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Tiny Chinese enclave remakes gambling world, Vegas
The enclave has seen a spate of killings and kidnappings associated with debt collection, including one grisly case last year in which two men were stabbed to death in their four-star hotel room, discovered by a friend who had come to lend them the money they needed.
Today, U.S. companies are tweaking their flagship Las Vegas casinos to look and operate more like Macau-style properties. The biggest casinos have imported Asian pop sensations, Chinese delicacies and baccarat, now Nevada's biggest moneymaker. They've outfitted their hallways in red, a lucky color in Asian culture, and set up Macau-style VIP rooms that employ junket operators catering to high-rollers.
Asian visitors now account for 9 percent of tourists to Las Vegas, up from 2 percent in 2008. And the Strip is preparing to welcome its first Asian-owned casino: a multi-billion dollar Chinese-themed extravaganza called Resorts World, complete with pandas and pagodas.
One reason casino bosses are dreaming up ways to lure Macau customers to Las Vegas is that Nevada imposes one-fifth of China's 39 percent tax on winnings. "They can make a lot more money from a big gambler here," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
But some of the problems associated with Chinese gambling halls may be migrating to the Strip as well.
In March, a man police described as an enforcer for the Taiwan-based triad United Bamboo began serving a life term for stabbing a man to death in a karaoke bar near the Strip. Prosecutors said he'd been sent to collect a $10,000 gambling debt.
Last year, the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network warned casinos to monitor junket operators and report suspicious activity. The warning followed media reports that Sands allowed a man named as a triad member in a congressional report to move a $100,000 gambling credit from Las Vegas to one of its Macau casinos.
Unlike some other states, Nevada allows junket operators to work in casinos without the full suitability checks required for key employees. Some Hong Kong operators licensed in Nevada have been found unsuitable by other jurisdictions, including Singapore.
"The reason why we don't do a full giant investigation on them is that they have no control over the casino operations; they are basically travel agents and hosts," Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett said. If another jurisdiction finds fault with a junket operator licensed in Nevada, state regulators will simply ask the operator to submit to a suitability workup, which is tantamount to telling them to get out, Burnett said.
Still, regulators are not blind to the link between junkets and triads.
At a hearing before a congressional advisory panel in June, Burnett said it is "common knowledge that the operation of VIP rooms in Macau casinos had long been dominated by Asian organized crime."
Steve Vickers, who spent 18 years in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force and commanded its criminal intelligence bureau, believes that nearly all junkets that cater to Chinese tourists collaborate with organized crime.


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New Johnny Cash album to be released next spring
This photo provided by Columbia/Legacy shows the Johnny Cash album cover for "Out Among the Stars," releasing March 25, 2014. The new album is comprised of 12 studio recordings by Cash that were recently discovered. (AP Photo/Columbia/Legacy)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — There's new never-before-heard music coming from Johnny Cash.
Cash's estate is releasing "Out Among the Stars," an album he recorded with Billy Sherrill in the early 1980s that was never released by Columbia Records, then disappeared when the company dropped Cash in 1986. Turns out Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, stashed the tapes — along with just about everything else that came into their possession.
"They never threw anything away," said their son, John Carter Cash. "They kept everything in their lives. They had an archive that had everything in it from the original audio tapes from 'The Johnny Cash Show' to random things like a camel saddle, a gift from the prince of Saudi Arabia."
They stored away so much, in fact, the younger Cash and archivists at Legacy Recordings didn't find the material until last year, long after the family began issuing archival music by Cash. "Out Among the Stars" will be out March 25, and continues an intense period of interest in the singer, who helped shape modern country and rock 'n' roll music and became an American pop cultural figure before his death 10 years ago at age 71.
Multiple music, book and restoration projects have been started in the past 18 months to mark what would have been the singer's 80th birthday and the 10th anniversary of his death. The music being released was recorded during a difficult period for Cash personally and professionally.
Columbia paired him with Sherrill, a producer and Country Music Hall of Fame member who was then the president of CBS Records Nashville. One of the main architects of country music's so-called countrypolitan sound, Sherrill helped push the genre toward pop sounds and conventions — and away from Cash's more independent-minded ways.
FILE - In this May 23, 1993 file photo, Johnny Cash performs at a benefit concert in Central Park in New York. Cash's album, "Out Among the Stars," comprised of 12 studio recordings recently discovered, is releasing March 25, 2014. (AP Photo/Joe Tabacca, File)
The pairing came at a time when Cash was at a low ebb in his popularity. The music on "Out Among the Stars" is taken from 1981 and '84 sessions, at a time when country music was going through great change.


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Recruiting 2012
What You Need To Know
Recruiting 2011 -
Q&A with Scott Kennedy
Recruiting 2010 -
Q&A with Scott Kennedy
Recruiting 2009 -
Q&A with Scott Kennedy
Recruiting 2011 - The Key Questions
Recruiting 2010 - The Key Questions-
Recruiting 2009 - The Key Questions
CFN Top Prospects for 2012
No. 1
to 50 | No. 51
to 100 | No. 101 to 150
- No.
to 200 | No. 201
to 250 | No. 251
to 300
Quarterbacks |
Backs | Receivers
- Tight Ends |
Off. Tackles
| Guards & Centers
Def. Ends
| Def. Tackles |
Linebackers |
Corners |
CFN Top 150 | 2010 CFN
Top 200 | 2011
CFN Top 300
What's happening in the recruiting world? What do you really need to know?
Once again, here to answer some key questions is Scott Kennedy, one of Scout.com's recruiting gods/national scouts. Allow him to make sense of it all.
1. What's the biggest storyline this recruiting season? What's the big buzz?
Aside from Penn State, I think Urban Meyer getting back into coaching is the biggest story in college football and recruiting. I typically say that it takes a new coach a full year to develop the relationships with the players in order to make a big splash on the recruiting trail, but Meyer is not that far removed from the scene and brought instant star power to Ohio State. Ohio is the fifth-most talent-rich state in the country, the Buckeyes are the top program in the region the past decade, and now one of the most successful coaches of the past 10 years is there. Meyer has set a new high bar for what can be accomplished in six weeks before Signing Day.
2. Does Meyer have the recruiting fire he had when he was so driven at Florida?
If anything, the short stretch run has proved that he's even more tenacious. There was no bowl game to prepare for, no practices, etc. He basically had the same schedule of a team who was eliminated from bowl contention, giving him a clear focus on recruiting and only recruiting. The results have been astounding.
3. Are Michigan and Brady Hoke really doing as well as advertised? What are they doing differently now?
They are doing extremely well, and this plays into the second question. The only thing they're doing differently is taking advantage of a full year to recruit to one of the most tradition-rich programs in the country. What Meyer is doing is unprecedented; what Hoke is doing is to be expected for a team with the resources that Michigan has, and with its new, energetic coach having a full year to recruit.
4. Outside of a few top prospects, in general, are top prospects ignoring Penn State?
"Ignoring" might be too strong a word, but the problems facing Penn State as a university are well documented. It would be naïve to think that those same problems didn't filter down to the football program and recruiting. Penn State has added 10 commitments since the Jerry Sandusky story broke, and none of those is in the Scout 300.
5. Given their recent histories of securing top recruiting classes, is it fair to say that Ohio State, Florida, Miami, Texas and Notre Dame on the field have been massive underachievers?
No, I don't think that's fair. There are extenuating circumstances in a lot of cases. If you start using the word "underachievers," I want to see patterns. In the past five years, Florida and Ohio State are top-five BCS programs in winning percentage, and Texas is top 10. Miami may have signed a top-five class in 2008, but the next three classes averaged 24th in the nation. Notre Dame's '09 and '10 classes were not top 20. Did those teams live up to expectations this year? Some yes, some no? It doesn't matter how much talent you get on Signing Day if they're either not eligible or not on the team anymore after coaching changes.
6. If Nick Saban and Alabama want a prospect, does anyone else have a chance?
Alabama is tough to beat anywhere the past couple of years, on the field or in the living rooms. But there are too many players out there for any one team, especially in the South, to get them all. I've been asked whether Alabama won its BCS championships on Signing Day, and the question above concerning the teams not living up to expectations shows that coaches get paid a lot of money to do much more than just recruit. Alabama recruits and develops talent better than any team in the nation.
7. Who's Rich Rodriguez's quarterback? Are recruits interested in Arizona?
Recruits are very interested in Arizona. His offense is a perfect fit out West because most of the players don't want to play defense anyway. Scout's No. 3 quarterback, Devin Fuller, is a perfect fit for what Rodriguez does on offense, and it wouldn't be a total surprise to see him playing for the Wildcats next year should he choose Rodriguez on Signing Day.
8. Miami is in the top 10 in the Scout rankings. Is coach Al Golden ignoring the Nevin Shapiro situation? How is he getting so many good recruits?
I don't expect Miami to finish in the top 10. Its class is full for the most part, and historically the class coming in will finish near 15th nationally. But Golden is doing a very good job of getting a share of the guys in the state of Florida. Of their seven Scout 300 commitments, six of them are from South Florida. Running back Duke Johnson of Norland High School in Miami is a spectacular talent who can put a team on his shoulders raise the level of play of everyone around him.
9. Which recruits are the best immediate, Sammy Watkins-like fits for their programs?
I'd probably want to stick with the wide receiver position. Scout's No. 1 prospect overall is wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham of Missouri. He's 6-foot-6, 220 pounds, and is the closest thing to Calvin Johnson I've seen since Calvin Johnson. Stefon Diggs is Scout's No. 2 wide receiver out of Maryland. He's smaller at 6 feet and 185 pounds, but he has the type of ability that we saw out of Robert Woods at USC as soon as he stepped on campus.
10. So far, how much is the move to the SEC helping Missouri? Are Texas prospects looking harder at Texas A&M now?
There hasn't been a noticeable change in either of the teams' recruiting thus far. Missouri has one commitment from a player in the South and still seems to be making a living in the Midwest and Texas. Texas A&M was recruiting well before the announcement, and it has continued to recruit well. It will probably take a couple of years before SEC begins to resonate with recruits in regard to those two programs.
11. Out of all the new coaching staffs in big places like UCLA, North Carolina, Arizona State, Pitt, and the others, which ones seem to have
it when it comes to selling the change?
Of those four schools, it's UCLA by a long shot to this point. I talked about what Meyer has done at Ohio State, but UCLA was left dead in the water by Rick Neuheisel's tenure, bypassing a golden opportunity to seize the reins from USC. However, despite what the local and national media might have you believe, USC's real sanctions are just now beginning with its scholarship reductions. With nearly half of the original Pac-10's teams having coaching changes this year, and USC being crippled by sanctions, Cal was reaping the rewards until recruiting coordinator Tosh Lupoi bolted for Washington. Now, new coach Jim Mora has the Bruins on the cusp of a top-10 class in his first two months on the job. With the new television money coming in, the Pac-12 got serious about the product it's putting on the field, and the recruiting wars have been more tumultuous than ever out West.
12. Which big-name programs are struggling? Which midlevel programs are rocking?
When Nebraska moved to the Big Ten, I had a hard time figuring what its recruiting strategy was going to be. The Midwest isn't nearly as talent-laden as Texas and the South, and there are already established recruiting superpowers that it would have a hard time going head to head with in the region, including Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame. As it turns out, I may not have been the only one wondering what the strategy would be; as late as Thanksgiving, Nebraska had just six commitments and is ranked in the 50s nationally.
TCU is finally starting to get the attention of some highly recruited players. The question is, do the Horned Frogs need them when their system has been so successful? A move to a BCS conference is sure to help, and they've got more commitments from Scout 300 prospects (four) than Big 12 counterparts Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State combined (three).
13. What should the average college football fans who aren't into recruiting be paying attention to on Wednesday?
Keep an eye on Dorial Green-Beckham and where he chooses. He's a guy football fans are going to hear a lot about over the course of the next 15 years. I put him in my all-time top five receivers I've scouted, with Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones, A.J. Green and Robert Woods.
For the most part, though, I like to remind fans that despite the shiny stars next to these recruits' names, they're still 18-year-olds. At that age, they generally aren't competitive with 22-year-old men the minute they walk on campus. The expectations can be a little outsized. The recruiting rankings are meant to reflect how good they'll be by the time they leave, not how good they are when they arrive.


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Be in Ceret for the cherry festival.
First off, it's nice to see loads of people milling about with not one out of place gesture, just good fun to be had by all. Saturday lunch time starts off with several local bands walking the streets, playing and creating a marvellous atmosphere and making one almighty racket. Following on there is a cherry-peeling game where you have to take the pips and tails off the cherries in an allotted time and then have your bucket weighed.... Local Catalan dancers then take the stage for a couple of hours then the bands start up again. Everybody then reels off, either home or to find somewhere to eat and(more)drink.
Sunday starts a bit later as there are a few sore heads in the assistance and amongst the participants. Following more music and dancing on the central stage, comes the highlight of the weekend..... The Cherry Pip Spitting Contest. This is a major event in Ceret's festival weekend. I must admit I was biased towards the participants as in the few years my brother in law has lived here, he has won it twice and came second a couple of times also. Once again he came second with a "spit" of 10 metres30, with the winner spitting 10metres80. As 1st, 2nd, or 3rd each win a cherry tree, it's not really that important.
Cherry festival - The main event!!!!!
The cherry-pip spitting contest to close the cherry festival is well known in the region, as the number of participants show. From 5/6 y.o. up to "a certain age". A good laugh is for all, especially the spectators as pips fly, not always down the runway, out to as far as 11.00 metres and over. This years winner "only" reached 10.80 metres, with my brother in law Bill finishing second at 10.30 metres, not up to his usual standard as he does hold the all-time Ceret cherry-pip spitting record at close to 11.50 metres. But he was younger then, and had more puff.....
Visit the Museum of Modern Art
The convergence in Ceret in the first half of the 20th century of a cluster of artists who were to become the most well known painters, sculptors and ceramicists of their age eventually resulted in the establishment of a small but delightful Museum of Modern Art.
As you walk along boulevard Maréchal Joffre in the dappled shade cast by the leafy plane trees it is strange to reflect that Picasso, Dali, Braque, Matisse, Chagall and others was lived and worked here.
Many donated some of their works to the Museum giving it a kick-start into the realm of great little art museums of Europe and puting Ceret on the artistic map for generations to come.
We went to see the current exhibition showing the work of Marc Chagall - running until May 25th.
Admission was 8 Euros. and included admission to a very interesting film of about 45 minutes duration about the remarkable life of Russian born Chagall. Commentary in French only.
There is no cafe in the Museum but excellent refreshments can be obtained right next door at Le Citron Bleu, a small cafe serving light meals and drinks all day.
Be in Ceret for the cherry festival III.
The music and dancing lasted about 2 hours on the Sunday, with plenty to do for the kids before the main event.
- 1
Instant Answers: Céret
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text:
There are many variations of Chile-rellonos but they all share a common structure. They are stuffed peppers and they are usually stuffed with cheese and the pepper is then fried in an egg batter.
I started eating Chile regain us thanks to my girlfriend who work with them in this fast food Mexican drive through in downtown Phoenix. At 1st they were very spicy to me but as I adjusted to them I became addicted to them. My usual quick drive-through meal would consist of a Connie Asada burrito with two chili-rellonos and other large drink of horchata. if it was really hot in Phoenix say 110°F then I would get the jamaica drink to cool me off. Also don't forget that you want cheese on your chile-rellonos so when the drive-through cook asks you" con queso"- with cheese your answer should always be "Si" yes!
I had my 1st really different Chile-rellonos when I went down for the 1st time to Rocky point in Mexico which is the closest beach to Phoenix Arizona a drive of approximately 4 hours from Phoenix except the way my girlfriend drives we would get there in 3 hours because once we hit Mexico she would step on the accelerator and drive around 90 miles an hour.
The reason you can drive 90 miles an hour on the road to Puerto Penasco is because it is a straight line with hardly any traffic When we would go. It is in the middle of the Sonoran desert but that is distinct because there is a lot of lava formations from extinct volcanoes.
In fact some astronauts for Nasa have practiced here for landing on the moon.
So when we got the 1st time to Rocky point there is a really good Mexican restaurant right on the beach when you come into town and they have really great seafood and special Chile-rellonos. what makes them so special you may ask?
Because this is a seafood restaurant the chiles are stuffed with shrimp and with cheese then they are batter fried in egg and then they are wrapped in bacon. And this is not just some typical bacon from the United States this is a very very thick bacon in fact 2 pieces of bacon make a good meal themselve.
So whenever I hit Rocky point also called Puerto Penasco I goes straight to this restaurant and get to Chile-rellonos. and the shrimp cocktail they give you is something to behold. When you order a small shrimp cocktail it comes in this giant margarita glass and it's full of spicy salsa with hundreds of these tiny shrimp.
you know they have special shrimp of Puerto Penasco. This shrimp here are blue in color from the sea of Cortez which is an outlet of the Pacific Ocean. Now that I digressrd and told you a little story let's get back to making some Chile-rellonos
It's not hard at all. the ingredients you will need are as follows:
four large poblano peppers or if you want no head try large sweet red peppers or green peppers
Mexican cheese
one quarter pound of diced cooked shrimp- can be left out and just stuffed with cheese
3 eggs
olive oil for frying
2 tablespoons flour
if you want to splurge you can add bacon
They are very easy-what you are going to do next
Roast Your peppers on the grill to soften them up let them blister and get slightly black. Take them off the grill and opened them up with a knife and take out the seeds.
fill your pepper with your favorite chunk of Mexican cheese and if you want to add some cooked shrimp or meat. use wet toothpicks to keep the chili together
In the bowl crank 2 eggs and separate raid the yoke from the egg whites whisk 2 egg whites and add flour for the batter.
Take your chili and coat it in flour then dip it in the batter Then fry it up in your nonstick skillet with olive oil until both sides are golden brown
Learn to make our jamaica to drink with chili-rellonos
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thanks for your recipes on chili rellonos Not rated yettried them just like my granmas .I even bought a smoker and made some ribs thanks to you
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Tried-and-tested chain
Undecided on where to have lunch, we went to a tried-and-tested Italian restaurant which has become popular among regular lunch diners.
Then, a few days after, we checked out Japanese cuisine in another part of town.
Coincidentally, both choices belong to the same successful chain.
Italianni's, Nuvali, Sta Rosa, Laguna
This branch is among those spread out in various malls and commercial complexes. While pizzas and pasta dishes have made this restaurant popular, it offers a lot more. There are sandwiches, premium meat and chicken dishes.
Dining area: On a main wall are two murals depicting an Italian castle surrounded by lush foliage. There are catchy phrases all around, each inspiring the diners to enjoy food and life. The TV monitors show kiddie films, the better to keep restless children from moving around.
Service: A female staff welcomes guests, sits them and hands the voluminous, colorfully photographed menu folder. Bread is served immediately and the hungry ones are delighted to dip into a mixture of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The bottles are left on the table, so we don't have to call out for more.
Staff: Neat and knowledgeable
Suggested menu: Though Italianni's is known for its handmade pizzas and pastas, go for the bundles called Great Feast. Each is enough for a group of three. The Country Style grouping includes Roast Beef, very tender and served with white sauce; Herbed Roast Flaming Chicken with a sauce that is a bit too sour; and Smoked Salmon Spaghetti, spiced with black pepper. Maybe add a salad of greens with its light dressing and Pepperoni Pizza, also spicy. There is a selection of blended coffee for after-meal beverage.
Government taxes and service charge are added to the bill. Senior cards are honored.
Rating: **
Watami, Northwing Veranda, Mall of Asia
This casual Japanese restaurant belongs to the same chain as Italianni's. Its customer service consciousness is evident in the card placed on each table, encouraging guests to "textify," meaning, to give feedback to management after a dining experience.
Dining area: Huge and spacious for easy movement. It has good acoustics—you won't hear the conversation from the next table. Hanging lamps brightly illuminate the hall.
Service: Again, thick menu folders, with color photographs of dishes, are handed as guests are seated. Tea is served and orders taken immediately.
Staff: Efficient, attentive
Suggested orders: A starter of mixed sushi and sashimi can whet the appetite. Then our group got the bowls—complete meals with rice and choice of topping. The bowls are deep and can even be shared.
Most of the bowls have what they call Hot Spring Egg, which, when mixed, gets cooked and adds a creamy texture and succulence. Beef and chicken are the choices.
The tender Beef Rice Bowl, done Tokyo-style, has thin strips of the meat. The Chicken Cutlet in Scrambled Egg Sauce, equally soft, is coated.
For less than P500, a hungry diner can have a truly filling meal.
Government and service charges are added to the bill. Senior cards are honored.
Rating: **
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text:
North Korea rocket still on launch pad as wary world waits
More News from Associated Press
PYONGYANG—North Korea's first chance at a rocket launch came and went Thursday with no word of a liftoff, but also with no sign that Pyongyang intends to call off what the United States and its allies consider an attempt to test long-range missile technology.
The launch window for what North Korea says is an observation satellite opened during a week aimed at celebrating Sunday's centennial of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country's late founder. Events also include high-level meetings where new leader Kim Jong-un has received at least three new titles to further cement his rule.
North Korea had told international organizations that its rocket launch would come between Thursday and Monday, between 7 a.m. and noon local time. That timeframe passed Thursday without liftoff.
North Korean space officials, who had taken foreign journalists to the launch control center on Wednesday and said fueling was under way, did not comment on the timing of the launch beyond saying it would occur in the five-day window.
Bad weather
Poor weather made a Thursday launch unlikely, Philippine disaster management agency chief Benito Ramos said, citing an assessment passed on to him by the Philippine military, which is being briefed by US and Japan counterparts. Wind in particular can scuttle rocket launches.
The United States, Japan, Britain and others say the launch would constitute a provocation and would violate UN Security Council resolutions banning North Korea from developing its nuclear and missile programs. Experts say the Unha-3 carrier is similar to the type of rocket that could be used to fire a missile mounted with a nuclear warhead to strike the US or other targets.
North Korea denies that the launch is anything but a peaceful civilian bid to send a satellite into space. The Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite is designed to send back images and data that will be used for weather forecasts and agricultural surveys.
Pyongyang made two previous attempts to launch a satellite, in 1998 and 2009, but the United States and other outside observers say there is no evidence that either reached orbit.
This week's planned launch came with more fanfare, with Pyongyang inviting a possibly unprecedented crowd of foreign journalists and other guests.
Getting into orbit
The Unha-3 rocket has three stages, or parts. If all goes well, the first will burn out and fall in waters off the west coast of South Korea in about two minutes. The second will separate four to six minutes after the launch, then splash down in the Pacific off the northern Philippines. The third will burn up in the atmosphere after boosting the satellite into orbit.
All this will take 10 minutes. The satellite will then enter a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit, meaning it will pass over the same point on the Earth at about the same time each day. The 500-kilometer (300-mile) altitude announced by the North is considered a low Earth orbit, which is where most artificial satellites go.
Professional and amateur satellite watchers question North Korea's calculations. They infer from data provided by Pyongyang that the probe will not be able to reach its orbit without conducting difficult navigational maneuvers very soon after liftoff. One expert says the rocket will skirt China's east coast near Shanghai, fly over Taiwan and shed its second stage into the sea, 50 kilometers (30 miles) off the northern Philippines.
Japan and South Korea say they will shoot down the rocket in the unlikely event it veers off course and heads toward their territory.
The satellite
The minibar refrigerator-sized satellite is covered with solar panels and golden foil to protect its instruments. One-meter (three-feet) tall and weighing 100 kilograms (220 pounds), the "Bright Shining Star 3" is designed to monitor weather, natural disasters and agriculture patterns. Experts say the satellite and its predecessors, Bright Shining Stars 1 and 2, were probably developed with China's help. It is unlikely the latest version could effectively multitask, since it is so small and North Korea has no demonstrated track record with simpler missions.
Odes from space
Pyongyang says the satellite will broadcast martial music praising North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung. It says Bright Shining Stars 1 and 2, launched in 1998 and 2009, did the same. But no broadcasts were ever detected, and neither probe is believed to have reached orbit.
If the broadcasts on the UHF and X-bands are successful, the first independent confirmation could come from western Australia, which might pick them up within 20 minutes. The west coast of South America would be next, followed by the US east coast. North Korea would not likely hear them until as much as 12 hours later.
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Lee tows E-Painters to Final Four berth
RAIN or Shine—and Paul Lee—certainly showed they are too good a team to bungle another golden opportunity.
With Lee at the firing end, the Elasto Painters did what they couldn't do two nights ago, connecting from the outside with cold-blooded impunity to rip Barangay Ginebra, 102-89, last night and advance to the Final Four of the PBA Philippine Cup.
The heady and creative point guard was at his best when the Painters broke away early in the third, shooting 14 points in the quarter to fuel a dizzying sequence that had the Painters racing to leads of as many as 21 points that quieted a huge pro-Ginebra crowd at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Lee made his first four three-point shots to finish with a career-high-tying 25 points, and Gabe Norwood backed him up solidly with 21 as the Painters advanced opposite San Mig Coffee with a 2-1 series win over the Gin Kings to seal a repeat of the last season's Governors' Cup title series.
Rain or Shine trailed for the last time at 51-49 before Lee backstopped a crippling 23-0 tear, tying the third all-time high mark of runs in the league, to put the game away.
That series, as well as the Talk 'N Text-versus-Alaska pairing, will start on Wednesday, also at the Big Dome with both scheduled as best-of-seven affairs.
Rain or Shine and San Mig weren't supposed to start their series until Thursday, but a mix-up with Mall of Asia Arena management headed by Arnel Gonzales concerning Korean rapper Psy's concert had the PBA pulling out of its schedule on that day.
Lee scored seven straight points to open up the third and had 10 of the Painters' first 13 as the Painters scooted away from a game Ginebra crew that actually erased an 11-point second-quarter deficit to tie it up at 47 at the half.
"Again, we had to do it the hard way (a rubber match)," coach Yeng Guiao told reporters. "You learn a lot of things from setbacks (like in Game 2). We were kind of surprised with the zone they threw at us and we prepared for that. We're lucky enough to hit our shots."
The Painters equalled their Game 2 conversions from three-point range with nine, but from 22 attempts compared to Friday night's 33. And the team shot 47 percent from the field.
After racing to a 72-51 lead, Guiao rested Lee and Norwood, giving an opening to the Kings who came within 72-79 after a charity split by Mark Caguioa with under eight minutes left.
But Lee and Norwood returned to repulse the rally with Lee hitting a triple that again put the Painters in total command.
"No," Lee said when asked if he felt the jitters when he was on the bench and Ginebra came back. "I have full trust in my teammates."
The scores:
RAIN OR SHINE 102—Lee 25, Norwood 21, Cruz 12, Belga 11, Matias 9, Tiu 7, Rodriguez 6, Quinahan 6, Chan 5, Tang 0, Arana 0.
GINEBRA 89—Tenorio 20, Mamaril 20, Caguioa 14, Maierhofer 11, Helterbrand 9, Ellis 4, Wilson 4, Hatfield 4, Taha 3, Labagala 0.
Quarters: 27-27, 47-47, 76-64, 102-89
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STARmeterSEE RANK
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Carole Ita White
Actress | Writer | Soundtrack
Carole Ita White was born on August 24, 1949 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for The Witches of Eastwick (1987), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) and Grand Canyon (1991). See full bio »
Born:in New York City, New York, USA


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GALVESTON Civil rights activists joined a relative of former Galveston boxer Jack Johnson on Sunday to urge President Barack Obama to posthumously pardon the first African American heavyweight champion.
Johnson earned the title in 1908 by defeating Canada s Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.
Johnson, who was black and married white women, was arrested in 1912 and ultimately convicted and sentenced to prison for violating the Mann Act, a federal statute that outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for prostitution, debauchery or other immoral purposes.
Click here to read more at the Galveston County Daily News.


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Enlightenment, Yes!
The controversial leftist Israeli politcal scientist Zeev Sternhell paints a damning, if perhaps uncontextualized, portrait of 'anti-Enlightenment' thinkers
Few people know the power of evil ideas more intimately than Zeev Sternhell, the eminent Israeli political scientist. As a child, Sternhell, who was born in Poland in 1935, saw his mother killed in the Holocaust. He was sheltered by Polish Catholics, and survived the war thanks to false Aryan identity papers; after 1945 he lived with relatives in France, then emigrated to Israel in 1951. His long scholarly career has been dedicated to tracing the intellectual origins of fascism: his best-known book, Neither Right Nor Left, showed how deeply fascist ideas had taken root in France in the decades before the Second World War. In addition to his renown as a scholar—he is a longtime professor at the Hebrew University, and a winner of the Israel Prize, the country's highest honor—Sternhell is known in Israel as a committed left-wing Zionist and a supporter of Peace Now. It was on account of his political views that, in 2008, a fanatical West Bank settler attempted to assassinate Sternhell with a pipe bomb—thus demonstrating, tragically, that the evils of fanaticism and chauvinism can attack the Jewish people from within as well as from the outside.
It makes sense, then, that when Sternhell comes to consider The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition (Yale University Press), he should write with something more than detached intellectual curiosity. Even the title of the book has a polemical edge. Ordinarily, when historians of ideas talk about conservative and nationalist thinkers like Edmund Burke and Johann Gottfried Herder—18th-century figures who opposed the rationalist and universalist ideas we associate with the 18th century—they speak of the "counter-Enlightenment." The term was popularized by Isaiah Berlin, who meant to suggest that the counter-Enlightenment was a viable alternative to the tradition of Voltaire and Rousseau, or at least a potential resource for combating the Enlightenment's hubris.
For Sternhell, who makes Berlin in particular a target of stinging criticism, there is nothing worth taking from that alternative tradition. As his title suggests, he sees it as not a "counter" to the Enlightenment but simply an anti-Enlightenment, whose representatives from Burke to Berlin have been intent on destroying the values of freedom, justice, and reason. (The cover design of Sternhell's book, which puts the "anti" in big black Gothic letters, nicely captures the author's intent.) "If the French Enlightenment…produced the great intellectual revolution of rationalist modernity," Sternhell writes, the anti-Enlightenment sponsored a different modernity, one that "revolted against rationalism, the autonomy of the individual, and all that unites people: their condition as rational beings with natural rights."
This "second modernity," as he calls it, "was based on all that differentiates and divides people—history, culture, language." And this was no academic debate, no matter how recondite some of the texts Sternhell analyzes might seem. Starting with Burke and Herder, he traces the intellectual lineage of the anti-Enlightenment directly to figures like Charles Maurras, the godfather of French fascism, and Oswald Spengler, whose influential book The Decline of the West helped to undermine Weimar Germany's democracy. In the early 20th century, Sterhnell writes, the anti-Enlightenment "came down into the street," with catastrophic results for the world, and for the Jews in particular.
Sternhell's book is organized around major themes in anti-Enlightenment thought—there are chapters devoted to "The Revolt against Reason and Natural Rights," "The Intellectual Foundations of Nationalism," and "The Law of Inequality and the War on Democracy." But because Sternhell returns again and again to the same hated figures and ideas, "The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition" reads less like an intellectual history than like a torrential indictment. The chief figures in the dock are Burke, who opposed the French Revolution and exalted the bonds of tradition, and Herder, who saw the French love of abstract ideas as a threat to the German genius for instinct and poetry. They are followed by the Scottish conservative Thomas Carlyle, the French historians Ernest Renan and Hippolyte Taine, the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, Maurras and Spengler, and a few others, all of them foes of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the idea of universal reason.
Reading Sternhell's unrelentingly hostile account of these thinkers leaves no doubt that they sponsored many repugnant and dangerous ideas. They taught that human beings cannot be trusted to govern their own destinies; that only force can compel the herd of men to behave themselves; that nations are essentially divided by culture and language, and so can never truly understand one another; that progress in education and democracy meant the decline of the spiritual and social order which made the Middle Ages, in their view, the high point of human history. A world governed on anti-Enlightenment principles, there can be no doubt, would be infinitely worse than a world governed on the principles of Voltaire and Diderot.
What's missing from Sternhell's book is any sense of why the anti-Enlightenment flourished in the first place and how it produced thinkers of the stature of Burke and Herder. Sternhell takes for granted that the Enlightenment is mankind's only hope, so that its opponents cannot seem other than perverse and malevolent. Yet it was not just these thinkers who felt that the advance of science and liberalism was making the world less happy. The same intuition can be found in almost all the literature of the 19th century, from Wordsworth to Dostoevsky. And it was not just conservatives like Carlyle who attacked the dehumanizing effects of modern life. Liberals and socialists like Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and William Morris all felt the same way. When such thinkers looked back to a more organic and religious past, it was not because they were enemies of the human spirit, but because they felt that the spirit was starving in modern conditions.
Sternhell never really engages this critique of the Enlightenment and its legacy. He simply dismisses it out of hand, leaving the reader to wonder why some of the arguments of Burke and Herder sound so reasonable. On the subject of progress, for instance, Sternhell quotes Kant with implicit approval: "Earlier generations seem to perform their laborious tasks only for the sake of the after ones, so as to prepare for them a further stage from which they can raise still higher the structure intended by nature." This vision of perpetual progress is noble and appealing; but it also suggests that our lives are simply tools for building the future, an idea that, in the hands of Stalinism, meant that no individual life had any intrinsic value. Against this view—captured in the old Communist slogan, "you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs"—there appears to be important wisdom in Herder's belief that "no individual has the right to believe that he exists for the sake of another individual, or for the sake of posterity."
At the same time, Sternhell's belief in the power of ideas means that he offers little sense of how political, economic, and social changes affected the way ideas were received and transformed. For instance, he blasts Renan for writing that "the masses only have the right to govern if they know better than anyone else what is best," a frankly elitist and anti-democratic notion. But as Sternhell notes, Renan wrote this in reaction to the demise of the France's Second Republic, when the majority of the people elected Napoleon's corrupt, ineffectual nephew as president and then applauded his decision to abolish democracy and become emperor. It was this coup that, Renan said, "made me disgusted with the people," and it was a feeling shared by many liberals at the time—even the arch-liberal John Stuart Mill opposed universal suffrage.
Sternhell's exclusive focus on ideas also means that, at times, he seems to grant thinkers an incredible degree of power over history. In his epilogue, for instance, Sternhell attacks the German historian Ernst Nolte, who became notorious in the 1980s for excusing Nazism as a mere defensive reaction against Communism. In Sternhell's words, Nolte was guilty of "explaining the European disaster not by the long war against the Franco-Kantian Enlightenment but by 1914 and 1917"—that is, by World War I and the Russian Revolution. Yet isn't it obviously true that 1914 and 1917 were responsible, even primarily responsible, for the rise of Nazism? If not, why is it that the nationalist ideas of Herder did not produce Nazism at the time of Napoleon? The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition passionately reminds us that ideas have consequences; but they are not the only things that have consequences.
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