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Guest: Tom DeLay, Christopher Shays, Todd Harris, Steve McMahon, Jonathan Turley, Ron Brownstein, Jonathan Allen, Sharon Epperson
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Republicans in rout.
Let's play HARDBALL.
Good evening. I'm Chris Matthews in Washington. Leading off tonight:
Elephants to the life boats? With the man David Broder called "Specter the defector" crouching in a lifeboat, the question is who or what is sinking the Titanic? "The Politico" says moderates are blaming conservatives. Conservative are blaming moderates. Senator Lindsey Graham is blaming party chairman Michael Steele, and Karl Rove is blaming Specter himself, about whom David Broder wrote today, "The one consistency in the history of Arlen Specter has been his willingness to do whatever will best protect and advance the career of Arlen Specter." But without him, the GOP is now down to 40 senators, with more in trouble next year.
We'll talk to former U.S. congressman Chris Shays, who got beaten last year, and former House Republican leader Tom DeLay, two Republicans who may well point fingers at each other.
So where does a party go that is increasingly seen as Southern, religious, and intolerant of different points of view? Where does it go from here? We'll ask our HARDBALL strategists how the GOP should try to right itself, also how the Democrats can try to exploit its misery.
And did you hear what Condoleezza Rice said when she went absolutely Nixonian when she got challenged on torture? Here's what she said at Stanford when talking about the Bush administration and waterboarding.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture.
MATTHEWS: And so what Dr. Rice is saying there, when you see the whole of it, is that if something was authorized by the president, it's OK. That's about as close as it gets to this sugar plum.
RICHARD M. NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.
MATTHEWS: Wow. Much more on the politics of torture with Jonathan Turley and Pat Buchanan both coming up here.
And while on the subject of "What were they thinking?" here's Vice President Joe Biden talking to Matt Lauer today on the "Today" show.
JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico, it's you're in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. That's me. I would not be, at this point, if I had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway.
MATTHEWS: So let's get this straight. Mr. Amtrak is advising people to stay away from public transportation? More on Biden's gaffe in the "Politics Fix."
And finally, I was on the "Tonight" show last night with Jay Leno.
We'll show you a bit of that mayhem in the "Sideshow."
But first, the Republican blame game. Tom DeLay was the House majority leader and Chris Shays was a Republican congressman from Connecticut. I want to start with Tom DeLay, who's right with me now. What's going on with the Republican Party? You once had, on the other side of the Hill from you, almost 55 or 56 senators. Now you've got 40. What happened?
TOM DELAY (R-TX), FORMER HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Well, obviously, the Republican Party is taking a political bath, and it has ever since '06 election and certainly in the last election. We're searching for leaders. We're searching for our principles again, although I don't think we lost our principles, we failed to communicate them. And we need to convince the American people that we still have our principles and we're going to stand on those principles because people will gather around and support men and women of principle.
MATTHEWS: Did Arlen Specter leave because he has principle and your party doesn't?
DELAY: Arlen Specter, actually, if you look at his voting record, votes probably with the Republican Party 90 percent of the time. The last vote he cast that infuriated people in Pennsylvania was the vote on the stimulus package...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
DELAY: ... and that brought him down. A lot of times, you got to look within yourself. And the switch of the party had nothing to do with running him out of the party or coming against him. He had all kinds of support from people who are within the party. It had everything to do that he was convinced that he could not sustain an election in his primary, and he wants to remain a senator. So he switched parties to...
MATTHEWS: In all fairness, Congressman—I have been paying attention to this fellow's voting regard since I was a kid. He does tend to vote more Republican, up in the 80s, right before an election. That's true. In off seasons, he tends to be more in the middle.
But let's look at this blame game that's going on right now.
"Politico" had a good synopsis today. Let me run through it verbatim. This is what they say. "Orrin Hatch and George Voinovich blame the Club for Growth for imposing a right-wing litmus test that chased Arlen Specter out of the Republican Party. The Club for Growth blames Specter himself, first for helping to ruin the GOP and then for leaving it. Senator Lindsey Graham sniped at Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. Karl Rove blamed Specter again himself."
Congressman Shays, you got beaten in the party that can't seem to win in New England anymore. What do you think?
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R-CT), FORMER CONGRESSMAN: Well, first off, I don't think Condi was ballistic, so I think you just got a little carried away there.
But you know, this—I wouldn't even have appeared on the show if I thought this was about a blame game. I don't think it's about a blame game. Tom and I disagree on a lot of issues, but a party has to be large enough and broad enough to enable an elected official to represent his constituents. And my constituents in New England, the ones I represent in Connecticut, may be different than constituents in Texas. The party has to enable that to occur, that I can do my job representing my constituents and have core values be consistent.
So Arlen did vote most of the time with the Republicans, but he was a moderate. And you know, I'm sorry to see him go. I think he made a mistake.
MATTHEWS: Well, let me call you on Condi Rice, just to clear that up, since you said I went overboard on that one. Let me read you her entire statement, and you tell me whether it sounds Nixonian or not. "In the memo, you authorized torture—I'm sorry, not torture—I'm sorry, waterboarding—is waterboarding torture?" "Well, the president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture. I didn't authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency, that they had policy authorization subject to the Justice Department's clearance. That's what I did."
And then the question is, "Is waterboarding torture?" "I just said" -
this is her—"I just said the United States was told—we were told nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture."
That is Nixonian, Congressman.
SHAYS: No, well...
MATTHEWS: She's saying if the president said it, it's not a violation.
SHAYS: Wait a second. You just disagree with her answer, but it's her answer. And I don't think she went ballistic, but that's a small point. I mean, she's a pretty...
MATTHEWS: No, I didn't say she went ballistic. I thought you said I did. I'm just saying she is saying that the president says something is legal, it is. Do you agree with that?
SHAYS: No. So I disagree with that basic point. But you know, I think she—I—the bottom line is I think she did a great job, and I don't think she went ballistic.
MATTHEWS: OK. Well, let me ask you—you don't want to engage in the blame game, but is the Republican tent too small right now, with Specter squeezed out of his own party?
SHAYS: Right. No, it is definitely too small. And I think, you know, we worried about things we shouldn't have. When we worried about Terri Schiavo and making that a federal issue, it defined everything I thought Republican believed in, which was state government, state courts, not an activist federal court. And I felt while Rome was burning, we focused on issues we shouldn't. But I was free to express my view, Tom could express his view, under a party that included both of us.
DELAY: And that—and Chris was a fantastic member of Congress, and
Connecticut, I don't know why, but they are less—they are not as better
good—as well off as they would have been if they'd have kept him as Congress.
If you remember, during the time the Republicans were in the majority, we had very small margins. We got down to a five-vote margin at the time, and we had 30 to 50 so-called moderates. Our most liberal member was more conservative than the most conservative Democrat. And we had to include everybody in everything that we did, or we couldn't have been as effective as we were.
MATTHEWS: If you had to choose between...
MATTHEWS: Congressman, if you had to choose between Arlen Specter, Republican, running in a primary next year, if he'd stayed in your party, and Pat Toomey of the Club for Growth, who would you have voted for?
DELAY: I would probably have voted for Pat Toomey. But...
MATTHEWS: Right. Well, then, you guys are running this guy out of the party.
DELAY: No, that's what primaries are all about. If you want to do away with the primary system—that's how the party decides who they are...
MATTHEWS: Right.
DELAY: ... is through the primary system. And thank goodness we have that process, that parties can express themselves. They can nominate the person that they want to nominate to put up for the general election, and all the factors of a campaign have to be taken into consideration.
SHAYS: And the deal was made that Specter could become a Democrat, but they can't guarantee that Arlen Specter is going to win a Democratic primary. I mean, Chris, you could run against him and maybe you would beat him. I mean, there is a political process that will determine ultimately whether Arlen Specter returns as a senator.
MATTHEWS: Well, let's talk about the Republican Party and how it's been over the years. Congressman Shays, you know, we both grew up in a country where the Northeast was pretty strong for Republican senators all those years. In fact, I think just about every Northeastern state had one or two—in many cases, two Republican senators when we were growing up. You know, you had Keating and Javits in New York. You had Heinz and you had—Heinz and you had Hugh Scott in Pennsylvania, and later Schweiker. And you had—and Specter when he was in that fold. And then you had Saltonstall and you had Weicker in Connecticut and Clifford Case in New Jersey, Aiken up in Vermont, and the whole Northeast was filled with Republican senators. Now they're all gone, pretty much. What happened?
SHAYS: Well, I think part of what happened is people didn't like the past administration, and I think we carried, you know, what people felt about the past administration. That obviously was a factor. If Kerry had won the race a few years ago, we would probably still be a majority party and you'd be talking about what happened to the Democratic Party.
DELAY: I agree with that.
MATTHEWS: You think Kerry would have brought down the Democrats.
DELAY: Exactly right, as Obama is going it bring down the Democrats.
MATTHEWS: You're smiling already.
DELAY: Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: And you're convinced...
DELAY: I hate what's going to happen to our country over the next few months and next year, but...
MATTHEWS: Well, why are you smiling then?
DELAY: Because it's all in the Democrats' hands.
MATTHEWS: But you're chuckling at this! You have got the look. You have a happier face when you're sadistic than Cheney does...
MATTHEWS: ... but you seem equally sadistic about this.
DELAY: But your description of the Northeast could be the same thing for the Democrat party in the South.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
DELAY: Look, the South was totally Democrat. Texas was—there were no Republicans elected in Texas in the 1970s...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
DELAY: ... and now it's all Republican.
MATTHEWS: OK. Well, let's get back to something because I agree with something Mr. Shays said.
SHAYS: Chris...
MATTHEWS: I think it was the Schiavo case, ironically, that got elected a very pro-life guy like Bobby Casey in Pennsylvania. I think it was an overreach of government authority that Republicans who were somewhat libertarian didn't like. They said, I'm religious, I care about life and end of life issues, but I don't want some U.S. Congress holding a weekend meeting with Rick Santorum playing chaplain. It got a little out of hand. It began to look like a theocracy, like the mullahs were running the country. That's what it began to—now you can argue.
DELAY: Well, I...
MATTHEWS: You're not going to smile, but that's what it began to look like.
DELAY: I'm the guy who made the effort.
MATTHEWS: Well, look what it—what do you think it looked like?
Mr. Shays just said it ran his kind of Republicanism off the map.
DELAY: It put Chris Shays in a very uncomfortable position in his district, but Chris stood by his guns and he did what he needed to do to represent his district. The point—the whole Terry Schiavo thing is we had less than a day to save a person's life that ultimately was starved to death by our government.
MATTHEWS: Right.
DELAY: And we did what we thought we could legally do by allowing...
MATTHEWS: I think it was by the family decision.
DELAY: ... allowing...
MATTHEWS: Let's get that straight. It was the family decision, the husband.
DELAY: No, the family didn't get to decide.
MATTHEWS: The husband did.
DELAY: They wanted to take care of her.
MATTHEWS: The husband decided.
DELAY: The husband, who had already moved in with another woman.
MATTHEWS: So what, the government should move in with her now?
DELAY: No, the government should use everything in its power...
MATTHEWS: OK. Well, that's what the issue was. Congressman Shays, you raised the issue. I think families, at some point, don't like to die, they don't like their loved ones to die, but they also don't like the federal government being Big Brother. That's just my thought. Is it what mattered to you or mattered to your people?
SHAYS: You know, Chris, I'd love to say that when it related to Terry Schiavo, the thing that was stunning about it was that we were basically flipping, I think, our Republican principles on end, you know, wanting an act of the federal court, not allowing for individual decisions and the freedom of individual choice. But Tom and I can disagree with that.
But one of the issues that I'm always struck by with my conservative friends in my own party—and I say this to them—you know, you're against government intervention unless it's on the farm bill. So even my own conservative Republicans believe in strong government intervention when it enables them to represent their district. And I'm just trying to make the case that I don't have a lot of farmers. I have a lot of urban folks who need to have me respond to their needs.
And so we just need to have an open, grown-up dialogue, and so don't get out of sort (SIC) about what Specter did. If you don't like what Specter did, someone can run against him and it'll sort itself out.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
DELAY: It may surprise you that I've never voted for a farm bill, by the way...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
DELAY: ... and I had rice farmers, and I stood up in my district and I would like to eliminate the farm bill.
SHAYS: But Tom, you know what I'm saying, though. I mean...
DELAY: Yes, I know what you're saying.
SHAYS: ... a lot of conservative members in our own caucus would vote for a bill like that because they were able to represent their district. The bottom line is a party has to enable an elected official to represent the district they are elected in and—but still hold onto some basic core values.
We believe in a strong defense. We believe in individual responsibility. We believe and should have done a better job holding down spending, but you know, we lost our way in that regard. But we're going to sort it out.
But I think Arlen made a mistake. I think it wasn't good for the country. I think it wasn't good for the Republican Party. And I think, ultimately, it won't even be good for him.
MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much, Chris Shays of Connecticut and Tom DeLay of Texas.
Coming up next, our strategists on how to save the Republican Party from itself, if you will. Should they go back to pure conservativism or try to broaden out ideologically? And what should the Democrats do to take advantage of the Republicans' sort of circular firing squad that seems to be at work these days?
You're watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. The Republican Party is on the decline right now, and party leaders are scrambling to find a rebuilding strategy. What should they do? And what should Democrats do to capitalize on their misery, if you will? And for that, we turn to our strategists, Steve McMahon for the Democrat side and Todd Harris for the Republican side.
Todd, you've got the first opportunity here.
TODD HARRIS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Oh!
MATTHEWS: I haven't seen anything like...
MATTHEWS: I was stunned when Hillary Clinton was named secretary of state. I said, Wow, strange bedfellows here. And then I heard Arlen Specter the other night. I mean, I've been seeing that guy in Pennsylvania politics all my life. Now, he was a Democrat. He switched to Republican under the deal he made with the Republican boss in Philly, Billy Meehan (ph), I'll become a Republican if I win the DA's job...
HARRIS: Right.
MATTHEWS: ... because he couldn't win on the Democrats' side. And then he stayed with the party under that dispensation or deal for all these years, from '66 on. And here he is in 2009 saying, Well, I'm facing defeat in the primary in this party, I'll join the other party. It seems a little quick and easy. Should people be able to change parties just like that, just like—just change one uniform and put on the other one, just like that?
HARRIS: I think Specter had an obligation to the Republicans who, you know, put him in office in the first place by winning the primary. Look, David Broder today in "The Washington Post," who is hardly a hothead, said that Arlen Specter will be with you for as long as it's useful to him and not a day longer.
And I think there are really two separate issues here. The whole issue of Specter switching is getting wrapped up into the story about the reassessment of the Republican Party. And the Republican Party does need a reassessment. But let's be clear. Specter switched parties for personal ambition. That poll that he took, if it had come back showing him winning, he would still be a Republican right now.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MATTHEWS: So, you don't have any problem with him doing what he did, or do you have a problem with...
HARRIS: No, I do have a problem with it, because I think he did it for the wrong reasons.
STEVE MCMAHON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, he absolutely did it for the wrong reasons.
In fact, he didn't even pretend like it was a matter of principle.
HARRIS: Right.
MCMAHON: He simply said: I couldn't win a Republican primary, and I want to stay in the Senate for good reasons, because I want to stay in the Senate.
MCMAHON: But what's ironic here is that he—he changed parties to avoid a primary that he couldn't win, and he may up—end up in a primary he can't win.
There was a poll that was taken just a few weeks ago that showed Arlen Specter getting beat by a Democrat by 20 points in—in a...
MATTHEWS: Right.
MCMAHON: ... among—among Democrats, by 20 points.
MATTHEWS: Murphy? Or who was beating him?
MCMAHON: Well, it doesn't matter.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MCMAHON: Any Democrat who is—like, Ed Rendell, the mayor, Mayor Nutter, would easily beat him. But I think any Democrat that gets in and runs as a real Democrat would beat him in a primary.
And the question is, what does Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid and all the Democrats in the Senate do then? Because I think it puts them in a really tough spot.
MATTHEWS: Well, the problem for the Republican Party, writ large, is that you can't win in the Northeast. All you have got left are the two senators, basically, in Maine and one senator in New Hampshire who is retiring. After the retirement of Voinovich in Ohio and Martinez in Florida, you could really be peeled back.
It's going to be goodbye Columbus at some point here. The map is moving right across the country, where you guys can't win, and from the other end, too. The—the—the West, you don't have a single senator on the West Coast. All six senators, California, Washington State, Oregon, are all Democrats.
HARRIS: We're in, you know, a real—or we at least should be—in a real state of reassessment right now. The—the party has got to redefine...
MATTHEWS: Well, reassess.
HARRIS: Well, the party has got to redesign what it means to be a conservative.
It used—everyone used to know, because Reagan brought a certain moral clarity and clarity of purpose to conservatism. It meant smaller, more efficient government, lower taxes, personal freedom and—and responsibility.
But let's be honest. After the last eight years, with deficits through the roof, government spending through the roof, Katrina, an unpopular war...
MATTHEWS: You're taking all the fun out of this, Todd.
HARRIS: ... people...
MATTHEWS: You're admitting all the problems.
HARRIS: Because there are. Well, how are you going to—it's like going to therapy. You're never going to solve your problems unless you admit to them first.
HARRIS: Yes, we—people have lost what it means to be a conservative. So, the first thing we need to do is redefine conservatism around the banner of smaller, more efficient government, lower taxes, greater personal freedom and responsibility.
Secondly, we need to take those core principles and apply them to issues like health care reform, job creation, education, issues that are not necessarily going to things that aren't just cut...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
HARRIS: ... taxes, smaller government. We need a message for people who are looking for something beyond that.
MATTHEWS: Well, in the meantime, while they're going through these deliberations and soul-searching, you guys can sweep.
MCMAHON: Well, I mean, that's—that's the hope.
And if you look at the top aide Senate targets for next time, only one of them is a Democrat. And it looks like the map is lining up for Democrats.
MATTHEWS: You could pick up Missouri. Florida will be tough.
MATTHEWS: Charlie Crist could be tough, if he runs. You could pick up Ohio.
MCMAHON: Yes.
MATTHEWS: You know, you could pick up New Hampshire. I see a lot of opportunity.
MCMAHON: There's a lot of opportunity. It's not just—it's not just in the Northeast and Midwest. It's in the South as well.
MATTHEWS: Kentucky. Bunning could be beaten, if you go after him.
MCMAHON: If you look at—if you look at what is—if you look at what is happening with the Democratic, have expanded, since the Kerry campaign, from an 18-state strategy of a national party, to a strategy where we go everywhere.
It used to be that Tom DeLay got a free pass. And there was a Democrat in that seat up until—up until November. Chris Shays was somebody that was—that was considered to be unbeatable, and the Democratic Party spread out and went everywhere, and is now competing everywhere.
Barack Obama won states that—that a Democrat hasn't won for 40 years, because he competed everywhere.
MATTHEWS: Did you guys make a mistake by cutting a deal with the religious right that you were going to be always there? There's looking at that map, by the way. It tells a lot.
That you're always going to be there on right-to-life issues, you're always going to be there on stem cell, you're always going to be there on same-sex, and then made addition—a deal with Dixie years ago you were going to be a little slow-mo on—on civil rights?
HARRIS: Well, I think, on the issue—on the social issues, whether it's abortion, stem cell, I don't—I don't think on the issue of civil rights. I think that civil rights—put—I will put that one aside, because I think our party was wrong on those issues.
But, on the issue of abortion, stem cell, there are a lot of Republicans who feel very, very deeply and have very deeply-held personal beliefs on that. And we ought to be honoring those.
But we also ought to honor those people who disagree with the party platform on those issues, but are going to be with us on things like cutting taxes, reducing the size of government.
I—as I said before, I think Specter left the GOP for purely personal political ambition. Having said that, it was of note that a lot of Republicans were cheering the departure of a guy who was with us about 70 percent of the time, while the Democrats were welcoming with open arms a guy who is only with them about 30 percent of the time.
MCMAHON: Right. That's right.
You know, if you look at what has happened recently, Chuck Schumer went to Pennsylvania and recruited Bobby Casey Jr. to run. And it wasn't very long ago that a—that a committee chairman like Chuck Schumer couldn't do that, because Bob Casey was pro-life. And he got a lot of—he got a lot of flak for doing it from the left.
And he said, you know what? I'm recruiting candidates who can win.
Rahm Emanuel did the same thing in the House.
MCMAHON: He got a lot of—he got a lot of flak. And we won.
MATTHEWS: I think you picked up a veteran free—free agent late in the season to help with the playoffs. I think Specter doesn't have a lot of years left in him. He's maybe 10, 20 years, for all I know. But you really want him for health care.
MCMAHON: Look what Sergei Fedorov did the other night, huh?
MATTHEWS: I think—I know. I just think you want him for health care this year. The future is now. That's what this is about.
MATTHEWS: Anyway, this is the old Redskins thing.
Anyway, Steve McMahon, Todd Harris.
Up next: Jay Leno plays a little hardball with me, trying to get me to grade our new president, which he managed to do. That's in the "Sideshow" coming up.
You're watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
MATTHEWS: Back to HARDBALL. It's time for the "Sideshow."
Last night, I was out in L.A. for a turn on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show."
Here is a little bit of it.
JAY LENO, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO": What grade would you give the president so far?
MATTHEWS: Well, let's—let's do it pass/fail, OK?
LENO: No—what, pass/fail?
MATTHEWS: Come on. I think it's—I think it's...
LENO: What kind of lame-ass school is this? Pass/fail.
LENO: A, B, C, D, F, where would you go?
MATTHEWS: Well, can I work this a little? Like, it seems to me...
LENO: OK. Give me...
MATTHEWS: It seems to me that our polling at NBC came out last night. It's the highest in five years that people say we're going in the right direction.
MATTHEWS: So, one thing you can say is, nobody wants to go back to Bush, nobody.
MATTHEWS: I think the first family has got an A-plus...
MATTHEWS: ... as a family.
MATTHEWS: I think that—I think...
And, as president, you would give him what?
MATTHEWS: Well, I would give the dog an A.
LENO: The dog an A.
LENO: And what do you give the president?
MATTHEWS: Bo Dietl (sic), Bo—Bo—named for Bo Dietl (sic).
LENO: And you give the president what?
MATTHEWS: I would give him an A-minus.
MATTHEWS: Well, I'm still worried—the reason for the A-minus, I'm still worried about the numbers, the printing of all that money lately, the spending of all that money we don't have. I don't know what the impact is going to be in the long run.
Anyway, next up: the ravages of time. Joe Biden on "Today" today, he was there, and he was asked how he left about not being on that ridiculous 100 most beautiful people in "People" magazine this week, when the likes of presidential speechwriter Jon Favreau, Tim Geithner, and even Rahm Emanuel made the list.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The president instructed us that nothing we would do with be outside of our obligations, legal obligations.
MATTHEWS: Well, that's not exactly the right clip.
MATTHEWS: We will get to that later. Well, it was early in the day.
Anyway, by the way, among the credible folks singled out as Barack's beauties in "People" magazine were first lady Michelle Obama and White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers.
Well, time now for tonight's "Big Number."
Today, we learned that Texas Governor Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration down in Texas. He's looking for help from the federal government to help control the outbreak of swine flu.
Lest we forget, this very month, Governor Perry made the historically inaccurate comment that Texas had the option of seceding from the union if it didn't like the way things were going in Washington. And, so, "Mother Jones" magazine today dug up this sugarplum statistic about the Lone Star State and the federal government.
Since Governor Perry took office, how many times has Texas received federal assistance, disaster assistance? Thirteen times, more than any other state. The number of times Governor Perry has taken help from the federal government he doesn't want to be associated with, apparently, 13 times—tonight's "Big Number."
Up next: Condoleezza Rice is defending water-boarding, saying that, because President Bush authorized it, it's OK. Well, that sounds an awful lot like Richard Nixon would have said it.
The politics of torture—coming up next.
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SHARON EPPERSON, CNBC CORRESPONDENT: I'm Sharon Epperson with your CNBC "Market Wrap."
Stocks closing mixed, after a volatile day. The Dow lost 17 points.
The S&P 500 was down fractionally, while the Nasdaq gained five points.
Chrysler filed for bankruptcy protection, after failing to gain full support from its lenders to avoid the move. It also announced an alliance with Italian automaker Fiat. Chrysler hopes to emerge from bankruptcy in 30 to 60 days. But, starting Monday, it will halt most of its vehicle production until it emerges.
Meantime, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli says he will leave the company after bankruptcy.
President Obama said the bankruptcy is not a sign of weakness, but a step toward Chrysler's revival. And the government is providing another $8 billion in loans to help with the restructuring.
Also making headlines, first-time jobless claims fell unexpectedly last week, and ExxonMobil's profit fell 58 percent from a year ago.
That's it from CNBC, first in business worldwide—back to HARDBALL.
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
President Obama avoided calling water-board and the Bush administration's legal justifications for it a crime last night.
And, earlier this week, former Bush National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seems to be channeling Richard Nixon here.
Listen to what she said about water-boarding in this rather crude video we have right now, which was shot by a student at Stanford.
RICE: The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture.
So that's—and, by the way, I didn't authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency, that they had policy authorization, subject to the Justice Department clearance.
RICE: That's what I did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is water-boarding torture, in your opinion?
RICE: And I just said the United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And, so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.
MATTHEWS: So, what do we make of that, when she said, and, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture, Pat?
What does that mean?
PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I don't know.
I think—well, obviously, it means exactly what it says, that they don't think that water-boarding, if it was authorized, was in violations of the Conventions Against Torture. But if—saying the president, if he authorizes something, it can be legal, I guess that is like what they did in World War II, when FDR and Truman authorized black bag jobs on various embassies to go in and steal equipment and things like that. They stole the codebooks that my cousin Meredith Gardner used to break the Soviet code and do the Venona transcripts.
Does the president have this extraordinary authority in time of war?
I think it's something you ought to take up to the Supreme Court.
MATTHEWS: Well, I think—well, I want to take it up with the professor.
Jonathan Turley of G.W. Law, let me ask you that. Can a president define the law? Can he say, as Nixon said famously, if I say it, it's legal? And this is a case where the—Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, is quoted here by that student photographer who picked that up on his cell phone or her cell phone—quote—"If it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the convention."
UNIVERSITY: Well, we...
MATTHEWS: What does that mean, by the way?
TURLEY: Well, first of all...
MATTHEWS: Pat said it has a meaning. If the president says it's OK, what does that say?
TURLEY: Well, first of all, it's already been to the Supreme Court.
But, more importantly, this is the dividing line between tyranny and a democracy. That is, if a president can become a law unto himself, that whatever he says has the fiat of authority, then you no longer have a democratic system. We rejected that a very long time ago, thank God.
It defines us as a people. And Nixon learned very well that his theory of the law did not apply. And he found himself chased out of office and ultimately needing a presidential pardon.
BUCHANAN: With—with due respect, first, Nixon was never—never indicted at all by the House Judiciary for the bombing of Cambodia, presumably outside the law. And Abraham Lincoln trampled all over the United States Constitution, suspended unilaterally habeas corpus for 15,000 people, correct?
TURLEY: Yes, but, you see, the problem, Pat, is, this goes with your argument that we bombed Hiroshima, that anything short of nuclear annihilation is probably OK now.
The fact is that we signed a treaty. We gave our word that we would prosecute torture. It's our word. When you were working for Nixon, and when you were working for Reagan, you often criticized the Soviets, that they couldn't be trusted when they signed treaties.
BUCHANAN: Right.
TURLEY: Well, we are supposed to be trusted. We gave our word as a nation that we would prosecute people who tortured.
BUCHANAN: All right. All right.
TURLEY: And, so, this is a crime on our books.
BUCHANAN: First—all right, but, you know, look, first, you're saying, that's torture. And that is in dispute. I agree with you. I think it ought to go up to the Supreme Court.
Let me ask you. He cited Winston Churchill last night. Churchill would not do this. Churchill fire bombed the city of Dresden, a city defenseless, February, 1945, burned to death 100,000 men, women, and children, who were refugees. Was that a war crime?
TURLEY: Pat, according to your logic, the president could go out and douse someone on Pennsylvania Avenue and burn them alive. The point is, that was an act in war time. At the time, they did do blanket bombing. Today, by the way, many things that we did in World War II might be viewed as a war crime.
But that's beside the point. We signed a treaty. We gave our word on torture. We're talking about torture, a defined crime, for which we prosecuted other countries for.
BUCHANAN: Wait a minute—
MATTHEWS: let's look at the president here. I want to get into what can be prosecuted. Here is the president last night giving his delineation, when he was asked if the Bush administration sanctioned torture.
OBAMA: What I have said, and I will repeat, is that water boarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion. That's the opinion of many who have examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.
I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do.
I believe that water boarding was torture. And I think that the—whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake.
MATTHEWS: Well, how do we solve this dispute between you and Pat about whether something is proper governmental decision making, proper decision making by the president. Let me ask you about the legal qualifications; if you take a really tough ass prosecutor like Patrick Fitzgerald, and you get him with the right attitude, rub some blood in his nose or whatever it takes to get that guy mad at somebody, and he really gets going, what crime would he hold this administration to, and put them in jail for or whatever? What would the crime be under the U.S. code that he could prosecute torture for?
TURLEY: Well, first of all, it's a target-rich environment. He could go for 18-USC-2340, which is the torture act. There's also the War Crimes Act. There's a Military Act that he can apply.
MATTHEWS: They all have clear sanctions.
TURLEY: You could prosecute people for assault and battery. This is an assault upon a human being outside the authority of law. On top of that, it's a direct violation of the convention of torture. Even Rice herself admitted that was a primary concern they had.
MATTHEWS: These legal opinions, granted by the top government people working for President Bush, at his request, these legal opinions would not protect people? If these crimes were committed, under the law, they would be prosecuted, no matter what legal advisory they had gotten.
TURLEY: In fact, the law that she cited, the Convention Against Torture, Article II says that it is not a defense to say that you received an order from a superior officer or someone in public authority. It's expressly ruled out as a defense.
MATTHEWS: So why did all these guys seek legal opinions in this administration? Why was there so much writing of opinions about torture.
TURLEY: They were trying to get legal cover. When you read the memos, it's clear. These memos read like a mob lawyer writing to his client of how to avoid a criminal charge. And unfortunately, you can't. If you're going to commit a war crime, it's pretty hard to avoid that.
BUCHANAN: Let me dissent from Chief Justice Turley here. Look, the way to decide this, quite simply, is to have the administration and the liberals, if they believe this, to prosecute, to call up the president of the United States and the members of the security—just take the president, and make the charge against him. Water boarding is torture. We declare it to be so. Take this to court.
Take it up to the Supreme Court, who will throw it over to the Congress of the United States, because a matter in dispute between the president and—the president can only be thrown out, my guess is, at least they'll give an opinion. And let them decide the damn thing, because there's disagreement.
You say these lawyers simply went up and wrote cover. I don't know that. I don't know that they're dishonest guys. They may be mistaken. There are soldiers who say it's torture. There are soldiers who say it's not. There are civilian who disagree on it.
Put it through the courts if that's what you want to do.
MATTHEWS: No one is disagreeing this is torture. We have case authority saying it's torture. Most people have given up this argument, this canard that water boarding is not torture. We prosecuted people for water boarding. Other countries—
BUCHANAN: You just saw the secretary of state say it was not. She said it was not a violation—
MATTHEWS: Why is President Obama keep calling it a mistake, which sounds like he's pulling his punches?
TURLEY: I've got to tell you, I'm very disappointed with that. He has consistently avoided using the word crime with torture.
MATTHEWS: Because then he would have to act. Wouldn't he?
TURLEY: He doesn't have that problem when he refers to terrorism.
Terrorism he says is a crime.
MATTHEWS: But we don't have those people—if he has a crime that he sees being perpetrated by a previous administration, wouldn't he have to prosecute it?
TURLEY: I honestly believe that this is all political considerations trumping principle. But what is confusing to people around the world is it makes our president look like he's not recognizing the obvious fact that torture is a crime. It's not his decision.
When you said, I thought it was the right decision; it's not his decision. He doesn't have the authority to torture. Neither did his predecessor.
MATTHEWS: When does the president have a moral right to break the law? Does he ever?
BUCHANAN: Sure, sure he does.
MATTHEWS: Never?
TURLEY: He doesn't have a right to break the law. The nation—
MATTHEWS: Never?
TURLEY: The nation is committed—
MATTHEWS: OK. If Vice President Cheney—and I'm no fan, obviously
if he had shot down that plane, if it had made it all the way to Washington, headed for the capital—
TURLEY: That's not necessarily a violation of law.
MATTHEWS: That isn't a violation?
TURLEY: Not necessarily.
MATTHEWS: Why not?
TURLEY: The president—the president does have the authority to act to protect the country, but there are—
MATTHEWS: To kill hundreds of civilians?
TURLEY: There—
BUCHANAN: Chris, he's not directly killing people. He's defending the Capitol from what became, in effect, an enemy missile. Take FDR, he put 100,000 Japanese, many of them American citizens, into literally concentration camps. And the Supreme Court, they said go ahead and do it. It's legitimate. Later on, we all apologized because we said that was a crime, violation of their rights.
TURLEY: Pat just gave the exact reason why Obama has to prosecute here, because in 20 years, there will be Pat Buchanan Jr. sitting here and saying, look what George Bush did, and he wasn't prosecuted. We can't hang them—
MATTHEWS: It becomes a precedent.
TURLEY: That's right.
MATTHEWS: Good argument. To be continued. Jonathan Turley, Chief Justice Turley, as Pat gave you that honor. If he could do that, he would make you that, I think, and then destroy you. Pat Buchanan.
Up next—I like this argument, because it's not clear who is going to win this one. Up next, a stunning statement from Vice President Joe Biden. He says Americans should stay off planes and subways to protect against the Swine Flu. The travel industry is a bit upset. How big a gaffe is this from the VP. That's up next, where it belongs, in the politics fix. This is HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
MATTHEWS: We're back and it's time for the fix with Ron Brownstein, the political director for "Atlantic Media," and "Newsweek's", my friend, Jonathan Alter, who is on MSNBC as an analyst always. He's author of "The Defining Moment," what a great book that is, about the early days of the Roosevelt administration.
Here's Vice President Joe Biden, who all love, talking to Matt Lauer, who we also all love, on the "Today Show." Let's listen.
MATT LAUER, "THE TODAY SHOW": If a member of your family came to you and said, look, I want to go on a commercial airliner to Mexico and back within the next week, would you think it is a good idea?
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would tell members of my family—and I have—I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico. It's you're in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft.
That's me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway.
So from my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation. If you're out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that's one thing. If you're in a closed air craft, or closed container, or closed car, or closed classroom, it's a different thing.
MATTHEWS: The vice president's spokeswoman, Elizabeth Alexander, put on the this statement shortly after the vice president's appearance on the "Today Show," quote," the advice he is giving family members it the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans, that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways. This is the advice the vice president was giving family members who are traveling by commercial airline this week. As the president said just last night, every American should take the same steps you would take to prevent any other flow."
Well, obviously that's not what the vice president said. He said nothing about Mexico. He said don't get on an airplane. Don't get on a subway. An amazing statement.
RON BROWNSTEIN, "ATLANTIC MEDIA": It is an amazing statement. One thing the Obama administration says is that Joe Biden is more helpful to the president in private than in public. I think that's something on which we can all agree.
MATTHEWS: You're so sarcastic. I'm going to take the mike away from you. Let's go to Jonathan Alter, sir. It was—I'm always sympathetic to Joe Biden. I like the guy. He was trying not to be ethnic. He was trying not to take a shot at Mexico in any way. He says the problem isn't Mexico and the flu down there, the problem is confined spaces. What do you think?
JONATHAN ALTER, "NEWSWEEK": This was just a classic gaffe and then it was bad damage control. Instead of trying to pretend he didn't say something, they should have just said he misspoke or use one of their classic formulations when somebody steps on a banana peel. People are very indulgent of Joe Biden's gaffes. Everybody would have moved on.
They should have just acknowledged that what he said was in danger of shutting down the entire transportation industry in the United States. He just had a great outing on "60 Minutes." He had done really well.
MATTHEWS: And a good week with Arlen Specter too. He was the Cupid in that affair. Here's White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs following up here.
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I'm telling you what he meant to say, which was that if somebody is experiencing symptoms—you heard the president say this last night. If somebody is feeling stick sick, if somebody is exhibiting symptoms of being sick, then they should take all necessary precautions.
Obviously, if anybody was unduly alarmed, for whatever reason, we would apologize for that.
MATTHEWS: You know, I always go back—lately I've been thinking about being a kid in Catholic school, third grade, getting in trouble, being put out in the hallway. I feel like I'm always in the hallway. Joe Biden has been put in the hallway again.
BROWNSTEIN: Especially because I was thinking of the contrast with the president, who is so precise, so disciplined, so careful in the way he chooses words. You can almost sometimes see the gears grinding as he think about his answer. Look, I think that Biden is Biden.
MATTHEWS: I think he's every man. We'll be right back with Jonathan Alter and Ron Brownstein with more sympathy and fun on the politics fix. You're watching HARDBALL. By the way, it's pretty harmless, so far, this stuff. You're watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
MATTHEWS: We're back with Jonathan Alter and Ron Brownstein. You first, Jon. What is the biggest impact, the bottom line on this Specter switcheroo we're still talking about?
ALTER: I think the big impact is immediately they might not have to even get to 60 -- they might get to 60 votes for health care, and not have to go to this mechanism that's very controversial, that will only require 51 votes, reconciliation.
MATTHEWS: I agree.
ALTER: So this is big for this year. It means it's now likely that there will be some kind of health care legislation. The devil is in the details.
MATTHEWS: I think they traded for a veteran to win the playoffs this year.
BROWNSTEIN: Legislatively, I think health care is the vote he has to give them to preempt any possibility of a primary challenge. Long-term, the political impact, the Republican marginalization in the northeast is reaching the level of the Whigs in the 1850s. They will be down to three of the 22 senators from Maryland to Maine after this. And only 18 percent of the House seats.
He left the Republican party because he felt he could not win a primary. There were no moderates left. He sends a signal they are really not welcome at the moment. A big challenge for the Republicans in a big part of the country.
MATTHEWS: So the party of Lincoln is now the party of Dixie?
BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: What a flip.
BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: Thank you, Jonathan Alter. Good luck with the book, again, "Defining Moment," one of the great books history we've got before us. In your bookstores right now. And Ron Brownstein, thank you.
Join us again tomorrow night at 5:00 and 7:00 Eastern for more HARDBALL. Right now it's time for "THE ED SHOW" with Ed Schultz.
Transcription Copyright 2009 CQ Transcriptions, LLC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research. User may not reproduce or redistribute the material except for user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon MSNBC and CQ Transcriptions, LLC's copyright or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.> Watch Hardball each weeknight at 5 & 7 p.m. ET
Transcription Copyright 2009 CQ Transcriptions, LLC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research.
User may not reproduce or redistribute the material except for user's
personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed,
nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion
that may infringe upon MSNBC and CQ Transcriptions, LLC's copyright or
other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal
transcript for purposes of litigation.>
Watch Hardball each weeknight at 5 & 7 p.m. ET


text:
Olympic silver medallist Mathilde Gremaud won the first World Cup title of her career as freestyle skiing slopestyle action took place in Mammoth Mountain.
The Swiss laid down a first run of 86.65 points at the Californian resort which proved enough for a maiden gold medal on the circuit.
Nineteen-year-old Gremaud, who finished second at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, had finished on the podium three times before at the World Cup but never on the top step.
Her winning run began with a clean rail section that was highlighted by a 270 into a switch-up on the second rail feature.
A corked 540 off the quarter pipe/tabletop hybrid kicker, a right side 540 safety on the second-to-last jump and a switch left corked 720 high mute completed the performance.
"Today was full of surprises," Gremaud, who won despite a suspected injury, said.
"I crashed pretty hard before qualifiers and I think I broke my thumb, it's all blue.
"So I wasn't too sure about even competing today, but my coach was like, 'just go ski, chill and see what happens', and I really wanted to ski so I just went for it, and I'm super stoked I did.
"The course here had really good flow and I really liked it."
Johanne Killi of Norway, a four-time Winter X Games medallist, finished second on 79.15.
Canada's Megan Oldham won bronze on 76.15.
Switzerland's reigning Olympic champion Sarah Höfflin was fourth but does lead the ski slopestyle World Cup standings with just one event to go.
With 100 points available for a win, Höfflin has 230 with American Eileen Gu second on 204.
Oldham is third on 181 and Gremaud fourth on 160.
Poor weather has played havoc with the schedule at Mammoth Mountain, where World Cups in both freestyle skiing and snowboard have been held over the past few days.
A blue sky greeted competitors today, however, as the action concluded.
In the men's ski slopestyle there was another maiden World Cup winner as American Mac Forehand topped the pile on home snow.
The 17-year-old scored 90.95 with his first run, including a technical top rail section and a double cork 720 on the quarter kicker.
He finished with a right side double 1260 safety into a switch double 1440 safety on the final two kickers.
Forehand also leads the ski slopestyle World Cup standings with 225 points.
"When I got second in Stubai to start the season it was a big wake-up call," he said.
"It was like, 'man, this is crazy, maybe I can battle for the crystal globe this year'.
"To come out here and get first place today is insane."
Norway's Ferdinand Dahl was second today with 86.05 points as Kiernan Fagan of the US managed 85.20 for bronze.
Forehand has 225 points in the overall rankings.
Canada's Max Moffatt is the nearest challenger on 203, with Oliwer Magnusson of Sweden following on 170.
The last World Cup of the season for men and women will take place in Silvaplana in Switzerland on March 30.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Protect your house, apartment or business with this SimpliSafe Defend home security system. Its wireless capabilities let you remotely monitor your property from a smartphone and receive text alerts when someone enters or exits. This SimpliSafe Defend home security system only detects human heat signatures, so you can keep it armed with pets in the house. Perfect for out of town travel, knowing when the kids get home from school or that the pet sitter has visited as scheduled.
SimpliSafe DEFEND Wireless Home Security System
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- 900-1800 MHz Cellular GSM Connection (6 seconds faster than a landline)
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- 2x Motion Sensors
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Estimated Delivery Date
Monday, August 17th - Monday, August 24th


text:
Students of the Week
Aspen Powell
Sept 4, 2018
Mother's Name: Jennifer Marcell
City of Residence: Iron River
Highly energetic, organized, and charismatic, Aspen has many strengths! She is a hard-working student with a compassionate heart who is well-respected by peers and staff alike. Both in and outside of the classroom, she is a leader who works tirelessly to always do her best while also helping those around her. A dependable friend and supportive classmate, Aspen is quick to volunteer for any challenge and lend a helping hand to those in need. Driven, conscientious, and responsible, Aspen is an exemplary model of how determination, hard work, and tenacious thinking can yield success.
Eden Golliher
Sept 19, 2018
Mother's Name: Gina Golliher
City of Residence: Iron River
Father's Name: Steven Golliher
City of Residence: Iron River
Eden is an outstanding student athlete. She strives to be her best on the court, in the classroom, and as a person. Eden brings a positive attitude every day to school, and her enthusiasm is contagious. West Iron County Schools is a better place because of her. Eden's goals are to pursue a degree in the medical field. She will be a great success in whatever she chooses because she has the heart to help others and the desire to be her best.


text:
June 19 2017
New dates coming soon
11th - College senior
If architecture interests you as a possible career, The University of Texas at Austin's Summer Academy in Architecture can help inform your decision and prepare you for application to a professional degree program. The Summer Academy in Architecture enables students to answer the question: Should I pursue Architecture as a career goal or field of further professional study?
The Summer Academy is geared toward people who have little to no background in architecture and who wish to test and refine their interests in the field. Applicants to the Summer Academy range from age 17 to older adulthood and are typically considering applying to undergraduate or graduate degree programs in architecture at the University of Texas at Austin or other comparable institutions of higher education.
The program is an intensive introductory course in architecture that assumes no prior study in the field, but rather a great familiarity with it through the experience of occupying places. Through a series of individual studio design projects, the Academy introduces students to many of the important aspects of architecture and encourages personal exploration. The identity of a place — what it feels like and what it means to us — arises from qualities that are both visual and non-visual. Under this premise, the Academy encourages design solutions that are grounded in an investigation of experience and perception.
Academy students are provided individual studio workspaces for the summer session. The studio environment of the Academy provides individual attention through daily tutorials and group discussions with an average student-to-teacher ratio of 10:1. Particular attention is paid to developing skills in drawing and model construction. Daily studio assignments encompass ideas that span the breadth of architectural practice and theory such as structure, materials, site, light, view, context, and experience. Individual studio work is supplemented by a series of supporting activities and events that include faculty and visiting lectures, a film series, site visits, class reviews, and periodic meetings that emphasize students' more practical concerns, i.e. application procedures, general admissions policies, and the preparation of a portfolio or resumé.
Enrollment is limited to approximately 80 students. Housing is limited and granted on a first-come, first-served basis. After posted deadlines, program and housing applications are accepted on a space-available basis only. Contact the Summer Academy office for further information.
One Jump
New dates coming soon
Austin, Texas
June 19 2017
11th / 12th / College junior / College senior
December 16 2019
Summer Program
June 19 2017
July 21 2017
New dates coming soon
Technology, Engineering and Math


text: People define living naturally in a plethora of ways. For some people, it may be living off-the-grid in a solar powered home, for others, it may mean choosing to eat organic food over conventional food. For me, it is the pursuit of making healthy, informed choices for my family, lessening my impact on the environment, and helping to create a happy, sustainable home. Continue reading "Why The almost Natural Mama?"


text:
Dear Friends of ArtsWestchester:
These are trying times: so many needs… so many challenges… so many pressures. It is daunting. If 2017 has taught us anything, it is that making choices is wrenchingly difficult, but our democracy demands it.
Knowing that supporting the arts is good for our downtowns, with the cultural sector in Westchester generating more than $172 million in total economic activity annually, we feel validated from a business perspective. The arts, supporting 5,100 full-time jobs and delivering $25.8 million in local and state government revenue, have proven fundamental to prosperity as well as to humanity.
The arts:
- Help Us Learn and Grow
- Uplift and Heal
- Bring Us Together
- Help Us Express Vital Ideas
- Are for Everyone
Your support of ArtsWestchester means that you know, as we do, that "the arts matter." As we look for the creative thinkers and leaders of tomorrow, I believe the arts matter more than ever.
Janet T. Langsam
CEO, ArtsWestchester
Above, RIOULT Dance NY performed at Emelin Theatre in 2017 (photo credit: Basil Childers)
In 2017, ArtsWestchester continued to bring programs to schools, providing over 60 artist residencies and reaching 2,000 young people. Through the arts, students experienced new ways to learn and to approach STEM subjects.
ArtsWestchester piloted Teen Tuesdays –once-monthly visual, literary and performing arts workshops that take place in the Peckham Gallery at ArtsWestchester. Originally designed for teenagers who are living in White Plains Housing Authority properties, the program, which is open to any child age 12 to 16, quickly expanded to include teens from the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester and the Coachman Family Center, a homeless shelter in White Plains.
Also in the Peckham Gallery, ArtsWestchester unveiled a new education center. The StART UP Lab features educational art activities for visiting children and their families. These activities support and complement the content of each exhibition in the gallery.
In 2017, ArtsWestchester also focused on art's role in the healing process, particularly in hospitals and medical settings. The gallery staff curated On the Horizon and Different Textures, two exhibitions that feature regional artists for MSK Westchester's Chemo unit and other waiting areas.
ArtsWestchester's own gallery continued to be a resource for well-being by presenting the annual Visions exhibition, which featured artwork by recipients of mental health services in Westchester and Rockland Counties.
And ArtsWestchester continued its artist-in-residency programs, sending artists to 20 mental health sites and serving over 240 mental health recipients in addition to many people with special needs.
ArtsWestchester connected people of all backgrounds to the arts community in Westchester with artsw.org and its comprehensive online cultural calendar, that is visited by 120,000 people annually.
Ten issues of ArtsWestchester's newspaper, ArtsNews were published and distributed around the County as a means of promoting the events, exhibitions and classes of our 119 affiliates. Arts(e)News, the email newsletter subscribed to by 8,839 people as of December of 2017, featured weekly "Top 5 Arts Picks," which was also expanded to the blog with a permanent spot on the artsw.org homepage. In the summertime months, ArtsWestchester promoted "Music in the Air," a yearly directory of free and affordable outdoor events in Westchester.
ArtsWestchester organized two major exhibitions in its Peckham and Shenkman Galleries in 2017: From the Streets and Give Us the Vote. It also held another, The Photographer's Journey: A Tribute to Larry Salley, which raised funds for the Larry Salley Photography Award.
At a glance, the 2017 exhibitions featured aesthetically impressive works, ranging from bold and colorful to understated. A closer look, however, brought up important questions like the ones above and sparked discussion and debate.
Alongside the two main exhibitions, ArtsWestchester hosted performances, lectures and family workshops to engage diverse audiences and interpret the artistic content.
The arts preserve cultural traditions, yet also offer a pathway to finding our unique selves. There is something to gain for anyone and everyone who takes part in the arts, whether as artist or audience. That's one reason ArtsWestchester supports a diverse selection of arts programming in Westchester. Annually, ArtsWestchester serves as the County's designated cultural regrant agency, having distributed more than $1.2 million in 2017 to arts organization and artists throughout the County.
ArtsWestchester's Folk Arts program supported cultural performances across the County in 2017 and held various programs and performances in the gallery, including Puerto Rican music ensemble Los Pleneros de la 21, an Irish House Party and programs that coordinated with each art exhibition. These programs were also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts.
ArtsWestchester also supported organizations across the County, as well as individual artists through arts advocacy, technical assistance, professional development and marketing support.


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MLS Week 2 breakdown
LAFC dazzles, De Boer's blues, Poymkal shines, plus an MLS youth report
After the first two weeks in MLS there are some interesting surprises. De Boer is struggling as is USMNT hopeful Nick Lima. LAFC is fun to watch as is Paxton Pomykal and Kenny Saief. ASN's Brian Sciaretta breaks it all down
BY Brian Sciaretta PostedTHE SECOND week of the 2019 MLS season is now in the history books and there is a lot to digest from the league's opening start. What is particularly interesting is that there really isn't much of a grey area. The good teams look really solid. The bad teams are just bad.
March 11, 2019
March 11, 2019
Don't misunderstand. MLS remains really hard to predict but the quality seems to rise to the top fairly easily. For one, it's hard not to see LAFC as being really strong to start the year. It's also not hard to see that the Philadelphia Union has problems. There is also a lot of murky teams that could go either way.
The games this weekend were not as good as the first week and there wasn't all that much drama as none of the top teams faced each other. But there was still a lot to take in.
Here are some of my thoughts from Week 2.
TEAM OF THE WEEK: Los Angeles FC
Even while both of its first two games have come at home and the club hasn't had to take its show on the road yet, Los Angeles FC looks like a team that really should compete this year. On the heels of a 2-1 win over Sporting Kansas City, LAFC won its second game easily over Portland by a 4-1 score.
Bob Bradley's team right now has all the tools to be good and is really fun to watch. Carlos Vela might be the best player in the league and Diego Rossi is also a vital playmaker. Then you combine two different forwards in Christian Ramirez and Adama Diomande, it becomes an attack that is difficult to stop. The club also is going to get better when Andre Horta finally gets healthy. The backline, meanwhile, is solid.
Atlanta United might be down, but LAFC is probably the most entertaining team to watch right now.
American player of the week: Paxton Pomykal
There are a lot of players who are in the running for this. Gyasi Zardes scored two goals for the Crew. Christian Ramirez looked solid for LAFC. It was a great weekend for goalkeepers as Bill Hamid, Sean Johnson, and Tim Melia all played very, very well.
But Paxton Pomykal was very impressive for FC Dallas throughout a 2-0 win over the LA Galaxy. It was particularly refreshing to see a young American playmaker help his team to a nice win over the LA Galaxy – even without Zlatan.
Pomykal's assist to Bryan Acosta was the goal of the week – for both the assist and the goal.
Frank de Boer: Disappointment of the week
It is one thing for a new coach to implement his own style. But when a coach inherits a winning team, it is a little bit different. Most coaches that inherit a championship team tend to stick with what has been working and then implement his own ideas over gradual period of time.
De Boer inherited a very talented Atlanta team that likes to run free and beat everyone with its superior talent. De Boer has tried to force a rigid system on a team that is about as unrigid as it gets. In addition to bad results, the team is bound to get frustrated very quickly.
When you compare de Boer's hire with the hire of Chris Armas, who also inherited a good team, the difference is stark. Yes, Armas came from within the system from Jesse Marsch but he also has his own ideas that he is gradually putting into place. De Boer is taking a wrecking ball to a winning formula? Why?
When all is said and done, I do think Atlanta will make the playoffs again and will not be like Toronto last year. There is simply too much talent and too great of a home field advantage. The bottom of the Eastern Conference is so bad that the team will figure out a way to make points.
But De Boer appears to not appreciate what a phenomenon Atlanta was last year. Saying the fans were spoiled with results (which he did in the press conference following the game) is not the right approach because the team has the talent to get satisfactory results. Following the loss to Monterrey in the Champions League, de Boer echoed Jurgen Klinsmann with his response that the Mexican league has more history (which it does, but so what?) and that American kids go to college and Mexican kids play soccer in the street – a statement/excuse that seems to be both irrelevant and vastly outdated.
De Boer could change things around, but he's off to a bad start.
Saief impresses
Kenny Saief is now with Cincinnati on loan and the U.S. international made a strong first statement against the defending champions Atlanta with an outstanding assist to help the club win its first ever point.
What a ball from #USMNT left mid Kenny Saief. https://t.co/6NFUNdlaX5— Brian Sciaretta (@BrianSciaretta) March 10, 2019
Saief is a very good player who has had an unlucky run with injuries. He is at Cincinnati to get his career back on track. This is another area where MLS can be valuable on the American soccer landscape.
When healthy, Saief has one of the best left foots in the entire U.S. player pool. While he's not fast, he plays hard and has good vision.
Minnesota: 6 points, 2 road games
Minnesota is one of the best surprises to start the year. Two road games in the first six weeks has yielded six points. After a 3-2 win over Vancouver, the team handled San Jose easily by a 3-0 score.
While neither of the opponents were playoff material, road wins are important regardless. Darwin Quintero, in particular, has been the best player of the first two weeks.
Head coach Adrian Heath was the best in his response to the team's strong start, pretty much trashing the rosters of the first two years.
After winning two straight, I asked Heath what's different this year than years prior. He didn't hold back, #MNUFC: pic.twitter.com/Jde6GZhko9— Joel Soria (@soriajoelfutbol) March 10, 2019
Lima disappoints
Unfortunately, one of the more disappointing stories of the opening two weeks has been Nick Lima. After a very strong January camp and positive training stint with Hertha Berlin (which ASN heard went very well), Lima has not started off the season well for San Jose – which does not look improved from last year's terrible run. Quintero had a field day going at Lima all day on Wednesday.
Ebobisse's situation
Jeremy Ebobisse, 22, is an interesting situation and an important marker for Portland whether or not it is serious about development. The likely starter for the U.S. U-23 team for qualifying, Ebobisse is still raw but watching him at the end of last season and the start of this season, you can see there is an upside. He needs a lot of work, but will Portland show the willingness to work with him and give him the minutes to address his flaws.
Sadly it doesn't look as if it is the case because Portland is trying hard to sign a high-price, expensive center forward. Why? Because that is the default approach for too many teams. Portland's problem is that it has conceded seven goals to start the season. Teams need to invest more in defense.
But more American forwards need to get on the field in MLS. If Ebobisse goes to the bench, it will be too bad.
Youth report
Thus far, 29 players eligible for either the U.S. U-23, U-20, or U-17 national teams have played in MLS over the first two weeks of the season. That's a very good number early in the season since a healthy number of youth players tend to emerge later in seasons once they get adjusted.
Pomykal has indeed impressed, but he has typically been one of the more highly regarded American teenagers in the league.
One of the better surprises so far, however, is U-23 eligible Aaron Herrera at Real Salt Lake. The left back has nailed down a starting spot and looks vastly improved from his days on the 2017 U.S. U-20 World Cup team where he did not look as if he was a top prospect. He has improved quite a bit.
Justin Rennicks also made his professional debut over the weekend and while his Revolution team lost to Columbus 2-0, Rennicks looked lively and promising. He has impressed this cycle with the U.S. U-20 team and looks ready to make the transition to the pro game.
Central defender Miles Robinson has been one of the bring spots for a struggling Atlanta team and he should be ready to move up to the U-23 team despite having been cut from the U-20 national team in 2017.
James Sands, 18, is also a very interesting story because he has never really been given much of a look by Tab Ramos despite having been on the 2017 U.S. U-17 World Cup team. As a defensive midfielder, he has started both of New York City's games and has looked highly efficient, if unspectacular. Thus far he is playing more professional minutes in 2019 than anyone else in that position in the U-20 pool.


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The Abarth 124 GT Is a Carbon-Roofed Special Edition
The 124 GT also gets new OZ wheels and gunmetal mirror caps.
Ahead of the Geneva Motor Show, Abarth is showing off a special edition of its Miata-based 124 Spider dubbed the 124 GT. The GT's headline feature? A removable, carbon-fiber hardtop.
Weighing just 35 pounds, this special Abarth's woven roof apparently improves torsional rigidity, further upping this car's canyon-carving chops. Unlike the retractable hardtop found in its Miata RF badge-sibling, the 124 GT's cap is of the patiently-unlatch-and-keep-in-the-garage variety. Abarth says taking the top off should take just "a few minutes." Once detached, the roof can't be stored anywhere inside the 124 GT so unless you're cool with permanently leaving it on and treating this car like a coupe (which isn't a bad idea, actually), condo-dwellers need not apply.
On top of the new top (see what I did there?), this special edition 124 also comes with 17-inch OZ wheels that are 6.6 pounds lighter than standard and gunmetal-painted mirror caps.
Under the skin, things are unchanged. Like the normal Abarth 124 Spider, the GT features a 170-horsepower, 1.4-liter, Fiat four-cylinder bolted into what is basically a Mazda MX-5 in Italian robes.
It's unclear whether the 124 GT will be available in the U.S. so The Drive has reached out to the company for clarification. We'll update this story if we hear back.
UPDATE: In an email to The Drive, an FCA spokesperson refused to comment on future product.
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- RELATEDThe Fiat 124 Spider Is Wildly Different Than Its Miata SiblingThe Italian version of the MX-5 is more premium, and more stylish. But is it better?READ NOW
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New Transportation market report from Business Monitor International: "Romania Autos Report Q2 2013"
Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/13/2013 -- In 2012, passenger car sales in Romania declined 23.7%, to 71,179 units. In 2013, BMI forecasts sales in this segment to decline 5%. BMI maintains a particularly bearish outlook for GDP growth in Romania, and private consumption more specifically.
Unemployment increased over the course of 2012, and access to consumer credit remains weak. We expect these trends to continue into 2013. This outlook has informed our passenger car sales forecasts for 2013. Over the remainder of 2017 forecast period, we expect to see a steady increase in sales volumes, but believe the market will remain considerably below its 2007-peak within this time frame.
In Romania, the used-car segment is far more substantial than the new car market. In 2012, sales in the used-car segment increased 85.2%, to 174,950 units. As private consumption puts downward pressure on sales in the new car segment, we believe that Romanians are increasingly turning to the used-car market as a more affordable alternative. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the average age of the cars on the road is increasing, as drivers look to keep their cars longer before replacing them. We expect these trends to continue into 2013, and for the used car segment to grow.
View Full Report Details and Table of Contents
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You may also be interested in these related reports:
- Vietnam Autos Report Q2 2013
- Brazil Autos Report Q2 2013
- Hungary Autos Report Q2 2013
- Malaysia Autos Report Q2 2013
- Japan Autos Report Q2 2013
- Serbia Autos Report Q2 2013
- India Autos Report Q2 2013
- Pakistan Autos Report Q2 2013
- Qatar Autos Report Q2 2013
- Indonesia Autos Report Q2 2013


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MINIMAL/POOR/PRESENT - Esther Ferrer with Louise Ahl and Fritz Welch, Jessi...
MINIMAL/POOR/PRESENT brings together a solo performance by Esther Ferrer and four new commissions by UK-based artists loosely inspired by her work. The event's title draws from adjectives used by Ferrer to describe her work, which she believes to be at its strongest when she uses primarily her own body, keeping props and other elements to a minimum.
Pester & Rossi, Infinity Walk. Walking performance from the neighbourhoods we live in to The Pearce Institute, Govan. 4pm start, arriving at The Pearce Institute at 6pm.
MCLEOD HALL, from 6pm:
Esther Ferrer, Tracks, Spaces, Sounds. Performative action from the late 1960s.
Louise Ahl and Fritz Welch, I Never Perform As Me. An improvisation utilizing movement, objects, voice and incidental instruments.
Jessica Higgins, When One Says To Another. Performance piece for an ensemble, performed by Jamie Bolland, Gordon Douglas, Jessica Higgins and Maria Cecilia Tedemalm.
Sandra Johnston, Considerations on Infinity. Solo improvised performance.
Produced by Glasgow International. Additional support from The Glasgow School of Art and the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in London.
More information at: http://glasgowinternational.org/artists/esther-ferrer/
Esther Ferrer is best known for her performances, her principal form of artistic expression since 1965, both as a soloist and as a member of the pioneering experimental music and performance art group ZAJ (formed in 1964). Ferrer has performed across Europe (Yugoslavia, Poland, Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Hungary, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Spain, etc.), as well as in Cuba, the United States, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Korea and Palestine. In 1999 Ferrer was one of two Spanish artists chosen to represent Spain at the Venice Biennial. In 2009, the Spanish Ministry of Culture awarded her the National Fine Arts Prize.
Ruby Pester and Nadia Rossi have been working collaboratively across Scotland and internationally since 2008 under the collaborative artist name Pester & Rossi. As Pester & Rossi, their practice derives from visual art and leads to creating live art, sculpture, installation, public interventions and collaborations in response to people and places.
Ruby Pester and Nadia Rossi live in Glasgow and work on a range of projects including previously as part of the artist collective NOWNOW and more recently as part of the artist band Fallopé & the Tubes. Pester & Rossi are collaborative in nature, hosting public events and workshops, often working with young people to inform their practice.
Recent projects include: Lunar Campout (Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh), Inaugural Children's Procession (Hospitalfield Arts, Arbroath), PAULINE (Custom House Lane, Edinburgh Arts Festival), Good Fortune (Open House Festival Launch, Laurieston Arches, Glasgow), Inflato - Optical Image Intensifier (Look Again Festival, RGU, Aberdeen), Balancing Acts (Outskirts Festival, Platform, Glasgow), Bodyssey Odyssey (Baltic 39, Highbridge, Newcastle), Gobby on Tour (Supernormal Festival, Oxfordshire), Bust Out (Glasgow International Festival, Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie), Creature Comforts (Suttie Arts Space, Aberdeen, Royal Infirmary Aberdeen) and Actualizer Pro Wireless 8000 (The Red Shed, BBC Scotland).
Louise Ahl is a Glasgow-based artist originally from Sweden, making experimental and choreographic performance work. She creates both solo and collaborative multi-art-form pieces under the guise of Ultimate Dancer.
Louise makes work around the metaphysical and mystical, using movement, voice, light, sonics and language. Her work has been shown across the UK (including, but not limited to Southbank Centre and BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art), Ireland, Germany, France, USA and Australia and has been supported through Creative Scotland, Arts Council England and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee.
Her work has been commissioned by Dance4 ('Intercourse'), Edinburgh Art Festival ('Edelweiss, Edelweiss...') and Tramway ('Holy Smoke'). Louise was a New Associated Artist at Yorkshire Dance in 2012 and a Tramway Associated Artist in 2015/16. She is the 2017/18 recipient of the Starter Artist award through the National Theatre of Scotland.
Fritz Welch is determined to stretch the escalator of possibilities into the bloodshot eye of results. He makes installations and plays in various bands, noise units and improvising ensembles. Welch often collaborates with performers and choreographers. His working methods hover around and examine various interconnected cultural concerns, that presently include artificial intelligence, 1960s radical print publications such as The Rebel Worker, the depiction of the monstrous human in comics, and the ever present quagmire of government corruption. Welch was a founding member of Asparagus Piss Raindrop. He has recently performed in the quasi-shamanic 'Holy Smoke' by Ultimate Dancer and continues to do Maarten Seghers' theatre work 'O'. His first exhibition Buying Time for Future Membership was at A/C Project Room NYC in 1996. A longtime Brooklynite of Texas origins, he is now based in Glasgow.
Jessica Higgins is an artist living in Glasgow. She works in sculpture, performance and writing. Recent exhibitions include After Hours, 16 Nicholson St. Glasgow (solo, 2017); Sic, Glasgow Project Room (with Owen Piper, 2016); Grab a Chair, Flinch, The Glue Factory, Glasgow (group, 2016), Settling Up Some Of Things, Many Studios, Glasgow (group, 2016). She has performed for Murmur, Common, Manchester (October 2017); Comfortable on a Tightrope, Sounds From the Other City, Salford (May 2017); Stoke a Few Lulling Cinders... at Celine Gallery, Glasgow (August 2016); and Spring/Summer Open Weekend, Hospitalfield House, Arbroath (March 2015). Guilding, a novella and collection of quasi-essays was published by Publication Studio London in April 2017. She is 1/9th of Good Press, a volunteer-led-unfunded-informal-organisation dedicated to the promotion and production of independent artist publications and projects; and one half of Museums Press, a publisher of art for leisure (est. 2009) and its new subsidiary, A Plume, which publishes writing by artists twice in a year, and an annual (est. 2017).
Sandra Johnston is a visual artist from Northern Ireland active internationally since 1992, working predominantly in the areas of site-responsive performance and installation. Johnston's performances often involve exploring the aftermath of social and historical violence through actions that exist as forms of testimony and empathetic encounter. Since 2002, teaching and research has been an important part of her creative practice developed through several academic posts, including: AHRC Research Fellow at the Ulster University, investigating issues of 'trauma of place', (2002-2005), 'Ré Soupault' Guest Professor at the Bauhaus University, Germany (2007-2008), Lecturer Time-Based Art, Ulster University (2005-2012), and currently Course Leader of the BxNU MFA at Northumbria University, England. In addition, she increasingly works outside of institutions developing workshop processes based on improvisation and disruptions of rationalizing/binary thinking, as a means of evolving circumstances of individual and group attentiveness. Several artworks have developed through intensive collaborative processes, notably two long-standing partnerships with artists Alastair MacLennan and Dominic Thorpe. In addition, Johnston has been committed throughout her career to initiating and supporting the development of several artist-run collectives and networks.
Image credit: Esther Ferrer, Memoria. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1983. Photo: Nacho Criado


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An approach for global monitoring of surface water extent variations using MODIS data
Freshwater resources are among the most basic requirements of human society. Nonetheless, global information about the space-time variations of the area of freshwater bodies, and the water stored in them, is surprisingly limited. We introduce a MODIS-based algorithm to map the global areal extent of surface water bodies at 500m spatial resolution at nominal eight-day intervals from 2000 to 2015. We demonstrate the algorithm construction and performance for five reservoirs on four continents with different shapes. The algorithm performs well compared to satellite radar altimetry and in situ height measurements, and in comparison with surface area estimates based on higher resolution Landsat data. We further present a summary of our global scale results over 69 reservoirs for which altimetry measurements are available, and show that our surface area estimates match well with relative height variations and show significant improvements over previous estimates. One of the main reasons for these improvements is a novel post-processing technique that makes use of imperfect labels produced by supervised classification approaches on multiple dates to estimate the elevation structure of locations that is used to enhance the quality and completeness of imperfect labels. However, the approach is still challenged in regions with frequent cloud cover, snow and ice coverage, or complicated geometries that require finer spatial resolution remote sensing data. The surface area estimates we describe here are publically available.


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Yes, you've heard the hype. It's all true. Just finishing off a marathon of the 60's new-to-DVD drama, Mad Men. I've cruised through 3 of the 4 discs in record time, and am hopefully finishing the final disc of the first season tonight. I strongly recommend indulging in this series, trust me, you won't be disappointed.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Posted by Michelle {lovely little things} at 8:42 PM
Labels: trends, TV, Vanity Fair
1 comment
- Carol {Everyday Delights} said...
I trust your opinion - I'll check it out!
- August 10, 2008 at 10:54 PM
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Good books about mid-20th century America
Like stuff about the Kennedys or Martin Luther King or stuff like that. I've got a general knowledge of it, but am interested in learning more.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions x
Novelisation of that shit?
American tabloid by James Ellroy or The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell (no need to read the back of this one).marckee this'd this
Was more looking for non-fiction
but just looked up American Tabloid on amazon, looks good - will add it to the list.
American Tabloid is one of my favourite books
It's brilliant.
I'm reading the Kindly Ones based on your fucking recommendation
It's not as funny as I thought it was going to be.
I reckon some of it is the least funny stuff you can ever read.
American Tabloid is a lot more funny.
*montage of DD's summer, soundtracked by 'Any Way You Want It' by Journey - DD reading the LBJ book, DD talking to groups of enthusiastic teenagers on the beach about LBJ, DD at a fancy dress party dressed as LBJ and jumping into the pool, finishes with DD placing the LBJ book on the book shelf and smiling to herself*
the invisible man by ralph ellison
fantastic novel about race and politics in the time, came out about a decade before the 'I have a dream speech'. it's just brilliant, read it. all of you.japes this'd this
and for non-fiction he's done loads of essays and things
can't remember any by name but i've read a couple and they're very good. the telegraph did a pretty good piece about him on the 100th anniversary of his birth earlier this year http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10668553/Ralph-Ellison-the-man-who-made-Black-America-visible.html
Another novel
but I'm halfway through Libra by Don Delillo - it's about Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK assassination and a cracking read.
Slightly too early for what you're asking -
and despite usually finding him unbearably trite - Bill Bryson's One Summer: America 1927 is worthwhile.
It's literally what it says in the title - about the summer of 1927 when loads of "optimistic" stuff occurred
Got that for my da at Christmas
Will get a loan of it from him.
I got it for my mum
But I read it before I gave it to her. The perfect crime


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The Subtle Knife
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The Subtle Knife
In this, the eagerly-awaited second part of Pullman's allegoric trilogy, three universes overlap. Will, leaving home to find the real reason for his father's long absence, thinks he has killed a man. Just outside Oxford, he notices, and goes through, a gap in the transparent boundary into another world. There, in a dreary town haunted by mind-numbing vampires, he meets Lyra, the forthright, deceitful heroine of Northern Lights, and her daemon.
They are also adrift. The children's separate quests join as they seek the subtle knife, the last powerful symbol of the ancient philosophers and the only threat to the Spectres. It allows the true bearer to part and reseal the thinning membrane between all worlds. After a near-mortal combat, Will is recognised as the knife-bearer whose inexorable responsibility is to be strong against the dark forces of evil. Lyra, her consciousness extended by Will's acceptance, knows her first task is to help him to find his father. The reader is guided through the strong, flexible cat's-cradle of the plot by the author's narrative spell-binding, and by the sigillum, a location symbol on each page.
After the experience of Northern Lights readers expect a series of surprises as part of the structure. Although here there is nothing quite the same as the titanic bear fight, nor the skincrawling gruesomeness of the silver guillotine, the inventions of suspense never flag. There is more, deeper, thought-action. Lyra's awareness of Will's concern for others lessens her egocentrism. She discovers mutual trust and learns to intuit Will's responses. (He has no visible daemon to demonstrate them.) The wise air-borne guardians are constantly watchful, but we feel their power is diminishing; or rather, it has passed to the heavenly intelligences. There are threads to be gathered up; a computer lady has followed the trail, perhaps.
The dimensions of Pullman's project for His Dark Materials, its fully epic structure, emerge clearly from this novel as something more extensive, profound and resonant than anything the present generation of young readers, including those from the Star Wars annexe, has yet encountered. Pullman accepts and responsibly transforms the inevitable didactic of writing for children: to make them strong enough, wise enough, to encounter the consequences of their actions and feelings, good or evil, as they anticipate their future. The sublime has long been out of fashion in literature, especially for children. Like Milton, whose epic poem lies behind this enterprise, Pullman has little time for fugitive and cloistered virtue. One needs to draw a longer critical breath to do justice to all his subtleties, but I have seen the effect on young readers who, in his company, go further than they ever thought they could.


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Your baby weighs 875 grams and measures 14.5 inches from head to toe. He looks similar to what he will look like at birth, except a little thinner and smaller. The lungs, liver, and immune system are not fully mature, but if he is born now, he would still have a very good chance of surviving. He is growing faster and filling the available space in your uterus. He can now open/close his eyes, and even develops brain scans show developing sleep cycles. He may also start to suck a finger or thumb. Your baby might now recognize both your and your partner's voices by now
Some experts believe that babies begin to dream by the 28th week. The characteristic furrows on the brain's surface appear and more brain tissue develops.
Your baby's taste buds are well developed now Babies also start to hiccup at this stage. Hiccup episodes usually lasts only momentarily.


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[Music] Vsagz ft. Erigga – The Story Of Chioma : Download and Stream Free Mp3 Songs Audio
South side's fastest rising Rapper/Singer, Vsagz comes through with a brand new single titled "The Story Of Chioma", produced by Mzes.
The song "The Story Of Chioma" features Critically acclaimed king of the south, Erigga.
Kindly Listen & Download "The Story Of Chioma" By "Vsagz ft. Erigga".
Download Music ==> Vsagz ft. Erigga – The Story Of Chioma
Download, Share and Enjoy!!!


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Putnam Says DeSantis Has "No Working Knowledge" of Florida, Would Need Two Years of "On-The-Job Training" as Governor
Putnam Says DeSantis Has "No Plan, No Vision, No Agenda, No Knowledge, No Working Knowledge of Our State"
Putnam Says a DeSantis Victory in November Would Be "Tragic"
During an interview with WFLA today, Adam Putnam slammed Ron DeSantis for having "no working knowledge" of Florida and said his opponent would need "two years of on-the-job training" if elected. Putnam even claimed that a DeSantis victory in November would "be tragic" because of his opponent's ignorance about state issues.
Putnam has been sharply critical of DeSantis, but today's attacks are the closest Florida's Agriculture Commissioner has come to saying DeSantis is unqualified to be Florida's next governor.
Listen to the interview here at minute 2:26.
During the interview, Putnam said DeSantis' campaign is "being run out of a TV studio, largely out of state, one that involves celebrity guest appearances popping in and out, but really has no plan, no vision, no agenda, no knowledge, no working knowledge of our state. And it would be tragic to have the CEO of the third largest state being, doing on the job training during the first two years."
Putnam's attack on DeSantis' lack of Florida knowledge has been echoed by editorial boards across the state — including The Miami Herald, The Tampa Bay Times, and The Sun Sentinel. In an editorial today, The Miami Herald slammed DeSantis for presenting "few ideas as to how he will address the state's most pressing issues: education, healthcare, immigration, transportation, jobs. Supporting the border wall won't be enough." The Tampa Bay Times editorial board echoed that view earlier this month, saying that DeSantis "shows little understanding of state policy or of the challenges facing this state on state issues."


text:
Robert Hemphill, Treasurer
Rob is a family strategist, working extensively with Australian and international families to realise both their financial and family objectives. Rob has broad experience in working with unique and varied family businesses, providing specialised advice that encompasses their business operations, accounting, taxation and estate planning needs. Rob has particular expertise in working with families to realise the wealth potential of significant assets, ensuring strategies are in place to facilitate the wealth transition to the next generation of family leaders.


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Shades of Moonstone
MAJ Designs
Peach moonstone, gray moonstone, smokey quartz, citrine with brass and gold flake spacers
Hand wire wrapped with goldfill wire and findings
Approx. 36" long
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