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North County
Latest North San Diego County headlines
Table tennis legends inspire each other
Jul 2, 2015, 10:12 a.m.
School aide charged with having child porn
Jul 1, 2015, 3:54 p.m.
Dance raises money for veterans' garden
Jul 1, 2015, 3:05 p.m.
Libby Lake Park mural dedicated
Jul 1, 2015, 11:50 a.m.
Oceanside fireworks display set for Friday
Updated Jul 2, 2015, 11:07 a.m.
- More Oceanside
Warfighter Academy opens in Escondido
Jul 2, 2015, 2:32 p.m.
New digs found for dinosaur museum
Jun 24, 2015, 4 p.m.
Palomar to close downtown hospital
Updated Jun 25, 2015, 9:24 a.m.
Driver gets 4 years' prison for DUI crash
Jun 23, 2015, 3:34 p.m.
Building boom hits schools
Jun 21, 2015, 6 a.m.
- More Escondido
Carlsbad police chief retiring in August
Jul 2, 2015, 3:45 p.m.
Woman hit, killed by truck on north I-5
Updated Jul 2, 2015, 9:17 a.m.
Desal project completes 10-mile pipeline
Jul 1, 2015, 6:06 p.m.
Former golf course controller pleads not guilty
Jul 1, 2015, 5:37 p.m.
Puzzle-lovers flock to local escape rooms
Jul 1, 2015, 6:49 a.m.
- More Carlsbad
Desal project completes 10-mile pipeline
Jul 1, 2015, 6:06 p.m.
Pedestrian hit, killed on SR-78
Updated Jul 1, 2015, 4:47 p.m.
Teens' science experiment aboard doomed rocket
Jun 30, 2015, 6 a.m.
Semper Fi Open raises 135k for injured military
Jun 29, 2015, 1:10 p.m.
Wedding singer happily tied to his job
Jun 28, 2015, 6 a.m.
- More Vista
San Marcos
Naked man runs in traffic, arrested in San Marcos
Jul 2, 2015, 9:44 p.m.
5 y.o. flown to hospital after San Marcos crash
Jul 1, 2015, 10:36 p.m.
Desal project completes 10-mile pipeline
Jul 1, 2015, 6:06 p.m.
Deputy slams into van during ride-along
Updated Jun 28, 2015, 3:26 p.m.
Deputies seize cocaine in stolen pickup on SR-78
Jun 26, 2015, 11:51 a.m.
- More San Marcos
Encinitas names new city manager
Updated Jul 2, 2015, 5:36 p.m.
Arrests made in high-end bicycle thefts
Updated Jul 2, 2015, 2:06 p.m.
Fire damages 2 Cardiff restaurants
Updated Jul 2, 2015, 3:17 p.m.
No work drought for underwater pool repairman
Jul 1, 2015, 1:56 p.m.
'Quality' probes timely, tough issues
Updated Jun 30, 2015, 9:45 a.m.
- More Encinitas
Rancho Bernardo
Teens' science experiment aboard doomed rocket
Jun 30, 2015, 6 a.m.
$3 million bail set for daycare suspect
Jun 19, 2015, 4 p.m.
'Upskirt' suspect linked to daycare porn
Updated Jun 18, 2015, 1:11 p.m.
River park pact renewed
Jun 16, 2015, 11:44 a.m.
Hot-prowl burglaries reported in 4S Ranch
Updated Jun 11, 2015, 6:48 p.m.
- More Rancho Bernardo
Cedar Creek Falls rescues climbing again
Jul 2, 2015, 10:43 a.m.
Car crashes, shears off utility pole in Ramona
Jun 25, 2015, 10:21 p.m.
Girls, hit by heat, airlifted from Cedar Creek ...
Updated Jun 24, 2015, 7:43 p.m.
Search on for inmate camp escapee
Jun 16, 2015, 10:38 a.m.
Mower sparks brush fire near Palomar Mtn.
Jun 15, 2015, 3:57 p.m.
- More Ramona
Docs show McStay suspect owed victim $30K
Updated Jul 1, 2015, 5:13 p.m.
DA to seek death in McStay family slayings
Updated Jun 29, 2015, 10:10 p.m.
Camp Pendleton schools may lose construction funding
Jun 27, 2015, 6 a.m.
Fallbrook district hit with voting lawsuit
Jun 24, 2015, 3:48 p.m.
McStay case penalty decision due in July
Updated Jun 24, 2015, 4 p.m.
- More Fallbrook
Valley Center
Group opposes backcountry development
Jun 30, 2015, 5 p.m.
Cars fail 2 suspects in sheriff's pursuits
Jun 18, 2015, 10:13 p.m.
Woman who was stranded 2 weeks released from rehab
Jun 12, 2015, 9:22 p.m.
Celebrate music, barbecue in VC
Jun 6, 2015, 8 a.m.
Top 10 North County summer food, brew fests
Jun 6, 2015, 7:42 a.m.
- More Valley Center
Del Mar
Truck show is 'Monster' fun at fair
Jul 2, 2015, 6 a.m.
Woodworkers carve out niche at fair
Jul 1, 2015, 2:56 p.m.
Tomatoes were once big on Carlsbad's strawberry fields
Jun 27, 2015, 5 p.m.
Couples to tie knot at San Diego fair
Jun 27, 2015, 6 a.m.
Animal races a runaway hit at fair
Jun 26, 2015, 2:06 p.m.
- More Del Mar
Solana Beach
$15,000 in grants goes to community programs
Jun 19, 2015, 3:38 p.m.
River park pact renewed
Jun 16, 2015, 11:44 a.m.
Wrong-way chase on freeway before arrest
Jun 8, 2015, 9:31 a.m.
Secrets and lies drive 'Betrayal'
Jun 7, 2015, 1 p.m.
Former White House economist develops math app for ...
Jun 7, 2015, 6 a.m.
- More Solana Beach
More North County Stories
Government & PoliticsCity turns down digital billboard
Updated Jun 25, 2015, 3:24 p.m.
OCEANSIDE A proposal for what would have been the first digital billboard along North County's state Route 78 corridor was shot down this week by the Oceanside City Council, after a councilman who was expected to support the idea tossed up a last-minute roadblock. In a 3-2 vote Wednesday, ...
Retail & Small BusinessCardiff group earns Main Street status
Jun 24, 2015, 5:44 p.m.
ENCINITAS After five years of effort, the Cardiff 101 Main Street organization has finally obtained official certification from the state of California. The certification, which took effect Tuesday, marks the third time an Encinitas group has gained the coveted "Main Street" accreditation. Leucadia 101 Main Street and the Downtown ...
Public SafetyGirls, hit by heat, airlifted from Cedar Creek Falls
Updated Jun 24, 2015, 7:43 p.m.
Science & EnvironmentNew digs found for dinosaur museum
Jun 24, 2015, 4 p.m.
CourtsFallbrook district hit with voting lawsuit
Jun 24, 2015, 3:48 p.m.
Government & PoliticsArraignment postponed for ex-golf course controller
Jun 24, 2015, 3:41 p.m.
58 Arraignment has been postponed until July 1 for a Murrieta woman who faces up to 18 years in state prison for allegedly embezzling more than $595,000 from the company that manages The Crossings golf course in Carlsbad. Dawn Snow, 52, was arrested Tuesday on 24 felony counts including ...
HealthPalomar to close downtown hospital
Updated Jun 25, 2015, 9:24 a.m.
Public SafetyDog bites car theft suspect running on I-15
Jun 24, 2015, 3:30 p.m.
NORTH COUNTY A suspected auto thief with tires spiked by sheriff's deputies stopped in the middle of Interstate 15 and tried to run Wednesday, but a patrol dog caught him, authorities said. No other motorists hit the parked blue Honda CRV, and no one was injured except the suspect ...
CourtsMcStay case penalty decision due in July
Updated Jun 24, 2015, 4 p.m.
LifestyleWhere to see 4th of July fireworks
Jun 24, 2015, 11:27 a.m.
Public SafetyWoman, 85, dies in I-5 crash
Updated Jun 24, 2015, 1:32 p.m.
DEL MAR An 85-year-old motorist was killed early Wednesday when for unknown reasons she stopped her sedan in the fast lane of north Interstate 5 and another vehicle slammed into it near Del Mar, authorities said. In all, four vehicles were involved in the crash, which happened just before ...
VistaMore apartments possible near downtown Vista
Jun 23, 2015, 8:40 p.m.
58 An empty lot along Vista Village Drive near Vista's historic downtown core could become the site of apartments or other multi-use housing, after city leaders OK'd a deal Tuesday to sell the land. The Vista City Council agreed to sell the property at 211 Palm Drive to a ...
Government & PoliticsRainbow says no to water district merger
Jun 23, 2015, 4:47 p.m.
Public SafetyDe Luz fire department concerns quelled
Jun 23, 2015, 4:30 p.m.
CourtsMurder linked to HIV exposure draws life term
Jun 23, 2015, 4:20 p.m.
58 A parolee convicted of first-degree murder for beating his girlfriend to death after learning she could have exposed him to HIV was sentenced Tuesday to 26 years to life in prison. After the brutal attack in August 2013, Kirk Stapleton, 54, wrapped Juanita Kawash's body in two large ...
Government & PoliticsEncinitas to consider banning 'puppy mill pets' sales
Jun 23, 2015, 3:51 p.m.
Public SafetyEx-golf course employee suspected of embezzling
Jun 23, 2015, 3:36 p.m.
CourtsDriver gets 4 years' prison for DUI crash
Jun 23, 2015, 3:34 p.m.
58 A 19-year-old man was sentenced Monday to four years in state prison for a DUI crash in Escondido earlier this year that paralyzed one of his passengers. Elias Mendez had pleaded guilty to felony driving under the influence of marijuana and driving without a license when he collided ...
San Diego County FairGem-cutting a polished art at fair
Updated Jun 23, 2015, 5:50 p.m.
EducationSchools want more cops on campus
Updated Jun 23, 2015, 8:03 p.m.
ObituariesRequiem for a contrarian
Jun 23, 2015, 1:56 p.m.
Nearly seven years ago, I retold the best political dog story I'd ever heard. In doing so, I committed a howler of an error, setting up the best musical correction I ever received. The occasion was the publication of "Contrarian," a memoir by Peter Kaye, one of San Diego's great ...
Public SafetySuspected carjacker arrested in Carlsbad
Jun 23, 2015, 1:41 p.m.
ENCINITAS Police arrested a suspected carjacker Tuesday morning after he ditched a stolen Toyota Corolla in Carlsbad and led officers on a foot chase. The victim told sheriff's deputies he was at a gas station on North Camino Real near Via Molena in Encinitas around 7:50 a.m. when he ...
North CountyMeeting schedules for city councils, school boards
Jun 23, 2015, 1 p.m.
NORTH COUNTY Following are upcoming meeting schedules for local government agencies: CITY COUNCILS CARLSBAD The Carlsbad City Council will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Council Chambers, 1200 Carlsbad Village Drive. Agenda items include: consider approval of a resolution bids and authorizing a contract for library renovation projects; consider ...
Public SafetyWoman assaulted on Oceanside path
Jun 23, 2015, 7:40 a.m.
OCEANSIDE Oceanside police are investigating the sexual assault of a 38-year-old woman who told officers she was attacked by an acquaintance while on a bike trail in downtown Oceanside. Officers were called to a condominium complex on Costa Pacific Way near North Coast Highway by residents who found the ...
PeopleTragedy puts mom on road to help others
Jun 23, 2015, 6 a.m.
CommunitiesMarines thank kids for care packages
Jun 22, 2015, 4:26 p.m.
CourtsJury clears deputy in wrongful death suit
Updated Jun 22, 2015, 5:06 p.m.
Government & PoliticsDeadline looming in Dave Roberts cases
Updated Jun 22, 2015, 6:54 p.m.
MilitaryYoung Marines group marks 30th year
Jun 22, 2015, 1:23 p.m.
Permits denied for proposed Carlsbad senior homes
Jun 22, 2015, 11:27 a.m.
CARLSBAD Residents in an older beach community in Carlsbad said no last week to a senior care facility proposed for their neighborhood — and the Planning Commission agreed. The commission unanimously denied the permits a developer needed to build three separate homes — each for up to six elderly ...
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GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
I have a Gentoo amd64 system with a GTX-295, and I can't get the MultiGPU option to work. This is what is in my X log file:
[ 49766.928] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
[ 49766.928] (II) NVIDIA(0): Creating default Display subsection in Screen section
[ 49766.928] (==) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (==) framebuffer bpp 32
[ 49766.928] (==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 888
[ 49766.928] (==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual is TrueColor
[ 49766.928] (==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
[ 49766.928] (**) NVIDIA(0): Option "Coolbits" "1"
[ 49766.928] (**) NVIDIA(0): Option "MultiGPU" "1"
[ 49766.928] (**) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA Multi-GPU auto-select rendering option.
[ 49768.321] (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to find a valid Multi-GPU configuration.
[ 49768.322] (EE) NVIDIA(0): Invalid Multi-GPU configuration 1 of 1:
[ 49768.322] (EE) NVIDIA(0): GPUs:
[ 49768.322] (EE) NVIDIA(0): 1) NVIDIA GPU at PCI:4:0:0
[ 49768.322] (EE) NVIDIA(0): 2) NVIDIA GPU at PCI:5:0:0
[ 49768.322] (EE) NVIDIA(0): Errors:
[ 49768.322] (EE) NVIDIA(0): - Trouble accessing PCI Config Space
[ 49768.322] (WW) NVIDIA(0): Failed to find a valid Multi-GPU configuration for the NVIDIA
[ 49768.322] (WW) NVIDIA(0): graphics device PCI:5:0:0. Please see Chapter 25:
[ 49768.322] (WW) NVIDIA(0): Configuring SLI and Multi-GPU FrameRendering in the README
[ 49768.322] (WW) NVIDIA(0): for troubleshooting suggestions.
[ 49768.322] (EE) NVIDIA(0): Only one GPU will be used for this X screen.
Any idea what would cause this? I'm at work now, but I can run nvidia-bug-report.sh when I get home and attach it if needed. Is there a kernel config option that I need set to get this to work?
Re: GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
MultiGPU has to be:
ON OFF AUTO SFR AFR and so on, not numbers...
check the nvidia xconfig tool help
Re: GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
Thanks for the reply.
According to the README, it can be "1, yes, on, true, Auto". I tried setting it to Auto and I get exactly the same error.
Re: GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
if someone could point me to a multigpu howto, that would be great. I's like to find out what is causing this to fail.
Re: GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
1 Attachment(s)
I've attached a bug report.
Re: GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
Seems you have a deeper Problem, that could only fixed by NVIDIA!
@[ 49768.322] (EE) NVIDIA(0): - Trouble accessing PCI Config Space
Re: GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
If the driver is having trouble accessing config space, it's most likely due to a problem at a lower level than the driver...
Re: GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
Well, I agree, but can you give me some ideas where to check? I thought it would be a kernel setting, so I have tried different versions, and have used Gentoo's genkernel to create a generic kernel, but none of that made any difference. I tried an older version of the X-Server, and nvidia drivers with the same results. Some of you driver experts should be able to check the code and see what is required to access the PCI config space.
Re: GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
1) Do you have the latest BIOS?
2) Tried default BIOS settings?
3) Tried nonGentoo distros? Fedora/Ubuntu? There may be a Gentoo kernel config option that other distros do not use or vice versa.
Re: GTX-295 MultiGPU configuration
1) Yes, latest bios from ASUS site.
2) Yes
3) no, I haven't tried another distribution. I guess I could try a live USB, and see what that does. It will have to be the weekend for that.
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Garden Catalogs >>> Planters >> Garden Urns > G63
Bronzed Medieval Urn - Resin
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Dimensions: 20.5"H x 16.5"W x 16.5"D
Weight: Approx. 29 lbs
Finish: Bronzed
Product ID: G63
Price: $452.00
Sale Price: $359.95
PLUS get Free Shipping!
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Press Release - June 12, 2003
Heritage Exclusively Internet™ Auction ResultsDallas, TX -- Heritage's Exclusively Internet ("EI") sale #23061 closed Tuesday, June 3. With 759 bidders competing for 1,105 lots, 346 were successful. Total sell-through was $191,149.60 for 875 lots sold (79.09%). Heritage now offers post-auction lots for direct sale at a fixed price. 40 lots in this sale were purchased after auction, for a total of $12,916.15. Available lots can be accessed from the home page, http://www.HeritageCoin.com, and choosing the Last Chance link under Recently Closed Auctions.
All Heritage auction results are posted at Heritage's award-winning website, http://www.HeritageCoin.com. Results can also be accessed (and bids on the current EI sale made) by Heritage clients toll-free via telephone 1-888-TELEBID.
Every single-item lot includes full-color enlargeable images of the obverse and reverse, to help bidders determine their bids with confidence.
Highlights from the June 3 EI sale include:
1889-CC S$1 MS63 Deep Mirror Prooflike ANACS. Realized $14,375.00
1934-S S$1 MS65 PCGS. Realized $4,600.00
1905 G$1 Lewis and Clark MS64 NGC. Realized $4,600.00
1932-D 25C MS64 PCGS. Realized $4,485.00
1924 S$1 MS67 PCGS. Realized $4,255.00
The complete prices realized along with full-color images of every coin in this sale, and all other Heritage auctions, are available at no charge to Heritage Coin members at:
http://www.heritagecoin.com/auctions/PricesRealized.asp (membership is totally free).


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For the third year in a row, Bard College at Simon's Rock students selected for summer science assistantships will work with faculty members Eric Kramer, Michael Bergman, and Robert Schmidt. Some will assist Kramer over the summer months to develop and refine a computer model of hormone transportation in plants. Bergman will work with a student to study crystal growth and deformation in metals, while Schmidt plans to hire two students to work on several biology-related field projects in and around Berkshire County. During these assistantships, students gain dedicated and hands-on experience learning research methods and testing groundbreaking scientific theories with science faculty. Course credit for students is also offered, but most elect to receive a paycheck and dorm housing, instead. All three summer research initiatives focus on a different aspect of the process of scientific discovery, from data collection to experimentation to analysis.
Kramer's research assistant will be responsible for programming a computer model of plants on the cellular level to explore how chemicals are transported through the plant's structure. Over 10 weeks, they will learn specialized programming and mathematical techniques, then apply that knowledge to a series of computer models.
Most students will conduct research in the lab; however, some students will spend more time in the field. First-year student Leah Pitman has signed on to assist Schmidt this summer. "I applied…for a few reasons, the biggest one was that I want to major in Marine Biology," says Pitman. "This internship is perfect!" Schmidt's assistants will monitor fish populations in Tivoli North and South Bay on the Hudson River; counting, measuring, and tagging American eel; assessing the effects of a lake drawdown on plants and animals; and collecting exoskeletons of Chinese mitten crab in Hudson River tributaries.
Bergman's student researchers, Liam Slivka, Ingyin Myint, and Sophia Cui, will try to unravel what Bergman calls "some unusual seismic properties of the Earth's inner core, specifically, that seismic waves in the inner core travel faster parallel to the rotation axis than perpendicular." Assistants will zero in on potential root causes for these observations, configuring, running, and analyzing experiments designed to test their hypotheses. Bergman, who has been hiring student interns since he came to Simon's Rock about 15 years ago, sees great value involving students in his studies. "Doing research gives the students experience on what doing science is," he says, "which is very different from studying it in the classroom alone."


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I created a new website for my writing and hobbies. It's simpler than a blog.
See ya there!
I created a new website for my writing and hobbies. It's simpler than a blog.
See ya there!
Listen, stranger. Let me give you some advice, up front, free, off the record. Get the hell away from me, away from this table, away from this bar, away from this city. It's no good here. It never was. What do I mean? I can explain it to you, but I advise against listening. It's a dangerous story. No, you won't hear anything that'll get your head caved in as you make a wrong turn coming out your driveway. It's a different kind of dangerous—a more dangerous kind. If you know what I mean.
You sure you want to stay and listen? Because I'll tell you. All of it. Every last rotting piece of it. It's good for me to tell it. That's what my psychiatrist would say. You ever been to see one of those head shrinkers. Actually, never mind, kid. You just have to buy me a drink to help me get over my conscience, and I'll talk. Talk, talk, talk. Little poisoned knives through your ear and into your heart, that's what words are. You know, twenty years ago I had a kid just like you. A daughter. She's off somewhere now, married, working, happy. Doesn't keep in contact. I don't blame her. What, a grudge? Yeah, something like that. Something exactly like that.
My name? My name's Dave Bannion. B-a-n-n-i-o-n.
Since I already said I had a daughter—that's right, I said had. I don't insist on keeping people past when they want to be kept. I should start by saying I also had a wife, a house, a car, and a nice, cushy job working in the police. I was a detective, with a badge and a gun. What? No, I don't have the badge any more. About the gun? I already said I don't have the badge any more.
Back then, my job was to keep justice, keep the status quo. That's Latin, by the way. Why don't you write it down? No, you don't need a pen. Write it down in your head. Anyway, it was an easy enough job, and the pay was enough to keep us decent enough to be able to enjoy each other's company and keep us happy. But then it all started to unravel. Maybe that's the wrong word, there. Unravel. Because string unravels. And this wasn't string. My life wasn't string. My life didn't unravel. My life cracked, like a whip. Fast and vicious and stinging.
It began run-of-the-mill. At least as far as crime runs. A suicide. A suicide by one of the higher-ups in the police department, someone I had seen once or twice but didn't know, a man by the name of Duncan. But a suicide nevertheless. He left behind his wife, an elegant woman named Bertha. Bertha Duncan.
I met this wife, now a widow, after the suicide, and what she told me made enough sense to get me to sleep at night, get me to believe the official story, get me to lay off. Duncan killed himself because he was a sick man, she said. I believed her.
But I kept digging around. Don't ask me why, I just did. Maybe it's intuition, maybe something else. Luck, coincidence? No, it's not coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence. Sometimes we make choices at fateful moments and we call those moments coincidences. But it's not coincidence, it's choice. You say you're here by coincidence? You're not, and I can tell you that much, kid. In this case, though, I kept digging because I wanted to keep digging, because I chose to keep digging. I could have stopped, but I didn't. And I dug where you have to dig to get the real dirt. In the gutters.
Eventually, I pulled out a nice-looking piece of trash named Lucy. Or was it Faye? No, it was Lucy. Lucy, all right. Lucy as clear as day.
And Lucy starts telling me that she and Duncan had been having some fun in the sun at his summer home away from home, away from his wife, if you know what I mean. Which is none of my police business, and I tell her as much. But Duncan, this Lucy tells me, wasn't a sick man. Not sick at all. Just finished finalizing his divorce too. And there's your clink. The official story now has a wrench stuck in it. The gears that were moving all greased up are bending out of shape. And I got a choice. Do I buy this girl's story or do I pretend it's rubbish and keep my hands off the whole deal even if it stinks? Well, I let off.
Until this same girl, Lucy, turns up dead. Thrown from a speeding car, all bruised up and battered, cigarette burns all over. Just real worked over. Meanwhile, I try to raise a bit of a fuss about this and suddenly my superiors, ain't that a fine word, start telling me to keep my voice down on account it's a small city and voices carry far. Do your job, they tell me. Except my job is to do justice. And now two people are dead, things are going all fishy, and everywhere I turn I get angry glances and sweating foreheads. That's symptoms of injustice. Your job is to follow orders, they even clarify for me, in case I had gotten mixed up in the purpose of my noble occupation. Thanks, I say, and I go home. It stinks a lot less at home if you've got a good home, and I've got a good home.
The whip's pulled back now. I can't see it, but it's stretched up above my house as I'm eating dinner and talking to my wife. I spill everything to her too. I always did. Maybe it's my conscience that's bothering me, I don't know. That's what she says in not as many words. Real curt, she was. I don't know much about those kinds of things, but I know women, and I trusted that one more than a man can trust his own shadow to show up in the morning. She reassures me. You're doing the right thing, go with what you think is right, don't compromise. I feel good. I feel good about digging around in garbage if it leads to something cleaner. Even if I get hassled for it.
So I don't compromise. Very next day I go straight to the dark heart of corruption of our foul city—the honourable Mr. Lagana presiding, over his daughter's social gathering. He's got about ten beat cops doing rounds on his driveway too. Tax money for his own personal protection. Ain't that funny? And funny how once you decide that something's corrupt you know exactly where to go, too, no? Just follow your nose. Problem is everyone's got too many flowers in their gardens. Just planting them day after day after day. A city overflowing with flowers is what we got. Red roses covering the streets, flying out of open windows. Even paint comes in flowers nowadays. And it's all to kill the putrid smell that's everywhere. The smell of corruption. Because no one wants to clean it up. It's enough to cover up. We're living in a giant cover-up born of laziness and complacency, as the dictionary calls it. At least we were back then, when I paid Mr. Lagana a visit, during his daughter's social gathering.
The visit doesn't last long. I lose my cool, I say some things that expose a bit of the stink. And I get a beefed-up henchman loosed on me. I give him a few hooks to the side of the face and he gets the dizzies and sits down. I show myself out, thank you very much, but I've made my intentions public now. I'm going to dig into this mess with Duncan and Lucy and Lagana knows it. He knows more than I do too. He knows it's a much deeper hole than just two people. And he knows he's right at the bottom of the hole if I ever find a flash light strong enough to shine that far down.
Soon enough the harassment starts. My wife gets obscene phone calls, real nasty stuff. I know who it's coming from, but what can I do? I've been bullied before, and it doesn't work on me so I figure I stick it out. I'm out of my depth, though, this time. Yeah, this time I'm messing with too much money and too much power. And I have no one to back me up. My cop friends are telling me to cool it and the rest of the world's staring down at its feet while it twaddles around each and every day for its turn at the water fountain. If I go down, there's no one to mourn for me. Maybe I'll even commit suicide, like Duncan. That's a clean way to do it. For a bunch of dirty men they sure like their killing clean.
But they don't do it clean. And they don't do it to me.
I'm in my daughter's room reading her a story and my wife's going out to the car, the bedroom window's open and as I read the silly words in the silly book and my daughter laughs I hear the car door close and then I hear the car turn and then I see and hear the explosion. It's over in seconds. The window shatters. I tell my daughter to keep low and I run outside to the car but I'm too late. My wife's already dead. Already dead. "She's on a trip," I tell my daughter later. "Mom's on a trip."
This part I can't explain to you. They'll just be silly words to you, like a story about four bears on a picnic. So I won't try. It doesn't matter anyway. This part's personal, it's mine, it belongs to me and me only. All you need to know is that I knew I was going to hunt these men down, erase them, annihilate them. I didn't have to do it. But I chose to. It's like your hand. You can do anything with it, and sometimes you make fists.
Now, if you know anything about corruption, it won't surprise you that as soon as I walked in the old police station the next morning, I was taken away to the biggest office in the building and checked for loyalty. This is the party line, the chief told me, now repeat after me. I didn't repeat and they took my badge. Rather, I tossed it on their table, between their cups of coffee or piss or whatever they drink. But not my gun. No, not my gun. I paid for that myself.
Investigations like this take time. But I give a lot of mine and I make progress. I track down some mechanics, checking for the punks who took ten dimes to fill my car with dynamite. Problem is that even when I get somewhere where the air's all fouled up, no one talks. That's right, they keep quiet, mum. They've got to make a living, and eyes and ears and mouths, if they get opened too often, aren't good for business, aren't good for making livings.
Maybe I understand that, maybe I don't. Maybe if I was in their place I'd play blind. But I'm not in their place. I'm in my place. And I'm as far from blind as you can get with two eyes. I get a name. Larry. Larry who wears lots of colours. That'll do. That'll do just fine.
There's a woman too. Vince Stone's girl. Did I tell you about Vince Stone? Anyway, it doesn't matter. He was a hood, a ruthless one-in-a-hundred goon who'd follow orders so long as he had some of his own to give too. And, like every other rotten punk in that rotten city, his orders came from Lagana.
But this girl, name of Debby Marsh, she thought she had it all figured out living it up real ritzy with Vince Stones' dirty money. Of course, she didn't think about the money. Left the room when the boss came in, she told me. Didn't want to hear the truth by some accidental trick of acoustics, so she just shut the door and went out to get her legs waxed. Just cared about the clothes and the expensive life. "I been rich and I been poor," she told me once, "and rich is better." Not that I really blame her. They were all like that. Content to turn the other ear.
Beyond that, though, she was a real sweetheart. Real pretty, on the outside and on the in, if you know what I mean. Had a real change of heart too, after Vince Stone got a little feisty one night and introduced her pretty young face to several cups of hot coffee.
Vince was like that, always looking to do some meanness to someone who couldn't defend themselves. Especially to pretty women. Debby's face—it got burned real bad. Or half of it. But must have been the half that lived the rich life, because after she got herself all bandaged up at the hospital she came straight to see me, in tears, mad at Vince, mad at herself, mad at life, and she wasn't so content to turn the other ear. "I could live my life sideways," she said, on account of half her face being scarred. Which might right well be true. Except that when you're living sideways there's no other ear to turn to. You have to change your whole philosophy of life.
Now I got a theory about scars. Big scars, scars you can't miss. You see, I think everyone's scarred, somewhere, from something. Only difference is that some people got theirs on the outside and others on the inside, and the inside scars don't show up until you get close to the people who have them, get to know them, get to love them. Me? Sure, I got mine, just like everybody else. I'm no better than the rest, other than that I exercise my free will a bit freer. And, yeah, mine aren't on the outside. You see, no person has both kinds of scars. It's one or the other. Real neat, like tick or tack, not tick-tack. So when that hot coffee burned up Debby's skin, the scar got up and moved itself from the inside to the out, just like that, overnight. Bang.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking right now. But it wasn't anything like that. There was nothing between us other than a mutual, burning hate. For Vince Stone, for Lagana, for the whole stinking lot of them, with everyone in their pocket and eating the crumbs they dropped, as if we were all children who just reached up to their knees, and licking the leather soles of their shoes for desert. Sure, a pretty dame's a pretty dame, and I like pretty dames, but I also love my wife. Besides, hate hits a man no different than a bucket of cold water, if you know what I mean.
Do you still want me to continue? Yeah? How about I buy the next round then? I feel guilty taking your money like that. You said you were a fireman, didn't you? No? I thought you did. Not that it matters. I'm paying for these next ones.
So, anyway, this Debby girl, half-cheerful and half-cuckoo at the best of times, now spends some days in my hotel room, just cowering in the shadows like some sort of bat caught up in the attic, just curled up and dodging all the light that comes in. On account of the eyes too. The burns made one of them real sensitive to light. I want to make her feel better, but what do I do? I don't feel good myself. Finally, I decide to start to keep her informed about the case, passing on details, running ideas off her. I figure if she's sticking to me, I might as well make her useful. And she soaks it all up, downs it like it's water and she's just come out of the desert after forty days, if you know what I mean.
The real break comes when I finally track down rainbow Larry. Turns out to be a mac named Larry Gordon. Like all the rest of the scum, he works straight out for Lagana. No surprise there. A sweet old lady identifies him for me, and then I bust into his room and put the hurt on him. Not real bad, just enough to make him talk. Around the throat. He tries some funny stuff, but he's not much of a joker. And it doesn't take me long to get what I need.
And all the time I have my gun pointed right at his heart, at where it should be, and once he stops squawking he starts trembling and I don't lower my gun but just keep it trained on him, right on him, my finger right over the trigger and stroking it like you stroke a woman's hair. I know that this is the bastard that killed my wife and I swear to God I feel like letting that bullet fly right into his chest. Except I don't. Not because I'm not like them—because I am, and so are you, and so is everybody else—but because I make the choice not to. It's all about choice. Besides, once word gets out that rainbow Larry Gordon spilled his guts, they'll get spilled for real by his own people, his own pack. This is what I'm thinking. And it was true. And I don't regret it.
What did I learn? Everything. What I learned was the glass key to the iron lock on the rusted door to the whole operation. When I get back to the hotel and start remembering and putting pieces together, I realize I have enough to set loose Lagana's white-knuckle-tight grip on the entire city, for good. And it all rests on Bertha Duncan, the dead policeman's widow, if you remember the name. Turns out she's on the payroll, on Lagana's payroll. Why? Because the good cop that Duncan was, before unloading one into his brain, left enough paperwork to expose all of Denmark! Every corruption, every dirty deed that Lagana ever ordered can be traced back to him. And Lagana's paying the greedy widow off, every week, so she keeps the paper trail all locked up, real neat, real cold. Plus, the kicker is that the old dame's smart, and she knows the first thing Lagana would do is get rainbow Larry or Vince Stone to pay her a little visit in the early hours of the morning, if you know what I mean. So she makes this convenient arrangement. If she dies, the papers go public. If she's alive, they stay buried along with Mr. Duncan and she takes her cut. She'd rather be rich than poor, as Debby would say.
And I'm in a rut now. I don't know what to do. I have it all figured out, all crystal right in front of my eyes so close I can breathe on it, but I have to kill the old woman to make it work. It's like the dominoes are all set, but I have to knock the first oner over to get the rest falling. I even drive over to her house, steeling myself, promising myself that when I get there I'll get her to confess, make her feel right awful about what she's done, and get her to beg me to kill her, so I can shoot her right there in her own stinking living room, the one she pretends to mourn her dead husband in every day of the week, like a little round of daily theatre for the neighbours. I tell myself that'll make it easy. But it ain't easy. I don't do it.
Like I said before, life's just a case of exercising your free will more or less than the next guy. In this particular time and place, I didn't score so high. But Debby, she exercised her free will all the way. All the crooked way up the road to Bertha Duncan's neatly-pruned home and through a bullet right into Bertha Duncan's belly. That's what I said, yeah. Debby shot Bertha Duncan. Shot her dead.
Then she took her free will and her gun and brought it over to Vince Stone's place. Just like that. I guess she had time to boil the water too, because Vince Stone got a jug full of it right in the face. Payback, real clever. But she didn't get him good enough with the water, or else Vince Stone was more than playing at tough guy, because by the time I got there it was almost all over for darling, half-crazy Debby. She'd gone and sprawled herself on Vince Stone's carpet with blood pouring out her stomach and a piece of led that wasn't doing a good job keeping it in her body.
You're asking about Vince Stone? Yeah, I took him down. Didn't kill him, just pulled his scarred face down from the fire escape by the legs and was putting the business to his ribs when the cops came in.
Do I regret not popping him? No, not too much. I regret Debby. That's what I regret. Sure we called a doctor, but he only gave warning on the end of the line when he got there, didn't offer any solutions for stopping the train, if you know what I mean. And I looked right at her face when she died, and I knew she was worth the whole lot of them who were still alive even though she had done wrong herself. She asked me if she was dying before she did and, knowing she was a girl who went for the cleverness more than the weepy stuff, I told her that if I told her she'd live a hundred more years she'd have thought I was fooling her. Then she died.
And I'll tell you something else that's important, that you should write down. Debby Marsh died sideways, exactly like she told me she wanted to live. She died with the good side of her face up.
That's how people are with their scars. Most of us live front-to-back, just like I'm looking at you now, living both with our scars and without them. We aren't real good or real bad, just people. But then there's people who make the choice to live sideways—it's all about the choice, isn't a thing we're born or not born into, earn or don't earn into—and they're the special ones. Some of them live with their scar-side, people like Vince Stone and Lagana and rainbow Larry. But others, the few of them, live with their good side, like Debby Marsh.
Now, I know you're thinking that Debby went and shot the late Mrs. Duncan in cold blood like a good person shouldn't properly do if they want to keep on being a good person, as the vicar would say, but—but nothing!
You've gotten one too many drinks in me, kid. I'm starting to ramble on, real on-and-on like. Vomiting words. Maybe I'll have a hangover tomorrow morning and it'll be my jaw that hurts, and not my head. Am I done? Why, am I boring you with my life? Oh, I see, kid. People always want to know how things turn out.
Sure, I got my job back. Sure, Lagana and Vince Stone went to jail or the penitentiary or the cozy, comfy heated chair they reserve for some of us. I'm not sure which name matches up with which destination, though. I never followed the legal chatter along in the papers, and I was never asked to testify against the foul character or putrid activities of the men in question. As for Larry Gordon, he got the cigarette treatment, of that I'm sure. No, I don't have any proof other than a born-again faith in the uncorrupted nature of the justice system of men like Lagana. No one gets a reprieve from the executioner in that court of law.
What's so hard to understand, kid? I laugh about this stuff all the time now. No, not about my wife. That's different. Like I said, I don't talk about that. Talk is cheap, so I like to spend it on the Laganas, even the Debby Marshes, but not on anything real dear to me, see. But Vince Stone and Larry Gordon, what do I care what ever befell their blasted fates. No, kid, you're wrong. You don't care, either. No one cares. Do you know why? Because everyone knows it doesn't make a camel lick's difference in the great scheme of things.
I know Lagana's gone, kid. But I also know he's still here. His name's just not Lagana any more. Maybe it's Smith, or Fisheye Moses, or Johnson W. Brown. And just like that there's another Vince Stone. And another Larry Gordon. And there's a pair in each city, like a pair of shoes in each closet. And more than one pair in some. And a thousand more behind those. Only thing that changes is the names.
I told you my story's dangerous. Remember that? Well, you should have cut my head off before I finished telling it. Now you're doomed. Doomed like everyone else. Doomed to spend your nights in bars, slamming your empty glass against the table until you're numb enough to smell the flowers all over the streets. In here,too. Can you smell them? They smell good, don't they? Enjoy the smell. Enjoy it, because the price for digging up the roots isn't worth the trouble. Ain't worth the trouble at all.
Here is my English translation of Polish poet and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Wisława Szymborska's poem "Kot w pustym mieszkaniu".
To die—one doesn't do that to a cat.
For what's a cat to do
in an empty flat.
Scale the walls.
Snuggle between furniture.
It seems nothing's changed here,
yet it's been rearranged.
Seems unmoved,
yet slid apart.
And in the evenings the lamp no longer flickers.
Steps heard on the stairs,
but not those.
A hand that puts fish on a plate,
Not that which put.
Something doesn't begin
at its usual time.
Something doesn't happen
as it should.
Someone's been here and been
then suddenly vanished
and is tenaciously absent.
All closets have been peered into.
All shelves have been run.
Carpets squeezed under and checked.
Even broke the rule
and scattered papers.
What more is there to do.
Sleep and wait.
Just let him come back,
just let him show his face.
Oh, he'll find out,
that one can't do this to a cat.
Take a walk in his direction,
as if one didn't care,
on very offended paws.
And with no leaps squeaks, in the beginning.
—Wisława Szymborska
(Translation by me)
A few years ago I read Polish poet Aleksander Wat's My Century, a kind-of memoir edited from a series of taped conversations Wat had with the poet Czesław Miłosz in the 1960s. Something that caught my eye then:
In 1941, after being arrested in Poland and herded from prison to prison across various Soviet-controlled territories and finally into Lubyanka in Moscow, Wat found himself in Alma Ata (now Alamaty), Kazakhstan, starving, searching for his wife and son, and in the company of mostly Russian intellectuals who helped him survive. One of these intellectuals, Viktor Shklovsky the formalist, who was especially close to Wat, hosted meetings in his room. Among infrequent guests was that most-famous of famous Soviet filmmakers:
Eisenstein used to come sometimes too, a fantastic person in a demonic sort of way. His eyes. When he looked at you, you knew you were being photographed. But he did that with his soul; it wasn't just physical. Strange eyes—I'd never seen anything like them.
The above photo, taken from an old Polish film journal, shows a much younger Eisenstein than Wat encountered, but the eyes still seem to photograph, don't they? I wonder if the best filmmakers experience the world at 24 frames per second, constantly directing their own lives—and the lives of those around them—as they would a script. If so, they must be meticulous about framing, editing: always trying to see everything from the best angles, making sure their lives have a good visual rhythm and flow.
The conversations were lively and Wat remembers talking about Western literature and film from the late 1930s, about which his Russian friends had little information. Communism and Stalin were neither condoned nor condemned, and it was considered impolite to go far in either direction. As for politics and history, Hitler's war against the USSR had begun and:
They all believed the war would be won and things would change. Eisenstein showed up one or two times, no more than that. One time when Eisenstein was there the conversation was about the coming changes. There was a sort of sardonic sneer on Eisenstein's face, that was all. I caught that sneer, or maybe I just imagined it.
Meanwhile, there was another cinematic figure who also attended these meetings in Shklovsky's room:
And there was Miss Shub, one of the founders of the avant-garde in film, Kinooka.
Esfir Shub, director and editor, worked with Dziga Vertov and is most well known for her 1927 film The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty.
A few pages later:
The atmosphere among my friends the writers was sexually charged. And there were some love affairs. Not dolce vita—there was no trace of that. It was Romantic in the Russian romantic style. But there were affairs. As for me, even though I was emaciated, a certain Miss Shub had designs on me, though none of that had had any reality for me at that time.
Wat engineers Shub shun.
Between 1969 and 1972, Russian animator and filmmaker Fyodor Khitruk created three short films based on English author A. A. Milne's beloved Winnie the Pooh character: Winnie Pooh (1969), Winnie Pooh Goes Visiting (1971), and Winnie Pooh and a Busy Day (1972).
The films are drawn in a different style than the well known Disney adaptations, the first of which (Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree) precedes Khitruk's Winnie Pooh by three years. Notably, Khitruk's backgrounds are highly stylized, sometimes in distorted perspective and vividly colourful rather than naturalistic; his characters, though easily cross-identifiable with Disney, are distinctly original; and Winnie the Pooh—in particular—has a slightly "off" personality: still cuddly, but less so, and more of a smart schemer than the innocent, yellow-furred, red-shirted "oh, bother" of the American imagination.
A map of the land, showing the important locations from Khitruk's triology.
An early landscape shot from Winnie Pooh. Notice the flatness, the stylization of the paw prints on the winding path, and the mix of perspectives: top-down and side-view.
Pooh emerges from beyond the trees, singing his way down the path. Also from Winnie Pooh, this is one of the few times Khutrik creates depth.
A typical—but empty, because Pooh and Piglet haven't walked into the frame yet—background. Perhaps more spare than most, it demonstrates Khitruk's use of white as well as his expressive "messy" colouring style.
Some of the richest drawings are of the characters' homes. This happens to be Pooh's. We should be able to recognize the paw-lined path as the one from an earlier image. There's a large keyhole on the wooden door, as well as flowers and a mushroom growing on the roof. The building is very earthy.
A similar style of home for Piglet, although more "grounded" in that there's recognizable ground. Another keyhole adorns the door. On the window: two hearts, perhaps expressing Piglet's good-natured, loving personality.
Now to meet the characters! Here's Pooh—sitting under a tree, using logic to figure out that a buzzing tree means honey above. If you're familiar with either Milne's stories or the first Disney film, you'll remember that Pooh eventually grabs a balloon and pretends to be a floating rain cloud in order to partake of some of that honey, which is guarded by a fearsome gang of bees.
Hello, Piglet. Notice the similar composition to the previous image: half the screen in white, the other in colour, the character in between.
Pooh and Piglet together, in one of the nicest shots of the trilogy. The characters and background come together to form an appealing whole. The greens at the top of the frame add a welcome coolness to what would otherwise be too brownish-red.
In Winnie Pooh Goes Visiting, we also meet Rabbit. Less angry, more dandy than in Disney, Rabbit also has a flower on the roof [of the upper part] of his house.
Completing Khitruk's cast of characters are Eeyore and Owl, who both appear in Winnie Pooh and a Busy Day, which is twice as long as each of the first two films. Of all the characters, Eeyore is the most similar to the Eeyore most of us are used to seeing. He's mopey, of course.
Still, it's in his backgrounds that Khutrik most firmly stamps his imagination on the Pooh stories. Here, pink and blue clouds surround a red sun.
This hill-with-three-trees is particularly beautiful. The grass is divided into shapes of various colours and the branches look like they're in bloom.
Something less characteristic is this close up on flowers. Distinct, yet keeping with Khutrik's style. The dandelion draws the eye, but the richness is in the tangle of colours and pencil strokes behind.
Indoors are also drawn. In this shot, Pooh and Piglet visit Rabbit's home in Winnie Pooh Goes Visiting.
And another home, though the owner will remain a mystery. The drawing is uncharacteristically dark, with few white highlights on the bed. Not ominous—even cozy—but natural, muddy, terrestrial. The textures are rougher than usual, too.
All good things come to an end: one of the most iconic Pooh illustrations brought to colourful life, as Pooh and Piglet walk hand-in-hand over the hill and far away. Notice the extreme stylization of the clouds, which doesn't distract at all.
Until we meet again, Hundred Acre Wood.
Fare well.
Today's post is an attempt to use argument mapping software to help visualize and analyze an argument. The specific program I'm using is called Araucaria. It's a free tool developed at the University of Dundee, but there are others. A spreadsheet can be used to create something similar, as can Photoshop (for something more presentable) or simply a pen and paper.
The downside of any of these methods is that the diagrams tend to get large and unruly as an argument grows more complex. The benefit is that by seeing an entire argument in distilled form we're able to identify its strengths and weaknesses. This can help construct an argument of our own or identify where our opponent's argument is most vulnerable to attack.
Let's create a simple situation related to movies. You and your friend are talking about African films. The conversation is chugging along, you agree on a number of points. Then you pose the question "Which national cinema in Africa is the best?" Your friend replies:
How is that even a question? It's obvious that Egypt's cinema is the best. They've made the most movies.
Diagrammed, the argument looks like:
It has one premise and one conclusion. However, there is a second, unspoken but implicit, premise that we should also include in our diagram:
Yet something seems off. As drawn, our diagram suggests that both premises, separately, support the conclusion. That's wrong, so we do this:
Notice that the two premises are now cumulative (which we show by selecting both arrows and then clicking on the program's "Link" tool). Both need to be true for the conclusion to be true.
We may now create a basic strategy for defeating our friend's argument: disprove one of his premises. But our first step may be to probe further and see how firm our friend's ground is.
For example, we may challenge one of his premises by asking a question: "How do you know that Egypt's cinema is the most prolific"? Questions are good because they don't bind us to anything. In this case, they force our friend to either back up one of his premises or admit that he doesn't know. If he doesn't, all the better for us. But let's say he does know, and answers:
It's in a book by Doug Jones. But after I read that, I went on the IMDB and counted all the titles myself. He was right.
Our diagram grows:
The two premises that support the conclusion (that Egyptian cinema is most prolific) are not cumulative. One reinforces the other and makes the conclusion stronger; but each, by itself, also leads to the conclusion. Hence, the arrows remain unlinked.
Let's go on the offensive!
And create a rebuttal to the notion that Egyptian cinema is the most prolific cinema in Africa. Maybe we can make a strong case, and if we manage to convince our friend that he is wrong on this point his ultimate conclusion will also fail. We say:
Come on! Everyone knows that Nigeria makes tons of movies. Way more than Egypt. Nollywood is right up there with Bollywood and Hollywood in terms of output. And, yeah, most of that may be low quality stuff and on video, but I think it still counts as films and we have to take it into account.
So our diagram looks like:
The software allows us not only to create and link premises and conclusion but also to assign "schemes" that illustrate what kind of reasoning is being used. In our case we referred to common knowledge, so we've chosen accordingly. Do you think our friend will admit that we are right and he is wrong? Not likely.
He will probably do what we did: question our premises ("It's a funny kind of common knowledge if I didn't know about it. Got any proof?") and then rebut one of them to try to restore the flow of his original argument that we've so rudely disrupted. We'll find a Wikipedia page to support our common knowledge claim, and then be faced with the following:
Actually, in that book by Doug Jones, he had a whole section on why video is not the same thing as a film and that the two shouldn't be judged the same way. We may as well count home videos!
I've taken out the "scheme" and put in some ownership labels to help identify which rebuttal belongs to our friend and which is ours:
Our Wikipedia page strengthens our claim that Nollywood makes more films than Egypt, but our friend has challenged our second premise (that "videos" are films) and, unfortunately, we need both premises to be true for our initial rebuttal to work. We could go on, possibly taking a look at the credibility of Doug Jones, on whose opinions our friend is rather heavily relying, but let's admit defeat on this half of the argument and re-survey the entire situation:
So back where we were, but now with "evaluation" labels to remind us of what (or rather where) to pursue the issue. The conclusion that Egyptian cinema is the most prolific may be rebuttable, but, after our initial attempt, it seems that that avenue is too much work and too well defended. Besides, we can take down the entire argument without touching that particular premise.
The premise that the most prolific cinema is the best cinema has the softer underbelly. We shall strike!
OK, fine, you're right about Egypt making the most films, but this whole idea that quantity is quality doesn't make sense. There are plenty of national cinemas, like the French and Japanese, that make less movies than, say, India, but their movies are on average better. They're shown in more countries and they win more international awards. Plus, the best French and Japanese films are better than the best Indian ones. How many times has a Indian film won the Palme d'Or?
In sports, the the team that wins is the best team, not the one that competes the most times or plays the most games. The same thing here.
And so on…
Obviously, the diagram will never argue for you, but it will help you spot the good and the bad in both your own and other people's arguments. And the act of creating the diagram, as much as the finished diagram itself, will help you grasp the structure of it. Sometimes it's useful to realize that that long and elaborate chain of conclusions that you've come up with—it can be snipped right at the beginning.
In my endless fascination with punctuation, I discovered a neat detail in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot that concerns translation and the parenthesis.
Specifically, the issue concerns three uses of parentheses in two neighbouring paragraphs in a speech given by one character to another. So as not to quote a whole page of text twice, I will divide the text into two short passages.
The first translation of the first passage comes from the Penguin edition of The Idiot, translated by David McDuff:
"But how do you know what my feelings are? (Rogozhin smiled wryly again). Why, I may have never once felt remorse since that day, and yet you've already sent me your brotherly forgiveness."
The second, older translation of the same passage comes from the Project Gutenberg version of the novel, translated by Eva Martin:
"What do you know about my feelings, eh?" (Rogojin laughed disagreeably.) "Here you are holding out your brotherly forgiveness to me for a thing that I have perhaps never repented of in the slightest degree."
Although both versions contain parentheses, McDuff keeps his within the dialogue, whereas Martin sets hers visibly apart from the character's speech by placing them between quotation marks. In both cases, however, it is clear that the information within the parentheses is not being said by the character; but, rather, is being conveyed by the narrator solely to the reader.
Things get more interesting in the next paragraph, as the same character's speech continues.
McDuff translates the second passage as:
"Had you not raised your hand against me (which God turned away), how would I appear to you now? I mean, I did suspect you of it, the same sin, we felt the same! (And don't frown! Oh, what are you laughing at?)"
Martin translates it as:
"What should you think of me now if you had not raised your knife to me—the knife which God averted from my throat? I would have been guilty of suspecting you all the same—and you would have intended the murder all the same; therefore we should have been mutually guilty in any case. Come, don't frown; you needn't laugh at me, either."
What Martin has included as the character's actual words, McDuff treats as something more ambiguous. The parts in parentheses in McDuff's translation could be words that are spoken, but they could also be the speaking character's unspoken thoughts; or, if we remember by how McDuff used parentheses in the previous passage, they could be the narrator's words to the reader.
If we do decide that the words in parentheses are the narrator's, two differences emerge between translations. In McDuff,
I'm not sure what the passages read like in the original Russian (although I suspect Martin is the more faithful translator of the two) but what a difference a translation can make, and how rich in meaning parentheses can be!


text:
Thread: opc on 17 year old
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opc on 17 year old
Jurisdiction / State: Louisiana
my friend had a false opc put on her by her mother-n-law to get more grounds for custody of her son now shes waiting to be released. that is so wrong what can she do? to get out of this and can she sue her mother-n-law?
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No one wants to take anyone's kid, especially an older person.
If your friend is in custody, the OPC appears NOT to have been false.
So others know, this is the definition of an OPC in LA:
An order signed by any parish coroner or judge of a court of competent jurisdiction requiring a person to be taken into protective custody and transported to a treatment facility of the office of the coroner for immediate examination.
I suggest your friend ask for an attorney to assist her in her efforts to regain her freedom.
It appears your friend may have had some issues with substance abuse or psychotic episodes, so this isn't a small thing. It isn't easy to have these orders issued. They aren't issued because X asks one to be placed on Z.
An OPC issues ONLY after due process at the hand of a judge or county coroner (usually an MD), so I suggest you keep your distance in this matter. This could be your friend's lifeline and her way back to a productive life!
Summer has arrived!
05-11-2013, 12:50 AM #3UnregisteredGuest
Cool! That's a celver way of looking at it!
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UTSA geoscientist Hongjie Xie participates in Chinese Arctic expedition
(Nov. 30, 2010)--After spending two months in the Arctic Ocean aboard the Chinese vessel Xuelong or "Snow Dragon," Hongjie Xie, UTSA associate professor of geological sciences, says global warming is both real and imminent. In fact, Arctic ice is melting faster than researchers thought it would.
While much of the global-warming debate has focused on the reasons for global warming and the disadvantages brought on by it, such as the impact on Arctic ecology, marine mammals and indigenous communities, Xie says the Chinese believe it also creates a significant opportunity.
"Global warming in the Arctic is an extremely hot topic in navigation," said Xie, who manages the UTSA Laboratory for Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics. "The Chinese are extremely interested because they and others would be able to sail their cargo ships through the Arctic Ocean to North America and Europe with much reduced cost. At the melting rate we are observing now, they may be able to do so in 30 to 50 years."
"In the past, travelers could only get to the lowest Arctic latitudes in the summer season, but now the ice has melted so much, large ships can navigate into the higher latitudes. Xuelong traveled to 88.4 degrees latitude with no problems. A few years ago, we could not have done that. We would have run into ice blocks three meters or more in thickness."
He notes, however, "While there is a great opportunity, Arctic navigation is a complex issue. Those involved will need to consider a variety of factors such as environmental pollution, oil spills, search and rescue, national security and navigation rights in territorial waters."
Xie and a scholar from the University of Georgia were the only Americans invited to take part in the fourth Chinese Arctic Expedition, a two-month data-gathering trip organized by the Chinese government. The trip served as a fact-finding mission for Xie, who represented the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Sea Ice Outlook program. The Chinese focused their research on the mechanisms of sea ice melting, the impact of that melting on the Arctic ecosystem and how it might affect the Chinese climate.
In all, 61 researchers, 54 crewmembers and six Chinese journalists participated in the expedition. They represented France, Finland, Taiwan, Estonia, the United States and numerous Chinese universities and research programs.
So, why does Xie think Arctic sea ice is melting so rapidly?
"It's a positive feedback system," he said. "Sea ice melts both from the bottom up due to increased ocean temperature and from the top down. When that happens, the melted ice leaves more open water, which absorbs more solar radiation and raises the temperature of the water even more. The temperature increase causes even more ice to melt and so on and so forth."
While in the Arctic, Xie took photos, videos and quantitative measurements of Arctic sea ice during his journey. That "in situ" data will be combined with satellite data to help researchers across the world better understand Arctic climate and change.
Xie launched his career in 2002 after earning his doctorate in remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) at the University of Texas at El Paso. In 2004, he joined UTSA's faculty. He and world-renowned sea ice scientist Stephen Ackley, a UTSA research associate professor, gained funding from the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Cryosphere Science program.
Since then, Xie and his group have taken two expeditions to Antarctica (2006 and 2007) in addition to his 2010 Arctic expedition. Xie and Ackley will send researchers and students on two additional Antarctic sea ice trips in November and December 2010. Xie hopes to participate in the 2012 Chinese Arctic expedition by sending a couple of UTSA graduate students as well.


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a good grape to hold good grapes – eco wine rack
THE GRAPE is a funky, eco-chic wine rack. It's made out of 100% post-industrial recycled, bio degradable and recyclable Styrofoam. It is unfortunate however, that styrofoam recycling is quite limited, and i doubt all of these cool objects will get recycled at the end of their useful lifetime. the styrofoam used is remnant styrofoam from production. this makes it after manufacturing recycled NOT after consumer recycled (it's important to understand the difference.) you can own this "green" piece of functional art for a mere $120 from www.greenergrassdesign.com


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GSMArena.com site search
Motorola Fire and Fire XT launched in India
13 September, 2011 | comments (48)
We haven's seen much new stuff from Moto on European soil, but the company has just launched the Fire and Fire XT on the Indian market. Both are Android 2.3 Gingerbread running smartphones with mid-range specs and attractive price tags. Motorola...


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Utilities bear the brunt of post-Sandy backlash
Quick take: File this under "What have you done for me lately." Utility workers were heroes for a few days there, as they bravely battled outages despite storms and fires. But citizens still without power are growing increasingly cranky and -- far too often -- taking it out on utilities. Where are these people when utilities are in front of their regulators asking for upgrades to improve reliability? I feel for the Connecticut linemen described below. It must be maddening to spend 18 hours a day to restore power only to have citizens throw eggs when you finally show up. - Jesse Berst
A Fox News report says utility workers in Bridgeport, Connecticut were pelted with eggs and other objects as they worked to restore power in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Apparently the city's mayor had stirred up residents with his complaint that the local power company had "shortchanged" Bridgeport residents by taking care of wealthier communities first.
Edison Electric Institute Senior VP Brian Wolff told AOL Energy that Sandy represents "the largest single event for power outages that we've seen." Some 10 million people in 21 states were affected as Sandy made its way north.
But even with utility crews from as far away as Hawaii and Washington State helping the restoration effort that at one point had 64,000 workers involved, according to the DOE, frustrations have run high - and not just in Connecticut.
"I'm scared to go into the buildings in my own town," Fort Lee, N.J. Mayor Mark Sokolich told The Record in a story posted Sunday. "These people are freaking. It's now five or six days without power. They expect it to be on. They were told they would have power and it's not on."
In New York, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) took heat from both New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo for how long it was taking to restore power. A Reuters story quotes Tab Hauser, deputy mayor of the Village of Flower Hill on the north shore of Long Island, that he'd like to see LIPA consider underground lines and metal rather than wood poles. "Every year it's a band aid," he said. "This can happen next year and nothing will change." (Note: SGN readers are weighing in on the pros and cons of the grid going underground after our story inviting comments earlier this week.)
With the Department of Energy reporting nearly a million customers on the eastern seaboard still without power Tuesday, moods aren't going to get any better with the anticipated arrival of a Nor'easter sometime today. The storm is expected to pelt some of the same areas hard hit by Sandy with more high winds, heavy rains and potentially snow.
In fact, Baltimore Gas & Electric issued a three-page press release Tuesday explaining what it's doing to prepare - and at the same time urging its customers to ensure they are prepared (and tips for going about it) should more fierce weather result in extended power outages.
Stocking up on water and fuel certainly makes more sense than buying extra eggs.
More of our Sandy coverage...
Why Sandy makes the smart grid more important than ever
Sandy victim: Smart grid sure worked for me
Smart grid jobs: So you really want to work in the electric power industry?
Jesse Berst is the founder and chief analyst of Smart Grid News.com, the industry's oldest and largest smart grid site. A frequent keynoter at industry events in the U.S. and abroad, he also serves on advisory committees for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Institute for Electric Efficiency. He often provides strategic consulting to large corporations and venture-backed startups. He is a member of the advisory boards of GridGlo and Calico Energy Services.


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Met - La Boheme - Encore-**
- Release Date:
- 4/9/2014
- Genre:
- Program
- Runtime:
- 205 min.
- Director:
- Starring:
NCM Fathom Events presents an encore performance of Puccini's La Boh�me in select cinemas on Wednesday, April 9, 2014 at 6:30 PM in all time zones. Puccini's moving story of young love is the most performed opera in Met history-and with good reason. Anita Hartig stars as the frail Mim� in Franco Zeffirelli's classic production, with Vittorio Grigolo as her passionate lover, Rodolfo.
Movie Extras


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Asian Elephant Conservation
The Houston Zoo loves its elephants and wants to do everything we can to protect them in the wild.
The Houston Zoo supports elephant protection efforts in Asia through:
- Kinabatangan Elephant Conservation Unit (ECU): Works with local communities and elephants in Borneo to raise awareness, mitigate conflicts, and give farmers the tools and training they need for elephant-friendly crop protection. Learn more here (PDF)
- Danau Girang Field Centre: This organization is undertaking the first population biology study of the Bornean elephant; the Zoo provides funding for graduate student scholarships, radio collars, and camera traps.
How the Houston Zoo helps:
- We host an elephant open house event every year for our Houston community to learn more about our herd of elephants at the zoo, as well as how elephants are doing in the wild.
- We raise vital funds to enable communities in Africa and Asia to protect their remaining elephant populations.
- Houston Zoo elephant staff has assisted our field partners in Borneo with their conservation programming.
Donate now to help elephants in the wild:
How you can help
- Be a hero; avoid destruction of elephant habitat by choosing food and beauty products containing palm oil that is certified as sustainable.
- Visit the Zoo! Every time you visit the Houston Zoo, you help save animals in the wild.
- Learn more about the wildlife protection projects we support and donate to help save elephants in the wild.
- Friend the Houston Zoo Facebook Page for updates on saving animals in the wild.
Other Related Animals:
Clouded Leopards


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With Earth Day rapidly approaching — April 22nd to be exact — we at BestBullySticks thought this would be a great opportunity to share ideas about making the most of this important holiday. After all, a clean and healthy environment will benefit both humans and their pets across the globe. First things first, though. Let's take a step back take a look at the origins of this great holiday.
Earth Day
Originally conceived by John McConnell, an advocate of peace, religion, science and the common good, the idea of Earth Day was first presented in 1969 at a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) summit in San Francisco.
What was to follow was entirely grassroots in nature. Earth Day began as a peaceful cross-country demonstration celebrated by over twenty million Americans on April 22nd, 1970. With such widespread support, lawmakers were quick to take notice of just how interested people were in environmental awareness, and more importantly, reform.
Following the events of April 22nd, 1970, momentum for the movement steadily grew and by 1990 the initiative was taken internationally. Now organized by the Earth Day Network, Earth Day is celebrated in 141 nations across the globe! read more…


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The rules
Based on the conversations I've had this week, I've developed my own set of rules for what seems reasonable – although I'd advise other women to weigh up the risks for themselves: after all, fetal alcohol syndrome is an extremely serious condition.
- Avoid drinking during the first trimester. But if you didn't realise you were pregnant, don't worry too much, and just stop drinking now.
- If you don't want to abstain during pregnancy, try and stick to 1 to 2 units once to twice a week, but if you occasionally drink a little more than this (up to about 8 units a week), it's probably fine.
- Find out what constitutes a unit of alcohol, and remember that some wines and beers are stronger than others.
- Try to spread your drinks out as much as possible to avoid exposing your baby to high concentrations of alcohol.
Cheesy grin
As for cheese, the reason pregnant women are told to avoid soft and blue-veined varieties is because of a risk of listeriosis, a type of food poisoning that can trigger birth defects and miscarriages. But just how big is the risk?
According to the UK's Food Standards Agency, there are around 230 recorded cases of listeriosis in the UK per year, making it pretty rare. Some of these are triggered by eating cheese, but certainly not all are. Around one in 25,000 women gets a listeria infection during pregnancy.
Pregnant women are at increased risk of developing listeriosis because their immune system is weakened, which is why they are told to avoid soft, mould-ripened and blue-veined cheese. People over the age of 60 are also at risk, says Bob Martin of the Food Standards Agency. "There is a depression in immune system function as we get older, so older people are more likely to get it, and if they do get it they're more liable to get a serious illness."
So it's a small risk, but a serious one. But there is some good news: cooking these risky cheeses should kill the bacteria that cause listeriosis, meaning I can eat goat's cheese tart. Yay!
Read previous Bumpology columns: Is my baby making me forgetful?, What does an amniotic cocktail taste like?, My fetus is smarter than an earthworm, Ultrasound reveals breastfeeding mechanics, Boxing clever with the kung-fu fetus, Can old wives' tales tell me my baby's sex?, Active fetus, boisterous child? Uh-oh, Why do I loathe lettuce?, How does stress affect my fetus?.
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.


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Bernard Madoff's investor fraud took the Ponzi scheme to a new level, but it wasn't so long ago that Connecticut had its own infamous fraud case tied to some of Hartford's most well-known real estate: Colonial Realty Co.
And in the two decades since Colonial's collapse, Robert Ficeto's memory of being one of Colonial's 6,800 burned investors is still fresh.
"They were already established, and they had turned real estate deals that had made money," Ficeto said, in a recent interview. "What we found out later, it was only good if they could sell the next deal."
Colonial's monumental unraveling came just one deal after Ficeto took a $50,000 stake in an office building at the corner of Asylum and High streets in downtown Hartford.
"Then came Constitution Plaza that they couldn't sell," Ficeto said. "Then the house of cards came down."
Throughout much of the 1980s, Colonial three partners — Jonathan N. Googel, Benjamin J. Sisti and Frank M. Shuch — sold $350 million worth of shares in various real estate syndication deals. Colonial would purchase the properties with bank financing, then seek investors. In return, investors would earn dividends and, in theory, could sell their shares in a specified number of years.
What investigators later found out was something quite different: The deals were designed to generate commissions and bank loans for Colonial's top brass, but not profits for investors.
Colonial paid too much for the properties, squeezed out too much in fees, borrowed too much from banks — and then kept repeating the pattern to cover other losses. Colonial falsified financial statements and those of its investors to keep the cash flowing.
The investments were never meant to be sold to truck drivers, school teachers and landscapers — or to people like Ficeto, then business manager for Waterbury's school system. Buyers were supposed to have annual incomes of $200,000 and net worths of at least $1 million. But many did not.
Multiple attempts to reach Googel and Sisti for this story were unsuccessful.
In retrospect, Colonial's promises of guaranteed returns of up to 300 percent now sound dubious, Ficeto said. But remember, he says: Donald Trump was among the investors, and Arthur Andersen & Co., then the world's largest accounting firm, deemed the investments reasonable.
"Colonial Realty was king," Ficeto said.
A $1 Billion Real Estate Empire
In the late 1980s, Colonial Realty and its partners became known for their lavish lifestyles, including fancy cars, parties that spared no expense, Italian designer suits and, in Sisti's case, the building of a $2.7 million, 31-room mansion on 21 acres in Farmington. In today's dollars, the Sisti house — now owned by rapper 50 Cent — would have cost nearly $6 million.
Sisti entertained on a 93-foot yacht, named "Family Ties" with four plushy carpeted staterooms, three Jacuzzis and a bar stocked with Dom Perignon champagne. The boat cost $2.5 million.
Beyond real estate, Colonial owned a 37 percent share in the Hartford Whalers hockey team.
Colonial became so high-profile that the city of Hartford closed down Lewis Street during rush hour in 1988 to accommodate the company's annual Christmas party. Colonial needed the street to park "20 or so" stretch limousines to shuttle guests to the now-demolished Parkview Hilton two-tenths of a mile away.
A Hartford real estate broker who attended one of Colonial's Christmas parties described the event as outrageous.
"I've never seen so much food stacked out in my life; it was appalling," the broker told The Courant in 1987. "It must have cost in the six figures."
But what caught the most attention were Colonial's deals.