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An insomnia therapy that scientists just reported could double the effectiveness of depression treatment is not widely available nor particularly well understood by psychiatrists or the public. The American Board of Sleep Medicine has certified just 400 practitioners in the United States to administer it, and they are sparse, even in big cities.
That may change soon, however. Four rigorous studies of the treatment are nearing completion and due to be reported in coming months. In the past year, the American Psychological Association recognized sleep psychology as a specialty, and the Department of Veterans Affairs began a program to train about 600 sleep specialists. So-called insomnia disorder is defined as at least three months of poor sleep that causes problems at work, at home or in relationships.
The need is great: Depression is the most common mood disorder, affecting some 18 million Americans in any given year, and most have insomnia.
"I think it's increasingly likely that this kind of sleep therapy will be used as a possible complement to standard care," said Dr. John M. Oldham, chief of staff at the Menninger Clinic in Houston. "We are the court of last resort for the most difficult-to-treat patients, and I think sleep problems have been extremely underrecognized as a critical factor."
The treatment, known as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, is not widely available. Most insurers cover it, and the rates for private practitioners are roughly the same as for any psychotherapy, ranging from $100 to $250 an hour, depending on the therapist.
"There aren't many of us doing this therapy," said Shelby Harris, the director of the behavioral sleep medicine program at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, who also has a private practice in Tarrytown, N.Y. "I feel like we all know each other."
According to preliminary results, one of the four studies has found that when CBT-I cures insomnia — it does so 40 percent to 50 percent of the time, previous work suggests — it powerfully complements the effect of antidepressant drugs.
"There's been a huge recognition that insomnia cuts across a wide variety of medical disorders, and there's a need to address it," said Michael T. Smith, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and president of the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine.
The therapy is easy to teach, said Colleen Carney, director of the sleep and depression lab at Ryerson University in Toronto, whose presentation at a conference of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies in Nashville on Saturday raised hopes for depression treatment. "In the study we did, I trained students to administer the therapy," she said in an interview, "and the patients in the study got just four sessions."
CBT-I is not a single technique but a collection of complementary ideas. Some date to the 1970s, others are more recent. One is called stimulus control, which involves breaking the association between being in bed and activities like watching television or eating. Another is sleep restriction: setting a regular "sleep window" and working to stick to it. The therapist typically has patients track their efforts on a standardized form called a sleep diary. Patients record bedtimes and when they wake up each day, as well as their perceptions about quality of sleep and number of awakenings. To this the therapist might add common-sense advice like reducing caffeine and alcohol intake, and making sure the bedroom is dark and quiet.
Those three elements — stimulus control, restriction and common sense — can do the trick for many patients. For those who need more, the therapist applies cognitive therapy — a means of challenging self-defeating assumptions. Patients fill out a standard questionnaire that asks how strongly they agree with statements like: "Without an adequate night's sleep, I can hardly function the next day"; "I believe insomnia is the result of a chemical imbalance"; and "Medication is probably the only solution to sleeplessness." In sessions, people learn to challenge those beliefs, using evidence from their own experiences.
"If someone has the belief that if they don't sleep, they'll somehow fail the next day, I'll ask, 'What does failure mean? You'll be slower at work, not get everything done, not make dinner?' " Dr. Harris said. "Then we'll look at the 300 nights they didn't sleep well over the past few years and find out they managed; it might not have been as pleasant as they liked, but they did not fail. That's how we challenge those kinds of thoughts."
Dr. Aaron T. Beck, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania who is recognized as the father of cognitive therapy for mental disorders, said the techniques were just as applicable to sleep problems. "In fact, I have used it myself when I occasionally have insomnia," he said by email.
In short-term studies of a month or two, CBT-I has been about as effective as prescription sleeping pills. But it appears to have more staying power. "There's no data to show that if you take a sleeping pill — and then stop taking it — that you'll still be good six months later," said Jack Edinger, a professor at National Jewish Health in Denver and an author, with Dr. Carney, of "Overcoming Insomnia: A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Approach."
"It might happen, but those certainly aren't the people who come through my door," he said.
Dr. Edinger and others say that those who respond well to CBT-I usually do so quickly — in an average of four sessions, and rarely more than eight. "You're not going to break the bank doing this stuff; it's not a marriage," he said. "You do it for a fixed amount of time, and then you're done. Once you've got the skills, they don't go away."


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Only 22 days until live game action…
- 30: Desmond Jennings
- 29: Carlos Santana
- 28: Hanley Ramirez
- 27: Yonder Alonso
- 26: Pablo Sandoval
- 25: Kyle Seager
- 24: Jose Bautista
- 23: Todd Frazier
With 30 days to go, I started profiling a hitter per day highlighting one from each team. I selected my player of note from each team and then randomized them (which was pretty interesting consider who the final two were after the randomization) so that's the order I'll be following.
For today's countdown piece, I'm going to do things a bit different. With Adrian Beltre, I'm going to offer 22 stats about him to celebrate the 22 days left until game time. He's been excellent and yet somewhat underrated recently both in "real" baseball and on the fantasy landscape.
- Since getting out Seattle (where he was criminally underrated), he his 19.1 fWAR is second among third basemen to only Miguel Cabrera. Considering Cabrera has played third base just one of those three years, I think it is fair to declare Beltre the best overall third basemen by fWAR since 2010.
- His 19.1 fWAR also lands him fifth on the overall list behind only Cabrera, Joey Votto, Robinson Cano, and Ryan Braun.
- His fielding is no doubt aids his lofty ranking, but his 138 wRC+ is the 13th highest total in the same span (and sits 17th after factoring in ties) so it's not like he's been anything but spectacular with the bat, too.
- Over at Baseball-Reference, he rates 4th overall in the 2010-2012 time period with a 19.7 bWAR topped by three of the four from the Fangraphs list. This time Cano sits atop the list followed by Cabrera and then Braun.
- He is pacing the position in all three Triple Crown categories the last three years with 96 home runs, 309 RBIs, and a .314 batting average. He leads by four in home runs over Mark Reynolds, by 28 in RBIs over Aramis Ramirez, and by 19 points in average of David Freese.
- For good measure he's also leading in runs with 261 over David Wright (238)…
- …and doubles with 115 over Ramirez again (106).
- His last season in Seattle was really the only dismal one despite the entire tenure often being thought of as a bust because he never reached the heights of his .334-48-121 season in 2004, his last year with the Dodgers. Even factoring in the 8 HR/44 RBI swan song in Seattle, he still averaged 21 HRs and 79 RBIs per season with a 162-game average of 24/90.
- Imagine if he hadn't been stuck in Safeco Field for half of his games those five years. He hit a paltry .252/.304/.411 in 1595 plate appearances in his home yard.
- That park remains hell on righties with an 84 park factor for doubles/triples and a 70 park factor for home runs. Only singles are favorable for righties at a modest 102.
- Since transitioning out of Seattle and into a pair of favorable home ballparks the last three years, Beltre is averaging 32 HRs and 103 RBIs with a 162-game average of 36/116.
- Not mention his average has risen from .266 to .314 the last three years.
- He's handled his early 30s like an all-time great. His 19.7 bWAR is the 7th-best age 31-33 WAR since 1970 and the 12th-best since 1940. He even tops Rickey Henderson and Alex Rodriguez, who tied at 19.6 apiece.
- The greats to top his 19.7 since 1940 include: Willie Mays (31.1), Joe Morgan (25.9), Barry Bonds (25.3), Roberto Clemente (24.8), Jackie Robinson (24.5), Hank Aaron (23.5), Stan Musial (22.1), Mike Schmidt (21.3), Sammy Sosa (21.1), Craig Biggio (20.6), and Pete Rose (20.2).
- Beltre's 985 OPS versus righties in 2012 was 5th-best in MLB.
- His .609 slugging percentage versus was 3rd-best as were his 30 home runs.
- His 965 OPS in the second half of 2012 was the 8th-best in baseball and that's with a 697 OPS in July.
- Beltre tied Kyle Seager for the major league lead with nine home runs on 1-0 counts. Don't get behind to these guys or they will attack.
- Surprisingly, his 1448 OPS in those 1-0 counts was only 7th-best last year. Nick Swisher had an insane 1995 OPS including a .605 batting average.
- But if Beltre got way ahead, he wasn't as effective. On 2-0 counts he hit just .167 with a 333 OPS. Of course part of that is because of the meager 18 plate appearance sample. So it's probably better stated that if he got way ahead in a 2-0 count, he wasn't as aggressive.
- Any plate appearance where he was ahead, he had a .405 batting average with a beastly 1274 OPS and 15 of his 36 home runs.
- His 17 home runs with men on tied him for 4th-most with five other players including Cabrera, Braun, Chase Headley, Josh Willingham, and Alfonso Soriano.
These facts aren't intended to inform you that Beltre is a good player. You already knew that. Instead, they should help you realize that you're watching a generational talent. He is building a legitimate Hall of Fame case and if that fact has been lost on you to date, well, now you know and you can appreciate the greatness you're watching at a premium defensive position.
Additionally, these gaudy statistics may help you figure out the answer to the question, "Who should I draft near the end of the first round in my draft this year?" Especially if you are in a bigger mixed league that runs 14+ teams deep, but even you 12-teamers should give him legitimate consideration. Third base isn't the sinkhole it was a few years ago, but it is a still a premium infield position and filling it with a superstar is a great way to start your team. Hell, Evan Longoria has maintained the lofty draft status without coming close to Beltre's numbers the last three years. I understand why people are lured in by his potential, but maybe you'd do better with Beltre's consistency over Longoria's promise.

subset: commoncrawl


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As an Asian American, you can't avoid touching on the subject of racism in the movie "Cloud Atlas," particularly if you're viewing it in Hawaii. Hawaii is the only state where the cultural atmosphere suddenly changes and I am part of the majority, or at least look the part despite my mainland ways. I get the same feeling when I'm in any one of Los Angeles County's Chinatowns despite not being Chinese, yet for my Hawaiian-born husband and cousins, being part of the majority is what being at home means.
"Cloud Atlas" is confusing enough with its intertwining fragmented stories, but what is clear is the theme of hubris or karma. Hubris is a Greek term that is about a person acting in arrogance and the shaming a less powerful person for mere pleasure, yet in modern usage is also comes with a caveat: there will be punishment. If not from the gods because in Christian thought humility is preferable, from a God, and thus one says "pride goes before the fall." (Book of Proverbs, 16:18).
Karma means deed and is an Asian term from India and part of the tradition of Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikh. The deed is part of a cycle of cause and effect and the cycle itself is called samsara (now the name of a different type of movie). In the movie, more than once characters comment, "Our lives are not our own. By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future." You see this concept in all monotheistic religions; it's the Golden Rule or the ethic of reciprocity.
You might be wondering why Hawaii is important at all in "Cloud Atlas." Perhaps this is where some of the confusion springs from–we aren't immediately aware of where we are when we're in the post-apocalyptic world, the world where we see Tom Hanks as Zachry. He's an old man, battle scarred and telling a tale of the past, before a fire. When he was younger and inhabiting the tale of "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After," he is in Hawaii, but not a Hawaii that we would ever know or shall ever be and herein lies some of the racially-charged content.
The movie "Cloud Atlas" is like one of those Russian dolls, in which one nests inside another and the real charm of the dolls themselves is in their relationship to each other. There are six stories. The oldest one is "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing" which follows Adam (Jim Sturgess) during his journey to the Chatham Islands in 1849. The American lawyer befriends a Moriori slave who has stowed away on his ship. The slave, Autua (David Gyasi), comes under his protection, but Adam's friend, Dr. Henry Goose (Hanks) is treating the American for a Pacific parasitic worm while actually poisoning him.
In story two, the journal is being read in 1936 Edinburgh, Scotland by Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw) who had left his male lover in Cambridge, England in order to work with a famous composer, Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent) in Edinburgh, Scotland. Frobisher is a man of questionable morals, but finds real inspiration while working with Ayrs and composes his masterpiece, "The Cloud Atlas Sextet." He writes letters back to his real love, Cambridge science student Rufus Sixsmith (James D'Arcy), describing the situation but not necessarily including a particular detail: he's having an affair with Ayrs much younger wife (Halle Berry). Frobisher provides the shocking hook at the beginning of the movie–he's committing suicide in a particularly messy way. As the movie progresses, we learn why his suicide is necessary. In the 2004 novel "Cloud Atlas," Frobisher is in Zedelghem, Belgium and not Edinburgh.
In San Francisco (the third story), the daughter of a journalist, Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) has followed her father's footsteps as a journalist, but now finds herself investigating a conspiracy to cover up information about the safety of a new nuclear reactor as the result of a chance meeting with Frobisher's now middle-aged lover, Rufus (D'Arcy). Rufus will be killed and Rey will find the possibility of romance with Rufus' co-worker Isaac (Hanks) but end up working with a former friend of her father's, Joe Napier (Keith David). At the end, Rey will be reading Frobisher's letters to Rufus Sixsmith and even find a rare copy of "The Cloud Atlas Sextet" as a record.
In the novel, an editor named Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent) is reading a manuscript called "Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery." The Cavendish segment is comical and also starts the movie out with a bang, or splat that acts as an ominous warning to critics. The year is 2012 and Cavendish tells his violent author Dermott Hoggins (Hanks) not to mind the critic who panned his book because, "What is a critic but one who reads quickly, arrogantly, but never wisely." Hoggins ignores his publisher's advice and kills the critic by throwing him off a balcony. That makes his book an instant success but Cavendish keeps all the money for himself until Hoggins' brothers come and demand an enormous sum. Cavendish turns to his brother, but his brother (Hugh Grant) recalls the affair between his brother and his wife and has Cavendish go to a hotel which turns out to be a rest home where residents are held prisoner under the authority of Nurse Noakes (Hugo Weaving).
Cavendish's tale about his incarceration and escape are made into a movie which the genetically engineered Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae) has been watching in Neo-Seoul in the year 2144. Sonmi is a clone that is used to serve in a fast food restaurant. In the movie, the clones are all young women in short dresses and the audience sees young Asian women in short shorts bending over, being harassed by Asian men, young naked Asian women in a shower scene and a simulated sex scene between Bae and Broadbent. This is the only time during the movie we see bared breasts.
The clones are treated as drone slaves and then slaughtered to become meat products, but Sonmi-451 is rescued by Hae-Joo Chang (Jim Sturgess,) who feels she is the one to tell her story and bring awareness to the greater human society. Her story is being recorded for the archives by an interviewer and shown in flashbacks.
The last story is 2321, 106 winters after "The Fall," in the Hawaiian Islands. Zachry (Hanks) tells about his shameful cowardice when his family member, Adam (Sturgess), was killed by the horse-riding cannibals, the Kona, and his meeting Meronym (Berry), a member of the Prescients, the last members of a tribe who have advanced technology. Zachry guides Meronym to the Cloud Atlas so she can send a message to people who have left the earth and now live on other planets, hoping these people will be able to save them from this dying planet. The Cloud Atlas is the Mauna Kea Observatories on top of the Mauna Kea Observatories, but in the movie, it almost seems as if this place is Neo Seoul, the place where the rebels take a last stand so that Sonmi-451 can made her broadcast as the government breaks in and kills the rebels, including her lover Hae-Joo Chang.
What has actually happened is that the rebels transport Sonmi-451 to the Big Island of Hawaii and this is where she makes her broadcast. Or at least, that's my interpretation. Zachry is clearly on the Big Island and makes references to Hawaiian geographical points.
Are the cannibals, the Kona, cultural descendants of the corporations and governments who decided clones were acceptable fodder for other clones? This isn't clear from the movie. What is clear is that, although there are references to Hawaii by Zachry, this isn't the Hawaii or the Hawaiian culture of today and hopefully not the future.
The racial controversy that swirls around "Cloud Atlas," mainly focuses on the decision not to cast any Asian men but to cast South Korean actress Bae Doona and Chinese actress Zhou Xun. Bae Doona plays Tilda Ewing, wife of Adam (Sturgess) and a Mexican woman whose dog gets killed in the Luisa Rey segment, Zachry's' wife,
Sonmi-451, Sonmi-351 and a Sonmi prostitute. Zhou Xun plays Talbot, a hotel manager who doesn't seem to realize that there's a phone in the room where a guest commits suicide and leaves to call the police, and Yoona-939 and Rose. However, Broadbent dons yellowface to portray a Korean musician, James D'Arcy as a Korean archivist, Keith David as An-Kor Apis and, most infamously, Sturgess as
Hae-Joo Chang. The yellowface tends to look unnatural, drawing the viewer out of the story and reminding one of a Star Trek Vulcan (Screen Crush's Matt Singer suggests Star Trek Romulans, but the conclusion is the same–yellowface makes them look more alien than human. In both cases, the references are to Star Trek: The Original Series). I'm not sure that this is what the Wachoskis had in mind.
Similarly, Bae Doona as Tilda Ewing doesn't look quite right, but not as audaciously and comically silly as Hugo Weaving as Nurse Noakes. This Agent Smith isn't in disguise; he's a man in drag meant to look like a man in drag. If makeup artists can make Robin Williams (for the 1993 "Mrs. Doubtfire") and Dustin Hoffman (for the 1982 "Tootsie") convincing women, surely in 2012 they could have done the same for Weaving.
Berry as Jocasta Ayrs also isn't quite convincing: See her, you know something isn't quite right in a way that's similar with seeing many former brunettes gone blonde. Sure it makes her more shocking or striking but is that really the purpose? She already has the weight of the ominous name, Jocasta. In Greek mythology, Jocasta was the wife of Laius and then wife and mother of Oedipus.
Yet there are more subtle and unsettling themes that could be viewed as racist. The people of Zachry's tribe are primarily white, unlike the current and projected population of Hawaii. The current population of Hawaii is 38.6 percent Asian, 24.7 percent white (with only 22.7 percent non-Hispanic white alone), 23.6 percent of two or more races, 10 percent Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders, 8.9 Hispanic and Latinos of any race and 1.6 black or African American. Hawaii has the lowest percentage of white Americans than any other state. One wonders why the directors decided that Chinese actor Zhou Xun needed to look more Caucasian in order to be a member of Zachry's tribe (The later usage of the whiteface on Bae Doona as the wife of Adam Ewing is understandable although not entirely convincing). According to hair.color.wikia.com, black is the most common hair color with brown coming in second. If you look around Hawaii, the majority of people have dark hair and that's true for most of the Pacific Islanders. Yet Zachry's tribe all have medium brown to blonde hair.
In Hawaii, the movie makers missed an opportunity to contrast the casual and culturally accepted nakedness that was characteristic of Pacific Islanders prior to Victorian Christianity with the sleazy sexualized nakedness of the Asian clone-slaves of Neo Seoul. It was not only the hot weather that encouraged the native dress but the lack of cotton plantations and fields. The Pacific islands did not have the culture, land or climate for the production of the raw materials for cotton, linen, silks and satins. This makes the cotton rags of Zachry's tribe puzzling, as if they are natives of a Mediterranean climate and dressed as serfs from a different era.
Zachry's tribe fears the Kona who have their faces painted and ride horses that seem very European. Kona is not just the name of a coffee in Hawaii, it means leeward or downwind in Hawaiian. In ancient times, each island had a leeward district. In modern Hawaii, Kona is a district on the west side of the Big Island of Hawaii.
This is a different district than the one inhabited by the paniolos, or Hawaiian cowboys, who were generally in the North Kohala and Waimea districts. Waimea is where the two astronomical observatories are located (on Mauna Kea). Horses were introduced to the Big Island of Hawaii in 1803 after five black longhorn cattle were released (1798) and allowed to free range. By 1816, there were thousands of maverick cows and John Palmer Parker, husband of King Kamehameha I's granddaughter Kipikane, was given permission to wrangle the cows and ranch. Parker brought over Mexican vaqueros in 1832 and began the paniolo tradition. There are dude ranches and even some working ranches currently on the Big Island, most of them seem to use stock horses, a type of horse based on or derived from the American Quarter Horse.
The suggestion of the movie "Cloud Atlas" is that the paniolos no longer herd cattle, but, as the Kona, prefer to eat the meat of small pockets of survivors like Zachry's tribe. Like the Asian civilization of Neo Seoul, cannibalism is a viable solution and we see a parallelism between the corporate society of Neo Seoul and the savagery of the Kona.
The film comes two years after former Talk Radio Network host Michael Savage made a comment on his syndicated show about Hawaii and cannibalism, "I loved Hawaii I lived there many many years, it's an interesting all syllables. But you don't know about that are they going to be independent very soon. I don't know how they're going to make a living, they're going to kick the white man out then what they going to have cannibalism again. Oops sorry." No one really believes that Michael Savage is sorry, but the accusations of cannibalism, true or not, persist in relation to African and Pacific Islanders.
Captain Cook was killed on Kealakekua Bay which is on the Kona coast, but that was in 1779 (February 14). There have been accusations of cannibalism in the death of Captain Cook, however, according to the 2003 book "Captain Cook: The Life, Death and Legacy of History's Greatest Explorer," this was not the case. Yet the movie "Cloud Atlas" seems to use cannibalism as a sign of reverting to a base and immoral savagery–the lowest form of civilization with or without technology. The audience might think that even the Nazis didn't go as far as eating their victims.
Hugh Grant might be unrecognizable as the Kona leader, but he looks clearly Caucasian to me although that might not be the concept of the directors. He has clearly "gone native." The tattoos seem to be of a snake although there is only one native Hawaiian snake that looks more like a worm.
I haven't been to the Big Island, but I have been to Seoul and Neo Seoul of the movie could be any East Asian city and yet is like no Asian city. It has no character. Coming from Tokyo's Narita airport and landing in Seoul, the very smells of the city tell you where you are. Then the colors and the aesthetics. Americans are often offended by the Koreans taste for dog meat and I have seen sad dogs waiting to be butchered.
The segments if Neo Seoul seem uninfluenced by the manufactured boy and girl band trends and the modernization of furniture that has Koreans sleeping on beds just as Americans, Europeans and Chinese. The most telling aspect of this non-specific East Asian depiction of the Neo Seoul
apartment that Hae-Joo Chang and Sonmi-451 take refuge in. The cherry blossoms become the moving wallpaper. While cherry blossoms bloom and are celebrated in Korea, their national flower is the hibiscus syriacus or Rose of Sharon which symbolizes immortality. The cherry blossom in Japan symbolizes impermanence.
Seoul, unlike Japan, has a large Christian population. In 2005, with 46 percent of South Koreans expressing no particular religious faith, 29.2 percent identified themselves as Christians (with 10.9 percent as Catholic). Compare this to the 22.8 percent who identified themselves as Buddhist. In Japan, Christians make up only one percent or less of the population. In Thailand, less than one percent. In Taiwan, the figure is 4.5 percent and includes Mormons. The influence of Christianity is erased in Neo Seoul. Yet what we know about the Holocaust is that some people were moved by their faith in God to resist the Nazis. Christian abolitionists were also instrumental in the fall of slavery in the United States. Yet in the movie, religion only seems significant in a shamanistic way for Zachry and his tribe.
The casting of black British actor David Gyasi has also gone under some scrutiny. He plays Autua, a Moriori man. The Moriori have been described as peaceful and of small stature and dark-skinned. Gyasi isn't easily identified as a Moriori, or Pacific Islander, and Screen Crush critic Singer saw him as an African slave. An easy mistake and more than likely something that added to the confusion.
This isn't to say that Pacific Islanders haven't been played by people of African descent before or haven't been considered black. People of African descent have played Pacific Islanders before, most notably in "South Pacific." Juanita Long played the Tonkinese "Bloody Mary" on Broadway and became the first African American to win a Tony in 1950. She also played a Chinese American in "Flower Drum Song." France Nuyen, a French-Vietnamese actor, played Bloody Mary's daughter Liat. Nellie Forbush's problem with the handsome Emile is his prior relationship with a native woman resulting in mixed race children. Forbush is from the South (Little Rock, Arkansas). Emile had lived with a woman who wasn't white and wasn't yellow. She wasn't Javanese or Tonkinese. She was Polynesian and "To Nellie's tutored mind any person living or dead who was not white or yellow was a nigger." (In the book, Emile had eight daughters to four women and only one was Polynesian. The musical changes Emile's background to two children from one Polynesian woman.)
The Moriori are Polynesians and dark skinned as are the more war-like Maoris who defeated them. Captain James Cook also met with the Maori and there are credible accounts of Maori cannibalism. What besides the mention of the Chatham Islands and the Pacific parasitic worm could the movie directors have done to make the place clearer to movie viewers? Would the casting of a different actor, someone who perhaps looked more Polynesian or Pacific Islander have helped? Or did the Wachoskis mean for us to have the uncertainty of place? If so, why only in the non-European segments?
"Cloud Atlas" was actually filmed in Duselldorf, German, Port de Sóller, Mallorca, Baleraric Islands, Spain, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain, Edinburgh, Scotland (UK), Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland (UK), and at Studio Babelsberg in Germany. Mallorca and the Baleraric Islands stood in for Hawaii. Yet not all islands can sub for the tropical paradise known as the Big Island.
There are other problems of logic tied into conventions of TV and movies. Why don't the Prescients have a better way of scaling the cliffs if they have crafts that can hover of the ocean? Maybe I've been conditioned by watching too many Batman movies.
When the gang of bad guys, supposedly government agents break into the love nest of Somni-451 and Hae-Joo Chang, they cannot hit the two lovers as the two slowly attempt to escape via a self-generating bridge from their window to the next building. My husband blames George Lucas because the Storm Troopers of Star Wars are only good shots during the first part of the movie and then reduced to can't shoot the side of a barn buffoons.
Pursuing bad guys have a similar problem in the segment "Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery," but this is something often seen in police and similar TV dramas. We're used to that illogic, but both cases of faulty marksmanship detract from the serious intent of the movie. In a way, both the author and the directors have it all ways: The six stories cover so many genres there is almost something to please everyone despite the troubling portrayal of Asian and Pacific Islanders. That's odd because Hawaii seems to be a place where clouds of many types are seen and offer the opportunity for rainbows. We saw several including the rare triple rainbow during our latest brief visit there.
A cloud atlas is much like an atlas for countries except it serves as a key for identifying clouds. Jean-Baptieste Lamarck published an atlas classifying and naming clouds in French in 1801. Luke Howard published the first English language cloud atlas in 1802. In 1890, an expensive book called "Cloud Atlas" was published by Hugo Hildebrand Hildebrandsson, Wladimir Koppen and Georg von Neumayer. The book's success led to the "International Cloud Atlas" in 1896.
The importance of understanding clouds and their meaning increased not because of the human interest in small talk but it could be used to predict weather. With the beginning of human flight, weather became more important as anyone whose flight has been weather-delayed knows. The atlas was meant to serve as an aid to training meteorologists toward a more consistent descriptive vocabulary for clouds. Unlike an geographic atlas that defined nations, boundaries and borders, a cloud atlas was about a natural phenomena that was not bound by artificial man-made borders. Clouds are part of the universal experience of weather.
The movie "Cloud Atlas" ambitiously attempts to show a karmic cycle, the application of the Golden Rule in seven different stories, yet the movie does seem to reflect a troubling racist bias. That is to say, I don't feel that the directors overcame the problem which they attempt to expose–the artificial boundaries of racial prejudice and sexism.


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Several years ago I wrote a blog about how sound moves not only through the air and aether, but also through our bodies, our eardrums, and our hearts, and deep into your memory. Since even before recorded history on stone tablets, humanity has had an intimate relationship with sound, notes, melodies and harmonies, and rhythm. It should come as no surprise that vibrations resonate through every one of us.
We live on a planet of rhythm and time. A planet that completes its cycle around the sun every 365 days, with a moon that cycles around us every 28 days, and we rotate around our own axis every 24 hours. These cosmic cycles and our bodily ones, all connected to the circadian dance of day and night. The mystery of rhythm and time found for a moment in the soul's drum. When it is right, you feel it with all your senses, every thread of your being. It is the 'sweet spot' of connection.
If the rhythm is right, if the translation between inner mood and the drum membrane are perfect, then you know it instantly. "Ah, this goes with my body tempo, this connects how I feel today, how fast my heart is beating, what my thoughts are, what my hands feel like."
When the rhythm is right you feel it with all your senses, every corner of your soul and being. You don't fight it, but instead allow yourself to be propelled and consumed by its insistent yet familiar feeling. All sense of the present moment disappears, the normal categories of time become meaningless. —— Mickey Hart, Drumming At the Edge Of Magic – A Journey Into the Spirit of Percussion
I'd imagine that most species on this magnificent planet experience the same thing as we do with sound, vibrations, and music. In some ways it is how we navigate through life. Imagine the endless beauty of all the world's songbirds, whales and dolphins in the oceans, herds of mammals guiding their young, and all of humanity's greatest concertos, bands of every genre, instruments from many cultures, and the powerful significance it all brings to life on Earth.
Now, imagine a world, a life, with no sound.
This is very hard for me to do. I can't frankly. Sound, rhythm, and music are so deeply woven and engrained in my family heritage and my DNA it will never be silenced! At least for several generations or more; both my kids are crazy about their music, much of it they fell in love with from their parents. But imagine a life where none of these sounds, vibrations, or rhythms exist. How would our human bodies react? How would others react to us?
There is also a paradox here. Or maybe not a paradox, but a potential paradox, or a limit. Overkill. Excessive sound or noise. Is silence better than noise, interference?
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence…
—— Simon & Garfunkel
When a human being expresses their feelings, right or wrong it doesn't matter at the time, is it better than silence, than omission? Are feelings typically honest and raw? From Paulo Coelho:
Telling the truth and making someone cry
is better than telling a lie and making someone smile.
What sort of perceived reality is achieved when one is fed half-truths, half-lies, or full-blown lies, or a more common form of silence: omission. Is it human nature to express these forms of non-reality or blurry reality? Is it human nature to trust, or trust too much too easily? How often do we practice these techniques?
I'm in the dark, I'd like to read his mind
but I'm frightened of the things I might find
Oh, there must be something he's thinking of
to tear him away
when I tell him that I'm falling in love
why does he say…
If we deny other humans — our dear friends, family, lovers, partners, spouses — OUR sounds, vibrations, words, feelings, rhythms, and "music" is it fair to expect or demand THEIR free expressions of sounds, vibrations, words, feelings, rhythms, and "music"? Where does silence, hush-hush leave us?
Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always — Listen to Songs Unsung
This work by Professor Taboo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.professortaboo.com/contact-me/.


text:
se·di·tion (n.)
1. Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state. 2. Insurrection; rebellion.
There's been a lot of throwing around of the word "sedition" by liberals these days. (Funny how they never brought that word up during the Bush Presidency.) Anyway, a few weeks ago, Time Magazine columnist and all-around Obama butt-boy, Joe Klein, said that comments made by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck criticizing Obama come "close to being seditious."1 And now just this week, uber-liberal Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said that Republican opposition to the Obama agenda is "almost at the level of sedition."2
Of course, neither of these left-wing geniuses cited any examples to back up their assertions. But that's okay. If they want to talk about sedition, let's talk about sedition.
The definition of sedition (above) entails language or conduct that either incites rebellion or is tantamount to rebellion against a state. Well, what about the spectacle that took place on the floor of the U.S. Congress last week? I'd say that just about qualifies. There you had the leader of a foreign country, "El Presidente" Felipe Calderon of Mexico, appear as an invited guest of the Democrats in Congress, and bash the State of Arizona's new immigration law. Speaking from the podium, Calderon had this to say:
"I strongly disagree with the recently adopted law in Arizona. It is a law that … ignores a reality that cannot be erased by decree, [and] introduces a terrible idea using racial profiling as a basis for law enforcement."3
Now, while this comment may have been ugly, tactless, undiplomatic and even insulting to most Americans — not to mention a display of complete ignorance of the law in question (Hey, maybe this guy should go to work for the Obama administration!), — none of what El Presidente had to say has anything to do with sedition. Calderon is a foreign leader and, while he may be an indelicate third-world clown, he is allowed to say just about whatever he wants. More the fools we as a country are for inviting him to say it in the House of Representatives during a joint session of Congress. 4
No, the sedition occurred immediately following Calderon's remark: when every single Congressional Democrat, together with key Obama administration officials including the Vice-President, gave this obnoxious foreigner a standing ovation. The sedition occurred when Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), acting in her capacity as Speaker of the House, chose an ovation to the leader of a foreign power over the duly enacted law of a sister state. The sedition occurred when Eric Holder, acting in his capacity as Attorney General, chose an ovation to the leader of a foreign power over the duly enacted law of a sister state. The sedition occurred when Janet Napolitano, acting in her capacity as Secretary of Homeland Security, chose an ovation to the leader of a foreign power over the duly enacted law of a sister state. The sedition occurred when Senator John Kerry (D-MA), acting in his capacity as an elected representative of the State of Massachusetts, chose an ovation to the leader of a foreign power over the duly enacted law of a sister state. The sedition occurred when Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), acting in her capacity as an elected representative of the State of California, chose an ovation to the leader of a foreign power over the duly enacted law of a sister state. The sedition occurred when Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), acting in his capacity as an elected representative of the State of New Jersey, chose an ovation to the leader of a foreign power over the duly enacted law of a sister state.
After Calderon made his offensive utterances, these legislators and these White House officials — supposed representatives of the American people — had a choice, and they chose to conduct themselves in the vile, seditious manner in which they did. They chose the facile expediency of political correctness over fealty to their own country. They chose the distorted, ill-informed, self-serving policy pronouncement of a corrupt foreign power over the duly enacted law of a State of the Republic. In short, they publicly and flagrantly betrayed the State of Arizona and, in so doing, betrayed us all.
What's more, the sedition occurred (and continues to occur) when John Morton, the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — the man supposedly charged with enforcing the nation's immigration laws — says he's not necessarily going to enforce the law insofar as it pertains to Arizona. Uh-huh. Why? Well, because he says he doesn't think it's all that great of a law. "I don't think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution," he said. 5 Who the hell cares what you think you elitist asshole! Who says you get to pick and choose which laws to enforce?! Do your job and enforce the law!
And so… [composure regained] these are all rank traitors. So brazen are they in their treason that they are effectively pledging allegiance to a foreign sovereign state and a foreign flag: the Mexican flag. They are doing so in their capacity as duly elected officials and government employees. They are doing so on government soil and during a high-profile exercise of their solemn duty and sacred oath to represent the citizens of these United States, not the corrupt interests of a foreign sovereign. They have betrayed that duty and that oath. And they have betrayed the trust of the American people.
It is one thing to use speech (language) to criticize a particular leader and his policies. That is what Palin, Beck and many others including your humble writer here do. That is political debate and political discourse and is at the essence of a free and open society. However, it is quite another thing to attack the society itself and the very laws that undergird it; that is what these Democrat politicians are doing and that is sedition. Simply, they are traitors all! 6
Now in the good old days, traitors were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Sadly that's no longer the practice and as long as these thugs remain in power they will escape any punishment. Elections have consequences, don't cha know! However in November, you the American voter can have your own little treason trial: where you get to be judge, jury, and hangman right there in the voting booth. Be sure to make these villains pay for their high crimes. And as for the biggest traitor of all, well I guess we'll just have to wait for 2012 to come around. But that's okay. We can wait, Mr. President.
Fn. 1: Joe Klein:
Fn. 2: Deval Patrick:
Fn. 3: Felipe Calderon before Congress:
(For a video excerpt of this speech, see the Comments Section of this post.)
Fn. 4: As an aside, an inquiring mind might ask why he is so against the Arizona law? Is it because Señor Felipe Calderon is such a big proponent of civil rights in a country where he tolerates half of his population living in abject poverty? No, it's because Arizona just made it just that much more difficult for him to unload that half of his country into our country. (According to official figures, in 2009 Mexico had more than 50 million people living in poverty, roughly 45 percent of the population, and those numbers are increasing.)
Fn. 5: John Morton:
Fn. 6: Of course, throughout Calderon's speech the Re-pubes just sat on their hands. It would've been nice to have had a Patrick Henry moment and seen them get up and walk out en masse but I guess we just don't have that kind of bravery anymore.


text:
My beautiful world of antiques, decor, gardening and gluten-free baking
Enjoy SPRING!
These cute little sponge cakes called "Madeleines" have quite a history! In mid 1700's France, King Louis XV was said to have called these shell shaped cookies Madeleines, after his Father-in-law's cook. They are often lemon flavored and are the perfect pairing with tea as dunking the spongy center with it's slightly crunchy edge makes a very satisfying snack. Every pastry shop in France offers these treats, some chocolate dipped, others with a ground nuts mixed into the sweet batter. Even Proust, in the 1920's, wrote in his autobiography: "
She sent for one of those squat plump little cakes called "petites madeleines," which look as though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell … I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure invaded my senses …
And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray … when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane …. and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and garden alike, from my cup of tea."
This wonderful recipe is inspired by my Mom's cookies that she surprised us with last week. They are very simple to make, in one bowl and in 25 minutes you can have a warm stack of cookies to hand out.
2 large Eggs
1/2 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
1 tablespoon Canola oil
1/2 cup Unsweetened Shredded Coconut
1/2 cup Authentic Foods Gluten Free CLASSIC MIX ( or brown rice flour blend without gums or raising agents)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees and spray Madeleine pan ( full size pans have 12 cookie molds, Mini Madeleine pans have more. This recipe makes 12 large cookies.
In a medium mixing bowl, whip eggs with sugar for 3-4 minutes. Add in Vanilla and oil and mix well. Stir in Coconut and brown rice flour and mix just until fully blended.
Spoon batter into the 12 molds on the Madeleine pan. Bake 15-18 minutes until golden brown on top.
Remove from oven and turn out cookies to cool on rack. Dust with sugar and serve or dip in melted chocolate and let harden for an hour.


text:
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text:
Today is All Saint's Day. I once had a wonderful golden retriever with today as her birthday, we named her All Hallow's Tessa. A well bred, well trained, loveable girl. But this is not about how well she hunted or the number of spirits she lifted when visiting nursing homes and the sick.
This is about how she changed the course of a little boy's life.
When placing puppies from a litter we scrutinize each possible owner with an application and references. Since our dogs are high energy bird dogs, almost all owners are hunters or families that include dogs in activities.
Such was one new owner, a young boy soon to be 11 years old. He had waited for a puppy and proved to his mom that he was ready. Of course. she knew she would have to provide a safety net. The application was in and approved before the pups were born.
We assist our owners in pup selection. We spend weeks with the pups and know their personalities. Truth be told, the puppies choose. Milo would pick up his puppy last.
I often post photos of pups online so the new owners can watch them grow. Everyone liked the little boy with the blue ribbon, his photos were most commented on.
The day came for pups to go home. One by one the new owner's came. Each time little blue boy sniffed the air, walked about ten feet from the other pups and just laid down. He was waiting, these were not his people.
Finally Milo came. His mother got out of the car. I will never forget her words, "We have a problem."
She went on to explain. Milo informed her at breakfast that the little blue boy would be his pup. God told him in a dream.
I smiled. I told her it all worked out, little blue boy waited for Milo.
She grew pale and said, "But we don't do God."
I smiled again, "Apparently, Milo does."
While we spoke, Milo slipped from the car and his puppy met him in the grass.
Milo told us he looked up Tessa's name and read about All Saint's Day. So when in his dream, God told him the little blue boy was his puppy, he believed God. His mom was visibly shaken as she took care of the paperwork. Nothing like an awakening to rattle an atheist to the core. Been there. A door had opened, Milo boldly walked through. His mom cautiously followed.
God slipping a little bliss through the back door.


text:
Tomorrow, 200-million-year-old knock-off dinosaurs will be roaring and grazing in Las Vegas. Amazingly, they won't be looking for tasty prey by lounging in Las Vegas nightclubs.
Internationally renowned designers have worked with scientists to create 15 life-size dinosaurs and present them in a live stadium show, Walking with Dinosaurs. The show follows the dinosaurs' domination of life on earth, including showcasing the supreme terror of the ancient terrain, Tyrannosaurus Rex, fighting for survival and supremacy.
Viewers watch the curious beasts walk and hear their roars in the show comprised of two acts, 40 minutes each, blending technology, natural history, art, and music.
And, parents, there is no gore or actual violence, so take your kids, especially appropriate if they're 6-to-12-year-olds. Home schoolers can use it as a science/natural history lesson. Though there is plenty of tension – heightened by appropriate music that is often quite lovely – the dinosaurs have apparently been sedated, or at least had their fill of humans because they don't lunge at anyone. The nightmare factor is pretty low.
The show is at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, March 24 – 28. Tickets range in price from $27 to $70 each. Tickets: 739-FANS (3267) or 1-866-388-FANS (3267).


text:
Earlier this month I wrote about my 12 Must (somehow Sees) -- rare or hard to find movies I long to view. I had little hope of watching any of these movies, but that was before good samaritan and all-around awesome blogger Marty McKee basically gave me a "step inside my office." Through Marty's goodwill, I will be able to cross two of those movies off my list, including the one I had most wanted to see -- Bad Ronald. A 1974 television movie, it seems like I've been aware of Bad Ronald for a long time, though I'm not sure when I first learned about it. I had high expectations for this movie, and am happy to say that they were largely exceeded.
Based on the book by the same name, Bad Ronald stars Scott Jacoby in the titular role as a sweetly weird teen who has a very bad 18th birthday. Lots of people have had miserable birthdays, but few of them can say they accidentally killed an adolescent girl on their big day. After blowing out the candles on his cake and re-affirming his desire to be a doctor with his clingy Mom (Kim Hunter!), Ronald is flush with confidence and heads out to ask mean girl Laurie Matthews on a date. This goes badly, as Ronald is laughed out the door by Laurie and her friends, and in his haste to get home, Ronald collides with Laurie's little sister Carol on a sidewalk. Things quickly get worse as Carol starts making fun of Ronald and his mom, and in his desire to get an apology from the girl, she falls down and hits her head on a cinder block.
Naturally, Ronald finds a shovel and buries the dead girl, which as Mom will later tell him was not a bright idea. Mom is of course heart broken at the news of her son being a murderer, but also strangely delighted, as Ronald now won't be able to study in college and leave her alone. Mom's big plan is simple yet dramatic: she and Ronald will construct a hidden "lair" in their house for him to hide out in while the mess dies down. Using Ronald's "incredible" tool kit that he just opened as a birthday present, the Good Family erects a mock wall over the door to a bathroom ala Dawn of the Dead, adds a secret entrance in the neighboring pantry -- and Ronald's new life has just begun.
It's these scenes of Ronald's new captive life where I thought Bad Ronald was at his best. Jacoby is well cast as a dorky teen shut-in, and we see that he doesn't exactly share his mother's enthusiasm for her hideaway plan. As Ronald's mother, Hunter is the best thing the movie has going for it, growing increasingly creepy in her transition from mother to warden. In her brief interactions with Ronald in the lair (as she refers to it), Mom is quick to shut the door on her son and remind him how stringently they must stick to their plan. Ronald's new dwelling also allows him ample time to tend to his literary creation of Atranta, a Tolkien-like fantasy world complete with life-size illustrations. This subplot is really our only clue to Ronald's label of being weird, but it never feels natural.
So everything's going just fine until Mom goes in for surgery and doesn't come back. In fact, the next visitors to the house are realtors who are trying to sell it. Ronald is soon joined in the house by a "they all were blonde, like their mother" nuclear family, helmed by Dabney Freaking Coleman. It's not long before the family notices missing food and strange noises, leading them to believe that the house is haunted. Ronald takes some delight in being the ghost of the house, and gradually loses his grasp on reality. When the youngest daughter finds herself alone in the house, Ronald takes the opportunity to cast her as the princess of Atranta, and hijinks ensue. The family's eventual discovery of Ronald and his lair is played out perfectly, and is probably the movie's best (and scariest) moment. For the genre, the ending is pretty by-the-numbers, but it doesn't take anything away from the previous 70 minutes.
I had hoped Bad Ronald would combine the sensibilities of a made-for-TV movie, with a highly creepy story that could have come from a Stephen King short story. While obviously hampered by time constraints and content sensitivity, Bad Ronald is never boring and packs in a few honest scares with a constant air of creepiness (my wife surrendered 30 minutes in, proclaiming it "too creepy"). With a longer running time would have served it well, as we barely see any of Ronald before the accidental murder, and never really get to know him as a normal kid. What Bad Ronald does best is maintain a consistent ghost story/urban legend feel, it's the kind of story you heard at the playground that's "totally true."
Monday, September 29, 2008
Bad boy in the house
Filed Under Classic reviews
13 comments:
- Erich Kuersten said...
wow! Thanks for covering this... with screenshots no less! I saw the first half hour of this back when it premiered on network TV, and was creeped out off my rocker... I guess I was 8 or 9. Ronald is the penultimate D&D-style geek boy and so what kid can't relate to that? It's even scarier having never gotten to see the ending... so I'm still waiting for a mainstream release, as graymarket stuff is too depressing on my neural synapshes.
- Adam Ross said...
I can't imagine seeing this at that age, as I would have been as freaked as you were. It's interesting to note that the 1973 book "Bad Ronald" is based on is allegedly much darker -- the murder in the beginning is no accident, and he has more sinister hobbies than just Atranta. I'd love to read the book but used copies go for $95 on Amazon!
- MayorMcCheese said...
And the Motion Picture Association of Canada felt it met "PG" guidelines!? Yikes, I'd hate to think of what goes for NC-17 up north.
- Marty McKee said...
The fact that DVD companies refuse to put out 1970s made-for-TV movies only proves to me that they have no interest in making money. I'm convinced there is a huge audience for stuff like this that is being tremendously underserved.
- PIPER said...
Bad Ronald is such a joke of a title I'm sure I've used it several times in conversation not even knowing the show.
Is this readily available somewhere?
- Adam Ross said...
Marty -- I'm with you, especially strange since DVD companies are willing to release any kind of TV series.
Piper -- hey, I barely recognized you! There's web sites like 5tml.com that specialize in lost movies like Bad Ronald, though I've never used their services myself.
- Fox said...
I'm jealous that you got to make this trip into the world of Bad Ronald before I could. Still, I enjoyed living the experience through you.
Eww... that sounded kinda creepy!
- elgringo said...
One down, eleven to go!
Which other one did your hookup get for you?
I had never heard of Bad Ronald but any movie that sends people out of the room for being "too creepy" has my vote of confidence!
- Zane said...
"Today I begin drawing Prince Norberg, he's the ruler of Atranta."
Man ... what it must've been like in his head, living out those extraordinary visions of fantasy - all within the confines of 150 square feet. Oh wait ... I've been there.
Actually meant to send you a copy of this awhile back. Sorry someone beat me to the punch. I've probably lent it to 12 people in the past 6 years, every single one was like, "that was the awesome."
Think I'm gonna drop $95 on the book.
- Adam Ross said...
Don't worry about it Zane, if anything I owe you for letting me see "Necromancy" and "The Jar." I'd like to read the book as well, might be a good excuse to visit this thing called a library.
There are bootlegs of BAD RONALD floating around the web.
As to the other flicks you're looking for like SUMMER OF FEAR or NIGHT OF THE CREEPS or SANTA SANGRE or LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR you need to come over to ROCKET VIDEO in Hollywood, we have em on VHS. As well as Johnny Depp's directorial disasterpiece THE BRAVE with Brando or the BEAVER CHRONICLES with Crispin Glover. Lotta hard to find cool stuff.
Of course it's impossible to see the Mick Jagger FITZCARRALDO since it doesn't exist. Just like the Harvey Keitel version of APOCALYPSE NOW was never finished, nor for that matter the Anthony Michael hall version of FULL METAL JACKET.
- Adam Ross said...
Sweeney -- Thanks for stopping by (and nice blog!). I wish I had a video store resembling Rocket Video in my area, it sounds like a great place for cinephiles. In regards to the Jagger version of "Fitzcarraldo," as I understand it more than half the movie was shot with Jagger and Jason Robards before things fell apart. It doesn't exist as a movie, but there's certainly plenty of footage out there that I would love to see.
- whatlivemom said...


text:
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Sometime this spring, contractors near the Bratenahl-Cleveland border will begin digging a mammoth new hole for a sewer pipe that will be built 200 feet underground -- and run
Lake Erie for more than half a mile.
Easily the most noticeable feature on any map of the planned tunnel is this fact: A 3,000-foot-long segment parallel to the shoreline will be buried deep under the surface of the lake.
Other than the existing Morton Salt mines (far deeper at 2,000 feet below ground) and the city of Cleveland's water intake pipes (from 10 to 50 feet below the lake bed), the Euclid Creek tunnel will be the first construction project on record under the lake, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.
But when construction begins on the $198 million Euclid Creek Tunnel, it will also serve as the first visible evidence in a larger and the much-debated matter -- the $3 billion plan by the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District to meet requirements of the federal Clean Water Act over the next 25 years.
That planned work has been applauded by environmentalists, but bemoaned by already tax-weary ratepayers in Cleveland and 60 suburbs who will likely see their bills reach $1,000 a year by 2035.
But the work is about to begin because the sewer district board of trustees late last year agreed to those terms in a settlement with the U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Justice.
The prime contractor on the job, McNally Tunneling, a Canadian-owned company with offices in Westlake, last dug out a tunnel in Westlake nearly 20 years ago, but has never gone under a body of water like Lake Erie.
"That's true, but there's a lot of rock cover up above us," said Tom Szaraz, senior project manager for McNally Tunneling of Westlake, the primary contractor on the project. "We don't foresee any problems."
The sewer district engineered the tunnel to go under the lake in part because the cost of acquiring lake-shore property or easements would likely be greater than the extra cost to lengthen the tunnel and burrow under the lake, officials said.
Instead, the district got the OK from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to tunnel under the lake.
"It turned out that the curve of the tunnel was actually more favorable to go under the lake, anyway," said Kellie Rotunno, sewer district engineer. "Liquids, sewage or anything else, don't like 90-degree turns."
And digging 200 feet below the surface through rock -- known as mining through Chagrin shale by geologists and tunnel contractors -- won't be any different under the lake as it will be is under Lakeshore Boulevard, engineers and contractors said.
"It's really a fairly short piece," said Doug Gabriel, the district's program manager for the Euclid Creek job. "And once you're that far underground, it won't seem any different for the workers -- although it is fairly unique."
The sewer district here, like a number of other regions, has chosen to construct massive sewage storage tunnels -- like the existing Mill Creek Tunnel some 300 feet under Garfield Heights -- to catch and temporarily hold sewer overflows during rainstorms.
The sewage is then pumped to a treatment plant during dry weather and then returned to Lake Erie.
The upcoming project gets its name from the 24-square-mile watershed of Euclid Creek, a stream that drains parts of Beachwood, Lyndhurst, Highland Heights and Richmond Heights before cutting through Euclid-Cleveland border to the lake.
The sewage stored in the new tunnel will be pumped to the district's Easterly plant at East 140th Street, a facility that takes in sewage from a 76-square-mile area from the east side of Cleveland through Mayfield Heights to the east and as far south as Moreland Hills. About 40 percent of that area has combined sanitary-storm sewers.
The 18,000-foot-long, 24-foot-diameter Euclid Creek Tunnel will run from the Bratenahl-Cleveland border east to about 185th Street near the Cleveland-Euclid border. It will reach between 190 and 220 feet under ground and will have the capacity to hold 70 million gallons of combined sewage.
The Euclid Creek Tunnel is actually the second underground storage tunnel to be built in Northeast Ohio.
Its forerunner -- the Mill Creek sewer built under parts of Cleveland, Garfield Heights and Cuyahoga Heights -- is actually deeper and longer. It gained notoriety, however, because it was the largest project being built by the sewer district in the William Schatz era.
Schatz, the former lawyer for the sewer district, was sentenced to six years in jail after being convicted of bribery and theft in a scheme with several contractors that resulted in vast cost overruns on the Mill Creek Tunnel and other jobs.
For that reason -- and the sheer cost of the Euclid Creek job and a half dozen others proposed by the district in the EPA settlement -- ratepayers have protested skyrocketing rates.
Sewer rates in Northeast Ohio are already increasing at 9 percent per year and are expected to go up 13 percent a year by 2012, depending on the results of a rate study by the district later this year.
Ultimately, ratepayers in Northeast Ohio could end up paying nearly $1,000 per year for sewer services. That staggering figure that drew widespread complaint in late 2010 from a wide range of Northeast Ohio groups, including apartment owners, the NAACP and ratepayers from Parma to Lyndhurst.
Sewer officials have argued, however, that the annual cost is similar to the hit on ratepayers in other older cities in the Midwest, East and Pacific Northwest. Many of those cities are in negotiations with the EPA or also under federal order to stop the overflow of raw sewage and storm water into waterways.
Akron ratepayers, for example, heard recent estimates that they may eventually pay up to $3,000 per year each to meet clean-water requirements.
The Summit County city opted to fight the battle in court. A federal judge, however, has rejected the city's clean-up plan is considering imposing a shorter timetable for improvements that would drive rates astronomically high.
Despite ongoing debate, the Cleveland-based district is now set to begin work on its 25-year clean-up job.
So when those workers start digging that hole when the winter snows melt, they'll be starting a job that will take most of 2011. Once they get the main shaft cut out and reinforced it will be ready to accommodate the 27-foot-wide tunneling machine that will arrive in parts in early in 2012.
The sewer district, however, will at the same time be designing and building a pump station and several other sewer pipes, known as interceptors, in the immediate area to capture more storm water to funnel into the tunnel.
It will take another three years to actually dig and line the tunnel and but the bulk of the work will be done by the $20 million "rock-eating" machine, although the company has yet to select one from between two different manufacturers, Szaraz said.
In either case, however, the $20 million "rock-eating" tunneling machine will likely use some four dozen 50-inch-diameter cutters on the front, which will chew into the shale, breaking it into small pieces. Online videos demonstrate how similar machines work.
Large mechanical buckets will scoop up the debris and dump it onto a conveyor belt, which will carry the rock bits out of the tunnel to be hauled away.
The machine, which will move forward in five-foot increments for the entire 18,000-foot length of the tunnel, will then put pre-formed concrete sections of the tunnel in place before it moves forward to cut again.
"That way when we reach the end, we're basically done," Szaraz said. "We pull the machine back out, do grouting, patching and cleanup and our part is done."
Ultimately, even though most of the work will be underground and away from the view of ratepayers and the general public, it will still be a pretty "cool project," Szaraz said.
"Most people have no real clue what we do unless they've seen 'Sandhogs' on TV or a special on the [English] Channel Tunnel," he said."We just dig holes in the ground, but it's a little more complicated than that, even if they can't see it."