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Why didn't CNN's international arm air its own documentary on Bahrain's Arab Spring repression?
A former CNN correspondent defies threats from her former employer to speak out about self-censorship at the network.
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 4 September 2012 20.01 BST
A Bahraini protester in Manama. Photograph: Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty Images
In late March 2011, as the Arab Spring was spreading, CNN sent a four-person crew to Bahrain to produce a one-hour documentary on the use of internet technologies and social media by democracy activists in the region. Featuring on-air investigative correspondent Amber Lyon, the CNN team had a very eventful eight-day stay in that small, US-backed kingdom.
By the time the CNN crew arrived, many of the sources who had agreed to speak to them were either in hiding or had disappeared. Regime opponents whom they interviewed suffered recriminations, as did ordinary citizens who worked with them as fixers. Leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was charged with crimes shortly after speaking to the CNN team. A doctor who gave the crew a tour of his village and arranged meetings with government opponents, Saeed Ayyad, had his house burned to the ground shortly after. Their local fixer was fired ten days after working with them.
The CNN crew itself was violently detained by regime agents in front of Rajab's house. As they described it after returning to the US, "20 heavily-armed men", whose faces were "covered with black ski masks", "jumped from military vehicles", and then "pointed machine guns at" the journalists, forcing them to the ground. The regime's security forces seized their cameras and deleted their photos and video footage, and then detained and interrogated them for the next six hours.
Lyon's experience both shocked and emboldened her. The morning after her detention, newspapers in Bahrain prominently featured articles about the incident containing what she said were "outright fabrications" from the government. "It made clear just how willing the regime is to lie," she told me in a phone interview last week.
But she also resolved to expose just how abusive and thuggish the regime had become in attempting to snuff out the burgeoning democracy movement, along with any negative coverage of the government.
"I realized there was a correlation between the amount of media attention activists receive and the regime's ability to harm them, so I felt an obligation to show the world what our sources, who risked their lives to talk to us, were facing."
CNN's total cost for the documentary, ultimately titled "iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring", was in excess of $100,000, an unusually high amount for a one-hour program of this type. The portion Lyon and her team produced on Bahrain ended up as a 13-minute segment in the documentary. That segment, which as of now is available on YouTube, is a hard-hitting and unflinching piece of reporting that depicts the regime in a very negative light.
Amber Lyon on CNN, commenting on the March 2011 repression in Bahrain
In the segment, Lyon interviewed activists as they explicitly described their torture at the hands of government forces, while family members recounted their relatives' abrupt disappearances. She spoke with government officials justifying the imprisonment of activists. And the segment featured harrowing video footage of regime forces shooting unarmed demonstrators, along with the mass arrests of peaceful protesters. In sum, the early 2011 CNN segment on Bahrain presented one of the starkest reports to date of the brutal repression embraced by the US-backed regime.
On 19 June 2011 at 8pm, CNN's domestic outlet in the US aired "iRevolution" for the first and only time. The program received prestigious journalism awards, including a 2012 Gold Medal from New York Festival's Best TV and Films. Lyon, along with her segment producer Taryn Fixel, were named as finalists for the 2011 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. A Facebook page created by Bahraini activists, entitled "Thank you Amber Lyon, CNN reporter | From people of Bahrain", received more than 8,000 "likes".
Despite these accolades, and despite the dangers their own journalists and their sources endured to produce it, CNN International (CNNi) never broadcast the documentary. Even in the face of numerous inquiries and complaints from their own employees inside CNN, it continued to refuse to broadcast the program or even provide any explanation for the decision. To date, this documentary has never aired on CNNi.
CNNi's refusal to broadcast 'iRevolution'
It is CNN International that is, by far, the most-watched English-speaking news outlet in the Middle East. By refusing to broadcast "iRevolution", the network's executives ensured it was never seen on television by Bahrainis or anyone else in the region.
CNNi's decision not to broadcast "iRevolution" was extremely unusual. Both CNN and CNNi have had severe budget constraints imposed on them over the last several years. One long-time CNN employee (to whom I have granted anonymity to avoid repercussions for negative statements about CNN's management) described "iRevolution" as an "expensive, highly produced international story about the Arab Spring". Because the documentary was already paid for by CNN, it would have been "free programming" for CNNi to broadcast, making it "highly unusual not to air it". The documentary "was made with an international audience as our target", said Lyon. None of it was produced on US soil. And its subject matter was squarely within the crux of CNN International's brand.
CNNi's refusal to broadcast "iRevolution" soon took on the status of a mini-scandal among its producers and reporters, who began pushing Lyon to speak up about this decision. In June 2011, one long-time CNN news executive emailed Lyon:
"Why would CNNi not run a documentary on the Arab Spring, arguably the the biggest story of the decade? Strange, no?"
Motivated by the concerns expressed by long-time CNN journalists, Lyon requested a meeting with CNNi's president, Tony Maddox, to discuss the refusal to broadcast the documentary. On 24 June 2011, she met with Maddox, who vowed to find out and advise her of the reasons for its non-airing. He never did.
In a second meeting with Maddox, which she had requested in early December to follow up on her unanswered inquiry, Lyon was still given no answers. Instead, at that meeting, Maddox, according to Lyon, went on the offense, sternly warning her not to speak publicly about this matter. Several times, Maddox questioned her about this 18 November 2011 tweet by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, demanding to know what prompted it:
When I asked CNN to comment on Maddox's meetings with Lyon, they declined to respond on specific details and said he was not available for interview. Instead, they made the following statement:
"The documentary 'iRevolution' was commissioned for CNN US. While the programme did not air in full on CNN International, segments of it were shown. This differing use of content is normal across our platforms, and such decisions are taken for purely editorial reasons. CNN International has run more than 120 stories on Bahrain over the past six months, a large number of which were critical in tone and all of which meet the highest journalistic standards."
Despite Lyon's being stonewalled by CNNi, she said facts began emerging that shined considerable light on the relationship between the regime in Bahrain and CNNi when it came to "iRevolution". Upon returning from Bahrain in April, Lyon appeared on CNN several times to recount her own detention by security forces and to report on ongoing brutality by the regime against its own citizens, even including doctors and nurses providing medical aid to protesters. She said she did not want to wait for the documentary's release to alert the world to what was taking place.
In response, according to both the above-cited CNN employee and Lyon, the regime's press officers complained repeatedly to CNNi about Lyon generally and specifically her reporting for "iRevolution". In April, a senior producer emailed her to say:
"We are dealing with blowback from Bahrain govt on how we violated our mission, etc."
"It became a standard joke around the office: the Bahrainis called to complain about you again," recounted Lyon. Lyon was also told by CNN employees stationed in the region that "the Bahrainis also sent delegations to our Abu Dhabi bureau to discuss the coverage."
Internal CNN emails reflect continuous pressure on Lyon and others to include claims from the Bahraini regime about the violence in their country – even when, says Lyon, she knew first-hand that the claims were false. One April 2011 email to Lyon from a CNN producer demands that she include in her documentary a line stating that "Bahrain's foreign minister says security forces are not firing on unarmed civilians," and another line describing regime claims accusing "activists like Nabeel Rajab of doctoring photos … fabricating injuries".
Having just returned from Bahrain, Lyon says she "saw first-hand that these regime claims were lies, and I couldn't believe CNN was making me put what I knew to be government lies into my reporting."
Bahrain's PR offensive
As negative news stories of its brutal repression grew in the wake of the Arab Spring, the regime undertook a massive, very well-funded PR campaign to improve its image. As reported by Bahrain Watch, the regime has spent more than $32m in PR fees alone since the commencement of the Arab Spring in February, 2011, including payments to some of Washington, DC's most well-connected firms and long-time political operatives, such as former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi.
One of the largest contracts the regime had was with the DC-based PR firm Qorvis Communications. As Time reported last November, the firm, which also does extensive PR work for Bahrain's close allies, the Saudi regime, "has a branch dedicated to rehabilitating the reputation of unsavory governments, a niche practice that has seen great demand in the wake of the Arab spring".
Qorvis often led the way in complaining to CNNi about its Bahrain coverage. An internal email from CNN at the beginning of 2012, seen by the Guardian, records the firm's calling to complain about excessively favorable mentions of Nabeel Rajab, who had been arrested and charged over an anti-regime tweet, and was just this month sentenced to three years in prison for an "illegal demonstration".
The long-time CNN employee said that "iRevolution" was vetted far more heavily than the typical documentary:
"Because Amber was relatively new in reporting on the region, and especially because of the vocal complaints from the Bahrainis, the documentary was heavily scrutinized. But nobody could ever point to anything factually or journalistically questionable in Amber's reporting on Bahrain."
In response to several inquiries, Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority refused to say whether they had complained to CNNi about Lyon and "iRevolution". A spokesman, Fahad A AlBinali, instead offered only a generic statement that "on occasion we contact media outlets to provide correct information or a balanced view of the subject," and, he claimed, when doing so, they are simply trying "to help ensure that coverage of Bahrain is accurate and unbiased". Subsequent attempts to obtain specific answers from the authority about the regime's complaints to CNNi about "iRevolution" and Lyon went unanswered.
After Lyon's crew returned from Bahrain, CNN had no correspondents regularly reporting on the escalating violence. In emails to her producers and executives, Lyon repeatedly asked to return to Bahrain. Her requests were denied, and she was never sent back. She thus resorted to improvising coverage by interviewing activists via Skype in an attempt, she said, "to keep Bahrain in the news".
In March 2012, Lyon was laid off from CNN as part of an unrelated move by the network to outsource its investigative documentaries. Now at work on a book, Lyon began in August to make reference to "iRevolution" on her Twitter account, followed by more than 20,000 people.
On 16 August, Lyon wrote three tweets about this episode. CNNi's refusal to broadcast "iRevolution", she wrote, "baffled producers". Linking to the YouTube clip of the Bahrain segment, she added that the "censorship was devastating to my crew and activists who risked lives to tell [the] story." She posted a picture of herself with Rajab and wrote:
"A proponent of peace, @nabeelrajab risked his safety to show me how the regime oppresses the [people] of #Bahrain."
The following day, a representative of CNN's business affairs office called Lyon's acting agent, George Arquilla of Octagon Entertainment, and threatened that her severance payments and insurance benefits would be immediately terminated if she ever again spoke publicly about this matter, or spoke negatively about CNN.
When I asked CNN specifically about this alleged threat delivered to Lyon's agent, the company declined to confirm or deny it, commenting:
"In common with other companies we do not discuss internal personnel matters."
Responding to Lyon's charge of censorship, CNN's spokesman replied:
"CNN International has a proud record of courageous, independent and honest reporting from around the world. Any suggestion that the network's relationship with any country has influenced our reporting is wholly and demonstrably wrong."
It is true that CNNi can point to numerous recent reports describing the violence against protesters by the regime in Bahrain. Given the scope of the violence, and how widely it has now been reported elsewhere, it would be virtually impossible for CNNi never to broadcast such reports while still maintaining any claim to credibility. But such reports required far more journalistic courage to air in the first half of 2011, when so few knew of the brutality to which the regime had resorted, than now, when it is widely known. Moreover, CNNi's reports on the violence in Bahrain take a much more muted tone than when it reports on regimes disfavored by the US, such as Iran or Syria.
More importantly, the tidal wave of CNNi's partnerships and associations with the regime in Bahrain, and the hagiography it has broadcast about it (see the accompanying commentary on the relationship between the network and the regime), appear to have overwhelmed any truly critical coverage.
But CNN's threat had the opposite effect to what was intended. Lyon insists she never signed any confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement with CNN in any case, but she is sanguine about any risk to her severance package. "At this point," Lyon said, "I look at those payments as dirty money to stay silent. I got into journalism to expose, not help conceal, wrongdoing, and I'm not willing to keep quiet about this any longer, even if it means I'll lose those payments."
• Read CNN International's response to this article
Posted on September 7, 2012, in Middle East and tagged Bahrain, Bahraini Revolution. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.


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What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don't know.
– fun.
Last week's Economist carried an editorial called True Progressivism. I found myself nodding in agreement as I read through the long editorial. When I finished reading it, I felt like it had perfectly captured what I felt, what I thought, what I believed about government and public policy but would never have been able to articulate this well.
I hope you will go read it. If more people believed in something close to this True Progressivism, it could be a very important path out of the bipolar mess that American politics is today.
I happened to mention how much I liked this piece to a guest at an Infosys event last week. He said that his wife sometimes echoed similar sentiments about Tom Friedman's writing – that it almost speaks to her. But he tells her that that is because her thinking has been shaped by Friedman's writing. And now, obviously, what he writes agrees with her viewpoint.
Was it the same way with me and the Economist? Had I read it for so long that it had shaped my own belief system about politics and economic policy and now when I read something like this piece, it seems like it was speaking to me?
Perhaps. But I have read the Wall Street Journal longer, though less nowadays. I read the New York Times a lot more than the Economist. But I don't always agree with the New York Times editorial page, and rarely with WSJ's.
No, I don't think the Economist has brainwashed me. I think that good newspapers are a little bit like friends. Your friends do influence you. But you tend to spend more time with the ones that think like you do. And the way you think is a product of your experiences and the people that have influenced you. And hopefully, rational, independent thinking.
The world is full of tribalism. If your family, friends and the people around you believe in something, you are almost predestined to believe in the same thing. Good writing like the Economist's and thinking for yourself can save you from this dreary predetermined destiny.

subset: commoncrawl


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FinDEVr New York will be here in just two short weeks! Check out company features and take a look at the previews from upcoming presentations. And of course, don't forget to register today to save!
On FinDEVr.com
- Envestnet | Yodlee Launches Suite of Risk Reporting Tools.
- FinDEVr Feature — MapD
- FinDEVr Feature — NuCypher
- FinDEVr Feature — CardLinx Association
- PwC Brings Blockchain PoC to London's Specialty Insurers
- Shwayhat Steps Up: GreenKey Technologies Announces New CEO
- Scotiabank and AlphaPoint Wrap Up Blockchain Trial
- Check out these previews from upcoming FinDEVr New York presentations:
Alumni updates
- BBVA Compass adds cash-back incentive to stimulate interest in mobile banking app.
- OutsideIQ teams up with Genpact to bring better risk management, KYC, and AML compliance solutions to banks.
- Bluefin Payment Systems joins forces with The Pinnacle Corporation, bringing point-to-point encryption (P2PE to the latter's Palm POS platform.
- Top 10 global bank deploys mobile capture technology from Kofax.
- IBM forges strategic partnership with Salesforce, connecting AI platforms IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein.
- Arxan Application Protection named Best IoT product at the 2017 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards.
- Kontomatik nominated at the Dutch FinTech Awards 2017.
- Mambu goes live in the Americas with new offices in Miami and new regional managing director.
- PayPal partners with Oro ecommerce platform.
- UK food retailer, The Co-operative Group chooses ACI Worldwide to run wallet service.
- Palestine's The National Bank deploys core banking technology from Temenos.
- Dallas News features Bruce Parker, founder and CEO of ModoPayments.
Stay current on daily news from the fintech developer community! Follow FinDEVr on Twitter.


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Bolstered by a low-pressure weather system, yesterday's "King Tide" was felt throughout Puget Sound. At its extreme, the high tide came within 0.01 feet of breaking the all-time tidal record set for Seattle on Jan. 27, 1983.
Reporter Chris Henry wrote about some of the local problems in a story published in today's Kitsap Sun. And the Sun's editors put together a "photo gallery" of pictures taken by area residents. Pictures from other areas were posted on the Flickr website, where the Department of Ecology manages the "Washington King Tide Photo Initiative."
I especially liked Jim Groh's photos of the Poulsbo waterfront. Take a close look at the picture taken yesterday (below) and compare it to the one in Sunday's Water Ways entry, which shows last year's King Tide. If the word "Poulsbo" doesn't look right in the picture below, it's because the bottom half of the letters are under water.
This week's King Tides are declining, but they are expected to be high again starting Jan. 14.


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Jaggery Sugar
If refined — even minimally processed — sugars aren't your thing, then a jaggery sugar may be right up your alley. Jaggery is the closest you can get to sugar as it was done thousands of years ago. It's made the truly old-fashioned way: by boiling cane juice in broad pans until most of the water has evaporated, then allowing the syrup to cool and crystallize into a thick slurry of crystals. At that point it's poured into a conical mold with a hole at the bottom so the molasses can run out. A week or so later you have…this!
Here it's important to note that jaggery can be made from either cane or date palm sugar. This, I was very surprised to learn this morning, is palm sugar. I jimmied a piece off the side with a knife and sure enough it tasted like dates. I also thought the burlap sack was a nice touch. Jaggery sugars are made and sold all over southern and south eastern Asia. They can be light or dark and have a variety of flavors, from very mild to quite strong indeed.


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I have mentioned before, that in my family the Christmas tree is revealed on the 24th of December, this way it can be fully enjoyed during the twelve days of Christmas. Some people have the tradition to take it down on Epiphany after letting all the candles burn to the end, others, according to wikipedia, wait until the beginning of February to take down the tree.
On the 22nd or so, I saw someone put their Christmas tree into a tree bag outside of their house for pickup, a bit too early, and I have seen quite a few trees collected in the nearby park yesterday (some years as early as the morning of the 25th you can find out chucked out trees…). If we would do that, then we'd have either no tree at all, or get rid of it after too little time.
So today, on the 3rd day of Christmas I want to join in Hugh's Photo Challenge: Week 8 – Charity Christmas Tree Topper Challenge by sharing what's on top of the tree, but also what else you can found in the room dedicated to Christmas. Sorry for the quality of the pictures, the lighting was not optimal…
This angel sits atop the tree. If I recall correctly he was a present my paternal grandmother made for my parents. Over the years his face made from wax has lost it's contours. When I was little, he was holding candles in his hands, but they melted with the heat from tree's candles below.
Some years the golden angel is replaced by this white angel that my mother crafted. Her reference was the angel above. This one you can see the fine type face the other used to have, but that melted away. Next to the angel you can see a Santa Claus/Sankt Nikolaus, which I think was one of my creations as a child, but it might have been my sister's.
So that's for what you can find on top of the tree, but what about what was below it this year? Some years there are presents below the tree, I also recall my grandparents' dog sleeping beneath it. This year, there were no dogs or presents, but the nativity scene. My aunt made it for my dad when she was a teenager. It is probably as old as I am…
Over the years the handmade decorations on the tree have grown sparser, even the traditional wooden figurines like this little angel have lost their prominence in my parents' tree.
As fine decorations made from glass have made their appearance.
Some of these decorations are the characters from A Christmas Carol.
Besides the angel and the Santa Claus I showed you above, other figurines can be found, such as this Bergmann Engel from the Erzgebirge.
I hope that you liked getting a small peak at my Christmas decorations. Enjoy the time "between the years", as Germans call the time between Christmas and the New Year.
© Solveig Werner 2015. All rights reserved.


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As folks progress from institutional podium churches toward organic participatory churches, they often allow themselves to continue being defined by the institutional church ("IC"). This arises not so much because they retain the attitudes and practices of the IC, but because they are still holding onto the disillusionment that emerged when they began to see the IC's shortcomings and unbiblical traditions.
For many of us, when we finally leave the IC there is a season where we perceive and react to things not out of freedom, but rather out of not wanting to be like the IC. When we remain in a reactive mode, however, we remain in bondage to our past IC experiences.
In that place of reaction, our reality is still shaped by the IC rather than by who God wants us to be and by His promises for us. By reacting to the past, we are not able to grasp the future.
The best analogy is Israel's journey out of Egypt and slavery, into the wilderness, and finally into the promised land.
Eventually, in my own life, I had to get to the place where I not only was delivered from Egypt, but was willing to let God take Egypt out of me. Like with Israel, that happened in the wilderness. It was hard, and took several years, but it was necessary in order to then cross over the Jordan River into God's promises – where there is life and freedom and joy.
The resulting fellowships that are emerging in our area, among those who also have made it to the other side of Jordan, are renewing and refreshing and were worth the journey!
For those still in transition, don't expect to be able to bypass the wilderness. The wilderness is dry and scorching, but God uses it to burn out of us those things from Egypt that otherwise still define us. It is part of God's plan, because it is not enough to take a person out of Egypt. Rather, we also must allow God to take Egypt out of us!


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Couple of quick ones to welcome OS X Mountain Lion to Hints:
If you need a temporary break from all those alerts and banners, but you don't want to turn off notifications altogether, Hints reader guillaumegete notes that you can pause the Notification Center with one click: Press the Option key while clicking on the Notification icon in the right end of the menu bar. This will pause the display of notifications. To reactivate them, you can either Option-click the same icon again; display notifications at the right of the screen by clicking on the Notification Center icon, then toggle the Show Alerts and Banners switch from Off to On; or just wait until tomorrow, when they'll go back on automatically.
And an anonymous reader points out that, as of Safari 6 (which debuted with Mountain Lion, but is available for those still using Lion, as well), you no longer need to Control- or right-click on a bookmark in the Bookmarks Bar then fill out a dialog box in order to rename that bookmark. Now you can just click and hold the bookmark; the name will be highlighted and you can then rename it right there.


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State police have issued a Silver Alert for 77-year-old Fadiana Padilla of Waterbury. She is described as a Spanish-speaking African American, heavy-set and about 5 feet 3 inches tall. She was last seen wearing a black blouse and head scarf. She may have been heading for NYC on public transportation, police said. If you see her, call 203-574-6911.
No photo was available.


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(CNN) - Bill Clinton regrets the swirl over comments he made earlier in the week in which he appeared to suggest he would be open to extending the so-called Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, the former president said Thursday.
"I'm very sorry about what happened," Clinton said in an interview to air on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." "I thought something had to be done on the 'fiscal cliff' before the election. Apparently nothing has to be done until the first of the year."
- Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker
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Republicans seized on Clinton's remarks this week when he said lawmakers will likely put off a series of major spending and budget decisions. They argued the former president was siding with many in the GOP who call for the extension of the controversial tax cuts largely opposed by Democrats.
"[Congress] will probably have to put everything off until early next year," Clinton said Tuesday during an interview with CNBC. "That's probably the best thing to do right now."
The "fiscal cliff" consists of measures set to begin in January that would remove more than $500 billion out of the economy in 2013 alone. Those measures include the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and protection of the middle class from the Alternative Minimum Tax, the onset of $1 trillion in blunt spending cuts, and a reduction in Medicare doctors' pay.
On Thursday, however, Clinton argued that he, in fact, supported President Barack Obama's position, which calls for an end to the tax cuts only for those making $250,000 or more.
The former president emphasized he was mistaken about the timing of the fiscal cliff when he made his comments, thinking it would happen before the November election, rather than at the beginning of next year.
"I really was under the impression that they would have to do something before the election, and I was trying to figure out how they would kick it to last (through) the election," he said.
He continued: "Once I realized that nothing had to be done until the first of the year, I supported (Obama's) position. I supported extending them last year, but I think his position is the right one and necessary for working out a comprehensive (deficit reduction) deal."
The comments marked the second time Republicans pounced on Clinton in a week, trying to use his own words against Obama.
The former president last week complimented Mitt Romney's private equity career in an interview on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight," which raised eyebrows among Democrats who have been using Romney's corporate history as an attack against the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
Last week, Clinton described Romney as a successful businessman and nodded to his "sterling" career.
Clarifying his remarks Thursday, Clinton said that just because he thinks Romney did well in the private sector doesn't mean he deserves to be elected president.
"You can be successful in business...if your shareholders do well," he said. "You can only be successful as president if the shareholders, the employees, the customers, and the communities do well–all of the constituencies of American market economics."
While Clinton has attended several top fundraisers for Obama this cycle, some critics argue Clinton's recent slip-ups are attempts to undermine the current president. Asked about his relationship with Obama, Clinton did not directly comment on his personal views of the president but pointed to his record of campaigning for him, instead.
"Look in 2008, when he ran for president and defeated Hillary in the primaries, I did 40 events for him. 40 in the election," he said.
He then said he repeatedly argues the president has "done a good job, a really good job under very trying circumstances" and stressed that he is "strongly committed" to Obama's re-election.
Thursday's interview came the same day a new CNN/ORC International poll indicated 66% of Americans hold a favorable view of Clinton, while 31% give him an unfavorable rating.
The former two-term Democratic president's favorable rating bottomed out in CNN polling at 51% in June of 2008, after Clinton took a very active role in advocating for his wife in her historic battle with Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.
- Watch the full interview at 5 p.m. ET on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."
- CNNMoney's Charles Riley contributed to this report.
Also see:
Romney reacts to Wisconsin recall vote
Watch The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer weekdays at 4pm to 6pm ET and Saturdays at 6pm ET. For the latest from The Situation Room click here.
In order to reduce the deficit, we need to take steps that are even more drastic than those that go into effect automatically at the end of this year.
So I don't want to hear a single politician, GOP or Dem, say that we're facing a "crisis" at the end of this year, and then EVER hear that same politician talk about wanting to reduce the deficit, or crying about the debt ceiling.
No one should be talking about the end of this year as a crisis, they should be talking about it as an opportunity to reduce the deficit in a way where the burden is shared by many people across every socioeconomic class.
There is NO WAY to reduce the deficit without taking money out of the economy, because at the end of the day that's what the deficit is: money that's pumped into the economy now on the promise that it will be repaid later.
Clinton was a Democrat who understood how important the business sector was to the health of the economy. Obama has targeted the business sector as an evil enemy. It shows the difference in knowledge about the economy between the two!!
Now Biden is considering a run in 2016! That's scary! No telling what that dude says from day to day, minute to minute. That makes Hillary a shoe in for the Dems. No wonder Billy is backing off....he doesn't want to upset his party. It's all a game that we the middle class have to live with. These people do not worry about where their grocery money comes from or paying any bills month to month...that includes Obama. Wake up America.
THE TRUTH IS THIS. Clinton loves his country and knows that the current administration is not working and ending the Bush tax cut is a bad idea for the economy to grow!!! His previous comment on that was very honest. As Republicans have gotten a public boost from it, Clinton is now trying to politicize his statement in favor of Democrats. We got it!
That's the most profound truth that's EVER come out of HIS mouth and he's taking it back?? He is consistent.
Hey Big Al – Clinton was a Rhodes scholar.
Replying to jamie above you said the poor need tax cuts and the wealth need to pay more. That just shows how ignorant Democrats are. 50% of Americans pay zero Federal income tax. I saw a great cartoon for your type that had an Obama charachator and It said "I won't allow the half of Americans who pay no taxes to bear the burden of the other half who aren't paying their fare share". That about sums it up. My guess is that most of the commenters here who agree with the president are in the 50% of Americans who pay zero federal income tax.


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Your ocean, your community, your future.
Coastlines and climate
Salmon farms out NOW.
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The ugly twin of climate change.
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Posts Tagged 'hair growth cycle'
Some are Hairy, Some are Bald…
Some are hairy, some are bald;
Some are scary, some are old.
A funny rhyme is a good thing to start speaking about rather serious things. This time it's going to be hair growth cycle and its stages.
So why in the world do we have to take care of our hair? To go to hairdressers every month or so, to think of stunning hair styles on special occasions, to wash, comb and brush our hair? To smell and touch (if not to chew) it? And why do we pity the bald ones after all? Because it grows… and falls out. Yeap, it grows and falls out all the time. That's what keeps the whole process going.
The common rate of hair growth is about a half of inch a month. All in all, there is about a hundred thousand hairs growing on the average head. Hair grows from the dermal papilla (the bottom of the hair root), which produces new cells for hair growth. These cells are initially soft, but they are hardened as they come out to the scalp's surface. Each hair usually has a life cycle of one to seven years. Why so? Because each hair follicle sooner or late enters a period of rest. And what actually happens at the moment is that the hair simply falls out forever. Yet to be replaced and regrown by another one, which is going to go through the same cycle of 1 to 7 years of growth.
In scientific terms, the growing stage of the hair is called anagen. The transitional stage when the hair follicle starts going to rest is called catagen (usually up to 2 weeks). The resting stage is called telogen (about 3 months). This is when we lose our hair. As a matter of fact, there is a constant daily loss of 50–100 hairs. Fortunately, not all follicles are in the telogen stage at the same time. Otherwise…
None are hairy, all are bald!


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This past weekend my family and I took a mini-vacation to our home-away-from-home: Madison.
We lived here for three years when I was a kid so every once in awhile we take the two hour drive to the capital of the cheese state and get our farmers market on (because Madison holds one of the greatest Saturday morning markets in the country).
We ended up with some asparagus and tomato plants, plus my own personal loot:
Lemon poppyseed bread, honey sticks (a childhood memory from this market), and six-year-aged white cheddar cheese. I tried just about every cheese sample in the place and settled on this. It will definitely go well with the fig jam I have waiting for me at home.
I was disciplined enough to hit up the hotel treadmill in between the market and church. This is a rarity for me when I'm on vacation, but it just goes to show that I've been bit by the running bug hard again. A quick four miles where I increased my pace slowly from 9:13 to 8:20 every mile or so.
On Saturday night we went to my mom's favorite restaurant, Louisianne's, a lively cajun restaurant hidden below a quiet Madison street. The minute you descend down their dark velvet staircase you're transported to New Orleans, live music and all.
It was quite dark inside, but we split a bottle of sauvignon blanc, crab puffs, and all sampled each others entrees: crab cakes and cheesy artichoke toasts for me, steak for Steve, Cajun andouille and seafood pasta for dad, and Hawaiian swordfish for mom.
Dessert was a dream. We all got different dishes (indulgence at its finest…) and shared. Normally I'm not a fan of sharing food, but when everything is equally delicious, I absolutely love getting to try it all. And this is the case at Louisianne's–everything is outstanding. The highlights for me were the frozen peanut butter and key lime pies.
Mother's Day itself was all about Sue, so we slept in, enjoyed a slow continental breakfast at the hotel (aren't those the best?) and did a little more casual driving down memory lane throughout Madison. We walked around our old preschool (correction: I was carried)…
…ate some insanely delicious Mexican food at our old stomping grounds, Pasqual's:
And ended the trip, of course, with a trip to the best custard stand of all time: Michael's. Their turtle sundaes are topped with salty, roasted pecans, a taste I remember distinctly even though I ate them regularly decades ago. I've been unable to find a turtle sundae just as good ever since so every time we're in town we stop by.
All in all it was a quiet weekend spent with my family and nonstop eating, two of my favorite things. We're lucky that even though my brother and I are both 24 years old, we're still able to take family vacations together once or twice a year. Not to mention I should have no problem running my butt off this week with all the sugar I consumed! Good lord. (Worth it).
- How did you celebrate Mother's Day?
- What's your favorite part about hotel breakfast buffets? I'm a sucker for a good make-your-own omelet bar 🙂


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Now that we have entered the pre-Super Bowl waiting period in earnest — and if you live in a city that has just had 19 inches of snow dumped on it overnight — you may have a little time on your hands. Wouldn't you like to use some of that time knitting a hat for a newborn in a developing country? You don't even have to stop watching TV to knit — I often use working on a knitted gift as an excuse to spend the whole day watching random British sitcoms on my Netflix instant account.
Missed last week's kickoff? Click here, or follow the link in the sidebar.
Of course, some of our lovely readers are not the procrastinating type. Some of you have already finished not just one hat …
…but three.
These are two of Barbara G's three Packers themed hats. Barbara has been participating in the Caps for Good program since its inception as Knit One, Save One three years ago. Check out this lovely video she made for the initial campaign, showing the participation of one elementary school.
Barbara claims that her initial hat, knit during the NFC Championship game, brought the Packers good luck. I wish I could say the same for my sad little Jets hat over here. Maybe I should have tried knitting it during the actual game, although considering the way the first half went maybe it was better I wasn't near any pointy implements.
If you have not yet started your hat, there is still plenty of time. If you've never knitted before, here's a list of places where you can purchase the yarn and needles you will need:
Stores (Maybe) In Your Area
Hobby Lobby (in certain southern US states)
Your local independent yarn store will probably be more expensive, but the staff there will be able to provide better assistance in choosing supplies and getting started. Need to find a yarn store? Check the Knitmap!
Online Retailers
Don't forget to email us the photos of your finished hats or upload them to our Facebook page.
Only 27 hats to meet our goal! And for our Steelers fan readers out there: you aren't going to let Barbara swamp our photo album with Packers hats, are you? Stick up for your team! That goes double for you, Vikings fans!


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Pegboard: Still a Classic Storage Solution for Today
As a kid growing up, I remember visiting my grandparents' house and heading straight for granddad's garage. It was immaculate, had all kinds of fun stuff, and everything was ALWAYS in its place. He didn't have closets where he could hide everything from A to Z, but he did have Pegboard from floor to ceiling. It was a dull brownish shade and definitely not pretty, but it did serve the purpose of keeping all of his Sears tools organized, visible and always at the ready.
Related: Pegboard Storage: A Classic for All-Time
Although Pegboard—popularized in the 1950s—has taken a back seat to more recent storage/organizing innovations, it is still a clever, simple, and inexpensive way to keep everything from tools to crafts to kitchen cookware and utensils in place.
For some back history: Pegboard—a brand name—is essentially a composition hardboard with an overall grid pattern of pre-drilled holes. The practice of placing a hook in the board, hanging a tool, and tracing an outline with a Magic Marker made it a big hit for homeowners in the 1950s. Of course, America's love affair with the automobile during the same period may have helped fuel the board's popularity, according to Kenneth Allender, a Home Depot How-To Community Expert. "The American garage needed organization and Pegboard was the answer," he says.
Today's Pegboard is not just for the garage anymore. It now comes in pre-finished colors, in thicknesses of 1/4″ and 1/8″, with a variety of reconfigurable hooks, and even mounting rails for support and framing options. You can even find plastic and metal variations. Best of all, it's inexpensive. A standard piece of 4′ x 8′ Pegboard retails for about $40 and you can pick up a 43-piece set of hanging hardware for under $12 at Lowe's.
I started thinking of all the ways that Pegboard would help me organize my life. My dog's leash, which I am forever misplacing, would have a permanent place. I could install some shelves to hold old books and magazines. And, it would definitely help me keep my tools and other items organized in my garage and basement. The more I think about it, I realize that the possibilities are endless. Granddad would be proud!
To see how Pegboard is being used for storage solutions today, check out Pegboard Storage: A Classic for All-Time
For more on storage and organization, consider:
Quick Tip: Garage Storage Solutions
Organize your Home
Easy Laundry Room Storage Solutions


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Tulo backs Chatwood as Rockies rout Phillies
DENVER – Troy Tulowitzki hit a three-run home run after No. 3 hitter Carlos Gonzalez was intentionally walked in front of him, Tyler Chatwood pitched seven strong innings for his first win of the season, and the Colorado Rockies beat the Philadelphia Phillies 12-1 Friday night.
Tulowitzki went 3 for 3 on the night, drove in five runs and drew a key walk during the Rockies' four-run first inning. Drew Stubbs and Charlie Blackmon added three hits apiece and the 1-2 hitters in the Rockies' batting order combined to score five of Colorado's runs. The 18 hits represented a season high for the Rockies and their run total matched a season high.
Chatwood (1-0), who missed the first two weeks of the season with a left hamstring strain, allowed one unearned run on two hits in his second start of the season and first at home. Chatwood struck out six and walked one.
Phillies starter Jonathan Pettibone (0-1) went four innings and allowed eight runs on nine hits.
He was in trouble from the outset, giving up four runs in a 36-pitch first inning. Blackmon and Stubbs each singled to start the inning. Gonzalez was robbed when second baseman Chase Utley leaped high in the air to catch his sharply hit line drive, but Tulowitzki worked a walk to load the bases in a 14-pitch at-bat that included 10 foul balls, eight with the count full.
Justin Morneau followed with a two-run double. Wilin Rosario had a run-scoring groundout and Nolan Arenado singled up the middle to drive in the Rockies' fourth run.
It didn't get any better for Pettibone in the second as Blackmon singled and was sacrificed to second. The Phillies opted to intentionally walk Gonzalez, a lifetime .395 hitter in 23 previous games against Philadelphia, and go after Tulowitzki. He responded by driving an 0-1 offering into the stand of evergreens beyond the center field wall for his second home run of the season, upping Colorado's lead to 7-0.
The Rockies went up 8-0 on Tulowitzki's run-scoring double in the fourth, before the Phillies got on the scoreboard in the fifth. After Carlos Ruiz reached on third baseman Arenado's two-out fielding error, Cody Asche singled to center for the Phillies' first hit of the game and pinch hitter Jayson Nix, batting for Pettibone, singled to score Ruiz.
Colorado got that run back on Tulowitzki's RBI single in the sixth.
NOTES: Phillies LHP Cole Hamels (left biceps tendinitis) allowed one run in seven innings Thursday in his third rehab start for high Class A Clearwater. Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg said before the game he's leaning toward having Hamels start Wednesday at Los Angeles with one additional day of rest to keep RHP A.J. Burnett slotted between LHP Cliff Lee and Hamels in the rotation. . . . Rockies RHP Jhoulys Chacin (left shoulder strain) could throw up to 65 pitches Saturday for high Class A Modesto in his second rehab start. . . . Rockies OF Michael Cuddyer was given the night off to rest a sore left hamstring. He is day to day. . . . Phillies RHP Kyle Kendrick (0-1) is set to start Game 2 of the series Saturday against the Rockies' RHP Jordan Lyles (2-0). . . . Blackmon, who had an RBI single among his three hits, upped his batting average to .426 in 18 games this season.


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2008 Vintage
The 2008 vintage in Napa reminded us that Mother Nature is always in charge. Wind and rain struck during flower. There was frost on April 15th. Drought conditions continued for the third year in a row. All of this ensured that we didn't grow soft after the easy 2007 vintage. While we were having our character built, the grapes were developing character as well. In our opinion, the wines we made from the tiny 2008 vintage crop are some of the best we've ever made.
Your Shopping Cart


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LAS VEGAS -- Former Oakland Athletics slugger Jose Canseco has filed for bankruptcy protection in Nevada.
The 1986 American League rookie of the year and 1988 league MVP with the A's is seeking asset liquidation in Chapter 7 documents filed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Las Vegas.
Canseco's bankruptcy attorney, Mark Segal declined to comment Wednesday.
The bankruptcy petition says the 48-year-old Canseco lives in Las Vegas.
The filing was first reported by the Las Vegas Sun.
It lists less than $21,000 in assets and almost $1.7 million in liabilities, including more than $500,000 owed to the Internal Revenue Service.
Canseco hit 462 home runs during 16 years on eight major league teams.
He was a six-time All-Star and two-time World Series winner.
He later admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.


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Brigadoon LLC
Auld Brig O' Doon near Alloway, Ayr, Scotland (13th century),
the poem Tam O' Shanter by Burns made it immortal for all time.
Robert Burns was of note along with many other famous Scottish people. His observations and comments are still in use today.
"Many a slip between the cup and the lip" & "Auld Lang Syne" are just samples of enduring poetry that have been passed down for generations.
Copyright © 2017


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When it comes to the failed marriage of Courteney Cox and David Arquette, usually it's David that's doing the oversharing. But today Courteney turned everything on its head by opening up to Howard Stern about the specifics of her sex life, or rather her lack thereof. She told him—along with the entire world—that she hasn't had sex in a year. Good to know!
She said she has not been with anyone since she and David split up for a very simple reason: "I'm really not ready. … I'm just not there." Actually, that sounds very wise indeed. Stern even called her "mature," which coming from him I'm not sure is a compliment, but he's right.
She also reported that no one has even asked her out, which puts to bed those rumors about her carrying on an affair with a costar. She did say, though, that she's almost ready to get back in the proverbial saddle—and even Arquette is pushing her to get back out there. So there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about the sex life of Cox and Friends. [Extra TV]
As we discussed yesterday, Ashton Kutcher has just turned 34, and for his birthday, he says he has only one wish: to end the sexual exploitation of children. Aww, that is actually really great. Here's the video of him asking you to donate to his cause, so you can feel the tug on your own personal heartstrings. [Extra TV]
Apple MacBook Air Laptop
Powerful performance
The M1 chip delivers 3.5x faster performance than the previous generation all while using way less power. Get up to 18 hours of battery life.
Things are becoming increasingly fishy with the supposed engagement of Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel. First, there was the whole dust-up about her not wearing a ring. And now it seems JT spent the weekend skiing with friends in British Columbia to celebrate his 31st birthday, and JB was not in attendance. True, she's in the middle of shooting a movie, but that doesn't mean something is not amiss with these two. [CDaN]
Damn, Mommyoncé is wasting no time getting back on the scene. Bey made her first post-baby appearance on Monday at Jay-Z's Carnegie Hall show, and then she turned up again last night looking just as smashing in a different outfit. She's wearing a lot of blue stuff, which I guess is supposed to remind her of Blue Ivy™. That might be too cute, or it might just be too much. I can't quite decide. [Extra TV]
Adele, in the run-up to her Grammy performance, is appearing on 60 Minutes. She opened up about the difficulties of her throat surgery. The most notable highlight? She used an app to make her phone swear for her when she couldn't talk. That's my kind of gal. [CBS]
First Jake Gyllenhaal had lunch with a beautiful mystery woman in New York, and then he received a very small bouquet from a mysterious old man at the Berlin airport. Some guys have all the luck. [BWE]
Speaking of Berlin, Angelina Jolie and her posse of offspring have also just arrived there to attend the city's film festival. It doesn't seem like Brad Pitt was with them. Where was he? Is he OK? Are they splitting up? Ahhh. OMG, EVERYBODY PANIC! [E!]
M.I.A. is suddenly all over the news these days. First, the middle finger. Then the split from her fiancé, and now a rider from her 2011 tour has been unearthed. In it, she has some normal requests, like "organic fruit plates, 'European' cheese, spring water (Evian or Fiji), Ketel One vodka, absinthe and Red Bull." Okay, absinthe isn't that standard, but whatever. She also requests that there be three 20-25 year old extras available who will "be onstage for the full duration of the show, wearing full covered Burkas." Umm, okay, that's definitely not part of your boilerplate tour rider. Also, if they're wearing full Burkas, what does it matter if they're 26 versus 25? [HuffPo]
Chelsea Handler has just revealed this gossipy tidbit, which is as juicy as a perfectly cooked turkey: Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux spent this past Thanksgiving—their first as a couple—at Chelsea's house. Well, la dee da. [Us]
Catherine Hardwick, the director of the Twilight movies would like us to know just how shitty the original scripts were:
Every one of those scripts sucked. Oh, Lord, did they suck. … I thought the script was horrible, but then I looked it up on the Internet and I thought, Okay, it's based on a book and people tend to like it. There's gotta be something there. So I read the book and I thought it captured that feeling of being madly in love. And I thought, That's kind of a good challenge, to see if, as a filmmaker, I could make you feel that giddy, crazy.
They agreed to let her do rewrites, and obviously mission accomplished re: making people giddy and crazy. [Vulture]
Kristin Davis, late of SATC and currently in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, has been so out of the spotlight lately that I'd totally forgotten she adopted a baby. Well, she did! And here is a picture of her daughter, who is adorable and named Gemma Rose. [OMG!]
This just in: Maya Rudolph is going to return to Saturday Night Live as host on February 18th. Yes! [HuffPo]
In other TV news, Jim Carrey was spotted filming an episode of 30 Rock. So that will probably be fun to watch. [HuffPo]
Oh, boy. Never a dull moment for Gary Busey. He's just filed for bankruptcy and is $500,000 in debt. Yikes. [Yahoo!]
Famous movie score composer John Williams is turning 80 today. Cue the dramatic and moving orchestral arrangement. [HuffPo]


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£ 220.00
This Magpie is the another fine addition to the ongoing project by Edinburgh based artist, Patrizio Belcampo. Anticipated to take a number of years to finish, the end result will be a full Avian Alphabet.
Hand screenprinted in a limited edition of only 50.
This print demonstrates the artist's technical skill, eye for colour, composition and fondness for re-interpreting existing traditions. This fresh print series references the Victorian's fascination of documenting and cataloguing, whilst portraying a sense of depth, texture and movement from a minimal palette.
57 x 57 cm
Patrizio was originally born in Ravenna, North-Eastern Italy but he has lived and worked in Edinburgh since 2003 and graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2011
Only 2 left in stock


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"As we all know, there is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition." — Jorge Luis Borges
Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having no steady job, and nothing particular to interest me in empirical reality, I thought I would begin writing reviews of everything I watched, read and listened to. It is a decision I have lived by relentlessly ever since.
Now it's time to stop.
To the dozen or so of you who constitute my core audience, thank you. And don't fret — there will be plenty more nonsense for you to read here on matthewjrparsons.com in the future. But the exhaustive reviewing project that's currently called Omnibus (still known to its friends primarily as Omnireviewer) is over, as of this post.
But as longtime readers will attest, if Omnibus is to vanish it is only appropriate that it should vanish up its own ass. And so, I present the last missive of the Omnireviewer. Strap in. In all my years of blogging I have never been as self-indulgent as this.
One review.
Literature, etc.
Matthew Parsons: Omnireviewer/Omnibus — Some things are so self-explanatory that you can review them just by describing what they are. "A prog rock album with only one 44-minute long song," for example. Or, "a graphic novel that intertwines a gay coming-of-age memoir with a character study of the author's father by way of the literature that fascinates them both." Some readers will look at these descriptions and say "yes, please," and others are philistines. Regardless, the point is that these particular works are so obviously the thing that they are, which nothing else is, that to say more would be almost superfluous. Surely there has never been a clearer example of this than the present one: "A blogger writes reviews of everything he watches, reads, and listens to for nearly three years." You're no philistine if that premise makes you run for the hills. But even if it doesn't, if you've spent any amount of time at all on the internet — better still, any amount of time at all around me — you know precisely what you are getting into. To say more would be pointless. STILL, I PERSIST.
Before we go any further, let's dispense with the no-paragraph-breaks schtick. That's a policy I instituted early on to prevent myself from writing too much. It never really worked.
So. Was Omnireviewer any good? No, not really. I believe it's the home of some of my worst writing, in terms of the actual quality and readability of the prose. But assessing the quality of things was never quite the point of the enterprise, nor should it necessarily be the point of reviewing in general — except in cases so superlatively brilliant or awful that there's little else to say. Generally, I prefer a more rhapsodic approach — drawing connections, parsing out meaning, converting subtext to text. And if in my explorations I should happen to touch on the success of a given thing, fine. Quality vs. success is a subtle but useful distinction. To me, the former implies that there's an objective standard to which everything can be held. And while I do half-heartedly believe that, I don't trust myself to be the arbiter of such things. Neither does anybody else.
But success is different. Success, to paraphrase the great British avant-gardist Cornelius Cardew, exists in relation to goals. To determine the success of a venture, you need to know something of the intention of the venturer.
So, if we're going to establish whether Omnireviewer has been a success, we need to explore why I started writing it in the first place.
Of all the various magical accoutrements in the Harry Potter books, my favourite one as a kid was the Pensieve — Albus Dumbledore's magical basin full of thoughts. "One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure," Dumbledore explains in my nostalgic fave, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. "It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form." I have often described Omnireviewer as my Pensieve: the technique I use to evacuate my brain of all the swirling observations and analyses of trifling pop culture matters that threaten to crowd out what's actually important. It's an easily avoidable place where those observations and analyses can live permanently, so I don't feel compelled to annoy my friends with them in bars. At least, not when they don't ask me to.
All of this is true, and it is a large reason why I've continued to write Omnireviewer for nearly three years. But it isn't the whole story. And the Pensieve isn't the only valid pop culture analogue for this weird project. For a more honest one, we'll have to look back a whole generation to another totemic childhood text:
Omnireviewer entered the world on November 1, 2015, but the context for it dates back more than a year prior to that. The circumstances that enabled this blog emerged in the summer of 2014. That summer, two extremely ordinary things happened. Firstly, I finished grad school, marking the end of twenty consecutive cycles of school/summer/school/summer etc. Suddenly, I was all too aware that my life was now FREE JAZZ — structure be damned. Exacerbating this anxiety was the small matter that I had graduated with a masters degree in journalism, and the universe was laughing at me. ONE SINGLE DAY after I turned in my thesis — in the form of a radio documentary — the Canadian Broadcasting Company cut 600 jobs. "Screw you, Parsons," said the universe, "and everybody who shares your ludicrous ideas about how to make a living." Just as all this was going on, a relationship I'd been in for seven years came to an end as well. Like every breakup, it seems inevitable in retrospect. But at the time it seemed impossible.
Unemployment; breakup. I bring up these two extremely ordinary things only because they are the first two misfortunes in my life that I couldn't just smile my way through. I'm not sure why. Unemployment and a breakup are empirically no worse than things I'd been through previously. Maybe there just comes a time in a person's life when the emotional warp drive has to give out and you've got to rely on just a regular engine. I dunno. But prior to 2014, I always prided myself on my ability to be happy in spite of things. Losing that was like falling out of the sky.
What helped me was work. In the uncomfortable grey zone between graduation and the start of my first contract, some friends of mine tried to start a magazine. They brought me into the fold as a writer, and even though it wasn't really my project, I contributed as much writing to its embryonic form as anybody. What else was I going to do with my time? The magazine never properly launched. But if nothing else, it kept me from going off the deep end during the worst few weeks of my life.
And since the experience of writing for that vapourizing magazine was such a lifesaver, I proceeded to try that method ONE HUNDRED MORE TIMES. Even when my work situation started to pick up, I had to be constantly doing things to distract myself from the swirly void. A friend proposed an epistolary project where we assigned each other albums to listen to. I eagerly accepted. I took up cooking with the vigor of Hannibal Lecter. I started running. At work, I built a huge interactive story about dead composers, cheerfully spending twice as many hours on it as I got paid for. (It has since vanished into the digital wastes, mourned by no one, least of all me.)
Over the next three years, I would start, and swiftly abandon, a history of progressive rock. I would write 20,000 words about Jethro Tull in a single week. I would put together, and never submit, a book proposal. I would take a class about writing for comics. I would begin and struggle to complete a set of annotations for Moby-Dick. I would make two comedy podcasts with one of the guys who started the vapourizing magazine. I would make podcasts on my own, which reside on my hard drive to this day, waiting for their moment.
Yeah, I've been busy.
But as of November, 2015, I was not busy enough. So I filled my time the way we all do. I watched TV. I went to movies. And since I'm me, I also read voraciously, listened attentively to my favourite records dozens of times in a row, and listened to 30 or 40 podcast episodes per week. And the more time I spent on that, the more aware I had to become of how little time I was spending in gainful employment or meaningful social exchange. So I made up a game to put it out of my mind. The game was Omnireviewer. Every Sunday since then, I have released a report on the game, with the week's score tallied up at the top of the post. 17 reviews. 23 reviews. 35 reviews. Here was a game I could win.
Since keeping score was always such a big part of what this blog has been about, let's look at some final statistics:
Total instalments of Omnireviewer/Omnibus: 143
Total reviews: 2,822
Average reviews per week: 20
Largest number of reviews in a single week: 38
Total words: 441,637
Average words per week: 3,088
Highest word count in a single week: 8,493
A few notes on these numbers:
- Bear in mind that I sometimes clumped together whole seasons of television in one review. A large number of the reviews I have written on this blog have been for more than one episode of a show or podcast. So, as impressive as the number 2,822 may look, it is still deflated somewhat.
- A cursory Google indicated that novels tend to range from 60,000 to 100,000 words, on average. If we split the difference and go with 80,000, my reviewing habit has stretched to the length of five-and-a-half novels in less than three years' time.
- In spite of everything I've written here so far, I am intensely proud of both of these stats.
Speaking of pride, shall we move on to the set of statistics that make me the proudest of all?
Total page views: 2,146
Average page views per week: 15
Highest page views for a single post: 117
Lowest page views for a single post: 3
They say that if you do any one thing on the internet for long enough, you'll eventually find an audience. I am just pleased as punch to have disproved that rule. The post that got 117 views — still paltry, by any reasonable standard — accidentally demonstrated the real way to find an audience on the internet. It only received such a substantially above average number of readers because I got retweeted by one of the post's subjects, the food scientist and cookbook author J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.
By the way, the post that got only three views was 3,000 words long. That's one reader per thousand words.
"Really don't mind if you sit this one out." — Jethro Tull
When I started this project, I started it for myself. I made it public only for the sake of accountability. The thing that makes me proudest of all is that I kept writing Omnireviewer for as long as I did in spite of the fact that nobody read it. The human mind is a cobweb ball of rationalizations and suppressed motives. I've never felt like I can be entirely sure when I'm just looking for attention. But surely, here is numerical proof that this project stayed true to its roots.
One final note on the statistics, that only slightly undercuts what I've said above: these numbers don't account for the people who saw my reviews on the associated Tumblr account. In some cases, this was substantially more, but mostly it was not. The numbers also don't account for the homepage, which got a significant bump on weeks when my site's URL was read on the radio. In the interest of transparency, my homepage has been visited 7,163 times since I started Omnireviewer. What a pathetic number. I love it.
On the topic of the radio: the best thing to come out of this blog was a column that I've been doing on CBC Radio 1's North by Northwest since June of last year. I pitched it as a recurring summer feature on the show, and it just never stopped. Since the beginning, that column has distilled the best of this blog into purposeful nuggets of meaning and connection. It is Omnireviewer at its most Pensieve-like.
In the written edition of Omnireviewer, anything might prompt a veiled exegesis on the disappointments and regrets of my life. The Beatles' Help. Olivia Liang's deeply relatable work of memoir-through-art-criticism The Lonely City. The death of Anthony Bourdain. Chris Gethard. Maria Bamford. In the written edition, the music of Brian Eno is not only ingenious, but kind and restorative. In the written edition, Alison Bechdel is a saint, because she confirms the value in reading your own life as literature, like I do — drawing connections, parsing out meaning, converting subtext to text.
But on the radio, it isn't about me. It can't be. A public radio audience requires you to put aside your self-indulgence in a way that a blog with 15 readers just doesn't. And that made for a far superior version of this project. Many paragraphs ago, I asserted that Omnireviewer wasn't very good. That's true, at least of its original form. But its radio form is one of the things I'm proudest of in my entire career so far.
In my last radio column of 2017, I flirted more dangerously than usual with the masked confessional approach of the blog. But I'm glad I did. I finished it with a segment on Margo Price's "Learning to Lose," a heartbreaking duet with Willie Nelson that struck a chord with me immediately. I closed out my year in radio with the sentiment: "Maybe next year we'll learn to win." Three months later I got a job as the associate producer of North by Northwest. I ran around, waving my arms in the air and laughing like a maniac. The context for this blog collapsed in a heap.
To me, Charlie Brown is not the hero of the Peanuts comics. It's Linus — the would-be philosopher who stays positive in spite of his insecurities, which are made manifest in the blanket he cannot be parted from. Omnireviewer was a security blanket I wove to shield myself from the emptiness of my life. But unlike Linus, I'm not stuck in time. I can outgrow my compulsions. I don't need my blanket anymore. Life is good. More to the point — life is good in spite of the fact that lots of specific things about it are not. At last, we're back to where we started.
"God keep me from ever completing anything." — Herman Melville
In the months to come, I'll work on other things in my spare time. But not because I need to for my sanity — because there are things I want to make that I think people might enjoy. I'll keep posting fun nonsense to this blog. Notes on Moby-Dick will return. I'm thinking about writing more short fiction. Maybe I'll rank all the tracks on ABBA Gold. And I'm going to make some tweaks to those podcasts I alluded to earlier, and hopefully get them out in the world before too long. That's what I'm going to do with the time I would have spent on Omnibus. I'm not convinced I could bring myself to do any of it if not for this blog. I've learned so much from doing this. I've made connections I never would have made. I've learned about the conditions under which I do my best and worst work. I got a job that I probably wouldn't have gotten if not for this blog and the radio spots it inspired. And I have kept my head above water. I have nothing but warm feelings for this weird-ass thing I've been doing these past few years.
And so it comes to this. Omnireviewer has fulfilled its purpose, and fulfilled it better than I could ever have foreseen. Time now to set it adrift in the obscure internet sea where it has always resided and always will.
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OverviewMusic project by the magazine BLAG – inspired by Janis Joplin: Estelle, David Banner and Daley create a new Mercedes songNew appearance for a bestseller: The new generation C-ClassNew challenges for the B-Class F-CELL: F-CELL World Drive on the way back to Europe - more than 14,000 kilometres from ChinOne world premiere and three Chinese premieresThe new CLS-Class: Refined sportinessThe new Mercedes-Benz SLK Roadster: Passion, style and innovative technology – the new SLK sets standardsWorld premiere at the "Auto Shanghai" show - Mercedes Concept A-Class: the first heartbeat of a new generation125 years of innovation: "The love of invention never ceases" – from the Benz patent motor car to the second invention of t
Apr 19, 2011
Stuttgart/Shanghai. In 1993 Mercedes-Benz ventured into a completely new vehicle class with the revolutionary concept of the Vision A 93. Now the brand is once again presenting a car that might have come from another planet: the Mercedes Concept A-Class is the first heartbeat of a new generation whose expressive design stands for concentrated dynamism. The Mercedes-Benz Concept A-Class is celebrating its premiere at the Auto Shanghai show (21 to 28 April 2011). The technical highlights of this front-wheel drive Concept car include a new, turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine developing 155 kW (210 hp), a dual clutch transmission and a radar-based collision warning system with adaptive Brake Assist.
A long bonnet, low silhouette and slim window areas: the proportions of the Concept A-Class stand for concentrated dynamism. Its sporty appearance is given particular depth by the interplay between lines and surfaces. "The Concept A-Class introduces the new Mercedes-Benz design idiom into the compact class in a sculptured, light and expressive interpretation," says Professor Gorden Wagener, Head of Design at Mercedes-Benz. "We use the term 'captured energy' to express the sheer dynamism exuded by the Concept A-Class. Our formal sources of inspiration were the wind and waves, as well as aviation engineering, resulting in this "cool" look."
New turbocharged petrol engine, seven-speed dual clutch transmission
But it is not only visually, but also technologically that the Concept A-Class is ushering in a new compact class era at Mercedes-Benz. This front-wheel drive model is powered by a four-cylinder petrol engine from the new M270 series. It was designed for transverse installation, and thanks to direct injection and turbocharging it offers a high performance potential together with minimal emissions and fuel consumption. Other highlights of the all-aluminium engine include injection pressures of up to 200 bar and fast-responding piezo injectors.
The Concept A-Class is equipped with the two-litre variant of the new engine,
developing 155 kW (210 hp). This BlueEFFICIENCY unit is combined with the new Mercedes-Benz dual clutch transmission. As a three-shaft transmission, this has seven forward gears which are shifted automatically with no interruption in tractive power. The new transmission is therefore particularly economical, sporty and comfortable.
developing 155 kW (210 hp). This BlueEFFICIENCY unit is combined with the new Mercedes-Benz dual clutch transmission. As a three-shaft transmission, this has seven forward gears which are shifted automatically with no interruption in tractive power. The new transmission is therefore particularly economical, sporty and comfortable.
Exterior design with defined edges and a free interplay with the body
One major characteristic of the new design idiom at Mercedes-Benz is the expressive interplay between lines and surfaces – which the designers refer to as a "clean" Concept. Thanks to concave and convex surfaces with the resulting light modulation, this creates a unique sculpture-like presence. The Concept A‑Class emphatically continues this theme of defined edges and interacting surfaces, which Mercedes-Benz first showed in the F 800 Style. The side view is structured by three prominent lines: the front structural edge forms a dropping line towards the rear, while the pronounced shoulder muscle over the rear axle emphasises the car's coupé-like character. A further line extends upwards in front of the rear wheel arch in a sweeping curve. These lines lend more depth and dynamism to the side profile. The door handles are recessed into the doors, and emerge electrically at the touch of a button.
The unusual, wing-like structure of the exterior mirrors is suggestive of flow and lightness. Another prominent feature is the open side skirt, which creates an unusual light-and-shadow effect. Reminiscent of a turbine rotor, the large 20-inch wheels reinforce the impression that the Concept A-Class has been shaped by the wind.
The front end of the Concept A-Class is a real eye-catcher. The brand logo appears to be surrounded by a starry sky. Where there are usually apertures or louvres, the radiator grille consists of numerous metallic silver "dots" on black stems. This theme is reflected in the design of the wheels.
The visually wide rear end exudes power and athleticism, and is likewise enlivened by an interplay between convex/concave surfaces and pronounced edges. The tail light clusters continue the lines of the muscular shoulders towards the rear, emphasising the car's width with their horizontal orientation. The aerodynamic spoiler lip in the tail lights improves efficiency, while the diffuser creates a downforce to aid roadholding.
Interior dominated by associations with aviation engineering
The interior of the Concept A-Class, which is flooded with light from the large
panoramic roof, likewise appears to be from another planet. Many of the unusual features were inspired by aircraft engineering, at the same time reflecting ideas from the "Mercedes-Benz Aesthetics No. 2" interior sculpture. Various component groups have been reduced to a minimum, for example the dashboard and centre console are merely brushed aluminium structures. The result is a transparent, light, bionic design effect.
panoramic roof, likewise appears to be from another planet. Many of the unusual features were inspired by aircraft engineering, at the same time reflecting ideas from the "Mercedes-Benz Aesthetics No. 2" interior sculpture. Various component groups have been reduced to a minimum, for example the dashboard and centre console are merely brushed aluminium structures. The result is a transparent, light, bionic design effect.
As an extremely eye-catching detail inside the Concept A-Class, the dashboard takes the form of an aircraft wing and has a translucent, stretchable textile lining. Thanks to this sophisticated fabric, which is vapour-coated with chrome particles, the bionic cellular structure of the dashboard remains visible – its design is reminiscent of a canvas-covered aircraft wing whose underlying struts are discernable. Dramatic backlighting makes this instrument carrier appear particularly futuristic. Thanks to the translucent high-tech lining and lack of a conventional support structure, the dashboard appears to be free-floating. Its lines continue into the door panelling like vapour trails from the winglets of a jet.
The form of the air vents in the dashboard is likewise inspired by the engines of a jet aircraft. The translucent, backlit vents change their colour depending on the temperature the occupants have selected for the climate control system: they are blue if cool, fresh air is vented into the interior, but red if the airflow is heated. The prominent displays in the instrument cluster, which were inspired by the afterburner of a jet engine, are likewise in red. The central control unit is designed as a high-tech flight panel with a shift lever in the shape of a "thrust control". With their moulded-over head restraints and very pronounced lateral support, the seats call the pilot seat in a jet fighter to mind.
Titanium and silver tones are combined with a light, elegant beige in the interior. Magenta is used to produce highlights that contrast with the car's alubeam silver paint finish, which follows the dynamic contours of the exterior like liquid silver.
The Concept A-Class makes use of modern materials such as the high-tech lining on the dashboard, or metallised leather where semi-aniline is dyed with metallic pigments and embossed, and also high-grade nubuk leather. This builds a bridge between 125-year tradition of the Mercedes-Benz brand and its claim to progressiveness.
COMAND Online with revolutionary graphic design offers ease of use for smartphone applications
A smartphone is fully integrated into the operating systems of the Concept A‑Class. When the phone is inserted into the recess provided in the centre console, it is automatically synchronised with the COMAND multimedia system. All the functions of the smartphone, including internet radio, email and social networks such as Twitter or Facebook, are shown as applications on the 17.8 cm display and can be operated via the rotary/push control.
The visual presentation of the screen elements is unique, with a deep, three-dimensional look created by laser-like, magenta-coloured lines. This near-series display Concept was designed and realised by designers and engineers at the Mercedes-Benz development laboratory in Palo Alto/USA. The menus in the Concept A-Class are in both Mandarin and English.
Headlamps with optical fibres produce a unique effect
A very special effect is created by the lights of the Concept A-Class, as the innovative full-LED high-performance headlamps repeat the starry sky motif of the radiator grille with numerous lighting points. The daytime running lamps consist of 90 optical fibres with aluminium sleeves, and they are arranged in a wing-shape within the headlamp. The tentacle-like fibres form individual, diffused light sources to create a dramatic contrast between soft and harsh.
From any perspective an unusual effect is also created by the LED indicators, which appear to float freely within the headlamps like an enclosed air bubble in a perfume bottle. The indicators are mounted in six chambers at the top of the perspex headlamp unit, and their vapour-coated reflectors remain invisible.
As already brought to series production maturity in the Mercedes CLS, the LED high-performance headlamps of the Concept A-Class combine the Intelligent Light System with LED technology. The projection module of these LED headlamps is no longer round, but rather flatter and more sporty. This sporty impression is reinforced by the matt carbon-fibre housing, which contrasts with the aluminium surround of the projection module.
Optical fibres with aluminium sleeves are also used in the tail lights. 120 optical fibre lighting points form each C-shaped tail light cluster to create a unique visual effect with their subtle glow. They are appropriately lit up for the brake light function. When braking, the continuous light band between the two tail light clusters also lights up to make the Concept A-Class appear even wider. The indicators are self-contained elements in the centre of the tail lights. The base unit of the tail light is of carbon-fibre, with the numerous red elements ensuring visual depth.
New assistance and braking system reduces the risk of rear-end collisions
In the Concept A-Class, safety pioneer Mercedes-Benz is showing another milestone in the democratisation of automotive safety technology: the concept car is equipped with a radar-based collision warning system with adaptive Brake Assist – a world first in the compact class. This system gives a visual and acoustic warning to a possibly inattentive driver, and prepares Brake Assist for an absolutely precise braking response which is initiated as soon as the driver emphatically operates the brake pedal.
In contrast to other systems available in the market for the compact class, the new Brake Assist Collision Prevention Assist is not merely an urban driving system designed to minimise the effects of minor collisions. Instead this innovative solution aims to provide protection against typical rear-end collisions in all driving situations. Mercedes-Benz expects the new safety system to have a significant, positive effect on accident statistics. Following detailed analyses of accident data, Mercedes-Benz safety specialists estimate that this radar-based technology can help to prevent around 20 percent of all rear-end collisions, and mitigate the severity of a further 25 percent.
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'Tis the season for all things delicious and a fine time for wonderful classics like gingerbread, though I'm on heavy-duty gingerbread overload right now. I've made more than a dozen gingerbread houses for both professional and personal projects, a few types of cookies for gifts and taught a fancy decorated ornament class. The house smells permanently of molasses and spice. It's rather festive and beats a Yankee Candle any day.
Posts Tagged 'spice cake'
'tis the season for butter and booze … Old Fashioned Gingerbread with Bourbon Sauce
Posted in cakes, holidays, sunday lunch, tagged bourbon sauce, gingerbread cake, old fashioned gingerbread, spice cake on December 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »


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Symptoms of Kidney Disease The kidney is an important part of our body. It is a disease which damages our body very silently. First, we cannot find it in our body. But when it is going to more complex then we get its existence. So, it is the most important …Read More »
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Michigan advances behind Sheffer's double-double
Stanford, CA – Rachel Sheffer tallied 16 points and 13 rebounds as the eighth-seeded Michigan Wolverines held off the ninth-seeded Villanova Wildcats, 60-52, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Maples Pavilion.
Kate Thompson led all scorers with 17 points for the Wolverines (22-10), who will play top-seeded Stanford in Tuesday's second round. Jenny Ryan scored 13 points in the triumph, while Nya Jordan added 12 points and nine boards.
Laura Sweeney shot 7-of-10 from the field on her way to 16 points for Villanova (21-11), while Devon Kane came off the bench to add 12 points.
Although Michigan shot just 36 percent from the field in the first half, it drained all six of its free-throw attempts as it went into the break with a 26-24 lead. Villanova shot only 37.5 percent from the floor in the opening 20 minutes, but it used a 7-0 run at the end of the half to close the gap.
After the Wildcats tied the game early in the second half, the Wolverines ripped off a 9-0 surge over the next three minutes. Villanova brought its deficit to just one with under eight minutes to play, but Michigan used a 12-3 run down the stretch to seal its fate.
Michigan won the rebounding battle, 39-28. Villanova was plagued by a poor 3- point shooting night (6-of-26).


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Mary Ann and David are getting the fish onto the tree! Today I received a whole school of more than 200 wonderful origami fish folded by the students of St. Ann School (huge thanks to Gemma Amero Flavin, their art teacher!). I don't have an exact total count yet, but with these new additions and those folded throughout the week, we probably have close to 700! Keep folding fish to help us reach our goal of 1000!
I'll be folding a star for the top sometime in the next few days.


text: The following article appeared in the August 1855 issue of "The Photographic and Fine Art Journal" (Vol. VIII, No. 7) pp. 252-3: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DAGUERREOTYPING ON THE MISSISSIPPI. Dear Editor:--As you expressed a desire that I should give you an account of my experience during the past twelve months, I now retire a few minutes from business for that purpose. In the first place, I must inform you that my business now, is wholly conducted on the River. I have run two floating galleries down, and am now fitting out another, and expect to start down in a few weeks. This kind of Gallery, I suppose, is rather new to most of your eastern operators: however, it is becoming quite popular in the west. Last year I fitted one up at this city, which I took down as far as Bayou Goula, on the sugar coast, one hundred miles above New Orleans. We have out boats fitted out with every convenience for taking likenesses. In front of all, is the reception room. In our sitting room we have a large side and sky light that enables us to operate in from five to ten seconds in fair weather. The dampness does not affect our operation half so much as a person would imagine that it would on the river. Notwithstanding, we have to guard against it continually. There is something about a Flat-Boat Gallery that savors very much of the romantic; however, it is not half so romantic as convenient. I am almost induced to think that there cannot be a more convenient plan devised for travelling operators than a Floating Gallery. As soon as the boat is landed we are ready for operations, without all that extra trouble that travelling artists usually experience in unpacking and setting up ready for operating. And there is no lack of conveyance; as soon as we are ready to leave, we untie our lines, spring upon deck, catch hold of our oars, and are off for another "port." Besides, we are entirely independent. If business is good, we can remain, if dull we can leave; we are not tied to one particular place. When we are not employed, we can fish or hunt, as best suits our fancy, as the rivers are thronged with ducks and wild geese. While we are floating along, we are not unfrequently amused by the inhabitants along the shore. Their houses, customs, &c., in many places are very peculiar. And, then, there is that universal annoyance that every boatman must endure, of answering the foolish questions that are asked on shore, mostly by the "colored population," such as, "What's yer loadin?" "What ye got to sell?" or "Where ye gwine to lay to-night; got any whiskey?" and so many other such foolish questions, that you may imagine that persons with an artistic craft like our Magic No. 3, would not at all times feel disposed to return them correct, or even satisfactory answers. In this respect, we amused ourselves in proportion to the annoyance. However, it is not to be wondered at, that they should take us to be traders, there being such a large number of that class of boats on the river. Indeed, there is no kind of business that does not find its way on the river. There are merchants, grocers, carpenters, cabinet- makers, blacksmiths, tinners, coopers, painters, shoe-makers, wagon- makers, plough-makers, (and I should have said likeness makers), saddlers, jewellers, potters, glass-blowers, doctors, dentists, showmen, ventriloquists, machinists, jugglers, Barnums, black-legs, gamblers, thieves, humbugs, museums, concerts, circuses, menageries, Tom Thumbs and baby shows, "till you can't rest." Indeed you could not name any business from the quack doctor to the Bar tender, that is not represented on the western rivers. And the bosom of the "Mighty Father of Waters" may truly be compared to the streets of a great city, where motley crowds from every nation are flocking to find sale for their merchandise, produce and manufactures. A full description of this river, with its trades and traffics, would be very interesting to those unacquainted with it. Those who have never navigated this river can have no conception of its vastness, nor of the amount of trade that is carried on along its shores, and on its surface. In a good stage of water, I suppose, that in regard to depth, velocity, and amount of water that flows down this stream, it is not surpassed in the world. Last year I left New Albany, on the first of March; stopped at about fifty landings, took something near one thousand likenesses, travelled (by water,) near fourteen hundred miles, arriving, as before stated, upon the sugar coast, where the French language is universally spoken. Here the weather became rather too warm for my northern blood, at a season of the year, (June) bordering so close upon that of the yellow fever, and I did not find it practicable to remain longer; so I boxed up, sold the Boat, (or rather gave it away,) and boarded the fine steamer Belle Sheridan, for home, where I arrived in something less than six days. Thus ends last year's experience. As I am on the eve of making a similar "Trip," if you desire that I should give you an account of all that is interesting, you will please let it be known. In the mean time if there are any points that I have not touched upon, connected with my business,--manner of traveling, &c., that you would like to be enlightened upon, please let me know, and I will give you all the information I can. For the present, I remain yours, &c., New Albany, July 18th 1855 SAM. F. SIMPSON. A little more of the "lay of the land, and the looks of the people," as daguerreotyped from day to day, would interest.--Ed. [Transcriber's note: I made two corrections to what I considered original typographical errors. In the fourth paragraph, I changed the original "Bayon" to "Bayou." In the fifth paragraph, I added the word "not" in order to make sense of the statement: "If business is good, we can remain, if dull we can leave; we are **not** tied to one particular place." -Gary W. Ewer, 8-11-97] -------------------------------------------------------------- 08-05-97