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The word mooc sounds a bit like slang from Goodfellas or the affectionate shortening of the already-affectionate name of a former outfielder for the New York Mets. In fact, a MOOC is a new kind of college-like experience that seems to possess the magical power to turn some of the smartest people in academia into followers of a faith-based cult because they want to become its idols.
MOOC stands for "massive open online course." The term was coined by a group of Canadian academics in 2008 to represent a recently invented type of online class that depends upon small group interactions for most of the instruction. More recently, three instructors in the Stanford University computer science department appropriated that term to start two separate private education companies, Udacity and Coursera. Despite being free of charge, the MOOCs that these firms offer bear a more-than-passing resemblance to ordinary college classes—except they are delivered over the Internet to tens of thousands of people at once.
How do you teach tens of thousands of people anything at once? You don't. What you can do over the Internet this way is deliver information, but that's not education. Education, as any real teacher will tell you, involves more than just transmitting facts. It means teaching students what to do with those facts, as well as the skills they need to go out and learn new information themselves.
But the most common way to assess learning in the MOOCs offered by the largest providers is a single multiple-choice question after approximately five-minute chunks of pre-taped lectures. If I had told my tenure committee that I taught history this way, I'd be in another line of work right now. Anyone who has the slightest interest or expertise in education would never teach this way, even if they were paid to do so.
Despite the obvious problems with assessment, some of the best-known faculty at big-name universities across the United States and around the world have decided to become "superprofessors," the people whose names are attached to these MOOCs because they do most of the lecturing. While very few of them have publicly discussed the compensation that they may or may not receive for their services, my guess would be that most superprofessors became superprofessors because the chance to become higher-education rock stars got the best of them, as the ones willing to talk publicly about compensation are making little or nothing.
Unfortunately for everyone else in academia, their fame will likely come at a very steep price. From an administrative standpoint, the beauty of MOOCs is that they provide an easy opportunity to drastically cut labor costs by firing existing faculty members or simply hiring poorly trained ones—whom they won't have to pay well—to help administer the class. After all, this way of thinking goes, why should I hire a new Ph.D. when I can get the best professors in the world piped into my university's classrooms?
Just asking that question is an insult to dedicated faculty members at universities everywhere. The answer is easy to anyone who understands how real education works. Local professors answer their students' questions while superprofessors are, as one recent New York Times op-ed put it, "only slightly more accessible than the pope or Thomas Pynchon." More importantly, local professors can offer their students the kind of personalized education that no massive course ever can.
Ask any superprofessor why he or she decided to get involved in MOOC and you'll probably hear a long speech about improving access to higher education. Daphne Koller, one of the Stanford professors behind the MOOC provider Coursera, gave a much-viewed TED talk that centers almost exclusively on the tragedy of higher-education deprivation in the developing world. Her evaluation of the extent of that problem has been forcefully challenged by Jon Beasley-Murray of the University of British Columbia. Whichever side of that dispute is right, the cynicism of focusing on access to higher ed in the developing world when one-third of student loan borrowers in the United States never even finish college simply boggles the mind.
Talking about access to higher education allows MOOC providers like Coursera to avoid discussing the effect their services will have on people who work in higher education now. Professors, believe it or not, are people, too. They have families and health problems and student loans of their own. Moreover, three-quarters of American college instructors work on a contingent basis, for a median income of $2,700 per course, often without benefits of any kind. Since these faculty members also have no chance at tenure, these adjunct faculty members would be by far the easiest professors to replace with MOOCs.
What makes this possible is that MOOCs, at least from an educational standpoint, are designed to run themselves. The lectures are pre-recorded. The grading is done either by computer or by other students in the class, should they choose to do the assignments at all. The average drop-out rates for existing MOOCs is about 90 percent, so while Coursera may offer access to higher education anywhere in the world where potential students can get the Internet, it offers no guarantee that anybody will actually learn anything.
While providing a free education to the world is a noble thought, there's very little money in it. The MOOC providers' profits, if they ever appear, will come from creating replacements for existing college classes. I think it's time for us non-superprofessors to forcefully explain to our newly famous colleagues how their MOOCs are already adversely affecting the terms and conditions of our employment, and are likely to do so even more in the future. The San Jose State University philosophy department has already offered up an extraordinary example of how this might be done in an open letter to the Harvard superprofessor Michael Sandel. The rest of us have much more similar work to do.
For those of you outside of academia, I would ask only that you not take the kind of higher education that you may have had for granted any longer. Somewhere right now, private companies, university administrators, and/or politicians are already planning an all-MOOC future for most of tomorrow's college students. Unlike today's MOOC participants, these future students will have to pay for access to them. Only the most privileged students will still have in-person access to highly qualified professors.
While MOOCs may serve a purpose as nerdy edu-tainment for people who are so inclined, a workforce trained without close contact with professors of any kind might as well not attend college at all. Going to the library and reading a bunch of books would be equally effective, and probably a whole lot cheaper.
Also in Slate, Gabriel Kahn writes about Georgia Tech's plan to offer an online master's in computer science.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Ship aground off Italy; 3 bodies found, 69 missing
PORTO SANTO STEFANO: Survivors from a luxury cruise ship that ran aground and tipped over, leaving at least three dead and 69 people still unaccounted for, described Saturday a chaotic evacuation, as plates and glasses crashed and they crawled along upended hallways trying to reach safety.Three bodies were recovered from the sea after the Costa Concordia ran aground off the tiny island of Giglio near the coast of Tuscany late Friday, tearing a 160-foot (50-meter) gash in its hull and sending in a rush of water.The ANSA news agency quoting the prefect's office in the province of Grosseto as saying that authorities have accounted for 4,165 of the 4,234 people who had boarded the liner.By morning Saturday, the ship was lying virtually flat off Gigio's coast, its starboard side submerged in the water and the huge gash showing clearly on its upturned hull.Passengers described a scene reminiscent of "Titanic", complaining the crew failed to give instructions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many of them to be released.Helicopters plucked to safety some people who were trapped on the ship, some survivors were rescued by boats in the area, and witnesses said some people jumped from the ship into the dark, cold sea. Coast guard rescuers were continuing to search the ship for passengers.Authorities still hadn't counted all the survivors by the time they reached mainland 12 hours later.The evacuation drill was only scheduled for Saturday afternoon, even though some passengers had already been on board for several days."It was so unorganized, our evacuation drill was scheduled for 5 p.m.," said Melissa Goduti, 28, of Wallingford, Connecticut, who had set out on the cruise of the Mediterranean hours earlier. "We had joked 'What if something had happened today?'""Have you seen 'Titanic?' That's exactly what it was," said Valerie Ananias, 31, a schoolteacher from Los Angeles who was traveling with her sister and parents on the first of two cruises around the Mediterranean. They all bore dark red bruises on their knees from the desperate crawl they endured along nearly vertical hallways and stairwells, trying to reach rescue boats."We were crawling up a hallway, in the dark, with only the light from the life vest strobe flashing," her mother, Georgia Ananias, 61 said. "We could hear plates and dishes crashing, people slamming against walls."She choked up as she recounted the moment when an Argentine couple handed her their 3-year-old daughter, unable to keep their balance as the ship lurched to the side and the family found themselves standing on a wall. "He said 'take my baby,'" Mrs. Ananias said, covering her mouth with her hand as she teared up. "I grabbed the baby. But then I was being pushed down. I didn't want the baby to fall down the stairs. I gave the baby back. I couldn't hold her."I thought that was the end and I thought they should be with their baby," she said."I wonder where they are," daughter Valerie whispered.The family said they were some of the last off the ship, forced to shimmy along a rope down the exposed side of the ship to a waiting rescue vessel below.Survivor Christine Hammer, from Bonn, Germany, shivered near the harbor of Porto Santo Stefano, on the mainland, after stepping off a ferry from Giglio. She was wearing elegant dinner clothes — a gray cashmere sweater, a silk scarf — along with a large pair of hiking boots, which a kind islander gave her after she lost her shoes in the scramble to escape. Left behind in her cabin were her passport, credit cards and phone.Hammer, 65, told The Associated Press that she was eating her first course, an appetizer of cuttlefish, sauteed mushrooms and salad, on her first night aboard her first-ever cruise, which was a gift to her and her husband, Gert, from her local church where she volunteers.Suddenly, "we heard a crash. Glasses and plates fell down and we went out of the dining room and we were told it wasn't anything dangerous," she said.Several passengers concurred, saying crew members for a good 45 minutes told passengers there was a simple "technical problem" that had caused the lights to go off. Seasoned cruisers, however, knew better and went to get their life jackets from their cabins and report to their "muster stations," the emergency stations each passenger is assigned to, they said.Once there, though, crew members delayed lowering the lifeboats even thought the ship was listing badly, they said."We had to scream at the controllers to release the boats from the side," said Mike van Dijk, a 54-year-old from Pretoria, South Africa. "We were standing in the corridors and they weren't allowing us to get onto the boats. It was a scramble, an absolute scramble."Passengers Alan and Laurie Willits from Wingham, Ontario, celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, said they were watching the magic show in the ship's main theater when they felt an inital lurch, as if from a severe steering maneuver, followed a few seconds later by a "shudder" that tipped trash cans over. The subsequent listing of the ship made the theater curtains seem like they were standing on their side."And then the magician disappeared," Laurie Willits said, saying the magician left the stage and panicked audience members fled for their cabins as well.Once at their life boat station, crew members directed passengers to go upstairs from the fourth floor deck; Alan Willits said he refused."I said 'no this isn't right.' And I came out and I argued 'When you get this boat stabilized, I'll go up to the fifth floor then," he said. Eventually, his lifeboat was lowered down.But things didn't improve for passengers once aboard the lifeboats or on land."No one counted us, neither in the life boats nor on land," said Ophelie Gondelle, 28, a French military officer from Marseille. She said there had been no evacuation drill since she boarded in Marseille, France on Jan. 8.As dawn neared, a painstaking search of the 290-meter (950-foot) long ship's interior was being conducted to see if anyone might have been trapped inside, Paolillo said."There are some 2,000 cabins, and the ship isn't straight," Paolillo said, referring to the Concordia's dramatic more than 45-degree tilt. "I'll leave it to your imagination to understand how they (the rescuers) are working as they move through it."Some Concordia crew members were still aboard to help the coast guard rescuers, he said.Paolillo said it wasn't immediately known if the dead were passengers or crew, nor were the nationalities of the victims immediately known. It wasn't clear how they died.Some 30 people were reported injured, most of them suffering only bruises, but at least two people were reported in grave condition. Several passengers came off the ferries on stretchers, but it appeared more out of exhaustion and shock than serious injury.Some passengers, apparently in panic, had jumped off the boat into the sea, witnesses said. Authorities were trying to obtain a full passenger and crew list from Costa, so they could do a roll call to determine who might be missing.The evacuees were taking refuge in schools, hotels, and a church on the tiny island of Giglio, a popular vacation isle about 18 miles (25 kilometers) off Italy's central west coast. Those evacuated the port of Porto Santo Stefano on the nearby mainland.Passengers sat dazed in a middle school opened for them, wrapped in wool or aluminum blankets, with some wearing their life preservers and their shoeless feet covered with aluminum foil. Civil protection crews served them warm tea and bread, but confusion reigned supreme as passengers tried desperately to find the right bus to begin their journey home.Tanja Berto, from Ebenfurth, Austria, was shuttled from one line to another with her mother and 2-year-old son Bruno, trying to figure out how to get back to Savona, where they began their cruise a week ago."It's his birthday today," she said of her son, rolling her eyes as she held Bruno and tended to her mother, who had grown faint and was lying on the ground. "Happy birthday, Bruno."Survivors far outnumbered Giglio's 1,500 residents, and island Mayor Sergio Ortelli issued an appeal for islanders — "anyone with a roof" — to open their homes to shelter the evacuees.Paolillo said the exact circumstances of the accident were still unclear, but that the first alarm went off about 10:30 p.m., about three hours after the Concordia had begun its voyage from the port of Civitavecchia, en route to its first port of call, Savona, in northwestern Italy.The coast guard official, speaking from the port captain's office in the Tuscan port of Livorno, said the vessel "hit an obstacle" — it wasn't clear if it might have hit a rocky reef in the waters off Giglio — "ripping a gash 50 meters (160 feet) across" in the side of the ship, and started taking on water.The cruise liner's captain, Paolillo said, then tried to steer his ship toward shallow waters, near Giglio's small port, to make evacuation by lifeboat easier. But after the ship started listing badly, lifeboat evacuation was no longer feasible, Paolillo said.Five helicopters, from the coast guard, navy and air force, were taking turns airlifting survivors still aboard and ferrying them to safely. A coast guard member was airlifted aboard the vessel to help people get aboard a small basket so they could be hoisted up to the helicopter, said Capt. Cosimo Nicastro, another Coast Guard official.Costa Cruises said the Costa Concordia was sailing on a cruise across the Mediterranean Sea, starting from Civitavecchia with scheduled calls to Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo.It said about 1,000 Italian passengers were onboard, as well as more than 500 Germans, about 160 French and about 1,000 crew members.The Concordia had a previous accident in Italian waters, ANSA reported. In 2008, when strong winds buffeted Palermo, the cruise ship banged against the Sicilian port's dock, and suffered damage but no one was injured, ANSA said. AGENCIES


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Friday, 18 October 2013 03:25 AM EDT
PANAMA CITY — The North Korean crew and ship detained in Panama for smuggling Cuban weapons three months ago will soon be returned to the reclusive Asian nation, Panama's foreign minister said Thursday.
The crew's return would mark the end of a bizarre chapter between the three countries that provoked international controversy after the ship was seized in July for smuggling military-style arms under 10,000 tons of sugar.
Repairs to the ship are nearly completed so the crew can sail back in the same vessel, Foreign Minister Fernando Nunez Fabrega told Reuters.
While the U.N. Security Council has yet to decide on penalties against Cuba, given a 7-year-old ban against arms transfers to North Korea due to the country's nuclear weapons program, the arms will likely be sold or given away, Nunez Fabrega added.
In July, the North Korean crew sabotaged its electrical system and bilge pumps after Panamanian investigators stopped the ship near the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal on suspicion it was carrying drugs after leaving Cuba.
The North Korean flagged ship, known as the Chong Chon Gang, will be returned after the vessel's owner formally signs off on the plan, Nunez Fabrega said.
Panama has issued visas for two North Korean diplomats to arrive shortly and complete the procedure.
Meanwhile, 33 of the 35 crew members, held at a former U.S. army base on charges of threatening Panama's security, "appear to be ignorant of what was in the cargo," Nunez Fabrega said.
"As a result, if the Attorney General determines they are not criminally responsible for their actions, they cannot be prosecuted," he said.
Both the captain, who tried to slit his throat after Panamanian investigators seized the ship, and his deputy consistently refused to give statements during their detention, officials said. As a result, they might still face trial.
The whole crew refused efforts to put them in contact with their families, said Nunez Fabrega.
"Their families in North Korea must think they sunk with the boat," he said.
After the ship was seized, Havana requested that Panama release it, claiming the vessel carried only the sugar cargo as a donation to the people of North Korea.
But once the arms were discovered beneath the sugar, the Cuban government acknowledged it was sending "obsolete" Soviet-era weapons, including two MiG jets, 15 MiG engines and nine anti-aircraft missiles, to be repaired in North Korea and returned.
An analysis by 38 North, a website run by the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Maryland, found the weapons shipment was larger than Cuba acknowledged and that many of the weapons were in "mint condition".
The analysis concluded the arms were intended for North Korea's own use.
Inspections of the equipment show they were "obviously not obsolete" as Cuba maintained, said Nunez Fabrega.
"One of the jets had kerosene in them, showing it was recently used," he said. "Of the 15 jet engines, 10 were in immaculate condition."
Since then, Panama has had "zero" communication with Havana, although it made at least four attempts. Havana also canceled a scheduled meeting between government officials from both countries at the United Nations last month.
"It was like talking to a brick wall," Nunez Fabrega said.
A six-member U.N. team inspected the weapons in August but still seeks answers from Cuba about the shipment to provide a U.N. sanctions committee a full report.
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Ojai, CA 93023 | ID: 55744
|Country Village Mobile Home Park
|Type of community
|All-ages community
|Lot rent range
|$800 - $1,600
|Climate Zone Rating
The lot rent ranges from $800 - $1,600 per month and includes:
Country Village Mobile Home Park is a manufactured/mobile home community located in Ojai, CA 93023.
Owner or manager of this community? Claim this community and update/add more information.
Country Village Mobile Home Park is located in Climate Zone 4. A MARINE climate is defined as a region that receives less than 20 inches (50 cm) of annual precipitation, and where the monthly average outdoor temperature drops below 45 45°F (7°C) during the winter months.
Knowing your area's climate zone (as assigned by the U.S. Department of Energy's Building America Program into one of eight zones), can help you predict your heating and cooling needs. Humidity and temperature can of course vary, even by county.
The Building America MARINE climate zone corresponds to the portions of IECC zones 3 and 4 and located in the "C" moisture category.READ MORE ABOUT CLIMATE ZONES >


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Grandma can speak up to keep phone conversations private (copy)
Dear Abby: My granddaughter and her boyfriend live in another state, and I love hearing from her. However, when I call her, she always puts me on speaker phone, which I find rude.
I have never met her boyfriend and don't feel he should be in on everything I may talk to my granddaughter about. I think she's forming a bad habit. Am I wrong for feeling this way?
— Private Grandma in Florida
Dear Private: I don't think so. Not every word that comes out of your mouth should be community property. The next time it happens, all you have to do is say: "Honey, take me off the speaker, please."
Dear Abby: My wife, "Carlene," is a neonatal ICU nurse who is required to work a certain number of holidays. For the past 12 years, her family has feigned attempting to accommodate her schedule and then planned holiday events at the same exact time and place as the year before. They have ignored repeated explanations and don't seem to care if we come or not.
For example, last Thanksgiving, they once again made a big deal about everyone sending their schedules via email. We responded that Carlene would have to work until 3 p.m. Shortly after, we received a call from the host, who said: "We know you can't make it, but the celebration will be at 12 sharp! Maybe we'll see you some other time."
Abby, my wife feels like she is unimportant to everyone. She plans to stop attending all family events and celebrate only with me and our daughter. While that would be easier, I know it probably isn't the best solution. Should I support her decision, or is there some answer I haven't thought of yet?
— Let Down in Texas
Dear Let Down: Your wife should make no decisions about future celebrations while she's angry. If she follows through on her impulse to boycott all family events, she will be cutting her nose off to spite her face.
On those occasions when it's not possible to attend extended family gatherings, celebrating with immediate family seems like a sensible solution. Or consider hosting the celebration yourselves so you can set the party time.
Your wife may have self-esteem issues that need to be addressed if she's taking this personally. As a nurse caring for the most fragile of infants, she's doing important work that should be respected.
Please tell her to remind herself of that fact any time she feels "unimportant" because her efforts make the difference between life and death.
Dear Abby: I got pregnant by a man I'll call "Ryan," who was just a fling. When I told him, he told me to have an abortion. He even had a friend of his call, offer to pay for it and drive me.
Instead, I decided to "abort" Ryan from my life. I never told him when our baby was born. Part of me feels bad because I think every child should know his/her father and family members. Another man has been willing to step up and be a daddy for my child.
Should I even bother to let Ryan know? Should I give him a chance to rise to the occasion or keep things the way they are?
— Living My Life in Indiana
Dear Living Your Life: This is really a question you should ask a lawyer, just in case Ryan has already risen as much as he intends to.
Whether or not someone has stepped up to be your baby's daddy, Ryan has a financial obligation to that child.
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, Calif. 90069.


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Photo Gallery
WSHS Spartans GraduateClick Photo for Flash
West Springfield's Class of 2013 graduated at the Patriot Center on Friday, June 14, in front of a packed crowd of families, friends and teachers, receiving inspirational words for the future, as well as bittersweet, nostalgic memories from the past. Principal Mark Greenfelder, a fellow Spartan himself, began the graduation with words of wisdom from his favorite book "The Element," explaining to students that in order to be happy and successful, they needed to find the intersection between what they were passionate about and what they were good at.
Assistant Principal Becky Brandt called the class an "inspirational group of young people" and offered advice to not "let others limit you … be the best you possible."
Anna Goodwin was chosen by her classmates to speak during the Honor Graduate Address, and did not disappoint: She thanked West Springfield teachers and administration and said that "high school is not the end" and that she hopes her class changes the world.
Goodwin proclaimed fellow 2013 classmate, Jordan Trunfio, as a "true Spartan warrior" and a role model of bravery and virtue to everyone in her class. Trunfio lost a battle with cancer and passed away earlier this month, but not before he was able to graduate early during a small ceremony. Before the diplomas were handed out, Jordan's memory and accomplishment were recognized by the Class of 2013 along with teachers and families with a tearful and joyous standing ovation.
Dr. Cleve Francis, a cardiologist and once country music singer who toured internationally, gave a motivational speech encouraging students to self-actualize and figure out what moral character and concrete changes they will bring to the world.
Class of 2013 President Olivia Adubofour kept her words short and sweet, but very powerful: "Success is not final and failure is not fatal." She left her class with wonderful words to live by as their caps flew in the air, and the newly graduated citizens of West Springfield High School celebrated with pictures, balloons and many hugs as they walked into a new chapter of their lives.


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Corrections Department #3: Notes on Brenner
July 8, 2008
Last month one of the more fascinating forgotten shows of the fifties made its home video debut. Timeless Media's new box set of fifteen episodes of Brenner marks the first opportunity that TV fans, and even veteran collectors, have had to sample this series since its original network run nearly fifty years ago. I've written about a few figures connected tangentially to Brenner – Frank Lewin, the composer who supervised the music and probably composed the terrific, minimalist jazz theme, and Sydney Pollack, a bit player visible on the periphery of several episodes as young plainclothes cop – but even I had never been able to take a close look at the show until this DVD collection went into production.
Brenner's historical significance derives mainly from its pedigree. Its executive producer was Herbert Brodkin, a former set designer who became perhaps the last of the important producers of quality dramas in the waning days of live television. Taking the reigns of NBC's Alcoa Hour/Goodyear Playhouse and then CBS's Studio One and Playhouse 90 during their later seasons, Brodkin produced key live dramas including Horton Foote's "The Traveling Lady" and "Tomorrow," Rod Serling's autobiographical "The Velvet Alley," and the original "Judgment at Nuremberg" – the one during which the sponsor, the American Gas Company, insisted that all references to the gas chambers be deleted. Brodkin's second act came in 1961, when he launched The Defenders, a Reginald Rose creation that raked in a roomful of Emmys and became the most important TV drama of the early sixties. Brodkin's other sixties shows – The Nurses, For the People, Espionage, and the cult failure Coronet Blue – were less successful but helped to define his reputation as a standard-bearer of uncompromising quality as television became more and more conventional. It was a reputation that continued into the seventies as Brodkin, like most of the talented people in television, shifted his attention to movies of the week and miniseries. Pueblo, The Missiles of October, and Holocaust (also recently released on DVD) were all Brodkin efforts.
Brenner, made in 1959, was a transitional project for Brodkin. It was his first independent production, his first series to be shot on film, and (aside from his first producing assignment, NBC's live Charlie Wild, Private Detective) his initial concession to the reality that programs with running characters were quickly supplanting the anthology drama. Like The Defenders and The Nurses, Brenner was based on a one-shot anthology show from Brodkin's catalog, a January 1959 Playhouse 90 entitled "The Blue Men." Intriguingly, Alvin Boretz, who wrote "The Blue Men," is not credited as the creator of Brenner, although he did contribute scripts to the series.
Edward Binns and James Broderick as the Brenners
So just what is the show about, exactly? It's a modest police drama that centers on not one but two characters who give their names to the series' title: Roy Brenner (Edward Binns), a no-nonsense, seen-it-all plainclothes NYPD lieutenant, and his son Ernie (James Broderick), a rookie beat cop. Viewers familiar with the first season of the better-known Naked City and the underappreciated Decoy (a syndicated show with the sexy Beverly Garland as a tough, beautiful pre-feminist policewoman) will find that Brenner shares much of its flavor, its taut little stories that blend character drama with action (and not always smoothly), with those shows. The primary difference is that, while Brenner too was shot on location in New York City, it takes little advantage of the panorama of awesome cityscapes that give Naked City and Decoy their visual richness. Like The Defenders and The Nurses, Brenner plays out mainly on interior sets.
That may be disappointing to some who hope to get a time-capsule snapshot of Manhattan circa 1959; certainly I had to adjust my expectations a bit when I began studying the Brodkin shows after considerable exposure to the location-rich East Side/West Side and Naked City. But Brenner has other virtues, in particular some conceptual subtleties that you won't find in Decoy or the half-hour Naked Citys.
For one thing, although Brenner never quite develops into a serialized story, it is a bildungsroman of sorts that places a great deal of emphasis on Ernie's growth as a cop. The episode "Departmental Trial" makes a point of telling us that Ernie is in his first year on the force, and others chart the lessons he learns from his mistakes, and his acceptance or rejection of the examples set by various older cops.
And the emphasis there is on rejection, because of another unusual element of Brenner. Roy Brenner's assignment within the police department is on the Confidential Squad, or what we'd now call "internal affairs": he investigates allegations of corruption among other cops. Fully half the episodes in this DVD set focus on some allegation of police malfeasance. "Small Take" and "Thin Ice" are about beat cops accused of taking bribes or turning a blind eye to a gambling racket. "Monopoly on Fear" stars Milton Selzer as a plainclothesman charged with cowardice – he's six months away from retirement and starting to lose his nerve – and "Laney's Boy" deals with cops who cover up a punk teenager's petty crimes because his father is a beloved police sergeant.
Roy Brenner ends up exonerating as many police officers as he takes down. But viewed in total, Brenner projects an attitude that's almost perversely anti-police, even by the modern standards of something like the cynical The Shield. Though the execution is less forceful, it's this element that links Brenner most closely to the crusading social criticism undertaken in The Defenders and The Nurses. I have no idea if Brenner enjoyed police cooperation in its filming or not, but you have to imagine that if anyone from the NYPD ever paid attention to the scripts, they'd have gotten mightily steamed.
Brenner was produced by Arthur Lewis, a Broadway veteran who died two years ago. (Brodkin, essentially an impresario and still working simultaneously on Playhouse 90, received credit as executive producer.) Lewis went on to produce the first season of The Nurses, and so many of the same key talents behind that show were also the most prolific contributors to Brenner: the directors Gerald Mayer and Herman Hoffman, and writers like Boretz, George Bellak, and Art Wallace. You might call them Brodkin's "B team" – solid mid-level craftsmen from the pool of New York, live TV-trained talent, but not the superstars who would form the more exclusive creative staff of The Defenders.
A few big names did pass behind the cameras of Brenner. The great Ernest Kinoy wrote one episode ("Crime Wave," sadly not in the DVD set), and Peter Stone, a journeyman TV scribe before Charade made him famous, contributed several. Steven Gethers, later Emmy-nominated for his work on The Farmer's Daughter, wrote perhaps the most compelling episode in the DVD collection, "Crisis." It's a sensitive, almost entirely personal story in which Roy Brenner falls in love with a woman (Hildy Parks) who cannot come to terms with the element of danger in his job.
Gene Hackman as "Patrolman Claiborne"
Then, of course, there are the actors. As with any New York-based show of this era, one can have an enormous amount of fun trying to spot all the soon-to-be-famous young performers just launching their careers. George Maharis, Jerry Stiller, Al "Grandpa Munster" Lewis, Mitchell Ryan, and Clifton James all turn up in the episodes on the DVDs. The X-Files' Jerry Hardin has a role with no lines in "Departmental Trial," and Bruce Kirby appears without credit in "The Vigilantes." Brenner somehow had a special knack in casting the roster of patrolmen who have recurring roles in various episodes. Along with Sydney Pollack, Gene Hackman and Dick O'Neill were among this group. Oh, and there's one episode in which sixties leading lady Carol Rossen is visible as an uncredited, non-speaking featured extra. Can anyone spot her?
I've filed this piece in the "Corrections Department" section because Brenner has languished in such obscurity over the years that virtually nothing has been written about it – and much of what's out there is inaccurate. Most reference books describe Brenner as a father-and-son cop show – a reduction that makes it sound like some hoary Pat O'Brien melodrama from the thirties – without mentioning more substantive aspects of the premise (Ernie's inexperience; the "rat squad" angle). Every source I've come across, in print and on-line, contends that Brenner filmed an initial batch of episodes in 1959 and then briefly resumed production again in 1964 to create ten more episodes.
That's a highly unusual production history of which I'd always been skeptical – why would CBS choose to revive a failed, forgotten show, and why would Brodkin and the two stars participate, five years further on in their careers? The copyright dates on these episodes finally confirm my suspicion – that the entire Brenner series was created in 1959, and that the show's summer replacement run on CBS in 1964 was simply a burn-off of unaired segments.
Any reference you consult, apart from an exhaustive catalog compiled by the Museum of Broadcasting (now the Paley Center) for its 1985 Brodkin retrospective, will tell you that there are 25 Brenner episodes. Actually there are 26 – sort of. As was common at the time, Brodkin used the series' final production slot to film a "backdoor pilot" for a proposed spinoff called Charlie Paradise. (The episode itself is called "The Tragic Flute.") Just as Brenner emulated Naked City, Charlie Paradise was a pretty blatant attempt to join in on the wave of cool private eye actioners that followed upon the success of Peter Gunn and Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Charlie (Ron Randell) is the proprietor of an ultra-hip coffee house, a sort of godfather of Greenwich Village to whom Roy Brenner turns for help in navigating the wacky world of beatniks.
Fred Gwynne, Severn Darden, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, and Ron Randell in Charlie Paradise
Presumably, had the series sold, Charlie would've been an amateur sleuth along the lines of John Cassavetes' Johnny Staccato, and one imagines that the New York location shooting might have offered an authenticity exceeding that of any of the other "jazz-eye" shows. But "The Tragic Flute" is undistinguished; it tries for a light-hearted flavor that trades too heavily on the supposed exoticism of the beat world. (The writers were James Yaffe and Peter Stone, working here more than on his other Brenners in the comic mode that won him the Oscar). Broderick doesn't appear in the segment at all, and Edward Binns looks exquisitely uncomfortable as he plays straight man to all the kooks (which include Roberts Blossom as a beat poet, and Fred Gwynne as a character named Frances X. Fish). Taken out of context Charlie Paradise is simply baffling, and it might have been wiser for Timeless to segregate it as a bonus feature on the DVDs.
As for those DVDs, the image quality is exceptional – far superior to the often battered, sixteen-millimeter derived copies of the early Universal shows (Arrest and Trial, Checkmate) that Timeless has been releasing lately. Unfortunately, I'm told that unless another print source is found, this will be a standalone "best-of" release. It would be wonderful to have the other eleven Brenners on DVD someday. It would be even more wonderful if CBS/Paramount would open up its vaults and give us The Defenders, The Nurses, and Coronet Blue.
11 Responses to "Corrections Department #3: Notes on Brenner"
July 8, 2008 at 7:24 am
Another informative article, Stephen! I watched the "Charlie Paradise" episode and there's no question that this was a pilot. The "Brenner" title card appears, but the closing credits and music are completely different from the usual "sax & timpani" end credits of "Brenner." Ed Binns' scenes in this episode are pretty minimal . . . just barely enough to release it under the "Brenner" banner. The episode also has an unusual running time on the DVD, just over 30 minutes. I wonder if it had to be trimmed somewhat for broadcast to accomodate commercials, network promos, etc.
July 8, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I wonder whether the "Brenner" series somehow slipped into the public domain. I did a search at the U.S. Copyright Office's online data base under "Plautus Productions," and while I found numerous episode entries (and copyright renewal dates) for "Coronet Blue," "The Defenders" and "The Nurses," I found no such information for "Brenner" episodes. I saw no CBS or Plautus Productions references on Timeless' DVD slip case or DVD cases for the series, while other shows released by Timeless like "Arrest and Trial," "Checkmate" and others prominently reference NBC Universal. The lack of any specific reference to a licensor on the packaging or on the DVDs, along with the fact that Timeless had access to only 15 of the 26 episodes, raises the question as to whether copyright registrations for this show were renewed properly (I'm assuming the original registrations were handled correctly given the 1959 copyright information date that appears on each episode). The episodes certainly look much better than the average public domain television release ("Decoy" PD episodes included).
July 8, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Speaking of Brodkin, has anyone ever seen FOR THE PEOPLE? As a major Shatner fan, I've been dying to see this series since I was a kid. Of course, back then, there was no way any station was ever going to rerun 13 episodes of this failed b&w series, but in the age of the Internet and DVD, I'm curious whether Timeless or a similar company would ever release it (surely a William Shatner series has some commercial prospects) or whether any private copies have circulated within fandom.
July 9, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Oh, man. You posted that Fred Gwynne photo and now I wanna see the episode more than I did before, lol! I never saw the series and don't wanna buy something I won't watch just for one episode, but I am tempted just to get that one.
March 3, 2009 at 11:12 am
I watched these episodes in the past week and they were well written and acted. It's a thrill to see early television and faces such as Gene Hackman, Fred Gwynn and John Karlen in the show.
Is the Defenders or East Side/West Side available on DVD?
May 22, 2009 at 12:14 am
No, neither show is available on DVD.
August 23, 2009 at 12:58 pm
It should be noted that the CHARLIE PARADISE unsold pilot has a 1960 copyright date, which opens the possibility that some of the remaining 11 episodes of BRENNER not released may have been filmed in 1960. The entire series was produced for the 1959-1960 season, even though a lot of them didn't finally air until 1964.
Also, the fact that the "BRENNER" title appears on the available print in the opening (after the "CHARLIE PARADISE" title) probably means that it was inserted by the film editor so the network and viewers would know that this was intended as a spinoff series from Brenner. And what a weak attempt to continue a show that was already cancelled!!
And finally….keep in mind that Ed Binns was listed as a "Special Guest Star", so Lt. Brenner was there to get Charlie off on the right foot. I'm glad the pilot didn't sell. Arthur Lewis was clearly selling out what was a major format change and a watered-down concept.
June 3, 2016 at 2:36 pm
Brenner finished filming all its episodes by the end of October 1959. As soon as Brenner wrapped filming, Edward Binns went west to Hollywood to do episodes of Twilight Zone and One Step Beyond during the first half of November 1959.
August 23, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Nice to see you're still checking your blog after all these months, Stephen! :)
I just discovered it myself today.
About that 30 minute length, I believe it's possible that CBS did air the Charlie Paradise pilot minus the standard 5 minutes for commercials and station ID promos and ads. But since I wasn't alive in 1964 and have no TV GUIDEs from that period, I couldn't say for sure.


text:
Debian Security Advisory
DSA-2493-1 asterisk -- denial of service
- Date Reported:
- 12 Jun 2012
- Affected Packages:
- asterisk
- Vulnerable:
- Yes
- Security database references:
- In the Debian bugtracking system: Bug 675204, Bug 675210.
In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2012-2947, CVE-2012-2948.
- More information:
Several vulnerabilities were discovered in Asterisk, a PBX and telephony toolkit.
The IAX2 channel driver allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (daemon crash) by placing a call on hold (when a certain mohinterpret setting is enabled).
The Skinny channel driver allows remote authenticated users to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and daemon crash) by closing a connection in off-hook mode.
In addition, it was discovered that Asterisk does not set the alwaysauthreject option by default in the SIP channel driver. This allows remote attackers to observe a difference in response behavior and check for the presence of account names. (CVE-2011-2666) System administrators concerned by this user enumerating vulnerability should enable the alwaysauthreject option in the configuration. We do not plan to change the default setting in the stable version (Asterisk 1.6) in order to preserve backwards compatibility.
For the stable distribution (squeeze), this problem has been fixed in version 1:22.214.171.124-2+squeeze6.
For the testing distribution (wheezy) and the unstable distribution (sid), this problem has been fixed in version 1:18.104.22.168~dfsg-1.
We recommend that you upgrade your asterisk packages.


text:
Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 5000 Concept celebrates 60-years of Unimog
Last week, Mercedes-Benz celebrated 60-years of the Unimog with 1:12.5 scale of the model built by LEGO consisting of 2,048 parts. The company is now continuing the celebration with a unique design concept based on the U 5000 with its outstanding off-road capabilities.
The design concept was created as joint cooperation between the MBS development team, the Daimler commercial vehicle designers in Sindelfingen and a model designing partner.
"We have taken the Unimog-DNA with its unique concept features to 100 percent into consideration when creating this design concept," says Bertrand Janssen from the Daimler department for commercial vehicle design. "Furthermore, this design concept gives the observer sufficient room for thought to interpret its technical innovations. To cut a long story short, it is literally an unsually idea to make one think about the Universal-Motor-Gerat (Unimog) of the future."
Pretty crazy looking thing.
Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 5000 Concept:
Press Release:
"60 Years Mercedes-Benz Unimog": A spectacular design concept for the jubilee
To celebrate their jubilee "60 Years Unimog", Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks (MBS) is presenting a design concept based on the U 5000 with its outstanding off-road mobility
A formal unveiling and presentation will take place at the ceremony on 3 June in the CustomerCentre at the Mercedes-Benz Plant in Wörth
The design concept has been created as joint cooperation between the MBS development team, the Daimler commercial vehicle designers in Sindelfingen and a model designing partner
Yaris Pürsün, Director of Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks: "Future meets history – the design concept is a further milestone in the Unimog legend"
As an analogy to the very first Mercedes-Benz Unimog of the product range 2010 which was built in 1951, the design concept from 2011 also has an open cab
Stuttgart / Wörth on Rhein – The unit Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks (MBS), which includes the product ranges Unimog, Econic and Zetros, presented a spectacular design concept on the occasion of the ceremony "60 Years Mercedes-Benz Unimog" on 3 June 2011 at the Daimler plant in Wörth. It has an impressive, dynamic and extremely expressive "face" corresponding to the future form language of Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle design. The design concept combines the past and future of the Unimog in an extremely avantgardist way. Yaris Pürsün, Director of the Mercedes-Benz Plant at Wörth and Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks, is visibly enthusiastic about this new interpretation of the Unimog idea by the commercial vehicle designers and the project team responsible. "The result is a complete success. At Mercedes Benz Special Trucks we decided to construct a design concept because we are of the opinion that such a vehicle will act as a bridge between the progressive strength of self-renewal that has distinguished the Unimog programme for 60 years and the future design of the coming generations of products."
The concept vehicle shows that even after 60 years – and including the 26 product ranges during this period – the Unimog is still able to renew itself. Just as its innovative power has left its mark on the Mercedes-Benz Unimog and driven it forward until the present day, the "Concept Design 60 Years Unimog" has shown impressively that a great deal of innovation is still possible in the engineering of future Unimog generations. This concept vehicle will no doubt surprise everyone who sees it, experts and enthusiasts, users and customers alike.
The design concept is based on the Unimog U 5000 chassis with its outstanding off-road capabilities. The traditional and well-known unique selling-point of the Unimog, its coil springs, are painted red in the concept vehicle, whereas Bertrand Janssen and his team have let its hulk of a bonnet with its typical Mercedes-Benz line and the mudguards shine out in a fresh green. When selecting the colours used, the designers in Bertrand Janssen's team were inspired by an unusual amphibian, the poison dart frog: Just like the Unimog it is also extremely mobile both in water and on land. And furthermore in this point it is once more the link between past and future as green was the colour of the very first Unimog and numerous follow-up generations of the vehicle. The headlights are like stage lights, which focus the beam of light. The clearly visible, sweeping lines of the frame have been finished with high-grade trims cut from aluminium blocks. The four same-size wheels make a strong optical impression with their five star alu-rim design. Bertrand Janssen emphasises, " On no account did we work in an atmosphere where our ideas were divorced from reality. Here we have a vehicle which is puristic, but still clearly true to concept – with the claim, that some of its details will turn up in coming product ranges in future. We continued to take up the most important Unimog features which have characterised the vehicle for the last 60 years and which will also characterise it in future – features such as portal axles, coil springs or the frame concept." The design concept "60 Years Unimog" is not however a prototype for a new product range. But it becomes quite clear that the Mercedes-Benz Unimog will still continue to have an innovative character in future and will still possess a high degree of versatility in design and type of construction. It is after all a unique vehicle concept.
Michael Dietz, Head of Sales and Marketing Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks makes it clear. "During the last 60 years our Unimog has made a name for itself worldwide as an ambassador and image-carrier for the brand Mercedes-Benz. Whether working for numerous municipalities and contractors in Europe, under extreme conditions exploring for oil in the Taklamakan desert in China or for example as a motorhome "down under", the design concept is a forward projection of these unique Unimog-DNA and is impressive proof of the innovative power of Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks." Because of this, Yaris Pürsün pays the whole team a compliment. "Each of them brought his own competence to the project to the best of his ability. From the very beginning there was a unique spirt of cooperation. It has been a very emotional project which we all became very attached to." And in one very important point the design concept for the jubilee year 2011 and the very first Mercedes-Benz Unimog of the product range 2010 which rolled off the band on 3 Juni 1951 at the Gaggenau plant have something very obvious in common: Both vehicles are open – really genuine cabrios.
– By: Roman Bronfenbrener


text:
"Hey You Guys!"
Sloth is a frisbee golf term used to describe a disc that gets stuck....
- Whoops! I was too lazy to finish that sentence!
The Deadly Sin of Sloth[edit]
Sloth prevented me from writing this article sooner, sloth will most likely prevent me from rewriting this if it's crap, and sloth might keep you from reading this entire thing. Although some people might call this the tamest of the seven sins, I assure you: sloth can be deadly.
The slothful, or the opposite of godful, may struggle to finish a meal before it is cold, make it to anywhere on time, stay awake, move or even breathe. Their minds are too diseased with slowness to grasp irony or sarcasm and they argue using long drawn out 'no's. Here is an example:
Normal Person: 'You're two hours late' Sloth Man: 'I was eating my dinner and had to straighten my hair...' Normal Person: 'I hate you.' Sloth Man: 'Nooooo, nooooo, nooooo...'
Slothitis is contagious; the monotonous rant of a slothful person will often force the listener to adopt the symptoms of a sloth, e.g. the Yawn Effect. The slothful will slowly develop a likeness to a banana slug and their voice will heavily deepen, enabling them to communicate with whales. Generally, a chronic sloth sufferer will die before reaching the age of thirty, as they can no longer bother to feed themselves. Once in hell, the slothful are punished by being thrown into snakes pits. I really don't understand the significance of the snakes, like the punishments for other deadly sins. Why not put sloths in freezing water or boiling oil? Why not make them get out of bed and go to work for a change?
Hold on a sec, let me take a bong rip...
Let's see now, what was I saying? Oh yes... Sloth is more than a sin...
Wait for Sloth, the Superhero[edit]
Pirate, chocoholic, and president of the Goonies [1], Super Sloth had an upbringing filled with torture and neglect.
Sloth was born Lotney Fratelli on Jan. 12th, 1962. Ma Fratelli had planned on having a home delivery, but complications arose. Rushed to the hospital by sons Jake and Francis Fratelli, she was promptly given a C-section. Newborn Lotney was 15 pounds, 12 ounces...
Lotney was a very complying child, but Ma's penchant for booze, man-whores, and crime rendered her an incapable mother. One night after a raging kegger, Ma arrived to home to a crying Lotney. The stench of booze on her breath only foreshadowed the events to come. She hastily grabbed the child and rushed down the stairs...The rest is history. Ma suffered minor cuts and bruises while Lotney was left with a debilitating injury that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Lotney's injury not only damaged his physical appearance, but interferred with his cognitive skills as well. He was held back many times and placed into special education classes. His cruel classmates appropriately dubbed him "Sloth".
It wasn't until high school that Sloth found his niche. The streamlined shape of his head allowed him to cut through water with an uncanny speed. Just as his swim trophies piled up, so did the letters from colleges who overlooked over his intelligence level and the babes that ironically wanted a piece of sloth action. Sloth's two brothers became more and more spiteful of his success, becoming so jealous of Sloth's popularity with the ladies that they chained him up in the basement and kept him like a wild animal.
Those Lazy Things[edit]
Speaking of wild animals, there are also rare creatures known as hanging sloths. So little is known about these elusive beings, that one was said to have died while it was being studied, and the observers did not realize it for six years! These incredibly boring, algae covered mammals are argued in some scientific circles to have either eight or nine toes, but are more commonly known to have exactly five. Zoologists at the University of Jena who were studying the movement of Sloths wanted a sloth to move up and down a pole. It consistently refused, even when tempted by its favourite food dishes. After three years of attempting to get it to do this simplest of movements, they gave up.
Axel Burchardt, a university spokesman, said: "I am afraid the sloth had absolutely no interest in furthering the cause of science."
While science may not be a sloth's forté, music sure is! Sloths have long talon-like fingers that are great for strumming bass guitar. It's no wonder that sloths are responsible for 85% of today's slow-dance hits, and have influenced the likes of Eric Clapton, Jack Johnson, and Dido. There have also been rumors of sloths being the brains behind television's hit series Gray's Anatomy, and the feature films Babel and Schindler's List.
Sloths have also inspired numerous documentaries, novels, toys, and other works of art. [2]
|They sleep eighteen hours, but party twenty-four.
Here is a poem dedicated to the sloth:
The Sloth by Kristie Williams
The sloth may smile.
The sloth may frown.
It's ...
Save the Slothists[edit]
The core of the Slothist philosophy is to actually 'become' a sloth. The aim is to emulate some of the basic behaviors of the sloth in order to find a way to live in harmony with the earth. This can be best described as KISS, or Keep It Simple, Sloth. Sloths are an endangered species because they are too lazy to mate. By 'doing' less, living simply, and not using harmful chemicals like deoderant and soap, Slothists believe they are saving slothism by being slothful. Like lemmings to a ledge you can see, however, that this is really just a downward spiral to extinction.


text:
Farley, James Aloysius
Farley, James Aloysius ăl˝əwĭsh´əs [key], 1888–1976, American political leader, U.S. Postmaster General (1933–40), b. Rockland co., N.Y. He rose steadily in Democratic party politics in New York state and became (1930) chairman of the New York state Democratic committee. In 1932 he successfully pushed the presidential nomination of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Made chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Farley managed (1932) the presidential campaign with great success. He became U.S. Postmaster General and in 1936 directed Roosevelt's second presidential campaign, which resulted in another overwhelming Democratic victory. Opposed to Roosevelt's third-term candidacy, he was an unsuccessful Democratic presidential aspirant in 1940 and resigned (1940) his cabinet post and his national party chairmanship. He remained powerful in New York state politics until 1944, when he resigned as chairman of the state Democratic committee.
See his autobiographical Behind the Ballots (1938) and Jim Farley's Story (1948).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. History: Biographies


text:
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IMPORTANT: EU customers
We offer UK VAT Free shopping. Any import duties and/or import VAT to pay is shown on the checkout page. We collect this payment from you and pay any import charges on your behalf. This ensures a quicker, easier delivery for you with no unexpected extra charges.
Please also ensure you double check the size guides for any items you wish to purchase. Our customer service email address is email@example.com if you wish to get advice on sizing before purchase. If you return any items to us, we cannot refund any import duties or taxes we've paid for on your behalf.
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All of our products are made to the highest standards and we hope that you will be happy with your purchase. However, if you are unhappy for whatever reason, we can offer either an exchange or refund of the goods provided they are returned to us within 28 days of receipt of your order, unworn, complete with all original tags, and in original and resalable condition.
IMPORTANT NOTICE for non-UK orders: Please be aware that we cannot refund any import duties and taxes we pay for on your behalf.
We offer exchanges for UK customers only.
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Original illustrations by Samuel Max Schanwald. Shirt is a soft, women's fit grey t-shirt.
Please include shipping information and orders will be processed in 5-7 business days.
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She's 25, single and mad for S.F.
Tales of the City
Armistead Maupin
Tuesday, May 1, 2001
This is the first installment of the original "Tales of the City," which ran on May 24, 1976
Mary Ann Singleton was 25 years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time.
She came to the city alone for an eight-day vacation. On the fifth night she drank three Irish coffees at the Buena Vista, realized that her Mood Ring was blue, and decided to phone her mother in Cleveland.
"Hi, Mom, it's me."
"Oh, darling. Your Daddy and I were just talking about you. There was this crazy man on 'McMillan and Wife' who was strangling all these nice young secretaries, and I just couldn't help thinking . . ."
"Mom . . ."
"I know, it's just your silly, old mother, worrying herself sick over nothing. But you never can tell about those things. I mean, look at that poor Patty Hearst, locked up in that closet with all those awful . . ."
"Mom, this is long distance."
"I'm sorry, sugar, I'm such an old worry-wart. You must be having a grand time!"
"Oh, Mom, you wouldn't believe it! The people here are so friendly. I feel like I've . . ."
"Have you been to the Top of the Mark like I told you?"
"Not yet, but . . ."
"Well, don't you miss that. You know, your Daddy took me there when he got back from the South Pacific. I remember he slipped the bandleader five dollars,
so we could dance to Moonlight Serenade and I spilled Tom Collins all over his beautiful, white Navy . . ."
"Mom, I called to tell you something."
"Of course, dear. Just listen to me rambling on. Oh, one thing, before I forget it. I ran into Mr. Lassiter yesterday at the Ridgemont Mall, and he said the office is just falling apart with you gone. They don't get many good secretaries at Lassiter Fertilizers."
"Mom, that's sort of why I called."
"What do you mean, honey?"
"I want you to call Mr. Lassiter and tell him I won't be in on Monday morning."
"Oh, Mary Ann, I'm not sure you should ask for an extension on your vacation."
"It's not an extension, Mom."
"What? I don't . . ."
"I'm not coming home, Mom."
For a moment, the line seemed to go dead. Then, dimly in the distance, a television announcer began to tell Mary Ann's father about the temporary relief of hemorrhoids. Finally, her mother spoke: "Now you're being silly, darling."
Mary Ann tried to stay calm. "I'm not being silly, Mom. I really feel comfortable here. I mean, it seems like home to me already."
More silence.
"Mom, I've thought about this for a long time."
"You've only been out there five days."
"I know, Mom, but I'm really sure about this. It's got nothing to do with you and Daddy. I just want to start making my own life, have my own apartment . . ."
"Oh, that. Well, of course you can, darling. As a matter of fact, your Daddy and I thought those new apartments out at Ridgemont might be just perfect for you. They take lots of young people, and they've got a swimming pool and one of those sauna things, and I could make some of those darling curtains like I made for Sonny and Vicki when they got married. You could have all the privacy you . . ."
Mary Ann's voice was gentle but firm. "Mom, you aren't listening to me. It isn't the privacy or living with you and Daddy or . . . any of that. It's just me. I love it here. I'm grown up now and . . ."
"Well, you certainly aren't acting like it! I've never heard such a thing! You can't just run away from your family and friends to go live with a bunch of hippies and mass murderers!"
"Oh, Mom, that's just a lot of TV crap!"
Her mother lowered her voice reproachfully. "Don't you talk nasty to your mother, Mary Ann . . . and it's not a lot of TV . . . stuff. What about those Giraffe Killers?"
"Well, whatever. And what about those earthquakes? Your Daddy took me to see that awful movie, and I nearly had a heart attack when Ava Gardner . . ."
"Mom. I've made up my mind about this. Will you just call Mr. Lassiter for me?"
Her mother began to cry. "Something terrible is going to happen to you. I know it."
"Now who's being silly? What could possibly happen to me, Mom? San Francisco is a lot safer than Cleveland, and the people are are so mellow."
Her mother stopped sobbing for a moment. "What does that mean?" she asked suspiciously.
WHEN IT WAS OVER, Mary Ann left the Buena Vista and walked through Aquatic Park to the bay. For several minutes, she stared at the Alcatraz beacon, drunk with the prospect of an undefined future.
"What could possible happen to me, Mom?" The words came back to her on a chill wind, nibbling uncertainly on a corner of her mind.
Back at the Fisherman's Wharf Holiday Inn she looked up Connie Bradshaw's phone number. Connie was the only person she knew in San Francisco. Mary Ann had heard that she was a stewardess for United, but hadn't spoken to her old high school friend since 1968.
"Oh, God, I can't believe it!" squealed Connie, when Mary Ann identified herself. "How long are you here for?"
"For good," said Mary Ann, savoring the words.
"Oh, super! Have you found an apartment yet?"
Mary Ann decided to be direct. "Not yet. I was wondering if I might be able to crash at your place for a couple of days. My savings account isn't holding out too well."
"Sure," said Connie, without hesitation. "No sweat. That is, if you don't mind an occasional sleep-in."
Mary Ann was thrown for a moment. "Oh . . . you mean guys?"
Connie uttered a throaty laugh. "Do I ever, honey!"
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Monday, May 24, 1976
She's 25, single and mad for S.F.
Posted by Richard M at 8:51 PM
Labels: Tales of the City
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Shame on me for not posting very much last year. I started out pretty strong then fizzled around mid Feb. It kind of bummed me out because I do love my blogs and I did have quite a bit to say last year. It just seems that I was going with what was more convenient like Instagram and tumblr. Oh well, hopefully I can keep some of it up for a little bit longer this time.
I'm starting on another major doll knit that requires loads of swatching and planning and it reminded me that I did not post about one of the large projects from last year. I was going through a silent Japanese movie kick when inspiration hit. While watching Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Chorus (東京の合唱) I spotted a onesie of sorts worn by a very young Hideo Sugawara. It was a cute little one piece tank top style shorts set with stripes around the torso. So cute that I wanted to knit one… especially after making the YoSD onesies a year earlier.
I aimed bigger this time and decided that Seiji was going to be the model for this one. After loads of planning I decided to make it short sleeved instead of straps and to have it button down the center front. Here was the results of hours of knitting
It's knitted in one piece, in the round from the bottom up. I used Jamieson and Smith 2 ply lace weight for the main color and red Habu cashmere lace for the stripes. Who would wear such a thing other than a little boy being forced by his mother?! It was honestly a fun piece to make. I entered it into the MD Sheep and Wool festival fiber show and it won third in the dolls and bear category. It also received some really lovely comments from the judges. I was incredible happy about this.
This year I'm going back to fair isle, Scandinavian, and Icelandic designs. Seiji is my first victim. I wanted to make him a xmas sweater of sorts but things were a bit busy the later part of the year and the planning out has been a bit time consuming. I think I've finally narrowed down a few fair isle motifs but now I have to do the hard part and make a sweater around it. I'll post more about that in the next couple of days.


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A Murky Election
March 31, 2008 1 Comment
I'm not referring to the Zimbabwean elections, but the election for MEP candidates for the Conservative Party. Never before have I seen such an arse covering undemocratic election.
Let's start at the beginning. Currently we have a majority of MEP's whose view on Europe is largely at odds with the membership. A quick perusal of those guilty of this shows that many of these are MP retreads who were kicked out of the UK Parliament in 97. They then found sanctury in Europe a couple of years later, and it is questionable what they are actually achieving out there. Whatever it is, it's certainly what the membership and indeed the country wants with a step back from federalism. Their determination to remain in the federalist European Peoples Party shows that.
Realising they are out of tune with the membership, it would appear some of our MEP's lobbied the Party to remove members from voting to rank them within the whole list, but instead rank the sitting MEP's so they are guaranteed their place and don't have to face the membership. This is the sort of election system Mugabe would dream of. No accountability and no risk of losing your seat of power. Â
The other unfair factor in this election is the fact that after incumbents, the next place is guaranteed to a women no matter how far they placed behind the highest ranked men. Another self explanatory unfairness, which has rendered this selection process virtually impossible for a man to get into the European Parliament next year no matter how talented. Indeed it's surprised any man applied given how the odds are so stacked against them.
The Party has done this for short term benefit. No European arguments and more women. However in the longer term, it may well live to regret this. There are many well qualified men who would have added some real talent to our MEP delegation, and would have been far more in tune with the direction of the party. They have effectively no chance of election. We also have kept in place a lot of MEP's who rather enjoy the status quo in Europe and have no wish for reform or change. While they may keep their head down and say nothing of the EPP withdrawal proposal at the moment, once set free for a 5 year term, they will be very difficult to control and may well prove an obstacle to us when in Government when we step away from the federalist programme some of them appear to endorse.
Andrew Woodman


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Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic disease which affects around 0.8% of the population; and its causes are of great interest to the medical world. Research led by Ian Bruce, NIHR Senior Investigator and Professor of Rheumatology at The University of Manchester and consultant at Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, looked into the association between lifestyle factors and the risk of developing RA.
The research group at the Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology, which is part of the National Institute of Health Research Manchester Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit, looked at a sample of over 25,000 people, aged 40-79 years old who have been followed over a number of years to discover if lifestyle factors had an affect on developing the disease.
When they compared 184 participants who went on to develop arthritis to those who did not, they found that smoking, obesity and having diabetes all increased the risk. It was also found that drinking a small amount of alcohol and being in a higher social class were associated with a reduced risk of developing the disease.
The study, funded by Arthritis Research UK, also examined gender specific factors and found women who had more than two children and breastfed for a shorter amount of time also had a higher risk of developing RA.
The research team also conclude that this information could be used to develop a simple screening tool, used by GPs and primary care workers, to identify patients with a higher risk of developing RA who could be offered advice to reduce their risk.
Ian Bruce said: "The factors we studied give us vital clues to the early events in the process that ends in someone developing RA. They are also simple to ask about and can be used as part of a prevention programme. Our new wave of funding from the Medical Research Council and National Institute of Health Research has allowed us to move forward to the next stage in our attempt to prevent the development of this distressing condition."


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|Not my picture, but it easily could be. And I'm just one person!
When I was growing up (and even now when I go home), and I was bored my mother, sister, and I would all load up and go shopping. Even a few years ago, whenever I got really upset about something, if I went into a store and found a cute dress or shoes or whatever, I would buy it and feel so much better. (Plus, new, cute things!)
But when I decided I wanted to move from Chicago to New York, I had to cut my shopping expenses down. Way down. And when I got to New York and was getting paid nothing (literally nothing - it was an internship), I completely eliminated shopping. Completely! Do you know how difficult that was?
But I did it. And it was nice because even when I got a decently paying job, I was in that mindset of, "Do I really need to drop this much money on this dress?" Sometimes the answer was an emphatic yes, but most often, the answer was no. I didn't really need it.
My solution to being broke and liking nice things and have an excessive amount of free time on my hands was to take up sewing. But I have a new problem!
I go into fabric stores and buy the prettiest and softest fabric I can find. And then I bring it home where it sits in a bag on the floor of my craft room. I'm essentially collecting fabric. So I've banned myself from buying fabric until I get on those untouched fabrics.
But that's not really what sparked the epiphany. That's just background. It was this:
1. A friend commented that I wear the same dress over and over again. And it's true. I generally only wear the same 3-6 dresses every day. I have a closet full of clothes that I rarely use.
2. I'm not really into trendy clothes. I prefer simple, classic, clean lines. They're easier to make and I have a bunch of patterns to help me do this. So why do I obsess over finding more patterns and newer things? I'm not even into them!
3. I read somewhere recently (can't find it or I would link!) that the average closet size in America is now the size of what used to be the average sized bedroom. That's so ridiculous!
4. I read this article about problems with the Salvation Army. It essentially outlined that because clothing is moderately cheap, everyone tends to buy a lot of it. It had statistics like 1 in 4 women own 7 pairs of jeans, but she only wears 4 of them regularly. Which is basically backed up by my own closet of dresses that I rarely wear. BUT THEN it talked about how there is too much clothing for thrift stores. So much so that they're shipping most of our unused clothing to poorer continents like Africa, which I know isn't new, but what IS new is that because the countries they were going to in Africa are becoming more developed and less poor, they're encountering the exact same problem we are, which is that there are too many clothes.
So what's happening to our discarded clothing? I'm sure it will all end up in a land dump somewhere.
But it really bothers me, not only because it's so wasteful, but because we're spending so much money on items that we never use. I've traded unwanted, cheap clothing for fabric that sits collecting dust. Yes, I WILL turn that fabric into curtains, but when? It's been there for the last few weeks. How many more will it take?
Perhaps I'm also disgusted with my procrastination and not just potentially wasting money. But regardless, I'm not interested in spending lots of money on things that I just realized I don't really need.
What do you guys think? Have you ever thought about this before? Am I overthinking it?


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Truth be told, we mix a lot of drinks and cook a lot of dishes with the blog in mind, but most of the things we make are simply to feed our family and friends. But when they do like something and ask for a recipe, you can be
damn sure we are going to post it. Happy faces never get old, and successful dishes and drinks are still hard to come by. If you want the recipe, just ask, we are happy to oblige.
As for this "mocktail", our eldest son had his friend Max over to work on a school project and play some baseball. After some time outside, our son asked for a mocktail, and if our kid gets one, well, so does his guest. And since we had a bunch of fresh winter citrus available, including blood oranges and Meyer Lemons (two of our favorite ingredients) we figured we could make something the boys would enjoy. And Max liked this enough to want the recipe, so here it is.
Max's Mocktail combines blood orange juice, lemon juice, falernum syrup, a dash of Rhubarb bitters (optional) and sparkling water. So what's falernum syrup? Falernum is a sweet West-Indian syrup with flavors of lime, ginger and clove. Falernum is a common tiki-drink ingredient and is a primary flavor in classics like the Jet Pilot and Zombie. You can find falernum syrup in many liquor stores, it is inexpensive and lasts forever. Just don't confuse falernum syrup with Velvet Falernum, a version that has alcohol and isn't safe for "mocktails". We understand that many people won't have falernum syrup, so we also have a second version of the recipe that subs a dash of lime juice, sugar and ginger ale for the falernum syrup and sparkling water.
As for the taste of Max's Mocktail, the main flavors are the blood orange and the spice of the falernum (or ginger ale). Blood oranges have tart berry-ish flavors to go with sweet orange notes, and the lemon juice keeps a nice acidity through the sip. The sparking water lightens the texture and adds some pleasant bubbles, but this is more of a juice than "soda" drink. As for the rhubarb bitters, it's optional, but adds some depth and "mystery" sweetness that most hardcore cocktail fans will notice and enjoy. And even if it has no booze, this mocktail has that beautiful blood orange color (no, we never tire of it) and makes for a very refreshing and flavorful sip. Here you go Max!
Max's Mocktail #1:
- 3 oz. fresh blood orange juice
- 3/4 oz. fresh lemon juice (preferably Meyer lemons)
- 3/4 oz. falernum syrup (Fee's)
- 2 dashes rhubarb bitters (Fee's), optional
- 2 oz. sparking water or club soda
- Lemon wedge, for garnish
- Combine the juices, falernum and bitters in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until chilled and strain into a highball glass with ice. Top with the sparkling water, lightly stir and garnish with lemon wedge. Serve.
Max's Mocktail #2:
- 3 oz. fresh blood orange juice
- 3/4 oz. fresh lemon juice (preferably Meyer lemons)
- 1/4 oz. fresh lime juice
- 1/2 oz. simple syrup (or a teaspoon of superfine sugar), more to taste
- 2 dashes rhubarb bitters (Fee's), optional
- 2 oz. ginger ale or ginger beer
- Lemon wedge, for garnish
- Combine the juices, simple syrup or sugar and bitters in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until chilled and strain into a highball glass with ice. Top with the ginger ale, lightly stir and garnish with lemon wedge. Serve.
Related articles
- 5 Great Alcohol-Free "Mocktails" to Sip (news.health.com)
- Mixology Monday Cocktail: Alone, Bitter at the Beach (putneyfarm.com)
- It's Mocktail Time! (mycookinglife.com)
- 5 Non-Alcoholic Mocktails to Ring in the New Year (greenster.com)
- Cucumber-Lemonade Mocktail (thebittenword.com)
- Three No-Booze Cocktail Recipes From A Bartender Wizard (theawl.com)