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(The Root) — James Holmes, the suspect in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shootings, which killed 12 and wounded nearly 60 more, purchased 6,000 rounds of ammunition online in four months. He was captured with automatic handguns, assault rifles, magazines (which allow multiple firings without pause), tear gas and other military-style weaponry in his apartment. All of it was purchased legally, and in some cases without a background check. Yet somehow Holmes failed to spark the interest of local or federal authorities. No FBI red flags, no Homeland Security surveillance, no wire taps or "no-fly" lists.
The fact that Holmes was able to amass his arsenal without rousing suspicion reflects a racial bias at the heart of existing American gun-enforcement policies: how present laws might aid and abet white male criminal behavior. Beyond Second Amendment arguments, which have flooded the airwaves, a more basic consideration should be the misguided view the country has of who fits a "criminal" profile. Who counts as a "terrorist"? And what constitutes a "suspicious" character?
The tragic events of Sept. 11 gave birth to a "war on terror" that frames Muslims — whether domestic or foreign-born — as the enemy within. Even Hindus and Sikhs from India are targeted, simply because of their appearance and brown skin. Trillions in taxpayer dollars have been committed to defeating this elusive enemy — from lower Manhattan to Afghanistan, Iraq to Pakistan.
Similarly, the war on drugs has left a legacy that criminalizes African-American and Hispanic males, leaving them subject to search and seizure, and denying them the Fourth Amendment protections most Americans take for granted. Some of our media, politicians and law enforcement apparatus have colluded to ensure minority communities are over-policed and that blacks, in particular, are the main suspects. And like the war on terror, this 25-year drug war comes at a high price. Billions are spent targeting, policing and prosecuting minorities, despite statistics that show white Americans are more engaged in the illegal trade of guns and drugs. Press reports focus on gun violence in the inner cities of Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles, but independent studies confirm that per capita rates of gun violence are the same across rural and urban communities — from small-town Montana to Newark, N.J.
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The Tuscon, Ariz., mass shooting in January 2011 — which killed six and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 11 others severely injured — was committed by Jared Loughner, a 22-year-old white male who had a similar profile to Holmes: quiet, reserved and seemingly apolitical.
As in the Holmes case, media reports immediately focused on whether mental illness, depression and isolation were the root cause. There seems to be a desire to humanize white perpetrators in a wildly different way from the manner in which suspected Muslim terrorists are automatically demonized, and African-American males — even when innocent — are unjustly criminalized. Is the mitigating factor in crime, punishment and perception always race?
Far too many similar cases exist. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the 18- and 17-year-old killers in the Columbine High School massacre of 1999, were also young, disaffected white males — immediately characterized as outcasts and victims of bullying. Entries in Harris' diary would later reveal he aspired to hijack planes and crash them into New York City — the same kind of destructive designs that would bring down the World Trade Center just two years later.
Other infamous characters, Timothy McVeigh and his two co-conspirators — all white males — orchestrated the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which was the deadliest domestic terrorist attack before 9/11, claiming 168 lives and injuring more than 800. McVeigh was dismissed as an anomaly and a scientific madman.
There are infamous mass shooters, of course, who are not white, the most recent examples being the 1993 Long Island Railroad shooter Colin Ferguson, a man of Jamaican descent who murdered six train passengers, and the Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad, an African-American, Louisiana-born Army veteran. Each case presents an instance — as in other mass shootings — in which a mentally unstable person has access to guns and does irreparable harm. But both Ferguson and Muhammad lived in an America where they were far more likely to be policed for potential crime simply by virtue of their black skin. And in both cases, handguns or rifles were used. Neither had stockpiled a cadre of military-style weapons. If they had — as did their white counterpart in the gun-liberal state of Colorado — one can imagine that laws would have been amended.
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In fact, crime waves — including murder — when committed by white males are never categorized as systemic problems that have a racial component. Ferguson's attorneys said he had "black rage" and the media sought to tie Muhammad to the Nation of Islam, but Holmes, Klebold, Harris and Loughner have not been accused of "white-on-white" crime. And their actions never engender aggressive legislation. No domestic war on terror. No federal crackdown to keep guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous men who look like them and behave like they do.
New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, appeared to be the most reasonable high-profile politician to address the need for practical gun control, challenging both President Obama and Mitt Romney to take bold stands. But when it comes to the racial bias that underpins the nation's lack of gun control, Mike Bloomberg is a hypocrite and perhaps the best example of what not to do.
Last month Bloomberg defended the New York City police department's stop-and-frisk policy, which amounts to de facto racial profiling. The data analyzed by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) showed that 87 percent of those stopped were young African-American and Latino males, despite the fact that such people comprise a small percentage of the total population. Whites were distinctly underrepresented — as 33 percent of city residents, they constituted only 9 percent of stops. The NYCLU showed that "the number of stops of young Black men last year actually exceeded the total number of young Black men in the city (168,126 as compared to 158,406)."
The purpose of these stops? To find guns. Bloomberg defended the policy on that basis, and even attacked the NYCLU for drawing attention to the inequity. Yet of the nearly 700,000 stops in 2011, only 0.1 percent resulted in the confiscation of a gun. And fewer than 10 percent resulted in any criminal charge whatsoever — the most common one being possession of small amounts of marijuana, for personal use.
Gallup Poll statistics from 2005 show that white Americans are twice as likely to own guns — 44 percent to only 23 percent of nonwhites. And white men are three times as likely.
Yet despite national statistics showing white males are most likely to own and carry weapons, intellectually dishonest politicians like Bloomberg find ways to harass minorities instead. The conventional wisdom has become that whites use guns for hunting or protection. But who needs a 100-round magazine and automatic assault rifle to hunt? It only takes the actions of mass shooters to remind us that crazed men are stockpiling weapons to unleash horror, while police officers are busy stopping and frisking their black or Latino neighbors.
The over-policing of African Americans, Latinos and Muslims creates a separate and unequal justice system that too often allows white criminals the ability to escape notice. And though FBI statistics show whites commit 70 percent of all crime in the United States, police forces continue to focus on minority communities — using the war on drugs as justification for racial profiling. The horrors of Aurora and Columbine are dismissed as the acts of madmen — which can't be prevented with policy — while the potential dangers of inner-city crime are controlled with military precision. Even the unarmed — Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell and Kendrec McDade — become victims of an over-zealous police state, shot to death simply for being black and suspicious.
Perhaps, at the very least, the nation can begin to apply policing of gun crime equitably to whites in line with their percentage of the population. That very act — aided by sensible, more restrictive gun controls — can help prevent the kinds of horrors unleashed by this latest tragedy.
Edward Wyckoff Williams is contributing editor at The Root. He is a columnist and political analyst, appearing on MSNBC, Al-Jazeera, CBS Washington and national syndicated radio. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
Edward Wyckoff Williams is a contributing editor at The Root. He is a columnist and political analyst, appearing on Al-Jazeera, MSNBC, ABC, CBS Washington and national syndicated radio. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.


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"Zero Dark Thirty" does focus on, as the ads insist, "the greatest manhunt in history," but once you've seen this film, a woman — or maybe two — will be on your mind.
Following up on her Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker," director Kathryn Bigelow proves herself once again to be a master of heightened realism and narrative drive in this retelling of the decade-long search for Osama bin Laden.
The film's concluding section — a crisp re-creation of the Navy SEAL assault on the Pakistani compound where the wily mastermind lived and died — has been much-publicized, and the film's depiction of torture has already become a tempest in a teapot. But those elements are both overshadowed by the performance of Jessica Chastain as the CIA operative who made the raid possible.
Chastain, Oscar-nominated for "The Help" last year, is a known quantity, but, like Jennifer Lawrence (her likely Academy Award rival this time around), she is a complete chameleon, able to vanish into a variety of roles so different from one another that the switch of persona can be disconcerting.
Here, Chastain plays Maya, a CIA officer who quite literally devotes every waking moment of her life to finding and destroying Bin Laden. Her single-minded ferocity and stubbornness not only prove essential in the hunt, but also make up the emotional through line that engages us in the story of "Zero Dark Thirty."
What is most exciting about Maya is that screenwriter Mark Boal (who collaborated with Bigelow on "Hurt Locker") has shrewdly written her less like a heroine and more like an archetypal big-screen hero.
Maya doesn't have a boyfriend or any kind of life outside her work, and Boal's script conspicuously avoids burdening her with either a teary breakdown or a glib series of reasons to explain the way she acts. Icy, formidable, with a gaze that could melt steel and the sharpest tongue in town, she is a force among forces, and Chastain makes her frankly thrilling to behold.
If the way "Zero" carefully constructs Maya as a legend in her own time is classic hero-building, the script's approach to telling the manhunt story is as modern as it gets.
Boal, a former journalist, has researched these events so thoroughly that the eager press notes suggest "Zero Dark Thirty" should be thought of as "a unique kind of motion picture: the reported film." Be that as it may, viewers who've followed events in that part of the world will recognize specific situations — the 2008 bombing of the Marriott Islamabad in Pakistan, the 2009 suicide attack on Afghanistan's Camp Chapman that claimed several CIA agents — before they play out.
What is especially contemporary about "Zero Dark Thirty's" story line is that Boal's script begins by tossing us into the deep end, thrusting us right into the middle of a complicated situation and forcing us to trust that we'll eventually make sense of the welter of meetings, brutal interrogations and Middle Eastern names we're confronted with.
One reason Boal makes such a potent combination with Bigelow is that her directing style moves us right along. She is so good with both action and creating a convincing look and feel for the film that the time it takes to get up to speed with the complicated plot does not feel like a problem.
Though in general "Zero Dark Thirty" is not as interested in exploring personality as "Hurt Locker" was, the one exception is Maya, a character based on a real person but also bolstered by the film's sense that the role women played in the Bin Laden hunt has not been sufficiently recognized.
Maya is introduced in 2003, two years after 9/11, showing up at a so-called black site, an undisclosed CIA interrogation location. A more veteran colleague, Dan, remarks that she's wearing her "best suit, just off the plane from D.C."
LIST: Best films of 2012 | Kenneth Turan
Dan (convincing Australian actor Jason Clarke) is the CIA agent in charge of what's come to be known as "enhanced interrogation techniques." In these days during the George W. Bush administration, Dan is shown applying all kinds of severe physical abuse, including water-boarding, to a detainee named Ammar (played by Reda Kateb, memorable as the drug-dealing Jordi in "A Prophet.")
This torture is quite painful to watch as it is being administered, but on the whole it's not shown to be particularly effective as a means of obtaining information. Though the overall result is to induce repugnance in the viewer, these scenes exist because of the effect they have on fresh-off-the-boat Maya: Initially unnerved, she soon gets her bearings and gets to work.
If "Zero Dark Thirty" (named after military-speak for the time of the Bin Laden raid) has any message, it's that what is effective is Maya's meticulous, painstaking gathering of information over nearly a decade — a thankless process, not always done with support from her bosses, that led to the identification of a man named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti as the courier who personally delivered information to the Al Qaeda leader.
You know you're watching a movie when what was doubtless a tremendously tedious process in real life is made as exciting as all get-out. This salute to what one character calls "big breaks and the little people who make them happen" is an example of cinematic storytelling at its most effective.
'Zero Dark Thirty'
MPAA rating: R, for strong violence including brutal disturbing images and for language
Running time: 2 hours, 39 minutes
Playing: At ArcLight, Hollywood; AMC Century City

subset: commoncrawl


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As part of the Central Pennsylvania African American Museum's 15th anniversary celebration on Saturday, Oct. 26, Penn State Berks students will present research that they conducted on local African-American history as part of their English coursework. The celebration will take place from 1 to 4 p.m., and the students will present their research from approximately 3 to 3:40 pm.
Students and their research presentations are as follows:
"1944 Mortgage Burning Photograph"
Researched and written by Michael Keller, Dharmendra Patel and Drew Weinhold. The students researched individuals in the photograph on display at CPAAM of the 1944 mortgage burning of the Bethel A.M.E. Church Service.
"Chloe Walker"
Researched and written by Chelsea Eyer, Chastity Paredes-Rodriguez and Katie Legenski: "Chloe Walker was born a slave on Nov. 8, 1802, on a farm near Winchester, Va. … Edward and Chloe Walker had 10 children together, five girls and five boys, all of whom were already grown by the time the family came to Reading."
"George Marshall and his Family"
Researched and written by William Keller: "George Marshall, a World War I veteran, was born in Carlisle, Pa., to William H. and Mollie (Bush) Marshall on June 29, 1886. This essay traces his life and family."
"Samuel B. Becker"
Researched and written by Madison Bolam and Jennifer Smith. Samuel B. Becker, according to The New York Times, was the last surviving Civil War veteran in the United States. The late Frank L. Gilyard, founder of the CPAAM, had reason to believe that Capt. Becker was of mixed race and "passed" as white during his lifetime. The students tried to find evidence for this claim.
In addition, there will be a dedication ceremony to the late founder of CPAAM, Frank L. Gilyard, from approximately 2:30 to 3 pm. Gilyard had a special relationship with Penn State Berks students, partnering with them since approximately 2005 on their research and the writing they contributed to CPAAM, and to expanding the historical narratives in Berks County.


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In case there was any doubt before, there's no doubt now: The Broncos are in complete control of the AFC West.
Today's 30-23 win over the Chargers gives the 7-3 Broncos a three-game lead over the 4-6 Chargers in the division, and Denver has now swept the season series and owns the head-to-head tiebreaker as well. With the Raiders out of it at 3-7 and the Chiefs even further out of it at 1-9, Broncos fans might as well start preparing to see a home playoff game right now, because with six games to go in the regular season, there's virtually no chance of the Broncos failing to win their division.
Peyton Manning looked excellent as usual against the Chargers, throwing three touchdown passes — his sixth three-touchdown performance in the Broncos' last seven games. Manning, who headed into today's game in a tie with Dan Marino for the second-most passing touchdowns in NFL history, now has 423 career touchdown passes, second only to Brett Favre's 508.
As Manning continues to make his case for the league MVP award, Broncos linebacker Von Miller is making a strong case that he deserves to be considered for Defensive Player of the Year. Miller sacked Philip Rivers three times, forced him to fumble twice and also had a tackle behind the line of scrimmage on a running play. A dominant presence for Denver's D, Miller is a big part of the reason that the Broncos have a chance not just to be a good team, but a great team.
And for the rest of the season, greatness is what the Broncos will be trying to achieve. We already know they're going to win the division, but when Manning came to town, their goals got a lot higher than that. With the division all but wrapped up, the Broncos' attention now turns toward home-field advantage in the AFC playoffs as the Broncos attempt to march toward the Super Bowl.


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For ddjango's site, I wrote a guest post On Enlightenment reflecting on common ground between enlightened Christians and enlightened atheists—how we agree, how we differ.
I quoted the statement, "He is a spirit," to show how exclusively male language not only distorts gender relationships, it distorts our ideas of what we call God. And the word "a" disturbs me even more than "he." As the little word "a" indicates, this deity is an object, something out there, an individual separate from the other individual things and persons in the universe. Worshipping such an object is a form of idolatry. If Christian leaders would add God-She and God-Her language to the exclusively male pronouns, the resulting variety would dethrone the male idols and force awareness that what we call God cannot be defined.
I'm also reading The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by André Comte-Sponville, identified on the book jacket as one of France's preeminent contemporary philosophers. This book and dialogues with atheist friends help me to clarify my thoughts about spiritual matters.
Comte-Sponville observes that theistic religions propagate "belief in one or several deities." So true. My atheist friends are disgusted by naïve Christian belief in a sky god and a dying-and-rising redeemer god, who obviously parallels pagan gods.
A year ago I wrote a post entitled,Buddhist Christian about an ordained minister who described himself that way as a result of living in Thailand. He echoed my title when he repudiated "the big guy in the sky." Significantly, he gave his talk at St. John's University. When my book came out last year, I was surprised by the response it got from monastic religious persons. They are among those who best understand the Christian myth as myth. They understand because they delve deeper into religious meaning than people immersed in the secular world.
So why do they remain faithful to our religion? Why do they identify as Christians when Christian language encourages naïve belief? And why do I stay in this theistic religion? I wrote answers to this question in my first chapter, but Comte-Sponville offers another good one in a joke he tells.
Two rabbis discuss the existence of God long into the night and conclude that God does not exist. The next morning one rabbi catches the other one absorbed in ritual morning prayers. He asks, "What are you doing? We decided God does not exist!" The other replies, "What does God have to do with it?"
Elsewhere in his book Comte-Sponville provides the sequitur to this story:
There has never been a great civilization without sacred myths and rituals, beliefs in certain invisible or supernatural forces.This evinces a basic human need. Enlightenment science shows that the particular forces imagined by past (and present) civilizations do not exist, but it has not destroyed the human need for relating to Transcendence.
I rarely use the term "supernatural" anymore because I think Transcendence lives right within Nature and is part of everything in Nature. Readers can learn more about my thinking on that in the miracles part of my chapter, "The Man Jesus."
So I am still Catholic, culturally Catholic. Those of us who have these understandings could also be called Buddhist Christians or Christian Buddhists, depending on which emphasis we prefer. More possibilities—we are Christian atheists or atheist Christians.


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Science Movie Night: Turtle
Turtle: The Incredible Journey tells the story of a little loggerhead turtle, as she follows in the path of her ancestors on one of the most extraordinary journeys in the natural world. From a beach in Florida she rides the Gulf Stream to the frozen north, swimming around the entire North Atlantic to Africa and then back to the beach where she was born. Just one in a thousand turtles will make it safely home.
Following the film, staff from The Living Planet Aquarium will join us to share the story of their rescued green sea turtle and answer your turtle questions.


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To anyone who is a Federal employee or whose spouse is one, this is the first FEGLI open season in 12 years and is a golden opportunity to get more life insurance if you need it. No physical, no medical questions, etc. Unfortunately, the insurance doesn't take effect until October 2017 (or at least that's the way I read it) but still....for someone who has had a cancer diagnosis....the idea that you can get any life insurance after a diagnosis is fantastic.
Spouses can only get up to $25K in insurance but still....better than nothing.
Just throwing this out there as a piece of info for anyone who might be able to benefit from this scenario. If anyone know the answer to this next question, please chime in. If we purchase some Option B (extra term insurance) for hubby....he can still keep that when he retires, correct? He's planning on retiring in 7 years and I'm not confident that there will be another open season before then so am contemplating purchasing a unit now....just to have. If he can't keep it after retirement, not sure it matters much now anyway.


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Rounds, Daugaard and Wismer Winnners In South Dakota Primary
Former Governor Mike Rounds will represent the Republican party for the U.S. Senate in the November general election.
Rounds will face Rick Weiland. Rounds won over state Sen. Larry Rhoden, state Rep. Stace Nelson, attorney and Army Reserves Maj. Jason Ravnsborg and physician Annette Bosworth.
Governor Dennis Daugaard easily won in his bid for a second term over former state representative Lora Hubbel. Susan Wismer wins for the Democrats.


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Batak is a tribe that originally lives in Northern part of
Dalihan Na Tolu is the principle tradition of Batak. It is a triangle bond between brothers, sisters, and brothers of the mother. In a Batak wedding ceremony dalihan na tolu of the groom and dalihan na tolu of the bride will be involved. Terre is a Batak Toba. The Batak wedding traditions, as follow, are based on Batak Toba traditions.
This phase starts with searching for a Batak woman. Batak grooms have to search among the other 451 marga, clan, for a wife since the tradition stipulates that a man may not marry a woman from his own clan. In Batak traditions, it is taboo for a woman coming initially to a man. Both being in love and decided to get married, the next step is marhusip, which is having the groom's representative visiting the bride's family. However, since a Batak can only marry another Batak, Steve has to be adopted by a willing Batak clan and thereby marry a Batak wife according to tradition. Steve will be adopted by Gultom family and receive Gultom as his Batak marga.
At marhusip, the groom and his Batak family (core family) will visit the bride's family to discuss ensue between the two families to determine if everyone is in agreement with the marriage, what the dowry will be, where the wedding will be held, how many people will be invited, what the wedding will cost, and who will pay for it. Men and women are separated during these discussions, with the men making all the decisions.
Once an agreement has been achieved, the next ceremony is called marhata sinamot. Somehow this ceremony is similar to the marhusip discussion but dalihan na tolu of the groom and the bride are involved.
The main step of pre wedding is martumpol, the engagement. This ceremony takes place in a church. The groom and the bride vow their desires to get marry and promise to build a Christian family in front of the church elders and dalihan na tolu of both. After martumpol each family get together at their own place to prepare their parts for the wedding ceremony. The ceremony is called martonggo raja by the groom's side and marria raja by the bride's side. In a Batak wedding, families are the wedding organizers. The families will discuss about details, such as who will be raja parhata (master of ceremony), the representative at giving the gifts, the representative at receiving the gifts, the timetable, etc.
The wedding day is started with marsibuhai-buhai, having breakfast together at the bride's. The groom will take the bride to the church for a holy matrimony. Afterwards the bride, the groom, and the families will have a Batak wedding ceremony. Typical affirmation of Batak wedding is as follow:
The wedding is attended by dalihan na tolu and neighbours of the groom and the bride.
The groom's family gives the bride's family Namargoar ni juhut, A head, some ribs, a tail part of a cow, a buffalo, or a pig that are arranged and cooked in Batak style. The bride's family then gives the groom's family dengke, some goldfish that are cooked in Batak style. These gifts are exchanged before lunch.
Somba ni adat and somba ni uhum, offerings usually money, will be given by the groom's family to the bride's.
At least five ulos, traditional Batak cloth like a sarong, ulos na marhadohoan (meaning ulos that is produced for a special occasion) will be given by the bride's family to the groom's. The newlyweds will receive at least two ulos holong (meaning ulos that is given based on love) from the parents and the families.
Paulak Une is a visiting ceremony when the groom and his core family come to hula-hula, the bride's family, to show their honours and respects to the bride and her family in protecting the bride's virginity. Through this tradition, Batak parents educate their children to not having sex before marriage, which also follows the teaching of Bible. If the bride is no longer a virgin, the visiting ceremony will still be completed but called paulak boru.
Maningkir Tangga is a consequent visiting of the bride's family to the newlywed's house. This is sort of an informal one, like a casual visiting. Its purpose is to strengthening the relationship between the groom and the parents in law, showing love of the parents to their daughter and to observing how well the groom and his family taking care their daughter.


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45 Years Ago: Ringo Starr Temporarily Quits the Beatles
Although they wouldn't officially disband until April 1970, the first signs that the four-headed beast known as the Beatles was starting to come apart at the seams took place on Aug. 22, 1968. A little more than six years to the day that he performed his first show with the group, drummer Ringo Starr walked out during the recording sessions for 'The Beatles.'
Not that anybody knew this at the time. Everybody close to the group had to keep the news out of the press. The staff at Abbey Road Studios could sense the situation internally wasn't as rosy as it appeared on the outside. "Things were getting very strained on Beatles sessions by this time," engineer Peter Vince said in Mark Lewisohn's 'The Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962 – 1970.' "The engineers would be asked to leave. They'd say 'Go off for a meal' or 'Go off for a drink,' and you'd know they were having heavy discussions and didn't want anyone around."
Eventually, all the tension got to Starr. As he recalled in 'Anthology':
I felt I wasn't playing great, and I also felt that the other three were really happy and I was an outsider. I went to see John [Lennon], who had been living in my apartment in Montagu Square with Yoko [Ono] since he moved out of Kenwood. I said, 'I'm leaving the group because I'm not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.' And John said, 'I thought it was you three!'
So then I went over to Paul [McCartney]'s and knocked on his door. I said the same thing: 'I'm leaving the band. I feel you three guys are really close and I'm out of it.' And Paul said, 'I thought it was you three!'
Producer George Martin summed it up in 'Anthology': "If you go to a party and the husband and wife have been having a row — there's a tension, an atmosphere. And you wonder whether you are making things worse by being there. I think that was the kind of situation we found with Ringo … He might have said to himself, 'Am I the cause?'"
Starr went to Sardinia, borrowing the yacht that belonged to his good friend, actor Peter Sellers. But he didn't completely abandon music during that time. He wound up writing 'Octopus's Garden,' his second composition for the group, which would be released on 'Abbey Road.'
Meanwhile, the other three Beatles still had work to do. With McCartney filling in behind the drum kit, they recorded 'Back in the U.S.S.R.' and 'Dear Prudence.' But they soon realized they needed Starr, and sent him a telegram asking him to return, saying that they thought he was the best rock n' roll drummer in the world and that they loved him.
On Sept. 4, he came back to the group in time to film the videos (then called "promotional clips") for 'Hey Jude' and 'Revolution.' The next day, Starr arrived at Abbey Road to find his kit decorated in flowers spelling out "Welcome Back, Ringo."
Years later, McCartney realized that maybe they hadn't given Starr the positive reinforcement he needed. "I think Ringo was always paranoid that he wasn't a great drummer because he never used to solo," he said in 'Anthology.' "You go through life and never stop and … tell your favorite drummer that he's your favorite. Ringo felt insecure and he left, so we told him, 'Look man, you are the best drummer in the world for us.' I still think that."


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How he does it is one of the mysteries of art. Perhaps it's also one of the legacies of Germanic musical forms, which Lachenmann takes to daring extremes. He possesses a formidable analytic mind, a good thing for an avowed "structuralist."
In any case, his compositions -- to be presented along with a new documentary film about him this morning at the Goethe-Institut, then at an all-Lachenmann Monday Evening Concert at the Colburn School's Zipper Hall -- make extraordinary demands on musicians and audiences alike.
Maybe that partly explains why, despite being in his eighth decade, Lachenmann is still little known in this country. In Europe, his imaginative and formally airtight pieces are honored and performed, and he is considered by many to be among the greatest living composers. But a recent Lachenmann concert in New York, which he attended, went unreviewed by that city's newspaper of record.
Lachenmann's pedigree is indisputable -- he was the only private student for two years of Luigi Nono, the influential Italian avant-gardist who died in 1990, and also studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Yet the man himself is engagingly modest.
"It's easy to make music with noises. That's always somehow contemporary," he said recently, speaking by phone from Vancouver, Canada, where he was making one of many stops on the hectic international tour that has now brought him to Los Angeles. "But to make it with intervals, or to make it with motif-like elements, this is the real challenge."
He added that a composer confronted with so much tradition "must not only use it but make it empty" -- that is, find a fresh context for conventional musical elements so they regain authenticity. "The same C-major harmony which was full of expression in the Renaissance no longer applies in the music of Wagner," he explained. "The problem is to find a new way of listening."
This spring, Lachenmann is a Fromm Foundation visiting professor at Harvard, a post previously held by Gunther Schuller and Magnus Lindberg. In between teaching master classes, he is also traveling throughout the U.S. advising musicians how to play his complex and challenging scores.
That hasn't left him much time to complete his current commission, a piece for soprano and piano based on three Nietzsche texts, tentatively titled "Got Lost." Its premiere, which Lachenmann plans to attend, is scheduled for just a few weeks from now in Munich, Germany.
But first there's Monday's all-Lachenmann program, Monday Evening Concerts' season finale, which will give listeners a rare opportunity to hear the composer play his seven little pieces for piano from 1980, "Ein Kinderspiel" (Child's Play). The program also includes two masterpieces from the '80s: "Mouvement" for an 18-piece ensemble, and "Allegro Sostenuto," for clarinet, cello and piano.
"When Lachenmann deals with sounds, he's very sensitive to the quality of expression," says Michel Galante, who will conduct New York's Argento Chamber Ensemble in "Mouvement." "But he's also putting them in a context that's almost classical, because he's always thinking in terms of climaxes, transitions -- all the things that make a coherent structure in the way we think of Beethoven."
'10 rehearsals in one day'
LACHENMANN, who worked with Galante in New York last month, has not always had it so easy with musicians. "My music needs 10 rehearsals in one day. And each musician has to have the courage to be unskillful for a moment," he observed. "If I have to explain to a 60-year-old cello player that he has to hold the bow in another way, he feels ashamed to be a beginner again."
He said that during rehearsals for his first big orchestral piece, "Air," in 1969, conductor Lukas Foss had to "fight for my music." Then, when the work was finally performed in Frankfurt, Germany, the audience halted the percussive piece with shouts of "This is not music!" and derisive laughter. But Foss, himself a renowned composer, insisted on going back to the beginning and performing the entire work.
Lachenmann chuckled recalling the suddenly silent audience. "They were afraid if they disturbed the performance again, he might start over."
"Sometimes I say to musicians, 'Try to like it,' " he said. "They laugh, but they understand." But he maintained that performers of his music must be as precise as if they were playing Mozart. "Each sound can be performed dirty or pure. I don't want scratching noises -- you must be cruelly tender with the instrument, and the result must be beautiful."
Lachenmann described his compositional process as combining traditional instruments in a way that expands their individual sonic capabilities, forming a new "super instrument."
"It's as if every instrumentalist had the huge sound palette of a percussion player," says critic and author Paul Griffiths. "Lachenmann finds ways to deal with all the instruments equally."
Griffiths rates Lachenmann as one of the two or three finest living composers. "He's one of the most influential composers around," Griffiths says. "And he's also made a massive contribution as a provocative teacher and guide. Yet he is now 73 and still not big news in England or America."
Wolfgang von Schweinitz, the Roy E. Disney chair of composition at CalArts, offers a more practical reason for Lachenmann's neglect here: His scores are in German. "This nuisance cannot be underrated," Von Schweinitz says, pointing out that Central European composer György Ligeti used to write his scores in two or three languages, whereas in Lachenmann's, "every bar there's a word in German."
Yet when Von Schweinitz first heard Lachenmann's work, at the premiere of the austere string quartet "Gran Torso," in 1972, he immediately pegged him as the foremost German composer in the generation after Stockhausen. "And I still think so," he says.
Recently, Von Schweinitz taught a class on Lachenmann, whose uncompromising aesthetic he particularly admires. "Around the mid-'60s," he explains, "he developed his own personal style of using these noises, not allowing people a cheap kind of beauty. The denial of quick satisfaction was a big theme for him."
Other composers beware
IF Lachenmann is not easy on audiences, he's been even tougher on other composers, such as Ligeti, Hans Werner Henze and Krzysztof Penderecki, all contemporaries slightly older than he. "He thought they were losing the hard edge avant-garde mentality of the '50s already during the '60s," Von Schweinitz says.
The hard edge Lachenmann admired no doubt came from his teacher Nono.
"Nono was incredibly hard on me," Lachenmann said. "It was a little bit of a game. He always tried to make an inquisition of my bourgeois provenance. If I wrote a trill, he said, 'Who do you think you are? [French Baroque composer] François Couperin?' My first compositions were close to his own technique, because I was full of Bartók, Messiaen and Stravinsky, and I thought it was all . . . not me. His influence was so strong that at a certain point, I had to kill him, like everybody has to kill his father somehow."
In 1959, instigated by Nono, Lachenmann ghost-wrote a polemic for the older man against the music of experimental composer John Cage, which he now explains this way: "At that time, I was not against Cage, I was admiring Nono. When I heard Cage in 1954, my world broke apart. I was also impressed, because there was method in his madness. For me today, Nono and Cage are the composers who have a very deep influence."
Lachenmann's other primary influence was Bach, whose music he heard as a child in the Stuttgart church of his father, a Protestant minister.
"I felt the magic of being together and singing," he said. "In the concert hall, we also come together to concentrate on an experience, reminding us that there is something which we call 'spirit.' "
There are other kinds of "magic" that Lachenmann said he would never understand, such as his daughter's fascination when she was younger with techno music. "This was cheap magic," he said, "but very strong. Art is more than this kind of pseudo-provocation."
According to Griffiths, Lachenmann's own music must be seen and heard live to be fully appreciated. "It's a bit like going to a sports event," Griffiths says. "You're seeing people who are working at the extreme, doing things that are barely possible."
The composer agreed. "We need adventure in art," he said. "People should have a sporting ambition to go into a concert hall, and musicians should also have an ambition to learn and do things they haven't done before."
Lachenmann added that his music theater piece "The Little Match Girl" has often sold out European venues. "I'm very fortunate now, but it was also booed," he said with another laugh.
That he can joke so freely about his often difficult career is a testament to his resilience.
"At least people are not indifferent to my music," he offered. "A composer has nothing to say to an audience. He has to do something, and what he does, this shall say something. He is a medium. The composer is the person who is the most shocked by what he did."


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Location: Food and Feed Safety ResearchTitle: Survival of O157:H7 and non-o157 serogroups of Escherichia coli in bovine rumen fluid and bile salts Author
|Free, Angela - Mississippi State University
|Duoss, Heather - Mississippi State University
|Bergeron, Leeanne - Mississippi State University
|Shields-menard, Sara - Mississippi State University
|Ward, Emily - Mississippi State University
|Callaway, Todd
|Carroll, Jeffery - Jeff Carroll
|Schmidt, Ty - Mississippi State University
|Donaldson, Janet - Mississippi State University
Submitted to: Foodborne Pathogens and Disease
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/5/2012
Publication Date: 11/7/2012
Publication URL: http://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/57320
Citation: Free, A.L., Duoss, H.A., Bergeron, L.V., Shields-Menard, S.A., Ward, E., Callaway, T.R., Carroll, J.A., Schmidt, T.B., Donaldson, J.R. 2012. Survival of O157:H7 and non-O157 serogroups of Escherichia coli in bovine rumen fluid and bile salts. Foodborne Pathogens and Disease. 9:1010-1014.
Interpretive Summary: Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) such as E. coli O157:H7 present a serious threat to food safety and are commonly found in the gastrointestinal tract of cattle. This study was designed to determine if there were differences in the ability of EHEC to survive exposure to bile salts and ruminal fluid. Ruminal fluid was a good medium for growth of the serotypes tested, but variation in survival followed by exposure to bovine bile salts existed. This suggests that non-O157 EHEC may survive differently in the gut of cattle than O157:H7 isolates.
Technical Abstract: Escherichia coli are gram negative, facultative anaerobic bacteria that colonize within the intestines of animals and humans. Enterohemorragic strains of E. coli (EHEC) pose a serious health risk to humans yet reside asymptomatically within ruminants. In particular, bovine serve as the major reservoir for these bacteria. Research related to EHEC has historically been focused upon O157:H7. However, with an increase in food-borne outbreaks of non-O157 origin and forthcoming changes in test for non-O157:H7 by the USDA, there is now a critical need to understand the biological activity of non-O157 serotypes as well. The focus of this study was to determine whether variations exist in the ability of different serotypes of EHEC to survive within bovine bile salts and rumen fluid. The results of this study indicate that the five serotypes tested (O157:H7, O111:H8, O103:k:H8, O145:H28, and O26:H11) grew well in rumen fluid. Most notably, certain serotypes appeared to have an improved ability to replicate within the rumen fluid when compared to O157:H7. Variations were also observed in the survival of these non-O157 strains in bovine bile salts in comparison to O157:H7. These data suggest that non-O157 serotypes of E. coli may respond differently than O157:H7 to the environment of the bovine intestine. Further work is needed to decipher how these variations correlate with alterations in colonization within ruminants.


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HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — When is Dwight Howard going to be ready to suit up and actually play for the Los Angeles Lakers?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Nobody rocks a designer sweater better (you remember Howard from his introductory presser, above). But Lakers fans and NBA fans everywhere are itching to see what Howard looks like in action. And until now, we weren't sure exactly when that would be. Howard is recovering from spinal surgery and there has never been a concrete return date given.
But he's begun working with the Lakers' training staff — his first day was Monday — and according to our main man Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register it was a "promising" first step, we could be getting closer to learning exactly when he'll be ready:
Details are scarce and Lakers spokesman John Black declined to comment, but Howard on Monday had his first hands-on session with Lakers athletic trainer Gary Vitti and head physical therapist Judy Seto at the team's training facility in El Segundo.
Howard is rehabilitating after April 20 spinal surgery, and no one has been ready to commit to a day, week or even month when Howard will make his Lakers debut. But the level of mobility and strength Howard is already showing has to be encouraging for anyone hopeful he'll be jumping for that opening tip-off Oct. 30 against Dallas.
Howard insisted at his introductory Lakers news conference that he will not play until he is truly 100 percent. He also said this:
"Anybody who knows me and knows what I'm about: I would never quit anything and I would never fake an injury. I've never been a quitter. I've always been somebody who pushed through the end. I've had injuries before but I've never said anything about them. I've played through a lot of things."
His history backs him up: He plays when he can play.
And the fact that he can do all the running and sliding and stepping he can – besides other exercises more taxing for his back – with seven weeks until the first game and three weeks until the first practice is certainly reason for optimism. (And for all that he still can't do, Howard has at least been working on his free throws, yes.)
In his first six NBA seasons, Howard played 624 of 631 possible games. And even though he suffered the herniated disk last season – amid all the waffling about whether he really wanted to stay in Orlando – he gave the Magic plenty.
Howard's durability this season will be a huge factor in how deep into the playoffs the Lakers play. So much of what they do this season is riding on Howard coming back from his surgery and being the dominant force he's been throughout his career.
But it in the absence of actual court time with his new teammates, we're left to speculate about what he'll look like playing alongside the likes of Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash and Pau Gasol. You don't need to be Miss Cleo to guess that a foursome that potent on paper will thrive in the flesh.
Still, there are no guarantees that it clicks immediately. And in the microwave/instant-results age we live in, the scrutiny on Howard and these Lakers will rival anything we saw from that crew in Miami two seasons ago.
A "promising" first day for Howard is a solid start …


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Time for a round-up of recent games news.
Jon Abbott of the JASPP software preservation project has recently announced that they have acquired the rights to distribute games previously developed/published by Artex Software, Eterna, Minerva and Visions of the Impossible.
These games include such classics as: Ballarena, Botkiller, Exodus, Poizone, Prime Solver & SunBurst. The games are being released through the JASPP forum, so keep an eye out for updates there.
No mention was made of Artex Software's later games Ankh and TEK, or the never released for RISC OS Iron Dignity, with its impressive 3D rendering engine.
The announcement does mention that JASPP are looking to update some of the titles by Artex Software and Visions of the Impossible to run natively on 32-bit systems. The first to get such treatment will be VOTI's SunBurst. Whether this news will lead to a 32-bit multitasking desktop WIMP conversion of Super Foul Egg, or Exodus running natively on the Panda Board is unknown at this time.
This happened a while back, but the full Star Fighter 3000 game has been released for free. This is the latest souped-up version, which features improved rendering distances, desktop play, and a host of other improvements. It runs on RISC OS machines from the latest dev-board hardware, right back to the old Archimedes systems it originally appeared on. To run it on an old Archimedes system at full frame rate, you'll need to make sure you have the nested WIMP installed, reduce the game's graphics settings and force it to run in fullscreen mode.
Anthony Vaughan Bartram of Ambiguous Contrasts Games has produced Overlord, a space shoot-em-up on available PlingStore. The latest version, 1.40, has just been released.
In other news, James Shaw has been keeping us informed of his progress on the development of a RailPro-like game.
The preservation project for Acorn software, JASPP, has so far been focused on preserving old games. Many of the titles concerned required 20 year old hardware and obsolete versions of RISC OS to run. Over the last year or so, the project has obtained disc images and box/manual scans for well over 100 of the games released for the Acorn platform. Most of these have been contributed by users.
While they've been archiving these old games, the project has also been working on software to enable the archived games to be played. The software they've developed includes: ADFFS, the floppy disc image loader; an updated version of QTM, the tracker music player; and various other software including on-the-fly converters to allow more games' music to be played through QTM.
Over the last few days JASPP has started to release games for which they have acquired distribution rights. Currently these include:
If you have any old titles the JASPP team would like to hear from you.
Steve Harrison, the original developer of the tracker player Q The Music, has produced a new RISC OS module which allows games to be played on old Archimedes systems hooked up to modern monitors or televisions. LCDGameModes patches the screen modes that games use on the fly, such that they work correctly with a VGA or SVGA compatible screen. The effect of this is to prevent scrambled displays and fix the aspect ratio of "letter-boxed" games.
The software is currently in public beta, and is being discussed over on the stardot forums. One post shows Elite and Star Fighter 3000 starting up on a 40inch Samsung Telly.


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I have been eating a lot better. Once I eat all my good food, if I have any calories to burn I'll have a small snack. I'm trying to stick to mostly whole grains, fruits, veggies, unbreaded meats, yogurt, nuts. I've been good at sticking to good foods, but I just eat more of these things than I should.PensFanInDC wrote:bh wrote:Started to use a calorie counter app. Holy crap is this thing awesome! Really makes me see what I am eating and when I need to stop. We'll see if it helps with a little weight loss though. Bought a small food scale as well. I am going to go for 1.5 lbs per week. Would like to end up around 180ish lbs.
Just be careful. It's not the amount of calories you intake but where they come from. 100 calories of grass fed beef is totally different from 100 calories of donut. You will burn most of the calories from the beef just digesting it. The calories from the donut, however, need more physical work to burn off.


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This year's record-breaking pollen season has been a real assault on our senses, or more accurately, our sinuses. A good tissue can really help see allergy sufferers through. Consumer Reports just tested more than a dozen tissues to see which ones you can rely on.
Consumer Reports evaluated 18 tissues in all from the major players, as well as store brands, testing for strength and softness.
Testers found that you can't necessarily go by a name. Walgreens' Ology Soft & Strong tissues were anything but, earning the lowest overall rating. But the top-rated tissue, Puffs Ultra Soft & Strong, did deliver on its name. In fact, the two-ply tissue was the strongest of all the tissues tested, blowing away all the threeplies! The next best tissue, Kleenex Lotion Aloe & E, can save you a little money. It was named a Consumer Reports Best Buy.
No matter which tissue you "ah … choose," Consumer Reports finds that tissues don't need to have lotion added for them to be soft. But all the tested tissues that did have lotion rated well for softness. A word of caution: Don't use tissues with lotion to clean your eyeglasses. You'll only end up with more smudges!
Complete Ratings and recommendations on all kinds of products, including appliances, cars & trucks, and electronic gear, are available on Consumer Reports' website.


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A few years ago, when Boulder resident Bob Yates worked as a volunteer in Columbia Cemetery, he stumbled upon the gravestone of a man with the same name. Intrigued, Bob learned that the deceased had been murdered more than a century ago by the man's brother, John.
"It's a little disconcerting to see your name on a gravestone," said Bob, who has researched the local Yates family and determined he is not related. "But I uncovered a 19th-century Cain and Abel story that I think people will enjoy hearing."
On Sunday, Oct. 7, at Historic Boulder Inc.'s biennial "Meet the Spirits" event at Columbia Cemetery, Bob will relate the tale from the perspective of yet another brother — miner and former Boulder County Sheriff Joseph Yates.
Bob will participate for the first time this year and will be joined by about 30 other volunteers who will portray some of Boulder's many historical and colorful characters, from outlaw Tom Horn to psychic Helen Gilman. All will be giving first-person monologues, and the public is invited to wander from grave to grave on self-guided tours.
In playing the part of Sheriff Joseph Yates, Bob will be dressed in period clothing, including the badge, watch and knife of his own great-grandfather, a deputy U.S. Marshal.
Tour-goers will learn that Joseph Yates, wife Loretta and infant son Richard moved from Missouri in 1872 to settle in Boulder County, where Joseph mined for gold and silver in the mining communities of Caribou, Sugarloaf, Jamestown, Sunshine and Magnolia. Joseph was one of eight Yates brothers who mined in Colorado, including brothers Bob and John.
Although mining was Joseph's principal occupation, he was elected sheriff in the fall of 1881. A year later, when Boulder County's Victorian-era courthouse was nearing completion, the Yates family became the first to live there, in the new sheriff's quarters. (The building burned in 1932 and was replaced, on the same foundation, with the current courthouse.)
Nineteenth-century newspapers covered the sheriff's exploits, including the escape of prisoners from the courthouse basement jail. But Joseph Yates's biggest case came in May 1892 (eight years after he left office) when, as a Daily Camera front-page headline proclaimed, "FRATRICIDE: Bob Yates is killed by his brother John."
The next day, a report on the coroner's inquest explained, in great detail, that John Yates killed his brother Bob with a hunting knife in a saloon in the Boulder County mining camp of Copper Rock.
Apparently, John had confronted Bob (then on parole for grand larceny) about a stolen watch, and Bob threatened to kill John. During a fight, John stabbed Bob, who bled to death on the train taking him to Boulder. John was arrested but claimed to have acted in self-defense. Two days later, John was set free.
"If you want to know if Sheriff Joseph Yates had a hand in the John's acquittal," says the current-day Bob Yates, "you'll just have to come to 'Meet The Spirits' to find out."
For ticket information, times and a list of characters, call Historic Boulder Inc. at 303-444-5192.
Silvia Pettem and Carol Taylor write on history for the Daily Camera, alternating weeks. Email Silvia at email@example.com, Carol at firstname.lastname@example.com, or write to the Daily Camera, 5450 Western Ave., Boulder 80301-2709.


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Interest rates are unlikely to rise anytime soon.
A 16-day partial government shutdown that ended Oct. 17 knocked consumer confidence. All told, it took about $24 billion dollars out of the economy, according to Standard & Poor's.
The shutdown began two weeks after the Federal Reserve surprised financial markets when it said that it would continue buying $85 billion of bonds every month to hold down long-term interest rates until the economic recovery was more entrenched.
The nomination of Janet Yellen as the next Federal Reserve chair also suggests that the U.S. central bank may err toward keeping rates low. Yellen is widely seen as a "dove" on Fed policy because she stresses the need to boost growth and reduce unemployment, rather than worry about igniting future inflation.
Even after four years of ultra-low interest rates and extraordinary monetary stimulus, analysts don't expect rate increases to start until at least the middle of 2015.
Although rates close to zero may help boost the economy, they're bad news for savers who need an investment income to cover their expenses. Investors seeking to achieve the steady returns that used to be typically available on savings products now have to look elsewhere.
Income funds, which often consist of a mix of bonds and stocks that pay large dividends, are one way for investors to achieve a similar return.
Linda Bakhshian, who manages Federated Investors' Capital Income Fund, says that demand for income funds is also being bolstered by an aging population and, as retirees live longer, each investment dollar has to stretch further. The fund seeks to provide a monthly payment for its investors through a portfolio that's split evenly between bonds and stocks.
Q: With the Standard & Poor's 500 posting double-digits returns in four of the last five years, why should investors buy into an income fund, rather than just invest in a traditional stock fund?
A: What income funds essentially do is allow you to participate in the capital appreciation of the market over the longer term but, they minimize the volatility and the downside of your portfolio.
Think about the roller coaster that equities go on, on a yearly basis. Income funds give you a smoother ride through that market cycle. They end up in the same place but with less volatility, while generating income on a monthly basis.
You also need to think about taxes. Dividends have a lower tax rate than capital gains taxes. If you just want to be 100 percent in the stock market and you want to pay a bill, then you may have to sell a stock. Whereas, with a dividend income fund, you get monthly income and your taxes are lower.
Q: What type of stocks does your fund invest in?
A: We are invested across all the S&P 500 sectors, for example we own consumer discretionary stocks, industrials and a little bit of technology stock. We also own financial stocks.
About 14 percent of the fund is in international equities. International companies are a little bit more dividend friendly than historically U.S. companies have been because U.S. companies do generally consider share buybacks in addition to dividends.
About nine percent of the fund is in convertible bonds (which can be converted into stock if the stock rises to a certain level).
Q: Have company attitudes about dividend payments changed in recent years?
A: Dividends have really come back into vogue over the last 10 years, or so. If you look back over the 1980s, or the 1990s, dividends were essentially out of favor. Any company that paid a dividend was considered a company that had limited growth and didn't know what else to do with the cash, other than give it back to its shareholders.
Investors are now asking for that dividend essentially to get some income from companies. This also imposes some shareholder discipline on management.
Q: At what age should people start considering investing in an income fund?
A: Anywhere after the age of 40, people should start to look at income funds. As a source of monthly income or to reinvest that income. Income investing should be part of your portfolio; if you're younger you get that income and you re-invest it. If you're older you can take some of the cash and pay your bills with it.
Income investing should be part of your whole investing life cycle, it's just a matter how much you allocate to it. When you're younger you should allocate a little bit less, when you're older you should allocate a bit more.
All contents herein copyright San Diego Source ® 1994-2019


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April 29, 2011
SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. - On Thursday afternoon, the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) released their annual "All-American" team. This year, that team featured two Gauchos, senior outside hitter Jeff Menzel and senior libero Andy McGuire.
Menzel was named a first-team All-American while McGuire was named to the second team.
Menzel, who was also named a first-teamer on the All-MPSF team, led the Gauchos in most offensive categories in 2011- including kills (453), kills per game (4.23), service aces (29) and total points (509). His kill rate was good enough for fourth in the conference, and his serving also placed him in the conference top-10 for serving. Jeff was also a staple on the back line for the Gauchos, compiling 135 digs on the year, good for third on the team, while also leading the team in reception attempts. Jeff will finish his UCSB career third all time on the kills list and second all time on the aces list.
McGuire, a second-team All-MPSFer established his pedigree as a top defender last year when he set a single-season record for digs by a Gaucho with 322. Andy had another strong campaign in 2011, leading the team with 242 digs. Of all the primary serve receivers (Menzel,Valbuena are the others), Andy had the highest reception percentage, along with the fewest reception attempts- showing opponents' hesitance to serve his way. Andy's digs and digs per game were good for fourth in the conference, but he was just one of two liberos selected for the All-America team. McGuire will finish his UCSB career second on the all-time digs list.
Jeff, Andy, and the rest of the Men's Volleyball team take on the USC Trojans in the MPSF Championship match on Saturday night, Apr. 30 at 7:30 p.m. The match will take place at USC's Galen Center. UCSB's first MPSF championship ever is on the line.


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I urge you to keep Susan E. Ottens circuit court clerk of Whiteside County. I have worked with Susan for more than 15 years in the circuit clerk's office. Her dedication, expertise and commitment to serving the public is unparalleled.
Susan has been very intentional about learning every position in the office, from child support, family, small claims, law division, traffic and misdemeanor cases to felony cases. Her 24 years of experience enables her to provide quick answers to many challenging questions.
Susan embraces technology. She is quick to implement new programs as they become available.
Today, anyone with Internet access can look up court cases to check on motions, hearing dates and payments. The site is www.judici.com.
Since the site is updated multiple times every day, it is relied upon by lawyers, employers doing background checks, and parties checking the status of their ongoing cases. If someone wants to make a payment online, there are two websites available: www.illinoisepay.com and www.govpaynow.com.
Susan is an excellent administrator. As circuit court clerk, she supervises two full-service offices in Sterling and Morrison with 13 employees. She coordinates scheduling of clerks in five courtrooms. She manages a budget of more than $1.4 million.
Whiteside County, in the midst of one of the biggest murder trials in decades, needs a competent, knowledgeable circuit court clerk. Whiteside County needs Susan E. Ottens. Experience matters.
Note to readers – Sue Gravert is chief deputy circuit court clerk.


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Nov 02, 2010
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles (7-18, 5-9 OVC) earned their second victory of the season against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks in four sets. Tech won by the scores of 27-22, 22-26, 25-20 and 25-23.
"It was a match between to fairly even teams," head coach John Blair said. "Each team had some good points, but we just had a few more than they did."
The Golden Eagles started off the first set hot as they built a 9-4 lead. Undaunted the Gamecocks were able to claw their way back and take the lead at 20-19. TTU was able to recovery quickly though as they took the first set in extra points 27-25.
The second set remained close the whole way as neither team led by more than two points. JSU had the first shot at taking the second set when it took the lead at 24-23. A kill by senior Leah Meffert forced extra points for the second straight set, but the Gamecocks were able to recover to take the set 26-24.
The third set remained close as both teams were tied at 18. Tech would then go on a 7-2 run, behind a pair of kills from sophomore Kelsey Gray, to take the third set 25-20.
Just like the third set both teams found themselves tied up late in the fourth set at 19. The Golden Eagles ended the fourth set on a 6-4 run behind two kills from Meffert and senior Marie Peddicord top take the fourth set 25-20 and the match.
Gray and Peddicord led the Tech offense with 13 kills each, while freshman Allison May led the Golden Eagles in digs with 33. Senior Melanie Culp added 37 assists.
"Allison May had an excellent match tonight," Blair said. "She played the way she is capable of playing and did what we have come to expect from her."
Tennessee Tech wraps up its regular season with a four-match homestand beginning with Murray State Friday, at 7 p.m.


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GR: This year's spread of fighting titles all seemed like crazy ideas: PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale was all about Sony trying to make Super Smash Bros.; Persona 4 Arena makes a 2D Blazblue fighter out of all of the RPG characters from Persona 4 (and some from Persona 3); Street Fighter X Tekken transforms 3D characters into 2D characters, which shouldn't have worked but it did anyway; and Skullgirls only had eight female characters but it still was a competent tag-team fighter. Still, only one nominee has made any real headway in the hardcore fighting community.
I get that, yeah. I'm a Persona 4 man myself but I think that might be partially because I love the Persona universe/characters/art.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 does seem to have everything to make it the top game this year. Skullgirls has a good standing for it and is quite beautifully crated seems like it's one of those games that can only get better.
Persona 4 Arena or GTFO!!! Best damn fighter I've played in a looong time!!


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E-mail email@example.com
Phone: 707-664-4065
Office: Stevenson Hall 3011
Office Hours: by appointment
Dr. Megan W. Taylor
Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum Studies and Secondary Education
Courses Taught
Megan is an Assistant Professor in the Curriculum Studies and Secondary Education department, focusing on secondary mathematics education and teacher education. Over the past twelve years Megan has taught 6th-12th grade mathematics in Daly City, San Mateo, Redwood City, and Santa Clara, and is a nationally board certified mathematics teacher. Her research program focuses on how secondary mathematics teachers interact with their curricula, specifically when, why and how they adapt textbook materials. She believes improving public mathematics education in the U.S. hinges on improving teacher education, and she works in academic and professional development settings to this end. Her current work in professional development involves helping mathematics teachers use and design curricula in the most effective ways possible. Megan lives with her partner, Adam, twin girls, Aza and Dillon, and doggie, Cole, in San Francisco.
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Transforming the Engagement of Students in Learning Algebra (TESLA) Project: Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2010-2012
- PhD, Mathematics Curriculum and Teacher Education: Stanford University, 2010
- Board Certification, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 2007
- MA, Mathematics Education, Stanford University, 2002
- CLAD teaching credential, Stanford University, 2002
- BS, Psychology with Mathematics Emphasis, University of California, Davis, 2001
Research Interests
- Secondary mathematics education
- Secondary mathematics teacher education and professional development
- Middle-school teaching and learning
- Algebra education
- Curriculum use
Recent Scholarship and Publications
- Taylor, M. W. (2012). Replacing the "teacher-proof" curriculum with the "curriculum-proof" teacher: Toward more effective interactions with mathematics textbooks. Journal of Curriculum Studies, (in press).
- Murata, A., Bofferding, L., Pothen, B. E., Taylor, M. W., & Wischnia, S. (2012). Making connections among student learning, content, and teaching: Teacher talk paths in elementary mathematics lesson study. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, (in press).
- Taylor, M. W. (2012). We're number one! Examining high school mathematics teachers' prioritizations of algebra standards. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, BC.
- Taylor, M. W. (2011). Teacher divergence from expected curriculum use. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.
- Taylor, M. W., Sherin, M., Drake, C., & Mitchell, R. (2011). Professional development for "more effective" curriculum use. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, Irvine, CA.
Professional Memberships and Affiliations
- American Educational Research Association (AERA)
- AERA Special Interest Group – Research in Mathematics Education (SIG-RME)
- California Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (CAMTE)
- Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE)


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Cisco, F5, Ubiquiti To Thrive Despite Cloud, SDN, says Bernstein
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Bernstein Research's Pierre Ferragu late Monday initiated coverage of six networking equipment vendors, assigning Outperform ratings to Cisco Systems (CSCO), Ubiquity Networks (UBNT), and F5 Networks (FFIV), a Market Perform rating to Juniper Networks (JNPR), and Underperform ratings to Aruba Networks (ARUN), and Ruckus Wireless (RKUS).
Ferragu contends that despite several large tech trends such as "Cloud, Hyperscale and Software Defined Networking," nevertheless the overall picture is one of continued innovation, and that competitive dynamics will not change for the industry.
Ferragu argues dominant companies such as Cisco "have a right to make money," based on the inclination of clients to buy stuff that works with what they've already got, as well as the ability of incumbents like Cisco to incorporate emerging technology into their portfolio:
A platformis a combination of a vendor's installed base, technology and product portfolio. It gives pricing power and defensible market shares, as clients favour buying equipment from their established vendors to help with backward integration and keeping environments homogeneous [...] Owners of leading platforms are usually not leading innovators. New entrants can successfully challenge existing platforms by offering differentiated products and leveraging the agility that their smaller scale and blank-sheet-of-paper approach provide. Unfortunately, our analysis shows technology-based advantages are often not sustainable over time, as companies with leading platforms integrate the new entrants' innovations into their product portfolios.
Specifically, while emergent trends such as software-defined networking and "hyperscale" cloud computing are "stepping up" competition for Cisco and others, they are not fatal to incumbents:
Cloud service revenues are likely to grow ~25% p.a. in the coming years, but are only 2% of IT spending. Cloud and Hyperscale are capturing a growing share of IT hardware spending (13% today 20% in 2018). In Data Networking,tough, where 70% of revenues are outside of the Data Centre, the threat is more benign (7% of spending today, 10%) in 2018. Traditional vendors are losing share among Hyperscale clients, whose scale and uniform needs allow for different sourcing models, which leverage white-box hardware and in-house software development and integration. At more traditional cloud service providers, which are smallerin scale and have less homogeneous infrastructure needs, we expect traditional vendors to remain strong. Overall, we expect Hyperscale to pose a limited headwind on traditional vendors' growth. (We estimate 35 bps p.a. for Cisco. Our analysis suggests the massive efficiency gains from Hyperscale won't result in deflationary spending on hardware. SDN (Software Defined Networking) is a step in the evolution of Data Networking, but we don't see it changing the rules of the game. SDN is a significant innovation in networking, as it enables Hyperscale infrastructures and is likely to slowly expand to the wider market. Nevertheless, we do not foresee a "great dawn" scenario. Even though the decoupling of hardware and software has had a dramatic impact on hardware margins in other tech industries, we don't think ingredients are in place for this to happen in Networking. We base our conclusion on a detailed review of forces in place and on the conviction that only an already powerful ecosystem, like the Intel-Microsoft symbiosis in servers, could threaten networking vendors.
Cisco, he writes, is protected by its "scale and platform," and it can grow in new product categories once it gets past the effects of uneven buying by service providers:
Growth in Cisco's addressable market has slowed to the ~5% p.a. With switching and routing now a mature market, Data Networking growth will closely follow IT spending. Share gains in some segments (blade servers and collaboration) and growth in Services are likely to more than compensate for share erosion in more mature segments. Cisco's recent weakness is worrisome, but it cannot be attributed to secular bear cases. Our analysis showsthe weakness is due to the lumpiness of Service Provider revenues, slow IT spending and other temporary effects, in particular product cycles, but can't be related to SDN or Hyperscale. We expect a recovery in the coming quarters, along with a strengthening of IT spending.
Ferragu likes F5's "strong platform":
We see F5 as a strong platform play:the company's leads the ADC (Application Delivery Controller) market with a 40%+ share. We believe F5's product platform is deeply entrenched at clients, supporting custom development and integration with IT systems. Moreover, the company will play an increasingly critical role in the application layer of the Data Centre, as ADCs increase the span of their functionalities (application security, user management, cloud management, network control, etc.). Consequently, we expect F5 to grow revenues and profitability above current expectations.
He also likes the way Ubiquiti has thrived despite the maturity of most of the networking market:
Ubiquiti represents a breakthrough in Data networking. The company targets the last pockets of growth in the market with a highly efficient and defensible business model. It captured 60% of Wireless Fixed Broadband Access, the only area of growth left in Fixed Access. It also captured almost 10% volume share in WiFi in ~20 months, with aproduct targeting what is left of Greenfield opportunities in that segment [...] Ubiquiti has developed a unique business model, highly defensible and driving strong economic returns. With a blank sheet of paper approach, the company develops simple, cost-optimised and "no-frills" products, targeting the lagging end of the Data Networking market (late adopters with a focus on emerging markets) and runs a lean operation with virtually no distribution costs. We expect Ubiquiti to to expand its model to additional segments. On that basis we anticipate growth well above consensus in the coming next 3 years: 48% p.a. in revenues, 61% in EPS.
Juniper's shares have gone too high already on the prospect of improved operating efficiencies:
Junipe ris exposed to structurally profitable segments (Security, IP routing) but lacks scale and its market share has been eroding for years. In our view, the recent stock appreciation already reflects material improvements to profitability and shareholder returns. We understand management is eager to make both happen and see further but limited upside if they succeed.
Aruba and Ruckus have a problem in being solely wireless vendors:
Aruba and Ruckus are set to experience pressure on margins and market share, as their economic model reaches its limits, in a slowing market andcornered by Cisco and Ubiquiti. Both companies are already forced to come down rapidly in price point, just to keep stable market shares and can't improve their profitability, as growth will have to come at the cost of increased opex. We model FY2015 revenues and EPS~5% and ~15% below consensus for Aruba, ~13% and ~30% below for Ruckus.


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Hey. How's it going? Awkward silence. Um, I really do intend to finish my children's book series. Really. I do. No, really. This is not simply a case of ambitiousseriesitis that I've come down with. Although there is a wee bit of that, now that I think about it.
I don't know if any of the rest of you have noticed, but December is a rather busy month. It hit me like a bolt from the blue, I swear. So what with gingerbread houses, chocolate truffles, sugar cookies, hosting brunches, trying to knit a gift sweater and having a hacking, horking kid on my hands, I've been a tad sidelined on the blogging front. In an effort to appease your book-loving hearts, I offer up a list of 10 (or so) great Christmas books for kids. Please feel free to embelish in the comments. I know that we could go on for days building the perfect list.
Mouse's First Christmas by Lauren Thompson is a sweet introduction to the unique sights and sensations of Christmas. Recommended for 1-3 year olds.
Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present by John Burningham
Santa resorts to every type of locomtion you can imagine in order to get his final present delivered to the top of The Roly Poly mountain. A quite charming read with lots of repetition for the 2-5 year-old set.
Olivia Helps With Christmas by Ian Falconer
Falconer adds GREEN to his red and white upper middle-class world. Olivia, as always, will charm your socks off and the illustrations say everything that the words need only subtely suggest. Once again, a book for the 2-5s in your house.
Pippin the Christmas Pig by Jean Little
A contemporary retake on the Christmas story. While all the other animals in the barn are caught in a game of one-up-manship about whose ancestor was the most important player in Bethlehem, the unassuming Pippin rescues a lost? homeless? woman and her child who are trapped in a blizzard on Christmas Eve. Ages 4-7
The Chirstmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski; illustrated by P.J. Lynch. Like Pippen above, this story is a little heavy-handed with the sentiment but if ever there was a time to dally in sentiment, Christmas is it. A young boy and his widowed mother help a grieving wood carver reclaim his joy by requesting a hand-carved crèche for Christmas. Ages 5-9.
The House of the Wooden Santas and Aunt Olga's Christmas Postcards by Kevin Major
These books by Newfoundland fiction writer John Major have charm in spades. The former comprises 24 short chapters to be read before bed each day in December and features the wood carvings of Imelda George. Combined, the chapters tell the story of Jesse and his single mother who have recently moved to the seaside. The latter, illustrated by Bruce Roberts provides a visual history of Christmas as seen through the eyes of a 95-yr-old great grandmother and as documented through her collection of historical post cards. Both these books are for older children: 6-9.
The Huron Carol by Father Jean de Brébeuf
There are two great picture book editions of this carol, one illustrated in 1990 by Frances Tyrell and one illustrated by Ian Wallace in 2006. This gorgeous, minor-key carol was originally written by a Jesuit missionary in 1641 and depicts the Christmas story as having taken place in a Huron village. When I sang it for Miss M last night, she interuppted me to say "No, mommy. Mary had blond hair. She didn't have dark hair." Oh. My.
Tyrell also has a lovely edition of the Twelve Days of Christmas entitled Woodland Christmas.
If you haven't seen any of the reproductions of Ernest Nister's movable books from the 1890s, find out if your library has one or more. Most of his books were reproduced in the early 1990s and there are several Christmas titles. I have Christmas Surprises and Ernest Nister's Book of Christmas sitting in front of me now. The poetry isn't great, even by Victorian standards, but the movable illustrations are gorgeous and provide a lovely touch of nostalgia. Tasha Tudor's nostalgic Book of Christmas is indebted to Nister.
Like, duh: Clement Moore's The Night Before Christmas. Don't settle for whatever $2 version happens to be circulating in the remaindered bin. There are fine illustrated editions by Arthur Rackham, Bruce Whatley, Anita Lobel, Max Grove, Tomie de Paola, Kim Fernandez, Grandma Moses and Jan Brett to name just a few. Heck, the dusty Golden Book version still charms my retro heart.
Speaking of Jan Brett, she has a few Christmas books. Miss M loved her most recent Gingerbread Friends; you could almost eat the page, so tasty were all the illustrations. I like The Wild Christmas Reindeer. The Night Before Christmas, The Christmas Trolls and Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve are slightly less spectacular in my opinion. The Mitten, though not specifically a Christmas book is a great seasonal story based on the Ukrainian folk tale. All these books are for 3-7 yr-olds.
And, of course, I can't end the list without mentioning Van Allsburg's The Polar Express and Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas. We can only hope the freakish movie version does not usurp the former. Boris Karloff's TV version has indeed ousted Seuss's original book when it comes to claiming holiday supremacy, but that's just fine with me. Never was there a finer marriage of film and book.
OK, so let the list continue in the comments. Don't forget to tell me why you like the books you recommend or, at the very least, let me know an age range. If I am on top of my game late next November, I'll compile the whole she-bang into one long list to kick off the '09 holiday season.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Christmas: the oral tradition
Hey. How's it going? Awkward silence. Um, I really do intend to finish my children's book series. Really. I do. No, really. This is not simply a case of ambitiousseriesitis that I've come down with. Although there is a wee bit of that, now that I think about it.
Posted by Mad at 2:05 PM
25 comments:
- alejna said...
You know, I haven't read that many Christmas books. The only one Phoebe has is a Froggy one, which is pretty awful. Maybe we need to get our hands on some of the ones on your list to offset.
My favorite Christmas book from my childhood (or at least one that I remember fondly) was a scratch and sniff book called The Sweet Smell of Christmas. I know it was republished in recent years, but I haven't yet looked at it with adult eyes. Or smelled it with an adult nose. (I'm not really a fan of scratch and sniff anymore.)
- No Mother Earth said...
We really like the Christmas Mice. Forget the author.
I've been looking at Pippin the Christmas Pig, and I think that you've just convinced me to buy it.
I am totally loving (LOVING) illustrator Jackie Morries right now. Did you write about her in your book series post? I can't recall.
- kgirl said...
I love Jan Brett. The Snow Bears is a big fave 'round our place.
And, are you really knitting a gift sweater? You know there are 9 days left, right? I am in major danger of not finishing the x-stitch I am doing for my m-i-l.
- Jennifer (ponderosa) said...
I haven't read a single one of these, not even the Seuss! Hie me to a library.
- Jenifer said...
I will need to rifle through all our books which are upstairs in their bedrooms which seems very far away at the moment. I will try to get back here, we do have a couple I just love. We have a fairly decent version of The Nutcracker the girls love, even if it used to scare them a bit.
Jenifer -- I'm still scared of the Nutcracker.
But I have a soft spot for anything by Tomie de Paola. We just finished The Holy Twins -- my kids were entranced.
This year, I enjoyed "How Santa Got His Job," by Stephen Krensky. (4-8) It's funny.
Yeah, I've been feeling like a few days got erased off the calendar or something. Happens every year. As of today, I'm slipping from Ho Ho Ho to Humbuggish. Perhaps tomorrow (if the kids aren't off for a snow day!) I will try to catch some extra sleep instead of pushing on to the next thing.
- Omaha Mama said...
Christmas in the Manger by Nola Buck and Felicia Bond is a great board book. Love it.
Merry Christmas Curious George is good, but he end up in a children's hospital (silly George) so could be good or bad for those sad about sick kids.
An all-time favorite, that I loved as a child and then paid too much for online as an adult (and later saw as a bargain book at Barnes and Noble, darn it) is Santa Mouse by Michael Brown, illustrate by Elfrieda De Witt. The illustrations are great, the story is sweet. And I don't even like mice!
- ewe are here said...
How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a very popular book in our house right now... but that might have something to do with letting them watch the classic cartoon, too.
We also have a new Christmas board book that has lights in it... very popular... my mom brought it over this week.
- Mary G said...
I am now on my second generation of the love affair with the Grinch. My kids had it memorized at ages 3 and 4. So did I, she said with a long suffering sigh. When my kids were a bit older the cartoon version came out and it became a Christmas tradition to watch it, reciting with Boris. They also sing the carol, in harmony the show-offs.
I made my own version of the story of Christmas, using the King James wording with a bit of simplification, because I could not find a book that had anything but saccharine illustrations and, yeah, a blonde Mary. One of my daughters still has it. I am definitely going looking for one of the versions you recommend. Many thanks.
There is a story about finding the animals kneeling in the stable at midnight that my kids loved, but that is literally all I can remember about it, except that it was illustrated in sepia and grays, since it was dark when the little protagonist went to the stable and on the last page a star shines in and lights the kneeling animals in gold. Ring a bell with anyone?
Hey, I'm getting about one post a week up. Don't beat yourself up.
- Gwen said...
My favorite Christmas book is an old one: The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden. I can't get through that book without crying.
I have a soft spot in my heart for those old fashioned Rumer Godden books, especially A Doll's House, which I read over and over and loved fiercely as a child. Still do.
- painted maypole said...
i don't know how many times I apolozed to my hubby for making him go see the terrible Grinch movie with me - I love the book and the old cartoon, but Jim Carrey RUINED the grinch (you can't be a grinch and have that much fun, it ruins the whole darn point! and that's just my BIG complaint...)
thanks for a great list. and trust me... I understand busy...
- Beck said...
Oh, those are all good ones! My favorite nativity book has a picture of Mary BREASTFEEDING - and beautiful illustrations, too.
I like the Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, but my children fear my reading of it, since it makes me CRY HYSTERICALLY. Awesome!
I'm doing my annual read aloud of The BEst Christmas Pageant Ever right now - that's my favorite.
- Bea said...
I've been reading Margaret Wise Brown's Christmas in the Barn to the kids this year, and I get choked up every single time. I think it has something to do with the way it's illustrated - my edition is illustrated by Diane Goode, who made no attempt to create an authentically Middle Eastern setting: the "ancient barn" is set in what looks like a Yorkshire countryside, and somehow everytime I hit the words "Because there was no room at the inn" it feels like a surprise.
- crazymumma said...
I know it is SUPPOSED to be Christmas books, but I gotta tell you about the love my Elder has for the Inkheart series.....
I can't get through Pippin without tearing up. :p
My daughter really likes Cat in the Manger by Michael Foreman. We also LOVE the bear books by Karma Wilson - Jane Chapman's illustrations are gorgeous and make me want to frame them. There is a Christmas one - Bear Stays Up for Christmas.
- Woman in a Window said...
Eric Carle's Dream Snow. It's gorgeous, simple, a little odd and did I mention gorgeous. And then the little button on the back, the actual sound of dream snow. How did they do that? ah.
Age group, young to old.
- Magpie said...
Another vote for Dream Snow!
Little Tree is charming.
I think the all time best is Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory - but it's more a read-aloud for the medium-sized set. It'll almost make you want fruitcake.
- kittenpie said...
Oh, I do love Jonathan Toomey...
I also love christmas carol books, like the Kellogg version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town, as well as the Whatley-illustrated Here Comes Santa Claus.
But one of my other favourites is Don Gillmor's The Christmas Orange (ill. Marie-Louise Gay).
- Janet said...
Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry. All about how one Christmas tree brings joy to a number of families, human and animal.
One for older children is a chapter book called Biddy Christmas, by Priscilla M. Warner. It's about a little girl named Janet and her donkey. I still read it every so often. It was actually my mom's book, so it's probably out of print (copyright 1948).
- 人妻 said...
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- Hチェッカー said...
- Alba said...
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Flights to Xiamen
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Triathlon Glossary: Swim Terms
From beach starts to pull buoys, stay on top of the conversation with our regularly-updated list.
An asterisk designates a term specific to IRONMAN-branded events.
The IRONMAN Swim Glossary
base: Also "base pace," refers to a swimmer's pace they can hold for interval sessions. Also defines the lane swimmers choose for masters classes, ie: "John swims in the 1:30 lane."
beach start: When athletes start the swim portion of the race from dry land (not necessarily a beach) and run into the water.
bilateral breathing: When a swimmer breath on alternating sides.
buoy: The floating markers used on a triathlon course to indicate course layout, distance, and turns.
circle swim: When a lane of three or more swimmers swim together in a continuous, circle motion, rather than splitting the lane in half (as when driving a car). For example, you might swim to the right-hand side of the lane going in both directions. (TIP: cross the lane as you're making your flip turn so that as you push off you're on the correct side. This will make it easier for those behind you.)
deck: The hard surface around the pool.
draft: To swim directly behind or just to the side of the swimmer in front of you, which makes it easier to swim.
drills: Specific swimming exercises a swimmer employs to improve technique and feel for the water.
fins: Rubber "flippers" worn on the feet that, depending on their shape and size, can make swimming easier, change the focus of the kick, or provide propulsion when working on drills.
flags: Small triangular pennants hung over the pool to indicate that the end of the lane is near. Especially important for swimming backstroke so the swimmer doesn't hit the wall.
floating start: Also "water start." Starting the swim portion of the race from a treading water position in deep water.
freestyle: The common front stroke style usually used in triathlon.
kickboard: A floating piece of styrofoam used for kicking drills.
lane: A sectioned area of the pool for lap swimming, can accommodate anywhere from one to 10 swimmers.
lane lines: The floating markers that separate lanes.
length: From one end of the pool to the other.
main set: The bulk of a coached swim workout. Usually consists of 2000 to 4000 yards/meters of swimming.
*mass start: Common at many IRONMAN events, this is the type of
masters: A swim class, group or club for adult swimmers, typically led by a coach.
open water: Swimming outdoors in a lake, river or ocean.
paddles: Pieces of shaped plastic attached to the hand, which increase resistance
pull buoy: A floating piece of Styrofoam that goes between the legs so that a swimmer doesn't need to kick. Often used to help the swimmer work on upper body strength.
sighting: A technique in which an open-water swimmer lifts their head in order to see where they are going, locate buoys, watch for other swimmers, aim for dry land, etc.
*SwimSmart: A program that debuted in 2013, bringing innovation to IRONMAN swims. Click here for more information.
wetsuit legal: A triathlon in which the water is cold enough to allow a wetsuit. For IRONMAN events, this temperature is usually below 76.1 degrees Fahrenheit (24.5 degrees Celcius). IRONMAN Swim Rules.
Compiled by the editors, with the help of Ben Greenfield. If you want to learn more about
Swim Glossary | The IRONMAN Bike Glossary | The IRONMAN Run Glossary