text:
Biden wins: Democrat who vowed return to 'normalcy' defeats Trump in cliffhanger election
WILMINGTON, Del. – Joe Biden, the former vice president and longtime fixture of American politics, won a bitterly fought contest for president Saturday after vowing to usher in a more robust response to the pandemic and a more civil form of politics.
Biden's victory over President Donald Trump puts the nation on a sharply different course just four years after voters selected one of the most unconventional leaders in American history to shake up establishment politics.
Biden said in a statement he was "honored and humbled" by the win and that it was time for the country to unite and heal.
"With the campaign over, it's time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation," he said.
Democrats failed to secure the swift and overwhelming victory some had hoped for, and Biden's win did not come until four days after Election Day voting began, underscoring the slow, methodical process of counting a crush of absentee ballots that piled into counties across the nation because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The turning point came Saturday, when Biden won his native state of Pennsylvania, one of a trio of northern industrial states Democrats lost in 2016 and one of the biggest Electoral College prizes.
Biden was ahead of Trump in the popular vote by nearly 3 percentage points, 50.5% to 47.7%. With the contests for Georgia, North Carolina and Alaska yet to be called, Biden was leading in the Electoral College, 290-214.
In an election shaped by the resurgent virus that had killed about 230,000 Americans and left millions out of work, Biden argued that he had the temperament, experience and character to provide steady leadership at a time of crisis. He ran as a centrist Democrat focused on pocketbook issues such as health care and reviving the economy but also on restoring "normalcy" to Washington after four years of drama under Trump.
The Democratic victory was history-making, most notably because Biden's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., will become the first woman, African American and South Asian American to assume the vice presidency. Biden, who will be 78 at his inauguration, will also be the oldest person in U.S. history to become president.
Trump's defeat will make him only the second one-term president since 1992, when Republican George H.W. Bush lost to Democrat Bill Clinton. And like Clinton, Trump is the only modern era president to be impeached; both were acquitted by the Senate.
Biden will enter the White House at a perilous moment, partly because of the pandemic but also because of huge fissures that have widened in American society over immigration, race relations and racism, gun control policies, economic inequalities and even the meaning of truth and U.S. leadership in the world.
Biden has said he wants to govern all Americans, not just the Democratic base. But even with that promise, the divisions will not disappear. The closeness of the election, and the likelihood that Republicans will keep the Senate, mean Biden faces a huge challenge in trying to stitch the country together.
How Biden won:A rebuilding of the 'blue wall' delivered the presidency with room to spare
'It was a failure':Furious House Democrats unload as leadership promises answers after election losses
Biden carried the popular vote with more than 74 million votes – a hurdle Trump failed to clear in 2016. The count, which is likely to go higher as more ballots are tallied, left Biden with a record popular vote, though that was driven partly by an increase in population since the last record was set in 2008.
"Once this election is finalized and behind us, it'll be time for us to do what we've always done as Americans, to put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to one another," Biden said Wednesday.
A wrenching roller-coaster ride
In the end, the election unfolded with the kind of drama Trump often lives for: a wrenching roller-coaster ride in which the president was at first up before falling quickly throughout the next day. Trump claimed the huge prize of Florida, his adopted home state, foreclosing on a quick Biden win and turning the race into a cliffhanger.
There were surprises along the way. Despite predictions of a lengthy saga in Florida, Trump snapped up the state decisively. And Biden wrested away Arizona, once a dependably red state that the Republican president carried by more than 3 percentage points in 2016.
Over days of vote-counting, a crucial question loomed: whether Biden could piece back together Democrats' "blue wall" – Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – that crumbled four years ago, dooming Hillary Clinton's race against Trump.
The outcome in the Rust Belt was far from clear when Biden addressed hundreds of supporters at drive-in rally in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, just before midnight Tuesday.
"Your patience is commendable," Biden told supporters who had parked their cars, decked out in campaign paraphernalia, in neat, diagonal rows, demarcated by red, white and blue traffic cones at Wilmington's Chase Center.
Waiting for results
By that point, it was clear that the results of the presidential contest were to remain inconclusive for some time – at least until the morning, and likely much longer.
When the voting wrapped up Tuesday, Trump had substantial leads and appeared to be poised to capture the most contested states. But Biden's momentum palpably shifted Wednesday afternoon when Wisconsin was called in his favor, followed soon after by Michigan. Arizona had already been forecast as a Biden win, backing a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1996.
As Biden's vote tallies inched higher in Georgia and Pennsylvania and he maintained a slim lead in Nevada, the path for Trump had narrowed substantially by the time Americans sat down for dinner on Wednesday.
That change occurred as election officials began counting absentee ballots, which leaned Biden's way. In many key battleground states, including Pennsylvania, mail ballots were counted after votes that had been cast in person on Election Day. Since Democrats voted early in much higher numbers than Republicans, Biden's lead in Pennsylvania became evident as more ballots were counted.
By Friday morning, the excitement was palpable in Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. After Biden overtook Trump in Pennsylvania, Democratic supporters started to gather in the parking lot outside of the secured zone by the Chase Center. Holding signs and American flags, supporters exchanged shouts of, "It's gonna be a great day" and "Here we go, guys!"
It was clear that Biden was about to capture Pennsylvania, and with it the 270 Electoral College votes he needed to clinch a presidential victory following the tumultuous 2020 campaign.
'Oh my God, we won!':In Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, euphoria spills over
On Friday night, Biden made a brief indoor appearance at the Chase Center where he said Americans "spoke loudly for our ticket" but he again urged patience as the ballot counting continued.
"We don't have a final declaration, a victory yet," Biden said. "We're going to win this race with a clear majority of the nation behind us."
Around 11:30 a.m. the next day, the declaration of victory for the former vice president set off a crescendo of honks, cheers and shouts of "Free at Last" and "God Bless America" in Wilmington outside Biden's campaign headquarters.
Turnout smashes record
While Trump and others had warned of widespread fraud, intimidation and even violence ahead of Election Day, there were no signs of major problems. Instead, the election was defined by a record number of Americans voting by mail with few incidents. Millions more patiently waited in lines at schools and government buildings across the country to cast their ballots. More than 160 million Americans voted, according to estimates, by far the largest turnout of modern elections.
Though it was not widespread, there was tension: Protesters took to the streets in cities across the country. A crowd made up mostly of Trump supporters gathered as election workers counted ballots in Arizona. The National Guard was deployed in Portland, Oregon. Arrests were made in Minneapolis and New York City.
Trump, who throughout the year repeatedly declined to say whether he would accept the outcome of the race, made clear Thursday that he would not concede without a fight, filing a series of court challenges that recalled the protracted legal battle that tore the country apart in 2000 when the Supreme Court weighed into the election between President George W. Bush and Democratic nominee Al Gore.
Trump fact check:We fact-checked the president's speech about the election. Here's what we found.
The president's aides also threatened to demand a recount in Wisconsin. As Trump grew more impatient with the outcome, he made wilder claims – prompting Twitter, the social media platform that elevated his national prominence in the first place, to label many of his posts with a warning that his words "might be misleading."
"We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election," Trump wrote Wednesday in one of the tweets labeled with a warning because there was no evidence of any wrongdoing in the counting of the ballots. "We will never let them do it."
Biden, making his third White House run, campaigned on expanding access to health care and investing in middle-class jobs while combating the pandemic with a more robust federal response. He promised to rebuild friendships with allies in Europe and Asia with whom Trump often bickered while confronting adversaries he said Trump coddled in Russia, China and North Korea.
Difference of style
But by far the biggest difference between the two men was on style: Biden ran on his temperament, offering it as a contrast to the bombastic, unconventional approach Trump has taken to the presidency for four years. Biden essentially proposed to rebuild a functioning federal government based on his experience as vice president under President Barack Obama and his 36 years in the Senate representing Delaware.
Throughout the campaign, Trump tried to frame Biden as far left – a "socialist" in his words – despite the former vice president's record as a bipartisan dealmaker who ran to the right of more liberal candidates in the primary, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Biden never embraced a "Medicare for All" system of health care or the so-called Green New Deal for the environment backed by liberals.
Even before the race was called, Biden began shifting away from his campaign talking points and toward a more presidential rhetoric that was focused on calming tensions. As counting continued in battlegrounds throughout the day and Trump delivered fiery remarks at the White House, Biden came to a lectern in Delaware and urged Americans to take a breath.
"Democracy is sometimes messy," he said. "It sometimes requires a little patience."


text: Artist: Cypress Hill f/ MC Eiht Album: Cypress Hill IV Song: Prelude to a Come Up Typed by: OHHLA Webmaster DJ Flash [MC Eiht] Geeyeah, Soul Assassins two times, stick em! Geeyeah, Cypress Hill three times, come on! Geeyeah.. Infiltration be our daily operation for chasin Cross the seven seas eased, clockin much conversation Penetration, you know we gets busy, no hesitation Greenery, hand-picked, from my own plantation Feels the heat, under the som-brero to any amigo that's tryin to, stop the dineros Chills with, senoritas, like charro Get drunk off tequila lay low til tomorrow Follow, my flow, get the cash and go Call my homey B-Rizzy in Mexico City Loose lips sink ships, faker faces got guilt Didn't mean to call you late, I need a hideout til.. cool, homey, I'll bring some fuckin skunk The homey smuggle me across lines in a trunk Just like a bird I'm free, in a land with no fuckin extradition treaty, I'm out, geyeah "Shit is real on the motherfuckin Hill God" (2X) "With the crew from off the Hill" [B-Real] B-Really killin the Phillie now can you feel me from the Soul Assassin committee, the shitty niggaz never thrill me You silly bitches never respect, neglect money You funny or broke, think it's a joke, your nose is runny Got my main man, Mr. Rocho kickin the vocals from the Eastside, where it's loco sellin the poco From the two G's, breakin the leaves of cheese, makin the bacon You hear it sizzle got your hands ready for the takin Evading the pigs, raiding my crib, I'm mad lib and I wanna live and I'm givin the message droppin the lesson Flippin shit, and I'm keepin em guessin they all stressin Hit the lullaby, no confession, we in session "Shit is real on the motherfuckin Hill God" (4X) "With the crew from off the Hill" [MC Eiht] We's beez the three amigos, skates with nickel plates under the seat and we goes East Coast/West Coast, anybody killer! Soul Assassins gets the cash and smash *vroom* Who spits the Glocks like uno and dos? Makin your body dissapear like a ghost One time's tryin to gaffle me, harassin me tryin to send me to the penetentiary [B-Real] In the nighttime, niggaz are creepin you fuckin sleepin And the beat, just keeps on seepin into the street While you peakin I'm meetin and greetin the people speakin and leadin the motherfuckers who's seekin to catch, ruckus Meaning you suckers no-luckers overdub us, nut hug us You love us, you can't stop, these mad audio hustlers "Shit is real on the motherfuckin Hill God" (5X)

subset: commoncrawl


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It's astounding how many great bands/singers/music artists are from the UK. It often seems like most of the bands I blog about are from there. Even many legendary groups throughout history, like The Beatles, The Who, Queen, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin, are British. So therefore, it wouldn't surprise you that the band I'm writing about this week also hails from the UK.
The 1975 formed in Manchester, England in 2002 when members Matt Healy, Ross MacDonald, Adam Hann, and George Daniel started playing cover shows together in local clubs as teenagers. It wasn't until August 2012 when the group released their first EP, Facedown. The band got national radio attention with their single "The City" from the EP as well as with the song "Sex" which came from their second EP of the same title (Sex) a few months later (November 2012). In March 2013, the band released their third EP, Music for Cars. "Chocolate", a single off the EP, reached the 19th spot on the UK singles chart. The same year the band began touring to build hype for their debut album. They joined The Neighbourhood on their 2013 U.S. tour, opened for Muse and The Rolling Stones, and played at the Reading and Leeds Festivals.
Their debut self-titled album came out on September 2, 2013. The 1975 spent the rest of 2013 and 2014 touring to promote the album and selling out many shows throughout Europe, North America, New Zealand, and Australia. The band plans to release their second album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, in February 2016. Today, they announced a North American Tour in support of the new album from April to May 2016 in select cities across the United States and Canada. Their first single off the album, "Love Me", was released in October.
The band's music fits into the alternative/indie pop/rock genre. At times I even feel like their sound has some 80's pop/rock style influence, especially when I heard "Love Me" for the first time. Then there's other times where I get this R&B feel from their music. Honestly, they no doubt fit right in with The Neighbourhood on tour in 2013. It was baby-making music for the ages. Overall though, the band has their own unique indie pop/rock sound.
I was slightly late to the party when I discovered The 1975 in April 2014. I'm not even sure how I first heard of them, but I know I listened to them for a few months before I realized their song "Chocolate" had airplay on the local alternative radio station. In a much cooler world, where I would be able to attend any live music events that I want, regardless of price, location, availability, etc., I would be attending their show either in New York City tomorrow or in Philadelphia on Saturday. I probably would have already seen them live too, if I didn't already have plans when they played at a nearby venue at this time last year. Although I potentially would have seen them live this weekend if either show wasn't already sold out (or if I didn't have to pay over $100 for tickets that were originally $40), I figured why not write about this band anyway. The 1975's success over the last few years has only escalated and it continues to grow as well. They're bound to enter British music history like so many before them. If you've never heard of these guys, you may want to check out these song recommendations or if you're headed to an upcoming show, unlike me, you may want to re-listen to some of these song recommendations to hype you up (or if you just want some hype for the new album):
- Sex
- Chocolate
- Love Me
- The City
- Girls
- Robbers
- Heart Out
- Settle Down


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Source: WAPO
Author: Paul Waldman
Emphasis Mine
In politics there are some issues where liberals and conservatives share the same goal, but disagree about how to achieve it — we all want to have as little crime as possible, for instance, but there are different ideas about how to accomplish that. Then there are issues where the two groups have different goals — liberals want to preserve women's reproductive rights, and conservatives don't. And sometimes, there are issues we think fall in the first category, but actually belong in the second.
Health care may just be that kind of issue, where we talk as though we all have the same fundamental goals, but we actually don't. There's an interesting article in the New York Times today on a major success of the Affordable Care Act that demonstrates why we'll never stop arguing about it. Here's how it begins:
The first full year of the Affordable Care Act brought historic increases in coverage for low-wage workers and others who have long been left out of the health care system, a New York Times analysis has found. Immigrants of all backgrounds — including more than a million legal residents who are not citizens — had the sharpest rise in coverage rates.
Hispanics, a coveted group of voters this election year, accounted for nearly a third of the increase in adults with insurance. That was the single largest share of any racial or ethnic group, far greater than their 17 percent share of the population. Low-wage workers, who did not have enough clout in the labor market to demand insurance, saw sharp increases. Coverage rates jumped for cooks, dishwashers, waiters, as well as for hairdressers and cashiers. Minorities, who disproportionately worked in low-wage jobs, had large gains.
Before we go farther, we should remember that the ACA is a complex piece of legislation that affects every area of American health care, but for now we're going to talk just about insurance coverage. When liberals see a report like this one, they say, that's terrific — some of the most vulnerable people in America, and those who had the hardest time getting covered before, now have health insurance. They offer this as practical evidence of the law's success.
But conservatives (not all conservatives, but many of them) don't see that as a success at all. If the government is helping an immigrant who washes dishes for a living get health coverage, then to them that means means that government is redistributing tax money from deserving people to undeserving people. The two groups look at the same practical effect, and interpret it in opposite ways.
That isn't to say that the ACA didn't give benefits to everyone, because it did. Millions of middle-class and even upper-class people were hurt by the fact that insurance companies used to be able to deny you coverage if you had a pre-existing condition, but the ACA outlawed that. And if the payment reforms in the law bring down overall health spending, we all benefit. But the most visible and dramatic parts of the law relate to the tens of millions of Americans who used to be without health coverage but now have it.
This is why Republicans continue to call the ACA a "disaster" and a "catastrophe" despite the good it has done. Liberals hoped that once the law was implemented and its practical effects became clear, the law would become hugely popular. Instead, views of the law divide closely on ideology and partisanship, and that hasn't changed and won't change.
That's because there's a fundamental clash of values at work, which means that liberals and conservatives will always judge it according to different standards. Because the law did a large amount to bring coverage to those who couldn't afford it (through both the expansion of Medicaid and subsidies), and because it included a raft of new regulations meant to solve a variety of problems within the health care system, conservatives will always oppose it, whether it succeeds on its own terms or not. To doctrinaire conservatives, a government regulation that accomplishes what it sets out to isn't a success at all; it's a moral failure by definition. That's why liberals will never convince them to support the ACA by pointing to its practical successes.
That isn't to say that conservatives don't make practical arguments against the ACA, because they do. But they're mostly window dressing placed atop their moral objections to government involvement in health care. So yes, they predicted that Obamacare would destroy the economy, and cost millions of jobs, and lead to fewer people with health coverage, and balloon health care spending, and make premiums skyrocket. When they turned out to be wrong about all these things, conservatives didn't say, "Well gee, I guess this law was a pretty good idea after all." Because the fundamental moral objection remains, whatever the practical impact.
You can see it in the decision to accept or reject the law's expansion of Medicaid. The federal government offered states a huge pot of free money to provide coverage to their poor citizens, and though some conservative governors tried to argue that it would be too expensive, those arguments were laughably weak. As one independent analysis after another has shown — from groups like the Rand Corporation, not exactly a bunch of lefties — taking the expansion leads to healthier state finances and better economic growth, on top of helping your state's constituents. But for many governors, insuring poor people isn't a moral good at all; just the opposite, in fact. So they were even willing to incur economic damage in order to avoid it (and to give Barack Obama the finger, of course).
Where this all leaves us is that the ACA will never become something we agree on, no matter what it does or doesn't do in the real world. But even that's not the whole story, because there are political factors at work. Smart Republicans understand that with each passing year, the law becomes more and more entrenched and harder to unwind, no matter how much they hate it. It's one thing to keep people from getting insurance, but it's something quite different, and far more politically dangerous, to take away insurance people already have — and if they really repealed the law, that's what they would be doing, not just to a few people but to 20 million or so.
That's why Republicans have so much trouble coming up with their "repeal and replace" plan. It's not because there aren't conservative health care wonks who could give them an outline. It's because any real repeal would be so spectacularly disruptive to the system that it would a political nightmare. Just today there's an article in The Hill on the efforts of the Republican task force charged with producing the new repeal-and-replace legislation, under the title, "GOP group promises ObamaCare replacement plan — soon." If you've been following this issue, you know that title is a joke. As the piece says:
Coming up with a plan to replace ObamaCare has been an aim for the Republican Party for so long that it's become a laugh line even in conservative circles. Despite voting more than 50 times in the House to repeal the law, the GOP has not once voted on legislation to take its place.
But every couple of months, they say that they'll be releasing their plan any day now.
If Republicans actually took the White House and held Congress, my guess is that they'd pass something they called "repeal and replace" but which would leave the ACA largely intact. Just as they propose to privatize Medicare but rush to tell seniors who love it that their own coverage wouldn't be affected, it would be some kind of time-delayed change that would avoid kicking people who now have insurance off their coverage. And if Hillary Clinton gets elected in the fall, it'll be another four or eight years before they could even try this. No matter what happens between now and then, conservatives won't ever decide that the ACA has worked out well, whether it actually did what it was designed to do or not. As far as they're concerned, the design itself was the problem. But they may decide, as they did with Medicare, that doing away with it isn't worth the bother — at least not worth bothering to to try all that hard.
Paul Waldman is a contributor to The Plum Line blog, and a senior writer at The American Prospect.


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In a Facebook status update today, Jackson County (MO) Sheriff Candidate Dwon Littlejohn declared:
Burglary on the rise in the metro area and my opponent would rather have a drug interdiction unit on the highway looking for drugs! A burglary suspect gets away from deputies near Independence today because of slow response times by deputies not patrolling closer to residential areas. As Sheriff, deputies WILL be in neighborhoods!
By definition, law enforcement resources are finite. A choice to emphasize one area of enforcement trades off with the ability to emphasize other areas of enforcement at some margin. In Jackson County, this margin is not a favorable one as people actively committing property crimes are able to evade capture and continue their assault on peaceful society while the Sheriff's men sit on the highway, looking for drug arrests and cash to seize under the civil asset forfeiture laws.
I commend Mr. Littlejohn's perspicacious analysis of this situation, and commend him to your attention in the upcoming Jackson County elections. Here is his website.
38.899000 -92.239000


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Yesterday I was lucky enough to visit Zappos and get a tour and talk with some of their executives, including Tony Hsieh, CEO.
Up until now most of what I knew about Zappos was that they had a lot of people on Twitter (434 of their 1,500 employees are on Twitter with more joining every day).
I thought I was going to Zappos to study how Zappos uses social media and get an interview about that for Building43, the community Rocky and I are building for people who are fanatical about the Internet.
But within 10 minutes of walking in the front door I realized that there's a lot more to Zappos than that they get Twitter. More on that later, because Tim O'Reilly demonstrates some of Silicon Valley's worst beliefs about Twitter when his conferences advertise "learn the secrets of building 100,000 + followers." Zappos does NOT believe that is the goal of Twitter, more on that later in this post. Aside: if you want to attend a Twitter Conference that focuses on real business value and community engagement, come to 140: The Twitter Conference. (UPDATE: Tim O'Reilly wrote me and said he totally agreed with me that focusing on followers is the wrong thing to do for a Twitterer and he has removed that language from his conference materials).
Before we even got to the front door tons of employees said "hello." That's weird, doesn't happen at most companies, believe it or not. And the way they greeted each other told me something else was up here.
Then when we got into the front lobby we were warming greeted again, and then as we looked around, we saw this wasn't going to be a normal visit to a normal company. There was a book store with books free for the taking. There was a popcorn machine. A Dance Dance Revolution machine. A "hall of fame" board for employees who had pushed "reply to all" too quickly. And a video display that showed off how many sales were made yesterday. I had never been in a corporate lobby like this before.
Then I hooked onto a tour given by Zappos' Mayor, Jerry Tidmor. Oh, yeah, everyone has weird titles. Executives are called "monkeys." One employee's title was, simply, "fred." Causes him a lot of fun when he tries to get a badge at conferences. UPDATE: here's video of the beginning of that tour.
Along the way Jerry showed us office after office that was decked out with some fun weird theme. I had seen some of this at other places like Google and my new employer, Rackspace, but Zappos gets everyone into it. The lawyers' offices even hold the Christmas tree (they have Christmas twice a year at Zappos. Why? Why not?).
In one office they set up a bowling alley. That was a lot of fun for the Rackspace employees who were here for discussions.
They are transparent with all their numbers. All employees know how they are doing and so does the public. The numbers are on a white board on the tour for all to see and take pictures of. This picture is of Jerry standing in front of the board with the up-to-date numbers.
During a lunch session with Zappos "monkeys" we asked how they handled a recent layoff. We noted that the employees who were laid off were incredibly positive. The answer: they did it in open with everyone understanding the reasons for it. They did it fast and didn't drag their feet. So when they did it they had enough cash to give everyone a good severance package. They said if they had waited to see if business conditions would improve they wouldn't have been able to do that.
Anyway, so what can Silicon Valley learn from Zappos?
1. You don't need to be in San Francisco to build a great company. Zappos actually started in the same building as Craig's List. They moved to Las Vegas because it was cheaper and because they saw they could build a better company. The other half of the company is a warehouse in Kentucky. That's there because that's where UPS is, so they can take your order in the evening and have it on your doorstep the next day.
2. Focus on culture and build something for long term. Tony's first company, Link Exchange, was sold because it wasn't fun anymore, he told me. That's why he focused so much on culture when he got involved with Zappos. I see so many companies who focus on growth and get exactly what they want: an unfun fast growing company that falls apart later.
3. Get rid of assholes. Zappos has a filtering system before, during, and after hiring to make sure they get rid of people who "don't fit the culture." That is the nice way of saying they get rid of assholes and they get rid of them quickly. They even pay candidates $2,000 after they go through training if they can admit they don't fit into the culture.
4. Get a coach. Zappos has its own coach. His name is Dr. Vic. He meets with every employee. Takes their picture. Learns what they are about and helps them get their career moving. Plus he writes a blog for everyone else's company.
5. Share with others. Zappos gives tours to everyone to share what they've learned. You can take the tour too, I highly recommend it if you are in Las Vegas. firstname.lastname@example.com will get you a date and a time. Oh, did I mention they pick you up from the airport? And that they carry your bags? And that they are, well, um, nice?
6. Train, train and train some more. Zappos has a whole department that puts together classes. Your pay goes up the more classes you complete. Plus they have all those free books in the lobby.
7. Enable all employees to be spokespeople. Every single new hire at Zappos is asked to start a Twitter account and post a few times to it during training. After that they don't care if you keep it up. Why do they do that? They want to rub it in that EVERYONE in the company is a public spokesperson for Zappos, not just the CEO or PR team.
8. Everyone lives by same rules. During the tour we heard of a new hire that was fired during training for not showing up on time and giving some lip. This was a high level technical person that they really could have used. Silicon Valley companies would put up with that kind of behavior. Not at Zappos. Everyone, from executive recruits on down are expected to live to the same rules.
9. The CEO's office isn't sacrosanct. Tony enouraged us to throw peanut shells on his office floor. Why? That happens every day, we learned, as tours come through. But it's a subtle message that Tony isn't above anyone else in the company and that his door isn't just open, but that you can come in and mess up his work space.
10. Create a welcoming culture. Every department, as we walked in, said "hi" in a different way. Here's the casual department who waved these little clappy hands at us. Other departments had other kinds of noise makers. The Fashion department took pictures of us while they played music.
11. Everyone is a VIP. Both internally and externally everyone gets the VIP treatment. This means all sorts of little things all across the company. Vendors, when they come to Zappos, get their bags carried. That wins them accounts. In our case we had our tripods and cameras carried and our every need catered to.
12. Create an atmosphere for both goofiness and brilliance. Every conference room was decked out with personal touches. It gets you in the mood for creative discussions. Here Rackspace employees are meeting with Zappos employees and learning more about Zappos. Notice all the weird touches on the table, the walls. It's hard to take yourself too seriously there.
13. Root out hubris and kill it. This is mostly a note to myself, but I know lots of San Francisco companies who this could apply to just as well, too.
14. Follow your employee's and customers' passion. How did Zappos get into clothing? Their customers and employees were passionate about it.
15. Don't be religious about what's working. Having 400 employees on Twitter is clearly working for Zappos but Tony, at one point, told his employees to talk to me about friendfeed. They are always looking for the next idea. By the way, here's everyone who is saying something about Zappos on friendfeed. I love this quote from Forrester's CEO, George Colony (Tony is speaking at the Forrester Conference today): "When asked why he was on Twitter, Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO said: "People relate to people, not companies."
16. Be religious about taking care of customers. Tony loves telling the story about when they got pizza ordered for them by Zappos help desk (they didn't know who was calling). Every employee is empowered to take care of customers and get their problems solved.
17. Reward greatness. Every employee can give a $50 bonus to any other employee. Does it get misused? Not often and when it does it's easy to solve.
18. Remember most policies are to take care of edge cases. They resist writing new policies at Zappos. When they do write a policy, they make sure it really is needed across the company. Usually policies get killed.
Anyway, there is lots of posts like this one about Zappos and why this company is so interesting. I didn't get it until I went on a tour and saw it for myself. I'm a fan for life. I wish there were more companies like Zappos.
The fact that there isn't tells us something about us. And I don't like what I'm learning.
Back to that quote from the O'Reilly Twitter Camp home page: the goal of a good company as they get on Twitter should NOT be to get more followers. It should be to take care of customers and create an emotional attachment to the company through its people. Zappos gets this at a deep level. Boy do I wish more did.


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Donation of Jean Paton Book Royalties to the AAC and CUB
I am donating 10 percent of the royalties of my book, Jean Paton and the Struggle to Reform American Adoption, to the American Adoption Congress and another 10 percent to Concerned United Birthparents. Jean was instrumental in creating both organizations and consequently it made sense that I donate to them. But even more important, as you will read in my book, Jean hated for people to make money off the backs of adopted people and birthmothers, and it is that sentiment that fueled my decision.
To purchase the book at a 30 percent discount: enter PATON in the shopping cart box labeled Enter Promotion Code. This offer is only available through the University of Michigan Press website and , not available in bookstores.
Offer Expires April 30, 2014.
For more information and to order: UMich_ad (1)
Future Plans
Off to NYC to the American Historical Association's annual conference. After I return, I will begin posting some of Jean Paton's pamphlets. They are really interesting (I finally found a scanner that makes the process fairly easy). I'm also beginning to research a book on the history of international adoption.
Jean Paton and Chelation Therapy
All of Jean Patons' many adoption reform activities took its toll on her health. By the fall of 1996, Jean, now 88 years old, investigated the credibility of chelation therapy and, convinced of its effectiveness began treatment in February 1997. Jean was especially impressed with Dr. Melissa Taliaferro, an MD from a Texas university and pioneer in chelation therapy, who had opened a small clinic in the town of Leslie, about fifty miles from Jean's home in Cedaredge, Colorado. Among the multitude of claims made for chelation therapy were that it would clean the patient's arteries, reduce high blood pressure, diminish free radical activity, improve memory, improve blood flow to the heart, brain, body organs, and legs, and improve enzyme activity. However, the treatment is not scientifically sound: the evidence supporting it consists of anecdotes, testimonials, and poorly designed experiments. Although initially finding some benefit from the chelation therapy, Paton abruptly discontinued treatment after one month.
Jean Paton on the ACLU
The ACLU has long opposed New Jersey adoption reformers' efforts to unseal adoption records. As early as 1972, Jean Paton expressed shock at the ACLU's conservative position in a letter to an official of the organization. Here is part of Jean's letter:
"Some time ago I contacted persons in the ACLU about the violation of the rights of adopted people, who must rely upon the whimsy of a judge of they are ever to learn the real facts about themselves before adoption. I was greatly shocked to learn from the response of ACLU that they did see the issue. I wondered if they might be too involved in racial problems, admittedly acute, or whether there was a certain brand of liberalism involved in the record sealing that the ACLU did not wish to confront. I still do not know what the reason was, or is."
Four years later, Jean identified the reason: the ACLU stressed "the natural mother's right to privacy." She declared that it was "difficult for me to understand how anyone can support that point of view. The rights of privacy are supposed to keep the government off of people's backs, not separate the generations."
Adopt a What? A Dog? A Road? A Bridge!
Jean Paton hated the misuse of the word "adopt" when applied to animals or roads. In this 1967 "Letter to the Editor" to her local newspaper, Jean satirized the misapplication of the word and by analogy linked her criticism to the Colorado statute sealing adoption records. Here is Jean's letter to the editor in full:
I have just read in your paper of the proposed "adoption" of the Fifth Street Bridge in your community. I have the unhappy task of informing you that, since this bridge is a historical designee, its adoption is not possible under the Colorado adoption statutes.
Any adoption is required by these statutes to wipe out the history of the adoptee. Its antecedents must be wiped away from public view, and from the time of its adoption forward no reference may be made of the past.
It would therefore be necessary for your office to remove from your files and place under lock and key any reference to this bridge, all photographs. [This includes] not only your paper, but all papers which contain any reference to it as a historical being.
Sincerely, Jean Paton, Coordinator, Orphan Voyage
Jean Paton on Confidential Intermediary Legislation in Colorado
When the records were put under seal, it was an experiment in Utopia. It was a destructive error, and should be remedied by a sweeping cure, not this intermediary dabbling. I fear that this new quite colonial type of search, a state structure and bureaucracy will be formed which will be immovable. Thus, freedom to the adopted person will never come. The process of being made to consent to having a stranger approach one's parent instead of going oneself is most demeaning. It encourages adopted people to continue to think of themselves as inferior people. That is what is wrong with it, and it is very wrong. [JP to Rep. Steve Ruddick, Colorado House of Representatives, Jan. 15. 1991]
Jean Paton vs. William L. Pierce and the Battle of Book Titles
In the spring of 1991, Jean Paton issued a book prospectus under the title "The Encyclopedia of Adoption." An unfortunate coincidence, however, discouraged her from immediately pursuing the project. She received a flyer from the publisher Facts On File announcing the publication of a book with the identical title by William L. Pierce, president of the National Committee for Adoption, an organization opposed to opening adoption records and Christine Adamec, a free-lance writer. A decade earlier, Paton had described Pierce as "a rather horrid person," a lobbyist for a Texas-financed group who was "running around the country introducing very repressive [adoption] legislation." She fired off a letter to Facts On File, denying its publicity blurb that the book "fills a void," and complained that the book "uses my title to present a very limited and biased view of the subject." Even in anger, Paton could not suppress her puckish wit. She concluded her letter by stating that she regretted the publication of a book by Pierce under any title, "but especially so under a title I had already announced. But I am sure he cares not a tittle."
Jean Paton and the Struggle to Reform Adoption Published!
Happy me: I recently received the first copy of my book "Jean Paton and the Struggle to Reform American Adoption." It looks beautiful. For more information, see http://www.press.umich.edu/6242018/jean_paton_and_the_struggle_to_reform_american_adoption
Jean Paton and the Girl Scouts of America
Even before she finished writing The Adopted Break Silence, Paton began marketing the book. Indeed, sometime in December 1953, Paton wrote to the Girl Scouts of the United States of America and to the Camp Fire Girls. Both organizations turned down Paton's solicitation to call attention to the publication. Mrs. Lewis A. DeBlois, director of the Girl Scouts Program Department, explained to Paton that her adoption study was not suitable to the membership of the Girl Scouts. The organization consisted of girls age from seven to seventeen, and it was the policy of the organization to publicize only materials that would be of direct help to the membership. Paton responded immediately, correcting what she believed to be DeBlois's misunderstanding.
Paton was quite aware that scouting had nothing to do with adoption, per se.
Religion, Reunion, and Christian Adoption
Although Paton did not subscribe to the New York Times, she kept up with its contents from correspondents, who frequently forwarded her pertinent stories concerning adoption and unmarried mothers. One clipping that was sent to her in October 1959 discussed the New York State adoption law, which required that a prospective adoptive couple profess a religion in order to adopt a child. Otherwise they, along with atheists and agnostics, would be turned down. The unintended consequence of the law, which was leading to conflict between the Roman Catholic hierarchy on the one hand and Jewish adoptive parent groups on the other, was that, when practical, a child would be placed only with persons of the same religion as the birth parents. The strict observance by Catholic welfare leaders of preserving the status quo resulted in childless Jewish parents being deprived of a chance to adopt a child because few Jewish women gave birth to children out of wedlock, and no agency would place a baby in a home of another religion.


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The 2018 French Grand Prix is the first race of Formula One's Triple header. Over three successive weeks, Formula One will first the South of France, the mountains of Speilberg, Austria, and the more than likely soggy Silverstone.
Whilst the prospect of back to back to back races may leave drivers and fans drooling, the prospect is a little more daunting for the supply and logistics team tasked with ensuring each event runs seamlessly. In the 48 hours following each event DHL, The Official Formula One Logistics Partner, is tasked with moving more than 1000 tonnes of freight safely and on time.
"For the spectators at the track and in front of their TV sets view, a Grand Prix is a huge spectacle," says Martin Pople, Trackside Manager at DHL. The logistical effort behind it, on the other hand, remains invisible to the spectators: "A single race weekend involves months of planning and the work of two dozen of our specialists," explains Pople. The fact that this "race behind the race" is fast and safe is also due to the expertise of the DHL specialists.
The challenge ahead for DHL and the race teams themselves is not something drivers take for granted, Force India driver Esteban Ocon, reflecting "When I was a kid I wanted to race every day, so now it's coming alive, that dream. I think, on the other hand, I'm thinking about the mechanics, all the people travelling around Europe, the truckies, everybody in the teams, you know, building up those beautiful hospitalities and tents and all that. This is going to be very hard for them, so we need to make life as easy for them as we can, because at the end, we are a team, so we need to support everybody."
Since the 2018 F1 Triple Header was announced, teams and support crew will have been evaluating the most efficient way in which to manage both the physical and logistical challenge the schedule creates. The team that comes out of top come Sunday evening in Silverstone will likely be very well placed for the remainder of the season.
As with any support role, the role of the DHL Specialists will likely and for their sake hopefully go largely unnoticed. Their role is to ensure on time in full delivery of the championship and teams needs. When they manage this, they've done their job. The painstaking work required to ensure this performance will likely pass most people by.
So when if with three successive F1 race weekends, your thirst for F1 news isn't quenched, check out the DHL Triple Header Diary for all the latest information plus fascinating background stories from Le Castellet, Spielberg and Silverstone. dhl.com/F1TripleHeader


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You may have heard a few months ago that an Italian scientist discovered a promising new method of treating Multiple Sclerosis (MS). It involves inflating a balloon in veins in the neck to alleviate blockages that he (Dr. Zamboni – true story) alleges contribute to the progression of MS. Anyone who has had a family member suffer from this disease knows how horrible the symptoms can be – loss of motor control, paralysis, loss of speech, dysphagia, and others. I first became aware of MS when a close family friend was diagnosed back in the early 1990s. She became wheelchair-bound, could no longer work, and her family life began to fall apart at least partially as a result of her own frustration and anger at the loss of her mobility. It was further dramatized later in one of my favourite TV shows, The West Wing.
Needless to say, MS is a terrifying disease. What makes matters worse is that both the etiology (what causes it) and a viable treatment method have yet to be found. Dr. Zamboni's work potentially provides answers to both of these questions. It is for this reason that several patients are demanding that the federal government provide access (funding) for afflicted people to seek this treatment:
"While studies in Canada get underway, some patients are travelling overseas, paying for tests and surgery out of their own pocket. Others are lobbying for the Canadian health-care system to cover the diagnostic tests to look for blocked veins in people with MS.
I'm not even going to pretend that I know what it's like to have a debilitating illness, or that I can do anything besides blandly sympathize with people who are suffering from MS. However, this story highlights an important and seldom-talked-about fact of health care and health policy. Patients should not be the ones calling the shots. We have grown to feel entitled to be in the driver's seat when it comes to health. Respect for the autonomy and wishes of the patient is paramount in medical ethics, and I have no beef with that. An individual patient's needs and wishes need to be respected. However, this does not mean that health policy should be decided by sick people.
When you're sick, you have only one goal: getting better. Millions of years of evolution have hard-wired a strong survival instinct into all living species, and human beings are no exception. People suffering from disease and their families are willing to do just about anything for a chance at recovery, and logic plays nearly no role in the decision-making process. The problem with this is that people suspend their disbelief and are willing to jump at any chance, no matter how remote, unlikely, or unproven. This says nothing of the fact that patients are not nearly as well-informed as they think they are.
Health policy should be guided by evidence, not sentiment. The fact is that this MS procedure has not been tested for efficacy. We don't know whether or not it actually works, we have only the case reports of one surgeon to rely on. Far be it from me to suggest that Dr. Zamboni is being dishonest, but there is a mechanism for determining "truth" in science, and it comes from systematic appraisal of facts while controlling for alternate explanations, not simply believing what somebody says. The claims about how well this surgery works need to be tested before we give it the green light. This is another reason why patients should not be making these decsions – they can't dispassionately appraise the evidence and weigh the pros and cons. It's all 'pro' – there's a chance at life.
"So what?" you might say "anything that gives people hope is better than having no hope at all." That sounds nice, but it's frankly untrue. False hope is not superior to honestly confronting reality. False hope carries a double-edged sword: not only will they be devastated when the object of hope doesn't work, but they will also be out money and time that they could have otherwise used either on efficacious treatment or something else that would enhance their quality of life (travel, time with family, etc.). While it seems draconian and heartless to make decisions without putting patient suffering first and foremost in mind, the results of this process is that the greatest good will be consistently enjoyed by the largest number of people, rather than a scattershot approach that will be wrong as often as it is right.
Not only is it wrong to give false hope, there is a significant risk associated with surgeries, especially new surgeries for which many surgeons are not well-trained. All medicine is performed with a risk/benefit calculation in mind – basically, so long as the incremental benefit justifies the increased risk then the procedure is warranted. Surgery is particularly risky because of the risks of dying on the table, complications following closing, risk of hospital-borne infection, allergies to anesthesia, and others. What makes this particular surgery even more risky is that surgeons don't have a lot of experience performing it, so the risks of complications and fatality is even higher. Without consistently establishing the size of the procedure's benefit, it's completely irresponsible to give patients access to the risk.
It's also fascinating to me that every time a health governing body decides to push through a relatively new, somewhat untested treatment (like H1N1 or HPV vaccines, to cite a recent example), there is consumer backlash in the form of "we don't know what the long-term consequences of this thing is, so we shouldn't do it." However, in this case, we're getting backlash toward the health care governing bodies in the form of "you're not moving fast enough."
While I deeply sympathize with anyone who has to live with any catastrophic illness, I am firm in my stance that patients should not be the ones calling the shots when it comes to policy and decision-making, especially when it comes to untested interventions. Science takes time, and we will have an answer on this issue soon. In the meantime, it helps nobody to jump at every whiff of a cure, and could end up being far more harmful than we anticipate.


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It always surprises me how many people don't notice the plants along our highways. I can't be the only one driving down the road remarking the excellent pairing of plants nature makes in the median strips. Of course a lot of people bemoan that we have a poor range of woody nitrogen fixers so perhaps they don't realize our median strips are clogged with one of the best woody nitrogen fixers known. Please say you recognize the common name: autumn olive?
It's as though this plant were invisible to the general public. It is in fact one of the few elite plants to hit high nitrogen fixer status. This category starts at 160 lbs N fixation per acre, and doesn't even have an upper limit.
This is the first N-fixer in the series that is not a legume. It is actinorhizal. The reason being it doesn't use Rhizobium bacteria to fix N; the whole group, made up almost entirely of woody trees, use a filamentous bacteria called Frankia, which has quite a high salt, water, and drought tolerance.
Combine this with an early leafing, and in general shade tolerant disposition of Eleagnus, and you have a specimen rugged and ready for any terrain.
In fact its ruggedness is what gave it the green card to emigrate from East Asia to Northern Europe and the US. We needed something that could rehabilitate strip mines -places where land is stripped of its soil hunk by hunk to get coal under it rather than building an underground mine.
I'm not sure how widespread the practice is, but I have a lot of it around me -mostly done 50 years ago. Even today after rehabilitation, many of these sites look like a scene of Mordor (in fact many movies are made in strip mines for that affect) with grey and black rock and coal, and orange clay. Often there are huge ravines left that were used as personal dumps. Then most springs in them are some variety of toxic –either gray or orange red water.
So if this gives you a picture of what Eleagnus was brought to America to live in, and that it thrived in, you get my meaning for rugged.
Obviously any food forest where fruit trees are expected to grow will be a walk in the park for Eleagnus. All the better because it is a fruiting shrub.
I remember the expression on my friend's face when I first introduced him to the shrub. He was at first wary of eating off a random bush in the middle of a half wild field, but once he tasted the berries his face lit up with surprise and copiously praised them saying they would be amazing in a salad.
I completely agree. The flavor to me is like a tart apple, although it has a more intense sweetness than any apple I've tasted. Some species like E. multiflora, commonly known as Goumi in Japan, naturally has much larger fruit, and about the same flavor I'm told. There are several varieties of E. umbellata bred-up for size and flavor, such as 'Ruby, and 'Amber,' which I have; although I haven't been able to taste any yet to say how much better they are.
A more sensuous experience Eleagnus has to offer are its flowers. I love their scent-and others do too; one woman said she'd pay me if I could dig her a wild bush to smell in her yard. It lands somewhere between a floral and a gourmand in terms of perfume, being a vanilla spice scent. Thick as it is, I've caught the scent wafting down wind a whole fifty feet from the plant.
As for its form, it's highly variable. In wandering strip mines I've seen some with six inch single trunks that are more fitting as trees stretching for the upper story, and shrubs with dense canes coming up from the base as a thick bush. Coppicing in the sun will produce the latter effect, limbing up in shade the former.
Limbing up in shade is one place Eleagnus does very well because it can take shade and still produce a decent amount of N for the space it takes. For the most nitrogen and fruit though, it's better to let them get sun in the overstory, or have some sun in the understory where you can pick them.
So after all that, I just hope you don't get into any wrecks studying your new found highway inhabitant. Perhaps it's better to study them in your food forest. They're far more productive that way.


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What's all the fuss about Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Why would I want to buy an RO when I could just buy a water filter pitcher? I'm glad you asked – that's what we were just about to discuss! Let's compare, shall we?
- Space. The space in your refrigerator is limited, and water filter pitchers can often be one of the biggest items in your fridge. With a reverse osmosis system, it hooks on to your sink. This frees up space in your fridge for other things – not drinking water.
- Capacity. "There are some pretty big water filter pitchers out there," you might argue. And you're right. There are some high-capacity pitchers out there, but no matter the size, you'll find yourself filling them up more often than you'd like. With an RO, the only thing you'll be filling up is your glass.
- Availability. If you've ever used a water filter pitcher, you've seen that the filtration isn't instant. After you fill it up (which you'll do often – especially when you have friends over), you have to sit and wait for it to finish filtering before pouring another glass. It doesn't take long, but you still have to wait. Wouldn't it be better to have a reverse osmosis system to instantly give you fresh, great-tasting water at a moment's notice?
- Filtration. Perhaps the most compelling difference between a water filter pitcher and an RO is that a reverse osmosis drinking water system uses a multi-stage filtration process to remove impurities (ours are typically 3‑5 stages) from your water, while pitchers usually have a single-stage carbon filter. RO drinking water systems have a carbon filter, too, but they also have additional stages to remove everything from sediment to harmful impurities like lead, radium, aesthetic chlorine, chromium‑6, and arsenic.*
Now do you see what the fuss is about? Reverse osmosis drinking water machines provide you with superior convenience and save space in your refrigerator. Contact your local Culligan Man to get more information about a customized reverse osmosis system for your home today!
* Not everybody's water contains these impurities; yours might not. Schedule a water analysis with your local Culligan Man to find out what's in your water.


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The Tripel, the gastropub based in Playa del Rey, will be celebrating American Craft Beer Week with a special dinner on Monday, May 21 at 6:30 p.m. They'll team up with Smog City Brewery, a craft brewery from Tustin. The night will feature unique brews and a special four-course tasting menu by Brooke Williamson and Nick Roberts.
With the slogan "Find Food and Libations," The Tripel is known for its chill vibes and great beer selection. It just opened last year and already boasts a popular following. The staff is noted as attentive and helpful with their food and drink recommendations.
The American Craft Beer Week night will start off with a cocktail beer hour, and then continue with a special four-course menu. Each selection on the menu will be paired with a limited edition Smog City beer. Start off the meal with a hot and sour cockle soup with saison runnings, a sweetened egg omelet, and wood ear mushrooms. The next savory course is a beet pasta with wild boar ragout and porcini mushrooms. Move on to the third course, featuring a black bread with rabbit Pâté and pickled icicle radish. Finish off the dinner with a house made box of candies.
Learn more about the dinner by visiting The Tripel online or at 333 Culver Boulevard in Playa Del Rey.
Like Haute Living Los Angeles? Join our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter @HauteLivingLA. Want Haute Living Los Angeles delivered to your inbox once a week? Sign up for our newsletter.


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Tag Archives: New York artist
Spotte Art Curated Contemporary Online Only Exhibitions
Spotte, presents curated contemporary exhibitions online with 6 shows under their belt and affordable art by 45 emerging artists available to buy and invest in. Spotte is a unique internet-based art platform. We love the artwork there, the clean look and high quality photographs of the work!
Digital Contemporary Art Gallery Spotteart.com launched its Sixth Online Only Exhibition at the end of last year (2015), and it remains viewable online through February 2016.
New York City based Spotteart.com is a digital platform showcasing contemporary works of art and design. All collections are curated by Spotte's founder and curator Nelba Delmedico, Modern and Contemporary art expert.
The site currently displays collections by 8 emerging and mid-career artists from Brazil, Spain & USA, including Alex Hulphers (Seattle, USA) with a series of neo-cubism/constructivism crossover acrylics on canvas named "Architectural Reflexes" on the site. Jennifer Shepard (NY, USA) exhibits abstract neon mixed medias on paper "Here/Not Here" in the current online exhibition. Blanca Morales (Madrid, Spain) offers optic and kinetic art sculptures titled "Kinetic Blocks." Juliana Curi (Brazil) presents "Pink Intervention," bold contrasting photo intervention progressions. Nicole Reber (NY, USA) displays her "Sign" series of mixed media wall pieces. Peter Daitch (New England, USA) reveals photo works informed by abstract expressionism. Mari Garcia (Malaga, Spain) showcases her series of cinematic mixed media miniature collages. Raul De La Torre (Barcelona/LA-based, USA) brought a series of color-saturated, thread-embroidered paintings titled "Poems" to the site.
Since their launch in April 2014, Spotteart.com has evolved into one of the leading independent internet-based art galleries, offering more than 415 original works of art & design by 45 contemporary artists in a wide range of mediums, from photography to sculpture. The gallery exhibits artwork online seasonally. Participating artists select or create a series of 8-10 pieces available exclusively at Spotte. These collections are accompanied with biographies and statements by the artists, as well as updated with weekly blog features dedicated to artists' backgrounds and aesthetics.
Stay updated:
Visit online at spotteart.com
Though our e-list of international art galleries (available here) lists physical galleries around the world, Spotteart may be a great resources for artists seeking gallery representation so that we think that they may want to know about it, so we may add it to our e-list.


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Enjoy all the benefits of advanced LED energy-saving technology with the Feit Electric G2540/950CA/FIL/3 40W G25 LED Light Bulb. This 5000K daylight bulb is dimmable and will replace a 40-watt equivalent incandescent bulb. It produces a similar light output (350 lumens), uses 3.8 watts of electricity and up to 91% less energy than a standard incandescent light bulb. Get instant on to full brightness with relatively cool running performance. Feit Electric G25 light bulbs have an average life of 15,000 hours / 13.7 years are RoHS compliant and are 100% mercury free. Choose a dependable bath and vanity bulb for residential or commercial applications.
- Suitable for damp locations
- Color consistency
- Low heat


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I was drawn to Crewel because of its blurb that promised a non-conformist who was hiding her true abilities despite societal pressure. I was interested to see what would happen to this girl who went against the grain. I requested Crewel through a BEA-related promotion from Macmillan. This review is based off of that eARC copy.
The Premise: In the world of Arras, some women are born with the ability to manipulate the fabric of existence. They are called Spinsters, and they keep the world running smoothly. They can weave food into being and thread supplies from one end of Arras to the other. But Spinsters are rare and under strict control of the Guild. Every sixteen year old girl is tested for ability, and if she qualifies, she's whisked away by the Guild to a presumably glamorous life. She will never be seen by her family again, except as a glitzy picture on the occasional Bulletin. While most, including Adelice's sister, Amie, believe being a Spinster is a dream come true, Adelice would much rather stay in Romen. For years under her parents' guidance, Adelice has practiced her clumsiness. Although she doesn't fully understand why her parents want to protect her from them, she assumes that the Guild's tight control on society (where segregation, rationing, and marriage laws are the norm), is reason enough. As Adelice's family begins celebrating her failure of the Spinster testing, they are unaware that Adelice slipped up and didn't actually come off as a dud. Adelice hopes to have one last happy moment with them before being taken away. Unfortunately she underestimates her parents' resistance. When the Guild comes knocking, her mother and father make a last ditch effort, but Adelice's silence has limited their chances, and ultimately she's dragged away, leaving behind at least one dead parent.
Read an excerpt of Crewel here (ch 1, on web) or here (ch 1-5 on kindle) or here (ch 1-5 on nook)
My Thoughts: I have to hand it to this author — she knows how to get a story started. Crewel quickly sets the stage: a dystopian world held in the iron grip of the Guild. Every aspect of life is regulated, all because the Guild controls the Spinsters, and as her parents tell her "no matter how good their intentions, with absolute power comes corruption". It's a foreboding stage, and it makes sense that Adelice would want to avoid the Guild's notice. Instead she screws up in testing and reveals her ability, which leads the Guild to violently rip Adelice's family apart. They use force to yank Adelice from her home, and threats to make her smile and wave at the cameras, while Guild celebrity Cormac Patton smiles at her side. Later she is drugged, imprisoned, and rebound to the Western Compound for Spinster training. There she sees first hand what absolute power really brings.
The concept of weaving the threads of life and existence is something I hadn't seen before. Through manipulation of 'threads' on a special loom, Spinsters maintain the infrastructure of Arras, create food, transport people, and even bring new life to the world. But other manipulations are less benevolent. Spinsters are also able to change memories, make dissenting citizens disappear (literally), and remove the elderly even if they are not infirm. A dystopia based off of this concept of an ultimate control of existence is a brilliant idea. I found it interesting that women were singled out for particular control, even the female Spinsters. They were made to keep traditional female roles (teacher, secretary), not allowed to travel alone (unlike men). Even appearance (cosmetics) is regulated. It is easy to see where the Guild uses the "good of Arras" to justify their actions, and how the propaganda machine and careful memory manipulations keeps the general population blissfully ignorant of the Guild's actions.
The idea behind of this dystopia appealed to me, but the story didn't quite 'wow' me in its execution. Like I said, the story starts out really well. I loved the first chapter – we're not only introduced to the concept of Spinsters and Adelice's own precarious situation, but we're also shown the dynamics of a close-knit family. Because this story is told in the first person from Adelice's point of view, I felt like her parent's protectiveness and their need for secrecy comes through very well, as did her sister's innocent belief in the system. The writing here balanced world building with plot and character development. As the story continued, this balance wasn't as well maintained.
One of the biggest issues I had was the with character development. Maybe it's because all the other characters aren't her family, so there's less personal connection from her point of view, but after she leaves home, the secondary characters don't seem to have the same depth as her family did. In my mind they fall into two groups: bad guys and everyone else. The bad guys are the ones in charge with power over life and death, and they use this power in petty ways. They were the most one-note characters representing a totalitarian government. As for everyone else, they were defined by their reaction to those in power. There was not much to distinguish a character personality-wise – not much that I could really connect to. More often then not, I just felt like they were being used to propel the plot by explaining things to Adelice at opportune moments or to serve as examples of the Guild's evil. The love interests had a little more personality, but still not enough. There's the ambitious assistant with his own agenda and the quiet brooder with a painful past. Again I had trouble connecting to these relationships and had trouble caring about a romance with them. There was very little to make me believe in Adelice's interest, and two options felt gratuitous (that dreaded love triangle, thankfully not so bad here).
Finally, we have Adelice herself. After what happens to her family, she is surprisingly… resilient. Sure, she sheds a tear here and there, but it is minimal. She says she is sad but I had trouble buying it. I didn't read 'mourning' when her behavior and her narration are no different from your typical teen fond of a little snark. I think that my not buying Adelice's connection to the other characters made them feel even more flat and lackluster. As for Adelice's strength as a main character – Adelice is supposedly rebellious but this didn't make her seem very smart when who she is mouthing off to just killed at least one parent. Her attitude didn't win points when we find out Adelice is given a pass for what she is. When it comes to doing something about her situation other than realizing who the bad guys are, she spends much of the book finding supporters who already hate the system (they don't need convincing from her) and doing what she is told without really knowing what is going on. It is when other characters that tell her that her life is in danger that she finally does something proactive rather than reactive.
Writing out my review I think I have figured out what was missing for me in Crewel. It was that I wasn't feeling the emotional depth that I wanted to. It just didn't come through the pages. The story relied heavily on exploring the Spinster dystopia concept and it was what propelled it forward. The characters and their motivations were adjusted to fit this instead of vice versa. As a result it felt like the plot bypasses internal development (like Adelice absorbing her situation on an emotional level or really connecting to the other characters), in favor of shining a light on the challenges of living in a dystopia. This story is more plot-driven, less character-driven and emotional.
Overall: It was OK. The mix of fantasy and dystopia in the concept of Spinsters and their abilities made a lasting impression, but the rest didn't really resonate. I read Crewel a month and a half ago and I had to reread it to write this review because the rest of the plot disappeared from my head like gossamer mind candy. I think many people will enjoy this and be more engaged than I was, depending on how they react to the dystopia driving the story. Without the character/emotional aspect I felt like I was left with predictable abuses of power as the plot, and so, this story and I? We do not mesh well. I'm not sure I'll continue this series.
Crewel is out October 16th in the US, October 18th in the UK.
Buy: Amazon | Powell's | The Book Depository
Other reviews:
Bunbury in the Stacks – "this is one worth checking out"
Other links:
The Department of Alterations (a short story set in the world of Crewel)


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Archive for the 'Obama administration' Tag
Street art and 'authority'
Filed under: art, Art, Street Art, graffiti | Tags: art, authority, graffiti, Obama administration, Street art, Union Lane, Wooster Collective
Comments (8)
Once again, it's been a long time between posts. The main reason for this is that I contracted whooping cough just before Easter: it turns out that whooping cough is a highly nasty illness and there's good reason why we vaccinate kids against it. Anyway, while convalescent, I spent a lot of time online: reading blogs, browsing through some great street art websites, and, of course, spending a bit of time on Facebook. Amidst the productive procrastination of all those mad quizzes, recently there's been some fascinating reading provided by the responses to questions being asked on Facebook by the Wooster Collective (questions which range from 'what's your favourite hangover cure' to 'what is the best city for street art'). One recent question asked respondents to say what impact they thought it would have if street art were legal. Reading the comments (most of which indicated that something would be lost if street art were legalized) started me thinking about street art and its relation to authority and to the various government bodies and organizations that we might call the 'authorities'.
Around the same time that the Wooster Collective were asking this question, I received an email from Russell Howze, stencil artist and author of Stencil Nation (it's also well worth checking out both his blog and Stencil Archive, his fabulous resource on stencil art). In the email, he described the Anti-Graffiti Super Huddle (website here), a recent initiative in San Francisco designed to reduce, contain and eliminate graffiti in the city. Russell's concerns were that the anti-graffiti strategies seemed to be coming thick and fast, and he asked whether any arts organizations were participating in these debates (to provide a counter-voice) and whether any politicians might want to develop initiatives that recognized the positive value street art could have for a city.
So here we have a great example of how the encounter between street art and authority is usually configured (the Anti-Graffiti Super Huddle with its objectives of zero tolerance and graffiti prevention) and we can also see how difficult it is to imagine ways in which that encounter might be transformed – an enterprise which would certainly be challenging but which could have many benefits for artists (perhaps reducing the chances of being fined or prosecuted) and for inhabitants of urban spaces (in allowing street art to flourish rather than struggle in the periods in between massive buffing exercises).
Certainly of relevance to the possibility of transforming the encounter between street art and authority is the news that recently the Wooster Collective were invited to the White House. Earlier in May, Marc and Sara, along with around 60 representatives from grassroots arts organizations, attended a briefing session with aides from the Obama administration and participated in workshops focusing on a range of key issues to do with the arts. As they say in the post on their website recounting the event, the issue they wanted to raise was 'the need to better understand the issues around public and private space' (for the full post, look here and scroll down to the entry for 13 May 2009).
In some ways, it's no surprise that the Obama administration would invite individuals interested in street art to such a meeting. The Obama campaign demonstrated that it understood the positive capacities of street art – particularly so in relation to the widespread appearance in public space of the image of Obama created by Shepard Fairey. (You can read about this image and its role in the campaign here.) Fairey talks about his creation of the image in this video:
But in other ways, of course, it's nothing short of mind-boggling that a government would engage in this sort of outreach towards individuals who have championed artwork that is oftentimes illicit. After reading about the Wooster Collective's visit to the White House, I tried to imagine the equivalent in other countries – Gordon Brown including Banksy in a round table on the future of the arts in the UK, say, or Kevin Rudd inviting the Everfresh boys to Canberra for a discussion about arts funding.
The comparison isn't quite an exact one, however: the Wooster Collective are not artists themselves; they are enormously supportive of street art in general and have promoted the work of a wide range of artists in many countries, and have generally raised awareness about street art in the community on an incredible scale. But they are not themselves known for engaging in the production of illicit images, and I'm guessing that this distinction is still important for those in authority, when they issue invitations to participate in such debate.
I am only speculating here – I don't know who else was invited to the White House: there may have been a street artist there as well (but I'm guessing that Marc and Sara would have said if there had been). But once we get over the surprise and delight that such a meeting took place, what are the outcomes that we might hope for when street art, like Mr Smith, 'goes to Washington'?
It's an interesting question – partly because I'm still unsure of what this could lead to. I can see that there are a lot of things that can be gained in terms of the symbolic support it gives to street art(ists) and the potential for parlaying this kind of recognition into all sorts of consciousness-raising efforts. It's hard to think of concrete outcomes partly because we really haven't seen an encounter like this, at this level of power, and with so much potential. But I'm also pretty sure that there are some risks too, and this is because there are so many instances of the encounter between street art and authority at lower levels of government making things harder for street artists or leading to some pretty strange results.
Here's one example: in Melbourne, a few yeas back, the City of Melbourne agreed to support a project whereby artists would be permitted to paint the walls in Union Lane, in the city centre. Union Lane is a narrow lane that connects one of the major retail thoroughfares (Bourke Street) with another shopping street running parallel to it, Little Collins Street. Many of Melbourne's laneways possess great charm and character; Union Lane does not – it was a forbidding, gloomy stretch of laneway, its unrelieved concrete walls were plain grey on one side and on the other had been painted with an uninspired, bland mural which pictorialized various civic virtues (and which had been heavily tagged).
The Union Lane project was a fantastic idea, in many ways, and it was brought into being through the hard work of a lot of people. Several well-known, highly respected artists and experienced artists were commissioned to paint in the massive work that was to cover both walls for the entire length of the laneway (which is pretty long – a city block). These artists also mentored younger artists on the project. Visiting street artists joined in. The result was a collage of styles and images produced by dozens of individuals. Passers-by took photographs; tourists visited the site; many talked with the artists and learned something about street art as they watched it being carried out. You can see the lane as it was before, and the process of developing and painting the laneway in this video:
It sounds brilliant, and in many ways it was. Surely this would be an example of the encounter between street art and authority working at its best? Well, a few unexpected problems arose. Although the presence of a high quality piece on a wall usually inspires respect from other writers or artists (that is, they don't go over the work), the Union Lane paintings have quickly been tagged. Some people have speculated that the stencilled words 'Street art permit: City of Melbourne' might imply to some that the site is one where anyone can and should put up, rather than a site to be looked at.
It's also my suspicion that the initiative demonstrates how easy it is for there to be a clash between the expectations of those in 'authority' and the norms and practices of street art culture. The City of Melbourne put time, effort and money into the project, and as such, wanted to protect their investment and preserve the result. Graffiti writers and street artists, however, did not necessarily view the site or the project as one which deserved permanence and preservation (two things which are not really high on the list of priorities for many graffiti writers anyway) beyond the recognition of the skills of various artists who contributed to the project.
And so, as time has passed, Union Lane is gradually becoming shabbier. Because of this, there's a risk that it will be held up some day as an example of why such initiatives fail to achieve any positive results. Could this have been avoided? Well, one possible strategy would have been to have recognized at the outset that permanence isn't highly valued in street art and graffiti cultures and that a range of temporary surfaces (such as hoardings) could be attached to the walls of Union Lane for artists to paint and re-work over time, with the hoardings being removed and replaced periodically.
Such an approach would no doubt bring with it its own particular issues and potential problems, but at least it would demonstrate that those in 'authority' are not just dispensing largesse (which can be revoked) but are actively trying to understand how street art and graffiti work.
So I guess my main point is this: in any encounter with authority, street art and street artists need to expect that all will not go according to plan, and that any plan needs to incorporate contingencies as to what might happen down the track, when the expectations of those in authority are not met.
And I think, at the moment, this will always happen, because there's such an asymmetry between the positions of those with power (councils, the Obama administration) and those without it (graffiti writers, arts organizations, street artists). (And it would be great if the Wooster Collective's encounter with authority could lead to a discussion as to how street artists might work to render that relationship less asymmetrical.)
I don't mean to be pessimistic, but over the years I have seen many instances of street artists or graffiti writers trying to engage positively with 'authority', and I have had some experience of trying to do so myself. If someone loses out, it's usually the artist. (And I would love to hear from anyone who has had experience of trying to work with 'authority' – whether successful or unsuccessful.)
So when street art 'goes to Washington', it's going to be essential to have a clear idea of what street art can gain from the encounter, what 'authority' can offer street art, and what risks might lie ahead, even with an administration that has shown remarkable understanding and appreciation of all that street art can offer the community.


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Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ©
When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice;
when the wicked rule, the people groan.
(Proverbs 29:2 (NIV))
Ouch !!!
Have we been rejoicing or groaning?
Think about the implications of that simple question.
Have we lost track of the principles upon which we were founded? Have we grown so accustom to looking out for only ourselves, that we forget that what we do has an affect on others? Have we allowed wickedness to replace righteousness? Do we look upon sin as something that is wrong, or do we look upon sin as an alternative lifestyle? Do we see those around us as individuals whom God created, or do we simply see someone who is an obstacle in our way?
I could go on and on with these types of questions, but I hope you understand my point.
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.
Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine
and champions at mixing drinks,
who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
but deny justice to the innocent.
(Isaiah 5:20-23 (NIV))
Does any of this sound familiar? It does to me.
Fortunately, God allows us to turn away from our sin and return to Him.
"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
(2 Chronicles 7:13-14 (NIV))
The heavens may not be shut so that there is no rain, but I think I see the telltale signs of a different type of locust. This locust devours just like the type referred to in this passage, and just like we are told, if we will humbly turn to God in prayer, and turn toward Him, He will heal our land.
I don't know about you, but I am tired of groaning. Join me in prayer! Let's continue to turn to God in righteousness!
Copyright 1998 – 2020 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
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Tennis | U.S. Open: Williams to face Azarenka in final again
NEW YORK — At the end, and only at the very end, did Serena Williams face anything resembling a challenge in her U.S. Open semifinal.
Six times, Williams was a single point from winning. Six times, she failed to come through.
All that did, of course, was delay the inevitable yesterday. On match point No. 7, Williams delivered a 107 mph service winner, then let out two shouts, a mixture of relief and rejoicing after a 6-0, 6-3 victory over fifth-seeded Li Na of China that put the defending champion back in the final at Flushing Meadows.
"I got a little nervous," said the No. 1-ranked Williams, who will face No. 2 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus on Sunday in a rematch of last year's final, "but I was able to close it out, finally."& amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; lt; /p>
She usually does.
Pursuing a fifth U.S. Open championship and 17th Grand Slam title overall, Williams has been so dominant, so untouchable, during these two weeks that the only question each time out was how long it would take her to win, not whether she would.
Through 12 sets across six matches in this tournament, Williams has lost a total of 16 games (for context, Azarenka lost 13 in one match alone). The 31-year-old American can become the first woman to win the U.S. Open without dropping a set since — yes, you guessed it — Williams herself in 2008. She also did it in 2002.
Williams won 24 games in a row during a particularly perfect stretch that began in the second set of her fourth-round victory over No. 15-seeded Sloane Stephens, continued through a 6-0, 6-0 quarterfinal win against No.?18 Carla Suarez Navarro, and concluded with a 1-0 lead in the second set against 2011 French Open champion Li.
So what's the secret to making things competitive against Williams?
"You've got to fight. You've got to run. You've got to grind. And you've got to bite with your teeth for whatever opportunity you have," Azarenka said. "She's obviously an amazing player. She's the greatest of all time."
Williams is definitely bolstering her case lately.
She is 66-4 with eight titles in 2013. Go back to the start of Wimbledon in June 2012, and she is 97-5 with 13 trophies, including three from the past five Grand Slams.
Half of Williams' losses this season were to Azarenka, including one at a hard-court tune-up in Mason, Ohio, last month.
"We know each other pretty well. I know her strengths; she knows my strengths," Azarenka said. " That's what it's all about, about those turning points, who wants it more, who's willing to go for it more."
Azarenka has lost 12 of their 15 career meetings, but she did manage to push Williams to three sets a year ago in New York. This will be the first time the same women play each other in the U.S. Open final two years in a row since Williams lost to older sister Venus in 2001, then beat her in 2002.
Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion, improved to a tour-leading 31-1 on hard courts this season by overcoming all sorts of sloppiness to beat 83rd-ranked Flavia Pennetta of Italy 6-4, 6-2 in the first semifinal.
"I scared her a little," Pennetta said.
Azarenka hit six double faults, had far more unforced errors (25) than winners (15) and was broken in five of her nine service games. She's one of the game's top returners, however, and wound up with eight breaks of Pennetta.
Now comes a far tougher test against Williams, who had to go right back on court last night to team with Venus in the women's doubles semifinals, where they lost 6-4, 6-2 to the Czech pairing of Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka .
Earlier in the evening, with shadows stretching across the blue court and the Arthur Ashe Stadium lights on, it took Li 38 minutes of play to earn a game against Williams. And then she won another, breaking for a 2-1 lead in the second set with a big cross-court forehand to a corner that forced an error by Williams.
It was a jarring shift. It also was fleeting.
Good as Li is, she simply couldn't stay with Williams. After Li went up 40-love to get within one point of a 3-1 lead in the second set, she ceded six points with missed backhands to let Williams break back. And Williams broke again to go up 4-2.