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[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/17/art.kay0817.gi.jpg caption="Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, delivered the Republican weekly radio and internet address Saturday"](CNN) - Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison says Republicans will stand firm against any financial reform bill that allows for future government bailouts of failing banks.
"Republicans are working to ensure the bill would forbid any future bailouts of Wall Street banks," said Hutchison in the Republican weekly radio and internet address airing Saturday. "The idea that a financial institution is 'Too Big To Fail' perverts free market capitalism. It suggests that large firms can privatize their profits, yet socialize their risks."
"To be clear, we will stand firm against a partisan bill that exposes ordinary taxpayers to future bailouts or favors big companies over community banks across America," she added.
Hutchison unsuccessfully sought the Republican Texas gubernatorial nomination, losing to Gov. Rick Perry last month. Amid urging from national and Texas Republicans, Hutchison decided to serve out the final two years of her Senate term, even though she pledged during the gubernatorial primary that she would retire this year.
Read the full remarks of the address after the jump
"I'm Kay Bailey Hutchison, United States Senator from Texas.
"For more than a year, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have been working to craft legislation that would prevent another catastrophic financial crisis like we saw in the fall of 2008.
"Republicans are working to ensure the bill would forbid any future bailouts of Wall Street banks. The idea that a financial institution is 'Too Big To Fail' perverts free market capitalism. It suggests that large firms can privatize their profits, yet socialize their risks. Or, put simply, these companies take their profits in good times – but when things go bad – they turn to the government to bail them out. This must end. The American people should not be forced to pay the risky gambling debts of the large financial institutions.
"The Democrats pushed a bill through the Senate Banking Committee that does not stop future bailouts. Republicans have been attacked for speaking out against it and asking for bipartisan negotiations before allowing the bill to be debated on the Senate floor. But, to be clear, we will stand firm against a partisan bill that exposes ordinary taxpayers to future bailouts or favors big companies over community banks across America. The tactics the Democratic leadership used to pass the health care bill must not be repeated.
"Thankfully, negotiations in the Senate continue. It's time for the name-calling to stop. Getting our economy back on track is too important to allow political games to sidetrack these efforts. Both parties agree that any financial regulation should do one essential thing: no company should be considered 'too big to fail'. And never again should taxpayers be expected to bail out those who made risky financial bets with other peoples' money.
"Unfortunately, the White House is attacking Republican leaders to score political points. Americans are troubled by the way Democrats forced their health care bill on the public that overwhelmingly opposed it. The Democrats are trying to do it again. But, they underestimate Americans' understanding.
"The fact is, a growing number of experts on both sides of the ideological spectrum are coming to see what Republicans have been saying all along: the Financial Regulation Bill contains serious flaws. We believe this bill can be fixed, with a sincere bipartisan solution. And, as the President said in his visit to Wall Street on Thursday, we are still working on a bipartisan bill 'drawing on the ideas of Democrats and Republicans.' That's a far cry from last week's comments.
"It's time for Democrats to put away the political playbook and simply say publicly what they're suggesting privately: that this bill still needs some work, that both parties should come together to do that work on behalf of the American people. We can prevent future bailouts. We can address the root causes of the economic downturn. But, first, we need to put politics aside.
"Thank you for your time."
Whenever the President and the Dems say we need to pass this now or the sky will fall, it is time to stop and take a serious look at whats in the bill.
Nancy Pelosi said about the Health Care Bill " We need to pass it so we will find out what is in the bill" The more we see whats in it and that it doesn't do what tyhey said it would tyhe less we should trust anything the Dems say about this Bill. Take it slowly, do it right.
Wow, I love it! The republicans, "Party of Nothing" want to leave in place the no regulation of the finanace industry that bush put in place and created the finanacial meltdown? Since 80% of Americans feel there needs to be fianancial reform there goes 2010 as a "Oops we will have to write it off as another loss!" Gosh, I sure hope so Kate!
Senator Hutchinson is just reminding Americans how little the GOP understands the complexities of the international financial system. This ignorance is what got us into trouble and nearly caused a worldwide collapse under GW Bush.
Now, for purely political reasons, the GOP is trying to sabotage anything that might put the country back on track and allow regulations that would be cognizant of the new realities of the world economy.
Kay, it was your man Bush who proposed the bailout. The Republicans in Congress gave him the votes he needed, and now it turns out that the bailout not only worked, it made money for the taxpayers.
Unregulated free maket capitalism is the root cause of the global and domestic economic crisises. Americans, especially politicians, should comprehend this conundrum. Perfect examples which exemplify the need for re-regulation are Enron, Goldman Sachs, et. al.; let alone all the industries recieving government bailout assistance.
So Hutchinson is a liar, too. I thought this kind of rhetoric was beneath her, but it seems that no Republican is immune to the current ideological virus.


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Have you met Suzette? If you have, you might not know it — because Suzette has passed the Turing Test. This chatbot convinced a judge that she was a human.
The Loebner Prize is given out every year for the machine that can fool a judge they're talking to a person for the space of a conversation. The judge chats to both a human and a machine about a few subjects - such as "What is a hammer for?" - and at the end of the time period, the judge has to pick which is the bot. After a twenty-five minute conversation with Suzette, a judge picked wrong.
Suzette's secret? Good, old-fashioned human manipulation. She diverted the conversation away from subjects she couldn't keep up in, and stayed in her comfort zone. You can have a quick talk with Suzette here.
Via New Scientist.

subset: commoncrawl


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Vancouver Rioters Hunted On Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr
There's little anonymity left in rioting these days. Thanks to cameraphones and tagging, police will be able to identify some of the Vancouver hooligans who set fires, smashed storefronts and overturned cars in Stanley Cup related rioting.
There are already loads of photos on a Facebook group and Tumblr set up by Vancouverites to out the rioters. There are also pictures all over Twitter, where the mayor and police have issued tweets asking people to preserve their videos and pics of the rioting.
Uploading images is one thing, but authorities also need people to snitch out their associates and tag the photos. It looks like that's already happening. Inevitably, some innocents have already been incorrectly dragged into the social media manhunt.
Hopefully the Vancouver PD is able to bring charges against a large number of wrongdoers. The deterrent value of social media shame over drunkards is admittedly limited. But if people know they could get sent to jail thanks to anyone with an iPhone, the contagious allure of rioting could, at least, be reduced.


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Utilizing a multi-layer coating process for consistent color rendition from lens to lens, the Samyang 100mm T3.1 VDSLR ED UMC MACRO Cine Lens answers the challenge of assembling a set of lenses over time. The lens comes in Sony E Mount, and it can focus down to 1′ providing a 1:1 reproduction ratio for macro photography. It features industry standard geared focus and iris rings that share common position with other Samyang VDSLRII Lenses. To aid focus pullers who have to work both sides of the lens, the aperture and focus scales are marked on both sides of the lens.
Features of the Samyang 100mm T3.1 VDSLR ED UMC MACRO Cine Lens – Sony FE Mount
- 100mm Lens with Macro Focus Capability
- Full-Frame Coverage
- Multi-Layer Coating to Reduce Flare
- Standard Gearing for Focus and Iris
- Dual Side Focus and T-Stop Scales
- De-Clicked Aperture Ring
- Hybrid Aspherical Lenses
- Manual Focus and Aperture
- Removable Lens Hood
- Accepts 67mm Threaded Filter Rings
Macro Telephoto Manual Focus Lens
Samyang 100mm T3.1 VDSLR ED UMC MACRO Cine Lens is a macro telephoto manual focus cine lens designed for full frame sensor sizes. The maximum close-up magnification is 1:1. This macro lens with vivid color and soft out-focusing is the best lens for close-up images of flower and insects. It also can be used as a 100mm telephoto lens for landscapes and portraits.
VDSLR Cine Lens Features
Samyang 100mm T3.1 VDSLR ED UMC MACRO Cine Lens allows more delicate video work with T number marks. The focus gear ring is installed for follow focus system. You may change the aperture quietly and smoothly with the uncoupled aperture gear rings. Also, distance scale and T numbers are marked on both sides of the lens for convenience.
Optical Features
Samyang 100mm T3.1 VDSLR ED UMC MACRO Cine Lens has a low T number of T3.1. You may control the lens precisely when shooting under various exposure environment including relatively dark or too bright situations This lens features 15 lenses in 12 groups especially including a high refractive lens (HR) and extra low dispersion lens (ED) to minimize color aberration and unnecessary light dispersion in order to offer high resolution throughout the image. Ultra Multi Coating (UMC) of Samyang Optics is used to optimize the light penetration and minimizes flare and ghost. With such optical construction, it has 0.307m of minimum focal length to film subjects in a very near distance.
Hardware Features
There are 9 aperture blades designed to be almost as a full circle when aperture is closed which expresses starlike ray clearly and beautifully. The frame of the lens is compact and solid since it is made of high-strength aluminum alloy so you can create trustworthy images. Also, detachable petal-shaped lens hood minimizes flare and ghost by sheltering lens from unnecessary lights. Available for 9 camera mounts: Canon EOS, Nikon, Pentax K, Sony ∝, Canon M, Fujifilm X, Samsung NX, Sony E, MFT.
Samyang Optics VDSLR II Cine Lens Line Up
Samyang 100mm T3.1 VDSLR ED UMC MACRO Cine Lens is one of Samyang Optics VDSLR II Cine Lens Line Up for full frame image sensor sizes. The lenses produce the same image color and have a united location of aperture and focus gear ring to maximize the convenience when filming.
※ Size and design may vary depending on the mount of a lens
Specifications of the Samyang 100mm T3.1 VDSLR ED UMC MACRO Cine Lens – Sony FE Mount
|Focal Length
|Lens Mount
|Sony FE
|Lens Format Coverage
|Full Frame
|Maximum Aperture
|Minimum Aperture
|Diagonal Angle of View
|Super35: 15.4°
Full Frame: 24.8°
|Minimum Focus Distance
|From : 12″ / 31 cm
|Optical Design
|15 Elements in 12 Groups
|Diaphragm Blades
|Image Stabilization
|5.87″ / 149.1 mm
|25.9 oz / 735 g
For a more detailed specification of the Samyang 100mm T3.1 VDSLR ED UMC MACRO Cine Lens see here. For more Samyang lenses see here.


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Ryan Giggs says the future is bright at Old Trafford
Veteran midfielder Ryan Giggs was delighted after he claimed his 25th major trophy after Robin van Persie's hat-trick helped Manchester United sink Aston Villa at Old Trafford.
It was United's 20th league title and Giggs, who this season continued a phenomenal record of scoring in every Premier League campaign, paid tribute to the squad.
Asked how special this title compared to the previous 12 medals, he told Sky Sports: "It's obviously special. When you lose it in the manner that we did last year, to win it back is something special especially by putting on a show in the first-half, Robin's goal - we did it in style.
"From Christmas onwards, we looked really good and once you got that platform of defence and when you have the flare players that we've got then you've always got a chance."
Seven players in the squad won their first championship and the Welsh winger believes there is a lot to come from them in the future.
"That's the key to the manager's success," said Giggs. "The way he evolves and the way he is always looking forward and shows with the amount of young players we have in the team.
"These are exciting players and players who are going to be here for a very long time. They'll hopefully carry on that tradition of competing for trophies."
The 39-year-old refused to be drawn on how long he would continue playing for, adding: "I'm just enjoying it and as long as I'm enjoying it and contributing to the team then I'm going to carry on.
"It's nights like this that you're going to miss when you finish but it's nights like this also that drive you on."
Giggs was also quick to pay a glowing tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson, hailing his long-time boss saying: "His appetite is second to none. Every day at the training ground he's the first there, his enthusiasm is brilliant and that feeds through the club, he is the club.
"Everything comes from the manager, getting players in, getting the right staff in, and he's just an unbelievable manager and an unbelievable person and he deserves everything that he gets.
"He works hard and I've been very lucky to play under him for so long."


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Wind energy tax credit set to expire at the end of 2012
Note: Click to enlarge.
Note: Data for 2012 planned additions are based on industry data submissions and monthly updates on planned wind facilities. Left-hand axis plots current capacity of existing generators by their initial date of operation. Capacity may change over time as generators are altered. For recent years, these data are synonymous with capacity additions. Early in the time period, this data series may be missing generators that have since retired.
The wind energy production tax credit (PTC), along with state-level policies, has boosted the growth of the U.S. wind industry over the past decade, but the PTC is set to expire at year-end unless legislation extending its provisions is approved. This tax credit was first implemented in 1992, when the United States had less than 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of installed wind capacity. By the end of 2011, wind capacity stood at more than 45 GW, about 4% of U.S. power generating capacity, and provided 3% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2011. Wind's generation share is below its capacity share because wind's capacity utilization is limited to windy periods. Data reported to EIA for 2012 point to another year of significant wind capacity additions, following a trend of increasing capacity additions in anticipation of a PTC expiration.
Since its implementation in 1992, the PTC has significantly contributed to wind development in the United States by increasing the financial return on a wind energy investment and allowing wind plants to price their generation more competitively. The cycle of expirations and reauthorizations of the wind PTC (see red labels in chart) during the past decade has had a noticeable effect on wind development through its impact on the planning and financing of wind energy projects.
The PTC was first enacted as part of the 1992 Energy Policy Act as a replacement for prior incentives for wind generation under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 and an investment tax credit (ITC) first made available under the Energy Tax Act of 1978. The PTC is a credit based on annual production of electricity from eligible resources. The initial tax credit of 1.5 cents per kilowatthour (1992 dollars) for the first 10 years of output from plants entering service by December 31, 1999, included an annual adjustment for inflation and is currently valued at 2.2 cents per kilowatthour (2011 dollars). Although amendments to the original law have expanded it to a wide variety of renewable resources and technologies, the original PTC applied to generation from tax-paying owners of new wind plants, as well as eligible biomass power plants.
In its early years, the PTC had little discernible effect on the industries it was designed to support. By 1999, when the provision was originally set to expire, U.S. wind capacity had begun growing again, and the PTC supported the development of more than 500 megawatts of new wind capacity in California, Iowa, Minnesota, and other states that had implemented policies to support or require renewable generation capacity.
State-level programs encouraged wind power development. For example, the mandate in Minnesota for 425 megawatts of wind power by 2003 was part of a settlement with Northern States Power (now Xcel Energy) to extend on-site storage of nuclear waste at its nuclear facility. In 1999, Texas became the first state to implement a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) for a competitive electricity supply market.
Cycles of expiration and reauthorization. From 1999 to 2004, Congress allowed the PTC to expire three times, each time retroactively extending it several months after the expiration deadline had passed. The two-year cycle of expiration and re-extension is apparent (see chart, starting in 1999). In the 12-month period immediately prior to the expiration dates (which, after 1999, were always pegged to the last day of the calendar year), new installations reached high levels as developers rushed to beat the legislative deadline, followed by a substantial retrenchment in the following year as the status of the tax credit was sorted out.
Congress has not allowed the PTC to expire since passage of the Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2004. In the period from 2005 to 2010, the wind industry experienced a period of consistent year-over-year growth. This growth occurred as the number of states with renewable power requirements increased.
Recession and recovery. The break in this growth streak occurred in 2010, as an echo effect of the financial crisis and recession from late 2008 and 2009. While wind projects were still eligible for tax credits, a lack of investors with sufficient tax appetite, or tax-situation ability to take advantage of the credits, a general decline in the need for new sources of generation, and a decline in natural gas prices that hurt the competitiveness of wind on a cost basis all contributed to slower growth for wind capacity in 2010.
In 2009, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Congress modified the PTC to address the tax appetite issue. In particular, the ITC was reintroduced for wind and other PTC-eligible technologies at a 30% level. In addition, projects starting construction before the end of 2011 may elect to receive an equivalent-value cash grant in lieu of the ITC (known as a 1603 Grant after its ARRA section number), thus mitigating the need for investors with sufficient tax burdens to be offset by the ITC.
Recent events. In 2011, wind power construction began to rebound from the 2010 retrenchment, largely with projects taking advantage of the 1603 Grant before its expiration. The trend has continued through 2012, with approximately 6 GW of new installations through October and another 6 GW expected to enter service in the last months of the year, as reported to EIA by project developers. If all reported capacity installations are completed as reported to EIA, 2012 would again set a record for new wind installations in the United States. In 2011, installed wind capacity stood at more than 45 GW, and generated almost 120 million megawatthours of electricity, accounting for about 4% of U.S. installed capacity and 3% of total U.S. generation in 2011.
Currently, the PTC is scheduled to expire for new wind generators entering service after the end of 2012. Other PTC-eligible technologies may continue to receive this tax credit for facilities that begin operation during 2013. Eligibility of these projects for the ITC will expire at the same time as eligibility for the PTC (end of 2012 for wind, end of 2013 for other PTC-eligible technologies). Projects that were under construction before the end of 2011 will still be eligible for a 1603 Grant, as long as they enter service prior to expiration of the PTC or ITC for their technology class.


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The counseling office at your school can normally provide sound advice about the "nuts and bolts" of transferring.
What is the best strategy to transfer from a community college to a four-year school? I didn't work to my potential in high school. I'm now a freshman at a community college and am highly motivated, getting all As. How long do I need to wait before it would be realistic to start applying to four-year schools? What can I do to overcome my poor performance in high school? Are there ways to convince college admissions officers that I'm a good risk?
The record that you are building in your community college work can serve as an excellent bridge to a university program. College admissions officers will place more value on your most recent performance. You may want to begin to consider options for transferring after one year or you may consider completing two years at the community college.
I recommend that you work closely with the counseling office at your school. The counselors should provide sound advice about the "nuts and bolts" of transferring. You will want to ask them questions concerning transfer grades and credits policies. I know that you are excited about the possibilities that have opened up for you. Good luck as you pursue your education.


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House Democrats pessimistic about public option
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats aren't optimistic that a government insurance plan, a central element of health care legislation passed in their chamber, will survive negotiations with the Senate.
While insisting "it's not dead," Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Sunday he recognizes realities in the Senate, where Democrats had to scrape up every vote from their side to pass a bill — even one without a government plan to compete in the private insurance marketplace.
"Before the House was to give up the public option, we would want to be persuaded that there are other mechanisms in whatever bill comes out that will keep down premiums," said Van Hollen. "We've got to make sure that the final product is affordable."
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and one who had appealed to President Barack Obama not to yield on the public plan, set out conditions for yielding himself.
"We want a public option to do basically three things: Create more choice for insurers, create more competition for insurance companies, and to contain costs," Clyburn said. "So if we can come up with a process by which these three things can be done, then I'm all for it. Whether or not we label it a public option or not is of no consequence."
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., underscored the divisions Democrats will need to bridge when negotiators from the House and Senate meet next month to reconcile the two bills. He said there will need to be more give on the House side than the Senate, which took weeks to find the 60 votes needed for passage.
"If we are going to have a final law, it will look a lot more like the Senate version than the House version," Menendez asserted.
The Senate's Christmas Eve achievement brought the nation closer than it's been for generations to a new order in health insurance. It would eventually require nearly all Americans to get coverage, help many pay for it and restrict onerous insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing sickness.
But nothing will change for anyone until the House and Senate can settle on common legislation, pass it and send it to Obama to sign.
The high stakes have both parties hoping they can find a few converts from the other side. Nearly every Republican in Congress has opposed the measures.
"If some of the Republicans would come forward with suggestions — offer a vote or two, or three or four — to take away the need to have every last one of the 60 Democrats, you'd have a much better bill in accordance with the tradition of the Congress, especially the Senate, on bipartisanship," said Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, himself a party switcher.
Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina voiced similar hope, to opposite ends: "a few Democrats to stand up in the House that maybe didn't before and help us stop this thing."
DeMint, Van Hollen, Menendez and Specter spoke on "Fox News Sunday." Clyburn was on CBS' "Face the Nation" and CNN's "State of the Union."


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im not gona lie, the hips are off and the breast are very odd
im not gona lie, the hips are off and the breast are very odd
No need to lie, I agree. I could say that her bra is a factory reject that pushes her breasts together too tightly or that she was in a horrific accident that severed her legs from the hip and she had them replaced with an ill fitting pair. But in reality I gave up.
The lesson is never quit, cause then your boobs will look weird.
Good job, has a mix of classic MS Paint Pixiliness and Photoshop precision. Keep up the good work!
You are free to copy, distribute and transmit this work under the following conditions:


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'Appalled' by attack on UN-run school in Gaza, Ban urges halt to all fighting
"Many have been killed – including women and children, as well as UN staff," Mr. Ban said in statement issued in Erbil, Iraq, where he is currently on an official visit. "Circumstances are still unclear. I strongly condemn this act."
Media reports say at least 15 people died in the attack on the school in Beit Hanoun, which was run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). More than 100,000 Gazans – 5 per cent of the total population – have sought refuge in UNRWA facilities since the conflict began over two weeks ago.
Mr. Ban expressed his profound condolences to the families of the victims and those of the many hundreds of innocent Gazans who have tragically been killed as a result of what he described as "the massive Israeli assault."
The UN chief, who has been in the region this week to express solidarity with Israelis and Palestinians and to help them end the current cycle of violence, again stressed to all sides that they must abide by their international obligations to respect the sanctity of civilian life and the inviolability of UN premises, and to honour their obligations to humanitarian workers.
"Today's attack underscores the imperative for the killing to stop – and to stop now," Mr. Ban declared.
Following his visit to Iraq, the Secretary-General travelled to Cairo, where he met with United States Secretary of State John Kerry and stressed the need to bring this "unacceptable, intolerable" crisis to an end as soon as possible.
"I am telling to the parties – both the Israelis and Hamas and Palestinians – that it is morally wrong to kill your own people… Now it is time to sit down together, instead of killing each other," he said at the press encounter with Mr. Kerry in the Egyptian capital.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), civilians in Gaza have no safe place to go with 44 per cent of the land declared a 'no-go zone' by the Israeli army. The UNRWA facilities are not immune to destruction. At least 18 medical facilities, include five UNRWA health clinics have been hit by airstrikes and shelling.
Also today, the Special Advisers of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, and on the Responsibility to Protect, Jennifer Welsh, expressed their serious concern at the escalation of violence in Gaza and at the targeting of civilians in the current crisis.
"We express shock at the high number of civilians killed and injured in the ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza and at the rocket attacks launched by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Israeli civilian areas," they said in a news release.
Read Also
As civilian casualties rise in Gaza, UN Rights Council agrees probe into alleged 'war crimes'
In Jerusalem, Ban meets with Israeli, US officials, reiterates call for Mid-East ceasefire
Mr. Dieng and Ms. Welsh stated that the high number of civilian casualties, particularly among the Palestinians, could demonstrate disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Israeli Defence Forces. At the same time, the launching of rocket attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups into Israeli residential areas constitutes indiscriminate use of force.
In this context, "both parties are in violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, and these acts could constitute atrocity crimes," they stated.
"We are equally disturbed by the flagrant use of hate speech in the social media, particularly against the Palestinian population," they added. According to reliable reports, individuals have disseminated messages that could be dehumanising to the Palestinians and have called for the killing of members of this group.
They added that the actions of all parties need to be thoroughly and impartially investigated, and those found responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, on either side, must be held accountable for their actions.
Yesterday, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution in which it decided to launch an independent inquiry into purported violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.
Meeting in Geneva in an emergency session, the Council also strongly condemned the "widespread, systematic and gross violations of international human rights and fundamental freedoms" arising from the Israeli military operations since 13 June, and called for an immediate ceasefire.
In a related development, the head of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today deplored the killing of Khaled Reyadh Hamad, a cameraman who was killed in the Shijaiyah neighbourhood of Gaza City on 20 July.
"It is essential that all recognize the civilian status of journalists, who must be able to carry out their work keeping us informed of events on the ground," Director-General Irina Bokova said in a news release. "As stipulated by international agreements, journalists must be protected including when reporting from the scene."


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Could be rough road trying to avoid government shutdown
'UPFRONT with Mike Gousha' Sept. 22 recap
-- There's a "bumpy road ahead" in the push to pass a continuing resolution and avoid a government shutdown before the Oct. 1 budgetary deadline, says U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan.
"I think everyone who is responsible, Democrat and Republican, in the building doesn't want to see that happen," Pocan told "UPFRONT with Mike Gousha," which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics.com.
The Madison Democrat said he blames Tea Party Republicans for the delay in passing a budget, citing a funding bill passed by the House of Representatives that contains provisions that would defund the Affordable Care Act.
VIDEO: Pocan: Bumpy road in next 10 days
"It's 24 or 36 people holding all the rest of us hostage," Pocan said. "Even the Senate Republicans are saying this is an extreme measure that doesn't make sense."
The Senate is expected to strip the provisions related to the Affordable Care Act from the bill. Pocan said he thinks responsible lawmakers will reject using the threat of government shutdown as incentive to keep the controversial provisions.
Pocan also rejected a proposed one-year delay in the roll out of small business and individual health care mandates. Pocan said he wants Congress to focus on implementing the ACA properly, rather than working to obstruct it.
"It's the law of the land, and we've voted 41 times, I believe, to try repealing it," Pocan said. "That's not going to happen."
-- Pocan said he's very hopeful diplomatic efforts to remove chemical weapons from Syria will prove successful.
"We're doing the exactly the right thing, we're coming up with an international response," Pocan said.
According to Pocan, ninety-seven percent of his constituency doesn't support U.S. military intervention in the Syrian conflict he described as a civil war without a clear endgame.
"This is what many of us have asked for from day one," Pocan said.
-- Also on the program, Jeff Crawford, the attorney general of the Forest County Potawatomi, made a case against a proposed Menominee casino in Kenosha County.
Crawford denied the Potawatomi tribe funded recent ads rapping plans to convert the Dairyland Greyhound Park into a gaming complex. He said the Bureau of Indian Affairs is wrong in its estimate of the positive economic development.
VIDEO: Tribe denies involvement in TV ads
"We, and the city of Milwaukee, will lose approximately 3,000 jobs," Crawford said.
The loss of jobs at the Potawatomi casino would have a ripple effect on the economy of the surrounding community, according to Crawford. He said local support is mixed.
"Obviously there is support in the city of Kenosha and Kenosha County," Crawford said. "There is not consensus when it comes to Milwaukee County."
Crawford also said the Menominee casino would result in an unwanted increase in Wisconsin gaming, and said the reports consulted for tribal approval were biased.
The Potawatomi opposition to a new casino in nearby Kenosha isn't an issue of competition, he said.
"This is a heavily regulated and limited type of business," Crawford said. "If it were to be free and open competition, there would be 50, 100 casinos in the state of Wisconsin."
-- And Rep. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, said he wants to implement a plan to increase accountability for schools that receive public funding.
VIDEO: Bill would help track performance of schools
Charter schools and voucher-eligible private schools are included in the focus of Olsen's proposed bill. He acknowledged some fellow Republican state lawmakers might feel his bill will negatively impact the willingness of private schools to accept voucher students.
"There are requirements when you play that game that you have to follow through on," Olsen said.
Under Olsen's plan, public schools that under-perform for six years would turn into charter schools. Private schools that miss performance goals would lose voucher eligibility, and charter schools in the bottom category of evaluation would close.
"We can't afford to have kids go to schools that are failing," Olsen said.
Improvements in reading levels and other performance indicators would be included in consideration of a school's success, according to Olsen. He said schools that show consistent improvement wouldn't be in danger of a funding loss.
-- Gousha said metropolitan areas that work together will have greater regional success, and that could elude Milwaukee and its neighboring communities, which don't agree on much.
VIDEO: Differences between Milwaukee, suburbs could spell trouble


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At any given moment, there's a heap of cookbooks at least three deep—and quite often closer to three dozen deep—staring at me from my desk. Taking up space in my closet. Cluttering my kitchen shelves. And littering the floors of our tiny home.
Let me explain. I'm an editor. An editor who reviews books. It's not always apparent at first glance whether or not a book is a keeper. So before deciding whether or not to make mention of a new release to you, dear reader, I deliberate, weighing the relative merits according to a sort of indefinable equation in my head, at all hours of day and night. At breakfast. In the shower. On walks with our four-pawed princess. As my mom natters away on the phone. Even as I sit down to romantic dinners for two.
Meanwhile, throughout the teensy Manhattan apartment that I share with my husband, the books sit. In stacks. Seussian stacks that I'm constantly shuffling and reshuffling according to best books of the year or worth merely a mention or does nothing for me. It's a defect in our decor and when E protests, I remind him the stacks make us seem terribly literary and quite like the New Yorkers that we are. (He doesn't buy it, either.)
And so it goes all year long, E tripping over the stacks, our 64-pound princess nosing them curiously, and me frantically shooing them both away. (You thought an editor's job was glamorous?! Hah.) This continues until late November, when my deadline for our list of best cookbooks of the year nears. And that's when I start ducking my publisher's phone calls. Evading his emails. Finding excuses to cut our conversations short. You'd think I'd be glad to bid the books good riddance. But the indecisive part of me starts overthinking what "the best" means, anyway. Who am I to say what's best for you? People's personal cookbook collections are like their lingerie drawer. Different styles, colors, sizes, preferences.
But the deadline looms. And so I extricate those books I've been most drawn to these past 12 months—the cookbooks that prompt me to read my husband a list of ingredients in between acoustic guitar videos on YouTube and ask him how that sounds for dinner, the cookbooks that send me scrambling for the back of an envelope and a pencil to scribble a grocery list, the cookbooks whose pages are starting to show signs of gentle wear, and especially the ones that "accidentally" fall off a stack and end up with a dented corner or a dinged dust jacket necessitating that I keep it rather than turn it over to our Leite's Culinaria library ("Oops! Sorry, David, I guess I better keep that one…"). And within moments, I have my list.
So without further ado, indecision, or ducking David, here's the eclectic, perhaps unexpected, and, in my opinion, excellent array of the year's books, the ones that I can't imagine not telling you about.—Renee Schettler Rossi
In his latest book, Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing (W. W. Norton & Company, $39.95), Michael Ruhlman picks up where his previous book, Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, left off. He's hit his stride. He's confident. Authoritative. Unapologetic. This isn't a book for dilettantes. You're going to have greasy hands, smoky hair, and a stinky basement as you craft (yes, craft) guanciale, coppa, lardo, prosciutto, and salami. No hardcore salumerist would have it any other way.
There's nothing hip, trendy, or outré about pizza—or about Jim Lahey's book My Pizza: The Easy No-Knead Way to Make Spectacular Pizza at Home (Clarkson Potter, $27.50). All he does is bring his signature superb—and simple—style to pizza. That's more than plenty for us. You'll find nothing here but crisp crusts so thin as to seemingly defy every law of physics, and toppings so inspired they could have come out of the ovens at Co., Lahey's pizza joint in Manhattan, or, for that matter, the ovens in Naples, Italy. Nope, not trendy at all. Yet still perfect.
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover—or at least by its title. Witness Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts: Quicker Smarter Recipes (Artisan, $25.95). The seductress of sophisticated desserts, Alice Medrich, has unleashed her creativity on ideas old and new. There's meringue. Cookies. One-bowl cakes. Beer floats. Chocolate in abundance. And other mind-bending excellence. The only thing the title fails to mention? Just how spectacularly the sassy recipes and copious tutorials express Medrich's sense of whimsy. As such, I sorta renamed the book, at least when I refer to it, as Sinfully Easy, Savvily Sophisticated, Wackily Whimsical Desserts, with apologies to Ms. Medrich.
Secrets. Sentimentality. Strong-willed women. Sweets—lots and lots of sweets. All the essential elements of a best-seller are contained within the warm-the-soul success story of Linda Hinton Brown and Norrinda Brown Hayat, the mother-and-daughter duo behind The Brown Betty Cookbook: Modern Vintage Desserts and Stories from Philadelphia's Best Bakery (Wiley, $22.99). The book shares tales and recipes passed down through four generations of the Brown family, including perhaps the longest cake chapter ever, with 108 pages of frosted fabulousness with charmingly titled recipes such as "Company's Comin'" and "Only for Eliza" and "Hattie Don't Play." There's also pie and cupcakes—and, we hope, a sequel. Or maybe even a movie deal?
There's a lot to be said for a book that can instantly transport you from your mundane reality (oops, am I projecting?) to a life in which lunch is lingered over each day. The latter is the reality of veteran food editors Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer, founders of the well-known Canal House, and I dare say it'll become your reality, too, as soon as you delve into their cookbook. What began as a daily photo and caption of lunch on their site begat a 360-page book containing kitchen essentials of every sort, such as compound butter and vin santo–roasted pears as well as less-expected pleasures the likes of lemon verbena-inflected bellini and cauliflower with bread crumbs, pancetta, and prunes. I've dubbed it The Big Red Book, for reasons that I think are obvious, but you'll recognize it as Canal House Cooks Every Day (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $45).
Sometimes what you need, especially if you're new to the parenting gig, is less a cookbook and more a girlfriend. A girlfriend who can commiserate over your sleep-deprived situation; a girlfriend who can see you through every awkward phase with patience, practical advice, and a flask procured from her purse; a girlfriend who can ply you with takeout, cooking tricks, and tried-and-true recipes when you can no longer find the time—or, gack, the will—to cook. A girlfriend like Debbie Koenig, author of Parents Need to Eat Too: Nap-Friendly Recipes, One-Handed Meals, and Time-Saving Kitchen Tricks for New Parents (William Morrow, $16.99). But, since she already has her own friends, what you need instead is her book. Even if you never make a single recipe—a mistake, mind you—her book is certain to become a dog-eared bible. Reread that title. The book savvily and sassily helps you extend the efficiency of any time spent in the kitchen. It's sorta the What to Expect After You're Expecting for those who've forsaken duck fat for the moment to finance a college fund.
Ever justify the price of a cookbook on the grounds that if it yields even a single reliable recipe, it's worth its weight in chocolate? Us, too. Although if actual usefulness was the basis of a book's price, we wouldn't be able to afford Kim Laidlaw's Home Baked Comfort (Weldon Owen, $34.95). Her inspired, inventive, and, yes, comfort-food-like concoctions—witness Bite-Size Bacon and Cheese Scones, Toaster Tarts, even S'mores Brownies—are knee-wobblingly, infallibly, unforgettably good. And the wish-you-were-there photos only make these baked beauties all the more enticing. Daily. Doubt us? We've the curves on our hips to prove it—including Fatty Daddy, that is, David.
We like Bambi. A lot. So any cookbook that can seduce us to tuck into a venison burger commands our respect. Thus far we've come across one such book in existence, and it's Afield: A Chef's Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish, by chef and hunter Jesse Griffiths (Welcome Books, $40). You'll find all the culinista buzzwords here, including local and nose-to-tail and sustainable. There's also National Geo-worthy journalistic photos that capture moments stolen from a day in the life of a hunter, surprisingly lust-inducing food, and graphic, almost roadkill-like, yet edifying snapshots of how to butcher a [fill in the blank]. And guys, there's lots and lots of straightforward, non-emasculating advice on everything from roasting a whole hog to grilling venison loin to making a Bambi burger—one that'll give your usual beef burger a run for its bacon.
Sometimes you just want down-home food. Sophisticated, superlative, Southern-inspired, down-home food of the sort not typically encountered in home kitchens (present company excepted, natch). This isn't nearly as oxymoronic as it sounds, thanks to chef Mitchell Rosenthal and his book Cooking My Way Back Home: Recipes from San Francisco's Town Hall, Anchor & Hope, and Salt House (Ten Speed Press, $35). The renowned chef seamlessly melds flawless execution with down-home tastes. Barbecue ribs the way only a handful of gifted humans know how. A tomato tart gussied up with St. George cheese. And mashed potatoes that could make angels weep. Amen.
Futzing with tradition can be tricky—not to mention contentious. Yet the whippersnappers behind Mile End, a deli in Brooklyn with a devout clientele, managed to do it right, tweaking their grandmothers' authentic Eastern European recipes with contemporary refinements. Now Noah and Rae Bernamoff are, miraculously, divulging their secrets in The Mile End Cookbook: Redefining Jewish Comfort Food from Hash to Hamantaschen (Clarkson Potter, $27.50). Rest assured, there's still mention of timeless classics including schmaltz, whitefish salad, pickles, and how to properly slice smoked meats amid all the recipes for rugelach, jelly doughnuts, matzo, and more. We think even Bubbe would approve.
Roots and tubers. Sexy, huh? In the hands of Diane Morgan, they're that and more thanks to Roots: The Definitive Compendium with More Than 225 Recipes (Chronicle, $40). Trust us, it's a lot prettier a prospect than you might expect. This primer of epic proportions demystifies every little thing about every underground food thing, from common celery root to trippy crosnes. Morgan's recipe handiwork runs the gamut, featuring horseradish butter, basic roasted beets, carrot-top pesto, and parsnip cake. There's even a little candied lotus root tossed in for good measure.
Americans' infatuation with street food—we're talking actual street food, mind you, not food-truck food—has never been more ardent. While the stunning porn photography in glossy travel magazines and coffee-table tomes is titillating, we crave something we can actually cozy up to at night. Enter The World's Best Street Food: Where to Find It & How to Make It, by the intrepid folks at Lonely Planet (Lonely Planet Publications, $19.99), an indispensable guidebook that we fancy for its practical know-how concerning foodstuffs like churros, jalebi, oyster cake, and lots, lots more. Each item merits a detailed definition, talk of its origins, insider-y advice on where to find the most inspired rendition, as well as a cheat sheet on how to order it like a local. Oh, and a recipe so you can replicate it at home. A must for armchair as well as adventure travelers—and cooks.
One day of the year more than any other elicits angst deep in the soul of home cooks. Though others before Sam Sifton have devoted entire tomes to the topic of Thanksgiving, no one else has managed to do so with the eloquence, wit, and thoroughness of the former restaurant critic of The New York Times. In Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well (Random House, $18), he embraces everything about the day—not excluding such matters of import as etiquette, table-setting tactics, and cleanup—with resigned reality, scholarly diligence, and occasional snarkiness. And that's to say nothing of his deadpan candor. ("Let us speak plainly: You are going to need a lot of butter.") Lord knows each of us could use all of these things on that day.


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If you want to know what goes on in your brain as you "think", and you can only read one of the flood of recent books on the subject, you can not do better than Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. It is a fascinating, rich, and eminently readable compendium of what Kahneman and others have learned about how the mind works. Truly a landmark book. But something's missing.
Kahneman describes a vast body of knowledge about how we make choices in general, and why our choices often seem to fly in the face of what would make the most sense. But he fails to describe the discoveries, made in large part by many of his colleagues and students, about the psychology of risk perception... the way we make choices about threats to our health. What we've learned about how the mind works when we face potential health risks is an important body of knowledge helpful to anyone who wants to make wiser, healthier choices, the kinds of decision making Kahneman has written his book, and devoted his career, to help us with. Thinking is a certain classic that millions will learn from, so it's a shame that this area isn't included.
To be fair, many of the cognitive tools (heuristics and biases) that we use for all sorts of decision making also influence our choices about risk. Mental shortcuts that Kahneman describes, like The Availability Heuristic and Loss Aversion and Optimism Bias, which were revealed in research about decision making that had an economic focus (Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for this work), help us combine slow conscious thinking with faster gut instinct to make choices about money or risk or politics or lots of other things. But in addition, a distinct set of psychological tools have been discovered that help us gauge what's scary and what's not, tools that, like all heuristics and biases, usually produce reasonable choices, but which sometimes lead to perceptions and behaviors that don't match the evidence... in ways that get us into serious trouble. Almost none of that research is mentioned in Kahenman's book.
- Control -- The more control we feel we have, the less frightening a risk will feel. The less control we feel, the more afraid we'll be.
- Dread -- The nastier the nature of the risk -- the more pain and suffering it involves - the scarier it is. (This goes a long way toward explaining why cancer, the number two killer in America, is far and away the disease people fear most.)
- Is the risk Natural or Human-made -- Natural risks, like cancer-causing radiation from the sun or the toxic effects of some herbal medicines, scare us less than human-made risks, like cancer-causing radiation from nuclear power or industrial pesticides on fruits and vegetables.
- Personification -- A risk represented by a name or a face (the starving child, a dead soldier in a flag-draped coffin) affects us more powerfully than a risk that may be much larger but is only represented by impersonal numbers ("millions of starving children", statistics of battle deaths).
- Catastrophic risks (lots of harm from one large event, like a terrorist attack) worry us more than chronic risks where the harm is spread out over space and time (major killers like heart disease and drunk driving).
- Risks imposed on us (radiation from a nuclear power plant leak) feel worse than the same risk if we take it voluntarily (a chest x ray or CAT scan).
- Risks that are more immediate scare us more than risks that may be much larger but which are delayed (climate change... OOPS!)
There are more than a dozen discrete psychological risk perception factors that contribute to what Slovic and Anne Finucane and others have labeled "the Affect Heuristic", their label for how we subconsciously combine the facts and how those facts feel, based on the risk perception factors as well as our experience and education and life circumstances and other emotional inputs, to come up with the judgments we make about risk. The Affect Heuristic wonderfully captures the inescapable reality Kahneman's own work helps make indisputably clear, that despite our hubris about how smart we are, our thinking is actually a mix of intellect and instinct, reason and gut reaction, cognition and intuition. But the Affect Heuristic is only briefly described in Thinking, Fast and Slow, and none of the specific discoveries about the psychology of health risk decision making is mentioned.
This is not a criticism of Thinking Fast and Slow, which is rich and comprehensive and, understandably, focuses on the fields that were central to Kahneman's research. This is a case for greater awareness of what we've learned about how we think about health risk, a body of knowledge that can help individuals and policy makers make judgments about risk more intelligently. In his conclusion, Kahneman rightly observes that a more 'precise vocabulary' about the heuristics and biases of decision making -- the 'Endowment Effect' and 'Loss Aversion' and all the mental tools that shape the judgments we make -- can help us make smarter choices. It is perhaps even more urgent that we recognize 'Control' and 'Natural v Human-Made' and 'Personification' and all the specific risk perception factors Slovic et.al. have labeled, if we want to make more thoughtful, and healthier, decisions, about risks to our health and safety.
For much richer reading about the details of the psychology of risk perception;
"The Perception of Risk", a collection of the seminal research papers into the psychology of risk perception, including many of the papers by Slovic, Fischhoff, Lichtenstein, and others.
"The Feeling of Risk", a collection of newer research papers on risk perception, edited by Slovic.
"How Risky Is it, Really? Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts", a book written for the general public, students, and policy makers, that describes not only what psychology has found, but also what neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, and media studies have discovered about the way we perceive and respond to risk the way we do. Written by David Ropeik. (Me.) As a journalist and student, and proselytizer, of this knowledge, I was deeply honored that Paul Slovic found How Risky Is It, Really? "excellent", and "comprehensive". So this doesn't come across as too self-serving, major portions of the book - the Introduction, Chapter 3 (which goes into detail about the risk perception factors introduced above), and Chapter 5, are online, free, at http://dropeik.com/how_excerpt.html)


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If you use the iTunes Store, or any other Apple online service such as iCloud, you have an Apple ID. This is the email address associated with your Apple account. I get lots of questions about Apple IDs, and in this week's column I answer a number of them.
Q: My Apple ID is an email address that I used to use but that I recently changed. I won't be getting email from it anymore, so I need to change it. How can I do this?
There are two types of Apple IDs, and the flexibility they give you depends on the type. The first is an Apple ID based on an Apple email address, such as @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com. If your Apple ID uses this type of address, you can't change it.
You can change the email for an Apple ID if it uses any other kind of address, such as one with an @yahoo.com or @gmail.com domain. Go to Apple's My Apple ID page and click the Manage your Apple ID button. Enter your email address and password, then click Sign in. From this page, you can change your name (if you've gotten married, say) or your email address.
The My Apple ID page also lets you change your password, address, phone number, and more. You can even add an alternate email address. And if you have an Apple ID based on one of Apple's addresses, you can already use three different versions—email@example.com, email@example.com and firstname.lastname@example.com—to access your Apple accounts.
Q: I recently moved to Australia from the United Kingdom, and have an iTunes account with the UK store. I also want to establish an account with the Australian store so that I can use Australia-only apps and redeem Australian iTunes gift vouchers. Is this possible?
Apple doesn't want you to do this, but it is possible. You'll need to create a new account on the Australian store, using an Australian mailing address and bank card (credit or debit). You may be able to create an account without a card, or with PayPal, but I can't say for sure, because I don't have an Australian address.
You can sign in to and out of either store in iTunes: Look for either the Change Country link or the flag icon at the bottom of any iTunes Store page. On an iOS device, go to Settings > iTunes & App Stores. Tap your Apple ID, then tap Sign Out. Sign in with the other Apple ID, and you'll get a message that it's not good for the current store but that you'll be transferred to the new one.
Note that if you change Apple IDs on a device—computer or iOS device—and use automatic downloads, you won't be able to change the Apple ID on that device for 90 days. So just turn off automatic downloads.
Q: My wife and I buy books and films from the same iTunes account and store them on the same computer, but in different user accounts. Can I access my wife's books and can she access mine to use on each other's accounts?
Yes. The easiest way to do this is to copy items you want to share to your respective Public folders (found in your home folders, the ones with the house icon and your usernames). Each of you can then access the other's folder. When logged in to your account, choose File > Add to Library in iTunes and navigate to the other's Public folder. Then select the content to copy the files to your iTunes library.
Q: My daughter used to share my Mac, buying content with her own iTunes account. She's gone away to college, and there's still a lot of her content on my Mac. I'd like to find this and remove it—how can I do this?
Download Doug Adams's Track Down Purchases AppleScript (donation requested). It will sift through your iTunes library and create playlists labeled by name or Apple ID containing content belonging to each account in the library. Find her purchases and then just delete them from your computer.
Q: I have two Apple IDs and two accounts, but this is a headache. Can I merge these two accounts into one?
Nope. Apple has never allowed it, even though there appear to be a lot of people who would like to do so based on all the questions I get on the subject. It would be so much simpler for, say, a couple that gets married to merge accounts than to have to work with two different Apple IDs. But until Apple changes its policy, you're stuck.
[Ask the iTunes Guy is a regular column in which we answer your questions on everything iTunes related. If there's something you'd like to know, send an email to the iTunes Guy for consideration.]


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Karl Terry: Courtesy photo PortalChildren from the New Mexico Baptist Children's Home try their luck at the go-cart track at Casel-Land Fun Center in Clovis.
The Portales Rotary Club played host to children and houseparents from both the New Mexico Baptist Children's Home and the New Mexico Christian Childrens Home for a day at Casel-Land Fun Center in Clovis on Oct. 15.
The club's sponsorship allowed everyone to try their luck in the batting cages, on the miniature golf course and on the go-cart track.
Rotarians put on a cookout at noon for the group.
"There were many smiles on a lot of deserving faces, and the rewards for this event were realized not only by the kids but also staff from the homes and the participating members of the club as well," said Rotary President Chris Wood. "I was very impressed by the respect and attitudes of the kids, and almost all came up to the club members and thanked us personally. We hope to make this an annual event for the kids."
Each year the homes also invite club members to their holiday programs.


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Poetry Dispatch No. 238 | June 9, 2008
Poems for the Father #2
in celebrations of Father's Day, June 15, 2008
Father to Son by Carl Sandburg
A father sees a son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
'Life is hard; be steel; be a rock.'
And this might stand him for the storms
and serve him for humdrum and monotony
and guide him amid sudden betrayals
and tighten him for slack moments.
'Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy.'
And this too might serve him.
Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.
The growth of a frail flower in a path up
has sometimes shattered and split a rock.
A tough will counts. So does desire.
So does a rich soft wanting.
Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
Tell him too much money has killed men
And left them dead years before burial:
The quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs
Has twisted good enough men
Sometimes into dry thwarted worms.
Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.
Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools.
Tell him to be alone often and get at himself
and above all tell himself no lies about himself
whatever the white lies and protective fronts
he may use amongst other people.
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong
and the final decisions are made in silent rooms.
Tell him to be different from other people
if it comes natural and easy being different.
Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.
Let him seek deep for where he is a born natural.
Then he may understand Shakespeare
and the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,
Michael Faraday and free imaginations
Bringing changes into a world resenting change.
He will be lonely enough
to have time for the work
he knows as his own.
From THE PEOPLE, YES by Carl Sandburg
Some selected Carl Sandburg recordings and books:
Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, historian, novelist, balladeer, and folklorist. He was born in Galesburg, Illinois of Swedish parents and died at his home, named Connemara, in Flat Rock, North Carolina.
H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat." He was a successful journalist, poet, historian, biographer, and autobiographer. During the course of his career, Sandburg won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: The War Years) and one for his collection The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg.
During the Spanish-American War, Sandburg enlisted in the 6th Illinois Infantry, and he participated in the landing at Guánica on July 25, 1898 during the invasion of Puerto Rico. Following a brief (two-week) career as a student at West Point, Sandburg chose to attend Lombard College in Galesburg. He left college without a degree in 1902.
Sandburg lived for a brief period in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during which he became a member of the Social Democratic Party and took a strong interest in the socialist community. He worked as a secretary to Mayor Emil Seidel, the first socialist mayor in the United States.
Sandburg met Lilian Steichen, sister of the famed photographer, Edward Steichen, at the Social Democratic Headquarters. Lilian (nicknamed "Paus'l" by her mother and "Paula" by Carl) and Carl were married in 1908; they would go on to have three daughters. Sandburg moved to Harbert, Michigan. From 1912 to 1928 he lived in Chicago, nearby Evanston and Elmhurst. During this time he began work on his series of biographies on Abraham Lincoln, which would eventually earn him his Pulitzer Prize in history (for Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, 1940).
In 1945, the Sandburg family moved from the Midwest, where they'd spent most of their lives, to the Connemara estate, in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Connemara was ideal for the family, as it gave Mr. Sandburg an entire mountain top to roam and enough solitude for him to write. It also provided Mrs. Sandburg over 30 acres of pasture to raise and graze her prize-winning dairy goats.
Much of Carl Sandburg's poetry, such as "Chicago", focused on Chicago, Illinois, where he spent time as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and the Day Book. His most famous description of the city is as "Hog Butcher for the World/Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat/Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler,/Stormy, Husky, Brawling, and City of the Big Shoulders."
Sandburg is also beloved by generations of children for his Rootabaga Stories and Rootabaga Pigeons, a series of whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories he originally created for his own daughters. The Rootabaga Stories were born of Sandburg's desire for "American fairy tales" to match American childhood. He felt that the European stories involving royalty and knights were inappropriate, and so populated his stories with skyscrapers, trains, corn fairies and the "Five Marrrrvelous Pretzels".
Sandburg was awarded a Grammy Award in 1959 for Best Performance – Documentary Or Spoken Word (Other Than Comedy) for his recording of Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait with the New York Philharmonic.
Here is an incomplete list of books and anthologies published by Sandburg:
- * In Reckless Ecstasy (1904) (poetry) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
- * Incidentals (1904) (poetry and prose) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
- * Plaint of a Rose (1908) (poetry) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
- * Joseffy (prose) (1910) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
- * You and Your Job (1910) (prose) (originally published as Charles Sandburg)
- * Chicago Poems (1916) (poetry)
- * Cornhuskers (1918) (poetry)
- * Chicago Race Riots (1919) (prose) (with an introduction by Walter Lippmann)
- * Clarence Darrow of Chicago (1919) (prose)
- * Smoke and Steel (1920) (poetry)
- * Rootabaga Stories (1920) (children's stories)
- * Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922) (poetry)
- * Rootabaga Pigeons (1923) (children's stories)
- * Selected Poems (1926) (poetry)
- * Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (1926) (biography)
- * The American Songbag (1927) (folk songs)
- * Songs of America (1927) (folk songs) (collected by Sandburg; edited by Alfred V. Frankenstein)
- * Abe Lincoln Grows Up (1928) (biography [primarily for children])
- * Good Morning, America (1928) (poetry)
- * Steichen the Photographer (1929) (history)
- * Early Moon (1930) (poetry)
- * Potato Face (1930) (children's stories)
- * Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow (1932) (biography)
- * The People, Yes (1936) (poetry)
- * Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939) (biography)
- * Storm over the Land (1942) (biography) (excerpts from Sandburg's own Abraham Lincoln: The War Years)
- * Road to Victory (1942) (exhibition catalog) (text by Sandburg; images compiled by Edward Steichen and published by the Museum of Modern Art)
- * Home Front Memo (1943) (essays)
- * Remembrance Rock (1948) (novel)
- * Lincoln Collector: the story of the Oliver R. Barrett Lincoln collection (1949) (prose)
- * The New American Songbag (1950) (folk songs)
- * Complete Poems (1950) (poetry)
- * The wedding procession of the rag doll and the broom handle and who was in it (1950) (children's story)
- * Always the Young Strangers (1953) (autobiography)
- * Selected poems of Carl Sandburg (1954) (poetry) (edited by Rebecca West)
- * The Family of Man (1955) (exhibition catalog) (introduction; images compiled by Edward Steichen)
- * Prairie-town boy (1955) (autobiography) (essentially excerpts from Always the Young Strangers)
- * Sandburg Range (1957) (prose and poetry)
- * Harvest Poems, 1910-1960 (1960) (poetry)
- * Wind Song (1960) (poetry)
- * Honey and Salt (1963) (poetry)
- * The Letters of Carl Sandburg (1968) (autobiographical/correspondence) (edited by Herbert Mitgang)
- * Breathing Tokens (poetry by Sandburg, edited by Margaret Sandburg) (1978) (poetry)
- * Ever the Winds of Chance (1983) (autobiography) (started by Sandburg, completed by Margaret Sandburg and George Hendrick)
- * Carl Sandburg at the movies : a poet in the silent era, 1920-1927 (1985) (selections of his reviews of silent movies – collected and edited by Dale Fetherling and Doug Fetherling)
- * Billy Sunday and other poems (1993) (edited with an introduction by George Hendrick and Willene Hendrick)
- * Poems for children nowhere near old enough to vote (1999) (compiled and with an introduction by George and Willene Hendrick)


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From Finland with Love: Notes on Installing a Wood Ceiling
Though it's not the least expensive, installing a wood ceiling is one of your most eye-catching options.
Nearly 30 years ago, I traveled to Finland and toured a series of modular, site-built homes in the city of Jyvaskyla. Apart from their energy efficiency—windows closed like refrigerator doors!—I remember being impressed the use of wood on all interior surfaces, ceilings included.
Related: 10 Great Looks in Tin Ceiling Tiles
Maybe these memories played into my recent decision to install a wood ceiling in our converted attic. In a space with two-foot knee walls, where the prominent ceiling is pretty much all that you see, wood struck me as the best choice.
But you may not be surprised to learn that installing a wood ceiling is more expensive than using drywall. All in, it would have cost about $1,450 to drywall the ceiling in my attic. That's roughly the amount I ended up paying for just the tongue-and-groove boards alone, prior to their installation.
Labor costs added another $1,400 to the total project cost. It took three days for a carpenter and his helper to complete the work (with me lending a hand). Less time would have been needed in a different space, I'll bet. There were some quirks encountered in my attic. For one thing, the old rafters were neither sized nor spaced regularly. Additionally, there was some tricky fitting to do at the ridge, around the collar ties, and along the rough masonry end walls.
My wife and I handled the finishing. After sanding the wood and sealing it (so the stain wouldn't go blotchy), we applied two coats of White Wash Pickling Stain from Minwax. All of that was done within 48 hours, which means that in my case, installing a wood ceiling took the better part of a week.
No, I don't splurge on a lot, but the wood ceiling is something I enjoy every day. Yes, it costs as much as a nice vacation, but I have no regrets. Oh, speaking of vacations: In the summer of 2014, there will be another housing fair in Jyvaskyla!


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Where is the Senate?
Our country is facing the greatest threat to our freedom and future since 1941. Any honest view of our debt, deficits, size of government and demographic challenges shows we must make major changes if we are going to pass on the American way of life to our children. Each week seems to bring new warning signs: slower-than-expected growth (already as much as 25 to 33 percent every year, some estimate), higher-than-expected unemployment numbers, admonitions to get our act together from the international financial community.
If these facts are true — and very few policymakers deny them — why has the U.S. Senate become the least deliberative "greatest deliberative body" in the world?
The lack of leadership and initiative in the Senate is appalling. As of this week, the Senate has held just 72 roll call votes this year, about one per legislative day on mostly noncontroversial and inconsequential matters. By this time last year, we had taken more than twice that number of votes (152). By this time in 2009, we had taken 192 votes. If we continue to avoid tough choices, we will lose control of our economic destiny and go down in history as the Senate that lost America. Our epitaph will read: Never before in the field of legislating was so much ignored by so many for so long.
For the past several months I have been meeting with a small group of senators from both parties, informally known as the Gang of Six, that was designed to force the idle — not gridlocked — Senate, and then the House and the president, to enact a long-term deficit-reduction package. Our talks reached an impasse this week when, in my view, it became clear we would not be able to produce a balanced, specific and comprehensive deal that would improve on, and in some ways meet, the standard set by the Bowles-Simpson plan.
I understand the disappointment, and real danger, associated with our impasse. The question, though, is not how we tried and failed but why the Senate has not even tried. Commissions and "gangs" form when members lose confidence in the institutions in which they serve. Working groups have their place — but they should support, not replace, the open work of the full Senate. The truth is that we already have a permanent standing debt commission. It's called Congress.
We are facing what Democrat Erskine Bowles calls the most predictable economic crisis in history. There is no excuse for not having bills on the Senate floor with an open amendment process that allows the American people to fully comprehend not only the magnitude of our problems but the possible solutions. The people need to hear the Senate debate the central issues of our time. The limited progress that has been made to bring sobriety to Congress, such as the end of the earmark orgy, was made possible through a relentless floor campaign publicizing amendment after amendment and cut after cut. Change happens when the American people see real debate, not partisan political theater.
As the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid bears special responsibility for failing to direct attention to the central challenges of our time. His floor strategy seems to be focused on saving Democrats more than democracy. I would relish a debate on tax earmarks, spending cuts and competing budgets (if there were competing budgets), yet the votes he seems most interested in scheduling — such as tax breaks for big oil companies — are designed for short-term political gain rather than long-term deficit reduction.
It is not realistic to expect six members to pull the Senate out of its dysfunction and lethargy. Some will ask why we should have more hope in an open, deliberative process, in which all senators are engaged, when a dedicated few did not succeed. The America I know comes together when tough times call for us to do so. It's time for the Senate to earn its reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body and help lead that effort. The constituency to help 60 senators agree on a balanced deficit-reduction plan already exists among the public. The public rightly prefers spending cuts over revenue increases, but numerous polls indicate the vast majority of Americans would support the only type of plan that would ever make it out of Congress and be signed into law: one that favors spending cuts over revenue increases but includes both.
Getting there, however, will require the Senate to put forward specific solutions and win public support for serious entitlement reform and tax reform. In the coming weeks I'll be putting forward my own proposal that puts everything on the table and cuts $9 trillion in spending over the next decade. I hope my colleagues present their ideas as well. I'm confident that in a free and open debate, the best solutions for America will prevail, but only if we have the debate.
History has not been kind to republics that pretend they can borrow and spend beyond their means indefinitely. We can cheat history, but only if we act quickly. If senators put our national security ahead of our political security, the American people will see there is no problem we cannot solve. Let the debate begin.
The writer is a Republican senator from Oklahoma.


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Around 200 mosques across Punjab have been repaired, rebuilt or built from scratch with the help of Sikhs and Hindus in the last 10 years. Many destroyed during Partition riots are now being restored by village communities. It's a reassertion, after decades, of Punjab's unique religious and cultural synthesis
Read more » OutLookIndia


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Tuesday, 12 June 2018 08:39 AM EDT
The dilemma is all too familiar: It's Monday morning, you walk into your office and see that someone has left a big box of donuts in the break room. Then, your co-worker tells you there will be cake later for yet another birthday celebration.
One thing's for sure. You're not alone. A new federal government survey found that about one-quarter of Americans "acquire" nearly 1,300 calories at work every week. Even worse, the survey only included foods people didn't bring to work themselves, and food they didn't purchase from outside vendors.
"The majority of the calories people got at work, people didn't pay for -- 70 percent of the calories were free," said study co-author Stephen Onufrak, an epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The food and beverages that were most commonly obtained at work, he said, were:
Sugar-sweetened soft drinks,
French fries,
Diet soft drinks.
When the researchers looked at the foods by calories, pizza was the leading source of calories obtained at work, followed by sandwiches and regular soft drinks.
Onufrak said the foods obtained at work might have been lunch -- some workplaces did have onsite cafeterias and foods purchased at an employee cafeteria were included in the survey.
The study included more than 5,200 people from a nationally representative group that completed a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey in 2012 and 2013. The volunteers answered questions about the foods they obtained at work over a seven-day period. They only reported food they acquired at work, and they didn't say whether or not they ate the foods.
Onufrak said the survey didn't ask about what people ate at home, so it's hard to know for sure if they continued eating foods that were high in refined sugar, salt and empty calories once they left the office. But he said that based on other research he's done, "a lot of the eating patterns we saw tend to be consistent."
The findings show that employers have an opportunity to improve their workers' health, he said.
"If you look at data on worksite wellness programs, they're effective at getting people to have healthier behaviors, reducing health care costs and reducing absenteeism. I think encouraging a healthy diet is an essential part of a worksite wellness program," Onufrak explained.
Nutritionist Samantha Heller noted that offering healthy fare could provide a benefit to employers, because employees who eat well "will feel better, will have more energy and can focus better."
Heller, who's with NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, added, "When we feed our bodies well, our bodies and brains respond. It's a win-win for the company and the employees."
But what if your workplace doesn't offer healthy options? The best option may be to bring your own lunch, Heller suggested. That way, you're in charge of what foods are available to you, and it saves you money.
If you don't bring your own lunch, she said, you should do some scouting to see what healthy food choices are available around your workplace. And it's a good idea to do this when you aren't hungry.
And what about all those free sweets at work?
"People bring a lot of treats to work. People like to feed each other to show affection. But it's OK to say no to the birthday cake or the brownies. It's always going to be somebody's birthday or another celebration. Decide ahead of time that you're going to say no to treats at work," Heller advised.
Onufrak is scheduled to present the findings on Monday at the American Society for Nutrition annual meeting, in Boston. Research presented at meetings is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
© HealthDay
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Building a Machine To Win A Culture
The biggest lesson of 2012 GOTV efforts is that we can no longer afford to ignore half the country and expect to win.
This excellent post from Erick Erickson describes the way the makers of Political Gravity view winning an election. But the model Erickson uses — the model that has been used for decades to win campaigns — is hopelessly limited.
The model is flawed because it views elections from the point of view of campaigns to elect candidates. Instead, we need to focus on getting people on our side, marketing the causes of liberty and a constitutionally limited government.
There is not some massive shift to a welfare mentality in America. There are people taking the free lunch that is being handed to them. We need to inspire these people.
They have been beaten down and told that they cannot have a different life because society is out to get them — and our side represents that society to them. The deck is stacked against you, they are told, and conservatives are the dealer.
It's powerful in-group out-group psychology, and Obama used it shamelessly. It was the key to his victory, and will be the key to taking back our culture and country.
Obama won by getting people — single women, especially — to see themselves as being on his team. His campaign message took a horrible negative, Obamacare, and focused on another horrible negative, forcing people to buy birth control with health insurance, and made some groups think it was not just a positive, but freedom itself.
Birth control, war on women, Big Bird, and making appearances on The View and David Letterman were all to appear to be on Team Single Mom and Team Pop Culture. He "had their back."
Obama spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the summer convincing low information voters that Romney was not on their team. They bought it. Before the Romney campaign was really even engaged, Obama had defined his opponent as the corporate monster who wanted you to hire him so he could fire you.
When someone is not on your team, you distrust whatever they say, believing they're out to deceive you. By the conventions, it was over.
Obama activated his base and played to his activist core followers. He used new data tools to arm those activists with the information they needed to contact and register new voters primed and made ready by Obama's appearances on pop culture TV.
Results of exit polling to determine trends in the electorate suffer a key flaw: they measure the result of get out the vote efforts. That selection bias makes them perhaps useful for seeing how campaign strategies worked, but not for spotting trends in the electorate.
Obama's negative ads succeeded in getting millions of swing voters who were polling in Romney's favor not to go to the polls. Obama turned out his base, and Romney didn't turn out his.
Bruce Donnelly of the Barrington, IL Tea Party sums it up about the failure of the GOTV effort in Illinois, as one state party that failed:
Regardless of the reasons behind these trends, the situation analysis is pretty obvious. Unless the Republican Party does something to start attracting more members between elections, it won't be enough to simply "get out the vote" at election time, or try to persuade voters with costly advertising campaigns.
That demonstrably is not getting the job done, but the party leadership remains in denial about even having a problem. Instead, the latest excuse is to say that the party is "too conservative", or that the Tea Party supporters have "ruined the party" (even though they did not exist prior to 2009, so that hardly explains the above pattern). Others claim that we must figure out how to pander better to specific groups of voters to buy their votes, as the Democrats do.
RB Pundit says the Republicans need to reach out to Hispanics, concluding:
The key is letting go of this idea that we have to steer clear of identity politics and embrace the idea that conservatism is the right path for minority groups. But you need to get specific. And if that requires using race as a means to make the case, so be it. Democrats are going to continue doing it, so we have to figure out a way to do it better or we'll continue to miss a golden opportunity to steer this country back from the road to Europe-West.
Byron York run through the statistics in various states on the Hispanic vote and says
The bottom line is that even if Romney had made historic gains among Hispanic voters, he still would have lost the election. That means Romney underperformed among more than just Hispanic voters. And that means winning more Hispanic votes is far from the GOP's only challenge.
The point of Hispanic outreach is the trend in population: Hispanics are a growing slice of the demography. This year they may not have been decisive, but that may change in coming elections.
A collaboration from Brittney Morrett and Samuel Rosado, with Michelle Lancaster and Ben Domenech underscores this point:
At its core, the biggest problem the GOP and conservatives have with Hispanics and minority groups in general is a lack of a ground game. The GOP lags behind the Democrats because for years, the middle-aged to elderly white voting class has been the most reliable voting bloc, and they have traditionally voted for Republicans. Therefore, conservatives and the GOP have never had the need for a major ground effort to bring them to the polls. The changing demographics in the United States necessitate a concerted ground effort with the GOP.
Kim Strassel writes that this same principle applies to all minority voters:
This is the demographic argument that is getting so much attention, and properly so. The Republican Party can hope that a future Democratic candidate won't equal Mr. Obama's magnetism for minority voters. But the GOP would do far better by fighting aggressively for a piece of the minority electorate.
The Solution
The answer is to start now, not in the summer of 2016, to reach into every community across America, regardless of how they vote. We must engage using local people, and not be shy about it. People accept a message from people who look, act, and talk as they do. They're already on the same team, which is half the battle.
Political parties organize by state, county, and precinct. We must seek out and train volunteers in every precinct in America.
We can't focus just on swing districts. Focusing on winnable precincts and districts is fine for the final push for an election, but in focusing on winnable precincts in the past we have ignored everything else. As a result we don't turn out our base and we never make inroads into the other side's territory.
The other side, meanwhile, has been teaching the next generation in the public schools and universities, as well as on their TV screens, that America is the problem with the world, and conservatives are the problem with America. We must correct that.
The only way to combat this full-out assault on our culture is by stepping up the ground game to make it a year round activity, reaching into every community in the country with the message of liberty, constitutional government, and opportunity.
It's a massive undertaking. It will take a long time.
A campaign orientation prevents that kind of long-term thinking. A campaign can't afford the time and effort to take a 0/100 precinct and move it to 10/90, but a volunteer in a precinct can do far more than that. Building a team, they make voting a matter of personal preference, not a question of herd behavior.
Moving a precinct from 0/100 to 10/90, or 30/70 to 40/60 yields the same number of votes as flipping a precinct from 45/55 to 55/45.
Looked at another way: if we never go into an area and ask for someone's votes, what are they going to think? They will soon think we don't want their votes. They will think it's personal, rather than merely a result of the short-term thinking of campaign operatives. If the other side is constantly crying racism, sexism, and any other groupism, that message will fill the vacuum we have created.
Continuing our online outreach, we must reach more and more people in every community who look around and are dissatisfied with the headlong plunge toward socialism. We will continue to combat the media narratives, and hopefully supplant the mainstream media as the information source of choice for most people.
The final piece of the puzzle is to get our activists to join the political parties as precinct workers — precinct committeemen, precinct chairs, etc. They will bolster the idealism of the people who are there, turning the local parties into GOTV machines. In doing so they will be put into positions of increasing authority in the local, state, and national party organizations.
Michael Biundo, campaign manager for Rick Santorum's primary campaign, said, "You don't win Iowa by winning the straw poll. You win Iowa by working hard in each of its 99 counties."
The same is true of Illinois, California, New York, Pennsylvania, and every other state.
If you think the American people — especially minority voters — are forever bought off and no longer want to succeed with the freedom to pursue their dreams, then you may as well quit. I don't , and I won't.


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Today, I just upgraded my computer from a 256 GB Samsung 840 SSD to a 512 GB Samsung 860 SSD, but the drive still shows a capacity of only 256 GB, and Windows also currently starts up more slowly than it did before. What does everyone else say about this?
EDIT: I conducted some research, and I used disk management to extend the primary partition, so I now have the full capacity of my drive available, and everything si good for me, now.


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Note: Since completion of the house I have also decided to allow guest bloggers to post articles related to remodeling. This continues the education process.
Architect Selection - December 2002 through January 2003
Getting a Permit - January 2003 through November 2004
Construction - November 2004 through September 2006
Post Construction - October 2006 through ???
The Lighting Store is now OPEN!
Tue, Mar 3 2009 07:22 AM | Chandeliers, Craftsman, Lamps, Lighting, Quoizel, Sconces, Stained glass, Store, tiffany | Permalink
Lamps Plus, we are pleased to bring their entire collection of lighting to the Craftsman Home Remodeling website.
Next Page
Be sure to browse the 2,000 picture Photo Gallery for more step-by-step construction details.


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TBA 2010: Five Questions with Ronnie Bass
Almost a month ago, Rufus Wainwright strode onto the Schnitz stage, kicking off the TBA in a candy-striped velvet coat he'd borrowed from Gus Van Sant. Two weeks later, Blackfish let strains of slide guitar lapse into the Imago silence, to close the festival's final live performance. But if you thought TBA 2010 was over —au contraire.
Several gallery exhibits at The Works have been open ever since, and will remain through next Sunday, October 17. This means there's still time to take in The People's Biennial, and maybe even get answers for the questions it raises in Kristan Kennedy's special Sunday presentation and walk-through with Harrell Fletcher, David Rosenak and other contributors. You can still behold the bold sapphic futurism of Yemenwed, stroll through Storm Tharp's High House —or enclose yourself, as I did twice, in the quiet dark confines of Ronnie Bass's inner-space odysseys The Astronomer and 2012.
As minimal music tensely ticks along at less than one beat per second, Bass holds a conversation with a blanketed form, drills holes in moon-rock, and stargazes at the vast universe from a closet-sized room with a cot in the corner. After enjoying these video visions and his live performance at Drum Machine, I bumped into Bass by The Works' beer-garden honeybucket. "It's kind of peaceful in there," he observed. "I don't think anyone's used it."
Your songs contain a dialogue between a hesitant voice and a reassuring one—but both voices are your own. Do you think of these as a father and son? Or as one person, parenting an inner child? Any general thoughts on parenting or self-parenting?
I think of the dialogues as being between people, or the ones that I have created. It may be father and son, astronomer and nervous friend or any other variation. The dynamic is always similar: one person has a special knowledge and is consoling someone in need of guidance.
I'm currently working on a project with Tommy Hartung. We've been talking about using a disembodied voice via a shortwave radio. One issue that we've had is in how to keep the read of the voice as predominantly human without limiting other possibilities.
I didn't originally think of the dialogue as as a self-parenting situation, but that read makes sense because of how minimally my characters are developed and how one-tracked/minded they may seem. They are almost the simplified representations of internal phases, but that's also similar to the way that I make my stories, my sets and my scores. I always prefer the essential idea of something over its complex form.
The numbers you cite in your work, fall somewhere around your age—late 20's to early 40's. At one point you say, "I'm almost 35 now," and at another you say, "The moon now hangs at 42. If we leave now, we might break through." I'm reminded of Pink Floyd's "No one told you when to run; you've missed the starting gun." Am I right in guessing that your work depicts progress in relation to age?
I have never thought of it in relation to my work, but there absolutely is a thematic connection. You often hear a similar theme in hip-hop, and in social utopian philosophy, especially in that of Charles Fourier. As different as these forms may be, they all discuss a very similar thing: an escape from our current existence of oppression into a new world. Within hip-hop, it's a world of lawlessness and extravagance. Fourier sees a refined way of labor and life. Waters and Gilmour don't really depict a result, only the idea of leaving.
I did try to keep the numbers near the 30s to imply planetary alignment; a sign for the right time to act, but it is a coincidence that it corresponded to my age or ages. Beyond my age of 35, which will happen in the year 2012, the rest of the numbers were chosen because they rhymed with the words that I was using: 29 with time, 42 with through…
It seems like the title Leaving The Shed could indicate agoraphobia, shyness, alienation, and/or creative Insecurity. Do you personally struggle with any or all of these?
I have been accused of agoraphobia because I like to work in small spaces. For me, a small space holds the most potential for work and privacy. I think of the time that I'm making art as a hiding-out or as a retreat. My characters have a similar cocooning phase before their great idea or action. Also, within film, a small space (for me) alludes to the optimistic potential of a vast external space elsewhere.
I do have issues with alienation and creative insecurity. It's part of being an artist.
Do you think you would enjoy actual space travel? Are you fascinated with the real thing, or just the metaphor?
I would not at all want to space travel. I have to make artwork. I am interested in science and technological advancements and space travel fits into that. In The Astronomer, I never thought of their destination as outer space, it is only that a cosmological sign prompted their journey. For me, their destination was an area that they could carve out within a space that has already been scripted with its own order. The optimistic aspect is that they would be able to live independently from, and simultaneously within, this scripted order.
Do you think the world is going to end in 2012?
Two big events are supposed to happen around that time: a giant solar flare and the flipping of the Earth's magnetic poles. Scientists say that it could be devastating; but my answer is no, I do not think that the world is going to end. The sense of foreboding in my work is coming from my own observations of our current economic and social conditions. Within this nation, I predict a future of class division that will be several times more severe than what is currently occurring. It's the nature of late capitalism emmeshed with corporatism. I'm not here to fight it or to change it. As an artist, I can only present it and propose questions. Any answers are fantastic renditions.


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Developed by students, aiming at simplicity and lightweightness of the application, the Student Agenda was made for students organize themselves and have, consequently, better performance in studies.
The objective of using this application is to perform activities within the deadlines combined, divide time between academic and personal life, conduct day-to-day with more calmness and less stress.
On the Student Agenda, important information about tests, homeworks, appointments and timetable will always be available on your smartphone to new schedulings and consultations, wherever you are. Another very useful feature is the notification schedule (reminder) to not forget important activities .
The application was developed aiming at simplicity and ease of use. To start , simply registering your subjects and then your timetable.
Main features:
• Simplicity and lightweightness
• Timetable
• Scheduling of events (exams, homeworks/tasks, activities and returning books to the library)
• Take photo to increase the description of events
• Notification schedule (reminder) for events
• Check events as "completed"
• Events ordered by day, week and month
• Timetable of the day
• Timetable of the week
• Calendar
• Management of marks
[email protected]
Size : 2.2M
Current Version : 2.3.1
Requires Android : 2.3.3 and up
Offered By : Claudivan de Carvalho