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Libertarians: Quietly plotting to take over America – AND LEAVE YOU ALONE !
Ted Cruz: The Russians are 'openly laughing' at Obama
Not just Russia – Read ON:
The Obama Comment That Donald Trump Says Is 'One of the Dumbest Statements I've Ever Heard by a President'
Has the Obama Administration Left the Nation Vulnerable to Terrorism?
In Case You Weren't Paying Attention, Russia Has Been Quietly Doing Something You Should Know About
This book being compared to Marx's 'Das Kapital' could be the Left's key weapon on inequality and taxation for years to come
Obama secretly negotiating away U.S. sovereignty
"The tribunals are not accountable to any national public or democratically elected body,"
IRS stonewalls probe of Tea Party targeting emails until after the Mid-Term Elections
Trey Gowdy Gets a Crack at IRS Commissioner During Hearing on Targeting Scandal — and It Feels More Like a Trial
How Obama Will Blame GOP for NSA Spying
How Obama Is Strangling the Economy in Red Tape
Hospitals Plot the End of Insurance Companies
As I have said before – Obamacare is WORKING PERFECTLY! It's goal was to DESTROY ALL INSURANCE COMPANIES and ENROLL EVERYONE IN MEDICARE/OBAMACARE !!!
Alabama congressional candidate shoots up Obamacare bill in new ad
'Rules mean nothing' to Obama
The only "rules" Obama follows !
Pope tells Obama of concern for 'religious freedom' in U.S
Pope Francis is not the only one . . . AMERICANS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT LOSING THEIR RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS !
15-yr-old arrested for Philly brick attack; race of victims not mentioned. Why?
Media attitude:
White attacks Black = Horrible, Racist Crime !!!
Black attacks White = No big deal …
Can Anyone Be This Incompetent?
No Rush, they are NOT incompetent. Obamacare is WORKING AS INTENDED. It is destroying the insurance industry so that ALL HEALTHCARE WILL HAVE TO COME FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. There's no one left.
Harry Reid's Excuse for the Latest Obamacare Delay Really Just Has to Be Heard
Desperate Democrats Will Use Threat of Impeachment to Get Out the Vote
Rand Paul builds 50-state network, courts mainstream support for presidential bid
MSNBC Loses Quarter of Primetime Audience
Perhaps if the TOLD THE TRUTH instead of being Obama's Propaganda Ministry ???
The Terrifying Bible Verse That Glenn Beck Says Holds a Warning for the U.K.
Glenn Beck said Wednesday that the recent news that the British have used the bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies to heat their medical facilities will have absolutely biblical ramifications.
He read from Jeremiah 19:5-8:
"They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings … I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds and the wild animals. I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn…"
Alabama Congressional Candidate Will Brooke Will Certainly Make a Splash With His New Anti-Obamacare Ad
Illegal Immigrants Released into Texas to Ease Over-Crowding of Detention Centers
Instead of drones, we should use "Puff the Magic Dragon" to patrol the border with Mexico !
Puff the Magic Dragon Frolics in a Land Called Vietnam:
Mike Rowe Is Back With a Powerful New Video Addressing a Specific Situation That Has a Small Town Up in Arms
Members of the 'Independent' EPA Advisory Committee Got $180 Million from EPA
Northwestern athletes get union vote
Did you happen to catch the eerie 1945 Leftist playbook that Glenn Beck was recently quoting from?
Before they were calling it "fascism." They were calling it "socialism." They were calling it "communism." But because these words were all discredited he called it "System X."
And what is "System X?" Here's what Chase says, a list that Glenn quoted from [link ours]:
- A strong, centralized government.
- An executive arm growing at the expense of the legislative and judicial arms. In some countries, power is consolidated in a dictator, issuing decrees.
- The control of banking, credit and security exchanges by the government.
- The underwriting of employment by the government, either through armaments or public works.
- The underwriting of social security by the government–old-age pensions, mothers' pensions, unemployment insurance, and the like.
- The underwriting of food, housing and medical care, by the government. The United States is already experimenting with providing these essentials. Other nations are far along the road.
- The use of the deficit spending technique to finance these underwritings. The annually balanced budget has lost its old-time sanctity.
- The abandonment of gold in favor of managed currencies.
- The control of foreign trade by the government, with increasing emphasis on bilateral agreements and barter deals.
- The control of natural resources, with increasing emphasis on self-sufficiency.
- The control of energy resources–hydroelectric power, coal, petroleum, natural gas.
- The control of transportation–railway, highway, airway, waterway.
- The control of agricultural production.
- The control of labor organizations, often to the point of prohibiting strikes.
- The enlistment of young men and women to youth corps devoted to health, discipline, community service and ideologies consistent with those of the authorities. The CCC camps have just inaugurated military drill.
- Heavy taxation, with special emphasis on the estates and incomes of the rich.
- Not much "taking over" of property or industries in the old socialistic sense. The formula appears to be control without ownership. It is interesting to recall that the same formula is used by the management of great corporations in depriving stockholders of power.
- The state control of communications and propaganda.
That DOES SOUND FAMILIAR . . . doesn't it ???
A Penetrating Look at the World's First Penis Museum
Providing an opportunity for a Plethora of Puns . . .
Has anyone notified Anthony Wiener ???
Your Chuckle for the Day . . .
Yours for a FREE AMERICA,
Paul Revere
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." – Thomas Jefferson
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!


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Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposal for pension reform is in the best interest of taxpayers and public employees. The plan would bring New York's pension benefits in line with those of other public employers, creating a more sustainable and affordable pension system, significantly reducing future costs and ensuring benefit obligations can be met. The proposal deserves support from legislative and union leaders.
While other states have neglected their pension funds, New York state and its local governments have historically funded their obligations. However, state and local budgets have been squeezed as the cost of pension contributions skyrocketed over the last decade. Between 2000 and 2010, pension contributions for state and local employers grew from 0.9 percent of payroll to 7.4 percent for civilian employees and from 1.9 percent to 15.1 percent for police and fire employees.
Contribution rates are projected to continue their growth for the foreseeable future, reaching 13.5 percent and 21.5 percent of payroll, respectively by 2015. These projections are low because the state opted to postpone making its full payments last year. It will need to make up these "borrowed" sums at a later date. In 2015, the contribution rates required to fully fund the annual obligation will be 20.9 percent and 27.1 percent of payroll for civilian and police and fire employees.
The problem is especially severe in New York City, where costs have quadrupled from $1.5 billion to $7 billion since 2002 and will continue to grow to $8.7 billion in 2015. Pension contributions have grown from 4 percent to 11 percent of the municipal budget – squeezing other priorities including education and social services. The thousands of layoffs proposed in the most recent budget are the clearest example of how growing pension costs force tough choices.
A Three-Part Solution
Tackling growing pension costs -- while ensuring retirement security for public employees -- requires broad thinking. Targeting fraud and eliminating double-dipping are important but on their own will not adequately address the problem.
The governor's proposal focuses on the features that make New York's pension systems costly -- even as compared to other public systems. The proposal makes three important changes to bring New York in line with other public employers.
First, the retirement age will increase to 65, the same age that retirees become eligible for Medicare. While uniformed employees still will be able to retire after 20 or 25 years of service, they will not receive pension benefits until age 65. Police and firefighters currently have no minimum age requirement; as a result, one-third of all New York City fire retirees and one-half of all City police retirees are under age 60. In localities outside New York City, over 80 percent of police and fire retirees in the last year were under 60, increasing the length and cost of benefit payouts.
As for teachers, they currently are eligible to retire at 57 and 55; 58 is the average retirement age for teachers in the state outside New York City.
Second, the plan would raise required employee contributions to bring them closer to national norms. Many New York state, city and local employees contribute only 3 percent of their earnings toward their pensions for only the first 10 years of employment. Only employees who opt for enhanced plans make larger contributions or contribute for a longer period of time. As a result, employer contributions to the pension funds exceed employee contributions by a ratio of 9 to 1. This proposal would require a 6 percent contribution from all employees for their entire length of service. The nationwide mean is 6.4 percent for state and local workers with a fixed contribution requirement.
Third, prospects for "pension padding" will be eliminated. Now the benefit is calculated using all wages -- including overtime -- for the highest three years of earning, giving public employees an incentive to rack up overtime at the end of their careers.
In the governor's plan, pension benefits will be calculated based on the highest five years' of earnings with maximum eligible wages capped at $179,000. Overtime pay will no longer be included in the earnings used to calculate benefits, bringing New York's rules in line with 94 percent of other public employees nationwide. In addition, an "anti-spiking cap" will exclude extraordinary increases in income in any year.
Saving for the Future
Because pension benefits are constitutionally protected, the benefits of current employees and retirees would remain unchanged; the changes would only apply to future employees. As a result, the savings would be small initially but would grow to $93 billion for state and local governments and $30 billion for New York City over 30 years. The changes would create a more affordable pension system that would alleviate the pressures that rapidly escalating costs have placed on the structural balance of state and local budgets.
The proposal also would create a more sustainable system that ensures the retirement security of current and future workers. As experience in other states shows, when pension costs reach a breaking point, elected officials pay less than the required amounts, placing the solvency of the pension funds at risk.
New York has already started on this slippery slope. Rather than enact any additional gimmicks, legislators should support the structural changes proposed by Cuomo. This will reduce the costs of the pension system while ensuring pension benefits for state, city and local employees are not placed in jeopardy.
Municipal union leaders and their members should support these changes to the pension system. They, too, are taxpayers who have an interest in protecting vital services from drastic layoffs and other cuts necessitated by the whopping costs of fringe benefits. Pension benefits for current employees and retirees will be preserved, but the changes proposed for future employees will go a long way toward putting New York and its local governments on the road to good fiscal health.
Carol Kellerman is president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan civic group that seeks to promote the fisical health of New York state and city government.

subset: commoncrawl


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WELCOME TO THE DAILY WORD PROMPT! (An attempt to continue with the WP daily prompts for the time being.).
Since my time zone may not match up with yours for this endeavour, I decided to post my word a day in advance (well according to my zone anyway) to give us all time to think, write, and publish.
The June 29th word is: Change to be tagged with the words, jibberjabber. Photographers/poets, I am sure that you have something that you can contribute to this prompt as well, if you wish.
Please feel free to use the above word as a jumping off point for you in your own blogpost; you write your own post, tag it with the words, jibberjabber, as well as whatever other tags you wish, you publish it on your site, and if interested, participants can search out the tag. Please remember to read and comment on one another's blogposts. With all due respect, I am not looking to promote other bloggers' work on my personal site since I may not have time to review all of the posts, hence the tagging system.
If you intend on tagging your blogpost with, jibberjabber, please keep any content on the 'up and up'–nothing inappropriate since I am extending this opportunity as a gesture of good faith as a fellow WP writer. Given that this is a social media site, I feel obligated to add in that caveat along with the disclaimer that each blogger in the WordPress community controls their own content and that their individual posts/views are in no way reflective of those on my personal blogsite.
Now that all of the semantics are out of the way, let's get to some writing or photos for today's word prompt, Change Cheers! 🙂
P.S. You may also wish to tag your posts with the words, Discover Prompts, since our work is still showing up there and it has already generated a wider audience.


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At age 10, Ruslan became a decided atheist after his father, immigrating from Azerbaijan with the family, dumped his mother and married another woman.
"At the time, my mom was so distraught over this, she stopped going to this Armenian Orthodox church where we found a lot of community," he says on a video on his YouTube channel. "I was 10, 11 or 12, and I was literally convinced that there was no God. I was saying, 'I'm an atheist,' at a very young age."
But when Ruslan, who today is a top Christian hip hop artist, got to high school, he was torn between girls: one was Christian, the other was Jehovah's Witness. He decided to settle the dispute of whether Jesus was God by studying. He read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel and the encyclopedic New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.
The verdict came in.
"I — based on a very intellectual rational experience — came to faith," he says. "My faith wasn't hinged upon an experience. It hinged on the evidence that Jesus was God and He resurrected from the death."
Ruslan Karaoglanov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan to a Russian mother who had been adopted by an Armenian family and an Armenian father. As an infant in the 1980s, he contracted an acute urinary tract infection, and a doctor at a remote clinic on the Caspian Sea performed a circumcision to save his life.
Five years later, Muslim extremists fanned out through the region to massacre Christian men and boys. Toting automatic weapons, rebels fighting the Soviet Army very nearly killed Ruslan, but his mom argued they were Muslims and showed her son's circumcision as proof (in that region of the world, Christians do not usually circumcise while Muslims do).
"No! No! No!" Marina shouted in Russian, as narrated by Christianity Today. "We're not Armenians. Look, my son is circumcised!"
The ruse worked.
The reign of terror didn't abate, and finally the family applied for visas to America on the basis of religious persecution. They settled in San Diego in 1990.
Little Ruslan spoke only Russian and was one of just five a few "white" kids mixed with "black and brown" youngsters at school. His apartment complex and community had roughly the same ratio.
So while he studied English, Ruslan also learned "basketball, break dancing, graffiti and rap," he wrote to God Reports via Instagram DM. "My experience with the black community is they tend to be very gracious and welcoming of outsiders. Specifically black church folk. I've never felt out of place or anything. Always the opposite."
Ruslan free-styled with his friends from age 10 and performed at open mic night by age 12. He bought as many hip hop CDs as he could and started gravitating towards the gang culture of the hip hop in that era. For attempting to break in to a house, he was arrested and put on probation at age 12.
As part of his probation, he was required to do community service, so he decided to perform it at a church where a lady named Charee, an ex convict who converted radically to Christ, attended. He cleaned the church but also heard the Word. People kept prophesying to him: "You're going to do things for the Lord."
Afterwards, his mom still worried and wondered how to help her son escape the bad influences, so she moved to San Marcos, to the immediate north of San Diego. Ruslan got better grades, stayed out of trouble and stayed in the rap game. "Yo, you're really dope," friends told him repeatedly.
"I was super into basketball and thought I was going to play for the NBA. In my sophomore year, I got cut from my JV basketball team" at Vista High School, Ruslan says on a video. "Ever since then, I made the mental switch that I was going to take music more seriously. I started entering all the talent shows. I won second place in our high school's battle of the bands in 2001." Read the rest: Ruslan Russian Armenian ex atheist Christian immigrant rapper.


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The primary elections for city offices held September 9, 2003, were barely noticed by most New Yorkers. Significant only in the lack of attention they garnered, the primaries were one of the lowest turnout elections in recent memory. Although there were a couple of close races, in the end, no incumbents were defeated.
Although low turnout is considered by many to be an example of what is wrong with the voting process, it doesn't always have to be a sign of foreboding. Sometimes low turnout is an indication that the electorate is basically pleased with the ways things are, and doesn't feel an overwhelming need to make major changes.
And history would back up that theory. Heavy voter turnout tends to produce change: getting rid of an incumbent or putting a different party into power or changing the entire make-up of a legislative body. Conversely, low voter turnout can be expected to send incumbents back for another term, or reward prohibitive front-runners, or shore up the dominant political party structure.
Not always, of course. But usually.
So low turnout can be a sign that voters are satisfied, or at least not extremely disgruntled. But low turnout can also be an indication of an electorate that feels disconnected from the political process. If voters feel their vote isn't going to matter, or isn't going to count, or isn't going to be counted, this will understandably turn them off the idea of making the effort to get to the polls. And if they feel there is no difference between the various candidates running, and no real choices available to them, and no potential for change pending the outcome of the election, they will be further alienated from the process.
Whatever the reason for low voter turnout, it is far from the ideal. The basis for the efficacy and legitimacy of a representative democracy is the concept of consensus: of everyone's opinions and choices having been equally weighed and the majority, or at least the plurality, emerging.
In party primaries, there is a marked correlation between the increasingly low turnout and the declining influence of political parties themselves. It would be difficult to mark the causal connection: whether the low turnout led to the lessened influence of political parties, or the reverse, the weakened party structure is the reason for the lower turnout.
In either case, political party primaries have always been an insider's game: so-called "family business." The party faithful, those few who are heavily involved in party organization and activities, are the ones who consistently turn out and vote. The up side is that decisions about who will represent the party on the general election ballot are made by those who are well-informed about who is running, who are aware of what those candidates represent, and who are actively seeking an advocate for their concerns.
The down side is that this tends to produce two major candidates (if that; in many districts only one party manages to field a candidate at all) who are the respective choices of a tiny percentage of the voting age population, at either end of the political spectrum.
And the low turnout in this year's primary is especially significant as New Yorkers prepare to vote on a ballot question in November. In the matter of city elections, should the party primary system be abolished, and replaced with a non-partisan election? If the law was changed, and New York did go to a non-partisan election, the party primary would be replaced by an open election, and any registered voter would be eligible to vote for his or her choice, regardless of party enrollment or affiliation. The top two vote getters would then move on to the run-off, which would replace the general election.
Advocates of the proposed system argue that ending party primaries will increase voter turnout. And this is one possibility. It is also significant to note, however, that in an adversarial system, candidates tend to focus on persuading active voters, not engaging new ones. Most campaigns are not interested in increasing voter turnout overall, only in turning out their own known supporters.
And in a general election, the work of Get Out the Vote, or GOTV, has historically been a function of the party. It would be difficult to predict who would take on the expensive and exhausting task of coaxing and transporting millions of people to the polls on election day once the party system was no longer in effect.
Turnout on election day can be affected by any number of factors: the weather, traffic patterns, the overall political climate. And it is also significant that this year's party primary and the November general election are an exception to the regular election schedule. New York City had the same round of elections just two years ago, but instead of serving the normal four-year terms, city officials were elected to two-year terms in order to incorporate the latest census data.
But whatever factors may affect turnout, it remains, for now, largely predictable. Voting, while a choice, is also a behavior. Like many behaviors, it is not only purposeful, but habitual. And changing a habit, good or bad, is never easy.
Susan Reefer is a Republican pollster and media strategist. She is based in New York City.


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I have grumbled from time to time on Twitter about how there only seem to be two sorts of Judges in England according to the Press – "Top Judge" if they are saying something the newspaper agrees with / are involved in a saucy scandal, and "Out of Touch Judge" if they are saying something the newspaper doesn't agree with. I am also pretty regularly driven to ire by the formulation "Quickie Divorce" which newspapers routinely state celebrities are getting, as though there were some special Matrimonial Causes Act which applies only to celebrities and not to mere mortals – those people on television can get their "quickie divorce" whereas you ordinary folk have to make do with divorce at a snails pace, probably with the petition being carefully prepared by Dickensian lawyers with quill pens. For heaven's sake, the Matrimonial Causes Act which let people divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour without having to prove adultery or wait two years is only forty years old. It's hardly some new-fangled initiative.
Having grumbled, I have now stumbled – upon this book which deals with "journalese" the strange mangling of the English language which feels the need to use the expression "innocent victims" (as opposed to those ones who were asking for it), "slide rule pass" – using a metaphor for a type of mathematical calculating device that hasn't been used in schools for 40 years, and the curious conceit by which hot temperatures are still expressed in Fahrenheit (which again, left common use thirty to forty years ago) whilst cold ones are expressed in centrigrade
Romps, Tots and Boffins
It is very funny, and a rattlingly good read.
It did get me thinking of "legalese" – not the stuff like "Easements" and "Notwithstanding", but the expressions that seem to only be used by lawyers, a job which after all is 50% communication (the remainder being paperwork and worrying) and which are fairly impenetrable. The stock word "draconian" for example, I think only sees usage now in Court rooms and for most non-lawyers who hear it means either next to nothing or "A bit like that blonde nasty lad in Harry Potter"
Here are some of my legalese suggestions – others gladly received
On all fours with (It's quite similar to another case in precedent)
At first blush (I originally thought X, and I bet you did too, but you're wrong, and here's why)
Not all my geese are swans (my client turns out to be a liar/wife-beater/back on heroin)
Getting my ducks in a row (I haven't read much of this yet, and I need to sort things out)
I know not (I do love this one, it is the only way to say "I don't know" in a way that sort of makes you sound smart)
This debate has generated more heat than light (This is a stupid argument, and I'm bored of it)
My client has yet to crystallise their position (I did steal and use this myself – again, it sounds much better than "We haven't made up our mind yet")
My client is entitled to a fair hearing, you know (I have already decided what I'm spending this brief fee on, so I'm not giving up)
The situation remains somewhat fluid (Your Honour, if you had been outside court, you would have seen that all hell is breaking loose)
The Court has yet to get under the bonnet of this case (we haven't so far been in front of a Judge who has read any of the papers)
That is of course, an option (are you mad?)
Perhaps the inherent jurisdiction offers a solution (I can't think of an order that will let the Court do what I'm asking for)
I hear what you're saying (no)
Let me get back to you on that (no)
Let me just run that past my client (no)
Having taken instructions on that issue (warning, forthcoming no)


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Bird Droppings October 8, 2019
What is that piece you cannot teach teachers?
"Studies suggest that instructional and management processes are key to effectiveness, but many interview and survey responses about effective teaching emphasize the teacher's affective characteristics, or social and emotional behaviors, more than pedagogical practice." James H. Stronge, Qualities of Effective Teachers
I have been a student in classes with, and have heard over the years many great teachers. If I was to put a characterization on those individuals it would be they could communicate and relate to their students. There was an affective, emotional and social interaction that brought relevance to their teachings. I first gained a serious enjoyment of literature from a professor at Mercer University in Macon Georgia who stood up on a desk and began reciting Shakespeare in his overalls. He had studied Shakespeare in Great Britain and acted in Shakespearean theatre while there. I was enthralled and for the first time in four or five years of college received an A in a Literature class. This professor went on after his tenure at Mercer to work with indigent farmers in rural Georgia which was his true passion.
"Why does everyone seem to have a story about how one special teacher got through to them, and reshaped their life forever? Could it be that teaching is just about the most important job in the world? And could it be that in the end, the challenge of fixing Americas schools comes down to putting great teachers into classrooms and giving them the tools, they need to do what they do best." Karl Weber, editor, Waiting for Superman
I am sitting here in the wee hours waiting on rain from various storms lingering over the gulf. I have been up for some time pondering several ideas. My son is heading to get tires for his truck, my wife is playing with grandkids upstairs off limits to me still, so no one around to wake me up if I doze back off. I went outside into the sixty degree oddly cool morning to listen to tree frogs. There were no stars and nightly silence was nearly deafening. I could imagine early people on this spot hundreds even thousands of years ago looking up and seeing and hearing even smelling what I was experiencing. But my experience does have some implication to my topic today as to what it is that in inherent ingredient in a great teacher.
"If we can't identify the best teachers by comparing their credentials, we face an obvious and crucial question: How do we define a good teacher." Karl Weber, editor, Waiting for Superman
It has been nearly fifteen years since I finished my Specialist degree at Piedmont College. I was introduced to the cohort idea in teacher training and on that first day we were presented with a thirty or so page document that at that time was labeled STAR. This was to be the basis for our degree program. Basically, it was a rubric to determine whether or not you as a teacher were proficient, excellent or distinguished and so forth. The rubric was loosely based off of work done by educational consultant Charlotte Danielson who now heads up the Danielson Group based in Princeton New Jersey. I have read articles arguing the merits of Danielson and Stronge but I see good points in their work. I do have issue with some of the bastardization school reformers have done with their words.
"An effective system of teacher evaluation accomplishes two things: it ensures quality teaching and it promotes professional learning. The quality of teaching is the single most important determinant of student learning; a school district's system of teacher evaluation is the method by which it ensures that teaching is of high quality. Therefore, the system developed for teacher evaluation must have certain characteristics: it must be rigorous, valid, reliable, and defensible, and must be grounded in a research-based and accepted definition of good teaching." Charlotte Danielson, Danielson Group
"When teachers engage in self-assessment, reflection on practice, and professional conversation, they become more thoughtful and analytic about their work, and are in a position to improve their teaching. Evaluators can contribute to teachers' professional learning through the use of in-depth reflective questions. By shifting the focus of evaluation from "inspection" to "collaborative reflection" educators can ensure the maximum benefit from the evaluation activities." Charlotte Danielson, Danielson Group
The major goal of the Specialist program was for each of us to leave Piedmont as Distinguished Teachers. Somewhere I actually have a medal on a blue ribbon showing that I am a distinguished teacher. There is a catch to this being a great or distinguished teacher does not stop the day that it is anointed on you. This is literally who you are not a degree or piece of paper. But what makes a great teacher different and what is it that gives us these great teachers? According to the Danielson framework there are some specifics.
|The Framework for Teaching:
Components of Professional Practice
|Domain 1: Planning and Preparation
|Domain 2: The Classroom Environment
|§ Demonstrating Knowledge of Content
and Pedagogy Demonstrating
§ Knowledge of Students
§ Setting Instructional Outcomes
§ Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources
§ Designing Coherent Instruction
§ Designing Student Assessments
§ Creating an Environment of Respect and Rapport
§ Establishing a Culture for Learning
§ Managing Classroom Procedures
§ Managing Student Behavior
§ Organizing Physical Space
|Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities
|Domain 3: Instruction
|§ Reflecting on Teaching
§ Maintaining Accurate Records
§ Communicating with Families
§ Participating in a Professional
§ Community
§ Growing and Developing Professionally
§ Showing Professionalism
§ Communicating with Students
§ Using Questioning and Discussion
§ Techniques
§ Engaging Students in Learning
§ Using Assessment in Instruction
§ Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness
From Danielson Group website:
So often we need to confine our ideas to lists too easy to understand bits and pieces so we can check off what we have done or will do. Danielson's four domains are significantly more than most twenty-minute walk through that are the standard in Georgia. But still there are pieces that cannot be pinned down so easily. James Stronge in his book, Qualities of Effective Teachers has a few that stand out.
"Effective teachers care about their students and demonstrate they care in such a way that their students are aware of it."
"Effective teachers practice focused and sympathetic listening to show students they care not only about what happens in the classroom, but about students' lives in general. These teachers initiate two way communications that exudes trust, tact, honesty, humility, and care."
"Effective, caring teachers know students both informally and formally. They use every opportunity at school and in the community to keep the lines of communication open."
It might sound a bit silly but I am bothered when a teacher says they could not live in the community they teach in. How do you ever know your students if you only see them and experience what they experience eight hours a day? So often it is hard for teachers to break through the shell of teacher student barriers that are presented and held in place by tradition and often school policy. Teaching is not just standing in front of a group of students and lecturing for two hours. Generally, most are asleep within the first ten minutes. Relationships need to be developed and cultivated that can bridge gaps. Emails to parents, communications with students and parents to let them know you are concerned. In all of my undergraduate and graduate years I only seriously remember one very bad professor. He would come in put the text book on his podium and then read it to us. When the bell would ring he would fold his book closed and leave. His office when open was rather cold. One girl I recall went to him for some help and came in sat down and he stared at her for twenty minutes and never said a word.
"Education must ensure that not only the material but the inward life of the individual be developed. Education should address not the isolated intellect, as the advocates of standards suggest it ought, but the hopes and dreams of the self of which intellect – the complex reflective self – is merely a part." Allan Block, Ethics and Curriculum
Perhaps it is remembering that worst case scenario of bygone years and multiplying it over and over in our heads to help us conceive of and develop what is the way things should be. I think I came to my idea of what makes a great teacher by comparing the worst and best and seeing the vast difference in learning that occurs. I did not need research and data to see kids were reading who used to be illiterate. I did not need a check list to watch people come away from a great teacher with the conversation still going and carrying it to lunch in the commons at Mercer or over dinner at Piedmont or Georgia Southern.
"Passionate teachers organize and focus their passionate interests by getting to the heart of their subject and sharing with their students some of what lays there – the beauty and power that drew them to this field in the first place and that has deepened over time as they learned and experienced more. They are not after a narrow or elitist perspective, but rather a depth of engagement that serves as a base for branching out to other interests and disciplines." Robert Fried, The Passionate Teacher
It is so easy to throw out the word passion and try and point to ourselves and say we are passionate teachers. But you can see quickly the difference between the also run and the passionate in life. As I wander today I have been a fan of Savannah College of Arts Literature Professor Mary Aswell Doll's thoughts and have used them numerous times as references in papers on curriculum and education. This illustration of an electric current running through us combined with Fried's passion and these are components of a great teacher.
"Curriculum is also … a coursing, as in electric current. The work of the curriculum theorist should tap this intense current within, that which courses through our inner person, that which electrifies or gives life to the persons energy source." Mary Aswell Doll
You have got soul. Many the time, I have heard that remark in reference to or about someone. One of the experts on soul is Thomas Moore who has written numerous best sellers about this often-ambiguous subject.
"Soul is not a thing, but a quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with the depth value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance. I do not use the word here as an object of religious belief or something to do with immortality. When we say someone has soul we know what we mean." Thomas Moore
Soul cannot be taught it cannot be bought and it cannot be traded for. Moore uses some words here going a bit beyond Stronge's qualities of a great teacher. Depth value, relatedness, heart and personal substance these are attributes are also pieces of who a great teacher is. A great teacher has soul might be my next point. Over the numerous years of teaching I have heard teachers say they have been called to teach. I sort of wandered back into teaching. Finding it was where I was meant to be. Parker Palmer offers to teachers that there is sacredness in our undertaking.
"The Community of truth, the grace of things, the transcendent subject, and the "secret "that" sits in the middle and knows – these images emerge, for me, from my experience of reality as sacred and of the sacred as real. Others may arrive at similar understandings from different starting points. But I believe that knowing, teaching, and learning are grounded in sacred soil and that renewing my vocation as a teacher requires cultivating a sense of the sacred." Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach
Maybe I should have stopped a few hours back but being in my sanctuary here upstairs and totally quiet save for Brewer and Shipley for a couple of hours and I get a bit carried away. I want to stop with a thought that no door can remain closed. We as teachers need to be about self-improvement, becoming students as well as teachers learning and reflecting so that we can always become better at our undertaking. We are critical links in our societal endeavors and it is crucial we hold up our end.
"I used to think that any door could be opened. Some stood freely open, some could be opened easily; some were harder to penetrate. Sometimes you had to knock, sometimes bang, sometimes charge; but always the door could be opened." Susan Thomas Anthony, Walk With Spirit
I started this many hour ago and here I am ending an unfinished work. Hopefully over the next few days I can address this idea of what makes for a great teacher but until that time please keep all in harm's way on your mind and in your hearts and always give thanks namaste.
My family and friends I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)


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A 30-year accumulation of Brooklyn Dodgers memorabilia comes to market for the first time as Memory Lane launches its 2011 Summer Classics Auction July 30.
The Steve Ross Dodgers Collection includes baseball cards, autographed balls and bats, pennants, programs, yearbooks, autographed books, autographed photos, hats, the collection even includes Ebbets Field seats. The collection was pieced together with an eye for quality, not just quantity…although there is plenty to choose from. It represents a veritable history of one of baseball's most iconic franchises, from the Dodgers early days in Brooklyn until their cross-country move that broke hearts in Flatbush, but gave rise to a new, wildly successful re-birth in Los Angeles.
As a youngster, Ross was taken to Dodger games at Ebbets Field by his grandfather. A family friend, Dodger coach Jake Pitler, once invited him into the dugout to meet the players. Even though he moved out to the suburbs at age 8, his love for the "Bums" never lessened. As a Little Leaguer, he wore #14 in honor of his hero, Gil Hodges.
Ross' joy for their 1955 World Series victory was replaced by sorrow in 1957 by their move to Los Angeles. His baseball cards departed with the trash and his autographed baseballs ended up in pickup games. He started to rebuild his Brooklyn Dodger collection in 1980 by way of dealers, card shows and auctions.
Ross' love for the old Dodgers is captured in the form of numerous team signed baseballs, a variety of other autographed memorabilia featuring Brooklyn greats (and their famous counterparts) and a stunning collection of vintage baseball cards, many ranked among the best in existence, all of them authenticated by PSA.
Among the premier items in the collection are two of the few surviving chairs from the legendary Ebbets Field (MB $1,000 each). The hub of Brooklyn baseball for decades, the ballpark met its end as the 1960s dawned and the Dodgers' New York era officially came to an end.
Few items signed by Babe Ruth during his stint as a Dodgers coach have survived but among the lots Memory Lane is presenting to collectors is a 1938 Dodgers team-signed baseball featuring not only the Bambino and 20 other members of the club, but fellow Hall of Famers Mel Ott, Leo Durocher and Burleigh Grimes.
The ball is just one of many signed Dodger baseballs available. Collectors can chase those representing the teams of 1940, 1942, 1944, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1954 and 1957 (graded PSA 8.5). Autographs of the team's brightest stars like Roy Campanella and Jackie Robinson are sprinkled throughout the group and each ball bears authentication from PSA-DNA.
The Steve Ross collection includes several multi-signed pieces including an Ebbets field logo bat that carries 60 different signatures, all in blue Sharpie, including Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider, and a 1952 team yearbook signed by 21 players.
The earliest item in the collection is a 1916 Brooklyn Robins team photo that originated with Casey Stengel. The scarce photo pictures the 'Ol' Perfesser' as a scrappy young player.
Ross had an eye for quality in the Dodger baseball cards he collected. His consignment includes a phenomenal 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson (PSA 8), plus '52 Topps cards of Roy Campanella and Pee Wee Reese. There is also a PSA 8 John Rutherford. Collectors of the '52 set realize how hard it is to find that particular card in anything resembling near mint-mint condition.
Also among the lots up for bid will be a 1941 Play Ball Pee Wee Reese, graded PSA 8, a 1949 Bowman Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider rookie card, numerous high grade 1950s Dodgers stars including Campanella, Snider and Hodges.
Other parts of the massive collection will be sold privately via Memory Lane's website.
Over 1100 lots in all will be offered in the Summer Classics Auction conducted online and via telephone. The auction will begin Saturday, July 30 and close Saturday night, August 20.
Some of the featured lots will be on display at this year's National Sports Collectors Convention at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL August 3-7. Those who consign items with the company prior to the National will receive a free VIP pass, a $180 value. They will also be meeting with collectors and accepting consignments at its booth in Chicago all week. Contact Memory Lane at (714) 730-0600 for a free catalog, to register for the auction or set up a time to discuss possible consignments.


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New for 2014, the Palisades Collection is one of the most versatile collections in our line. With only 7 Sku's, you can build your own configuration in your choice of 5" or 7" arm width. Palisades is available in our warehouse with quick ship cushion options.
*Glass sold separately
Item Number: NC252-CT
Dimensions: 35″ x 35″ x 17.5″ ht.
Palisades Coffee Table Glass
Item Number: NC252-CT-GL
Dimensions: 35″ x 35″ x 0.25″ ht.


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Pre-2014, the Bowling harbour basin at the western entrance to the Forth and Clyde Canal had seen better days. The decline of what was a hub of activity in its industrial heyday had left it largely unused, neglected, and in need of some TLC. The Bowling basin harbour development, headed by Scottish Canals and West Dunbartonshire Council, has been breathing new life into the area through a regeneration programme which includes the development of housing, retail units, a cycle path and most recently plans for a "high line" park inspired by the New York model.
To date, more than £3.2 million has been invested in the project, which has included the transformation of disused railway arches into commercial business space and landscaping improvements to the lower basin area.
Designing with – not just for – the community
In 2014 a charrette was held (which its self was praised as excellent practice in local level co-production and co-design) in which residents and other stakeholders were invited not only to consult on plans for the regeneration, but to put forward their own ideas for what could potentially be done with the site and develop a shared master-plan for the area.
Partnership and co-production, as well as wide engagement across stakeholder groups were seen as central to the charrette process, and the transparency and regular engagement with local residents has ensured that the development not only meets the economic development needs set out by the council and Scottish Canals, but that it also fulfils the aspirations of local people.
A destination in its own right
One of the primary aims of the Bowling development was not just to rejuvenate the area, but to make Bowling a leisure and tourist destination in its own right. Retail units have been created within the refurbished arches of the railway bridge. Re-landscaped areas, to be developed into nature preservation sites, have been delivered, along with infrastructure which connects the harbour to the surrounding villages, the rest of the canal network, and the cycle network towards the Trossachs and Glasgow.
Most recently, an activity hub has been opened which includes opportunities for cycling, water sports and event space for clubs to meet, as well as "The Dug Café", a dog friendly coffee shop. It is hoped the offering of retail, outdoor activities and connectivity to the rest of the canal network, as well as Glasgow will encourage more people to visit Bowling. It is also hoped the project will act as a new focus point for members of the community, linking to schools and employment opportunities for local people and businesses.
Scotland's High Line
The New York High Line is a 1.45-mile-long linear park which runs through Manhattan on the former New York Central Railroad. In October 2017, proposals were submitted for planning approval for Bowling's very own high line, using the iconic 120-year-old swing bridge. The railway fell into disrepair in the 1960s, but with funding support from Sustrans and Historic Environment Scotland, Scottish Canals has undertaken repairs to the structure's metalwork and repainted the entire span. The plans include new viewpoints which will offer visitors the chance to enjoy the vistas over the canal and River Clyde. The new route will form a direct link between the Forth & Clyde Canal and the National Cycle Network route heading towards Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park.
Looking to the future…
Scottish Canals are keen to stress the potentially vial role they can play in revitalising Scotland's waterside environments. With a large landholding and significant scope for supporting regeneration projects, they are becoming an increasingly major player. They view the areas along Scotland's canal network as opportunities not only to use innovative techniques such as custom build projects to improve the physical environment around waterways and canals, but also to support and create positive places and opportunities for local communities.
Scottish Canals are also involved in developments at Dundas Hill in Glasgow, as well as a number of projects across the canal network in Scotland.
Follow us on Twitter to see what developments are interesting our research team.
If you enjoyed this blog, you may also be interested in our other articles:
SURF conference 2017 – What Scotland has learned from 25 years of regeneration


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These images appear suddenly, as in flashes – outlined against the background of the night, like scarlet paintings executed upon ebony.
Saint Anthony
Saint Anthony a.k.a Anthony the Great (c. 251 – 356) was a Christian monk and visionary who reacted against the increasing acceptance and normalisation of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire by becoming, first an ascetic, and then rejecting social life altogether by going to live in the Egyptian desert, to fast and pray by himself, relying only on gifts of food from pilgrims and local villagers.
Rumours and legends spread about his simple life and holiness, and soon he gained a following. He is known to posterity because his contemporary, Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote a long biography of him. For many years Anthony was credited as the founded of monasticism i.e. the idea that holy men should go and live in isolation from society, ideally in remote locations, to live simple lives and praise God – though modern scholars now know he was part of a widespread movement of religious puritans away from urban centres, which predated and accompanied him.
Athanasius's biography describes how Anthony was tempted by the devil and by demons who appeared in numerous disguises, trying to seduce him with food and the pleasures of the flesh or, more subtly, trying to lure him into some of the heretical beliefs with which his age abounded.
Continually elaborated in the retelling, embellished with demons, naked women and weird monsters, the legend of the 'Temptation of St Anthony' went on to become a familiar subject in western art, inspiring lovingly grotesque depictions by the likes of Hieronymus Bosch and Mathias Grünewald.
In more modern times the Temptation was painted by Max Ernst and Salvador Dali, and was the subject of a symphony by the German composer Paul Hindemith (1934).
And it inspired this prose fantasia by Gustave Flaubert, published in 1874.
The mundane and the fantastic in Flaubert
As I've read through Flaubert I've realised his output can be very simply divided into two categories: the contemporary realist works (Madame Bovary, The Sentimental Education) and the exuberant historical fantasias (Salammbô, The Temptation of Saint Anthony).
In other words, alongside his painstaking attention to the detail of contemporary life, Flaubert was also fascinated and inspired by a wide range of historical and fantastical subjects. He had a long-running interest in the ancient world of the Mediterranean (an interest fuelled by his visits to Tunisia and Egypt) and a lifelong fascination with religion, all religions, ranging as far afield as Buddhism and Hinduism.
It is as if all the uncontrolled sexual, sadistic, fantastical and philosophical fantasies which Flaubert kept completely bottled up when creating the painstaking 'realist' novels, just had to erupt somewhere else – in the sustained cruelty of Salammbô and into the extended philosophical and psychological fantasia of Saint Anthony.
The problem of 'evil' in 19th century literature (i.e. it is boring)
Flaubert wrote three completely different versions of the Temptation (1849, 1856 and this one).
The long introduction to the Penguin paperback edition by Kitty Mrosovsky compares how the images and ideas changed in the three versions. She then goes on to quote the opinions of later French writers and critics, from Baudelaire through Valéry, from Sartre to Michel Foucault.
What becomes clear is that if you write about God and the devil, heaven and hell, being and nothingness, sex and sin, any number of critics will be able to impose their own critical schemas and obsessions on your text, and it can be turned into a Symbolist, Freudian, Modernist, Existentialist or Structuralist masterpiece, depending on which critic you're reading.
In other words, modern texts on this kind of subject often turn out to be strangely empty.
Personally, I find the history of the late Roman Empire, the rise of Christianity and the efflorescence of its countless heresies, absolutely riveting. By contrast I often find the way secular 'modern' writers use this era and these ideas to spool out endless ruminations about the meaning of life, unutterably boring. Why?
I think the reason I like the history of the actual heresies – all those gnostics and Arians, the Adamites, Marcionians, Nicolaitans, Paternians, Archonites and so on – is that they are interesting in themselves, and they really mattered. There were riots, insurrections, people fought to the death about these beliefs and – arguably – the weakness of the Church in North Africa after centuries of bitter sectarian fighting made it easy for militant Islam to sweep across the region in the 7th century. This was of world-historical importance.
And the arcane Christological heresies of the 3rd or 4th centuries AD are interesting in themselves as thought-provoking explorations of the potential of Christian theology – was Christ a man? or a God? or half-man and half-God? Which half was which? Did God speak through him or were his words his own? Has the Son existed for all time, like God, or was he created at some later date i.e. is he equal to, or inferior to, God the Father? How can they be part of the same Substance when Jesus continually refers to 'his Father' as a distinct entity? And how does the Holy Spirit fit into each of these scenarios?
1. The long line of 19th century non-believing poets and writers who tackled issues of 'sin' and 'damnation' and 'heaven' and 'hell' – from Byron via Baudelaire to Rimbaud and beyond – were just playing at being 'damned poets'. There is no sense of risk in their work. The absolutely worst thing they could conceive of in their fictions, was suicide (which, when all is said and done, is just a personal psychological disorder), or murdering someone (just the one person) the subject of Dostoyevsky's 500-page-long Crime and Punishment. Even the primevally wicked Mr Hyde only in fact murders one person. The worst thing most of these writers did, in practice, was sleep around and get drunk a lot.
In a sense the twentieth century made much 19th century literature redundant. The First World War went a long way towards (and then the Second World War, the Holocaust and the atom bomb, completed the work of) redefining forever the meaning of evil, despair, horror.
Agonising over one person's soul seems, well, rather paltry in the light of the world we live in. (This is the reason I find the novels of Graham Greene, and their enormous obsession with the sinfulness or damnation of just one person, rather ludicrous.)
2. Also, no-one believes in Christianity any more. Not in a literal hell and damnation, not like they used to. In the Middle Ages the idea of damnation really mattered, psychologically: in Chaucer and Dante it is a real place, with real fire, and real demons skewering your tortured body. By the nineteenth century, in the hands of a dilettante like Byron, it is a fashion accessory, part of the pose of tormented genius.
The Temptation of Saint Anthony
The Temptation is divided into seven parts. It is written as if a play, with prose instructions describing the setting and goings-on (Opening words: 'The setting is Thebaid, high on a mountain…') while the dialogue of the 'characters' is given in dramatic format- the name, a colon, the speech.
It starts with Anthony outside his primitive hut in the desert at nightfall, and he proceeds to have a bewildering series of visions, some of which transport him to cities and palaces, where he encounters emperors and queens, and all manner of famous individuals such as the Queen of Sheba, Helen of Troy, the Buddha, the Greek gods and so on.
Right from the start Anthony – surprisingly – bemoans his lot, hates being alone, wonders whether he shouldn't have followed another vocation, grumbles and complains in what – to be honest – is Flaubert's awful, stagey dialogue.
Another day! another day gone!… What solitude! what weariness!… Ah! woe, woe is me! will this never end? Surely death were preferable! I can endure it no more! Enough! enough!… Assuredly there is no human being in a condition of such unutterable misery!… What shame for me! Alas! poor Anthony!… It is my own fault! I allow myself to be caught in every snare! No man could be more imbecile, more infamous!…
Since he doesn't really do anything, we only know Anthony through his speech and his speech is hammy Victorian melodrama. As with the dialogue in Salammbô, every sentence seems to end in an exclamation mark but, paradoxically, the more exclamation marks he uses, the less dramatic (or interesting) the speech becomes, the more tiresome and simple-minded.
I found it impossible to take Anthony seriously as a character.
He stamps his foot upon the ground, and rushes frantically to and fro among the rocks; then pauses, out of breath, bursts into tears, and lies down upon the ground, on his side.
In fact, given the extravagant cast of characters, there is also surprisingly little drama, hardly any sense of conflict or threat, in the whole work. Anthony remains the same miserable moaner all the way through. There is no change or development, no sense of critical encounters or turning points or sudden revelations.
As I've read through Flaubert's works I've become increasingly aware of the importance of Set Piece Scenes in his fiction. In a sense the Temptation is a reductio ad absurdam of this approach: it consists of nothing but an apparently endless series of set-piece encounters and scenes. This accounts for the highly static impression it makes on the reader.
One critic compares the entire book to the panoramas created by magic lanterns in the mid-nineteenth century. These enchanted their simpler audiences by projecting a series of images onto a flat wall. You can envisage the entire book as just such a series of slides.
Part one – Human frailty
We find Saint Anthony in front of his hut in the desert as the sun sets. The entire book takes place in the space of this one night, from dusk to dawn.
Anthony is moaning about his lot in life and wonders why he didn't do almost anything else, become a soldier or a teacher. Almost continually his thoughts are interrupted by wolves prowling just outside the light of his torch, or by birds, by strange noises.
Personally, I found almost all the scenes involving Anthony off-putting because he comes across as so wet and feeble. As in Salammbô and the realist novels, I often found the quiet, descriptive passages the most enjoyable, the ones where Flaubert uses his extensive background reading in the period to depict ordinary life of the time. Here he is imagining the life of your ordinary Alexandrian merchant.
The merchants of Alexandria sail upon the river Canopus on holidays, and drink wine in the chalices of lotus-flowers, to a music of tambourines which makes the taverns along the shore tremble! Beyond, trees, made cone-shaped by pruning, protect the quiet farms against the wind of the south. The roof of the lofty house leans upon thin colonettes placed as closely together as the laths of a lattice; and through their interspaces the master, reclining upon his long couch, beholds his plains stretching about him – the hunter among the wheat-fields – the winepress where the vintage is being converted into wine, the oxen treading out the wheat. His children play upon the floor around him; his wife bends down to kiss him.
Anthony sees this vision because he himself is lonely and hungry. The local villagers used to come and give him food, now they've stopped. Anthony reminisces about his days back in the city, as a trainee monk, when he was invited by Athanasius to join a set piece debate against the Arians (a very popular type of Christian heresy). Then he sees visions -' a stretch of water; then the figure of a prostitute; the corner of a temple, a soldier; a chariot with two white horses, prancing', then he faints.
Part two – the Seven Deadly Sins
Out of the darkness comes the Devil, like a huge vampire bat, and under its wings are suckling the Seven Deadly Sins. It is a disappointment, then, that this ominous creature doesn't speak. Instead Anthony hallucinates that his mat is a boat, rocking on a river, floating past the temple of Serapis.
Papyrus-leaves and the red flowers of the nymphæa, larger than the body of a man, bend over him. He is lying at the bottom of the boat; one oar at the stem, drags in the water. From time to time, a lukewarm wind blows; and the slender reeds rub one against the other, and rustle. Then the sobbing of the wavelets becomes indistinct. A heavy drowsiness falls upon him. He dreams that he is a Solitary of Egypt.
I like passages like this, clips or little scenelets of vivid description. When Anthony wakes the Devil has, apparently, disappeared – very disappointing. Anthony finds a husk of bread and his jug empty and this prompts a vivid hallucination of a great banqueting table set for a feast, replete with intoxicating sights and smells.
Then many things appear which he has never seen before – black hashes, jellies, the colour of gold, ragouts in which mushrooms float like nenuphars upon ponds, dishes of whipped cream light as clouds.
It was only the notes which explained to me that what now follows is a sequence in which Anthony hallucinates each of the Seven Deadly Sins in turn. This one represented the Sin of Gluttony. As in a hallucination the food morphs into lips and then into one loaf on a table which now stretches to right in front of his face. He pushes it away and it vanishes.
Then Anthony stumbles over something underfoot, which turns into money, lots of money, a crown, precious jewels.
As water streams overflowing from the basin of a fountain, so diamonds, carbuncles, and sapphires, all mingled with broad pieces of gold bearing the effigies of Kings, overflow from the cup in never ceasing streams, to form a glittering hillock upon the sand…
It is the Sin of Avarice. As he throws himself upon the pile it vanishes. He trembles in the knowledge that, had he died in the middle of succumbing to any of these temptations, he would have gone to hell.
Now the scene completely changes and Anthony thinks he sees a panoramic overview of the city of Alexandria. In style this is identical to the numerous panoramic overviews of Carthage which Flaubert gave us in Salammbô. He sees crowds of vengeful monks pouring through the streets, seeking out their heretical opponents, the Arians, and then Anthony suddenly sees himself to be one of them, bursting into the houses of the heretics, burning their books, torturing and eviscerating them, wading up to his knees in the heretics' blood!
And the blood gushes to the ceilings, falls back upon the walls like sheets of rain, streams from the trunks of decapitated corpses, fills the aqueducts, forms huge red pools upon the ground. Anthony is up to his knees in it. He wades in it; he sucks up the blood-spray on his lips; he is thrilled with joy as he feels it upon his limbs, under his hair-tunic which is soaked through with it.
This is the Sin of Wrath.
Next the scene morphs to a Roman city (which I deduce is the newish capital of the Roman Empire, Constantinople) and Anthony finds himself ushered through countless rooms in a grand palace, past armed guards to arrive in the presence of the Emperor. This painted, dazzling personage treats him as an equal, discusses politics and religion with him and places his imperial diadem on Anthony's brow. He is taken out into the balcony overlooking the Hippodrome where the great chariot races are held, walking past prison cells in which are imprisoned his theological enemies, the Arians, grovelling and begging hur hur hur. The Sin of Pride.
Then the scene morphs into the throne room of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon 600 BC, a long banqueting table, and crawling in the dirt all the kings Nebuchadnezzar has defeated, whose hands and feet have been cut off. A little way off sit the king's brothers, all of whom have been blinded. As in Salammbô the reader becomes aware of Flaubert's oppressive interest in sadism and cruelty. Anthony enters the mind of the king of kings and is immediately drenched in feelings of lust and cruelty. He climbs on the table and bellows like a bull and then…
Comes to himself. He is alone in front of his hut. He picks up his whip and flagellates himself, enjoying the pain, the tearing of his rebellious flesh, whereupon…
He sees men riding on onagers (a kind of Asiatic wild ass) and then a procession of camels and horses and then a white elephant with a golden net and waving peacock feathers, which bears the Queen of Sheba. The elephant kneels, the queen slides down its trunk onto a precious carpet laid out by her slaves and she greets Anthony. As with Salammbô, there is in these scenes an excess of description over psychology or character.
Her robe of gold brocade, regularly divided by furbelows of pearls, of jet, and of sapphires, sheaths her figure closely with its tight-fitting bodice, set off by coloured designs representing the twelve signs of the Zodiac.
She wears very high pattens – one of which is black, and sprinkled with silver stars, with a moon crescent; the other, which is white, is sprinkled with a spray of gold, with a golden sun in the middle. Her wide sleeves, decorated with emeralds and bird-plumes, leave exposed her little round bare arms, clasped at the wrist by ebony bracelets; and her hands, loaded with precious rings, are terminated by nails so sharply pointed that the ends of her fingers seem almost like needles.
A chain of dead gold, passing under her chin, is caught up on either side of her face, and spirally coiled about her coiffure, whence, redescending, it grazes her shoulders and is attached upon her bosom to a diamond scorpion, which protrudes a jewelled tongue between her breasts. Two immense blond pearls depend heavily from her ears. The borders of her eyelids are painted black.
And she claims they have been searching the wilderness for him and, now they have found him, she will marry him and worship him and anoint him and caress him. There is a great deal of Miltonic description of the riches and luxuries from far-flung exotic places which she can offer him, but then it focuses down to the pleasure of her body, which sums up a whole world of desire. The Sin of Lust.
I am not a woman: I am a world!
But Anthony stands firm and after flirting with him some more, she turns on her heel, remounts her elephant and departs along with all her servants, laughing, mocking him.
Part three – Hilarion (11 pages)
A small child appears. Going up to him Anthony recognises the face of his one-time disciple, Hilarion, long since departed for Palestine. This phantasmal Hilarion sets about systematically undermining Anthony's faith:
- he criticises Anthony's teacher, Athanasius, pointing out his theological errors
- he says Anthony's mortification is pointless since many heretics do just the same
- Jesus went cheerfully about his ministry, mixing with people, talking, teaching, unlike misanthropic Anthony
- when Anthony points to the Scriptures as the basis of faith, Hilarion immediately rattles off a list of the inconsistencies in the Gospel accounts of Jesus
Part four – the Heresiarchs and the circus victims (60 pages)
The heresiarchs Hilarion ushers Anthony into a vast basilica full of people who turn out to be a collection of all the founders of heresies, all the rival theologians and preachers and mystic, the Gnostics and neo-Platonics and religious thinkers, of his time. This is quite a long list and, as most of them only get a sentence or so designed to baffle and demoralise Anthony, it is very difficult from Flaubert's text alone to properly understand their deviant beliefs.
After all these years I still recommend Paul Johnson's excellent History of Christianity (1977), whose long second chapter is devoted to a detailed exposition of the Christian heresies which exploded around the Mediterranean and caused outrage, riots and even wars (when different candidates for emperor adopted opposing theologies) until well into the 8th century.
Thus Anthony meets in quick succession the heresiarchs Mani, Saturninus, Cerdo, St Clement of Alexandria, Bardesanes, the Herbians, the Priscillianists, Valentine, Origen, the Elkhasaites, the Carpocratians, the Nicolaitans, the Marcosians, the Helvidians, the Messalians, the Paternians, Aetius, Tertullian, Priscilla, Maximilla, Montanus, the Archontics, the Tatianians, the Valesians, the Cainites, the Circumcellions, Arius. Pandemonium breaks out:
The Audians shoot arrows against the Devil; the Collyridians throw blue cloths toward the roof; the Ascites prostrate themselves before a waterskin; the Marcionites baptise a dead man with oil. A woman, standing near Appelles, exhibits a round loaf within a bottle, in order the better to explain her idea. Another, standing in the midst of an assembly of Sampseans distributes, as a sacrament, the dust of her own sandals. Upon the rose-strewn bed of the Marcosians, two lovers embrace. The Circumcellionites slaughter one another; the Valesians utter the death-rattle; Bardesanes sings; Carpocras dances; Maximilla and Priscilla moan; and the false prophetess of Cappadocia, completely naked, leaning upon a lion, and brandishing three torches, shrieks the Terrible Invocation.
As you can see, this glorified list is more a goldmine for editors and annotators than any kind of pleasure for readers. Indeed, the Penguin edition has 47 pages of notes giving you fascinating facts on almost every one of the characters and places mentioned in the text. But if you read it as text alone, all these names quickly blur.
This long section about heretics makes clearer than ever the fact that Flaubert has the mentality of an encyclopedist, a compiler of dictionaries. He boasted to friends about the hundreds of history books he read as research for both Salammbô and Anthony and boy does it show.
Flaubert cuts and pastes together the results to produce scenes packed with exotic names, but almost always without any life or psychology and, as here, disappointingly uninformative. The controversies about the precise meaning of Jesus' crucifixion which racked the early church are riveting because there was so much to play for; they were political as well as theological arguments, because different sects seized control of entire Roman provinces, Roman emperors disinherited their own children or fought opponents because they espoused divergent beliefs.
Flaubert manages to drain this exciting and complex historical and theological subject of all interest and turn it into a procession of cardboard mouthpieces, who all sound the same.
Following Arius, the chapter continues with a paragraph or so from: Sabellius, the Valentinians, the Sethians, the Theodotians, the Merinthians, the Apollinarists, Marcellus of Ancyra, Pope Calixtus, Methodius, Cerinthus, Paul of Samosata, Hermogenes, the Cerinthians, the Marcosians, the Encratites, the Cainites, the Old Ebionites, Eusebius of Caesarea, Marcellina…
The ceremony of the Orphites Anthony is then taken through a door into a dark shrine where he witnesses a ceremony of the Orphites, who worshipped the snake, the serpent in the Eden story, believing it to be the true saviour. Their chanting awakens a monstrously huge python which they handle and twine around themselves as they hold a blasphemous eucharist.
Christians being thrown to the lions Exhausted with horror at the sheer number of heresies, Anthony falls to the floor and is immediately back in the dust in front of his humble hut. Time passes and a new hallucination begins. He is in a dark room, a prison cell, among other wretches. Outside it is sunny, he hears the roar of a crowd, the sound of lions and has a vision of the arena, tier after tier of seats. He is among Christians about to be thrown to the lions.
Various characters explain why they're there (interrupting pagan rites, burning down temples, refusing to worship pagan gods) and explore their plight: an Old Man lamenting he didn't escape, a Young Man bewailing the lost years, a Consoler saying a miracle might happen. The idea (apparently) is to disillusion Anthony by showing him the mean motives, the backsliding and lack of faith of the so-called 'martyrs'. The portcullis on the other side of the arena opens and out lope lazy lions, panthers, leopards, and then the martyrs' door opens and the gaoler whips the weeping Christians out into the sand…
In the cemetery And Anthony awakes, dazed, looks around him, then.. falls into another dream. He is in a cemetery where he meets veiled women lamenting the deaths of their husbands, sons or how they themselves were condemned as Christians and persecuted, and then… as they bow and pray together, eat together, their robes slip open and their mouths join and.. I think they have an orgy – presumably the Devil's intention is to show him the lack of faith and the easy lasciviousness of the widows of the faithful. This scene fades out and…
The Hindu sage Anthony is at the edge of a tropical forest, with parrots and lizards. On a pyre squats a shrivelled man wearing a necklace of shells and with a bird's nest built in his long matted hair. He is 'the Gymnosophist', a Hindu sage. This wizened figure repeats basic Hindu teachings about reincarnation, about striving to reach purity so as not to fall into corruption. Then his pyre bursts into flames and he is burnt alive without a sound.
Simon Magus and Helen of Troy Anthony tramples out the flames and it is dark again. Then through a cleft in the rocks comes a voice followed by a white-haired old man leading a young girl with bite marks on her face and bruises on her arm. It emerges that he is Simon Magus, a magician of the first century mentioned in the Gospels. He claims to be the reincarnation of God and that the woman with him is his 'First Thought' or Ennoia, who has been reincarnated through the ages, at one point in the body of the legendary Helen of Troy, before he rescued from her work in a brothel in Tyre. Simon shakes the pot he's carrying which has a live flame at the top, but the flame shivers and goes out and a great smoke or fog fills the stage.
Apollonius of Tyana Anthony stumbles though the fog to discover Simon and Helen are gone. Now through the fog come a pair of men, one tall and lordly like Christ, the other a short servant. It is Apollonius of Tyana, the sage or thaumaturge, and his servant Dimas. Apollonius declaims grandly. As so often with Flaubert, the reader gets the sense that the author is more interested, intoxicated even, by lists of grand, exotic-sounding and remote peoples and places – than by any kind of sense or logic. Thus Apollonius:
I have conversed with the Samaneans of the Ganges, with the astrologers of Chaldea, with the magi of Babylon, with the Gaulish Druids, with the priests of the negroes! I have ascended the fourteen Olympii; I have sounded the Scythian lakes; I have measured the breadth of the Desert!…
But first I had visited the Hyrcanian Sea; I made the tour of it; and descending by way of the country of the Baraomati, where Bucephalus is buried, I approached the city of Nineveh….
At Taxilla, the capital of five thousand fortresses, Phraortes, King of the Ganges, showed us his guard of black men, whose stature was five cubits, and under a pavilion of green brocade in his gardens, an enormous elephant, which the queens amused themselves by perfuming. It was the elephant of Porus which had taken flight after the death of Alexander….
Upon the shores of the sea we met with the milk-gorged Cynocephali, who were returning from their expedition to the Island Taprobana…
So we returned through the Region of Aromatics, by way of the country of the Gangarides, the promontory of Comaria, the country of the Sachalites, of the Adramites and of the Homerites; then, across the Cassanian mountains, the Red Sea, and the Island Topazos, we penetrated into Ethiopia through the country of the Pygmies…
I have penetrated into the cave of Trophonius, son of Apollo! I have kneaded for Syracusan women the cakes which they carry to the mountains. I have endured the eighty tests of Mithra! I have pressed to my heart the serpent of Sabasius! I have received the scarf of Kabiri! I have laved Cybele in the waters of the Campanian gulfs! and I have passed three moons in the caverns of Samothracia!
And so on. There is not a trace of drama, character, psychology, theology or philosophy in sight. This is quite transparently just a litany of resonant names. Apollonius and Dimas step backwards off a cliff and remain suspended in the air, like Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons, before ascending slowly into the black night sky.
Part five – the pagan gods and goddesses (42 pages)
Another long chapter in which Anthony meets what amounts to a list of all the pagan gods and goddesses, each of them given – as we've become used to – a few sentences or a paragraph in which to show off Flaubert's erudition and wide reading, before handing on to the next one.
In fact it starts off with a parade of pre-pagan gods, the blocks of wood or stone which original humans worshipped. Anthony and Hilarion mock the stupidity of the men who worshiped these clods. Then detours (unexpectedly) to a quick review of the original Hindu gods and of the Buddha, who tells the story of his life. The purpose of this temptation is that, as each of these entities tells its story, Hilarion (like a mini-devil) chips in to point out that this or that aspect of their worship is really no different from Christian belief or practice; it is designed to erode Christianity's claims to uniqueness.
We have appearances from the Buddha, Oanna (of the Chaldeans), the gods of ancient Babylon and their temple prostitutes, Ormuz god of the Persians, the Great Diana of Ephesus with her three rows of breasts.
Cybele's priests sacrifice a sheep and spatter Anthony and Hilarion with the blood, Atys who in a frenzy castrates himself as do his priests, we see the funeral of Adonis, killed by the boar, and the lamentation of Persephone, Isis suckling her babe and lamenting the death and dismemberment of Osiris.
Anthony is racked with sadness that so many souls have been lost worshiping these false gods; but sly Hilarion points out that so many aspects of the gods or their worship echo the True Religion, seeking to undermine Anthony's belief.
Now he and Anthony see a vast mountain with Olympus on its height and witness the pantheon of Greek gods, one by one lamenting their decline and fall: Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Hercules, Pluto, Neptune, Mars, Vulcan, one by one they lament the loss of their powers and the end of their worship, before going tumbling down into a black abyss.
The lament of Osiris for her lost lover, and the sorrow of the Greek gods are the only pages in the book which I found moving enough to reread and savour. In it we can hear the voice of Flaubert, who from his schooldays believed he lived in a fallen world of stupidity and vulgarity. Hence the words he puts into dying Jupiter's mouth:
'Eagle of apotheoses, what wind from Erebus has wafted thee to me? or, fleeing from the Campus Martins, dost thou bear me the soul of the last of the Emperors? – I no longer desire to receive those of men. Let the Earth keep them; and let them move upon the level of its baseness. Their hearts are now the hearts of slaves; – they forget injuries, forget their ancestors, forget their oaths – and everywhere the mob's imbecility, the mediocrity of individuals, the hideousness of every race, hold sway!
Latterly go the household gods, those minor deities who gave grace and dignity to all aspects of daily life in ancient Rome, who laid the bride in her bed, tended at childbirth, at sickness, at feasts, during illness. All scorned, ignored and gone. Finally – surprisingly – a page is devoted to Jehovah, the god of the Old Testament, himself rejected and abused, his followers – the Jews – scorned and scattered over the earth.
It was a struggle to read the previous chapters, but these long laments of the dying pagan gods and the imaginative grace and nobility they brought to everyday life is, I think, genuinely moving. For the first time the text stirred, for me, as actual literature instead of a list of gaudy names.
Part six – the Devil (8 pages)
Hilarion gives way to the Devil himself who chucks Anthony onto his horns and carries him up, up and away, through the sky, into space, up to the moon, beyond the solar system, into the realm of the stars, all the time explaining a) that the universe is infinite, nothing like the earth-centred structure of the ancient Greeks or Jews b) while giving him a compelling lecture on theology (the only theology in the text), explaining in a dry logical, professorial manner the unbounded infinitude and one substance of God.
God has no imperfections, God has no passions, God doesn't worry or fret about his creatures, he is vastly beyond the momentary whims of man, his is as extended, infinite and integral as the universe. BUT the corollary of this is that He doesn't listen to prayers and hear the sobs and hopes of his countless creations. He is infinitely remote, completely Perfect, utterly indifferent. (According to the notes, this is a summary of the philosophical pantheism of Spinoza.)
The point is that the Devil's fluent and vast philosophising leads up to the terrifyingly logical conclusion:
Adore me, then! – and curse the phantom thou callest God!
On some instinct Anthony, despite being overwhelmed by this vision of the universe and the Devil's compelling logic, lifts his eyes as if to pray. The Devil drops him in disgust.
Part seven (20 pages)
Anthony regains consciousness by the cliff edge. It crosses his mind to end it all by simply rolling over it and falling to his death. This final chapter is in three parts:
1. He is approached by a wizened old woman and a nubile young woman. One argues the case for suicide, the other urges him to embrace life. Slowly it becomes clear they are Death and Lust, respectively. He dismisses them and is confronted by:
2. The Chimera and the Sphinx. The former attracts men towards pointless delusions, the latter devours seekers after God. They squabble and argue until the Sphinx sinks into the sand and the Chimaera goes swooping off in pointless circles.
3. Their argument morphs into the most genuinely surreal and hallucinatory section in the text, where Flaubert creates a parade of the strangest creatures or human-beasts he has come across in all his reading of myths and legends. These include:
- the Astomi, humans who are completely transparent
- the Nisnas, who have only one eye, one cheek, one hand, one leg, half a body, half a heart
- the Blemmyes who have no head at all
- the Pygmies
- the Sciapods, who live with their heads and bodies in the earth, only the soles of their feet and legs showing
- the Cynocephali, men with the heads of dogs who fly through trees in great forests,
- the Sadhuzag, who has seventy-four antlers which the wind blows through to make beautiful sounds
- the Martichoras, a gigantic red lion, with human face, and three rows of teeth
- the Catoblepas, a black buffalo with a pig's head, falling to the ground, and attached to his shoulders by a neck long, thin, and flaccid as an empty gut
- the Basilisk, a great violet serpent, with trilobate crest, and two fangs, one above, one below
- the Griffin, a lion with a vulture's beak, and white wings, red paws and blue neck
And then there is a terrifying outpouring of Life in a profusion of forms:
And all manner of frightful creatures arise: – The Tragelaphus, half deer, half ox; the Myrmecoles, lion before and ant behind, whose genitals are set reversely; the python Askar, sixty cubits long, that terrified Moses; the huge weasel Pastinaca, that kills the trees with her odour; the Presteros, that makes those who touch it imbecile; the Mirag, a horned hare, that dwells in the islands of the sea. The leopard Phalmant bursts his belly by roaring; the triple-headed bear Senad tears her young by licking them with her tongue; the dog Cepus pours out the blue milk of her teats upon the rocks.
Mosquitoes begin to hum, toads commence to leap; serpents hiss. Lightnings flicker. Hail falls.
Then come gusts, bearing with them marvellous anatomies: – Heads of alligators with hoofs of deer; owls with serpent tails; swine with tiger-muzzles; goats with the crupper of an ass; frogs hairy as bears; chameleons huge as hippopotami; calves with two heads, one bellowing, the other weeping; winged bellies flitting hither and thither like gnats.
They rain from the sky, they rise from the earth, they pour from the rocks; everywhere eyes flame, mouths roar, breasts bulge, claws are extended, teeth gnash, flesh clacks against flesh. Some crouch; some devour each other at a mouthful.
Suffocating under their own numbers, multiplying by their own contact, they climb over one another; and move about Anthony with a surging motion as though the ground were the deck of a ship. He feels the trail of snails upon the calves of his legs, the chilliness of vipers upon his hands: – and spiders spinning about him enclose him within their network.
Finally, in this endless chain of evolutions and transformations, animals turn into insects, flowers turn into rocks, beasts turn to crystal, ice pullulates with life, it is a wild hallucination of the pantheistic vision of life in all things
And now the vegetables are no longer distinguishable from the animals. Polyparies that seem like trees, have arms upon their branches. Anthony thinks he sees a caterpillar between two leaves: it is a butterfly that takes flight. He is about to step on a pebble: a grey locust leaps away. One shrub is bedecked with insects that look like petals of roses; fragments of ephemerides form a snowy layer upon the soil.
And then the plants become confounded with the stones. Flints assume the likeness of brains; stalactites of breasts; the flower of iron resembles a figured tapestry.
He sees efflorescences in fragments of ice, imprints of shrubs and shells—yet so that one cannot detect whether they be imprints only, or the things themselves. Diamonds gleam like eyes; metals palpitate.
His vision narrows right down onto ants, onto the tiniest creatures, onto organisms no bigger than pinheads, furred with cilia and quivering with primordial life. Anthony has seen the origins of life and evolution in reverse, and he bursts out:
'O joy! O bliss! I have beheld the birth of life! I have seen the beginning of motion! My pulses throb even to the point of bursting! I long to fly, to swim, to bark, to bellow, to howl! Would that I had wings, a carapace, a shell – that I could breathe out smoke, wield a trunk – make my body writhe – divide myself everywhere – be in everything – emanate with odours – develop myself like the plants – flow like water – vibrate like sound – shine like light, squatting upon all forms – penetrate each atom – descend to the very bottom of matter – be matter itself!
And then:
Day at last appears, and, like the raised curtains of a tabernacle, golden clouds furling into larger scrolls unveil the sky.
There in the middle, inside the very disk of the sun, radiates the face of Jesus Christ.
Anthony makes the sign of the cross and returns to his prayers.
Now, either Anthony has learned something definitive in the course of this long, busy night, and Flaubert intends this final outcry, apparently in praise of a kind of pantheistic materialism, as the climax and 'message' of the piece (which is very much how it feels when you read it)…
Or the ending has a more pessimistic meaning: namely that the return to his prayers signals a return to the same rut, the same wheel, and that the next night the whole thing will repeat itself all over again. I.e. he is caught like a Beckett character in an endless, pointless cycle of torment and fake wisdom.
I could see that both of these are possibilities but I am happy to leave my reading of the ending completely open because I was just so relieved to get to the end of this long, dense, almost unreadable fantasia of cuttings and notes transmuted into a bizarre sequence of sometimes unbearably tedious scenes.
The only moving part of the whole book is the Lament of the Pagan Gods – where the scenario of each of the gods in turn lamenting the decline of their worship and the end of their influence for once was adequate to the feeling of world sadness Flaubert is obviously aiming at.
Also, the final few pages, the almost hysterical hallucination of the very origins of life, are also head-spinningly delirious. But most if it felt like I was at the dentist having a filling.
Related links
- The Temptation of Saint Anthony on Amazon
- The Temptation of Saint Anthony online with illustrations by Odilon Redon This edition includes a prose summary of the text, which I found invaluable for understanding what the various chapters, and scenes were actually meant to about.
- The Temptation of Saint Anthony in the visual arts Wikipedia article
- The Life of Saint Antony by Athanasius online


text:
New rules leave dozens denied Navy base access due to past crimes
NORFOLK, Va. – Dozens of transportation workers have been denied access to Navy bases on the East Coast because of their criminal histories since more stringent rules were put in place following a fatal shooting aboard a destroyer in Virginia, according to figures provided by the Navy.
A civilian truck driver with a criminal record shot and killed Petty Officer 2nd Class Mark Mayo aboard the USS Mahan in March after driving onto Naval Station Norfolk, walking onto a pier and onto the ship's quarterdeck. The Navy said Jeffrey Tyrone Savage disarmed a sailor guarding the ship and used her weapon to fire the fatal shots at Mayo, who jumped between the disarmed sailor and Savage. Savage was later shot and killed by Navy personnel in a shootout aboard the ship.
The Navy said Savage possessed a valid Transportation Worker Identification Credential that could have gotten him access to the base, although he lacked proper paperwork indicating he had a legitimate reason to be there. The civilian gate guard who allowed Savage to drive onto base has been placed on administrative leave.
The credential Savage had the night of the shooting is issued by the Transportation Security Administration to people such as truck drivers who need unescorted access to ports and military installations.
Those who commit certain crimes are prohibited from having a TWIC card, but the crimes Savage committed didn't fall under any of them.
Savage's criminal record included pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Charlotte, N.C., in 2008 for shooting a friend in a car and leaving his body on the side of an interstate. Prosecutors originally charged Savage with murder and intended to seek the death penalty if he didn't plead guilty to the lesser charge. Savage's criminal history also includes possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine.
After the shooting aboard the Mahan, the commander in charge of Navy installations for most of the East Coast issued new rules prohibiting anyone with a felony in the past 10 years from using a TWIC card to get onto base. Under the new rules, Savage would not have been allowed onto Naval Station Norfolk.
Figures provided to The Associated Press show that in the first three weeks the new rules were in place, 48 people were denied access to Navy installations in Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island. During the same time period, 1,018 people used a TWIC card to try to gain access to the 12 installations in those states that the Navy is tracking statistics on TWIC card entry denials.
Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia Beach had the most denials, with 21 out of 198 TWIC card uses. Among other things, the base is home to amphibious ships that transport Marines and Navy SEAL teams.
Under the new policy, the National Crime Information Center database is now checked for any criminal history or outstanding warrants that are grounds for denial. In addition to the ban on felonies in the past ten years, no access for TWIC card holders is allowed for anyone who has a misdemeanor conviction within the last five years for crimes of violence; larceny; drugs; habitual offenders; and conviction for sex offenses.
Beth Baker, a spokeswoman for Navy Region Mid-Atlantic, said the background checks can add anywhere from five minutes to two hours to wait times for those using TWIC cards to gain entry.
The other installations that had TWIC card denials are: Naval Air Station Oceana 2; Naval Station Norfolk 11; Naval Station Newport 1; Naval Shipyard Norfolk 6; Naval Weapons Station Earle 1; Naval Submarine Base New London 2; Naval Weapons Station Yorktown 4.


text:
Once again, my tax season ended in a fog of confusion and rage: I don't know the math that determined my bill or the economic or political logic behind it.
But this time, the experience cost extra. With a more complex tax situation (the suggested math for the 1040ES approaches sadistic levels of inscrutability), I gave in and paid a tax pro to crunch the numbers for us. In the context of today's tax code, that was money well spent, sparing me hours of poring over forms and the lingering anxiety over missing some hidden deduction or credit.
But today's tax code is bullshit. It's a national embarrassment–a self-inflicted wound that oozes a little more financial pus every year.
Its eye-glazing complexity wastes the time of most Americans while inviting the more entrepreneurial among us to find ways to game the system–then lobby Washington for more such opportunities.
I've been writing this same rant every spring for six years now–see the 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007 versions–and nothing changes, despite vague promises of reform like those I got from Obama administration representatives last spring.
So I might as well throw out some suggestions to fix this mess.
1. Tax capital gains and dividends at the same rates as wages. Historical records suggest that giving investors this break doesn't actually yield higher economic growth over time. Yet it works too well at encouraging accounting alchemy like the "carried interest" scam. Rewarding one form of economic activity also sets a lousy precedent: Why not lower taxes for doctors who save lives, among other estimable occupations? (For that matter, why not jack up the rates for hacks who tear down the work of others?)
In the bargain, ending this market-distorting exercise would be an immensely simpler tax-fairness recipe than concocting special rules for the rich like the Alternative Minimum Tax or the proposed "Buffett Rule." Before anybody says "double taxation," a) remember that most people are already taxed twice, in the form of income tax levied on wages already deducted for Social Security and Medicare; b) good luck passing a bill taking that logic to its conclusion of zero taxes on billionaire investors.
2. Don't use a tax credit when an upfront tax will do. If you want to compel behavior through the tax code, do it obviously–not through a rule that many of us only encounter every March or April. If we want people to use less gas, hike the gas tax instead of trying to bribe motorists with gimmicky credits for hybrid vehicles. If we think making a quick buck through day trading is bad, impose a tiny financial transactions tax instead of screwing around with qualified and unqualified capital-gains tax rates.
(If you think that a tax credit doesn't inflate other taxes, the deficit or both, I can't help you. Go away.)
3. One tax vehicle per task. What is the point of having multiple tax-sheltered retirement and education-savings accounts? Even the Bush administration, for all of its numerous faults, tried to fix this. If we want to reward a socially-desirable activity, pick one credit or refund that works for most people and stop worrying about edge cases. Life is not always fair; in other news, the government will confiscate some of your money every year and spend it on things you hate.
Note that I haven't written a word about specific tax rates. That's higher-level math than I care to get into, and I've done enough spitballing here already. But I will stipulate that progressive taxation is a good idea (a truly flat tax would either shaft the poor or bankrupt the government), and that I'm willing to trade lower rates for a small national sales tax.
I'm also willing to pay a little more. I can afford that. I don't know that I can afford spending the rest of my life worrying about losing the tax game.