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Salinger: How to Love Without Love
Since I lived in outermost Paris during practically the whole of the 1950's, I was very late in learning of what seems to have been one of the chief American diversions during that decade: J. D. Salinger's Glass family. As matters appear to stand right now, I could, without stretching things too much, say that I didn't learn about the Glasses until they had not only ceased to be a diversion but had evidently ceased to be at all. First news of them reached me in a letter from a Jewish girl I'd known in New York, who, oddly, or not so oddly, enough, later married an Irish-American. Apropos of nothing I can especially remember, she asked: "Aren't you crazy for the Glass family? I am, especially for Seymour." It didn't occur to me that this had anything to do with Salinger—though I had some years earlier read "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"—and it was a year before I found out who the Glasses were.
I found out when I came to New York, where, needless to say, almost everyone was crazy for the Glass family and seemed to be on intimate terms with them. It made me feel very left out of things indeed, like the only man in town who hadn't been invited to a party. When I finally got around to crashing, I could hardly believe I'd come to the right place, for I never succeeded in finding those marvelous and celebrated people who'd been talked about so heatedly in living rooms and magazines. If "Franny," "Seymour," "Zooey," and "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" are really the right and only stories about the Glasses that appeared during the 50's, then the reason I couldn't find them is that they weren't there. They did not, in the simplest and most usual sense of the phrase, ever come alive, and I suspect that the reasons they did for so many readers were largely external. There was first of all the reservoir of love built by Salinger with The Catcher in the Rye; there was the very contemporary New York type family itself—Jewish and Irish and Central Park and middle class—given flattering depth with a lot of religious paraphernalia; there was the family chronicling (rather in the form of a writer's notes for a contemplated novel) that more and more pervaded each piece; and there was also the reader's confidence that, since the stories were beginning to read like serial installments, if lifelikeness didn't actually obtain among the Glasses, it would surely one day come—providing cancer, the atom bomb, or old age didn't get there first. Life would arrive soon or Soon. Salinger could be trusted. Who else, since the war, had created such a host of lifelike and memorable characters?
The genius or, if you will, ingenuity, of Salinger's earlier work lay not in his creation of individuals, but in his depiction of types. Nearly everyone in his stories and in his novel rang bells like mad. You could not have learned to know thyself better from reading his work, but you might have recognized some of your sillier traits, and you would definitely have recognized the people and the things around you in it. He was always putting his finger on just the right gesture, on the precise tone of voice, on the exact object or circumstance. And if one suspected that he was in scorn of the vanities and trivialities of the milieu he described, he made them nevertheless glamorous, or rather he did not subtract from metropolitan life any of its mythical and publicized glamor. From The Catcher one came away charmed by the very things that appalled Holden: the night club, the theater, the pretentious sophisticates, the stupid office girls, the prep school, everything. It was all so precisely depicted that it gave one the pleasure of the miniature. You couldn't possibly be offended by it—even if you happened to be a stupid and pretentious night-club. The Catcher is, so far as I know, an unparalleled example of a writer's having the best of both worlds, of getting both God and Mammon to work for him whole-heartedly. (I'm not trying to diminish the value of The Catcher which—though both it and I have grown twelve years staler—is still one of the freshest novels this country has produced since the war.) The life in The Catcher, like the life in some of the Nine Stories—since whose appearance I have grown ten years staler, while they have grown a generation staler—springs from the swift, immediate, authentic response of the characters to the world around them. And the intense charm of the books came from the fact that his characters were responding to our world which also happened to be theirs. Their world will go as soon as our world goes (and then, of course, the charm will disappear, as it already has from Esmé, from Teddy, from most of them) because it was never transmuted; it was merely depicted. What once was the most moving scene in The Catcher—when Holden tries to explain his anguish over American civilization to the absurd girl he's with at Rockefeller Center—has now become flat and insufficient. The time for disgust over Cadillacs has passed and Holden's suffering does not seem interesting or real enough, enough itself, to make us separate it from its object, thereby turning the object into symbol and the suffering into our own. All his lament makes us want to do is prod him gently, wake him up, and say. nobody cares about Cadillacs any more.
That Salinger's feelings did not run very deep in his early work is ultimately why what he hated could charm us and why, when the object of his feelings was made trivial by time, so were his feelings. Of all Salinger's characters the one with the most staying power has proved to be Muriel Glass, Seymour the Suicide's wife in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." It is still utterly delightful to see her polishing her nails and waving her hands around to dry the stuff, to listen to the inane things she says on the telephone, to watch her cross and uncross her legs, touch an ashtray, handle a cigarette, move the receiver. There is no doubt she never ceases to be a type, but it is Salinger's problem, not ours, if we cannot see so lively and physical a type as a good reason for Seymour's suicide. But Salinger, I suppose, wants us to think backward: if Seymour killed himself, he must have done it because—and the only because in the story is Muriel. So then we have to hate Muriel. It's rather like the traditional Hollywood technique of letting the audience know how to feel about a situation by showing how an on-the-scene observer reacts to it.
In "Bananafish," as in that Rockefeller Center scene from The Catcher, Salinger uses a device that he repeats elaborately and at great length in two of the Glass stories. It appears to be a simple contrasting: Seymour against Muriel, Holden against the girl, the individual against the type, intelligence against stupidity, real feeling against no feeling, what Salinger loves against what Salinger hates. The usual idea of contrast is to intensify white by putting it against black, and vice versa. But Salinger doesn't play the game quite straight in "Bananafish," for what he does is try to make us imagine white by putting void against black. As it happens, his trick backfires because the reader falls in love with Muriel the black, and Salinger is left holding an Act of Depth in search of a character. And Seymour? What is Seymour? Who is he? He is no one; he's just an idea.
So far as I know, no new story by Salinger appeared during the four years preceding 1955 when both "Franny" and "Raise High" were published in the New Yorker. I am convinced that those four silent years were spent by him on the road to Satori and in deepest spiritual anguish. How far along he got, and why he returned, seem like matters that shouldn't be speculated about in public; yet since he obtrudes himself and his own spiritual interests with ever-lessening embarrassment into the Glass pieces, and since it is impossible to understand his stories without gauging the status of Salinger's soul, I'll tell you what I have measured from his work. There is an often quoted Zen saying which goes something like this: "When you are unenlightened, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. When you are approaching Enlightenment, mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers. When you have attained Enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers." Well, I think Salinger got stuck about midway, where mountains and rivers aren't mountains and rivers. He went far enough along to undo himself and then stopped, or was stopped, cold, or perhaps hot, or perhaps, as he might put it, hot and cold. And he started talking. (If he sometimes talks as Americans often seem to talk when they are having at you from Satori Boulevard—whether they've been traveling via Zen, Gurdjieff, mescalin, LSD or whatever—as if he were a public relations man for the Godhead, it would nonetheless be diabolical, not to say asinine, to attack him for the product he represents rather than for his manner of pushing it.)
Why did he not go on? Because he couldn't, and you can often hear the wheels of his spirit spinning in the sand where they got caught. But qualities and textures, gestures and surfaces, the stuff of his early writings, were completely undone, peeled open; and Salinger fell to a level of feeling so deep, so complex, that his relationship to life no longer had any relevance to Cadillacs, nail polish, leg crossings, telephones, regional speech patterns, or American civilization. (With respect to the Zen quotation, one might also say: his relationship to life did not as yet have relevance to nail polish, etc.) But neither did it have relevance to Satori. Like Dante, he was chronologically nel mezzo del camin', and like Dante he was in la selva oscura. Dante, of course, didn't talk about it for a long time; he waited, my ignorant memory tries to recollect, between ten and twenty years. But Salinger was impulsive, and he chose, or was driven, to speak not only of the sands in which he was still stuck but of the starting place, which no longer meant anything to him, and of the destination, which he could not even imagine. Not having arrived at his destination, he had not become the agent of prophetic statements (except insofar as he publicizes, through marvelous quotations, the statements of others), and among the resources of his humanity there had never been, as there had been for Dante, a great poetic imagination and an already formulated religious design to tell him what the second half of the road was like. Dante need have gotten no closer to Paradise than Salinger has to Satori for the Comedy to have found its way. Whatever the literal background of his honeymoons with Virgil and Beatrice, in his art he was leading them; he knew exactly where to go and what salvation looked like. The Church and his own medieval genius told him, and they told him in sensual, communicable images.
I would guess that Salinger's Glass stories are, or were intended to be, a religious allegory, with the seven Glass brothers and sisters representing the various stages toward Enlightenment, from Franny, the youngest, who is just entering the crisis, to Seymour, the oldest, who has made it, who is there, whose Bananafish suicide we are now told to see as his means of shooting himself out of this world—dying to life, as the expression goes—and into Satori. I would also guess that the allegory idea didn't come to Salinger until after "Franny" (which is the first, best, most tender of the later pieces), and that since it posits Seymour as the Enlightenment, the project was doomed from the start, for Seymour's enlightenment, which merits no capital "E," is a kind of cherry-flavored innocence, much inferior to Holden Caulfield's dream of catching children in the rye. Seymour is the captain of the God-ship lollipop.
For the form of "Franny," Salinger revisits "Bananafish" and Rockefeller Center. He sets up Franny and Lane Coutell as his White Queen and Black King, and it works beautifully. It works because, while Salinger thinks he is up to his old trick of materializing White by holding nothing up to Black, the emotion that is Franny is a real one, deeply felt. She is White. And what facility Salinger has lost in his dealings with the surfaces of things seems to be a gain, for it limits him, when talking of Franny the character (as opposed to Franny the Anguish), to flat unobtrusive descriptions:
Franny saw [Lane's arm waving], and him, and waved extravagantly back. . . . She was wearing a sheared raccoon coat. . . . She threw her arms around him and kissed him. It was a station-platform kiss—spontaneous enough to begin with, but rather inhibited in the follow-through. . . . "Did you get my letter?" she asked and added, almost in the same breath, "You look almost frozen, you poor man. Why didn't you wait inside?"
Just enough to get her on the page, to embody the emotion. The anguish of her crisis is all the rest of her, and it is so intense and so convincing that it doesn't matter a bit that she is appalled by virtually the same things that appalled Holden—the phonies and the activities of their world.
Even the Black King is improved by the depth of the new Salinger. It has been observed that Salinger is "unfair" in his treatment of Lane Coutell, that he trims from the boy everything that might reveal him as something more than a snob, a prig, a creature of fashion. This of course is a wicked way to write in our democratic and liberal present, but when that observation has been made, we can also observe that Salinger has never been able to do so wicked a thing before. His contempt for Lane comes through very clearly, as it never did with any of his early characters. Salinger ridicules him. He ridicules Lane not only for his vanity but for his humanity. He makes Lane's hunger ludicrous by having him gnaw at his meal while Franny is practically swooning with her suffering (and of course unable to touch the food on her plate); he makes Lane's love ludicrous by having him remember "that once, in a borrowed car, after kissing Franny for a half hour or so, he had kissed her coat lapel, as though it were a perfectly desirable, organic extension of the person itself." And because Salinger is honest and open—and without charm—in his hatred of Lane, his little game of setting his character up as a human being so that he can bowl him over with ridicule for being one makes Lane his single complete creation. At the end, having purged himself of his violent feelings, Salinger has a moment of tenderness toward Lane, gives up whipping him, and allows the boy to show himself as genuinely concerned and worried about Franny.
Heaven only knows what happened to Salinger during those months between "Franny" and "Raise High," a story that is fake from the word go. Salinger once again uses the "Bananafish" device of Black and White, but in a quite different way. There are a whole bunch of Blacks this time (pretentious guests from the bride's side at Seymour's wedding) who take up all but a score or so of the hundred-odd pages; and the White is just a few pages of excerpts from Seymour's diary. (Seymour never appears; in fact he never ever makes an in-person appearance in these stories; and I think, if they continue, he never will; I think Buddy is his body, his worldly incarnation.) Shuttling between the Blacks and the White goes the narrator, Buddy the Body, second son of the Glasses, and though he is apparently very loyal to his older brother, he and Salinger make the mistake of printing verbatim the writings of Seymour the Soul. And what a mistake. All those "how sweets" and "so beautifuls" and "unbearably happys" and "overwhelmingly gratefuls" make a farce of Satori. Salinger has gotten out of his depth in his intentions and resorted to the fakest and most trivial kind of hagiography. Seymour is nothing but a mixture of cold blood and confectioner's sugar.
To compensate, Salinger makes his Blacks blacker than ever and more pretentious than ever. Seymour should look real by comparison, but he doesn't because the Blacks are stripped so entirely of virtues that they become merely grotesque, not Black. There is an unfortunate internal explosion as a result of all the shenanigans, and Salinger's malice, rather than the Blacks, becomes contrasted with Seymour. What is "human-size," however petty or vain, is beautiful to Seymour, but if Seymour is Salinger's conception of Enlightenment, then by his mistreatment of his characters, Salinger places himself in a pretty backward position. Another result of these problems is that Salinger becomes desperate in his style. Seeming not to know what to do next, he sets off in wild pursuit of himself, of the old Salinger. The voice under the prose begins to sound as if it belongs to Mann's Aschenbach, still dying his hair and powdering his face and chasing all over Venice for a glimpse of the boy. Since he can no longer reach the sensual world, Salinger must use a thousand abstract words to describe what once took ten concrete ones. For his lost charm, he substitutes archaisms, cutenesses, coynesses, leaden mannerisms. Listen to Buddy describing himself helping people into cars:
I was not only twenty-three but a conspicuously retarded twenty-three. I remember loading people into cars without any degree of competence whatever. On the contrary, I went about it with a certain disingenuous, cadetlike semblance of single-mindedness, of adherence to duty. After a few minutes, in fact, I became all too aware that I was catering to the needs of a predominantly older, shorter, fleshier generation, and my performance as an arm taker and door closer took on an even more thoroughly bogus puissance. I began to conduct myself like an exceptionally adroit, wholly engaging young giant with a cough.
Salinger also tries to get some feelings into the piece; there are none handily about, so he constructs them. Take a look at this Gigantic-Orchestration-Of-Feelings-Appropriate-to-Great-Themes Charade that Buddy plays out after reading Seymour's diary while sitting on the edge of the bathtub:
I remember closing the diary—actually, slamming it shut—after the word "happy." I then sat for several minutes with the diary under one arm, until I became conscious of a certain discomfort from having sat so long on the side of the bathtub. When I stood up, I found I was perspiring more profusely than I had all day, as though I had just got out of a tub, rather than just been sitting on the side of one. I went over to the laundry hamper, raised the lid, and, with an almost vicious wrist movement, literally threw Seymour's diary into some sheets and pillowcases that were on the bottom of the hamper. Then, for want of a better, more constructive idea, I went back and sat down on the side of the bathtub again. I stared for a minute or two at Boo Boo's message on the medicine-cabinet mirror, and then I left the bathroom, closing the door excessively hard after me, as though sheer force might lock up the place forever after.
Listen to all that Great Emotion banging like a broken piano in an old silent-movie house. What is Buddy's violent reaction all about? Is it his response to having read that sopping fraud, his older brother, whom he adores? He carries on as if Seymour were a sudden revelation to him, and yet he has known him intimately and spiritually all his life. Buddy is there to feel for us as in the Hollywood movies, so that we will know that Seymour's writings are Enormities, not Inanities. But Buddy himself isn't feeling a thing. How could he, when he is just a pile of cold words? And when Seymour is just a pile?
By the time he is done with "Raise High," Salinger is faced with a demented fraud playing Satori, a bunch of grotesques playing common humanity, and a clownish vacuum playing himself. He can't look forward; he can't look backward; and he can't stay where he is because it is a loveless, unloving nowhere. What is he to do? Where is he to turn?
"Zooey," the longest of the four late pieces, was published in 1957, and though it appears to be a sequel to "Franny," it is actually a sequel to its more immediate predecessor. It is an attempt by Salinger to rescue, first of all, his own spiritual status by offering a Way of Love to the world, and a way, indeed, of loving those very same people he himself hates. It is also an attempt to rescue Seymour by making him the ultimate inventor of the Way. To avoid putting Seymour to any further tests, he keeps him out of the story. And to avoid putting the Way of Love to a test, Salinger keeps from the story anyone who might possibly upset him. Thus, not a Black in sight anywhere. Everyone is White—Franny, Zooey, and their mother—and they are all locked in the White Castle, the Glasses' Manhattan apartment. The action takes place a couple of days after "Franny," and Franny is home, but still in anguish. Her worried mother has a long dialogue with her sixth son Zooey while he takes a bath. She pleads with him to help Franny, and though he tries, he cannot. However, he is a television actor and he has a great plan up his sleeve which involves an elaborate interplay of identities, so cumbersome and complicated that you can't help tripping over a bunch of allegorical wires. (I don't know what it all means.) He goes to Seymour's and Buddy's old room and, using Seymour's telephone, which is on Buddy's desk, he calls Franny on the family telephone and, using Buddy's voice at first, but then later his own, and quoting Seymour, he cures Franny's anguish by telling her that everyone is Jesus Christ and therefore they all merit love even if they stink. (By this he means the Blacks, like Lane Coutell and the wedding guests in "Raise High" and everyone else in the world who isn't named Glass.) It is rather like the end of a Russian movie; the heartbroken girl unexpectedly hears a speech by a commissar and is made miraculously whole. Zooey-Buddy-Seymour's Christianity sounds very sweet, and Franny buys it, but of course it is just garbage. All Zooey is saying is that if you close your eyes and pretend that the Blacks are Whites, then you can love them, especially when they're not around, and especially when the particular "everyone" that Zooey is referring to is an imaginary fat lady that Seymour dreamed up to represent the non-Glasses.
Well, perhaps Salinger is fooling Franny and himself into feeling that Seymour, because he has provided the Way, is no fraud, and perhaps Salinger is enthralled by his spiritual status after having twisted out a syllogism that grants he loves the lower orders and yet permits him to avoid any soiling contact with them. However, that Salinger continues to loathe, has indeed increased his loathing of, things human is shown by the way he must sterilize the physical. When Zooey berates Franny for refusing Mama Glass's chicken soup, he berates her because she doesn't realize that it is "consecrated" chicken soup. And observe the way Salinger neutralizes Zooey's beauty; Buddy is the narrator, though he doesn't appear in the story:
Close up, either full-face or in profile, he was surpassingly handsome, even spectacularly so. His eldest sister . . . has asked me to describe him as looking like "the blue-eyed Jewish-Irish Mohican scout who died in your arms at the roulette table at Monte Carlo." A more general and surely less parochial view was that he had just barely been saved from too-handsomeness, not to say gorgeous-ness, by virtue of one ear's protruding slightly more than the other. I myself hold a very different opinion from either of these. I submit that Zooey's face was close to being a wholly beautiful face. As such, it was of course vulnerable to the same variety of glibly undaunted and usually specious evaluations that any legitimate art object is.
Whatever flesh may have been on Zooey's surpassingly handsome face at the beginning of that description is thoroughly ripped off by the time we get to "holy" (spelled "wholly") beautiful. No, sir, you can't lust after our Zooey. And to make sure lust never even stirs in the reader, Salinger prefaces the face with this: "From the rear—particularly where his vertebrae were visible—he might almost have passed for one of those needy metropolitan children who are sent out every summer to endowed camps to be fattened and sunned." Where Zooey's body is submerged in the bath, water has a "dehydrating effect on him." Where his knees stick out, they are "dry islands." Body is so utterly negated in Zooey—as it is indeed in all the other Glasses—that when he characterizes Franny's statements that Lane Coutell is a nice boy as "just sex talking, buddy. I know that voice. Oh, do I know that voice!" the reader feels that if Zooey does know that voice, it must be from having heard it over the radio. (I imagine that Salinger's justification for unsexing the Glasses is that he wants to attribute to them, though they are adults, the same innocence that belonged to the children he used to write about.)
"Zooey" is nearly as bad a story as "Raise High." Salinger fails to gives his characters any degree of life, and he fails to give substance or reality to their whereabouts, despite the endless cataloguings of furniture and household items. Since most of the story is in dialogue, the characters must live through their voices. But their voices are never heard. Salinger individualizes and characterizes them with the dogtag method: Zooey is identifiable by mild oaths and the fact that he calls everyone "buddy"; Mrs. Glass is identifiable by oodles of italics; and Franny is identifiable by references to her crisis.
Any number of Salinger's readers—Alfred Kazin and John Updike among the most illustrious—have pointed out that he loves the Glasses too much and too exclusively. I think they are doing him the kindness of taking an attempt for an achievement, the protestation for the sentiment. Though he is trying very hard to act like it, I don't for a minute believe Salinger loves the Glasses. I think he probably hates them because they have never been willing to live off themselves, because he has had to construct them into pseudo-life, and thus they must represent for him the lifelessness of the idea he asks them to embody. I would guess the Glasses came into existence as postulates of the second half of the Satori road only after Salinger had despaired of getting beyond the first. To keep them alive may be for him some way of keeping the road open. Yet, they have walled up what is probably Salinger's only possible path to salvation : his art. Rebirth can come only after one gives up the idea of it; and paradoxically, Salinger's death-to-life can perhaps come only after he dies to death-to-life.
The marvel of "Seymour: An Introduction," which appeared in 1959, is that Salinger confronts himself. It is a chronicle of the confrontation between the writer and the saint, and he hardly bothers to pretend it is a fiction. How disingenuous it was of all those critics and reviewers to have spoken of the piece as though it were a story, and how heartless it was of them who had loved him so much to have rapped him on the knuckles because he, the emperor, was the first to point out that he was wearing no clothes, had in fact been naked for years. "Seymour" is a courageous act, a much more personal display than having photographs published or signing books in department stores or making public appearances. And having given himself totally to those who had been lusting after him ever since The Catcher, all they did was respond by crying, "Shame!"
Yes, of course, "Seymour" is mannered and self-conscious and boring, but so were the other Glass pieces—and they were in addition dishonest, except for "Franny"—even though Salinger managed to keep these things hidden from his readers, if not from himself. What he says in "Seymour" is that he cannot live without Seymour, that he cannot give up writing about Seymour even though he cannot write about Seymour, that there is no Seymour and he must construct him. piece by piece, feature by feature. And in the process of saying so, all the literary pretensions and affectations and mannerisms are knitted into a hair-shirt which he is going to wear because that is the Way he has chosen for himself.
"Seymour" makes me think again of Aschenbach, this time in the confessional. Despite his makeup and dyed hair, he is confessing with all his heart and repenting with all his heart. His contrition is complete. Yet when he steps out of the church, where is he to go? All the waters of Venice flow back to his love. All of Salinger's roads lead back to Seymour, or to silence, or to both.


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Here's a few for you Champ.
In Los Angeles, you cannot bathe two babies in the same tub at the same time.
In L.A. it is against the law to complain through the mail that a hotel has cockroaches, even if it is true.
It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood Blvd. at one time.
Peeling an orange in your hotel room is banned in California
Prostitutes in San Francisco are not obliged to make change for bills larger than $50.
In Blythe, California, a person must own two cows in order to legally wear cowboy boots in public.
It is illegal to set a mousetrap without a hunting license.

subset: commoncrawl


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16th June 2012 - Jaya Bachchan & Keith Vaz MP @ Sabras Radio
On the eve of the celebrations for his 25th anniversary as a Member of Parliament, Keith Vaz MP dropped by with his guest, Jaya Bachchan. We took some pictures, which are below.
You can also listen again to the interview.
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VANS Kill The Line 2012 on sept 1st and 2nd in Peynier, France.
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Nope... If ALL my postwhoring had paid off i'd be at Franks count...
All that PostWhoring really paid off. :3
I know I'm on it... that's about it lol...
I honest forgot about the Top 10 poster list.
What the Fuck? that's sad.
Yeah. Basically.
I was bored and trolling through your VM's... did Dennis and Shaz really go TEAM EDWARD and TEAM JACOB about the whole top ten posters thing? weird kids...
Ace Not sucks
It appears so Mr Excitement
You're back!!!!
© 2011 eWrestlingNews, All Rights Reserved.


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Bolts and Habs on FOUR different TV networks tonight
Tonight things could be quite crowed as no fewer than four networks will be telecasting game one of the Montreal at Tampa Bays series. Sun Sports will handle the local broadcast, nationally it will be CNBC. In Canada, it
Winter Olympics:The Opening Ceremonies Recap
OK you can't watch the 2014 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremonies live from Sochi, Russia and you are bummed. You must wait until 7:30 p.m. tonight when NBC will present all the excitement of a three hour tape delayed event.


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NEW YORK—New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's offhand comment at in a press conference on Tuesday that "nobody's sleeping on the streets" has drawn ire from homeless advocacy groups.
Bloomberg was responding to a question about allegations that families are being turned away from shelters despite freezing temperatures.
The Mayor explained that the city's goal is to ensure those who need services get them, and those who don't do not drain resources. The offending comment came at the end of his reply.
"The public does not want to and should not have to support somebody if they have alternatives. We want to make sure that our monies are available to those who really don't have any alternatives so that is all we are trying to do. Nobody is sleeping on the streets," said Bloomberg.
"It's a remark that just seems so out of touch with the everyday reality that New Yorkers see," Patrick Markee with the Coalition for the Homeless told NY1 Wednesday.
The New York City Coalition for the Homeless estimates that more than 48,000 people are currently living in shelters citywide.
Junior Clarke, 23, told the Daily News in a report published Saturday that his family was trying to stay at the Bronx Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH) Center, a shelter used by families, on a very cold day last month.
When he tried to enter a shelter with his wife and 4-year-old daughter they were turned away. "They tried to send us outside into the cold," Clarke said.
"They threatened to have us thrown out by police," he was also quoted as saying.
In the past, New York implemented a "code blue" policy when the temperature dipped below freezing, but there was a recent policy shift requiring residents to prove that they have nowhere else to stay.
Last week, a New York state appeals court ruled that a city policy requiring homeless adults to prove they had no other housing to gain eligibility was illegal, reported The New York Times. The court reported that the city used dubious methods to enact the policy and held no public hearings before making their decision.
New York City's Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond said the court ruling "will force the city to build more shelters in neighborhoods throughout the city," reported the Times.
"We are confident that city taxpayers and community groups, especially those who object to new shelter proposals, understand the need for a thoughtful approach that fairly reserves shelter for those with no alternatives," Diamond added, "and we will continue to fight to see that such a policy is implemented."
The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 21 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.


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Things to see and do - South Africa
Leaving for South Africa
Nearby hotels
Anta Boga Hotel from1600 ZARBook
Villa Bali Boutique Hotel from650 ZARBook
Protea Hotel Bloemfontein from868 ZARBook
Things to do nearby
Cape Point Highlights Tour and Wine Tasting in Stellenbosch
- 79 €
- Book
Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl Valley Wine Day Trip
- 64 €
- Book
Mountain Splendor -The Kingdom of Lesotho
- 143 €
- Book
Protea Hotel Transit O.R. Tambo Airport :
Nearby tourist sites
Protea Hotel Transit O.R. Tambo Airport
Protea Hotel Transit O.R. Tambo Airport
Address : Terminal A, O R Tambo International Airport ZA - Kempton Park
from : 1283 ZARBook
Steps away from bars, restaurants and duty-free shops, Protea is a transit hotel situated inside OR Tambo Airport international transfers area. Guests proceeding to immigration and baggage clearance will not be permitted entry back into the transit area and check-in at the hotel. Air-conditioned rooms have private bathrooms and modern furnishings. They include a work desk and come equipped with a coffee maker and a flat-screen TV with satellite channels. Room service is available. Protea Hotel Transit O.R.Tambo Airport is located at Terminal A, inside OR Tambo's international departures area. The Ferrari Concept Store, Lacoste and Timberland are steps away from the hotel.
Useful Information
- Address : Terminal A, O R Tambo International Airport ZA - Kempton Park1627Kempton Park
Main services
- Air conditioning
- Disabled access
- Non-smoking rooms
- Internet
- Satellite TV


text:
Quotes & Info
|CMTL > SEC Filings for CMTL > Form 10-Q on 5-Jun-2014
|All Recent SEC Filings
Quarterly Report
Certain information in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q contains forward-looking statements, including but not limited to, information relating to our future performance and financial condition, plans and objectives of our management and our assumptions regarding such future performance, financial condition, and plans and objectives that involve certain significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors not under our control which may cause our actual results, future performance and financial condition, and achievement of our plans and objectives to be materially different from the results, performance or other expectations implied by these forward-looking statements. These factors include the nature and timing of receipt of, and our performance on, new or existing orders that can cause significant fluctuations in net sales and operating results, the timing and funding of government contracts, adjustments to gross profits on long-term contracts, risks associated with international sales, rapid technological change, evolving industry standards, new product announcements and enhancements, changing customer demands, changes in prevailing economic and political conditions, risks associated with our legal proceedings and other matters, risks associated with certain U.S. government investigations, risks associated with our large contracts, risks associated with our obligations under our revolving credit facility, and other factors described in this and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC").
We design, develop, produce and market innovative products, systems and services
for advanced communications solutions. We believe many of our solutions play a
vital role in providing or enhancing communication capabilities when terrestrial
communications infrastructure is unavailable, inefficient or too expensive. We
conduct our business through three complementary operating segments:
telecommunications transmission, RF microwave amplifiers and mobile data communications. We sell our products to a diverse customer base in the global commercial and government communications markets. We believe we are a leader in the market segments that we serve.
Our telecommunications transmission segment provides sophisticated equipment and systems that are used to enhance satellite transmission efficiency and that enable wireless communications in environments where terrestrial communications are unavailable, inefficient or too expensive. Our telecommunications transmission segment also operates our high-volume technology manufacturing center that can be utilized, in part, by our other two segments and by third-party commercial customers who can outsource a portion of their manufacturing to us. Accordingly, our telecommunications transmission segment's operating results are impacted positively or negatively by the level of utilization of our high-volume manufacturing center.
Our RF microwave amplifiers segment designs, develops, manufactures and markets traveling wave tube amplifiers ("TWTA's") and solid-state, high-power amplifiers ("SSPA's"), including high-power, narrow and broadband RF microwave amplifier products.
Our mobile data communications segment's products and services substantially relate to our support of the U.S. Army's Blue Force Tracking ("BFT-1") and the U.S. Army's Movement Tracking System ("MTS") programs, which are currently in a sustainment mode. We license certain of our intellectual property to the U.S. Army and provide engineering services and satellite network operations on a cost-plus-fixed-fee basis and program management services on a firm-fixed-price basis.
Quarterly and period-to-period sales and operating results may be significantly affected by either short-term or long-term contracts with our customers. In addition, our gross profit is affected by a variety of factors, including the mix of products, systems and services sold, production efficiencies, estimates of warranty expense, price competition and general economic conditions. Our gross profit may also be affected by the impact of any cumulative adjustments to contracts that are accounted for under the percentage-of-completion method.
Our contracts with the U.S. government can be terminated for convenience by it at any time and orders are subject to unpredictable funding, deployment and technology decisions by the U.S. government. Some of these contracts are indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity ("IDIQ") contracts and, as such, the U.S. government is not obligated to purchase any equipment or services under these contracts. We have in the past experienced and we continue to expect significant fluctuations in sales and operating results from quarter-to-quarter and period-to-period. As such, comparisons between periods and our current results may not be indicative of a trend or future performance.
As further discussed below, under "Critical Accounting Policies," revenue from
the sale of our products is generally recognized when the earnings process is
complete, upon shipment or customer acceptance. Revenue from contracts relating
to the design, development or manufacture of complex electronic equipment to a
buyer's specification or to provide services relating to the performance of such
contracts is generally recognized in accordance with accounting standards that
have been codified into Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") Accounting
Standards Codification ("ASC") 605-35, "Revenue Recognition - Construction-Type
and Production-Type Contracts" ("ASC 605-35"). Revenue from contracts that
contain multiple elements that are not accounted for under FASB ASC 605-35 is
generally accounted for in accordance with FASB ASC 605-25, "Revenue Recognition
- Multiple Element Arrangements," which, among other things, requires revenue associated with multiple element arrangements to be allocated to each element based on the relative selling price method.
We consider certain accounting policies to be critical due to the estimation process involved in each.
Revenue Recognition on Long-Term Contracts. Revenues and related costs from long-term contracts relating to the design, development or manufacture of complex electronic equipment to a buyer's specification or to provide services relating to the performance of such contracts are recognized in accordance with FASB ASC 605-35, "Revenue Recognition - Construction-Type and Production-Type Contracts" ("ASC 605-35"). We primarily apply the percentage-of-completion accounting method and generally recognize revenue based on the relationship of total costs incurred to total projected costs, or, alternatively, based on output measures, such as units delivered or produced. Profits expected to be realized on such contracts are based on total estimated sales for the contract compared to total estimated costs, including warranty costs, at completion of the contract.
Direct costs (which include materials, labor and overhead) are charged to work-in-progress (including our contracts-in-progress) inventory or cost of sales. Indirect costs relating to long-term contracts, which include expenses such as general and administrative, are charged to expense as incurred and are not included in our work-in-process (including our contracts-in-progress) inventory or cost of sales. Total estimates are reviewed and revised periodically throughout the lives of the contracts, and adjustments to profits resulting from such revisions are made cumulative to the date of the change. Estimated losses on long-term contracts are recorded in the period in which the losses become evident. Long-term U.S. government cost-reimbursable type contracts are also specifically covered by FASB ASC 605-35.
We have been engaged in the production and delivery of goods and services on a continual basis under long-term contractual arrangements for many years. Historically, we have demonstrated an ability to accurately estimate total revenues and total expenses relating to our long-term contracts. However, there exist inherent risks and uncertainties in estimating revenues, expenses and progress toward completion, particularly on larger or longer-term contracts. If we do not accurately estimate the total sales, related costs and progress towards completion on such contracts, the estimated gross margins may be significantly impacted or losses may need to be recognized in future periods. Any such resulting changes in margins or contract losses could be material to our results of operations and financial condition.
In addition, most government contracts have termination for convenience clauses that provide the customer with the right to terminate the contract at any time. Such terminations could impact the assumptions regarding total contract revenues and expenses utilized in recognizing profit under the percentage-of-completion method of accounting. Changes to these assumptions could materially impact our results of operations and financial condition. Historically, we have not experienced material terminations of our long-term contracts. We also address customer acceptance provisions in assessing our ability to perform our contractual obligations under long-term contracts. Our inability to perform on our long-term contracts could materially impact our results of operations and financial condition. Historically, we have been able to perform on our long-term contracts.
Accounting for Stock-Based Compensation. As discussed further in "Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements - Note (13) Stock-Based Compensation," we issue stock-based awards to certain of our employees and members of our Board of Directors and we recognize related stock-based compensation for both equity and liability-classified stock-based awards in our condensed consolidated financial statements.
We have used and expect to continue to use the Black-Scholes option pricing model to compute the estimated fair value of certain stock-based awards. The Black-Scholes option pricing model includes assumptions regarding dividend yield, expected volatility, expected option term and risk-free interest rates. The expected dividend yield is the expected annual dividend as a percentage of the fair market value of the stock on the date of grant. We estimate expected volatility by considering the historical volatility of our stock, the implied volatility of publicly-traded call options on our stock, the implied volatility from call options embedded in our 3.0% convertible senior notes (prior to their settlement) and our expectations of volatility for the expected life of stock options. The expected option term is the number of years that we estimate that stock options will be outstanding prior to exercise based upon exercise patterns. The risk-free interest rate is based on the U.S. treasury yield curve in effect at the time of grant for an instrument which closely approximates the expected option term.
The assumptions used in computing the fair value of stock-based awards reflect our best estimates, but involve uncertainties relating to market and other conditions, many of which are outside of our control. Estimates of fair value are not intended to predict actual future events or the value ultimately realized by recipients of stock-based awards. As a result, if other assumptions or estimates had been used, stock-based compensation expense that was recorded could have been materially different. Furthermore, if different assumptions are used in future periods, stock-based compensation expense could be materially impacted in the future.
Impairment of Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets. As of April 30, 2014, goodwill recorded on our Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet aggregated $137.4 million (of which $107.8 million relates to our telecommunications transmission segment and $29.6 million relates to our RF microwave amplifiers segment). Our mobile data communications segment has no goodwill recorded. Each of our three operating segments constitutes a reporting unit and we must make various assumptions in determining their estimated fair values.
In accordance with FASB ASC 350, "Intangibles - Goodwill and Other," we perform goodwill impairment testing at least annually, unless indicators of impairment exist in interim periods. The impairment test for goodwill uses a two-step approach. Step one compares the estimated fair value of a reporting unit with goodwill to its carrying value. If the carrying value exceeds the estimated fair value, step two must be performed. Step two compares the carrying value of the reporting unit to the fair value of all of the assets and liabilities of the reporting unit (including any unrecognized intangibles) as if the reporting unit was acquired in a business combination. If the carrying amount of a reporting unit's goodwill exceeds the implied fair value of its goodwill, an impairment loss is recognized in an amount equal to the excess.
On August 1, 2013 (the first day of our fiscal 2014), we performed our annual impairment test and estimated the fair value of each of our reporting units based on the income approach (also known as the discounted cash flow ("DCF") method, which utilizes the present value of cash flows to estimate fair value). The future cash flows for our reporting units were projected based on our estimates, at that time, of future revenues, operating income and other factors (such as working capital and capital expenditures). We took into account expected challenging global industry and market conditions, including expected significant reductions in the overall budget for U.S. defense spending. As such, although both our telecommunications transmission and RF microwave amplifiers reporting units have historically achieved significant long-term revenue and operating income growth, we assumed growth rate estimates in our projections that were below our actual long-term expectations and below each reporting unit's actual historical growth rate. The discount rates used in our DCF method were based on a weighted-average cost of capital ("WACC") determined from relevant market comparisons, adjusted upward for specific reporting unit risks (primarily the uncertainty of achieving projected operating cash flows). A terminal value growth rate was applied to the final year of the projected period and reflected our estimate of stable, perpetual growth. We then calculated a present value of the respective cash flows for each reporting unit to arrive at an estimate of fair value under the income approach and then used the market approach to corroborate this value. Under the market approach, we estimated a fair value based on comparable companies' market multiples of revenues and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and factored in a control premium. In each case, the estimated fair value determined under the market approach exceeded our estimate of fair value determined under the income approach. Finally, we compared our estimates to our August 1, 2013 total public market capitalization and assessed implied control premiums. Based on the aforementioned, we concluded that the estimated fair value determined under the income approach for each of our reporting units, as of August 1, 2013, was reasonable. In each case, the estimated fair value exceeded the respective carrying value and, as such, we concluded that the goodwill assigned to our telecommunications transmission and RF microwave amplifiers reporting units, as of August 1, 2013, was not impaired. We also concluded that our telecommunications transmission reporting unit was currently not at risk of failing step one of the goodwill impairment test as prescribed under the ASC. However, we concluded that as of August 1, 2013, our RF microwave amplifiers reporting unit was at risk of failing step one of the goodwill impairment test.
As of August 1, 2013, we determined that our RF microwave amplifiers reporting unit had an estimated fair value in excess of its respective carrying value of at least 13.2%, which represents an increase from the at least 5.0% excess we previously calculated as of January 31, 2013 (when we performed an interim fiscal 2013 impairment test). The increase from 5.0% to 13.2% was primarily driven by a decrease in the WACC from 12.0% to 11.0%. The WACC for any given impairment test is based on current market data as of the respective valuation date. Had we utilized a WACC of 12.0% for the fiscal 2014 annual impairment test, our RF microwave amplifiers reporting unit's estimated fair value would still exceed its carrying value as of August 1, 2013. The WACC of 11.0% used in our annual impairment test for fiscal 2014 was equal to the WACC utilized in our annual impairment test for fiscal 2013.
This estimated fair value of our RF microwave amplifiers reporting unit is closely aligned with the ultimate amount of revenue and operating income that it achieves over the projected period. Our discounted cash flows, for goodwill impairment testing purposes, assumed that, through fiscal 2019, this reporting unit would achieve a compounded annual revenue growth rate of approximately 1.0% and 4.0% from its actual fiscal 2012 and 2013 revenues of $102.5 million and $86.9 million, respectively. Beyond fiscal 2019, we assumed a long-term revenue growth rate of 3.5% in the terminal year. Given current challenging market conditions, we believe these modest long-term growth rates and the WACC are appropriate to use for our future cash flow assumptions. We also believe that it is possible that our actual revenue growth rates could be significantly higher due to a number of factors, including: (i) continued reliance by our customers on our advanced communications systems; (ii) the continued shift toward information-based, network-centric warfare; and (iii) the need for developing countries to upgrade their communication systems. If we do not at least meet the assumed revenue growth utilized in this goodwill impairment analysis, our RF microwave amplifiers reporting unit will likely fail step one of a goodwill impairment test in a future period. Modest changes in other key assumptions used in our impairment analysis may also result in the requirement to proceed to step two of the goodwill impairment test in future periods. For example, keeping all other variables constant, a 160 basis point increase in the WACC applied to our RF microwave amplifiers reporting unit or an increase to our RF microwave amplifiers carrying value of more than $13.2 million would likely result in a step one failure. If this reporting unit fails step one in the future, we would be required to perform step two of the goodwill impairment test. If we perform step two, up to $42.1 million of goodwill and intangibles assigned to this reporting unit could be written off in the period that the impairment is triggered.
Our goodwill impairment analyses for the telecommunications transmission and RF microwave amplifiers reporting units are sensitive to the ultimate spending decisions by our global customers. Accordingly, we will continue to monitor key assumptions and other factors required to be utilized in evaluating impairment of goodwill. It is possible that, during fiscal 2014, business conditions (both in the U.S. and internationally) could deteriorate from the current state and our current or prospective customers could materially postpone, reduce or even forgo purchases of our products and services to a greater extent than we currently anticipate. A significant decline in defense spending that is greater than we anticipate or a shift in funding priorities may also have a negative effect on future orders, sales, income and cash flows and we might be required to perform a step one interim goodwill impairment test during fiscal 2014 for these two reporting units. In any event, we are required to perform the next annual step one goodwill impairment test on August 1, 2014 (the start of our fiscal 2015). If our assumptions and related estimates change in the future, or if we change our reporting structure or other events and circumstances change (e.g., such as a sustained decrease in the price of our common stock (considered on both absolute terms and relative to peers)), we may be required to record impairment charges when we perform these tests, or in other future periods. Any impairment charges that we may take in the future could be material to our results of operations and financial condition.
In addition to our impairment analysis of goodwill, we are also required to evaluate the recoverability of net intangibles with finite lives recorded on our Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet which, as of April 30, 2014, aggregated $27.8 million (of which $15.3 million relates to our telecommunications transmission segment and $12.5 million relates to our RF microwave amplifiers segment). Based on our most recent analysis of estimated undiscounted future cash flows expected to result from the use of these net intangibles with finite lives, we believe that their carrying values are recoverable as of April 30, 2014.
Provision for Warranty Obligations. We provide warranty coverage for most of our products, including products under long-term contracts, for a period of at least one year from the date of shipment. We record a liability for estimated warranty expense based on historical claims, product failure rates and other factors. Costs associated with some of our warranties that are provided under long-term contracts are incorporated into our estimates of total contract costs.
There exist inherent risks and uncertainties in estimating warranty expenses, particularly on larger or longer-term contracts. As such, if we do not accurately estimate our warranty costs, any changes to our original estimates could be material to our results of operations and financial condition.
Accounting for Income Taxes. Our deferred tax assets and liabilities are determined based on temporary differences between financial reporting and tax bases of assets and liabilities, and applying enacted tax rates expected to be in effect for the year in which the differences are expected to reverse. Our provision for income taxes is based on domestic (including federal and state) and international statutory income tax rates in the tax jurisdictions where we operate, permanent differences between financial reporting and tax reporting and available credits and incentives. We recognize interest and penalties related to uncertain tax positions in income tax expense. The U.S. federal government is our most significant income tax jurisdiction.
Significant judgment is required in determining income tax provisions and tax positions. We may be challenged upon review by the applicable taxing authority and positions taken by us may not be sustained. We recognize all or a portion of the benefit of income tax positions only when we have made a determination that it is more-likely-than-not that the tax position will be sustained upon examination, based upon the technical merits of the position and other factors. For tax positions that are determined as more-likely-than-not to be sustained upon examination, the tax benefit recognized is the largest amount of benefit that is greater than 50% likely of being realized upon ultimate settlement. The development of reserves for income tax positions requires consideration of timing and judgments about tax issues and potential outcomes, and is a subjective critical estimate. In certain circumstances, the ultimate outcome of exposures and risks involves significant uncertainties. If actual outcomes differ materially from these estimates, they could have a material impact on our results of operations and financial condition.
Provisions for Excess and Obsolete Inventory. We record a provision for excess and obsolete inventory based on historical and future usage trends. Other factors may also influence our provision, including decisions to exit a product line, technological change and new product development. These factors could result in a change in the amount of excess and obsolete inventory on hand. Additionally, our estimates of future product demand may prove to be inaccurate, in which case we may have understated or overstated the provision required for excess and obsolete inventory. In the future, if we determine that our inventory was overvalued, we would be required to recognize such costs in our financial statements at the time of such determination. Any such charge could be material to our results of operations and financial condition.
Allowance for Doubtful Accounts. We perform credit evaluations of our customers and adjust credit limits based upon customer payment history and current creditworthiness, as determined by our review of our customers' current credit information. Generally, we will require cash in advance or payment secured by irrevocable letters of credit before an order is accepted from an international customer that we do not do business with regularly. In addition, we seek to obtain credit insurance for certain domestic and international customers.
We monitor collections and payments from our customers and maintain an allowance for doubtful accounts based upon our historical experience and any specific customer collection issues that we have identified. In light of ongoing tight credit market conditions, we continue to see requests from our customers for higher credit limits and longer payment terms. Because of our strong cash position and the nominal amount of interest we are earning on our cash and cash equivalents, we have, on a limited basis, approved certain customer requests.
We continue to monitor our accounts receivable credit portfolio and have not had any significant negative customer credit experiences to date. While our credit losses have historically been within our expectations of the allowances established, we cannot guarantee that we will continue to experience the same credit loss rates that we have in the past, especially in light of the current global economic conditions and much tighter credit environment. Measurement of credit losses requires consideration of historical loss experience, including the need to adjust for current conditions, and judgments about the probable effects of relevant observable data, including present economic conditions such as delinquency rates and the financial health of specific customers. Changes to the estimated allowance for doubtful accounts could be material to our results of operations and financial condition.
Business Outlook for Fiscal 2014
Our third quarter financial results were solid and bookings during the quarter were at the highest level all year. As a result, we believe our business outlook for fiscal 2014 will be better than previously anticipated.
Based on our year-to-date results and anticipated performance for the remainder of fiscal 2014, we expect consolidated net sales in fiscal 2014 to be higher than the $319.8 million we achieved in fiscal 2013. In addition, operating income is expected to be higher than the $34.5 million that we achieved in fiscal 2013 and, as a percentage of consolidated net sales, is anticipated to be greater in fiscal 2014 as compared to fiscal 2013.
Total operating expenses (which include research and development expenses, selling, general and administrative expenses, amortization of intangibles and amortization of stock-based compensation) in fiscal 2014 are expected to be slightly higher than the dollar amount reported in fiscal 2013.
Based on our fiscal 2014 business outlook, and excluding the impact of any discrete tax items, we expect our fiscal 2014 estimated effective tax rate to approximate 36.5%, as compared to 36.0% in fiscal 2013.
. . .


text:
Pretty Little Liars
Pretty Little Liars Season 3, Episode 21 Sneak Peek: Emily Defends Toby (VIDEO)
As previous sneak peeks confirm, during Pretty Little Liars Season 3, Episode 21: "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" (airing February 26) Spencer (Troian Bellisario) finally opens up to the other Liars about Toby (Keegan Allen), and Emily (Shay Mitchell) has a hard time wrapping her mind around the apparent truth.
In this new clip from the episode, Emily is still in major denial. It sounds like she may have initially convinced Hanna (Ashley Benson) to go looking for Toby, but now Hanna thinks that's a bad idea.
"The more I think about it, the more I think we should stop searching for him," Hanna says. "If Spencer's right, Toby is dangerous."
"If he's so dangerous, than how come he's never hurt any of us?" Emily counters. That doesn't convince Hanna. After all, as she points out, Mona spent a long time masquerading as her BFF, acting friendly to her face while torturing her behind her back. Why can't Toby be the same?
Still, he wasn't just Spencer's boyfriend, he was a close confidant to Emily, and she doesn't want to think the worst of him. Will her insistence that there's more to his story lead her straight into danger, or might she end up uncovering a deeper truth?
Catch the episode on February 26, 2013 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC Family.
Source: Tiger Beat
Rebecca Martin is an editor at Wetpaint Entertainment. Follow her on Twitter @BeccaDMartin.


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2008 Funding from the Department of Defense
The Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program received funding for several research programs.
Program Announcements are anticipated to be released in early 2008 with detailed descriptions of funding mechanisms, evaluation criteria, submission requirements, and deadlines. Each Program Announcement will be available electronically for downloading from the Grants.gov website and the CDMRP website upon its release.
DOD CDMRP Research Funding - FY 08
- Breast Cancer Research Program $138 Million
- Prostate Cancer Research Program $80 Million
- Ovarian Cancer Research Program $10 Million
- Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses Research Program $10 Million
- Neurofibromatosis Research Program $8 Million
- Autism Research Program $6.4 Million
- Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Research Program $4 Million
- Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program $50 Million which recommends the following projects for study:
- blood cancer
- kidney cancer
- mesothelioma
- integrated tissue hypoxia research
- Padget's [sic] disease
- nutrition and health promotion
- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- inflammatory bowel diseases
- Interstitial Cystitis
- alcoholism research
- drug abuse
- epilepsy research
- eye and vision research
- leishmaniasis
- Lupus
- multiple sclerosis
- polycystic kidney disease
- pulmonary hypertension
- scleroderma
- social work research
- tinnitus.


text:
Slavens Racing Skid Plate
Has anyone purchased the orange Slavens Racing skid plate for their 990?
I was interested in how the plate holds up and if you have any pictures of it on your bike.
Don't have any pictures but I have had one now on my 950 for 2 years and it has held up well (Colorado) Easier to install than the stock, highly recommended.
Pics here
I only see the brushed aluminum option?
Easy access to the battery, fuel pump, and engine oil drain plugs by utilizing the pivot/tilting design.
Unlike painted/powder coated skid plates that become less attractive over time due to chips and scratches, the brushed aluminum finish of the Slavens 950/990 skid retains its classic good looks.
Huh, I guess they stop offering the black or orange anodized versions.
My plate is the brush AL (touratech) and it does keep looking good after many miles since the dings just blend in and dont look like chips with the painted ones.
Just my 02 regardless anything is better than stock.
i just ordered the "slavens skid plate" from them and was a little disapointed to find out it was just a Flatland Guard that was repackaged. works good and fits fine, i was jsut expecting a "slavens" origional product not a someone elses product being resold.
laramie :beer
Slavens original skids
Thanks for purchasing our skids. It is a Slavens original product. We designed and tested it in the Colorado Rockies then contracted the good guys at Flatland to make it for us. Part of our agreement is for them to also sell it (for a higher price) so we can keep the volume up and the price down. We will have a minor price increase soon because materials and labor cost need adjusted, but it will still be under $200, much less than TT and BD skids.
We plan to bring back the black anodized skids in a few weeks when we can get caught up a little on production. The Flatland guys are working overtime trying to keep up with the brushed skid sales so we've been unable to accumulate a large batch to send to the plating shop.
The black skids are hard anodized and hold up very well on gravel roads. I have one on my 990 and it still looks great after 20K miles.
We have no plans to bring back the orange skid. Hard anodizing is not available in orange so the orange skids don't hold up as well.
Thanks again.
Jeff Slavens
I don't know about the 990 specific skidplate, but I haved a flatland plate on my WR250F that has just been through hell. GREAT product!
On the 990 I have a Weld 86 plate that's black powdercoated and yes, it looks like it's seen the use it's been through. I still prefer the black though, even with all the chips and marks.
I'm very happy with mine too. Only thing was that after all custom-duties and postage it ended up costing same as any other brand bashplate. Roll on days when trade between us and europe can be made without heavy duties.
Do you have or are planning to make plates that will fit the 950 SE?
thanks for the clarification,
laramie :beer
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Jan 06 2014 03:10 AM | KSI Blaziken 7 in KSI News
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Open Message to KSI (New Year Resolutions)
Dec 29 2013 12:35 PM | Mayor McCheese in KSI News
This time last year seems like yesterday. But 365 days has flown by and each day has provided opportunities to the few and fortunate who get to say they're apart of THE KSI GLOBAL.
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What's Happening In FI
Jan 06 2014 12:07 PM | KSI 11thDoctor in KSI News
KSI is a huge gaming community with many great divisions. Forced Induction(FI) is a division that is very special to me. I would like to share some of the current events that are going on and also share what we are planning on doing to make are divisio...
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Random mini article: Hindsight through experience
The glory of hindsight through experience.
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A European rocket delivered nearly a billion dollars' worth of satellites to the wrong address last week. The Ariane 5 launcher deposited them in an orbit more than 18,000 kilometres lower than planned, possibly because of a fuel leak. Engineers hope that the $850 million Artemis, an experimental communications satellite from the European Space Agency, can get to its intended orbit with its ion propulsion thrusters, which require less fuel than normal thrusters. "The status of the satellite is excellent," said one representative at a press conference on Friday. The Japanese Bsat-2B, which was also on board, has only one conventional thruster.
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To diagnose
retinal detachment, your doctor will ask you questions
about your symptoms, past eye problems, and risk factors. The doctor will also
test your near and distance vision (visual acuity) and side (peripheral)
vision. These routine vision tests do not detect retinal detachment, but they
can find problems that could lead to or result from retinal detachment.
A doctor can usually see a retinal tear or detachment while examining the
retina using
ophthalmoscopy. This test allows the doctor to see
inside the back of the eye using a magnifying instrument with a light.
If a retinal tear or detachment involves blood vessels in the retina, you
may have bleeding in the middle of the eye. In these cases, your doctor can
view the retina using
ultrasound, a test that uses sound waves to form an
image of the retina on a computer screen.
If you have a condition that puts you at high
risk for retinal detachment—such as nearsightedness, recent
cataract surgery,
diabetes, a
family history of retinal detachment, or a prior
retinal detachment in your other eye—talk to your doctor about how often you
should have your eyes checked. You may need more frequent exams to detect
problems in their early stages.
Many retinal detachments are
triggered when the
vitreous gel that fills the center of the eye shrinks
and separates from the retina, which is called
posterior vitreous detachment (PVD). The main symptoms
of PVD are dark
floaters and
flashes of light. It is important to pay attention to
these symptoms, because they could be a warning sign of a retinal tear that can
lead to detachment. Getting treatment quickly after you notice these symptoms
can save your vision.
Last Revised:
August 7, 2011
Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:
Adam Husney, MD - Family Medicine & Carol L. Karp, MD - Ophthalmology
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text:
Morbi turpis mi, tempor nec, euismod vel, mollis faucibus, enim.
The Pap test, also called a Pap smear, is a screening test that helps clinicians detect cellular changes in the cervix (the opening to the uterus, or womb at the end of the vagina). The Pap test includes taking a sample of cells by wiping or scraping a small wooden stick (similar to a tongue depressor) over the cervix. The cells are then put on a glass slide and examined by laboratory personnel to look for changes that might warrant further investigation. During the Pap test you will feel the swab being scraped across the cervix; this feels somewhat scratchy, but is not painful.
It is important to understand that the Pap test is a screening test only. Clinicians do not base treatments on the Pap test alone, but use it to determine whether further diagnosic tests are needed. The reason a Pap test is done is to detect changes before they can become cancer. If your Pap test is abnormal, do not be alarmed. Many women incorrectly believe that an abnormal Pap test means that they have cancer. In fact, the cause of 90% of cervical cell changes is a virus called human papillomavirus (HPV). Most conditions detected by an abnormal Pap test are minor and easily treated in the office.
A Pap test can save your life. It can find the earliest signs of cervical cancer - a common cancer in women. If caught early, the chance of curing cervical cancer is very high. Pap tests also can find infections and abnormal cervical cells that can turn into cancer cells. Treatment can prevent most cases of cervical cancer from developing.
Your first Pap test should be given within 3 years of the onset of sexual activity, or at age 21, whichever is sooner, and should be continued yearly until age 30 - 35. Then, if the past 3 annual tests have been normal, tests may be given every 2-3 years (except for high-risk patients who should continue yearly tests, or if yearly tests are recommended by your health care provider).
Who is a High Risk patient?
High risk patients
- have multiple sex partners and/or partners who have had multiple sex partners
- have had a sexually transmitted infection (STI)
- were sexually active before the age of 18
- has or has had human papilloma virus (HPV) or genital warts. There are more than 40 strains of HPV and about a dozen of these have been established as a causative for cervical cancer
- from 60-65 years of age
Preparing for your Pap test
Try to schedule your Pap test for the middle of your menstrual cycle – between 10 and 20 days after the first day of your period.
48 hours before your Pap test:
- avoid vaginal douching
- don't use any vaginal medications, contraceptive (spermicidal) creams, foams or jellies (except as directed by your physician), as these may wash away or hide abnormal cells
24 hours before your Pap test:
- avoid having sex
What does the Pap Test detect?
The Pap test is used to detect several cellular abnormalities within the cervix.
- Cell dysplasia - Once HPV (human papillomavirus) enters a cell, it takes over the normal cell processes and can radically change the cell it infects. Dysplasia is the term used to describe this abnormal transformation. Dysplastic cells often have odd looking shapes and outlines and may resemble cancer cells. If left unchecked, these useless cells continue to multiply and over a period of years they may entirely replace the normal cells in that area. This condition rarely causes symptoms, but it can usually be detected by the Pap test. As long as these cells remain on the surface, they are considered pre-cancerous.
- Cancer - Malignant Cell Growth - Once the abnormal cells develop the capacity to spread deeper into the physical structure of the cervix, it is considered to be an invasive cancer. In its quest for more space and nourishment, the unrestrained growth destroys nearby tissues and organs.
Paying for your Pap Test
If you have questions regarding insurance coverage of your Pap test you should contact your insurance carrier prior to your appointment. Filing an insurance claim for treatment and laboratory services is the responsibility of the student. Student Health Service does provide students with itemized statements for filing with their health insurance plans. These are available upon request, usually 7-10 days after the date of service. Contact your health insurance company for specific directions on how to file a claim
We are accredited by Accreditation Association for
Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC)


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Before: Unused Alcove
This became the perfect spot for an ensuite soaker tub.
The third-floor principal bedroom and modest bathroom of Virginie Martocq and Mark McLean's Edwardian needed reconfiguring to create a functional sleeping space, shower/bath room and dressing area.
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Pimco outlook: Neutral is the new black
Neutral. That's the one-word takeaway from the latest long-term view from the team over at Pimco, which this morning published a 2014 secular outlook that looks ahead over the next three to five years. Some of it reflects thoughts and theme that have emerged in the investment letters penned by Pimco's Bill Gross.
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In the 1980s, the Diama dam was built at the estuary of the Senegal river to prevent saltwater from flowing into agricultural lands and to provide electricity.
But the dam had unintended consequences an upsurge of a water parasite called human schistosomiasis in villages upriver of the barrier. A neglected tropical disease spread by water snails, schistosomiasis or schisto is caused by worms. It damages internal organs and, in children, impairs growth and cognitive development.
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Created: 07/08/2014 7:02 AM WHEC.com
By: Associated Press
A Yankees fan has filed a $10 million lawsuit against two ESPN announcers contending they mocked him when he was caught on national television sleeping in his seat during a game at Yankee Stadium.
Andrew Robert Rector admits in court documents he "napped" during a game against the Boston Red Sox on April 13, but says commentators Dan Shulman and John Kruk unleashed an "avalanche of disparaging words" against him. The suit says they used words like "fatty" and "stupid."
Rector says he suffered "substantial injury" to his "character and reputation" and "mental anguish, loss of future income and loss of earning capacity."
The lawsuit filed in Bronx Supreme Court Thursday also names ESPN, Major League Baseball and the Yankees as defendants. They didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
News10NBC/WHEC-TV welcomes your opinion and interaction on our website, but please remember to keep it clean. If you're advertising for another business, being profane, vulgar or slanderous your post will be deleted. By commenting on this website, you agree that anything you post may be used, along with your name and profile picture, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and the license you have granted pursuant to our Terms of Use. Comments are not pre-screened before they posted.


text:
The new pope: Argentine elected Pope Francis
March 13, 2013 at 7:00 pm in The Dickinson Press
Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope Wednesday, becoming the first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium. He chose the name Francis, associating himself with the humble 13th-century Italian preacher who lived a life of poverty. Continue Reading


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Oregon Scientific launches Weather Box
Oregon Scientific has launched the Weather Box - apparently the world's thinnest weather station.
As well as desktop use, it can be wall-mounted and will keep you in the know with indoor and outdoor temperatures and humidity.
There's also a weather forecast to keep you informed of the future weather conditions as well, with what's said to be easy to read symbols.
In addition, the gadget offers a radio-controlled clock that will always be accurate, complete with calendar display and an alarm with snooze feature.
The Weather Box is available direct from www.oregonscientific.co.uk for £39.99.


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MEMPHIS, TN - Jerome Gray says his best friend, Memphis Police Officer Timothy Warren, was a servant who only wanted to help people.
Warren was shot and killed Sunday, July 3, 2011. He leaves behind a wife and two children.
At the time of the shooting, Officer Warren's family was in his hometown of Cleveland, Mississippi, celebrating the holiday weekend. When she learned about her husband's shooting, Betsy Warren called Gray and asked him to go to The MED. Gray, a Shelby County Sheriff's Deputy, was at the hospital when Warren died. The two had been best friends for more than 10 years.
Gray says he was with Warren just hours before he was shot, "We were talking about life, and our careers. I said, 'Tim, do you think it's time to do something different?' He said policing is the only thing he knew how to do. It's the only thing he'd want to do."
Gray says they talked for nearly two hours before Warren left for his evening shift. Two hours that he will now never forget. "I cherish the moment because you never know when it's the last time you're going to see someone and I always remember our conversations. (Sunday) I had the opportunity to reflect on our relationship as a friend."
Gray says they were like brothers, from the opposite ends of the country; Gray from Detroit, Warren from a small Mississippi town. But their bond was undeniable. He describes Warren as a family man. His world centered around his two kids. Warren never hesitated to help others. "He's the kind of guy you consider a true friend," Gray says, "I could name on one hand the friends I truly have and Tim was that one friend." He says that's why Warren was so dedicated to his job. He wanted to serve and protect in order to help, no matter the outcome.
"I hug and kiss my child every night because you don't know when you're going to come back, if you're going to come back or how you're going to come back." Gray says, "Those things we know when we leave home and we put on a badge and uniform." But those things, Gray never expected to happen, especially to his best friend.
Gray says Warren used to carry cold bottles of water in the trunk of his patrol car and give them to the homeless.
Warren's wife is working on funeral arrangements. It's likely he will have a police memorial service in Memphis but buried in his home town in Mississippi.


text: Sycamore Edges Boylan for Sectional Title Lauren Screeden 06/07/2014 09:59 PM 06/07/2014 10:02 PM Sycamore Spartans vs. Boylan Titans in 2A Sectional Championship Saturday Sycamore beats Boylan 7-2 in 3A Sectional Championship. Copyright 2014 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Page: [[$index + 1]] sports sports connection


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Animation: Weird and wonderful short Wish List is well worth a watch
What separates us from the animals (yeah I'm getting all philosophical on yo' ass on a Monday afternoon – deal with it)? Is it that we wear clothes? Or invented the meal deal? Well yes, and yes, but there's other stuff too, including a concept of desires that extend beyond our immediate existential needs. Enter Wish List an enjoyably weird exploration of this idea from animator Griff and illustrator Scot Garrett. Its rogue gallery of oddball characters articulating their innermost dreams is compelling, funny, poignant, unsettling and wonderfully, undeniably weird.


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DiscountCruises.com are now operating as a part of our parent company, Liberty Travel, as Liberty Travel Cruise Specialists. Call 1.888.217.3700
Our name says it all at discountcruises.com, no matter what kind of cruise you're planning - where you want to go, what you want to do, and who you're taking with you - we're all about saving you money. In this section of our website, Cruise Specials, you'll find some of our best deals happening right now, deals that not only offer an opportunity for you to save money when you book, but also pack more value into your booking, letting you get more while spending less.
Here you will find a variety of cruise vacations. There are cruises perfect for those who are shopping for a quick, budget-friendly getaway, cruises for those who are looking to splurge on a two-week voyage, and cruises for those who are looking for something somewhere in between. There are cruises that sail to islands of sun-kissed sand ideal for relaxation and water sports, cruises that sailed to historic world cities steeped in culture, cruises that sail to quaint towns and rugged wilderness, and much, much more. While each cruise here offers a different experience, they do share one common quality: great value at a great price.


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With Instructables you can share what you make with the world and tap into an ever-growing community of creative experts.
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It's easy, quick and cost a few pennies!
You'll need a wooden candle base and wooden basket handle, wood glue and one of these scissors (if you'd like one they cost $1.50) or find a pair of s...
Now, this is the really hard part. Put some glue on the bottom of the handle.
Attach the handle to the base and wait for it to dry. I spray painted mine my favorite mustard color and also cut a piece of adhesive magnet and atta...
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