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Rapture of the Deep
Deep Purple need no introduction, having been an integral force in the formation of the hard rock scene of the '70s and oft cited as an influence of rock and metal bands ever since. For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Deep Purple, wipe the snot from your nose and go listen to your Slipknot CDs 'cause you clearly don't have a true appreciation for heavy music.
Rapture Of The Deep is Deep Purple's 18th studio album to date and features a core lineup of Ian Gillan (vocals), Roger Glover (bass), Ian Paice (drums), and Steve Morse on guitar. Paice has of course been with the band from the start, with Gillan and Glover coming aboard in 1970 and Steve Morse (formerly of Dixie Dregs and Kansas) joining in 1995. New to the ranks for this album is keyboardist Don Airey, who has had himself quite a storied career with the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, and Rainbow (among others). Jon Lord's retirement opened the door for speculation to circulate regarding the future of Deep Purple's music, what with Lord's Hammond organ so thoroughly a part of the band's recognizable sound. I won't go so far as to say Airey makes Lord's departure a non-event, but Don has certainly filled the void and not only provides the organ we're all accustomed to, but adds a flair all his own and further enlivens the new album.
If you're a Deep Purple fan, you will love Rapture Of The Deep. The band makes no attempt to "update" their sound or venture into uncharted territory through pointless experimentation. Instead, Gillan & Co. rely their organ-heavy, hook-laden formula that has earned them success over the past two decades. Do not make the mistake of assuming the album sounds dated, however. While the 11 tracks of Rapture Of The Deep could have been at home in the late '70s or early '80s, they have a contemporary and mature undercurrent to them which reminds the listener that this is a legendary band making music that is, above all else, ageless. The album starts with the bluesy rocker "Money Talks", having a deep groove and a catchy chorus. Gillan is in top form, his distinctive voice soaring above the music in a carefree manner that seems at the same time both detached from the song and firmly rooted to the music. The first song to really grab my attention is "Girls Like That", with a hot little riff to begin the tune played over a building organ backdrop. The song is fast-paced, as far as Deep Purple songs go, with driving organ/bass breakdowns and an infectious chorus. Steve Morse's guitar is a strong force in making this song a highlight of the album, proving yet again that he's a more than capable replacement of Ritchie Blackmore.
Another highlight for me was the Eastern flavored title track, which features some spacey keyboard licks from Airey and deep, thumping bass lines from Mr. Glover. Steve's lengthy solo is one of the best on the album, as it dips and soars before being chased by a solo from Airey, only to return a verse later for another go. This mid-paced track has a quality to it that makes you want to just lay back and listen, giving yourself to the music and letting it enshroud you with a sonic weave. Definitely a favorite. The next track, the ballad "Clearly Quite Absurd", is just as moving as the title track though at a much slower pace. Steve's wistful licks and leads lend a dreamlike quality to the song, while Don's ethereal keys and piano passages provide a soft backdrop for Gillan's heartfelt delivery. The overall song structure is simple, but the subtleties make it as powerful as it is - the prize in the pudding, as it were. Following the ballad, "Don't Let Go" has a bit of that '70s funk to it along with memorable choruses and a fuzzy solo from Morse. Not having as much of an impact as the previous two songs, this track nevertheless has the appeal to make it on rock radio. Yet another interesting track is "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye", with a bit of a Swing beat from Paice that gives the song some get up and go. Morse lets go with another quality solo, once again followed up by a flourish from Airey. The album closes with the moody "Before Time Began". Morse strums the mellow licks as Gillan breathes the lyrics to a soft beat from Paice. While not as captivating as the other highlights of Rapture Of The Deep, the song nevertheless is one of the better tunes to be heard on the album.
Deep Purple fans, and fans of classic rock in general, will find Rapture Of The Deep to be an enjoyable album. The nostalgia is there, but the band refuses to succumb to the repetitiveness that has doomed many other outfits with similarly long histories.
|Track Listing
|Money Talks
|Girls Like That
|Wrong Man
|Rapture Of The Deep
|Clearly Quite Absurd
|Don't Let Go
|Back To Back
|Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
|Junkyard Blues
|Before Time Began
Purchase Rapture of the Deep at these fine e-Tailers:


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Deutch, Ariel Y., Departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology
Ariel Y. Deutch, Ph.D.
James G. Blakemore Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Vanderbilt Brain Institute
465 21st Ave South
Nashville, TN 37232-2050
Changes in the availability or function of the neurotransmitter dopamine are central to the pathophysiology of both Parkinson's Disease (PD) and schizophrenia. Most of our lab's efforts revolve around deciphering the roles of dopamine in both disorders. In PD there is a loss of dendritic spines (the gateway to the neuron for excitatory inputs) on neurons in the striatum. In schizophrenia there is a loss of dendritic spines on pyramidal cells in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). We use a variety of anatomical, biochemical, and molecular methods to uncover the mechanisms underlying spine loss in the PFC and striatum in animal models and postmortem material from patients. Particular attention is currently being devoted to understanding the vulnerability of certain neurons but not adjacent neurons to dopamine depletion-induced spine loss, and to increasing our knowledge of the factors that underlie the resilience or resistance of other neurons to spine loss. We are also examining the potential role of different types of serotonin axons in the depression that is often seen in PD patients.
For more information, please visit the lab website.

subset: commoncrawl


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It's no surprise to anyone familiar with Bret Easton Ellis' work that he's a half-empty kind of guy. On the cusp of 50, Ellis finds himself circling the fringes of Hollywood, while a new novel seems to be pulling further out of his sight. In the tabloid-riddled The Canyons, Ellis spares no one: His screenplay chronicles the disaffection and moral vacuum at the heart of Hollywood and its players and the devolution of human relationships through technology. Throughout his career, critics have taken savage pleasure attacking Ellis, and even people unfamiliar with his work seem eager to pounce on The Canyons. Ellis remains centered, and in the end, doesn't care what anyone thinks.
The A.V. Club: When did the first spark of inspiration hit for The Canyons? Was the impetus the epidemic technological addiction?
Bret Easton Ellis: Actually no, it wasn't. Literally, the impetus to write it was that a movie that Paul [Schrader] and I were going to do, the funding dried up a month before shooting. This was December of 2011, and I had been developing this movie for five years at Lionsgate. Paul was the last in a series of directors to sign on to direct the film. We had cast it, and a month before shooting, the money fell apart. The economy tanked in Spain. Half the money was coming from Spain, and the other half was Lionsgate. It was really frustrating. Over Christmas break, Paul said, "Let's make a movie this year. The technology is there, the cameras, the lenses—you can make movies really cheaply. Check out some of these micro-budget movies, and write a script for me. You write it, I'll direct it, we'll finance it ourselves, and we'll own it and put it on iTunes." That was the plan and the impetus to write The Canyons. In terms of the material, I watched the micro-budget movies, and it's like six people in a house complaining about their relationships most of the time. We thought about making a genre movie, like a kind of L.A. noir and companion piece to American Gigolo, The Comfort Of Strangers, or something else that Paul had already made. I wanted a lot of exteriors and locations, and no handheld cameras, or very little. I wanted it to be a real movie, and that was the mission—to prove to people that you can make a movie like this for 250 grand. This is the only way that movies like The Canyons—or even something as benign as Zack Braff's latest—are going to be funded, by crowdsourcing and Kickstarter. The studio system has been dead for a long time. Even with the mini-majors, their slates are so tiny and their interests are so narrow that an adult drama is not on anybody's list of things to make.
With that in mind, I began to write about the things that were interesting to me, and put them into this noir. I was thinking a lot about surveillance and transparency right now. No one can have secrets. How does that affect the noir template? Everyone can find out everything about everyone, and you can't have those slow-burning secrets that are revealed throughout a noir. So I was thinking a lot about that, and thinking a lot about James Deen, and how fascinated I was by him, and he became the guy I was thinking about when writing the script. I was thinking about my relationship with Hollywood. I'm on the fringes. I never was a guy who was writing scripts for the studio system. I was always writing independent movies that I really wanted to make. My passion project for about four years was The Informers, which really started out with the best intentions and the best script, and it became a mess, and I was still kind of recovering from that. I was thinking about actors in this town and how they're treated. I was thinking about my phone apps, where you can hook up. My trainer was really fascinated with this thing called Blendr, and he was meeting girls every night, and then telling me about it the next day. All these things that were going on in January and February of 2012 got folded into the script. But really, the impetus was the breakup of that movie that I had been involved with for so long that never got made.
AVC: Was it Bait that didn't work out?
BEE: Yes, that was Bait.
AVC: Your voice really shines through in Lindsay Lohan's monologue about "being over movies." That felt autobiographical, but you actively love movies, right?
BEE: I'm still a believer—well, I was a believer. I have to admit that I might have been faking it for the last two or three years in terms of not accepting the fact that American film, as an art form, is nowhere near the place it once was, and that people have drifted over toward television and content on the Internet. Basically, film and serious, auteur-driven movies… no one's interested. I experienced the disconnect really powerfully for the first time this year. I do go to movies, and I still have that habit from when I was young: I want to drive to the theater, and I want the movie to control me. I don't want to sit in my bedroom able to control the movie, and turn it off whenever I want. I like the fact that the movie demands things of you, and that's what was always exciting about the movie-going experience. I think for younger people, that just doesn't hold an appeal. I've seen a lot of movies this year, and nothing's good. I was really kind of depressed by it, but this idea that movies were no longer at the center of the culture definitely was announcing itself to me within the last three years. Sometimes an art form can lose popularity, and it's not speaking to the masses in the way that it once was. This has been going on for a long time in American film, and yeah, it's mildly depressing.
AVC: Is it hard to switch into screenplay mode? Are you able to lose yourself, like when you're deep into a novel?
BEE: They're totally different, because a novel takes a very long time to write, and is really about consciousness. It's about sensibility and style. A screenplay doesn't need to be well written or stylistically interesting. When you're writing a book, part of the thing you're doing is expressing yourself in the prose. That's why I read a novel: I don't read a novel necessarily for the story. I read it for the sensibility of the author, what his obsessions are, what he's fantasizing about, why this character speaks to him, why he devotes a novel to this character… all these things are in my head when I'm reading a novel. A screenplay is very utilitarian. It's a blueprint for the movie, which is a collaborative thing. Your job is to give everyone the idea for the movie, hopefully have all the scenes in order, and have dialogue that moves the story forward. That's bare-bones. Of course, then you can write a good script with good dialogue—it doesn't all have to be expository. That really is your job as the screenwriter. I would never write a screenplay the way that I write a novel. It's pretty simple, because it really is all about structure. The director is going to interpret it in a certain way, and the actors are vital collaborators, because they will bring their own essence to each role. The editor will change things, and you might not get that location, so that changes the feel for the scene you wrote that took place in an exterior but because of budget restraints in now an interior.
That said, The Canyons did not change that much at all. When Paul and I talked about doing this, I said, "I'm going to give you an outline, and it's going to be extremely detailed. You're going to have to sign off on it, and then I'm going to write the script and this will be what you shoot." There was no time for rewrites, and we were going to shoot it in four months. It is what it is. It's a neo-noir, this is the situation, and it was set up in such a simple way that one thing led to another thing and another thing, and it all just kind of flowed. That's the difference: I'll tinker with a book for years. Screenplays, there's no need to do that. You have the story, you have the idea, you have the scenes, and you write it.
AVC: James Deen is a really fun bad boy. Did he have fun on set, developing his character, or was he nervous?
BEE: He was nervous. I had talked him into it, He was excited to do it, and really wanted to do it. I think he was a little intimidated by Schrader, who didn't want him in the movie and made him audition. That audition changed Schrader's mind. He realized that, out of all the auditions we got from real actors, James was the best. He wasn't hampered, and had no acting experience to fall back on. He just had the porn stuff, and I had seen a lot of the porn stuff—well, actually the non-porn stuff in the porn stuff—and I thought he was pretty good. I thought he was a natural. Then in the porn scenes, he's very dark and intense, and I liked the contrast between the goofiness and this intensely sexual, voracious dude. I thought that would be perfect for Christian, but Paul didn't. The actors overplayed everything. The actors who auditioned foreshadowed the malevolence too much. They overdid the douchiness. They were encumbered by too much acting experience in a way.
For this particular character, it needed to be blanker and more neutral. A little softer. Deen was thrilled he got the role, and when we did the initial reading, we were in a room full of actors, and everyone kind of turned on the minute we did the first reading. Deen had never done that before, and his voice got smaller and smaller and he pulled his hoodie over his head and was just mumbling. We took a break, and he was much stronger on the second reading. It was a weird position for him to be in, and he knew he was going get a lot of shit for this, and people weren't going to take him seriously. But he delivered a really good performance, and everyone on the set really liked him. He's very polite and very nice. He might be addicted to porn, but, you know, who isn't?
AVC: The Canyons has been an open book from start to finish. As the release date approaches, are you nervous, exhausted, or excited?
BEE: Basically kind of neutral. Sure, there's some excitement, but I feel like we've done what we set out to do, regardless if it makes any money or not. From the beginning, it was this kind of mission, to see if we could actually make this kind of movie. The fact that we did it is almost enough for me, on a certain level. Of course I want it to do well, and it would be nice if people liked it. I feel complicated in a way because I'm not super excited. It's just going to come out, and we'll see how it does. We'll see how people respond to it. It could be negative, and it could be not so negative. I don't know.
AVC: In comparison to literary criticism, did you take it harder when the film was rejected by SXSW?
BEE: First of all, I didn't care at all. I think it meant more to the producer, Braxton Pope, and probably to Paul, too. I didn't think it needed to go to any film festivals at all. I didn't see the purpose of it. So, that went over my head. I thought the person who talked about rejecting the film—they had every right to reject it. The protocol is that you really can't say that about a movie that you've rejected—I guess that's kind of the unspoken etiquette. I do think there is a kind of coldness to the movie that was in its DNA, and you either like it or you don't. Obviously they did not like it, but it literally didn't bother me one way or another. I just didn't care.
AVC: It seems like a lot of people have already made up their minds about the movie.
BEE: It happens all the time. Very rarely, a movie comes out that surprises people and changes everyone's mind about it. Wasn't everyone really excited for Man Of Steel? What the hell happened? But that did really well. We can make fun of the content, but it ultimately succeeded. This is just my feeling, but the press has been so bad and so negative for the year leading up to this movie's release, that I really do think that people will be either surprised that it's not as bad as they all thought it was going to be and that might be such a surprise that they might like it, or, as you said, that they've already set their minds that it's a campy, trashy movie and they're going to think it sucks. Or they might be bored. They might be expecting something a lot more lascivious, and dare I say, a lot more fun. Paul did it seriously, I did it seriously, and hopefully it's an entertaining movie. You don't want to make a boring film. Again—this is so strange to say—but I really don't care what people think of the movie. There, I said it. I don't really care what anyone says about any movie or book I write. On a certain dopey level, you hope people like stuff, I guess. You don't want people to dislike it. I think the movie is well done enough that if you don't like it, it's just not your cup of tea. I just don't think that watching the movie and knowing how this movie was made, that you can really slam it. I'm kind of confident on that level. But, you never know. It could come out August 2nd and be a disaster.
AVC: How is the new book coming? Did the passion come back, or did it ever really go away?
BEE: The passion doesn't really go away. It just lands in different places. There was a lot of passion to make The Canyons. There's a lot of passion in the development of this TV show I've been connected to for almost six years now, and has been moved from network to network. Now we're at Showtime, so we'll see what happens. That has been a long-form passion project, and I just feel it's all about content. Not necessarily a film or a novel, but just content—telling stories and creating content that I find interesting. It's now landed on the side of a television series or another independent movie. I'm going make another one of these kinds of films in the fall, which is a low-budget horror movie that I wrote. That's really interesting to me, and I find the content of that horror movie really interesting.
I just don't know about holding up the novel as this kind of thing that is so revered. It's kind of like, "Yeah, sure, if you're into writing the novel, that's cool, but does it make you smarter?" I really don't know. I have a kind of conflicted relationship with the novel now. I like reading novels, and I get pleasure from reading novels. But I do find that my attention span for them has maybe been halved. I used to be able to read a novel 100 pages at a time. I don't have that kind of concentration for fiction in the way that I once did. That has to go to however my mind has been affected by sensory overload with Internet and whatever. I was really feeling a novel in January. It had announced itself to me, and I started making notes and wrote a couple pages and then got distracted by something else. I really don't know where the novel is now. It's depressing to me, in a way, that I'm not fully engaged with the novel right now. You can't force the novel. It either needs to be written or it doesn't. Sometime in the last six or seven months, for a week or so, this novel wanted to be explored. I would make a lot of notes and go over the notes and spend a day rewriting the first 10 pages, and then something else captured my attention. So honestly, that's where I'm at. For example, today I barely thought about it.
AVC: Has novel-writing ever been a pleasurable experience, or is it always born out of pain and a need to get it out there?
BEE: It's always a pleasurable experience because it takes you away from the pain. What you're doing is channeling and reprocessing your pain. You're using your pain in order to fill a novel. It's why I wrote Imperial Bedrooms. I was going through a really bad stretch in my life, and going to Imperial Bedrooms was a way to alleviate the pain. That really is how it always was. Every novel I've written has been about that process. I was talking to Kanye West, of all people, the other day, and he was talking about how he's in a lot of pain. As an artist, that's what you use to create your art. That's the release. The only time you don't feel the pain is when you're creating something. I believed it at 18, and I believe it now at 49. I've always believed that's why an artist creates something, to explore whatever pain they're going through.
AVC: Same-sex marriage is legal in California; you've got a movie coming out. Has 2013 been a good year so far?
BEE: [Laughs.] Actually, 2013 has not been a great year for me for a variety of reasons, and personal stuff that isn't of interest to anybody. I've had my own problems in 2013, and 2013 has had its stumbling blocks for me. Look, I'm talking to you. I'm not in a major depression or anything. But things kind of happened this year that were problematic. I've had things happen that were really good. I don't think my happiness is so dependent on how The Canyons is received, or same-sex marriage. With same-sex marriage, I find it frustrating that it took this long to happen. Sure, there should be celebrations and we're moving forward, but it annoyed me to the point where it's like, "Finally, let's move on." I don't see it as this fantastic moment. But I'm a guy who looks at the glass as always half full. Or is it half empty? What am I? Because I'm kind of a pessimist.
AVC: You're half empty.
BEE: Right! Half empty. I was relieved when it passed, but I was annoyed. That's just how I am. I just wish that it happened a lot earlier. And that it's still this thing, who you have sex with. It happened, it's good, we can move on. But that did not necessarily make 2013 a better year for me. Sorry, it just didn't happen.
AVC: What would be your dream screenplay adaptation, if you had access to any literary property?
BEE: Actually, it would not necessarily be a good book, because I don't think good books make good movies. A really good novel was conceived as a novel, and not as a film. I don't see any point in trying to remake, over and over, The Great Gatsby. The book is a book that obviously works. I think it's interesting to take ideas and material from books that aren't very good, pulpy books and genre books, and then elevate it into a really good movie. I think that happened a lot in the '70s, and it even happens now to a degree. At one point, I was up for a remake of Pet Sematary, and I really wanted that, because I really like that book, and I thought there was a way to make it much scarier than the original movie, which was a little too jokey at times. There was some scary stuff in there, but I wanted to really go all out. That didn't happen, and I was kind of disappointed.
If I could go back and do it over again, I would like someone to show a cut of The Informers that actually worked. It's interesting. I rarely come across books that I want to adapt. I've done two or three in the last five or six years. One did get made this year called Downers Grove, but it turned out, for a variety of reasons, very different than what I intended. I've been circling around this book called The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss Jr. that I really want to adapt. I know that another writer is doing it, but we'll see what happens with that. But I can't imagine a really good novel that I would want to adapt. On the other hand, now that you can do it as a miniseries, you could do it as a one-season thing for a network. You can do it, and you don't have to conform to the one hour and 55-minute movie. Were you thinking of anything?
AVC: How about finally getting Confederacy Of Dunces made?
BEE: So that's not happening? I thought someone was doing that.
AVC: It's seems like it's in turnaround forever.
BEE: See, again, I really like that book, but I don't think it needs to be made into a film. It works so well as a book. I don't want to see someone's idea of what that guy looks like. I have it pictured in my head, and I don't want to see an actor act that out. I really don't. It would just annoy me.
AVC: What about Glamorama?
BEE: I was going to say that. I was going to say Glamorama. There was talk, a long time ago with Roger Avary, of us doing that as a 12-part miniseries, and maybe doing it with French money. But I think, well, it's lying low right now. You'd probably have to update it now, and it'd be a tricky adaptation. I was going to say that Glamorama would actually be kind of a dream, to be able to do that book.


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WASHINGTON -- After banking more than $20 million through the middle of the summer to beat President Barack Obama, Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, ended August with only $6 million cash on hand, according to a report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.
The powerhouse super PAC, run by former Romney aides and instrumental in helping him secure the Republican nomination, raised only $7 million in August, while spending $21.1 million. The heavy spending seems to have had little effect, as most polls have shown a surge for Obama at the national and state-by-state level since the early September Democratic National Convention.
The $7 million raised came from a nearly even split of corporations, which gave $3.34 million, and individuals, who donated $3.66 million. The figure could be worrisome, as the super PAC held a number of high-profile fundraising events in late August during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., and managed to raise less than it did in either June or July.
Restore Our Future has reportedly been out-raised by the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action. The New York Times reported that Priorities, which struggled early on to raise money, took in $10 million in August. (Its report, due in today, has yet to be filed.)
Restore Our Future spent most of its money on advertising in big swing states. According to data collected by the Federal Communications Commission, the group focused a lot of money in Florida, a key swing state. The group spent $3.33 million on advertising in the state's top five media markets, which include Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and West Palm Beach.


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Before a project is built, a study must be done to determine if it will fill a transportation need, will not negatively impact the surrounding area and fits the department's overall plan. During the study phase, potential projects are analyzed to determine if they are cost-effective while also efficiently improving mobility. Some of these projects have moved beyond the study phase and are under construction.
|Grayson County
|FM Spur 121
|Proposed new construction roadway from CR 60 to north of FM 121.
|Grayson County
|Grayson County Tollway Study
|Examines the potential extension of the Dallas North Tollway to US 75.
|Grayson County
|A project to develop long-term transportation and operational improvements on US 75 and US 82 in the Cities of Sherman and Denison in Grayson County, Texas.
|Grayson County
|US 82 Safety Improvement Feasibility Study
|A feasibility study to improve US 82 corridor safety and mobility.
|FM 121 Gunter Relief Route
|Proposed infrastructure options to reduce traffic congestion on the existing roadways and the Town of Gunter.
|Hunt County
|I-30/FM 2642 Bridge Replacement
|A $23.2 million bridge replacement project on I-30 in Hunt County at FM 2642 that extends 3.9-miles from the Rockwall County line to FM 1565.
|Hunt County
|I-30 Hunt County West from FM 2642 to SH 34
|Reconstruction and widening of the four-lane freeway to six lanes, reconfiguration of access ramps, and incorporation of one-way frontage roads from FM 2642 to SH 34
|Hunt County
|SH 34 Feasibility Study
|A feasibility study along an approximately 20-mile segment of SH 34 from I-30 to CR 2312.
|Lamar and Red River Counties
|US 271 from Loop 286 to North of Trent Lake Bridge
|Improvements US 271 from Loop 286 in Paris, Texas to 0.283 miles north of Trent Lake Bridge.
|Lamar, Red River, and Bowie Counties
|US 82 (West of Clarksville), US 82 (East of Clarksville) and US 82 Clarksville Loop Projects
|Projects to improve safety, mobility and regional connectivity, manage congestion and address roadway deficiencies.
|Loop 286 Improvements
|Evaluation of potential short- and long-term roadway and operational improvements for Loop 286 in Paris.


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I'm not a daily voter, sorry
maybe I can make him look like Bogey
Lauren Bacall
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall, born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.
She first emerged as a leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have and Have Not (1944) and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in Bogart movies The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Pa$sage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), as well as comedic roles in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. Bacall worked on Broadway in musicals, earning Tony Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. Her per ance in the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.
In 1999, Bacall was ranked #20 of the 25 actresses on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list by the American Film Institute. In 2009, she was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures."
Bacall died on August 12, 2014, at the age of 89 after suffering a stroke.
|98 years
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Mozart - Black Chocolate Gift BoxAustrian Liqueur
Country of OriginAustria
Producer Information
Other Information
Mozart Black shows notes of dark chocolate, vanilla, and caramel, as well as smoky and tartly notes of cocoa. Bitter sweet, long-lasting finish.
The used cocoa is a special blend of the types Forastero (West Africa) and Trinitario (Caribbean). The vanilla used is real Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar.
Mozart Black contains cocoa macerate, vanilla macerate, and sugar cane distillate.
The cocoa and Bourbon vanilla are macerated for 30 days in sugar cane distillate. A certain part of the cocoa macerate is kept in oak barrels for two years to round of the taste.
With chocolate spirits it is essential to macerate instead of conching as it takes a long time to extract the aromas.
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If the thought of anyone in Led Zeppelin listening to — and being inspired by — Mary Poppins doesn't utterly delight you, then the life has left your body. I bring this up because the lawsuit that apparently won't end — whether Led Zeppelin's classic "Stairway to Heaven" ripped off a song called "Taurus" from the band Spirit — is back in court, with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page appearing before a Los Angeles judge. Led Zeppelin's defense, at least in part, has been that that the guitar passage in question is so common that Disney might as well accuse them of lifting it from "Chim Chim Cher-ee."
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Yes, there are some very important music copyright issues that serious legal types and frightened musicians will be paying close attention to. But before even touching on that, can we at least give 15 seconds of our lives over to a visual of Page on tour, taking a break from drugs, sex and random debauchery to listen to "Chim Chim Cher-ee," and thinking, with furrowed brow, "I'm loving that descending chord pattern even if what Dick Van Dyke is doing with the accent is rubbish"?
Life is hard, crazy, depressing and awful things happen all the time. So when you get a diversion like this — a lawsuit some 45 years after a song's release and the silliness that surrounds it — you absolutely must enjoy it. And yes, the music critic past rises inside me to be annoyed — and worried — about what the verdict in this case could portend. Anyone who has listened to popular music at all, for any length of time, must surely know that similarity abounds. I mean, you've listened to the blues, right? Like, any blues song? If someone were to pull the lyrics out of 68 percent of all reggae songs, could you — without the service of a gigantic bong — tell the difference?
Obviously there's a difference between a "sample" — all the hip-hop legal woes of the past will make that clear — and a similar "sound" or even chord progression. But do we want a court of law to say that a fraction of a complete song is, in fact, theft and warrants profit?
I say no, we don't, not 45 minutes after a song is released and definitely not 45 years after. Is there a band alive that doesn't have a beef against some other band, either four garages down or across the pond, for "stealing" part of a song? It happens all the time. In fact, elements of thievery are rife in all parts of culture. From Shakespeare to fine art to stand-up comedy, someone took from someone else and made it either better or different. And when it's made better, turned into something unique that seizes a moment of inspiration and carries it to great heights, we should applaud those artists, not sue them.
Consider the song all of this relates back to — "Taurus" from Spirit. It is two minutes and 35 seconds of pretentious Renaissance Faire nonsense that makes the irritable Druid in you want to rise up and smash the living daylights out of it. "Stairway to Heaven," on the other hand, which indeed sounds very similar to the early chord progressions of "Taurus" once you get past those gratingly generic and sleepy strings, became one of the greatest songs in rock history, even if it has been played so many times that as soon as it comes on you want to punch the radio. (Okay, full disclosure: Sometimes you keep it on and sing every line — even the ridiculous ones, of which there are plenty — and sing at the top of your lungs as it grows from A-minor whimsy to full-on rocker.)
The larger point is that even if Page and Plant took inspiration from Spirit — which they have in the past denied — what they did with that inspiration was create a song played many millions of times on every FM station in this country and across the world. Personally, I think it's much more hilarious that Led Zeppelin is willing to concede that "Chim Chim Cher-ee" was an inspiration while denying ever even hearing the Spirit tune, but that's just my particular brand of humor. But let's not lose sight of this notion that all kinds of songs, chord progressions, keys, everything — can sound like other songs without any actual intention.
I'm reminded of a story that Elvis Costello once told live about being in Germany and confronted by a German music writer who told him that Costello's obscure "Little Atoms" song actually contains the German national anthem (which it kind of does), and Costello told him that Haydn wasn't coming for his royalties anytime soon. (On that same live album, Costello remembers a critic for the London Times said the opening of similarly obscure "Poor Fractured Atlas" was referencing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," to which Costello responded: "And there all the time we thought we were doing 'Past, Present and Future' by the Shangri-Las.")
So, yeah, connections of insanity can be made everywhere.
And while I agree that things that are total and extended rip-offs should clearly have a legal (and financial) toll for the thieves at hand, the fact is that much of what we hear as familiar is familiar because it's not unique — songs sound the same because they use the same chords and beats that are the backbone of rhythmic music. Some of the most popular and enduring music uses a limited number of chords — you will hear the same riffs over and over again surrounded by wider musical deviations and lyrics. It's called constructing a song. Unless you're Philip Glass, you're probably going to write a number of songs that sound like a number of other songs from around the world.
And for every person who shouts, "That sounds just like X from band Y!" there's an omission or lack of knowledge that the song from band Y sounds blatantly like band Z from years before. That's where it gets very difficult to claim an artist has stolen something, and hopefully the legal defense of a single Led Zeppelin riff will win the day and a flood of like-minded lawsuits won't be forthcoming. That would be bad for musicians and bands and if you've been paying attention at all, you know that they and the industry haven't exactly been having a great decade.
In the meantime, the trial goes on and if we can get a GIF of Page talking about "Chim Chim Cher-ee," let's get it on the interwebs as fast as possible, shall we?
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Is Jessica Simpson pregnant? Sources say yes — and she wants big bucks to break the news.
Is she or isn't she? Everyone wants to know if Jessica Simpson is pregnant, but so far the star isn't talking — at least, not for less than half a mil.
Sources tell the New York Post's Page Six that the Fashion Star mentor is definitely preggers but won't confirm the news without a lucrative magazine deal. Dad and manager Joe Simpson is shopping a deal that would include the pregnancy announcement, birth announcement and first baby photos. How much does an exclusive like that run? Page Six hears the Simpson camp wants a cool $500,000.
Meanwhile, it is getting harder and harder for Jessica Simpson to hide what looks like a growing baby bump under an array of billowing tops and dresses and behind increasingly gigantic purses.
More fuel for the fire: Despite being engaged to Eric Johnson for nearly a year, the couple still hasn't set a wedding date. Does Simpson have cold feet or does she want until after the baby is born to walk down the aisle with a slimmed-down figure?
Jessica Simpson got engaged to Eric Johnson last November, just weeks after her ex-husband Nick Lachey got engaged to Vaness Minnillo.
Lachey and Minnillo married in July. Their nuptials were broadcast in a two-hour special on TLC called Nick & Vanessa's Dream Wedding.
So far there is no comment from Jessica Simpson's rep.
While Carla Bruni refuses to reveal her baby's name, Jessica Simpson wants to sell her news to the highest bidder. Tell us: Tacky or good business sense?
Image courtesy Adriana M. Barraza / WENN.com


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Home / Section: Comic strips
Maria Scrivan Hits NYT Best-Seller List with Her YA Book Debut
"Half Full" cartoonist Maria Scrivan's debut YA novel has hit the New York Times best-seller list. "Nat Enough" (Graphix/Scholastic) breaks into the "Graphic Books and Manga" list at No. 11 with the story of middle-schooler Natalie "Nat." From the book's amazon page:
Natalie has never felt that she's enough — athletic enough, stylish enough, or talented enough. And on the first day of middle school, Natalie discovers that things are worse than she thought — now she's not even cool enough for her best friend, Lily! As Natalie tries to get her best friend back, she learns more about her true self and natural talents.
Twitter: @mariascrivan
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Susan Camilleri Konar
@ 10:36 am
Congratulations, Maria!!
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Clarence stepped out of the rescue car incredulously, tentatively putting step before step, standing on one foot almost too long before putting the other one down carefully, gently, touching the ground below with infinite care, with an almost apologetic air in his pale person, as if treading not on solid ground but on the body of an exquisitely alive creature, a whale of a sleeping earth that could awaken at any moment.
He advanced slowly, haltingly. After a few small steps, he stopped and stood there suspended on the pole of one long, pink leg, like a flamingo -- a feather cloud balancing his whole white downy weight on one lanky leg -- keeping the lean length of his other leg neatly folded against his chest, tucked away as in a marsupium, the better to nurture it for the journey ahead, curling his mutilated toes as in a question mark, furling them gently around the soft sole of a foot unaccustomed to walking. Or at least walking forward.
He craned his neck, scanned the vast fields, the open sky, the yards, the barns, the pond, the bewildering richness of life that inhabited every inch of this improbable space, looking around briny-eyed, slack-jawed, before extending his folded leg and taking, as he had to, another small, slow, halting, tender-soled step forward.
He was barely four months old, an adolescent turkey rescued from a small, "free-range" farm where the whole world, in its infinite richness and variety, was reduced to one warehouse filled to capacity with only one species -- 10,000 orphans of exactly the same age, size and color as himself. Nothing in his young, captive life had prepared him for this, this astonishing bounty of sights, sounds, and synergies that was now unfolding its riches all around him. He had no sound, no image, no dance, no instruction, and no inherited memory of the brilliant creatures who were now breathing, bristling, brimming with life all around him.
What was he to make of this improbable new world he found himself in? This world that, as far as his eyes could see, or his tender feet could carry him, was teeming with a bewildering diversity of strange and wondrous creatures the likes of whom he had never seen before -- hawks, quails, prairie dogs, foxes, snakes, lizards, mice, dung beetles and, closer still, gatherings of chickens, geese, ducks, goats, sheep, cows, pigs, dogs, cats, and, on the glaucous surface of the pond, the radiant vision of a swan! What was he to make of such a dazzling diversity of species, languages, individuals and histories, of this wealth of social interactions and relationships -- friendships, love affairs, lifelong partnerships, lifelong rivalries? Or of the way its native residents inhabited it -- freely, actively, creatively, passionately involved in their world, creating it, influencing it, changing it and, in the process, being changed by it, adding to the world's mind, substance, experience, knowledge and history with their own lives, making sweet or bitter sense out of the nectar and gall, the grit and the grain of their daily existence?
Nothing in the unhistoried scabland Clarence had been rescued from provided a single clue how to be in the world, much less how to live in this world, how to inhabit its free, vast, open spaces, how to interact with individuals of other species and ages, or what to make of them in the first place. He had no memory of any of the most fundamental sentient experiences: the nurture of a mother, the sense and certainty of belonging to a family, a community, a place. To him and his fellow captives, Home was only an intense and inchoate yearning, not even a memory, but a massive lack, a gaping absence, a "constant, gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
That day and for many days to follow, Clarence walked around in a sort of languid daze, not so much exploring this fantastic new world as introducing himself to it, one slow, small, careful, step at a time, each step a signature of sorts, a salutation, a benediction on the living earth it kissed, an astonished breath, each new step, a new line in the living, happening, developing poem of his life. He moved around in a steady, tempered rhythm, an adagio of sorts, advancing with a quizzical air, with a touch of apology in his lanky person, as if looking for someone or something in everyone he met, and resuming his quest day after day with the same optimistic rose in his wattle, pacing the yards with something resembling devotion, like someone waiting, roses in hand, for a long lost lover in a train station.
In those first few days, he ambled from barn to barn, from yard to yard, from roost to roost, with a dreamy, slightly alien air about him, advancing with such intense awareness, such deference, such restraint such politesse, gently, carefully treading among birds who barely came up to his knees, unfolding one long, lanky, languid leg at a time, craning his neck, pausing to ponder his next step before taking it with infinite caution, each step forward not so much an affirmation of self as a confirmation of his awareness of others, courteously, graciously ceding the way to the smallest, weakest birds, even when uncourteously asked to do so, and limning his astonishing, "listening" gaze on everyone he met.
And yet, in the seemingly endless diversity of inhabitants, in the seemingly boundless expanse of land, under all that limitless sky, there was no one else like him. [Clarence was rescued shortly after Melvin, the last of the sanctuary turkeys, had had died of old age. So, in the weeks before his brothers arrived, Clarence was the only turkey at the sanctuary.] Not a single, solitary soul who looked like him, acted like him, or sounded like him. Not a single being who uttered his language or seem to understand it, no one who shared the physical and psychological grammar of his species. No one who could guide him through this astounding new world, at least not in ways that he understood as guidance, and no one who could wonder with him at its brilliance, at least not in ways that he understood as wonder. He was the only being of his kind in the new world. And, for four long weeks, a lifetime in the slow-motion time perception of adolescence, he was the only member of his species at the sanctuary, which is to say in the whole world.
And then, on a crisp October morning, there they were, in the blue blink of an eye! Two tall, slender, stately birds like himself emerged from the rescue van and stepped out into the new world in a halo of white feathers.
One walked forward with chutzpah and panache, as if he already knew every inch of this miraculous place, this improbable world that no soul of his doomed nation had ever seen or imagined, and was already qualified to guide anyone through it. There was not a hint of hesitation in his person as he took possession of his new life. Not a whiff of fear. Not a trace of shyness. He strutted into the new world as onto a stage, with a diva's assumption of universal adoration. Walter! Walter did not take steps, he gave steps, he issued steps, he expressed steps, each step, a statement, an exclamation, an exuberant expression of self, a performance of sorts-the first performance of his new life, the first of many to come.
The other bird, smaller, weaker, shyer, teetered behind him, taking two steps forward, one step back, moving in a pattern of hesitancy, self-correction, self-doubt, self-erasure, second guessing, and missed beginnings, that would become his signature "indecision dance", each step a worry, a doubt, a premonition, torn between the desire to move forward and the need to stay put, stuck between the need to grow and the need to stay safe. It was the first act of indecision of Ian's new life, the first of many to come.
Clarence ran towards them, his usual adagio rhythm quickened to an allegro, and welcomed them with a happy dance, fluttering his wings, tapping his feet, shaking his head and gurgling a joyful assortment of trills, gobbles, purrs and putt-putts. It was the first happy dance of his new life. The first of many to come.
As Walter and Ian stood in the field outside the bird yard, trying to orient themselves in the new territory, Clarence started guiding them with his gaze, his body, his voice, eager to help them navigate their new home. They met his guidance with the kind of scattered response that would become the group's signature response: Ian froze in place, as if expecting an attack, and Walter started to jump and dodge as if answering an invitation to play. It was the flock's first act of discord. The first of many to come.
The longer you knew them, the clearer it became that Clarence, Ian and Walter were not just different, they were incompatible. [Read Ian's Crossing here.] So much so that, in the context of their flock, and the culture generated within its dynamic boundaries, their deepest needs were impossible to fulfill. Ian, a reserved, retiring, sensitive fellow, could never get the nurture, the connection and the patience he needed from either of his brothers; Walter, a rowdy fellow who turned everything into a martial drama or a riotous game, could never get his brothers to engage in the kind of swagger and pageantry that affirmed (and confirmed) his identity; and Clarence, the obvious and uncontested leader of the flock, the largest, strongest, most confident and empathetic of the three, could not, in fact, exercise his authority because neither of his "subjects" heeded his signals: Walter was too independent to take directions, and Ian was too indecisive to follow.
It was hard to understand what kept them together at all, why they insisted on sticking together through the myriad daily frustrations of living in a group that often thwarted their needs more than it fulfilled them, and whose demands divided them more often than it united them. Beyond the superficial similarities of species, gender and age, Clarence, Walter and Ian had nothing in common and, with the exception of greeting visitors -- when they paraded in dazzling unison like great birds of peace -- almost everything else they attempted as a group was doomed to scatter into three separate directions. Each call to action was bound to result in three different actions, reactions, and outcomes. Each turkey was driven by such unique needs, fears and pleasures, and each perceived and responded to similar situations in such dissimilar ways, that getting all three to act together, as Clarence kept trying to do, was nearly impossible: Ian would freeze in place, torn between the urge to join and the need to hide, and Walter would turn every instruction, every assembly signal, every alarm call into a uproarious game, play-jumping, leap-frogging, ducking and dodging, and making imaginary fighting gestures.
Yet they stuck together, Clarence, Ian and Walter, not as a family, or a team, much less a partnership, but as a sort of roaming, restless, rusty, creaky, bickering, disjointed Home on Six Legs -- not easy, not comfortable, not harmonious, but a home nonetheless, and the only home that beings like them can ever hope to find in this human-dominated world where they are bred for death and where, even if they are fortunate enough to be rescued, they live and die as perpetual exiles, forever severed from the ancestral world that formed their being, and forever torn from the communities whose history and culture anchored them in the world with a profound sense of meaning and purpose. They stuck together, bound on the surface by what was there -- species, gender, age, and perhaps the common memory of abuse and deprivation -- but bound at a deeper level by a sense of what was sorely missing, a sense of struggling always against the wrong shape of things, a sense of irretrievable, incommunicable loss.
Yet, ultimately, if their connection was tenuous, it wasn't because they were so different, but because they were too fundamentally alike: souls without a place and a prayer in the world. Still, they had managed to establish a balance of sorts, a precarious balance, but a balance nonetheless. A union of sorts, an uneasy union, but a union nonetheless.
Then Roscoe fell out of the dark sky of a frozen January morning and changed their lives forever. Roscoe, that black sun. He burst into their lives in the blink of an eye, in the snap of a heartbreak, and changed their course forever.
It was just before noon when, amid the usual Sunday hustle and bustle of tours, visitors, volunteers, barn cleaning, and all manner of other friendly commotion, Clarence saw a long, lean, leggy black bird follow Chris into the sheep yard -- an adolescent wild turkey, no more than four or five months old, who was now eating out of Chris' hand, was climbing in Chris' lap, was softening to slumber under Chris' touch.
Earlier that morning, Roscoe's flock had been scattered and killed by hunters and, when Chris found him, the young bird was still guarding the bloody remains of his last brother. No one was allowed to touch the lifeless body and nothing could get the embattled survivor to move away from it: he rejected food offerings, spurned friendly overtures, charged anyone who came near and, when, in a gesture of peace and submission, Chris sat on the ground, quietly hugging his knees, Roscoe pecked, pummeled and punched him with his bill and talons until he poured out his rage and sorrow to the last bitter drop. When he finally stopped, the back of Chris' jacket was nearly shredded, and the young wild turkey was exhausted. He stood there tall and still, yelping softly. Then he took a few weary steps around Chris and positioned his body squarely in front of him, inviting his gaze and making intense and inquisitive eye contact. What he gathered from the silent exchange seemed to reassure Roscoe because, a few minutes later, he calmly and deliberately followed Chris past the sanctuary gate, all the way to the sheep yard. He was about the same age as Clarence was when he began his life at the Sanctuary, but this young turkey was infinitely more confident, savvy, and at home in the world, either world -- that of the Sanctuary, or that of the wild prairie -- than Clarence and his brothers ever were or had a chance of becoming. Roscoe moved fluently, effortlessly between the two worlds and, if he followed Chris into the yard, if he ate ravenously from his hand, if he trusted him enough to sleep in his lap, and if later, he roosted in the high rafters of the bird barn, he did so with complete personal agency: Roscoe, and no one else (much less someone of another species), was in charge of Roscoe's life; Roscoe, and no one else, made the important decisions in Roscoe's life. And, whether he would choose to stay at the Sanctuary, or return to his wild country, that would be entirely his choice and his decision, too.
But, on that bitter-cold January day, he was here, a stranger in Clarence's home, and, for the first time in his life, Clarence did not act with his usual courtesy, deference, and equanimity. He did not limn his sweet, listening gaze on this fine, free, rapturous creature. He did not introduce himself to Roscoe with his signature politesse, his elaborate ritual of overtures and self-effacements. He rejected Roscoe with shocking force and fury. His eyes blazed, his breath quickened, his chest swelled and heaved with red-clawed rage, his throat throbbed with a torrent of rabid invectives. And, for the first time in their lives together, his brothers followed his lead. They telescoped their necks to impossible lengths, they lifted on almost tiptoes as they paced up and down the fence, they issued urgent assembly calls, that become alarm calls, that became attack calls, and their soft feather halos become armors, and their wings become hatchets, and their bodies became weapons. They reddened their wattles, puffed up their chests, spiked their feathers, steeled their wings to daggers and dragged them on the ground as if carving blood boundaries, they stiffened their legs and strutted with the rigid gait of armored knights (and just as unsteady). They made themselves look bigger, tougher, stronger, invincible. Awesome.
From a distance, their display could be mistaken for one of their extravagant greeting rituals that were reserved for guests, visitors and favorite volunteers. But Roscoe was no guest, their formidable parade was no greeting, and their loud staccato putts and coarse yelps were not a song of welcome. They confronted Roscoe in an amazing show of strength, stamina and solidarity-moving in perfect physical, emotional and spiritual sync, connected as in a war dance to an ancient inner music, acting in perfect unity of purpose and desire-not just to repel, but to frighten, for they knew being frightened, not just to worry, but to awe, for they knew being awed, not just to smite, but to shatter, for they knew being shattered, and they wanted more than anything, not just to protect their Home, but to affirm its existence, because they knew better than anyone, what it's like to have no home in the world, only the illusion of it created in the rickety space stitched together by the proximity of three incompatible individuals, and held together by the straws of necessity not nature, desperation not design.
That day, and for many days to come, they went out of their way trying to not only expel the trespasser, but to break, bend, burn, wreck, scorch, smash, smite and shatter even the memory of him. They went at him like missiles, fought him through the fence, threatened him, insulted him, and rejected him with all the devastating fury of a hidden and obscure anguish. He was everything they had lost. He was everything they might have been. He was the embodiment of the world they were forever excluded from, the world that, prior to his arrival, they knew only as a dim yearning, a deep and distant hum, and that they now felt acutely, as something resembling pain, grief, fear, and rage -- a terrifying thing, a ravaging thing, a brilliant thing -- no longer an vague longing, no longer a diffuse ache, but a living, writhing, desperate thing. A livid, rabid lament.
No wonder Roscoe's presence enraged and terrified them, no wonder they fought and rejected him so rabidly, no wonder they fell in love with him, no wonder he broke their hearts.
If their rescue had been an expansion, an escape into an amazing world of peace, plenty and seemingly endless possibility, their encounter with Roscoe was the coming up against the hard place where that world ended and mystery began. If their arrival at the sanctuary was their encounter with the best that this human-dominated world can offer its handful of rescued captives -- a life of care, respect and relative freedom in the confines of a controlled environment -- Roscoe's arrival, his literal landing from the dark sky, his descent into their calm, comfortable, chaperoned lives, was their encounter not with what our world has to offer cripples like them (the consolation, the bandages, the crutches, the special care, the reparations we owe those we've victimized), but with what our world, we, have plundered from them.
Days and weeks went by before their rage abated but, when it did, it died down as quickly as it had flared up. Clarence was the first to relent. Ian followed suit, relieved and, if Walter continued with the daily displays of martial prowess a while longer, he did so for the sheer pageantry of it. His anger, too, had vanished into thin air.
It's unclear what changed their minds. Maybe it was "battle fatigue", or maybe the intruder's wild presence had become more intriguing than threatening, or perhaps they heard, in the furious music in Roscoe's throat, something they had been trying to utter all of their lives, but had never found the sounds for, or perhaps they simply felt and obeyed an inner imperative to outgrow existing boundaries and to bloom, to become what they may have been. Whatever the reason, one day, when Roscoe flew over the fence and landed teasingly in their yard, as he had done every day since his arrival, they did not chase him off as before. They merely strutted, and postured, and glared their silent threats but they did not charge him. And, when he flew over the next day, bringing the gift of a found flight feather, they rushed to examine it with genuine curiosity and delight and, when he dropped it on the ground, they took turns carrying it in their bills, and examining it with intense absorption, as if trying to reconstruct the whole angel from one lost feather. And, when Roscoe landed in their yard yet again the next day, they almost greeted him. It wasn't long before Clarence, and then Walter, began to join Roscoe on his daily foraging expeditions while Ian watched them from the safety of his yard. And, by mid March, when the great big thaw was more than a yearning in their winter-weary bones, and their lungs filled with the breath of awakening roots, you could see them setting off into the wild country every morning, syncing their posture, their gait, their pace, their cadence, their direction, their gaze, their attention and intention like a school of fish.
Those were the happiest days of Clarence's life, those two years before genetics crippled his body, those eight glorious seasons when he could roam the living fields with Roscoe and experience the unparalleled, incomparable feeling of being in precise, perfect and profound harmony with his ancestral world. Through Roscoe, he felt what it was like to be in physical, physiological and spiritual sync with the body and soul of the land. To fit. To belong to a historied place where countless generations of his kin had lived, learned, and passed along the wisdom of their community, culture and species over millennia, stretching the 20 million year old flame of their being straight into Clarence's soul. Roscoe's vision allowed him access to a world that was closed to him at all other times and, in that realm, Clarence blossomed like a cherry orchard, every cell in his being opening its secret joys and sorrows to the warmth of this new sun.
And something stirred in him, something that had been dormant, domesticated into perpetual hibernation, something that was not supposed to awaken. Roscoe's presence released in him the ghost of an ancient knowledge, it knocked loose the ancient air bubble trapped in ice, and its millennia-old scent devastated him. It devastated his world. There was no going back to this time-old realm that came rushing into his soul but, now that had tasted its nectar, there was nowhere else in the world he could be. Roscoe had made him alive to things and feelings that had no fulfillment in the world he inhabited.
Eventually, Clarence's genetically induced breakdown ended his treks. [Domesticated turkeys have been selectively bred to grow morbidly large, abnormally fast in order to reach "market weight" by the tender age of 4 months when they are slaughtered for human consumption. The excessive body weight leads to heart problems and painful leg issues which eventually cripple the turkeys.] At first, he tried to keep up, he bruised himself trying to keep up. But, soon, his brittle bones, his swollen joints, his weakened heart and laboring lungs forced him to stay behind. The day he could no longer join Roscoe on his foraging walks was the day an essential substance was drawn from him. They set off together in the usual way, Roscoe sprinting ahead, half running half flying, Clarence lumbering behind but, only a short distance into the walk, he stopped and went no further. Roscoe called for him to follow, his assembly calls becoming more and more urgent, more and more insistent, but also more and more distant as the open land stretched its silence between them.
Clarence listened intently, craning his neck, scanning the endless fields, but he did not follow. He just stood there, in the beaten yard, folding one crippled leg in the marsupium of his breast-feathers, as if preparing to take the next step. But he did not move. He issued one lost call, one single, solitary lost call, an expression of being more than a request for help, a call sent to no one in particular, and expecting no response. And then he was silent.
You could hear only the sound of his labored breath, the hiss of air being drawn in with difficulty, filling burdened lungs, stopping with a hitch at the fullest point, like an astonished gasp, and then finally exiting with a long, deep release. Clarence stood tall and silent in the cold morning air, one leg still folded against his chest, its digits furled in the same question mark that had started his journey, the vapor of his breath swirling and billowing around him like clouds, mixing with the morning mist, adding its substance and silence to the mist, becoming the mist.


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0299 Baby Chick & Mature Quail Travel CrateKuhl
0299 Baby Chick and Mature Quail Travel Crate -
This travel coop typically holds 25-35 mature quail or poultry chicks. Some of its features include a positive spring latch, a top hinged door for easier loading of the birds, and a sliding side door that allows the birds to walk out without so much excitement upon their release. As well as low profile head room (4.5") which helps practically eliminate the number bruised birds; as they do not have enough room to jump up and hit the top. Each coop is designed with a solid bottom, and raised top corners to ensure a perfect fit of the bottom legs. To help make stacking several high a breeze; as well as protecting lower birds.
Already assembled prior to shipment.
Material: heavy duty, long lasting plastic
Outer Dimensions: 27" x 18" x 6.5"
Best uses: handling, holding, or shipping baby chicks or mature quail
Care: can simply be washed with a hose
We can also ship directly from the manufacturer at a lower price if you so choose.
Excluded From Free Shipping


text: Elizabeth, who first became acquainted with The Salvation Army through its Christmas programs as a child, now gives as an adult during the holiday season. She believes that The Salvation Army has done a good job of providing services while maintaining a reasonable overhead cost. Elizabeth's other interests include WVIZ television, the Garden Club of Ohio, and the Chagrin Valley Women's Club. She can trust that her gifts will go to those who need help the most, particularly the less fortunate in Cleveland, Ohio.


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text: Li, Qing; Zheng, Shaohui Joint inventory replenishment and pricing control for systems with uncertain yield and demand. (English) Zbl 1167.90342 Oper. Res. 54, No. 4, 696-705 (2006). Summary: We study the joint inventory replenishment and pricing problem for production systems with random demand and yield. More specifically, we analyze the following single-item, periodic-review model. Demands in consecutive periods are independent random variables and their distributions are price sensitive. The production yield is uncertain so that the quantity received from a replenishment is a random variable whose distribution depends on the production quantity. Stockouts are fully backlogged. Our problem is to characterize the optimal dynamic policy that simultaneously determines the production quantity and the price for each period to maximize the total discounted profit. We show that the optimal replenishment policy is of a threshold type, i.e., it is optimal to produce if and only if the starting inventory in a period is below a threshold value, and that both the optimal production quantity and the optimal price in each period are decreasing in the starting inventory. We further study the operational effects of uncertain yield. We prove that, in the single-period case, the threshold of replenishment is independent of the yield variability, and, in the multiperiod case, it is higher in a system with uncertain yield than in one with certain yield. In addition, the system with uncertain yield always charges a higher price. Cited in 31 Documents MSC: 90B05 Inventory, storage, reservoirs 91B42 Consumer behavior, demand theory PDF BibTeX XML Cite \textit{Q. Li} and \textit{S. Zheng}, Oper. Res. 54, No. 4, 696--705 (2006; Zbl 1167.90342) Full Text: DOI OpenURL


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text:
If you happened to pass by the Screening Room at the Crosby Street Hotel you would have seen a small group of women in the audience, swiftly typing on their phones while a man at the front of the room applied makeup to a model. Given the individuals' seeming interest in their phones and not the man, you may have assumed you had walked in on an incredibly boring presentation. You would have assumed wrong.
These women were beauty editors, and the man at the front of the room was none other than Mario Dedivanovic, aka @makeupbymario, of Kim Kardashian West–sculpted-cheekbones fame. We weren't tap-tap-tapping on our phones out of apathy, but rather a frantic desire to jot down every last tip Dedivanovic casually dropped, as he demonstrated his signature bronzed, glowing look on the model. Perhaps unsurprisingly, West's makeup artist has the type of soothing demeanor and lilting voice that washes over you like a Xanax and puts you in a semi-meditative state, which would be great if he wasn't spilling mind-blowing beauty tips left and right. So, I resisted the strong urge to sit back and watch him sculpt, shade, and transform the model's face in front of me, and did my best to record every tidbit he shared—and trust me when I say there were many. From sandbagging to the bobby pin ear trick (it's as weird as it sounds), keep scrolling to find out everything I learned.
Say Goodbye to the Instagram Brow
Instagram brows, for the uninformed, are the harsh, hyper-sculpted arches often seen on your Instagram feed on individuals (usually blogger or Instagram makeup gurus), who favor the super-contoured look. "I don't like Instagram brows," Dedivanovic told us bluntly, claiming they're "not chic."
Instead, he starts by brushing the natural brows up using a spoolie then lightly fills them in with a brow pencil in the outer corners. As a finishing touch, he defines the shape by taking a brow brush and brow powder one shade lighter than the pencil to set everything in place.
Try an Ombré Brow (Sort Of)
Dedivanovic's best tip for women with thin brows? "Apply less brow product on the inner corners and more product on the outer corners; then brush it out with a spoolie," he says. This will help your brows look fluffy and enviable but still natural.
Swap Out Your Eye Shadow Primer
Instead of eye shadow primer, Dedivanovic says he applies a light wash of foundation on his clients' eyelids, then sets it with translucent powder before applying eye shadow. "It does the exact same thing as eye primer," he promises.
Skip Face Primer
Dedivanovic isn't a fan of face primers, either. "I never got into face primer," he says. "Moisturizer works really beautifully as a primer, especially when you use loose powder. It holds onto moisturizers and looks natural, not powdery." He likes Kiehl's Ultra Facial Moisturizer ($22).
Go with Classic Brands
All of us were keen to know the exact foundation brands Dedivanovic counts on, and he easily rattled off three that never fail him: Tom Ford, Bobbi Brown, and Laura Mercier.
Get Creative with Loose Powder
"On shoots, I barely ever use powder," he told us. "On clients and for red carpets, I only use loose powder." He swears by the iconic version from Laura Mercier, which he doesn't just dust all over the face with a light, fluffy brush. He mentions baking, a technique where you allow the powder to set and "bake" before dusting it off. (He does advise anyone with aging or mature skin to avoid this technique because it might cause your makeup to settle into fine lines). Or there's sandbagging, which is similar to baking and involves using a damp makeup sponge to pat a thick coat of translucent powder on top of your under-eye concealer (Dedivanovic specifically says to be "heavy-handed"). After a few minutes, dust away the excess with a fluffy brush for bright, crease-free under-eyes.
Use a DIY Makeup Brush Cleanser
A dirty makeup brush is not only unsanitary, it's bad for your skin. Dedivanovic told me he mixes baby shampoo and tea-tree oil ("It has antibacterial properties!") to rinse and clean his makeup brushes.
Be Generous with Concealer
The secret to Kim Kardashian West's airbrushed-looking complexion? Heavy concealer use, apparently. Dedivanovic swipes a peach-toned concealer (he likes the NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer $30) with a heavy hand in key areas on his client's face. "I blend it out with a Beautyblender ($20), and it looks good in photos and polishes the face," he says. "If I was doing makeup on myself, I could use my finger to blend as well."
Try Brighter Colors on Darker Skin Tones
Dedivanovic also works with clients with darker skin, like Naomie Harris, Gabrielle Union, and Jourdan Dunn. When asked if he changes his technique for darker skin tones, he says the amount of makeup you apply and blend is different. "You can intensify it for darker complexions, and it will still look natural because darker skin tones absorb more light," he reveals. (Here are some more makeup artist–approved tips for darker skin tones, by the way). He also discusses reverse contouring on someone with very dark skin tones, where you bring out the higher points of the face instead of accentuating the shadows.
Swap Pink For Taupe on Paler Skin Tones
"On really fair skin, I'll use a really pale blush that's almost taupe—a soft shade with gray undertones and natural shadow," he says. (Here are some tips on how to contour if you're really, really pale and some blush shades that are super flattering on the super fair).
Opt For a More Natural Contour
A collective gasp was heard around the room when Dedivanovic uttered this sentence: "I'm trying to bring back a more natural look for Kim." Could it be true? Could the queen of contour, full lips, and mile-long lashes be jumping on the no-makeup makeup bandwagon? (This photo proves yes, possibly.) "Contouring is a heavier look," Dedivanovic explains. "It's like the anti-fashion. Fashion is about being more clean and modern." But there's no denying the life-changing effect contouring can have, which is why Dedivanovic says you can still contour but with a lighter hand. For example, try using a cream formula like Tom Ford's Shade & Illuminate ($88) palette and blending it out with a Beautyblender. "It'll always be around," he admits. "Once people do it and know how to do it, it's life-changing."
Adjust Your Eyeliner Technique
We watched in awe as Dedivanovic blended a soft line across the model's entire lower lash line. But wait—isn't that a no-no? "If someone has close-set or smaller eyes, you don't want to bring the lower liner too close toward the insides of the eyes," he says. "If you have normal-set eyes, you can bring it all the way in."
Your eyeliner doesn't need to be perfect. Instead, take an eyeliner brush and blend it over your pencil liner to create a quick smokey look.
Layer Your Eyeliners
Here's a secret: That perfect eyeliner you're seeing on Kim is actually four or five layers of eyeliner. Yes, you read that right, four to five. "I always layer eyeliners," says Dedivanovic. "My biggest pet peeve for photos is when you can see through the liner. When you put eye shadow on top of your liner, your skin and shadow can absorb it. I apply pencil liner after eye shadow, let it dry, then do a gel or cream liner on top, and finish with a liquid liner for a glossy, inky effect." No wonder Dedivanovic's clients say his makeup can last up to three days (seriously, he even says some of his clients will book him the night before an event if he doesn't have time to see them the day of—truth).
Beat Watery Eyes With This Bobby Pin Trick
"I hate watery eyes when I'm applying makeup," Dedivanovic sighs. Nevertheless, they are an often inevitable part of doing someone's makeup (lifting up their eyelid and jabbing a pencil around can do that). To rectify, he wraps a tissue around his finger when the tears start building, then lightly taps it along the eye. If you're doing your own makeup and accidentally jab yourself, he says to breathe through your nose and suck in—yup, literally suck the tears back in. Or there's always this: "When I was in the Middle East, the Arab women shared a tip where you clip a bobby pin to your ear and it prevents your tears from falling out." You can bet we'll be testing this out in the near future.
Don't Ditch the Powder Puff in Your Compact
As Dedivanovic put the finishing touches on his model, I couldn't help but notice he was actually using the puff that comes with the Laura Mercier Translucent Setting Powder. "I like to dab the powder in and really press it in there," he says. "Then, I take a fluffy brush and lay it on lightly on top."
Keep It in the Family
By the time Dedivanovic was finished, the model's eyes looked soft and smokey, subtly defined but not obvious. It was mesmerizing, truly. I watched Dedivanovic trace a brown liner along her upper and lower lid as well as lift her lid up to apply it to her waterline. "What's that eyeliner you're using?" asked one eager beauty editor. "This?" He looked at the liner as we waited in breathless anticipation. "Oh, this is the Brown Liner from Kylie's Kyliner Kit ($10)." Who would've guessed? You did good, Ky.
Want more makeup secrets from the industry's top pros? We've got complexion-perfecting tips from Gigi Hadid's makeup artist!


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Helped by deals and by being one of the better small cars available, the Honda Civic zoom-zoomed past the competition in Canada and beat its nearest rival by 2164 sales in October 2010. There's more on the top sellers from the first Graph you'll see below in both Canada's Best-Selling Cars list from October 2010 and the Best-Selling Japanese Cars In Canada from October 2010. On a more interesting note…
The 2011 Ford Fiesta is starting to finally make a name for itself. Although the long-standing Canadian favourite and significantly less-expensive Hyundai Accent is still dominant, and while the Nissan Versa and Toyota Yaris both out-sold the Fiesta, the Ford's 868 total made it one of the best-selling American cars in Canada last month. There is also now a more realistic supply of Fiesta on Canadian Ford dealer lots. But with the 2012 Fiat 500 soon to be a challenger at Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep stores, can the Fiesta grab a consistent thousand sales per month?
BMW certainly grabs its 1000+ sales per month with the famous 3-Series. Available in four different bodystyles and with five different engines, BMW has a 3-Series to meet just about anyone's needs, so long as "anyone" has $37,650, the price of the 323i. One change marked in October 2010's rundown of small and small-priced luxury cars is the switcheroo between Germany's two other 3-Seriesesque cars. The Audi A4 held off the Mercedes-Benz C-Class for second place honours by a scant two units. Good for Audi, nonetheless. Hopefully plenty of those A4s sold were painted in Teak Brown Metallic.
Related From GoodCarBadCar.net
Small Car, Midsize Car & Large Car Sales In Canada – October 2011
Small Car Sales In Canada – November 2010
Small Luxury Car Sales In Canada – November 2010
Small/Entry Luxury Car Sales In Canada – September 2010
Small Car Sales In Canada – September 2010
Midsize & Large Car Sales In Canada – October 2010
Top 10 Best-Selling Cars In Canada – October 2010
Canada Auto Sales By Brand – October 2010
Midsize Luxury & Large Luxury Car Sales – October 2010


text:
49ers vs. Ravens: 5 Reasons Why Either Team Can Win the Super Bowl
Both the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers have done a lot of things right to get to the big game, and as a result each squad and their legion of fans has a lot of reasons to believe they are going to win. While I definitely see advantages for each team, I also see a lot of factors cancelling each other out. Here are the five reasons that the Super Bowl is a true toss up:
1. Quarterback experience (or lack thereof)
Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick are both having historically great postseasons. Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick are also both making their first Super Bowl appearance, and I don't see a reason to think either one should be assumed to have an easier time. Flacco has 3 more years in the league and boasts an impressive 8-4 postseason record, but he has had his share of playoff failures.
Kaepernick is in the midst of his (partial) first season as a starter, but his magnificent play is impossible to overlook. Kaepernick may almost be a rookie starting in the Super Bowl, but no team has figured out a way to slow his offense down. Flacco is a veteran who could seize his moment in the spotlight, but it would not be surprising if either player underperformed.
2. Coaching
The Harbowl is sure to bring sibling dynamics to the big game that have never been seen before, but it shouldn't give either coach the advantage. An identical experience dynamic exists between the Harbaugh brothers and the Super Bowl quarterbacks: John is coaching his Ravens to his fifth postseason in five years as head man, and Jim is enjoying great success in only his second season as coach. John Harbaugh may have much more playoff experience, but with the 49ers' instant leap to the NFL's elite in the short time under their fiery head coach, it would be insane to doubt this man.
3. Defense
If I was to build my team around any NFL defense, I would more than likely choose the 49ers. In the Super Bowl, I'm very hesitant to give them an advantage. The playoffs are all about what's happening now, and the Ravens' D is playing as well as anyone. If they can make life difficult for Tom Brady at home, they are more than capable of disrupting Colin Kaepernick. As good as the 49ers defense is, teams can still move the ball on them. San Francisco shut down Atlanta in the second half of the NFC Championship, but they looked overmatched for the first thirty minutes. Like the previous two categories, predicting the success of both defenses is a true toss up.
4. Pass Catchers
That carefully-worded title was crafted to include tight ends, who both play a huge role in their respective offenses. Vernon Davis is a freak of nature who can become unstoppable at any moment, but Ravens TE Dennis Pitta has consistently been making plays in the postseason. Baltimore possesses arguably the 2013 playoffs' most dangerous downfield threat in Torrey Smith, and he is coupled with the always-reliable Anquan Boldin. Going against them for San Francisco are Michael Crabtree and Randy Moss, and it's extremely difficult to pick an advantage here. Both units have exploded at times and remained dormant at others, so heading into Sunday, it's impossible to say what type of performance we'll see on both sides.
5. Both teams have a chip on their shoulder
The easiest and most common motivational tool in sports is "us against the world," and it is certain that both Super Bowl teams have this mentality. The Ravens had a solid-but-unspectacular regular season that saw them head into the playoffs with low expectations, and they have used that to fuel them in their postseason run. Jim Harbaugh always has his 49ers fighting the haters, and this year San Francisco flew under the radar for how good they were. The 49ers were criticized by many for changing quarterbacks partway through the season, and a few poor games had some critics wondering if they were built for a Super Bowl run. Regardless of how much respect both teams have earned, they will undoubtedly continue to play the disrespected card until the finish.


text:
Open Access Repository
Tasmanian Discomycetes
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1924_Rodway_Tas...pdf | Download (669kB)
Available under University of Tasmania Standard License.
The students of Tasmanian Fungi have very insufficient
means of becoming acquainted with described species, and
further, such a small number of those indigenous in the Stat~
have been described that there is fair reason to justify a
paper to bring our knowledge up to date. It is probable
that some, perhaps many, of those described as new may
eventually be recognised to be identical with forms already
named elsewhere, but if we wait till we shall commit no
errors the purpose of this paper will not have been met. It
is essentially one to afford a student an easy means of
recognising the local species of the large fungus group
known as Discomycetes. The only work already available
to students is Cooke's Handbook of Australian Fungi, and the
information in that book is too fragmentary, and often
erroneous, to be of much assistance. The Gymnoascaceae
have been included at the end of the paper, though they
belong to another group, Plectomycetes. The disc-fruiting
fungi, which have.adopted a parasitic habit, commonly known
as Lichens, are excluded from convenience, and not from any
supposition that they are genetica1ly distinct. The Histeriales
are almost continuous with some of the smaller plants of our
group, but their distinction may soon be recognised.
|Item Type:
|Rodway, Leonard
|Royal Society of Tasmania, RST, Van Diemens Land, natural history, science, ecology, taxonomy, botany, zoology, geology, geography, papers & proceedings, Australia, UTAS Library
|Journal or Publication Title:
|Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania
|Royal Society Collection > Papers & Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania
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text:
Puff, puff: Pass the tax break
Dude, where's my tax deduction?
That's the question the burgeoning marijuana industry has for the federal government. Tax law bars the businesses from deducting expenses related to the distribution of their product — even if they're operating legally under state law.
Pot shops are banned from writing off labor, rent, health insurance, advertising costs or other expenses that most companies deduct to lower their tax bills. The result is a tax rate as high as 80 percent, according to the industry, for those in the 20 states with legal medical marijuana and the two states with recreational pot.
( PHOTOS: 9 pols who talked pot)
The situation has become a buzz kill for businesses where the marijuana industry is booming.
"The poor marijuana guys are treated more roughly in their tax situation than if they were involved in the sex trade," said anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist, who backs a long-shot effort to change the law. Prostitutes and criminals who earn money illegally can write off expenses under Internal Revenue Service rules — but not pot sellers, according to tax experts.
While the Obama administration's Justice Department has tacitly approved state legalization by doing nothing to stop it, the tax issue most likely requires a legislative fix.
The Justice Department last week said it would allow banks to work with pot companies, but it hasn't shown interest in solving the tax issue. The IRS has told lawmakers it has no power to unilaterally act.
Meanwhile, Capitol Hill is showing little to no interest in the issue.
"Why would we allow companies operating in violation of federal law to take federal tax breaks? It makes no sense," said Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.), who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, which handles tax policy.
Congress wrote section 280E into the Tax Code in 1982 after a drug dealer claimed his yacht and weapons as business expenses and a court essentially agreed. The law bars any company trafficking in illegal substances on a Justice Department drug list from taking tax credits and deductions.
Greenwerkz!, a Colorado-based medical cannabis company, pays an effective tax rate of 55 to 60 percent, according to chief financial officer Dan Rogers.
Rogers called it the "most talked about issue" among grass retailers right now.
"It would be nice to be treated like a normal citizen, but we're working on it," said Elliott Klug, the CEO of dispensary chain Pink House Blooms.
Klug — whose Colorado-based business started as a medical dispensary chain and is in the process of applying for recreational licenses — said the marijuana industry suffers from tax expenses that no other industry in the United States faces.
Some medical dispensaries have tried to work around the law, creating elaborate side businesses like acupuncture, alternative medicine or other patient services in hopes of being able to deduct some costs.
Harborside Health Center, which bills itself as the largest pot dispensary in the world, is one of many marijuana businesses involved in a protracted legal fight over deductions with the IRS.
Many cases are winding their way through tax court — but, in the interim, business owners and dispensary operators are left guessing about how to file their tax returns.
In tax filings dating back to 2009, Harborside — a nonprofit that also operates as a holistic care clinic — claimed that only about 5 percent of its employees' time was spent on the actual retail sale of marijuana. It attempted to deduct 95 percent of its operating expenses, which included employing an addiction counselor, offering yoga and running food-collection programs, for example.
The IRS rejected the claim and slapped it with "a $2.5 million back-tax bill for the first two years," said Steve DeAngelo, Harborside's co-founder and executive director.
Lawmakers, particularly Republicans, seem puzzled when questioned about the situation, with exasperated looks that say: Did you really just ask me about tax breaks for pot?
Ways and Means Republican Rep. Kenny Marchant of Texas, who opposes both recreational and medical pot use, said he has "never heard any discussion about it."
Tax panel Democrat Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, a state with a huge medical marijuana industry, said he "never thought of it."
A bipartisan bill sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), which would add a line in the Tax Code that allows pot companies in legalized states to write off business expenses, has just 12 co-sponsors. His office estimates the federal income tax rates for pot companies average between 65 percent to 75 percent.
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), one co-sponsor, said the deductibility quagmire could throw the whole legalization effort into jeopardy and send people back underground.
"When you remove deductibility, it can drive up the cost of the product. And for the entire legalization concept to work, the prices have to be below or at the black-market prices."
The National Cannabis Industry Association, a trade group, is trying to rev up support for Blumenauer's bill, recently hiring its first full-time lobbyist, Michael Correia — a former staffer to former Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.) and the House Natural Resources Committee.
Correia plans to approach Ways and Means members about Blumenauer's bill first, then move to lawmakers from states with legalized medical marijuana. Harborside's DeAngelo helped organize a separate coalition of like-minded groups called 280E Reform.
NCIA is framing the issue not as a weed legalization issue — which would never pass a GOP-controlled House — but a "tax fairness" issue that could appeal to Republicans.
Norquist argued that Republicans should support the bill for their love of state autonomy: "Go to a conservative and make the case that this is about federalism," the Americans for Tax Reform president said.
But skeptics said the reality is that pot still is an illegal substance under federal law.
"These companies should take their money and run, given the fact that their profits are illegal in the first place," said Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Obama administration and founder of the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) said he would be "open-minded" to letting medical-only pot shops take tax deductions. The former policeman's mother used medicinal marijuana to numb her pain before she passed away from cancer.
"It'd have to be very, very narrowly written," so recreational-use businesses couldn't take advantage, he said.
Most Republicans want to avoid the issue entirely. Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) wouldn't take a position when asked about it.
"The GOP won't want to have this conversation until they have to, and 20 states with legalized medical marijuana use isn't going to force it yet," said a GOP staffer who works on tax issues.
Even Dana Rohrabacher of California, a Republican co-sponsor of the bill, said it "has very little chance of passage" at this time, because it could be seen as pro-weed.


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