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The End of Terroir
One of the most enduring memes in wine is that of terroir. (A meme, by the way, is a cultural idea that spreads virally from human to human. Memes have been compared to genes in that they may mutate in response to environmental pressures, a concept I'll return to in a minute.)
We all know the origin of the concept of terroir: France. That it was borrowed by American wine growers and vintners, primarily here in California, is perfectly understandable, especially after the boutique winery boom pushed prices high enough that vintners had to come up with some rationale to convince consumers to dig deep. Their rationale: Mass-produced wines have no terroir. The word "terroir" went beyond its original French meaning of referring to a given set of growing conditions, to acquire qualitative and even esthetic dimensions. One might say that the terroir meme mutated.
In the 1980s and 1990s, as I was learning about wine and becoming a wine writer, the concept of terroir was all-pervasive at the higher levels of California. Napa Valley was said to make the best Cabernets because of its terroir. When Pinot Noir started to become popular, there were fierce intellectual discussions of the difference between the terroirs of, say, the western part of the Santa Ynez Valley (now called the Sta. Rita Hills) and the Russian River Valley. One might say that being able to describe his region's unique terroir was as integral a part of the winemaker's job as producing good wine. Certainly, it became a necessary part of the job description with the rise of the wine media.
Personally, I always had my doubts. While I could certainly tell that Napa Valley Cabernet was better than Cabs from elsewhere (as a general rule; not always in every instance), I always felt some skepticism when someone told me about how radically different Rutherford and Oakville were, or Howell Mountain and Mount Veeder. I didn't see it quite that way. But one learns to keep one's mouth shut in such cases: I feared that perhaps it was my lack of ability that prevented me from detecting what seemed so obvious to others. The guilty fear of many writers, maybe all of us for all I know, is that nagging feeling that you know less about wine than people think you do. So when I wrote about terroir, I dutifully quoted winemakers, while myself seldom if ever proclaiming terroir distinctions in my own voice. There's a big difference between quoting others and making your own declarations, and I have never been confident making the kind of ultra-fine statements that would be needed in distinguishing Rutherford from Oakville.
Or Sta. Rita Hills from Russian River Valley. Or Santa Lucia Highlands from Sonoma Coast. Or even Carneros from Russian River Valley. Which is a problem for a wine writer expected to know these things. I can describe the differences, intellectually, based on my knowledge of climate and soils, and from things I've been told by winemakers over the years. But I would hate to be put to the acid test of having to identify these wines in a blind tasting in a public format, for a simple reason I've been hesitant to express, before now: The truth is, Pinot Noirs from all California's top regions taste more alike than not, and so do Cabernets from Napa's appellations; and now we are seeing the emergence of Cabernets from other parts of the state (not just Sonoma County, but Paso Robles and Santa Barbara County) that one might easily confuse with the real thing from Napa Valley.
Wine writers aren't supposed to admit such things, and few do, at least in public. Which is why I have been so enjoying Benjamin Lewin's new book, Claret & Cabs. He does such a superb job of demolishing the terroir meme, not because he doesn't believe in terroir–he does– but because external factors are minimizing its impact, to the point where traditional terroir concepts in Bordeaux–the mothership of terroir–have become so blurred as to be largely unintelligible. (My words, not his.)
Lewin, who's an M.W., compiles a list of reasons why terroir distinctions in the Médoc have gotten so fuzzy. Vintners pick riper. Some varieties, like Malbec and Carmenere, are being eliminated, in favor of more Cabernet Sauvignon–which may be making all Bordeaux wines taste more alike than they used to. Cabernet is being planted in areas where it didn't used to, even at the top chateaux. Wines from lesser parts of Bordeaux are fast becoming as good as classified growths. Most importantly, perhaps, global warming is doing away with climate patterns that dominated when the communal distinctions were first established–patterns that made for perceptual differences between cooler and warmer micro-terroirs. As he writes, "I suspect…that [terroir] differences were brought out in the past by marginal conditions"–conditions that less frequently apply in today's Bordeaux, so that "it would be a fine taster who could always tell the difference between St. Julien and Pauillac."
Such a statement would have been heresy in Michael Broadbent's, Hugh Johnson's or Alexis Lichine's heyday. Today, as established a figure as Lewin (who may be the most prolific and best wine writer in the English language) can come out and say the unsayable, the truth about terroir that dare not speak its name. He blew my mind when he called terroir "a point of faith in Bordeaux." Faith is something you believe in despite evidence to the contrary. But for how long, and at what price?
TOMORROW: Part 2.
I've always felt that barrel fermentation and/or ageing would inevitably overshadow or otherwise eliminate and discernible terroir nuances.
Wouldn't the ideal be unfined, unfiltered and unoaked . . . . literally untouched?
I like your distinction between Cru, which emphasizes the hand of man, and terroir, which in some usage tends to emphasize other factors. I see no reason to eliminate one in favor of the other. Meme is a synonym for idea, invented by Dawkins so he could claim he made a contribution to evolutionary theory. It doesn't act as anything. It's like lede: unnecessary and deceptive.
All the consumers I encounter don't arrive with preconceived notions of what a wine should taste like. Only that it should taste good. Many consumers are, however, have been coerced into thinking that any given area may be too warm for Pinot Noir. For them no region is ever too cold for anything.
A good California example of the lack of the influence of terroir is how various cunsumers feel about Zinfandel. Virtually any winery in any part of California can produce a good Zin some years.
I think that wine writers are not in touch with reality. They live in a "wine world" of their own creation. Of course enough interest and money always seems to be there for their ongoing musings.
Wine is that way. But now there are so many wineries that it is no longer the social one-ups-man-ship game it used to be. No one cares.
Dr. Lewin also pointed out several Grand Cru red Burgundies that were vinified from grapes mere meters apart by different houses as being very different "Hand of God" indeed, that was from his excellent 'In Search of Pinot Noir'. I am looking forward to his Cabs book, but alas we mortals have to wait for it to arrive at the book stores or mail order warehouses on May 1st. He does cover some terrior questions in 'What Price Bordeaux?' I always assumed the Bordelais considered thier wines produced by the "Hand of Man"!!!!
I just went to a tasting of 125 Burgundies. They are also much more similar than they are different. Doesn't mean there weren't differences, but not as pronounced as you are often led to believe. Also many of the differences were winemaking related and not associated with which side of which stone wall the grapes came from.
Don't get me wrong, I really believe that the site makes a huge difference. It's just reporting and marketing in this day and age takes it too far. Hyperbole abounds.
Dear Steve,
Terroir was defined to me by Merilark Padgett-Johnson, instructor at SRJC as "Taste of Place," and nothing further. Despite modern winemaking techniques that in some ways work to homogenize the taste of wine, I do believe the terroir is alive and well in California, and for more reasons than just marketing. It's real! I absolutely agree that it's possible for a Pinot Noir from Sta. Rita Hills and one from Sebastopol Hills to taste similar, but the flip side of that coin is two vineyards only a few miles away from each other that taste completely different.
Moreover, the most compelling argument for Terroir is when a vineyard shows through whoever is crafting the wine. Keefer Ranch is a great example. Despite the difference in style and strategy of various winemakers (from Michael Browne to Adam Lee, Ehren Jordan to Akiko Freeman, and Marcy Keefer herself), after tasting a number of these wines throughout the years there exists a unique and consistent "Keeferness" across the board. That's just really cool and a strong testament to the idea of "taste of place".
I think the difficulty that people have with terroir is that it cannot be quantified… there is no scale for it, no measurement, no 100 point system, it's definitively esoteric and always will be. Terroir is unequivocally anecdotal, like the Keefer story from above. Believe what you taste, or taste what you believe, either way terroir will forever be on our minds as winemakers, and in the lexicon for wine critics and writers.
If you want a side by side comparison just go by the Stag's Leap Wine Cellars tasting room and taste Fay next to the SLV cabernets. The vineyards are 16 ft apart. The wines are completly different. A Hillside vineyard vs a vineyard on an alluvial fan. Small grapes with thick skins vs larger grapes with thinner skins. Only difference is the soil.
My argument for terroir in California would be that it is not as apparent today as it should be not because of lack of a "taste of place" or a winemakers ability to capture that taste and profile but because of manipulated AVA's that are more capital driven than truth in wine and "terroir" driven. The Russian River Valley is HUGE. There is no denying that wines from the north east edge of the RRV have different flavor profiles and characteristics than wines in the Green Valley sub AVA of the RRV. However… can you taste the difference between Pinot Noir from Green Valley and Pinot Noir from just outside the AVA in the Sonoma Coast? Hmmm….??? Maybe. But I would wager that in a blind tasting if the vineyard was close enough to Green Valley the answer would be, probably not. In my opinion it is not that "terroir" is lost but rather that it is muddled in a sea of "wine marketing" that wants to get top dollar for whatever is popular. In my opinion the Russian River should be broken down into 5 or 6 unique sub AVA's inside the RRV appellation to better focus on the specifics of the unique terroir that is very present in this growing area. But… that is not popular with the wine marketing departments and that vast majority of wine buying consumers. The truth is that these days the buyers and the sellers of wine would rather not be bogged down with the specifics and the details of the truth of terroir because eh, what the point? Sure the vast majority of people who take the time to read this blog will disagree but the masses of consumers and the producers who are chasing them wouldn't even take the time to answer the question. That's my .02
The debate reflects the relationship and distiction about Philosophy and Science. I really do and glad to believe the existence of terroir, cause we can deny or ignore them just cause we can not recognize now.And marketing is another issue.
In a similar vein, you might like to read Andrew Jefford's blog post published yesterday on Decanter.com where he talks about the challenge of Languedoc AOCs to establish a clear identity, given that they are to be found in the same climate zone. https://www.decanter.com/news/blogs/expert/583717/jefford-on-monday-birth-of-a-landmark
Based on my experiences at the last three International Terroir Congresses, I've learned that to have a meaningful discussion of terroir, everyone must first be on the same page regarding the definition of that slippery term. The OIV (Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin) recently adopted the definition below after about 5 years of debate.
"Vitivinicultural "terroir" is a concept which refers to an area in which collective knowledge of the interactions between the identifiable physical and biological environment and applied vitivinicultural practices develops, providing distinctive characteristics for the products originating from this area. "
Note that this definition of terroir incorporates "vitivinicultural practices" that have evolved over time in response to the physical and biological environment. Using this definition, for example, one could argue that removal of excess alcohol from wines produced from overripe California grapes is now a traditional vinicultural technique in some areas, or that the classic oaky Napa Chardonnay is part of that region's cultural terroir. As an Earth scientist, I'd prefer that the use of the term terroir was restricted to effects produced by variations in the physical environment of the vine – but many folks, and from my experiences, most Europeans, don't see it that way.
All the best but so far I do not agree.
I fully believe that you can taste terroir in wine, in beer, in spirits and even in WATER. And even more recently have seen the amazing feat that a few of us somm types who were taking a class on coffee (out of our element and completely learning a new lexicon) had a relatively easy time (once we were told the mail flavor profiles of certain countries i.e. Ethiopia = aromatic and floral) deciphering espresso coffees in a blind tasting to the point of origin very accurately.
That does not happen just our of pure guessing, it was clear that climate, parent material, soil, aspect, varietal match to the site, and of course a little of the guidance of a human hand and many other factors help to distinguish a product from its peers. My concern is that if we are so quick to disregard the idea of terroir then we will see wine (and other beverages) go the way of clothing, or other commodities. Named for an imaginary or re-evolutioned place (Hollister clothing comes to mind…) but mass-produced in the cheapest way possible without regard for origin and what that brings to the table.
Steve, I also must add that I agree with Tom Barras re the fact that the purest expression of terroir is with minimal winemaker intervention. Some of the best examples I have used in my classes were unoaked. Especially a comparison of Austrian Riesling and Gruner Veltliner, same producer same site trumping the variety but showing the site's minerality… or Different producer same site Austrian and German Rieslings… Or of course Chablis, either unoaked or lightly oaked, a perfect foil to show terroir, often (to some people's surprise) confused with Sancerre, but look at the soil and climate characteristics and somewhat restrained use of oak on Chardonnay in Chablis and all of a sudden you see why the flavors can mimic each other… because of where they are grown… And in the converse… Sancerre and Pouilly Fume (to me at least) being much less similar than Sancerre and Chablis. Fascinating stuff.
my .02 on terroir is that I think it's a meeting point (or battle-ground!) between two sides: the scientific analyzers, because terroir does have certain components that are measurable, eg soil, climate, geography, geology, etc, and the mystic philosophers, because terroir also contains components that are abstract and cultural an can be only said to exist because many people have been talking about it for many years and so a corpus of knowledge has come into existence! I think that every spot on Earth has a potential terroir, it's just that some spots are still missing their abstract, cultural components.
Calling Bordeaux "the mothership of terroir" strikes me as wishful thinking. This is a region that has traditionally considered communal borders fungible, where the brand (chateau) name trumps vineyard location, where much of the production has been driven by foreigners aiming to conquer foreign markets.
Outside of Champagne, Bordeaux is arguably the most commoditized wine in the world. The Bordelaise can't be bothered with quaint concepts like "terroir".
Great topic.
Terroir. As a namesake, I do enjoy the viewpoints and endless debate that the term conveys. I would agree with Mr. Yuan in that there are 'degrees' when discussing and grasping the concept of terroir. Like religion, it can be many things to many people. And to Mr. Pogue, I certainly believe that dirt matters. However, I am reminded of days past, where the neighbors would be suspicious of the new family on the block….
"I don't know about the Schmidts; those Lutherans are an odd sort..wish they were Methodists…"
Irony is its' own joke when identifying typicite; Steve, I wholeheartedly agree that 'radical' differences between AVA's in Napa is nothing more than a sales pitch. The dogmatic approach is for the birds. Ever sat in on a meeting of 'natural wine' winemakers? Worse yet, how about the domaines and chateaux that took the 'terroir is an excuse for bad winemaking' mantra, like an evangelical dust-bowl preacher who 'heals the sick and maimed'? The wines taste like crap, and the sick still can't walk. Problem is, the consumers of both are made to feel like it is their lack of faith causing the problem.
I hope we travel the path of change; that we are more tolerant of the nuances, not as much in the soil, the climate, rootstock, or clone, but in how we interpret those on the palate; that fermented grape juice moves us. After all, when it comes to wine, even agnostics and atheists will shake the 'Hand of God'…
I second Mr. Davis, great great topic Steve!
I find myself engaged (embroiled) in discussions of terroir now more than ever, probably because I find myself having changed positions: I once believed in its importance, and pervasiveness, I now feel it's more of an emperor's new clothes kinda thing . . . according to the conventional definition, which I think was part of what Kevin stated above as "identifiable physical and biological environment."
If we were to begin a discussion on say, beef, and talk about its sense of place, we'd probably assume the beef for our taste-testing for this sense of place would all be one breed (varietal) and that this sense of place would stem from WHERE it was raised: from its pasture or range (vineyards.) We'd also probably agree that to be able to most discern that sense of place, we'd control the preparation (time, temp, final temp etc.) I think we'd be on a pretty solid track to find that sense of place.
But questions would pop up: Is it the same stock (clone?) Did it have the same diet or corn or grass (pesticides, fertilizers, irrigated vs dry-farmed etc) Those would all be really solid questions, right? And again, would factor into the results.
But then what if I said each farmer could dry-age his beef (maceration or time in barrel) as long as he wanted and could submit it to the tasting use his own marinade (yeast, type of oak, degree of char.) I think at this point, any idea of truly tasting the beef's sense of place goes right out the window. I've stretched everyone's credulity to the point of laughter: sense of place, after dry hung for 72 days and put in a soy marinade for 3 weeks?
And yet we are supposed to believe with wine, that sense of place shines through in every single glass?
Steve thanks for being willing to put your point of view on the table. And whether I agree with the final destination they arrived at Kevin, as it pertains to the original intent of the word, adding "applied vitivinicultural practices" to the current definition of terroir makes a lot of sense.
I now look at terroir as more of "group think." Three Hundred years ago, everyone bought the same barrels, picked at the same time, for the same fear of rain, succumbed to the same indigenous yeast, and so yeah, maybe the variation was vineyard to vineyard, and terroir was the x-factor. Almost like an old village eating cows from the same stock, same weather conditions . . . 300 years ago. Now, too many variables to be that evident in my book. That, or I'm a terrible taster.
And regarding the coffee analogy posted above (I'm a home roaster,) yes you can taste the difference, but you get into cultivars, wet vs dry processed, post-auction storage, quakers, and all sorts. I chalk a lot of that to group think as well.
Love this topic, please poke holes in my thinking, like every cynic, I really want to believe!


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Job Information
The Mount Sinai Health System Clinical Nurse/RN-MSH-9East-Full Time Nights in New York, New York
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At least one year of acute care RN experience required; extraordinary New Graduate RN's will be considered
Relevant clinical competence in area of nursing practice is critical for success; new graduates should possess current knowledge of the nursing of the nursing care delivery model and its application
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Current New York State Registered Nurse / RN license (or willingness and eligibility to obtain)
The Clinical Nurse – Med/Surg (M/S) is a Registered Professional Nurse who provides safe, competent, quality care based on nursing theory and research to a designated group of patients and significant others.
As an Adult Medical Surgical Registered Nurse, you will be responsible for managing the care of the adult patient experiencing general medical conditions or general surgical procedures
Assists in development, implementation, and evaluation of standards of care and nursing professional practice in collaboration with the interdisciplinary care team and in accordance with institutional policies and regulatory agency requirements
Assesses and evaluates patient needs for, and responses to, care rendered and applies sound nursing judgment in patient care management decisions
Provides direct, continuous care for a specific caseload of patients through application of the nursing process - based upon theory, research, and approved Department of Nursing and institutional standards
Coordinates patient care activities, based on established priorities, including teaching, rounding, counseling, and discharge planning, and directs/delegates appropriately to members of the health care team.
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subset: commoncrawl


text: New York State Police Tuesday, March 19: Todd M. Perry, 33, of Remsen, was charged with second-degree criminal contempt. Oneida County Sheriff's Department Wednesday, March 20: At 12:17 a.m., Jon P. Owens, 22 of\u00a0 Verona, was driving his 2000 Dodge sedan south on state Route 31 in Verona, near Germany Road, when he lost control of his vehicle due to the slippery road conditions. The vehicle skidded off the west shoulder of the road and struck a ditch.\u00a0 Owens reported head pain, dizziness and lower back pain and was transported to Oneida Healthcare for treatment. Weather conditions were the contributing factor to the accident. No tickets were issued. Assisting at the scene were members of the Verona Fire Department and Vineall Ambulance.


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BEIJING (AP) The Beijing Olympics are China's games, and the table tennis team seems to want to put an exclamation mark on that statement, the way they're dominating their national sport.
Top-ranked Zhang Yining of China outclassed her opponent on Thursday despite not being able to play with her normal paddle, setting up a semifinal round that will include all three Chinese players.
Meanwhile, the United States' best showing ever in Olympic table tennis, thanks to a veteran of the Chinese national team who became an American citizen two years ago, came to an end with Wang Chen's loss.
Wang had clinched her spot in the quarterfinals earlier in the day after defeating South Korea's Kim Kyung-ah of South Korea 11-9, 9-11, 11-8, 10-12, 6-11, 11-9, 11-5. After the final point in that game, Wang fell to her knees and burst into tears.
"I'm in the quarterfinals, it's a dream come true," she said. "I was very emotional."
However, the 34-year-old Wang could not match up with her quarterfinal opponent, Singapore's Li Jia Wei, who is seven years younger and ranked sixth in the world. She lost 15-13, 11-6, 12-10, 13-15, 11-4.
"In terms of energy I couldn't keep up. This morning wore me out and I didn't sleep this afternoon and I felt so tired," said Wang, who is ranked 23rd. "I think if I could have played this game tomorrow I could have done better."
Previously, the best finish for the U.S. was when Gao Jun reached the round of 32 in singles and doubles at the Athens Games.
All three players on the Chinese team advanced into the semifinals. The hosts are guaranteed of at least two medals, although China's dominance throughout the tournament suggests a sweep is a distinct possibility.
Zhang beat Feng Tianwei of Singapore despite an umpire's ruling that she could not play with her normal paddle because it did not meet regulations.
The problem might have had something to do with the thickness of the sponge layer in the paddle, Zhang said. She blamed the thin margins in the score, 13-11, 12-14, 14-12, 12-10, 13-11, on her backup paddle, which she said is smaller and difficult to hit with.
"When I came onto the court and saw it was my backup paddle, my heart almost stopped," Zhang said.
Feng attacked fiercely throughout the match and had Zhang in the uncharacteristic position of playing on the defensive and making errors like hitting the ball out of bounds. High-speed rallies had spectators shouting "piao liang!" (beautiful!) as the ball whipped between the four corners of the table.
Zhang's dominance stems in part from her stoicism during matches. When she won the third game, the crowd roared and coach Shi Zhihao jumped out of his chair pumping his arms. But Zhang calmly put her paddle on the table and walked to the bench for a drink of water.
China's Wang Nan defeated Hong Kong's Tie Yana 4-1 later Thursday, while Guo Yue beat Wu Xue of the Dominican Republic 4-0. Wu also made history Thursday by reaching the quarterfinals, the best result ever for a table tennis athlete from the tiny Caribbean nation.
Zhang will play Singapore's Li in the semifinals, while Wang and Guo will meet in the other match. Li, the only player preventing an all-China medal ceremony, lost 3-1 to Zhang during a singles match in the earlier team event.
In men's singles, the three Chinese players won easily and advanced to the quarterfinals. The top threats to the Chinese, world No. 5 Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus and No. 6 Timo Boll of Germany, were eliminated during the round of 16 on Thursday night.
Also out of the medal race was defending gold medalist Ryu Seung-min of South Korea, who dropped out after losing in the round of 32 to Hong Kong's Ko Lai Chak. Ryu has had a disappointing performance at the Beijing Olympics, losing five of his eight singles matches in the team competition.
"Even though there has not been a great deal of pressure on me, I have met many strong players in this tournament," Ryu said.


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Serena Williams cruises into semis
NEW YORK — From an ace on the first point to a stinging return on the last, Serena Williams was close to perfect in the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
The score said it all: 6-0, 6-0.
Yes, Williams is looking better and better with each match at the year's last Grand Slam tournament. With two more wins -- no matter the exact scores -- she'll earn a fifth title at Flushing Meadows and 17th major championship overall.
The No. 1-ranked and No. 1-seeded Williams shut out 18th-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain, winning 53 of 71 points and dominating pretty much every statistical category Tuesday night. The first set took all of 19 minutes. The second was slower, lasting 33 minutes, but no less lopsided.
In Friday's semifinals, Williams will play 2011 French Open champion Li Na of China.
Asked in an on-court interview if her game is peaking, Williams replied: "No. Not yet. I hope not. I'm just trying to do the best that I can."
Well, that just happens to be rather good. Through five matches, Williams has dropped a total of 13 games so far. For comparison's sake, know this: Suarez Navarro lost more games than that in her previous match alone, 15, while eliminating No. 8 Angelique Kerber.
That victory, and her seeding, should have demonstrated that Suarez Navarro is quite capable of playing well, too. But not on this evening. Not against Williams, who is 65-4 with eight titles in 2013. Going back to the start of Wimbledon last year, the 31-year-old American is 96-5 with 13 trophies, including from three of the past five Grand Slam tournaments plus the London Olympics.
"The conditions were so tough, so it definitely was not her best tennis today," Williams said about Suarez Navarro, who was playing in her third career major quarterfinal Tuesday, which happened to be her 25th birthday.
Tough conditions, huh? That swirling wind in Arthur Ashe Stadium sure did not appear to bother Williams one bit. She wound up with a 20-3 edge in winners. She made fewer unforced errors, 12-9. She won 23 of 26 points on first serves.
"I've been playing here for, like, 50 years," Williams said with a laugh. "I've kind of gotten used to the conditions. Even though it's difficult to play each year, I'm getting a little bit better with it."
When Williams did face a break point for the first time, 42 minutes and 11 games into the match, she came up with a big serve and raced forward for a simple putaway that she punctuated with a yell. Moments later came a second break chance, but even with Williams stumbling to the court, Suarez Navarro dumped the ball into the net.
It was that kind of night for her.
In men's fourth-round action in the afternoon, top-seeded Novak Djokovic won 45 of 53 service points while eliminating 43rd-ranked Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-0, 6-0 in a grand total of only 79 minutes.
Djokovic, who won the 2011 U.S. Open and lost in last year's final to Andy Murray, reached his 18th consecutive major quarterfinal. Next up is a match against 21st-seeded Mikhail Youzhny of Russia, who was two points from defeat but came back to edge two-time major champion Lleyton Hewitt 6-3, 3-6, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 7-5.
The other men's matches were at night, with Murray facing Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan, and No. 5 Tomas Berdych playing No. 9 Stanislas Wawrinka.
Earlier Tuesday, the fifth-seeded Li needed nearly 2½ hours to get past 24th-seeded Ekaterina Makarova of Russia 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-2.
On three occasions, Li went up a break in the second set, nearing eventual victory each time, but could not finish things. She then was up 3-0 in the tiebreaker before faltering. Still, she recovered well and closed the match by taking the last four games, then joked that she would grab a bag of chips and enjoy watching Williams against Suarez Navarro.
Regardless of who she'd face next, Li made the point that what would be important is to focus on herself.
"I mean, if you only think about what (your) opponent (is) doing, of course you already lose the match before you come to the court," Li said. "For tennis you have to figure out what you have to do on the court, what you should do."
Li has only won one of nine career matches against Williams heading into Friday.
"Tough, tough opponent," Li said. "But is (a) good challenge to play against her."
The quarterfinals on the other half of the draw are Wednesday: second-seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus against 48th-ranked Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, and 10th-seeded Roberta Vinci against 83rd-ranked Flavia Pennetta in a matchup between two Italians in their 30s.
While the other women in that section all advanced Monday, Azarenka's fourth-round match against 2008 French Open champion Ana Ivanovic was postponed until Tuesday at 11 a.m. because of rain. Azarenka got off to a slow start, but eventually got going and beat the 13th-seeded Ivanovic 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in a topsy-turvy match with a combined 16 service breaks and 17 double-faults.
"I think," two-time Australian Open champion Azarenka said, "we're just great returners."
Lamented Ivanovic: "I felt like I could break her, but it was very frustrating that I was losing my serve constantly."
Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich


text:
The holiday season is upon us, Harlem! Do you have special plans? Lido Italian Restaurant and Bar on 117th Street and Frederick Douglass is offering wine and dinner tastings during the holidays! Interested participants can schedule a wine and tasting event with friends and family or hold a company holiday party at Lido Harlem as well!
Your special event can include history, grapes and other important wine facts. For example, discover why certain foods pair better than others with your wine. Sommelier, Andrea Wobensmith will lead the tasting in a fun and relaxed setting. Lido Harlem is offering 4 and 5 course pairings for 10 or more individuals.
For reservations, call Lido at 646-490-8575, or Andrea Wobensmith at 917-733-9413, email@example.com Below is a sample menu for your viewing:
First Course
Warm salad of arugula, roasted pears, walnuts, shaved parmesean
Wine: Prosecco Brut Jeio Bisol
Second Course
Arancini, risotto rice balls stuffed with gorgonzola
Wine: Rose Sangiovese
Third Course
Spaghettini, arrabiata with grilled shrimp
Wine: Toscana Rosso Circa
Fourth Course
Braised short ribs with fontina polenta, marscapone cream, fresh horseradish
Wine: Aglianico Del Vulture
Fifth Course
Chocolate budino with sea salt
Taylor Fladgate, Fine Ruby


text:
Jan. 31, 2007— -- Imagine lying inert, unmoving, totally paralyzed -- and your only way of telling people "I'm not dead!" is the tiny blink of one eye. Imagine hearing the doctors call you a vegetable, and you can't even whisper back, "I'm still here."
Welcome to a rare world of patients "locked in" to bodies that have become prisons. Steve Chiappa of Toms River, N.J., lives with this medical mystery. And so does Glenda Hickey of Leduc, Alberta.
Glenda Hickey's nightmare began on the morning of Jan. 21, 2000, with the worst headache she had ever experienced. When the mother of two little girls picked up the phone to call her husband, Kevin, at work, she fell to the floor, suffering a bad nosebleed. Glenda's daughter Kaitlyn -- not 3 three at the time -- tried to help.
"I found all these Band-Aids, and I tried putting it all over her face so the bleeding would stop, " Kaitlyn explained.
Meanwhile, as 1-year-old Kennedy slept in her crib, Kevin, Glenda's husband, kept getting a busy signal as he repeatedly phoned the house.
"And it's busy, busy, busy, busy. So, I was getting kind of mad by about 11:30 thinking, you know, 'What the heck is she doing?'" he said.
Kevin finally called a neighbor to check on his wife, who found Glenda motionless on the floor. When Kevin got home he found Glenda unable to speak, move or even indicate that she was conscious.
"She just couldn't respond," he said. "We didn't know what she was doing or thinking. We couldn't figure it out."
Cindy and Steve Chiappa were high school sweethearts, who found each other all over again in their 30s. Their fairytale love story turned into a nightmare on the way to a Christmas Eve dinner, when Steve suddenly felt ill.
Cindy took one look at her husband and dialed 911. At the hospital the doctors told Cindy the situation was critical.
She said that doctors told her, "He's not going to ever eat, ever walk … maybe he'll open his eyes. He is not going to be more than a vegetable."
Steve and Glenda were both active, healthy people struck down in a flash -- unable to move or respond. What had happened to them?
It turns out they had a condition so rare that only a few hundred cases are known worldwide. It's called locked-in syndrome, and it's caused by a massive stroke different from other strokes in both its location and severity.
The syndrome is so difficult to diagnose that doctors often believe their patients are vegetables when they are not. People with locked-in syndrome can see, hear, feel and understand everything. They just can't move.
In Steve and Glenda, a blood clot had worked its way deep into the brainstem, the area of the brain that functions as a kind of relay station between our thoughts and our actions. The brain -- still conscious and alert -- can keep issuing commands, but the body can no longer follow them.
Dr. Stanley Tuhrim, who runs the stroke center at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, says the consequences can be absolutely devastating.
"The patient is unable to move any of their extremities," he said. "People with the classic locked-in syndrome are basically only able to blink their eyes, so they're able to think, but they simply can't communicate."
Glenda Hickey remained totally unresponsive, even after an operation to remove the clot. But Kevin had a powerful intuition.
"I knew that she was there and mentally cognitive," he said.
Steve Chiappa was also locked in, but no doctor suspected. Imagine how Steve felt as he listened to one of his doctors suggesting to Cindy that they disconnect his pacemaker, implanted years before. Cindy said she remembered that moment well.
"[The doctor] said, 'Well, if we change the batteries and don't necessarily connect the leads, then if something happens, it happens, and that might be an easy way for him to go,'" she said.
It made her furious, because Cindy believed Steve was still there.
"I was dumbfounded. I was pissed. I was really angry," she said.
Cindy thought her husband was blinking at her in response to her questions. The doctors thought those blinks were just reflexes, but they were wrong.
Five years later, Steve can recall everything that happened around his hospital bed.
"One of them said, 'He's nothing but a vegetable,'" he said.
Steve has painstakingly learned to speak again. Now he calls himself "a thinking vegetable" as a joke.
Steve -- like some locked-in patients -- has recovered a little movement, which makes a big difference in his life. With one touch of a universal remote he can control the TV, lights, stereo and -- his link to the world -- his computer.
Steve is now writing a book, one letter at a time. So, what about that moment when a doctor suggested that removing his pacemaker battery would be an "easy way to go?" He addresses that moment in the book.
"Had I been a good husband?" he wrote. "Had I told her how much I loved her? I guess so. She was yelling, 'You stay away from him.'"
But for a long time, Steve did wish that he would die.
"He would say to me, 'I want to die. I want to die. You've gotta help me, you have to help me. I can't do it myself,'" Cindy said.
The turning point came, Steve said, when he realized that Cindy and his family still loved him.
Though Glenda Hickey's voice has not yet returned, she has learned to communicate again. She looks up for "yes" and down for "no."
To speak she follows a simple but tedious method, using an alphabetical chart that groups the letters into rows. As the letters are read, Glenda responds "yes" or "no" to spell out each word. By now, the whole family has memorized the chart.
Glenda Hickey may be locked in, but she is not left out. Kevin says they have openly talked about their marriage, and decided to make it work.
"We said, OK, well, we have to make a decision here if … as husband and wife, what's going to happen now. And then I decided that we were going to make a go of it," Kevin said.
And they have. The family functions with the help of caretakers who watch over Glenda and the children while Kevin works.
In the future, there may be more help for patients like Glenda from a familiar little pill: Viagra.
Dr. Michael Chopp, a neuroscientist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, has found that Viagra helps the brain make new nerve cells. His experiments are encouraging, showing that rats can recover from strokes after taking the drug.
"I think we are poised to revolutionize the treatment of neurologic disease," he said.
But the Hickeys aren't banking on any medical revolution. They're just continuing with their lives. Their marriage remains a "new normal," and that includes sex.
But what they didn't expect was that Glenda would get pregnant again.
At first, their doctor urged them to terminate the pregnancy because it was so risky for Glenda. But in the delivery room the doctor apologized, telling Kevin, "You know, I think God had a little hand in this one."
Hope Hickey was born 20 months ago. Doctors believe that this is the first time that a woman living with locked-in syndrome has given birth.
It is clearly not the life they'd planned. But Glenda and Kevin still find joy in the life they're living. And they say that, in the end, is all anyone can ask for.


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This illustration always blows me away... and not just because I marvel at the effort the artist put into it.
But also because it so effectively represents the zeitgeist of industrial America during those times. I live an hour from Buffalo, have visited it often, and have a wistful appreciation for what that place must have been like when this ad appeared in 1951. All of that is gone now. It ain't much better here in Hamilton, where our once mighty steel mills and manufacturing sector are a shrivelled, hollow shell of their former selves.
Say what you want about the titans of industry who built industrial empires from the comfort of the boardroom. They could never have accomplished a thing without the back breaking efforts of 'the army in overalls'.
Its kind of bizarre to think of it like this but consider: these guys toiled like slaves to give their children a better life... a higher education... and those children grew up to be the corporate financiers, mergers and acquisitions brokers and lawyers that dismantled and off-shored this entire sector of the North American economy.
How ironic is that?
What's left behind is a fascinating historical record in the form of these beautiful illustrations from America's industrial heyday. This piece, incidentally, looking like it might have been done by Robert Fawcett.
Finally, just to lighten the mood a little (and to show that even the titans of industry had a playful side ) three delightful little cartoon ads featuring great little scenes of factory floors buzzing with activity.
* My Industry Flickr set.
*AND* Charlie Allen's latest CAWS, featuring artwork that spans four decades of Charlie's illustrious career (including high school yearbook illustrations by a talented 16 year old!) Go right now to Charlie Allen's blog to check it out.
Celebrating illustration, design, cartoon and comic art of the mid-20th century.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Army in Overalls: Appreciation for the Blue Collar Worker
3 comments:
I love this kind of stuff. These are great but for me nobody painted industrial scenes better than Peter Helck and Thornton OakleyReplyDelete
- Harley9:45 PM
That picture of the men on the march is incredible. However, I am also quite excited by the cartoons. Not only because the cartoons have a zestful peppy nature, but because they are deceptively complex.ReplyDelete
great post - I think this might be my favorite yet. really dig those industrial themes. and yeah, I couldn't even read the article right away because I was stuck, staring at that first ad - incredible amount of labor.ReplyDelete
kind of depressing to think that many of those factories that were referenced are now empty shells.
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text:
Paul Osborne
(Australian Associated Press)
The growth in renewable power generation has pushed down power bills, but a new report warns of higher prices if the coal plant switch-off is not properly managed.
The Energy Security Board on Tuesday released a major report into the health of the national electricity market.
It said without a smooth transition from Australia's reliance on coal-fired power to renewables, power prices could be pushed higher.
"Properly considered investments in generation and networks should improve overall affordability, but inappropriate investment will not," the report said.
The shift to wind and solar also needs careful management to ensure the electricity system can consistently meet required settings in terms of frequency and voltage.
Wind and solar are non-synchronous and do not have the same technical characteristics as thermal and hydro power generation.
As well, Australia needed to consider how to balance cutting emissions and ensuring reliable electricity.
By the end of 2020, emissions in the national electricity market will be 25 per cent below 2005 levels and by 2030 this reduction is expected to be well over 50 per cent, the report said.
There have been concerns about the closure of NSW's Liddell plant in 2023-24 putting reliability at risk, but the report notes the upgrade to the Queensland-NSW transmission interconnector is progressing well and local new renewable generation of around 900MW is under way.
Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor said the post-2025 work was important in keeping the lights on and costs down.
"The national electricity market is at a turning point, with expanding choices, new technologies and large-scale replacement of thermal generation needed as older power stations leave the market," Mr Taylor said.
"Taking action now is critical and will minimise disruptions, and avoid unintended consequences."
ESB chair Dr Kerry Schott said there were repercussions from rapid changes in the electricity system, such as the massive popularity of rooftop solar.
"We're moving in the right direction, but major changes are needed to unlock value to customers and ensure capital investments are made in an efficient and timely manner to deliver the affordable, reliable and secure electricity consumers need," she said.


text:
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text: Bontrager's Race WSD Short Sleeve Jersey features lightweight, quick-drying and breathable fabric so you stay dry and comfortable on every ride. The shoulders and sleeves use mildly compressive fabric for support. Plus, this fine top boasts a full invisible zipper, three rear pockets and a zip pocket. Its fit is designed to be snug and race-ready so size up if you want more room.


text:
Google Wave, the social networking service canceled by Google, will morph into an application bundle for real-time collaboration, a Google engineer said this week.
In a blog post, Google Software Engineer Alex North, from the Google Wave Team, said the company had received many inquiries about the future of the open source code and Wave federation protocol. The company has cited a lack of adoption as the reason for Google Wave's discontinuation last month.
[ Keep up with app dev issues and trends with InfoWorld's Fatal Exception blog and Developer World newsletter. ]
"We will expand upon the 200K lines of code we've already open sourced (detailed at waveprotocol.org) to flesh out the existing example Wave server and Web client into a more complete application or 'Wave in a Box,'" North said.
"This project will not have the full functionality of Google Wave as you know it today. However, we intend to give developers and enterprising users an opportunity to run Wave servers and host Waves on their own hardware," North said.
The project will feature an application bundle with a server and Web client, supporting real-time collaboration using the same structured conversations as the Google Wave System, North said.
Other capabilities include support for threaded conversations; refinements to client-server protocols; gadget, robot, and data API and support for importing wave data from wave.google.com.
"While Wave in a Box will be a functional application, the future of Wave will be defined by your contributions. We hope this project will help the Wave developer community continue to grow and evolve," said North.
This article, "Google Wave becomes Wave in a Box," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter.


text:
Creativity and individualism reign supreme at Galvin Benjamin, a four-month-old salon at the junction of West Hollywood's Melrose and Robertson Avenues created by British hairstyling duo James Galvin and Benjamin Mohapi.
Though their client list reads like a Hollywood gossip sheet (including David Beckham, Keira Knightley, Cameron Diaz, and Paul McCartney), Galvin and Mohapi pride themselves on an unpretentious, client-driven approach. "Here, it's not unusual to see somebody from Beverly Hills getting her big blowout next to an Eastside Silverlake kid having his tips dyed green," says Mohapi.
The 2,300-square-foot salon is simultaneously cozy and industrial, with exposed wooden ceilings and a concrete floor juxtaposed against highbrow British details. Eight styling chairs are anchored by Edwardian writing tables; coffee is served in individual French presses and tea in mismatched China cups and saucers; the walls are dotted with a rotating art collection curated by Sonja Teri and featuring pieces by Shepard Fairey, Anthony Lister, and Curtis Kulig. In the lounge, where people sit quietly tapping on laptops, Galvin and Mohapi's own art and architecture books are displayed.
As protégés of the largest salon in Europe, Daniel Galvin Salon—helmed by James's father, Daniel—Galvin and Mohapi knew they would need to leave England to bring to life the shared vision they'd been imagining since 2003. "If I was ever going to do anything different, it had to be really different," Galvin explains, referring to the towering careers of his father Daniel and sister Louise, both world-renowned colorists. "We toyed with New York, but there's just something about L.A. You have this 'can do' attitude, where anything's possible." Mohapi laughs self-consciously about the L.A. concept of energy, elaborating, "London is a fabulous city, one of the best cities in the world, but when I'm here in L.A., I feel free."
The quietly chic corner of West Hollywood which houses the salon perfectly suited their hopes for a space that melded the artsy Eastside and relaxed Westside and the cool Hollywood vibe. "They're all part of who we are," says Galvin, who lives in Venice with his wife, Leanne, the salon's head colorist. Silverlake-dwelling Mohapi explains that he feels L.A. is more sophisticated than it's often given credit for, citing the art, architecture, and innovative food. "We wanted to harken back to the idea of a Georgian salon, where people share ideas—come in, sit down, and talk about street culture, or architecture, or art. You don't want to be fancy. You just want to give people really good service in an environment they feel comfortable in. We always come back to the idea that whoever is in the chair is the focus."
The Galvin Benjamin salon is located at 8910 Melrose Avenue (424-249-3296), in Los Angeles.


text:
Weekly Weekend Update
32 comments:
Haha! This is soooo something I would do!ReplyDelete
I may or may not have repeatedly called Mr. Newlywed one night while he was out of town for work telling him there had to be a man in my closet. I kept hearing a noise of things being moved.ReplyDelete
The REAL culprit?
I locked the kitten in my closet.
Oh, yes, I've heard of those killer fish tanks....deadly. ;-)ReplyDelete
I just started Twittering, too...still trying to figure it all out.
I hate being at home alone...I have been known to get in my closet and lock my bedroom door. Home alone overnight = Jill gets no sleep at all. It stinks.ReplyDelete
I've heard of such Twittering...what is it? Do I need a new addiction, as well?
You are so funny! I can't believe that wild horses were running across your computer! Isn't it funny how your imagination can just run away with you when you hear a noise and you're home alone. Bet you WERE glad to see that "crazy haired Indian"!ReplyDelete
Have a great week!
I hate hearing creepy noises. Jax and I were alone Friday night too.. overnight! I just signed up for twitter today along w/ my sister... I don't really get it yet!ReplyDelete
Have a good week!
Found your blog through another's and can totally relate to hate being alone. I don't like it either, I love your blog!ReplyDelete
ha ha!! that always happens to me. my mind plays tricks on me!ReplyDelete
That's hysterical. I hate it when websites do that kind of stuff. I feel as though noise shouldn't be a part of a website unless there is an actual purpose for it. Just sayin'ReplyDelete
anyways, glad you've found twitter - isn't it great?!
I hear strange noises all the time! The worst is when the dog hears something and starts barking like crazy. He never barks so it really freaks me out! I've heard twitter is addicting.ReplyDelete
"Its amazing what kind of tricks your mind can play on you." So very true!ReplyDelete
Once again you had me cracking up. I'm so glad that there wasn't a crazy masked man with a killer fish tank =)
P.S. I am so with you on the not liking being along thing. I am a big scaredy-cat!
Crack me up! I sooo let my mind wander! I get scared so easily it's not even funny ;)ReplyDelete
I tagged you on my blog :o)ReplyDelete
I would so do something like that! It's amazing how out of whack your imagination can be :)ReplyDelete
I busted out laughing at this... that you are scared to death & Luke texts back laughter!!! That's a funny visual! And to see what it really was... made the story funnier! I'm sure you found no humor in it..but I like how you handle it - turn up the volumne! You are the cutest thing ever!ReplyDelete
that is so funny!!!ReplyDelete
I hate being alone...when Mr. Cup is out of town I spend the night with my parents at their house! I seriously hate it. I always hear weird noises that scare me, and I NEVER investigate. Especially if it's upstairs. It just makes sense that the bad guys would hide upstairs, right?!ReplyDelete
You are so funny! And this is totally something that I would've done. One time when Grant was out of town, the fire alarm battery started dying, and it was beeping. It didn't start until I was in bed, and I was so scared. I wouldn't get out of bed to find out what it was until the next morning. It was awful! :)ReplyDelete
That's hilarious. I'm always imagining things in my mind, too. It's ridiculous!ReplyDelete
Let me just tell you, I am the biggest scaredy cat EVER! I can completely relate.ReplyDelete
Oh my gosh...I hate being alone at night. I am the most paranoid person, and I get worked up at the smallest things! Seriously. I'm so glad it was just the wild horses!ReplyDelete
Thanks for the funny story...and I'm glad you had a good weekend!
Haha - I do the exact same thing! One night I accidentally didn't get our back door to our yard latched all the way and the wind blew it open. Well, I didn't realize this so when I walked in the kitchen and saw this I freaked and assumed someone was hiding in our closets (we had just moved in and my husband was hundreds of miles away on business). I walked around the house with my phone on 911 so I could call quickly if I needed to. My imagination definitely goes wild when I'm alone!ReplyDelete
Oh girl I hear you! I seem to hear weird noises in the shower and I am certain there is a man in the apt. It is always my mind playing tricks, ahh! I should have never watched Psycho all those years ago!ReplyDelete
haha. thats so funny it was on your computer. I always think i am hearing things!ReplyDelete
Oh yes, the mind can definitely play tricks on you. I've heard some pretty weird noises myself.ReplyDelete
i was home alone saturday night and I get soo spooked at stuff that I go into the bedroom with the alarm on and lock the bedroom door;) he he:) Glad freaking fish tank guy didnt get you;0ReplyDelete
Would the running horse be ribcrib.. because I have heard them before:)
Girl you crack me up!!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 23, 2009 at 2:15 PM
You're funny. I'm glad you're weekend was good minus the killer fish tank.ReplyDelete
Have a good week!
Glad your "crazy haired indian" rescued you!!! You are too funny!ReplyDelete
haha- that totally sounds like something i would do too. It's amazing how our minds can play tricks on us like that.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 23, 2009 at 7:36 PM
I know you did not call him "that crazy haired Indian" You are so stinking funny!ReplyDelete
You are totally making me LOL over this. You are so funny!!!
I thought you was going to say there was a mouse in your computer room at which time I would have had to walk out of my computer room. I.do.not.have.anything.to.do.with.mice. period.
Have a Blessed evening funny girl,
PS YAY your Twittering -- love it. I will have to find you =)
Thank you for leaving a comment. I try my best to respond to all comments but don't always succeed. I do love reading each and every comment though!


text:
Here is some of Synapse's Key Features that already stand out from all the others:
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Please note that Synapse is only supported on Ubuntu version 8.10 (Intrepid) or later. If you are running an older version, you'll need to upgrade first.
- Save this key file to your desktop.
- At the top of your screen, select System → Administration → Software Sources.
- On the Ubuntu Software tab, make sure that both main and universe are checked.
- On the Authentication tab, click the Import Key File button and select the key file you saved in step 1.
- On the Third-Party Software tab, click the Add button, and paste the appropriate APT line for your version of Ubuntu:
Jaunty 9.04: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/firerabbit/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
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- NOTE: Some users have reported Synapse does not show up under Add/Remove. If you are unable to find Synapse using Add/Remove or Synaptic, Select Applications → Accessories → Terminal, and then type sudo apt-get install synapse.


text:
Investigator: Planes collided in passing maneuver
RICHMOND, Calif. — Investigators say the two planes that collided over San Francisco Bay, causing one of them to crash into the water, were involved in a passing maneuver.
Howard Plagens of the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that the pilot of a vintage Hawker Sea Fury TMK 20 heard a "thump" after the maneuver and immediately focused on trying to fly his own plane to safety.
The investigator says the pilot saw the Cessna 210 going down, but did not see it crash Sunday afternoon.
The Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office said searchers have located the Cessna under 13 feet of water, but the plane and its pilot haven't been recovered.
Plagens said the surviving pilot managed to land safely but he is shaken.
The identities of the pilots have not been released.


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With its dark alleys, underground tunnels, and shadowy figures, New York City is no stranger to strangeness.
Here are five mysterious events that actually took place in New York City; they remain unresolved and unexplained to this day.
In 1975, Jackson Wright and his wife Martha were driving through the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey to New York City when Jackson pulled the car over inside the tunnel to wipe condensation from the car's windshield. To speed things along, he took to the front windshield while Martha worked on the rear window. Moments later, Jackson turned around to find his wife had vanished without a trace. Jackson reported no other cars in the tunnel at the time of her disappearance, and nowhere she could have run to or been snatched away in such a short amount of time. A police investigation ensued, but Martha was never found.
Beneath the hustle and bustle of the city lives an underworld of Gothamites known as the Mole People. The true and harrowing existence of New York's homeless sub-population of pallor complexioned underlings has been documented by journalist Jennifer Toth in the book, "The Mole People: Life In The Tunnels Beneath New York City." Based on her research and reporting, it's believed that the Mole People have lived their lives in secret hovels in the undercarriage of the city's subway system since the early 90s, free to do as they please away from the New York that rejects them above ground. Toth's account is grim and shocking – these underground inhabitants forage, eat rats, and even take on creature-like physical appearances due to their sun starved plight, a la sci-fi populations like H.G. Wells' Morlocks in "Time Machine."
These messages of unknown origin are embedded in the streets of Manhattan (there are over 50), a flummoxing conspiracy that's had curious followers scratching their heads for decades. Buried beneath the asphalt the tiles surface over time with wear and tear, becoming a naturally strange part of the landscape. The linoleum tiles, which have mysteriously cropped up in busy intersections in various cities across the world, all bear strange messages along the lines of:
What does it mean? It's a little philosophical, a little sci-fi, tiles touting bizarre political theories and ideologies, possibly referencing British historian Arnold Toynbee, or Ray Bradbury's "The Toynbee Convector," as well as Stanley Kubrick's film, "2001: A Space Odyssey." There are theories, but no one knows for certain who is behind the tiles and what they mean. There's even a documentary dedicated to the lore of the tiles, called 'Resurrect Dead.'
Starting around 2011, multiple New York City residents across the boroughs have reported hearing unidentifiable "booming" or "rumbling" noises from the sky, and they all insist it is not thunder, construction work, or any other explainable phenomena. One man who uploaded a video to YouTube of the mystery noises in his Brooklyn neighborhood reported that people he knew "across the water in Jersey, and in other parts of Brooklyn," had heard the very same booming noise where they were. It is uncertain what might be causing these sounds, leaving residents unsettled and determined to find answers. Is it UFOs? Sonic booms? No one is quite sure what the noises are or what they mean, and cases of these strange noises have still been reported as recently as June 2015.
A vast underground tunnel system exists beneath Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus connecting several school buildings. The tunnels beneath Buell Hall measure only a few feet wide, and it is speculated that the building was formerly an insane asylum. Under Pupin Hall, scientists once used the tunnels as a meeting place in the beginning stages of the Manhattan Project. In an effort to keep rogue and nefarious tunnel travelers off the campus, use of the tunnels is now largely forbidden, with ramped up security to dissuade would be tunnel journeymen from stirring up trouble. One such security guard, Garry Germain, was slain execution style in 1988 while on his standard night security shift. Thorough investigations revealed no forensic evidence, no weapon, no discernible motive, and no viable entrance or exit for the killer. One of the only possible explanations is that the perpetrator might have entered the campus undetected via the tunnel system. To this day, Garry's murder remains unsolved.


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paper reveal technique Don't miss this super fun paper reveal technique that Teacher Jessy shares on her blog. She uses Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium to create a unique scrapbook layout. Check out the full tutorial here!
Labels: Claudine Hellmuth Studio, free tutorial
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Thanks Claudine for picking my tut to be shared at your blog. What an honor :) You totally put a smile on my face & I love your products :) XoxoPost a Comment
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You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified.
Date the ban will be lifted: Never
I saw some skeptics trashing me over there and decided to log in and that's when I saw that they banned me (funny the skeptics never get banned for their personal attacks!).
As you can read, no reason was specified. I did try to create a thread a couple of weeks ago about The Boeing 757 Challenge regarding the non-plane crash at Shanksville, but it had to be "pre-approved" and obviously never got approved.
Hard to believe that would be a reason to ban me there for life.
See my banned from list.


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Rob Galbraith checks out the screens on the three hottest notebooks in their respective classes from a pro photographer's standpoint—new MacBook Pro, Dell Mini 9 and Lenovo W700—and how they stack up will surprise you
His reference monitor is a Eizo ColorEdge CE240W and he throws a Lenovo ThinkPad T60 into the mix for good measure, since its in-plane switching LCD panel produces good color reproduction and even screen brightness.
That Lenovo's ThinkPad W700—which is geared toward pro photographers and has a built-in Pantone calibrator—tops the list for color accuracy and "could just about replace a desktop display" for pro work is probably not so shocking. What is crazy, however, is that the Dell Inspiron Mini 9—a $300 netbook—has display with better "overall hue accuracy" than the $1999 MacBook Pro, which is "one or two steps below a good desktop display." BTW, Rob loves the Mini 9 so much he calls it "a workflow-altering experience."
His full assessment of every display is definitely worth reading, even if you're not a photographer. [Rob Galbraith, Image: Rob Galbraith]


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Somehow, I don't think Mike Leach is all that impressed with the back to the pro formation approach being taken at places like Florida and Auburn.
WH: You helped transform the Big 12 into the most wide-open conference in the country. But college football seems to be trending the other way now. Has the spread offense reached its peak?
ML: No, I think it's gaining steam. So many teams are starting to utilize the spread to run the ball. Whether you run it or throw it, it's all about attacking the whole field. I think it's gaining momentum because you see new stuff popping up every year.
Between Auburn, Florida and Washington State, which school do you figure scores the most points this season?


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GUNS N' ROSES – Appetite For Destruction (1987 Geffen)
The first time I ever heard of Guns N' Roses was from a rock magazine. There was a picture of this weird looking lead singer with spiky red hair, and his name was "Axl". I immediately decided I didn't like whoever he was, because he looked absolutely hammered, a complete mess. And what kind of name was "Guns N' Roses" for a band anyway?
MuchMusic began spinning their first video, "Welcome to the Jungle", but only on the Pepsi Power Hour. After a couple plays, I liked it. I took Axl off the "banned" list and taped their video. I asked my friend Scott if he liked Guns N' Roses. "They suck!" he answered. A few months later, another video hit the airwaves and it was even better. "Sweet Child O' Mine" came out during the year of Bon Jovi and Def Leppard, but wasn't like either band. I loved the tune; this band had potential! Before I knew it, school was out for the summer.
A funny thing happened on summer break. Guns N' Roses became huge. When I returned to school in the fall, guess what band Scott was suddenly in to? Guns N' Roses.* Everybody was. And nobody believed me that I liked them first. "You probably don't even know the words," said one kid.
That was 30 years ago. Jesus Murphy…30 years!
I could yammer on and on about Appetite for Destruction. For example, we could discuss these subjects:
- How Guns went against the grain but changed the game.
- Mike Clink's sharp anti-80s production. (Did you know Paul Stanley wanted to produce Appetite?)
- The iconic album cover.
- Slash's immense influence on guitar players, including making the Gibson Les Paul the guitar to play again.
- The under appreciated songwriting of Mr. Izzy Stradlin'.
- The unstoppable rhythm section of Duff "Rose" McKagan and Steven "Popcorn" Adler.
- That Duff McKagan is uber-talented and his backing vocals are a crucial part of Guns' sound.
- The single-minded, focused and unified direction of Appetite.
- How their ample use of the "f word" drove the censors crazy.
- Cowbell.
- Riffs.
- The all-important role of lead singer and frontman W. Axl Rose in their rise to stardom.
- How Axl and Slash became the Steven Tyler and Joe Perry for a new generation.
- That ten thousand bands followed in their wake when the sleazy side of the Sunset Strip became the hottest new trend.
We could talk about all those things until we're blue in the face; each one would make for a fine subject for an article in their own right. Or, perhaps I could talk about some of my more controversial opinions:
- That Appetite is great, but Illusions are better.
- The best song is not one of the singles, but in fact the last track, the sprawling "Rocket Queen".
- Even Appetite has filler, in this case "Anything Goes" and "Think About You".
- That Izzy was the most talented member.
I could do that, or I could even go through Appetite track by track. It would be cool to analyze the riffage, anger and rock power of tracks like "It's So Easy", "Nightrain", "Out Ta Get Me" and "You're Crazy". We could discuss that Guns groove that is the basis of the legendary "Mr. Brownstone". The simmering , biting intensity of "My Michelle". We could, or you could click on any of the numerous articles from rock magazines that do the same thing.
Maybe yammering about Appetite isn't as important as the memories associated with it. I've shared this story before, but my favourite memory of this album goes back to highschool. When the album hit it big, virtually everybody I knew had a copy. One guy named Anand liked studying to Appetite. He had strict parents. One day he was down in the basement doing his homework with "Out Ta Get Me" playing. His kid brother kept coming around to bug him, as kid brothers do. He hung around long enough to learn the words to "Out Ta Get Me", and returned upstairs. When the parents heard the kid singing "They're out to get me! I'm fucking innocent," Anand got grounded. (He got grounded a lot, though.)
Appetite for Destruction has sold 18 million copies in the US, with another few million sold overseas. It's one of the select albums to go Diamond (1 million copies) in Canada. That's a lot of people with memories of Appetite for Destruction (even though about five copies were actually bought by myself). I'm not the only one with stories. So how do I go about reviewing Appetite for Destruction?
Like anything else, I guess: on a scale of 5:
4.5/5 stars
* Scott responds: "In my defence, I heard 'Sweet Child of Mine' first, and wasn't into the power ballad thing. It was when I saw the video for 'Welcome to the Jungle' that I changed my opinion, and after getting the album — the imported banned cover — that I became a huge fan. I didn't jump on no band wagon!"


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Saturday, October 30, 2010
So sorry for the lack of post...hit with the flu bug, but all is well now, just not well enough to have a point to my post. So here are some pretty pictures in the mean time :) I have had tons of readers sending in photos, I can't promise I will be able to put all of them up, but I will try ! I'm so impressed with all of your homes ! Hope your having a good weekend !
Posted by Lisa at 4:32 PM 7 comments:
Labels: Baths, family room, Kitchens
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Reader Home !!!!
May I just say that I'm LOVING the reader photos that are coming my way ! Keep em coming !!! This beautiful kitchen was redone by a reader Karin from Wilmington, North Carolina. She and her boyfriend redid the entire thing themselves, including the plumbing and electrical work and more ! Her home is 1000 square feet in total. Her kitchen was 10 x 8 and now is 10 x 15. I love the whole look and feel of the kitchen. The cab and tile work is stunning ! Great job Karin !!! (and boyfriend :))
Posted by Lisa at 1:04 PM 16 comments:
Labels: Kitchens, Reader home
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
I Need YOUR Help !!!!
I would like to feature photos of my readers homes! I will post "reader photos" every so often.. so send me your best shots ! It can be of any rooms and/or your outdoor spaces. I can't promise every photo will make it on, but I will try and mix it up. Please send them to me at email@example.com. No professional photos please! Please include your first and last name in the email and where you live ! (I will not post last names, just general info) Thanks so much you guys, can't wait to see your spaces !!!
Posted by Lisa at 10:14 AM 5 comments:
Friday, October 8, 2010
Kitchens !
Posted by Lisa at 10:21 AM 8 comments:
Labels: Kitchens
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Rich Colors !!!
Posted by Lisa at 9:58 AM 9 comments:
Labels: bedroom, color, family room, fireplaces, Home Office
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SANTA CRUZ — How much home can you buy for $500,000 in Santa Cruz County?
In November, it was enough to buy a two-bedroom home on Santa Cruz"s Westside, a four-bedroom Colonial in Ben Lomond with a creek in the backyard or a three-bedroom home in Soquel. All three sold last month after the owners dropped their asking prices.
November saw the most sales in eight years, according to Gary Gangnes of Real Options Realty, who tracks the numbers. This year, the number of sales has topped 2,800, according to the Santa Cruz Record, surpassing the 2007 peak of 2,650 transactions before crashing to 2,160 in 2008.
The median price in November, the midpoint of 171 sales, was $510,000.
The price for 1725 Escalona Drive was initially $519,000. The sellers came down, and the couple making an all-cash offer got a home for their son who plans to attend UC Santa Cruz, said Jill Newgren of David Lyng Real Estate.
The price for 282 Hart Lane in Ben Lomond was $549,000 before the sellers dropped the price, attracting multiple offers. Seb Frey of Thunderbird Real Estate said his clients got the house after writing a letter to the sellers explaining why this house was perfect for them and they were willing to wait out the short sale process.
The asking price for 1661 Franky Court in Soquel was $525,000 in October, and the longtime owner agreed to accept less.
Gangnes pointed out signs of a recovering market: The median price has topped $500,000 for five straight months after 18 months of mostly being in the $400,000 range. For 14 of the last 15 months, sales have been higher than what they were a year ago. Traditionally this is a slow time for real estate due to the holidays, but Newgren, who handled two sales in November and two in December, pointed out, "People who are looking are people who want to buy."
Listings have been shrinking for 22 months. As of the first week in December, there were 598 listings, down from 813 a year ago and 887 two years ago.
"We have eight active buyers and nothing to sell them," said Ruth Bates of Thunderbird Real Estate. "If you think your home is worth between $500,000 and $700,000, Santa Cruz to Aptos, you will have multiple offers in first two weeks guaranteed."
She helped buyers close on 520 Quail Run in Aptos for $500,900 in November.
The five-bedroom home was a short sale, where the home is worth less than what is owed. The deal was in escrow 271 days, requiring three appraisals and approval by Bank of America and Chase. The sellers got $18,000 in relocation benefits.
Bates said her clients, who have a 3-year-old and a 18-month-old, had been looking for three years and submitted a letter about their family with their counter-offer.
"Do not be afraid of short sales," she said. "You can get good deals if you are willing to hang in there."
She encouraged homeowners with a distressed property to consider a short sale.
"The banks are offering nice financial incentives now," she said.
With listings down and sales up, the unsold inventory index dropped to 3.5 months, the lowest since June 2005, according to Gangnes.
The index shows how long it would take to deplete the current inventory of homes for sale at the current sales rate. Generally when the index falls below six months, prices tend to rise.
Foreclosures are declining but they remain a factor in comparable sales.
More than 1,000 homeowners in the county have gotten a default notice for not paying their mortgage this year, a sizeable number, but down from 1,400 a year ago. Sales involving bank-owned homes or short sales have declined but haven"t gone away.
These distress sales comprised 30 percent of single-family sales and 25 percent of condo sales in November.
Bates said it"s more common for investors to buy homes at foreclosure auctions, improve and re-sell them.
Follow Sentinel reporter Jondi Gumz on Twitter at Twitter.com/jondigumz
At a glance
City of Santa Cruz
1725 Escalona Drive, $500,000
119 Palmetta St., $510,000
223 Roosevelt Terrace, $515,000
670 Market St., $529,000
316 Stanford Ave., $530,000
Santa Cruz County
282 Hart Lane, Ben Lomond, $499,000
1661 Franky Court, Soquel, $499,000
520 Quail Run, Aptos, $500,900
120 Kent Court, Scotts Valley, $520,000
228 Treasure Island Ave., Seacliff, $520,000
1203 Country Club Drive Ben Lomond, $40,000
11790 Highway 9, Brookdale, $110,000
635 Boulder Brook Drive, Boulder Creek, $120,000
141 Orchard Drive, Boulder Creek, $155,000
911 Redwood Drive, Aptos, $180,000
109 Fanmar Way, Capitola, $1.625 million
500 Bear Valley Road, Aptos, $1.755 million
348 Kingsbury Drive, Rio Del Mar, $1.8 million
50 Hillview Way, La Selva Beach, $2.125 million
1441 San Andreas Road, LaSelva Beach, $4.685 million
SOURCE: Real Options Realty
November 2012 statistics
Single-family homes
Median price: $510,000 ($410,000 a year ago, $536,000 in 2010; $550,000 in 2009; $433,000 in 2008 and $740,000 in 2007)
Listings: 598 (813 a year ago, 887 in 2010; 779 in 2009)
Sales volume: 171 (135 a year ago, 119 in 2010, 140 in 2009)
Distressed: 20 bank-owned, 31 short sales
Unsold Inventory Index: 3.5 months (6 months a year ago, 7.5 months in 2010)
Average price: $593,570 ($460,725 a year ago)
Median price: $320,000 ($232,620 a year ago, $287,700 in 2010, $310,000 in 2009, $297,000 in 2008, and $497,500 in 2007)
Listings: 193 (246 a year ago, 248 in 2010, 206 in 2009)
Sales volume: 43 (34 a year ago. 20 in 2010, 29 in 2009)
Distressed: 8 bank-owned, 7 short sales
Unsold Inventory Index: 5.4 months (7.2 months a year ago, 12.4 months in 2010)
Average price: $371,814 ($266,325 a year ago)
SOURCE: Real Options Realty


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Obama speech less political than others'
Just when you thought things couldn't get any stupider, schools across the nation decided to censor President Obama's speech urging kids to work hard because "being successful is hard."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the terribly scary bit of propaganda that prompted certain Americans to cry "socialism" and "indoctrination," and force some schools to opt out of hearing the president's message Tuesday.
When and how did we become so ridiculous?
As it turns out, we've been this way for a while now. Such protests aren't new, a review of which follows shortly. The difference is that now, the masses are technologically enabled, amplified by a twillion tweets. Everybody's got a megaphone, bless democracy's heart.
But when a protest of one (or a few) can instantly morph into a babble of thousands, rabble-rousing becomes a hobby — and rational debate becomes an oxymoron.
Granting a supersized benefit of the doubt to protesters, Obama's speech originally included classroom instructional materials from the Department of Education that asked students to express how they were inspired by the president and how they might help him.
Too political, critics said. Indoctrination, charged Florida Republican Chairman Jim Greer.
"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology," Greer said.
Some conservative radio and television hosts latched onto the specter of youth camps past and encouraged parents to keep their children home from school in protest.
OK, benefit-of-doubt rescinded. Even asking kids to help the president improve the nation doesn't justify charges of socialist indoctrination. John F. Kennedy's famous "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" is hardly considered a bugle call to summer camp in the Urals.
Essentially, Obama's speech, which aired live, focused on encouraging students to evaluate how they might contribute to making America better. "What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make?"
Anyone who heard or read the address will have found little to criticize, except perhaps that it was a tad boring, too long — and certifiably schmaltzy. Then again, he was talking to kids, some of them as young as 5. Even former first lady Laura Bush and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich approved of the president's talk.
Presidential speeches to students aren't a new development. The St. Petersburg Times' indispensable
PolitiFact.com "Truth-O-Meter" notes that Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush gave such addresses. And, yes, Democrats protested. Reagan's speech was, in fact, political, as he went beyond stressing the importance of education to discussing nuclear disarmament, defense funding and even taxes. Talk about a snooze.
Gingrich, who at the time of Bush's address was House Republican whip, defended the president's right to speak directly to students. But Richard Gephardt, then the House Democratic leader, said the Education Department shouldn't be producing "paid political advertising for the president. ... And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.' "
And round and round we go. The hysterics, it would seem, have reached a detente. Or, one hopes, canceled each other out. Compared with previous presidential addresses, Obama's was strictly apolitical. It was also quintessential Obama — aimed at healing, at soothing the afflicted and making things all better. The speech was so brimming with pathos, it seemed to have been concocted around a campfire where kids recalled their worst day in school.
Addressing all ages of students, from kindergartners to 12th-graders, presents clear challenges, but Obama managed to hit every group's vulnerabilities and insecurities — from being bullied, to not fitting in, to having a divided family. Hey, he's been there!
And now he's president. You can be, too, was the subtext. What's so wrong with that?
One might have wished Obama's remarks cut by half. It also would have been nice if he had thrown in an Ashley or a Jonah among the students he featured — Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell. But overall, the president's message was a conservative hymn, a GOP platform for kiddies: Take personal responsibility, don't blame others for your failures, listen to your parents and your teachers, work hard.
"Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future."
The only thing missing from this orgy of conservative orthodoxy was ... a Republican president. And that is the lesson of the day.
Kathleen Parker is a member of The Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address email@example.com.


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The MIT Kerberos Team announces the availability of the krb5-1.4.4 release. The detached PGP signature is available without going through the download page, if you wish to verify the authenticity of a distribution you have obtained elsewhere. This is a maintenance release; the krb5-1.5.x series is newer.
The only significant change in krb5-1.4.4 is to fix the security vulnerabilities decribed in MITKRB5-SA-2006-001, which are local privilege escalation vulnerabilities in applications running on Linux and AIX.
Please see the README file for a complete list of changes.
You may also see the current full list of fixed bugs tracked in our RT bugtracking system.
Known bugs reported against krb5-1.4.4 are listed here.
Please note that the HTML versions of these documents are converted from texinfo, and that the conversion is imperfect. If you want PostScript or GNU info versions, please download the documentation tarball.
You may retrieve the Kerberos 5 Release 1.4.4 source from here. If you need to acquire the sources from some other distribution site, you may verify them against the detached PGP signature for krb5-1.4.4.


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Keeping up with Linux is a time-consuming endeavor. Linux is frequently changing, and it's so large and widely-used that it is nearly impossible to keep up with all the evolution. With open source communities come power, productivity, and efficiency; so much that it is difficult to know what is happening.
In this article, we'll show you five ways you can keep up to speed with various aspects of Linux. Linux means different things to different people. There are Linux desktops in the home, Linux servers, Linux software development, Web servers on Linux, mainframes running Linux, and the interesting business aspects of Linux. We will try to cover the spectrum.
Your local Linux User Groups are an excellent resource. Topics on these mailing lists or group meetings generally range from home desktop use to scripting and enterprise Linux issues. Most Linux professionals, be they developers or sysadmins, tend to frequent their local LUG mailing list. For the systems administrator the high ratio of non-enterprise chatter can get frustrating at times, but most LUG groups have just enough to keep the sysadmins around and interested. You can actually learn interesting things from reading about (or helping) desktop users, though it may not me immediately obvious at the time.
More on Linux
There are currently 247 Linux User Groups listed for the United States. Chances are, you have googled for an error message or problem and landed on a LUG mailing list archive at least once in recent times.
Official Mailing Lists
If you're interested in Linux development, you'll find the Mailing Lists page at linux.org very helpful. The most popular list is probably the linux-kernel list, also known as the LKML, which is for general kernel discussion. People submit bug fix patches, questions, and partake in heated discussions about the general direction of the Linux kernel here. There are also other mailing lists for nearly every Linux topic you can think of.
It has been said that for every one person that actively posts to the LKML, there are probably another 1,000 people or more silently reading and absorbing the information without actually participating themselves (AKA "lurking"). Learning about how the kernel is progressing and being exposed to the difficult design decisions that kernel hackers make allows a Linux sysadmin or developer to make well-informed decisions about how to apply the technology. It may be terse and difficult to understand at first, but it's well worth the time investment to become more familiar with how Linux actually works.
DistroWatch has been tracking news and statistics about Linux distributions since 2001. The site is an excellent resource for both news and research. When a new version of a Linux distribution is released, DistroWatch will post screenshots and a summary of the new features or important bug fixes that accompany the release.
As far as research goes, DistroWatch is the premier source of up-to-date information about Linux distributions. You can find out exactly what package versions of common GNU software is installed, and it even shows you what versions came with which release of the distro. This is very useful if, for example, you need to run a server that in order to be supported by vendor software requires exactly PostgreSQL version 8.2.4.
You can also use DistroWatch to quickly find out the "vital statistics" about a particular Linux distribution. Things such as processor architectures and file systems that a distribution support are not always the easiest to find, but DistroWatch makes it easy.
For Enterprise Distros
For enterprise Linux customers, such as RHEL and SLES, there are specific resources that you want to be aware of. These fall into the category of vendor- or distro-specific information, so the same thing applies for other distros as well. If you're an Ubuntu fan, you'll probably want to frequent the popular forums, for example.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or RHEL as everyone calls it, is the most popular enterprise-ready Linux version. The RHEL resource center is surprisingly quite useful. You will find links to many resources: documentation, articles, forums, and even sales pitches (it is a business, after all). One can't-miss resource is the Red Hat Magazine. Red Hat Magazine is full of articles that explain new features, provide insightful hints for dealing with common issues, and keep you current on all things RHEL-related.
Many RHEL and CentOS (the free version of RHEL) users also run Fedora Desktop on their workstations. Features generally make it into Fedora much sooner than RHEL, so this is a good place to try out technologies before they're available in RHEL. Keeping current with Fedora's direction also enables you to know what's coming up in RHEL.
Suse Linux Enterprise Server, or SLES, is Novell's offering in the enterprise market. The free counterpart is OpenSUSE. There are not many great resources for SLES aside from the Novell forums, but OpenSUSE forums and mailing lists are just as useful, for most topics.
The great part about these open source but commercial distros is that the free counterparts generally have mostly the same software. CentOS, for example, has everything RHEL does, excluding the trademarked logos and maybe one or two binary-only packages. OpenSUSE is similar, which means that asking questions and participating in the larger free version communities makes sense even if you're using the commercial versions.
Blogs, of Course
Everyone blogs these days, even Linus Torvalds. Whether you're needing to know what the CEO of Red Hat ate for lunch, why the Linux kernel release was delayed, or what Ubuntu is planning next, blogs from the key people are an ideal source. They often contain personal and anecdotal information as well, which adds a bit of humanity to the luminaries or faceless corporate logos.
If you want just quick facts, blogs are probably best avoided. For that appetite, RSS feeds of most previously mentioned resources should provide sustenance.