text:
HOUSTON — Orioles right-hander Chris Tillman can't explain it; really there's not necessarily any logical reasoning for it.
Maybe it's advanced maturity or improved focus or pure coincidence, but when Tillman takes the mound on the road this season — like he did Tuesday at Minute Maid Park in the Orioles' 4-1 victory over the Houston Astros — his team comes out on top.
Five times Tillman has pitched in opposing parks this season, and five times the Orioles (33-25) have been victorious. He is 4-0 in those games.
"It's not that I try harder on the road," said Tillman, who allowed just one run in seven innings Tuesday and has a road ERA of 2.30 compared to a a 5.31 ERA in seven home starts. "I can't put my finger on it. I really enjoy pitching in Camden Yards. I go out with the same game plan every time and try to do my best every time."
Tillman and Houston's Lucas Harrell locked into a pitcher's duel through seven innings, combining to allow just nine hits and three runs (two earned), before exiting. It was an impressive showing from two hurlers who had combined to allow nine earned runs and 16 hits in their last starts (which lasted a combined 10 1/3 innings).
"The key to that game was Tillman," said Orioles manager Buck Showalter. "And their guy pitched real well too. We were fortunate."
With the victory, the Orioles won for the first time in Houston, which joined the American League this season. Dating back eight years, the Orioles have won seven straight against the Astros, whom they swept during interleague series in Baltimore in both 2005 and 2008. The Astros swept the Orioles in Houston in 2003 — so Tuesday was the first time a road team had ever won a game in the 10 meetings between the two.
The Astros (21-38) entered Tuesday with a six-game winning streak and fresh off a four-game road sweep of the Los Angeles Angels. The Orioles have won 10 of their past 14 and have an impressive 18-12 record away from Camden Yards. They remain tied with the New York Yankees in second place in the AL East, 2 ½ games behind the Boston Red Sox. They're eight games over .500, tying a season high.
"Winning on the road requires discipline. On and off the field. Getting your rest, eating properly," Showalter said. "I think they have such a commitment to each other as teammates, they don't want to do anything that jeopardize them being in a position to make a contribution. And Chris has done a good job of that. And if that's maturity, so be it."
Tillman (5-2) pitched at least seven innings for the third time in 2013. He allowed four hits — including a Brandon Barnes' solo homer in the sixth — and two walks while throwing 113 pitches, one shy of a season high. He struck out eight batters, tying a career high that he set Sept 11, 2009 at Yankee Stadium.
"My fastball was better tonight. My other pitches set it up, though," he said. "I think I was able to mix in my off-speed stuff, cutter, changeup, and try to get them off the fastball and then take my shot with the fastball when I needed to."
The Orioles scored twice in the third against Harrell, which proved to be enough offense.
Designated hitter Danny Valencia homered to right — his third of the season in just his 25th at-bat for the Orioles, with all three coming in a span of 17 at-bats.
Valencia, who had 11 homers in 40 games at Triple-A Norfolk before being recalled May 19, had three big league homers last year in 154 at-bats with the Red Sox and Minnesota Twins.
"I just think I am a lot different hitter than I was last year," Valencia said. "Last year was a really rough season for me. I was able to look at a lot of film this offseason, work on things, try to iron out some stuff in my swing and you know, it's been kind of paying off. So I'm just happy I'm getting these hits and we're winning. It just feels a lot better."
The second run came after Manny Machado hit his major league lading 26th double of the season. He moved to third on a wild pitch and scored when Astros first baseman Chris Carter allowed an Adam Jones grounder to skip past him.
That was all the damage the Orioles could get against Harrell (4-7), who permitted five hits, two runs (one earned) and struck out six.
The Orioles picked up another unearned run in the eighth. Nate McLouth singled against reliever Wesley Wright. McLouth then stole second and third and dashed home when catcher Jason Castro threw wide to third base. McLouth is tied with Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury with an American League-leading 21 steals.
The Orioles added another run in the ninth on Ryan Flaherty's RBI single that scored J.J. Hardy. Flaherty and Adam Jones — who made two running catches while approaching Tal's Hill in center field — led another exemplary defensive effort by the Orioles.
"The thing about the hill is it starts at 410 feet away, so you got to really get it now. The first ball back I was a lot closer to it. I got a lot of ground here that I got to cover," Jones said. "But Tillman went out there and kept me on my toes, kept the whole defense on our toes. That's what happens when your pitcher goes out there and throws strikes. Good plays happen."
Relievers Tommy Hunter and Jim Johnson (19 saves) threw scoreless innings to keep the club undefeated when Tillman's on the mound in a visiting park.
"He's learning to calm down that crowd. Even when they get rallies, he's learning to take an extra second, gather himself. And the man is going out there and making great pitches," Jones said of Tillman. "I've been around Tillman for the last six, seven years and he's starting to really come into his own at this level."
HOUSTON — Orioles right-hander Chris Tillman can't explain it; really there's not necessarily any logical reasoning for it.


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Chadian President Idriss Deby has made several forceful calls recently for clarity on plans for a possible military intervention in Mali. Deby's met Tuesday with Boni Yayi, President of Benin (and Chairman of the AU), and Malian Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra. Deby told reporters:
"It's up to the Malians to tell us as clearly as possible what kind of support they expect from Africa, beyond what has been done by [the Economic Community of West African States, of which Chad is not a member], and what kind of contribution they expect of Chad."
He and the AU called formally for the UN to authorize a military intervention in Mali (see a timeline of steps toward intervention in Mali here).
On Wednesday, Deby met with French President Francois Hollande in Paris. A military intervention in Mali was one of the central subjects they discussed. This was the first time the two men had met face to face, but not the first time they had discussed Mali: on July 5, the Presidents had a telephone conversation on the topic. Jeune Afrique (French) reported that at the time Deby gave his conditional support to the idea. But he recommended that the framework of the intervention be broadened beyond ECOWAS to include the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN), with Western powers' logistical support. "Under these conditions, Chad could participate," he reportedly said. Since that time, the AU has signed on, and some Western powers (including France) have indicated they would support an intervention logistically, but the UN Security Council has yet to approve the force.
On Wednesday, following his meeting with Hollande, Deby spoke (French) of "total confusion" on the issue of Mali coming from ECOWAS, the UN, and Mali itself, confusion concerning the military option as well as the option of negotiations. Nonetheless he reaffirmed Chad's intention to work "alongside the Malians so that Mali may recover its territorial integrity." Deby's statements in Paris tracked closely with his remarks the preceding day.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Filling Gaps in Iraq, Then Finding a Void at Home
HOUSTON — America has given much to Shaheen Khan. It has taken something, too.
Three years ago, she was a nursery school teacher here, a meek woman with a melodic voice who charmed the children with tales from her native Pakistan.
Today, Mrs. Khan shares a room in a dreary nursing home on the fringes of Houston, paralyzed from midchest down and tormented by a fateful choice to try to remake her life.
Mired in debt and strained by a sometimes difficult marriage, Mrs. Khan signed up in 2004 with the military contracting giant KBR to do laundry for American forces in Iraq, a job that promised to triple the $16,000 a year she was earning at the school. She was assigned to work in the Green Zone in Baghdad, and she convinced herself that she would be safe.
Five weeks after arriving in Iraq, she was speeding down a Baghdad highway in a Chevy Tahoe when the driver swerved to avoid a box he feared was a bomb. The vehicle rolled five times, leaving Mrs. Khan unconscious, suspended from her seat belt with a crushed spinal cord. Doctors have told her she will not walk again.
She is not given to self-pity, but when asked what she looks forward to, Mrs. Khan's eyes turn cloudy. "Nothing," she said. "Now my life is almost over."
This is the face of battle in a new war and a new century — a 46-year-old Pakistani-American woman, part of a rented army of 130,000 civilians supporting 160,000 United States soldiers and marines. Taking the place of enlisted troops in every American army before this one, these contract employees cook meals, wash clothes, deliver fuel and guard bases. And they die and suffer alongside their brothers and sisters in uniform. About 1,000 contractors have been killed in Iraq since the war began; nearly 13,000 have been injured.
The consequences of the war will be lasting for many of them and their families, ordeals that are largely invisible to most Americans. And they will be costly. The most grievously injured, like Mrs. Khan, are initially treated at military hospitals in Iraq and Europe, then sent home and left to the mercies of their employer's insurance carrier. The less critically hurt, and those with psychic wounds, must fend for themselves to get care.
Nobody makes the private workers go to Iraq or forces them to stay, of course; the high salaries some collect lead critics to dismiss them as mercenaries and their employers as profiteers. But many more contractors, like Mrs. Khan, earn relatively modest wages — far less than the $100,000 the Army says an enlisted soldier costs annually in pay, benefits and training — and some foreign workers who perform some of the most dangerous tasks are paid just dollars a day. After a decade of downsizing and outsourcing, the American military cannot wage war without them.
"Everything about this is unprecedented," said Peter W. Singer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who has written about battlefield contractors. "The scope, the numbers, the roles people are performing — this is all new ground."
In addition to escaping her troubles, Mrs. Khan, who became an American citizen in 2001, thought going to Iraq would give her a chance to repay the country that offered her fulfillment she could never have had in Pakistan, a close friend said.
"She is totally trapped now — only her mind and her soul remain her own," the friend, Betty Linder, who was once Mrs. Khan's boss, wrote in an e-mail interview. "Her quest for freedom, literally and symbolically, put her in an eternal prison. The sadness of this could almost symbolize the sadness of the whole Iraq situation."
Shaheen Abdul was born into a middle-class family in Karachi. She excelled at the university there, then followed her sister, Mumtaz, to Houston in 1986 and began working in her dry cleaning shop.
She returned to Karachi seven years later to marry Abdul Waheed Khan, a union arranged by their families. The couple moved to Houston in 1998, when her husband, a welder, got work papers.
She began teaching at Mrs. Linder's preschool, the Linder Learning Land. "Shaheen does not have children of her own and she gives all of her love to those that she teaches," Mrs. Linder wrote.
But as happy as she was at school, things were tense at home. Her husband, then working for Halliburton, was often away on jobs and sporadically unemployed, and the couple's credit card debts and car loans totaled more than $35,000 by 2004, Mrs. Khan said.
KBR, which until this year was a subsidiary of Halliburton, was hiring for all manner of work in Iraq. Mrs. Khan signed up for a laundry job with a base salary of $48,000 a year and the chance to make as much as $80,000 with overtime, much of it tax-free.
She and her husband planned to work a year in Iraq, clear their debts and start anew.
She signed the 13-page employment agreement with KBR on Aug. 12, 2004, without reading it. The contract noted that she would be working in a "potentially hazardous environment" and that her only compensation if she were hurt or killed would be that provided under the Defense Base Act, the law that provides insurance for workers employed at United States military facilities overseas.
Mrs. Khan said she underwent several days of briefings and training in safety procedures by KBR. Heather Browne, a KBR spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message that during training, "most of the time is spent on discouraging recruits from taking the job."
After the contracts were signed, the Khans were told it was company policy not to send spouses to the same war zone, as they had hoped. On Aug. 15, Abdul Khan boarded a plane to work as a welder at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Thirteen days later, Shaheen Khan left for Baghdad.
She was assigned a sandbag-ringed trailer in a KBR residential compound known as D2 inside the Green Zone. At 6 a.m. each day, a van picked up Mrs. Khan and other laundry workers and took them to Camp Warrior at the other end of the Green Zone, where she logged in bags of laundry.
She found the war zone overwhelming. She had to wear a helmet and a flak vest, and she jumped every time she heard a mortar land or a roadside bomb explode. Her husband, with whom she talked every few days by satellite phone, urged her to go home.
On Oct. 3, 2004, she and four other workers were preparing to return to D2 for the night. Anice Holmes, a no-nonsense woman who lives on a small horse farm outside Livingston, Tex., usually took the wheel. She was in Iraq to accumulate some cash after her husband had become disabled. That day, however, Fitim Konjuvca, a young worker from Kosovo, begged to do the driving.
Mrs. Holmes, her sister Kathy Elliott and Mrs. Khan climbed in the back seat. Another KBR laundry worker took the front passenger seat.
Mr. Konjuvca sped off onto a boulevard near the famous crossed-sabers memorial and began climbing past 70 miles per hour, Mrs. Holmes recalled. "My sister began to yell, 'Fitim!' to tell him to slow down, and then we saw the box in the road. I figured he was going to slow down and go around it, and then he was throwing on the brakes and we're rolling over. I thought we were gone."
As the car was tumbling, Mrs. Holmes recalled praying, "Jesus forgive me of my sins." Mrs. Khan said she recited verses from the Koran before blacking out.
Mrs. Khan and Mrs. Holmes were the most seriously hurt. They were treated at an Army field hospital in Baghdad and then flown to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, an Army hospital in Germany, for surgery.
Mrs. Khan's husband, alerted to the accident by KBR officials in Afghanistan, hopped a military plane to be by her side. "I am crying and shouting and weeping and asking what is wrong," Mr. Khan said. "They told me it was her back. I knew right away she would never walk again."
After five days at Landstuhl, Mrs. Khan was flown to Houston, where she endured weeks of surgery and rehabilitation. She ended up in the Willowbrook nursing home, sharing a small room with a dying old woman.
KBR dismissed her, as it does all employees unable to work. Her case was turned over to its insurer, the American International Group.
A.I.G. paid Mrs. Khan's hospital charges and is covering her nursing home costs. The company calculated her disability payments at $208.88 a week, based on her salary as a teacher and the five weeks she worked in Iraq. On the advice of an A.I.G. adjuster, she hired Gary B. Pitts, a Houston lawyer who represents dozens of contractors hurt in Iraq, and sued the insurer for a higher payment, based on her real and anticipated earnings at KBR. A year and a half after her injury, an administrative law judge awarded her $30,500 a year until she is deemed fit to return to work. Mrs. Khan says she is in too much pain to work now.
She has also disputed her medical benefits with A.I.G. The company rejected a claim for treatment of an infected foot, finally relenting after months of wrangling. But the company has refused to pay for in-home care so she can leave the nursing home. An A.I.G. official, Chris Winans, said he could not comment on Mrs. Khan's case for privacy reasons.
Some Americans shrug about the casualties among contractors, saying they made their money and they took their chances. Others, though, think the nation owes them something more.
"We should honor their sacrifices and those of their families," said Frank Camm, a Rand Corporation economist who has studied contracting and is the son of a retired Army lieutenant general. "They're not in uniform, and there is something special about being in uniform. But they deserve a hell of a lot more than we're giving them."
Shaheen Khan does not dwell on such questions, or if she does, she does not talk about it. She regrets her decision to go to Iraq, the product, she now believes, of desperation and self-delusion.
"I made a big mistake going over there," she said. "I fooled myself."


text:
Therapy? Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland, 5th April 1994Posted by Fat Reg
Excellent FM radio broadcast. the band were touring their 'Troublegum' album at the time. 'Isolation' is a Joy Division cover.
01 Stop it, You're Killing Me
02 Trigger Inside
03 Die laughing
04 Femtex
05 Turn
06 Unbeliever
07 Isolation
08 Knives
09 Screamager
10 Nowhere
Source: FM radio broadcast
Quality: Excellent
Encoding: 192kbps mp3
File size: 42Mb
Download here (NEW LINK)


text:
Obama: 'Cloud of crisis' threatens economic growth
- Obama warned Washington could hurt economy
- The president was interviewed on CBS before the Super Bowl
- He urged the Boy Scouts to drop its ban on gays
President Obama said Sunday the economy is poised for growth, but not if Washington "dysfunction" gets in the way.
"Washington cannot continually operate under a cloud of crisis," Obama told CBS News in his annual Super Bowl Sunday interview. He urged Congress to avoid an upcoming series of automatic spending cuts.
Obama, who has granted a pre-game Super Bowl interview every year of his presidency, also urged the Boy Scouts of America to drop its ban on gays, expressed concern about the safety of football, and said he would not hesitate to order women into combat.
In a discussion of the economy, Obama said that he is not interested in further raising income tax rates to reduce the federal debt, but that more tax revenue from the wealthy is needed in the form of closing loopholes and deductions; the president also said that he wants to reduce red ink through "smart" cuts in the budget and more efficient administration of existing programs.
The president spoke just days after news that the economy shrunk slightly in the fourth quarter of 2012, a development Obama attributed to a sharp drop in defense spending brought on by uncertainty over the "fiscal cliff" and other political disputes.
The White House and Congress forestalled the fiscal cliff -- a series of automatic tax hikes and budget cuts -- with a New Year's Day agreement that raised income tax rates on households that make more than $450,000 per year. The deal also deferred automatic spending cuts for two months, to the start of March.
In his CBS interview in the Blue Room at the White House, Obama urged Congress to avoid those automatic spending cuts -- the sequester -- by coming up with a new debt-reduction plan.
As for his own plan, Obama said the issue now is not tax rates, but eliminating loopholes and deductions that favor only special interests. "There is no doubt we need additional revenue, coupled with smart spending reductions, in order to bring down our deficit," Obama said.
If the economy is to pick up, Obama said, "we can't have Washington dysfunction get in the way."
On other issues, Obama said:
-- He hopes the Boy Scouts of America follow through on a proposal to lift a ban on gays. The president says gays and lesbians "should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does."
-- He has no qualms about ordering women into combat, pursuant to a recent Pentagon directive, because they are already in combat "as a practical matter." Women "have carried out their jobs with extraordinary patriotism and distinction," Obama said.
- He loves football, but organizers at all levels need to do what is necessary to make the game safer. While professional football players are adults who have union protection, Obama said he is more concerned with safety in youth, high school and college football leagues. "I want to make sure we're doing everything we can to make the sport safe," Obama said.
If he had a son, Obama said he'd "have to think" about whether to allow him to play football.
The president was not asked -- and did not offer -- a prediction on the Sunday evening game between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers. "I've got some wings waiting for me upstairs," he said.


text:
I couldn't stand it. I was sitting through the lightning delay during Sunday Night Football and so many people were tweeting and salivating over Breaking Bad that I began to feel sick to my stomach over never having watched it. Jesus could have appeared in the flesh and it wouldn't have generated such an enthusiastic response from the masses. Sure, He's the son of God, BUT HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE WHAT WALT DID THIS TIME I'LL NEVER GET OVER IT! The fervor is so strong that TV critic Alan Sepinwall had his appendix removed on Sunday and still felt obligated to watch the show AND write a recap that night. People want desperately to believe they are watching something momentous—that they didn't waste their time on anything less than the greatest show ever devised. And so they're willing to go to extreme measures to be part of that phenomenon.
This isn't like the lovefest over The Wire, a show that struggled in the ratings and was discovered by the majority of its fanbase after its initial run had ended. The Breaking Bad lunacy is unfolding in real time. One day, Netflix will take over everything and viewing habits will become so staggered that people won't be able to live-tweet quality TV en masse. But for now, shows like this still air at set times, allowing fans to obsess over it simultaneously and make the rest of us feel like fucking losers.
It's not like I didn't WANT to start watching Breaking Bad. But sometimes, you just fall behind on certain things because life gets in the way and you can't find an open window to catch up. I have to deal with kids and a wife who hates violent television and work and all that nonsense. I barely managed to get away with doing all of The Wire (it took a full year), and I did so years after most other people did (IT'S GREAT AND YOU SHOULD WATCH IT AND I TELL YOU THIS BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOU!). I knew Breaking Bad was a brilliant show. I knew I would love it. But I had fallen so far behind that I had no prayer of catching up in time for the end. And yet, it's clear now that we all MUST be there for the end.
We live in a completist TV culture now. For Hall of Fame shows like Breaking Bad, you are expected to watch all of it, in order. And you really should avoid spoilers (impossible) to make the viewing experience optimal. No skipping episodes. No jumping in midstream. Shows that can be watched in a more casual way are inferior and pointless. Either you watch all 62 episodes, or you watch nothing. This wasn't the case IN MY DAY*. In my day, if you missed the beginning of a show, you just hopped aboard whenever you could and figured it out. And you didn't feel like an ass about it.
*Copyright 2013 Mitch Albom
Well, I couldn't sit back and let these TV-watching GLORY BOYS celebrate the end of this show without me. The idea of waiting years to experience the emotional payoff of Breaking Bad, and the prospect of spending all my time on the Internet vigilantly avoiding spoilers, was too much to take. So I committed the ultimate modern TV viewing sin: I watched a recording of last Sunday's episode of Breaking Bad (entitled "Ozymandias"; sounds like it'll end well!) cold, without having seen any of the previous episodes or seasons, save a 10-minute snippet here and there. I also watched the one episode over two nights, just to do it REALLY wrong. IMDB rated this the single greatest episode of TV ever, just to make you feel extra terrible for missing it. Well, screw you people, I'm bandwagoning onto that shit, Lakers-fan style.
After all, how hard could it be to figure it out? I knew the gist of it: cancer-stricken chemistry teacher decides to start homebrewing meth, and then HILARITY ENSUES. Besides, they're nice enough to give you the whole "Previously on..." montage. I bet anyone with half a brain could figure out what's going on. Here now are the results of my bandwagoning experiment (WARNING: THERE ARE MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW THAT YOU WILL TRY TO AVOID BUT THEN LOOK AT BECAUSE YOU KINDA CAN'T HELP YOURSELF AND THEN YOU'LL BE SUPER PISSED THAT ANY SPOILERS WERE POSTED AT ALL)...
- These are not happy people!
- Whether by accident or design, creator Vince Gilligan and his writing staff were shockingly accommodating in this episode to anyone who's just tuning in now. Right off the bat, there's a flashback to happier times, just Walt and Jesse in the trailer, cookin' up methshine back in the good ol' days! MEMORIES.
- I also know right away that Hank is Walt's brother-in-law. Or was. Walt seems really broken up about the whole "neo-Nazi shooting Hank to death" thing, which is odd because if he REALLY liked his brother-in-law, he probably wouldn't have put him in a spot where a neo-Nazi could shoot him to death. No one is ever really THAT close to their brother-in-law. He's just grieving to be nice.
- But I'm glad I tuned in just in time to see Hank die. This shit is getting good!
- Kudos to Walt for recovering from his grief quickly enough to smoke out his meth-making colleague Jesse and then tell him that he let his wife (or girlfriend? Sounded like someone Jesse liked either way!) overdose and die. He really got his game face back on quickly. You gotta have a short memory in the meth game.
- It was super nice of the neo-Nazi to let Walt keep a barrel full of cash. Despite all the murdering and racism, neo-Nazis believe in fairness above all.
- I'd like someone to fill an oil drum with cash and weigh it for me so that I can figure out if it's realistic for a dude to be able to roll said oil drum for what appears to be miles through a sun-baked desert. What if you hit a rock? What if you hit many of them? Sounds like SOMEONE didn't close a crucial plot hole! F-minus for you!
- I was also able to quickly figure out that the blond lady and brunette lady are sisters. Sassy sisters who just won't stop bickering with one another about who's husband is a drug lord and who's gotta tell whose kids all the horrible shit they've done. WOMEN, AMIRITE?!
- Whether or not you agree that this was the greatest episode of TV ever filmed, this episode most certainly broke the record for "most characters who make the Greek weeping face". You know the one: it's the frowny theater mask, the one on the cover of Motley Crue's Theatre of Pain. Walt, Jesse, the wife, the sister, the son, and the baby all make that MY GOD LIFE'S CRUELTY KNOWS NO BOUNDS face. Jeez, you people are downers.
- There's no delicate way to put this, but... Walt's son is challenged, right? That's his deal? I assume Walt did that to him somehow by slipping meth into his lunch or something.
- Skyler has to choose between picking up a phone or a knife when Walt comes home. I was rooting for the knife, and I got it. Good choice, girl!
- Nothing beats a good husband-wife knife fight. This was one of those knife fights where both combatants are struggling for the weapon and you fully expect one person to go OOOOH! and then slump to the floor, and then they reveal the knife accidentally plunged in someone's breastplate. Classic knife fight trope. But both Walt and Skyler survive. I thought the son might get stabbed in the melee somehow, but he lived. Kinda disappointing.
- Holy shit, Walt stole the baby! What a cock! Like any good drug lord, Walt knows that having a baby means you have LEVERAGE. I also liked that Walt changed the baby's diaper on the road and made sure to find a secure car seat for her. Because when you're traveling in a broken-down pickup with a kidnapped, blood-stained baby riding in the front seat, SAFETY MATTERS, you know? Glad he's got his priorities in order.
- Did they have to show the baby crying MAMA? Christ. Nothing but bad things happen on this show! THERE'S NOTHING IN THE SHOW'S TITLE THAT INDICATES BAD THINGS WILL OCCUR!
- Walt calls his wife to ream her out and say hateful, awful things to her. I thought he was gonna kill the baby over the phone and have her listen, because that's a real power move.
- But then he returns the baby! It's true: Babies do tend to lose their charm the longer you have them around.
- I was doing an abroad program in Mexico one time and for class, our teacher made us watch this Mexican movie where the police break into an apartment building, kill lots of innocent people, and then leave. That was the entire story. Just the saddest, most horrible shit you could imagine. This was basically that. So that's fun!
Anyway, I watched "Ozymandias" and found myself instantly riveted, and then utterly horrified. It was as intense as any piece of TV I've ever seen, even though I'm sure a few storylines were lost on me. By the end, I was a withered soul. Like any devotee of the show, I could barely sleep thinking about it. It completely fucked with my head, which I suppose was the point. And now I'm caught up! I'm hip! Hooray! I regret nothing.
Is this the optimal way to experience a historic TV series? Of course not. But if you're pressed for time and you just want your cultural constipation relieved, it's nice to know that you DO have the option. It's a sin in this country to not wring maximum pleasure out of everything you do, but in this case I think I'll be okay with it, especially given that stolen babies were involved. Can't wait to jump into Homeland now! I'm told mental illness is featured. Sounds juicy!
(Seriously though, watch The Wire from the beginning or else you're a terrible person.)
Image by Sam Woolley


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Two cute school friends try their first threesome
Cute Teen and MILF Share Cock and Cumswap
Huge tits cheerleader masturbates at home until stepdad joins her
Hot stepsister is tied up and fucked with double dildos, double fingering and Cum in Mouth final - Victoria Kai
Cute teen Angel ends her fuck session with a facial
Cute teen Riley Reid takes huge cock
Gamer Girl Spread Out, Throated, Ass Fucked in Rough Casting
My wife's secretary got revenge on the boss by fucking me!
Young Milf is fucking in a hotel room. Private cam action. Victoria Kai


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Before Twitter, if a celebrity made an off-the-cuff remark during personal hours, maybe the public would hear about it, maybe we wouldn't. But when stars use Twitter, millions of thoughts — mundane, benign, distasteful, offensive — spread like wildfire. Celebrities like Chris Brown, Alec Baldwin, Ashton Kutcher and Courtney Love have all seen their own tweets become gossip headlines.
As the New York Times reports, for the famous, Twitter is a "public gaffe waiting to happen."
But for actors and actresses in the porn industry, Twitter has become an important tool that's changing the nature of what it means to be a porn star, according to CNN.
Chauntelle Tibbals, a visiting scholar at University of Southern California who studies the porn industry, tells CNN's Jim Spellman: "Before [porn] was about pure fantasy: you didn't have enough information to be real fans of performers… But now you can become a true fan of a porn star."
James Deen has over 63,000 followers on Twitter, and, as Spellman points out, his profile photo is not an explicit nude. Deen says: "I like to keep my Twitter very personal and used as a random outlet for my feelings… I see no reason to be involved except to be myself." He adds: "People look at me and they say, 'He's not a porn star, he's just a nice guy."
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Twitter allows men and women in porn to promote themselves, but also to remind audiences that they are not just sexual objects, insatiable fuck machines, but humans, with hobbies and interests and quirks. Stormy Danielshas posted pictures of her daughter on Twitter. Kayden Kross tweets about David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, and her horses. Dana DeArmond (a porn actress who also occasionally does stand-up comedy) posts explicit nude photos of herself in addition to pictures of her shoes, her outfits, and her cat. "People like to laugh and they like to know that people who are sex workers can also be smart and funny," she tells CNN.
"It's something I've used in my branding. It's like 'OK, if you don't have a real girlfriend you can pretend I'm your girlfriend on the Internet and I won't treat you like a customer.' That's how I brand myself."
Mainstream celebs have so many avenues to reach the world: Movies, TV, magazine covers, print ads, commercials, radio. In some cases, if you've seen a dozen interviews and read a dozen gossip items about a celebrity, their Twitter feed can feel like self-indulgent, egocentric overexposure, the worst kind of TMI. Enough of you already. But we don't often have the same familiarity with people in porn; an aura of mystery surrounds the performers. Sure, you know what their genitalia looks like. But you might not know their real names, what they look like smiling instead of coming, what they do after work. Following a porn on Twitter after watching him or her have sex extends the connection. It's a bonus, an additional sexy thrill. (Believe me, I speak from experience.) And ultimately, since watching porn makes you want to reach out and touch the performers, Twitter is the perfect accompanying medium: You get to interact with a porn star. And both the performer and the audience benefit, says James Deen:
"The way the world is going, you have to be able to communicate with your market, know about your demographic, know what people are clicking on and then communicate back to them."
Celebrities Leave a Void in Twitter [NY Times]


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Grades K-12
How can we affect hunger in our community?
Grade K-2
How can we take care of the environment and inspire others to help us?
Grade K
How can we teach people about the weather in our community?
Grades K-PreK
How can we make art inspired by the shapes around us and share it with others?


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Alien Skin Software Announces Exposure 5
Visual preset browser makes previewing effects faster and easier - Dark user interface lets photographers concentrate on their photos - Program offers greater creative texture control
Apr 24, 2013, 08:00 ET
RALEIGH, N.C., April 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Alien Skin Software today announced Exposure® 5, the new version of its flagship photography effects software. Exposure 5 enables digital photographers to achieve accurate film simulation, using a wide range of creative effects in a simple interface. Significantly, Exposure 5 can be used as a plug-in with popular host software or as a stand-alone program for even greater flexibility.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130424/NY00482 )
Exposure 5 brings all the creative tools of traditional film photography to the world of digital, such as the look of discontinued films, darkroom tricks, and trendy lo-fi camera quirks. Popular classic films like Kodachrome, Polaroid and even Panatomic-X are accurately simulated. Hundreds of preset effects can be applied with a single mouse-click, helping photographers achieve their desired look quickly. Exposure 5 includes both Color and black-and-white processing so there's no need to switch between tools.
"With Exposure 5, a photographer's vision is the only element separating an ordinary image from an extraordinary one. Creative control and increased productivity were essential design objectives," said Terence Tay, designer of the new Exposure 5 software. "It's now much easier and faster for photographers of all levels to find the right look for their photographs."
The entire user interface has been redesigned with productivity in mind. A darker theme reduces distractions around the photo and matches other popular tools. The preset and editing panels can be hidden, to further remove distractions and allow more room for the photograph. The new visual preset browser shows how each preset will look when applied to an image. Users can see many presets at once, for quick exploration. In addition, favorites and recently used presets are just a click away.
Significantly, Exposure 5 includes many new textures for a greater variety of vintage and Lo-Fi looks. There are now separate controls for adding borders, dust & scratches, and light leaks. A new randomize option allows a user to easily explore multiple variations on a particular look.
Exposure 5 integrates with the popular tools many photographers use in their professional workflow: Adobe® Photoshop®, Lightroom®, and now Apple® Aperture®. Now Exposure 5 can also be launched as a standalone application. That is especially useful for fast batch-processing or as part of a workflow that includes tools that do not support plug-ins.
To help users get started and for advanced techniques, the Alien Skin website has a library of tutorial videos and example images.
Pricing and Availability
Exposure 5 will be available in June 2013 through www.alienskin.com for $199 USD. Owners of any version of Exposure may upgrade for $99 USD. Free upgrades will be automatically sent to everyone who purchased Exposure 4 directly from Alien Skin Software in March 2013 or later.
Host Requirements
Exposure 5 may be used as a standalone program or a plug-in. When it is used as a plug-in it requires one of the following host applications:
- Adobe Photoshop CS5 or later
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 or later
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 or later
- Apple Aperture 3 or later
System Requirements
Microsoft Windows users need Windows 7 or later.
Apple Macintosh users need Mac OS X 10.7 or later.
An Intel Core 2 processor or compatible is required.
A monitor with 1280x768 resolution or greater is required.
About Alien Skin Software
Alien Skin Software makes Photoshop and other plug-ins for photographers and graphic designers. The company distills advanced math and cutting edge research into simple tools that render beautiful pictures. Alien Skin software's reputation for bug-free software and friendly tech support has grown worldwide since its founding in 1993. For more information, visit the Alien Skin website at www.alienskin.com.
Exposure, Alien Skin Software, and the Alien Skin Software logo are registered trademarks of Alien Skin Software, LLC. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
SOURCE Alien Skin Software


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Midway Now Facing February Bankruptcy
After majority shareholder Sumner Redstone sold 87% of the Mortal Kombat publisher for $100K, investors were able to demand repayment due to the change in control.
All together, Midway faces $240 million in debt, though it is primarily concerned with $150 million of that, which is owned in $75 million increments to two groups of holders. As of December, the company did not believe it could immediately pay the $150 million. Midway originally had until 2025 to repay one group, and 2026 for the other.
Previously, the investors had until mid-January to decide if they wanted their money back. Now, Midway has convinced one group to hold off until February 19, and is attempting to persuade the other group of holders to give it just a little more time.
Midway's remaining $90 million debt is owed to Redstone's theater business National Amusements. Oddly, that debt was not mentioned in Midway's update, perhaps implying that National Amusements may not demand immediate repayment.
Or a need for speed with no cops. Or better yet a need for speed with a speed limit!
On a slightly related note, I just finished NFS: Undercover... Good game. I dunno why it didn't get better criticial acclaim. It felt alot like Most Wanted but with an updated engine. But it didn't look much better than Most Wanted.


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How To
Ransomware on the rise: Norton tips on how to prevent getting infected
Authored by a NortonLifeLock employee
"This operating system has been locked for security reasons."
Many online users are still being confronted with similar messages to the above thanks to a type of malware called ransomware. The scam works by using malware to disable the victims' computers until they pay a ransom to restore access. Cybercriminals often use social engineering tricks, such as displaying phony messages purporting to be from local law enforcement, to convince victims to pay up. Messages often include warnings such as, "You have browsed illicit material and must pay a fine."
"This operating system has been locked for security reasons."
Many online users are still being confronted with similar messages to the above thanks to a type of malware called ransomware. The scam works by using malware to disable the victims' computers until they pay a ransom to restore access. Cybercriminals often use social engineering tricks, such as displaying phony messages purporting to be from local law enforcement, to convince victims to pay up. Messages often include warnings such as, "You have browsed illicit material and must pay a fine."
A rise in ransomware
Norton by NortonLifeLock has witnessed an increase in the amount of professional cyber gangs using ransomware in recent years. This fraudulent activity is designed to take over your computer and blackmail you for cash, and has developed in the following ways:
- After first emerging in Russia and Eastern Europe in 2009, ransomware spread to Western Europe, the U.S. and many other countries, causing high infection rates and a great deal of frustration for consumers.
- Professional cybergangs use intelligent malware which, once on your computer, identifies which country you live in (via your IP address) and presents the message in the local language with a logo of a local public authority.
- The ransomware completely disables the device and is designed so that it seems that the only way to restore functionality is to pay the fine. This raises the chance of the consumer being tricked to pay the ransom.
Different variants of malware are being developed, and within those variants criminals vary the code slightly to help the malware get past security software.
Additional facts:
- Ransomware is predominantly found on suspicious websites, and arrives either via a "drive-by download", stealth download or through a user clicking on an infected advert. Some distribution via email has also been seen.
- Messages are evolving over time. Cybercriminals use different hooks to defraud innocent users (social engineering). Early variants used a locked screen containing pornographic images to shame users into paying the fine, and are now using law enforcement logos.
- Techniques have become more and more sophisticated, with code built into ransomware programs to tailor messages to the right language and local law enforcement logo.
- Even if a person does pay the ransom, the cybercriminals often do not restore functionality. The only reliable way to restore functionality is to remove the malware.
Tips on how to prevent infections by ransomware:
- Have up-to-date security software installed. Remember with thousands of new malware variants running every day, having a set of old virus definitions is almost as bad as having no protection.
- Make sure all the software on your system is up-to-date. This includes the operating system, the browser and all of the plug-ins that a modern browser typically uses. One of the most common infection vectors is a malicious exploit that leverage a software vulnerability. Keeping software up-to-date helps minimize the likelihood that your system has an exposed vulnerability on it.
- Make sure you are leveraging the full set of protection features delivered in your security product. Norton products offer the layers of protection you want.
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Try for 30 days before you buy with Norton Security Deluxe – helps protect up to 5 of your devices for one low price.
NortonLifeLock Corporation, the world's leading cyber security company, allows organizations, governments, and people to secure their most important data wherever it lives. More than 50 million people and families rely on NortonLifeLock's Norton and LifeLock comprehensive digital safety platform to help protect their personal information, devices, home networks, and identities.
Copyright © 2023 NortonLifeLock Inc. All rights reserved. NortonLifeLock, the NortonLifeLock Logo, the Checkmark Logo, Norton, LifeLock, and the LockMan Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of NortonLifeLock Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Firefox is a trademark of Mozilla Foundation. Android, Google Chrome, Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google, LLC. Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Alexa and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Microsoft and the Window logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. The Android robot is reproduced or modified from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.


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About halfway through Moonrise Kingdom, the delightful new Wes Anderson film that opened this year's Cannes Film Festival, 12-year-old Suzy tells her boyfriend, Sam, with whom she's run away from home, that she envies him for being an orphan. After all, the protagonists of her favorite novels—several of which she's lugged along on this adventure, still in the crinkly protective sleeves that immediately identify them as library books—usually have no proper mother or father. Self-sufficiency seems terribly romantic to Suzy. Sam's magnificent reply, kicking off with three words she's hearing from him for the very first time: "I love you, but you have no idea what you're talking about."
That's pretty much how I feel about Cannes itself. Ten years after my first visit, it remains the maddening highlight of my movie year, serving up 20 or so of the year's most hotly anticipated world-cinema events in its Competition section alone. (There are multiple sidebar sections, plus not one but two technically-separate-but-conveniently-concurrent fests: Directors' Fortnight and International Critics' Week.) Every day brings at least one potential masterpiece. But since actual masterpieces tend to be thin on the ground, there's a sense in which attending Cannes can feel like having Lucy pull the football away just as you attempt the kick, over and over again. Very #firstworldproblems, to be sure, but I don't fully trust any critic who claims their relationship with the festival isn't slightly dysfunctional.
Right now, of course, I'm still very much in the drooling stage. This year's lineup looks sensational on paper, with something for everyone: hardcore art films from international auteurs like Carlos Reygadas (whose Silent Light was my favorite film here five years ago) and Léos Carax (bringing his first feature since 2000's POLA X); star-studded American genre fare like Killing Them Softly (with Brad Pitt) and The Paperboy (featuring Matthew McConaughey and Nicole Kidman); fascinating change-of-pace efforts by old favorites (Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love has a Japanese cast, while In Another Country, the latest from South Korea's Hong Sang-soo, stars Isabelle Huppert); and much more. David Cronenberg is here with his adaptation of Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis, but I'm arguably even more curious about Antiviral, a film in the Un Certain Regard section written and directed by his son Brandon. Room 237, the conspiracy-theory doc about Kubrick's The Shining that I missed at Sundance, plays in the Fortnight. (I won't miss it again.) There are just so many opportunities to be disappointed!
That the festival has kicked off with a winner only prolongs the agony. Moonrise Kingdomopens in the U.S. next week, so I don't want to steal too much thunder from the A.V. Club's forthcoming official review, but it's hard to imagine any consistent fan of Anderson's work not surrendering to its trademark amalgam of precision and melancholy. Like Rushmore, it earns its pathos by juxtaposing youthful idealism with adult resignation, albeit this time in entirely separate narrative strands: while runaways Sam and Suzy (whose names I dearly hope were inspired by the schmaltz-classic "Muskrat Love") bond in the great outdoors over their shared sense of alienation, the grown-ups trying to find them—including Suzy's unhappy parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray), a lonely sheriff (Bruce Willis), and a scout master experiencing an existential identity crisis (Edward Norton)—serve as vivid counterpoint reminders of why the first pangs of love stay with us for the rest of our lives.
Thing is, though, that description, while accurate, ignores how deadpan-hilarious Moonrise Kingdom often is, especially during its dizzyingly inventive first half. Anderson packs every frame with sight gags, many of which you can barely glimpse as his camera elegantly glides to its next designated position; actors toss off razor-sharp dialogue as if blithely unaware that they're saying something funny, which is exactly how one-liners should be delivered but so seldom are. A flashback to Sam and Suzy's epistolary courtship, featuring snippets of each hand-printed letter (almost invariably cut off mid-sentence), establishes their ardor with giddy economy, freeing the two young actors playing them to inhabit that weirdly amorphous zone between friendship and desire in which pre-adolescent romance inevitably gets stuck. I especially loved Kara Hayward as Suzy, not so much for her performance (though she's totally solid) as for her wonderfully severe look, so at odds with the wholesomeness projected by most teen actresses (Ellen Page, Chloë Grace Moretz, the Fannings) even when they play against it. If you hate Wes Anderson, this movie won't change your mind, but believers should be enchanted. Grade: B+
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Alas, that blissful high was short-lived. I poked my head into Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, then fled the theater when it became clear that it's just a feature-length DVD supplement in which Polanski fields softball questions from one of his closest friends (while still under house arrest in Switzerland). And the other Competition title screened for the press, After the Battle, immediately became the odds-on favorite to win absolutely nothing… though you never know with juries here. (This year's is headed by Nanni Moretti and includes Ewan McGregor, Emmanuelle Devos, Alexander Payne and—for some reason—Jean-Paul Gaultier.) Directed by Egypt's Yousry Nasrallah, it's admirably up-to-the-minute, tackling the fallout of the Arab Spring by dramatizing events as recent as last October's "Black Sunday" demonstration; it's also politically astute, noting the way in which confused young men who were manipulated by Mubarak into attacking protestors wound up becoming convenient scapegoats. But Nasrallah's hackneyed sense of dramaturgy and non-existent camera sense haven't changed since I endured his El Medina (The City) over a decade ago. Despite its topical urgency, After the Battle plays like a daytime soap, with characters taking turns shouting on-the-nose dialogue at each other; for the handful of you who saw Margaret (coming to DVD and Blu-ray in July!), it's as if the classroom debates were expanded into a two-hour movie. Even the wordless final shot is risible, using one of the pyramids as a blunt visual metaphor for how much further Egypt still has to go. Cannes, I love you, but if you think this is one of the year's most important films, you have no idea what you're talking about. Grade: C
Tomorrow: Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard plays a double amputee in Jacques Audiard's already misunderstood Rust and Bone (saw it this morning—you can follow me on Twitter for immediate reactions and my rating on the needlessly precise 100-point scale), plus the latest from Michel Gondry and Austrian doomsayer Ulrich Seidl (Import Export).


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I present, for your moral edification, and to contribute to the breadth of your learning, the words to the French national anthem.
Make of them what you will.
La Marseillaise
Let's go children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!
– – – – – – – – – –
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This horde of slaves, traitors, plotting kings,
What do they want?
For whom these vile shackles,
These long-prepared irons? (repeat)
Frenchmen, for us, oh! what an insult!
What emotions that must excite!
It is us that they dare to consider
Returning to ancient slavery!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What! These foreign troops
Would make laws in our home!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would bring down our proud warriors! (repeat)
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brows would bend beneath the yoke!
Vile despots would become
The masters of our fate!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Tremble, tyrants! and you, traitors,
The disgrace of all groups,
Tremble! Your parricidal plans
Will finally pay the price! (repeat)
Everyone is a soldier to fight you,
If they fall, our young heros,
France will make more,
Ready to battle you!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,
Bear or hold back your blows!
Spare these sad victims,
Regretfully arming against us. (repeat)
But not these bloodthirsty despots,
But not these accomplices of Bouillé,
All of these animals who, without pity,
Tear their mother's breast to pieces!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sacred love of France,
Lead, support our avenging arms!
Liberty, beloved Liberty,
Fight with your defenders! (repeat)
Under our flags, let victory
Hasten to your manly tones!
May your dying enemies
See your triumph and our glory!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We will enter the pit
When our elders are no longer there;
There, we will find their dust
And the traces of their virtues. (repeat)
Much less eager to outlive them
Than to share their casket,
We will have the sublime pride
Of avenging them or following them!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Hat tip: Commenter eatyourbeans.


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State Map for
Coaches & Scouts
Looking to move? Some states have more opportunities for this type of work than others.
Orange states have an above average share of this career in their workforce.
Blue states have a below average share of this career in their workforce.
For detailed state-by-state info, see employment and wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
National Outlook
Nationwide, new job opportunities for coaches and scouts are very likely in the future.


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I've come across some good gluten-free products lately and wanted to share some of them.
— I've tried a bunch of different gluten-free snack bars and it's hard to find the elusive bar that is crunchy, but not hard; sweet but not sugary; soft but not crumbly. KIND has mastered that mix with bars full of nuts, fruit and not too much else. I like the texture — you can taste the various ingredients, instead of them being blended together.
My favorite KIND bar is the Dark Chocolate Cherry Cashew bar. I'm a chocoholic, so I love the combination of dark chocolate and moist cherries. It tastes like candy, but it's healthier than a Snickers bar, so I feel justified in having one for a snack.
The kind folks at KIND sent me some bars to review a couple of months ago, but I haven't managed to get the post up till now. In their "Nuts and Spices" line, two new bars (well "new" as of a couple months ago – sorry about that) have an intriguing salty, spicy, sweet mix, with nothing artificial and 5g of sugar or less per bar (qualifying them as low-glycemic).
In the Dark Chocolate Chili Almond bar, the dark chocolate provides a balance to the nuts, while the cascabel, ancho and habanero chilies provide a slightly spicy kick that lingers but is not too overwhelming. The Maple Glazed Pecan & Sea Salt bar contains almonds, peanuts and pecans. The overall taste is of salted peanuts with a touch of maple syrup. Expect some new bars from KIND in the near future.
— Trader Joe's has some new gluten-free treats. I've read some raves about the gluten-free Joe-Joe's, a gluten-free version of an Oreo cookie. While I do like the Joe-Joe's (especially their low price and easy availability at Trader Joe's), my favorite gluten-free Oreo-type cookie is still KinniKinnick's KinniToos chocolate vanilla sandwich cookies.
My favorite new product at Trader Joe's are the Gluten-Free Crispy Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies. These crisp cookies have a delicate, buttery homemade taste, like you pulled them out of your oven earlier that day. They are a knock-off of Tate's Bake Shop Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies, which also taste homemade but are much harder to find, at least in my neck of the woods.
Also, I love Italian lemon knot cookies, so I was excited to see Trader Joe's Gluten-Free Iced Lemon Rounds. These are soft, slightly lemony cookies with a drizzle of icing and no grainy taste.
— Recently, I was walking on Taylor Street in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood and stopped at Conte Di Savoia, an Italian deli/grocery. I was excited to discover Leo's Gluten-Free frozen ravioli, gnocchi, fettuccine and other gluten-free pasta. I was particularly excited about the gluten-free ravioli, because it's hard to find. The butternut squash ravioli was fantastic, with a tender pasta pillow and tasty butternut squash filling. The ravioli also comes in four-cheese, spinach and cheese, and Portobello varieties. Their gluten-free stuffed gnocchi is filled with asiago cheese, spinach and cheese, or Portobello mushroom fillings. The folks at Leo's Gluten Free spent two years perfecting their gluten-free pasta and just started selling it to stores and restaurants in April. The pasta is made in their dedicated gluten-free facility in Franklin Park, Ill.


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Ross, Robert
Ross, Robert, 1766–1814, British general. He served against the French in the Netherlands, in Egypt, and in the Peninsular War. In the War of 1812 he defeated a U.S. force at Bladensburg, and on the same day (Aug. 24, 1814) he surprised and captured Washington, burning all the public buildings. Spurred by victory, Ross decided to attempt the capture of Baltimore. On Sept. 12, in a thick wood near North Point, his army encountered the American militia. A skirmish ensued, and Ross was killed.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: British and Irish History: Biographies


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There are few fighters for Indie Film as ferocious as Orly Ravid. In addition to co-founding the only non-profit film distributor, The Film Collaborative, she speaks up and out about the state of things. Today she looks at a recent panel on "15 Years Of Film Distribution" and addresses a lot of what went unsaid.
On July 16, 2011 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center on indieWIRE Editor in Chief Dana Harris moderated a discussion about the past 15 years of film distribution with (left to right): Richard Abramowitz, Amy Heller, Bingham Ray, Bob Berney, Ira Deutchman, Mark Urman, Arianna Bocco and Jeanne Berney. It can be found here. The Sundance distribution announcement was made last week.
So glad to know, as Mark Urman noted, that even big A-list cast films have a hard time getting listed properly on Cable VOD in terms of cast. We know that Sundance indie Adventures of Power also was not always listed properly in terms of noting its full cast (namely Jane Lynch & Adrien Grenier who both have massive fan bases were sometimes left off the film's VOD description). What will it take the MSOs to get it together? Please let's not all name or rename our films with numbers or start with the letters A,B,C,D, or E. If Comcast can insert ads into programming surely they and all the other dozens of MSOs (Multi System Operators) can find a way to help attract an audience for films on their system by categorizing them and filling in complete descriptions even on mammoth platforms.
The glut of content was discussed and the marketing challenges all distributors of cinema face. We all know it's cheaper to make films now, there are more of them, they don't die or go away, they just multiply annually and even some of the panelists spoke to younger generations not even committed to being filmmakers, but just making films because they can and it's made to seem so cool. Indeed. And what I want someone to say, well ok I will just say it, is when the real numbers behind film distribution are revealed across the board perhaps we'll see a trim in supply. The best, most creative and most committed will survive and thrive. Investors will be choosier because they'll have all of the REAL information they need to make educated decisions. As for how to clear through the clutter, well, that goes back to the basics of know-your-audience, down to the "T" and don't pretend it's everyone. I look forward to even more lifestyle and interest oriented programming and content servicing and all the more reason for filmmakers to cultivate audiences directly, where there is no room for glut or confusion.
They joked about no one knowing VOD numbers, except for Arianna of IFC of course and Mark sometimes when his VOD client (Tribeca Films I presume) fills him in. Well, we have some from our forthcoming case study book Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul and I want to challenge ALL FILMMAKERS to share your numbers and stop the madness of mystery! And I agree, it's time that these numbers start getting tracked and reported in a more automated fashion as theatrical box office and DVD sales are now. Still those number only show gross, and not the spend needed to achieve those numbers.
Melanie of Milestone noted younger people have different habits in terms of what they want to view and how they view. So maybe we need younger folks running distribution companies now. TFC is hiring.
Arianna of IFC notes that piracy is a huge issue and that young people do not want to pay for content. So we can either be disturbed by that, or we can work with that knowledge and release in a way that will maximize revenues, instead of forcing audience into outdated window methods. One film we recently observed tried to monetize its distribution via sponsorship, but waited way too long to get started, tried to do so without a distribution plan in place, is having its theatrical launch 6 months after its festival premiere and cannot seem to make a decision on the rest of its distribution whilst it awaits fat-enough-offers that are not coming. That sort of paradigm is a set up for failure and leaves the film open to piracy when a clear plan from the start and an immediate release after festival premiere could have led to quicker monetization (sponsored, DIY and/or via a donation campaign on VODO). We caution against proceeding with filmmaking when there is no viable plan in place.
A question via TWITTER that came in was: Where do you want to be 15 years from now? Richard Abramowitz is amazed he's still in the biz now… and that's honest in that it speaks to deep concerns about the changes in the business and the truth is, the more transparent service providers are about their numbers, the more likely they will survive. Those less transparent are not likely to sustain themselves. What I object to is the mythology in this industry and the mask of success that hides the real story of spending more than you made back because there are too many expensive services or middlemen. Who can tell me about their PROFIT? Not just for themselves, but for the filmmakers and investors they represent? Who will publicly admit the numbers on how much was spent for each service even on services they did not really need if they were better educated, and each middleman and what that yielded? When people do not, it's largely because they want to get the next project funded and, to me, this is no better than a pyramid scheme. You know what eventually happens with those, right? See 2008 for an indication. Anyone who wants to challenge TFC on its transparency please do, I am ready.
'Theatre going experience is in our DNA (like gazing at a fire)', says Bingham Ray. The communal experience is what it's all about. Amen. I say let's bring back the drive-in. I especially want it for Sundance film Co-dependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same.
Ira speaks to the Opera audience. He noted, as audiences get older they crave that experience (communal screening) more. I love that Ira Deutchman grew a business out of this niche. Niche is golden. A lesson for us all.
Ira spoke to "eventizing" theatrical– several noted about adding Q&As, live music, director attendance, panel discussions– to enhance theatrical and all of those screenings do well. Indeed. We have observed the same and that speaks even more to filmmakers knowing their audience and being more engaged in their own releases. There is nothing of this that one cannot do.
Ira ends quoting Richard Lorber "everything is possible and nothing works" harking back to 25 years ago when distribs celebrated small victories and spent little – before the rise and fall of indie bubble and the studios dressing big releases in indie clothes. My comment is regarding the "professional" the middle man, the lack of transparency even still is a burden, the fees paid excessive if one analyzes from the point of view of sustainability and healthy business. Service deals are announced like acquisitions. That's why they say "film business" is an oxymoron but it need not be. And that's why TFC's resolve now is to not work with unsustainable filmmakers. We do not want to feed the habit, enable unrealistic expectations. If you spent too much on making your film, if your expectations are unreasonable, if you are not committed to being educated about both film and engaging audiences, and most of all, if you are just a money bag and not a creator but rather buying into the dream that your film (which you did not even create) is going to make you rich or richer, please go home.
And now, on a less cranky and more joyous note: What I love about the Sundance distribution initiative:
11. It's offering filmmakers a truly filmmaker friendly set up by having a good partner and fair contract terms.
12. The terms offered by a truly excellent partner like New Video were already good in general, but are now even slightly advantaged.
13. That the deal is non-exclusive and allows filmmakers proper agency and control.
14. That I partly inspired it starting in 2009 and that the folks at Sundance listened, discussed, and worked it out slowly but surely and that there is more to come.
15. The Sundance brand connected with its alumni of filmmaker's brands and on key platforms that function as the key portals to film lovers (and yet not at the exclusion of other viable modes of DIY and traditional distribution) is the model I have always championed even before TFC launched, because it makes sense. It's good for filmmakers; it's good for audiences and back to # 1 and #2, initiatives like this are the way to help clear a path through the content of clutter to the curious eyes of cinema loving consumers.
This post originally ran on The FIlm Collaborative.
Orly Ravid has worked in film acquisitions / sales / direct distribution and festival programming for the last twelve years since moving to Los Angeles from home town Manhattan. In January 2010, Orly founded The Film Collaborative (TFC), the first non-profit devoted to film distribution of independent cinema. Orly runs TFC w/ her business partner, co-exec director Jeffrey Winter.
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4D Movie Theaters in the US
It's Here! The First 4D Movie Theater in the US, That Is
Get ready for a totally new meaning of "going to the movies" because your theater experience is about to get crazy. 4D crazy.
This week, a South Korean-based 4D movie business (CJ 4DPlex) announced that it partnered with a US entertainment company (AEG) to open its first 4D theater in the US. What we know so far is that the 100-seat theater will live in Los Angeles and should be completed in late June or early July.
The crazy part is this: the technology, called 4DX, features wind, strobe, fog, rain, mist, and scent-based effects (!), plus moving seats that match all the onscreen action.
This will be the first major 4D theater in the US, although the CJ Group boasts locations all over the world, such as Japan, Poland, Taiwan, Chile, and Columbia. The company originally debuted with a 4D screening of Avatar in 2010 (imagine that viewing) and more recently had showings for films like Gravity, Frozen, and Iron Man 3.
Just like you'd guess, if this theater is successful, more of 'em will follow. We've already seen versions of 4D theaters at theme parks like Disneyland and Universal Studios and attractions like Madame Tussauds, but this would be the country's first 4D megaplex theater.
No word yet on how much these movie tickets would cost, but we have a feeling they'll be worth it just to say you saw a movie with mist blowing in your face.


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US education and the crisis
by MICHAEL HARDT
Governments across the globe are dramatically reducing funding for public education and raising university tuition rates. These measures are often cast as a response to the current economic crisis but really their implementation began well before it. Whereas in Britain, Italy, and other European countries students battle police in the streets and experiment with new means to protest such government actions, there is a relative calm on U.S. campuses.
Forty and fifty years ago US student movements were among the most active and innovative in the world, not only protesting against militarism, racism, and other social hierarchies but demanding a democratic reform of the education system. Why today do US student movements appear so far behind in response to this global crisis of education?
There have, in fact, been significant student protests in the U.S. in recent years that have not received widespread attention. The most important of these are the student movements to protest raises in tuition in the public university system in the state of California. Tuition in the University of California system had risen gradually to double over the course of a decade but the sudden additional increase of 32% in November 2009 set off the student protests. In the largest and most widespread actions on US campuses since the 1970s, students occupied university buildings and mounted demonstrations.
The primary focus of the California students has been the social inequality created by higher tuition rates and lower funding of the university as a whole. The poor are obviously the first and most severely affected by the changes. The widening class division, the students insistently point out, corresponds closely to racial divisions, since black and Latino students constitute a large portion of those most affected by the higher tuition fees.
The modest successes in the project to open university education to a wider population in a previous era are being gradually reversed. For the past 30 years, explains Christopher Newfield, professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, "the public universities, which most US students attend, have been systematically underfunded, restricting all educational gains to the top quarter of students by income and destroying the country's previous global advantage in educational attainment."
The California student movement has been significant but not nearly as intense, widespread, or sustained as its counterparts in Europe. One obvious reason for this difference is that changes in the US university have been more gradual and smaller. Tuition at public universities has long been higher in the US than in most of Europe and recent increases have been relatively modest. The 32% increase in California in 2009 is dwarfed by the proposed increase in Britain of nearly 300%. A second factor that could contribute to less student protest in the United States is that university conditions are not unified at the national level. Public university funding and tuition rates vary widely in different states and the extensive system of private universities creates even more significant variation.
The most significant reason for less student activism in the United States, however, may derive from a much deeper national condition. The social value placed on education for all, especially higher education, has declined dramatically. This is certainly true for other countries as well but the fall has been more precipitous in the United States. Student politics can only gain a powerful voice when university education is a social priority.
Consider, in contrast, the US government response to the "Sputnik crisis." Within the frame of cold war logic, the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite was considered a challenge to US security and its position in the global system. In response the United States substantially increased university funding, especially in science and technology. The mission was not limited to advanced scientific training or to military advances but rather spread though all levels of the education system, with widespread and varied consequences. Even Donna Haraway, the pioneering feminist theorist, often refers to herself as a "child of Sputnik."
The increase of knowledge and intelligence across society was a national priority. Mass education advances contributed directly to the economic growth of the US economy. And furthermore, in the context of this educational project, the student protests of the 1960s and 70s found a loud voice in national debates.
Whereas one can say that the launch of Sputnik made the United States smarter, the attacks of September 11th, perceived as the primary challenge to the national position in this period, only made the country more stupid. The "war on terror" has given priority only to the most limited military and technological knowledges and the idiocy of security dominates public discourse. In this atmosphere arguments for advances in mass public education as well as student demands for equal and open access to the university carry little weight.
The importance of mass education for economic development is no less today than it was 50 years ago, but the economic significance of the fields of education have changed. Along with a wide range of economists, Toni Negri and I argue that in recent decades the dominant sector of the economy has shifted from industrial production to what we call biopolitical production, la production de l'homme par l'homme, involving the creation of ideas, images, code, affects, and other immaterial goods. If this is true, then the mass education of engineers and scientists is no longer the primary key to economic competitiveness. In the biopolitical economy mass intelligence – even and especially linguistic, conceptual, and social capacities – are what drive economic innovation.
University policies throughout the world have not kept pace with these changes. The private money that universities solicit to compensate for the decline in public funding is dedicated overwhelmingly to technical and scientific fields. The human sciences, which are increasingly relevant in the biopolitical economy, are deprived of funds and wither. In this case the student demands actually point in the direction of economic prosperity. The current student protests thus reconfirm a general rule of politics, that social struggles proceed and prefigure social development.
I am generally skeptical about laments of the decline of American civilization. In fact, I foresee the loss of military dominance heralding a much more dynamic and creative period of US social development. But the failure to make mass education at all levels a social priority is certainly one factor indicative of decline. And I interpret the relative calm of US campuses in face of economic crisis and cuts as a symptom of that problem.
* Published in Libération 02/12/210


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The dyspepsia implies hard to process. Dyspepsia happens because of the shortcoming in processing the sustenances or stomach related scatters which prompts torment in the components associated with stomach related arrangement of the body. There is tooting which causes fretfulness, greatness, sickness and regurgitating. Acid reflux, loss of yearning, feeling of overabundance and stomach issue implies that the sustenance you isn't being processed appropriately. The looseness of the bowels caused by stomach related clutters is known as sprue.
Dyspepsia is a recognizable issue influences numerous people groups. Individuals are utilizing diverse strategies and treatment to cure dyspepsia. Numerous individuals are every day going for stroll to process the sustenance with the goal that they stay solid. Alongside this there are numerous best dyspepsia treatment that you can use to stay solid.
Extraordinary compared to other dyspepsia medicines to stay sound is to drink bunches of water. On the off chance that you are experiencing dyspepsia and you are having issue to process nourishments, than around then don't eat anything for a day and drink just water. In the event that you are experiencing obstruction, remain drinking water with suppers. Drink one glass of water early in the day when you get up to anticipate dyspepsia.
In the event that you are not ready to process nourishment, it is smarter to devour papaya. In the event that you are experience from loss of yearning, heartburn, dyspepsia, indigestion and corrosive burps that around then have papaya consistently in breakfast early in the day for 25 days. Eating a bit of pineapple with dark pepper powder and salt gives alleviation from stomach related scatters and keeps you solid. On the off chance that your stomach related framework isn't working appropriately, as yet devouring light dinners causes' looseness of the bowels, obstruction or diarrhea and the body ends up powerless, than around then take 5gms of dark salt broke down in bubbled water to mend dyspepsia
On the off chance that you can't process sleek things than take 310 grams of carrot juice blended with 190 grams of spinach juice to process nourishment and get help from dyspepsia. Spread drain is additionally useful to stay sound if the dyspepsia is happened by admission of elucidated margarine and groundnut. Taking of mustard seeds is the best dyspepsia treatment to stay sound. On the off chance that you are having the issue of acid reflux, than take 3gms of mustard seeds powder in water to treat dyspepsia.
Blending of lemon juice with ginger squeeze and shake salt and take it two times, previously suppers and after dinners. Ginger gives alleviation from dyspepsia and enhances your processing. Biting of basil leaves with dark pepper is another best dyspepsia treatment to stay sound. Basil gives alleviation from heartburn and loss of craving. Customary eating of a little bit of cinnamon, dried ginger cardamom gives alleviation from stomach related scatters.


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Masha Birya, Lamu, 2020
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Masha Birya, Lamu, 2020
28 Hats For Lamu is A Photographic series whose sales go to a Kenyan Association. All proceeds from print sales from 28 HATS FOR LAMU will be donated to the New Leaf drugs rehabilitation centre in Kenya.
28 HATS FOR LAMU celebrates the transformative power of creativity – how the ordinary becomes extraordinary as the imagination works its magic. The photographs in this exhibition were made on the sub-equatorial island of Lamu in Kenya, in February 2020, by South-African photographer Kristin-Lee Moolman and French-British stylist Louise Ford, who spent much of her childhood between Zimbabwe and Kenya. The portraits document the competitors in this year's Shela Hat Contest, a biannual event in which Lamunians foster environmental empathy. Entrants create hats from material that would otherwise be thrown away, in a celebration of recycling and repurposing.
The results are playful, joyous and often reflect the Lamunian experience. All exhibit a sensitivity towards the beauty of the Lamu environment, its ecosystem and the interrelationship of humans and the natural world.
Kristin-Lee Moolman says: 'This project is about optimism, empowerment and paying homage to the creative vision of the artists of Lamu.' Louise Ford adds: 'Community and environment are deeply important to me. I believe this project embodies the two'.
Kristin-Lee Moolman
Kristin-Lee Moolman is a South African photographer and filmmaker. Growing up during the transition between Apartheid and the new South Africa she is profoundly influenced by the positive narratives she choses to pursue in her images. Her work explores the social and political realities of Africa by deconstructing traditional representations of masculinity and feminity, promoting powerful new identities as counter-narratives to curren sterotyoes, idealized imagery.
Kristin-Lee Moolman was most recently awarded the 2020 Rudin Prize for Photography by the Norton Museum of Art.Read more
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Please note: No refunds for classes after a session starts.
- This event has passed.
Intro to Nosework®
February 27 @ 6:45 pm - 7:45 pm
Heather is excellent! She helped my crazy pup in both puppy kindergarten and basic manners become a well mannered dog. With her guidance not only is he a well trained pup but I'm a better owner. – Ashling
Heather is a great trainer! Very skilled and compassionate. Willing to work out any issues you and your pup may be experiencing and always has great suggestions. Looking forward to the next class.– Darleen


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We received the following response from TeamSalamone, the subject of our previous story — the world's most stereotypical Lamborghini owner. Here is the letter, in its entirety:
Dearest Matt, I own two Lamborghini's and I was upset by your article at first. I shouldn't take myself so seriously, and neither should you.
Who I am:
I am 44 year old man from New York with two Lamborghinis. I have a great passion for Autos. I have logged track time at many venues; I am a member of many car clubs; I attend any car meet from imports, exotics and muscle cars. I run Rallies such as Bullrun Rally and Gumball3000. I always drive with "Concubine" my co-driver and wife.
That is a nickname. She is the love of my life and my constant companion.
Her nick name was given to her by a very close friend of ours. We were having a Love and Commitment ceremony in the Forbidden City of China and we heard the story of the Emperor and the Dragon Lady. The Emperor's concubine had more power than his wife. People called her "dragon Lady." When my wife heard this she exclaimed: "If the Concubine has more power than the Wife..then I want to be the Concubine. Her nickname was born. She has a full back tattoo of a dragon and it fits perfectly. My friends who were present gave her the nickname and we use if lovingly as we remember our special ceremony. It is not meant to be degrading to her or any other female.
My Profession:
I am a Divorce Lawyer. I take great pride in what I do. I give my clients 100% always. My Law Firm supports dozens employees with families, homes and children. I love the people I work with. I am divorced myself. When my wife left me I was devastated for more than five years. I was just destroyed. It was the worst part of my life and I loved her very much. She left me.
Tacky Lamborghini merchandize:
I have more of that than anyone. I only have only one hobby: Cars. Every Fathers Day; Christmas and Birthday I open presents, smile and thank my loving family and friends for yet another tee shirt; die cast model; mouse pad; jacket; or….Baby diaper bag. All gifts are Lamborghini themed. I hope it never changes and I think that unless I learn to bowl or play golf..the Lambo gifts will keep coming.
Bullrun Rally:
This is very hard core automotive enthusiast event. It was the time of my life. I was not prepared to be around such skilled drivers. The winners of Bullrun in 2011; and 2010 are far more skillful than I ever will be. Bullrun had professional drivers; well known auto personalities and real hard core car enthusiasts. Everyone was so wonderful and the awards were well deserved. Bullrun spirit is contagious. I received no tickets; did not drive reckless; and I enjoyed everyone's company just trying to drive over 3000 miles. I drove with Concubine. We are inseparable. She cannot drive Lamborghinis and I would never leave her home. She joked that she has "27 moves for Bullrun and none of them involve driving." I loved that. We fought; we laughed; we kept our spirits up and the spirits of our fellow rally drivers.
The signs; stickers; and vanity plates
In Bullrun a well known team pranked us by placing an "I'heart' Anal" sign on our car. They put an "I 'heart' 2 swallow" sign on the car behind us. MTV filmed it. Instead of being embarrassed or upset, Concubine asked if she could trade signs or have both. She found it very funny. It was hilarious. We use these souvenirs on rallies. In one rally we posed for a picture with a police officer and asked him to hold a TeamSalamone sign. We switched it at the last minute to an "I 'heart' Anal" sign. That's a funny picture.
As for the funny but lewd little stickers, that is also a joke. Not meant to harm or offend. In New York the minivans are often adorned with stick figures depicting a person's family. At a large event we opined that you never see those "happy family" stickers on 2 seated cars. We bought one and made funny childish scenes on my Lamborghini where the man and woman were doing things. The sticker packet had a dog in it and we used his tail as a phallus. People went nuts. We had them produced for rallies and events and gave them to people for fun. We are sorry if this offends people. It was funny to us but we have taken them off our cars and we are not sending them out to the dozens of people each day who ask us for shirts and stickers. We always said yes and never charged.
The Vanity plates don't hurt anyone. I keep them because most people can't believe that word was not taken. It's funny and Ironic to me on several levels. I apologize?
It would not be charitable to give you my resume for what I do. I am strongly confident that I do more for charity than anyone I have ever personally met.
I am looking to focus on a particular charity now and at the time that I am writing this they have not returned my calls. My family has four members of clergy in it and I am not short of ideas. This year will be a good year for giving.
I am well known for driving very safe towards the back of a pack at all rally's and car events and on public roads. On tracks and rented airport runways I let loose. I never drink and drive and I am aware that in any accident it is the fault of the guy driving the Lamborghini. I had a woman push her baby stroller in front of my car in the Bronx once. She laughed. She wanted me to hit the baby.
I have no particular responsibility to you or others as a regular guy and Lamborghini owner. I noticed you mentioned someone else in your article as being a more appropriate super car owner. Focusing on the good in people is commendable. More power to him and you for recognizing that not every Lambo owner is a certain type. I try not to generalize anyone by a stereotype although I understand and appreciate how easy it was to make fun of me. I thank you for not including our children in your article. I thank you for being kind in the photos you put up. We certainly have had some fun over the years. I apologize for making it so public and/or offensive.
Conclusion and moving forward:
I have learned from your article. I will tone it down; dial back; and be more private. But just a little. I don't really change and I am the real deal. I will continue to drive my cars; show up at every event. I love cars and car people. Everyone who meets me at an event is greeted with a big smile and positive conversation, maybe a joke or two. I have never said no to anyone who wants to speak to me or photograph my car, no matter how tired; uncomfortable or preoccupied I may be at any given time. I love car enthusiasts because I am one. My cars don't sit, I drive them the way a real car guy drives whatever he may own. Please say hello to me if you see me. I will be the guy wearing some tacky Lamborghini apparel that I got for Christmas. I thank you for showing me the type of judgment that can be levied on my public conduct and that my lighthearted jokes may be offensive to many. I would like to say I will change, but one thing is certain: Concubine and I will squeeze all of the fun out of every God given minute of life. If that bothers you, please look the other way. We are not hurting anyone.
I wish you and your readers well, now and always. Have fun.


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Happy Camper Traceable
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Turtles Can Fly takes place in a small rural village along the Turkish-Iraqi border, just weeks before the start of the 2003 U.S.-led war against Iraq. Refugees, fleeing violence elsewhere, are crowded into tents on the outskirts of town. Anxious for news of the impending invasion, the village elders are talked into purchasing a satellite dish for their television set by Soran (Soran Ebrahim, who, like all cast members, is a nonprofessional), a precocious teenager whose technical know-how has made him an indispensable part of the community and earned him the nickname "Satellite."
The village and refugee camp are home to hundreds of children, many of them orphaned. Like the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist, Satellite has become their leader. To support themselves, the children swarm into the surrounding hills and fields and defuse land mines, which Satellite then sells to interested buyers. The extreme danger of the work can be seen in the number of missing limbs among the children.
A young refugee, about Satellite's age, appears in camp one day. Hangao (Hiresh Feysal Rahman) has no arms, a casualty of the ongoing conflict, but he has learned to defuse land mines with his teeth. Accompanying him are his sister Agrin (Avaz Latif), about thirteen, and Rega (Abdol Rahman Karim), a curious and adventurous three-year-old blind child of uncertain parentage.
When Satellite first sees Agrin, it is as though Cupid has shot an arrow directly into the young man's heart. His face all but melts with longing, and he stumbles over himself trying to impress her. Too lost in her own trauma to notice, Agrin gazes back with grave, unsmiling eyes. Her expression never changes.
Despite the terrible hardships they must endure, most of the children have retained their scrappy spirits and ingenuous natures. Agrin, however, seems incapable of joy. Weighed down by some invisible burden, she goes through the motions of living, but she is barely functioning. Her distaste for Rega, whom she carries around on her back, is clear. She wants to abandon him, but her brother refuses. More than once she climbs to the top of a nearby cliff and gazes down, yearning for an end to her pain.
So natural and believable are the performances Ghobadi elicits from his young cast that the film easily could be mistaken for a documentary. Further enhancing this impression are the wide, steady camera shots that allow scenes to play out in lengthy takes.
A terrible sense of tension underlies the film because of our constant fear that something bad will happen to the children. And the fact that the specific plot may not be true in no way diminishes this terrible feeling, for the children cast in the film are real children who have been just as physically and emotionally crippled by war and hardship as the characters they portray.
Turtles Can Fly lacks the absurdist sensibility that enlivened parts of Marooned in Iraq -- the only one of Ghobadi's films to deal primarily with adults rather than children -- but it does have its humorous moments. Some are visual, as when we see a line of men standing on a hilltop against a vibrant blue sky, each man holding an antenna aloft while Satellite tries to get a signal for the village's sole television set. Some of it derives from character, whether the natural antics of rambunctious children or the adult posturing of Satellite as he argues with a child.
But mostly we are struck by the tragedy of children forced to fend for themselves -- and by our own desire to wrap our arms around them and to console and protect them. Hangao is able to see into the future but is powerless to change its course. One of the most difficult aspects of watching a movie like this is our own feeling of impotence. The fact the world community refuses to take a stand, however (or takes a stand by doing nothing), neither prevents nor excuses us as individuals from doing something.
Turtles Can Fly is not intended as a political film -- it is neither pro- nor anti-U.S. -- and viewers don't need to know anything about the history of the Kurds to relate to the characters or their situations (it is immediately clear from the film that their history is one of war, dislocation and struggle for survival). Perhaps Ghobadi's greatest gift is his ability to put a human face to suffering. Certainly this quietly devastating film does just that.