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Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf's U.S. Open and the Olympics, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown
Danny Davidsmeier joked about a pair of Redlands East Valley High School area products, Tyler Chatwood and Matt Andriese, who are current major league players.
Chatwood, who now pitches for the Chicago Cubs, had been drafted by the Angels and traded to Colorado.
Andriese was an original draft pick by the San Diego Padres, eventually traded to the Tampa Bay Rays.
"I'm a hitting coach," said Davidsmeier, "and they made it to the majors as pitchers."
If he could list the entire roster of youth-level players that he's instructed, that entire collection might be able to fill a full high school league of all-star level talent.
Matt Davidson also comes to mind. A current major league slugger, who was a high school MVP as a freshman at Yucaipa, got drafted by Arizona and traded to the White Sox. Davidsmeier started coaching Davidson at age 11.
It's Davidsmeier, perhaps, who bridges the gap with a growing number of ballplayers who have taken paid hitting instruction from him for nearly two decades. And why not?
His background is insanely interesting.
Imagine being an All-State player at San Bernardino Valley College in the mid-1970s. It came just before his days as an All-American shortstop at USC.
The Yucaipa High product, who came out of the Thunderbirds' program one year before Jeff Stout began an unprecedented 42-year run as their coach, was taken in the draft by the Milwaukee Brewers.
Sounds promising, doesn't it?
Mention names like Robin Yount and Paul Molitor to Davidsmeier. He laughs.
It wouldn't be surprising to hear him say it. "Those guys," he might say, "kept me out of the major leagues."
Both Yount, a shortstop, and Molitor, a second baseman who later moved to third base, are Hall of Famers. In the early 1980s, the two — along with second baseman Jim Gantner — all but blocked Davidsmeier's promising pathway to the major leagues.
In those days, they were known as Harvey's Wall Bangers, a reference to Brewers' manager Harvey Kuenn, who was quite a hitter in his day.
Imagine hitting .371 with 16 HRs as a USC senior in 1981. It was there Davidsmeier played for legendary coach Rod Dedeaux, a former shortstop in his own playing days.
USC? All-American? That got Milwaukee's attention — third round selection in 1981, No. 72 overall. That's the same draft, incidentally, in which first-rounders like Joe Carter, Matt Williams and Ron Darling were selected.
Tony Gwynn was taken in that same third round, too, just 14 picks before Davidsmeier.
As for Davidsmeier, he spent his best years playing minor league baseball, rising to Triple A Vancouver just two years after being drafted.
While Yount-Molitor-Gantner were thriving in Milwaukee, Davidsmeier's hopes might've been curtailed by their all-star level play.
Davidsmeier's most productive season might've been in 1982 when he hit .272 with 10 HR as a 22-year-old shortstop.
Led by the MVP season of Yount, the Brewers reached the 1982 World Series, losing in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Even playing behind such a talented crop of major leaguers might've inspired other organizations to seek out Milwaukee's prized minor leaguers — like Davidsmeier.
Milwaukee, in those years, was loaded. Besides Molitor and Yount, there were players like first baseman Cecil Cooper (.298, 241 career HR), Gorman Thomas (268 HR), Ben Oglivie (.275, 235 HR), plus catcher Ted Simmons (.285, 245 HR) while Gantner (.274) was as sure-handed an infielder as anyone.
Throw in Hall of Fame numbers from Yount (3,142 hits, 583 doubles, 126 triples, 251 HR, .285) and Molitor (3,319 hits, 605 doubles, 234 HR, 504 stolen bases, .306).
That's the lineup Davidsmeier was trying to crack.
Doug DeCinces had a hard time becoming Baltimore's third baseman with Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson playing ahead of him in the early 1970s.
In that same era, center fielder Garry Maddox would've rotted away in San Francisco if the Giants hadn't traded Willie Mays to the Mets.
Thank goodness Wally Pipp had a headache one day in New York. Lou Gehrig might've never gotten a chance.
Yes, Davidsmeier spent plenty of Arizona-based spring training sessions with the Gantner-Young-Molitor trio ahead of him on the Brewers' depth chart.
Gantner was considered good enough to drive Molitor from second base to third base.
Davidsmeier, too, had played all three spots.
In 1982, he was hitting .272 with 10 HR with Class AA El Paso.
By age 28, Davidsmeier was ready to head elsewhere — Italy, Mexico, Taiwan, Canada, Czechoslavakia, Korea, Japan and Columbia, to name a few stops.
Twenty-two years on the international road led Davidsmeier back home — Yucaipa, Loma Linda, Redlands, Highland, the entire area. He became a growingly popular private hitting instructor.
Main base for Davidsmeier these days is Loma Linda. The batting cages there went from Hitter's Choice Batting Cages to its new name, IE Performance Center & Batting Cages. The re-opening was scheduled for June 2-3.
Davidsmeier says he likes the new layout. The husband-wife ownership of Dr. Alan Herford and Kirilina Herford liked the atmosphere. They took over the place, signing a 14-month lease. It wouldn't be a stretch to believe that Davidsmeier's part of that atmosphere.
If you're in the cage with Davidsmeier, it'll be a productive moment.
Name a productive hitter from the area. Chances are decent that Davidsmeier has worked with them in the practice cages.
Current major leaguers Davidson, Chatwood and Andriese come quickly to mind.
Cracked Davidsmeier: "Matt and Tyler lived down the street from each other in Yucaipa. They got a lot of experience just working out with each other."


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The dickhead doesnt have a reputation to think of, well at least not a good one. His only reputation to date consists of finishing 17th with shite teams, dull football and bribery.
And we've topped up his pension to a level he could only dream of so reputation isn't something he's concerned about nowadays.
What did Swansea do against these?
Back to the XI that played against Leicester and we should be ok-------------PickfordColeman Keane Jagielka Martina------Gana Davies Rooney-- Walcott Niasse SigurdssonNo Schneiderlin or Bolasie please.
Even more infuriating that Lookman didn't get a decent chance despite some promising performances. Then infuriating hearing his petulant comments in response about how much Bolasie cost.
Zaha out on Saturday
I'd give Klassen a chance in the midfield for this one. Schneiderlin needs to go play with the U-23s so he can learn a few things from them.
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Another week, another release of exciting new Forza Motorsport 3 screenshots. This time, they epict our favorite super cars from Italy, Germany and American in a super car tango, driven by a plethora of black Stigs.
The October release date of Microsoft and Turn 10's XBOX 360 racer looms ever closer, reminding us that we'll be spending some quality seat time on our couch this Fall. Check out our ever growing car list HERE to see what other rides you'll be able to pilot, though we think the Audi R8 5.2L V10 is all we'll ever need. [Forza Motorsport]


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Staff member
"Yeah, when I was doing it, and even when I chose it, there were people in my camp who were saying, 'You really want to do a penguin movie? You know, a penguin movie, children's movie kind of thing?'" Carrey recalled.
"It's like, 'You want that rock-and-roll edge in your life? And is that really to code?' But I just went with the instinct of, 'I love frickin' penguins'."
At first glance, Mr Popper's Penguins looks like a reworking of one of his biggest hits, Liar Liar (1997), another comedy about a wayward dad who finds his lost soul only after going through an extraordinary adventure.
It also appears that another one-time hot comic actor is trying to salvage his box-office cred by going the family film route. (Think Steve Martin's Cheaper by the Dozen films or Eddie Murphy's Dr Doolittles.)
But look again and see Mr Popper's Penguins is none of the above, with fleshed-out, shades-of-grey characters (and no less than Angela Lansbury in the supporting cast), offering the sort of substance to keep adults engaged as well as the kids.
And while the lead role wasn't tailor-made for Carrey (it's based on the Richard and Florence Atwater novel), there's just enough manic, fast-talking Carrey schtick worked into the movie to sate the star's long-time fans.
"So, this wasn't the approach of, 'I'm an alien in this movie and I'm different than everybody else,'" Carrey noted. "It was, 'I am every man' in this movie, every person who is striving for some sort of personal greatness, or trying to [run] away from their actual feelings. That was an important aspect of it. And then the bottom line: I love penguins, people love penguins. I go, 'Jim Carrey. Penguins. Rumble in the jungle. I'm there'."
Oddly enough, it wasn't the real penguins but the animatronic variety that caused real trouble on the set, thanks to cast and crew's array of personal-electronic devices messing with the remote-control signals.
"With the [real] penguins, my favourite moment was just the mayhem at the dinner table and stuff that went on after the camera was off," Carrey said.
"Real penguins, real penguins that were supposed to be kept at bay, sitting in their chairs and eating off the plates and they just went nuts and took over."
Oscar buzz
Carrey has alternated between commercial and artier fare since shortly after his star-making role in The Mask (1994). In 1998, he got serious Oscar buzz (though no nomination) for his work in The Truman Show and a year later for Man on the Moon.
He also got serious in The Majestic (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), The Number 23 (2007) and I Love You Phillip Morris (2009). At 49, Carrey shows no sign of changing that game plan: alternating comic crowd-pleasers with art-house fare.
"It should be impossible that a guy who talked through his butt is doing a Peter Weir movie (The Truman Show) about such an important topic as blazing your way through the world and being true to yourself. That generally doesn't happen," Carrey said.
"But I really believe that people are as limited as they believe they are, and that they just have to have the nerve enough to say, 'Yeah, I know you told me I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm going to do it and see what happens'," he said.
"You know, I've gone so far out this way and so far out this way that sometimes it's when I do a film like (Mr Popper's Penguins), they kind of meet in the middle, and I get the best of both worlds."


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Sit at Your Desk and Die or Stand and Look Stupid: The Ultimate Office Dilemma
Bad news: A doctor at Mayo Clinic has come up with a new disease: "sitting disease," which is caused by too much inactivity and can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease, much like smoking. To offset the ill effects of sitting all day, he recommends one of those standing desks which, while extending your life, are as aesthetically appealing as that mask Kobe Bryant is wearing these days. (Dr. James Levine, who invented—er, discovered sitting disease works on one of those treadmill desks.)
Maybe someday working at a desk while walking on a treadmill will not be viewed as the weird peccadillo of the kind of health nut who might have a room in his basement dedicated to pressing quinoa and exotic berries into energy bars. (Bloomberg could help by taxing the hell out of chairs, and outlawing sitting in city parks.) Maybe future office workers will be amused/disgusted by all our prehistoric sitting like we are by the sexism in "Mad Men." But at this point, even proof that standing at your desk gives you x-ray vision would not convince most workers to be that one person in the office towering over everyone, pierced by the scornful stares of all your coworkers slowly sitting themselves to death below.


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Our experience includes the representation of more than 75 housing authorities, the closing of hundreds of bond transactions as bond and underwriter's counsel, and involvement in thousands of tax-credit transactions. We routinely represent borrowers and more than a dozen lenders under all of the multifamily programs of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and HUD.
We are called upon by clients engaged in the acquisition, development, expansion, and disposition of virtually every type of housing, including:
Our experience in banking, securities, zoning, green building, litigation, and bankruptcy complements our housing practice. We have been engaged as bond counsel in billions of dollars in single family and multifamily housing revenue bonds. Our energy team is at the forefront of the green construction and retrofitting of buildings, and several of our lawyers hold the LEED AP designation.
Our finance lawyers provide pragmatic, leading-edge advice on even the most complex transactions, including:
We represent clients in every space in the market, including:
We work with housing authorities nationwide, advising on the demolition, disposition, and development of public housing projects. Our work includes implementing mixed-finance development projects, assisting with RAD conversions, obtaining HUD regulatory waivers, structuring and closing transactions involving capital fund bonds, and private financings using various tax credits.
We have closed numerous affordable housing projects, including mixed-income units, mixed-use developments, and sustainable-energy improvements. Our attorneys assist clients in innovative transactions, combining public housing redevelopment with energy improvements, continuing care facilities, school construction, and transit-oriented development.
We also assist housing authorities with other programs, such as Moving to Work, Section 8 contracts, asset management, the Section 30 Public Housing Mortgage Program, and OIG investigations. Our lawyers have developed productive working relationships with HUD officials and have a solid understanding of their programs and procedures.
We represent private and public lenders, borrowers, and other clients nationwide, counseling on all aspects of HUD-insured financing transactions. Our work has included acquisition, rehabilitation, and new construction loans; tax-exempt bond financings credit enhanced by HUD insurance; Government National Mortgage Association mortgage-backed securities; IRP decoupling transactions; and transfer of physical assets applications. We are experienced in virtually all of HUD's multifamily programs and with the related tax, securities, environmental, and other legal issues associated with HUD transactions.
We also assist lenders in obtaining HUD mortgagee and MAP approvals to originate HUD-insured loans. We help lenders respond to audit reports, pre-penalty determinations, and other adverse findings and advise on servicing issues. We negotiate loan and servicing portfolio sales and perform due diligence reviews. Our lawyers enjoy effective working relationships with HUD headquarters and local office employees.
We counsel lenders, borrowers, and other clients nationwide on all aspects of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac financing products for multifamily housing projects and seniors facilities and on related compliance and servicing issues. Our attorneys handle all types of conventional mortgage and bond financings, including acquisition, rehabilitation, refunding, and forward commitment new construction loans. We also assist clients with loan assumptions, distressed asset advice, and default resolution. We represent Freddie Mac on an ongoing basis as counsel for its tax-exempt bond credit enhancement and securitization programs.
Our attorneys assist lenders in obtaining approval to originate and deliver loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, advise on servicing issues, negotiate loan participations and loan and servicing portfolio sales, and perform due diligence reviews. We have developed extensive relationships throughout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and have a solid understanding of their loan products, procedural requirements, and preferences.
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DNA sequenced of woman who lived to 115
By Helen Briggs
Health editor, BBC News website
- Published
The entire DNA sequence of a woman who lived to 115 has been pieced together by scientists.
The woman, who was the oldest in the world at the time of her death, had the mind of someone decades younger and no signs of dementia, say Dutch experts.
The study, reported at a scientific conference in Canada, suggests she had genes that protected against dementia.
Further work could give clues to why some people are born with genes for a long life, says a UK scientist.
It is more than 10 years since the first draft of the human genetic code was revealed.
Since then, perhaps a few hundred individuals have had their genes mapped in full, as the technology to "read" DNA gets better and cheaper.
The woman, whose identity is being kept secret, and is known only as W115, is the oldest person to have her genes mapped.
She donated her body to medical science, allowing doctors to study her brain and other organs, as well as her entire genetic code.
Dr Henne Holstege, of the Department of Clinical Genetics at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, says she appeared to have some rare genetic changes in her DNA.
It is not yet clear what role they carry out, but it appears there is something in her genes that protects against dementia and other diseases of later life.
Dr Holstege told the BBC: "We know that she's special, we know that her brain had absolutely no signs of Alzheimer's.
"There must be something in her body that is protective against dementia.
"We think that there are genes that may ensure a long life and be protective against Alzheimer's."
Proof of principle
W115 was born prematurely and was not expected to survive.
But she lived a long and healthy life, and entered a care home at the age of 105.
She eventually died from a stomach tumour, having been treated for breast cancer at the age of 100.
A test of her mental skills at the age of 113 showed she had the performance of a woman aged 60-75 years.
At post-mortem examination, doctors found no evidence of dementia or the furring of the arteries seen in heart disease.
They are making her gene sequence available to other researchers, to further the cause of science.
The work, which has yet to be published, was presented at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting in Montreal, Canada.
Commenting on the study, Dr Jeffrey Barrett, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, said it was an important proof of principle.
He told the BBC: "Sequencing the genome of the world's oldest woman is an important starting point to understand how DNA variation relates to the process of having a long, healthy life.
"But in order to really understand the underlying biology of living a long, healthy life, we will need to look at the DNA sequence of hundreds or thousands of people."


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| 4.9°C Belfast
A bomb has been found close to the venue for this summer`s G8 conference of world leaders in Northern Ireland.
It was made safe in an abandoned car in Co Fermanagh - just 16 miles from the exclusive Lough Erne golf resort hosting this June's summit. The PSNI said it was probably intended to attack a nearby police station.
There has been a heavy security presence in the area ahead of the G8. Dissident republicans opposed to the peace process and responsible for a series of previous shootings and bombings are prime suspects.
PSNI district commander Pauline Shields said: "The people responsible for this have no regard for the lives of anyone in our community. It is fortunate that no-one was killed or seriously injured as a result of this reckless act."
US president Barack Obama, German chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian president Vladimir Putin are among those expected to attend the G8 meeting at Lough Erne near Enniskillen.
The security alert over the bomb on the Derrylin Road, Enniskillen, has ended. Although investigations are at an early stage, police believe the vehicle containing the device was destined for Lisnaskea PSNI station, situated near homes and a church. Residents near the scene of the alert were evacuated from their homes and Army technical officers carried out a clearance operation on the car.
Ms Shields added: "Once again our community has been disrupted and the lives of residents put at risk by an element intent on causing loss of life and disruption. The people who carried out this act are not part of the society within which the majority of people of Northern Ireland wish to live. The subsequent complex operation has tied up resources that would otherwise be dealing with community issues."
Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers said: "Those responsible for it have neither mandate nor legitimacy; they are totally out of touch with what the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland want. Acts like this only serve to strengthen our resolve against those terrorists who have nothing to offer Northern Ireland except mayhem and destruction."
DUP Stormont MLA Arlene Foster said those responsible were intent on taking life. "Had this bomb been detonated in that locality there would have been carnage," she warned.
Police said the device was onboard a Silver Volkswagen Bora car, abandoned on the Derrylin Road in the early hours of Friday. It consisted of approximately 60 kg of homemade explosives contained in a beer keg. The vehicle and bomb have been taken for further forensic examination.


text: Where else can you find the perfect combination of history, culture and technology? In Cedar Falls/Waterloo, you can visit the past by strolling through structures listed with the National Historic Registry, stay updated by attending a lecture at the University of Northern Iowa or catching a traveling Broadway show at the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center. You can keep in shape by traveling the miles of bike trails, enjoy the Grout Museum's many exhibits, or catch an exciting minor league hockey match or baseball game.


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Provides direct and indirect patient care. Communicates with physicians/Nurse Manager/co-workers, as appropriate about changes in patient's clinical condition including results of diagnostic studies and symptomatology. Is able to respond quickly and accurately to changes in condition or response to treatment. Additionally, is able to perform general nursing duties in all departments with adequate supervision.
Duties & Responsibilities
Ability to perform a head to toe assessment on all patients and reassessments as per unit care area statement.
Ability to adequately assess and reassess pain. Utilizes appropriate pain management techniques. Educates the patient and family regarding pain management.
Ability to implement and revise plan of care as indicated by the patients response to treatment and evaluate overall plan daily for effectiveness.
Ability to perform , interpret, and take appropriate action on waived testing (point of care testing) per
Clinical Laboratories standards
Knowledge of medications and their correct administration based on age of the patient and their clinical condition.
Follows the five (5) medication rights.
Formulates a teaching plan based upon identified learning needs and evaluates effectiveness of learning. Family is included in teaching as appropriate.
Demonstrates an ability to assist physicians with procedures and performs services requiring technical and manual skills.
Answers patients' call lights, anticipates patients' needs and makes safety rounds of patients.
Treats patients and their families with respect and dignity.
Identifies and addresses psychosocial, cultural, ethnic and religious/spiritual needs of patients and their families.
Functions as liaison between administration, patients, physicians and other healthcare providers.
Interacts professionally with patient/family and involves patient/family in the formation of the plan of care.
Participates in patient care conferences.
Demonstrates knowledge of the principles of growth and development over the life span and the skills necessary to provide age appropriate care to the patient population served.
Able to interpret data about the patients status in order to identify each patients age specific needs and provide care needed by the patient group.
Performs all aspects of patient care in an environment that optimizes patient safety and reduces the likelihood of medical/health care errors.
Consults other departments as appropriate to provide for an interdisciplinary approach to the patients needs.
Communicates appropriately and clearly to Nurse Manager, coworkers and physicians.
Maintains a good working relationship both within the department and with other departments.
Identifies and addresses psychosocial needs of patients and family; communicates with Social Service/Discharge Planner regarding both in hospital and post discharge needs.
Documentation meets current standards and policies.
Manages and operates equipment safely
Coordinates and supervises patient care as necessary.
Demonstrates an ability to be flexible, organized and function under stressful situations.
Demonstrates the ability to deal with pressure to meet deadlines, to be accurate, and to handle constantly changing situations.
Demonstrates the ability to deal with a variety of people, deal with stressful situations, and handle conflict.
Demonstrates ability to perform unit specific competencies to include the performance of nursing treatments and provision of clinical services. (See skills checklist)
Education/Experience Requirements:
Current state Registered Nurse Licensure, within state of practice.
BLS certification.
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FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- State officials have approved a major expansion of a toxic waste landfill in Central California that residents say has caused birth defects in children.
Deborah Raphael, director of the California Department of Toxic Substances, said Wednesday that the Kettleman Hills landfill can grow to 15 million cubic yards, marking a 50 percent expansion.
Raphael and officials at Chemical Waste Management Inc. cite state reports that say there's no link between the landfill and birth defects.
The decision on expansion came years after officials at Chemical Waste Management asked the state for permission to expand In 2008.
The landfill is near the farming community of Kettleman City off Interstate 5 midway between Sacramento and Los Angeles. It's one of two hazardous waste landfills operating in California, and the largest in the West.


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Kerry: China could have helped with Snowden case
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the U.S. thinks China could have "made a difference" in the case of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden if it had returned him to America to face charges.
But Kerry says the U.S.-China relationship is bigger than one incident and that the two countries cooperate on numerous issues, including North Korea.
Kerry spoke Monday at a Southeast Asia conference in Brunei.
Snowden's efforts to evade U.S. authorities - taking him from a hotel hideout in Hong Kong to an airport transit zone in Moscow - have undercut U.S. efforts to strengthen ties with China and threaten to worsen tension with Russia just as President Barack Obama seeks Moscow's cooperation on Syria. Kerry is to meet Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.


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On June 30, 2011 Bowden sat down for a video interview while in San Francisco for a speaking engagement. In his responses he argues the extreme violence seen in Mexico is a sign of a deeper societal disintegration resulting from governmental corruption, failed economic policies, and the War on Drugs.
Truthout article - The Real War on Drugs: Veteran Border Journalist Charles Bowden Speaks


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Steven Holl Architects has just unveiled its preliminary concept design for a new Doctorate's Building for the Schools of Law and Economic Sciences at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá. Holl and his partner, Chris McVoy (with whom he is collaborating on the project), say the 70,000-square-foot, two-story building is intended to re-energize the original campus master plan and encourage social connections. — Architectural Record
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THE SQL Server Blog Spot on the Web
One of the coolest technologies Microsoft released with SQL Server 2005 was Database Mirroring, which provided the ability to have a failover copy of a database on another SQL Server instance, and have the ability to automatically failover to that copy should a problem occur with the primary database. What was even cooler was that this new technology was available on Standard Edition! Mom and Pop shops could afford to implement a high availability solution without paying an extra tens of thousands of dollars in license fees, and still have a service they could rely upon. This new technology was continued with SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2, with the same edition rules, and now lots of companies embrace it fully.
When we first started discussing Availability Groups, the new "Always On" technology that was introduced with SQL Server 2012 with Microsoft, the development team told us that it would "leverage" the clustering services technology built into the Windows Operating System. I was extremely upset with this decision because at that time, clustering services was only supported in the Enterprise Edition of Windows Server. (I was vocal enough about it that Michael Coles (blog) started calling me "Mr. Standard Edition".)
The good news about Windows Clustering Services is that it's now supported in Standard Edition on Windows Server 2012.
The bad news about Availability Groups is that it's only supported in Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2012. Oh, and by the way, Database Mirroring is now deprecated.
Now, deprecated doesn't mean it's gone, just that it's scheduled to be removed from the product in a future release. (Isn't that comforting?)
Personally, I think that in the interest in competing with Oracle and DB2, Microsoft is abandoning the client base that got them to the point where they CAN compete with Oracle and DB2, and that isn't good, for the client base or for Microsoft. Customers have come to rely on Microsoft to put out a great product at a reasonable price. This focus on Enterprise Only for all mission-critical features puts SQL Server out of reach for startup businesses. (Yes, I know there's now Windows Azure SQL Database, but if you're in a place where your internet connectivity isn't always reliable you have no reasonably priced solution.)
My request to Microsoft is to please continue to support Database Mirroring, and remove the "deprecated" label from that technology. It works, it's reasonably easy to implement, and it provides some level of comfort that ensures that businesses can continue to operate if a server fails for any reason.
I really don't believe Microsoft is going to leave these users out in the cold. By the time database mirroring is no longer available (three major releases from now - SQL Server 2018? 2019?), I am sure they will have found a way for Standard Edition customers to make some limited use of Availability Groups - say, exactly one replica. Much like they extended backup compression to Standard Edition in 2008 R2.
Just because they haven't announced exactly what will replace mirroring in 5-6 years does not mean they aren't thinking about it.
I agree with Aaron. Even though DBM is deprecated, it still works just as before, and will for at least a couple of new versions of SQL Server after SQL Server 2014.
A small business could be using DBM with "SQL Server 2018" ten years from now if they needed to. I am sure Microsoft will have a viable replacement before then.
Don't you guys remember Notification Services? Without a clearly defined roadmap we're all just hoping Microsoft does the right thing. When customers ask, and I have to say "well, it's deprecated, but it'll be around for a few releases yet," the level of confidence in the technology is pretty low. I'm simply asking for a well-defined path to the future that some random ISP can't interfere with.
Panic when they do it. Notification Services was an exception - both because nobody was using it and also because they heard the feedback loud and clear - they did not follow deprecation policy, it wasn't appreciated, and I'll wait to panic until they do it again. I do think they learn from the loud feedback they get from certain poor decisions (unlike the Windows team, SQL Server was smart enough to not name the next version 2012 R2).
And besides, given how many people are still running SQL Server 2000, and who will still be running <= SQL Server 2014, 10-15 years from now, even if it were just completely removed, how many people would it hurt, really? At worst case it will just open the market for other people to develop technology that does something similar, but I really don't think it will come to that.
In any case, if they don't have an answer for you yet (because their plans aren't solidified), I don't know what magic you're expecting - again, just because they aren't sharing their plans doesn't mean they don't have any. If you really believe that Microsoft might screw all of their Standard Edition customers, then maybe you should tell *your* customers to change platforms.
Obviously there was a smiley missing from that last sentence. :-)
My issue with Standard Editions of Server and SQL Server is that Windows Server 2012 had changed their limit from 32 GB to 4 TB. However, SQL Server went from "based on operating system limits" to having a 64 GB limit.
As I am looking at the limits right now and see Windows Server 2012 Essentials has a 64 GB limit also. So I wonder the better pair would be SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition running on Server 2012 Essential Edition. My only concern would be what features become lost with Essential Edition that a small business would need.
It seems that Azure it's really fitting the nitch for companies that need high availability at a lower cost which makes me wonder what the price breakdown would be to keep a server on premise instead of in the cloud.
(1) 64GB *per instance*. You can have 50 instances of Standard Edition. Do you actually have servers with more than 64 GB of RAM right now?
(2) Cloud is obviously not a viable option for everyone.
(1) Your right. I forget about instances. I have virutalized %80+ of my environment and usually stand up a new guest instead of a new instance. I give the application a cname to the instance and if I deem I can combine I migrate the application to another guest and update the cname. My virutal servers definetly have more then 64 GB of memory and I have a few special purpose servers where I have ran into the issue with the 32 GB limitation of the Server OS. These servers I had already had Enterprise SQL Server running on them.
(2) I agree. However, as I get more and more exposure to the cloud I see the value of it for Small Businesses. It can be made private via vpn's and it's has redunency baked into it. The two draw backs I would see would be related to cost or supporting a company with a large consumer base in one geographic location.
Everyone who posted here is correct to some degree. We are not going to lose standard edition mirroring tomorrow. We also have the choice not to upgrade even after it has been removed from the product. However, that does not preclude Allen's major point that MS seems to be abandoning the standard edition clients. There wasn't much in 2008 R2 for them and there is not much in 2012 for them.


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Paradise Holiday Apartments are superbly appointed, set in a beautiful, tranquil setting on the Gippsland Lakes. Our Holiday Apartments are nestled close to the unspoiled waters of Lake Bunga and Ninety Mile Beach. Only 5 minutes drive to the many clubs & restaurants in Lakes Entrance. Our Lakes Entrance Holiday Apartments are a perfect retreat for families or group holidays, and ideal for a romantic getaway.
How to find us
Lakes Entrance is situated on the Gippsland Lakes, East Gippsland, Victoria. 3.5 hours east of Melbourne.
Commonly referred to as the Riviera of Victoria, the winter temperature is very mild and summers are ideal for swimming, boating and fishing. The largest inland waterway in Australia.
Copyright © 2012 Paradise Apartments. Design by Lakes Entrance dot com Maint: Gipps Web
Paradise Apartments Lake Bunga Beach RoadLakes Entrance 3909
Victoria, Australia
Tel: 03 5155 2934


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I had never heard of this tiny pre-Minica kei van prior to reading about it on the Japanese Nostalgic Car forums, but now I must have one!
Unfortunately, you probably have to go to Japan to find one, and even then you'll probably have to drag one out of a field, as this
crazy ambitious Project Car Hell Poster Child has done. Load capacity is 300 kilos, engine is a 359cc air-cooled two-stroker, and it's rear-wheel-drive with four-on-the-floor. It now runs and appears to be well on the way to a full restoration. Thanks to Joe Hardrock for the tip!
[Japanese Nostalgic Car]


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One Giant Leap
For NASA, reaching for the stars is imperative, even when government money is hard to come by, political debate is fierce and sharp policy changes are frequent. And despite Washington's fits and starts, the agency has to plan years into the future – that's the nature of scientific research.
Fifty years after President Kennedy's call to put a man on the moon, the space agency is at a crossroads. NASA is preparing to retire its final shuttle this summer, with no immediate plan to replace the agency's only human space flight program. Amid so much uncertainty – and soul searching for the agency – NASA scientists still need working plans.
Many of NASA's science goals come out of 10-year surveys, which are based on submissions from the broader science community and seek to establish consensus on research priorities. "I believe that a decadal timeline was selected because, for many grand challenges in science, a decade is kind of a minimal amount of time you have to look at to begin to derive some kind of answers," says Elizabeth Cantwell, a National Academies board member, who recently co-chaired such a report for NASA.
Presidential terms, however, span eight years at most, Congress changes every two years, and the budget is up for consideration every year. These faster cycles can strain any long-term government project, but especially science programs that require methodical continuity.
'Guided by Science'
Did Mars or Venus ever host watery environments that could support life? If so, did life emerge there? How did our largest planets and their satellite systems come together?
These are among the most important questions for NASA's planetary sciences division to consider throughout the next 10 years, according to a new report on priorities for the planetary sciences, which scientists have been touring the country to discuss this spring. Designed specifically to guide NASA policies and programs, the survey was conducted by the National Research Council, which considered 199 white papers submitted by the scientific community as well as issues raised at more than a dozen scholarly town hall meetings.
"What we do must be first and foremost guided by science," Steve Squyres, a Cornell University astronomer who chaired the survey, told a planetary science conference in March.
"This is an extraordinary thing," he said. "It's an instance where a federal agency looks to its constituents, to our community, for actionable advice on what they ought to do."
Although the report was based on input from the scientific community, the completed product has to be sold back to those same scientists – the goal of many town hall meetings this spring. Next, the whole package has to be sold to Washington – every year. Squyres asked the scientists at the conference in March, especially those in the districts of lawmakers with appropriations clout, to lobby. "The most important thing that we as a community can try to do is to influence the budget process for the NASA planetary science division," he said. "That means interacting with our congressmen and our senators."
Paul Hertz, chief scientist of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, notes that the science mission doesn't stand alone. "Of course national priorities get added on to the decadal priorities," he says, noting that in 2004, President George W. Bush "adopted a new vision for space exploration, which changed the priorities for NASA and the allocation of money, and of course over the last year or two, things have changed a lot."
Indeed, making long-range plans in a politically shifty environment is no easy task. That point was even more evident in another 10-year study the National Research Council recently conducted for the life and physical sciences research program in NASA's Exploration Directorate. The program deals with science focused on the properties of space and zero-gravity, including their effects on human health.
Unlike most of the 10-year science studies that NASA and the National Science Foundation request, Congress called for this one, and the National Research Council was asked specifically not to consider costs in determining priorities.
"It was a pretty tall hill to climb to put together an integrated portfolio without considering budget in an environment where policy was changing frequently," says Cantwell, the survey's co-chairwoman, who is also director of mission development for engineering at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Getting There
Laying out priorities for a decade with uncertain prospects for human space travel also was a challenge. The report, starkly titled "Recapturing a Future for Space Exploration," was written as NASA was winding down its space shuttle program. The last shuttle mission is scheduled to launch at the end of June, bringing to a close three decades of operations and 135 missions. After the shuttle Atlantis returns to Earth, NASA will not for the foreseeable future have a vehicle to carry its astronauts to space.
NASA had been developing vehicles under its Constellation program to support Bush's vision for post-shuttle space exploration initially to the moon as a stepping stone to Mars. In 2010, President Obama called for the cancellation of Constellation, deeming the program too expensive and too far behind schedule. Legal and political knots held Constellation in limbo for months before it officially closed down this year.
The cancellation was a major shift. More than $13 billion had been spent on Constellation, as of April. (If dollars were years, that would be about the age of the universe.) The program also represented the agency's nearest-term human space flight plans.
NASA's 2012 budget calls for money to invest in flight systems that would take humans beyond low-Earth orbit, including a deep space capsule and heavy lift rocket, and research to enable the long journeys. But near-term goals are scant in the budget request. Obama is recommending a slight increase for exploration, but much of it is slated to go toward partnerships with the commercial space industry to get cargo and crew to the international space station – part of the president's controversial push to privatize more of NASA's work.
"This budget requires us to live within our means so we can invest in our future," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said when the 2012 request was released. "It maintains our commitment to human spaceflight and provides for strong programs to continue the outstanding science, aeronautics research and education needed to win the future."
Obama insisted last year that he is "100 percent committed to the mission of NASA and its future." He acknowledged a "sense that folks in Washington – driven less by vision than politics – have for years neglected NASA's mission and undermined the work of the professionals who fulfill it." And he observed that NASA's budget "has risen and fallen with the political winds."
The exploration study notes that NASA's life and physical sciences program already was under pressure. In 1996, its budget was about $500 million, but in 2010, it was only $150 million, according to a draft of the report.
"Researchers must have a reasonable level of confidence in the sustainability of research funding if they are expected to direct their laboratories, staff and students on research relevant to space exploration," the draft says. It stresses the need for a coherent research plan that is given appropriate resources. "This is especially noteworthy in light of the frequent and large postponements that NASA's exploration-related goals have experienced over the past several decades."
Whims of Washington
NASA is no stranger to the whims of Washington. The first major shift in policy occurred shortly after President Eisenhower left office.
Historians describe Eisenhower as a reluctant father of the U.S. space agency. The Soviet Union's successful launch of sputnik in October 1957 forced his hand, and NASA opened for business one year later. Eisenhower was more interested in a robotics-based space program, with a focus on spy satellites, historians say. He allocated the agency only about 0.5 percent of the federal budget – its lowest funding share, until recently.
If sputnik was a driving force in the creation of NASA, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin likely drove the timing of Kennedy's moon speech. Gagarin became the first human in space after successfully orbiting Earth in mid-April 1961. A month and a half later, Kennedy asked Congress to fund a project to land a man on the moon "before the end of the decade" – the Apollo program.
"That was the first time when a new administration came in and sharply changed the direction for space policy from a previous administration," says Howard McCurdy, an American University professor and author of several books about NASA, referring to the fledgling agency's first presidential transition. "President Kennedy originally contemplated setting the landing-on-the-moon deadline in 1968, to avoid a change of administration." McCurdy says the end of the decade was chosen with the "general presumption that the next president would not cancel a program so close to its completion."
Eisenhower continued to believe the mission was a waste of money: "Spending $40 billion in a race for national prestige is nuts," the former president was quoted saying in a 1963 Popular Science magazine article. Putting a man on the moon actually cost $25.4 billion, according to figures NASA gave Congress in 1973. That's still no small number, especially at the time. NASA's budget grew to nearly 4 percent of the entire government budget in the mid-1960s – its all-time high – enabling the space program to put a man on the moon in 1969, within the deadline.
Kennedy actually started to step back from his ambitious plan, reaching out to the Soviets before his assassination. "In a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity – in the field of space – there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space," he told the United Nations General Assembly in September 1963. "I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon."
McCurdy questions whether the United States would have made it to the moon by the end of the decade if the president had not been assassinated. "When Kennedy realized how much it would cost to go to the moon, he looked for an exit strategy," he says.
Nearly every administration has tweaked or outright changed the NASA of its predecessor, and Congress has been quick to throw in its own 2 cents. Obama's break with Bush on NASA policy was severe, but not without precedent, and the decrease in the NASA budget – as a percentage of the entire federal budget – follows a trend rather than sets a new direction.
Lawrence Livermore's Cantwell notes the deleterious effect policy shifts can have on science, especially for longer-term programs, such as a Mars mission. "If research starts every few years, when a president is so inclined, and then it ends, it will always be 30 years out," she says. "Science needs some continuity of thought in order to move forward."
McCurdy is doubtful of such continuity: "The long-range vision of returning to the moon and going to Mars – that overlaps four or five presidential administrations, providing ample opportunities to delay and change the plan," he says.
Looking Up
Roger Launius, space history curator at the Air and Space Museum and formerly NASA's chief historian, is more of an optimist. "I think we set priorities all the time, and they – generally speaking – are maintained over the long haul," he says, noting that the Apollo mission lasted until NASA scientists determined after six piloted moon landings it was not a sustainable program. The space shuttle program has spanned a remarkable eight presidential administrations, far exceeding its predicted life.
Launius argues that 10-year surveys can help scientists make their case to politicians. "They serve as a rallying point for the community engaged in this stuff to make sure that they don't twist in the wind when there's a new Congress or panel in the White House."
The astronomy division of NASA's science directorate has been using the surveys for nearly 50 years to prioritize popular and successful projects, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Other science divisions began using them more recently. The planetary science survey that went on tour this spring, for instance, was the second such report.
NASA's Hertz says the previous planetary sciences study predicted the priorities in that field that developed during the past 10 years. "Almost everything we did came from the priorities in the decadal survey," he says.
"From my view, the place where we didn't do everything within the decadal survey has to do with the things that required more money than we had available," Hertz says. "But that's not priorities. Priorities are different than budgets."
Launius suggests lawmakers have been the thorn for the agency's productivity:
"Where NASA's had the most trouble has been when Congress has placed on it certain restrictions that it's had to adhere to," he says, such as when lawmakers stipulate money must be spent within a particular year. NASA is generally permitted two years to spend appropriated money, and freedom to spend in unequal sums is important for contracting purposes, according to Launius.
American University's McCurdy says the problem is in the process. "If we're looking for solutions, the gremlin in this story is the annual appropriation," he says. "Congress basically reviews every space program every year." McCurdy thinks bonds might be a better way to fund NASA.
Launius dismisses existential concerns about NASA. "It is asked to do far too many things with far less money than is required," he says of the agency, but he notes there is no opposing force in the way there is for other parts of government that do science-based work, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. "Even when there are serious campaigns to do wholesale changes, most of them don't come to pass," he says.
Science priorities don't change very quickly, according to Hertz. "They don't have anything to do with administrations, or how the economy is doing, or what the budget is, or which party is in power, or when the next election is," he says. "Now, we as a government agency have to execute a program for the American people. We have to plan on timescales that are shorter than a decade, and so we have to do our planning more frequently."


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Meningitis outbreak nears 400 infected as lawmakers push for tougher regulation
More than 400 infections have now been tied to an outbreak linked to contaminated steroid shots from the New England Compounding Center, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday.
As of Nov. 2, 395 people have developed fungal meningitis, including 29 deaths. Another nine patients have fungal joint infections from steroid injections they may have received in areas such as the knee, hip, shoulder and elbow.
The ongoing 19-state outbreak of fungal meningitis has been linked back to three lots of methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) steroid injections made by the Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass. The injections were shipped to 23 states and officials have said up to 14,000 patients may have received the contaminated shots, mostly for back pain treatments.
- Ameridose, company linked to New England Compounding Center, issues recall
- FDA finds contaminated vials, bacteria and mold at New England Compounding Center
- FDA: Bacteria found in other drugs made by New England Compounding Center
On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration had announced that it found bacterial contamination in two other types of drugs made the New England Compounding Center, betamethasone - used to various skin conditions and inflammation - and cardioplegia solution, which is given during heart surgery. No illnesses however have been reported in people who used these drugs.
The agency said the findings bolster concerns about a lack of sterility at the now-closed company. Investigators there have already found standing water from a leaking boiler, filthy floor mats and records indicating drugs were shipped before sterility tests were returned.
The FDA test results were released hours after an announcement Thursday by U.S. Rep. Ed Markey that he'll introduce legislation to strengthen the federal oversight over compounding pharmacies, which custom-mix solutions that generally aren't commercially available. They aren't regulated by the FDA.
Also Thursday, Massachusetts enacted emergency regulations that, like Markey's bill, aim to prevent compounding pharmacies from being regulated like mom-and-pop drug stores if they're actually large drug-making operations.
"Somehow, the New England Compounding Center fell into a regulatory black hole, until it caused the worst public health disaster in our country in recent memory," Markey said.
Markey announced his legislation in a parking lot outside the NECC building in Framingham. A tainted steroid made there, and used to treat back pain, has caused a fungal meningitis outbreak that's spread to 19 states, sickening 377, 28 of whom have died.
Under Markey's legislation, to be introduced Friday, compounding pharmacies would be regulated by the FDA if, like a drug manufacturer, they produce bulk quantities of a medication for general distribution. Officials say that's what NECC was doing, though its state license allowed it only to produce drugs for individual patients with valid prescriptions.
Markey, who sits on a committee with oversight over the FDA, said the company was posing as something it was not to avoid more stringent oversight.
A spokesman for NECC said the company intended to follow the law in whatever state it was licensed in. He didn't comment on Markey's legislation.
The bill also prevents compounding pharmacies from producing copies of commercially available drugs. It requires pharmacies to label compounded drugs to show they haven't been tested by the FDA. And it requires the FDA to compile a list of drugs that aren't safe or effective when compounded.
The legislation is modeled on a 1997 law that was struck down after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled its restrictions on how the companies marketed their drugs violated First Amendment rights.
Markey said his bill avoids that problem by not addressing any marketing restrictions, though he said he still expects the compounding industry to fight it.
David A. Ball, a spokesman for the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, said the group was still reviewing the legislation.
"We plan to work closely with members of Congress and their staff in the development of new legislation and/or regulation that will ensure the safest possible practice of compounding," he said.
In Massachusetts on Thursday, the state Board of Registration in Pharmacy passed emergency rules focused on ensuring that compounding pharmacies produce drugs only for patient-specific prescriptions.
The emergency rules require compounding pharmacies to submit biannual reports on how many prescriptions they dispensed and where. They're also required to sign, under the penalty of perjury, affidavits stating that they are only mixing and dispensing prescriptions for individual patients.


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Pacific Architectural
Preferred for larger family homes, those exhibiting high quality, architecturally designed homes and properties in difficult locations. It complements well chosen materials, fixtures and fittings and can easily handle big units with vast glazing expanses.
The unit heights here can be up to 2.8m, or higher depending on unit type and application, and the minimum wind zone rating for any product is extreme.
The Pacific Architectural System is also ideal for low level commercial application such as schools or medium density housing projects from terraced houses to apartments.
- 40mm platform
- 25mm to 30mm range double glazed unit capacity
- 25mm facings, 19mm reveals, E2 type install
- Flat and square front face
- Seismic frame option
- Hopper window option


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What does the farm crisis mean to you? Maybe it's a personal story of hardship. Maybe it's the story of a friend or relative facing hard choices. Maybe you don't think there is a farm crisis.
Some Hastings College students asked a lot of people that question, and they turned the answers into a performance documentary. "Statewide's" Brad Penner reports that they brought the real words of real people to the stage in a unique production called "Middle Land."


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Three recent young adult novels feature teenage girls seeking out alternative realities, and discovering ones soothing and hellish. The books also introduce readers to realities such as the hardships of street life in the Downtown Eastside and the homeless in Victoria and Vancouver.
Rabbit Ears
By Maggie de Vries
Harper Trophy Canada
Thirteen-year-old Kaya seeks an alternative reality from the unhappiness at home and cruelties of high school. Kaya, who was adopted as an infant, considers herself a misfit in comparison to her older sister Beth, who seemingly has everything Kaya lacks — friends, good grades and high regard from everyone. She is alone in her otherness and grief since the family finds it too raw to share their feelings.
At school, the multiracial Kaya faces racist taunts, rejection and bullying; her yearning for friendship makes her vulnerable to the overtures of two girls who befriend her only to set her up for a beating. Her rescuer, a tough teen named Michelle, invites Kaya to come with her when she cuts class to hang out in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
While her mother loses herself in working long shifts, Beth in overeating and studying magic, Kaya loses herself in the rush of seeking adventures. When running away for days isn't enough to quell her need to escape her life, she decides to shoot up heroin like Michelle. The "happiness, strength and clarity" it delivers — however short-lived — seems worth being pimped out by her supplier, and then becoming a sex worker on the dangerous strip of Hastings Street.
In Rabbit Ears, Maggie de Vries has imagined an alternative reality to the fate of her adopted sister Sarah, murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton. (Her Governor General Literary Award-nominated memoir, Missing Sarah, documented Sarah's life and de Vries' search for her. The DNA of Sarah, a sex worker who went missing in 1998, was discovered on Pickton's farm in 2002.) A friend of Sarah's contacted de Vries after reading her memoir, telling her that Sarah had been sexually abused for years by a man in a neighbourhood. "I found myself haunted by this new information," de Vries writes in an afterword, the information illuminating the secret that she believes so self-destructively haunted Sarah.
"Rabbit Ears arose from that haunting. I wanted to tell a story about a girl who went through what my sister went through, but survived."
Tender, yet tough-minded hindsight, autobiography and deeply empathetic imagination infuse de Vries' novel. The story, and especially the characterization of Kaya, maintain a visceral grip on readers.
Kaya is an intensely rendered presence — aware of her own conflicting impulses and emotions, and as confused by them as those who love her. She has an in-your-face defiant bravado, part of her adventurous nature and appetite for experiences, both good and bad. What drives her though is self-hatred and anger. Kaya undertakes sex work to pay for her heroin addiction; she, like many teens, is cloaked by her sense of invincibility, a nearsightedness where there is only the present. She listens to no one, not even the real-life Sarah, warm, streetwise, whom de Vries briefly writes into the story. Sarah tries but fails to get Kaya to really see the consequences of the life she is choosing to live.
De Vries has Kaya narrate her story in a second-person present. That deftly etched second-person voice — poetic, tactile, and compelling — is that voice that we talk to ourselves, the voice we use to admonish ourselves, keep ourselves company and to observe and distance ourselves from our conscience and hurt.
Beth narrates her story in the first-person present. Just as Kaya's narration comes across an utterly persuasive evocative of her personality and perspective, so does Beth's, whose sombre, careful narration seethes with loss and shame in her repressed way. Their bond is complicated and tumultuous. Beth feels protective yet resentful of all the attention and care Kaya gets, wants to give up on searching for and saving her, but can't.
Each has their secrets which de Vries paces out gradually. This makes their revelations moving and realistic — avoiding the trap of solving lives at the conclusion as if they could be fixed happily. Instead, she concludes with an encouraging resolution that is truthful in its tentativeness.
Outside In
By Sarah Ellis
Groundwood Books
For most of Lynn's childhood, her mother Shakti has evolved, as she sees it, "bounced" as Lynn bluntly puts it, from one job to the next, one man to another, taken up and abandoned various social causes and alternative lifestyles.
In Sarah Ellis's latest YA novel Outside In, Lynn, the adult-minded daughter of a perpetually adolescent single mom, yearns for ordinary family life with "milk in the fridge, friends over to play … air without jangle."
She has kind of achieved a version of what her friends take for granted when Shakti moves in with Clive who is caring and responsible. Then that safe haven is torpedoed and the familiar frightening chaos returns after Shakti has an affair with the young husband of a co-worker, loses Clive and impulsively quits her job soon afterward because she can't handle the hostile atmosphere she has created at work.
Even a temporary escape for Lynn from the latest "Shakti drama" to a music festival with the school choir is thwarted since Shakti forgot to mail Lynn's passport application. Wanting more than anything to be transported to an alternative reality, she finds one in a most unexpected place — an abandoned concrete bunker under a reservoir — brought there by Blossom, a girl her age. Bloom appeared like a sprightly guardian angel at a bus stop, saving Lynn from choking on a candy by performing the Heimlich manoeuvre. She lives there with the other "Underlanders" — her 'father," the avuncular Fossick, and two "brothers": Tron, a rebellious Goth, and the shy, artistic Larch. Fossick welcomes Lynn to their "Arcadia."
Ellis is one of those rare authors who are as gifted at writing criticism (she is a longtime, regular reviewer of children's literature for Horn Magazine and many other publications) as she is at writing fiction — 16 books to date.
Her absorbing, thought-provoking storyline is an artfully spun mesh of the components of family drama, social commentary and resonant literary allusions — The Borrowers by Mary Norton and Alice in Wonderland (Carroll's initial title was Alice's Adventures Under Ground).
Fossick is more of a parent than Shakti ever will be, and their "family" more a real one than many a "real" one — nurturing and altruistic — even with the inevitable tensions. As in many of Ellis's novels, the drama and conflict inherent in all relationships — friendship and familial — propel the plot with velocity and depth.
The Underlanders live by gathering and recycling the castoffs of "citizens" (dividing them into throwaways or keepsakes), by communal bartering of goods and services — the embodiment of the social activism that Shakti mouths. They delight Lynn, who regards this Borrower type family and their inventive, practical existence as her fantasy family come to life. Visiting their world is like entering a storybook utopia.
However, Lynn learns their lives are grounded in harsh realities as her own. They were all orphaned throwaways — Blossom abandoned as a baby; Tron, a runaway from abusive foster care and Larch, from brutal treatment in a mental health facility — rescued and recycled in a way you could say by the Prospero-like Fossick, a former university professor. They can depend on him unlike Lynn who has grown up warily reading Shakti for the next "signals of a meltdown."
Lynn is an anchor of reality — in her mother's life, like or not, and in the novel. She is smart, perceptive, self-aware, and churning with emotion and need. The portrayal of Lynn's relationship with Shakti is particularly sharp and knowing, Lynn nailing, vivid detail by detail, the self-absorbed, drama queen essence of Shakti "wound up, a little crazy, like a preschooler on top of a sand pile." It's no surprise really, when Shakti publicly reveals the location of the Underlanders — a secret she swore to keep.
Throughout Lynn is shown to be mature enough to know, even though it hurts, that Shakti can't be the mother she needs. The betrayal is piercing, although Lynn forgives her mother in a cursory exchange which seems a false palliative — letting Shakti off the hook, evading accountability yet again in an otherwise emotionally truthful storyline.
Bad parents — obtuse, selfish, inadequate, terrible, abound in children's fiction. Occasionally, they are what they are — sometimes there is more honest consolation and emotional release for teen characters (think of Betsy Byers's superb The Pinballs) and readers in keeping to that truth than continuing to pretend, and hope, otherwise.
By Sara Cassidy
Orca Soundings
In Sara Cassidy's fifth teen novel Skylark, Angie Kilpatrick is living with her older brother Clem and her mother in their car while on the waiting list for public housing. She creates alternatives to the privations of this reality in the poetry she writes and performs in weekly slam poetry contest.
Cassidy's novel was written for the Orca Soundings series for struggling teen readers in the standard format of short, fast-paced chapters and clear, uncomplicated prose. In her beautifully written story she demonstrates how much can be said, shown and suggested in compact fashion in this novel which is full bodied in its every aspect.
Readers are aware — even before Angie herself — of her poetic gifts by her deft facility with metaphor, analogy and striking description. A haunt of Angie's family when they had a home and were a family (her unemployed father has left in search of work in Ontario) was a local coffee shop.
Looking to get out of the car one evening, they return there on the night of the weekly slam poetry contest. Inspired by the contestants' poetry, the atmosphere and the audience's enthusiastic participation, Angie decides to write a poem to perform there.
In succinct, reverberating episodic chapters that merge past with present, Angie relates how her family came to be living in a car, what it is like for them to live there and her hope for a home. Angie's narration reads like confessional/prose poem monologue. Cassidy dramatizes Angie's creative process by showing Angie drawing from her life for her poetry, the writing which becomes "something like a home" to her.
Angie's first poem is about how condescending pity is. She knows what it is like to be shamed, as if their and others' struggles are somehow their fault. "We were neither lazy nor criminal, only unlucky," she states.
She and her brother try their best to take care of their Buick Skylark: "We respect the time the owner has spent rubbing cream into its leather, vacuuming."
These are "people you'd trust your life to," to use the title of Bronwen Wallace's short story collection, a favourite writer of Angie's — drawn by Cassidy with deeply affectingly sensitivity.


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One small misstep for Iran, one giant bummer for the monkey. Next time, send Ahmadinejad.
Report: Iran Attempt to Launch Monkey Into Space Fails
An attempt by Iran to launch a rocket carrying a live monkey into space in September has met with failure, stalling the country's program to pursue a human spaceflight capability, according to press reports.
The Iranian Space Agency reportedly attempted to launch a Rhesus monkey into space atop a Kavoshgar-5 rocket (Kavoshgar means "Explorer" in Farsi) during the Iranian month of Shahrivar, a period that ran between Aug. 23 and Sept. 22, according to an Agence-France Press report.
"The Kavoshgar-5 rocket carrying a capsule with a live animal (a monkey) was launched during Shahrivar," Iran's Deputy Science Minister Mohammad Mehdinejad-Nouri told the ISNA news agency, according to AFP. "However, the launch was not publicized as all of its anticipated objectives were not accomplished."
See also:
Iran fails with space monkey launch
Iran Space monkey launch failed
Iran's attempt to launch a monkey into space ends in failure
We Have Some Bad News About Iran's Space Monkey
Iran Space Monkey Launch Attempt Fails
Iran tries, fails, to launch monkey into space
Iran's space monkey failed
Iran "failed" to launch monkey into space
Iran space program confirms attempt to send live monkey into orbit failed
Iran's attempt to launch monkey into space fails
Iran Fails to Send Monkey Into Space
Scott Hollifield: Space monkey breaking news — Iranian launch fails
The good news is that a nuclear warhead weighs more than a Rhesus monkey so, if Iran can't put a monkey in space, they probably can't lift a warhead that far either.
/they should have consulted Patti Smith, the Space Monkey expert
Filed under: Blog Entry | Tagged: Accomplished, According, Agence-France Press, Animal, Anticipated, Anticipated Objectives, Attempt, Attempted, Capability, Capsule, Carrying, Deputy Science Minister, Explorer, Fail, Failure, Farsi, Human, Human Spaceflight, Iran, Iranian, Iranian Space Agency, ISNA, ISNA News Agency, Kavoshgar, Kavoshgar-5, Kavoshgar-5 Rocket, Launch, Launched, Live, Live Animal, Live Monkey, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mohammad Mehdinejad-Nouri, Monkey, News, News Agency, Not Accomplished, Not Publicized, Objectives, Press Reports, Program, Publicized, Pursue, Report, Reportedly, Rhesus, Rhesus Monkey, Rocket, Shahrivar, Space, Space Agency, Space Monkey, Spaceflight, Stalling | Leave a comment »


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I read a review of Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden's first novel of World War I, which mentions that this isn't necessarily an anti-war novel. I had to read the sentence in that review several times to make sure I wasn't misreading or misunderstanding. Does a war novel have to come out and specifically declare a stance?
Really, Boyden includes anti-war elements right up to the breathtaking ending: senseless killings, madness, morphine addiction, shortsighted military leadership, dehumanization, and the day to day terror. The characters in this book do seemingly impossible and horrible things in the name of combat. Is that not stance enough? Is it even important?
It is true that this book is about more than the descent into the hell of trench warfare. It is a really poetic story of Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack, Cree Indians who have grown up in Canada near Hudson Bay. They have spent their childhood patiently hunting, skills which serve them well as snipers in some of the worst battles of World War I, including around Vimy Ridge and the Somme. Maybe it needs to be said, but being good at killing moose to survive the winter is different than being good at killing Germans. Xavier and Elijah react differently, but equally destructively, to war.
The novel flashes back between their time spent in France and Belgium to Xavier's return from war where he is collected by his remaining relative, his aunt Niska. The three day journey by canoe proves most difficult for Xavier who is crippled and addicted to morphine. Niska's stories to distract Xavier pull the arc of the stories together and create a thoughtful and character driven war story versus one of all action. This is not a page turner and can be rough going emotionally at times, but I thought it was wholly worth it in the end.
Two other excellent novels, Deafening by Frances Itani and The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart also pair World War I stories with strong female characters and life in rural Canada.


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A View From Studio 3: Holland rises with KC
Royals closer embraces competition, overcomes challenges to succeed in big leagues
He hates to lose, pitches with a chip on his shoulder and routinely throws cheese that registers close to 100 mph. This may sound like a similar story to dozens of Major Leaguers, but part of what makes Greg Holland's journey to the top of his profession is that very few predicted his rise to stardom. At 27 years old, the Royals reliever has evolved into an All-Star and one of the game's elite closers.
"I'm not really thinking it about it that much," he said. "I just go about my business every day. I try to prepare myself mentally and physically".
The speed in which Holland speaks does not match the velocity of his fastball. Laid-back and easygoing is the way many describe the Marion, N.C., native. But inside his compact and athletic frame burns a desire to win. At everything.
The physical part of Holland's story has many layers to it. At 5-foot-10, he's one of the smallest Major Leaguers. It doesn't seem possible that a frame so small could serve as a launching pad for a devastating fastball. What he may lack in size, Holland makes up for in the category of intestinal fortitude. He often jokes around in the bullpen with teammate and fellow reliever, 5-foot-7 Tim Collins.
"We say that we're some of the shortest guys in the big leagues but we have the two biggest hearts, Holland said. "I take the mound with something to prove every day."
That's been the case since Holland was a kid. Something to prove no matter the activity or the sport. Everything was a competition. Basketball, tree climbing, bike riding, golf. Greg, along with his dad and younger brother Chase, drove each other to succeed.
From an early age, he and his brother would watch their father play softball. Holland said he started playing baseball right around the time he learned how to walk. Competition is in his bloodlines.
"They still pound me in golf," he said. "My brother is a really good golfer. He still gives me a lot of crap about being able to hit my slider."
That would place little brother Chase in the minority because Major League hitters are hitting around .100 against Greg Holland's wipeout slider. But long before he developed that pitch in his journey through the Minors, Holland had to fight through a couple of injures while proving he deserved a chance to play.
In his junior year of high school, a broken clavicle limited his time on the field. In his senior year, Holland was hit in the face by a pickoff throw. The result was a broken jaw. He missed roughly three weeks of playing time but convinced those in charge to let him back on the field. So he played with his jaw wired shut. More playing time, yes, but his body was shrinking. He couldn't eat solid food and the weight fell off. He went down to about 150 pounds. He lost strength and his velocity suffered. So did the opportunity to lock up a spot on a college roster.
"After I graduated, I played summer ball and gained weight back and got stronger," he said. "I walked on at Western Carolina. The guys never heard of me but I came out throwing 88-90 mph. They gave me a shot to practice with them."
The rest is history.
Drafted in the 10th round of the First-Year Player Draft in 2007, Holland moved through the Royals system, refining his craft while making stops at four levels. He debuted with the big club in 2010.
Now, three years later, he describes his experience the way many observers describe Holland's stuff. Awesome. It's becoming a great national story. The Royals and many of their young stars like Mike Moustakas , Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez are competing deep into the season. This success wouldn't be possible if not for the growing pains along the way.
"There were times last year we wanted to win, now we expect to win," Holland said. "We know how to go about our business and we think we're in a good position right now."
Much of the credit for this evolution, Holland said, goes to the coaching staff, front office and veteran leadership in the clubhouse.
It's a nice mix to be certain but now the pressure is on. The Royals franchise hasn't been to the postseason in more than a quarter-century. I pointed out to Holland that he was born a few weeks after Kansas City's last playoff appearance in 1985. He marvels at that bit of trivia for a split-second. Then he got serious.
"I've always said you can make pressure a good thing or a bad thing," he said. "There's a lot of pressure for us to win but I think it's a task as a team we're ready to take on."
Pressure and competition at the highest level. Greg Holland wouldn't want it any other way.


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H.G. Wells meets Starship Troopers
To my loyal readers: (All five of you) You know why GR's reviews are so cool? It's
because I get to put whatever I want in the review. Well, I've recently been informed that
"freaky-deaky" doesn't cut it, so almost anything (how freaky deaky of us…Ed.). We get to write in our reviews what the boys over at EGM and GamePro are afraid to say. Specifically, Body Harvest sucks. On Tim's Fun Factor scale, this game ranks somewhere between playing Chopper Attack and getting rusty spikes jammed under your fingernails.
If Body Harvest is representative of the new games coming out for the upcoming holiday season, then this system's got some serious concerns about its future. This game is either average or below average in every major category (graphics, sound, gameplay, etc.) and the sad part is, besides Zelda, what other top-notch adventure oriented games can N64 owners look forward to? As far as I'm concerned, if games like this keeps popping up for the N64, game developers will watch helplessly as droves of former Nintendo addicts head towards the PSX Promised Land. But once again, I digress. On with the review!
The year is 1916. The place is Greece. A mysterious comet passing by the Earth is actually
a vehicle for some space bugs (see Starship Troopers) who erect an unpenetrable barrier for
24 hours and proceed to feast on every human within this boundary. As soon as the 24 hours
have elapsed, the alien pests return from whence they came. However, their comet orbits the
Earth once every 25 years – so guess what happens next. Well, early in the 21st century,
mankind has been almost completely decimated. Their only hope is a time-travel machine
and a genetically-engineered super soldier who will hopefully exterminate the insects once
and for all.
Basically, you control the genetically-engineered soldier, who is equipped with orange-colored
armor making him look like a futuristic firefighter or a linebacker wearing the old Tampa Bay Buccaneers
colors. The game proceeds in a linear fashion with your female partner sending you
messages every now and then hinting at what to do next. "Head for the southern land mass"
or "We need to find a way to move this rock" being some of the more intellectual examples.
As soon as you complete one task, she'll be ready with the next one lickety-split. In fact,
sometimes she moves at such a frantic pace that you'll be getting transmissions about your
next move before you've even finished the first one!
In addition, certain areas are timed (unbeknownst to you) and if you don't arrive at the designated area soon enough, you die. Game over, man. Start the whole level again from scratch. This contributes to some very confusing and aggravating gameplay.
Body Harvest looks and plays like such games as Star Wars: SotE and Mission: Impossible.
However, there are some RPG undertones running through the game, such as talking to people in
towns for clues to generally easy puzzles. The RPG aspect of Body Harvest is
really a half-assed attempt at trying to inject some depth in the game, but it fails badly. More
than 2/3 of the houses you encounter all have their doors boarded shut. It's really painful to
search a town of five houses looking for a door that you can enter (if it even exists).
Of course by now you've all heard about the amazing variety of vehicles in the game. Yeah,
it's pretty cool to go tooling around in old Dusenbergs or even tanks and helicopters, but
this can only hold your interest for a limited amount of time. Gameplay centers around
pulling a switch here and finding an important item there, all while fighting casting-call rejects
from Starship Troopers.
Body Harvest looks like any other mediocre N64 game out there. Polygonal graphics, fog on
the horizon, rainbow-hued explosions and some lighting effects. Yawn. Nothing new or
original in the graphics department. The sound effects are slightly better, especially the bugs'
piercing death screams. Ultra-satisfying.
Just when you thought it was safe to play this game again, you get more lameness. A huge
problem with Body Harvest manifests itself in crappy controls. There are two modes of play – walking around the map and entering a building. You can rotate the camera when you're on the map, but when you're inside a building, you can't. Bizarre. Obviously,
you're going to have a definite advantage fighting the bugs in a vehicle, but the controls put
you at a huge disadvantage when you're on foot. If you're shooting an enemy, you can't
move, which make you a sitting duck. In addition, the auto-aim really isn't and the manual
"sniper mode" is really slow and stupid. One cool thing to mention is that if you're in a turreted
vehicle like say, a tank, you can move in any direction and you're also able to rotate the turret
and shoot at the same time.
Saves are allowed only at the completion of a level. This is one of my biggest pet peeves with video games. It's damn silly in this day and age not to have a
game where you can save at any point. You want gamers to really hate your
game? Here's how to do it. Make the gameplay repetitive and uninteresting, then let them
complete 99% of a level only to have the character die inexplicably and restart the level all
over again. Body Harvest fits the preceding bill to a "T". This game has neither the
innovation, the depth, nor a halfway interesting story to keep you playing for any extended
period of time.
"E3 showstopper!" proclaims some hype on the box. Boy, E3 must've been horrendously
slow this year. Either that or the quality game developers boycotted the show. Most
gamers shouldn't give Body Harvest a second glance. Once again, I pity da fool that buys this


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The garden Nymphaeum, the most elaborately decorated component of Palladio's Villa Barbaro at Maser, has never been open for public visitation, and has thus remained poorly studied. In particular, its authorship has been controversial and its iconography undeciphered, until this important and influential study was presented (in slightly condensed form) by the late Carolyn Kolb at an annual meeting of the College Art Association in 1978. In this paper, Kolb identified and interpreted the ten mythological figures and their accompanying inscriptions on the Nymphaeum hemicycle, to reveal a highly intricate iconographic scheme which comments on love, marriage and human frailty. In addition, she convincingly attributed this stucco decoration to the younger of the villa's two humanist owners, MarcAntonio Barbaro. Kolb's often-revised drafts and incomplete notes for this study were collated and annotated by Melissa Beck, whose major effort of recuperation has salvaged this useful study, whose content had previously been known only through its presentation in lectures. In a postscript bringing the argument and the literature up to date as of the publication of the essays in her memory, Douglas Lewis has reviewed the contributions since 1978 on the structural history of the Villa Barbaro, its iconography, and the respective roles of its artists and patrons.
Among the nearly seventy drawings on parchment preserved from the model book of Villard de Honnecourt are a number done in the chantier of Reims Cathedral, around 1230. They are of great interest, not only as a record of the building of the Cathedral, but for what they show of the graphic representation of architecture in the late Middle Ages. They include the first drawing combining the interior and exterior elevation, the first cross-section, and an idiosyncratic representation of the central absidal chapel. While Villard does not seem to have been an architect or master mason, his volume documents a highly developed graphic capacity. The paper is a critical study of the group.
To judge from surviving documents, Gian Antonio Corona was one of the most successful painters active in Padua in the first three decades of the sixteenth century. His only secure works are two frescoes in the Scuola del Santo, painted in 1509—1510. A canvas in the same room must be an old copy of a fresco which he painted there in 1511. It is here proposed that Corona was also responsible for four frescoes in the Scuola del Carmine, which have long been given to Giulio Campagnola around 1505, but which must date from after 1511. On the basis of these attributions, it is suggested that Corona also painted two small panels in the Uffizi, which for two centuries have been regarded, for reasons that are manifestly unsatisfactory, as very early works of Giorgione, as well as some frescoes in Castelfranco likewise often attributed to Giorgione.
The superb 1992 cleaning of Mantegna's small painting of Saint Mark ca. 1450 in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt removed any doubts as to its authenticity. The painting, transferred from canvas to wood panel at an unknown point in its history, is examined here as an evocative close-up portrait of Mark, rooted in the icon tradition of Venice, intended to convey a message of particular Venetian import. The four-line penned inscription at the bottom of the painting - now almost fully legible - provides an important due to the message. The inscription incorporates the "Pax Tibi Marce" phrase of the praedestinatio legend: Christ's promise to Mark, while he was still alive, that Venice would be his ultimate resting place, that he and the city would grow great together. The intimate format and the merging of long-established artistic modes and up-to-date artistic ideas circulating in northern Italy - all of it working in the service of a political message - speak of private patronage in high Venetian political/humanist circles.
Although Paolo Veronese's beginnings as a painter are normally placed around 1548, there is every reason to retrodate his earliest works to about 1543 when he emerged from the studio of Antonio Badile. This study reexamines these pictures, returning several portraits to him that have not been considered in the recent literature including the unusual Collatino Collalto. The frescoes in Palazzo Canossa in Verona belong with his earliest efforts in this medium, and the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery), and the Conversion of the Magdalene (London, National Gallery) find their correct context in the years around 1547. This, in addition, allows a clearer understanding of Battista Zelotti's position as Paolo's early imitator.
The article examines an important series of seventy-eight Italian engravings, known as the Sola-Busca Tarocchi, and attributes them decisively to the late quattrocento Ferrarese school. The Master of the Sola-Busca Tarocchi remains anonymous, but a number of other prints can be assigned to his hand, most notably a group that had been published in1949 but then dropped out of sight. These and several other works, distinctive in both style and iconography, are herein ascribed to the Master, who emerges as a major figure in the field of early Italian engraving. Lists of prints attributed to or associated with the Master of the Sola-Busca Tarocchi are included in appendices.


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Two men were hospitalized Sunday evening after they were shot in Baltimore, according to police.
A man was shot several times in the 1500 block of Myrtle Ave., in the Upton neighborhood, around 7:40 p.m., police said. The victim ran to a Dollar General in the 1600 block of Pennsylvania Ave. nearby, where he asked employees to call 911. He was taken to an area hospital and is in "unstable" condition, police said.
Detectives from the police department's Central District are investigating the incident, and anyone with information may call 410-396-2411.
A few hours earlier, a man was shot in the back around 4:30 p.m. in the 900 block of Kevin Rd. in Rognel Heights, police said. He was taken to the hospital and remains in stable condition, police said.
Southwest District detectives are investigating the incident, anyone with information may call 410-396-2488.
No suspects have been identified in either shooting.
Latest Baltimore City