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Here's a little bit about what's captivating my attention after the long holiday weekend.
The Boston Marathon is underway, with the wheelchair racers already finishing up and both the elite men's and women's runners coming in during the lunch hour. You can watch a live-stream of the runners here or read updates via blog form here.
There have been no shortage of moving remembrances of the tragedy that befell last year's race, among some of the better reads was this article about a different pair of brothers who both lost their right legs and are trying to rebuild their lives.
There's plenty happening here in North Carolina this morning, including the monthly release of federal jobs data from the state commerce department. A first-glance look shows that the state continued to see unemployment drop (now down to 6.3 percent, and below the national average), but the numbers also show that the actual labor force of the date (comprised of people who have jobs and who are actively looking for work) shrunk by approximately 50,000 from this time last year.
What that jobs data means has become a bit of a political flashpoint, with Gov. Pat McCrory calling the numbers "evidence that the policy changes we made are working" in a statement he released this morning.
On the other side, some economic analysts (including the N.C. Justice Center's Budget and Tax Center) have urged caution in declaring victory over North Carolina' job crises crisis, and instead say the shrinking labor force may mean those in prime working condition have been so frustrated in their job searches they've stopped looking.
Finally, I'll leave you with what has become in recent years one of my favorite things about the Easter Holiday: the Washinton Post's annual Peep diorama contest.
This year's winner was "'I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King Jr. Addresses the Peeple"
Another favorite was "Peeping POTUS," a take on the NSA affair, with a family of Peeps being spied on by the Oval Office and federal agent Peeps while a Peepward Snowden exposes the whole arrangement on a television set.
There's a great photo gallery of winning entries here.


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Former Bill Clinton Douglas Schoen polls Occupy Wall Street [but see the actual poll and this critique] and offers some useless advice to the Democrats - keep your distance from these hard left-outs:
President Obama and the Democratic leadership are making a critical error in embracing the Occupy Wall Street movement—and it may cost them the 2012 election.
Yet the Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people—and particularly with swing voters who are largely independent and have been trending away from the president since the debate over health-care reform.
The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies.
...Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.
Well, we all saw this coming. But it is not as if the Democrats can maintain a stretegic distance from this crowd. A moth is to flame as a Democrat is to a youthful protestor. Occupy Wall Street is inducing one huge 60's flashback amongst the left even (perhaps especially) for people like Barack Obama who had their 60's in the 80's. On that side of the aisle everyone wants to party like its 1969.
BACK IN REALITY: The actual poll results don't align that well with the Schoen column.

subset: commoncrawl


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U.S. Clemency Program Threatened
WASHINGTON -- An amendment to a House bill approved Friday threatens to derail an Obama administration plan that would potentially make thousands of federal inmates eligible for presidential grants of clemency.
The amendment, adopted as part of the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill which funds the Justice Department, blocks funding for the transfer or re-assignment of personnel who screen clemency applications.
Last month, as part of a plan to reduce the overcrowded federal prison system and rectify disproportionately harsh punishments meted out to non-violent drug offenders, Attorney General Eric Holder said "dozens'' of department lawyers could be assigned to review an anticipated wave of requests under new rules that support broader access to early release.
But Rep. George Holding, R-N.C., who sponsored the amendment adopted early Friday morning, said the clemency program amounted to a "overreach'' of executive power.
"My amendment prevents the administration from abusing their power,'' said Holding, a former U.S. attorney. "With the president and his administration trying to implement wholesale policy changes through pardons of drug offenders, Congress must use the options available in its toolkit, such as this appropriations amendment."
Deputy Attorney General James Cole has said that most eligible applicants would likely be non-violent drug offenders.
Among the new clemency rules outlined by Cole last month were that candidates must have served at least 10 years of their sentences and have no history of violence. Another requirement would restrict eligibility to inmates whose sentences would be substantially lower if convicted of the same offenses today because of changes to the sentencing structure.
Although the clemency screening program was not supposed to require much, if any, additional funding, the amendment also seek's to block the basic pay of attorneys assigned to clemency screening duties.
Holder, who was briefed on the matter Friday, described the action as "absurd,'' a Justice official said.


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Gloria DiPaola, who has lived in Wappingers Falls since 1974 and who was formerly a Yonkers resident, died on Sunday, Oct. 1, at Vassar Brothers Medical Center.
Born in the Bronx on Oct. 21, 1949, DiPaola was the daughter of Mary (D'Auria) Delasantra of Wappingers Falls and the late Victor Delasantra and was known as "mom" to many in the community.
DiPaola worked as an administrative assistant for more than 20 years and also sold Avon products. She was a parishioner of St. Mary, Our Lady of the Falls and dedicated her life to her children and grandchildren. In her spare time, she enjoyed knitting and crocheting as well as donating many blankets to the Dyson Center.
In addition to her mother, she is survived by her children and their spouses, Frank and Jennifer DiPaola of LaGrange; Christina and Jon-Paul Aubry of Wingdale; Nicole DiPaola of Wappingers Falls; Joseph Esposito of Fishkill, and Ryan and Amy Miller of Poughkeepsie. Her grandchildren included Amanda, Brooke, Brendon, Brianne, Walter, Samantha, Mason, Jesse, Bella and Joshua; and her great-grandchildren, Joey and Piper. In addition to her father, she was predeceased by her son, Joseph DiPaola; and her brother, Richard Delasantra.
Calling hours will be held 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Thursday at the McHoul Funeral Home, Inc., 895 Route 82, Hopewell Junction. A Mass of Christian Burial will be at 11 a.m. at St. Mary, Our Lady of the Falls, 11 Clinton Street, Wappingers Falls followed by interment in Gate of Heaven Cemetery.
Memorial donations may be made to the Dyson Center or the Multiple Sclerosis Association.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Southwest Dutchess and receive free news updates.


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Making the Covenant Connection: How Israel Advocacy is changing the way a Generation relates to their Faith
Posted by Lauren Yagoda on Feb 13, 2015 10:32:18 AM
By Guest Blogger Michael Onifer
Have you ever noticed that the book of Genesis, our introduction to God, His character, His emotions and His will, devotes just the first two chapters to creation, and chapters twelve through fifty primarily to one theme? That's right, two chapters on speaking the universe into existence, and thirty-nine zeroing in on one thing! This one thing is the "big picture." This one thing is covenant. The big picture of biblical covenant is about God's decision to use a place and a people (Israel and the Jewish people) to establish His means of revelation and redemption in the earth.
An honest observation of the Christian under-thirties would suggest that the next generation longs to be connected to the big picture. They want to exchange the catch phrases and bumper sticker theology for the reality of genuine relationship with God and with people. They want to be a part of His story!
I believe connecting with covenant and finding ourselves in the progression of redemptive history is what determines if our Bible is serving as our personal self-help book, or if is occupying the place it should be in our lives, as the owner's manual, instructing us on how to live our lives in accordance with His purposes.
If we fail to make the covenant connection, we risk the events in scripture being shelved in our minds as historical fiction. We can miss the opportunity to see ourselves as heroes of the faith, and disqualify ourselves from living lives of significance that are joined to a risen and returning Savior.
A new generation experiences Israel
For the past seven years, I have been involved in leading an initiative in Israel that is connecting young Christian leaders to covenant. The vision behind The Israel Experience College Scholarship program is to give the best and brightest Christian college and graduate students an educated heart for Israel. By taking them to the Land and giving them experiential knowledge of what's really going on there, we're positioning them in the bull's eye center of the key issue of their age, and letting them decide the truth about Israel for themselves. Many of these young people return to their university campuses as informed ambassadors for the cause they now hold dear.
The goal is to equip the next generation of Christian leaders with an understanding of God's covenant with the land and people of Israel so they can translate this into the influence they will one day be entrusted with. Not only is it important that tomorrow's Christian leaders be raised up to stand with Israel; imagine what would happen if Christians were unleashed to advocate for Israel in the fields of communications, government, business, the arts, science and technology, teaching, and more? By equipping tomorrow's Christian leaders within their spheres of influence, we are empowering an entire generation to embrace what it means to be Isaiah 62's watchmen on the walls of Zion.
Under the direction of Robert Stearns, we have already trained scores of young Christian leaders in Israel, introducing them to Israeli leaders, Arab Christians, Rabbis, journalists, diplomats, students and IDF soldiers their own age. These young leaders are from secular and Christian universities; from Harvard, Pepperdine, Yale, Wheaton, Regent, ORU, NYU and the list goes on, with students coming from five continents.
One Israel Experience Scholar (who appears regularly on Fox & Friends in addition to writing for Pajamas Media) made the "covenant connection" with Israel when he realized that what he thought was merely an interest in geopolitical affairs was actually the role he was called to play in the big picture. After becoming acquainted with the Jewish roots of his faith and the facts on the ground in Israel, he began to see his reporting on geopolitical events and terrorism as key to his role in redemptive history and in upholding covenant.
Who gave Goliath five smooth stones?
Did you know there's a new David and Goliath story being told today? It's a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and the parallels are as clear as they are outrageous! This modern story involves David's lineage, the Jewish people. David's people are the same; what about the location, the land? As for the land, that's the same too.
And what about the Philistines, Goliath's people? According to most accounts, the Philistines were "sea people" from some northern coast on the Mediterranean, and unlike the Jews, their language and culture are long gone. Interestingly, the Gaza that was an ancient Philistine stronghold is still called Gaza, and today, has one of the largest populations of Palestinian Arabs. Different people, same land, and a subsequent labyrinth of historic and ethnic complexities harkening us back to a very important point: that modern-day Israeli's are being unfairly dubbed the 'Goliath' in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Listen to one undergraduate student from Georgetown after three weeks with the Israel Experience College Scholarship Program, "Prior to coming to Israel I had a very one-sided view of what was going on. I saw the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians as a David and Goliath scenario with Israel as Goliath. I've been able to deepen my understanding and perspective of Israel and I see that's not the case at all."
This young man's perception prior to visiting Israel was evidence of the high jacking! The roles got reversed because it was isolated from the big picture and the facts on the ground, but actually being in Israel with the Israel Experience College Scholarship righted his perspective.
The parallels between the ancient David and Goliath and the current Arab-Israeli conflict exist and I need to be clear on an important issue: My heart breaks for the Palestinian Arabs! This is the injustice: Palestinians are being kept impoverished and estranged -not by Israelis- but by fellow Arabs, with the help of the international community. This small people group is being treated as a pawn by the real Goliath, which is a multinational conglomerate fueled by enough oil dollars to make it seem like they're the victims.
The other injustice is that Israel is painted as the bad guy. Israel, the lone real and functioning democracy in the Middle East where women and minorities have full rights, along with the Jewish people who barely survived annihilation in the Holocaust, are seen as Goliath, even as they do everything within their power to pursue peace.
Israel: keystone of the Big Picture
God is up to something and has been for a long time. That something is showing Himself faithful to His promise and redeeming humanity. That something is the big picture! I can't stress enough the importance of covenant and how understanding it aligns us with the purposes of God. My hope is that sincere, spirit-led examination of the big picture will result in our lives individually and corporately reflecting what we've seen in the Bible.
The Israel Experience College Scholarship program is one way the next generation is co-laboring with God and connecting with covenant. Being in Israel for over three weeks on the Israel Experience allows tomorrow's Christian leaders to see the facts on the ground, learn the history of Israel and the roots of their faith. Graduates become empowered to hold and express a biblical worldview in regards to God's covenant with Israel. They return home to impact their college campuses, and some have moved on to places like Capitol Hill, the EU headquarters in Brussels and the White House.
Chances are you've seen them on the news, you just didn't know where they came from or how they got there. They are the Davids, the Daniels and the Esthers of our time. They are agents of justice, they are heroes of faith. They are world-changers because they're cooperating with the God of Israel, the Author and Keeper of covenant.


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I'm madder than a double-entry bookkeeper with a single-entry wife about all this Tom Daschle craziness!
The guy resigned his big new job with Obama before it even started, all because he didn't pay some taxes.
First off, someone gave Daschle a gift subscription to 'Car & Driver'. So what? Who'd think to put that on their taxes?
More importantly, not paying taxes is as American as motherhood, apple pie and wearing pink sweatpants in public.
Why, our great nation was founded by men who didn't pay their taxes. John Hancock didn't just take up half a page signing his name. When a British big shot came on Hancock's ship to collect taxes on his cargo of booze, Hancock locked the guy up in an empty cabin to avoid paying up.
Between Daschle, that Geithner fellow, Killefer and all the others, the Communist-in-Chief's Cabinet are practically the signers of the Declaration of Independence! Who'd have thought the only one who wasn't a crook would be Mrs. Hillary?
The big traitor in the White House these days is Biden. That crazy Hair Club Vice President says paying taxes is patriotic. That just proves his plugs have put down roots in his brain.
My fellow red, white and blue Americans, this is our chance to finally reenact the great Boston Tea Party! When April rolls around, everybody fill in their tax form the Democrat way: under 'Occupation', just write 'Obama Cabinet Guy', then put zeros everywhere else. When the IRS shows up, lock them in your laundry room.
They waste all our money on cucumber condoms in kindergarten anyway. Heck, I'm getting myself a tri-corn hat right now! Join the rebellion or your name is 'Benedict Arnold Rosenberg'!


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NEW YORK – The New York City Council passed a bill requiring banks receiving billions in municipal funds to detail their lending practices, including mortgages and foreclosures, in struggling neighborhoods.
The bill, passed at yesterday's stated meeting, highlighted the brewing conflict between powerful members of the City Council and the mayor's office over the role of the government in the economy.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the banking bill was unrealistic. "Nobody would argue, I would think, that the city has the expertise or the resources to try to regulate the banking industry," he said. "It is just ridiculous."
Some of the country's largest banks, including JPMorganChase and Bank of America, are currently designated as depository banks by the city. Several other cities have enacted or are considering similar ordinances. The Los Angeles City Council passed its own so-called "responsible banking" act yesterday.
New York City Council Speaker Quinn said the bill was not aimed at creating a local regulatory framework. Instead, it was about making sure banks "act in a transparent way" and report information to the city of New York on what banks are doing to help neighborhoods and small businesses.
Councilman Albert Vann, the main sponsor of the bill, said lawmakers spent the last two years working on it and had consulted with the industry. "It is not an anti-bank bill," he said. "Our objective in pursuing this legislation was to create a process that better informs New Yorkers about the banking needs of the neighborhoods and how to begin to meet those needs," he said.
The bill passed by the council, which the mayor has threatened to veto, would create a new eight-member Community Investment Advisory Board that would collect and assess information from banks on their lending practices in local neighborhoods.
Supporters of New York City's banking bill, including Quinn's previous employer, the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, argue it will help policymakers make better decisions about where the city's money is deposited and encourage banks to invest in communities.
Currently, the Department of Finance, which has also objected to the bill as too burdensome, oversees the city's money, in conjunction with the city comptroller and the Banking Commission. The commission approves or denies applications from financial institutions seeking to do business with the city.
The City Council also sparred with the mayor over its decision yesterday to override his veto of a "prevailing wage" bill that would raise the wages earned by some workers employed by companies that receive city subsidies.
"In this day and age, this is not appropriate legislation if we want to get companies to come here and build this city," he said yesterday. His administration has vowed to sue to stop the law from being enacted.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the prevailing wage legislation was reasonable. "The vast majority of us at the City Council believe that when businesses decide of their own free will to take city subsidies or take a high level of city tenants, it is appropriate for us to put a fair additional wage requirement on them," she said before the council voted to override the veto.
The Council also passed two resolutions at the stated meeting: one calling on the state Legislature to pass a law increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 an hour; the other appealing to Village Voice Media to reject adult advertisements on its Backpage.com website after allegations that sex-traffickers have been using it.


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The Motorola Xoom, the much anticipated Google Android 3.0-based tablet unveiled during CES last month, will sport a price tag of about US$800 and be available on Feb. 24.
Yes, $800 (or more precisely, $799.99) – a price that industry watchers say could undercut Motorola's efforts to compete effectively against the Apple iPad with the Xoom.
The Xoom pricing news comes via a Best Buy ad making the rounds that was first reported on by Engadget. The ad also indicates Verizon is forcing customers to sign on for at least a 1-month data contract even to get WiFi access, with published data plans going from $20 per month for 1GB to $80 for 10GB. That's the same data pricing for the briskly selling Samsung Galaxy Tab offered by Verizon, though the smaller form factor Tab itself costs about $400 with a two-year contract plus data service.
The Motorola Xoom also was promoted in a commercial during the Super Bowl that went after Apple by playing off of the company's classic "1984"-themed Super Bowl ad for the Mac that went after IBM's big brother status at the time.
But the $800 Xoom price tag has some industry watchers shaking their heads about whether the Motorola offering has a shot against the Apple iPad, which can be had for $730 in a 32GB version for 3G wireless connectivity that comes with no contract. Mobile Beat writes that the "$800 price tag makes the Xoom horribly uncompetitive against the iPad or other Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab."
Mobile Beat adds that Motorola would have been better off rolling out a unit with less storage to lessen the sticker shock that will accompany its 32GB model.
The Androinica Google Android blog also was taken aback by the pricing in the ad: "If this ad is to be believed, the Xoom might be DOA based on its high-cost. As much as people love the software and hardware, Motorola may struggle to convince users to pay as much as they would to get a decent laptop." If this ad is to be believed, the Xoom might be DOA based on its high-cost. As much as people love the software and hardware, Motorola may struggle to convince users to pay as much as they would to get a decent laptop.
Boy Genius Report wrote that "we're still pretty excited about getting our hands on a Motorola XOOM… but that $800 price-tag did take a little bit of wind out of our sails (and may take a little wind out of Moto's sales)."
The Xoom, which will be powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, will boast a price that puts it in the neighborhood of a high-end, 64GB Apple iPad tablet, according to the U.K.-based Pocket-lint gadget website.
When the 32GB Xoom was formally introduced at CES, Motorola said the Xoom will be available by the end of March as a 3G/WiFi device with an upgrade to 4G LTE during the second quarter. The Xoom's availability would still put it ahead of other announced Android 3.0 tablets, such as Asustek's Eee Pad Slider.
The Xoom will be among the first to run Google's Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" software, which is optimized to run on tablet computers with large touchscreens such as the Xoom's 10.1-inch high-definition one. It also features cameras for taking HD video and conducting videoconferences, and supports Adobe Flash


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Enrique Martínez Celaya's: The Pearl
Saturday Oct 5, 2013
Additional Dates:
SITE Santa Fe
Santa Fe, NM
Phone: (505) 989-1199
Website: Click to Visit
Contact:Anne Wrinkle
Phone: 5059891199
Website: Click to Visit
More events at SITE Santa Fe
SITE Santa Fe is pleased to present a new project by Enrique MartÃnez Celaya (b. 1964), entitled The Pearl. Â For this exhibition, MartÃnez Celaya transforms all 15,000 square feet of SITEâs gallery spaces into an immersive installation environment that includes several large and small-scale paintings, sculptures, video, waterworks and olfactory interventions. This exhibition integrates many of the elements and ideas that the artist has engaged with over the last several years. Â For this project, the artist takes the notion of home as both a point of departure and a destination to craft a multi-sensory experience that is an extended metaphor for a journey of emotional and psychological reflection. Visitors will experience the installation in a particular sequence that allows the multi-level narrative to unfold. This installation will be accompanied by an exhibition of preparatory drawings. The artist is also collaborating with Santa Fe-based Radius Books to produce an artist book related to the exhibition.


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Fandom and the Effort to Get Adam Greenberg "One At Bat"
Certain stories leave me pondering what it means to be a fan. What I'm supposed to do as a fan. I don't always have a great answer beyond "root for the team, hope they win," and then do or think the things that ultimately support the winning. But sometimes I get the feeling that there's more.
I reckon that, by now, most of you know the story of Adam Greenberg. I remember when the outfield prospect was called up in July 2005, there was a bit of excitement among Cubs fans in the online world. Irrational, perhaps – Greenberg was far from a top prospect at that time – but we were thrilled to see a kid coming up with a skill set that was almost completely foreign to us: he walked almost as much as he struck out. That year at AA, Greenberg had a .386 OBP (with a .117 IsoD – the kid took a lot of walks), and there was a belief that finally the Cubs were taking OBP and "seeing pitches" seriously. Or, if they weren't, maybe a kid like Greenberg would force the issue.
The Fates have a way of chuckling at your expectations while they swirl their magic brew.
The story was, of course, far crueler to Greenberg than to Cubs fans. He saw exactly one pitch (well, perhaps he saw no pitch at all): a fastball to the head. Concussed, Greenberg dealt with the aftermath of his cautionary tale for years, never making it back to the big leagues.
The comparisons to Moonlight Graham were as inevitable as the hopes that he would make it back to the bigs and shed that label. He never did.
Now 31, Greenberg played last year for the Bridgeport Bluefish, but hasn't played this year. But that's not stopping one Cubs fan from trying to get Greenberg back to baseball this year. Back to the Cubs. Back to the bigs. From OneAtBat.com:
We want to get Adam Greenberg his first "official" Major League at bat. Of the 17,500 players who have played in the major leagues, no player has ever had his MLB career end on the first pitch—except Adam Greenberg. Due to Major League rules, when Adam was hit, his at bat was recorded as a plate appearance, not an official at bat. We would like to see Adam make it back to the big leagues for the official at bat he earned.
The project, fully supported and appreciated by Greenberg (you can see his video at the site), is being headed up by Matt Liston, whom you may recognize from his work in 'Catching Hell,' and 'Chasing October.' Liston is a good dude, and his passion for these kinds of projects is infectious.
As for getting Greenberg that at bat – Liston would like to see it happen this year – I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the ambitiousness of the project is rivaled only by its positive spirt. I admire those things. I like seeing Cubs fans taking chances on their passion (um, like, obviously), and I also happen to think the goal of getting Greenberg an official at bat is, well, nice. Be honest with yourself: what happened to him sucks, and it would be nice to have a part in adding a happy ending. What are we doing as fans – heck, what are we doing in this life – if we don't care about things like that?
On the other hand, I suspect many of us will be overwhelmed by our primary concern for the Cubs. Getting Greenberg his at bat, at a surface level, may seem like an easily-pulled-off publicity stunt, and a laudable one that the Cubs should just do, especially at the end of a season in which they'll finish with close to 100 losses anyway. But there are practical issues with making it happen. The biggest of which is the requisite 40-man roster spot for Greenberg. The 40-man currently stands at an even 40, which means the Cubs would have to de-roster a player to add Greenberg. Doing so would risk losing that player for good, something I'm sure the Cubs would be loathe to do. And, as much as I love the idea of doing something nice for Greenberg, I certainly don't want to see the Cubs worse for the wear on the other end of it.
That said, it's conceivable that – without naming names – there is a player or two on the 40-man whom the Cubs don't plan to have back next year or to keep through the offseason. I'm looking at the 40-man roster right now, and, yeah, there is a player or two. So, on that level, I suppose it's do-able.
There are still other concerns. What if the Cubs make all of this happen, and get Greenberg up to the plate as a pinch hitter, say, on the final day of the season, and he walks? What if he strikes out in embarrassing fashion? What if, God forbid, he gets hit again? What does that do to the story?
That said, I think the upside for him, personally, outweighs those risks. The risks to the Cubs, however, are less certain to be easily dismissed. If they could be, why wouldn't I support something like this? It's easy to be cynical and decry this as the kind of lame stunt the Cubs shouldn't be involved in if they consider themselves a serious organization.
But … why be like that? Greenberg is an actual human being with an actual (sad) connection to the Chicago Cubs. Assuming the logistical issues don't put the Cubs in any worse of a situation than they're already in, why wouldn't we support this? So, with a firm belief that the Cubs won't actually give Greenberg an at bat unless they believe they can do it without losing someone they value going forward, I think I will support this cause.
If you also support it, you can sign a petition set up by the One At Bat crew.


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Like many others, I have made the point that the low borrowing costs are something we should take advantage of right now. As Ezra Klein put it the other day, we've got an economic crisis, but it's a crisis that creates an opportunity: the protracted downturn, along with the aggressive monetary policy in response, have pushed down interest rates so the US gov't can cheaply borrow to do something—as in jobs programs–about that slow growth.
I still think that's true. In fact, it's one of the most important economic policy insights of the moment. But there's an important caveat that some of my deep-in-the-weeds-budget-expert friends at CBPP have impressed upon me. The dynamics of how Treasury both borrows and pays off the public debt make this still-good deal not quite as good as it sounds.
First of all, the Treasury doesn't try to time the bond market, strategically mixing up the maturities in its portfolio to get the best deal of the moment. As the figure shows, the average of outstanding debt has been around five years since the 1990s (the dips in 2008 and 2009 were anomalous—the Treasury sold more short-term debt than usual as part of the Fed's temporary liquidity initiatives).
So while the yield on 30-year Treasuries is slightly above 3% now compared to 5% a couple of years ago, such bonds make up about the same share of the Treasury's portfolio now as they did then (around 5%). Yes, the real interest rate on five-year Treasuries was a remarkable -0.8% the other day, meaning once you adjust for inflation, investors will pay you to hold their money for them. But that doesn't lead Treasury to flood that market.
Perhaps they should, but one of their goals is to protect the budget from swings in interest rates, so they keep a pretty steady composition of maturities and have, as the figure shows, lengthened the average maturity over time. To do so is one way borrowers lower their exposure to interest rate swings, and it means you sometimes pass up bargains today to shield yourself from nasty spikes tomorrow.
Second, as former CBO director Bill Shakes often warned in testimony: "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time." (hat tip, RK)
Which is to say, what we borrow today, we refinance tomorrow, and by tomorrow, I mean many tomorrows from now. We don't know what rates we'll have to pay on the future stock of debt that we're adding to today, but we're pretty sure they'll be higher.
An example might help clarify this concept. Suppose we borrow $100 billion for a jobs program—say FAST!—in 2012. According to CBO, we could borrow that money in 2012 at an average rate of less than 2% (meaning interest costs of less than $2 billion). But by 2021, if that debt isn't fully paid off, CBO would expect it to carry an interest rate near 5% (and remember, in DC, the answer to "how much does this cost?" is "whatever CBO says it costs").
Don't get me wrong. Even while I was at the White House, I stressed the point that even large amounts of temporary deficit spending, like the $800 billion stimulus, have almost no impact on the longer term deficit. Our out-year deficits are being driven by "permanent" policies like the Bush tax cuts while our long-term debt is largely a function of rising health costs. But it's still the case that borrowing today does increase the size of the debt and we will pay interest on that debt for years to come, probably at rates higher than today's.
We should definitely take advantage of today's low rates. In fact, I'd argue that helping people get back to work should be our top policy priority even if rates weren't as low as they are. And in fact, if we actually paid off the new debt we incurred within say five years—we wouldn't want to do so any sooner for fear of offsetting the stimulus—we could avoid the higher debt service costs CBO expects we'll face down the road.
But if we fail to do so, we should be straight about the debt service we incur.
Source: Treas Dept., SFP=Supplementary Financing Program


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India offers a different aspect of her personality – exotic, extravagant, elegant, eclectic – to each traveler.Learn More »
The Taj is a monument of such incredible elegance that it is considered synonymous with beauty itself.View Vacations »
Experience the different regions through their unique and flavorful cuisines.Learn More »
Enjoy the color and drama of India's fairs and festivals.Learn More »
Contact an India Specialist today!Learn More »
India's vivid colors, vibrant spices and exquisite architecture create an inimitable mélange that beguiles all who visit. Still, there's an intangible quality to travel here that mysteriously touches the soul. And while India's intrigue may forever evade description, it's inextricably tied to the people you'll meet.


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A Local Cheese Plate from Cheese Bar's Steve Jones
Welcome back to Take Five, a new Eat Beat feature that offers up five must-try culinary finds from food and drink experts around town. Next up, things get a little cheesey.
As if we needed another reason to love October: it's American Cheese Month! And although Wisconsin and California often get billed as America's cheese capitols, the Pacific Northwest pulls its weight in the dairy world.
You can sample some of the Northwest's finest on Saturday, October 5 at The Wedge, Portland's annual celebration of all things cheese. But even if you can't make the festival, you can still enjoy the local cheese bounty.
We sat down with Cheese Bar's Steve Jones, Portland's resident cheese whiz and card-carrying best cheese monger in the world (as crowned at 2011's Annual Cheesemonger Invitational), to get his top five picks for the region's cheeses. His handpicked plate has a mix of colors and textures, and includes cow, sheep, and goat milk cheeses—which means whether you like your cheese dry, creamy, or just plain stinky, there's sure to be something for everyone to love.
1. 'Adelle' from Ancient Heritage Dairy
"I picked the little bloomy-rinded Adelle from Ancient Heritage, which is a cow and sheep blend from out in Madras. It's just ooey-gooey, creamy, sexy, everybody loves it."
2. 'Hillis Peak' from Pholia Farm
"This is a goat's cheese made with Nigerian dwarf goat milk, and it's rubbed in pimenton [Spanish paprika]. Pholia Farm is one of the smallest creameries in America, and they're totally off the grid—so, very Oregon, a do-it-yourself cheese."
3. 'Glacier Blue' from Cascadia Creamery
"Cascadia is in Trout Lake, Washington up on the shore there in Mt. Adams. They're a pretty new creamery, only a couple years old. This is a raw organic cow's milk blue that reminds us a lot of stilton—really just young, and lots of roasted nut flavors. It's a really approachable, fantastic blue for everyone."
4. 'Mopsy's Best' from Black Sheep Creamery
"The Mopsy's Best, from Black Sheep Creamery from up in Adna, Washington, is kind of their flagship sheep's milk cheese. Their cheeses all have a real kind of an earthy flavor; this one's got a lot of black walnut, very rustic, nice and dry, very different texturally from the others."
5. 'Lorelei' from Briar Rose Creamery
"The Lorelei, which is a washed rind goats milk, is washed with beer from Fire Mountain Brew House, which is one of [Briar Rose's] neighbors. When they wash the rind of it, it gives it that stinky, bacon-fatty richness that people love in washed-rind cheese."


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Julieanna Hever is on a mission to bring simplicity and sensibility back to plant-based eating with her new book The Complete Idiot's Guide To Plant-Based Nutrition. Julieanna, known as "The Plant-Based Dietitian", is a registered dietitian and also a personal trainer. She is also the co-author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Gluten-Free Vegan Cooking, the nutrition columnist for VegNews, and has just released her new dvd - To Your Health - featuring Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Dr. Neal Barnard, and other experts. (I'm impatiently waiting my copy from amazon, but here's the trailer.)
In her book, Julieanna breaks down plant-based eating, plain and simple, as it should be! Eat a whole-foods plant-based diet and you're going to look and feel pretty darn good! But, we know there are numerous misperceptions and misunderstandings to eating a vegan diet, and The Complete Idiot's Guide To Plant-Based Nutrition clears the confusion.
This book is easy to read, and broken into four parts: The Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet; Living a Plant-Based Diet; Special Considerations; and The Plant-Based Recipe Box. Noteworthy sections include "You Are What You Eat (Not What You Don't)", which delves into supernutrients and antinutrients, and also "Controversy Clarified", which covers highly debated topics of dairy and soy consumption, and the raw diet. Just about every aspect of eating plant-based is covered in this book, and I especially enjoyed the addition of Julieanna's notes, with icons liked "mixed greens" denoting interesting tidbits and "plant pitfalls" where dietary cautions should be noted with plant-based foods.
As an "Idiot's Guide", you may think this book is aimed at beginner vegans. While it's certainly an excellent resource for new vegans, I think this book is also very important for seasoned vegans. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of vegan food trends and forget the roots of proper plant-based foods. Over my years of eating vegan, I've seen vegan shift from being a hippy fringe diet, to one where there are countless substitute foods and treats. These foods might be cruelty-free, but some are not very healthy. If you moved into eating vegan by way of food substitutes for meat, cheese, and other products, you may find your dietary plan now needs some retuning. Of course we can all enjoy some convenience foods here and there, but if the majority of your foods are in whole plant-based form, that's where your health and vitality will be optimized.
|Julieanna Hever, M.S., R.D., C.P.T
I've gotten to know Julieanna a little over the last few months, and I can tell you that she is passionate about her work, and even more enthusiastic and friendly than the book itself. "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food". Wise words from Hippocrates put into practice by Julieanna Hever.


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Friday, May 7, 2010
Elegant Lady
It looks like one of the custom painted "Jolly Bikes" that some ladies in Arlington were making where they imported Gazelles from Holland, customized the skirtguards and re-sold them. (unfortunately no longer a going concern).
This one has been further accessorized with some yellow flowers along the looped tube and a coffee cup holder
I love the leaping gazelles hidden in the details.
3 comments:
That is SO SO cute. I love orange - it's such a happy color!!!ReplyDelete
Thanks for sharing these photos.
:) Laura
Funny that I haven't seen any Jolly bikes around for a year, and now you and Charlotte spotted 2 in the same week. You know, this orange bike that you photographed was the bike that redirected my interest in classic bikes from a theoretical yearning to an active search for one of my own. Here is a picture of it from last year! At that point, Jolly Bikes had already closed up shop, but still had a couple of bikes left. I went to see them and tried a red single speed Gazelle - but the frame (56cm) was too big for me. I was so disappointed!ReplyDelete
Sorry to hear about your chain. Which bike was this, and what's the underlying problem?
I loved the Jolly bikes. I saw them at the SOWA market two years ago. I was sorry to hear they stopped selling bikes.ReplyDelete


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Beyonce, Jay Z to co-headline summer tour
Associated Press
NEW YORK – Beyonce and husband Jay Z will launch the co-headlining "On the Run Tour" on June 25 in Miami.
Beyonce made the announcement Monday. The stadium tour will visit Philadelphia; East Rutherford, N.J.; Chicago; and Los Angeles. It wraps Aug. 5 in San Francisco.
Tickets go on sale Friday. Pre-sale tickets go on sale Tuesday.
Beyonce and Jay Z have collaborated on a number of songs, including the hits "Crazy In Love," "'03 Bonnie & Clyde," ''Deja Vu," ''Part II (On the Run)" and the recent smash "Drunk In Love."
Beyonce released her ultra-successful self-titled fifth album late last year in surprise form. Jay Z, who toured with Justin Timberlake last year, also had success with the release of "Magna Carta Holy Grail."


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An Evolutionary Explanation For The Fiscal Cliff
And when President Obama returns home to Washington, he'll have his work cut out for him. Congress and the White House are currently in negotiations on how to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. And they have a self-imposed deadline: New Year's Day, 2013. If they don't make a deal before then it will mean higher tax bills for most Americans and big spending cuts for government programs, including the Pentagon.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Both parties voted to set this deadline. And I believe both parties can work together to make these decisions in a balanced and responsible way.
MARTIN: That was President Obama in his weekly address from the White House. And he spoke to the main sticking point in negotiations so far: keeping the same tax rates for middle and lower income Americans and raising tax rates for the wealthy.
OBAMA: We shouldn't hold the middle class hostage while Congress debates tax cuts for the wealthy. Let's begin our work by actually doing what we all agree on. Let's keep taxes low for the middle class, and let's get it done soon.
MARTIN: House Speaker John Boehner said this past week that Republicans are willing to compromise with the president on taxes - sort of.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: To show our seriousness, we've put revenue on the table, as long as it's accompanied by significant spending cuts.
MARTIN: Lawmakers still disagree over how to reduce the deficit; where exactly to cut spending, and how to raise taxes - whether by raising rates or ending tax breaks. And Congress hasn't always been good at meeting deadlines. Remember that the reason we have this fiscal cliff is because of the last-minute deal to raise the debt ceiling last year. But there's a little more agreement about the need to reach a deal now.
REPRESENTATIVE PETER ROSKAM: Going over the fiscal cliff, in my view, is a bucket of crazy.
MARTIN: That's Peter Roskam, a Republican congressman from Illinois. He's also the deputy majority whip, which means he's in charge of rounding up Republican votes in the House of Representatives. Roskam spoke recently at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation here in Washington. And he said that the fiscal cliff provides a real incentive for compromise.
ROSKAM: It was not meant to be policy. It was meant to be a provocation for action and it is a successful provocation for action. Right? Everybody is talking about it. My sense is that we will figure this out and we will get this done.
MARTIN: Well, we wanted to know more about the psychology of these negotiations. So we asked NPR science correspondent Shankar Vedantam to come by the studio. Hi, Shankar. Thanks for being with us.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Oh, glad to be here, Rachel.
MARTIN: OK. So, let's set aside all the partisanship and political grandstanding of the moment. Is there a scientific behavioral reason why lawmakers still cannot agree on how to avoid the fiscal cliff and get the debt under control?
VEDANTAM: Yes. I mean economists have known for a very long time that human beings are fundamentally short-term thinkers. And this manifests itself in all kinds of different ways. And the fundamental problem with the debt is that we've enjoyed the goodies upfront and we had to pay the cost down the road. That's why you have a debt. And the reason this happens is that our brains are really wired in many ways to be short-term focused.
In our ancestral environments that crafted our brains through evolution, we were focused on stuff that happened in the coming hours and seconds and minutes, not the coming months and years and decades. And really what's happening here at a scientific level is that we are finally confronting the challenge of all the goodies that we've enjoyed and the money we've spent. The chickens have come home to roost now and we're being forced to confront the fact that we're in a long-term unsustainable path.
MARTIN: So what does that mean that we have this deadline? There is this sense of urgency in this decision-making. If Congress fails to act, the country faces these dramatic spending cuts and tax hikes. How does this sense of urgency play into our behaviors?
VEDANTAM: Well, since we are so focused on the short term, what we've often done is we've said, how do we set up mechanisms that force us to do what's good for us in the long term. So I mean, as parents, we do this all the time with children, right? We set up rules. We say, you can get your desert but only if you finish your veggies first. You can player video game so long as you finish your homework first. And what Congress has done really is a variation of this for adults.
They've basically said, we're going to force ourselves to do the responsible and right thing by setting up a cliff. And the cliff is so bad, and its consequences are going to be so detrimental, that it's going to force us to our house in order. So essentially, what the cliff does is it makes the long-term challenge salient in the short-term. It puts a looming catastrophe right in front of us and says, this is going to get everyone's attention to sit down and focus.
MARTIN: So what happens when people are put in these tough situations? When they have this looming crisis and this deadline, do people usually make good choices?
VEDANTAM: Well, rational people make good choices when they're confronted by tough situations. You know, if you have a cliff, the rational thing to do is to step back from the cliff and not go over the cliff. And you can argue that if the fiscal cliff works as designed, that's what's going to happen. Congress is going to step back from the cliff and work out a reasonable solution. The problem is people are not always rational.
VEDANTAM: And what's happening in Congress is that Republicans and Democrats distrust each other so deeply, and each side believes that it has the moral high ground, that increasingly what's happening is both sides are talking now about going over the cliff. Because rather than let the other side win, they're saying it's better that we both go over the cliff than let, you know, this other side do this immoral thing.
MARTIN: So it's an ultimatum isn't effective in this kind of situation, if the idea of this cliff isn't an effective mechanism for communication or for compromise, what is the solution?
VEDANTAM: The imposition of the cliff is not going to increase trust. If a couple comes in to talk to a psychotherapist and they deeply distrust one another, the solution is not just to say, bad things are going to happen to you if you don't step back from the brink. What you want to try and do is to build a trust between these two parties. So if you're a psychotherapist, which might say is, focus on the stuff that you have a comment; focus on the agreements that you have. It may actually be that you are agreed on 90 percent of the issues that confront you; that the things that divide you are actually a fairly small portion of what you have in front of you.
I'm actually thinking of working on a story about ways you can apply psychotherapeutic principles to public policy. And one of the things that people talk about here is this issue: how do you build trust when there is grave mistrust?
MARTIN: Hmm, trust in short supply in Washington on Capitol Hill right now.
NPR's Shankar Vedantam. Shankar, thanks so much.
VEDANTAM: Thanks, Rachel.
MARTIN: You're listening to NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Staying in Puget Sound this week, thought I'd do an urban hike on over to Kirkland with my new Osprey Aether 70 pack. I'm training for an ascent this summer on Mt. Rainier so I loaded my Aether 70 up with 25 pounds of gear and hiked along the Burke Gilman trail, around Lake Washington, on over to Kirkland. Once there, I ate a nice big pizza lunch at Zeeks (love their pizza) and then visited my friends at Kirkland Bicycle (those guys rock) before heading on back home.
That's it for now. See you next week.


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IYA2009 Global Projects
The Global Projects are a highly visible face of IYA2009 activities. International and global in nature, they will be key elements toward achieving the Year's goals.
National Nodes: 148
Organisational Nodes: 40
Organisational Associates:33
National Websites: 111
Cornerstone Projects: 12
Special Task Groups: 11
Special Projects:16
Official Products:8
Media Partners:22


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Brindle Oak Evening Smoke
Aspecta Ten
Select Room
Brindle Oak Evening Smoke
A time-worn weathered oak, the soft grain and subtle colors of Brindle Oak give any room a feeling of instant comfort and familiarity. It creates a warm, welcoming mood that can unify a space without overpowering it.
Natural Patterns and Processes
Age, Change, and the Patina of Time
Natural Patterns and ProcessesEmphasis on the incorporation of properties found in nature.
Age, Change, and the Patina of Time: We are naturally drawn to materials and patterns that accurately register the continuous passing of time. Simulating the traces of natural processes, weathering, decay, wear, encourages our reading of materials as natural rather than artificial. We are encouraged to read a history, a time-worn presence of material, which adds to the richness, complexity, and appreciation of an environment.
Environmental Features
Natural Materials
Environmental FeaturesUse of the relatively well-recognized characteristics of the natural world.
Natural Materials: Experiences within nature are not only pleasurable and positively effects our emotional well-being, they improve our physical health. Exposure to natural elements has been shown to increase comfort, reduce blood pressure and even benefit our creative and cognitive performance. The rich tones and intricate figuring of Aspecta's designs embody the natural elements of wood and stone, bringing the direct benefits of the natural world to our human experience in the built environment.
Product Details
|Total Thickness
|.394" (10mm)
|Plank/Tile Size
|8.66" x 59.45"
(220mm x 1510mm)
|Wear Layer
|28mil (.7mm)
|Edge Detail
|Gloss Level
|Super Matte
|Sq. Ft. / Carton
|17.88 (1.66m2)
|Surface Finish
|Duraspect™ Extreme Surface Protectant
|25 Year Limited Commercial Warranty


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[vain englanniksi]
Undurraga is one of the most prestigious and longest-operating wineries in Chile. Since it was founded in 1885, the winery's constant search for quality, proximity to its consumers and great innovative spirit have made Undurraga stand out from the rest. Present in over 70 countries, the winery delights a broad range of tastes with its high-quality, world-renowned wines. Good wine comes from good grapes and they in turn come from good vineyards. In this whole process, the soil is key. With a total surface area of 1,854 hectares spread across Chile's best wine-producing areas, Undurraga's agricultural activity takes place in estates which are dedicated exclusively to growing and producing the finest wine grapes. Our vineyards are located in the most reputed wine areas: Maipo Valley (Santa Ana Estate in Talagante), Alto Maipo (La Higuera Estate), Maipo Costa (Codigua Estate), Colchagua (Colchagua and El Huique Estates), Almahue in Cachapoal (Cerros de Almahue Estate), Leyda in San Antonio (Lomas de Leyda Estate) and in Cauquenes, Maule (El Tutuvén Estate). All of these vineyards have been especially selected by our winemaking teams because the characteristics of their soil have made them ideal for specific varieties. We use precision agriculture methods to study the special qualities of these soils.
Lähde: http://www.undurraga.cl
Katso tästä tuottajaan (tai jossain tapauksissa alueeseen) liittyvät muut tuotteet:
Viña Undurraga


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In 2009, Joe Moglia, then the CEO of TD Ameritrade, quit his job to coach football. He wanted to coach a college team. But no athletic director wanted him. So he took a job, in 2011, as head coach of the UFL's Omaha Nighthawks, a team that included former Buckeye Maurice Clarett. Moglia had an unorthodox style: He ran a once-a-week class called "Life After Football," and after training camp dinners, he would make everyone stand up and tell his life story. Forbes's Monte Burke trailed Moglia—who has since earned the head job at Coastal Carolina—during the coach's time in Omaha. What follows is an excerpt from Burke's book, 4th and Goal: One Man's Quest to Recapture His Dream.
In the evenings, Joe makes the last half hour of dinner mandatory for everyone on the team. The reason: Each night, for the duration of training camp, he will be asking the players and coaches, one by one, to stand up at dinner and introduce themselves. He wants them to talk not only about their careers in football but also about their lives. A few of the more bashful players will end up talking for only 30 seconds or so. But most of the folks jump at the opportunity to share their stories.
The players talk about their jobs outside of football (quarterback Eric Crouch sells medical devices that help women deal with vaginal prolapse), their injuries (nose tackle Dusty Dvoracek had a promising NFL career derailed when he tore a bicep while tackling the Minnesota Vikings' Adrian Peterson), and their broken home lives (both of running back Noel Devine's parents were dead of AIDS by the time he was 11).
Meta Quest Pro
Mixed reality
The Meta Quest Pro centers on working, creating, and collaborating in a virtual space.
On the seventh night of training camp, Maurice Clarett, the troubled former Ohio State star, stands to speak at dinner. This is the introduction that many have been waiting for. The dining room goes utterly silent; there are no forks scraping plates, no ice tinkling in water glasses.
Clarett speaks in a raspy, barely audible whisper. His voice, like Mike Tyson's lisp, doesn't seem to fit his body—5-11 and 230 muscled pounds—nor does its softness jibe with what the public knows about his past.
He begins by telling the room that football was his first true love. He played the sport nearly every afternoon in his Youngstown, Ohio, neighborhood. When it rained he played carpet football with his brothers inside the house. He would pretend to be Emmitt Smith or Thurman Thomas.
But trouble happened to be his other passion. He was arrested multiple times before he was 14 years old, mainly, he says, because he was trying to impress the older kids in the neighborhood. In the eighth grade he was arrested for breaking and entering a house. While attempting to flee the scene, he jumped out of a second-story window and hit his head. He got 13 stitches for the wound. That's why, since high school, he has always worn the number 13 on the football field.
He was sent to a juvenile detention center. There he met a high school football coach who took him under his wing, and who intervened on his behalf with the judge and negotiated a house arrest. Clarett worked out with the coach every day after school.
In high school, Clarett was a dynamo on the field. He rushed for 248 yards in one of his first games as a freshman. He says he never really went to class, and he was allowed to slip through the academic cracks because of his football ability. In his senior year he was named the best prep player in the state of Ohio. He was heavily recruited, but decided to stay near home and attend Ohio State. He loved the coach there, Jim Tressel.
Clarett made the team as a freshman as a backup running back. Tressel told him that in the team's first game—at home against Texas Tech—Clarett would get three series of work. "I did nothing in my first two series," says Clarett. But on the third one, he broke a long run. The home crowd went crazy. "The fans put you in games, at least at Ohio State," he says. He finished that game with 175 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
He was a hard worker in practice and in games. But off the field, he was living a completely different life. "I took golf, fishing, and softball as classes," Clarett says. "Away from class, anything you can think of I did in my 13 months at Ohio State." Drugs and women were two of the things. Cars were another—he owned three of them at a time, including a brand-new Cadillac and Lexus. "I was living the NFL life in college," he says. "I got paid more in college than I do now in the UFL."
In the 2003 national championship game against Miami, Clarett made the two crucial plays that led to Ohio State's win: He stripped the ball from Sean Taylor's hands after the Miami safety had intercepted a pass in his own end zone, which led to three important points for the Buckeyes. Then he scored the championship-winning touchdown in overtime. The sky seemed like the only limit for Clarett.
Instead the sky fell on him. Clarett was suspended from the team for receiving what were deemed "improper benefits." He also falsely alleged that $10,000 worth of goods had been stolen from him. (He later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of failure to aid a law enforcement official.) Clarett tried to enter the NFL Draft. But by NFL rules, a player had to be at least three years out of high school to become eligible. He sued. His case eventually went to the Supreme Court. He lost.
The next two years were lost in a fog of drug and alcohol use. "I would ride around in my car carrying life sentences, with pounds of weed and bricks of cocaine," he says. In 2005 he worked out at the NFL's Draft Combine and performed woefully. He was nevertheless drafted by the Denver Broncos in the third round that year. In Denver's training camp, he says, he was partying hard at nights and clashing with his coaches during the day. He was cut before the end of camp.
And that was when the real trouble began. "I was popping pills and getting paranoid. I was robbing everyone I knew," he says. In January 2006 he was arrested in Columbus for allegedly robbing a man and woman at gunpoint and taking $150 and a cell phone; the man had pressed charges. Clarett's trial was postponed until September.
Clarett says he didn't want to go to jail. So he attempted to pay off the man whom he had robbed. He wanted him to drop the charges. The man refused to be bought. On a night one month before the trail, Clarett's life literally came to its crossroads.
Clarett jumped into his car wearing Kevlar body armor and carrying a loaded assault rifle and three handguns. He drank half a bottle of Grey Goose vodka as he drove. He missed his intended exit off the freeway. He got off at the next exit and made an illegal U-turn. A cop car happened to be there. The cops pulled him over and used Mace to subdue him.
That U-turn may have saved his life and the lives of several others. He'd been on his way to that man's house.
He was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. "Contrary to popular belief, prison does not give you street cred. Anyone who glorifies it is an idiot," he says. "It only lets your dumb ass know that you got caught doing something wrong."
But prison turned out to be a good thing for Clarett. It was where the fog finally started to lift. "I cleared my head, away from the drugs and drinking," he says. "Suffering causes you to mature." He became a voracious reader, knocking out 150 books in prison, including the works of Tolstoy, Twain, and Confucius. He became particularly interested in finance and subscribed to Forbes, Fortune, and the Wall Street Journal, teaching himself about the stock market. He read everything he could about his new hero, Warren Buffett. He started a blog, The Mind of Maurice Clarett, filled with aphorisms that he read over the prison phone to his girlfriend, who posted them. He was released from prison early for good behavior, to a halfway house. He tried out for the Nighthawks in 2010 and made the team, playing sparingly while struggling mightily to get back into shape.
Clarett ends his introduction by talking about his long road to redemption, the joy he finds in simple freedoms like watching his 5-year-old daughter run around the house. He talks about the positive example he wants to set for people, to help them avoid the trouble he'd found in his life.
"I don't want people to say 'Don't be like Maurice Clarett,'" he says. "In fact, I want the opposite. I want people to see me now and say they want to be like me. And I'm working every day to earn that."
As Clarett wraps up, there are audible gasps and a few whispered "holy shit"s in the room. Some of the coaches stare at Clarett with stunned, almost fearful looks on their faces. There is a brief silent pause as Clarett sits down. Then the players and coaches slowly disperse.
Excerpted from 4th and Goal: One Man's Quest to Recapture His Dream, by Monte Burke.


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Comment #1 Saturday, October 31, 2009 1:25 PM
Comment #6 Monday, November 2, 2009 6:12 AM
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Comment #10 Thursday, December 31, 2009 8:05 PM
Comment #11 Wednesday, December 1, 2010 2:26 PM
I've been using this cursor for 3 - 4 months now and I'm loving it. I thought I would just come by and say thanks for the great cursor.
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text:
FreeBSD Manual Pages
ETHERS(5) BSD File Formats Manual ETHERS(5) NAME ethers -- ethernet address database DESCRIPTION The ethers database contains information regarding known 48-bit ethernet addresses of hosts on an Internetwork. The data is stored in a file called /etc/ethers in the following format: ethernet-address fully-qualified-host-name Items are separated by any number of blanks and/or tab characters. A ``#'' at the start of a line indicates the beginning of a comment that extends to the end of the line. A ``+'' at the start of a line will cause the ethers(3) library functions to use data stored in the NIS ethers.byname and ethers.byaddr maps in addition to the data in the /etc/ethers file. An ethernet address is expressed in ASCII form as "x:x:x:x:x:x" where x is a hexadecimal value between 0x00 and 0xFF. The address values should be in network order. Hostnames specified in the /etc/ethers database should correspond to entries in the hosts(5) file. The ether_line() function in the standard C library can be used to break individual lines in the /etc/ethers database into their individual compo- nents: a binary Ethernet address stored as an ether_addr structure, and a hostname stored as a character string. FILES /etc/ethers The ethers file resides in /etc. SEE ALSO ethers(3), yp(8) HISTORY The ethers format is based on the format used in SunOS 4.1.x. BSD April 12, 1995 BSD
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Wash UR Wheels
The Best Mobile Auto Detail Service in Chandler, Arizona
Our staff is highly skilled and will deliver the car wash right to you. We are experts in interior and exterior detailing for cars, trucks, SUVs, RVs, boats, and fleets. Our professionals come to you equipped with their own water and detailing supplies. With our services, it has never been easier to have your car looking like a million bucks when you cruise down the streets. We offer a variety of affordable packages so that you can get the expert cleaning that your car has been dreaming of.
Business Name:
Wash UR Wheels
726 S Nebraska St Unit 118Chandler Arizona 85225United States
(480) 531-5283
About Chandler
Chandler is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). It is bordered to the north and west by Tempe, to the north by Mesa, to the west by Phoenix, to the south by the Gila River Indian Community, and to the east by Gilbert. As of the 2020 census, the population of Chandler was 275,987, up from 236,123 at the 2010 census. == History == In 1891, Dr. Alexander John Chandler, the first veterinary surgeon in Arizona Territory, settled on a ranch south of Mesa and studied irrigation engineering.
Neighborhoods in Chandler, Arizona
Alamosa Estates, Amberwood II, Arden Park, Arizona Country, Arizona Reflections, Arrowhead Meadows Association, Cantabria Shores, Carino Estates, Carrizal, Chandler Crossing Estates, Circle G Riggs Homestead, Colonial Coronita, Cooper Commons, Corona Village, Cove at Tiburon Association
Things to do in Chandler, Arizona
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Is this all weird, confusing and a little scary for you? Start at chapter one.
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It's 4 a.m. In a Santa Monica penthouse suite, Ari Gold sleeps. There are four armed guards outside the door, an entire hotel full of his men, his private army camped on the surrounding streets and doing God-knows-what in the bar and down on the dark beach. There's even a detachment on the roof with big guns and shoulder-mounted missiles, to guard against an aerial assault. But that's not going to happen- Ari's army owns the air. His drones go over every hour on the hour, ready to rain death on anyone who dares to cross him or, on a slow day, pretty much anyone at all.
There are eight empty little liquor bottles by the bed and on the floor. Pills too, horse pills. This whole pharmacopeia is enough to bludgeon Ari into unconsciousness, if not peace. And so he sleeps, lost in the past and his dream of Vince, twisted in 800-hundred-dollar black satin sheets.
But while Ari sleeps, Turtle is wide awake- completely wired, actually. No drugs involved. Turtle is on a natural high, because he loves this shit. Turtle is on the 101 freeway, southbound in what used to be the number four lane, approaching the Alvarado Street exit.
He's not in a car, of course. If you see a car on the 101 these days, it's a burnt-out rusted hulk, Continue reading "Entourage:2039, Chapter 25: Turtle Attacks!! (part one)"