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Academics are just as important to Albany Elite Sports Senior Tiger Paws and Junior Tiger Paws cheering squads as the routines that win competitions.
As of Friday, January 17, 2014
© Copyright 2015
Albany Herald
ALBANY — It was not pom-poms that the cheerleaders brought with them to practice at the Uptown Dance Studio for a recent practice. Instead, many arrived clutching their report cards.
To see photos from a recent Tiger Paws practice, CLICK HERE and go to our Spotted Gallery.
Academics are just as important to Albany Elite Sports Senior Tiger Paws and Junior Tiger Paws cheering squads as the routines that win competitions.
O'tessa Robinson is the squad's head coach, assisted by her sisters, Gistacy Brown and Latonya Peterson. The trio of siblings cheered in elementary, middle and high school and in college, and they are quite serious about teaching the value of a solid education.
"To be a member of the competition squad, cheerleaders must have great cheer potential, satisfactory grades and great conduct," Brown said.
Whether a child is excelling or not performing up to expectations at school, the coaches want to know about it. Girls on the team who are struggling with their school work come early to practice for tutoring.
The Tiger Paws team was formed in March, 2009, as a cheer squad for the Albany Elite Sports basketball teams. Each year the number of participants grew, and in 2012 the team started competition cheering. Last year on April 12, the girls came home from Jacksonville, Fla., with the national championship trophy in the 14 and under division after leaving a couple of dozen other teams in their dust.
Any student may try out for the team, but even the most talented will not make it without satisfactory grades and excellent school conduct. Fourteen-year-old Tierra Baker knows all about the consequences of bad behavior. She wanted to be on the team three years ago, but her record of frequent school detention overshadowed her cheering ability. Being turned down by the coaches was a defining moment for Baker, who said she made up her mind to prove herself worthy of the team. And that is just what happened.
Tierra openly admits that her behavior was bad, both at school and at home. But by the time the next available tryouts came up, it was a completely different story. Detention was no longer a problem, her grades improved and now she says, with a big smile, that her mother is proud of her.
"I have matured a lot," Tierra says proudly.
In her second year on the team, Tierra serves as one of two captains.
Quintessa Carnegie is the team's other captain and, at age 13, has cheered for four years. When asked what her experience as a Tiger Paw has meant to her, she quickly answered that it has inspired her to do more, and better, in school.
As members of a team that has taken first place in numerous competitions, the question is posed as to how the captains would feel if they did not take top honors at the next event. Both girls stressed that the team is ready to take on any competitor but that if another teamed scored higher, it would not get them down but just make them try harder the next time.
Another team member, Tianna Baker, 13, was anxious to speak about being a Tiger Paw. She said she really likes doing stunts and stated that she has gained confidence in herself.
"I like the attention," she said with a grin.
There are expenses involved in competition cheering, most of which is paid by parents. Robinson said, however, that finances would never stop a child from participating. Fundraisers and sponsorships are available, but it is not unusual for the sister coaches to come out of their own pockets. Aside from uniforms and travel, it costs $65 per child to enter a competition. They say donations are tax deductible.
Community service is mandatory for Tiger Paws members. They have made cards for senior citizens and participated in Stop the Violence and Family Fun Day. The biggest community events are raising money for and participating in Relay for Life and the MS Walk. A cancer patient or survivor is invited to speak to the girls each year to give them a realistic example of how the money they raise is sued. A cheerleader once spoke to the group, herself an MS sufferer.
While Tiger Paws practices may seem at times chaotic, one call to attention from any of the coaches brings silence and formation. When asked a question, the answer is always a polite, "Yes, ma'am."
Both squads competed earlier this month in Havana, Fla., and came away with first place accolades. The senior team also took the award for best overall dance. Both teams were named grand champions.
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Posted 4:55 PM 2/21/2013 : Residents willing to give interim BRPD chief a chance
BATON ROUGE- The search is on for the next Baton Rouge Police chief, after city leaders asked the municipal Civil Service Board to schedule exams for the position.
Lieutenant Carl Dabadie is currently leading the department. He was appointed to the position Wednesday by Mayor-Persident Kip... Read More

subset: commoncrawl


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Cupcake party: Android 1.5 update coming to T-Mobile G1 owners next week
T-Mobile officially announces that it will roll out the Android 1.5 update to T-Mobile G1 owners at the end of next week.
Finally, the moment all
Android 1.5 will bring a number of user interface improvements, better performance, as well as new features, such as an onscreen full QWERTY keyboard, video recording and playback, and stereo Bluetooth support. For a full list of features and an FAQ, check out T-Mobile's forum page.
We're anxiously awaiting our own Cupcake, and we'll update our


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Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot
Container City: Shipping containers, indispensable tool of the globalized consumer economy, reflect the skyline in Singapore, one of the world's busiest ports.
Topics: Books, Entertainment News
Twenty-three years ago this past June 7, Forrest Carter was laid to rest in the Carter family plot at D'Armanville Cemetery near Anniston, Ala. A short time later, family members yanked out the old headstone and put in a new one inscribed with the words "Asa Earl Carter, Sept. 4 1925-June 7 1979."
Forrest must have been spinning in his grave. For the last few years of his life, he tried hard to kill off Asa. And if he had stayed off television, he might have pulled it off.
Forrest Carter was the bestselling author of "The Education of Little Tree: A True Story," a literary phenomenon that was published 25 years ago this fall and is credited by many as the book that touched off the boom in what is still referred to in publishing as "Native American Lit." Carter also wrote another famous book, "The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales," whose eponymous ex-Confederate superhero was played by Clint Eastwood in the most influential western since "The Searchers."
But "Forrest Carter's" most memorable creation was himself. "Forrest Carter," revered author of the beloved "Little Tree," was actually Asa Carter — virulent segregationist, former Klansman, speechwriter for George Wallace and professional racist. In both incarnations, Carter is the focus of new interest. Diane McWhorter's critically acclaimed history of the civil rights struggle in Birmingham, Ala., "Carry Me Home," has revealed more about the role of "Ace" as a warrior for white supremacy, while the 25th anniversary publication of Forrest's "The Education Of Little Tree" — minus the "True Story" subtitle — continues to exalt him as a pillar of New Age wisdom and a multicultural hero.
For a man with just three slim volumes published in his own lifetime, Forrest Carter made a significant impact on American culture. (A fourth book, "Cry Geronimo," published posthumously, has influenced two screen depictions of the Apache chief.) "The Education of Little Tree," about an orphan boy named Forrest who learns about life from his sage Cherokee grandparents, has never been out of print since it was first published in 1976 to rave reviews in the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly and elsewhere. According to an editor at the now-defunct Delacorte Press, the book sold more than a million copies in hard and soft covers before the University of New Mexico Press picked it up in 1985. Since then, it has become the biggest seller in the publisher's history and one of the great publishing successes for any university press, selling more than 1,440,000 copies in paperback and at least 56,000 more in cloth.
The sales for "Little Tree" don't begin to tell the story of the book's influence. Schoolchildren have been so moved by it that they have formed Little Tree fan clubs. For years there were rumors in Hollywood that Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, and even Stephen Spielberg were interested in filming "Little Tree"; many think "Little Tree" helped shape the depiction of Indians in Costner's "Dances With Wolves." In 1991, 15 years after its publication and 12 years after Carter's death, "Little Tree" won the coveted Abby Award and climbed onto the New York Times' bestseller list.
Even though "Little Tree" was publicly exposed as fraudulent the very year of its publication, most readers simply refused to believe the evidence. This despite the fact that the Asa/Forrest Carter scandal was known far and wide, at least in academia: The distinguished African-American literary critic Henry Louis Gates wrote a widely discussed piece about it, for example. (In one of the many peculiar twists of the Asa-Forrest saga, some teachers acknowledge the controversy and include it in their lesson plans.) But while some know about the book's peculiar history, years after the exposé many, perhaps most, new readers and fans who discover the book through the well-received movie version for young adults don't even know there's a controversy. That "The Education of Little Tree" was written by the same man who immortalized George Wallace by writing his racist manifesto, the famous "Segregation forever!" speech, is an inconvenient fact that hundreds of thousands of people seem willing to ignore.
Leading the way in the ignoring department is the University of New Mexico Press, which is apparently not about to do anything that might kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Incredibly, UNM's handsome new 25th anniversary edition (with a cover painting by the Oklahoma Cherokee artist Murv Jacob) makes no mention of Asa Carter or the controversies that have surrounded the book over the years — an omission that Diane McWhorter equates to "publishing a book of Hitler's paintings without mentioning the word 'Nazi.'" The specious "biography" that appeared on the book's back cover in the original UNM edition, which moistly gushed that "Forrest Carter, whose Indian name is Little Tree, was known as 'Storyteller in Council' to the Cherokee Nations … His Indian friends always shared a part of his earnings from his writing," is gone, as is the subtitle "A True Story." Only the words "Young Adult Fiction" in small print on the corner of the back cover hint at the book's stormy history. The introduction (which has remained unchanged since the first UNM edition in 1985) by Rennard Strickland, a professor of law at the University of Oregon, blandly tells us that Forrest Carter "wrote a number of important books," and that "'Little Tree' speaks to the human spirit and reaches the very depth of the human soul."
The University of New Mexico Press declined to comment about its nonacknowledgment of "Little Tree's" unseemly provenance, referring a reporter to Rennard Strickland. Strickland said he was not consulted by the University of New Mexico about updating his introduction and that his purpose in writing the introduction was to "tell readers what they'd find in this book. I wasn't doing a history of the controversy." He added, "I have given my last interview on the subject."
One of the remarkable things about Forrest Carter's self-reinvention is how few reminders of his Asa existence still remain. Indeed, aside from a couple of slim pieces of physical evidence, it might be difficult to prove now that Asa and Forrest Carter were the same man.
A few years ago, Buddy Barnett, a childhood friend of Carter's, produced a first edition of "The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales" with an inscription in Carter's handwriting that reads "Forrest (Asa) Carter." Veteran Alabama journalist Wayne Greenhaw, who first broke the story of the Asa-Forrest Carter connection, had the handwriting in Barnett's copy of "Wales" checked against the sample in Asa Earl Carter's own biography, submitted when he ran for governor in 1970. They matched. In the biography, Carter said that he was born in Oxford, Ala., on Sept. 4, 1925. He claimed his parents, who were dairy farmers, had Cherokee blood in their background, which is either true or a "damn lie," depending on which family member you speak to. Carter's brother Doug insists that the family had no Cherokee ancestors, but Barnett claims that "Asa's mother's people were Cherokee, and Asa was proud of that fact."
Some family members recall that while growing up in the Appalachian hills of north Alabama, young Asa Carter pestered older family members for details about Confederate ancestors on both sides of the family. One rode with Morgan's Raiders, another was a guerrilla fighter with Col. Mosby, the legendary "Grey Ghost." Maybe Carter had heard family stories of Cherokee ancestors, or maybe he heard stories about the Cherokee when growing up near Chocoloco Creek. Both "Wales" and "Little Tree" feature Cherokee Indians who were Confederate officers. In "Little Tree" the boy makes one of them into his own ancestor: "Granma and Granpa spoke of his Pa in his last years. He was an old warrior. He had joined the Confederate raider, John Hunt Morgan, to fight the faraway, faceless monster of "the guv'mint" that threatened his people and his cabin." In "Little Tree" Carter brings together the two strains of his ancestry — one real and one, it would appear, assumed — to account for the famed "Rebel Yell": "Exultation … brought the rebel Indian yell rumbling from his chest and out of his throat, screaming, savage."
Carter graduated from high school in 1942, joined the Navy and became, like his future boss George Wallace, a boxing champ. He told friends he turned down the Army because he wanted to fight the Japanese rather than the Germans, his "racial kin." After the war, Carter married Thelma India Walker, a high school sweetheart, moved to Colorado, and attended the state university. After graduating, he returned to Alabama and established a career as a full-time racist.
Around Birmingham, you can still find copies of the Southerner, a monthly magazine devoted to white supremacy, which Carter helped found. Collectors of civil-rights era memorabilia have copies of his radio broadcasts and pamphlets from his 1970 campaign for governor. In one of these, he warned white Alabamians about the prospect of black policemen: "Soon, you can expect your wife or daughter to be pulled over to the side of the road by one of these Ubangi or Watusi tribesmen wearing the badge of Anglo-Saxon law enforcement and toting a gun… but (he'll be) as uncivilized as the day his kind were found eating their kin in a jungle."
After getting fired from a radio station for criticizing National Brotherhood Week, Carter formed a group called the White Citizens Council, an organization that espoused the same fundamental views as the KKK. Carter's association didn't last; he couldn't stomach the idea of making a common cause with anti-integrationist Jews, even to segregate blacks.
Instead, he helped create a new and even more virulent organization, the original Ku Klux Klan of the Confederacy, whose members wore Confederate gray robes instead of white. In Carter's view, the old KKK had become too soft and compromised. Various acts of violence were associated with the new Kluxers, the most famous being the assault on Nat "King" Cole at a concert in Birmingham in 1957. Less well known but far uglier was the 1957 abduction of a black handyman named Edward Aaron who had offended members of Carter's group with inflammatory talk of forced integration. The abductors, never identified, sliced off Aaron's scrotum and poured turpentine on his wounds. According to his childhood pal Buddy Barnett, Carter — who openly advocated violence in his speeches and articles — was appalled by the coldbloodedness of the attack. But Don Carter, who wrote a biography of George Wallace, took a darker view, saying, "[Carter] had a long history of violence, in fact, it's not an exaggeration to call him something of a … psychopath."
By 1958, disillusioned with the new Klan's leadership, whom he called "a bunch of trash," he quit the group. With few prospects and four kids to feed in Anniston, Asa Carter took an ill-advised turn into politics, running for state lieutenant governor. He finished fifth in a five-man field.
Alabama's most powerful moderate in the second half of the decade was George Wallace. In 1958, stunned over his loss in the governor's race to Klan-backed John Patterson, Wallace famously swore to an aide that he'd never be "outsegged" again. (Or, as some of Wallace's less flattering biographers have phrased it, "outniggered.") The solution was the talented but unstable Asa Carter, whom Wallace's aides thought they could keep, as one of them now admits, "under wraps."
Till the day he died, George Wallace denied that he ever knew Asa Carter. He may have been telling the truth. "Ace," as he was called by the staff, was paid off indirectly by Wallace cronies, and the only record that he ever wrote for Wallace was the word of former Wallace campaign officials such as finance manager Seymore Trammell. "He lived out of back offices in Wallace's headquarters," says Wayne Greenhaw. "He'd see his wife and kids on weekends and be a family man. During the weekdays he'd hole up in his room with his typewriter, a quart of whiskey, a dozen packs of Pall Malls and a gun." Adds a former campaign official: "A revolver, an Old West type of gun."
From this back room, Asa Carter wrote the most famous racist rhetoric of the civil rights era, words that would reach and be remembered by more people than anything published by Forrest Carter. From the steps of the Alabama state capitol building, on Inauguration Day, 1963, Wallace delivered the speech that, for sheer grandiloquence, rivals Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream." "In the name of the greatest people that ever tread the earth," thundered Wallace, "I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny. And I say: Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" Wallace's national reputation was made.
When Wallace ran his wife, Lurleen, for governor in his place, there was talk of making Carter her press secretary, but cooler heads among Wallace's advisors suggested that this might be too high-profile for a man with Carter's past. He was kept on for a while as a speechwriter until Lurleen Wallace died of cancer. By 1968 Wallace was ready to run for president and had to clean up his rhetoric. All ties to "Ace" were cut. Deserted and, he felt, betrayed, Carter ran against Wallace for the governor's seat in 1970. In his TV commercials, Carter looked large, thick-set and barrel-chested, with dark, thick, Russian-like hair and eyebrows. He looked like George Wallace's bigger, meaner brother. Positioned in front of a Confederate flag, he railed against "race-mixing," Communists in Hollywood and anything else he could tie to the "guv'mint" in Washington. He finished last.
Wales was born out of the ashes of Asa Carter's political defeat, just as, in Carter's novel, Wales rises from the ruins of the old Confederacy. In 1973 Carter and his wife, Thelma, sold their Alabama home and moved to Florida where Carter could get away from his political debacle. Within a year, a new Carter emerged, slimmer, darker (all that Florida sun) and with a new name: Forrest. The name was chosen in homage to Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, the infamous Confederate cavalry general and a founder of the Ku Klux Klan. And, like Wales, Forrest Carter went to Texas to begin a new life — one that was to definitively disprove F. Scott Fitzgerald's claim that there are no second acts in American life.
From writing racist speeches, Carter turned to writing genre fiction. In 1973 Eleanor Friede at Delacorte Press accepted his first novel, "Gone to Texas," for publication. Carter was now spending time around Abilene, visiting his sons (whom he referred to, for reasons that remain unclear, as his nephews) and making new friends. He told them that he was from Florida, that he had Cherokee family in north Alabama and that he was an official "story teller" and "oral historian" for the Cherokee nation. He dressed in jeans and string ties and affected a folksy speech pattern. He performed what he called Cherokee songs and dances for his friends. To the surprise of his friends and family, and probably Carter himself, "Gone to Texas" was published and, thanks to Friede's clout, even got reviewed in publications that ignored westerns. It sold well, pleasing the vast readership of Louis L'Amour, but also impressing a handful of readers beyond the western audience that an intense new sensibility was at work in the tired and predictable genre. Carter was delighted to promote his book with personal appearances. An Austin bookseller recalls that "He was such a great storyteller that people who heard him, people who didn't buy westerns, bought his books."
What kind of people have bought Forrest Carter's books? Certainly the Wales novels appealed to the readers of pulp westerns and action-adventure novels. But Carter also seemed to make fans of thousands who wanted something more from their pulp — and the story he told shared important themes with his lone wolf, white-supremacist past. The character of Wales is a superhero-like conflation of several Confederate guerrilla fighters of the Civil War and post-Civil War era, particularly Jesse James and Cole Younger. Wales is a child of the mountains, and "he preferred the mountains to remain wild, free, unfettered by law and the irritating hypocrisy of organized society." Wales is white, but "His kinship . . . was closer to the Cherokee than to his social brothers of the flatland." Like thousands of ex-Confederates, he hangs a "G.T.T." sign on his door — "Gone to Texas" — and flees through Indian country, pursued, long after it would seem necessary, by federal soldiers and marshals. Before the novel ends, the Goya-esque landscape is cluttered with corpses, almost in anticipation of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian."
In contrast to the Wales stories, "The Education of Little Tree" is a sweet, sad idyll, a pastiche of pop Zen and New Age homilies crossed with a dash of down-home red-in-tooth-and-claw Darwinism. On the surface "Little Tree" is a story of peace and tolerance; at its heart it shares much with the bloody Wales books. Carter's philosophy of implacable nature is displayed in a passage where Little Tree is saddened when a hawk tears a harmless quail to pieces. "Don't feel sad, Little Tree. It is the Way. Tal-con caught the slow and so the slow will raise no children who are also slow … and so Tal-con lives by the Way. He helps the quail." And so, in nature's harmony, the dominant species rules. Man upsets the harmony by empowering the weak. Government corrupts nature by helping the weak.
In addition to wisdom from Granpa and Granma, Little Tree learns life lessons from a kindly Jewish peddler, "Mr. Wine." Mr. Wine, anticipating Milton Friedman by half a century, says, "If you was loose with your money, then you would get loose with your time, loose with your thinking and practically anything else. If a whole people got loose, then politicians seen they could get control. They would take over loose people and before long you had a dictator. Mr. Wine said no thinking people ever had a dictator." Fascists, of course, do not regard their leaders as dictators but as expressions of their own will.
Perhaps no two books by the same author have ever had so few readers in common. But scratch the surface of "Little Tree's" Native American worldview and you'll find a Confederate-minded noble savage. In fact, the Cherokees in both "Little Tree" and the Wales' books are honorary Confederates, fighting the evils of what both Little Tree and Wales call "guv'mint."
Sometime in late 1973 Bob Daley, a producer for Clint Eastwood's Malpaso Productions in California, received a book with a note for Eastwood. "The letter spoke of Clint's 'kind eyes,'" says Daley. "I thought, 'Who in the world thinks that Clint Eastwood has 'kind eyes'? I was curious." Daley didn't read westerns, but he gave "The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales" a try. Intrigued, he talked Clint into giving it a try; the next day Eastwood told Daley to buy it for Malpaso. Carter's cut was $25,000 for screen rights — not bad for a first-time author writing in a pulp genre — with an additional $10,000 if the film was made.
A short time later Carter called to say he'd be in the area and wanted to stop by. "Fine," said Daley, "where will you be? Los Angeles? He said, 'No, I'll be in Dallas.' I just looked at the phone, wondering what kind of character we'd gotten involved with." Daley had no idea. When Carter arrived, he was staggeringly drunk and proceeded to piss all over the office carpet. Daley had an assistant hustle him to a hotel.
The next day, sober, he made his way back to Daley's office. "He no sooner got there," Daley recalls, "than he said, 'Well, it was fine meetin' ye, but I reckin' I'd better be gittin' ta home.' It took me a moment to realize that he was talking like Wales. I thought, 'This is worse than I thought.' I talked him into staying another night to have dinner with some of my people from the production office. Again, he showed up drunk, and he pulled a knife and held it to the throat of one of our secretaries. He later said it was all a joke."
The film's first director, Philip Kaufman, was not impressed by "The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales." "'Fascist' is an overworked word," says Kaufman from his California home, "but the first time I looked at that book that's what I thought: 'This was written by a crude fascist.' It was nutty. The man's hatred of government was insane. I felt that that element in the script needed to be severely toned down. But Clint didn't, and it was his movie." Eastwood eventually fired Kaufman and went on to direct himself.
Then, the same year as the release of "Josey Wales" came the publication of "Little Tree," and Carter was on the verge of superstardom. But Carter's gift for promotion became his undoing. In 1975 Carter appeared on the Barbara Walters show, doing pre-publicity for the Eastwood film "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and Carter's upcoming books, "Little Tree" and his second western, "The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales." He smiled, winked and squinted under the brim of his black cowboy hat, but moments after his appearance NBC was bombarded by calls from area code 205. A handful of his old cronies in Alabama had made him. Forrest Carter's days were numbered.
The mask was crumbling, and 1976 brought with it a double blow from which Carter never recovered. First, his distant cousin Dan Carter, a historian and future biographer of George Wallace, wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times blowing the whistle on the identity of the new literary lion from Texas. Shortly after, Carter's nemesis, Alabama journalist Wayne Greenhaw, wrote a piece — also for the New York Times — digging even deeper into his sordid past. But neither story would have any effect on book sales; indeed, at first, it seemed as if the stories would have no effect on Carter's career at all. Delacorte Press's Eleanor Friede publicly denied any connection between Ace and Forrest; for Carter's new friends in Texas, many of whom weren't disposed to give the New York Times much credence anyway, that was good enough.
For two years, Forrest Carter hung on in Texas, playing the local celebrity and trying to let Asa Carter fade back into the past. In 1978, in Dallas, he appeared at the Wellesley Book and Author Patron Party, sitting on a distinguished panel including historians Lon Tinkle, Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey and, incredibly, Barbara Tuchman. He played the folksy noble savage to the hilt, winning over both the panel and the audience. Tuchman laughed out loud when Carter embraced her and called her "a good ol' Jew girl."
I met Forrest Carter shortly after that at the Houston airport, working on a profile for the Houston Post. He was lean and sunburned and had a bushy mustache; he reminded me of an old photo of Wyatt Earp. Wearing a broad Stetson, he looked like a figure in a Remington painting in sunglasses. As a student in Birmingham I had watched him on TV when he ran for governor, but I wouldn't have recognized him as Asa if he had been pointed out to me.
I knew him only as the author of "The Education Of Little Tree," a book that I had regarded as inconsequential when I first read it, and of "Gone to Texas," which seemed a brutal but above-average genre piece. I vaguely remembered having seen something in the New York Times about Asa Carter's having gone off somewhere and started a new life for himself, but I never connected the bellowing hatemonger on TV with the grizzled-looking urban cowboy who mumbled as if he was the character in Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" who spoke in "authentic frontier gibberish." We talked about his second Wales novel and about his recently finished book on Geronimo. I asked him if Clint Eastwood would be involved in the rumored next movie about Wales. He looked at me warily from under his hat, puffed on a cigarette and said, "I think Clint's had all he can take 'a me." He offered that "Robert Duvall kinda looks more like my Josey" and would make a "good 'un."
I told Carter that I thought his Wales novels were an attempt to win back the values on a mythical level that the Confederacy had lost on the battlefield. Carter squinted at me, smiled and said, "The values of a civilization never die so long as they're kept alive in legend."
I never got a chance to write my story. Shortly afterward, Forrest Carter was dead. Exactly how and why has never been made clear. Friends said that he had been drinking; rumors of Asa were starting to reach Abilene. One Texas friend said Carter aged 10 years between 1976 and 1978, largely because of his fear of the trickle-down from Dan Carter's piece. Though it took a year and a half for Carter's Op-Ed to have an effect, Carter began to feel the heat. A canceled speaking gig at a university here, a call from a local paper wanting to discuss the controversy there. By the summer of '78, said a friend, "Forrest was a mess. None of us understood at the time, but after the tragedy we could see in retrospect he was turning into a nervous wreck."
One night in June, Carter stopped off to visit one of his sons in Potosi, just south of Abilene. Perhaps two hours later, an ambulance arrived to pick up Forrest Carter's body. The death certificate listed "aspiration of food and clotted blood" as probable cause. It also mentioned a "history of fights." A story circulated that Carter had gotten into a drunken fight with his son and choked on his own vomit; one of the ambulance drivers said the scenario fit. An old friend from Birmingham conjectured that a fight between father and son broke out over the treatment of Carter's wife, whom he apparently deserted in Florida. Thelma Carter later resurfaced in Alabama, and has gone into seclusion, refusing to discuss her years with Asa.
Most of Forrest Carter's friends received a triple shock the next day when they picked up the papers. First was the news of his violent death. Added to that was the fact that many did not know he really was, or was suspected of being, the notorious Asa Carter. Finally, most had never heard Carter talk of having a son.
The question of whether the "The Education of Little Tree" represented a conscious attempt by Forrest Carter to rehabilitate himself can never be answered. In the essay mentioned above, Henry Louis Gates argued, as others have, that the sordid past of the author is irrelevant to the book's message and theme, which is one of tolerance and acceptance. The problem is that when one scratches the surface of the idyllic world of "Little Tree" one finds a philosophy as harsh and unforgiving as the one Josie Wales lives, a world where even the mention of "guv'mint" inspires hatred, paranoia and fear. One might even question whether "Little Tree" is really the plea for racial tolerance that its supporters have always maintained. American Indian activist Vine Deloria Jr. long ago noted that white American men who would bristle at the suggestion that they had African or Asian blood are often quick to claim Indian ancestry so long as the connection is on the mother's side (as Carter said his was) and Cherokee (also as Carter claimed). Why? Perhaps out of guilt at the deposal of the Cherokee from the eastern states, but more likely because it seems the safest connection to the "real" America, the one experienced by noble savages before the corrupting influences of civilization — of "guv'mint." Like Asa Carter, many American males see a spiritual kinship between their ancestors, the savage Celts and Anglo-Saxons, and the American Indian, and to be born with Indian blood somehow better justifies being born with a chip on one's shoulder than being born white.
There appears to be no simple answer to who Carter was, or exactly what his books are about, but for some the solution is to simply deny the apparent contradiction between the legacy of Asa and Forrest. Indeed, some continue to deny that they were even the same man. Eleanor Friede, who manages the Carter literary estate, no longer goes that far, but insisted to the New York Times after Carter's death that "There was nothing anti-black or anti-Jewish about the man I knew." (Friede, who is Jewish, says she is retired and declined, through a representative, to be interviewed for this story). To Buddy Barnett, his childhood friend, "Forrest wasn't no bigot, just somebody who wanted to see right done to Indians."
However his books should be interpreted, as works of the imagination they pale before the most remarkable creation of Asa Carter's strange, short literary life: that half-breed ancestor of Confederate soldiers and Cherokee warriors named Forrest Carter.
Allen Barra cowrote Marvin Miller's memoirs, A Whole Different Ballgame. His latest book is Mickey and Willie: The Parallel Lives of Baseball's Golden Age.
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Suburban Sprawl: aerial view of landscape outside Miami, Florida, shows 13 golf courses amongst track homes on the edge of the Everglades.
Toxic Landscape: Aerial view of the tar sands region, where mining operations and tailings ponds are so vast they can be seen from outer space; Alberta, Canada
Ice Waterfall: In both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, ice is retreating. Melting water on icecap, North East Land, Svalbard, Norway
Satellite Dishes: The rooftops of Aleppo, Syria, one of the world's oldest cities, are covered with satellite dishes, linking residents to a globalized consumer culture.
Child Brides: Tahani, 8, is seen with her husband Majed, 27, and her former classmate Ghada, 8, and her husband in Hajjah, Yemen, July 26, 2010.
Megalopolis: Shanghai, China, a sprawling megacity of 24 Million
Big Hole: The Mir Mine in Russia is the world's largest diamond mine.
Clear-cut: Industrial forestry degrading public lands, Willamette National Forest, Oregon
Computer Dump: Massive quantities of waste from obsolete computers and other electronics are typically shipped to the developing world for sorting and/or disposal. Photo from Accra, Ghana.
Oil Spill Fire: Aerial view of an oil fire following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, Gulf of Mexico
Slide 13
Airplane Contrails: Globalized transportation networks, especially commercial aviation, are a major contributor of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Photo of contrails in the west London sky over the River Thames, London, England.
Fire: More frequent and more intense wildfires (such as this one in Colorado, USA) are another consequence of a warming planet.
Watch Incubus Fight Themselves in 'Absolution Calling' Video
Weekend Rock Question: What's the Best Harrison Ford Movie?
New 'Veep' Trailer Finds Selina Meyer as POTUS, Teases Hugh Laurie's Role
Listen to Jake Owen Cover Garth Brooks' 'Prayers'
Lee Ann Womack Preps Limited Edition Vinyl for Record Store Day


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Despite milk production at or near record levels, low milk prices and high input costs – including feed costs – have kept dairy profit margins narrow, says Lamar Adams, Mississippi State University (MSU) Extension dairy cattle specialist.
Milk prices are down about 21% from record-high levels in 2011, he says. "Many market analysts say domestic and global market conditions are positioned to continue placing downward pressure on milk prices and dairy farm profitability for the remainder of 2012 and into 2013."
Mississippi dairy farmers receive about $17.50/cwt, or $1.51/gallon, for milk. In 2011, they took home $22.09/cwt, or $1.90/gallon. Only 109 dairies exist in the state, down from 178 in 2007.
Feed costs are a large part of milk's production cost, agrees Rocky Lemus, MSU Extension forage specialist. "Mild winter weather allowed pastures to maintain a more uniform forage production of annual ryegrass, which shortened the feeding cycle. On the other hand, warmer days and cooler nights made bermudagrass grow, but it has a very low yield with early seed heading and reduced forage quality."
A competition between aggressively growing annual ryegrass and warm-season grasses breaking dormancy was also triggered. Corn demand for ethanol production is driving feed prices, while high fertilizer prices are driving forage production costs, Lemus says.
"Fertilization accounts for nearly half of the expense of making hay. Dairy producers, like any other hay producers, need to adopt strategic fertilizer practices to reduce inputs."


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RIM has launched a music service for BlackBerry Messenger called BBM music. BBM Music is free for the first 60 days, runs on a subscription model and is designed to be more rewarding the more friends you have connected to the service.
Tag: app worldPage 2 of 22
In appreciation for BlackBerry users' loyalty through the recent service outages, RIM has rolled out the first of its free premium apps that will continue to be released over the next month and available free of charge until the end of 2011.
More about today's available app: Drive Safe.ly after the jump
Continue reading 'RIM Rolls Out First Outage Loyalty App: iSpeech DriveSafe.ly Pro'
In the wake of last week's BlackBerry service interruptions, RIM has announced that they will be giving away a suite of premium apps to customers. The app selections include several hit game titles, productivity apps, and premium audio apps. The package would have cost over 100 dollars if it were purchased through App World.
Continue reading 'RIM Offers Free Premium Apps to Customers Following Service Interruptions'
Mobiroo is a Toronto startup that has launched a gift card service for Android and BlackBerry. The gift cards allow you to buy apps through Mobiroo's catalog and purchase apps for friends. The service is something that is definitely needed for BlackBerry users but there are some pretty major challenges for the company ahead. More about the company and the gift cards after the jump.
Continue reading 'Mobiroo Launches App Gift Cards for Android and BlackBerry'
Carcassonne is a really popular tile-based board game that is played sort of like dominoes. The game has seen huge success in Europe and has developed a pretty loyal following in North America as well. The game is now available for BlackBerry, and the company let us know that they've also released versions for J2ME and Android. Click through for more details.
Continue reading 'Carcassonne Board Game Now Available for BlackBerry'
BlackBerry App World 3.0 has launched and is up in Beta Zone. The latest version, according to RIM, makes "discovering and downloading apps, games, and themes easier than ever." We've tried the new App World on both a well-established device, the Torch 9800, and a brand new device, the Bold 9930. There are some major pros and cons about this latest version and we thought we'd put together a beta review since App World has become such an important part of the BlackBerry experience. To recap, App World 3.0 features:
Sleek New Design – The BlackBerry App World experience has been enhanced to help you discover the latest and greatest apps and content, starting right on the BlackBerry App World home screen where rotating spotlight banners show off all that's new and exciting.
New Channels – Apps, Games, and Themes now have their own channels so you can get to what you want even faster. Each channel offers up a whole range of Categories, Top Lists (for Paid, Free, Rated, New Arrivals) and a Search Bar.
Introduction of My Account – My Account makes managing your BBID and payment options easy with direct access to all of your account information from the home screen.
New My World Features – My World gives you a streamlined view of all your apps and their status, and now at a glance, in addition to seeing which apps are installed and uninstalled, you can manage your subscription content and services. When new updates or subscription renewals are available for your apps, you'll be notified using push technology.
App Social Sharing – When you find an app you can't live without, share it with your contacts directly from the app details screen through BBM, Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS.
Evolved App Details Screen – At a glance, you can get a quick summary, check out reviews and star ratings, take a look at screen shots, and more.
More Search Options - Quickly find apps with a Search Bar now appearing on the storefront home screen and search results are presented across Channels as well as My World. Search Bars are also within each Channel and users have the ability to filter by App Name, Price, Rating, Newest, Best Match, or Popular.
Both developers and consumers are crucial end users of this product so it's important to review App World 3.0 from both perspectives. Click through for more about how App World 3.0 may impact both of these user types.
Continue reading 'Beta Review: App World 3.0 From a Developer and User Experience Perspective'


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Applied Communilytics w/Alistair Croll & Sean Power. Applied Communilytics The world of communilytics has exploded in 2010.
Social media strategies can no longer live without measurement. With an accompanying eco-system of vendors, consultants and analysts, the time to learn how to measure the results of social media campaigns has never been better. Interview w/Sean Power. "Awesome.
We have 716 visits this month, and 4 people just retweeted us." "How much more revenue are we going to see from this as a result?" "I have no idea. Bitcurrent - Networking, technology, and the web. Watching Websites - Alistair Croll & Sean Power on Complete Web. Lean Startup w/ Eric Reis & Sean Ellis. Based in Palo Alto, California, Jean-Francois "Jeff" Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups.
Since 2004, Jeff has invested in more than 70 consumer Internet companies in areas like social media, communities, search, gaming or consumer infrastructure, almost exclusively in Silicon Valley. With over 20 years of operational, entrepreneurial and venture capital experience, Jeff is able to add relevant perspective and value to his companies as they grow from inception to maturity, and hopefully, success.
In 2007, Jeff was recognized as one of the 13 Web 2.0 King Makers by (late) Business 2.0, and in 2008, BusinessWeek named him one of The 25 Most Influential People on the Web. Interview with Eric Reis. Our media partner Adam Stacoviak of the Web 2.0 Show brings us a podcast interview today with Web 2.0 Expo speaker and Lean Startup Intensive leader Eric Ries.
Many of you already know Eric from his popular blog Startup Lessons Learned and as the creator of the "Lean Startup" methodology and "The New Entrepreneurship." Eric was the co-founder and served as the CTO of IMVU, his third startup. Interviews. Robert Scoble came by my office to learn about the Lean Startup and the Startup Lessons Learned Conference on April 23.
By all accounts, the conversation was a success. I certainly had a great time, and the early Twitter reactions seem positive. Of course, you can judge for yourself. Eric Ries (ericries)


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Have you ever wanted to get a more general "area" forecast? The Weather Service has just released an experimental web-based application called "User-Defined Area Forecast. This application allows you to select your own area of interest from the NWS point and click data base, and extract a forecast for that area.
To select an area within the Aberdeen NWS County Warning Area...click the following link: www.nws.noaa.gov/wtf/udaf/area/?site=ABR
If you are interested in an area other than what the Aberdeen NWS is responsible for, click the following link , then zoom into the area you are interested in: preview.weather.gov/udaf/


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WNBA Scores
Thursday, Oct 11th
Coverage: ESPN2/WatchESPN
8:30 PM ET, October 11, 2012
Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, CT
UNCASVILLE, Conn. -- Indiana lost a star early in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals. The Fever never lost their confidence.
Tamika Catchings scored 22 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to lead Indiana into the WNBA Finals for the second time in four seasons with an 87-71 win over the Connecticut Sun on Thursday night.The Fever, who have won four games while facing elimination during the playoffs, routed the Sun even after leading scorer Katie Douglas went down with an ankle injury just 5 minutes into the game.More From ESPN.com
They may have lost their leading playoff scorer in Katie Douglas to an ankle injury in the first quarter, but the Fever rallied to beat the Sun 87-71 to move onto the WNBA Finals on Sunday against the Lynx, writes Kate Fagan. Story
Copyright by STATS LLC and The Associated Press


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good luck
Hi Mike
just to wish you a safe journey and best wishes for the future.
I'll have a beer on you tonight mate
The Last Day
Trip Start
Jun 01, 2006
Trip End
One Day, less than 24 hours to go.
I wanted to write a lot of stuff. Some kind of great inspirational yet heartfelt, tender even chat about my last few days in this country.
Lots to say, no time to say it.
So let's just pretend I did.... Cool?
I still have to do about a hundred things, so I'd better stop putting them all off by writing this...
It Begins.
That's obviously bollocks ...
I doubt that you remember the last few days. Either that or you've spent them pretending to know nothing about Mr Horner Horner ....
Sod off!!!
So Mr Horner yourself and Mr Tuckwell are setting off, well in fact have set off. You will have arrived in the Dam by the time I post this so that makes you both official bums, you have to grow all your hair and live a lonely existence all in the name of adventure.
We will of course be seeing you in Berlin in a short while to have an international farewell 4 some shin dig ?!
The lengths I go to avoid being seen in public with you ey!!
Have fun girls...
Karim x


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THE NORTH FACE Women's Horizon II Shorts
Item: 23180206 Product Description >
Regular Price: $40.00 SALE $27.98
THE NORTH FACE Women's Horizon II Shorts
Lightweight and quick-drying, The North Face Horizon II Shorts are ideal for hiking or any all-day excursion when heat prevails and bugs and skin scrapers are not a concern.Features/Benefits:
- Durable, lightweight, abrasion-resistant nylon fabric
- Button-zip closure with drawcord
- Two patch pockets
- Two rear Velcro pockets
- Crotch gusset
- QuickDry hydrophobic treatment to reduce water absorption and enhance drying time
- Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF) 30 for sun protection
- Relaxed fit
- Inseam/Regular: 5 in.
Fiber Content: 100% nylon
Country of Origin: Imported -
THE NORTH FACE Women's Horizon II Shorts
EMS_Sale Yes Fit Regular Inseam 5 in. Rise Regular Weight 6.7 oz. (190 g) Type Shorts Fabric(s) Nylon
Reviewed by 1 customer
Displaying review 1
- Breathable
- Comfortable
- Nice Color
Best Uses
Comments about THE NORTH FACE Women's Horizon II Shorts:
I bought these shorts for a vacation in Maui, to wear during hikes. I like North Face and they usually do not disappoint. It was a disappointment that the sizes did not fit. I bought a size 4, which is my normal size. It was too small, so I went for the next size up. Unfortunately, sizing up made the shorts too big on me. I had to return and look for something else.
- Waist:
- Feels too small
- Length:
- Feels true to length
- Was this a gift?:
- No
Displaying review 1


text:
Colletotrichum Biology, Pathology and Control
Author:Bailey, J. A., Jeger, Michael J.
Publisher: CABI
Summary: Colletotrichum is one of the most widespread and important genera of plant pathogenic fungi worldwide, causing disease on many temperate and tropical crops. These fungi have also been used in many fundamental studies of plant-pathogen interactions and are being developed as mycoherbicides for the biological control of weeds. This book is the first to be devoted exclusively to these pathogens. It provides a definitive... source of information, not only about the diseases caused by Colletotrichum, but also about its taxonomy and genetics, mechanisms of infection and of plant disease resistance, disease epidemiology, and control of diseases through the integration of methods based on chemicals, biocontrol agents and plant breeding. The work is an essential reference volume for plant pathologists and mycologists. [read more]
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Scenic hiking trail damaged by riders
When North Country Trail hikers discovered ATV and horse damage to a section of trails northwest of Emmaville in mid-August, they had some powerful evidence to turn over to authorities.
Parts of one of the ATVs that caused the damage, carving new trails, knocking over trees and mowing down underbrush, were left behind on the national scenic trail.
Those parts are in the possession of the Hubbard County Sheriff's Department. The vandalism is under investigation.
Are you a newspaper subscriber but you don't have a Digital Access account yet? https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=40&event=subscriber/lookup.
You will need your subscription account number and phone number. Not sure if you have an account? Email us at email@example.com and we can help you.


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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - View original article
Mary Harris Jones | |
Mother Jones in 1902 | |
Born | Mary Harris 1837 (baptized 1 August 1837) Cork City, County Cork, Ireland |
Died | 30 November 1930 (aged 93) Adelphi, Maryland, U.S. |
Occupation | Labor and community organizer |
Political party | Social Democratic Party Socialist Party of America |
Mary Harris Jones | |
Mother Jones in 1902 | |
Born | Mary Harris 1837 (baptized 1 August 1837) Cork City, County Cork, Ireland |
Died | 30 November 1930 (aged 93) Adelphi, Maryland, U.S. |
Occupation | Labor and community organizer |
Political party | Social Democratic Party Socialist Party of America |
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones (1837[1][2] – 30 November 1930) was an Irish-American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent labor and community organizer. She then helped coordinate major strikes and cofounded the Industrial Workers of the World.
Jones worked as a teacher and dressmaker, but after her husband and four children all died of yellow fever in the late 1860's, and her dress shop was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, she began working as an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union. From 1897, at around 60 years of age, she was known as Mother Jones. In 1902 she was called "the most dangerous woman in America" for her success in organizing mine workers and their families against the mine owners. In 1903, upset about the lax enforcement of the child labor laws in the Pennsylvania mines and silk mills, she organized a Children's March from Philadelphia to the home of then president Theodore Roosevelt in New York. Mother Jones magazine, established in 1970, is named for her.
Mary Harris was born on the north side of Cork City, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic tenant farmers Richard Harris and Ellen (née Cotter) Harris.[3] She was baptized on 1 August 1837, which indicates she most likely was born in late July.[1] Recent materials list her baptism as 1 August 1837, although she later claimed her birth date to be 1 May 1830.[1] The date of 1 May was chosen to represent the national labor holiday and anniversary of the Haymarket affair, and the year (1830) to imply centenarian status.
Mary Harris emigrated with her family to Canada as a teenager.[4] She received a Catholic education in Toronto before her family moved to the United States.[4] She became a teacher in a convent in Monroe, Michigan. After tiring of her assumed profession, she moved first to Chicago and later to Memphis, where she married George E. Jones, a member and organizer of the National Union of Iron Moulders,[5] later the International Molders and Foundry Workers Union of North America, in 1861.[6] She eventually opened a dress shop in Memphis on the eve of the Civil War.[4]
There were two turning points in her life. The first, and most tragic one, was the loss of her husband George and their four children (all under the age of five) during a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee. After her entire family succumbed to the disease, she returned to Chicago to begin another dressmaking business.[7] Then, four years later, she lost her hard-earned home, shop and possessions in the Great Chicago Fire. This second loss catalyzed an even more fundamental transformation: she turned to the nascent labor movement and joined the Knights of Labor, a predecessor to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or "Wobblies").[8] The Haymarket Riot of 1886 and the fear of anarchism and revolution incited by union organizations led to the rapid demise of the Knights of Labor. Once the Knights ceased to exist, Mary Jones became largely affiliated with the United Mine Workers. With the UMW, she frequently led strikers in picketing and encouraged the striking workers to stay on strike when the management brought in strike-breakers and militias.[6] She strongly believed that "working men deserved a wage that would allow women to stay home to care for their kids."[9]
As another source of her transformation into an organizer, biographer Elliott Gorn draws out her early Roman Catholic connection, bringing to light her relationship to her brother, Father William Richard Harris, Roman Catholic teacher, writer, pastor, and Dean of the Niagara Peninsula (in St. Catharines) in the Diocese of Toronto, who was "among the best-known clerics in Ontario", but from whom she was reportedly estranged.[8] Her political views may have been strongly shaped by the 1877 railroad strike, Chicago's labor movement, and the Haymarket Riot and depression of 1886.[4]
Active as an organizer and educator in strikes throughout the country at the time, she was particularly involved with the UMW and the Socialist Party of America. As a union organizer, she gained prominence for organizing the wives and children of striking workers in demonstrations on their behalf. She became known as "the most dangerous woman in America", a phrase coined by a West Virginia district attorney, Reese Blizzard, in 1902, at her trial for ignoring an injunction banning meetings by striking miners. "There sits the most dangerous woman in America", announced Blizzard. "She comes into a state where peace and prosperity reign ... crooks her finger [and] twenty thousand contented men lay down their tools and walk out."[10]
Jones was ideologically separated from many of the other female activists of the pre-Nineteenth Amendment days due to her aversion to female suffrage. She was quoted as saying that "You don't need the vote to raise hell!"[11] Her opposition to women taking an active role in politics was based on her belief that the neglect of motherhood was a primary cause of juvenile delinquency. She became known as a charismatic and effective speaker throughout her career.[12] A passionate public speaker, she would liven her rhetoric with real and folk-tale characters, punctuate with participation from audience members, flavor it with passion, and include humor-ridden methods to rile up the crowd such as profanity, name-calling, and wit. Occasionally she would include props, visual aids, and dramatic stunts for effect.[12]
By age 60, she had effectively assumed the persona of "Mother Jones" by claiming to be older than she actually was, wearing outdated black dresses and referring to the male workers that she supported as "her boys". The first reference to her in print as Mother Jones was in 1897.[4]
In 1901, workers in Pennsylvania's silk mills went on strike, many being young female workers demanding to be paid adult wages.[13] John Mitchell, the president of the UMWA, brought Mother Jones to north-east Pennsylvania in the months of February and September to encourage unity among the striking workers. To do so, she encouraged the wives of the workers to organize into a militia, who in turn would wield brooms, beat on tin pans and shout "Join the union!" She held that wives had an important role to play as the nurturers and motivators of the striking men, but not as fellow workers. She made claim that the young girls working in the mills were being robbed and demoralized.[13]
To enforce worker solidarity, she travelled to the silk mills in New Jersey and returned to Pennsylvania to report that the conditions she observed were far superior. She stated that "the child labor law is better enforced for one thing and there are more men at work than seen in the mills here." In response to the strike, mill owners also divulged their side of the story. They claimed that if the workers still insisted on a wage scale, they would not be able to do business while paying adult wages and would be forced to close down.[14] Even Jones herself encouraged the workers to accept a settlement. Although she agreed upon a settlement which sent the young girls back to the mills, she continued to fight child labor for the remainder of her life.[14]
In 1903 Jones organized children, who were working in mills and mines at the time, to participate in the "Children's Crusade", a march from Kensington, Philadelphia to Oyster Bay, New York, the hometown of President Theodore Roosevelt with banners demanding "We want to go to School and not the mines!"[citation needed]
As Mother Jones noted that many of the children at union headquarters had missing fingers and other disabilities, she attempted to get newspaper publicity about the conditions in Pennsylvania regarding child labor. However, the mill owners held stock in essentially all of the newspapers. When the newspaper men informed her that they could not advertise the facts about child labor because of this, she remarked "Well, I've got stock in these little children and I'll arrange a little publicity." [15] Permission to see President Roosevelt was denied by his secretary and it was suggested that Jones address a letter to the president requesting a visit with him. Even though Mother Jones wrote a letter for such permission, she never received an answer.[16] Though the President refused to meet with the marchers, the incident brought the issue of child labor to the forefront of the public agenda. Jones's Children's Crusade was described in detail in the 2003 non-fiction book, Kids on Strike!.
In the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in West Virginia, Mary Jones arrived in June 1912, speaking and organizing through a shooting war between United Mine Workers members and the private army of the mine owners. Martial law in the area was declared and rescinded twice before Jones was arrested on 13 February 1913, brought before a military court. Accused of conspiring to commit murder among other charges, she refused to recognize the legitimacy of her court martial. She was sentenced to twenty years in the state penitentiary. During house arrest at Mrs. Carney's Boarding House, she acquired a dangerous case of pneumonia.[citation needed]
After 85 days of confinement, her release coincided with Indiana Senator John Worth Kern initiating a Senate investigation into the conditions in the local coal mines. Mary Lee Settle paints an accurate and compelling portrait of Jones at this time in her novel The Scapegoat (1978). Several months later she was in Colorado, helping organize coal miners. Once again she was arrested, served some time in prison and was escorted from the state in the months leading up to the Ludlow Massacre. After the massacre she was invited to Standard Oil's headquarters at 26 Broadway to meet face-to-face with John D. Rockefeller, Jr., a meeting that prompted Rockefeller to visit the Colorado mines and introduce long-sought reforms.[citation needed]
By 1924, Jones was in court again, this time facing charges of libel, slander and sedition. In 1925, Charles A. Albert, publisher of the fledgling Chicago Times, won a $350,000 judgment against Jones. Jones remained a union organizer for the UMW into the 1920s and continued to speak on union affairs almost until her death. She released her own account of her experiences in the labor movement as The Autobiography of Mother Jones (1925). In her later years, Jones lived with her friends Walter and Lillie May Burgess on their farm in what is now Adelphi, Maryland. She celebrated her self-proclaimed 100th birthday there on 1 May 1930, and was filmed making a statement for a newsreel.[citation needed]
She died in Adelphi at age 100 on May 1 1930.[17][18]
She is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois, alongside miners who had died in the 1898 Battle of Virden.[19] She called these miners, killed in strike-related violence, "her boys".[20]
I hope to live long enough to be the great-grandmother of all agitators.[citation needed]
Find more about Mary Harris Jones at Wikipedia's sister projects | |
Media from Commons | |
Quotations from Wikiquote |
Library resources about Mary Harris Jones |
By Mary Harris Jones |


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It's been a while since I posted a wedding update and there's plenty to report. Actually, though, the title of this post might be a little misleading. Don't save the date. Because you're not invited. We're keeping our November wedding very small and low-key with only seven attendees: our parents and siblings.
By keeping the wedding small, we're also keeping the budget small, even by splurging on nice things like fancy hotels and gourmet meals.
When: Friday, November 11, 2011
Where: Chicago, IL. We'll be 94 floors up in the John Hancock Observatory for the ceremony.
Afterwards, we'll have dinner at a local restaurant, Tru, which had a semi-private dining room just the right size for our party of 9. Other options only had rooms for large groups so we were very happy to stumble upon this after some Yelp research.
It was fun to ask friends for Chicago recommendations as we planned. It's such a massive city with so much to do, we needed some experts to help us navigate. There's no way we'll be able to do it all in the three days we have for the wedding, so I foresee many Chicago trips in our future. We haven't been once since we moved to Michigan, only 4 hours away. And Matt has never been!
This weekend I made some major progress on the planning front. Buying our Amtrak tickets for the trip, purchasing my dress (!)(more on that later), and getting in touch with friends from my 48 Waltham studio days in Boston to hopefully make my ring and announcements (invitations aren't really necessary when you have 7 guests, but I still wanted pretty paper). It's finally feeling real.