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At tip-off, Jim Larranaga is on his feet, watching the first ugly minutes unroll from the sideline.
It's a Wednesday night in Tallahassee, the stage for a Rivalry Week hoops battle between Florida State and the University of Miami. Turnout is good. Red-faced frat boys war-whoop as ESPN2 cameras pan the crowd. Older alumni quietly sit courtside in Seminole gear, eyes hooked on cheerleaders shaking golden pom-poms. A 2011-12 Atlantic Coast Conference championship banner dangles from the rafters, although few people probably expect this year's Seminole squad to do much against the visiting competition.
FSU is anchored by underclassmen — thin, reedy guys with little experience — except for senior standout Michael Snaer, a long-range danger with sure NBA potential. The Hurricanes, by contrast, start four veteran seniors tonight. At point for UM is Shane Larkin. With pro-athlete genes from his dad, baseball Hall of Famer Barry, the sophomore is an all-around talent, equally adept at pulling off highlight-reel showbiz as playbook maneuvers. That combination of finesse and experience works for UM — the team is currently 20-3 for the season. When the Canes first met FSU a month earlier, Miami came out on top 71-47.
But as play begins, it becomes clear UM is rusty. The first stabs at FSU's basket all backfire, with three turnovers in six possessions. Two minutes in, the Hurricanes are down 7-2. They look nothing like the team that dismantled the University of North Carolina 87-61 five days earlier and is currently in the middle of a perfect ACC campaign.
Larranaga stays planted near the end of the bench. At age 63, the coach still carries his six-foot-five frame with the straight-backed poise of a former athlete. Not a clipboard-basher, he quietly takes in the action, his competitive fire fenced off behind professorial calm. Neatly trimmed hair still holds onto some color, and scant wisps of white reach over the top of his head. Worry lines worm across his forehead as he watches, his arms either folded across his dark suit or clasped behind his back.
Suddenly, Snaer knifes through the defense on the run and receives the ball at the top of the key. Before Larkin can get his hands up, Snaer sails the ball over the UM point guard's head to an open man below the basket. FSU is up 9-2.
On the next possession, FSU's defense chokes off approaches to the basket. After swinging along the perimeter, the ball lands with Kenny Kadji, an easy-smiling forward with a gym-cut six-foot-11 frame. He plants his feet, dips his knees low, and arcs the ball to the basket. It thunks against the backboard before flying up and out of bounds.
"Miami knows how this feels, because they just did it to North Carolina, this kind of start," ESPN's Dave O'Brien chortles on air as a timeout freezes play with FSU leading by nine.
Initially unranked, UM crashed the party of college contenders after upsetting Duke, 90-63, in late January. It was the first time the team had beaten a number-one-ranked team, and it put the Hurricanes in the Associated Press's Top 25 list for the first time since 2010. Each subsequent win nudged the Hurricanes higher. Before the February 13 tip-off, they had reached number three — a program record.
The wins shifted attention onto Larranaga, now in his second year at UM. Although his name isn't marbled in the college pantheon, over a three-decade career, he's put together a unique reputation. Equal parts playground grit and New Agey corporate-speak, his coaching style turned a no-name program into a contender in 2006, when he led 11th-seed George Mason to the Final Four. It was one of the great Cinderella runs in the NCAA annals.
Now, easing into his career's last act, Larranaga may or may not have the tools to take the Hurricanes deep into the postseason. Last Saturday, the Hurricanes lost a hyped rematch with Duke, showing that the ACC championship won't be an easy grab. And in future years, Larranaga's team will face not only a 128-team bracket but fallout from the worst scandal outside of Joe Paterno's Penn State. Although Larranaga was never on campus while corrupt booster Nevin Shapiro was cutting checks, he may have to deal with sanctions for the rest of his Miami career.
To understand what this means for South Florida's newly minted, second-most-loved franchise, you have to look deep into not only Larranaga's past but his present. The coach's quirky approach has been able to push teams far beyond the usual expectations, but Miami presents its own obstacles.
Larranaga was born in the Bronx in 1949. His family lived in Parkchester, a massive square of 171 matching red-brick buildings planted in the south-central part of the borough. His Cuban-American father, John, was an insurance adjuster who worked in the Empire State Building. His Irish mother, Eileen, raised six kids in the family's three-bedroom apartment.
The postwar baby boom filled Parkchester with children, and basketball was the main event on the playground. Younger kids grew up watching from behind the chainlink, waiting for their chance. "If you were mediocre, you'd be sitting," recalls John Carey, a Parkchester native who grew up with Larranaga. "When you got out there, you'd try to absorb everything. It would teach you the subtleties of the game."
Both of Jim's older brothers — Bob and Greg — played, and the future Hurricanes coach was throwing around the ball by age 8. He attended St. Helena's School, but mostly he was chained to the court. "It was a time before drinking; it was a time before doing anything like that," says Bill Foley, another Parkchester friend. "We were all straight arrows. The only thing that mattered to us was playing basketball. We would play four, five, six hours a day."
A growth spurt, a mean jumper, and sharp court radar landed Larranaga a scholarship at Archbishop Molloy, a jacket-tie-and-crewcut all-boys school in Queens. The basketball team was coached by Jack Curran, known around town as a guy who lined up summer jobs for the kids and ferried them to doctors for injuries.
The coach ran a tight, yes-sir, no-sir squad. A disciplined Catholic who went to mass every day, Curran would eventually tally more wins with his basketball and baseball teams than any other coach in New York City history. Each practice was a strict litany of drills: hand work, backboard jumpers, driving layups, back to the basket — then repeat. "By just following the routines, you got good without even knowing it," Larranaga says.
Larranaga was as regimented as his coach. Up by 6:30, the teen downed the same breakfast each day: a sandwich and a milk shake spiked with an egg. By 7 a.m., he had started the hourlong bus ride to school, and at lunch, he gobbled down ten Reese's Pieces. Every day, he played 1.5 hours of chess.
In Larranaga's junior and senior years, Curran often trucked his big man home. During the car trips, the coach unfurled tales about clinching buzzer shots and big-time high school matchups. "That really made me think that this is what I want to do with my life," Larranaga says. "I wanted to be a player and a coach."
Larranaga was All-City at Molloy, his play sharpened during summers on the playground with future NBA players Dean Meminger and Charlie Yelverton. At a dance at the Bronx Irish Center, he met a neighborhood girl named Liz Lynch, half the baller's height but his equal in wit. The two kept running into each other around the neighborhood and eventually began dating, keeping up the romance while Larranaga attended Providence College, a perennial basketball power.
As a senior, he captained a 20-3 squad anchored by future NBA Rookie of the Year Ernie DiGregorio. By the end of Larranaga's college career, he was the fifth all-time scorer in the program's history. In 1971, he not only was snagged by the Detroit Pistons in the sixth round of the draft but he put a ring on Liz's finger.
He failed to make the Pistons team — which he contends wasn't much of a disappointment — and took a job as an assistant at Davidson College, a small, well-regarded basketball school in North Carolina. His boss was Terry Holland, the honey-talking Southerner who'd been a shooting standout at Davidson in the early '60s. The Larranagas spent two years there, and a son, Jay, was born in 1975.
When Holland left the school, Larranaga was let go. He ended up with a gig as a player-coach in Belgium — "a unique experience," he says.
By 1979, Holland had moved to the University of Virginia, where he tapped Larranaga again as an assistant. The program was a considerable jump up in stature. Holland had just recruited Ralph Sampson, a seven-foot-four local center who would become NBA Rookie of the Year for the Houston Rockets. With Larranaga as copilot, the Cavaliers would make two Final Four appearances and win a National Invitational Tournament title.
Under Holland, Larranaga absorbed more than court smarts. The head coach opened his family life to his players and staff. Sampson lived with Holland for a semester; future Dallas Mavericks Head Coach Rick Carlisle regularly stopped over to play the family's piano. Holland even taught Larranaga to water-ski before the city boy could swim.
Larranaga also learned to do his homework on recruits, drilling down into the basics: what the guy's family was like, his favorite foods, the girls he chased.
In 1986, after seven seasons at Virginia, Larranaga took a head-coaching job at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. The team had made only two appearances in the NIT in the previous 20 years. The program trailed third behind football and ice hockey for fans and funding.
During his first few seasons at Bowling Green, Larranaga's teams hovered around .500, and his coaching staff was a revolving door. Clarity was needed. He dove into self-help libraries for management tips; Deepak Chopra and Stephen Covey were favorites.
He also put his coaching philosophy into writing, coming up with a 108-page inventory of possible plays and scenarios. The book became the program's bible.
But in the early '90s, Larranaga received sage advice from Dick Bennett, then the coach at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. "He told me, 'You are not going to be happy until you reduce that notebook down to a simple page,' " Larranaga recalls.
After hacking through his system, the coach was left with a strategy as tidy as a Zen garden. All that players really needed to think about was the perfectly executed defensive possession. "If you look at a game, let's say you play 60 to 80 possessions," he explains. "But we look at one possession and say, 'What would be the one way to play it?' "
Larranaga came up with ten points that characterized a perfect possession. "It all starts with defense," the coach explains. "You get back, you're in a stance, you're seeing ball and seeing man."
Now he had his own style.
Antonio Daniels was sleeping off a win from the night before against Central Michigan when he blinked awake to see Larranaga standing in his cramped dorm room. The cold night was still pressing in at the windows of Offenhauer Tower. It was February 8, 1996.
Dizzy with sleep, the Bowling Green point guard shot his coach a puzzled look. "Antonio," the older man said in a level tone. "Your phone is about to ring, and it's going to be your mother."
The call came right then. The 20-year-old's mom quickly broke the news: Chris, Daniels' older brother and a standout NBA prospect at the University of Dayton, had died in his sleep from a freak heart ailment. Daniels collapsed weeping into Larranaga's arms.
Daniels remembers getting dressed and dragging himself into the coach's car. They drove two hours south to Dayton so he could be with his family. When Chris was buried later that week in Columbus, the entire Bowling Green basketball team showed up. Daniels, wearing his brother's number 33, returned to the court later that month and scored a last-minute layup that beat Eastern Michigan.
During the following summer, Larranaga recalls handing Daniels a key to the Bowling Green gym. A lanky six-foot-four with an impressive 80-inch wingspan and flashbulb smile, Daniels worked his grief out on the court. By his senior year, Daniels' field-goal percentage went from 47.8 to 54.7, and he became the fourth pick in the 1997 NBA draft.
"I've been through heaven and hell with Coach L," Daniels says today. "For me, it was important to have Coach L there, period. I remember when I got drafted — you can have ten people at your table. Outside of my family members, I had Coach L there."
That kind of connection was all a part of the environment Larranaga built throughout the early and mid-'90s at Bowling Green. Central to that was knocking down the boundary between work and home. Liz Larranaga understood this. "He once said to me that if you just measured a life by wins and losses, it would be pretty empty," she says today.
As they were growing up, Jay and his younger brother, Jon, were always running around the locker room or traveling with their father on recruiting trips. Jay got an early glimpse of his dad defying the odds when the middle-schooler tagged along for the December 1988 University of Kentucky Christmas tournament. The Falcons nailed the nationally ranked Wildcats 56-54 before a hometown crowd.
The Larranagas lived near campus. The team would hang out in the finished basement. "They had a big-screen TV, they had a big huge couch, they had a pool table, and one of the assistant coaches [Keith Noftz] would always do card tricks for us," recalls Anthony Stacey, a power forward on Larranaga's later BGSU teams. "Those are the times you never forget."
Dinner invitations came often, particularly when Larranaga got wind players had blown through their food stipends. The menu was always filet mignon, rice, rolls, and freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies. "At Bowling Green, he wasn't making what he's making now, but he went all out for his team," Daniels says. "As a player, you think, 'He's a guy I want to be on the front lines for.' "
The players were so comfortable stopping over at the Larranaga house that once, when the coach was putting up a coaching staff job applicant overnight, some guys knocked on the door at 11 p.m., asking to meet the new guy. Larranaga invited them in but told them he wasn't going to wake his houseguest.
Keeping the door open for his players meant Larranaga was there with life advice when needed. In the winter of 1995, Larranaga called a stocky freshman guard named DeMar Moore into his office. Poor classroom performance meant the player was academically ineligible. The news came at a bad time. Moore had just found out that his girlfriend back in Sandusky, Ohio, was pregnant.
"I think he was a little disappointed, [but] we talked, and he put things in perspective about what I needed to do," Moore says now. "I never really had a male figure in my life, and he showed me the ropes. He said to use it as a lesson."
Each day before practices and games, the coach offered a "Thought of the Day," anything from the Bible to Sun Tzu's The Art of War. "If you asked 100 of my players what their favorite thought was, probably 90 of them would say: 'Begin with the end in mind,' " Larranaga says, referring to a Stephen Covey quote.
Sometimes he'd cut the lights in the locker room, ask his players to close their eyes, and walk the team through visualizing victories. Each game day, a different player was assigned to pick a song for the locker room. On court, his trademark whistle meant authority.
"Whenever he whistled, we'd automatically look over and know he wasn't happy with us," Stacey says. "I don't know how he does it. It's the loudest thing I've ever heard."
Larranaga was also careful to keep stress levels low. One Halloween, the coach strolled onto the court for practice with a gold chain, sunglasses, backward hat, and sagging pants. "That was probably the funniest thing I'd ever seen him do," Stacey recalls. "That's just him, though. He always did a very good job of balancing the coach aspect but letting us have fun."
The system produced steady results. In his 11 years at Bowling Green, the team went 170-144. In 1996-97, the Falcons went 22-10 and played in the NIT, only to be knocked out in the first round by West Virginia by three. After the season, Larranaga was named the Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year.
That spring, George Mason University came with an offer. The Fairfax, Virginia, school was slightly bigger than Bowling Green but had spent the past seven seasons as a bottom feeder. It was a lateral career move, but George Mason had no football and hockey programs to compete for funding. Larranaga carefully thought over the decision. "He doesn't make too many decisions quickly," Jon Larranaga says. "He thinks, analyzes, and researches."
Larranaga took the George Mason job. At the time, his younger son was also weighing a choice. Growing up in Bowling Green, Jon hadn't immediately taken to the family business like his older brother; he played ice hockey until his feet grew too big, requiring expensive custom blades. Hoops was the default. "For me, basketball was always a way to spend time with my dad and my brother," he says. "It gave us something to do together."
Though Jon had a standout high school career at St. Johns Jesuit High School in Toledo, the Larranagas weren't sure he should play for his dad. Jay, five years older, had competed for his father at Bowling Green, where Jay had felt the pressure of having family and team tied so directly. "You're mixing a lot of emotions into that relationship," Jay says. "It always felt like the lows were lower and the highs were higher."
Arriving in his father's second season, Jon became the locker-room liaison between the coach and the new players. Larranaga had simply airlifted in his entire approach — from his staff and defensive focus to Liz's team dinner menu. Jon could explain his dad's expectations. "I went in with about 20 years of experience," he quips.
The results came quickly. In his first season, Larranaga's squad bumped along at 9-18. In year two, the Patriots went 19-11, and the coach knocked off a career milestone: an appearance in the NCAA tournament. The Patriots followed up with another winning season and returned to the first round of March Madness in the coach's fourth year, only to lose to Maryland.
"When you play for your dad, you have the pressure of winning and doing the best for your team, and then when you are losing, you have the pressure that he'll lose his job," Jon says. "It's a great feeling making it to the NCAA tournament. And it's also a great feeling to know you're helping your dad's career."
Although the team never penetrated beyond the first round of tournament play, George Mason put itself on the radar as a program to watch. But nothing would prepare college hoops prognosticators for spring 2006.
After a disappointing 16-13 showing in 2004-05, Larranaga brought together the senior players and asked if they wanted their college careers to end with a bust. The team — anchored by scorers averaging in the double digits like Jai Lewis, Lamar Butler, and Tony Skinn — decided to stay on campus for summer workouts. "That was the hardest preseason, man," recalls Butler, a charismatic guard who had half-seriously predicted that the Patriots would make the Final Four in a prepractice visualization session. "There were no days off. We battled so we could take it up another notch. Coach L really didn't have to do much. For the seniors, this was our last job."
The school won 23 regular-season games and landed in USA Today's Top 25 rankings — two firsts for the program. Many analysts like CBS' Billy Packer scoffed when George Mason secured an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. As the 11th seed, the team beat Michigan State, then nailed defending national champion North Carolina, 65-60, after falling behind 16-2.
Wichita State fell next, matching the Patriots against tournament favorite University of Connecticut. When the two tipped off on March 26, 2006, Larranaga's locker room was filled with television cameras. His players were now ESPN SportsCenter material.
Larranaga preached cool to his team. "I told them that the media has a job to do and we have a job to do, and those things don't have to get in the way of each other," he recalls.
The UConn-George Mason game was one of the great nail biters in college sports history. The Patriots were down 43-34 at the half. They fought back and went ahead, but as the buzzer sounded at the end of regulation time, UConn had tied it. In the last seconds of overtime, a missed UConn jumper sealed the game for George Mason; the next stop was the Final Four. In a cover story the following week, Sports Illustrated called Larranaga's team's streak "the most improbable Final Four run in the annals of college basketball."
Although the Patriots lost their next game against eventual tournament champion Florida, Larranaga had been catapulted into the upper ranks of college coaches.
It's February 13 at the FSU game with 18:60 left on the clock in the second half, and Larranaga's face remains pinched in a scowl as he watches the Hurricanes fight to pull momentum away from the Seminoles.
The Hurricanes are holding off their cross-state rivals 38-31. UM point guard Larkin's pass finds Kadji open out beyond the curve of the three-point line. The forward bends down with the ball in both hands, eyeing his teammates as they tangle with coverage.
Usually spot-on from the field, Kadji and other Hurricane long-ballers have been grounded all game by aggressive pressure. Soon Kadji's man is moving in; after a beat, the forward jackknifes, launching the ball over a swinging arm as he tumbles backward. The shot is good.
But with ten minutes left on the clock, the Seminoles have evened the score. "Miami is on upset alert now," ESPN's O'Brien shouts over the crowd, sound going tidal in the background. Despite the seesawing score, the Hurricanes remain poised. Larranaga throws his arms as if he's conducting traffic from the sidelines, spotlighting open spaces and lanes. Suddenly the Hurricanes' offensive runs begin clicking. Larkin goes airborne on a pair of layups before knocking in a three to put Miami up 68-56. By the time the game buzzes to a finish, the score is 78-64.
Those last minutes in Tallahassee showcased UM's ability to lock down control. Big shots from Kadji were critical.
By all accounts, Kadji is playing the best basketball of his life. By midseason, he'll average 12.6 points a game, shooting .625 from the field and hitting one of every three tosses in three-point territory.
The stats are particularly surprising given that Kadji's four-year run has included a transfer, surgery, and coaching changes. Like almost all the seniors Larranaga inherited when he took the Miami job in 2011, Kadji came with a last-chance mentality that played well with the coach's idiosyncratic style.
Born in Cameroon, Kadji grew up bouncing among Africa, France, and Florida. His basketball odyssey began auspiciously in 2001. On vacation in Miami, Kadji and his mother were shopping in Coconut Grove when they spotted the Miami Heat's Alonzo Mourning on the sidewalk by the GreenStreet Cafe. The 13-year-old always carried an autograph book at the time, and he approached the NBA star. Looking over the height and hands of the kid before him, Mourning told Kadji's mother her son should play basketball.
"It always makes me smile," Kadji says, referring to the story.
The Kadjis took the advice seriously. They enrolled their son in IMG Academy in Bradenton, a sports mecca that his younger brother, Oliver, was also attending, as a soccer player. Kadji arrived on campus as a six-foot-five high school junior with a natural gift. By his senior year, he averaged 28 points, 12 rebounds, and four blocked shots per game. Both rivals.com and scout.com listed Kadji as the fifth-ranked center in the class of 2008 nationwide.
"Kenny always loved to play; he always loved to be in the gym," says Dan Barto, a coach at IMG. "In high school, he obviously blocked a lot of shots, and he was a ferocious dunker."
His high school and Amateur Athletic Union performance with the Florida Rams were enough to get Kadji a scholarship at the University of Florida in fall 2008. But that was the year after the Gators had won the national championship, and the team was strong. His minutes were low. As a sophomore, he played only eight games before requiring back surgery. "At Florida, I really expected to contribute right away and play and help the team," he recalls now. "Obviously, it didn't turn out how I wanted it to be."
Kadji decided to transfer to UM, then coached by Frank Haith. He redshirted his first season in Miami. The two years of inactivity shot a hole through his confidence, and he returned to IMG to basically relearn his skills. Then Haith left in April 2011 for the University of Missouri.
When Larranaga took over the position, Kadji had no idea what to expect. "It was my last chance," he says. "I didn't want to be in a bad situation again."
The 2011-12 Hurricane team under Larranaga went 20-13 as the new coach felt out his players. In addition to Kadji, there were two other big men, but both struggled: Six-foot-ten center Julian Gamble sat out the season after tearing his ACL, and Reggie Johnson came back slowly from knee surgery. The Hurricanes finished tied for fourth in the ACC.
"We've come from a long way," Johnson says. "It was depressing to play at home. I hated playing at home. When I came here and saw an empty gym, there's nothing to play for. You play to win, but the crowd ain't behind you. But when you go to Duke and North Carolina, those fans are standing up, cheering, cussing at us. That's what college basketball is."
The seniors lining up for the 2012-13 schedule were all joined by the fact that the upcoming schedule really would be their last opportunity at the college level. If they didn't do something in Larranaga's second season, their careers were likely done.
This proved to be a motivator. At a spring team meeting, Larranaga pressed the squad about what they wanted out of the following season. An NCAA tournament appearance was the consensus. Channeling the dedication of his George Mason players, Larranaga replied that the whole team would have to stay on campus all summer for weight and conditioning work.
"Most of the people on the team, we really haven't had success," Kadji says. "Reggie Johnson is a fifth-year senior. Julian Gamble is a sixth-year senior. These people have been through injuries, so we can all relate to each other. We know how hard it's been for each other to get to this point, so I think that brought us closer together."
UM's hot streak hung like a target on the team's back, with each opponent looking to dim the Hurricanes' glow. It happened on the road with a blowout loss to Wake Forest in late February, 80-65. Before that, the Hurricanes occupied the number-two position in the Associated Press poll. Following the loss, the squad fell to number five. Many analysts still predict that UM will go to the NCAA tournament as a first or second seed.
Last Saturday, UM traveled to Duke for a rematch. With the most obnoxious fan base in sports raining down abuse, the Hurricanes led for most the first half. UM's defense muzzled Duke's lineup save for Ryan Kelly, who put up 36 points. Had a buzzer-beating three from UM's Rion Brown been an inch over, the Hurricanes would have tied the game for overtime.
Despite the loss, the Hurricanes' close road performance against Duke still won admiration from analysts. Many predict the team will go to the NCAA tournament as a first or second seed, although a poor performance in the ACC tournament could shadow its prospects.
All season, Larranaga has tried to keep his players focused on each upcoming game. The coach, however, is fixated on recruiting.
Besides Larkin, only one other underclassman sees significant playing time on the current squad. Regardless of the 2012-13 team's fate, he'll have to rebuild the entire program after March.
And standing in the way of arming up with new talent is the ongoing NCAA investigation into UM's athletic program.
Word about corruption in UM's football and basketball programs hadn't surfaced when Larranaga accepted the position in spring 2011. But in August 2011, Yahoo! Sports published a damning report recounting the allegations of former UM booster Nevin Shapiro. Serving 20 years in federal prison for his part in a Ponzi scheme, Shapiro detailed a decade of rule violations, including cash payments, nightclub and restaurant trips, and travel expenses.
Larranaga first heard about the allegations a day before the report was published. "My initial thought was this is bad timing for recruiting." The next week, UM's top five basketball recruits all eliminated the school from consideration.
The UM football program is the main culprit in the Shapiro allegations, although the basketball program is involved. The convicted con man claims he passed along $10,000 to a Frank Haith assistant to secure recruit DeQuan Jones for the program in 2008 — a payment the head coach allegedly knew about. The Yahoo! report also asserted that Haith assistant coaches had paid travel expenses for family members of two of Larranaga's players — Johnson and Durand Scott. The university benched both voluntarily for a time. Later, the school determined that the players didn't know about the travel at the time.
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A program with a spotty record seems a complete mismatch with Larranaga, still very much the straight-arrow Catholic-school grinder. But he backs away from commenting on what went on before he took over at UM. "Whoever was here and what they did — no one knows what decisions someone else makes, what the reasons are," he explains. "It's not my place to pass judgment."
A week before the Wake loss, the NCAA delivered the official notice of allegations, bashing the school for a "lack of institutional control." Two former basketball assistants were among those charged; Haith faces a lesser charge. UM has promised to fight the sanctions.
It's generally assumed that when the NCAA officially swings, the UM football program will take a serious bruising. But there's been no sign of what awaits Larranaga. His iPhone is constantly buzzing with text messages from high school talent with words of encouragement about the current Hurricanes.
They also have tough questions. "Recruits want to know, 'How will it impact the program when I'm there?' " he says. "And there's no answer to that. We don't know."


text:
A steady stream of parents, grandparents and family members crowded into the Blue Moose Café in Moosup throughout the day Friday, affirming that this community values reading.
A steady stream of parents, grandparents and family members crowded into the Blue Moose Café in Moosup throughout the day Friday, affirming that this community values reading.
The cafeteria at Moosup Elementary School doubled as a place for tea and a good book during the school's annual Reading Tea — an event set aside as an opportunity for students to share reading time with family and friends.
"Anytime you get a chance to come to school and see your kids get to show off their skills, it's great," Demian Sorrentino, who attended the tea for his daughter, Isabella Sorrentino, said. "It reinforces what they're learning."
Promoting literacy to families and the community through its students is a key initiative at Moosup Elementary.
"I like to read because I learn things," Isabella Sorrentino, a second-grader, said. "I read with (my parents) all the time."
The more than 300 students who attend the school received a free, new book of their choice for the tea — one of three times during the year students are given a free book. Books are paid for by the school's PTO and the First Book National organization.
Isabella read her choice, "Tigers at Twilight," to her father while her peer, Jeremy Rider, chose a book about planets to read to his mom.
"I like planets," the 6-year-old said.
On Friday, more than 200 guests attended one of four teas.
"It's so important the school supports literacy the way it does," Cathy Rider, Jeremy's mother, said. "It encourages a love of reading. Every student here is assigned reading every single school night. But it's not a chore to them — it's something they enjoy."
It's also something they like to share.
"It is amazing the way this community and the parents value reading," said first-grade teacher Melissa Curran, who helped organize the tea with the Moosup Elementary Literacy Team.
"It's obvious the students are spending quality time reading together at home. It just cultivates that love for reading even more."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Earlier this year, we posed the following challenge for our readers:
Why does the following chart, which spans 50 years of data for the United States in the post World War 2 era, look the way it does?
In this chart, we observe that the ratio of the U.S. National Average Wage Index starts off at a level 127.3% of the U.S.' GDP per Capita in 1951, slowly rises to peak at 137.8% of GDP per Capita ten years later in 1961, then falls steadily for the next three decades until 1994 when it flattened out at around 88.3% of the U.S.' GDP per Capita.
Since then, it has been as high as 91.3% of GDP per Capita in 2001, and as low as 86.2% of GDP per Capita in 2006. In 2010, the ratio of the U.S. National Average Wage Index to GDP per Capita is 88.6%.
What we can't explain is why these patterns exist. How can the average wage earned by individuals in the U.S. go from being as much as 37.8% higher than the U.S.' GDP per Capita over forty years ago to being steadily 11.4% below that quantity three decades later. What factors caused this ratio to first rise, then fall, then stabilize?
Several of our readers responded, offering the following possibilities:
- Why the ratio was rising from 1950 to 1961:
- Casualties in World War 2 reducing the pool of able-bodied men available to work, which boosted wages.
- Why the ratio fell so dramatically from 1961 to 1994:
- Technology replacing human capital in the workforce.
- An increasing share of women entering the workforce at lower wages.
- Baby boomers entering the U.S. workforce at lower wages.
- Declining union membership in the private sector.
- A declining portion of GDP going to wages.
- Why the ratio leveled off after 1994:
- Baby boomers no longer entering the U.S. workforce.
It took time to run down all these possibilities, but we now know the basic answer, at least for the period since 1961: the declining portion of GDP going to wages!
We were able to eliminate the other possibilities largely because the timing of factors affecting each of them failed to correlate with the trends we observed in the chart. For example, the number of women entering the U.S. workforce has been rising steadily for all years since 1951, and so have their wages - there have been no surges in female employment that might have sharply reduced wages with respect to GDP after 1961 as we might expect to see if women were responsible for what we've observed.
The entry of Baby Boomers into the U.S. workforce at first seemed like a better fit in explaining the decline, with the oldest Baby Boomers turning the working age of 16 in 1962, but here, only a portion of this population would have done so, with a majority waiting to graduate from high school two years later before entering the workforce, and another very large percentage postponing that event for up to another four years following their graduation from college.
If Baby Boomers were responsible for what we observe, we would see the ratio continue rising but top out in the early-to-mid 1960s. Instead, that clearly happened in the late 1950s and very early 1960s, years before the leading edge of the Baby Boomers reached Age 16.
Similar logic applies for the stabilization of the ratio following 1994. Here, the youngest Baby Boomers, born in 1964, would have reached the working age of 16 in 1980. Adding in two more years of high school and four years of college would have nearly all of the last Baby Boomers entering the U.S. workforce no later than 1986. The stabilization in the ratio didn't begin for another eight years.
Likewise, the role of technology, such as the wide scale introduction of the transistor in the 1950s and 1960s, following by the rapid development of computing technology in the late 1980s and 1990s doesn't well correlate with what we observe. Here, if technology were the culprit, we would expect to see a second decline in the ratio following the widespread adoption of computing technology in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That we don't see such a second decline indicates that technology doesn't explain what we observe.
Like the timing of Baby Boomers entering the U.S. workforce, the timing of the decline of union membership fails to explain what we observe in the chart. Here, union membership in the U.S. peaked in the early 1950s, then entered a period of slow and steady decline until 1974, after which union membership entered into more of a free fall thanks to the loss of automotive industry jobs as a result of the Arab oil embargo, when U.S. consumer demand shifted strongly in favor of more fuel efficient vehicles made by foreign car makers (a situation repeated again in 2008). The slow decline of union membership in the 1950s and 1960s is not consistent with the timing of the decline we observe in the ratio after 1961 and the lack of a similar decline following 2008's event rules out this possibility.
And that leaves just a declining portion of GDP going to wages. Interestingly though, when we went into the Bureau of Economic Analysis' data on the composition of GDP by sources of income, we found that total labor compensation as a percentage of GDP has been rock steady since 1951, averaging 88.6% of GDP and ranging between 86.8% and 90.7% of GDP in the 60 years from 1951 through 2011.
But the composition of that labor compensation has changed! Here, the percentage of labor compensation represented by wages and salaries has fallen from 95% in 1951 to just over 80% in 2011. Meanwhile, the portion of labor compensation represented by employer contributions to Social Security and Medicare (or employer FICA contributions), as well as for regular pensions and health insurance has risen considerably, taking a larger and larger share of total labor compensation for U.S. workers. Our new chart below shows how and when these other forms of compensation cut into U.S. wages and salaries:
Moreover, the timing of when those changes in the composition of labor compensation in the U.S. took place correlate very well with what we observe in the chart. Here, we observe increases in the employer portion of FICA taxes in 1954, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1966 (when the Medicare tax was introduced), 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988 and 1990. The FICA tax rate has then increased from 1.5% of income in 1951 to 7.65% in 1990, where it has held steady through 2011.
We likewise observe double-digit increases over the previous year for labor compensation in the form of pensions and employer-provided health insurance taking place from 1955 through 1957, 1959, and in each year from 1964 through 1981.
Together, these forms of employee compensation have displaced wage and salary income in the measure of GDP, which largely explains why the ratio of the National Average Wage Index first topped out with respect to GDP per capita in the U.S. in the late 1950s, then dropped after 1961 exactly as we've observed.
That also includes the stabilization in the ratio after 1994, as the year-over-year growth rate for employer-provided pension and health insurance slowed significantly after that year as U.S. employers adopted more effective cost control strategies for their pension and health insurance-related employee compensation expenses. These measures have included shifting away from unsustainable defined benefit pension plans in favor of defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) and 403(b) type retirement saving plans, as well as increasing the amount of the co-payments and annual deductibles paid by employees for their employer-provided health insurance.
And that's it! Our thanks to our readers for their suggestions in helping us finally explain that chart!
The data for the changing composition of labor compensation over time is taken from the BEA's interactive data showing GDP and Personal Income data, specifically Table 1.12, which shows the U.S.' national income by type of income.
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Standing on tip-toes because I still haven't gotten used to the feeling of wearing flats again!
Stumbling upon a hobo's stash of worldly possessions: a sleeping bag, flip-flops, tissues, and a can of deodorant...!
Photos by Angie
Top: Temt
Skirt: Dangerfield, Clear It
Shoes: Mossimo, eBay
Socks: Holeproof Heroes, Myer (free with gift card!)
Bag: Nasty Gal
Don't be fooled by my spring-y outfit, it was cold and wet and miserable today! Which was especially inconvenient because it was also the day of our walking tour of The Rocks with my Museum Studies class. The actual tour wasn't bad, but I could've done without the frequent periods of drizzle and wind, and I ended up keeping my umbrella in hand because in the end I got tired of the rain starting up again each time I got optimistic and put it back in my bag. :D
Another highlight: today was a total 'fat day' for me! I don't believe I even ate real meal-food the entire day. Our tour finished right across from Sticky, the most amazing hand-made candy shop. Needless to say, we got our greedy little paws on more than our fair share of samples, and Angie bought two pieces of offcuts (the leftovers), which were each the size of a human head. It was dirt cheap ($4 each!), and fun to gnaw on, haha!
After that, we further satisfied our sweet teeth with a visit to a French patisserie, where we were given free, slightly-broken, dark chocolate macaroons (absolutely delicious!), and then to Guylian for divine Belgian hot chocolate. Our next stop was Löwenbräu, a Bavarian pub, where the waitresses wore dirndl dresses and the waiters pranced about in lederhosen, complete with crotch flaps! And finally to Pancakes on The Rocks for a dessert of yummy potato wedges.
Even though my stomach is currently not thanking me for my somewhat excessive eating, it was absolutely worth it, because we all deserve to indulge a little every once in a while! I don't have fat days very often, but when I do, I definitely make the most of them. :D
Do you have fat days, where, foodwise, anything goes? What are your favorite foods to indulge on? :)


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'Tis the season for... spending romantic evenings with your sweetie-pie, gazing at the lights on your Christmas tree, watching Elf and Christmas Vacation for the hundredth time but still not being tired of it, eating lots of sweets and trying not to think about how hard you're going to have to exercise in January to undo all your indulgence...
Tonight I went out to dinner with a few friends and when we left the restaurant the streets were covered with fresh snow. We're supposed to get quite a storm tonight and tomorrow. It's cozy inside and now all I want is some hot tea and some cuddling on the couch with Jamie.
It's also the season for parties with friends and get-togethers at work, and there's nothing like a tray of beautiful cupcakes to bring a smile to someone's face, like these Chocolate Peppermint Swirl Cupcakes.
Especially when the cupcake is dark and moist and chocolatey, and the buttercream is fluffy and sweet with just the right amount of peppermint flavor. With pretty swirls of dark pink and white frosting (because I just couldn't get it as red as I intended) and a sprinkling of crushed peppermint.
There comes a time when bakers discover a recipe that just makes all others seem... inadequate and boring. And I think I've achieved that with this chocolate cupcake. I adapted it from a chocolate cake recipe my mom has been using for years, a recipe that calls for boiling water in the batter, which makes the cake amazingly moist. I really didn't want to have such thin batter, though, when making cupcakes, so I eliminated the water and replaced it with a mixture of sour cream and Greek yogurt, which makes all baked goods better.
A few teaspoons of espresso powder, while not enough to make them taste like coffee, just brings out the flavor of the chocolate a little more. Now I'm thinking that these would be fantastic topped with the coffee buttercream I made for my mom's birthday cake...
I had to make the recipe twice, because the first time I filled them too full, not realizing just how much they would rise, and they overflowed into great big muffin tops which were not at all what I was going for (and you might have already guessed that those cake crumbs from the first batch will be made into truffles for Christmas...). So, for the next round, I filled 30 cups instead of 24 and decreased the baking soda a touch. I couldn't have been happier with the result, and my coworkers have been raving for two days about how good they are.
And if you don't like to clean up (is there anyone who does?) you'll be happy to know that the cake is easily mixed up in just one bowl.
The Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cookies are something I adapted from a recipe I tore out of a magazine so long ago I can't remember which one, and have been wanting to make them since. I've always been a little fascinated by chocolate-covered cherries, especially just how they get all that creamy sauce surrounding the cherry inside the chocolate, too...
I took these to a party over the weekend, and one of the guys there declared the cookies as "heaven on earth"! So there you have it. Now you have to make them. :)
If I'd thought of it, I would have soaked the cherries first in some kind of liqueur. It's the holidays, after all! I'm sure we'll be having some wine or cocktails every day of our vacation. :)
Chocolate Peppermint Swirl Cupcakes
printable recipe
chocolate cake:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons espresso powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1 1/4 cups sour cream or Greek yogurt (or some of each)
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 1/2 teaspoons peppermint extract
- 3-4 cups powdered sugar
- 2-3 tablespoons milk
- red gel food coloring
- 1/4 cup crushed peppermint candy
Make the cake:
Let the dairy products for the cake (eggs, milk and sour cream/yogurt) sit out at room temperature for about an hour before mixing up your cake (ingredients that are room temperature instead of cold from the fridge work better in cakes).
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place 30 cupcake liners in baking pans.
In the bowl of your electric mixer, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the eggs, milk, sour cream, oil and vanilla. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds to combine, then on medium speed for 2 minutes until well blended. Divide the batter between the liners. (The cups should be no more than 2/3 full (or even a little less) - don't be tempted to fill them too full by making 24 cupcakes instead of 30 - these cupcakes rise quite a bit and you don't want the tops to overflow or you will have great big muffin tops on your cupcakes.
Bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes (rotating the pans halfway through) until the center of the cake is done. Cool in the pans on wire racks for 5 minutes, then remove the cupcakes from the pans, place on wire racks, and cover with clean kitchen towels to cool completely before frosting.
Make the frosting:
With an electric mixer, mix the cream cheese and butter on low speed until smooth and combined Add the peppermint extract and 1 cup of powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add the remaining powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until combined. Add the milk, a little at a time, and whip for 3-4 minutes until light and fluffy.
Scoop half the frosting into a separate bowl and cover with plastic. Add red gel food coloring to the other half of the frosting (the gel kind will not dilute your frosting like the liquid food coloring will), until the frosting has reached the color you want.
Spoon the white and red frosting into a piping bag or tool, alternating the colors, so that when you pipe the frosting, the colors will be swirled together.
Sprinkle the finished cupcakes with the crushed peppermint candy (note that the candy does melt a little as it sits on the frosting, so if this bothers you, just add it at the last minute before serving, or just stick a mini-candy cane into each cupcake.)
Yields 30 cupcakes.
Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cookies
printable recipe
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar, plus 1/4 cup for rolling
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1-2 tablespoons milk or cold leftover coffee
- 36 maraschino cherries (no stems), plus the cherry juice from the jar
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
With your electric mixer, beat the butter and 1 cup sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until well combined.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture by spoonfuls to the batter, mixing just until combined. If the dough seems too dry, add 1-2 tablespoons milk or coffee to bring the dough together.
Roll the cookie dough into 1 1/2 inch balls (about 36 balls) and roll each cookie ball in the 1/4 cup sugar. Using the back of a 1-teaspoon measuring spoon, press an indentation in the center of each cookie. Place cookie balls on a baking sheet and freeze until firm, about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a small saucepan, combine the chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk; warm over medium-low heat until the chocolate is melted, stirring mixture occasionally until smooth. Stir in 4 tablespoons cherry juice.
Working in batches (keeping cookie balls in the freezer until you're ready to bake them) place the frozen cookie balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Place a cherry in the indentation of each cookie. Spoon a small amount of frosting (about a teaspoon) over each cherry, letting it drip down to cover the cherry. (Keep frosting covered with plastic wrap in between batches to keep it from drying out.)
Bake cookies for 7 minutes. Remove from oven, cool for 1 minute on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
If you have any frosting left after baking all the cookies, you can drizzle this over the cookies and add some decorative sprinkles (although the frosting will take much longer to set this way, whereas it comes out of the oven perfectly set).
Alternatively, you can fill the cookies with jam, or top the cherries with a small dab of Nutella.
Yields 3 dozen cookies.


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At least eight vessels suspected to be from the 2011 tsunami have now drifted into B.C. waters, everywhere from the northern tip of Haida Gwaii to Aristazabal Island and Klemtu, on the north and central coast, and to the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Large amounts of debris — not even officially being tracked by the province — are also making their way to the central coast to be converted into floats by local residents.
"We're all competing because some of the stuff is really amazing," Ian McAllister of the environmental group, Pacific Wild, said in an interview.
"Tons of super-heavy plastic floats that are completely sealed. I have more than 30 of them now."
One of the eight vessels — mostly smaller fishing boats — wound up near Estevan Point, the same area where a Japanese submarine reportedly fired shells at the Estevan lighthouse during the Second World War in 1942 (although one conspiracy theory suspects that the Canadian government had the U.S. take action to speed passage of a conscription bill).
Although the deadly tsunami released countless tonnes of debris into the water, origins can be difficult to trace. Vessels, however, can have identifying markers.
Other objects are obvious because they have never been seen on the coast before.
McAllister said residents of Denny Island on the central coast are taking a practical approach to the large volumes of floats washing ashore that are thought to have Japanese origins.
"They're salvaging debris and making docks out of it," he said.
McAllister is aware of at least three huge hard-rubber fenders, thought to be from ocean-going ships, that are being converted into docks. "They're huge, the size of a ski cabin, and probably worth a small fortune."
The Ministry of Environment says it is aware of only two pieces of tsunami debris other than the vessels — a cement tank and a shipping container with a motorcycle inside — that are confirmed to be from the tsunami.
"I don't know what the heck they're talking about," responded an incredulous McAllister, adding it can take local expertise to distinguish the tsunami debris.
"You need a discerning eye. But these floats have never been seen here before."
The Vancouver Sun earlier reported that Jeanne and Richard Beaver of Aristazabal Island discovered the first tsunami boat — a 6.5-metre Panga-style craft — at nearby Thomson Island last June 26.
Since then, the Ministry of Environment has reported the following vessel discoveries: August 2012, Spring Island, near Kyuquot Sound, Vancouver Island; September 2012, Rose Spit, Haida Gwaii; January 2013, the Cape Scott area, off Vancouver Island; March 2013, Masset, Haida Gwaii; March 2013, near Estevan Point, Vancouver Island; March 2013, Hecate Strait; April 2013 near Swindle Island, central coast.
The Canadian Coast Guard ship J.P. Tully was involved in the Hecate Strait case, recovering an overturned skiff, with identifying marks, floating one foot above the water, said spokesman Dan Bate. "There was a significant amount of growth inside the vessel and on the submerged sides, indicating it had been overturned and floating for a long time," he said.
The skiff was transported back to Sidney for storage. In addition to carrying native goose barnacles, the skiff is thought to have supported another barnacle, Semibalanus cariosus, a common intertidal species on the B.C. coast with a reported range that includes Japan.
The tsunami
The World Bank says the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 is the most expensive natural disaster in history. Here's what happened:
When: March 11, 2011
What: A 9.0-magnitude underwater quake 72 kilometres off the eastern coast of Japan. The closest major city to the epicentre was Sendai, about 130 kilometres away. The quake triggered a tsunami, with waves of up to 40 metres, travelling as many as 10 kilometres inland.
Deaths: According to the Japanese National Police Agency, 15,883 people died in the earthquake and tsunami. More than 6,100 were injured and close to 2,700 are missing.
Damage: More than one million buildings were at least partly damaged, with close to 130,000 totalled.
Cost: Estimates are as high as $280 billion.


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Since going freelance in 2009 I have been privately trained at the Manchester School of Make Up and have worked with hundreds of brides to create their perfect look for the most important day of their life. In 2013 I was awarded North West Wedding Hair Stylist of the Year in the prestigious Wedding Industry Awards, which was voted by my wedding clients - and hot off the press I am delighted to announce that I have won the same award again in the 2015 Wedding Industry Awards - awarding me North West Wedding Hair Stylist of the Year 2015. Follow this link for more information on my Wedding Industry Awards.
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Did you ever wonder how scientists develop medications to help people stop smoking? High School Junior Ameya Deshmukh has been wondering about that since he was 7 years old. Because his parents work in science labs, he began learning about basic science from an early age. Now at age 16, he just won the first place NIDA Addiction Science Award at this year's Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
For his project, Ameya decided to search a database of 10,000 molecules to find one that will bind to nicotine receptors in the brain. Those are the cells that nicotine molecules attach to and then cause their addictive effects in the brain.
If we can learn how to link up the right molecules with the right receptors—say, by developing a special medication with that would go right to nicotine's "sweet spot" in the brain—then we could block the pleasure that people get from cigarettes. A lot of lives might be saved, since 440,000 people in this country die every year from tobacco-related diseases. This includes 35,000 who die from exposure to second-hand smoke. UGH!
Because identifying the right molecule can be like finding a needle in a haystack, Ameya used what is known as "rational drug design." He first selected molecules based on previous research. Then he used computerized models to narrow the list of potential compounds even more. Finally, he tested the short list of molecules on human cells to identify which ones would bind to the receptors.
With more research, Ameya's work could point to new directions in developing medications to help people quit smoking.
When talking to the judges, Ameya stressed how important it was to develop these medications. In 2009, 20.1 percent of 12th-graders, 13.1 percent of 10th-graders, and 6.5 percent of 8th-graders said they had smoked in the month before the survey. Unfortunately, many will get addicted. The hard part is quitting, as seen in the nearly 35 million people who make a serious attempt to quit smoking each year, with most starting up again within a week. So, promising new medications are sorely needed.
NIDA's Addiction Science award is given at the annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), which was held in San Jose this year. For more information on NIDA's 3 winners, see NIDA's news release at http://www.nida.nih.gov/newsroom/10/NR5-14.html
Are there serious public health problems that you could address in a science project?
This is extraordinary! Ameya is basically taking the approach the medical profession uses to block pain and disease from spreading through the body. Very logical and boy I really hope his work proves fruitful because I agree, there is no doubt such a breakthrough would save millions of lives.
Nice Post about Smoking.
Really it's a very useful and helpful post for us.
Thanks for great sharing.
What youre saying is completely true. I know that everybody must say the same thing, but I just think that you put it in a way that everyone can understand. I also love the images you put in here. They fit so well with what youre trying to say. Im sure youll reach so many people with what youve got to say.
Hey this si amazing I never though thats how it works.. what about using an electric cigarette to stop smoking?
@Simon The Food and Drug Administration recently warned against it, saying it has "no way of has no way of knowing," except for the limited testing it has performed, "the levels of nicotine or the amounts or kinds of other chemicals that the various brands of these products deliver to the user." In one test, the FDA found a chemical used in antifreeze that is toxic to humans, and in several other samples, it found cancer-causing agents and toxic chemicals that users of e-cigs could be exposing themselves to. We really don't know enough about them yet, so the best advice is to stay away from them.
Interesting... well thats how it works these days... Thanks for the article.
I've been looking for info to help my kids quit smoking...
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Personal History: I grew up on a farm in Bruce County, about half way between Teeswater and Formosa...met my wife Anne when I was 15 years old and have been smitten by her ever since...we have two children, a son, Corey, and a daughter, Lindsay, and we have been blessed by the appearence of our granddaughters Ashlyn Marie, Kaleigh Madeline, Avery Orlene and Emily Olwyn Eileen, and grandsons Keaton James, Lucas Edward Paul, and the twins Zachary and Bethany - the most perfect children in all creation, which is pretty amazing considering that I just turned 29 last year!!??
Radio History: I have been working in the radio industry for 20 years and have enjoyed every minute of it...I've worked at stations in Stratford, Woodstock, London, Kitchener, Wingham and Owen Sound in a variety of formats but the oldies really turn my crank.
Best place to visit: Anywhere near the lakeshore!
Something most don't know about me: I dream of being an interior designer
Personally addicted to: Golf, golf, and we recently purchased a little sailboat - I'll be playing pirate on Georgian Bay! Yarrr
Favourite movie: Caddyshack
First Concert: CNE Stadium: Fleetwood Mac
Best Concert: CNE Stadium: The Eagles
Favourite TV Show: Holmes on Homes
I'm a closet fan of: The Toronto Maple Leafs
Favourite Food: What a'ya got??
Favourite drinks: A mojito in Cuba
Favourite sports team: I'm waiting for Toronto to have a real NHL team!!
Join in the fun!


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Abdulah Alsayegh doesn't do subtle. After waiting for weeks for parts from his Jeep dealership to no avail, he spraypainted complaints about their poor service all over his Wrangler and parked it right in front of their door. The dealership scrambled like mad to hide the eyesore, parking cars around it on all sides, covering it in a wrap and holding it hostage. Now his stunt has paid off. The Kuwait dealership's GM has apologized and let Abdulah exchange his car for a brand new one. That's him, perched atop the sand dune, giving a thumbs up in his new ride.
Abdullah said it went down like this at the Al Mulla & Behbehani Motor Co. in Kuwait:
When I first left the car in the parking lot, the management seemed to have panicked as my phone never stopped ringing, the calls were from the garage manager, assistant GM, the GM, and the public relations manager.
When I decided to answer their calls, I was transferred to the GM who asked to meet me to discuss the matter further, During the call he made a verbal apology to me as I have been a loyal customer with a clean record with the dealership since 2001.
He gave me an appointment which I attended with the intention to discuss the bad service received by other customers, I knew this as the pictures I posted [see gallery] were very quickly spread on social media site and started receiving comments and complaints from other people who are having the same problems with the dealership. My intention from my meeting was to raise the GM's awareness of these issues and make sure he understood the magnitude of the problems they are facing.
The GM made me a promise to improve the service and he is willing to show me what improvements they are going to put in place. He also insisted that the dealership compensate me for the bad service I received.
They gave me an offer to exchange my old car for a new 2012 full option Wrangler, and I accepted.
He was very kind and well-mannered during the meeting, and seemed to understand why I took the actions I did.
Abdulah Alsayegh
The dealership's GM could not be reached for comment.
Congratulations to Abdulah for making his voice heard and to the dealership for making it right. No doubt they will be looking more closely at their customer service operation and have a renewed appreciation for the power of word of mouth.
Sometimes, if you're getting ignored... it pays to do something they can't ignore.


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Click image for full-size version
Ray Wallace make fakes in a wide variety of configurations. Part of the "Toledo Collection" photographed in the 1980s by Ron Schaffner. Used by permission.
How the Wallace family and friends pulled off their few series of faking events is slowly beginning to be understood. For example, the long stride of the regularly paced "Bigfoot" prints found in fine dust on logging roads linked to Wallace were reported by the hoaxers to be achieved by fakes loosely strapped on the bottom of boots as the wearer was pulled behind a truck, holding onto a rope. Of course, this was not easy, or probably without accidents, but these pranksters had time to practice. The period 1957-1967 seems to be a key, from Mad River to Bluff Creek. No one says they were perfect in their fakery, and, indeed, their footwork is being revealed more easily by their routinely inanimate footwear with a likening for specific indentations and other Wallace characteristics. And I'm not saying they made all the Sasquatch prints. No, the real Bigfoot were out there too. But let's stop, again, and look at what bad data we need to throw out.
Mark A. Hall has written extensively on the question of Ray Wallace and his "footcasts." The following 2003 article from his journal, Wonders is merely one of a number of such examinations, the most recent of which was published last year. Used by permission.
The Bigfoot Community's Wallace Problem
by Mark A. Hall © 2003
The seekers of Bigfoot in the North American West have been unable to put the Wallace Problem behind them. At the end of 2002 the time had arrived to accept the meaning of the fake feet possessed by the heirs of Ray Wallace, a wealthy contractor who had started planting fake Bigfoot tracks in 1958 and saw his ruse succeed only too well to the time of his death in November of 2002. While always discrediting himself with extravagant claims to have film, recordings, and colorful stories of Bigfoot activity, Wallace nevertheless was one of the people who saw genuine Bigfoot tracks at the start of the Bigfoot publicity that began in 1958. The distinctive fakes that Wallace put into circulation can be sorted out from the record and disposed of. I addressed this issue in Volume 7 of Wonders. [1] There I related the history from 1958 onward when what appear to be genuine tracks were first given widespread publicity.
Some faked impressions, made in imitation of genuinely large footprints, were discovered in at least three instances, in 1958, in 1960, and in 1967.
In short, after the initial sensational interest in Bigfoot was sparked by a genuine set of strange footprints, Ray Wallace hired two men to look into the matter. Soon thereafter he began to deposit false footprints along creeks and roads in Northern California. Those carved tools for hoaxing appear to me to have been based upon a find of genuine footprints made by his employees. Bigfoot seekers, who had little experience with Bigfoot prints in 1958, were fooled by those bogus impressions. Until the presentation of the hoaxing tools in December of 2002 one particular set of fake feet has had a significant impact on the record of Bigfoot. With further study of genuine Bigfoot tracks, more can now be said about how this success was gained and how genuine Bigfoot tracks can be viewed. [All illustrations have been removed.]
The general response to the Wallace Problem has been to deny any importance to the issue. A false dichotomy has been used to deflect considerations of the problem that will reveal the truth. Two choices have been offered and both are false. No one should be asked to pick between holding Wallace responsible for all Bigfoot tracks or accepting that Wallace never faked any tracks whatsoever. The first is naturally an absurd proposition that is designed to direct people to the stated alternative. The second proposition of "no fakes" is a sly attempt to excuse those people who were in fact fooled by Wallace fakes and do not want to acknowledge their embarrassment. The Wallace Problem that remains is to recognize the trash among the claimed records of Bigfoot tracks and to throw out the trash along with false ideas about Bigfoot tracks that have been fostered in part by them.
There are two reasons for the success of the hoax. These reasons will be emphasized here. Number one: The fakes were introduced early into the modern history of Bigfoot investigation. Number two: They were created in imitation of genuine imprints of a primate foot. Acknowledging these facts will allow the entire Bigfoot community to put these phoney tracks in their proper place in history and then carry on with better and worthwhile investigations into genuinely unusual wildlife.
Ray Wallace is dead and will not ever make a confession. Demanding that others make his confession for him now is demanding something that will never happen. In addition, a "money challenge" has been put forth. In the style of James Randi, Phillip Klass, and Ted Serios, money has been offered if someone can satisfy the requirements of the person stating the challenge. Here it is a case of making false tracks of a certain type under certain conditions. The money challenge is a creation of John Green working through the Willow Creek Museum in California. Green is the author of several books on Bigfoot.
As Tom Stienstra noted in the San Francisco Chronicle on 13 March 2003, "I'll predict right now that the $100,000 reward announced last weekend for anybody able to create fake Bigfoot tracks that could fool experts is a publicity stunt for the Willow Creek Museum, the capital of Bigfoot Country. I predict nobody will ever get paid the money, no matter what anybody comes up with."
As with all the money challenges, there is a certainty that the money will not ever have to be paid because the person issuing the challenge is not obliged to concede that the requirements have been met to his or her satisfaction.
All of that activity is simply smoke and mirrors to distract people from the simple facts of the matter. Ray Wallace produced fake footprints with a pair of wooden feet modeled on genuine tracks found in 1958. Wallace exaggerated the features of those genuine tracks in making his false feet. His fake footprints were therefore distinct in shape and size.
When I published an examination of the Wallace hoaxes in Volume 7 a direct response to it was posted by John Green to whom I sent a copy of Wonders with the discussion of Wallace. And we had an exchange of e-mails prior to his posting to the internet discussion group email@example.com.
His posting on 28 February 2003 has nothing of value in it. It is an attempt to fog the issues and attack the messenger because the message is unwelcome.
One of Wallace's relatives has said Ray Wallace did not make a public confession because he did not want to endure the reaction of those who were fooled by him. That reaction is being visited upon anyone who would now speak up about this one success in the panorama of Wallace's career of attempted hoaxes.
To blow away some of the fog, Green's accusation that I have an "attitude of long standing" is a groundless charge. His complaint that I have a "third alternative" I find simply incoherent. Further, there is no "Mark's version" for the employment of Kerr and Breazele. I am citing the historical record, for which Green is not offering any corrections.
Several writers in the East have written on these subjects. Green is deliberately sowing confusion when he writes that "two writers in the Eastern U.S. took him [Wallace] seriously." Some will mistakenly attach that accusation to me.
Green should either name names and explain his statements or put away his tar brush.
Green fails to recognize the importance of the events of 1975 to 1981 that were described in my articles for 1978 and 1994 [2] and were summarized in Wonders Volume 7. The Bigfoot community should be eager to make use of such an opportunity as took place then and might occur in the future. Here is a chance to compare tracks that have turned up in relative isolation, so that it is possible to link those tracks to specific animals then observed in the same region. And if care is taken, the sounds associated with those animals and all other behaviors they exhibit can be narrowed to the type of primate seen.
I find this kind of short-sighted view of events to be one of the harmful consequences of simplifying the entire subject of mystery primates. A golden opportunity to learn is being dismissed as just another Bigfoot report. When people ask why this entire subject appears to make little progress, here is a fine example of self-defeating behavior on the part of a Bigfoot seeker.
All the criticisms that I and others have made about the way Steve Matthes presents his story in the book Brave and Other Stories do not alter the basic facts of his testimony. Early one morning in 1960 he was on a logging road in Northern California where giant footprints were found. Upon close scrutiny he realized they were fakes. His photograph of a cast of one of those fakes matches the wooden tool displayed by the Wallace family in 2001. Those people who would deny the meaning of this record are only kidding themselves.
Here are the key sentences in Matthes' account that some people want to ignore:
The line of tracks in the dust stretched out as straight as a string – like those of a man stepping off measured distances between two given points. This, I theorized, was because the person making them, in order to make the extended length of stride to match the size of faked track, had to concentrate on what would be the visual results of his efforts to reach the point where the tracks were to leave te road. The flexibility of movement that is expressed by irregularity – found in tracks during the normal line of travel – was missing. Instead, what I saw was a line of travel that was fixed and rigid! The, when I began examining the individual track itself, another thing became quite obviously wrong with it, but was also something that would have been missed unless looking for it.
When the weight of any soft-padded foot of an animal is brought to bear on the feet, the foot expands, or spreads, under the pressure induced by the added weight. Then, when the body weight is removed as the animal begins lifting its foot to make its next stride, the toes of the foot contract, leaving a track with a featheredge – if made in the dust as these were. On these tracks, there was no evidence of any foot expansion or spreading of the toes, indicating the track [maker] had been made of nonexpandable material such as leather, wood, metal, or plastic. [3]
Those who will look at the photographic record from Blue Creek Mountain in 1967 will find the same characteristics illustrated in that record. Those tracks are also bogus. We can throw out this trash now, or allow future investigators to claim a superior wisdom by pointing out the obvious.
Green calls the Blue Creek Mountain tracks "probably the most often seen and most intensely studied and certainly the best-documented of any tracks anywhere."
They look like the imprints of flat-footed wooden feet because that is what they are.
The display of the Wallace carvings makes it clear what kind of device would have made them. The Matthes testimony is the icing on the cake.
Green contradicts his own posting made immediately after wooden foot-forms were displayed by the Wallace family in December of 2002. Green made this observation via the internet on 5 December 2002. His message in full was:
What Wallace Jr. is holding certainly is not a mold for the 1958 Jerry Crew 16″ Bigfoot' cast, of which I have a copy, but it definitely is either a mold for or a copy of a 15″ footprint of the type found by Bob Titmus and Ed Patrick in a Bluff Creek sandbar later the same year, of which I also have copies.
There is something worth checking out here, for anyone who is in a position to do so.
As to Ray Wallace having started the whole thing, however, Rene Dahinden and I in 1957 saw a tracing of a British Columbia footprint cast that was a much closer match for the Jerry Crew cast, and that cast had been made in 1941.
This brings us back to the record of events in 1958 and thereafter. Loren Coleman has recently brought to my attention the existence of a footprint cast made by Roger Patterson in 1964. Tracks were found by Pat Graves on Laird Meadow Road in Del Norte County of California. (Laird Meadow itself is located at 41d 22m 59s N, 123d 44m 12s W.) Patterson made two casts.
The record of the Laird Meadow cast (the shape appears in Fig. 2) is helpful to our understanding of what was happening back then. It appears to show the same foot as that of the creature identified as "Patty" in the Patterson-Gimlin film of 1967. The imprint shows that this female was around three years earlier at the same level of maturity. If she was in the same area six years earlier, her tracks could have been found by Kerr and Breazele at that time. Such a cast could then have served as the prototype for the alder-wood Wallace foot-forms.
The presence of two tracks makers in the same area of Northern California in the 1950s and 1960s has been indicated by Charles Edson's observations of tracks in those years [4] and by the casts that have made showing those same two sizes, one male (such as cast in 1958 and 1964) and one female (as cast in 1964 and 1967). The measurements, casts, and photographs are indicating finds of tracks for the same individuals ("Patty" and her mate).
Edson and others were likely to be seeing imprints made by "Patty" during the years that fakes were done. But casts of her genuine prints seem to be rare for the early years, while the Wallace fakes have been illustrated again and again. The 1964 Laird Meadow cast is simply the earliest for "Patty" where there is a clear record. Now let us find the explanation for why the female tracks sometimes show a sort of bulge behind the toes on the inside of the foot. This kind of indentation shows in the tracks left by "Patty" in 1967 and in the female tracks found in South Dakota in 1977 (the Grand River cast). [5]
Loren Coleman pointed out in our exchange on the Laird Meadow cast that the "split-ball" configuration attributed to the Neo-Giants appears to vanish now that we know of the Wallace fakes and can examine valid tracks free of their influence. I have to agree with him.
The female foot as seen in the Laird Meadow cast has a long big toe. The split-ball appearance seen elsewhere appears to derive from a mis-reading of the female track caused by a combination of a long big toe and something behind the toes that is not always present but does distort the shape of an imprint.
This could be something like the accumulation of soil behind the toes. It appears in some of the tracks but not in all of them. Because this distortion is so regular in its effect I think it is likely to be the result of large calluses developing on the Neo-Giant foot. A toughening of the skin on the long toes and on the ball behind the toes could account for the impression left in tracks. Again, as I have observed before, we find that "the track is not the foot." The nature of such growths would explain why they are not always present, even on the same individual over time.
The notion of a split-ball as a physical feature in Bigfoot tracks grew out of this distortion. The idea was further promoted by the exaggeration of this feature in the false tracks laid down by Ray Wallace and whoever may have assisted him. When carving the foot forms this feature was made large and full and appeared in every print wherever and whenever they were used.
The better imprints of genuine footprints and the resulting casts show the toes as individual appendages without a split in the ball of the foot.. The Grand River cast and some 1967 Bluff Creak casts have this indented appearance. The Laird Meadow cast and a cast of what appears to be a female track made near Mt. Shasta do not. [6]
The "split-ball" configuration was simply incorporated into the Wallace fakes at the time of their creation in 1958. Whoever carved the alder-wood tools put this split-ball appearance on both the feet. As I have suggested, this carver could have worked from a cast made by Kerr and Breazele, two men who were hired by Ray Wallace in 1958 to look into the Bigfoot excitement in October. As his employees their findings were reported only to Wallace. First hand knowledge of these events died with Ray Wallace. The numerous fakes in subsequent years and the mis-reading of a few genuine tracks have perpetuated the notion of a "split-ball" as a physical part of the Neo-Giant foot.
Similarly, the notion of an hour-glass shape to the feet appears to have been promoted by bogus items. Some people will remember a photograph that appeared in John Green's On the Track of the Sasquatch on page 30. It has been widely reproduced elsewhere as a "beautiful" example of a Bigfoot track. It was identified as being photographed by Rene Dahinden. But what is the full story behind that track? Dahinden did not use that shot in his 1973 book. Its origin is unknown and suspect. That picture and the exaggerated roundness to the forward part of the female foot in the Wallace fakes are influences that have suggested the "hour-glass" characterization.
It otherwise might not have been applied at all to genuine tracks.
Ivan T. Sanderson used a Wallace fake as his illustration of a Sasquatch track in Abominable Snowmen. This would have been because that illustration was readily available to him as the deadline for his book was upon him. In his book he wrote of the Neo-Giant foot: "They have a double first subdigital pad; they are extremely short and broad for their size; and, the second to fifth toes seem to be conjoined." [7] The double pad and conjoining of toes appear to be notions promoted by the infamous Wallace fakes.
Sanderson includes on page 469 of his book outlines of the feet of both the American Neo-Giant and its Asian counterpart. The second lacks any "split-ball" appearance. I think this is because it does not exist except as a mis-reading of callused tracks.
One day, however distant that time may be in the future, we will have the opportunity to examine the feet of the Neo-Giants. I think it will be discovered at that time that the notion of a split-ball was erroneous. I have attempted here and in my previous article of 27 pages in Wonders Volume 7 to present the context for how this digression from the truth has come about.
We should advance the scant knowledge we possess about these animals by careful and honest examination of the traces of the Neo-Giants. We should not be content to sit back in expectation that a road-kill will one day vindicate simplified claims that something large and hairy is around in the woods.
There is no humiliation in doing the right thing. The proper course of action here is to dispose of the false records that have annoyed all of us who want only to determine the best possible record of events in what are the difficult circumstances of pursuing a quarry that does not want to be found. The honest search for Neo-Giant tracks was diverted for forty-four years by imitations. Let us put them aside and make the best of what we can recognize to be genuine.
1. Mark A. Hall, "The Real Bigfoot and Genuine Bigfoot Tracks," Wonders 7(4): 99-125 (December 2002).
2. Mark A. Hall, "Contemporary Stories of Taku-He' or Bigfoot' in South Dakota as Drawn from Newspaper Accounts," The Minnesota Archaeologist 37(2): 63-78 (May 1978), and Mark A. Hall, The Yeti, Bigfoot & True Giants (Wilmington: MAHP, 1994, 1997).
3. Steve Matthes, Brave and Other Stories (privately published, San Francisco, 1988).
4. Charles Edson, My Travels with Bigfoot (Los Angeles: Crescent Publications, 1979).
5. Hall, "The Real Bigfoot," 116, 117, Fig. 3b, and Hall, "Contemporary Stories," Fig. 5.
6. Dixie Reid, "Bigfoot," Sacramento Bee, 4 October 1986.
7. Ivan T. Sanderson, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life (Philadelphia: Chilton, 1961), 473
Copyright 2003 by Mark A. Hall.
Originally published in Wonders June 2003.
More on the Wallace debate to be continue in Part III.


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Operating and parameter setting software is used to set up and configure IO-Link sensors, vision sensors, cameras and diagnostic electronics for vibration monitoring.
The function of a sensor can be monitored in the "Monitor" mode. This facilitates set-up and parameter setting considerably. Process values, images, current parameter settings and reading results can be graphically visualised.
A "Service" mode is often offered for diagnosis. The service report allows the user to view reports, save the history of parameter sets, measured data and recordings, make statistical evaluations and display the last sensor images of good or bad readings.


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To send a Sports Short announcement about your community or recreational sporting event, please email firstname.lastname@example.com, mail 150 Venture Drive, Dover, NH 03820 or fax us at 603-749-7079. If you are e-mailing your announcement, please paste it in the body of the email. Do not send email attachments. DO NOT SEND COPY IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.
Men's 50-plus basketball league
DOVER — Registration for the Dover Men's 50-plus Basketball League's 2012-13 season will be held from Oct. 8 until Nov. 5. The registration fee is $135.
The program is designed for individuals who are 50 years old or older as of Feb. 28, 2013. Games are played at the McConnell Center Gym on Wednesday nights from Nov. 28 to March 27.
Registration forms can be picked up at the McConnell Center. Registration forms, along with payment, can be dropped off at the McConnell Center or mailed c/o Steve Towne, 124 Court Street, Dover, NH 03820.
For more information, please contact Steve Towne at 742-6815, or Ron Anderson at 767-9353.
Pumpkin 5K to Benefit Boston Children's Hosp.
ROCHESTER — Would you like to run or walk for a good cause? Maybe even wear a costume while doing it? Then sign up for the first annual Pumpkin 5K Road Race benefiting Boston Children's Hospital, happening on Saturday, Oct. 27 at 10 a.m. Sponsored by Eastern Propane, Lilac City Pediatrics and the Spaulding High School Interact Club, this race starts and ends at the Rochester Community Center and runs through Rochester. The course is a sanctioned 5K course with age group medals, post race food and electronic timing is provided by New England Timing.
By fundraising for Children's Hospital, Pumpkin 5k helps them to continue with this mission.
So sign up for the Pumpkin 5K at www.pumpkin5k.org. And we will have candy!
Farmington Sports Hall of Fame on Nov. 10
FARMINGTON — The sixth annual Farmington 500 Boys & Girls Club Sports Hall of Fame will be held Nov. 10 at the Henry Wilson Memorial School gym.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased until Oct. 31 in Farmington at Mills Market and Farmington High School.
The 2012 inductees include athletes Steve Mosher, Tim Mucher, Casey Howard and Marshall Gibbs, and contributors Reggie Charette, Jim Black, Dave Hagar, Dave Vachon and Cheryl Peabody.
The Thayer family will receive the Ellison Award and the 1952 youth baseball teams will be honored on the 60th anniversary of the first youth baseball season in Farmington.
Spaulding Homecoming on Oct. 26
ROCHESTER — The Spaulding Alumni Association is hosting an impromptu " Homecoming" on Friday, Oct. 26, at Spaulding High School Hugo Bolin Field.
That night, the undefeated 1971 and 1982 state championship football teams will be honored.
If you were a player, or know a player on those teams, please let the SAA know if you are able to attend this recognition ceremony to be held prior to the Bedford-Spaulding game that night. A head count is needed for food and hats.
In the past, the following Spaulding teams have been recognized: the 1943-44 baseball teams, and the 1956, 1957, 1979 and 1990 football teams, with a casual "meet and greet." The teams have been invited to meet prior to these events with some refreshments in the Spaulding High cafeteria to allow teammates to gather and reminisce, and then proceed to the field for introductions and brief recap of their seasons prior to the kick-off.
Please help spread the word to the players (and their families) who took part in these memorable seasons, and the SAA would also like to invite all past Spaulding Alumni to come by and help celebrate this event as well!
If you have any questions feel free to email through the Spaulding Alumni Association on Facebook, or contact Denise Chick at denise. firstname.lastname@example.com.
Noble Squires football sign-ups
NORTH BERWICK, Maine — Noble Squires Peewee Football still accepting registrations for players in grades 4 thru 6. Registration forms and more information available at www.noblesquires.com or you can call Squires President Carrie Flagg 207-837-4147 or head coaches Bryan Cote 207-651-7342 or Eric Gray 207-252-0548.
Running deer shoots
NEW DURHAM — The Farmington Fish & Game Club has set the 2012 dates for this year's annual "running deer shoots." Open to the public they will be held on Sundays 1-3 p.m. on Oct. 7, 14, 21 and 28. The Farmington Fish & Game is located On Old Bay Road in New Durham. For any further information please call Tom at 603-875-2065
Dover field hockey clinic
DOVER — Dover High School field hockey will be offering a Field Hockey Clinic for girls in grades 2-7 on the following dates: Oct. 6, 13. The clinic will run from 8-10 a.m. on Fiske Field at the high school. Cost will be $25. All participants must bring shin guards and mouth guards. The clinic will provide the sticks and fun. If you need more information please contact Coach MJ Hippern at m. hippern[@]dover.k12.nh. us or 603-767-7833.
DHS boosters provide financial aid
DOVER — The Dover High School Football Boosters Club is pleased to announce the expansion of a financial-aid program to encourage and support those students interested in playing football at Dover High School. The DHS Football Boosters Club has allocated up to $2,500 to help any new or current Dover football player who is in need financial assistance with the cost of the transportation fee, football cleats, gloves, or related football clothing and equipment.
For more information, email Lynn Dow at dhsfootball. nh. email@example.com or call 603-238-8339.
Sports shorts
To send a Sports Short announcement about your community or recreational sporting event, please email email@example.com, mail 150 Venture Drive, Dover, NH 03820 or fax us at 603-749-7079. If you are e-mailing your announcement, please paste it in the body of the email. Do not send email attachments. DO NOT SEND COPY IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.


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I live a couple of blocks from Insite, the Safe Injection Site on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. I welcome Prime Minister Harper's announcement that his government is not committed to it and will subject it to a review.
I would like Harper to review Insite in the context of the monstrous Medical-Industrial complex of which it is an integral part on the DTES. This complex consists of a myriad of medical organizations interfaced with a burgeoning poverty industry. It constitutes virtually the entire economy in this neighbourhood which is often referred to as a socialist experiment. Those profiting from this medical-industrial complex -- most of whom live outside the DTES and are referred to by residents as "poverty pimps" -- must constantly manufacture case files to attract public funding. The result is a case file economy.
Everyone is a potential case file. First they case-filed welfare recipients, a population prone to accepting dubious diagnoses that could be exchanged at the welfare office for a higher rate. Then they case-filed the junkies. And now they are case-filing you, Joe and Jane average Canadian. Freedom of expression by average people is now routinely medicalized in the DTES, viewed by poverty pimps as yet another case-file opportunity. Try speaking up or writing a letter on a political issue, criticizing a non-profit organization, or even querying a health professional about the side-effects of blood pressure medication. You may find a nurse on your doorstep announcing that you have been targeted for "assessment", psychiatric or otherwise. Even after you are "cleared", your new case file remains permanent. Try complaining about this gratuitous case-filing and a nurse may arrange for a police constable to show up at your home to deter such "harassment". And you may find that the swarm of street workers dispensing needles to injection drug users have been briefed on your file and encouraged to monitor you.
Show me a spokesperson touting the success of Insite and I will show you someone economically invested in the medical-industrial complex. A regular media spokesperson is Mark Townsend who, along with his nurse wife Liz Evans, is Co-Executive Director of the Portland Hotel Society. In addition to operating Insite, the Portland Hotel Society operates or has tentacles into so many other organizations that the DTES is virtually a company town. Public accountability is not Townsend's strong point though; he has refused to release a special audit by BC Housing on the Portland Hotel Society.
Maybe it is this uncomfortable refusal by Townsend that makes it expedient for Gillian Maxwell to now act as media spokesperson for Insite -- as indicated from her quoted comments in a recent Metro News article -- during the run-up to Harper's decision on whether to shut it down. Maxwell receives a hefty pay cheque in the medical-industrial complex. She has never displayed much interest in the majority of residents in the neighbourhood who saw ourselves in Harper's election promise to start rewarding "people who play by the rules".
Maxwell's spiel, like Townsend's, is that research into Insite favours preserving it. But how neutral are the numbers? Hopefully, they haven't been influenced by MP Libby Davies' son, Leif Erikson, who was parachuted into the facility to work.
Watching the medical-industrial complex in action has cured myself and several other long term residents of the DTES of one thing, our socialist leanings. I'd like Harper to give civil liberties a shot in the arm and dismantle it.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Safe Injection Site part of Medical-Industrial Complex eroding civil liberties on Downtown Eastside
I live a couple of blocks from Insite, the Safe Injection Site on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. I welcome Prime Minister Harper's announcement that his government is not committed to it and will subject it to a review.


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Newlywed reality TV star Jack Osbourne has been hailed a hero after helping to save a drowning woman who suffered a heart attack at sea.
Ozzy Osbourne's son, who wed Lisa Stelly in Hawaii on Sunday, was on the beach with a friend when they spotted a woman in distress off the coast of the paradise islands.
Jack's new wife reveals they swam out to drag the lady to shore, and she's now recovering in hospital.
In a series of posts on her Twitter.com page on Tuesday, Stelly writes, "Really proud of Jack and his friend Tyler who saved a woman on the beach yesterday who'd had a heart attack and drown (sic). They resuscitated her until the ambulance came. We just found out she's in a stable condition! Awesome!"


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