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All entries for Sunday 08 July 2007
July 08, 2007
Francois Truffaut's New Wave Films: Issues of Youth, Sex, Stars & Gender
Of all the new young French directors who came to prominence between 1958-1964 Francois Truffaut is currently the most written about. Truffaut's key films from this period are 400 Blows (1959), Shoot the Piano Player (1960) and Jules et Jim (1961). In 400 Blows the character Antoine Doinel a schoolboy, who is at odds with his parents, school and society is introduced. The film won Truffaut the best director's prize at Cannes in 1959 and firmly placed him on the map of French film directors. Below some of the circumstances of these films are explored. Firstly the article notes the position of the changing representations of youth, it then develops some issue, themes and concerns within Truaffaut's three key films of the Nouvelle Vague. Finally the article relates these films to issues of gender and the specific kind of femininity represented in the New Wave. It also questions whether Truffaut's films can be understood as being misogynistic.
A Celebration of Youth Begins
In Europe and the USA the phenomenon of youth as having a separate cultural identity had started. 400 Blows gains much of its vibrancy from a representation of youth which is totally different to anything which had come before. How far its elements are autobiographical are unclear however this to some extent irrelevant for Doinel acts as an allegory for the position of youth in France. France in this representation was seen as repressive and thoroughly hierarchical suffering the hangovers of an imperialist nation which had been invaded and was undergoing severe post-war stress as problems in Algeria and Vietnam started to emerge.
There is something of the freshness and vigour of both Vigo the pre-war French director and the neo-realist approach of Roberto Rossellini in Truffaut's approach - Truffaut had worked for Rossellini who was even a witness at his marriage. In Rossellini's Roma Citta Aperta (1945) a young tearaway and his followers played an important role in symbolising resistance to Nazi occupation and the closing scene of children walking into a future Italy was symbolically powerful.
400 Blows is not so clearly optimistic as Roma citta aperta. It challenges the audience through its open ending. Antoine having successfully escaped from the institution and standing at the seaside is in a state of confusion: where next? is the question posed by the closing shot on his face. The shot begs the question what is the future of this boy. Does the audience want him to go back to the reform school, how do they want Antoine's life to proceed? are his parent's good influences? There are no straightforward answers for Antoine is in a very confused and ambiguous position. Antoine has been mistreated, yet at times is dishonest as the interview with the psychologist makes clear. It is the underlying quest of the film to place the audience in a position of reflexivity which makes the film so effective and makes it a part of a distinctly modern tradition. The film thus poses a question for France. Its politics are thus linked to its form.
400 Blows
Doinel appears as a character in many of Truffaut's subsequent films. There are strong autobiographical references in this film and it is claimed that the film contributed to the divorce of Truffaut's parents. Apparently they were very upset by the contents as Doinel's parents are very unsympathetic characters. Apparently Albert Remy who played the father bore quite a strong resemblance to Truffaut's father. Gillain points out that interviews with Truffaut revealed two contradictory positions on the film's status as autobiographical having claimed that he had experienced all the hardships represented in the film and denied that the film was his autobiography. Gillain argues that the denial was down to aesthetic reasons.
Just as the world view of a director, especially an auteurist one, will operate at both a conscious and unconscious level, it is possible to over-read a text and construct it as totally autobiographically determined:
The need to understand oneself better, the desire to establish one's unique identity or the urge to interpret one's life- all these motives account for the autobiographical impulse. In order to treat the self as a narrative object, the author must select the facts that he or she recalls to reconstruct the unity of his or her life. The author must also impose an order on its individual events and bestow upon them narrative coherence , as well as achieve the creation of an imaginary self.
Truffaut's autobiography can be seen as being spread over twenty-one feature length films. Although each film is self-contained an auteur structuralist perspective argues that the whole of his _oeuvre_ can be read in the light of each being a part of a greater whole. Gillain's (2000) contention is that all Truffaut's films offer a variation along themes of repression and secret aspects of the self in what she describes as a 'Script of Delinquency'.
In 400 Blows a spatially organised set of relationships can be discerned which revolves around a binary opposition between outside and inside. Inside, whether at home or at school the shots are mainly static and in close-up, whilst outside there is mobility and a sense of freedom. The streets and the outside come to represent freedom of thought, action and movement.
Stylistically 400 Blows is influenced by the camera-person Henri Decae. The camerawork is fluid and combines ...a modern mobility with classical depth in many of the location shots suggests Neupert (2002) as the filming of the rotor ride sequence indicates. Gillain takes a more psychoanalytically inflected analysis of the rotor scene suggesting the space is womb-like and represents a compensation for lack of affection.
The narrative style constructs the film as a series of separate scenes or segments. This is very different to the continuity codes of the classical Hollywood cinema. This use of segmentation opens the text up so that the audience can quickly recognise that these activities and scenarios are everyday ones, in which there is no single cause and event structure, rather, the life of Antoine is consistently one of being alienated from the institutions and his parents. That he ultimately gets into trouble for stealing a typewriter - clearly an act driven by some level of internal frustration rather than maliciousness or even to try and make money - spurs the drift into his institutionalisation. In France at that time parents were able to ask the French authorities to take their children into reformatory care if they thought that they were behaving in a very uncontrollable manner and Doinel's father did this.
The film acts as an opportunity for liberal modern reflection upon an archaic disciplinary structure which has no place in contemporary French society, and transcends the purely autobiographical, moving from the micro ethnographical approach to the everyday. In doing this it serves to create a meaning which challenges the dominant discourses based upon the discipline of the time. This trend can be seen in a wider context across western countries with the disciplinarity of imperialistically minded discourses. Resistance against the system was represented in the British New Wave by The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner for example.
Behind the Production
400 Blows was co-produced by Truffaut's father in law who was a mainstream producer and distributor in the French film industry. 400 Blows proved a critical and popular success as well as a financial one. The American rights were sold for between $50,000 - $100,000 (depending on which version is listened to). The film was also the fifth largest grossing one in the French box office that year. This catapulted Truffaut from being one of the best known young critics to the best known young film maker. It enabled him to engage in new feature length projects as well as putting him in a position to help influence producers to back other projects from the emergent new wave directors.
Shoot the Piano Player
Shoot the Piano Player was Truffaut's next project. It was based on a pulp fiction American novel Down There. Here it is important to note that Truffaut hadn't been against literary adaptations as such but the treatment of adaptations by the French studio system which prioritised a visual syntax that was explanatory of the words in the book rather than trying to translate the book into what Truffaut understood to be a properly cinematic language to convey the essence and spirit of the original. Truffaut and the other participants of the French New Wave prioritised a visual and cinematic language as a means of expression.
Shoot the Piano Player was a parodic take on the American 'B' movie thriller and for several reasons was unpopular with both critics and the audiences alike at the time. Sellier argues that it is a modernist work by being both critical of established Bourgeois culture of the quotidian but also of the mass culture of entertainment.
bq. Analysing mass market American films the Cahiers du cinema critics - by emphasising the most abstract aspects of their mise en scene and by disregarding the socio-cultural context of their production and consumption - gave impetus to the modernist, distanced gaze on cinema that the most innovative films of the New Wave worked to mobilise' (Sellier, Genevieve, 2001, p127)
It is in retrospect that the qualities of the film emerge Neupert (2002) describes it fulsomely as ...one of Truffaut's great stylistic triumphs and one of the freshest, loosest and even funniest films of his career. Truffaut used Raoul Couthard who had worked on Godard's a Bout de souffle as the camera-person which helped give the film a grittier less polished feel to it.
Truffaut's editing was also a fundamental part of the film's aesthetic. There were shifting visual rhythms moving from the long takes, favoured by Andre Bazin, to discontinuous montages far distant from the Bazinian naturalist aesthetic. The text also plays with genre systems of narrative which has encouraged some in need of a publication to suggest that the film is in some sense 'postmodern' however this is taken as mere critical discursive construction, for it is in this that the film is decisively modern in its approach.
As Sellier argues the film takes a modernist mode, of what Astruc describes as cinecriture, to construct and represent a wounded masculine subjectivity. Sellier describes the process as one of an admixture between the modernist sensibility and the romanticist one leading to a dual cultural inheritance that was to strongly mark the aesthetics of the New Wave.
The Political Context
The film became beset by political problems. In the post production phase Truffaut's editor Cecile Decugis was arrested for allowing her flat to be used by the Algerian resistance movement. Truffaut used several thousand dollars from the production budget to establish a defence fund. Truffaut also signed the 'Manifesto of the 121' encouraging soldiers to desert rather than fight the Algerian war. It had soon been signed by 400 intellectuals, artists and other well known people, including Truffaut. As a response the state owned media prohibited the appearance of the signatories which reduced Truffaut's opportunities for publicity. The right dubbed Truffaut as 'anti-French', although the left-wing cinema journal Positif were led to revaluate their position on Truffaut.
Jules et Jim
Truffaut's next film was in the mould of an historical melodrama, however, it could hardly be described as 'generic'. Jules et Jim came from Henri Pierre Roche's novel of the same title . The film was shot on a budget that was high by New Wave standards of $280,000, nevertheless with the death of his father in law Morgernstern during production there was an increased level of financial vulnerability.
As a result, shooting was in borrowed locations with costs pared as far as possible. The film is based upon a menage a trois consisting of: Jules, an Austrian living in Paris; Jim, a writer who meets Jules in Paris; Catherine who becomes their muse. Catherine resembles a Greek statue which they saw together on a spontaneous trip after seeing a slide show and becoming fascinated by it. Jules eventually marries Catherine, then World War 1 breaks out and Jules and Jim fight on opposite sides.
After the war Jim visits Jules and Catherine who by this time has a daughter Sabine. Catherine is unsettled and has taken on other lovers and is currently having an affair with Albert the person who showed Jules et Jim the slide show in the first place. Catherine seduces Jules who has always wanted her and the menage live in the same chalet for a few weeks together. Catherine gets bored with her romance with Jim and seduces Jules again. The men pretend that they aren't jealous of each other although one evening it comes out that they are.
Catherine is represented as wanting to have men on her terms and as being mentally unstable. (how often is this the case when men are wanting women on thier terms?) Jim eventually returns to Paris but wants to be with Catherine who has declared that she wants to marry him and have children. Jules who has given up hope of a stable relationship with Catherine favours this as he can't bear the idea of losing Catherine altogether.
From Paris Jim corresponds with Catherine whilst being with Ghilberte who is represented as being little more than somebody who brings Catherine's letters to Jim and is wetly prepared to accept her lot. The relationship between Jules and Catherine seems to have broken down irretrievably when Catherine who is pregnant by Jules has a miscarriage. By 'chance' Jules and Jim meet up in Paris and Jules goes to meet Catherine again in the mill house near Paris where she and Jules have moved to. Jules is determined to try and break the spell and announces that he is going to marry his girlfriend Ghilberte whereupon Catherine draws a revolver and threatens to kill him .
Later, there is a seeming attempted rapprochement when Jules, Jim and Katherine go out for a drive together in Catherine's car. Catherine asks Jules to come with her for a drive and asks Jim to watch them carefully. Catherine then proceeds to drives them both off an bridge which has no central section and they both drown. It was a film about amour fou or mad love.
The use of Jeanne Moreau and the nature of the story were good marketing ploys. It was criticised by the Catholic church in France and the Legion of Decency in America which might well have helped its success. The film employed long takes and montages alongside freeze framing, handheld wide screen shooting, and 360 degree pans. This combination of techniques break decisively with the 'cinema of quality's' approach to the historical melodrama.
The larger budget also allowed for more refined lighting techniques and more sophisticated work on the soundtrack so in this sense the film was moving away from the rougher edged early films. Many critics see the film as the beginning of the end of the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague ) as many of directors gradually became part of a different structure of cinema.
Issues of Stars and Gender in Jules et Jim
It is worthwhile reading Jules et Jim through the lenses of both gender and star criticism. Here the work of Sellier and Vincendeau is especially useful in beginning to open up the discourse. The typical new wave film coming from ex-Cahiers critics can be seen as being an aesthetic project which was highly critical - at times vituperative in Truffaut's case - towards the establishment. The aesthetic also functioned from a necessity born of material limitations.
In a move typical of rebellious youth, Truffaut had announced that he wasn't prepared to work with established stars such as Michele Morgan and Pierre Gabin on the grounds that they influenced the mise en scene by demanding close ups in accordance with their status as stars. An argument that was more polemically based than factual.
It was an argument which Godard would effectively dispel in Le Mepris which critiqued the role of the producers and their control of the financial package to ensure that the audience were given what they 'wanted' as the key determinant. (Godard's treatment including the ways in which Bardot was filmed will be dealt with elsewhere(. Nevertheless, in relation to the issue of the usage of stars Truffaut made an aesthetic vision the rationale for not being able to afford well established actors.
The Eroticised Star of the New Wave
Of course this very materially influenced approach to film-making brought forward new actors. Less established women actors such as Jeanne Moreau and entirely new women such as Anna Karina became central to the French New Wave. In a tradition that emanated from 19th century romanticism the leading women were often associated with the directors. In Moreau's case with firstly Louis Malle and then Truffaut and in Karina's case with Godard.
Vincendeau perceptively places Moreau as central in this process for Moreau was associated with Malle in the prefigurations of the New Wave in Lift to the Scaffold, and then Les Amants. This was followed by her work with Antonioni in La Notte (1961). Moreau then played a key role as Catherine in Jules et Jim.
Above Jeanne Moreau in Antonioni's La Notte
Moreau had been firstly reconstructed by Malle and her early acting work within the mainstream played down. As Catherine, Moreau fits in well with one of the trends in the representation of women in which they are objects of desire who function to lead the male protagonists to their downfall. Moreau played this role in Lift to the Scaffold (1958), Les Amants and Jules et Jim. Truffaut can be identified along with Malle by establishing this approach in Tirez sur le pianiste as well.
Jeanne Moreau in Louis Malle's Les Amants(1958)
The attraction of Moreau is that through her performances she helped to establish a new definition of femininity which was an essential part of liberalising modernity. It was a representation that was fresh, alluring and different suggests Vincendeau.
This wasn't a position solely occupied by the French New Wave for the 'phantasmic male projection' of new woman was also created in Britain through the character of Julie Christie. Unlike Moreau, Christie was to gain international star status in films such as Dr Zhivago moving on from the 'will o the wispish' persona exemplified in Billy Liar (1963).
Christie can also be associated with the more gamine actresses associated with the New Wave such as Karina and Jean Seberg. Moreau's role as a slightly older actress was to reflect the sophisticated, intellectual mood of the films. But all echoed the ideology of the New Wave: authenticity, modernity and sensuality. In Jules et Jim, Moreau was positioned in a different hierarchy to mainstream cinema as the star wasn't dominant in the mise en scene, just an element within it.
In common with other films from the New Wave such as A Bout de souffle and Bande a parte, both by Godard, there was a different regime of the look in which a less sexually but more erotically inscribed construction of femininity was installed. Vincendeau compares this look with that of Bardot: New wave actresses were young, good-looking and sexy, but not too overtly glamorous. Bardot was so extraordinary that her beauty conceptualised as an effect of surface, became the theme of her films. In the New Wave films committed to authenticity and depth, beauty appeared more 'realistic' coming 'from within'. Vincendeau argues that in contrast to the female nudity increasingly exploited by the mainstream the New Wave achieved a more erotic effect by shifting the focus of attention from women's bodies to their faces.
This attention to 'surface modernity' of the stars also fitted well with the liberalising modernity of modernising France which was moving to a consumption based model of capitalism as the more classically bourgeois fourth republic, which was also a moment of post-war reconstruction and austerity, gave way to TVs, holidays and cars a harbinger of greater leisure as the post-war boom progressed and the bonds of empire began to fall away.
In terms of space and the representations of women in the city the New Wave saw Jean Seberg in a Bout de souffle follow Moreau's roam through the city firstly in Lift to the Scaffold and then in La Notte. This public space was still fraught with danger that accompanied those who tried to became a sort of flaneuse. Moreau was taken as a prostitute on occasion and Seberg ended up being chatted up by a thief and a murderer. In that sense these representations of modernising women were rather more conservative than that of Julie Christie in Billy Liar for it is she who travels everywhere, even to France (perhaps a reference to the new wave representation of women?), by hitch-hiking on lorries if necessary.
New Wave Directors as Misogynists
Christie represents the fearlessness of modern female youth in a world apparently without danger. She is contrasted with the dreaming Billy Liar who is unable to turn his fantasies into reality. By contrast the French representations of femininity end in the misogyny of the femme fatale of a neurotic Catherine in Jules et Jim, a femininity based upon a romanticist notion that it is women through their deadly sexuality who foil the projects of the heroic male.
The final sentence of Vincendeau's article encapsulates the gendered limitations of the New wave directors take on liberal modernity: Concentrating the values of romantic love, sensuality, sensitivity and modernity, Moreau brought a feminised surface to the New Wave which superimposed itself on its male and misogynist foundations.
If Jules et Jim epitomises a masculinised notion of freedom through the carefree images of an idealised woman and set of relationships in its first part the darkening mood of the film could be seen to represent a post-First World War in which the mechanised killing fields mean that nothing is ever quite the same again. It is a position which relates to the expressionist mood of early Weimar cinema. As a story of amour fou looked at in hindsight the film seems somewhat vacuous. Characterisations are thin and inconsistent and Catherine as an object of desire is constructed through the look rather than through any intellectual or emotional capacities.
Enigmatic Romanticism and the Suspension of Materiality
In Jules et Jim this enigmatic romanticism was constituted around an enigmatic statue of a woman in a way which establishes an essential female eroticism which transcends both time and space and inscribes femininity with both an exotic and erotic otherness fundamental to romantic thought. The film also suspends materiality, for Catherine manages to afford her own car at a time when to have a car meant to be extremely well off yet she has no obvious independent income. Jules as a hermit style ecologist in his post-war character can hardly afford that.
The audience is informed that Catherine has both an aristocratic and a commoner background however this is not expanded. The voice-over narration is used to describe the feelings of the characters functioning to allowing the mise en-scene a certain amount of autonomy. In that sense the film is working as a part of New Wave aesthetics. Unlike La Dolce Vita (1959) the film tends to ignore society, and it fails to achieve the necessary depth in its characterisations. Its romanticised modernism doesn't go as far as Antonioni's L'avventura (1960) in terms of alienation and the difficulties of communication between people but it is nonetheless following this path.
All these films feature suicides which is the ultimate breakdown of interpersonal communications and alienation and still a feature of contemporary life. In hindsight the explanation from Tartan video's opening that the film is a 'cult' classic is probably fitting. Whilst it was a massively important contribution to a defining cultural moment in French cinema it ultimately fails to satisfy as a piece of art when set alongside the contemporary contributions from Italy.
Bibliographical Note
References here can be accessed in the bibliogaphies section of the blog in the French bibliography.


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Unanimity has constitutional price for high court
WASHINGTON — Even when Supreme Court decisions are unanimous, the justices can be fiercely divided about fundamental matters, as was demonstrated by two 9-0 rulings last month.
One overturned a Massachusetts law restricting speech near abortion clinics. The other invalidated recess appointments that President Obama made when the Senate said it was not in recess.
In the first, four justices who concurred in the result rejected the majority's reasoning because it minimized the law's constitutional offense. In the second, four justices who concurred with the court's judgment that Obama had exceeded his powers argued that the majority's reasoning validated the Senate's long complicity in practices that augment presidential power by diminishing the Senate's power to advise and consent to presidential nominations.
A provision of Massachusetts' law stipulated 35-foot zones around abortion clinics, from which spaces people wanting to engage in sidewalk counseling — urging women to forgo abortions — would be excluded. Another provision of that law makes it a criminal offense if someone "knowingly obstructs, detains, hinders, impedes or blocks" persons approaching abortion clinics raises no First Amendment problems. The challenged law, however, proscribes persuasion in a public place, speech which unwilling listeners can walk away from.
The court unanimously held that the state may not protect persons seeking abortions from peaceful attempts to change their minds. But Chief Justice John Roberts, practicing judicial minimalism, argued only that the Massachusetts law was unnecessarily broad for protecting public order. Roberts wrote that the buffer zone — a euphemism for a no-speech zone — is "content neutral" because it does not discriminate against a particular point of view. This nonsense may have been necessary for preserving unanimity with the more liberal justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Justice Antonin Scalia, however, in a concurrence that was 95 percent dissent, called Massachusetts' law "unconstitutional root and branch" because, far from being content neutral, it pertains only to abortion clinics, it predictably will restrict only persons speaking against what the clinics do, and it restricts them in places — public sidewalks — where free speech is protected. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas joined Scalia's concurrence and Justice Samuel Alito wrote a similar one.
The second 9-0 decision rebuked Obama for one of his anti-constitutional excesses. But that foreordained result was less important than the peculiar reasoning that perhaps was necessary to make unanimity possible.
Obama had made recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board when the Senate was holding (as it has done with the consent of both parties) pro forma meetings — and conducting some business — every three days to establish that it was not in recess.
For most of the nation's life, presidents have been making, without strenuous Senate objections, intra-session as well as inter-session recess appointments to fill vacancies that did not occur during the recess.
The court did not quite rule that tradition validates departures from the Constitution's text. But neither did it say, as it should have, that even long-standing practices should end when they are deemed to conflict with an unambiguous text. Instead, Breyer practiced a perverse form of judicial restraint, decreeing that a recess of fewer than 10 days is "presumptively" too short for recess appointments. In another dissent-as-concurrence, Scalia, joined by Roberts, Thomas and Alito, noted that Breyer's presumption leaves presidents with much more latitude than the Constitution's text stipulates.
Unanimity is not only spurious, it is injurious when purchased at the price of compromises that suggest disingenuousness. The Constitution's purposes and architecture were sacrificed twice to produce 9-0 decisions.
Two conservative priorities, defending freedom of speech and curtailing arbitrary exercises of presidential power, were undermined by judicial minimalism — aka judicial restraint — that conservatives praise more frequently than thoughtfully.
George Will's email address is email@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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99 Percent? Top 25 Occupy Wall Street Backers Worth $4 Billion
Occupy Wall Street attacks income inequality and the richest 1 percent, adopting as its slogan ''we are the 99 percent.'' In October, its protesters staged a ''millionaires march'' in New York City, parading to the homes of wealthy citizens such as Rupert Murdoch and David Koch. But only some riches bother the Occupiers, who have ignored the massive wealth of celebrities in their own ranks.
The top 25 richest celebrities supporting Occupy Wall Street, according to the website Celebrity Net Worth, possess a combined net worth just over $4 billion.
While JP Morgan and Chase banker Jamie Dimon (worth $200 million) was one of the targets of the ''millionaires march,'' he has a net worth less than five of the celebrities supporting OWS.
That's not surprising. Many of the celebrities supporting Occupy Wall Street seem to be oblivious to the amount of wealth they possess.
Comedienne Roseanne Barr, (worth $80 million), was quoted quite literally calling for the heads of wealthy, declaring: ''I do say that I am in favor of the return of the guillotine and that is for the worst of the worst of the guilty. I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100 million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100 million. And if they are unable to live on that amount of that amount then they should, you know, go to the re-education camps and if that doesn't help, then being beheaded.''
Barr inadvertently called for the heads of 13 celebrities supporting the Occupy Wall Street who make more than $100 million from singer Miley Cyrus to writer Stephen King.
Sometime singer Yoko Ono (#1 on the list, at $500 million) is a descendant of a prominent Japanese banking family. Her late husband John Lennon wrote 'Imagine' in a Park Avenue penthouse. She threw in her support for the movement, saying 'John is sending his smile to Occupy Wall Street.'
Former actress and fitness guru Jane Fonda (worth $120 million), who famously supported communism during the Vietnam War, attacked the wealthy when she threw her support to the Occupiers. ''Any country that has a very, very small narrow layer, of very rich powerful privileged people and no middle class and the rest are just really struggling and some of them not making it, is a country that's not going to be stable.''
Ranked No. 14 was former Vice President Al Gore (worth $100 million), who is better known for his climate change activism and his patronage of private jets. He has also supported Occupy Wall Street, calling it a ''true grassroots movement pointing out the flaws in our system.''
Even those on the list who didn't make the $100 million mark, still have extensive wealth. Liberal actor Alec Baldwin (worth $65 million), a spokesman for Capital One Bank, inveighed against ''the bailouts the US government gives major corporations every day' and 'the excessive fees forced on customers by certain banks'' on the Huffington Post.
Wealthy Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore (worth $50 million) was further down the list but still had enough money when he paid a million dollars for a luxury car and bought a 10,000 square foot vacation home. On Oct. 25, Moore was brazen enough to deny that he was a member of the 1 percent on CNN's ''Piers Morgan Tonight.'' (He was later forced to admit that he was a member of the 1 percent.)
Discredited former CBS anchor Dan Rather (worth $70 million) decried the influence of ''big money'' in American society, even in news reporting, saying: ''we are living in an age when big money owns everything, including the news.''
(He may have been referencing liberal donor George Soros' massive funding of journalism.)
Some celebrities supporting the Occupy movement do not seem to have a firm grasp of what the movement is about. Rapper Jay-Z (worth $450 million) got in trouble for trying to sell T-shirts to Occupiers without ''sharing'' the proceeds. Rapper Kanye West, worth $70 million, showed up to the Occupy Wall Street Movement wearing gold chains.
The attempts of these celebrities to rationalize their own wealth while protesting the wealth of others is astonishing.
Here is a list of the 25 richest (26 thanks to a tie) celebrities supporting the Occupy Movement (Source: Celebrity Net Worth)
1. Yoko Ono - $500 million
2. Jay-Z - $450 million
3. David Letterman - $400 million
(tie) Stephen King - $400 million
5. Russell Simmons - $325 million
6. Sean Lennon - $200 million
7. Mike Myers - $175 million
8. George Clooney - $160 million.
9. Brad Pitt - $150 million
(tie) Don King - $150 million
11. Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) - $145 million
12. Jane Fonda - $120 million
(tie) Miley Cyrus - 120 million
14. Al Gore - $100 million
15. Roseanne Barr - $80 million
(tie) Deepak Chopra - $80 million
17. Kanye West - $70 million
(tie) Dan Rather - $70 million
19. Alec Baldwin - $65 million
(tie) Matt Damon - $65 million
21. Tom Morello - $60 million
(tie) Mia Farrow - $60 million
23. Katy Perry - $55 million
24. Michael Moore - $50 million
(tie) Susan Sarandon - $50 million
(tie) Zack de la Rocha - $50 million


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"Tilda" by Malgorzata Bieroza Now On Foundation
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DeadFellaz Announces Q4 Plans in Roadmap 2.0
DeadFellaz announced earlier this month it's Roadmap 2.0 with a slew of new partnerships, listings, and exciting new releases. The following is adapted from an internal DeadFellaz medium article: https://deadfellaz.medium.com/deadfellaz-roadmap-2-0-b5bcaab6ff8
- 'Deadfrenz' coming December 13: Betty & Psych made a discovery deep in a testing lab on their latest raid. An exotic undead companion collection is coming.
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- Brand partnerships: We have formed relationships with well respected brands to create mutually beneficial content, expanding our reach and allowing us to explore new avenues of creativity.
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Furniture Row
An American retailer, Furniture Row offers locations across the United States. The company features a wide selection of products from four big-name home furnishing and bedding sellers:
- Sofa Mart
- Oak Express
- Bedroom Expressions
- Denver Mattress
The array of choices at Furniture Row lets shoppers outfit the whole living room from seating to storage. Couches and sectionals come in a range of sizes, colors, and materials. Consoles, bookcases, and TV stands tie it all together.
Furniture Row deals in both sets and single pieces. The brand provides styles to fit tastes from cozy country-chic to fancy and formal. In addition to tables and chairs in many shapes and sizes, customers can pick up wine cabinets, barstools, and buffets.
This retailer's selection also covers everything needed to furnish a home workspace. Go big with an executive desk, or choose a corner design for smaller rooms. Keep important papers neatly stored in a filing cabinet, and display texts on a matching bookshelf. Check out Furniture Row sales ads for the latest deals on office furniture.
Shop a full assortment of beds, linens, and dressers at Furniture Row. Select from a variety of mattress designs to land the right fit for any sleeping position. This vendor even has hard-to-find items like waterbeds.
Little ones can sleep in style thanks to the Furniture Row collection of children's furniture. Upgrade rooms with a bunk bed or daybed and round it all out by adding a dresser or a kid-sized desk.
Complete the look with accents that add form and function. Light up dark spaces with a lamp, or spread an area rug to warm up the floors. A hall tree or storage bench can stow spare blankets and winter coats. Furniture Row provides plenty of options to put the finishing touches on any room.
Patio furniture sales at Furniture Row let customers equip a porch or deck at affordable prices. Browse outdoor ottomans, sofas, and chaise lounges to relax in the sun. Mix and match tables and chairs, or pick a coordinating dining set.


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Pride and Shame: To Pee On Me Or Not To Pee On Me?
He said that he was 28, had just come out of the closet last year, and he enjoyed pissing on guys and hate-fucking. We were at Barracuda in Chelsea, and after about 30 minutes of talking, he told me that he'd love to fuck me but he has a boyfriend but could he get my number just in case? Sure.
Riding home with a 23-year-old later, I received a text that read, "Good to meet u rich. let me piss on u sometime :) get off grindr." I told him, "You can piss on me when you love me," and also when he's single. He called me heteronormative. I don't think he got the Showgirls reference, so it probably wasn't a match anyway. Sucks, because he was cute and wore a baseball cap that made him cuter.
Funny how Pride and regret go hand-in-hand.
That's a direct quote from my friend Daniel. I texted him about the hickey I woke up with (fucking 23-year-olds) on Sunday morning during this past New York LGBT Pride weekend. I asked if the Pride/regret duality was a widely accepted fact and he told me that it was. I'm a 33-year-old who's experiencing these petty revelations a decade late.
All kinds of petty revelations. For example, I don't really want to be pissed on. It's something I've been curious about, but only because other people put it in my head. I have no sex associations with urinals or bathrooms. No seed from my past is flourishing into a pee fetish. But it seems benign enough of an activity to see for myself what it's all about. It's like, if other people are into it and you can do it, why not try it? Why not experience the wonderful range of activity that human sexuality, and specifically queerness offers?
I barely got to do that in my former relationship, which ended a little over two months ago. He didn't want to pee on me and wouldn't to appease my curiosity and now for the first time in nine and a half years, I can guiltlessly pursue that or whatever or whoever. So far, it's been fun and exhausting, life-affirming and soul-sucking.
Most consistently, it's been a source of new ways of feeling the same shame that has manifested itself throughout my sex life, from early on when I had sex with a woman and worried about getting her pregnant and the homosexuality that made my mind wander during sex and my eye wander otherwise. The shame found ways to wind itself through my former relationship, through infidelity and sexual isolation and performance anxiety. It's so trite to chalk it up to a Catholic upbringing, but I can't help wondering if I'm addicted to sin or something like that.
Intellectually, I am proud to be gay. I don't need a weekend for it, but I'll take one to be extra gay because that's how much I love it. I wonder what this persistence of shame means about me spiritually and emotionally. I experienced so much of it last weekend, between and during fantastic times, these wholly positive social interactions with one great, beautiful, friendly person after the next. My gayness is haunted.
That hickey, as burgundy as Kaposi's sarcoma, was mortifying.
I fell asleep in my contacts four times, at home and elsewhere, the most notable instance being on a couch at my friend's apartment Saturday evening, between a string of house parties and Barracuda. My body just shut down for 20 minutes, long enough to make my eyes itch and have me worry about the dwindling supply of contact lenses that was supposed to last me a year but won't get me through summer.
I ate French fries twice. I'm not a heavy dieter, but fried potatoes pop up regularly in front of me and I get mad at myself every time I give in. (I never don't give in.) Since my days were full of Pride festivities, I didn't even get the chance to work them off, either. I'm still hanging my head. Hopefully I'll get to the gym tonight.
I failed to attain my goal of rounding up an orgy at the Highline Ballroom on Friday night at Bob Mould and Richard Morel's Blowoff party. My roommate was out of town, we have two giant couches and I figured that out of the bear clientele that party has a reputation for drawing, there'd be plenty down to group fuck. But that place was blaring disappointingly Electric Daisy Carnival-esque EDM and, even worse, it was uncruisably dark. There was just no way of knowing what I was getting so I didn't even try while scolding myself for copping out.
The party seemed druggy and miserable, and I wonder if that wrapped up in darkness bespeaks another sort of shame. Being shrouded in shadows in a social setting isn't something exclusive to the gay community, but it sure feels metaphorical when it's happening within it. And then, when two or more bodies emerge to actually get a good look at themselves in adequate lighting, I wonder if that doesn't provoke a different round of shame.
After the 23-year-old left on Sunday morning, I realized I'd spent the last 36 hours socializing (or something like it) and I felt like my life was falling apart. I decided to skip the parade. I watched a couple episodes of Breaking Bad and cleaned my apartment. I didn't eat anything. On the way to the train around 2:30, I stopped at a bodega to buy some cashews. I forced them down. Hunger wasn't bothering me in the least; I just didn't want to get sorority-girl-drunk at the next party I was headed to. The hunger was just another strange feeling to add to the pile, flung near a distinct sense of absence — the perma-dread that I'd forgotten something like my keys or my identity or that I had a chore waiting for me that I really didn't feel like doing. That feeling stems from my recent breakup and all of the tiny connections I've made in its wake that I worry are still too intimate for the flakey, immature place I am in life right now, and whose intimacy makes me feel bad for every other intimate connection I make thereafter.
I arrived at the Thompson Hotel for Gumbo's party where I hung out with most of the same guys that I'd been having such a great time with all weekend. It was a pool party, but like most in attendance, there was no way I was going to take my shirt off. Before I left the house, I had discovered that my hickey was far enough down on my neck that some T-shirts would cover it. I forgot to check, though, if the T-shirt I specifically picked out to go with my black board shorts would do the job. It didn't. Many guys mocked my hickey. "That looks like a vampire bite," said one. I knew I deserved it.
After a few hours, some friends and I decided that we wanted pizza, so we prepared to leave. Before we did, this thick slab of boy — 6-foot-4, 220 pounds — who I'd been looking at the whole time came walking by and I drunkenly said to someone, anyone, "I'm just going to tell him how hot he is." And so I did. And then we talked and kissed and talked about not wanting to be the weirdos who were kissing in public. These days, I'm often that weirdo. It's one of my least favorite things about myself.
I ended back at that guy's place after pizza. I'd sucked off a communal experience for my own selfish gain. Cultural vampirism is the point, right? And then we all reconvene and fuel our culture within the culture with our reports of what happened when the rest of us weren't there.
I lit a joint for him and his friends and he sat between me and some girl whom I think announced that she was a lesbian or broadening her former homosexuality or something. My guy went back and forth between kissing me and her. I loved that almost as much as I loved hanging out with a bunch of gorgeous lesbians the day before who said implicit and explicit things about having sex with me and my male friends. That seems like the queerest thing we could possibly do and for that alone, I may pursue it.
Then all of his friends left so we could hook up, and so we did. I mumbled something about having to read my book that he ignored because I didn't explain properly that it was the book I'd actually written that had notes due on Monday, and not some reading-group shit. I dozed off in my contacts for the fourth time in three days and woke up at 3 a.m. to hook up with him some more, my deadline hanging over our head.
I left his place at 4 a.m. I read for two hours, then woke up after 8 to read for another hour and a half. And then I went back to real life and work and I felt like I was hallucinating.
Pride & Shame is a new semi-regular series exploring sex and sexuality from the perspective of a newly single, 33-year-old, gay-sex enthusiast.
Photo via Getty.


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Follow the culinary adventures and misadventures of the Cooking Agents (Ray and Katie). Watch as we eat/cook our way into adulthood.
My expectations had been compounding for the past year. Needless to say, I went into Saus having my imaginary frites, liege waffle, poutine experiences setting the bar rather high.
Though food and flavors are always the determining factors for me, I can appreciate simple and what I consider timeless interior design. The colors are fresh, the woodwork is lovely, the lighting is pretty good (important when you're a nut case like me taking pictures). Seating is a bit cozy in Saus. With the capacity to seat 20 or so comfortably, you're lucky to sit at the King's Table, i.e. the tall table by the window. If you get this table, be ready to be the star of the Saus show as many passersby will just stand and stare at you eat. Major props to Brandon Graska, of Concise Design in Brookline for his contributions to the eatery's interior. As soon as I walked into this place, I loved how easy on the eyes it was.
Now for the food — I tried to order as much as I could from the menu to give a fair review and ended up ordering the following over two separate visits:
March 1 – Opening Day!
Frites with truffle ketchup, ole chipotle, and the vampire slayer dipping sauces – I believe "perfect" frites is a debatable topic any day of the week. Like any comfort food staple, everyone has their idea of what perfect is. I'm not sure that this fry fit my perfect fry mold. Though I do believe the consistency of Saus' fry was perfect for its purpose, which is to serve as a vehicle to consume a lot of very intense flavored dipping sauces. The fries come to you crisp and hot in a paper cone. If it's not too crowded, you can stand at the counter and watch Chin fry them right in front of your eyes. No pressure, Chin. My sister and I agreed the sauces packed a lot of flavor. These are not your delicate "hint of" flavor sauces. These will slap you in face if you're not careful. My favorite was the truffle ketchup which has a nice acidity to it, offsetting some of the richness of the truffle. $0.75 is a very small price to pay for a luxury like that. After I'd left the first time, I dreamt of this sauce.
Liege waffle with the homemade nutella, berry berry, salted caramel, and lemon cream sauces – Chin was kind enough to let us sample all of the waffle sauces even though we'd settled on the homemade nutella. Though the sauces for the frites may have been the star, the liege waffle here took the cake and the sauces were merely background noise (albeit delicious background noise). Liege waffles require pearl sugar, which like the name implies refers to the sugar being the size of small pearls. The size of the sugar lends to the caramelization on the waffle's exterior. Because Chin brought over small cups of the sauce, my waffle only had a very light dusting of confectioner sugar. This was perfect as is. On my second visit, other parties in my group ordered the waffles. That time the sauces were drizzled atop the waffles. I thought that may have detracted from the waffle's charm since the liquid may have started to break down the natural candy like coating on the outside.
March 6
Poutine – This was my first poutine, so go me for the cherry pop at 24. Took long enough, huh? From an experience stand point, the poutine delivered on its name. The fries and cheese curds and gravy end up making a warm savory amalgamation that got everywhere. This is not a healthy snack, but it could be the best thing to come from Canada (aside from Steve Nash — love you baby).
As I mentioned above, the frites are fried to crispy exterior perfection. You have a nice crunch to "mashed" potato ratio. That's a very big plus in my book. I'd be impressed to see that kind of quality during the late night weekend rush. Bringing my point back to the poutine, the fries had the ability to stand up to the gravy without being too hard, yet maintaining the crisp outside for the better part of my eating. Only when I started to get full did I notice my neglected fries began to get a little soggy. Layered on top of the frites and gravy was the freshly made cheese curds. Without knowing anything about the famous "squeaking", I can confidently say I noticed this quality. The curds on their own were nothing out of the ordinary as far as a flavor profile goes. As is the case with many simple ingredients, when combined with the crispy fries and the warm peppery gravy, the curds sang. Simply put, the poutine may have taken a few years off my life, but at least I'll know I enjoyed my younger years. =)
Great article! Love the first pic. What did you take that with?
Renee is friend's with Jane Kim! haha
Did you know that?
I know Renee too!! ahhhh!! =)
Good job supporting our BU Alumni
Pingback: Restaurant Review: Saus, Part 2 « read . cook . digest


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Where's the drama? Blowouts the rule in these NBA playoffs
Published 12:55 am Friday, May 19, 2017
By Tim Reynolds
AP Basketball Writer
Think back to the very first game of this NBA postseason: A one-point nail-biter of a win for Cleveland over Indiana, that outcome not getting decided until the final second.
Hardly any have gone like that since.
Dramatic playoff finishes have been very rare this year. Through 68 games, the average victory margin is 12.9 points. More than half of the 23 games in May have seen one team lead by 25 points or more. A postseason record has already been tied with four 4-0 sweeps — all by Golden State and Cleveland, who are a combined 19-0 and en route to what seems like an inevitable third consecutive NBA Finals matchup.
If you like blowouts, you love these NBA playoffs.
"Double-digit leads and wins are pretty surprising," Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue said. "But it's just part of it right now."
They seem less surprising every day.
Only eight playoff games this season have been decided by three points or less, while 40 have been decided by 10 points or more — a rate significantly higher than the NBA average over the last 30 years. San Antonio's blowout-filled postseason has included winning a game by 39 and losing another by 36, both without star forward Kawhi Leonard. And the lone "upset" in a series so far was fifth-seeded Utah topping the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Clippers in their first-round Western Conference matchup.
Calling that an upset is a real stretch, since both teams finished the regular season 51-31.
"So many blowouts, it has surprised me a little bit," Miami center Willie Reed said. "Playoffs, the crowd intensifies, the games get a lot tougher. I can see why the home teams are blowing out teams, jumping on them early. But it's happening a lot. Seeing 10-point games doesn't surprise me, but seeing the 20-point, 30-point games, that does."
It's certainly odd. But nobody seems to be complaining.
Every ticket for every game has been sold so far; it was the fourth straight year all first-round games were sold out and the third straight year where all conference semifinal tickets were purchased. Combined viewership for playoff games across the league's network partners — ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV — is up 3 percent over last year's pace, averaging 3.7 million.
Turner is enjoying its best numbers for playoffs since 2014, the network saying it's up 6 percent over last year with gains across all key demographics. Blowouts might have people leaving arenas before the final horn, but the at-home audience — the main reason why the league has a new $24 billion television deal that is changing the financial landscape of the game — remains strong.
"What you look at, it doesn't matter how many points you win by," Golden State acting coach Mike Brown said.
The top teams are predictably driving the storylines, as are stars like Cleveland's LeBron James, Golden State's Stephen Curry, Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook, Houston's James Harden and San Antonio's Leonard. When those stars are matched up, like Westbrook vs. Harden were in the first round and Harden vs. Leonard were in the second round, the interest level rose accordingly.
Although injuries derailed some teams — Chicago seemed poised to knock off Boston before Rajon Rondo got hurt, the Clippers finished the first round without Blake Griffin, San Antonio was already without Tony Parker and saw its best hope in the West finals damaged when Leonard re-rolled his ankle, and Toronto's slim chance against Cleveland got slimmer when Kyle Lowry turned his ankle — the interest level isn't ailing.
The top two teams in both conferences are the ones still playing now.
Whether they're close games or routs, the matchups now are the ones many probably have been waiting for.
"This is the best time of the year," Golden State forward Draymond Green said. "Every game matters. Every single possession matters. I love to play that way. When you're just out there playing and it doesn't mean anything, and whether you're good or bad, it does not matter. It's kind of boring to me. But every possession matters in the playoffs, every little detail. I love playing that way."
AP Basketball Writer Jon Krawczynski in Minneapolis and AP Sports Writer Kyle Hightower in Boston contributed to this report.


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Palm Desert couple to stand trial in infant death
RIVERSIDE – A Palm Desert couple accused in the death of the woman's 8-week-old child must stand trial for murder, a judge ruled Thursday.
Sarah Catherine Connor, 20, and Joseph Eugene Champion, 23, could each face 25 years to life in prison if convicted of killing Harmony Connor last May.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Mac Fisher found there was sufficient evidence to send the defendants' case to trial on the charge of murder, as well as assault on a child resulting in great bodily injury.
Fisher scheduled a post-preliminary hearing arraignment in the case for April 10 at the Larson Justice Center in Indio. Connor remains in custody in lieu of $500,000 bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside, while Champion is being held without bail at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning.
Connor and Champion were arrested last May 29 — the same day Harmony succumbed to what sheriff's investigators described as traumatic injuries — the type of which were not specified.
Deputies were called to the defendants' Pinyon Street residence around 6:15 a.m. on May 24 and discovered the baby in respiratory distress, according to sheriff's Sgt. Jeff Buompensiero.
Harmony was initially taken to Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage and later transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit at Loma Linda University Medical Center, Buompensiero said.
According to court records, Connor has a 2012 conviction for misdemeanor forgery and fraud. The court did not have any criminal history on file for Champion.


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It might be a little passive aggressive but here's a hilarious way to stop your neighbors from having cat-howling, bunny-bumping, orgasmic tongue screaming sex: record their moans and post the audio file to Soundcloud for all the Internet to hear.
Hey, I'm not against people having consensual sex. And I'm totally for dirty talk and moaning and scratching and pulling and any gerund you can think of. But when the sexy fun time lasts a little too long and is a little too loud that you're keeping all your neighbors up in every neighboring apartment? Well buddy, it's time to shut the windows! Or maybe not perform too well?
Enjoy the pleasant natural sounds here. Though make sure you have your headphones on if you're at work. [Reddit]


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Boy Scouts get away from it all! They camp, hike, and fish in the great outdoors. They get together in troops, and try out new experiences.
Boy Scouting is available to boys who are 11 through 17 years old, or who have earned the Arrow of Light Award, or have completed the fifth grade.


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Perfect gift for your cars: treat yourself or birthday gift for someone awesome. They will be loved it.
All of our Teacher Car Seat Covers are custom-made to order and handcrafted to the highest quality standards.
Constructed with high-quality polyester micro-fiber fabric for maximum durability and comfort.
Add style to your seats while protecting them from spills, stains, tearing, fading, and more.
Designed for quick and easy installation on most car and SUV bucket style seats no tools required.
Elastic backing and fastening ensure a snug and secure universal fit on the most standard car and SUV seats.
Not for use on seats with integrated airbags, seatbelts, or armrests.
Design by ezcustomcar.


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Athletics, or Track and Field, is an Olympic sport where athletes compete in a range of events involving running, jumping and throwing. Athletics has been at the centre of the Olympics since the modern games were inaugurated in 1896, and in the present day has more medals to be won than any other sport. Athletics is an important sport at schools and colleges in the United States, and as a result America is one of the most successful nations in track and field.
In a school or college context, the term 'athletics' is also sometimes used to refer to all sports, rather than just track and field.
Although athletics is considered a single sport, different events require very different attributes. For example, sprint events (100 m and 200 m) require explosive power, whereas distance events (5000 m and above) require stamina and tactical awareness. Hurdling events, triple jump and pole vault require exact technique as well as speed, strength and flexibility. It is common for certain countries to specialise in one area of athletics, for example Jamaica (sprinting) and Kenya (distance running).
Because of the differences between events, it is rare for athletes at the highest level to compete in multiple disciplines, except for established 'doubles' such as the 100 m and 200 m, or the 800 m and 1500 m. Exceptions to this are the multi-event competitions of decathlon and heptathlon, which are designed to reward the best all-round athletes. Gold medallists in these events have a strong claim to be the best athletes in the world.
All athletics events require a high level of dedication and determination to complete the training that is a prerequisite for success.
Gender equality
In the mid-twentieth century, women competed in far fewer events than men. Gradually, women have been allowed to do more and more, until in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing the only differences were running 100 m rather than 110 m in the sprint hurdles, and competing in the heptathlon rather than the decathlon (the women's shot, discus, javelin and hammer are also lighter than the men's). Some of the last events to be added were pole vault, hammer and steeplechase.
Structure of competition
Different athletics events are structured differently:
- In running and hurdles events, multiple competitors race each other at the same time, and the winner is the one who completes the specified distance quickest. The number of competitors in shorter events (up to 800 m) is limited to the number of lanes on the track (usually eight), so more than one round may be needed.
- In throwing events, long jump and triple jump, athletes compete one at a time. Each has a number of attempts (usually six), and counts their longest distance only. The person who throws or jumps the furthest in a single attempt is the winner.
- In high jump and pole vault, the bar is placed at increasing heights, and athletes can choose to pass or attempt to clear each height. Those who fail three attempts in a row are out of the contest, and the winner is the person who clears the highest height. In the event of a tie, the winner is the jumper with fewest failed attempts over the course of the contest.
Like any sport that relies heavily on purely physical attributes such as power and speed, the sport of athletics has to be vigilant for the use of performance-enhancing drugs (doping). Because of its high profile, athletics has had some of the most publicised doping scandals of any sport. These include Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson's positive test for steroids at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, and the more recent stripping of Marion Jones' gold medals after she admitted having used performance enhancers.
During the Cold War, success in sport and particularly in athletics was seen as important for American and Soviet prestige. This led to systematic doping in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly by East German female athletes, although the true extent of drug use during that period may never be known.
Running events
- 100 m
- 200 m
- 400 m
- 800 m
- 1500 m
- 5000 m
- 10000 m
- Marathon
- 110 m hurdles (men)/100 m hurdles (women)
- 400 m hurdles
- 3000 m steeplechase
Jumping events
- Long jump
- High jump
- Triple jump (or hop, skip and jump)
- Pole vault
Throwing events
- Shot put
- Discus
- Javelin
- Hammer
Combined events
- Decathlon, where men compete in ten separate events over two days.
- Heptathlon, the women's equivalent, which features seven events.


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Artium's LII 200 and LII 300 soot sensor systems are the most advanced Laser Induced Incandescence (LII) instruments for particulate matter measurements in the market today.
LII is a laser-based technique for accurate, non-intrusive and temporally resolved measurements of soot volume fraction and primary particle size.
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|concentration range:
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|up to 10ppm (20 grams/cubic meter)
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January 9th, 2013
'Jeffersons' actor Ned Wertimer dies
Character actor Ned Wertimer, known to fans of "The Jeffersons" as the doorman Ralph Hart, has died, CNN confirms. He was 89.
Wertimer made appearances in a wide variety of classic TV series, including "Mork and Mindy," "WKRP in Cincinnati" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," but he's perhaps best known for his work on "The Jeffersons."
Wertimer stayed with the comedy, which portrayed Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford as the newly wealthy African-American couple George and Louise Jefferson, for 11 seasons. (Hemsley died in July 2012 at the age of 74, and Sanford died in 2004.)
A rep for Wertimer tells CNN that the actor passed away January 2 from complications stemming from a fall he sustained in his Burbank home in late November.
Throughout his career, the Buffalo, New York native worked extensively on Broadway and appeared in more than 100 TV programs.
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An international collaboration including researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has discovered that the Earth's core formed under more oxidizing condition's than previously proposed.
Through a series of laser-heated diamond anvil cell experiments at high pressure (350,000 to 700,000 atmospheres of pressure) and temperatures (5,120 to 7,460 F), the team demonstrated that the depletion of siderophile (also known as "iron loving") elements can be produced by core formation under more oxidizing conditions than earlier predictions.
"We found that planet accretion (growth) under oxidizing conditions is similar to those of the most common meteorites," says LLNL geophysicist Rick Ryerson.
The research appears in Science Express.
While scientists know that the Earth accreted from some mixture of meteoritic material, there is no simple way to quantify precisely the proportions of these various materials. The new research defines how various materials may have been distributed and transported in the early solar system.
As core formation and accretion are closely linked, constraining the process of core formation allows researchers to place limits on the range of materials that formed our planet, and determine whether the composition of those materials changed with time. (Was accretion heterogeneous or homogeneous?)
"A model in which a relatively oxidized Earth is progressively reduced by oxygen transfer to the core-forming metal is capable of reconciling both the need for light elements in the core and the concentration of siderophile elements in the silicate mantle, and suggests that oxygen is an important constituent in the core," Ryerson says.
The experiments demonstrated that a slight reduction of such siderphile elements as vanadium (V) and chromium (Cr) and moderate depletion of nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) can be produced during core formation, allowing for oxygen to play a more prominent role.
Planetary core formation is one of the final stages of the dust-to-meteorite-to-planet formation continuum. Meteorites are the raw materials for planetary formation and core formation is a process that leads to chemical differentiation of the planet. But meteorite formation and core formation are very different processes, driven by different heat sources and occurring in very different pressure and temperature ranges.
"Our ability to match the siderophile element signature under more oxidizing conditions allows us to accrete the Earth from more common, oxidized meteoritic materials, such as carbonaceous and ordinary chondrites," Ryerson says.
The Earth's magnetic field is generated in the core, and protects the Earth from the solar wind and associated erosion of the atmosphere. While the inner core of the Earth is solid, the outer core is still liquid. The ability to preserve a liquid outer core and the associated magnetic field are dependent on the composition of the core and the concentration of light elements that may reduce the melting temperature.
"By characterizing the chemical interactions that accompany separation of core-forming melts from the silicate magma ocean, we can hope to provide additional constraints on the nature of light elements in the present-day core and its melting/freezing behavior," Ryerson says.


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Mitchell's laws: Reduced money growth never stimulates economic growth. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
Thanks to all of you who responded to my post titled "Why Modern Monetary Theory's Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea." Your responses were informative and thought provoking.
That post touched on one of the two primary differences between Monetary Sovereignty and what popularly (though perhaps erroneously) is known as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
Today, Cullen Roche published a very short and very good post about the Employer of Last Resort (ELR) discussion, and its role relative to MMT. While early founders of MMT believed ELR to be central to the basic concept, I suggest it is at best peripheral, and really more of a hypothetical departure.
MMT (and Monetary Sovereignty – MS) have the same center, the unlimited ability of a Monetarily Sovereign government to control its money supply and to pay any bill of any size, an ability monetarily non-sovereign governments do not have. The U.S. acquired this ability in August 15, 1971, when it went completely off any gold standard.
The center of MMT and MS is merely a factual description of the real workings of a monetary system. (Unfortunately, that "center" does not have its own, unique name, a situation that creates misleading arguments.)
From this factual description, you can create hypotheses about problems and solutions involving, for instance, full employment, inflation control, the income gap and economic growth. These problems and solutions are not mutually exclusive. They are so intertwined that each affects all the others creating classic "unanticipated results" scenarios.
It is human nature, when addressing any problem, to look first at the simplest, most direct solution:
Employment too low? Hire people (the ELR solution).
Inflation? Cut the deficit (the debt-hawk solution).
Income gap? Tax the rich (the Democrat solution).
Economic growth? Trade protectionism. (The populist solution)
Climbing straight over the peak of a mountain may be the simplest, most direct route, but not necessarily the best way to get to the other side. That simplest, the most direct solution can actually be counter-productive. In the previous post, I described why, though ELR is the (seemingly) simplest, most direct solution for unemployment (simply hire 'em), it may not be the best solution. This is one area where MS differs from what is called MMT.
That all is discussed in the previous post and this is a prelude to what I really wanted to remind you about, in an attempt to draw a distinction between MMT and MS.
The other area of difference is the prevention and cure of inflation. Perhaps the most fundamental equation in all of economics is: Value (or Price) = Demand/Supply. Increase the Supply of money or decrease the Demand for money, and the Value of money goes down, i.e. you get inflation.
For adherents of MMT, inflation is a matter of money supply. Thus, inflation is to be prevented and cured by regulating the creation and destruction of dollars. MMT suggests that federal taxes be increased when excessive (above a target rate) inflation appears. In fact, according to MMT, that is a fundamental purpose of taxes – providing value to fiat money.
I agree and disagree. There is no question that removing dollars from the U.S. economy would help prevent/cure inflation, by giving greater value to the remaining dollars. Scarcity increases value. But, I have strong concerns about this approach.
While, in theory, tax increases can prevent inflation, in actual practice, tax changes would be inefficient and damaging. They are far too slow (When will they be collected?), far too political (Which taxes?) and not incremental (How much?). Perhaps most importantly, tax increases remove dollars from the economy, thereby leading to recessions.
Although the federal government has managed to control inflation, federal taxes have not been the controlling device. Interest rates have. That is, while MMT hypotheses have focused on supply, the Fed, in the real world, has focused on demand – successfully. Further, there is no historical relationship between high interest and low GDP growth. On the contrary, there is a slight relationship between high interest rates and high GDP growth.
In an April, 2011 post titled
How Monetary Sovereignty differs from Modern Monetary Theory — simplified, I described the difficulties with using taxes to give value to money, or more specifically, to combat inflation.
All of you who've not read that post, please do so. You will see that using taxes to prevent/cure inflation runs headlong into serious operational and political difficulties. The devil truly is in the details.
I'll close with this thought: The "devil-in-the-details" problem seems endemic to economics, where far too many thought leaders have not had much personal experience with reality.
Those who believe changing taxes to fight inflation, do not understand political reality. Similarly, those whose experience finding, evaluating, hiring, training, directing, motivating, moving, rewarding, supervising and firing employees is limited or non-existent, see no operational or political difficulty with an ELR program.
They think of people as homogeneous "buffer stock." They do not understand reality.
Having personally found, evaluated, hired, trained . . . etc., etc. thousands of employees during my 50+ years as an owner of several businesses, I have seen the details and met the devil. And he is one mean, unforgiving bugger.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports


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Anthony Moon has earned a varsity letter as a member of the Albion College baseball team and he is used to the relatively slower pace of the game as compared to many other sports.
The senior from Paw Paw, however, adjusted nicely this summer when he made the leap to the frantic pace common to the National Football League as one of the athletic training interns for the Cleveland Browns during training camp. The adjustment was even more impressive considering it was Moon's first physically demanding activity since coming off hip surgery, which forced him to miss the 2012 Briton baseball season.
"Baseball is more laid back, where you're always on the go—constantly running—with football," Moon said. "There is not much you can do to get ready for that except to get thrown into the mix and see how you hold up to it.
"I was stressed out going into it because I wasn't sure how my hip would hold up," he added. "I would be on my feet for 12- and 14-hour days. It held up great and the nerves quickly went away once I found my leg would hold up to the demands of the job."
Moon is the third student in as many years to represent Albion as an intern for the Browns' organization, following Mark Feger in 2010 and Tyler Floyd in 2011. He said Albion's athletic training staff prepared him well for the experience, noting Sara Koski, Albion's head athletic trainer, talks to the student athletic trainers after teaching moments and clearly explains what she did and why she did it.
Moon appreciated the chance to test himself in a professional sports environment. He was initially hoping to land an internship at Walt Disney World's Wide World of Sports Complex in Florida, but the opportunity from the Browns arrived just days before the offer from Disney.
Among the skills he gained were confidence and the ability to clearly process the information needed to be a successful athletic trainer despite the stress caused by the fast pace.
"I wanted to see what can be done in the field of athletic training through an unlimited budget and the ability to work with premier athletes," Moon said. "It was by far one of the best experiences I've ever had because some of the guys made a point to thank us for working hard every day. I was awkward and shy on the first day [of the internship] because I wasn't sure how to interact with the players. They are professional athletes who are idolized in our culture. As time went on, I learned they are normal people. It was nice to see that they are human."
"I learned how to prioritize my day," he added. "There are so many things going on that you have to decide what needs to be done right away, and things fall into place after that."
Moon says he wants to take the experience he gained in Cleveland to be a mentor for the younger students in Albion's athletic training education program and help them find the right balance between their athletic training commitments and their other academic work.
"I hope to tell the students to take a breath," Moon said. "Sometimes you get backed up on work—everything gets piled on at once. It is necessary to take a step back because you'll get overwhelmed if you don't. Make a list, go through a step-by-step process, and don't try to do everything at once."
He also hopes to be back as a catcher for the baseball team in the spring.


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We knew we were taking a small risk by showing up at a border crossing without proof of onward travel. We never really thought it would be a big deal, though. It's not like we were trying to enter Soviet-era Russia on our U.S. passports. We were just trying to board a train to London from Paris.
"Can I see your tickets home, please?" It was among the first of many questions we were asked by the British border agent standing between us and our train.
We didn't have tickets "home" (wherever that is) or anywhere else for that matter. We were planning on spending the next five months in the U.K. We only just started thinking about where we'll go afterward. We're nowhere even close to booking tickets to wherever that might be.
But that isn't something we can tell a border agent. Their job is to make sure that people entering their country are going to leave at some point. Folks like us showing up with indefinite plans for the future raise immediate red flags.
It doesn't help our case that we intend to stay in the U.K. until at least November. Questions about how we'll fund ourselves for the next five months started a second line of inquiry. Do we intend to work illegally? Will we sponge off the public dole? Do we deal drugs?
I don't think she asked us any of that specifically, but those concerns formed the subtext of the entire encounter.
In the end she stamped our passports and welcomed us to England. We never really worried about being denied entry. But the whole ordeal started us thinking about the wisdom of arriving in a foreign country without having onward travel already booked.
We love the flexibility of being able to come and go as we please. We don't really want to be forced into locking ourselves into a schedule or committing to a specific amount of time in a place we've never been. And we'd really, really like not to have to plan so far ahead. But that may not be entirely possible.
Unfortunately, many places require international travelers to have already booked tickets back out of the country before they'll issue a tourist visa. As far as I can tell there are only about four options for dealing with this "proof of onward travel" requirement. None of which are ideal.
Play the odds and hope for the best
This is pretty much what we've done thus far. Most of the time you won't be asked to provide proof of onward travel so just don't sweat it.
The risk, of course, is that if you draw the short straw and are asked to produce a ticket you don't have, it just might ruin your day. How bad a day depends on who's asking.
Oftentimes this question comes up before you even board the plane. Because airlines bear the cost of repatriating passengers who are denied entry by immigration, many require proof of onward travel before they'll issue a boarding pass.
But if you're going to run into this problem, this is when you want it to arise. At least in this case you're at an airport where you have the option of rectifying things on the spot by purchasing a ticket out of your destination country. You'll pay dearly for a last-minute plane ticket, but at least you'll get on your flight.
More problematic is being denied entry by immigration once you've arrived at your destination. In that case you'll likely be detained and put on the next flight back to where you came from.
Buy a refundable ticket
This strategy is pretty self explanatory. You buy a refundable ticket to use as your proof of onward travel and then cancel the ticket after you've arrived.
With this option you run the risk that your full purchase price won't be refunded, or that you'll get dinged with fees. And then there is the hassle factor of needing to chase after refunds.
Forge a travel confirmation
This is the solution advocated most often on travel message boards and by various bloggers. The suggestion is that you can download an old travel confirmation, edit it to include new dates and destinations, and then use your forged travel document to satisfy questions about your travel plans.
This is the kind of thing that probably seems brilliant to twenty-year-old backpackers but likely seems increasingly less wise with each passing birthday. At 43 I can say with certainty we won't be trying to pass off forged travel documents in an attempt to circumvent immigration rules, regardless of how asinine those rules happen to be.
I'm not even certain that this strategy still works. Some people have recently reported being denied boarding passes after the ticket agent failed to pull up a confirmation on their terminal.
And then there is the small matter that providing immigration officials with false travel documents is a crime that can land you in prison. There's probably little risk in handing your fake itinerary to an airline ticket agent, but I wouldn't try using it with a border control officer.
Just buy a ticket to your next destination
Simply arranging your onward travel is the most straightforward of all options and the one most likely to succeed every single time it's tried. It is also the one requiring the most advance planning and is by far the most restricting.
We hate the idea of having to decide ahead of time how long we'll stay somewhere and where exactly we'll leave from. But we hate the idea of being denied entry into our next destination even more.
Going forward we'll probably use a combination of the first and the fourth options. In places notorious for requiring proof of onward travel like Thailand and – ahem, Great Britain, we'll probably bite the bullet and book a flight to our next destination. Everywhere else we'll probably play the odds and just give ourselves some extra time at the airport in case we need to hurry up and purchase a last-minute ticket – refundable of course.


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So you want to move to Kahului Maui, and you've decided you need some help. Let me be of assistance.... I hope these links will be just what you're looking for. When you're ready to make the move, let a local expert be your guide. Of course there is so much more to know before you come here to Maui, so doing your own research is essential.
Kahului was once known as "Dream City" when it was first established as an alternative to the plantation camps of old. That era (the '50s and '60s) brought a whole lot of cinder block homes to families who had never owned a home on Maui. Most of those homes are still around, and a lot of newer subdivisions have been created in recent years.
The Island and The Bluffs are Kahului's most prestigious gated neighborhoods, located close to Wailuku. Maui Lani is a planned community by Schuler Homes, comprising a lot of the new offerings in the market.
For more info about buying on Maui, please contact your favorite Realtor - Georgina M. Hunter R(S) e-Pro
SEARCH MAUI LISTINGS ~ EMAIL ~ http://www.eastmaui.com/ ~ 808 283-0635 ~ Aloha from MAUI
also ... PAIA relocation package HAIKU relocation package KIHEI/WAILEA relocation package
- Arriving at the Kahului Airport - your first impression of Maui
- Big box stores - what you'll find when you get here
- Maui Mall - one of the more established shopping centers
- Cheap gas - the best place to save some money when filling up
- Maui Harley Davidson - buy or rent while you shop for a home
- Maui Chamber of Commerce- news and links for malahinis
- Realtors Association of Maui - our local resource for Realtors
- Maui Arts and Cultural Center - our world class cultural resource and entertainment venue
- Banking- the top banks in Kahului
- Health Care - we have one main hospital, and some other options
- Maui County Website - lots of information about Maui County and various departments of government
- Maui County Property Tax Rates - if you're curious about our property tax, here's the skinny
- Not on Maui - you won't find any of these things here on Maui
- Moving with pets - the Department of Agriculture rules and info
- Maui Weather - some great links for Maui local weather info, tsunami and hurricane sites
- Shopping for a Maui Realtor - let a local expert be your guide to explain the different parts of this fabulous island
~ Aloha from MAUI ~


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The following prizes are awarded at the Mathematical congress of the Americas:
Five prizes are awarded to mathematicians who are no more than 12 years past their PhD at the date of the Congress. Eligibility for consideration of nominees requires that they either received their graduate education or that they currently hold a position in one or more countries in the Americas. The winners are invited to give a lecture on their work at the Congress.
One prize is awarded to an individual or a group in recognition of their work to enhance collaboration and the development of research that links mathematicians in several countries in the Americas.
Two medals are given to mathematicians in recognition of their excellence in research and their contributions to the development of mathematics in a country or countries in the Americas.


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Thorpe Park's The Swarm Has Its First Riders
Surrey, England's Thorpe Park is putting the finishing touches on their new wing roller coaster, The Swarm. Recently, four former fighter pilots braved the great-looking coaster. I love the look of the trains. Instead of an eagle (like Dollywood's Wild Eagle) or a jet (Six Flags Great America's X-Flight) theme for the trains, The Swarm's alien trains look awesome. I wonder if those red lights and red eyes will glow bright enough to enhance night rides.
Here are some photos of those lucky test riders as well as some earlier photos with dummies:
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The airplane wing at the bottom of the first drop (Image 2) looks really close to the track. As does the half-destroyed building that the train flies by (Image 3). I'm really glad that the Thorpe Park incorporated these scenery elements. They didn't have to, but it was a wise move as they reinforce the theme and create some exciting-looking interactions. Bravo!
UPDATE: Here's a better test video from Thorpe Park of those pilots riding The Swarm at Thorpe Park:
What's Your Take?
How do you think The Swarm looks? Leave a comment below. Images courtesy of Thorpe Park's Facebook page.


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Inflate and pop vibrantly colored balloons in this simple, yet highly entertaining app. The realistic, balloon-like motions and sounds are fun for all ages.
The simplicity, consistency, predictability, and relaxation factor of this app has proven to be very enjoyable for autistic children. The multi-touch tracking and reliability of performance in this app make it great for children with autism.
Watch your balloons inflate as you press your fingers to the screen. When they reach the size you like, let go watch them float up.
While your balloons are inflating, drag them around the screen and watch them move other balloons out of their way.
Tilt your device in any direction and watch your balloons rotate and float up against gravity. Watch your balloons bounce off of the sides of the screen and off of each other.
Shake your device to switch from day to night, or night to day.
Touch your balloons to pop them after they have been let go. The bigger the balloon, the bigger the pop. The bigger they pop, the more they'll move your other balloons.
Your balloons can't be popped right away after you release them - this allows you to make a steady stream of balloons fly from your fingers as you quickly tap away at the screen. You can pop them after they are about a half-second old.
Use multiple fingers to create multiple balloons at once, pop multiple balloons at once, drag them around at once, or pop one and create one at the same time.
Little kids love to occupy themselves playing with this app. BalloonMaker's multi-touch capability allows them to touch the screen while they hold the iPhone or iPod with one hand, and still create and pop balloons with the other. Older kids and adults also enjoy relaxing to the endless balloons that they can create and pop. A lot of time went into making the physics just right. It's like a circus in your pocket.
Now pop to it!
Copyright Troy Tegeder


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Nevada Photo and Video Galleries | by Pat
Let's take a look at some of the photo and video galleries from this week's fun 35-0 shutout of the Wolf Pack. Nevada fan site Silver and Blue Sports has a great pre-game gallery. As for the game itself, there are galleries at und.com, NBC Sports, ndnation poster RocketShark and Getty Images. I think the pic of the game is the AP photo of Brian Smith getting the sack on Colin Kaepernick as ND held one of the more explosive offenses in the country scoreless on Saturday.
For video, NBC has the replay of the game up. Click and watch the 1st quarter, 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, and 4th quarter. You can also see the band's halftime show. YouTube is rapidly filling up with highlights as well. Here's a 10 minute version that is about as comprehensive as it gets. If you have posted any online photos or video of the game weekend, feel free to link to it in the comment section.


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Rectangular rugs are the classic 'go-to' rug as they can complement any décor, style or room and still look amazing! Whether you're looking for a large rectangle rug to go under a dining room table, or a patterned rug to complete your living room decor, rectangular rugs have been the anchor in interior design for centuries. Adding a rectangular rug to your living space can quieten a noisy room, provide warmth to design, and protect your beautiful hardwood floors.
Rectangles are a simple, traditional shape and help define the parameters of the space and the placement of your furniture. The rug should be large enough to fit the front legs of any furnishing, if not the entire piece. Try to match the shape of your rug to the shape of your furniture for a harmonious aesthetic. Below are some examples of how a rectangle rug works in different spaces of your home.
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So you have an iPhone and high-quality earphones but never the two shall meet. Belkin makes an adapter that at least fits the recessed headset jack on the iPhone, but what if you want to talk on the phone? The MPA-3C from Shure will do the trick. With a plug that fits and a built-in microphone, this adapter will work with your Shure earbuds or any others for that matter.
I have been testing it for a week now and it works really well. There's even a button on the mic that works just like the standard iPhone earbud button, letting you answer calls and control your music playback. The only tricky part of this solution is managing cord lengths—I find that even with my Shure SE 530s the mic doesn't quite rest close enough to my mouth, thus requiring it to be held in place during calls.
The MPA-3C also comes in two other models, compatible with other music phones and will start shipping later this month for $50. Preorder now from Apple or Amazon.