Remember what she said in my last letter? "
If I wasn't working here.
.."
Goodwill helps people get off of public assistance.
Coming to Goodwill was the first step toward my becoming totally independent.
I am now... totally off of welfare."
Goodwill prepares people for life-long employment.
Here's another story of success from what might seem like an unlikely source: Goodwill's controller, Juli.
Cornell found a number of employment options that he never dreamed existed after a work-site injury forced him out of his job at a foundry.
He trained in desktop publishing and combined his enthusiastic work ethic with new-found skills in a burgeoning industry. "
Dear ,
I've got more than a job; I've got a career."
After a lifetime of trials, Donna not only earned her GED at Goodwill, she earned a job here. "
I rode a bike to Goodwill in the rain and snow.
I wanted to be there.
..I had my second chance to change my life."
Your gift to Goodwill will help the many people who want to tell their own stories of success.
Your support will help them go to work.
Please use the enclosed envelope to give a generous gift to Goodwill today!
Sincerely,
William A Carter, Chairman Goodwill Industries Foundation
P.S.
Your gift is a wise investment in the community.
For every dollar donated to Goodwill in 1998, we helped our "graduates" earn an estimated $102.
That money was then spent in a variety of ways, adding fuel to our thriving economy.
She tells me that the 3,666 people we helped find jobs in 1998 earned approximately $49 million dollars.
A few months ago you received a letter from me telling the success stories of people who got jobs with Goodwill's help.
In addition to that, by helping them find jobs, Goodwill reduced the state's Public Support tab by an estimated $4 million.
Your gift to Goodwill will help us do even more this year because your gift will be used to directly support our work.
What kind of work does Goodwill do?
Goodwill finds jobs for people with mental and physical disabilities.
After Maureen's job coach taught her how to do her job in a restaurant, we helped Maureen step out of the shadow sometimes cast over people with physical and mental disabilities and find a fulfilling job smack dab in the middle of society.
Every time we help someone find a solution to their employment barrier, the positive effects radiate throughout our community:
The business community welcomes not only another worker, but a consumer with increased purchasing power.
Parents act as role models of self-sufficiency instead of dependency.
Tax dollars that would have been spent on public assistance are saved.
You and I know that solutions to difficult problems don't just happen.
At Goodwill, it is the hard work of staff and those who benefit from our services that produces the kind of inspiring results I see every day:
A Goodwill staff member addresses a group of welfare recipients:
"You can earn the money to support yourself and your family," she says.
November 15, 1996
I know you can...
A participant in a Goodwill program rushes back from a job interview to share the results with his classmates in our desktop publishing training program.
His job objectives call for him to do it in 30.
once his tears have subsided, he confirms what his classmates have already figured out: he just received a job offer -- his first in five years.
Addressing a meeting at a neighborhood center, a Goodwill staff member tells the audience how Goodwill can help them find and keep jobs.
At the next corner he tells five more.
In order to develop job skills, a man with some serious disabilities begins working in Goodwill's industrial division.
He has no time to waste.
It takes a long time for him to gain the self-confidence to work elsewhere in the community.
Eventually, he turns your support into a payoff for all of us.
He proudly leaves Goodwill to support himself.
These people and their successes are real.
Neither do we.
Just like the respect we've earned from U.S. News & World Report.
With the help of friends like you, Goodwill has continued to adapt our services to meet the human needs of our changing society.
Real work.
Real results.
A real difference in people's lives -- in all of our lives.
The people who can benefit most directly from your generosity have no time to waste.
Neither do the rest of us who feel the positive results of their success.
Your support helps provide real solutions.
Please use the enclosed response card and envelope to give generously to Goodwill today.
Sincerely,
Jack Dustman Board Member and Former Chairman
We don't waste time as we are helping the community.
And we don't waste money.
The gift that I am asking you to make will be used to continue our mission of helping people prepare for, find and keep jobs.
In their December, 1995 review of the nation's best charities, U.S. News & World Report called Goodwill one of the five "Standout Good Guys."
In the short while since Goodwill helped him find his job, Robert has learned to thoroughly clean a motel room in about 40 minutes.
The magazine stated that Goodwill (as well as the other standouts) is "uniquely effective, innovative or valuable."
While I appreciate U.S. News & World Report's endorsement, the true value of your support is measured by the way Goodwill takes on problems that affect all of us.
And there are a lot of people who face these challenges every day of their lives.
So our work must continue.
Everyone benefits from the work we do together.
Many people need our help.
Please continue our important partnership.
Support Goodwill with a generous donation today.
Sincerely,
James M. McClelland President
We've helped people break free of the welfare cycle.
We've found ways for people with disabilities to enter the workforce.
December 10, 1996
We've expanded Goodwill's proven methods to towns and neighborhoods where they are needed most.
Of course, we've played different roles.
You have helped make Goodwill's work possible with your previous support.
Who has benefited from our partnership?
Everyone has.
When you and I help somebody find a job, one more person joins the ranks of tax payers, fewer tax dollars are spent on public assistance and businesses gain another consumer.
You and I have done some important work together.
There are a lot of barriers that keep people from working: physical and mental disabilities, history of welfare dependency and lack of education or self-esteem.
At last, he has found success in a job that he loves.
Now his goals are set on moving up in the company.
Every year, thousands of people come to Goodwill.
Like Michael, they share two common characteristics.
They face some barrier to employment and they want to work.
With support from people like you, they can overcome their barriers and earn success and the self-sufficiency that comes with it.
And then the pay-off begins for the entire community.
Last year, participants in Goodwill programs earned --and paid taxes on -- wages of nearly $3.5 million.
Michael Sims felt that way at age 39 -- the day he earned a job.
Their successes at work also saved taxpayers more than three-quarters of a million dollars in public assistance.
November 15, 1994
The savings are counted in more ways than dollars and cents, however.
The families of the new wage earners may feel the accomplishment in terms of a house to live in, money to purchase food -- without food stamps -- and the beginning of a family focused on success, not hopelessness.
Won't you help make all of these successes possible?
Please send the largest contribution you can comfortably make.
Your gift will help give new meaning to the word success -- for people who have seldom had reason to use the word.
Michael was born with cerebral palsy.
Sincerely,
James M. McClelland President
P.S.
Your gift will make a difference.
For every dollar of public support Goodwill received last year, we returned $1.59 to the community in the form of earned wages and reduced public assistance payments.
Upon entering the work force, he discovered few job opportunities that seemed to match his abilities.
His most recent job lasted only a year before cut-backs eliminated his position.
For 18 long months Michael could not find a job.
Think of your greatest accomplishments.
Finally, Michael called Goodwill.
At Goodwill, Michael's counselors felt that his personable demeanor could be a major attribute and identified for him a possible job-match where his people skills could shine.
After three interviews, Michael proved that he was the right person for the job.
As the Clubhouse Monitor at Bent Tree Apartments, he now provides customer service for 50 to 60 tenants each night.
Their complaint: the system discourages working because unemployment provides benefits that many entry-level jobs don't include.
Some of the strongest critics of our welfare system are the people who have become dependent on it.
That's where you --and Goodwill --come in.
We help people train for and find jobs that make it possible for them to get off of welfare.
Last year, Goodwill placed 511 people in jobs, more than double the number we placed in 1993.
While the debate on welfare reform is gathering like a storm at sea, the people who need jobs are floundering.
We need your support to continue getting people off of public assistance.
Welfare is not the answer.
And welfare reform is an uncertain solution with an unknown starting date.
Goodwill works.
Please give the largest gift you can to Goodwill today.
Sincerely, Jack Dustman Chairman
With unemployment at its lowest point in years in central Indiana, many people still have a hard time finding meaningful employment.
Some, like Jerry, are ex-offenders.
Some are blind, deaf or have other physical disabilities.
With a promising new job at a plastic injection molding manufacturer, his legal troubles in check and a safe place to live, Jerry can get on with the business of building a life for himself and contributing to his community.
March 17, 2000
For as long as he needs it, Goodwill will continue to help.
Your support of Goodwill will provide job training and placement services to help the hardest to serve in central Indiana find meaningful employment.
Please make an investment in the stability of our community by sending a gift to Goodwill.
Your generosity will help people help themselves.
Sincerely,
James M. McClelland President
Reality hit when he was unable to reconcile with his wife and ended up on the street.
Name Address City, ST, Zip
He went to the Center Township Trustee for food stamps until he could find a job and a place to live.
The Trustee referred him to the Blue Triangle where he consulted Goodwill's Career Academy staff for job search assistance.
Dear Name:
Jerry's Goodwill caseworker found him a job immediately.
But Jerry's troubles didn't end there.
The seasonal construction job he obtained soon ended, and he returned to Career Academy for help once more.
When Jerry was released from prison, he knew it would take hard work and determination to straighten out his life.
Unemployed, homeless and with a prison record, Jerry now faced going back to prison for failure to pay child support.
Such fund are often used for college tuition, vocational training or a deposit on an apartment.
Please take a few minutes to send a donation to help one or more of our children successfully cross that threshold into the future.
Sincerely,
Mary Roth Executive Director
The young adults who leave Pleasant Run have those same feelings.
June 21, 1999
Very few have family support to get them started.
Many need furniture, linens and other basic necessities to begin lives on their own.
Name Address City, ST Zip
To help them establish themselves in the community, the Pleasant Run Emancipation fund was begun in 1993 by private donors who wanted to provide a measure of financial support for those leaving our programs.
Individuals who are being emancipated are eligible to receive up to $500 from the Fund if they formally apply and meet four requirements:
Dear ,
1. Release by the courts
2. Successful completion of all life skills tests
Do you remember the combination of elation and apprehension you felt when you first left home?
3. Positive termination of his or her Pleasant Run program
4. Possession of a high school diploma or GED
Proof of meeting these, two staff reference letters and an essay stating why they should receive a grant and how it will be used are all reviewed by a Pleasant Run panel, which determines if the applicant merits the funds.
Then the task was to help children who lost parents in the Civil War.
Today, we serve children and families with a multitude of problems: emotional, physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
Some come from families where, through therapy, there is hope for reunification.
For others, "families" are the counselors are housemates at the group homes where they live.
Little ones, like Baby Jessica, caught in the struggle between adoptive and birth parents.
In 1995 we will serve over 850 children and 340 families.
In 1996, these figures will triple.
They welcome the chance to belong, to become self- sufficient, to regain their self-esteem and confidence.
November 27, 1995
Often it is a long, hard struggle, but the results are well worth it.
For Pleasant Run to continue to serve abused and neglected children and their families, we need your support.
The Funding sources are shrinking, but the needs grow explosively.
Please "help good kids get better" by sending us a contribution today.
Your gift will give children and families hope for improved tomorrows.
Sincerely,
Older kids, like Tracy and Kerry, left homeless after a recent murder-suicide in Indianapolis claimed Mom and Dad.
Young adults, like Mary T., a jobless mother of three, trying desperately to keep her kids out of trouble in a crime-ridden neighborhood.
Dear Friend:
Real people!
Families are being torn apart, and too often, children are the victims.
What kind of people benefit by your contribution to Pleasant Run Children's Homes?
Kids like Tommie J., made a ward of the court because of repeated beatings by an alcoholic father;
Alice, sent to a group home to get help because of severe behavior disorders;
and John H., a recovering alcoholic, rebuilding a relationships with his family so they can live together again.
Pleasant Run Children's Homes began serving children nearly 130 years ago.
For some, it's a matter of weeks or months;
for others, it's years.
They leave Pleasant Run, generally, ready and able to contribute to society.
We're proud of our children and all that they overcome.
We are a not-for-profit, multi-service agency.
We wouldn't exist if the need weren't there.
The numbers of children who deserve our services are rising... as quickly as our programs can grow to serve them.
Please help us help them.
Pleasant Run Children's Homes... "where good kids get better."
Sincerely,
Mary Roth Tom Hirschauer
June 26, 1995
Federal, state and local governments are freezing or withdrawing much-needed funding sources for people who are truly in need.
We all hear about today's increases in neglect, abuse and abandonment of those who can't fight back: children.
This is not newsletter.
Yet few of us hear enough about kids who live through these adversities and do make the grade.
The positive side.
They come into a Pleasant Run program...
whether it's for therapeutic help in their own homes (which nurtures whole families), through foster care families or in the familial surroundings of our residential homes.
Your contribution will make a difference in a child's life.
It may help a family stay together.
It can certainly make happy holiday memories.
A gift to Pleasant Run means the children in our care will have presents to open.
A gift means a family will have a holiday meal, cooking utensils to prepare the meal and dishes to serve it on.
Your gift will go beyond the holiday season.
It can help purchase clothing, school supplies, books and educational tools throughout the year.
Please take a few minutes to mail a donation to Pleasant run.
Let our families and children know that you want them to have the same kinds of memories of the holidays you will have.
We wish you and your family a new year full of joy and love.
Dear Friends of Pleasant Run:
Mary Roth Executive Director
This is the time of year when we give thanks for the warmth and love that surrounds us.
And this time of year is an occasion to remember those not as fortunate as we are.
Pleasant Run cares for at-risk children and families.
The holiday season is the time of year when we're all busy buying gifts, baking goodies, decorating our homes and making arrangements to be with family and friends.
Many of the children are victims of abuse or live in unstable homes.
Today we are asking you to take a few minutes to consider making a contribution to Pleasant Run to help the 1,500 children families we care for.
Many of the children have no homes; no memories of joy from past holidays.
If you are interested and would like more information, please contact Lisa Lusk or Marcia Whited at 693-9222.
We would like to have families matched with sponsors non later than xxxx.
Thank you for considering this opportunity to make this a memorable holiday season for a family in need.
Sincerely,
It's hard to believe that the holiday season is only two months away.
Every year we seek companies, organizations and individuals to sponsor one or more of our families.
These families are participants in our community-based programs.
These programs focus on keeping the family together by providing counseling and other services to the entire family.
After our caseworkers meet with these families and their children they often find they lack even the basic necessities such as cooking utensils, beds, cleaning supplies, etc.
We meet these needs immediately.
But, the holiday season is a particularly difficult time for these families.
They do not have the resources necessary to purchase gifts or food for a holiday meal.
At Pleasant Run, Inc. we are making plans and arrangements for our children and families.
It costs $225 to send one child to camp.
Many members of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Indianapolis can't afford to go to camp without financial assistance, and that's why we need you!
Yes, it's that time of the year -- the start of the Boys & Girls clubs of Indianapolis' Camp.
Consider sponsoring 1, 2, or 3 children.
Sincerely,
Richard Dickinson
You can make a difference in a child's life.
Sponsor a child at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Indianapolis' summer camp today!
Six weeks of learning and exploring, sports, arts, and fellowship.
A time for a youngster to enjoy the fun and benefits of residential camp living, dedicated staff and instruction, and a chance to make special friends.
I know you're committed to ensuring today's children have safe, healthy, and positive summer experiences.
That's why I want you to learn more about the Super Summer Safari Camp.
At Super Summer Safari Camp, there are daily sports, nature, and arts activities.
Dear Friend,
In addition to the fun stuff, important life-skills such as self-esteem, leadership, and interpersonal cooperation are being developed.
It's summertime, so it must be time for CAMP!
Please read the enclosed brochure for more information on the wonderful Super Summer Safari Camp!
We are counting on you now to help us get where we need to be tomorrow.
Would you please consider a gift of the same in 1999?
Please, give generously.
The kids are depending on you.
Respectfully,
James Campbell President of the Board Deputy Chief, Indianapolis Police Department
A United Way Agency
Please detach and return in the enclosed envelope.
Youngsters often find themselves feeling alienated and alone.
We reach out to kids -- especially those from disadvantaged neighborhoods where the risks are highest.
We give them a chance to realize their own potential by giving them a place where they can develop a sense of competence, of usefulness, a sense of belonging and of influence.
Dear ,
Kids today face overwhelming pressures, everything from trouble at home to gangs and drugs.
Your contribution last year of helped us get where we are today.
In addition, we will have soft drinks and a raffle, so that you can walk home with a great prize!
The Jameson Grill has been designed to be nothing but fun for you, your family, employees, and maybe even your neighbors.
Join in this wonderful event and help Jameson Camp continue to provide the year-round support that gives kids a chance to create dreams.
Simply fill out the enclosed card, and we will see you at the Grill!
One of our volunteers will be contacting you soon.
Questions?
Call Pat Bray at 241-2661 or e-mail, jcfundrzr@aol.com
Come one, Come all to the Inaugural Jameson Grill
A fund raiser dedicated to you and your family having fun!
!
For this event, when you purchase a corporate picnic table, you will be able to bring 16 people.
The Grill will feature enough activities that you and your kids will have a tough time deciding what to do.
From basketball, kickball, volleyball, archery, crafts, an egg toss, and even a walk through our creek, you will have plenty to do to get you good and hungry.
The only fund raising event in the world where you can bring your entire family, other employees, or maybe even your neighbors.
Hungry, you bet!
We'll prepare a hog roast and hot dogs for the kids, with all the fixings.
This event is designed to be fun for campers, their families, friends of the camp, neighbors, staff, and anyone interested in finding out more about Jameson.
In short, Fun for Everyone!
This is where we need your help.
Can you help support this wonderful event by furnishing any type of products or services that can be used as prizes for our activities or as a raffle prize?
Your contribution will help with funding so Jameson Camp can continue providing the year-round camping experience that gives kids a chance to create dreams.
Enclosed is a form you can complete and return to us in the postage-paid envelope.
July 11, 1997
Or, you can fax us at 241-2760, or e-mail, icfundrzr@aol.com.
Your quick response will help us begin organizing our prizes.
After we receive your commitment, we will contact you about picking up your contribution.
If you have any questions, please call me at 241-2661.
We appreciate your support of our first event of this type.
Help Blaze The Trail -- 1997 Jameson Camp
Thank you for your last Annual Fund Gift!
The camp offers summer residential programs for children from ages 7-17, and continues contact with the campers and their families with special overnight and weekend follow-up events during the school year.
Name Address City, State Zip
All children who attend the camp are referred by social workers, doctors, teachers, counselors, and other professionals.
Many of the children have learning disabilities, behavioral problems, or come from economically distressed families.
Dear Mr./Mrs. Name:
The goal of our organized camping experience is to improve the total health of the children socially, emotionally, and physically.
This year Jameson Camp is planning an Inaugural fund-raising event: The Jameson Grill!
We need your help in continuing the work of Jameson Camp.
Two of them told me yesterday that as a group they decided they had to earn the right to ask others for help by accomplishing something real to help themselves.
I hope you'll consider continuing your support of Jameson's special campers by renewing your last gift of $ xxx.
And that's from kids many people see as a problem.
Even after the summer sessions come to a close, Jameson campers will take part in year-round programs designed to keep that positive contact with peers and role models alive and important.
We've scheduled more than 15 follow-up camper weekends beginning in September and going around till next summers camping season.
Please, consider renewing your support of these great kids today.
Julie Marsh Executive Director
We know our follow-up weekends are going to be better attended than ever this fall and winter.
If you can give a little more to help meet this increased expense we would appreciate your support.
I can tell you we need your help now as much as ever before.
All of our Six summer camping sessions are booked to capacity (and, truth be told, with maybe one our two extra returning campers squeezed in) and we have a waiting list of 60 children who are hoping to come if a spot should open.
What a Summer!
Many more camper referrals are coming from new organizations such as school social-workers and family counseling agencies.
It seems summer options aren't readily available for troubled kids whose families have limited incomes, so we're doing all we can to make Jameson available.
That "we" includes the Youth Leadership teens.
These 60 or so campers have takenon a fund raiser with a goal of raising $16,000 for camperships.
In just the past few years this program has grown from a few kids and a few extra activities to a team of almost 60 young adults taking on real projects.
YL teens will make J.C. juniors happen again this year for 7 and 8 year old campers.
That means we now have the opportunity to be a stable, positive and important part of each child's life for an entire decade.
The teens have also decided to raise money to provide camperships for other campers because they know what Jameson has meant to them.
And their activities aren't isolated to Jameson.
The teens have undertaken a volunteer project to regularly visit with sick children at a local hospital.
June 10, 1997
Please consider renewing your gift today.
The kids need your leadership now more than ever.
If you can increase your last donation, we would appreciate that show of support for the campers and their efforts to overcome obstacles and create successful lives.
Thank you again for helping point the way.
Julie Marsh, Executive Director
P.S.
These are the attributes we want all children to have.
You help Jameson campers reach for them.
If these special children are to become the adults we all need them to be, we have to lead them in the right direction right now.
Name Address City, ST Zip
Jameson points the way for children who need that extra hand and I hope you'll continue your support this year.
You're last gift of $50.00 helped make it possible for us to provide guidance, encouragement and fun to nearly 400 Indianapolis area children.
And not just during the summer, but throughout the year.
What has your support of our campers meant to them and what have they been able to accomplish because you care?
Confidence.
The best indicator I can give you of the positive effect our year-round contact has is the growth in and deeds of the Youth Leadership teens.
The end result will be kids who have a better understanding of and vision for their own future, be it college or a career.
The Summer Enrichment Program will conclude with a celebration that includes family and friends.
We would like to offer our youth a small reward for their participation by presenting them with gift certificates from Target.
Therefore, we are asking you to donate 45, $10 gift certificates that can be used toward the purchase of school supplies or clothing, in the total amount of $450.
In return, we will recognize Target as a sponsor during our event and in the event program.
Target is well known for it's support of the community, and we believe that the Summer Enrichment Program represents your interests and concerns quite well.
July30,1999
I will be happy to supply any additional information you may need and thank you for your consideration of our request.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Valery De Long Director of Development
In 1998, we served a total of 31,484 low-income individuals through job training and placement assistance, youth and senior programming, family counseling, emergency assistance, and much more.
Name Address City, ST Zip
As you can see from the enclosed map, your Target store is located in the heart of four of our service areas.
The centers that serve these areas, Mary Rigg Neighborhood Center, Hawthorne Community Center, Southwest Multi-Service Center, and Christamore House, have teamed up to run an exciting job readiness program for 14 and 15 year old area residents called the Summer Enrichment Program.
Dear Mr. Ratcliff:
Between June 21 and August 31, 45 youth will spend 20 hours a week developing life management and work ethic skills, learning the computer, visiting area colleges, and interacting with guest speakers.
With this in mind, I am asking each one of you to make a personal contribution of $50, $100 or even $1,000 to show that you believe in the work that we do and are willing to support it with both your time and your finances.
CCI has come a long way in the last five years.
This way when we go out to ask for community support and are asked about our board giving level, we can show our in-house commitment through 100% board participation.
I also encourage you to seek additional support through your company, church, or service organization.
We've worked hard to structrue the organization so that we've ready to move boldly into the next century, and I believe that we have an exciting and successful future ahead of us.
I know that our staff and committee members will be happy to go with you to talk to these group if you need their help.
We're at an exciting juncture and it won't be long until we start seeing solid results from our efforts.
Your financial support of the development process is just one step in making CCI a stronger, more efficient and ultimately more effective federation of service providers.
MMM F_NAME L_NAME TITLE COMPANY ADDRESS CITY,ST ZIP March 4, 1999
Please, make your contribution today.
Sincerely,
J.Chris Graffeo Chair
If you have any questions, feel free to call Valery De Long at CCI, 638-3360 x23.
One of the areas we've decided to focus on is development.
It's clear that if we don't increase our base of private funding, we won't have the kind of control we need to ensure the continued success of our centers and the very important services they offer.
In 1998, CCI served 31,484 individuals right in their own backyards.
Where else would that many people turn if CCI weren't there to help?
The community initiatives committee is working with our development office to put together a long-range fundraising plan that will ultimately bring more money into our centers.
Dear LTR_NAME:
This in turn will help us to increase and even improve the services we offer.
HIPPY (Home Instructional Program for Preschool Youngsters) for families.
Stopover crises counseling for youth.
In Home Services for adults and seniors.
Transportation for youth and seniors
CCI is a federation of 13 neighborhood-based multi-service centers (plus one affiliate) whose mission is to identify and meet the human service needs of the greater Indianapolis community in the most effective, efficient and comprehensive way possible.
Answer 34,700 opportunities to change a life!
Better yet, most of these services occur in cooperation with private and public agencies from all over the city - CICOA The Access Network, Goodwill Industries, Indianapolis Housing Agency, City of Indianapolis, Indianapolis Private Industry Council, Family and Social Services administration, OTC, Indy Parks, and numerous community development corporations, neighborhood organizations, and churches, to name just a few.
July 30, 1999
This is exactly what happened in 1997 when Community Centers of Indianapolis provided its comprehensive, neighborhood-based services to individuals and families all over Marion County.
More than 34,000 people benefited from our services in 1997, and the final count for 1998 could be even higher.
We're asking for a contribution in the amount of because you can't got a better bang for your buck than to support an organization that impacts so many lives in so many ways.
Your gift will enable CCI to provide these and other necessary services at a neighborhood level, face-to-face, where it counts.
Please, make a tax deductible gift to Community Centers of Indianapolis in 1999, and know that COMPANY is playing an important part in meeting the needs of its community.
If you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call at 638-3360.
We thank you for your consideration, and look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Earline S. Moore President
Valery De Long Director of Development
Dear Name:
And we can do even more in 1999 with your financial support!
Just look at the range of services we offer:
School Age Child Care for and children and youth
Adult Day Care for seniors
Senior Case Management Aids Education for youth and adults
Senior Nutrition meal program
Day Care for young children
Social Development and Recreation for children, youth and adults.
As a provider of youth services, MCCOY, Inc. is here to support your valuable efforts to develop young people.
Recently, through a lot of hard work and alliances with organizations like yours, some steps have been taken in our community that will help young people continue to be involved in positive activities.
One, IndyGo in April adopted a much-needed policy that all young people under the age of 19 may ride on their buses at half the normal fare all year long.
Two, funding was made available this summer for youth organizations and churches to conduct positive youth programming on Saturday evenings.
Through the youth mapping process, it was confirmed that the positive opportunities for youth on weekend evenings were lacking.
That need is being met.
August 4, 1999
As it has been an exciting year for all of us, MCCOY, Inc. cannot do its part without the support of organizations like yours.
Annually, we ask several of our youth serving organizations to join us in our effort to help young people grow up well in Indianapolis.
Enclosed is a donation card that will enable you to make Indianapolis a great place for ALL of us to live.
If you have any questions or concerns at any time, please do not hesitate to call me at 921-1288.
Sincerely,
John F. Brandon, President MCCOY, Inc.
Participants in the Youth Outcomes Educational Initiative identified three goals for all our youth to obtain: economic self-sufficiency, healthy family, social relationships, and involvement in the community.
A short time later, the Community Youth Mapping Project sent 55 young people out into the community to identify the resources they need to grow up well: caring adults, safe places to go, and positive things to do.
It is our goal that every young person in Marion County have access to the programs and services that can best assist them in their growth toward a positive adulthood.
I am hopeful that you as an individual and Meridian Insurance as a corporation might consider becoming sustaining supporters of MCCOY.
I have enclosed a packet of information about MCCOY and its work as well as an application with various options for supporting the youth of our community.
I obviously can't tell the whole story of MCCOY in a single letter but I hope this provides an overview of the scope of our work.
I will call you in a few weeks to discuss your level of interest.
Please consider joining together with your fellow citizens in support of the work of the Marion County Commission on Youth.
January 5, 1997
Sincerely,
John Brandon Executive Director
As you begin that process this year, I would like to ask you to consider helping young people in Marion County toward more positive youth development by becoming a supporter of the Marion County Commission on Youth, Inc.
Name Address City, ST Zip
MCCOY Inc., originally founded as a government agency but re-organized in 1993 as an independent not-for-profit, is a county-wide youth services coordinating, planning, and convening agency.
Its purpose is to encourage collaboration and cooperation between the various agencies, programs, and systems that serve our community's youth.
Dear Bill:
In addition to that behind-the-scenes role, MCCOY has taken an out-front role in developing a Summer Bus Pass, neighborhood youth councils, and the We Value Youth information line.
This is the time of year when our thoughts turn to ways to do things differently, things that will make our lives better and improve the quality of our life.
The formation of The Community Academy, a pilot project directed at expelled students from local school systems, has come about as a result of MCCOY's efforts to mobilize community agencies in response to a pressing issue.
McCoy is actively represented and working with numerous community collaborations where we regularly raise our voice to speak out for the inclusion of young people in both decision-making and program planning processes.
One concrete example is a joint project undertaken in the United Northwest Area in partnership with The Junior League of Indianapolis and Community Partnerships with Youth from Fort Wayne, Indiana.
October 7, 1996
Since its re-organization, MCCOY has established its unique niche within the community by refraining from direct service programming and focusing on what it does best: helping to identify youth needs, convening groups of individuals and organizations which can address those needs, and moving toward collaborative solutions.
MCCOY was reorganized as an independent, not-for-profit agency, separate from local government.
McCoy has only one interest: the well being of Marion County's young people.
---- the co-ordination of youth leadership training and youth empowerment efforts at the neighborhood level by means of neighborhood-based youth councils;
---- the promotion of youth employment opportunities;
---- the development of community-wide supports for the positive growth of all Marion County young people.
In the last several years, the business and corporate community has recognized that the positive development of youth is directly related to the development of a competent workforce.
It retained, however, the same mission with which it had been charged from its inception: to serve as a catalyst for effective, coordinated, and collaborative service delivery to youth in our community.
Youth who are supported and encouraged by both a family and a society that values Them have a much greater likelihood of becoming productive and contributing members of adult society.
While we have made significant inroads, there remains much to be done and it is clear that we cannot do it alone.
Name Address City, ST Zip
In our fund raising efforts to date, we have received the support of local government, foundations, and corporations as well as the personal financial commitments of individual MCCOY Board members.
We believe there is no more appropriate time to have a coordinated and collaborative effort to financially support the services MCCOY offers to the community as a whole.
Sincerely,
John T. Neighbours Philip B. Roby President Treasurer
For the past three years, MCCOY has been actively engaged in accomplishing this declared mission in cooperation with many others: youth service providers, youth, funding bodies, and interested citizens to name a few.
Dear Name:
We have met with a number of successes along the way, most notably the Summer Fun Line, the Metro Summer Bus Pass, and the development of ten neighborhood youth councils.
In the summer of 1993, the Marion County Commission on Youth began what can best be described as a "new era" in its history.
A Providers Council and a Youth Coalition are building relationships that will hopefully bear great fruit in the years to come.
One of us will call you to discuss how your company can become an important highly visible partner with the JCC in support of our scholarship programs.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call Myrna Weinberger at 251-9467, ext. 256.
Thank you in advance for your consideration.
The 9th annual JCC Auction will benefit the numerous scholarship programs of the Jewish Community Center of Indianapolis, a United Way agency.
Sincerely, Judy Laikin, Chair Auction '99 Sponsor Committee
Because you are an organization that cares, you are invited to become an integral part of this fabulous event by becoming a corporate sponsor for JCC Auction '99.
Dear
The JCC would be very pleased to welcome your organization as a corporate sponsor.
Join us for the "Sale of the Century" at JCC Auction '99, on Saturday, November 13, 1999.
As a sponsor, you and your guests will have a special evening, knowing that your tax deductible contribution will help support preschool, childcare, senior and resettlement services, as well as quality cultural events in our community.
Enclosed is a corporate sponsorship package that includes a sample auction book from last year's event, JCC market statistics and an overview of the many programs that will be preserved and strengthened through your generous support.
One of us will call you to discuss how your company can continue to be an important, highly visible partner with the JCC in support of our scholarship programs.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call Myrna Weinberger at 251-9467, ext. 256.
Thank you in advance for your consideration.
The 9th annual JCC Auction will benefit the numerous scholarship programs of the Jewish Community Center of Indianapolis, a United Way agency.
Sincerely,
Judy Laikin, Chair Auction '99 Sponsor Committee
October 27, 1998
Because you are an organization that cares, you are invited once again to be an integral part of this fabulous event as a corporate sponsor for JCC Auction '99.
Dear Name:
We are so grateful for your generous contribution to last year's auction.
Join us for the "Sale of the Century" at JCC Auction '99, on Saturday, November 13, 1999.
As a sponsor, you and your guests will have a special evening, knowing that your tax deductible contribution will help support preschool, childcare, senior and resettlement services, as well as quality cultural events in our community.
Enclosed is a corporate sponsorship package that includes a sample of your ad from last year's auction book, current JCC market statistics and an overview of the many JCC programs that will be preserved and strengthened through your generous support.
Over 150 girls are currently waiting for a Big Sister.
You can make an impact by supporting Big Sisters Annual Campaign and our $200,000 goal.
We know that children do better when they have a network of caring adults to nurture and motivate them.
If you are a regular contributor to the Annual Campaign, I encourage you to consider increasing your gift by 10%.
If you have not supported Big Sisters in the past, please join me in doing so by completing and returning the enclosed pledge form.
Early adolescence is the most vulnerable age for youth.
It's the perfect time to make a world of difference.
Sincerely,
Name Address City, State, Zip
Big Sisters helps bridge that gap by providing children with the resources they need -- Big Sisters volunteers.
Big Sisters are mentors and friends who empower girls to more fully reach their potential, experience life's opportunities and perhaps begin to dream.
Dear Name,
The relationships that are formed provide strong foundations from which healthy values and strong self-confidence can grow, helping youth become strong, independent adults of tomorrow.
It's tough growing up today.
This is an impressive number; but for each girl served, more are left unserved.
This is positive proof that Big Sisters one-to-one mentoring program helps change lives.
Today, we are offering you the opportunity to help change a life.
By contributing $1,000 you can support one match for one year.
This money maintains the infrastructure that fosters and supports the development of effective relationships.
This includes a volunteer screening process, orientation, training and ongoing supervision and support by a professional staff.
Today Big Sisters serves over 1,000 girls in central Indiana.
August 6, 1998
But for each girl served, more are left unserved.
Over 235 girls are currently waiting for a Big Sister.
It's hard enough for her to make good decisions when she's surrounded by support.
Sincerely,
It's even harder when she isn't.
Big Sisters helps fill that void by matching caring, responsible adult volunteers with at-risk girls, ages 8-14.
Dear Friend:
A Big Sister is a mentor, a friend and a role model, helping a young girl to develop the self-confidence and life skills necessary to become a responsible, productive and successful adult.
Adolescence.
Your $1,000 contribution can put a mentor in a child's life-and hope in a child's future.
It is a pivotal time in the life of a young girl-when small changes in her behavior, or the choices she makes, can affect her future.
The results of an 18-month study completed by Public/Private Ventures showed that children participating in one-to-one Big Sister and Big Brother matches for just one year, reduced first time drug use by 46%; lowered school absenteeism by 52%; cut aggressive behavior by 33%; enhanced school performance; and improved relations with family and friends.
A recent study by Public/Private Ventures (PPV) showed that girls who had a Big Sister for just one year:
Dear Mr. Philanthropy,
reduced first-time drug use by 46%
lowered school absenteeism by 52%
cut violent behavior by 33%
enhanced school performance showed improved peer and family relationships
Former Little Sister Amy, now 18-years old, is a testament to the Big Sisters program.
"The urgency you feel to make changes is just the extent that change will be made.
"I was matched with my Big Sister in June of 1992.
Since then, she and I have grown very close and I have been able to experience lots of new things.
August 10, 1999
I have become more open-minded, more responsible, and, most importantly, I have gained a lot more self-confidence.
In 1998, Big Sisters served 972 young people through its many programs.
But the need is still great.
Over 170 young people are still waiting for a mentor.
Do not sit this one out.
You are an important part in making sure these young people are matched with caring adult mentors.
Will you make a financial gift to Big Sisters in 1999 that will ensure that more young people receive the guidance they need, that more young people stay in school, stay off drugs and make good choices?
Do not play it safe.
Your contribution will be used to recruit and retain quality volunteers.
It will also be used to help maintain the infrastructure that fosters and supports the development of effective relationships, including volunteer orientation and training and ongoing supervision and support by a professional staff.
Understand the world and change it where it needs to be changed...
This year your gift can go farther!
Gifts of $100 or more will be matched thanks to a special 25th Anniversary $100,000 Challenge Grant and will be placed in the Growth For Girls Fund.
This fund will support the goal of having 550 mentoring relationships by the end of 1999 and 1,200 by the end of 2004.
If you would like to find out more about the Big Sisters program, please call us, (317) 634-6102 and ask for Ellen Robinson.
Thank you very much for your time, attention and consideration.
Make our society better.
Sincerely,
P.S.
When you give to Big Sisters, you can get 50% back!
For a minimum contribution of $250, you become eligible for a 50% Indiana state tax credit through the Indiana Department of Commerce Neighborhood Assistance Program (NAP).
Make a world worthy of the children that your generation will bear."
A limited number of credits are available.
Mr. Caring Philanthropy 01234 Giving Way Contribution, USA 56789
With your help, we can change that.
Many Little Sisters are preparing to go back to school this fall full of hope and with a positive outlook.
Thanks to our Big Sisters volunteers, these young people are self-confident, believe in themselves and are beginning to realize their full potential.
Please consider joining the Chairman's Roundtable with a gift of $1,000.
I have enclosed a pledge card for your convenience.
We would like to announce the success of this year's campaign at the Annual Meeting on April 27, so please return you pledge or gift within the next 30 days.
As a former board member, the success of the YMCA is still important to me.
Thank you.
Richard H. Gilbert, Jr.
Past Board Member YMCA of Greater Indianapolis
March 29, 1999
We must be able to reach all youth and families interested in values-based programs.
New initiatives in the inner-city are taking hold.
Name Address City, ST Zip
The Urban Mission Branch is reaching out to middle school youth with programs based on caring, honesty, respect and responsibility for themselves and others.
For some, these are very different messages from the ones heard in the street.
Dear Name:
You have shared in the vision and the leadership of the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis.
The 1999 Invest in Youth Campaign is in full swing.
I now invite you to continue to support the mission and the message that is so important to building strong kids, strong families and strong communities.
The last visitor was then-U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who went to help a pair of U.S. oilmen in diplomatic trouble.
Hall flies to Amman, Jordan, on Friday, where he'll spend the night before driving to Iraq.
Hall is to return to Washington on April 22.
Story Filed By Cox Newspapers
The Dayton Democrat, who has traveled to other crisis points including Sierra Leone and North Korea, will spend three days visiting hospitals and other facilities to seek understanding why aid has been ineffective in stemming malnourishment and other medical problems.
By Scott Montgomery Washington
Iraq has been under economic sanctions since the war ended, which some say have thwarted the country's ability to recover from the devastation of the bombing campaign.
The Persian Gulf War destroyed much of the country's medical infrastructure, according to a report by the World Health Organization.
The Iraqi government has agreed to let U.S. Rep. Tony Hall visit the country next week to assess a humanitarian crisis that has festered since the Gulf War of 1990, Hall's office said Monday.
In 1996 the WHO found that much of the population existed in a state of ``semi starvation.''
Hall will be only the second member of Congress to travel in Iraq since the war, according to Hall's office.
Iraq clears visit by Ohio official
The Iraqi government blames the embargo for the malnutrition, infant mortality and other hardships.
The sanctions cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors certify that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them.
At least one other congressman has visited Iraq.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson went to Baghdad in 1995 while a representative for New Mexico.
Hall, an Ohio Democrat and one of very few U.S. congressmen to visit Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait, is scheduled to embark Sunday the 12-hour overland trip to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
He did not speak to reporters in Jordan, but he told The Associated Press before leaving the United States that he hopes to "separate the humanitarian work from the political issues."
AMMAN, Jordan (AP)
During his four days in Iraq, Hall said he wanted to investigate reports from relief agencies that a quarter of Iraqi children may be suffering from chronic malnutrition.
U.S. Representative Tony Hall arrived in Jordan on Saturday en route to Iraq, where he is expected to look into the plight of Iraqis after nearly 10 years of U.N. trade sanctions.
He said he would pay particular attention to what happens to food and medicine entering the country under the U.N. oil-for-food program.
If supplies are not reaching the people who need them, Hall said, he wanted to find out whether the United Nations or relief agencies needed to handle things differently, or whether "Iraq needs to get out of the way and let us do the job."
Ohio Congressman Arrives in Jordan
Iraq says the United States and Britain hold up delivery of needed supplies, using their clout in the United Nations.
A U.S. lawmaker assessing the impact of U.N. sanctions on Iraq said Wednesday it is important not only to force Baghdad to give up its weapons of mass destruction but also to do more to ease the hardships on ordinary Iraqis.
The U.S. government says it wants to ensure that Iraq is not buying items that appear to be humanitarian in nature but that could be used for making weapons.
By HASSAN ABDULWAHAB, Associated Press Writer
"It was very, very important" to compel Iraq to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction so that "it cannot use or export them to other countries," he told Associated Press Television News.
But he insisted the international community can do a much better job in helping Iraq deal with its economic and health problems.
One way would be to speed up the flow of health supplies and other urgent commodities to the country under a U.N. humanitarian program, he said.
BASRA, Iraq (AP)
Lawmaker Appeals for Innocent Iraqis
The United States cut virtually all military links with Indonesia in 1999 after its forces were implicated in the violence that swept East Timor after that territory voted for independence.
"We recognized that terrorism is a global threat and that the disturbing acts of terrorism and transnational crimes, which continue to threaten world peace and stability, must be tackled by the international community,"
"We recognized that terrorism is a global threat and that the disturbing acts of terrorism and transnational crimes, which continue to threaten world peace and stability, must be tackled by the international community," the ministers said in a communique on Tuesday.
Powell is among the representatives from 13 nations outside Southeast Asia, including China, Japan and Russia, that are taking part in the annual meeting of the group's regional forum.
Terrorism dominates the agenda, though the possibility of a meeting here between Powell and his North Korean counterpart, Paek Nam Sun, has generated the most news.
It would be the highest-level contact between the United States and North Korea since President Bush took office.
Powell heads to Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, late on Thursday before finishing a weeklong trip through the region in the Philippines on Saturday.
The committee's action comes six months after federal prosecutors ended a lengthy criminal investigation into Torricelli's activities without filing criminal charges.
He said that when he arrives in Jakarta, he will have "some ideas and some initiatives" to present to President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
"some ideas and some initiatives"
Indonesia is already receiving $400,000 in the current fiscal year for civilian training programs and is to receive a like amount next year; and the United States expects to provide an additional $16 million this year to train police officers in counterterrorism.
"counterterrorism fellowships,"
But a senior State Department official also acknowledged that some in the administration and Congress are pushing for more direct military cooperation, which would require congressional approval.
"I think they recognize the danger that we all face and I think they have been cooperating more fully with us as time goes by, and I'm quite sure that Mrs. Megawati is committed to this cause,"
"I think they recognize the danger that we all face and I think they have been cooperating more fully with us as time goes by, and I'm quite sure that Mrs. Megawati is committed to this cause," Powell said in Singapore.
He met there with Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, who endorsed the idea of renewed military ties between the United States and Indonesia as an important step in stabilizing that country.
Powell contended that it was not inconsistent to want to foster cooperation even with an organization like the Indonesian military, which has a history of human rights abuses.
"If you get young officers, expose them to a military organization that is within a democratic political institution, such as the United States, then that rubs off on them,"
In Malaysia, Powell met with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has led the country since 1981.
The Malaysian foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, later told local reporters that Powell had proposed that American and Malaysian officials review the idea of forming a regional training center in Malaysia to coordinate antiterrorism activities.
The ethics panel, to which evidence from the criminal case was forwarded, concluded its review just as Torricelli is gearing up his campaign for re-election against the Republican candidate, Douglas R. Forrester.
His brief stop in Malaysia also highlighted the moral ambiguities of the effort to prevent terrorism and its emphasis on cooperation with governments that the United States has often criticized.
The United States once distanced itself from Mahathir for strong-arm tactics with political rivals, and human rights groups criticize him for arresting and jailing scores of suspected militants, including some who may be linked to al-Qaida, without trial.
Powell said his discussions with Mahathir "touched on the case" of his former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, who is serving a 15-year sentence on charges of sodomy and abuse of power after trials that Powell said the United States had "always felt" were flawed.
The assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, James Kelly, met on Tuesday morning with Anwar's wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, for what she later told Malaysian reporters was a discussion about both the detention of her husband and six supporters, and the campaign against terrorism.
"severely admonished"
Microsoft plans to announce on Wednesday a partnership with AT&T Wireless Services to offer software for wireless devices and services, a person close to the talks said Tuesday night.
The deal would be part of Microsoft's drive to sign up wireless carriers to use its so-called smart phone software -- a pared-down version of the Windows operating system -- and services that Microsoft is developing as part of its .Net Internet strategy.
Neither Microsoft nor AT&T Wireless would comment.
The main market for the Microsoft-AT&T partnership is expected to be business customers.
Microsoft's efforts to persuade wireless carriers to use its cell phone operating system have struggled.
It has run into particular opposition from companies aligned with Nokia, which has developed a competing software.
But Microsoft's potential advantage, analysts say, is its ability to link its cell phone software to its desktop PC software, a Microsoft stronghold.
After months in which polls showed Torricelli well ahead of his relatively unknown Republican rival, the contest has narrowed in recent weeks.
Customers who want access to Microsoft desktop e-mail, documents and calendar information may prefer Microsoft's wireless technology.
In recent months, Microsoft has announced partnerships with wireless carriers like Verizon and Sprint PCS.
Less than three weeks after outfielder Cliff Floyd was imported to Montreal to play a pivotal part in the Expos' playoff plans, he was traded to Boston Tuesday night to try his hand in what the Red Sox hope will be their postseason plans.
Floyd did not produce the kind of offense the Expos expected from him, so Omar Minaya, the Expos' aggressive rookie general manager, turned around and sent him to the Red Sox in exchange two South Korean pitchers and a player yet to be named.
The teams made the deal less than 24 hours before Tuesday's 4 p.m.
deadline for making trades without first getting waivers on players.
Minaya obtained Floyd from the Florida Marlins on July 11, only two weeks after he stunned baseball by acquiring Bartolo Colon from Cleveland.
Colon has won four of five decisions for the Expos, but Floyd batted only .208 for them while hitting three home runs, including one Tuesday night, and driving in four runs.
With the Marlins Floyd bated .287, hit 18 home runs and drove in 57 runs.
The Expos, who had a 46-41 record when they made their first Floyd deal, had only a 7-12 record with him on the team, dropping from 9 1/2 games behind Atlanta in the National League East to as many as 16 games back.
It was the first time that the Senate Ethics Committee had voted to take action against a senator since 1995, when it recommended that Bob Packwood, an Oregon Republican, be expelled on the ground of sexual and official misconduct.
Floyd can be a free agent after this season, and Minaya decided it would be more prudent to trade him and get value in return than have to settle for a draft choice or two as compensation when he signed with another team as a free agent.
The Expos acquired Sun Woo-kim and Seung Jun-song.
The Red Sox signed him in 1997.
Song is a 22-year-old right-hander from Pusan.
The Red Sox signed him in 1999.
The Red Sox wanted to bolster their offense.
They led the Yankees for most of the first three months of the season but then slipped behind them in the American League East.
Earlier in the day Tuesday, one member of the Red Sox organization was not sure they would be able to get Floyd.
"I don't know that he's that serious about moving him,"
"I don't know that he's that serious about moving him," the person said of Minaya.
But as the day wore on, the Red Sox tried harder and by Tuesday night were able to get the player they wanted for their lineup.
With the barrage of crack cocaine-connected killings in the 1980s came the realization that young people were too often full-fledged players in the violence.
That was more evident here than in any other city, said George Starke, who after his career as an offensive tackle with the Washington Redskins from 1973 to 1984 stuck around and decided to make this place more than his home.
"There was death in D.C. throughout the '80s and into the '90s, and there was death everywhere,"
"There was death in D.C. throughout the '80s and into the '90s, and there was death everywhere," said Starke, who was reared in New Rochelle, N.Y., and played at Columbia.
"It wasn't like New York's or Boston's organized crime.
"It wasn't like New York's or Boston's organized crime. It was kids shooting kids. It was a 14-year-old from R Street who got his crew of six together and ran their drug block killing another 14-year-old and his crew from a block away. And from the beginning I could see that it was all about jobs. I could see that you needed the private sector involved."
And from the beginning I could see that it was all about jobs.
I could see that you needed the private sector involved."
Starke could see that in many instances these were cases of lost dignity.
"I had a young man come up to me three years ago and say, 'Mr. Starke, I'm tired of going to bed at night with a Tech-9 gun under my pillow."
Packwood later resigned.
And Starke was tired of seeing Washington and its young people suffer a black eye.
So, after six years of planning, he opened the Excel Institute Automotive Program, a two-year school that gives people a chance at a new life as an auto technician or in another job related to the field.
The school, now in its third year, has been so successful that it recently received a $2 million grant from Congress.
The program is coordinated with the University of the District of Columbia.
Students learn automotive intricacies and can earn a a high school equivalency diploma.
Starke, 54, played in two Super Bowls and won one.
In 1973, he was young enough to be a part of the Redskins' Over the Hill Gang, and in 1981 he was old enough to be one of the team's original Hogs.
He was recently named one of the 70 greatest Redskins.
He earned a physics degree from Columbia, became a Redskin, studied drama, worked in sports broadcasting, opened a Washington restaurant and built his own home here when he thought he might become a developer, "just so I could know how the business worked from the ground up," he said.
"just so I could know how the business worked from the ground up,"
In 1992 he sold it to begin work on the Excel Institute, putting up $300,000 to get things started.
"I saw a lot of kids and young men out there with no dads and no structure who couldn't read and some of them were beginning to realize that there is no growing old as a crack dealer -- you either die or go to jail,"
"I saw a lot of kids and young men out there with no dads and no structure who couldn't read and some of them were beginning to realize that there is no growing old as a crack dealer -- you either die or go to jail," he said.
"My experience in the automotive industry was there was a dire shortage of auto technicians not only in America but internationally."
The institute has a full-time staff of 18.
Twelve of those are teachers.
Seventy students are participating in summer classes.
Angela Nafis, 47, of Ecuador, has been in the school for a year.
She learned to speak English, got a driver's license and earned her GED.
"The document speaks for itself,"
"I'm homeless now trying to find a place to lay my head,"
Easterling said he would do whatever it took to become stable.
Not bad for a guy who was kicked out of high school in 1997 for threatening a teacher.
"I did a lot of walking, got an interview and got a job and an opportunity of a lifetime,"
"It shows if you have the will and the dedication here you can learn a lot and be something.
"It shows if you have the will and the dedication here you can learn a lot and be something. It taught me maturity. This school is like a big family."
It taught me maturity.
This school is like a big family."
Edward Jewell, 56, retired from his job as a copyright assistant at the Library of Congress in 1993.
"I've been flapping my wings since until I found this school,"
"I've been flapping my wings since until I found this school," he said.
"I needed a new skill.
This has been invaluable, enriching.
I get up and come down here at 6 a.m.
every day full of joy and energized.
Within minutes after the committee released its letter publicly, Torricelli took the Senate floor Tuesday night to apologize to the people of New Jersey for allowing his seat in the chamber "to be placed in this position."
George is doing what he's supposed to be doing because God is blessing him and he's sure blessing me.
And when I become a technician, I will help the poor and needy by giving them affordable rates."
Starke said the school would move to a building near the city's bus depot in the fall.
The city has talked with Starke about using his students for some vehicle repairs.
He is proud of the red Cobra 427 that sits in the school's workshop.
It was rebuilt from shell to finish by his first class and was included in the district's millennium celebrations.
His current class is rebuilding a black one.
This one will be auctioned for the school.
"I just wanted to be a part," said Starke, who is certain he is the lone Redskin, past or present, who lives in the city.
He has lived here for 20 years.
"A lot of kids are afraid of 'the process' and I wanted to take 'the process' out.
"A lot of kids are afraid of 'the process' and I wanted to take 'the process' out. For this school, once they are in, all they have to do is come every day, come on time every day and work hard. A little more than 50 percent of our kids make it through. I want it to be more, but my job is not to see that everybody makes it; my job is to see that everybody has the opportunity to make it."
'the process'
'the process'
For this school, once they are in, all they have to do is come every day, come on time every day and work hard.
A little more than 50 percent of our kids make it through.
I want it to be more, but my job is not to see that everybody makes it; my job is to see that everybody has the opportunity to make it."
The 1933 double eagle, a $20 gold piece with a mysterious history that involves a president, a king and a Secret Service sting operation, was auctioned Tuesday last night for a record price for a coin, $7.59 million, nearly double the previous record.
The anonymous buyer, believed to be an individual collector who lives in the United States, made the winning bid in a fiercely contested nine-minute auction at Sotheby's in Manhattan.
Eight bidders were joined by 500 coin collectors and dealers in an auction house audience seemingly devoid of celebrity bidders, while an additional 534 observers followed the bidding on eBay.
"to be placed in this position."
As auction houses prepare for their fall seasons in an uncertain economy, the sale price "suggests that the marketplace for important items is enormously strong," said David Redden, a vice chairman at Sotheby's, who was the auctioneer.
"suggests that the marketplace for important items is enormously strong,"
"This is an astonishing new record for a coin,"
"This is an astonishing new record for a coin," he said.
In an unprecedented move, the auction proceeds were split by the U.S. Mint and a London coin dealer, Stephen Fenton, who had won that right in court after having been arrested by Secret Service agents for trying to sell the coin in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan in 1996.
During nearly seven hours of sworn testimony last week before the members and staff of the ethics panel, Torricelli said that he had not taken any gifts from Chang, and that what items he had accepted from the businessman he had later paid Chang for, one person familiar with his account said.
Henrietta Holsman Fore, the director of the U.S. Mint, who witnessed the sale, said, "The monies we receive will go toward helping to pay down the debt and to fight the war on terrorism."
Fenton commented that the double eagle had been on "a long historic journey, with a very satisfying ending."
"a long historic journey, with a very satisfying ending."
"I am thrilled with the price."
The previous numismatic record holder was an 1804 U.S. silver dollar, which sold for $4.14 million in 1999.
Sotheby's partner in the one-lot auction was Stack's Rare Coins, with which it shared the customary 15 percent commission.
"I have never seen as much interest in the sale of any coin in my 30 years in the business,"
"I have never seen as much interest in the sale of any coin in my 30 years in the business," said Lawrence R. Stack, the company's managing director.
"This is the Mona Lisa of coins," said Beth Deisher, editor of Coin World, the largest weekly coin publication in the United States, with a circulation of 85,000.
"It is unique.
"It is unique. Forbidden fruit."
Forbidden fruit."
Collectors' Web sites have surged with speculation about the sale price, and enthusiasts even organized betting pools.
On Tuesday night, Redden took the podium for nine minutes before the gavel came down, recognizing bidders in the audience and on the telephone.
The tension in the crowd was broken with a burst of applause after the $5 million mark, and a louder explosion at $6 million.
The rumor in the crowd had been that "anything under $6 million would be a bargain," said Ute Wartenberg, executive director of the American Numismatic Society in Manhattan.
"anything under $6 million would be a bargain,"
Most bidders dropped out after that price.
The sale price of $6.6 million, when added to the commission, totaled $7.59 million.
The auction attendance was swelled by coin collectors who had gathered on the eve of the American Numismatic Association Convention, the largest coin show of the year, expected to draw more than 10,000 people to the Marriott Marquis Hotel Wednesday.
"So the auction was almost like the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the convention,"
"So the auction was almost like the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the convention," Stack said.
Fore of the mint said the high price for the coin was reached "because it is one of a kind, it is beautiful and it has a great story."
The coin was the only 1933 double eagle that has ever been legally offered for sale, and its Maltese Falconesque history only recently came to light, thanks to documents unearthed during the five-year legal battle over its ownership.
In 1792, it was deemed that all gold and silver U.S. coins would bear the depiction of an eagle, but gold pieces were issued only after a gold rush boom in 1850.
They were called double eagles because their face value was twice that of the original $10 gold piece.
Torricelli also insisted that he had not done any unusual favors for Chang, who first turned to the senator in 1995 for help in winning the repayment of some $71 million he said he was then owed in a failed business deal with the North Korean government.
Following the suggestion of President Theodore Roosevelt, the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens redesigned the coin in 1907 in high relief, forever after giving the coins the designation "saints."
"saints."
But in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard, and ordered all the 1933 saints already manufactured destroyed, save for two reserved for the Smithsonian Institution.
They were never declared legal currency.
Presumably after being stolen by a mint employee, nine double eagles surfaced during the mid-1940s and 1950s.
They were seized by the Secret Service and melted down.
But before these coins came to light, the royal legation of Egypt turned up with one at the Department of the Treasury, and somehow got an official to issue an export license for the coin to enhance the collection of King Farouk.
By the time that blunder was discovered, the coin had left the United States.
In 1954, after the king was deposed, his coins were sold at auction and the double eagle vanished.
It went underground until it came to Fenton in 1995.
His arrest in Manhattan, after attempting to sell the coin for $1.5 million, led to a court battle over whether -- thanks to the Treasury's mistaken export permission in 1944 -- the coin could be legally owned.
The coin once again escaped destruction when it was moved from the Treasury Department vault in 7 World Trade Center eight months before the building collapsed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
The record price was seen as a gift by coin collectors.
"Many people believe that our great coin rarities are vastly undervalued in comparison to old master paintings,"
"Many people believe that our great coin rarities are vastly undervalued in comparison to old master paintings," Deisher said.
In a ceremony after the sale, Fore of the mint declared the coin the only 1933 double eagle ever to be legally issued by the U.S. government.
This "monetized" the coin, making it legal tender.
"monetized"
The buyer will receive a certificate of transfer stating just that, but only after paying the auction price and a fee of $20 for the face value of the coin.
Your acceptance of a television and stereo CD player upon payment from David Chang of an amount you understood to be the cost to Mr. Chang, rather than fair market retail value, evidenced poor judgment, displayed a lack of due regard for Senate rules and resulted in a violation of the Senate Gifts Rules (35) and, consequently, a violation of your public disclosure obligations under Senate rules.
The Ethics Committee was unconvinced.
Your acceptance on loan from Mr. Chang of bronze statues (eagle and bronco buster) for display in your Senate office under your office's policy of accepting the loan of home state artwork was not consistent with Senate rules governing such loans, evidenced poor judgment, displayed a lack of due regard for the Senate rules and resulted in a violation of the Senate Gifts Rule (35) and, consequently, a violation of your public disclosure obligations under Senate rules.
In its letter, which was signed by all six members, the panel wrote that it was "troubled by incongruities, inconsistencies and conflicts, particularly concerning actions taken by you which were or could have been of potential benefit to Chang."
Your failure to act to prevent the acceptance of or to pay for gifts of earrings from Mr. Chang to individuals (your sister, an employee and a friend) in your home at Christmas on the mistaken belief that such items were of little value or were not gifts to you under the circumstances, evidenced poor judgment, displayed a lack of due regard for Senate rules and resulted in a violation of the Senate Gifts Rule (35) and, consequently, a violation of your public disclosure obligations under Senate Rule 34.
Continuation of a personal and official relationship with Mr. Chang under circumstances where you knew that he was attempting to ingratiate himself, in part through a pattern of attempts to provide you and those around you with gifts over a period of several years when you and your Senate Office were taking official actions of benefit to Mr. Chang (contacting United States Government officials, writing letters to foreign government officials and involving Mr. Chang of his representatives in situations where you were meeting with officials of foreign governments) evidenced poor judgment.
"troubled by incongruities, inconsistencies and conflicts, particularly concerning actions taken by you which were or could have been of potential benefit to Chang."
The committee has also considered that the principal source of the allegations against you is David Chang, a witness whose credibility has been called into question by the Department of Justice, a United States district judge and his own conduct.
In court documents, the government noted that Chang could not be trusted.
On May 23, 2002, Mr. Chang was convicted of attempting to corruptly persuade a witness to give false testimony, a conspiracy to violate the federal election law and four violations of the federal election law.
After evaluating the extensive body of evidence before it and your testimony, the committee is troubled by incongruities, inconsistencies and conflicts, particularly concerning actions taken by you which were or could have been of potential benefit to Mr. Chang.
Therefore, the committee . . . expresses its determination that your actions and failure to act led to violations of Senate rules (and related statutes) and created at least the appearance of impropriety, and you are hereby severely admonished.
Further, the committee notes section 1(c)(1) of the Senate Gift Rule (35) concerning anything which is paid for at market value or returned . . . as well as your commitment to pay for any item which the committee might conclude were in violation of the rules, and has further concluded that you must pay Chang an amount sufficient to bring the total to fair market retail value of the TV and CD player, as well as the fair market retail value of the earrings given to the three individuals at your home, with appropriate interest.
The committee understands that you have previously delivered the bronze statues to the Department of Justice, from whence they should be returned to Chang.
"personal and official relationship with Chang under circumstances where you knew that he was attempting to ingratiate himself, in part through a pattern of attempts to provide you and those around you with gifts over a period of several years."
This 30-second commercial is the first in H. Carl McCall's campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor and will be broadcast upstate in major broadcast markets, and on cable in New York City, starting today.
The words "His resume is an American dream," a quotation from Time magazine, appear on the screen.
"His resume is an American dream,"
They show him as an Army lieutenant, at his swearing-in as a state senator, as ambassador to the United Nations, surrounded by children as New York City school board president, and at other jobs, leading up to his current position, state comptroller.
A photograph of the candidate standing in his Army uniform next to his mother is shown, then the advertisement shifts to McCall talking about education, while images of the candidate looking at a computer screen with a small child and of him surrounded by children appear.
The action then shifts to him in an office, speaking to the camera, as the words "Experience.
"Experience. Excellence. Carl McCall"
Excellence.
Carl McCall" appear on the screen.
A male voice says, "Time Magazine called his life an American dream.
"Time Magazine called his life an American dream. Carl McCall, Army lieutenant, state senator, ambassador to the United Nations, school board president, Citibank vice president, and one of the most effective comptrollers in New York history."
Carl McCall, Army lieutenant, state senator, ambassador to the United Nations, school board president, Citibank vice president, and one of the most effective comptrollers in New York history."
The candidate says: "I grew up poor with a single mother.
"I grew up poor with a single mother. She said education's a sledgehammer. It can open doors to opportunity. That's what education did for me. As governor, I'll make sure that every kid in New York has the same opportunity I had, to get a good education."
She said education's a sledgehammer.
That's what education did for me.
As governor, I'll make sure that every kid in New York has the same opportunity I had, to get a good education."
This advertisement is long on introductions and short on claims of merit.
Thus, most of the facts presented are a matter of record.
He had the title of ambassador when he was at the United Nations, but he was not the chief of the American mission.
And Time magazine actually called his resume, not his life, an American dream, but it also followed that up with a reference to his life, saying he was one of six children and raised on welfare.
As for the claim about his success as comptroller, where he controls the state pension funds, there is no disputing the funds' growth during his terms, but some critics say it had more to do with the buoyancy of the stock market in the 1990s than skilled management.
During that time, the panel said, Torricelli and members of his Senate staff took a series of actions to help Chang, contacting U.S. government officials, writing letters to foreign government officials and bringing Chang or his business representatives into meetings with foreign officials.
The advertisement attempts to make several points and reach several different constituencies.
For one, it counters the high name recognition of Andrew M. Cuomo, McCall's opponent, by offering voters a straightforward introduction to the candidate, emphasizing his long list of high-level jobs in both the public and private sector.
It also emphasizes leadership, an important campaign issue after Sept. 11.
At the same time it gives McCall a chance to intertwine his boot-straps story with the broader issue of children and education, a priority of many Democratic voters.
The New Jersey Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned the death sentence of Leslie Ann Nelson, a transsexual go-go dancer who killed a police officer and an investigator with an AK-47 rifle.
The court, vacating Nelson's death sentence for the second time, ruled on two grounds: that the jury could have been confused by instructions on the verdict sheet and that the prosecutor made improper accusations in his closing argument.
Nelson, 44, had been the only woman of 14 people on New Jersey's death row.
The ruling, which does not affect Nelson's guilty plea, sends the case back to the trial court for resentencing.
The state attorney general's office has not decided whether to seek the death penalty again, a spokesman, Peter Aseltine, said Tuesday.
The court upheld the sentence of another death row inmate, Robert O. Marshall, convicted of arranging the murder of his wife at a picnic area on the Garden State Parkway.
In its 5-to-0 decision in the Nelson case, the court showed continuing uneasiness with the death penalty, as it has done even since adopting a voluminous set of review procedures in 1999 to govern capital cases.
Justice James R. Zazzali and Justice Virginia Long said in a separate opinion that in addition to the reasons given in the majority opinion, also written by Zazzali, they believed the death penalty would constitute cruel and unusual punishment because of Nelson's history of emotional disturbance.
Zazzali and Long had expressed similar reservations in June 2001 when the court overturned the death sentence of Thomas J. Koskovich, who was 18 when he killed two pizza deliverymen in an ambush.
The majority opinion Tuesday said the court would impose higher standards in capital cases when reviewing prosecutors' conduct and possibly ambiguous jury instructions.
While all five members of the majority found the instructions to the jury on weighing aggravating and mitigating factors to be confusing, two of those justices wrote in a partial dissent that the prosecutor's statements in his summation about the defense's expert witnesses were within the bounds of acceptable argument.
The committee did not confirm some of the most serious allegations, including Chang's claim that he gave Torricelli tens of thousands of dollars in cash.
Two of the court's members, Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz and Justice Peter G. Verniero, did not participate in the Nelson case because both are former attorneys general.
Nelson, born Glenn Nelson, had severe psychological problems and a history of reclusive behavior into adulthood, and was convicted on a weapons charge in 1988.
After undergoing sex change surgery in 1992, she pursued a career as an exotic dancer.
She pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to death by a jury in 1997.
The Supreme Court overturned that sentence in July 1998, ruling that the prosecution had failed to disclose important information to the jury.
A second jury sentenced Nelson to death in March 2001.
In Marshall's case, the 5-1 decision upheld a lower court's dismissal of his petition for further review of his 1986 murder conviction.
Marshall, an insurance agent from Toms River, was convicted of hiring a man to kill his wife while the couple were going home after an evening of dining and gambling in Atlantic City.
The case was the subject of Joe McGinniss' best-selling book "Blind Faith."
"Blind Faith."
The New York Times said in an editorial for Wednesday, July 31:
The committee said it had weighed the fact that Torricelli's principal accuser in the case had been Chang, "a witness whose credibility has been called into question by the Department of Justice, a United States District judge and his own conduct."
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt describes himself as America's leading Arab ally.
Yet his anti-democratic behavior is an embarrassment to Washington and an affront to his own people.
The latest example is Monday's re-sentencing of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a sociologist and human rights activist, to seven years in prison for his efforts to register voters, monitor elections and report attacks on Egypt's Coptic Christians.
The verdict should be annulled, not just on humanitarian grounds but because his prosecution is an abrogation of the most basic standards of justice.
Ibrahim's harsh punishment sends a chilling message to Egyptians yearning for a more accountable and tolerant society.
Egyptian courts are neither fair nor independent.
Like every other government institution, they hew closely to Mubarak's wishes.
That is especially true of the State Security Court that ruled in this case.
"a witness whose credibility has been called into question by the Department of Justice, a United States District judge and his own conduct."
Nor is it likely his sentence would have been reaffirmed if Mubarak believed that convicting an American citizen for promoting democracy and human rights might jeopardize his own standing with the Bush administration and the $2 billion annual American subsidy that keeps his government afloat.
That aid bonanza was granted to reward Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, for signing a peace treaty with Israel.
Washington has never demanded good governance and democracy from Cairo in return.
In recent months President Bush has spoken of the need to promote democracy in the Arab world.
It is time to extend this policy to Egypt.
While hardly the worst example of dictatorship in the Middle East, Egypt is one of the saddest.
It is a country with a long and glorious history, a substantial middle class, a peace treaty with Israel and large quantities of American aid.
Under Mubarak it has squandered economic and diplomatic opportunities and relentlessly stifled political debate.
Its official media are awash in anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda.
The State Department and American officials in Cairo have issued diplomatically phrased protests of Ibrahim's trial and sentence.
What is needed is a message delivered personally by Bush and other top officials not only about the inexcusable treatment of Ibrahim but of the contemptuous approach to democratic values.
In May, that judge sentenced sentenced Chang to 18 months' imprisonment for obstructing justice and making $53,700 in illegal campaign contributions to Torricelli's 1996 Senate campaign.
The New York Times said in an editorial for Wednesday, July 31:
Responding to a wave of public dismay over the first designs for rebuilding Lower Manhattan, Gov. George Pataki has sent word that it's time to go back to the drawing board.
It is the right message, sent while it is still early enough to do something constructive about the disappointing quality of the work so far.
The governor, like Mayor Michael Bloomberg, now seems committed to creating a better mix of uses for ground zero, and a 24-hour community in Manhattan's downtown.
While rethinking the plans will delay the original rebuilding schedule slightly, it does not need to stall progress if the governor keeps the pressure on the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Pataki openly questioned the Port Authority's requirement that any plan for the site replace all the office, hotel and retail square footage lost in the attack on Sept. 11.
Renegotiating that issue with the World Trade Center leaseholders should begin immediately.
The city also needs to begin openly discussing what happens underground, in particular with the transportation network.
At this point, planners have focused on short-term repair of PATH and subway lines, with medium-range proposals being shopped in Washington that could untangle the disorganized web of subway lines downtown.
But at the time of Chang's sentencing, the judge, Alfred M. Wolin, also said the businessman had cooperated closely with federal investigators, providing them with information that was "material and credible."
Within the next few weeks the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.
and the Port Authority should offer some bigger ideas about how to connect the downtown area better to the rest of the region.
Lowering West Street alongside the World Trade Center site and building a park or esplanade on top is another option that has been popular with those reviewing the first six public proposals.
But it would be expensive, and the governor, the mayor and their friends in Washington will have to look at long-range ways to pay the bill.
Pataki's recent remarks are a sign that he understands how central the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan will be to his own political legacy.
Now he needs to follow through with action, to keep demonstrating that his core concern is coming up with the best possible plan, not simply keeping the issue on hold until after this fall's election.
The New York Times said in an editorial for Wednesday, July 31:
President Bush has now unveiled his long-awaited "Clear Skies" proposal, which he promises will simplify and strengthen the Clean Air Act without crippling American industry.
A debate on how to make the 32-year-old Clean Air Act a stronger and more efficient instrument is surely long overdue.
But the Bush plan falls well short of the only other credible proposal on the table, a bill sponsored by Sen. James Jeffords, Independent of Vermont.
Like Jeffords, the president calls for substantial reductions in three major pollutants -- the nitrogen oxides that produce smog, sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, and mercury.
But he ignores emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas.
That is a huge omission.
Even for the pollutants he addresses, Bush's timetable is too leisurely.
He aims to reduce all three by 70 percent by 2018.
"material and credible."
The Jeffords proposal would make the same sizable reductions by 2008.
Finally, the Bush proposal would roll back key provisions of the existing Clean Air Act that Jeffords would keep.
Bush argues that the regulatory mechanisms he has in mind for reaching Clear Skies' goals, chiefly a market-based emissions trading scheme, will be so effective that the need for many existing rules will disappear.
The ethics committee has the power to punish lawmakers with sanctions ranging from public or private letters of admonition to censure or expulsion.
This page has long embraced emissions trading as an essential tool for reducing pollution at manageable cost.
But some regulations, aimed at specific regional problems that nationwide trading alone is unable to address, cannot lightly be abandoned.
Indeed, Bush has already made clear his intention to roll back one of the most important of these regulations, a provision known as new source review that compels utilities to install modern pollution controls whenever they significantly upgrade older plants.
The 1970 Clean Air Act is a landmark statute, deserving of thoughtful improvement.
The Bush bill, as written, is not the way to get there.
In Torricelli's case, it acted without conducting a full investigation, saying the case had been exhaustively scrutinized by federal authorities.
"This matter was far more serious than what the committee found,"
"This matter was far more serious than what the committee found," Simon said.
According to two government officials involved in the inquiry, the Ethics Committee received a vast amount of information from federal investigators, some of it under a court order issued in March.
That information included witness statements, store receipts and other documents indicating that Chang had paid for expensive items given to Torricelli, his sister, one of his longtime aides, Roberta Stern, and one of Torricelli's former girlfriends, Judy D. Balaban.
The committee's letter did not mention Chang's reported gifts to Torricelli of an $8,100 Rolex watch, about a dozen Italian-made suits and a $3,816 antique grandfather clock.
Nor did it cite a $1,590 Oriental carpet that Chang gave to Torricelli's former wife, Susan Holloway Torricelli.
"Your actions and failure to act led to violations of Senate rules (and related statutes) and created at least the appearance of impropriety,"
"Your actions and failure to act led to violations of Senate rules (and related statutes) and created at least the appearance of impropriety," the three Democrats and three Republicans on the committee said in a three-page letter to Torricelli.
A government official involved in the inquiry said that evidence of those gifts was either incomplete or the subject of conflicting accounts by different witnesses.
The committee confirmed Torricelli's claims he had made partial repayments to Chang for two gifts: a large-screen television and a stereo compact-disc player.
But it said the senator had showed "poor judgment" by failing to reimburse him for the full market value of the gifts.
"poor judgment"
A person familiar with Torricelli's testimony to the committee said he had told its members that he repaid the "wholesale" cost of the appliances because Chang told him that was what he had paid.
"wholesale"
The statues, the existence of which had not been publicly known before, were displayed in Torricelli's Senate office.
Finally, the committee appeared to have discounted Torricelli's contention that he was not responsible for expensive earrings that Chang had given as Christmas gifts to his sister, Stern and Balaban.
The senator's belief "that such items were of little value or were not gifts to you under the circumstances" displayed poor judgment and violated Senate gift rules, the panel found.
"that such items were of little value or were not gifts to you under the circumstances"
According to a government official involved in the inquiry, the information reviewed by the Ethics Committee also included an analysis by federal investigators showing that during the period in which Chang claimed to have made numerous cash payments to Torricelli, the senator spent thousands of dollars more in cash than investigators could account for from his bank withdrawals and other known sources of income.
The analysis, which was assembled from banking and credit records, income-tax returns and congressional financial-disclosure forms, showed by March of 1998, Torricelli's cash expenditures were more than $22,000 in excess of the cash he had generated from checks and automatic-teller machines, an official who has reviewed the document said.
A spokeswoman for Torricelli, Debra DeShong, said he had fully accounted for all the money he had spent.
Even after the ethics committee admonished Torricelli on Tuesday night, one of his most important political supporters, Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., continued to defend him, stating that the panel had found Chang "a witness wholly without credibility."
"a witness wholly without credibility."
"extensive campaign of misinformation and deceit,"
"Only then will New Jersey voters be able to decide Torricelli's fitness for office."
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived here on Tuesday night for meetings with fellow foreign ministers aimed at solidifying a second front, in Southeast Asia, in the campaign against global terrorism.
But he has had to balance that goal with longstanding concerns about human rights abuses in the region.
In meetings on Tuesday in Malaysia and Singapore before touching down in this oil-producing sultanate for two days of talks with members of the Association of South East Asian Nations, Powell said he repeatedly raised the issue.
The Senate Ethics Committee on Tuesday night "severely admonished" Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, D-N.J., saying he had violated Senate rules by accepting and failing to disclose expensive gifts from a former contributor to whom he repeatedly gave help.
"We still believe strongly in human rights, and that everything we do has to be consistent with universal standards of human rights,"
"We still believe strongly in human rights, and that everything we do has to be consistent with universal standards of human rights," he said.
(please see The New York Times article I have included.)
Our extraordinary permanent collection, facility, and grounds, we understand full well, would not be possible without the philanthropic support of civic-minded men and women.
In joining SCS, you join the ranks of those who believe that bringing art and art education to the city makes life better, richer, and more rewarding for the entire community.
A Second Century Society response card and return envelope are enclosed.
Should you have questions or if I can be of assistance in any way, please call me: 317.923.1331, ext. 248.
Sincerely,
ARLETTA B.NEWTON Donor Relations Coordinator
June 6, 2000
Enclosures
P .S. Both our Barefoot in the Grass family picnic (July 23,2000) and the annual SCS Founders Day celebration (October 11,2000) are free for Georgia O'Keeffe members.
Mark your calendars!
The SCS brochure I am enclosing will give you the historic significance of SCS, as well as listing activities and specific benefits awarded to donors at the Georgia O'Keeffe level.
Name Address City, ST Zip
Dear Name:
These are particularly exciting times at the Indianapolis Museum of Art: Progress continues on the J.K. Lilly estate-Oldfields, our Ravine Garden has been restored to its original splendor, and there is national attention showered on our current exhibition of Japanese Painting.
Pat LaCrosse asked me to send this information inviting you to join the Georgia O'Keeffe Circle of the Indianapolis Museum of Art's Second Century Society (SCS).
The electronic trade free trade zone is situated in the north of Dubai, close to the free industrial zone in Jabal Ali Mountain, an area which is considered to be the first in the country, and tenth in the world for transit movement.
The inauguration of Dubai Internet City coincides with the opening of an annual IT show in Dubai, the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (Gitex), the biggest in the Middle East.
Inauguration of free zone in Dubai for e-commerce
Launching the Electronics Free Trade Zone in Dubai
Launching 'Dubai Internet city ' coincided with the opening of the annual information fair in Dubai which is considered to be the biggest in the Middle East - Gulf Information Technology Getix.'
The preliminary stages of the project, the only one of its kind according to its designers, are estimated at $200 million.
The cost in the first stage of this unique project is estimated at 200 million dollars.
Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the UAE Defence Minister, said during the launching ceremony "we wish to make Dubai a center of modern economy".
The minister, who has his own website, also said: "I want Dubai to be the best place in the world for state-of-the-art technology companies."
The minister who has a personal website on the internet, further said that he wanted Dubai to become the best place in the world for the advanced (hitech) technological companies.
Dubai 10-28 (FP) -
Dubai 01-82 (AFP) -
He said companies engaged in e-commerce would be able to set up offices, employ staff and own equipment in the open zone, including fully-owned foreign companies.
He said that it would he possible for the companies working in the electronic trade sector to make Dubai their headquarters, and to establish offices here and provide employment and own machinery in the zone opened to companies fully owned by the foreigners.
Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum inaugurated a free zone for e-commerce today, called Dubai Internet City.
Crown Prince of Dubai Al Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoom crown prince of Dubai launched today, i.e. on Saturday, an electronics free e-trade zone which has been named "Dubai Internet City"
The e-commerce free zone is situated in north Dubai, near the industrial free zone in Jebel Ali, the top regional and tenth international leading area in container transit.
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Moore is a professional filmmaker -- he concentrates on maximum impact of each of the statements he cites, and to accomplish that effect, uses subtle interludes instead of long-winded introductions.
Not surprisingly, much of the criticism of Moore's film is misguided or outright wrong, often vastly more inaccurate than Moore's work itself.
This is a common technique, but because conservative readers are not familiar with the basics of filmmaking, they believe critics who claim that he is "distorting" the interview.
What he does is standard filmmaking practice.
The same goes for the interview which follows.
Moore's critics would expect us to have him quote Heston in his entirety, have him present fully the PR that the NRA has used to justify its rally in Denver for reasons of "balance".
The NRA was fully aware of the scandal it would cause through its rally and decided to push on because they believed to have enough media support to successfully do so.
They were right.
You claim that there was "no way to change location, since you have to give advance notice of that to the members, and there were upwards of 4,000,000 members."
10 days are more than enough to give advance warning of a change in location or date, had the NRA really wanted to.
Moore presents the most important part of the speech to back up this point and ignores the fluff.
This is what good documentary filmmaking is about.
And here the critics again ignore important evidence:
When Heston mentions the mayor of Denver, the crowd boos loudly.
Heston maganimously holds up a hand to read the mayor's letter (only to explain in detail why he chose to ignore the request -- not mentioning at all the reasons you have given!)
4) The Kayla Rolland case.
The rally took place on October 17, the shooting on February 29.
Again, standard filmmaking techniques are interpreted as smooth distortion:
"Moore works by depriving you of context and guiding your mind to fill the vacuum -- with completely false ideas.
It is brilliantly, if unethically, done."
As noted above, the "from my cold dead hands" part is simply Moore's way to introduce Heston.
Did anyone but Moore's critics view it as anything else?
He certainly does not "attribute it to a speech where it was not uttered" and, as noted above, doing so twice would make no sense whatsoever if Moore was the mastermind deceiver that his critics claim he is.
Concerning the Georgetown Hoya interview where Heston was asked about Rolland, you write: "There is no indication that [Heston] recognized Kayla Rolland's case."
This is naive to the extreme -- Heston would not be president of the NRA if he was not kept up to date on the most prominent cases of gun violence.
Even if he did not respond to that part of the interview, he certainly knew about the case at that point.
His documentary is full of subtle humor, jaw-dropping dialogue and dark contrasts.
The reason the sentence is highlighted is not to deceive the viewer into believing that Heston hurried to Flint to immediately hold a rally there (as will become quite obvious), but simply to highlight the first mention of the name "Kayla Rolland" in the text, which is in this paragraph.
It would have been fair for Moore to point out this possible misinterpretation on his website.
However, the claim of deliberate distortion is ludicrous for several reasons:
a) Moore clearly states that "before he came to Flint", Heston gave an interview.
In the excerpt from said interview, we can see that it is from March.
All in all, it is an accurate portrayal of America's gun and violence culture.
If Moore wanted to deceive his viewers, why would he say this, and show the month the interview was published?
b) Why should Moore leave the words "Clinton is on the Today Show" visible in the text, which is necessary to correctly interpret the highlighted part?
I reviewed the sequence several times and it is perfectly possible to see this text without pausing.
c) Both the "soccer mom" interview and the sequences showing the NRA rally make no effort to distort the fact that this rally happened months after the fact.
"we wanted to let the NRA know that we haven't forgotten about Kayla Rolland"
You make the hysterical claim that the interview "may be faked" (on the basis that no name is shown for the interviewee), but if Moore had faked it, why the hell should he put this sentence in the protestor's mouth, which directly contradicts the conclusion that the rally happened hours after Kayla's death?
Why did Moore, the masterful deveiver, not edit this sequence out?
This makes no sense.
Opinions may vary on how tasteless it was for Heston to hold a pro gun rally on the location of the nation's youngest school shooting months after the fact, but this sequence of "Bowling" is without doubt the most unfair to Heston.
The somewhat inept editing of the NRA press release has led some viewers to wrong conclusions, which is unfortunate, but Moore's critics have no interest in viewing the matter fairly.
In any case, at no point does Moore make a false statement, in contradiction to claims by critics that his documentary is "full of lies".
"Having created the desired impression, Moore follows with his Heston interview."
You accuse Moore so often of changing the chronology, yet you have no problems changing it yourself.
The Heston interview is at the very end of the movie.
On your webpage, you state that "Moore's resolution is questionable.
After the Flint rally comes a brief TV interview with Heston, where he is asked about Kayla Rolland (again, clear evidence that the local media in Flint raised questions about the NRA's presence), then an inteview with country prosecutor Arthur Busch, entirely ignored by critics of the film, who also mentions Heston's presence as notable, and refers to the immediate reactions of "people from all over America", gun owners/groups who, according to him, reacted aggressively to warnings of having guns accessible to children, much like spanking advocates react aggressively when anti-spankers point to a case of a child being killed or severely injured by a beating.
"Moore's resolution is questionable.
After all, early in the movie he discards the possibility that playing violent video games and watching violent flicks can cause violence -- because Canadians like, and Japanese positively love, those.
These people do not feel the need to express sympathy, or to think about ways to avoid such incidents, but they feel the need to assert their "rights" and to look for quick, simple answers -- as Busch states, gun owners wanted to "hang [the child] from the highest tree".
This is all not mentioned by critics of Moore's movie, who claim to be objective.
Perhaps the best example of the paranoia surrounding Moore's film is your sub-essay "Is the end of the Heston interview itself faked?
Moore answers a simple question -- how could the scene have been filmed -- with a simple answer: two cameras.
From this, you construct an obscure conspiracy of "re-enactment": "For all we can tell, Moore could have shouted 'Hey!' to make Heston turn around and then remained silent as Heston left."
"For all we can tell, Moore could have shouted 'Hey!' to make Heston turn around and then remained silent as Heston left."
'Hey!'
Even if your "re-enactment" theory is true (and I see no evidence that you have actually tried to ask the people involved in the filmmaking for their opinion), this itself is not unethical, and you have no evidence whatsoever that Moore has done anything unethical here, just like you have no evidence that Moore has unethically removed parts of the interview.
6)Animated history of the US. Of course the cartoon is highly oversimplified, and most critics consider it one of the weakest parts of the film.
But it makes a valid claim which you ignore entirely: That the strategy to promote "gun rights" for white people and to outlaw gun possession by black people was a way to uphold racism without letting an openly terrorist organization like the KKK flourish.
Did the 19th century NRA in the southern states promote gun rights for black people?
I highly doubt it.
But if they didn't, one of their functions was to continue the racism of the KKK.
This is the key message of this part of the animation, which is again being ignored by its critics.
If violent movies and violent videogames cannot cause violence -- then how can newscasts about violence do so?"
7) Buell shooting in Flint.
You write: "Fact: The little boy was the class thug, already suspended from school for stabbing another kid with a pencil, and had fought with Kayla the day before".
"Fact: The little boy was the class thug, already suspended from school for stabbing another kid with a pencil, and had fought with Kayla the day before"
This characterization of a six-year-old as a pencil-stabbing thug is exactly the kind of hysteria that Moore's film warns against.
It is the typical right-wing reaction which looks for simple answers that do not contradict the Republican mindset.
The kid was a little bastard, and the parents were involved in drugs -- case closed.
But why do people deal with drugs?
Because it's so much fun to do so?
It is equally well known that the so-called "war on drugs" begun under the Nixon administration is a failure which has cost hundreds of billions and made America the world leader in prison population (both in relative and absolute numbers).
In poor areas, the highly profitable drug business obviously is often seen as the last resort.
But the real cause here are not the drugs themselves, but poverty and the "war on drugs".
This is a faulty generalization.
Had the boy's mother not been shipped to a "welfare to work" program, she might at least have had some time to spend with her son.
Virtually every child psychologist knows that mother/child bonding is essential for the development of empathy and social abilities, the awareness of the consequences of one's actions, and the learning of conflict resolution by non-violent means.
If, as Moore implies (although never states as fact), video games and violent movies are relatively harmless, it does not logically follow that all types of media presentation are harmless.
Even the official quoted by Moore blames the welfare to work program, knowing full well that the drug issue is a red herring.
Once again, your emphasis on the little boy as a thug confirms Moore's (and Busch's) assertion that people wanted to hang the child from the highest tree instead of looking at the real causes.
That's because while there is a so-called war on drugs, there is no war on poverty.
Poverty is frequently portrayed as natural, and the poor in America are seen by conservatives as VCR-owners who are just too lazy to work.
In reality, what Moore describes here is the most vivid example of what can only be called wage slavery I have ever seen, to the detriment of families.
It is notable that the Wall Street Journal's reaction to this segment of the film was even more dismissive than yours: It called Moore's claim "preposterous".
, probably the most comprehensive among many rebuttals of the Oscar-winning documentary.
How could he even think about blaming poverty and forced labor programs for anything bad that happens?
8) Taliban and American aid.
After the September 11 attacks, it was necessary for conservatives to somehow explain away the fact that the US government gave 245 million dollars to the new evildoers du jour.
Never mind the fact that authors such as Robert Scheer warned of aiding the Taliban as early as in May 2001.
Never mind that in a regime that is controlled by warlords, it does not matter who is authorized to distribute the aid -- the ruling regional warlords will seize control of it and use it to their own advantage.
Never mind that this very argument has been used by hawks in opposition to sending humanitarian aid to Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
Never mind that the Taliban continued selling opium in spite of the deal.
There is a huge difference, for example, between playing a game like "Quake" and listening to a radio broadcast that tells you that your family will be killed unless you take action to kill others now.
Never mind that this is all documented on Michael Moore's website about the film.
9) Gun homicides.
That's because they know all too well that Moore is correct: The United States have a far greater homicide rate (both gun- and non-gun) than most other first world countries.
Not surprisingly, guncite, too, compares data from different years -- as I know from personal experience, it is quite difficult to do comparisons of crime statistics due to differences in reporting frequency and methodology.
The gun homicide rates for the countries Moore mentioned, according to guncite, are: Japan: 0.02 per 100,000 (1994)England/Wales: 0.11 per 100,000 (1997)Germany: 0.22 per 100,000 (1994)Australia: 0.44 per 100,000 (1994)United States: 3.72 per 100,000 (1999)
Critics fail to credit Moore with not making the same mistake that some gun control advocates make -- concluding that gun ownership "leads" to violence.
It is intuitively obvious that guns do not actually cause violence -- but it is equally intuitively obvious that they make the violence that is committed more deadly.
It is the second intuition which gun rights groups like the NRA seek to obscure using fraudulent data by the likes of John "Mary" Lott.
The gun control movement, on the other hand, distracts from the real causes of violence -- poverty, paranoia, the "war on drugs" and antisexuality.
If these causes were addressed, gun ownership in the United States would not be a problem (but also unnecessary); just like it is in Switzerland.
10) Canada ammunition purchase.
He asks us to "look at what I, a foreign citizen, was able to do at a local Canadian Wal-Mart."
"look at what I, a foreign citizen, was able to do at a local Canadian Wal-Mart."
He buys several boxes of ammunition without a question being raised.
"That's right. I could buy as much ammunition as I wanted, in Canada.
Canadian officials have pointed out that the buy is faked or illegal.
Once again, you fail to distinguish between regular film editing and "faking" (a word which "Canadian officials" have never used; for such a distortion, Moore would have been boiled alive by his critics).
If Moore simply chose not to show how he revealed his identification to the salesperson, there is nothing fraudulent about that.
His claim that it is possible to purchase ammunition in supermarkets is independent from that claim.
11) Heston's allegedly implied racism.
Similarly, the main motivation for the crusades (beyond the promise of wealth) was that Christians were supposedly being slaughtered and had to be saved.
While this can in part be explained with his age and mental condition, if he is unable to defend the interests of the NRA, he should not be their spokesman.
In this case, Hanlon's Razor can be applied to Heston -- he is probably not racist, but incompetent.
If Heston makes himself look like a fool, that should hardly be blamed on Michael Moore.
Conclusion
You write: "Bowling for Columbine is dishonest.
"Bowling for Columbine is dishonest.
It is fraudulent.
To trash Heston, it even uses the audio/video editor to assemble a Heston speech that Heston did not give, and sequences images and carefully highlighted text to spin the viewer's mind to a wrong conclusion."
None of this is true.
What is true is that Bowling for Columbine is a diamond in the small world of big screen documentaries, one that shines brightly and illuminates an often misunderstood aspect of American culture.
Obviously, media propaganda can incite people to kill.
Had Moore wanted to make a propaganda film, he would have used other material: photos from America's Emergency Rooms.
Certainly, Moore is one of the most talented filmmakers in the United States today, and his film fully deserved its Oscar.
The shrill (and remarkably unsuccessful) Internet campaign to "revoke" his award seems to be motivated more by jealousy than by real concerns about the film's accuracy.
Interactive fiction like video games, on the other hand, presents violence in a narrative context, which may very well desensitize participants to said violence, but no causative link has ever been proven.
It is not only the highest grossing non-music documentary of all time, among the users of the largest Internet film database, IMDB, it is also the highest rated one.
According to the LA Times, the documentary genre "owes a huge debt to Michael Moore" -- after Bowling's success, films like "Spellbound" and "Capturing the Friedmans" were taken seriously and shown in many more theatres than otherwise likely.
But perhaps the campaign against Moore is really motivated by another reason.
His next project has the working title "Fahrenheit 9/11: The temperature at which freedom burns", and he intends to launch it shortly before the next US presidential election.
After all, the same kind of PR blitz was started against the previous record-holding documentary: "Roger & Me" by Michael Moore.
This text is in the public domain.
Moore's hypothesis (which apparently comes at least in part from the book "Culture of Fear" by Barry Glassner, also advertised on Moore's website) is that the constant bombardment with messages of fear can incite paranoia, which itself can lead to violent acts.
Critics have now gone so far as to call for the revocation of the award.
This is consistent with the kind of media-incited violence described above, and in no relationship whatsoever to the theory of video game or music incited violence.
It is no surprise, however, that US (and European) media do not question their own propaganda of fear.
Moore's second hypothesis is that America's foreign policy may contribute to the belief that violence is an appropriate means to solve conflicts, a hypothesis which is shared by many sociologists and psychologists.
Children who grow up in war-torn regions are known for having similar views -- war is perceived as a normal part of existence, violence as a natural way to solve disputes.
Their chances are small, however, as their arguments rely on polemic, exaggeration and misrepresentation -- in other words, on the same techniques which they accuse Moore of using.
In a weaker sense, the same message is projected to American children, who grow up being told that it is not acceptable to be violent to one another, but who simultaneously have to endure corporal punishment and media messages about how "the enemies of freedom" are punished.
Moore's film was made before the dead bodies of Qusay and Uday Hussein were paraded on national TV.
Americans were gloating over this demented corpse show:
"They squealed like little piggies too, so you'll have to make do with 'oink, oink, squeeeeeeeallll' for their last words.
'oink, oink, squeeeeeeeallll'
That goes for your grandson Mustafa too, by the way.
Still think fucking with the U.S. was a good idea, Sammy?"
Mustafa was 14 years when he was killed.
Americans cheer the killing of children, yet wonder why their own children grow up to be more violent than those in other nations.
It is paradoxical notions like this one which Moore's film seeks to address.
Inaccuracies
Your webpage list a number of alleged inaccuracies in Moore's movies.
It is true that Moore's film is sometimes unintentionally deceptive, but to call it fraudulent is hyperbole to the extreme.
It is no more so than any other successful documentary of the last decades.
Let's look at some specific criticisms:
1) The bank scene, listed on your website on a separate page.
Critics have stated that this scene was "staged", but in the bank interview, the official tells Moore that the bank has its own vault storing about 500 weapons at any given time.
It is also a licensed firearms dealer which can perform its own background checks.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, linked from your site, an employee claims that the gun would have been "normally" picked up at another dealer.
Dear David Hardy,
It is not explained what "normally" is supposed to mean, but that claim flatly contradicts the statement of the bank official in the film.
This sounds more like a later correction for public relations purposes, but of course nobody questions the bank claims when they can be used against Moore.
It is fascinating to watch the organized character assassination of Michael Moore that has been going on in the United States since the release of his last documentary.
The only thing that Moore compressed is the timeframe.
According to the same WSJ interview, "Typically, you're looking at a week to 10 days waiting period."
"Typically, you're looking at a week to 10 days waiting period."
This is plausible -- but entirely irrelevant for the movie, which already makes it quite clear that a background check is being performed.
Moore's detractors have sometimes extended those 7-10 days to several weeks, contradicting the bank's own estimate.
There is nothing inaccurate whatsoever about the bank scene.
The bank does exactly what it advertises: It hands out guns from its vault to those who open an account.
The silly criticisms of the scene obscure the real obscenity of the situation: a bank handing out guns to its customers, higlighting the utter laxness of how Americans deal with deadly weapons and a love of firearms that borders on the religious.
2) The Lockheed-Martin interview.
This is perhaps the criticism repeated the most often, and it also the most inaccurate.
First, the actual quotes from the film are often reproduced incorrectly.
The dialogue goes as follows:
A defense of Michael Moore and "Bowling for Columbine"
"So you don't think our kids say to themselves, gee, dad goes off to the factory every day - he builds missiles.
These are weapons of mass destruction.
"I guess I don't see that specific connection because the missiles that you're talking about were built and designed to defend us from somebody else who would be aggressors against us."
In a time of simple-minded patriotism, loud, clear and dissenting voices like Mr. Moore's are perceived as disturbing and have to be silenced, partially through well funded public relations campaigns, partially through conservative "grass-roots" propaganda.
Moore is not from Colorado -- his question is generic, not meant to refer specifically to the Lockheed Martin plant in question.
McCollum understands it this way -- otherwise he would protest against the plant being mischaracterized.
However, critics of Moore have cleverly ignored McCollum's response and presented Moore as spreading lies about the Lockheed plant.
Even Lockheed did not believe the public to be that gullible.
In response to one Moore detractor, McCollum wrote: "Although other units of Lockheed Martin Corporation elsewhere in the country produce weapons to support the defense of the U.S., we make no weapons at the Littleton-area facility Moore visited."
Of course, critics have conveniently ignored the fact that Lockheed Martin does supply weapons of mass destruction to the US military, and that the company is the nation's largest military contractor.
As Moore correctly points out, it is bizarre for a society to openly embrace the production of destructive weapons, but on the other hand see no connection of this to everyday violence -- children learn by imitating adults.
Yes, Moore makes this point through slight exaggeration by moving with the camera through the LM plant -- but he makes no incorrect statement.
It is typical for his critics to jump on what is at most a slightly misleading implication, but in doing so, they themselves have, unlike Moore, made many incorrect claims.
3) Denver NRA meeting.
First, the "from my cold, dead hands" part: This is used by Moore as a visual citation to introduce Heston.
It is perhaps one of his most famous quotes, shown on national TV even here in Germany.
It tells viewers: Aha, this is the person we are talking about.
It is Moore's way to say: Viewers, meet Charlton Heston, gun nut extraordinaire.
The "visual of a billboard and a narration" is viewed by you as evidence that Moore is trying to somehow tie the two events together, when in reality, it is quite obvious that he does it to separate the introduction of Heston from his speech in Denver.
If you do have something better to do, though, by all means do it .
Granted grading papers is important, but no fun makes for a boring life.
I should know.
since, when I was your age I had fun playing with my adorable son and caring for another baby.
You need to try to have a life outside your computer.
Just saying....it seems I have more life now then you have and we know how little I get out!
The one that really stuck in my mind was explaining transitions in the panels of Watchmen .
I'd read Watchmen a short while before and appreciated its narrative complexity, but not being used to reading comics, hadn't registered all the technical tricks that the artist was using to achieve this.
The post not only taught me something about the grammar of such images, but more importantly led to me realising that there is a grammar to look for in the first place.
So thanks a lot for that one.
SEK, I started going through your back posts and noticed a pattern in my selections, so I think it would be easier (for me, because I'm rubbish with html) to just say all the scene analysis posts and the close reading comics posts, like the one Magistra mentioned and many others after that.
Plus Justifying Comics as a Legitimate Object of Study Parts I & II.
I also liked "Teaching the Overdetermined Image.
Your takedown of Cashill and the whole Ayers-wrote-Dreams was excellent, and the Cruel_cruel_death post (you know what I'm talking about, right?
Also, The Day in Actual Communist and Real Nazi History seems as relevant today as ever.
I don't remember if you've made noises here before about turning these into a book, but if you do you've got at least one reader.
What happened to your post that appeared in my RSS reader yesterday?
Would it be possible to arrange your posts into three 'parties', and give your many readers the opportunity to 'vote' for one of them, by 'secret ballot'?
However, when I started looking through my archives, it occurred to me that my output this year defines me much more sharply than in years past.
I can't believe I wrote all that last year.
What do I mean?
The posts I consider foundational to my current professional identity all seem to have been composed in 2009.
Granted, the likelihood that I'm suffering from the identitarian equivalent of presentism is awfully high, but I honestly thought I'd written some of the posts from early 2009 in 2006 or so.
Because I've been grading all damn day and am as tired as a Swearengen of hearing other about the finished semesters of pretty much every other academic blogger, I thought that it might be best to avoid jealously lashing out and scribble a "Best of Acephalous 2009" post.
If you have absolutely nothing better to do on a Friday night, feel free to scan through my 2009 archives and tell me what you think should be included in the "Best of" post.
I noted on Facebook that, from a statistical perspective, what makes baseball such an amazing sport is that you can watch it your entire life and still see, on a daily basis, something you’ve never seen before.
The fact that I can verify vague memories of events that occurred twenty-five years ago astounds me in a way I sometimes forget the Internet is capable of doing.
This realization is obviously not of world-historical importance, merely a reminder that this thing whose existence we take for granted daily represents a fundamentally weird complement to human memory.
The fact that at some point in the future I can know who I rode in an elevator with on 28 December 2005 is less weird because I chose to write about riding in an elevator with Grimace .
Joe Sambito.
Wow.
I'd completely forgotten about him.
Closest I came to that was watching Dale Murphy get tagged out at the plate on what would have been an inside-the-park slam.
He pitched for the Astros before he came to the Mets, stayed for '85, then he pitched for the Red Sox against the Mets in '86 World Series.
I remember him being ineffective, and as it turns out, he was .
Now that I remember him, which I didn't before, I remember him as being the pitcher who'd pitched for 1) the team the Mets faced to get to the '86 Series and 2) the one they faced in it.
Memory, as Gertrude Stein would say, is funny.
Apparently the drug use, sexual excess, and weird UCI experiences haven't softened your brain yet.
What's really bothersome, though, is when you only remember things from your distant past.
My grandpa was alert till the end, but when I last saw him at age 92 everything he wanted to talk about was 70 years in the past.
The Internet occasionally reminds me of how different life is because of it.
A guess, but perhaps your grandfather's life at 22 was more interesting than the ensuing 70 yrs.
It’s a truism, I know, but it has the benefit of actually being true.
You know what makes this post great?
No stinking cricket.
Yeah, I remember Sambito from the Astros (when the Braves were in the old NL West because it made sense to have a team 3,000 miles from most of their division rivals).
Solid pitcher for a while.
But burned out toward the end.
Apparently, he is a player's representative now.
Prosthetic memory.
I like to read about others watching baseball more than I like to watch baseball by a factor of nine.
In this case, the something in question was watching the wonderfully named Angel Pagan hit an inside-the-park home run and initiate a triple play in the same game.
It is true that at the end of time, the old time baseball writers will be hailed as the very best writers, as they had access to an event that was susceptible to beautiful writing, but horrendous to watch in person.
Plus, they smoked a prodigious quantity of cigarettes.
John Emerson responded with some humbug about it not being an inside-the-park grand slam, which made me remember that I had seen an inside-the-park grand slam at some time in the remote past.
I remember being six or seven years old and watching the Mets play the Cardinals in an afternoon game at Shea Stadium, and thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I can definitively say that at approximately 4:30 p.m. on 9 June 1985 , I watched Terry Pendleton hit an inside-the-park grand slam off Joe Sambito in a game the Cardinals would go on to win handily.
Diagram of the polarization-opponent unit described by Lambrinos, et al (2000).
The unit takes in polarization levels through the two polarization-sensitive photodiodes and feeds them into the logarithm ratio amplifier, which returns the difference of the logarithmized signals from the photodiodes.
The e-vector (heading) returned from the two polarization-sensitive photodiodes (1, 2) follows a cos2-function.
Ants themselves rely primarily on chemical information taken in through their antennae, and to mimic this, Antie will have chemical sensing and emitting “stalks” with which to both interact with other ants (who may be surprised to find an ant without antennae) and take in chemical information.
These stalks will need to have receptors to measure the n-alkene levels present in another ant’s cuticular hydrocarbons, which research indicates is the marker for harvester ants of a nestmate’s current task, perhaps because the hydrocarbons are altered in the dry sun, causing a different ratio of n-alkanes to n-alkenes and the presence of branched n-alkanes in the hydrocarbon profile (Wagner, et al, 2001, as cited in Gordon & Greene, 2003).
Such a robot would allow for both long-term studies of ant-robot interactions and studies of task-switching in the robots.
Returning successful patrollers have an even greater effect on foraging activity: foragers will not leave the nest unless a patroller returns (Gordon, 2002), and the rate of foraging in a colony can be controlled by rolling glass beads coated with cuticular hydrocarbons extracted from patrollers into the nest (Gordon & Greene, 2003; Greene & Gordon, 2007).
Midden seems to be marked in some olfactory way, since removing midden from nests makes them more likely to be invaded by other species (Gordon, 35).
For the purposes of this proposal, I will assume that the nest maintenance and food processing ants have marked the midden with a particular pheromone.
All of these chemical receptors will be arranged in an array on a pair of chemical stalks, with four of each type of receptor per stalk.
This technique, described by Ishida, et al (2001), has been shown to improve the chemical plume-tracking abilities of robots.
The wires will lead back down through the stalk to the on-board PC.
Finally, Antie will have tactile sensors on its grippers to analyze the pressure being exerted on a gripped object.
These sensors will be of the type patented by Peterson, et al (Patent #4,492,949), and will feature several layers of electrically insulating and parallel flexible conductive rods arranged such that an exerted pressure may be measured in output voltage.
These will correspond to the muscles of the ant’s mandibles, which provide sensorimotor feedback to the ant when grasping objects.
A table of the sensors and their relation to the ant’s sensory system is provided below.
Table of sensors and their relations to the ant.
The red harvester ant lives in hot, dry deserts, building its nests in light yellowy sand and foraging for seeds deposited by winds and rain.
The ants forage for more than 30 different varieties of seeds, many of which do not grow in the desert (Gordon, 54), where only a few varieties of small shrubs, small herbaceous flowering plants and short grasses do grow (Gordon, 51).
Introduction
Motors
Antie’s motors will allow it to move around and interact with its environment and fellow ants.
There will be two individually operated motors to drive the two side wheels in lieu of legs.
A third motor will lift and lower the grippers, allowing Antie to raise and lower gripped items as an ant would by raising and lowering its head.
Three small sprayers will emit successful patroller and forager pheromones and cuticular hydrocarbons from the appropriate sacs.
These will be located in different places: the sprayer for the successful patroller pheromone will be located on the rear at the base of Antie, corresponding to the glands that researchers believe the ants drag along behind them to mark returning paths, while the successful forager and cuticular hydrocarbon sprayers will be located on the skirt.
Antie will not spray different pheromones depending on its task, on the assumption that its time in the sun will alter its hydrocarbons enough that its tasks will be recognizable to other ants.
Other insects and creatures, including other species of ants, are present in the desert, but red harvester ants seem to be relatively undisturbed by these animals (Gordon, 7-11).
Almost all motor output will be a direct function of sensory input as indicated in the following section.
Antie will have a hybrid software architecture: a subsumption hierarchy will be responsible for switching between behaviors, but many sub-behaviors will operate on a schema basis.
Pseudocode will approximate this architecture as closely as possible, and where appropriate, different subroutines running on a schema basis will be marked.
Common Behaviors
A few sub-behaviors will be necessary for more than one behavior.
To ease Antie’s on-board memory requirements and processing capabilities (and to make all the rest of the pseudocode easier for the reader to understand), I propose a few global variables and subroutines.
Though fights sometimes do break out with other red harvester ants from different nests, intraspecies interactions tend not to be aggressive (Gordon, 11).
Background
Because of this, I will ignore other ant species in the design of Antie, and will not create a fighting behavior.
Common behaviors will include a forward cruise and turning mechanism, procedures to determine the orientation towards nest and the distance from the nest when outside, in-nest navigation, an escape function for when objects are detected or bumped into, object identification and gripping, a generic algorithm for pheromone plume and chemical trail following, and the identification of other ants.
Antie will be equipped to navigate in this environment and will be designed to find seeds in sandy soil.
The Ant & the Robot
Ants of this species are of two types: breeding ants (queens and drones) and sterile female workers.
In order to orient itself toward the nest while navigating outside, Antie will need to determine which direction the nest is in and rotate toward that heading, and also how far from the nest it is at its current location.
The orientation and distance should be calculable by the polarization pattern according to the system set up by Lambrinos, et al.
Antie will therefore have a polarization function that will return a compass direction toward which it should orient in order to return home to the nest, and a distance function that will return the shortest direct distance.
We may assume that this first function will return a direction in degrees, positive or negative, and that the second function will return a distance in centimeters.
Queens and drones will not be considered in this proposal, as their behaviors and design is much more specialized and would be applicable only during the breeding season, which occurs but once per year.
The first function might look something like this:
In-nest navigation will be a function of the temperature, read by Antie’s thermometer and a light source.
To exit, Antie will seek a high temperature until the photoreceptor reaches a threshold of stimulation indicating sunlight, and to get deeper, Antie will seek a lower temperature.
The code may look something like this:
This void function will be called nestEnter(), and will take in no inputs.
To avoid bumping into things (including other ants), Antie be provided with an escape function.
Each of Antie’s eight bump sensors will cause the robot to rotate a different amount, and the sonar will cause it to rotate 90 degrees in the opposite direction.
Regardless, this will be a very simple function.
I will include one example:
Little is known about brood care, as this occurs only in the deepest regions of the nest and observation would generally require the destruction of the nest.
Because this function responds to the sensors on Antie’s around the sides and only its sonar detectors will be able to detect objects in front of it, this escape function will not prevent Antie from being able to locate and pick up objects such as seeds.
Before picking objects up, however, Antie will need to identify them.
Chemical inputs will be checked to see what this object is most likely to be given its smell.
The code may look something like this:
Nest maintenance and seed processing are likewise difficult to observe in the deeper regions of the nest, but the sorting and deposition of waste dirt and nest garbage outside of the nest (midden work) occurs close enough to the surface to be observable.
Once the object has been identified, Antie may grip it and lift it.
A simple void function grip() taking in no inputs will tighten the grippers until a certain threshold of pressure is reached, at which point the grippers will be lifted for carrying.
A void function release() will perform this same action in reverse.
Antie will also need to follow several different kinds of chemical gradient trails: it will need to track the trails left by successful patrollers, and localize the source of food-odors and midden-odors.
Implementations of chemical gradient following robots using two sensors on “antennae” stalks has been successful in with analog robots in the past (Webb, 1998), regardless of the potential problem of airflow causing a disturbed gradient over evaporating pheromones.
As a partial control for the problem of imprecise sensing, a function will perform an analysis of the array information coming on from Antie’s four sensors on each stalk.
The differences between these outputs is what is being compared everywhere there is a “left_IP” or “right_IP.”
Antie will use the chemical gradient algorithm of Braitenberg’s aggressive type 2 vehicle described in his book “Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology,” as this was found through a series of experiments by Russell, et al (2003) to be very efficient when compared to several biomimetic models.
Because the same general algorithm will be followed for the localization of all three chemical traces, I will provide pseudocode for only one generic subroutine.
Note that a portion of this subroutine does run on a schema basis:
Patrolling and foraging, too, occur for the most part outside of the nest, and have therefore been studied extensively (ex., Schafer, et al, 2006; Gordon, et al, 2002; Gordon, 2002; Gordon, 1987).
Unfortunately, as of yet, no robot has managed to fool a human for more than a few seconds, and no robot has been created that can integrate itself into human society.
For the purposes of calls later in the pseudocode, I will refer to these subroutines as trailFollow(), findFood(), and findMidden().
All three are void and take no inputs.
The final common subroutine will be one for the identification of other ants.
When both sonar sensors are stimulated simultaneously, Antie will check hydrocarbon inputs and determine whether the detected object is a nestmate.
As harvester ants tend not to engage aggressively with non-nestmates, Antie will only identify other ants as ants if they belong to its nest.
Proposal for a Red Harvester Ant Robot: Colony Infiltration and Task Switching
Antie will attempt to determine the tasks of other ants by sensing only the n-alkene levels.
Using these basic common behaviors, more complex behaviors may be coded.
Red harvester ants do not retain one task throughout their lifespan, but instead change their behaviors as is appropriate for the colony (Gordon, 1996).
Research has shown that red harvester ants switch tasks partially as a function of age (ex., Ingram, et al, 2005) and partially as a function of interactions with other workers (ex., Schafer et al, 2006; Gordon, 2002; Greene & Gordon, 2007).
As a result, I will model the three main behaviors in the order that they are to be engaged in.
Midden work, which consists of moving dirt between the inside of the nest and the outside, will occur first; patrolling, which involves a shorter overall amount of time spent outside, will occur second; and foraging will be the final behavior.
Finally, I will discuss a main method encoding the task switching between these behaviors.
The midden work behavior will be Antie’s default initial behavior.
It will be initiated in the morning by the sunrise, and will continue until the outside temperature reaches 52­­­oC, at which point all red harvester ants must return to the nest.
As previously stated, a midden worker must identify midden, grasp it, and carry it to the surface, depositing it halfway down the mound before returning to collect more midden.
The second behavior, patrolling, involves two sub-behaviors: nest patrolling and trail patrolling.
Nest patrolling will involve leaving the nest, roaming around on the nest mound for a few minutes, and reentering the nest.
Research shows that ants do change their behaviors based partly on their perceived life expectancy (Moron, et al, 2007), and that task-switching is partly genetically controlled by a switch in gene expression as the individual ages (Ingram, et al, 2005).
It is therefore reasonable to assign a constant age at which Antie will switch from nest patrolling to trail patrolling.
In order to perform both of these functions, Antie will need a subroutine to explore in a zig-zag fashion, as harvester ants do (Gordon, 34).
Harvester ants display a preference to wander in familiar territory, though foragers and patrollers do sometimes wander into other nests’ territories (Gordon, 57-60).
In the case of midden work, Antie must be able to identify garbage, grasp it, carry it out of the nest, and deposit it about halfway down the mound before returning to repeat the process ad infinitum (or until stimulated to switch behaviors).
This model is reasonable because patrollers and foragers change their explored territory from day to day, even though they do retain some more commonly chosen paths (Gordon, 45).
Patrolling may be divided into two distinct sub-behaviors, nest patrolling and trail patrolling.
Nest patrollers will only call this behavior for a short distance before returning to the nest to idle for a few minutes and exit again.
Trail patrollers will go much further, until food sources are found, and will then orient towards the nest and create trails for the foragers to follow.
An ant engaged in nest patrolling must exit the nest at the proper time in the morning and wander about for a bit on the nest mound, presumably taking measurements of the temperature and humidity in some way and making sure that it is safe for the other ants to exit.
A general site of food is all that the patroller need find; the foragers will dig through the sand for the food.
Code for the patrolling behavior might look like this (note that part is on a schema basis):
The integers nestpatrol_age and trailpatrol_age will represent the ages at which it is appropriate to switch to these tasks.
Perhaps the level of degradation of the nest patrollers’ cuticular hydrocarbons after this short foray into the sun and heat acts as an indication of the outside conditions to the foragers, who may then, upon smelling the returning patroller, be stimulated either to forage or to remain inactive inside the nest.
The final behavior, foraging, will involve one extra subroutine that will employ an algorithm designed by R.
Andrew Russell to localize an object through sand based on a chemical plume.
This will emulate the digging that foragers must often do in order to locate seeds, and will enable Antie to accurately retrieve seeds for its host nest.
This algorithm will keep track of the last two intensities of the desired chemical input and compare them.
It would also keep track of whether the last rotation was clockwise or counter-clockwise.
The code for this, adapted from Russell’s paper, might look like this:
Foragers will follow trails marked by patrollers to their conclusion before collecting food to bring back to the nest, even if more tantalizing food presents itself in their path (Gordon, 47).
To address this, a strict subsumption hierarchy will make sure that the foragers do not stop to collect food too soon.
The code might look like this:
An ant engaged in trail patrolling must exit the nest, wander around searching for food sources, identify food upon discovery and return to the nest to show the foragers where the food is.
Of course, what makes Antie an innovative robot is the task-switching between these larger behaviors.
Because the midden work behavior is Antie’s initial default behavior, I will not address task switching to midden work.
Workers probably switch to patrolling based on their perceived life expectancy and as a function of a gene whose expression changes between young and old ants, and this is easily emulated using a clock pulse counter in Antie’s CPU that will count its “age” since last boot.
To remind the reader, this technique was implemented earlier in this proposal to create the limited task-switching between nest patrolling and trail patrolling.
The switch from patrolling to foraging has been modeled as a function of successful foragers’ returns with great accuracy by Schafer, et al (2006), and evidence from experiments in which successful foragers were removed before reentry to the nest does support the theory that returning successful foragers have an effect on the activation of new foragers (Gordon, 2002).
Infiltrating insect societies, however, is much simpler.
This is thought to be accomplished by the deposition of chemical markers from a gland on the abdomen that the patroller drags along the ground on her return route to the nest that the foragers may then follow (Gordon, 33-34; Holldobler et al, 1990, as cited in Webb, 1998).
Activated foragers form a queue to exit the nest and exit at a steady rate.
According to Schafer’s, et al. model of forager activation, every time a successful forager returns and no foragers are currently in line to exit, a fraction (modeled at 0.0035) of inactive foragers joins the queue.
For the purposes of modeling Antie, I will assume that the switches between these behaviors are permanent, irreversible and partly a function of age, with new foragers being activated by returning successful foragers.
The code to model this task-switching might look something like this:
Conclusion
Antie will be a fully autonomous, situated and embodied agent, infiltrating a red harvester ant colony and providing valuable information not only about the hypothesized rules of these ants’ behaviors and their task-switching thresholds, but also about the combination of complex behaviors into a single autonomous system with the ability to switch between behaviors as necessary.
In addition to following these trails to the food, foragers must also be able to identify food, grasp it and carry it back to the nest.
Biomimetic robots have long been a rich source of information for both biologists and robotics engineers, and complex robots that can switch tasks as the situation demands and communicate information about current tasks could be useful for further studies of complex robot behaviors as well as for the obvious practical applications of robot swarms, such as on the battlefield and standard building maintenance.
REFERENCES
Ants engaged in all three behaviors must be able to identify other nestmates and their current tasks (as well as indicate to other ants their own nestmate status and current task), walk, navigate both within and outside of the nest, and of course switch tasks at appropriate times.
Extensive research has been done on the interactions of social insects such as honeybees, ants and cockroaches, and in fact robots have passed undetected in cockroach society performing single simple behaviors already (Halloy et al, 2007).
The Agent
Chassis
Antie will be implemented on a tiny Road Warrior robotic system.
Behaviors will be coded in Interactive C, for which some pseudocode is included.
Sensors will include a thermometer, photoreceptors, bump sensors, a polarization compass, and a series of chemical receptors.
Antie be a circular robot, no more than 1cm in diameter (the length of a red harvester ant), with two driving wheels and one rear wheel for stabilization.
A gripper will be located on the front of the robot consisting of two elongated tongs.
Antie will also feature a skirt of bump sensors, sonar detectors and chemical emitters, including sacs of hydrocarbons extracted from ants of the nest being infiltrated and pheromones for successful patrolling and foraging.
These sacs will be refilled at a filling station each morning as Antie determines that they are getting depleted.
Antie will likewise recharge at a special station at night just inside the nest entrance.
For the purposes of this proposal, I will assume that Antie has enough battery life to remain powered the whole day.
Sensors
In an attempt to mimic the red harvester ant as closely as possible, these sensors include a thermometer, photoreceptors, bump sensors and sonar, a polarization compass, and a series of chemical receptors on a pair of stalks corresponding to the antennae.
On its front grippers, Antie will have a tactile skin to sense pressure.
The thermometer will be located on the rear of the robot to keep it out of the way, and will detect and input to the robot the outside temperature in degrees Celsius.
Harvester ants do not exit the nest when the outside temperature is above 52 degrees Celsius (Gordon, 9), and the ability to use a temperature gradient will enable in-nest navigation.
Antie will also be equipped with one photoreceptor located in the middle of the top of its chassis corresponding to the ant’s eyes.
These will be useful for initiating patrolling behavior in the morning and shutting off behaviors at night: the patrollers first poke their heads out of the nest shortly after sunrise and scuttle back in at night (Gordon, 5).
No robot has yet been constructed, however, that could pass undetected within a colony of the red harvester ants species Pogonomyrmex barbatus; nor has a robot managed to pass undetected in a society of insects while combining in its design several different behaviors and the thresholds of stimulation required to switch between them.
The bump sensors and sonar will form a skirt around Antie to keep it from colliding with other objects.
The sonar will constantly be detecting nearby objects and initiate an escape maneuver when their inputs pass a certain threshold of stimulation, and the bump sensors will, when depressed, also initiate the escape function.
The sonar will correspond to the ant’s limited optical object detection ability, and the bump sensors will allow the robot to detect collisions.
The polarization compass will consist of two polarized light sensors placed at 45 and -45 degrees from the center front of Antie, respectively, that will orient Antie towards a desired polarization pattern.
These sensors would correspond to the cells in the ants’ eyes sensitive to polarized light, and research has shown that many insects, including ants, do navigate using a path integration system synthesizing input from a polarization compasses and from a sort of odometer (Labhart, et al, 2002).
Antie would use a system for processing the input from its polarization compass based on the compass designed by Lambrinos, Moller, Labhart, Pfeifer and Wehner in 2000, consisting of two photodiodes with blue filters and polarizers.
The difference of their logarithmized signals would be returned to Antie, who will use a simultaneous model to navigate returns to the nest: Upon each exit from the nest, Antie will take a single 360o scan of the sky, and will orient itself according to an analytical procedure to derive compass information from different polarization patterns perceived later.
This should be sufficient to return Antie to the nest, given the accuracy achieved by Lambrinos, et al and the relatively short periods of time that harvester ants spend outside the nest before returning.
True, the USA has not suffered a successful major attack since 9/11, but this does not mean that we are safer.
The terrorists could strike any time they choose, through any of the numerous loopholes so well reported in our media.
This website and everything on it is in the Public Domain, so you may use it freely, even without attribution.
But they have chosen not to attack, perhaps because they are waiting to produce an effect even greater than the 9/11 attacks, so they do not appear to be losing strength.
What could be more spectacular than the 9/11 attacks?
Nuclear!
Or massive bio-chemical attack!
And I think this is what they are waiting for.
So the Bush administration can keep claiming that we are safer now, under their policies.
But this claim is merely feel-good propaganda, intended to keep the neo-cons in power.
It cannot withstand clear-headed scrutiny.
The fact is, Bush policies have failed completely even to diminish terrorism, much less defeat it.
By trying to "stamp out" terrorism by killing terrorists, Bush and Israel have made things infinitely worse for us: more dangerous, not safer.
And proof that Bush has failed may come at any moment, explosively, with one big successful attack here in the USA.
May God help us all.
BACKGROUND , September 11, 2004
WHAT IS TERRORISM?
TERRORISM is "the systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.
We believe that any terrorist act is a crime against humanity and against the will of God, because it deliberately intends to injure and kill innocent people.
Three years have now gone by since the September 11th attacks in 2001, and terrorism is a far greater threat to us now than it was then.
NEUTRALIZING TERRORISM
Our purpose here is to NEUTRALIZE TERRORISM by removing the motivation for it.
Without motivation, terrorism will quickly die down, like a plant without water.
We completely reject the idea that terrorism can be defeated by brute force, because brute force radicalizes the moderates, and they then join the terrorists.
So you end up fighting the entire population.
Brute force has failed in Palestine, and it is failing in Iraq.
And the second-greatest terrorist threat comes from several countries, mainly Israel, who sometimes resort to terrorism themselves, claiming "self-defense," as they desperately try to prevent further attacks by radical Muslims.
In all of these cases above, if the radical Muslims would cease their attacks, all terrorism on both sides of every dispute would quickly end.
Beyond these two sources, there is virtually no terrorist activity in the world, with the possible exception of localized disputes such as in Northern Ireland and occasional domestic episodes in various places involving isolated disaffected groups.
The number and severity of terrorist attacks worldwide has increased dramatically, as has the number of active terrorists.
They need to be identified and attacked.
If the terrorist loses faith in the righteousness of his acts, he is less likely to perform them.
EXAMPLE 1: "Terrorists Offend Allah."
EXAMPLE 2: "Terrorist Murderers Insult Allah, Bring Shame To Islam"
EXAMPLE 3 (LATEST AND BEST! - Framed Below): "Qur'an Forbids Terrorism"
In every case of terrorism, we will find some kind of legitimate underlying grievance.
Is this "negotiating with terrorists" or "trying to appease the terrorists," as some Israeli/NeoCons would try to say?
No.
It is simply recognizing the realities of human motivation, right or wrong.
The Anti-Terrorist - Undermining The Motivation For Terrorism
To deny reality, as the Israeli/NeoCons do, is to invite disaster, as they have done.
BIG PICTURE
A big picture of our entire Anti-Terrorism strategy can be found at our website
Blessings to you.
Before 9/11, terrorism was confined to a small number of extremist individuals, loosely linked by radical Islam and hatred of Israel and its sole supporter, the USA.
May God help us all.
Blessings to you.
May God help us all.
By Rev. Bill McGinnis , Director - LoveAllPeople.org
Now, many more moderate Muslims have become radicalized, world-wide, willing to kill innocent civilians in order to achieve their purposes.
And the serious targets have expanded to include civilians in Russia, India, Maylasia, the Philippines, Spain, and elsewhere, as well as Israel and its sole supporter, the United States.
Paul Wilson describes the transition from the Introduction to the Exposition as “quite abrupt and seemingly unmotivated,”
Wilson, 173.
but it is in fact this motivic relationship that ties them together and creates a rather smooth transition.
The Exposition
Although the motivic relationship between the Introduction and the first theme of the exposition smooth the transition, nearly every other element changes when the first theme appears.
Harmonic Structure and Form
The drastic tempo and meter changes as well as the first appearances of staccato articulations make it clear to the listener that the introduction is over.
As mentioned, the first theme, the beginning of which is reproduced in Example 8, contains two head motives: the first is the tritone-spanning ascent that appears in the first measure, and the second is an iteration of the interval cell (+5, -2, +5) that appears in the second through third measures.
Bartók describes the form of the first movement as “more or less regular sonata form.”
While the presence of the perfect fourths that was so prevalent in the Introduction is clear in the latter, the former does not employ the perfect fourth in its formation.
Rather, this motive is a small-scale representation of the tonic-dominant relationship of tritone partners, specifically F and B, that is the basis for the harmonic structure of this movement.
Rhythmically, we have a dissonance between the melody, which follows the written meter, and the accompanying chords in the bassoons, horns and lower strings.
As Example 10 shows, the chords are more-or-less in duple meter (4/8 and 2/8) with one “hiccup” occurring in the 5/8 measure.
This is in strict metric dissonance with the triple meter of the melody (with its own “hiccups” occurring in the written 2/8 measures).
As we will later see, this dissonance disappears when this theme returns in the recapitulation.
While that does not seem to be a meaningful assertion, it is perfectly accurate: the movement is in sonata form, but there is an introduction that does not relate thematically to any other parts of the movement (not unheard of in Mozart sonatas), and the recapitulation presents the two themes of the exposition in reverse order.
We have already mentioned that the first theme group is in F—this is made clear from the onset, both in the melodic line and by the F minor triad that occurs on the downbeat of measure 77.
While the material occasionally departs from this F in measures 76-94, these departures are all subordinate to the prolonged F.
E♭ is the tonal center for measures 95-134, although it does not appear as a strong bass note until measure 131.
Measures 95-130 contain a mostly chromatic descent from C to E♭, where E♭ is anticipated throughout as a goal tone for the bass.
Example 11 illustrates this structure.
Note that the initial G♯ is a pickup to the section in C♯, which fills in the whole-tone descent from E♭ to C♯ with the intervening fourth.
This motive also contains the intervallic cell of the second head motive of the first theme in the form of G♯-C♯-B-E (with the addition of some passing tones), in addition to consisting largely of motion by perfect fourths.
Wilson claims that C and E♭ are “local dominants” to F in this first section of the exposition.
While the strong V-I motion from measures 90-91 does carry a tonal implication of dominant-tonic, such cadential bass motion does not imply anything about structural function in this context.
E♭, furthermore, is not convincingly established as a dominant-functioning tone at all.
The passage from measures 85-89 is centered on E♭ (and the pentatonic set from the opening of the exposition is transposed down a whole step), but its mere presence as local tonic does not signify any sort of dominant function.
Rather, we can consider this occurrence of E♭ as a middleground-level whole-tone descent that foreshadows the structural descent to E♭ at measure 131 that is represented in Example 2.
However, as previously mentioned, C acts as a “fake” dominant that in measures 149-155 actually functions as an upper neighbor to B, the “true” dominant.
The descent in measures 91-95 in fact participates in the farce by projecting a descent ending on C, which makes the eventual reinterpretation of C and descent to B stronger.
This creates both a smooth transition to the second theme and a strong sense that a new section is beginning, a combination that is generally rather difficult to forge.
The second theme is tranquil and harmonically simple, which is in stark contrast to the first theme.
B dominates as tonal center from measures 155-191 with little or no harmonic motion away from it.
The “backwards” recapitulation is a technique that Bartók employs frequently because of the formal symmetry it creates.
A♭ intervenes between E♭ and D♭ in measure 195—another instance of the whole-tone being “filled in” by a fourth.
Hence, measures 155-210 constitute the bass progression B-E♭-D♭-B; the same stepwise descent (E♭-D♭) occurred in the first theme group while F rather than B was being prolonged.
In our terminology, this is the point at which B is unequivocally established as the structural dominant.
The Development
As mentioned, the development is divided into three subsections.
In Example 2, the entire development section is represented by exactly three pitches, and indeed each subsection is associated with one of these three pitches as its tonal center—none of these pitches is involved in the structural whole-tone descent.
As Paul Wilson states, the development “is, for Bartók’s music, developmental in a relatively conventional way”; the themes from the exposition are expanded and modified, and tonalities other than those expected arise.
“is, for Bartók’s music, developmental in a relatively conventional way”
For example, the fifth string quartet.
The only slight abnormality, though it is certainly not unheard of even in classical-period sonata movements, is the emergence of a new theme in the second section of the development.
Although Wilson claims that this theme is based on “a transformation in rhythm and contour of the second head-motive of [the first-theme],”
“a transformation in rhythm and contour of the second head-motive of [the first-theme],”
Also see Bartók’s comments on that (Bartók, 414).
there is no intervallic relationship between the two motives, and it is not clear what elements of a motive remain when rhythm, contour and interval content are changed.
Before beginning an analysis of any piece by Béla Bartók, one must first decide to what degree tonal analysis will be used.
Furthermore, this section, being the middle section of the movement, upholds the formal symmetry if interpreted as its own theme.
The first section of the development, measures 231-271, begins with a big D-minor chord which immediately establishes D as the tonal center for the section.
Although it moves to E♭ minor in measure 239, it returns to D minor in measure 248, which suggests that E♭ is an upper neighbor prolonging D.
Example 1 shows a diagram of the form of the movement; the symmetry is apparent within the seven sections following the introduction.
The passage beginning at measure 248, shown in Example 13, can be considered to be the “theme” of this section, and is a development of the second head motive of the first theme.
This motive undergoes inversion and extension throughout the section.
The second section of the development is in C♯ (which is sometimes spelled D♭).
This section is reproduced as Example 14.
This section returns to the calm simplicity (and tempo) of the second section, though apart from affect there are no references to that section.
Although the C♯ major chord in measure 293, preceded by A♭ major (V) in measure 285, suggests C♯ as tonal center, the tonality is not strongly established until measure 303.
Because of its emphasis here in the development section and its position as leading to B in the second theme group, we could conceive of C# as a sub-dominant in this movement.
As the example shows, the development section is divided into three subsections; the first and third subsections draw their thematic material from the first theme group, and the second subsection involves new material not drawn from the exposition.
The third section of the development takes the trombone motive from the transition between the first and second sections of the exposition shown in Example 12, transposed to begin on F, and turns it into a fugato sequence, reproduced in Example 17.
The tonal center B♭ is established immediately in measures 316-318 by the strong V-I chord progression (Example 16).
As previously mentioned, the fugato motive incorporates the motion by perfect fourths found in the Introduction as well as the intervallic cell found in the second head motive of the first theme.
The resultant set is the pentatonic set F-B♭-E♭-A♭-D♭; the entire passage shown in Example 17 remains within this set.
The second and fourth entrances of the fugato subject are transposed up a perfect fifth, but the first note is B♭ rather than C, which allows Bartók to remain in this pentatonic set (and also to reinforce B♭ as tonal center).
The second instance of the fugato section, not reproduced in its entirety but based on the subject in Example 18, is an exact pitch inversion transposed to begin on C.
The inversion blends seamlessly back into the original subject in measure 363.
The following section (measures 363-389) especially brings out the quartal harmonies within the pentatonic set, so much so that B♭ is obscured as tonal center which allows A♭ to emerge as the goal tone of this section—only to be immediately reinterpreted as a leading tone to the A that begins the recapitulation.
Both B♭ and A♭ are chromatic neighbors to A, which intensifies the arrival on A, and brings out the fact that the appearance of A continues the large-scale whole-tone descent that has been left stranded on B for the entire development section.
Hence, on either side of the middle section of the development we have the alternation FTG-STG-FTG which makes the overall form, with the exception of the Introduction, symmetric.
The Recapitulation
The recapitulation, as we have seen, presents the themes in reverse order.
The second theme is initially presented in A, as part of the whole-tone descent, and proceeds directly to G, where it is restated slightly modified.
It is worth pointing out that the arrival on G at measure 425 is led into by D, which constitutes another “filling in” of the whole-step by the intervening fourth.
The A♯ in measure 438 might initially seem to be a new tonal area, but it leads to D in measure 444, which constitutes a V chord still applied to G.
Rather than resolve this D back to G, however, Bartók shifts briefly to F♯ in measure 456 and leads to E in measure 467.
E and F♯ are both active throughout the entire transition from second theme back to first theme (measures 456-487) which brings out their functions as upper and lower chromatic neighbors to F, which returns triumphantly in measure 488 with the much-anticipated recapitulation of the first theme.
The return of the first theme is certainly immediately recognized as such; however, there are some important differences.
Firstly, its initial appearance in the exposition had a minor flare to it; the first chord in Example 9 is an F-minor triad, and the first four notes of Example 8 ascend the F-minor scale.
In the recapitulation of this theme, shown in Example 19, the first chord is an F-major chord, and the A♭ is replaced by A♮ in the melody.
In fact, the chord progression of the first four measures of Example 19 can be thought of tonally as I-vi-V in F major—while we are reluctant to say that this passage is in major (the conspicuous A♭ in measure 490 easily brings doubt to this interpretation), we can certainly say that the minor flare of the beginning has been replaced by a major flare here in the recapitulation.
Paul Wilson also discusses the inherent symmetry of the movement, although his interpretation is somewhat different.
In addition to the “mode”-shift, we notice that the metric dissonance shown in Examples 9 and 10 no longer appears (notice how regular the rhythm of the accompanying figure is in Example 19) and also that the written meter no longer changes.
In other words, the piece, in becoming more regular, is beginning to drive towards the finish—because of the formal structure, the recapitulation of the first theme also serves as the closing section of the movement.
Indeed, this section has the feel of a Coda to it—it is much shorter than any other major section or subsection, and the tonic harmony is active throughout.
See Wilson, 168-170.
Bartók is one of the many early-twentieth century composers whose music fits entirely in the gray area between tonality and atonality.
While we know from his writings that he often composed with a tonal centers and relationships in mind, and that he regularly applied tonal structures and forms to his compositions, by merely glancing at any one of his pieces we can see that tonality as it is understood in the common practice period is not at work.
Thanks largely to the work of tonal theorists such as Heinrich Schenker and others, we have a detailed system for analyzing tonal music—their system, however, is virtually useless in analyzing music that falls entirely on the atonal side of the spectrum.
But if we apply it to music such as Bartók’s that is in the middle area, we can come up with some enlightening and perhaps unexpected results.
To do so was the goal of this analysis of the first movement of the Concerto for Orchestra.
By applying our tonal system to music that slips outside of the tonal realm, we not only find the elements of tonality that do remain, but we also pinpoint exactly when and how this music breaks from previous conventions.
It is not disputed that Bartók’s music has great expressive power—perhaps now we can understand why.
References
The abbreviations FTG and STG stand for First Theme Group and Second Theme Group, respectively.
While “tonality” in this piece (and in Bartók’s music in general) is quite different from its classical interpretation, we find that the harmonic structure is at least analogous to the standard sonata-form structure.
Bartók’s music, although it is often difficult to call completely tonal, never entirely sheds itself of tonal elements and structure.
To begin with, the movement is in F.
When we say “in F,” we do not imply F major (or minor, for that matter)—the major/minor tonal system in general does not apply to this piece—but rather that the pitch-class F is the tonal center of the movement, and acts analogously to the tonic in a Mozartian sonata movement.
Using this interpretation, we can map out the local tonics (tonal centers) used throughout the movement, as shown in Example 2.
Tonal Structure and Form in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra (I)
In this example, the barlines divide the formal sections of the piece (Introduction–Exposition–Development­–Recapitulation)—so we can immediately see that the tonic F is not established until the exposition begins.
Beginning with the exposition, the large-scale progression of tonal centers is a whole-tone descent from F to F, represented by the stemmed notes in Example 2, while the Introduction ascends from C♯ to F through D♯ (shown as D♭ and E♭ in the graph) in a quasi-bass Anstieg.
The middle pitch of the descent, B, acts as the “dominant” to F, based on its symmetrical division of the whole-tone scale and the fact that the second theme appears in B in the exposition.
This remains true even with one of his last compositions, the Concerto for Orchestra, written two years before his death in 1943.
Bartók has often applied a tonic-dominant relationship to a pitch-class and its tritone partner, and even admits to using that as a compositional framework in his fifth string quartet.
See Bartók, 414-415.
In this particular movement, Bartók feigns moving to the tonal dominant, C, for the second theme before reinterpreting C as a chromatic passing tone between D♭ and B—this and other subtleties shown in Example 2 will be explained in detail in later sections.
Our analysis will focus instead on relating the foreground activity to the overarching background structure.
The graph in Example 2 will serve as a point of departure for the subsequent analysis; while we will periodically refer back to some of its specific elements, it should be understood that even when not explicitly referenced, this graph serves as the explanatory goal of this paper.
The Introduction
As Paul Wilson points out, the title “Introduzione” given to the movement as a whole seems to apply only to the first 75 measures.
The discussion that follows analyzes the first movement of the Concerto, focusing on the tonal structures at play throughout the movement.
The Introduction does not relate thematically to any of the main sections of the movement—in fact, it is the third movement that draws its thematic material from this section—but the harmonic and motivic principles at play here foreshadow some important elements of the entire piece.
To begin with, the opening motive in the celli and basses, shown in Example 3, outlines a pentatonic set and strongly presents C♯ as the tonal center.
The pentatonic set here is exclusively a pitch-class set, and its incarnations throughout the movement are devoid of any connotations associated with the pentatonic scale.
Indeed, this set can be seen more as a by-product of stacked perfect fourths than a generative element itself.
The perfect fourth in fact generates much of the motivic and harmonic material of the entire movement, and its importance is immediately evident in the Introduction with the opening bass motive.
Furthermore, the following two instances of this opening motive, shown in Examples 4 and 5, remove any doubt as to the motivic importance of the perfect fourth, and in turn diminish the importance of the pentatonic set.
Example 4 transitions from C♯ to F♯, and adds pitch-class E to the pentatonic set of Example 3, creating a six-note set of stacked fourths.
Example 5 shows the true dominance of the perfect fourth; the set created is a ten-note set derived by stacking fourths.
If we begin from the final D♯ and ascend the circle of fourths until we reach C we obtain the entire set presented in this example.
Each note is either approached or left (or both) by a fourth, and the structural motion is from F♯ to D♯.
The overall motion in the first 29 measures is C♯ to D♯, through F♯; these are represented enharmonically in Example 2 as D♭, E♭ and G♭.
So the prevailing structural motion of the movement as a whole is a descending whole step and the prevailing melodic motion is a (usually ascending) perfect fourth.
We can connect the two by noting that the descending whole step consists of two ascending fourths; indeed, the structural whole-tone descent is often “filled in” with the intervening fourth.
This motion is exemplified in Example 2 in the second theme group (mm.
We will also examine to what degree a “tonal” reading of this movement is limited in its analytical potential in an attempt to pinpoint exactly where Bartók strays from common-practice compositional techniques.
Each time the motion in Examples 3 through 5 breaks from chains of fourths, the same sequence of intervals occurs: two descending perfect fourths separated by an ascending major second (-5, +2, -5); each instance of this intervallic cell is bracketed in the examples.
This sequence of intervals is the inversion of those found in the second head motive of the first theme of the exposition, shown in measures 2-3 of Example 8.
So although there is no thematic relation between the Introduction and the main sections of the movement, within the first 29 measures we can already see structural, harmonic and motivic elements that apply to the movement as a whole.
The section from measures 35-50 is centered on E; upon the return of D♯, enharmonically respelled as E♭, in measure 58, we see that E acts as its upper-neighbor.
This relationship is somewhat obscured by measures 51-57 however; while there is no clear tonal center for this section, G appears in the outer voices in measure 51, although the harmonic material is reminiscent of C minor.
The concluding motive of this section in the violins (the bracketed sections of Example 6), as well as the bass motive of measure 58ff.
(Example 7), are related to the first head motive of the first theme, which is shown in the first measure of Example 8.
All three of these motives span a tritone, which as mentioned is the “dominant” relationship in this movement.
For this reason white walls are favored over colored ones for both galleries and architectural spaces.
Why in a world filled with color do we feel the need to purge it from our space?
“In the white painted room the clarity of spatial sensation and disposition was surest and most convincing, all the details of the form and color of the furnishings could be developed undisturbed in front of this background…In this a form was discovered which was completely convincing in its simplicity and which could be seen as one of the essential formulas for wall treatment in “closed” spaces”
In the 19th century it became fashionable for bourgeois women to dress in white, while men dressed in black (Wigley).
What exactly is the debate between colorlessness vs color and more specifically can black and white be considered non-colors?
These distinctions proved a certain rational order, only attained by those able to afford of it.
White walls, white clothing, they both require much more maintenance than something colored where a stain can merely hide away among the other colors.
Crisp whiteness on the other hand expresses a sort of luxury, and leisure.
White clothing proved that someone was of a level of society in which they were not forced to work, for the clothing would immediately become soiled if not and thus the reason why women who were the ones to stay at home dressed in all white, while men who were the ones to go out and work wore black, for black did in fact hide stains.
Both as well were signs of the modern age man had reached.
“Pure white was de rigueur, partly because of its exciting novelty, partly because it emphasized the smoothly mechanical texture, and pointed the contrast between it and surrounding nature”
The use of white was proof that man had conquered nature.
The use of white and black in dress and architecture also became a way of distinguishing oneself from the vulgar, normal, lower classes.
Ever since the dawn of man, human society has evolved in ways which attempt to ultimately control nature.
Furthermore, with the advent of industrialization the invention of new synthetic dyes meant that color in dress became democratized for all classes.
Now, anyone could afford to wear colorful clothing and the masses began to dress themselves in what once would have been inconceivable to them.
Thus said, the use of black in white in wardrobe perhaps was a way for the new bourgeoisie to distinguish themselves from the decadence of the upper class and the vulgarity from the low.
“In the prevailing styles of the European bourgeoisie, there long survived a tendency to limit the use of color, with strong emphasis on what are generally thought of as non colors, such as white, black and gray”
Seeing as color is something of the natural world, age old and archaic, washing it away from our lives is the ultimate form of rising above the physical world.
Another reason why it is believed that the bourgeoisie took preference in black and white is because of the Victorian sobriety of the age and their obsession with purity and cleanliness.
Wearing black and white also marked the distinction of labor between men and women and in a highly rigid and segmented society, the wearing of different colors seemed the most obvious way to do so.
This simplicity of dress was seen as a mark of the modern man.
Other major technologies during the age of industrialization also had an effect on this preference for black and white.
Photography took over as a means of portraiture for the bourgeois and the upper class and despite the fact that it was possible to color the photographs, for the most part they were left in black and white because it was seen as more “natural”.
Above all, it is believed that the expanse of literacy and the printed word, mainly the newspaper, had a profound effect in influencing the choice of black and white.
“This world was viewed as orderly and relatively uniform, a world in “black and white”
This led to the idea of writing = rationality = production that confined images, especially images in color, to the emerging field of “art”, which was understood as an essential activity but one that was essentially unproductive, while it assigned to the two-toned and orderly world of printed paper the role of a daily guide to existence”
Black and white became a symbol for the superiority of man’s intellect and technology.
This then translated down into the world of fashion, as seen with the distinction between black and white clothing, as well as art, namely photography but also film and as discussed before architecture and gallery space.
Seeing as since the time of Aristotle, form was valued over that of color, the arts which did not require color to be enjoyed were perceived to be that of a higher form.
The explosion of mass production and printing allowed for a plethora of colorful advertising and consumer goods which came to be known as kitsch.
“Kitsch is a product of the industrial revolution which urbanized the masses of Western Europe and America and established what is called universal literacy”
Kitsch made cheap what once was truly cultural by the way it reproduced it d infinitum.
Greenberg continues by saying, “Kitsch, using for raw material the debased and academicized simulacra of genuine culture, welcomes and cultivates this insensibility.
It is the source of its profits. Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas.
Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations.
Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same.
Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times.
Kitsch pretends to demand nothing of its customers except their money -- not even their time”.
With the advent of kitsch came a great need for the distinction between higher and lower artforms.
Inorganic nature has only the language of color.
Thus said, this along with the influence of black and white print perhaps was the cause for the belief that which was black and white was deemed a serious, high art, while that which was colorful was mere rubbish and imitation for the lower classes.
Of course during the early stages of color film and photography, the quality was so poor that it gave a cheap look, whereas black and white film really allowed one to see the light and the shadows in the images.
For the play of light and form was key in demonstrating the true art form.
It is by color alone that a certain stone tells us it is a sapphire or emerald… color, then, is the peculiar characteristic of the lower forms of nature, while drawing becomes the medium of expression, more and more dominant, the higher we rise in the scale of being”
That was what made up the essence of an image, not the artificial, or superficial filling in of form with color.
Color was thought to distract the viewer from the soul of the image.
These beliefs have changed since color technology as tweeked to the point of being almost better than reality.
Still though black and white is seen as something of a more sober tradition.
These non colors allow for the appreciation of color.
When something is black and white, it allows the mind to fill in and imagine for itself the amazing colors that must exist beyond the screen.
It is for this reason that ultimately the use of black and white is seen as more of an intellectual process.
Whether it mean going beyond the mind or simply the purity of non color, the use of black and white has been debated over for the last hundred years.
Now we have entered an era where we are seeing once again more color, but perhaps it is human instinct, to want to surpass and rebel against generations before, so possibly we shall return to a state of non color veneration.
Thus is the ebb and flow of life.
The world is made up of a myriad of colors. color gives distinction to our life, it gives flavor and meaning.
In the Far East, reaching a state of colorless-ness is associated with the highest state of spiritual being, the state of Zen.
What is typical of this sort of ascetism is the art of expressing as much as possible using the minimum as an ideal.
For them, reaching the greatest depths of spirituality demanded expression in its most minimal form.
This reduction of color and expression proved the purity the artist had reached within himself, it was a means of reducing down to the essence of a thing.
In the Elimination of color in the Far East, Izutsu explains though how this ultimate state of minimalism can only be reached through an appreciation and fine knowledge of color.
“This artistic acestism, i.e., the suppression of externals and the reduction of all colors to black and white, manifests its real aesthetic function only against the background of a highly refined sensibility for colors and their subtle hues.
What would our lives be without color?
At the same time in our modern society, color has been seen as an external threat to be purged from the enlightened mind and space.
For black and white can only be seen as distinguishing against a background of color and for this very reason one can assert that both black and white are colors in themselves as non-colors.
It is through the absence of color that one brings to mind the colors that are no longer present.
It is up to the mind to fill in the blank space.
Without color one could not appreciate the purity of the black and white space.
Black and white are the consummation of all colors into one.
“Black is life; it is the infinite possibility of expression and development. Black here is not sheer black.
For in it’s negation of all colors, all colors are positively affirmed”
It is through these means that one finds the essence in a thing.
In Western society, this purging of color began with the rejection of ideals of generations past.
Eliminating color was a way of eliminating the decadence of the 18th century.
Society turned to minimalism as a way of cleansing life, representing modernity.
color became a moral issue, seen as something sensuous and dangerous in its secondary nature to the essence of life and form.
color is seen as corrupting, intoxicating, disorienting and in art, has come to be associated with the vulgar and the kitsch.
“The predominance of color at the expense of drawing is a usurpation of the relative over the absolute, of fleeting appearance over permanent form, of physical impression over the empire of the soul”
color rests on the surface of an object, it is superficial, cosmetic and therefore deceptive since it hides the true nature of that thing.
It is something which speaks to the senses, not the mind, it is external and therefore secondary to life.
It deals with the body, emotions, not the intellect.
It strays from reason in the way which it consumes and manipulates life.
It is a descent in the way it makes one lose consciousness and enter into the physical world of desire, and to desire is to lose control over oneself.
We went from times of celebrating color and decoration to one of minimalism where black and white were placed at the front as representations of modernity and ultimate transcendence.
Thus, began the cult of the black and white.
White is seen as representing spirituality, the heavens, and light, it is all which is modern, it signifies the opposite of the carnal nature of color.
It is the control of nature, and the body and represents the modern man.
“WHITE is the spiritual color of our times, the clearness which directs all out actions.
It is neither grey white, nor vory white, but pure white.
WHITE is the color of modern times, the color which dissipates a whole era; our era is perfection, purity, certitude.
We have superceded both the ‘brown’ of decadence and classiscm and the ‘blue’ of divisionism, the cult of the blue ky, the gods with green beards and the spectrum.
WHITE pure white.
For these reasons black and white have been placed at the top of the hierarchy of colors.
Abolishing color means controlling color.
It keeps an eye on all the objects it frames.
But before that, it keeps an eye on itself, watching its freshly laundered and neatly folded fabric for the stain of color”
On the other hand, we need color in order to distinguish black and white.
Just as those from the Far East, the purity of white implies what has been washed away and thus makes the white glitter even more.
They are linked intrinsically together, one cannot go without the other.
“White is the setting for color.
In a mosque for example, the architectonic effect of its white garment is assisted by a strategic use of color: “All these things are clothed in a majestic coat of whitewash.
The forms stand out clearly; the impeccable construction displays all its boldness.
What is the significance for this preference for black and white when it comes to high art?
At times a high stylobate of delightful ceramic produces a blue vibration.”
The sensuous vibration of the color clarifies the white surface whose limit it marks”
We need this opposition between color and ‘non-color’ to make distinction between the two, otherwise neither would hold such significance.
Reaching Transcendence through the Elimination of color: The Ideal Minimalism of Black and White
White helps to harmonize colors that would otherwise clash, it brings together and unites.
“White expresses a certain incorporeality.
The use of white is therefore decisive for the bodily appearance of a space.
Concrete bodies decrease the space more or less depending on their color value.
Against white, one can actually establish the intensity of clashing colors; white determines the tone in the first place.
and how can the state legislature single out two counties (first Napa, now Sonoma) for this treatment?
are they going to go through the wine-producing counties one by one?
JohnLopresti said...
vive la OIVV OIV_Wine_Labelling_Standard_EN_2006 re at Fredric K's BTYH website there is a review discussing MacRostie pinot noir.
I had thought of the kiltman with respect to a new AVA in Yorkville highlands, thinking the Scot might have interest in playing the bagpipes in the uplands.
Then, at Steve's site there is an interesting discussion of his current ongoing efforts with blends from Carneros and Sonoma Coast.
There are 13 AVAs in Sonoma County.
It's easy to get lost in nomenclatures, when one is striving for new concepts.
In a way, all this tries to approach terroir from a slight distance; plus the historical distinctions between the two premium distinctive varietal regions, Napa county and Sonoma county.
Winkler heat summation datapoints also clarified several decades ago some of the plant physiologic underpinnings of why Napa county and Sonoma county were the natural leaders in premium winegrape production.
The problem, of course, is that by placing the words "Sonoma County" on a bottle of wine that is made with grapes grown in "Russian River Valley", "Dry Creek Valley", "Sonoma Valley" or any other AVA in Sonoma
There are many reasons why the new labeling requirement makes sense from all these perspectives.
JohnLopresti said...
sorry, I keep forgetting the Fermentation site's html protocol; here is the OIVV label guideline link again:
El Jefe said...
OK, so here's the real requirement: "Any wine labeled with an American Viticultural Area established yada yada, that is located entirely within yada yada, shall bear the designation "Sonoma County" on the label in a type size not smaller than two millimeters on containers of more than 187 milliliters or smaller than one millimeter on containers of 187 milliliters or less.
If I recall correctly, this is almost exactly the same as the requirement for the government warning type size.
So the answer seems pretty clear to me: just add "Sonoma County" to the government warning.
Johnonwine said...
They [Honore Comfort and the Sonoma County Vintners] point to the prestige that the "Napa Valley" designation carries.
But this prestige has nothing to due with the law that demands "Napa Valley", in addition to simply "Rutherford", be placed on these wines.
It has to do entirely with the promotional effort that has gone into making "Napa Valley" a place associated with great wines.
Such an association will not be made with "Sonoma County" wines...ever.
Tom, I would suggest that all Napa wineries, good and bad, benefit from having Napa Valley on the label; it is indeed a great example of marketing - what you describe as promotional effort.
County, consumers learn absolutely nothing about the wine in the bottle.
Sonoma County, with roughly half of the wineries of Napa County, wins roughly twice as many gold medals in national and international wine competitions.
That, the fact that their wines cost less on average, and the wineries are friendlier, less snooty is a compelling story to get out to the public.
Heck, if folks knew all that, maybe folks would be seeking out bottles with "Sonoma County" on the label.
You suggest that this is a bad law, that Sonoma County will never be associated with high quality wine in the way Napa County is.
I disagree, but I am eternally hopeful, optimistic that the Sonoma County Vintners will inject a little passion and not more of the same old staid and boring in their marketing communications.
There no evidence that grapes grown in "Sonoma County" have any single distinguishing feature derived from the fact that they were grown inside the borders of Sonoma County. Assemblywoman Evans concludes, "By improving consumer education on each bottle, conjunctive labeling will unleash the full potential of our delicious wines to represent Sonoma around the world.
I have confidence they will change, retool, improve, live up to their responsibilities.
I worked selling and marketing Sonoma County wines, I won awards for my marketing efforts.
The story is simple.
People are receptive to it.
Selling the magic of Sonoma County wines is easy.
That's my take anyway, I don't aim to be contrarian, but I don't mind being the sole supporter of the law - as a Sonoma County born and bred wine guy.
She's correct.
Beginning in 2014, "Sonoma County" will receive a tremendous boost in recognition due to the conjunctive labeling law that forces vintners to add more wording to their labels—whether they think the words "Sonoma County" help or hurt their marketing efforts.
Frankly, if I was making high end wine from the "Sonoma Valley", "Sonoma Mountain" or "Sonoma Coast" AVAs that depended in part on the quality recognition that comes wtih these AVAs, I'd be pissed that I'm forced now to put a place-name on my label that told my buyers nothing of real value about the wine behind my label and, in some cases, demonstrably lowered its perceived quality.
Honore Comfort, Executive Director of the Sonoma County Vintners Association and an outstanding representative for Sonoma County wines noted this: ".
"This moment ...marks the beginning of a stronger Sonoma County brand for generations to come."
Proponents of the new Sonoma County Conjunctive labeling law like to point to a similar law that demands "Napa Valley" be placed on all wines that are made from grapes grown in that appellation, rather than simply using a sub appellation.
They point to the prestige that the "Napa Valley" designation carries.
But this prestige has nothing to due with the law that demands "Napa Valley", in addition to simply "Rutherford", be placed on these wines.
It has to do entirely with the promotional effort that has gone into making "Napa Valley" a place associated with great wines.
The vintners in Sonoma County simply can't make a case for "Sonoma County" having any meaning or for a region as vast as "Sonoma County" delivering any degree of quality to the grapes.
Pushed as an effort to promote "Sonoma County" wines and a consumer education effort, the new law instead forces vintners to needlessly sully their package and undermines their own marketing efforts.
Why is it important for someone making "Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir" or "Sonoma Valley Zinfandel" to help promote "Sonoma County", a designation that has no ability to define the quality or character of the wines in my Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir or my Sonoma Valley Zinfandel?
This is an example of a County usurping the private label real estate, and it's very valuable real estate, for the sake of promoting something that is of little use to private commercial interests.
Ask yourself...If putting the words "Sonoma County" on one's wines was such a great thing, why don't more vintners who make "Dry Creek Valley", "Russian River Valley", "Alexander Valley" or "Sonoma Valley" wines already put these words on their label?
They legally could...if they wanted to.
The new Sonoma County conjunctive labeling law is the equivalent of the State of California and the County of Sonoma claiming imminent domain over the labels of hundreds of vintners.
Eminent Domain Used To Usurp Wine Label Real Estate
Nick Perdiew said...
You found a way to tie this in nicely.
This is a case of over-reaching government regulation, costing business unnecessarily and burdening them with more regulations.
It's just unnecessary.
It also is a 'social promotion' in the sense that great Sonoma wines that now are forced to use "Sonoma County" will be giving some of their credibility to their lesser neighbors.
Shades of wealth redistribution as well.
Ew, ew, ew.
James McCann said...
How many hundreds or thousands of labels will have to be re-submitted to the TTB between now and 2014?
John Kelly said...
I'd be pissed that I'm forced now to put a place-name on my label that told my buyers nothing of real value about the wine behind my label and, in some cases, demonstrably lowered its perceived quality.
Exactly, Tom.
And I am really pissed.
And so is every other producer I have discussed this issue with.
I still don't know whose interests are being served by this useless piece of crap legislation.
Yet, the law does nothing to educate consumers.
I completely agree with you when you state: "Such an association will not be made with 'Sonoma County' wines...ever."
Duh.
I've got real skin in this game.
We are going to have to totally redesign our front label to make room for "Sonoma County" - and so far every mock-up is cluttered and decreases the impact of our brand.
Our best option looks like we will go to "North Coast" or "California" for our front label appellation, and discuss the grape source, vineyard name and meaningful AVA on the back label.
Passed unanimously out of the California Assembly and Senate, AB 1798 now awaits the Governor's signature, which it will surely obtain.
Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog
Who is going to compensate me for this?
I estimate the value to be in six figures, and we are a small winery.
For a larger winery with a better-established brand the value is much higher.
Eminent domain is exactly right - this is nothing less than governmental "taking.
The legislators who backed this should be ashamed.
Hardy Wallace said...
Thanks Tom-- This law is such BS.
JohnLopresti said...
I support the new labeling requirement.
Sonoma county always was the sheep ranch joke in the era of Napa's well-deserved, early, global fame.
Together we have led the world into modern viticulture, with the help of UC Davis, and in some pretty good company from other regions.
I suppose the new law is all Sacramento hype.
But I think it will improve northcoast revenue and dignity.
According to Noreen Evans, an Assembly sponsor of the bill, this new conjunctive labeling law "requires that any wine labeled with an American Viticultural Area (AVA) located entirely within Sonoma County - – like Russian River Valley or Dry Creek Valley - must also include the word "Sonoma County" on the label, starting in 2014.
Now after several decades in Sonoma county I have learned to appreciate its uniqueness, for its viticulture and other industries.
The town of Sonoma is on a typical route people follow driving from Solano County to Sonoma County.
The ambience in the town Sonoma is only an enclave; it is rightfully proud of its heritage as a village, and for its viticultural traditions.
But Sonoma county encompasses much more territory, and other AVAs within the county are starkly different from the characteristics of Sonoma valley and the town of Sonoma.
Vive la nouveau Sonoma County.
Nick Perdiew said in to JohnLopresti...
John, Good of you to comment and good to have dissent.
What do you make of the fact that vintners *already* are free to put Sonoma County on any label they want?
I admit, I don't see the reasoning of your argument here.
The issue of the costs to vintners is non-trivial too as you can see above.
Bill Cadman said...
Tom-- I wonder what the response would be in Napa and Sonoma if the vintners in Fresno convinced the state government to require "California" be put on all labels of wine made within California?
JohnLopresti said...
These past few years, 'eminent domain' has become a libertarian property rights flashpoint, since the Kelo v New London, CT, case concerning urban renewal polemics.
I can see Tom W's concerns, too.
There was a counterpoint in the label world after some court cases resulted in a company's revising its grape sourcing to comply with tightened requirements for 75% in-county fruit in order to remain legal in designating the wine as from "Napa".
One rambling article's author counted 16 occurrences of the word Napa on the newly designed label of a famous budget wine producer's 2005 Napa cabernet sauvignon.
JohnLopresti said...
The links for @2:04:
I was disappointed, though not surprised, to see that today a conjunctive labeling law dictating that "Sonoma County" be placed on every label on wines produced from grapes grown in Sonoma County was unanimously passed by the California Legislature .
fredric koeppel said...
what business is it of State government what terminology goes on wine labels?
"the latest developments"
I urge all readers to sign up for those emails .
In the mean time, please checkout the website that spurred the wholesalers to launch their own: http://www.stophr5034.org.
It is published by the Specialty Wine Retailers Association and upon reading through it, you should find yourself feeling much cleaner and less soiled than after wading through the misrepresentations of the new wholesaler-sponsored website on H.R. 5034.
Scott said... Too bad there's not a way to shout louder than all caps. Maybe try more exclamation points.... July 16, 2010 at 06:13 AM
Judd Wallenbrock said... Tom -- thanks so much for keeping us all up to date and informed regarding this silly...but very real threat...not only to our industry but to our basic rights as consumers. July 16, 2010 at 08:14 AM
Tom Wark said... Scott: Thanks for the tips.
Judd: my pleasure! July 16, 2010 at 09:42 AM
Bill Sprow said... Get rid of thewe beer and wine distributor associations, ie make them illegal, and you would really be showing a free market work in progress.
July 16, 2010 at 10:41 AM
Austin SEO said... Interesting!,
Wholesalers issue.Thanks for sharing your link.
I enjoyed reading your post. July 17, 2010 at 12:35 PM
The recently launched www.hr5034.org website is the creation of the National Beer Wholesalers Association and and appears to be the repository all the misrepresentation, ignorance and misleading ideas supporters of H.R. 5034 could possibly muster.
JohnLopresti said... Thought I would post a link with a cute title related to the post.
NB: the article is in a trade journal available by online subscription $ only.
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202463630848&Alcohol_bill_means_happy_hour_for_lobbyists
July 19, 2010 at 08:53 AM Steve said... Tom: Thanks for this passionate polemic, a foreceful and sorely needed rebuttal to a bogus bill. July 19, 2010 at 09:10 AM
Tom said... Seems like some old geezers are filling their pockets with some major greenbacks getting this bill passed through.
Its a blatant anti-competition bill that will crush the uniqness of the alchohol/wine industry, kinda like Wal Mart moving into a town and crushing the boutique shops.
Since I live in Texas Ill have to resort to buying O'Douls and Welchs grape juice after the Baptists take control of the law in the State legislature.
Dont even get me started on the still enacted Blue Laws of this state (cant buy liqour on Sundays)... July 19, 2010 at 09:12 AM
r said... Wow!
I am speechless.
I will not even waste my time rebutting you point by point because you do not have a clue in many instances what you are talking about.
You do have a few valid points but they too may be predicated on false premise, I do not claim to be the all knowing expert.
By using the same sensational BS Tactics you rail against, instead of a balanced and fair assessment you render the entirety of your rant incredible.
In short the wine has to go from point A to B in some way.
Do you work for FedEx?
They do not operate monopolies.
In Oregon for instance there are about 60 wholesalers competing for partnerships on both the supply and the demand side, hardly the ideal monopoly situation.
In most cases where state laws allow shipping you can get a bottle of wine shipped from the winery of your choice.
"commercial wineries"
They are experts at farming and producing wine, which is what they likely prefer to do in most cases. July 27, 2010 at 09:08 PM
alean said... wine facts are really good http://www.facts-about-wine.info/
arunrob@gmail.com October 13, 2010 at 12:39 PM
crystal ortizz said... Quite informative blog.
My friends would definitely appreciate knowing these facts.
I like such topics and anything that is connected to this matter.
I definitely want to read more on that blog soon.
"Today’s system balances competition with public safety to ensure that consumers can enjoy alcohol without suffering the negative effects of an unregulated marketplace"
Is there really any competition when the state-based regulatory system the wholesalers love so much require that producers of alcohol use a wholesaler to bring their goods to market, meaning that without use of a wholesaler a producer cannot enter a state's market?
It also means that wholesalers get to decide what consumers drink, not consumers.
"Unfortunately the effective state-based regulatory system in the U.S. is under attack.
Over the past 10 years,more than 25 states have faced challenges in federal courts to their authority to regulate alcohol and their ability to maintain a licensed system of alcohol controls."
The only challenges to the state-based alcohol regulatory system are those that discriminate against interstate commerce for protectionist reasons.
ON THE "LEARN MORE" PAGE ( http://www.hr5034.org/learn-more ) "Litigation against the states brought by those wishing to deregulate alcohol for their own economic interests is of great concern to state alcohol regulators, state attorneys general, public health advocates and many others."
"LEARN MORE"
"Litigation against the states brought by those wishing to deregulate alcohol for their own economic interests is of great concern to state alcohol regulators, state attorneys general, public health advocates and many others."
This bill, currently in Congress, would give wholesaler lobbyists the means to turn back the clock on consumer access to wine, lead to the passage of laws that override federal regulations on alcohol, kill jobs and business that focus on artisan production of wine, beer and spirits, punish and dismantle small specialty wine retailers that serve the consumers that wholesalers won't and override the critical Constitutional principle of a single American economic union...
When the economic interests of producers, retailers and consumers are horsewhipped by states doing the bidding of wholesales who receive more government protection and welfare from the state than any other industry in america, you might expect them to fight back.
As for those that have "concern", let's recall that it's only a tiny fraction of state alcohol regulators, that there is no formal support from state attorneys general, only a mere handful of public health advocates, a selection of recipients of campaign contributions from wholesalers and wholesalers themselves that support H.R. 5034 .
"concern"
"According to a recent national poll conducted by the Center for Alcohol Policy, 79% of respondents support the right of individual states to set their own laws and regulations surrounding the sale of alcohol and 87% agree that state and local laws regarding alcohol regulations should be decided by lawmakers and citizens, not by judges."
H.R. 5034: The Lies, The Facts, The Fictions
I'm shocked, shocked i say, that the "center for alcohol policy" is an arm of the national beer wholesalers association and that it would conduct a poll that finds results supporting those that funded the poll.
"center for alcohol policy"
Does it get any more illegitimate?
"Fact v. Fiction page ( http://www.hr5034.org/fact-vs-fiction ) "
Fiction page ( http://www.hr5034.org/fact-vs-fiction ) "FACT: This bill does not address direct shipping or any specific state alcohol law.
It does not preempt a state law that allows direct shipping.
It does not mandate a direct shipping law where there currently is not one.
The bill does PROTECT a state’s wine shipping law if someone were to challenge it in court by providing the shipping law with the same presumption of validity granted other state alcohol laws.
"Disingenuous in the extreme.
H.R. 5034 gives states the ability to pass laws unchallengeable in court that would discriminate against out-of-state wine shippers.
And we know such laws would be introduced into various states since wholesalers have seen to it that such laws have been introduced into state legislatures for the past 20 years.
With so much at stake for America's alcohol wholesalers and their protected monopoly status that props up unearned profits, it's no surprise they would swing for the fences with all their state-granted political power and attempt to pass H.R. 5034 .
In fact, H.R. 5034 would allow states to pass laws that make consumers receipt of a wine by in-state shippers legal while making receipt of a wine by out-of-state shippers punishable to a greater degree than rape, home invasion or selling cocaine to children.
"Fact: Protection of a state’s power to regulate alcohol is not an “industry food fight.”
"food fight"
"food fight" may be the wrong word.
Better to call the introduction of H.R. 5034 what it is: an attack on the entire alcohol industry and consumers for the sake of protecting wholesaler profits.
It's no coincidence that brewers large and small, wineries, spirit producers and importers, retailers, wine education organizations, wine consumers and free trade organizations all oppose H.R. 5034.
"This bill does not amend or alter the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAA Act) which provides federal guidelines in many of these areas"
"amend"
To quote from H.R. 5034: "not withstanding that the state or territorial law may burden interstate commerce or an act of congress, the state law shall be upheld..."
"not withstanding that the state or territorial law may burden interstate commerce or an act of congress, the state law shall be upheld..."
"does not amend"
It's like saying "i didn't kick the dog, but rather his ribs fell on to my boot".
"i didn't kick the dog, but rather his ribs fell on to my boot"
"It is the intent of this language to make clear the congressional support for the holding in Granholm-prohibiting state laws that allow an in-state winery to do something a similarly situated out-of-state winery cannot do.
It is the intent of this language to make clear the congressional support for the holding in Granholm-prohibiting state laws that allow an in-state winery to do something a similarly situated out-of-state winery cannot do. Language that bars facial discrimination is included in the bill to codify this prohibition"
But this goes beyond even my expectation.
Heald supreme court decision that did away with protectionist state alcohol laws.
More importantly, the very language of H.R. 5034 gives states the explicit right to discriminate against out-of-state wine shippers.
All the state needs to do is offer the feeblest of justifications.
Read for yourself: "state or territorial regulations may not facially discriminate, without justification, against out-of-state producers of alcoholic beverages in favor of in-state producers."
"state or territorial regulations may not facially discriminate, without justification, against out-of-state producers of alcoholic beverages in favor of in-state producers."
one of those "justifications", the bill states, is maintenance of the "structure of the state alcoholic beverage distribution system."
"justifications"
"structure of the state alcoholic beverage distribution system."
in other words, discrimination is ok as long as the discrimination is written into the state's alcohol beverage distribution laws.
Furthermore, note that wine retailers are not even covered by this duplicitous language on "justification".
all for the sake of protecting wholesaler profits by giving them unprecedented control and influence over the entire American alcohol industry.
"justification"
The state needs no justification to discriminate against out-of-state retailers.
"Over half the states have been sued challenging their alcohol laws.
"Over half the states have been sued challenging their alcohol laws. The lawsuits have attacked items such as commonsense safeguards that require a face-to-face transaction (needed for I.D. checks) to buy alcohol"
The lawsuits have attacked items such as commonsense safeguards that require a face-to-face transaction (needed for I.D. checks) to buy alcohol" In fact, face-to-face transactions are not needed for I.D checks.
We know this because states have written laws that have gone unchallenged that require I.D. Checks to be made at the point of delivery of the wine.
"Unelected judges should not set alcohol policy; this responsibility rightly rests with individual state legislatures, as guaranteed under the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."
Judges never have set policy.
State legislatures always have.
This is the big lie the wholesalers tell.
Judges merely tell the state when they have reached beyond what the 21st Amendment allows.
After that, the state legislatures, in every state where litigation has affected badly crafted laws, went about legislating a fix.
Surely the wholesalers don't mean to say that state alcohol laws should in no way be required to abide by the principles in the u.S.
Constitution.
What next, will the wholesalers argue the 21st amendment give the states the right to prohibit women from buying alcohol?
Will they argue that state laws banning African-Americans from being distributors is legal under the 21st Amendment?
But what is truly remarkable (and likely a result of the wholesalers' hubris stemming from 75 years of being granted government welfare) is their willingness to misrepresent facts, ignore the truth, and mislead in their defense of H.R. 5034.
"State laws that raise concerns can and should be addressed in the state legislature."
The wholesalers would have argued that the racist "separate but equal" philosophy had no business being litigated and that we should wait for the legislatures that enacted the racist laws to overturn them with new laws.
We have courts precisely to adjudicate concerns with the fairness and constitutionality of state laws.
The hypocrisy, misleading notions and disinformation being featured at the wholesalers website supporting H.R. 5034 is staggering.
Thus originated Las Vegas’s reputation as an adult theme park.
The areas surrounding the springs were desert oases: sprawling collections of grasses, trees, and wildlife.
Additional catalysts for the valley’s growth came from World War II.
By 1945, the population had grown to almost 20,000, with workers and airmen moving in at a rapid pace.
But this was not yet the Las Vegas of folklore.
The El Rancho Vegas (1941) was the first, followed by the Last Frontier (1943).
During this period, East Coast Syndicate member Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel earned a foothold as a local casino operator.
When the Flamingo opened in December 1946, it did so with Hollywood flair and the new Vegas flash.
But the Mafia bosses who financed the operation were displeased with its performance; Siegel was murdered in the summer of 1947.
Many springs lay in areas that would eventually become the center of the modern Las Vegas metropolis.
Despite its initial failings, Siegel’s Flamingo survived him, as did mob infiltration of casinos.
Freely flowing “comps” (complimentary food, drink, and entertainment) were the order of the day, with mob bosses content to provide an environment of pleasurable excess as long as the cash kept rolling in.
While the mob was running the casinos, promoters were busily selling Las Vegas as a glamorous Hollywood in the desert.
From the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, Las Vegas nurtured a growing sense that it was the “Entertainment Capital of the World. ”
Emerging stars, no longer content with playing small nightclubs, came to Las Vegas with dreams of making it big.
Many of them did.
For about 4000 years, the Archaics thrived in a culture that included many signs of early civilization.
The Rat Pack — originally Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. , Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop, all in town to film Ocean’s 11 — landed at the Sands in January 1960 for a legendary stay.
As a result, more casinos emerged along the Strip.
The Thunderbird, Desert Inn, Sahara, Sands, and Riviera hotels were erected during this period, luring a curious clientele drawn by tales of all-night partying, exclusive entertainment, and cheap accommodations.
There was no longer any question: when you wanted some unbridled adult fun, Las Vegas was the place to be.
New Legitimacy
Organized crime was soon to have a formidable adversary in its bid to control Las Vegas — corporate cash.
Though Las Vegas had developed a powerful local economy, few major outside investments were made in the city, due primarily to mob infiltration and its inherent ties to illegal activities.
That would change dramatically with the 1966 arrival of billionaire Howard Hughes.
Signs of even more advancement appeared halfway through the first millennium a.d. , when the Anasazi Indians inhabited the valley.
A legitimate businessman, Hughes was nonetheless eccentric and dramatic, a style suited to the Las Vegas ethos.
True to the myth, the reclusive Hughes immediately cloistered himself in the Desert Inn’s penthouse.
Several weeks later he was asked — then ordered — to vacate the room to make room for high rollers, whereupon he promptly bought the property and fired the management.
Thus began Hughes’ legendary three-year, $300-million Las Vegas buying spree.
When it was over, Hughes owned six casinos, an airport, and an airline, along with numerous plots of land stretching from the Strip to the mountains.
Hughes’ actions would have beneficial repercussions, both immediate and lasting.
Because of the new legitimacy Las Vegas acquired from Hughes’ investments, established companies such as Hilton Hotels bought into the gaming business, and their influence helped draw a line in the desert sand between legitimate operations and mob casinos, where illegal skimming of profits was rampant.
That, combined with the formation of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, would signal the beginning of the end for heavy mob influence in the city.
Far more progressive than the Archaics, the Anasazi utilized such formal agricultural techniques as irrigation to assist their harvest.
The legitimization of gambling led to its increased legalization across the US.
What was once a sure thing became much more competitive.
Casino operators had to reassess the nature of their business.
The first to really do so was Steve Wynn, a Las Vegas resident and owner of the Golden Nugget.
In the mid-1980s, Wynn began plans to reinvigorate Las Vegas with a new resort.
He bought several Strip properties — the Silver Slipper and Castaways among them — and demolished them to make way for a new kind of resort — Mirage —  which became an instant success.
Wynn’s demolition of the existing properties started a trend that, more than any other, describes Las Vegas at the end of the 20th century: removal of old properties in exchange for the potential of new ones.
This trend has led to many more demolitions, including the Dunes (replaced by Bellagio), Aladdin (the new Aladdin) and Sands (Venetian) hotels.
Wynn’s casinos have also set new standards.
They can no longer be just a box filled with gaming tables, restaurants, and a showroom.
Excalibur, the MGM Grand, the Luxor, and New York-New York all followed Mirage’s lead during the 1990s, offering themed environments and attractions for families.
As evidence of the “ever-faster” nature of the city, by the middle of the 1990s the new approach showed signs of backlash, with many visitors criticizing the mediocrity of the Las Vegas experience.
This permitted the Anasazi to achieve a benchmark of advanced society — the ability to live in permanent shelters year-round without need to follow wildlife.
The latest approach is perhaps the best of the post-mob era: the comprehensive resort.
New resorts offer attractions and amenities modeled after those available in top resort cities worldwide, including luxurious spas, signature restaurants, and exclusive boutiques.
Additionally, a handful of resorts — such as the South-Seas themed Mandalay Bay, the Mirage, and the new Four Seasons — are now catering exclusively to the luxury travel market.
The crème de la crème of Las Vegas deluxe is Steve Wynn’s Bellagio.
Perhaps more important, such high-end accommodations raise the standards of expectations back to the mythology of the Rat Pack era.
As it changed from mob gam bling town to corporate gaming venue, the population of Las Vegas skyrocketed.
Over 20,000 additional hotel rooms have been added in a few short years, including resorts in Summerlin and Lake Las Vegas.
Still, the future of Las Vegas is sure to be determined as much by the pioneering spirit that built the city as by anything else.
With its new look and new aim, the prospects are good despite the warnings.
Inevitably, some people will get burned in the process, but others will rise triumphantly from the fray to even greater successes.
And that, more than anything, is the one constant that characterizes the past, present, and future of Las Vegas.
Unable to replicate the agricultural techniques of the Anasazi, the Paiutes were destined to a semi-nomadic lifestyle until European settlers arrived, changing the nature of existence in the valley forever.
During this period, the indigenous people lived in caves, hunting the mammals that gathered at the shoreline.
In the early nineteenth century, America’s western territories were still largely unexplored.
It was not until 1829 that Rafael Rivera, a Mexican scout, found a spring-fed valley and dubbed it Las Vegas — a Spanish name that leaves many modern visitors wondering exactly where “the meadows” really lay.
For fifteen years, Las Vegas was used as a Spanish Trail way-station.
A Brief History
This put Las Vegas on the map and was one of the crucial turning points of its history.
In 1855, Mormon leader Brigham Young responded to promising reports of Las Vegas by sending 30 missionary settlers to the valley; they eventually built a fort not far from today’s Downtown.
Surrounded by acres of farmland hewn from the hard desert, the adobe fort became a focal point for the development of Las Vegas for the next fifty years.
The landscape of the valley changed dramatically over the next 200 centuries.
Additional pressures from arriving miners pushed the missionaries’ plight beyond recovery.
Their supplies scarce, their harvest meager, and their spirit broken, they abandoned the fort in 1858.
Despite the fact that the local land was rich in silver, by 1865 most of the mining traffic through Las Vegas was of prospectors headed to California or Northern Nevada in search of gold.
One opportunist who stayed was Octavius Decatur Gass.
The glaciers feeding the lake melted away and the lake evaporated.
Gass took over the abandoned Mormon fort and 640 acres (260 hectares) surrounding it, dubbing it the Las Vegas Ranch.
He expanded the ranch and irrigated the land so that it would support crops and cattle.
His determination had other results as well: Gass was named a justice of the peace and a territorial legislator.
Despite his ambition, Gass’ success was short-lived.
In the late 1870s, he defaulted on a loan from rancher Archibald Stewart, so Stewart took the Las Vegas Ranch for his own.
True to wild-West stereotypes, Stewart was slain by a neighboring farmer, leaving his strong-willed wife, Helen, to assume the duties of the ranch.
Fossils tell an obscure story of man’s slow and sporadic development.
What happened next would mark the end of the successful Las Vegas Ranch and the beginning of the era of the subdivision seen across almost all of Western America to this day.
Early Habitation
Of Tracks and Tracts
At the turn of the 19th century Los Angeles and Salt Lake City were among the burgeoning metropolises of the new American West.
Though the two cities remained unlinked by rail, this was about to change quickly.
When it did, the Las Vegas Valley (which at the time had a non-native population of less than 30) would change as well.
Around 3000 b.c. , native Archaic Indians began to develop a lasting hunting and gathering culture.
In 1903, officials of the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad arrived in Las Vegas, eager to secure a right-of-way for their Los Angeles–Salt Lake connection.
Las Vegas would serve as a major stopover for crew rest and train repair.
For all this, the railroad needed land.
As mapped, the track traveled directly through Helen Stewart’s Las Vegas Ranch.
Stewart sold 99.5 percent of her ranch to the railroad.
The remainder she returned to the native Paiutes.
In early 1905, the route between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City was completed, and train tracks bore right down the center of the Las Vegas Valley.
On 15 May 1905, the railroad held a land sale — a momentous step in Las Vegas history.
Standing at the depot at Main and Fremont streets, railroad officials auctioned 1200 lots they had subdivided from forty square blocks of desert scrub.
Las Vegas was no longer a small pioneer settlement.
With rail service in place and forty blocks of private property, it was ready to become a real town.
Businesses sprang up overnight, and wooden houses were erected to replace the tent city in which many of the early settlers had lived.
One year after the auction, the population of Las Vegas had ballooned to 1500 residents, a portent of things to come for the next ninety years.
From the beginning, Las Vegas was built to serve travelers.
The railroad needed a way station, and Las Vegas was the place.
Growth continued for ten years, and by 1915 the town had telephones, round-the-clock electricity, and a growing population — many of whom worked in the railroad repair shop.
The inhabited history of the Las Vegas Valley stretches to 23,000 b.c. , when much of the area was covered by a prehistoric lake.
But such heady progress would soon come to a halt.
Union Pacific then consolidated its operations, eliminating the Las Vegas repair facility.
Additionally, Las Vegas had been made a part of Nevada’s new Clark County in 1909, a year when the legislature also outlawed gambling.
These unfortunate circumstances threatened to relegate Las Vegas to the status of a small desert community that could no longer support its 3000 residents.
But the southwest’s growing need for water, combined with Las Vegas’s fortuitous proximity to the Colorado River, would give Las Vegas a second chance to achieve prosperity.
Construction on Hoover Dam (originally Boulder Dam, subsequently renamed for the president who authorized the project) began in 1931 in a canyon 45 miles (72 km) southeast of Las Vegas.
Providing an influx of $165 million to the southwestern economy, Hoover Dam played a major role in preventing Las Vegas from drying up, both financially and literally.
These springs fed a network of streams draining through the Las Vegas Wash to the Colorado River.
Not only did it create jobs, but it also created Lake Mead, the massive reservoir that today provides water to all of southern Nevada.
More Government Help
The construction of Hoover Dam did not single-handedly save Las Vegas, however.
They went to work on what has become one of the lengthiest citywide tourism campaigns ever attempted.
Strangely enough, the study also included pairs of biological brothers that were not twins, and out of the 142 homosexual males studied, only 14, or about 9 %, had homosexual brothers, which is approximately the normal statistical incidence of homosexuality in the general population (Bailey & Pillard).
More and more people are beginning to believe that homosexuality is not a “choice,” but rather a feeling that one is born with.
“choice,”
As one grows older, they become aware of sexual feelings towards other persons.
The only difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals is that while heterosexuals are attracted to members of the opposite sex, homosexuals are attracted to those of the same sex.
Therefore, neither homosexuals nor heterosexuals really have a “choice” in the matter, and asking a homosexual “Why are you attracted to other members of your sex” is likened to asking a heterosexual “Why are you attracted to members of the opposite sex?”
“Why are you attracted to members of the opposite sex?”
After all, why would anyone choose such a difficult lifestyle?
As a homosexual, one risks horrifying their parents, other family members, and friends to the point of losing all contact with them, ruining their career, being condemned by their religion, being beat up for publicly displaying their sexuality, and much much more.
This shows that not only did Plato consider it normal for a male to be attracted to another male, he also believed that it began at a very young age, as the word “boyhood” signifies.
To supplement my findings from research, I have conducted personal interviews with two adolescent homosexual males, James Dobbens and Daniel Woods.
Both were asked how what they thought determined homosexuality (nature vs. nurture) and why, when they realized they were homosexual and how they knew, and similar questions.
Both believed that homosexual was a result of nature, rather than nurture (Dobbens & Woods).
Dobbens reasoned that most parents would not raise their children to be homosexual; “They’re not like ‘My child’s going to be gay!”’
“They’re not like ‘My child’s going to be gay!”’
‘My child’s going to be gay!”’
(Dobbens).
Dobbens believes that he was born homosexual.
When why he was a homosexual, he explained “It’s just the way you are, you can’t explain it, I was just born that way, it’s like asking how the world was made – no one really knows” (Dobbens).
“It’s just the way you are, you can’t explain it, I was just born that way, it’s like asking how the world was made – no one really knows”
He went on to explain that while his nurture did not impact his sexual orientation, it did affect his view of it.
When discussing the role of parents and upbringing in a child’s sexuality, he commented “They can bring you up [to be] open minded to [homosexuality], but they don’t bring you up [to be a homosexual]… I grew up in a place where [homosexuality is accepted], so that’s why I’m so open about being gay; I accept myself… [Whether or not you accept homosexuality and can be honest with yourself if you are homosexual] depends on how you’re brought up” (Dobbens).
“They can bring you up [to be] open minded to [homosexuality], but they don’t bring you up [to be a homosexual]… I grew up in a place where [homosexuality is accepted], so that’s why I’m so open about being gay; I accept myself… [Whether or not you accept homosexuality and can be honest with yourself if you are homosexual] depends on how you’re brought up”
Woods generally agreed with Dobbens, and justified his belief that homosexuality was caused by one’s nature, rather than nurture, when he commented that “there’s nothing in my upbringing that exposed me to anything like [homosexuality]” (Woods).
In fact, Plato even considered love between two members of the same sex to be the only “real and lasting love” and necessary for democracy.
When asked why he was gay, he explained that it is simply “something that I can’t help… embedded in my head; nothing made me do it” (Woods).
He went on to explain that it the same thing as the primitive attraction between males and females, only it was between males and other males.
He added that “nothing happened [to make me homosexual]; it’s always been there.
“nothing happened [to make me homosexual]; it’s always been there. I’ve always been attracted to guys”
I’ve always been attracted to guys” (Woods).
What I find to be extraordinary about Woods’ case is that he remarked how while he has always been sexually attracted go guys, he is romantically attracted to women in the sense that he has always wanted a girlfriend and to be close with other females, etc… but never in a sexual sense.
“always kind of fantasized about getting married [to a female],”
What, exactly, causes homosexuality?
He says that if he married a female with which he shared a strong trust, maybe he could work it out.
“real and lasting love”
“It’s like race. It’s all something you can’t help; it all comes to you… It’s internal, you can’t help it”
It’s all something you can’t help; it all comes to you… It’s internal, you can’t help it” (Woods).
When asked if he thought homosexuality was caused by a gene, he commented that he thought that it was more of an instinct.
He gave the example of birds, which are born with instincts such as knowing how to build a next, or catch their prey.
Woods also thought that maybe it was caused by something in the development of the embryo.
All in all, Woods views homosexuality as “fascinating.”
“fascinating.”
His final thought: “I also believe everyone has at least one homosexual attraction.
“I also believe everyone has at least one homosexual attraction. It’s not black and white [homosexual vs. heterosexual]; it’s a spectrum”
It’s not black and white [homosexual vs. heterosexual]; it’s a spectrum” (Woods).
Yet there are arguments against homosexuality as caused by genetics.
For instance, heterosexual males have an average of five times as many children as homosexual ones, as a female is required to reproduce children, yet homosexuals are, by definition, not sexually attracted to females.
Therefore, from the evolutionary standpoint, homosexuality becomes one of the disadvantageous traits.
Because consequently heterosexual men contribute five times as much genetic information to the next the gene pool, if homosexuality was indeed caused by a gene, it would have died out entirely by now, or at least been reduced immensely in the number of occurrences.
Since neither of these events have yet taken place, it can be concluded that homosexuality is not caused by a gene (Fulkerson).
My findings throughout my research have led me to conclude that there is no definitive answer on what causes homosexuality.
No one knows for sure now (although many think they do), and perhaps no one ever will know the whole truth.
Nonetheless, I am apt to believe that homosexuality is the product of some kind of combination of genetic and environmental causes.
Perhaps one may have a genetic predisposition towards homosexuality that has been passed on from previous generations.
However this does not necessarily determine a homosexual; rather this predisposition must be triggered by environmental factors.
Even Homer wrote about Achilles and Patroclus, who have been considered to be the perfect model of true love (Emond).
This is why Bailey and Pillard found in their study that while they was a greatly elevated chance that two males sharing the same genetic makeup would also share the same sexuality, this was not the case 100 % of the time.
This seems to be the most likely explanation as of now, but even as I write this, new studies are being done.
Perhaps the truth is right around the corner.
Works Cited
APA Online. 2003. American Psychological Association. <http://www.apa.org>. Bailey, J. M., and R. C. Pillard. "A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation." Archives of General Psychiatry 1089-1096 (1991).
Dobbens, James B. Telephone interview. 6 June 2002. Emond, Charles. Mountain Pride Media. June 1999. <http://www.mountainpridemedia.org>.
Some would say it is a gene, passed on from parents to child.
Fulkerson, Richard. Nature and Nurture. 15 Dec. 1999. Iowa State University. <http://www.public.iastate.edu>.
Homosexuality. Ed. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven P, 1993.
Isay, Richard A. Being Homosexual. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989.
Marcus, Eric. Is it a Choice? San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Wikholm, Andrew. gayhistory.com. 1998. <http://www.gayhistory.com>.
Woods, Daniel S. Telephone interview. 6 June 2002.
But it was not until 1869 that the term “homosexual” was first used, to describe “a man or woman whose feelings of sexual attraction are for someone of the same sex” (Marcus 1).
“a man or woman whose feelings of sexual attraction are for someone of the same sex”
(However, for the purposes of this paper, homosexuality will be looked at solely in terms of men).
At this point in time, Karl Maria Kertbeny used the word in a pamphlet which fought to repeal the current antihomosexual laws of Prussia.
Kertbeny derived this word from the Greek word for “same” and the Latin word for “sex,” whereas a heterosexual is a person” whose feelings of sexual attraction are for the opposite sex” (Marcus 1).
“same”
” whose feelings of sexual attraction are for the opposite sex”
Others would argue that it is a result of a child’s upbringing.
It was also in the 1800s when the debate itself over the cause of homosexuality was started by Magnus Hirschfeld, a physician, sex researcher, leading sexologist, homosexual, and founder of the first gay rights movement in Germany, who believed that homosexuality was biological in nature (Marcus 10).
Hirschfeld also founded the Scientific Humanitarian committee, which was mostly homosexual, in 1897.
The committee published many books and other forms of literature, which gave Hirschfeld a great amount of prestige in his field.
He became known as one of the founding fathers of sexology, and furthered this position when he opened the world’s first sexological institute, the institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, in 1919, which was destroyed by the Nazis 15 years later.
The debate over homosexuality has been one of the most long-lasting and controversial ones ever.
Hirschfeld largely supported the Urning theory of Karl Ulrichs, with minor additions; he believed in some hormonal theories as a cause of homosexuality, but this only led to unsuccessful attempts to “cure” homosexuals with the use of hormone injections.
This theory, which defined Urnings as males who turned to other males as sexual partners, was published in twelve pamphlets by Ulrichs, starting in1864.
Perhaps then, it is a combination of some of these?
This, he claimed, made laws such as paragraph 175, a law adopted by King William I throughout the German Kingdoms at the time of their unification which forbade sex between males, and forced criminal penalties upon individuals partaking in such behavior, unfair and unreasonable .
No one knows for sure, and it is possible no one ever will, but that surely does not stop everyone from coming up with their own theories and beliefs on the matter.
A couple thousand years after Plato and Homer, Sigmund Freud still believed homosexuality to be a natural behavior.
“I am… of the firm conviction that homosexuals must not be treated as sick people… Homosexual persons are not sick. They also do not belong in a court of law!”
They also do not belong in a court of law!”
In 1935, he furthered his claims when he wrote a now famous “Letter to an American Mother” of a homosexual, which stated that “Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness… Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals” (qtd. in Isay 3).
“Letter to an American Mother”
“Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness… Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals”
However, the general public of the 1800s and early 1900s, including the medical professionals, regarded homosexuality as a curable mental illness.
Treatments such as castration, hysterectomy, lobotomy, and electroshock therapy were used as attempted cures.
By the mid 1900s, psychotherapy became the most common “cure,” and many homosexuals spent countless hours being analyzed in hopes of changing their sexual preference (Dudley 125).
Dr. Evelyn Hooker, a heterosexual psychologist, conducted a ground-breaking study in the mid 1950s that went along similar reasoning as Freud.
She disagreed with the popular belief at the time that homosexuality was a mental illness, and concluded that there was no significant psychological difference between homosexual and heterosexual men; “gay” men were no more insane than their “straight” counterparts (Marcus 183).
“gay”
Documented homosexuality dates as far back as ancient Greece and other cultures of the time, where it was considered to be a very normal and natural occurrence (Emond).
Fortunately, many prominent psychiatrists also believed that homosexuality was not an illness, and their lobbying, along with the innovative study performed by Hooker, who has been referred to as “the Rosa Parks of the gay movement” convinced the American Psychiatric Association Board of Trustees to vote to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as a mental illness in December of 1973.
Just over a year later, the American Psychological Association also removed homosexuality from their list of mental illnesses (Marcus 11).
The American Psychological Association further reiterated this belief when an overwhelming majority of the Council of Representatives adopted the Resolution on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation in 1997, which publicly chastised those who attempted to “cure” homosexuality by means of various forms of treatment.
“cure”
It stated, rather that homosexuality was merely a difference in the opinion and values of the common person, but must still be respected as an individual orientation, and thus treated as one (Resolution on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation).
Perhaps one of the most famous studies on this topic was concluded in 1991 by Michael Bailey, an assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern University, and Richard Pillard, an associate professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, and found that sexual orientation in males is largely due to genetics.
For two years, these men studied the number of occurrences of homosexuality in both monozygotic, or identical twins (a set of twins coming from the same fertilized egg and thus having identical DNA), and dizygotic, or fraternal twins (a set of twins from too separate zygotes, causing them to have similar DNA, but not any more so than that of two ordinary siblings), in addition to adoptive brothers of gay males (meaning that all of these males would have been raised in the same environment).
In his book The Symposium, Plato wrote “Those who are halves of a man whole pursue males, and being slices, so to speak, of the male, love men throughout their boyhood, and take pleasure in physical contact with men” (qtd. in Isay 11).
In total, 110 pairs of twins (identical and fraternal) and 142 sets of male and their adopted brothers were studied, where at least one of the two had been classified as homosexual, either by self-identification or other means.
“Those who are halves of a man whole pursue males, and being slices, so to speak, of the male, love men throughout their boyhood, and take pleasure in physical contact with men”
Out of the 56 homosexual males who had identical twins, 29, or approximately 52 % of their identical twin brothers were also found to be homosexual, as compared to only 12, or approximately 22 % of the 54 non-identical twins of homosexual males, and 6, or approximately 11 % of the 57 adopted brothers of homosexual males who were unrelated in terms of genetics.
Pretty cool, right?
Google TGI Friday's Fan Woody and it looks pretty good.
But then something not so awesome happened.
All those fans wanted their free burgers and they wanted them now!
TGI Friday's completely lost control of the page and eventually doled out a lot of free burgers.
Now from a short term perspective I'm sure they did ok on the deal.
People came in and ate their food.
But they could have accomplished that with coupons in the mail, the newspaper or by an email list.
But they decided to go the Social Media route.
Now, let's take a look at what the Friday's FanWoody Facebook page looks like today: Whoops!
Oh, the numbers look good, but when you dig a little deeper a different picture emerges.
Apparently Woody and his 900,000+ fans went poof .
How come?
I'm guessing it had something to do with the venom and general anarchy the page had created by buying fans rather than growing them.
A TGI Friday's Facebook page does exist, with roughly a third of the fans they used to have.
TGI Friday's pretty much had to spray Agent Orange on their relationship with 600,000 people.
I think plenty of brands have heard the siren call of Facebook ads.
The ability to target your demo is really terrific, but you're in danger of creating a relationship with fans that ultimately is built on a "what have you done for me lately" foundation.
First, you essentially bought these fans.
You paid Facebook for the right to target them.
Walls filled with off topic conversations at best, vile language and real antipathy for the brand at worst.
Then in the case of TGI Friday's or other brands that offer free product or discount coupons, you are essentially buying them again.
This sets up a pattern where the consumer now expects to be rewarded for being your fan with a tangible item, that is, free stuff.
That's not a bonus item, it's now a standard part of the agreement.
Want me as a fan?
Give me free stuff.
The point of Social Media isn't to distribute coupons and a real fan wants to engage with a brand for a whole host of reasons, often free / discounted product is the least of these reasons.
I'm not saying that special bonuses, or 'surprise and delight' offers aren't ever a good thing.
I think when used properly they can be terrific.
What do I mean by used properly?
As a reward for people who have engaged with the brand in a meaningful way.
Send us a picture of you wearing a brand t-shirt and sure, you've earned a free sandwich.
Recruit some friends and I'm happy to give you all some coupons.
But when fans enter the relationship feeling they are entitled to free samples and you're in trouble.
What happened?
Kathy Sharpe says: April 18, 2010 at 1:02 pm
About time there was some acknowledgement of the true value of fans.
Even if you have 3 million+ fans and they are all well behaved citizens what is the real marketing value?
Wasn't having thousands of fans supposed to be a good thing?
Well, yes and no.
Sure, it's great having several hundred thousands fans.
Facebook Fans: You Get What You Pay For 24 Mar 2010 by Rick
But how did you come to get those fans?
Did you earn them through fantastic customer service, fulfilling the brand promise, providing value to the community in an authentic and passionate voice, or did you run a Facebook ad campaign and hit the broadcast airwaves with a promotion?
Take a look at the Facebook Fan Pages of some brands and what you see is not a pretty picture.
Let's look at   my old favorite , TGI Friday's: If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it's missing.
Get Flash Player from Adobe.
Remember that ad?
Sure, Shaquille O'Neal once said,  "I've won at every level but college and pro," but Shaq was always a larger than life (literally) character who was outgoing and had a great relationship with fans.
"I've won at every level but college and pro,"
That's one of the reasons  Shaq's been a huge hit on Twitter .
I think an appropriate comparison might be Alex Rodriguez.
He's also a very astute individual who understands how to use the media -- and various communication channels -- to his advantage.
By making his announcement in this public way, Lebron has only heaped more pressure on himself.
James now finds himself in the following position:
1. Winning a title is expected immediately wherever he goes
2. Not winning a title will be seen as a massive disappointment
3. Winning a title will result in some saying that he couldn't do it alone
Sounds just like Alex Rodriguez, doesn't it?
I'm no longer the target demographic for most of the products Lebron endorses, but you know what matters to me?
Winning championships.
Not live prime time press conferences, not self-aggrandizing twitter hashtags and not quitting on his teammates during the playoffs.
Let's see what the future holds for Lebron.
We know he'll be rich, but how will he be viewed by fans across the country.
Perhaps Lebron should have hired a  Chief Culture Officer along with his coterie of other advisors.
If I were to fulfill that role for him, I would have told him to go low key with this decision and let it be led by his new team.
He's also managed to surround himself with people who understand business, but I'm starting to wonder if he's lost a bit of understanding of American culture.
Make sure it's clear that the team comes first and that he's looking forward to being part of the team.
That the only thing that matters is winning a championship.
That that was the main factor.
Update:  Lebron chooses the Miami Heat and the similarities to A-Rod continue, with Dwyane Wade playing the role of Derek Jeter.
Update 2: And so it begins...
One Comment
Dan Winkler says: July 9, 2010 at 1:29 am
Heatenfreude?
Lebron didn't play college basketball, he went straight from high school to the pros, and since joining the Cleveland Cavaliers he's won exactly zero NBA champions.
How soon is now? Lebron James Makes His Decision: The A-Rod Route 8 Jul 2010 by Rick
He's a free agent now and tonight he made his decision about which team he's going to play for in a very public manner, with a live announcement on ESPN.
Earlier this week Lebron jumped on Twitter and quickly gained a massive following.
This morning he announced:
Lebron James was of course a trending topic and that hashtag was burning as well.
Lebron James is an extremely talented basketball player.
But I'm starting to wonder if Lebron isn't painting himself into a corner, and has maybe misread how quickly sentiment can change.
Can you imagine the baby seal crying out for fear as a sealer raises his club?
Many of our critics say that you and I who love animals attribute intelligent and sensitive qualities to “stupid, non-feeling” animals.
“stupid, non-feeling”
But our ability to feel the fear and know the pain that animals experience is no “error in judgement” nor “overblown sentimentality”…it is real.
“error in judgement” nor “overblown sentimentality”
The International Fund for Animal Welfare is one of the largest, most effective animal welfare organizations in the world with a special mission to save animals’ lives, prevent cruelty, and protect natural habitat for wildlife to live and enjoy life in harmony with man.
Too, too often, man has not been a good neighbor to animals.
Whether we talk about clubbing baby seals to death for their beautiful pelts, or butchering elephants with hacksaws for their ivory, or trapping animals in steel-jaw leghold traps where the pain is so excruciating they have been known to chew off a leg to escape, we stand guard for all animals.
All animals need a place to “get to” in order to be safe from bullets, cruelty, traps and clubs.
IFAW’ P.O. Box I 93 Yarmouth Port, MA 02615-01 ‘www.lfaw.org IFAW is now launching our year 2001 Animal Sanctuary Fund to provide safe places for animals to live out of the danger tat comes from humans and loss of habitat.
Whether it is to fund additional land for the Addo elephant park in South Africa where 29 calves were born this year or our partnership with Future Generations to save vital habitat for moon bears, bengal tigers and other animals, or our response to move orphaned lions to 500 acres of protected African bush where they will live safely for the rest of their lives… we are committed to the concept of ANIMAL SANCTUARIES.
I’m positive you agree with this most basic, humane approach.
I won’t even ask if you support this program.
but rather, I must ask how much you can afford to support this Animal Sanctuary Fund today?
IFAW ANIMAL SANCTUARY FUND Your donation will help give an animal a safe home!
I do not like to ask for money No one does.
But money gives us the POWER TO PROTECT AND DEFEND THE VOICELESS.
Please take a moment to look over the enclosed 2001 Animal Sanctuary Calendar.
Your gift will help give an animal a safe home.
Be absolutely sure, your donations do save lives.
For 31 years, our name has been associated throughout the world wit saving innocent animals.
Many people know us as the Save the Seals people and we have saved thousands of animals - seals, elephants, cats, dogs, bears, whales.
This new program will be a huge success with your help.
I thought you would enjoy our 2001 Animal Sanctuary Calendar.
Be sure to write me back to let me know your 2001 Calendar has arrived m good order.
Please rush me your generous gift of $100 or $15 today while these endangered animals are on your mind and in your heart.
Animals don’t ask for much of us.
All they need is safe homeland and freedom from pain and fear.
Your donation today could save a life tomorrow
For the animals, Fred ORegan President
PS. Please enjoy the photographs of the animals you are so generously befriending.
And please use the enclosed 2001 Calendar Reply when writing me back.
I’m sure you will want to keep it and prominently display it to enjoy these striking wildlife images.
Don’t you agree that the lion and baby seal are looking right into your eyes?
The mother elephant has a watchful eye on her young calf.
And if you have ever experienced to sight of a diving dolphin, you will be brought instantly back to that exciting moment when turning to our August image.
Prosperity has brought with it a new emphasis on historic preservation.
Dublin excels in packaging its past for the visitor.
You can view artifacts from the Bronze Age, trace the history of the Easter Rising, or revisit Leopold Bloom’s odyssey in Ulysses.
Old buildings are being recycled; for example, the 17th-century Royal Hospital now holds the Museum of Modern Art.
And Dublin, a city large in expectations, is still small enough for the visitor to see most of its sights on foot.
City on the Liffey
The River Liffey flows from west to east through the center of the city to Dublin Bay.
Historically and culturally this north-south distinction has always been significant, and it still is today, with a dose of good-humored rivalry between the two areas.
“ I never go north of the Liffey,”
“ I never go north of the Liffey,” one man remarked.
Farther out, both north and south, are the sweeping curves of the Royal and Grand Canals.
The occasional cry of gulls and unexpected distant vistas will remind you that Dublin is by the sea, and the Wicklow mountains, which hold Dublin closely to the coast, are visible from everywhere.
Dublin is an intimate city, physically small but tightly packed, a perfect place for walking.
College Green, the home of Trinity College, provides a natural focus just south of the O’Connell Street bridge.
Dublin and the Dubliners
To the south and east is St. Stephen’s Green and Georgian Dublin where the national museums are located.
Along the Liffey to the west is Temple Bar, center of nightlife and home to many of Dublin’s cutting-edge artists and artistic endeavors.
Up the hill from Temple Bar are Dublin Castle and Christ Church Cathedral.
It won’t rain on you in Dublin all the time.
The climate here can best be described as “changeable” and yet the sudden shifts from light to dark, sunshine to shower, are part of the city’s magic.
Buildings seem to transform themselves depending on the light; Dublin under a lowering sky is a different place from Dublin in sunshine.
Enjoying Dublin
Joyce, the high priest of literary Modernism, imagined and interpreted Dublin for the world in Ulysses (you’ll see references to it all over).
Beckett and Joyce, among others, had to leave their homeland to understand it —  and to be understood.
The city’s impact on the rock and pop music scene with the likes of U2 and Bob Geldof is well known — there’s even a self-guided tour of their haunts.
Traditional Irish music is also alive and well, especially in the pubs, and there has been a revival of storytelling, poetry reading, and traditional dancing.
And in this city, where literature and theater have historically dominated the scene, visual arts are finally coming into their own with the new Museum of Modern Art and the many galleries that display the work of modern Irish artists.
Prosperity is in the air; the roar of the “Celtic Tiger” can clearly be heard.
And while multinational chains have made inroads, they seem less blatant here than elsewhere.
Many shops, and also hotels and guest houses, have been owned and managed by the same families for years, and theirs is the welcome of traditional Dublin hospitality.
Dublin’s food has undergone a metamorphosis.
There was a time when you might have apologized for it, but no longer.
But this is not the whole picture.
Coffee has replaced the ubiquitous tea — Dublin is now almost as much a coffee city as Vienna or Seattle.
City and Countryside
In a city of such human proportions it is not surprising that parks and gardens abound for recreation and relaxation.
The proverbial hospitality and warm welcome are still here.
Phoenix Park in the northwest is the largest open space, but squares like St. Stephen’s Green are the garden oases of the city.
As capital of Europe’s most explosive economy, Dublin seems to be changing before your very eyes.
On the coast, Sandymount, Dollymount, and Killiney strands are the places to go.
The beautiful Wicklow Mountains, and the Wicklow Mountains National Park provide a more rugged countryside, and the area has breathtaking houses and gardens such as Castletown, Mount Usher, and Powerscourt.
To the north and west are the ancient sites of Ireland: Malahide Castle, the evocative hill of Tara, and the long barrows of Knowth and Newgrange.
This busy, modern European city sits on a thousand years of history — history is present everywhere, from elegant Merrion Square to the bullet holes on the General Post Office.
The DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) runs north and south along the coast.
There are many guided bus tours to sights outside the city, and some are accessible by city bus.
Young at Heart?
Dublin is a young city.
Almost half of Ireland’s population is under twenty-five, and with its universities and professional schools, Dublin also has a large student population.
The universities attract students from all over the world, and this influx helps to make Dublin a busy, buzzing international city.
Religion and respect for parents has not yet gone out of fashion.
And young graduates are not leaving now — multinational corporations and European Union investment mean there are plenty of opportunities for them at home.
Unemployment is at an all-time low.
The Irish are actually beginning to come home.
It’s also a city of the imagination, reinvented and reappraised in the literature of its exiles.
And the old Dublin is with us, too — the irreverent city of wit and charm and that peculiar magic possessed by Ireland and the Irish.
Beijing’s announced policy of maintaining Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability makes sense.
Around the time of the transition there was much speculation about how things would change.
With its vibrant atmosphere and night-and-day activity it is an intoxicating place.
The impression of the visitor today will be that very little has changed.
Establishments are no longer called “Royal,” Queen Elizabeth has vanished from the coinage, and the Union Jack has been replaced by the flag of China and the new Hong Kong flag with its bauhinia flower.
Others are more subtle.
British social customs are still evident in the kind of polite service you get in hotels and in the long lines of people waiting for buses at rush hour.
The British population has decreased; today there are as many American and Australian ex-pats as there are British.
With a population of nearly eight million and a total area of just over 1,095 square km (423 square miles), housing is one of Hong Kong’s perennial nightmares.
Hong Kong is crowded — it has one of the world’s greatest population densities.
To alleviate the problem, the government has become the city’s major landlord with the construction of massive apartment blocks that, though they have every modern facility, average only 9 square m (100 square ft) in size.
Hong Kong and Its People
Whole cities have been created in the New Territories, although the unimaginative architecture of these towns has been criticized.
Of Hong Kong’s population, 98 percent are Chinese.
The Chinese people have been described as hardworking and pragmatic, attitudes that have contributed to Hong Kong’s success.
There are many stories of refugees who arrived with nothing in their pockets, set up a small sidewalk stall, worked diligently until they had their own store, and then expanded it into a modest chain.
But it is also efficient, with one of the best transportation systems anywhere, and for such a crowded place, quiet — you don’t hear voices raised in anger, motorists sitting on their horns, or loud boomboxes.
Old customs are still followed: Fate and luck are taken very seriously, and astrologers and fortune-tellers do a steady business.
Before a skyscraper can be built, a feng shui (see page 68) investigation must take place to ensure that the site and the building will promote health, harmony, and prosperity.
You’ll also notice that gambling is a passion, whether it be cards, mah-jong, the lottery, or the horses.
Hong Kong has two major racetracks as well as an intensive off-track betting system, and on weekends the ferries to Macau are crowded with people on their way to the casinos.
Sightseeing in Hong Kong starts at sea level with the enthralling water traffic — a mix of freighters, ferries, tugs, junks, and yachts.
From Victoria Peak, Hong Kong’s highest point, or from skyscrapers and hotels, they are especially exciting at night when the lights are on.
The business and financial center and the signature soaring architecture are on Hong Kong Island.
Across Victoria Harbor, connected by ferry and the MTR rail line, is the Kowloon peninsula with its hotels, nightlife, and almost non-stop shopping.
Beyond, in the New Territories, are a mixture of high-rise suburban towns, ancient sites and walled villages, country parks, and farms with ducks and fish ponds.
Hong Kong’s other, less developed islands, Lantau, Lamma, and Cheung Chau, provide getaways.
It’s anyone’s guess what may happen in the future, but for now Hong Kong bristles with energy and ambition, and for the visitor, this beautiful city with its contrasts and variety is an exhilarating experience.
Shopping never ends — there’s always another inviting spot just down the street.
You’ll find Hong Kong easy to get around, the people helpful, English spoken everywhere, and food that lives up to its reputation.
Exciting, mysterious, glamorous — these words have described Hong Kong for at least a century.
On 1 July, 1997 the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty as a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.
Which it frequently isn't.
But this post isn't about how melancholy I become when I haven't heard from her by 3 p.m. (which would be midnight over there), because anyone who follows me on Facebook already knows that and because this post concerns Urbino, not my daily descent into emo.
As you probably noticed, my wife is currently on vacation without me -— which is different than a vacation from me, although given how frequently insufferable I am, I could understand the appeal of such—in the le Marche region of Italy, which is immediately south of Tuscany and full of communists.
I've written about Urbino before , but because the wife is providing me with such dazzling photographs of the city, I feel compelled to do so again.
As I noted in that post, Urbino is not a "built" city so much as an "evolved" one.
"built"
(The De Landa seems to have become an unwitting theme of late.)
Of course it was built , but it was built vertically within the city walls, meaning that new buildings were constructed atop existing ones like so: The effect is the sort of architecture one only finds in dreams or representations of them, like the one in the finale of the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , wherein Joss Whedon took advantage of contiguous three-walled film sets to depict Xander Harris moving seamlessly from the upstairs bathroom at Buffy's house:
Into the Initiative's underground bunker: Then, from the bathroom-Initiative across the hall: Into his parent's basement: And into an ice cream truck: Past the the come-hither lesbians: Through the back of the ice cream truck: By means of a passage: That returns him to you guessed it his parents' basement: In which he exits the same door he originally entered it from Buffy's house only to end up in the halls of Sunnydale High and (shortly) an Apocalypse Now parody: The only difference between what Whedon did and Urbino is that you could travel through the side streets of Urbino with a camera and accomplish such feats (minus the Coppola) without needing to cut once .
Because without leaving officially sanctioned lanes of transportation, pedestrians can venture into and through outdoor kitchens, university departments, the central hallway of apartment buildings, and so on.
(This isn't technically true, but it accurately describes how it feels to those unaccustomed to the city's geography.)
"recognize the fingerprints of amateur photographers the world over who think a 'good' photograph is one framed in the most dull and predictable way possible"
'good'
I only mention that because in 2002 I visited the city with the wife and, as you probably guessed, the real point of this post was to indulge in a bit of vicarious vacationing before returning to a stack of ungraded papers that no amount of actual grading seems to have the power to reduce.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
*If it wasn't, even Homer nods?
No, but seriously, if that's not a picture I actually took, it's exactly the sort I relentlessly take, whereas check out the wife's chops above: the woman has an eye .
If she is working, she is not on vacation.
AND this time apart will make you stronger and make you realize marriage is work and you need to put some in or the marriage dies and you are left with an empty hole in your heart.
I know this is over kill, but you need to get out of the funk you are in and grade the papers and finish the course so you can get some down time and catch up on your sleep.
Posted by: alkau | Wednesday, 26 May 2010 at 11:11 AM
have a happy vacation that place looks fascinating I should get a passport
Posted by: happyfeet | Wednesday, 26 May 2010 at 09:57 PM
oh.
Sorry I got confuzzled.
I can't wait to get Alzheimer's so I can watch Buffy again like it was the first time.
Posted by: happyfeet | Saturday, 29 May 2010 at 12:23 PM
The region is poor (though not so much as I thought) and poorly serviced by internet and wifi: there's a router up the hill from her which sometimes provides wifi, but only then into a loft too unbearably hot to occupy during the day.
So the only opportunity I have to talk to her (via Skype) is that last hour in the late evening when the loft cools enough to be habitable—provided, of course, that the wifi strength that evening is strong enough to establish and maintain a connection.
Readers of early versions of the story might have been cheering for the defeat of this demon disguised as a beauty, and would have enjoyed reading the stories for the lurid horror details and later her crushing defeat.
Conversely, the authors of the two stories examined here do not give readers motivation to wish for the death of Madame White Snake, so the pleasure of the narrative - to borrow appropriate phrasing from film theory - comes not from the death of the insubordinate, disruptive force, from watching the transgressions themselves.
In an essay on the femme fatale heroines of film noir, Janey Place argues that the strong behavior of the female characters supersedes the moral lessons supposedly imparted by their morals at the end.
She writes, “the final ‘lesson’ of the myth often fades into the background and we retain the image of the erotic, strong, unrepressed (if destructive) woman.”
“the final ‘lesson’ of the myth often fades into the background and we retain the image of the erotic, strong, unrepressed (if destructive) woman.”
‘lesson’
Early tales of Madame White Snake appeared in China as early as the Song Dynasty, and initially her portrayal was fairly direct, as a villainous demon who drains the life force out of her human husband.
Janey Place, “Women in Film Noir” in Women in Film Noir, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (London: British Film Institute, 2003), 48.
“Women in Film Noir”
In these two stories, the femme fatale Madame White Snake is going to live on in the minds of readers not as the shrunken snake trapped under a pagoda, but the sexy, aggressive woman who took a weaker human man as her lover.
This resistant reading of the text may be too colored by modern viewpoints, since it is impossible to know for certain what readers in the past enjoyed about these stories.
However, consciously or unconsciously, these authors created a female character who fits the characteristics of a feisty heroine.
In fact, Communists in the PRC in the 1970s reclaimed her as a feminist symbol for women who rebel against the patriarchy.
Just as the dangerous femme fatale of noir films has reemerged as a heroine in her own right, rather than the sexy death trap for the male protagonist, so too Lady White Snake should be reclaimed for her sexual assertiveness and life slightly outside the bounds of conventional social expectations.
Lai, Whalen. "From Folklore to Literate Theater: Unpacking "Madame White Snake"." Asian Folklore Studies 51, no. 1 (1992): 52.
"Madame White Snake"
“Pagoda”
Whalen Lai notes, “She was a loving wife, a caring mother, rescuer of her family from the first flood, and, at that point, a general benefactor of man.
She took on the virtues of a traditional Chinese female, particularly forbearance”.
Ibid., 53.
Femme fatale might seem an unusual term to apply to a character from pre-modern Chinese and Japanese literature who may exemplify the virtues of an ideal Confucian wife, since it is primarily associated with film characters, particularly those of the film noir genre.
But this term, which is relatively speaking, a neologism (The earliest uses were around the beginning of the 20th century Oxford English Dictionary, “Femme, ” Oxford University Press, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50083541/50083541se3?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=femme+fatale&first=1&max_to_show=10&hilite=50083541se3 ), is an apt description of the depiction of Madame White Snake and all her incarnations.
“Femme, ”
It refers to a woman who is dangerously attractive, and lures men to their downfall with her sexual attractiveness.
In both incarnations of Madame White snake, the authors depict her as bewitchingly beautiful.
“Lust of the White Serpant”
“disturbed and agitated”
Amanda Bates November 11, 2008 Madame White Snake: East Asian Femme Fatale of Old
“ethereal beauty”
Ueda, Akinari. Ugetsu Monogatari : Tales of Moonlight and Rain : A Complete English Version of the Eighteenth-Century Japanese Collection of Tales of the Supernatural. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1974, 162-164.
Two quintessential novellas, “The Lust of the White Serpant” from Ugetsu Monogatari by the Japanese author Ueda Akinari and “Eternal Prisoner under Thunder Peak Pagoda” a traditional Chinese story, are both relatively complex and demonstrate not only the evolution of the White Snake figure to become a more believable human, but also what aspects may have given her enduring appeal.
In “Eternal Prisoner,” Madame White Snake’s bewitching beauty follows her lover Hsü into his dreams, and the next morning “he was so distracted that he could not concentrate on doing business.”
“Eternal Prisoner,”
“The Lust of the White Serpant”
“Eternal Prisoner under the Thunder Peak Pagoda.”
“Eternal Prisoner under the Thunder Peak Pagoda.” Trans. Diana Yu, in Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau. Traditional Chinese Stories : Themes and Variations. Boston: Zheng & Zui Co, 1986, 358.
Both of these stories align negative connotations with her beauty, suggesting that her sexuality is the cause of their distraction.
In addition to distracting sexuality, the irregular characterization of Madame White Snake might be another trait her character has in common with the archetypical noir femme fatale.
In her essay analyzing the noir film from a feminist perspective, Christine Gledhill writes “Not only is the hero frequently not sure whether the woman is honest or a deceiver, but the heroine’s characterisation is itself fractured so that it is not evident to the audience whether she fills the [femme fatale] stereotype or not”.
“Not only is the hero frequently not sure whether the woman is honest or a deceiver, but the heroine’s characterisation is itself fractured so that it is not evident to the audience whether she fills the [femme fatale] stereotype or not”
Christine Gledhill, “Klute 1: A Contemporary Film Noir and Feminist Criticism,” in Feminism and Film, ed. E. Ann Kaplan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 81.
“Klute 1: A Contemporary Film Noir and Feminist Criticism,”
While both stories each characterize Madame White Snake fairly consistently within their narratives, the uneven characterization in film noir perhaps mirrors the evolution of her character over time: readers may not be sure whether she is a pure villainess or whether she is a good wife who is badly treated by society, because there is evidence of both throughout her legend.
She is a loyal wife to her husband as she has promised, but she also causes him to find trouble with the law and deceives him about her supernatural nature.
The complications in her character serve to undercut the ostensible didactic intent of these stories.
Her husband becomes a monk, and this further implicates Lady White Snake, this time from a Buddhist perspective.
Female beauty is a dangerous thing that ties men to the transitory world and prohibits them from being free from desire and ascending to Nirvana.
Furthermore, Lady White Snake’s lover is far from the ideal man.
He is weak-willed and not particularly useful.
In “Lust,” the priest informs Toyoo “Those creatures took advantage of your fair looks and tempted you.
“Lust,”
“Those creatures took advantage of your fair looks and tempted you. But you, yourself, owing to a lack of courage and spirit, fell victim to their temporary form”
But you, yourself, owing to a lack of courage and spirit, fell victim to their temporary form” Ugetsu Monogatari, 177-178. .
The implications of this are that a stronger, more capable man would not fall for the Lady’s trickery.
But are the morals of these stories entirely sincere?
Instead, both these stories feature many moments where readers have great sympathy for her, despite her depraved sexuality.
Certainly, readers admire her patience and loyalty: “I searched everywhere, and now that at last I’ve found you, I’m very happy,” Ibid.,173. she gushes to him in “Lust.”
“I searched everywhere, and now that at last I’ve found you, I’m very happy,”
“Lust.”
Readers must also acknowledge that her human lover is breaking his promise to her when he leaves her.
She pleads with him, “We have a love bond between us, as constant as the T’ai Mountains and the Eastern Sea, and we must live and die together.
“We have a love bond between us, as constant as the T’ai Mountains and the Eastern Sea, and we must live and die together. Please, since we are already married, take me back, and let’s stay together the rest of our lives. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
While both these stories are ostensibly morality tales about the dangerous beauty of this femme fatale, the true source of pleasure from these narratives is the femme fatale’s transgressive behavior, not her eventual punishment for it.
Please, since we are already married, take me back, and let’s stay together the rest of our lives.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“Eternal Prisoner,” 369.
In another traditional vernacular story, “Tsu Shih-Niang Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger, “Tu Shih-Niang Sinks the Jew Box in Anger,” trans, Richard M. W. Ho, in Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau. Traditional Chinese Stories : Themes and Variations. Boston: Zheng & Zui Co, 1986, 358. ” the male protagonist breaks a promise he made to his concubine lover, and suffers for it, suggesting that traditionally, loyalty and keeping ones word was valued on the man’s part as well as a woman’s.
“Tsu Shih-Niang Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger, “Tu Shih-Niang Sinks the Jew Box in Anger,” trans, Richard M. W. Ho, in Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau. Traditional Chinese Stories : Themes and Variations. Boston: Zheng & Zui Co, 1986, 358. ”
So her husband’s failure to follow through on his end of the bargain, completely forgetting the love he once had for her, makes readers more sympathetic to Madame White Snake’s plight.
However, no matter how much sympathy Madame White Snake may gather from readers, the story still ends with her trapped under the pagoda.
These stories draw from the long tradition of supernatural and ghost stories, which usually end with the demon destroyed or at least subdued.
In the initial versions of this story Madame White Snake harmed her human lover, so her entrapment under a pagoda by a Taoist monk or later, a Buddhist monk Lai, 53. would have been a satisfying ending.
While you are under no obligation for these small tokens of appreciation, we do hope that they will remind you to do your part in our conservation effort on behalf of all wildlife and wild places by... accepting this special invitation to join National Wildlife Federation as our newest member.
I’m sure you’ve heard of us either directly or by our publications and activities.
We are one of America’s largest and most successful conservation and education groups.
Ever hear of Ranger Rick the famous children’s wildlife magazine?
Dear Friend of Wildlife,
That’s us!
Ranger Rick is just one of our many wildlife publications.
We also publish Your Big Backyard and Wild Animal Baby.
And we’re famous for distributing the one magazine in America that’s been called “the world’s most beautiful nature magazine,” the award-winning NATIONAL WILDLIFE.
“the world’s most beautiful nature magazine,”
I hope you will be pleasantly surprised -- and delighted -- with the enclosed National Wildlife Wrapping Paper Collection and matching gift tags.
As a member you’ll play a role in educating millions of Americans — young and old alike — through these outstanding wildlife publications and many other related activities such as distributing Wildlife Week materials to millions of American schoolchildren each year.
(over, please...)
For more than 60 years, caring and concerned wildlife lovers like yourself have supported our mission to educate, inspire and assist individuals and organizations to conserve wildlife and other natural resources and to protect the earth’s environment in order to achieve a peaceful, equitable and sustainable future.
That’s what it’s all about securing a place for wildlife in the modern world.
Besides having the satisfaction of knowing that you are doing your part to help save our wildlife heritage, you will also receive some outstanding benefits of membership including: A one-year subscription to our beautiful full color magazine, NATIONAL WILDLIFE.
Through the colorful pages of NATIONAL WILDLIFE you will be fascinated by exquisite photography from some of the best nature photographers in the world.
Our magazine is a great way to stay informed on the current issues affecting wildlife and see what NWF is doing to find solutions to these problems.
And you’ll enjoy a series of insightful stories on a variety of wildlife species stories that can’t be found anywhere else!
They are our gift to you to keep and use on your holiday packages in thanks for considering this important appeal for wildlife.
As an added welcome gift, we will send you an exclusive NWF tote bag.
When you use it in place of plastic bags you help conserve our natural resources.
The tote bag is made of a strong, cotton material and has plenty of room, including a handy sewn-in pocket.
And it’s a great way to show your commitment to conservation every day.
We are constantly working in every part of the country to save those species and special places that are in all of our minds.
Working to improve the water quality and water flow in the Florida Everglades so magnificent creatures like the gentle manatee can survive.
Reintroducing the grizzly bear into the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness area of Idaho and Montana.
Your gift is needed now to support these critical projects and so many others.
Despite our many victories, we still have far to go to ensure a healthy future for the wildlife and wild places of this nation.
So, please take a moment right now and become a member of NWF with a gift of only $15 or more.
The wrapping paper and matching gift cards feature delightful holiday wildlife images that will come in handy for wrapping your last minute presents.
Appreciatively, Tom McGuire Vice President, Membership Programs
P.S. Please use the enclosed holiday gift wrapping paper and gift tags to help spread the word about our mission of conservation to your friends and family.
Don’t forget, we will also send you the NWF tote bag with your welcome package when we receive your membership gift.
Thank you!
These images will be cheerful reminders to you and your gift recipients of all the wildlife treasures we value.
During this holiday season, we must not forget the wildlife species that depend on us for their survival.
When you use the attractive wrapping paper and gift tags, you will be helping us spread the word about saving America’s wildlife treasures and their habitat.
In Ochoa, 30, the Angels get an experienced major-league outfielder who is hitting .256 with six homers and 21 RBI this season.
Ochoa has played in the majors for five different teams starting in 1995.
His best season came in 2000 with the Reds, when he hit .316 with 13 homers and 56 RBI.
ANGELS MAKE TRADE TO GET OUTFIELD DEPTH
Going into this season, he was a career .281 hitter.
"He gives you a lot in all areas,"
"He gives you a lot in all areas," Angels general manager Bill Stoneman said.
"He's a good defender, he has a good arm, he plays the tough right-field position and plays it well.
He's a right-handed bat, which complements Palmeiro off the bench.
"From a realistic standpoint, were we going to find an outfielder that pushed one of our outfielders to the bench?
He accepts his role with a club and he's a team guy.
He's got that reputation and that's important to us, especially a club like ours that is an egoless club."
Ochoa will join the club today in Anaheim before tonight's game against the Yankees.
He said he's fine with his role as a reserve outfielder and pinch hitter.
"I've done that a lot in my career,"
"I've done that a lot in my career," Ochoa said during a conference call.
"Coming in, they've got three great outfielders. I knew that from the get-go."
Ochoa's new teammates were generally pleased with the move, even if it wasn't a blockbuster.
"It's not the big, earth-shattering stuff,"
"It's not the big, earth-shattering stuff," right fielder Tim Salmon said.
"But we didn't need something earth-shattering right now.
It didn't seem like we had a lot of holes to fill.
It's good, it gives us something we didn't have and we didn't lose much."
--It's because of Molina: The Angels felt they could part with Fabregas because of the play of catcher Jose Molina.
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The Anaheim Angels got help where they felt they needed it most, agreeing to trade for Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Alex Ochoa only hours before Wednesday's nonwaiver trading deadline.
Molina spent all season at Triple-A Salt Lake before joining the major-league club July 17 to replace his injured brother, Bengie.
Bengie is expected to be activated from the disabled list today, giving the Angels both Molina brothers on the active major-league roster for the first time.
"I feel bad for Jorge, he's a good friend of mine," Bengie said.
"But they liked the way (Jose) has played and they're giving him a chance.
I'm very excited we'll be on the same team for a while."
Jose went into Wednesday's game hitting .304 and had thrown out 33 percent (two of six) of baserunners trying to steal.
Angels pitchers had a 3.33 ERA with Jose catching, better even than Bengie's 3.69.
"I just hope they keep me here,"
"I just hope they keep me here," Jose said.
Ochoa took Fabregas' spot in the roster, but the Angels will have to clear another spot today to make room for Bengie.
Infielder Jose Nieves is likely to be sent down, but since he is out of options, he would have to clear waivers before he could join Triple-A Salt Lake.
--Not expected: Fabregas, who hit .193 with no homers and eight RBI in 35 games with the Angels this season, said he was "surprised and shocked" to get traded from a pennant contender to a team 22 games out in the NL Central.
"I understand baseball moves, I've been through this before,"
"I understand baseball moves, I've been through this before," said Fabregas, who is headed for his eighth major-league team.
"Obviously I'm disappointed to go from a team playing for first place to a team that isn't contending.
"I felt like I was a big part of the team. I went through the struggles last year and I wanted to be a part of it in the good times."
In addition to Ochoa, the Angels got minor-league catcher Sal Fasano.
In return, the Brewers got backup catcher Jorge Fabregas and two players to be named later.
In the past week, the Angels deemed outfield depth their biggest need, above adding a reliever to the bullpen.
The Russian team of Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze narrowly won the gold medal over the Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, who were later awarded a duplicate gold medal because of the ensuing judging controversy.
OLYMPIC JUDGING SCANDAL DEEPENS WITH ARREST OF RUSSIAN CRIME FIGURE
The French ice dancers, Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, later won the gold over a Russian team.
The complaint casts the Salt Lake City figure skating scandal in a more serious light than the cronyism and vote-swapping that have tainted the increasingly troubled sport.
Over the past four years, four judges have been suspended, including a Ukrainian who was taped by a Canadian judge detailing the order of finish for the ice dancers before the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.
If convicted of the charges against him -- conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit bribery, both felonies _ Tokhtakhounov faces maximum prison time of 10 years and a fine of $500,000 or more.
The United States is seeking his extradition from Italy.
The Italian authorities provided the FBI with information from wiretaps of Tokhtakhounov's home telephone, part of an investigation into his criminal activities.
The FBI said explicit conversations about the scheme had been recorded between Tokhtakhounov and his conspirators, and between him and Anissina, who was born in Russia and skated for France, and her mother.
The FBI cited a vivid conversation with Anissina's mother in which Tokhtakhounov assured her that even if her daughter "falls, we will make sure she is No. 1."
"falls, we will make sure she is No. 1."
After the Winter Olympics, a French judge, Marie-Reine Le Gougne, was suspended by the International Skating Union for not reporting pressure she said was put on her by Didier Gailhaguet, president of the French Skating Federation, to vote for the Russian pairs team.
The ISU later suspended Le Gougne and Gailhaguet for three years.
The federal complaint did not describe the possibility of a wider conspiracy or any contact between Tokhtakhounov, or his unnamed co-conspirators, with Le Gougne.
A Russian accused of being in organized crime was arrested in Italy on Wednesday on an American complaint that he conspired to fix the pairs figure skating and ice dancing competitions at the recent Salt Lake Winter Olympics, which were dominated by the sport's judging scandals.
"We have alleged no connection between this man with any officials other than with Russian federation officials,"
"We have alleged no connection between this man with any officials other than with Russian federation officials," James B. Comey, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news conference.
He said that Tokhtakhounov "reached out to a co-conspirator, somebody connected to the Russian Skating Federation, who did the legwork for him."
"reached out to a co-conspirator, somebody connected to the Russian Skating Federation, who did the legwork for him."
Maxwell Miller, Le Gougne's lawyer in Salt Lake City, said no evidence of organized crime influence came up in her suspension hearings before the ISU "I think this situation vindicates the argument that we've made all along," he said.
"I think this situation vindicates the argument that we've made all along,"
"She's a scapegoat and a target of a corrupt system and was unfairly singled out."
Tokhtakhounov, whose age was given by Comey as 53 or 62, is a "major figure in international Eurasian organized crime," Comey said.
"major figure in international Eurasian organized crime,"
Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and now a Russian citizen, he is known as Taivanchik, or Little Taiwanese, for his Central Asian ethnic background.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, he has been implicated in arms trading and Russian art smuggling, and in the Russian news media he was accused of complicity in a plot to extort $10 million from the head of a Russian sports foundation.
He appears to have moved to France in 1989, according to news media reports, and is reported to have Israeli citizenship also.
Comey said Tokhtakhounov had three residences in Italy: Forte dei Marmi, Rome and Milan.
The complaint against Tokhtakhounov's traces his contact with figure skating to 2000, when he proposed to Gailhaguet the creation of a professional hockey team in Paris that would provide revenue for the French Skating Federation.
( Gailhaguet and Anissina are not referred to by name in an accompanying FBI agent's affidavit, but by their descriptions their identities are obvious.
)
In return, Gailhaguet told the FBI on Feb. 23 as the Olympics were taking place, Tokhtakhounov asked for Gailhaguet's help in renewing his French visa, which was about to expire.
"Tokhtakhounov's money is bad,"
The federal complaint offers many details of the alleged conspiracy, including excerpts from a transcript of the Italian wiretaps.
On Feb. 5, the Italian wiretaps recorded Tokhtakhounov's request to someone identified as another Russian mobster to get the number of a Russian Skating Federation official.
The second mobster told Tokhtakhounov that the federation official "is close to us -- he is a good guy, he will do it."
"is close to us -- he is a good guy, he will do it."
Tokhtakhounov's action apparently came soon after he said he received a phone call from the mother of the female ice dancer, presumably Anissina.
The Russian, Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who was arrested by the Italian authorities at his resort home in Forte dei Marmi, appeared to have a singular motivation for rigging the competitions: getting a visa to return to France, where he once lived.
A week later, after Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze's pairs victory, the mobsters spoke again.
The second mobster expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the competition and suggested that Tokhtakhounov could call the ice dancer's "mother or the father and tell them everything will be OK"
"mother or the father and tell them everything will be OK"
He appears to be referring to Anissina.
The second mobster added, "Our Sikharulidze fell, the Canadians were 10 times better, and in spite of that the French with their vote gave us first place."
He added: "Everything is going the way you need it."
"Everything is going the way you need it."
They also discussed the coming judging in ice dancing, in which the French and the Italian teams were the favorites.
The second mobster said the French pair had "only three judges," and of the two judges they needed to win the gold medal "one is ours, and the other our friends will give them."
"only three judges,"
"one is ours, and the other our friends will give them."
Their concern for lining up more votes than they thought the Italian ice dancers had may stem from the Italian team's defeat of Anissina and Peizerat in the 2001 world championships.
But they seemed pleased that the Russian pair's victory was achieved with the French judge's vote.
"The French have nothing but the ice dancing,"
"The French have nothing but the ice dancing," the second mobster said.
Again, Tokhtakhounov voiced his need to have his French visa extended, and he said Anissina had tried to help him but Gailhaguet had thwarted her.
"we are going to make"
"an Olympic champion."
On or about March 7, in a conversation between Tokhtakhounov and Anissina, she said she would have won the event without his assistance because the Russian judge did not vote for her and her partner.
She also apologized for not calling to thank him earlier, but that Gailhaguet had forbidden her.
"was involved with the results"
"knows my name very well -- he tried to help me, and later he made stuff up to scare you so you would not connect me to him even more."
The conversations seem to indicate a familiarity between Tokhtakhounov and Anissina.
Tass, the official Russian news agency, reported that Anissina attended a ceremony in 1999 at a Paris hotel honoring Tokhtakhounov for his philanthropy.
The federal prosecutor in Manhattan alleged in a criminal complaint that Tokhtakhounov had conceived and directed a scheme with a second man alleged to be in the Russian mob and a member of the Russian Skating Federation to secure a gold medal for the top Russian pairs skaters and for the top French ice dancers, one of whom is a Russian.
That Russian organized crime may have infiltrated international sport at the Olympics stunned Phyllis Howard, president of the U.S. Figure Skating Association.
"This is a criminal act and it certainly puts things in a different league,"
"This is a criminal act and it certainly puts things in a different league," Howard said.
Lloyd Ward, chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said in a statement, "Competitors from all nations must be assured that they compete on a level playing field."
"Competitors from all nations must be assured that they compete on a level playing field."
It is spending more than $500 million a year on semiconductor research and development.
The factory will produce a wide range of specialized semiconductors used in everything from the largest mainframe computers to cell phones and video-game consoles.
The new plant is part of IBM's push to gain a strong lead in chip-making beyond the personal computer business, where Intel and East Asian chip producers hold the advantage.
"The core of our strategy is to lead in technology and attack the high-performance segments of the market,"
"The core of our strategy is to lead in technology and attack the high-performance segments of the market," said John Kelly, senior vice president in charge of IBM's technology group.
IBM OPENS $2.5 BILLION CHIP PLANT IN UPSTATE NEW YORK
An advantage to having the semiconductor fabricating factory here, Kelly explained, was that it was very close to its research laboratories in nearby Westchester County, N.Y. To stay ahead in advanced chip technology, he said, moving innovations out of the labs and into the factory as fast as possible is crucial.
"What we call the lab-to-fab time should be as close to zero as possible,"
"What we call the lab-to-fab time should be as close to zero as possible," Kelly said.
"If our strategy were anything but to be on the leading edge, we'd have put the plant in Asia."
The new factory, which will begin normal production early next year, will employ about 1,000 people.
In remarks during a ribbon-cutting ceremony here on Wednesday, Gov. George E. Pataki said he expected the facility to generate thousands more jobs in the Hudson Valley area for contractors and suppliers catering to the factory.
He praised IBM for being "a critical partner in our economic development efforts" in New York state.
In a brief speech, Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM's chief executive, emphasized that it was important to make long-term investments despite the current slump in the technology business.
"To play to win in technology, you innovate and you lead,"
But manufacturing technology products is a costly and cyclical business.
In June, IBM announced that it was taking a charge of more than $2 billion against earnings.
EAST FISHKILL, N.Y. -- IBM opened a sprawling and sophisticated semiconductor factory here on Wednesday that cost more than $2.5 billion to build and equip, the largest single capital investment the company has ever made.
But Kelly said the demand for advanced chips, like those produced at IBM's facility in Burlington, Vt., is strong.
"I need more capacity in that end of the market,"
"I need more capacity in that end of the market," he said, "and this is factory is critical to meeting that growing demand."
But industry analysts said the plant should be insulated from a falloff in one or a few segments of the semiconductor market.
"The diversity is the big difference with this plant," said Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering, a research firm.
The 140,000-square-foot plant is a testament to advanced manufacturing technology.
The 300-millimeter silicon wafers -- about the size of a standard pizza -- are shuttled around the facility in enclosed plastic pods, which ride on overhead tracks.
They drop down from wires automatically into machines, sheathed in stainless steel and glass, for each stage of processing and fabrication.
Throughout the 500 processing steps, which typically last 20 days, the wafers are not touched by human hands.
The circuits etched into the chips are less than one thousandth the width of a human hair.
Human operators are there to monitor the systems, catch errors and fine-tune the production process for maximum efficiency.
Because each of the hundreds of processing machines is self-enclosed, and essentially airtight, the uniforms operators wear are less constricting than in the previous generation of chip plants, which looked like space suits.
The operators at the East Fishkill factory wear light nylon uniforms, light blue shoe coverings and translucent hair nets made of paper.
They look more like workers in a bakery.
Yes, said Richard Brilla, director of the new facility, "but the donuts are a lot more costly here."
"but the donuts are a lot more costly here."
Each wafer, holding hundreds of chips, is worth $6,000 to $10,000 apiece, depending on what insulation, circuitry and materials are used.
The factory, which opens as the computer chip business is in a slump, is a costly and risky move for IBM.
But it is also an expression of confidence by the company that it can remain a technology leader in the highly competitive global semiconductor industry, and a commitment that the best place to execute that strategy is in upstate New York.
IBM is an exception among computer makers in that it still invests heavily in research to advance the design, manufacture and materials used in semiconductor chips.
Just another wild and crazy guy.
Date with destiny: After Vanderbilt opens with Georgia Tech, the Commodores will play host to Furman, which is Johnson's former team and a Division I-AA powerhouse.
Did he consider trying to cancel?
"Let me just say that three years ago when we scheduled that game, I was feeling pretty good about it," Johnson said.
Vandy has big plans
"They're seasoned, they know how to win and we're going to have to deal with that.
Heavy duty:
Auburn football players are reminded of last year's losses every time they go into the weight room.
"We see that crimson (from the Alabama loss) every day,"
"and that's a big motivational factor for us.
"But I think we've moved past last season.
And to play well this season, we have to let last season go."
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Since he took the head coaching job at bottom-dwelling Vanderbilt, the question Bobby Johnson is asked most often is not, "Why will things be different under you?"
Mirror image: Ole Miss coach David Cutcliffe said that tempo is the only difference between quarterback Eli Manning and his brother Peyton, who played for Cutcliffe at Tennessee.
"Every quarterback has a different rhythm,"
"Every quarterback has a different rhythm," Cutcliffe said.
"Outside of that, he looks like a clone to me."
Now that Eli has put on about 15 pounds and weighs about 220, his size is closer to Peyton's.
"Peyton came to practice this spring,"
"and he said he felt like he was having an out-of-body experience."
Poster boy:
Rex Grossman will be the subject of a Heisman Trophy campaign.
He was the runner-up last year as a sophomore.
Grossman said the Heisman hoopla "didn't affect me last year, and I don't think it'll affect me this year."
"didn't affect me last year, and I don't think it'll affect me this year."
But he said promotional material such as posters and CD-ROMs can be "embarrassing."
"embarrassing."
"It gets a little fake when you have billboards and a campaign,"
"It gets a little fake when you have billboards and a campaign," he said.
"It gets away from football.
"It gets away from football. You're a focal point, and people are looking at you, but it's a team game, and you depend on your team 1,000 times more than that billboard to get you the Heisman."
Hurricane force: A change in the rules and a fluke in the calendar this season allows colleges to play 12 regular-season games.
Of all the 12th games added to the schedule, Florida's might be the most daunting: Miami on Sept. 7 after the Gators open up with Alabama-Birmingham.
"Why will things be different under you?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"What do you want me to say?" first-year Florida coach Ron Zook said with a note of exasperation.
"The people of Miami and the people of the University of Florida wanted us to have it for a long time, but it wasn't going to happen with the 11-game format."
Although he said the Gators will be excited to play the Hurricanes, "I don't want to talk about that game," Zook said.
"I don't want to talk about that game,"
"If you look down the road too far, you get your feet cut out from under you."
"The most-asked question is, `Do you know you look like Steve Martin?' "
"The most-asked question is, `Do you know you look like Steve Martin?' " Johnson said to the assembled writers at SEC Kickoff 2002.
Karen Rosen writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
So -- does he?
"Yeah, I do,"
"Yeah, I do," said Johnson, who has a full head of gray hair in common with the comedian-turned-playwright.
"I was stopped in San Francisco one time by a Japanese tour bus.
I swear.
They all thought I was Steve Martin.
They jumped out and said, `Hollywood, Hollywood.'
I got my picture taken with them and signed a few Steve Martin autographs."
Johnson will be signing plenty of autographs with his own name if he reaches his goal this year.
Right now, some particularly nice ones are in Bay Area farmers' markets.
As it ripens, it gets progressively more bitter due to the quinine it contains.
USES Bitter melons are used in many Asian cuisines, most prominently Indian, Chinese and Vietnamese.
Generally, they are halved lengthwise, the seeds and fibrous pulp removed and the flesh sliced into crescents.
CHRON EDITORS NOTE: Each week, The Chronicle offers readers a look at the more unusual fruits, vegetables and herbs of each season and how to use them.
They are frequently blanched or salted and left to macerate for up to an hour, then rinsed and patted dry to tame the bitterness.
Chinese hot-and-sour soup made with egg white and crabmeat often includes bitter melon.
It also appears in stir-frys, especially those based on pork.
Black bean sauce is a favorite seasoning.
When pickled, bitter melon makes a savory condiment.
In Vietnam, bitter melon halves are stuffed with meat mixtures, such as ground pork with black mushrooms and cellophane noodles, then braised.
Colin Spencer's "Vegetable Book" details an intriguing Indian chapati in which bitter melon, seeds left intact, is sliced, parboiled, then mixed with lightly fried garlic and Indian spices, flour and yogurt.
The mixture is fried like a thick pancake and served, sliced, with rice, naan and other curries.
THE PRODUCE BIN: Bitter melon
SAN FRANCISCO -- A staple of Chinese and Indian cooking, these gourds (botanically, Momordica charantia) with skin like toads grow on climbing vines that can reach 12 feet.
The Chinese and Indian varieties differ little in taste.
Though they resemble squashes, they are natives to Asia, rather than the Americas, but are now cultivated in many regions of the world that boast moderate to warm climates.
Hmong farmers grow them in California's Central Valley, and Mexico has a substantial crop.
SEASON Bitter melons can be found in Asian and specialty produce markets primarily from spring through late fall.
Friday to Sunday, the action moves to Napa, with both members-only and public events at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, of which she is an honorary board member.
The schedule Child and her assistant of 14 years, former pastry chef Stephanie Hersh, have laid out is not exactly a senior-citizen routine, even though Child has always been candid about her age and realistic in assessing her own capabilities.
Grande dame of cooking still going strong at 90: Julia Child celebrates in San Francisco
When the Pasadena native moved back to California from her long-time home in the Boston area last year, she also made the move from a condominium she and her late husband, Paul, had purchased many years ago to a progressive retirement home.
She is in the most active of the four levels available, but should the need arise, she can move on to assisted living facilities within the same complex.
"Julia," explains Hersh, "made these retirement plans many years ago.
She thinks it's selfish for people not to make arrangements for their old age in good time."
But so far, age has been kind to the ebullient Child.
In a phone interview a couple of weeks ago, she reported with glee that surgery early this month to remove a small cyst on her spinal cord had "miraculously" cleared up recent problems in walking: "Turned out there is nothing wrong with my legs at all."
So she can once again go shopping, buying whatever seems best on any given day.
Though she had a "nice" kitchen installed in her new home, Child said it's like a ship's galley -- a far cry from the huge, three-pantry kitchen Paul Child designed for their house in Cambridge.
That may well be the best-known kitchen in America, since it became the site of the "French Chef" television programs, which started airing in 1962.
"Back there, we always ate in the kitchen," Child reminisced, "I cannot do that here."
That means her entertaining has been curtailed, even though she still has an active social life with the many friends the Childs made during 22 winters spent in Santa Barbara.
She will have reunions of sorts with her famous kitchen in the next few weeks.
How does it feel to turn 90 and have attained the status of an icon, a living legend?
One of its Peg-Board walls was dismantled and reinstalled at COPIA; the rest went to Washington, D.C., and the Behring Center of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.
(all CQ) Hersh recalls the museum staff's approach to preserving the famous kitchen as awesome: They cataloged and photographed everything, from stove to windows, blinds to drawer contents.
As reinstalled in Washington, the kitchen should be as we all remember it from countless TV shows, "right down to the toothpicks."
Child will go to the capital for the debut of the exhibit right after the Maine birthday bash.
To see her kitchen -- and by extension, herself -- enshrined in the Smithsonian, she said, "will be an odd feeling" and no doubt bring back memories.
But Child is not one to get maudlin about the past, though she does want to keep it alive.
She's already got her next project picked out: A memoir of her and Paul's life in the diplomatic service with his professional photographs and some of her collected recipes.
It will undoubtedly retell how the seeds of her culinary career were sown: Fresh off the boat on their way to Paris and Paul Child's new posting (they had met in Sri Lanka during World War II), they stopped for lunch in Rouen.
That lunch lit a spark that made Julia decide to take classes at the Cordon Bleu, which in turn led to her friendship and collaboration with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, co-authors of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," and, ultimately, to America's culinary revolution.
How to feed a legend
So what do you prepare when asked to cook a birthday dinner for America's most famous culinary personality?
Some of the country's top chefs will answer that question Thursday at the 20 dinners nationwide that will celebrate Julia Child's approaching 90th birthday.
The question may be most acute for three San Francisco chefs preparing the long sold-out dinner at Fifth Floor restaurant, because the honoree herself plans to be there.
They are the host restaurant's executive chef, Laurent Gras; his counterpart at Masa's, Ron Siegel, and Masa pastry chef Keith Jeanminette.
"It seems she loves soups," said Siegel, "so I am picking up on her vichyssoise.
The show, along with her seminal book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (1961), revolutionized the way America cooks and eats.
But since it's the middle of summer, I am adding fresh corn to it" -- plus a dollop of caviar for good measure.
In the same vein, Gras is tweaking her salade nicoise, and Jeanminette is adapting her mousse au chocolat to become a spectacular six-layer pecan marjolaine.
He could hardly go wrong.
When Child was asked some years back what she would order for her last meal, she ended the list with "something chocolate for dessert."
Here is the San Francisco chefs' menu:
Corn vichyssoise with caviar
Julia's composed near-nicoise salad
Sonoma duck breast a la Julia Child with crispy pancetta and sweet summer onions and naturally enriched duck sauce
Six-layer pecan marjolaine with Julia's coffee chocolate mousse, cocoa meringue, pecan crust and citrus sorbet
list>
Words of wisdom
She never subscribed to cuisine minceur, cholesterol-free cooking, meat-free meal plans, organic food or any of the other politically correct trends of different times -- and that includes restricted diets, in spades.
Take small helpings
While making light of the difference a day -- or another decade -- makes, Child intends to enjoy her birthday thoroughly.
No seconds
No snacking
Eat a little bit of everything
Drink modest amounts of good wine.
Why we love Julia
It's easy to imagine what Bay Area chefs like Alice Waters or Michael Mina might have to say about Julia Child on her 90th birthday.
But what about Bay Area notables who like to cook but are not connected to a professional kitchen?
Susie Tompkins Buell, socialite and political activist who co-founded the Esprit de Corps fashion company: "When I think of Julia Child I think of the television episode where she's showing you how to make a turkey dinner and the turkey fell on the floor.
It's live and she leans over and picks it up and says, `What the guests don't see won't hurt them.'
You have to be playful and confident about cooking.
She cooks that way, and I cook that way."
Denise Hale, social icon and Liza Minnelli's stepmother: "Julia Child gave to all women one beautiful present: Watching her series you found out you don't have to be perfect."
Francis Ford Coppola, film director: "I think she's a fascinating woman, and I enjoy very much watching her shows with Jacques Pepin."
First, there will be all the public observances, including a sold-out dinner Thursday at San Francisco's tony Fifth Floor restaurant, which -- like dinners that night at 19 other venues across the country -- will benefit the scholarship fund of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (which Child co-founded).
Harry Denton, San Francisco nightclub owner: "My favorite thing about her is her straightforward honesty and that her favorite food is butter.
I love butter, too."
Michael Chabon, author of Pulitzer Prize winner "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay": "All I think of when I think of her now is Dan Akroyd pretending to be her (on Saturday Night Live) and chopping his fingers off and bleeding all over."
The nationwide boycott of Chilean seabass is a potent example of the new activism.
"I have made it a policy of mine never to serve Chilean seabass,"
"I have made it a policy of mine never to serve Chilean seabass," said Billy Hahn, executive chef at Jake's Famous Crawfish, a Portland, Ore., landmark since 1892.
"I refuse to sell it."
Chilean seabass, also known as Patagonian toothfish, came into vogue in the 1990s in U.S. restaurants and fish markets.
RESPONSIBLE SEAFOOD SALES ARE THE CATCH OF THE DAY
With rising demand for the firm, oil-rich fish came pirate fishing fleets eager to cash in on its popularity -- even if it meant skirting catch limits and environmental regulations.
But in some areas, the seabass are being overfished.
That is potentially a problem because Chilean seabass are a long-lived species -- living as long as 50 years -- and reproduce slowly, said Susan Buchanan, a spokeswoman for the federal government's National Marine Fisheries Service.
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The NMFS estimates that in 2000, more than 16,000 tons of Chilean seabass were legally caught from an internationally regulated harvest area in the Antarctic Ocean.
But more than 32,000 tons may have been taken illegally from those same waters, the fisheries service said.
Impatient with regulators, the National Environmental Trust began a boycott campaign in February called "Take a Pass on Chilean Seabass."
The Washington-based conservation group says more than 530 restaurants have signed on.
A number of restaurants not officially part of the National Environmental Trust boycott also have stopped serving Chilean seabass.
And it's not just the white tablecloth crowd.
Red Lobster, with 660 restaurants in the United States and Canada, dropped Chilean seabass from the menu in the past year because of "sustainability" concerns, said Wendy Spirduso, communications director for the Orlando, Fla.-based chain.
"sustainability"
Some retailers also have pulled Chilean seabass.
"We've discontinued selling swordfish, Chilean seabass, orange roughy and marlin,"
"We've discontinued selling swordfish, Chilean seabass, orange roughy and marlin," said Mark Cockcroft, national seafood buyer for Wild Oats Markets, a chain of 103 stores.
"We are also taking a real hard look currently at almost all species of shark, though we haven't made a formal statement about that."
Whole Foods Markets, with 133 stores nationwide, also does not sell Chilean seabass.
All of this comes at a time when Americans are consuming more seafood: 15 to 16 pounds per person each year, compared with 10.3 pounds per person in 1960 and 12.5 pounds in 1980, according to the National Fisheries Institute, an industry association.
At the same time, about half the world's fisheries are being fished to capacity.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that 47 percent to 50 percent of stocks are "fully exploited," meaning that catches have either reached or are close to maximum limits.
Another 15 percent to 18 percent are "overexploited," and 9 percent to 10 percent have been "depleted or are recovering from depletion."
The seafood industry is less than thrilled about this surge of interest in ocean ecosystems from people who are not scientists.
Fisheries management is best left to the experts, said Thor Lassen, president of Ocean Trust, a research and conservation foundation partly financed by the fishing industry.
"It involves very complicated choices that have to do with the biology of species, their life cycles, how they respond to various changes in the oceans, etc."
When there's a boycott, Lassen said, "it's not environmentalists or chefs making the sacrifice, it's coastal communities."
"it's not environmentalists or chefs making the sacrifice, it's coastal communities."
Rod Moore, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, suggests that activists with an agenda are manipulating chefs and retailers.
The conservation groups providing information to chefs and retailers and lists of environmentally appropriate seafoods to consumers are the same groups working to affect fisheries management on the political and regulatory level, Moore said.
That's simply good strategy, said James Leape, deputy director of the conservation program for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in Los Altos, Calif.
They included support for marine reserves and money for fisheries management reform.
"One of the principal concerns of the Packard Foundation is the preservation of natural resources, particularly in the oceans, and one of the greatest threats is overfishing,"
"One of the principal concerns of the Packard Foundation is the preservation of natural resources, particularly in the oceans, and one of the greatest threats is overfishing," Leape said.
(UNDATED) Chefs and seafood retailers are wading into one of the hottest natural resource issues of the day: fisheries management.
The California aquarium also created "Seafood Watch" wallet cards designed to take to restaurants.
More than 600,000 of the cards and seafood guides have been distributed since 2000, said Jennifer Dianto, Seafood Watch program manager at the aquarium.
Chefs and retailers around the country know they must be prepared to deal with customers who arrive with the aquarium's seafood card in hand.
But in a business in which 12-hour shifts are the norm, some chefs worry about their lack of time to stay informed about complicated, rapidly changing fisheries management issues.
Some working chefs say they routinely review conservation group Web sites, government reports and industry sources.
"For me, it's very difficult to be certain that the information which is given to me is real," said Eric Ripert, chef at Le Bernardin, a four-star seafood restaurant in Manhattan.
"I don't know.
I don't have enough information to know, for example, if Chilean seabass is really disappearing or if it's political pressure."
It's no longer unusual for chefs to refuse to serve a species they think to be at risk of extinction or for a retailer to promote seafoods that are abundant and part of a healthy marine ecosystem.
Despite being uncertain of its status, Ripert pulled Chilean seabass.
Le Bernardin's menu also informs diners that the restaurant will not serve swordfish to support efforts "to recover the species."
"to recover the species."
"I don't wish to be a spokesman for any campaign,"
"I do it as somebody who has a conscience and is caring."
(Michelle Cole is a staff writer for The Oregonian of Portland, Ore.
She can be contacted at michellecole(at)news.oregonian.com.)
Most say they're driven by the desire to do right by the environment.
Some also say they must listen to their customers' concerns or risk a consumer backlash.
But powerful groups, including the American Medical Association, oppose the idea and have a surprising source of support: psychologists themselves, some of whom call it a radical experiment and fear that the most likely victim will be the science of psychology.
"I am concerned that nonmedically trained people as legitimate prescribers of drugs will not be accepted by the American public,"
PRESCRIPTION PRIVILEGES MAKE SOME PSYCHOLOGISTS ANXIOUS
The APA has spent more than $1 million to help state psychological associations develop and lobby for such prescription privileges -- or "RxP" -- legislation.
A total of 31 state psychology associations have task forces dedicated to developing and lobbying for prescription-privileges legislation.
The version endorsed by the APA would license doctoral-level psychologists to independently prescribe psychotropic drugs after completing 300 hours of classroom instruction in neuroscience, physiology and pharmacology, followed by four months' supervised treatment of 100 patients.
Critics say that is not nearly enough compared with other prescribers, such as M.D. psychiatrists or nurse practitioners who have at least six years' medical education and clinical experience.
Neither Davison nor most other RxP opponents doubt the efficacy of medications.
Their greatest objection is to the notion of turning psychology into a prescribing profession.
In a field that has struggled long and hard to prove that mind, mood and behavior can be studied empirically, the past decade, Davison says, has seen "exciting developments" that demonstrate the validity of various psychotherapeutic interventions and the psychosocial-behavioral models on which they are based.
"exciting developments"
"The timing is peculiar to abandon psychological science or to convert it to a medical science,"
"The timing is peculiar to abandon psychological science or to convert it to a medical science," explains Elaine M. Heiby of the University of Hawaii, who chairs a committee of the 1,000-member American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology that is concerned about the medicalization of psychology.
(ATTENTION EDITORS: This article is for use by clients of The New York Times Syndicate's SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN NEWS SERVICE.
"Making sure that practicing psychologists are giving patients interventions based on the best available psychological science should be the APA's priority,"
"Making sure that practicing psychologists are giving patients interventions based on the best available psychological science should be the APA's priority," argues Emory University's Scott Lilienfeld, president of the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology (SSCP).
More than any philosophical betrayal of psychology, RxP opponents fear that the movement will undermine the science they love.
Lilienfeld feels that many clinical psychologists already receive inadequate training in fundamentals such as research design and evaluation.
The 300-member SSCP is the only group within the APA to have taken a formal stance against prescription privileges.
The APA has scheduled 30 minutes at its meeting in August for an RxP debate, but its leadership believes it already has an accurate sense of support for its RxP policy.
For information about becoming a client of this service, contact the New York Times Syndicate sales representatives listed at the end of the text.)
"Except for this small vocal minority, we have just not gotten a lot of groundswell against this from members,"
"Except for this small vocal minority, we have just not gotten a lot of groundswell against this from members," says APA president Philip G. Zimbardo of Stanford University.
With prescription privileges now a reality in one state, some RxP opponents concede that it may be too late.
This year four states besides New Mexico -- Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois and Tennessee -- have pending legislation for psychologist prescription privileges.
Over the past decade, 14 state legislatures have considered such laws.
Between 1991 and 1997, a U.S. Department of Defense psychopharmacology demonstration project involving two to four years' training produced 10 military psychologists who can write prescriptions.
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Intending to ease consumer access to mental health care, New Mexico legislators in March passed a law allowing psychologists to prescribe psychotropic medications, such as antidepressants.
What matters, he believes, is that his generation thought the bomb should be dropped.
"We were not bloodthirsty guys," he said.
"We were convinced then, and I still am, that we ended the war a year or two earlier.
And what the casualties would have been, who knows -- but heavy."
"On Tinian, and probably elsewhere, the Seabees were building enormous hospitals while we were there,"
"Those hospitals were not for us.
They were for (an expected invasion of Japan).
And then the casualties were going to be terrible."
Karnes carries the image of hundreds of hospital beds in his mind.
"This is a Silverplate request,"
"This is a Silverplate request," he said.
Denise Gamino writes for the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman.
Silverplate: code word for the historic mission that would end World War II.
Almost 1,800 men were assembled n late 1944 to join the top-secret unit called the 509th Composite Group.
Col. Paul Tibbets, the pilot who would drop the world's first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, was commander of the unit and chose the men.
A mission to end a war
Karnes was Tibbets' adjutant, the man in charge of writing the orders and cajoling the transfer to the unit of servicemen proficient in bombing, mechanics, ordnance, engineering and communications.
Tibbets hated paperwork.
Karnes thought it was a breeze.
They were a wartime match that changed the world.
Japan surrendered within days of the detonation of the atomic bombs that killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and 70,000 in Nagasaki three days later.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Tom Karnes was dialing for destiny, but not everyone wanted to cooperate.
The story of the 509th is a tale of an elite outfit that lived in a bubble of secrecy and endured the taunts of other war-weary U.S. units that resented sharing a small Pacific island with the 509th, which appeared exempt from combat.
Tinian Island was the staging area where the 509th moved after its creation in the desert.
He never even told his story to students in his 40 years of teaching college.
War is hell, he says, and when it was over, he wanted to come home and rejoin his young family and not dwell on it.
He earned a doctorate in history from Stanford University and taught Latin American history at Tulane University and Arizona State University.
Next week marks the 57th anniversary of the atomic bombings.
Karnes sat in his wood-paneled office in a Quonset hut in the middle of the Great Salt Lake Desert, a black telephone to his ear.
Each year on Aug. 6, "I always think of Paul Tibbets and how he handled unbelievable responsibility," Karnes said.
Karnes met Tibbets when the 29-year-old bomber pilot walked into Karnes' office at Wendover Army Air Field on the Utah-Nevada border.
Karnes was the personnel and classification officer.
He was only a captain, but he had been left in charge at Wendover the day Tibbets surprised them by landing a B-29, a new plane no one at Wendover had seen.
He was searching for a remote installation to train bomber crews and support units in total secrecy.
Tibbets instantly liked the isolation and vast size of Wendover and the surrounding Bonneville Salt Flats.
And he immediately liked Karnes, who showed him around the base.
In Karnes, Tibbets found a kindred spirit -- and a handball partner.
Both were smart, disciplined, quiet men who thrived on efficiency, perfection and self-reliance.
Each had skills the other admired.
Tibbets was a decorated, top-gun pilot, but Karnes could wrangle the military rule book as well as Tibbets could fly.
He was tracking down men to join a group so secret he couldn't admit it existed.
"I don't recall ever having to tell Tom to do anything,"
"I don't recall ever having to tell Tom to do anything," Tibbets said in an e-mail this week.
I was very lucky to have Tom.
"
Tibbets quickly returned to Wendover after that first visit to set up his headquarters.
His first order appointed Karnes adjutant for the 509th.
Almost overnight, Wendover became a high-security base filled with off-limit areas covered in barbed wire.
No one was allowed to talk about what they saw or heard, even though most of the 509th had no idea why they were there, except that 15 B-29s were being modified to carry a heavy load.
Karnes and his staff read outgoing mail to make sure no secrets slipped out.
Karnes hated to pry, and skimmed over personal portions of the letters.
On his metal desk were names of military men being ordered into the organization.
Karnes knew the 509th was preparing for a special bombing mission, but he had no idea what kind of bombs were involved.
"I had a friend, the finance officer.
He said that they had split the atom and that we were going to drop an atomic bomb," Karnes said.
"I said, `No."'
A noncommittal "mmm-mm," was the most Karnes could ever get out of Tibbets on matters of the bomb.
"mmm-mm,"
By spring, the 509th prepared to move to Tinian Island, near Guam and Saipan.
That would put the B-29s about 1,500 miles from Japan -- a 13-hour round-trip flight.
Karnes was deluged with orders for inoculations, equipment, transfers and promotions.
He was calling bases all over the United States to line up their transfer to the desert outside Salt Lake City.
Karnes arrived on Tinian on May 18, 1945, as part of an advance team that flew in the five C-54 transport planes of the 509th.
On May 29, 1,200 men arrived on the troopship Cape Victory after a five-week trip from Seattle.
Tinian Island had been captured from Japan, and the Seabees, the construction arm of the Navy, had built two large airfields.
The 509th took North Field and stayed in relative isolation from other B-29 units on the island.
The word spread: "This is it.
"This is it.
This is the big mission."
Karnes and hundreds of other men from the 509th stood along the flight line as Tibbets and the Enola Gay took off at 2:45 a.m. on Aug. 6, a warm, tropical night.
"Where is the authority?"
Three B-29s had gone ahead to check the weather at Hiroshima and two other possible bomb sites.
Two other B-29s left in two-minute intervals after Tibbets so their crews could take photos and drop devices to measure radiation and other effects of the bomb.
Tibbets got the word only an hour from Hiroshima that the city's weather was clear.
Early in the flight, the crew had inserted a plug of uranium into the 9,000-pound bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy.
"
The crew slipped on dark glasses to prepare for the blinding flash of the bomb.
At 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time, the pneumatic bomb-bay doors opened and "Little Boy," equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT, fell out.
The Enola Gay climbed, and Tibbets fought to turn the plane in the air-bending, 155-degree the crews had been practicing off Tinian for months.
He pushed off the dark glasses because he couldn't see to fly.
"Who says this?"
A minute later, the shock wave hit.
The crew was horrified by the purple mushroom cloud that climbed to 10 miles and looked as if it would engulf the Enola Gay.
More shocking was the city of Hiroshima, which was on fire and bubbling like tar.
But he didn't sleep long.
Someone woke him to say Gen. Hap Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forcesin Washington, was on the phone and asking for him.
Each time, Karnes said what he had to: "Call Air Force headquarters if you don't believe me."
Arnold told Karnes, "Tibbets is going to be landing in three to four hours, and I want to give him the Distinguished Service Cross, and it is your job to write up the explanation."
"I had no idea how you wrote up an award.
I'd never written up any award,"
I'd never written up any award," Karnes said.
"So I got all of my sergeants out, and they're all digging through their (books.)"
"Call Air Force headquarters if you don't believe me."
When an unsuspecting Tibbets descended from the Enola Gay on Tinian, he barely managed to palm his pipe as Gen. Carl Spaatz, commander of the Strategic Air Forces, stepped forward to pin the medal on his bomb flight coveralls.
Karnes, like the hundreds of others gathered along the flight line, was jubilant.
He knew the war would soon be over and he would be heading home.
A yearof secrecy and hard work wasover.
Three days later, another B-29 from the 509th bombed Nagasaki.
Five days later, Japan surrendered and World War II was over.
Today, Karnes is frustrated that some of his fellow historians, the ones he calls "revisionists," question the wisdom and morality of the bombings.
“I will help you find your Rachel.
I have to warn you, though, you won’t like what I have to tell you.”
“Tell me anyway.
If she’s in trouble, I want to find her, wherever she is.”
My driver took a deep breath.
As he did, his neck stretched in a strange way and I noticed several thin lines, like wrinkles, running across the sides of his neck.
“Nathan,”
“Nathan,” he began in the way that people speak when they start a long and difficult explanation,
“Rachel met someone last night whom it is best never to meet.
This person, like me, is not a member of traditional society.
You see, Nathan, there is …separate from your society …oh, damn it.
I’ve never had to give this conversation before.
Come on, I have something to show you.”
With that, he made a sharp turn onto a side street that I hadn’t noticed before.
We drove between slummy housing and storefronts so decayed that I couldn’t tell whether they were abandoned.
My driver turned again next to an old warehouse that I might have been in once when Mitch took us to a rave in sophomore year.
In front of a few houses, there were cars parked, but there were almost none on the streets.
I got a strange feeling that we weren’t supposed to be driving here.
“Hey,”
I mean – ”
“Just ignore that,”
“Just ignore that,” he told me.
“You’ll be used to the sensation in a moment.”
That just unnerved me more.
As we kept driving, the anxiety grew more pronounced.
My girlfriend Rachel and I would go to the clubs near our school.
I noticed that there were some people on the street, people the same color as the soiled buildings.
He parked and got out.
“Is it really safe to leave the car …”
he was already walking toward the squat, brick-windowed building we were parked next to.
Glancing back at that gleaming glare, I decided that it might be safer to follow the driver than to wait with the car.
I hopped out, ran after him, and reached him just as he was knocking on the door.
Sometimes we'd get word that people were gathering under one of the bridges, and we'd rush down to hit it before the cops broke it up.
Inside, the building opened up.
The ceiling was high and wooden, and I could see part of a DJ’s booth down the hall.
It looked like we were in the back of a nightclub.
Then I looked down and saw what had let us in.
What up?”
The hunchbacked being who let us in held out a scraggly paw for him to slap.
“Nice, my man,” he said as they clasped hands.
“Who’s the freak?”
“This is someone from Ivan’s family.
Did I ever tell you about them?”
“Yeah, one time, man, but you were pretty fucked up.
What’s your problem, kid?”
The hunchbacked man came up to my stomach.
His skin was brown and stretched, like some diseased sapling’s bark.
It pulled back around his fingertips, which bore things that might have been nails or claws.
When he grinned, I saw that his teeth were sharp and small, like a hunting cat’s.
Under matted hair, his eyes had slit pupils.
Nepthys quickly answered for me.
“Girlfriend troubles.
She came down here with someone after a party, and I don’t think it was one of your average pixies.”
“Bummer.
So, what’s the cat look like?”
He turned to me.
Nepthys nodded: “It’s okay, you can trust him.
“It’s okay, you can trust him.
It was easier to talk than to question.
“I …I noticed him from across the room when I was looking around for Rachel.
Boston is a strange place at night.
He was standing right in front of some blue lights, so I couldn’t see him very well, but I noticed the way that the light set off his pale skin.
It almost looked like the light bent around him without actually touching him directly.
He was slim, almost drawn, but he had a kind of … luster to him, I guess.
He wasn’t a person you’d describe with normal adjectives, you know?”
You wouldn't believe half of the shit I've seen, even when I was straight.
They nodded.
“Oh, totally,”
“I get that all the time around here.”
“He was wearing a sort of jacket …maybe blue velvet, I couldn’t tell in the dark, but it had ruffles at the throat, things like that.
He really stood out.
That’s why I couldn’t understand why no-one else remembered him.
I remember that he hardly ever moved, just stared at Rachel.
Even when he talked, he hardly opened his mouth.
I don’t know how he could’ve been heard over the music.”
The two glanced at each other.
asked the hunchback.
“I’ve looked into it a little, and I do think we might be dealing with one of them.
Have you seen anyone like that in your club?”
I can send you to a guy who knows all about them, though.
It was a Friday night.
If this cat’s for real, I bet my friend can tell you everything you need to know.”
“You’re a wonder, Dvorov.
It won’t be long before nightfall.”
“Oh yeah, man.
The hunchback pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled something on it with his fingernail, then handed it to Nepthys.
“Here you go, man.
Good luck!”
“Thanks, Dvorov.
I owe you one.
Let’s go.”
That last one was to me.
I waved goodbye to the hunchback as we left.
Back on the street, I began to see things that I had never looked for until then.
Still in my initial shock, I suddenly noticed qualities of the people that my mind hadn’t registered when we parked.
The yellow of this sky wasn’t just smog: it had a leeching, heavy dimness.
I saw men three feet tall with dusty black skin and eyes that shed yellow light.
A corpulent, batrachian woman walked along with something on a leash that looked like a massive water beetle.
She checked it there in the restaurant.
Leaning from the rough-hewn window of one building on our right was something with long, green hair draped across the seven gangly arms hanging from its windowsill.
Thirty-five thin fingers waved lazily like seaweed.
I noticed when my back hit the wall that I was walking backwards.
“We, and thousands like us, have been living separately as long as there has been a human society,”
“We, and thousands like us, have been living separately as long as there has been a human society,” said my driver.
Her head tilted into the phone as she listened, her pleather purse on her lap, shining jet against the worn black of her snug Dead Can Dance T-shirt.
I noticed that the wrinkles on his neck expanded as he breathed and realized that they were gills.
“We interact with humans, take advantage of them, grant them boons, sometimes even become their friends, but the majority of both societies have little or no interaction.
At this point, we have removed ourselves so fully from quotidian human existence that we are understood to be fictional.
“The only place with any significant interaction between our worlds is on the fringes of yours.
Love-ins, raves, gatherings where society is put on hold and humans open themselves to emotion: that is where entities from this world tend to go when they cross over, and that is where Rachel met someone from this world.
Those of us who live permanently in this world tend to set up in places like this, where the human population is so overwhelming that they won’t be noticed in the right corner, with the right protective spells.”
He took out the hunchback’s directions and glanced at an alley behind us.
We should get started right away.
There’s no time to waste.”
He saw that I wasn’t moving.
Setting an arm on my shoulder, he said, “Nathan, what you see here might be frightening, but those things you saw are people just like you.
They’ll be as surprised to see a human as you are to see men with seven arms.”
“Thanks.
It’s very reassuring that I’ll not only be an outsider but a curiosity.”
“Nathan, you told me five minutes ago that you would do anything to help Rachel.
Well, she’s here and she needs your help.
Now, the more we can do before nightfall, the better.”
“But why are you even helping me?
Until thirty seconds ago, I didn’t believe in magic or any of that kind of …weirdness.”
“Nathan, I told you: my family owes yours a debt.
In this world, one’s word is a promise.
Now, can we get going?”
I caught my breath and forced myself to look him in the eye.
“He says we should meet him tonight, there’s a good one going on in that church that closed down last month.”
“Only if you stop beginning every sentence with my name.”
“You’ve got a deal.
Let’s go.”
As we headed down the sidewalk, I said, “What is your name, anyway?”
“That’s a question you learn not to ask here.
What you may call me is Nepthys.”
Holding Dvorov’s directions, Nepthys took us around the corner of the building into a skinny alleyway.
I started wondering again how reliable my guide’s credentials were.
Walking through an alley with rubbish piles that occasionally skittered from one wall to the other, he did not inspire confidence.
“Just at this corner,”
“Just at this corner,” he said, interrupting my immanent panic attack, “we’re going to stop and turn three times widdersh – er, counterclockwise, then face east.
“we’re going to stop and turn three times widdersh – er, counterclockwise, then face east.
He pointed at the wall to our right.
“Don’t let the sun fool you.
Then I’m going to shed a little blood, but don’t worry, none of yours.”
“Okay, you might feel silly, but just turn three times to your left.
Try to keep in time with me.”
We spun around three times, and then something flashed across Nepthys’ hand and he shook a spray of blood onto the dust.
“I don’t know … it was going to be just us tonight.
The blood flashed into flames as soon as it hit the ground, and I jumped back.
Nepthys walked towards it and pressed his bloody palm against it, opening the door.
“Are you coming?”
We slipped through the door and came out, not inside the building, but on a busy street in a completely different part of town.
The sky, cupping over squat buildings, was less yellow here, and stands were set up everywhere the way I’d picture a market in the Middle East.
I’m not sure I’m up for a night out.”
Nepthys took us immediately to the right, where he led us to a cart filled with herbs.
Spiced air hanging around the cart carried tarragon, rosemary, and scents I couldn’t place.
The thing tending the cart reminded me of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland: it had the same opium-dream wise man quality I’d always given the caterpillar.
I was feeling calm and private that night.
Its arms were thin and long enough to reach any herbs from its cushion in the center of the cart, and with its long, many-shouldered pole of a torso, it rose over our heads even while seated.
Its face was small and wrinkled, with penny-sized smoked glasses balanced on its thin nose.
“Would the gentlemen care to purchase some fine herbs?”
it asked.
“There are no finer to spice a meal, nor purer to mix a potion.
It seemed like tonight’s darkness was small and personal, cupped hands offering a place for two, not the burning, open darkness of a rave.
Please, let yourselves breathe the fine scent of these herbs.”
“We’re not here to browse,”
“We’re not here to browse,” Nepthys told him.
“We’d like to see a man about some garlic.”
“We have many fine cloves of garlic here on the cart, gentle sir.
If – ”
“You know what I mean.
Please, if we could see him, we would be much obliged.
It hissed thoughtfully.
“True, true.
Step behind the cart and enter through the door there, using your left hand to open the door and your right – ”
he looked at me “ – to close it.”
“ – to close it.”
“Thank you.”
Nepthys bowed slightly and we walked behind the cart.
The latch opened under Nepthys’ left hand with a clack!
The door took us to the bottom of a flight of wooden stairs.
At the top was one door.
We entered.
The room held a bed, a bookcase, and a desk with one chair.
Its only light came from a dying candle on the desk whose spark etched shadows in the roughly planked walls.
I smelled matted hair and cedar chips.
He opened one eye when we came in but did not move.
“We’re here for information about a vampire,”
“We’re here for information about a vampire,” said Nepthys.
“Oh, shit!”
I said.
“Sorry, kid.
–Would you do us the kindness of helping us to identify an individual?”
“Wait, Nepthys – you said nothing about vampires.
Are …look, are they as bad as people in my world think they are?”
It’s been over a week, and I want to dance.
“I don’t know.
They’re almost as rare here, and I’ve never heard a reliable story of someone successfully fighting a vampire.”
“Only unsuccessfully, right?”
“No, those people don’t usually leave stories.”
“Oh, thanks, Nepthys, for your confidence-inspiring tales of experience.
So they’re probably worse than we think, okay, that’s great.
Now can you tell me what your master plan of attack will be before we go spinning counterclockwise into an Anne Rice novel?”
Let’s go together, you know you’ll have fun once you get into it.”
Don’t forget, she’s your girlfriend.
Now calm down while I talk to this gentleman.
I can hear your heartbeat from over here.”
It came in through my mother's blood; my Russian grandmother would always tell me stories, bylichkas, of ancestors with the "second sight", stupid mill owners who discovered bags of gold after letting a special fish off their hooks, and dark strangers who used to appear to help or interfere at crucial times.
I shut up and tried to breathe.
Nepthys turned back to the little man on the bed, who had not moved.
“Please, accept our apologies.
As you can see, our situation is of personal importance to the young man.
Now: may we ask you a few questions about an individual we believe to be a vampire?
It would be a great help to us.”
She bit the inside of her bottom lip, looking at me like I was breaking her poor, sweet heart.
The little man drew a few loud breaths that died in the wooden room’s tight air.
Finally, in a pinched rasp, he said, “My information is purely for the purposes of a collector.
“My information is purely for the purposes of a collector.
I do not want to provide help to someone who would do harm.”
If there is any boon that you would have us do in return, we would be glad to do it.”
He continued to lie in place, still breathing heavily.
I tried to keep myself calm.
“I have need of a certain stone that I once possessed.
It would allow me to leave this bed, despite my current illness.
My problem is that it was not made in this realm, but by a human, and only a human may handle it.
If you would fetch me this stone, I would tell you what I can.”
“Of course we will fetch you the stone,”
“Of course we will fetch you the stone,” Nepthys assured him.
“You have our thanks.”
Outside, the thing at the herb cart nodded when we mentioned the stone.
When we reached the street, I expected some sort of temple, or a row of antiquaries, or at least a sleazy, black-market relics merchant.
Instead, it looked like we were in the red-light district: women who probably wanted more than our money eyed us from the alleys.
Nepthys didn’t need to warn me not to speak to them.
“Okay, Rachel.
He took us to the door of a building like a short pagoda that had a sign hanging over it showing a face with hands uplifted, like a saint under G d’s light, and handcuffed.
Let’s go, you’re probably right.”
A large woman, similarly decorated, quickly drifted up to us.
“Good evening, gentlemen,”
“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said.
“May I invite you to have a cup of tea?”
She grinned and gave me a kiss across the table, her lips soft and firm and sticking just enough that she gave the feeling you were really kissing, not just pressing your face into someone else’s.
“No, thank you,”
“No, thank you,” said Nepthys, “we regret that we cannot take up your kind offer.
“we regret that we cannot take up your kind offer. Are you the proprietor of this shop?”
Are you the proprietor of this shop?”
“Yes,”
“Yes,” answered the woman.
“I am Madame Entera, at your service.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Are you?
Well, we don’t get many customers asking about that item.
Please, walk this way.”
She led us past the silks and through an arch decorated with pictures of wooden ships and what looked like African tribesmen.
The next room had mosaics of what could have been Rome, with men in simple tunics working in a vineyard on one wall and men in odd, floppy hats on the other.
After this, we went up a flight of stairs and past a row of doors barred on the outside.
“Excuse me,”
“but may I ask what is kept in these rooms?”
The woman laughed.
“Why, the merchandise, of course,” she said.
Nepthys leaned close to my ear.
“This is a slave shop,”
“This is a slave shop,” he explained quietly.
The woman paused before another door, this one not barred but locked.
As she brought out the key, she said, “We deal mostly in fairly mundane trades, but there are a few customers with more unusual needs and people willing to sell unusual items.
“We deal mostly in fairly mundane trades, but there are a few customers with more unusual needs and people willing to sell unusual items.
We’ve had genies, indentured sorcerers, even golems and the occasional elf.
This is one of the stranger items, though.
It’s been in our collection for several years because only a human can activate it.
If we only had a human on our staff, we could have done so ages ago and sold it off, but we have no such luck.”
She opened the door and took us past several doors marked with odd geometrical designs to another locked room.
“Here it is,” she said.
With a flourish, she opened the door to reveal a room with walls inlaid with lapis and gold wire, intricate patterns like a Czar’s jewelry box crawling down the walls.
In its center, under a spearing, white light, was a golden table draped with a blue velvet cloth, on which lay a gray, plum-sized rock.
“Let’s not get fucked up tonight, though, okay, Rache?
“A marvel, isn’t it?”
she said.
“That such a rock could hold so much magic – it’s a wonder.”
“That it is,”
“That it is,” Nepthys assured her.
“What would convince you to part with it?”
“You wouldn’t give me the human, would you?
No,
No,”
she said, seeing his expression, “that would make the stone rather useless.”
“that would make the stone rather useless.”
Nevertheless, she gave me what I can only describe as an “appraising glance”.
I have never felt so appraised in all my life.
“He looks healthy,”
“He looks healthy,” she said, “how about a pint of his blood?”
“how about a pint of his blood?”
We don’t – ”
“A pint?
Madame, I have his health to consider.”
I have his health to consider.”
“Half a pint, then – and his hair.”
“Well, kid, what do you think?
Remember, this is your quest.
I’m not giving my blood.”
“Sure, babe.
“As if I wanted it,”
“I think it’s a fair deal, considering the return,”
“I think it’s a fair deal, considering the return,” he told me, “but it’s up to you.”
“but it’s up to you.”
Come on, I don’t have to get fucked up every time we go out just to enjoy myself.
I thought about it, then nodded.
“Marvelous!” cried the woman.
She took us downstairs to a small room behind a red silk draping.
There was a wooden chair, where she sat me down and asked me to wait.
Soon, she came back with a lidded ceramic bowl, which she put on the table beside me.
“Roll up your sleeves,”
“Roll up your sleeves,” she told me.
She opened the bowl and carefully, gingerly brought out a fat, dripping leech.
It must have been larger than my finger.
She laid it gently inside the hollow of my left arm.
The cold thing stretched and cast around with its sucker-mouth until it found the soft spot inside my elbow, where it softly sucked on and began to work its way under my skin.
I thought that I could feel a slight itching.
Let’s not waste any more time.”
“They take about a quarter-pint each,” said Madame Entera, drawing out another skinny leech.
“They’re quick, too.
We’ll be done with them before your hair is finished.”
Then she clapped her hands and brought in the barber.
Half an hour later, I left the room pale and bald, running my fingers over my scalp.
She stood up and I followed her out to the street.
At least the barber hadn’t nicked me.
Madame Entera took me back up to the stone’s room, where Nepthys was waiting by the door.
“Be careful you don’t let him touch it until you’re ready to use it,”
“Be careful you don’t let him touch it until you’re ready to use it,” the woman admonished Nepthys as she slipped the stone into a grey cloth pouch and handed it to him.
“Thank you for doing business at our house, and I hope to see you again!”
“Come on,”
“Come on,” said Nepthys, “you could use a drink.”
It was dark enough that I could actually see a few stars through the screen of city light.
“you could use a drink.”
We hit a bar on the next street over.
“Vodka, straight up,”
“Vodka, straight up,” Nepthys told the bartender as we sat down at the counter, “and a Bloody Mary for my friend.
“and a Bloody Mary for my friend.
Make it extra bloody.”
When our drinks came, he poured a dollop of something from an inner pocket into my Bloody Mary.
“That should help,”
“That should help,” he said.
“You could run on empty with a little of that stuff.
It won’t refill your blood supply, but while that’s in your system, you won’t even need blood.”
He grinned at me.
I took about half of the Bloody Mary in one gulp and then ate the celery.
“Okay,”
“Okay,” I said, “now that we’re sitting down, can you explain a little more of what’s going on here?
“now that we’re sitting down, can you explain a little more of what’s going on here?
I mean, what is this place, really?”
He thought about that.
Without hearing the car horns, I could almost taste the air of late March through the street fumes.
This place is just a little of both.
In America, things are still weird after the European conquest.
The natives are still here, but so is everyone else.
The Europeans mostly manifest as something like the underground society of your cities.
We aren’t quite what you’d expect from reading the Grimms.”
“What do you mean?”
“Okay, take elves.”
He caught the bartender’s eye for another shot.
“You figure they’re some Lincoln-green pretty boys who run around in the forest with bows and live forever in halls of glory, right?
Not in America.
Here, they’re the snotty rich who show up in clubs because they like the ‘gritty ambience’ – you have them in your world, too, right?
Except it’s worse here because they have centuries to grow disaffected and flirt with exciting and dangerous elements of society’s lowest rungs.
Some of them actually commit to this society, though.
There’s an amazing DJ who’s an elf.
He has a real ear for it.
When they do decide to do something for real, they’re always the best at it.”
If it was March, that meant that we’d been together almost a year and a half.
He downed the second shot.
It’s exhausting to talk to those people.
One wrong word and you find yourself cursed with infinite earwax or something.
So what else do you want to know, Nathan?”
“I don’t know …hey, what about the nature spirits, things like that?
I mean, where do the dryads fit in a place like this?”
That made me a little sad.
They were always my favorite part of the Greek myths I read in elementary school.
“Well, what about you?
“My parents came over from Russia, just like your family.
My real name is a little more ethnically appropriate, but we don’t toss those around in this place.
It was last February, after the winter break, that we moved in together.
They were spirits of a certain branch of the Volga and the village based around a mill on that tributary.
When the Russian government dammed the river, my parents decided that instead of dying with the river, they would stick with the people of the village they’d protected.
I was born here, and I was lucky enough not to get attached to any particular river.
He took another shot of vodka.
“Shouldn’t you be going light on the vodka?
I mean, we might have a lot of work ahead of us.”
“Are you kidding?
I can drink like a fish, kid.
Now spring was back, under the concrete, and I could smell it even here.
We should get going, though.
Still woozy?”
I nodded.
“A little walking should get the stuff into your system.
Come on, let’s go.”
As we left the bar, I asked to see the rock.
“Why?”
Nepthys asked.
“I’m just curious.
I want to see what a magic stone looks like.
Don’t worry, I’ll be careful not to touch it.”
He thought about it, then handed me the pouch.
I undid the strings and let the pouch sit on my palm so that I could see the stone inside.
It looked like a normal river stone, a gray oval with a white stripe through it.
Suddenly, what looked like a little kid darted out of an alley and almost ran into me.
I almost tripped over him, and the stone went flying out of the pouch.
Nepthys tried to grab it, but, by reflex, I caught it first.
“Isn’t it an amazing night, Rache?
Immediately, I felt it grow warm and knew that I had done something very stupid.
“Nathan,” said Nepthys, “I think that you just did something very stupid.”
“I agree,”
“I agree,” I told him.
The stone was as warm as human flesh now, and there was a sort of glow that might have been light or just the stone’s soft heat, I don’t know.
Even the city feels alive when spring comes.”
Then there was light, a kind of rosy glow, and I felt the stone slip out of my hand to float in the air.
The air around me seemed to still sound, and light came in around the corners of my eyes.
“Do you know what this thing does?”
I shouted, hardly able to hear myself.
Nepthys was saying something that looked like, “I have no idea!”
“I have no idea!”
but I couldn’t hear him.
The light in the corners of my eyes rushed in, converging on the rosy glow around the stone, and for a moment I was blind.
“Taxi!”
There was no sign of the stone.
“I think I understand why we got that stone from a slave shop,”
“I think I understand why we got that stone from a slave shop,” said Nepthys.
She waved down a car and pulled me in.
Her arms and legs were wrapped in white linen up to her wrists and ankles, and soft, white leather boots held her feet.
When she didn’t move, I knelt down and put a hand to her brow.
As soon as I touched her, her eyes opened into mine and she grabbed my wrist.
I couldn’t move.
“Name me,” she said.
I opened my mouth to ask for an explanation, but Nepthys stopped me.
“Don’t name her ‘What did you say?’, okay?
‘What did you say?’
The next thing that comes out of your mouth is probably what she’ll respond to until we figure out how to put her back.”
I was at a loss.
I’d never named anyone before.
I thought back to one time when I’d been thinking about raising a family and remembered that I’d always liked the name –
“Amy.”
Nepthys looked at me incredulously.
“You awaken a magical being of unknown power from an enchanted stone, having purchased her with your own blood from a slave dealer, and you name her ‘Amy’?”
Amy smiled at me and let go of my arm, but not before she brought my fingers to her lips and gave them one soft kiss.
I stood up and Amy stood with me.
“So …back to our garlicky friend?”
“I suppose so,”
“I suppose so,” said Nepthys, “and you’d better pray to whatever god you think will listen that he won’t care we woke her up.”
“and you’d better pray to whatever god you think will listen that he won’t care we woke her up.”
We walked back to the herb stand.
The vendor stared a little at Amy, his arms pausing in midair as he lit the stand’s little lamp, but we walked right around him and up the wooden stairs.
When Nepthys opened the little man’s door, he rolled over and grinned to see us, but when Amy walked in, he blanched.
“What!”
he screamed.
“You idiots!
You woke it up?
“But …but sir,”
“But …but sir,” I said, “are you sure she’s no help to you?”
“are you sure she’s no help to you?”
“Not if you named it already, you ninny, and I’m sure that you have!
I heard the pulse already.
Fools!
Get out of my sight now – unless you know how to put it back?
Now leave, before I call the rats on you.”
We left.
Nepthys shook his hands at me like he wanted to wrap them around my neck.
We slammed against the doorway and I was laughing too, the pulse close enough to shake the doorframe and set up vibrations in my chest, Rachel in my arms because she’d used me to soften her landing.
“do you know how much you’ve set us back?
I thought about Rachel; in the excitement, I had forgotten why we were chasing down vampire experts.
Come on, we’re heading out.”
ome on, we’re heading out.”
He held the door for me and Amy when we reached the bottom of the stairs.
Walking outside, I was shocked to see that it was already dark.
“Night comes quickly here,”
“Didn’t I warn you?”
“Okay,”
“Okay,” he said as we hit the street, “we’re going to see another friend of mine.
“we’re going to see another friend of mine.
First, though, we are getting you a hat.
You look ridiculous with a shaved head.”
At a nearby stand, he grabbed the first hat that would cover my head and might pass back in real Boston.
It was a black baseball cap that read “Dead Can Dance” in gold across the front.
“Dead Can Dance”
Amy liked it, I think.
She still hadn’t spoken since I named her, so I wasn’t sure.
He took us to a squat, long building whose roof bulged up like the ribs of a gutted animal.
The black door opened as we came up to it, and a pale man opened the door.
He was naked, but there was nothing to hide: his body was hairless and completely smooth.
I only say “he” because he didn’t have a hint of femininity.
His eyes were white.
From behind him, I could hear something that sounded like a remix of the Cure’s “A Forest”.
“A Forest”
“I’m here to see Isis.
Tell her that Nepthys is here to see her.”
Nepthys walked straight past him and I tried to keep up, taking Amy’s small hand so that she wouldn’t lag behind.
I shivered as I walked past the pale man’s blank eyes, wondering what they were staring at.
Amy gave my hand a squeeze.
Nepthys lead us down a hallway that matched the building’s façade, a vaulted, ribbed intestine of a hallway, whose black walls looked unsettlingly organic.
We kissed and slipped inside.
Then there was a door, which opened as we approached.
Inside, the space opened into a wide, square chamber mirrored and so dark that it could have been any size.
The old vaulted church was stripped down: there was no cloth on the altar, just a DJ’s toolkit and his beer.
These were incontestably male.
“Nepthys!”
said the woman, slithering up across the furs to sit up.
As she rose, her robes fell open and I realized that, except for what looked like a red silk kimono, she was naked – naked and stunning.
I had an urge to cover Amy’s eyes.
Please, come and sit beside me, and introduce your friends.”
“This man is here in search of his lover, who was stolen from him in the human world,”
“The girl is …surprising,”
“The girl is …surprising,” he concluded.
“And I am Isis,”
“And I am Isis,” said the woman, offering her hand to me.
I took it and, dropping to one knee, gave her fingers a small kiss.
It seemed appropriate.
“It is an honor to meet you, Lady Isis,”
“It is an honor to meet you, Lady Isis,” I said.
She laughed, liquid, alluring, alarming.
“Oh, precious!
He has lovely manners, Nepthys, despite his poor taste in hats.
You may leave out the ‘Lady,’ boy.
I don’t wish to be reminded of how old I actually am.”
A wave to the pale men brought a bottle of red wine and a platter of grapes.
Through the dark, I could see three bolts left in the wall from where they’d taken down the crucifix.
I hope I can start by offering some wine.”
Nepthys poured out wine for three of us.
“May I have a little more of what you gave me before, Nepthys?”
I asked.
“I still feel a little woozy.”
He poured a dollop of the clear liquid into one cup and passed it to me.
The wine’s rich scent had a touch of something chemical that I recognized from the bar, but it filled my mouth and sank into my veins with reassuring warmth.
Isis’ nostrils twitched slightly.
This story might be interesting.
Does it have anything to do with why your head is shaved?”
“It was part of the price for this girl, who was a rock at the time,”
“It was part of the price for this girl, who was a rock at the time,” explained Nepthys.
“I have a feeling that she was worth the trade,”
Amy, still holding my hand, smiled.
“She may be at that,”
“She may be at that,” said Isis, gazing at her.
“That sweet, small nose, and her soft lips – she’d kiss well, I should think, if gently.
A confessional too beaten-up to have been sold was shaking in a way that suggested activity inside, and where the pews had been taken out, a couple hundred people were testifying to the DJ’s moving sermon.
She has good blood under her cheeks.
Amy didn’t blush, and I hoped that she didn’t understand what Isis was saying.
“She would have been worth it,”
“if this fool hadn’t accidentally woken her up before we could give her to our contact.
He was going to give us valuable information for her.”
“Now I understand why you’re here,”
“Now I understand why you’re here,” said Isis.
“You know I wouldn’t come to you if I could get this information another way,”
“You know I wouldn’t come to you if I could get this information another way,” said Nepthys apologetically.
“Mmm,”
I couldn’t tell what the thoughtful look on her face meant.
“I think that the person who stole the girl we’re looking for might be a vampire.
Isis …you know some way to locate the undead, don’t you?”
“I do.
Describe this one to me.
If I know him, I can find him.
If not, you’ll have to bring me something to work with.”
Nepthys looked at me.
Isis set her elbows in the fur and rested her head on her hands while I spoke and tried not to stare at her full, hanging breasts.
When I had told her all that I could remember, she blinked her black lashes and said, “I remember him.”
“You do?”
“That’s amazing!”
I would have sworn to you that he was dead.
He should be.
I hope that you can do a better job than the last lot.”
“All right, then.
Let me see if I can find him.”
Isis closed her eyes and lifted her hands.
A dark glow coalesced around her palms.
Amy leaned forward, looking amazed.
The glow reflected on her pink face, casting a sickly pallor over her heartbeat-strong cheeks.
Tiny drops of blood began to seep out of Isis’ palms as her brow creased.
Her candy lips twisted into a frown.
The dark glow grew stronger and larger, filling the air for about a foot around her hands.
Rachel stepped forward into the crowd while I took a moment to drink in the ceiling’s blue-lit, shadowed vault and the light-catching haze from who-knows-what rising between the DJ and the crowd.
In her palms, the droplets of blood swelled into small pools.
The dark glow began to flicker, and Isis’ frown of concentration became one of worry.
The pools in her hands grew deeper.
Then her fingers tensed and her arms began to shake.
The blood in her palms, still filling up, began to ripple.
Shivers swept through her body, and Nepthys reached out to touch her but I stopped him.
He glanced at me with honest concern, probably the first honest moment he’d shown me: ‘Is she all right?’
‘Is she all right?’
Her hands twitched and a drop of blood shook out, splashing on the crease of her thigh and hanging to one strand of the black hair between her legs.
Isis collapsed on the fur, strings cut.
Now Nepthys lunged forward, took her by the arms.
“Isis, what happened?
She shook her head, rubbing her face into the white fur and murmuring something.
“What did you say?”
asked Nepthys.
She rolled onto her back, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
For the first time, she looked vulnerable.
When she finally spoke, I had to lean close to hear her.
“I found your vampire,”
“I found your vampire,” she said, “but he might know that someone’s looking for him.
“but he might know that someone’s looking for him. He’s taken great pains to keep himself hidden.
He’s taken great pains to keep himself hidden.
You should look for him at Dvorov’s as quickly as you can.”
She turned to me with tired sympathy.
Hurry, though, and you might find him before he leaves.”
A twitch of her fingers summoned her pale servants.
“One of these will lead you out.”
I stood, and one of her servants took me and Amy to the door.
I looked back to see Nepthys whispering something to her.
He stood to go, but she caught his sleeve and pulled him back for a moment.
There was a terrific echo, each beat reverberating inside of the next, and the old stained-glass windows rattled in their frames.
I turned back to the door.
“Come on, Amy,” I said, “he’ll be along soon.”
Nepthys caught up with us after a minute and walked silently to the end of the hall.
When we got there, another pale servant was waiting for us with a box of dark stained wood.
He offered it to Nepthys, who opened the box: on velvet lining, a wooden hammer and two stakes.
“Mountain ash,”
“Mountain ash,” said Nepthys.
“That was very kind of her.”
Closing the box, he paused beside the open door and looked back at me.
“I really hope we find your Rachel,”
“I really hope we find your Rachel,” he said.
“I know a quick way to Dvorov’s,”
“I know a quick way to Dvorov’s,” said Nepthys.
“I bet he’s kicking himself now for not having a way to contact me.”
In a few minutes, we were back to the first door we’d knocked on in this town and Dvorov himself was greeting us.
“Yo, my man Nep!
You got the sucker already?”
“No, but we got a tip that he might be in your club.
Have you seen him?”
“Here, man?
You’re crazy.
“Anyway, long time, man.”
“That’s odd.
On the dance floor, people moved with their eyes closed and their hands in the air.
Do you mind if we check it out anyway?
I have a real feeling that he’s in here somewhere.”
Dvorov glanced over his shoulder, a little nervous.
“I guess, man, but be quick.
We’ll be in and out in a minute.”
“No, he said that his research was purely academic, not for hunters.”
“Bummer.
I guess I probably should’ve known, though.
I mean, he is kinda tight about that stuff.”
“Anyway, this is the dance floor, man.
Good luck.”
Something with too many arms was manning the turntables above the crowd, which looked more impenetrable tonight than ever before.
Then I saw the bar on the other side of the crowd and knew where to start looking.
I danced with Rachel for a while, but then something by the bar seemed to be pulling her eyes.
I tried to slip along the edge of the crowd.
Things with scales and claws kept flailing against me, pressing me into the wall, but I took a breath and kept moving.
My nose filled with a reek of thick sweat.
The music began to build, and a strobe came on.
Somewhere toward the center of the dance floor, I heard a howl that sent bitter winds under my clothing – for a second, I was back with my family in Russia, hiding from the cold.
Then I felt a tug on the back of my shirt and noticed that Amy was following me.
I gathered her under my arm.
Dvorov was somewhere behind me, too, negotiating delicately through his patrons.
Just in front of me, a massive thing slammed into the wall, sending up a cloud of granite dust.
It slumped to the floor and I realized that it was a werewolf.
Its haunches twitched in time to the music.
As it started to rise, a man with thick, scaled skin stretched across rippling muscles leapt on him.
She told me that she was heading for a drink and slipped out of the crowd.
I thought that my odds were better on the dance floor.
Holding Amy in my arms as we ducked between the crush of dancers, I started to wonder if the chances of finding this vampire were even good enough to merit this.
A woman who could have been an elf twitched and jerked beside me, fingers trembling at the torn edges of her clothing.
Then a looming shape to my right fell away, and I saw him in a flash of the strobe, his black eyes staring deadly into the crowd.
The creature blocking my vision moved back, but I had seen all that I needed to see.
A bleeding, eyeless thing shuddered and beat its arms against me, but I ducked around it and toward the bar.
When she hadn’t come back halfway through the next song, I glanced over at the bar.
It was Dvorov.
He pulled my ear down to his mouth.
“You seen enough, man?”
he shouted.
“Yes,”
“Yes,” I called back, “I saw him!
“I saw him!
He’s sitting right there at the bar!”
Dvorov tried to peek through the crowd, but it had shifted again and we couldn’t see a thing.
“I don’t think he’s there,”
“It must have been wishful thinking.”
“No, I saw him!
I have to hurry, too!
Who knows how long he’ll stick around?”
“Listen, man, he’s not there!
I’m telling you, it’s not even worth checking the bar!”
“Don’t do this, kid!
It was just a little set-up where someone had stacked a few crates and brought something alcoholic to share, mostly beer.
It’s a dumb idea.
Even if you did find this vampire cat, he’d tear you apart!
I shook him off and squeezed between two dancing nymphs, getting almost to the edge of the dance floor.
Suddenly, Amy screamed.
I whirled around and threw up my arm just in time to knock Dvorov away.
His eyes were glowing red, and he had bared a set of fangs that could probably take my hand off.
The dancers near us tried to clear some space.
He jumped at my arm while I was still off-balance, and I felt the surge of adrenaline that comes right when your body realizes that it’s too late to save itself.
On the floor was Dvorov’s head, separated from his body by several feet and a growing puddle of dark blood.
Nepthys stood over him with a blue sword in his hand.
It flashed in the strobe where it wasn’t streaked with Dvorov’s blood.
“He wasn’t the only one with a secret or two,”
“He wasn’t the only one with a secret or two,” he said by way of explanation.
“You spotted our boy, didn’t you?
I bet his hide-out is nearby, too.
Let’s hurry.”
Rachel was standing with a plastic cup, looking like she was having a conversation, but I couldn’t see anyone else there.
He wiped off the sword and sheathed it in a scabbard now belted to his hip.
The crowd parted for us.
The vampire glanced up when he saw the crowd split and his eyes flashed when he noticed us.
In a blink of the strobe light, he was on his feet and dashing from the room.
“Come on!”
shouted Nepthys.
We chased after him, Amy keeping up valiantly behind us.
Luckily, the vampire turned off after three stories.
He ran down a hallway and slipped behind one of the doors, but Nepthys was close behind him and left it open for me.
I called out to Amy to shut the door in case the vampire had any friends who might be trying to follow us.
Nepthys urged me on from the back of the room, then made a turn out of sight.
When I came to the door at the end of the room, it looked like it had been torn off its hinges.
I didn’t imagine that Nepthys had done it, and it wasn’t without alarm that I ran after him.
A black hallway opened into a space like a cathedral.
The vault rose into obscurity above me, and a massive rose window stood ahead of me.
The panes looked dyed black, and only a few cold beams slipped through the filter.
Footsteps echoed through the stone chamber, and the sound reflected back to me from everywhere.
When I asked her if she'd ever seen them – before I was old enough to stop believing, I mean – she would always look sad and tell me, "No, not since the family came to America has anything happened to us.
I couldn’t tell how many people were running, much less where they were.
On the steps in front of the altar, I saw pale forms and realized that they were Rachel and two other women.
He stood in front of a blue light, so I couldn’t see him clearly, but what I saw was memorable.
Then I heard Nepthys shout, “Nathan!
“Nathan!
Behind you!”
I whirled and dropped in time to see the vampire shoot over my head, leaping like a panther.
There was Nepthys, on the other side of the pews, holding the wooden box in his hand.
I pulled out the hammer and one of the stakes.
He leapt over the pews, soaring like a grasshopper, and drew a gleaming knife in midair.
I dodged, but he tossed it, and I held the box in front of my face.
The blade lodged in the wood, its silver point penetrating the velvet and nearly reaching my skin.
My arms shook from the force of his throw.
His first move pulled out the dagger, almost wrenching my arms from their sockets as I held on to the box, and the second shattered the box with a crushing punch that sent me reeling backwards.
He wore a jacket of what might have been blue velvet, and his hair gleamed black against his white skin.
I dropped the splinters and the broken second stake and raised my hammer, ready to drive the ash spike into his heart.
Behind him, I saw Nepthys running between the pews.
I braced my legs against the stone floor and he was on me.
I raised the stake; he drew back the dagger for a slash that could doubtless open my neck from throat to spine.
The stake went down, there was a blur, and then my hands were empty and I felt pain under my jaw.
Two points of fire opened in my throat for an instant, then all went numb.
Taste, hearing and touch became a single blur, and I do not know if my eyes were open.
My mind began to dissipate, but then I felt the pain withdraw and a lifeless voice said, “This one’s blood isn’t worth drinking.”
“This one’s blood isn’t worth drinking.”
Hands closed on my neck and I felt my spine crack.
I must have fallen to the floor then.
I could perceive Nepthys’ sword flashing over me, and I heard steel crack, then bone.
The blue haze seemed to stop just shy of his pallor, setting off his striking face without illuminating its details, and his wrists flashed white in the darkness.
I thought I heard Rachel’s voice blearily calling for me.
I was content to let myself drift away, and I had almost forgotten the body lying with broken neck on the cathedral’s hard tiles when I felt a warm touch on its cheek.
A girl’s voice, soft and almost recognizable, spoke, “Nathan.”
“Nathan.”
I felt my head turn and something in my neck reconnected.
Then my eyes opened and Amy handed me the hammer and stake.
I stood and turned toward the altar.
The vampire was walking just steps ahead of me.
I stepped up behind him and raised my hands, which almost seemed to be glowing.
Then the stake came down into his back and one, two, three strikes with the hammer drove it in.
The vampire fell forward and blood began to flow from his mouth.
Behind me, Amy was kneeling beside Nepthys, whose arm and rib cage were knitting back together like a wooden toy that falls apart when its string is released but draws itself together at a slight tug.
I pulled the vial of liquid that he’d been giving me from his pocket and ran to the altar.
Rachel, her clothes torn and her face drawn, looked like she might cry when she saw me.
I pulled her into my arms and she tried to put hers around me.
“My fuckin’ hero,”
“My fuckin’ hero,” she whispered.
She nodded and he took her arm.
I watched them through the crush of dancers as they squeezed along the wall, and the feeling came to me that something was very wrong.
Saturday morning, I woke up and saw that she still hadn’t come home.
I called Mitch and our other friends, hoping that she’d crashed at one of their houses, but I had no luck.
A couple of them remembered seeing her leave, but none of them had seen the thin man with her.
I didn’t know how they could miss such exotic features, even in that distorting light.
Nathan’s Bylichka
I caught a taxi back to the church.
It was still a mess, but everything bigger than a soda can had disappeared.
I walked across what had been the dance floor.
The church was completely different now: sunlight fell through the stained glass, catching dust that still hung in the air and sending a dry, healthy warmth into the edges of the room, through the stone and the powdery concrete that had been covered last night by flesh and flashing lights.
I realized that Rachel had disappeared without leaving a clue and I had no way to do anything but wait for her to show up – which, if she were in a situation where I should be doing something, would probably be never.
Standing in the center of the church, I took out my cell phone and called the police.
“I need to file a missing persons report.
…Rachel Frieze.
Last night, walking on West 2nd street around – maybe eleven or twelve o’clock.
What?
…But, sir, this is an unusual situation.
She didn’t come home last night, none of her friends have seen her.
…Sir, if she’s in any danger, it will probably be too late to help her by that time.
…Yes, sir.
I understand.”
The police wouldn’t file a report for someone who’d been missing overnight.
Walking out of the church, a little gust of cold air caught me by surprise.
A cold front must have hit while I was inside.
Glancing down the street, I realized that I didn’t have a friend to drive me home this time, and it was a long walk back to the streets where taxis ran.
I pulled my T-shirt’s sleeves down my arms as far as they’d go, but I wasn’t ready for cold.
Walking didn’t build up much heat; it just moved the air enough to chill me more.
After I’d walked about a block, a car rolled up behind me.
It slowed down as it neared me and I started to worry.
This wasn’t the best of neighborhoods.
I kept my eyes straight ahead and tried to walk more quickly without showing it.
I heard an automatic window roll down.
“Hey,” said a male voice, “do you need some help?”
I turned around.
The man looked over forty, and he was driving a car I’d be afraid to drive on this street.
“It’s a long way to anywhere worth going,”
he said.
“Would you like some help?”
“Ah, I think I’m fine, thanks,”
“Ah, I think I’m fine, thanks,” I told him, and turned back to the sidewalk.
As I got older, I shook the tales off with a nod and a "Yes, Nana."
“Really, I’d like to help.
Please, hop in.
You don’t look dressed for this weather.”
I glanced back over my shoulder.
“No thanks, sir!
Really, don’t worry about me.”
“Nathan Spencer, I offer you help.
I advise that you not refuse me a third time.”
I stopped and looked back at him, surprised.
He met my eyes coolly.
“How do you know my name?”
“I know your family.
Get in.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, and it’s best to start now.”
"Yes, Nana."
I walked around the car and got into the passenger seat.
Before I had my belt on, we were rolling forward.
“Okay,”
“Okay,” I said.
Now, will you tell me how you know my family, and how you happened to be driving by just now?
I got older and went to school, then to college, and I replaced the dreams my Nana gave me with the music DJs mixed for crowds in clubs, webs of pulse that shook us until we could believe anything.
In fact, why didn’t you call me by name the first time?
And how did you recognize me when – ”
I know your family because an ancestor of mine made a bargain with an ancestor of yours.
I am here now because you called for help, and no-one else would answer.”
He turned onto the next street and shifted up.
Also, international competitors drew on a large supply of very cheap labor.
Jobs were scarce in other steel-exporting countries, and labor laws were either non-existent or allowed employers to pay much less for work.
Labor costs in America continued to go up, draining US companies of their resources, while companies overseas were able to cut labor costs and put that money back into updating and renovating their facilities.
On a worldwide scale, newer materials such as aluminum, plastic, and composites were beginning to substitute steel both at home and abroad.
Steel demand worldwide was beginning to decline, and it affected both domestic and foreign companies.
Since this problem was a national one rather than a local one, the problems that were occurring in Youngstown were not unique.
Youngstown was perhaps hit harder than any other town by the collapse of the steel industry, but it was not alone.
The problem was a national one, involving many more mills and issues than Youngstown’s alone.
J. Philip Richley, a union member and organizer of many attempts to save 5the mills, has summed it up thus: “You just can’t solve a nation-wide problem in a single city.”
“You just can’t solve a nation-wide problem in a single city.”
The decline of the world steel market affected not just Youngstown but the entire steel community in America.
Trying to prop up one city’s mills was impossible when faced with the depression that spread throughout the entire industry.
The Save Our Valley Campaign: Lack of Funds and Plans
As the name suggests, local leaders wanted to instill the people of Youngstown with a fierce sense of urgency, driving them forward to confront steel companies and owners and help secure the future of the region.
The events that would follow this date (known as Black Monday) are seen by the people who witnessed them either as stories of great courage and determination or as monuments to human failure and false hope.
Marches, speeches, and letter writing were all employed to help stimulate the Campaign and rally the people.
But the Campaign was bogged down heavily by the lack of proper funding.
The people of Youngstown, being now unemployed had very little money to spend on anything but staying alive.
College tuition, clothes, food, and heating all had to come before donations to non-profit organizations.
People outside of the area had no personal investment in the mills, and so it was difficult to convince anyone from out of the county to contribute funds.
The lack of money proved to be crippling, because it prevented the organizations involved from purchasing the mills to run collectively.
Without funds, the Save Our Valley Campaign could do nothing major to help salvage the city’s dying economy.
The Save Our Valley Campaign also lacked one essential component: an actual concrete plan.
No one seemed to know just how to go about fixing the problems.
Letters and petitions were all very well, but they did little to improve the situation.
People clung to vague ideas of worker collectivization, but no one could really fathom exactly how that would work; the people of Youngstown were, after all, not particularly familiar with socialism or collectivization in general.
Beyond that, no one knew how they should proceed: everyone knew that saving the mills was important, but nobody stepped forward with a full-fledged plan to do it without losing huge amounts of money and dragging even more people down.
Without funds to drive the efforts, or even a real plan of action, the Save Our Valley Campaign did more harm than good.
In effect, it raised the hopes of workers without having any real chance at saving anything.
People became excited and waited for the mills to reappear, but they never did.
The Campaign failed to save any jobs and Youngstown was plunged into economic chaos.
The Apathy of USWA
Initially many assumed that their union would take a lead role in fighting for the recovery of their jobs.
However, it soon became clear that although the local union leaders were prepared to fight, the international branch was not.
The higher levels of the union became increasingly disassociated with Youngstown and its plight, attempting to shut out the appeals from workers and local union representatives and to ignore what was really happening.
Actually, one main reason for the behavior of the USWA was that union leaders really had no idea what to do.
No one had ever seen a shutdown of this magnitude and rapidity before, and none of the leaders of USWA, not even president Lynn Williams, knew what could be done.
It was clear to everyone that the economic fallout from this series of closings would be one of the worst in US history, and so without any real precedents the union leaders were flustered.
Rather than try and come up with some sort of scenario, the USWA simply ignored what was going on in Youngstown, hoping that perhaps the problem would resolve itself, or at least not spread any further than it already had.
Besides incompetence, the USWA had one other major reason for rejecting their local counterpart: fear of socialism.
Obviously the union itself was not afraid of socialist action, but they worried that the federal government might see the efforts of Youngstown workers to collectivize as a movement towards socialism and perhaps even communism.
If the USWA supported the efforts to revive the mills and encouraged worker control and ownership of the factories, then the government (and potentially other important people and institutions as well) might begin to think that the UWSA leaders were encouraging socialism.
This would mean that UWSA would lose credibility with the American government and its people, something they could not afford to do.
Regionalism
From its very first days the Mahoning Valley has been an area packed with small villages and hamlets.
Petitions, protests, rallies, collectivization, and even the takeover of a steel company’s headquarters were all attempted in a desperate movement by those in the industry to preserve the only source of employment that this town had.
Boardman, Poland Township, Struthers, Lowellville, Warren, Lordstown, Canfield, Niles, and many other towns and districts are crowded around Youngstown (see Figure 3).
However, although traffic is heavy between each separate district, each area has its own distinct cultural ethnicity, educational system, heritage, history, and even food.
For example, Struthers is a poor town with a large Slovak population, where education is generally better than in surrounding towns, but unemployment is much higher and pollution is widespread.
Most people in Struthers are either Orthodox or Baptist.
Two blocks over one finds Boardman, a well-off township with a reputation for rich but unsuccessful schools.
Its residents are mainly Italian and Roman Catholic, with a small concentration of Methodists on the east side.
Unemployment is low in comparison with surrounding towns, and the streets are clean and well kept.
With many more cultures, religions, and economic levels living in close proximity to one another, a curious phenomenon has overtaken the area: regionalism.
Each town, with their own identity, instills a strong regionalistic feeling within their respective populations, which dictates many habits, exchanges, and interactions between populations.
Workers from Poland Township would refuse to attend rallies with workers from Campbell, and citizens of Struthers would become suspicious of people from Boardman, even if they were supposed to be working towards the same thing.
A lack of cooperation became a crippling problem for the movement, because no one was willing to put aside regional differences to work together.
In some instances, small companies would express interest in helping the movement or in relocating their business in the area, but because of regional pride no one could ever agree where the new businesses should relocate.
In this way the people of the Mahoning Valley missed many opportunities for new industrial or commercial lifeblood because of arbitrary arguments where the goal was simply to protect regional pride.
These well-intentioned efforts ultimately failed, leaving thousands with shattered dreams and a distinct lack of trust in fellow humankind.
Conclusion: The Aftershock and the Significance of Black Monday
Black Monday was a devastating blow to an entire generation of people.
The efforts to avoid catastrophe after the fact were unsuccessful for four main reasons: the failure of the international steel market, the lack of funds and plans in initiatives such as the Save Our Valley Campaign, the refusal of the USWA to support their local chapter out of ineptitude and fear, and the absurd but very real regionalism which corrupted solidarity efforts and drove away any hope for brining in new companies.
What happened in Youngstown may not seem significant on an international or even on a national level, and perhaps it is not.
But to the thousands of people living there, the loss of the mills was a devastating event that sent shock waves through their economic, political, and social futures.
Because of the mills and their conspicuous absence, hundreds of people were uprooted, forced to leave their homes and tightly knit communities.
For the people of Youngstown, Black Monday was not just a historical event- it was the most important event in their lives.
Even though they eventually failed, the fact that they tried to preserve what they felt belonged to them is an amazing example of how far people will go to save their lives and the futures of their children.
But why did the brave attempts by union leaders and concerned citizens to revive the steel industry ultimately fail?
An Extended Essay in History
Most importantly, the problem in Youngstown was a nationwide problem.
Although it affected Youngstown and the surrounding area more than it affected other regions, the local people simply could not solve a national crisis on a local level.
A Brief History of Steel in Northeastern Ohio
In 1802 James and Daniel Heaton discovered ore and coal lining Yellow Creek in an area outside of Youngstown known as Poland Township.
Their blast furnace, “Hopewell,” was the very first blast furnace in the area.
During the Civil War, Youngstown played a vital role in supplying the Union army with iron products.
Youngstown also was a major railway crossroads, due to its strategic position between Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, and Chicago.
The Decline of the Northeastern Ohio Steel Market: Why Did Attempts by Union Leaders and Concerned Citizens to Revive the Steel Industry Ultimately Fail?
During the 19th century, the center of iron manufacturing had gradually shifted from the far East Coast (Massachusetts and Eastern Pennsylvania) to the Ohio Valley Pittsburgh regions of the Northeast, including the Mahoning Valley and the Hanging Rock region of Ohio and Kentucky.
By 1880, Youngstown’s population had grown to nearly 16,000, which meant it had doubled in size over a twenty-year period.
The town continued to prosper, driven by the flux of immigrants pouring in with the hopes of employment at the mills.
This prosperity continued until the late 1920s, when the Great Depression hit the area hard.
Despite the Congress of Industrial Organization’s successful efforts to establish a national steel workers’ union, the industry barely survived the Depression years.
Strikes racked the town during the forties, fifties, and sixties, and they were often long and bloody.
In 1973, the Experimental Negotiating Agreement was signed.
This prohibited strikes and lockout, angering workers and driving productivity and laborer morale down.
At the same time, stricter governmental standards for environmental protection and the growth of imported steel were making it harder to produce and market American steel parts, and the overeager shareholders in the companies’ stock were pushing for more and more of their share of the pie.
Most importantly, Youngstown’s steel mills were slowly becoming less efficient and more expensive.
September 19, 1977 is a date that few people in Youngstown, Ohio will ever forget.
Old technology was not replaced, obsolete methods were not updated, and almost none of the industry’s profits were being utilized to help modernize.
Black Monday and the Crash of the Steel Industry
The announcement of the closing of the mills in 1977 was the beginning of a downward spiral, which would send the entire valley into chaos and ruin.
Between 1977 and 1981, a total of five mills were closed and approximately 25,000 jobs were lost countywide.
Meetings of union officials and mill bosses were hurriedly set up in an attempt to persuade the powers that be to reconsider their statement.
However, it was clear that, in the words of USWA president Lloyd McBride, “If you can’t make a buck, you get out of the business.”
On that date Jennings Lambeth, president of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, announced that most of the steel company’s Campbell Works would close.
“If you can’t make a buck, you get out of the business.”
The closings meant the end of Youngstown’s only real industry, the end of its population growth, and then end of economic progress.
Without the mills, people sought other places of employment in adjoining states or even other areas of the country.
Those that could afford to move did so; those that couldn’t afford to move mostly ended up on the streets.
Without an industrial or a residential base, commerce shrank considerably.
It was becoming increasingly clear that without the industrial base provided by the mills, the city of Youngstown would soon become a ghost town, inhabited by those too poor or hopeful to escape.
The workers decided they needed to do something to save their city, and so they mobilized in a variety of ways.
Attempts to Save the Mills
The very first thing that the workers could do was “to get up a petition to stop the shutdown,” says Ed Mann, a local union leader and organizer.
The petition was circulated, eventually including thousands of signatures; it was then given to USWA representatives to present to President Carter in Washington.
However, the representatives were shunted to the side and ignored in Washington, since Youngstown’s political influence had died with its industry.
The International chapter of the USWA had much more lobbying power, but they refused to support the local union members.
The petition was lost among paperwork and bureaucratic procedure.
Next, workers decided to form the Ecumenical Coalition, an organization of local religious groups which spearheaded the attempt to reopen the Youngstown works.
The Coalition drafter letters to the Lykes Company asking if a group of workers might purchase the mill and run it collectively.
Although for other cities this would simply be a minor economic setback, for the people of Youngstown and the surrounding area, it meant disaster.
Lykes ignored the letters, so the Coalition turned once again to the federal government.
Here, too, they were ignored.
The Coalition had no proper funds to buy the mills, so they could do nothing but sit back and watch as the mills closed.
Finally, following the shutdown of US Steel’s plant in 1980, local union leaders congregated outside the US Steel Headquarters in Youngstown.
They invited local people and politicians to witness the scene, then charged the Headquarters and took it over.
The workers stayed there until the next day, when US Steel declared that they were ready to talk about selling the mill.
Immediately after the workers left the building, US steel representatives told the local union leaders that they had changed their minds and were no longer interested in allowing the workers to purchase the mill.
All these efforts eventually came to nothing, and Youngstown’s steel mills remained closed.
These attempts to save the mills were hindered by several major factors, including the decline of the world steel market, which made American steel impossible to sell or export.
The efforts to save the mills failed partly because the international market for steel had largely dried up.
In fact, American steel imports were beginning to outweigh exports.
Foreign steel was easier and more efficient to make, and was often of higher quality than domestic steel.
Mahoning County was a one-industry area, and the people of Youngstown, Struthers, Campbell, Boardman Township, and the numerous other small towns and villages in the area only had one main employer: the steel mills.
Foreign steel companies invested in their factories, updating their technology and replacing their equipment often.
This meant that foreign facilities were more modern and efficient than any plants in America, and therefore were able to export a more competitive product.
Foreign steel was also much cheaper.
You can mix them with a 30/30/40 mix of potting soil, worm casings and clay.
Or you could go out to the shed and grab a few handfuls of that sod mix you got at that estate sale last year and get to mixing.
NOTE: Cover your work area.
Dust can fly into your mouth and eyes very easily.
Use gloves to break up the soil with your fingers.
3. Make bombs.
Form the mix into balls of any size from sling-shot-pellet up to softball.
You're going to be throwing them.
Mine were more or less matzoh-ball size and shape, out of habit.
This worked out pretty well.
Allow to dry overnight, or until they're solid enough for the next step.
4. Throw.
Today, I kept it simple.
I chose one abandoned property a few minutes from downtown, and two vacant lots.
The leftovers went onto the jungles alongside the freeway offramps.
First lesson learned -- you need at least two people to seedbomb from a vehicle .
The first responsibility should be driving safely.
Seedbombing combines elements of childhood disgruntled mudbomb-hurling; the balance of meticulousness and zen that good gardeners possess; and my own forte, the invisibility and vigilance of a sniper.
I ended up with a broken fingernail and dirt all over my lap.
Also, a perfect strike.
But you'll have to take my word because a camera at that moment would have been crazy.
Second Lesson -- keep the seedbombs in a shallow covered container .
Plus, those things are crumbly.
I made eight; the last two were totally pulverized after being jostled in a paper bag for half an hour.
And the last lesson -- have fun .
It's play.
Seedbombing is a hit-or-miss way for change to take root, pun intended.
It's chlorophyll graffiti.
No one I know is getting digg'd or favrd yet for throwing color and scent around the ghetto.
You may want to keep checking on your flowers (I promise I will) or you might get an idea to do something else completely unexpected (I did).
Enzo Angolini spike heels found by serendipity at St Paul's Thrift for $3.98.
Sexy, non?
'plant'
This is also good practice for looking lost and cluelessly invisible.
More on that in future posts.
5. Enjoy.
Earth is my friend, like that old classmate who you keep forgetting to drop a note to on Facebook.
When I took a victory lap and hand-wash break in the mall, I was happy, not in a smug superior way, but in the knowledge that I had avenged myself against the whole Sunday-at-the-mall culture that I felt smothered by.
There is one over-riding message to this -- Quit being such a goddamned perfectionist.
Yes, yes, I know, you know of much better places to never throw those seedbombs you haven't made.
You could get better soil if you put it on the shopping list.
You undoubtedly write much better and could have a real serious article with awesome non-blurry pictures taken by a person who actually can get the timer to work for a goddamn change.
It also requires a certain attitude.
The actions that you never do are absolutely perfectly effective, in your imagination.
But my actions accomplished something today.
Which brings us back to: 1.
A job worth doing is worth doing crappily.
This blog is the digital proof.
6 Responses to "The Apocalyptic Housewife Goes Seedbombing"
The first step to seedbombing is:
Did this with my aunt in Griffith Park after the last bout of fires.
They'll be glad to know it is catching on among the under-60 set.
Raggedy Anarchy 25. Nov, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Thanks for commenting, Kate.
Your mom and aunt sound great.
1. Understand that a job worth doing is worth doing crappily.
I used to see this old scary dude walking around checking the trees in Griffith Park for Dutch Elm Disease.
Turns out he had been a brilliant biology student before losing derferment and going to Vietnam.
Thanks for making me remember him.
We are everywhere.
Summer 26. Nov, 2009 at 10:52 am
Loved this!
brian 14. Dec, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Didn't know there was a name for this.
Awesome idea though.
My wife and I did this when we lived in Texas ... planted blue bonnets in a state park.
Yeah, I know, "Texas has plenty of blue bonnets," you say ...
"Texas has plenty of blue bonnets,"
Well we thought they could use more.
Jessica Reeder 15. Dec, 2009 at 9:08 am
Hey Brian, thanks for stopping by!
That was nice of you.
There is no such thing as too many flowers.
Well done.
We just made seedbombs for our holiday gift baskets; they're a mix of flowers from the yard, heavy on the poppies.
Live with this.
I am not nice, young, hip, white, rich, educated, suburban or any of the other things you are unconsciously assuming anyone who loves the earth must be.
Embrace it.
My discontent is the mother of invention, and by invention, I mean creative re-purposing.
Nothing worth doing was learned perfectly the first time.
I love bringing apt quotations and poems to awkward occasions the way another guest would bring a box of See's.
Actually, I do that, too.
That's me.
I'm the Apocalyptic Housewife.
I take pictures and have ideas and enjoy my thoughts and try to do a little something less about consuming and more about redemption every day.
It makes me a little nicer.
Here's where we started -
This is the first in a series of articles by guest blogger The Apocalyptic Housewife .
2. Mix in seeds.
Use seeds of any kind, even dumpster-salvaged ones, or the ones that might be too old for the garden.
Somewhere in California, a blighted, mosquito-vector abandoned property is about to get an echinacea dose via seedbomb.
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I want to write as others do: a tale, set in our real world, of characters who might live therein, not citizens of some airy demesne beyond the stars!"
"Why is that more desirable than what you write today?"
"People will read such stories; they are worth publishing."
Allan sat down at his desk and pulled the chair in close.
"If you never finish such stories, how can they be worth publishing?"
"That is precisely why I must excise this malignant instinct!"
"Why do you write?"
"…Why – to earn a living, I suppose.
Why do you ask?"
"You choose to write rather than become a fisherman or a carpenter, though you face such difficulty.
I would not be happy, thus separated from it."
"So at its heart, then, your writing – as opposed to working otherwise – is for yourself?"
"Yes, I suppose one could see it thus.
But really, Nathan, your queer habits of conversation have reached a new level."
Ignoring the statement, Nathan continued.
"Your writing is for you, Allan, not for the publishers or some imagined audience.
Since you seem unable to write 'normally,' why not embrace your tales as they are, leave behind the one unhappiness in the art you admit is a source of pleasure?
Your stories strike a chord with the deepest, most ancient stories of mankind, the tales basic to humanity.
Tell them, and they will create an audience.
You need not pander to what you imagine their wants are; speak, and they shall listen."
Allan crouched over his desk once more, pen in hand and mind blank.
He contemplated a story, an outline he had laboriously constructed some time ago.
He had filled his pen and raised it, the nib descending towards the paper, before the sound came: the gentle, persistent tapping of the gnarled, primeval willow touching the window with long, insistent fingers.
His eyes awoke with a passionate, determined flame, though the only light came from the glutted moon.
Allan filled page after page, the words escaping from his mind onto the paper.
Where before they had marched in regiments, practiced in ranks and followed their leaders' commands, the words now escaped in their true forms, unhindered by any stricture.
He continued long into the night, until the eldritch orb had sunk into the waiting hands of the willow, raised perpetually skyward.
Arthur looked up from the results of a night’s frenzied labors and looked Allan in the eye.
"What is this?"
he queried, indicating the pages he held in his left hand.
"I decided that… since I wasn't having much success with more – traditional – stories, I might see what sort of work I produced if I let my imagination go freely,"
"I decided that… since I wasn't having much success with more – traditional – stories, I might see what sort of work I produced if I let my imagination go freely," Allan replied, somewhat less self-assured than he had been the previous night.
Although the concept was a simple one, Allan thought it had potential.
"What in G-d's name could have possessed you to do such a thing,"
"What in G-d's name could have possessed you to do such a thing," cried Arthur, nearly raising his voice.
"After all I said the day before, why have you abandoned centuries of literary progress for some self-indulgent fantasy?"
He shook the papers at Allan, raising them like a belt above the head of a disobedient son.
"This is nothing but a glorified Grimm's tale, a miscarried child of Stoker, a creation less fit to be published than to be told around an open fire at the hovel of some peasant!"
He spoke the last word with such heavy intonation that Allan shrank back before the physical wave of sound emanating from Arthur's throat.
Besides, the public liked a good, simple romance.
"Do you hate the modern system of literature?
Do you personally despise the works the Enlightenment or the progress made since Shakespeare?
Do you personally despise the works the Enlightenment or the progress made since Shakespeare??"
?"
For a moment, Allan could hardly do more than shake his head.
"Then why,"
"Then why," Arthur barreled on, "do you disregard them all and return to this superstitious babble, this morbid, paganistic drivel?
"do you disregard them all and return to this superstitious babble, this morbid, paganistic drivel?
Why do you disregard my warnings, my careful advice given in the best of friendship and designed only to save you from sinking into this very type of corruption, this literary debauchery?"
"Could you write decent tales with that willow at your window?"
"Its twigs rap constantly against the wall, the wind always demanding my attention.
How could any writer accommodate the edicts of popular literature with the very forces of nature knocking upon his door?"
Arthur looked down his nose at the distraught author, viewing his complaint with pure disdain scantily concealed by the veneer of politeness that animated the construct that was Arthur Mason.
A tree forced you to write this, my dear Mr. Clemm?
They gazed at each other, lost in the rapture of love based so deeply within their hearts that they had never seen it before.
"You don't know what this is like,"
"You don't know what this is like," said Allan, shaking his head.
"Nathan would understand completely."
Even as he said it, Allan prayed that his statement was true.
"Very well,"
"Very well," said Arthur; "then take your story to that hedonist and let him defend you when no civilized publisher will approach you.
"then take your story to that hedonist and let him defend you when no civilized publisher will approach you.
If you insist on abandoning me, I shall not hold you."
Stunned, Allan slowly gathered up the pages and placed them in order.
He then turned and left through the door opposite that Arthur had taken, making his way past his host's doorman without assistance and setting off on foot towards Nathan's residence, several miles away.
Nathan read the package of words in silence, his only motions the steady progress of his eyes and occasional replacement of pages.
Allan sat nervously across from him in a chair Nathan had probably upholstered himself, a patchwork design of fabric containing easily more stuffing than any other furniture item of the period.
At long last, Nathan reached the end and set down his reading on the table between them.
Opening a side drawer, he took out a piece of paper and his inkpot.
Allan leaned forward unconsciously.
"What about Roger?"
"So,"
"So," he asked, "you don't think it's a waste of ink and paper, a futile expedition into morbidity or literary debauchery?"
she asked, knowing that the answer no longer mattered.
"you don't think it's a waste of ink and paper, a futile expedition into morbidity or literary debauchery?"
"Heavens, no," said Nathan, aghast.
"This is one of the strongest works I've read in ages.
It speaks to the deepest storyteller's instinct within us all, yet is entirely original.
Oh, they may rail against you at first; they may decry you as a heathen or a literary savage; but while those in power say such things, others will read your tales and see their true worth.
Believe me when I say that you will be read a century from now."
Allan, though dubious as to that possibility, felt some temptation from the compliment; mainly, it granted him the encouragement he still needed.
Nathan promised to show the story to a printer he knew and Allan left it with him, then walked home under the spreading maples with a smile lingering on his face.
This is good, he thought, pausing to raise the low light of the lantern.
He felt now that perhaps Nathan was right; although the man was somewhat peculiar, he had both an unimpeachable honesty and a certain propensity for insight.
Certainly, it was undeniable that the stories had an originality to them.
His mind's strangest fruit had ripened at last, and he found the taste less bitter than expected.
These thoughts and others like them filled his head as he walked the long road home.
It was evening, and the sky burned orange in the west when he neared home at last.
Passionate, fiery colors filled the western sky before him, though the sun itself had reached the trees and a few dark clouds circled overhead.
I'm almost done, and the happy ending is just falling into place.
As Allan drew closer, he distinguished a new cloud, a pillar rising directly ahead; a road of smoke ascended in the west, its source hidden by the very hillock that concealed his house from the traveler until one had nearly reached its door.
Allan's thoughts fled as one, scattering on the breeze that scattered the warning plume.
Arthur paused in the door, looking up at Allan for a moment; then he turned and shut the door behind him.
I hardly dare to think it, but – I may finish this story!
The driver snapped the reins and set the horses on.
The heavy curtains had been drawn across its windows.
He watched as the carriage drew still more distant, the horses' hooves still kicking up dust along the roadway.
When they had gone, he remained, stunned, until the scent of woodsmoke recalled him to himself.
He turned to regard the pillar still rising behind his house and ran to see what had been done.
A mass of flaming wood stood before him, heat singeing him and sparks flying too close to his house.
As he thought this, a sinuous wind encircled the house, slipping through the walls to chill him.
It was a moment before he realized what else had changed: near the wall, beneath his window, was a stump with black and ancient bark.
In a thoughtless panic, Allan flew to the stream that ran by his house and began frantically throwing handfuls of water onto the pyre.
His thoughts were not of the act's futility, nor even of the nights spent tormented by the twisted thing; instead, all that filled his mind was the tree's constant presence in his life, growing with him and beside him, its persistent reminders that he had higher, truer things to write, the simple beauty of the great black tree for its own sake.
His handfuls could do nothing to quench the hewn, burning logs, but when the night sky grew dark above him and the fire dwindled to black ashes, tears threatened to spill forth and extinguish the final embers.
But he did not weep.
Instead, he bethought himself of the loss of the tree; considered also Arthur's motivation and whether some good might not come of this, after all.
The papers and the lantern's flame trembled as the thin fingers of a great black willow rapped gently on Allan's window and wall like a stranger knocking on his chamber door.
Leaving the circle of ashes, he stood and turned towards the woods, in which it was his habit to walk when in a pensive mood.
He stepped slowly beneath the branches, a gust of wind stirring up the ashes behind him in a great, swirling eddy, a burning brand that rose up and dispersed on the winds as though it were the willow's last breath.
Allan wandered beneath the trees for a time, thoughts drifting through his mind like great banks of fog, strangely beautiful but impossible to penetrate.
He considered Arthur's intervention; considered that it might be better to accept the fog and continue as his lifelong friend had suggested, to write stories that others would read; for after all, what purpose writing if not to be read?
And without that torturous willow, he might be free to write whatever he saw fit.
Indeed, if he still could not, he could at any time follow Arthur's advice and seek a profession more grounded in reality.
He found himself along the bank of a low, wide stream and allowed himself to follow its current.
As it turned to the deeper woods, elder giants rose above him: a beech, smooth bark a gray-green pennant hoisted on a slope and standing out between the dark, cracked trunks of the nearer trees; great pines, a few magnificent specimens still bearing the three-stroke symbol of the British King; a towering black birch, leaves impossibly high above him.
As the stream wound its way through the largest pines, grown so great as to eclipse that feature of the landscape they had once crowded about for sweet water as saplings, Allan continued, slowing his pace to climb across the toes of the slumbering giants.
This was no stranger, however; the twisted, ancient thing was older than Allan, its branches rapping on his window since his childhood.
Before him, roots imbibing the sweet water of the stream, grew a stand of black willows.
Fallen trunks lay rotting across the rivulet; the living elders oversaw the grove while younger trees, still small and not yet as knotted and gnarled as their forefathers, sprang up where branches reached the ground.
Though the elders' trunks fell and died, their children, first roots grown from the very branches that now lay dead, continued unabated, a continuous line from the most ancient of their ancestors.
Allan stumbled forward, jaw slightly slack, until his outstretched hands encountered the rough bark of a twisted, three-trunked willow whose waists were each larger than Allan himself.
After filling his pen, Allan looked at his paper in the orange glow from the lantern set back in the desk's right-hand corner.
Collapsing at its base, Allan wrapped his arms around the stoic tree and let forth a moan, a cry of purest agony that escaped him as the first tears seeped from the corners of his eyes and slid down his cheeks, falling to the ground and seeping though the fallen leaves and needles to join the water of the stream, flowing through the ground beneath them.
Its thin, drawn fingers framed the bloated moon, whose eerie radiation now bathed the room directly.
The great, jaundiced eye stared down unblinkingly at the author, who gazed up through his window's tiny frame with trepidation.
Allan recalled himself and focused once more on the incomplete page before him.
His pen flickered forth, words dancing out from its nib.
For while the lantern's spark shivered in the chill breeze, this burn was steady and true as the motion of its owner's pen, scratching out the rhythm of the willow's fingers.
The frenzied writing ceased at last, the author leaned back with a slight sigh as if both exhausted and satisfied by his effort.
He held a hand to his forehead, eyes closed and face flushed.
After all that – so near the end, to lose control again.
His breath returning to its normal rhythms, he dared to look at the page before him.
His face soft as if caught between a smile and tears, he draped his loose cape over her shoulders.
"Come, darling,"
"Where I am to take you, one need never think of those left behind."
His pen cast a forbidding line of shadow slanting across the page, echoing the inky darkness crouching in the edges of the lantern's struggling glow.
They took their seats within the car and his driver set the horses trotting.
For a few yards, they kicked up dust along the roadway; then they raised their hooves and took to the air.
She gaped, afraid but knowing that no harm would come to her by his hand.
Above them, the Milky Way drew near as if the stars themselves could be reached.
A magnificent glow infused the carriage as they merged with the sky's glory.
Allan crushed the page in his hand and hurled it at the window.
"Damn you,"
"Damn you," he cried, "will you never leave me be?
Shall I never finish a story in peace?"
He pounded his desk in vain, cursing the foul muse that drove him.
"Cucumber sandwich?"
Allan took a sandwich between his fingers.
The only other illumination came from a lurid moonlight filtered through thin branches and clouds, casting its bone-pale glow onto the pine floorboards.
In a manner delicately balanced between somber and genial, he refilled their glasses.
"How is the writing these days, my dear Mr. Clemm?"
"Perfectly dreadful, my dear Mr. Mason,"
"Perfectly dreadful, my dear Mr. Mason," Allan sighed.
"I had a perfect story in my pages; my hero returned home and reclaimed his love, I nearly had it tied together before…"
"Before?"
Arthur's face assumed a long-suffering aspect of authoritative exasperation.
"I'm not familiar with Mr. Poe's works, but I assume you're referring to your unhealthy penchant for the fantastic."
"It's far from a 'penchant,' Arthur.
This is more like a compulsion, a beast that lies waiting in the dark for the perfect moment, then leaps and takes ahold of me, screaming out through my quill."
"How perfectly awful."
The Black Willow
"I'm sure you know that you must curb this behavior if you wish to produce any writing fit for public consumption."
"I know," Allan replied, "but how am I to do that?
You know I do not wish to make my stories thus; but it is my nemesis, confronting me anew at every turn!"
Arthur raised a critical brow.
Every action you take to deny it nourishment will bring you closer to your goal; and believe me, Allan, you must take every opportunity to quash this uncivilized obsession if you intend to publish.
Allan unfolded another page, this one crowded with ranks of letters in tight formation from left to right.
There simply is no audience for fairy tales – no literate audience, at least."
"It is true,"
"It is true," Allan admitted, fidgeting with his cufflinks, "that I would not dream of submitting one of these corruptions of literature to any publisher.
My prodigal ink-blooded children simply lose their vitality when forced along the proper road."
"If only you would restrain this morbid impulse of yours, you might write something really worth reading.
It's hard enough listening to your wild speech without seeing it appear in the refined world of print, like a surly foreigner among a genteel crowd."
Allan hung his head, holding his wine with both hands between his arched knees.
His hair was slightly unkempt after his sleepless night, and his clothing had a rumpled look as if, by mere proximity, it had taken on the aspect of his weariness.
The lines of letters stepped into their divisions, in the shape of a story's outline: the loose, dry skeleton of a tale lay exposed beneath their feet, awaiting tendons, muscle and blushing skin.
He scratched the back of his dark-haloed head and blinked bleary eyes.
"I would drive it out,"
"I would drive it out," he said softly, "but I fear for what would remain."
"but I fear for what would remain."
"Perhaps you require a rest from writing,"
"Perhaps you require a rest from writing," suggested Arthur.
"You might find that some time in an honest occupation would ground you somewhat, improve your disposition."
"Perhaps it would,"
"I shall consider it; in the meantime, however, I must be off.
You have been a gracious host, as always."
Arthur rose and shook his hand.
"So dear a friend is always welcome to my counsel and my home,"
"So dear a friend is always welcome to my counsel and my home," he said.
"I hope soon to see you in better sorts."
They parted and Allan made his way pensively from Arthur's gate.
He walked the wheel-ruts, hands in his pockets and unshined shoes collecting dust.
Some quarter-mile from Arthur's gate, he halted, confronted by a halloo.
"Nathan?"
he called out to the empty road.
The reply came from above him and Allan turned to see his friend reclining in the fork of a great tree.
"I had a hunch you'd be at Arthur's today,"
"I had a hunch you'd be at Arthur's today," said Nathan, "so I thought I'd wait here for you."
"so I thought I'd wait here for you."
Nathan's lanky frame, dressed in a loose, tan jacket, fit into the branch like an elegant skeleton.
His hair fell loosely across a face that seemed always to have a knowing smirk hidden just beneath its surface, infusing his body with a rakish energy.
"So, Allan," said Nathan, unfolding and lowering his legs to the roadside, "how goes life for the quintessential American author?"
"how goes life for the quintessential American author?"
"I wouldn't know,"
"I wouldn't know," replied Allan dryly, before continuing in another tone entirely.
"I destroyed another story last night, Nathan."
Leaning against his tree, Nathan shook his head.
Ended!
Never again shall it see the rosy-fingered dawn!
Nathan, you've read these abominations of mine.
You know just as well as I that they have no future, no potential.
Allan reviewed the troops, all prepared to disembark, their task to form the tale of a young man returning home from Life Abroad to find his childhood friend a bride to-be, thus upsetting the apple cart of his life's plan, clarified – of course – by his very time away from her he loved best.
At best, they are faery tales; at worst, expeditions into macabre realms no healthy mind need ever see."
"So instead, you would write – what?"
"Something saleable; something worth reading, worth writing!
On a sunny Sunday afternoon, the waiting list was an hour long.
After hemming and hawing and assessing my food stash (contents: 10 saltines), I decided to go for it anyway.
By the time I got to Asheville, I was nearing the end of my journey and the bottom of my wallet.
By the time I finally got a seat at the counter, I was starved.
It took me about thirty seconds to pick out the Charleston Chicken Sandwich: "grilled marinated free-range chicken breast on sourdough with melted havarti, romaine lettuce and cranberry mayonnaise".
Free range?
Cranberry?
Havarti?
Yes, I could dig it.
While I waited for the food, I checked out the back of the store where Tupelo Honey Cafe hawks their homestyle wares: preserves, pickles, salsa, honey, t-shirts, aprons and all sorts of mini-advertisements for the restaurant.
I've visited plenty of farm-to-fork restaurants, and this one may be the best I've seen at self-marketing.
There's nothing wrong with it: the food in those jars is probably delicious, though I question whether the $10 tupelo honey had to come from Florida or if it's produced locally.
Either way, it's nice to see a restaurant built on ethics that also happens to be incredibly busy.
Some of that is surely due to good marketing, but the real reason for its popularity is this:
That sandwich was so good, I found myself eating slower and slower with each bite to savor it more completely.
The potatoes were light and un-greasy; the flavors were perfectly balanced; the chicken was juicy and rich; and let's be honest here, I'm always happier eating dead animals when I know they've lived a good life.
I found myself silently thanking the chicken for its delicious contribution.
I will never forget you.
I stopped eating halfway through, not because I was full.
I stopped so I could take the rest home and taste it again later.
On another topic, I made a discovery there in the Tupelo Honey Cafe, one which I'd like to share with you now.
If you're going to a busy restaurant and want great service, bring a camera.
Take a few photos of the menu, the kitchen, the food.
No sooner had I taken the above photo, when a server (not even my server) appeared at my elbow.
But.
Now, I'm not saying the service before my camera-flash was bad, because it was awesome.
When I'd posted on Facebook that I was coming to town, no fewer than three people told me I just had to visit the Tupelo Honey Cafe .
But wow, it sure improved once I appeared to be some sort of food critic or travel writer.
Which, it just so happens, I am.
But even if you're not, try this out sometime.
I can't guarantee it'll work, but I personally will do it againand probably back it up with a stellar review, just like the one I've given the Tupelo Honey Cafe.
Everybody wins.
Okay, that's it!
I could talk about Asheville for weeks, but it's time to move on.
Next stop: sunny Tennessee, where I get down on The Farm.
So I checked their website, and instantly fell in love:
Noshin' at the Tupelo Honey Cafe | Plus, how to get great service in busy restaurants 23 Mar., 2010
"Tupelo Honey Café opened in downtown Asheville in 2000, an early pioneer in the farm to fork movement and an active advocate for the independent restaurant landscape that pervades the city.
"Tupelo Honey Café opened in downtown Asheville in 2000, an early pioneer in the farm to fork movement and an active advocate for the independent restaurant landscape that pervades the city. Our food is fresh, made from scratch, sassy and scrumptious. Our cuisine salutes our love of Southern traditions at the table, but like the good people of Asheville, marches to its own drum. The result is a unique riff on Southern favorites."
Our food is fresh, made from scratch, sassy and scrumptious.
Our cuisine salutes our love of Southern traditions at the table, but like the good people of Asheville, marches to its own drum.
The result is a unique riff on Southern favorites."
tupelohoneycafe.com
I was convinced but I wasn't alone.
It started in 2001, when Andrew would ride around town pulling bikes out of dumpsters.
He started hosting work parties with friends in his backyard, teaching them to fix their bikes and helping them get started riding.
Slowly but surely, the circle grew and Andrew's backyard parties became weekly workshops.
When Andrew decided to leave town for a few years' schooling in NYC, friends and cohorts took over operations.
Come back Friday to read about anarchy, bike jousting, and two-wheeled social protest .
These days it's an established club, run by volunteers and donations, turning trashed bikes into treasures.
TBR's customers run the gamut, from businessmen to street kids to college students to families.
The one thing they have in common?
This group understands the value of a bicycle: more than just transportation, a bike is a statement against fossil fuels.
More than a toy, it's an equalizer that allows poor kids to ride with rich.
More than a hobby, it's a way of traveling through the world that lets you interact, use your muscles, breathe fresh air -- all for the cost of a free dumpster bike.
Remember when you got your first bike?
TBR hosts workshops twice a week.
Tools are available, and volunteers will help with advice and knowledge.
Was it a Christmas present, or maybe a birthday gift?
Parts can be had for a pittance, and you can pick out your own bike from the stacks and racks of machines filling the space.
The main focus of TBR, however, is not selling bikes.
The idea is to give people a workspace and teach them how to maintain their own bicycle.
All around me, college students and bike punks tinkered with their machines.
An older man asked for tips on tuning his racer.
A young kid came in to say his last bike was stolen and he needed a new one (and, despite Andrew's stern reprimand that he couldn't just walk in every week and leave with a free bike, he did just that).
A dad came in with his three kids, all of whom left with snazzy rides -- but first, they all sat down and worked on their new wheels together.
And as we left at the end of the workshop, a woman walked up to Andrew.
"I love what you do," she said.
"I have a whole bunch of bikes to give you."
See, ultimately TBR is about more than just bicycles.
It's about building community, and triggering a quiet but inexorable social movement.
This is not the world's first bike collective; in fact it's only one of many that have stealthily sprung up around America.
These collectives are not waiting for change to happen: they're creating it through small, positive, peaceful actions.
Well, these days, most kids want an Xbox for their birthday; their parents ride around in cars with seatbelts, talking on their phones .
You too can change the world: all you have to do is ride a bike.
Fall is here, which (in most places) means great riding weather.
What are you waiting for?
It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to get you places.
So pick one up, and ride it to the end of your block!
Then keep going!
Even if your life requires four wheels, you can use a bike for local errands.
Ride it to the corner store when you need milk, instead of driving across town to the grocery store.
(Don't like the milk they sell?
On weekends, instead of driving to the park, hop on your bike and go exploring.
It doesn't have to be a workout: you can just toodle around town and look at stuff.
Or, if you're a gym buff, trade a workout for a bike ride.
Save the World, Ride a Bike a visit to Troy Bike Rescue
Unless you live on a major highway, odds are you can ride straight from your front porch to someplace interesting.
On vacation, rent a bike instead of a scooter (or, God forbid, a Segway).
It's cheaper, and much better for the local flora&fauna.
Then think of it this way: by riding your bike instead of driving your car, you're reducing your consumption of fossil fuels.
You can even calculate the money you save on gas, and keep it in a jar for a rainy day.
Cycling is a thing of the past: a sport, a hobby, but rarely a mode of transportation.
Want to get involved?
Bike clubs tend to be pretty anarchic, but if you look around your community you'll find both bike riders and shop owners who ride for change.
Can't find a bike community?
Start your own!
Karen Turnbull 01. Oct, 2009 at 12:54 pm
what a great article, i will be passing it on.
In the meantime you might like this blog post i cam across: http://blog.sophianetwork.org.uk/2009/09/women-tackling-climate-change.htm
Raggedy Annarchy 01. Oct, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Tried/shared/re-tweeted, with pleasure!
Even kept Pansy in the basket as my Toto.
Bike rescue is not just for kids.
One of my dear friends who can't drive to due to combat injuries had her ride stolen while we were sharing a beer in broad daylight last weekend.
But I'm here to tell you: riding your bike is still fun, and still fast, and it's the cheapest and most socially responsible workout you'll ever get .
Shame, shame.
I passed along this article to her, and she suggest that when we start our own bike rescue, we'll do like the U.S. in East Timor did and graffiti Delta Bike Rescue on all the chassis.
Fall is exactly 79% more tingly when experienced by bike.
This post is the first of a three-part series on bike culture.
And there are no two ways about it: if you give a kid a bike, that kid will ride.
In Troy, New York, I met one Andrew Lynn.
He's somewhat of a man brain trust , and one of his best creations is the Troy Bike Rescue .
David's a dedicated and inspired agrarian, whose passion for farming keeps him optimistic.
But farming on the Outer Cape is the sort of Sisyphian challenge that can wear anybody out.
The hard truth: The soil of North Truro is not strong enough to support agriculture.
Without fertilization, it deteriorates shockingly fast.
David points out a patch of sand with a thin strip of fertile loam along the edge.
Last season it was a fertile veggie bed -- but it was left un-fertilized as an experiment.
"This is what happens," David says.
"You have to keep feeding it organic material, or it turns back into sand."
Read about death & carnage in the shell shop , find out about the eco-friendly food scene , look at the pretty pretty sunset , or continue on...
This plot was a test run, left untended for a single season.
Last year's rich loam is now useless sand.
It's always been this way in North Truro.
The Outer Cape is really just a spit of sand -- but still, farmers lived here for generations.
How?
Salt marsh hay.
There used to be a local tradition in this area: at each spring tide , the local community would head out to the bogs and marshes to harvest the grasses.
This was called "salt marsh haying".
"salt marsh haying"
Salt marsh hay has no weed seeds, and it doesn't compact as heavily as other types of hay.
This makes it an excellent and bountiful source of compost, and it was used for generations as a soil enricher.
"There's so much oxygen in this soil, any added compost gets burned up in six weeks. All the nutrients get depleted."
All the nutrients get depleted."
The only way to keep things going here is to keep a steady flow of compost coming in.
That means truckloads of hay, and that means a lot of work.
Last year, David and Arthur brought in a semi truck loaded with leaf mulch.
Not a long-term plan.
Without that community support, it's nearly impossible for him to harvest hay often enough to keep the farm green.
Meanwhile, in Tourist Town USA...
David DeWitt doesn't look like a farmer.
The Provincetown farmers market has lovely produce, but little of it was grown on the Cape.
Provincetown's official population of 3,500 supports a tourism industry that serves millions of visitors each year.
City folk marvel at the quaint charms of the Cape, its idyllic beauty and simple pleasures.
And then they go out to eat.
Even if tourists were interested in sustainable food (they totally don't care ), they'd be hard pressed to find a locally-sourced meal.
With his long hair, scruffy beard and t-shirt, he'd fit in more at a Phish show than behind a plow.
End of story.
David isn't giving up -- in fact, he's got plans and ideas to refashion North Truro's farming community.
Hence the Ag Fair, and the ongoing experimentation with varieties and soils at First Light.
David isn't alone: he's got the support (and companionship) of a growing group of gamechangers.
If the young farmers and foodies of Truro can organize, they might just be able to get local agriculture back on its feet.
Their main opponent?
The tourism and real estate industries, which insist upon turning every arable inch of the Cape into somebody's backyard.
The same population that would consume the food produced here is actively inhibiting its production.
But appearances are deceiving, and David's comfy mien belies a passion that is influencing the culture of northern Cape Cod.
No surprise there.
After all, what's the point of farming on the beach?
2 Responses to "Farming on Sand"
Melody M Thibodeau 25. Sep, 2010 at 7:52 am
You know they could. It would be even better for the system.
This would also, make it more profitable.
The horses.
would be heathier.
They wouldn't have to be standing on the acidic sand all of the time.
The straw/hay could also be a form of supplemental food, for livestock/horses, which has been used in before times.
The straw, should be separated from the manure and dried in the air, then buised, by hooves.
Then it is more ready, to be mixed with the soil, in the spring.
To wit: in 2009, David helped launch the Truro Ag Fair -- an event that exceeded all expectations and brought huge crowds to local farmers' booths.
And he manages the First Light Organic Farm, a lush green spot in a hollow of North Truro.
Here, David and his partner Arthur Teubner work year-round growing heirloom and hardy fruits and veggies to sell at market.
This is part 4 of a 4-part series on tourism's impact on Cape Cod.
Kitchen Equipment.
Woks and any other gadgets essential for Chinese cookery make good purchases.
Department stores sell all sorts of intriguing kitchen equipment.
Leather Goods.
Large shops on the fashionable thoroughfares tend to be more expensive than smaller “family” shops tucked away in the side streets.
Locally made items do not live up to their European models.
However, the leather garment industry is growing, and there is a wide range of locally produced leather accessories, all at extremely attractive prices.
For European imports, you will pay top dollar.
Musical, Audio, and Video Equipment.
While it’s no longer the bargain shopping destination it once was, there are still some good buys to be had.
Before purchasing, visitors should make sure of compatibility with systems in their own countries.
Be sure to look around and compare before buying.
Whatever you buy, you may be able to work out a discount.
Ready-to-wear Clothes.
Hong Kong’s shops carry almost every recognizable European and many American labels, from top-end designers to the moderately priced or trendy.
Nathan Road, Central, and the hotel malls are places to look.
You’ll also find bargain clothes for sale at the markets and on push-carts.
Tailoring.
Tailor-made clothes are not as popular in Hong Kong as they were in the past, but hundreds of shops still remain.
Local tailors are experts when it comes to producing custom-tailored garments for both men and women, and are also adept at copying patterns.
In choosing a tailor, look for HKTA membership.
Stores do not open until 10am or later, but shopping goes on into the evening, up to 9:30pm.
Many tailors have Web sites or are listed on Web sites.
Shops all over town will sell you gift tins of exotic blends.
If you want to learn something about tea, go to the Tea Shop at 149 Hollywood Road, or the Moon Garden Tea House at 5 Hoi Ping Road, Causeway Bay.
The owners will brew up a pot so you can taste before making a choice.
Watches.
The saying “Time is money” is quite literally true in Hong Kong: more is spent on watches and clocks here than on cameras and optical goods.
An enormous variety of makes and models are on sale.
Entertainment
Day and night, the action goes on in this vibrant city.
Most shops are open seven days a week.
Hong Kong Diary published weekly by HKTA tells what’s happening in the arts.
Culture buffs are well catered to, and there is always a varied program of events, ranging from world-class concerts to local amateur dramatic productions.
A highlight of the arts calendar is the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival, a three-week dose of international culture in February, with concerts, recitals, plays, jazz, Chinese opera, and innovative productions put on by leading talent from both East and West.
Shops in Central are an exception; they generally close at 6pm and are not open on Sunday.
Tickets for the shows must be reserved well in advance.
There are more than 30 cinemas in Hong Kong, and the latest Western releases are shown in some of the larger ones.
English-language films have Chinese subtitles.
The Hong Kong International Film Festival takes place in April.
More than 200 films from all over the world are shown at this two-week event.
The only holiday on which all commerce comes to a halt is the Chinese New Year in January or February.
Ask at City Hall center about advance reservations.
The Performing Arts
Performance Venues.
The theaters in the Hong Kong Cultural Center in Tsim Sha Tsui are the main venues for concerts and opera.
Other performance centers are the City Hall cultural complex, with exhibition halls and theaters that present concerts, plays, and films; the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts with two major theaters for dance, drama, and concert performances; and the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wan Chai, where both local and visiting groups perform.
Other centers for concerts, plays, and entertainment are Sha Tin Town Hall and Tsuen Wan Town Hall in the New Territories.
Larger arenas, including the Queen Elizabeth Stadium, the Hong Kong Coliseum, and the Ko Shan Theater in Kowloon play host to various concerts, pop concerts, sporting events, and variety shows.
Classical Music.
The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra performs new and traditional works; a wide assortment of traditional and Chinese instruments are featured.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1975.
Buyer Beware.
Under its conductor, David Atherton, it offers Western classical works and new works by Chinese composers in a September-to-June season.
Be aware that name brands, including electronics, are sometimes fakes, glass may be sold as jade, and that antique you bought may have been made last night.
Cantonese opera is alive and well in Hong Kong, and the two other forms, Beijing and Kun, are sometimes presented.
To most foreigners, this unique art form is likely to be inscrutable at first exposure, but everyone can appreciate the spectacle and the elaborate, glittering costumes.
Although the music may seem strange to the unaccustomed ear, it certainly won’t put you to sleep; cymbals and drums guarantee your alertness.
Dance.
Theater.
The two leading local troupes, the Chung Ying Theatre Company and the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, perform in Cantonese; there are English-language performances at the Fringe Club theaters, 2 Lower Albert Road, in Central.
Puppet Shows.
The classic Chinese puppet is the shadow puppet, manipulated behind a screen by three rods, but hand puppet and marionette shows are also on offer, often for free at public parks and playgrounds.
Nightlife
Hong Kong by night can suit any taste — riotous, sedate, raw, or cultured.
Note that sometimes there is a cover charge of HK$50 to HK$200 at clubs, which may or may not include a couple of drinks.
There are nightclubs in the principal hotels, with bands, dancing, and floor shows.
Always ask for a receipt that records information about the item, and if you buy an antique, be sure to get a certificate of authentication.
Jazz fans will find live jazz presented by international artists at the Jazz Club and Bar, 2/F, 34-36 D’Agular, Central; and at the Blue Note in the Kowloon Shangri-La Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui.
The Frin ge Club, 21 Lower Albert Road, Central, is Hong Kong’s best-known alternate entertainment venue, with jazz, rock, and other live music, in addition to a gallery for visual arts.
Bars with views and live music include Sky Lounge in the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Tsim Sha Tsui; and Cyrano in the Island Shangri-La in Pacific Place.
Pubs are numerous.
In Tsim Sha Tsui, Ned Kelly’s Last Stand on Ashley Road is an Aussie institution; Delaney’s, 71-77 Peking Road, is one of Hong Kong’s enduring Irish pubs.
The clubs and bars of Wan Chai, long the center of seedy nightlife, have become almost respectable.
Joe Bananas, 23 Luard Road, is a Wan Chai mainstay for all-night partying.
Rick’s Cafe, 78-82 Jaffe Road, is a long-time disco that’s still popular.
A lot of the raunchy action has moved across the harbor to Tsim Sha Tsui East; this is also where you’ll find pricey hostess clubs, popular with Japanese tourists, but definitely not for those on a budget.
Soho, along with the Lan Kwai Fong area, is popular with chuppies (Hong Kong yuppies) and has a lively bar scene.
Causeway Bay also has a variety of bars and clubs.
Needless to say, avoid peddlers who approach you on the street and offer to take you to wondrous bargains.
TOTT’s, in the Excelsior Hotel, is a restaurant with live music and dancing and a harbor view.
Japanese karaoke bars have now become extremely popular with the locals.
There are a number of these on Chatham Road South and around Cameron Street in Tsim Sha Tsui.
The most typical of these are harbor cruises, usually including dinner and dancing on board an air-conditioned floating nightclub.
There are evening bus tours that include visits to a restaurant and night spots; some tours combine a Chinese banquet with a visit to an open-air market and the panorama from Victoria Peak.
Beaches.
In subtropical Hong Kong you can swim from April to early November.
There are more than 40 beaches in Hong Kong that are free to the public.
Most have lifeguards on duty from April to October, changing rooms, toilets, and snack stands.
On Hong Kong Island, Repulse Bay is the most popular; others are Shek O on the east coast and Stanley and Deep Water Bay on the south coast.
On the outlying islands, Cheung Chau and Cheung Sha are on Lantau, and Hung Shing Ye and Lo So Shing on Lamma; inquire about water pollution levels.
The large department stores have fixed prices, but elsewhere you should ask whether there is a discount, especially if you buy several items in one shop.
The Hong Kong Golf Club (Tel. 2812 7070) welcomes visitors to its three 18-hole courses at Fanling in the New Territories, or the 9-hole course at Deep Water Bay.
The Discovery Bay Golf Club on Lantau island (Tel. 2987 7273) has an 18-hole Robert Trent Jones Jr. course, open to visitors Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.
The 72-par course was designed by Dave Thomas.
Hiking.
In the New Territories the famous MacLehose Trail stretches 97 km (60 miles) from Sai Kung Peninsula to Tuen Mun.
The Lantau Trail is a 69-km (43-mile) circular trail on Lantau Island that begins and ends at Silvermine Bay.
Both trails are divided into smaller segments of varying difficulty.
Maps of hiking trails are available at the Government Publications Center, Low Block, Government Offices, 66 Queensway in Central.
HKTA also has trail maps and sponsors the Guided Nature Walks, led by rangers, that include hikes in all the different regions of Hong Kong.
Jogging.
Victoria Park has a jogging track in Causeway Bay.
Because of the heavy harbor traffic, only sailors licensed by the Hong Kong authorities can run pleasure boats in local waters.
Contact the Hong Kong Yacht Club at Tel. 2832 2817 for information.
Compare prices before you buy any significant item.
Taijiquan (Tai Chi).
HKTA offers lessons in these exercises that improve concentration and balance at Garden Plaza, Hong Kong Park, Admiralty (Tel. 2058 1234).
Tennis.
There are 13 public courts at Victoria Park Tennis Centre (Tel.
Horseracing.
All levels of society share a feverish interest in the Sport of Kings.
The racing schedule is September to June, and Hong Kong maintains two tracks — the older Happy Valley course on Hong Kong Island and the striking Sha Tin track in the New Territories.
The Hong Kong Tourist Association runs a “Come Horseracing Tour,” which includes entry to the Hong Kong Jockey Club visitors’ box and members’ enclosure, and a buffet-style meal.
Cricket.
Rugby.
Hong Kong has many attractions that appeal to children of all ages.
Since Hong Kong is a duty-free port and charges no sales tax, goods are cheaper here than in the country where they were made.
Hong Kong’s many beaches are especially fun for children.
Children love riding on Hong Kong’s antique trams.
There’s a special Kid’s World that those under 12 can enter free when accompanied by a paying adult.
The more daring can try out the terrifying roller-coaster rides.
Hong Kong’s state-of-the-art interactive museums will interest children of all ages.
Note that when haggling, the merchant assumes you are prepared to pay cash.
For children who love boats, riding the Star Ferry or ferry trips to outlying islands will be exciting, and the Dolphin Watch trip (see page 113) is certain to appeal.
If you plan to visit during May, the carnival atmosphere of the Cheung Chau Bun Festival, with its high bamboo-and-paper towers covered in sticky buns, will fascinate the young ones.
If, after concluding a deal, you try to pay with a credit card, he may then boost the price in order to cover the card charges.
It is advisable to shop at outlets that are members of the Hong Kong Tourist Association (HKTA), identified by a red junk logo.
Membership imposes an obligation to maintain standards of both quality and service, and provides dissatisfied customers with an officially recognized channel for redressing complaints; the number to call is Tel. 2508 1234.
Pick up a copy of HKTA’s “The Official Dining, Entertainment & Shopping Directory” in which all member stores are listed.
Shipping.
Ask if automatic free insurance is provided.
If the goods are very valuable or fragile, it is a good idea to buy an all-risk insurance for the shipment.
Packages sent to the US or to Europe generally take six to eight weeks by surface mail, and one week by airmail.
Shopping Areas.
On photographic equipment, electronic goods, and watches, you avoid the luxury tax payable in your home country.
Department Stores.
Look for Lane Crawford Ltd., an upscale store with branches at Pacific Place, 70 Queen’s Road, and Harbour City; Wing On, one of the oldest in Hong Kong; Marks and Spencer; and the Japanese department stores, Mitsukoshi, Sobo, and Seibu.
Malls.
Hong Kong is full of giant malls.
Harbour City, just west of the Star Ferry Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui is one of the largest; Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, is Central’s biggest mall, with retail outlets and department stores; Times Square is a collection of retail outlets in Causeway Bay.
Factory Outlets.
These stores sell excess stock or factory overruns.
Hong Kong is no longer a factory outlet center since much of its clothing manufacturing has moved elsewhere.
There are factory showrooms in the Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, in Central.
Markets.
Markets are the places to use your bargaining skills.
Hong Kong’s most famous and colorful market is the Temple Street Night Market near the Jordan MTR stop.
Every conceivable kind of goods is sold here: clothing, all kinds of electronics, CDs, souvenirs, crafts, and jewelry.
Specialty goods and souvenirs, often handmade, come from Hong Kong and elsewhere in China.
Stanley Market is located on Hong Kong’s southern coast, and is well-known for all kinds of clothing, including silk and cashmere.
The Jade Market, on Kansu Street in Yau Ma Tei, is known for both jade and freshwater pearls.
This is not the place to make expensive purchases, but it’s great for inexpensive pendants, earrings, and gifts.
What to Buy
Antiques.
Look for fine Chinese bronzes, embroidery, lacquerware and porcelain, tomb figures, and wood carvings, among other possibilities.
The experts point out that it is not age alone that determines a Chinese antique’s value — the dynasties of the past had their creative ups and downs.
Custom-made garments by skillful Hong Kong tailors are still much in demand and cost less than elsewhere for comparable garments.
For serious antiques, try Honeychurch Antiques at no. 29 for furniture and silver, Tai Sing Company at 122 for porcelain.
For fun you can visit the Low Price Shop at no. 47 or the Cat Street crafts stores and flea market.
Brocades and Silks.
Fabrics from China are a bargain and well worth taking home.
For fabrics, also try Western Market, Morrison Street, in Central.
Two reliable places to start looking in Lan Kwai Fong are Photo Scientific in the Eurasia Building and Hing Lee Camera Company, 25 Lyndhurst Terrace.
Carpets and Rugs.
Hong Kong is a mecca for Chinese hand-knotted wool carpets and silk rugs.
Hong Kong’s stores are usually able to arrange shipment.
Caravan at 65 Hollywood Road and the shops in The Silk Road at Ocean Center in Tsim Sha Tsui are good places to start looking.
China (Porcelain).
In Hong Kong you can have a plate, or even a whole dinner service, hand-painted to your own design.
Factories in Kowloon and the New Territories, producing traditional and modern china, are geared to entertain and instruct visiting tourists; prices are appealing.
Two of the largest places to go are the Wah Tung China Company in the Grand Marine Industrial Building in Aberdeen; and the Overjoy Porcelain Factory in Block B of the Kwai Hing Industrial Building, Kwai Chung, in the New Territories.
In antiques shops, look for highly valued porcelains from China.
Electronics.
The latest gadgets are sometimes available in Hong Kong before anywhere else.
Before you begin shopping, pick up HKTA’s “Shopping Guide to Consumer Electronics. ”
Prices on electronics have risen in the past two years; check prices at home before you buy here.
Nathan Road has many electronics shops.
Also check out Star Computer City in the Star House near the Star Ferry terminal.
You’ll find that prices are about the same in Hong Kong Central and Kowloon, and somewhat cheaper in Causeway Bay, which caters to local shopping.
Furniture.
The choice ranges from traditional hand-carved Chinese rosewood furniture to well-made reproductions of modern Western styles.
Rattan furniture is highly popular.
Hollywood Road has several furniture shops.
Queen’s Road East in Wan Chai is a furniture manufacturing and retail area.
Jade.
“ Good for the health” is just one of the many magical qualities that are attributed to these beautiful emerald-green or turquoise stones.
Real jade is extremely expensive, and you may be offered counterfeit jade, which looks exactly like the genuine article.
Some people say you can test the authenticity by touch — real jade feels smooth and cool.
Alternatively, you can shine a lamp on the stone — real jade shows no reflected light.
Better still, go shopping with an expert.
Jewelry.
Thanks to the duty-free situation, prices in Hong Kong are lower than they are in some other places.
You can buy gemstones loose or set, or have them made up to your own design.
Popular purchases include diamonds and freshwater pearls.
If you do plan to buy jewelry, be sure to consult the “Shopping Guide to Jewellery” published by the Hong Kong Tourist Authority to find a reputable dealer.
The statues in the main shrine represent Man, the god of literature, and Mo, the god of war, a curious juxtaposition.
The temple is always crowded with worshipers.
Just past the temple is the aptly named Ladder Street.
As you get off, the 52-story Jardine House with porthole-shaped windows catches the eye.
Go down one flight of steps to Lascar Row, popularly known as Cat Street, for more antiques and curio shops.
Walk up the steps to reach Caine Lane, where you’ll find the Museum of Medical Sciences (open Tuesday–Saturday 10am–5pm; admission by donation).
The interesting Edwardian building was formerly the Pathological Institute, founded to combat the 19th century’s 30-year-long outbreak of bubonic plague.
The old laboratory is still intact, and there are exhibits on Chinese pharmacology and the history of medicine in Hong Kong.
Just to the east of the financial district, Wan Chai was once an area of sleazy clubs and topless bars; this was the setting for The World of Suzy Wong.
Servicemen relaxing from the rigors of the Vietnam War poured millions of dollars into the Wan Chai boom of the 1960s.
There are restaurants and a Starbuck’s in the basement, and you can access the raised pedestrian crosswalk from the escalators on the ground floor.
There are still bars and clubs here, but the area has become almost mainstream, and office towers are replacing many of the sinful old premises.
The Wan Chai waterfront is dominated by the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, the largest in Asia, which includes hotels, theaters, and exhibition halls.
The convention center, an extension on reclaimed land, affords stunning views of the Wan Chai waterfront.
On Wan Chai’s Bowen Road, Maiden’s Rock, also called Lover’s Rock, is the gathering place for the annual Maiden’s festival.
Although it is not a tourist attraction, the rock is steeped in tradition.
About 2 km (a mile) east of Wan Chai, Causeway Bay is second only to Tsim Sha Tsui as Hong Kong’s place to shop.
A prosperous tourist district, it is full of shopping centers and department stores, along with a number of good restaurants.
On the nautical side is the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter, where expensive yachts are anchored almost gunwale to gunwale, and the Hong Kong Yacht Club has its headquarters.
Across Gloucester Road, opposite the World Trade Centre, is the Noonday Gun, which under British rule was sounded on the stroke of midday.
Next to the Jardine building is Exchange Square, a complex with a large shopping mall; just behind it is the General Post Office with a philatelic center on the ground floor.
Silent for a time, the tradition has been revived and is a tourist attraction.
It’s not clear how the custom started.
One story has it that traders Jardine, Matheson & Co fired a private salute for a visiting tycoon, an act that incensed the colonial authorities, who felt that they had the sole right to issue such a 21-gun welcome.
As a result, the merchants were forced to limit their salvoes to one a day — and from then on, they signaled the noon hour daily for all to hear.
The gun was made famous by Noel Coward’s satirical song, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen. ”
Farther east is Hong Kong’s largest park, Victoria Park, with sports grounds and other facilities.
On the eastern side of Victoria Park on Causeway Road is Tin Hau Temple, dedicated to Tin Hau, the Taoist Queen of Heaven and patroness of seafarers.
Originally the temple was on the shore but reclamation projects have now left it high and dry.
Inland from the bay is Happy Valley.
At one time it was a very miserable valley, a swampland conducive only to breeding malarial mosquitoes.
It is home to Hong Kong’s first racetrack.
Hong Kong’s gamblers are so eager to play the horses that, despite the opening of a bigger and better racetrack at Sha Tin, the Happy Valley Racecourse is thriving.
Up Tai Hang Road behind Causeway Bay is Aw Boon Haw (Tiger Balm) Gardens (open daily 9:30am–4pm), founded in 1935 by the late Aw Boon Haw, who became a millionaire by producing the medicinal Tiger Balm.
With its garish pagodas, artificial caves, and brightly painted statues of well-known Taoist and Buddhist legends, the garden is an obvious photo opportunity.
Farther west is the ferry terminal for the outlying islands.
Aberdeen, the island’s oldest settlement, once a pirate lair, is home to the “floating population” — the boat people who spend their entire lives on the junks in the harbor, some proudly claiming never to have set foot on land (except for funerals, which don’t count).
The junks are a picturesque sight: children frolicking on the poop deck, women preparing food or playing mah-jong, elderly folk watching the sunset, dogs and cats underfoot, songbirds in bamboo cages overhead — and all afloat.
The boats may appear deceptively primitive, but many of them have their own electric generators and all the modern conveniences.
There are fewer boats now than in the past; many boat people, especially the younger generation, have moved to housing projects.
You can take a tour of the port in one of the small sampans, propelled by hand by women drivers.
A half-hour tour costs HK$50; pay at the end, or the driver may cut your trip short.
Aberdeen’s theatrical floating restaurants have been a tourist attraction for many years.
The food may not live up to expectations, but the fantasy environment makes up for it.
If you can get up early enough, you can attend the pre-dawn auction held at the vast local wholesale fish market; otherwise, have a look at the street market that goes on later in the day.
The peninsula opposite the east coast of Ap Lei Chau island contains Ocean Park (open daily 10am–6pm; admission HK$150 adults, HK$75 children), which has become one of Hong Kong’s biggest attractions.
It is divided into three areas: a highland, a lowland, and the Middle Kingdom.
Linking the lowland and highland sections of the park, a cable-car system offers spectacular views across to the islands of the South China Sea.
The Oceanarium is said to be the largest in the world, and the Ocean Theatre features displays by dolphins, killer whales, seals, and pelicans.
An enormous roller-coaster rising way above the sea, space wheels, and high-diving shows guarantee a day of excitement.
The Middle Kingdom is a recreated “living” history of China’s past, presented through a number of full-size replicas of shrines, temples, pagodas, palaces, and street scenes.
There are also demonstrations of traditional Chinese crafts, including silk-weaving, pottery, and p apermaking.
Water World, formerly in the complex, has closed for redevelopment.
The next inlet is Repulse Bay, a roomy, sandy crescent, with green hills.
Stanley was once one of the main fishing villages on Hong Kong Island.
The well-known Stanley Mar­ket (see page 55) is a major source for bargain clothing and other merchandise.
Stanley is also a favorite place of residence for ex-pats.
Nearby is Central Market, the wholesale food market of Hong Kong, and the Hang Seng building (private offices).
In many areas, the density reaches the equivalent of 150,000 inhabitants per square km (a quarter square mile).
Most of Kowloon’s attractions for visitors are centered near the tip of the peninsula in the district known as Tsim Sha Tsui.
Adjacent to the Star Ferry terminal is Ocean Terminal, where international cruise ships dock, and the gigantic Harbour City, a complex of malls, hotels, and restaurants.
If you walk east on the Star Ferry terminal concourse, you will find yourself on the wonderful Promenade, which begins at the clock tower, all that remains of the once grand Kowloon-Canton Railway Terminus.
The waterfront here offers unparalled views of the harbor and Hong Kong Island.
If you continue to the end of the promenade, you will be in Tsim Sha Tsui East, a busy commercial district built on more than 60 hectares (150 acres) of reclaimed land.
Flanked by the clock tower is the imposing Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
Hong Kong’s major venue for the performing arts, the building has been criticized for its fortress-like architecture and windowless façade.
Just east of the Star Ferry terminal, you’ll come to City Hall.
The interior is a comfortable amalgam of Chinese and Western design, with an impressive main lobby.
The center contains a concert hall with acclaimed acoustics, theaters, a library, an exhibition gallery, shops, restaurants, and bars.
Next door is the Hong Kong Space Museum and Theatre (open Monday, Wed­nesday–Friday 1–9pm; Sat­ur­day, Sunday 10am–9pm; closed Tuesday; admission HK$10 adults, HK$5 children; separate admission to theater).
No longer a center of government, it now functions as a cultural center.
The theater presents “sky shows” and IMAX films.
The Hong Kong Museum of Art (see page 54) stands behind the Space Museum next to the cultural center.
It contains the Xubaizhi collection of painting and calligraphy; galleries devoted to antiquities and ceramics; and a gallery of modern Chinese art.
Particularly interesting is the collection of paintings and photographs of old Hong Kong.
The museum mounts special exhibitions and has an excellent gift shop.
A few blocks up Chatham Road South are two more major museums.
The Scien­ce Mus­eum (see page 55) is a state-of-the-art interactive museum that will teach you how everything and anything works from ancient sailing ships to the latest technology.
Go through the underground walkway to Statue Square; on the east side of the square is the Legislative Council Building, one of the few colonial buildings left in Hong Kong.
The fascinating collection of artifacts pertaining showcases 6,000 years of Hong Kong’s history and Chinese culture.
Just across Salisbury Road from the cultural center is the historic Peninsula Hotel, now expanded and modernized by a 32-story tower.
Its restored lobby is Hong Kong’s most elegant gathering place; afternoon tea here is a visitors’ ritual.
Alongside the hotel runs busy Nathan Road, Hong Kong’s fabled shopping street, lined with shops, hotels, and restaurants.
Kowloon’s main street was created by Sir Matthew Nathan when he was governor of Hong Kong at the turn of the 19th century.
At the time it was built, many thought it absurd to have a tree-lined boulevard running through what was practically a wilderness.
Now the former “Nathan’s Folly” is known as the “Golden Mile. ”
A few blocks up Nathan Road is Kowloon Park (open daily 6am–midnight), elegantly laid out with fountains, promenades, and ornamental gardens; be sure to go up the steps to see the Sculpture Walk.
Farther up Nathan Street you will reach Yau Ma Tei, one of the older parts of Kowloon.
Turn off Nathan and walk down Kansu Street to find the Jade Market (open 10am–3pm; see page 80), with more than 100 stalls spread out in a large tent, just before you reach the overpass.
Hong Kong’s liveliest market scene is the Temple Street Night Market (see page 55), near Jordan Road.
Everything is sold here, from clothing to souvenirs to electronic goods, and the market is known for its street-side food stalls, where you can dine inexpensively on seafood.
So great is the pressure on the available land that most of Hong Kong’s colonial architectural heritage has been demolished and replaced by new skyscrapers.
The market runs all the way up to Tin Hau Temple, where you will find fortune tellers’ tables (some speak English) and possibly street performers singing Chinese opera or pop songs.
The temple is one of the many dedicated to Tin Hau, goddess of seafarers; this one also houses an altar to Shing Wong, the city’s god.
In the daytime the temple (open 8am–6pm) attracts worshipers, and its park attracts strollers and mah-jong players.
Nathan Road goes all the way up to Boundary Street, which marks the boundary between Kowloon and the New Territories.
Near Boundary Street, off Prince Edward Street West, is the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden (open 8am–7pm).
Off the beaten path in Sham Shui Po, west of the junction of Nathan Road and Boundary Street, is the Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb and Museum on Tonkin Road (open Monday–Wednesday and Friday–Saturday 10am–6pm, Sunday 1–6pm; closed Thursday).
This ancient burial vault is believed to date back to the Han Dynasty (a.d. 25–220).
The barrel-vaulted chambers were discovered while excavating for a nearby housing project.
Hong Kong’s New Territories begin at Boundary Street.
Surprises spring up on all sides: new industrial complexes alongside sleepy farming villages, skyscraper towns blooming in the middle of nowhere, Hakka women in their traditional flat straw hats with hanging black curtains, water buffalo, and flashes of azalea everywhere.
Despite protests by preservationists, there was little alternative.
The New Territories can be explored by taking the Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR), which makes 10 stops between the station in Kowloon and Sheung Shui, the last stop before entering China.
Ask the tourist authority about its interesting Heritage Tour from Kowloon and other countryside tours (see page 113).
The main highway makes a circuit of the New Territories, beginning with the new town of Tsuen Wan, situated in an area of heavy industry just west of Kowloon.
North of the town, a commanding view over all the New Territories to the north can be seen from Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong’s highest peak at 957 m (3,140 ft).
The highway continues parallel to the coast.
Nearby is Chater Garden and a number of notable architectural landmarks.
One-third of all Hong Kong’s beaches are to be found in a single 14-km (9-mile) stretch of this region’s shoreline.
Place names are often based on the distance to the nearest mile-post, as measured from the tip of the Kowloon peninsula.
Thus you will find “191/2-mile Beach” at Castle Peak Bay.
The main road continues clockwise around the New Territories.
As you approach the border, you can glimpse the skyscrapers of Shenzhen.
Most famous is the striking 74-story I.M. Pei Bank of China Tower, not beloved by the people of Hong Kong — its triangular prisms and sharp angles violate the principles of feng shui (see box, page 68) and its radio masts stick up like an insect’s antennae.
Set amid Tseun Wan’s residential towers is the 18th-century walled village of Sam Tung Uk, now preserved as a museum, and a short walk from the MTR station.
Not far away, at milepost 21 near the large new town of Tuen Mun, is a Taoist retreat known as Ching Chung Koon.
This “Temple of Green Pines” is a spacious complex containing temples and pavilions, statues, and gardens.
It is known for its collection of bonsai and houses a jade seal more than 1,000 years old.
Among the ponds is one inhabited by turtles: Visitors toss in coins in the hope of bouncing one off a turtle’s head, a sure way of achieving good fortune.
An even more interesting image out of Chinese history is the walled village of Kat Hing Wai, in the village of Kam Tin just outside the market town of Yuen Long.
This is the most easily accessible of the New Territories’ walled villages.
It is built in a square, and the only way in is through the gate in the brick defensive wall.
Kat Hing Wai was built four or five centuries ago by the Hakka Tang clan, one of the Five Great Clans that migrated here from North China (see page 11).
Many of the old houses in the village have been replaced by modern structures.
The Tang clan’s earliest walled village was Lo Wai, which also has its defensive wall intact and is entered by a narrow gate.
Few traditional ancestral halls remain in China since the anti-historical destruction during the Cultural Revolution, so these New Territories ancestral halls are rare survivors.
Another such hall, belonging to the Liu Clan, is Liu Man Shek Tong in the village of Sheung Shui.
One of the most interesting sites in the New Territories is Tai Fu Tai, another rare survivor, this one a mansion that belonged to a Confucian high official.
The house was built in 1865 by a member of the Man clan who achieved the rank of tai fu (mandarin) by doing well in the Imperial Exam­inations.
The preservation of this wonderful home is ongoing; a projected restoration of the original garden is still in progress.
The traditional Qing Dyna­sty style of the mansion is enlivened by a few West­ern touches: a Baroque-style ceiling and stained glass above the doorways, showing the builder’s up-to-date attitude at the time of construction.
The highway and the railway stay close together from Fanling, site of the best golf courses in the area.
Tai Po, just south of Fanling, is known for its market, Tai Po Market, which buzzes with activity daily from 7am to 6pm.
Just up a lane from the market is the Man Mo Temple, with long-burning incense coils hanging from its ceiling, a popular spot dedicated to the Taoist gods of war and literature.
The rival Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank is by architect Norman Foster; built on a “coathanger frame,” its floors hang rather than ascend.
The railway line then curves gracefully around Tolo Harbor, an idyllic body of water well-protected from the open sea.
You can take a ferryboat through the harbor, past the ingenious Plover Cove reservoir, a water catchment area appropriated by damming and draining a broad inlet from the sea.
The boats go on to the friendly fishermen’s island of Tap Mun, in Mirs Bay, with stops in remote hamlets of the Sai Kung Peninsula.
The Sai Kung area is the location of two official parks and nature preserves, while on the south side of the peninsula are some of the territory’s best beaches.
Teaching here is conducted in both Chinese and English.
The Art Gallery in the Institute of Chinese Studies Building is worth a visit for its painting and calligraphy collections.
Sha Tin is the site of the Monastery of 10,000 Buddhas, which looks down on a burgeoning town.
There are hundreds of stone steps in the hillside to walk up before you reach Man Fat Temple with its regiments of small gilt statues of Buddha lining the walls.
Some indefatigable climbers will want to go up to the top of the nine-story pink pagoda for a panoramic view.
From inside the vast atrium you can view the whole structure as well as the mechanical workings of the building.
Also here is the Hongkong Heritage Museum (call Tel. 2180 8188 for open hours).
The museum has an art collection, and displays of toys and other artifacts.
Down to earth, the Sha Tin Racecourse can accommodate over 80,000 spectators and is equipped with every imaginable luxury, including a giant video screen facing the stands, and for the horses, air-conditioned stables.
Opposite the Sha Tin railway station, New Town Plaza features shops, cinemas, and even a computer-controlled musical fountain.
Two natural rock formations are always pointed out on excursions.
Legend has it that a local woman climbed the hill every day to watch for her husband returning from across the sea; one day the wife and her child were turned to stone as a permanent symbol of her enduring faith.
Two bronze lions, carrying out feng shui principles, guard its doors.
It really looks the part; the tourists know its name even before the guide can translate it.
Excursion companies sell a variety of orientation cruises of Hong Kong harbor that include a look at some of its 235 outlying islands.
You can catch one of Hong Kong’s historic trams along Des Voeux Road and ride from Central to Causeway Bay (see box, page 66).
The mountainous island of Lantau is the biggest in the colony, and covers nearly twice the area of Hong Kong Island.
Chek Lap Kok airport sits on reclaimed land just off Lantau; plans to build a bridge may change Lantau, but at present it is sparsely populated and makes a perfect getaway.
At 934 m (3,064 ft), Lantau Peak is high enough to attract the occasional rain cloud — refreshingly cool breezes blow on most hot summer days.
More than half the island is parkland, and there is a 70-km (45-mile) circular hiking trail (see page 92).
Ferries depart from Central every two hours between 6:10am and 10:30pm to Silvermine Bay (Mui Wo), where a bus terminal has buses to all parts of the island.
There are also ferries to Discovery Bay.
A short bus ride away is Cheung Sha Beach, 3 km (2 miles) long, and popular for its white sand and excellent facilities.
The most famous site on the island is the world’s tallest seated bronze statue of Buddha at 22 m (72.6 ft), the Tiantan Buddha (see page 55).
The statue and a small museum are on a peak, up 268 steps, above Po Lin Monastery.
The monastery is strictly vegetarian, and visitors are warned not to bring any meat with them.
You can have a delicious vegetarian lunch here.
In 1904, the narrow, double-decker trams ran along the waterfront, but land reclamation has placed them far inland.
From the monastery, hikers enjoy the two-hour cross-country trek down to Silvermine Bay, but the authorities have warned walkers to be on the lookout for snakes, which can be plentiful in the Lantau hinterland, especially in summer.
The hillsides that surround the monastery are the site of Hong Kong’s only tea plantation.
Visitors are welcome to visit the 24-hectare (60-acre) establishment, and may sample the end product, Lantau tea.
The island’s largest community is Tai O. The people of this picturesque village make their living by fishing, duck-breeding, and food-processing.
A Trappist monastery, situated on a hillside overlooking the east coast of Lantau, is also open to visitors.
Some 10 km (6 miles) west of Hong Kong lies this small, crowded island, only one square mile in size.
More than 25,000 people live here, mostly by fishing, but there are also ex-pats, attracted by its laid-back Mediterranean ambience.
From the Bank of China Tower, make a short detour up Garden Road and turn into Battery Path to reach the landmark St. John’s Cathe­dral.
The island has a checkered past of smuggling and pira cy.
The people still carve jade and build seaworthy junks, all by hand.
Fish (heads discreetly wrapped in paper) are still hung out to dry in the sun.
Cheung Chau becomes the center of Hong Kong life once a year, usually in May, during the Bun Festival, a folklore extravaganza (see page 89).
The rest of the year, life goes on at its accustomed pace: rickety machines chugging in two-man factories, children in school uniforms being ferried home to houseboats, and the old fishermen stirring shrimp paste.
By way of formal tourist attractions, Pak Tai Temple, built in 1783, has some fine carvings and a great iron sword said to be 600 years old.
But the most interesting thing to do here is to explore the two villages on the island, Cheung Chau and San Wai.
They are an easy walk apart by the harbor road, or a longer 45-minute hike on the scenic Peak Road.
The Praya, the promenade in front of the ferry pier, is a good place to observe the many junks and fishing boats in the harbor.
There are also several open-air restaurants where you can enjoy fresh seafood.
Only 35 minutes by ferry from Central, Lamma Island is perfect for swimming, hiking, picnicking, birdwatching, or just sitting back to watch the bananas grow.
Built 1847–1849, this usually deserted Anglican foundation is Hong Kong’s oldest church.
Hong Kong’s third largest island has a population of only about 12,000; it is still largely undeveloped, and life on Lamma, if not totally primitive, is close to the essentials.
Archaeologists indicate that Lamma has probably been inhabited for some 4,000 years, and the island is known as “Hong Kong’s Stone Age Island. ”
The principal settlements are Yung Shue Wan on Lamma’s northwest, and Sok Kwu Wan, on the east coast.
Both villages offer good waterfront restaurants with homestyle Chinese food, principally seafood fresh from the tank.
The ports are within hiking distance of several beautiful beaches, and within a one-hour hike of each other on a marked trail.
You can build an appetite for dinner by making your way from the beach to the restaurant.
Yung Shue Wan is still a very British residential enclave, with many nice pubs.
During World War II, the church was turned into a club for Japanese officers; it was restored after the war.
Macau, the final bastion of Portugal’s great 16th-century empire, is much more than just a quirk of history.
Here, where East and West first met, life combines the spirit of Asia with something of the sunny atmosphere of the Mediterranean.
Macau’s historic center, with its colonial architecture, has a distinctly Medit­er­ranean flavor.
No matter how many tunnels and transit systems speed cross-harbor traffic, nothing matches the ride on the Star Ferry from Kowloon to the Central District across Victoria Harbor.
Col­­o­n­na­­ded public buildings, iron balconies, winding streets, flagstoned squares and the many churches all speak of the Portuguese inheritance as well as the Chinese, a fusion of East and West that has produced the unique Macanese culture.
The story of the Western discovery of Macau begins in 1513 when Portuguese explorer, Jorge Alvares, reached the south coast of China.
Traders followed in his wake, setting up bases in several parts of the Pearl River estuary.
Finally, in 1557, they were all consolidated in Macau.
It was the only European gateway to China, and through Macau flowed Western technology and religion.
In 1576 Pope Gregory XIII created the Macau diocese, covering all of China and Japan.
Note the stained glass windows in the Quiet Chapel, designed by Joseph Edward Nuttgens in the late 1950s.
No less impressive were the secular challenges.
China and Japan were not on speaking terms, so trade between them had to be channeled through a neutral middleman.
Lucky Macau fit the specifications exactly.
The Dutch sent an invasion flotilla to Macau in 1622, but the defenders triumphed.
However, the end of the golden age was drawing near.
A haven for persecuted Japanese Christians in the 17th century, Portugal’s neutrality during World War II assured the territory a flood of refugees.
They were joined by a swarm of spies of all conceivable nationalities, and Macau won a name for international intrigue.
Portugal’s very precarious foothold on the Asian coast ended in 1999 with a formal handover to China.
Macau, now the Chinese Special Economic Zone of Zhuhai, is becoming something like a boomtown as an exporter of toys, furniture, and electronics.
Macau’s population is estimated at around 450,000, an appallingly high figure for such a small area; recent land reclamation has eased the situation to some extent.
If a trace of tropical lethargy still adds to the charm in this city of sidewalk cafés, palm trees, and pedicabs, any torpor definitely ends once inside the doors of Macau’s casinos, scene of some of the liveliest gambling west of Las Vegas.
Gambling provides almost 40 percent of the government’s tax revenues, and is a major source of employment.
Its spin-off industries, prostitution and pawn shops, also thrive.
The easiest way to get to Macau is by jetfoil, operated by TurboJet (Tel. 2859-3333).
The 40-mile trip takes about an hour.
Across from the I.M. Pei tower a winding path leads up to Hong Kong Park.
Departures are from the Macau Ferry Terminal, just west of Central in the Shun Tak Centre, 200 Connaught Road, Central, in Hong Kong.
Macau’s own currency, the pataca, is pegged to the Hong Kong dollar, and you can use your Hong Kong currency freely in Macau.
Outside the terminal, you will find taxis as well as buses to all points (take 3, 3A, 10, or 10A to the historic center; exact change is required).
You’ll also be approached by pedicab drivers; these are tricycles carrying two passengers.
The park’s 10.5 hectares (25 acres) of landscaped gardens and lakes contains a large greenhouse that holds many species of plants, and an aviary of exotic birds.
Pedicabs were once the most common form of transportation in Macau, but today they are mainly a tourist attraction.
Directly across the street from the wharf where passengers arrive from Hong Kong is the first surprise to greet visitors to Macau — the vast Jai-alai Palace, said to be the world’s most luxurious frontón.
In an effort to provide yet one more thing to bet on, players are imported from Spain to take part in this lightning-fast Basque ball game.
The grandstand situated on the seaside road, the Avenida da Amizade (Friendship Avenue), marks the finishing line for the Macau Grand Prix, the international car-racing event held here every November.
Also in front of the ferry terminal is a new Cyber fountain, with 86 water spouts that shoot up to 70 m (230 ft) and are illuminated at night by 288 spotlights producing 80 colors.
Continuing around the peninsula in a clockwise direction brings you to the Rua da Praia Grande (Big Beach Street) — a pleasant promenade with shaded benches under the banyan trees.
Along this elegant avenue is Government House, a modest pink palace.
The central square of the historic city center is Largo do Senado.
For an authentic feel of old Portugal, slip into the cool entrance hall of theimpressive Leal Senado (“Loyal Senate” building), a fine example of colonial architecture.
On the inside walls are flowered blue tiles (azulejos) and coats of arms.
The inscription over the archway reads, “Cidade do nome de Deus, não ha outra mais leal” (“City of the Name of God, None is More Loyal”) — a bit of praise attributed to Portugal’s King John IV in the 17th century.
In the park is the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware (see page 54).
For all its historic grandeur, the loyal Senate now is the equivalent of a city council, its statesmanship dedicated to water supplies, sewage lines, and the establishment of playgrounds.
Macau’s most memorable monument is the Baroque façade of the ruins of São Paulo, the only remains of a beautiful 17th-century Jesuit church.
The rest of the building and an adjoining college were destroyed in a typhoon-fanned fire in 1835.
The rich sculptural effects on the façade mix Eastern and Western symbols: familiar saints, Chinese dragons, and a Portuguese caravel.
It’s in Hong Kong’s oldest colonial building, with exhibits describing the history of tea from the Warring States period (475–221 b.c. ) to the present.
Beneath the church, the Museum of Sacred Art houses a collection of sacramental objects.
The ambitious Museum of Macau (open Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm; admission HK$15) opened in 1998 in the lower levels of the Monte Fortress.
Entrance is by escalator, near St. Paul’s.
It gives an overview of Macau’s history and its daily life and traditions.
A re-created street of colonial Macau is lined with traditional Chinese shops.
Local legend claims that he wrote part of his great saga, Os Lusíadas, in what is now called the Camões Grotto, situated in the spacious tropical Camões Garden.
Next to the museum, behind a gate (opened to anyone who knocks), is the Old Protestant Cemetery.
Those whose fate was to die on some far foreign field could not have wanted a more peaceful, lovely graveyard.
The small, whitewashed chapelwas the first Protestant church built in China.
For a different vision of Old China, spend a few quiet moments in the classic Lou Lim Ieoc Garden.
Here, arched bridges, pagodas, fish ponds, and stands of bamboo create the mood of a timeless Chinese painting.
Nearby is the Memorial House of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese Republic.
If you leave the park and walk up Cotton Tree Drive, you will find the Peak Tram terminal.
Photos and documents tell the life story of the physician-revolutionary-statesman, who lived for a time in Macau, but never in this building.
Kun Iam Tong, off Avenida do Coronel Mesquita (open daily 8am–6pm), is a 17th-century Buddhist temple of considerable splendor and charm.
An unexpected piece of historical memorabilia turns up in the monastery garden, where guides point out a small stone table used for a treaty-signing ceremony in 1844.
The signatories, who were the Chinese viceroy from Canton and the minister plenipotentiary of the United States of America, put their names to a historic document — the first-ever treaty between the two countries.
T he crowded Kowloon peninsula and the booming New Territories on the mainland call for some serious sightseeing; but we begin across Victoria Harbor on Hong Kong Island, where the city was first founded and which remains the center of government, business, and commerce.
Nearby is the Macau Cultural Center and the Museum of Art (open Tuesday–Sunday 10am–7pm; closed Monday; small admission).
For more than a century, the most exhilarating way up Victoria Peak has been by funicular.
Macau’s oldest museum, the Maritime Museum (Wednesday–Monday 10am–5:30pm; admission HK$10, HK$5 children over 10) traces the history of Macau’s connection to the sea.
Exhibits cover fishing, seaborne trade, sea transport, and there is an aquarium.
The museum also offers boat tours aboard a fishing junk.
The museum is almost on the spot where the Portuguese first landed.
When they came ashore they found the A-Ma Temple (properly called Ma Kok Temple; open daily dawn to dusk), dedicated to the favorite goddess of fishermen, who is also known as Tin Hau.
The area was called A-Ma Gau (“Bay of A-Ma”), and in this way, Macau got its name.
The remains of the 17th-century Barra Fortress, which once defended the southern tip of the peninsula, contains the chapel of Santiago (St. James).
The Peak Tram starts its scenic climb just across the street and around the corner from the American Consulate in Garden Road and makes its way, sometimes at a startlingly steep incline, to the summit at 398 m (1,305 ft).
The saint is much revered in the surrounding area.
Among other legends surrounding the statue is a very modern one: During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards were running rampant on Wanchai island, just a swim away, the image of St. James is said to have stepped down from the altar and halted an invasion.
Part of the fortress has been converted and is now used as a luxury inn.
The northernmost point in Macau is the frontier between two contrasting worlds.
The Barrier Gate (Portas do Cerco), which was built more than a century ago, marks the boundary between the enclave of Macau and the People’s Republic of China.
Macau’s casinos are a source of non-stop excitement.
The fancifully decorated Macau Palace, a floating casino moored on the western waterfront, is fitted out with gambling tables, slot machines (known locally as “hungry tigers”) and, for hungry humans, a restaurant.
Gambling is wildly popular with the Chinese of Hong Kong, and they make up nearly 80 percent of all visitors to the casinos.
The casinos offer familiar international games — baccarat, blackjack, boule, craps, roulette — along with more exotic Chinese pastimes.
Watch the fantan dealer for a few minutes and you’ll almost be an expert: It’s simply a matter of how many odd buttons are left after he has divided a pile of them into groups of four.
Dai-Siu (Big and Small) is a dice game in which the croupier throws three dice inside a glass container.
Players bet on the numbers that will come up, and on whether the result will be “big” or “small. ”
Keno is a variation of bingo in which the player chooses numbers to bet on before the draw is made.
The casinos have no admission charge and formal dress is optional, though long pants for men are required.
They keep busy 24 hours a day, but if you want a change of scene there are always more gambling opportunities available.
The right-of-way travels past fancy apartment blocks, bamboo stands, and jungle flowers.
You can try your luck at pari mutuel betting on jai-alai at pari mutuel, greyhound-racing at the Cani­drome (one of the largest in the world), and harness-racing on Taipa.
Like Hong Kong, Macau is a duty-free port.
It is famous for its gold jewelry.
Market prices per tael (34 grams/1.
2 ounces) of gold are set daily.
You should always ask for a certificate of guarantee when you buy gold or jewelry.
Browsing is a real pleasure in Macau’s main streets and byways, where shops aimed at the tourist market are interspersed with the more workaday ironmongers, herbalists, and noodle stalls.
Knowle­dgeable visitors look for antiques — either Chinese heirlooms or leftovers from the gracious Portuguese colonial days.
However, you are not likely to find bargains, and you should be aware that unless you are an expert, you can end up with a fake.
Also worth investigating are contemporary handicrafts, both Portuguese and Chinese, from across the border.
Gourmets award Macau high marks for dependable Chinese cooking with an exotic bonus: Portuguese food and wines.
Macau’s own cuisine is a combination of Chinese flavors with the flavors imported from Portugal, Brazil, and Africa.
Whether you choose to dine in one of the Macanese, Chinese, traditional Portuguese, or international-style restaurants, you will be treated to a hearty meal at a good price.
The Peak is still the most fashionable place to live in Hong Kong, but real estate prices here are astronomical; rents run around HK$50,000 a month.
The ingredients, especially the fresh fish and seafood, are first-rate.
A delicate, delicious fish is Macau sole (linguado).
Imported dried cod (bacalhao) is the Portuguese national dish; several varieties are available, usually baked.
Macau has an ample supply of Portuguese wines.
Try a vinho verde, a mildly sparkling young wine from northern Portugal, or a hearty red Dão or Colares.
After dinner, a glass of Madeira or port is recommended to round off the meal.
The more abstemious can stick to Portuguese mineral water.
Bridges link Macau with its two islands.
Since the construction of the New Macau-Taipa Bridge has allowed easy access to the airport, the population has grown to more than 30,000, with industrial development, new apartment blocks, and luxury resort hotels.
The quaint Taipa Village, with its narrow lanes and colonial buildings painted yellow, blue, and green, has almost been completely swallowed up by the development of nearby housing projects.
The island is also the designated home of the University of East Asia.
Pay a visit to the Casa Museu da Taipa, and you’ll be able to get a glimpse of how Macanese families lived in former days.
A grand colonial house, fully restored and outfitted with period furnishings, provides the centerpiece for this expanding “cultural village. ”
Not as developed as Taipa, it offers the joys of sand and sea and is known for its beaches.
Cheoc Van and Hac Sa (“Black Sands”) are both popular resort areas, with lifeguards on duty in summer and windsurfing boards for rent.
The Peak Tram, originally steam-powered, was built to speed the wealthy taipans to their mountainside retreats.
There are restaurants, swimming pools, and changing facilities.
The village of Coloane is picturesque, with a central square lined with cafés.
The small Chapel of St. Francis Xavier is dedicated to the 16th-century patron saint of missionaries, and has on display the elbow of the saint, along with the bones of numerous Japanese and Vietnamese martyrs.
Seac Pai Van Park, on the west coast of the island is an interesting natural preserve with aNatural History Museum.
Guangzhou was China’s major seaport for 2,000 years and the center for European traders in the 19th century.
Ever since 1957 the Canton Trade Fair (officially the Chinese Export Commodities Fair) has attracted throngs of international business people every spring and autumn.
Guangzhou, with a population of more than 5 million, straddles the Pearl River — China’s fifth longest — which links the city to the South China Sea.
Before the tram was built, sedan chairs and rickshaws were the only way to get here.
This waterway accounts for much of the local charm and excitement, as the daily drama of the ferryboats, junks, sampans, freighters — and even small tankers and big gunboats — unfolds right in the center of town.
Guangdong Province has some of China’s most fertile land, and grows two crops of rice a year, along with vegetables of all kinds.
Guangzhou today is mostly about business and industry, featuring new development, skyscrapers, a whole new business area, and raised expressways.
Since the tram’s inauguration in 1888 it has stopped only for typhoons and World War II.
Guangzhou is interestingly one of China’s most prosperous cities, determinedly on the move into the modern world.
It seems that the picturesque older sections with their old houses, narrow streets, and winding alleyways may not be around much longer.
There are many package tours to Guangzhou from Hong Kong (see page 113), and this may be the easiest way to visit the city.
However, it’s also easy to get to Guangzhou by train or ferry.
Four comfortable express trains depart the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) Station in Hung Hom, Kowloon, making the trip in less than two hours.
Turbo Cat ferries leave the China Hong Kong City (CHKC) terminal twice a day; the journey takes two hours.
As the double-decker boats get ready to leave the pier, bells ring, the gangplank is raised, deckhands in blue sailor suits man the hawsers, and a couple of hundred commuters begin a seven-minute sightseeing tour.
Citibus also travels to Guangzhou from CHKC; there are five round-trips a day, taking 31/2 hours.
You will need a visa to enter China (see page 109 for information).
Hong Kong currency is widely accepted in Guangzhou, or you can change your currency into RMB (yuan) at any bank or hotel.
The modern 120-passenger cars make the journey in around eight minutes.
English is spoken in hotels and tourist destinations.
If you travel by train, you will arrive at the Guangzhou East Station, a large modern complex, which connects with the subway, buses, hotel transfer services, and taxis.
The train station is in the newer business district; nearby is Asia’s third-tallest building, at 83 stories, which will often be pointed out to you.
Sights in Guangzhou
However, on sunny Saturdays and Sundays you may have to brave a crowd lining up at the lower terminal.
The park is landscaped with lakes and gardens.
In the park is the 1380 Zhenhai Tower, one of the city’s oldest buildings.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Memorial Hall honors the founder of the Chinese Revolution, flanked by his heroic statue in copper.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) began his political career in Canton.
This enormous, modern version of a traditional Chinese building, with sweeping blue tile roofs, contains an auditorium big enough to seat 4,700 people.
It was built in 1931 with contributions from overseas Chinese.
The center of the park is the Five Rams Statue.
It celebrates the founding of Guangzhou, when five spirits rode their goats down from the celestial realm to present the inhabitants of the city with their very first grains of rice.
Guangzhou’s most important Buddhist monument is the 1,400-year-old Temple of the Six Banyan Trees (open 8am–5pm).
During the spring and autumn festivals, when people traditionally seek out the hilltops, the throngs are so large you would be better advised to try another time.
Although the banyan trees that once flourished here are now no more, the often-restored complex has remained a focus of local Buddhist activities.
Golden Buddha statues in several of Buddha’s aspects adorn the temples, and overlooking them is the 17-story Flower Pagoda, a slender relic of the Song dynasty (a.d. 960–1279).
In the early Middle Ages, Canton had a significant Muslim population as a result of its trade with the Middle East.
This explains the presence in Guangzhou of the Huaisheng Mosque, reputed to be China’s oldest, and traditionally dated a.d. 627.
Rebuilt in modern times, the mosque serves the small local community of Muslims.
The modern minaret is known as the “Plain (or Naked) Pagoda,” in contrast to the Flower Pagoda of the Buddhist temple.
Chen Jia Ci, the Chen Family Institute (open daily 8:30am–5pm), was built in the late 19th century to promote arts and crafts.
Porcelain friezes adorn the rooftops and ridgepoles, telling the story of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Inside is a collection of ceramics, carvings, and furniture.
There is also a market and a porcelain shop.
Mao Zedong himself directed the institute in 1926, and gave lectures on geography, rural education, and “The Problem of the Chinese Peasantry. ”
Zhou Enlai also taught here.
The atmosphere of 19th-century Canton is best evoked on Shamian Island, a haunting, nostalgic place in the Pearl River.
This small formerly residential island, beautifully shaded by banyan trees, was the home of the closed community of the foreign colony in the era of “concessions. ”
The bridges were barred by night with iron gates to keep the Chinese out.
Its stately European-style buildings have since been restored, largely for use as government offices and foreign legations.
The island also has Guangzhou’s first modern luxury resort hotel.
A popular optional excursion is an hour’s detour to Guangzhou Zoo, founded in 1958.
It houses more than 200 animal species, most famous of which is the giant panda, and has an imaginative monkey mountain behind a moat.
Not to be missed is a visit to Guangzhou’s famous open-air market, Qing Ping.
Guangzhou is famous for its food.
The Cantonese love to eat and have the reputation of eating almost anything that walks on four legs.
The market bears this out: Along with the usual ducks and chickens, you will see for sale snakes, dogs, bats, and sometimes monkeys — all are highly prized as delicacies.
More pleasantly, you can browse among lanes of antiques, flowers, herbs, fruit, goldfish, songbirds, and more.
A very popular day-trip from Guangzhou goes to Foshan, a city of nearly 300,000 people, renowned for its handicrafts for more than a thousand years.
The individual artisans’ shops are no longer here, but you can visit a silk-weaving factory, a ceramics plant, and the Foshan Folk Art Studio, where you can observe workers making Chinese lanterns, carving sculptures, painting scrolls, and cutting intricate designs in paper.
Foshan’s most outstanding artistic monument is Zu Miao, the Taoist Ancestral Temple, a Sung dynasty establishment rebuilt in the 14th century and well worth visiting.
You can walk around the peak for impressive views of Hong Kong, the coastline, and the islands in 45 minutes on Lugard and Harlech roads.
The complex contains the oldest wooden stage in China, used by the Wan Fu Tai Chinese opera.
Shenzhen was China’s first Special Economic Zone.
Literally created out of rural farmland, it was set up in the 1970s as the answer to Hong Kong.
From a population of 20,000 it has grown into a metropolis of 2.5 million, with tightly clustered skyscrapers and some of China’s highest grossing industries.
Because Shenzhen is much cheaper than Hong Kong, it is a popular weekend destination for Hong Kong’s Chinese, who come to relax, dine in its resorts, and play golf — Shenzhen hosted the World Cup of Golf in 1995.
It is even becoming something of a commuter town — owning or renting an apartment here costs a fraction of what it would in Hong Kong.
Shenzhen is easy to reach — the KCR commuter train runs throughout the day, the trip taking about 40 minutes.
Visitors need a visa to enter China, and must disembark at the border (now called “boundary”) checkpoint, Lo Wai.
A Turbo Cat ferry makes a one-hour trip (7am–7pm) from Hong Kong’s Macau Ferry Terminal to Shekou on the Natau Peninsula, which is part of the economic zone.
Shenzhen is a premier shopping center, and much cheaper than Hong Kong.
It is known for its inexpensive (but well-made) knock-off designer goods.
The view is especially effective at night.
You can use your Hong Kong dollars here, so there’s no need to change currency.
Some places take credit cards, but cash is better for bargaining.
Shenzhen’s main tourist attractions are its enormous theme parks.
There are also souvenir stands, benches for a rest, and perhaps Hong Kong’s last surviving rickshaws — however these are not for rides, but are a tourist photo opportunity.
It contains elaborate replicas of China’s chief monuments in impressive detail, including a scaled-down version of the Great Wall.
The 24 China Folk Culture Villages represent China’s ethnic variety; they feature craftspeople in traditional costumes along with folksong and dance performances.
In Shekou is a large Free Market, and an exhibition of Xian’s terra-cotta warriors.
If you’re up to a climb, take the Mount Austin road to the Victoria Peak Gardens.
These gardens used to belong to the governor’s mountain lodge, but the building was demolished by the Japanese during the occupation of Hong Kong.
From the lower terminal of the Peak Tram it’s only a short walk to the former governor’s residence, Government House, now a museum.
Across from the mansion, the Zoological and Botanical Gardens (gardens open daily 6am–10pm; zoo 6am–7pm; admission free) provide a welcome oasis amid the big-city pressures.
In the very early morning the park is taken over by people doing tai-chi exercises.
Both young and old go through ballet-like movements in slow motion to discipline the mind and body.
The park’s zoo has a collection of weird and wonderful chattering jungle birds.
The Western District is one of Hong Kong’s oldest neighborhoods, and its narrow streets hold a collection of fascinating traditional shops and enterprises.
It is more interesting for its architecture than for its shopping; it’s situated in a four-story Edwardian building built in 1906.
For an interesting glimpse of small and family-owned shops, walk along Bonham Strand East and West, Man Wa Lane, and Cleverly Street.
The big green-and-white boat weaves its way through an ever-changing obstacle course of both large and small craft, and the soaring skyline of Hong Kong Island draws nearer.
You’ll find herb and medicine shops, incense shops, chop makers’ shops (makers of Chinese seals), and more.
Hong Kong University’s campus is spread along Bonham Road.
When it opened in 1912, the university had a total of 72 students.
The University’s Fung Ping Shan Museum, 94 Bonham Road (open Monday–Saturday 9:30am–6pm, admission free) holds a significant collection of antiquities: bronzes, dating from 3000 b.c. , and ceramics, including Han Dynasty tomb pottery.
It also has the world’s largest collection of Nestorian crosses from the Yuan Dynasty period.
Take the Mid-Levels Escalator to Hollywood road, known for its antiques and curio shopping.
Here the windows and open doors of the shops reveal an alluring selection of Asian furniture, carpets, carvings, tomb figures, porcelain, and bronze.
Walk west along Hollywood Road until you come to Man Mo Temple, the island’s oldest house of worship (though the date of its founding is subject to dispute).
The gold-plated sedan chairs on the left-hand side of the temple were once used for transporting the statues of the temple’s gods in religious processions.
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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCE OFFICE OF THE DEAN
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Over the past year, the Graduate School of Arts and Science has seen record level contributions from its alumni and alumnae to the School’s Annual Fund.
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However, it reflects on a greater level both the desire of many Mayans to assimilate, as they still feel that is necessary for social mobility, and a belief among the general population that Mayans do not require a separate bill of rights as they are covered under the general rights already in the constitution (Warren 2002: 159, 172).
Illiteracy rates are in fact correlated with the Mayan language itself: those who speak Spanish are more likely to be literate than those who speak Mayan alone (England 2003: 733).
Therefore when considering the indigenous revitalization movements which began in 20th century Latin America, the impact of those indigenous languages on those movements and the nature of the identity of the peoples themselves is key.
Nonetheless, in 2003 the legislature passed the law of national languages, which while reaffirming Spanish as the official language, recognizes the importance of indigenous languages as part of national identity and encourages their active promotion.
This question of identity as defined by language manifests differently in Guatemala and Colombia.
Within the pan-Mayan movement, there remains a desire to maintain linguistic diversity: some view the reduction of their language to the status of "dialect" devalues their unique identity and place in the Mayan world; however, despite differences over standardization, the pan-Mayan movement itself is largely cohesive.
In contrast, Colombian indigenous groups are divided to the extent that linguistic diversity is not only valued, but serves to split the population, both between groups and within groups themselves.
An example is the Tukanoans: while considered a single “ethnic group”, they maintain 16 distinct language groups and practice linguistic exogamy, in which members of one language group must marry into another (Jackson 1995: 4).
Language further works to establish identity by encapsulating a worldview markedly removed from that of the dominant Western culture.
Indigenous cosmology, or “cosmovision”, is difficult to translate into Romanticized languages; it maintains a concept of culture, defined as “the form of behavior resulting from a permanent harmonic relationship with Nature” (Gow and Rappaport 2002: 58) and view of history as cyclic that is often at odds with Western modes of thought.
The differences between Western and native perceptions then lead to conflict within the revitalization movements themselves: the question of embracing Western law and discourse is continually grappled with.
Language plays a complex and integral role in the development and redefinition of an identity, particularly when that identity has been oppressed and subsumed by a dominant other for as long as that of the indigenous peoples in Latin America has. In particular I will examine two divergent yet remarkably parallel cases, that of the Maya in Guatemala and the Nasa and Guambiano peoples of Colombia.
Customary law in Colombia contrasts with Western law as it maintains a different perception of casual relationships: tying back to the indigenous concept of harmony, crimes are viewed as imbalances in the community's harmony and can often be traced back to those who did not perpetuate the crime, but may have influenced the accused to do so.
When a punishment - often public and corporal in nature - is carried out, the group feels the effects as a whole.
Shamans often sit with the criminal as he fills his sentence, sharing in their ordeal.
(Rappaport 2005) Once punishments are completed, the criminal is seen as rehabilitated, having fulfilled his duty to restore harmonic order, and is welcomed back into the community (Gow and Rappaport 2002: 61, Rappaport 2005: 97).
Translation of law into native languages has proved to be a difficult task, as Western ideas often have no parallel in indigenous cosmovision.
The translation of the Colombian constitution sparked the development of neologisms, as the goal of the translators was not to provide a direct translation of the constitution, but to recapture its spirit in a native, rather than Western discourse (Gow and Rappaport 2002: 58-59).
This provides a second interpretation of law distinct from that of the Spanish Colombian culture, and in turn an interpretation aligned with native ideology for the cabildos to follow when governing (Rappaport 2005: 93, 236).
Translation fulfills another vital role, as it is employed in the rediscovery of the indigenous identity itself.
Workshops and advocacy groups regularly work to translate native histories back into native forms of knowledge, distancing them from the Western influences that have invaded over the past six centuries.
The Guambiano history project charts native history as the outward spiraling events which are both cyclic and parallel in nature; Mayan historians translate and document oral histories whose legacy is in danger of being forgotten (Rappaport 2005: 165).
This attempt to regain identity via translation is indicative of the intimate relationship between indigenous revitalization within a modern context and native language use.
Difficulties arise, however, as conflicts between the traditional and modern and native languages and Spanish develop.
The differences between cosmovision in Spanish and indigenous languages are great, leading to the difficulty of governing in Spanish yet embracing indigenous mode of thought.
In addition, there exists a complex relationship between what are perceived as different levels of indigenous identity; the Nasa, for example, divide themselves into the traditional, modern, and new.
The authenticity of the modern Nasa, who are often metropolitan Spanish speakers attempting to reconnect with their roots, is brought into question by the traditional, who speak Nasa Yuwe and lead a rural existence(Rappaport 2005).
In Guatemala the fact remains that Spanish is the gateway to social mobility; years of conflict and refugee status have established the desire to leave a rural way of life for an updated urban one, and those literate in Spanish have the tools to do so.
Illiteracy and poverty is associated with Maya; thus there is the conflict between the desire to recapture the unique Mayan identity via the language and the need to improve living conditions, which most often occurs under Spanish influence.
Their struggle to attain status in societies still bearing the marks of Spanish colonialism is deeply tied to their struggle to reaffirm the nature of their “indigenous identity”, and is in turn linked to the interaction of Spanish and their native languages.
Politicians make a point of appearing in their native dress and speaking in their native language in assembly, even if they are more at home in a business suit and speaking Spanish; indigenous identity has become a calling card to the extent that at times it appears to be a caricature of itself.
The Colombian constitution is problematic in that it provides little guide as to what exactly forms an indigenous group; the concept of culture is so complex and divergent that establishing self-determination in the eyes of the Colombian government requires emphasizing differences.
Efforts towards development, then, cannot endanger traditional culture and values, for fear of losing cultural legitimacy (Jackson 1995: 5).
There develops a duality in native culture; for example, many Nasa children receive instruction in Nasa Yuwe yet converse in Spanish outside the classroom.
An emphasis on preserving, rather than practicing, native culture arises: indigenous authenticity is maintained by sustaining knowledge of traditional practices and beliefs without fully embracing them on a day-to-day basis (Gow and Rappaport 2002: 66-67).
This intersection of language and indigenous identity poses challenges which have yet to be fully addressed.
In Guatemala, they are largely comprised of the conflict between poverty and progress; the pan-Mayan movement must meet the dual trials of establishing a positive identity within the Mayan population itself and legitimacy in the legal and political arenas in order to gain policy reforms and codified rights in law.
In Colombia, legal successes have often come about due to the Colombian government's recognition of the political viability of the rhetoric of indigenous rights; by granting indigenous peoples judicial sovereignty they hope to win the trust of a people who view the government as incapable of protecting them from the ongoing civil strife, and by giving them blocks of land they hope that the indigenous community will be able to keep out drug traffickers and guerrillas where the government itself has not (Jackson 1995: 8).
Regardless of the ulterior motives behind their legal status, indigenous peoples in Colombia now possess the rights to teach and govern in their own languages according to their own laws (Jackson 1995: 5).
Works Cited
The effects of Spanish colonialism are both far-reaching and deeply embedded in both countries.
One of the most prominent, lasting influences is that of the land grant system. Initially the Spanish government attempted to instate the encomienda system, in which a conquistador maintained direct control over the indigenous peoples and their land.
Humans, in the process of defining themselves, look to immediately recognizable factors in order to differentiate themselves from others.
In reality land ownership rights were the exclusive right of the Spanish, resulting in modern-day malappropriation of land ownership in the hands of the descendants of the Spanish colonialists (Warren 1978, 7-8). Indigenous peoples are commonly sharecroppers or migrant workers.
The impoverished plight of the native populations was first recognized by the Marxist movements of the early 20th century.
Those were the first to articulate the necessity of affirming the independent identity of the indigenous populations; previously, both the left and right maintained a belief in indigenous assimilation into the dominant Spanish culture.
However, they also claimed that they were part of a larger group, the working class, whose poverty was a direct result of American imperialism; therefore they should join these new popular leftist movements in order to reorganize society into a worker-friendly one (Jackson 1995: 6-7).
In Colombia this resulted in a civil war between the Liberal and Communist parties and Conservative party.
A truce established between the Liberals and Conservatives failed to meet the demands of the Communists, who in turn sustained guerrilla attacks in response.
Guerrilla warfare has since become a part of Colombian life; multiple groups maintain an ongoing presence, often stationing themselves in the remote mountainous villages often populated by various indigenous peoples.
This process leads to the development of what can be broadly termed culture: a group of people joined by characteristics, traits, and beliefs comes to view themselves as sharing a distinct identity, discernible from that of those “outside” them, those who do not belong.
This resulted in persecution against the Mayans, who make up about 60% of the overall population. In both counties, guerrillas were often associated with the native peoples; in many cases there were coalitions, but in others the guerrillas merely used the remote, inaccessible villages as hideouts.
In Guatemala over 450 villages were destroyed, 200,000 Mayans were killed, and over 1 million more were displaced.
The main guerrilla force was demilitarized in 1996 with the establishment of a peace accord (Warren 2002: 157-158).
The growth in popularity and militarism of these popular leftist movements is intertwined with the development of the indigenous revitalization movements.
By the 1970s the need to assert a cause separate from the general left was seen, and indigenous rights movements formed (Warren 2003: 174, Jackson 2002: 82).
Central to these was the question of indigenous identity:
Most still speak it in various forms, and efforts by Mayan linguists to standardize the language are producing a coherent, modern version of Maya (England 2003: 733, 739).
The popular left, however, continues to see the rhetoric of ethnic rights as a politically viable tool.
The Pan-Mayan movement thus benefits from the lasting influence of the popular left on Guatemalan governmental policies without risking drawing the (often negative) attention of the government (England 2003: 735, Warren 2003: 181).
A main concern among pan-Mayanists is the reversal of the long-seated inferiority complex of the Mayan people; despite their position as majority within the Guatemalan population, they remain impoverished and marginalized on the fridge of society.
Naturally this can be signaled by any number of things - clothing, food, lifestyle choices.
This results in part from the ingrained influences of Spanish colonialism: Spanish continues to be associated with modernity and social mobility, whereas Maya is seen as backward and inferior.
Pan-Mayan leaders therefore seek to develop a return to Maya as it was in its classical renaissance, a language of power and prestige (England 2003: 736).
By doing so they hope to inculcate among the Mayan peoples a renewed sense of pride which will in turn reverse the dogma of Spanish superiority.
Colombia, in contrast, has no unified "pan-Indian" sentiments; the indigenous population is a small fraction of the overall population, a fractured entity divided by region and language.
Several competing and oftentimes conflicting indigenous rights advocacy groups have developed: the ONIC poses itself as the sole pan-Indian group, yet lacks legitimacy in the eyes of many indigenous peoples (Jackson 2002: 83, 85).
One of the most dominant and easily noted factors is language.
It often stands in conflict with the AICO, its Guambiano counterpart (Jackson 2003: 83-84).
Whereas the Mayanists benefit from a single main identity, those of Colombia must operate under historical differences between the various ethnic groups (Jackson 2002: 109).
The Nasa and Guambiano have stood in opposition since pre-colonial times; therefore any coalition between the two advocacy groups is tenuous at best (Rappaport 2005: 2).
The command of a language, while not affording guaranteed access to the community which speaks it, is often the key to gaining entry.
In the 1990s the rhetoric of "cultural diversity" was picked up the Colombian media, and subsequently entered the consciousness of the greater metropolitan public, thereby cementing its place in Colombian society as necessity and further complicating the role of indigenous movements in gaining rights for indigenous peoples as a whole.
A major success in the Colombian saga is the revamped constitution of 1991, which includes a section on indigenous rights, as the Congress which drafted it included representatives from native groups (Gow and Rappaport 2002: 57).
Central is a return to the old land grant system stemming from the repartimentos of the colonial era along with judicial sovereignty.
While the repartimento was originally used to repress the indigenous groups, it is now used to support them: resguardos, or communally owned plots of land, are granted to communities.
The return to customary law reflects a substantial shift in indigenous identity:
no longer ruled by Western laws and discourse, communities are forced to assess the efficacy of their old judicial systems in light of the modern era.
In turn communal identity can be formed around a language; it is used as the focal point around which the group gathers.
The oral nature of jurisprudence directly conflicts with the desire of the Colombian government to codify law, and questions of human rights violations are common as punishments are often corporal in nature (Gow and Rappaport 2002: 57-58).
The Colombian constitution stands in stark contrast to the failure of the Guatemalan indigenous rights referendum of 1999.
Mayans gained formal recognition in 1995 as the majority population in a precursor to the 1996 peace accord; by 1999 its government floated a referendum on an indigenous bill of rights resembling that codified in the Colombian constitution (Warren 2002: 157-158).
IT AUTHORIZES YOU TO START ENJOYING AMC’S OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES IMMEDIATELY!
Our mission is great
With our volunteers, we maintain 1,400 miles of trails.
We provide overnight shelters (including the famous AMC Mountain Huts) to more than 80,000 hikers annually.
We built our first hut more than 100 years ago in New Hampshire’s northern Presidential Range, and we helped protect the White Mountains so that they are still open to you now.
And we offer the same hospitality atop beautiful Mt. Greylock in the Berkshires.
We’re helping to develop
the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, from Old Forge, New York, to Fort Kent, Maine.
And we’re working with the National Park Service in upgrading the trail system in the Delaware Water Gap and Acadia National Park in Maine.
We’re determined to conserve the Northern Forest of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York, as well as the White and Berkshire ranges, and the countryside surrounding the Appalachian Trail.
We’re working to keep our air clean and healthy, our waterfalls clear, our rivers running free, and recreational activities open.
Dear Outdoor Enthusiast:
Here in the Northeast, we hold stewardship of a precious portion of planet Earth.
Contained within it are more than 100 species of trees.. .more than 2,000 species of plants and flowers!
Plus all the birds and animals of the forests and the fish of our rivers and lakes.
We’re committed to preserving a healthy environment that sustains us all.
The Appalachian Mountain Club is looking for men, women, and children who share our love of the outdoors—and our commitment to preserving our region’s natural beauty for future generations.
The Call of the Wild
Despite centuries of neglect—wildlife still abounds in the 12 states where we are active.
Shouldn’t you watch hawks and ravens soar below you at AMC’s Lakes of the Clouds mountain hut perched 5,000 ft. high on Mt. Washington’s slope?
Shouldn’t you learn the art of photographing subtle winter light?
Build an igloo?
Drive a dogsled?
Climb a frozen waterfall?
Shouldn’t you learn ways to protect the environment while you are enjoying it?
Wouldn’t you like to?
Why not come backpacking and overnight camping with AMC?
We have groups for every level of expertise and programs for all seasons.
Why not come horseback riding with AMC in the Catskills—exploring the foothills and spending the night at a campsite?
Bring binoculars.
Prowl for owls.
Listen to loons.
Bring binoculars for the annual warbler migration.
Join a nocturnal owl prowl.
Spend two days camping, canoeing, and watching the wildlife on Connecticut’s Housatonic River.
Spend a weekend bushwhacking with map and compass near our Pinkham Notch Lodge.
Take a four-mile canoe trip to northern New Hampshire’s only bald eagle nesting site in the Lake Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge that we helped form.
PLEASE ACCEPT THE ENCLOSED TEMPORARY MEMBERSHIP CARD.
Explore the evolution of the Presidential Range, on a four-day geological trek
Join fellow AMC volunteers who protect and preserve our extensive northeastern trail network—including major sections of the Appalachian Trail.
YOU’LL HAVE THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE—but sign up early!
Last year more than 1,000 members contributed more than 70,000 hours to our challenging and rewarding pro bono activities, in cooperation with state and municipal agencies, and other nonprofit groups that share our goals.
Pursue your special interests or prepare yourself for a variety of recreational activities and/or conservation projects by attending an AMC Workshop:
TRAVERSE THE PEAKS of the Presidential Range.
Experience the most breathtaking views of the White Mountain National Forest.
And join the fun while making a real difference for the environment!
There are daily activities and guided hikes for the whole family.
ISLE-HOP the Maine Coast.
Camp out on isolated islands.
Experience the peace and beauty of coastal rhythms.
Hike between our Greenleaf, Galehead, Zealand Falls, and Mizpah Spring Huts, and experience the beauty of the mountains and hospitality of the huts.
EXPLORE the Northern Forest.
Choose from a number of hikes from easy walking to challenging.
Learn about the natural history, forest management practices, and environmental issues that affect the Northern Forest.
“Breaking the ice” is easy
Regional chapters from Maine to Washington, D.C., play a key role in introducing you to the activities and opportunities of AMC membership.
You name it—we’ve got it!
Chapter leaders arrange hiking and bicycling trips and teach the basics of cross-country skiing, whitewater and flatwater canoeing, and other outdoor skills.
Chapter members participate in local conservation efforts, trail work, field trips, and outings.
AMC publications are maps for your enjoyment
Your tax-deductible Membership includes a subscription to AMC Outdoors, the magazine of the Appalachian Mountain Club.
Our roots are in hiking.
Published 10 times a year, each issue is crammed with dates and detailed descriptions of AMC activities.
Hundreds and hundreds of them every month—many at chapters near your home.
We’ll tell you where to go for outdoor fun and keep you informed of the crucial issues affecting our mountain environment.
In addition to Event Calendars of regularly scheduled workshops, clinics, day trips, overnight expeditions, and family programs, AMC Outdoors lists state-by-state chapter activities—plus notices of everything from neighborhood walks to day rides, from weekend getaways to whale-watching excursions.
We also publish a wide range of books, maps, and trail guides.
We have the largest and broadest library of outdoor publications in the Northeast of interest to you.
And your membership entitles you to discounts on “all of the above.”
AMC is dedicated to protecting the mountains, trails, and rivers throughout our region and near your home.
Our mission is to protect the environment through responsible citizen use and enjoyment of the outdoors—that means your use, your enjoyment.
May we look for the enclosed AMO Membership Acceptance with your tax-deductible contribution by return mail?
Only 50 million people lived in a country where Colorado had just become its 39th state.
Please join us in enjoying and protecting our special corner of planet Earth today.
P.S. And please feel free to use your Temporary Membership Card while we are processing your application.
I hope it’s just the push you need to get outdoors.
P.P.S. Check out our website at www.outdoors.org for up-to-date information and hot tips on where to go, what to do, and what to take!
Please USE them on your correspondence to help get our name in front of as many people as possible.
Because the ASPCA -- and the thousands of animals we help every year --need all the friends we can get!
424 East 92nd StreetLarry M. HawkNew York, NY 10128President/CEO www.aspca.org
As a person who cares about animals, you’re probably anxious to know what happened to Astro.
A neighbor reported Astro’s plight to the ASPCA and our Humane Law Enforcement officers went to investigate.
When our officers arrived, Astro was too weak to even stand up.
The officers knelt down slowly, speaking gently to the emaciated dog.
Then they saw it.
He was barely moving.
but yes -- the poor, sick dog was saying.
“Welcome, friends!”
The officers brought Astro to the ASPCA’s Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital.
The dog weighted only 45 pounds -- less than half of what a dog his size should weigh -- and he had several infections.
But with first-rate medical attention and tender care from ASPCA staff, he slowly got well again.
Stories like Astro’s are all too common.
Every day, the ASPCA gets reports of animal cruelty, abuse, and neglect.
Every day, our officers rescue animals like Sammy, a 10-month-old kitten who was deliberately thrown from a high-rise window by teenagers.
In a world where cruelty is common, animals like Sammy and Astro desperately need friends like you.
That is why I have written to you -- to ask you to support the ASPCA today.
Our vital anti-cruelty efforts are just part of the ASPCA mission. We also find loving adoptive homes for rescued animals ... provide first-rate veterinary care through our Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital ... offer low-cost spay and neuter programs for cats and dogs ... reach out to children, teachers, and parents through our Education Programs.
His belly was empty.
So empty it hurt.
The ASPCA pushes for the passage and strengthening of anti-cruelty laws, so that crimes against animals will be treated with the seriousness they deserve.
Since the ASPCA was founded in 1866 as America’ s first humane society, ending cruelty has been our primary goal.
Today, over 130 years later, the scope of the problem is greater than ever.
The task is too large for the ASPCA to handle without emergency assistance from dedicated friends.
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS
Please help the ASPCA with your most generous gift today -- the animals are counting on you.
Sincerely, Hawk, DVM and CEO
But then the puddle dried up.
P.S.We found Astro a wonderful adoptive home.
He is the pride and joy of this loving family!
Please accept the enclosed name stickers as our gift to you and use them to spread the word about the ASPCA and the animals we help -- thank you.
Astro had only a few days to live.
A financial report is available from the Office of the Attorney General by writing the Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway New York, NY 10271.
2/00
Dear Friend:
But you CAN join the crusade to stop animal abuse and neglect, by making a generous contribution to the ASPCA today.
I have sent you the enclosed complimentary name-and-address labels to call your attention to the work of the ASPCA.
Look for the Instant Access Code on your statement, then go to www.universalcard.com and follow the instructions.
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“valid date”
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Simply dial 1 800 CALL ATT® and follow the recorded instructions.
Let me tell you exactly what’s at stake ... and how this could set a dangerous precedent: First of all, you might wonder why blackbirds are not benefiting from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act’s prohibition against actions that cause intentional harm.
Just imagine finding your favorite hiking trail or birding area littered with dead birds -- among the hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting and innocent creatures who were unlucky enough to consume lethal doses of a slow-acting poison spread in fields miles away.
You see, the USDA found a loophole allowing these protections to be lifted for “experimental” activities.
So they applied for the right to spread poison as Dart of a “scientific experiment” -- to learn whether lowering the population of blackbirds by poisoning them will reduce sunflower crop loss.
The USDA wants to conduct an “experiment” that will spread enough poison in our environment to kill two million blackbirds.
“experiment”
“prove”
It’s time to tell the USDA, in no uncertain terms:
“YOU WILL NOT CONDUCT MASSIVE BIRD KILLS TO BENEFIT A HANDFUL OF SPECIAL INTERESTS!”
Because the USDA’s slow-acting pesticide takes three days to kill, its victims will likely fly many miles from the poisoned fields, before falling to the ground.
Meanwhile,blackbirds aren’t the only birds threatened directly by the poison.
We’ve noted the presence of 68 other species of grassland songbirds in the proposed poison-baited areas ... including the Bobolink, Grasshopper Sparrow, Harris’ Sparrow and Le Conte’s Sparrow.
We simply cannot afford to let the government repeat the mistakes of the past ... and operate this deadly and uncontrolled experiment on wildlife.
Here’s what I need you to do, to make sure we prevail: First, I need you to sign and return your Petition to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
I’ll forward your Petition, along with those from thousands of other Audubon members and supporters, urging the USDA to withdraw its cruel plan to poison blackbirds ... in favor of alternative, benign methods of protecting sunflower crops.
I can assure you that thousands of Audubon Petitions can make a difference -- just as they did in a successful battle against an adverse wetlands proposal a few years ago!
But today’s battle is one we must win ... to block a dangerous experiment that would begin to erase 50 years of steady progress eliminating pesticides and other harmful chemicals from our environment.
That’s why I hope you’ll also agree to help even more by making a tax-deductible gift to support this crucial initiative and all of Audubon’s vital conservation work to protect birds, other wildlife and habitat.
And who plans to commit such a mass bird killing?
And with a donation of $15 or more, you’ll receive a FREE Birdfeeder in appreciation for your concern.
I’ll make sure your gift is put right to work in our efforts to:
·Win a ban on the USDA bird poisoning.
·Gain strict enforcement of wildlife laws.
·Ensure wildlife programs are based on sound science.
·Monitor the health of Audubon’s WatchList species.
·Conserve America’s remaining grassland habitat.
And Audubon will draw upon its century-long track record of highly effective conservation work to make a real difference in other key areas:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture!
Audubon protects birds.
Your help will be instrumental to our bird conservation work: designating Important Bird Areas to protect vital habitat ... maintaining the WatchList of bird species near endangered status (www.audubon.org/ bird/watch) ... and engaging citizen participation in the vast BirdSource database of North American bird trends.
Audubon rescues endangered wildlife.
Nearly 25 years ago, the National Audubon Society helped win passage of the Endangered Species Act.
With your help, Audubon will remain committed to wildlife laws and regulations that are well funded, properly implemented, and strongly enforced.
Audubon establishes and protects wildlife refuges and sanctuaries.
“Audubon is truly making a difference for wildlife refuges everywhere”
And your support will help sustain our innovative Audubon Refuge Keepers program, and maintain our own network of more than 100 wildlife centers and sanctuaries.
I’m outraged ...
Audubon restores wetlands.
Wetlands are not only crucial to wildlife ... they also help purify our drinking water and prevent billions of dollars worth of flood damage.
Your gift today will help us reach our goal to restore one million acres of irreplaceable wetlands.
Audubon educates the public.
Teaching Americans --particularly young people -- how to become better stewards of our environment is one of the best investments that you and I can make for wildlife.
That’s why we’re expanding our network of Audubon Centers to reach children and adults in every corner of the nation.
And of course, your support will enable Audubon to stand ready to act whenever a wildlife crisis emerges --like the USDA’s bird poisoning proposal that I’m asking you to help us defeat today!
So let me urge you to do your part by supporting a group that the San Francisco Chronicle calls “one of America’s most respected and influential conservation organizations.
First,sign and return your Petition to the Secretary of Agriculture immediately, to declare a firm and resounding “NO!”
“NO!”
to the USDA’s bird poisoning plan.
And I also hope you’ll take a second important step today, by supporting Audubon’s vital conservation work with a generous tax-deductible gift.
Thank you.
Very truly yours,
John Flicker President
P.S.Your gift will help us save birds, other wildlife and their habitat for future generations to cherish.
and I think you will be, too!
it’s almost unthinkable that a program this reckless could be implemented -- in view of the tragic impact that poisonous chemicals and pesticides like DDT have had on wildlife and people.
Supplies are limited ... so please respond today!
Thanks to the help of caring and concerned people like you, Audubon won a temporary halt to this planned killing last spring -- but the USDA’s plans could be up and running for the next blackbird migration, unless we act now.
You’ll once again be enthralled by the striking photography and insightful environmental journalism that makes our exclusive magazine, AUDUBON, a treasure worth saving.
It’s already won the prestigious National Magazine Award not once, but four times. __
This award-winning style is evident in every issue with behind-the-headlines reporting, passionate coverage of the environment, exotic journeys to remote places you may never otherwise experience, and of course, in AUDUBON’s famous photography of nature’s most awe-inspiring creations.
This morning, I closed my office door to interruptions, sat alone at my desk, and did something I think will please you and everyone in your home.
Bring beauty, mystery, adventure and the natural world back in your life.
You may have missed learning the mysteries of the spectacled eider (a duck with an uncertain future) ... missed traveling with us to Asia where we found and followed the last wild tigers... missed marveling at the magic of mangroves.. missed discovering in Peru the newest bird known to science, the barbet.. .but you won’t miss a thing anymore.
I’ve had a look at the magazine’s upcoming subjects and I can tell you the best is yet to come.
From what I see, the magazine’s editorial staff and fresh new look and content may soon be granted a fifth National Magazine Award.
There’s much more to membership than AUDUBON magazine!
You’ll be protecting, preserving and promoting America’s wetlands, endangered species, ancient forests, our National Wildlife Refuges, the Everglades and the Platte River, our Living Oceans Program and much more.
You’ll be supporting sanctuaries, field research, environmental education and legislation and many other vital efforts critical to the protection of wildlife and their habitats.
You’ll also be educating youngsters in 15,000 schools across America — most likely some in your own school district.
By accepting my special invitation to join again, you’ll receive special invitations to our sanctuaries and Ecology Camps — and FREE ADMISSION to our Nature Centers.
There, you’ll have the rewarding opportunity to study with Audubon experts and take part in workshops of special interest to you.
Dear Former Member, When we lose a member like you, it hurts.. .all of us.
Office of the President National Audubon Society 700 Broadway New York, NY 10003-9562
What’s more, you’ll receive FREE MEMBERSHIP in your local chapter -there are more than 500 Audubon chapters nationwide — with access to field trips and activities everyone in your family will enjoy.
There’s still more.
Special travel opportunities, and special (FREE!)
membership in the Audubon Activist Network will also be yours.
Incredibly, all this is possible for just 517.
Think of all the ways everyone in your household will benefit from your membership in Audubon.
And then, please, take advantage of this opportunity to regain full membership for 51% less than the regular rate.
We simply can’t afford to lose you.
May we become partners once again?
I’ll be waiting for your reply.
Sincerely, John Flicker
P.S. On behalf of everyone here at the National Audubon Society, we look forward to saying, “Welcome back!”
So this morning I sat down and thought about what it would take for you to give us a second chance.
“Welcome back!”
All of us are excited about sending you your magazine and membership materials.
In advance, please accept my personal “Thank you!”
“Thank you!”
Then I thought about an enticing way for you to regain your place among America’s most intelligent, concerned and caring citizens who proudly avow membership in the National Audubon Society.
I’m inviting you back to full membership for just $17 - 51% off the regular rate.
Medicine for one's mind
The first evening, the twenty-something students--most from my college, four from another--gathered in the shrine room, sitting cross-legged on cushions as we listened to Khenpo Kalsang introduce Tibetan Buddhist philosophy.
He began by telling us, "Do not take any of what I say on faith.
"Do not take any of what I say on faith. Take it through analysis, if there is some benefit in it for you."
Take it through analysis, if there is some benefit in it for you."
Religion, he said, is like a drugstore full of medicine.
You do not go to the drugstore and buy everything in it--you just buy what would be beneficial to you now.
You believe the other medicine may have just as much value, but in other situations, not this one.
When we talked about the giving, and how one should try to give what one could to other sentient beings (in the form of material items, kind words, protection, and so on), Khenpo Kalsang shared a story of the Buddha, and how the Buddha had given his flesh so that a family of hungry tigers could eat.
The gentle wind makes them flutter.
"So,"
"Giving one's life for another being is the ultimate gift?"
Khenpo Kalsang, he smiled, and shook his head.
"Only if you feel no regret,"
"Only if you feel no regret," he said.
Tibetan Buddhist Retreat
Orange-gold light filters into the grassy meadow, touching a row of canvas tents and the temple house beyond.
"If you feel regret, it destroys the merit."
Until then, preserve your own life, and do not give away anything that would cause you regret.
This struck a chord.
She had studied psychology for a while in grad school, but now holds the view that psychologists are going about understanding the mind and understanding the knower and what knowing is the wrong way.
"Psychologists," she said, "study the brain and the self externally.
"study the brain and the self externally. Ever since the 1920s, their science has been about observation of behavior, questionnaires, recordings of electrical brain activity. But the mind can only be known by you, the person whose mind it is."
But the mind can only be known by you, the person whose mind it is."
A big overlap exists between Tibetan Buddhism, psychology and cognitive science.
All three examine the distinction between the self and others, between the observer and the observed, between knowing and the knower.
Tsechen Kunchab Ling : Temple of All-Encompassing Great Compassion.
Tibetan Buddhist philosophy also approaches the mind and the self from the inside.
During a second philsophy session, Khenpo Kalsang translated a sutra about a king who received advice from the Buddha.
This sutra delved into some questions about the nature of the self, whether the self is a delusion, and how the clinging of self is a defilement.
I intend to discuss it in more depth later, so stay tuned.
This is the seat of His Holiness the Sakya Trizin in the United States, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery established nine years ago.
Compassion training and prayer flags
In the afternoon, a group of us gathered outside for a meditation session with Ani Kunga.
Sunshine melted lazily through the tree branches above, a breeze animating the branches' shadows so they danced between our cushions.
Compassion and anger were the session's topics.
The key message:
"If there's something you can do, why are you unhappy?
"If there's something you can do, why are you unhappy? Just do it. If there's nothing you can do, why are you unhappy?"
Just do it.
If there's nothing you can do, why are you unhappy?"
Ani Kunga explained several off-session and one on-session technique for dealing with negative emotions (anger, hate, irritation, stress, jealousy, and so on).
All the methods built off the idea that you are in control: anger is an emotion, and you can change your emotions.
Stay tuned for a more in-depth post on the topic.
"Prayers, wishes, hopes, aspirations--someone, many people, may share those with you. Hanging the prayer flag shares your prayer with everyone else in the world. This may do no good at all, but it may--if everyone hopes and wishes and dreams and aspires, perhaps it will do good. It may not. But if no one shares their prayers, it will certainly do no good. So on the offchance that it will help, why not?"
Hanging the prayer flag shares your prayer with everyone else in the world.
This may do no good at all, but it may--if everyone hopes and wishes and dreams and aspires, perhaps it will do good.
But if no one shares their prayers, it will certainly do no good.
So on the offchance that it will help, why not?"
Never done
This weekend reminded me that I'm not done learning.
I spent the past weekend there.
If I stay still long enough, if I've achieved a relatively constant level of happiness and satisfaction, I forget that I can and should continue to seek out new ideas and approaches, and incorporate beneficial ones into my life.
A person is never "done," and so, I'll continue to observe and discuss and study, trying to pick the directions in which I'll change, and trying to make tomorrow better than today.
"done,"
The field work office at my college arranges this retreat every semester.
Ever onward and ever upward.
Faded squares of fabric, strung together in repeating blue-white-red-green-yellow chains, crisscross the branches of bare-limbed trees.
Everyone I've talked to who has previously attended says wonderful things about it; this semester, one of my friends told me she was going: I should join her!
I like learning new things, so I signed up.
They suggested that what you believe about self-control affects the goals you set and achieve [PDF].
I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions.
In the paper, "self-control" is used to mean a sense of willpower.
"self-control"
Mukhopadhyay & Venkatarmani discuss various lay theories of self-control, noting that the amount of self-control a person has can be seen as either an inherently limited or unlimited resource, and that this resource can be seen either as malleable or as fixed (the amount of self-control a person has can change over time, or not).
I mean, sure, I could take my pick of popular New Year's resolutions ; I could decide, on the first day of the new year, that this year, I'll start exercising more and eating better, or that I'll spend more time with my family and friends, or that I'll learn a new skill.
An important premise to note here is the idea that the probability of choosing a goal or making a resolution increases if a person thinks that goal can be attained.
So if you think you'll be able to achieve a goal, you're more likely to set it.
Combine this with theories of self-control, and in general, if you believe you have unlimited stores of self-control, you'll set a larger number of goals.
If you believe self-control is malleable but limited, you'll set fewer goals.
Mukhopadhyay & Venkatarmani also discuss self-efficacy: belief in one's capabilities, the perceived ability to carry out a desired action.
Self-control, Self-efficacy, and New Year's Resolutions Unresolved
The studies
In the first study, 85 participants (all college students) each read one of four passages presenting lay theories of self-control.
Each passage contained two paragraphs; the first discussed self-control either as limited or as unlimited, and the second discussed self-control as either malleable or fixed.
The participants then answered questions about their belief in each of two theories presented, followed by a second questionnaire to assess motivation, in which they listed all their current goals.
The study was testing whether a belief in unlimited, malleable self-control would result in most resolutions, and indeed, this is what was found.
The experimenters had some concerns about participants' natural beliefs in relation to the passages they read, however, so in study two, the order of the two measures (lay theories and motivation/goal listing) was varied.
Data from 130 new participants revealed that, as hypothesized, if the motivation & goals questionnaire were assessed first, then among the people who believed self-control is malleable, those who also believed self-control to be unlimited (vs.
limited) set more goals.
When lay theories were assessed first, this result reversed.
The people who believed that self-control is fixed were unaffected by order.
The third study moved on to examine goal achievement, adding a measure to look at self-efficacy.
The study had two sessions, in November then February.
In the first session , the 159 participants read passages about lay theories (much like in study one, but with longer passages to strengthen the manipulation), listed the resolutions they were planning on making at New Years, rated how disappointed they would be if they failed to keep their resolutions, and filled out individual difference measures (which included a self-efficacy scale).
And if I chose to make resolutions, I'd be far from alone--a 2008 survey on Dorthy.com found that 66% of the 2000+ adults polled had made resolutions at some point (though only 17% managed to keep them).
Only 86 participants successfully returned for the second session, during which they indicated how much success they had had at keeping their resolutions.
What does this mean for your resolutions?
The resolutions made by participants across all conditions were qualitatively similar (take a look at any list of popular New Year's resolutions, and you'll see the majority of the goals).
As shown in the first two studies, more goals were set by people who believe self-control is unlimited and malleable than by any other people--that is, if you expect more success, you may increase the difficulty and number of tasks that you set for yourself.
Self-efficacy did not have a significant effect on goal-setting.
As far as success goes, only the interaction between lay theory and self-efficacy was significant.
If participants believed in limited self-control and were low in self-efficacy, they tended to give up more often, failing to achieve their goals.
But if participants believed in unlimited self-control, self-efficacy had no effect; participants achieved just as many goals regardless, and people who set more resolutions were marginally more likely to succeed.
Mukhopadhyay & Venkatarmani realize that their research does not directly look at the relationship between lay theories of self-control and beliefs about one's own amount of self-control and self-efficacy, and propose this as an area for future study.
But in general, lay theories about self-control can determine how much success you'll expect (and thus, how many goals you'll set), and self-efficacy beliefs can determine how much success you'll actually have.
References
Mukhopadhyay, A. & Johar, G.V. (2005).
Where There Is a Will, Is There a Way?
Effects of Lay Theories of Self-Control on Setting and Keeping Resolutions.
Journal of Consumer Research , 31, 779-786 [ PDF ]
Making resolutions: It's about self-control
The question Anirban Mukhopadhyay of the Hong Kong University and Gita Venkatarmani Johar of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University asked is this: What determines how many goals a person will set, and how successful a person will be at achieving those goals?
They performed a few studies in 2005 to look at the relationship between self-control, goal setting, and goal achievement.
Several boards were missing, making a door to the small room inside.
The tall tumbleweed flag marked it as Chad's to defend now.
"You suck." Chad said.
You suck.
He looked around, trying not to seem nervous.
Chad checked the other fort out of the corner of his eye.
He wished Roy wouldn't fall for that gag every time, "get me a big rock, Roy."
Two forts stood on the playground, and a hot, bare battlefield separated them.
A massive, rusted A-frame swing marked the border though nobody was swinging in the hot sun.
The larger of the two forts was a squat black bunker made of tires, two big tractor tires capped with one from a truck and two smaller ones from cars.
The older boys lay around in shade and napped inside the walls.
They were watching now from well defended spy holes, or maybe they were performing secret experiments and swearing bloody oaths.
Chad wished he were old enough to be one of them.
Maybe Tucker would let him in after he saw Chad wasn't chicken.
"You wanna play robots?" Roy asked.
You wanna play robots?
Chad felt his heart beat a little faster and his cheeks burned.
He had invented the "robots" game to make fun of Roy, but Roy had never figured that out either.
Roy stooped to pick up a big, white caliche rock that looked like a dirty lump of chalk and handed it to Chad.
It was Roy's favorite game.
No, go get some stickers.
Roy shuffled off without argument, his baseball cap pulled low to cover his bald head and brain plug and his shoe laces untied.
Roy had taught him to tie his shoes when Chad was five.
He thought about gathering stickers himself.
Roy was too slow, but he didn't dare step away from his fort.
He took another careful look over his shoulder and bent to pluck a yucca spear as if that were what drew his interest.
The long blade of the yucca had a sharp tip, but the only weapons allowed according to Humpty Dumpty Nursery rules of engagement were smelly thistles or cocklebur stems covered with spiked yellow stickers.
The tiny barbs hurt, but nobody was allowed to beat you up if you just used stickers.
The hot August sun was settling toward the time that Mrs. Rayburn would bring the milk tray out of the cinder block building where the toddlers and babies were kept.
Meanwhile Roy stalked around the fence edge bending to pick cockleburs as he went.
Chad took the rock with disgust as Roy returned to staring at his shoes.
Every move Roy made since the accident was smooth and sudden and strange -- like a remote control boy.
When he saw Roy in the hospital with a shaved head and the small silver plug at the back of his noggin like a bottle cap, Chad had called him, "Remote Control Boy."
Momma had smacked Chad for saying it which hurt, and then she had cried, which was worse.
Pop had given Chad the sideways glance that promised hard labor when they made it home.
He knew it was too late to explain that he was trying to get a smile out of Roy.
Pop said, "The doctors have put something very special in Roy's brain.
The doctors have put something very special in Roy's brain.
It's something they made for soldiers and astronauts and it's going to help Roy walk and talk to us again.
Chad was six, and at eight Roy should have been teasing or ordering Chad around or something.
Pop put a hand on Roy's shoulder.
How are you feeling, Roy?
Pop spoke slowly and Chad knew that he must have been practicing this with Roy.
They all stood around while the doctor made Roy shake and jerk and moan with a sick sound.
But the thing in his head hadn't worked yet because of something having to do with the, "electric toads," which wouldn't, "sit up."
Roy didn't really start talking for days and didn't walk until a long time after that.
Now, this year, Roy was in the same grade as Chad, and it was embarrassing.
Just then Tucker Williams came climbing out of the top of the black fort like a gold headed monster.
Tucker was big, even for a third grader, and he was not quite right in a different way than Roy.
Tucker was the oldest boy in the playground, and the one who decided the rules of the game.
But since his fall the year before, Roy had been shuffling and doing what he was told.
"Time out!"
Time out!" Chad called, "We're not ready yet.
We're not ready yet.
Several more boys spewed out after him.
Roy!
Roy!" Chad called, but his voice would only whisper
He didn't want to be a crybaby, Tucker hated crybabies.
The rules of the game were that Chad had to keep everyone away from his fort and away from his tumbleweed flag.
From painful experience, he knew it wasn't going to be as easy as just pretending he was too slow or too weak to do anything.
Going down too easy would only make him mad, so Chad reached behind him to grab the five stickers he had managed to collect before the start of the game and readied himself.
The boys came in quick from all sides, knocking Chad down, but he managed to roll to his feet and get one sticker off into a boy's arm before being knocked down again.
Baby!
Tucker was standing over him with the huge tumbleweed held high in the sun.
Penis!
Chad tried to tell his arms to lift him and let him reach for the tumbleweed to prove he wasn't a baby to Tucker.
I'll make you fight.
Tucker leaned in low and his breath was sour as it blew in Chad's face.
I'm gonna take the plug out.
Then Tucker's face became serious.
From his pocket he pulled a small screwdriver, perfect for prying plugs from boy's heads.
Now Chad's legs and arms and mouth worked, and he was up and running and screaming, "Roy, go inside! Roy!"
Roy, go inside!
Roy!
He sprinted for the corner of the building around which Roy had disappeared.
The door was on that side and Mrs. Rayburn.
Just then a horrible pain stung Chad's cheek and neck and ear.
The tumbleweed's yellow thorned branches scratched around him as it dug into his face.
He wished he were there now, even if he did have to sit next to Roy.
He ran like only a small boy can run, but he was losing and he wished hard that he could fly.
Roy!
Chad rounded the corner grabbing the cinder block to help him turn faster just as Tucker came down again with the tumbleweed from behind, and the world slowed almost to a stop.
Roy stood with the bill of his cap down.
His head rose and his eyes focused over Chad's shoulder.
Roy held stickers in his hand like flowers, but he bent looking down and snatched something from the ground.
His hand blurred and snapped out as he stood back up.
Something whined as it spun past Chad's ear, and he heard a sharp, meaty thunk just behind him.
The rock was too big to fit into the iron hub of the big cable spool, so Chad leaned it against the tumbleweed and slid down off the splintery wood on his belly to admire his handiwork.
Hey, Roy?
Tucker towered there with a surprised expression and crossed eyes, the tumbleweed in one hand and the screwdriver held up high in the other ready to stab down into Chad's back.
A sharp, flat, flint rock split Tucker's forehead and was buried deep and solid like a part of a Halloween costume complete with a drop of blood just starting down toward his nose.
Tucker dropped down like a jacket from a hook.
Yeah.
Chad stepped back away from Tucker's open-eyed face.
I thought he might stab you.
Do you think he's dead?
Just then Tucker blinked and began to sob.
"Nah." Chad said, "We're gonna be in trouble."
Nah.
We're gonna be in trouble.
"Yeah." Roy said.
Yeah.
Suddenly his blank face seemed like the face of a Play Force Soldier or a GI Joe.
Hey, Roy?
What?
It was all right.
The fort was a lone, wooden cable spool like a tall barrel with thick disks on its ends, each the size of a dinner table.
The sufferer says no, only those which cause no pain.
And the artist says no, only those which cause the most pain, for those would be the truest memories.
So I shall soothe my quarreling selves with a compromise.
I will not talk of the first time Tasha and I tried any act of sex or sport together.
I can remember similar things with others.
Is that love?
Probably not.
But it is something marvelous and rare, which is surely a sign of love.
If my love for her was the only important thing, I would leave a holo of her with a note: "Dear Future, this is Tasha Cortez.
"Dear Future, this is Tasha Cortez.
You loved her.
Tasha and I walked through The Sleeping Flamingo together, and I decided to buy it.
Mama kept her mink jacket, a family hand-me-down, safe from time in a stopbox, and lent the capturador to my uncle for his stamp collection.
Then --
This is not easy.
But I have learned something: writing trivializes.
The Tasha who was is not the Tasha in this file.
The Tasha in this file is not even the Tasha I loved and thought I knew.
The Tasha in this file would walk through a net show in half an hour, including commercials, and just before an ad for Figuero's Flash Diapers -- Keeps Baby Driest!
, she --
Tasha is not the whole of what happened on Vega IV.
I must also write about Emiliano Gabriel Malaquez.
I have been re-reading all our favorite books --
Published in Double Feature by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly (NESFA Press, 1994).
But neither of us care to dwell on such boring subjects, do we?
I want to pick up with Tasha and me walking about The Sleeping Flamingo, and then, for the sake of literary convenience, to say that from a corner of the yard I saw a neighboring house, and the sight filled me with darkest forebodings.
But the truth is that Tasha pointed it out from the one place where it could barely be seen, and I only felt envy that it had been designed by someone with understated good taste.
"Who lives there?"
I asked.
"No one,"
"No one," Tasha replied.
Sometimes they would let us little ones to seal a treasured toy or a last piece of birthday cake until we begged them for its release, usually a few hours after enclosing it.
Truth is always more boring than fiction.
For Malaquez did not move into Dream's End until four or five months after I -- we?
how does one speak to one's future self?
-- occupied The Flamingo.
I do not plan to write a book: this narrative must move more quickly.
Consoling her, I began to suspect I loved her.
I moved into The Flamingo the next day; and she gave up her apartment three weeks later to join me.
It was the sort of romance that happens so rarely that most people believe it does not happen at all, the sort of romance that sustains the hopeless billions who regularly watch A Wandering Star Called Love.
(Which is to say, you and me, Future Self.)
She was a twenty-four-year-old (Terran Standard) N'Apulcan who left university training in hydroponics to work for her aunt's real estate firm.
Her family said she did it to support her father, who was dying of a particularly painful degenerative disease.
Tasha said she woke up one morning convinced that if she spent another day studying vegetables, she would become one.
She did not like my plays.
I had impressed her because I was famous and amusing and not, as I had hoped, because I was a great artist.
That bothered (yes, and intrigued) me until I realized that she was bored by most plays, movies, and vid.
She did not like being a spectator.
I often told her that she should have a bio-check to see if she suffered from some metabolic imbalance.
I often told her too many things.
Search "Emiliano Malaquez" and you'll find he's a master of the "captured moment" school of sculpture.
Even The Terran Times has only praise for his work.
When my father died, a year after my mother, my sisters and I cleaned out their apartment.
To compare his pieces to those of others is to compare mannequins to living models.
He accents the illusion of reality --I paraphrase his entry in La Enciclopedia Humanica --by doing life-size scenes in "the full round," never the easier frontal or three-quarters view.
Moreover, he never did portraits of famous people; his works were therefore the reality and could never be compared to it.
As is typical of his school, his pieces are sealed in stopboxes.
The shimmer of light on their surfaces always reminds us that we're looking at an instant snatched from under the hooves of time.
They say the cubes will outlast planets and suns, that when the universe dies, the works of Malaquez and his followers will be the last things seen in the final wink of God's eye.
Yes, Self, I am also bothered that this observation ignores half-eaten cheese sandwiches, incomplete insect collections, and locks of infants' hair, forgotten in closets, basements, and warehouses.
We found our baby shoes protected in stopboxes.
You see the inspiration for my latest play, "Captured Moments."
The mindwipe will take its creation from my future self --but time too often does that without aid.
The play's second act concludes with the last fight between Tasha and me.
I have disguised us in the play, and deleted one brief melodramatic interchange.
I took mine home, where they sat above my computer while I worked on my first play.
Now I will mention it, in case I/You decide to restore it.
Shortly before she left, Tasha said, "You steal from life for art, Bernardo.
You'll impoverish yourself."
I only snarled at her and --
My story leaps ahead of itself.
Let me retreat and retrench:
One night during N'apulco's mild winter, Tasha returned to The Flamingo, saying, "Nardo!
"Nardo!
Nardo!
Guess what?"
My mind was on other things.
"You wish to become pregnant?
I suppose I could assist a friend.
Purely for the sake of the race, of course --"
"Ever the altruist.
"My guess."
She batted at my nose like a cat.
"Silly Nardo."
"Emil Malaquez is buying the house up the hill."
One night when I did not believe love had ever existed for anyone, I used my own capturador, a sleek titanium Sanyo Tardar Ahora, to undo the stopbox.
"Oh."
"You don't know who he is?"
"Well..."
"Nardo!"
One of the many things I liked about her was that she often thought me shockingly ignorant.
"That's, uh..."
I am never so quick-witted in person as I am on the page.
Especially when someone thinks me shockingly ignorant.
"You know, the sculptor.
He's had shows in Brazil and New Madrid and everywhere!
He may be more famous than you."
"Imagine that."
I remembered an article in The Medusa and a photo of a work in which 100-peso notes fell like confetti onto a small Undersider, sexlessly young in grimy, oversized clothing.
The child's face was a warground for wonder and mistrust.
Imprisoned light from forgotten streetlamps snagged itself on metal threads in the fluttering pesos.
The stars themselves might have fallen on the Undersider and the event would have been no less strange, no less miraculous.
"A great artist will grace this world, then?"
"Nardo!"
She was never tolerant of my ego.
"Well.
What's this more-famous-than-me person like?"
"I didn't meet him, jealous old one."
"Too bad.
If I thought he could free me from you --"
"Hah!"
She wrapped her arms around my stomach.
The next evening, she arrived with a stack of glistening stopboxes containing sushi, sashimi, oysters in their shells, and Terran vegetables fresh plucked from their hydroponic beds.
Wondering about the reason for her extravagance, I asked how work had gone that day.
Bringing my face close to the shoes, I breathed deeply of air that my parents had trapped while closing up that symbol of their love for me.
"Emil came in.
He's taking Dream's End."
"Emil?"
"You've no memory left, old one.
Emil Malaquez."
"Ah.
You did that to test my affections."
"What?"
"Calling him by his first name.
I did that in a comedy once.
'Nights with Karl and Groucho.'
It was before your time."
"Oh."
"The critics liked it."
"I'm glad."
A moment later: "That's not why I called him 'Emil'."
"That's not why I called him 'Emil'."
"No?"
"No.
We lunched together.
He's nice."
"Oh."
"It wasn't like that."
"Of course.
Still, it wasn't like that.
You think I sleep with every famous person I meet?"
As you may have guessed, we had talked about such things.
I do not claim ours was a perfect affair, only a wonderful one.
"Tasha --"
"No."
"Good.
I invited him to dinner tomorrow."
"Oh?"
You say we're becoming too insular, that we need to socialize --"
"I've socialized for sixty-three years."
"Nardo?"
"Yes?"
"How should I reply?"
Her voice had grown quiet, and I began to feel some guilt.
I had, it is true, told her that we needed other company than our own.
I said this from years of learning that romances consume themselves without other fuel.
But knowing this did not mean I wanted it.
I said, "Truthfully."
"Truthfully."
It was the statement of a younger and crueler man than I.
She screamed, "I haven't socialized with Terra's elite for most of my life!
The instant would have been improved had my baby shoes been cleaned before they were encased.
I haven't socialized with hardly anyone for hardly any of my life!
And I invite a neighbor, one nice, lonely man --"
"I'm sorry."
" --who took me to -- What?"
"I'm sorry.
Truly."
"Oh."
She studied me as a suspicious puppy might, then said, "I'm sorry, too."
"I suppose I sound like I'm bragging when I talk of the things I'm tired of."
"Only because you are."
I had to grin, so I did.
"True."
"He may come to dinner?"
"If you wish, he may be dinner."
"I love you."
"And I, you."
Months earlier, we might have sought a bed, a couch, or a comfortable chair at this point.
Instead, I asked, "Is he handsome?"
"Is he handsome?"
"You're jealous."
"A tiny bit.
Extremely."
"Content yourself, old one.
He's four inches shorter than I, his nose is big and broken, and --"
But as soon as I coughed, I laughed, and I did not try to kill myself that night.
"This is cosmetic?"
"He's not that ugly.
I think they're his natural features."
"Interesting."
"You could write a play about someone like him."
"I think his face is his form of vanity.
Old men should be fat."
"Is Emil?"
"Yes."
"I am jealous.
I'll eat two dinners tonight.
Five deserts."
She giggled.
And then we did make love.
I've been thinking about the mindwipe, now two days away.
Who said that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it?
I fear that may be true for me.
Add this to the reasons I write now: to remember something, perhaps even to learn --
This work is hereby released into the Public Domain.
Emil Malaquez arrived after sundown, carrying a small package wrapped in what looked like real paper.
His evening dress was formal, expensive, and slightly stained, as that of all forgetful artists should be.
He was a jovial man with an easy laugh, and even uglier than Tasha had suggested.
I liked him immediately.
"Señor Malaquez?"
"Please.
Call me Emil.
You must be Bernardo.
Let me begin again.
"All of it outrageous praise?"
He raised an eyebrow, then guffawed.
"Has she said as much about me?"
"She thinks you are a genius.
Do come in."
"Thank you."
Stepping into the living room, he said, "A beautiful house."
"A beautiful house."
"I'm glad you came after dark."
Tasha, by accident or design, had found an innocently erotic posture on the couch, where she lay with a book of M'duvian prints.
"Emil!"
She leapt up.
"I did not expect you --"
"So early?"
It's unforgiveable, but you're forgiven."
She nodded at the package.
"What's that?"
"For your kindness in inviting a stranger into your home."
"Oh!"
Tasha snatched it from him to rip away the paper.
I stopped writing, and only the thought that I might miss the mindwipe kept me from another spree.
I walked from this hotel to the old city, past the end of the slidewalks and softwalks to the hard, cracked pavement of City Park.
But Undersiders left me alone.
Perhaps they recognized a fellow ghost.
The side of Malaquez's parcel gave way to reveal a greenmunk caught in a sheen of solid air.
Bits of leaf mold flew from under his feet as he ran to greet a friend or a bringer of food.
Last year, I rented a small house on Vega IV, a sea world, all islands and reefs and archipelagos, turquoise waters and aquamarine skies, sunrises like symphonies and sunsets like stars gone supernova.
Tasha oohed in awe.
I said, "Frodo's been visiting you, eh?"
"Frodo's been visiting you, eh?"
Malaquez said, "Your pet?"
"Your pet?"
"Hardly.
I suppose he was attracted to the commotion up the hill."
"Ah,"
"Ah," Malaquez said.
"Why 'Frodo'?"
"A little fellow with big, furry feet.
She handed the sculpture to me.
I almost dropped it; I expected it to weigh no more than a holo.
"Heavy,"
"Heavy," I said, as if he might not have known.
He laughed.
"My last piece was of four old Undersiders crouched around a trash fire.
He spoke of his art with the enthusiasm of a seven-year-old.
"A confession, and then a request.
It's not easy for me to ask a favor."
"Relax,"
"Relax," I said.
"It's easy for me to turn one down."
He glanced at me and decided I was joking.
The surprising thing is that I was.
"Good.
My last show --"
" --was glorious!"
Tasha said.
" --was kindly received,"
" --was kindly received," he said.
"But an artist who would stay first among his fellows can tell when he begins to fail."
I hoped no one would bring up my last three plays.
"I must change my subject matter.
No more urchins, dopers, vagrants, or whores.
I want to do more traditional portraits."
He spoke quickly, prepared to be rejected.
I would pay --"
"Never," I said.
"Ah."
He shrugged lightly.
"Nardo!"
"It's an honor --"
"Of course,"
"Of course," I said.
"That's why I cannot take payment."
"Oh?
Oh!
Thank you!"
Malaquez turned to Tasha.
"And you as well?
Perhaps the two of you together?"
Her eyes became circles at the idea of being, as she undoubtedly thought it, immortalized by Emil Malaquez.
There's only one city: called Nuevo Acapulco in La Enciclopedia del Empirio de la Humanidad, it's N'apulco to the locals.
Catching herself, she said casually, "Oh..." And then she smiled, laughed loudly at herself in the way that always made me think how much I loved her, and said, "My God, yes, yes, yes!"
"Oh..."
"My God, yes, yes, yes!"
For a perfect moment, Emil and Tasha and I were one entity, laughing until our lungs hurt.
This is torture.
I had not considered that I might not write to learn, but to punish myself.
Let me abuse the playwright and dismiss the penultimate scene in a few sentences: After giving Emil full rights to a sculpture of Tasha and me, we had a good dinner of curried clam chowder, lobsters boiled on Terra and unstopped still steaming on N'Apulco, and cinnamon custard for desert.
To view a copy of the public domain dedication, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
I had drunk too much, I confess, though we all had.
Somehow, Tasha and I began to argue the worth of Solevgrad jazz, as inconsequential a topic as I can imagine.
She had studied it in school, so she thought herself as an expert.
I once had a neighbor who played it constantly, loudly, and badly, so I thought I knew it better.
Malaquez tried to mediate, but I saw him as siding with Tasha.
So, I think, did she.
The subject shifted from music to Tasha's obsession with fame, undoubtedly by a leap that I made.
She had no choice but to follow.
(I do not remember any of this well, just now, nor do I care to.
The N'apulcans are mostly emigrants from Polaris II; the only difference between them and their Carribbean ancestors is that the ancestors fleeced NorAm tourists.
Those who are truly curious may look at the last act of "Captured Moments."
) I remember suggesting, with characteristic tact, that she add Emil to her small list of major accomplishments.
Malaquez glanced away, embarrassed.
Tasha looked at me as if to say, "I will."
"I will."
She said, "I feel sorry for you, Nardo.
"I feel sorry for you, Nardo.
"Yes,"
"Yes," I said, "Do that," and did not care what she did, or why.
"Do that,"
Emil asked, "You're all right?"
"You're all right?"
I muttered something he must have interpreted as assent.
They both walked up to Emil's home while I watched the scarlet moonlight ripple on distant waves.
Disgusted with Tasha but more disgusted with myself, I finally realized she would not return that night and went into The Sleeping Flamingo to drink myself to sleep.
She had not come home when I woke in mid-morning.
I waited, and drank a glass of MorningAfter and three cups of coffee, and wondered whether our affair could survive the events of the night, and whether I wanted it to.
Perhaps I should have invited Emil to stay, but even then I knew that sex was not the problem between Tasha and me.
The problem was that I have trouble distinguishing between compromise and capitulation, between symbols and substance.
Shortly before noon, I climbed the sandy path to Dream's End, rehearsing my apology, slowing only to pluck burrs from between my sandals and my feet.
Malaquez answered the door in blood-red pajamas and a black silk robe.
Sixty years ago in a similar situation, I had broken my knuckles on someone's face.
I merely said, "Is Tasha here?"
"Is Tasha here?"
Now the N'apulcans profit from their Hispanic siblings.
He pursed his lips slightly, then nodded.
"Yes."
"May I see her?"
When he hesitated, I said, "Last night was my fault.
"Last night was my fault.
I hold it against neither of you.
Let me talk to her."
"I --"
"Please."
He looked me and at last said, "Very well."
"Very well."
We walked through his house in silence.
A tall, narrow stopbox stood in the center of one room; sand trickled forever downward while beads of water splashed across the sand's path.
But then, I was in no mood to consider art.
I only wanted to despise the man who had slept with my lover.
That was easier than despising myself.
I don't mean to sound cynical.
He paused before a bedroom door.
"I should go in first.
I smiled.
Go ahead.
Tell her..."
I shrugged.
"Tell her I love her."
I suppose I wish to show that I'm still capable of a certain authorial distance, a semblance of dispassionate observation.
He studied me, then said, "I'm sorry things happened this way, Bernardo.
"I'm sorry things happened this way, Bernardo.
I didn't anticipate last night --"
"I'm very good at making things happen this way.
But if Tasha will forgive me --"
He nodded, repeated, "I am sorry," then slipped into the next room.
"I am sorry,"
I waited in the dark, carpeted hall.
I heard no voices until Malaquez said, "Enter."
"Enter."
Sunlight filled Malaquez's bedroom.
Tasha lay sprawled nude on a rumpled bed.
Her skin seemed as smooth and as polished as the bed's teak frame.
She was looking slightly to my left, smiling with trust and satisfaction like one sexually content.
Malaquez stood near her, pointing something at my chest.
Though the morning sun shone fully on both of them, it shimmered around Tasha.
The part of my mind that remembered four months in NorAm during the Great Cleaning sent me rolling across the floor.
Malaquez was not prepared for me to react so quickly, or perhaps he waited too long for an expression I would not have, a gesture I would not make, a poignant moment of repentence, wonder, despair, or love.
The following events may indicate otherwise.
Had he been faster, he could have had rage.
I threw a chair at him.
As he fell, I scrambled onto him, my knees pinning his arms, my fingers probing his neck.
"Where is she?
Tell me, or I'll kill --"
He began to cry.
"She left.
Earlier this morning --"
Her clothes lay by the cube enclosing the bed.
I hit him with the back of my hand.
"Tell me, Malaquez."
"She wanted to be famous.
She did!
He seemed to expect me to understand.
"Where!"
I demanded, squeezing his throat until he began jerking his head madly at the sculpture.
I stared at the naked Tasha.
Most of his story I have pieced together since, but I understood enough as I knelt on his chest with my hands tight on his fleshy throat.
He had made his name with a home capturador.
He began with small animals and moved on to derelicts and Undersiders, people who would never be missed.
Now he had thought to use vacationers like Tasha and me, and when someone came looking, he would say we had gone island-hopping in our windboat.
Our boat would disappear into the ocean to be found or not as the wind and tides chose.
Mine was The Sleeping Flamingo, and its outer walls were coral pink.
His story would stand in either case.
I wanted him to tell me more, but he babbled, begging me to forgive him, to understand.
I did not listen.
I think I was wondering what it meant to say that a thing was art, so we accepted it as art.
Or perhaps I was thinking about the things that humanity made that would outlive our species.
But I was probably only looking at my reflection in the capturador's lens.
Had he said then that I should use it on myself, I might have.
That moment passed.
I looked at Malaquez.
Were they mood-sensitive, they would have changed as I first viewed them.
His lips contorted as if they had lost their ability to shape sound.
I turned to touch the cube that was Tasha's crypt.
She smiled in trust or pleasure or pride, an erotic Mona Lisa who would smile forever, and I could never know why.
I could free Tasha.
If I did, one of three things would happen.
Most likely: she would be meat --there is a reason why stopboxes are most often used in kitchens.
Less likely: she would live the rest of her days with a mind as free of worry as a slug's.
And the tiniest chance of all: she would blink as if I had just materialized in Emil's bedroom, and then she would laugh and tell me that she was going to be immortal.
As I put my hand on the impervious surface of Tasha's stopbox, I heard Malaquez run for the door.
It is strange to know that we can do acts of unrepayable kindness to those we should hate.
Know this, my future self: Thanks to us, Emil Malaquez's name will live as long as his masterpiece, "A Self-Portrait: Anguish," endures.
And Tasha?
I could say that I did not dare to take responsibility for her fate.
I could say that I chose out of consideration for her desire for fame; some critics already say "Waking With Tasha" is Malaquez's finest work.
If science finds a way to safely free the subjects of Emil's art, perhaps the I who reads this file will know that my decision is wise.
But I cannot stop thinking that I was never afraid of losing Tasha to brain damage or death.
My fear is that she would live, and I would learn that I had lost her long before Emil Malaquez translated her into a thing that can be kept, admired, and loved.
For in my way, I have done the same thing.
She said, "It's beautiful, isn't it, Señor Flynn?"
I am ready for the mindwipe now.
"It's beautiful, isn't it, Señor Flynn?"
But she was young and attractive (as I have said and may say again) and eager and so happy to be assisting the infamous Bernardo Flynn that I merely raised an eyebrow in mild scepticism.
And then, because a playwright cannot resist a promising line, I said, "Your Sleeping Flamingo should be put to sleep."
"Your Sleeping Flamingo should be put to sleep."
To say her face fell would do a disservice to Tasha and to literature.
(Allow me my self-indulgences as you would those of a dying man -- when I convince my mindsmith to permit the wipe, there will be another Bernardo Flynn, one who knows no more of Tasha Cortez or Vega IV than he reads here.)
Her brows drew together, creasing the lovely, caramel-colored skin around her eyes and showing the pattern for an old woman's wrinkles on her forehead.
Her lower lip (a trifle too narrow for her face, perhaps her only physical flaw) thrust forward slightly as she started to speak.
She caught herself, slid her jaw infinitesimally back into place, and said, "You don't like it?"
"You don't like it?"
I laughed.
I clapped her shoulder to show I was not laughing at her.
"Like it?
I hate it, despise it, abhor it!
It's gaudy, graceless, pretentious -- That house is an affront to taste and intelligence.
I should buy it to raze it, but I am not so kind-hearted.
I might, however, rent it."
Captured Moments
I think she only heard the last words of my speech.
"You will?"
"It amuses me.
Show me around, and then I shall decide."
"Of course, Señor Flynn."
"And stop calling me 'señor'.
Not even Los Mundos is so polite.
"If you wish."
"I beg you, change the color of the walls, at the very least."
"But of course!"
I stared.
"How's that?"
I looked at her.
"Worse?"
I remember Papa's stopbox, a teal blue Tiempo Capturado that Mama brought home for his birthday.
I nodded.
"I would not have thought it possible."
She frowned.
"It is rather ugly."
"Thoroughly ugly,"
"Thoroughly ugly," I corrected with smile.
"Obscenely ugly,"
"Obscenely ugly," said she, smiling too.
"No."
I pointed.
"It has no tower."
"I can fix that."
She reached for another dial on the house controls.
"Don't you dare!"
Her wrist, when I grabbed it, was smooth and strong and warm in my fingers.
"I'll take it.
Exactly as it is."
"You will?"
"I must.
God knows what you might do to it next."
Reluctantly, I released her hand.
The interior of The Flamingo was a welcome surprise.
Cloudwood had been used in a Mediterranean manner, making the house seem primitive and civilized at the same time.
The kitchen and baths had every convenience that I desired.
From the living room, the view of the beach struck me with such intensity that Tasha asked if I felt ill.
All I could say was, "No.
I'm in love."
It was huge and inefficient, and she should never have spent so many pesos on a toy, but Papa would not let her return it.
We both thought I referred to the vista.
It's strange how one can write delightedly of the happier moments of life, forgetting the things that one would forget by remembering fully the things one would remember, and suddenly the forgotten, in revenge, rears up to savage the unwary.
So it was as I wrote the preceding.
My heart convulsed, and I left this manuscript for a three-day spree.
Apparently I was so successful that it lasted a week and a half.
Not bad for an eighty-three-year-old, even for one who has his rejuve every month.
And if I can brag and digress so easily, this must not be painful enough to merit a mindwipe, yes?
I abandoned these notes to my future self to have the wipe done immediately, thinking that Bernardo Flynn should receive such services when he needed them, even should the need arise at the third hour after midnight.
My mindsmith is not so understanding.
Captured Moments
She says I am emotionally a child, to which I reply, "Of course.
"Of course.
Why else would I come to you?"
This logic does not soothe her; she says I must wait three weeks.
Three!
.
Such is the law.
I say I do not care about law, I care about service and she should care about money.
He used it to preserve baby tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries in translucent cubes that he stored in the pantry for spring-time meals in the middle of winter.
I went on a spree, and it must have been a good one.
I hope the wipe is as successful with my time on Vega IV as my spree was with my time here.
I dimly remember three bedpartners who were probably human, and one that I hope was delirium.
I will not answer the phone for a week, no matter whose face appears on it.
I keep evading the issue.
But which issue?
The issue of why I am evading the issue, or the issue itself?
To deal with the first: it hurts to remember.
If I am capable of love, I loved Tasha Cortez.
If I am not, I had the perfect mirror for my narcissism.
As for the issue itself, I'm no longer sure what I want to record.
The playwright in me wants every scene of our time together.
The editor says no, only those that are relevant.
“can’t-miss”
Wolves can run fast — but they certainly can’t outrun airplanes.
Given the urgency of the situation in Alaska, Defenders needs your immediate assistance to help save Alaska’s wolves from same-day airborne land-and-shoot slaughter.
Support the Emergency Effort to Save Alaska’s Wolves.
Soon this wolf won’t be merely running in the snow.
Defenders hopes to raise at least $100,000 to help Alaskans For Wildlife, a coalition of Alaska citizens, win a citizens’ ballot initiative this November.
And we face very wealthy opponents.
So today, I urge you to do these two things: FIRST: Sign the enclosed Citizens’ Advisory Ballot to show our Alaska allies your strong personal support to reinstate the ban on “same-day airborne land-and-shoot” wolf killing in Alaska; SECOND: Rush an urgent donation to help put this measure on the ballot and win passage in November.
“same-day airborne land-and-shoot”
The Alaska Legislature is completely out of step with the will of Alaska’s citizens and the American public at large.
This wolf will be running for its life!
Like you, the majority of Alaskans oppose same-day land-and-shoot wolf killing.
But the anti-wolf politicians in the Alaska legislature don’t care what the majority of Alaska citizens want.
And they didn’t listen to the recommendations of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which opposed this legislation!
They are utterly out of step with their Alaska constituents ... the state agency that manages Alaska wildlife ... and the rest of the American public!
The airplane above will be tracking her ... in order to land and immediately gun her down .
In the name of “wolf control,” wolf killers will predictably once again use aircraft to hunt wolves to the point of exhaustion, so that the wolves have, literally, no chance of survival.
“wolf control,”
And if history is any guide, over the years thousands of Alaska’s wolves will be brutally killed.
Before the 1996 ban on same-day land-and-shoot, as many as 400 wolves were killed in Alaska each year because of this barbaric and unethical practice.
Anti-wolf interests are prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure that the new land-and-shoot law stands — even though most Alaskans do not support it.
ALASKA EMERGENCY
So if we don’t act right now, Alaska’s snowy tundras will once again become bloody killing fields for wolves in America’s “Last Frontier.”
Say “NO” to the barbaric practice of same-day airborne wolf killing.
“NO”
You see, the Alaska legislature passed a law that once again allows any private citizen with just a $15 trapping or $25 hunting license to track wolves by aircraft and then land and gun them down.
As I mentioned, this new same-day airborne land-and-shoot practice will start in September after the opening of hunting season and the first snow — and when wolves will be an easy target.
To repeal this unconscionable law, Defenders must help provide our friends in Alaska -- Alaskans For Wildlife — with the resources necessary to win at the polls in November.
Our well-funded opponents will spend whatever it takes to mislead and confuse voters about this ballot measure.
If Alaska’s new law is not replaced, thousands of Alaska's wolves will die in the years to come.
And it will be a major setback for wolves nationwide — at a time when the American public overwhelmingly favors wolf reintroduction and protection.
A loss will encourage those anti-wolf fanatics who want to stop wolf restoration and put bounties on those wolves already in the wild.
So, please don’t wait another minute.
Please sign your Citizens’ Advisory Ballot to demonstrate to our Alaska allies that you’re behind them; and send an urgent donation today to help them win this effort.
So how will your money be spent?
Here’s the projected budget breakdown: $35,000 — in-depth, state-wide survey conducted by a top pollster to determine voters’ positions on the ballot measure and arguments that will help persuade undecided voters.
$45,000 — salaries /office expenses for staff to oversee the effort between now and election day.
$30,000 — production of television and radio spots alerting the public to the findings of the above survey.
This cruel, unethical wolf-hunting practice is called “same-day airborne land-and-shoot.”
$100,000 — placement of voter education spots in the key media including print, radio and television.
$15,000 — election day “get-out-the-vote” drive, including phone calls to get voters to the polls.
“get-out-the-vote”
You stood by Defenders when we defeated the wealthy American Farm Bureau in court and saved the lives of the wolves in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho.
Now, I’m hoping I can count on your moral and financial support again today.
“same-day airborne land-and-shoot.”
to help save Alaska’s wolves from same-day airborne land-and-shoot killing.
Your special donation today is absolutely critical, because many of Alaska’s politicians clearly have anti-wolf agendas.
They have the financial backing of powerful special interests and the determination to ignore the will of the people of Alaska and the American public.
Please let Alaskans know that you’re behind them.
Please help save Alaska’s wolves by doing these two things:
2. RUSH a special donation to help our Alaska allies overturn this odious new law.
In May the Alaska legislature voted to reinstate same-day airborne wolf killing.
So, please take out your pen right now and sign your absentee ballot.
And then, mail it back to us along with your emergency donation to help save Alaska’s wolves.
Thank you for your strong support.
Sincerely, Rodger Schlickeisen President
P.S.: Defenders needs your help to raise $100,000 in emergency funds to help ensure that the coalition’s Emergency Effort to Save Alaska’s Wolves succeeds.
Time is so short.
Look closely at this photo, and you’ll see a wolf ... running.
But they did, overriding Governor Tony Knowles’ veto — and ignoring the will of the majority of Alaska’s citizens.
Unfortunately, this practice will begin after the first snow ... this September ... when wolves will be “can’t-miss” targets against Alaska’s snowy terrain.
Someone will need to begin by creating an urban "oasis" that mitigates some of the fears that you had while driving through the city -- where to buy groceries, a place where you can feel safe on your own front porch, the freedom to sleep soundly without worrying about your copper wiring.
"oasis"
3. For all that is wrong with Detroit -- and that's nearly everything -- you'd be astonished by the pride that Detroiters have for their city.
They lack the means to build her back to her former glory, but she won't be abandoned.
For all of those who are trapped there by their circumstances, there are just as many who insist that they wouldn't live anywhere else.
Raggedy Anarchy 21. Sep, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Thank you for the opportunity to see post-BushCo era Detroit through the prism of your vision.
I've never been there, but ever since that mad, possessed American History Professor I had, I've been haunted by Detroit.
No, even before that -- The Dollmaker has often been called 'America's least pretentious masterpiece'.
'America's least pretentious masterpiece'
Why, out in New Mexico, where you can still buy unincorporated land with no water or roads, you'd pay at least $1,000 for a house-sized plot of dust.
(Joyce Carol Oates in the NYTBR) When folks like Gertie Nevels, and Levon Helm and John Hiatt and my favorite, John Henry, left the mountains to go wrestle with the Industrial leviathan in Detroit, they were in it to the death.
Detroit won't be the death of the courage of those early Detroit pioneers; it looks like Nature will prevail after all.
I love what you are doing.
Uncle B 18. Oct, 2009 at 7:53 am
Is this the monument left behind for the world to witness, by Corporatism, Capitalism?
Is this the greatness they built on earth?
Is this the proof that all countries deserve democracy and its inevitable cancers, corporatism and capitalism?
This, American Glory?
In a class-less society?
This is the final phase, the crowning glory of America's greatness?
Does this show our system's superiority over the commies in China?
The old Soviet Guard?
Europe's follies?
Have we really built a "Great Society" or is that all propaganda -- Bull Shiite to hush free thought, eyes to the flag, while our pockets and resources were raided by shysters, spin-meisters, schmucks and banksters?
"Great Society"
Did we build sane, sustainable, survival shelter homes?
Do we still have fertile backyard gardens, filled with the composting of the age?
Can any of what we built be recovered, restored, renovated, into useful shelter?
Did the tools of production really get sold, to the shareholders benefit, leaving the worker without means to defend himself?
So how can you buy an actual home for $100?
Have the great fortunes earned in trust as "American" for American investment here in America, really migrated to the Beijing, Shanghai, and Hang-Seng markets, converted to safer "Yuan" and invested in China's wealth?
"American"
"Yuan"
Did this really happen to American patriots?
Do you still love democracy, corporatism, capitalism and all it has done for you?
Are you really "Free"?
"Free"
Is Conscription just around the corner, to serve Halliburton(Dubai) in attaining pipeline clearance through Afghanistan, to Turkmenistan and the oil field there?
That's literally cheaper than dirt.
Are American lives well spent in thei "Middle East" endevor?
"Middle East"
"Freedom"
Is this really just flag-waving propaganda?
What, exactly did we win in Iraq?
Cheaper Oil?
I think not!
The possibilities of this were fascinating.
I think not!
Why has the "Rust Belt" come into being?
"Rust Belt"
What were we doing?
Where did the great society for all, the one we were told we were building go?
Japan?
China?
To the Uber-Rich?
As we sink into our own ruins, the dark horse rides on America!
The dark horse rides on!
Lumpy 22. Oct, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Green movement?
You gotta be kidding me!
Earth to Jessica: Democrats caused this.
They have the unmidas touch.
Every decaying city in America has D's firmly in control, and has forever.
I had visions of hipsters from coast to coast converging in Detroit, building a new city on rock&roll.
When you said you were naive, you weren't kidding.
Jessica Reeder 22. Oct, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Nope, I wasn't kidding.
Put it in writing, didn't I?
Lumpy, I'm not a Democrat and I don't much approve of the Democratic Party.
Just so we're clear on that.
I don't think you present a fully-informed argument on the causes of urban decay, but I don't disagree with you.
I'm not particularly interested in whose fault this mess is; rather, I choose to focus on how we're going to clean it up.
That's where the green movement comes in, and when I say "green" I'm talking plants not politics.
If you've got some fancy new technology at Boeing that can do more for people's health and happiness (and for less cost) than a victory garden can do, please let me know.
Last I checked, greed, sloth, hubris and waste were all pretty universally human traits, and I see no halos around either Libertarians, Dems or even anarchically green-at-heart.
I pictured young artists owning homes, fixing up neighborhoods.
I agree -- Democrats, like country music, have disappointed me too many times in the past for me to keep on listening.
But here's the thing -- frogs are mutating due to the planet trying to kill itself.
Otters in post-Valdez Alaska are clawing their own petro-chemical-burned eyes out in pain.
The patient is earth, and it's not getting better.
During times of crisis (which this is), the ones who will create positive change are those who accept the hand they are dealt and act.
The ones who are educated and informed and attached to delegating moral judgements will be perfectly equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
I saw community gardens, art parks, a grassroots transformation of a city.
Just ask the Palestinians who left after the first war to cry over the past.
Or ask my Paiute grandfather.
*Or even Friend Salmon, who still haunts my dreams and tells me not to let us blow each other's asses off the earth until we clean up the mess we have made.
*That was for Lumpy.
Nobody gets laughed at alone in my presence.
Raggedy Anarchy 24. Oct, 2009 at 6:21 pm
" ... when I say “green” I’m talking plants not politics."
Wall-E.
Eric 01. Nov, 2009 at 10:33 pm
There is now a house for $10 listed on realtor.com
Helena 19. Nov, 2009 at 1:06 pm
You told me about this, but it has to be seen to be believed (not that I didn't believe you!).
We could take that oil-stained soil and those rusted factories, and create something new and beautiful.
The richest country in the world ... ?!
Fred E. 18. Jan, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Don't forget about the back taxes!
Parker 15. May, 2010 at 6:56 am
I find this topic fascinating.
I will be going back to visit in June.
I plan to take a (Daytime) tour of these decaying areas especially the old factories.
I have the urban explorer fascination.
However, the main reason I wanted to post was to say to "Lumpy", "the democrats have the unmidas touch", LMAO, that is classic.
"Lumpy"
"the democrats have the unmidas touch"
Freaking hillarious and so true.
BTW, great blog and great info.
Peace.
Brad 14. Oct, 2010 at 7:02 pm
I, too checked out a few listings for under $1,000 and was absolutely shocked at the property taxes.
A $1,000 house, which could be fixed up into maybe a $30-40,000 house comes with a tax bill of $4-6K per year!
Additionally, even if you paid cash for the house, you'd probably want to carry some homeowner's insurance with all the inherent risks to the property (arson, vandalism), and I'm sure it's sky-high, given those risks.
With houses going for $100, I thought, what would you have to lose by moving to Detroit?
And so Quiet Earp and I did some research, and came up with a list of houses selling for under a grand.
We had plenty to choose from: there were more cheap houses than we would have time to visit.
We picked two neighborhoods to cruise, and dove in.
But once we entered Detroit, the truth hit fast: this is a modern American ghost town.
The place is practically deserted.
Its streets, built wide to accommodate heavy traffic, are mostly empty.
Houses and businesses are boarded up, painted up, bombed out and falling down.
Even in the center of the business district, there's no traffic and hardly any people.
Chief among these is Detroit, Motor City.
Don't believe me?
I videotaped it:
It got worse as we drove into residential areas, looking for those cheap houses.
In fact, I've never felt so out of place in all my life .
Even in Chicago's South Side, where we counted five white people in an hour, I felt fine just driving around; not so in Detroit.
Truthfully, it wasn't about race: it was about being naive.
It was about driving down streets where we truly did not belong and were not welcome.
The longtime center of American automotive manufacturing was gutted when the Big Three car companies simultaneously failed.
They sit on the porch and watch the cars go by, watch the deals go down, watch their neighborhoods crumble.
And we, driving through slowly and reading house numbers in a late-model Honda, stuck out like a couple of thumbs.
So we sped up, and went straight to the houses.
Sometimes we stopped to take a photo, but mostly we didn't.
Earp and I have each lived happily in the wilds of West Oakland, but the danger I felt in Detroit was like nothing I'd experienced before.
I was actually afraid for my life.
The New York Times correspondent wrote that his friend Mitch's $1,900 home "had already been stripped of its appliances and wiring ...
But for Mitch that only added to its appeal, because he now had the opportunity to renovate it with solar heating, solar electricity and low-cost, high-efficiency appliances.
As for the $100 house?
It "needed some work, a hole patched, some windows replaced."
"needed some work, a hole patched, some windows replaced."
Well, I don't know what part of Detroit these folks live in, but the $100 houses I saw looked more like this:
You see, abandoned houses in this town get set on fire.
No exceptions.
Wherever we went in those neighborhoods, one in four houses had been torched.
On one corner, we saw a giant banner hung across a charred front porch.
We didn't slow down to take a photo, but I'll paraphrase: DON'T BURN HOUSES DOWN!
Except that they obviously aren't.
Buy a $100 house in Detroit, and you get a lifetime supply of sleepless nights: you'll spend the next several years waiting for burglars and arsonists, murderers and crackheads to break in the windows.
It's the Rust Belt.
Ultimately, I do believe that change will come to Detroit.
Detroit and the Myth of the $100 House | Uprooted, an eco/travel blog
There will be a green movement here ; in fact it's already being cultivated by forward-thinking groups and intrepid locals .
One day, this place will be reborn.
But right now, the NYT's story reeks of Shinola.
Anyone who takes this plunge is risking their life every day, betting on a future that may take a long time to arrive.
Long story short: Yes, you can buy a house in Detroit for $100.
Cheap real estate, that's what.
And you will get what you pay for.
Cheers to Toby Barlow , who inspired my trek to Detroit, and who believes in a happier, greener future.
May your every dream come true, sir, and your book sell fabulously.
16 Responses to "Detroit and the Myth of the $100 House"
bisnis 16. Sep, 2009 at 9:46 pm
I'd read a New York Times article about some forward-thinking artist-types who bought a house in Detroit for $1,900 .
Great post.
Thank you for this info.
I need that
Myself 19. Sep, 2009 at 10:06 am
Please track down and watch a movie called "Detroit: A City to Yourself", by Nicole MacDonald.
"Detroit: A City to Yourself"
It's full of this imagery, and talks about the 1805 fire and rebuilding, and the post-industrial devastation that's ravaged the city since.
About the pop fiction which explores the concept of a post-human world, and how it already exists now.
And about how, if you're a pheasant, that's not such a bad thing.
HOWEVER ...
There's a lot more to Detroit than that.
There are industrial spaces being turned into low-rent artist lofts and business incubators.
(Look at the Russell Industrial Complex, for one example.)
There are neighborhoods that refuse to cave.
(west of Livernois around McNichols).
There's a whole bunch of nice stuff happening along the riverfront, from downtown up towards Stroh Place.
$1,900!
And there's always Belle Isle.
Some of us (and lots of New Yorkers) pay that much in rent every month!
When friends come to Detroit, I take them there.
It's our in-the-river park, 982 acres of green space, with a zoo, a botanical garden and conservatory, rentable paddle boats, and tons of other neat stuff.
Next time you're in Detroit, please head over.
Oh, and entry is free, so it's available to anyone regardless of economic status.
You're liable to see families picnicking, bums gathering bottles and cans, geese foraging, and deer cautiously wandering the edge of the woods.
Some of that cheap real estate isn't too horrible, either.
There's a whole street being taken over by artists, Farnsworth between Moran and McDougall.
Some of the things they've done down there are amazing, and the community garden is a great bridge to the surrounding neighborhood.
In fact, the article went on, soon a nearby house went on the market for $100.
America's Rust Belt is a swath of cities and towns that boomed during the Industrial Era and now lie -- well, rusting -- as empty remainders of glory days past.
A few weeks ago, someone broke into their shed to steal their garden tools.
Think about that for a moment, hoes and shovels don't have enough pawn value to be worth carrying out.
Yes, Detroit's got more than its share of bad spots, you're right.
But there are bright spots, and behind every one of them is a person, or a bunch of people, who refuse to give up.
Jessica 19. Sep, 2009 at 10:30 am
Myself -- Thanks for the comment and the great information.
The artist types notified their buddies, who moved in post haste.
You are exactly the kind of person who gives me back the hope I lost on my way into town.
Seems there's a pretty solid group of Detroit residents who are truly committed to restoring the city, and that's beautiful to see.
Love the fact that people are stealing garden implements (though it's still sad that they need to).
I will absolutely watch A City To Yourself, thank you for the recommendation.
And when I'm in the area again, I'll go out to Belle Isle and think long&hard about the future of American cities--as I'm sure you do occasionally too.
Reader Not Writer 20. Sep, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Well, growing up not far from Detroit myself, I would point out a few things:
I was intrigued.
See, there's a wee bit of loyalty to the Big 3 and driving a foreign car doesn't really scream "solidarity" to those struggling to survive.
Really?
A $100 house?
Most of the funny looks you got were less about your color than about your ride.
You think I'm kidding, but I couldn't be more serious -- that Honda is a visceral reminder for people of how the American consumer has left Detroit in the dust.
Even if it was a real fixer-upper, even if you really were better off tearing it down than living in it, that'd still be a hell of a deal.
2. Detroit (proper) has been dying for a long time -- before the 1968 riots, even.
Its going to take some pioneering individuals to start creating those pockets of innovation, creativity, and vision.
But its not going to happen with the investment of $100 into a single house.
The next moment, Acres was there.
Hands up in the same way mine were frozen.
We just looked at each other.
I guess, thinking back, I might have expected him to gloat, but the view was the kind of thing that humbles you, shuts your mouth.
We just stood looking at each other for a little while, I don't know how long.
What is it?
he wasn't the sort you'd call "Chuck."
A place.
I don't know.
I think this whole thing," he waved his hand at the horizon, "is one big machine.
And the markers were carved later, not be whoever built it.
Safe?
I looked around.
One thing this place didn't seem was safe.
Let me show you the rest.
He started walking down the steps and around a corner.
It would have taken plenty to surprise me after what I had already seen, but My jaw was banging against my shoelaces when I rounded that corner.
'm a linguistics researcher, Ed.
I'm not sure how something so big could have been hidden by that little turn in landscape, but maybe perspective doesn't work quite the same there.
Glaring down at me from no more than twenty feet away was a grimacing, thirty foot tall black face with staring, blue and white eyes and it wore a ridiculous little hat.
For some reason I thought of a giant clown face from a carnival ride, but it scared the hell out me.
Acres stood beside it and somehow using him as a yardstick for the scale of the thing made it easier to see.
It was a moai.
This is what I wanted to show you.
I looked down and saw he was pointing to another marker just slightly different from the one we had just left.
I was pretty rattled, but things fell together for me looking at the big statue, the Hawaiian shirt and the mark on the ground.
Easter Island?
Acres nodded.
It was all too much for me so I focused on the part I could handle.
So what does this have to do with gold?
You could step on that marker and make the gestures, the 'device,' and it would be like pushing a button in a very complex machine.
You would end up on a small hill on Rapa Nui.
You could step three feet to the right and do the same thing, and you would end up buried alive in a nearby rock face.
But I know how to make it take me anywhere.
He pulled a sheet of folded paper from his pocket and handed it to me.
It read, "Department of the Treasury, Financial Management Service, Status Report of U.S. Treasury-Owned Gold."
He pointed to a row that read, "Deep Storage: Fort Knox, KY."
I sucked in a whole lot of air.
Anywhere?
Anywhere," he walked around the moai and came back wrestling with a big, heavy bar of gold.
Otherwise the vault is sealed.
Does anyone else know about this?
No, they would have been on Rapa Nui if they knew, ready to stop me.
This is the 400 ounces which I mentioned at the restaurant.
About $150,000 dollars at this morning's rate.
I looked at the sheet in my hand.
I had to read it twice.
I had never seen a dollar sign in front of that many number before.
I thought they didn't keep gold there anymore, just nerve gas.
The gold is still there.
How much can we sell before someone becomes suspicious?
Charles put the bar down and slid a web pouch over it with shoulder straps like a small backpack.
How's your um... business?
"None," I said and slipped the knife into his neck right at the base of his skull.
None
Call me small minded, but you know "a bird in the hand."
All that gold in Fort Knox was just too much for me to wrap my head around.
But I could handle a hundred and fifty-K easy, say seventy-five-K from the fence.
I slipped the little pouch over my back and wiped the knife on his jacket.
I waived down a waitress and ordered a cup of decaf and a slice of pie.
Then I made my way back to the little marker where we came in.
His mistake had been in telling me the same gesture opened the door the other way.
What if it didn't work?
So the icy wind at the top of the mound and the bright moon came as a real relief.
The gold was heavy on my back, and I was all the way to the car before I realized I had left the keys on Charles.
The highway patrol was just bound to come by then.
After that it was just connect the dots back to prison.
The rental car records pointed to Acres, and there was enough blood on the knife to match DNA from Acres comb in the motel.
They never bothered trying to explain how Acres made it into the country without a ticket on a plane or a boat.
I didn't like his tone much.
But they speculated all through the trial about where the gold came from, offered me deals.
The prosecution liked the idea that Acres was my smuggler's mule.
I was a one man gold cartel in the news.
"So you sure you're not a cop, Charles?"
I'm just wondering what they'll think when they open that vault in Kentucky.
And I still wonder why Charles picked me?
Maybe he didn't know anybody else with "connections."
Acres said it was dangerous, but maybe I could find my way back to the mound or Easter Island even.
I figure it can't be worse than the lethal injection that's waiting for me at dawn.
I stared him down until he flinched.
I don't really believe I'll make it or I wouldn't say a thing.
But if I do make it, it won't matter what I tell you, because there won't be a jail that can hold me.
Wish me luck.
I out of here.
As I did, I noticed just how tired he looked around the eyes.
I knew every cop in Fairport and quite a few of the state police in Iowa, and I couldn't see them bringing old Charles in as a ringer.
'm not a cop
He sighed and went on in softer, sadder voice, "I guess I'm a thief now."
Hold it.
I looked around.
Charles might be for real, but he was still going to get me in deep trouble.
Let's make real clear right now that you were joking, buddy.
Otherwise this conversation is over.
I've got a parole officer to explain things to, and he wouldn't like that kinda talk.
Right.
Right.
Sorry.
Charles looked out the window at the passing traffic push through dirty slush for awhile.
Like I was saying.
I'm a researcher, I've come into some valuable material that I would like to find a buyer for, and I don't want to have to explain myself to anyone.
He said he had a "business proposition" for me.
The pie came and I waited until the waitress was gone, before going on, "Why me?"
You were the first person who came to mind.
First person?
Twenty years out of high school?
How much of this 'valuable material' are we talking about?
Four Hundred ounces for a start.
I pulled out my palm phone and looked up a number.
That's alot.
He drained the last of his cup and tossed some bills on the table.
I'm staying in town.
Let me show you something.
He sounded surprised and said no, he needed me to help him get rid of "a large quantity of gold."
Charles might not look like much, but I hadn't made it through my life taking that kind of chance.
I put away the cell and used the motion to cover checking the knife in my sleeve and used one leg to check the other in my sock.
I had been an amateur magician for years.
It never failed to amaze.
Sure.
Let's go," I said.
There was only one chair, so I sat on the edge of the bed as he handed me a book open to a picture of some sort of stone tablet.
Rapa Nui," he said, "Easter Island.
This codex is one of the few remaining examples of a form of writing known as 'rongorongo.
For a long time no one was able to decipher it, although by deduction, Steven Fischer deciphered some of it in nineteen ninety four.
I told him I'd meet him for coffee at the diner down the street at seven.
He mostly read creation stories off objects like the 'Santiago Staff' which said things like, 'All the birds copulated with fish: There issued forth the sun.
But he ignored the inscriptions on skulls and the 'Birdman' statuette.
It was those clues that started all of this.
I didn't see much money in hieroglyphic porn.
He talked on about people with long ears who built the big statues, the "moai" and people with short ears who conquered the people with long ears and ate them and how the short eared people didn't really know the secrets of the long ears and had pulled down all the moai statues and destroyed some of the tablets.
And how the missionaries came and the converted natives had destroyed more.
He flipped pages to another image, "But notice something here in the arrangement of the moai.
See here how they form a pattern, very similar to this?
He pulled out a small leather diary and opened it to a yellowed page marked with yet another small sticky note.
I didn't see much resemblance except maybe there were about the same number of points in the cat's cradle thing in the diary and the number of dots on the map showing places where statues stood in a thin line around the coast of the island.
he was already there, sitting in a booth, warming his hands on a cup of coffee.
This is the diary of a mysterious explorer named Samuel Curlew who investigated a Mound Builder site in this area in the early eighteen hundreds.
He closed the little book and just about hugged it with satisfaction.
I want to show you that mound.
You know it was these very mounds that originally sparked my interest in history, archeology and then linguistics.
And this mound is where you found gold?
I was confused enough I let the "G word" slip.
Was this some crazy treasure hunt?
Or maybe this guy was just a wacko who wanted to take me out on a dark road and kill me.
No, it's more complicated than that, but I need to show you the mound for you to understand.
He looked like jerked meat on the bone.
The drawings and the books seemed to wake him up.
I was having serious cash flow issues back then and had payments to make, so I said, "yes," but my patience was running out.
Charles Acres called me on a Thursday afternoon, just like that.
It was dark as we left.
The drive was shorter than I expected.
He was wearing a new jacket and snow boots, but he had on a Hawaiian shirt underneath and khaki shorts of all things.
When he killed the headlights there was no light but moonlight and stars on a light dusting of snow.
A low, black hill blocked the sky right in front of us.
We spent the next hour stomping around the hill while he said things like, "it was right here."
My patience was long gone, and I was back in the car to warming up when Acres tapped on the window and told me he had found whatever he was looking for.
It looked like a bamboo walking stick.
"This is it," he leaned down and motioned for me to look at something on the ground.
This is it
I casually slid a knife into my palm just in case.
See how the lines form the pattern in the journal, the same one as the moai.
"So you drew this?" I asked vaguely, slow to catch on.
So you drew this?
He looked hurt and rapped on the ground with his finger.
It's stone.
Ancient.
For the first time he looked cold and stiff in his tourist gear, making me glad I was in a suit.
His tan was obviously deep and old, but it looked like a work tan, not the kind you get at the beach.
Here stand beside me," he said.
I'm not sure if I can take you with me so I need to show you the device.
Device?
I expected him to pull out a gadget with blinking lights and was wondering which way to duck.
It's like sleight of hand.
OK, watch and remember this.
I'm going to do it in two parts, last part first so it won't take effect.
Remember to reverse the two parts when you actually do it.
Stunned I watched as he made several ridiculous passes with his hands paused and nodded then did a sort of sign language stutter of some sort.
"Mnemonic." I muttered, which seemed to please him.
Mnemonic.
Yes.
They help in remembering steps in a ritual or ceremonial gestures.
Now you do it.
He smiled and I could see his teeth in the moonlight.
I wanted to slug him, but he had the keys to the car back and I figured I'd humor him while I figured out how to get them without violating my parole.
I even swapped the two parts as he had asked.
I thought he was surprised at my dexterity when his jaw dropped, but he shouted, "No!" just before everything changed.
I was standing on a perfectly flat square of dark stone.
For as far as I could see by a weak, gray light the stone stepped up and down making little hills and terraces and platforms.
I seemed to be somewhere in the middle -- there was as much above as below.
So, the mining business is treating you pretty good, huh Charles?
I was in shock.
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Tonight was for observation.
I didn't bother trying to seek out a different group of potentially more interesting people, though.
They all looked the same: clusters of social butterflies surrounded by the less apt, the hangers-on, the circle with whom the gossip was shared.
I wondered at the ship instead.
All the fine food and the ornamental lighting, it had to be exorbitantly pricey to maintain.
If the barkeep was any indication, I suspected similarly high-class robots fulfilled other positions on the ship.
How they were all powered was a mystery—as good as the technology got, a quality robot like that was still an energy sink.
It was the brain, mostly; the amount of information the machine had to process to be able to function at the level it did ate up a lot of resources.
Sarah's crowd took turns taking my champagne flute to the bar to be refilled, all seemingly pleased to have a new set of ears to talk at.
By the end of the evening, when I finally followed the slow trickle of people out of the room, a satisfying haze had settled on my mind.
It was nice, I decided.
This ship.
This life.
Did it truly matter what the ship's origin was and why Jefferson had saved me, if now, I was content?
Fact: It's easy to fall into patterns.
I would wake late, checking the clock on my room's lightscreen to make sure I hadn't slept through brunch.
I would join the rest of the ship for meals, and I would take my turn in the weight room.
I would watch old films on the entertainment screens, taking mental notes for later dinnertime discussions.
I would immerse myself in new virtual reality flicks.
I would attend afternoon dance classes, so that when the evening dances came around (modeled after the historical social gatherings of several hundred years prior), I would be less of an embarrassment to myself.
So, twenty-four hours.
I did not ask questions.
I told myself I should.
I told myself that tonight, the observation period would end and I'd start puzzling out the ship's mystery.
But I fell under the ship's sway.
Give or take.
Bereft of my previous familiar life, I latched onto Kishori and Ray and Zheng, and Sarah with Alexis dragged along on her arm now and then (he was mostly her favorite dancing partner; she confided to us one night that his conversational skills left something to be desired).
About the time I was composing my last words in my head, trying not to think too much about what suffocating felt like, that's when I heard a bell.
I smothered thoughts of friends back on Earth—this was my long-awaited vacation, my clean break and my temporary retreat; I'd try contacting those friends tomorrow.
I continued to care little for shipwide gossip, but our discussions of films and flicks, old and new, brought out my artistic, story-loving, argumentative side, a side of me I'd tucked into a back storage compartment during my years as an engineer.
It was a good life, if surreal.
But I wasn't sure I wanted the dream stage to end.
Fact: Some places are timeless.
Days passed, weeks passed, but I couldn't tell if it had been months or years since I was rescued.
All there was, all I remembered, was a blur.
Gathering for drinks in the parlors, playing dress up with all the fine clothes I found in the closets (some of it modern, some of it period dress for special themed events), idling in the lounges.
Now and then, a new face mingled in the crowd.
Other faces washed out, fading into the backdrop of carpets and fake glass chandeliers and the muted hum of the engines.
So when my shuttle malfunctioned and the airlocks didn't keep the air in, I heard nothing.
One of these evenings, we were gathered in the South Ballroom for post-dinner drinks, lounging on couches and watching other members of our populace move in circles on the dance floor.
(The 'South' was in the title to suggest that there were more ballrooms.
'South'
There weren't.)
Sarah's circle had picked up another newcomer, Adrienne, a short blond girl who we all agreed was barely old enough to attend a traditional university back on Earth, let alone work on the ship in whose wreck Jefferson had found her.
My first thought: I was going crazy.
Maybe it was her curiosity, asking a question I should have asked long before, that turned the conversation serious; maybe there was just something special about that evening.
Maybe we had all tired of the frivolity of our life, hitting some threshold or some breaking point.
We dredged up half-fledged theories and inchoate explanations, tossing these out the same way we pitched ideas about the art films.
“I believe we'll see the end of the universe,”
Captain's cohort, she had a glass of orange-brown liquid in one hand; it might have been orange juice and some kind of berry liquor.
She swirled it speculatively.
I watched Adrienne.
“Impossible,”
“Impossible,” said Zheng, sitting in the chair to her left.
“We can't live that long.”
“Maybe the universe will end sooner than you think,”
Yeah, the captain was there, with the rest of us.
He didn't drink, but he made a point of mingling with all the various cliques.
“Maybe we'll travel at the speed of light and we won't age,”
“Maybe we'll travel at the speed of light and we won't age,” said Sarah, setting her wine glass on the little round end table by her couch.
“Maybe we're already traveling at the speed of light.”
Tiffany, she nodded eagerly.
“Relatively says it all.”
Zheng scoffed.
“Also impossible.
“Also impossible. Even if we were traveling at ninety-nine percent of the speed of light—that's assuming you ignore science and pretend that such a thing is possible, because it isn't—we'd still age. We'd just appear to age slower than people not traveling as fast as us.”
Even if we were traveling at ninety-nine percent of the speed of light—that's assuming you ignore science and pretend that such a thing is possible, because it isn't—we'd still age.
We'd just appear to age slower than people not traveling as fast as us.”
“And?”
said Sarah.
“Aging is relative, anyway.
“Aging is relative, anyway. Besides, I wouldn't mind being around forever. Give our ancestors purpose. Keep their dreams alive.”
Besides, I wouldn't mind being around forever.
Give our ancestors purpose.
Keep their dreams alive.”
In fact, the opposite: We're all going to die.”
“Bleak,” commented Zheng.
“But I like it.”
Ray took a drink from his glass of ice water, and shook his head.
“We're all going to die, so what better thing to do than enjoy the time we have?”
Tiffany took a drink, thinking.
“All the luxuries money can buy,”
“All the luxuries money can buy,” she echoed.
Zheng looked skeptical.
“Paid for how?”
“Smuggling,” responded Kishori.
Matter-of-fact.
“Think about it,”
“Think about it,” Kishori continued, “where else would we get the money to buy all this?”
“where else would we get the money to buy all this?”
“Renegade smugglers. So what's our cargo, eh, captain?”
So what's our cargo, eh, captain?”
Zheng joked, leaning back in his chair with his glass of wine.
“I'll leave you to your speculation,”
Now, there were two things here that made ridiculously small amounts of sense.
He set his glass down on an end table, steepled his fingers together.
“We're revolting,”
“We're revolting,” he told us.
“And I don't mean that you disgust me.
“And I don't mean that you disgust me. No, we're the start of a rebellion. Did you hear what the captain said earlier? He means, we're going to change the future. The universe as we know it won't be the same.”
No, we're the start of a rebellion.
Did you hear what the captain said earlier?
The universe as we know it won't be the same.”
“That's dumb,”
“That's dumb,” said Sarah.
“Wouldn't we know it if we were part of a rebellion?
Zheng shook his head.
“The captain selected us for a reason.
“The captain selected us for a reason. He has inside intelligence—how else would he know where to find us? He knows about us.”
He has inside intelligence—how else would he know where to find us?
He knows about us.”
“That's still dumb,”
“That's still dumb,” said Sarah.
“Inside intelligence?
“Inside intelligence? Don't you remember, there's not exactly one big galactic government from which to steal information.”
Don't you remember, there's not exactly one big galactic government from which to steal information.”
First, the whole in-a-vacuum why's-there-a-bell thing.
“I still like my idea,”
“I still like my idea,” said Tiffany.
Jefferson didn't share how he found people.
But then again, no one asked.
I guess we all figured, he knew what he was doing.
I wondered if Adrienne would ask about that.
“We're going to mean something,”
“We're going to mean something,” Zheng was saying.
“What we do, rebelling against the oppression of the many governments that oppose us, we're going to leave a legacy.”
Enthusiastic, even.
Ray, he shook his head, and broke the quiet he'd held most of the evening.
“You've got it all wrong.”
He looked from Sarah, to Adrienne, to Zheng, to Kishori and Tiffany, to me.
“Obviously, we can't last longer than the rest of the universe.
We aren't giving anyone purpose.
We're not even going to leave a legacy.
All we're doing is eating and drinking and shitting, breathing and fucking and nothing important, ever.
We aren't special.”
“Again, bleak,”
“Again, bleak,” commented Zheng.
Adrienne gestured for him to be quiet.
She leaned forward, setting her elbows on the foot stool in front of her.
“You never know when it will end,”
“You can't hold on forever, even if you don't ever, ever want to forget.
“You can't hold on forever, even if you don't ever, ever want to forget. How long until the memories slip away? How long until all you remember is this, the ship, the thick red carpeting, the chandeliers, the empty conversations you hold with the other shells who used to be people? When your life, the reason you lived, the people and faces and places, the emotions you felt, who and what you loved, when all that is gone, faded, what will you have left?”
How long until the memories slip away?
How long until all you remember is this, the ship, the thick red carpeting, the chandeliers, the empty conversations you hold with the other shells who used to be people?
I wondered how long Ray had been on this ship.
I wondered why, if he had such an unpropitious outlook, he hadn't tried to change his situation.
I wanted to ask, but he was still talking, and I was too self-conscious to interrupt.
“You can try to hold on,” said Ray.
“You can try and try and try.
Repeat stories to yourself in the artificial night, sketch faces in your mind.
But words, if you repeat them enough times, lose their meaning.
Emily emily em-ill-ee em-i-lee eh-mill-ee eh-mih-lee.
My wife's name, once.
Repeat it enough times, it's just a sound.
These signals were the heralds of my saviors.
No longer grounded.”
Ray, he said, “If we last forever, if our eyes are the last eyes watching as the stars blink out, it won't mean a thing to us.
We aren't angels.
We're just dumb and lucky.”
“Pure dumb luck,”
“Pure dumb luck,” he said.
“Struck a nerve, huh?”
said Zheng.
“Sorry,”
“Sorry,” said Ray.
“How long ago was that?”
asked Adrienne.
“Leaving your wife, I mean.
“Leaving your wife, I mean. Traveling on this ship.”
The first words they said to me meant nothing.
Ray, he looked down at his hands, folded together in his lap, fingers interlaced.
“I don't know,”
“I don't know,” he said.
We were all quiet for a moment.
Ray shrugged, then got up and left.
We let him go.
Silent.
Self-conscious.
More excuses were made, and after a few moments, only Adrienne and I were left sitting in the ballroom.
She looked across the circle of couches at me.
“What's your theory?”
I wasn't listening; I didn't care; I was going to live; I was going to keep breathing.
“Not that long,”
“Not that long,” I said.
“A couple weeks, I guess. Maybe a month or two.”
Maybe a month or two.”
“Why don't you know for sure?”
she asked.
I shrugged.
I hadn't been counting days.
“What did you do before this?
“What did you do before this? How were you found?”
How were you found?”
“I was an engineer.”
I explained how my ship had malfunctioned, no warning at all.
The explosions, the impossible rescue.
She nodded.
“The ship I was on, I guess that's what happened, too.
“The ship I was on, I guess that's what happened, too. Some vital part broke, and... well, boom. It was all so fast.”
well, boom.
It was all so fast.”
She took a sip of her drink, plain water because, she had explained earlier, she had never liked the taste of alcohol, then fixed her gaze on me.
“I'm going to figure it out,”
“I'm going to figure it out,” she said.
“How and why this ship exists.
“How and why this ship exists. I'll figure it out, then I'm going to find a way home.”
I'll figure it out, then I'm going to find a way home.”
I paced my room that night, unable to sleep.
The more I thought about it, the less sense the ship made.
Next to those, nothing else mattered.
Worse, Adrienne had made this clear to me with a single question.
Fact: Adrienne intimidated me.
Fact: It's too easy to fall into patterns.
I resolved to break the pattern.
Another evening, another chandeliered room, another swirl of conversations and dances and hor d'oevres.
Another circle of chairs and couches, another uncomfortable question.
The recycled air tasted sweet in my mouth, and all thoughts that crossed my mind were cheap metaphors about life-giving substances and how breathing was like sex, only better.
“Has anyone ever left?”
Adrienne looked at each of us in turn.
Ray exchanged a glance with Zheng.
Sarah frowned.
“Now that you mention it, I haven't seen Alexis in days.
“Now that you mention it, I haven't seen Alexis in days. I assumed he was indisposed.”
I assumed he was indisposed.”
Kishori nodded in agreement.
After the first whoosh of the air being sucked away, there was lightning, but no thunder.
I looked at Ray and raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Well,”
“Well,” Ray said, slowly, “People do leave.
“People do leave. The approximate number of people at any given event is always the same. But we see new faces.”
The approximate number of people at any given event is always the same.
Fact: Sound is a vibration.
asked Adrienne, using Sarah's phrasing.
Zheng shook his head and picked up a handful of candied pecans from a little dish on the end table.
“Keep adding people long enough, regardless, you get more overall.
“Keep adding people long enough, regardless, you get more overall. A couple people staying in their rooms, even if you switch out the people, won't make a difference.”
A couple people staying in their rooms, even if you switch out the people, won't make a difference.”
He dropped the pecans back into the dish, one by one.
“So where do they go?”
Adrienne focused on Zheng.
“Maybe a better question is, does anyone ever come back?”
Ray and Zheng exchanged another glance.
Kishori chewed her lip.
Sarah shrugged and sipped at her drink.
After a moment, Ray said, “I don't think so.”
“I don't think so.”
“Are there patterns?”
Adrienne asked.
“Who leaves?”
Again, there was an uncomfortable moment of silence.
I hazarded a guess.
“You don't notice, do you.”
Sarah looked indignant.
“Of course we notice.
“Of course we notice. But... well, no one important ever disappears, so it doesn't really matter, does it.”
But... well, no one important ever disappears, so it doesn't really matter, does it.”
I could tell she was trying to remember whom she had known who had left, and failing.
No one contradicted her.
No one offered a different answer.
I looked at Adrienne.
Mission accomplished: Our routine insouciance had been disrupted.
The scales had tipped.
(I reserved the right to revise this opinion later.)
From the looks on my companions' faces, I knew they were thinking the same.
“How long have you been here?”
The question, previously posed to me, was presented to the rest of our group (excluding Ray; Adrienne had been tactful enough to wait until he had gone for a refill, recalling the last time the subject was broached).
Sarah, she tilted her head and tapped a finger on the side of her wine glass.
A long time.
Got to be months and months, at least.
“You were here before I was,”
“You were here before I was,” said Kishori, “and so was Tiffany.”
When I was done mentally exclaiming over my impossible rescue, I looked around.
“and so was Tiffany.”
I looked at Zheng; he shrugged.
“Time passes in a weird way here.
“Time passes in a weird way here. I kept track for a while—thirty-eight days—but after that... I guess I didn't see the point.”
I kept track for a while—thirty-eight days—but after that...
I guess I didn't see the point.”
Fact: Some places are timeless.
“Why not?”
asked Adrienne.
“Days don't matter,”
“Days don't matter,” he said.
Tiffany nodded, but Kishori spoke before the other woman could.
“Why are you so interested?”
Adrienne met her gaze.
“I don't want to be here forever.”
“But we're not here forever,”
“But we're not here forever,” objected Sarah.
“Remember?
“Remember? Alexis left.”
Alexis left.”
“Disappeared,”
“Disappeared,” I corrected her.
“We don't know how or why he left.
“We don't know how or why he left. Or where he went.”
Zheng looked thoughtful.
He picked up his glass, swirled the liquid around, took a sip, then set the glass back down.
He glanced around at the rest of us.
“Do you want to leave?”
he asked.
“Could you live anywhere else now?”
I spoke up.
“Yes,”
“Yes,” I said.
“I wouldn't miss this, much.”
No one else said anything.
I watched Adrienne's eyes move from one face to the next.
Zheng, he addressed me again, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and an intense, steady gaze.
“You think that,”
“You think that,” he said, “but is it true?
Fact: It's too easy to fall into patterns.
Fact: I wasn't sure I wanted the dream stage to end.
My quarters felt stifling.
Asphyxiating my mind.
I sat sideways in the armchair, feet dangling over one arm, neck resting against the other, absently tracing invisible lines between the stars outside my window as I ruminated on the situation.
The lightscreen had proved singularly unhelpful.
There was a schedule advertising upcoming on-ship events, such as dance classes, craft sessions, and discussion groups, and a list of dinner invitations for me to respond to.
A menu of display options, allowing me to customize all the lightscreen's superficial characteristics.
A simple contact system for communicating with other people on the ship.
That was all.
A methodical search of my two adjoining rooms, the ample closet space, and the attached bathroom facility had similarly provided no fodder.
Furniture (dark wood, expensive, polished, no secret compartments), clothes, leftover tray of half-consumed food from the previous day's lunch, toiletries (complete with miniature bottles of sweet-smelling apricot honey lotion), lightscreen, me.
I was discouraged and frustrated.
I wanted to prove to Adrienne that I wanted solve the ship's mystery just as much as she did.
I wanted to find something, anything, that would prove all this was normal and sane.
And me, I guess I was one more piece in their puzzle.
I didn't want to think about disappearances and time and purposes and consequences.
I wanted my contentment back.
I cornered Adrienne at dinner that night.
In one hand I balanced my plate of star-shaped crackers, globs of elegant dips and garnishes, little rolled balls of meats and cheeses stabbed through with spears of some pale green plant, and an array of other delectable, bite-sized items.
My other hand pointedly steered Adrienne to a small table against a wall.
She glared at me, but obediently let me pull her along.
“Tell me,”
I was one more scrap to weld onto the rest, one more stranded survivor who was found.
“what you have found.”
It wasn't a question.
She gave me a grumpy look that informed me, quite clearly, of her current opinion of me.
“Not if you're going to be rude about it.”
I sighed.
“Sorry.”
I wasn't, not really, but I'd lie to get the conversation going.
“I want to know.”
I explained, in two brief sentences, my earlier impasse.
“I don't know much,”
“I don't know much,” she said, still annoyed but at least cooperative.
She reviewed the information gleaned from our previous dinner conversations, adding, “I heard the captain say something yesterday, as I walking to the Pyrope Parlor.
“I heard the captain say something yesterday, as I walking to the Pyrope Parlor. I was just coming up on a corner and he was around the other side, talking to a couple people, and they must not have known I was there. He said something about a wreck going well. And listen, when they came round the corner, Ray was with the captain.”
I was just coming up on a corner and he was around the other side, talking to a couple people, and they must not have known I was there.
And listen, when they came round the corner, Ray was with the captain.”
I was now one of them.
“Is there a doctor on board?”
asked Adrienne.
“I've been having headaches.”
This story, it's our story.
“Down past the Emerald Lounge, second door on the left.
“Down past the Emerald Lounge, second door on the left. All hours.”
A robot, then.
Medical AI were even more expensive than the barkeep.
I wondered how many people it treated.
Had anyone on the ship ever fallen seriously ill?
The survivors of the unfortunate accidents, the catastrophic malfunctions, the fateful crashes: this is us.
“Does he age?”
asked Adrienne.
“The captain?”
I shrugged.
“I never thought about it.”
“That doesn't answer my question,”
“That doesn't answer my question,” she said.
Adrienne only picked at her food.
“Not hungry?”
asked Kishori sympathetically.
“No,”
“No,” said Adrienne.
“At least have a drink,”
“At least have a drink,” said Sarah.
“I find it takes the edge off.”
“Maybe that's the problem,”
“Maybe that's the problem,” said Sarah.
“One hundred and forty-seven is a magic number,” said Sarah.
“You ever heard of Dunbar?
“You ever heard of Dunbar? Well, we've got the perfect-size group right here.”
Well, we've got the perfect-size group right here.”
Just enough for us all to be able to barely avoid killing each other.
“Why doesn't anyone mutiny?”
Adrienne asked.
“We can't,”
“What would we do?”
Adrienne shook her head and made a sound of disgust.
“You could force the captain to set down somewhere.
“You could force the captain to set down somewhere. Let us off the ship. If he refuses, threaten him. If he still refuses, well, of all of us, isn't there someone who can drive a ship?”
Let us off the ship.
If he refuses, threaten him.
If he still refuses, well, of all of us, isn't there someone who can drive a ship?”
Floating alone, each of us facing the silence of the vacuum, we were found.
“That's murder,”
“That's murder,” objected Sarah.
“That's survival, ”
Times like that, running on less sleep than I should, alone because everyone else had had the sense to retire for the night, I had a tendency to get all meditative about the universe and my place in it.
The stillness of the room contributed, as did the view.
Black and more black, speckled by tiny points of light that flared up to break the emptiness, if only for a brief time.
All of it was temporary, save for the black.
That was tonight's melodramatic theme: the ephemeral nature of life.
Once found, we can never be lost.
Everything temporary.
Eyes bulging in panic, but no screams.
Some things in this world, we have to make them permanent ourselves.
This is our Hotel California.
He had made us a constant.
He made this ship—this life—a constant.
The one thing that was known.
Maybe everything we did, all the stories we told, maybe it was all lies.
We can never leave.
But ultimately, this ship, its purpose, our purpose—did it matter?
We each had our own theory.
Maybe that was enough.
And all of us, we were permanent characters in each others' stories.
“So, I'm on a ship now?
Maybe that made us more real.
Maybe it made us feel less alone.
“Mind if I join you?”
I turned to see Adrienne in the doorway.
She smiled, then crossed the room to join me by the window, not waiting for an answer.
“Some nights,”
You do this a lot?”
“I can't see the meaning in any of it. All these things I do, they're just to pass the time until I die.”
All these things I do, they're just to pass the time until I die.”
Adrienne looked at me, then back out through the window.
“You don't see a meaning because there is no meaning,”
“You don't see a meaning because there is no meaning,” she said.
A woman, introduced as Tiffany and neither tall nor beautiful, shrugged.
After all of it, as much as we feared being alone, we feared being vulnerable even more.
“Look what I found,”
“Look what I found,” Adrienne said.
In her hands was a bottle.
And what happens to Adrienne?
I couldn't find her.
Jefferson was in the Captain's Lounge,
Fact: Sound is a vibration.
“Up his dosage,”
“Up his dosage,” I heard the captain say.
I didn't want to forget.
I didn't want to be harvested.
The last thing I remember, I was tearing down the corridors.
“Now and then.”
Life boats, I thought.
Every ship had life boats.
In case of emergency, break glass.
I'd find one.
I'd put on a space suit, I'd get out of this ship, I'd find civilization again.
“What about my crewmates?
“What about my crewmates? Why didn't you save them?”
A space station.
Some other ship.
Any place but this place.
Failing all else, I'd suffocate.
Alone.
Ray, he caught me as I pounded on the corridor walls, finding no glass to break.
“Relax,” he told me, sliding a needle into my arm.
Why didn't you save them?”
“It'll pass,” he told me.
He held me in his arms until I stopped flailing.
It passed.
This is my Hotel California.
I can never leave.
As much as Jesse had irritated me, I didn't like the picture my brain drew of him floating in his grave, body swollen and bloated.
Who would tell his girl how he had died?
Quiet and peaceful, right?
“Couldn't,”
“Couldn't,” said the captain.
Jefferson, he called himself, clean-shaven and smart, a picture of the perfect entrepreneur.
“We're selective about our passengers,”
“We're selective about our passengers,” he continued.
“You fit the bill.
Such a relief to never again hear my crewmate Jesse natter about his girl back on Earth and that all-expenses-paid vacation-for-two she won last time he was on leave.
They didn't.”
Tiffany, she looked at the captain, grinned and flipped her greasy brown locks over her shoulder.
She turned to me.
“Come on,”
“Come on,” she said, before I could say anything else, “let's get you settled in.”
>Hotel California
“let's get you settled in.”
No time for questions.
No time for answers.
The ship had all the usual accoutrements (artificial gravity, tastefully painted walls, sound dampeners to keep the noise of the engines from driving the crew batshit insane, recycled air systems), and a few less-usual: lush carpeting, lighting that was decorative as well as functional, spacious corridors.
The occasional painting hung on the wall (generic landscapes and portraits of old people no one has ever met, primarily).
Glimpses of elegant rooms down the branching hallways; music; voices; the aroma of real food.
This was heaven.
“Where are we going?”
I asked.
Tiffany looked back.
“To your quarters.
“To your quarters. It's not far; you're not going to get blisters.”
It's not far; you're not going to get blisters.”
“No, I meant, where's the ship going?
“No, I meant, where's the ship going? What's our destination?”
What's our destination?”
Tiffany, she stopped walking.
She gave me a look, pitying and a little pleased that she got to be the one to share the news.
“Honey,”
“Honey,” she said, “You're going to be delighted.
“You're going to be delighted. Destination everywhere. Destination nowhere.”
Destination everywhere.
Sound travels as a mechanical wave through a medium, and in space, there is no medium.
This was hell.
I died in those last moments, suffocating on my own exhaled breath, and this, this was my reward.
It took me a couple days to realize I was, in fact, still alive.
I swore, if I ever had to see a photo of him in a skimpy bathing suit again, giving the camera a cheesy thumbs-up from a lounge chair on one of those white sandy beaches, I'd kiss a monkey.
After watching my ship tear apart, after spending a good twenty-three hours floating in silence in the wreck, wondering whether I was currently facing stars belonging to the constellation Libra or the constellation Orion when those stars were viewed from Earth, wondering what it felt like to suffocate, and after the feeling that yes, I was in fact going to die alone in space had sunk in, it took time for that feeling to dissipate.
Fact: I wasn't dead.
After I realized this, I left my quarters.
The lightscreen provided had informed me when and where official meals were taking place, but I hadn't bothered to acknowledge the invitations.
It hadn't seemed relevant, somehow, given that I was still reeling over the explosion, the deaths of my crewmates, and the rescue.
I've heard there are a number of stages of grief and shock; I guess I was working my way through them.
Initially, I couldn't figure out why—I hadn't requested any be sent.
Then I realized, someone must have noticed I hadn't left, and was nice enough to send food my way.
The accompanying bottle of wine was a nice touch.
I must have consumed it, too, because later on, the plates and the bottle were both empty.
I spent a lot of time lying on my back on the bed, staring up at the little etched swirls in the ceiling, or slumped in the old-fashioned armchair, staring out the windows at the stars.
I did a lot of staring and not moving.
Man, was it good to be done with that stage.
It was time to find out what hell looked like.
Fact: Hell is other people.
Sure, the ship was spacious.
But we were all on this ship, and we were on it together.
Metaphorically, of course.
Me, I was singled out by Sarah, an unassuming forty-something lady with a glass of champagne in one hand and the arm of a scrawny but tall blond man in the other.
She sidled up to me as I was scooping little round crackers and what appeared to be a baked cilantro cream dip onto a plate.
Luxurious, even compared to the fare one would find in the high-class space stations and pleasure cruisers.
Compared to what a mere engineer would get on your typical cargo ship, it was mouthwateringly, lip-smackingly gorgeous.
I wondered if the food delivered to my quarters the past few days had been similarly amazing.
I decided it couldn't have been.
“Liking the taste of the sweet life, eh?
“Liking the taste of the sweet life, eh? I'm Sarah, and this is Alexis—you must be the new pickup.”
She looked me over approvingly.
I looked longingly at the slices of cheddar olive bread as she whisked me over to the bar, but didn't protest.
The bar was manned by an expensive humanoid robot.
It turned toward Sarah's wave and acknowledged her with a nod, moments later setting a fluted glass of sparkling liquid in front of her.
I marveled at the robot's smoothness and coordination.
Clearly, it was a high-end model.
Sarah transferred the glass to my free hand and pulled me away from the bar for more introductions, with Alexis trailing after us.
I spent the evening listening, mostly.
Listening and stuffing my face with all the bits of fine food provided.
No one minded; Sarah's inner circle was content to fill our circle of couches with plenty of chatter.
Ray, a plump man who was grey where he wasn't bald.
Zheng, short and dark and lean, with a very intense gaze.
He made me a little uncomfortable.
I categorized them based on their appearances, hoping I'd be able to pick them out of the crowd again later.
This is more than the person would have sans space suit.
Most of their chatter was meaningless to me—stories of day-to-day activities, how so-and-so had been seen in so-and-so's table at lunch and my wasn't that a surprise, and why hadn't the chef concocted this delectable a selection of appetizers for the dance the other night, but of course those rolled meat pastries reminded one of the pastries back on Earth, didn't they, and this was somehow an interesting fact.
After the first half-hour, I stopped expending effort to keep names and stories and gossip straight.
“milk-fed”
“accidental”
And almost 6,000,000 companion pets are put to death in shelters throughout America.
What is even more shocking, is that more than 30 million animals die these cruel, painful deaths each year ...
needless deaths that could have been stopped!
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Thanks in advance.
NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20037.
OR IN FLORIDA— A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL FREE 1-800-435-7352 WITHIN THE STATE.
REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE.
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NORTH CAROLINA-.
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REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE.
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Every day of the year, The Humane Society of the United States receives reports about all kinds of animal cruelties, such as the horrors of the leghold trap; the use of dog and cat fur; needless or repetitive experiments on animals; and the abusive treatment of dogs and cats.
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No such luck.
United has simple linked to one of the million places where you can calculate a per flight carbon cost.
It allows you to input total miles flown, but its Mileage Plus page doesn't give you total miles flown, it gives you the total added to your account (included bonuses, etc.)
Looking forward to version 2.0.
Posted by Lawrence Lessig on April 27, 2009 9:08 AM
Comments (14) April 27, 2009 9:42 AM
Peter Collopy: Dopplr has a nice carbon calculator built-in.
You have to enter all your trips, but I think it's generally an exciting system if you don't mind the Little Brother surveillance.
April 27, 2009 9:49 AM lessig: GREAT point. I do enter all mine in.
Perfect solution.
April 27, 2009 9:53 AM Padraic: Why aren't you a supporter of cap & trade?
Isn't a mandatory scheme going to moresuccesful than voluntary measures?
I talk about it in my Green Culture talk.
I am suspicious of cap & trade.
It seems like a complicated partial version of that, created by the same genius quants who gave us the mess on wall street, that is designed to generate large fees finance types.
My sense is for a simpler system.
April 27, 2009 12:07 PM Padraic Ryan: Re: cap & trade - you shouldn't use the financial crisis as an excuse to write off all of economics.
A cap & trade system worked very well at reducing sulfur dioxide pollution in the US, finance types and all.
IMHO, we all have an ethical obligation to offset our carbon footprint -- now.
You're right that a carbon tax is definitely simpler, but there are upsides to cap & trade as well (such as the fact that the market will drive the price up, whereas a tax won't increase unless Congress wants it to).
My problem with carbon offsets and other voluntary measures is that given the finite amount of money, energy and attention we have to push for the environment, I feel like the opportunity cost of these measures is too high compared to policy-oriented actions, the citizen role that Gore referred.
My wife and I have been doing so for a couple years.
For example, Earth Hour would be much more productive if it were a global rally for carbon taxes; instead we de-politicize it and entertain the idea that voluntarily turning off lights will stop climate change.
I'm a big fan of your work on IP and corruption, but I'm skeptical of these initial ventures into the environmental arena...
April 27, 2009 12:17 PM mark: "I am suspicious of cap & trade.
"I am suspicious of cap & trade. It seems like a complicated partial version of that, created by the same genius quants who gave us the mess on wall street, that is designed to generate large fees finance types. My sense is for a simpler system."
We're a couple months late buying credits for last year.
It seems like a complicated partial version of that, created by the same genius quants who gave us the mess on wall street, that is designed to generate large fees finance types.
My sense is for a simpler system."
That just shows you do not fully understand the cap and trade model....or the global financial crisis.
April 27, 2009 2:51 PMCathy: When you book a route on United it tells you how many miles it will accrue, pre-bonus, for each leg.
It's a tiny link they move around from time to time, but look for it near where the seat selection option is.
One reason we're late (other than the obvious) is the insane complexity in calculating it well.
You should see this on a screen before you purchase the ticket, and possibly also after.
April 27, 2009 4:45 PM Brad Templeton: When I got to United's site it has two columns, one for true miles flown (sort of) and one for elite bonus.
So cut and paste into your spreadsheet and it should be fine.
However, it does show 500 for the short haul flights, but I bet those are mostly L.A. so you can fill in the real mileage to L.A. on those, it should not take long.
United carbon offset disappointment April 27, 2009 9:08 AM
Paying someone else to do something they are doing, already, does not reduce your carbon footprint one bit.
If you don't believe that and still insist on paying someone else to consume less, then please consider paying me.
I travel way too much.
My wife and I telecommute.
I ride my bike to the grocery store.
We cook from whole ingredients and never eat processed or prepared foods.
Both of our cars are high mpg and rarely used.
They are both ten years old and we probably won't replace them for another ten years.
I just finished insulating my house and installed high efficiency windows and HVAC.
I keep the thermostat high in the summer and low in the winter.
All the light bulbs are fluorescent, except for the dimmer above the dining room table.
But to calculate it accurately requires churning through a pile of flights.
I removed all the turf from my property and replaced it with vines and perennials.
There are twenty three trees on the property sequestering CO2 on a continuous basis.
No motorized equipment is required to maintain my garden which is now over ten thousand square feet of CO2 consuming plants.
I would gladly accept the sum of fifteen thousand dollars from Prof Lessig or anyone else to offset his carbon heavy lifestyle.
In return, I would submit to an audit of my lifestyle and I would issue him a certificate stating the amount of his carbon offset.
April 29, 2009 4:00 AM Eric the Red: Carbon credits: indulgences for the non-Catholic crowd.
More modern, but just as dumb.
April 29, 2009 7:18 AM pb: "we all have an ethical obligation to offset our carbon footprint -- now"
I could estimate, no doubt.
I'm a big believer in carbon offsets (not so much the cap and trade game, but in the simple internalize-your-externality-sort).
Carbon offsets 'harm environment' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6378471.stm Tuesday, 20 February 2007, 17:31 GMT
'harm environment'
But I want something more accurate.
Jutta Kill, of the Forests and the European Union Resource Network (FERN), was the most vehement opponent of the practice, arguing it probably did more harm than good.
Carbon offsetting was "an unbelievably inefficient way of reducing emissions," she argued, and its effects were impossible to verify.
"an unbelievably inefficient way of reducing emissions,"
In addition, "More than half" of the money given to companies selling carbon offsets went on research and administration costs, "benefiting not the climate but the burgeoning consultancy industry".
"More than half"
So I was really happy to see on the United page an announcement of a "Carbon Offset Program."
"benefiting not the climate but the burgeoning consultancy industry"
"We believe it is worse than nothing because it creates the illusion, or the impression, in the public that action is being taken, while we are not really addressing the task at hand, significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions,"
Professor - stop listening to your "intuitions" and do some basic research!
"intuitions"
May 14, 2009 2:45 PM Jason Sperling: It's nice to see feedback on the United program.
I've posted your feedback on my carbon offsets news blog.
Currently many companies are reticent to putting something in their purchase path as an upsell, just as they are reticent to putting anything in their purchase path.
"Carbon Offset Program."
The cost for large companies to make any updates to their e-commerce sites is significant, another factor in keeping the type of program you'd like from being available.
What I expected it to be was a simple way to at least know what the total carbon footprint from your flights for some period was (after all, they have all the data), and ideally, a simple way to buy offsets.
Additionally, there is a reluctance to share the data required for accurate emissions measurement due to perceived potential risks, possibly related to future regulatory concerns.
The technology is certainly available.
When the type of program you imagine IS put in place, the results have been very good.
For example ShopGreen Merchant Reports 90% of customers 'go green'
'go green'
June 10, 2009 12:18 PM jason: check out this great new idea to offset http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/man-auctions-own-carbon-offsets-on-ebay.php
Here's the link to the auction http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320381623555&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT
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Mahogany-black curly hair, cut short in the typical military style framed a careworn, dark-skinned face.
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He was what this was all about.
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"Results, Harmon?"
His eyes had been treated and darkened to a rich purple to disguise the brilliant golden yellow color that would mark him as an Alpha Arrallin, and leader of his hive.
she suppressed the surge of annoyance that ran through her as she contemplated the psi's gift of getting all the hot news first.
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Won't Central be crushed to learn that another gateway has yielded little more than a class F planet and a white dwarf system.
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This sounds like it's the one."
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He's not even bringing them back through for a face to face briefing.
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"Sarah McGrath, the editor at Riverhead who worked with Ms. Seltzer for three years on the book, said she was stunned to discover that the author had lied."
And apparently, they all go to work in publishing.
Gotta love that understatement and comic timing.
But seriously, you may remember an article last summer that appered in TimeOut New York about matters of race in publishing.
(My post on the subject here .)
This was one of most important quotes from the article: “Invariably,” says Craig, “a black-themed book will come up for consideration, and there won’t be anyone of color to put in an opinion, or there’ll be one, who shouldn’t bear the burden alone.
“a black-themed book will come up for consideration, and there won’t be anyone of color to put in an opinion, or there’ll be one, who shouldn’t bear the burden alone. So we all pretend we’re experts. Maybe I’m the only one who’s embarrassed by that.”
This has been a bad week for liars.
So we all pretend we’re experts.
Maybe I’m the only one who’s embarrassed by that.”
The end result of such roundtables, one can only fear, could be that the only books depicting people of color that get published are those that do not challenge white assumptions.
I can't help but wonder if Ms. Seltzer's book with all it's far-fetched, tales-from-the-urban-jungle flair, would have passed the smell test were it read by a more diverse panel of editors.
Comment #1, by carleen
I read that article in the Times and IMMEDIATELY thought it was going to be a hoax.
Ha!
Guess I'm a sucker too.
March 3, 2008 11:20 PM
Comment #2, by Michael Fischer
Um, wow.
March 3, 2008 11:43 PM
Comment #3, by Sarah Schulman
I wonder why they didn't present their books as novels.
March 4, 2008 01:39 PM
Comment #4, by Sarah Schulman
I wonder why they didn't present their books as novels.
Now, Margaret Seltzer, the author of Love and Consequences , the highly acclaimed "memoir" about her life as a half Native American/half White gang banger, has been been explosed as a fraud.
Tayari's Blog: There's A Sucker Born Every Minute
"memoir"
In the vividly told book, Ms. Seltzer wrote about her African-American foster brothers, Terrell and Taye, who joined the Bloods gang when they were 11 and 13.
Posted by Tayari Jones on March 3, 2008 10:57 PM
She chronicled her experiences making drug deliveries for gang leaders at age 13 and how she was given her first gun as a birthday present when she was 14.
Ms. Seltzer told The Times last week, “One of the first things I did once I started making drug money was to buy a burial plot.”
“One of the first things I did once I started making drug money was to buy a burial plot.”
It's like a satire of a satire.
This is my favorite line in the whole NYT article: "Sarah McGrath, the editor at Riverhead who worked with Ms. Seltzer for three years on the book, said she was stunned to discover that the author had lied."
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It's tough to kill the vampire...genre
'ninja'
Ninja Warrior is one of the most popular shows on G4.
We can put Pirates away now after the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean flick, right?
No, actually, if we've learned anything it's that genre memes just go back underground ( Pirates for adults [NSFW]You get the point0.
These characters are like Zombies (pun intended), they just keep coming back to life.
I was noodling on Vampires the other day, but also lumped Zombies, Pirates and Ninjas in the mix.
So it's not just a matter of knowing when to jump off the Vampire merry-go-round, it's knowing when (and where) to jump back on.
If you jumped off Vampires would you have known to jump back on in time to publish Twilight?
Fourteen literary agents rejected it before Stephenie Meyer got a deal.
I don't think you can "get off" any of these, you have to triangulate your decision across several nodes of popular culture, a triangulation that has to revolve around the audience (young adult -- Twilght. mature -- True Blood) and sub-genre (comedy, horror, sci-fi...) and then the actual quality of the content.
"get off"
So what sort of matrix board do you have to create to know that a NC-17 comedy horror Zombie video game will work, but a PG-13 young adult time-travelling Vampire TV show won't?
These archetypes seem different to me than other 'trends'.
You can't.
All you can do is hope you bat .300 and that when you fail, you fail fast .
Ahh, the classics.
If you broaden your scope a bit, I think it would be difficult to find a time over the last 40 years or so when any of these four archetypes didn't have a level of bubbling popularity via books, comic books, tv, movies, video games, music.
If all you're looking at is 1 or 2 content categories maybe it looks like they're dead, but they may be flourishing elsewhere, and like a virus they're just waiting for a new host to carry them to the mainstream.
'trends'
Publishers, producers, editors, TV execs, they all have to calibrate their decisions based on so many factors, and yet even with access to sophisticated data it often comes down to human factors.
Surely the Vampire was dead after the spoof, "Love at First Bite " in 1979.
A gut instinct that something is going to work.
Somebody at AMC is greenlighting The Walking Dead based partly on historical evidence that says people like Zombies, but also partly on the notion that this particular iteration will have a new twist that will bring new people into the (zombie and AMC) tent .
"Love at First Bite "
Personally, I'm waiting for someone to make Pirate Zombies v. Ninja Vampires.
Hey, if they can make Aliens and Cowboys , anything is possible.
3 Comments
Zombies and Vampires and Ninjas and Pirates 25 Jul 2010 by Rick
Matthew Duhan says: July 26, 2010 at 5:13 pm
But then the Anne Rice -led revival brought it back (technically the 1st  book, Interview with the Vampire ,  was published in 1976, but didn't gain widespread popularity until later).
I don't know about Pirate Zombies v. Ninja Vampires, but there is a game where you can play to become Zombies, Ninjas, Pirates, and Mad Scientists.
Zombie Ninja Pirates, by Gozer Games, is a quick 20-30 minute card game for 2-6 players.
We do have an expansion planned, which will add Vampires (among other Types) to the mix.
There will be more info about that coming soon.
Jewell Bardwell says: July 30, 2010 at 4:06 am
Incredibly effectively performed without a doubt.
Estefana Sjerven says: September 16, 2010 at 8:03 pm
I like twilight!
I could sit and watch all day long if I didn't have school..or life to stay me from doing it!
lol Wonderful Simply Superb!
Then it jumped the shark with the Tom Cruise-Brad Pitt movie (based on the Anne Rice novel) in 1994.
Surely Ninjas were done with horrible movies like American Ninja (1985) or with comedies starring Chris Farley ( Beverly Hills Ninja , 1997), and yet Ninja has become a replacement word for 'expert' to the point where it's almost accepted parlance: A twellow search for 'ninja' turned up more than 7,000 Twitter accounts using the term in their profiles.
'expert'
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Imports of the types of watches that now will be eligible for duty-free treatment totaled about $37.3 million in 1988, a relatively small share of the $1.5 billion in U.S. watch imports that year, according to an aide to U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills.
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Timex had requested duty-free treatment for many types of watches, covered by 58 different U.S. tariff classifications.
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Italian chemical giant Montedison S.p. A., through its Montedison Acquisition N.V. indirect unit, began its $37-a-share tender offer for all the common shares outstanding of Erbamont N.V., a maker of pharmaceuticals incorporated in the Netherlands
The Kearny, N.J.-based maker of hair accessories and other cosmetic products said it cut the dividend due to its third-quarter loss of $992,000, or 15 cents a share.
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Rogers said the shares will be convertible into Class B shares, but that the company has the option to redeem the shares before a conversion takes place.
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ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS Inc. said it plans to raise 175 million to 180 million Canadian dollars (US$148.9 million to $153.3 million) through a private placement of perpetual preferred shares.
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PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTING gains new stature as prices rise.
Price records are being set at auctions this week.
At Christie's, a folio of 21 prints from Alfred Stieglitz's "Equivalents" series sold for $396,000, a single-lot record.
But the 1989 fall total of 80, while well below 1988 activity, shows "a steady ratcheting up in citizen referenda and initiatives," says Patrick McGuigan, editor of Family, Law and Democracy Report.
Other works also have been exceeding price estimates.
In part, prices reflect development of a market structure based on such variables as the number of prints.
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"a steady ratcheting up in citizen referenda and initiatives,"
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He says the 10 citizen-sparked issues on state ballots this fall represent the most in any odd-year this decade.
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Patients who receive canine or feline visitors are found to have lower blood pressure and improved appetite and be more receptive to therapy, says Mary Ann O'Loughlin, program coordinator.
TIRED OF TRIMMING?
Hammacher Schlemmer & Co. offers a fiber-optic Christmas tree that eliminates the need to string lights.
The $6,500 tree is designed to send continuously changing colored light to dozens of fiber-end bunches.
MEDICINE TRANSPLANT: Growth of Japanese trade and travel prompts Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, to set up a bilingual medical practice.
DIAPER SERVICES make a comeback amid growing environmental concerns.
Concerned about shrinking landfills and the safety of chemicals used in super-absorbent disposables, parents are returning to the cloth diaper.
Tiny Tots Inc., Campbell, Calif., says business is up 35% in the past year.
"We're gaining 1,200 new customers each week,"
Ballot questions range from a Maine initiative on banning Cruise missiles to a referendum on increasing the North Dakota income tax.
Among its new customers: day-care centers that previously spurned the service.
The National Association of Diaper Services, Philadelphia, says that since January it has gotten more than 672 inquiries from people interested in starting diaper services.
Elisa Hollis launched a diaper service last year because State College, Pa., where she lives, didn't have one.
Diaper shortages this summer limited growth at Stork Diaper Services, Springfield, Mass., where business is up 25% in
FALL BALLOT ISSUES set a record for off-year elections.
Also spurring the move to cloth: diaper covers with Velcro fasteners that eliminate the need for safety pins.
BRIEFS: Only 57.6% of New Yorkers watch the local news, the lowest viewership in the country, says a new study by Impact Resources Inc., Columbus, Ohio. . . .
FreudToy, a pillow bearing the likeness of Sigmund Freud, is marketed as a $24.95 tool for do-it-yourself analysis.
Ballot watchers say attention already is focused on the 1990 elections.
In California, two petition drives for next year's election are "essentially finished," says David Schmidt, author of "Citizen Lawmakers."
Mr. McGuigan cites three completed efforts in Oklahoma.
Taking a cue from California, more politicians will launch their campaigns by backing initiatives, says David Magleby of Brigham Young University.
Edward L. Kane succeeded Mr. Taylor as chairman.
Separately, Citadel posted a third-quarter net loss of $2.3 million, or 68 cents a share, versus net income of $5.3 million, or $1.61 a share, a year earlier.
William C. Walbrecher Jr., an executive at San Francisco-based 1st Nationwide Bank, was named president and chief executive officer of Citadel Holding Corp. and its principal operating unit, Fidelity Federal Bank.
The latest results include some unusual write-downs, which had an after-tax impact of $4.9 million.
Those included costs associated with the potential Valley Federal Savings and Loan Association acquisition, which was terminated on Sept. 27, 1989.
In addition, operating results were hit by an increase in loan and real estate loss reserves.
In American Stock Exchange composite trading, Citadel shares closed yesterday at $45.75, down 25 cents.
The British paper, packaging and publishing concern, said profit from continuing lines fell 10% to #118 million from #130.6 million.
While there were no one-time gains or losses in the latest period, there was a one-time gain of #18 million in the 1988 period.
And while there was no profit this year from discontinued operations, last year they contributed #34 million, before tax.
Reed International PLC said that net income for the six months ended Oct. 1 slipped 5% to #89.7 million ($141.9 million), or 16 pence a share, from #94.8 million ($149.9 million), or 17.3 pence a share.
Pretax profit fell 3.7% to #128 million from #133 million and was below analysts' expectations of #130 million to #135 million, but shares rose 6 pence to 388 pence in early trading yesterday in London.
Reed is paying an interim dividend of 4.6 pence, up 15% from 4 pence a year earlier.
Sales fell 20% to #722 million.
Earnings were hurt by disposal of operations in its restructuring, Reed said.
Sales, however, were little changed at 2.46 billion guilders, compared with 2.42 billion guilders.
The Dutch chemical group said net income gained to 235 million guilders ($113.2 million), or 6.70 guilders a share, from 144 million guilders, or 4.10 guilders a share, a year ago.
The 32% state-owned DSM had eight million guilders of extraordinary charges in the latest quarter, mainly to reflect one-time losses in connection with the disposal of some operations.
N.V. DSM said net income in the third quarter jumped 63% as the company had substantially lower extraordinary charges to account for a restructuring program.
The charges were offset in part by a gain from the sale of the company's construction division.
The earnings growth also was fueled by the company's ability to cut net financing spending by half to around 15 million guilders.
Also, substantially lower Dutch corporate tax rates helped the company keep its tax outlay flat relative to earnings growth, the company added.
The Rockford, Ill., maker of fasteners also said it expects to post sales in the current fiscal year that are "slightly above" fiscal 1989 sales of $155 million.
"slightly above"
The company said its industrial unit continues to face margin pressures and lower demand.
In fiscal 1989, Elco earned $7.8 million, or $1.65 a share.
The company's stock fell $1.125 to $13.625 in over-the-counter trading yesterday.
Elco Industries Inc. said it expects net income in the year ending June 30, 1990, to fall below a recent analyst's estimate of $1.65 a share.
The truck maker said the significant drop in net income will result in lower earnings for the fiscal year.
In fiscal 1988, the company earned $17.3 million, or $1.92 a share, on revenue of $352.9 million.
Oshkosh Truck attributed the downturn in its earnings to higher start-up costs of its new chassis division, a softer motor-home market and higher administrative costs of compliance with government contractor regulations.
Oshkosh Truck Corp., Oshkosh, Wis., estimated earnings for its fourth quarter ended Sept. 30 fell 50% to 75% below the year-earlier $4.5 million, or 51 cents a share.
The company said it is in the process of phasing out John Deere, its current source of production for midsized motor home chassis.
In anticipation of the start-up of its new factory, the company said a larger-than-normal chassis supply has been built to carry it through the transition period.
The year-ago results included a $415 million charge in the 1988 second quarter for underperforming real estate and mortgage loans.
Net advanced to $94.2 million, or 89 cents a share, from $85 million, or 83 cents a share, including net realized investment gains of $31 million, up from $10 million a year ago.
But revenue declined to $3 billion from $3.2 billion.
Travelers Corp. 's third-quarter net income rose 11%, even though claims stemming from Hurricane Hugo reduced results $40 million.
The insurer's earnings from commercial property/casualty lines fell 59% in the latest quarter, while it lost $7.2 million in its personal property/casualty business, compared with earnings of $6.1 million a year ago.
Travelers's employee benefits group, which includes its group health insurance operations, posted earnings of $24 million, compared with a loss of $3 million last year.
In the first nine months, net was $306 million, compared with a loss of $195 million in the 1988 period.
Primerica, which had owned nearly 70% of Williams, will pay about 16.7 million shares, currently valued at almost $472 million, for the rest of Williams.
The financial-services company will pay 0.82 share for each Williams share.
Williams shares, which were to be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after the close of composite trading yesterday, closed at $23.25, off 12.5 cents. Primerica closed at $28.25, down 50 cents.
A.L. Williams Corp. was merged into Primerica Corp., New York, after a special meeting of Williams shareholders cleared the transaction, the companies said.
Williams, Duluth, Ga., is an insurance and financial-services holding company.
Its subsidiaries' services are marketed by closely held A.L. Williams & Associates.
Terms weren't disclosed.
But Mr. Ackerman said the buy-back, and the above-market price paid, prove that Mr. Edelman is running scared.
Intelogic Trace Inc., San Antonio, Texas, said it bought 2.7 million shares, or about 18%, of its common stock from an unaffiliated shareholder for $3.625 a share, or $9.9 million.
"to maximize shareholder value,"
Mr. Edelman declined to specify what prompted the recent moves, saying they are meant only to benefit shareholders when "the company is on a roll."
"the company is on a roll."
He added, "This has nothing to do with Marty Ackerman and it is not designed, particularly, to take the company private."
"This has nothing to do with Marty Ackerman and it is not designed, particularly, to take the company private."
The offer, valued at about $576 million for the 33% of Telerate that Dow Jones doesn't already own, had been set to expire Nov. 6.
Dow Jones, which owns about 64 million of Telerate's 95 million common shares outstanding, said that about 24,000 shares have been tendered under its offer.
Telerate's two independent directors have rejected the offer as inadequate.
In composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Telerate shares closed at $19.50, up 12.5 cents.
Dow Jones & Co. said it extended its $18-a-share offer for Telerate Inc. common stock until 5 p.m. EST Nov. 9.
Telerate provides an electronic financial information network.
Dow Jones publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's magazine, and community newspapers and operates financial news services and computer data bases.
Under terms of the new proposal, Equus, managed by Equus Capital Corp., Houston, would pay $12 cash and one new preferred share with a liquidation preference of $1.65 a share for each of Tony Lama's 2.1 million shares outstanding.
Previously, it offered $13.65 a share in cash, or $29 million.
The El Paso, Texas, maker of Western boots and leather accessories said the preferred stock would accrue dividends at a 12% rate, but wouldn't be paid for the first two years.
Tony Lama Co. said that Equus Investment II Limited Partnership has proposed changing the offer for the company to $13.65 in cash and stock from an all-cash transaction.
The stock would be redeemed in five years, subject to terms of the surviving company's debt.
Neither Equus nor Tony Lama gave a reason for the changed offer and Tony Lama couldn't be reached for comment.
However, Tony Lama said it would promptly submit the offer to a special committee of the company's board.
"If I were choosing the people of tomorrow, I would have chosen the people who are now on the board,"
"If I were choosing the people of tomorrow, I would have chosen the people who are now on the board," he said.
A Reuters spokesman said the departure reflects "no change in strategy or profits."
"no change in strategy or profits."
Mark Shepperd, an analyst at UBS Phillips & Drew in London, said, "I suspect (the departure) will be fairly irrelevant for the company.
"I suspect (the departure) will be fairly irrelevant for the company.
On London's Stock Exchange, Reuters shares rose five pence to 913 pence ($14.43).
In the U.S. over-the-counter market, American depositary shares for Reuters, each representing three shares in the London market, closed unchanged at $43.875.
Mr. Reupke, 52 years old and a 27-year Reuters veteran, had been the information-services company's general manager for only six months.
The senior of the three executives who will assume Mr. Reupke's duties is Nigel Judah, 58, finance director and a Reuters board director.
And Patrick Mannix, 46, international technical manager, becomes director of group quality programs.
His appointment to that post, which has senior administrative, staff and policy responsibilities, followed a several-year tenure as Reuters's editor in chief.
No successor was named, and Mr. Reupke's duties will be split among three other senior Reuters executives, the company said.
Reuters Holdings PLC said Michael Reupke resigned as general manager to pursue unspecified interests, a move the news organization termed an "amicable separation."
"There is no business reason for my departure,"
"There is no business reason for my departure," nor any disagreement over policy, he added.
He also rejected reports that his departure stemmed from disappointment the general manager's post hadn't also led to a board directorship at the London-based news organization.
Mr. Reupke was one of three executives on Reuters's eight-person executive committee who didn't also serve on the company's board of directors.
20 its $45-a-share offer for all Dunkin' Donuts Inc.
shares outstanding.
The offer, which was due to expire yesterday, is conditional on 50.
1% of Dunkin' common shares, on a fully diluted basis, being tendered and on the withdrawal of the company's poison pill rights plan.
DD Acquisition Corp.
2 million shares, or about 38.
's Kingsbridge Capital Group and Cara Operations Ltd.
5% of the shares outstanding, have been tendered under its offer.
The partners said they already hold 15% of all shares outstanding.
Dunkin' has set Nov.
10 as the deadline for the receipt of any competing bids.
DD Acquisition said the extension is to allow this process to be completed.
Dunkin' is based in Randolph, Mass.
Cara, a food services chain operator and Unicorp, a holding company, are based in Toronto.
A spokesman for the Stamford, Conn.based company said operations had a loss of $5.5 million for the quarter; in addition, the loss was magnified by nonrecurring charges totaling $23.5 million and $8.2 million in asset-valuation adjustments that he described as "unusual."
"unusual."
The charges were partly offset by a $2 million gain on the sale of investments of two joint ventures, he said.
Savin Corp. reported a third-quarter net loss of $35.2 million, or 31 cents a share, compared with year-earlier profit of $3.8 million, or one cent a share.
Revenue declined 8% to $85.7 million, from $93.3 million a year earlier.
Savin cited "a general softening in the demand for office products in the market segments in which Savin competes."
"a general softening in the demand for office products in the market segments in which Savin competes."
The Oklahoma City energy and defense concern said it will record a $7.5 million reserve for its defense group, including a $4.7 million charge related to problems under a fixed-price development contract and $2.8 million in overhead costs that won't be reimbursed.
In addition, Hadson said it will write off about $3.5 million in costs related to international exploration leases where exploration efforts have been unsuccessful.
The company also cited interest costs and amortization of goodwill as factors in the loss.
A year earlier, net income was $2.1 million, or six cents a share, on revenue of $169.9 million.
Heritage, which owns 51% of POP's 3.6 million shares outstanding, said it will exchange one share of a new preferred stock for each POP common share it doesn't already own.
Depending upon how many warrants and options are exercised prior to completion of the transaction, Heritage would issue between 1.8 million and 2.35 million preferred shares, a Heritage spokesman estimated.
In national over-the-counter trading yesterday, POP plunged $4 to $14.75.
The preferred stock, which would have a dividend rate of $1.76 a year, would be convertible into Heritage common at a rate of four common shares for each preferred.
New York-based POP Radio provides, through a national, in-store network, a customized music, information and advertising service which simulates live radio.
Heritage owns and operates television and radio stations and in-store advertising and promotion programs.
RMS distributes electronic devices and produces power supplies and plastic literature displays.
RMS said it had a loss of $158,666, or 10 cents a share, in the third quarter, compared with a year-earlier loss of $26,956, or two cents a share.
RMS International Inc., Hasbrouk Heights, N.J., facing a cash-flow squeeze, said it is seeking other financing sources and waivers from debenture holders.
Sales rose to $3 million from $2.9 million.
For the nine months, the company reported a net loss of $608,413, or 39 cents a share, compared with year-earlier net income of $967,809, or 62 cents a share.
Sales rose to $9.8 million from $8.9 million.
The sale represents 10.2% of Meridian's shares outstanding.
The McAlpine family, which operates a number of multinational companies, including a London-based engineering and construction company, also lent to Meridian National $500,000.
That amount is convertible into shares of Meridian common stock at $2 a share during its one-year term.
The loan may be extended by the McAlpine group for an additional year with an increase in the conversion price to $2.50 a share.
Meridian National Corp. said it sold 750,000 shares of its common stock to the McAlpine family interests, for $1 million, or $1.35 a share.
The sale of shares to the McAlpine family along with the recent sale of 750,000 shares of Meridian stock to Haden MacLellan Holding PLC of Surrey, England and a recent public offering have increased Meridian's net worth to $8.5 million, said William Feniger, chief executive officer of Toledo, Ohio-based Meridian.
The other concern wasn't identified.
Ratners's chairman, Gerald Ratner, said the deal remains of "substantial benefit to Ratners."
In London at mid-afternoon yesterday, Ratners's shares were up 2 pence (1.26 cents), at 260 pence ($1.64).
Ratners Group PLC, a fast-growing, acquisition-minded London-based jeweler, raised its price for Seattle-based specialty jeweler Weisfield's Inc. to $57.50 a share, or $62.1 million, from $50 a share, or $55 million, after another concern said it would be prepared to outbid Ratners's initial offer.
The sweetened offer has acceptances from more than 50% of Weisfield's shareholders, and it is scheduled for completion by Dec. 10.
The acquisition of 87-store Weisfield's raises Ratners's U.S. presence to 450 stores.
About 30% of Ratners's profit already is derived from the U.S.
The Van Nuys, Calif., thrift had net income of $132,000, or three cents a share, a year ago.
The bulk of the pretax charge is a $62 million write-off of capitalized servicing at the mobile home financing subsidiary, which the company said had been a big drain on earnings.
The company said the one-time provision would substantially eliminate all future losses at the unit.
Valley Federal Savings & Loan Association took an $89.9 million charge as it reported a third-quarter loss of $70.7 million, or $12.09 a share.
Valley Federal also added $18 million to realestate loan reserves and eliminated $9.9 million of good will.
The thrift said that "after these charges and assuming no dramatic fluctuation in interest rates, the association expects to achieve near record earnings in 1990."
"after these charges and assuming no dramatic fluctuation in interest rates, the association expects to achieve near record earnings in 1990."
Valley Federal is currently being examined by regulators.
New loans continue to slow; they were $6.6 million in the quarter compared with $361.8 million a year ago.
The thrift has assets of $3.2 billion.
Midwest Financial has $2.3 billion in assets and eight banks.
The Midwest Financial subsidiary banks will continue to operate under their current names until early 1990, when each will adopt the First of America name.
Kalamazoo, Mich.-based First of America said it will eliminate the 13 management positions of the former Midwest Financial parent company.
But it said that severance payments to those executives not staying with the company will reduce First of America's operating results for 1989 by $3 million to $4 million, or 15 cents to 20 cents a share.
Under the plan, unsecured creditors, who are owed about $430 million, would receive about $92 million, or 21 cents for each dollar they are owed.
After these payments, about $225,000 will be available for the 20 million common shares outstanding.
Coleco Industries Inc., a once high-flying toy maker whose stock peaked at $65 a share in the early 1980s, filed a Chapter 11 reorganization plan that provides just 1.125 cents a share for common stockholders.
The Avon, Conn., company's stock hit a high in 1983 after it unveiled its Adam home computer, but the product was plagued with glitches and the company's fortunes plunged.
But Coleco bounced back with the introduction of the Cabbage Patch dolls, whose sales hit $600 million in 1985.
But as the craze died, Coleco failed to come up with another winner and filed for bankruptcy-law protection in July 1988.
The plan was filed jointly with unsecured creditors in federal bankruptcy court in New York and must be approved by the court.
Sony Columbia Acquisition Corp., formed for the Columbia deal, will formally take ownership of the movie studio later this month, a spokesman said.
Sony is paying $27 a share, or $3.55 billion, cash and is assuming $1.4 billion of long-term debt.
Still unresolved is Sony's effort to hire producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber to run the studio.
Sony Corp. completed its tender offer for Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc., with Columbia shareholders tendering 99.3% of all common shares outstanding by the Tuesday deadline.
Sony's planned acquisition of Guber/Peters Entertainment Co. for $200 million is scheduled to close Monday.
Guber/Peters has been locked in litigation with Warner Communications Inc. in an attempt to get out of an exclusive production contract with Warner.
Both sides are in talks to settle the dispute.
A spokeswoman for Crum & Forster said employees were told early this week that numerous staff functions for the personal insurance lines were going to be centralized as a cost-cutting move.
She said the move would result in a after-tax charge of less than $4 million to be spread over the next three quarters.
By comparison, for the first nine months, Xerox earned $492 million, or $4.55 a share, on revenue of $12.97 billion.
Xerox Corp. has told employees in its Crum & Forster personal insurance operations that it is laying off about 300 people, or 25% of the staff.
Earnings at Xerox's financial-services operations actually rose slightly, but that was largely because capital gains at Crum & Forster offset Hurricane Hugo payments and the reserves set up to cover future payments.
Property/casualty insurance has been a tough business in recent quarters, as pricing has been cutthroat and natural disasters such as Hurricane Hugo and the California earthquake have resulted in huge payments.
"It's a cosmetic move,"
"It's a cosmetic move," said Jonathan S. Gelles of Wertheim Schroder & Co.
According to Upjohn's estimates, only 50% to 60% of the 1,100 eligible employees will take advantage of the plan.
Upjohn further estimated that about 50% of the employees who leave for early retirement may be replaced.
As a result, Upjohn will likely trim only about 275 to 350 of its more than 21,000 jobs world-wide.
In composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, Upjohn shares rose 87.5 cents to $38.875 apiece.
An Upjohn spokesman said he had "heard nothing" to suggest the early retirement package was spurred by shareholder pressure or a potential bidder for the company, which occasionally has been the target of takeover speculation.
Upjohn officials said they couldn't estimate the size of the charge until they determine which employees, and how many, will participate in the retirement plan.
The company earlier this year adopted a shareholder-rights plan to ward off unwanted suitors.
The spokesman said it is the first early retirement plan offered under its two-year cost-control strategy.
Earlier staff-reduction moves have trimmed about 300 jobs, the spokesman said.
But the pharmaceutical company said it "anticipates the long-term savings resulting from the plan's implementation will more than offset short-term costs."
"anticipates the long-term savings resulting from the plan's implementation will more than offset short-term costs."
The program, available to Upjohn employees 55 years old or older, could increase an individual's retirement benefits 10% to 20%.
Upjohn Co. said it will offer an early retirement package to as many as 1,100 employees in a cost-cutting move expected to result in a fourth-quarter charge.
Chairman Theodore Cooper called the program part of the company's two-year strategy to implement budget constraints and "an effective headcount-control program."
"an effective headcount-control program."
But some analysts questioned how much of an impact the retirement package will have, because few jobs will end up being eliminated.
Oy Waertsilae is to contribute 200 million markkaa, most of it as subordinated debt, and take a minority stake in the new company.
Customers holding contracts for Waertsilae Marine's undelivered ships are expected to subscribe most of the remaining 170 million markkaa in share capital, government officials said.
Waertsilae Marine's biggest creditor is Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines Inc. Carnival, which has three ships on order from Waertsilae Marine, presented claims for $1.5 billion damages in the bankruptcy court this week.
"The situation is that the bankruptcy court will get out of the shipbuilding business.
Everything will be taken over by the new company," said Christian Andersson, executive vice president of Oy Waertsilae, former parent of Waertsilae Marine.
The Finnish government and major creditors of bankrupt shipyard Waertsilae Marine Industries Oy agreed in principle to form a new company to complete most of the troubled shipyard's backlog of 15 ships.
Once its ownership is finalized, the new company will open talks with state-appointed receivers to buy or lease Waertsilae Marine's shipyard facilities.
Subcontractors will be offered a settlement and a swift transition to new management is expected to avert an exodus of skilled workers from Waertsilae Marine's two big shipyards, government officials said.
Under an accord signed yesterday, the government and Union Bank of Finland would become major shareholders in the new company, each injecting 100 million Finnish markkaa ($23.5 million).
Ralston attributed its fourth-quarter slump partly to higher costs of ingredients in the pet food business as well as competitive pressures, which required higher advertising spending.
For the year, pet food volume was flat, the company said.
Its cereal division realized higher operating profit on volume increases, but also spent more on promotion.
The Continental Baking business benefited from higher margins on bread and on increased cake sales, it added.
Ralston said its Eveready battery unit was hurt by continuing economic problems in South America.
The St. Louis company earned $45.2 million, or 65 cents a share, compared with $84.9 million, or $1.24 a share, a year earlier.
Sales in the latest period were $1.76 billion, a 13% increase from last year's $1.55 billion.
For the year ended Sept. 30, Ralston earned $422.5 million, or $6.44 a share, up 8.9% from $387.8 million, or $5.63 a share.
Ralston Purina Co. reported a 47% decline in fourth-quarter earnings, reflecting restructuring costs as well as a more difficult pet food market.
This year's results included a gain of $70.2 million on the disposal of seafood operations.
Sales for the full year were $6.6 billion, up 13% from $5.8 billion.
Ralston said its restructuring costs include the phase-out of a battery facility in Greenville, N.C., the recent closing of a Hostess cake bakery in Cincinnati and a reduction in staff throughout the company.
The battery plant, which makes rechargeable nickel cadmium and carbon zinc products, will be closed over the next year or so, a spokesman said.
Any secret can be pirated, the experts said, if it is transmitted over the air.
They need only position themselves near a company's satellite dish and wait.
"You can have a dozen competitors stealing your secrets at the same time," Mr. Matchett said, adding : "It's a pretty good bet they won't get caught."
The only way to catch an electronic thief, he said, is to set him up with erroneous information.
Even though electronic espionage may cost U.S. firms billions of dollars a year, most aren't yet taking precautions, the experts said.
By contrast, European firms will spend $150 million this year on electronic security, and are expected to spend $1 billion by 1992.
That was the message delivered by government and private security experts at an all-day conference on corporate electronic espionage.
Still, encrypting corporate communications is only a partial remedy.
One expert, whose job is so politically sensitive that he spoke on condition that he wouldn't be named or quoted, said the expected influx of East European refugees over the next few years will greatly increase the chances of computer-maintenance workers, for example, doubling as foreign spies.
Moreover, he said, technology now exists for stealing corporate secrets after they've been "erased" from a computer's memory.
No personal computer, not even the one on a chief executive's desk, is safe, this speaker noted.
W. Mark Goode, president of Micronyx Inc., a Richardson, Texas, firm that makes computer-security products, provided a new definition for Mikhail Gorbachev's campaign for greater openness, known commonly as glasnost.
Under Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Goode said, the Soviets are openly stealing Western corporate communications.
He cited the case of a Swiss oil trader who recently put out bids via telex for an oil tanker to pick up a cargo of crude in the Middle East.
"Hostile and even friendly nations routinely steal information from U.S. companies and share it with their own companies," said Noel D. Matchett, a former staffer at the federal National Security Agency and now president of Information Security Inc., Silver Spring, Md.
Among the responses the Swiss trader got was one from the Soviet national shipping company, which hadn't been invited to submit a bid.
The Soviets' eavesdropping paid off, however, because they got the contract.
It "may well be" that theft of business data is "as serious a strategic threat to national security" as it is a threat to the survival of victimized U.S. firms, said Michelle Van Cleave, the White House's assistant director for National Security Affairs.
The conference was jointly sponsored by the New York Institute of Technology School of Management and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, a joint industry-government trade group.
We don't know who is winning the drug war in Latin America, but we know who's losing it -- the press.
Over the past six months, six journalists have been killed and 10 kidnapped by drug traffickers or leftist guerrillas -- who often are one and the same -- in Colombia.
An hour later, the paper's circulation manager, Miguel Soler, was shot and killed near his home.
El Espectador has been a special target because of the extraordinary courage of its publisher and his staff.
At Monterrey, publisher Luis Gabriel Cano, although shaken by the murders, issued a statement saying: "We will not cease our fight against drug trafficking.
They want to terrify the press and in particular El Espectador because it has always been a torchbearer in this war."
This comes from a man whose brother, Guillermo, was murdered in 1986.
The publishers in Monterrey command no battalions, but they agreed to express their outrage with editorials in today's editions.
Many will use a common editorial.
A final statement yesterday said: "While some advances are being made in nations throughout the hemisphere, the state of press freedom in the Americas still must be regarded as grim as long as journalists and their families are subject to the crudest form of censorship: death by assassination."
The report charged that Panama's Manuel Noriega is not only in league with the drug traffickers but also is bullying the press as never before.
It added: "In Cuba, public enemy No. 1 of press freedoms in the hemisphere, repression of journalists both Cuban and foreign is worse than ever."
Over the past 12 years, at least 40 journalists have died there.
And in Nicaragua, promises of press freedom by the Sandinistas "have not materialized."
As it happens, the four countries cited, Colombia, Cuba, Panama and Nicaragua, are not only where the press is under greatest attack but also are linked by the drug trade and left-wing politics.
Noriega is close to Castro and may once have been his agent.
Sandinistas Thomas Borge and the Ortega brothers are Castro proteges; he backed their takeover of Nicaragua.
In Colombia, the drug-financed guerrillas trying to seize the country and destroy democracy include M-19, which Castro has clearly backed.
Robert Merkel, a former U.S. attorney handling drug indictments in Florida, doesn't think for a minute that Castro's much publicized trials of high officials engaged in the drug trade mean he has broken off with the Medellin drug cartel.
The attacks have intensified since the Colombian government began cracking down on the traffickers in August, trying to prevent their takeover of the country.
"If the cartel succeeds in blackmailing the Colombian authorities into negotiations, the cartel will be in control and Fidel can exploit his past relationships with them," he told the Journal's David Asman recently.
The struggle against the drug lords in Colombia will be a near thing.
He will probably be extradited to the U.S. for trial under an extradition treaty President Virgilia Barco has revived.
Mr. Barco has refused U.S. troops or advisers but has accepted U.S. military aid.
President Bush has agreed to meet within 90 days with Mr. Barco, President Alan Garcia of Peru and President Jaime Paz Zamora of Bolivia to discuss the drug problem.
After the Panama fiasco, they will need some reassurance.
Certainly, the Colombian press is much in need of that.
The slaughter in Colombia was very much on the minds of 450 editors and publishers from Latin America, the United States, the Caribbean and Canada attending the 45th general assembly of the Inter-American Press Association in Monterrey, Mexico, this week.
The paper's local administrator, Maria Luz Lopez, was shot dead, and her mother wounded, while her car was stopped for a red light.
After all, conservation begins with saving those at-risk places -— our forests and deserts, wetlands and oceans, mangroves and coral reefs — that provide a lifeline for precious animals and plants.
To this end, we’ve designated some 200 ecoregions, those with the most outstanding and diverse habitats, as our Global 200.
We’re now creating model projects in 25 of these high-priority areas -- in order to balance conservation with people’s need to use natural resources to sustain their livelihoods.
Dear Friend,
With your increased commitment, we can intensify our campaigns to protect species that are in grave peril by both the loss of habitat and the illegal trading in animal parts.
Quite simply, WWF must do even more to safeguard the tigers, rhinos, pandas. whales, and other creatures that still remain in the wild.
As a member of World Wildlife Fund, you know that our efforts are essential to preserving the astonishing, yet desperately threatened diversity of life here on Earth.
While we still have the chance.
So in addition to our efforts to conserve wildlife preserves, we’ll escalate our trailblazing program to find alternatives for traditional tiger-based medicines ... rescue more rhinos in Kenya and Nepal through our ambitious translocation projects ... complete the first survey of China’s pandas in over a decade ... and fight to halt all commercial whaling, as well as the whale meat trade.
We’ll also award more small grants through our Species Action Fund to help a wide range of animals, including whooping cranes, giant river otters, and Tibetan antelopes.
And with your increased commitment, we can battle against destructive global forces that transcend regional and national boundaries.
For instance, our innovative “Forests for Life Campaign” establishes an international network of parks and reserves.
“Forests for Life Campaign”
This will protect at least 10% of each different type of forest found in every country.
Another WWF goal?
To end government subsidies that promote overfishing and to encourage new markets for sustainably managed fisheries.
The challenges we face are daunting, to be sure.
However, I’m confident that by joining together again, we can make exciting progress in the year ahead.
I want to ask you, therefore, to renew your valued World Wildlife Fund membership and, hopefully, at the Living Planet Society level of $750.
When you do, you’ll extend your commitment as an esteemed partner with WWF -- the largest and most effective international conservation group in existence.
Now, with your increased commitment, we can save more of our planet’s cherished wild species and their irreplaceable habitats ... as we strive to ensure a healthy and thriving future for our extraordinary natural world.
I’m also hoping you know that you play a vital role in achieving our conservation goals around the globe.
Once again, please accept my warmest gratitude for your past support And please, take a moment today to renew your critically important WWF annual membership.
Thank you.
Sincerely, Kathryn S. Fuller President
P.S. As a Living Planet Society member, you’ll receive the wonderful array of benefits described in the enclosed brochure.
Plus, to acknowledge your increased gift of $750, we’ll send you a free copy of our stunning coffee-table photography book, Living Planet Preserving Edens of the Earth.
Please let it be a constant reminder of all you’re doing to preserve our endangered wildlife!
That’s why I want to extend my appreciation for your last membership contribution of $500.
And why I’m writing you today to ask you to renew your support for the pivotal year ahead.
With your increased commitment, we can move forward to thwart the most serious threats to endangered ecosystems.