthwaite. Early experience with Mesa. Commun. ACM Volume 20, Number 8 (August 1977), pages 540-553. ACM Digital Library
Hugh C. Lauer and Edwin H. Satterthwaite. The Impact of Mesa on System Design. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Software Engineering, Munich, Germany, September 1979. IEEE Computer Society, 1979. PDF at bitsavers.org
Butler W. Lampson and David D. Redell. Experience with processes and monitors in Mesa. Comm.ACM Volume 23, Number 2 (Feb. 1980), pages 106-117. PDF at microsoft.com ACM Digital Library
James G. Mitchell. Mesa from the perspective of a designer turned user. In Proceedings of the international conference on APL (APL '81), William L. Anderson and David G. Smith (Eds.). ACM, New York. PDF at bitsavers.org ACM Digital Library
Diarmuid Pigott. Mesa. HOPL: an interactive Roster of Programming Languages. Online at hopl.murdoch.edu.au
Documentation for the computers Mesa ran on.
Alto hardware and software documents. Online at bitsavers.org
Dandelion. Online at bitsavers.org
Dicentra. Online at bitsavers.org
Dolphin. Online at bitsavers.org
Dorado. Online at bitsavers.org
Memos from SDD, the Xerox product group that developed and maintained Mesa. Online at bitsavers.org
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Polaris' electric GEM vehicles go driverless in Detroit
By Dee DePass Star Tribune
Two electric vehicles made by Polaris Industries that have been outfitted with autonomous-driving software and sensors are headed to Detroit, where they will roll their way along city streets for a week.
The test, by robotics firm May Mobility and Bedrock LLC, a Detroit commercial real estate firm owned by billionaire Dan Gilbert, begins Oct. 9.
For safety purposes, the vehicles will have human drivers on board. But unless there is an emergency, the actual driving will be left to the machines.
The low-speed, six-seater shuttles were made by Polaris’ GEM division and are outfitted with May Mobility’s software and sensors. A team from May Mobility and 12 Polaris employees were involved in bringing about the big day.
During the five-day test, the autonomous shuttles will ferry Bedrock’s workers to and from their offices and parking ramps around downtown Detroit. By law, the GEM vehicles can only travel 25 miles per hour on public streets with 35 mph signage.
“We are doing just three hours of service a day,” said May Mobility CEO Edwin Olson from his Ann Arbor office. “For us, this pilot is really about making contact with the ball. Autonomous vehicles are new. There is a lot of stuff for us to learn about the technology.”
The robotics expert May Mobility outfitted Polaris Industries' electric GEM vehicles with autonomous driving technology. Pilot test will run Oct. 9-13 in downtown Detroit. Test is being run for Bedrock LLC, which is considering starting a driverless shuttle service for its Detroit employees. SOURCE: May Mobility
Officials of Medina-based Polaris said next month’s test in Detroit will mark its 16th project pairing its electric vehicles with autonomous driving, though the company remains much better known for ATVs.
For May Mobility, its partnership with Bedrock, which is bankrolling the test, is its “first customer relationship and we are really excited about moving this from a pilot to a full deployment,” Olson said.
If successful, May Mobility will buy more Polaris GEM vehicles and outfit them with the wires, sensors, tracking devices, dash displays and software conversions to create a fleet of driverless shuttles throughout downtown Detroit, where Bedrock has roughly 200 properties and scores of workers that could benefit from the “gee whiz” transportation option.
Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Tesla, Google, and Uber are among those racing to develop semi- and fully autonomous vehicles in hopes of carving out a chunk of the $11 trillion transportation industry.
Frank Douma, a policy program director at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, said every company in Silicon Valley and Detroit is salivating over the money that could be made by helping to reduce and eventually eliminate the need for bus, taxi and other city drivers.
Market research firm Navigant Research recently predicted that 90 million light-duty vehicles with driverless features will be on the road by 2027. It also predicted that 129 million autonomous-capable vehicles will be sold between 2020 and 2035. Interest is high, especially among the ride-sharing community, said Navigant senior research analyst David Alexander in a statement.
“Studies have shown that an autonomous fleet can effectively replace a much larger number of private vehicles in a city center, which represent both opportunity and challenge for original equipment manufacturers,” he said.
It’s a long way off, but May Mobility’s Olson may be just the guy to help Detroit inch toward a robotic transit system. Olson, associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, is the former principal investigator of Ford’s autonomous vehicle program. He is also the former co-director of autonomous driving for the Toyota Research Institute.
With investors’ help, he formed May Mobility in January 2017 to work toward launching fleets of autonomous vehicles that can provide the basic transportation needs of entire cities. “We have grand ambitions to market short trips in densely populated communities and on campuses,” Olson said. “We have a long customer pipeline with other pilot tests scheduled for the next six months. We’re excited.”
The Detroit test will be a big boost for Polaris, which is better known for its mud-churning ATVs, motorcycles and snowmobiles than for its electric vehicles. The company, which generates $4.5 billion in annual sales, has little reputation for autonomous prowess.
“I knew Polaris had the capability to do many things. But I didn’t know they were openly in the game of autonomous vehicles,” said Douma at the Humphrey School. “So this is kind of fun to hear that Minnesota companies are now jumping into the ring.”
The holy grail that innovators chase involves a system where anyone could use a cellphone app to order up a driverless car that safely picks and drops customers at their designations — all day long, Douma said. “Everybody talks about disruptive technology. And this really is. It’s a fun time to be in transportation.”
Polaris bought its GEM line of tiny electric cars from Chrysler in 2011 and quickly boosted sales to retirement communities, universities, golf courses and resorts. Over time, Polaris toyed with combining its electric prowess with possible driverless features. It’s been a process, said Polaris spokesman Evan Miller.
In 2011 and 2012, Polaris worked with the U.S. military to help create a robot-driven ATV. The Army’s goal was to build a rugged vehicle that could quickly respond to disasters without risking human life. After years of military tests and experiments, Polaris’ driverless research now continues on civilian vehicles.
In 2013, Polaris started talking to Olson at the University of Michigan about possibilities. By 2015, Polaris’ GEM engineers were also working with universities in Santa Clara and San Diego and with a company called Auro Robotics. That firm “had two GEM vehicles and they started slowly working to make them into autonomous vehicles,” said Polaris product manager Patrick Weldon.
Today, in addition to the 16 pilot tests, Polaris has even more research projects including one at the University of Minnesota, said Weldon. He declined to disclose Polaris’ investment into driverless technology but noted “It is in the millions. It’s significant.”
Dee DePass is a business reporter for the Star Tribune. She spent the last four years covering Minnesota's manufacturing and mining industries. She previously covered the economy, workplace issues and banking.
dee.depass@startribune.com 612-673-7725 DePassStrib
ASV Holdings moves its distribution operations to Minnesota
SUV driver killed in northwestern Minnesota crash; 3 others seriously hurt
Prosecutor: Israeli woman oversaw $145M investor fraud plot
Recorded telephone calls, company emails and videotaped evidence will show that an Israeli woman oversaw a "massive" scheme to defraud tens of thousands of investors across the globe out of tens of millions of dollars, a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
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Rain falls fast and hard, causing street flooding
Two books offer insights about managing time and space
Pocketbook insights found in two recent books about improving time management and decluttering a home
By KARA McGUIRE
June 6, 2015 — 7:21pm
Summer reading lists are heavy on page-turning thrillers or novels with little caloric value. It’s atypical to find money books on the list. I get it. Books about personal finance tend to require a type of concentration that’s in short supply after a day in the sun. But summer is also a good time to regroup and consider new ways of approaching ever-present challenges in our daily lives. Here are two books that re-energized the way I think about my family’s time and stuff. While they may not seem money-related upon first glance, both offer pocketbook insights in addition to the topics their titles suggest.
“I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time,” by Laura Vanderkam
I’ve always found the author’s contrarian but positive outlook on time management inspiring as I’ve juggled jobs, kids and my tendency to overcommit.
Her new book gleans insights from time diaries kept by six-figure-earning professional women with at least one child at home. The book reveals that high-earning moms don’t work around the clock, but they do work flexibly — blending work, family and personal time in a rich mosaic where personal and work time aren’t separated by a rigid divide. For example, 75 percent of women conducted personal activities during typical work hours in the week that they tracked. About the same number conducted work activities during personal hours, logging on after the kids went to bed or checking e-mails in the grocery line. Many women worked remotely, whether by a set number of hours or on rare occasions.
It was fascinating to pore over other women’s time logs and reassuring to see some of my own tried and true strategies reflected on the pages. For example, I think of my calendar the way I think of my budget. I look out several days, if not weeks, to make sure I’ve allocated ample time to complete projects or pick up kids from camp. In recent years, I’ve also been more thoughtful about how much my time is worth, and have realized that cheap or free can come with a high price tag. Paying for a baby sitter or house cleaner can pay dividends.
After reading “I Know How She Does It,” I’m going to try to build more slack in my calendar so that I’m not rushing from one thing to the next — kind of an emergency savings account for time, if you will. I’m also going to try to set aside a day on my next business trip to visit a museum, which has nothing to do with money but will invest in my curiosity about art and history. If you want suggestions for meeting obligations while finding time to meet your life aspirations, Vanderkam has them.
Feed Loader
I Know How She Does It By Laura Vanderkam
“The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing,” by Marie Kondo
You may think clutter has little to do with money, but I think the two are inextricably connected. For one, combing through your collections teaches the tough lesson that interests can be fleeting, but the money spent is forever. It’s also a lesson in the resale value of books, clothes and household goods. After hauling two boxes of books to a used bookstore, it was apparent to me that donating volumes or sticking them in a neighborhood Little Free Library would be better.
I found Kondo’s rule to “discard anything that doesn’t spark joy” to be refreshing, if somewhat unrealistic. Those school lunchboxes spark the opposite of joy every single morning, yet they’re needed. In an AMA (Ask Me Anything) Q&A on Reddit, Kondo said functional items should be thanked for helping your life run smoothly. Come to think of it, that’s how I feel about most of my financial products like credit cards and remote check deposit.
As I went through a pile of clothes dozens of items deep, I fondly remembered the events where I wore certain dresses — dresses that hadn’t fit for years — and then took them to a consignment store. I acquiesced and got rid of nearly all of my unread books. She’s right, tomorrow may as well be never — I’d had some books for more than a decade and never got farther than the blurb on the back.
I was skeptical at first, but I am now convinced that clearing out unappreciated items from your home opens up mental room in addition to space in your house. I’ve been less frustrated about where to store items in our small home, less desirous of a bigger house, and more critical when I’m shopping.
Kondo doesn’t promote donating items to charity for a tax deduction or reselling goods that still have years of life in them. She estimates the sum total of all her clients’ garbage so far amounts to at least 28,000 bags, a figure that comes off in a giddy fashion. And by repeatedly using words like “throw away,” “get rid of” and “discard,” her method once the items leave your house takes on an air of carelessness.
My only other issue: Convincing a 6-year-old to thank old toys for the fun times and chuck them in a garbage bag is a fool’s errand. Any parent knows easily half the clutter in a home comes from children. I tried to incorporate my kids into decluttering in three ways with moderate success. I pointed out the value of money and importance of making sure they’re being thoughtful spenders. Next, I emphasized the joy that can be found when sharing toys with children who have far less. Finally, I made a point to teach them about decluttering responsibly, something Kondo did not emphasize enough.
Kara McGuire is a consumer strategist for CEB and author of “The Teen Money Manual.” Send your favorite financial reads, or books that you think have hidden financial lessons, to kara@karamcguire.com.
Business After 26 years and 1,000 columns, columnist begins a new chapter
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Variety Overweight Minnesotans are among those who are ditching the diet
After 26 years and 1,000 columns, columnist begins a new chapter
Minnesota Maker: Talin Spring sees beauty far and wide
How debt consolidation can go wrong
Overweight Minnesotans are among those who are ditching the diet
United Airlines glided through the first part of summer, as strong travel demand pushed average fares higher, but the grounding of Boeing 737 Max jets…
A federal judge formally banned the citizenship question from the 2020 census on Tuesday, days after President Donald Trump announced his administration would no longer seek to add it.
Developer agrees to scale back short-term rentals at Minneapolis complex • Business
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Ada (programming language)
Title: Ada (programming language)
Subject: Comparison of programming languages (basic instructions), List of programming languages by type, Timeline of programming languages, List of tools for static code analysis, Intel iAPX 432
Collection: .Net Programming Languages, Ada (Programming Language), Ada Programming Language, Avionics Programming Languages, High Integrity Programming Language, Multi-Paradigm Programming Languages, Programming Language Standards, Programming Languages Created in the 1980S, Programming Languages with an Iso Standard, Statically Typed Programming Languages, Systems Programming Languages
Multi-paradigm
MIL-STD-1815/Ada 83: Jean Ichbiah
Ada 95: Tucker Taft
Ada 2005: Tucker Taft
First appeared
Stable release
Ada 2012 / December 10, 2012 (2012-12-10)
Preview release
Ada 2012[1] / November 2011 (2011-11)
Typing discipline
static, strong, safe, nominative
Cross-platform (multi-platform)
Filename extensions
.adb .ads
.org.adaicwww
Major implementations
AdaCore GNAT,
Green Hills Software Optimising Ada 95 compiler,
Aonix ObjectAda,[2]
DDC-I Score
SPARK, Ravenscar profile
Influenced by
ALGOL 68, Pascal, C++ (Ada 95), Smalltalk (Ada 95), Java (Ada 2005), Eiffel (Ada 2012)
C++, Eiffel, PL/SQL, PL/pgSQL, SQL/PSM, VHDL, Rust, Ruby, Java, Seed7
Ada Programming at Wikibooks
Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, wide-spectrum, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages. It has built-in language support for design-by-contract, extremely strong typing, explicit concurrency, offering tasks, synchronous message passing, protected objects, and non-determinism. Ada improves code safety and maintainability by using the compiler to find errors in favor of runtime errors. Ada is an international standard; the current version (known as Ada 2012[3]) is defined by ISO/IEC 8652:2012.[4]
Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII Honeywell Bull under contract to the United States Department of Defense (DoD) from 1977 to 1983 to supersede the hundreds of programming languages then used by the DoD. Ada was named after Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), who is credited as being the first computer programmer.[5]
Standardization 3
Language constructs 4
"Hello, world!" in Ada 4.1
Data types 4.2
Control structures 4.3
Packages, procedures and functions 4.4
Concurrency 4.5
Pragmas 4.6
International standards 6.1
Rationale 6.2
Books 6.3
Ada was originally targeted at embedded and real-time systems. The Ada 95 revision, designed by S. Tucker Taft of Intermetrics between 1992 and 1995, improved support for systems, numerical, financial, and object-oriented programming (OOP).
Notable features of Ada include: strong typing, modularity mechanisms (packages), run-time checking, parallel processing (tasks, synchronous message passing, protected objects, and nondeterministic select statements), exception handling, and generics. Ada 95 added support for object-oriented programming, including dynamic dispatch.
The syntax of Ada minimizes choices of ways to perform basic operations, and prefers English keywords (such as "or else" and "and then") to symbols (such as "||" and "&&"). Ada uses the basic arithmetical operators "+", "-", "*", and "/", but avoids using other symbols. Code blocks are delimited by words such as "declare", "begin", and "end", where the "end" (in most cases) is followed by the identifier of the block it closes (e.g., if … end if, loop … end loop). In the case of conditional blocks this avoids a dangling else that could pair with the wrong nested if-expression in other languages like C or Java.
Ada is designed for development of very large software systems. Ada packages can be compiled separately. Ada package specifications (the package interface) can also be compiled separately without the implementation to check for consistency. This makes it possible to detect problems early during the design phase, before implementation starts.
A large number of compile-time checks are supported to help avoid bugs that would not be detectable until run-time in some other languages or would require explicit checks to be added to the source code. For example, the syntax requires explicitly named closing of blocks to prevent errors due to mismatched end tokens. The adherence to strong typing allows detection of many common software errors (wrong parameters, range violations, invalid references, mismatched types, etc.) either during compile-time, or otherwise during run-time. As concurrency is part of the language specification, the compiler can in some cases detect potential deadlocks. Compilers also commonly check for misspelled identifiers, visibility of packages, redundant declarations, etc. and can provide warnings and useful suggestions on how to fix the error.
Ada also supports run-time checks to protect against access to unallocated memory, buffer overflow errors, range violations, off-by-one errors, array access errors, and other detectable bugs. These checks can be disabled in the interest of runtime efficiency, but can often be compiled efficiently. It also includes facilities to help program verification. For these reasons, Ada is widely used in critical systems, where any anomaly might lead to very serious consequences, e.g., accidental death, injury or severe financial loss. Examples of systems where Ada is used include avionics, ATC, railways, banking, military and space technology.[6][7]
Ada's dynamic memory management is high-level and type-safe. Ada does not have generic or untyped pointers; nor does it implicitly declare any pointer type. Instead, all dynamic memory allocation and deallocation must take place through explicitly declared access types. Each access type has an associated storage pool that handles the low-level details of memory management; the programmer can either use the default storage pool or define new ones (this is particularly relevant for Non-Uniform Memory Access). It is even possible to declare several different access types that all designate the same type but use different storage pools. Also, the language provides for accessibility checks, both at compile time and at run time, that ensures that an access value cannot outlive the type of the object it points to.
Though the semantics of the language allow automatic garbage collection of inaccessible objects, most implementations do not support it by default, as it would cause unpredictable behaviour in real-time systems. Ada does support a limited form of region-based memory management; also, creative use of storage pools can provide for a limited form of automatic garbage collection, since destroying a storage pool also destroys all the objects in the pool.
Ada was designed to resemble the English language in its syntax for comments: a double-dash ("--"), resembling an em dash, denotes comment text. Comments stop at end of line, so there is no danger of unclosed comments accidentally voiding whole sections of source code. Prefixing each line (or column) with "--" will skip all that code, while being clearly denoted as a column of repeated "--" down the page. There is no limit to the nesting of comments, thereby allowing prior code, with commented-out sections, to be commented-out as even larger sections. All Unicode characters are allowed in comments, such as for symbolic formulas (E[0]=m×c²). To the compiler, the double-dash is treated as end-of-line, allowing continued parsing of the language as a context-free grammar.
The semicolon (";") is a statement terminator, and the null or no-operation statement is null;. A single ; without a statement to terminate is not allowed.
Unlike most ISO standards, the Ada language definition (known as the Ada Reference Manual or ARM, or sometimes the Language Reference Manual or LRM) is free content. Thus, it is a common reference for Ada programmers and not just programmers implementing Ada compilers. Apart from the reference manual, there is also an extensive rationale document which explains the language design and the use of various language constructs. This document is also widely used by programmers. When the language was revised, a new rationale document was written.
One notable free software tool that is used by many Ada programmers to aid them in writing Ada source code is the GNAT Programming Studio.
In the 1970s, the US Department of Defense (DoD) was concerned by the number of different programming languages being used for its embedded computer system projects, many of which were obsolete or hardware-dependent, and none of which supported safe modular programming. In 1975, a working group, the High Order Language Working Group (HOLWG), was formed with the intent to reduce this number by finding or creating a programming language generally suitable for the department's and UK Ministry of Defence requirements. After many iterations beginning with an original Straw man proposal the eventual programming language was named Ada. The total number of high-level programming languages in use for such projects fell from over 450 in 1983 to 37 by 1996.
The HOLWG working group crafted the Steelman language requirements, a series of documents stating the requirements they felt a programming language should satisfy. Many existing languages were formally reviewed, but the team concluded in 1977 that no existing language met the specifications.
Requests for proposals for a new programming language were issued and four contractors were hired to develop their proposals under the names of Red (Intermetrics led by Benjamin Brosgol), Green (CII Honeywell Bull, led by Jean Ichbiah), Blue (SofTech, led by John Goodenough)[8] and Yellow (SRI International, led by Jay Spitzen). In April 1978, after public scrutiny, the Red and Green proposals passed to the next phase. In May 1979, the Green proposal, designed by Jean Ichbiah at CII Honeywell Bull, was chosen and given the name Ada—after Augusta Ada, Countess of Lovelace. This proposal was influenced by the programming language LIS that Ichbiah and his group had developed in the 1970s. The preliminary Ada reference manual was published in ACM SIGPLAN Notices in June 1979. The Military Standard reference manual was approved on December 10, 1980 (Ada Lovelace's birthday), and given the number MIL-STD-1815 in honor of Ada Lovelace's birth year. In 1981, C. A. R. Hoare took advantage of his Turing Award speech to criticize Ada for being overly complex and hence unreliable,[9] but subsequently seemed to recant in the foreword he wrote for an Ada textbook.[10]
Ada attracted much attention from the programming community as a whole during its early days. Its backers and others predicted that it might become a dominant language for general purpose programming and not just defense-related work. Ichbiah publicly stated that within ten years, only two programming languages would remain, Ada and Lisp.[11] Early Ada compilers struggled to implement the large, complex language, and both compile-time and run-time performance tended to be slow and tools primitive. Compiler vendors expended most of their efforts in passing the massive, language-conformance-testing, government-required "ACVC" validation suite that was required in another novel feature of the Ada language effort.[11]
The first validated Ada implementation was the NYU Ada/Ed translator,[12] certified on April 11, 1983. NYU Ada/Ed is implemented in the high-level set language SETL.[13] A number of commercial companies began offering Ada compilers and associated development tools, including Alsys, Telesoft, DDC-I, Advanced Computer Techniques, Tartan Laboratories, TLD Systems, and others.
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace.
In 1991, the US Department of Defense began to require the use of Ada (the Ada mandate) for all software,[14] though exceptions to this rule were often granted. The Department of Defense Ada mandate was effectively removed in 1997, as the DoD began to embrace NATO countries.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ada compilers had improved in performance, but there were still barriers to full exploitation of Ada's abilities, including a tasking model that was different from what most real-time programmers were used to.[11]
Because of Ada's safety-critical support features, it is now used not only for military applications, but also in commercial projects where a software bug can have severe consequences, e.g., avionics and air traffic control, commercial rockets (e.g., Ariane 4 and 5), satellites and other space systems, railway transport and banking.[7] For example, the fly-by-wire system software in the Boeing 777 was written in Ada. The Canadian Automated Air Traffic System was written in 1 million lines of Ada (SLOC count). It featured advanced distributed processing, a distributed Ada database, and object-oriented design. Ada is also used in other air traffic systems, e.g., the UK’s next-generation Interim Future Area Control Tools Support (iFACTS) air traffic control system is designed and implemented using SPARK Ada.[15] It is also used in the French TVM in-cab signalling system on the TGV high-speed rail system, and the metro suburban trains in Paris, London, Hong Kong and New York City.[7][16]
The language became an ANSI standard in 1983 (ANSI/MIL-STD 1815A), and without any further changes became an ISO standard in 1987 (ISO-8652:1987). This version of the language is commonly known as Ada 83, from the date of its adoption by ANSI, but is sometimes referred to also as Ada 87, from the date of its adoption by ISO.
Ada 95, the joint ISO/ANSI standard (ISO-8652:1995) was published in February 1995, making Ada 95 the first ISO standard object-oriented programming language. To help with the standard revision and future acceptance, the US Air Force funded the development of the GNAT Compiler. Presently, the GNAT Compiler is part of the GNU Compiler Collection.
Work has continued on improving and updating the technical content of the Ada programming language. A Technical Corrigendum to Ada 95 was published in October 2001, and a major Amendment, ISO/IEC 8652:1995/Amd 1:2007 was published on March 9, 2007. At the Ada-Europe 2012 conference in Stockholm, the Ada Resource Association (ARA) and Ada-Europe announced the completion of the design of the latest version of the Ada programming language and the submission of the reference manual to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for approval. ISO/IEC 8652:2012 was published in December 2012.[4]
Other related standards include ISO 8651-3:1988 Information processing systems—Computer graphics—Graphical Kernel System (GKS) language bindings—Part 3: Ada.
Language constructs
Ada is an ALGOL-like programming language featuring control structures with reserved words such as if, then, else, while, for, and so on. However, Ada also has many data structuring facilities and other abstractions which were not included in the original ALGOL 60, such as type definitions, records, pointers, enumerations. Such constructs were in part inherited or inspired from Pascal.
"Hello, world!" in Ada
A common example of a language's syntax is the Hello world program: (hello.adb)
with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;
procedure Hello is
Put_Line ("Hello, world!");
end Hello;
This program can be compiled by using the freely available open source compiler GNAT, by executing
gnatmake hello.adb
Ada's type system is not based on a set of predefined primitive types but allows users to declare their own types. This declaration in turn is not based on the internal representation of the type but on describing the goal which should be achieved. This allows the compiler to determine a suitable memory size for the type, and to check for violations of the type definition at compile time and run time (i.e., range violations, buffer overruns, type consistency, etc.). Ada supports numerical types defined by a range, modulo types, aggregate types (records and arrays), and enumeration types. Access types define a reference to an instance of a specified type; untyped pointers are not permitted. Special types provided by the language are task types and protected types.
For example, a date might be represented as:
type Day_type is range 1 .. 31;
type Month_type is range 1 .. 12;
type Year_type is range 1800 .. 2100;
type Hours is mod 24;
type Weekday is (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday);
type Date is
Day : Day_type;
Month : Month_type;
Year : Year_type;
end record;
Types can be refined by declaring subtypes:
subtype Working_Hours is Hours range 0 .. 12; -- at most 12 Hours to work a day
subtype Working_Day is Weekday range Monday .. Friday; -- Days to work
Work_Load: constant array(Working_Day) of Working_Hours -- implicit type declaration
:= (Friday => 6, Monday => 4, others => 10); -- lookup table for working hours with initialization
Types can have modifiers such as limited, abstract, private etc. Private types can only be accessed and limited types can only be modified or copied within the scope of the package that defines them.[17] Ada 95 adds additional features for object-oriented extension of types.
Ada is a structured programming language, meaning that the flow of control is structured into standard statements. All standard constructs and deep level early exit are supported so the use of the also supported 'go to' commands is seldom needed.
-- while a is not equal to b, loop.
while a /= b loop
Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line ("Waiting");
if a > b then
Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line ("Condition met");
Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line ("Condition not met");
for i in 1 .. 10 loop
Ada.Text_IO.Put ("Iteration: ");
Ada.Text_IO.Put (i);
Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line;
a := a + 1;
exit when a = 10;
case i is
when 0 => Ada.Text_IO.Put ("zero");
when 1 => Ada.Text_IO.Put ("one");
when 2 => Ada.Text_IO.Put ("two");
-- case statements have to cover all possible cases:
when others => Ada.Text_IO.Put ("none of the above");
end case;
for aWeekday in Weekday'Range loop -- loop over an enumeration
Put_Line ( Weekday'Image(aWeekday) ); -- output string representation of an enumeration
if aWeekday in Working_Day then -- check of a subtype of an enumeration
Put_Line ( " to work for " &
Working_Hours'Image (Work_Load(aWeekday)) ); -- access into a lookup table
Packages, procedures and functions
Among the parts of an Ada program are packages, procedures and functions.
Example: Package specification (example.ads)
package Example is
type Number is range 1 .. 11;
procedure Print_and_Increment (j: in out Number);
end Example;
Package body (example.adb)
with Ada.Text_IO;
package body Example is
i : Number := Number'First;
procedure Print_and_Increment (j: in out Number) is
function Next (k: in Number) return Number is
return k + 1;
end Next;
Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line ( "The total is: " & Number'Image(j) );
j := Next (j);
end Print_and_Increment;
-- package initialization executed when the package is elaborated
while i < Number'Last loop
Print_and_Increment (i);
This program can be compiled, e.g., by using the freely available open source compiler GNAT, by executing
gnatmake -z example.adb
Packages, procedures and functions can nest to any depth and each can also be the logical outermost block.
Each package, procedure or function can have its own declarations of constants, types, variables, and other procedures, functions and packages, which can be declared in any order.
Ada has language support for task-based concurrency. The fundamental concurrent unit in Ada is a task which is a built-in limited type. Tasks are specified in two parts – the task declaration defines the task interface (similar to a type declaration), the task body specifies the implementation of the task. Depending on the implementation, Ada tasks are either mapped to operating system tasks or processes, or are scheduled internally by the Ada runtime.
Tasks can have entries for synchronisation (a form of synchronous message passing). Task entries are declared in the task specification. Each task entry can have one or more accept statements within the task body. If the control flow of the task reaches an accept statement, the task is blocked until the corresponding entry is called by another task (similarly, a calling task is blocked until the called task reaches the corresponding accept statement). Task entries can have parameters similar to procedures, allowing tasks to synchronously exchange data. In conjunction with select statements it is possible to define guards on accept statements (similar to Dijkstra's guarded commands).
Ada also offers protected objects for mutual exclusion. Protected objects are a monitor-like construct, but use guards instead of conditional variables for signaling (similar to conditional critical regions). Protected objects combine the data encapsulation and safe mutual exclusion from monitors, and entry guards from conditional critical regions. The main advantage over classical monitors is that conditional variables are not required for signaling, avoiding potential deadlocks due to incorrect locking semantics. Like tasks, the protected object is a built-in limited type, and it also has a declaration part and a body.
A protected object consists of encapsulated private data (which can only be accessed from within the protected object), and procedures, functions and entries which are guaranteed to be mutually exclusive (with the only exception of functions, which are required to be side effect free and can therefore run concurrently with other functions). A task calling a protected object is blocked if another task is currently executing inside the same protected object, and released when this other task leaves the protected object. Blocked tasks are queued on the protected object ordered by time of arrival.
Protected object entries are similar to procedures, but additionally have guards. If a guard evaluates to false, a calling task is blocked and added to the queue of that entry; now another task can be admitted to the protected object, as no task is currently executing inside the protected object. Guards are re-evaluated whenever a task leaves the protected object, as this is the only time when the evaluation of guards can have changed.
Calls to entries can be requeued to other entries with the same signature. A task that is requeued is blocked and added to the queue of the target entry; this means that the protected object is released and allows admission of another task.
The select statement in Ada can be used to implement non-blocking entry calls and accepts, non-deterministic selection of entries (also with guards), time-outs and aborts.
The following example illustrates some concepts of concurrent programming in Ada.
procedure Traffic is
type Airplane_ID is range 1..10; -- 10 airplanes
task type Airplane (ID: Airplane_ID); -- task representing airplanes, with ID as initialisation parameter
type Airplane_Access is access Airplane; -- reference type to Airplane
protected type Runway is -- the shared runway (protected to allow concurrent access)
entry Assign_Aircraft (ID: Airplane_ID); -- all entries are guaranteed mutually exclusive
entry Cleared_Runway (ID: Airplane_ID);
entry Wait_For_Clear;
Clear: Boolean := True; -- protected private data - generally more than just a flag...
end Runway;
type Runway_Access is access all Runway;
-- the air traffic controller task takes requests for takeoff and landing
task type Controller (My_Runway: Runway_Access) is
-- task entries for synchronous message passing
entry Request_Takeoff (ID: in Airplane_ID; Takeoff: out Runway_Access);
entry Request_Approach(ID: in Airplane_ID; Approach: out Runway_Access);
end Controller;
-- allocation of instances
Runway1 : aliased Runway; -- instantiate a runway
Controller1: Controller (Runway1'Access); -- and a controller to manage it
------ the implementations of the above types ------
protected body Runway is
entry Assign_Aircraft (ID: Airplane_ID)
when Clear is -- the entry guard - calling tasks are blocked until the condition is true
Clear := False;
Put_Line (Airplane_ID'Image (ID) & " on runway ");
entry Cleared_Runway (ID: Airplane_ID)
when not Clear is
Clear := True;
Put_Line (Airplane_ID'Image (ID) & " cleared runway ");
entry Wait_For_Clear
when Clear is
null; -- no need to do anything here - a task can only enter if "Clear" is true
task body Controller is
My_Runway.Wait_For_Clear; -- wait until runway is available (blocking call)
select -- wait for two types of requests (whichever is runnable first)
when Request_Approach'count = 0 => -- guard statement - only accept if there are no tasks queuing on Request_Approach
accept Request_Takeoff (ID: in Airplane_ID; Takeoff: out Runway_Access)
do -- start of synchronized part
My_Runway.Assign_Aircraft (ID); -- reserve runway (potentially blocking call if protected object busy or entry guard false)
Takeoff := My_Runway; -- assign "out" parameter value to tell airplane which runway
end Request_Takeoff; -- end of the synchronised part
accept Request_Approach (ID: in Airplane_ID; Approach: out Runway_Access) do
My_Runway.Assign_Aircraft (ID);
Approach := My_Runway;
end Request_Approach;
or -- terminate if no tasks left who could call
terminate;
end select;
task body Airplane is
Rwy : Runway_Access;
Controller1.Request_Takeoff (ID, Rwy); -- This call blocks until Controller task accepts and completes the accept block
Put_Line (Airplane_ID'Image (ID) & " taking off...");
delay 2.0;
Rwy.Cleared_Runway (ID); -- call will not block as "Clear" in Rwy is now false and no other tasks should be inside protected object
delay 5.0; -- fly around a bit...
select -- try to request a runway
Controller1.Request_Approach (ID, Rwy); -- this is a blocking call - will run on controller reaching accept block and return on completion
exit; -- if call returned we're clear for landing - leave select block and proceed...
delay 3.0; -- timeout - if no answer in 3 seconds, do something else (everything in following block)
Put_Line (Airplane_ID'Image (ID) & " in holding pattern"); -- simply print a message
delay 4.0; -- do landing approach...
Put_Line (Airplane_ID'Image (ID) & " touched down!");
Rwy.Cleared_Runway (ID); -- notify runway that we're done here.
New_Airplane: Airplane_Access;
for I in Airplane_ID'Range loop -- create a few airplane tasks
New_Airplane := new Airplane (I); -- will start running directly after creation
end Traffic;
Pragmas
A pragma is a compiler directive that conveys information to the compiler to allow specific manipulation of compiled output.[18] Certain pragmas are built into the language[19] while other are implementation-specific.
Examples of common usage of compiler pragmas would be to disable certain features, such as run-time type checking or array subscript boundary checking, or to instruct the compiler to insert object code in lieu of a function call (as C/C++ does with inline functions).
APSE – a specification for a programming environment to support software development in Ada
JOVIAL – an earlier U.S Military programming language
PL/SQL and PL/pgSQL
Ravenscar profile
SPARK (programming language) – a programming language consisting of a highly restricted subset of Ada, annotated with meta information describing desired component behavior and individual runtime requirements
Straw man proposal
VHDL – a hardware description language originally developed at the behest of the U.S Department of Defense that borrows heavily from Ada in both concepts and syntax
Comparison of programming languages
List of programming languages
^ J. Fuegi and J. Francis, "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'." Annals of the History of Computing 25 #4 (October–December 2003): 16-26. doi:10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887
^ C.A.R. Hoare, "The Emperor's Old Clothes." Communications of the ACM, 1981.
^ D.A. Watt, B.A. Wichmann and W. Findlay, "Ada: Language and Methodology." Prentice-Hall, 1987.
^ a b c J-P. Rosen, "The Ada Paradox(es)", Ada Letters, ACM SIGAda, Vol. 24, No. 2, August 2009, pp. 28-35.
ISO/IEC 8652: Information technology—Programming languages—Ada
ISO/IEC 15291: Information technology—Programming languages—Ada Semantic Interface Specification (ASIS)
ISO/IEC 18009: Information technology—Programming languages—Ada: Conformity assessment of a language processor (ACATS)
IEEE Standard 1003.5b-1996, the POSIX Ada binding
Ada Language Mapping Specification, the CORBA IDL to Ada mapping
(These documents have been published in various forms including print.)
, 1986.Rationale for the Design of the Ada Programming LanguageJean D. Ichbiah, John G. P. Barnes, Robert J. Firth and Mike Woodger,
, 1995.Ada 95 rationale : the language : the standard librariesJohn G. P. Barnes,
, 2005, 2006.Rationale for Ada 2005John Barnes,
Grady Booch: Software Engineering with Ada, California: The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc., 1987. ISBN 0-8053-0604-8
Jan Skansholm: Ada 95 From the Beginning, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-40376-5
Geoff Gilpin: Ada: A Guided Tour and Tutorial, Prentice hall, ISBN 978-0-13-004045-9
John Barnes: Programming in Ada 2005, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-321-34078-7
John Barnes: Programming in Ada plus Language Reference Manual, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-56539-0
John Barnes: Programming in Ada 95, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-34293-6
John Barnes: High Integrity Ada: The SPARK Approach, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-17517-7
John Barnes: High Integrity Software: The SPARK Approach to Safety and Security, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-321-13616-0
John Beidler: Data Structures and Algorithms: An Object-Oriented Approach Using Ada 95, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0-387-94834-1
Dean W. Gonzalez: Ada Programmer's Handbook, Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Company, ISBN 0-8053-2529-8
M. Ben-Ari: Ada for Software Engineers, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-97912-0
Norman Cohen: Ada as a Second Language, McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math, ISBN 0-07-011607-5
Alan Burns, Andy Wellings: Real-Time Systems and Programming Languages. Ada 95, Real-Time Java and Real-Time POSIX., Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-72988-1
Alan Burns, Andy Wellings: Concurrency in Ada, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-62911-X
Colin Atkinson: Object-Oriented Reuse, Concurrency and Distribution: An Ada-Based Approach, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-56527-7
Grady Booch, Doug Bryan: Software Engineering with Ada, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-8053-0608-0
Daniel Stubbs, Neil W. Webre: Data Structures with Abstract Data Types and Ada, Brooks Cole, ISBN 0-534-14448-9
Pascal Ledru: Distributed Programming in Ada with Protected Objects, Dissertation.com, ISBN 1-58112-034-6
Fintan Culwin: Ada, a Developmental Approach, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-264680-3
John English, Fintan Culwin: Ada 95 the Craft of Object Oriented Programming, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-230350-7
David A. Wheeler: Ada 95, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0-387-94801-5
David R. Musser, Alexander Stepanov: The Ada Generic Library: Linear List Processing Packages, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0-387-97133-5
Michael B. Feldman: Software Construction and Data Structures with Ada 95, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-88795-9
Simon Johnston: Ada 95 for C and C++ Programmers, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-40363-3
"Ada: Problem Solving and Program Design." Feldman, Michael B. & Koffman, Elliot B., ISBN 0-201-52279-9. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company; 1992 & 1993. 795 pages.
Michael B. Feldman, Elliot B. Koffman: Ada 95, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-36123-X
Nell B. Dale, Chip Weems, John McCormick: Programming and Problem Solving with Ada 95, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, ISBN 0-7637-0293-5
Nell B. Dale, John McCormick: Ada Plus Data Structures: An Object-Oriented Approach, 2nd edition, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, ISBN 0-7637-3794-1
Bruce C. Krell: Developing With Ada: Life-Cycle Methods, Bantam Dell Pub Group, ISBN 0-553-09102-6
Judy Bishop: Distributed Ada: Developments and Experiences, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-39251-9
Bo Sanden: Software Systems Construction With Examples in Ada, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-030834-X
Bruce Hillam: Introduction to Abstract Data Types Using Ada, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-045949-6
David Rudd: Introduction to Software Design and Development With Ada, Brooks Cole, ISBN 0-314-02829-3
Ian C. Pyle: Developing Safety Systems: A Guide Using Ada, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-204298-3
Louis Baker: Artificial Intelligence With Ada, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-003350-1
Alan Burns, Andy Wellings: HRT-HOOD: A Structured Design Method for Hard Real-Time Ada Systems, North-Holland, ISBN 0-444-82164-3
Walter Savitch, Charles Peterson: Ada: An Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming, Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Company, ISBN 0-8053-7070-6
Mark Allen Weiss: Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in Ada, Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Company, ISBN 0-8053-9055-3
Henry Ledgard: ADA: AN INTRODUCTION (Second Edition), Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0-387-90814-5
Dines Bjørner; Ole N. Oest (eds.): Towards a Formal Description of Ada, London: Springer-Verlag, 1980. ISBN 3-540-10283-3
Ada Programming Language Materials, 1981–1990. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Includes literature on software products designed for the Ada language; U.S. government publications, including Ada 9X project reports, technical reports, working papers, newsletters; and user group information.
Ada programming language Ada (programming language) at DMOZ
ACM SIGAda
Ada-Europe Organization
ISO Home of Ada Standards
Interview with S.Tucker Taft, Maintainer of Ada
Pascal programming language family
Object Pascal
Pascal Script
Clascal
Concurrent Pascal
SuperPascal
PocketStudio
HP Pascal
IP Pascal
Prospero Pascal
Free Pascal (Lazarus)
GNU Pascal
Turbo51
MIDletPascal
Pic Micro Pascal
Virtual Pascal
Apple Pascal
Microsoft Pascal
UCSD Pascal
Pascal/MT+
FireMonkey
Object Windows Library
OpenWire
Turbo Vision
Visual Component Library
Comparison of Pascal and C
Comparison of Pascal and Delphi
Related to: ALGOL (1958)
Modula-2 (1977)
Ada (1983)
Oberon (1986)
Oberon-2 (1991)
Component Pascal (1991)
Articles with DMOZ links
Programming language standards
Multi-paradigm programming languages
Statically typed programming languages
Systems programming languages
.NET programming languages
Avionics programming languages
High Integrity Programming Language
Programming languages created in the 1980s
Programming languages with an ISO standard
New York University, Free software, Linux, Source code, Compiler
Pascal (programming language)
C (programming language), Object Pascal, Free Pascal, Algol, Linux
C , Python (programming language), Prototype-based programming, Perl, Php
United States Department of Defense
United States Department of the Navy, United States Army, United States Air Force, Title 10 of the United States Code, Defense Intelligence Agency
Comparison of programming languages (basic instructions)
Ada (programming language), Printf, Algol 68, Fprintf, C
List of tools for static code analysis
JavaScript, Source code, Abstract interpretation, Php, C
Intel iAPX 432
Ada (programming language), Intel Core, Intel, Object-oriented programming, Operating system
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