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Thread: Ventriloquist and the Indian
Ventriloquist and the Indian
A ventriloquist cowboy walks into town and sees an Indian sitting on his porch. He figures he'll have a little fun...
Cowboy: "Hey, cool dog. Mind if I speak to him?"
Indian: "Dog no talk."
Cowboy: "Hey dog, how's it going?"
Dog: "Doin' alright."
Indian: shows extreme look of shock
Cowboy: "Is this Indian your owner?" pointing at Indian.
Dog: "Yep"
Cowboy: "How does he treat you?"
Dog: "Real good. He walks me twice a day, feeds me great food, and takes me to the lake once a week to play."
Indian: shows look of disbelief
Cowboy: "Mind if I talk to your horse?"
Indian: "Horse no talk."
Cowboy: "Hey horse, how's it going?"
Horse: "Cool."
Indian: extreme look of shock
Cowboy: "Is this your owner? "pointing at Indian.
Horse: "Yep."
Cowboy: "How's he treat you?"
Horse: "Pretty good, thanks for asking. He rides me regula rly, brushes me down often, and keeps me in the barn to protect me from the elements."
Indian: shows total look of amazement
Cowboy: "Mind if I talk to your sheep?"
Indian: "Sheep Lie!"It is better to be tried by 12, than carried by 6.
______________________________ __________
An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break.
______________________________ __________
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RALEIGH — President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have officially been re-elected, no thanks to the electors who traveled from across the state for a ceremony Monday at the Capitol.
In the Old Hall of the House, Republican Party electors officially put the state's Electoral College votes – all 15 of them – behind Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
While North Carolina voted for the losing ticket, the event still had plenty of ceremonial and educational value.
Members of the Supreme Court attended. So did a few members of the Council of State and other government executives.
Children involved with the North Carolina 4-H Club, leaders from the National Guard, and representatives from France, Moldova and Sweden were also on hand to receive a civics lesson from Secretary of State Elaine Marshall.
Marshall, because of the office she holds, is constitutionally required to preside over the process.
"When the voters of North Carolina voted this past November, they were actually voting to pick this slate of electors instead of voting directly for president and vice president," she explained.
Romney-Ryan was favored by a final count of 92,004 votes, so the GOP picked two at-large electors and one from each congressional district for a total of 15.
Marshall, a Democrat, invoked words from Romney's own concession speech.
"At a time like this, we can't risk partisan bickering and political posturing," she said.
"We look to Democrats and Republicans in government at all levels to put the people before politics."
After Chief Justice Sarah Parker administered the oath of office, Marshall handed over the gavel to Robert Levy, an elector from Southern Pines who acted as president of the Electoral College.
Levy called on Art Pope, a conservative politico and major financial contributor to Republican causes, to motion for Romney to be selected as the presidential nominee.
Pope described Romney as a successful businessman who has created jobs, as an effective and popular governor in Massachusetts, and as a leader in nonprofit and philanthropic endeavors.
Pope even invoked the same Romney quote that Marshall did: "At a time like this, we can't risk partisan bickering," Pope said. He said later the event was more a testament to democracy than bittersweet.
The event marked the 56th meeting of the Electoral College in North Carolina, one fewer than most of the original states, because delegates to the Constitutional Convention refused to join the Union absent the Bill of Rights.
In statehouses around the country on Monday, similar ceremonies were held. The final count shows Obama-Biden received nearly 3.5 million votes more than Romney-Ryan, and that the Democratic nominees picked up 332 electoral votes compared with the Republican nominees' 206.
Baird: 919-829-4696

subset: commoncrawl


text:
María Jesús Hernáez Lerena on Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland
What is a self? What is a short story? Those questions intersect at the moment of writing and the moment of reading but mostly at some pre-conscious level. There is however a growing mass of short story theory, research into the nexus of philosophy, psychology, genre and form. María Jesús Hernáez Lerena (see complete bio at the bottom of the essay) is a prolific Spanish scholar, critic and theoretician (also dg's friend and a startlingly intelligent interpreter of his work). It's a great pleasure to reprint here María's essay (first appeared in the Journal of English Studies, full citation below) on Carol Shield's great novel The Stone Diaries (winner of the 1993 Governor General's Award for Fiction, the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the National Book Critics Circle Award). Though the subject is a novel, the essay itself deals with novel and short story as distinct genres and examines the ways they each deploys personal consciousness (the theoretical cousin of "point of view"). Dense with reference and argument, the essay is intricate and perceptive—a good "reading" of a text always opens up a wider world. And, as often is the case with scholarly work, it has not been easily available to the general reading public (who might actually be hungry for such information). You can use this essay (and bibliography) as a jumping off point to explore short story and narrative theory (as usual, dg could not get the footnotes to work as "jumps" in WordPress; you'll just have to scroll down and back).
Though she teaches at the Universidad de la Rioja, María will shortly be flying to St. John's, Newfoundland, for a summer of research (hence we get the second photograph inside of a month taken on Signal Hill—St. John's is the Paris of the North; everyone goes there.)
Narrative Genres and THE ADMINISTRATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS: The Case of Daisy Goodwill's Rebellion
By María Jesús Hernáez Lerena
ABSTRACT. The Stone Diaries (1993), a novel by Carol Shields, examines the strategies characters use to render their selves accountable: they turn life into an ensemble made up of historical, scientific, novelistic or biographical discourse. In contrast, Daisy Goodwill, who is the subject-matter of this fictional autobiography, remains close to the epistemology of the short story, whose potential has been described by critics as a challenge to knowledge or synthesis (Cortázar 1973; Bayley 1988; Leitch 1989, May 1994; Trussler 1996). There seems to be agreement that the only condition of coherence necessary for the short story is a pointing to the evasion of meaning in life, also that the genre allies itself to the way in which the past is attached to our memory (Kosinski 1978; Hallet 1998; Lohafer 199; Wolff 2000). This essay will analyze the implications of its protagonist's stance with a view to pinning down some of the ideological grounds of the novel and of the short story in their approach to the question of identity.
[H]ow are we to understand the project of telling a life story
where it must be organized in terms of what is anomalous,
difficult, and resistant to narration?
(Gilmore 2001: 33)
This article deals with the question of how we articulate our consciousness by focusing on the proposals of two major narrative genres: the novel and the short story. One of society's demands upon the individual is precisely self-articulation, the creation of an identity of one's own made manifest by an exercise in verbalization. This task is performed through the adscription of meaning to a sequence of incidents and emotions, that is, through the making of a story. Thus, the psychological structures we use to make sense of ourselves seem to put us unavoidably in a narrative dimension; we read ourselves as characters in a story.[1] The interplay between storyness and personal biographical composition will be the object of this study.
The finality of a life story is knowledge, or at least, intelligibility, a goal reached thanks to certain formulaic beliefs which allow us to connect events within a sequential pattern of progress which—we imagine—moves us towards the future and diminishes the chaos of existence. We like to believe that experience leads to maturation, that the cause-effect binomial organizes our life and explains the conditions of our present situation, that the passing of time brings about learning (intellectual, emotional, ethical). These assumptions, which no degree of postmodernism will be ever able to uproot, act like joints which help interpret the succession of occurrences in one's life—or in a character's life—as the dramatization of the efforts towards self-understanding, a path sanctified with the aura of redemption. These ethical dynamics of narrative is grounded in the religious precedent of sacrifice followed by reward. It is the metaphor of life as a river or as a journey which starts as blankness or as confusion and achieves its climax in an adjustment of perception (an awareness of wrongness) or in a more satisfactory appreciation of the relationship between a person and his/her world. However, not all narrative genres share the same joints or the same sense of finality. Indeed, the short story has been often defined as contrary to the ingrained idea that stories have to make transitions plausible or intelligible. In its search for truth in the clash of experiences which do not cohere, the short story shows ample disregard for other genres such as the novel or the biography, which often equate reality with a slow display of psychological interiors. Aspirations toward knowledge also fare differently in both genres: whereas the short story is said to have constituted itself in its challenge to knowledge and has a penchant for situations that cannot be rationalized (Leitch 1989: 133; Trussler 1996: 560), the novel has historically sought the "expropriation" of life's mystery (May 1994: 135); it evidences a will to dissect the machinery of connections at play in an individual's existence. Our culture has made us mainly inheritors to the legacy of the novel, a form of discourse which reveals life as an ongoing pattern connecting the past to the future. The novel's appearance as a life-long companion is firmly rooted in a sense of biographical time: its embodiment of learned ideas of self as history makes it possible to envision life as a path that is psychologically self-sustaining.[2]


text:
Uri Avnery has accomplished quite a lot in his 81 years. He fought for the pre-state underground group Lehi, then in the War of Independence in the "Samson's Foxes" unit, he wrote the most important real-time books about that war ("In the Fields of the Philistines" and "The Other Side of the Coin"), he was the editor of the weekly magazine that changed the face of Israeli journalism (Ha'olam Hazeh), he established the political movement that shaped the face of the Israeli left ("Ha'olam Hazeh – Koah Hadash"), he was one of the leading spokesmen of Arab-Israeli culture. However, above all, Uri Avnery performed one crucial political act: He brought Yasser Arafat into our lives.
In 1974, Avnery became the first Israeli to start conducting talks with Arafat's representatives. In 1982, he was the first Israeli to meet with and interview Arafat. In 1994, he sat at Arafat's side when the Palestinian leader returned to the Gaza Strip. For 30 years, Avnery was the most enthusiastic espouser of the Arafatist political option. Even when others on the left despaired of the chairman and abandoned him, Avnery continued to make pilgrimage to the Muqata, Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. Even during the most trying times he acted as Arafat's human shield and advocate. Loyally, tenaciously, at risk to his life, the radical Israeli journalist fought the battle of the leader of the Palestinian national movement.
Avnery is an emphatically unemotional person. Rational, cool, precise. Always carefully turned out, always elegant, always that lingering German accent. But on Tuesday night, when the Palestinian leadership admitted the rais [head] was dying, the drama of Arafat's death suddenly gripped him. In the living room of his Tel Aviv home, Avnery looked sadder and more vulnerable than ever. At times it seemed that true human grief was welling up in his metallic-blue eyes.
One great mistake
Uri Avnery, as someone who was close to Arafat, don't you feel that there is something humiliating about the way death came to him?
Avnery: "Regrettably, Suha [Arafat's wife] did not meet the test of history. She was Arafat's great mistake. He married her in a moment of weakness, when he suddenly, after all, wanted to be a family man. But that desire passed very quickly in the light of the opposition the marriage aroused. People couldn't understand why the man who was married to the revolution suddenly got married. And not to a Muslim Arab woman, but to a Christian. To a modern woman, an outsider, a blonde. He realized he had to keep his distance from her and she remained bitter. The result was the end we have just seen, which was not appropriate and which definitely hurts me. Very much so. Arafat deserves something different. But in a few weeks all this will be forgotten; what will remain is a death that carries huge symbolic value.
"In the final analysis, what will enter Palestinian history is that the person who led them for almost 50 years died abroad. Like most of the Palestinian people. And what will be enshrined in the Palestinian and Arab national myth is that the leader of the liberation movement died on the brink of Palestinian independence, but without entering it. That will take on symbolic significance that will intensify from year to year, like the stature of Arafat himself."
What you are saying, then, is that Arafat will be remembered as the Palestinian Moses, nothing less.
"There is a great similarity to the death of Moses, who removed a people from slavery and led its march to freedom for 40 years, almost exactly like Arafat. There is also a similarity in the fact that Arafat too reached the gate of the Promised Land, saw it from afar but did not enter it. I have been thinking about that a great deal in the past few days. The symbolism here is very great, and because of it the dead Arafat will be even stronger than the living Arafat."
Do you really believe that Arafat was a giant historic leader?
"A giant. Yasser Arafat will be remembered as one of the greatest leaders of the second half of the 20th century. He is sometimes compared to Nelson Mandela. But Arafat's task was a thousand times more difficult than that of Mandela, who spent 28 years in prison and so remained totally untainted by external struggles and internal struggles and of any association with terrorism. And in the end, he received an existing state. One day he was the leader of a liberation movement, the next day he was president.
"Arafat, in contrast, received a widely scattered refugee people, all of whom were living under Arab dictatorships. A nation whose leadership was pursued by the secret services of half a dozen countries, including Israel. As a result, Arafat was compelled to lie, sometimes to this Arab leader, sometimes to that one. He had to resort to ambivalence and needed the ability to maneuver. That ability is perhaps one of his most prominent qualities.
"Arafat also had to create a state ex nihilo. To establish a state where there was no infrastructure, no economy, no instruments of government. And he had to bridge the tensions between the veteran leadership from Tunisia and the young local leadership. And between Christians and Muslims. Between woman and men. Between hamulas [clans]. Between refugees and residents of the territories. He had to hold that whole package together, almost on his own, under unbelievable conditions. And he succeeded. He also succeeded in not giving in. He stood up to Clinton and [former Israeli prime minister Ehud] Barak and did not capitulate. So there is no doubt in my mind that he will become one of the major heroes of Arab history. He will enter the pantheon of symbolic Arab heroes, like the Caliph Omar and like Salah a-Din."
Do you really think so – when, after all, he was only the leader of a quite problematic national movement of a small Arab nation?
"That small nation became the symbol of the entire Arab world. Because the Arab world today is in a humiliated state. Its whole thrust is against Western expansion. When an 18-year-old in Cairo or Riyadh or Damascus looks around today for a figure to cling to, he sees only Arafat. Every Arab who feels the humiliation of the Arab nation identifies with Arafat as a person who was not vanquished. As a person with courage and who, contrary to all the vilifications, remains untainted. In all these senses Arafat is completely different from all the other leaders in the region. He towers above the ugly and wretched images of people like Mubarak, Abdullah or Assad. In fact, the only figure that competes with the image of Arafat is Osama bin Laden. And the two of them represent polarities in the Arab and Muslim world.
"Arafat was religious, yes, but his leadership was secular. He represented an essentially secular national movement. He represented Arab nationalism in a European format. Bin Laden, in contrast, represents anti-national Islamic fundamentalism which rejects Arab nationalism just as Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] Judaism rejects Israeli nationalism. Therefore, both Israel and the United States made a terrible mistake by not entering into an alliance with Arafat. Because henceforth all the Arab revolutions will be fundamentalist in character, whereas Arafat was the last chance for the victory of Arab nationalism in the Western format. He was the last barrier to the extremist Islamic forces."
I'm not sure I follow that – could you elaborate?
"The greatest danger facing Israel is the danger of Salah a-Din: of a counter-Crusade in which the Arab world unites under the Islamic banner. That is a true existential danger for Israel. Arafat was the total opposite of that, both in the small Palestinian arena and as a symbol for the entire Arab world. So, as the Egyptian thinker Mohammed Sid Ahmed said, if Arafat didn't exist, Israel would have had to invent him. Arafat was a natural partner to ensure Israel's future. But we behaved foolishly. We broke him. We didn't understand that he was a critical element in the wall against fundamentalism. We didn't understand that Arafat was the only counter-pole to bin Laden, his associates and his successors."
Are you arguing, then, that the anti-Arafat policy adopted by Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush was calamitous?
"Sharon is an ignorant man and so is Bush. That is the connection between them. They are both appallingly primitive people who are incapable of grasping broad historical contexts. The joint effort by the two of them to break Arafat represents historical shortsightedness of a-historic people. People who do not understand history and do not live history. Both of them have effectively left the field to bin Laden. By Bush's destruction of Iraq and by the fact that the two of them broke Arafat, they have inflicted a disaster on both America and Israel. But America will be able to cope. Even if the result is the destruction of another hundred towers and the transformation of the United States into a fascist dictatorship, America will ultimately recover and be healed. For Israel, though, this is an existential problem. In breaking Arafat we made a historic mistake, which we will probably not be able to rectify."
Gentle and warm
Let's leave the judgment of history for a bit. You met Arafat dozens of times and spent hundreds of hours with him. What sort of person was he?
"Arafat is always a surprise for everyone who meets him for the first time. How so? In that the gap between his television image and reality is astonishing. First of all, the beard. On television it always looks like it's a two-day growth. But in reality the beard is groomed, black and white, part pepper and part salt. Then the eyes. On television they look a bit mad, a bit fanatic. In reality, though, they are exactly the opposite: very gentle, even feminine.
"All in all, Arafat is a very gentle person. His hands are gentle, his body language is gentle. And he is a very warm person. Very much so. Filled with empathy. Because of that he has an incredible capacity to forge personal contact. He is direct, informal, emotional. He is not a person of abstract ideas but of feelings; not analytical but intuitive. Much of his dialogue takes place not in words but in gestures. He is very fond of gestures.
"He had a phenomenal memory and he was an incredibly quick study. He could grasp a situation in a thousandth of a second. At the same time, he was definitely not an intellectual person. I don't think he read books. I don't think he read at all. He is one of those leaders for whom synopses are prepared. But he had a tendency to go into great detail. And he had the ability to make bold decisions with lightning speed. Because of those two traits he found it difficult to delegate powers. He was always very centralistic. He kept his cards close to the chest. When you saw him sitting with Abu Mazen and Abu Ala, they were like small children in comparison. He was the one who decided. He alone decided. That's why I think he is irreplaceable. There is no one else in the Palestinian arena who is capable of making decisions as he did.
"He had a sense of humor. He liked to joke. Sometimes he joked at the expense of his aides. But he wasn't pretentious and he wasn't remote. He let people interrupt him and correct him. The atmosphere he created was that of a Hasidic leader in his court.
"In the last analysis, I think his most outstanding trait was his total identification with his role. He himself, Arafat, was the Palestinian war of liberation. Hence the feeling that he cannot be replaced. That only he could do it. And there was also the feeling of personal providence when he miraculously survived the crash-landing of his plane in the Libyan desert. Like Arik Sharon, Arafat was totally convinced he held the fate of his people in his hands. But unlike Sharon, who is the most secular of the secular, in Arafat that sense always had a religious dimension. In that sense he truly was a believing Muslim."
Were the two of you genuinely close?
"There was complete mutual trust. I will give you one example. When we met in Tunis, he did not cover his head. I have a photograph in which he is seen without a head covering, peeling an orange for me. And doing it meticulously, totally focused on that. But without the kaffiyeh, and looking very much like his brother. Arafat know I would not publish that photo. He knew that even though I was a journalist I would never publish anything that should not be published."
Historic concessions
Is Arafat's death natural or did Israel have a part in it?
"Conspiracy theories always spring up in situations like this. I don't have a conspiratorial mind, but sometimes conspiracy theories turn out to be right. What I can say in the way of personal testimony is that when I saw him, just three weeks before he took sick, he was healthy. More healthy than I had seen him in the past.
"One thing is certain: Israel is to blame for holding him for two and a half years in two or three rooms without air and without sun. Even a convict who is condemned to death has the right to an hour's walk in the prison yard every day. Arafat, though, did not leave the Muqata building for years. Israel is responsible for that. It is responsible for not allowing a 75-year-old person to walk at all for a long time."
Did Sharon want to kill him?
"Without the slightest doubt."
Do you have suspicions?
When a person has a sudden, inexplicable collapse in these conditions, suspicion is automatic. But I have no proof one way or the other. I can only tell you that Arafat was convinced Sharon wanted to kill him. He talked a lot about that."
So in the end General Sharon vanquished General Arafat after all?
"I don't think so. The dead Arafat vanquishes the living Sharon."
What do you mean?
"Two things. Twenty years after Sharon is gathered unto his forefathers, no one will remember him. In contrast, Arafat will be remembered even in another hundred years and five hundred years. Maybe even a thousand years. Every Arab remembers Salah a-Din eight hundred years after his death. They will remember Arafat, too.
"But there is something else, too, more immediate. The heritage that Arafat is leaving after him will prevent the Palestinian people from capitulating to Sharon's plan. It is precisely by his death that Arafat is consolidating the boundary of the Palestinian concessions. Now no Palestinian leader will dare to cross that boundary. The dead Arafat will not permit the concessions that the living Arafat might have made."
Did Arafat really make any concessions? Did he really internalize the idea of two states and all that entails?
"Arafat made two historic concessions: He recognized Israel and he recognized the Green Line. In doing that he accepted our presence here as legitimate and gave up 78 percent of the territory that constituted pre-1948 Palestine. Those are monumental concessions. Every additional concession beyond them was actually impossible. Nevertheless, at Camp David, Arafat made three more concessions. He agreed to a limited exchange of territory, he agreed to accept the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and he agreed to Israeli control of the Western Wall. But those concessions were made orally, not in writing, and his successors will find it very difficult to implement them."
In other words, we are going back to the situation of "to the last inch," to the Green Line itself?
"I think so. That's what happened with Sadat and also with Hafez Assad. Do you see an Arab leader who will be able to concede what Arafat did not explicitly concede? There is no doubt that a compromise on the Temple Mount is now impossible."
If so, what can we expect now? Will Abu Mazen and Abu Ala be able to stabilize the situation? Will they be able to reach some sort of settlement with Israel?
"I have known Abu Mazen for 20 years and Abu Ala for 15 years. They are both good people, honest and decent. But if you are a young Palestinian in Jenin with a rifle and you hear their names, your reaction is, `Who are those guys, anyway? Who are they to tell me what to do?' So their authority will be very superficial. It's possible that for the time being they will get support, because the Palestinian people does not want a civil war. The trauma of the 1930s is engraved deep in their memory. But this quiet will necessarily be temporary. It will disappear the moment the leadership makes some sort of decision. That is the real problem of Abu Mazen and Abu Ala: They will not be able to make decisions."
Fundamentalist wave
So what you are saying is that Arafat's death is liable to open the gates of hell?
"Two or three good people who are somehow trying to hold one another's hand and create a human chain that will prevent this development are not a solution. So I foresee two possibilities. The one that frightens me more is a fundamentalist wave in the Arab world that will wash over the Palestinian people. That is the most serious concern. But the timetable for that development is not clear. The Islamic revolution might break out in another 20 years or it could break out tomorrow morning. It might break out in Saudi Arabia or Egypt but it could also break out in Gaza or Ramallah. There's no way to know.
"There is also another possibility, of a more immediate character. Already today the Shin Bet [security service] is telling us that there are hundreds of Palestinians who are ready to become suicide bombers on any given day. That is the case with Arafat still here, with his restraining influence. But without Arafat there won't be five or six militant organizations but 50 or 60, or maybe 500 or 600. And no one will be able to control them. There will be no restraining entity to curb them. A chaotic situation of that kind will be terrible for the Palestinians first of all. But it will also make the lives of Israelis hell."
Aren't you completely ignoring the fact that the man was a terrorist?
"I was a terrorist, too. When I was 16, if my commander in Lehi had given me an explosive belt I would have taken it and I would have blown myself up amid civilians without any problem. So I don't have a sentimental attitude toward this matter of terrorism. I understand what violence is. And I know that a nation that is not offered a political solution resorts to violence. Therefore it was always clear to me that Arafat would resort to all means to realize the longings of the Palestinian people. He was not a violent person. I think he was a nonviolent person. But it was always clear to me that, as a national leader, he would resort to violence if the road of peace was blocked for him. I find that self-evident."
Don't you think that there was something especially violent in the Arafatist struggle? Wasn't there something pathological in the way the Palestinian national movement used violence, killing women and children?
"The only pathology is that allegation. The Algerians, for example, killed only civilians. Half a million people were killed in the war for Algeria. Immediately after the liberation 200,000 people were executed as collaborators. A million French citizens were expelled within days. So in comparison to the FLN, the war fought by the PLO is almost sterile. The Mau-Mau in Kenya also went from farm to farm, slaughtering families of whites. Not to mention Malaysia. And the Kurds. And the Irish. There is nothing exceptional in the Palestinians' methods of combat."
What about the suicide bombers? What about Arafat's talk of a million shaheeds – martyrs for the cause – marching on Jerusalem?
"I take a realistic view of that phenomenon. I ask myself two questions. Was there any other way? Could Arafat have prevented it? My answer to both questions is negative."
And the tragedy of Camp David? Does Arafat not bear any responsibility at all for the collapse of the peace process?
"It is Ehud Barak who bears that responsibility. Barak is the arch-idiot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is also the arch-criminal. A normal statesman, a statesman who is not a psychopath, would not say after the failure of the conference that there is no partner. He bears the main responsibility for the terrible loss of human life in the past few years. He is worse than Sharon."
You are generally a very critical person. Yet when it comes to Yasser Arafat you have no criticism at all. Did you never have any doubts of any kind about him? Did you never suspect that he might be using you?
"Of course he used me. I was perfectly aware of that. In various situations it was convenient for him to have an Israeli like me by his side. But, after all, that is why we met: so we could used each other for the cause that both he and I believed in."
Did you love him?
"I don't think love is the right word. But there was quite a deep connection between us."
Did you admire him?
"I held him in very high regard. As a human being, too. I like patriots. I hate traitors. And the fact that Arafat is a great Palestinian patriot went a long way toward determining my attitude toward him. We never talked about this, but underlying our relationship was the fact that we both knew what it is to kill as part of a national struggle. We both did that. He gave orders that caused the death of Israelis, and I was an Israeli soldier who killed Arabs. But in some way we met at the midpoint between the two armies. Like those soldiers in the First World War who came out of their trenches on Christmas Eve and celebrated together and then went back and killed one another."
Is there any connection between the fact that in 1948 you took an active part in the expulsion of Arabs and the destruction of Arab villages, and your later need to link up with Yasser Arafat?
"Definitely, definitely. I am very much aware of the fact that the State of Israel, which I helped establish, is built on a terrible historic injustice. I also know what I did in the war. I do not deny what I did in the war. And when I meet a Palestinian I always ask what village he is from. That is a totally compulsive question for me. And the response I get often mentions the name of a village in the conquest of which I took part, and I remember how it looked immediately after the conquest, when the stoves were still burning and the food on the table was still hot.
"Yasser Arafat is connected with this because he had pathos. He embodied the pathos of the Palestinian situation. I had an emotional closeness with that pathos. Because I, too, like Arafat, do not really have a private life. I have no life outside political life. And I see the pathos of this conflict. I see the two nations holding each other by the throat, unable to let go, not willing to relax their hold. And I want to undo that embrace of death."
Did you really think Arafat was a partner to that? Did you really think that he would be the person to end the conflict?
"It would have been possible to conclude matters with Yasser Arafat. Believe me, it could have been concluded. And I knew how. I knew what the conditions were. I am absolutely convinced that a person like me could have sat with Arafat for a month and emerged with a peace agreement. That is why I now have a feeling of a terrible missed national opportunity. I was certain he would live another 10 years. And for the past four years he sat here and we let the time go by. We let the opportunity go by. We lost an opportunity that will not recur. It is a terrible loss."
Final words
If you had a chance to hold a farewell conversation with him in Paris, what would you say to him?
"I would say a few things. I would tell him, You are a great leader. You did something for your people that no one else did. And I would say to him, Rest in peace. If he would wake up for a second and tell me that the thanks to him the Palestinian people will reach the land of peace and plenty, that might ease death for him."
Is there a sentiment of "farewell, friend"?
"Yes, absolutely. He is a sentimentalist, you know. When he was getting into the helicopter and blew kisses to the masses, Rahel [Avnery's wife] didn't like it. She thought it was ridiculous. But I thought otherwise. Because he already knew he wouldn't come back. That this was the end. And the kisses he blew to his people symbolically was his farewell. People who were there had tears in their eyes."
Are there tears in your eyes, too?
"I never cry. I didn't cry when my father died. I didn't cry when my mother died. But if I were a crying person, I would cry."
You are generally a very cold person, but in the past few days the grief suddenly grabbed you, didn't it?
"Without any doubt. We did so much together. And an emotional bond was formed that isn't easy to describe. So yesterday I found myself quoting what Hamlet said about his father: `He was a man, take him for all and all, I shall not look upon his like again.'"
So that is the feeling now? Missing him?
"When Issam Sartawi [an adviser to Arafat who held talks with Israelis in the 1970s] was assassinated, [Austrian chancellor Bruno] Kreisky told me, `It is very tragic when a friend dies, because at my age one doesn't make new friends.' And now a friend has died. But beyond that, I know there will not be another like him. There will not be another with whom I will have the same relationship. We will go on working. We will work with the new Palestinian leadership. But it won't be the same thing. The world without Arafat will not be the same world. Not for Israel and not for me."


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There is a growing awareness of a deeper malaise....the botched and dishonest War on Terror (WoT) is a saga of authoritarianism, war mongering, political opportunism, commercial interests, manipulation and a means of deflecting attention from real social challenges...
"...But the effort to depict Muslims as something other than "real Americans" has long been a centerpiece of the US political climate in the era of the War on Terror. When it was first revealed in 2005 that the Bush administration was spying on the communications of Americans without the warrants required by the criminal law, a Bush White House spokesman sought to assure everyone that this wasn't targeting Real Americans, but only those Bad Ones that should be surveilled (meaning Muslims)..."
"Fresh evidence is revealed today about how MI6 and the CIA were told through secret channels by Saddam Hussein's foreign minister and his head of intelligence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction.
Tony Blair told parliament before the war that intelligence showed Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programme was 'active', 'growing' and 'up and running'.
A special BBC Panorama programme tonight will reveal how British and US intelligence agencies were informed by top sources months before the invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programme, and that the information was not passed to subsequent inquiries".
"On a Sunday morning in November 1997, less than two days after I had arrived in Washington to take up the job of ambassador, I received an urgent call from Tom Pickering, one of the State Department's most senior officials.
Saddam Hussein, Pickering said, was once again defying the United Nations inspectors whose job it was to ensure that the Iraqi dictator was not concealing weapons of mass destruction. Would I come to his office the following morning to discuss what was to be done? From then on, Iraq was to run like a toxic stream through my time in the United States. It seems now almost inevitable that, after Saddam's defeat in the first Gulf war of 1991, when he was left wounded but still in power, there would have to be one day a settling of accounts between him and the Americans...In Clinton's presidency, there had been constant pressure from the hawks and the ideological hard Right of the Republican Party – the notorious 'neo-cons' – to bring down Saddam and conclude what was seen by them as the unfinished business of the first Gulf war....I remember being almost pinned against a wall after a concert at Washington's Kennedy Centre as Paul Wolfowitz furiously claimed that Saddam ran an al-Qaeda camp in northern Iraq. But, the case against Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11".
Sir Christopher Meyer, UK's Ambassador to US http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/9919816/Iraq-War-Sir-Christopher-Meyer-Im-with-you-whatever-Tony-Blair-told-George-Bush.html
"We're not in the middle east to bring sweetness and light to the whole world. That's nonsense. We're in the middle east because we and our European friends and our European non-friends depend on something that comes from the middle east, namely oil." – Midge Decter, author, May 21, 2004.
"Of course it's about oil, it's very much about oil, and we can't really deny that. From the standpoint of a solider who's now fought in the middle east for six years – my son-in-law's fought there for four years, my daughter's been over there, my son has served the nation – my family has been fighting for a long time." – Gen. John Abizaid, former commander of CENTCOM, October 13, 2007.
"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." – Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, in his 2007 memoir.
General Wesley Clark (ret): "About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon …. and one of the generals called me in. He said, 'We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq' …. I said, 'We're going to war with Iraq? Why?' …. He said, 'I guess they don't know what else to do.' So I said, 'Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?' He said, 'No, no.' He said, 'There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.' He said, 'I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments.' And he said, 'I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.'"
Paul Bignell writing in the Independent, 19th April 2011: "Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show... The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain's involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair's cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time...."
Helen Pidd writing in the Guardian, 17th February 2011 after revelations that an Iraqi agent had admitted to German intelligence of lying about Iraq's WMD. She quotes Germany's former foreign minister Joschka Fischer: "On the one hand we didn't want to withhold from the US any bit of relevant information we had about possible WMD in Iraq. On the other hand, we did not want to take part in any propagandistic exploitation of material, which was far from proven, to justify a war".
James Moore in The Independent, 23rd Dec 2010 writing on disruptions at Heathrow during the snow spell: "The most egregious example of this is the way passengers have been kept on planes and warned that they will be arrested under terrorism laws if they attempt to disembark".
Glen Ford in Commondreams.org: " The FBI -- first under George Bush and then even more aggressively under Barack Obama -- has fabricated the illusion of a wave of terror that did not, for the most part, exist. In doing so, the U.S. government has perpetrated at least two classes of crimes: one, against those it has directly entrapped and prosecuted for crimes conceived and executed by the government, itself; and the second, larger class of crime, conspiracy to deliberately deceive and terrorize the American people, for the purpose of depriving the American people of their civil rights, and to foment a public hysteria that would facilitate the launching of military attacks on other peoples."
Paul Craig Roberts in CounterPunch, 17th Oct 2010: "The 'war on terror'is now in its tenth year. What is it really all about?
The bottom line answer is that the 'war on terror' is about creating real terrorists. The US government desperately needs real terrorists in order to justify its expansion of its wars against Muslim countries and to keep the American people sufficiently fearful that they continue to accept the police state that provides 'security from terrorists,' but not from the government that has discarded civil liberties.
The US government creates terrorists by invading Muslim countries, wrecking infrastructure and killing vast numbers of civilians. The US also creates terrorists by installing puppet governments to rule over Muslims and by using the puppet governments to murder and persecute citizens as is occurring on a vast scale in Pakistan today.
Neoconservatives used 9/11 to launch their plan for US world hegemony. Their plan fit with the interests of Americaís ruling oligarchies. Wars are good for the profits of the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us in vain a half century ago. American hegemony is good for the oil industryís control over resources and resource flows. The transformation of the Middle East into a vast American puppet state serves well the Israel Lobbyís Zionist aspirations for Israeli territorial expansion...."
Daily Mail, 8th October 2010: "The U.S. has been accused by a top Pakistani diplomat of exaggerating the terror threat from Al Qaeda for political ends. Intelligence officials also suggested the White House has tried to 'stitch together' rumours of attacks to ramp up security fears....Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan's high commissioner to Britain, claims the U.S. warning was a bid to justify drone attacks in his country. And he also raised the prospect Washington was trying to show its strength ahead of next month's mid-term congressinal elections...
'If the Americans have definite information about terrorists and Al Qaeda people, we should be provided that and we could go after them ourselves. 'Such reports are a mixture of frustration, ineptitude and lack of appreciation of ground realities.'
European intelligence experts have also questioned the likelihood of a co-ordinated plot targeting Britain, France and Germany.
'To stitch together [the terror plot claims] in a seamless narrative is nonsensical,' one source told the paper."
Ed Milliband reported in the Guardian, 28th September 2010: "Miliband, who was not in parliament when the vote was taken on the invasion of Iraq, said this particular policy decision was 'wrong' . 'I do believe that we were wrong. Wrong to take Britain to war and we need to be honest about that,' he said."
Simon Jenkins in the Guardian, 28th July 2010: "I cannot avoid the conclusion that, just as the Pashtun are said to be "hardwired to fight", so now are certain western regimes. War is about sating the military-security-industrial complex, a lobby so potent that, long after the cold war ended, it can induce democratic leaders to expend quantities of blood and money on such specious pretexts as suppressing dictators in one country and terror in another."
Haroon Siddique in the Guardian 21st July 2010: "The former MI5 director general Eliza Manningham-Buller today delivered a withering assessment of the case for war against Iraq...In evidence that undermined the case for war presented by the former prime minister Tony Blair, she was asked whether it was feared Saddam could have linked terrorists to weapons of mass destruction, facilitating their use against the west. 'It certainly wasn't of concern in either the short term or the medium term to me or my colleagues,' she replied....Manningham-Buller said there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks on the US, a view she said was shared by the CIA and which prompted the then US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to set up an alternative intelligence unit."
Gareth Porter in AsiaTimes Online, 12th Feb 2010: "Evidence now available from various sources, including recently declassified United States State Department documents, shows that the Taliban regime led by Mullah Mohammad Omar imposed strict isolation on Osama bin Laden after 1998 to prevent him from carrying out any plots against the United States....The August 1998 US cruise missile strikes against training camps in Afghanistan run by bin Laden in retaliation for the bombings of two US embassies in East Africa on August 7, 1998, appears to have had a dramatic impact on Mullah Omar and the Taliban regime's policy toward bin Laden.
Two days after the strike, Omar unexpectedly entered a phone conversation between a State Department official and one of his aides, and told the US official he was unaware of any evidence that bin Laden 'had engaged in or planned terrorist acts while on Afghan soil'. The Taliban leader said he was 'open to dialogue' with the United States and asked for evidence of bin Laden's involvement, according to the State Department cable reporting the conversation. ..."
Simon Jenkins in The Guardian, 11th Feb 2010: "The so-called war on terror saw a politically weak American president seek popularity in redefining a criminal act as a 'war between states'. Tony Blair agreed. His assertion to the Chilcot inquiry that "9/11 changed everything" was self-serving. The attack was just the latest in a line of attempted terrorist atrocities by Islamist extremists, albeit one that succeeded horrifically.
To call such crimes acts of war gives them rhetorical force, but in no sense did al-Qaida or its imitators threaten the integrity or security of a western state. These countries are too strong for such threat to be meaningful. The only damage they can do beyond sudden carnage is self-inflicted, by governments that decide to react with exaggerated fear. Yet the pretence of 'going to war' has unleashed two of the most destructive, costly and prolonged state-on-state aggressions in half a century.
Brian Gould in The Guardian, 25th Jan 2010: "Why did he [Blair] support it [invasion of Iraq]? He had by this time convinced himself that he was a world statesman, equipped to partner George Bush in a duumvirate which would re-shape the world. Underpinned by a hitherto undeclared religious conviction, he increasingly saw the world in terms of absolutes ń good and evil, right and wrong. Like the American conservatives, but for moral and religious reasons rather than misplaced ideological opportunism, he could not resist the chance to strike a blow not only for enlightenment but for his own destiny.
This messianic posture was brilliantly exploited by the Bush administration. After six years of the increasingly tedious and vexatious business of governing Britain, what a wonderful confirmation of his destiny it must have been to receive the unalloyed plaudits of a fawning American establishment and media. The carping of domestic critics could safely be ignored when the world's greatest power recognised him as a saviour. We invaded a foreign country to assure Tony Blair of his place in history. The irony is that it will not be the one he had imagined."
Gary Yonge in The Guardian, 3rd Jan 2010: "During the Bush years that terror was routinely leveraged for the purposes of social control, military mobilisation and electoral advantage. Meanwhile, the administrative processes that might prevent the next attack were tragically lacking. In short, Bush's anti-terror strategy was not about protecting people but about scaring them.
To galvanise the nation for war abroad and sedate it for repression at home, the previous administration constructed a terror threat that was ubiquitous in character, apocalyptic in scale and imminent in nature. Only then could they counterpose human rights against security as though they were not only contradictory but mutually exclusive.
Al-Qaida was only too happy to oblige. In such a state of perpetual crisis both terrorists and reactionaries thrive. Terrorists successfully create a climate of fear; governments successfully exploit that fear to extend their own powers...."
Stephen Kinzer in The Guardian, 28th December 2009: "One way for the US to have reacted to the Soviet invasion would have been to cheer the Soviets' stupidity and wait patiently for Afghan resistance fighters to do their duty to history. This would have been a prudent, restrained policy, one of limited ambition and risk. It would have kept the US out of a dangerous place where it had not previously been entangled and which it did not know well.
Instead the US chose the opposite path: hyperactive engagement. The CIA launched its biggest operation ever, pouring billions of dollars into the Afghan resistance, matched dollar-for-dollar by Saudi Arabia. This operation contributed decisively to the Soviet defeat, culminating in the Red Army's retreat back across the Amu Darya in 1988.
America's decision to escalate this war also had other effects that only became clear later. It brought tens of thousands of foreign fighters, including Osama bin Laden, to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. With them these outsiders brought harsh forms of Islamic fundamentalism that had been little known in Afghanistan. Their influence ń Wahhabi fanaticism preached to Afghan resistance fighters in a war paid for by the US and Saudi Arabia ń gave birth to the Taliban. Pakistan served as eager midwife and quickly turned the Taliban into its proxy force in Afghanistan. Once in power, the Taliban offered a safe haven to al-Qaida, which prepared the September 11 attacks there.
...Thanks to the marvels of declassification, we now know precisely when America's engagement in Afghanistan was set in motion. It was on 26 December 1979, just two days after the Soviet invasion. President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, sent him a memo entitled 'Reflections on Soviet intervention in Afghanistan'. Carter endorsed it, and soon the CIA was funnelling huge amounts of money through Pakistan to fundamentalist warlords. A year later, after Ronald Reagan replaced Carter, American involvement further deepened.
'It is essential that Afghanistan's resistance continues,' Brzezinksi wrote in his historic memo:
This means more money as well as arms shipments to the rebels, and some technical advice. To make the above possible, we must both reassure Pakistan and encourage it to help the rebels. This will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, more arms aid and, alas, a decision that our security policy toward Pakistan cannot be dictated by our nonproliferation policy'."
The Guardian Politics Blogger at the Chilcot enquiry, 30th November 2009: Manning also wrote a memo...describing the outcome of a meeting that took place between Blair and Bush in the White House on January 31 2003. The memo shows that Bush was, by then, determined to invade regardless of what happened at the UN and that the two leaders discussed the idea of getting Iraq to shoot down an American spy plane painted in UN colours to create a pretext for war. Philippe Sands, the British law professor who revealed the existence of the memo, said it raised 'some fundamental questions of legality, both in terms of domestic law and international law'
Glenn Greenwald in commondreams.org, 27th November 2009: "Yesterday, the British Ambassador to the U.S. in 2002 and 2003, Sir Christopher Meyer (who favored the war), testified before the [Chilcot] investigative tribunal and said this: ... attitudes towards Iraq were influenced to an extent not appreciated by him at the time by the anthrax scare in the US soon after 9/11. US senators and others were sent anthrax spores in the post, a crime that led to the death of five people, prompting policymakers to claim links to Saddam Hussein. . .On 9/11 Condoleezza Rice, then the US national security adviser, told Meyer she was in 'no doubt: it was an al-Qaida operation' . . . It seemed that Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy, argued for retaliation to include Iraq.
But the anthrax scare had 'steamed up' policy makers in Bush's administration and helped swing attitudes against Saddam, who the administration believed had been the last person to use anthrax.
What makes this particularly significant is that the anthrax attack is unresolved and uninvestigated. The FBI claimed last year that it had identified the sole perpetrator, Bruce Ivins, but because Ivins is dead, they never had the opportunity -- or the obligation -- to prove their accusations in any meaningful tribunal. The case against Ivins is so riddled with logical and evidentiary holes that it has generated extreme doubts not merely from typical government skeptics but from the most mainstream, establishment-revering, and ideologically disparate sources. Just consider some of the outlets and individuals who have stated unequivocally that the FBI's case against Ivinis is unpersausive and requires a meaningful investigation..."
Declan Walsh in the Guardian, 24th November 2009: "British officials decided not to get involved in talk about regime change in Iraq in 2001 even though some parts of the new Bush administration began to discuss the possibility two years before the invasion, the opening hearing of the UK [Chilcott] inquiry into the war heard today."
Andrew Gavin Marshall in globalresearch.ca, 16th October 2009: "The war on Iraq, as well as the war on Afghanistan, also largely serve specifically American, and more broadly, Western imperial-strategic interests in the region. In particular, the wars were strategically designed to eliminate, threaten or contain regional powers, as well as to directly install several dozen military bases in the region, firmly establishing an imperial presence. The purpose of this is largely aimed at other major regional players and specifically, encircling Russia and China and threatening their access to the regions oil and gas reserves. Iran is now surrounded, with Iraq on one side, and Afghanistan on the other. "
Eric Margolis in Commondreams.org, 23rd August 2009: "The current war in Afghanistan is not about democracy, women's rights, education or nation building. Al-Qaida, the other excuse, barely exists. Its handful of members long ago decamped to Pakistan. The war really is about oil pipeline routes and western domination of the energy-rich Caspian Basin."
Oliver Knox, AFP, 21st August 2009: "Former US homeland security chief Tom Ridge charges in a new book that top aides to then-president George W. Bush pressured him to raise the 'terror alert' level to sway the November 2004 US election.
Then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and attorney general John Ashcroft pushed him to elevate the color-coded threat level, but Ridge refused, according to a summary from his publisher, Thomas Dunne Books."
Barrister Matthew Ryder in The Observer, 10th August 2009: "In December, I was appointed as one of the national role models for Reach. This is a government-supported scheme aimed at raising the aspirations and attainment of black boys and young men...research from the University of Kent reveals that role models who emphasise their material success are more inspirational to young black men. Importantly, they were more likely to be emulated than those role models who focused on moral and social respect....Initially, I rejected this way of appealing to boys, as a matter of principle. Perhaps romantically, I had always believed that the male role models who had influenced my life ń friends, relatives, my father and my uncle, even historical figures ń had not inspired me because of money.
....This challenge is not unique to the black community. Society as a whole is having to come to terms with this form of money-obsessed materialism. My work as a barrister frequently involves dealing with people accused of terrorist offences, so it is ironic that the most pervasive, pernicious and destructive 'extremist ideology', which I am confronting on a daily basis, is nothing to do with that. Rather, it is this extreme materialism, which prizes money and profit above all else, that exacts the highest social cost. 'Get rich or die trying' merely articulates a much larger sociopathy. It is a form of the same behaviour that brought our economy to the brink of collapse last year and has cost us hundreds of billions of pounds. We must combat it together."
Simon Jenkins, 13th October 2008
"...H L Mencken said practical politics was the business of 'keeping the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary'. Today's hobgoblin has been a war on terror. The credit crunch is not imaginary. It should cause government to concentrate on things that matter. It should mean no more macho distractions such as 42-day detention, extravagant surveillance and Home Office-generated anti-Muslim prejudice. There should be no more crazy defence projects and bloated security programmes. There may even be an end to the Titan prisons....."
Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian, 6th October 2008: "...Now, as it all totters, we can take stock. We can ask how and why the critique - of which Frank was a part and Polanyi the bible - which was emerging in the late 90s was crippled. The anti-globalisation movement argued that neoliberal capitalism was unjust, unstable and destructive to human and environmental wellbeing. Sounds sensible now, but at the time it mysteriously got smeared by association with anarchists with a penchant for smashing Starbucks' windows. The broad network of social grassroots movements - US unions, Mexican peasants, Indian farmers - were misnamed, misunderstood, ridiculed and ignored. There is no alternative, the politicians intoned mantra-like.
Then 9/11 and for the next seven years a sideshow was offered as a distraction with caricature villains and thriller drama. While eyes were on the absurd charade of the 'threat of Islamist terrorism to western civilisation', the real doomsday scenario that poses a far greater threat to western civilisation (whatever that is) was gathering pace right next to Ground Zero, in Wall Street...."
"As a professor of government at Harvard, Louise Richardson concentrated for many years on international security, with a special focus on terrorism ...Richardsonís argument, baldly stated, is that September 11 did not change the world; what changed the world was Americaís reaction. She also called for perspective. 'The 3,000 casualties inflicted by al-Qaeda, while enormous, pale in comparison to the 30,000 suicides and 16,000 homicides in the US that same year, not to mention the 42,000 Americans who died in car crashes ń 17,500 of them alcohol-related fatalities'."
James Randerson in the Guardian, 12th February 2009: " The Iraq war was just the first of this century's 'resource wars', in which powerful countries use force to secure valuable commodities for themselves, according to the UK government's former chief scientific adviser.Sir David King ...
'I'm going to suggest that future historians might look back on our particular recent past and see the Iraq war as the first of the conflicts of this kind - the first of the resource wars,' he told an audience of 400 in London as he delivered the British Humanist Association's Darwin Day lecture.
Implicitly rejecting the American and British governments' argument that they went to war to remove Saddam Hussein and search for weapons of mass destruction, he said that the US was very concerned about energy security and supply because of its reliance on foreign oil from unstable states. 'Casting its eye around the world - there was Iraq,' he said."


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Don't worry...you still have a shot at marrying into fame. From shocking splits to finalized divorces: summer's new bachelors and bachelorettes
Al Pacino Honored with 35th Annual AFI Life Achievement Award
at the 12th Annual Young Hollywood Awards, Wilshire Ebell Theater, Los Angeles, CA. 05-13-10
Your daily serving of hot, wacky, and just plain tacky celebrity sightings.
This month's best pics by our favorite celebs.
The gorgeous men of Hollywood you love to hate.
The 25 movies that started trends and gave us looks with staying power.
Forget Demi and Ashton. These celebrity spouses have some major age differences.


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Budget Accommodation Asia Sri Lanka Unawatuna Bed & Breakfasts Brinkhouse Guest House
A family run guest house with friendly people and a good service. The room and bed linen were clean and well organised. good breakfast and helpful owners.
Private Rooms From US$21 Photos Description Map Guest Reviews
Quite place with Lush Garden established in 1983 , near (1min walk) to Unawatuna Beach, Also 20m off the village road, not at the road edge
Three upstairs large clean & Comfortable Rooms with privacy in balconies, attached bathrooms with 24hr hot & cool Shower, Fans, nets, Furniture, Refrigerator etc.
One downstairs large clean Room with large veranda.
Brinkhouse is Sri Lankan family guest house,
Established in 1983 very quiet place and 1min walk. to the beach. House is surrounding with little taste of wild-life environment, birds, waranas and monkeys etc.
Guest house is highly recommended by previous guests in the past two decades.
Especially the Sri Lankan delicious meals are offering by friendly hosts.
Rooms, Situations and the meals are highlighted by our guests.
166B, Welledewalaya rd Yaddehimulla
Click here to enlarge map
This is a Trusted Review. Why?
A family run guest house with friendly people and a good service. The room and bed linen were clean and well organised. good breakfast and helpful owners.
This is a Trusted Review. Why?
I would not recommend the Brinkhouse. There are cheaper places in Unawatuna very close by with much better location and similar facilities. Also lots of places of same price but much better rooms. I feel we were misled by the reviews on this site.
We has three rooms, called luxury -anything but! one on the ground floor the door didn't shut and the curtains didn't fit- very ropey and not secure! The main problem is the location closed in back fom the road, totally airless, boiling hot with loads of mosquitoes-not somewhere you would want to while away a few hours with a beer and a book . it looked out onto an rough area with junk and stagnant water.
On the plus side the couple running it were charming and friendly and went out of their way to be helpful, giving us a huge and delicious breakfast. Loads of better places in Unawatuna I'm afraid folks and most best booked when you get here- booking online is v misleading and v limited compared to looking around yourself.
This is a Trusted Review. Why?
Great place to be in. Close to the beach, the jungle almost in the backyard with lots of different birds-monkeys-water monitors-wild cats-squirrels.
The couple running it are very nice and helpfull, they are really making your stay pleasent in every way I can think of.
This is a Trusted Review. Why?
very nice place! you can reach the beach within about 5 minutes. we were very satisfied with what we got for our money. really more than we expected for 20euro per day. the rooms are simple equipped but it's ok. an additional cupboard would be recommendable.
anytime again! really enjoyed our stay there!
Have you stayed here? Write a review
* The Customer Satisfaction score is based on a combination of ratings from Travellerspoint and external websites. The score of 76% for this property is based on ratings provided by 12 guests.
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|Amount Per Serving
|% Daily Value
|Chrysin Oroxylum indicum) (5,7-dihydroxyflavone)
|1000 mg
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Size: 240 Capsules
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240 Capsules
|Amount Per Serving
|% Daily Value
|Chrysin Oroxylum indicum) (5,7-dihydroxyflavone)
|1000 mg
What is chrysin?
Chrysin (5,7-dihydroxyflavone), also known as Flavone X, is a type of isoflavone molecule extracted from the Passiflora caerula plant, a member of the passion flower family. Chrysin is considered a phytoestrogen with antioxidant properties.*
How does Vitacost Chrysin support health?
Why choose Vitacost Chrysin?
About Vitacost
Vitacost nutritional products are manufactured to high standards of quality, efficacy and safety. Each Vitacost product meets or exceeds the standards and requirements set forth in the FDA's Code of Federal Regulation (21 CFR, 111) Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP).
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
As a dietary supplement, take 2 capsules with food daily, or as directed by a healthcare professional.
Store in a cool, dry place.
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Mysterious men have a way of showing up in Stephanie Plum's apartment. When the shadowy Diesel appears, he has a task for Stephanie—and he's not taking no for an answer.
Annie Hart is a "relationship expert" who is wanted for armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Stephanie needs to find her, fast. Diesel knows where she is. So they make a deal: He'll help her get Annie if Stephanie plays matchmaker to several of Annie's most difficult clients.
But someone wants to find Annie even more than Diesel and Stephanie. Someone with a nasty temper. And someone with "unmentionable" skills.
Does Diesel know more than he's saying about Annie Hart? Does Diesel have secrets he's keeping from Stephanie and the two men in her life—Ranger and Morelli? With Stephanie Plum in over her head, things are sure to get a little dicey and a little explosive, Jersey style!
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Read the full excerpt
Listen to this audiobook excerpt from Janet Evanovich's mystery novel Plum Lovin'. From #1 blockbuster bestselling author Janet Evanovich comes a Stephanie Plum novel that takes adventure, action, suspense (and maybe even true love?) to new heights. Mysterious men have a way of showing up in Stephanie Plum's apartment. When the shadowy Diesel appears, he has a task for Stephanie--and he's not taking no for an answer.
Blockbuster author Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels are:
"LAUGH-OUT-LOUD FUNNY."—St. Louis Post Dispatch
"HOT AND SASSY."—The Boston Herald
"Consistently craveable goodies."
"IRRESISTIBLE."—Houston Chronicle
"BRILLIANTLY EVOCATIVE."—Denver Post
"MUST READS."—Midwest Book Review
"OUTRAGEOUS."—Publishers Weekly
PLUM LOVIN' is:
"A perfect Valentine's Day bonbon, a dreamy comma in the numbered series."
"Hilarious and sexy."
—The Free Lance–Star
"A Valentine's Day treat…laughter guaranteed."—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
"Spicy…fun with a capital F."
—Asbury Park Press (New Jersey)
"A real treat."
—Lansing State Journal (Michigan)
"…filled with fun characters, outrageous moments, and off-the-wall humor."
—The Best Reviews
Janet Evanovich is the author of the Stephanie Plum books, including One for the Money and Sizzling Sixteen, and the Diesel & Tucker series, including Wicked Appetite. Janet studied painting at Douglass College, but that art form never quite fit, and she soon moved on to writing stories. She didn't have instant success: she collected a big box of rejection letters. As she puts it, "When the box was full I burned the whole damn thing, crammed myself into pantyhose and went to work for a temp agency." But after a few months of secretarial work, she managed to sell her first novel for $2,000. She immediately quit her job and started working full-time as a writer. After 12 romance novels, she switched to mystery, and created Stephanie Plum. The rest is history. Janet's favorite exercise is shopping, and her drug of choice is Cheeze Doodles. She and her husband live in New Hampshire, in house with a view of the Connecticut River Valley.
Janet Evanovich


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Centenarian surrounded by her friends, neighbors
- Last Updated on 06:32 AM 12/07/12
- BY Danielle Vaughn
Edith Rebecca Holsinger has spent her entire life taking care of others, and now at age 100 she feels very blessed to receive a helping hand from her loving neighbors.
"I have so many people helping me, I don't know who is helping me, and I appreciate every one of them," Holsinger said.
Born Dec. 3, 1912 to John Geil Holsinger and Lydia Ellen Beam, she was the youngest of five children. She had one brother, Floyd Oliver Holsinger, and three sisters, Rhoda Mae Holsinger, Gladys Holsinger and Clara Stella Holsinger, who died as an infant before Holsinger was born.
Her mother and father moved to the area from Harrisonburg where her father was a teacher. After they moved to South Boston, her father owned and operated a store in the Wolf Trap community selling groceries and fertilizer to farmers.
Holsinger grew up in the Wolf Trap area where she attended Wolf Trap School and later attended Halifax School up until the eighth grade.
"I went to school every day and had to study my lessons at night by lamplight," Holsinger recalled of her childhood.
The 100 year-old reminisced about her daily chores as a child, cleaning the chimney and feeding her cow, Pinky.
Holsinger was only 12 years old when her mother died of breast cancer on Dec. 30, 1924.
After finishing the eighth grade, Holsinger began working in the bleachery room at the Cotton Mill. During wartime, Holsinger said she worked at Collins and Aikman in Roxboro, N.C., where they made tents for the soldiers. After the war, they made dress material.
Holsinger went to work at J. P. Stevens after her stint at Collins and Aikman and remained employed there until she retired.
"I worked all my life. I thank the Lord I was able to work," Holsinger said.
According to Holsinger, she was the only one in her family to work a public job which kept her family going.
Holsinger was never married but was engaged to her childhood sweetheart, Lester Powell, who was her neighbor.
"I dated him all my life," Holsinger said.
For years, Holsinger said Powell took her to Scottsburg Baptist Church every Sunday where she is still a member. Holsinger received a pin for each year she attended church every Sunday, which added up to 28 years.
"I wouldn't have been able to do it without Lester," Holsinger said.
Like herself, Powell also took care of his family.
According to Holsinger, Powell would sell sweet potatoes and give a tenth of his profits to the Lord.
"The whole time I went with him he never broke a date with me," Holsinger said.
If he said he was going to be somewhere at a certain time, he was there, Holsinger added.
Powell died Oct. 17, 1980.
During the Great Depression Holsinger built a home for herself on Wolf Trap Road on land she bought from her father. She did not however move into the house until the early 1980s with her brother, Floyd, and her sister, Rhoda, who both suffered from heart problems.
Holsinger said she took care of her siblings until their deaths. Later, her sister, Gladys, moved into a house down the street, and when she became ill, Holsinger moved in to take care of her until her death in 2010. Gladys was 99 years old, only six months away from being 100 when she died.
Holsinger now resides in the home she built on Wolf Trap Road, and for years she served as a member of the Dan River Ruritan Club.
For her 100th birthday, her loving friends and neighbors, Dorcas Martin, Nancy Hazelwood, Linda Haley and Sharon Goode, took her to breakfast at South Boston Inn Bar and Grill to celebrate.


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I'm using CSS to define link colors, hover etc. and for all my formating instructions nothing is happening
I'm a bit stumped how to overcome this problem; I thought about maybe looking at an exterior plugin but that seems silly
First of all, thanks for taking a look, I appreciate the help.
I have a MainNavBar I use at the top of my page for navigation and I want the links to be obnoxiously red for testing purposes. Yet defining them this way has had no effect.
I went as far as removing all other link definitions in the css sheet and made sure there were no definitions on the page itself.
Here's the snippet of code from the style sheet.
#MainNavBar {
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: large;
font-weight: normal;
margin: 0px;
border-top-style: none;
border-right-style: none;
border-bottom-style: none;
border-left-style: none;
top: 10px;
position: relative;
text-align: right;
padding-right: 24px;
a.MainNavBar:link {
a.MainNavBar:visited {
a.MainNavBar:active {
a.MainNavBar:hover {
Text ID: PROBLEM_DEFINING_LINK_BEHAVIOR_IN_CLASS
To add a comment, please Log in.
I think you have to define the height and width of MainNavBar
sorry bout the spelling error!
First, I did not see your styles for the links on the style sheet you posted. None the less, I agree with the first comment, the active style must come after the hover style.
Order to specify styles for links: (use lower case!)
Try using the following selectors:
#MainNavBar a
#MainNavBar a:link
#MainNavBar a:visited
#MainNavBar a:hover
#MainNavBar a:active
You can group these selectors or some of them, just be sure to separate each selector with a comma.
Be sure to define these styles beneath the existing link styles specified under Element/Tag Selectors.
Do you have a url to the web page?
Try changing the order of the active and hover styles. I believe that if all behaviors are defined for a link, then "hover" style should come before "active."


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Last week Lee Brice took GAC's 'Celebrity Coaches' show behind the scenes for a peek at life on the road. The crew toured his bus, took in the concert and filmed a Parking Lot Party in full swing. We'll let you know when the piece is scheduled to air -- you won't want to miss it.
Oct. 10 Lee kicks off his House of Blues 'The Otherside Tour'. Currently out with Brad Paisley, this CMA nominee has celebrated three back-to-back No. 1 songs from his April 2012 'Hard 2 Love' project and is seeing 'Parking Lot Party' storm Country radio charts.


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July 30, 2014
WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama says sexual assault in the U.S. is an affront to basic decency and humanity.
He says if a woman who is assaulted feels like she doesn't have recourse, quote, "Shame on us."
Obama is speaking to his Council on Women and Girls on the day a new White House report is being released turning a spotlight on sexual assault, especially on college campuses.
Obama says sexual assault isn't just a crime against individuals. He says it tears apart families and communities. He says for survivors, the pain can last a lifetime.
Obama is touting steps his administration has already taken to crack down on sexual violence, including in the military. Earlier Wednesday, Obama met with members of his Cabinet to press them to address the problem.
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Celebrate your style at Aloft Kuala Lumpur Sentral, a hip new hotel where you'll be steps away from the city's main railway hub. We offer easy-breezy access to the new central business district, and Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) is a half-hour away.
Meet & mingle with friends at our w xyz(SM) bar, grab a sweet, savory, or healthy snack from re:fuel by Aloft(SM), our 24/7 pantry, or play in our re:mix(SM) lounge. Plus, you can always stay connected with free hotel-wide wired and wireless High Speed Internet Access!
Breeze into one of our Aloft rooms, featuring our ultra-comfortable signature bed, walk-in shower, custom amenities by Bliss® Spa, and more. Our plug & play connectivity station charges all your electronics and links to the 42" LCD TV to maximize work and play.


text: Fabricated from heavy duty stainless steel, the Allied Metal Bun/Sheet Pan Extender enables the baker to build a higher cake by extending the sides of the underlying sheet pan. Made from two strips of deburred stainless steel and therefore are not "joined" at the corners. This type of construction prevents breakage resulting from weak corners. The stainless steel insures that the extender will not discolor, chip or lose its structural integrity. Available in half size (pictured) or full size.


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Life Force International Review
What You Should Know
Click Here To See Our Highest Rated Review
Life Force International is a globally supplement company that started 25 years ago. As a result of a strange illness his wife Gerri came down with, Wanye Hillman began to start building supplements for her to take to get better. When he arrived at the combination of nine sea vegetables and aloe vera that made her feel better, he decided to start selling this product, known as Body Balance, to others and the company was born. Today, the company produces many other products as well, but liquid supplements is the main focus.
List of Ingredients
As there are several different products made by Life Force International, each product will have its own individual ingredient listing.
Product Features
Life Force International produces the following products: Body Balance, OsteoProCare, OsteoOmegaCare in both Chocolate and Vanilla, FlexeoPlus, AminoCharge w/AminoRegulator, True Greens, TruBoost, SunSet, Sun Bright, Dream Away, Herbal Body Wrap, Taheebo, Colloidal Silver, Herbal Tabs, Activated Charcoal, and Intestinal Tone. Body Balance works to support all the body's systems. OsteoProCare works to help the bones and joints. OsteoOmegaCare is for the heart and bones. FlexeoPlus is also designed to help the joints, building back some of what we lose over the years. AminoCharge is to help people build muscle. True Greens provides the nutrition of eating greens, without having to. TruBoost is a drink designed to combat stress. SunSet helps to relax and calm you. Sun Bright helps to energize you. Dream Away helps you sleep. The Herbal Body Wrap is designed to help keep the skin vibrant, healthy, and happy. Taheebo helps support the immune system. Colloidal Silver is almost pure silver for health benefits. Herbal Tabs are designed to help battle intestinal issues. Activated Charcoal helps to cleanse the colon to remove toxins. Intestinal Tone is a fiber supplement..
- There are products for everyone.
- Everything is all natural.
- None of these products are directly related to weight loss.
- There are no customer testimonials.
- The products are sold through a direct sales system.
- There are no free trials.
- Some products are only available in bulk.
If you are looking for supplements designed for your overall health, this is the company you may want to consider. While they have things like fiber that will help keep you fuller for longer and improve regularity, nothing is designed specifically for weight loss. We suggest you find a proven supplement and use it with a balanced diet and exercise program for best results.


text:
Results 1 to 5 of 43
Thread: Doctor Who Name Quiz!!
August 11th, 2012 04:42 PM #1Senior Member
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Location
- Florida
- Posts
- 165
Doctor Who Name Quiz!!
Boy 1:
First Name: What Letter Does Your Name Start With? (Characters in Doctor Who)
A-E: Doctor
F-K: Jack
L-P: Oliver
Q-T: Rory
U-Z: Wallace
Middle Name: What Is Your Favorite David Tennant Doctor Who Episode? (Characters in Doctor Who)
Blink: Jeremy
Doomsday: Mickey
Journey's End: Wolfgang
Midnight: Jimmy
The End Of Time: Matt
Girl 1:
First Name: Who Is Favorite Girl Companion? (The actresses names)
Rose: Billie
Martha: Freema
Donna: Catherine
Amy: Karen
TARDIS: Suranne
Middle Names: Who Is Your Favorite Doctor? (A feminization of their name)
7: Sylvia
8: Paulina
9: Christina
10: Davina
11: Matilda
Boy 2:
First Names: Favorite Matt Smith Doctor Who Episode? (Random Names)
Amy's Choice: Brady
Flesh and Stone: Jaques
The Hungry Earth: Sawyer
The Time of Angels: Terrance
Vincent and the Doctor: Winfred
Middle Names: Who Is Your Second Favorite Doctor? (The actors names)
1: William
2: Patrick
3: Jon
4: Tom
5: Peter
6: Colin
Girl 2:
First Names: Who Is Favorite Boy Companion? (The Feminizations of the actors names)
Rory: Arlie (girl version)
Mickey: Casey (girl version)
Samson: Michelle
Henry: Chrissianne
Jack: Johanna
Middle Names: Who Is Your Favorite of the Actors Wives? (Just take her name)
Georgia Moffett- David Tennant's Wife
Annie Milner- Paul McGann's Wife
Marion Wyatt- Colin Baker's Wife
Elizabeth Morton- Peter Davison's Wife
Sue Jerrard-Tom Baker's Wife
Hope you liked this one!
-Lili Wyatt
August 11th, 2012 04:49 PM #3Senior Member
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Location
- Florida
- Posts
- 165
August 11th, 2012 04:57 PM #5Boys: William Thomas "Wills" | Elias Christian | Malcolm James | Vincent Theo | Isaac Augustus
Girls: Alice Genevieve | Audrey Eleanor | Ivy Arabella | Deirdre Violet | Miranda Yvaine
Guilty Pleasures: Eglantine | Oisin | Zipporah | Etienne | Mitzi | Lidewij
August 11th, 2012 05:58 PM #7
Jack Jeremy (though Midnight is a close second, but Jack Jimmy sounds horrid!)
Suranne Davina (though Matilda is doing a fab job imo)
Winifred Colin (though I've never watched the early episodes, is Winifred a boys name?)
Arlie Sue (though I've never seen any of their wives, I'm not big on celebrity personal lives--just don't care)
fun quiz though! I'm so excited for new episodes!Olivia/Livia/Livy/Liv : Thessaly/Darah/Bethel : Noelle/Eve
Benedict/Eli: Jude/Zane: Luke/Darius : Levi/Phineas/Calvin
August 11th, 2012 06:53 PM #9Senior Member
Mabel // Juniper // Adelaide // Rosalind // Delaney // Winifred // Cecilia // Dorothy // Margaret // Georgia
- Join Date
- Nov 2010
- Location
- British Columbia
- Posts
- 2,420
Everett // August // Edward // Julian // Ronan // Theodore // Kingston // Nathaniel // Archer // Gabriel


text:
Join this community!
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So I just spent the last hour conquering a decent Facebook cover
image for my like page, that wouldn't break the terms of service or
rules Facebook has on them. Now while I feel good about the simple
design (and color choices) I do feel the need for a second opinion.
Please feel free to be brutally honest!
I love it! You did a great job.
Thank you very much Liz! :)
I just checked it out and you did a fine job indeed. I keep
geeting frustrated with mine and coming back to it. Maybe I'll get
it one day. Great community. I would like your rfeedback about my
blog's design. bluntdinerz.com. LMKWYT. Have a good one. I'm
looking forward to getting tips from you. In fact, I just came
across a very interesting site called 'tensies,' that has people
buying and selling all kinds of services for $10. I was trying to
think of a 'micro-gig' I could sell, but you would have an easy
time with your skills and knowledge.
Thank you very much for the compliments Ivfrankg! :)
I have to say I like the simplicity of your site's design. It's
very clean and easy to maneuver. Which maybe it's just me, but I
find to be two important key factors. Not everyone is web savvy.
The only thing I noticed was your cover image on Facebook page
(which btw I did like) seems a bit stretched out to fill the space.
Maybe try creating an new image - even if it's just a white
background, to throw your logo on so it views normally and not so
Sounds like an interesting site ('tensies'), but I've never heard
of it. Mind sharing the URL?
Thanks a ton for the feedback and Iyou are right, it is a
stretched image. I will have to work on it. The url for tensies is
You are welcome! And thank you for the link! :)
Just be friendly! Thank you!


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Description¡Follow the Liga BBVA with Liga Tweets!
With Liga Tweets Pro, you could read news, the lastest tweets of all your favorite players, see the match schedule and recieve notifications when a team scores.
Link To This App At AndroidPIT
Thank you for your interest in putting a link to this app at AndroidPIT on your website. The HTML code below creates a button that will lead your visitors directly to this app's details page.
Option 1 (green button):
Option 2 (black button):


text:
Skip to Content
Add beans, like kidney, black or lentil, to make a quick and easy meatless dish.Get More Tips →
You can complete this challenge, too! Our plant protein guide and journal can help.Use These Guides →
Try these healthy plant protein recipes to help prevent muscle loss.Browse Recipes →
Chicken and fish aren't the only healthy protein swaps for red meat – plant-based proteins are also healthy options. Plus, swapping plant proteins for animal proteins can help prevent muscle loss and help you maintain a healthy weight to lower your cancer risks.


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I always thought while growing up the term "spring fever" was just something made up by grown-ups to explain away the seeming tired experience I always felt this time of year.
You know, when you couldn't get out of bed one fine spring morning to go to school, and your mom said it was just spring fever.
Since spring, or the vernal equinox, just passed us by brief days ago, it seems logical to look at spring in the context of history.
From everything I can find, spring fever is nothing more than a nebulous temporary mood, characterized by a tired feeling that comes over the body, with energy seeming to be in very short supply.
Since springtime in the Northern Hemisphere runs from mid-March into June, many of us seem more sensitive to changes in weather, accompanied by achy joints, irritability and headaches. Inevitably, allergies seem to hit with regularity.
There are many thoughts on this seeming unexplained miasma we are saddled with come March of every year.
The "happiness hormone" is serotonin, which depends on sunlight for brain release, and has been exhausted in our bodies over winter clouds and shorter days, and is said to make melatonin — the sleep hormone — have greater effect.
As the body adjusts to the change in temperature and sunlight levels, it makes sense we feel a little different at equinox — when day and night hours are roughly equal.
For anyone that travels from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere with any regularity, it must be most disconcerting to find you left at the start of spring, only to arrive below the Equator at the start of fall. Yikes!
Our long-ago forebears had a keen interest in the change in seasons, and noted them often in rituals and feasts and marginally religious observances.
In Russia, for example, they prepare for spring after the very hard and extreme Russian winter by having Maslenitsa — Pancake Week — marked by families gathering to eat pancakes, accompanied by sledding on snows that remain from winter, burning scarecrows and bonfire jumping.
Seems a little California to me, maybe without the snow.
Be that as it may, astrology is very much attuned to the changing seasons.
The Astrological New Year doesn't begin Jan. 1 as with the rest of the Gregorian Calendar world.
The vernal equinox opens up the year for astrologers on March 20, when the sun changes into the fiery Aries and banishes winter's chill.
Ancient people have been marking spring for many thousands of years — before the Easter bunny, before we had stores that put out bedding plants, before shovels, rakes and hoes began a spring store mark-up trumpeting an end to cold and snow.
The Giza Plateau's Great Sphinx was constructed more than 4,500 years ago, and it faces due east on the vernal equinox.
While some in the Flat Earth Society still may call this a coincidence, I'm quite sure the ancients were much more attuned to changes in season than we are today.
I mean, they didn't simply have a transition when they changed their thermostats from heat to air conditioning in the days of the pharaohs.
They actually paid attention to nature's adjustments.
Monoliths like Stonehenge in England — at least 3,000 years old — mark the position of the rising sun on the vernal equinox.
In Central America, the ancient Mayan Caracol Tower and sun and moon temples all are aligned to coincide with the sun's spring equinox position.
For them, it meant life and death. Not having a grocery or convenience store on every corner had to have been a bummer for the ancients.
They actually never took the changing seasons for granted as we do in our sterile, techno world.
Choosing times to plant crops was all they thought about. No crops meant no food for the many little Druids and Egyptians and Mayans running about in antiquity.
In Persia they celebrated Nowruz, which means "new day."
In China, they observe Chunfen on the vernal equinox.
In ancient Europe, from whence the majority of Colonial Americans sprang, they celebrated the arrival of the goddess of spring — Ostara, or Eostre.
Some historians believe the name Easter actually gets its name from Eostre, the goddess who possessed an enchanted rabbit that could lay eggs. Thus Eostre eggs!
I doubt we will ever really know what went on in the minds of our ancient relatives.
Much of what they did and thought has been lost to time.
For me, as I battle spring fever and a forlorn attempt to get outside in the sun and break winter's chill, I say "pass the pancakes!"
Observing this vernal equinox, I'm going to try bonfire jumping and maybe burning a couple of scarecrows.
By the way, any of you out there have a scarecrow I can borrow?
Christy is news editor at the Enid News & Eagle. Go to his column blog at http://enid news.com/historicallyspeaking


text:
Safari Books Online is a digital library providing on-demand subscription access to thousands of learning resources.
44 The Wild Idea Club layers and layers of red tape to get through to make it a reality. Plus, the owner of the mall was a giant corporation, and this would be a precedent-setting decision. So Lynn did what she did whenever there was a challenge that needed innovative thinking--she started a Wild Idea Club and invited everyone, from the property manager to the vice president of her com- pany, to attend. Not only did she land the valet-parking ar- rangement she sought, but the mall management even added a car-detailing service as an option for patrons who wanted to have their cars cleaned while they shopped. < < < Sadly, it was during this time that Dave, Lynn's mentor and friend, had died unexpectedly. If it weren't for him and his be- lief that everyone in the company could be counted on for a good idea (or three), she would have never made it this far. Not


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The utility's role is changing, and regulation must change along with it – to spur innovation and respond to evolving customer needs. Modernizing the industry will require a dynamic approach.
Paying with Plastic
Customers demand real choices for bill payment.
acceptance should be viewed as a strategic investment in expanding customer engagement electronically—a capability that utilities and energy service providers need in order to attain wide-scale adoption of smart-grid customer programs. In this regard, utilities and regulators need to understand that payment card interchange and TPP fees are relatively small costs to absorb when considering the growth opportunities posed by customer-facing smart grid offerings. While enabling growth in credit, debit and prepaid cards for bill payment isn't the end game, it is a key part of the solution if utilities are to deliver on their customers' expectations.
1. Aite Group online survey of 500 consumers, January 2008.
2. The Electronic Payments Study by Dove Consulting on behalf of the Federal Reserve System, March 2008.
3. Estimating the Cost of Being Unbanked , by Tyler Desmond and Charles Sprenger, The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Spring 2007.
4. The Environmental Impact of Mail: A Baseline , PitneyBowes sponsored study, June 2008.


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|For Family & Caregivers
If someone near to you has been diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), it affects you as well as that person. Whatever your relationship, this is the place for you to find what will make both of your lives easier.
The person with AMD has their own journey. It is your journey that starts here. Understand….Advocate…Help…and take care of yourself as well!
UnderstandLearn what you need to know about how AMD affects the person who has it. How does he see? What can he do? How is she likely to be feeling?
In the current healthcare environment, it is essential to have an advocate on your side. The person dealing with a health issue is focused on the experience. You can help by being there to gather information, ask questions and make sure the patient gets what is needed.
HelpDoes Dad need my help walking outside? Can my Mom see what she's doing at the stove? What kind of help does my neighbor want? How do I help without making her embarrassed? Where can you go for more help? Vision Rehabilitation, independent life skills, support groups? Resources for transportation and social connections?
Sighted Guide TechniquesInterested in being a Sighted Guide? Learn these simple tips and techniques to help make both of your lives easier.
The Gifts of CaregivingThere are many gifts you can receive as a Caregiver.
And remember, we are as close as an email or phone call away!