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Posts for January, 2012
If famous writers had written "Twilight"...
Lizzie Stark and some of her blog's clever commenters dream up many different ways famous writers might have told the "Twilight" saga:
"Raymond Carver: Bella stars as the alcoholic barmaid with daddy issues that Edward, a classic abuser, exploits. When Bella's old friend Jacob comes to visit and is shocked by her bruises, she thinks about leaving him, but instead hits the gin bottle. Hard."
"Dorothy Parker: Bella writes a brilliant takedown of the latest school play, dates a string of men, and repeatedly attempts suicide."
To see how Stark and friends imagine Ernst Hemingway, Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, Ayn Rand, H.P. Lovecraft and others would have re-imagined the sparkly vampire tale, visit her blog.
Street-smart Walter Dean Myers named national ambassador for children's literature
Walter Dean Myers, the author of "Fallen Angels," "Sunrise Over Fallujah," Monster," "Hoops" and other hard-hitting novels for youth, has been named the new national ambassador for children's literature. He succeeds Katherine Paterson ("A Bridge to Terabithia"), who had served in the spot since 2010.
According to a Publisher's Weekly report, Myers will accept the position in a Jan. 10 ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington.
"I imagine myself on one knee with a sword," said Myers in a telephone interview with PW from his home in Jersey City, N.J. "It's exciting. It's a chance to stand up and say publicly what I've been saying privately. There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities."
"The choice of Mr. Myers represents a departure from his predecessors and is likely to be seen as a bold statement," Julie Bosman wrote in The New York Times."His books chronicle the lives of many urban teenagers, especially young, poor African-Americans. While his body of work includes poetry, nonfiction and the occasional cheerful picture book for children, its standout books offer themes aimed at young-adult readers: stories of teenagers in violent gangs, soldiers headed to Iraq and juvenile offenders imprisoned for their crimes.
"While many young-adult authors shy away from such risky subject material, Mr. Myers has used his books to confront the darkness and despair that fill so many children's lives."
This much I can say: Myers' war stories are among the few novels that excited a semi-reluctant middle-school reader in the Recommended Reading household.
I had the good fortune of meeting Myers in 2002 when he visited the Milwaukee Public Library for an event. Here's a repost of the story I wrote then.
Former `bad boy' taps into youths' minds, struggles
(originally published May 26, 2002)
As a teen, Walter Dean Myers was walking in Harlem with his brother when he saw "a brown-skinned man who was being interviewed by some white reporters."
It was Langston Hughes, the poet.
"We listened to him talk," Myers recalled in his memoir "Bad Boy." "He sounded like any black man on the street. There was nothing extraordinary about him. . . . His humor was gentle, thoughtful. I was disappointed.
"When I pictured the idea of `writer' in my mind, pictures from my school books came to mind, and Hughes did not fit that picture. What I didn't admit was that neither did I."
To young Myers, who'd long been in love with books, a real writer was someone like Dylan Thomas, with a high, ethereal voice, writing poetry that was sometimes incomprehensible. Certainly not a normal-looking black man writing about "ordinary people and . . . a very mundane Harlem."
What Myers read in New York's P.S. 125 and Stuyvesant High School, when he showed up, was largely limited to white authors, frequently British, and often about rich people.
"Books transmitted value. They told us who was important," Myers told an audience at the Central Library's Centennial Hall earlier this month. "But the books never mentioned that anyone who lived in my neighborhood was important."
But Myers thinks people who live in Harlem are important, especially children. He writes the kind of books he wishes he could have read when he was a kid.
From a modest start scratching out stories after daily stints as a laborer, Myers has grown into the Shaquille O'Neal of young adult literature, a playful giant who's also an unstoppable force. Myers has published 75 books for teens and preteens, with seven more books in production.
He writes fairy tales (sometimes with a contemporary twist), historical novels, biographies. But his streetwise, honest, empathetic stories about African-American teens facing challenges and making difficult decisions have made him a lion in his field.
"Walter really knows how to tell a boy's story," said Roger Sutton, editor of The Horn Book, a periodical devoted to children's literature, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "You see a sense of the interior life of boys and men."
Myers' 1999 novel "Monster" electrified the young-adult literary world, both as a morally probing story of a youth's possible role in a stickup and murder and as a formally innovative work of fiction: Steve, the teenage narrator and protagonist, tells the story of his trial through journal entries and a movie screenplay he's writing in his head.
In an extended review in The Horn Book, Patty Campbell called the novel a once-in-a-decade event, a milestone comparable to "Catcher in the Rye" and "The Outsiders."
On a chilly Saturday afternoon, Myers, 64, talked for an hour to a downtown library crowd of teachers, librarians and children, such as 12-year-old Brian Hamilton of Milwaukee, who brought his father Dwight along.
Strolling the stage in neat blue slacks and shirt but no tie, the 6-foot, 2-inch Myers didn't read from his new novels, "Handbook for Boys" and "Patrol: An American Soldier in Vietnam," but told the story of his life. His tone, though, wasn't one of self-satisfaction, but of amazement and a kind of pinch-me delight.
Born in West Virginia, he came to Harlem at age 3 after his mother died to live with a foster family that informally adopted him. His loving new mother taught him to read by reading True Romance magazine to him.
Loved reading
Bright as he was, Myers also had a serious speech impediment that brought him trouble in school. But he had a remedy for that, he told his Milwaukee audience: "If you couldn't understand me, I hit you. I hit boys, I hit girls, I hit teachers."
Myers loved reading, but living in his neighborhood, he brought books home from the library in a brown paper bag, so other kids wouldn't laugh at him.
Determined to prove how tough he was, Myers got in fights, and was suspended from or kicked out of school several times. But at the same time, he was reading heavyweight literature and writing his own pieces.
Occasionally, an adult recognized his potential. One was his sixth-grade teacher Irwin Lasher, to whom Myers dedicated his memoir "Bad Boy." Lasher got him into speech therapy and gave him a leadership role in the class.
"He gave me permission to be a bright kid, permission to be smart," Myers told his Milwaukee listeners.
Mentors matter to Myers. While researching "Monster," Myers visited many kids in prison. Some of them were just plain bad, but many, he thought, were regular kids who'd made a wrong turn and had no male mentors or role models to give them guidance. So he wrote "Handbook for Boys," a novel with a teenage narrator about a mentoring program in a Harlem barbershop. Duke, the sixty-something barber, takes a Socratic role with the youths diverted to him, helping them work through the choices they face on the street.
In a telephone interview, Myers admitted there's a fair amount of himself in Duke. He wrote "Handbook" partly to remind older people of their responsibility, he said. "Now that the black middle class is growing, no one wants to be associated with the kids who aren't doing well."
Taking the long view
Discouraged about his prospects and knowing he lacked the resources for college, Myers dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Army. When he returned to civilian life, he worked laboring and other low-paying jobs, but decided to write again and began to sell some work. He may be one of the few National Book Award finalists to 'fess up to having written for the National Enquirer.
Writer John O. Killens brought Myers into the Harlem Writers Guild and urged him to take a long view of his writing as a career. Then, in 1968, Myers won a contest run by the Council on Interracial Books for Children, for the text of a picture book, "Where Does the Day Go?"
It was his first book.
From 1970 through 1977, Myers worked as an editor at the Bobbs-Merrill publishing company while simultaneously building a reputation as a writer, particularly for his teen novels. He was laid off from Bobbs-Merrill in a restructuring, but it was likely his time to fly anyway.
"I have not had a job other than writing since 1977," he told the library crowd.
Always busy
Myers, who now lives in Jersey City, N.J., is notorious for having so many projects going that he needs a flow chart to keep track of them. He writes five pages a day on the book of the moment, while doing pre-writing research and thinking about other books, and revising still others.
Over the years, he has reclaimed or transformed nearly everything that hurt or touched him into a book.
Grief over the death of his half-brother in Vietnam led first to an article in Essence, then to "Fallen Angels," a still-popular novel about a Harlem teen who volunteers to serve in that war. Moved in part by one of his son's experiences in the Gulf War and Colombia, Myers has returned to the military theme again in his new novel, "Patrol."
A talented hoopster who played with the legendary Connie Hawkins and once faced Wilt Chamberlain in a playground game, Myers has written about basketball often, including his novel "Hoops"; one of its central characters, he told a Milwaukee boy who asked about the book, is modeled on Hawkins. He occasionally does reading programs with the NBA; he appeared recently with Tiny Archibald and Willis Reed.
Success equals freedom
When he meets boys whose unrealistic and only career ambition is to play in the NBA, his frustration isn't with them but with the lack of role models in their lives.
And he never strays too far from Harlem. His "Harlem: A Poem," a lyrical salute to the place where he grew up, featuring illustrations by his son Christopher, was named a Caldecott Honor Book for children, but was widely collected by adults.
The commercial success of "Monster" has increased Myers' freedom. He can write anything he wants now. For example, he's working on a book about a kid from a troubled family who meets a 300-year-old man, as well as a collection of Old Testament stories -- a homage to his grandfather, who told them endlessly.
The No. 1 thing children want to know of him, Myers said, is how much his stories are from his own life.
When a member of his Milwaukee audience asked that question, Myers replied, "The central character is always someone I know and part of myself.
"I am putting all of my life into these books."
Read More
Highlights from Walter Dean Myers' bibliography:
"Handbook for Boys": With a mixture of tough love and Socratic questioning, Duke Wilson, a Harlem barber, mentors boys in trouble.
"Monster": A teen tells the story of his trial for robbery and murder through journal entries and a film script.
"Bad Boy": In this memoir, Myers reveals his own struggles as a talented but troubled youth in Harlem.
"Fallen Angels": A Harlem teen fighting in Vietnam questions both the war itself and why black soldiers draw many of the dangerous assignments.
"At Her Majesty's Request: An African Princess in Victorian England": From historical documents and letters, Myers pieces together the true story of an orphaned African girl "given" to Queen Victoria as a gift.
"Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary": A biography for preteens of the late civil rights activist.
"Hoops": A basketball coach tries to keep a talented teen from making the same mistakes he did.
Tags: Walter Dean Myers
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The Millions previews 81 books out in 2012
Once again, The Millions online magazine offers hope to anxious readers with its "Great 2012 Book Preview," a look at 81 books scheduled for 2012 publication.
No humblebragging for The Millions: "This is only 2012 book preview you will ever need," it boasts with Rex Ryan bravado. If your preferred genre is quality literary fiction, that might even be true: that's the strength of The Millions. (The list also includes a smattering of nonfiction and genre titles.)
A few of the books discussed in the preview are already out, and the Journal Sentinel has reviewed two of them: Alan Bennett's "Smut" and William Gibson's "Distrust That Particular Flavor."
Here is a selection of the titles touted by The Millions, with publisher and anticipated month of publication in parentheses:
"What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories," by Nathan Englander (Knopf, February): Another collection of stories that touch the nerves of Jewish history and culture from the author of "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges." (Englander plans a Feb. 21 visit to Boswell Book Company, 2550 N. Downer Ave.)
"Beyond the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity," by Katherine Boo (Random House, February): Pulitzer Prize winner Boo, who has often written about the American poor for the New Yorker, turns to a shantytown in India in this nonfiction narrative.
"Half-Blood Blues: A Novel," by Esi Edugyan (Picador, February): Edugyan's novel about an interracial jazz group in Berlin and Nazi-occupied France was a Man Booker Prize nominee and won the Scotiabank Giller award for the year's best Canadian novel.
"Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion," by Alain de Botton (Pantheon, March): The philosopher de Botton, a nonbeliever himself, argues that "religious doctrines nonetheless contain helpful ideas that an atheist or agnostic might reasonably consider borrowing," according to The Millions.
"New American Haggadah," edited by Jonathan Safran Foer and translated by Nathan Englander (Little, Brown, March): Literary heavyweights team up with additional collaborators (including Tony Kushner and Michael Pollan) for a contemporary approach to the Seder narrative.
"Paris, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down," by Rosecrans Baldwin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, April): A young American writer dreams of living in Paris, but when he moves there, he finds things are different.
"Home," by Toni Morrison (Knopf, May): In the Nobel laureate's new novel, an angry Korean War veteran confronts racism and crisis back home in the U.S.
"New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families," by Colm Tóibín (Scribner, June): Novelist Tóibín's collection is filled with essays on the relationships of writers with their fathers, mothers, children and other relatives.
"Lionel Asbo: The State of England," by Martin Amis: (Knopf, August): A skinhead lout wins the lottery while in prison in Amis' dark satire.
The Millions' list also looks ahead to books expected in later 2012 that don't have official release dates yet, including "Bring Up the Bodies," Hilary Mantel's sequel to "Wolf Hall," and "Telegraph Avenue," Michael Chabon's novel about Berkeley and Oakland, Calif.
Crowdsourcing a list of Jewish-themed fiction
While browsing her ebook library, Metafilter.com user JoannaC discovered she had a growing collection of Jewish-themed fiction, including such staples as Chaim Potok's "My Name Is Asher Lev," Leon Uris' "Exodus" and William Styron's "Sophie's Choice." She asked the hive mind of the Ask Metafilter forum for further suggestions.
The 38 Ask Metafilter users who've responded to date have accumulated an entertaining list, and one worth bookmarking. It includes multiple votes for Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" and for Chabon in general, and shoutouts for such essential American Jewish writers as Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth and Saul Bellow.
But the responses also point up some lesser known but promising books, including Steve Stern's recent novel "The Frozen Rabbi," Marge Piercy's "He, She and It" and Alison Pick's "Far to Go," among many other recommendations.
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Revisiting 'A Wrinkle in Time'
Fifty years ago, Madeleine L'Engle published her striking sci-fantasy novel 'A Wrinkle in Time,' the story of how moody teenager Meg Murry, her savant-like little brother Charles Wallace and her friend Calvin O'Keefe traveled through space and dimensions to rescue her scientist father from evil. Few who've read L'Engle's novel would forget Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which, the three wise women who send the youth on their adventure.
"This is a book that refuses to talk down to its readers, believing them able to grasp the difficult concepts of mathematics, love and the battle between good and evil," writes Mari Ness in her appreciation of "Wrinkle" at Tor.com.
Tor hosts a number of rereading and rewatching series (I'm a big fan of Keith DiCandido's Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch). Ness, a Florida writer, is revisiting many of L'Engle's books in connection with the 50th anniversary of "Wrinkle," with an eye for some of the topics, particularly physics and Christian theology, that preoccupied L'Engle throughout her writing career.
In her praise for "Wrinkle," Ness succinctly describes it as "a work of science fiction that managed to combine mathematics, space travel, angels, friendly singing beasts, and a dystopian community in a tightly plotted novel about not fitting in." Ness does find a few faults with it, and points to Catherynne M. Valente's respectful but somewhat more critical essay, "A Wrinkle in the Heart: Thoughts on a Wrinkle in Time."
Scholastic.com offers a substantial reading guide to the novel for students online.
Southeastern Wisconsinsites can see First Stage Children's Theater's production of "A Wrinkle in Time" Jan. 27 through Feb. 19 at the Marcus Center's Todd Wehr Theater, 929 N. Water St.
Tags: Madeleine L'Engle : Mari Ness
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Wisconsin poet laureate Bruce Dethlefsen reads Jan. 15 in Milwaukee
You can't scare Bruce Dethlefsen, he's held nothing but high-risk jobs all his life: dad, educator, library director, poet and, lately, Wisconsin poet laureate.
Dethlefsen, of Westfield, travels around the state, visiting schools and libraries to encourage the reading and writing of poetry. He'll visit Milwaukee's Woodland Pattern Book Center, 720 E. Locust St., for a 2 p.m. reading Jan. 15 with poet Mark Kraushaar of Lake Mills.
The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters took over stewardship of the poet laureate position in 2011 after the state cut its support (of up to $2,000 annually) for the program, citing budget reasons.
As shown in his recent book "Unexpected Shiny Things" (Cowfeather Press, $16 paperback, $8.99 Kindle or Nook ebook), Dethlefsen creates poems that are smart but not pretentious, inviting yet complex enough to reward rereading. Sample a selection from the book at VerseWisconsin.org, including this one:
after my reading
a very serious sixth grade girl
asked me if I was wealthy
well I said I have twenty-two
dollars in my wallet right now
my purple truck has two hundred
and thirty-five thousand miles on it
I'm wearing clean and mended clothes
I'll sleep in a warm bed tonight
I've got my health my hands my eyes
my family and friends who love me
and I can come here to sennett middle school
to read poetry to you guys for free
so yes I'm very wealthy
wealthy indeed
Garrison Keillor has selected several of Dethlefsen's poems for The Writer's Almanac, including "When Somebody Calls after Ten P.M" (I agree with you 100%, Mr. D). Cowfeather Press also has posted mp3 files of Dethlefsen reading several poems, including "Shiny Things" and "Milk From Sleepy Cows" (so you'll know for sure he's a Wisconsin poet).
Tags: Bruce Dethlefsen
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25 sci-fi and fantasy books to watch for in 2012
At the io9 blog, Kelly Faircloth highlights 25 science fiction and fantasy books to watch for in 2012, including new ones from Stephen King, Robert J. Sawyer, Charlaine Harris, Kim Stanley Robinson and Wisconsin writer Alex Bledsoe.
Some of Faircloth's picks (with publisher and anticipated month of release in parentheses):
"The Wind Through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel," by Stephen King (Scribner, April): A story within a story within a story from the youth of Roland Deschain.
"Triggers," by Robert J. Sawyer (Ace, April): In this new novel by the author of "Flashforward," a scrambled experiment means someone has access to the President's memories -- and the dangerous secrets contained therein.
"Deadlocked," Charlaine Harris (Ace, May): The next installment of the Sookie Stackhouse series. Harris has posted an excerpt on her website.
"2312," by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit, May): Three centuries hence, humans have established habitats across the solar system, but they have problems, too.
"Wake of the Bloody Angel," by Alex Bledsoe (Tor, July): A new entry in the Mount Horeb writer's Eddie LaCrosse series, about a hard-boiled sword for hire. Oh, and pirates are involved.
Will any "Star Trek:" fan be able to resist John Scalzi's "Redshirts" (Tor, June)? Its breathless tagline: "What happens when all the expendable ensigns on the exploring starship start comparing notes?"
Tags: Alex Bledsoe : Stephen King : Robert J. Sawyer : Charlaine Harris : Kim Stanley Robinson : John Scalzi
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Free reading: Guggenheim posts Klee, Kandinsky, 60+ art books online
In keeping with its educational mission, the Guggenheim Museum has posted 65 art catalogues online for free reading. These are books created and published in connection with modern and contemporary art exhibits at the Guggenheim over the past decades, including works about Alexander Calder, Evard Munch, Vasily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Eva Hesse, Josef Albers, Francis Picabia, Paul Klee, Francis Bacon and many others. It also includes the catalogues of group shows and themed exhibits.
The Open Culture website (where I learned about the catalogues) has a helpful short introduction to reading the Guggenheim books online. (All you need is a web browser.)
But Open Culture also points out that you can download the catalogues, too, for offline and mobile reading. The downloadable catalogues, in multiple formats including PDF, EPUB, Kindle and text iterations, are hosted by the Internet Archive.
Please note these are curatorial and scholarly essays, not simplified texts, so your reading pleasure may vary from catalogue to catalogue. But if you have any interested in modern art, it's worth your time to browse these works.
Building vocabulary the David Foster Wallace way
A few years ago, at the parents' orientation for the academically demanding public high school our daughter was about to start, a mom was practically foaming at the mouth that the school wasn't providing extra vocabulary enrichment work for her precious daughter.
The so-polite teacher deftly diffused Momzilla's rage while trying not to lose the attention of the rest of the parents, holding back what I suspect she really wanted to say: "Lady, we're about to drop four years of soul-crushing homework on your little Sally. She won't need any extra vocabulary work. She'll be lucky to remember her name."
But if Sally, or Momzilla, or you are still looking to pick a few new words, why not bookmark or subscribe to Definitive Jest? A Canadian blogger who's rereading David Foster Wallace's mammoth novel, "Infinite Jest," writes about words he looks up while reading DFW's text. (Or tries to look up. Wallace's writing includes neologisms, so the DJ blogger does his best job of trying to figure out what they mean.)
Some of the words DJ has tackled recently: pleurisy, amanuensis, alpenstock and (best Beavis-and-Butthead snicker here) priapistic.
Thanks to Largeheartedboy for leading me to Definitive Jest.
Tags: David Foster Wallace
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Want the new George Pelecanos novel? Pay $35, $9.99 or 99 cents
Critical readers have often praised George Pelecanos as one of America's top writers of crime fiction. But book people will tell you that his sales haven't necessarily equalled his reputation.
Now his publisher, Reagan Arthur Books, is trying a sales experiment that could lead to a wider audience for the D.C.-based novelist.
"What It Was," a new Pelecanos novel, will be released Jan. 23 in three formats simultaneously: a $35 limited-edition slip-cased hardcover, a $9.99 paperback and a 99-cent ebook. Yes, that's 99 cents, less than a soda in the vending machine at your office, unless your office is very old school.
The ebook edition of "What It Was" will be available through the Kindle, Nook/Barnes & Noble and Google eBook stores. Because it's available as a Google eBook, readers who'd prefer to do so can buy the ebook through local bookstores, including Boswell Book Company, Mequon's Next Chapter Bookshop and Oconomowoc's Books & Co.
That 99-cent ebook price is good for one month only. After that, the ebook price rises to a still-respectable $4.99.
"When George delivered a great new novel earlier than we expected, we saw an opportunity to build the excitement about his books by publishing 'What It Was' right away, off the list, and with packaging and pricing aimed at attracting new readers," said editorial director Reagan Arthur in a press release accompanying advance copies of the novel.
Set in 1972 in Washington, D.C., "What It Was" features Derek Strange, the former cop turned P.I. who stars in such earlier Pelecanos novels as "Right as Rain" and "Hell to Pay."
In addition to his many novels, Pelecanos has also written for the cable TV series "The Wire" and "Treme."
Tags: George Pelecanos
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Kennan biography among National Book Critics Circle award finalists
"George F. Kennan: An American Life," John Lewis Gaddis' biography of the Milwaukee-born diplomat, was named a finalist in the biography category of the National Book Critics Circle awards. Nominees were announced Saturday evening.
Kennan was born in 1904 in Milwaukee. (The Kennan family house, no longer standing, was on Cambridge Ave., between Brady St. and North Ave., my colleague Bill Glauber reported in a story about the book.) Kennan attended the Milwaukee Normal School and later St. John's Military Academy in Delafield before going to Princeton.
His thinking played a significant role in the U.S. strategy of containment in dealing with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, though he did not always agree with his thoughts were applied.
Other nominees in biography category: Mary Gabriel's "Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of the Revolution," Paul Hendrickson's "Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961," the late Manning Marable's "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," and Ezra F. Vogel's "Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China."
Fiction nominees include Jeffrey Eugenides' "The Marriage Plot," Alan Hollinghurst, "The Stranger's Child," Teju Cole's "Open City," Dana Spiotta's "Stone Arabia" and Edith Pearlman's "Binocular Vision."
The winners will be announced March 8 in New York. For a complete list of nominees in six categories, visit the NBCC website.
Tags: George F. Kennan : NBCC : Bill Glauber
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Which book next? Milwaukee Public Librarians want to help you with that
Go ahead, ask a librarian what you should read next. In a friendly way, the Milwaukee Public Library is daring you to.
After a lively debut in September, MPL is bringing back its "Which Book Next?" Facebook event from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Jan. 25. During that time period, readers are encouraged to post on the Milwaukee Public Library's Facebook page the last three books they've read. Librarians will then work their mojo to post a recommendation for the next book to read.
For example, one September participant told the librarians she had recently read "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel, "Pigeon English" by Stephen Kelman and "A Gesture Life" by Chang-rae Lee.
The librarians recommended Wisconsin native Craig Thompson's autobiographical graphic novel "Blanket."
Another user had recently read "The Magician King" by Lev Grossman. "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt and "Bossypants" by Tina Fey. The librarians responded: " 'Among Others' by Jo Walton is a great read since it looks like you enjoy fantasy, school stories and awesome women!"
A dozen librarians from the Central Library and branches will work together in the same room to make recommendations, said MPL fiction selector Jacki Potratz. Armed with computers, they tap a variety of databases (some proprietary) and recommendation sites as well as their own pooled knowledge.
Potratz said their average response time to posts during the September event was 20 minutes, though a few eclectic posts took an hour or so to reply to. The book mentioned most often by readers in September was "The Hunger Games," she said.
Please note that Milwaukee Public Library is asking users to post their three books between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Jan. 25, not earlier. Also, the posts and library responses will only be visible online during that time period and some hours afterward, due to limitations on how the Facebook page works, Potratz explained.
Of course, if you need help sooner, you can always visit your neighborhood library.
Tags: Milwaukee Public Library
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Newbery, Caldecott winners: 'Dead End in Norvelt,' 'A Ball for Daisy'
Jack Gantos' comic novel, "Dead End in Norvelt" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), has won the annual Newbery Medal for this year's best contribution to children's literature, the Association for Library Service to Children announced Monday.
In Gantos' novel, a 13-year-old boy "grounded for life" by his parents becomes the typist for his town's medical examiner and obituary writer. Wild adventures and nosebleeds ensue. His publisher has posted both an excerpt and an audio excerpt online. His book is aimed at 10- to 14-year-old readers.
Illustrator Chris Raschka's "A Ball for Daisy" (Schwartz & Wade Books) has won this year's Caldecott Medal for most distinguished picture book. In this wordless story for preschoolers through 2nd graders, a flop-eared dog named Daisy cherishes her red ball, and is bereft when another dog pops it.
The Coretta Scott King author award goes to Kadir Nelson, author-illustrator of "Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans" (Balzer + Bray). In his review of the book in the New York Times, Walter Dean Myers called it "a grand and awe-inspiring survey of the black experience in America, delivered in 108 pages with lushly painted illustrations."
The GalleyCat blog has posted a complete list of this year's Newbery, Caldecott and King honorees.
Tags: Jack Gantos : Chris Raschka : Kadir Nelson
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'The Night Circus,' 'Ready Player One' among teen-friendly Alex Awards honorees
Erin Morgenstern's enchanting debut novel, 'The Night Circus,' and Ernest Cline's pop-culture-drenched sci-fi novel "Ready Player One" top the list of books announced as 2012 Alex Awards winners.
The Young Adult Library Services Association gives the Alex Awards each year to ten books, published during the previous year, "written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18."
In addition to "The Night Circus" and "Ready Player One," the 2012 honorees include:
"Big Girl Small," by Rachel DeWoskin.
"In Zanesville," by Jo Ann Beard.
"The Lover's Dictionary," by David Levithan.
"The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens," by Brooke Hauser.
"Robopocalypse: A Novel," by Daniel H. Wilson.
"Salvage the Bones," by Jesmyn Ward.
"The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures," by Caroline Preston.
"The Talk-Funny Girl," by Roland Merullo.
The awards are named in honor of Margaret Alexander Edwards, a longtime Baltimore librarian who specialized in young-adult literature.
Two books with Wisconsin connections were on the list of nominees published by YALSA: Milwaukee novelist Larry Watson's "American Boy" and Nina Revoyr's "Wingshooters," which is set in central Wisconsin.
Tags: Erin Morgenstern : Ernest Cline
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A reading list for 'Downton Abbey' fans
(Photo courtesy of PBS)
In an essay called 'The Literary Pedigree of Downton Abbey,' Garth Risk Hallberg writes that the hit PBS Masterpiece series 'offers a whiz-bang pastiche of three centuries of English literature':
"Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess is a venerable type: part Trollope's Mrs. Proudie, part Thackeray's Miss Crawley, part Dickens' Aunt Betsey Trotwood (likewise played by Smith in a Masterpiece adaptation)…maybe with a touch of Professor McGonagall thrown in to keep things lively. Carson the Butler surely owes some of his imperturbability to Wodehouse's Reginald Jeeves."
Hallberg notes that "Downton Abbey" creator Julian Fellowes has previously adapted Thackeray for a film "Vanity Fair."
Hallberg thinks "Downton Abbey" has become a hit here in part because viewers can safely gawk at the aristocracy: "Those houses! Those costumes! Those accents! "
But digging into his library, he realized "what the English novel is overwhelmingly about, in class terms, is not the hereditary nobility but the middle classes: the downwardly mobile landowners, the upwardly mobile bourgeoisie."
In his essay at The Millions website, he goes on to offer many reading suggestions, from Richardson's "Clarissa" to Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose cycle.
Tags: Downton Abbey : Edward St. Aubyn : Julian Fellowes
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A flurry of book recommendations from Milwaukee Public Library
On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Public Library held its second "Which Book Next?" event at its Facebook page. Readers posted three books they read recently; librarians offered a suggestion for their next book.
Here are some of the suggestion the MPL librarians made, along with the books that prompted them:
Read: "Devil in the White City" (Erik Larson), "Survivor" (Chuck Palahniuk), "The Road" (Cormac McCarthy). MPL suggested: "You seem to enjoy dark, bleak stories featuring journeys. You should give Alden Bell's 'The Reapers Are the Angels' a try."
Read: "Bellwether" (Connie Willis), "Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter" (Tom Franklin), "A Visit From the Goon Squad" (Jennifer Egan) "Cutting For Stone" (Abraham Verghese). MPL suggested: "It looks like you really like to sink your teeth into a substantive, meaningful read, so I would recommend Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children' ".
Read: "The Girl Who Played with Fire" (Stieg Larsson), "The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears" (Dinaw Mengetsu), "The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo" (Stieg Larsson). MPL suggested: ""It seems as though you like first person narratives and psychological fiction. We would reccommend 'Man Gone Down' by Michael Thomas. It is a beautifully written, insightful, and devastating account of a young black father of three in a biracial marriage trying to claim a piece of the American Dream."
Read: "The Glass Key" (Dashiell Hammett), "Your Face Tomorrow" (Javier Marias), "The City and the City" (China Mieville). MPL suggested: "Based in your unique reading interests, I'm going to suggest 'Ready Player One' by Ernest Cline. It's a futuristic space saga filled with action, adventure and geeky coolness."
Read: "To Kill a Mockingbird" (Harper Lee), "1Q84" (Haruki Murakami), "The Hunger Games" (Suzanne Collins). MPL suggested: "You seem to enjoy works with vivid imagery, realism and mystery with some alternate worlds thrown in. Try 'The End of Mr Y' by Scarlett Thomas. Discovering a copy of a mysterious book reputed to be unread by anyone presently alive, Ariel Manto finds herself transported into a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others."
Read: "The Lover's Dictionary" (David Levithan), "The 19th Wife: A Novel" (David Ebershoff), "Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives" (David Eagleman). MPL suggested: "Sorry, I couldn't find you another David! But you might want to try Mark Dunn's 'Ella Minnow Pea.' It's in a similar vein as The Lover's Dictionary and uses literate, clever, and frequently humorous wordplay."
Read: "11/22/63" (Stephen King), "The Night Circus" (Erin Morgenstern), "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" (Ransom Riggs). MPL suggested: " 'The Magicians' by Lev Grossman. We recommend this book because much like the three books listed the protagonist is transported to another world. The world he travels to is from a series of novels he reads. Quentin learns that life is not always as it seems as he attends a magical school. The lines are not always clear in love or friendship and he finds that what he thought he wanted is not what he needs."
Tags: Milwaukee Public Library
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Celebrating a heap of 'Weird' tales
I'm excited to tell you that Ann and Jeff Vandermeer's humongous anthology, "The Weird," is now available to Americans as an ebook, with print publication to follow in May.
As editors and writers, the Vandermeers have long trafficked in weird tales; this anthology is the capstone of their efforts, with 110 stories covering more than 1,100 pages and more than 750,000 words. It offers stories and writers that we'd consider definitively weird, such as H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" (1929). But it also includes work from writers we'd normally think of as representing other genres or the literary mainstream, such as Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" (1919), Jorge Luis Borges' "The Aleph" (1945) and Michael Chabon's "The God of Dark Laughter" (2001). It travels to Benin for Olympe Bhely-Quenum's "A Child in the Bush of Ghosts" (1949), to Argentina for Julio Cortázar's "Axolotl" (1956) and to Japan for Haruki Murakami's "The Ice Man" (1991). In all of these stories, and in other included tales by Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Angela Carter, Stephen King, Poppy Z. Brite, Harlan Ellison, Octavia Butler, Jamaica Kincaid and many others, the Vandermeers have found something dark, strange or uncanny.
What, you may ask, is a weird tale? The Vandermeers' book is an extended answer to that question. In their introduction, they offer several possible definitions of the weird, starting with Lovecraft's, which they paraphrase as a story that has a supernatural element but does not fall into the category of traditional ghost story or Gothic tale.
"Usually," the Vandermeers write, "the characters in weird fiction have either entered into a place unfamiliar to most of us, or have received such hints of the unusual that they become obsessed with the weird. Whether It exists or not, they have fallen into dialogue with It; they may pull back from the abyss, they may decide to unsee what they saw, but still they saw it."
I'll have more to say down the road about this book, but in the meantime I simplly want to direct you to its mammoth, mindblowing existence. The ebook is available for $14.99 in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo and Google eBook stores; as a Google eBook, you can buy it through participating local independent bookstores if you like, including Boswell Book Company, Mequon's Next Chapter Bookshop and Oconomowoc's Books & Co.
Tags: Ann Vandermeer : Jeff Vandermeer : Franz Kafka : H.P. Lovecraft
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Sign up now to hand out free books on World Book Night
The concept is simple: On World Book Night (April 23) in the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland, 50,000 volunteers will give away 20 books each, adding up to 1 million free books. The project began last year in the UK to spread a love of reading and books.
In practice, logistics must be coordinated, so people who'd like to volunteer to give books away need to apply online through Feb. 1. WBN asks potential givers to note their three book choices (from the list of 30 books available in the U.S.) and to tell "us why you'd like to participate and where you are thinking of going to give out your books."
It's a fine collection of books, including Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," Patti Smith's memoir "Just Kids," Octavia E. Butler's novel "Kindred," H.G. Bissinger's "Friday Night Lights," even Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games."
World Book Night organizers are definitely interested in giving away books in unusual locations. "We have our first laundromat giveaway request! Cool. #wbnamerica. And bowling alley!," organizers noted on Twitter this afternoon.
To be a book giver, WBN posted, people need to be:
"Aged 16 or over and a resident of the United States.
"Able to pick up 20 copies of your book from your local bookshop or library.
"Committed to giving your books away on World Book Night to non or light readers."
Three southeastern Wisconsin bookstores are participating in the event by serving as pickup points for the special-edition paperbacks being given away, and by promoting the event and encouraging participation: Next Chapter Bookshop, 10976 N. Port Washington Rd., Mequon; Boswell Book Company, 2559 N. Downer Ave.; and Books & Company, 1039 Summit Ave., Oconomowoc.
Next Chapter Bookshop's Lanora Haradon and Boswell's Stacie Michelle Williams talked about the giveaway on WUWM-FM's "Lake Effect" program.
Tags: World Book Night : Tim O'Brien : Octavia E. Butler : Patti Smith : Suzanne Collins : H.G. Bissinger
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A Top 10 List of Writing Tips from Famous Writers
A list of writing rules by Henry Miller ("Tropic of Cancer") has joined the sets of name-writer tips making the rounds on the Internet. Open Culture's Dan Colman has kindly collated sets of tips from Miller, Elmore Leonard, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman and William Safire into a single post for your inspirational reading.
A countdown, Letterman-style, of 10 tips derived from their tips:
10. Work according to the program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time! (Henry Miller)
9. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. (George Orwell)
8. Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page. (Margaret Atwood)
7. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose." (Elmore Leonard)
6. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing. (Henry Miller)
5. Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it. (Neil Gaiman)
4. Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils. (Margaret Atwood)
3. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. (George Orwell)
2. Don't overuse exclamation points!! (William Safire)
1. Leave out the parts readers tend to skip. (Elmore Leonard)
And a bonus tip from that great movie about writing, "Throw Momma From the Train":
Remember, a writer writes. Always.
Tags: Henry Miller : Elmore Leonard : George Orwell : Margaret Atwood : Neil Gaiman : William Safire
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Good for you.
Thats what Mitch McLean would say to his friends when they had good news in their lives. Good for you. Im happy for you.
McLean said that often because he had a lot of friends. More than 1,000 of them attended his memorial service recently in Wilkesboro.
McLean, 54, was chief district court judge in his part of northwestern North Carolina. He died July 3 at Sunset Beach. McLain had just arrived on the beach. The sun was out. He hugged his wife. Their sons, 14 and 12, were nearby.
But something was wrong. People were struggling in the water with rip currents. He ran into the water to help a couple. Police credited McLean for saving the man. But the mans wife died. So did McLean.
Talk about courage: McLean hated the water. Jay Vannoy, McLeans former law partner, remembers taking McLean duck hunting and getting into a boat.
Jay, I hate water. I cant believe you got me out here, McLean told him. But on July 3, when people he didnt know needed help, McLean didnt hesitate. Mitch had a very big heart, Vannoy told me. As he often said on the bench, he was there to help people.
Vannoy can still hear him say: Good for you, Jay.
Just a good guy
McLean loved basketball. He was an excellent player at Wilkes Central High School and coached youth teams for years. He liked helping kids.
He was a good athlete. But when he took up golf in his 40s, he struggled. Friend Ed Gregory of Wilkesboro remembered when he first saw McLean play golf. Gregory razzed McLean by telling him his golf swing reminded him of McLeans dancing: All he could see were knees and elbows. He was just a good guy that everybody liked, said Gregory, a superior court judge.
Gregory can still hear him say: Good for you, Ed.
Ron Spivey of Winston-Salem, also a superior court judge, sometimes would eavesdrop on proceedings from the back of McLeans courtroom. He said McLean, whom hed known since law school at Wake Forest, had the perfect judicial temperament, a blend of law-and-order and compassion.
A few weeks ago, Spivey revoked an offenders probation in Ashe County and sent him to jail. Shortly after, Spivey toured the jail and saw the repeat offender.
The man had heard about McLeans death. He asked Spivey whether he would be seeing McLeans family. Would you do me a favor? the man said. Tell them he was a fair man. Spivey thought: You dont hear offenders talk about many judges that way.
Like all of McLeans friends, Spivey remembered McLeans bright, stylish clothes. He could wear a purple shirt and a yellow tie, Spivey chuckled. It worked for him. Youd think he walked out of GQ.
Spivey can still hear him say: Good for you, Ron.
Uniquely Mitch
McLean grew up in Wilkes County and lived most of his life there. He embodied the best of small-town North Carolina. He was friendly. He took an interest in people. He listened to them. He tried to make a difference.
He did it with his own style that was uniquely Mitch. He was a prodigious storyteller. He liked to shop at convenience stores. He loved his wife, his sons, the Allman Brothers and loud clothes. He lived life large.
As his friends gathered recently to take the measure of his life, in a service that lasted nearly two hours, what they were saying was: Good for you, Mitch.
Drescher: 919-829-4515 or firstname.lastname@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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Narrow your search
Check out the East Coast's best geek-oriented spots.
Check is a convenient way to pay your bills on your phone, but only if you remember to send your payments in early.
Pricing not available
Yep, that's a light bulb -- and it's surprisingly well-rounded.
For its price, Lemur Monitors' BlueDriver is a convenient tool for those who want some ability to work on and understand modern engines.
Pricing not available
A never-ending fire extinguisher, an inflatable incubator and many more life-saving and life-changing inventions are vying for this year's James Dyson Award.
Place your propane tank on this smart sensor and connect it via Wi-Fi to the Wink app to check the gas levels in your grill anywhere.
Why should iOS and Android fans have all the fun? Here are some great games you can play on your Windows Phone.
Checking for a software update on your Android Wear smartwatch is an easy, but hidden, task.
Before you place your order for a shiny new Android Wear watch, check to make sure your Android smartphone or tablet will play nice with your new toy.
The winners for the Giphoscope International Art GIF Contest are in, honouring the most creative work in the art of the GIF.
E3 is the game industry's chance to show off the latest and greatest in digital entertainment. Here are the most promising titles from E3 2014.


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Best Children's Hospitals 2013-14: Progress Report
The number of hospitals reporting clinical data for the next rankings took a big jump.
To produce the medical data for the 2012-13 Best Children's Hospitals rankings, which are currently posted, U.S. News contractor RTI International sent a clinical survey to 178 pediatric centers. Ninety-seven centers, or 54.5 percent, completed the lengthy, detailed questionnaire. The allotted time for submitting the 2013-14 survey has now ended, and we are pleased to report that 109 of the 179 hospitals that received the survey responded, a jump to 60.9 percent.
The 11-part clinical survey takes the form of a general section and 10 individual specialty sections, from cancer to urology. Hospitals must complete the general section and at least one specialty section to be evaluated, because the information yielded by the clinical survey provides most of the grist for the Best Children's Hospitals rankings. A small part of each hospital's score is based on a reputational survey of 1,500 pediatric specialists, also conducted by RTI on behalf of U.S. News. That survey is still in the field, so we don't yet have final numbers on the response rate.
Staff members at children's hospitals spend many hours completing the clinical survey, and we thank them for their diligence and attention to the smallest detail. In addition, groups of experts in each of the 10 pediatric specialties plus a group specializing in infection control devote much time and effort each year to helping us update and sharpen the survey questions so that the resulting data are maximally informative. An Editorial Review Board of three respected authorities in pediatric quality and safety provides invaluable ongoing perspective, and the support of the Children's Hospital Association, the Alexandria, Va.-based representative of the nation's pediatric facilities, has encouraged hospitals to be receptive to the survey.
Without the thoughtful participation of these healthcare professionals, the Best Children's Hospitals rankings would be far less robust and helpful.
The increase in the clinical survey response rate this year is good news for parents and others who find themselves needing to check the upcoming rankings, which are scheduled to appear in mid-June. The more complete the pediatric hospital universe that is evaluated, the more accurate and meaningful the evaluation.


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Keeping up with the standards of care: A review of when and how to perform a complete bone marrow evaluation
Why it matters
What they did
What they found
Indications for performing a complete bone marrow evaluation include (when there is no identifiable underlying cause and a nonmarrow source is unlikely) cytopenia of one or more of the hematopoietic cell lines, hematocytosis, dysplastic cells, or blast cells seen on peripheral blood examination. Patients receiving chemotherapy may be monitored via bone marrow evaluation, and in cases of suspected iron sequestration (not useful in cats since they do not accumulate iron stores), a complete bone marrow evaluation is also indicated. Recent research cited in the article suggests that complete bone marrow evaluation is useful in patients that are presented for evaluation of fever of unknown origin as well.
Aspirates and biopsy samples should be collected within 24 hours of each other and acquired from the same location sequentially during the procedure. Performing the aspiration first and obtaining the core biopsy sample second a small distance from the original site will avoid sampling damaged tissue. Sedation along with local anesthesia, pain medication, or both are all that is usually needed to obtain these biopsy samples. When obtaining samples from deceased patients, the biopsies must be performed within 30 minutes of death.
The report outlines in detail the patient preparation and approach required to successfully perform these procedures. Selection of the biopsy site depends on the animal's size and age and the clinician's preference. The guidelines offer descriptions of techniques for various sites.
The proper storage, processing, and staining of bone marrow films are also covered. Refrigeration (not freezing) can be used to slow deterioration. The review provides guidelines for assessing bone marrow aspirates as well as quick guide tables to assessing the cytologic findings, discussion of differences between cell counts in dogs and cats, and a checklist for histologic evaluation.
The final bone marrow examination report should contain the results of a CBC, blood film, and marrow cytology and histology. In many patients, the reticulocyte count and any blood chemistry abnormalities are also reported. Most of the report should consist of information on the cellularity, the M:E ratio (the ratio of myeloid to erythroid precursors in bone marrow), and an assessment of iron stores (in dogs), incorporating any abnormal findings. A complete bone marrow evaluation does not often result in a definitive diagnosis, but it may guide the clinician to appropriate diagnostic testing.
Raskin RE, Messick JB. Bone marrow cytologic and histologic biopsies: indications, technique, and evaluation. Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice 2012;42(1):23-42.


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10:30 - 11:30 a.m. Protestant Service
The service is an informal time of worship with hymn singing, prayer, reading of God's Word, children's sermon, and proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We meet in the NSA Monterey Chapel, bldg 300. We hope you will come if stationed in the Monterey area or just visiting the Naval Postgraduate School temporarily. Holy communion is offered the first Sunday of each month at this service. Worship is led by Chaplain Rosa and Chaplain Riley and assisted by members of the chapel community.
Newcomers and Visitors
We are delighted that you have chosen to worship with us and hope you prayerfully consider making this your chapel home!
Sunday Offering
The chapel routinely donates approximately 50% of its offerings to various charities, with the balance going toward providing flowers for worship, refreshments (for after worship, marriage refresher days, and potlucks), and other expenses. Recent donations have been to Campus Crusade for Christ, Officers Christian Fellowship, Navigators, La Mesa Women's Bible Study, Child Evangelism Fellowship of Monterey, Evangelical Ministerial Association, the Salvation Army, Compassion Pregnancy Center, Monterey Military Projects, Interfaith Pastoral Counseling, Dorothy's Kitchen, Gideons, Bible Literature International, Missionary Aviation Fellowship, Voice of the Martyrs, World Vision, and Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Please join us for fellowship and coffee following each service.


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On a night when storms were predicted in the forecast, the Duncan Lady Demons soccer team found themselves in the middle of one at Chickasha Tuesday night.
A three-goal barrage in the second half was too much to overcome as CHS handed Duncan its third district defeat by a score of 4-0 at Hampton Field.
Lindsey Trostle, who was filling in for Maddy Williams at goalkeeper due to a right knee injury, registered 20 saves on the night, which drew praise from head coach Delyida Gay.
"I thought Taylor did an awesome job, and I was very impressed with her," she said. "We as a team though didn't have enough offense on the night. We were only able to generate two total shots on goal, which was the difference."
Chickasha took the lead at 36:46 of the first half, a lead which the Fighting Chicks took with them into the halftime break.
Two penalty kicks in the second half all but signaled the end of a Lady Demons comeback.
First at 35:39, the penalty was called for a handball inside the box, with the second happening at 20:34 as a result of a foul committed inside the penalty area.
Chickasha scored from a shot outside the box at the 12:10 mark of the second half.
Duncan will look to gain its first district win of the season on the road Friday night against Noble with kickoff set for 5:30 p.m.
Just when it looked like the Demons might earn their second district win of the season, things went sour in a matter of minutes.
Three goals in the last 10 minutes of the second half spelled doom for Duncan as CHS came away with a 3-0 victory.
"We played an excellent game, and the final score doesn't really tell the full story," Duncan coach Marcus Williams said. "Even Chickasha's coach was shocked at what was happening out there. Our defense was great until those last 10 minutes. We just can't mentally check out of games like that."
An error at the back resulted in the first goal for the Fighting Chicks, with the second goal coming off a well-placed shot.
CHS' third goal came from a cross sent in behind the defense which resulted in a tap-in.
Duncan will look to get back on track against Noble Friday night with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m.


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Rep. Mike Honda (CA-17) is a longtime supporter and friend of the AAA-Fund. His work has directly matched and aided our own mission and goal. We encourage all to support him as he has supported us all in all his work.
Join Mike Honda's campaign and help re-elect him to Congress. Phone banks are held at the DCCC building, 430 S. Capitol Street S.E., Washington, DC. Every Wednesday from 6:30pm-9:30pm until the June 3rd primary, with additional times announced for the general election. Sign up here.
Congressman Honda is running to represent CA-17, the Silicon Valley district. He has been delivering for his district for over a decade in Congress. As Chair Emeritus of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and Vice-Chair of the DNC for 6 years, Mike has been a leading voice in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community & a progressive champion for underserved and under-represented communities & a fierce advocate for the middle class, fighting for legislation that nurtures the tech industry in his Silicon Valley district and grows our innovation economy. His service has been recognized by his many endorsers, including President Barack Obama, Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, CA Attorney General Kamala Harris, and the California Democratic Party, among others.
His opponent Ro Khanna has amassed a questionably funded war chest and high-paid consultancy team which threatens to end Mike's career of delivering for CA-17 and fighting for the progressive values we hold dear. We'll even pardon Khanna's unsavory ethical questions. Working on behalf of people like you inspires Congressman Honda's work every day. Thus we hope you will help Mike in his time of need.
To volunteer, fill out this form or contact 503-974-6026 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Forward this to anyone you think would be interested in helping Mike.
Thank you!
Update: A new signup is also available!


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Naturally Bill Gates thinks it's greeat! I and thousands like me on the other hand am condemned to suffer through the weeks of ensuing bugs and glitches and associated unoredictable total clusterfucks it will have while we're paid peanuts:
Monthly Archive: October 2012
Oct 22 2012
So what do you think of Windows 8?
Oct 21 2012
Do you believe in God or Aliens?
It's become a regular godless ritual to scan the search results for "God" every Sunday morning. Hey, being an FTB minion has its perks and its tedium. Most of the articles are written by clergy with a message for believers the author feels will help them in their daily struggles, mixed in with the now unavoidable ideological nonsense masked …
Oct 20 2012
Sleazy Joe Walsh doubles down on the crazy
I would have loved to post a quote and link from Joe Walsh claiming his female injured war veteran opponent insulted women, but I can't. Because out of the blue my mouse suddenly stopped copying and pasting. The PC has been rebooted, the mouse has been replaced, it does everything else except copy and paste. It's just …
Oct 19 2012
Crazy Joe Walsh rides to Obama's rescue
You knew the crazy teabagging congressional caucus couldn't go long keeping their crazy science-y ideas to themselves about the mysterious lady parts. After a dreadful summer topped off by Todd Akin, Quasi-MD., the first debate and subsequent polling seem to finally turn Romney's way. Which is why I bet crazy Joe Walsh is being told to politely and …
Oct 18 2012
Earth-sized planet found lurking in data around … Alpha Centauri
We are living in the greatest age of planetary discovery since Galileo looked at Jupiter, and that age may be on the verge of delivering one of the most exciting discoveries imaginable: earth-like planet[s] around Alpha Centauri, AKA Rigel Kent or ACen. Just the name Centauri brings on dreamy eyes in the sci-fi and space exploration community alike. …
Oct 18 2012
Sit very still and they won't suspect you
Via Balloon Juice, I think this is a very rigid and creepy looking Tagg or possibly Josh Romney, one of Mitt's spawn anyway, watching Tuesday's debate. Not to pick on a candidate's kid, but since he's an arrogant prick who seeks out the limelight, Romney JR has earned an exception. … You can almost see …
Oct 17 2012
Fascinating ideas on the history of Titan and Saturn
Look at Jupiter and you see a mini solar system right down to quasi-analogues of the planets, even a hint of scattered disk and Kuiper Belt objects. But look at Saturn and you see one large Jovian like moon, a hell of a lot of beat to shit frozen moonlets, and billions of icy shards. The systems …
Oct 17 2012
Cry bias and unleash the dogs of war
Two conflicting themes now emerging on the right to explain last night's debate performance by Romney. It was 1) a clear draw and therefore a winner for the challenger, 2) Obama got the upper hand because of liberal bias in general and the moderator specifically. What might surprise my colleagues on the other side of …
Oct 17 2012
Romney blew it
It's sad that our undecided voters in swing states might make their decision based on a few minutes or even a single line in a so-called debate, but that may have happened last night and Romney blew it. The only question I have on Romney's wobble is why?
Oct 16 2012
I was exposed to MRSA taking care of a sick person and spent the last few days making sure it didn't take. It's a big deal because I take a drug called Humira that's supposed to weaken my immune system. Any infection that gains a foothold could spread fast. But so far, so good! Lots of news, …


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June 20, 2014New website for I Stand Against
I Stand Against (ISA) has launched a new website, and it is available at www.istandagainst.com.
May 28, 2014District Teacher Receives Excellence in Teaching Award
Lethbridge School District No. 51 is proud to announce that Elise Lee has received Alberta Education's 2014 Excellence in Teaching Award. For more...
May 28, 2014Lethbridge School District No. 51 Budget for 2014-2015
In a public meeting on Tuesday, May 27th, the Lethbridge School District No. 51 Board of Trustees officially approved the District's preliminary budget for the 2014-2015 school year. For more...
On Monday, May 5, 2014, Lethbridge School District No.51 received the Task Force for Teaching Excellence's report to the Minister of Education at the Teaching Excellence Symposium in Edmonton.
Albertans are invited to provide input on 25 recommendations from the Task Force for Teaching Excellence by June 5.
The Task Force developed the recommendations with input from about 3,000 Alberta parents, students, teachers, educational leaders and others gathered over two months through an online survey, discussion boards, written submissions and regional consultations in 14 communities.
For more information read the Task Force for Teaching Excellence Report (pdf).
A Public Education
Join guest host Justin Harper, Science Teacher at Noble Central School for the next episode of A Public Education airing Saturday, June 28 at 6:30 p.m. on Global Lethbridge.
This episode features
A Public Education
Alberta Education
A Public Education is a monthly television series about excellence, innovation and personal growth in Southern Alberta schools. This one of a kind series, takes you inside the classroom to see and hear public education in action.
Resources for parents and guardians.Tips for ParentsSchool Choice My Child's Learning: A Parent Resource
Digital and Media Literacy
Support a Program
MediaSmarts is a Canadian not-for-profit charitable organization that provides several resources for parents and teachers regarding the many aspects of digital and media literacy.
Help supporta District program or initiative!
Please email email@example.com if you have a question or a concern.
Please email email@example.com if you have a question or a concern.
2013-2014 School Year Calendar2014-2015 School Year Calendar


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Read the full excerpt
Ross Thomas is ranked as one of the very top thriller writers by his fellow authors, and his readers loudly agree. Two Edgar Awards, and other prizes, only complement the abundant praise that Thomas has received. Thomas died in 1995, and since then all but one of his twenty-five novels have gone out of print. This should never have happened to the man of whom The New Yorker has said, "Very few...are as consistently entertaining...even fewer can match him for style and power." St. Martin's Minotaur is proud to remedy this situation by reissuing Thomas's novels. So start reading, and prepare to join Ross Thomas's legions of admiring fans.
Ross Thomas


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MOORE — When Oklahoma boarded the bus in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday, it believed it was heading to the Sugar Bowl.
By Sunday night, it was making plans to face No. 10 Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl.
What changed for the Sooners? Nothing that was in their control.
The Sooners (10-2, 8-1 Big 12) are the Big 12 co-champions along with Kansas State. The Wildcats earned the Big 12's automatic BCS berth to the Fiesta Bowl because of their 24-19 win over the Sooners on Sept. 22.
OU believed it would receive an at-large bid to the Sugar Bowl because it was ranked No. 11 in the BCS standings.
That spot, however, evaporated when MAC champion Northern Illinois jumped seven spots to No. 15 in the BCS standings in the final week.
BCS conference champions — the winners of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC — are guaranteed spots in one of the four BCS bowl games: Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar.
If one of the other conference champions is ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS Standings — or in the top 16 while also being ranked above a BCS conference champion — that program is ensured an automatic berth.
Big Ten champion Wisconsin is still outside the BCS standings. Big East winner Louisville is No. 21.
There it is.
Northern Illinois, which didn't make an appearance in the BCS standings until Nov. 25, is in. OU is out.
The Sooners were not complaining on Sunday about falling to the Cotton Bowl.
"Our players are enthusiastic about winning another Big 12 championship and look forward to competing against Texas A&M in the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic," OU coach Bob Stoops said in statement. "The Cotton Bowl has long been a marquee postseason destination, and we're excited about being selected to play there a second time. Cowboys Stadium is a great venue, and I know Sooner fans will be excited to make the trip to support us."


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Decentralizing Kenya's Health Management System: An Evaluation (English)
Document Type
Working Papers
P.M. Ndavi, S. Ogola, P.M. Kizito, K. Johnson and Macro International Inc. Calverton, Maryland, USA
Publication Date
January 2009
Publication ID
Download this publication
Decentralizing Kenya's Health Management System: An Evaluation (PDF, 1524K)
Order a Hard Copy:
Please use electronic copies of DHS publications whenever possible. Hardcopies of publications are intended primarily for those in developing countries where internet connections are limited or unavailable.
Kenya's Ministry of Health (MOH) commitment to address the inherent constraints in the health sector has included deliberate decentralization efforts aimed at strengthening the effective implementation of activities at the district level, and fostering closer coordination and collaboration amongst the line ministries, donors, organizations, and other stakeholders. Among these efforts, local District Health Management Boards (DHMBs) and District Health Management Teams (DHMTs) gradually assumed responsibilities for the operation of the facilities under their jurisdiction through a single line grant, annual work plans, and procurement plans. To assess the current effectiveness of the district health management systems in meeting their responsibilities, we analyze data from a special District Health Management module of the 2004 Kenya Service Provision Assessment Survey to discern the degree to which the DHMTs and DHMBs meet norms and standards in the areas of governance and management, human resource development and management, commodity management, infrastructure development, health care financing, budgeting and management, and performance monitoring. Notably, data on DHMTs and DHMBs were missing for 20 percent of the districts. This level of nonresponse has the potential to weaken the validity of the findings, particularly when the excluded DHMTs are in provinces with some of the worst health indicators in the country. Their exclusion was due to difficult terrain and insecure environment, both of which imply that the right of the population to health care services is compromised. The results of this descriptive analysis indicate that although most of the DHMTs hold meetings frequently, the unavailability of the guidelines on the functioning of the DHMTs made it difficult to determine compliance of DHMTs with any existing norms and standards. The survey missed the opportunity to assess the activities and achievements of the HFMCs and HCMTs, which are important for decentralization. Although most of the DHMTs had documented plans for improving reproductive health, less than a quarter reported implementing their plans on time. Lack of funds and transport were the most cited reasons for failure by DHMTs to meet their supervision targets despite the near universal existence of documented supervision plans. In terms of support of human resources, continuing professional development is an accepted norm in the districts, but there is urgent need to strengthen and expand the scope of updates to serving staff through the establishment of district health training committees and regular monitoring of their activities. An assessment of available infrastructure indicated that repair and maintenance units existed in most districts, with nearly all of the districts contracted with the provincial workshop for repair and maintenance work. Communication facilities between most district hospitals and close to three quarters of the health centers with referral facilities under government management had capacity to communicate easily by telephone or two-way radio with a referral facility to arrange transport during emergencies. The situation was much better for NGO/mission-run facilities. Regarding financing issues, despite existence of both recurrent and development funds, funding for medicines, equipment, and maintaining buildings was inadequate for most districts. Sources for funding for district health services included central government funding supplemented by local government, revolving funds, and other sources. Increased annual budgetary allocations to the agreed 15 percent to ministries of health, in agreement with the Abuja accord, may increase financial resources required for medicines, equipment, and maintenance of buildings.


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Exterior shots of the Turner Buildings, the Adult Swim graphic fence, midtown traffic, and street signs. Interior shots of the Adult Swim building, including interesting animal statues, dolls,...
Shots of Atlanta Motorsports Park signage, welcome trailer, car garages, construction maps and vehicles, and race karts.
Shots of enthusiasts showing off and driving their personal cars on the track. Some of the car models include: Shelby, Audi, Mercedes, and BMW. Other shots of the emergency vehicles on site.
Footage from the observation deck of Georgia's highest mountain featuring shots of the surrounding valleys.
Exterior shots of the conservatory glass building and signs. Shots of butterflies and a pond of fish.
Establishing shot of the center, employees working on the computer and answering phones, a technician working with wires, footage from within the gift shop.
Pine Mountain and Callaway Gardens welcome signs, Callaway water tower, exterior shots of the Mountain Creek Inn, and footage of the beautiful Callaway water park.
Interior shots of the Cartoon Network section of the Turner building. Shots include the lobby, elevators, CN logos and characters, employee workspaces, and animators drawing in their offices.
Establishing shots of the CDC front entrance sign. Interior shots of the information center-library and miniature model of the entire CDC campus.
A ton of footage from within the CDC museum, including photos and exhibits that focus on public health and the history of CDC.


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A fugitive from justice was captured and arrested Monday, according to the Fayette County Sheriff's Department.
Travis L. Duncan, 24, of Cleveland, Ohio, was arrested in the Powellton area of Fayette County after officers made contact with him while on patrol.
Fayette County 911 Center notified the sheriff's deputy that Duncan was wanted in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, on multiple serious charges.
Duncan is wanted for kidnapping, robbery and attempted felonious arson. He was taken into custody and processed through Fayette County on a fugitive from justice warrant, and was transported to Southern Regional Jail to await extradition proceedings.
Sgt. T.N. Mooney of the Fayette County Sheriff's Department is still investigating this incident.
— Wendy Holdren


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Ireland's heatwave rivals Rio and surpasses Med temperatures
Ireland's temperatures rivalled those of the Mediterranean today as highs of 27 degrees hit the west of the country.
Wednesday 23 July 2014
15° Partly cloudy Wind: N 7
25° Clouds breaking for some sun Wind: ENE 6
11° Partly to mostly cloudy Wind: E 5
23° Sunny to partly cloudy Wind: SE 6
12° Increasing clouds Wind: NE 5
21° Colder Wind: NW 11
11° Partly to mostly cloudy Wind: NW 8
21° Mostly cloudy Wind: NW 10
10° Mostly cloudy Wind: WNW 6
22° Mostly cloudy Wind: WNW 10
11° Partly to mostly cloudy Wind: WNW 6
Ireland's temperatures rivalled those of the Mediterranean today as highs of 27 degrees hit the west of the country.
The sun may be shining in some parts of the country this morning but, in others, people are being warned of heavy rain and spot flooding.
Enjoy today's sunshine as rain is due to return this weekend.
If you're planning your Bank Holiday weekend now, make Saturday your 'beach day'.
Families huddle in sweltering classrooms to escape bombing
Everyone knows there are not that many opportunities left
The reason why I'm justified in being a total cookbook...
*SPOILER ALERT! Continue at your peril...
Last weekend's action in the football championship...
The website has gone live, a day earlier than scheduled.
When it comes to festival fashion, the competition is on to stand out from the...
VH1 show 'Dating Naked' requires contestants to...
It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the chance to see the Monty...
The double tragedy in Sligo
Glenties does it as speakers try not to wake attendees
The Kilmacrennan couple created an elaborate...
'Good Samaritan' robbed as he saved life
International Monetary Fund has added a percentage point on to the interest
What part of 'war' don't you grasp?
Joe Cabray speaks on time in wrestling company
Is there no hope for the rest of the provence with...


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California Carving Set made by Michael Price in San Francisco California circa 1860′s with 9″ blad turkey carver, fork and steel. Blade is unmarked but blade and handle are both very characteristic of Michael Price's work and some early work was not stamped.
Blade, tines and steel are nice and secure in their chased silver ferruled handles although it should be noted that there is a missing antennae on the steel as well as two missing nickel balls on the remaining antennae.
Michael Price born in 1833 in Limerick Ireland learned his craft from his father Michael Price Sr from an early age and moved to San Francisco in the 1850's.
Michael Price set up shop making bowie knives, carving sets and razors in the late1850's after making knives for the famous Natchez shop on Clay St. the owner of the shop was famous for the reliability of his pistol loading loaded the notoriously unreliable pistols of the day, one of whom was accidentally discharged in his face ending the era of the Natchez shop.
Michael Price set up shop and became one of the most sought after makers of fine bowie knives as well as carving sets for the opulent gold rush era dinner parties of the day, he was in business between roughly 1856 and 1886.
Michael Price and the other major San Francisco cutlery maker of the day Will and Finck were very influential in the design of the so called "California carving sets" which were copied (cheaply) by the big east coast cutlery manufacturers.
Included in the the pictures is M. Price's shop on Kearny street San Francisco.


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Imagine being able to pick fresh lemons, limes and oranges right from your patio! Read more »
Cutting overgrown grasses by more than an inch or two at a time can create unhealthy brown and bald spots in your lawn – or ev... Read more »
Kids are eager gardeners. They love to experiment with colorful flowers, have an adventurous sense of design, and getting dirt... Read more »
Our Shear Ease® Grass Shears include a patented mechanism that prevents the blades from jamming or sticking when you're trimmin... Read more »
The first time you try our PowerGear® Hedge Shears, you'll be amazed — but it's not magic, it's gears. Our patented gear techno... Read more »
Our Easy-Pour Watering Can offers both capacity and control. The 2.6-gallon volume holds a generous amount of water that is eas... Read more »
Put your crafting skills to work and create a beautiful and unique fascinator that reflects your personal style. Read more »
"Painting" with tissue paper is not only fun but beautiful! Read more »
Mosaic tile frames are a beautiful way to display photos. Read more »
Designed for long, easy cuts down strips of Duck® Tape, our Duck® Edition Scissors feature a non-stick blade coating that preve... Read more »
Add distinctive style to craft projects of all kinds with a Squeeze Punch that makes every embellishment up to 2X easier to pun... Read more »
Designed for tight, precise cuts through Duck® Tape, our Duck® Edition Detail Scissors feature a non-stick blade coating that p... Read more »
A colorful, roomy bag is just the thing you need to carry all your belongings for a day at the beach. Read more »
Keep the kids busy on a road trip with their own art bag full of inspiration and the essentials. Read more »
This easy pillowcase dress looks adorable with pretty fabrics. Plus, it is super simple to put together, even if you have not... Read more »
Only our Stitcher Scissors provide precision and control that meet the needs of the most demanding sewers and quilters. Micro-T... Read more »
Our Seamstress Scissors are the perfect all-purpose scissors for anyone who cuts fabric frequently. The smooth action of these... Read more »
Choose our Dressmaker Shears for long, smooth cuts through multiple layers of medium to heavy fabrics. Extra-long blades maximi... Read more »
Looking for a sure cure for bored kids - make sparkly sea creatures! Read more »
Open-ended activities like this Busy Book can keep kids occupied in the back seat of a car AND spark fun family conversations! Read more »
It doesn't take much to turn an everyday snack into something a little extra special. It is great to see how quickly you can a... Read more »
Our Preschool Training Scissors features a special training lever that opens the blades after each cut, helping children learn... Read more »
Children love our Designer Non-stick Blunt-tip Kids Scissors for the colorful handle patterns that make cutting fun and the non... Read more »
Our Designer Non-stick Student Scissors are larger than our Kids Scissors but smaller than adult scissors, perfect for those ol... Read more »
The beautiful mood lighting of lanterns at outdoor gatherings is fabulous, so why not craft up a set to use this summer. Read more »
Treat your children to their own special tent hideaway, then stand back and watch as the fun and adventures begin! Read more »
Make a thoughtful gift for someone this summer! Read more »
The StaySharp™ Max Reel Mower combines patent-pending technology with superior ergonomics to deliver best-in-class cutting perf... Read more »
Great for beginners, the unique design of this tool makes cutting perfect shapes from fabric a breeze — since you're not managi... Read more »
Perfect for a wide range of sewing and quilting tasks, our Amplify® RazorEdge™ Fabric Shears sense blade separation and force t... Read more »
Fiskars and Duck Tape are teaming up to make the world smarter and more colorful together.
Add beautiful mood lighting at outdoor gatherings. Why not craft up a set to use this summer.
Using the Fuse Creativity System® with the scalloped birthday square embellishment, you can create a unique keepsake banner that can be used again and again as part of your birthday partytradition.
1. Begin but cutting 6 inch x 11 inch strips of fabric. I used a natural colored canvas because its color is neutral, allowing the decorative embellishment to shine, and because the heavier weight of the material keeps its shape under the weight of the embellishments. Cut a triangle out of the bottom of each rectangle by finding the center, measuring up 3 inches, and using a Fiskars acrylic ruler and rotary cutter to cut from that point to each corner. Stitch around the perimeter of each section using a 1/4 inch seam allowance.
2. Use the scalloped birhtday square plate, black ink, and white cardstock to create a letterpressed diecut for each section of the banner. Mount these to 5 inch x 5 inch squares of patterned paper with your favorite adhesive.
4. Add punched stars and music notes to the white space of each die cut and stitch the squares to the canvas sections.
5. To string the banner together, cut 2 inch wide strips of a coordinating fabric and stitch them together end to end to the desire length. My banner has 7 sections and I used three 45 inch lengths of fabric which left me with plenty of excess at each end for hanging the banner. Find the center of the strip and center one of the sections over it, fold the strip in half to encase the top of the section, and pin the layers together. Continue adding sections to the strip leaving 3 inches of space between them. Also fold the excess fabric
6. Finish the banner by starting at one end of the folded fabric strip and stitching along the entire length of it with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.
1/2 yard of canvas
Patterned papers
2 sheets white cardstock
1 sheet black cardstock
1/3 yard fabric for ties
Stamping ink
Sign up today for project inspiration, tips, techniques and product specials.
© Fiskars Brands, Inc.
Orange-handled scissors are a registered trademark of Fiskars Corporation.


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The WKU Writing Center
The Writing Center offers individual conferences about writing with our staff of English majors and graduate students. Our services are available to all Western Kentucky University students.
Take a video tour of the Writing Center or learn about our thesis writing workshops on our Resources for Thesis Writers page!
Summer 2014 Hours: (May 19 - August 15)
Online Assistance
|May 19-Jun 11:
|Submit to us 24/7!
Cravens Library(on the 4th floor in the Commons)
|Jun 12-Aug 15:
|Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday:
|9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
|Monday and Thursday:
|1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Cherry Hall 123
Closed for Summer: will reopen on September 2nd
Need Summer term Help?
Submit your paper here if you need help from our online resource before we reopen in Cravens on June 12th.*
After you submit your paper, we try to respond on the next business day via email with an estimated return time for your feedback (generally returned within 72 hours--not counting weekends). Please submit your request as soon as you know you need help. If you wait until your deadline is looming, there may be others who submitted before you (first come, first served), plus you'll need time to read and utilize our suggestions.
*We'll give you our feedback on your writing by email, but will not proofread your entire paper (see below for details).
What we do:
Writers need feedback from readers to help refine their writing. The Writing Center can give you this feedback. Our tutors will talk with you about your writing to help you:
- brainstorm ideas
- clarify main points
- strengthen logic and support
- smooth out organization
- integrate sources and credit them properly
- fine-tune sentence style
- learn to proofread
Because we want to help you become a better writer, we won't edit or proofread your paper for you. We will help you learn to revise and edit so you will be better able to catch your own errors and improve your own content, organization, and style.
Schedule an Appointment (Starting June 12th):
- Visit our Appointment Scheduler (for all locations).
- Don't miss the video tutorial about scheduling.
Contact Us:
- Email us at firstname.lastname@example.com.
- Call our primary location in 123 Cherry Hall at (270) 745-5719 during our operating hours if you have questions or would prefer to schedule your appointment by phone.
- Visit the Glasgow Writing Center's webpage or call (270) 659-6900 if you live in or near Glasgow and have questions or would like to schedule your appointment by phone.
Stay Up-to-Date on All Things Writing Center:
- View the WKU Writing Center video tour.
- View our thesis workshop videos and other resources on our Resources for Thesis Writers page.
- Like us on Facebook for updates about hours and special events.
- Visit our blog for writing tips and links to online resources.
The Writing Center offers helpful feedback on any kind of writing by working with students to help them improve themselves and become better writers.


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Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory publishes articles concerned with neural and behavioral plasticity, including learning and memory and related aspects of neural adaptation, at all levels of analysis from molecular biology to behavior.
Research areas include all areas of the neurobiology of learning and memory.
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory includes major theoretical, research, and review papers; research reports; brief reports; rapid communications; and notes.
In addition, the following two categories are featured:
• Minireviews that succinctly survey appropriate areas of current research or theory
• Commentaries that serve as vehicles for brief presentations of new theories, hypotheses, points of view, or critiques of current research
Benefits to authors
We also provide many author benefits, such as free PDFs, a liberal copyright policy, special discounts on Elsevier publications and much more. Please click here for more information on our author services.
Please see our Guide for Authors for information on article submission. If you require any further information or help, please visit our support pages: http://support.elsevier.com
Editor-in-Chief: T. Abel
View full editorial board


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Listings invited: Send announcements to: Just for Seniors, The Daily Star, P.O. Box 250, Oneonta, NY 13820.
MONDAY, Oct. 28
Cherry Valley
Exercise, 10 a.m., Otsego County Senior Meal Center.
Line dancing, 9 a.m., activity room; movies, 10:30 a.m.; tap dancing, 1 p.m.; Coby Room, Golding Park.
Bingo, cards and games, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Brightman Senior Center, 25 Birdsall St.
Osteoprevention exercise program, 9:30 to 10:30 a.m., Hartwick Community Center, sponsored by the Otsego County Office for the Aging.
Osteoprevention exercise program, 10 a.m., Laurens Presbyterian Church, sponsored by the Otsego County Office for the Aging.
Cards, puzzles and trivia, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Senior Center, First Baptist Church, 10 W. Park Place,
Office for the Aging, 9 to 5 p.m. weekdays; men's breakfast group meeting, 8 a.m., followed by walk and exercise session; cards, 10:30 a.m.; pinochle, 2 to 4 p.m.; Elm Park United Methodist Church, 401 Chestnut St.
Osteoprevention exercise program,1:30 p.m., Nader Towers, sponsored by the Otsego County Office for the Aging.
Senior Council Ex., 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., (Annex Room) Office for the Aging Community Room, 113 Park Place, Suite 3. For info: (518) 295-2001.
Sharon Springs
Cards, 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 2 p.m.; exercise class, 10:30 a.m., Spa Ritz at firehouse.
Cards, puzzles and trivia, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., The Welcome Center, Grace Manor Center, Knapp Street.
Wells Bridge
Osteoprevention exercise programs, 10 a.m., Wells Bridge Fire Hall, sponsored by the Otsego County Office for the Aging.
TUESDAY, Oct. 29
Exercise class, 9 a.m., Coby Room, Golding Park.
Bridge, 9:30 a.m., conference room, Clark Sports Center.
Bingo and games, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Windy Hill Senior Center, Coventry Town Hall, 1839 State Highway 235.
Stamford-Harpersfield Senior Citizens, 10 a.m., Hobart Community Hall.
Community Center, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.


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Contact the Internet Buying Service ASAP to schedule a test drive. You will find one of the largest selection of quality pre-owned cars, trucks and suv's at the Sansing Automotive Group. We take great care of our customers and will continue to give the same great customer service to you when you contact us about this great vehicle. Our dedicated group of finance specialists are eagerly standing by to help you find the best rates and terms REGARDLESS of your credit history! *****CALL INTERNET SALES TODAY!*****
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Sandy Sansing Nissan is the largest volume Nissan dealership on the Gulf Coast. As winner of Nissan's prestigious Circle of Excellence Award for seven years in a row, we're proud to say our service doesn't just stop when we sell you your car! With more than 1000 Pre-Owned Cars available, we're certain to have the vehicle you're looking for at the price range you need to be in! Call Elysia Clark!!! (866) 494-2290


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mUmBRELLA Events - your guide to what's on
mUmBRELLA events is a free service, you can post your own event now.
Upcoming events
|Web Content Writing training course, Melbourne | Peak Usability – Melbourne
|Designing the mobile user experience (UX), Melbourne | Peak Usability – Melbourne
|The Health & Aged Care Blended Learning Conference 2014 – Sydney
|Legal Information & Records Management Evolution Forum 2014 – Sydney
| Managing Digital Projects & Transformation in the Enterprise –
Maximise success with your digital transformation efforts with specialist digital project management skills. Weave through complicated stakeholder relations. Manage cross-functional teams. Ensure optimal ROI. At the Managing Digital Projects in the Enterprise workshop on July 29 in Sydney you'll learn new ways to manage changes in timelines, scope, budgets, and risk so that your digital […]
|Business Growth Masterclass (Perth) – Bentley, WA
|AIMIA QLD: Evolving Digital Careers – West End, QLD
|Interactive Minds Digital Summit – South Brisbane
| MSiX - Marketing Science Ideas Xchange –
July 30-31 2014 The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Want to learn about behavioural science and its impact on your marketing and advertising strategy? Want to apply your learning by solving real-life marketing problems with expert facilitators? MSiX is the first event in Australia dedicated to behavioural science and marketing. KEYNOTE: RORY SUTHERLAND Vice Chairman, […]
|31st Jul
|Social Media + Content Markting Workshop – Torquay
|1st Aug
|Entrepreneurs' Roundtable - Melbourne (Afternoon) – Melbourne
|1st Aug
|Entrepreneurs' Roundtable - Melbourne (Morning) – Melbourne
|2nd Aug
|AFTRS OPEN: Videomaking 101: Shoot, Edit & Publish – Moore Park
|2nd Aug
|ATYP's Actors Toolkit – Walsh Bay
|4th Aug
|Interaction Design training course, Sydney | Peak Usability – Sydney
|4th Aug
|Bob Brown On Optimism – Geelong
|5th Aug
|League of Extraordinary Women - Sydney Breakfast August – Waterloo
|5th Aug
|League of Extraordinary Women - Gold Coast Breakfast August – Surfers Paradise


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Timeless look
By Jewellery lover
from Montreal, QC
This is truly a nice watch and very comfortable. I sent it back only due to the fact that it looked a bit small on me. I have small wrist, but like a medium size better. I have the JBK tank watch and prefer its size and look better on my wrist. But again, really nice looking watch.
Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
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( 1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)
Beautiful Watch
By Lorna
from Vancouver BC
This is a very expensive looking watch. It is very elegant and simple and so high end looking. I have a large wrist and hand and I am used to a larger watch. I will keep it for a few days to see if my eye adjusts to the size and proportion on my wrist. I really can't say enough about how very lovely it is. I also own the tank watch from this line and it is just as well made.
Classy watch
By crazycatlady
from Yorkton SK
Very expensive looking. I'm so glad I took the chance and bought it! I like the simple, uncomplicated look of it. My wrist is quite large and the fit is comfortable.I was on the fence for quite awhile, my only regret is that I didn't buy it sooner. Replicates the look of a Patek Phillipe watch as per Phil and I totally agree.
( 2 of 2 customers found this review helpful)
Terrific Watch
By KARIN
from GRIFFITH
Really nice looking and sophisticated watch. Absolutely love it. Looks much more expensive than it is. Have small and large watches. This one is right in the middle. Many thanks to the Jackie Kennedy Collection.


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Art on the Hill
Art on the Hill is a one-of-a-kind annual event, showcasing regional talent, including artisans of note from throughout northeastern Oklahoma. The event also features outstanding works by area high school and college students. Prizes will be awarded for the winners.
This outdoor event is on the picturesque RSU campus in Claremore, Oklahoma. Tented venues on the campus lawn will offer visitors an opportunity to stroll through the art exhibits, experience live art demonstrations, and enjoy music provided by guest musicians, the RSU Music Department, and other area ensembles. The event is free and open to the public.
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