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Wells Fargo's Awesome Refusal to Waive Haiti Donation Fees: Goalposts of Greed Moved Back
So: Visa and Mastercard—who've helped ensure that your brokeass stays broke after buying things that leave you broke—waived fees on Haiti donation transactions. Wells Fargo didn't. Somebody on the internet bitched about it. Wells Fargo's response is hysterical:
Michael Klosterman, a spokesman for Wells Fargo, defended the bank's response to the Haiti disaster, saying the money it donated to Haiti more than makes up for their transaction fees.
"We have given $100,000 to the American Red Cross, and on January 19 we pledged an additional $250,000 to support the non-profits in Florida that are mobilizing the relief efforts," Klosterman said. "We decided that donating a sum of money would be quicker and more beneficial than waiving transaction fees because the funds would get to the people quicker. It would take the equivalent of $35 million in transactions to raise the amount of money we actually donated."
Get why this is funny?
1. Because the amount Wells Fargo has given is so small! $350,000 is, um, nothing. That's a house. A small house. That's not even a studio in Manhattan. Is that even a college education?
2. There probably won't be $35M in transactions, which is the slimy inherent reasoning Wells Fargo uses to justify not waiving the fee, widely missing the point that transaction fees are the banking customer's bane of existence, and thus, might get in the way of getting money to Haiti. Also, they put out a press line that also subtly tries to advertise their low banking fees, which is as insensitive as it is stupid.
3. Bank of America donated $1M, waived fees, and are matching employee contributions, and they're just the worst. What's that make Wells Fargo? Seeing as how their stock price is thirteen points ahead of Bank of America's, for one thing, the more valued stock of the two companies for a reason, but for another, fucking cheap.
Anyway, the point is that a liquidated bank could turn Haiti from a Third World Country into a First World Country sometime by the middle of February, but because banks are institutions predicated on nothing more than trying to grow money when they're not separating their customers from their money and making it theirs, they'll simply throw a few bucks Haiti's way because they think it creates good will amongst The People and that it makes The People want to bank with them, and for the dumbest ones, it does! So really it's a choice between evil and really evil, and in this case, Wells Fargo won The "Really Evil" Trophy while Bank of America wins The "Bullshit Good Graces" Ribbon. If anything, it certainly makes choosing between buying the two stocks easier.
Update: A reader corrects my embarrassingly bad misreading of Google Finance. "Probably a better way to compare the value of the two companies is to look at the total value of their stock, which would be the price of one share times the number of shares they've issued. On Google Finance it's listed as Mkt Cap (market capitalization), and BAC's is 131.31B (8.65B shares x $15.18 per share), while WFC is 147.23B (5.18B shares x $28.43 per share). So WFC is worth, as a company, more than BAC, but only about 12% more. They just haven't issued as many shares (5.1 billion vs. 8.6 billion), so each share is more valuable because it represents a larger piece of the company. Google, for instance, has a market cap of 168B (about 12% more than WFC) but has only issued 317 million shares, which is why a single share costs $530." And we learn something new every day!


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PALO ALTO — If Hollywood movie makers were trying to create the quintessential Silicon Valley scene, they couldn't have done any better than the one Saturday afternoon in the 4100 block of El Camino Real. Hundreds of people, nearly all of them snapping photos with iPhones, milled about at the opening of America's newest
store, one mile from Stanford University and three miles from Google's campus. The sleek, white showroom gleamed. Flat screen monitors touted the benefits of the company's pricey and tech-hip all-electric vehicles. Music from a live DJ pulsed. And the valet parking was thick with visitors arriving in Tesla Model S sedans they already owned. "It's awesome. It looks easy to drive, and it looks so much better than a minivan. Minivans are for old people," said Vilma Estacio-Melamed, of San Jose, who admired a white Model X, Tesla's new SUV, which is scheduled to begin production next year. The 27,000 square foot retail outlet, the vehicular equivalent of an Apple store, is the fifth Tesla location in the Bay Area, joining stores and service centers at Santana Row in San Jose, Fremont, Burlingame and San Rafael. Tesla now has 41 locations in North America. "It's in the heart of Silicon Valley," said Telsa spokeswoman Alexis Georgeson. "The market is very strong for us in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley. We're opening stores in places where we expect to sell vehicles." Founded in 2003, Palo Alto-based Tesla Motors has become a darling of high-tech set and environmentalists. From 2008 to 2012, the company sold 2,400 of its first vehicle, the Tesla Roadster, a two-seat electric sports car, with a base price of $109,000. Its second car, the Model S, is a sedan that came out last year to rave reviews. The vehicle, which goes up to 265 miles on an electric charge and accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds, was named 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine and received the highest score ever for a vehicle from Consumer Reports. The car has a base price of $69,900 to $79,900 before tax credits, depending on the battery pack. "It's the first expensive car we've ever bought," said Christine Sireci, of Saratoga, who bought a dark blue Model S in March with her husband, Don, and visited the store Saturday. "I was driving a 2000 Chevy Astro. But I drove the Tesla and I fell in love with it." Through June 30, Tesla sold 13,000 Model S cars and expects to sell 21,000 this year, Georgeson said. Despite the huge buzz for the company — whose
, is a celebrity and whose stock price has jumped from $22 a share in January 2012 to $178 on Friday — electric vehicles still represent less than 1 percent of American car sales. By comparison, General Motors sells 10 million vehicles a year. There is also plenty of competition in the green motoring space. For much of the year, the top-selling car in California has been the Toyota Prius, which has sold more than 4 million worldwide since its launch in 1997. Larger carmakers, such as Nissan, with its all-electric Leaf, and Chevrolet, with its plug-in hybrid Volt, sell alternative vehicles for half to one third the cost of a Tesla. And after a year of glowing press coverage, Tesla hit some bumps in the road when a video showing a Model S bursting into flames went viral earlier this month. The fire was the result of a driver near Kent, Wash., driving over a piece of metal debris on a freeway. As the stock dropped, Musk reassured the public that the fire was a freak occurrence and that the driver was not injured. A gasoline-powered car would have burned much worse in the same accident, he said. The company has so far received 6,000 orders for its Model X SUV, with customers putting down $5,000 for the standard version and $40,000 for the signature version, even though Tesla has not announced the price of the vehicle or exactly when it will begin delivery. Most deliveries are expected in 2015, and the base price is expected to range from $70,000 to $90,000. That is a lot of money, said Estacio-Melamed, snapping a photo of the Model X on Saturday in the new Palo Alto showroom. "But if it is better than all the other cars," she said, "maybe it's worth it."

subset: commoncrawl


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|Rescooped by Ana Paula Sena from The Rise of the Algorithmic Medium
From www.theurbn.com – Today, 12:10 PM
The 19th century was a century of empires, 20th century was a century of nation states and the 21st century will be a century of cities…
This outstanding infographic (courtesy of postscapes.com) begins with some information about our current state of urbanization.
Did you know that 1.3 million people are moving to cities each week?! It then explains the need for smart cities and delves into what is required to establish these intelligent connected environments, how the smart city may take various forms in the developing worlds and what specific technologies are necessary to achieve such grand goals in practice.
Via Lauren Moss, Pierre Levy
Ana Paula Sena's insight:


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The United States is in the midst of one of the biggest droughts in recent memory. At last count, over half of the lower 48 states had abnormally dry conditions and are suffering from at least moderate drought.
More than 80% of seven states were as of last week in "severe drought," characterized by crop or pasture loss, water shortage and water restrictions. Depending on whether the hardest-hit regions see significant precipitation, crops yields could fall and drought conditions could persist for months to come. Based on the latest data provided by the U.S. Drought Monitor, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the seven states running out of water.
Click here to see the seven states running out of water
U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist and Drought Monitor team member, Brad Rippey, explained that when the drought began in 2012, the worst of the conditions were much farther east, in states like Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan — the corn belt states. Based on pre-drought estimates, corn used for grain lost slightly more than a quarter of its potential. By the Summer of 2012, 59% of U.S. rangeland and pastureland was rated by the USDA as being in poor or very poor condition. The growing drought decimated national hay production, causing feed shortages, which in turn drove up prices in livestock.
By the fall of 2012, drought conditions continued to expand westward to its current epicenter — states like Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and Oklahoma. Rippey explained that most worrying is the drought's effects on the winter wheat crop, which is one of the biggest crops grown in the U.S., and which is grown almost entirely in the states in severe drought. While the region has had some precipitation recently, "winter wheat crop will need ideal conditions heading through the next few weeks just to break even. We're still trending towards a very poor hard red winter wheat crop at this point," Rippey said.
In addition to severe drought conditions, relatively large areas in the worst-off states are in "exceptional" drought, which the USDA identifies as "exceptional and widespread crop/pasture losses, shortages of water in reservoirs, streams, and wells creating water emergencies." More than 70% of Nebraska is currently classified as being in a state of "exceptional drought," which includes Exceptional and widespread crop/pasture losses; shortages of water in reservoirs, streams, and wells creating water emergencies.
The last time the U.S. saw a drought close to this level of severity was in the 1980s, Rippey explained. But even compared to that drought, the current conditions may be worse. "You really need to go back to the 1950s to find a drought that lasted and occupied at least as much territory," Rippey said.
The U.S. Drought Monitor, is produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the seven states that had at least 80% of the total area classified in at least a state of severe drought as of March 14th. We also reviewed agricultural statistics, such as crop yields, in these states, using data collected from USDA state agricultural overviews. Most of these data are for 2011.
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Atmospher Sci & Global Chg
Research Highlights
December 2007
Remodeling Atmospheric Organic Aerosols
Study reveals discrepancy in approach commonly used to model organic aerosol formation at global scales
Results: A recent study led by Dr. Rahul Zaveri of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory revealed a significant discrepancy between how organic aerosols may form in nature and a semi-empirical approach commonly used in global aerosol models to study the effects of organic aerosols on climate change. The semi-empirical approach is based on the theory of gas absorption in organic liquids and experimental data on organic aerosol formation, but makes certain assumptions on how the organic gases may partition between the gas and particulate phases. Because atmospheric aerosols affect Earth's climate by influencing cloud formation and by absorbing or reflecting the Sun's energy, such discrepancies could have large implications for global models that simulate the effects of human induced and natural organic aerosols on climate. Results of the team's research appeared in the October issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
Why it matters: Aerosols are microscopic solid particles and/or liquid droplets dispersed in the atmosphere. A large fraction of aerosols are organic (carbon-containing), and occur in two forms: primary and secondary. Primary organic aerosols, or POA, are directly emitted into the atmosphere through diesel and gasoline vehicle exhaust, as well as during meat cooking and biomass burning. Secondary organic aerosols, or SOA, are formed from gas-to-particle conversion of trace amounts of oxidized hydrocarbon vapors in the atmosphere. The POA particles in urban areas are typically composed of lubricating oil compounds which are water insoluble, or hydrophobic, while the SOA compounds are more water soluble, or hydrophilic. The hydrophobic and hydrophilic compounds are typically incompatible, much like oil and water. The chemistry of SOA formation is a complex interaction between the trace organic gases and aerosols, but some basic scenarios have been characterized using model systems.
Recent findings by PNNL researchers and their colleagues indicate that biogenic SOAs—like α-pinene—may not form a homogenous mixture with urban hydrophobic POAs, but rather condense as a separate phase, possibly a "coating" as illustrated above. Enlarge image
One example of SOA formation involves α-pinene—a gaseous organic compound emitted by trees—which is known to react with ozone and other oxidants in the atmosphere to produce oxygenated organic vapors. According to the semi-empirical modeling approach used in climate models, these vapors condense onto pre-existing POA particles to form SOA. The model assumes a single, well-mixed SOA+POA organic phase, which significantly enhances the modeled SOA yields.
In contrast to this semi-empirical treatment, Zaveri and his colleagues found that SOA formation is insensitive to the presence of hydrophobic POA. Their results suggest that SOA forms a separate and distinct phase—possibly a coating—upon condensing onto the POA. If these results are found to apply to other biogenic SOA precursors, then global simulations using the semi-empirical approach would predict significantly less SOA than previously estimated. This would widen the large discrepancies already found between the observed and predicted amounts of organic aerosol masses around the world.
Dr. Chen Song stands in front of the "smog chamber" designed to simulate a micro-environment for studying aerosol formation.
Methods: To investigate the critical assumption of a well-mixed SOA+POA organic phase, the research team conducted experiments in a "smog chamber"—an 8000 liter Teflon bag reactor—at PNNL for studying atmospheric chemistry in a controlled environment. In addition to its nonreactive surface, the chamber includes ports for injecting and withdrawing gas and aerosol samples for continuous analyses, and a bank of fluorescent lights provide simulated "sunlight" to carry out photochemical reactions that occur naturally in the real atmosphere. Most importantly, the relatively large volume-to-surface area ratio increases the amount of time the suspended particles are available for analysis.
Using dioctyl phthalate and lubricating oil aerosols as surrogates for urban hydrophobic POA, they measured SOA formation and growth by oxidizing α-pinene in the absence and presence of the oil aerosol. To quantify the SOA yields, the researchers used state-of-the-art instrumentation from DOE's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, including an Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer, a single-particle mass spectrometer, and a proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometer.
Next steps: Further research will be necessary to fully understand the chemistry and mechanism of SOA formation. In the future, the team will mimic atmospherically relevant conditions in their smog chamber and compare the findings to real-world aerosol samples. They will also develop a comprehensive SOA model, which will be used to interpret both the smog chamber and field observations.
Research team: Rahul Zaveri, Chen Song, Xiao-Ying Yu and David Maughan from PNNL's Atmospheric Science and Global Change Division; Alla Zelenyuk from PNNL's Chemical & Materials Sciences Division; Lizabeth Alexander, John Ortega, and Alexander Laskin from the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory; Joel Thornton from the University of Washington; and Sasha Madronich from the Atmospheric Chemistry Division at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
Sponsor: The team's research was funded by PNNL's Laboratory Directed Research and Development program and by EMSL.
Reference: Song C, RA Zaveri, ML Alexander, JA Thornton, S Madronich, JV Ortega, A Zelenyuk, X-Y Yu, A Laskin, and D Maughan. 2007. "Effect of hydrophobic primary organic aerosol on secondary organic aerosol formation from ozonolysis of α-pinene." Geophysical Research Letters 34, L20803, doi:10.1029/2007GL030720.


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Derek Parfit's 'Repugnant Conclusion' is that for any world of extremely happy and fulfilled people, there is a better world which contains a much larger number of people whose lives are only just worth living. This is a hard to avoid consequence of ethical theories where more of whatever makes life worth living is better. It's more complicated than that, but population ethicists have had a hard time finding a theory that avoids the repugnant conclusion without implying other crazy seeming things.
Parfit originally pointed out that people whose lives are barely worth living could be living lives of constant very low value, or their lives could have huge highs and lows. He asked us to focus on the first. I'm curious whether normal intuitions differ if we focus on a different form of 'barely worth living'.
Consider an enormous and very rich civilization. Its members appreciate every detail of their lives very sensitively, and their lives are dramatic. They each regularly experience soaring elation, deep contentment and overpowering sensory pleasure. They are keenly ambitious, and almost always achieve their dreams. Everyone is successful and appreciated, and they are all extremely pleased about that. But these people are also subject to deep depressions, and are easily overcome by fear, rage or jealousy. Sometimes they lie awake at night anguished about their insignificance in the universe and their impending deaths. If they don't achieve what they hoped they can become overwhelmed by guilt, insecurity, and hurt pride. They soon bounce back, but live is slight fear of those emotions. They also have excruciating migraine headaches when they work too hard. All up, the positives in each person's action packed life just outweigh the negatives.
Now suppose there is a choice to have a small world of people who only appreciate the pleasures, or a much much larger world like that described above. Perhaps it turns out that the overly pleasured people are unable to be made productive for instance, so we can choose a short future with a large number of people enjoying idle bliss with our saved up resources, or an indefinitely long future with an incredibly much larger number of productive people each enjoying small net positives. How crazy does it seem to prefer the latter at some level of extreme size?
I give my interpretation of the results here.


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I've known Meenoo Rami through Twitter for a few years and we have worked together on #engchat for the past couple of years. We met in person at NCTE Las Vegas (despite the fact that we live only an hour or so away from each other!) and I was blown away by her passion and dedication to the teaching profession. Needless to say, when her new book Thrive: 5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching was published a few weeks ago I read it cover to cover. (Ok, to be fair, Meenoo also asked me to write a few paragraphs for the book, so there were a few reasons I wanted to read it immediately…haha)
Thrive is a book I want to send to every teacher I know. I want every teacher education department to give it to their teacher babies. I want to hand it out at every PD session I attend. It's just that amazing.
It's a tough time to be a teacher. We all see it and sometimes it's hard not to feel beaten down. But Meenoo's book is a bright light in the darkness. She learned early in her career that teaching can be a lonely career if you don't reach out to the community around you. In Thrive she shares the strategies that she uses in her professional life and the ways that teachers can apply them to their own. I've seen this firsthand through Twitter and Meenoo was one of the first teachers who reached out and walked me through community-building on the network. When I stumbled upon #engchat I knew I had found one of my tribes and I've been a fixture in the chat ever since. There are days when my Twitter PLN keeps me sane and I'm so glad Meenoo has captured the importance of that community in her book.
But it's not all about social media. No! Meenoo shares ways that teachers can reach out to colleagues in their departments, their buildings, their local and national professional organizations, and much more. Teaching is a profession that works best when we mentor others and allows ourselves to be mentored. Thrive is perfect for first-year teachers who are just entering this crazy world of education, and it's also the rejuvenating spark that veteran teachers need! We should be reaching out and helping our colleagues while also recognizing that teachers are life-long learners who can learn from their colleagues and students.
Thrive will help you (re)discover the joy in teaching. I can't wait to give a copy to my student teacher. And my sister. And my best friend. I imagine Thrive sitting on the shelf next to Harry Wong's First Days of School and other vital teaching resources. It's that important. Be sure to pick up a copy today!
Make sure you are following Meenoo on Twitter because she is always sharing ideas and inspiration. And check out her blog!
Be sure to check out some of the other stops on the Thrive blog tour!
Yesterday: Kira Baker Doyle at Kira J Baker-Doyle, Ph.D.
Tomorrow: Christina Cantrill at Digital Is (National Writing Project)
Meenoo Rami is a National Board Certified Teacher who teaches her students English at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA. Mixing moments of joy, laughter, risk and encouragement, Meenoo pushes her students to think critically about their connection to the word and the world. Meenoo did her undergraduate work at Bradley University in Illinois in areas of Philosophy and English and completed her Master's degree in Secondary Education at Temple University. Meenoo also contributes to the work of school-wide events and professional learning communities at SLA. Meenoo works as a teacher-consultant for the Philadelphia Writing Project. She has shared her classroom practice at various conferences such as: NCTE, ISTE, ASCD, EduCon, Urban Sites Conference for National Writing Project, and #140edu. Meenoo also runs a weekly twitter chat for English teachers called #engchat which brings together teachers from around the country to discuss ideas related to teaching of English. Her first book, THRIVE from Heinemann will be out in March 2014. In her free time, Meenoo can be found on her bike, on her yoga mat or in her kitchen tinkering with a vegetarian recipe.
To connect with Meenoo, you can find her on these social media networks:
Filed under: 48 hour book challenge, professional development, reviews | Tagged: heinemann, meenoo rami, thrive | 3 Comments »


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The plan Senate Republicans have embraced could force lawmakers to rewrite the tax code repeatedly for years to come.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has touted his tax overhaul as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Yet the plan Senate Republicans have embraced could force lawmakers to rewrite the tax code repeatedly for years to come.
The main reason is that some of its key planks are set to expire, thereby forcing tough choices on a future Congress about whether to renew them.
The tax cuts for individuals and families? They'd vanish after eight years.
The breaks for companies to fully expense new equipment? Gone by 2023.
Tax credits for employers that offer medical and family leave? Not after 2020.
A reduced excise tax for craft brewers and distillers? No more after 2020.
The whole setup means lawmakers will ultimately face pressure to renew these tax cuts. Letting them lapse could ignite a public backlash because people's taxes would shoot up. When Congress faced a similar predicament in 2013, economists warned that tax hikes might tip the economy into a recession. In the end, most of the tax cuts were preserved.
Yet extending the tax cuts could require slashing spending on popular programs, possibly including Medicare and Social Security. Or it could mean letting the deficit climb much faster than Trump and lawmakers have promised, which brings its own economic risks.
Republican lawmakers have tried to assure voters that tax cuts for the middle class will be protected. But the tax overhaul creates a perilous series of votes for lawmakers in coming years.
"'Governing from crisis to crisis is exactly the way to put it," says Steve Bell, a senior adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former staff director at the Senate Budget Committee.
This problem is a byproduct of the decision by the Trump administration and Republican leaders that the best way to revamp the tax code was to bypass Democrats. Under Senate rules, permanent tax cuts that raise the deficit need 60 votes. The slim 52-seat Republican majority agreed to pass tax cuts that would add no more than $1.5 trillion to budget deficits through 2027. Starting in 2028, the tax cuts can't add to the deficit.
Because of these restrictions, Republican senators made a decision: They would make the income tax cuts for individuals only temporary, in order to pay for making the tax cuts for corporations permanent.
The Senate bill will now have to be reconciled with the similar but separate bill the House passed before it can go to Trump for his signature. But for now, here are three big risks created by the expiring tax breaks:
The Senate bill would repeal the tax cuts for individuals and families after 2025. That return to the existing rates would set the stage for a sharp tax increase for many millions of households, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation. Personal income taxes would shoot up $430 billion between 2025 and 2027. The tax hikes would likely keep accelerating in the years afterward.
Who'd be hit? Mainly, those squarely in the middle class, with incomes between $54,700 and $93,200. Nearly two-thirds of this group would pay on average $140 more than they currently do, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Not only would their tax rates return to higher levels. They would also lose the increase to the standard deduction and the child tax credit that congressional Republicans have been touting as needed relief.
Trump administration officials have said a key goal of their tax overhaul is to encourage companies to invest more freely in equipment and workers. The bill aims to deliver on this goal by letting companies fully and immediately deduct depreciation on new investments.
The conservative Tax Foundation estimated in June that full expensing could do more to propel economic growth than a cut in corporate rates would. Republicans are so eager to capture this growth that the Senate bill would let companies retroactively expense gear they bought in September of this year.
But it wouldn't last long. This provision would expire in 2023, meaning that many companies might then pull back on their investment in equipment and workers. This could potentially weaken economic growth.
Drew Greenblatt, a board member for the National Association of Manufacturers and head of Marlin Steel in Baltimore, said in an interview in September that he would push lawmakers to preserve full expensing.
"We're hoping that within the five-year period Congress will come to its senses and make it permanent," Greenblatt said.
There's no guarantee, though, that lawmakers would do that.
Suppose Congress were to vote to extend the tax cuts that are scheduled to expire. Doing so would also mean that lawmakers would either have to approve much higher deficits or possibly cut spending on major domestic programs. Previous attempts to shrink the deficit forced spending cuts in defense and other discretionary programs, including for scientific research and for children involved in the Head Start services.
If all the expired tax cuts were preserved and spending stayed constant, the deficit would increase by $1.9 trillion over 10 years and continue to rise in the next decade, according to estimates by the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Ever-rising budget deficits can ultimately depress economic growth. Additional government debt can crowd out private investment in companies that might otherwise help the economy expand. And the government would likely reduce its own spending on long-term investments because it would need to spend more to repay interest on the debt.
"Their intention here is to the hide costs," said Marc Goldwein, policy director at the Center. "But in the process, they're making the tax bill less pro-growth, more complex and more vulnerable to politics."


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UPDATE: [20th] Century's End: Re-Evaluating Literature, Art and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (GRAD) - extended CFP
**Please note that the submission deadline for this conference has been extended to Friday 11th
Century's End
Re-Evaluating Literature, Art and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (1880-1914)
12 & 13 September 2008
A two-day interdisciplinary postgraduate conference hosted by the School
of English at Queen's University, Belfast.
Confirmed plenary speakers:
• Professor Kate Flint (Rutgers University, New Jersey).
Title: '"The hour of pink twilight": looking queerly at women on the fin-
de-siècle London street'
• Professor Roger Luckhurst (Birkbeck College, University of
London). Title: tbc
The collisions between old and new, high and low that characterize the
Victorian fin de siècle mark it as a volatile period fraught with both a
sense of anxiety and of real possibility. This was also an era of new
advances and formations: the New Woman, the New Journalism, the New
Imperialism, new technologies and the new sciences of psychology, sexology
and eugenics.
This conference will bring together research students from a range of
disciplines exploring new developments in, and approaches to, the study of
the fin-de-siècle literary, cultural and social landscape. This will be a
unique opportunity to engender a working relationship between emerging fin-
de-siècle scholars from a variety of research institutions from across the
UK, Ireland and further afield.
Suggested topics might include, but are not limited to:
• Literary marketplaces
• The New Woman
• Periodical culture
• Illustration and visual media
• Genre fiction â€" including horror, crime fiction and sci-fi
• History of art
• Mass readerships
• Notions of high and low culture
• Children's literature
• Anxieties about the urban
• Degeneration and race
• Space and time
• Decadence and avant-garde culture
• Queer theory and emergent gay culture
• Literature and science
• Empire and nationality
We are delighted to be able to offer two international student bursaries.
Please see our website for further details:
Please send abstracts of 200-400 words for 20 minute papers plus brief
biographical details to Clare Clarke, Clare Gill, and Beth Rodgers at
centurysend_at_qub.ac.uk by 11th July 2008.
From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
more information at
Received on Thu Jun 26 2008 - 16:22:31 EDT


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Wolf Blitzer delivers the most important breaking news and political, international, and national security stories of the day. Tune to The Situation Room weekdays 5-7pm ET on CNN.
President Obama holds double-digit lead over Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum according to a new poll.
GO GO Obama, let hope that the Democratic take over house of representative, to get this country going once again.
Your preaching to the choir. Go Mr. President GO !!!!
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Today is March Fourth – a date I have always adored. But in 2008, the date became marked the date when my brother died by his own hands. This short story is based on that event. However, the beauty of being an author means I can create a better world (or worse, if I choose) than reality in hopes of presenting alternate ways of viewing the world and our place in it. This short story appears in the box set Unshod along with other short stories set in the West. The box set is perma-free.
March Forth
By P.C. Zick
Eve woke from the first sound sleep she'd had in months. Silence greeted her, along with an empty spot next to her on the king-size bed.
Throwing on the robe she'd laid at the foot of the bed the night before, she walked over to the sliding doors and pulled aside the thick deep purple curtains. She viewed a snow-globe world as snow fell in large white drips obscuring the view of the mountainside she so dearly loved to see each morning. Yesterday, she spied the new green growth of tulips and crocuses—planted by the previous owners—poking through the soil in the beds surrounding the patio off her bedroom, but now snow lay an inch thick, with larger, wet flakes following one after the other. Rocky Mountain weather changed as quickly as the mood of a mercurial menopausal woman.
Despite hiding the flowers, the snow held its own beauty, which pleased her. Peace surrounded her and held her tight in its arms. She'd finally slept last night after weeks of restlessness. Or maybe it had been a year of restlessness. She had hoped that by moving away from Chicago and heading west into the mountains outside Boulder her life would improve. It did for moments that shot through her with the sheer enormity and beauty of the terrain enveloping her in a safe cocoon. But then came the nights, and the memories flooded her. She analyzed every sentence, paragraph, and action she had made through her entire life. In Eve's analysis, she always came up short, and then somewhere between dark of night and dawn, she declared herself a failure.
As she watched the snow fall, she felt gratitude that last night she had slept, and no such declarations of a botched life assaulted her.
The day had finally arrived—March 4—and she greeted it calmly despite the ramifications of what it might reveal. Her bones told her that whatever transpired today would change her life forever, but she felt no judgement on the change. It would happen, and there was nothing to do about it.
Fifty years old, divorced, and living alone for the first time in her life, she was learning about loneliness. But this morning, Eve felt renewed with confidence that she hadn't felt since Dan came home and made his announcement. "I've met someone," he said in a clichéd regurgitation of events leading up to the moment of his confession. How unoriginal she thought now, although at the time it cut through the bone to her heart.
Wrapped in her serenity after a full night's sleep, she walked to the antique walnut secretary in the corner of her bedroom. She knew what she needed to do before she left for the biopsy.
Eve pulled out a white sheet of stationary, a yellow sunflower imprinted on the top of the page. She frowned when she gazed at it. Her twin sister, Allie, had given it to her on their last birthday, right before the terrible fight that had cast a shadow on their relationship and from which they'd yet to recover. She always thought she and Allie had the twin connection stronger than any other twins did, but that had changed when Allie's daughter died. Eve didn't blame her sister for how she reacted. If anything ever happened to Carli, her daughter, she'd probably want to die. Allie lashed out at others after the accident, but Eve never dreamed the lashing would reach to her. She knew Allie resented her for being the one to deliver the news. But that's the way it had played out, and it was just another of those memories that ran repeatedly in Eve's head on the nights of her worst discontent.
It was a primal scream that erupted from Allie when Eve said, "Susie is dead." Allie never forgave her for being the one to utter the words.
Pushing aside the negative thoughts, particularly on this day, she put her pen on the paper and began writing straight through to the final words. She folded the sheet in half and shoved it in the envelope before sealing it. She wrote, "Carli" across the front, and then placed the envelope in the drawer under the pull down desktop.
When she walked out to the great room of her cabin, she found her friend Sarah sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading a novel.
"No paper today?" Eve asked.
"The snow delayed everything this morning," her friend said without looking up from her book. "I was about to come in there and wake you up so we could get an early start. Did you finally sleep?" Sarah raised her eyes to look at Eve.
"I did. I feel at peace this morning. I don't know what's going to happen today, but I have a feeling it will be something significant. It's March Fourth after all."
Sarah smirked. "All right, Miss Soothsayer. I thought it was March 15, the Ides of March, that held significance."
"Nope, it's today. Besides, what happened on the Ides of March? A murder at the hands of best friends. With friends like those …"
Sarah held up her hands to stop her. "Don't say it, Julius Caesar. So we shall march forth into the day with our shields and swords at the ready."
Eve laughed at her friend. They'd only known each other a few months, but they'd quickly developed a strong bond when Eve took a job as a copy editor at The Rocky Mountain News. Sarah wrote a column on gardening and landscaping in a mountain terrain, which Eve appreciated especially now that spring soon would be here, and she'd have to learn all about the flowers and plants of her new home.
Sarah had spent the night with her so she could drive her to and from the biopsy in Boulder about a half an hour from Eve's cabin.
Allie popped into her head again, and the pain seared through her. How could her sister be her enemy? Again, she brushed those feelings into the dustpan and mentally tossed them in the trash. Visualization worked for Eve on most days. She woke at peace with herself and her life, and she wanted to go forward in harmony with whatever the day might bring.
"Now don't freak out," Eve began, sitting down at the table with her friend, "but I have something to tell you. You promise not to freak out?"
"I don't make it a habit to 'freak out' as you so quaintly put it. So, yes, I promise if it makes you feel better. What's going on?"
"Something beyond my control is happening today that will change my life forever," Eve said. "I don't know what it is, and I don't feel good or bad about it. It just is the way it is. But things will change after the day ends."
Sarah stared at Eve before speaking. "You're scaring me a little, but go on. I'm listening."
"I woke this morning after the best sleep I've had in weeks. I woke feeling calm and with a sense of peace that I haven't had since first Dan and then Allie left me."
"That's huge. It makes me happy, so why would I freak out?"
"There's more." Now Eve hesitated. What she had to say sounded so final. "When I woke up, I wrote a letter to Carli. I wrote out my last wishes."
Sarah didn't move or speak. She simply nodded her head.
"I didn't do it because I think I'm going to die, I did it because I realized how very alone I am in the world. It doesn't make me as sad as it did once. But I realized Carli is it as far as my survivors go, and she has no idea what my wishes might be after I'm gone."
"So you wrote it all down?"
"Yes, I did. I wrote it down, and I put it in a sealed envelope with her name on the front. I put it in the drawer in my secretary, and you're the only person I'm telling about it."
"That's good. Carli might not understand, especially with the biopsy and all."
Eve smiled. Carli had wanted to be the one to take her today, but Eve insisted that Carli stay in Ann Arbor where she was in her first year of college. If she needed her, she'd bring Carli home at the right time. If the test came back with bad results, then they would figure it out. She only had six weeks left in the semester, so she'd be back in Colorado soon enough.
"She doesn't need to know about it. Only you."
"You're probably just spooked with finding the lump and then the doctor rushing the biopsy."
"Maybe, but it feels like something outside of myself. I've been through so much this past year that cancer is the least of my problems." She stopped talking as tears threatened. When would that stop? She felt like she'd been crying for months, and she probably had. How Sarah put up with her, she didn't know.
"Let's get going," Eve said. "If I can't drink coffee or eat anything this morning, I might as well be on the move."
The neighbor, a retired gentleman who kept a watch out for Eve, had already plowed the driveway, but the sidewalk leading to the house was nearly a foot high. They trudged to Sarah's SUV. Mr. Carson was out on the road with his tractor. He waved to them as he passed.
"Nice man," Sarah said. "You lucked out with him and his wife. Some neighbors aren't so helpful. Or if they are, they're too helpful."
"No, Mr. and Mrs. Carson are just right. I don't know what I'd do without the two of them here."
The new life she'd chosen contained hours of loneliness. There was no way she wanted the house in Evanston, Illinois, where they'd raised Carli. It was a house of deceit now, filled with memories of a husband who came home every night pretending to love her and to care about the family. All the while he'd been spending his days at work with the "someone he'd met," another CPA who'd taken the office next to his last year. He waited to tell her until Carli had started college at the University of Michigan last fall. Talk about the empty nest. Hers had been vacated, excavated, and exhumed. There was nothing left. So she took her share of the house from Dan and bought the cabin where she'd been ever since.
Eve sent a quick text to Carli, who she knew was already at work at the coffee shop near campus, telling her she was on her way to the hospital and that Sarah would keep her posted.
"I'll give you my phone and wallet to keep," Eve said. "The rest of my purse can stay in the car."
"Sounds good. It's going to be fine today. I know it. I'm starting to think like you. Something big is going to happen today, but what it is who knows?"
Eve woke in the recovery room. The doctor had told her the size of the lump required them to do general anesthesia, and she hadn't protested. The less she knew about how they were invading her body the better as far as she was concerned.
"There she is." A nurse stood next to her bed fiddling with the IV stand. "The doctor should be in here in a few minutes to tell you how it went. Do you want your friend to come in now?"
"Yes, and can I have some water?" Her lips felt parched and dry as if they might crack. The nurse held up a Styrofoam cup with a straw, and she sipped.
"There's our sleeping beauty," Sarah said as she came into the small cubicle where Eve lay trying to wake up. "You were in surgery for quite awhile. Have you talked to the doctor?"
"Good afternoon, young lady," Dr. Gershom said as he came around the curtain. "How are you feeling?'
"Like I slept forever." Eve tried to sit up but didn't get very far.
"You did fine today," the doctor said. "But the mass was deeper than we anticipated, and it took longer."
"Is that bad?" Eve felt as if she was swimming underwater, trying desperately to reach the top for air.
"We won't know anything for a week or so, but we took more tissue than planned. We want to know everything we can about it before we make any decisions. My office will call you when we have the results, and then we'll schedule an appointment for you to come in and discuss the next steps."
After the doctor left, Sarah pulled a chair up to the bed. "I called Carli when they told me you were out of surgery, but I'm sure she'll want to hear from you as soon as you can."
"Did you bring my phone?" Eve asked.
Sarah dug around in her purse and pulled out the cell phone, handing it to Eve.
"There's something else, Eve." Sarah paused. "I need to tell you something else."
"Allie called a few hours ago."
"Allie? Did you talk to her?"
"No. I heard your phone ring and looked at the screen. She left a message. I didn't think it was my place to answer the phone."
Eve's head swam. Why would Allie be calling her on this day, of all days, after so many months of silence?
"I'll call Carlie first, and then I'll listen to the message."
After Eve assured her daughter that everything was fine and that she'd be released soon, Eve handed the phone back to Sarah.
"Go ahead and play the voice mail on speaker. I have a feeling I'm going to need you." Eve lay her head back on the pillow and shut her eyes. She rose this morning knowing that the day would bring some type of movement to her life. She hoped the date would live up to its name, no matter what Allie had to say to her. At least, she had called.
Sarah fiddled with Eve's phone for a minute, and then she looked at her friend. "Ready?" Eve nodded.
The voice, so similar to hers, startled Eve into opening her eyes.
Eve, it's Allie. I woke this morning with one thought in mind. I decided today would be the day I would end it all. What do I have to live for repeats over and over in my head, keeping me from sleeping most nights. I rose and went directly to my secretary in my bedroom—you know the one, it's just like yours—and wrote out my last wishes. When I finished, I paused wondering whose name to write on the front of the envelope. Only one name came to mind, so I wrote "Carli," but just as I dotted the "i" on her name, my phone rang. I wouldn't have answered except that I glanced at the screen lying next to my stationary and saw "Carli." I knew then it was a sign from Susie—one I've been asking for ever since she died.
Her voice cracked at the end, and then she stopped talking. Eve's heart did a flip flop, not knowing what was coming next. Was Allie going to kill herself? Finally, the voice started again.
So I answered. Carli was calling to tell me about your biopsy today. She said she couldn't stand that we weren't speaking and that it made Susie's death even harder for her. Funny, I've been so lost in my own misery, I never thought that others might miss Susie, too. Carli said she thought I should know. Now I know, and it feels as if she threw a rope down into the abyss of my despair. I threw away the pills a few minutes ago.
Again, silence, but Eve felt relief course through her knowing the pills were gone. She didn't know if Allie had hung up or not. Sarah whispered, "She's still there."
I'm driving west in a few minutes and should be at the cabin by tomorrow night. I hope you'll welcome me. You are my way back.
"She's coming." Eve shut her eyes, and tears fell on her cheeks.
"It's happening just like you said." Sarah wiped the tears on her checks with the coarse tissue provided by the hospital. "Are you okay with her coming? I can always call her and tell her to wait a few days."
"She's already on the road. I want her to come. Besides Carli, she's all I have."
"And she's your twin. You must have felt like you had an amputation after the fight."
"I haven't felt whole since that day she told me she hated me. It was worse than the divorce."
"All right," Sarah said, pulling Eve's clothes out of the plastic bag provided by the hospital. "Let's get you out of here. You need to get some rest so you're ready for tomorrow night."
Sarah spent the night with her again, just to make sure she was all right, but in the morning while they drank coffee, Eve assured her friend she was fine.
"I can stay and help you get ready, maybe make something for dinner?"
"No. I'm fine. I've got some soup frozen, and I always have the stuff to make our favorite dessert."
"What's that?"
"Chocolate sundaes with French vanilla ice cream. It's what we always had as kids on Saturday nights."
Sarah hugged her as she prepared to go. "You were right. Your life changed yesterday, didn't it?"
"We'll see." Eve wasn't sure how they'd ever make things right again. Too much had passed between them during those dark months of death and divorce.
"When did her daughter die? Was it before the divorce?"
Eve shook her head. "It was the week after Dan told me. Susie was coming over to the house to take me out for lunch when it happened. I was the last person she'd called before the other car crossed the median and hit her head on. They called me, and when I said I was her aunt, they told me, and I said I'd let her mother know."
"I am so sorry, Eve. I had no idea that's how it happened." Sarah came to her then and held her tightly, while Eve let loose with the tears that had been her constant companion since last September. "And so you told Allie?"
"Yes, I went over to her house. Susie and she had been fighting over the past few months because Susie didn't want to go to Northwestern. In fact, Susie didn't want to go to college at all, and the two had been fighting over it."
"Were Carli and Susie the same age?"
"Yes, we liked to do everything together, even have our kids. Except marriage. That's one thing Allie never did. She didn't marry Susie's father. In fact, she never even told him she was pregnant. Another sore spot with Susie. Allie resented that Susie could talk to me, but she kept it concealed mostly until after the death. Allie said I'd kept them apart."
"She was in horrible pain. I can't imagine how she must have felt, and you were an easy scapegoat. If she had been married her husband might have taken the brunt of it."
Eve's mind went back to that day when Allie screamed, "I hate you." It was the day she'd decided to move west, even though she'd only been to Colorado once. But there was something about the Rockies that drew her, and the idea of leaving Chicago and burying herself in the immense landscapes gave her hope that she could escape the pain of the divorce and of Susie's death. She needed to mourn both. Allie felt abandoned when Eve told her she was moving. She begged her to come with her, but Allie instead lashed out at Eve. And they hadn't spoken since. She didn't know how they could ever get beyond all of that grief and anger.
She heard a car door slam late the next day as she stirred the soup simmering on the stove. Heart pounding and hands sweating, Eve managed to open the front door just as Allie walked up on the front porch. They stared at one another for a long time, neither one moving. And then Eve moved toward her sister as Allie also moved forward. They fell into one another's arms, crying and laughing.
"Let's get inside before we freeze," Eve said, even though she didn't want to let go of Allie ever again.
"This is lovely, Eve." Allie stood in the middle of the great room with its vaulted ceiling and cathedral windows and knotty pine walls. "The perfect mountain retreat. That's what you did, isn't it? You retreated from it all."
Eve looked at Allie, wondering if she heard resentment in her voice. She decided if it was there, she would ignore it.
"You can hang your coat on the rack in the corner. How about a glass of wine?"
Allie nodded and followed her into the kitchen area. "Smells good. What's cooking?"
"Minestrone—just like Mom used to make."
They took their wine to the leather couch facing the stone fireplace, sitting side by side as if the past months had never happened. Eve marveled that it all seemed so natural and right.
"Do you know when you'll have the results back?" Allie asked.
"Maybe a week. They'll call me and schedule an appointment."
"I'd like to stay at least until then."
"Good. I'd like that. Carli will be pleased, too." Eve paused. "There's something I want to tell you. Your message was disturbing, but it also let me know we never lost one another. Yesterday morning, I woke very clear headed but certain something was going to happen that would change my life forever. I was thinking about the date—my favorite date—March Fourth."
"I know you've always said that. Why did you think yesterday would be different from every other year when you've said the same thing?"
"I don't know, but it was clear to me that I needed to do something. So I rose and went to the secretary that's just like yours, and I wrote out my last wishes." Allie gasped. "I addressed the envelope to Carli."
"Just as I did yesterday morning."
They turned to one another. Eve rose and went to her bedroom. When she came back holding the envelope, Allie was unfolding an identical piece of stationary with the yellow sunflower. She placed it on the coffee table in front of the couch. Eve did the same thing with her letter.
They'd written nearly the same thing, except Eve wrote about how proud she was to be Carli's mother. Allie wrote about Susie. But they both ended it the same way.
Tell my sister I always loved her.
"I guess we really have that twin thing down," Allie said. "To the letter." They both chuckled.
"Move here, Allie," Eve pleaded with her sister. "We'll get help for both of us so we can move beyond the grief. And we'll work through it all together."
"Do you mean we'll march forth hand in hand?"
"That's exactly what I mean. Just you and me."
"You mean you want me to leave Chicago?"
Eve laughed. "Yes, come west, young woman. There's something fresh here in the Rockies. It's the place for new starts while we still remember our shared past."
Allie nodded, and then smiled.
In one movement, as if with one body, they raised their glasses and clinked them together to seal the pact they'd reached together.


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The Geneva Motor Show might as well be called The Supercar Show or The You Can't Afford This Show because if a car is expensive, exclusive, has more than 1,000 horsepower or all of the above, this is probably the place you'll find it.
And this year's show didn't disappoint, because all the high-end brands we know and love and even bunch of random boutique supercar makers we've never heard of and can't pronounce all debuted their latest cars here.
Here are our picks for the 5 most significant and buzzworthy debuts of the show.
Read more about the Top 5 Most Buzzworthy Debuts from the 2016 Geneva Motor Show at AutoGuide.com.


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Last week we received a couple of new products from the lovely Laure behind her new line, LILA LOVES IT at Comptoir Des Dogs. Laure's grooming products are made from both natural oils and plant-based herbs.
We were the lucky recipients of both the Shampoo Sensitive and the Paw Care.
Both formulas are neutral in colour, mild in scent and come in easy to use containers with classic monochromatic label and natural packaging. I particularly like the paw care! It wasn't until I began using it that I noticed the positive changes to Laffy's paws. With ingredients such as apricot kernel and coconut oils, its obvious how those essential oils help balm and coat his pads. The waxy form softens easily on the fingertips and even helped coat my hands!
I've always selected a non-fragrant shampoo or natural solutions containing soothing oatmeal for sensitive skin. I was a bit apprehensive trying a new Shampoo without smelling it beforehand but this one passed the 'non-parfume' rule! It has a very mild scent and smells more natural than perfumery. Definately a plus for pups with a quirk for rubbing themselves over everything and everywhere just to remove the scent off from thier coat and skin. With ingredients such as avocado oil, chamomile and yarrow extract, a lot goes a long way and I would recommend a tablespoon /if that/ for a french bulldog.
100% Natural and Vegan!
Merci Beaucoup Maggie's MOM!


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What Town Is About to Make Drunk Driving Legal?
Know when to say, 'I'll have another."
Ireland's Kerry County has approved a proposal which would essentially allow some people to drive drunk. Yup, you read that correctly.
Lawmakers have agreed to pass a measure letting local police hand out a get out of jail car to motorists in rural areas whose blood-alcohol level is beyond the legal limit.
Danny Healy-Rae, the councilman who created the unlikely law, said he came up with the idea because he was worried about older people in rural areas who "are being isolated now at home, and a lot of them falling into depression." He also claims these citizens are afraid to leave their homes and risk losing their license since there is no public transportation.
Healy-Rae further justified the motion:
I see the merit in having a stricter rule of law for when there's a massive volume of traffic and where there's busy roads with massive speed. But on the roads I'm talking about, you couldn't do any more than 20 or 30 miles per hour [30-50kph] and it's not a big deal. I don't see any big issue with it."
The law isn't set in stone just yet. The Department of Justice has to take up the issue and approve it. It's also worth noting that the local council approved the policy by a vote of 5-3, with 12 council members not in attendance.


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San Antonio Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard (2) drives to the basket as Miami Heat center Chris Bosh (1) defends during the second half in Game 7 of the NBA basketball championships, Friday, June 21, 2013, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
It was heartbreaking to watch the Miami Heat crowned as repeat champions of the National Basketball Association in Miami. Along with probably tens of millions of other serious basketball fanatics, I badly wanted the San Antonio Spurs to dethrone the heavily favored Heat. The Spurs did come ridiculously close to taking the title, blowing a five-point lead with twenty-eight seconds to go in game six, when they were ahead three games to two in the best-of-seven series. Even after that devastating game-six collapse, the Spurs played even with the Heat throughout the decisive game seven before succumbing only at the very end.
There is no denying that the Heat are the world's greatest basketball team. More to the point, LeBron James is, by a wide margin, the world's greatest player. James is moving closer into that rarefied space among basketball's all-time pantheon with transcendent legends like Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
Still, the Spurs were mere seconds away from knocking off the Heat on their home floor. This despite the fact that the Spurs are located in a small-market city and their owner is not a mega-billionaire. The Spurs' player payroll this past season amounted to $59 million, $19 million below the Heat's. In addition, two of the Spurs stars, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili, are serious old-timers in basketball years, at 37 and 35 respectively.
How did the Spurs get so far? Their approach to building a championship-caliber team has been the opposite of Miami's. Three years ago, the Heat famously lured LeBron James out of Cleveland as a free agent. They also re-signed Dwayne Wade, the one star already on the team and brought in Chris Bosh from the Toronto Raptors as the third member of a newly formed Big Three. James, Wade, and Bosh each were paid more than $17 million this past season.
By contrast, the Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and General Manager R.C. Buford are masters at picking out and nurturing inexpensive players, both young, unproven players as well as assorted castoffs. They have relied on intelligence, savvy and a culture of solidarity they have been cultivating for the seventeen years Popovich has been coaching the Spurs.
Popovich/Buford selected Tony Parker, their all-world point guard from France as the twenty-eighth pick in the 2001 player draft. Virtually all of the twenty-seven players chosen before Parker that year have long since been forgotten. They acquired Ginobili from Argentina as the fifty-eighth pick in 1999, then waited three years for him to get out of his contract with a European team. Their emerging second-year star, 21-year-old Kawhi Leonard—who guarded James through most of the Finals and, incredibly, played him close-to-even for long stretches—was the result of a trade for George Hill, whom the team selected twenty-sixth overall in the 2008 draft.
True, none of these moves would have mattered much had the Spurs not lucked into landing Tim Duncan with the first overall draft pick in 1997. Duncan has been the best combination power forward/center of his generation, and one of the two or three best of all-time. Duncan has also defined the Spurs culture by his own character and style. He comes off as highly intelligent and unassuming—the least glitzy sports star of his era.
Yet Duncan combines this regular-guy personality with a fierce competiveness on the court. The Spurs could not otherwise have won four NBA championships over his sixteen-year career. Duncan also significantly upgraded his game this past season, after having slipped a bit the previous few years. Other star athletes have improved at age 37. But as far as I know, Duncan is the only one who did it without steroids.
Because Popovich and Buford scour the earth for hidden talent, they have put together the most international NBA team ever assembled—nine of the team's players, including three of its best ones, were born outside the United States. They have two French players besides Parker, and one Latin American, Tiago Splitter, besides Ginobili. Duncan himself grew up in the Virgin Islands. They even have an undrafted bench-warmer from New Zealand, Aron Baynes. We'll see if Popovich turns him into a player.
Because of Duncan's no-nonsense proficiency and good-guy demeanor, the Spurs are sometimes considered boring. But I can't see how anyone could think this. Parker is an acrobat driving to the basket. He won the first game of the Finals by dribbling around multiple Heat players, including James, then falling down twice while keeping his dribble, and finally hitting a fifteen-foot bank shot by ducking under James' outstretched arms just as the twenty-four-second shot clock expired. Parker appeared to be playing Harlem Globetrotters basketball, except that it was the for-real NBA finals.
Even more than Parker, Ginobili has a manic, ultra-daring playing style. The downside is that he sometimes loses control, more frequently as he gets older. He threw the ball away eight times in the Spurs game-six Finals loss, the most turnovers he's ever had in an NBA game. Yet he was unstoppable in game five, scoring twenty-four points and delivering ten assists, as the Spurs pounded the Heat.
Given the harsh realities of aging for professional athletes, this may well have been the last hurrah of the Spurs' Duncan/Parker/Ginobili/Popovich era. It would have been sweet to see them walk off with an amazing championship upset over the mighty Heat. It didn't happen. But this Spurs team still proved its greatness for the basketball ages. Who knows: they may well have enough in the tank to surprise us again next year.
Robert Pollin is the foremost authority on NBA basketball within the University of Massachusetts–Amherst Economics Department.


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As effective as flies are for duping large trout, inline spinnerbait have a unique way of persuading lackadaisical fish to bite. Spinner fishing is not a foreign technique for most anglers, and many have used them in the early spring and late fall seasons to catch steelhead and salmon for years. Contrary to popular belief, spinner fishing during the summer months can also provide steady action, as well as a great shot at enticing the lunker out of the hole to bite.
While fishing the many great tributaries of Lake Superior over the last 10 years, there have been many occasions when the going got tough with flies, and a quick switch to spinners produced immediate results. Using spinners, my cohorts and I landed one Rainbow after another on these tough days. Not only do spinners consistently fool Rainbows, but they are very efficient at deceiving other species of trout such as Browns, Brookies and Cutthroat.
Using Spinners for Fishing Trout: Secrets for Success
Spinners are productive fish catchers for multiple reasons, the most significant of those being the rapidly spinning blade attached to the wire shaft of the lure. This unique design feature allows the blade to pump and push through the water, imitating many of the living creatures on which big trout feed. These spinning blades also put out a tremendous amount of flash, which is useful in attracting and enticing the most lackadaisical lake-run fish into taking notice.
Another key feature of spinners is their weight, which provides two distinct advantages over most flies and other lures. The spinner's heavy weight and compact, balanced design makes casting these baits relatively easy, allowing anglers to sneak baits under overhanging roots and branches to fishy looking holes. The weight of spinners also plays a big factor in getting the spinner down deep in the water column quickly, even in the fastest of currents. Big trout rarely move farther than a few feet to strike at bait, so getting down into their strike zone quickly is imperative.
Another key to spinner fishing is the speed at which these lures can and should be retrieved. "The faster the better" is the general rule for spinner retrieval. Burning through holes with spinners gives trout little chance to get a good look at what you're offering, and in most instances, this speed gets fish to bite down ferociously.
|Fishing spinners slow and deep through large pools is your best bet for hooking into trophy trout.
The key to spinner selection is to match your spinner to the water color, light conditions and stream size that you're fishing. Metallic gold, copper or silver spinners will produce best in clear water conditions with a bright sun overhead. In the low-light conditions of dusk and dawn, painted blades in black and gold/silver or black and red should do the trick.
A good idea is to carry a wide variety of spinners ranging from 1/32, 1/16, 1/8 to 1/4 ounce. If you are fishing smaller streams or rivers in low-water conditions, try using smaller spinners. When fishing big, open waters or flood conditions, starting with large 1/4 ounce spinners is best.
The Big Three Spinner Fishing Brands
If you were to walk into a tackle shop and ask to be pointed in the direction of the spinner aisle, you might find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer number of different spinners available. Truth be told, though, there are three basic spinner brands – Mepps, Blue Fox and Panther Martin – and these are the most popular with anglers.
Mepps spinners are high-quality spinners that incorporate large blades that give off tons of flash and "thump" when retrieved. Blue Fox spinners are also very high quality spinners that use a little smaller blade than Mepps, but Blue Fox incorporates the Vibrax body system to help fish take notice of the spinner pumping through the water. The last of the big three is Panther Martin, and these spinners have a unique linkage for their blades (attaching them directly to the wire shaft) that creates a wobble-type retrieve for the spinner.
Spinner Fishing Techniques
The type of retrieve you should use when spinner fishing is based on a couple of different factors, including water flow, water depth and the weather conditions outside. In larger streams, which can be increasingly deep or flowing heavy from a good rain fall, use an upstream and across cast to place the lure ahead of your target so that it can sink into the strike zone. Once the spinner has dropped down to the appropriate depth, let the spinner drift with the current into quicker water. Once the spinner reaches the tail of the pool or riffle, a moderately fast and steady retrieve upstream should be used. In many instances fish will follow the spinner during the drift and strike on the upstream retrieve near structure like rocks and boulders. In smaller streams, or in low water conditions with relatively little current, cast the spinner close to your target and begin the retrieve on touch down. The retrieve should be a little slower giving the fish as much of a chance as possible to strike.
After working a hole thoroughly, parallel casting downstream and hanging the spinner in the current near eddies, boulders and other cover can be very effective. On heavily pressured waters trout regularly see spinners presented in the traditional fashion, so getting away from the norm can sometime change your odds.
|Large, agressive, migratory trout such as steelhead take spinners greedily while in rivers.
If you encounter a large, relatively slow moving pool, try fan casting to cover the entire pool. Fan casting is a technique that starts with the angler casting to one side or the other – either 9 o'clock or 3 o'clock – depending on which way the water is flowing. Always start casting into the current and work your way downstream until you cover all the water in front of you.
Fishing Catch & Release
If you are planning on practicing catch and release, either crimp down the barbs on the treble hooks that come on the spinners to ease in removal, or simply change the treble to a single hook. Treble hooks have a way of getting all three hooks buried in the fish's mouth, making them very difficult to remove without doing damage to the fish. One trick to aid in hook removal is to initially wet your hand and invert the trout upside down in the water. This position will temporarily stun the fish, allowing you to slip the hook from its jaws and release it unscathed.
Learning to fish spinners effectively for trout is a must, no matter how good an individual may be with other techniques. Spinner fishing is a very versatile technique and can be applied to almost any body of water an angler comes across. Better yet, this technique is easy to learn for anglers of all levels. Pick up a few spinners and hide them away in your vest for safe keeping, just in case you come across a stretch of tough luck. You never know – they might just be what the fish are waiting for on that particular day.
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(CNN) – Newt Gingrich announced the suspension of his presidential campaign Wednesday in Virginia, a little less than a year after the former House speaker officially launched his White House bid.
"Today I am suspending the campaign but suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship. Callista and I are committed to being active citizens," Gingrich said at an event in Arlington. "Now we're going to put down the roles of candidate and candidate's spouse and take up the role of active citizens."
Gingrich thanked his supporters, chronicled his life in public service, vowed to continue fighting for his policy ideas and expressed support for presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
News of his impending departure from the race first broke last week amid falling poll numbers, significant campaign debt, disappointing fundraising figures and a string of electoral losses.
The Gingrich and Romney campaigns have spoken consistently since Gingrich signaled he would pull out of the race this week.
In his speech Wednesday, Gingrich stressed the importance of defeating President Barack Obama in the November general election.
"I'm often asked if Romney is conservative enough and my answer is simple, 'compared to Barack Obama?' You know this is not a choice between Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan, this is a choice between Mitt Romney and the most radical leftist president in American history."
Gingrich's spokesman R.C. Hammond said the former Georgia representative would spend most of the summer and fall on the campaign trail stumping for candidates.
Gingrich was left for political dead last year after his top campaign advisers quit but experienced a resurgence in late 2011, due in part to a Republican electorate unsure about Romney, the GOP frontrunner.
However, he failed to win early election benchmarks, only capturing two early voting states, his native Georgia and South Carolina. Gingrich said he will "feel slightly guilty" every time he goes through South Carolina for breaking the state's tradition of voting for the eventual Republican presidential nominee since 1980.
Despite a string of election losses and armed with only 141 delegates, Gingrich continually vowed to stay in the race until the August convention in an effort to elevate his self-described "big ideas," including his American energy plan and broad education reforms.
On Wednesday, he vowed to continue working on behalf of "American exceptionalism" and said he and his wife would continue to campaign on behalf of American energy independence and health care reform while promoting mental health awareness and a country that is capable of combating global threats.
"With every great challenge, Americans have reinvented themselves and their country," Gingrich said. "Callista and I pledge to work with you and with every American who wants to create that better future."
His speech grew personal when he talked about his grandchildren, Maggie and Robert, who joined him on stage and often appeared with him at campaign events. He became emotional when he mentioned them, pausing for a few seconds before thanking them for being the "two best debate coaches."
In a statement released Wednesday, Romney said Gingrich demonstrated "eloquence and fearlessness in advancing conservative ideas" throughout his campaign.
"Although he long ago created an enduring place for himself in American history, I am confident that he will continue to make important contributions to our party and to the life of the nation," Romney said. "Ann and I are proud to call Newt and Callista friends and we look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead as we fight to restore America's promise."
Another former opponent, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, also responded to the news of Gingrich's decision, saying the former speaker ran a "spirited campaign."
"As he exits the race for the Republican nomination, I'd like to acknowledge my former colleague in the House Newt Gingrich for running a spirited campaign. In particular, I want to thank the former Speaker for echoing my calls for monetary policy reform including a full audit of the Federal Reserve, steps that will bring America closer to lasting economic prosperity for middle-class Americans who bear the brunt of the dangerous and unjust inflation tax," Paul, who remains in the race, said in a statement.
Also in a statement, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus congratulated Gingrich on his presidential run.
"Speaker Gingrich has been a tireless leader in our party for decades, and I know he will continue to be an outspoken advocate for conservative policies and Republican principles–not only in this election, but also for years to come," Priebus said.
Read more: Gingrich's 2012 campaign leaves him with mixed legacy
- CNN's Mark Preston, Kevin Bohn, Gabriella Schwarz and Shawna Shepherd contributed to this report.
Tell Newt not to worry. Benny Hill is looking for a stunt double.
He paid all his family money they charged his campaign. His daughter and other family member's businesses. But he did not pay non-family member businesses. I suspect he will file chap 11 and not pay any of them a dime.
I think this campaign of his was just a scam to get millions of cash for his family, then bilk all the others.
Nit Wit Newt... scores again.... and scams those who trusted him...
I hope the government looks into his scam and puts him in prison for the rest of his stupid life.
You know, when it is all said and done Newt was a pretty good politician, but as a human being, ugh.
Newt is a fraud, but he's an entertaining fraud. The rest of the republican ratpack are boring frauds, so, as far as that goes, I'll miss him.


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Functional Reactive Programming
From HaskellWiki
Functional Reactive Programming (FRP) integrates time flow and compositional events into functional programming. This provides an elegant way to express computation in domains such as interactive animations, robotics, computer vision, user interfaces, and simulation.
- Conal Elliott's papers (several about FRP)
- Grapefruit-related publications and talks
- The Yale Haskell group's latest publications (mostly related to FRP)
- Antony Courtney
- Conal Elliott
- Andy Gill
- Liwen Huang
- Paul Hudak
- Wolfgang Jeltsch
- Henrik Nilsson
- John Peterson


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The GOP presidential candidates collectively have raised more than $300 million in this election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data. Here's a quick look at where several of those candidates — Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump — collected the money.
Each dot on the maps (see update below) below represents at least $5,000 raised by zip code. The dots in each place are assigned randomly within the zip code boundaries, creating a density map (think Verizon vs. AT&T) for campaign donations* through Feb. 29.
Here's a (crowded) map with all the candidates. The dots were layered alphabetically, a method that unfortunately obscures some candidates at this scale, depending on the geography. Still regional differences are evident:
The former Florida governor raised large amounts of money, of course, from his home state, but also — as the perceived frontrunner for a time — from major population centers:
Carson raised a ton of money for someone who received relatively little love once voters started casting their ballots. His map shows he raised more from small locations throughout the country, not just the major population centers:
The New Jersey governor, understandably, raised a large proportion of his money from his home region:
The Texas senator raised money from all over the country, but he clearly has a financial base in Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Houston — the major population centers in his home state.
Like Christie, the Ohio governor tapped his donor base at home:
The Florida senator's map looks much like that of his frenemy, Bush:
The billionaire business man, who has relied largely on personal funds for his campaign, has raised very little money in checks larger than $200, as reflected in his map:
* To keep the analysis consistent for all campaigns, the maps were created with a data set that excluded individual donations of less than $200. The data include only donations to the candidates' campaign committees, not other political committees supporting them.
UPDATE (9:20 p.m. EST): Based on David's suggestion in the comments, I've changed the dot color in the individual maps so it's consistent. You can see the originals here: Bush | Carson | Christie | Cruz | Kasich | Rubio | Trump.


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Category Archives: Cut Off
Edison Chouest Orders PSV in Poland
REMONTOWA SHIPBUILDING S.A has signed a contract for building of a Platform Supply Vessel for Edison Chouest Offshore from Louisiana, USA.
New building vessel is continuation of the series of four units of the same type which has been started last year. She will be built according to the project elaborated by polish design office MMC Ship Design & Marine Consulting Ltd from Gdynia. The vessel will be equipped with Diesel – Electric propulsion system allowing most cost efficient exploitation, reduction of fuel consumption and lower emission of NOx and SOx to the atmosphere.
Working deck of 1000 m2 will enable to carry high-volume goods, which makes that vessel the biggest one in her class. Technically advanced vessel will operate the complex deep-water operations in the region of South America and Africa.
The vessel will be equipped with Class 2 dynamic positioning system and fitted to operations in world – wide sea areas, in each weather conditions. After completion of the construction and carriage of complex sea trials, the vessel will be delivered to the Owner in the fourth quarter of 2013. The contract includes an option to build another, sister vessel.
- USA: Technip Buys Four ROVs from Forum Energy
- The Netherlands: Heerema Marine To Build Deepwater Construction Vessel Worth US$ 600-700 Million
- Norway: Northern River MPSV Sails to New Owner
- Norway: Bourbon Front PSV en Route to North Sea
- Germany: Second New Building Vessel Type 183 Almost Completed for SAL
Related articles
- Norway: STX OSV to Build 4 PSVs for Island Offshore (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Norway: Ulstein Delivers Blue Fighter PSV (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Norway: Ulstein Launches New Platform Supply Vessel for Blue Ship Invest (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Apache Hires Ulstein Design PSV for Work in UK North Sea (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Edison Chouest Ship Attacked off Nigeria, 3 Kidnapped (gcaptain.com)
- Ukraine: Zaliv Launches Ulstein Design PSV Hull (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Shell to unveil massive icebreaker (seattletimes.nwsource.com)


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Cork Roofing are registered roofers. We have been serving our customers for over 30 years in Cork City and County. We are widely regarded as one of the top roofing contractors in Cork, we have a reputation of being an honest, straight forward company.
We run a highly professional roofing contractor service and undertake all manner of domestic roofing, commercial roofing jobs, including insurance work. grant work, roof repairs, gutters, fascia, down pipes etc. We are approved by the council for grant work.
Our highly skilled team of roofers in Cork, have extensive experience and we can offer advice on all aspects of roofing & roofing materials. Cork Roofing have a large client base and is an accredited member of CIF. Health and Safety is a major priority for us. All of our are trained to the highest standard and hold safe passes, skills cards, manual handling certificates necessary. We are fully insured for over 6 million and are C2 registered. All our projects are supervised personally by our experienced foremen.
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Bicknell's Thrush Tours
May 31, 2020 @ 6:00 am - 8:00 am
One event on June 6, 2020 at 6:00 am
One event on June 9, 2020 at 6:00 am
Early morning tours to see this rare bird! May 31, June 6 and 9
Bicknell's Thrush is an extremely rare species with very limited breeding grounds. It is the rarest and most secretive of the breeding thrushes in North America and it is the only bird whose breeding is restricted to the Northeastern part of the continent. They usually breed at higher elevations, normally nesting above 3,000 ft. The unique and harsh climate is just what the birds prefer due to the combination of low vegetation and abundant moisture. The Mt. Washington Auto Road offers you a rare opportunity to view these obscure birds.
Our Bicknell's Thrush Guided Tours leave early in the morning before the Mt. Washington Auto Road opens to the general public to insure there is as little additional noise or disturbance as possible. Our success rate at hearing and seeing this elusive thrush is quite good, but with the species in decline due to wintering habitat losses, there can be no guarantee of sightings.
Tours depart from the base of the Auto Road at 6:00am and last approximately 2 hours.
Cost: $50 per person. Advanced reservations required.


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Your p.m. roundup for July 14, the day we went hunting for a shark in a lake but caught a duck instead. As always, don't forget to tip your editors.
What we're watching: Baseball is back after its usual three-day weekend in the middle of a July week. Strangely, only 14 teams are back on the field tonight, which means a little more than half of MLB gets another day to unwind. For your viewing pleasure, MLB Network will be presenting either Yankees-Blue Jays or Indians-Orioles (7 p.m. EDT).
Enjoy a Tony Kornheiser classic, with added footnotes:
The land looks cold and ugly, as far from summer and the abominably large mosquitoes that breed here as possible. Ryan is in his pickup truck, the same pickup he used the day before to load 2,000 pounds of bull-grower at the feed store.[7]
7. Kornheiser says he got to spend "probably two or three full days" with Ryan, which didn't seem unusual in 1980, when national print media still possessed significant stature. "Nolan picked me up in a truck, and we drove around, and we chatted and chatted and chatted and chatted," says Kornheiser. "That would not happen - well, I don't want to say that would not happen now. I think athletes would happily let an MTV crew in, you know, I just don't think it would be a writer. But I think that they would let media in, because now they're just used to being filmed all the time."
Apple MacBook Air Laptop
Powerful performance
The M1 chip delivers 3.5x faster performance than the previous generation all while using way less power. Get up to 18 hours of battery life.
Pitchers have pitcher names. Science says so: "Why? What does it mean? How could this possibly be? How could a baseball player's birth name have anything to do with whether he becomes a pitcher? We aren't done with this. I feel as though we have just started. Thanks to you, we have found something genuinely confusing and wonderful." [SB Nation]
The Lockout Professionals are at your service: "Hi. I used to be Ron Artest. But now, I'm Metta World Peace. And I like filing papers so much, I might change my name to I Love Filing Papers So Much." [YouTube]
Why the Mets had to move F-Rod: "Rodriguez hired Scott Boras to represent him this month, which for the Mets was a signal to trade Rodriguez as soon as possible before any constraints arose. Once the deal was made late Tuesday night, the Mets could more realistically think about re-signing Reyes, who can be a free agent after the season." [New York Times]
The Klitschko brothers' father is dead: "Vladimir Rodionovich Klitschko was stationed near Chernobyl during the 1986 nuclear disaster and participated in the immediate cleanup of the reactor's meltdown. His illness was linked to the disaster that sickened many who lived in the region." [ESPN.com]


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NEW YORK — The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum — the home of the retired space shuttle orbiter Enterprise — reopened this morning (Dec. 21) for the first time since Hurricane Sandy left the converted aircraft carrier here in disrepair.
After a brief ribbon cutting ceremony with a group of school children from the Bronx, the museum and flight deck, housing the Enterprise, opened to the public after a six-week hiatus.
The space shuttle and museum on Manhattan's west side sustained damage during the late October hurricane, and while the museum isn't fully operational quite yet, the damage to the space shuttle was minimal, however dramatic looking, officials said.
The tip of Enterprise's vertical stabilizer, the back tail resembling a whale's dorsal fin, tore off when the inflatable pavilion fell down around it. However, it broke on a seam, making it a relatively simple repair, said Intrepid's president, Susan Marenoff-Zausner.
"Starting in January we're going to start building scaffolding around the shuttle for two purposes," Marenoff-Zausner said. "One is to fix the vertical stabilizer, a piece [of which] came off right at a seam so we're very fortunate that it's a very easy fix. But then, we're going to cover it with a fabric for protection in the winter."
Enterprise's new home
Enterprise arrived at Intrepid this June, and first went on public display in July. [Spaceship Enterprise Barges Into Bayonne | Video]
The museum is in the process of crafting a new pavilion to house Enterprise that should be ready sometime in the spring. But until then, the Enterprise will be shielded from the elements with a fabric covering and other protective measures around the orbiter's windows and more exposed parts. Until the scaffolding is built next month, Enterprise will remain exposed and easily seen from the pier next to the Intrepid.
The Enterprise, which never flew to space, was used as a prototype to test the space shuttle design during glide flights in the 1970s. The orbiter has been exposed to rough weather many times before, but Marenoff-Zausner said that the shuttle is now a national artifact and needs to be kept in the best condition as possible. Although Marenoff-Zausner said she is confident that Enterprise is safe from any further inclement weather, she is worried that the shuttle's paint job could start chipping.
The pavilion and shuttle were reasonably well protected during Sandy, but the strength of the storm was so unexpected that even five days of preparation didn't prevent the museum from sustaining damage, officials said. Although the generators responsible for keeping the Enterprise pavilion inflated were raised two extra feet off the ground, the hurricane's 4-to-6-foot (1.2 to 1.8 meters) rush of floodwater still left them submerged. Once the transformers blew, the pavilion deflated, and part of the shuttle's vertical stabilizer detached.
"When the pavilion came down," Marenoff-Zausner said, "it acted as a protective shield over all the equipment so we were able to get in there literally the next day and start mobilizing and get all the equipment out."
And it was lucky that they did, she said. The next week, New York was hit with a snowstorm that compounded the issues already facing the city in the wake of the hurricane.
Repairing the damage
Most of the damage to the museum from Sandy was contained in the visitor's welcome center, which still isn't open. Six feet of water (1.8 meters) flooded the building and ruined the floors and merchandise in the gift shop.
Despite the damage, Marenoff-Zausner is confident that the Enterprise pavilion and the rest of the museum will be up and operational by 2013's Fleet Week — a week in early September when U.S. Marine and Navy corps dock in New York City.
Enterprise is one of four retired space shuttle orbiters to be installed in museums recently. Its sister spacecraft Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis — NASA's three remaining space-flown orbiters — are at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum outside of Washington, D.C., the California Science Center in Los Angeles, and the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., respectively.
Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter @mirikramer or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.


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It's a beautiful day outside. But I'm sick, indoors, cranky and trying to stuff myself full of Vitamin C and Zinc.
But life outside continues. Sunday I brought you a shark, today it's a mouse. And it's looking for love.
I'm not sure who this artist is, but I wish I had more info. I do notice that I it's changed my life in a little itty bitty way.
Until I noticed this street art sprouting up in the Outer Sunset, I found myself overly-focused on what I was doing, looking down and hurrying through life.
But the last few weeks have been a little different. I am constantly looking up. Constantly searching for little bits of treasure hidden on SF's utility poles. And it's actually made life more interesting.
So whoever you are, please don't stop. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's intrigued, interested and grateful for the little smiles you're adding to life through these carved wood surprises. 🙂


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Started Jan 25, 2011 0 Replies 0 Likes
♪ ♫ ♩ waking up is hard to do...♬ ♭ ♮ ♯ Continue
Started this discussion. Last reply by Alaina Forbes Feb 6, 2011. 1 Reply 0 Likes
Some moms say a child that does not experience spanking will grow up with a bad attitude. Others say that spanking should not be done as it develops resentment between child and parent.My take: kind…Continue
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Thanks! hes a cutie alright;)
and insanely strong!? Oh the stories I have lol
Thanks again
Blog ya later;)
Hi! I tried to leave a comment on your blog but I couldn't figure out how to! I loved that video. Your blog is quite helpful. Also, where can I join to get your RSS feed? I noticed you don't have GFC!
DPHip Chick's Guide to PMS, Pregnancy, and Babies
Welcome! I just wanted to introduce myself, and my blog, The Book Buff: Book Reviews for Regular People. Check it out at http://www.thebookbuff.blogspot.com
It can be a bit overwhelming around here, so if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!
-Kate the Book Buff


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If you are tired of reading the same cheap quality magazines that don't ever really seem to say much, then we think we have a solution for you. COLORS Magazine is a magazine that is a bit out of the ordinary in the fact that they feature only high quality content and even their magazine paper feels like it is a much heavier and substantial stock than what other magazines use. For example, if you pick up an Entertainment Weekly, the paper quality is going to be the same slippery smooth and thin product that all of the other magazines use. Now, we don't have a problem with Entertainment Weekly, but you can't deny that quality is lacking in their finished printed product.
Each COLORS Magazine has a particular theme that is emphasized and discussed throughout the entirety of the magazine. This makes for a nice coherent edition each and every time! For example, one of their issues is on Happiness, a concept that is very interesting to talk about, and the entire issue delves deeply into what it is that makes a person truly happy. The articles and content in these magazines is well worth reading, not like the bland and uninformative columns in most.
On top of the fascinating content and high quality of this magazine, there are a few additional things to note. The cover designs are spectacular and artistic, it shows that a lot of thought went into each and every one. Lastly, it is available on the iPad as well as in print, so for those of you that are too impatient to wait for the print issues, look into getting the digital version on your iPad. For more information or to subscribe, check out www.COLORSmagazine.com.