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The press releases on this website are provided for historical reference purposes only.
Please note that certain information may have changed since the date of release.
December 24, 2010
Toshiba Corporation
Sony Corporation
Tokyo, Japan, December 24, 2010 --- Toshiba Corporation ("Toshiba") and Sony Corporation ("Sony") today announced that they had signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding expressing their intent to transfer from Toshiba to Sony the semiconductor fabrication facilities owned by Toshiba and operated by Nagasaki Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation ("NSM"), a joint venture among Toshiba, Sony and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. ("SCEI"), and, following the contemplated transfer, terminate their NSM joint venture relationship.
NSM, which was established in March 2008 and is located in the Nagasaki Technology Center of Sony Semiconductor Kyushu Corporation ("SCK"), has been manufacturing the high-performance "Cell Broadband Engine™" processor, the graphics engine "RSX" and other high-performance semiconductors and leading-edge SoC (system-on-a-chip) for applications in digital consumer products of Toshiba and Sony. The facilities to be transferred would be the fabrication facilities and equipment for the 300 mm wafer line located within the Nagasaki Technology Center purchased by Toshiba from Sony and SCK and leased to NSM in 2008 and other facilities that Toshiba and Sony will agree to transfer among those in which Toshiba invested in connection with the operation by NSM after the purchase.
After due diligence on the facilities to be transferred and continuing negotiations, Toshiba and Sony aim to execute definitive agreements (with respect to the contemplated transfer of the semiconductor fabrication facilities) as soon as possible before the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011. Thereafter, Toshiba and Sony aim to complete the transfer early in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, subject to any necessary government approvals.


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major macro economic indicators
|2022 (e)
|2023 (p)
|GDP growth (%)
|Inflation (yearly average, %)
|Budget balance (% GDP)*
|Current account balance (% GDP)
|Public debt (% GDP)*
(e): Estimate (f): Forecast *Fiscal Year 2023: April 2023 - March 2024
- Privileged location in a dynamic region
- High level of national savings rate (around 25% of GDP)
- Public debt is over 90% owned by local investors
- Advanced technology products and diversified industrial sector
- Trade agreement with the EU and Transpacific Partnership (December 2018)
- Regional trade agreements (RCEP, CPTPP)
- Excellent corporate payment behaviour
- Rapidly ageing population, risk of surging social security costs
- Reduction of the workforce and low immigration contribution, increasing share of precarious workers
- Difficulty in fiscal consolidation and reversing deflationary pressures
- Low growth potential, low productivity of SMEs
- Stagnant real wage growth
Risk assessment
Fragile recovery
Japan's economic growth is expected to remain modest in 2022, but several downside risks could weigh on the outlook. After announcing a state of emergency thrice in 2021, with the third lasting nearly six months from April to September, the lifting of the emergency measures should provide a boost to domestic consumption (55% of 2019 GDP). Services business activity, which reflects domestic demand, showed an expansion in October 2021, the first growth recorded since the start of the pandemic in early 2020, according to PMI data. A high vaccination rate (80% of population in early January 2022) also adds resilience to economic reopening efforts. Nevertheless, the course of the pandemic in 2022 remains highly uncertain, and therefore acts as downward pressure on services consumption, and tourism (7% of 2019 GDP). Tight supply conditions would also likely constrain growth in exports and industrial production, particularly in the automotive industry (12% of GDP). Major Japanese automakers have announced output cuts throughout the latter half of 2021 due to shortages in auto components. Merchandise exports (14% of GDP) have been a key driver of Japan's recovery from the pandemic, and could come under pressure in 2022 due to sustained supply disruptions and China's economic slowdown. Business fixed investment will be closely linked to industrial and trade performance. In the longer term, Japan faces significant structural risks to its long-run growth potential, with the most critical being adverse demographic changes. Limited monetary policy space and fiscal consolidation needs are also major risks.
Slow fiscal consolidation
We expect the reduction in the general government fiscal deficit (as % of GDP) in the fiscal year 2022 (FY22, starting April 2022) to be gradual due to higher expenditure needs, particularly health and welfare-related expenses, even as tax collections improve amid continued GDP growth. Combined budget requests for FY22 were at JPY 111 trillion, up 4% from FY21's JPY 106.6 trillion, with debt-servicing at over one-quarter of the total, and welfare spending at JPY 34 trillion (30% of total). The final spending is likely to be even higher since the government routinely forms extra budgets in each year since 2009, usually in the third or fourth quarter, which push back fiscal consolidation efforts. In November 2021, the government unveiled an extra budget for FY21 worth JPY 79 trillion, which is expected to raise new bond issuances to JPY 65.7 trillion, though still far lower than the JPY 112.6 trillion issued in FY20. Nevertheless, three rounds of heavy government stimulus since the onset of the pandemic are projected to push the level of outstanding long-term debt to JPY 1,212 trillion (USD 10 trillion) or about 217% of Japan's GDP. However, over 90% of long-term public debt is owned domestically, with the Bank of Japan holding nearly half of outstanding debt after years of massive bond buying.
The current account surplus is expected remain in 2022, albeit slightly narrower, as a projected large positive income balance should offset a negative trade account. The upward trend in investment income since the mid-1990s, due to an increasingly positive net foreign asset (NFA) position linked to the rise in corporate saving, has helped offset a declining trend in the trade (goods and services) balance. A sustained global recovery in 2022 should underpin Japan's investment income inflows. The trade balance is expected to remain in deficit as an estimated narrowing of services trade shortfall is likely to be offset by a smaller goods trade surplus. A gradual pick-up in travel-related services inflows on easing border restrictions and a modest rebound in international tourism should improve the services deficit. Meanwhile, a continued improvement in domestic demand would boost goods imports, thereby weighing on the merchandise trade balance, particularly when export growth (e.g. automobiles) is likely to slow amid prolonged supply chain disruptions and key material shortages.
Factional politics constrain policymaking
New prime minister Fumio Kishida led the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to victory in the 2021 general election, retaining a sole but smaller majority (56%) in the more powerful lower house. The ruling coalition controls 63% of the House of Representative. However, the loss of LDP seats could mean that LDP may need to show more consideration to Komeito when making policies, especially in expenditure items. This is important ahead of the upper house election in summer 2022, where the LDP only held 45% of seats, and had to rely on Komeito for a majority. Factional politics within the LDP could constrain the ability of Kishida's administration for bold reforms, including generational renewal in the party. In the short-term, Kishida will focus on domestic issues, particularly anti-pandemic measures and economic recovery. An adroit ability to balance Japan's relations with China and the United States will be a key foreign policy challenge for Kishida. Meanwhile, relations between Japan and South Korea will likely remain tense.
Last updated: February 2022
Japan has ratified the International Conventions of June 1930 on Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, and of March 1931 on Cheques. As a result, the validity of these instruments in Japan is subject to the same rules as in Europe.
The bill of exchange (kawase tegata) and the much more widely used promissory note (yakusoku tegata), when unpaid, allow creditors to initiate debt recovery proceedings via a fast-track procedure, subject to certain conditions. Although the fast-track procedure also applies to cheques (kogitte), their use is far less common for everyday transactions.
Clearing houses (tegata kokanjo) play an important role in the collective processing of the money supply arising from these instruments. The penalties for payment default act as a powerful deterrent: a debtor who fails twice in a period of six months to honour a bill of exchange, promissory note, or cheque collectable in Japan is subsequently barred for a period of two years from undertaking business-related banking transactions (current account, loans) with financial establishments attached to the clearing house. In other words, the debtor is reduced to a de facto state of insolvency.
These two measures normally result in the calling in of any bank loans granted to the debtor.
Bank transfers (furikomi), sometimes guaranteed by a standby letter of credit, have become significantly more common throughout the economy over recent decades thanks to widespread use of electronic systems in Japanese banking circles. Various highly automated interbank transfer systems are also available for local or international payments, like the Foreign Exchange Yen Clearing System (FXYCS, operated by the Tokyo Bankers Association) and the BOJ-NET Funds Transfer System (operated by the Bank of Japan). Payment made via the Internet site of the client's bank is also increasingly common.
Debt collection
In principle, to avoid certain disreputable practices employed in the past by specialised companies, only lawyers (bengoshi) may undertake debt collection. However, a 1998 law established the profession of "servicer" to foster debt securitisation and facilitate collection of non-performing loans (NPL debts) held by financial institutions. Servicers are debt collection companies licensed by the Ministry of Justice to provide collections services, but only for certain types of debt: bank loans, loans by designated institutions, loans contracted under leasing arrangements, credit card repayments, and so on.
Amicable phase
A settlement is always preferable, so as to avoid a lengthy and costly legal procedure. This involves obtaining, where possible, a signature from the debtor on a notarised deed that includes a forced-execution clause, which, in the event of continued default, is directly enforceable without requiring a prior court judgement.
The standard practice is for the creditor to send the debtor a recorded delivery letter with acknowledgement of receipt (naïyo shomeï), the content of which must be written in Japanese characters and certified by the post office.
As of 1 April 2020, statute of limitation period has changed.
For the debts accrued after 1 April , the statute of limitation period of the debts is 5 years from the date of the knowledge of the creditor of the collectability of the debts and 10 years from the date of the accrual of the debts in accordance with Article 166(1) of the Civil Code revised and informed as of 1 April 2020.
Legal proceedings
Fast-track proceedings
Summary proceedings, intended to allow creditors to obtain a ruling on payment (tokusoku tetsuzuki), apply to uncontested monetary claims and effectively facilitate obtaining a court order to pay (shiharaï meireï) from the judge within approximately six months.
If the debtor contests the order within two weeks of service of notice, the case is transferred to ordinary proceedings.
Ordinary proceedings
Ordinary proceedings are brought before the Summary Court (kan-i saibansho) for claims under JPY 1,400, and before the District Court (chiho saibansho) for claims above this amount. Those proceedings, partly written (with submission of arguments and exchanges of type of evidence) and partly oral (with respective hearings of the parties and their witnesses) can take from one to three years as a result of the succession of hearings. These proceedings generate significant legal costs.
The distinctive feature of the Japanese legal system is the emphasis given to civil mediation (minji chôtei). Under court supervision, a panel of mediators – usually comprised of a judge and two neutral assessors – attempts to reach, by mutual concessions of the parties, an agreement on civil and commercial disputes.
In practice, litigants often settle the case at this stage of the procedure, before a judgment is delivered. While avoiding lengthy and costly legal proceedings, any transaction obtained through such mediation becomes enforceable once approved by the court.
Enforcement of a legal decision
A court judgment is enforceable if no appeal is lodged within two weeks. If the debtor does not comply with the decision, compulsory measures can be ordered through an execution against Real Property (an Examination Court issues a commencement order for a compulsory auction) or an execution against a claim (a compulsory execution is commenced through an order of seizure).
Japanese law provides for an exequatur procedure in order for foreign awards to be recognised and enforced. The court will verify several elements, such as whether the parties benefited from a due process of law, or if enforcement will be incompatible with Japanese public policy. Furthermore, if the issuing country does not have a reciprocal recognition and enforcement treaty with Japan, the decision will not be enforced by domestic courts.
Insolvency proceedings
There are two types of restructuring proceedings. The first of these is corporate reorganisation proceedings (kaisha kosei), which are typically used in complex insolvency cases involving stock companies. They come with the mandatory appointment of a reorganisation trustee by the court and with a stay against enforcement by both secured and unsecured creditors. The court typically appoints a third-party bengoshi with substantial experience in restructuring cases.
The second of these is civil rehabilitation proceedings (minji saisei), which are used to rehabilitate companies of almost any size and type. The debtor-in-possession (DIP) administers the rehabilitation under supervision of a court-appointed supervisor. Enforcement by secured creditors is not stayed in principle. The debtor must enter into settlement agreements with secured creditors in order to continue using the relevant collateral to conduct their business.
Winding up proceedings
There are two winding up proceedings. In bankruptcy proceedings (hasan), the court appoints a lawyer as trustee to administer the proceedings. Enforcement by secured creditors is not stayed; rather, they can freely exercise their claims outside of the bankruptcy proceedings. The trustee will usually attempt to sell secured collateral with the agreement of the secured creditors and contribute a percentage of the sales proceeds to the estate. The debtor's estate is distributed to creditors in accordance with prescribed statutory priorities without any need for voting by the creditors.
The second, special liquidation (tokubetsu seisan), is used for stock companies. A liquidator is appointed by either a debtor's shareholders or the court. Distributor of the debtor's estate to creditors has to be approved by creditors with claims to two-thirds or more of the total debt or by way of settlement. This procedure is used when the debtor's shareholders are confident that they will obtain creditors' cooperation for the liquidation process, and wish to control the liquidation process without involvement of a trustee.

subset: commoncrawl


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New: OEC Cafe in downtown Honolulu
Left: beef sukiyaki; right: cheesecake
At the bottom of an imposing, concrete building on Queen Street, two former Morimoto Waikiki sous chefs are turning out homey lunches and sweets baked from scratch. In the few months since it opened, OEC Cafe (a play on oishii, Japanese for delicious) has served international comfort foods like beef sukiyaki, Thai-style chicken green curry, beef stroganoff and even Swedish meatballs. I've only ever seen Swedish meatballs in Ikea cafeterias, but Mieko Sasaki says they were popular in New York when she and her husband, Hitoshi Aita, used to live there. The two worked at Morimoto New York and moved to Hawaii to open the Morimoto Waikiki outpost a few years ago.
Now, they've put aside the whimsical stylings of Morimoto's kitchen and brightened up the space that used to house the chaotic Caffe Grazie and its flamboyant mannequins. At OEC Cafe, the menu is only three items long, usually including one vegetarian option, but each plate is impeccably prepared. A simple beef sukiyaki is tender with just the right amount of sweetness and comes with a side of quinoa salad. Thai green curry is flavorful and not too coconut heavy. I wish the vegetarian options (so far, I've seen cold soba or udon as the options) were more vegetable than starch-based, but that's my only complaint. The baked goods—cookies, cheesecake and fluffy, not crumbly, muffins—are perfect.
OEC opens at 7 a.m., so you can stop by for a quick breakfast treat; the lunch menu is available from 10:30 a.m. Check its Facebook page for the daily/weekly specials.
Plates around $8
OEC Cafe, 345 Queen St., 888-9328, oeccafe.com


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Outlook 2016 – Business Cycle (UK Equities)
Outlook 2016 – Business Cycle (UK Equities)
- Capital returns will be harder to sustain and therefore income such as dividends and special returns of capital will become an even more important factor in overall returns
- A preference for growth over value will likely remain an important theme going into 2016 and domestic consumer-focused companies could maintain their run of outperformance
- UK base rates remain low, and any tightening is probably going to be gradual, and so unlikely to derail the British economic recovery.
China pressure
Investors have endured a volatile ride in 2015 as the economic slowdown in China and emerging markets more generally has weighed on global activity.
Despite aggressive monetary easing, European growth has also disappointed some of the more bullish expectations and while US GDP growth has been more robust, activity has faded recently as the oil industry has contracted due to the fall in the oil price.
Despite this, some areas of the FTSE All-Share have enjoyed strong relative returns in particular domestically-facing sectors (for example consumer cyclicals such as house builders) as they have been seen by investors as beneficiaries of a robust UK economy, low interest rates and falling commodity prices.
After a more turbulent year for markets and the global economy in 2015, to us it seems clear that the business cycle has shifted to the slowdown phase.
However, other sectors, especially those exposed to global trends (such as commodities or Asian Financials) have been under pressure in 2015 and have underperformed materially, with large-cap UK listed oil and mining companies the most obvious examples.
Market confidence was undermined in the summer by a combination of the devaluation, albeit small, of the Chinese currency and the prospect of rising interest rates in the US.
Together these developments suggest that the status quo of ultra-loose monetary policy in the US and a pegged currency in China is coming to an end.
In this respect, the underlying economy in China is perhaps less resilient to an appreciating renminbi than previously thought and is going through a period of profound structural change.
Slowdown not showdown?
Given this context, we are compelled to ask whether investors face showdown or slowdown in 2016.
In our view 2016 is more likely to represent a slowdown phase in the business cycle, a period in which equities overall should still generate positive returns, although with wider dispersion and more volatility, a trend already well established.
In addition, capital returns will be harder to sustain and therefore income such as dividends and special returns of capital will become an even more important factor in overall returns for equity investors. We will return to the subject of UK dividends more specifically later on.
Our contention was always that this would be an extended business cycle.
It is extended because aggressive monetary policy measures used to stave off a deeper recession in 2008 have been prolonged, helping to offset some of the downside, but in so doing, these policy measures have prolonged the life of unproductive capital and this has meant that nominal growth rates have been substantially below those seen in previous credit-driven cycles.
Commodity collapse
Meanwhile, governments have retrenched and remained fiscally tighter, thereby constraining investment and growth. This cycle is already long in the tooth and showing increasing signs of tiredness.
One of the more obvious aspects of the cycle's maturity has been the collapse in commodity prices as the Chinese economic "miracle" has run into problems. Investors have clearly recognised this factor in their negative view on commodity related sectors such as mining and oils which have experienced substantial falls year to date.
The decline in commodity prices also undermines a much wider part of equity markets' earnings base.
Investors will need to be particularly vigilant about balance sheet strength going in 2016, especially if a tightening rate cycle precipitates a further widening in credit spreads.
In general, rising commodity prices support corporate pricing power especially in the industrial sector of the market, be it direct beneficiaries of the commodity boom (such as mining suppliers) or indirect users of those commodities (such as chemicals).
At the same time wage inflation is starting to accelerate in both the UK and US, putting further pressure on corporate margins and profitability.
With the loss of "air cover" from rising input prices to raise headline prices, the outlook for corporate pricing power and profitability has already deteriorated.
Rising interest rates
It seems likely that the Federal Reserve will start to raise interest rates in 2016 as a result of an improving labour market where wages are going up.
Normally the start of a rate tightening cycle coincides with corporate profit margins expanding as demand recovers and companies benefit from operational borrowing.
However, this time we feel that margins are already at elevated levels, particularly in the industrial areas and the rising cost of finance will put further pressure on earnings and capital investment.
In essence a rising rate cycle may well coincide with a peak in margins this time. It looks to us that the period of peak earnings on a global basis are behind us and while year-on-year growth in earnings should remain positive, the rate of growth is falling.
As usual, the US looks to be leading the global business/earnings cycle with Europe someway behind, though potentially enjoying a much-awaited later cycle recovery. The UK seems to be somewhere in the middle.
Ready for lift off?
A key concern for investors has been the trajectory of inflation generally and wage inflation specifically.
While headline inflation in 2015 has been very low, core inflation (excluding energy and food) in the US and the UK has been more resilient.
A failure to raise interest rates in September looks unlikely to be repeated in December 2015 after some very strong labour market data.
Focus from doves on the Federal Open Market Committee seems to have shifted to the trajectory of interest rates rather than the timing of 'lift-off'.
Credit spreads1 have already started to widen and financing for corporates, particularly those with stretched balance sheets, will get more difficult.
Offsetting this, the economy is sustaining high employment levels, while a tightening labour market is set to drive real wages higher. Consumption is the strongest driver of real end demand, meaning this should serve to dispel deflation fears.
Value opportunities
For equity markets these conditions are likely to result in a preference for growth over value remaining an important theme going into 2016. We also expect the domestic consumer-focused companies to maintain their run of outperformance.
UK base rates remain low, and any tightening is probably going to be gradual, and so unlikely to derail the British economic recovery.
End demand in developed economies is robust, unemployment rates are low and falling and wage inflation is accelerating.
A return of some inflation, while concerning for central bankers, would be helpful for total demand and we still see opportunities for selected corporates to make good returns. In addition, recent market volatility has opened up a number of shorter-term value opportunities.
However, it is prudent to continue to tilt portfolios to a defensive skew – with key areas for the portfolio in Growth Defensives and Value Defensives (see graphic below) on a selective basis.
Our portfolios
While our overall tilt in portfolios is towards a more defensive and/or stable income skew we have maintained some higher-beta2 exposure in the form of Consumer Cyclicals and Financials, in order to benefit from the ongoing recovery in domestic demand.
After a more turbulent year for markets and the global economy in 2015, to us it seems clear that the business cycle has shifted to the slowdown phase.
Rising wage inflation, interest rates and peaking corporate margins are all hallmarks of this phase of the cycle.
GDP growth will remain positive with developed markets more robust than developing markets. However, credit spreads while still at historically low levels, have already started to widen and not just in the more obviously troubled sectors e.g. oil, mining and related industrials, but also in previously more resilient areas.
This, to our minds, is confirmation that the slowdown phase has begun. There are still good returns to be made from equities, but a more defensive skew is prudent.
Dividend dynamos
One of the brighter spots for the UK may be dividends, although we anticipate pressure on the UK market's total aggregate cash dividend.
There were two notable disappointments in 2015, with British Gas owner Centrica and mining group Glencore both reducing their dividend payments, and we expect more disappointments to come.
In light of these potential risks, investors will need to be particularly vigilant about balance sheet strength going in 2016, especially if a tightening rate cycle precipitates a further widening in credit spreads.
There are still a good number of companies in the UK market that are able to sustain dividend growth of 5-6% over the next few years, in line with the long-term nominal rate of UK market dividend growth.
In a low growth, low inflation environment, dividends and dividend growth in particular should still offer attractive returns for investors in the face of potential capital losses from bonds.
1. The difference in yield between government bonds and corporate bonds.↩
2. Beta measures the average extent to which a share moves relative to the broader market. The beta of a market is 1. A share with a beta of more than 1 moves on average to a greater extent than the market. A share with a beta of less than 1 moves on average to a lesser extent.↩


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Summer 2017 flew by like all summers do. But for those who liken summer to just the months of June, July and August are selling themselves short. Why stop at August? Because school starts up again? Hellooooo… who lives for the week when there is always a weekend? September is always an extended summer month for this girl and it's been slammed full of awesome. Plus, let's just note the horrid temps we've been having lately. Mid-90's at the end of September?
Let's take a step back in time.
The first part of the month was Jessica's annual girls trip to the Ozarks with a few newbies along for the ride but minus a few previous attendees who were unable to make it. The Ozarks trip looked quite different than years prior (recap of previous years here and here), however, you can guarantee fun was had, drinks were ingested, a few belongings were lost at the bottom of the lake and a hangover or two may have happened.
Thanks again, Jeff and Donna for opening up your home to us.
August 11-12th
Clint officiated a wedding in Red Oak, IA the second weekend of August so we headed down on the bikes Friday the 11th to help with rehearsal.
Added bonus: one of the best meals we have had in a long time courtesy of the Red Coach Inn Lounge. Had NO IDEA their food was so legit. I take back my Red Roach sentiments. *shoulder shrug
The wedding on Saturday was absolutely gorgeous and everything went off without a hitch!
And I, of course, loved every second I got to hang with Sara's cute little fam.
The entire month of August provided a lot of two-wheel time. The number of sunsets captured was pretty spectacular. This particular night we were just leaving The Twisted Tail after dinner and headed straight into the sunset. I can't get enough!
Mid-August we had the opportunity to take my in-laws to dinner and we picked out the Driftwood Inn and Blair, NE. The views during our pre-dinner drinks and appetizers were enough to make me want to go back for another evening cocktail anytime! If you head that way, be sure to check their hours and give yourself plenty of time. The seating is limited, the days and hours are limited and the wait time to get in is long, but clearly, worth it. The place was packed!
Did you know Clint has an award-winning truck? At some point in August, we popped over to a car show with this man-manipulated beast I lovingly call Mater. Listen, it's apparently a thing because it was quite the conversation starter. All I know is it's a former dump truck (I think) that he put a box on. It won best unfinished.
To me, it wins the title of "just another one of Clint's unfinished projects".
And then around came my 37th birthday weekend. Plans? What plans? Friends, let me tell you, August hit me like a ton of bricks! I was out of the office traveling every day for over two weeks and facilitated 17 orientations where I was front facing students, parents, and administrators. That's a LOT of people and questions… and repeated answers.
So, I started to make plans, I didn't like them, I changed them, I didn't commit to anything, then I committed, people were busy, and then I uncommitted from it all because dang it… I just didn't want plans. None. So, that's what I did. Whatever the hell I wanted on a schedule that didn't matter if I was late or early too.
And it was glorious.
I got a solid long run in at my fave Zorinsky Lake and then we put some more miles in on the bikes. Two-wheeled therapy, beers, dinner, and a nightcap to watch the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight at Tyree's. It was absolutely perfect and what I needed.
And let's not forget about this ooey gooey bowl of sweetness! She makes every day a great day! ❤
And then Tuesday the 29th hit and all of a sudden I'm 37. THIRTY-SEVEN! And super proud of it. If you are one of those who keeps aging backwards… yo. Stop it. Own it! Look at all the cool things you've experienced in your life to this point. The things you've learned. The mountains you've moved. I proudly state my age. Who gives a shit anyway? Life friggin ROCKS!
The day started with getting absolutely SPOILED by my INSANIANCS and a 6 pack of beer from Jordan L.
{Ok for real. The number of people who actually thought I drank that bad boy at 5:30am after posting it on FB was a little ridic. 5:30am is a bit early don't ya think?}
I mean clearly, I waited until the more respectable hour of 10:30am to crack it open. #duh
Thanks to Kelly for the extra steps in making my morning start off just right. Look at that load of goodness.
And the day of happiness continued with fresh out of the oven muffins from Bridgette, lunch with my mama, Dave and Gabe, goodies from some very special co-workers, flowers from the hubs, a hand-delivered cookie from Jess, love from the cat and sushi dinner to close out the night.
You fine.
I am still continuing working on my photo taking skills and fortunately for me had two more incredible test subjects. Check out a few sneaks below!
Pirtlefest Preps started happening on September 2nd and lasted through September 16th. The weekends preps consisted of truck repairs, hole digging, pole barn cleaning, cabin sweep, human fooseball construction while also consuming a fair amount of food and booze.
Friday, September 8th was Clarinda's homecoming and my beautiful cousin was part of the Homecoming Court. I made a last minute decision early that morning to take a 1/2 day off work and make my way to Clarinda to see her in action. Fortunately for me, I caught a gorgeous sunrise on that two-wheeled beauty.
And speaking of gorgeous! Megan- red is your color!
No trip to Clarinda would ever be complete without a stop to see Kayla and fortunately for us, Nicole stopped by and joined in on the fun as well!
An afternoon of beers and besties? YES, PLEASE, ALWAYS!
I timed my departure to coincide with the sunset. The backroads of Iowa never disappoint, so there I sat, by myself, no traffic, the only sounds coming from the low grumble of my bike and the chirps of bugs, watching the sunset ever so softly until it disappeared.
You all know how I feel about finding time to reset and self-reflect. For me, the best time to do that is on the bike at sunset with nothing but miles ahead, miles behind and the only sounds heard are from the bike and my own thoughts.
Be comfortable being by yourself. Get comfortable having hard conversations with yourself. That's where true growth begins.
Saturday the 9th was the annual Scroggs memorial run out of Clarinda, so instead of heading to the farm to continue helping with the Pirtlefest shenanigans, I took off on the bike BACK to Clarinda to enjoy an afternoon of riding.
The weather was perfect, the miles long and the company a treat.
Sunday, September 10th marked 6 years of marriage.
Killing it!
Monday, September 11th marked my first day back as a playing member of the Nebraska Wind Symphony. It had been 6 years since I had touched my clarinet and 11 years since I played repertoire that challenged me. I was a member of NWS from 2004-2006 while still living in Clarinda but left the group during a transition period in my life and then actually left music altogether in 2011 when I stepped away from teaching. Joining the music world again had definitely been on my heart for the last year. In fact, my Christmas present to my Gr'pa Goecker last year was a written promise to see what I could do about becoming a playing NWS member again… and Monday the 11th I fulfilled that promise. He's delighted as he's certainly been the one to consistently bring up how he wishes I still played. It's been GREAT to be back… but I'll admit the Monday evening 7:15-9:15pm rehearsals are an adjustment for my 4am Tuesday alarm clock. Ouch!!
Mid-September brought some changes at work. The details are unnecessary, but the love I feel for my colleagues and the future of my position is promising. Thanks to many special people for helping lead into that transition and through the changes yet to come.
And with that, I'll leave you be. We've got Pirtlefest and an Arkansas trip to round out September, but those adventures certainly deserve their own post.
… Oh, the stories and photos to share! 🙂


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(CNN) -- Authorities in Colorado have filed charges against the parents in last month's notorious "balloon boy" case, and the pair's lawyers say the two are expected to plead guilty on Friday.
The Larimer County district attorney's office Thursday said Richard Heene has been charged with one count of attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, and Mayumi Heene has been charged with one count of false reporting to authorities, a misdemeanor.
Richard Heene turned himself in Thursday afternoon and was released on a $5,000 personal recognizance bond, the Latimer County Sheriff's Office said. Mayumi Heene did not appear with him.
The Heenes will appear Friday in Larimer County Court, where they are expected to plead guilty, their attorneys said.
The penalty range for the felony is two to six years in prison with a fine of $2,000 to $500,000. The range for the misdemeanor would be six months in jail with a fine of $50 to $750, the district attorney's office statement said.
The Heenes' attorneys said prosecutors have agreed to a sentence of probation with the possibility of up to 90 days in jail for Richard Heene and up to 60 days in jail for his wife.
The threat of deportation for Mayumi Heene was a factor in the plea deal negotiation, the attorney's statement said.
"Mayumi Heene is a citizen of Japan. As such, any felony conviction or certain misdemeanors would result in her deportation, even though her husband and children are Americans," the statement said.
"It is supremely ironic that law enforcement has expressed such grave concern over the welfare of the children, but it was ultimately the threat of taking the children's mother from the family and deporting her to Japan which fueled this deal."
Prosecutors in the case could not be immediately reached for comment.
On October 15, a large silver balloon came loose from moorings in the Heenes' yard and floated over Colorado. Mayumi Heene called 911 and said the couple's 6-year-old son Falcon was inside the craft.
Millions of people across the country watched the saga on television for nearly two hours as military aircraft tracked the balloon in the air and rescuers chased it on the ground.
Mayumi Heene later admitted the whole thing was a hoax and that Falcon was safe in their home the whole time, authorities said.
Watch the moment the hoax was revealed
Court documents released last month said the couple hatched the plan about two weeks before the incident and "instructed their three children to lie to authorities as well as the media regarding this hoax."
Their motive? To "make the Heene family more marketable for future media interests," the documents said.


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On Thursday, January 9, 2014 at approximately 8:15 a.m., an email was sent by a West Virginia state Department of Environmental Protection employee indicating a gentlemen had called about something in the air, coating his wife's throat. Shortly after, two other DEP employees noticed an odor. Within a couple of hours two DEP investigators from the Kanawha County office were at the intersection of Bigley Avenue and Westmoreland Drive noticing an "objectionable" smell.
They knew something was happening at Freedom Industries.
The company is "a full-service producer of specialty chemicals for the mining, steel, and cement industries" based in Charleston, West Virginia. It doesn't actually make any of these chemicals. It simply stores them and makes them available to the various businesses it serves.
Three hours after the initial complaint, the two DEP investigators were standing in the office of the company's president, Dennis P. Farrell, at its Etowah River Terminal plant, located on the Elk River. They informed Mr. Farrell of the licorice-like odor and asked him if there any problems at the site. A short time later during a tour of the facility, Farrell and the two investigators found themselves watching a four foot wide clear substance slightly thicker than water disappearing out of the containment dike into the ground from a 400 square foot pool of a chemical called Crude MCHM. It had leaked from a one-inch hole in a 40,000 gallon tank.
It was the first time anyone had noticed anything had gone wrong.
Eight hours later at 4:00 p.m. the chemical had overwhelmed the West Virginia American Water Co.'s filters and could no longer stop it from entering the water supply. Within hours, 300,000 people in nine counties in West Virginia were advised to not drink, cook, or bathe with any tap water and a state of emergency had been declared.
West Virginia American Water Co. is located 1.5 miles downriver from the plant.
One week later, while the water use ban is being slowly lifted county by county, investigations are beginning and details are emerging. The biggest questions to be answered is how was this chemical able to be stored near a main water source and why has no one done anything about it before now. The answer lies in a complex failure of oversight and regulation that stretches from local enforcement all the way to the halls of Congress.
The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to require "reporting, record-keeping and testing requirements, and restrictions relating to chemical substances and/or mixtures." States make their own laws regarding these substances, including how local agencies enforce compliance. Violations can result in simple warnings and fines at the local level to actual investigations from the Environmental Protection Agency and criminal prosecution from the Department of Justice on the national level.
First, however, there have to be regulations to violate.
West Virginia is coal and chemical country. Kanawha River Valley, the location of the latest spill, is known as Chemical Valley and has a history of toxic accidents resulting in injuries and death going back nearly a century. The political landscape has reflected the interests of its industries (West Virginia is still largely dominated by democrats, though recent elections have put more republicans in office). This has led to little regulation and even less oversight.
Freedom Industries, Inc. is the latest name for a company that has had various legal formations since 1986. The only inspection of the Elk River location occurred in 1991, when it was a different kind of facility. Records show that the only permit on file for them is an industrial storm water permit. Under West Virginia law, no other permits are needed as the company is classified as a storage facility and does not manufacture any products. Furthermore, the materials it stores does not create any emissions and isn't considered hazardous. Even though it is the DEP's responsibility to inspect, the facility has been able to operate with no interference for nearly 20 years.
West Virginia law does not require periodic inspections.
It's unclear when, if ever, anyone knew about the chemical being stored at the site. Crude MCHM (Methylcyclohexane for you chemistry buffs) is a chemical compound used to rinse coal. It is colorless and is most notable for a smell similar to black licorice. Exposure symptoms include eye, skin and throat irritation, or trouble breathing. Most importantly, no one really knows how dangerous it really is.
One of the things the TSCA authorized the EPA to do is the testing of industrial chemicals. The legislation was considered historic as this was the first time that this was to be done, but it also put the cost and burden of testing on to the industry itself. If the EPA says something needs to be tested, it could order a company to do it.
There was one little catch, however.
At the time of the law, there were about 60,000 chemicals that were known and being used. If the EPA wanted any of these older chemicals tested, it would have to already know that they were harmful. Yet, unless the industry had already done the studies, there was no way to know if the chemical was indeed hazardous.
Crude MCHM is one of those chemicals.
The EPA can step in when states fail to enforce obvious violations of safety regarding the environment. A 2009 New York Times investigation found that the agency's enforcement, especially as it pertained to the Clean Water Act, was woefully lacking. At the time of the article, the EPA had spent eight years under the George W. Bush administration's direction, which was less than supportive of environmental causes. With the election of Barack Obama, the agency has had more support from the White House, but has been held back by cuts to its budget from House Republicans.
Since the spill, which is now estimated at 7,500 gallons, West Virginia DEP ordered Freedom Industries to remove the remaining chemical from the faulty storage tank. On Wednesday, January 15, the company said it was moving it to another plant located a few miles away. That same day, DEP inspected the new location and cited it for five violations. One of those violations was the above ground storage tanks did not have an adequate secondary containment in case of a spill.
It was a lack of secondary containment at the site of the original spill that led to the current disaster.
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(CNN) Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor had a lesser-known side as political activist and politician's wife.
Taylor, who died today at 79, married her sixth husband, former Republican Senator John Warner in 1976, and was an active figure during his 1978 campaign. The glamour Taylor brought to the campaign trail was said to have helped Warner gain the popularity that ultimately helped him win the seat as Virginia's senator.
For five years, Taylor played the role of Washington political wife until the couple's divorce in 1982. The two stayed close. "We were friends until the end," Warner told CNN.
Campaign fixture
During the 1978 campaign, Warner finished second at the GOP convention to Richard Obenshain. Two months later, Obenshain died in a tragic plane crash, and Warner replaced him on the ballot before narrowly winning a general election against Democrat Andrew P. Miller.
"She was my partner in what appeared to be an impossible challenge for the United States Senate. … Hand in hand we marched off with no campaign stamps, no funds were raised and we had but nine weeks to put together a campaign which we did and won it narrowly and that laid the foundation for a career," Warner told MSNBC.
Warner retired from his senate seat in 2009, after a 30-year career as the second-longest serving senator in Virginia's history.
Almost a decade later, Taylor was back in Washington, this time in connection to her AIDS and HIV support efforts. Warner hosted a Capitol Hill reception in 1986 for Taylor when she testified before Congress in a lobbying effort for greater AIDS research funding.
AIDS crusader
Taylor went on to serve as the Founding International Chairman for the Americans Foundation for AIDS Research and helped raise more than $100 million for the cause.
Taylor would often find herself back in Washington to receive various awards for her philanthropic work. In 2001, President Bill Clinton presented her a Presidential Citizens medal. In 2002, Taylor was granted the Kennedy Center Honors in the performing arts.
Taylor was an avid Hillary Clinton supporter during the 2008 presidential race and donated the legal maximum of $4,600 to Clinton's campaign.
"I have contributed to Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign because she has a mind of her own and a very strong one at that," Taylor said in 2007. "I like the way she thinks. She is very savvy and a smart leader with years of experience in government, diplomacy and politics."
"With the passing of Elizabeth Taylor, America has lost one of its greatest talents and fiercest advocates for HIV/AIDS research…..We were honored to host her at the White House in 2001 when she received the Presidential Citizens Medal for her relentless crusade for more AIDS research and better care. In founding amfAR, she raised both millions of dollars and our level of awareness about the impact of AIDS in the United States and around the world," Hillary Clinton said in joint statement with President Clinton.
First Clinton, then Obama
Taylor later became a fan of President Obama. In 2009, Taylor announced that Obama inspired her $100,000 donation to the Alliance for Christian Education.
"Our new president challenged us to break down barriers that divide us," she said of President Obama.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi paid respect to Taylor's philanthropic work in a tweet, "her work on HIV & AIDS, esp when others stayed silent, saved lives."
Taylor died Wednesday of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. She was a two-time Oscar winner who appeared in more than 50 films.
"I will remember her as a women whose heart and soul were as beautiful as her classic face and majestic eyes," Warner said.
Elizabeth u will b missed!
I knew it would not be long for Elizabeth Taylor to make it to the Political Ticker...Liz R.I.P.!!
R.I.P Liz,
You will always be the Diamond 😉
What nice comments from Senator Warner. It is great that they stayed close. She put money where her mouth was, as this old saying goes.


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text:
Many physicians, nurses, and technical staff like to carry PDAs to be kept abreast of patient conditions. Various companies want caretakers to view ECGs on their iPads.
Due to the incredibly private nature of medical records and data, if such a device were part of your network, are there any measures on software to actively erase the data in the event of a lost or stolen tablet or PDA? Is this feasible to implement as an add-on if that is not the case?


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JFK's Second Term
Toward the end of his life John F. Kennedy increasingly distrusted his military advisers and was changing his views on foreign policy. A fresh look at the final months of his presidency suggests that a second Kennedy term might have produced not only an American withdrawal from Vietnam but also rapprochement with Fidel Castro's Cuba
When Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in November of 1963, he knew that in order to accrue political capital he would initially need to champion goals and policies that Kennedy had already been pursuing. Not long before his death Kennedy had scrawled the word "poverty" on a piece of paper and circled it multiple times; this note fell into the hands of his brother Robert and became a symbolic justification for Johnson's declaration of the War on Poverty, early in 1964. Similarly, many of the things that Johnson pushed through Congress in his first two years as President—such as an $11 billion tax cut, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the 1965 laws that brought Medicare and Medicaid into existence and that poured billions of federal dollars into primary and secondary education—can readily be seen as extensions of the avowed policies of the Kennedy Administration. The details might have been different—and Kennedy might well have had more trouble than Johnson passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965—but historians generally agree that if Kennedy had lived out his first term and won a second, America would have witnessed something similar to the early years of Johnson's Great Society.
On foreign policy, too, Johnson at first strove consciously to follow his predecessor. And some historians have argued that in this realm as well, LBJ indeed pursued a course that JFK had already plotted. If Kennedy had lived, according to this line of thinking, he would have continued a policy of antagonism toward Cuba and steady escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Johnson certainly believed that this was what Kennedy intended to do.
Flashbacks: "A Near Miss" (October 24, 2002)
Articles on the Cuban missile crisis by Walter Lippmann, Jerome B. Wiesner, and Sheldon M. Stern remind us how close we came to disaster.
But what if it wasn't? Some Kennedy aides have always insisted that Johnson misread JFK's plans for Vietnam. They say that Kennedy had begun to rethink the U.S. presence in Indochina, and was reluctant to increase it. Johnson's defenders have tended to see this argument as wishful thinking by those who seek to exculpate JFK from what happened in Vietnam while laying all the blame on LBJ. The argument can never fully be put to rest. But newly available documents, along with a reappraisal of the existing record—especially of Kennedy's concern about press reports from Saigon—suggest that Kennedy's aides are correct: what Kennedy envisioned for U.S. policy in Vietnam was substantially different from what Johnson thought it was. Perhaps more surprising—given that at the time of Kennedy's death the Cuban Missile Crisis was not long past, and that the CIA was still plotting to kill Fidel Castro—JFK appears to have been moving toward the idea of accommodation with Cuba.
A consideration of likely post-1963 Kennedy policies must begin with JFK's views on how political and military leaders make decisions about armed action. Why England Slept, his Harvard senior thesis, which was published as a book in 1940, showed a healthy skepticism regarding the astuteness of both political and military officials in assessing foreign threats. He also doubted the effectiveness of a purely military approach to many political problems, especially in light of what he observed during his extensive travels to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in the late 1930s and after World War II. "If one thing was borne into me as a result of my experiences in the Middle as well as the Far East," Kennedy said after a trip as a congressman in 1951, "it is that communism cannot be met effectively by merely the force of arms." And his own military experience as a young man had convinced him that military chiefs were not necessarily the best judges of when and how to fight a war. As a junior naval officer in 1943 and 1944, he marveled at the incompetence of many of his superiors. In a letter to his parents from the South Pacific, where he was serving as a PT Boat commander, he wrote that the Navy had "brought back a lot of old Captains and Commanders from retirement and ... they give the impression of their brains being in their tails." He complained in a letter to a friend of "this heaving puffing war machine of ours," and lamented the "super-human ability of the Navy to screw up everything they touch." Later in life his reading of history, especially Barbara Tuchman's book The Guns of August (1962), about World War I, reinforced his doubts.
Misgivings about the wisdom of military responses to communism, however, were not enough to deter Kennedy from authorizing the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, in April of 1961. In the aftermath of the invasion, which fizzled when a brigade of CIA-trained Cuban exiles were captured on the beach, the CIA's inspector general ascribed the failure to "bad planning," "poor" staffing, and "fragmentation of authority," and to the false assumption that "the invasion would, like a deus ex machina, produce a shock ... [and] trigger an uprising." Although he publicly accepted blame for the defeat, Kennedy privately wondered how he could have been so stupid as to trust CIA and military assurances about the likely success of the attack.
Paul Nitze, who in the 1950s worked with Secretary of State Dean Acheson on defense issues, and who served in the Kennedy Administration as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's assistant secretary for international security affairs, said in his oral history of the Administration that President Kennedy "was always troubled with ... how do you obtain military advice; how do you check into it; how do you have an independent view as to its accuracy and relevance?" A tape of a 1962 conversation with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, and Undersecretary of State George Ball makes clear that Kennedy had a low opinion of many U.S. diplomats and Defense Department officials. He described career envoys as weak or spineless. "I just see an awful lot of fellows ... who don't seem to have cojones," he said. "[Whereas] the Defense Department looks as if that's all they've got. They haven't any brains ... I know you get all this sort of virility over at the Pentagon, and you get a lot of Arleigh Burkes [a reference to the chief of naval operations]: admirable, nice figure, without any brains."
His experiences with the Joint Chiefs of Staff deepened Kennedy's reservations about the advice he was receiving from the military. One incident that alarmed him came shortly after the Bay of Pigs debacle, when the Joint Chiefs urged Kennedy to authorize the use of air and land forces in Laos to avert a communist takeover. Kennedy wanted to know what they intended if such an operation failed. The Joint Chiefs answered, in the words of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, "You start using atomic weapons!" Lyman Lemnitzer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, promised that if they were given authorization to use nuclear weapons, they could guarantee victory. Kennedy saw Lemnitzer's assurance as absurd. Later he said, "Since he couldn't think of any further escalation, he would have to promise us victory." Kennedy and the Soviets ultimately reached a negotiated settlement in Laos. But the disagreement with his advisers would set a pattern.
Kennedy felt the most tension with General Lauris Norstad, the commander of NATO forces, and General Curtis LeMay, the chief of staff of the Air Force. Both Norstad and LeMay believed that any war with the Soviet Union would have to escalate quickly into a nuclear exchange if the United States was to have any hope of "winning." Kennedy found LeMay, who would become the model for a deranged general in the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove, especially intolerable. Roswell Gilpatric, Kennedy's deputy secretary of defense, recalled in his oral history of the Kennedy Administration that the President "ended up in sort of a fit" every time he had to see LeMay. "I mean he just would be frantic at the end of a session with LeMay," Gilpatric said, "because, you know, LeMay couldn't listen or wouldn't take in, and he would make what Kennedy considered ... outrageous proposals that bore no relation to the state of affairs in the 1960s. And the President never saw him unless at some ceremonial affair, or where he felt he had to make a record of having listened to LeMay, as he did on the whole question of an air strike against Cuba. And he had to sit there. I saw the President right afterwards. He was just choleric."
"I don't think he ever really satisfied himself that he had found a way to get the best possible military help on such matters," Nitze said.
According to Nitze, Kennedy saw a decision to use nuclear weapons in a conflict as a responsibility that belonged not to the Joint Chiefs but to himself. It was a decision he hoped he would never have to make, and he tried very hard to ensure that he wouldn't have to. Walt W. Rostow, a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Council, recalled in an oral history that Kennedy thought an all-out nuclear conflict would be "a truly monstrous event in the U.S.—let alone in world history." Although the United States had a large advantage over the Soviets, both in total number of nuclear weapons and in the capacity to deliver them, everyone concluded that a nuclear exchange would bring, in Rostow's words, "virtual incineration" to Western Europe, Russia, and the United States. In September of 1961, after leaving a briefing at which Lemnitzer described the effects of nuclear war, Kennedy said to Rusk, "And we call ourselves the human race."
Despite his horror at the thought of fighting such a war, Kennedy greatly expanded America's nuclear arsenal and refused to publicly renounce a first-strike strategy. Fearful that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev might push the United States into an all-out clash, JFK saw no alternative to increased preparedness. "That son of a bitch Khrushchev," Rostow once heard him complain, "he won't stop until we actually take a step that might lead to nuclear war ... There's no way you can talk that fella into stopping, until you take some really credible step." After meeting the Premier in Vienna, in June of 1961, Kennedy was frustrated by his inability to soften Khrushchev's hawkish attitudes on nuclear arms. He told Hugh Sidey, of Time magazine, "I never met a man like this. [I] talked about how a nuclear exchange would kill seventy million people in ten minutes and he just looked at me as if to say, 'So what?' My impression was that he just didn't give a damn if it came to that." According to the journalist Fred Kaplan, to ensure against a Soviet miscalculation, Kennedy directed McNamara to "repeat to the point of boredom" that the United States would use nuclear weapons only if it or its allies were directly attacked, and that America was not even thinking about preventive war.
In a conversation with his aide Kenneth O'Donnell after the Vienna summit, Kennedy said, "All wars start from stupidity. [It is] particularly stupid to risk killing a million Americans over an argument about access rights on an Autobahn in the Soviet zone of Germany, or because the Germans want Germany reunified ... Before I back Khrushchev against the wall ... the freedom of all of Western Europe will have to be at stake." But despite Kennedy's concerns, the military exerted persistent pressure for armed action against communism.
Kennedy's resistance to this pressure reached a climax during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in October of 1962. The blockade or quarantine of Cuba that he imposed to force the removal of nuclear weapons did not satisfy the Joint Chiefs. When Kennedy first proposed it, General LeMay said he saw direct military intervention as a necessity. "This blockade and political action I see leading into war," he told Kennedy in a conversation captured on tape by a White House recording device. "I don't see any other solution. It will lead right into war. This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich." LeMay indirectly threatened to make his dissent public. "I think that a blockade, and political talk, would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this. And I'm sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way too. In other words, you're in a pretty bad fix at the present time."
LeMay's words angered Kennedy, who asked, "What did you say?" LeMay repeated, "You're in a pretty bad fix." Kennedy responded with a hollow laugh, and said, "You're in there with me." Kenneth O'Donnell recalled in his memoirs that after the meeting Kennedy asked him, "Can you imagine LeMay saying a thing like that? These brass hats have one great advantage in their favor. If we listen to them, and do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong."
On October 28 Khrushchev promised to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba, but at a meeting that same day the Joint Chiefs stated their opposition to Kennedy's ongoing restraint. (In response to Khrushchev's promise Kennedy had pledged not to invade Cuba, a pledge that troubled the Chiefs, who believed that Castro's removal from power was essential.) Admiral George Anderson told the President, "We have been had!" LeMay called the settlement "the greatest defeat in our history," and urged a prompt invasion. McNamara remembered Kennedy as "absolutely shocked" and "stuttering in reply." Kennedy later told Benjamin Bradlee, then the Washington bureau chief for Newsweek, "The first advice I'm going to give my successor is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that just because they were military men their opinions on military matters were worth a damn."
A week after the missile crisis ended, while uncertainty continued as to whether Khrushchev would in fact remove all offensive weapons from Cuba, Kennedy responded to an updated invasion plan proposed by his military advisers. In a declassified document now held in the national-security files at the JFK Library, in Boston, he drew on his knowledge of history in restating his conviction that an attack on Cuba carried huge military risks: "Considering the size of the problem, the equipment that is involved on the other side, the Nationalists['] fervor which may be engendered," he wrote to McNamara, "it seems to me we could end up bogged down. I think we should keep constantly in mind the British in [the] Boer War, the Russians in the last war with the Finnish and our own experience with the North Koreans." "An invasion would have been a mistake—a wrong use of our power," Kennedy told his aide Arthur Schlesinger. "But the military are mad. They wanted to do this."
F rom the moment he took office, in January of 1961, Kennedy had been eager to settle the Cuban problem without overt military action by the United States. Through the fall of 1963, however, he remained resigned to the possibility that Cuban aggression or developments on the island could compel American air attacks or even an invasion, and some of his advisers continued to pressure him to engage in covert action to depose Castro. On October 29, 1962, the day after Khrushchev ended the missile crisis, Castro publicly announced that he was ready for an agreement with the United States, but his conditions—an end to the economic embargo that Washington had imposed in 1960, and to U.S. subversion, sponsorship of exile raids, U-2 overflights, and control of Guantánamo—were more than any U.S. government could accept as a starting point for negotiations, especially if it hoped to avoid the outrage of Cuban exiles and their American allies.
At the same time, Kennedy was beginning to see rapprochement as the best way to end the difficulties with Havana, especially because the National Security Council was now acknowledging that all the proposals thus far for toppling Castro were "singularly unpromising" (as an NSC memo stated). In the spring of 1963 James B. Donovan, a New York lawyer who had negotiated the release of the nearly 1,200 Cuban exiles captured at the Bay of Pigs, became an intermediary between Havana and Washington. During discussions about releasing twenty-four imprisoned Americans accused of being CIA agents, Castro, who was unhappy with Moscow's treatment of Cuba, asked for suggestions on how to establish official relations with the United States, which he saw, according to Donovan, as necessary. He wondered whether Donovan could be given an official status that would make the negotiations likelier to move both sides closer to rapprochement. Donovan's report on his conversation with Castro greatly interested Kennedy.
Kennedy relied on William Attwood—a former editor of Look magazine who had interviewed Castro, had served from March of 1961 to May of 1963 as ambassador to Guinea, and was now an adviser to the United States UN Mission—to explore further the possibility of rapprochement. If this were to include the removal of all Soviet forces from Cuba, an end to Cuba's subversive activities throughout the Western Hemisphere, and Havana's commitment to nonalignment in the Cold War, Kennedy believed he could sell it to the American public. In return Kennedy surely would have been willing to stop the economic embargo, the U-2 overflights, and other threats to Castro's continued reign—to do everything, in fact, except withdraw from the base at Guantánamo.
Kennedy's interest in an accommodation with Castro registered forcefully on Jean Daniel, a French journalist on his way to Havana at the end of October of 1963. In a meeting with Daniel at the White House, Kennedy acknowledged a degree of U.S. responsibility for the miseries inflicted on the Cuban people by Castro's predecessor, Fulgencio Batista, whose government was propped up by the United States. When Daniel asked Kennedy about the economic embargo of Cuba, the President replied that he might lift it if Castro ended communist incitements in the region. Kennedy asked Daniel to see him again after returning from Cuba. "Castro's reactions interest me," he said, according to Daniel.
Castro welcomed the chance to open discussions with the United States, but insisted that they occur in Cuba. He did not wish to be seen as in any way soliciting U.S. friendship. Nor did the Kennedy Administration want to be seen as solicitous of Cuba. Robert Kennedy told Attwood that the Administration could not risk accusations that it was trying to make a deal with Castro.
In November, as the two sides debated where to hold discussions, the President gave a speech in Miami, before the Inter-American Press Association, that included veiled references to an altered relationship with Cuba. He said that Latin America's problems would not be solved "simply by complaining about Castro, by blaming all problems on communism, or generals, or nationalism." So long as Cuba remained "a weapon in an effort dictated by external powers to subvert the other American republics," a reconciliation would be impossible. Absent this impediment, he said, "everything is possible."
Whatever the uncertainties in November of 1963 about future Castro-Kennedy dealings, the two leaders had signaled a mutual interest in finding a way through their antagonism.
As for Vietnam, what Kennedy would have done after November of 1963 now seems increasingly clear, thanks not only to the testimony of his former aides but also to a growing documentary public record. Here, too, his wariness of his military chiefs' advice had begun to shape his outlook.
Most of his advisers in the Pentagon wanted to increase U.S. involvement in Vietnam's civil war. But Kennedy would have preferred a settlement like the one he had reached in Laos, whereby Moscow and Washington agreed to restrain the factions battling for control of the country. With Hanoi and Saigon unwilling to reach a truce, U.S. fears of losing South Vietnam to communism forced Kennedy to escalate America's economic and military commitments—providing Ngo Dinh Diem's regime with more money, equipment, and advisers to fight the Vietcong. Still, any suggestion that the conflict should become a war fought principally by U.S. troops was directly at odds with Kennedy's convictions about America's self-interest.
Admittedly, Kennedy wanted a military tool with which to combat communist insurgencies in Asia and Latin America. The creation of the Green Berets, in 1961, to meet the communist threat in Vietnam and elsewhere, was an indication of how determined he was to use limited force in the contest with Moscow for Third World client states. It is true, too, that the Kennedy Administration repeatedly announced America's determination to preserve South Vietnam's independence. In February of 1962 Robert Kennedy declared, "We are going to win in Vietnam. We will remain here until we do win." And JFK was willing to subsidize the expansion of the South Vietnamese military and to have more than 16,000 members of the U.S. military advising and directing Vietnamese combat operations—a project that would cost some American lives. Moreover, in August of 1963 Kennedy reluctantly signed off on a plot to have Vietnamese generals overthrow Diem's government, which had lost popular support and seemed certain to lose the civil war. But although all this risked greater U.S. responsibility for the fate of South Vietnam, Kennedy did not see it as leading—and certainly did not want it to lead—to the Americanization of the war. Indeed, his support for a coup rested on the hope that it would help South Vietnam to defeat the Vietcong and would greatly reduce the need for ongoing military support. And public statements like RFK's were more a device for bolstering Saigon's morale and intimidating the communists than a reliable expression of intentions—as the President's actions in Vietnam, especially in 1963, would show.
Kennedy had seen the Boer War, the Russo-Finnish conflict, and the Korean War as cautionary tales against getting bogged down in Cuba; now he perceived that the lessons of those wars applied even more strongly in Vietnam, a less familiar, more distant land with political crosscurrents even more formidable than those presented by Havana. He feared that U.S. involvement would produce irresistible pressure to do more and more. "The troops will march in; the bands will play; the crowds will cheer," he told Arthur Schlesinger, "and in four days everyone will have forgotten. Then we will be told we have to send in more troops. It's like taking a drink. The effect wears off, and you have to take another."
Throughout his tenure in the White House, Kennedy consistently resisted proposals to have U.S. forces take over the war. In November of 1961 Maxwell Taylor, a Kennedy military confidant, reported at a meeting of Administration and military officials that Kennedy was "instinctively against introduction of U.S. forces." According to notes taken at a meeting of the National Security Council that same month, Kennedy "expressed the fear of becoming involved simultaneously on two fronts on opposite sides of the world," and "questioned the wisdom of involvement in Viet Nam since the basis thereof is not completely clear." JFK thought that whereas in Korea the United States had responded to a case of clear aggression, the conflict in Vietnam was, according to the NSC notes, "more obscure and less flagrant." He believed that any unilateral commitment on our part would produce "sharp domestic partisan criticism as well as strong objections from other nations ... [and] could even make leading Democrats wary of proposed activities in the Far East."
From the summer of 1962 to the fall of 1963 Kennedy directed Robert McNamara to chart plans for a systematic withdrawal from Vietnam by 1965. Possibly as a concession to his own reluctance to abandon South Vietnam before its survival was assured, McNamara drew up a five-year schedule for the reduction of U.S. forces. He did not anticipate a full departure until 1968, when he expected to remove the last 1,500 advisers and reduce military aid to $40.8 million—less than a quarter of the sum spent in 1962.
Further evidence of Kennedy's intentions toward Vietnam comes in a backhanded but telling way from his dealings with the U.S. press corps in Saigon. The conventional wisdom is that Kennedy tried to censor news stories from Vietnam for fear that they would turn American public opinion against the war effort. And the press was indeed critical of the Administration's determination to hide the extent of U.S. involvement and its inability either to discourage Diem from repressing Buddhist dissenters or to compel him to fight the North Vietnamese aggressively. But the real reason Kennedy was intent on repressing these negative reports was not to prevent the spread of anti-war sentiment but, rather, to avert demands for escalation.
According to poll data from the period, few Americans were following the situation in Vietnam. By 1962 Kennedy had decided that to sustain what he believed was the proper level of commitment in the region—enough to keep South Vietnam afloat without any involvement of U.S. troops or direct military action—he needed to keep public attention to a minimum. He recognized that public debate might arouse the political left to call for total withdrawal. But the greater danger, he seemed to believe, was that people would think America was fighting too halfheartedly: press accounts that called attention to the U.S. military's limited advisory role might lead evangelical anti-communists on the political right to demand that involvement be increased.
In April of 1962 Averell Harriman, the assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, directed the U.S. embassy in Saigon to lower America's profile in the conflict as much as possible. The press had begun describing the struggle as more an American than a Vietnamese war. The names of combat operations, such as "Sunrise" and "Farmgate," suggested U.S. planning, and American advisers were making themselves too conspicuous. Reports that a large group of U.S. colonels and civilians had inspected a stockade in Operation Sunrise were a case in point. "Why do large groups of Americans inspect anything?" Harriman asked in a memo. Moreover, U.S. officers were talking too freely about their role in planning operations. "It cannot be overstressed," Harriman declared, "that the conduct and utterances public and private of all U.S. personnel must reflect the basic policy of this government that we are in full support of Viet-Nam but we do not assume responsibility for Viet-Nam's war with the Viet Cong."
In September of 1963 Kennedy was still trying to avert widespread public discussion of America's role in the conflict. He instructed the State Department's public-affairs officer, Robert Manning, to avoid press interviews and television appearances on the subject. When Manning reported in a memo to Kennedy that Roger Hilsman, the director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence, had been turning down calls from the press and TV stations, the President agreed that was wise.
In October, Kennedy asked Arthur Sulzberger, the newly appointed publisher of The New York Times, to remove the reporter David Halberstam from Saigon, where Halberstam was writing irrefutable accounts of U.S.-South Vietnamese failings in the war and implying that greater American involvement was necessary. (Halberstam, although he would later turn against the war, took the same position in his 1965 book The Making of a Quagmire.) Sulzberger refused.
Had Kennedy believed that it was more essential to stop a communist advance in Vietnam than to restrict America's part in the fighting, he surely would have touted the Administration's efforts to preserve Saigon's autonomy—and would have been more supportive of Halberstam and other reporters in their efforts to make the case for more-effective U.S. involvement. As a student of America's role in World Wars I and II and Korea, Kennedy knew that fighting a costly foreign war depended on steady public commitment, which could come only after convincing Americans of the country's vital stake in the conflict. The converse, as he saw it, given the political context, was that obscuring America's role and muting public discussion would help him to preserve the flexibility to reduce U.S. involvement or maintain it at the same level. (This is what Lyndon Johnson failed to understand. He, too, suppressed information about what the United States was doing in Indochina, but he did so in the mistaken belief that it would make it easier for him to intensify U.S. involvement. His effort to pursue this course without adequate public support ultimately doomed his presidency.)
After the November 1963 coup in Saigon that took Diem's life, Kennedy regretted encouraging an action that, he now believed, would deepen rather than reduce U.S. participation in Vietnamese affairs. In a tape recording made in the Oval Office on November 4, he said, "I feel that we [at the White House] must bear a good deal of responsibility for it, beginning with our cable of early August in which we suggested the coup. In my judgment that wire was badly drafted. It should never have been sent on a Saturday. I should not have given my consent to it without a roundtable conference at which McNamara and Taylor could have presented their views. While we did redress that balance in later wires, that first wire encouraged [Ambassador Henry Cabot] Lodge along a course to which he was in any case inclined ... The question now is whether the generals can stay together and build a stable government or whether ... public opinion in Saigon, the intellectuals, students, et cetera, will turn on this government as repressive and undemocratic in the not too distant future." More than ever, Kennedy seemed to feel that U.S. involvement in so unstable a country was a poor idea.
In an undated, unsigned memo in the President's office files from the late summer or fall of 1963 (possibly even after November 1), an Administration official provided "Observations on Vietnam and Cuba." Since the Soviets seemed to feel trapped in Cuba and we in Vietnam, this official asked, might it not make sense to invite Charles de Gaulle, the President of France, who maintained calculated relations with both Cold War superpowers, to propose a swap with the Soviets? (In other words, in exchange for the Soviets' leaving Cuba, the Americans would leave Vietnam.) Whether Kennedy ever saw this memo, or what reaction he might have had to it, is unknown. Nonetheless, it is clear that by November of 1963 Kennedy welcomed suggestions for an alternative to a Vietnam policy that had had limited success. On November 20, the day before he left on his fateful trip to Texas, Kennedy told Michael Forrestal, a senior staff member on the National Security Council and an assistant to the President on Far Eastern affairs, that at the start of 1964 he wanted him to organize "an in-depth study of every possible option we've got in Vietnam, including how to get out of there." He said, "We have to review this whole thing from the bottom to the top."
If Kennedy was opposed to a substantially larger U.S. role in the war, why did LBJ believe that he was simply following JFK's lead by escalating U.S. involvement? He believed it because Kennedy had significantly increased U.S. commitments during his presidency, and because three of Kennedy's principal foreign-policy advisers, Rusk, McNamara, and Bundy, departing from what Kennedy's final posture had been, told Johnson that expanded involvement would have been JFK's choice. More important, Johnson enlarged the U.S. role because he could not walk away from the conflict as Kennedy could have done, given enough time. By November of 1963 recent events had eclipsed memories of Kennedy's stumbling efforts at the Bay of Pigs and in Vienna. In fact, his record of success in the missile crisis and in the negotiation of a test-ban treaty with Moscow in the summer of 1963—a process he cut his military advisers out of—gave him considerable personal standing as a foreign-policy leader. Pulling back from Vietnam would not have undermined international or domestic confidence in Kennedy's direction of foreign affairs, especially given that poll data from as late as April of 1964 showed only 37 percent of the American public paying any attention to developments in Vietnam. Even in the spring and summer of 1965, after Johnson had begun a systematic bombing campaign and had dispatched 100,000 soldiers to the region, few Americans expected to see a victory in South Vietnam. In April of that year 45 percent of Americans polled predicted that a neutral or pro-communist government would take control of Saigon within the next five years; only 22 percent believed that Saigon would remain on Washington's side. By August most Americans assumed that the war would end with a compromise or, like the Korean War, with a negotiated settlement. In short, if a second-term Kennedy Administration had withdrawn U.S. fighting forces from Vietnam in 1965, few Americans would have felt that the United States had forfeited a chance at victory.
Johnson, in contrast, had few credentials as a world statesman and did not think he could deal effectively with communist adversaries abroad or conservative critics at home if he retreated from a Cold War challenge in Vietnam. When his need to demonstrate his foreign-policy toughness was coupled with his sincere belief in a war he saw as essential to containing communism, the result was a foreign-policy disaster.
In counterfactual history nothing is certain. But we do know that in November of 1963 Kennedy was strongly leaning both toward reducing tensions with Castro and against expanding commitments in Vietnam. And most historians agree that Kennedy, like Johnson, would have faced Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election and defeated him by a wide margin, just as Johnson did. This would have given Kennedy, now free from concern about re-election, the mandate to make a bold foreign-policy change while staring down his military advisers.


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Quick Vision Test May Help Spot Concussions on Sidelines
A simple vision test given on the sidelines can help identify athletes who've suffered a concussion, a new study finds.
Researchers found that the test — known as the King-Devick, or K-D — was able to detect 79 percent of concussions among college athletes who were followed over a season. When the results were combined with those of two other screening tests, all of the concussions were caught.
The findings were released Wednesday by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), ahead of its annual meeting this spring.
Experts said the study bolsters evidence that the K-D is a reliable way to help spot athletes' head injuries — though the test, by itself, is not enough.
"People have been looking for quick, on-the-field screening tests," said Steven Broglio, an athletic trainer and director of the NeuroSport Research Laboratory at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The new findings suggest the K-D is "one option," said Broglio, who was not involved in the study. "But it's not definitive, and you wouldn't want to rely on this alone," he added.
The K-D takes a minute or two, and it can be given by an athletic trainer, coach or even a parent right on the sidelines. It requires test-takers to read a few rows of single-digit numbers that are unevenly spaced, as quickly and accurately as possible. If they are slower to finish than they were on their "baseline" test — taken before the season starts — that's a potential sign of a concussion.
There are other sideline screening tests already in use, including ones that test balance and short-term memory.
But the K-D test "fills a gap" by looking for vision-related problems, explained study co-author Dr. Steven Galleta, chair of neurology at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.
Concussions can cause a wide range of symptoms that are often subtle at first. Symptoms like worsening headache, dizziness, nausea, fatigue and confusion might not become obvious until hours after the knock to the head. Plus, even when athletes are suffering immediate problems, they might not tell anyone.
"Some athletes don't recognize the symptoms, and some try to hide them because they want to stay in the game," Galleta said.
A number of professional groups, such as the AAN and National Athletic Trainers' Association, say that athletes who've potentially suffered a concussion should be taken out of the game or practice immediately.
For the new study, Galleta and his colleagues followed 217 athletes at the University of Florida — including male football players, and female lacrosse and soccer players.
At the start of the season, they all took the K-D, as well as two other sideline screening tests: the BESS, which measures balance; and the SAC, which measures abilities such as short-term memory (asking the athlete to memorize and recall five words) and "orientation" (asking the player to name the day, month and year).
Over one season, 30 athletes were diagnosed with a concussion. And when the researchers looked at their sideline test results, 79 percent showed slower times on the K-D, compared with their pre-season performance. Adding the SAC and BESS results improved the detection rate to 100 percent.
Part of the appeal of the K-D is its simplicity; it can be used by "laypeople," including coaches and parents, Galleta noted. That raises the question of whether it can be used in high school and youth sports — where there is often no athletic trainer or other health professional on the sidelines.
Studies are currently testing the K-D's usefulness for kids as young as 6, said Dr. Laura Balcer, a professor of neurology at NYU Langone who also worked on the study.
But regardless of what the K-D or other screening test shows on the sidelines, Balcer said there is "no substitute" for parents' judgment. If they notice any potential signs of concussion after a game or practice, they should take their child to the doctor immediately, she said.
"Parents know their kids best," Broglio agreed. "If you notice a change in their behavior, it's probably worth it to have them evaluated."
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 173,000 U.S. children and teens land in the ER each year because of a concussion suffered during sports or recreational activities, like bike riding.
But the overall number — including kids not seen in the ER — is probably much larger: the CDC estimates that across age groups, up to 3.8 million Americans sustain a sports-related concussion each year.
In general, experts say kids with concussions should be symptom-free and get a doctor's OK before returning to sports. The biggest concern is that, if they sustain another knock to the head while they are still recovering from the first concussion, they could suffer so-called second-impact syndrome — which can cause potentially fatal bleeding inside the skull and brain swelling.
The data and conclusions of research presented at meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on concussion in youth sports.
Source: HealthDay
Copyright © 2023 HealthDay. All rights reserved.


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Back in the saddle again
Back from a week's Thanksgiving vacation in California. Read a woeful 9/11 novel by Jess Walter called The Zero. My wife and I took the nieces and nephews to Borders for the annual Thanksgiving book-buy. (In lieu of Christmas gifts.) I enjoy the event, probably because it places me in the position of house authority on books. My niece Laura picked out William Trevor's Story of Lucy Gault on my recommendation (she said that she likes novels in which characters face family crises), and my nephew Paul accepted Johnny Tremain. (His mother is a historian of colonial America. I suspect that the choice was a compromise.) I found myself at sea, however, when my nice Hannah wanted a recommendation for another writer like Stephanie Meyer. I had never heard of Stephanie Meyer! What kind of literary snob am I!


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Bracelet ZS Macra Olive Green RO
Bracelet ZS Macra is our cool rope bracelet whose color reminds of Provence. It is adorned with the distinctive Z|S Icon as medallion centrepiece. Easy to wear and available in a large selection of spicy attractive colours: ideal for every occasion.
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All in 925 Sterling Silver, generously Rose Gold plated, covered by a protective anti-tarnishing coating. Each ZEADES item in Sterling Silver carries the official 925 mark, and is also stamped with the brand's Registered Silver Hallmark.
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Men Ring
Women Bracelets
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ZEADES Timepieces are made exclusively of high-resistance Stainless Steel 316L.
The use of Japanese or Swiss quartz movements for all ZEADES watches assures precision and durability. All ZEADES watches are water-resistant (3 to 10 ATM, depending upon the model).
All stones are premium Austrian Crystals. All watch straps are made of genuine Italian leather. Replacement straps can be purchased separately.
We invite you to read the specifications indicated on our E-Shop for each watch to know more about the produc, or read the Watch User Manual downloadable on this website.
• Keep dry and protect from direct sources of heat.
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Zenana Still Into You Full Size Run Ribbed Jumpsuit
This ribbed jumpsuit has comfort written all over it. It includes adjustable spaghetti straps, a layered top, an elastic waistband, and cropped wide legs.
- Sizing: True to size
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- Features: Ribbed, layered, adjustable straps, wide legs
- Neckline: V-neck
- Sheer: No
- Stretch: Highly stretchy
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S: bust 34 in, length 48 in
M: bust 35 in, length 49 in
L: bust 37 in, length 50 in
XL: bust 40 in, length 51 in
1X: bust 42 in, length 52.5 in
2X: bust 43 in, length 53.5 in
3X: bust 46 in, length 54.5 in
- Models are wearing sizes Small and 1XL.
- Material composition: 67% polyester, 28% rayon, 5% spandex
- Care: Machine wash cold with like colors. Do not bleach. Hang dry.
- Imported
Zenana is a leading clothing company offering sustainable, ethical, and affordable basics made from quality fabrics, to ensure that they will last for many seasons to come. Their main goal is to provide environmentally friendly clothing at an affordable price.


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The Realests are going bonkers this morning over their latest discovery, but we have to say that we do not find this funny at all. What is so hilarious, after all, about a college football player named Lucious Pusey? (Roman guard begins to giggle). Centurion, why do they titter so? Just because I say ... Lucious Pusey? (Guards break up in gales of laughter). OK, we're done referencing the film Life of Brian. From The Realests:
We didn't think Jim Bob Cooter or Kyle Sackrider could be topped. But they have — by a mile. We've been informed of the Eastern Illinois (Division I-AA) Panther formerly known as Lucious Pusey.
Before we get too excited, the player in question has evidently legally changed his name to Lucious Seymour. And we say we get together and make him change it back.
A Seperate Tribute To Lucious Pusey [The Realests]


text: "Hope" can be a foreign concept to those in the midst of severe or suicidal depression. Yet, the book "Shades of Blue" offers just that – hope. Thirty-five essays written by individuals with different backgrounds and histories share diverse issues, and how they have managed to, if not overcome them, learned to manage them. Three of the contributing essay authors read excerpts from their essays at the independent bookstore, The Avid Reader, in Davis, California.