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More than a dozen abortion clinics in Texas won't reopen tomorrow. The federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Thursday afternoon allowing state officials to immediately begin enforcing the second part of House Bill 2 (the one that state Sen. Wendy Davis famously filibustered agains ... More >>
Across the state, private companies are able to slash their property-tax assessments, but homeowners aren't as lucky with their county appraisal districts.
The old AstroWorld site, the Dallas Country Club, Valero refineries in the San Antonio and Port Arthur areas, and Western Refinery out in El Paso are a handful of high-end properties that have ditched millions of dollars in property taxes to the detriment of school districts, firefighters and emerge ... More >>
About an hour after the close of the second special session of the 83rd Texas Legislature Gov. Rick Perry did what he said he would and called a third special session roughly an hour if the second special session -- the one where the state lege pushed through the anti-abortion bill but choked again ... More >>
There are times when snarky blogs about the state of the music industry seem wildly out of touch. This would be one of those times. Another special session convenes today in Austin, with the Texas Legislature's agenda scheduled to address Senate Bill 5, which would virtually eliminate access to abo ... More >>
In 2012, the Harris County Appraisal District valued Robert Mandala's modest Spring home at $59,500. The property-tax agent who represented Mandala said HCAD, while establishing a value, purposely ignored the lower priced homes in the neighborhood and grabbed sales numbers from the most expensive pr ... More >>
As new mothers know, infants are not the most patient people when it comes to getting fed. If they get hungry, and you're a breastfeeding mom who hasn't brought along a bottle of your best, then it's time to whip out a breast. In Texas, if you happen to do that in the establishment of someone who ... More >>
A state district judge ruled today the method Texas uses to fund its schools is unconstitutional and unfair and must be overhauled. Ruling in a suit brought by the Houston school district and other districts, Judge John Dietz said the state has not met the basic requirements of fairness in funding ... More >>
Honestly, I thought George Foreman had a lot of Georges in his family, but now I'm beginning to wonder if the Bush clan doesn't have him beat. First there was George H.W. Bush, then George W. Bush. Now, there's George P. Bush (maybe even P.G. if you count his second middle name), son to Jeb and gran ... More >>
State Senator Mario Gallegos, a member of the legislature for two decades and a thorn in the side of the Houston school district for much of that time, is gravely ill, a spokesperson says. Gallegos, 62, is hospitalized in Houston. "Senator Gallegos' family is at his side during this difficult time ... More >>
The Texas GOP's lengthy effort to create redistricting maps that federal judges say don't discriminate against minorities hit another snag today when a three-judge panel in D.C. threw out the latest plan. The judges said the proposed maps failed to meet fairness standards using various tests and an ... More >>
Texas voters, even in the midst of a so-called "conservative uprising," managed to elect the first openly gay woman to the Texas House on Tuesday night. Mary Gonzalez, to be more specific, will be both the first woman to win House District 75 in El Paso and the second openly gay candidate to secure ... More >>
Truth or Dare at HISD.Trustee Larry Marshall denied any conflicts of interest in his trip to Costa Rica no matter what the Houston Chronicle says. Anna Eastman said she isn't a "teacher basher" even though she knows some people think she is. And Board President Paula Harris saluted her friend ... More >>
Jim BrickerZZ Top at The Woodlands, September 2010After years of hemming and haw-haw-haw-hawing about how far along it is, who they are working with, and whether or not it even actually exists, ZZ Top singer/guitarist (Rev.) Billy F. Gibbons said the trio plans to release its first studio alb ... More >>
Before the Texas Legislature did something completely predictable and sold out the state's public schools declared Western Swing the state's official music, it did something slightly less predictable and appointed two people not from Austin or the Hill Country as the next two official state m ... More >>
News Flash: Hank Williams still not a Texan nodepression.comBob "Willis" & His Texas PlayboysIt appears Rocks Off's efforts of a few weeks ago were all for naught. Despite presenting what we thought was a fairly persuasive San Jacinto Day argument to the contrary, earlier today the Texas L ... More >>
Using any of these will void the policy.With NASA getting out of the shuttle business, the next big thing is expected to be space tourism. It can be a dangerous thing, but luckily there is the Texas Legislature to make sure, as they always do, that no one can sue a company for pretty much an ... More >>
Happy San Jacinto Day, fellow Texans and people who wish they were; i.e. everyone else. If you don't know why today is special, shame on you. But since us Texans are a friendly sort, allow Rocks Off to fill you in. On April 21, 1836, Texian forces under Gen. Sam Houston (aka "Big Drunk") lau ... More >>
North-south cycling trails could be a go!
Readers rant about strict Texas food laws.
Matthew McConaughey possibly has experimentedThe 82nd session of the august Texas Legislature will no doubt end as all the others have, without decriminalizing marijuana even for medical use. (We're just going out on a limb here with this prediction.) More and more states seem to be getting ... More >>
Local movement fights for cottage food bill.
Study of Teach For America's worth says little.
Teach for America: Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. Now pay usAnyone who's been holding his breath waiting for the Texas Education Agency to release its evaluation of the Teach For America program in the state can let it out now -- along with a sigh of disappointment. Tasked by the Texas Le ... More >>
State reps, get ready for your close-upThe Daily Show is getting ready to show America just how progressive, intelligent and open-minded the Texas Legislature is -- check that, we are now informed they are going to show the Lege for what it is. The Austin American-Statesman's capitol blog re ... More >>
Judge Kevin Fine: RejectedThe Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has permanently shut down district judge Kevin Fine's quixotic and headline-grabbing effort to examine the constitutionality of how Texas applies the death penalty. In an order issued this morning, the CCA says Fine had no busines ... More >>
Come for the budget-cutting, stay for the insanityWe regret to inform you that 2011 is one of those godforsaken years when the Texas Legislature will be in session. We further regret to inform you that Republicans have a supermajority in the House, and almost half of those GOPers are proud m ... More >>
TFA: It's about to be auditedThe Texas Education Agency has until January 31 to submit a report to the Texas Legislature that asks whether the much lauded Teach for America is doing much good for the low-income students in Texas. The Lege allocated TFA $8 million over last year and this year ... More >>
Texas is a big winnerRepublicans in the Texas Legislature have already been salivating over the opportunity to redraw Congressional districts with little to no interference from those annoying Democrats. The U.S. Census just handed them another gift: Four more seats to mess with. A 20 perce ... More >>
Debbie Riddle's got a full plateMonday was the first day to pre-file bills for the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature, and Tomball State Rep. Debbie Riddle famously camped out to get first crack at things. She filed nine bills. Not all of them deal with the Brown Menace attacking the ... More >>
Mystery fans mourn the passing of a Houston bookseller
And they're off....Is the Texas horse race industry in a death spiral? That seems to be the concern in a report filed today by Steven Long of Horseback Magazine who spent today with the Texas Racing Commission at Sam Houston Race Park.According to Long, Andrea Young of Sam Houston said the park's ... More >>
Plus: Darkhorse Rides In
But hey, that's not stopping Noise.
The Texas Legislature is moving forward with a bill allowing concealed handguns on college campuses. Not a fan of the move: The University of Houston faculty senate. They've passed a resolution opposing the legislation.Not a fan of the faculty resolution: Some UH students.Seth Chandler, the law prof ... More >>
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Texas Advanced Directive Act, which allows a hospital to discontinue life-sustaining treatment against the wishes of the patient or patient's family. And to celebrate, the Texas Legislature held hearings this week on an amendment to change the controve ... More >>
As we close in on rodeo time at the 2009 version of the Texas Legislature, education funding, as usual, will be one of the main topics. And in a dour economy, it's no secret that the degree-of-difficulty factor has just been ramped up a couple extra notches.We caught up with Scott Hochberg (D-Housto ... More >>
Dan Patrick -- hyperbolic talk-show host, slightly unhinged state senator -- has joined the Twitter world.Normally, that wouldn't be too exciting, as his Twitter page proves ("Getting ready for the 81st Texas Legislature session").But the decision gave his compadres at Lone Star Times the chance to ... More >>
Ah, Bo Pilgrim -- it takes a tough man to go from passing out checks on the floor of the Texas Legislature to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but you've done it.Pilgrim's Pride, the toast of Pittsburg, Texas, announced today that it's seeking bankrputcy protection "in an effort to address certain ... More >>
All artwork courtesy of balineseroom.net "Deep in the South of Texas not so long ago, there on a crowded island in the Gulf of Mexico It didn't take too much money, man, but it sure was nice. You could dance all night if you felt all right, drinking whiskey and throwing dice. And everybody know ... More >>
Going to college this year? Sending your kid? Here's something to keep in mind: In the five years since the Texas Legislature approved tuition deregulation, the cost of attending a state college has gone up more than 125% at some schools. Ouch. Rates for tuition and fees at University of Houston ... More >>
If history is any indicator, there will be no justice for Mama Cat. Opening arguments started yesterday in the trial of 54-year-old bird-watching enthusiast James Stevenson, who last fall climbed below the toll bridge that links Galveston to the mainland and used a .22-caliber rifle to destroy the ... More >>
Oil is slick stuff. The oil business can be even slicker. And within the industry, Houston-based Weatherford International may be the slipperiest of all. Yep, that Sudan. According to Fortune Magazine, the oil giant is drilling in Sudan, despite the fact that the US Congress has prohibited Ame ... More >>
For ten years, Martha Claussen has been the public relations director at Sam Houston Race Park. She is that rarest of pr people: Gets information to journalists quickly, is very knowledgeable about the industry she represents, steps aside after setting up interviews and doesn't fudge on her facts. ... More >>
Debra Danburg swears she'll defend your right to open government. But when it comes to Internet campaign finance reports, ignorance is bliss.
Log Cabin Republicans want to be part of the GOP, which wants no part of them
Businessman John Privett thought he had a solution to the problems of some of Houston's troubled schools. The parents wanted to try it. The teachers wanted to try it. But HISD administrators said no.
The drinking beats the dining at the new Village Brewery


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Brian Newberry
Currently: RI House - District 48
Represents: Smithfield and Burrillville
First Elected: 2008
House Minority Leader
Member, House Health, Education and Welfare Committee
Member, House Municipal Government Committee
Member, House Rules Committee
Brian C. Newberry (R) represents District 48 in North Smithfield and Burrillville. He was elected House Minority Leader, the highest ranking Republican in the House, in May 2011.
First elected in District 48 in November 2008, Leader Newberry previously served as Minority Whip. Leader Newberry is a member of the House Labor Committee and House Rules Committee. He also serves on the House Municipal Government Committee.
An attorney specializing in commercial litigation and professional malpractice defense, Leader Newberry is a Partner in the law firm of Donovan Hatem LLP. He earned his Juris Doctorate, Magna Cum Laude, from Temple University School of Law, in 1996. Leader Newberry received his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and earned his high school diploma at Choate Rosemary Hall in 1989.
A Little League and Soccer Association Coach, and member of Central Congregational Church, Leader Newberry is the former Vice-Chairman of the North Smithfield Republican Town Committee and was the former Chairman of the North Smithfield Juvenile Hearing Board.
Born on December 10, 1971, he is married to Elizabeth and they have three children, Diane, Liam and Aidan.
53 Follett Street
North Smithfield, RI 02896
(401) 765-1069

subset: commoncrawl


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The economy is sluggish, airlines are going bankrupt and a president named Bush is trying to rally the allies for war in the Persian Gulf.
That familiar scenario makes South Florida hotel owners cringe. They got clobbered after the 1991 war against Iraq -- travel slowed and many lodgings fell into foreclosure when they couldn't make mortgage payments.


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How to join the Register
This section contains all the information and documents that you will need to make your application to join the Register. Before completing the Application Form, please ensure you have read the following information:
- Criteria for Entry
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All applications which meet the criteria are considered by the Selection Panel. Applications take approximately two to three weeks to process but may take longer if the application form is incomplete or additional material is needed. An interpreter's application is valid for one year from the month they are accepted onto the Register. Each interpreter must renew their listing annually.
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Library Services
IT Services
Faculty & Staff Tools
For more information about College Readiness contact:
The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at IUPUC along with Indiana State University and Purdue University Calumet, was awarded grant funds to ensure greater clarity in the expectation for college readiness and success as well as to lead and promote a greater alignment between K-12 and higher education. This initiative is funded by Lumina Foundation. The Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL) is the project management organization in partnership with the Indiana Commission for Higher Education (ICHE).
Partners in the Postsecondary Regional College Readiness Partnership include:
The partnership is comprised of K-12 and postsecondary practitioners and administrators and will support better curricullum alignment across institutions.
You can learn more about alignment through these resources:
By bringing college instructors and high school teachers in the math and English language arts (ELA) departments together, we aim to improve student readiness and success for college and beyond. The math and ELA groups consist of prominent college instructors from IUPUC, and Ivy Tech and leading area high school teachers.


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Christmas Bazaar
A Christmas Bazaar will be held at Mountain View Community Church, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 12. The church is at 1191 Meadowlark Way off state Highway 78 and Ash Street.
Related posts:
- Mountain View church invites vendors to Christmas Bazaar
- Shoppers invited to St. Mary's in the Valley Oct. 15 Fall Bazaar
- Room for more quilts in annual show
- Back Country Quilters annualQuilt Show continues Saturday
- Quilters complete plans for annual show
Short URL: http://www.ramonasentinel.com/?p=7400
Posted by Karen Brainard on Nov 5 2011. Filed under Arts/Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry


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WASHINGTON - A nonprofit in Herndon is in disbelief after they found three of their therapy horses had been attacked and required veterinary attention.
The three horses were stabbed overnight on Wednesday at the farm where they're kept on the 2600 block of Centreville Road, near Frying Pan Park.
The animals are a part of the Spirit Open Equestrian Program, a therapeutic riding center for autistic kids and disabled adults. The center has six horses total, but only two small enough for children, both of which were attacked along with one larger horse.
"It does therapy for children, adults and veterans," says Jayna Rossi, a volunteer. "It just breaks my heart."
A neighboring farm has loaned Spirit some horses so classes can continue, but the children's program has been suspended for one week.
Frying Pan Park officials say a white man was seen stumbling around the park around 11 a.m. on Thursday. He is described as about 5 feet 8 inches and 160 pounds. Police don't know if he was involved in the incident.
The injuries are not thought to be life threatening and the horses are expected to recover.
Anyone with information is asked to call Fairfax County Police, (703) 691-2131.
WTOP's John Aaron contributed to this report. Follow WTOP on Twitter.
(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)


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Orange juice prices jumped to a four-month high this week as the USDA reduced its estimate for Florida's orange crop by more than 5 percent.
Florida is the United State's largest orange producer and accounts for around a quarter of global orange juice production. Crop forecasts were reduced because of dry weather and premature fruit dropping in Florida.
Large portions of the state had nearly no significant rainfall for more than six weeks in November and December.
Some analysts warn there have not yet been any significant forecasts of freezing weather to hit Florida's orange production. Should that change, orange juice futures could surge higher on fears the crop could be damaged by freezing temperatures, a phenomenon that traders refer to as the "frost premium" in orange juice prices.
As of midday Friday, frozen concentrated orange juice for delivery in January was trading at $1.38 per pound.
Natural gas prices soar
Natural gas prices fell for the seventh consecutive trading session on Friday, dropping to the lowest price in more than three months. Prices are falling as U.S. natural gas inventories continue to climb amid warmer-than-usual weather across much of the country.
In normal years, natural gas inventories are usually being drawn down at a rate of more than 100 billion cubic feet per week by mid-December, but last week, inventories rose by 2 billion cubic feet.
Rising supplies, along with ongoing concerns about the looming fiscal cliff, caused natural gas to fall as low as $3.26 per million British thermal units, down as much as 29 cents (- 8.1 percent) during the week.
As a result of the currently low prices and forecasts for colder temperatures in late December, some analysts are expecting a rebound in natural gas prices, but seven straight downward trading sessions may have demoralized many would-be bulls.
In the meantime, homeowners and industrial users can enjoy these lower prices. As of midday Friday, natural gas for January delivery was trading at $3.30.
Walt Breitinger is a commodity futures broker in Valparaiso. He can be reached at (800) 411-3888 or www.indianafutures.com. This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell any market.


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Anne Arundel County
Police: Md. man ordered pit bull to attack dog, head-butted its owner
A 36-year-old Baltimore man is facing assault and other charges after allegedly having his dog attack another man's dog and then head-butting the other man.
Police identify woman killed in hit-and-run crash
Anne Arundel Co. police identify woman killed in Pasadena hit-and-run crash
Manning's family saddened by 35-year sentence
Bradley Manning's family saddened by 35-year sentence, say he acted in the best interest of US
Passenger dies in crash that closes BW Parkway
A female passenger died in a crash that closed the Baltimore-Washington Parkway for about two hours.
Naval Academy tries more to deter sexual assaults
Naval Academy to integrate sexual assault prevention training into its academic work day
Manning sentenced to 35 years in WikiLeaks case
Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for giving US secrets to WikiLeaks
Defense attorney: Manning tried 'cheering me up'
Defense attorney says Manning tried 'cheering me up' after soldier's sentence was announced
Woman found dead in Md. may be hit-and-run victim
Anne Arundel County police say a woman found dead in a wooded area in Pasadena may be the victim of a hit-and-run crash.
A look at Pfc. Bradley Manning's court-martial
A look at how Pfc. Bradley Manning's trial unfolded before he was sentenced to 35 years
Judge sentences Manning to 35 years in WIkiLeaks case
More than three years after his arrest in Iraq, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years for leaking an unprecedented volume of classified information to a once-obscure, anti-secrecy website.
Police dispatcher talks dad through baby delivery
Police dispatcher talks dad through baby delivery in car along Md. highway
Md. Del. Dwyer arrested for drunken driving
Maryland Del. Don Dwyer has been arrested for driving while impaired, in Pasadena, Md. The arrest comes two weeks after Dwyer pleaded guilty to drunken boating in a 2012 crash.
Judge set to deliberate Manning's sentence
Judge set to deliberate Manning's sentence after hearing both sides' summations
Firefighter injured in Md. barn blaze
Firefighter injured in 'suspicious' Md. barn blaze
3 injured by dog in Md.
3 injured by dog in Md.; 1 woman taken to hospital with bite wounds
Man dies in Anne Arundel Co. trench
Authorities are working to recover the body of a 25-year-old man buried after a trench collapsed in Severn, Md.
Man dies after fall from tram on steep slope
Anne Arundel County police say a 69-year-old man has died after falling from a tram used to reach a dock along the Severn River.
Boy, 8, hurt in Md. go-kart crash
Boy, 8, hurt in Anne Arundel Co. go-kart crash
Md. man charged after fight outside Odenton bar
Md. man charged with intentionally ramming car into another man outside Odenton bar
WTC beam on display in Annapolis
The steel was part of the World Trade Center, destroyed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, and it's made the trek to Annapolis, where it will be on display.
Hi: 47 °F | Lo: 24 °F


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Yarra Ranges Yoga
| Yoga Classes in Monbulk Victoria
|Yarra Ranges Yoga
|Contact:Clare Pritchard
|Monbulk rd,, Monbulk, Victoria 3793
|(+61) 0415 789 266
|Yoga Style: Iyengar
|Send Message
Iyengar yoga classes in small, friendly classes which cater to all individuals needs. Beginners, General, Prenatal and Mums & Bubs weekly classes. Kids School Holiday Yoga as well as individual sessions, workplace & school based yoga.
|Update listing
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Australia Yoga Workshops
Australia Yoga Retreats
Australia Yoga Teacher Training Centers
Australia Yoga Advanced Training


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A pediatrician who authorities say sold illegal prescriptions to adult patients remained in county jail Saturday on a $2.7 million bond for drug and racketeering charges.
State and local law enforcement officials said they are continuing to go through patient information in the investigation to see whether they can connect his illegal prescriptions to any overdose deaths. Illegal prescription drugs are leading to an increasing number of deaths in the state.


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ahhhh ... just what we Canadians need to read to keep us going through winterSounds like a good night out!
Sounds like a hoot Wyntress, thanks for the heads up. Nice Stryker too.
Funny I just found this thread I go to Pam's bike night all the time been wanting to hit this bike night up how much is paintball there?
anyone know of any bike nights near Atlanta?
Quote from: geresti on Feb 17, 2013, 07:15:46 AManyone know of any bike nights near Atlanta?Not sure if this is still up and running, but here is the info:Hooters of Lawrenceville (20min e of Atl )Holds bike night every Tuesday night from 7Pm-close !860 duluth hwyLawrenceville,ga 30052770-513-1409 for more info
Aghhh i need to move to florida! You guys ( & ladies ) are having all the fun!


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Explains what SEO is and how you can start optimizing your website for search and achieve greater visibility and traffic.
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All News & Blogs
E-mail Alerts
The media are often criticized for being so skeptical, so don't be surprised if we're skeptical of such criticism.
Richard Amrhine's archive
E-mail Richard Amrhine
By RICHARD AMRHINE
AMONG THE LESSONS I've
That is how journalists think. They are skeptical of everything and everyone. Those who aren't should seek a new line of work. We question both the things people already hate, and the things they hold dear. So as far as most people are concerned, our work is justified no more than half the time.
Our proclivity for skepticism--and criticism--is why many people have no use for us. If we do see something worthy of praise, those who disagree must have some questionable ulterior motive.
Even if everyone agrees that grass is green, a good journalist will seek out a minority point of view, such as the opinion of someone who is colorblind. Assigned a story on motherhood and apple pie, we will instinctively seek information about neglectful mothers and tainted apple pie. That's just the way it is. Good mothers and blue-ribbon apple pie aren't news. It is the exceptions to the rule that are news.
Since there is nothing that can't be questioned, then there is nothing beyond reproach. If there is nothing beyond reproach, then there is nothing, certainly of an earthly nature, worthy of worship.
This does not apply to my wife, or to Bruce Springsteen.
But it does apply to most other humans, particularly those who become well-known. They are automatic targets of skepticism--and probably criticism--because they have chosen to take a stand in the public forum.
As I was growing up, my parents were Time magazine subscribers. I was 13 in 1966 when the cover carried three words in red on a stark black background: "Is God Dead?" It may have been 40 years ago, but it left an impression. I recall the controversy that ensued, and, as the future president of my church youth group, I wondered where a news magazine gets off posing such a question.
Today I look at it two ways: First, if it was a question people were pondering at the time, in an era of the Beatles, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the Great Society, then why not ask it?


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Brennan Haselton, wtop.com
WASHINGTON - Some pumpkin ales are like pie in a glass and there's nothing wrong with that. But, if you're looking for something a bit different, here it is.
WTOP's Brennan Haselton is joined by Neighborhood Restaurant Group Beer Director and Food and Wine Sommelier of the Year Greg Engert to talk about Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela for the latest edition of WTOP's Beer of the Week.
Follow Brennan, Beer of the Week and WTOP on Twitter.
(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)


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Semi Flush Lighting By Estiluz
The unique style of Estiluz Semi-Flush Lighting fixtures make it easy to get your room to stand out. Crafted with the highest quality materials, the semi-flush lighting fixtures can be added to any room where lighted is needed and a great look is appreciated. From your living room to your bedroom, these light fixtures make a stylish addition wherever you want better light.


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Weather Links
Humidity 93%
Winds 3.5mph
Sponsored by: Arceneaux Ford
Humidity 93%
Winds 3.5mph
Feb 13, 2014 5:26 PM by UL Sports Information
AFAYETTE, La. -- Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns student-athletes combined to register a school-record 2.970 GPA during the recently completed fall semester.
The 372 Louisiana student-athletes combined to post a 2.970 GPA during the fall with 212 student-athletes, or 57-percent, earning a 3.0 or better and 30 posting a perfect 4.0. It was the third straight semester above a 2.90 GPA, breaking the previous high semester of 2.964, which was set in the Fall of 2012.
The numbers were compiled by the Student-Athlete Academic Center, which coordinates the academic progress of all Cajun student-athletes.
In addition, 22 student-athletes completed their degree requirement during the term and graduated during the December commencement.
"When you take into consideration the time and effort that our student-athletes put into competing at the highest of levels intercollegiately, their accomplishments in the classroom are astounding," Louisiana Director of Athletics Scott Farmer said.
"The academic performance during the fall shows that not only can our student-athletes commit 20 hours a week to being the best possible athlete that they can be, but they are equally as dedicated to succeeding in the classroom.
"I am very proud of the performance of our student-athletes because they truly bring to life the academic mission of this University. It is through their hard work, along with the support and encouragement that they receive from the staff of the Student-Athlete Academic Center, our coaches, athletic staff and members of the University community, that they are able to accomplish great things academically."
By comparison, the 2.970 GPA surpasses the average for the general student body (2.786) and the all Greek average (2.707).
Women's track and cross country led all sports with seven student-athletes receiving a 4.00 GPA during the fall, Anna Devitt, Amanda Gale, Emily Gale, Alexandra Harrell, Clair Hodges, Courtney Musgrove and Addie Shafer.
Football was second with six 4.0 student athletes, Nick Barnfield, Billy Christian, Jacob Beasley, Ross Duhon, Evyn Perry and Christian Voelkel while baseball (Greg Davis, Seth Harrison, Ryan Leonards & Nicholas Zaunbrecher), soccer (Eleanor Cook, Ashley Gussoni, Christina Sanchez & Bailey Scott) and softball (Sarah Arceneaux, Haley Hayden, Marie Hoag & Randi Provost) having four 4.0 student-athletes each.
Rounding out the 4.0 student-athletes are the men's track duo of Landon Carroll and Westmoreland Gonzales, Kristen Armstrong and Paige Thumann from volleyball and Yates Johnson (men's tennis) and Leondre Queen (manager).
Volleyball led all sports with a 3.421 GPA during the term with 16 of its 18 student-athletes owning at least a 3.0 GPA.
Ten of the 16 sports owned a 3.0 GPA or better, including women's cross country (3.383), men's tennis (3.380), women's tennis (3.358), softball (3.321), baseball (3.279), soccer (3.257), men's cross country (3.179), golf (3.164) and women's track (3.059).
Women's cross country registered its highest semester ever while men's basketball, which set a record with a 2.904 GPA last spring, posted a 2.854 during the fall for its second-highest semester.
The fall semester marked the fourth straight term in which better than half of the Louisiana student-athletes recorded a 3.0 or better with a record 212 achieving the milestone.
The football team continued to perform well in the classroom, leading all sports with 45 student-athletes with a 3.0. Baseball was second with 27 3.0 student-athletes followed by soccer (24), women's track (24), men's track (20) and softball (19).
Volleyball led all sports with 88-percent of its student-athletes (16-18) posting a 3.0 with golf (9 of 11, 81.8%), men's tennis (9 of 11, 81.8%), soccer (24 of 30, 80.0%) and women's cross country (8-10, 80.0%) rounding out the teams with at least 80-percent of its student-athletes earning a 3.0.
6 hours ago


text: It was said: >How does an Englishman save a Frenchman from drowning? :) "How"? I believe that "Why" might be better :) Anya Jennene Stanley To ransom them back to the pretender, my dear lady. Edward, Duke of York _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ============================================================================ Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.


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2 suspects wanted in home invasion in Dover
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Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty headline Dover's Firefly Festival
The three-day music festival's inaugural run was a great success and this year's lineup is even bigger than before.
Tags: Firefly Music Festival, tim bracken, backstage, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, LumineersListen
How did Firefly stack up against the competition?
First-time music festivals often receive low marks on things such as stage layout, food services, and staff shortages, but festival-goers responded positively to the Firefly Music Festival in Dover.
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Firefly attendees may have trouble finding hotels
The upcoming Firefly Music Festival in Dover is close to selling out, but most hotel rooms across Kent County already appear to be booked as music fans consider making the trip.
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Yes, that is what WE thought they were doing.
But does Shanahan, or anybody else, ever want to say the word "rebuilding" to Dan Snyder?
The Redskins live in two universes at once __the real one; and the one that they sell to their fans AND that I think the team's coaches and GMs feel that they HAVE to sell to Snyder. Only Gibbs II was immune. And that's probably why they (at least) got to the playoffs twice in four years with him. And only once in the last 19 years with any other Redskins coach.


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Gregg Araki's Kaboom might just have the best promotional materials ever. The poster is rainbow and kaleidoscopic — like a still from a Fruitopia commercial but with people instead of pineapples. The press release describes it as "a hyper-stylized Twin Peaks for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous young cast." Araki, a pivotal figure in queer cinema and the man behind a multi-pack of indie treats (The Living End, The Doom Generation, Mysterious Skin, etc.), gives us a sun-soaked horror-comedy with nose rings that twinkle and orgasms that blast away again and again to the sound of thunderstorms.
If Lisa Frank had designed a boy, it would have been our protagonist, Smith, played by Thomas Dekker. He's a timid college freshman, majoring in film studies. His sexuality though is "undeclared." His lips are the color of bubblegum, and his eyes are so turquoise, they're almost tacky. He and his best friend, Stella (Haley Bennett), a former goth with a dry wit and tangerine hair, navigate campus life, paying special attention to its more prurient parts. The characters they encounter are familiar, though sexier and campier than the archetypes they represent. Smith suspects and hopes that his roommate, Thor, a boorish blond surfer who tries to give himself blowjobs, is really gay. He enters an undefined sexual relationship with London, a high-spirited and promiscuous English girl, played by Juno Temple. Meanwhile, Stella is sleeping with Lorelei, a luscious lesbian with supernatural powers. Amidst the threesomes and raves and laced desserts, Smith slowly starts to uncover a mass conspiracy, complete with masked men, murdered twins, and a hierarchical cult; it involves not only everyone he's met since coming to college but his dead father too.
The story is made up of nested realities that are revealed by way of shocking and often silly cuts (a gory bludgeoning turns into a plate of mutilated pie). Its highest-pitched scenes are scored to crescendos that accelerate at almost-intolerable rates until they climax, and we're dropped into some other silent, unrelated place. The dialogue is reminiscent of a glossed up Ghost World or a Donnie Darko with the lights turned on. The script is peppered with tweet-worthy insults. After having sex with Smith for the first time, London tells him that she's "had pelvic exams that last longer than that." Stella doesn't share Smith's swoony enthusiasm for Thor. "I've met plants with better personalities," she groans.
Like in any horror movie, peripheral figures turn out to be central schemers and those who we're inclined to forget of course end up crucial plot advancers. We're taught to expect retroactive explanation from psychological thrillers. We like to walk out of them feeling as though we've reached the end of a narrative that's situated within a fixed logic, one whose order was only obscured at times by a lack of information. But Araki isn't playing that game. And for a world without rules, Kaboom doesn't leave you feeling resentful or cheated or cheaply deceived. Araki has that rare directorial charisma that's just so generally appealing that his films are likeable for stupid and smart reasons alike. One could imagine Kaboom changing the life of a stoned 10th grader, but it really does have defensible moments of Clueless-level ingenuity. Kaboom's juiciness actually deserves to be projected on the walls of whatever Bushwick party it's surely going to find its way onto. There are bright colors, glittery explosions, and smiley faces. It's a kind of kiddie porn (porn directed by kids).
Kaboom, weird as it may be, is firmly set in the present day with orienting references to Lady Gaga and American Idol. The mystery at the film's center is reliant on computer communication: mysterious web videos and URLs to temporary Web sites sent over instant message. Witty banter, eatable-looking actors, and psychedelic pleasure aside, Araki's most impressive accomplishment here is his rendering of the Internet as a schizophrenic dimension, where bright blue links take you to unexpected screens and ads for items you've never heard of pop out of nowhere. Memes, those haunting images of senseless ubiquity, blink like PTSD flashbacks. Inconceivable things are only a click away. Without pandering or preaching, Araki forces us to feel the sometimes-scintillating, sometimes-sinister effects of our digital age.
Art house darling Mike Leigh is known for his improvisational kitchen sink realism. He's a master of the sort of small talk that isn't bleak. His films are like Petri dishes on which everyday Brits divide and join like little cells of concentrated emotion. In his latest venture, Another Year, Leigh makes the case for a traditional kind of happiness.
The film, which is broken into four seasonal chapters, each one titled, starts off in the spring, hopeful and quick, and ends in a winter of sickening sadness. The conceit, while cliché, is not at all distracting or disingenuous; it's only really apparent in retrospect. Tom, a Barbour-clad geologist played by Jim Broadbent, and Gerri, a linen-loving counselor played by Ruth Sheen, live in a domestic bliss of wine breath and garlicky kitchen smells. They're almost retirement age but still very much in love. He comes home early to cook supper and refutes her self-deprecation; her eyes eat him up from across the dinner table. Their London flat has a well-stocked fridge and lots of bookshelves; they read sweetly in bed, side-by-side. They drive a Volvo. If this were an American movie, they would live in Brooklyn Heights and their son would go to Saint Ann's. They nurture their crops and nourish their friends, trekking back and forth between the city and their country farmhouse. They serve the vegetables they grow at casual dinner parties.
The previews would have you believe that Tom and Gerri are the film's nucleus. In actuality, it's their batty, alcoholic friend Mary (Lesley Manville) who subsumes most of our energy. She's the frazzled administrator at the hospital where Gerri works — always making plans for after-hours drinks, inviting herself over for dinner, appearing at their doorstep unannounced. It's unclear why the friendship has been given so much room to grow, though pity is surely a key factor. Tom and Gerri treat her warmly; they give her permission to refill her wine glass and allow her to spend the night when she's had too much to drink. Mary speaks quickly and often incoherently, presumptuously predicting personal questions and hurriedly consolidating her answers to them. She unfolds totally at certain points and admits to her misery. Though quite beautiful and still shapely, Mary is depressed over her divorce and the "pokey flat" she rents. "Who would I go on holiday with?" she wails one evening when thinking about upcoming vacation days.
But Mary isn't their only sad sack friend. There's Carl (Martin Savage), also single, who drinks and cries too much as well. Like Mary, he describes his apartment in an unappealing way. Land ownership, that historically British preoccupation, runs quietly beneath the surface of the film. Their 30-year-old son, Joe (Oliver Maltman), is presented as a lost soul until he brings a girl home and it becomes clear that the relationship is serious. Another Year taxonomizes the world into two castes of people: those who have another person and those who don't. It's a bolder and less abstract classification system than most are willing to concede. "…but you deserve it," Mary says wistfully while praising Gerri's marriage. "You both are such lovely people." Tom and Gerri are kind and interesting, and though surely it's their virtues that brought them together in the first place, their union is what blesses them. The contrast of their miserable friends proves this. You could imagine, despite Tom and Gerri's generosity, being tortured by their happiness and spiting their self-satisfaction.
The final chapter — Winter — brings a peripheral death and the forging of an unexpected affinity. The film ends with Mary weeping, game face melted off, finally confronting for the first time the totality of her despair. It's a ruthless last scene, and structurally it confirms what we began to suspect "months" ago: that Tom and Gerri, magnetic as they may be, are not the film's primary emotional concern. It's hard to sort out whether their friends and family are happier by association or sadder in comparison. Either way, Leigh suggests that— liberal politics be damned — it's hearth and home that make life worth living. Cleave to someone or you're screwed.
Bad movies can inspire perversity on the part of their critics — finely wrought condemnation and searing viciousness. Panning something can be cathartic, so much so that the pan itself sometimes redeems the schlocky thing that bore it. Then there are movies so bad that they inspire responsibility on the part of their critics, compelling only one, single message: Just, whatever you do, don't go see this movie. John Wells' The Company Men is of the latter category.
The Company Men would still have been a terrible film if it had been released a year or two ago, but at least it would have made some sense. It's a recession tale, one of sold-off Porsches, Greenwich backyards, and corporate downsizing — territory that, while still relevant, isn't really worth a Hollywood blockbuster at this point, due to a fatigue contracted (mostly) from the months and months of human interest stories we've had to endure in the Times.
In September 2008, after twelve years in management positions, Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck) is laid off from his white-collar job. His six-figure salary is automatically funneled into a 12-week severance package. After months of sending out résumés, fruitlessly, he accepts carpentry work with his brother-in-law, played by Kevin Costner. What follows are a series of predictable shop class as soul craft-like epiphanies: Bobby learns the value of tangible results; Bobby learns how to relate (read: play basketball) with his son; Bobby learns how inflated his salary really was. Of course, at the end of the day, Bobby and his family are saved. He gets a job, eventually, and the movie closes with him bellowing inspirational instructions at his new subordinates.
To be fair, summarizing just about any movie plot in a few sentences can make it sound inane. Even the most tired narratives can be restored to luster in the right hands. But The Company Men has real, fundamental flaws — ones that, like the US economy in 2008, feel irreparable. It's a dangerous move to cast Ben Affleck as a white-collar worker with a vague job description and no interests besides golf. Ben Affleck is that guy at the party who insists you've been introduced "like 10 times." You believe him, but somehow you just don't remember his face at all. His character in The Company Men comes without any biographical history or memorable traits; it's all but impossible to care about him. His wife, Maggie (Rosemarie DeWitt), is his tether to an ethical and practical existence. It's Maggie who refuses to renew his golf membership and insists upon eating in more often. She looks comfortable in her designer jeans, amidst Nancy Meyers-like throw pillows, but unlike Bobby, she comes from humbler roots, made evident by a Boston accent she cruises in and out of, one about as subtle as Julianne Moore's on "30 Rock." Maggie goes back to work as a nurse, and spends most of the film trying to buoy the sinking spirits of her husband.
But Bobby, of course, is not alone in his despair. He's one of hundreds of the company's layoffs, including its co-founder, Gene McClary (Tommy Lee Jones). Tommy Lee Jones is the film's primary asset, and the scenes he's in are the only ones in the black. He looks like George W. Bush's much smarter cousin: weathered and searching. We're led to believe that he's the only man in the company who feels queasy about the mass layoffs or the mega bonuses given to its CEOs. He tells his boss that instead of firing more people, perhaps he should "sell the fucking Degas." When his wife asks him if she and a friend can take one of the corporate jets to Palm Beach, he gives her an icy stare. "Fine, I'll just fly commercial," she huffs. The script is terrible, and lines like this make it seem as though it were written by a focus group. Hey, remember when the Detroit CEOs flew to New York on private jets to ask for a bailout? Well, let's invoke something like that here!
We know that the economy in 2008 was contracting, and its collapse was startling in its depth. We remember this. Still, despite the dire circumstance, the financial troubles of the Walker family are just plain confusing. How, at the end of his 12-week severance package, are they completely out of money? To the point of selling their house for a low-ball price and moving in with his parents? Don't they have a savings account? And if not, why isn't this question addressed? It should be, because as it stands, their situation doesn't garner too much sympathy. The lazy signifiers of gaucheness are endless: references to Sun Valley, antique tables with outrageous price tags, so many sports cars. Cumulative details do not make a story, and purchasing power does not make a person. This — almost — could the point of the film, and with some major edits (a total rewrite, a different cast) maybe The Company Men could have hit that nail on the head. But it would have been another film entirely. At the apex of his anguish, Bobby tells his wife, "I can't just look like another asshole with a résumé." Her response back could be the movie's tagline: "You are just another asshole with a résumé."
Twelve-Thirty, the fourth feature film directed by Jeff Lipsky, is hermetically fantastic, scene-by-scene, with formal dialogue and stilted acting worthy of Eric Rohmer or Whit Stillman. Lipsky, who founded October Films and Lot 47 Films, was mentored by John Cassavetes early in his career, and like the famed auteur, he shares an instinct for improvisation and the dirty real.
Jeff (Jonathan Groff) is a 22-year-old aspiring architect, but his age and ambition are only secondary characteristics to his virginity. Jeff has thick, senatorial hair. His complexion is translucent like skim milk and his masculine resolve just as insipid. Over the course of the film, he "mans up," but perversely — by sleeping with a family of women. After bedding his provocative, long-time crush Mel Langley (Portia Reiners), who stains antique furniture and cooks chili, he sleeps with her frigid, formerly druggy sister Maura (Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep's daughter), and finally their passionate furrier of a mother, Vivien (Karen Young). But as he makes his way through the women — from youngest to oldest — Jeff tangles their relationships. At first, the confessions and betrayals Jeff instigates seem destructive and awful, but slowly they reveal themselves to be points of bonding for the otherwise estranged women.
There is unexplained rejection, disputed consensuality, and even a bisexual father — all against the bland backdrop of suburban Iowa City. The performances feel like those of a really good school play: earnest and a little self-conscious. Each vignette, in isolation, is captivating, but as a whole, the film seems under-edited and unmotivated. Maura's best friend is a Satanist, for instance, a pointless detail that impacts nothing. And one early scene focuses on two old British widows, who seem as though they might be lovers. Their conversation is charming and strange (one of them founded a museum devoted entirely to historical keys), but ultimately it comes to naught. Their lines are just as imaginative and empathetic as those of the other characters, but they disappear and bear no relation to any other part of the story. Mel and Jeff drive out to the country to visit a locked church, whose only significance is that its name – "The Church of the Open Door" — is mirrored in the name of the key museum — "The Museum of the Open Door." But like the grandiose repetitions and vague patterns perceived by schizophrenics, this doubling is meaningless. Underscoring characters' disconnectedness by creating a narrative with irrelevant parts isn't so much too obvious as it is too frustrating. It feels like investing a lot of time with a shy person only to discover that their still waters do not run so deep.
None of the sex acts are introduced with any foreplay at all, and Mel is the only one of the three women Jeff kisses, though in a car, hours before they make their way to the bedroom. "I want to have sex with you. Tonight. I'll be angry if we don't," she tells him. Mel presents herself, midday, on all fours, in a brightly lit room. When Jeff has sex with Maura, it's at a party, in a pitch-black closet (the scene is dark enough for long enough that I thought there was a problem with the print until the lights finally come on, minutes later). Though at first she's amenable, she soon tells him to stop, and he doesn't. Afterwards, he sweetens up. "Let me just stay in here with you for a minute," he whispers. "Is that customary?" she answers back. Later, Maura wonders if she was raped. Jeff's interlude with Vivien — the girls' mother — is a chance encounter. The richness of her character is commendable. She's postmenopausal, but sensual. She wears good underwear, instructs Jeff to stroke one of her mink coats, and barks life advice at him.
After Jeff has penetrated both daughters and their mother (it never becomes fully clear if all — or any — of them know they've been shared), the Langleys become closer. Maura confides to Mel about her past adolescent mistakes and takes a long, intimate walk with her father, whose bisexuality she previously disapproved of. Vivien comes clean to Maura about her intermittent regret about having children, the fear that her daughters were what chased her husband into the arms of a man. "I hate that last part honey," Vivien says solemnly after the confession, "but it's there." In talking about her ex-husband, with whom, it should be said, she still has infrequent sex ("the best lover I've ever had"), Vivien goes on to bestow some biographically acquired wisdom. "He made me feel like I was protected, and that's the worst thing that can ever happen to a woman. The worst thing." Lines like these, when they're stated, emerge with expectations that soon shatter. Is this the emotional core of the film? Its message? In the hands of another director, lessons learned and shared adhere characters to one another, but Lipsky seems instead to insist upon interpersonal isolation. The crescendo quits, and we turn to something else.
An exquisitely protracted prank partially dislodges any of the damage we thought Jeff has wrecked on the Langleys. And the film closes with a flashback to the high school detention hall where Jeff and Mel originally met years before. But circular narrative structure is not Lipsky's aim here. The film, in fact, has little discernable architecture. Each room is pleasant and entertaining, but it's a house built in a different world, inhabited by relative strangers and without context.
Trying to convince someone that you're mad at them when really you're sad at them is one of the hardest things to do. The moments in life that require the skill are always dire, the stakes inevitably very high. It's almost impossible not to choke. Narrow your eyes too much, and you're done for. Stretch your voice too taughtly, and it's over. But Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling hit the note perfectly again and again in Blue Valentine as Cindy and Dean, the emotionally ravaged, sad-at-each-other couple at the center of the film.
Blue Valentine is a chronologically broken portrait of a chronically breaking marriage. Cindy, a nurse, and Dean, a house painter, live in rural Pennsylvania with their kindergarten-aged daughter, Frankie. Williams, who we're used to seeing in the tabloids, sipping iced coffee, and strolling around Boerum Hill in cool clogs, is a little doughier as Cindy. When she's not in scrubs, she wears stretched-out t-shirts. Her roots need touching up and her French tips filling in. Gosling disappears into Dean, who is desperate, tattooed, and always in aviator sunglasses, even inside.
The opening scenes portray the frantic, early morning minutes before the family disperses for the day: Frankie to school, Cindy to her shift at the hospital, Dean to the driveway, where he sloppily swears at speeding cars before heading off to pound a beer and paint a house. Cindy prepares oatmeal for Frankie, which Dean criticizes. He then encourages Frankie to "eat like a leopard," plucking out the raisins, and slurping them off the table with her in neat little lines. Dean is entertaining his daughter at his wife's expense. Nothing good comes when parents fail to put up a united front, and already we can tell that this marriage is frayed.
But the relationship's current iteration (Dean, drunk and whiny; Cindy, frigid and short-tempered) is interspliced with flashbacks to their shared, happy past. The cuts are often disorienting — Dean with a full head of hair opening a door to a suddenly younger Cindy, for instance. The impressive feat of the structure is the restraint with which the flashbacks are deployed. You always want more of them, more of the past; it's a relief when it's granted, and it's almost intolerable when we're thrown back from it, into the ferment. We, like Cindy and Dean themselves, want to spend no time at all in what this marriage has become, though it says something great that we still root for them in the flashbacks, knowing all the while what's in store for them. After one of their early dates, Dean throws Cindy onto the bed, "BOOM!" he bellows goofily, shoving a CD at her chest. "Everybody's got a song," he says, "but they're lame and they all share them, you know, it's disgusting. Not us. We have our own song." It's a hilarious but haunted line. Like those couples that unknowingly share clichéd love songs, Cindy and Dean are not unique; their misery is not special or distinctive. This is not an unhappy family in its own way, but a family unhappy just like so many others.
Up until the making of Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance had only ever directed shorts and documentaries, mostly for TV. The necessary authenticity of his previous form has translated fully here. Both Williams and Gosling inhabit their roles to a degree that a mumbling Marlon Brando could be proud of (the two lived in a remote cabin together prior to production, sharing domestic duties and seemingly simmering with mutual venom). Blue Valentine accomplishes in cinema what Jonathan Franzen's Freedom does in literature: its characters and story make most other depictions of ruined romance and exhausted matrimony look flimsy in comparison. And like Franzen, Cianfrance here succeeds in telling a non-didactic, amoral story. When characters are rendered this deeply, they don't speak for anyone but themselves. Blue Valentine is not prescriptive, and no one is exploited for the sake of allegory.
In multiple scenes — arriving late to Frankie's recital, listening to her father interrogate Dean over dinner — Williams is able summon that silent rage of dumb emotion, the kind that materializes when your mind and vision are whittled into a single point of white-hot feeling. And Gosling's charm as Dean is not at all canned. When Cindy drives Frankie off to school, Dean waves from the front lawn, shouting, "I love you like crazy. I love you like craaaaaa-zy!" over and over again, in an increasingly cartoonish voice. Not being able to imagine the writer making certain lines up — feeling as though they must be the remembered tics of a real, live person — is a testament to a script's quality.
The subtlety of the rapport between Cindy and Dean is often snuffed out grandly with shouting matches, bitter words, and bad sex. But in the penultimate scene, in the wake of a violent outbreak that seems to have finalized it all, the sensitivity of their connection reëmerges, though sadly. Their body language exactly mimics their words. They both speak, breathlessly, in contentless repetitions. "Tell me how I should be. Tell me how I should be." Then: "I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it." Then: "No, no, no, no, no." Then: kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss. Finally, she quivers into his arms, not out of forgiveness or love, but out of fatigue and short-circuited verbal power. It's how you speak and move when you're in the midst of total emotional carnage, and the immensity of looming change can only be perceived in momentary flashes, ones that make you stutter and shake.
Like others, my only reservation was with the film's vast gaps, though they do not leave blind spots or confuse the sequence of events. We see the utter wretchedness of the present, and we see the sugary sweetness of the past. The film shows us the two most extreme poles of a relationship: the falling in love and the already-out-of-love. We see the charm and lust that is preamble to infatuation. We see the scorn that is the epilogue to all those implied nights of proximate neglect, all those tiny, ungenerous glances that seem to multiply by fathomless factors as the years go on. It's the less cinematic moments, though, that buttress a relationship, and in not revealing them, we're left with a sense of pity more than gutting empathy. What we don't witness is the more incremental arc of a shared life: the being in love, not the falling in love; the losing of love, not love's loss.
Some cinema can be difficult but fortifying: slow, elliptical, and stark. Boredom — or patience — can pay dividends. But rarely does the inverse hold true; it's seldom that we're afforded the opportunity of enjoying but not liking a film. Somewhere, which has now been reviewed everywhere, is never boring, despite Sofia Coppola's insistence upon real-time long shots. The film says nothing particularly new, describes its Los Angeles setting in terms no more specific than its title and its characters as nothing more than "someones." But its vagueness is beautiful-looking. This is usually not enough to earn an audience's attention, but ours is secured here.
Somewhere tells the story of A-list actor Johnny Marco, played by Stephen Dorff, who has quite a charming face for a man with such a decidedly small nose. He resides at The Chateau Marmont, and seems to live a life void of introspection. It's a world of Blackberries, chirpy PR assistants, and erotic dancers who tote their telescoping stripper poles around with them suite-to-suite. When Johnny's eleven-year-old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), shows up, supposedly endowing him with a new appreciation for life, we're meant to believe a real relationship is forged and that she's activated a hidden strain of humanity in him.
The opening scene, which every single review of the film points out, is a stunning shot of Johnny driving his black Ferrari around the desert in circles. The camera remains static and vulnerable to an exaggerated Doppler effect, our visual and aural perception of the car growing faint and then returning with a sonic swoop. It's not exactly a subtle metaphor — lost star driving in circles — but as an establishing shot, it works well.
Yet for a film that will go on to prove itself spare, this sort of heavy-handedness is relentless. Johnny and Cleo play Guitar Hero to "So Lonely" by The Police, the literalness of Sting's lyrics ("I feel lonely, I'm so lonely, I feel so low") rubbing the sensitive part of the mind raw. Johnny wears a faded Black Flag t-shirt (an early '80s L.A. punk band), which, like Johnny himself, has seen better days. At a press junket, a journalist asks him, "Who is Johnny Marco." Of course, he stammers. Makeup artists slather his face in latex to turn him into a wrinkly, liver-spotted old man. He sits in the chair, featureless, spackled in goo, his every breath audible, his every swallow complete. The scene is weirdly weird for Sofia Coppola, and refreshingly so, but its metaphorical use-value too obvious. It's as though she underestimates her viewers' intelligence, which is especially offensive if you've ever heard or read her in interview (a fun party game is reading aloud from Sofia Coppola Q&As).
Both the opening and closing credits of Somewhere are printed in a tiny, sans serif font, like an eye chart, which seems appropriate. It's easy to spend the whole film straining yourself, trying — and failing — to make meaning out of gauziness. Nothing happens in Somewhere, which sounds like a Philistine complaint, but that's precisely what's so enraging about the lack of plot – being exasperated by it turns you into a dullard. The characters don't change; allegedly, a bond is sealed between father and daughter, but there's no evidence for it. The single scene that captures potent emotion — Cleo weeping in the car en route to camp — ends abruptly and without resolution. Johnny looks over at her and says, "C'mere. Don't cry." There's no "I love you." There's no sustained conversation, just a sweetly stated imperative. Then a cut to the smiley pair in a casino.
This isn't to say though that there aren't moments of greatness in Somewhere. It's always beautiful, and somehow never boring. But for every hilarious pole-dancing scene, there's a gratuitous sequel, and for every lonely cigarette that Johnny sucks in, another beer to be suffered through. But the embarrassing faux-profundity and reiterations of themes from Lost in Translation are all worth enduring for Elle Fanning's performance. She's the film's kindling, and she warms every scene she's in. Cleo is willow-limbed and pale; her hair will only be naturally blonde for another few years. Her rolling suitcase has light-up wheels. She almost — but not quite — needs a bra. She's still young enough to mindlessly lean on her dad and put her sneakered-feet up on sofa arms. When an old friend of Johnny starts hanging around, Cleo is quick to laugh broadly at his jokes, as though she's maintaining a not-quite-crush on him. After Johnny's Ferrari breaks down, they wait for a tow truck on the side of the road. Cleo stands against a stop sign, playing solitary hand games and swinging her arms forward and back, enthralled by her own momentum. Every movement is familiar. It's worth noting though how much more interior life is granted to Cleo than Johnny; one suspects this might not even be intentional. If you don't write real characters, it's easier to render ones who are too young to have fully-formed consciousnesses.
Films this quiet must be tight — every elision purposeful and every minute of silence intentional. We need to trust that Somewhere is the product of systematic omission, but we can't. Each error exposes a vacancy, and Sofia Coppola ruins a few potentially great things. In one scene, Johnny sits forlornly on his hotel suit couch, drinking a Corona, smoking a cigarette, and staring off into space. A perfect bowl of uneaten fruit rests at the outer perimeter of the frame (the wealthy are always surrounded by uneaten fruit). It's a perfect detail up until the point where Johnny picks up an unblemished pear and examines it as Hamlet does Yorick's skull. An almost-subtle moment taken one move too far. Throughout the film, Johnny's arm is in a cast, due to a night of heavy partying (he tells his ex it's from shooting stunts). The cast could have — and should have — been used like an improv prop, complicating and making funnier otherwise desolate scenes. Once, we see his plastered arm foreshortened, his blurry, hung-over face in the background, half-hidden by high thread count sheets. And in two scenes, Johnny showers with his arm hanging out the curtain at a right angle, like a traffic signal. This is all slightly comic, but it's not enough to justify what seems like a random choice. When Cleo finally arrives and saves the film, she's writing on his cast in black Sharpie: a heart, then a comma, then "Cleo." This, it seems, is the cast's real raison d'etre: to recreate a palette for those loopy, teenage margin scrawls we remember Lux doodling on binders in The Virgin Suicides, i.e. not enough to account for a protagonist's handicap. A stylist at heart, Sofia Coppola probably just thought it would look cool.
Any female under 30 who's even remotely inclined towards fashion or commercial indie art has described something — a flimsy blouse, a forgettable carport, a scanned Polaroid on Facebook — as "Virgin Suicides-y," thus mentally bleaching out real life and adding a little lens flare to an otherwise unsparkley sky. Similarly, "Kinda Lost in Translation-y" is now shorthand for overseas alienation. Creating a visual language that people rely on to describe mundane moments really is a feat, and it's one Sofia Coppola deserves recognition for. But telling a story is so much harder. The Virgin Suicides is by far her finest film, but the script was based on Jeffery Eugenides's novel. If Sofia Coppola is to continue directing, she should use real writers for her plots and characters; she's stranded nowhere good without them.
I grew up in California where kids are taught to pursue happiness above all else. The wealthiest people I knew were only incidentally affluent: They invented some kind of organic juice or they started Banana Republic way back when. There was no correlation between success and persistent hard work, between achievement and academic rigor. If you were 16 and wanted to go the beach after school instead of doing your homework, that was great, for as anyone — even parents — would tell you, it was "beautiful out!" I resent this now, and when I see such a lifestyle depicted in books or film, I get riled up. Michelle Esrick's documentary, Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie, stirred these foul sediments of my past.
There's nothing funny about The Funnies. And sorry, but there's nothing comic about clowns. Before he was the emcee of Woodstock, or the official clown of the Grateful Dead, or founded the world's longest running hippie commune; before he was even Wavy Gravy, Hugh Romney was a beatnik who read poetry and played folk music at The Gaslight on MacDougal Street. But the man at the center of Saint Misbehavin', at least in his current iteration, doesn't seem like the type to inspire playful nicknames from B.B. King or the sort who Bob Dylan might want to share a room with. Apparently though, he was.
The film reminded me of what it felt like to be confronted with voluntary idiocy. I don't like, at 23, to be made a Scrooge, but I also don't like the conflation of "being critical" with "being judgmental." Wavy Gravy and his cohort are definitely non-judgemental — they'll be the first ones to tell you that — but they'll also never be critical. Neither will the people I grew up with. It's around the holidays that these bitter thoughts begin to worm their way into my consciousness. I'll be back in California for Christmas, and I bet you $100 that within twenty-four hours I'll be told to relax.
The film opens with Wavy Gravy at his commune house in Berkeley. It's his night to prepare dinner for the dozens of people with whom he lives. Wavy Gravy gets in his van (hippies love Dodge Caravans) and drives to Ben and Jerry's to pick up some pro bono ice cream (a flavor is named after him, and it is, of course, a stoner's dream: caramel-cashew-Brazil nut base with a chocolate hazelnut fudge swirl and roasted almonds.) Most everyone in the film looks like frizzy haired Edward Koran cartoons. "I know this is trivial," a friend said to me en route to the subway after the movie ended, "but why was everyone obese?" Maybe it's all the free dessert.
Wavy Gravy wears a rainbow felt jester hat around, miniature bells tinkling off the tip of each floppy point. He makes a stabbing effort to intellectualize his garb, explaining that by dressing up like a clown, or Santa, or the Easter Bunny, he's protected from the police; a man in a silly costume is non-threatening. It might be true that such characters aren't threatening, but they're also not particularly effective. Ram Dass, the author of Be Here Now, says that "he's infused politics with humor." But Wavy Gravy, nice as he may be, is neither of those things: political nor humorous.
There were more abstract nouns uttered here than in your standard Chelsea gallery press release. The talking heads describe Wavy Gravy as "unique" and "amazing," that with him comes a spirit of "trust" and "freedom." For a subculture so insistent upon creativity, originality, and "intense elevated shenanigans," its members all seem to be strikingly similar. Wavy Gravy's personality is indistinguishable from his peers'. "We're all the same person, trying to shake hands with our self," he says fauxosophically towards the end of the film. Well, mission accomplished! Even the young children who attend Camp Winnarainbow, the circus camp that Wavy Gravy founded, talk this way. In between sessions of juggling, stilt-walking, and trapeze, Esrick interviews some of the campers. When prompted to describe Wavy Gravy, Dylan, who is no more than nine, looks straight into the camera and says: "He's hilarious. He's everything." Children, it seems, are indoctrinated with vagueness at a young age, rendering the speaking patterns of grade schoolers and retirees identical.
The documentary is pretty evenly split between present day interviews and archival b-roll footage, and the juxtaposition between the two often yields unintentional comedy. When Wavy Gravy's wife, Bonnie Beecher, talks indistinctly about wanting to "involve people," for instance, the camera cuts to a pie-eating contest. And it's when the commune members start talking about being non-judgmental that we learn Wavy Gravy's son, Howdy Do-Good Gravy Tomahawk Truckstop, changed his name to "Jordan" on this 13th birthday. In interviews, he speaks positively and warmly of his parents, but it's still obvious that he embodies a counterintuitive kind of rebellion. Jordan, who has close cropped hair and a presumably more traditional job, is now married and lives in a single-family home in Philadelphia, where he doesn't "have to share a wall with anyone else."
Wavy Gravy co-founded the Seva Foundation, an international health organization that works to perform cataract surgeries in Asia. The last quarter of Saint Misbehavin' focuses on the charity work. It's heartening to see the buffoonery of a bubble-blowing clown channeled into a worthy cause. But for the sake of sounder rhetoric, this section should not have been tacked onto the end of the film as some sort of altruistic redemption for the years of fun and folly. Rather, it should have been incorporated consistently throughout or even frontloaded to justify all the casual time we spend with Wavy Gravy and his bumbling jokes.
The interviewees speak to radical politics and how good it feels to be empowered, but of what they're opposing or what they feel liberated to actually do remains unclear. At one point, the social circumstances that allowed for the Summer of Love to take place (the invention of birth control, the nonexistence of AIDS) are literally refused in favor of the argument that "it was a time when people were thinking they could make the world a better place." It would be one thing if these hollow anthems were trumpeted only by Wavy Gravy and his acolytes; the problem is that Esrick's angle reinforces their misguided, nebulous ethos. I don't mean to be cruel to Wavy Gravy, someone whose unanimous reputation is one of kindness, joy, and generosity. There's nothing malevolent about having fun, playing the banjo with your friends, or being generally optimistic, but when those values trump everything else, including a realistic grasp of history or the proper use of language, it becomes infuriating to witness. Just relax, I tell myself. But that only makes me madder.
Occupying a singular role in someone else's life is gratifying: knowing that you're the only one who can cheer up that certain friend, knowing that you're the only one your boss trusts to take charge when he's out sick. This is what's so great about sad-looking guys. It feels good when you're the one who ekes that rare smile out of them. There's almost nothing better than being the one to shut off a person's default depressive settings.
This is my theory about Ryan Gosling. He's not the most obvious leading man; actually, he always looks like he's about to cry. But the ladies love him! He seems like he needs protecting, and also as though getting him to laugh might be a real challenge. But he has a deep voice. And bigger arms than you might think. And that combination of baritone and biceps steer him clear of that soft, puppy eyed, Elijah Wood territory he might otherwise be mired in forever. The collision of opposites – twee, but manly – make him a perfect, if not obvious, candidate for all those dark, stormy hero roles he seems to pick. That's what really pitches his boyish pallor into such blinding relief; he's been cast as a freebasing middle-school teacher, a trial-obsessed prosecutor, a socially inept lover of an anatomically correct doll.
All Good Things opened last Friday, and it's Gosling's first film since 2007's Lars and the Real Girl. In it he plays an increasingly deranged and ultimately murderous real estate scion. He goes catatonic at times, releases blood curdling screams at others. His sweetness turns believably sinister. And if that isn't enough, we even get him in some Tenant-esque, Polanksi-type drag. All Good Things really is a good thing. Despite the grim plot points (marriage disintegration, psychotic breakdown, homicides), Andrew Jarecki pumps a lot of wish fulfillment into 101 minutes. The early courtship is meltingly romantic, and the proposal scene actually made me gasp with delight. There's a natural food store in Vermont, there's tennis whites, there's cocaine in the bathroom, there's Studio 54. There's everything you could ever want.
Gosling looks like a friend's little brother all grown up. You can see younger versions of him in his own face, as you can with someone who you've known for a long time but never really bothered to examine closely. Like Andy Warhol, he's monochromatic: hair, skin, perennial tighty-whiteys. That non-color is what happens when blond boys grow up. Gosling's a bit lunar, as though he's subsisted off a steady diet of bee pollen his whole life. His agent must have sat him down a few years ago and said, "Ryan, you're only to appear in films with overexposed cinematography. Do you understand that? It's crucial for your brand."
In All Good Things, we see Gosling in his natural habitat: lens flare, dappled light, winter skies, deciduous trees. His co-star in the film is Kirsten Dunst, and watching the two together, you realize how similarly seductive they are. They're creatures of the same environment. They have nostalgic, vintage-y faces — Polaroid faces. They both appeal to mainstream audiences (The Notebook, Bring It On) and indie audiences (Half Nelson, The Virgin Suicides) alike. It's true too that they both resemble glow worms.
Blue Valentine, which opens on December 31st is also a portrait of a splintering marriage, but with Michelle Williams in the place of Kirsten Dunst as the betrothed blonde. Gosling has three more forthcoming films slated for 2011: The Ides of March, which is in pre-production; and then Crazy, Stupid, Love and Drive, which are both in post-production. He's been at premiers and Q&As, in promotion of these new films. He's on the cover of the December 13th issue of New York. He's all over town! But where has he been? Maybe just "working on his music." He's in a band called Dead Man's Bones, and they're actually supposed to be good. It's always satisfying to know that people – public figures, in particular – have a uniform aesthetic or at least a set of somewhat predicable tastes. Dead Man's Bones. His band name says it all. What's there not to love about a boy with a fondness for Danzig and a last name that means baby duck?
There are certain realities that can make a sober person feel stoned: the size of a "small" soda at the movies, Times Square at rush hour, the fact that slavery ended less than 150 years ago. In each case, the same mantra resounds: Are you serious!?
Made in Dagenham, Nigel Cole's dramatic retelling of the 1968 Ford Dagenham car plant strike, relies on hyperbolic history to evoke this same you-better-believe-it feeling. The film insists, again and again, that you confront just how recently sexual discrimination in the workplace was legal. Led by Rita O'Grady (Sally Hawkins), the plant's band of all-female sewing machinists walks out in protest of their unfair pay. They first demand that their "unskilled" labor be reclassified as "skilled," which would upgrade their wages, a request that's more than just semantics. In a meeting with Ford executives, Rita pulls some leather swatches out of her handbag and demonstrates how they fit together, how none of the seamstresses use patterns. She makes a convincing argument without even mentioning the unethical premise of wage discrepancies between men and women. Inspired by their foreman's encouragement and local media coverage ("The Revlon Revolution!"), the women make their way from suburban Dagenham to Westminster Palace where they recruit the support of Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity Barbara Castle, who agrees to pass the Equal Pay Act of 1970 within the year.
The film opens and closes with Jimmy Cliff's manically sunny "You Can Get It If You Really Want." The women swear like sailors, wear sherbet-hued separates, and ride cute bikes with banana seats. It's almost enough to make an underpaid overworked life seem like fun! 1960's ready-to-wear does for women what army fatigues do for men: It makes them look much better than they otherwise would. It's hard to tell from the interspliced archival footage just how realistic the cinematic portrayals are. Even mid-summer, hard at work, stripped down to their nude, polyester brassieres, the women look luscious. The factory floor is fleshy, full of bosoms, and their boss marches around with his hands up like horse blinders.
But Rita, our heroine, is the least voluptuous of the bunch. Sally Hawkins's jutting clavicle and rabbity mouth are like the physical manifestations of inner tautness. She isn't fifty yet, but as Orwell's saying goes, she has the face she deserves. It's electric and elastic and half-irritating to watch. Rita, like her fellow factory workers, spends the film steeling herself against unjust men. There's a lot of lip-quivering and almost-crying. When the strike comes into focus, her family life suffers. Her son watches too much TV. Her daughter's pigtails are left to the hands of her cartoonishly incapable husband, Eddie. Breakfast burns. He runs out of laundered shirts. Without Rita's income, bills go unpaid. Their new refrigerator gets seized. Already used to the daily actuality of strikes — opposed to their invigorating drama — Eddie tells her, shaking, "Welcome to the real world, Rita. This is being on strike. You run out of money and you scream at each other."
Made In Dagenham does a few things very right, all to the same effect of complicating what could have been too-neat a human interest story. The side-plots are where the real sacrifices are revealed: Rita's only-just-saved marriage, her coworker's hesitation at getting involved with the cause (she doesn't want to neglect her sick husband), the bitter words from men at the factory whose salary is being held for the "mere principle" of equal pay. When Rita goes to meet Secretary Castle, she wears a flouncy, red dress from Biba, a popular London department store. The frippery is borrowed from Monica, the wife of a Ford executive, who despite reading history at Cambridge, is treated like a fool by her husband. Though Rita's and Monica's incomes don't align, their ethics do. The friendship is another one of the film's productive, complicating subplots; Monica is an exception to the otherwise all-working class cast, and her support makes the struggle seem larger, more political, less personal.
Made In Dagenham has good intentions. It's aggressively competent, though maybe not memorable. The story is engaging. The cast is charming. But again, like those experiences that make you doubt your own sobriety, it's hard for high-pitch history to maintain a lasting effect. I might have been awed at such recent injustice while in the theater, but against my will, I doubt very much that I will remember this film.
Unpacking jokes is tedious work. There's an oxymoronic "generous hoarding instinct" that sets in — you want to ingest the humor while also disseminating it, regardless of whether or not anyone wants to hear the rehash. Listen to this one! Oh, wait — here's another! Ok, last time, I swear. Writing about comedy involves a lot of forest-through-the-trees-type moments; attending to the lines, rather than the story — let alone the "message" — can be tough. After exiting the theater from a funny movie and sitting down to read my scrawl, I'm always disappointed by what I've chosen to scribble out. There are pages upon pages of chicken scratch to decipher — void of analysis, blackened with greedily transcribed jokes. When there's something larger at stake than just humor — political satire, say — this habit becomes all the more embarrassing.
That's how I felt after Four Lions, Christopher Morris's debut feature film — a Jihadist parody — now playing at the Angelika. Morris, a writer, director and actor known in England as the anchor of spoof news programs, such as The Day Show and Brass Eye, has marked his territory as an irreverent metabolizer of current affairs and media hysterics. Four Lions, the product of years' worth of research and editing, follows a group of Islamist terrorists from Sheffield, England to scabbed-over Afghanistan and back again. There's heavy stuff here, but it's wrought with so many gags that focusing on anything but the quote-worthy one-liners and slapstick lunacy feels impossible.
As for the cast, sure they're suicide bombers, but they operate like a last-string soccer team whose only goals are self-inflicted. M.V.P. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is a family man with an adoring wife and a charming son; his bright eyes and quick wit betray any sense of patience, as it's constantly chipped away at by his band of blokes. Cleary, he's too smart for this shit. Nigel Lindsay plays Barry, a white Muslim convert with a temper shorter than any of his jury-rigged fuses. He urges the others to eat their SIM cards to trick "the satellites" and is convinced that only by bombing a Mosque can they ignite a productive Islam uprising. The ever-erring, always-idiotic Fessal (Adeel Akhtar) assumes an IRA accent while buying chemicals and orders Silver Nitrate off Amazon. Waj (Kayvan Novak) is our wise fool; his mere inclusion within the already hapless group is meant to spur comic effects, but it's also a bit terrifying, even within such a moronic context. The fumbling felons pick up Hassan (Arsher Ali), a self-proclaimed rapper and devoted 2Pac fan, when he stages a fake bombing in a lecture hall. At every moment, you're urged to think to yourself, Hey! These really are just a bunch of guys in a room!
Missile launchers are fired backwards. Adidas tear-away pants peak out beneath traditional throbes — not unrealistic, but still funny. Cursing is anatomically specific and zoologically astute: "floppy camel sphincter" is a representative insult. They whip their heads back and forth until dizzy, blurring their features in an attempt to trick the face recognition software they fear is omnipresent. They're always piling into — and spilling out of — a tinny, little car, like an insane clown posse (literally: one of them really is dressed in an upside-down Bozo costume for the last quarter of the film, and obviously these guys are all insane). The spectrum of humor here is vast, and when the jokes fall flat they pancake out totally. It seemed too obvious, for instance, to have so many threatening conversations punctuated with the disjointed "peace be with you." Also: the full minutes spent arguing over the direction of Mecca ("East is that way, bro!")? It felt like Jon Stewart filler.
Mostly though, the quality of the comedy is excellent and relentless. The whole film buzzes with high-frequency quips, and the plot hums along accordingly. If anything, it's exhausting. You hang on every word; it's inspirationally tiring. You don't want to miss anything, but you also always want a break, just for a minute. It's too late for this, but Four Lions — great as it is — might have made for an even better web series. Short, sweet, and streamable, it could have been a serialized "event" of sorts, something to anticipate, savor, digest, and forget until the next week — something to watch after you've gotten your Guardian fix for the day.


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This makes for a great Passover dish. And not alot of eggs either, as you will find that many Passover dishes are heavily dependant on eggs, but not this one. Alot of broccoli goes into this dish as this is the main ingredient. I like to use both the florets and the stems as the whole tree is edible, although you will find that the florets will cook faster than the stem.
Units: US | Metric
Serving Size: 1 (218 g)
Servings Per Recipe: 6
Make this season merry, bright and manageable with our easy ideas.