text:
Letters to the editor for Monday, February 4, 2013
In early October, I received a letter from the Ormond Beach Planning Board, inviting me to attend a meeting concerning the Marshside subdivision to be developed on the corner of Tymber Creek Road and Airport Road. Included in the letter was a map and a description of what the builder was planning. The builder wants to change the minimum width of each lot from 80 feet to 60 feet, in order to increase the number of homes from 68 to 163.
The citizenry in attendance agreed that this would create a major problem, since this will be between two elementary schools, Pathways and Pine Trails, and the streets are already overburdened. The planning committee agreed with the citizens and voted 6-1 to reject the builder's request to cut the size of the lots.
In early January, I received another letter from the city of Ormond Beach inviting me to a first and second reading of the builder's application. I was unable to attend the first reading, but felt confident that the Planning Board and the citizens had been heard and the vote would go accordingly. But I was wrong.
The second reading will be on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the City Commission chambers at the Ormond Beach City Hall. I hope to see everyone there.
Ormond Beach
We continue to hear the mantra that "one pay for all" is the only fair method for teacher pay increases, and merit pay is flawed. I don't agree. The professional private sector does not agree. Merit pay or bonuses are utilized throughout our economy. One pay for all is limited mainly to union settings.
Merit pay is just as it says, the rewarding of merit with payment. Salary is the payment that one receives for performing the expected job requirements. Some now mix the terms into a single expectation, where just performing or not performing the job requirements deserves a pay boost. There is no incentive or striving for improvement — inadequacy is to be rewarded equally.
In the teaching profession, salary increases are bargained for. The teacher then can either accept the agreed salary or move on. Merit pay goes beyond the salary level, and is defined by the members of the boards elected to represent us. It should be applied at their discretion, by their rules.
It is our expectation that our tax money and our desire for educated children must be managed. Merit pay can be an aid to achieving our expectation. A special or exceptional teacher might be rewarded. Average teachers might strive to be exceptional. Our children's education might become special. Children's education can be measured by testing, and there are letter grades. Merit can be determined.
We need to keep salary for work performed, and merit pay for exceptional work performed, as separate terms. The "one pay for all" mantra unfortunately has not led to the excellence that we all desire for our children.
Daytona Beach Shores
After reading Florida Senate President Don Gaetz's negative comments concerning Florida's test-based evaluation system for teachers and its contradicting results, I have one comment: Duh!
This policy was obviously put in place by politicians and not by experienced educators. Determining a teacher's classroom performance by standardized testing sounds great, until you spend time in a classroom. The reality is that no teacher, regardless how talented, can overcome a poor home environment, and trying to base salary on these test results is ridiculous.
We have all heard stories and seen movies about teachers in depressed areas who had outstanding classroom success, but the reason these success stories generate so much attention is because they are few and far between.
Allow me to give you a dose of educational reality. If you put me in a classroom full of motivated students with supportive parents, my performance scores would be off the chart. However, if you gave a room full of students who had no interest in learning, with parents who could not care less, I would very quickly become one of those dreaded "low performing" teachers.
Evaluating a teacher's individual classroom performance is a worthy ambition, but I am convinced that there are far more fair, accurate and cost-effective ways to accomplish this than a standardized test. If test scores helped determine a teacher's salary, then the highest paid teachers would be the ones instructing the honors classes, when in all probability the hardest-working and lowest-paid teachers would be working with the most disadvantaged students in the most difficult learning situations.
Daytona Beach Shores
Obviously President Obama has never studied history. After World War I, Germany was deep in debt and the German central bank just started to print money and loaned it to the government. People carried money around in wheelbarrows to shop, and mailing a letter cost a million marks. Many of the elderly saw their entire retirement savings become absolutely worthless. As a result, many Germans now feel that the money problem led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party.
Are we going to experience the same thing? When I graduated from college in 1957, one could buy a nice home for about $12,000. Now that same home is way over $100,000. I could list many things and their prices, but the result would always be the same: salaries and prices are anywhere from 10 to 20 times (and in some cases even more) than when I graduated. This can also relate to retirement savings.
What I have right now is adequate, but will it be four years from now at the end of President Obama's term? And will President Obama say that he isn't finished (just like he did after his first term when he promised to lower the debt) and change the Constitution so he can have a third term?
Palm Coast
I'm responding to the recent letter, "Blaming the wrong culprit."
The writer states that President George W. Bush quickly eliminated the surplus left by the Clinton administration. If you only get your news from the liberal media, you don't get the whole story. We had an almost $6 trillion national debt when Bush took office.
What they are calling the "surplus" when Bush took office in the beginning of the government's fiscal year — which started Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30 — there was money in the budget that hadn't been spent. Liberals call this a surplus. Wow!
Bush and the Democratic Congress 2007-2008 were big spenders, but Obama makes them look cheap. Getting to $16 trillion in national debt, with no plan to stop the crazy spending? Only one word fits: "Dumb."
Port Orange


text:
Things I really like: basketball, my dog, watching basketball with my dog, and getting to hear rad new records like Timberwolf's Íkaros. It's beautiful, smart, engaging and just an all-round warm, encompassing debut. Read my review* of Íkaros for Rolling Stone here.
*one line that didn't make it in: 'It's a record that'll have you saying 'fuck Bon over' quick smart'.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Below is a selected list of food animal ophthalmonogy e-books that are available to Purdue students, staff and faculty through the Veterinary Medical Library.
If you wish to find additional or newer e-books held at Purdue, please search the Libraries Catalog [http://www.lib.purdue.edu/#catalogs] by the subject, title, or author of the book you seek. Once you have received your search results, look at the Narrow Search column on the left side of the screen and select the "e-book" option under Format.


text:
Founded and launched on the March break of 1997, The Den has remained an online writing community where writers can provide feedback to other writers on their technique and work. Allowing for a wide array of creative submissions, writers submit their work in hopes of getting the opinion of their peers and improving their skills. The most successful of which have gone on to publish their work in magazines, their own books, or even have their work featured on radio.
From sign-up, to getting help with issues, to submitting your first work; you're likely to have questions. We've got you covered. Check and see if we have your answer in the Docs section. If we don't, we point to where you can get answers in the FAQ.
Getting the most out of The Den takes effort on everyone's part. Learn how to maximize your use of The Den to improve your writing and editing skills.


text:
Free-Interest Installments are now available in the US!
© 2023 NaSaDen Luggage
Join NaSaDen to get New Arrivals, Coupons and Deals Information now!
0 products found in Zipper Luggage Limited Edition
Give me the newest products release, Special Offers, and Coupon codes. Get 5% off coupon within 24 hours for subcribtion.
© 2023 NaSaDen Luggage
| 由 Shopify 技術支援


text:
The Norwegian military announced on Tuesday that it's putting its soldiers on a new diet. In an effort aimed not at cutting waistlines, but combating climate change, the army is imposing a vegetarian diet once a week for its troops. The goal is to cut its consumption of environmentally unfriendly foods, like meat, as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization attributes 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions to livestock farming. "It's a step to protect our climate. The idea is to serve food that's respectful of the environment," a military spokesman told Agence France-Presse.
The "meatless Monday" vegetarian diet has already been tried at one army base in the country and the military will soon extend it to all of its troops, including those deployed overseas, according to AFP. The army estimates the new diet will cut the force's meat consumption by 150 tons a year.


text:
The Environment: Trouble in the Stratosphere
Dangerous sunlight and altered climates may result from pollution of the upper atmosphere
ON SEPTEMBER 26, 1974, a headline on the front page of The New York Times announced: "Tests Show Aerosol Gases May Pose Threat to Earth." The trouble, the story said, began with synthesized chemicals called fluorocarbons. Some scientists believed that these manmade substances would destroy a large part of the atmosphere's ozone layer. The results would likely be dire. No longer adequately shielded by ozone from the harshest of the sun's ultraviolet radiation, human beings might suffer an epidemic of skin cancers. No one could say what might happen to the plants and animals of the earth, but it seemed clear that an altered ozone layer would mean a greatly altered planet.
Looking back eight years afterward, a scientist involved in research on ozone remarked, "An abstract scientific theory made the front page of The New York Times, and six months later it was a subplot on the Archie Bunker show." The fluorocarbon theory proposed that global catastrophe could have a homely, even frivolous source, and perhaps that is why the story traveled very widely. Practically everyone in the industrialized world used fluorocarbons, which had long been thought to rank among the safest of man-made chemicals. Colorless, nearly odorless, fluorocarbons are present in virtually every modern system of refrigeration. They are used as solvents and as foaming agents for making such items as disposable coffee cups and rigid insulation. In 1974, fluorocarbons propelled the contents from half of the roughly 2 billion aerosol cans being sold in America. The headlines focused on this last application. Was the world really going to end with the hissing of cans of deodorant? In contemplation of like questions, many commentators in America could not restrain their mordant glee. The prospects were just too wonderfully ironic. In the early days of the alarm, some scientists went before Congress and on the basis of meager evidence drew the worst of imaginable conclusions. One, for example, said that the continued production of fluorocarbons "could drive life on earth back to where it was hundreds of millions of years ago." Hyperbole was rampant.
In this case, however, excessive zeal in relating bad news probably had some salutary effects. The notoriety of the fluorocarbon theory promoted investigation of the stratosphere, an atmospheric region that is very important to life on earth but that scientists had just begun to explore. The alarm also caused many Americans to stop buying aerosols, and by 1978, when Congress banned the use of fluorocarbons in all but a few sorts of spray cans, American industry had already substituted other propellants. Worldwide production of fluorocarbons had been doubling roughly every seven years. After the alarm, production began to decline, and has remained at a level some 18 percent below that of 1974. If there had been no general fright, production of the chemicals would certainly have grown far more quickly than knowledge about their effects on ozone. As it turned out, a margin of safety was probably bought, albeit at the expense of a thriving industry.
Scary stories often create, for a little while, a comforting illusion that the world has only one problem. Then they tend to disappear. By the end of the 1970s, news about the ozone layer had all but vanished from the popular press, but the effects of man-made chemicals on ozone are still worth worrying about. However, the scientific issues have become increasingly complex and ambiguous. One of the authorities on the ozone layer, a chemist from Harvard named Michael McElroy, described the general problem in this way: "The atmosphere is the air shared by the entire living system, inhaled and exhaled on a planetary scale, and we are doing things to it which are readily detectable but the effects of which are very hard to predict."
PHOTOGRAPHS OF EARTH taken from outer space have lost their novelty, but, like a psychoanalysis, they have irreversibly altered the view. An extraterrestrial picture taken as the sun appears over the limb of the earth reveals the earth as a dark, convex semicircle and, above it, space as a dark, concave one; in between is a shining sliver, a fingernail paring of light, which is the atmosphere. Seemingly huge and inexhaustible, it is in fact quite small.
Some ozone turns up in the lowest section of the atmosphere. There, it's a man-made constituent of urban smog, an especially nasty one, which has a corrosive effect on the lungs. Higher up, however, in the stratosphere, which is the second layer of the atmosphere, ozone is beneficent. Oxygen exists in abundance in the atmosphere because of biological activity on the planet below. In the stratosphere, sunlight creates ozone out of oxygen. Stratospheric ozone is, therefore, a product of biological activity, and it also protects that activity by absorbing most of the sun's ultraviolet radiation. Life could not have evolved on earth as it did without the layer of ozone above, and vice versa. The system is a lovely wheel—life leads to ozone, ozone leads to life—and perhaps a fragile one.
The ozone layer isn't very far away; the stratosphere begins ten miles up and extends to a height of about thirty miles. While the ozone layer can be pictured as a shield, encircling the earth and absorbing the blows of ultraviolet radiation, it is hardly as sturdy as the term "shield" implies. This shield's thickness varies greatly with both time and place: the lower the latitude, the thinner the column of ozone above, and there's more of it in the spring than at any other time of the year.
Overall, the shield is very thin. The ozone in it represents about a hundred parts per billion of the total atmosphere. Were the ozone layer distributed uniformly around the earth and squeezed until it reached the pressure of the air at sea level, it would make a girdle only one eighth of an inch thick. Moreover, the molecules of ozone that make up the shield behave in an unstable fashion. They react with many other sorts of molecules, and, in reacting, turn into something else.
In the natural state of things, the shield of ozone is constantly broken down by chemical reactions and constantly re-created by one simple process, which begins with solar photons splitting oxygen atoms in two. An enormous amount of solar energy—about ten times as much energy as the human world consumes in a year—goes into making the stratosphere's annual ration of ozone. So for all practical purposes, the supply of ozone remains fixed. Ingenious mankind can't significantly add to the ozone layer. According to the theories of ozone depletion, however, mankind can accelerate the destruction of ozone and create someday a new balance of forces—and with it a dangerously thinner version of the thin ozone shield.
Not much that is sent from the earth into the air escapes the atmosphere. Most substances, in fact, don't get beyond the lowest region, which cleanses itself efficiently, returning airborne substances to earth in rain. Fluorocarbons, however, are inert, which means that they don't react with other chemicals. This property, which makes them safe inside homes, and thus has delighted industrial chemists, causes them eventually to escape the lower atmosphere and to travel intact to the stratosphere. There the fierce, relatively unfiltered sunlight breaks them into several different chemicals. One of these, atomic chlorine, belongs to a class of substances vividly named "free radicals," and laboratory experiments have shown that atomic chlorine will act as a catalyst in transformations that destroy ozone. According to present atmospheric theory, one fluorocarbon molecule can end up destroying 100,000 molecules of ozone.
The scientists who propounded or endorsed this theory felt especially alarmed because their calculations suggested that it would take a long time— now thought to be on the order of fifty years—for a fluorocarbon molecule to make the round trip from release in the biosphere to eventual return to earth. Fluorocarbons could thus become the source of an awful problem. Industry could continue to load up the atmosphere with these chemicals, and the ill effects could be disguised for many years.
OVER THE PAST EIGHT YEARS, scientists have named several other possible agents of ozone depletion. The most important of these are certain nitrogen compounds, which, like fluorocarbons, engage in catalytic reactions that transform ozone into something else. Before the fluorocarbon theory made the news, some scientists suggested publicly that a large nuclear war or a large fleet of highflying SSTs could inject into the stratosphere dangerous amounts of these chemicals. Somewhat later, other scientists reckoned that these nitrogen compounds are routinely delivered to the stratosphere by less dramatic means, both natural and man-made.
Nitrogen is the essential food for life on earth, and out of nitrogen life creates, among other things, a substance called nitrous oxide. Once airborne, this chemical behaves in the same fashion as fluorocarbons. Ultimately, it delivers to the stratosphere ozone-destroying oxides of nitrogen. In nature, explorers of the stratosphere discovered, the by-products of nitrous oxide destroy more ozone than do any other chemicals. Nitrous oxide is a crucial force in the maintenance of ozone's steady state. In nature's conservative regime, the nutrition of the planet connects with the maintenance of a beneficent shield of ozone. But nitrous oxide also gets into the air through such familiar human activities as farming, power production, and transportation. In fact, the human contribution probably equals or exceeds the natural one. Fairly recent and very precise measurements show that the quantity of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere has been rising steadily. The implications for ozone are troubling.
The National Academy of Sciences issued its latest report on these matters in 1982. This document states that if the 1977 rate of fluorocarbon production should hold throughout the next century, fluorocarbons alone might reduce the shield of ozone by 5 to 7 percent. If the amount of nitrous oxide in the air should double during the next hundred years, fluorocarbons and nitrous oxide together might deplete the total amount of ozone by about 13 percent. The biologists' part of the report is thin. They don't know how earth would fare bereft of that much ozone. Depletion of about 13 percent would not snuff out life or drive people back to caves, but it would almost certainly lead to large increases in the least deadly of skin cancers. The list of possible—but not at all certain—consequences makes for grim imagining. It includes increases in often lethal melanomas, interference with photosynthesis in plants and algae, disturbances of the immune systems of human beings and animals. One scientist has suggested that bees out on their pollinating rounds might lose their way in the unfamiliar light.
No important depletion of ozone has occurred so far, but that fact does not invalidate the theories, since they predict no measurable depletion yet. Chemists haven't actually observed in the stratosphere all the steps along the postulated chains of man-made ozone depletion. They have learned a great deal about the chemistry of the place. All of it indicates that the theories implicating nitrous oxide and fluorocarbons are probably, as the scientists say, "qualitatively correct." Prophecies about the quantity of ozone depletion have varied wildly over the past eight years, however, and not even the scientists who made them believe that the latest predictions are likely to hold. Those predictions, in any case, leave out several other important substances, probably the most important of which is carbon dioxide. Inclusion of carbon dioxide, as the National Academy's report points out, leads to the intriguing but hardly comforting possibility that one threat to the planet's environment may cancel out another.
THE STANDARD DIAGRAM of the carbon-oxygen cycle, the one that every schoolchild studies, shows a person and a tree and a couple of arrows connecting them. One arrow leads from tree to person, indicating that plants release oxygen and that people and animals inhale it. The other arrow goes the other way, from person to tree, signifying the fact that people and animals exhale carbon dioxide, which plants in turn photosynthesize. That's the general outline of the grand, circular dance. Within its circumference, and tangential to it, other dances proceed. A significant number of plants, including many algae, don't return the carbon in them to the air when they die. Instead that carbon is buried— deep in marine sediments below the ocean floor, for instance. The circle closes eventually, perhaps 100 million years later, when the buried carbon is uplifted in a new mountain range or, as one scientist put it, "processed through a volcano." Then the carbon that those plants inhaled, as it were, finally returns to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Civilization has accelerated this slow but continuous portion of the carbon cycle by replacing forests with farms and cities, and especially by mining and burning buried carbon, which is fossil fuel. Civilization has been doing essentially what nature does, but doing it twenty times faster. Measurements taken since 1958 show that in only twentyfour years the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 6 percent, and there are estimates that it has risen by 20 percent since the Industrial Revolution. In the past 100 years, mankind has added to the atmosphere some 100 billion tons of carbon.
Some scientists began to feel concerned about the trend as long ago as 1938. Lately, many physicists, oceanographers, meteorologists, biologists, and chemists have turned their attention to a couple of difficult questions. They wonder how long it will take for carbon dioxide to double in the atmosphere. Estimates range from about fifty to several hundred years. They also want to know what a doubling would mean to the planet. The theoretical answer, the one with widest currency, holds that a doubling would intensify the so-called "greenhouse effect."
The analogy is old and apt. Like the glass in a greenhouse, carbon dioxide lets solar radiation pass but inhibits the passage of infrared radiation, which is heat. Carbon dioxide in the air lets the sun heat the earth but it keeps some of that heat from traveling away from the earth and into space. It makes a sort of thermal blanket around the globe, and as that blanket thickens—so most current theory holds—the average temperature of the earth will rise.
Some scientists reckon that the West Antarctic ice sheet will slide into the sea. In the event, water levels would rise, at least high enough to cover the world's coastal cities. Some have thought that the flood might come in as few as fifty years, but recent papers hold that it couldn't happen in less than 200 years. Almost everyone agrees, however, that climates would be affected. America's Corn Belt might need a new name, connoting infertility. Some nations might benefit, while others would decline.
The carbon-dioxide theory conjures up odd visions of caravans evacuating the seacoasts, of farmers gazing sadly out over parched fields, of rain forest springing up where once was permafrost. Substantiation is missing, but such imaginings are plausible and they make good copy. The chief villain of the theory is combustion of fossil fuel. Accordingly, the carbon-dioxide hypothesis represents an argument for both the nuclearpower industry and advocates of conservation and solar energy. For the fluorocarbon industry, it is a mixed blessing.
Scientists figure that accumulation of carbon dioxide in the air should, while it warms the earth, cool off the stratosphere. That idea cheers up the fluorocarbon industry, because, in cooling the stratosphere, carbon dioxide would slow down the catalytic reactions that destroy ozone. Intensification of the greenhouse effect would, in theory, ameliorate the effects of fluorocarbons and nitrous oxide. It might, said one of the authors of the National Academy's report, "heal the ozone deficit." One recent calculation, a stew of facts and theories, with carbon dioxide in the mixture, predicts no depletion of ozone over the next two centuries.
Yet fluorocarbons themselves intensify the greenhouse effect, and, obviously, no one can take comfort in a vision that has one cataclysmic series of events preventing another. If the carbon-dioxide theory and its dire corollaries prove to be correct, then presumably the nations of the earth—the threatened ones, at any rate—will want to do something about it. Then, of course, civilization will still have to contend with the problems of fluorocarbons and nitrous oxide. What's more, the calculations that predict no depletion of ozone suggest that myriad industrial and agricultural practices have created a cozy balance among pollutions of the stratosphere. Such an accidental balance could not endure.
Calculations that throw fluorocarbons, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide into one computer program treat the theories as if all of them were true. In fact, atmospheric scientists haven't proven any of the theories to their satisfaction, and in almost every paper on the stratosphere an ominous phrase—"missing chemistry"—appears. Scientists, in other words, worry that their models of the stratosphere may leave out something important.
IN 1975, SEVERAL scientists told Congress that they would answer all the crucial questions surrounding ozone and fluorocarbons within about three years. Seven years later, important mysteries remain. James Anderson is a thirtyeight-year-old professor of chemistry at Harvard and one of the most persistent and adept of the explorers of the stratosphere. Asked why the research drags on, he replied, "The air is thin up there." For example, a substance called the hydroxyl radical controls a large part of the chemistry of the stratosphere, but that substance exists up there in a quantity on the order of one part per trillion. It is as scarce, Anderson explained, as a drop of vermouth diffused in an Olympic-sized swimming pool full of gin.
For the past decade or so, Anderson and many others have been attempting to measure precisely the concentrations of a host of chemicals that aren't much more prevalent in the stratosphere than that drop of vermouth. The concentrations of these chemicals also vary widely in time and place. As for the reactions that need to be observed, some are very hard to see. "Chemically speaking," says Anderson, "the stratosphere is a gigantic low-temperature flame." In the stratosphere, as in a candle's flame, labyrinthine networks of chemical events occur. Substances appear and disappear rapidly, some so quickly that for a time there was doubt that they would ever be seen in action.
Anderson developed a technique for catching glimpses of even the most evanescent of the stratosphere's chemicals. He has incorporated this technique into a number of small laboratories, hung those labs from large balloons, and sent them to the stratosphere. (His latest contraption is like a gigantic fishing rig; the balloon rises to the top of the stratosphere and then, by remote control, the laboratory hanging from it is reeled up and down through the stratosphere on a string twenty kilometers long.) Anderson is one of those who collect the facts and figures that theoreticians insert into their models of the planet. He feels very optimistic about the prospects for his quest. "Within five to ten years," he says, "the stratosphere will become the first reasonably complex natural system that we will understand—understand well enough to predict its behavior into the next century."
Against that cheerful prospect, as Anderson concedes, stands the fact that the stratosphere is really very simple when compared with the other natural systems that affect it. The stratosphere seems forbidding enough, but the enormous tasks begin when carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are thrown into the models. Anyone can make a reasonable guess about the amount of fluorocarbons that might rise to the stratosphere over the next century. Human industry makes fluorocarbons. Whatever quantities the factories produce are the quantities that eventually ascend to the stratosphere. Scientists now feel certain that none get lost along the way. No such simple equation applies to nitrous oxide or to carbon dioxide. Human beings and nature use nitrogen, and some of that nitrogen eventually turns up in the atmosphere as nitrous oxide. But the process is complex. Along the way, nitrogen is processed through the biosphere, and scientists don't know in detail how the biosphere responds to increases in nitrogen. They can't say how much nitrogen will lead to how much new nitrous oxide. They measure increases in nitrous oxide only after the fact. They can't predict increases with any certainty. To gain prophetic power over nitrous oxide, they must learn a great deal more than they know now about how a very large part of the biosphere operates. The same injunction applies to theories about carbon dioxide.
To foretell man-made alterations in the atmosphere, and the consequences of those alterations, scientists must first understand how the world works in its natural state, and today some students of the atmosphere express a sense of urgency about this endeavor. Some fear that within a couple of decades human industry will have altered the atmosphere so much that it won't be possible to distinguish what is natural from what is man-made.
Other mysteries bear on those mysteries, and these, too, look formidable. Is methane increasing in the atmosphere? Methane, it turns out, is a major source of the very scarce hydroxyl radical. So scientists need an answer to the question about methane. To get it they have to consider a number of sources, including termites in the tropics and the world's many herds of cattle, which, improbably enough, produce important amounts of methane gas.
Scientists may soon answer the remaining questions about fluorocarbons to nearly everyone's satisfaction, but even if that happens in five years, the investigation will have taken more than a decade of intense, well-financed research. If banning fluorocarbons in aerosols proves an insufficient remedy, an obvious, ultimate solution exists: quit producing fluorocarbons altogether. But the industrialized world has already largely given up the most dispensable uses of those chemicals. Total elimination of them would mean altering throughout the world almost all systems of cooling and refrigeration. Against such an eventuality, Du Pont has spent seven years and millions of dollars looking for another refrigerating medium, but hasn't yet found a satisfactory one. Any complete solution would require international agreement, but so far nations other than America have taken the fluorocarbon theory seriously in inverse proportion to their domestic industries' investments in the chemicals.
Fluorocarbons are, nevertheless, a tractable problem compared with nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. Those problems, if they are real, stem from a worldwide appetite for the most basic things—food and energy. It hardly seems realistic to think of cutting off either problem at its source.
WARNINGS ABOUT SPRAY cans seem to have initiated an era of alarms about the atmosphere. Respectable scientists, as jealous of their good reputations as Victorian maidens, nowadays offer propositions that one would expect to find in the tabloids or in the Bible. Even the scale of these hypotheses invites disbelief. The atmosphere is, however, the air shared by all living things, and modern civilization has already begun to alter the composition of the air, significantly and rapidly. About that, there is no doubt. The measurements are precise and unequivocal. The possibility does exist that some not-too-distant generation will witness the immersion of cities, or will have to carry umbrellas out into a sunshine that only the hardy cockroach is certain to enjoy. It might not turn out that way, but it seems incautious to allow these experiments in global chemistry to continue, and merely await the results.
Michael McElroy, the theoretical chemist, has been involved in the issue of ozone depletion from the beginning; he helped bring attention to the threat of nitrous oxide, and he wrote part of the National Academy's latest report on ozone. McElroy was appointed a full professor at Harvard at the age of twentynine, and ranks as one of the most important scientists studying the atmosphere. One afternoon, in a ruminative moment, he offered a prescription for the problem of carbon dioxide. McElroy's scheme involves no less than engineering of the atmosphere. Even small engineering projects can lead to a long chain of problems and repairs. This was global engineering, and it isn't easy to imagine organizing the world in a grand, cooperative effort that doesn't promise equal benefits for all. It isn't easy to imagine even getting started on a plan like McElroy's, but then again, it isn't easy to imagine Manhattan under water.
"I really think that the biggest and most immediate problem is carbon dioxide," McElroy said. "I don't think you can go out and say, 'Hey, let's stop burning oil, let's stop burning coal,' because with the best will in the world you can't make the switch in less than twenty-five or thirty years. But if you can control carbon dioxide you in principle control climate. And I don't think that's out of the question; and the way to control carbon dioxide in principle is to control a managed biosphere.
"Now, we do that on a small scale already. Take agriculture. If people had had to provide an environmental-impact statement for agriculture a hundred years ago, it would never have passed. If you proposed to take 10 percent of the land area of the earth and to control what it did, runoff and so on, well, you could never have written the statement.
I think that we already do affect the earth on a global scale and I think we could go a bit further. I've been looking at what that entails. We've released—by burning fossil fuel over the past hundred years—about 100 billion tons of carbon that we have mined and kicked upstairs. If you want to pull 100 billion tons of stuff out of a diffuse global system, that's a hell of a job. It would take quite a big vacuum cleaner. The only way you could manage it would be by using the biosphere. You try to grow more trees, which will then bind up that carbon and bring it back into the biosphere. So you do a calculation. And it turns out that the amount of area you require is about the amount we use for agriculture. But that gets you into competition for land, with farmers and oil companies and so on. So you say, in principle can I grow forests where there's now desert? I don't see why not, if you really wanted to do it. If it were a global commitment. It might involve towing icebergs to the Sahara from Antarctica, or it might involve desalinizing seawater using nuclear power. But, in principle, it could be done."
McElroy paused. "Now, if you do it, you're then managing a different planet. But that involves all kinds of controversial questions. Managing it for whose benefit? And I don't want to get involved in that question. But in principle you could do it, or something like it."
"In principle you could do it," McElroy repeated. "And perhaps also, perhaps we'll have to."
—Tracy Kidder


text:
Tonight (August 2), Jay Z will premier his video for "Picasso Baby" to the masses, but not in any regular fashion. The performance-art project will debut on HBO exclusively at 11 p.m. E.T. This is a first for a hip-hop artist, and not only elevates the delivery of music videos, but displays how the industry is changing under Jay Z's #NewRules regime.
However, the "Versus" lyricist isn't the only artist worthy of an HBO special. Check out 5 other musicians who could make innovative moves through the network.
Photo Credit: dylantrackz


text:
Our guest blogger today is Charles Arnowitz '13, who I have the pleasure of working with in his role as the president of the SGA. —Shirley M. Collado
As Student Government Association president this year, I've dealt with campus issues that run the gamut—from student programming to funding to college governance to communications to the most mundane elements of student life. Across these diverse issue areas, I've found that one theme predominates: the need for student engagement with Middlebury as an institution.
Our campus is full of potential leaders and creative thinkers. I know. I've worked at the Admissions Office for four years and have observed for myself the new additions to the student body; moreover, I engage on a daily basis with friends and peers who rarely cease to amaze me. Perhaps one of my favorite aspects of being a student at Middlebury is how much I learn from those peers and how much my friends surprise and impress me.
Nonetheless, despite the quantity and quality of potential leaders here at Midd, our campus suffers from a lack of student engagement with institutional policy. In fairness, students are busy—we have challenging academics, usually a few extracurricular activities or a sport schedule to navigate, and social obligations as well. This is part of the lifestyle we choose when we choose Middlebury, and most of us wouldn't have it any other way.
But while I know most of us are proud and grateful to spend four years here, few of us are fully satisfied with Middlebury institutionally—whether it is social life, endowment policy, academic policy, or anything in between, many students feel there are areas where Middlebury could improve.
To those students, I say: On a campus as small and as codependent as ours, engagement really matters. Pushing through the relevant institutional channels (and, occasionally, outside of those channels), individuals can have a lasting impact on College policy or student life. Our carbon neutrality initiative, Alcohol and Social Life Task Force, Middview, the new Pass-Fail option, and others are the products of student engagement with the institution. And yet, when the dean of the College announces a meeting to talk about alcohol use on campus, just 20 students show up. When the SGA has a meeting on something controversial that touches on all of our lives, only a handful of students will attend.
The administration and the Board of Trustees are not the enemy of student welfare—not only do they want student input, they often beg for it. Being busy is legitimate, but we all abdicate the right to complain when we don't attempt to make our voices heard.
In conclusion, I encourage students to engage more actively with institutional policy by attending open meetings, providing feedback when requested, and making student viewpoints clear. We all have opinions on the issues that Old Chapel deals with. Sometimes, there will be student consensus around an issue; other times, a split will exist. But no one with power to change policy can act on our views if they don't know they exist.
There are open SGA Senate meetings on Sundays at 7:00 p.m. and open Community Council meetings on Mondays at 4:30. The Office of the Dean of the College, Community Council, and the SGA will be pioneering a new Campus Forum event in an effort to encourage student input. We would love to hear from you.
—Charles Arnowitz '13


text:
Another month, another set of data that shows the main browser usage trend is unchanged: though its lead remains large, Internet Explorer is still losing ground to all other browsers. Firefox is steadily gaining, Safari remains in a nonthreatening third place, Chrome is happily carving out a small niche for itself, and poor Opera can't seem to budge from fifth place. In September, all browsers except for IE showed positive growth. In fact, IE experienced the biggest drop in recent memory.
Between September and August, Internet Explorer dropped a significant 1.26 percentage points (from 66.97 percent to 65.71 percent) and Firefox moved up a sizeable 0.77 percentage points (from 22.98 percent to 23.75 percent). Safari increased 0.17 percentage points (from 4.07 percent to 4.24 percent) while Chrome once again moved further away from Opera: it gained a worthy 0.33 percentage points (from 2.84 percent to 3.17 percent). Opera budged 0.15 percentage points (from 2.04 percent to 2.19 percent). Although IE's decline seems to be unceasing, the real shame is that the old versions have more share than the newer ones (we can only hope that when Windows 7 becomes generally available this month, we will see this trend reverse). The only tidbit of good news we have for developers is that IE6 has finally dropped below the one quarter mark:
You can see the market share pie for September 2009, according to Net Applications, at the top of this post. The graph just above shows how things at Ars are very different: Firefox continues to dominate, but the default browsers for Windows and Mac OS X still show their strength, and Chrome's lead over Opera is much more significant at Ars. Compared to last month, IE lost share, but so did Firefox. Safari and Chrome gained, and Opera's share remained unchanged. Safari made significant gains with Snow Leopard's release, so it's possible that Internet Explorer will once Windows 7 is out.


text:
Such A Secret Place
by Cortney Pearson (Stolen Tears #1)
Publication date: April 1st 2015
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Raids splatter across the news–Arcaian soldiers are stealing magic left and right, using it against the people they steal it from.
When sixteen-year-old Ambry Csille's brother gets taken in one of these raids, her utter fear and panic should be enough to invoke tears in any normal world. But for Ambry, tears are a thing of the past.
Because of a spell, people can no longer feel emotion; not enough to cry, and definitely not enough to defend themselves against the tyrannical soldiers stealing her people's magic. A rare vial of enchanted tears chooses Ambry to reverse the spell, and soon she finds herself the target not only of the Arcaians, but of battle-scarred Talon Haraway, who wants the tears for his own reasons.
All Ambry wants is to rescue her brother, but when her tears get stolen, Ambry determines to work with Talon to get them back. Any day the Arcaians could drink her tears. Any day they'll succeed at draining her people's magic completely, and all hope will be gone—not only for her brother, but for her world.
Interview with Cortney Pearson:Tell us a little bit about The Stolen Tears series, and especially Such a Secret Place. Where did you get your idea?
The idea of a world where tears are magical came to me while I was jamming out to a song by Shiny Toy Guns. I don't remember which song (I wish I did!) but the idea just bulldozed into my brain and wouldn't let me go!
The series is about a girl who finds a vial of magical tears and has to use them to break a spell. These tears are the most powerful ever shed, and so naturally many others are after them as well and Ambry has to protect them while trying to decipher who to trust.
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Yes! I remember drawing pictures and scribbling underneath them before I even knew *how* to write, then going around to my family members and telling them my stories.
What inspires you?
Music, definitely. I ALWAYS write with music on, and I usually fit it to the mood of the scene I'm trying to write. Reading stories or watching movies like mine helps too. I was stumped the other day, but while watching Divergent with some friends inspiration struck and I suddenly knew how to fix a spot I'd been struggling to write.
Do you listen to music when you write?
I do! It helps me block everything else out, strangely enough.
On that note, what's your favorite Pandora station/type of music?
Lately my writing stations are Film Scores radio, Birdy radio (for romantic, swoony scenes), and I'm really liking Ed Sheeran's stuff and a band called Superhumanoids.
Any other hobbies besides writing?
I read a lot, mostly. Pretty standard, lol. I also love to play the clarinet.
Scenario: It's the end of the world. Aliens are invading and you have two minutes to hurry and grab your three favorite things before rushing off to safety. What do you grab?
Assuming my family is already coming with me, my top three items would be–
- The flash drive with all my writing on it
- My clarinet
- My copy of Jane Eyre
Cortney Pearson is a book nerd who studied literature at BYU-Idaho, a music nerd who plays clarinet in her local community orchestra, and a writing nerd who creates stories for young adults. Cortney lives with her husband and three sons in a small Idaho farm town.
Author links:
Website| Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Book Blitz Organized by:


text:
The below script counts how long you've lived, in days+hours+minutes.
sign finder
Make sure your visitors know their astrological sign, using this script.
Chinese Zodiac
Think of it as the Chinese version of your horoscope. Enter your year of birth, and this script outputs what animal sign you are.
Looking for a little guidance in life? Look to Michael's crystal ball script for the answers! Responds to any "yes/no" question you may have.
Guess my number
A fun guess-my-number JavaScript game- Great for kids, or kid-like adults!
Hang Man game
Games are a good way to keep your visitors- and yourself- occupied on your site. Here's where this script comes in. It's the great JavaScript reincarnation of the classic "Hang Man" game. Play against the computer. The vocabulary to be used is configurable.
Hang Man II
A customizable HangMan game with images to display the wrong guesses. Fun!
JavaScript story teller
A JavaScript story teller that will produce a different story for each of your surfers, depending on his personal information.
Mind Guesser:
This script will tell what you are thinking!
Mine Sweeper
This is an incredible recreation of the Window's game "Mine Sweeper" using JavaScript. Honestly, you won't notice the difference between the two.
Reflex tester
Tests your reflexes. Prepare to jump!
form box
Put words in your visitors' mouth, then make their jaws drop, with this hilarious script! It's a form box that sings praises about you, regardless of what he/she types into it!
Play Russian Roulette the non-lethal way with this script. A fun addition to your site.
Scary HardDrive Uploader
This script will fool, well, fools, into thinking you're uploading their hd onto the net. It displays a message in the status bar showing the percentage of the surfer's hd that has been uploaded. (This is just a fun hoax, so don't worry...JavaScript isn't that powerful.)
Scary HardDrive Uploader
version 2
Another version of the scary harddrive uploader. This time, it uploads stuff to Microsoft!
Scary virus Uploader
Uploads FAKE viruses onto your HD (don't worry, JavaScript isn't that powerful).
The Love Test
The power of JavaScript knows no bounds! This script harnesses the psychic aspects of the language to determine your compatibility -romance wise- with another person, based on each other's names. Give it a try, and become a believer!
Tac Toe
JavaScript fights back in this artificial Tic Tac Toe game. Great script to have to entertain yourself and your visitors.
Tic Tac Toe
This is a fun two-player Tic Tac Toe game.
& Chinese astrological
sign calculator
Instantly look up both your Western and Chinese astrological signs using this fun script. What they may reveal about you, well, that's for a fortune teller to disclose :)


text:
Somehow, I have lived in Tennessee for a year. How did that happen?
This past Saturday marked the anniversary of completely uncharacteristic move 1100 miles south. In a way, it seems this year flew by, and yet living in Boston seems a long way back. I didn't know a soul when I moved here, but of course I received a warm welcome. It is the south after all.
I've made many wonderful friends in the last 12 months. I've gotten to see my grandparents and extended family more than ever. I've discovered I like bluegrass. I've put 17,000 miles on my car. I've experienced a tornado warning. I've taken thousands of pictures of the sky. I haven't done yoga once.
Words like "you're fine" and "y'all" have become fixtures in my vocabulary. My style has become more eclectic and less preppy. Though it would be a serious stretch to call me an extrovert, I'm more outgoing and chatty than I used to be. I like to get out more.
I don't have a TV in my room and I don't miss it. I still haven't bought bar stools so I don't have a proper place to eat a meal. I cook maybe once or twice a week.
I've decided I'm not over the city living as much as I thought. I've stopped drinking soda. I like dogs more than I used to. I've been to the movie theater 3 times. I've canned jam.
I've learned more about what's important to me and what's not.
It feels like home here.
I think it's time to take down this wreath.
Y'all come back,


text:
May 9, 2008 — -- More evangelical couples -- once embarrassed and prudish about sex -- are now leaving their Christian inhibitions at the bedroom door.
For this growing group of younger, more progressive Christians, guilt is out and pleasure is in.
"We discovered that God's word is holy and hot … filled with invaluable wisdom for our sexual relationship," says intimateissues.com, one of the most popular Christian Web sites. It is based on a 1999 book by the same name.
The Christian wife has come a long way, baby, as a variety of sex advice books with titles like "Intimacy Ignited," "Gift-Wrapped by God" and "Satisfy My Thirsty Soul" are emphasizing the earthly as well as the heavenly side of love.
Pastors are sermonizing and sexologists are offering conferences to help couples overcome their guilt about a once-touchy subject. And, they offer new translations of scripture to give biblical clout to their message.
"People carry a lot of guilt from parents who said sex is bad," said the Rev. Kerry Shook of the Woodlands Church outside Houston. "We help them to have a healthy sex life. One of the things we cover in scripture is how to meet each other's needs in bed."
As pastor of the 15,600-member, nondenominational church -- one of the largest in the nation -- he recently delivered a popular sermon titled "How to Make Your Marriage Sizzle."
Shook and his wife paired culinary tips with a sex talk "just to grab their attention," he told ABCNEWS.com. "We were cooking beef burgundy with a reduction sauce with cameras from the top of the church. We had a real talk about intimacy and marriage and the problems that come between couples."
Tracy and Pat Flaherty, who have been married for 30 years, say that some Christians have warped views about sex.
"People think sex is just the missionary position thing, that you have to do it every Wednesday night at 8, like good Christians, that's what it says here," Pat Flaherty told ABC News' Sharyn Alfonsi. "That's not it at all. God created sex between a husband and a wife to be cherished and to be exciting and that's what it's all about."
The Flahertys say that the Bible and Shook's Sunday sermons have guided them to a better marriage and a healthier sex life, but that their three teenage children have a slightly different view.
"They are freaking out," said Pat. "The word was, 'Please don't embarrass us,'" added Tracy.
Home pastors Paul and Lori Byerly of Salem, Ore., dispense more sex advice than Playboy magazine on their Web site, TheMarriageBed.com.
Created in 1997, the site covers topics like anal, oral and phone sex; masturbation and role-playing; fetishes; bonding; and spanking.
"We had a great marriage, but a terrible sex life," Paul Byerly told ABCNEWS.com. The couple talks openly about their inability to enjoy sex because of Lori's history of sex abuse and his involvement in pornography.
The couple, now happily married for 23 years, advises their readers to embrace anything that is consensual to achieve "intense physical pleasure … deep emotional interaction and connection … and a spiritual union."
Sex has come slowly out of the Christian closet. One of the first books to address the issue was Marabel Morgan's "The Total Woman," which sold more than 10 million copies to women of all religious persuasions, making it the best-selling nonfiction book of 1974.
"The Act of Marriage" -- a sex manual for evangelicals written by Tim and Beverly LaHaye in 1976 -- was the first to promote the idea that sex can complement, not undermine, a marriage.
Ed Wheat's 1977 "Intended for Pleasure" urged women to give to their husbands with a smile and included tips on achieving maximum pleasure.
Baker Books, the Christian publisher that still carries Wheat's classic, also lists some new titles, including "The Spark: Igniting the Passion, Mystery and Romance in Your Marriage," which has sold more than 6,500 copies since January.
"What I see and read in both my job and out is an increased maturity in looking at sex," said Adam Ferguson, a Christian and publicist for Baker Books. "It is discussed with more realism and candor."
This new genre puts less emphasis on grin-and-bear-it submission and more on mutual pleasure. Evangelical ministers say the church should play a role in spreading the good word.
"Sex is a gift, a good thing," said the Rev. Adam Hamilton, pastor of the 14,000-member United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan.
"God allows you to have pleasure," Hamilton told ABCNEWS.com. "That's how he designed your body. Once you learn it's a gift from God, you embrace it and lay aside the shame."
After conducting an anonymous survey of 2,400 of his parishioners, Hamilton wrote "Making Love Last a Lifetime," concluding that marriage suffers when couples lack sexual intimacy.
"We are such an overly sexualized society with everything you watch on TV," said Hamilton. "Somebody's got to talk about it."
The pastor announces these talks in advance so parents who are squeamish can send their kids to Sunday school. Still, Hamilton says even the children can benefit from a good sex talk.
"Do you want all of their learning to come from the playground or shaped by what the scripture says in the context of the church where we talk about love and fidelity and mutuality and justice?" he asked.
The scripture is exactly where more Christians are turning to spark discussion about the subject. Old Testament stories involving Adam and Eve and Sarah and Abraham are bringing life to sexual discussions. Hamilton said a new translation of the Hebrew word "paradise" suggests more earthly than heavenly overtones.
Though many churches still consider sex "prurient and fleshly and not to be discussed," Hamilton said a more open discussion is actually strengthening marriages.
"Folks who are married and people of faith tend to have more sex, more often than people who are swingers."
That message seems to be catching on, largely with women. About 800 of the 2,000 Sunday-going regulars signed up for an October conference at Wisconsin's Appleton Alliance Church.
"Sex is something we should be talking about in the Christian community," said Judy Episcopo, director of the Appleton women's ministry. "Except for the negatives -- don't do this and don't do that -- the Bible has a lot of good things to say about sex and God wants us to have a passionate, successful sex life. This conference can help inspire it."
The program is based on the books of Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus -- "Intimate Issues" and "Intimacy Ignited" -- who celebrate the Bible's "Song of Solomon," which reinforces the message that sex is not just for procreation.
In some retranslations of the passage, the word "embrace" might mean "fondle," according to the authors. They even suggest the line, "let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits," is a veiled reference to oral sex.
"Sex is such an important part of what we believe," said Episcopo. "There's a lot of guilt and pain and complacency about sexual relationships and a lot of ignorance about exactly what the Bible says about sex."
Episcopo first thought about such a conference after reading the book in 1999, but concluded "my women weren't ready for a weekend on sex." But this year -- with the average age of her church-going females at 40 -- she decided the time was right.
Using the Bible as their guide, women answer, among other things: "How can I be both sensual and godly?" "What does the Bible have to say about sex?" "Is it possible to get beyond the pain of sexual abuse?" "How do I get over my guilt?" "How do I make sex go from boring to sizzling?" and "Does the Bible have any suggestions?"
Interestingly, some of her participants are single. "We try to give them a vision for sex but to remain pure," she said. "Sexual relations are sacred and it's important to keep for marriage."
That and some other subjects -- adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, prostitution and incest -- are still taboo, even in ministries that talk about sexual relations.
But, according to Melanie Wells, a Dallas psychotherapist and Christian, that is because God says wielding power over another is wrong -- even in a marriage.
"I try to deal with marriage as citizenship, as a democracy with one man and one vote," she said. "You have to register, know the issues and vote your conscience. If you don't do that, you abdicate the power and responsibility and that's a cop out."
Too often, according to Wells, Christian attitudes toward sex have "squeezed the life out of people, and it happens sexually, too."
In her practice, Wells tries to change the conversation about sex from physical obligation to emotional intimacy. Some couples still struggle.
"It's a real hard shift for people mentally to go from an entirely prohibited activity to do it all the time," she said.
Wells is also critical of Christian attitudes toward premarital sex, which she argues encourages teens to marry young out of guilt. She also veers from the standard position on homosexuality.
"I don't generally get involved in correcting people's behavior or orientation," Wells said. "They have heard all of that before they get to me. They don't need another lecture and it's not any of my business."
Truth and openness in one's sexuality is important, she argues. "Christ can certainly handle that."


text:
Keidel: New York, The Worst Sports Town In America
By Jason Keidel
» More Columns
Men love to ask each other meaningless questions. Hulk vs. Thor? '84 Niners vs. '85 Bears? Ginger vs. Mary Ann?
One such question, which has no bearing on anything other than the abstract, was posed to me: Do I consider myself an American or a New Yorker?
Perhaps it's not very patriotic, but I am a New Yorker before anything. Maybe you must be from here, born & bred, one block swathed in money and marble, the next block dark and dank and dangerous.
There is - or there was - a rhythm to Gotham, a hum under our feet when we walked the streets, the ground murmuring with commerce and commuters, the trains running like veins under the city's skin. The myriad accents, from the bold Brooklyn consonants to the more proper, elitist diction of my island.
New York is so resilient we can survive fires and murders and terrorists. Even trees grow through fences. Not around, but through, swallowing metal on its way to the sky.
But for all our provincial pride, all our native narcissism, there's no denying the grotesque state of our sports teams.
Local cable providers love to remind us that we have nine - yes, nine - professional sports clubs, a way of persuading us to click on this package or that so we can view the screen-in-screen horror we call baseball, football, and basketball.
Let's take a quick stroll down our athletic graveyard.
The Knicks consider beating the 5-20 Bucks in double overtime an achievement. "This was big time," were coach Mike Woodson's exact words, echoed by the most overrated player in the sport, Carmelo Anthony. They are 8-17, swathed in mutiny, and about to be blown up.
The Nets sold the farm for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, and are 9-16. Deron Williams has his $100 million and has shown no desire to be the dynamic point guard he was in Utah. Jason Kidd is lost, spills drinks on the court to be clever, and fired his top assistant, Lawrence Frank, right after signing him to a $6 million contract.
GM Jerry Reese planted a clock inside the Giants' locker room, counting down to the Super Bowl, presumably to inspire his Big Blue brethren. They responded by starting 0-6 and were just humiliated at home by the Seahawks. There have been two shutouts in the NFL, and the Giants have been the progenitors of both.
Rex Ryan lost a ton and his tongue this offseason. Being svelte and silent has helped the Jets perform better than any of us anticipated, but only with Gang Green is 7-9 a step in the right direction. They haven't been to a Super Bowl since 1969, and may not return until 2069.
The Mets are trying to do things on the cheap in the same town as the Yankees. In fairness, even when they spend they still stink. The future looked blinding with Matt Harvey pitching as well as any young pitcher since another Mets phenom - Doc Gooden. Until, of course, Harvey tore a ligament in his pitching elbow. Mets fans would sign for 81-81 tomorrow.
The Yankees lost Robinson Cano because they didn't think he was worth $240 million. Fair enough. If only they didn't think Jacoby Ellsbury was worth $150 million. They lost their best player (Cano), the best closer in baseball history (Rivera), Derek Jeter is 39 and coming off a twice-broken ankle. A-Rod is old, expensive, and unwelcome, and CC Sabathia is suddenly looking worn out. They missed the playoffs despite spending over $200 million in 2013. Expect the same in 2014.
And even if you embrace the Canadian pastime in America - hockey, where it seems every other player is named Perrier or Lemieux or some French derivation with too many silent consonants - our three locals are wretched. That would be the Rangers, Islanders, and Devils for the record, who are a combined 39-51-15.
Toss a dart at the American map and you'll find more fertile sports soil. And many of these cities are missing an NFL, MLB, or NBA team.
Seattle? Seahawks are favored to reach the Super Bowl.
Los Angeles? Clippers are playoff bound. The Dodgers are World Series contenders. The Angels have the best young player on Earth.
Miami? LeBron.
Chicago? Bears and Bulls are relevant. Blackhawks are current caretakers of the Stanley Cup.
Houston? Rockets have two of the top-ten players in the sport.
Indianapolis? Andrew Luck will keep the Colts relevant until 2025. Pacers could be the best team in the NBA.
Dallas? America's Team, while schizophrenic, still make the playoffs with two more wins. The Rangers recently reached the World Series in consecutive years.
Denver? Peyton and the Broncos should play in brother Eli's backyard in February. The Nuggets almost always make the playoffs. Even the Rockies have several young studs who make baseball worth watching.
Boston? Red Sox are World Series champions and Tom Brady has been to five Super Bowls. Had Gronk stayed healthy, they probably would have played in a sixth.
We could go on, but there is ample proof that New York City is the worst sports town in the nation. And it's not particularly close. Six teams are currently in their regular seasons, and all are having losing seasons.
If you've ever flown to New York City, you may have seen that gorgeous woman who lives on New York Harbor. She may be green, made of copper, and over 100 years old, but the Statue of Liberty represents our love of freedom and our sense of inclusion, tolerance, and diversity.
Written on the green goddess is the following...
"Give me your tired, your poor...send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me..."
Little did Lady Liberty know that the folks with those qualities would all play for our pro sports teams.
Madison Square Garden, the vortex of the city's sports scene, is often called The World's Most Famous Arena. Just don't call it the most successful. The Knicks haven't won anything since Richard Nixon was flashing deuces in front of Marine One. Only in New York City is a 1973 championship considered recent success. Lost on our more jaded natives is the fact that MSG is far better known for boxing than basketball.
There was nothing wrong with Yankee Stadium, yet they smashed it and replaced it with that gaudy, limestone martini bar across the street. There was nothing wrong with Giants Stadium, yet they smashed it and started charging fans PSLs, a euphemism for a new, fat tax.
But it does serve as a microcosm for our sports scene. We exist entirely on reputation, projection, and hyperbole. In truth, the present is brutal, and the future looks woeful. Maybe we sold our soul when we turned Manhattan into an embellished strip mall, a row of condos and pharmacies. We sold Times Square to Disney, froze the furnace of Hell's Kitchen, and we haven't been right since. It makes one long for more exciting times.
You may recall Frank Sinatra's famous ballad for the five boroughs...
'Start spreading the news...
I'm leaving today...
I want to be part of it...
New York, New York...'
The worst sports town in America.
Twitter: @JasonKeidel
Jason writes a weekly column for CBS Local Sports. He is a native New Yorker, sans the elitist sensibilities, and believes there's a world west of the Hudson River. A Yankees devotee and Steelers groupie, he has been scouring the forest of fertile NYC sports sections since the 1970s. He has written over 500 columns for WFAN/CBS NY, and also worked as a freelance writer for Sports Illustrated and Newsday subsidiary amNew York. He made his bones as a boxing writer, occasionally covering fights in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, but mostly inside Madison Square Garden.
You May Also Be Interested In These Stories
for more features.


text:
Lawsuit: Student Needs Guinea Pig For Support
KALAMAZOO (AP/CBS Detroit) A student is suing a Michigan university for the right to keep a guinea pig on campus for emotional support.
Kendra Velzen, who reportedly suffers from depression and a heart condition, says Grand Valley State University in western Michigan is violating federal housing rules. The 28-year-old from Grand Rapids says a guinea pig helps her cope with physical and emotional challenges.
The lawsuit says the Allendale school backed off a bit and let Velzen have a guinea pig while a complaint was pending
with the Michigan Civil Rights Department.
But her lawyer says that accommodation could change anytime. Stephen Dane says he wants the school policy declared
illegal so his client and other students can benefit from therapy animals in the dorms.
Cathy Klotz, executive director of Intermountain Therapy Animals, said there's an important difference between therapy animals -- which provide emotional support -- and service animals, which are used for essential functions like sight or alerting their companion to an oncoming seizure.
Intermountain Therapy Animals has 350 regular therapy teams and 3,000 teams registered around the world who visit hospitals, schools and homes for therapeutic purposes. Of those 3,000 teams, 98 percent are dogs, a few are cats, and there's "an occasional mini-horse," Klotz said, but none are guinea pigs.
"You can bring them in (guinea pigs) to see patients or school classrooms, but as a service animal? I've never heard of it," Klotz said. "That doesn't mean it can't happen."
Grand Valley State spokeswoman Dottie Barnes told MLive the student has been allowed to keep the guinea pig in her dorm since last year; adding they had not been served with the lawsuit and would not comment further.
"The university's statement that they gave permission is false," said Dane, the girl's attorney.
He added that no training is required for therapy or service animals under the Fair Housing Act, and there are no restrictions on the kind of animals allowed to serve.
"The Fair Housing Act is not limited to trained therapy animals or service animals, there are no restrictions under the Fair Housing Act as to the nature of the animal that provides support or otherwise to tenants. There is one or more court decisions that say there is no training required ... for emotional support animals," Dane said.
"There are a lot of people who just don't understand what the Fair Housing Act requires, and it's too bad."
(TM and © Copyright 2011 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
for more features.


text:
"Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought,
doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!"
Dr. Seuss
(sterilizing The Mayor's things in the wake of her departure / Julie Cook / 2018)
Let's face it…we all have those days when we feel like a giraffe with our heads
stuck in a pot of boiling water.
Perhaps you've never looked at it that way before, but admit it, it makes perfect sense.
Maybe you're not exactly frazzled.
Maybe you're not terribly overwhelmed.
Maybe you're not running behind.
Maybe you're not stressed.
Maybe you're not tired.
Maybe you're not a bit melancholy.
Maybe you're not a bit stretched.
Maybe you're not a bit depressed.
Maybe you're not overly busy.
Maybe you're not apprehensive or anxious.
Maybe you're none of those…
Maybe it's because you're totally overflowing with the love and joy that has come to you
from this season…as in you've had one too many cups of the bourbon-laced eggnog
and now you're delusional…
or you actually managed to grab a-hold of the true meaning of Advent and this Christmas to be.
Or if the truth is told…maybe… just maybe…
you'll admit that you're really feeling a few of those heavier things…
Actually, maybe, you're feeling more than a few.
Maybe you'll admit to the truth…
you're feeling all of those and then some!
Hence a giraffe with its head stuck in a pot of boiling water.
So good, we are now on the same page.
I was tackling the laundry yesterday in the wake of The Mayor and her two closest aides
recent visit…
When I thought that I really wanted to cook some little something that seemed
holidayish and festive.
But time…
Where was the time?
Now I'll happily tip my hat, any day of the week,
to all those women out there who have superpowers in that they
can work outside of the home, clean their house, wash all the clothes, run all
the errands, shuttle the kids, finish the presentations and reports,
cook festive holiday goodies, complete all the shopping, decorating and wrapping
while still making time to go to the gym, write greeting cards, read a book, and post
the latest decorative things they've accomplished to Pinterest or Instagram.
And if your name is not Martha Stewert, you probably haven't done half of those things,
let alone two or simply even one to the utmost of your ability.
And no fair if you have a maid, a nanny, or a small army of assistants following you around.
I actually do think that I was once able to accomplish much more when I was a
younger woman who was working outside of the house while tending to all things of the house
and raising a husband and a child.
I have no idea as to what has happened except that I simply got old.
But by George, I was determined to make something festive today if it killed me.
Every winter, I have to haul the citrus trees, that I keep in large pots
outside throughout the late Spring to early Fall, to the basement when freezing
temperatures arrive.
One tree that I've had now for many years has gotten so big,
that I was left with no choice other than to sacrifice it…
I can no longer move it, even with the hand trucks,
so it will be the guinea pig.
As the question remains, can a citrus tree survive a winter in Georgia?
I'll let you know.
But the Meyer lemon tree that is now happily safe and sound in the basement,
is loaded with ripening lemons. It's not looking too good as they don't like
an abrupt change in climate but the looming question…
what am I to do now with all those lemons??
I opted for a tried and true southern favorite recipe…something that makes me always think
of my mom…
That being lemon squares.
Not the most festive perhaps but they are relatively easy and certainly tasty.
And as I do tend to gravitate to the melancholy this time of year as I find myself
missing those who are now no longer present in my small world…
mother's lemon squares were calling.
Mother wasn't known for her cooking or baking prowess, but those things she did
manage to succeed with while being in the kitchen are now treasured.
So the lemons squares it would be….
But where was her recipe…
(just one small pile of old cards and notes)
It's amazing how over the years I've amassed such a plethora of old, spotted and stained
envelopes, note cards, papers, and even old receipts all covered with the scribblings
both of myself, family and friends.
A myriad of recipes which have been meant to be tried, tested and savored…
and yet with the advent of all things internet…it's almost too easy to click
a button rather than dig through the drawers, books, and cabinets seeking that one
lost recipe.
Finally, I found what I had written down from my mom's recipe…
but as to where her original handwritten card currently rests eludes me…
but this would have to do. Yet I had already moved to a different recipe as I couldn't
find this one in time.
So as this is the time of year for gifts and gift giving…and since I use to share a lot more
about cooking and recipes when I first started this thing called a blog—
here is a copy of mother's recipe along with the one I mismashed for today's
Lemon's squares…
Merry Christmas!!
For the base:
1 stick of softened unsalted butter
2 cups sifted flour (I like King Arthur's unbleached)
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
For the filling:
4 eggs lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup flour
the juice from 4 lemons (1/3 cup but I actually used just shy of a 1/2 cup)
grated lemon peel from the four lemons you'll juice
(grate them whole before cutting and juicing)
1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
(it is a nice rounding out of the often harshness of fresh lemon juice)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Using a 9×13 pan—I spray baker's joy on the bottom and then line the bottom with
parchment paper that I cut to fit. I then spray the parchment paper
(you can use butter and flour if you prefer)
Set the prepared pan aside.
In a mixing bowl sift the 2 cups of flour and the 1/2 cup confectioners sugar—
using a pastry blender, cut in the softened stick of butter until the mixture looks
like grainy sand—and holds together when handling.
Press this mixture down into your prepared baking dish.
Place the baking dish in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes until lightly
browned and puffed.
Cool while you prepare the filling.
In a bowl stir in 1 1/2 cups sugar, the grated lemon peel, a dash of salt,
1/4 cup of flour add the lemon juice, extract and then the beaten eggs until all
is incorporated.
Pop in the oven and cook an additional 25 minutes.
The filling will puff and might slightly brown just a tad.
When it's finished baking, remove the pan and place it on a cooling rack,
allowing the pan to cool down.
(here is where some suggest putting the pan in the fridge to cool for at least two
hours but I just let it rest on the counter)
When cool—I dust the top with powered sugar—
I use a small mesh sieve that I shake over the pan
which adds a nice light dusting.
Next I use a bench scraper to cut the bars or you can use a knife
So before you're hung up to dry, have yourself a merry little lemon square…
and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.
She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger,
because there was no guest room available for them.
Luke 2:7


text:
It seems like just yesterday the Document Foundation published the speedy new version 3.5.4 of its popular LibreOffice productivity suite, but already there's a new beta version of the next major iteration of the software available for testing.
LibreOffice 3.6.0 Beta 1, which was released last weekend, is apparently nearly feature complete, according to the official announcement, and it adds a raft of new features and bug fixes that promise to make the open source software better than ever for users.
Two more beta versions and three release candidates are still expected before LibreOffice 3.6.0 makes its final debut, which is scheduled for late July or early August. In the meantime, you can download this first beta release for Windows, Linux, or Mac from the LibreOffice site.
Ready for a look at what's coming? Here's a quick rundown of some of the highlights.
1. A Cleaner Interface
A number of tweaks have been made to LibreOffice's interface in version 3.6.0, including a new About dialog (shown below), split color buttons for Writer and Calc, more lightweight rulers, and better rendering of GTK themes.
2. Better Performance
Also notable about LibreOffice 3.6.0 is that it features performance improvements in numerous areas. Among them are document import, large autocorrect lists, and faster refreshes of pivot tables in Calc.
3. An Improved Writer
LibreOffice's Writer word processing module has been greatly enriched in version 3.6.0 as well, with features including support for contextual spacing, better .docx import, a word count option in the status bar, support for importing Smart Art, and a refined label/business card wizard.
4. A Stronger Calc
Among many improvements in LibreOffice's Calc spreadsheet module are a new option for specifying a custom sheet name prefix in new documents and improved .csv file import and export. Marked cells can now be merged via the right mouse click context menu, and several new spreadsheet functions defined in ODF OpenFormula have been added.
5. Impress and Math
Perhaps most notable among the changes to LibreOffice's Impress presentation module is a new widescreen format, while the Math formula editor has gained new Help buttons.
6. New Filters
A new import filter in LibreOffice 3.6.0 targets Corel Draw documents, while PDF export now offers a watermark option. ODF Export, meanwhile, now comes with a new compatibility mode for wider interoperability.
7. Many, Many Bug Fixes
Last but not least, the list of bugs fixed since the release of LibreOffice 3.5.4 is already too long to count, and work still continues.


text:
comment on
|( #3333=superdoc: print w/replies, xml )
|Need Help??
I submit that the mistake which is most commonly made is to say, "the job of a software developer is to write code." In the last few years, the word, engineer, has quietly dropped out of this job description ...
And let me be quite blunt here: if the word, "engineer," is in the job-description, bean counters might feel a little ill-at-ease at "outsourcing" the work to people whose primary calling-card, to the bean-counter, is that "they're cheap." The word, "engineer," is usually preceded by words such as "licensed" and "professional." Even the most insipid bean-counter probably would not advocate hiring someone "who works for cheap" to build a bridge or a skyscraper. But they would hire abjectly-unqualified people to work on critical software systems, whose consequences of failure (or even of error) might be much higher than that of an inadequate physical structure or device.
There is no such thing as "a software developer." The writing of computer software is always an engineering undertaking. Even though the finished product is intangible, the effects of it are not; and, the risks of it are not. The mere skill of "writing code" is no more a description of the task than "proficiency with a hammer" is to a professional cabinetmaker. Yet, whereas even the simple re-paving of a surface street (or the building of a cabinet) would be routinely undertaken with scrupulous discipline, critical software projects are often undertaken by workers who are barely trained ... and with total disregard to both engineering and project-management practice.
And let me be very clear about one thing: I have had the privilege of working with certain third-world software engineers who were, and who are, unquestionably brilliant. I do not believe that "where you were born" is an indicator of "how good or how prepared you are." (The thought is obviously absurd.) Nevertheless, people who aren't qualified, are being hired, under conditions which clearly affirm that the people who are making those hiring decisions "know not what they do." People are being drawn halfway around the planet only to have their hopes (and skills) dashed on the rocks. I do not like to see good people being thrown under a bus. And, quite separately, I don't like seeing any software project that has doomed itself to failure for lack of discipline, knowledge, or design.
Sometimes, I think that, as an industry, we have done this to ourselves. The electrical and mechanical engineering disciplines ... hell, the (unionized) electrical and mechanical trades ... have done a good job of educating the public, and the bean-counters, that the things which they do are not an idle undertaking. But, in the software industry, I don't think we've done ourselves justice. And there is a very long string of dissatisfied customers to show for this.
In reply to Re: Common Software Development Mistakes
by sundialsvc4


text:
HOGMANAY—Prelude to New Year the Old Way
We just passed winter's shortest day.
Here's a wee dochan doris
Jist a wee drap, that's aa'
A wee dochan doris
Afore ye ging awa'
There's a wee wifie waitin'
At a wee but-'n'-ben
But, if ye can say 'it's a braw bricht meenlichty nicht'
Ye're aa' richt, ye ken
The solstice: solar 'standstill', the point when the Sun appears to come to rest at the center of the galactic plane. It seems to stand on celestial equator, pausing in time, moving neither north nor south.
Four winter solstices ago, we planetary travelers collided with Galactic Center on December 21st, 2012, when the Great Cycle Calendar of the Maya comes to full rest; pause; restart.
Time and Light or Bread and Circuses
The Romans—a civilization we liken ourselves to more as time elapses—became so tired of their outdated Julian calendar, adding days, subtracting nights, that they elaborated on the earlier pagan rekindling of Saturnalia—extending a Hallowe'en thru Christmas holiday period into ten days of non-time in the run-up to January 1st and the New Year.
Not to be confused with current Hogmanay in Scotland.
While the Scots may already feel repercussions, there are certainly more to come—in the Empire and in now-disintegrated Scotland, Hogmanay will live forever, whatever the climate. Rhyme at top is traditional toast in broad Scots to test if you could outdrink them. Translation for dummies in comment section, below.
This year's solstitial preparation for the New is a good time for pausing.
For all of us:
To contemplate how much we shall change in the coming year—because the Human Race is changing fast and we have changed radically in the past year—
To give thanks for the road that brought us here to this point in space and time and for this moment—before plunging into the maelstrom once more—
To bless all those immediately around us NOW—as well as our loved ones far afield—absent friends—and family gone to fresher fields—
A time to remember and a time to look forward—
Time and Light are on our side.
Time Warp and the Magic of Seventeen
Χρονος Kronos was God of and out of Time, Father Time
Κρονος A Titan who killed his father Ouranos—Uranus, Roman creator god
Both confused within Roman god Saturn.
KRONOS (Roman Saturn) was the primordial Greek god of time. In the Orphic cosmogony he emerged self-formed at the dawn of creation. He was seen as discorporeal, serpentine in form, with three heads—of a man, a bull, and a lion. He and his consort, serpentine goddess Ananke—Inevitability—enveloped the primordial world-egg in their coils and split it apart to form the ordered universe of earth, sea and sky. After this act of creation the couple circled the cosmos driving the rotation of heaven and the eternal passage of time
Kronos was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaic as Aeon—Eternity personified. He holds a wheel inscribed with signs of the zodiac and Gaia—Mother Earth—reclines at his feet, right. A.D.5thC. poet Nonnus of Panopolis described Aeon as an old man with long, white hair and a beard, below, but mosaic-art presents a youthful figure—above.
The figure of Kronos was essentially a cosmological double of the Titan Kronos/Cronus—Father Time. Confusing the heirarchy, Hellenist culture sometimes merged Kronos with creator-god Phanes, and occasionally with the Titan Ophion.No wonder we in the 21stC are confused. Drawn irrevocably to the madness of twelve days out of Time—just enough to feed our inner spirit, before we have to step back into the so-called real world when January hits.
ThunderSnow four inches on the Coast Range; chains required. Freezing hail in Mexico, battling a weak tropical front.
Thundersnow! Even the weather forecasters have given up; while in California, agriculture and home farmers are grateful for any seasonal precipitation, to allow the parched earth some semblance of moisture catchup, before the growing season starts all over again.
Hope for the Human Race to begin again with new resolution?
There is no Planet-B
And there are those who are not. Marrakesh Climate Talks notwithstanding, United Airlines, one of the last American flight providers to operate within United States, as well as internationally, has closed its service to northern University town Eureka/Arcata, but has opened two new flight services to mainland China.
The mind boggles.
As does our inner spirit—watching and waiting for us to catch up with our human selves in a real grasp of what we are doing to our Pale Blue Dot—our only home—until they colonize Mars.
May we—at least some of us—wake up before that. They say seventeen is a good number.
Happy New Year.
©2017 Siderealview


text:
Warren Beatty salutes Howard Hughes in gauzy, farcical rom-com
Rules Don't Apply
Starring Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, Warren Beatty & Matthew Broaderick
Directed by Warren Beatty
In theaters Nov. 23, 2016
Warren Beatty's long-awaited Howard Hughes movie is a nostalgic love letter to old Hollywood, a farcical rom-com about a couple of young Tinseltown transplants and a semi-sympathetic portrait of one of 20th century America's most famous, successful and eccentric business tycoons.
Howard Hughes was a huge deal back in the previous century. His tremendous wealth, high-profile enterprises, dashing daredevil antics and widely reported quirks made him one of the most famous personalities on the planet until his death in 1976. He made headlines and newsreels as a do-er, dreamer, inventor, movie mogul, Las Vegas developer and aviation pioneer.
Actor-director Warren Beatty caught a rare, fleeting glimpse of Hughes in a Hollywood hotel in the early 1970s and vowed to make a movie about him. He's been chipping away at it ever since.
In Rules Don't Apply, set in the late 1950s, Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), a young, devoutly religiously beauty queen from Virginia, is summoned to Hollywood to become one of Hughes' female contract players at RKO, the movie studio he took over in 1948. She and her overly protective mother (Annette Bening, Beatty's wife) are assigned a lavish house in the Hollywood Hills and provided studio transportation. Fresh-faced Frank (Alden Ehrenreich), himself a Hollywood greenhorn just off the farmlands of Fresno and also a Sunday-go-to-church kind of guy, is appointed as one of their drivers.
Marla discovers she's among the many young female hopefuls under contract to Hughes, a well-known Hollywood womanizer. But even though she's paid well and treated royally, she's dismayed when days—then weeks—go by and she doesn't get to meet her famous boss and benefactor, doesn't get a screen test and doesn't get any sign that her Hollywood career is going anywhere.
She laments that she doesn't look like the other—mostly blonde, all busty—starlets, doesn't feel worldly and with-it like them, and, as more of a musician and songwriter, she's not even really an actress. "I'm a square," she pouts.
Frank consoles her, tells not to worry about everyone else. "You're an exception," he says. "The rules don't apply to you."
Love blossoms between Frank and Marla. But it whirls and swirls around Hughes, who's given a gauzy, wistful gloss-over by Beatty, who also directed, co-produced and wrote the screenplay. This movie feels like a project he's been thinking about, and working on, for a long time: It's jam-packed with nearly everything and everyone. Matthew Broderick is Levar, Frank's fellow driver who warns him to keep his hands off the movie "merchandise," since Hughes prohibits any employee hanky-panky. There's Candace Bergen, Ed Harris, Martin Sheen, Amy Madigan, Dabney Coleman, Steve Coogan, Alec Baldwin and Paul Sorvino. Watch for Haley Bennett, from The Girl on the Train and The Magnificent Seven, and Broadway actress Megan Hilty, as other contract players.
The movie meanders through several themes and ideas—daddy issues, the splash of Frank and Marla's puritanical upbringings in Hollywood's cauldron of vice, and Hughes' various quirks, fetishes and fixations. Award-winning cinematographer Caleb Deschanel washes them all in the same gorgeous, golden tones that got him Oscar nominations for The Right Stuff, The Passion of the Christ, The Natural and The Patriot, making the whole film glow like a time capsule from a L.A.'s picture-postcard past. The details—Rayon fabrics, rabbit-ear TV antennas, clunky rotary phones, big shiny tank-like Buicks, Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles—are pure eye candy.
Lily Collins, the daughter of pop star Phil Collins, who launched her movie career as the teenage daughter in The Blind Side (2009), is radiant as Marla, with the freshness and spark of a young Elizabeth Taylor, especially in adoring close-ups. One of the movie's sweetest spots is when her character sings "Rules Don't Apply" (by Lorraine Feather and Eddie Arkin), the tune Marla is inspired to write based on Frank's advice that becomes the movie's theme and its theme song.
And Alden Ehrenreich, who was a standout as singing sodbuster Hobie Doyle in the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar!, has the chiseled, classic looks of a 1950s leading man, as if he were sculpted specifically for his role. For one of his next ones, he'll be fast-forwarding into the future as the new Han Solo in the Star Wars' character's origin story, due in theaters in 2018.
Beatty, himself a Hollywood living legend, has more than 30 film and TV roles to his credit, including Bonnie and Clyde, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Dick Tracy, Bulworth and Reds, for which he received an Oscar for directing. Even with Collins and Ehrenreich, this is still his movie through and through, and it all revolves around the sad, odd gravity of its soft-focused central character, a man who loved women, airplanes and banana nut ice cream and who lived out his final days in strange shadows of seclusion and self-isolation as a prisoner of his obsessions, phobias and kinks.
At one point in the film, there's comedic confusion about an actress whose initials are MM—is it Marla Mabrey, or another Hughes contract player, or Marilyn Monroe? It's sorted out onscreen, but the bigger issue for today's multiplex crowd—especially younger viewers—will be with another pair of initials. To really appreciate Beatty's passion project, it would help to be old enough to remember something about HH and all the hoopla and the hype that became part of his personal history.
One of Hughes' most publicized projects was the so-called Spruce Goose, a gigantic transport seaplane made entirely of wood, born from the need to move troops and materials across the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. The task was made even more challenging by wartime shortages of steel and aluminum.
Skeptics doubted the Goose, six times bigger than any other airplane of its era, would ever fly. But it did, for one flight at an altitude of 70 feet, for one minute. After proving it could at least do what it was designed to do, it was done, spending the rest of days in hangars and never flying again.
Rules Don't Apply also does, at least, what it was designed to do, fulfilling Beatty's quest begun 40 years ago. But also like the Goose, it's a big, cumbersome, well-intentioned project that just gets off the ground but never really soars, and it's probably not going to go very far with contemporary audiences.
—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine


text:
I have quoted restaurateur Danny Meyer in past blogs because he is at the top when it comes to high standards in hospitality. In a recent article in Business Insider by Max Nisen, the author spoke with Danny about his view on the fine dining experience. Danny Meyer "built his empire by focusing intensely on the diner's experience and hospitality. For example, stiff formality is not particularly enjoyable, Meyer found. So even his fine dining restaurants are about the food and being hospitable, not decor or grandiosity. That friendly experience is just as intensely managed and thought out as a stiff and choreographed classic service might be."
I will end with another example from a personal experience Rick and I recently had. We visited a full service country inn that has offered fine dining successfully for the past 20 plus years, but recently their dining room business has been declining, especially mid week. We made a suggestion that they may want to consider offering alternate menu choices in a more relaxed atmosphere in one of their dining rooms. We suggested that this may bring in more locals, especially midweek. This is exactly what the White Barn is trying in their 'Winter Bistro'. Remember I said that the White Barn Restaurant was not devaluing their brand by offering an alternative dining choice. But one way of devaluing your brand is letting your business get behind the times, not keeping up with the trends. Change is a scary thing sometimes but may be necessary to keep up with the demand of today's fickle foodie. Oh I like that…great name for a restaurant?
The B&B Team has a number of full service inns for sale. If you are an aspiring innkeeper who is considering a career in innkeeping with a full service dining component we have some great properties. Check them out.
Is fine dining dead? Those restaurants of old with flaming desserts and tuxedoed waiters may be decreasing but they are not dead or should they die! The new fine dining is more about choice. Yes we do want to dress up occasionally for that special occasion with the linen, crystal and silverware for every course…or not. Give us the choice. So whether it is white cloth or white butcher paper, we want great, innovative and authentic food. And make it fresh, local, visually appealing and presented with style and service extraordinaire. All that is 'fine' with me.
Thanks for Listening
Janet Wolf
Tags: Common Man Restaurant, Danny Meyer, Fine dining, full service inns for sale, Jonathan Cartwright, Kennebunk Maine, Sugarbush Vertmont, The B&B Team, White Barn Inn, Wilder Farm Inn, winter bistro